Typhoon (22 page)

G
ULSHAN FOUND
N
AGHMANA
standing alone
outside
the hawaili gates. Hearing footsteps from behind, she hastily wiped her cheeks clean, before turning round. A forlorn teardrop still lingered on the end of her eyelash, before it fell. She looked at Gulshan in surprise, painfully aware of the tear still clinging to her cheek. It was a sad, sad face, inspecting her own sad face. Naghmana just knew that the sadness had nothing to do with the old man’s death. In the warm afternoon, the two women stared at one another and time stood still for them both. Caught in a tableau of their own making and destiny carved by others – the old man and Hajra.

Naghmana’s face trembled into an uncertain smile, not sure of what to say to a woman who was once her
sokan
and to whom she had bequeathed her beloved Haroon. There was no answering smile on Gulshan’s face, just a strange sadness. Her smiles had been forever stolen.

‘Could I speak to you for a few moments?’ Gulshan asked, afraid and unsure of the other woman’s response.

‘Yes, of course,’ Naghmana answered in a dull voice, her own face bereft of the mask.

‘Shall we go for a walk in the fields, Naghmana Jee?’ Gulshan respectfully asked.

Naghmana nodded and then began to walk. In
companionable
silence, the two women walked side by side
out of the village and its walls that eavesdropped, and then into the open fields, giving them the privacy and the space they both craved.

‘How are you?’ Gulshan asked, after having crossed one field in silence. Companionable – not oppressive.

‘I am fine …’ Naghmana turned to look at the woman walking by her side, with a gentle smile. ‘And you?’ The irony was not lost on her. A shared history lay between them, yet they were virtual strangers. Twenty years ago they hadn’t even exchanged a single sentence. As enemies they had parted. Shared so much – yet knew nothing of the other. Two ends of the pole, with a common middle.

‘We were two strangers brought brutally together in the kacheri and then ripped apart,’ throbbed the bitter words in Naghmana’s head.

Gulshan had stopped walking and was staring up at the clear blue horizon. In the distance, on the other path leading to the village, she saw a procession of male mourners returning from the cemetery. Their
husbands
, Jahanghir and Haroon, were part of that procession.

Naghmana’s dupatta had fallen off in the breeze, revealing an attractive mane of healthy, shining shoulder-length hair. She still looks young and
attractive
, Gulshan noted with resignation. ‘I could never have competed with her! This is the woman that Haroon fell in love with first. This is the first woman he held in his arms and made love to.’ She was bent on punishing herself.

‘I could say that I am fine too, Naghmana Jee,’ Gulshan said aloud, carefully choosing her words, ‘but that would be untruthful. For why else would I seek your company, if not to talk to you?’

Naghmana waited, her eyes understanding, coaxing the other woman to continue.

‘I have, for so long, wanted to talk to you, to ask for your forgiveness.’ The quiet words fell awkwardly between them. It had taken twenty years for the right ears to hear the words that she uttered to herself in all her prayers on the prayer-mat.

‘My forgiveness?’ Naghmana was startled.

‘Yes, my forgiveness! The old man died begging for your forgiveness; for what happened at that kacheri twenty years ago. I, too, like him have waited twenty years. I have pined to find you and ask for your
forgiveness
– for what we did to you – for what happened to you. My mother died an early death from guilt, always begging Allah pak’s mercy. You should never have been divorced, nor should you have asked for it. I knew that what you did that afternoon was for me, my sister. You sacrificed everything for my sake. I can never repay you for that. Why did you do it? I still cannot grasp – how
any
woman could do it. You lived and died before my eyes. I hated you, yet you offered me your husband – killed your own longing. I had no greater right to him than you did. This is what has eaten me up – guilt – for twenty years. You shouldn’t have had a divorce – you were his wife, too! After you left, I suffered the pain of knowing that I had no right to be Haroon’s wife.’

