Something about the calm, intense way Shabanu spoke to Mumtaz always made her listen and obey, and she quietened. She held her mother’s hand as they walked quickly back to the gate into the courtyard.
Shabanu was not surprised when Choti was not there waiting for them, but Mumtaz went through the gate into the garden without arguing. Shabanu and Zenat stayed with Mumtaz the rest of the afternoon, but the child would not sleep. She sat up to wait for the fawn, leaving the garden only when it was time to dress for Zabo’s mehendi, the beginning of the wedding celebration.
Finally Shabanu could bear it no longer. She sent Zenat for Samiya and told the two of them to lock the door behind her and to stay in the room with Mumtaz until her return. They were not to leave the room for any reason.
She went bareheaded in her desert nomad’s clothes to the yard at the back of the kitchen, where the servants sat in groups gossiping between serving courses of a large mid-afternoon banquet to the men in the dining room.
They fell silent as Shabanu darted through the yard, their starched and fanned turbans still, their waxed moustaches unmoving; even the gold fringe on the shoulder boards of their red jackets did not jiggle.
Shabanu didn’t care who saw her, who might take pleasure in her pain. She went straight to the neem trees at the outer edge of the yard, where the late sunlight gleamed from the open eyes of the deer killed in the day’s hunt. They hung from the lowest branches of the trees, their heads pointing towards the ground.
There among them, smaller than the rest, was Choti, eviscerated, blood dripping from her nose in a thick ribbon to the ground. Shabanu thought almost absently that Choti was the only one that still dripped blood. She must have been killed after the others were already hung.
The pink silk cord that held her little brass bell had been cut from her neck and left an imprint in the fur.
Shabanu had half believed that Choti would come back – or had she only hoped for Mumtaz’s sake?
She laid her hand on Choti’s flank, stroking up along the grain of the fur. The servants in the kitchen yard looked at the ground.
They knew, she thought. She turned without looking at them and walked back slowly to dress for the mehendi.
A deep anger burned in Shabanu the rest of the afternoon as she thought of what to tell Mumtaz. She felt nothing but contempt for the people of Okurabad. Nazir’s greed had pushed everyone beyond the edge of worry and suspicion. Where his evil was forthright and seemed therefore less menacing, it was as if he’d laid the field for the evil that was hidden within each of them. It was as if they all had played a part in Choti’s death: Rahim because he refused to see the evil Amina and Leyla cast about carelessly; Omar because he had proven to be so like Rahim; the servants because they were always persuaded to do Amina’s bidding; the men because they killed the beautiful animals of Cholistan, when they had no need for the meat; and Amina … well, Amina would come to justice one day. If Allah could be trusted – and Shabanu had no reason to doubt He could – Amina would be repaid.
Mumtaz stood quietly to have her hair brushed and braided. She willingly put on her newest shalwar kameez, a pale pink silk with small white embroideries across the top. She held on to her mother’s hand throughout the afternoon, as if it were her only link to safety. She did not cry, but Shabanu felt her shudder occasionally, and squeezed her hand.
On the table were large samovars and silver ewers and Chinese porcelain cups and small cakes decorated with bright-coloured frostings on milk-white plates. Zabo appeared without make-up and jewellery, and she received her guests with restrained dignity and grace. Her face was solemn and pale. All this was customary for a Punjabi bride.
But Zabo’s gravity was not an act, as often was the case. Shabanu knew she was not only sober and sad but also frightened. Suppose something went wrong with the plan? Would she have to stay with Ahmed for ever? Even one night was too long!
Three dozen women were arranged about the room like so many dollops of fruit sorbet, all wearing pale georgettes and gold strapped sandals and heavy ropes of amethysts and peridots and rose quartz that glittered in the same colours as their clothing.
The mehendi was like a very formal tea party. Zabo distributed gifts to Amina and Leyla and to Ahmed’s other relatives. The mehendi artists – local women wearing worn hand-printed chadors and silver bracelets in rows on their slender arms – solemnly bent over the women’s outstretched hands, painting delicate patterns on them with sticky grey mud.
