Kaniz was ready to close the door, deciding to dispense with social propriety. The thought, I owe this man nothing, raced through her mind.
Sheikh Younus Raees read her face and mind very clearly, for she had done this to him once before. Smiling he took the initiative by putting his foot inside Kaniz’s hawaili. She saw his foot and stepped back, unable to stop him. Disconcerted by his action. It was an intrusion. Undecided, her polite smile slipped. Then reluctantly recalling her social graces, she pulled the gate wide open for him to enter. She was a chaudharani, and a mature one at that. One didn’t slam doors on one’s guests – no matter how unwanted or undesirable they were. ‘Please come in!’ she offered grudgingly, a blush drumming heat into her cheeks.
She walked ahead of him to the guestroom on the ground floor. Thrusting open the door for him to enter, Kaniz stood aside in the verandah. Younus Raees’s tall figure moved across the guestroom, stepping on the silk carpet. He seated himself on one of the white leather sofas.
Kaniz reluctantly followed him into the room, debating with herself as to whether to close the door behind her or to leave it ajar. With no one else in the hawaili apart from Firdaus and she was upstairs, it wasn’t socially right for her to entertain a male guest alone in her home. A single male guest, which Younus Raees definitely was!
She thus left the door wide open for etiquette’s sake. She knew he would understand and appreciate her actions. With an awkward gait she moved across the room and sat on the sofa opposite him – the one furthest away from him. She wished desperately for the thick covering of her outdoor chador to wrap around herself. Twitching her flimsy, see-through chiffon dupatta in place on her hair, and her eyes carefully averted from his, Kaniz smoothly asked, her social tone and grace in action, ‘What can I do for you, Younus sahib? If you have come on business to see my son, Khawar is in Karachi.’ The words were cool and dismissive. Not lost on him. He let it pass. This was the one who had scandalised his ears twenty years ago. Anything was possible from Kaniz.
‘My business is with you,’ Younus Raees began softly. Leaning back on the sofa he stared steadily at her, his eyes moving over her face, noting with interest how she had not once met his glance, since she opened the gate. Deny it she must to herself, but he was a threat to her. Her body cried its own story. And he was a perceptive reader, bent on familiarising himself with each nuance and cadence of her body language.
He understood her stance perfectly, recalling another time, another meeting in this room, twenty years earlier. He wondered wryly if she remembered it too.
She did! Kaniz peeped at him. The atmosphere thickened. Her female intuition alerting her, she acted. Standing up with the abrupt words: ‘I am afraid I am very busy today, Younus Sahib. My daughter-in-law is expecting a baby and is due to go to hospital any minute now!’ she excused herself, rushing to the door.
‘Kaniz!’ Her name in the deep male voice arrested her. Then purposely she took another step.
‘Kaniz!’ Younus Raees repeated with the same ring of authority, now also getting to his feet.
Kaniz swung round, her eyes arrowing hot rays of hatred at him. No man had the right or the audacity to call her ‘Kaniz’. Only her husband and family had that distinct prerogative. He, Younus Raees, twice in a few seconds had called her by her first name, without the preface ‘Chaudharani’ or ‘Sister’. It was totally unacceptable and unforgivable!
Her lips parted to express her displeasure. There was only one way of dealing with Younus Raees. Brutally. But he was three paces ahead of her.
‘If you do not have the time to talk, then perhaps you could find a moment or two to read this note in the privacy of your own company.’
His calm words had Kaniz transfixed in the middle of her guestroom. She was the stranger in her own room, not he.
He was closely assessing the expression on her face – the eyes, the cheeks, the lips. Then removing a note from his jacket breast pocket, he held it out to her from across the room.
Kaniz dumbly stared at the note but made no move to take it. Appreciating her predicament and reluctance, again Younus Raees took the initiative. Instead of placing it in her hand, he put his note on the onyx coffee-table next to where he was standing. He then drew near to Kaniz, his dark eyes eloquent. He had read her body language accurately. He hoped Kaniz would allow herself to read the message in his eyes.
