And the World Changed (22 page)

“Shall we go for a drink?” he asked hastily as he saw her turning to leave.

“Can't, I'm afraid . . . I'm booked to see a play,” she improvised.

“It's early yet. A quick one . . . ?” he insisted.

“All right, then. It'll have to be very quick, though,” she gave in with bad grace.

They walked around to The Jolly Beggar, which seemed unusually deserted for that time of evening, and he managed to get their drinks in record time. She was wondering what they could talk about to avoid the obvious, but he clearly didn't want to.

He took a deep breath and launched into an explanation of his own position. “All this was unnecessary. It's only giving free publicity and attention to a stupid, small-minded, parochial group! An insignificant loopy lot on the fringe, that's all, the Green Dragons! Sometimes it's best to tolerate rather than suppress things that act like a steam vent. They should've been ignored.”

“It's too late to go back to that option,” her voice sounded cold even to her own ears. She felt angry with him, extremely angry.

“How is he?” he asked.

“Seriously ill.”

“Get him to stop. Talk to them,” he urged.

“Didn't you hear me, Sam? It's too late! He's dying.”

“I'll talk to the Vice Chancellor. I can get him to change his mind: I know.”

“You? You'll talk to the VC?” Contempt accentuated the surprise in her voice. “Why
should
you? You've just said you don't believe in what the students are saying!”

“It would still be quite insane to carry on this conflict on these terms, that's why.”

“I wish you'd changed your mind earlier, Sam. The VC is away for three more days and I don't think Youseff will last that long.”

His face blanched. Then he opened his brief case and took out a blank sheet of headed notepaper. He wrote down a statement and handed it to her.

I, the Vice Chancellor of the City University of London, do hereby agree to all the demands of the Students' Union pertaining to the Green Dragon Club and its publication. I also agree to undertake appropriate measures to curb these activities within the campus as soon as possible.

                    
Sincerely,

                    
E.L. Whitton

He had signed the VC's name in a manner only vaguely resembling the real thing, but they wouldn't know. She shook her head in disbelief.

“Just give it to them. They'll accept it as real,” he urged in a whisper.

“But that would be cheating! You could get into so much trouble, Sam. What if the VC doesn't agree to abide by this?”

“He will. I could claim that he asked me to write this on his
behalf. But even if he doesn't, at least the boy would be saved by then, wouldn't he?”

She sat staring at the note for a long moment. He was right. The students would accept it as a victory. It would be virtually impossible for the VC to fight against a fait accompli, an action for which a senior member of his staff, and a very close friend, had taken personal responsibility.

“Why are you doing this, Sam?” she couldn't help wondering about his motives.

“I haven't worked that out yet. . . . But you better take it and go before I change my mind.”

“Right! All right, then. Great!” She looked into his eyes and smiled. Warm and effusive. Suddenly her usually somber and intense face was transformed. Her eyes glowed with a mellow hazel light, no longer that cold, stony green. She picked up his coat and held it up for him as he craned down gratefully to slip his frozen shoulder into the sleeve.

“If only one could solve all the riddles the sphinx keeps hidden under those stone paws. . . .” he was thinking. “If only . . .”

RUBIES FOR A DOG: A FABLE

Shahrukh Husain

Shahrukh Husain (1950– ) was born in Karachi and educated at the Convent of Jesus and Mary there. She published her first stories in the children's section of the magazine
Woman's World
when she was eight years old. She migrated to Britain in 1970 and has lived there since.

Husain writes fiction and nonfiction for adults and children, and is particularly interested in folklore, myths, and women's studies. She is
also a translator, a screenwriter, and a practicing psychotherapist dealing with intercultural issues. Husain coauthored
Urdu Literature
with David Matthews and her husband, Christopher Shackle (Third World Publications, 1985). Her books for children include
Mecca
(Evan Brothers, 1993) and
Tales from the Opera
(Barefoot, 1999). Her adult fiction series, originally published by Virago Press and translated into many languages, contains myths that she has reworked for modern audiences, including
The Virago Book of Witches
(Virago, 1993; later published as
Daughters of the Moon
, Faber, 1994),
Women Who Wear the Breeches
(Virago, 1995; later published as
Handsome Heroines
, Anchor Doubleday, 1996). She has also written a nonfiction work,
The Goddess: Power, Sexuality, and the Feminine Divine
(University of Michigan Press, 2003).

Husain cowrote the screenplay for Ismail Merchant's 1993 film,
In Custody
, adapted from Anita Desai's novel, which was nominated for an Oscar and a BAFTA award, and received the President of India Gold Medal.

