Revolt

by Shahraz, Qaisra

  Haider shook his head ruthlessly, dismissing the mean, ugly thoughts that were unworthy of him. How could he let his train of thought sully his pure wife who was rarely in the company of strange men!

  ‘Gulbahar, what do you think?’ he gently prompted, noting the shape and thickness of her eyebrows. His darling wife was already distressed. ‘Tell me, Gulbahar, do Mehreen’s nonsensical words have any ounce of sense or substance in them? Or has she simply become crazed?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Gulbahar truthfully replied. There was no doubt Liaquat liked, respected and paid homage to her, but surely not in that way!

  ‘Almighty Allah Pak!’ Her husband’s cold voice cut her off from her thoughts. He snorted, ‘Then I suggest you find out. Tell him what his wife has said. Also, challenge her. Put the record straight. If she’s wrong, that is it.’

  Gulbahar’s eyes fled to her husband’s face. ‘What are you saying?’ She paled. ‘How could I possibly ask him that?’

  ‘What is the alternative? To get involved in an argument with Mehreen? Do you want me to ask Liaquat, “Are you in love with my wife?”’ The voice was icily cutting. Colour again flooded Gulbahar’s face, richly flushing down her neck. In shame, she hung her head.

  Haider slid off the bed. She had to ask, clawing desperately at straws, ‘Haider-ji, you yourself … don’t have any doubts, do you?’ He stopped halfway across the room, his back to her. ‘No, I have none, my jaan, but Mehreen does. I know my wife, but does Mehreen know her husband? I suggest you ask him what he feels for you!’ he finished dismissively. The door shut firmly behind him.

  ‘I hate you, Mehreen, for what you’ve done! At my age! A grandmother! How besharm you are to suggest such a terrible thing. You are crazy, Mehreen, to be jealous of your own sister!’ Gulbahar cried.

  She closed her eyes in horror at the images that her husband’s words had conjured. That Liaquat loved her. Unforgivable! How could she possibly look him in the eye again? He was like a brother to her. How could Mehreen and Haider say such things?

  The door opened. Gulbahar lifted her head. Begum was hovering near the door, anxiously waiting for some signal. Gulbahar turned her face the other way and slid down into her bed. This was a matter she couldn’t possibly repeat to anyone, not even to her housekeeper. Dismayed, Begum stayed for a few more seconds, then reluctantly withdrew. Master Arslan’s homecoming party had turned into a disaster with virtually no one hosting it. The prince, on whose behalf the village was eating half of the land’s revenue, had angrily ridden out on a horse into the fields. Haider-ji had disappeared into his office. And Mistress Gulbahar was lying in bed, in the middle of the day, while the hevali was filled with guests.

  Begum dutifully shrugged her shoulders; it looked as if both she and Rasoola were to take care of everything. Ali could look after the male guests, whilst they saw to the women. What were faithful servants for if they didn’t support you in your hour of need? She just prayed that Mehreen, who was outside in the women’s marquee, didn’t spot Rasoola at any time. That would be disastrous and there was still the question of the goorie, who was here in the hevali somewhere, and in all likelihood would keep the women guests agog with excitement at her presence. For apparently everybody was anxious to catch a glimpse of the first European woman in their midst and one who had scandalously stolen one of their countrymen from a fiancée. Begum smiled wryly – imagining all the women making a beeline for the white woman.

  CHAPTER 29

  The European

  ‘The goorie is here!’ The excited chant of the bricklayer’s wife had everyone’s necks craning towards the opening of the marquee.

  ‘Where?’ spluttered the baker’s wife over her bottle of Mirinda drink, swivelling her sagging, heavily pleated neck, and swinging the large chumkay earrings weighing down her small ears. The baker had generously deposited three wads of crispy notes into the goldsmith’s hands. So it was very appropriate that his wife had the opportunity to display their worth and by extension her husband’s wealth.

  ‘I can’t see her!’ she groaned in frustration, eager to set her eyes on a real white person, a European. ‘There she is! Can’t you see her?’ the bricklayer’s wife proudly pointed out. ‘Dressed in green and with her head covered!’ she cried out in awe.

