The Pakistani Bride

by Bapsi Sidhwa

  While Miriam settled cross-legged on a charpoy, sometimes taking over a friend’s knitting or embroidery as they gossiped, sometimes helping a girl cut her kurta or shalwar, Zaitoon played with the children. She ran to hide with the others and yelled and laughed when caught. Often she helped the little girls feed and wash their younger brothers and sisters. On summer evenings they spilled into the comparative cool of the alleys, little girls burdened with even younger children on their hips, the babies’ necks wobbling dangerously as their carriers played hopscotch or crouched over a game of bone knuckles. In the winter they rushed up the steep, spiral steps winding to earth-packed rooftops, the boys to fly kites and the girls to play at housekeeping with their dolls and miniature earthenware pots and ladles. In spring when the sky was dotted with paper kites, the young men and boys allowed the girls to hold the manja, kite string made abrasive with finely crushed glass. The girls, afraid of cutting their hands, handled the strings carefully and at the first hint of battle gingerly handed the manja back. Experts tackled attacking kites. The air was shrill with their thrilled “aiii-boooows” when their kite managed to set another’s adrift; and the “Ooooos” when their own lost the battle were happy nevertheless. There was always a mad scramble to catch the strings of drifting, defeated kites and the triumph of hauling them in was shared by all. Nikka, too, loved flying kites and there were many good-natured fights between him and the experts on the Mullah’s roof.

  In the Mullah’s house the men wore beards. It was an austere household and even the little girls covered their heads at the warning click from the microphone which preceded the Mullah’s call to prayer. The men gathered in the mosque and the women who had performed wazoo, that is, had washed themselves as specified in the Quran, spread their mats wherever they could. They knelt, facing Makkah, to pray, undisturbed by the children crawling, squalling, running, and quarrelling around them. The rest of the women covered their heads and prayed silently for the duration of the call, carrying on with whatever they were doing, stirring the pot in the kitchen or breast-feeding the babies.

  Once Zaitoon overheard a woman saying that a ten-year-old was pregnant. “How can that be?” she asked incredulously. “She’s not married: it’s impossible!”

  “It has happened, strange as it might be.” Someone confirmed it, and Zaitoon believed it was a miracle. For a while after that she yearned for the miracle to strike her as well.

  Besides the Mullah’s, Miriam and Zaitoon regularly visited the butcher’s, electrician’s, haberdasher’s, and hakeem’s families. All of them were as well-off if not better off than Miriam, considering the quantities of lamb cooked in their kitchens, and the presence of servants.

  Chapter 7

  One warm Friday morning toward the end of spring, just after prayers, Nikka was offered his first important political commission.

  A grave, imposingly attired man, whom Nikka recognized, walked purposefully to his stall. He ordered one of Nikka’s celebrated paans and discreetly indicated that he wished to speak to him alone.

  Leaving the shop to Qasim, Nikka took the man home. Miriam, who spied the important-looking visitor through a curtain, cloistered herself in the kitchen.

  Nikka seated his guest on the sofa. He locked all the doors.

  “What is it, Chaudhry Sahib?” he inquired solicitously.

  Chaudhry Sahib, his eyes demurely averted, sighed, “Our illustrious benefactor needs help.” He spoke with a faraway look, as if talking to himself. “Such a great man, such a prince. One would think he has no worries, no cares . . . a king among men—the flower of our nation!” Chaudhry Sahib’s dingy cheeks sagged in melancholy folds beneath his squirrel-tail moustache. Nikka leaned forward full of concern. “Can I help in any way?” he asked. Chaudhry Sahib was reputed to be one of the most trusted associates of the Mighty One.

  “Our inspired leader has deadly enemies,” he complained. “One particularly venomous snake has to be dealt with. Somehow he will have to be liquidated. Can you manage it?” He shot the question direct and swift. Removing his tall, gold-domed turban he carefully placed it beside him on the sofa. As if in a dream Nikka studied the elaborate folds of the fine, starched muslin. Caught unawares, he felt as if a goat had butted him in the stomach.

