Typhoon

by Shahraz, Qaisra

  She saw them sitting on the charpoy on the verandah, their heads bent together, deeply engrossed in a conversation.

  ‘Now what are those two hatching up?’ Sardara asked herself with amusement. If anybody wanted something broadcasting in the village, they didn’t need a telegram. Those two could do it faster. Far more efficiently and with added frills.

  ‘Assalam Alaikum, Kulsoom Jee and Naimat Jee. What can I do for my two sisters? It is lovely to see you so early this morning. It can’t be for our milk. My son has already sent some over to you both,’ Sardara began sweetly.

  ‘Oh no, it is not for milk we have come.’ Kulsoom excitedly shook her head. ‘Will you tell her or shall I, Naimat Jee?’

  Naimat Bibi had guessed correctly that Kulsoom Bibi was desperate to break the news to Sardara and was generously according her the privilege.

  Kulsoom graciously signalled her thanks. Straightening up, and twitching her earrings ceremoniously into place, she was in her element, as she began in the most dramatic of tones she could muster.

  ‘Sardara Jee, you will not believe what happened last night! While we were all fast asleep in our beds, dreaming our innocent dreams, little did we guess what extraordinary events were afoot on the pure soil of our village!’

  For effect her voice had dipped dangerously low, and her small round eyes, shone in their sunken sockets. The multi-coloured, over-sized glass bangles jangled up and down on her bare arm, as she twirled her heart-shaped gold locket around her finger with nervous movements.

  ‘No! But I can guess, Kulsoom Jee – you are going to tell me,’ Sardara judiciously commented, chuckling to herself, trying to press down her swollen cheeks filled with silent laughter. She was going to make herself comfortable on the portable bed.

  ‘Well, something terrible happened last night, Sardara Jee. Haram! Haram! It took place here in our village, I tell you. Can you believe it?’

  Sardara’s face straightened into a deadpan expression, as she stared with rapt attention at Kulsoom. She slipped down onto the charpoy, not caring that she was sitting on the wrong, uncomfortable side, with big gaps in it. The strong jute ropes dug straight into the soft flabby flesh of her thighs.

  Relishing immensely the narrator’s role she was playing, Kulsoom generously decided to get straight to the point for her dear friend’s sake and thus rid her of her misery. By the look of things the poor woman hadn’t even had breakfast yet – and what a feast she had got up from!

  Casting a quick fearful look over her shoulder, Kulsoom’s voice sank into a semi-whisper as she hissed under her breath. ‘Haroon was caught with another woman in a haram situation!’

  ‘What?’ Sardara’s arthritis-ridden legs and ample body almost leapt off the charpoy, making her suddenly and painfully conscious of where she was sitting; normally she sat on a plump cushion or two. She carefully massaged the tender sore flesh of her thighs over her shalwar.

  ‘Yes, Sardara Jee. He apparently spent the night in the arms of that whore!’

  ‘What? Who? Why?’ Sardara’s mouth dropped open, a look of pure incredulity shining on her face.

  ‘Fatima’s niece! That witch who has come to plague our village with her urban fashion and masses of hair draped wantonly around her face and shoulder. That shameless hussy!’

  ‘But … but …’ Sardara’s words, to her annoyance, had got jammed in her throat. ‘How? Why? When? I don’t understand it! She’s only been here for two days.’ She herself had seen the woman arrive. Her red Toyota car was parked just outside Sardara’s farmyard.

  ‘Exactly!’ Kulsoom Bibi nodded at her friend. ‘That is the extent of her evil powers – the magic jadoo she has woven around our Haroon, that he left his wife’s bed and went seeking hers. We don’t know how many tweez she made him drink!’

  ‘Do you really think they have done that? You know what I mean.’ A warm blush spreading fast over Sardara’s brown cheeks.

  ‘I don’t honestly know’, Kulsoom stammered, also flushed with embarrassment. ‘I wasn’t there, but they must have done something surely, to bring Hajra storming into Fatima’s home straight after dawn and then to pull and push the wanton hussy around the courtyard by her hair.’

