The Holy Woman

by Shahraz, Qaisra

  Chapter 12

  FATIMA RETURNED TO the village, laden with boxes of goods and with much pomp and ceremony, in Habib Khan’s black Audi car. There were groceries, clothes, and other items that could only be purchased in the town’s boutiques, including presents for her three daughters. Shahzada had personally helped Fatima to pack everything and then later had waved her off.

  ‘We will miss you, Fatima. But please stay at home for at least a week – you owe it to your family. Try to sort out Firdaus’s rishta this time. If you need me I will come and help you find an eligible young man for your most eligible of daughters!’

  Fatima had simply beamed with pleasure at her mistress’s words. She was a good, kind and generous employer. ‘Thank you, Chaudharani Sahiba!’ she called from the car window.

  Driving through the open cobbled streets of her home village, Fatima saw some of her friends and her heart swelled with pride as she watched them staring curiously at the shiny black car, and begin to follow it.

  The car stopped first outside Baba Siraj Din’s house. Fatima always followed the ritual of greeting him and calling on him first, whenever she returned to the village. As the buzurg, the village elder, he also enjoyed the position of the highest-ranking inhabitant. Siraj Din, however, wasn’t at home this morning. She was informed by his manservant that he was out in the fields, taking a walk.

  Fatima dutifully climbed back into the car and headed for Kaniz’s territory, the other section of the village. Delighting in driving past Khawar’s family home, she prayed that the almighty Chaudharani Kaniz would be looking out from her high chamber balcony of her room on the second floor.

  Peering out of the car window, Fatima stealthily glanced up at the shuttered window of Kaniz’s room. When she saw a woman’s face appear Fatima decided to get out. She imperiously ordered Ali to stop. Her loud voice was intended to be heard, not only by those people in the street, but also by those listening from behind the scenes. ‘Ali! Please take all of my parcels to my home,’ she said grandly. There are ten of them. I will just visit my friend Rani, before I go home. Afterwards, my daughters will not let me step out of the house,’ she ended with a laugh.

  Swishing her new black cashmere chador over her shoulders, Fatima entered the house directly opposite Kaniz’s home, her cheeks plumped out with laughter. Fatima was enjoying herself immensely. She was ninety-nine per cent sure that Kaniz was still watching her, for she could almost feel her sharp, eagle eyes boring warm holes into her back.

  The lady in question swept away from the window and banged it shut, causing the wooden shutters to rattle on their hinges. She knew full well she had played directly into Fatima’s hands by looking out. ‘What is the world coming to?’ Kaniz snorted in disgust. ‘A washerwoman barking orders to another servant, and riding in an Audi car! How vulgar she sounded. “Ten parcels”,’ she mimicked. As if it mattered to anyone here how many bars of Lux soap and Colgate toothpaste she had brought from the city for her daughters. ‘The parcels probably contain cast-off clothes from Chaudharani Shahzada’s daughters anyway,’ Kaniz sniffed bitchily to herself.

  ‘Mother and daughter are different in personality, yet they share one distinct trait: they are both proud beyond their status,’ Kaniz decided. Firdaus, however, was a lot worse than her mother. Just because she had managed to get herself educated and taught in a school, there now appeared to be no end to her airs and graces – the self-important young madam! She expected the whole village to pay homage to her as if she, and not Kaniz, was a chaudharani!

  Kaniz’s worst secret fear and ultimate nightmare, which sent cold shudders crawling through her body, was that Firdaus would somehow end up trapping her beloved son into marriage. She had distinctly heard through the village grapevine that Firdaus had said there was no one suitable for her here – the sly, double-dealing little witch! In Kaniz’s opinion, Firdaus had had her eyes on Khawar ever since she was a twelve-year old, peering down doe-eyed at him from the rooftop of her home.

  ‘What do they take me for? Do they really think I am stupid enough to allow a washerwoman’s daughter to be foisted onto my only son, the heir to acres of land? Never!’

  Fatima could gather all the parcels in the world, ride in rows of shiny cars into the village; her daughter could become a university professor, for all she cared, but it still wouldn’t remove the stigma of Fatima’s menial job. Some things never change! No money or achievements could alter certain realities, or purchase an unblemished lineage and background.

