Typhoon

by Shahraz, Qaisra

  Hajra didn’t feel the cold in her shivering body, as these thoughts darted through her head. Briskly she reached the fields and followed the path leading to the old village well and the banyan tree.

  As she turned the corner, Hajra’s breath caught in her throat. The stars and the moon beamed light over the fields, illuminating the two figures sitting on the edge of the well. To Hajra it was as if the earth gave way from under her feet. She watched with horror as Haroon leaned over and touched the woman on her face. ‘Allah pak!’ Hajra moaned aloud. She craved to shove both of them in the well.

  Blindly she turned and traced her way back to her home. So it was all true! Her heart bled for her beloved, innocent daughter. How could Haroon do this to her? Was Gulshan not enough for him? In one night, in a few swift seconds, Haroon had betrayed them and turned their world upside down. Hajra wept, tears of impotent rage gushing down the sides of her face.

  Once inside the gate, she bolted the outside door, grazing her hand against an old sharp nail in the process.

  ‘He will have to break down the door if he wants to get back inside! Haramzada! Haramzada!’ Hajra bitterly swore. ‘Just you wait and see what I’ll do to you!’

  Filling a glass with water from the tap in the courtyard, Hajra gulped it all down her parched throat. Attacked by a sudden menopausal flush, her body became a hot torch. Turning the tap on fully, she scooped water into her hands and sluiced her face and chest all over with the cold water. The night’s chilly wind blew through the open courtyard, but Hajra’s body remained a furnace of hate – aflame. Her wet night kurta stuck to her. With her night shawl carelessly thrown to the back of her shoulders, Hajra entered her daughter’s bedroom.

  Her body tall and erect, she stood next to her daughter’s bed but anger suddenly deserted her. ‘Gulshan?’ she whispered. Crouching down on the bed, Hajra gently turned her daughter’s face up to her own.

  In the semi-darkness of the room, mother and daughter stared bleakly at one another. There was no need for words. They shared the betrayal and the brutal loss of their world. Hajra bent and kissed her daughter on the forehead.

  ‘Did you see them?’ Gulshan whimpered. Needing to know, yet afraid of the answer.

  Hajra held her daughter’s gaze. Her beloved only child had indeed lost a husband – stolen from her very arms, in the middle of the night, by another woman. She averted her face, not wishing to answer.

  The image of her son-in-law caressing the woman’s cheek danced before Hajra’s eyes. What had her daughter seen? Something worse? ‘What are they doing now?’ The bitter question darted in her head. It was as if she was talking about a stranger. In one night Haroon had neatly sliced his world apart from theirs.

  Mentally she shook herself. Her daughter’s home was indeed barbad, ruined; there was no doubt about it. Two pairs of eyes had witnessed his adulterous action. ‘But I will not let those two get away with it!’ she vowed to herself, her dark eyes glittering menacingly in the night. Aloud she promised her daughter, ‘I will have them punished and humiliated before the whole village, if my name is not Hajra. Adultery is a sin of the highest order. You go to sleep in my room, my daughter. I will deal with these adulterers, just see if I don’t. They can’t do this to you, my beloved, and get away with it.’ Hajra held out her hand to her daughter and gratefully, Gulshan took it, at the same time handing over the reins of her ruined world to her mother. She, herself, was worth nothing. She could do nothing. She had just lost her husband to another woman.

  When Gulshan crawled out of bed, Hajra stared in surprise at her bare legs. ‘You went out … like that?’

  ‘No, Mother, my shalwar got wet as I washed my dirty foot. I couldn’t find a nala to put in the other shalwar. I don’t care! What does it matter to me whether I wear a shalwar in bed or not. Nobody is here to notice it – no husband!’ Then her body doubled over racked by a new wave of jealousy until she eventually slumped heavily on the bed again, her legs half-sprawled on the floor.

  Crying herself, Hajra pulled her up against her body, hugging her. Her daughter’s body slithered out of her arms again as Gulshan reached to bang her head against the bedpost. ‘I am stupid, Mother. Naïve! I have lost a husband. I slept in ignorance. Help me, Mother!’

