Typhoon (4 page)

S
ITTING IN FRONT
of the dressing table, Naghmana stared at her image in the mirror. Her beautiful, immaculately made-up face was framed by her hair in a becoming fashion. Peering closer in the oval shaped mirror, she frowned at the pronounced swelling of her lower lip. Luscious by nature, there was an added fullness this morning. She caressed its softness with her fingertip. ‘Mosquitoes!’ her aunt had queried in disbelief.

Naghmana giggled, her cheeks glowing a pinkish shade. She reached for a dark lipstick in her cosmetic bag. She must disguise the swelling, otherwise she would have to go round explaining it to all the village women she came across. She remembered them all. Young, old, teenage girls. Gauche village women, constantly staring at her since she arrived. It was as if she had virtually landed from another world. For sure, she was chic in her dress and probably on all accounts more fashionable in appearance and taste than the local women, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a woman like them. Apparently the point of fascination was her long, wavy, hair, which had attracted everyone’s attention from the moment she stepped out of her car. First, the old man had grimaced at it, for there was no scarf wound round her head. Then the teenage girls were giving her surreptitious looks of envy, whereas the elder ones had glanced at her bare head and open mane
of hair with a distinct look of disapproval. ‘Did these people never watch TV? Or keep abreast with the changing world around them?’

A loud knock thudded on her aunt’s door. Naghmana quickly glanced up at her reflection. ‘Are people so rude in this village that they disturb you, even before seven o’clock,’ Naghmana asked herself irritably.

In even strokes, she lovingly brushed the long waves of her hair, letting it fall around her shoulders in feathery bunches. Her pride and joy. And
he
loved it!

Propped on a low stool in front of her pedestal stove in the kitchen, Fatima was rolling out another
puri
pancake on the marble rolling stone when somebody hammered on the outside door. Surprised at the urgency of the knocks, she hastily fished out the puri from the deep oil in the large wok and placed it on a tray, covering it with a cloth, so that it didn’t get cold. Her niece liked them hot and wafer thin.

‘Coming!’ Fatima shouted, scrambling out of her kitchen. Wiping her damp forehead with her head shawl she crossed her large square courtyard, supported by verandahs on all four sides, leading to various rooms. Reaching up for the bolt. Fatima opened the door wide, hastily stepping aside as Hajra pushed past.

‘
Bismillah! Bismillah!
’ Fatima offered her usual words of greeting. Taken aback by Hajra’s rudeness, her arms fell woodenly to her side. Normally they embraced.

Ignoring her, Hajra stood aggressively poised in the middle of her friend’s courtyard, her head swaying from side to side, as if looking for someone.

Deeply affronted by Hajra’s strange behaviour, Fatima ventured to ask, ‘Is everything all right, sister Hajra?’

‘NO! Everything is
not
all right!’ Hajra screeched, actively taking the cue her friend had innocently offered.

‘
Khair hai!
I am sorry. What is the matter?’ Fatima asked, so concerned she forgot to shut the door. It remained wide open.

Outside in the village lane, Kulsoom Bibi and Naimat Bibi the two notorious village friends, by chance happened to follow behind Hajra. Hearing her angry tirade in Fatima’s courtyard, Kulsoom Bibi, her ears sharper than her friend’s, had quickly flashed her a significant look, promptly stalling their steps there and then. On tiptoe they sidled nearer to the open door, their eyes shining and ears cocked in speculative delight. Both women were known in the village as being very adept at eavesdropping and extracting scandalous information from behind any closed doors. And this was an
open
door! Heavenly opportunity!

Inside, ‘Where is your niece?’ Hajra spat, her eyes gleaming with the fires of vengeance.

A startled Fatima tried desperately to make sense of what her friend was doing and saying.

‘I beg your pardon, Hajra,’ she began, but was cut off by another verbal assault. ‘Where is that slut?’ Hajra hissed, her index finger poking menacingly at her friend’s chest.

Thoroughly rattled now, Fatima cried out her concern. ‘I don’t know what is going on!’

‘Fetch that whore of a niece of yours!
Now
!’

Behind the street door, Kulsoom’s dark eyes were sparkling with delight at her friend. She held tightly to
her glass bangles on her bony arms, in case they jangled together and drew the attention of the two angry women inside the yard. Carefully peering between the dusty crack of the door post and the door, brushing aside spirals of old spider webs, she tried to make sense of the scene unfolding in front of them. Exactly what was going on? Did she hear right? The word
whore
? Her weak heart began to thump away.