‘Please stop!’ Naghmana begged. ‘You have nothing to feel guilty about, my sister. I
wanted
a divorce. It wasn’t for all the noble reasons you have listed. We were never destined to be
sokans
, wife rivals – you and I. You should be able to understand that. No woman should be placed in a situation of having to share.
Neither
of us was capable of sharing him with another, we wanted him all – or nothing – but more importantly,
remember, as the Buzurgh said at that time, ‘It was all for the best.’ As you can see, I am happily married. I met a wonderful university professor, who adores me and I am still madly in love with him, even after
nineteen
years. I have two handsome sons, one fourteen and the other eighteen years old, both at schools and colleges. They are the reasons for my existence. So you see, it was all for the best …’

Naghmana’s words lingered between them in the warm soft breeze caressing their faces. Their eyes were now on the crowd of men heading back to the old man’s hawaili. Her two husbands were only a few paces apart. Naghmana’s heart tripped a beat. She hadn’t yet
introduced
her professor, for some reason, to Haroon. Her professor didn’t know he was walking a few steps behind her first husband.

An awkward silence stretched between them. Then with tears shimmering like large diamonds in her eyes, Gulshan impulsively pulled Naghmana into her arms and embraced her tightly.

‘I am so glad’, she whispered, her face buried in Naghmana’s shoulders. ‘If only I had known.’ The other woman heard the regret in her voice. ‘If only I could turn the clock back.’ Gulshan confessed sadly, stepping away from Naghmana. ‘How strange life and fate is. You found new love in the arms of a stranger. I, on the other hand, after the kacheri, couldn’t return to the arms of my own husband. Your shadow.’ she stopped.

‘What?’ Naghmana stared aghast, her mouth
half-open
. ‘I am so sorry. You must return to your husband. Don’t let my shadow stand between the two of you. You have wasted so many years – what about him?’

‘He accepted my behaviour. He, too, seemed to want to punish himself. He let me be. We let each other
be – wrapped and cocooned in our own worlds of misery, worlds of our own making. He never attempted to win me over. He was always afraid that he had hurt me. Strangely, we punished both each other and
ourselves
from the time we left the village a day after you left. Life just stopped since I saw you in his arms that night. It ripped our world apart.’

‘I am sorry – please believe me! I just wish I had never agreed to meet him in the middle of the night. You are right – what we did ripped the whole village apart, not just our lives. I have told you that I am happy with my husband. Well, I have to confess something also. What I failed to tell you is that like you, I cannot escape from that kacheri either. I, too, am haunted by that day. I have had nightmares for the past twenty years, in which there are a lot of snakes and a cobra. They are always after me – chasing me, taunting me. Many a night I have woken up screaming and found myself covered with sweat. I cannot talk about it with my husband. He knows nothing about that day. It is my terrible secret. I hope to take it with me to my grave. So far, I have kept it hidden from him. I have tried to forget – but I can’t. I am so afraid for the same reason. I wanted to bury the past. I didn’t want to come here, but my husband forced me to. He has no idea what arena he has entered into. My past has caught up with me, my sister. And I am so afraid for some reason; so afraid of my husband’s reaction. I don’t know why – will he be able to cope? I am so afraid,’ she repeated.

‘You must tell him, my sister, you must. If he loves you, he’ll understand. Why shouldn’t he? You have done nothing wrong. You must not be afraid. You, too, must learn to bury the past. Look, the men are coming this way. Shall we go back?’

Naghmana nodded, lost in thought, her eyes
following
her husband, as he walked back to the village. They are almost walking shoulder to shoulder now she voiced in her head, seeing Haroon turn to talk to another man. It was so strange, but Haroon meant nothing to her now; her love was all for the grey-haired bespectacled tall professor whom she had married nineteen years ago. What was six months to nineteen years? Incomparable.

In Baba Siraj Din’s courtyard, the women mourners watched the men file back into the building through the large wrought-iron gates. They knew that the old man had been laid to rest in his plot of land. Sabra looked at her sister, sitting opposite her on the silk rug, reciting
Surah Yasin
. When Kaniz looked up and saw the men, her eyes went straight to Younus Raees as he walked across the courtyard with the others. She caught her sister’s eye and felt her fair cheeks throb with heat and colour.

‘You must talk to him tonight!’ Sabra urged, leaning forward to whisper. ‘You must … I will write him a note, requesting a meeting with you later in the evening.’

‘Sabra!’ Kaniz hissed, alarmed, aware of the other women sitting around her – afraid to say anything
further
. Her almond-shaped eyes, however, made her
feelings
and anger perfectly apparent. Sabra just calmly smiled back in answer, her cheeks plumping with laughter. She was in control of the situation.

Five minutes later, Sabra resolutely stood up from the women mourners and went to write the letter, which she would hand to him personally during the afternoon meal. She knew he was still going to be around in the old man’s home. Kaniz was not to be trusted.

