‘It was shameless of your grandmother to remain living even after Safdar’s father became her son-in-law; I would have immediately taken poison.’
‘Why are you so upset, nothing’s going to happen.’ Tehmina spoke as though from the bottom of a well. Her face had gone quite pale.
‘Oh, would that our Heavenly Father put an end to the quarrels in our home!’ Aliya prayed silently as she went into Safdar’s room. This prayer that Miss Mercy had taught her freed her of many sorrows.
As she entered the room she saw that Safdar was crying too. ‘Even the Heavenly Father does nothing,’ she said, now cross with Him as well. She wept and hugged Safdar.
‘Everyone’s crying, I wish I could die,’ she said sadly.
‘But the reason why I’m crying is that I’m going to Aligarh and I’m going to miss my little Aliya.’ He laughed as he wiped away his tears. ‘Now that you’re ten or eleven you’re so big,’ he chuckled.
‘I know everyone is lying.’
Safdar was leaving for Aligarh in only one week.
One week was quickly over, like a setting sun in December, and Aliya was counting the days on her fingers. How sad she felt. She believed that besides Tehmina, only Safdar really cared about her. Tehmina loved her silently, but Safdar was her play companion who told her stories. What would she do if he left?
Safdar had passed that day shut up in his room. The sky was shaded with clouds in those days and the air was full of dampness.
Amma refused to even look at Safdar’s face. Abba had stopped speaking to Amma. He’d begun to openly express his animosity for the British until ten or eleven every night. Tehmina’s reading habits had improved a great deal. She would study thoroughly whatever she read. She would sit and stare at the same page for hours.
The atmosphere in the house made Aliya anxious, so she went to sit on the front terrace outside, where the chaprasi sat sucking on his hookah. She began chatting with him.
‘What’s your salary?’
‘Five rupees.’
‘Why didn’t you build your house out of bricks?’
‘Because we’re poor, see, we can’t very well build a house with bricks like other people.’
She immediately recalled Safdar’s father, who couldn’t get anyone to respect him in his lifetime. She began to think of that entire story that had been told to Tehmina so many times. Whenever her heart ached, she’d get up and go to Safdar, but he’d forgotten how to talk these days.
The next day, in the morning, Safdar was going to Aligarh. His luggage was all packed. The room felt completely deserted. That day, Amma wandered listlessly about the house. She’d scold the maid at the slightest excuse and kept muttering to herself, ‘He’s being sent off to college instead of being thrown out of the house, he’s paying this dog’s tuition with our money. He wants to foist him on us forever—please, God, may he never return!’
In the evening, Abba went into Safdar’s room and re-emerged after a very long interval, then went to his sitting room. In the meantime, Amma had been working herself into a rage.
It was a very dark night. There were signs of wind and rain. That night the beds were set up in the veranda. After dinner everyone lay down. They lowered the wick of the lantern in the large alcove.
Before going to sleep, Aliya prayed fervently that the Heavenly Father would stop Safdar, and morning would never come. After this prayer, she went to sleep. At one point in the night, her eyes flicked open for fear of morning. Then she saw Tehmina tiptoeing from Safdar’s room. She came and lay down on her own bed, and Aliya could hear the soft sound of her sobbing as she fell back to sleep.
In the morning, Safdar climbed into a tonga and left, but before leaving he went to see Amma. He stood still before her for some time but when Amma would not look at him, he left after taking blessings from the maid.
Aliya went with him as far as the door. When the tonga set out kicking up dust on the dirt road she wrapped herself around Abba’s legs and began to weep. It was the first time that she had hugged Abba’s legs, and he patted her on the head; otherwise when did Abba ever have the time to show affection to anyone?
In the afternoon, Kusum came and talked quietly with Tehmina. In the evening, after tea, Abba spoke to Amma for the first time in a week.
‘After he’s done with his BA, that thing is going to happen, understand?’
‘We’ll see about that,’ announced Amma defiantly.
