Revolt (20 page)

Massi Fiza panted into the goldsmith’s lounge.

‘Have you heard?’

Rukhsar frowned above the gem casket, the bead tweezers gripped between her fingers.

‘What, Massi Fiza-ji?’ she politely asked, hoping it would be worth it as her husband was waiting for the gemstones downstairs in his workshop.

‘You won’t believe this! In our village – kidnapping and slit wrists!’

‘What?’

‘Salma, that quiltmaker’s daughter, tried to kill herself – slit her wrist and then ended up saving the landlord’s granddaughter from a kidnapping. Just guess where she tried to kill herself? In the sugarcane field! Can you believe it?’

‘What?’ the frown was replaced by a speculative look.

‘I’m now off to Zeinab’s house to see how her daughter’s doing – the doctor came just in time. I’ll pop in later and let you know what’s happened.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘Rasoola, Begum’s new helper at the
hevali
, told me when I returned the laundry. She always enjoys a good gossip. She’s just like us, but she’s mean and malicious, too!’ she laughed. ‘Well, there is no pretending we don’t like a good gossip, is there?’ Rukhsar giggled in agreement.

Massi Fiza panted out of the room, just as she had entered.

It was much later, after all her laundry work was finished, that Massi Fiza made it to the quiltmaker’s house. Zeinab’s humble courtyard and small veranda was crammed with women visitors, either perched on or hovering around the two portable
charpoys
. Salma’s husband, urgently called from the city, stood in one corner, head bowed, arms folded across his chest. With lowered heads and behind the folds of their shawls numerous hushed female conversations were taking place. Whispering women, covertly signalling with their body language and active exchange of secret glances. This was an incredible moment for gossip-mongering, drama and speculation. Massi Fiza eagerly eavesdropped on her two friends and good customers.

‘Will the silly girl pull through? First hiding in sugarcane plants and now trying to kill herself! What next? She’s truly mad,’ murmured the baker’s wife. ‘And they said she has a BA, huh! This is not how an educated woman behaves! She is sillier than the lot of us.’ Her last sentence made the women around her frown. One uttered, ‘Cheeky woman!’

The Gujjar’s wife, hiding her mouth behind her hand, heartily agreed; she had stopped her own pregnant daughter-in-law from coming with her. After all, she could not take a risk with Salma’s
perchanvah
. Had not the sweetmaker’s daughter-in-law, Faiza, miscarried soon after hugging the ‘unfortunate’ Salma?

Skilfully sidling past the two women hovering in the doorway, Massi Fiza entered Salma’s room, peeping over the shoulder of the village cobbler’s wife.

Salma was lying on her bed, unconscious and breathing, her wrist now properly bandaged. Zeinab, sitting on the edge of the bed, was gently massaging her daughter’s forehead. The young lady doctor from the local medical centre was just packing her medicine case when someone pushed Massi Fiza aside. Affronted and about to complain, the words died on her mouth as Zeinab leapt off the bed.

‘Not done enough already! Come to see, have you?’ she shouted.

Zeinab aggressively pushed Jennat Bibi, the sweetmaker’s wife, who stumbled against her daughter-in-law, Faiza, and fell in the middle of the doorway with a thud.

‘Ouch!’ Jennat Bibi screeched in pain, having landed on her bottom on the concrete floor, unable to breathe. The women visitors, as well as the horrified doctor, were unable to believe their eyes.

Faiza bent down to help her up and the lady doctor hurried to Jennat Bibi’s side, her dazed gaze swinging from one irate lady, the host, to the woman she had just pushed. Zeinab remained defiant.

‘Sister Zeinab, what have you done?’ the doctor asked.

‘It’s these women – they are responsible for the state my daughter is in. They made my Salma’s life a real hell.’

‘What?’

‘This woman …’ As she was about to poke Jennat Bibi on the shoulder, the doctor pulled her back, ‘has been victimising my Salma! She made her go mad and want to kill herself.’

She spat at Faiza, ‘And you, serpent of a friend, lied to protect yourself! See what you’ve done – Salma has cut her wrist and is on her deathbed! You two are responsible for this! If she dies, may all the curses of the world beget your home!’

Zeinab stepped out onto the veranda and jeeringly addressed all the women in her home, encompassing them in one ruthless glance, her finger pointing to them all. ‘You are all hypocrites! You women have made my daughter’s life a misery. The poor mite was already suffering from the loss of her babies – then you victimised her, by avoiding her and stopping her from entering your homes.’

