One week passed. The house behind the cactus hedge continued to remain without visitors. Off and on, a car would go by, leaving clouds of dust behind. In her mind, passing cars and buses were now associated with Haibat Khan. They had something to do with his absence.
One afternoon, while both women were about to take a nap after lunch, they heard a car stop outside. It honked, but it was not Haibat Khan’s car. Who was it then?
Sardar went outside to make sure it was not one of the old customers, in which case she would send him on his way. It was Haibat Khan. He sat in the driver’s seat but it was not his car. With him was a well-dressed, rather beautiful woman.
Haibat Khan stepped out, followed by the woman. Sardar was confused. What was this woman doing with him? Who was she? Why had he brought her here?
They entered the house without taking any notice of her. She followed them inside after a while and found all three of them sitting next to one another on the bed. There was a strange silence about everything. The woman, who was wearing heavy gold ornaments, appeared to be somewhat nervous.
Sardar stood at the door and when Haibat Khan looked up she greeted him, but he made no acknowledgement. He was in a state of great and visible agitation.
The woman said to Sardar, ‘Well, we are here; why don’t you get us something to eat?’
‘I’ll have it ready in no time, whatever you wish,’ Sardar replied, suddenly the hostess.
There was something about the woman which suggested authority. ‘Go to the kitchen,’ she ordered Sardar. ‘Get the fire going. Do you have a big cooking pot?’
‘Yes.’ Sardar shook her head.
‘Rinse it well. I’ll join you later,’ she said. Then she rose from the bed and began examining the gramophone.
Apologetically, Sardar said, ‘One cannot buy meat around here.’
‘It’ll be provided,’ the woman said. ‘And look, I want a big fire. Now, go and do what you have been told.’
Sardar left. The woman smiled and addressed Nawab, ‘Nawab, we have brought you gold bangles.’
She opened her handbag and produced heavy, ornate gold bangles, wrapped in red tissue paper.
Nawab looked at Haibat Khan, who sat next to her, very still. ‘Who is this woman, Khan?’ she asked in a frightened voice.
Playing with the gold bangles, the woman said, ‘Who am I? I am Haibat Khan’s sister.’ Then she looked at Haibat Khan, who seemed to have suddenly shrunk. ‘My name is Halakat,’ she said, addressing Nawab.
Nawab could not understand what was going on, but she felt terrified.
The woman moved towards Nawab, took her hands and began to slip the gold bangles on them. Then she said to Haibat Khan, ‘I want you to leave the room. Let me dress her up nicely and bring her to you.’
Haibat Khan looked mesmerized. He did not move. ‘Leave the room. Didn’t you hear me?’ she told him sharply.
He left the room, looking at Nawab as he walked out.
The kitchen was outside the house. Sardar had got the fire going. He did not speak to her, but walked past the cactus hedge, out on the road. He looked half-demented.
A bus approached. He had an urge to flag it down, get on board and disappear. But he did no such thing. The bus sped by, coating him with dust. He tried to shout after it, but his voice seemed to have gone.
He wanted to rush back into the house where he had spent so many nights of pleasure, but his feet seemed to be embedded in the ground.
He just stood there, trying to take stock of the situation. The woman who was now in the house, he had known a long time. He used to be a friend of her husband, who was dead. He remembered their first encounter many years ago. He had gone to console her after her husband’s death and had ended up being her lover. It was very sudden. She had simply commanded him to take her, as if he was a servant being asked to perform a simple task.
Haibat Khan had not been very experienced with women. When Shahina, who had told Nawab her name was Halakat, or death, had become his lover, he had felt as if he had accomplished something in his life. She was rich in her own right and now had her husband’s money. However, he was not interested in that. She was the first real woman in his life and he had let her seduce him.
For a long time he stood on the road. Finally, he went back to the house. The front door was closed and Sardar was cooking something in the kitchen.
He knocked and it was opened. All he could see was blood on the floor and Shahina leaning against the wall. ‘I have dressed up your Nawab for you very nicely,’ she said.
‘Where is she?’ he asked, his throat dry with terror.
‘Some of her is on the bed, but most of her is in the kitchen,’ she replied.
