Haveli

by Suzanne Fisher Staples

  Later in the morning, after their walk along the canal, and after Zenat had brushed Mumtaz’s hair and taken her out to play, Shabanu covered herself with an old chadr and crossed the courtyard to the main house. A guard stood at the corner of the veranda, and when he turned his back Shabanu slipped through a side door. Once inside she turned immediately down a narrow passage and climbed the iron stairway to the dark balcony just under the painted and mirror-encrusted ceiling of the great baithak, the men’s sitting room. The balcony, which was part of the zenana, was enclosed with walls, and carved screens covered the narrow, curtained windows that looked out over the room below.

  In the old days, the ladies watched from behind these screens as the men below celebrated harvests, hunts, and battles. The women laughed and gossiped, their perfumed breath trapped within silken veils, falling silent only when the dancing girls entered the baithak to entertain the men to the rhythm of tiny brass bells strapped in rows around their slender ankles.

  Shabanu went to the farthest corner of the musty balcony and pulled aside a curtain, brushing a cobweb from the cracked shutter.

  In the crowded hall below, men stood facing the doorway through which Rahim would enter. The room had been built more than two hundred years before, and its grand proportions reflected the significance of the life-and-death decisions made there over the generations.

  But it was a public place and, like most public places these days, bore evidence of profound neglect. Moss grew in the cracks of the damp tiled floor, visible between the ancient threadbare rugs. A grand chandelier hung from a gilt medallion in the center of the ceiling forty feet overhead, but the crystal was draped with cobwebs and dust, and fluorescent tubes blinked at intervals around the mostly dim room.

  Rahim’s secretary had collected a dozen petitions from people whose cases would be heard that morning. He stood waiting with them in his hand—crumpled pieces of paper carried with care from every corner of the tribal land by men who could not read but trusted in the saving grace of the signatures the slips of paper bore.

  Two dozen other men waited quietly, hopefully, clutching their own tattered papers. Some sat with legs crossed on cushions or on the worn ruby carpets; others stood with their backs against the ancient cracked walls inscribed with the words of the Holy Prophet and painted with trellises and vines along the casements, arches, and rails. Still others milled about, muttering to the relatives who had come with them.

  One man had brought his wife, a thin young girl in a tattered chadr, wearing a large pair of men’s shoes. The girl stood stiffly, as if trying to ignore the pain caused by her husband’s pride that she should not have come barefoot. She was the only woman in the room.

  A servant brought Rahim’s embroidered bolster and placed it with other cushions on a canopied dais. The murmuring hushed, and Shabanu watched as the men’s reverent eyes focused on the doorway.

  Rahim arrived fresh from his prayers, a blood-red velvet cap embroidered and set with diamonds on the back of his head. And to Shabanu’s surprise, behind him came Ahmed, wearing a cap like his father’s—a cap that identified him among his clansmen as the next syed, a religious leader descended from the Holy Prophet Muhammad Himself.

  Ahmed appeared proud to accompany his father as he held court, and Shabanu was certain Amina had schooled him on the importance of the occasion and how he should behave. He watched Rahim from the corners of his eyes and imitated everything his father did. When Rahim scratched his nose, Ahmed did the same. So total was his concentration that a thin thread of drool escaped his lower lip and fell to his lap.

  Shabanu leaned her head against the shutter. She still had trouble comprehending that Rahim had arranged Ahmed’s marriage to Zabo. It was too cruel to them both. It wasn’t just the humiliation Zabo would endure; Shabanu was sure Zabo would suffer on Ahmed’s behalf as well.

  The first petitioner presented to Rahim was the man with the thin young wife. He complained that he had bought her from her father at the price of four goats and a kanal of land, and she had not yet conceived. He wanted his property returned. The girl stood with her head bowed. She clutched a bundle of clothing against her chest, expecting to be returned to her family.

  Had he other wives and other children? Rahim asked. No, the man replied. He’d had the misfortune of having two barren wives before this one. He was nearing his fortieth year, and Allah still had not blessed him with a son. Would Rahim grant his request so that he could afford to take another wife?