‘I don’t understand,’ the doctor interjected, looking bewildered and outraged. ‘What’s going on here? Are you saying …’

‘This wicked woman blamed her daughter-in-law’s miscarriage on my poor girl!’ Zeinab interrupted. ‘They have accused her of witchcraft, saying that her “evil shadow” made Faiza lose her baby.’

‘What utter nonsense!’ the doctor replied, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘There’s no such thing as a woman’s evil shadow. This poor woman has miscarried because of a medical condition. Her womb is weak and unable to hold onto the foetus! What has her body got to do with other women’s pregnancies? Can you
women not understand that? Also is this not
shirk
and against the teaching of Islam?’ The doctor’s challenging gaze swung over the small crowd of women.

‘What does she know?’ someone muttered quietly, staring back unabashed, while others dropped their gaze in embarrassment.

The bricklayer’s wife mumbled to her companion, ‘Let’s get out of here before Zeinab lays into me and pushes me out, too!’

Too late. As she rose to leave: ‘Yes, it’s women like Jennat Bibi and the bricklayer’s wife who have slammed their doors in my daughter’s face!’ Zeinab screeched aloud from the doorway.

Her back smarting with heat, and too timid to retaliate in public, the bricklayer’s wife hurried out of the door, followed closely by Massi Fiza. Outside in the lane, the bricklayer’s wife turned round to see who was behind her and smiled.

‘Just the person I wanted to see! Massi Fiza, are you going to the
hevali
for the laundry? If you are, please take me with you. I do so want to get a glimpse of the
goorie
.’

Massi Fiza cruelly giggled, ‘Begum won’t be very pleased if I keep bringing visitors with me to the
hevali
. She says that it’s not a zoo, or that the
goorie
is not an animal on exhibition for us all to ogle. Anyway, I have already collected the laundry. Out of three women I took with me last time, only one was lucky – she took a glass of water to the
goorie
.’

‘Oh. I would have loved to invite her to my house for dinner,’ the woman preened, missing the disdainful smirk on Massi Fiza’s face.

‘She won’t be visiting or having dinners at any humble people’s homes.’ Massi Fiza scoffed at the audacity of the bricklayer’s wife in wanting to invite the Englishwoman into her house. ‘Probably there will be a big party for Master Arslan’s homecoming! You might be able to see her then,’ she ended helpfully, relishing the wisdom of always remaining on good terms with everyone.

They started to walk back home together, as they lived in the same street.

Inside the quiltmaker’s house, the doctor was in full flow
educating the women and trying to wean them away from superstitions that made them unwittingly cruel.

‘This is a good example of a bad old wives’ tale, ladies! Please listen. That poor young woman, lying on the bed, nearly died today. We don’t know what drove her to it.’

‘These women did!’ was Zeinab’s shrill answer.

‘That might be true, but your daughter could be suffering from post-natal depression also. If you remember, she told me how low she was feeling the last time I saw you both in the medical centre,’ the doctor hastened to remind Zeinab.

Jennat Bibi was now groaning aloud and trying to rise. The doctor leaned down to look at her.

‘I had better check you over. Are you in a lot of pain?’

‘Yes, you saw how this vindictive woman pushed me over! She’s a witch with no manners – fancy pushing her guests? Have I pushed anyone in my house?’

‘Manners? Get this woman out of here, Brother Javaid, before I do something else to her!’ Zeinab heatedly instructed Jennat Bibi’s husband who was standing nearby. He had followed his wife to the quiltmaker’s house after he learned of the mishap with Salma and had watched the entire spectacle with a tight face.

‘Come, Jennat Bibi, let’s take you home.’ Stiffly, her husband came to his wife’s side. Everyone stared at the tall, dignified sweetmaker, often under his wife’s thumb.

‘Come, Faiza. Sister Zeinab is right. Neither of you two women should be welcome in this house. You have both caused enough damage as it is. I would be grateful if you, lady doctor, could come to our house and check my wife in case she has broken a bone or something.’

He turned to Zeinab. ‘I’m so sorry about your daughter and I hope she recovers fully. I take responsibility for the behaviour of the two women in my family. And you ladies, I hope you have heard what the doctor said. There are no evil shadows – it’s all in your mind. Listen to the doctor’s medical logic, not to some of the rubbish that the
pir
has been feeding my wife.’

He guided his red-cheeked wife out of the courtyard. The women moved aside to let them pass.

‘Please all go home,’ Zeinab told the women. ‘Thank you for coming, but I don’t need you here. Go and see to your families and leave me to get on with looking after my daughter.
In’shallah,
with all your prayers, my Salma will get better.’

