“It’s time to go.”
Abbu had hired a neighbor named Kramot to drive us to Rakhni, telling him only that we were going to visit a cousin there and we would take her to the nearby train station.
Faisah continued to worry. “What if Khanum turns against us and claims we kidnapped her? What if someone notifies the husband? What if we are followed?”
Finally, I shouted at her. “I can’t answer all your questions!”
She glared back at me. “OK. But we’ll have to leave Multan early tomorrow morning,” she said. “We have to get there by three o’clock.”
I let her have the last word.
The plans were for Kramot to drive Khanum and me to the train station in Rajanpur, then he and Faisah would return to Nankana Sahib. I would transfer to the Matli bus at Hyderabad, and Khanum would continue by train to Karachi where Robina would meet her. My sweet Robina! We started our first school together years earlier when my mother was still alive.
“Always room for one more at our place. We’ll just add another cup of flour to the chapati,” Robina had said when I telephoned her about Khanum. “But who is this girl?”
“Sometimes it’s best not to ask too many questions,” I replied.
“This isn’t somebody in trouble with the police, is it?”
“No, nothing like that,” I said. “She just needs to start over, and that’s all I can say about it. Best to let her do her own explaining. Just tell the others she is a friend of mine. That’s the truth.”
“OK, Baji, but how will I know her?”
“She will be wearing a bright orange and pink dupatta. She’s young, Robina, about seventeen, and she’s scared.”
Robina did not hestitate. “Don’t worry. We’ll find her at the station and take good care of her, at least for a while. She’ll have to help out around here and find her own way.”
Faisah and I rode in the backseat with the windows open, our legs curled under us, the floor full of bags and boxes. The wind flattened Faisah’s hair against her head. I took the jaws of a clip to mine, fastened it at the back of my neck, and wrapped up in my dupatta. We nibbled spiced potatoes and drank a flask of cold chai.
“OK, Baji,” Faisah said to me in an undertone so Kramot could not hear. “Remember what we said last night?” She inhaled, “To review. What are the three basic rules?” She began to count them on her fingers as I answered.
“Number 1, we tell no one,” I recited. “Number 2, we do nothing illegal.” I stopped. I couldn’t think of what number 3 was.
“Number 3, we don’t get caught,” she said aloud, smacking the side of my head. “The most important rule!”
It was half past noon when we entered Multan—that great blue-and-white-tiled city, the graveyard of imperial elephants—a city so old that historians still debate when it was founded. Kramot reached under the visor for a cassette and pushed it into the tape player. The alternating male and female voices of pop music sang out in a high pitch.
“Perhaps we should talk about rule number 4. What we do if we are caught,” Faisah said.
“You’re the lawyer. You can talk us out of it.”
“Maybe. But what if I cannot?”
“What are you suggesting?” I asked, knowing that Faisah always had answers to her own questions.
“Maybe we should carry guns,” Faisah whispered.
I shook my head. “I can’t even drive a car and you want me to use a gun? Too dangerous. I wouldn’t know how. And what would Abbu say?”
But Faisah tried to convince me.
“Well, first of all, if we are going to go on rescues like this one, we have to learn how to use a gun and how to drive. We could find ourselves in an isolated place, overpowered by a gang, or . . .”
I thought about how Abbu had said we were like soldiers, and indeed, in a way, we were placing ourselves in a war zone.
“So, do you know how to use a gun?” I asked Faisah.
“No,” she admitted sheepishly. “But Amir taught me a little karate to use if a man comes at me!” Suddenly she poked her right knee in the air to show me the move she meant.
Embarrassed, I checked the mirror to see if Kramot had been watching, but his eyelids looked nearly closed, lulled by music. I was surprised that Amir would show Faisah such a move. Good for Amir, I thought. Every lion needs a few tricks.
That night we stayed with friends in Multan. At dawn we found Kramot on his knees in prayer. His clothes were wrinkled from sleeping in the car.
The highway to Rakhni became invisible in the powdery dust, and we rolled the windows up, even though the air was stifling. The rugged peaks at the Balochistan border looked like photographs of the moon, a place suspended in space and time. A long line of human history lay buried in the Makran desert, the ancient trade route between the Indus and the Euphrates civilizations. They say the Baloch language has one hundred words for camel.
Ours was the only vehicle on the strip of road that stretched ahead, except for an armed policeman on a motorbike speeding past in the opposite direction. When we came to a checkpoint, Kramot slowed the car.
“It’s the tribal police,” said Faisah, her elbow jabbing my upper arm. “I speak a little Balochi. Let me do the talking.”
“As you wish,” said Kramot.
Two men approached the car. AK-47s hung from their shoulders.
“Assalam aleikum,” said the dark stranger with a thick moustache and bright teeth. His turban was wild and dirty. Kramot nodded in reply and Faisah lowered her window.