  Kaniz laughed in the mirror, examining her rows of neat white teeth, before brushing and chiselling them with the muswak stick, and later with sak which stained her lips red. As she peered closer in the mirror, she saw to her horror a small chaiei – a brown mark forming just under her left eye on her very fair cheek.

  Kaniz’s eyes widened. This was a bigger problem than Firdaus and her scheming mother. For no blemishes were ever allowed to mark her face – she had always made sure of that. The mirror was probably playing tricks on her. She picked up the small hand mirror from the wooden dresser, and decided to go up on to the top balcony, to have a better look in the open sunlight.

  Chapter 13

  FIRDAUS AND HER two sisters saw their mother some two hours later, long after Ali had deposited her parcels and headed back for the town. Highly indignant and with their tempers frayed, they waited impatiently.

  ‘She should put her family first, instead of gadding about visiting her friends.’ They all agreed with Salma on this issue. But then, that was their mother – a law unto herself, accountable to nobody!

  Their father, too, was waiting patiently on his bed in the pasar. He hadn’t seen Fatima for nearly two months. His daughters had changed his clothes and bedding, and performed a last-minute rush of tidying up the whole house for their mother’s arrival. She always looked around critically. Salma, the second daughter, had already fried some fresh fish – a favourite dish, she knew, of her mother’s. Accompanying that was the dessert – karai halwa.

  At last the wooden gate of their home creaked open and Fatima’s bulky figure burst forth, her arms outstretched to her daughters in joy. Immediately Salma ran into her mother’s arms, followed closely by Fazeelet, the youngest daughter and finally Firdaus.

  ‘You should have taken your time, Mother dear. We could have waited another month,’ Firdaus teased, laughing in her mother’s sheepish face as she embraced her warmly.

  ‘Come on, girls. You know that I just had to say “hello” to my friends on the way. Well, here I am, and you have got me for two full weeks. How are you all?’

  They led her into the pasar, to their father. With the window shutters open Fiaz had avidly drunk in the picture of his daughters’ welcome, in delight. His gaunt face creased into a smile, the lines of age prematurely criss-crossing his face. It was good to have Fatima home. The next few days would indeed be exciting. ‘It is a strange world,’ he mused sadly to himself, ‘for a husband to wait patiently for his wife to come home from work. Normally it would be the husband coming back from the fields, or the city or from abroad.’

  Fiaz harboured no bitterness in his heart towards his wife. On the contrary, he had learnt to accept his lot philosophically. If it wasn’t for Fatima’s work in Habib Khan’s family home, how would he and his young family have survived when he had lost one of his legs?

  Fiaz could still recall vividly to this day the raw pain and the terrifying shock of waking up in hospital to discover that his right leg had been amputated. His eyes closed, automatically blocking out the memory of an event which had played havoc with their kismet and his destiny.

  After ploughing in his field he was taking his two bullocks back to the farmyard, when one of them suddenly turned round, making Fiaz lose his grip on the harness, stumble and fall. In those few seconds, his worst nightmare was enacted as he felt the weight of the bullock’s hooves trample on his legs. Then everything had blissfully blacked out for him.

  During the following month,
having lost the use of his other leg, too, Fiaz was faced with the heart-rending need to sell his bullocks and his portion of land, and to borrow money from his neighbours to pay for the medical bills. Neither his family nor Fatima’s were in a position to help them.

  Out of sheer desperation, and faced with the dire need of feeding her four small children, Fatima had swallowed her pride and approached the big house for work. Employed immediately, she helped Siraj Din’s eldest daughter-in-law, Shahzada, to bring up her three young children, as well as lending a hand in running the large family home. To do this, however, Fatima had to abandon her own children at home with her husband, appealing to her neighbour Naimat Bibi, the village cook, to keep an eye on them for her. Dry-eyed on the outside, inside she wept for her young children left alone without their mother. ‘I have no choice. It is either that or no food in their mouths,’ she cried to herself as she hugged them to her chest at night-time.