  Rahim asked how old the girl was. The man looked back at him blankly.

  “When were you born, child?” Rahim asked the girl. Unaccustomed to being addressed directly, her shoulders swiveled back and forth out of nervousness.

  “She wouldn’t know, Sahib,” said the man.

  “What do you remember about your childhood?” Rahim asked. Her shoulders were still for a moment while she thought.

  “In the year of the drought our animals died, and we fled our village.”

  “Were you old enough to walk?”

  “Nay,” she said. “My father carried me.”

  Rahim looked at the man.

  “This child is too young to conceive,” he said. “Take another wife if you must. Leave her here, and we will take care of her. She’ll work in my house. I will pay you. When it’s time, she can return to you.” Rahim tossed the petition aside. “And perhaps you should pray,” he said, turning back toward the man. “If you’ve had two other wives and no issue, the problem may be with you.”

  The man’s face went dark with shame, but he handed the girl over to the bodyguard, who led her into the back part of the house toward the servants’ quarters. She shuffled forward a few steps, then stopped and bent to remove the shoes. She handed them to her husband and turned again to follow the servant without another word, still clutching her bundle of clothing to her chest.

  Rahim listened next to a long technical discourse on a dispute over water. Ahmed began to look around the room. His eyes came to rest on something beneath the balcony where Shabanu stood behind the screen, and she was unable to see what had caught his wandering attention. His expression changed from slackness of boredom to a sly grin. He tried to keep himself under control, but his lips quivered and he giggled several times, trying to cover his mouth with his sleeve. Several people in the front rows looked over their shoulders to see what Ahmed was laughing about, then apparently seeing nothing, turned forward again. There was an embarrassed shifting upon cushions in the front ranks of the room.

  Rahim, without interrupting the talk about water, reached over and laid his hand on his son’s arm. But rather than quiet Ahmed, the gesture seemed to break his thin margin of self-control, and he fell over on his side, laughing hysterically. Rahim gestured to a servant, who came and helped Ahmed to his feet and led him from the room.

  Shabanu pitied Ahmed. His mother had told him he was important and desirable from the day he was born. While he was spoiled, he was neither cruel nor arrogant. It was the only plus for Zabo that she could think of. At that moment Amina’s evil seemed horrifyingly powerful and palpable throughout all the rooms at Okurabad, even the balcony where Shabanu stood—almost as if Amina had the ability to snatch the house away from its long history and use it to her own purposes.

  Rahim heard five more cases before clearing the room. He conferred with the secretary for a while, then Ibne and the cook were brought before him. Both men wore white shalwar kameez. Their heads were bare. It was the first time Shabanu had seen Ibne without his mirrored velvet vest and starched turban in a knife-sharp pleated fan. He stood straight and looked directly at Rahim. His black hair was oiled and neatly combed. The cook, who was rumpled and splattered with sauces from the kitchen, hung back and kept his eyes on the corner of the dais where Rahim sat.

  “Hassan Ibne, on the afternoon of April second, you were apprehended outside the room of Begum Shabanu,” Rahim said. “Is that correct?”

  “Ji, Sahib,” Ibne answered.

&nbs
p; “Tell me why you went there.”

  “Khansama asked me to deliver a message to Begum—”

  “He’s lying, Sahib!” said the cook. “I gave no message.”

  “Be quiet!” Rahim said. “Go on, Ibne.”

  “Khansama gave me an envelope that bore your seal. He said it was a message from you and that I should take it directly to Begum’s room. When I got to the edge of the courtyard, a woman was standing there watching, and when I was near the door she began to scream. Then the cook’s helper came running and shouting and woke about five house servants, who also came running. There was much confusion. The woman was screaming, and the cook’s helper was shouting that they should grab me. I was too shocked to struggle, and they dragged me to the ground. The envelope disappeared in the scuffle.”

  Rahim listened carefully and turned to the cook.

  “Where did the envelope come from? Who put my seal on it?”