“Waleikum salaam,” replied Faisah, keeping her eyes down, pulling her dupatta across her face.
“You are on the road alone?” he asked.
“Our cousin is with us,” she replied, indicating Kramot.
“Where are your husbands?”
“We are meeting them in Rakhni. They are staying with family there.”
“Your relative’s name?” asked the man. Faisah’s face went blank. Apparently she had forgotten.
“Wazir Hashmi,” I spoke up. The guards looked at each other.
“We know him,” he said. “We will escort you.”
He moved the tail of his turban aside and peered into the car. We tried to decline his offer, but he insisted as only a Balochi can. Exquisite hospitality is their trademark, is it not? The matter was settled—we were indeed their guests. The two men mounted their motorbikes, one pulling in front of us and one tailing behind.
“You really talked our way out of that one,” I said.
Faisah smirked, saying “Just hope they don’t insist on meeting our husbands.”
The hills surrounding Rakhni were barren. At the town’s edge, acres of cattle, goats, and sheep were stuffed into pens. The animals moved together slowly like a distant ocean wave.
As Kramot wove the Toyota through the back streets, prayers blared through the loud speaker. Soon the tribal police motorbikes sputtered up to a solid double-wide metal gate, where a uniformed guard stepped through the human-sized door cut into it. The old man wore a military cap and had a pistol on his hip. He marched up to the motorcycle men and clicked his heels. They exchanged salaams.
“State your business.”
“The home of Wazir Hashmi?” the policeman asked.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Two aunties to see the family.” He handed my calling card to the guard, who pulled open the wide gate and stood at attention while the police circled the courtyard and exited. Soon a servant returned with my calling card in hand.
“Please enter, Bibis,” the woman said, bowing. When her fist opened to point the way, I saw that her fingers were as dark and thin as plum twigs. We removed our sandals and stepped onto cool marble. My feet shivered with pleasure. A hallway led to an interior courtyard surrounded by a filigreed portico. Intricate wall hangings and embroideries embedded with precious stones complemented the Mediterranean furniture and Persian carpets.
Khanum approached us from the portico, her shawl floating behind her like
a ghost.
“Assalam aleikum,” she said. I thought I could hear her effort to sound normal in front of the servants.
“Waleikum salaam,” Faisah and I replied in unison. Our voices sounded like childish singsong, and suddenly the farce felt silly. I hugged Khanum and kissed her cheeks.
“We came without calling because we have urgent news,” I said at once, while the servant was still present. “Sad news, really. Grandmother took ill during our return from Lahore. We took her to Central Hospital. She is asking for you and Wazir.”
Khanum understood the ruse at once.
“Yes, of course,” she said. “I will call Wazir to ask him to meet us there. I know how much he adores his grandmother’s sister. Rest here while I gather my things.” Without looking at them, she snapped her fingers in the direction of her servants. “Joseph will bring you some refreshments.”
Faisah and I sat in identical carved mahogany chairs. We devoured the lemonade and all the food they brought us—sugared dates, mango slices, and balls of yellow almond paste rolled in coconut. I wrapped some in a napkin for Kramot. I wondered how seventeen-year old Khanum had learned her mistress role so completely and how she would ever adjust to Karachi. Outside the open window, in the branches of a lemon tree, a mynah bird let out a single shriek.
“Is that bird trying to warn us?” Faisah said, tapping her index finger on the arm of the chair.
I worried, too. It was getting late, and we had to catch the evening train. Women never travel on the road after dark, and we did not want to attract attention or trouble. Soon I heard Khanum’s slippers shuffling against the tiles. She had changed into a simple dark cotton shalwar kameez and carried only a shoulder bag and a shawl.
“I spoke to Wazir. He says I should go with you now and he will join us at the hospital after his meeting.”
As she stepped out the front door, I could hear birds chattering their good-byes. The guard opened the rear car door for her automatically. I sat next to Khanum, while Faisah climbed into the front seat next to Kramot. She held the dupatta across the bottom of her face. Staring at a vacant point in the distance, the guard saluted as we rolled through the gate. In an instant the Toyota turned the corner and we entered the anonymity of a traffic circle. Khanum squeezed my calling card back into my hand and did not let go.
“Fortunately, no one around here reads Urdu,” she said, pointing to the card. “But you shouldn’t have risked it.”
“I didn’t want to tell the servant my name,” I said.
“True.” She nodded. “They remember everything they hear.”
Kramot threaded the car through the narrow streets and into the countryside toward the Punjab border.
“Mission accomplished?” asked Kramot innocently, his face looking at mine in the rearview mirror. I nodded and smiled behind my veil even though we could not relax yet.
