Shabanu

by Suzanne Fisher Staples

  Her daughter-in-law Kulsum walks behind Bibi Lal, an infant clutched against her shoulder. Kulsum’s small daughter walks beside her, a bare-bottomed two-year-old boy on her hip; her five-year-old son runs beside them, driving two goats with a stick. Kulsum is a few years older than Phulan. She is thin and pale, with deep lines around her mouth and eyes.

  Kulsum wears white to mourn her husband, Lal Khan, the elder brother of Hamir and Murad. His body was found last year in a well that belongs to the landowner Nazir Mohammad.

  Bibi Lal raises her large, work-worn hand to her forehead and welcomes us.

  “How I wish my husband, peace be with him, were here!” she says. “He would be so happy to see the daughters of his beloved cousin marry our sons.”

  “My husband thought of him as a brother,” Mama says. “He loves your sons as if they were his own.”

  Bibi Lal folds Phulan into her arms and kisses her. Mama looks relieved. Many young women come to their husband’s houses as slaves to their mothers-in-law.

  “Sakina!” Bibi Lal shouts to her young daughter. “Stop dawdling and bring the ladle!”

  The water is sweet and cool. Never have I tasted such silvery freshness! There is plenty; Bibi Lal pours cup after cup for us until we can drink no more.

  Everyone focuses attention on Phulan. But I watch Kulsum and wonder whether bearing children will rob my sister of her beauty while she is still a girl.

  The women show us where to make our camp within walking distance of the canal.

  “Come here,” says Bibi Lal, “under the trees.”

  “We prefer to be in the open,” says Mama. “We are desert people!” Mama’s teeth dazzle white in her dark face, and Bibi Lal gives in.

  Bibi Lal insists on helping us make camp. She sends Sakina to fetch extra baskets and water for mixing mud and rolls her sleeves above her elbows. We build frames of cut tree branches and tie reed mats against them. We thatch the roofs with khip, build a mud platform to serve as kitchen and a second platform for prayers, with a small carved slab at one end that faces toward Mecca. We sing and laugh as we work.

  The clouds remain for several days after our fasting begins. We neither eat nor drink until the sun goes down, when we break our fast with tea. The first two days I feel dizzy and sleepy, but soon I am accustomed to an empty stomach. After prayers we have a meal of lentils, yogurt, and chapatis.

  Dadi sees Hamir and Murad every day. He brings news of them to the campfire. Hamir has built a cottage for Phulan on their land. A cottage! With an indoor kitchen, a separate room for sleeping, and a courtyard surrounded by a strong wall. The women are covering it now with mud, straw, and cow dung.

  Phulan’s eyes dance with excitement.

  “Have you seen him?” she asks Dadi. A girl never refers to the man she will marry by name.

  Dadi smiles and strokes her hair.

  “Hamir is noble and strong and handsome,” he replies, and Phulan claps her hands, then folds them over her smile, half in pleasure, half in embarrassment.

  We won’t see Hamir and Murad until the wedding day, and even then I’m not certain I will see Murad. I wonder what he looks like now. Has he grown handsome, or do his ears still stick out? Is his neck muscular now like Hamir’s?

  I strain my eyes toward the fields looking for Murad when I take the camels to graze. Then Dadi tells me I mustn’t take the camels out alone.

  “You must stay with Phulan every second,” he tells me.

  “But she won’t come with me to graze the camels!” Daydreaming has overtaken Phulan’s every waking minute.

  “You mustn’t go alone.”

  “Why not?” I demand. I am filled with dread that I might be kept from the camels and from wandering where I please.

  “Do as I say!” He turns and walks away.

  “Dadi, I have so little time.” My voice is barely a whisper. I’m not sure he heard. But he turns slowly toward me.

  “Nazir Mohammad has returned from the city,” he says.

  “Why should we fear him?” Dadi squints at me for a moment, then squats in the sand and gestures for me to join him.

  “This land was a patch of dust, good only for browsing camels, when Hamir’s father bought it,” he says. “Nazir Mohammad didn’t care about it then. When they dug the canal and planted crops, Nazir watched to see how the corn grew. The harder they worked, the more the land produced. And the angrier Nazir grew. Then one day Lal Khan didn’t come home. Hamir and Murad searched every inch of the land.