  “He’s lying, Sahib,” said the cook, who looked up at Rahim’s face then. “He went to Begum’s quarters because she summoned him. It wasn’t the first time.… ”

  “Enough!” said Rahim, and his voice was cold with rage. He asked to see the cook’s helper, a tall boy who kept his frightened eyes fastened to the floor. In a barely audible voice he corroborated the cook’s story. His ears, red as blood, stood out at right angles to his shaven head. There was no one except Shabanu to give a second testimony on Ibne’s behalf, and she knew she would never be called.

  Rahim’s face grew darker, but Shabanu wasn’t sure whose story he believed. In the end he dismissed all three servants, saying they must leave Okurabad immediately.

  The cook wailed loudly and put his fingers to his lips, imploring like a starving beggar. Ibne heard his sentence quietly, with his head high.

  Oh, Ibne, Shabanu thought, if I could have saved you, I would have tried. But it would have been worse for all of us. Forgive me for saving myself and my daughter, and not you. Damn Amina! Damn her and Leyla to hell!

  Rahim got up from the dais, and Shabanu left quickly, the way she had come—down the iron staircase, through the side door, and out onto the veranda. She hesitated behind the trellis, for in the wooden garden swing just a few feet away sat Amina, her sleek silver head leaning against the swing’s painted headrest, a faint smile on her heavily rouged mouth, her kohl-rimmed eyes closed. The rounded toe of one shiny black slipper touched the grass, and the swing glided back and forth with a faint groan, as if of its own accord.

  chapter 6

  One morning Shabanu rose early to mend Mumtaz’s ever-growing pile of shalwar kameez that had torn as she played among the thornbushes near the canal and climbed trees in the garden.

  The mornings were still cool, and a heavy mist hung about the topmost branches, descending into the open spaces above the lawn and rose beds.

  It was very quiet; even the horses in the stable were still sleeping. The pearly air slowly grew lighter as the sun rose above the fog. Across the courtyard the back of the house seemed to stare at her through its dark doors and windows. Shabanu wrapped her shawl tight about her shoulders, then sat on the front step outside the door to her room. She listened for the soft breathing of Mumtaz, who lay sleeping on the baby charpoi just inside. Choti lay curled at the foot of the cot, her chin tucked among angles of her folded legs.

  A gentle breeze blew in from Cholistan, across the canal, the air wafting alternately warm with the peppery sweet scent of kharin and cool with the damp smell of irrigated land. Shabanu hoped it would soon clear the fog and let in sunlight to warm the garden.

  She placed a candle on the small table that stood just outside the door. Lifting the lid to her sewing basket, she put her hand inside. Nestled among the skeins of embroidery silk, spools of thread, and scraps of cloth, she felt something at once hard and soft. She was puzzled for a moment, but then horror rose in her as her fingers found the sticky end of the thing.

  A sick feeling settled into her stomach as she withdrew the severed foot of a baby camel from the basket. She thought of her own baby camel, Mithoo, who had followed her into the desert when she’d tried to escape from her family before her marriage to Rahim. Mithoo had fallen into a foxhole and broken his leg. Rather than leave him to the vultures and jackals, she lay down beside him and waited for her father to find them. Thus she had committed herself to the future her family had planned for her.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Shabanu saw a curtain move slightly, and anger replaced the sick feeling as retreating feet slapped on the bare floor of the hallway that led from the back of the kitchen.

  Would she never be able to relax her vigilance? Even in the earliest part of the day, before the household awakened, must she be wary of everyone and everything? She was never quite able to put behind her the last intimidation or incrimination when the next was upon her. She sat still for a moment, listening to the birds in the neem trees. Then she wrapped the foot in her handkerchief, buried it back under the contents of her sewing basket, and stood purposefully to wake Mumtaz.

  For the next few days she was filled with rage at Amina’s persistence and small-mindedness. But the rage was good, she thought; it kept her watchful. She must be careful that her reactions should not embolden the others to progress from their evil mischief to more serious things that might endanger Mumtaz or herself. She worried most about Mumtaz. Without a mother to protect her, who knew what would happen to her daughter?

  Then came the day of the two invitations.