  ‘Where? You’re having me on!’ The baker’s wife excitedly scrutinised her friend’s face for telltale signs, for she was known for playing pranks on her friends. Her eyes followed the bricklayer’s wife’s index finger.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ she sighed in wonder, taking her fill of the white woman.

  ‘My God, she’s covered her head! No wonder I didn’t spot her. And she’s wearing a shalwar kameez suit! Doesn’t she look absolutely gorgeous?’ Respect for the foreign woman dressed in local clothes beamed on her face; this woman from another land had made an effort to fit into their society. She could now almost pass for a native. The bricklayer’s wife sat back in her chair and let her eyes follow the goorie down the aisle of the marquee.

  At the back of her mind was the smug thought of their tandoor supplying the chappatis to Mistress Gulbahar’s household in the summer. So it was very apt for her to cultivate the friendship of the landlady with the ‘white’ daughter-in-law. A visit or two to that household was definitely merited in the next few days.

  *

  Daniela, the centre of attention, found herself hemmed in by an excited entourage of women burgeoning in size by her side. Some were openly staring while others were grinning. Her cheekbones aching from the forced smiles, she shyly greeted them with ‘salaam’ and was glad to slide down onto the seat next to a woman who blushed with delight, looking down at her hands.

  Daniela was very conscious of her appearance in her mother-in-law’s suit, a couple of sizes too large. Keen to blend in, she had expressed her desire via her husband to wear the local dress and her mother-in-law had quickly obliged by handing her one of her own best, heavily embroidered suits. Above all, she desperately wanted to speak the local language, join in their conversation and thereby bond with them. Two or three simple sentences with a strange accent didn’t go very far. Her chiffon dupatta was slipping off her head again.

  ‘Allah Pak, her hair is shining like gold … and so short!’ whispered the baker’s wife to Massi Fiza, hovering three steps behind her. Massi Fiza assented, coldly muttering, ‘I told you, didn’t I? I was the first one to catch a glimpse of her and not just her head, but her bare white legs, too! Oh, they were so white! She covered them up after the first day.’

  Massi Fiza abruptly stopped, remembering saying the same words to her neighbour. Still very much smarting from the insult, she now regretted both the service and the friendship she had offered to the goldsmith’s family. It was she, Massi Fiza, who provided a more valuable service than Rukhsar twice over. After all, she was not running up to their chamber every day for jewellery repairs. The extra dollops of detergent she had scooped into the buckets of water for those fussy girls’ delicates, all those chiffons, the painstaking ironing of laces and shawl trims afterwards – all literally for free.

  And, of course, her role as the village news lady, the ‘village radio’ as Jennat Bibi cattily called her, was simply indispensable. Forever tied to her upper chamber and guarding her husband’s stock of gold, Rukhsar had no idea about what was going on in the village. She, Massi Fiza, despite her physically hard, but honest work, had more fun in life than her neighbour, for she got to visit all the homes, walk down the streets and breathe the fresh clear air in the open fields. And her two sons working in the nearest town had promised her that when they had saved enough money, they would build her a bigger house, with at least three good-sized bedrooms. That was her special dream. But her youngest one was busy squandering her hard-earned money gambling. Now, she didn’t know where he was, and she was worried sick. The word ‘Taliban’ kept hammering in her head. She prayed and prayed for her sons’ welfare at the Friday Juma prayers, the only time she entered the village mosque in her clean
crisp white clothes and Kashmir shawl.

  ‘Ah well, I’m not the only one with lousy offspring!’ she consoled herself. ‘Look at poor Mistress Mehreen whose son has brought home a tofa, a white woman, now sitting decked in clothes that look so odd on her. Not at all elegant.’

  ‘Their’ Saher would never go near those clothes. That successful lawyer woman was universally known in the village as ‘the stylish one’. And where was Mistress Saher anyway? That was a question that ran through many heads. Life was indeed strange. The two villages had been preparing for a big wedding and what did they get instead? A foreign woman in their midst, reputedly the wife of the man who was supposed to be getting married.

  ‘Oh!’ An excited, four-year-old girl in a pink frilly frock dashed past Massi Fiza’s legs and bounded straight against Daniela, startling her and those around her.

  The flushed, panting young mother reached Daniela’s side just as she was lifting the girl onto her lap. The child innocently stared up at the woman’s smiling face.

