Secrets of the Henna Girl

by Sufiya Ahmed

  ‘Nobody else better to look after baby. It was Sehar-ji’s husband’s order. Salman Sahib said only I can. Memsahib not happy, but she not want to look after baby and anyways she has to listen to wishes of her son. He is man.’

  I pondered on Farhat’s words about Sehar’s husband. I had never met him. Sehar had only ever referred to him as ‘the git’ and he had existed in our world as the mysterious bogeyman. Why would he order Farhat back into the haveli? Perhaps he knew how much the girl had adored his wife and so would treat his son better than anyone else. Maybe he was going to be a better father than he was ever a husband.

  ‘Oh, he is here,’ Farhat said in a low voice and pulled her shawl over her head.

  ‘So you are Zeba?’

  The voice was almost feminine, squeaky and soft. I looked up into the angelic features of Salman Sahib, the younger of Sher Shah’s two sons. His skin was smooth with no trace of stubble, his shiny sun-kissed hair flopped over his feline eyes and he had a skinny body that was just an inch or two taller than mine. Sehar had never mentioned that she towered over him.

  In those first few seconds, I understood why Sehar had been so repulsed by this man. She had always gushed about the heroes of her Bollywood movies, who were masculine and courageous. Salman Sahib was nowhere close to being the hero of her dreams, and the angelic features could not hide his petulance.

  ‘You look so natural with my son,’ he said, eyeing me strangely.

  With one hand supporting the baby, I used the other to pull my shawl fully over my head.

  ‘You know it’s a shame that you have the ring of another man on your finger.’

  I gaped at him. What was he talking about?

  ‘You could have made an excellent mother for my son.’

  Instinctively I took a step back, appalled. This man was disgusting. The earth had not even settled on his wife’s grave and he was already thinking of marrying another woman.

  ‘You know I would be willing to move to the UK with you, unlike Asif,’ Salman continued, oblivious to my revulsion.

  ‘What?’ I gasped.

  He gazed at me with an odd expression. ‘Asif is very much the hero, the adventurer, but Pakistan is not a fairy tale. Death is but a step away in this country. Heroes do not live happily ever after. They die, so why tie yourself to him?’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I blurted out. ‘Asif will be moving with me to England. He won’t remain a soldier.’

  Salman’s face was malicious in its glee. ‘Who told you that? Mustaq Khan? The old man is fooling himself if he thinks Asif will leave the army. Obviously you don’t know your fiancé very well. He will remain here in this country, fighting the extremists, and you will reside in this village with his parents, your life withering away.’

  Something snapped in my mind. My life was no longer my own. And Sehar had no life left. Was I doomed to remain in this village like my friend – to die here?

  Would I ever see England again?

  Sehar had wanted to escape, and the reason she hadn’t was because she had been biding her time, foolishly thinking she would be allowed to return home if she just stuck it out a little longer. Except she never got to go home. Events … destiny … whatever it could be called, robbed her of her one hope.

  I knew then that I had to escape. Sehar would have wanted that.

  ‘I have to go,’ I muttered, handing the baby back to Farhat before fleeing with my heart in my mouth.

  I ran to my nannyma’s house in the midday sun. Halfway there my slipper broke and the useless plastic and rubber hung off my foot as I navigated around the mud, ditches and cow pats. I kept my face half covered with my shawl, but I knew from the stares I attracted that I had not succeeded in hiding my identity. The villagers knew I was the foreign girl … the one who was still alive.

  The midday sun bore down on me like a laser beam and I stopped against a tree to catch my breath, but only for a second. I wanted … I needed to be free and nothing and nobody was going to stop me now.

  I owed Sehar.

  I adjusted the slipper and clenched my toes against the plastic in an attempt to hold it on. I went five paces before the slipper broke completely and fell off. Abandoning both shoes, I began to run in my bare feet. The hot earth scorched my soles, but I did not care. I was running towards freedom. All I could think about was Sehar’s face.

  Sehar laughing as she paddled in the river.

  Sehar clutching the branch of a tree with one hand as she plucked its fruit with another.

  Sehar trying not to look awed as the baby kicked her in the womb.

  Sehar lying dead, wrapped in a white shroud on the haveli’s hard marble floor.

