Revolt

by Shahraz, Qaisra

  Ali was now striding across the courtyard. He had had enough of his wife’s passion for the foolish young mistress for one evening. ‘God forbid that manhous day, their granddaughter bringing our masters to their knees! Their daughter has killed them, never mind a granddaughter!’

  ‘I … I didn’t mean it like that!’ Begum stuttered. ‘Please listen! The baby is called Shirin, Ali, and she’s gorgeous – with Haider Sahib’s eyes! Why don’t you visit Laila? Allah Pak is merciful and forgiving, my husband, as Arslan, a child, had to remind us. The baby has done no wrong and is innocent. Laila has come to feast her eyes on her parents’ home. Give her some sustenance for her journey. We cannot be judges, Ali.’ Her voice had risen. ‘Her parents can, but we can’t!’

  Her husband shook his head in derision once more before slamming the wooden door shut behind him and muttering to himself. ‘You are insane, woman!’

  Satisfied with her lecture and a smug smile lining her face, Begum sat down to chop the akros for their evening meal; she knew that she had won and that Ali would visit the baby. He had never let her down when she requested anything of him. He blustered quite a bit, but ultimately always gave in, as he loved her in his own strange fashion – even her so-called stupidity. Begum chuckled. ‘My Ali is quite daft at times, but ever so nice most of the time.’

  That night after dinner, Ali sheepishly let slip that he’d given the baby girl a 500-rupee note, in his role as godfather. With eyes lowered, he sipped the almond milk drink that Begum brought back home on most days from the hevali. Almond milk drinks were one of the luxuries that they enjoyed in the house of their generous employers. Begum pretended not to have heard, but smugly smiling inside, she gloriously thanked him as she lay on her side of the bed.

  Ali omitted to tell his wife how he, Ali, hadn’t acknowledged Jubail even with a glance. Their mistress could be forgiven, but not him – the shaitan – the devil who had pulled her out of her parents’ home. That beast would never be forgiven for destroying both Laila’s and his own family. It was rumoured that the poor potter and his family had fled far away over the mountains to Abbottabad, abandoning his potter’s wheel as well as dozens of pots ready to be sold.

  When any of the villagers happened to see Jubail, they all averted their gazes, but they never told him off, aping their superior, Master Haider. For Mistress Laila, there were no particular words of greeting or a show of animosity, but a sly, semi-averted acknowledgement in the eyes of many.

  *

  After a week of waiting in despair for her parents to come and take her home Laila bitterly chided herself: ‘You are living a foolish dream, Laila. Wake up!’

  Over the next few years, she kept to her punishing ritual of returning to the village every six months. She never gave up hope – where one loved, one never did. For the three-year-old toddler, without a care in the world, the village lane became the most natural place for her to run around and play. As she giggled and hopped on the cobblestones around her mother, she was totally oblivious of people’s reactions, their indrawn breaths and, in particular, of one older man with reddish-brown hair whose shadow and eyes had momentarily grazed her face and then immediately shifted. For her mother, watching from behind, it was a crushing blow.

  ‘This is how they must feel,’ Laila bitterly acknowledged.

  Her daughter was lovely and people in the city often commented on her appearance wherever she went. Here in the village she simply did not exist.

  ‘At least Father’s eyes have fallen on her face,’ Laila wept. ‘Mother, how could you be so callous? Don’t you want to see your granddaughter?’ Night after night the same words bitterly echoed.

  Desperate to show her daughter to her mother, she had smuggled photographs into the hevali via Begum’s unwilling hands, with an appeal, ‘If Mother will not see my Shirin in person then at least in a photograph. Begum, take them! Do this for me, please!’ she had beseeched.

  As always, unable to watch her young mistress cry, Begum’s soft heart melted. Her reluctant hands clutching the small envelope hidden under her chador, she went up to her mistress’s bedroom. Taking out two pictures, she propped them strategically on the dressing table, one behind her mistress’s favourite athar bottle, the other against the silver-plated hand mirror.