‘I
JUST CAN’T
wait to get back to my own house and my own life!’ Naimat Bibi heaved another huge pot out of the basin. ‘People think it is great living here – but they should ask me! I wish this funeral was over and done with. At least you can sleep in your own home and in your own bed, Kulsoom.’ Twitching her shawl off her shoulders, Naimat Bibi complained to her friend.

‘Yes, I may sleep in my own bed, but I am here at the mother and daughter’s beck and call all day with this prince,’ Kulsoom tartly returned. ‘You try looking after a bouncing baby all day and with the weak wrists that I have.’

‘Well, it’s pots for me and a baby for you – we’ve both got our hands full.’

‘Where is Mistress Zarri Bano? I don’t intend sitting here all night watching you scouring pots, I want to get home!’ Kulsoom continued hotly, bringing a smile to her friend’s flushed face.

It was the first night of Baba Siraj Din’s funeral. The guests had either departed or, for those who were
staying
a few more days, made their way to their sleeping quarters in the hawaili. Zarri Bano had helped her mother to supervise the meal and later the bedding arrangements. All the tasks were carried out smoothly. Zarri Bano simply directed the two young women, hired to help at the funeral and they did the rest.
Bedrooms
and bedding, including those for the portable
beds in the courtyard and on the rooftop, had all been sorted out, a stressful evening chore for the mother and daughter. They made sure that everybody had a pillow and a soft under-mattress, and either a mink blanket or a thick cotton coversheet.

The guests had been offered the choice of either sleeping upstairs on the rooftop under the shining stars and cool night breezes, or downstairs indoors for those who preferred the privacy of one of the bedrooms. Wanting first choice of beds, some had retired early to the rooftop gallery to claim their favoured spot.

Naimat Bibi ruled the kitchen and the dining area, with authority and ease. Scouring pots, wiping tables, hosing the marble floors, carrying and stacking piles of china and cutlery around the two dining rooms – her body ached, but she didn’t complain aloud, only in her friend’s ear. ‘A good worker is one who gets on with most tasks with very little noise or tantrums,’ she had stoically commented to her friend.

Kulsoom Bibi perched, with as much dignity as she could manage, on her small stool in the corner of the kitchen, where she cheerfully played with Zarri Bano’s son, Adam, without letting him bounce out of her aching arms onto the marble floor, or pulling his arms out of his joints as she struggled to hold onto him.

As the beautiful young granddaughter moved
gracefully
around her grandfather’s home in her black veil, Kulsoom Bibi had sung some ancient lullabies to her young son.

‘What are you singing those silly lullabies for?’ Naimat Bibi had teased her friend. ‘No modern mothers sing those songs these days!’

Kulsoom Bibi’s eyes kept hopping to the verandah clock, through the kitchen window. It was already well
past eleven o’clock and she was desperate to get home and rest her aching arms and legs on her own charpoy. She had declined the offer of sleeping in the hawaili, fearing that Mistress Zarri Bano would pass her the baby as soon as he was awake. At least in her own home she could control what time she went in and not be lumbered with the young baby as soon as her eyes opened.

She rued the moment when she had innocently picked up Zarri Bano’s little boy and started to play with him. He had happily gurgled away against her chest and in her arms as she tickled him all over. His grandmother, Shahzada, who happened to be watching, smiled with delight. Soon afterwards, prefaced with a generous payment, Shahzada had delegated her
grandson’s
care not to one of the ‘flighty’ girls working in the hawaili but to their worthy village matchmaker.

The mistress had brightened her request with the sweet pill, ‘Oh, you are so good with our prince, Adam! You don’t mind, do you? As you can see, my poor Zarri Bano has barely a moment to spare for her child with all the guests to look after. And, I personally don’t want anyone else to go near our precious boy! If my friend Fatima had been here, she would have loved to look after him. I wish she would come back from Dubai.’

Put like that, poor Kulsoom was in no position to refuse. After all, she had progressed to the honourable status of the big hawaili’s ‘babyminder’, whether she personally relished this little honour or not and that was it. Kulsoom’s whole day rotated around the young chap. The only time Zarri Bano took her son was to breast-feed him. Then, having fed and changed him, she would promptly return him to Kulsoom’s aching arms. The funeral day was endless. She had carried the
little boy for something like ten hours that day. She had propped him around her body in different positions and trundled around the hawaili at the funeral, mingling with the guests, hoping to ingratiate herself to some of them – to boost her matchmaking business. She
graciously
ignored the teasing glances of the other guests, as they saw her physically struggle to try and hold on to the baby.

