Once inside the walled city, the van sat for ten minutes at a time as overloaded tongas squeezed past, their sides scraping the walls of the buildings next to the lanes, and hawkers pulled carts piled high with roasted peanuts and fried dumplings out of the way. The bodyguards got out several times and shouted for them to move faster.
The van came to a small square surrounded by very old wooden buildings that looked as if they leaned on each other for support. From here the lanes were too narrow for the van. Above the street, sweating red clay pots kept water cool on platforms behind delicately carved screens that were thick with dust. Women peered out from behind the pots to see what was causing the commotion in the square below.
Here two black lacquered tongas with leather bonnets and polished brass carriage lamps stood waiting. The horses were fat, sleek and well groomed, and bright feathered plumes flashed from the tops of their harnesses as they shook their magnificent heads. The driver unloaded the bags, and groups of urchins and old men gathered to watch. The bodyguards pushed them aside until a large, staring ring formed around them. Not a breath of air stirred, and Shabanu began to wonder how they would be able to move with so many people crowded into the square. The overripe smell from the grey water in the sewers beside the lane grew oppressive. Mumtaz reached up for her mother’s hand. Choti slipped her nose under Mumtaz’s arm, and the child held on to her pet’s neck.
One tonga held their luggage and one bodyguard. In the other, Shabanu sat with Mumtaz on her lap; Zabo held the fawn; and Zenat clung to the back of the seat. The second bodyguard climbed up to ride with the tonga driver. The horses’ iron-shod feet clattered loudly, and every few yards they passed pyramids of oranges and carts loaded with bright ribbons and mounds of spices, tea and dried beans.
Deeper they went into the heart of the old city, until it seemed that surely they would emerge on the other side. And then the tongas turned in through old wooden gates, their paint visible only as faint blue shadows embedded in the grain.
Inside the thick mud walls they came upon a different world. The fetid stench of open sewers gave way to the joyous sweetness of lime trees and jasmine in bloom in pots under the old banyan trees that crowded the far end of the outer wall. The clatter of wooden wheels on cobble and the shouts of children and hawkers were replaced by the cool splash of water in the blue and white tiled fountain at the centre of the haveli courtyard.
It was a space of graceful proportion. The grand old banyan trees looked like servants kneeling at the feet of the three-storeyed wooden haveli.
Although it was just past mid-afternoon, the sun had set behind the buildings surrounding the haveli, casting the courtyard into shadow. An old servant in white placed small clay dishes filled with oil around the fountain and beside vases of flowers set in tiny niches in the mud garden walls. A small boy in a clean but faded lungi came behind him and lit the wicks with a thin taper.
Selma appeared wheezing at the bottom of steps that led upwards into the midsection of the house, which was open at the centre through the balconies of three storeys from the ground to the sky.
A white sari draped around Selma’s large figure and over one shoulder. White was the colour of mourning, and she’d worn it since the death of her husband many years before.
“Come in, come in,” Selma said, waving one hand for them to enter. With the other she tucked a silver strand back into the untidy knot of hair at the back of her neck. “Don’t stand there loitering like thieves. Who’s this? My youngest niece? Come to Auntie Selma,” she said, stooping gracefully for a woman of her size for Mumtaz to run into her widespread arms. The fawn followed the child across the courtyard, bucking and dipping her velvety head, as if she too sensed she was home in this oasis of calm in the chaotic and dirty city.
Selma embraced Shabanu and Zabo together, pulling them to her pillowy bosom with her large arms.
“You are as lovely as ever,” she said, taking Shabanu’s face in her hand. “And you,” she said to Zabo, “grow prettier each time I see you.” Selma’s eyes held Zabo’s for a moment.
Zabo’s eyes filled with tears, as if the older woman’s compassion and tenderness had touched a place she’d kept secret.
“Thank you, Auntie,” Zabo said, and laid her head against Selma’s comfortably padded shoulder. “It’s always so good to see you.”