  ‘Hush, hush, my darling daughter. It is going to be all right. Your mother is here to take care of you. You are not stupid! Come, I’ll find you another shalwar. It is cold outside on the verandah. He will not get away with what he has done to you, my daughter. I promise you that.’

  Hajra rummaged through the wardrobe in the dark and drew out a clean shalwar; she gave it to her daughter and left the room.

  With bereft eyes, Hajra looked around their courtyard. It looked so different tonight. Was it another home? Who did it belong to? She pushed aside the clothes hanging from the washing line on the verandah and stood in the middle of the courtyard, her gaze directed at the beckoning stars. Her son-in-law was still there in the middle of the night with that manhous woman, and those ‘wicked’ stars, up there, were still witnessing their haram doings. ‘Allah pak – do the stars not dim in shame and flee from above them?’ Hajra beseeched.

  Her hands balled into tight fists, she unbolted the outside door. As much as the prospect of locking him out of the house appealed to her, common sense told Hajra that she had neither the energy nor the stamina to bear his banging on the door. She couldn’t possibly risk arousing her nosy neighbours, especially not on the left side, where Kulsoom, the village matchmaker and the chief gossipmonger, lived. Kulsoom’s bedroom was right next to the wall of their front door. Her bed was literally propped neatly against their courtyard wall. Kulsoom loved sleeping against walls. Furthermore, she was also blessed with very, very sharp ears. Small though they were, they performed the task of three other hearing people. She was always seen to be cleaning out the wax from the inner lining. This was how she kept them in good working order. After all, she had to hear everything about her clients and what they said. The information had to be well categorised and neatly stored for future reference.

  Hajra left the door ajar, kicking it cynically. If thieves were to come into their home tonight, they would find very little of any value. Only two heartbroken, disillusioned wrecks of women. An older bitter mother, and a naïve heartbroken daughter. Fuming Hajra slammed the bedroom door behind her and waited for her son-in-law. The clock audibly ticked away the minutes in the darkness.

  FOUR

  HIS FOOTSTEPS LIGHT and springy, Haroon hopped across the cobblestones in the village lane, neatly avoiding a small puddle of dirty water shining in the moonlight between two stones.

  He sobered as he reached the entrance to their house. With one stealthy look over his shoulders he gently pushed open the wooden door. Slowly, inch-by-inch. It was prone to make a creaking sound. When there was a gap wide enough for him to slip through, he stepped into the small courtyard. His glance first shot to his mother-in-law’s room and he saw, that the door was closed. His own door was shut too. He let out his breath.

  With nimble fingers, he pushed the top bolt down in place to lock the outside door. Tiptoeing across the courtyard he went to the sink on the verandah. Taking off his sandals, he shook the dust from them and wiped them clean with a small rag. Then he washed his feet.

  Careful not to make a sound, he pushed open his door and stepped inside his bedroom. He waited for the reassuring silence to greet him, before padding to the bed. Just as he picked up one corner of the quilt, he froze as his mother-in-law’s voice barked from the bed. ‘Stop!’ His hand burning, the quilt dropped. She was in his bed.

  Hajra sat up to face him.

  ‘Don’t you dare come near this matrimonial bed. Haramzada!’ She glared at him with hatred. Then, cloaked by secrecy and darkness she spat, her wiry body thrust towards him, ‘I know where you’ve been and with whom!’

  His eyes widening, Haroon stepped back. Their hearts thudding in their chests, mother-in-law and son-in-law steadily outstared each other.
‘You don’t know anything!’ Haroon hissed, finally breaking the silence between them.

  ‘What I do know is that you have half-killed my daughter, you bastard. What does my Gulshan lack that you found in that whore’s arms?’ Hajra snarled, springing upright in the middle of her daughter’s marital bed.

  In the other room Gulshan wept and quailed, as she heard her mother’s voice. She couldn’t sleep. The stranger’s face raised to her husband’s and his lowered, intimately towards her, taunted poor Gulshan over and over again in the graphic picture house of her mind. For her there would never be any rest.

  She had heard her mother’s words, but ‘he’ had opted for silence. Gulshan had jammed her two fingers in her ears as her mother had shouted, ‘Haramzada!’ over and over again. She hated her husband but still it sliced through her, like a piece of jagged glass being pushed into her flesh, to hear him abused thus by her mother. Unable to bear the taunts any longer, Gulshan thrust her face into her mother’s pillow and wept bitterly.