Zarri Bano had only just taken her son away from Kulsoom when Sikander came looking for both. ‘Have you seen Zarri Bano, Auntie Jee?’ he politely requested, beaming at the two elderly ladies.

‘Yes, Master Sikander. Mistress Zarri Bano has just taken her son. I think she has gone to her room.’

‘Thank you, Auntie Kulsoom!’ Sikander flashed his most attractive smile, making the humble
matchmaker’s
heart flutter in a crazy way.

‘Mistress Zarri Bano is a very lucky woman to have a man like him,’ Kulsoom murmured to herself,
watching
him stride out of the courtyard. She had observed him with his first wife, Ruby, and now she had seen him with Zarri Bano. No one could doubt the passion that Sikander harboured for his beautiful new wife. ‘Ah, to have a man like that in one’s life!’ Kulsoom sighed, feeling very lonely all of a sudden. All her life she had lived alone and, apart from two years, husbandless. Very rarely had she ached for male companionship. Tonight, for some reason, she felt empty inside. Independence and self-sufficiency were poor substitutes for emotional fulfilment, Kulsoom was discovering this late in her life. ‘I am nearly an old woman! A plain old woman! What shameless thoughts are crossing my mind? Allah pak – forgive me,’ Kulsoom chided
herself
, as she let herself out of the hawaili and hobbled
down the cobbled lane leading to her house. As she went past Chaudharani Kaniz’s hawaili she heard the two mighty gates open. By the time she had walked a few yards further up she glimpsed two dark-cloaked female figures coming out of the hawaili gates. They didn’t see her. Their faces were turned the other way and apparently they were making their way out of the village. ‘That must be Kaniz and her sister Sabra. Where on earth are they going in the middle of the night? What are they up to?’ Kulsoom was most intrigued.

Back home she made herself comfortable on her bed, pulling the crisp cotton sheet over her aching body. Another very long day awaited her tomorrow. Village intrigues could wait. ‘Thank goodness most of the guests would be leaving. Maybe by tomorrow, Mistress Zarri Bano could look after her own son.’ She wondered if Naimat Bibi had finished her nightly chores.

‘Oh God, poor Naimat has got that pot of hot milk to dispense!’ Kulsoom gasped aloud as she suddenly recalled the huge pot of boiling milk on the stove. ‘All those tall glasses to fill to the brim and then to rinse and scour again before the night is ended. Why did all those guests need to have milk before they went to sleep? Did they all have milk at home or was it one of the perks of being a guest they couldn’t resist?’

When Sikander entered his wife’s bedroom, the sight that met his eyes had his mouth widening into a broad smile and a tender look sweeping across his features. His beautiful wife had discarded her burqa. Her hair lay in an abundance of rich auburn curls around her face and neck. She was only wearing her cotton nightrobe. The round neckline was unbuttoned as she fed her
young son. She nestled him closer against her body. The look of desire in Sikander’s eyes, had her smiling; then blushing she became shy once again. Even after eighteen months of having him as her husband there were still moments when she panicked and felt shy. Now all of a sudden she wanted to flee from him. Her pink cheeks warm, she pulled the fabric of her
night-dress
over her breast. They hadn’t seen each other like this for two months. Back to square one again – two strangers meeting and needing to rediscover one another.

Sikander strode across the room. His son wasn’t the only hungry one. Zarri Bano saw the look, her heart spiralling away.

‘I haven’t had a moment alone with you, Zarri Bano, all afternoon!’ Sikander huskily whispered, standing beside her and his hand reaching for her hair. Just then there was a knock at the door, causing Sikander to immediately step back. He walked over to the door and opened it.

Shahzada swept inside, taking in the scene at one go: her daughter’s pink cheeks and evasive eyes. She sighed with pleasure. Zarri Bano was at peace with herself – a normal woman, like millions of others; no longer a traumatised Holy Woman. There was a beautiful child at her breast and a loving husband by her side. This was the dream her mother had dreamt and longed for her to have for so many years. It was now a reality and Shahzada thanked Allah pak for this blessing.

‘Zarri Bano, I’ll take the little prince and keep him with me tonight. You have both worked very hard today with the funeral arrangements and you need a rest; it’s going to be another hard day tomorrow,’ Shahzada generously volunteered.