‘What has come over you today, sister Hajra? Are you all right? What do you mean by abusing my dearest niece Naghmana like this?’ Fatima managed to

croak out. ‘Yes, I am in my right senses, but I think you have lost yours. You are harbouring a snake in your house, do you know that? An evil, scheming whore and a home-wrecker! Definitely not a
nag
, a gem! A
whore
, I tell you!’ There was now a speck of foam at one corner of her mouth.

Fatima was totally outraged, ‘I don’t know what’s come over you! How dare you say such things!’ she choked, as the words first jammed and then came rushing out of her mouth.

‘Call her!’ Hajra challenged, her mouth working away and glaring back at her friend.

Baffled, shocked and with her heart thumping away like a large
dholki
drum inside her, Fatima went to the bottom of the steps and called her niece.

‘Naghmana, my daughter, can you come down?’ The words trembled on her lips.

In the village lane outside, Kulsoom and Naimat fought for space to peer over each other’s shoulders through the crack. For here was the making of a grand village drama. A wonderful
tamasha
– and home-grown one at that. Definitely not imported!

A few seconds later, light feminine stiletto shoes gaily clicked down the steps and Hajra’s head jerked up as Naghmana appeared. Bitterly Hajra noted the stylish, cut of the woman’s cerise chiffon suit, moulded against her sculptured chest; the short sleeves becomingly tailored well above her elbows; the neckline cleverly designed in a neat circle, showing off to great effect her creamy white throat and the upper half of her shoulders.

Hajra accepted with dismay that her daughter was no match for this sophisticated specimen of womanhood. Unable to resist, Hajra’s eyes roamed over the woman’s face, dwelling on the shape of her eyebrows, arched in an elegant line, not a hair out of place, complemented by thick curly eyelashes, above two coquettish dark brown eyes.

The woman’s cheeks shone with the vigour of youth and health. She had apparently spent all her life indoors, under fans, for there was no blemish, no
chaeei
in sight – a plague that afflicted nearly 60 percent of the village women in the summer.

Cleverly outlined, the full lips were generously sealed with a dark shade of lipstick that no single village woman hereabouts would ever dare to flaunt so early in the morning, even before breakfast. And where was the chador to cover her, or even a proper dupatta? All she wore was a rope-like scarf, casually hanging on one side of her shoulder. It covered practically nothing – definitely not the shape of her high full breasts, well defined against the fitted dress. Was the woman devoid of all shame? ‘But she is a
whore
! And whores feel no shame,’ Hajra cried in her head.

Her eyes wandered up to the woman’s face again and then beyond – to the hair. Loose! Masses of it!
Silky, soft and glossy! All wantonly draped around her shoulders! Which man’s head would not want to nestle in that? Haroon had!

Hajra could take no more. This woman had wrecked her daughter’s marriage and stolen her husband. The next minute she had leapt at Naghmana and, grabbing her by the hair, she began to swing her around the courtyard.

Petrified, Naghmana tried to wrench herself away from the mad woman. Her head reeled as Hajra kept a firm hold of her hair. Fatima watched helplessly, unable to believe her eyes. Then, coming to her senses, she rushed up to Hajra and dragged her away from her niece.

‘Sister Hajra! Have you gone mad!’ Fatima screamed, desperately clawing away at Hajra’s tight grip on her niece’s hair.

Loath to let go, Hajra glared wildly at her friend and then shot a venomous look straight into Naghmana’s stunned eyes.

‘Tell your precious aunt where you were last night and with whom,’ she panted.

Naghmana froze on the spot. Her heart thudded to a standstill; her face paled. Then a horrified blush of shame seeped through her cheeks, sweeping right across her face, down to her neck.

Dumbfounded, Fatima stared at her guilty-looking niece, with horror. The fogginess had cleared. Her worst fears had now been confirmed. She had noticed something going on for the past two days but had been unable to put her finger on it. Why should Haroon, a married man, have visited her home four times in the space of two days, when normally he hardly visited at all?

‘Look at her! That’s your proof, Fatima,’ Hajra taunted, tightening her hold on Naghmana’s hair, bringing tears of pain to the young woman’s eyes.

‘Well, what have you got to say now?’ she jeered up into Naghmana’s face. ‘Cat got your tongue?’