  ‘Allah pak, help me! What has happened to us? How can my husband do this to me? How could I have been so blind? Does he not love me any more? Aren’t I beautiful enough for him? Is that urban woman with her short-sleeved dress and her loose hair more attractive than me? Yes! Yes! She must be! For what other reason is my husband in her arms? She is single, educated and gorgeous. And I…. And I….’ Her voice broke in self-pity and pangs of jealousy zoomed through her body again. ‘I am just a naïve desi, a simple village woman who doesn’t even know which colour lipstick suits her complexion. I have failed both as a woman and as a wife. I couldn’t even hold onto him in my bed. He had to steal out to go into the arms of another.’ Her body doubled over in pain. Now he was putting his arms around that woman’s body.

  ‘He is my husband!’ Gulshan screamed in hurt betrayal, pushing the wet strands of her hair from her face as she smothered it in the pillow again.

  Exhausted, Hajra ended her berating, looking at Haroon with a final insulting expression of disgust. She knew for sure that if she had had a gun near her she would have put a hole through him, right here and now, for what he had done to her daughter. For her daughter’s sake, Hajra was now a law unto herself.

  ‘See if you can sleep peacefully with that sewer of a conscience of yours, for destroying and betraying my daughter, as you have done!’

  She left him sitting stooped on the edge of his bed with that parting taunt, slamming the door behind her.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Haroon simply repeated to himself, in the dark silence of the room, looking down at the empty bed.

  FIVE

  HIS FACE FLOATED mistily above her own. Her tender fingers reached up to feel the chin first and then tentatively caress the lips. Drawing back, as those lips opened and swooped down …

  ‘Allaho – Akhbar, Allaho – Akhbar, Allaho – Akhbar, Allaho – Akhbar.’ The muezzin’s call from the village mosque’s minaret, burst through the room, startling Naghmana awake. There were no mosques near her home in Karachi.

  Disconcerted, she heard the whole azan, letting the words of the call to prayer wash over her. When it ended she closed her eyes in a bid to get back to sleep and her beloved dream. Both now eluded her. Sighing in disappointment she moved her legs lethargically on the large palang, reluctant to join her aunt this morning. She was in no mood for the morning prayers.

  Her eyes shut, she spread her arms across the bed and smiled to herself. Turning on her side she moved her head against the pillow, burying her face in it, as she felt the warmth spread through her body. The lips now touched hers. Wide-awake, she flung the warm quilt from her body and squatted on the bed. She caught her image in the large dressing table mirror opposite. A wistful look was on her face – mixed with something else. Her long hair was in disarray around her face and shoulders. The loose, black, muslin night-shirt hinted at the delicate curves of her body. Her eyes dipped and lingered on the soft creamy swell of her breasts where the top button had come undone in the night. Sweeping her hair back from her neck, her hand moved across her throat caressingly, feeling the tender imaginary lip-prints on it.

  ‘Naghmana! Are you awake?’ Her aunt Fatima’s clear voice intruded from outside the door.

  Naghmana swivelled around, her hand automatically reaching to fasten the button of her neckline. Getting off the bed, she pulled the matching black muslin dupatta around her shoulders, covering the taut outline of her breasts from her aunt’s gaze.

  ‘Yes, Auntie,’ she answered, quickly summoning a smile of welcome to her lips as Fatima entered and smiled indulgently at her niece across the room.

  ‘I wasn’t sure whether you were awake or not, but as you well know this is a village, Naghmana. Here, everyone is awake by six o’clock. All the housework and breakfast is over and done with by seven o’clock.’

  But Naghmana wasn’t listening to her aunt. She was preoccupied with tying her thick hair loosely with a long ribbon. Then turning she gave her auntie an intense but hesitant look.

  ‘Auntie….’ she began and then paused, debating whether it was the right moment.

  ‘Yes, my dear?’ Fatima asked, walking across the room to throw open the shuttered window with its iron grille. Fresh, morning air breezed in. With a bouker stick in her hand, she started to brush the dust and cobwebs from between the lead bars of the window.