‘Thank you, Mother. But you, too, are tired,’ Zarri Bano quickly returned.

‘I think it would be very helpful if you were to take the prince with you tonight,’ Sikander intervened smoothly, ignoring Zarri Bano’s flushed face.

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Shahzada ignored her daughter’s reaction and moved to take her grandson into her arms.

‘Mother!’ Zarri Bano said, stopping her.

‘Yes?’ Shahzada responded, cradling the sleeping child on her shoulder.

‘We were wondering …’ Zarri Bano paused to cast a quick glance at her husband, hoping that he would endorse what she was about to say. ‘We were wondering whether you’d like to come and live with us in Karachi? I don’t want to leave you alone here.’

‘I … I don’t know if I can’ Shahzada replied, sitting down on the bed, lost in her thoughts.

‘Mother, you came to live in the village for
Grandfather’s
sake. When Father died, I never stopped you, did I? Our home in town has lain empty. Now
Grandfather
is no longer alive, you cannot possibly live here alone. We are already a very small family – Father, Ruby and Jafar are all dead. All we have now is each other, and Haris, and now our beautiful Adam. Please spend some time with us?’

‘Oh dear, please don’t pressurise me. I … I don’t know. I have grown to love this village and this house. My friends are here, the villagers are my daily companions – they are such wonderful people.’

‘But they are only companions, Mother – not family! I have stayed here with you for two months. As much as I’d like to, I can’t come regularly. While I’m away, my publishing business is at a standstill. I have had to do all the administration by e-mail in the last few days.
I won’t be able to come again for a long time. Sikander misses us and I want to be with him – and I also want you with me! So the only solution is that you come and live with us. Don’t you want the company of your two grandsons?’

Shahzada was hedged in by her daughter’s
plausibility
and love. Her son-in-law, Sikander, too genuinely meant it as well. She could tell by the look in his eyes. He was always happy to see her and delighted in the love she showered on his two sons.

‘Yes, it’s not been the same since Brother Fiaz died and my best friend, Fatima, left to join her son in Dubai after marrying off all her daughters.’ Shahzada sighed. ‘I do miss her so much. She hasn’t been able to come back, even for her first grandchild. Only two days ago Firdaus gave birth to a beautiful daughter and already Kaniz has been busy handing out baskets of ludoos. You are right that there is nothing to keep me here, when the rest of my family is elsewhere.’

‘Yes, yes, Mother!’ Zarri Bano couldn’t contain her joy.

‘Oh, my children, if you two genuinely believe that I will not be a burden to you, then I will indeed come with you. This hawaili will remain everyone’s holiday home. We seem to have more homes than people to live in them!’

‘I am so pleased that you will come with us, Mother. Thank you!’

‘Yes, Auntie, thank you!’ Sikander added his own appreciation.’

‘Right, I must go. And you had better get to bed. As I said, it is going to be a long day ahead of us tomorrow. We have some strange moody guests to attend to and see some of them off safely.’

‘Yes, Mother. That Auntie Gulshan – I haven’t seen her say a single word to her husband in all four days. Are they really married? He is sleeping in the room downstairs and she is upstairs on the rooftop!’

Shahzada silently nodded. She knew the couple’s
set-up
and her heart ached for all four of them. A long time ago, her mother-in-law Zulaikha had confided to her what had actually happened at the kacheri and to whom. Her father-in-law also, later in life, had told her about the nightmare he lived every day. Every night, before he went to sleep, he always said goodbye to the woman’s eyes as she looked up at him whispering, ‘I forgive you. I forgive you all.’ Always shuddering, he would pray to Allah pak for forgiveness before he closed his own eyes.

Shahzada had caught him at one such moment last year. It was then that he had confided fully in her, explained his inner misery and torture – for he had sinned, and sinned in a mighty big way. ‘I have had a young woman divorced who did not want to be divorced from a husband who didn’t want to divorce her. I pressurised him to give her the three thalaks, all at once. I forced him later to sign the papers. Tell me, Shahzada, how can I put the clock back? I don’t know what evil or madness entered into my brain that day and made me do such a crazy and inhuman thing. How can I find this woman and beg her forgiveness? How can I bring those two people together again? I
sometimes
wonder if they are truly divorced. Is their divorce valid? Listen to me my dearest Shahzada. Find her for me before I die – I’ve got to see her.’