Haveli (6 page)

Tahira adjusted her shawl studiously, not looking at Mumtaz and Shabanu as they passed on the canal path. Her daughter, a few years older than Mumtaz, turned and ran back to pet the fawn. Tahira came after her quickly and grabbed her by the wrist, shaking and scolding her as she dragged the girl away.

It didn’t matter whether Rahim decided Ibne was innocent or guilty, Shabanu thought. It was
her
guilt that Leyla and Amina hoped to prove, as surely as crows are drawn to a corpse.

Ibne and Zenat were the only exceptions within the household at Okurabad, where the attitudes toward Shabanu ranged from indifference to viciousness. The longer Shabanu lived in Rahim’s house, the more clearly she saw how cancerous the relations between the family and the servants had grown.

At first they had seemed rather normal to her, if intricate and fragile, shaped by traditional codes of behavior of which she was thoroughly ignorant. She decided not to even try to understand. She would
never fit in with the family women, and even the servants regarded her as beneath their station. Instead, she approached each person on his or her own terms.

These were some of the things Shabanu observed:

While the family rooms were kept in good repair, the mud interior walls plastered and repainted in their original Mogul designs, the walls of the rooms where the servants worked were cracked and bulging. The furniture in the front rooms had been repaired, the springs retied, the horsehair fluffed, and new covers sewn. In the house’s interior, derelict chairs and tables slumped in corners.

During rest periods, the male servants dragged their
charpois
from their rooms into a circle in the courtyard, where they sat gossiping and drawing on their tall brass
hookah
pipes. The servant women spread basketfuls of neem leaves over the grime on the floor so they could sit and talk behind the kitchen. If anyone not included in the conversation approached, the group fell silent until the intruder had passed.

In the family’s quarters the windows were opened during the day to air out the rooms. They smelled of sunshine, jasmine, lime trees and roses from the gardens, and sometimes of burning sticks of incense. The interior stank of years of rancid
ghee
, animal blood, the droppings of rodents, and more than two centuries of dust. To Shabanu it smelled of evil.

In the family’s quarters, relations between the
wives seemed placid on the surface, with the women cooperating, socializing, and even commiserating among themselves. They shopped and gossiped together, laughed over their triumphs, and wept over small injustices. Their communion seemed innocent to Rahim, who surveyed his family with the satisfaction of a shepherd.

But in the world of the servants, alliances were drawn and plots were hatched openly. Relationships were what they were, without pretense or hypocrisy, and at times the servants’ quarters had the atmosphere of a battlefield.

But the women’s gentle camaraderie and the laughter that rang out from the family
zenana
in truth covered something else. Behind their veils the women also plotted and schemed, usually one against another, often several against one or two, occasionally all united against one, and that one most frequently was Shabanu.

In the servants’ quarters much of the scheming was done on behalf of members of Rahim’s family. Some servants plotted also for their own gain.

But all of the servants, regardless of how well or ill they were treated, derived their own power from the master or mistress they served.

Zenat was the oldest and weakest among the servants. She had nowhere else to go. When there was trouble she ducked her head, took blows as she had to, then dove for cover. Because she was nearing the
end of her days of usefulness, she was assigned to work for Shabanu and Mumtaz.

Zenat would come scuttling into the room by the stable, looking over her shoulder like a ground squirrel being chased by a fox.

“What is it?” Shabanu would ask.

“Nothing,
Begum
,” the old
ayah
would reply. “I’m too old for trouble.”

And that was how Zenat got along.

Sometimes the servants favored by Amina tormented Zenat beyond reason, simply because she was Shabanu’s servant.

One day when Mumtaz was an infant, Khansama, the cook—who was Amina’s creature, body and soul—asked Zenat to fetch some
ghee
from a cupboard in the courtyard. The entire kitchen staff watched from the doorway. Zenat was afraid, but she dared not disobey, for Khansama stood, arms folded over his chest, to see that she did as she was told. An angry buzzing vibrated the cupboard, and Zenat raised a trembling hand to the rusted latch.