  When Habib moved his family to the city, Fatima moved with them, albeit reluctantly. Acutely aware of what it entailed for Fatima and her family, Habib and Shahzada had asked her to bring them with her, but Fiaz wouldn’t hear of it. They in turn showed their appreciation by their generosity. They paid for her children’s school fees and their books, and her husband’s medicine, as well as giving her a generous salary, a large portion of which she stacked away in the bank.

  When their mother moved to the city with the Khan family, twelve-year-old Firdaus took on her small shoulders the full responsibility of running the household, looking after her sick father and her two younger sisters and brother Sarfaraz. Habib’s home in the city was too far for Fatima to return on a daily basis. Eventually her visits had dwindled to twice a week.

  As the years sped by, Fatima’s children got used to living without her. It was her money, however, that had sent Sarfaraz to Dubai and Firdaus to an illustrious teaching college, and Salma to study for two years at a sewing college in the city. Now Fatima’s goal in life was to amass thousands of lakhs of rupees for her three daughters’ dowries. It was a hard pill for Fiaz’s male pride to swallow. He, the traditional male breadwinner, had been forced by fate to become a dependent and simultaneously had lost his wife too.

  Over the years he noticed a change in her. She had become very attached to Habib Khan’s children, especially Zarri Bano, almost as if they were her own. Her tastes too had moved very much ‘upmarket’. Living in the lap of luxury in the Khans’ palatial dwelling, Fatima found everything in her own home in the village both gauche and shabby and very much on the small side. Although she didn’t make an issue of it, her family knew how she felt from the way she spoke and looked around at everything.

  In the first few years, she found the transition between the lifestyle of her employers and that of her own home in the village unsettling. For instance, she was now used to the constant air conditioning in every room of Habib’s home, including in the kitchen. Fatima thus, on return, felt hot and bothered in her own small kitchen. Apart from the fact that there were no modern units gracing the wall and she had to squat on the floor to do her cooking, there was only one ceiling fan. ‘That fan is useless,’ Fatima told her daughters exasperatedly, while fanning her flushed face vigorously with a piece of hard cardboard. ‘All it does is throw more hot air in our faces!’

  ‘You have become spoilt, Mother dear, with all that air conditioning in the town,’ Salma replied tartly.

  ‘You are right, girls. The life in Shahzada’s house has sadly rubbed itself off on me. I am indeed spoilt. Fancy a mother becoming more spoilt than her own educated daughters,’ she chuckled, banging another buttered chapatti on the flat frying pan.

  ‘How are you, my dear?’ Fiaz asked, when Fatima greeted him and sat down in the chair next to his bed. Feeling as if she was a stranger – an errant wife, to be precise, who had abandoned her home and family – she just hoped that he understood and forgave her. Somehow, she always felt guilt-ridden whenever she returned home.

  ‘I am fine. How are you?’ The words came in a rush from her mouth. ‘I am so sorry for taking so long to return this time. I have been phoning Firdaus regularly at the school to make sure that you were all right. I am a terrible wife, Fiaz Sahib, I know. Forgive me, but you do understand, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I do, my dear. You are not a terrible wife – you know that. We have missed you, of course, but we know that you were needed there. Never feel guilty, Fatima. If it wasn’t for you, where would we all be? I sometimes feel guilty. You should have married Sarwar, then you would never have been in such a situation.’

  ‘Shush, Fiaz Sahib! Don’t be silly. I married you, not Sarwar. This was my kismet. You are a good husband and so understanding. I have only worked, Fiaz Sahib, because I want to give Firdaus a grand dowry. I do not want her to pay from her own pocket – my pride will not let me do that! She can help towards her younger sisters’, but I insist on preparing for hers. Here, let me massage your leg for you.’

  She sat down at the foot of the bed and began to knead the wasted muscles of her husband’s calf. Fiaz lay back on the bolster and closed his eyes, savouring the feel of her hands. He looked forward to this daily ritual for the next few days.

  Chapter 14

  HALF AN HOUR later, the couple were interrupted by the sound of Kulsoom’s rich booming voice and the jangling sound of over two dozen multi-coloured glass bangles on her bony arms. The village matchmaker had arrived, apparently having lost very little time upon hearing that ‘Fatima Jee’ was back in the village, for Fatima’s four extremely eligible children represented an excellent business proposition for Kulsoom.