  The images of Sehar flicked through my mind like a digital photo frame, and I ran faster and faster. My breathing was now rapid and I had a stitch in my side. I knew I should stop to ease the burning sensation but I couldn’t … I wouldn’t. And so I carried on, running like a mad person who had escaped from the asylum, desperate to get away from the people who were preparing to put me in a straitjacket for the rest of my life. Minutes later I was running up to Nannyma’s veranda, and she jumped up from the swing and rushed forward, arms held out to catch me.

  ‘Zeba, what has happened?’

  ‘I have to leave,’ I gasped. ‘I cannot marry Asif. If I do, I will die like Sehar.’

  Nannyma stared at me. ‘Hush, child,’ she whispered.

  ‘I mean it! I don’t want to die!’

  ‘You won’t die,’ she assured me.

  ‘I will if I marry Asif,’ I insisted, and burst into tears.

  Nannyma led me inside the house, where Ambreen-bhaji bathed my feet in cold water. One of my toes was bleeding. Eventually I calmed down. The panic was replaced by a new-found determination. Only an hour ago I had thought that I would end up the same as all the other women in this village: confined, restricted and woven into a culture that was organized to suit the power and status of men. Well, I wasn’t having any of it. I was not a citizen of this country. It did not matter who my ancestors were. What mattered was who I was, here in the present.

  I waited till Ambreen-bhaji had placed a towel on the floor for me to dry my feet, and then turned to Nannyma. I told her about the email address etched on the tree trunk. I was going to contact my country for help.

  She looked at me doubtfully. ‘How can they help you? You are thousands of miles from what you call British justice. This is another country.’

  ‘I have to try, Nannyma,’ I said determinedly. ‘All I need is an internet connection. I just need to be able to send this woman an email about where I am, and they will come to rescue me … Please.’

  ‘The only place in this village with an internet connection is Sher Shah’s haveli, but you will not be able to use it. It will arouse suspicion.’

  ‘There must be somewhere else,’ I pleaded.

  Nannyma thought for a moment then announced: ‘Your auntie Nusrat is due to arrive from America this weekend. You can go to Karachi with her and use the internet there,’ she said. ‘You will have to be very careful, Zeba, but that plan may just work.’ Nannyma leaned forward and held my face in her hands. ‘Please don’t get your hopes up, though. What you are suggesting sounds like a fairy tale. I will ask Nusrat to help you, but in return you must also prepare yourself for the idea that you will marry Asif. Do not let this dream cloud what may be the reality.’

  Chapter 24

  My auntie Nusrat-kala was an angel sent to set me free.

  She was exactly as I remembered: pretty face beaming with a smile. Nannyma had confided everything to her younger daughter in a letter and Nusrat-kala had not hesitated in getting on a flight with her husband. I knew it meant a lot to Nannyma that her daughter still remembered what life in the village was like, and therefore knew how shaken her mother would be by recent events. She put my own mother to shame.

  I
t seemed everyone was delighted to see Nusrat-kala. Ambreen-bhaji’s eyes followed her around affectionately while Husna-bhaji hung off her every word. Even the water-collecting women came up to the veranda every day to exchange pleasantries with Nusrat-kala. She was like a celebrity come home. Uncle Tahir was content to remain in the background while the village women oohed and aahed over his wife. At first I couldn’t see why everyone loved her quite so much, and then I realized it was because she made every person feel special. She enquired after their elderly parents, their children, the monsoon season and how it had nearly ruined last season’s crops, and a vast array of other things that affected their lives. And at no stage did she boast of her Western life, and if she did talk about it, it was only because she was asked. Watching her, I wondered if it was an American thing to be so cheerful.

  Two days after Nusrat-kala and Uncle Tahir arrived, we prepared to go to Karachi along with Nannyma. The three adults had discussed what they could do to help me, but as my passport was in my dad’s possession there was really nothing they could do. I really was a prisoner in this country and the only people who could help me escape were British government officials. We didn’t tell anybody about the trip. Precisely at seven in the morning, Kareem-baba parked an old jeep outside the porch.

  ‘Who does this belong to?’ I asked.