Through the crack, swarms of angry bees darted out into the sunlight and stung her dozens of times on her face and neck. She flailed her gnarled hands, and the little furry creatures flew up on the loose arms of her tunic and stung her there, got inside her bodice and stung her chest.

Khansama and the kitchen servants laughed until tears of mirth streamed from their eyes; they bent at
their waists and slapped their knees until they were weak. Then one by one they grew bored and drifted back to gossip on the
charpois
on the veranda by the kitchen door.

Zenat sank to her knees, the bees still swarming about her. Shabanu heard her cries and ran to the old woman, swatting the bees as she helped Zenat to her feet. She tore open Zenat’s tunic and freed the bees trapped inside. Then she half carried, half dragged the servant to her room, where she stayed for three days, with Mumtaz on a cot beside Zenat’s bed.

Shabanu bathed Zenat’s swollen face and chest with spirits of ammonia and eucalyptus oil and held her head, forcing spoonfuls of ginger tea between her lips. Slowly Zenat began to mend. While her body improved, her spirit seemed to have retreated to a dark place within her, and the old
ayah
was never the same again. But she remained loyal to Shabanu and Mumtaz forever after.

Later in the morning, after their walk along the canal, and after Zenat had brushed Mumtaz’s hair and taken her out to play, Shabanu covered herself with an old
chadr
and crossed the courtyard to the main house. A guard stood at the corner of the veranda, and when he turned his back Shabanu slipped through a side door. Once inside she turned immediately down a narrow passage and climbed the iron stairway to the dark balcony just under the painted and mirror-encrusted
ceiling of the great
baithak
, the men’s sitting room. The balcony, which was part of the
zenana
, was enclosed with walls, and carved screens covered the narrow, curtained windows that looked out over the room below.

In the old days, the ladies watched from behind these screens as the men below celebrated harvests, hunts, and battles. The women laughed and gossiped, their perfumed breath trapped within silken veils, falling silent only when the dancing girls entered the
baithak
to entertain the men to the rhythm of tiny brass bells strapped in rows around their slender ankles.

Shabanu went to the farthest corner of the musty balcony and pulled aside a curtain, brushing a cobweb from the cracked shutter.

In the crowded hall below, men stood facing the doorway through which Rahim would enter. The room had been built more than two hundred years before, and its grand proportions reflected the significance of the life-and-death decisions made there over the generations.

But it was a public place and, like most public places these days, bore evidence of profound neglect. Moss grew in the cracks of the damp tiled floor, visible between the ancient threadbare rugs. A grand chandelier hung from a gilt medallion in the center of the ceiling forty feet overhead, but the crystal was draped with cobwebs and dust, and fluorescent tubes
blinked at intervals around the mostly dim room.

Rahim’s secretary had collected a dozen petitions from people whose cases would be heard that morning. He stood waiting with them in his hand—crumpled pieces of paper carried with care from every corner of the tribal land by men who could not read but trusted in the saving grace of the signatures the slips of paper bore.

Two dozen other men waited quietly, hopefully, clutching their own tattered papers. Some sat with legs crossed on cushions or on the worn ruby carpets; others stood with their backs against the ancient cracked walls inscribed with the words of the Holy Prophet and painted with trellises and vines along the casements, arches, and rails. Still others milled about, muttering to the relatives who had come with them.

One man had brought his wife, a thin young girl in a tattered
chadr
, wearing a large pair of men’s shoes. The girl stood stiffly, as if trying to ignore the pain caused by her husband’s pride that she should not have come barefoot. She was the only woman in the room.

A servant brought Rahim’s embroidered bolster and placed it with other cushions on a canopied dais. The murmuring hushed, and Shabanu watched as the men’s reverent eyes focused on the doorway.

Rahim arrived fresh from his prayers, a blood-red velvet cap embroidered and set with diamonds on the back of his head. And to Shabanu’s surprise, behind
him came Ahmed, wearing a cap like his father’s—a cap that identified him among his clansmen as the next
syed
, a religious leader descended from the Holy Prophet Muhammad Himself.

