Phulan has become nearly unbearable, ordering everyone to do things for her.
“Please, Shabanu,” she asks sweetly, “bring my scarf. Not the blue one, the green one.” The servant girl stays on, unobtrusively at first. She returns to her family at Rahim-sahib’s house each night, and we grow used to having her, especially with Phulan’s extra demands.
She experiments with makeup. Bibi Lal has given her a sculpted brass vial of golden powder and a pot of rouge. Every morning she lines her eyes with black kohl and massages the soft gold powder into the creases of her lids. The color softens on her skin, leaving her tiger eyes looking fiery. She wipes it away before Dadi comes home. But she’ll wear it on her wedding day.
Phulan spends her days resting, eating, and sleeping, being pampered and fussed over, trying on her dowry clothes and jewelry, and talking about the sons she will have.
Half of me longs to be Phulan. She will marry my own dear Murad, and she is beautiful. I am small and strong with too much spirit, and I think too much. I am lonely and fearful, and I long for the days when I was free in the desert.
Again the man on the white horse comes, the starched pleats of his turban dazzling in the monsoon sunlight. Dadi holds the reins as the man dismounts. This time he hands Dadi a tiny sack of lambskin tied with gold threads. Dadi thanks him, and the man bows formally. Mirrors dazzling on his vest, he remounts his silver horse and rides away again.
I untie the threads, and a silver vial with vines and flowers carved over its surface slides into my palm. I open the stopper, a tiny dove perched atop a long ivory applicator, and draw out a miniature spoonful of lapis lazuli powder to decorate my own eyes.
I do resent his trying to buy my heart. Bride price is common here in the desert—I don’t begrudge Mama and Dadi that. It has insured their future, and they won’t have to worry about drought or anything else ever again. But my heart. I never knew I had one until I lost Guluband. Was Guluband’s loss destined to prepare me for losing Murad? What will I lose next? Death I understood before. But loss for any other reason has always seemed unnecessary until now.
The night Hamir died seems like a bad dream, unreal but for the fact that he is gone, and I mourn privately for him and for myself, taking Xhush Dil into the desert and stealing as much time as I can to be among the dunes. Mithoo, growing bigger and stronger, comes along, his nose next to my ankle as Xhush Dil walks.
I decide one day to teach Mithoo to dance. I have noticed that when I sing his ears swivel, the way Guluband’s used to do. Mithoo has the same desire to dance as Guluband had. I touch the backs of his front legs with a stick and sing to him. Within just a few days he lifts his feet high without prompting whenever I sing. I must get Dadi to buy him bracelets, so he can match the rhythms of his feet to the songs I sing.
My absence is little noticed once I have fed the animals. I take my cousins with me to tend the herd. I savor my limited freedom, perhaps only because I know my days in the desert with my beloved camels are numbered.
Sharma arrives a day late, by the light of a waxing moon. As usual, we hear her long before we see her. Even her animals are noisy, each with a jangling bell tied around its neck. They are fat and healthy, fully recovered from the drought. It’s said Sharma has magic—I’ve heard people talk about her as if she were a witch—but to me her magic is power.
She and Fatima ride an aged female camel, their sheep and goats following behind, and Sharma sings, her voice strong and clear. Mama, Dadi, Phulan, and I come out of our house, where we have been spreading our quilts on the string cots.
The camel kneels without command, and Sharma wraps her arms around Phulan, for she has heard of Hamir’s death. Phulan returns Sharma’s hug, and when Sharma holds her at arm’s length, my clever aunt knows Hamir’s passing causes my sister more joy than sorrow.
Mama and Phulan fill Sharma and Fatima in on what has happened in the weeks since we’ve seen her. I make myself busy at the fire, preparing tea and making chapatis for them.
“So, you’ve paid for all this with your little Shabanu,” Sharma says. Dadi, who has been relaxing and smoking his hookah—a fancy blue and white ceramic one, a gift from Rahim-sahib—sits forward.
“It’s a good solution,” Dadi says. “It isn’t only the money, which I don’t deny has helped. But what would have become of Shabanu? There are no other prospects, and we are within months of the time when she should be married.”
“How far have you looked?” Sharma spits out the words. Dadi looks wounded, for he too believes in Sharma’s magic and considers her a wise woman.
