Her reputed friends were daughters of politicians, media celebrities and other landowning families from the boarding school and city college. Her knowledge of the village extended to Massi Fiza, their laundrywoman, who was now practically a neighbour – her front door literally opposite theirs.
‘I have returned home, Mother!’ Laila whispered up to the shining stars.
*
Gulbahar was standing on her prayer mat, about to start her afternoon prayers, when Begum whispered in Gulbahar’s ear.
‘She’s here, Sahiba-ji!’ Her mistress heard but betrayed no visible sign that she had.
‘She’s here!’ Begum croaked louder.
‘Who’s here, Begum?’ Gulbahar’s harsh voice challenged, turning to confront her housekeeper.
Begum shrivelled, the light of hope snuffed in her eyes, her heart retreating to a low, dull beat. Her mistress had indeed killed not only her daughter in her thoughts, but had also slain her own heart.
‘No one!’ Begum mumbled in confusion, turning away, wondering what was going to happen. For Massi Fiza had excitedly whispered that Mistress Laila had arrived during the night and was now living in the potter’s home, whilst her rascal of a husband had gone to work in the neighbouring town.
‘She’s here!’ Gulbahar softly repeated Begum’s words to her husband’s back, feeling duty-bound to alert him. Haider was standing ready to say his maghrib prayers; he neither replied nor showed any indication that he had heard but merely started his prayer sequence, raising his hands over his shoulders. Gulbahar let the moment pass – at least he was prepared. She had not expected a discussion, as Laila’s name had become a taboo.
*
The small footstool, with its one uneven leg, on which Laila crouched to make breakfast, kept toppling to one side, giving her a painful stitch at the side of her leg. Her eyes remained on the outside door, expecting her father to storm in at any moment followed by a tearful mother with open arms. Breakfast and dinner was cooked. She had specially made her father’s favourite dish, semolina halwa, syrupy the way he liked it.
In the end, nobody came.
No storming father, no weeping mother crossed the potter’s threshold. The second day also passed. Laila’s life swung on the face of the clock and the outside door – waiting. She knew that the dhoban had passed the message. ‘Why has no one come?’ she mourned in bewilderment.
On the third day, after her husband had left for shopping in town, Laila determinedly stepped out of her home, an ugly fortress of her own making, daring to walk out into the village lane and show her face.
‘I’m Haider Ali’s daughter and will not hide myself!’ The pelting storm had to be borne. And she was ready both to face the wrath of her family and the sniggers of the villagers.
Her body discreetly cloaked in a large grey muslin chador and her face partially hidden behind its folds, Laila stepped warily out onto the cobbled lane. Once upon a time, the elegant Miss Laila would never let a chador come anywhere near her body. Now, she sought refuge in its ample width and length.
Her destination was her father’s hevali.
As she entered the lane, her heart thudding, she felt faint; her beloved father was walking towards her.
‘He has come!’
Her heart singing, she let the fold of the chador fall from her face as he came nearer. His eyes dutifully looked down in a modest fashion adopted by the village men whilst passing women. He therefore didn’t notice or recognise her and was about to pass her; Laila panicked.
‘Father!’ Her urgent voice sliced across the small space between them. A mere flicker of an eye was his only response; the gaze had barely lifted from the ground. Then the head dropped down before his eyes reached her face.
And he walked on, passing her still figure in the lane, staring after him.
‘Father!’ Stunned, Laila shouted after him, past caring who heard her, born out of a need to be recognised and heard. Her father’s feet didn’t stall. The head didn’t turn. She watched his tall stiff figure disappear down the side street.
Mouth dry, Laila leaned against the gate of the bricklayer’s villa, wiping her wet cheeks clean. The bricklayer’s two chattering teenage granddaughters coming out of the house made her briskly walk off.
She had lost the father but still had a mother.
Pushing open the hevali gates of her parents’ home, Laila experienced an awkwardness, as if she was entering it as a stranger. Her hungry eyes devoured the spacious beauty of the courtyard, its central marble fountain overflowing with a steady spray of clear water, rows of marble colonnades garlanded with the lush growth of plants and flowers and the two trees now swollen with fruit; oranges and guava. The small pomegranate tree bushes with pomegranates hanging from them were protected from the pecking crows behind the small cotton bags sewn by Begum’s skilful fingers.