“Rubies for a Dog: A Fable” first appeared in
Women Who Wear the Breeches
and provides a fascinating example of a woman's assertion of equality through cross-dressing. Husain's version was developed from an English adaptation that appeared in
The Everland Storybook
edited by Oliver Brown (1931) but the original story dates back to medieval times and is based on “The Tale of Azad Bakht” from the great Urdu classic
, Bagh-o-Bahar
(A Tale of Four Dervishes) by Mir Amman Dehlavi (1803), the first book of Urdu literary prose. Although a reconstruction of Turkish, Persian, and early Urdu tales,
Bagh-o-Bahar
portrays the Indo-Muslim culture of the early nineteenth century. The story provides an excellent example of how texts mutate across countries, cultures, languages, and continents.

In the Urdu original, the King, Azad Bakht, is the narrator and tells a series of tales within tales, in which the courageous but nameless “Wazir's daughter” is an important catalyst. In Hussain's story, the Wazir's daughter is called Samira. She is the central character and has a strong sense of self worth, as a woman and an equal, and she sets out to prove it, admirably.

• • •

Once there was an Emperor, much loved and much respected, but when he put his faithful old advisor, the Grand Wazir, into prison, and worst of all, told nobody the reason why, people wondered about his sense of fair play. Still, everyone accepted that emperors can be erratic at times and that the Wazir had probably said something so offensive that it did not bear repetition. So everyone in the kingdom looked the other way. Everyone that is, except the Wazir's daughter, Samira. She refused to sit idle in the halls of her father's sumptuous mansion while he, the provider of all this luxury, languished in a dank cell with chains locking both his limbs and his lips. But try as she might, she could not get her father to tell her anything, and without the facts she could do nothing. “You are my child,” the old Wazir said sadly, “and I thank God for you. I will not risk your life by telling you what happened. If I had a son he would do what is necessary to clear my name. But I cannot send a daughter.”

When Samira's father refused her help because she was a woman, she felt humiliated and useless. She crept back to her castle and wept, and cursed the narrow vision of men who bound women in their homes, then considered them incapable of achieving anything outside.

“If I visit my father,” she thought miserably, “I will only remind him that he has no son while I, his wretched daughter, incapable of helping him, remain ensconced in his mansion, swathed in silk, decking myself in gold and jewels and always in danger of jeopardizing his reputation. As far as he's concerned, the only good I can do is to live a blame-free life so that people call him a man of noble birth and without character.”

A few days later, Samira received a message from her father. Was all well with her? He was grateful for the food she had sent and he did not wish to impose a visit on her, but he needed to know she was safe and well. A message would be enough.

Samira longed to see her father—but how could she? Her woman's body, her long hair, her feminine attire would be anathema to him. To see in her what could have been, but was
definitely not, must be unbearable for him. She stood staring at herself in the mirror—exquisite as a
pari
, tall and straight as a cypress tree, rosy cheeked, from head to toe the essence of beauty. Yet she hated every part of herself. In a rage, she picked up a small dagger and began to rip away her clothes. Then she looked with pleasure at the velvets and chiffons and beaded silks lying in fragments on the floor. But when she looked up, her reflection still mocked her.

“I'm still here,”
it taunted.
“Still beautiful and still female. Now what will you do to deny me?”

Samira put the sharp blade to her head and long silken strands of hair slithered lifeless to the floor. For a moment she fancied she saw a woman reflected in the soft heap of her tresses—her mother.
“You are right,”
she seemed to say.
“I approve of your plan.”

Reassured, Samira ran to her father's bedchamber and began looking in his wardrobe. She searched and foraged amid the brocades and velvet until at last she found a small bundle of starched pink muslin, sparkling with silver mica from the sea. She undid the knot that tied it, and there it was! The outfit her father wore when he went wandering amid the crowds of Constantinople to learn what the people of his great Emperor Azad Bakht were thinking. It was useful for a Wazir to know whether people were content or discontent, what pleased them about their sovereign and what made them unhappy, whether they thought him wise or whether they decried a folly or two that had crept into his character. Then the Wazir would act on it. Cleverly and diplomatically, he would reshape the criticism and filter the contents of his findings into the Emperor's ear to mould him into an even better ruler, just as he had done for his father before him. No fool was our worthy Wazir—until this last time. What had gone wrong? For he had made a mistake that he would probably never have the chance to rectify. That is if Azad Bakht and the Wazir had their secretive way. But Samira had her own ideas in the matter.

Carefully she dressed herself in the flowing overcoat and baggy trousers her father wore to go out among the people. They were of plainer cloth and not so highly embroidered; a little duller, because the thread of the embroidery was dyed in the colors of flowers and vegetables rather than gold and silver; clothes that would not set her apart from the average merchant or businessman.

“Apart from the turban,” she thought, “it's all much the same. I fit these clothes as well as my own. But the turban feels cumbersome on my head just as a father's duties must weigh him down.”

Then Samira made her way to the dungeon.

“Your daughter has sent me,” she said, deepening her voice. “I am her sworn brother and therefore your son. I am to be your champion and free you from this odious place. I beg you, tell me why Emperor Azad Bakht imprisoned you and how you can make amends.”