The Holy Woman (8 page)

In the darkness, Shahzada’s eyes shone with
bitterness
and hatred. She knew, with chilling precision, what she had to do. She would stand by her husband and endorse his decisions. She would, however, never forgive him or the barbaric traditions that made men like him enslave their women and force them into alien
roles. Men like him who forgot their humanity and bargained with the lives of their loved ones, for the sake of their precious parcels of land.

She wanted to rush out of her home and put a torch to the fields, reduce them all to ashes. She wept: ‘Land represents fertility. For my family and daughter, it spells doom and sterility. To keep the land in the family, my daughter is destined to remain forever barren and childless, denied the joys of motherhood; her arms never to know the aching joys of holding a newborn child to her breast.’

Shahzada wondered sadly what her daughter was dreaming about at that moment. Did Sikander feature in those dreams? Did she sleep peacefully, unaware of the sentence which had just been passed on her and the noose waiting to be tied around her neck?

‘I am a mother, but a traitor,’ Shahzada sobbed into her pillow.

When she awoke early in the morning to the sound of the muezzin’s call to prayer from the nearby mosque, Shahzada wept again. Her daughter who had led such a carefree, secular life would soon have her whole life pivoted around the prayer-mat. Totally devoted to
ibadat
.

Rising with slow, measured movements Shahzada went into the bathroom. After her ablutions, she offered her
fajr
prayers.

Habib had woken up, and watched her from his bed. He noted the length of time she had spent in saying her personal prayers – her
du’ah
to Allah. What had she prayed for? Was it for their daughter?

When Shahzada stood up, he was confronted with her vanquished, bereft face. Dark rings lined her eyes.
In one night she had aged. There was no condemnation, but no forgiveness either in those warm brown eyes.

‘Have you been praying for us, Shahzada?’ Habib asked, a hesitant timidity entering his voice for the first time in his life.

‘I have prayed for all my family. For my dead son, may he rest in peace in
Jennat
. For you, and may Allah forgive you and us, for what we are about to do,’ Shahzada replied with quiet dignity.

‘Shahzada, there is nothing to forgive. Why do you persist in such talk?’

‘I will not argue with you, Habib.’

He noted her deliberate omission of the respectful
Sahib
after his name. It saddened him, but he let it pass.

‘What I’ll say is this,’ Shahzada continued. ‘I will never forgive you, but I’ll do my best to support you in everything, as it is my duty.’

‘Thank you,’ he responded with a sigh of relief, grateful for her support.

‘Don’t thank me,’ Shahzada spat bitterly. ‘I am just a puppet, a mere worthless woman to do your bidding. You and your father are the puppeteers, Habib. You hold my daughter’s fate in your hands. What choice do I have? I can only swing and dangle along in whichever direction you pull and manoeuvre my strings. What can
I
do to save my daughter from the fate you have destined for her? People say it is their
kismet
, but it is bullies like you who carve other people’s
kismet
for them and dictate their destiny – as you told me so gloatingly the other day. I am shackled to the chains of your male domination, your
ressmeh
, your traditions.’

‘Don’t talk nonsense!’ He turned on her angrily, sitting up in his bed.

‘There you go again. That is all you believe I do –
talk nonsense. As far as you are concerned, Allah has only blessed
you
with any commonsense.’ She turned away from him and left the room. Habib remained
sitting
on his bed, bemused by her words.

‘Oh Jafar, why did you have to die?’ he cried out. ‘It is because of your death that I am forced into doing this. I feel that the rift in our family will never heal. Your mother will never forgive me, and that will be so hard to bear.’ He put his head in his hands and wept whole-heartedly.

S
HAHZADA WENT DOW
N
to the kitchen quarters of the house, to check if everything was in order for their guests’ breakfasts. She prayed that Zarri Bano wasn’t awake, for she could not face her yet. The task that loomed ahead of her was a mammoth one: to prepare her beloved daughter for her role as the Holy Woman.

Standing forlornly in the middle of her large,
well-equipped
modern kitchen, Shahzada tried to supervise the work of her three women cooks as they prepared
halwa puri, chana
curry, tea, pastries and
parathas
. Her mind in a total whirl, she hid her face a number of times in the folds of her head shawl, as tears kept
gushing
silently down her cheeks. Her housekeeper, Fatima, was the first to notice her crying.

‘Shahzada Sahiba, please, you mustn’t cry. We all loved our handsome Jafar. We have the rest of our lives to cry and mourn for him, so please stop,’ Fatima urged, also now unable to stop herself from weeping. ‘Please go and sit down in the other room, we can manage
here.’ Brushing her eyes with the corner of her
chador
, Fatima led her mistress out of the kitchen.