  ‘It used to be my dad’s,’ said Nusrat-kala in her unique accent, which was part South Asian and part American. ‘Mom keeps it secure in the old barn around the back and she uses it occasionally.’ Then switching to Sindhi she called, ‘Kareem-baba, have you checked it for oil and water?’

  He nodded, beaming at her.

  ‘Well, let’s go then,’ she said cheerfully.

  I climbed into the back with Nannyma and my aunt while Uncle Tahir took the front seat with Kareem-baba.

  ‘What if someone asks where we’re going?’ I suddenly said aloud.

  ‘Don’t worry, Zeba,’ said Uncle Tahir, twisting around. ‘We’re free people. We’re visiting Karachi for clothes … you know, for your wedding.’

  ‘Won’t they think it’s strange that we didn’t ask Mariam-chachi to come with us?’

  Nusrat-kala laughed. ‘You know, kid, you think too much. You need to chill.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say,’ I said. ‘You have your freedom.’

  An uneasy silence descended on the car. ‘Zeba beti,’ said Nannyma. ‘Your auntie is only trying to help.’

  I turned to look out of the window and touched the piece of paper in my pocket. The day after my encounter with Salman Shah, I had run to the riverside and crouched under the giant tree, searching the bark for Sehar’s engraving. After copying the address I’d sat under the tree for a long time, remembering my friend.

  I knew she would have been proud of me.

  The journey to Karachi took five hours, and as we approached the city my heart grew heavy with dread as the time neared for me to take steps towards regaining my freedom. I peered out of the window at the bustling crowd. The streets were packed with people wearing both modern and traditional dress. Beards and burkas mingled with clean-shaven faces, tight jeans and sleeveless tops. The roads were packed with scooters swerving to avoid stray goats, and trucks heavily loaded with goods decorated like Bollywood stage sets. After the serenity of the village, the city was buzzing with noise and commotion.

  ‘It’s kinda crazy,’ I muttered.

  ‘There is some order in the chaos,’ Nannyma said. ‘You have to look for it, but everything and everyone is heading somewhere.’

  Back home I’d ventured as far as Leeds city centre with Susan and I’d thought that was mega-busy. I had never been to London and I wondered if it was like this – but somehow I doubted that our capital would have roads where a line of four vehicles raced against each other to get ahead in a three-lane road, and animals would certainly not be part of that same traffic.

  ‘I love the crowds,’ Nusrat-kala announced, turning to me with a grin. ‘It reminds me of Chicago.’ She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. ‘I’ll show you one day.’

  Our first stop was an internet shop, which was inside a modern shopping mall. Uncle Tahir quickly paid the money and then led me to the computer in the middle of a large room. I looked around at the other customers, who were all immersed in their own screens, oblivious to me, but I still felt nervous. What if someone recognized me? There had been hundreds of people at Sehar’s funeral and many had noticed me as the other foreign girl who was engaged to the army officer. What if one of Asif’s friends or Sher Shah’s associates saw me? The landlord seemed to have a spider web of contacts from the top of society all the way to the lower ranks. Sher Shah would immediately inform Taya-ji and then we’d all be asked some serious questions.

  ‘Zeba beti, perhaps you should get started,’ Uncle Tahir advised.

  Nodding, I pulled out a chair and sat down under the whirring ceiling fan. I logged on to my email account and found about twenty messages from Susan. I nearly burst into tears at that point as a feeling of homesickness washed over me. Fighting to swallow the lump that had formed in my throat, I opened her most recent email and read the sentence demanding to know where I was.

  I minimized Susan’s message and opened a new message window and typed as fast as I could. I’d memorized what I wanted to say so I didn’t waste time when I got the chance. It was simple and straight to the point.

  Dear Tara?

  My name is Zeba Khan and I am a British citizen. I am being held against my will by my father’s family in Pakistan. They are forcing me to marry my cousin. I do not wish to and need help to escape. My friend Sehar Shah gave me your details. She is now dead. I am at the following location …

  I set out the details of the village in terms of the distance from Karachi and I also added my UK home address as well as my school’s name and address. I wished I’d memorized my passport number, but I hadn’t and there was nothing I could do about that now. I wish I’d also known my National Insurance number, but the card was tucked away in my desk at home. Pushing aside thoughts of identity numbers, I quickly researched the email addresses for my local MP, the Foreign Office and the prime minister’s office at 10 Downing Street and copied the message to them. I prayed that Tara would pick up the message, but if not her then somebody, somewhere.