Begum herself was hard at work in the courtyard. On her toes, she was reaching up to brush down a tiny row of spiralling cobwebs hanging from one of the veranda colonnades when Laila called.
Electrified, Begum swung round.
The bundle of boker sticks with sticky cobwebs slipped from Begum’s hand as she clamped her hand to her mouth, gasping.
‘Laila-ji,’ she whispered, automatically adding the respectful term of ‘ji’ to address her young mistress. Joy flared, fear raged. What would happen now?
‘Begum, where is my mother?’ Laila demanded, hovering nervously on the threshold. Begum’s eyes swept angrily over her irresponsible mistress; the imperious voice didn’t match the pathetic appearance. This wasn’t the fashion-loving, elegant Laila with her fine stitching, tight-zipped dresses, tiny three-inch sleeves showing off her slender, youthful arms, the one bred in the lap of luxury in her parental home, but a weighed-down specimen of womanhood and symbol of humility.
‘Any other village woman, for that matter,’ Begum mentally scoffed, eyes widening. Did she see lines on Mistress Laila’s forehead? Obviously, the expensive Western pots of face creams and body lotions that Ali purchased for her from the city’s top shopping plazas no longer featured in her life. Her Mistress Gulbahar still had porcelain skin and she was twenty years older!
Seething, Begum climbed up to her Mistress Gulbahar’s room, followed by Laila.
*
Gulbahar was in the middle of her zuhr nafl prayer sequence, her forehead touching the soft surface of the velvet prayer rug, ready to rise to start a new rakah. The shallow, hesitant breathing, the light tread of her daughter’s feet on the floor tightened Gulbahar’s chest. When two feet stood beside her, the Arabic words of prayers deserted her, her mouth only forming the words Ibrahima, Ibrahima. Bemused, she turned her head first to the right and then to the left to signal her exit from her prayers.
Her eyes fleetingly swept over her daughter’s cloaked figure but avoided the face.
‘Mother!’ Laila beseeched, now squatting, touching her mother’s feet.
‘Please forgive me, Mother,’ she begged.
Alarmed, Gulbahar pulled her foot away. Only two thoughts banged with clarity in her head: betrayal and shame.
‘Begum, have I not warned you about letting beggars into the house.’ The voice sounded chillingly aggrieved. ‘You’ve disobeyed me yet again, Begum!’
‘Mother!’ Laila cried, lying in a heap on the cold marble floor. Gulbahar turned her back to the two women.
‘Begum, please show this beggar the door! And guard it well!’ Gulbahar cruelly instructed, mouth quivering.
Begum’s distressed gaze swung from the daughter’s face to the mother’s back. Gulbahar, unable to pray, walked out of the room, heading for the open air and privacy of the rooftop terrace.
Tears streaked down Laila’s face. Begum helplessly watched, before turning to follow her mistress, the words ‘you have disobeyed me yet again’ throbbing in her ears. Yes, she had brought Laila up to her mistress’s room. What had she expected – a reconciliation, a pat on the back? Did she not know that Laila was dead t
o her parents? How could she allow Laila’s shadow to cross their paths?
As if in a dream, Laila followed the faithful housekeeper down the stairs. Begum’s body language neither signalled her love nor her anger. Her loyalty was to Mistress Gulbahar and Master Haider; her mission now was to quickly usher Mistress Laila out before her father returned home. Striding across the courtyard and opening the door wide, Begum kept her face averted from the accusing glare of Laila’s eyes.
‘Don’t look at me like that!’ Begum taunted. ‘You burned all your boats, Mistress Laila, on that night when you eloped with your lover,’ she angrily continued, with throbbing red cheeks. ‘You killed your parents with your cruelty! Stamped on their joy of life! Snuffed the light out of this house. Did you know that this is the house of the dead, Laila? I never knew that the young mistress I so lovingly cared for could be so selfish and cruel to the very people she loved. Your parents do not mourn for you! Don’t flatter yourself! But I mourn for my master and mistress and for the empty vessels that they have become! What does the potter’s son have that the landlord didn’t – that led you to lose your female modesty? What did you see in his father’s clay pots that made you turn your back on the casket of gold jewellery and acres of land offerd by the other man?
