The Pakistani Bride (15 page)

“Well, that's our work.”

“What are those?” she asked, indicating a row of red-painted animal figures that perched, like benign deities, on slim concrete pillars fencing the bridge.

They had to shout though they stood so close that Mushtaq could smell her slight, inoffensive sweat.

“Chinese Lions. They are a gift from the People's Republic of China,” he went on. “At one time they were believed to frighten off evil spirits—and bring good luck. I like to think of them as sentinels guarding our bridges.”

“They look more like bulldogs, but they're cute!” said Carol.

“We have just completed another bridge at Pattan, twenty-five miles upstream.”

“Isn't that where Farukh has gone?”

“That's right. Why didn't you go?”

“I don't know. I'm glad I didn't,” she added impulsively.

Straddling the gorge over a distance of more than four hundred feet, the bridge dissolved abruptly on a shelf of sand. There a few indefinable tracks led into the cliffs.

They walked over to the sandy bank. It was desolate and Mushtaq looked about uneasily.

“We'd better not lose sight of the bridge,” he said. “Of course, they are scared of the uniform, but you never can tell.”

“What can they do?”

“Take a pot shot at us just for sport.”

“Would they dare?”

“Why not? To avenge us our jawans would just as casually blast some of their villages, routing them out of their filthy caves. A lot of good that would do once we're dead!”

“Really!” cried Carol, thrilled by the threat of danger, yet convinced that no one would actually kill her. The thought of the possibility of rape vaguely entered the rim of her consciousness.

They stepped up a trail leading from the gorge. A few minutes later, enclosed by granite, they were miraculously isolated on a tiny island of sand.

“How warm it is. Feel it.” Carol let the pulverized crystals run through her fingers. She dropped down on all fours, and a slice of white waist gleamed invitingly. Mushtaq knelt beside her. He was unable to keep his eyes off her ebullient behind. His hand reached out to encircle her waist, and they collapsed on a heap of sand.

 

Three clansmen had watched the Major and the American woman cross the bridge into their territory. Their shalwars trailing the grit like soft fox-fur, they effortlessly leapt over the boulders. They settled on a sunlit ledge high along the slope.

“It's the Major Sahib,” whispered Sakhi.

His eyes slit into dancing sapphires reflecting the deep cold sky. “Hah! The show is about to begin,” he proclaimed, gleefully observing the man and the woman in their small domain of sand. His companions smirked contemptuously, gluing their eyes on the interlopers.

Mushtaq lay flat on his back, scanning the arid tumult of rock and cliff. Carol reclined by his side.

“I could fall asleep,” she said. “Let me know if there's any danger.” She pillowed her head on his arm.

Turning slightly Mushtaq inhaled the shampooed fragrance of her hair. A few strands touched his cheeks, and he closed his eyes.

Carol sighed, looking at the towering jungle of slate beyond them. She felt strangely unreal—adrift. “What a jumble. As if God scratching through the earth, had smashed the mountains in a mad rage . . . He too must have His frustrations.”

Mushtaq's hand crept under her sweater, kneading her satiny skin. His voice was a husky gurgle, “Ummm . . . When Atlas lifted the world, he held it here. His fingers forced the earth into chasms and the rising mountains; the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush, and the Karakoram . . .”

 

Their eyes met in quick, exultant triumph and, as if on cue, the three tribesmen broke into a tumult of laughter and catcalls that echoed boisterously.

The Major sat up and straightaway spotted the trio jeering on their sunwashed ledge.

They saw him glance up. High on the ledge, Sakhi pirouetted in a riotous stamping dance, his turban swirling and ballooning.

Mushtaq moved away from the woman. To all appearances, he was unconcerned. At this point it would not do to get up and run. His face set in a dusky scowl, he swore under his breath. Lifting some sand, he allowed it to run nonchalantly through his fingers. Embarrassed, Carol shifted away.

The little tableau on the ledge continued. Intermittently the tribals swung their arms in puppetlike, swirling movements, but the pebbles they hurled did not reach as far as the vulgar smacking noises they made with their lips.

Mushtaq stood up.

