Typhoon

by Shahraz, Qaisra

  Understanding dawning on him, she saw his hopeful face transform to a tight polite mask.

  ‘I see,’ he said coldly, turning to look up at the stars. Had she come to make fun of him, to insult him?

  Astutely reading his mind Kaniz hastened to add, ‘You misjudge me, Raees Sahib. I am very honoured by your proposal, but do you know or appreciate exactly what you are asking me to do? To marry you? I feel embarrassed to even utter the words. I am not twenty, Younus Sahib, not thirty, not forty. I turned fifty a few months ago and only two days ago became a grandmother. I have a thirty-one-year-old son. He is your business partner.

  ‘And there you are, at this stage of my life, asking me to marry you. You too live in the same world as the one I inhabit. We do not live on separate planets, Raees Sahib. Therefore you should know that there are certain things that can never happen in our culture, in our particular society and world to be more precise. To you, as a man, yes – but to a woman, never! You have the freedom, and can enjoy the social applause to marry even at seventy. For me, as a woman, it has been too late for a number of years, even if I had wanted to, Raees Sahib – which I don’t. Let alone, now, as a grandmother! How many grandmothers get married in the social sphere that both of us inhabit? How many do you know? And what will be the outcome of such a strange occurrence? The whole idea, in short, is not only preposterous but also ludicrous.’

  Disconcerted, Younus Raees stiffly began, ‘I do not care about the culture you talk of. I only know and care about a beautiful woman who stands before me, hiding from my sight in the dark, who came to this village as a nineteen-year-old bride, thirty-two years ago. For me, Kaniz, time has stood still. Will always stand still where you are concerned. Age has lost its meaning for me. To hell with the social world and its dictates,’ he ended earnestly, his eyes sweeping over her face, recalling other moments in the past.

  ‘Please stop,’ Kaniz begged, looking away, unable to bear either his words or his eager eyes roaming over her face.

  ‘I have to say what is in my heart, Kaniz. You brutally turned me away from your doorstep twenty years ago. I still remember and loathe your words. I promised myself then that you were the last woman I would ever marry. Yet here I am today, still helplessly tracing your footsteps. I married and was happy with my wife and our life. I have two beautiful healthy teenage children. Allah pak, however, has taken my wife away from me. I am now left without a mother for my children. My daughter, especially misses her mother. She needs and seeks the guidance and company of a woman, that I cannot or am not able to give her. Chance and circumstance have thrown me back in your path. To seek once more, Kaniz, your hand in marriage – this time to become not only my life’s partner, but more importantly, mother to my two children.’

  His impassioned speech was met by a poignant silence, as Kaniz looked away, to the dark shadows of the village houses. Escape.

  ‘I am unworthy both of you and of what you seek, Younus Raees,’ she cried at last, her heart bleeding at his generosity and the feelings he had harboured for her. Life wasn’t fair. ‘With your social status, personality and wealth, you can have any woman you want, even thirty years younger. You don’t need me. Please marry someone else!’

  ‘It is you I want, Kaniz.’ His dark eyes embraced and held her with their warmth.

  ‘No!’ Heat flaring through her body, Kaniz turned from him, ready to flee from the man who insisted on wanting her. Then, her eyes brimming with tears, she was ready to sacrifice and strip herself of the last ounce of her self-respect. She owed it to him. He had to know – to end it all.

  ‘You do not know me at all, Younus Raees,’ she said, her voice breaking. She had to bare her past shame before him. Lay out her sullied chador in front of him. And in so doing, perhaps perform penance for her sin and finally close the door to him.

  ‘True, Kaniz. I do not know you at all – but I can learn, if you let me. If you give me a chance. I have a deep well of understanding, Kaniz,’ he said tenderly.

  Gazing up at the moonlight in the sky Kaniz bitterly burst forth, ‘There are certain things, Raees Sahib, that no ‘deep wells’ of your understanding can ever douse with clean waters. Tonight I came not to offer myself in marriage to you – that can never be – but to thank you for the honour you have bestowed upon me and to explain my behaviour. I can and could never be your wife, neither now nor twenty years ago. For you see I stand before you as a damaged goods – a woman long deprived of her self-respect and human dignity, and from whom the gift of womanhood was snatched. I – I …’ Heat scorched Kaniz’ cheeks. The dark night hid their colour. Then, wanting to punish both herself and him for wanting her, she let the words tumble from her mouth. Too late! She could never pull them back.