As usual on such occasions, attention shifted to the end of the room where Amina and Leyla talked loudly to a coterie of admirers. They had come late to the mehendi, their first appearance since Shabanu and Zabo had returned from Lahore.
The other women, who had been gossiping and laughing in small groups, hushed so Amina and Leyla could speak uninterrupted. It was not that they had anything special to say; it was more that they were used to commanding the attention of any roomful of ladies. On this occasion they were intent on not allowing Zabo to steal the limelight from Leyla.
One of the rumours that was flying about the compound was that Amina was annoyed with Rahim for allowing Nazir to arrange Zabo’s wedding first.
The shift of attention allowed Shabanu and Mumtaz to sit quietly with Zabo. Privacy was nowhere to be found. Even the bathrooms were occupied by women in numbers. It was the way with families in times of weddings.
It seemed the house had eyes and ears, all watching and listening for something to report to Amina. But Shabanu waited patiently until the women laughed at something Amina said. She leaned close to Zabo and whispered in her ear. “Don’t be afraid,” she said. “You will be with Auntie Sharma soon – at the time of Leyla’s wedding.”
Shabanu and Mumtaz slipped away early. The sky had darkened, but the clouds were thick and grey, and there was no movement of air. Mumtaz had been brave. But no sooner were they inside their room than she began to cry again.
Shabanu pulled Mumtaz onto her lap and held her, letting her cry for a while.
“You know, little one,” she said, as if telling Mumtaz a bedtime story. “Choti has gone back.”
“No, Uma, she was very happy here. She wouldn’t want to go back to the desert and leave us.”
Shabanu held the child close to her.
“I mean that she’s gone to where we all go when our lives are finished.”
“When will she come back here?” Mumtaz asked. She stopped crying and looked into her mother’s face.
“She won’t come to us,” said Shabanu. “God gave her to us for just a little time. And now He wants her back.”
“I want her to come back to me,” Mumtaz said, and she began to cry again.
Shabanu pressed her daughter’s head to her shoulder and stroked her hair.
“It will hurt when you miss her for a little while,” she said. “But soon when you think of her you’ll think of the happy times you had together. She’ll be yours for ever that way.”
Mumtaz put her finger into her mouth and sat still, thinking about Choti until she fell asleep. Shabanu laid her on her bed, pulled off her silk shalwar kameez, and covered her with a thin cotton shawl. In her sleep Mumtaz shuddered slightly from her day of crying and trying not to cry.
18
On the day of the wedding, the monsoon broke. The rain poured in sheets so thick that Shabanu could not see through them. Occasional gusts of wind knocked the rain sideways, and water came in through the shutters.
Usually the monsoon’s arrival was cause for celebration. The rain after months of overbearing heat was like salve to a wound. Children played outside in the driving rain, running with their heads back, catching water in their open mouths.
Monsoon weddings should ensure many sons. But rain on the day of the wedding meant unhappiness – perhaps disaster – and the house at Okurabad was filled with foreboding as the final preparations were made.
Everything was late. The sweets makers had to carry huge pans from their shops in the village baz
aar in the back of tongas, and the tonga-wallahs had to be coaxed out of their houses on such a day. And tongas were to bring tuberoses that were to come from Kashmir by train, but the train never arrived, and no one seemed to know why or whether it would come at all. And the borrowed servants who were to come by bicycle were not able to ride their bicycles through the muddy ruts of the road.
A dozen men were gathered from the village to help erect the huge shamiana, a tent of red, green, yellow and blue canvas panels sewn in geometric patterns, in the garden where the wedding and the banquet were to take place. The men stood under the overhang of the stable, watching the rain stream down before them. The shamiana was rolled on poles in the corners of the yard with plastic tarpaulins protecting it.