They went into an adjoining room, and sat on the comfortable sofa together. Treating all her servants and subordinates as equals, and with innate kindness, Shahzada had built a special rapport with Fatima: she had been with them for over twenty years, and was therefore almost like another member of the family.

Although commonsense dictated that she mustn’t do so, the urge to confide in and to share her anguish with Fatima wouldn’t be denied. Otherwise, Shahzada felt she would go mad, hugging such a lethal bomb to her chest.

‘Oh Fatima, Fatima!’ Shahzada began in a broken voice. ‘I thought I was the happiest woman alive. I have a beautiful home, a wonderful lifestyle and was, until my Jafar died, blessed with the most beautiful children that I could ever have imagined or dreamt of. I know all mothers are proud of their children. I tried not to be, but I was. How can I forget my handsome son? My lovely Ruby, and as for Zarri Bano …’ She choked on her tears.

‘Please, Sahiba, you still have your Ruby and your Zarri Bano. Don’t cry. You have every right to be a very proud mother. No one can compare with the beauty of our Zarri Bano, and she is still alive.’

‘Do not talk about her beauty – for what use is it when it is hidden away, for no living man to admire, to love and to reproduce it?’

‘What are you saying, Sahiba? What is the matter with Zarri Bano?’ Fatima squeaked.

‘She is doomed.’ Shahzada looked directly at her friend and helper, her eyes shimmering with tears.

‘I don’t understand.’ Fatima stared back at Shahzada
with fear etched across her plump face. ‘Tell me, why is she doomed?’ A believer in black magic,
Kala Jadoo
, Fatima was now very alarmed indeed. Had somebody used a
tweez
, an evil amulet, to ruin her pet’s health? Fatima’s mind became ablaze with all sorts of ideas and superstitions. ‘It used to happen in the village, but surely not here in the town,’ she whispered to her mistress.

‘It is not black magic, Fatima. It is worse. She is going to become a
Shahzadi Ibadat
, a Holy Woman!’

Fatima stared back in horror at her mistress. ‘Shahzada Sahiba, no!’ she groaned, her voice low – almost a hiss. ‘It cannot be true. Who said so?’

Shahzada watched Fatima’s distress reliving her own reaction yesterday when Habib had first mentioned it to her. Hadn’t she herself beaten her husband on his chest with her fists? And this, from an obedient,
submissive
wife who had never raised her voice at him before, let alone her fists! The unreality of it all washed over her. ‘None of this is really happening! It has to be a nightmare,’ she found herself gasping out the words.

She felt so old. The double loss of Jafar and now Zarri Bano had melted into her very bones.

She was the
chaudharani
, the queen of this clan. Yet in one single stroke, her husband had reduced her to the status of the lowest of the low. Even the fishmonger’s wife had more autonomy and would have been able to battle against her husband’s aggression for her children’s sake. She, on the contrary, was tied to a gilded cage.

Even if her husband had weakened under her pleas, she couldn’t fight single-handedly against the pressure of his male elders, especially his father. For who had ever heard of a daughter-in-law taking the law into her
own hands and defying their wishes? As a woman, she was of no consequence – her opinion counted for nothing. A law unto themselves, men’s words were commands, and they were born to be obeyed. They possessed a successful knack of reasoning, and making everything sound so plausible. In the face of their thinly disguised tyranny one could never hope to win or to challenge them. They were always steps ahead of you and very adept at that.

Zarri Bano had no chance, crushed against this wall of patriarchal tyranny. Even with her youth, feminism, and a university education, and with an outgoing and assertive personality on her side, she was still fated to be the loser in this game of male power-play.

Like her mother, it had been drilled into her from infancy to both respect and pay homage to her father’s wishes and those of the male elders. To veto any of their decisions was seen as the height of insolence and a sign of moral and social disorder, a form of rebellion which the elders deemed it imperative to crush immediately and in such a manner that it would never rear its ugly head again.

On the other hand, for Shahzada to help her daughter escape from her
destined
role was also
unthinkable
. For where and what would Zarri Bano escape
to
? The strength of her clan, like any other’s, depended on their
izzat
– their family honour. For Zarri Bano to abandon her home would bring their
izzat
crumbling down on everyone’s head. Nobody would be able to recover from the shock, the
baesti
, the loss of face.

For her daughter to marry before the Holy Woman ceremony was also out of the question. The marriage would give rise to a great scandal, especially if it wasn’t sanctioned by her father and grandfather, and in the
light of her brother’s recent death. They were to be mourning Jafar for three months.

In short there was no escape for her beloved daughter! Zarri Bano too, was going to be tied to a gilded cage, but she would be inside it. For unlike her mother, she could never marry, have children, enjoy the company of a husband, or lead a carefree normal life like any other woman. Her only role and duty was that of
Ibadat
, religious worship.