Haibat Khan began to tremble. He could now see that there was blood on the floor and a long knife. There was someone on the bed, covered with a bloodstained sheet.
Shahina smiled. ‘Do you want me to lift the sheet and show you what I have there? It is your Nawab. I have made her up with great care. But perhaps you should eat first. You must be hungry. Sardar is cooking the most delicious meat in the world. I prepared it myself.’
‘What have you done?’ Haibat Khan screamed.
Shahina smiled again. ‘Darling, this is not the first time. My husband, like you, was also faithless. I had to kill him and then throw his severed limbs for wild birds to feast on. Since I love you, instead of you, I have—’
She did not complete the sentence, but removed the sheet from the heap on the bed. Haibat Khan fainted and fell to the floor.
When he came to, he was in a car. Shahina was driving. They seemed to be in a wild country.
Translated by Khalid Hasan
God–Man
CHAUDHRY MAUJO was sitting on a cot of coarse string-matting under the shady banyan, leisurely puffing away at his hookah. Wispy balls of smoke rose from his mouth and dissipated slowly in the stagnant air of the scorching afternoon.
Ploughing his little patch of land all morning had left him totally exhausted. The sun was unbearably hot, but there was nothing like the cool smoke of the hookah to suck away all the fatigue within seconds.
The sweat on his body had dried, and although the stagnant air was hardly any comfort for his overheated body, the cool and delicious smoke of the hookah was spiralling up to his head in indescribable waves of exhilaration.
It was nearing the time when Jaina, his daughter, would bring his repast of bread and lassi from home. She was very punctual about it, even though she didn’t have a soul to help her. She’d had her mother, but Maujo had divorced her two years ago following a lengthy and particularly nasty argument.
Young Jaina was a very dutiful girl. She took good care of her father. She was diligent in finishing her work so there would be time to card cotton and prepare it for spinning, or to chat with the few girlfriends she had.
Maujo didn’t own much land, but it was enough to provide for his needs. His was a very small village, tucked away in a far-flung spot with no access to the railway. There was just a dirt road that connected it to a large village quite some distance away. Twice a month Chaudhry Maujo mounted his mare and rode there to buy necessities at a couple of shops.
He used to be a happy man, blissfully free of worries, except for the thought that sometimes assailed him: He had no male offspring. At such times he contented himself by thinking that he should be happy with whatever God had willed for him. But, after his wife had gone back to her parents, his life was no longer the same. It had become unspeakably cheerless and drab. It was as if she had carried all its delicious coolness and exuberance away with her.
Maujo was a religious man, but he knew only a few fundamentals of his faith: God is One and must be worshipped; Muhammad is His Prophet and it is incumbent to follow his teaching; and the Quran is the word of God which was revealed to Muhammad. That’s about it.
Ritual
daily prayers and the Ramzan fast – well, these he had dispensed with. The village was far too small to afford a mosque; there were only a dozen or so houses, situated far apart. People did repeat ‘Allah! Allah!’ often enough in their speech and carried His fear in their hearts, but that was the extent of their devotion. Nearly every household had a copy of the Quran, but no one knew how to recite it. Everyone had placed it high up on a shelf, reverentially wrapped in its velvet sheath. It was only brought down from its sanctum when it was needed for someone to swear by it or take an oath to do something.
The maulvi was called in only when a boy or girl needed to be married. The village folk took care of the funeral prayer themselves in their own tongue, not Arabic.
Chaudhry Maujo came in especially handy on such occasions. He had a way with words. They never failed to affect the listener deeply. No one could equal his manner of eulogizing the deceased and praying for his deliverance. Just last year when the strapping son of his friend Deeno died and was laid to rest in his grave, Maujo eulogized him thus:
‘Oh, what a handsome young man he was! When he spat, the spittle landed twenty yards away. No one, and I mean no one, in any villages far or near could match the sturdy projectile of his piss. And what an accomplished wrestler he was! He could wriggle out of an opponent’s hold as easily as unbuttoning a shirt.’
