Shabanu propped her head on her hand.
“What are you plotting now?” she asked.
“How can we get away from Selma? If she takes us to the gold bazaar…”
“Shh…” Shabanu whispered, looking over her shoulder at the door, which still stood open a crack. Zabo climbed out from under the netting and closed it.
Choti raised her head and followed Zabo with her bright eyes. Mumtaz stirred but remained asleep, and the fawn laid her head down again and closed her eyes when Zabo climbed back under the netting and settled beside Shabanu.
“Selma’s sympathetic,” said Shabanu, still speaking in a whisper. “But we can’t risk telling her. Perhaps she doesn’t know how much money you have to spend. Maybe you can tell her you have less. But stop looking happy. She’ll suspect something!”
Zabo laughed, covering her mouth with both hands. Shabanu put her finger to her lips. “Zabo, we must be careful of the bodyguards. I have the feeling they’re always within listening distance.”
“They’re axe murderers,” Zabo said, hunching her shoulders forward.
“They certainly look it.”
“No, truly! I saw them come back with bloody axes after my father accused some poor farmer of taking water from a canal that didn’t belong to him.” She lowered her voice further. “They found him months later, stuffed into a well!”
Shabanu shuddered. She wondered whether the farmer was Lal Khan, Phulan’s brother-in-law. His wife had found him in a well, with his embroidered slippers pointing towards the sky. How many farmers could Nazir have killed? She leaned closer to Zabo.
“God help us,” she whispered with a shiver. “We will have to be so careful.” Mumtaz woke up and squirmed to get beyond the heat of her mother’s body.
They talked then for a while of normal things in normal voices, while Mumtaz played with the fawn.
Yazmin called them early to tea, and Zabo arranged her face sombrely. She said little and ate less.
“Come, child,” said Selma. “You have to eat. You’ll be sick, and that won’t help anything.” Zabo sighed and nibbled at a biscuit. She was masterful! She didn’t overact – she was simply sombre and restrained.
She’s probably starving, thought Shabanu.
The next day Ibne dropped Shabanu, Zabo and Selma at the edge of the jewellery bazaar, its narrow alleys lined with shop after shop of velvet-cushioned glass cases.
Before some of the long, glistening cases sat customers, wealthy women whose strong European perfumes overpowered the bazaar’s scent of spices, wood smoke and roasting nuts. Behind the cases sat prosperous-looking men in clean white shirts, who offered tea and effusively proclaimed the virtues of their jewellery. The customers acted dramatically unimpressed, pointing out the flaws in the stones and faults in the designs.
The shop owners who were without customers busied themselves arranging and rearranging velvet display stands beneath the polished glass. Gold chains the thickness of a single strand in a spiderweb glinted among displays of dome-shaped earrings encrusted with emeralds and rubies that, in their brilliance, rivalled the feathers of Rahim’s caged birds.
A group of women wearing hand-dyed chadors draped over their heads stood before a case of gems that shone more palely than the others. The youngest, a girl of twelve or thirteen, stood on one bare foot, the toes of her other foot rubbing her shin above a heavy silver tribal anklet.
Shabanu thought of the day she’d gone with her father to the gold bazaar at Rahimyar Khan to buy Phulan’s jewellery. They’d been simple desert folk like these. She’d been this girl’s age, and the sum of money her father laid on the counter had staggered her. It represented nearly half the proceeds from the sale of their finest camels, half the family’s wealth. But it also had represented her sister’s life insurance. A good dowry should ensure a girl’s future with her in-laws. Phulan was lucky – her husband’s family would have been kind to her regardless of the dowry. She wondered how it would be for this girl.
When they reached Selma’s favourite shop, the man behind the counter stood and bowed formally. “Asalaam-o-Aleikum, Begum-sahiba,” he said in formal greeting. This man was not obsequious, as Mahmood had been. He seemed genuinely happy to see Selma. His eyes crinkled easily as he spoke, and his smile was natural.
