Revolt (18 page)

Head reeling, Arslan strode across the room and was about to turn the door handle when he remembered the reason for his coming.

‘I only came to let you know that Aunt Mehreen and her household all know about Daniela!’ he coldly informed her, shutting the door behind him. The blushing young maid with a lowered gaze was still hovering near the pillar under the veranda – waiting to catch another glimpse of him. Arslan ignored her and left the villa.

Inside her room, Saher sat stunned, head buzzing with Arslan’s words.

‘Oh my God!’ she groaned aloud, shuddering. ‘Arslan, how could you say those things to me – you are like a brother to me!’ she cried, touching her mouth where his finger had lain. ‘He wanted to kiss me. Arslan, have you gone crazy?’

Rani excitedly headed to Mehreen’s
hevali
with her shopping. What was the point of taking her daughter’s trousseau presents home, when they were going to be carted back there. It was the expression on Mehreen’s face that she wanted to witness when she felt the soft mink blanket between her fingers, which the seller had bragged was ‘the finest in the land’. Her daughter’s trousseau was a demonstration to both her sisters that being a widow didn’t make her a charity case. On the contrary, as they all knew well enough, she was blessed with ample wealth, thanks to her father’s foresight! And so could get her daughter married off in style, without touching a single
paisa
of Saher’s earnings.

‘Allah Pak, would I touch a penny from my daughter’s salary? Never!’ she loudly announced on a number of occasions to whoever was listening. What her daughter did with her money was her business – whether she invested it in another car or bought the so-called stocks, Rani didn’t care a dime. She had sold one acre of land for the wedding expenses. Even if Saher took not a hankie to London, she would still furnish Mehreen’s home from a mere humble sewing needle to a brand new car for her daughter to drive.

Upon entering her sister’s courtyard, Rani sensed immediately that something wasn’t quite right. No one was in the courtyard to greet her. And where was Rasoola? she wondered, signalling to her chauffeur to place the luggage on the
takht paush
, the prayer table under the veranda.

‘Mehreen!’ she called.

Upstairs on the first floor, three hearts thudded to a halt.

‘Rani is here!’ Mehreen hissed, arms flailing, ready to faint in her eldest sister’s arms. ‘She knows, Gulbahar!’ she stuttered, her lower lip quivering.

Gulbahar held tightly onto her sister’s trembling body. ‘She had to find out sooner or later, Mehreen.’

‘Yes, Gulbahar-ji!’ From his seat, Liaquat watched the two sisters locked in an embrace, his head throbbing with rage. Why had he not paid heed to the warning bells in his head when he saw Arslan talking to the
goorie
at the airport? After all, the woman had come off the same plane as their son!

‘I cannot face Rani yet – please don’t tell her where I am,’ Mehreen pleaded with her eldest sister.

‘Poor Mehreen is petrified!’ Gulbahar’s mouthed the words to her brother-in-law over Mehreen’s shoulders, her heart aching for her two sisters who were about to become enemies.

‘Mehreen, you must not be afraid – you’ve done nothing wrong, remember that!’ she firmly reminded her. ‘Our selfish children have put us in these predicaments. I’m so sorry that this has happened to you, too, my darling sister.’

‘I have only one son, and now I’ll never see his wedding!’ Mehreen wailed, her heart breaking.

Liaquat had had enough and exchanged a knowing look with his sister-in-law. Gulbahar nodded her head in understanding, a ghost of a smile touching her face. They often managed Mehreen’s tantrums together and as a result an intimacy of some sort had grown between them. He caught the smile and returned it with a wide one of his own. Head bent over her sister’s shoulders, Mehreen missed both their smiles.

‘No more tears, Mehreen. Mop up your face. You’ll meet Rani – why should you have to hide? We’ve done nothing wrong, nor are we criminals. I will go and get her.’ Her husband’s grim and logical words sobered his wife.

He left her staring wide-eyed after him, lips still quivering. Gulbahar sat down, massaging Mehreen’s trembling hand, her own heart beating fast. She loved both the sisters – but she was about to get caught in the middle of crossfire.

