Shabanu (20 page)

She finishes brushing and stands me up, arranging the hair around my shoulders like a cape, the way Phulan has been wearing hers.

“It softens your chin,” she says, tilting my face away to examine my profile. Then she pushes my hair back behind my shoulders. “You have lovely hair, long and wavy. It’s better then Phulan’s!” I flush with pleasure.

“What choice do I have, Auntie Sharma?” I whisper.

She rummages in a sack and hauls out a tin of dried and caked black eye makeup that looks as if it hasn’t seen the light of day for years. She dips a tiny three-haired brush in a cup of water and squints with concentration as she outlines my eyes. Again she holds my chin, turning my face up to the golden glow of the kerosene lamp. She puts rouge on my lips. It tastes like soap. A smile spreads across her face slowly, lighting her up like the night when the stars come out.

“You do have a choice, my little quail,” she says softly.

She stands me up again and pushes my shoulders back.

“What!” I demand in as soft a whisper as I can manage.

“You listen well at the
mahendi
,” she says. The
mahendi
is the first ceremony of the wedding, when the women have their hands and feet painted with henna. They sit through the night singing and talking. The married women tell the bride the secrets of making a man happy. My eyes widen.

“Shabanu,” says Sharma, “Fatima is right. There is a chance that you can keep Rahim-
sahib
’s interest if you learn some of the tricks of women.”

“You said there was a choice,” I say calmly, for my heart is thrashing inside my breast, and my mind is a confused jumble of fear, rebellion, pleasure, and curiosity.

“The choice is, you try to make him so happy he can’t bear to be away from you a single moment. If he treats you badly, come stay with us.”

She says it so simply I hardly believe the words.

“But Dadi would kill me—and you—all three of us!”

“Oh, he’d be angry,” says Sharma. “But he’d never harm a hair on your head. And he wouldn’t lay a hand on me!”

Eight days before
the wedding our relatives pour in from the far reaches of Cholistan, a stream of people in desert pink, electric blue, and printed patterns. Their bright turbans and
chadrs
bob like boats on the monsoon mirage. Many walk, urging along herds of sheep, goats, and cows with whistles and shouts. Others ride camels in mirrored and tasseled wedding livery.

They shout greetings to one another, their voices mingling
with the laughter of children and the creaking of ox and camel carts as they pull in from the desert.

Uncle arrives from Rahimyar Khan by jeep, and the relatives grow quiet when they hear the motor whine through loose sand in the distance. Uncle climbs down from the hired vehicle, brushing dust from his western trousers and lace-up shoes. His shirt bulges open between the buttons over his belly. His sons greet him with shouts and up-stretched arms, clinging to his jacket. He lifts them and they cover his face with kisses.

He pinches their cheeks and they squeal. Dadi and Uncle embrace and hold each other at arm’s length, laughing and exchanging bits of news. Uncle looks over Dadi’s head, eying our new gold jewelry.

“You did well at Sibi!” says Uncle.

“Much has happened since we last met,” Dadi says. Uncle asks about Hamir’s death, and they move away to talk alone. Uncle glances at me as Dadi tells him of my betrothal to Rahim
-sahib
.

Auntie is in the courtyard, clucking and fussing, happy to have Uncle with her again. His eyes follow her slimmer figure as she carries his clothes and bedding from the jeep.

Phulan nudges me and covers a smile with her
chadr
. Mama looks at her sharply, and I pull her away to say hello to Adil, who has arrived by camel with his wife, and the new infant—a son! Everyone makes a fuss over the baby boy: “He looks like Adil” and “His cheeks are so round …”

Adil’s wife, a thin girl of sixteen, says little but smiles
at the compliments to her infant son. The little girls cling to her skirt.

Hundreds of cousins from both sides of the clan come with bundles of gifts. More lean-tos spring up along the edge of the desert as our relatives settle down for the celebration.

The monsoon sky is pearly with white, humid heat. There are showers in the afternoon, just enough to cool the air. Then the sun comes out, and vapor rises in curls and wisps.

“How lucky that Phulan’s wedding is blessed with fair weather,” says Mama as we sit in the courtyard in front of the houses, stitching last-minute gifts for Murad’s family. Her eyes are bright. My thoughts turn to our
toba
, and I hope that the rain will fill it so we can return to Cholistan after the wedding.