“This is my niece,” said Selma, and Zabo kept her head bowed. The man nodded. “She’ll be married in just a few weeks, and we need to see a nosepiece and chain, earrings, a head ornament…”
The shopkeeper brought out several purple velvet boxes and opened them under their eyes. The head ornament was suspended on gold chains that would be pinned to the hair. It was a gold disc the size of Shabanu’s palm, set with pigeonblood rubies and diamonds, and enamelled with ground emerald, pearl and ruby. Tiny pearls were suspended on chains the thickness of hair from its outer perimeter, and a longer chain was attached to a nose ring of sculpted gold with diamonds and rubies outlining it like a halo.
Zabo reached out from under her chador and touched Selma’s arm.
“I beg your pardon, Auntie,” she said in a shy and tremulous voice. The shopkeeper stepped back to give them privacy.
“I don’t believe women should spend their fortunes on jewellery like those poor desert women,” said Zabo. She kept her voice low, but it had grown in intensity. She looked into Selma’s eyes and tightened her grip on her arm. “It’s not right to put a price on a woman’s head. This marriage will happen, with or without jewellery.”
Selma watched Zabo closely as she spoke, her lips parted slightly. She then looked at Shabanu, who stood holding her breath and watching her friend with admiration. Selma looked back at Zabo’s unflinching eyes.
“I see,” said Selma, and Shabanu believed she really did understand. Everything. Selma turned to talk to the shopkeeper.
Shabanu slid her eyes towards Zabo, who continued to look straight ahead, her face earnest, while the shopkeeper folded away the velvet boxes and took out others that were smaller.
They settled on an intricately moulded gold hoop with a single clear ruby that lay just against the nose. Zabo chose an enamelled pendant on a red silk cord to wear around her neck. She couldn’t decide on earrings.
“Never mind,” said Selma. “I have a lovely pair from my own wedding, and you may wear them. It will be a wedding gift to you.”
Zabo looked up at the older woman with glistening eyes.
“Thank you,” she said, and Selma squeezed her hand.
That evening Selma served a grand dinner. From the bazaar she’d borrowed cook pots large enough for Mumtaz to hide in, and servants from all the neighbouring houses.
Rahim’s other wives and daughters came from their bungalows, dressed in silk and sequins, their jewels glittering from behind pale georgette dupattas drawn demurely across their faces.
After polite greetings murmured at the front gate, Shabanu and Zabo strayed to the kitchen, beyond the range of the other women’s scornful eyes. Rahim, Nazir, Omar, Mahsood and all the other male cousins and nephews sat together, talking earnestly of land and politics.
It was a time of few intrigues for the men, and they were able to relax. The sealing of the brothers’ children’s weddings and the reuniting of their lands signalled to their enemies that they stood undivided and strong. No rival would dare challenge them in their time of strength. Shabanu caught glimpses of Rahim; he smiled often and openly, like a king secure on his throne.
It was after eleven when the musicians began to tune their instruments in the courtyard. Everyone moved outside. A thousand tiny Divali lamps surrounded the fountain, gleaming from the ancient tiles and burnishing the brick walls of the outer perimeter of the courtyard; copper oil lamps glowed from niches spaced every few feet. Dozens of jewel-coloured carpets had been spread over the paving stones of the courtyard for people to sit on. Mirrored and embroidered bolsters were placed like large kebabs about the courtyard for the listeners to rest against for the long night ahead. Tuberoses perfumed the a
ir and the night seemed to have been planned by fairies.
The musicians sat on a raised platform decorated with flowers in tall crystal vases, fine red Persian carpets, and a shower of tiny electric lights on a velvet curtain behind them.
A man in a plain white lungi raised a bamboo flute to his lips, and a clear melody floated out over them, reminding Shabanu of the shepherds of her childhood calling their flocks out to graze in the desert. She could almost hear the animals respond with a soft symphony of muted bells as they moved off among the dunes.