‘What shall I do?’ Gulbahar was assailed by the same sense of
helplessness that had followed Laila’s elopement. ‘Which sister shall I support?’ she dully echoed in her head.

Downstairs in the courtyard, Rani was struck by Liaquat’s averted gaze and stiff demeanour. Something wasn’t quite right in this household today. Mouth dry, Rani quietly followed her brother-in-law up to Mehreen’s room.

‘Where’s Rasoola?’ she ventured to ask on the way, licking her lips.

‘She’s been dismissed – I mean she’s gone on holiday,’ he quickly amended.

‘What? With the wedding coming up! Has my sister finally lost her marbles, losing yet another good worker? Mehreen is hopeless!’ Rani contemptuously scoffed at her sister’s handling of domestic workers.

Bristling, Liaquat’s step briefly faltered. Then he took the cue she offered before entering their bedroom, ‘The wedding, Sister Rani … There are new developments, shall we say …’ he let his voice peter away.

‘Oh!’ Rani stood still, her heart plummeting to a faraway place.

In the bedroom, Mehreen’s downcast face greeted Rani. Gulbahar was holding her tightly by the arm.

The tableau was set.

And it provided Rani with her answer, her misgivings spelt out. Like a stranger and an unwanted guest, she hovered awkwardly near the door. As usual, the other two sisters were in collusion and she was the ‘outsider’, just as it had always been since their childhood. Mehreen always managed to appeal to Gulbahar’s good nature with her tears. Her gullible elder sister always fell for her sister’s guile and tantrums. Gulbahar had actively adopted a surrogate-mother role and had been very protective of her two sisters, especially the youngest, plagued as she was by nightmares, whimpering in terror in the night and always ending up in her sister’s bed, winding her arms tightly around her neck. The tight affection of the skinny arms bonded them. And so from an early age, Mehreen had
delightedly discovered how easy it was to wind her way to her sister’s heart.

Even though Rani was the young widow who raised a daughter single-handedly, it was Mehreen who demanded and commanded all the attention and invariably got it; it was her home that Gulbahar most visited. Also galling for Rani was the fact that her brother-in-law admired Gulbahar and enjoyed spending time with her. Unable to cope with the jealousy, Rani merely withdrew into herself and into her own world. They did not matter – only her daughter. Rashid, the man she had fallen in love with after her husband’s death, had mattered once, but he, too, was lost. And it was all her own fault.

Eyes lingering bitterly on Gulbahar’s protective arm around Mehreen’s shoulders, Rani tasted bile.

The two sisters peered back, ridden with guilt and wearing exactly the same expressions as on the day Mehreen had accidentally ruined Rani’s wedding dress with mustard oil and Gulbahar had valiantly risen to her sister’s defence. Mortified and seething, Rani had gone to her new home smelling of oil. It was the talk for months amongst the women guests from her husband’s side. Rani never quite forgave her sisters for that day, only just managing to crush her own childish desire to damage her sister’s dress on Mehreen’s wedding day.

Rani had her answer. She had seen Ismail’s reaction to her daughter with her own eyes. Now these conspirators were going to break the news to her that he was jilting her Saher! Rani’s eyes filled up, but she wouldn’t give them the opportunity to humiliate her further – she would get in first.

Lowering herself onto the nearest chair, head down, Rani waited for someone to say something to her. The seconds ticked away. With her hands neatly folded on her lap and brimming eyes downcast, Rani echoed aloud her depressing thoughts. ‘I went to the bazaar today and bought a lot of things for Saher’s wedding. But it looks as if my Saher’s trousseau isn’t destined for this house, is it, my beloved sisters?’ She now pinned them with her bitter stare.

Their heads shot up.

Rani waited for their denial, but none was forthcoming. Their tongues were tied in knots – electrified. She knew! What next?

‘It’s all right, my dear sisters. You don’t need to gang up on me or insult me further with your silence – my daughter will not be the first nor the last to be jilted, especially by men who have lived abroad. I could not help but notice your son’s behaviour towards Saher since he returned. It’s not your fault, so please, all of you, don’t be nervous on my behalf. I’ll bid you all good day.’