  ‘I was raped as a teenager, Younus Raees,’ she told him, her voice sinking to a dull whisper. Raising her head ‘Do you still want me now?’ Her agonised cry challenged him. She saw his look, and in it her own Nemesis. Wincing at his horror-stricken face, Kaniz felt the stirring of nausea in her stomach.

  ‘What have I done? Have I gone mad?’ she wailed inside. ‘I have lost his respect.’ Her body shivered with self-loathing. The urge to hide both herself and her shame was strong in her bones.

  Instead, she stood her ground, and waited. From behind her came the soft rustling noise from the leaves of the tree in the warm wind, the croaking of the frogs in the tube-well canals and streams, and the song of the night crickets. Tears of shame began to roll down her cheeks.

  She took a tentative step, and waited. Then another. Ready to flee and disappear, from him and her shame. Anticipating her movement, Younus Raees’s strong hand reached for her arm and pulled her back by one end of her chador, the other corner now trailing on the dusty path.

  Then he stood before her, a tall, dark, masculine figure, blocking her path and her vision! With trepidation she glanced up at his face. It was like a mask carved in granite. Her heart sank in dismay. ‘I have shocked him,’ she wept inside, only now realising how much his opinion of her had really mattered.

  He stared at her face for so long that she began to wonder if he would ever talk to her again. Tears still trembling and falling out of her eyes she repeated huskily, ‘Do you still want to marry me, Raees Sahib?’

  Then, when she thought he would remain silent for ever, she saw his lips move. She watched in fascination the way they curved, and behind them she caught a glimpse of his teeth. ‘Such beautiful lips and teeth. Why have I not noticed them before?’ she asked herself in wonderment. Then she realised with a shy awareness that it was the first time she had ever looked at him properly, as a woman, with a woman’s eyes.

  ‘Was it him?’

  Taken aback by his question, Kaniz looked up.

  ‘The man who made you cry at my party thirty years ago. I have never forgotten him, Kaniz.’

  Kaniz stared back with horror-stricken eyes, recoiling from the look on his face. ‘He knows everything!’ her mind wept. She tried to draw her chador from Younus Raees’s grasp, ready to flee again. But he held onto her arm tightly.

  ‘For how long will you go on running away from your past, Kaniz?’ he softly whispered down, but just as quickly looked away, wanting to spare her the pain of looking him in the eye. He understood and felt her shame. It lay between them like a stained chador, sullied for eternity, never to be washed clean, always clinging to its wearer.

  ‘Don’t go, Kaniz!’ he burst out suddenly. ‘Your sister did hint to me earlier today in her letter that something had happened to you in your youth, that made you act so strangely at times, but I never guessed exactly what it was. ‘She wrote: “There is reason behind my sister’s odd behaviour I cannot say what it is – only she herself can tell you.” I am so sorry,’ he said tenderly. If I only had known. No wonder you cried out to me that day your revulsion of men, by expressing it so graphically in words that have haunted me for years. So much so that I have hated you for them, little guessing at the painful truth behind them.’

&nbs
p; ‘Now do you understand why I could never marry you? Why I have never wanted to go near any man?’ she cried out to him, still looking away. Pulling the chador around her, she raised it above her mouth, hiding. She withdrew her arm from his grasp and stood away. They had no right to touch each other.

  ‘But I am not any man, Kaniz. I am not him!’ He moved a discreet step back, remembering the social parameters.

  ‘How can you marry and respect a woman who has been defiled in such a way?’ Kaniz cried, taunting him. ‘Who loathes the very essence of her being. Her body above all – from which she can never escape. I have had ten thousand baths, Younus Raees, but I am still unclean. Do you know what it feels like to be pleat, for eternity? To live with a pleat body?’

  His heart wept at her anguish and suffering. ‘I respect you for what you are, Kaniz. You are not pleat. Never have been, never will be. It is all in your mind,’ but she angrily cut him short.