  “A month passed and Kulsum gave birth to her fourth child. Still no trace of Lal Khan. One day her son came running into the courtyard shouting that there was a terrible smell in Nazir’s old well. Kulsum dropped the baby into her daughter’s arms and ran with Hamir and Murad to the well. They found the remains of Lal Khan, his slippers pointing toward the sky.”

  “What does Nazir want?” My voice sounds thick and strange.

  “Nazir demands a quarter of their crops as compensation for farming the land. Hamir and Murad have stamped deeds, but the court has taken three years to rule. Perhaps Nazir is influencing the judge. He takes every opportunity to cause trouble.”

  “Shouldn’t we tell Phulan?” I ask.

  “Why ruin her wedding?” His eyes look weary. “She’ll have the rest of her life to worry. No, just stay with her and be sure to let your mother and me know where you are.”

  We spend the next week cooking sweets for the wedding, making dresses for the women of Hamir’s family, and dyeing turbans in bright colors for the men. I drag Phulan out to the fields with me to cut grass for fodder with long, curved sickles. I tell her we have little time to be together, and she comes willingly. I watch over my shoulder as I work.

  Kulsum and Sakina bring the children to visit us as we rest in the afternoons. Bibi Lal is kind to Kulsum, and people say she is lucky. But she will be a widow forever, and her grief shows always, even when she smiles.

  When the cottage for Hamir and Phulan is finished, Bibi Lal, Kulsum, and Sakina invite us to inspect it. We bring gifts: sweets made with nuts and raisins, scarves that we’ve embroidered with colored silk and mirrors, and dried mushrooms.

  Phulan’s eyes grow wide when she sees the house, a square brown box with mud walls and a thatched roof. It’s like any farmhouse at the edge of the desert, but this one is Phulan’s. She turns to us and her eyes are damp, her lips parted. She is speechless.

  Bibi Lal clucks at her and urges us inside. She takes the baby from Kulsum and settles him in a sling tied to the cottage rafters. She sends the older children outside to play and brings out a beautiful bottle with a silver base and stopper. She opens the top and passes it around for us to smell the sweet fragrance inside.

  “It’s jasmine oil. You must rub Phulan with it in the days before the wedding,” Bibi Lal tells Mama. “Add some cumin, and her skin will be fragrant and smooth and golden.” Phulan blushes with pleasure.

  Bibi Lal calls us outside, where tins of white paint sit open and glaring in the morning sun. On a cloth beside the tins are sticks with short goathairs tied to one end. Bibi Lal hands Kulsum a brush and asks her to begin the ceremony of decorating the house where Hamir and Phulan will conceive their sons.

  Kulsum paints a fish for fertility, her hand deft and sure. She dots the fish’s eye and hands the brush to Sakina, who paints circles intertwined for harmony in the family, her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth as she concentrates. I paint camels for wealth and hand the brush to Mama. She paints a row of lines with arms and legs and appendages that indicate the sons she wishes for Phulan.

  As we paint we talk about the cousins who will come to the wedding. Soon we have paint on our faces and in our hair. We laugh and chatter like sisters.

  Phulan is not supposed to paint her own house, for fear it will bring bad luck. When we finish we sit back to admire our work.

  The image of Kulsum, tired and anemic, haunts me. And as we leave, a twinge of regret that I have not seen Murad pinches m
y heart.

  The Landlord

  Sharma and Fatima are due to arrive within a week, and Phulan and I talk happily about seeing them as we fill our water pots at the canal.

  “Sharma says I’ll have a son the first year,” says Phulan. I hand a water jar up to her, but she’s looking at the tops of the trees.

  “Phulan!” She takes the jar from my hand and gives me an empty one.

  “She says if I eat plenty of lentils and milk and butter he’ll be fat and healthy. I hope he looks like his father.”

  Hamir is as different from Murad as I am from Phulan. He is wild, like Dadi says I am. He loves horses and rides them hard. But he’s insensitive, coming back with his horse lathered and breathing heavily. He is handsome and tall like Phulan, and impatient, a dreamer. I’ve always liked him less than Murad. He is the older brother by three years. He never had time to join our children’s games. But he is decent. I remember Murad going to him to decide when two of us claimed to have won a race. He offered us the choice of splitting the prize, a melon, or running the race again.