“Quickly to the depot,” I said, imagining that Satan had caught our scents. Who knew where Khanum’s husband’s relatives might be, or the extent of their power? Or their desire for revenge? Once we reentered Punjab, they could follow us, but it was less likely we would be found.
It was dusk. A thin layer of fuschia spread across the cloudless horizon. Headlamps of trucks shone on one another’s metallic art, lighting up the highway. I heard the evening call: La illaha illa Allah Mohammad rasul Allah. There is no God but God and Mohammad is His Prophet.
Next to me Khanum’s body hardened, and I feared she was beginning to crack. I looked to Faisah for support, but she had fallen asleep. Her head leaned against the doorjamb.
“Faster,” I said to Kramot. “We must not miss that train.”
“I’ll never get away with this,” Khanum whispered. “I belong to my husband.”
“Shh!” I said. There could be no going back.
“I have shamed his family—dishonored him,” she said. “There is still time to go back.”
Faisah turned to us. Her eyes widened. I shook my head and kept hold of Khanum’s hand.
At the Rajanpur station, we got out of the Toyota, careful not to speak in front of Kramot about where Khanum was going or why.
Tell no one.
When we approached the conductor in the station, Khanum squeezed my arm. I turned to see the most terrified face I have ever known.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Baji, should I do this thing?” she asked in fast, shallow breaths.
“It is already done,” I said. “God is with us.” I sounded more pious than I felt, pretending I was Abbu speaking with Sikh confidence. “The matter is settled.” I watched her inhale my determination.
“I will not return to my husband’s home; I am a widow. I will not return to the hills of Balochistan; I am an orphan,” she said. “Now I will take care of myself.”
Later, on the train, Khanum told me how she had prepared for that day, and how she separated her mind from her body when her husband used her in his ways.
“I lay on the sticky sheets reciting a mantra I invented,” she said. “Aquamarine, emeralds, garnet, jade, lapis-lazuli, pearls, rubies, topaz, tourmaline. I put the precious words in alphabetical order, reversed them, then recited each letter of the word, and hummed them silently. I imagined colored crystals with light flowing through them—reds and blues, greens and white, all the shades of yellow and orange. Sometimes I pictured myself with plastic eye protectors, bending over an electric drill under a high intensity lamp. I cut jewels into hundreds of pieces of every size and shape. Some I placed into gold settings, using tweezers, or my fingers, or holding them in my mouth until they were hot, and releasing each gem, one by one, onto a pure white cloth, as if they were the souls of babies who were too good to be born. I named them: Lapis Lazuli, Pearl, Ruby, Topaz, and Tourmaline.”
By day Khanum had been studying how to distinguish fake from genuine gems. Secretly she had removed and replaced throughout his house every precious stone in her husband’s tapestry collection. Some gems she wrapped in cloth, and they became buttons for her purse. Others she sewed into the hem of her clothes and along the border of her shawl. On the day that I arrived, she had swallowed a small handful of pearls.
She showed me the bruises and burns on the inside of her arms. I remember the bitterness she spoke as she smiled.
“It does not matter to me now,” she said. “His stink. I will never smell it again.”
By the time the train slowed in Hyderabad, where we would go our separate ways—Khanum on the train to Karachi, I on the bus to Matli—we had constructed a credible past for her.
“And my future?” she wondered. I reminded her that she had told me on the train that she wanted to be a teacher.
“Talk to Robina. It is always difficult keeping women as teachers, so she may want to train and hire you.” I pulled a bright pink and orange dupatta from my bag and placed it on her lap. “In Sindh they say that if you give a shawl to a woman, she is forever your sister and you have the right to protect her.” I wrapped the dupatta around her neck. “I have mailed one just like this one to Robina. That is how you will find each other.”
2
Adaila Prison, 1996
The evening call to prayer echoed through the narrow streets of old Lahore. Then Ujala knew that outside the prison walls her father and her brother were cross-legged on their prayer mats. And they were not alone. University students had spray-painted dupattas, transforming them into protest banners. “Free Baji!” they demanded in Urdu, Punjabi, and English. Throughout the evening a few protesters came and went. By midnight Ujala was asleep in her cell, and outside the square was deserted—except for one lean, gray-bearded Sikh in a white turban. Kulraj Singh kept watch all night long, until Meena arrived in the morning to take his place. Over the weeks, the size of the protest grew. By the time Faisah returned from New York, the press reported that fifty people were regularly present at Adaila Square.
Ujala complained when she saw Faisah enter the interview room. “I thought you would never get here
.”
“Baji!” murmured Faisah, nestling her face into her sister’s shoulder.
A sergeant-guard assigned to observe their meeting leaned against the wall, dialed her mobile phone, and turned away. The sisters held hands across the table.
My Sisters Made of Light Page 5