by Jamil Ahmad
The owner of the shop sat cross-legged next to a large frying pan, engrossed in scraping burned bits of mincemeat from its edges while the oil sizzled. Small tendrils of smoke rose from the pan and added to the aroma of burned animal fat. He looked up as Afzal Khan walked up to him.
“Two seer of kebab and some hot bread,” ordered Afzal Khan. “Make them ready while I go and say my afternoon prayers. Also, send some water for the women. They might wish to wash the dust off.”
After giving these instructions, Afzal Khan walked away toward the pond, which was the major source of water for this area. He sat down near the edge, removed some pieces of scum floating on the surface with a stick, and started washing his arms, face, and feet meticulously.
As soon as he had finished his prayers and returned to the shop, platters of food and a jug of water were set before them by a young boy whose looks and gait suggested that he was serving his owner’s physical needs as well. He made eyes at Afzal Khan and fluttered his long eyelashes at him.
“How long are you staying?” he asked softly.
“What day is it?” countered Afzal Khan.
“It is Monday, today.”
“Then I shall have to stay for three days.”
They smiled secretly at each other. Thursday was the sale of women.
“Where can I get a room for us?” Afzal Khan asked.
“We have some rooms, my master and I. I shall talk to him. He listens to me.”
When the boy left, the women slipped their veils off their faces and started to eat from a common plate. Sherakai’s face was puckered with distaste. “He is a catamite.” Her peasant morality was shocked at such a blatant exhibition of perversion. Afzal Khan looked reflectively at the sturdy-looking woman sitting opposite him. Her lower jaw was a little too heavy, and the faint smudge of dark hair on her upper lip was prominent because of her fair skin.
“You find all kinds of people in this world,” he told her. “May God forgive all sinners.” After the food was finished, he got up and threw the scraps on the floor. A mangy bitch that had been feeding her pups in one corner rushed out and started groveling for food on the mud floor.
Lifting his shirt, Afzal Khan took out a plastic wallet from the waistcoat he wore underneath.
“What do I owe you?” he asked the tavern keeper. “Have you arranged for a room?”
“Two beds should be enough. The women should be able to sleep together. If they want to sleep separately, I shall get another bed later on,” he answered.
“The boy will show you the way. By the way, I do not rent him out,” he whispered to Afzal Khan, handing him the change. The young boy led the party to where their rooms were. As they turned the first corner, Afzal Khan looked back. The kebab shop’s owner sat hunched over his pan, intent on scraping the burned bits of meat from it and preparing for the next customer.
The boy unlatched one of the rooms in a mud-walled courtyard and took two string cots from the storeroom and threw them inside. “I hope you like the room,” he chirruped.
“We do,” acknowledged Afzal Khan. “Get us some bedding.”
“I can offer you my own,” responded the boy coquettishly. Laughing to himself, he went away and returned after a short while with some cotton sheets and pillows. “The drinking water is in the room next door, and if you need anything else, just call me.” He was addressing Afzal Khan but talking to the women. There was pity in his voice as he offered them his help. Another two faces to add to the multitude in his memory, growing with the passage of each Thursday. Women, some little more than infants, some already on the threshold between middle and old age; some who laughed at their fate and others who never stopped crying. Some who appeared once and then vanished completely. Others came again and again, sold sometimes to one man and then to another. There were those who had run away from their husbands or their fathers and those who were running away from life. His memory was only a sea of women’s faces, and his small body shook with tension every time he saw yet another face destined to be sold. Yet it was strange that the women had always shown loathing and hatred toward him. He could feel it now, in the two women standing before him.
As the next two days passed, the rooms in the courtyard quickly filled up: sometimes a lone man with just one woman shambling behind him, and sometimes two or three came together who had joined up on the trails leading to the hamlet. The women were always carrying some possessions from their past lives in small, pitiable bundles. One walked with glazed eyes, carrying a blue flower vase in her hands like a candlestick. Another strode along proudly, carrying her man’s rifle on her shoulders. There also came men who brought no women. They came to buy and had nothing to sell themselves.
Before the second day was over, the inn was surrounded by small tents, set up and hired out to the visitors. While the men used up the time wandering about, looking at the wares of others, laughing and jesting with old acquaintances, Afzal Khan’s women remained in their room except when they went out together to the hillside, when the stars were still glimmering. The monotony of their days was only broken by meals of tea and kebabs brought for them twice a day by Afzal Khan.
With the influx of people, the kebab shop did roaring business. The owner had brought out his transistor and played it the entire day without interruption, not even switching it off for the news or the cricket match commentaries in English. His shop provided a comfortable meeting place for men who had gathered from all corners of the country—groups of them lounging about, chewing and spitting tobacco, some sitting on wooden benches and chairs, others on string cots that had been dragged out and placed in the open. The eating of kebabs and drinking of tea seemed to go on without interruption. The tavern’s mongrel bitch and her pups, no longer hungry, looked disdainfully at the scraps lying on the ground.