  Next I quickly wrote to Susan, explaining the situation and asking her to contact our school headmistress to see if she could help.

  In half an hour I was done. This was it. I had contacted the people who could help me.

  My stomach still full of butterflies, I made my way back to where Nannyma, Nusrat-kala and Uncle Tahir were waiting for me.

  ‘All done?’ Nusrat-kala asked.

  I nodded. It felt so simple and fast. Could this really work?

  Back in the jeep, Nannyma squeezed my arm. ‘Our God is full of justice, Zeba,’ she said quietly. ‘He will help you escape. You have taken the necessary action and now all you can do is wait and pray to him.’

  I nodded and stared out of the window at the people scuttling past. Suddenly the vehicle braked and our bodies lurched forward. A cold dread filled my heart. Taya-ji has found out what we have done. He has sent Sher Shah’s thugs to stop us and …

  ‘Sorry,’ Kareem-baba said from the driver’s seat. ‘The fool pulled out in front of me.’

  Biting my lip, I peered forward and saw a small car was blocking our way. The driver was a young man who looked apologetic as he attempted to restart his vehicle.

  ‘Be careful, Kareem-baba,’ Nannyma advised calmly.

  My heart returned to its normal pace as we sat waiting for the car to move. Then we were off again. Our next stop was going to be the clothes market. Nusrat-kala needed to buy some new outfits … it was going to be our cover story for the visit if anybody in the village asked.

  The next few days passed in a blur. Every hour of the morning and afternoon I stood at the edg
e of the veranda and stared out at the distant road, hoping, yearning and wishing for this faceless ‘Tara’ to come and rescue me. Nusrat-kala sometimes stood silently beside me while Nannyma sat on her swing, her fingers flicking through a misbaha, praying for my freedom.

  I knew it would be highly unlikely that I was rescued within days of having sent the emails. The real world did not work like that, especially given that it would be a miracle if I was rescued at all. Tara, or someone at any of the other offices I had written to, would have to notice my email first and only then could a rescue process start. I knew all that, but I also knew that time was passing. We were now only two weeks away from my wedding and I had never known the clock to tick so fast.

  I stayed away from Taya-ji’s house where I knew Mariam-chachi was having daily meetings with wedding planners. Because my parents would not be back until just before the wedding, it was going to be the wedding that Asif’s mother wanted for her son. Even if I wasn’t being forced to marry Asif, the idea of getting excited about celebrations so close to Sehar’s death turned my stomach. I didn’t care what I was going to wear – in fact, the less I liked it the better. I’d never been the type of girl who spent her childhood imagining herself on her wedding day and thinking about all the preparations. But I knew that, if I had been, this wouldn’t have been the vision that I’d have conjured up.

  Chapter 25

  Farhat’s wedding day arrived. She was finally going to marry her Abdullah.

  Unlike Asif’s family, Farhat had tried to cancel her nikaah, her wedding, but her parents had insisted it go ahead as the arrangements had been made. The view was that there was no point in delaying a good occasion, and I agreed that Sehar would have wanted Farhat to be happy.

  The week before, Sehar’s family had left for England and taken her baby son with them. I’d been to say goodbye with Nusrat-kala, and Sehar’s mum had confided to my aunt that she was going to raise him, give him a British education until he was ready to return as an adult to his father’s home. Sher Shah had agreed to it and his will was the only one that mattered. Sehar’s mum kept calling the baby Ishfaq – I was not sure who named him – certainly Sehar had never mentioned any names. I’d held her baby in my arms before they left. Farhat had been sitting at my feet on the floor, crying. She’d made no attempt to stop her tears. She was heartbroken that they were going to take the baby away. Farhat had convinced herself that Ishfaq would remain in the village and she would be his nanny, caring for him like she had her beloved Sehar. She couldn’t understand how the baby had a British passport when he had been born in Pakistan. I’d tried to explain that the baby was British by descent and it did not matter where he had been born. That was just geography. His mother had been British and that meant he was too.