The smell
"Lily, what the hell are you doing? Don't tell me that you are getting the smell again."
Atif again caught his wife spraying an air freshener in their room in the middle of the night. She was pressing the spray container like crazy. Atif started to feel dizzy with that overpowering scent of jasmine in their bedroom.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. "Lily, I am talking to you. Could you please stop playing this 'smelly smelly' game now?"
"Why don't you believe me, Atif? There is a strange smell here. So malodorous! How come you don't get a whiff of it?"
"I can not get the smell because there is nothing smelly in this room at all but the scent of your overpowering jasmine air freshener. Just stop it, Lily!"
Lily left the spray can on her side table. Atif was furious. He was tired of Lily's behaviour for the past few days. He looked at the wall clock, it was 3 o'clock in the morning.
Atif got up from the bed and went to the balcony for some fresh air. He lit up a cigarette and started smoking it. Lily came to the balcony after a few minutes. She put her head on his shoulder. Atif gave her a soft smile.
Not long ago, Lily had suddenly started to get this smell. It was a Friday afternoon when Lily complained about a pungent smell for the first time. Atif was watching the highlights of a football match. She had come running from the drawing room.
"Atif, what is this smell?" she asked.
"What smell, Lily?" Atif said in reply
"I don't know. It has such a metallic and musty smell."
"I am not getting any smell, Lily."
"How would you smell something with your clogged nose? You were snoring like a bear last night."
Atif burst out laughing after hearing this. Lily joined him, forgetting that unpleasant smell.
A few days later, when they were having lunch at a restaurant, Lily complained about the smell again.
"Atif, do you smell something unpleasant?"
"Oh, Lily! We are in a restaurant. There are so many dishes being served here. You're probably smelling of a new dish. Maybe the chef was inspired by one of your favourite YouTube chefs, and cooked something weird. Just like the way you do sometimes."
"Stop mocking me, Atif! I am telling you there is something here."
"Leave it, Lily. Let me enjoy my food. The beef curry looks delicious."
And after that, Lily started to smell something unpleasant almost everywhere. She would complain about getting a metallic and musty smell all the time. Soon there were new and different spray cans of air freshener in the chest of drawers: lemon, lavender, jasmine, citrus–Lily bought any she could find in the supermarket.
But the strangest thing was that Atif never smelled anything unpleasant when Lily complained. It was not that he always had a clogged nose. But Atif never got a metallic and musty smell in the house when Lily screamed the house reeked. Lily would spray air freshener repeatedly in the house throughout the day and the night.
One evening, when Atif came home from the office, he found the door open. He went in and found it difficult to breathe there, as if the air in the house was heavy with the fragrance of those bottled perfumes. He found Lily in the bedroom, spraying air freshener like a maniac.
"Are you okay, Lily? You have sprayed the house too much."
"Atif, trust me. The house reeks. It's such a disgusting smell. Why don't you smell anything?"
Atif did not talk back to Lily. He quickly opened the windows and switched on all the fans to get rid of the excessive pressure of the air freshener in the house.
The next day, Atif took Lily to the chamber of an ENT specialist to examine her nostrils. Atif was so sure that Lily was suffering some kind of olfactory disorder. But there was nothing wrong with Lily's nostrils. She was in absolute fine health, although she complained about that unpleasant smell in the doctor's chamber too.
Atif was quite disturbed with Lily regarding all this; it affected their relationship. Atif started coming home late from the office to avoid the whole ordeal and Lily had started to lose her health. Soon, Atif went to sleep in another room with the excuse that he was having breathing problems due to the air fresheners Lily used in their bedroom. Lily could hardly protest. A subtle sadness resided in her eyes. She started to think no one believed her, no one loved her.
One day, Lily died of high fever, but her death could not bother Atif much.
Almost a month after Lily's death, when Atif was watching football with some of his friends in his drawing room, suddenly he got a strong smell of something. Atif sniffed again. Yes, something was smelling so unpleasant.
"Guys, what is this smell?"
"What smell, Atif? I am not getting anything", one of his friends replied.
"I don't know. It has such a metallic and musty smell."
And then, it dawned on him. He finally started to get the smell Lily always complained about. A metallic and musty smell.
T. M. Tahsina Inam Trisha is a student of Master's in ELT at Jagannath University, Dhaka.
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