“How wonderful to have beautiful young women and a child here again,” said Selma, her voice re-assuming its cheery boisterousness. “And Omar’s back! We’ll fill the place with music and laughter! How happy I am to see you all!”
Selma had lived here alone for many years. She loved the old haveli, but had little money to maintain it. While Rahim and Mahsood supplied some funds, it was she who kept it from falling down altogether, sometimes it seemed by sheer will.
Selma took them to their rooms up high in the third storey of the old house. Zabo ran her hand along the smooth wall of the stairwell as if she were greeting a dear old friend.
The haveli had a feeling of history about it, so that Shabanu felt the presence of generations of happy, well-fed schoolchildren when she looked at the worn treads of the stone stairways and the weathered-smooth wood of the gates and shutters.
The two bodyguards took their places beside the courtyard gates, which they ordered closed. The old wooden gates creaked as two elderly servants pushed them shut.
A servant carried the fawn up the three flights of steps, and it was clear that this house, too, would fall under Choti’s spell. Each room looked out over the courtyard and was lit with brass oil lamps. Shabanu threw open ancient wooden shutters at her window and looked out on the winking lights in the courtyard below. They reminded her of the starry nights of Cholistan.
Yes, she thought. We can be safe here in Lahore.
9
Shabanu stood at the foot of the silver charpoy in the centre of her room, which seemed oddly familiar, as if she’d dreamed about it without ever having seen it. Apart from the silver bed legs, the room was simply furnished. Stylized vines painted in green intertwined with flowers of red and wound their way around window and door frames, the paint faded in some places but bright in others where cracks in the mud plaster walls had been patched and repainted. Rahim had employed the last painter of many generations whose Mogul designs had graced the walls at Okurabad to restore the haveli. The artist, now an old man himself, was the last of his line. He had taught his own grandsons his art, but they had hungered for the city and the chance to earn their fortunes and had gone to work in factories.
A white porcelain pitcher and basin stood on a chest in one corner, and a straight-backed chair was placed beside the window. The windows were without curtains, bare but for scarred shutters of weathered wood. A plain country-made table and two other chairs stood against the far wall. A bowl of oranges sat on the table near the head of the bed.
Gradually it occurred to Shabanu that this was the house she had come to in her daydreams, the house she imagined she and Mumtaz would share one day. There were differences, of course, for she’d never seen these particular rooms before; but she couldn’t say what those differences were, and the haveli was just as she’d imagined it would be.
Shabanu splashed water on her face over the porcelain basin and went to check on Mumtaz, who was to sleep with Zenat in a small nursery off to one side and opposite the door to Zabo’s room. Mumtaz sat on an embroidered pillow, the fawn at her feet. She talked earnestly in a low voice, shaking one fat finger at the animal’s black wet nose. Choti blinked serenely, and Shabanu thought of herself in the desert as a child, mothering baby camels.
She sent Mumtaz downstairs with Zenat for an early supper, then knocked on the carved wooden door to Zabo’s room.
Zabo sat on the edge of a hundred-year-old charpoy with loose strings that sagged in the middle. Her head was bowed, and she stared at her hands in her lap.
“Father is so pleased with the land Uncle Rahim has deeded him, he’s given me a fortune to spend on jewellery.�
� She rocked forward, and her hair made a curtain over her face.
“Rahim deeded land to your father? The land that goes to Ahmed is customary, but…”
“It was a bribe,” Zabo said.
Shabanu was silent for a moment, then she knelt before Zabo, laid her hands over her friend’s hands, and looked into her face.
“I’d do anything to keep this from happening to you,” she said. “But Rahim won’t discuss it with me. ‘The issue is closed, Shabanu!’” she said, mimicking his stern formality. “Keeping the family land together is a sacred thing to him. There’s nothing I or anyone can do to change his mind.”
“I know,” said Zabo, and a large tear splattered onto the back of Shabanu’s hand. “It’s just that until now the idea of Ahmed has seemed so remote. Coming here makes it seem more real.” She drew her shoulders forward. “The idea of him touching me, lying with me – that I’m to have his baby!” Her voice caught as she spoke through her tears.
