The Holy Woman

by Shahraz, Qaisra

  After dinner, Zarri Bano decided to take a walk around the plain of Minah with Ruby. They walked amongst the rows of tents, sheltering the pilgrims from the afternoon sun. People were roaming everywhere. Zarri Bano couldn’t believe her eyes when by chance she happened to spot Pakinaz and Ibrahim Musa, walking straight towards them. They, too, were just as amazed and delighted as she was.

  ‘Assalam-Alaikum, Pakinaz and Brother Musa. What a lovely surprise! You are performing hajj this year as well? I can’t believe it!’ she said in English.

  ‘Yes, I cannot believe it either. Our parents are with us – wait until they find out that you are here as well!’ Pakinaz hugged Zarri Bano, kissing her fondly on both her cheeks. Zarri Bano looked at Pakinaz’s white veiled figure with amusement. ‘Strange we didn’t bump into you earlier anywhere else,’ Pakinaz then commented.

  ‘My family is here too,’ Zarri Bano told her. ‘This is my sister Ruby.’

  Greeting Ruby, Ibrahim inclined his dark head towards her.

  Zarri Bano explained to her sister, in Urdu, who these people were and how she had stayed with them in Egypt.

  ‘Oh, how nice. Let’s take them to meet the rest of the family,’ Ruby urged excitedly.

  ‘What a good idea.’ Zarri Bano turned to her family. ‘Would you like to meet my parents? They are in that large tent, with a green star on top – that is our symbol.’

  ‘Yes, we would like that very much,’ Pakinaz replied warmly.

  Habib and Shahzada were delighted to meet the Egyptian brother and sister who had made their daughter so welcome in Cairo. After some refreshments and conversation, Ibrahim stood up to leave excusing himself. Zarri Bano decided to go with him to visit his parents.

  ‘Are you coming too, Pakinaz?’ Zarri Bano enquired. Her eyes, for some reason, had drifted towards Sikander. He had remained totally silent during their visitors’ stay.

  ‘I will follow you in a minute, Sister Zarri Bano. Just let me finish my drink.’

  ‘OK.’ Zarri Bano left the tent and followed Ibrahim Musa.

  Pakinaz drained her cup then looked around and smiled at the four people in the tent.

  ‘I had better get going too,’ she said shyly. ‘It’s lovely to meet you all and to see Zarri Bano again. We missed her dreadfully when she left Cairo. My family really took to her presence. We all did, including my brother Ibrahim. Did she tell you that he asked her to marry him …’

  ‘And what did she say?’ Sikander asked sharply, speaking for the first time, his body coiled like a spring all of a sudden. Ruby turned to look at her husband, her eyes on his face.

  ‘What is she saying, Sikander dear? I cannot understand a word. Don’t keep me and your father-in-law in the dark.’ Shahzada looked from Pakinaz’s innocent face to Sikander’s brooding expression.

  ‘She says, Mother, that the man who has just left the tent wanted to marry your princess of worship, your Shahzadi Ibadat,’ Ruby told her parents.

  Habib and Shahzada stared at one another in surprise.

  ‘But she cannot, she is a Holy Woman,’ Shahzada voiced, smiling awkwardly at their Egyptian guest. ‘Ruby, please ask our visitor what Zarri Bano said when this Ibrahim proposed to her.’

  Ruby translated her mother’s request into English and addressed Pakinaz.

  ‘Oh, she refused him,’ the girl said easily. ‘We were all very sad. We had all wanted Zarri Bano to marry our Ibrahim. My brother took it very badly. He liked her very much and probably still does,’ Pakinaz ended.

  ‘Did Zarri Bano tell your brother,’ Sikander directly addressed Pakinaz in English, ‘that she is a Holy Woman and has renounced marriage?’

  Ruby was surprised by the hostility she glimpsed in her husband’s grey eyes.

  ‘Yes, Zarri Bano did tell us but we didn’t believe her,’ the girl answered pleasantly. ‘We were very disappointed. Sadly my brother is still single. We are trying our very best to get him engaged. This year we have almost succeeded!’ Pakinaz stopped as she saw Sikander stand up and march out of the tent.

  Outside the tent, Sikander stretched his leg muscles which were stiff. He was wearing a long white cotton Arab robe similar to those worn by thousands of other pilgrims.

  People were walking in all directions around the tents. Sikander scanned the scene in front of him until his eyes fell on Zarri Bano’s dark veiled head. She was standing just a few yards away, near a rock, talking to the tall bearded Egyptian in Arabic.

  Sikander’s grey eyes glinted coldly in the sunshine. The Egyptian had said that he was going to take her to meet his parents, yet here they both were having a cosy tête-à-tête. Even in profile Sikander could see that Zarri Bano’s lips were curved into a smile as she chatted to her friend. The Egyptian was looking down at her and smiling. From where Sikander stood, their exchange had all the trappings of a very intimate scene between a man and a woman.

  Jealous rage burst through his body. His mouth in a tight line, Sikander strode angrily up to Zarri Bano’s side. His tall shadow fell ominously across the pair in the hot afternoon sun.

  Zarri Bano turned, the smile still hovering on her lips and her dimple clearly visible, Sikander noted bitterly. Ibrahim Musa also turned, reading instantly the look in Sikander’s eyes and recognising the raw male energy behind the clear message: Keep Off. Ibrahim cast a questioning glance at Zarri Bano.