‘Your father hasn’t spoken to anyone for months – neither friends nor relatives! Do you know he has lost two inches in height because his head is forever stooped in shame? He barely lifts his gaze or looks anyone in the eye! Do not mislead yourself, selfish Laila, that anybody will come running to bring you home! The night you married him, you slammed shut the door of the hevali behind you and said goodbye to all of this! Your mother has just made that perfectly clear.’
‘No! No!’ Laila wept. ‘Don’t say that, Begum, please listen – I’m pregnant!’ she whimpered.
Begum struggled with her thoughts and breath. At last, dry-mouthed, she coldly uttered, ‘I wish you joy of your future newborn. I pray that as a parent you will never taste the pain you’ve caused your parents.’
‘Please, Begum, don’t lecture me! I, too, have died a “thousand” times.’
‘You are the guilty one!’ Begum snapped bitterly. ‘What wrong did your parents do to deserve the punishment you meted out to them? You used me, Mistress Laila, as you’ve always done. No more! Do you hear me?’
‘I hear, Begum, but what can I say! My crime was to fall in love and to want to be with him!’ Laila’s tone was equally cutting. This was not the Begum she adored and who always played to her tune.
‘I wish you joy with your “love” and your lover then. Please go now! You are lucky – some fathers have killed their daughters for less than what you’ve done!’ Begum almost wanted to push her out. ‘Master will be back soon! I don’t know what he’ll do when he sees you!’
‘I have met him already!’ Laila’s voice tapered away.
‘You’ve met him?’ Begum panicked.
‘Don’t worry. It appears I’ve indeed killed everyone in this household with my action – even you! Forgive me, Begum.’ Laila pulled the chador lower over her forehead.
Begum’s heart leapt in pain as she fought the urge to hug Laila tightly, her expression now softer. ‘I pray that perhaps your child may bring back to life the dead in this home,’ she whispered. ‘And I’ll pray for your health, my little princess,’ she finished, her eyes now swollen and leaking with tears.
Flushed with gratitude and sobbing quietly in the fold of her chador, Laila nodded. ‘Thank you and goodbye, Begum. I will return to Islamabad, for there is nothing for me here: no home, no parents – not even Begum! Where is Arslan, Begum? I would like to see him so much. In all my little life you’ve arranged things for me, from climbing up the tall jamuni trees, to arranging late night horse riding, to letting me escape from an unhappy engagement … Please do this for me – for a sister longing to see her brother,’ she ended, noting the look of incredulity on the housekeeper’s face.
‘Begum, this “beggar” has not come to beg for food but only for a glimpse of her baby brother! Is that too much to ask from your well of humanity?’ Laila begged, opening out the fold of her shawl in front of her body – in a manner reminiscent of a street beggar. ‘I was cruel, you say, but have mercy, Begum; Allah Pak says forgive and offer forgiveness!’
‘OK! I’ll see what I can do. Now, please go,’ Begum urged, unable to cope any more with Laila’s emotional blackmail, her knack of weaving her magic around her heart with her sapphires for eyes.
Laila stepped out of the hevali she loved, closing the gates behind her. Through the small window, Begum watched the shadowy veiled figure walk away. ‘Oh, Laila, what have you done?’ Begum kept muttering all evening as she went about her chores, imagining her young mistress trying to cook in the potter’s hovel of a home.
Nobody mentioned Laila’s name. Her husband had quietly informed her the following morning that the dhoban saw Laila leaving the village with her husband. The potter’s house was once again padlocked. Begum sighed in relief. Laila had entered and departed like a shadow. The storm had brewed but not burst. The sky was clear again, but the shadowy greyness lingered, casting its mantle of doom over the hevali and the lives of those within its walls.
*
‘My sister was here and you didn’t tell me?’ Arslan accused his mother, soaking up the early morning sunshine on the rooftop gallery. Gulbahar blinked, taken aback by her son’s outburst.
‘You have no sister!’ Gulbahar harshly reminded her son, knowing full well that he was very fond of his sister. For more than two weeks, he had sulked and refused to eat when Laila had left.
‘Yes, I have!’ came Arslan’s belligerent answer, tugging at his mother’s arm. ‘She was here! Our Laila is alive. I want to see her!’
