Revolt

by Shahraz, Qaisra

  Thoroughly chastened, resentful and stiff-backed, the women filed out of Zeinab’s courtyard.

  ‘Well, I’ve never been so insulted in my life! I’m definitely not giving her my quilt to darn again!’ muttered one of the women as soon as she stepped out into the lane.

  CHAPTER 21

  The Cousins

  Laila and Ismail were in the valley, gazing up at the waterfall, where they used to bathe as children, running and skipping along the grassy bank of the stream.

  ‘Is it true that you are married to an Englishwoman?’ was the first thing that Laila asked, walking by his side along the path.

  ‘Yes – but I’m not ashamed, nor have I any regrets, Laila! Save that I’ve hurt my family and Saher of course,’ he felt obliged to add.

  Laila stopped and looked at him for a moment.

  ‘Can I ask what was wrong with our Saher?’ Her condemnatory tone made Ismail bristle.

  ‘Laila, I thought at least you would understand!’ he accused, cheeks reddening, disappointed at her reaction. ‘Can I be impertinent and ask you this question? Why didn’t you marry the man you were promised to? Why the potter’s son?’

  Laila coloured at the way he had neatly turned the table on her.

  ‘At the time, I thought it was for the best,’ she replied sadly.

  ‘Like you, I fell in love. You with someone from another class, I from another race – we couldn’t help ourselves. Daniela, my wife, is a wonderful, lovely, sweet and highly principled woman, and has good moral values. She was also flesh and blood before me. Saher, on the other hand,’ he shrugged, ‘was just an image – so far away and inaccessible. In fact, I believe that your brother probably knows her better than I do – they are like twins, inseparable.’

  ‘Yes, they’ve always been very close, and my brother dotes on her.’

  ‘Yes, I noticed and, for my sins, he punched me for Saher’s sake. I never meant to hurt anyone, especially her!’

  ‘Neither of us meant to hurt anyone,’ Laila wryly agreed, ‘nevertheless, we have, by our selfish actions. Now that I have a daughter myself, I know what it must have been like for my parents. I wish you all the best with your Daniela and sincerely hope that it will prove the right choice. I have ended up sacrificing an awful lot, Ismail, but love alone is not enough … It’s not a substitute for your family and their love. You see, everything has a rightful place in life.’

  ‘Hey, hang on. You’re becoming depressing. You and Jubail, is that his name? You’ve sacrificed a lot for one another, but you seem to have become embittered. You must never go down that path, Laila, otherwise you will have nothing left!’ he earnestly advised.

  ‘Then why don’t you openly claim Daniela as your lawful wife and take her home with you? Begum tells me that she’s still at my parents’ house.’

  Ismail was taken aback by the turn in their conversation and once again they fell into a long silence as they continued walking.

  Shirin ran into the stream, shouting, ‘It’s cold, Mummy!’

  Ismail and Laila sat down on two large boulders and watched her in silence.

  ‘Yes, Laila,’ Ismail said, ‘you’re perfectly right. I need to claim my wife openly and take her home. I’ve been a true, lousy git to the poor thing – and Daniela’s pregnant, too.’

  ‘You have already hurt our Saher, but please don’t hurt your wife, too!’

  ‘I know, but will my parents accept her?’

  ‘Just throw yourself at their mercy. Don’t abandon your home or your wife – for you have a right to both.’

  ‘Well, well, our Laila is mouthing little pearls of wisdom.’

  ‘They are not pearls, my dear brother, just little home truths that time has knocked into me. The door to my parents’ home is now forever slammed shut to me. Don’t let them slam the door in your face, too. I came for my brother’s homecoming. I know that he’ll come to see me in the city. My daughter is growing fast – I don’t want her to learn about the big house … I want to protect her. Already she has begun to hate her grandfather, without realising who he actually is. Imagine what she’ll think when she finds out? Her young innocent mind will not be able to cope with the rejection. Nor will she understand the damage that we, her parents, have done to her grandparents.’

  ‘Oh, but that’s terrible, Laila!’ Ismail stood up, picking up a small pebble and throwing it in the stream. ‘Please don’t say that.’

  ‘It’s a fact, Ismail. My father passed by my daughter, ignoring her. Every year, I’ve sent photographs to my mother, via Begum, but I am told she locks them away in a drawer.’ Her voice breaking, she openly wept.