  Before he could recover, the man, suddenly hard and overpowering, said, “You will be given protection, my friend. Our benefactor is a man of his word, loyal to his followers, a king. Not everyone gets a chance to oblige him. Of course, he knows nothing about this strategy, you understand?” Chaudhry Sahib made a suave gesture. “Naturally, you will incur all sorts of expenses. I am in a position to reimburse you up to five thousand rupees.”

  He waited, and at last, meeting his steely glance with numbed candor, Nikka said, “I am greatly honored, Chaudhry Sahib, that you should take me into your confidence. But, to be frank, I don’t want to become a fugitive all my life, groveling for protection. I’m a married man. I have built my business, my reputation, my prestige. I am the most respected man in Qila Gujjar Singh . . .”

  “That is why I have come to you and none other!” interposed Chaudhry Sahib, springing to his feet with an agility surprising in so heavy a man. “Only a man of your caliber can be trusted in this matter. As to your being a fugitive, rest assured. I give you my word as a Mussalman and the word of our Leader . . . my word is his word . . . You will live where you wish, and maintain your status and respect. Not a soul will dare touch one hair on your head. In fact, you will be favored. If it is more money you wish, maybe I . . .”

  “No, no Sir,” said Nikka hastily. “That is not the point at all. Let me think on the matter. Could I see you tomorrow?”

  “Yes, think by all means!” Chaudhry Sahib picked up his turban and lowered it on to his head with practiced precision. “If I were younger, I wouldn’t bother you. By the way, we will give you a gun—and any information you need. We know the man’s habits. That should help. You will have to study him yourself, of course. He is a wily landlord. Anyway, think it over. We will discuss details after you decide.” That evening Nikka took Qasim into his confidence.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “Why, kill the man of course! What is there to think about? Haven’t you killed before?”

  To Qasim’s amazement Nikka said, “No, I haven’t. I broke a man’s neck once and he died. But that was in a wrestling bout, a professional accident. Why should I kill a man who has done me no harm?”

  “Because you will receive five thousand rupees!” retorted Qasim. “Why, there is nothing to it. I will help you, if you like. You know they won’t let you down.”

  Nikka’s scruples dwindled. Eventually he was given a photograph of the victim, a thin, tall, predatory-looking man dressed in a heavy silken lungi and achkan-coat; bespectacled and balding.

  The man lived in Lalamusa but visited Lahore frequently. Here he stayed at his brother’s bungalow on Lawrence Road, the exclusive domain of the rich. There was no point in gunning him down at Lalamusa where he wielded influence. It would be almost impossible to escape his followers and bodyguards. The villages around Lalamusa were loyal to him, whereas at Lahore his support was limited. All Nikka had to do was kill him and get away undetected. Chaudhry Sahib had promised that Nikka would not be pursued or traced. “That,” he said confidently, “is my responsibility. If need be, we will provide a scapegoat.”

  The man was expected in Lahore in two days.

  Nikka scouted around. He discovered that their quarry was nervous about just the sort of event that was being plotted. Obviously, outside his domain he had numerous enemies and took every precaution. He arrived and departed in a convoy of three identical black Chevrolets with green-curtained windows. Nikka kept his eyes peeled for the predatory-looking bespectacled man, but each time the cars disgorged confusingly similar personages, swarthy men in extravagant floor-sweeping lungis, lordly achkan-coats and tall turbans. It was days before Nikka learned to identify his charge.

  Disguised
alternately as a fruit vendor or a gardener tending the patch of municipal shrubbery in front of the bungalow, he kept his quarry under surveillance.

  “He must be scared out of his piss,” Nikka thought when he saw him once change places with the driver and open doors for his laughing henchmen.

  Past the gates, the cars curved away in screeching, dust-raising haste.

  Qasim had requested leave for a week. One morning he strolled by the bungalow studying it carefully. The whitewashed house gleamed like a mottled bird through the foliage of peepul and eucalyptus trees. A vacant lot on the right of the bungalow held a gas pump. The spot occasionally served as an open-air car-repair garage. On the other side, standing behind driveways carpeted with luxurious layers of red earth, was a row of palatial bungalows.