‘Khabardor!’ Haider Ali thundered, coming from behind. ‘Don’t talk to your mother like this again! You have no sister! Grow up, my son!’
Arslan beamed an angry gaze at his father, his rebellious mouth opening, but the look in his father’s eyes dammed the angry words. He marched down the marble stairs in pursuit of Begum, running to her house, not bothered that he had ruined his newly polished shoes with a thick layer of dust. Without knocking, he burst through the door, startling husband and wife, eating bananas. Two peels on the plate and two in their hands. The sight – their preoccupation with fruit – galled him. He lashed straight out at Begum.
‘You knew she was here, Begum!’ The words pelted like pointed darts into Begum’s body. The small half-peeled banana went back on the plate as Begum turned to her husband, desperately seeking some direction.
‘You knew, Begum!’ Arslan accused, very much the landlord’s son, his body aggressively poised over the housekeeper’s figure in the bamboo and raffia chair.
‘Yes, I knew!’ Begum steadily held her young master’s gaze.
‘And you never told me?’ Aggrieved, Arslan squeezed his eyes to prevent the tears from shaming him.
‘Beloved little master …’ Begum’s heart melted in pain. ‘I couldn’t, Arslan. You know how it is,’ she appealed, hoping for his understanding.
‘No, I don’t know,’ he lashed out. ‘Everybody has gone mad! My baji is not dead!’ he sobbed aloud. ‘I want to see her!’
Ali decided that it was time to take a firm hand with Arslan. His wife, as usual, in her soft-hearted way, was getting nowhere.
‘You’ve no sister, Master Arslan! For us she’s dead, because she abandoned all of us. Did she give a thought to you, Arslan? No, she just ran away!’ Ali’s taunting remark struck home, making Arslan want to retaliate. Begum quickly stepped in, pulling Arslan’s stiff body into her arms as she had always done since he was a toddler.
‘I know it hurts, Master Arslan. I know you love her very much, as I do,’ she said, ignoring her husband’s look of strong disapproval. ‘But your sister did something terrible.’
‘She only got married, Begum!’ Arslan scoffed. ‘What’s wrong with that? Don’t people usually get married whe
n they are grown up?’
‘Yes, people do get married, Master Arslan,’ Begum stuttered to explain. ‘It was the way in which it was done! She only thought of herself and killed us all!’
‘Don’t be silly, Begum? She hasn’t “killed” anyone. Now you are talking rubbish.’ He angrily pulled himself out of Begum’s arms.
‘You are right, Arslan, she didn’t kill anyone, but there are different sorts of deaths and killings. She “killed” your parents in spirit. Can you understand what I’m trying to say? They live, Arslan, but as shadows. They are not the same people; their lives are empty. How long is it since you heard any laughter in the hevali, Arslan? Have you ever noticed your father looking you directly in the eye? Your mother has just become a tomb of silence. Remember one thing, when you grow up, never hurt your parents, my darling!’
‘But Allah Pak is merciful and forgives,’ beseeched the boy. ‘Will my parents never forgive her?’ he asked, his eyes now openly overflowing.
‘I don’t know, my pet. But I promise you one thing – when she comes next time, I will take you to see her.’
‘Can you find out where she lives, so that I can phone her?’ He eagerly asked.
Begum sobered, eyes evasive. ‘I’ll just arrange for you to meet her.’
‘What if she never returns?’ Arslan petulantly offered, his spirits sinking, angrily brushing away the tears from his cheeks. ‘I miss her so much, Begum.’
‘I know, Master Arslan, but believe me, she’ll return, my son. I know she will.’ She pulled him into her arms and let him sob on her shoulders.
*
Begum was proved right; Laila did return to the village a few months later. This time, she brought Shirin with her – her baby daughter. Again she arrived at dusk, a shadowy, cloaked figure, hurrying through the dark lanes; keen to avoid meeting anyone she knew. Again it was the dhoban who was first alerted of her arrival when her eyes fell straight on the door; the padlock was gone. With excitement rushing through her, Massi Fiza charged straight into the potter’s home, cheerfully offering ‘salaam’ and startling Laila breastfeeding her baby girl on the veranda. Massi Fiza’s eyes widened in disbelief; she was not prepared for the sight of a baby.
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