Revolt

by Shahraz, Qaisra

  ‘We’re sorry, Sister Rani, we really had no idea! Please believe us!’ he pleaded.

  ‘Of course not!’ The sarcasm was not lost on them. Rani’s eyes were gleaming with hatred, ignoring her daughter’s signal not to make a scene. On the contrary, she intended doing exactly that; it was her right to spill out her poison.

  ‘So you’ve both come to commiserate and have the cheek, the chal, to pretend that you didn’t know. You expect me to pardon you! How wonderfully easy it would be for you to wriggle off the hook of blame.’

  Deeply offended, and hating her sister for her acid tongue, Mehreen burst into a fresh bout of tears again. ‘Rani, we are suffering, too!’

  ‘Yes, I know!’ The voice had hardened. ‘The difference is that your son caused it and is married, whilst my daughter has been dumped and left humiliated. Now tell me which situation is worse, my dearest sister? Yours or mine?’ she jeered.

  ‘I don’t know if that rascal is married or not.’ In her self-pity, Mehreen was sobbing out her own anguish. ‘A strange woman has hijacked our lives.’

  Dry-eyed, Rani sized her sister up and down, mouth curled in contempt.

  ‘Mehreen, my darling, spoilt sister, if you have come to me looking for sympathy, you have come to the wrong place. This is not your beloved Gulbahar’s home, but one that has been wrecked by your brat of a son. Your lousy upbringing spoilt him!’

  ‘Rani, you’re cruel’ Mehreen wailed.

  ‘I’m cruel, you say?’ Rani glared her loathing straight into her sister’s frightened eyes. ‘Has your scoundrel of a son not been cruel to my daughter?’ The words were like a whiplash.

  ‘Mother! Please!’ Saher diplomatically stepped in, horrified at the downward spiral in the sisters’ relationship, and gently pulled her mother back. Liaquat, on cue, similarly pulled Mehreen aside, the image of them exchanging heated slaps at an Eid party not too far off. The sisters had slapped each other hard, much to the horror of their family members.

  ‘I think, Mehreen, it is best that we return home, my dear,’ Liaquat quietly advised.

  ‘We’re very sorry, Sister Rani.’ Though shocked and dismayed by his sister-in-law’s hostility, he pardoned her, empathising with her suffering and predicament. ‘Mehreen, let’s go! Saher, please forgive us. If anything was in our hands, do you think we would have let all of this happen to you, my dear?’ His hand momentarily rested on Saher’s bare head – a solid, comforting hand. She really liked this uncle and had longed to spend many years in his company. Alas, it was not to be.

  ‘Your mother has every right to blame us. Nothing can compare with what she is experiencing … But do you know how much it has hurt us, too? Parents become such vulnerable creatures when their children grow up … and our child has betrayed us in a terrible way. If only we had another son, then I would have married you off to him, Saher, just to keep you with us!’

  Saher was now openly crying, touched by his words; he had always cared about her welfare.

  ‘It’s all right, Uncle. I know how much you respect and love me. Please don’t mind Mother. She’s just upset, that’s all.’

  ‘She does mean it, Saher, but we don’t mind, do we, Mehreen? Let’s go.’ With Rani’s mouth open, ready to blast them with another bitter comment, he steered his wife firmly out of the courtyard. He had no wish to hear more. Respect for Rani had now reached zero. In some ways, she was worse than his wife, with her daggers always drawn. He wondered how two sisters could hate each other so much. Gulbahar was so different. If only … he sighed, turning to Mehreen. Today, his mission was to protect his vulnerable wife.

  Shooting an aggrieved look at her sister, Mehreen followed her husband.

  ‘Why does Rani hate me so much? Why is she taking it out on us? We did not bring the goorie home. It’s not fair,’ she muttered.

  They stood outside Rani’s hevali, both experiencing a strange reluctance to return home. The adhan from the central mosque’s minaret calling the faithful to prayers reminded Liaquat that he had missed his earlier prayers.

  ‘Wait in the car, Mehreen, whilst I join the prayer congregation in the mosque.’

  *

  In the car, Mehreen pulled her shawl lower over her forehead and shed bitter tears. When would she wake up from this nightmare? The wedding had to be called off. Explanations needed to be given to the gossiping mouths.