  Qasim didn’t repeat this reconnaissance. Nikka told him, “You’re too obviously a Pathan. Better stay away.”

  In the early stages of their friendship Qasim had tried to explain why he disliked being called a Pathan; he was Kohistani. But Nikka said, “Friend, all you hill people are Pathan to us.”

  On the fourth evening of their target’s visit, Qasim, deprived of action and tense with private misgiving, decided to console himself with a trip to the brothel streets of Hira Mandi. He enjoyed the narrow lanes streaming with men, and the tall, rickety buildings leaning towards each other. He could stroll in these lanes for hours, his senses throbbing . . . the heady smell of perfume, the tinkle of payals on dancers’ ankles, the chhum-chhum of feminine feet dancing behind closed doors excited him. He watched the gaudily dressed, heavily made-up girls lolling on carpets, leaning on bolsters, chatting with each other and with their musicians. Doors flung wide open showed harmoniums and tables waiting to entertain.

  The girls smiled their invitations boldly. Qasim knew he had only to step up with money and the doors would close about him, shutting off the street, intriguing passersby with the sound of music and the tinkle of ankle-bells. He would be inside relishing their charms and dances.

  Occasional seekh-kabab and sweetmeat stores brought a pleasing touch of reality to the incandescent mirage of the area. The men jostled each other, eyes peering behind arching doorways as they looked at the girls leaning from balconies. And from the structures cocooning the girls pulsated the melody of verses sung to the pleading, sweet, high pitch of a shehnai—and with the merry twirl of belled feet throbbing upon carpets.

  The pungent whiff of urine from back-alleys blends with the spicy smells of Hira Mandi—of glossy green leaves, rose petals, and ochre marigolds. Silver braid hems blue dancing-skirts; tight satin folds of the chooridar pajama reveal rounded calves; girls shimmer in silk, georgette, and tinsel-glittering satin. Qasim, like a sperm swimming, aglow with virility up to the tips of the hair on his knuckles, feels engulfed in this female street.

  A string of black, parked cars suddenly blocked Qasim’s way. The pedestrians swirled, compressed through the narrowed passage. The gleaming chrome and black shapes looked vaguely familiar . . . and instantly Qasim was alert. He sensed that the celebrity Nikka was after was right here.

  He looked around. It was still a bit early for business and many open doors displayed their merchandise.

  He sauntered up to a girl leaning invitingly on a railing by the first car. Her long, thin plait of hair, fattened by a garland of jasmine, swung forward when she rocked her head and tilted her eyes in rhythm to hummed verses. Noticing Qasim’s interest, she smiled encouragingly.

  “Look at those big cars!” he said, eyeing them with exaggerated admiration. “Where are the owners?”

  The girl tossed her head, indicating the untidy tangle of arched windows and balconies overhead.

  “With the grand Maharani Sahiba I suppose.”

  Qasim laughed, feigning a careless, lewd interest.

  “Come inside,” she invited him.

  “Maharani Sahiba must be quite something,” he said, moving so close he almost touched her. “What’s her real name?”

  “Shahnaz. But she’s too grand for the likes of you,” she teased him good-naturedly.

  Another girl and two musicians were looking at him with curiosity. The girl inside smiled. She was prettier.

  “Why don’t you come in?”

  “I will . . . very soon,” said Qasim. He spread his arms helplessly, “I’ll be back on payday.”

  “Don’t forget. You’ll like us. She dances,” she said, pointing her thumb at the girl inside, “I sing.”

  “I will definitely come,” mumbled Qasim apologetically, but the girl was already looking past him.

  He scouted the congested place for an access to Shahnaz’s upstairs apartment. He had no plan, but the shock of the target’s presence galvanized him. Discovering what appeared to be an entrance, he groped his way along a narrow passage into the dank guts of the building.