As the days slipped by, memories of Safdar dimmed. Aliya would go to Kusum’s after school and practise the song ‘Oh, where has my Shyam gone . . .’ on the harmonium. She was so happy when she was at Kusum’s. She didn’t care for the atmosphere in her own home one bit. These days Amma was fretful and irritable all the time, and Tehmina still read with her gaze buried in just one page of a book, or sat with eyes downcast, or helped Amma out around the house. Aliya decided that something else was wrong at their house besides Safdar.
A takht was placed in Safdar’s room, covered in a sparkling white sheet. When it was time to eat, this was covered with a tablecloth. Ever since they’d started eating in Safdar’s room, Tehmina’s diet had grown quite spare.
Safdar had written only one letter since leaving for Aligarh. He’d not written any after that, and when Abba had sent him a money order, he’d returned that as well. That day Abba was very upset but Amma looked thrilled. She laughed sarcastically and Abba avoided eye contact with her.
‘He knows you hate him because of that money,’ said Abba, finally forced to speak up.
Amma was beside herself with rage. ‘So I am to embrace the son of a low farmer! Don’t we have children of our own to spend money on? That good-for-nothing, he’s slapped you in the face by returning your money. What does he need you for now? He’ll get a BA and live it up. Someone told the truth when they said that true blood never fails, and a low-born is never faithful.’
‘So the son of my sister is low-born and your brother’s wife isn’t! She’s probably descended from some sweeper. When your brother married her, he slapped his people across the face. Oh yes indeed, thanks be to God, a British sweeper is also our ruler.’
‘If you say anything about my brother and his wife it won’t turn out well for you! She knows you well enough, doesn’t she? That’s why she doesn’t give a damn about you, she keeps silent for my sake, else she’d long since have had you thrown in jail!’ Amma’s voice was tearful.
‘That sweeperess would have me thrown in jail?’ screamed Abba angrily.
Amma began to weep loudly. Tehmina had gone pale and Aliya cried silently. The older she grew, the more sensitive she became. She loved Abba fiercely, and was increasingly distressed by Amma’s cantankerousness, but when she saw her crying she felt agitated. She longed to hide Amma away in her heart.
‘Now let your low-born nephew come, if he doesn’t get beaten with shoes by a sweeper, my name’s not . . .’ Amma lashed out at Abba as she wept.
‘Certainly he will come, and he’ll come directly here in a groom’s procession,’ declared Abba, before quickly walking outside.
Amma muttered for a long time, ‘One day this household will come to a very bad end.’
Aliya went into her room. Tehmina lay face down on the bare bed.
‘Aliya, I’m going to write him a letter and tell him never to come here again.’ Tehmina lifted her head and looked at Aliya. Her skin looked so sallow.
‘But Abba says you’ll be married to Safdar?’ Aliya asked, as she leant over Tehmina.
‘Hah! Amma will never allow the marriage, and I’m very frightened of dishonour, so nothing can happen,’ cried Tehmina, her face hidden in her arms. Aliya sat down quietly and stroked her hand.
What bitter thoughts she was thinking right at that moment. Safdar must be having a wonderful time studying, and he wasn’t giving them a moment’s thought, but everyone here was thinking of him and fighting bitterly. It was all so absurd. Safdar hadn’t written Aliya a single letter. Did he even miss Tehmina?
/> ‘Don’t tell Amma that I’m crying,’ said Tehmina, lifting her tear-stained face to look at her.
‘When have I ever told Amma anything?’ Aliya was annoyed.
Kusum had entered the room so Aliya got up and went out on to the veranda. She knew what sort of things the two of them would discuss now. Even so, everyone hid everything from her, just because she was younger, despite her being fairly old by now. No one even knew the state of her heart. No one even wondered what she might be thinking. No one made any effort to understand her. No one knew that now in school she even prayed to the Heavenly Father to have mercy upon her home.
8
Several autumns and springs came and went, but in Aliya’s home, autumn never turned to spring. No matter how Tehmina watered the henna plant in the yard its thirst was never quenched; the thin green branches had turned black. Tehmina had grown thin and weak over those few years. Abba seemed completely detached from the household; after he returned home from the office, his sitting room would fill up, and his voice, full of clear hatred for the British rulers, was the loudest of them all. At such times, Amma would pace restlessly about the yard.