But Kaniz did not read it, nor did she wish to. She merely turned her head away, humiliated to her very soul. This man had no right to look at her like this. The desire was still there. She’d been blind to it twenty years ago. Now it was spitting at her. Was she mad? Or was he? Who was the maddest of the two?
‘All I ask, Kaniz, is that you read the note. It only has three sentences in it. It won’t take up too much of your time, I assure you. If you do not like what you read, then shred the paper into tiny pieces and scatter them in the wind. If you feel my letter deserves an answer, then I prefer that you answer and deliver it yourself, Chaudharani Kaniz. Whatever you do with this note, I will understand. May Allah pak give you health, skoon and a long life. Forgive me for taking up so much of your time. If I have offended you in any way, I ask for your forgiveness. I will bid you goodbye. Allah hafiz.’
He strode out of the room, a tall stiff figure, holding himself high. Kaniz stared at the back of his well-groomed head. The same man. The same head. She remained standing in her bethak, a typhoon in her head, until she heard his jeep drive away.
She glanced down at the blue folded note on her coffee-table. Then looked out of the open door and saw a green parrot fly across her courtyard in the sunlight and swing across a branch of the guava tree in the centre. Shaking her head, she went over and picked up the note, fearing that Neesa might find it later. Crumpling it up in her fist, Kaniz threw it in the waste-paper basket. As soon as she turned her back, she glanced down. ‘Somebody might find it in there. What if Firdaus were to look!’
She quickly retrieved the note, crushing it in her hand again. Leaving the room, she climbed the stairs to the rooftop verandah of her hawaili. It was her favourite place, giving her both privacy and a unique panoramic view of the village.
Walking to the shoulder-high tiled brick wall of the rooftop, her eyes skirted the village road. It meandered out of the village, through the green fields and joined onto the Multan GT Road. Younus Raees’s jeep was just turning onto a narrow side road leading to his village.
Kaniz gazed down at the crop of sugar cane ready to be harvested, circling the entire village. About to turn away, she remembered the note still crushed in her tight fist. Holding up her hand, she opened it and stared at the blue note. A tiny shiver of dread rippled down her back as she spread out the paper in her palm.
Her eyes skimmed over the three black bold lines written in nastaliq Urdu. Finally she closed her eyes. Then opened them to read and trace the lines again and again. She crumpled the paper back into her fist.
Hysterical laughter rumbled through her chest. Experiencing one of her hot flushes, she threw off her chiffon dupatta from around her shoulders.
‘Mad! Madman! Mad! Majnoon!’ Kaniz shouted over the wall of the rooftop. Then she glanced up at the clear blue sky above her.
His words ringing in her ears, she opened out her fist. With her long tapering fingernails she shredded the note into the tiniest pieces she could manage. Scooping up the tiny pieces, she threw them over the wall of her rooftop. The wind carried the confetti across the village. She saw one piece land on the wall ledge. Picking it up, she flicked it over. She wanted no trace of that man in her life. Or any man!
‘Younus Raees, that’s my answer,’ she called out. ‘You wanted it either in the wind or from me. The wind will be my messenger. It will carry my answer back to you.’ Kaniz felt the hysteria spiral inside her again. Leaning against one of the pillars supporting her patioed verandah, she rested her back.
Then, ‘Firdaus! The baby! Mary! What am I doing, scattering pieces of paper to the wind?’ she s
hrilled, semi-hysterical, rushing down to the first floor of her home.
THIRTY THREE
NAGHMANA AND HER husband sat beside Siraj Din’s palang, watching the elder village Buzurgh lose consciousness again, his shallow breathing punctuated by short gasps of air. He had opened his eyes – wide. Took in Naghmana’s appearance and presence and then sighed. His two frail hands had risen to pat her head, reaching towards her, then fell to his side as she nervously edged away. She would not let her head be patted this time. Instead she flinched away from the old man on the bed, the cobra of her nightmares, unable to make sense of her feelings towards him. Were they pity or hatred? She regretted her reaction in her husband’s presence. He had noted it with interest, taken aback by her seemingly cruel action. Sitting on a chair in the corner of the room, she sank her head in her damp hands, aching to delete the images threatening to enfold her in a new nightmare. The ferocious eye of a typhoon beckoned.