  Later in the evening, as Gulbahar bent to comb her hair, the photos sent a shock wave searing through her. Hand trembling, Gulbahar’s eyes took her fill of the beautiful smiling face of the young child with her crop of curly, brown hair. Breathing ragged, she took stock of herself. Gripping one edge of the photograph, and with a steely will, she turned it upside down. With shaking fingers she turned the key in the lock of the bottom drawer of her dressing-table. Pulling it open, she carefully placed the two photos inside – face down.

  ‘My ultimate test – my duty to my husband!’ she vowed, firmly turning the key to lock the drawer and then hiding it behind the leg of her dresser, part of her dowry. Haider would never be looking for things down there.

  That particular drawer, its wood studded with pieces of onyx, was only opened again for depositing the next photograph a few months later. It, too, was cruelly placed face down on top of the previous pictures. Gulbahar never looked at them again. Nor did it occur to her to tear them up or show them to her two sisters. The child remained a tabooed topic. If any members of her family glimpsed Shirin in the street, nobody mentioned it. Not even her sisters had the audacity to discuss the girl – Shirin simply didn’t exist.

  By now, an inch-high pile of photographs of all sizes had accumulated over the past four years in her locked, bottom drawer. Two had been cut in half and Gulbahar could only guess who had been in the other half.

  Gulbahar stiffly passed her test of endurance with flying colours, remaining true to her words and her husband. She had betrayed her Haider-ji once but she would never do it again. A wife she was, but one who had happily opted to kill the mother inside her. The grandmother, on the other hand, just didn’t exist and definitely not for the daughter of a man who had robbed them of their daughter and swept away their world from under their very feet.

  As Shirin grew older, she got used to the regular visits to the village. Passing her grandparents’ hevali every day, she never entered it or learned about the people who lived in it. Eyes squinting in the shadow of their small lobby, Shirin had gazed up in wonder at the tall young man her mother quietly talked to behind their closed door. She was equally curious as to why her mother had wept against the shoulders of this man. Who was he? Why had this man also kissed her mother’s cheek? Her innocent mind did not learn that a brother was bidding his sister goodbye. Arslan was going to the United States to study, for a long time.

  A few years later, when he was expected back in Pakistan, Laila returned to the village, eager to welcome her brother. Although he had refused to write or phone her following his parents’ advice, he never stopped her from doing either. Her husband often taunted her for the way her family was treating her. Feeling vulnerable and defensive, she would then bitterly turn on him: ‘If you hadn’t crossed my path, I wouldn’t be in this mess.’ By now, their earlier passion had long been extinguished in the melting pot of grief and bitterness. Laila ached for her family.

  ‘I don’t know what I saw in you, anyway,’ she cruelly lashed out one day, wanting to punish him in frustration.

  They both ended up hurting and blaming one another and then resignedly making up, for there was no one else to support them individually. Recriminations and a cloud of bitterness always hung over them. Both had lost their families. Jubail’s parents never forgave him. The potter, missing his village, taunted his son’s loins for turning their world into a nightmarish existence. ‘What was wrong with the other girls? Did you have to reach to the sky to pluck a star and in the process make us homeless, my greedy, arrogant son?’ Jubail would aggressively argue back. In their hearts, however, both he and Laila knew that their decision to elope and marry without informing either of the two families was a despic
able and cruel thing to do.

  Laila had decided to come alone for her brother’s homecoming, fearing her husband’s presence would blight her stay.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER 7

  Daniela

  In Liverpool, England, Dave watched from his kitchen window Mrs Patel’s peacock-green silk sari flying all over the washing line, one end clutched in her tight fist. Grinning, he suppressed his urge to jump over the garden fence dividing the two semi-detached houses and lend a hand to the poor woman in pinning down the seven yards of dripping-wet fabric. Unable to resist, he pushed open the double-glazed kitchen window and shouted, ‘Mrs Patel, look at those clouds. Is it worth the bother, dear?’

  The sixty-one-year-old Ugandan Indian woman merely grinned, sweeping back tendrils of hair slipped from her small immaculate bun, the red marital tikka proudly sitting on her forehead above her nose. ‘I know, Mr Harrison, but the wind will soon dry my saris! By the way, I’m making aubergine and potato bhaji. Would you like some?’ she offered.

  ‘You bet!’