  ‘Hello! Ap ka nam kiya hai?’ Shyly Daniela asked the girl’s name. Electric silence gripped the women guests. The white woman had actually spoken Urdu! Unbelievable! Awestruck, some of the women stared in wonder. The blushing mother stood happily smiling over Daniela’s shoulder.

  ‘Iss ka nam Firoza ha,’ she shyly informed Daniela.

  ‘Her name is Firoza,’ she repeated in clear English, her heavensent opportunity to show off to her fellow village women her competence in the language of the Engrez, the rulers of India. And this in turn indicated her high level of education – up to a BA – fourteen classes successfully passed, and English being her favourite subject.

  Daniela beamed at the woman. ‘Acha, bohot khub hai, what a lovely name!’ Daniela tried some of the phrases she had learned from Mrs Sheikh, their school dinnertime supervisor, her heart racing at the reaction she was eliciting from the women. She introduced herself, ‘My name is Daniela … Ismail’s wife.’

  The mother smugly nodded her head, heat rushing into her cheeks with pride as she slyly pulled a chair next to Daniela. The baker’s wife and Massi Fiza grimaced enviously, exchanging a pointed look. That ‘fourteenth jamaat’ upstart daughter of the milkwoman had cleverly managed to ingratiate herself with the white woman by showing off some words of Engrezi she had picked up at college! They could bet with their lives that she would not be vacating her chair for anyone!

  ‘In fact she’ll be glued to that seat as long as the goorie remains by her side! See if I am proved wrong,’ Massi Fiza challenged her companion. ‘If only we, too, knew some words of Engrezi.’ Massi Fiza was already in the thralls of a fantasy in which she was having a personal conversation with the goorie and in English.

  ‘Oh, goodness me, look behind you! We are blessed, ladies, with a real drama today!’ the baker’s wife whispered loudly into Massi Fiza’s ears, swivelling her plump neck round to follow the direction of Massi Fiza’s eyebrows, pointing to the marquee entrance where Mistress Rani and her daughter stood.

  ‘They are here!’ Massi Fiza marvelled, her head automatically turning to the goorie. Daniela was busy with the little girl on her lap, and so did not see Saher coming to stand next to her. It was only as she heard the familiar, impeccably clear tone of Ismail’s fiancée that she glanced up, the goose pimples standing up on her arms.

  ‘Hello, I hope all these women have not been bothering you?’ Saher politely asked of the woman who had turned her world upside down.

  The little girl was forgotten, the smile whipped away. Noting the stylish cut of Saher’s suit, Daniela felt frumpy in her mother-in-law’s oversized shalwar kameez. Also, she could not help admiring the immaculate make-up, the lip liner accentuating the shape of the full, soft mouth. Daniela carried on staring, forgetting her own appeal once again. Dressed as a native, her Western beauty shone through. A touch of lip gloss was all she had on but the translucent glow of healthy cheeks and freckles made her look amazingly alive.

  Whilst the two women were locked in admiring one another, Rani hovered stiffly behind her daughter, taking her first glimpse of the woman who had ‘stolen’ her daughter’s world from her. And Rani made no effort to hide her personal loathing of the ‘robber’!

  ‘Let the village women see! I couldn’t care less!’ Her cheeks flamed, unable to fathom her daughter’s idiotic behaviour in talking to ‘that woman’. When she could stand it no longer, she poked a finger in her daughter’s back. Saher gave her mother a steady, cool stare, signalling her message: ‘There’s already a tamasha in the making, Mother, please don’t add to the drama yourself. The village women are having a wonderful time in comparing us two women. Don’t you add to their fun, please.’

  Indeed, the women assembled in Master Haider’s marquee were charmed by Daniela, who provided a feast for their eyes; their roving eyes comparing the ‘foreign’ woman to their countrywoman! Strangely, Daniela, the goorie, appeared more desi than Saher. In their eyes that vaqil – lawyer lady – had never been the epitome of a village woman. She lived a different lifestyle; spending her nights at home and her days in a plush office in a large city. Dressed in crisp, smart outfits, designed by the best tailors in the city, Mistress Saher had never stooped to enter the door of their humble tailor mistress, Zeban.