Thoroughly chastened, resentful and stiff-backed, the women filed out of Zeinab’s courtyard.

‘Well, I’ve never been so insulted in my life! I’m definitely not giving her my quilt to darn again!’ muttered one of the women as soon as she stepped out into the lane.

Laila and Ismail were in the valley, gazing up at the waterfall, where they used to bathe as children, running and skipping along the grassy bank of the stream.

‘Is it true that you are married to an Englishwoman?’ was the first thing that Laila asked, walking by his side along the path.

‘Yes – but I’m not ashamed, nor have I any regrets, Laila! Save that I’ve hurt my family and Saher of course,’ he felt obliged to add.

Laila stopped and looked at him for a moment.

‘Can I ask what was wrong with our Saher?’ Her condemnatory tone made Ismail bristle.

‘Laila, I thought at least you would understand!’ he accused, cheeks reddening, disappointed at her reaction. ‘Can I be impertinent and ask you this question? Why didn’t you marry the man you were promised to? Why the potter’s son?’

Laila coloured at the way he had neatly turned the table on her.

‘At the time, I thought it was for the best,’ she replied sadly.

‘Like you, I fell in love. You with someone from another class, I from another race – we couldn’t help ourselves. Daniela, my wife, is a wonderful, lovely, sweet and highly principled woman, and has good moral values. She was also flesh and blood before me. Saher, on the other hand,’ he shrugged, ‘was just an image – so far away and inaccessible. In fact, I believe that your brother probably knows her better than I do – they are like twins, inseparable.’

‘Yes, they’ve always been very close, and my brother dotes on her.’

‘Yes, I noticed and, for my sins, he punched me for Saher’s sake. I never meant to hurt anyone, especially her!’

‘Neither of us meant to hurt anyone,’ Laila wryly agreed, ‘nevertheless, we have, by our selfish actions. Now that I have a daughter myself, I know what it must have been like for my parents. I wish you all the best with your Daniela and sincerely hope that it will prove the right choice. I have ended up sacrificing an awful lot, Ismail, but love alone is not enough … It’s not a substitute for your family and their love. You see, everything has a rightful place in life.’

‘Hey, hang on. You’re becoming depressing. You and Jubail, is that his name? You’ve sacrificed a lot for one another, but you seem to have become embittered. You must never go down that path, Laila, otherwise you will have nothing left!’ he earnestly advised.

‘Then why don’t you openly claim Daniela as your lawful wife and take her home with you? Begum tells me that she’s still at my parents’ house.’

Ismail was taken aback by the turn in their conversation and once again they fell into a long silence as they continued walking.

Shirin ran into the stream, shouting, ‘It’s cold, Mummy!’

Ismail and Laila sat down on two large boulders and watched her in silence.

‘Yes, Laila,’ Ismail said, ‘you’re perfectly right. I need to claim my wife openly and take her home. I’ve been a true, lousy git to the poor thing – and Daniela’s pregnant, too.’

‘You have already hurt our Saher, but please don’t hurt your wife, too!’

‘I know, but will my parents accept her?’

‘Just throw yourself at their mercy. Don’t abandon your home or your wife – for you have a right to both.’

‘Well, well, our Laila is mouthing little pearls of wisdom.’

‘They are not pearls, my dear brother, just little home truths that time has knocked into me. The door to my parents’ home is now forever slammed shut to me. Don’t let them slam the door in your face, too. I came for my brother’s homecoming. I know that he’ll come to see me in the city. My daughter is growing
fast – I don’t want her to learn about the
big house
… I want to protect her. Already she has begun to hate her grandfather, without realising who he actually is. Imagine what she’ll think when she finds out? Her young innocent mind will not be able to cope with the rejection. Nor will she understand the damage that we, her parents, have done to her grandparents.’

‘Oh, but that’s terrible, Laila!’ Ismail stood up, picking up a small pebble and throwing it in the stream. ‘Please don’t say that.’

‘It’s a fact, Ismail. My father passed by my daughter, ignoring her. Every year, I’ve sent photographs to my mother, via Begum, but I am told she locks them away in a drawer.’ Her voice breaking, she openly wept.

‘Cry, if that helps you, my sister,’ he urged, distressed himself.

‘It hurts so much, Ismail, when it happens to your own child. I was a coward. I should have come back the same night of my wedding. Win them over, my brother! Stay in their midst and when your child is born, place it in their laps, for they will not be able to shift it. I made a terrible mistake, and waited for them to come to me. I should have barged in and put my Shirin in their laps. Now, there is no other choice for me – but to bow out of my parents’ life for good.’