  ‘Cry, if that helps you, my sister,’ he urged, distressed himself.

  ‘It hurts so much, Ismail, when it happens to your own child. I was a coward. I should have come back the same night of my wedding. Win them over, my brother! Stay in their midst and when your child is born, place it in their laps, for they will not be able to shift it. I made a terrible mistake, and waited for them to come to me. I should have barged in and put my Shirin in their laps. Now, there is no other choice for me – but to bow out of my parents’ life for good.’

  ‘I’m so sorry …’

  ‘Shall we go?’ Laila was looking at her watch. ‘I’m expecting Shirin’s father’s phone call.’

  They walked back to the village in companionable silence, with Shirin hopping ahead of them.

  *

  From the rooftop gallery of the hevali, Daniela spotted her husband.

  ‘That’s my Ismail – with a woman! Is it his fiancée?’ Her hand trembled with raw jealousy as she peered over the wrought-iron rooftop railings.

  ‘I’m going!’ she decided – not to the airport but to her in-laws’ house. ‘I haven’t come all this way to lose my husband.’ Ismail was going in one direction, the woman in another. It couldn’t be his fiancée. Ismail’s fiancée was trendy, wore fashionable clothes and didn’t cover her hair. This woman was cloaked from head to foot in a large white garment. ‘I’ll show these racist village people and these landowners what a white woman is made of! Beastly of them to keep calling me goorie when I’ve got a proper name! And I thought my mum was bad! I guess they all have got it in their heads that I’m a tart who has slept around.’

  Daniela crossed to the other side of the gallery and looked down into the central courtyard of the villa. She could hear male voices below.

  *

  Gulbahar was looking for her son and found him in the drawing room staring into space.

  ‘What’s the matter, Arslan?’ she asked, forgetting to remove her chappals on the silk rug. She could tell by his flushed face that something was wrong.

  ‘Nothing,’ was his stiff response.

  ‘Arslan, I know who you want to marry,’ she teased, standing in front of her son, trying to catch his eye. ‘You said the woman you love was a woman from our clan and that I would like her very much. I know who she is, Arslan.’

  ‘Good! But I’m not marrying.’ He startled his mother.

  ‘What?’ Disappointment smearing her face, Gulbahar was loath to let go of the topic. ‘It’s Saher, isn’t it?’

  He jerked away from his mother’s grasp. ‘Don’t mention her name in front of me again, Mother.’

  ‘But …’ Gulbahar stammered.

  ‘No buts. Just … just keep her away from me.’ He strode out of the room, leaving his mother lost in thought.

  ‘You can also hate those whom you love most.’ She smiled as a sudden thought crossed her mind relating to her son’s indignation. And Saher. How was the poor girl?

  The phone on the coffee table rang, startling Gulbahar out of her reverie.

  ‘Arslan?’ Her daughter’s timid voice floated across the line. Gulbahar held her breath. ‘Arslan?’ Laila repeated. ‘Is that you?’

  Gulbahar felt faint.

  ‘Mother?’ The voice asked after a pause.

  Gulbahar’s lips parted. ‘Little fairy! Chothi pari.’ The trembling husky
words echoing down the line were greeted by a stunned silence. The words registered.

  ‘Shirin, Shirin!’ Gulbahar heard her daughter’s excited shout and held onto the receiver. A few seconds later, a gruff, tear-ridden voice instructed, ‘Shirin, please say salaam!’

  ‘Assalam alaikum!’ Shirin dutifully obliged. The two words of greeting gloriously fanned through Gulbahar’s body, making the goose pimples on her skin stand on end.

  ‘Wa laikum salam, my pari’ Gulbahar softly greeted back. ‘Beautiful little fairy!’ she whispered, before her moist hand gently replaced the receiver.

  At the other end, Shirin looked puzzled.

  ‘What did the lady say?’ Laila asked, eyes glittering with unshed tears.

  ‘She called me a beautiful little fairy.’

  Laila’s heart dizzied to the heavens above, taking the phone from her daughter.

  ‘Why, Mummy?’ Shirin asked, intrigued.