Zarri Bano, Siraj Din’s thirty-two-year-old granddaughter, entered the room, her black-cloaked body gracefully moving to her grandfather’s side. She was closely followed by Kulsoom and Naimat Bibi, the village matchmaker and the cook. Professor Jahanghir watched the three women with a speculative gleam in his eye. All were odd-looking in their own distinctive way. Zarri Bano, was wearing a burqa, her body hidden behind a black loose garment. He wondered why she wore the veil at home. Was it because of the male guests’ presence in the house? His eyes next swept over the two village women. One was tall and wiry, the other short and stocky at the waist, but with amazingly long bony arms, jangling with dozens of glass bangles. All too big for her arms, in too many colours and too many to count. Both had weathered skin, their cheeks marked with uneven pigmented patches. Naimat Bibi’s sunken eyes skimmed uneasily over Naghmana and the tall very official-looking grey-haired man sitting on another chair by her side.
Zarri Bano stood next to her grandfather’s bed and informed their new very important guests. ‘Naghmana Jee, Kulsoom Bibi and Naimat Bibi are very keen to meet you. They are from our village.’
Bending down, she lovingly picked up her grandfather’s hand and held it between her own, massaging gently the soft wrinkled pink flesh. After checking his pulse she listened to his chest, to the rhythm of his breathing – was it dull or rapid? Satisfying herself that it was stable, she left the room, smiling politely at the four visitors in her grandfather’s bedroom. She and her mother were now used to the presence of many strange guests. Streams of visitors had flocked into the room every half-hour. Crowding around the bed, whispering their greetings to the dying man. It had become Zarri Bano’s duty to take them inside and then leave them to pay their last respects to her beloved grandfather, whilst she went to collect others.
Leaving her four guests together she went straight to her bedroom to phone her husband, Sikander, in Karachi. ‘I need you, Sikander, please come. My grandfather is dying,’ she earnestly requested. ‘I miss you so. It’s so difficult here – so many people coming all at once. Some are total strangers; I don’t recognise or know them at all. Now a university professor and his wife have arrived, and everybody is reacting so strangely towards her. Apparently whoever meets this lady, is shocked into silence. I don’t know who she is, but according to Mother, Grandfather was very keen to see her. It was really hard to track her down but our matchmaker did it. Please come! Mother and I are finding it very difficult to cope by ourselves – we need you here.’ She stopped breathless.
At the other end, her husband sitting in his office, smiled to himself as he listened. It was good to hear his wife’s voice. He ached to hold her. ‘It is nice to know that I am wanted. I’ll come on one condition.’
‘What is that?’ Zarri Bano quickly asked.
‘Just tell me that you love me very much and that you will come straight back home as soon as it is practically possible for you to do so. It’s been two months – I miss you and my son terribly, Zarri Bano. Have pity on me!’ He wasn’t teasing. His voice was low and husky.
‘Do you still need to hear it from me?’ she marvelled. Did he still not believe her? ‘I simply adore you, Sikander, you know that. I am dying to go home to you and to get back to my desk in my publishing company. I am only here because of Grandfather and because Mother is all alone and needs me. Will you come – please? Tonight?’
His wife’s pleading tone cut Sikander to the quick.
‘Don’t say “please” Zarri Bano. I’ll be there in two hours.’ His voice had roughened.
‘Thank you.’ She placed the phone down thoughtfully. She hadn’t given her husband much thought in the last few days. Not even missed his phone calls. Now all of a sudden, she wanted him with her that very minute. ‘I can’t wait to see you, Sikander,’ she murmured, and glanced down at her sleeping son, in his cot. Their little treasure – her prince. She missed Haris also, her nephew. She must phone him later. Smiling she left to look for her mother.
In Baba Siraj Din’s bedroom Kulsoom Bibi and Naimat Bibi continued to stare at the elegant, middle-aged woman sitting beside the distinguished grey-haired man.