She left them with their mouths open and strode out of the room, a lone dignified figure. Inside, however, she was a ball of misery, feeling just as wretched as she had felt following her phone conversation with Rashid many years ago.

‘Rani!’ Mehreen called, her heart leaping towards her sister.

‘Let her go, Mehreen.’ Gulbahar quietly advised, resigning herself to another situation where she had become the reluctant go-between; favourite with one sister and strongly disliked by the other; one forever clinging; the other loftily keeping her at arm’s length. Caught between the two, loving one was a matter of betraying and hurting the other.

Whose side was she going to take in this crisis – Mehreen’s or Rani’s? As usual Mehreen had already emotionally monopolised her. Rani, true to her nature, had scornfully walked away – shunning them all.

Rani, blinded by tears, returned home, her daughter’s wedding gifts, lovingly purchased that day, forgotten in Mehreen’s
hevali
. As soon as her eyes fell on Saher, Rani burst into loud sobs, startling her. Saher pulled her mother into her arms.

‘Mother, it’s all right. Don’t worry about me! I’ve seen her!’

‘Who?’

‘His wife – the
goorie
!’

Rani swayed in her daughter’s arms, feeling faint.

‘The
goorie
?’

Bewildered, Saher held onto her mother.

‘Oh, God, I thought you knew, Mother?’ Saher hid her own ravaged face.

‘What
goorie
?’ Rani cried, staring into her daughter’s grey eyes. ‘Has he brought home a goorie?’

‘He hasn’t just brought a
goorie
back with him – she’s his
wife
, Mother!’ she bitterly exclaimed, turning her back, unable to look her mother in the eye.

Rani’s world fell apart. ‘Wedded a
goorie
! Jilted you for a
goorie
!’

Blindly, she reached for the hammock swing-seat under the shade of the veranda and collapsed onto it.

Daniela sat on the rooftop gallery of Arslan’s home wondering what was going on in her husband’s household. So many questions were rocketing through her head. ‘What are they thinking and saying about me? Have his parents found out about me? What will Ismail’s fiancée do? And what am I doing here in this strange land, amongst these people who hate me? Even their servants! That Begum woman in the kitchen has daggers for eyes. What storm have I unleashed upon this family?’

Distressed and loathing herself, Daniela wept openly, not caring if anyone saw her. ‘My husband has abandoned me. Jesus, what am I going to do?’ she groaned aloud. ‘I’ll ask Arslan to take me to the airport – I cannot stay another day in this
godforsaken
place where I’m not wanted!’

An angry tide of colour chased through her freckled cheeks. ‘But he’s the father of my unborn child, so how can I abandon my marriage? How can I fight these people – for they will never accept me? I’m a thorn in their lives!’

After pacing the rooftop gallery several times, Daniela peered down at the untidy rows of streets crisscrossing each other and the green sugarcane fields circling the village. She marvelled at the ability of a veiled woman passing the
hevali
gates to maintain her balance whilst carrying a basket of vegetables on her head.

‘Apart from Arslan, no one in this household understands a word I say.’ A scowl of frustration marred her forehead.

Elizabeth was listening to the ten o’clock BBC news from her
desk, whilst typing the last chapter of her doctoral thesis. Dave, in the leather armchair, with his legs up on the recliner, made a sudden incoherent sound. Elizabeth looked up sharply. Dave was staring at the screen, his face pale. Elizabeth switched her gaze to the news report; another bombing in some city in Pakistan.

Arching her eyebrows at his reaction Elizabeth turned to her laptop screen. Dave was now on his feet, nervously raking his fingers through his hair.

‘She’s there, Liz!’

Elizabeth glanced up, frowning, then baulked at the look in his eyes.

‘Daniela’s there,’ he whispered. Elizabeth’s hand went to her throat. They carried on staring at each other.

‘Are you telling me that my daughter is … in that country?’ She pointed to the screen, showing men in traditional Pakistani
shalwar kameez
suits running away from the wreckage of a bus blown apart.