The gentry of the Punjab had been invited to the nukkah and the feast following it in the evening. But the monsoon often brought with it hill torrents, flash floods that struck without warning when the hills could hold no more water, carrying away roads and buses and cars and entire villages. With the monsoon so late and this such an inauspicious event, who could tell what would happen? Many people just did not want to drive the distance in such terrible rain.
It was amid the downpour, when Shabanu was bathing Mumtaz before her nap, that the second important rumour made its way to the stable yard.
There was a knock on the wooden door to the bathhouse. It was Samiya. The widow scurried around trying to help, fetching a towel, more water, flitting like a sparrow before and after Shabanu, chirping the entire time.
“Please, Samiya!” Shabanu said after a while, barely able to contain her annoyance. “Surely there are other things you might be doing.”
Instead of being calmed, Samiya fluttered ever more persistently until Mumtaz was in bed, the sheet clasped beneath her chin.
“Begum, you must listen,” she whispered when Mumtaz had drifted off to sleep. “There is talk in the kitchen. Please listen. It is something you should know. Amina is starting an apprenticeship programme for the children of the house servants. She talked about the children getting into mischief, not having supervision, not having a school. Mumtaz’s name was mentioned.”
“Mumtaz? A servant’s apprentice? You must be mistaken.” She had the terrible, familiar feeling of having let her guard down and giving those who never stopped watching a chance to hurt her and Mumtaz.
“They asked if I would teach,” Samiya went on. “They were counting how many children there might be, naming them. Mumtaz is one they named. This is how the talk came to me.”
“Samiya, stay here,” she said.
She took a tattered old chador from the hook behind the door and threw it over her head.
“Lock the door after me and don’t let anyone in – not anyone – until I come back. Do you understand?”
Without waiting for an answer, she slipped out. All she could think of was the servant children in other households who lived by their wits like animals, and whose veiled eyes saw only opportunities to steal. These children were never children, really, with no time for play or learning about what was good and beautiful in the world. Their lives were confined to their masters’ houses and the nearby bazaars. She pitied those children when she saw them, and she would see beyond certainty that her Mumtaz did not become one of them.
Shabanu walked purposefully through the rain to the main house, where Rahim was celebrating over tea with the few relatives and close friends who had braved the storm and a few who had come the day before for the wedding. Her chador was soaked by the time she reached the veranda, but she never felt the rain. Two bodyguards stood at attention outside the door.
“Please,” she said to one of them. “Please tell Rahim-sahib that I wish to see him.”
The bodyguard stood still for a moment as if he hadn’t heard. Insolent, she thought. But then he turned without speaking and went into the hallway and repeated her message to Rahim’s secretary, who came out on the veranda.
“Begum,” the secretary said unctuously, his hands folded over his broad belly. “Is there something I can…”
“No,” she replied. “I must speak to Rahim-sahib.” The secretary’s eyes were narrow slits in a fleshy face covered with a black stubble of beard, as if he couldn’t be troubled to open them to look at her.
“But he’s busy. He’s having tea now…”
“He’s been having tea for three months,” she snapped, and the secretary’s eyes opened a bit wider. “Tell him it is a matter of much urgency.”
The secretary turned to go back inside, and Shabanu stepped in front of him.
“I shall wait in the hallway,” she said, entering the house.
The secretary went into the parlour, and a billow of cigarette smoke escaped with a buzz of male voices in the instant the door was open. A few moments later Rahim emerged, looking tired and cross.
He greeted her with a faint nod and crossed the hallway to the study, holding the door open for her to enter first. The study was gloomy, even with the heavy velvet drapes opened wide.
Rahim’s shoulders were stooped, and he looked for the first time, she thought, older than his years.
“Is it true?” she asked.
“Is what true?”
“That Amina plans a servants’ apprenticeship and that Mumtaz is to be included?”
Rahim shrugged his shoulders. “Amina handles these matters,” he said.
“A servant’s apprentice,” said Shabanu, “is only a small servant, and Mumtaz should not be treated like a servant.”