Ahmed appeared proud to accompany his father as he held court, and Shabanu was certain Amina had schooled him on the importance of the occasion and how he should behave. He watched Rahim from the corners of his eyes and imitated everything his father did. When Rahim scratched his nose, Ahmed did the same. So total was his concentration that a thin thread of drool escaped his lower lip and fell to his lap.

Shabanu leaned her head against the shutter. She still had trouble comprehending that Rahim had arranged Ahmed’s marriage to Zabo. It was too cruel to them both. It wasn’t just the humiliation Zabo would endure; Shabanu was sure Zabo would suffer on Ahmed’s behalf as well.

The first petitioner presented to Rahim was the man with the thin young wife. He complained that he had bought her from her father at the price of four goats and a
kanal
of land, and she had not yet conceived. He wanted his property returned. The girl stood with her head bowed. She clutched a bundle of clothing against her chest, expecting to be returned to her family.

Had he other wives and other children? Rahim asked. No, the man replied. He’d had the misfortune of having two barren wives before this one. He was
nearing his fortieth year, and Allah still had not blessed him with a son. Would Rahim grant his request so that he could afford to take another wife?

Rahim asked how old the girl was. The man looked back at him blankly.

“When were you born, child?” Rahim asked the girl. Unaccustomed to being addressed directly, her shoulders swiveled back and forth out of nervousness.

“She wouldn’t know,
Sahib
,” said the man.

“What do you remember about your childhood?” Rahim asked. Her shoulders were still for a moment while she thought.

“In the year of the drought our animals died, and we fled our village.”

“Were you old enough to walk?”

“Nay,” she said. “My father carried me.”

Rahim looked at the man.

“This child is too young to conceive,” he said. “Take another wife if you must. Leave her here, and we will take care of her. She’ll work in my house. I will pay you. When it’s time, she can return to you.” Rahim tossed the petition aside. “And perhaps you should pray,” he said, turning back toward the man. “If you’ve had two other wives and no issue, the problem may be with you.”

The man’s face went dark with shame, but he handed the girl over to the bodyguard, who led her into the back part of the house toward the servants’
quarters. She shuffled forward a few steps, then stopped and bent to remove the shoes. She handed them to her husband and turned again to follow the servant without another word, still clutching her bundle of clothing to her chest.

Rahim listened next to a long technical discourse on a dispute over water. Ahmed began to look around the room. His eyes came to rest on something beneath the balcony where Shabanu stood behind the screen, and she was unable to see what had caught his wandering attention. His expression changed from slackness of boredom to a sly grin. He tried to keep himself under control, but his lips quivered and he giggled several times, trying to cover his mouth with his sleeve. Several people in the front rows looked over their shoulders to see what Ahmed was laughing about, then apparently seeing nothing, turned forward again. There was an embarrassed shifting upon cushions in the front ranks of the room.

Rahim, without interrupting the talk about water, reached over and laid his hand on his son’s arm. But rather than quiet Ahmed, the gesture seemed to break his thin margin of self-control, and he fell over on his side, laughing hysterically. Rahim gestured to a servant, who came and helped Ahmed to his feet and led him from the room.

Shabanu pitied Ahmed. His mother had told him he was important and desirable from the day he was born. While he was spoiled, he was neither cruel nor
arrogant. It was the only plus for Zabo that she could think of. At that moment Amina’s evil seemed horrifyingly powerful and palpable throughout all the rooms at Okurabad, even the balcony where Shabanu stood—almost as if Amina had the ability to snatch the house away from its long history and use it to her own purposes.

Rahim heard five more cases before clearing the room. He conferred with the secretary for a while, then Ibne and the cook were brought before him. Both men wore white
shalwar kameez
. Their heads were bare. It was the first time Shabanu had seen Ibne without his mirrored velvet vest and starched turban in a knife-sharp pleated fan. He stood straight and looked directly at Rahim. His black hair was oiled and neatly combed. The cook, who was rumpled and splattered with sauces from the kitchen, hung back and kept his eyes on the corner of the dais where Rahim sat.