  ‘Please spare me your magnanimous lectures. You are a very gallant man, and I thank you for your understanding, and I am intelligent enough to appreciate your generosity. We meet here in the middle of the night, our assignation cloaked by darkness. It is this night’s dark mantle that has helped me to hide my blushes of shame from you. I could never look you in the eye in broad daylight, let alone lay before you my sullied past and chador of shame. The darkness and the accompanying silence of the world around us has helped me to uncloak myself – to tell you about my past, about which I have never told anyone, apart from my sister. But let me explain. You are under no human obligation to me. Either now – or ever. I expect nothing from you, Younus Raees. No sympathy. Nothing.’

  Again a companionable silence wrapped around them, licking a strange warmth to life between them. Each digesting and weighing what the other had said. The silence was broken by his bitter laugh.

  ‘How little you know me, Kaniz. For that matter how little we know about each other. You do me great injustice. How could I turn away from a woman I have loved for almost two-thirds of my life, whose shadow has clung to my waking dreams for so long. I am not turning away from you in disgust as you obviously expect me to do. I never will, Kaniz. My heart bleeds for what you have gone through. If only you had told me twenty years earlier, rather than turning me away, Kaniz. If only. So many wasted years.

  My hatred for that man will never leave me. He was the man who made you shed tears in my home and for that I can never forgive him. It was the first time you were there in my house – in my room. I was so delighted and honoured. You were happy, smiling, beautiful and content, hugging your beloved Khawar to your chest. Then he came along and put terror into you, and you fled. I watched, but was helpless to do anything. I asked, but you never answered, rebuffing me for my interest. It is just as well, Kaniz, I didn’t know the cause of your grief, or what that beast had done to you. Otherwise I would have killed him on the spot. But why are we talking about the past my beautiful Kaniz? It is the future that matters.’

  Kaniz spoke to him, her voice sadly dipped low. ‘I will understand perfectly, Younus Raees, if in the light of day your footsteps were never to cross my threshold again. I expect nothing from you. Nor do I have any right to expect anything from you.’

  Younus Raees stepped closer and stood directly in front of her. ‘My footsteps will continue to cross your threshold again and again, in the broad daylight, Kaniz, but only, if the door to that threshold is held open to me,’ he challenged.

  A strange silence lingered between them – hugging them even closer. At last, her face solemn, and her chin held up at a proud angle, Kaniz softly reminded him, ‘It is through the door of shame you will be entering, but it will remain open to you – a welcome guest. However, if you never lay eyes on me again I will understand, Younus Raees.’

  ‘There are no doors of shame. Only in your mind, Kaniz,’ he sadly reminded her. Silence again embraced them. ‘Tomorrow I will approach your sister with a formal request for your hand.’ He waited for her reply. Her silence was his answer. Her downcast eyes said the rest. ‘Shall I take you back home?’ he asked. She assented with a nod. He had crossed one major bridge. There would be others, he knew, but they were minor, compared to the one he had crossed together with Kaniz this night.

  They started to walk back towards the village side by side separated by just a few inches. Sabra stood by the tree, anxiously waiting and watching. She noted the angle at which Kaniz’s face was raised to him. The chador had fallen off her head showing her beautiful coronet of hair. In the darkness Sabra could make out a hint of a smile on her sister’s face, the dipped rhythm of their speech. Intrigued, she wondered what they were talking about. She raised her two hands in prayer.

  ‘Allah pak, give my sister peace at last. Free her from the demons of her past.’ In her heart Sabra knew that Younus Raees had already freed her beloved sister from those demons.

  She stepped out from the shadows of the tree, but the couple had already gone past, oblivious of her presence. Younus Raees’s head was bent down to Kaniz.

  Quietly and unobtrusively Sabra followed a few hundred yards behind them, happy to be forgotten and to give them the privacy they obviously needed. It was such a long time since Sabra had seen her sister with a man by her side. Her heart swelled with pride and happiness.

  THIRTY NINE

  THE STARS DANCED and beamed their shining light over the rows of portable beds on the rooftop gallery of Siraj Din’s home. The women were honoured by a place on the rooftop to enjoy the cool night breeze and a heavenly feeling of openness. The men had the choice of either sleeping in the courtyard below or in the air-conditioned rooms.