“We'd better get out of here.”

He glanced at the wall of granite surrounding them, wondering which path to take. And suddenly he froze. Barely
three feet from where he stood, peering through the recess of a dark fissure, gleamed a pale, unblinking face. The Major stood rooted to the spot, taken aback by cool hazel eyes that stared back, unsmiling.

God only knew how long the man had been there, immobile, as though hewn in stone.

Retrieving his wits, Mushtaq sprang forward in a menacing rush and the face dissolved.

Finding their way through the maze of rock, Carol and Mushtaq emerged in full view of the bridge.

At a short distance from the boulders ringing their retreat, slouched a scruffy tribal. The long muzzle of his flintlock rose jauntily above his frayed turban. Legs spread wide apart, he sprawled on a rock. His cold hazel eyes stared at them unabashed.

Walking past, the Major fixed the man with a glowering look and the tribal's face cracked into the dirty ridges of a smirk. There was no genuine mirth in the face, only mockery. The tribal's eyes shifted and skewered the woman in ruthless speculation. For the first time Carol knew the dizzy, humiliating slap of pure terror. The obscene stare stripped her of her identity. She was a cow, a female monkey, a gender opposed to that of the man—charmless, faceless, and exploitable.

Catcalls from the ledge heightened to a crescendo. Mushtaq turned away. An intruder in the tribal domain, he was nevertheless livid with humiliation and anger. Followed closely by Carol, he marched across the bridge.

In a frenzied bid to hold the attention of their quarry the men on the ledge leapt, shouted, whirled, and laughed. Tears streaming down their cheeks, they moaned for breath and wiped their noses with the ends of their turbans.

Sakhi fell helplessly against his brother. His hands groped down Yunus Khan's sheepskin jacket. He lay at his feet writhing in mirth. The sun gilded his thick, dark-blond hair, bronzed
his flushed skin, and, excited by the joyous vitality of his laugh, the other two men fell beside him. Teasing him, they grabbed between his thighs. He kicked in self-defense and they lunged and tumbled one on top of another, grasping each other to their panting chests, thighs and arms entwined.

Swamped by the smell of uncured sheepskin and the sweat of unwashed bodies, Sakhi battled for air. He crawled through at last and hooting with laughter, the three clansmen got up and disappeared down a gully behind the ledge.

 

Carol poured herself a gin-and-tonic.

“Hasn't the beer arrived?” she asked.

“No,” Mushtaq's tone was uncommonly abrupt. He stood just outside her door, looking in.

Carol glanced at him quickly and grew embarrassed.

“It's good to be back,” she said nervously.

Outside, the high whine of a truck laboring up the mountains grew more distant.

“Damn those tribals,” said Mushtaq more to himself than aloud.

Carol stood against the table looking into the glass which was trembling slightly in her hands. “They made me feel so . . . so inhuman . . .”

“Hey, don't be upset,” said Mushtaq.

Hesitating a moment, and then closing the door behind him, he walked up to her. He folded his hands over hers and raised the glass to her mouth. Carol took a sip. His hands were warm and reassuring. Moving the glass towards himself, he lightly brushed his lips across her fingers. Carol felt her will drain from her body. Her feet flattened in her rubber sneakers and rooted her to the cement floor. Mushtaq detached the glass from her fingers and put it on the table. His khaki shirt blurred as he moved closer. His hand, pushing
back her hair, stroked her as in a blessing. He pressed her to him. She felt the rough wool of his trousers and the hard length of his body all along hers. She was at last feasting at the banquet.

A
rmy vehicles lined one side of the road and straight ahead rose the stone facade of the Officers' Mess. Jawans, clad in militia shalwars and shirts, were washing the vehicles and tinkering with machinery beneath gaping hoods. They glimpsed the girl as the truck lumbered by and paused to watch.

Zaitoon was disappointed in her first glimpse of Dubair. She had expected a settlement with at least a few shops and civilians. Through the windscreen she saw all there was to see of the camp—the stone Mess with its low compound wall, the row of trucks and a swarm of tents that settled on the rocky terrain like moths on wool.