‘She’s with her husband,’ Dave added. ‘She’ll be fine. Probably she’s far from that region.’

Elizabeth carried on staring, feeling sick, unable to say a word. Though she had washed her hands of her daughter since she married Ismail, unable to cope with the differences of her son-in-law’s culture and faith, and bogged down by her own prejudices regarding colour and race, now fear for her daughter’s safety seized her.

She switched the computer off and was about to leave the room. At the door, she accused, ‘You did not stop her or have the decency to tell me, David!’ her voice rough with animal fear for her daughter’s safety.

‘Liz, no need to worry. She’s texted me recently, saying she’s fine and having a wonderful time.’ He omitted to tell her that Daniela had not even told him that she was going there. Only at the airport had she texted him.

‘She’s amongst strangers! In a foreign country, with a different culture …’ Elizabeth shook her head at him before shutting the door. Dave stared back at the TV screen, then texted his daughter, expressing his fears for her safety. Her immediate reply, ‘I’m
fine, Dad!’ brought a smile of relief to his face. He was about to text the words ‘Your mother is worried sick’, and paused.

With Rasoola gone, there was nobody to do the cooking in Mehreen’s home and worried Gulbahar, albeit reluctantly, took on the supervisory role of her younger sister’s household, first making tea for them all. The young errand boy and old male servant, employed for outside shopping chores, were both of no help in the making of meals. Their Mehreen had remained ill equipped for domestic chores. Putting a
chappati
on a hot
tava
pan was an ordeal for her. In her parents’ home, Gulbahar, as the elder sister, had taken on the responsibility for running their household, only delegating certain tasks to the servants.

Gulbahar phoned to request Begum’s help in her sister’s home. Begum agreed with alacrity, knowing that the three sisters were having a terrible time and they needed her support.

As she sat sipping tea, the sudden image of the beautiful fairy before her eyes made Gulbahar smile. Mehreen caught the smile and her cheeks flagged red. Was Gulbahar gloating at her expense?

‘Mehreen, I saw a beautiful fairy the other day …’ Gulbahar dreamily shared, failing to notice her sister’s indignant look.

‘A fairy?’ Mehreen’s eyebrows shot up.

‘Yes, a nine-year-old fairy.’ Gulbahar kept her eyes tightly shut, revelling in the picture of the fairy now dancing before her eyes. Mehreen smiled in understanding, warming to her sister once again. At last her sister had acknowledged Shirin, even if indirectly, and with a smile.

‘Yes, a beautiful fairy indeed. I, too, saw her once.’

‘What, here?’ Gulbahar asked, wide-eyed.

‘No, out in the fields – the day Arslan arrived.’

Gulbahar shut her eyes in pain. She was the grandmother and had set eyes on her granddaughter in person for the first time.

‘Rani will never forgive us – how did she find out?’ Mehreen changed the subject back to their present crisis.

‘I don’t know,’ Gulbahar replied, her heart going out to
her middle sister. ‘I ought to be with her. If you are suffering, Mehreen, imagine how it must be for our poor Rani! Her only daughter jilted for a foreign woman, just as she’s feverishly making arrangements for her wedding. It’s cruel, Mehreen.’

‘Please don’t say any more. When will this nightmare end?’

Gulbahar sank on the edge of her sister’s bed, face pinched.

‘It never ends, my sister.’ Her soft voice was barely audible. ‘It’s a slow mean death, licking away into your soul and tearing you apart inside, leaving a hollow well into which one sinks – never to return!’

‘Please don’t!’ Mehreen pleaded, staring aghast at her sister.

‘I’m sorry, Mehreen, but that’s the reality. Either you let it kill you or you kill the love for your children inside you, as I did with Laila. But I gained nothing … just ended up half killing myself. My sister, it’s like a cancer that spreads, eating you away.’

‘I know,’ Mehreen replied, eyes filling up again. ‘I’m so sorry, Sister Gulbahar. What you must have gone through – with Laila’s elopement! Children make us suffer, don’t they? But Sister Gulbahar, remember I only have one son while you still have your Arslan to wed!’

‘Therefore … you have to start facing the facts and bring the
goorie
home.’