  ‘I…. I….’ Naghmana began bravely again. ‘I had something to tell you.’ She now wished she had spoken to her aunt the previous night and had sought her advice.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Fatima cried.

  ‘What, Auntie?’ Naghmana moved to the window.

  ‘I have lost half of my bouker sticks.’ Laughing, ‘They have fallen into the goldsmith’s courtyard, Naghmana. I forgot to tie the rag tightly around them.’

  ‘Oh!’ Naghmana peered over her aunt’s shoulder, looking at the other half of the bundle of thin bouker sticks, fast slipping out of her aunt’s hand and scattering around them on the chipped marble floor. She squatted and scooped up the sticks with her nimble fingers.

  ‘Auntie, you still use these sticks?’ she teased.

  ‘Don’t scoff – they are very good at reaching around corners and awkward areas, where the ordinary brushes or cloths cannot reach. Some traditional things are better than the modern gadgets! Get dressed, my darling. I’ll get the breakfast ready for my lovely, favourite girl.’ Turning and smiling at her niece. ‘Don’t forget, we have been invited to Siraj Din’s hawaili. His wife has sent a message to call you over for the afternoon dinner, which is in your honour. And I tell you, it is a real honour indeed, my dear Naghmana. You should really appreciate it, especially as they are very busy with their own family at the moment. Habib and Shahzada and their children are back in the village for their holidays. I’d like to introduce you to Chaudharani Shahzada. She is so nice and has three gorgeous children, especially their eldest daughter, Zarri Bano. She has got the green eyes like her father and grandfather. A stunningly beautiful girl. I must also tell you that very rarely do people get invited to Siraj Din’s hawaili, and have the privilege of dining with his wife, the elder Chaudharani, Zulaikha.’ Fatima paused for breath. Beaming, she said, ‘And now I am going to make your favourite breakfast, halwa puri with parathas. Get dressed, my dear. I’ll start on the puris.’

  For an answer Naghmana smiled her pleasure. ‘Thank you, Auntie.’

  Fatima bent down to take the sticks from her niece. As her face came level with Naghmana’s she looked at her mouth and remarked, ‘What has happened to your lower lip, Naghmana? It is swollen.’

  The young woman looked down, a warm blush sweeping over her face. Her finger touched and covered her lip.

  ‘I think a mosquito must have bitten it,’ she mumbled, turning away to her suitcase, which lay on the floor in one corner of the room.

  ‘In this weather?’ Fatima laughed as she left. ‘Get ready, my dear.’

  Naghmana threw the lid open and looked down at her clothes. She knew which outfit she w
as going to wear today. Cerise. Her favourite colour. His too.

  Gulshan bleakly watched her son’s face lying on the pillow beside her. She had missed her fajr prayers. Something she had not done for a long time. Her eyes ached. She had slept only for a few exhausted moments and then had woken up with horror, recalling last night’s events. He wasn’t up yet. She wondered if her mother was.

  With her legs tucked under her chin, she began to weep. ‘I have lost my husband!’ her piteous heart wailed.

  Hajra had slept outside under the verandah. Folding the duvet and bedding of her portable bed, she carried them inside to the bedding storeroom. On her return she heaved the bed up onto her shoulder and carried it to the other end of the courtyard to prop it against the wall.

  Glaring at her daughter’s bedroom door, she looked at the time on the verandah wall clock. It was way past Haroon’s normal time to rise. I bet he has not slept a wink either, she thought fiercely. And what about my poor daughter who hasn’t slept at all, in all probability. Hajra’s aching eyes brimmed with tears. All they had left was tears and more tears. How were she and her daughter going to face the world? The shame and the pity! Her Gulshan was so good-natured, so naïve, so sweet. She would never be able to cope with this mess – in particular with the sly looks and the innuendoes of the village women. They would have a wonderful time, gossiping about it!

  ‘Haroon! Haroon! How could you do this to us?’ she cursed aloud, standing on the verandah. She had missed her fajr prayers. All her routine was gone. She didn’t know which morning household task to approach first: the dusting and sweeping or the cooking? No, there would be no cooking in this house today, Hajra vowed. In a house wrecked by mourning, the joys of the kitchen hearth were out of place. And joy had indeed fled from this house. She would definitely not cook today – especially not for him.