Afzal Khan was approached by several men, at one time or another, who made inquiries about his women. Some he brushed away brusquely, as he instinctively recognized them as scavengers—found wandering from one village to another, from one market town to the next, trying to manage on the scraps thrown to them either as charity or as commission for acting as go-betweens. There were others with whom he was more patient, though he knew they were small men who could not afford the price he had placed on his women. There were only three men whom he recognized as good customers. He knew two of them of old, as they were regular suppliers to the city brothels, and the third was a young man whom he had not seen before. He appeared to be interested in Shah Zarina, and had not been frightened away at her price, though he did express considerable indignation.
Afzal Khan explained the circumstances of both the women to the customers. Sherakai, he told them, had been kidnapped in a raid but had escaped and returned to find that her husband had taken a younger wife, who had borne him a son. Her mother-in-law, who had never approved of her, lost no opportunity in harping on her failure to provide sons to the family.
As the weeks passed after her return, Sherakai grew more and more frantic. Her mother-in-law’s glee knew no bounds. If the new wife had merely felt happy and had forgotten Sherakai in her victory, it would have been all right. But where there had been only taunts and innuendos to contend with earlier, the new wife and her mother-in-law tried to devise all kinds of ways to hurt her cruelly and make her a figure of ridicule and contempt. Then one day they beat her with sticks in front of her daughters, and laughed when she cried out.
“After that, she ran away, and I happened to come her way,” said Afzal Khan. “She claims that she fell in love with me and wished me to carry her off, but I think she prefers humiliation from total strangers than by those she knows. You may rest assured that she will make a cheerful and willing worker,” he told the brothel agents. “She will forget her daughters in no time.”
He was more reticent about Shah Zarina, and admitted that he himself did not know anything about her beyond what she had told him herself. And all she had mentioned was that she had no one to protect her, and that all the vil
lage lads were treating her as fair game. Things had come to such a pass that she could not venture alone in the fields without someone or the other trying to tease or assault her. If she complained, the whole village charged her with loose morals—if she didn’t, the men became bolder. So one day she had just run away, got a lift from a passing truck driver, and disappeared.
“I believe she is a virgin so far,” said Afzal Khan. “And if I could help it, I would rather sell her for marriage.”
“So she is not in love with you, Afzal Khan?” one of the traders said, and laughed.
“Not so far,” he countered. “But if I try, she would not resist me.”
On the third day, the discussion took a more serious turn. The price of Sherakai was agreed on without too much difficulty. Both the traders agreed to merge their interest and purchased her jointly in equal share. The negotiations for Shah Zarina were more exacting. As a virgin, she was a pearl, and any man would have liked her on his string bed, but the traders appeared reluctant to pay the price Afzal Khan was demanding, and he was not willing to reduce it.
During one of the intervals between negotiations, the unknown young man, whom Afzal Khan had taken a liking to the previous day, came to him again and started talking about Shah Zarina and the difficulties of completing the sale.
“Did I hear you say that you would prefer to sell her for marriage?” he asked.
“That I would,” replied Afzal Khan. “She is a right one for marriage. She would be willing to die for the sake of her man and her home.”
“I think so, too,” said the young man softly. “But I am not rich enough to pay the sum you are asking.”
“How much do you offer?”
“All I have on me is three thousand rupees. I only wish I had more.”
Afzal Khan thought for a while and then spoke out: “I will accept your three thousand rupees. Treat the rest as my marriage gift. It goes against my grain to enter into such a foolish bargain, but let not men say that Afzal Khan was unwilling to lose money when it was required of him.”
The young man’s face broke into a wondrous smile. He took Afzal Khan’s hands and kissed them, counted out the three thousand rupees, and put them in Afzal Khan’s pocket.
“Take me to her.”
Afzal Khan walked with the young man to the small room where Shah Zarina was sitting by herself after the departure of her companion. He called her to come out and made her face the young man.
“I have sold you for marriage. This young man is going to marry you. May God keep you happy.”
She was standing before a man dressed all in black. The end of his turban had been looped under his chin and tucked back into the headband. He was short—hardly as tall as Shah Zarina herself.
His jet-black beard and a few stray locks struggled free from the confines of his turban. Shah Zarina turned her glance back to Afzal Khan.
“I thank you,” she said simply. “I shall always pray for you.”
The next morning, the buyers and the sellers started leaving as they had come. Singly and in small groups, they scattered, leaving the village behind as they had found it—a sleepy collection of huts with no sounds, no music, and hungry dogs roaming about—until it would start coming to life with the approach of next Thursday.
On one of the trails, Tor Baz walked along with Shah Zarina behind him, and fingered the small silver amulet that was stitched to the inside of his cloak. He was smiling, as he did most of the time. While he usually smiled about nothing in particular, this time he was smiling about Afzal Khan.
It’s almost incredible, he thought, that Afzal Khan really believed I would marry this girl, to think of such an old veteran falling for the oldest trick in the trade. The man must really be growing old. Incredible—incredible, indeed.
But then, he thought, as he walked and remembered the bearded mullah from his childhood nightmares, who had talked about the veils between man and God, I could settle down with this one. Who but God knows what the future holds for me and for this land? Maybe it is time now to end my wanderings.
Acknowledgments
The publication of this book would not have been possible but for the persistent encouragement of my brother Javed Masud, the relentless efforts of Faiza S. Khan of the Life’s Too Short Short Story Prize, and the deep interest manifested by Meru Gokhale of the Penguin Group. I also want to thank Imran Kureshi for his initial editing of the manuscript.