“She could never have done better with a desert boy,” says Dadi. “She would be tending camels and children and moving from toba to toba the rest of her life, never knowing when the rain will stop and the vegetation will dry up. This way she’ll have everything.”
“Everything! She’ll be his fourth wife. He already has seven sons. His youngest wife is still of childbearing age. He’s not so rich that he can afford to leave all of them land and houses and money. They all live in one house now. That’s difficult for women sharing a single man.
“Shabanu will be their slave. They’re all uppity-uppity women. They get along all right. But what about her? Do you think they’ll take a desert girl into their circle? And when he dies, the seven sons he has—and perhaps his third wife will bear him one or two more—will inherit his property. There will be nothing for Shabanu and the sons she bears. She’ll be a penniless widow by the time she’s twenty. And what if she has daughters? They’ll marry similarly, unless she’s lucky enough to marry them back to the desert!”
“But Rahim-sahib is very healthy, and he’ll live to be an old man,” says Mama.
“Bah!” says Sharma, and they break into a raucous discussion, shouting and interrupting each other.
“There is another consideration, Sharma,” says Dadi, his spine stiff. Dadi might allow Mama’s eccentric cousin to criticize, but he won’t let her change his mind. “Rahim-sahib’s marriage to Shabanu will ensure that his greedy brother keeps his hands off Murad’s land.”
“Aha!” says Sharma. “But why Shabanu? Phulan is more likely to appeal to a man like Rahim-sahib, and knowing how to keep a man comes naturally to her. You can tell by the way she walks.…”
“Because he wants Shabanu! And that’s the end of it.” Dadi stalks out of the house, taking his hookah with him.
Long after Phulan and Mama have gone to sleep, Dadi still has not returned. He listens to Sharma. No matter how outrageous what she says might be, he knows she speaks the truth. And he does not want to hurt me.
There’s no question of my being able to sleep. When the moon is highest, I slip out and bathe myself in the blue-white light of the desert night. I hear the gentle noises of the camels as they chew their cud, grunt, and belch. I go to Sharma’s house to see if she and Fatima are still awake.
They talk quietly in the third and last house Rahim-sahib has built for us.
“Shabanu, how do you feel about this marriage your father has arranged for you?” she asks.
Fatima lights the lanterns, and Sharma’s figure makes a long, straight shadow. My shadow is half the height of hers. Sharma sits on the string cot and crosses her ankles in front of her. Fatima joins her, and I sit on the cot across from them.
“What can I do?” I ask. “Do you think I want to marry him? Mama says he’s already in love with me. He’s sending presents. Look!” I hold out my hand and show the ring and bangles. Sharma whistles through her teeth.
“Don’t be taken in by it,” she says. “He’s rich and spoiled. He’s had many women. He may grow tired of you in time. If his oldest wife dies, perhaps he’ll take another wife and you’ll be used up.”
“He has been kind to us …”
“Bah!” she says in a hoarse bellow. “Murad would have learned to love you for your intelligence and hard work.”
“Murad is a good man,” I say, trying to keep the sadness from my voice. “He will grow t
o love Phulan.”
“Perhaps,” says Sharma, stroking her chin.
“One thing you haven’t thought of,” says Fatima. “That Rahim-sahib chose Shabanu and not Phulan speaks well of him.”
Sharma laughs heartily. “True!” she says, but her voice turns weary. “You girls know nothing of men. What he sees as spirit and intelligence now may look like insolence and trouble later.”
She sits back against her bolster for the first time and lights a cigarette.
“Unless …” Fatima and I look at each other, and Fatima is smiling slightly. I wait as long as I can.
“Unless what?”
“Lower your voice, Shabanu,” says Sharma. She takes my face in her hands and turns it from side to side. “You have a strong chin … your father’s large gray eyes … your mother’s straight nose …” She grabs the end of the braid that hangs over my shoulder and unties the goathair cord at its end.
“When was the last time you brushed your hair?” She turns me with my back to her and takes a brush in her hand. With long, merciless strokes, she untangles the hair that has grown matted from riding in the wind and walking in the rain, jerking my head back and silencing me when I cry out. Fatima sits giggling on the bed across from me.
“You know, there is a choice,” Sharma says, yanking at my head. I spin around.
“What do you mean?’
“Sshh! Do you want to wake the whole desert? If your father hears, there won’t be any choice.”
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!”
The Wedding
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.
Shabanu Page 15
