They had eaten dinner around midnight. His mother had fried freshly caught pomfret on the gas stove. He had no clue that his mother had carried the spices with her to fry fish. Jamila Miss was happy. His uncle, too, talked a lot with her. Her mother slept off around three in the night. He could see the desire for sleep in Jamila Miss’s eyes too. The servants were smoking bidis. His uncle instructed Asrar to spread a sheet on the deck so that ‘Miss can rest for a while’. He went and returned. ‘Come on, Miss. Go sleep on the deck. I will wake you up before morning.’ Asrar helped her climb the deck. She turned and he said, ‘You can sleep comfortably without any tension.’

‘It would have been a pleasure had you and me been the only travellers on this boat,’ she whispered.

Asrar didn’t reply and left the deck.

When he was separating the fish from the net in the open air, Jamila Miss’s whisper, ‘It would have been a pleasure …’ echoed in his ears. He wondered what was this word ‘pleasure’ all about? Why was it that there was pleasure in whatever he did with Jamila Miss, pleasure in all the time he spent with her, all the work he did for her, pleasure in every moment he was with her. He was drowned in his thoughts when another question occurred to him: Why is it that pleasure changes into ‘wetness’ so easily?

The boat started its return journey around 5.30 a.m. A round of tea was already over. After a few minutes the sky started lighting up. There was still time for the sun to rise. His uncle asked him to wake up Miss so that she could witness the sunrise. There was a small island nearby. ‘We will anchor the boat there so that she can see around,’ Uncle said. Asrar went to the deck.

He bent towards her face and whispered, ‘Miss.’

He got no answer. He patted her arms and said, ‘Miss, wake up. It is about to be dawn.’

Miss caught hold of his hand. He could only utter, ‘Miss, it is about to be morning.’

She looked at him and said, ‘I’m not asleep. I’m awake.’

‘Why? Didn’t you sleep at all?’