Sandstone Shadows

The first message came at 11:47 PM on a Tuesday. I was scrolling through Instagram, half-watching some influencer’s Dubai brunch tour, when the notification popped up. A green bubble. Unknown number.

*“Madam, your building AC is making noise. I check tomorrow morning.”*

I stared at the screen. The watchman. The old Bangladeshi man who sat in the lobby every night, who nodded when I walked past with my grocery bags. I’d never even learned his name.

I typed back: *“Okay. What time?”*

*“8 am. I fix before husband goes office.”*

That was thoughtful. I almost smiled. Then I put the phone down and forgot about him.

---

The next morning, I opened the door to find him holding a toolbox and a small paper cup of chai. He was shorter than I remembered. Maybe five-five. Gray streaked his temples and his hands had that look of a man who’d worked them raw for thirty years. He smiled, showing teeth stained by years of tobacco.

“Madam, I am Rashid.”

“Rabia,” I said. I don’t know why I told him my name. Housewives don’t give their names to watchmen.

He nodded like he already knew it.

The AC unit was in the living room. He knelt beside it, and I stood there like an idiot, watching him unscrew the panel. My husband Arif had left for the office an hour ago. The kids were at school. The apartment was silent except for the clink of metal on metal.

“This unit is very old,” Rashid said, not looking at me. “Needs cleaning. I can do it, but it will take some time.”

“How much time?”

“Maybe two hours. I come back after my shift tonight. 10 PM.”

I should have said no. A man in my apartment at 10 PM while my husband was working late. But the AC had been dripping for weeks and Arif kept saying he’d call maintenance. He never did.

“Fine,” I said.

Rashid stood up, wiped his hands on his trousers, and looked at me. Really looked. Not the way men usually look at me in Dubai, like I’m just another brown woman in an abaya. He looked at me like I was a room he was about to enter.

“You have a good face, Madam,” he said. “Kind eyes.”

Then he left.

---

That night, I changed three times before he came. I told myself it was because the apartment was hot. I put on a cotton kurta. Then jeans. Then a nightdress I’d bought at the Dubai Mall six months ago and never worn. Thin straps. Dark green. It showed my collarbones.

I was wearing it when he knocked at 10:07.

He came in carrying a plastic bag. Inside was a small box of sweets. Kaju katli. The expensive kind.

“For you, Madam.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to.”

He worked on the AC for forty minutes. I sat on the sofa, pretending to read a book. He talked while he worked. Low voice. Calm. He told me about his village in Bangladesh, his wife who died seven years ago, his son who worked in a garment factory in Dhaka. He told me how he’d been in Dubai for twelve years, how he sent money home every month, how he lived in a shared room in Deira with six other men.

“You are lonely here,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

I closed my book. “What makes you say that?”

“I watch people, Madam. I watch this building. I see you come home with groceries. I see you take the trash out at night when no one is looking. I see you sit on the balcony alone.”

My throat tightened. “That doesn’t mean I’m lonely.”

“No,” he said. “But you are.”

He finished the AC, packed his tools, and walked to the door. I followed him. My bare feet on the cold marble. The nightdress thin against my skin.

“Thank you, Rashid.”

“You can call me if there are more problems,” he said. “I am always here.”

He left. I locked the door and leaned against it, heart hammering. I told myself it was nothing. An old man being kind. A watchman doing his job.

But I didn’t throw away the kaju katli.

---

The messages started the next day.

*“AC working good?”*

*“Yes. Thank you.”*

*“Good. You sleep well?”*

I didn’t answer that one. But I didn’t block him either.

The next night: *“I saw you on balcony. You were looking at the moon. It is beautiful tonight.”*

I typed back before I could stop myself: *“I was looking at the city lights.”*

*“Lights are nice. But moon is better. Moon does not need electricity.”*

I laughed. Actually laughed, alone in my kitchen at midnight. My husband was in the bedroom, already asleep. We hadn’t touched each other in weeks. Maybe months. I’d stopped counting.

---

It went on like that for two weeks.

He’d message me at odd hours. Complaints from other tenants. A broken elevator. A leak in the parking garage. Always a reason. Then a question. How was my day. What did I cook for dinner. Did I like mangoes.

I told him things I hadn’t told anyone. That I missed India. That I’d studied architecture in college but never worked. That my mother-in-law thought I was a bad wife because I couldn’t make proper rotis. That sometimes I stood in the shower and cried and didn’t know why.

He never judged. He just listened.

Then one night, he sent: *“I want to see you. Not through a phone. Real.”*

I said no.

He said: *“I will wait.”*

---

Three days later, Arif told me he had a business trip to Doha. Four days. I packed his suitcase, kissed his cheek, and felt nothing. The door closed behind him and the apartment went quiet.

I texted Rashid at 9 PM.

*“My husband is gone.”*

*“I know,”* he wrote back. *“I saw him leave with his bags.”*

Of course he did. He saw everything.

*“Come down,”* he said. *“I am in the parking, near the service elevator.”*

I put on the green nightdress again. No bra. No underwear. I don’t know why. I just did. I took the stairs because the elevator felt too small, too closed in. My feet on the concrete. The fluorescent lights buzzing. The smell of car exhaust and cleaning fluid.

He was standing by the service elevator door. Dark corner. No cameras.

He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me. Then he stepped forward and put his hand on my waist. His palm was rough. Calloused. It burned through the thin fabric.

“You came,” he said.

“I shouldn’t have.”

“But you did.”

He pulled me into the service elevator. Pressed the button for the basement. The doors closed. We were alone in the humming metal box.

He didn’t kiss me. He just held my face in both hands, the way you’d hold something fragile. His thumbs traced my cheekbones. His eyes searched mine.

“You are so beautiful, Rabia. Do you know that?”

I shook my head.

“Then let me show you.”

The elevator stopped. The doors opened onto the basement parking. Dark. Empty. The smell of damp concrete.

He took my hand and led me to a small room behind the generator. A storage closet. Mops and buckets. A folded blanket on the floor. A single bulb that cast yellow light.

“This is where I sleep sometimes,” he said. “When my roommates are too loud.”

I should have run. I should have gone back upstairs, locked my door, deleted his number. But I didn’t.

I stepped into the room.

He closed the door behind us.

And I let him show me what it felt like to be seen.