  In most women’s heads was the fearful thought of the old man lying in his grave; facing his first night of judgement. ‘He was a good man; he has nothing to worry about. He’ll go straight to heaven – Insh’ Allah,’ one of the distant relatives confidently voiced aloud.

  Some women had already dozed off, while others were trying to get to sleep as best as they could in such a communal setting. Those who knew one another had chosen their beds to be close to each other. They either sat up to talk in hushed tones or lay down and whispered across the narrow gaps between the beds.

  Two elderly distant aunts of Zarri Bano were still up, well engaged in a midnight mango feast. They had had long afternoon naps and were thus now wide-eyed, slurping away into the ripe juicy flesh of the sweet mangoes, closing their eyes in pleasure. Mangoes always tasted heavenly on a rooftop, in the cool breeze and from a bucket of icy cold water.

  Gulshan had her bed set in the far corner of the gallery, away from the other guests and their prying eyes and sharp ears. She stiffly clung onto the side of her bed, unable to sleep. They were all there, down below. Naghmana and the new husband were in one room whilst her own Haroon was in another bedroom. And she, naïve, naïve Gulshan was upstairs, all by herself. The two wives and the two husbands were all in one house – unbelievable. The woman on whose behalf she had become estranged from her beloved Haroon, was happily in the arms of her new husband. And she, Gulshan, was lying upstairs, all alone, amongst total strangers – her head in chaos!

  ‘Enough, Gulshan.’ Her body automatically rose to do her bidding. ‘If it’s not tonight, it will be never.’ She mourned in her head, ‘Tomorrow will be too late!’ The same world, the same life, the same routine, the same house, the same suffocating existence! The return to – death!

  ‘It is time, Gulshan!’ she repeated, throwing aside the cotton top sheet from her body. Pulling her muslin chador around her head, she gingerly tiptoed between the rows of beds, studiously not looking at anybody. She just concentrated on navigating her way downstairs.

  ‘Are you all right, my dear?’ Sikander’s mother kindly asked as Gulshan sidled past. Even though a tall electric fan whirred its cool air over her bed, she was still fanning herself vigorously with her hand-fan.

  ‘Yes, Auntie!’ Gulshan quickly mumbled.

  The hushed chatter stopped as Gulshan politely passed
the two elderly women who had finished four mangoes between them, washed their hands and now snugly lay down on their pillows, savouring the delicious taste in their mouths. They propped their heads nearer to one another: it was time to begin their nightly bout of gossip and chatter, whilst feasting their eyes on the shining diamonds in the sky. Baba Siraj Din’s hawaili had wrung with the chatter of these two women’s all day. At night it took the form of loud whisperings. They had nothing better to do than to offer prayers, eat and sleep. Talking was reckoned to be one of the most popular pastimes amongst the funeral guests. Enjoyed by most and widely accepted as the best of all entertainments, for there was always plenty to gossip about. The funeral equipped them with the time, opportunity and place to do it amply. Shrewd guests would arrange their marriages at funerals. Past quarrels were made up. Grudging reconciliations were tidied over and long-lost relatives discovered and tolerated as the situation dictated. For many women it was also an opportunity to wear and show off their new outfits.

  Once downstairs, Gulshan headed for the room where she knew her husband would be. Gently opening the door she stepped inside the darkness and stood for a moment seeking her husband. What if she had come into a strange man’s room? She breathed a sigh of relief as she glimpsed his bent figure on the prayer-mat. Haroon was saying his isha prayers. He always took his time over it – relaxing and offering his own personal prayers.

  Shuddering, Gulshan tiptoed across the room and stood behind him, waiting. Having completed his prayer sequence, Haroon rose from the prayer-mat, turning in surprise to see his wife’s dark silhouette behind him.

  ‘Is everything OK?’ He spoke in a flat tone.

  ‘I … I …’ Gulshan awkwardly stepped back, ready to flee. She sat on the bed, tongue-tied. Where did one begin? What did one say? What did one do? How did one begin? Her eyes begged for forgiveness, for understanding, and for him to help her by reading her mind and trying to understand why she was there and what she wanted to say.