‘Oh, what a cursed day it was when I married! All is lost—and what little is left is bound to be lost as well,’ she’d say to Tehmina as she paused her pacing. On receiving no answer she’d set to mumbling again.
At least she was to some extent at peace with Safdar now. He had completely disappeared after completing his BA at Aligarh. Try though he might, Abba was unable to learn anything about his whereabouts. Amma was in a great hurry to get Tehmina married off somehow. She felt there was a danger that Safdar’s ghost might suddenly reappear.
Whenever the maid finished cooking, Amma would discuss the wedding arrangements with her. Abba no longer took any interest in household matters. When he came to bed at night, he’d pick up a book. If the topic of marriage came up he’d grunt and put it off.
One day, when Amma heard from Kusum that a friend of Abba’s had been arrested, she fell to trembling with dread.
‘You’ll send us all out begging. If anyone arrests you what will happen to us?’ Amma whimpered and cried that night.
Abba sat up, agitated. ‘I won’t do anything myself because of you people, and anyway there’s nothing I know how to do, there’s just this hatred that cannot be concealed.’ Then Amma wept a long time and talked and talked, but Abba spoke not one word.
After the arrest of Abba’s friend, Amma became even more anxious about Tehmina’s marriage. She had no family herself, besides her brother and his wife, but there were loads of boys in the families of Abba’s relatives. Amma had also written a letter in those days to her brother, asking him to arrange Tehmina’s marriage. In response, her brother wrote that his wife had said that girls should marry as they chose, so she should introduce Tehmina to boys in the family and marry her to whomever she preferred, and his wife said that they would certainly come for Tehmina’s wedding.
Upon reading this, Aliya was aghast but Amma smiled the whole day. She was elated and kept saying, ‘Look, how could my poor sister-in-law know that we don’t observe such customs here?’
Though Amma was herself so pleased on reading this, she didn’t even mention it to Abba, though she did keep after him to arrange Tehmina’s marriage. Abba either kept quiet or tried to get out of it by saying she could arrange the marriage with whomever she liked. At this, Amma would settle in for a fight.
‘Then why don’t you go ahead and say you’re not her father! Then I’ll go out myself and search for a boy?’ she’d cry.
Abba would call out to Tehmina to avoid these conversations, and ask her to come sit by him. Then Amma would have to keep quiet.
Around that time, a letter came from Big Aunty requesting Tehmina’s hand for her son Jameel. Such a letter at a time like this seemed a blessing to Amma and she wrote to accept after asking Abba’s permission.
That very same day it was Holi. The next day, Kusum brought many tasty treats to their house and when she hugged Tehmina, she smeared her face with Holi colours. Then she rushed over to Aliya, who managed to escape her clutches. Amma burst out laughing when she saw Tehmina’s colourful face; perhaps she’d forgotten for just a moment that she considered Holi sinful.
‘But, Kusum, you didn’t play Holi?’ Amma asked.
‘I’m a widow, Aunty!’ Kusum’s smiling face fell.
‘Humph!’ said Amma, paying close attention to her for perhaps the first time.
‘How I wish I could really play with the colours, Aunty, and wear a colourful sari, it’s such hard work to restrain myself. But my husband never considered any of this.’ Kusum burst into tears.
‘Hush, hush, Kusum, it’s inauspicious to cry on a festival day,’ said Amma, trying to calm her down, and Kusum quickly wiped away her tears and turned to chat with Tehmina.
The next afternoon the maid told Amma, her eyes bulging, that Kusum had run off. Amma’s eyes opened wide with astonishment.
‘What, did Kusum truly run away?’ Aliya was also startled and stared at Amma. There was not the slightest trace of surprise on Tehmina’s face, however, as she watered the henna plant, the leaves of which had now turned green.
‘Oh, my, Sahib has been shamed; such respected people they were.’ The maid beat her brow as she spoke.
‘Now she really will play Holi and wear colourful saris; her parents have been shamed, but who cares! Of course, if it were up to me I would bury all elopers alive. Gracious! She turned out just like Salma. Don’t go and get remarried, they say—oh, no! Well, they can have their religion, their daughter was singing constantly and no one read the signs.’ Amma stared hard at Tehmina as she spoke—‘Oh dear, oh dear, if only I’d known, I wouldn’t have let my Tehmina spend a single minute in her company.’