“I’ve had a nightmare – several times I’ve dreamed it,” Zabo went on, “that a baby is growing inside me. It’s not a baby, really; it’s a … sort of a growth.
“I can barely breathe in the dream as my belly gets bigger and bigger, and I wonder what it looks like. It talks to me. It says terrible things, threatening me and scaring me, and I wake up feeling as if I’ve just escaped being smothered.”
Shabanu sat beside Zabo and held her close. Her own tears fell into Zabo’s beautiful black hair. Zabo sobbed for a while, and then was quieter. She took a deep breath, shook out a handkerchief, and wiped away her tears.
“I may not be able to prevent your marrying Ahmed,” said Shabanu. “But I promise I will never leave you.”
It seemed so little to say, she thought. She remembered how Zabo had made her believe she’d survive when she’d been horrified at the prospect of marrying Rahim, a man old enough to be her grandfather.
But marrying an idiot was far worse than marrying an old man.
There was a gentle rap on the door, and the servant girl Yazmin came in carrying a tray with an old china teapot, two cups and a plate of tiny meat dumplings and sugary biscuits.
Shabanu made Zabo eat something and sip some milky tea. Then she made her lie down, and rubbed her temples until she relaxed. Tears seeped through her eyelashes even as she slept.
Zabo was a strong young woman, and the intensity of her unhappiness frightened Shabanu. When Rahim arrived that night he would expect Shabanu to sleep with him. There would be no question of her staying in Zabo’s room. She needed to find someone who could help keep an eye on her.
Should she trust Selma? Selma reminded Shabanu of her Auntie Sharma – gentle, wise and knowing about the ways of men. But she also was Rahim’s sister. It took a powerful woman to follow her heart where family loyalty was concerned. Should she trust Selma? Her instincts said yes.
Shabanu lit a candle from the nightstand, wrapped her chador around her shoulders, and found her way through the vaulted hallway. It was dark except for the candlelight glinting from tiny mirrors set into the arches overhead.
She found the back interior stairway and followed it as it wound downwards, the shadow of her head bobbing along beside her. She kept one hand on the curved wall to guide her way to the second floor, where Selma’s quarters were. Shabanu felt as if she knew her way throughout the haveli.
At the landing she turned right and bumped sharply into a tall young man, banging her nose so hard against his shoulder that tears blurred her vision. She looked up through a haze into his surprised dark eyes. Neither of them spoke for a moment, and Shabanu stood with her hand to her smarting nose.
“I’m very sorry,” he said, fumbling in his pocket for a handkerchief, then handing it to her. She dabbed at her eyes. When her vision cleared, she was startled by his frank stare.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was watching my feet.”
She handed back his handkerchief.
“Oh, you can have it,” he said, leaning towards her slightly to peer into her face. She moved backwards a step, uneasy at his closeness.
“I don’t think it’s broken,” he said, leaning closer still to study her nose. “It’s on straight, and there’s no blood.”
She took another step backwards and nearly fell down the stairs. His face coloured.
“I’m Omar,” he said, sticking out his hand. She looked at his hand, not knowing what he meant for her to do with it.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, and pushed his fists into the pockets of his fitted Western trousers. “In America ladies shake hands. You must be my Auntie Shabanu.”
He was formal and uncomfortable-looking. Shabanu laughed out loud.
“My aunties are old and wrinkled,” she said, grinning at him. He smiled slowly. She stuck out her hand, and he took it in a firm handshake. She was surprised at the largeness of his hand and the gentleness of his touch.
“Punjabi ladies are supposed to look at the floor when they meet men,” she said, still smiling. “In the Cholistan Desert, where I grew up, I would have offered you tea by now, so it would have been fine for you to put out your hand.”
He laughed then too, and they set out together to find Selma. Omar produced a small but brilliant flashlight from his pocket. Shabanu’s candle seemed dim by comparison, and she blew it out.
“If Auntie Selma doesn’t put lights in these hallways, someone will fall down the stairs and be killed,” Omar said.