  ‘I’ll get our Nita to bring it round.’

  ‘Thanks a bundle, Mrs Patel!’ He pulled the window shut, his mouth already salivating at the thought of Mrs Patel’s wonderful bhaji. His wife, not keen on curries, hated him for this.

  ‘How shameful to take food off a neighbour, never mind asking!’ she had stiffly jeered last time and had nearly thrown the plate of cauliflower curry into the bin, declaring, ‘Now the whole kitchen will reek of this ghastly, garlicky stuff!’

  ‘Ghastly!’ Dave had fumed. ‘Mrs Patel makes delicious curries! It’s a pity that you don’t like them.’

  ‘It’s a pity about a lot of things in this household, David!’

  Dave’s good humour fled, catching the hard glint in her eyes. The time for reasoning with her was gone. And they both knew the matter went beyond curries. It was just another opportunity for her to mock him on the differences between them.

  His mobile phone bleeped a text message: ‘Outside,’ he read. His fingers quickly tapped a reply: ‘OK, honey.’

  Slinging his jacket over his shoulder, he was at the front door before he shouted up to his wife. ‘I’m off to the Central Library, Liz.’

  ‘OK!’ Elizabeth grimaced, drying her wet hair in the bathroom. Why couldn’t he get ‘Elizabeth’ out of his mouth rather than that common ‘Liz’?

  Outside in his front garden, Dave immediately spotted the silver car parked halfway down the street. He sprinted down the road and bumped into a young Yemeni woman, living four doors away, pushing her three-year-old toddler in a buggy, a bag of groceries hanging at the side.

  ‘Sorry, love!’ he mumbled.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she politely nodded, straightening her hijab and feeling for any stray strands of hair that may have escaped from under her scarf.

  Upstairs in the front bedroom, Elizabeth swept aside the venetian blinds and looked down at the street, massaging expensive Dior lotion onto her slim throat, roughened from recent sunbathing on the island of Crete, her eyes on the silver car and its driver.

  *

  Dave took a long tender look at the young woman sitting in the driver’s seat. Leaning over, he brushed his mouth across her cheek.

  ‘How are you, honey?’

  ‘Fine. I needed you with me today – I’m having my first scan.’

  ‘Gosh, really! How exciting, love! Come on then, what’re we waiting for?’

  As the car zoomed past his home, Dave’s smile slipped.

  They drove in silence for a while before she softly asked, ‘You’ve not told her, have you?’

  ‘No! You told me not to. Remember!’ He looked away, face tight.

  ‘Good. It’s better this way.’

  ‘I’m not so sure, but if you say so.’

  In her bedroom, Elizabeth stood back from the window, hand clutching one of the long strips from the window blinds, feet sinking into the plush pile of Axminster carpet.

  *

  It was just like any other morning at the antenatal clinic, with women lounging in different stages of pregnancy, displaying baby mounds of all shapes and sizes, some rounded whilst others protruded at strange angles through their maternity garments. Some were alone; others came with their partners or parents. Lively toddlers were playing in the play area. Bemused, Daniela let her senses absorb the scene.

  An hour later, they were back in the car, parked in the same place on Dave’s street.

  ‘You sure, Daniela, that you don’t want me to tell Liz?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Don’t fret, my gem. Are you going back to school?’

  ‘Yes, we couldn’t get supply cover for this afternoon.’

  Dave sighed, looking through the windscreen. The refuse men were emptying the bins into their truck. Dave hopped out, remembering his rubbish bag in the kitchen.

  ‘Take care. Need to dash before those rascals drive off.’

  ‘Thanks. I love you so much!’

  ‘I know, and remember I’m here for you! Bye, honey.’

  The car sped off down the road.

  ‘Hi guys, just hang on a sec, will you?’

  ‘Sure, mate!’ the eldest man answered, tipping the contents of one wheelie bin into the truck.

  Elizabeth went out into the garden to check her bedding plants. The geraniums were doing really well, she noted absently. The ivy creeping up the garden fence provided them with more privacy from the neighbours. Elizabeth peered over the fence, staring at Mrs Patel’s five tiny, silk, sari blouses in turquoise, pink, black, green and brown, wondering how the Indian woman managed to dress so discreetly with not an inch of her midriff flesh showing.