‘I’m so sorry …’

‘Shall we go?’ Laila was looking at her watch. ‘I’m expecting Shirin’s father’s phone call.’

They walked back to the village in companionable silence, with Shirin hopping ahead of them.

From the rooftop gallery of the
hevali
, Daniela spotted her husband.

‘That’s my Ismail – with a woman! Is it his fiancée?’ Her hand trembled with raw jealousy as she peered over the wrought-iron rooftop railings.

‘I’m going!’ she decided – not to the airport but to her in-laws’ house. ‘I haven’t come all this way to lose my husband.’ Ismail was going in one direction, the woman in another. It couldn’t be his fiancée. Ismail’s fiancée was trendy, wore fashionable clothes
and didn’t cover her hair. This woman was cloaked from head to foot in a large white garment. ‘I’ll show these racist village people and these landowners what a white woman is made of! Beastly of them to keep calling me
goorie
when I’ve got a proper name! And I thought my mum was bad! I guess they all have got it in their heads that I’m a tart who has slept around.’

Daniela crossed to the other side of the gallery and looked down into the central courtyard of the villa. She could hear male voices below.

Gulbahar was looking for her son and found him in the drawing room staring into space.

‘What’s the matter, Arslan?’ she asked, forgetting to remove her
chappals
on the silk rug. She could tell by his flushed face that something was wrong.

‘Nothing,’ was his stiff response.

‘Arslan, I know who you want to marry,’ she teased, standing in front of her son, trying to catch his eye. ‘You said the woman you love was a woman from our clan and that I would like her very much. I know who she is, Arslan.’

‘Good! But I’m not marrying.’ He startled his mother.

‘What?’ Disappointment smearing her face, Gulbahar was loath to let go of the topic. ‘It’s Saher, isn’t it?’

He jerked away from his mother’s grasp. ‘Don’t mention her name in front of me again, Mother.’

‘But …’ Gulbahar stammered.

‘No buts. Just … just keep her away from me.’ He strode out of the room, leaving his mother lost in thought.

‘You can also hate those whom you love most.’ She smiled as a sudden thought crossed her mind relating to her son’s indignation. And Saher. How was the poor girl?

The phone on the coffee table rang, startling Gulbahar out of her reverie.

‘Arslan?’ Her daughter’s timid voice floated across the line. Gulbahar held her breath. ‘Arslan?’ Laila repeated. ‘Is that you?’

Gulbahar felt faint.

‘Mother?’ The voice asked after a pause.

Gulbahar’s lips parted. ‘Little fairy!
Chothi pari
.’ The trembling husky words echoing down the line were greeted by a stunned silence. The words registered.

‘Shirin, Shirin!’ Gulbahar heard her daughter’s excited shout and held onto the receiver. A few seconds later, a gruff,
tear-ridden
voice instructed, ‘Shirin, please say
salaam
!’

‘Assalam alaikum
!’ Shirin dutifully obliged. The two words of greeting gloriously fanned through Gulbahar’s body, making the goose pimples on her skin stand on end.

‘Wa laikum salam
, my
pari
’ Gulbahar softly greeted back. ‘Beautiful little fairy!’ she whispered, before her moist hand gently replaced the receiver.

At the other end, Shirin looked puzzled.

‘What did the lady say?’ Laila asked, eyes glittering with unshed tears.

‘She called me a beautiful little fairy.’

Laila’s heart dizzied to the heavens above, taking the phone from her daughter.

‘Why, Mummy?’ Shirin asked, intrigued.

Laila held onto the receiver, tears of joy openly gushing down her cheeks. ‘You are a beautiful fairy! And a very special, beautiful lady said that to you.’

‘Who?’ Shirin innocently prompted.

Laila’s mouth ached to spill the words ‘your grandmother’, but she ruthlessly stamped down on the urge. ‘Just a nice lady, my darling,’ she quietly offered instead.

Shirin returned to her game of hopscotch in the courtyard.

Heart thudding, Laila redialled the number and waited. It remained silent.

She cast her eyes over the shabby furniture: the oil-stained, moth-eaten, threadbare, cotton cover of the old armchair; the chipped, dressing-table mirror, draped with the potter’s wife’s old, crocheted tablecloth; the frayed, yellowy-blue curtains whose original colour she could never quite tell. Even the blue dye had made no difference. The nails precariously supporting the curtain rail were loose. Laila feared for her daughter’s safety
every time she tugged at them in the evening. She often recoiled at the disgusting spirals of cobwebs hanging around the ceiling cornices and in between the mesh frames of the door. The floor, with its missing cement patches, was a safety hazard for her daughter. Shirin had tripped twice already. Laila feared for her daughter’s beautiful, pert little nose.