  ‘Oh, Allah pak forgive us! Did she really?’ Sardara’s eyes were now almost jumping out of their sockets in pure wonder. Then ‘Allah hulla kuwata.’ The beseeching Arabic words automatically drifted out from her mouth as her hands went to touch her ears in a gesture of mafi, asking Allah for forgiveness.

  Kulsoom watched her friend’s reactions with pleasure. Just to glimpse Sardara’s shocked face, was near enough worth three tholas of gold. For the milk woman was one of those well-composed people, who never or very rarely became ruffled. Nothing ever surprised her. Nothing ever threw her off-balance. Today, on the contrary, Sardara had apparently lost her bearings completely. Her big, round face was rapidly changing colour and expression.

  ‘Oh, you missed it all!’ Kulsoom told her. ‘Then her aunt slapped her across the face. The poor chit fell against the verandah pillar, hitting her head. She sat there in stunned pain unable to make sense of what was happening to her. All that violence aimed at her at one go. Then would you believe it, Haroon turned up, presumably to defend his whore. His mother-in-law turned on him, spitting straight on his face. Then Fatima Jee banged the door in our faces! Can you believe it? Banged it in both his and our faces – pushing us all out and verbally abusing us at the same time. But we pardoned her, didn’t we, Naimat Jee?’ Kulsoom wanted her friend to confirm this. She turned to look at Naimat. ‘In those circumstances I think I would react in exactly the same way. And here we are, Sardara Jee – come straight to you, honouring you with being the first person to find out about what has happened. We have not been to any other house yet. You must regard this as a strong demonstration of the affection and respect we both have for you,’ Kulsoom ended earnestly.

  ‘Thank you, my friends. I am truly very grateful to you for coming to see me and telling me about all this. I really appreciate it.’ The breakfast and the creamy yoghurt had lost its significance.

  ‘Did you ever imagine that something like this would happen in our village, Sardara Jee?’ Kulsoom asked. ‘God keep evil and its shadow away from our young children and us. Oh, how could I forget? How silly of me. I haven’t told you the most important bit. Hajra has threatened the slut and Fatima that she is going to see Baba Siraj Din and have them publicly shamed in a kacheri. She is probably there now in his hawaili. Can you imagine, there being a kacheri on this topic? Ooh!’ Kulsoom triumphantly ended, reaching the climax of her storytelling and having successfully managed to evoke a look of sheer wonderment on the milk woman’s face.

  ‘What do you think will happen to them?’ Sardara whispered, bemused by the strange images wickedly dancing around in her head and before her eyes – afraid to voice aloud her thoughts. Kulsoom steadily held her friend’s gaze and smiled.

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine. There is no doubt that Hajra will insist on a public shaming – to avenge her daughter, of course.’ Kulsoom’s voice dipped in an awed whisper. ‘We have never had somebody commit adultery here in the village before, have we?.’

  ‘No, not to my knowledge. I am finding all this so hard to believe, my friends. Allah pak forbid. What is happening to our village? It frightens me that something like this can take place on our doorsteps. On our pak zemin. What do you think they’ll do to her? To them I mean – for both should be shamed, shouldn’t they? I am sure she didn’t physically drag him out of his wife’s bed. Haroon went to her willingly didn’t he?’

  ‘We don’t know who did the dragging, but they were caught together. Nor do we know what is going to happen. But of course we’ll keep you informed. Don’t worry, Sardara Jee, we know your legs give you trouble. One of us will make sure that you get to know everything. Of course, if a kacheri is held, you wouldn’t want to miss that for the world – would you, Sardara Jee?’ Kulsoom Jee slyly asked.

  ‘Definitel
y not! But …’ Sardara knitted her eyebrows thoughtfully. The Madrasah courtyard where the kacheri was normally held by the Buzurgh was in the other mala – the other section of the village, where Chaudharani Kaniz’ hawaili was. Normally the kacheri court function held no particular interest for Sardara. It was a men’s affair. She had plenty to get on with – seeing to the smooth running of the dairy. The buffaloes had to be fed and milked twice a day and then there was the milk to be dealt with, or to be made into khoya, a milky fudge, that she sold to the sweet shops in the nearest town.