“Why doesn’t she?” asked Shabanu. “Is it a question of money?”
“Well…” he began, then thought better of what he was about to say. “Maybe she’s just old-fashioned.”
“You were about to say that your father and uncles can’t agree on spending money to keep up this place,” said Shabanu. “They want to use it when they’re in Lahore, but they’re not willing to spend money on it. Poor Selma puts everything she has into running a hotel for them.”
“I’m not sure…”
“It’s true!” said Shabanu, annoyed with him for sticking up for Rahim. “You’re just like your uncles and your father!”
But Omar was quick to change the subject.
He explained that he’d just arrived from New York by way of London, and that he couldn’t wait to get to the farm. She marvelled at how he covered all that distance with just a few words.
He’d been in America nearly six years, with university and graduate school. He’d been back only a few times in those years.
Shabanu listened intently. He spoke in Punjabi, and she kept falling behind what he was saying. He spoke quickly with inflections that moved in strange cadences, as if his words held some meaning that only he could understand.
At the same time, she was thinking she’d expected him to be different – haughtier, perhaps. She hadn’t expected to like him. Perhaps she had thought he’d be more like Leyla – selfish and spoiled. And Shabanu wondered whether Amina and Leyla would poison his thoughts so he too would hate her in a short time.
They found Selma not in her room but in the kitchen, where a grimy light bulb suspended from the ceiling by a wire supplied the only overhead light. The room glowed with fires from several burners atop the wood-burning mud stove, and from flames on the hearth and in the bread oven. The cook, an ancient stooped man wearing a white apron caked with flour, bent over the mud oven, hanging long slabs of bread dough on a rack inside the flames. The kitchen smelled of rich masala spices and baking bread.
Shaheen, the toothless old ayah who had been with Selma since she was a girl, stood over a pot of dark curry, stirring with a long wooden spoon. A pot of yellow lentils simmered on the stove beside her. Shabanu felt very hungry.
Selma reached behind her to untie her apron and herded them out of the kitchen.
“Mr World Traveller has come to see your husband,” she said, inclining her head towards Omar, “in a motor rickshaw that tooted into the courtyard and nearly ran over my chickens. Never let anyone know when he was coming so he could be met properly at
the airport.” She adjusted her dupatta over her head and shot Omar a look with her eyes half closed.
“Rahim will be here later tonight,” Shabanu said, remembering the message suddenly. “He said we shouldn’t keep dinner waiting. He had business at Okurabad.”
“If Rahim’s not killed on the road, he’ll work himself into the grave,” said Selma. “It’s a good thing Omar has come to help.”
Selma was wheezing again by the time they reached her sitting room on the second floor, where she heaved herself into a tattered stuffed chair.
The shutters were drawn against the heat from the alley below, and the room was dark except for the pleasant light of china lamps that threw comforting soft shadows on the high ceiling. Some of the main rooms had electricity, and this was one of the few with lights.
In the centre of the far wall was a hand-cut crystal fireplace mantel and facing. It was smudged with the soot of long-ago fires and fingerprints, but still it caught the dim light from the lamps and cracks in the shutters and flicked it back in coloured pinpoints.
Rahim’s great-great-great-grandfather had been prime minister to the Mogul emperor Akbar, and the house had been one of the grandest during Lahore’s most opulent period. Now there were only ten rooms in use among the haveli’s dozens.
The armchairs and carpets had been stuffed with goose down once, covered with rich silk brocades. But now they were lumpy, and the fabric was worn in places to long thin strands that barely held in the stuffing. The furniture was sparse, but the shabbiness and austerity were not unpleasant. Shabanu felt certain that Selma would have chosen to leave the haveli old and comfortable even if she could have afforded to have it otherwise.
Selma talked of how happy Rahim was that Omar was here, how good it was to have young voices in the house again.
“Of course we’ll keep dinner until Rahim comes,” she said. “I’ve been cooking half the day, and there are six servants in the kitchen now. Tomorrow we shall…”
Under the Same Stars Page 8