“I’m sure you’re mistaken,” he said, holding up his hands to quieten her. “Amina probably just wants Mumtaz to be included in a school programme. Of course she won’t be a servant’s apprentice.”
“Since Amina has asked Samiya to teach, does that mean she won’t be teaching in Lahore any longer?” Her heart was pounding with anger. But she spoke calmly and carefully.
“Perhaps,” he said. “If this teacher is talented, perhaps her employment should benefit many children, not just Mumtaz. And there are many more servants here than at the haveli.”
“We won’t be going back to Lahore?”
“Of course! You can visit whenever you like…” His exasperated tone of voice let Shabanu know he did not believe Amina would rob Mumtaz of her freedom.
“Rahim,” she said. “I don’t mind if Mumtaz studies with the servants’ children. But I will not—”
“Good!” he said. “The matter is settled.” He turned to go.
Shabanu knew she would not dissuade him now. But she must get Mumtaz away.
“Rahim,” she said. “Before Mumtaz begins school I’d like to take her to Cholistan to visit my family.”
“Why not?” he said. “Now I must get back.” He turned again to leave, but Shabanu spoke his name once more.
“I’ve hardly seen you at all,” she said softly, and she was surprised at the emotion in her own voice.
“There will be time for us after these weddings are over,” he said, and pulled her close enough to kiss her lightly on the top of the head. And then he was gone.
Shabanu was not comforted. She was very angry with Rahim for going back on their agreement that she and Mumtaz could stay in Lahore. He would allow Amina to treat Mumtaz like a servant. And not least of all he’d dismissed her – his wife! – like a child. But she said nothing. The important thing was that she had his permission to take Mumtaz away.
Shabanu’s mind was aswirl with so many worries they bumped into each other and melted together, each becoming part of the other. Choti’s death threw an ominous gloom over all. Amina’s plan to put Mumtaz into apprenticeship was dangerous. Shabanu was not fooled by Rahim’s reassurance. Once a servant in that household, there was no escape. She was certain of that.
Sending Mumtaz to her family was risky. Rahim would object when she came back without her. She thought of what she might say to him: “Mumtaz will never fit in here. She will always be the daughter of a gypsy, even if she studies and becomes an engineer. I want
her to know her own people so she can be proud of them, as I am.”
Shabanu worried that having Mumtaz safe in Cholistan would for ever ruin plans for her education. And the thought of living without her daughter, her jewel, filled her with an unbearable sadness.
Floating in and out among her concerns was Omar, though she managed most of the time not to think about him. For while she did keep him from her consciousness, he lurked beneath its surface. Her longing and sadness made all the other worries seem worse.
But Shabanu was not one of those helpless women who wrung their hands and walked about moaning “What to do? What to do?”
At the moment there was only one thing to do, and she set about doing it. The rest she would trust to Allah.
Shabanu was Zabo’s only attendant for the wedding. The rain had stopped, but the sense of foreboding and gloom that had engulfed the house earlier remained. Zenat dressed Mumtaz while Shabanu dressed. No one spoke.
Shabanu chose a plain shalwar kameez in a deep blue that reminded her of the desert night sky. She knew her dress was hardly suitable for a wedding; instead it suited her mood. She wore no jewellery except for a pair of silver nomad’s earrings and her heavy silver bangles that she had worn to a burnished mellow glow. She and Mumtaz went together to the main house, where Zabo was to dress.
They met in the parlour. Servants bearing trays and last-minute flowers and dishes scurried through the room.
Zabo looked pale, and her eyes had deep dishes beneath them, as if she hadn’t slept in days. But she was calm. She wore a plain cotton tunic. She smiled and bent to hug Mumtaz.
“Did you sleep?” Shabanu asked in a whisper.
“A bit.”
Shabanu longed for the friend to whom she’d once told everything – who understood and comforted her and offered advice. But these days, with Zabo so preoccupied with her own troubles, Shabanu felt from time to time that she’d never been more alone. In these moments her sense of solitude deepened.
Under the Same Stars Page 17