  Laila held onto the receiver, tears of joy openly gushing down her cheeks. ‘You are a beautiful fairy! And a very special, beautiful lady said that to you.’

  ‘Who?’ Shirin innocently prompted.

  Laila’s mouth ached to spill the words ‘your grandmother’, but she ruthlessly stamped down on the urge. ‘Just a nice lady, my darling,’ she quietly offered instead.

  Shirin returned to her game of hopscotch in the courtyard.

  Heart thudding, Laila redialled the number and waited. It remained silent.

  She cast her eyes over the shabby furniture: the oil-stained, moth-eaten, threadbare, cotton cover of the old armchair; the chipped, dressing-table mirror, draped with the potter’s wife’s old, crocheted tablecloth; the frayed, yellowy-blue curtains whose original colour she could never quite tell. Even the blue dye had made no difference. The nails precariously supporting the curtain rail were loose. Laila feared for her daughter’s safety every time she tugged at them in the evening. She often recoiled at the disgusting spirals of cobwebs hanging around the ceiling cornices and in between the mesh frames of the door. The floor, with its missing cement patches, was a safety hazard for her daughter. Shirin had tripped twice already. Laila feared for her daughter’s beautiful, pert little nose.

  The potter’s family, unable to afford a wardrobe, had lived out of suitcases. Clothes were neatly stacked in the two steel suitcases that had been part of the potter’s wife’s dowry. All the valuables, money and party clothes were stuffed in there. Jubail, as a university student, had his own suitcase, bought for him by Master Haider. Shirin’s pile of pretty dresses was kept in a small basket beside the bed.

  Laila was gazing at her world this evening through her mother’s telescope. ‘This is my humble world,’ Laila cried. ‘Thank you, Mother – it was so good to hear your voice again … Please forgive me for hurting you!’ The ritual of self-flagellation had begun and she finished with her offering of a thanksgiving nafl prayer.

  *

  Daniela’s case was packed and she turned to Arslan with a smile.

  ‘I’m going to my husband! I’ve taken up enough of your wonderful family’s hospitality and valuable time,’ she explained. ‘I’ve two choices: either to return to England or join Ismail.’

  ‘Yes,’ Arslan stammered, ‘but his family have only just found out about you. Please give them time.’

  ‘I am missing my husband and if I leave it any longer, I’m afraid I’ll lose him entirely. What if they pressure him into marrying that fiancée of his?’

  ‘They won’t do that!’ Arslan sharply informed her. ‘I wouldn’t let them. Very few Muslim men ever abandon their pregnant wives, and only in exceptional circumstances. Ismail is yours, and yours alone – believe me, Daniela.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she uttered softly, eyes filling up, anxiety still written all over her face.

  ‘Please take me to my husband. I want to be under the same roof as my Ismail! I’ll put up with whatever his parents do to me!’

  ‘Let destiny take its own course,’ Arslan muttered aloud. ‘OK, Daniela, I’ll take you.’

  ‘You will?’ she exclaimed in delight. ‘Thank you, Arslan!’ And she rushed to plant a kiss on his cheek just as her hostess entered the room.

  Daniela stepped away, red-cheeked.

  ‘Mother, it’s not what you think!’ Arslan hastened to explain, trying to shake off his embarrassment. His mother attempted to form some words but failed. ‘She’s English, Mother, and comes from another culture. Kissing men and women on the cheeks is very normal for English people – this is her way of thanking me for our hospitality.’

  ‘Thanking! Besharm people!’ Outraged, his mother at last found her tongue. ‘Kissing strange men! Is that normal behaviour?’

  ‘Yes, there it is! And we’ve to accept and respect that way of life. Whatever you say, Mother, Daniela was only thanking me because I’m taking her to Ismail’s house.’ His flat tone didn’t convince her, but the words did.

  ‘Take her then! I don’t want her under the same roof as you if this is the way she will behave, Arslan!’ Now in an uncharitable mood, Gulbahar was eager to be rid of this unwanted, besharm female guest. She had lost her only daughter to a potter’s son and she was not about to lose her only son to her nephew’s cast-off! Wife or no wife!

  ‘What did your mother say?’ Daniela timidly asked, though astutely able to guess what they might be saying. Her hostess did not look her in the eye and Daniela knew she had deeply offended the older woman by kissing her son.