Her head lowered, Naghmana’s cheeks smarted. There was nothing to say. Her lips were sealed.

Fatima stumbled back in disbelief, unable to believe either her ears or her eyes. Her mind, a whirlwind.

Wildly Hajra jeered again, ‘Well! What have you got to say?’

Dismayed, Naghmana saw two cloaked heads peering from behind the door post and met head-on the speculative looks in their eyes.

A pronounced sneer on her lips, Hajra glared at Naghmana’s bowed head. ‘There you are, Fatima! See for yourself. This slut’s silence is your answer. She has ruined my daughter and her marriage. I am not going to let her get away with it. I am going to the hawaili, to see our village elder, Siraj Din, and I will demand that he hold a court, a
kacheri
, and shame her there for what she has done. This is how she ensnares men, like this, you whore!’ She spat the word in Naghmana’s pale face, tugging at her hair to give it a final painful pull.

At that moment, Haroon appeared at the street door. He thrust aside the two women who were skulking and eavesdropping there.

‘As for you …’ Hajra choked, pointing her accusing finger at him. ‘You’ll regret that you ever set eyes on Aunt Hajra by the time I have finished with you – killing my daughter with your treachery, your vile act! What does this slut have that my daughter doesn’t? Gulshan is intact in all parts, isn’t she? What is so
special about this one, apart from the paint on her face, that open mane and bare arms?’

About to speak, Haroon caught Naghmana’s desperate look. She was shaking her head at him, signalling. Reluctantly and with pained eyes, he clamped his mouth shut. Hajra watched in dismay. There was that special look they had exchanged. Walking up to him she spat on her son-in-law’s shirt.

Shocked by her action, he glared down at his mother-in-law. Hajra pushed her way between the two women standing solidly in the doorway. They had no intention of shifting an inch until they had seen the whole drama reach its climax.

‘Shift, gossipmongers!’ Hajra rasped at the two brazen-faced women boldly scanning her red face and the anger erupting out of her eyes, dagger like. ‘You couldn’t have dreamt that you would pick up
ghand
, filth like this, so early in the morning, could you?’ she sneered, pushing past them. The two notorious ‘gossipmongers’ unashamedly stood their ground, their faces masked with mock outrage.

Coming to herself, Fatima dashed to her niece, and slapped her hard across her cheek. Naghmana stumbled and fell against the pillar of the verandah, her head reeling in shock as it hit the hard concrete surface. Tears of shame and outrage blurring her vision, Naghmana got unsteadily to her feet, her hand held over the red imprint of her aunt’s blow. Haroon rushed towards Naghmana but Fatima barred his way. Breathing heavily she snarled at his face, her cheeks aflame, ‘Don’t you dare come near her! Haramzada! Have you not done enough, you
besharim
man? Get out of my home before I do something I’ll regret,’ Fatima fumed, her face growing redder and redder.

Haroon stared down in amazement at the normally gentle ‘Auntie Fatima’, now turned into an angry ogre. His face paling, he looked from Naghmana to Fatima. Naghmana had turned her back, hiding her face from him and the four-fingerprints slashed across her fair cheek.

Kulsoom Bibi and Naimat Bibi had now boldly inched forward and stepped down into Fatima’s courtyard. Haroon pivoted his eyes around the four women in the courtyard. He had no idea what to do. The situation was out of his control.

With all her physical might Fatima shoved him out into the village lane.

‘I am going,’ he snarled, a wild look in his eyes.

Fatima now saw the two women for the first time and was taken aback by their presence in her courtyard. They turned their sheepish gaze to the ground.

‘Of all people, why did Kulsoom’s beady eyes have to witness this nightmare?’ Fatima groaned to herself. If Kulsoom Bibi got wind of anything, then the whole village was sure to know and would be alight with it. She glared her hatred at the two friends.

‘You two can get lost. The fun is over. Satisfied?’

With Haroon striding angrily out of the courtyard, Fatima pushed the two unwanted guests out of her home with her palms, slamming the door shut on their outraged faces.

Ceremoniously dumped in the village lane Kulsoom exchanged a look with her best friend, watching Haroon’s figure disappear down the lane, go past his own house, and turn into another lane.

‘Well, did you ever?’ Kulsoom burst out, clasping her hands to her chest, checking her feeble heartbeat.
Her friend was rubbing her hands together in a gesture expressing her shock and horror, palm against palm.