‘Deeno, yaar, this is the worst day of your life! This terrible blow will affect you for the rest of your life. Was this the time for such a robust young man to die…such a handsome young man? How the goldsmith’s lovely and headstrong daughter Neti had cast magic spells on him to win his love, but, bravo, your boy, Deeno, remained steadfast. He never gave in to her wiles. May God present him with the loveliest houri in Heaven, and may your boy never be tempted by her. And may God shower him with his mercy and blessings! Amen!’
Several people, Deeno included, were so affected by this oratory that they started crying inconsolably, and even Maujo couldn’t stop his tears from bubbling out.
Maujo didn’t feel the need to send for the maulvi when the idea of divorcing his wife got hold of his mind. He’d heard from elders that repeating the word ‘talaq’ three times over ended the matter then and there. So he ended the matter accordingly. Next day, though, he felt very sorry and ashamed that he had committed such a heinous blunder. Such squabbles were, after all, common among husbands and wives. They didn’t always end in divorce. He should have been more forgiving.
He liked his Phataan. She was no longer young, but Maujo was in love with her body. He also liked the things she talked about. Above all else, she was his Jaina’s mother. But it was too late now; the arrow had already left the bow. There was no way for it to fly back. Whenever he thought about the matter, the otherwise refreshing smoke of his beloved hookah caught in his throat like something bitter.
Jaina was a beautiful girl, the very image of her mother. In the space of just two years, she had suddenly blossomed from a little girl into a stunningly beautiful young woman. Her effervescent youth was spilling out of every pore of her body. Her marriage was among Maujo’s constant worries, which made him miss Phataan even more. How easily she could have taken care of everything!
Rearranging his tehmad and himself on the cot, Maujo took a rather long drag on his hookah and started to cough. Just then he heard a voice, ‘As-salamu alaikum, and may God’s mercy and blessings be upon you!’
Maujo started and turned around to look. He saw a long-bearded elderly man in flowing lily-white clothes. He returned the greeting and wondered where the man had materialised from.
The stranger had big, commanding eyes smeared with kohl and long, flowing locks of hair. His hair and beard were a blend of grey and black, with the grey predominating, and he wore a snow-white turban. An embroidered, saffron-coloured silk sash was thrown over his shoulder and he held a thick staff with a silver ball at the top. He had a pair of delicate shoes of soft red leather on his feet.
The man’s appearance inspired immediate respect in Maujo. He quickly got up and asked courteously, ‘Where are you from and when did you arrive?’
The man’s lips, shadowed by a moustache trimmed in the fashion recommended by Islamic custom, curved into a smile. ‘Where do fakirs come from? They have no place to call home, and there is no fixed time for their arrival, or for when they leave. They go wherever God wills them to, and stop where He orders them to halt.’
The words affected Maujo deeply. He took the elder’s hand in his with great reverence, kissed it, and then touched it to his eyes, saying, ‘Consider Chaudhry Maujo’s house your own.’
The elderly man smiled and sat down on the cot, lowering his head over his staff and wrapping his hands around the ball. ‘Perhaps some good deed you did has so pleased God, eminent is His majesty, that He has sent this sinner your way.’
An overjoyed Maujo asked, ‘So you have come here at His behest?’
The maulvi raised his head and said in a huff, ‘Who else’s? You think I came here at your command? Am I your servitor or His whom I have worshipped for a good forty years to reach my insignificant station?’
Maujo shivered. He asked in his coarse but entirely sincere way to be forgiven for his unintended lapse. ‘Maulvi Sahib, we uncouth village folk, who don’t even know how to offer our prayer properly, often end up making such mistakes. We are sinners. But to forgive, and have God also forgive us, behooves you.’
‘Precisely. That’s why I’m here,’ said the maulvi, closing his big kohllined eyes.
Chaudhry Maujo sat on the bare ground and started massaging the maulvi’s legs. Meanwhile Jaina appeared. The minute she saw the other man, she quickly pulled her veil over her head and face. His eyes still closed, the maulvi asked, ‘Who is it, Chaudhry Maujo?’
‘Jaina, my daughter, Maulvi Sahib.’
The maulvi looked at Jaina through his half-closed eyes and said to Maujo, ‘Tell her that we are fakirs, there is no need to observe purdah before us.’