  ‘Ismail, I wish you were never born!’ she cried aloud, peering out of the car window at the village at work – its routine calmly dictated by the cycle of rural life.

  There was a tractor tilling the soil, making grey parallel lines in the field. Further along the road, laden with sugarcane plants, a truck was leaving the village, billowing out clouds of dry dust in its wake. Mehreen saw Bina, the rubbish lady. Her shawl tied round her head and shalwar pulled up to her ankles, Bina, squatting on her heels was energetically shaping another cow-dung cake between her palms before rising to slap it on the wall of the school. The village school committee had kindly granted her a small portion of the back wall for her cow-dung cakes. This was in appreciation of her work as the school cleaner and keeping the area around the school free of any animal droppings. She had already done her rounds of carrying baskets of rubbish out of many homes. Into one of her baskets, she had swept the streets of all the animal droppings and waste. She very rarely threw it away on the rubbish tip. It went either on the fields as manure or on the school wall for fuel. The sun would dry the cow-dung cakes within two days, ready to be used for the cooking fire. Bina supplemented her meagre income by selling them to the poorer families who, like herself, could not afford gas, wood or oil for their cooking.

  A herd of about 30 black milk buffaloes, their lower bellies coated with mud, stood in the far field, languidly soaking up the sunshine before being herded back into the shade of the farmhouses.

  Over on the other side of the school playground, lively schoolboys in their crisp white shirts and black shorts were playing cricket. Teenage girls from the girls’ school, dressed in their demure blue and white starched uniforms with matching white chiffon dupattas draped across their chests or over their heads, walked in groups of twos and threes on their way home. They were either hugging their bundles of books to their chests, or carrying them in holdalls slung over their shoulders, their heads bent, chattering away.

  ‘Ah, what it was like to be a schoolgirl,’ Mehreen mused, remembering her own time at the convent school the three sisters had attended in the city. The village school dismissed as not being good enough for the education of his daughters, their father had a chauffeur-driven car ready to bring his daughters to and from the city.

  Mehreen could not help noticing one girl hanging out on the fringes of the group, looking decidedly sulky. ‘Just like our Rani!’ she smiled wryly. It had always happened that way with them. Gulbahar would be with Mehreen, chatting away, while Rani would deliberately hang back – moody and miserable. They could never make out why she behaved like that. Nobody had. She always held back. Her scowling face not only distanced her sisters, but also put other schoolgirls off. Her punishment was that she was left to herself, to wallow in her own misery.

  Rehmat Ali, the vegetable man, aged before his time, pushed his wooden cart of fresh fruit and vegetables carefully displayed in raffia baskets. He was halfway through his door-to-door round, keen to sell to those who could not be bothered to go to the shops or the bazaar in the nearby town. Mehreen had no idea where Rasoola bought their vegetables. Was it with the meat from town or were they from their local general store?

  ‘This is our very small world that we have happily embraced,’ she thought. ‘Yet, we sisters have cut ourselves off from the rest of the village. We’ve no idea what’s going on in the nearest home and have nothing in common with our neighbours, who often live poverty-ridden lives.’

  Their wealth and status divided them from their neighbours, so very few friendships were cultivated within the village. Most of their personal friends – other landowners, politi
cians and lawyers – were from other villages or towns.

  ‘Our children have gone to other worlds, Arslan to America, while my son went to England, bringing back their foreign worlds and customs into our lives. Is that what we deserve? My Ismail has brought home a foreign bride and made me a laughing stock!’ Bitterness lapped through Mehreen’s body again.

  Another car with one of Rani’s friends from the city drove up outside the gates. Fearful of being spotted and forced to enter into inane conversation Mehreen ducked her head. Now, surely, all of Rani’s friends and the local village folk would be aware that Saher had been jilted and there would be plenty of gossip-mongering and commiserating. As the local saying went: ‘One’s daughter is everyone’s daughter. Everyone’s honour.’ And Saher was a daughter they were immensely proud of, looked up to and consulted on all legal matters. Above all, she was the daughter of Mistress Rani – the widow they respected highly and who had won over their hearts and minds with her generosity, despite her unsmiling face.