Two other men joined the flute player on the platform. Silver rings gleamed from a pair of hands that kneaded and coaxed the skin head of a tabla, making the drum speak eloquently, as if it had several tongues. Beside the tabla player, a man in a turban that glowed with silver threads had been tuning a sitar, sending out shimmering notes from string after string. When he and the instrument were ready, a chord fanned out like the tail of a peacock, and several voices from the men’s side of the courtyard murmured, “Bismillah!” The audience was lost in a raga.
Shabanu leaned back against her bolster, her feet curled under her. It was one of those rare times, she thought, when parts of the ancient world of beliefs and customs and art came together to heal modern troubles with their harmony.
Across the courtyard sat Omar, dressed now in a white silk shalwar kameez. He looked more at ease out of his Western trousers. In the loose dress of his childhood, he was long and lanky, his form graceful and natural.
As Shabanu appraised him, he looked away from the musicians and turned his gaze directly on her. His eyes held hers powerfully and tenderly, and suddenly Shabanu knew that this was what her heart had been searching for all her life.
12
In the days that followed, it seemed all of Lahore was caught up in preparations for the wedding of Omar and Leyla, which was to be in only six weeks.
Although Amina and her coterie were far away in the Cantonment, tongas clattered into the courtyard of the haveli every afternoon piled high with gifts; darzis delivered clothing; and Pathans brought new pieces of furniture to be stored. A row of rickshaws and scooters waited in the narrow lane to make deliveries, setting up a constant clamour and impenetrable screens of dust and exhaust that were trapped in the airless alleyways.
As the heat of the dry season advanced, the glossy leaves of shrubs in red clay pots around the courtyard turned a powdery white with dust, despite twice-daily washings by the malis, who moved ever more slowly by the day.
Apart from the wedding activity, life in the haveli was as close as it ever came to a standstill. Servants knocked rather than bring tea unasked; meals were left uneaten on rough tabletops in the shade of the banyan tree, as if they’d been brought for ghosts. The flies hovered so lazily they didn’t even buzz. Everyone shuffled through the halls and common spaces of the great house, bound for or just returned from naps. Even the children who lived in the lanes were quiet, their play subdued as if there’d been a death in the neighbourhood.
Shabanu relaxed far away from the other wives, who were busy socializing in the Cantonment. Even Zabo’s bodyguards seemed less vigilant.
Shabanu often felt in those days as if her mind hovered in the driftless air above where she and Zabo sat for long hours talking quietly, sewing and planning. Part of her was there, listening to Zabo plan their trips to the Anarkali Bazaar and describe the kind of imitation jewellery she would buy.
“I do like rubies,” she’d say. “But emeralds are very nice. And we must have everything clustered with diamonds.” She’d reach forward and lay her hand on Shabanu’s.
“This is more fun than real shopping,” she’d go on. “I do love jewellery. But if this were real, I’d feel as though I was being bought and sold!”
Which, of course, she was. But Shabanu never said it.
They never discussed the money. It was as if Zabo had entrusted that part to Shabanu, as she had entrusted her with seeing that she would get away from Ahmed and her father, as if that was all that really mattered. Both of them knew she would not be able to endure marriage to Ahmed.
As for Mumtaz and Shabanu, they were safe as long as Rahim was alive. When he was gone they must be ready to step into a new and completely different life, far from Okurabad, far from Amina and the others in the Cantonment. It must be laid out and ready to take on, perfectly prepared as a bride’s wedding dress. On those hot and airless days in the haveli they felt no harm could come to them. But Shabanu thought about it constantly.
Zabo did not want to discuss anything beyond her plan for the jewellery. But Shabanu knew that having the money accumulate secretly and safely where it would remain until they needed it was as necessary to Zabo as the oxygen she breathed.
There were many obstacles to overcome. But the most difficult of all for Shabanu was one she had not foreseen.
For an important part of Shabanu dwelt on the glimpses she caught of Omar as he came and went from the haveli with Rahim, or in the company of his cousins and friends. If he happened to see her, he would stop and watch, his eyes softening at the corners. He sometimes smiled. It made her heart race, and for the rest of the day she found it difficult to concentrate on anything. Her fingers were sore with needle pricks. She went on with her embroidery, although its quality vaguely displeased her.