  Two hours later, they were eating their lunch out on the patio near the apple tree. ‘I saw you get into her silver car, David.’ Elizabeth toyed with her microwaved chilli con carne, eyes steady on his face, challenging him to look up from his shepherd’s pie.

  ‘So you told me earlier!’ he replied, taking another swig from his bottle of shandy.

  She placed her fork neatly back on her Laura Ashley china plate and continued staring at him. Dave simply refused to make eye contact. Meal finished, he stood up to leave, but couldn’t help the outburst, though he knew the outcome all too well. ‘You can’t stop me, Liz. You can do what you want, but you won’t stop me!’

  There would be a full-blown argument later, followed by the inevitable cold-shoulder treatment. Even at the dining table, her academic books would neatly divide them.

  ‘Do what you’ve always done, David, run!’ The contempt was apparent in the arch of her neck and the eyes resting on their well-manicured, landscaped garden. Inside the house, a tuneless whistle on his lips, Dave grabbed his jacket and headed for the local pub.

  Pushing aside her plate, Elizabeth picked up her book from the table and soon forgot her husband; absorbed in her PhD research on Plato’s Republic and the Roman historian Tacitus.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Jewels

  Liaquat, Mehreen’s husband, had eagerly obtained the services of two goldsmiths, one from the city and the other from Gulistan – Rukhsar’s husband – to display their finest jewellery items on the large table in the drawing room for Saher to inspect.

  The afternoon sunlight jumping through the window lit the rubies, emeralds and sapphires on the chunky necklace sets that would be worn on the main wedding day. There were also many delicate, gem-encrusted sets for evening wear and parties, as well as pendants and matr malas for casual wear. Over sixty rings of all shapes and designs sat cushioned in dainty, velvet boxes laid out on a silver-plated tray.

  Liaquat, a proud 55-year-old landowner, wished to honour and bestow many gifts on his son’s bride. Extremely fond of Saher, he could not wait to have her live with them. The wedding had been planned many years ago, but their son had kept putting it off.

  The doorbell rang. Rasoola, the housekeeper, abandoned her tedious task of chasing away the flies swarming over the tray of pastries in the kitch
en and rushed to open the door.

  Saher found herself blushing, extremely annoyed at the sly knowing smile in the housekeeper’s eyes.

  ‘Only two weeks to go before you are the new mistress in this hevali!’ were Rasoola’s teasing welcoming words.

  ‘Rasoola, stop yapping and let us inside!’ Mehreen irritably scolded, hating her housekeeper for her gossiping tongue. Well chastened, seething and with a fallen face, Rasoola stiffly stepped back. Her mistress had a very special knack of humiliating her and doing her baesti in front of other people.

  ‘Bismillah, Mistress Rani,’ she welcomed in her syrupy tone. ‘Please go into the drawing room. Sahib-ji and the two goldsmiths are waiting with lots of boxes of jewellery for you ladies to see. I’ll be in the kitchen cleaning out the rice for Ismail’s wedding.’

  ‘I must get Begum to lend you a hand for the wedding feasts,’ Mehreen loftily announced.

  ‘No need, Mistress,’ Rasoola sharply replied, bristling at the suggestion. The last thing she wanted was to have bossy Begum in her kitchen. That woman was already blighting her life, her ears aching from hearing glowing praises about her. Mehreen neither praised Rasoola nor stopped lecturing her about Begum’s ‘excellent’ work and was always commenting, ‘Begum does this, why don’t you?’ Many a time Rasoola had cattily wanted to blurt out, ‘Why don’t you get Begum here?’ But her cowardly lips remained tightly sealed. Master Liaquat was a generous man and had helped with her two younger sisters’ wedding costs – thankfully all now happily wedded off.

  She just prayed that Saher, the new bride-to-be, a successful lawyer working in the nearby city and driving a smart car, wouldn’t bring too many changes into their lives. And she, Rasoola, hated change above all!

  *

  Saher, gazing down at all the open velvet boxes, blushingly requsted of her future father-in-law, ‘Please buy one small set only!’