‘Fatima, I wish I was a fishmonger’s wife.’ Now she spoke her thoughts aloud. ‘For then I could protect my daughter’s interests. Here I am a
chaudharani
, but I don’t even have enough power in my little finger, to save my daughter from the fate that is awaiting her.’

‘Please, Sahiba, don’t cry. Of course it will not come to that. It cannot happen to our Zarri Bano. It is both insane and cruel. How can a beautiful woman, ripe for marriage and children, be denied the role for which we, like all women all over the world, are destined? That is what Allah created us for.’

‘It can be, and it is going to be, Fatima. I tell you that I am powerless to prevent the tide of events which will likely take place in the next few days.’ Shahzada looked at Fatima with eyes full of misery. ‘You people of the lower caste envy us our wealth, but at this moment I would give anything to swap lives with you, or a woman living in a mud-baked hut. Fatima, my daughter’s hands will never be painted with red henna wedding patterns.’ She sobbed as if her heart would break.

Fatima’s mouth remained open as the full implication of what her
chaudharani
had said sunk into her mind. It couldn’t be! Her hands began to rub against each other of their own accord, signalling her inner distress.

Squatting on the floor, she laid her head against her mistress’s lap and began to weep. Having brought her up since she was seven years old, she loved Zarri Bano like a mother would. She had fed her, bathed her and dressed her. Over the years, she had loved listening to her chatter, her sarcastic remarks, and had peeped at all of her suitors for her benefit and described them to her, prior to her meeting them. In her heart, like Zarri Bano’s father, Fatima was never satisfied with any of them. She always thought her Zarri Bano was too good for those men. It was only Sikander who had passed the test. And only because she had glimpsed a light and a wistful expression in Zarri Bano’s eyes that Fatima had never seen there for any other man. The housekeeper’s heart had swelled with pride and joy, knowing that, at last, Zarri Bano had met her match. A man she could both respect and love.

Now this. ‘It just cannot be!’ She wanted to run and beat her head against the wall in Chaudhury Habib’s presence, bring him to his senses!

They remained huddled together, locked in their personal grief for long silent minutes. It was only when the cook, Naimat Bibi, came to ask whether they should set the dining tables for breakfast, that Shahzada stood up with a heavy heart. Life had to go on. Personal crises had to be swept aside in deference to daily
routines
and appearances.

An hour later, most of the guests, dressed and washed, had come down to the large dining room. They sat in groups and while they ate, they talked and passed the food round the tables. When Habib came in, he sat alone on a sofa, not at any of the four large dining tables, and chewed a cake rusk with his tea. He was
deep in thought as Shahzada looked at him, while hovering around the tables, making sure that all their guests were well served. Even with her personal grief tucked deep inside her heart, she kept a keen eye on everything, checking that the china was spotlessly clean, and that napkins were widely available.

Ruby and Zarri Bano entered the dining room.
Looking
round and smiling warmly at everybody, they sat down together at a table with two vacant seats.
Everybody
stopped eating, feeling sorry for them – poor sisters who had lost a beloved brother.

Habib and Shahzada exchanged a nervous glance across the room as their eyes rested on Zarri Bano’s bare head. In the presence of her relatives, Zarri Bano had never made any effort at covering her head.

Ten minutes later Sikander and his mother Bilkis came into the dining room. Zarri Bano had her back to him, but she happened to look up from her cup at her father at that moment, and the wary look on his face alerted Zarri Bano to Sikander’s presence. On seeing him, her mouth curved into a warm smile – her eyes shone with pleasure. Sikander smiled back, his eyes caressing her face; he did not care who witnessed it.

The dried rusk in Habib’s hand snapped loudly, shattering the moment. Sikander politely moved away, leading his mother to the other end of the room to another dining table. Zarri Bano followed his
movement
with wistful eyes. She turned to her father and noticed his tense expression and the nervous
movements
he was making with his hands. A dread feeling tugged at her mind, as she recalled once again her mother’s words.

As if testing, her eyes sought Sikander’s. Again she
found her father’s gaze intercepting theirs. She felt guilty, as if she had been caught doing something wrong. ‘It isn’t a crime to make eye-contact with the man I am going to marry!’ she wanted to shout at Habib. She looked at her mother for an explanation, but Shahzada avoided her in a pretence of handing a napkin to one of the guests.

Reluctantly, Zarri Bano raised the muslin shawl over her head and then deliberately stared at her father. She didn’t smile at him this time, he noted. There was something else in her eyes and expression now.

Has the penny dropped? Has she realised? he thought wildly. He quailed at the thought of what the future held for them, wondering if his precious Zarri Bano would ever smile at him again. Already he could sense her antagonism seeping out of every pore of her being, from across the room.