Phulan spends her time sighing and lounging, pulling me aside to complain about a detail or to tell me how lucky she is or how unhappy she is.

“I’m so frightened, Shabanu,” she says. “When things are so perfect I’m afraid something will go wrong again.”

“You’ve had your bad luck,” I tell her. “Now, stop talking that way.”

I find her happiness painful, but I talk gently to her, glad when another group of relatives comes to leave gifts and admire her.

The musicians drift in amid the crowds of cousins and their animals—dozens of singers and drummers and
shenai
players, dancing to their own music and talking and
laughing as they come. They play in the evenings around campfires in the desert around us and at the farm. Some of their music is haunting, some is joyous.

Sometimes, as I lie under the quilt looking up at the starlit sky, a lone shepherd beckons his sheep with a flute from the top of a distant dune. The music makes me long for Cholistan.

Rahim
-sahib
sends his man on the white horse again, this time with strands of pearls and rubies for Phulan to wear in her hair for the wedding.

“Oh, Shabanu,” she whispers, her breath perfumed with fennel, “your future husband is wonderful!’

“He’s used to buying what he wants,” I say. Phulan’s eyes widen and her lips part. “I wonder if he casts off what he buys after he doesn’t want it.”

“Shabanu!” she says, shocked.

“A man who takes four wives—even though the Koran allows it—must be greedy!”

“How can you say that?”

I clamp my mouth shut, but I am not ashamed of what I think. I decide not to say more for fear Phulan will tell Dadi.

In a clearing between our mud houses and the farm, a man with a stick stands guard, occasionally chasing off a swarm of children who descend upon men making sweets in heavy cauldrons surrounded by pungent smells and clouds of flies.

The men sing and dance late every night. The few times our own camp is quiet, raucous laughter and the throbbing
of drums carry from the fields near Murad’s house across the canal.

Two days before the wedding, Bibi Lal abandons her vigil over Hamir’s grave at midday. In the golden evening light she heads a procession of women to our house for the
mahendi
celebration. Wearing a dress of muslin, the cloth of mourning, Bibi Lal looks like a giant white lily among her cousins and nieces, who carry baskets of sweets atop their flower-colored
chadrs
. They sing and dance through the fields, across the canal, to our settlement at the edge of the desert.

Sakina carries a wooden box containing henna. The
mahendi
women, Hindus from a village deep in the desert who will paint our hands and feet, walk behind her. Musicians and a happy cacophony of horns, pipes, and cymbals drift around them.

Mama, the servant girl, and I have prepared a curry of chicken, dishes of spiced vegetables, sweet rice, and several kinds of bread to add to the food that the women of Murad’s family bring. We have brewed tea with cardamom and cinnamon in a huge cauldron that will remain on the fire through the night.

Sharma has washed and brushed my hair. I wear a new pink tunic. She lines my eyes and rubs the brilliant lapis powder into my lids. Fatima stains my lips and cheeks with the palest rouge. Sharma holds me away from her and turns me in a slow circle while they inspect me.

“You are lovely, my pigeon,” says Sharma. “If you hold
your head high, you will tweak the hearts of any who think you are sad about losing Murad.” Her wisdom is great enough to see the gaping black hole in my heart. I trust her more than any living soul. To please her I throw my shoulders back before I duck through the doorway.

Mama and Phulan follow me with their eyes when I emerge from Sharma’s house, but Mama smiles, her look one of admiration and surprise more than disapproval.

We greet the women from Murad’s family with warm embraces.

“You look beautiful … Is this little Shabanu? She’s grown into a woman!” Many of Murad’s cousins are ours as well.

“Come, sit here, close to us.”

They sit and talk with us until the sun sets. Then Bibi Lal leads them back to their settlement, leaving Phulan to a last night with the women of her family.

Our own close relatives settle in rings around the courtyard, Mama’s closest cousins in front. They light fires and candles, and their laughter and talk enfold us.

The
mahendi
women open the carved wooden box and mix the musty-smelling clay with water. They pour the thick, reddish liquid into little ceramic bowls.

Phulan sits on a small stool in the center of the women. Her yellow
chadr
surrounds her in a golden glow. She wears no makeup and her skin is delicate and translucent, her lips pale. Her only jewelry is a tinkly silver chain around each ankle.