  She was kind, and quietly saw to all the needs of the five village widows and their offspring – from the weekly flour ration, to the dowry and the wedding dinners she sponsored. Similarly, she had donated a portion of her land for the village school. The funeral dinners for the village poor were mostly taken care of by Rani. As the village Imam said, she did ‘grand’ charitable things, but did them with dignity and deliberately kept a low profile. She never made a show of it, always quietly tucking crisp notes into the hands of the poor visiting her home.

  CHAPTER 24

  The Meeting

  Rasoola was in a blazingly angry mood and very keen to share it with her companion. ‘Begum, this set-up suits you, but I am being strangled alive under this bondage of slavery. Thanks to Master Ismail bringing home a foreign wife, I’ve escaped from a life of servility! I’ve decided that I will not work for anybody, in any household, from now on.’

  ‘What?’ Begum cried, thinking that the arrogant, sharp-tongued Rasoola had lost her head.

  ‘Only in the mosque. There no one will boss me … Of course I will be offering my services to Allah Pak. However, not in this village mosque as everyone knows me here. I’m off to the city once I’ve saved enough. I intend finding proper paid work in a factory and renting my own living accommodation.’

  ‘At your age?’

  ‘Me … I am only in my late forties.’

  ‘Well, it’s not that young!’ Begum scoffed.

  ‘I want to be mistress of my own destiny. Begum, we humble people also have a right, don’t we? Why is it our lives are chained to the households of the rich, where even our breathing is being controlled by our masters? Mehreen suffocated me.’

  Begum gawped, unable to understand how someone like Rasoola could think like this. Her view of the world was so different.

  ‘Stop exaggerating,’ she replied dismissively. ‘But I wish you luck, my friend, if you are bent on “escaping” this so-called rotten life. I’ll not forsake you … if you ever need anything, you’ll always be welcome here. Listen, I have an idea. Why don’t you stay a few more days and work in Mistress Gulbahar’s household? You like Mistress Gulbahar, don’t you? And I will swap by going to work in Mistress Mehreen’s home. They desperately need someone till Ismail goes back. I’m sure Mistress Gulbahar won’t mind. I’ll have a word with her right away.’

  ‘OK, that’s great. But what about when Mistress Mehreen comes to Mistress Gulbahar’s household – what do I do? Disappear into thin air?’ she scoffed. Had Begum not thought of that?

  ‘We’ll get you a wig and a mask!’ They both giggled, their wiry bodies shaking.

  ‘What about the rest of me? Drape a sack around me?’

  ‘We’ll have to mummify you all over to hide your skinny waistline.’ They carried on giggling loudly, not caring that Begum’s husband could hear them. In the bedroom, lying on his bed, Ali grunted. Fuming, he was bent on getting rid of Rasoola as soon as possible! He had heard everything. The wicked woman was a terrible influence on his kind, loyal, but very gullible wife. Rasoola both abused and betrayed her masters. The young Mistress Laila had manipulated his poor wife and look where it got everyone. Now it was Rasoola who had his wife under her skinny thumb.

  The cracking sound of monkey nuts had begun again. It looked as if the two women on their portable beds on the veranda were bent on finishing every single darned monkey nut from the two-kilo bag in one night! They were both mad. Did they not want to sleep? They had to get up early in the morning. Master Haider was entertaining an up-and-coming politician and his wife from Islamabad.

  ‘And if they dare to cough later after this gorging on the nuts, I’ll throttle them both with their shawls. But which one first? Perhaps my wife, for letting that wicked woman into our home!’

  *

  Heart thumping, Mehreen stood outside her son’s bedroom listening for any sounds. Liaquat had already gone to bed. Hand trembling she turned the handle, took a deep breath, and pushed the door open. Daniela, on seeing the older woman, immediately guessed her to be her mother-in-law. Mehreen’s eyes fell on the woman who had ‘stolen’ their son.

  Daniela’s gaze was the first to fall, pulling her bare legs under her on the bed as her nightgown only reached above her knees.

  ‘Assalam alaikum,’ Daniela shyly offered.