  Of another class, wealthy and with an excellent education, she was aloof in every way and never mixed properly with the semi-literate village women. They only caught rare glimpses of her, in her car mainly, as she visited her Aunt Gulbahar, or when she used to walk around in the fields in her teenage years with Arslan. They knew for sure that Saher would be snapped up by some city tycoon.

  Daniela gently placed the child on the ground. ‘She looks lovely in her frock!’

  ‘Thank you!’ the girl’s mother gushed. Daniela drew the little girl closer and then, startling everyone, including the little girl herself, kissed her on the cheek. Her mother swooned up to seventh heaven, and the envious women around her with children of their own could take no more.

  Saher looked on with mixed feelings, not quite sure what to make of a gesture that had electrified the crowd around them. It would never have occurred to her to go around planting kisses on strange children’s faces. But this was a goorie. Perhaps that was what they did back home. She couldn’t help, however, voicing a cynical remark to their foreign guest. ‘You have made the mother’s day. Look, the poor woman – she’s blushing all over with delight.’

  Daniela reddened. ‘Oh, did I? I could not help it … I love children. I work with young children, you see, and I am now expecting …’

  She abruptly stopped, praying that Ismail’s fiancée didn’t understand what she had been about to utter. How cruel under the circumstances.

  An awkward pause led to Saher helpfully stepping in and asking, ‘Where’s Auntie Mehreen?’

  ‘She was here with me and then I don’t know where she went.’

  Pity overwhelmed Saher. ‘Shall I take you inside the house, Daniela? This marquee is only for the village guests – family members are expected to go inside the hevali.’

  ‘Oh.’ Daniela glanced up at the older woman menacingly hovering behind, knowing for sure it was Saher’s mother, taken aback by the look of naked hatred on the woman’s face. With trepidation Daniela asked Saher, ‘Are you sure it’s all right for me to go inside? I don’t want to cause discomfort amongst your relatives.’

  The thought of sitting next to Saher’s glaring mother made her shudder. Disconcerted by the remark, Saher smiled warmly and held out her hand to her sokan, distressing her mother and shocking the other women guests in the marquee.

  Massi Fiza’s eyes widened, shooting a look at her friend, Rukhsar.

  ‘Daniela,’ Saher beckoned, voice firm. ‘As Ismail’s wife you are now a family member and deserve to be in a better place than here. Come!’

  Blushing, Daniela got up, her hand held in Saher’s grasp. Eyes filling up, she mumbled her gratitude to the woman whose world she had unwittingly toppl
ed.

  ‘Thank you, I would like to go inside.’ She pulled the flimsy dupatta back on her head, but it stubbornly slipped down again. Saher gently offered, ‘Don’t worry, Daniela, about covering your head. Nobody expects you to. See, my head is bare!’ Daniela happily let the chiffon fabric slip to her shoulders. Saher’s appraising eyes swept over the Englishwoman’s layers of fine soft hair, the smile momentarily slipping from her face as the thought echoed in her head, ‘That’s what Ismail fell for!’ Elegant body poised and held straight as in court, Saher led Daniela out of the marquee. Skilfully winding their way through rows of tables and chairs, both were acutely aware of the spectacle they made, walking hand-in-hand with Saher’s glowering mother in tow.

  *

  The women guests left behind had mixed feelings; some admired Saher for her noble heart.

  ‘Fancy offering your hand to the very woman who has taken your man!’ the baker’s wife slyly twittered. ‘What do you say, ladies, isn’t our lawyer lady generous?’

  ‘But then as a vakil, she knows how to save her face!’ drily quipped the bricklayer’s married daughter, who had eagerly extended her stay in the village just to attend Master Haider’s party. She had secretly made sure of coinciding her visit with the arrival of Master Arslan from America. Such a good-looking young man and she was not quite over her teenage crush on him yet. Not that he had ever paid her any attention. ‘In his eyes we are just the gauche, village girls!’ she had bitterly reminded herself.

  ‘Yes, you are right, dear,’ the milkwoman eagerly agreed with the bricklayer’s daughter as she sat at the same table.

  ‘How is it possible for any woman to treat another sokan like that? Well, if it had been me in Saher’s place, I tell you that the goorie would have lost a handful of that short golden crop!’ The baker’s wife laughed aloud at the scene in her head, of soft silky tufts of golden hair coming away in her hand. In reality, she knew she could never carry out such a deed.