  Sharma’s words play through my mind, and the truth steals like a stranger into my heart: Phulan and I are very lucky for desert girls, marrying not only decent men but men who have land, who are richer than anyone in our family.

  “Don’t you think he is handsome?” asks Phulan.

  I consider for a moment. He was seventeen when we saw him last year at Adil’s wedding. He had a thick mustache and broad, strong hands. He stood very straight. But handsome? As compared with Murad’s thin neck and protruding ears, I’d have to say yes.

  “I suppose so,” I reply. How strange that we barely remember how they look, when very soon Phulan will see Hamir every day for the rest of her life.

  I hand Phulan another pot. When the pots are full, Phulan loads two pots on my head and I leave her behind to wash the cloths she uses during her monthly bleeding. She makes a major production of it, to show how grownup she is, and I turn my back on her as she hums over her washing beside the canal.

  Xhush Dil, Mithoo, and I walk slowly down the canal path toward our camp as the clouds part for a moment just before the sun sets, leaving a sheen like sun-ripened melon on the water.

  The air cools rapidly and mist rises from the canal, making ghostly shadows of the grasses and bushes against the opal sky. Perhaps this will be a good place to live after all.

  “Who is this?” asks a smooth, deep voice from the bottom of the canal bank. I look down at a fat man in a silk tunic and drawstring trousers. He leans on a hand-carved shotgun. Laughter booms out from the bushes.

  My heart quickens with the realization I’ve disobeyed and left Phulan alone. I lean back against Xhush Dil’s shoulder as if he’ll protect me. Another man with hard eyes, younger and slimmer than the first, steps out from behind a tree. He also has a gun. Both men wear elaborately embroidered caps, finely woven vests, and gold watches. A third man appears, and a fourth—a young man, still part boy.

  “How about this one?” the fat man asks the boy-man.

  “She’s just a child, Uncle,” he replies, looking me over, up and down with eyes that have seen a great deal for one his age.

  I cover my face, for the men look as if they are taking me apart with their eyes. For the first time I’m grateful that I am small and not so elegant as Phulan. But she will come this same way in a moment, and they will want to take her with them, surely as the mustard blooms in spring!

  “That one!” says the slim man, pointing a manicured finger up the canal.

  Phulan walks slowly along the bank, her bangles clinking on her brown arm, slender hips swaying, the basket of knotted, wet cloths atop the water jar on her head, another round jar under her arm. She hasn’t seen the men yet, and she looks beautiful and dreamy with the lowering sun glowing behind her like a halo.

  The men watch as Phulan catches up with me, her face uncovered and lovely, her nose disk glinting in reflected sunlight, her graceful, pale fingers molded around the curves of the water jars. When she sees the men she stops, but she doesn’t seem alarmed.

  “Yes,” says the fat one. “The one who bags the most quails gets that one.” There is more laughter.

  “What about me?” asks one of them. “I shot the only blue bull. I should have her.”

  “Well?” asks the fat one, turning to Phulan. “We’ll pay you handsomely—land, jewelry, money, anything you like.”

  Phulan puts her hand on her hip and thrusts it forward, a defiant look on her face. Her breasts are high and firm under her thin cotton tunic.

  Oh, I could kill her. What is she thinking? Mama has warned us dozens of times: Nazir Mohammad, the landowner, has hunting parties. He offers each of his guests a girl, usually a tenant from his land, for the time they are with him. When the man is finished with her, he gives her cash and sends her back to her family. Some people are grateful for the money and are willing to forget the indignity. But Hamir and Dadi won’t, I’m certain.

  “We’re not tenants,” I say to him, poking Phulan sharply with my elbow as I step in front of her. “You have no claim over us!”

  Nazir Mohammad laughs, and a diamond ring sparkles on his finger.

  “This little one is a hot-blooded thing,” he says, coming closer.

  We are trapped. Both of us have jars of water on our heads. We can’t turn and run away from this leering fat man. The thought of him sweating over Phulan makes me ill. I snap my head forward, tossing the water jugs down the side of the embankment, and the men scatter as the jars break, splashing mud onto the landlord’s silken trousers.

  He curses and the others laugh. I push the jar from Phulan’s head down the embankment, and Nazir Mohammad curses and stumbles in an effort to scramble up the embankment after us, his fat bottom wobbling behind him. The others laugh at his clumsiness, and his face is blue with rage.