  ‘Right, let’s go, Daniela!’

  ‘Thank you so much for your kind hospitality,’ Daniela warmly offered in English to Gulbahar before picking up her handbag and adding, ‘Shukria!’ in Urdu.

  Gulbahar stood by the door, trying to smile, but her stiff face let her down.

  As they crossed the courtyard, Begum came running out of the kitchen. Her mouth dropped open as she saw Daniela’s case.

  ‘Is she leaving, Master Arslan?’

  ‘Yes, but only going to the next village, to Ismail’s house, Begum.’

  ‘Oh!’ Begum closed her eyes in horror, imagining the drama likely to unfold in the other hevali.

  *

  Gulbahar had already phoned to warn her sister of the goorie’s impending arrival. Mehreen collapsed on her bedroom armchair.

  ‘Your English daughter-in-law is on her way, Liaquat-ji!’ she whimpered bitterly through quivering lips.

  ‘I’ll let no foreign slut into this house!’ Liaquat threw at his wife across the room, the contours of his face rigid with anger, nostrils flaring. Mehreen withered, mind ablaze. Heat flushed through her body, spiralling fast up her neck and into her face.

  ‘How can you shut the door in her face? Imagine the scandal.’

  ‘Your sister shut her door on the potter’s son,’ he jeeringly reminded her.

  Mehreen’s lips trembled with a desperate, silent prayer: ‘Please, Allah Pak, save us! Why are you punishing us like this? What have we done to deserve such a fate?’ The hevali was about to explode, and she had neither the strength nor the stomach for the explosion.

  Liaquat, instead of showing empathy, lashed his wife with his angry eyes, demanding:

  ‘Are you going to let her pleat feet step into the pure sanctity of our home?’

  Numbed, Mehreen meekly stared back. She had no sharp quips to exchange, no points to score with her husband. In the car, it only took ten minutes from her sister’s village to theirs. Allah Pak, the woman would be here any moment now! Who would open the door and let her in? Panic made her breathless, her body doubling over.

  ‘Mehreen, you gave birth to one child only. See how that brat has repaid your obsessive love? He’s made monkeys out of us.’

  Mehreen hid her face in her lap, desperate to retaliate, but both words and strength had deserted her. The jibe, the aspersion on her fertility, the ‘only one son’ accusation galled her.

  Aggressively pushing aside the armchair across the marble floor, Liaquat went out to the courtyard to wait for the fore
ign woman who had brought their world crashing down upon them. Behind him followed the clicking sounds of his wife’s footsteps. Then she hastened back upstairs – panic-ridden.

  ‘Cowardly woman!’ he called after her.

  CHAPTER 22

  The Intruder

  Liaquat heard the car doors slam. Heat rushing through his cheeks and shoulders stiffened, he stood tall against the marble pillar with his eyes fixed on the outside door.

  Loud knocks thudded, then Arslan’s clear voice. ‘Auntie Mehreen!’

  Liaquat sighed with relief; at least there was someone else with the woman.

  Arslan gently thrust the door wide open with the weight of Daniela’s suitcase.

  ‘Daniela,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Please come in!’

  Heartbeat racing, a buzzing sound hammered in Liaquat’s ears.

  Daniela timidly stepped in, catching her first glimpse of her husband’s home, the sunshine brutally beating a frenzied dance on the marble floor in the centre of the courtyard. By contrast, in two of its corners fruit trees cast their shadows, providing welcoming shade. Flowers were blooming everywhere in a rich array of bright colours. Climbing bougainvillea spiralled around the elegant alabaster pillars supporting the veranda roof. Huge earthenware pots of flowers circled the pillars. Two elegantly designed porcelain washbasins stood at each end of the courtyard. Doors painted in blue and cream with netted meshwork to keep out mosquitoes led to numerous rooms on the ground floor. Above the veranda was a gallery with its own set of rooms.

  Daniela gazed in wonderment. It was just as Ismail described it, but even grander and more beautiful. Her eyes fell on the hostile face of the elderly man standing by a pillar and she experienced the urge to flee back to Arslan’s home. Arslan read her mind and neatly stepped forward to block Daniela’s view. He shot a hard, challenging look at his uncle. For some moments, the two men fenced with their eyes.