‘Of course not. No purdah at all, Maulvi Sahib.’ Then, looking at Jaina he said, ‘He is Maulvi Sahib, among God’s most favoured devotees. Remove your veil.’
Jaina lifted her veil. The maulvi looked at the girl for as long as his heart desired and told Maujo, ‘Chaudhry Maujo, you’ve got a beautiful daughter.’
Jaina blushed.
‘She takes after her mother,’ Maujo said.
‘Where is her mother?’ The maulvi looked again at the girl’s blossoming youth.
Maujo felt out of his wits. He didn’t know what to say.
The maulvi asked again, ‘Where is her mother?’
Flabbergasted, Maujo blurted out, ‘She died.’
The maulvi, his eyes riveted on the girl, noticed her reaction and said in a thundering voice, ‘You’re lying!’
Maujo timidly grabbed the maulvi’s feet out of contrition. ‘Yes, I lied,’ he said, feeling remorseful. ‘Please forgive me. I’m a big liar. I divorced her, Maulvi Sahib.’
With a long ‘hu-u-u-u-h’ the maulvi turned his eyes away from Jaina’s veil and trained them on Maujo. ‘You’re a big sinner! What was the poor woman’s fault?’
Drowned in utter shame, Maujo said meekly, ‘I’m really confused. It was just a trifling, nothing serious, but it got out of hand and ended up in divorce. I’m truly a sinner. I was regretting my action the very next day. I told myself it was a foolish thing to do, but it was already too late. It was pointless to dwell on regret.
The maulvi put his staff on Maujo’s shoulder. ‘The sublime and lofty God is full of mercy and grace. If He wills, he can fix what is spoiled. If He wills, He will order this lowly fakir to find a way out of this difficulty for you.’
A grateful Maujo fell on the maulvi’s feet and began to cry. The maulvi again glanced at Jaina, who was also in tears. ‘Come here, girl!’
His voice was so commanding that Jaina simply couldn’t ignore it. She p
ut the food and lassi aside and approached the cot. The maulvi grabbed her arm and ordered her to sit down.
When she lowered herself to the ground, he pulled her up by her arm. ‘Come, sit by my side.’
Jaina drew her body together as she sat next to him. The maulvi threw his arm around her waist and pulled her closer, pressing her to his side. ‘What have you brought for us to eat?’ he asked.
Jaina tried to pull away a little but she found the hand on her waist quite unyielding. ‘Roti, saag, and lassi,’ she replied.
The maulvi squeezed her firm, slender waist. ‘Okay, lay it out for us.’
Jaina got up to lay out the food. Meanwhile, the maulvi tapped the silver hilt of his staff on Maujo’s shoulders a couple of times. ‘Get up, Maujo, and wash our hands.’
Maujo sprang to his feet, drew water from the nearby well and, like the devoted acolyte of a holy man, washed the maulvi’s hands. The girl laid out the meal on the cot.
After the maulvi had devoured all the food himself, he ordered Jaina to wash his hands. She couldn’t very well refuse. After all, the maulvi’s bearing and appearance and his manner of talking were so commanding.
The maulvi belched noisily and pronounced loudly, ‘Al-hamdu lillah!’ He then ran his wet hands over his beard, belched a second time, and stretched out on the cot, all the while gazing at Jaina’s chador that had slid down from her face. Jaina quickly gathered the pots and left. The maulvi closed his eyes and announced, ‘Maujo, we’re going to take a nap now.’
Maujo massaged the maulvi’s legs until he dozed off and then withdrew. Going off to one side, Maujo lit a couple of cow dung cakes, gave his chillum a fresh piece of tobacco, and started smoking the hookah on an empty stomach. But he was happy. He felt that a heavy burden had been lifted off his chest somehow. In his characteristic rustic but sincere manner he thanked God, the Most High, Who had sent along His angel of mercy in the guise of Maulvi Sahib.
Initially he was of a mind to stay by the maulvi, in case he needed some service, but when the man didn’t wake up for quite some time, Maujo went to his field and resumed his work. He didn’t care at all that he was hungry; rather, he was beside himself with happiness because the maulvi had eaten his share of the food, which he considered a great blessing for himself.
The Dog of Tithwal Page 18