  Phulan drops the other clay water jar. She is immobilized with fear. Without having Xhush Dil kneel I swing up onto his neck and pull Phulan up behind me. She is not so agile as I am, and her legs dangle as she tries to pull herself up. I stand and work my way up onto Xhush Dil’s hump, pulling Phulan high enough to grab his neck. Our skirts hike up with our struggle, and Nazir splutters, his feet and trousers muddy, near the top of the embankment. The other men bend at the waist and slap their thighs with thick, hairy hands, tears of helpless mirth streaming down their cheeks.

  Mithoo is alarmed now and dances around Xhush Dil as if the big camel were his mother. I urge Xhush Dil into a trot along the canal path, deciding these men must not see where we are going. But they are laughing so hard they aren’t watching. They crumple against one another, holding their stomachs as Xhush Dil gathers speed. We gallop along, Mithoo struggling to keep up but falling farther behind with each of Xhush Dil’s long strides.

  Nazir Mohammad has made it to the top of the embankment, cursing in rage and shaking his gun in the air.

  Terrified that we are leaving him behind, Mithoo bolts from the canal path and heads straight for our camp. Our makeshift shelters look like desert shrubbery, except that Mama has started a fire, and a dot of orange glints beside the clumps of matting, a thin curl of bluish smoke rising against the early evening sky.

  I look back over my shoulder, and the landlord and his friends stand atop the embankment, watching Mithoo’s wild-legged progress toward our camp.

  Still I urge Xhush Dil along the canal path, hoping they won’t see where we are going, but my heart knows that they will follow at their leisure to take Phulan away.

  When we are out of their sight, I turn Xhush Dil down the embankment. Phulan holds on to me with all her might, terrified at the speed of our flight.

  Dadi meets us, his camel walking from the other direction, fodder slung in sacks on either side of the animal’s hump. I jump to the ground beside our lean- to before Xhush Dil kneels, and Phulan falls to the dirt.

  “Dadi, the landlord!” I shout, gasping for breath, my heart thundering against my ribs.

&
nbsp; “What is it?” he asks, jumping to the ground.

  Mama has been tending the fire to make tea when the sun goes down to break our fast. She sits back on her heels, still as a Buddha tree. She lifts her hands to her face. Auntie stands behind her, wringing her hands, silent for once.

  “They’re hunting quails by the canal. They’re coming for Phulan when they’ve finished. They’re going to take her away!”

  “Tell me what they said,” says Dadi, taking me by the shoulders and looking into my eyes.

  “They say they’ll pay. They want her. They saw Mithoo coming here, and the fire was burning.” The words tumble out.

  Dadi’s eyes harden, and suddenly I see the wrestler crouching in the circle of men, muscles bunched and bloodlust in the air.

  Gently he sets me aside and walks into the lean-to.

  “No!” says Mama, fear shaking in her voice. She stands and Dadi comes out, the old country gun glinting gray and ugly in his hands. “Abassi,” she says, her eyes begging. She runs to him and covers his thick hands with her slender brown fingers. “They’ll kill you without a thought.”

  “Nazir Mohammad is very angry,” I say quietly, and Dadi and Mama look at me. “I threw water on him.”

  Phulan looks from my face to Dadi’s to Mama’s, her fear mounting.

  “Stay by the fire,” Dadi says to Mama. “Shabanu, you and Phulan help Auntie pack the most important things. Leave what isn’t important. Take the dowry, bedding, and food. But keep the fire going.” He leaps onto the curve of his camel’s neck and tucks the gun under the girth of the saddle. He settles himself behind the camel’s hump.

  “Where are you going?” asks Mama.

  “Hamir will need to know. The landlord knows who we are. If he comes here looking for us and we’re not here, he’ll look for Hamir next. As soon as you can, head for Derawar.”

  He looks at me.

  “Keep the North Star behind your left shoulder,” he says. “Stay off the track. It will be slower, but they can’t follow you over the dunes in a jeep. I will catch up with you sometime in the night.”

  I feel hollow inside. The patterns of my life—the one I have known, the changes I was beginning to accept—shift, and the pieces turn in a swirling nightmare of patches that won’t fit together. But there is not time to think now. I am grateful to know exactly what to do.