  This, village crisis, however, merited special attention. Sardara decided that for once her dairy could wait. Even if her legs were swollen out of shape for days afterwards from all the walking, she wouldn’t miss this kacheri for anything in the world!

  ‘No, I will definitely be attending, Kulsoom,’ she resolutely told her friends. ‘Do call me, when you go – but try to call early. Remember my poor legs. I have to be very gentle with them.’

  ‘Of course. No problem, Sardara Jee,’ Naimat Bibi quickly assured their much-liked elder friend.

  Kulsoom stood up, straightening her head shawl on her oily, scraped-back hair. ‘Right, Sardara Jee. We need to be off now. We are sorry for having disturbed your breakfast!’

  ‘My friends, you must join me and my guests. There is a lot of food laid on – hot parathas!’ Sardara genuinely wished to offer them a seat at her lavish breakfast. Her friends would normally have taken up her kind offer, especially after seeing the feast laid out on the dining table. Today, however, they had another important matter on their minds. Their appetite was in another direction – to spread the word. There were so many other homes to visit before they caught up with Hajra. Thus they were forced to reluctantly decline.

  ‘Thank you very much, Sardara Jee. We need to visit Jamila and let her know, too, otherwise she’ll blame us later for not telling her.’ Sardara nodded her understanding.

  On returning to the dining room her eyes automatically fell on her yoghurt bowl. Oh! After all that excitement, she really did need the energy. Forget about the fat, she had to revive her strength. Happily she sidled back into place on her chair, making sure that she didn’t knock her sore thighs anywhere else on the table’s edges. With the creamy bowl of yoghurt lacing her stomach Sardara smiled at her three women guests, and generously decided to take her kurmani into her confidence.

  Her eyes beamed at her guest. ‘Well, my friend,’ she began, ‘you’ll never believe what happened here last night in the village, after you arrived.’ It was just as well her kurmani’s twin daughters were both married, otherwise she would have been forced to send them out.

  Sardara leaned forward on the table, moving her empty bowl of yoghurt aside. Somehow she had lost her appetite for the oily parathas. The discussion was bound to last well into the morning, but at least now she had something substantial to talk about – a real scandal with which to entertain her guests. Last night she had discovered to her dismay that there was nothing further to digress on or gossip about. She had virtually dried up. They had just sat and watched all the late dramas on television. Useless they were, too. For in no way did they reflect their way of life. The TV people forgot that there were people living out in the countryside whose problems and lifestyle needed to be reflected.

  Sardara beamed at her guests. This subject of adultery wouldn’t dry up any tongues in the whole village for days. For months. Probably for years to come, in fact. She knew that for sure.

  EIGHT

  THE NEXT STOP on Kulsoom and Naimat Bibi’s itinerary for this fateful morning was their ‘second’ best friend, Jamila’s house. Their own friends of course had to be top of their list of houses to visit.

  Tiptoeing carefully on the wet marble steps leading up to the large, majestic-looking wrought-iron gates, Kulsoom pressed the bell with her bony fist. Water was still gushing out from the top step into the gutter of the village lane. It appeared that Jamila already had all her floors washed, even down to the outside steps. And all this before seven in the morning! And such a big house too! How did she manage it? Newly built in the last few months, it was now topped with an upper floor of bedroom suites and an attractive gallery circling all around it. Now the villa stood out from the rest of the houses in that lane. Jamila prided herself on that fact and on keeping her house thoroughly spruced at all times. In fact, her penchant for cleaning had given rise to a village joke, that Jamila in the design of her home had certainly copied the naqsa, the plan of Chaudharani Kaniz’s hawaili, down to the very colour of the marble tiles on the outside wall. Having the audacity to copy Chaudharani Kaniz’s design, everyone also expected her to keep it in top shape at all times – just like the beautiful, arrogant young queen of the village, Malika Kaniz. The latter had her own particular standard of cleanliness. Whether Jamila would manage to keep up the act in the long run was a point of huge speculation and social debate. At least she was trying; some men shrugged, thinking of their own, rather more slapdash wives.