  In a labyrinth of dingy tunnels, he kept looking for stairs. Stale air, poisoned by the stench of ammonia, frying onions, mustard oil and sweat suffocated him. He stumbled over a child defecating, and the discordant sound of music filtering through the walls was pierced by a distant wail. He groped for balance and his hands along the wall slid into grime. He looked into squalid rooms, nauseated by the reek of poverty and decay; the syphilitic reverse side of the tinsel. Qasim grew frantic. He ran blindly through the red betel-juice-stained corridors, brushing at cobwebs that clung to his skin.

  The thoroughfare issued into a slushy, unpaved gully. He had penetrated right through the building and the air he now breathed beneath the starry sky felt fresh as a pine-laden breeze.

  An old man sat on a charpoy vacantly puffing a hookah. A little further up, in the middle of the lane, was a structure of bamboo poles enclosed by scraps of jute sacking. Light filtered through a circle of men peering at the center. The grating, irregular chhum of payal-bells coming from it intrigued Qasim and he walked up to join the spectators. A man shifted, making room for him. The crude sack fence came up to Qasim’s chest. A woman, bells tied to one twisted ankle, was hobbling around in the small enclosure. Her short, thick-waisted body jerked grotesquely. Now and again, a man standing with her in the enclosure shouted, “Naach, pagli!”—dance, madwoman—and jabbed her with a cane. At this she would raise her arms and twist her wrists in a grim caricature of dance movements. Her jaw hung slack in an expressionless face, and sick yellow eyeballs stared unseeing. Qasim was horrified. Would any of these men sleep with her, he wondered? This was nothing human. It was a sick excrescence. Did the pimp think that by exercising the excrescence he could stir sensuality? The woman continued her monotonous, mechanical spasms, one hip jerking higher, jaws dribbling spittle. There was laughter, and Qasim realized they were mocking her. A man, obscenely shaking his body, called to her as to a monkey. A couple of men laughed, enjoying the sport. “Don’t touch her,” the man from inside warned when an arm reached across the fence.

  A spectator threw a coin into the enclosure. It lay half-hidden in the dust at her feet. Qasim threw an eight-anna bit and silently withdrew.

  He wanted to hasten to the glittering side of the building, back to the tinsel-dusted girls and the pink, spicy haze.

  Loath to reenter the inner hallways he walked until he came to a passage between the building and the next block. It was a mere gash, a slice of dark open to the sky, a channel for the sewage drain that flowed through it.

  Walking astride the drain to keep from touching the walls, Qasim was more than halfway across when a slit of light fell across the drain. It came from a dimly lit entrance. Qasim glanced casually through the open door. He hesitated a moment and then stepped inside.

  A dust-coated bulb barely lit the stone parapet fencing the steps. This side-entrance, he realized, led upstairs. Feeling his way through the gloom, Qasim carefully began to climb.

  “Just where do you think you’re going?”

  “Upstairs,” replied Qasim freezing in surprise. Only then did he notice two men sprawled on the landing at the top. They wore white lungis
and Qasim could just make out the deeper shadow of achkan-coats beneath their turbans. He was glad of the murky light that masked his face. Recovering his composure almost immediately, and acting the part of a harmless buffoon, he set up a plaintive wail, “I want to see my Shahnaz.”

  One of the guards stood up. “My masters are in there,” he snarled. “Now scram.”

  Snatches of laughter and the shrill voice of a singing girl came from behind the closed doors. “The bastard is having a good time,” thought Qasim.

  “Why can’t I go in? Your masters are not the only men around, you know,” he whined in the half-scared, half-defiant manner of a garrulous dimwit.

  One of the men climbed down and, pushing Qasim roughly, threatened, “Will you go—or do I have to throw you out?”

  Feigning terror, Qasim stumbled backwards. “All right, all right . . . I’m going,” he mumbled. His heart thudded at his bold histrionics.

  The man sniggered. “Sneak up some other night, you lovesick lout. Our masters won’t leave till two.”

  A riotous burst of laughter came through the closed doors. Qasim wondered if the men inside were drunk.

  “Are those whoring pigs drinking sharab?” he called insultingly.

  There was an angry shuffle. Qasim stumbled down the steps and through the vestibule and safely reached the anonymous jostling main street that flowed between the dancing girls.