‘Never!’ Heat rushed into Mehreen’s already fiery cheeks.

‘You may well have to!’ Gulbahar coldly returned, equally fiery and standing her ground. ‘She’s your daughter-in-law!’

‘Did you bring your Laila back home, or the potter’s son? You emptied your home of any traces of her!’ Mehreen aggressively mocked her elder sister. ‘I’ll bring no foreign slut into this house – usurping our dear Saher’s place!’

Gulbahar sighed, holding her hands up in defeat. ‘Mehreen, do what you think is best. I need to get back. The
goorie
has to be fed. I don’t know if Arslan is at home or not.’

Instead of returning home Gulbahar ended up on Rani’s
doorstep
– shamefaced. Whereas Mehreen actively engaged her sister’s attention with tears, Rani merely buttoned up into a sullen
silence – a silence that with time had shrunk her two beautiful full lips. Her mouth rarely curved, but became a forbidding messenger of her miserable life of widowhood.

It was as if, with the disappearance of her mother to an early grave, someone had banged the door shut on Rani’s vocal cords. She never made any sounds, never wailed or ranted like her impetuous younger sister. Nor would pride let her sink her head into her elder sister’s lap and weep. Whereas the other two sisters as children had hugged themselves to sleep in each other’s arms, seeking human solace as they wept for their beloved mother, Rani slept alone, choking on her silent, painful sobs.

Gulbahar timidly stepped into her sister’s home, feeling like an interloper, unable to recall ever having spent a night at Rani’s.

On seeing the forbidding straight line of her sister’s mouth, Gulbahar’s heart sank. In silence, they settled on the wooden hammock under the shade of the veranda. Intimidated by Rani’s body language, and afraid of being rebuffed, the only physical contact Gulbahar permitted herself was to place her palm on her sister’s back.

After ten minutes of awkward silence, Gulbahar lightly pecked the side of her sister’s cheek with a kiss, for something still needed to be said.

‘Rani, our
kismet
and children are cruel … I never wanted you to go through the pain I experienced with Laila’s elopement. Our suffering, like our happiness, is the will of God. Human beings are destined to suffer in many ways. Imagine yourself in my or in Mehreen’s shoes, for at least Saher has done nothing wrong. She’s a beautiful and talented woman; so believe me when I tell you that hundreds of suitors will flock to your door for her
rishta
. At least you can now keep her in Pakistan as you’ve always wanted to.

‘But imagine poor Mehreen’s situation – no wedding to look forward to, no Pakistani daughter-in-law to welcome into her home. She has no dreams, no hopes, just a dead end. Both husband and wife are battling with these cruel facts of life. But they will survive, for nobody truly dies. I thought that I was dead for a long time, but there’s still part of me that is alive – a
beautiful fairy made that happen. There’s always hope, my sister, but you’ll need to be strong … Saher needs your support, Rani dear. Don’t let this eat into your soul. Laila’s actions ravaged our lives for ten years, and my husband and I lived as “shadows”. Why did we punish ourselves? Who suffered? We did! And we are still suffering. Rani, you know I have a heart condition. One day, my heart will just stop beating, but I’ll still have two wishes left.’

‘What?’ Rani asked quietly, breaking her ominous silence at last.

‘To see the beautiful fairy again with my own eyes and see my Arslan wed the woman he loves.’

‘Who does he want to marry?’

‘I don’t know, but he has promised me that she will be from our clan.’

‘Well, every time I see him, he’s with Saher,’ Rani retorted.

A light flared and then immediately dimmed in Gulbahar’s eyes and she turned her face to hide the look from her sister.

‘I must go, Rani, I would like to take you to my home, but …’

‘Yes – that English bitch is there!’

Gulbahar baulked at her sister’s venom.

‘Saher has met her,’ she said softly.

Rani turned to her sister, her hand tugging at her
chador
on her head. ‘Oh, God! My poor darling.’

She ran in the direction of her daughter’s room, dismissing her sister. Gulbahar rose heavily to her feet. Outside, she informed the chauffeur to take her back home.