It is actually her! The thought darted in both the friends’ minds, as they enviously noted that time had dealt kindly with Naghmana, the young fashionable city woman who had caused such a furore – a tofan – in their village twenty years ago. And left them all buried under it. They wondered in awe whether it was the magic work of expensive cosmetics or pots of creams from the posh plaza stores or the urban indoor lifestyle, far away from the scorching sun’s rays that made it possible for a woman, who in all likelihood was only a few years younger than them, to look so attractive and youthful. It wasn’t fair. ‘Look at her slim, taut waist!’ they signalled to each other. Just as she had fascinated all the young and older women twenty years ago, now she had become the focus of their jealous stares, for both youth and looks just seemed to have passed the friends by. Allah pak had only blessed them with homely looks, for which they had to be grateful.
And her hair …
Kulsoom Bibi’s gaze dropped before Naghmana’s. She nudged her friend awkwardly forward. A nervous look danced in both their eyes. The urban sahib, with his designer Western suit, was still watching them with indolent amusement, his body totally relaxed.
Kulsoom’s pride asserted itself. Why did men like that have to look at them as if they were dirt? Humble yes, but decent, knowledgeable women they were nevertheless. Adept at their crafts and the art of survival. They weren’t royalty, granted, but nor were they totally gauche!
With a firm step, Kulsoom approached Naghmana. They were here on an important errand. They had waited twenty years for this moment. She was smiling politely at them, wondering who these strange women were and what business they had with her.
‘Assalam Alaikum,’ Kulsoom Bibi greeted her, her face grave.
‘Walaikum Salam, ladies,’ Naghmana replied warmly, wondering whether to call them aunts or sisters, ‘I don’t appear to recognise you two. Should I know you?’ Her eyes skipped over the head of one woman to the other, a warm flush spreading across her cheeks for some reason. Was one face familiar? It was from the front row. Three places away from her aunt. Naghmana’s breath stalled.
‘Yes. You probably don’t know us personally and remember us, but we remember you clearly. In fact, the whole village remembers you.’ The conspiratorial look was aimed at Naghmana. She caught it. She remembered and the air thickened with it. The polite, urbane mask was stripped away. A wary, shuttered look replaced it and something else that Kulsoom couldn’t quite fathom. Is it fear? she speculated.
‘We have come to ask your forgiveness,’ Naimat Bibi had decided that she had to venture first in this important tête-à-tête with Naghmana, otherwise Kulsoom would, as usual, monopolise it all and leave her tongue-tied.
‘My forgiveness?’ Naghmana stammered, her gaze faltering before them. Her husband’s body language told her that he was listening. Unaware of the tension mounting between the husband and the wife, Kulsoom innocently
hastened to explain.
‘For what happened to you twenty years earlier in the village. We feel we were partly responsible for that kacheri. It was us two who spread the rumour.’ Her eyes drifting away, Kulsoom had to add the last bit. It was her form of expiation for their sin. Her voice had sunk low nevertheless. Ashamed.
Naghmana’s head lowered, she tried to still her shaking fingers. She was caught between the two women who knew too much of her past and her husband, who knew very little – but was learning fast. She licked her dry lips.
‘There is nothing for me to forgive you for, Bibi Jee,’ she said without looking up, in a brave attempt to divert her husband’s attention.
‘Oh, but there is,’ Kulsoom magnanimously expanded, taking a step forward and raising her two hands in supplication. ‘Please forgive us!’
Naimat Bibi quickly followed suit in miming the same action. Now both the women stood with their upraised hands in front of her, with beseeching eyes.
Naghmana panicked. She slid back on her chair, finding herself pressed further and further down into the soft sands of oblivion. No escape.
Still blind to the charged atmosphere in the room, Kulsoom Bibi drew out a small stained silk parcel and, prising it apart with her long bony fingers, held it up to the woman they had disgraced with their gossip-mongering.
Naghmana stared back blankly, unable to understand what was going on. Copying her friend, Naimat Bibi too drew out her little soot-stained parcel from her dress pocket and proffered it gently near Naghmana’s face.
‘We return your ‘pride’ to you,’ Kulsoom whispered, her hand shaking as she held the small silk parcel, trying to cover the tiny hole where the moth had chewed away the old silk cloth.
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