Qasim helped Zaitoon from the truck. Once on the ground, the girl wrapped the shawl tighter round her shoulders, embarrassed by the avid curiosity of the men closing in from all sides.

“Come, Barey Mian, I will take you to the Major Sahib,” Ashiq volunteered politely.

Bowing her head, Zaitoon walked between the two men in a self-conscious shuffle. They approached the Mess in constrained silence and Zaitoon, for no reason except the curiosity she had aroused and the prospect of meeting strangers, was on the verge of tears.

Once again, Ashiq, the young mechanic, found himself musing about her relationship with the middle-aged tribal.
He glanced at her shy, dusky profile, and wondered uneasily why she was here.

 

Carol stretched her body languorously on the lumpy cotton mattress atop the string-bed. A paperback lay open on the quilt. She sat up the moment she heard Farukh's voice in the hallway.

The door latch clicked and as Farukh entered she composed her features and, pushing back the covers, half stood up.

“Hello. How was the trip?” she asked, trying to relax within his arms. Farukh beamed.

“Missed you, darling.”

His fingers stroked down her spine and his voice grew husky. Carol did not meet his eyes. When she did eventually risk looking at him she noticed the dust sticking to his lashes.

“You look tired. Did you enjoy the trip?”

“Rather. Gets more virginal the further one travels. It was picturesque, you'll love it. But, how did my little girl spend the day?”

Carol stiffened. Not only because of the guilt she was feeling but because she knew the tenacious demands of Farukh's most innocuous questions. She must be careful. His grip on her lost its warmth.

“Let's see now. What did I do?” Her face puckered thoughtfully, and slipping from his embrace she padded over to the looking glass strung from a rusty nail. She took a brush from the sloping wooden shelf beneath it and pulled it through her hair. What if I tell him? Answer as casually as the question was put, she wondered. It was a temptation.

Behind her, Farukh moved, hanging up his coat, slipping off his shoes, and feigning ease.

“Let's see,” she said, wetting her lips, “you went at about seven, seven-thirty? I slept quite late. I think I ate breakfast at
eleven o'clock!” She made a face. “I don't know what the cook will think of this
memsahib
who sleeps all day.”

“Then?”

“Then I had a bath, washed my hair. I hope I don't run out of shampoo. How in the world will I get more?”

“Mushtaq will have some brought up. Then?”

“Well, I went down to the gorge and painted for a while. Take a look,” she said, rummaging through a sheaf of papers and handing him a slightly curling sheet.

“That's pretty. You went down alone?”

“Who do you suppose went with me? There's hardly any company here!” She retrieved the sheet from him, groping for time to marshal the next sequence.

“Then we had lunch and, oh, you'll never guess what we did.”

“Who's we?”

“The Major, the medical officer, and a few others . . . I don't know who.” Carol's tone was flat with annoyance.

“Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. Anyway, there's no cause to be annoyed.”

“I'm not annoyed,” she said dryly.

Farukh flushed.

“Well, won't you tell me? You said something about my never being able to guess . . .”

“Oh yes,” said Carol, desperately salvaging her enthusiasm, “I made it to the other side of the river! Can you believe it? Mushtaq went across in the afternoon and I asked to go with him. It was incredibly thrilling. Pickets all over the place guarding us. I'll never forget this terrible tribal who sprang up and almost at us out of nowhere. He was an animal. Filthy, with a nasty stare. He just stood there ogling until I couldn't stand it.” Carol shuddered involuntarily. “I don't think we'd last a day in this place without the army.”

“It's not that bad,” smiled Farukh, “though a woman has to be careful, I suppose.”

“I was terribly scared,” she said seriously. “But it's fascinating too. I bet no American woman has been there!”

“So then?”

“It took about half an hour. Couldn't wander very far. Then we had tea and I came back here, slept a little and read a lot. Almost finished my book. It's good. You should read it.”

Farukh's lean face was sly with suspicion. “Is that all?”

“And what else do you think I've done? Oh yes,” she added dangerously, “before my bath I sat upon that stinking pot full of your damned shit—the sweeper hadn't been to clean the mess—then I brushed my teeth, gargled . . .”