The potter’s family, unable to afford a wardrobe, had lived out of suitcases. Clothes were neatly stacked in the two steel suitcases that had been part of the potter’s wife’s dowry. All the valuables, money and party clothes were stuffed in there. Jubail, as a university student, had his own suitcase, bought for him by Master Haider. Shirin’s pile of pretty dresses was kept in a small basket beside the bed.

Laila was gazing at her world this evening through her mother’s telescope. ‘This is my humble world,’ Laila cried. ‘Thank you, Mother – it was so good to hear your voice again … Please forgive me for hurting you!’ The ritual of self-flagellation had begun and she finished with her offering of a thanksgiving
nafl
prayer.

Daniela’s case was packed and she turned to Arslan with a smile.

‘I’m going to my husband! I’ve taken up enough of your wonderful family’s hospitality and valuable time,’ she explained. ‘I’ve two choices: either to return to England or join Ismail.’

‘Yes,’ Arslan stammered, ‘but his family have only just found out about you. Please give them time.’

‘I am missing my husband and if I leave it any longer, I’m afraid I’ll lose him entirely. What if they pressure him into marrying that fiancée of his?’

‘They won’t do that!’ Arslan sharply informed her. ‘I wouldn’t let them. Very few Muslim men ever abandon their pregnant wives, and only in exceptional circumstances. Ismail is yours, and yours alone – believe me, Daniela.’

‘Thank you,’ she uttered softly, eyes filling up, anxiety still written all over her face.

‘Please take me to my husband. I want to be under the same
roof as my Ismail! I’ll put up with whatever his parents do to me!’

‘Let destiny take its own course,’ Arslan muttered aloud. ‘OK, Daniela, I’ll take you.’

‘You will?’ she exclaimed in delight. ‘Thank you, Arslan!’ And she rushed to plant a kiss on his cheek just as her hostess entered the room.

Daniela stepped away, red-cheeked.

‘Mother, it’s not what you think!’ Arslan hastened to explain, trying to shake off his embarrassment. His mother attempted to form some words but failed. ‘She’s English, Mother, and comes from another culture. Kissing men and women on the cheeks is very normal for English people – this is her way of thanking me for our hospitality.’

‘Thanking!
Besharm
people!’ Outraged, his mother at last found her tongue. ‘Kissing strange men! Is that normal behaviour?’

‘Yes, there it is! And we’ve to accept and respect that way of life. Whatever you say, Mother, Daniela was only thanking me because I’m taking her to Ismail’s house.’ His flat tone didn’t convince her, but the words did.

‘Take her then! I don’t want her under the same roof as you if this is the way she will behave, Arslan!’ Now in an uncharitable mood, Gulbahar was eager to be rid of this unwanted,
besharm
female guest. She had lost her only daughter to a potter’s son and she was not about to lose her only son to her nephew’s cast-off! Wife or no wife!

‘What did your mother say?’ Daniela timidly asked, though astutely able to guess what they might be saying. Her hostess did not look her in the eye and Daniela knew she had deeply offended the older woman by kissing her son.

‘Right, let’s go, Daniela!’

‘Thank you so much for your kind hospitality,’ Daniela warmly offered in English to Gulbahar before picking up her handbag and adding, ‘
Shukria
!’ in Urdu.

Gulbahar stood by the door, trying to smile, but her stiff face let her down.

As they crossed the courtyard, Begum came running out of the kitchen. Her mouth dropped open as she saw Daniela’s case.

‘Is she leaving, Master Arslan?’

‘Yes, but only going to the next village, to Ismail’s house, Begum.’

‘Oh!’ Begum closed her eyes in horror, imagining the drama likely to unfold in the other
hevali
.

Gulbahar had already phoned to warn her sister of the
goorie’s
impending arrival. Mehreen collapsed on her bedroom armchair.

‘Your English daughter-in-law is on her way, Liaquat-ji!’ she whimpered bitterly through quivering lips.

‘I’ll let no foreign slut into this house!’ Liaquat threw at his wife across the room, the contours of his face rigid with anger, nostrils flaring. Mehreen withered, mind ablaze. Heat flushed through her body, spiralling fast up her neck and into her face.