Mama is the first of seven married women to dip a finger into the bowl of henna and make a reddish dot on Phulan’s outstretched palm.

I am ashamed of my anger that it is Phulan and not me sitting amid our relatives accepting advice on marrying Murad. But I mustn’t feel sorry for myself. I press my shoulder blades together and lift my head.

We serve food and tea as a
mahendi
woman paints a delicate design around the seven marks on Phulan’s palm.

It will be different when Rahim
-sahib
and I marry. His people will scorn us and our shoes with turned-up toes and rough cotton tunics. How I envy Phulan the warm circle of our women for the rest of her life!

The
mahendi
woman dips her slender index finger into the cup of red clay repeatedly, holding Phulan’s palm flat. She bends her head in concentration on the intricate leaves and flowers of the tree of life, her finger deft and sure.

“Tell me, Sharma,” Phulan says softly. “What am I supposed to learn tonight?”

Sharma sits beside Phulan, leaning against the bolster next to her and looking into her eyes. I move close to them.

“Do you know about love between a man and a woman?” Sharma asks. Phulan’s cheeks darken, and she fixes her eyes downward on the Mogul pattern emerging on her palm.

“You must learn to please him,” Sharma continues. Auntie is straining to hear, but Fatima, Mama, and I have taken the spots around Sharma and Phulan. The singing
of the women has grown full and rhythmic, the beat marked by their clapping palms, the slapping of bare feet on the desert floor, and the jangle of ankle bells and bangles.

“I’ll please him by having sons,” says Phulan. “Isn’t that what pleases a man most?”

“Bah!” says Sharma. “Having babies only stretches what will please him most.”

Phulan gasps and Auntie puts her hand to her mouth. Fatima and I laugh, but Phulan is flustered, and Auntie moves away, her eyes scanning the closest circles for somewhere else to sit.

Sharma takes Phulan’s face between her palms and looks into her eyes, speaking solemnly.

“Phulan, your beauty is great. But beauty holds only part of a man, and that for just so long. Keep some of yourself hidden. You can lavish love and praise on him and work hard by his side. Yes, and have your sons. That will help. But the secret is keeping your innermost beauty, the secrets of your soul, locked in your heart so that he must always reach out to you for it.”

Phulan looks confused, but she smiles sweetly and thanks Sharma for the advice. Sharma’s words lift my heart, and it soars like a partridge taking flight from the desert floor. I see myself in a new light, with value I’d never attached to myself before. There are secrets that will lie deep in my heart, for me alone. I repeat Sharma’s exact words, committing them to memory, and know they are the perfect gift of wisdom.

Sharma, Mama, and I make room for other women who come to offer advice, and Phulan listens languidly to talk of putting magical herbs under Murad’s pillow at night to stir his desire for her, and how she must look down when he speaks to her.

“I’m afraid your words were lost on her,” Mama says to Sharma. “But she’s beautiful, and I hope Murad will love her well enough. Perhaps he can teach her wisdom of his own.”

Mama’s words stab at my heart. I repeat Sharma’s words, trying to apply them like medicine to a wound. Tears come to the back of my eyes, where I manage to hold them, but the pressure is painful. I swallow several times, and Fatima slips her hand over mine without looking at me.

I sit quietly while the
mahendi
women paint my own hands and feet. I am soothed by their quiet, steady hands, and by the voices of the singing and laughing women around me. I awake around dawn, without having been aware of falling asleep. The women fold their quilts, yawning, while a lone flute plays. Mama hands me a cup of spiced tea and sits down beside me, the fire crackling behind her. She looks tired.

“It will be time to dress Phulan soon,” she says. I’d as soon dump the henna left standing in ceramic bowls over Phulan as dress her in jewels and silk to marry Murad.

“I know it’s difficult, Shabanu,” Mama says. “But you are young, and there is time for your heart to heal.” She strokes my hair. “Sharma is right. In your way you are as
great a beauty as your sister. But you have much to learn before your strength works
for
you instead of
against
you.”

I throw my arms around her neck and hold her tight. The tears spill over. If I can be as wise and beautiful as she and Sharma, surely I’ll be happy.