  Inside her bedroom, Jamila, a thirty-seven-year-old woman, had other things than her house and cleanliness on her mind. On hearing the bell, she weakly squeaked to her teenage daughter Shahnaz to go and open the gates. Shahnaz stood near the bed and held a bowl up to her mother. Jamila waved her daughter away as she felt her stomach muscles churn, twist and lurch into action again. Spluttering out some more vile tasting, greenish water into the steel bowl, she pondered miserably on who could be disturbing them this early in the morning. Riaz, the milk boy, had already visited, leaving their two full pails of milk. The thought of the creamy milk set Jamila’s stomach heaving once again.

  Pressing the tight bulge of her stomach with her two hands she wished she could simply curl up in some dark space and die. With trembling hands she swept back strands of sweat-soaked hair. Seeing Kulsoom and Naimat Bibi enter her room, she groaned aloud in dismay, hiding her face from them. She was in no mood for banal chatter. Unable to lift herself from the bed, she could not stand on ceremony with them and exchange social pleasantries, even if she were so inclined.

  Managing a shadow of a smile of welcome, Jamila watched her two friends cross the wet marble floor. Kulsoom had tentatively lifted the hemline of her shalwar. The last thing she wanted on this, of all days, was to slip on the wet floor and fracture her bony legs. Last time she had fallen it had taken her leg six months to recover and she had paid the price dearly. Literally, for she had lost heavily on her matchmaking business. Her legs had already been in plaster a number of times. A lot of walking was still ahead of her before the day ended. She thus pointed to the damp floor, warning Naimat Bibi to be careful too.

  ‘Assalam Alaikum. Jamila Jee, are you all right?’ Kulsoom asked in concern. They didn’t expect to see her still in bed at this time of the morning.

  Standing near her bed they both peered down at their friend. Jamila made a brave attempt to rise up for her friends’ sake, but soon gave up the pretence, when Kulsoom considerately stopped her. ‘Please don’t bother to get up for our sake. Your Shahnaz has told us you are not well. You do look pale Jamila! In fact, yellow as haldi. What is the matter?’ Kulsoom pulled her cotton chador around her head, hugging it tightly against her ears as the chill from the cold washed floor rose through her thin nylon chappalls. Spying a portable heater placed near the bed, she sidled over to it, wanting to warm her cold, bony legs behind their crepe-de-chine shalwar.

  When Jamila sheepishly looked away, Naimat Bibi and Kulsoom exchanged a quick glance, silently questioning each other as to what was going on in this bedroom. Then before their startled gazes they had their answer. They saw Jamila’s body double up as she leant over the basin on the floor.

  ‘You are not!’ Kulsoom exclaimed loudly.

  Jamila nodded miserably at her two friends.

  ‘Oh dear!’ Kulsoom’s commiseration came out loud and clear.

  Her friend’s reaction confirmed Jamila’s worst misgivings. This was how other people would view her predicament. And
she with a teenage daughter too! It was a most embarrassing situation indeed. ‘Oh, Allah pak, if I could only bury myself in some hole?’ she groaned aloud.

  ‘But how did this happen?’ Naimat Bibi gently asked, recovering her social manners. ‘I thought you went to the family planning clinic regularly.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, the injection dose must have worn off – I guess. I am gone two months already,’ Jamila mourned helplessly to her two friends. ‘Two rotten, nightmarish, lousy months of anxiety and sickness. I tell you, my friends, I don’t want it! I cannot go through with this pregnancy. It has come at the wrong time of my life.’

  ‘Oh dear!’ Kulsoom repeated, having forgotten all about Fatima’s niece. There was a bigger crisis to be dealt with in their friend’s household. The village kacheri and its verdict could wait. Their priority was to help and support Jamila in this unfortunate predicament – one that women have found themselves in since the dawn of time.

  Kulsoom settled herself more comfortably on the edge of her friend’s bed, while Naimat Bibi drew forward a wooden chair, hating the grating sound it made on the wet floor.

  Bending forward, Kulsoom began to soothe and massage her friend’s damp forehead. Thankful, Jamila smiled up at her, momentarily closing her eyes. It was blissful to be able to confide in them and have their support.