She knew she was in a dangerous drift, but she had no power to bring it to an end. All she could do was take on projects that made sense to her – to deal with things she could preside over, and wait for a time when she would be able to end the domination of her wild emotions.
So she spent each morning helping Selma screen prospective tutors for Mumtaz. This was something she’d dreamed of and worked towards since Mumtaz’s birth, and it occupied her mornings completely. It was real and immediate – not something looming in the future, vague and only half promising – and she pursued it with optimism.
Several of the women they interviewed needed full-time work. Others were humourless, with hard lines for mouths. When Shabanu was beginning to fear they’d never find the right teacher, a small, dark Christian widow came to the door and explained that she lived in the barsati on the roof across the alley with her two children.
She had enormous energy. Her eyes were bright, her skin dark, her voice high and sweet. She looked like a small brown bird. Her son was a year older than Mumtaz, small, calm and serious. The daughter was two years younger than her brother, with a lightness of spirit that matched her mother’s.
There was much excitement in the anticipation of the lessons. Selma ordered an old nursery cleared on the second floor, and a table and chairs were produced. The shutters were mended; reed mats were hung at the windows and doused with water to keep the room cool. The drying reeds smelled like the grass that spilled from broad mowers hauled by oxen around the garden at Okurabad on summer mornings.
Ibne returned from the bazaar one day with a large chalkboard and seven different colours of chalk. Selma and the widow discussed at length the books they would use.
On the morning of the first reading lesson, Shabanu squeezed her knees under the oblong table she shared with Mumtaz and the widow’s children. She was enthralled with the smells of the classroom: the chalk dust, the ink on the books, the oil in the wooden floorboards.
“I am taking you to a wonderful new world,” said the widow, whose name was Samiya, standing before them for the first time. “Once you’ve learned to read, adventures you’ve never even imagined will unfold. You’ll visit places you never knew existed. There will be no secret you cannot unlock.”
Shabanu’s spirits lifted with the thought that knowing how to read could give her a new and extraordinary power over the events of her life.
Samiya turned to close the classroom door. Choti, who couldn’t bear to be shut out of a room where Mumtaz sat, butted her head against its thick wooden planks and had to be taken down to the courtyard and tied beneath the banyan tree.
In the days that followed, Mumtaz proved to be a quic
k pupil. Samiya praised her, rewarding her with hugs and boiled sweets in bright cellophane wrappers. Shabanu sat in on every lesson, and within a few days she had finished the children’s reader. Samiya brought more advanced readers for her, and Shabanu began to practise her script for a letter to her father. Her father was one of the few men in all of Cholistan who could read. He would be so proud of her!
Rahim was busy with the provincial assembly. And, as usual, it seemed half his constituency had followed him to Lahore. They gathered in the courtyard of the haveli each morning, just as they did at Okurabad, hoping to have their petitions presented that day and action taken on their cases. Omar sat beside him quietly, learning and establishing himself in the eyes of the tribesmen as heir apparent.
One day Shabanu sat with Zabo on the balcony above the courtyard, sewing and sipping tea in the morning sunshine, watching the petitioners mill about as they waited for Rahim to appear. Mahsood stood in the doorway, keeping watch and establishing the order in which cases would be presented.
The crowd quietened, and Zabo leaned over the balcony to watch Rahim and Omar enter. Behind them came Ahmed, Mahsood leading him by the hand. Omar sat beside Rahim on the dais, and Shabanu tried not to stare at the square line of his cheekbone, the black fringe of his lashes against his fine light skin. Mahsood settled Ahmed on the floor beside the dais and sat next to him.
Ahmed’s hair was still wet with comb tracks. His skin was soft, and his eyes dark; he looked almost pretty, like a young girl. Mahsood leaned over his shoulder and whispered into Ahmed’s ear.
Ahmed managed to sit quietly for a few minutes. But then he began to squirm, and his chin grew shiny with saliva. Mahsood led him from the room. When Ahmed arose from the cushion upon which he’d been sitting, he left behind a wet stain.
Under the Same Stars Page 11