  The Muslim greeting from the goorie’s mouth startled Mehreen, her head reeling. Eyes closed, she tried to block out the woman in front of her. Daniela sat up, assessing the older woman. There was no smile on her face but neither was there hostility. Only the look of someone lost. Mehreen opened her eyes and could not help marvelling at Daniela’s very short, shiny, golden hair under the light.

  She did not become aware of her son’s entrance until he stood beside her.

  ‘I’m glad, Mother, that you’ve met my wife,’ Ismail sheepishly offered.

  Switching a dull gaze on her son, Mehreen left the room, unable to enter into a discussion with him yet. Ismail raised his arms in defeat. Daniela looked away in understanding.

  ‘Glad that we’ve got that over and done with. You’ve now met both my parents,’ Ismail offered lightly.

  Daniela shook her head, unable to stem the tears from falling on her hands.

  ‘Daniela! What’s wrong?’ Ismail was beside her, squatting on the floor.

  ‘Your mother hates me, Ismail!’

  ‘No, she doesn’t. She’s just in a state of shock.’ He hotly defended his mother.

  ‘I know!’ Daniela wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘I wish to God I’d never come!’

  ‘A bit late now, gorgeous, is it not?’ Ismail teased. ‘It’s OK! Cry if you want to!’ he offered, sitting beside her on the bed.

  Out in the courtyard, on the bottom step of the staircase, Mehreen leaned her head heavily against the balustrade. A dull ache spread through her body.

  ‘Allah Pak, help us all! The nightmare is endless,’ Mehreen muttered, shuddering.

  She heard footsteps but didn’t bother getting up.

  ‘Mehreen?’ Liaquat was worried on seeing his wife’s posture and put his arm protectively around her. ‘Come, Mehreen!’ he gently urged.

  Blindly, she followed him up the stairs.

  ‘There’s haram taking place in our household, Liaquat-ji, and we are helpless to prevent it. Our son is sleeping with a woman, who might not be his wife!’ she murmured.

  ‘They are legally married, Mehreen, please don’t say such things! Our son wouldn’t do that!’

  ‘Would he not?’ she rasped, panting. Liaquat was shaking his head. Their son couldn’t possibly be living openly in sin with a woman. Cohabiting with a woman outside of marriage – surely their son had not crossed parameters of such cultural and religious importance and etiquette?

  He aggressively dismissed his wife’s fear. ‘Don’t ever utter such nonsense again, Mehreen!’

  Downstairs, Daniela stared around her new room. It was past midnight and she couldn’t sleep and needed fr
esh air. The omelette Ismail had made was proving to be too spicy for her. A chilli lover she was, but now pregnant, she felt everything heaving inside.

  ‘Ismail, I feel sick. I need fresh air.’ She tried to nudge him awake but he was sound asleep.

  Out on the veranda, the dark shadows of the pillars strewn across the moonlit courtyard intimidated her. Padding barefooted across the cool marble floor, Daniela reached the sink and threw her head over it, emptying out her stomach.

  Her mother-in-law, unable to sleep, had happened to be looking down into the central courtyard from the rooftop gallery and had seen her. Bent over the basin with another stomach spasm, Daniela was about to go back to her room when she saw the shadowy figure of her mother-in-law standing a few feet away. The two women stared at each other. Mehreen noted how Daniela held her arm tight across her waist.

  Eyes widening, Mehreen leaned against the marble pillar. Softly padding across the courtyard and reaching her room, Daniela closed the door firmly behind her. It was a long time before she was able to sleep. When she next opened her eyes, the village cocks had merrily begun their morning crowing ritual, almost as if they were competing with each other. This was soon followed by the sound of the adhan from the local mosque.

  She whispered behind her husband’s shoulder, ‘Ismail, please don’t wake me up. I haven’t slept a wink all night.’ Smiling, Ismail hugged her closer.

  ‘You can sleep all day, my darling, but that is if you don’t want to go sightseeing in Islamabad,’ he whispered, nuzzling his face in her neck.

  ‘Oh! How wonderful!’ was Daniela’s answer. ‘Give me a couple of hours then!’

  ‘OK, lazybones … You’ll get to see all the sights in the next couple of days.’

  CHAPTER 25

  The Party

  Horrified, Laila watched her daughter turn the corner with the musicians heading for her father’s hevali.