  The initial greetings and exchanges of social niceties quickly dispensed with, Kulsoom and Fatima neatly switched to the subject uppermost in both their minds.

  ‘Now – have you found a suitable rishta for my Firdaus, Kulsoom Jee?’ Fatima began eagerly.

  ‘I have.’ Leaning forward, Kulsoom cast a gleeful glance at Fatima. ‘Two, in fact.’

  ‘Oh, that is good!’ Fatima was now all eyes and ears. Sitting up in her chair she too leaned forward. ‘Tell me about them,’ she prompted.

  ‘One rishta is in the neighbouring village. The boy is good-looking and a graduate – B. Com or something. His family are well off. They have a two-storey house with six bedrooms, built on fourteen merlas of land. And guess what? They only have two other children. They are elder daughters, both of whom are married and settled far away.’

  ‘I see.’ Fatima let the information sink into her brain. So, the boy was an only son – excellent! Her daughter would have no other sister-in-laws, and the house would become theirs eventually. And her Firdaus would become the reigning queen in that household.

  ‘What about his parents?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘The father is dead. There is only a mother, and she is such a sweet, gentle soul. I don’t think you could ask for a better mother-in-law than this woman for your daughter, Fatima Jee. I know of some vipers … you can guess who I mean, don’t you?’ Kulsoom winked at Fatima, aware of Firdaus’s presence in the courtyard outside. She could both hear and see them from the open window. Leaning forward, Fatima closed one of the window’s wooden shutters.

  ‘I see,’ Fatima uttered, lost in thought once more. This family appealed to her; she wouldn’t let them slip through her fingers. It was a very attractive package and she wanted to get cracking on it before it was too late. God knew how many other mothers had their eagle eyes on this boy and his family. He lived in the neighbouring village, so her daughter wouldn’t be travelling too far either. That was a mighty big plus in their favour.

  Coming to a quick decision, Fatima put her hand in her tunic and, from the neckline, fished out her small purse. Unzipping it, she took out a 500-rupee note and handed it ceremoniously to Kulsoom.

  ‘Here, Sister Kulsoom, I think we might be interested in this boy and his family. I am giving you this as a reward for your research and to ask a favour that you keep this rishta a secret and not barter it a
t a higher price to any of our neighbours or other clients of yours. If I find you have whispered a word about it to anyone else, I will wipe my hands of you and enlist the help of another matchmaker. I will not let you anywhere near my children or those of any of my friends again. Is that understood, Kulsoom Jee?’ Fatima gave the matchmaker the benefit of a hard stare.

  ‘Oh, come on, Fatima Jee, you can trust me. I will not breathe a word of this to anybody until everything has been finalised to your satisfaction. You should know me better.’ All affronted, Kulsoom hastened to reassure her favourite client.

  ‘Now tell me about the second rishta.’ Her mind now totally at ease, Fatima relaxed back in her seat again. With three daughters to marry off, she had to explore as many avenues as possible.

  ‘The second one is in the town. You know my popularity,’ Kulsoom boasted, her large round face split into a self-satisfied smile. ‘I have good connections with other matchmakers, you see, in other towns and villages. The only trouble with this rishta, I am afraid, is that the boy comes from a large family. He is the eldest son, and there are five daughters – all unmarried, all of them younger than him as well as the other two brothers.’

  ‘Stop right there! Don’t say any more, Kulsoom Jee. I don’t think we’ll be interested in this family.’ The vision of her daughter embroiled and ensconced in a large household with so many sister-in-laws and brother-in-laws and with so many dowries to arrange, had Fatima creasing her forehead in distaste. Having given away precious years of her life working in someone else’s home in order to raise and educate her daughters, Fatima wasn’t going to waste it all by planting any of her daughters in the household of a large family. Her girls were cut out for much better things.

  ‘Kulsoom, what about her? You know who I mean!’ Fatima hissed, raising her eyebrows in a conspiratorial fashion, hoping that the matchmaker understood. She didn’t want Firdaus to hear what they were discussing. ‘Has she found a rishta for her son? I know you are working for her too. Do not cross me on that one, Kulsoom. You must keep me abreast with what is going on there. If I find that you have kept something from me …’ Fatima’s voice trailed off, her stare hardening again.