  Everyone at Okurabad had been talking for weeks about Basant, the spring festival of the kites. For days the household was alive with talk of the Basants of other years, when the men and boys of Lahore had flown kites from the rooftop of every haveli in the old walled city. The women watched from the roof of the cinema, which stood taller than the havelis, with only the minarets of the neighborhood mosques to obstruct their view. They talked about it until Shabanu could see in her mind’s eye the bright-colored pieces of paper against the afternoon sky, and boys leaning over parapets with brooms of twigs tied to the ends of long poles to capture kites cut free by the glass- and resin-coated strings of more skillfully flown kites.

  Mumtaz had pestered her.

  “Uma, please, can we go?” she asked, standing high on her toes and yanking at the sleeve of Shabanu’s tunic. “Please, Uma!”

  Finally Shabanu shooed her away, and the child took to telling Choti how she would make her own kites that looked like her father’s desert birds. She imagined that if they could fly, kites must have wings.

  The invitation came in an envelope marked only with her name, a plain white card inviting Shabanu to a picnic on the roof of the cinema. Part of her longed to go. It was the first time she’d been invited to Basant. And her dearest wish was to see Lahore.

  But the memory of the baby camel’s foot against her fingertips made her shiver. She was afraid to take Mumtaz to the cinema rooftop, four stories above the old city. She began to worry that it would be rude of her to decline unless she had good reason. The sun grew warmer, but she shivered every time she thought of the kites and the crowded rooftop. With everyone looking up at the sky, it would be easy for someone to push them over the edge. Their fall to the street below would be a convenient accident.

  And then the message came from the desert near Mehrabpur, where Shabanu’s sister, Phulan, lived with her husband, Murad, and their sons on their farm at the edge of the desert. A thin, solemn man wearing a faded blue turban was admitted unceremoniously to stand just inside the back gate of the house. Shabanu was summoned for the recitation of an invitation from her family.

  They had traveled to the edge of the desert, where they hoped she would join them to be with Phulan following the birth of her fourth son, the messenger said. The infant had come early, but both mother and child were well.

  Just the sight of the soft-spoken desert man lifted her spirits. And a visit with Mama and Dadi, Phulan and Murad and their sons, Sharma and Fatima, and Auntie and her two sons could
n’t come at a better time!

  The summons from her family was good enough reason to send her regrets for Basant. She wouldn’t miss seeing them for anything in the world!

  Rahim wouldn’t return from Lahore for several days. When he wasn’t at Okurabad it didn’t matter much to him what she did, as long as he knew where she was and that she’d be there when he returned.

  Without even placing a trunk call to Lahore to tell Rahim, Shabanu told the messenger to ask her father to come for her as soon as possible. She would be ready. She gave the messenger a ten-rupee note, which he refused. But she pressed it into his hand, and he folded the note into a package of country-made bidi cigarettes that smelled of cloves and tucked it into his breast pocket.

  Early the next morning, a tonga cart carrying Shabanu’s father emerged from the cool mist of late spring. The servants made him wait outside the gate, but Zenat had been watching for him since before daylight. She ran to the stable yard to tell Shabanu and Mumtaz, who were ready and waiting.

  Shabanu saw him through the gate. He stood in his embroidered slippers with turned-up toes beside the hired horse cart, his lungi and kurta clean and fresh, the breeze playing with the end of his turban. He looked awkward, his callused square hands hanging loosely at his sides, squinting at the wall as if puzzled by why it should stand between him and his daughter.

  “Dadi!” she shouted, and he ran to the gate as she flung it wide. His beard was flecked with gray. But Mumtaz leaped into his arms, and he swung her high over his head. He was still strong and straight as a young man, and Mumtaz squealed with delight when he caught her, just as it seemed she would fall to the ground. Even Zenat gave a rare grin that showed the entire length of her wide-spaced loose teeth.

  Shabanu and Zenat carried baskets of food and gifts of sugar and jasmine tea and cardamom and a large brass water pot for Phulan.

  The morning held the promise of warmth in the fog that swirled around the pony cart as it made its way through the outer edge of the irrigated area. The acacia trees were pale and fragile with new growth. Even the meanest desert shrubs were misted in pale green veils of leaf buds.