‘What difference does it make if I spent time in her company or not, Amma?’ Tehmina spoke sharply for perhaps the first time in her life.
‘God willing, Kusum will be happy in her new home,’ Aliya kept praying, and she thought of Salma Aunty as well.
For a few days, Ray Sahib did not even come to Abba’s sitting room, and when he did come, he kept telling everyone that Kusum had gone to visit her maternal grandmother, that she’d left in a huff, and that was why he hadn’t been going out anywhere because he was feeling gloomy.
Kusum’s mother also told Amma, ‘Kusum has gone off sulking to her granny’s house in Haridwar. Won’t I give it to all the rumour-mongers when she comes back!’ But when Aliya said the same thing to Tehmina, she blanched. ‘God willing, she’ll never come back,’ she said softly.
After Kusum had eloped Amma’s worries only increased. She wanted to marry Tehmina off somehow or other. All day long Amma spoke of cousin Jameel’s good looks and many virtues. Aliya would listen with great interest but, for some reason, Tehmina would become extremely involved in housework at such moments. She’d rush about rearranging things all around the house.
‘Tehmina, you’ve seen cousin Jameel, what’s he like?’ asked Aliya, who was getting extremely curious about her sister’s groom-to-be.
‘Who knows!’ Tehmina burst out laughing at her question. She looked fairly cheerful at that moment. ‘But, Aliya, don’t you ever miss Safdar?’
‘Not a bit! He’s turned out to be an extremely heartless man, I only miss those who miss me,’ Aliya responded bitterly. ‘I only miss my cousin Jameel now.’ When she looked at Tehmina mischievously, Tehmina began to laugh heartily.
‘Tehmina, I hope you get married after my exams, otherwise all the fun will be spoilt,’ said Aliya anxiously. Studying in class nine had made her very earnest.
‘There’s no way I can get married before your exams, because you’re the one who will make me a bride,’ responded Tehmina staring at her hard; then she left the room.
9
In those days the leaves of the henna plant were turning a deep shade of green. Tehmina would fill a pot with water in the morning and evening and water the plant. The maid ga
zed upon Tehmina with great tenderness and laughed. ‘Water them well, my daughter, we will need this henna for your hands.’ And Tehmina would smile quite shamelessly. What strength did she have left to be embarrassed by anything anyone said? She intently prepared her dowry in front of Amma. The tablecloths and pillowcases she was embroidering were so lovely it made you want to kiss her fingers. Aliya was not being asked to do anything because she was burdened with her class-nine schoolwork. The atmosphere in the house in those days was as cool and calm as a moonlit night. Amma had so forgotten Abba’s presence that she didn’t even think of quarrelling. The tailors and the goldsmiths rushed to and from the house all day long. Amma’s eyes never tired of poring over books of patterns and Aliya happily read to herself.
But oh, my, how short-lived that happiness was! Early one morning, the maid came in and said that Tehmina’s friend Kusum had returned.
‘Get out, liar!’ Amma screamed with astonishment.
‘I swear to Allah, Bibiji, she’s returned. My sister-in-law saw her herself. There’s a man with her and they’ve rented a house.’
‘My God, what shamelessness, first she runs off, then she comes back to rub it in her parents’ faces! Really, couldn’t she find some other place to live? If she ever tries to come to my house I’ll rip off her legs and throw them away!’ declared Amma, glancing over at Tehmina. Tehmina’s face went turmeric-yellow. She set aside her tablecloth, stood up, and quickly rushed off to her room.
When Aliya went to see her, Tehmina was anxiously rubbing her hands together.
‘Oh dear, Aliya, why did she come back here? Everyone will insult her here. Why did that idiot bring her back here?’
‘Maybe she came to see her parents; it’s been six months, after all. Maybe she wants to ask their forgiveness,’ Aliya suggested.
‘Oh, you idiot!’ retorted Tehmina; then she began to think about something.
The Women's Courtyard Page 4
