The afternoon rumbles into town. The sun burns down through factory and office windows to the pale faces of workers serving the embodiment of the economy, steel machines and wooden desks, bloated queen of the ants' nest. Layla Bahur's eyelids flutter in the post-lunch glow, 'distracted', concentration lost in favour of dreams. She blazes in the heat of someone's arms, incompleteness completed and perfected. The unseen and unknown lover strokes the soft untouched skin of her thighs with gentle hands and trails kisses on the same sweet path.
MS BAHUR : The figures and sums must be done,
she whispers to her imaginary friend,
or tomorrow's plans go south. I have a duty to the factory,
she reminds the suit-bound and obligation-laced woman her loving but strict parents raised,
to the people who work for my family.
In her rented cot in a shared room, Parvathi Das remembers the real Ms Bahur and not the strong dream lover, a woman whose notice she doesn't deserve, she who rebelled against parental guidance and lost a future worthy of lovely Layla.
MS DAS : Oh, stupid Parvathi, why were you so proud?
She grieves to her pillow.
MS DAS : Oh, she's so very beautiful and clever, and I lost her before I knew her. I wish I'd behaved as Father wished.
She holds her pillow tight against her body even though there is no easy melting heat, like before, half dozing at the machines, when the images of Ms Layla Bahur were associated with desire and not her failure to fulfil her family's ambitions.
In the wood-lined opulence of her office, the heat of her imagination eating up the air, the real Layla Bahur stares sightlessly over cold paperwork. She blinks and sighs, pushing the chasm away, for 'Report on Clock Work Power'. It will come again in the small hours to devour her. Slowly, with each paragraph, she steps away from her heart's desire, returns to grey duty, becomes her father's daughter. Her mother's voice complains about no grandchildren.
MRS BAHUR : Women with breeding should not waste it carelessly,
says her mother. She tuts and tidies up the corners of Layla's memories, an endless quest for feminine perfection.
They need a husband of equal means.
MR BAHUR : Or a wife and donor, dear.
Mrs Bahur dusts the interruption away. It rests on her daughter's mind like oil on water.
She likes both, my dear.
MS BAHUR : Yet I have neither.
Alone in her richly appointed director's office, Layla Bahur still reads through the reports and spreadsheets, making notes in margins and between lines, weighing up the value of everything, each potential decision rated and queued by importance and urgency as well as impact on those in her charge and on those in theirs and so ad infinitum, an even spread of loss and gain, a pyramid of responsibility.
MR BAHUR : As you need, dear.
says her father, a memory of duty over desire.
MS DAS : And what should I have been, Ms Bahur?
MR DAS : Be a smart business woman, my girl. 'Money is everything.'
Parvathi Das cries. Though the tears are dried by the draught from the broken window.
MS DAS : I would have been someone worthy of her love. I would have been rich. I would have been her partner in everything. If my parents had accepted me for who I am.
MS BAHUR : and if I cannot provide for those who rely on me,
says Layla Bahur to the grey memories, with her head full of numbers and figures.
But I can't account for all possibilities, every single chance, every choice everyone makes, and every reaction they might have when I make mine. Oh, there is so much.
One deep lungful, and she makes her own choice. Her pen flicks across the paperwork.
MS DAS : And when I think of everything I could be, if only they'd supported and loved me like good parents are supposed to, I wouldn't have lost so much or been without or needed to work such a low job in a factory. Why did they do this? They must have hated me to ruin my life so coldly. What did I do wrong? Just because I went out, once or twice, and was adventurous. I was going to put the money back in the till. Who did it hurt, really?
MR DAS : Oh, this couldn't be worse. I'll never work again.
MS BAHUR : Put these funds here, and have them investigate that policy there. It's all meaningless but so important...
And they both sigh loudly, and, in their separate grey and lonely worlds, wonder if what could have been is gone by completely.
MR DAS : I was never a thief,
a memory says.