  The smile deserted Zarri Bano’s flushed cheeks. In front of her stood two men, both of whom had once proposed marriage to her. She had never anticipated seeing them together in one place and at the same time. Her dimple disappeared. She looked from one man’s face to the other, before mentally distancing herself from both. The look in Sikander’s eyes made her feel guilty, all of a sudden – as if she had done something wrong. He had somehow sullied the pleasant moment with his presence and the accusing look in his eyes. The urge to explain herself grew strong.

  ‘Brother Ibrahim,’ she blurted out in English, deliberately laying the emphasis on the word Brother, so that both men noted her use of it and knew where they stood, ‘Brother Ibrahim was just telling me that he is getting engaged to Selima when he returns to Egypt. I have met Selima, she is a very nice woman. I was congratulating him.’

  ‘Congratulations, Brother Musa. Mubarak.’ Sikander politely extended his hand to Ibrahim, his eyes still cool although his words tried to express warmth.

  ‘Thank you. Shall we go to our tent? It is just over there. Would you like to join us, Brother Sikander?’ Ibrahim Musa politely suggested, leading the way.

  Sikander joined them, albeit reluctantly, and was introduced to Ibrahim’s family. They stayed there for nearly two hours. In that time Pakinaz had joined them. They talked about Egypt and the time they had spent together. Not saying much, Sikander listened politely, sitting beside Zarri Bano on the floor cushions in the tent. To the rest of the group, he distinctly gave the impression that he was Zarri Bano’s mehram, her male escort.

  Walking back together in silence towards their tent, Sikander quietly tossed at her: ‘Pakinaz told us earlier that that Musa man wanted to marry you.’

  Zarri Bano stopped walking. ‘I … Did she? She had no right.’

  ‘Why not? And why did you refuse him?’ he pressed, his voice dangerously low.

  ‘Brother Sikander! As you well know, I cannot marry nor do I wish to marry any man – that is why!’ she reminded him hotly, a blush seeping through her cheeks.

  ‘Ruby tells me that your father has released you from that oath,’ Sikander doggedly cut in, still not looking at her.

  Zarri Bano stood still on one side of a portable chemist cabin, ignoring the queue of pilgrims buying medicine. Sikander stopped too. Their bodies taut, they faced each other. She scrutinised his face, blinking in surprise at his combative stare.

  ‘I don’t know what Ruby or Pakinaz has told you. The fact remains that I am a Holy Woman and do not wish to marry anyone. It is offensive of you even to suggest it or to make an issue of it.’ Her own eyes were now icy cold.


  ‘It didn’t look very offensive to me when you were having your cosy little tête-à-tête with that unsuitable fellow.’ Sikander shocked both himself and Zarri Bano by the words that leaped viciously out of his mouth.

  ‘Brother Sikander!’ Zarri Bano was scandalised. ‘How dare you insult me. What has come over you? What is it to you anyway?’ she taunted, her stare matching his in hostility.

  ‘You dare to ask me that!’ he hissed under his breath. Leaning forward, oblivious to the human throng milling around them, he ground out: ‘I am the man you jilted, Zarri Bano – in case you have forgotten. That is what the matter is with me.’ He grabbed hold of her arm and shook her, hard. ‘As your ex-fiancé it is natural I should be interested in your love life!’

  ‘Get your hands off me!’ Zarri Bano nearly screamed into his face. ‘Don’t you dare touch me! I will not listen to any more of your madness. I think that the afternoon sun has got to you. You do not know what you are saying or doing. A love life – me? How dare you insult me so!’

  He dropped her arm as if it burned him. ‘Do you think I enjoyed watching you making eyes at him?’ he said passionately. ‘Him! A man who any fool can see is still in love with you, not as a holy sister but as a woman.’ Sikander was quivering with suppressed emotion, his body all a-tremble.

  ‘Stop right there!’ Zarri Bano’s tall, slim frame behind her burqa also trembled – but with rage. ‘You have trespassed all barriers of decency, Sikander Sahib! I didn’t imagine that you could stoop so low. I am a Holy Woman, in case you have forgotten. A woman who has renounced marriage and one who has no interest in worldly relationships, let alone with men and love!’ She spat the word as if it was acid burning her tongue.

  Then she took a deep breath and said more calmly ‘I will forgive you this time, Brother Sikander, but do not ever, ever, talk to me on this topic again! You have no hold over me, any more than Ibrahim Musa does, that stranger from another country. Except, of course, that you are my brother-in-law. Husband of my beloved sister and father of my beloved nephew. We have nothing between us, Sikander,’ she said painfully. ‘We never had. No other links – save platonic ones. Our past that you delight in referring to and the woman you thought you knew are both buried six feet deep in my brother’s grave.’ At the thought of Jafar, tears came into her eyes and she swallowed hard. ‘We are performing hajj here, Brother Sikander. It is a holy pilgrimage, supposedly taking us on to an elevated plane. Do not thus debase our holy spiritual journey with your base insults and innuendoes and sick imagination.’ Anger reawakened in her.

  ‘Furthermore, I do not need you walking by my side. You are not my chaperone, my father is. You are Ruby’s husband and that is where you should be – by her side, not by mine! You are with the wrong sister, Brother Sikander! The wrong woman, in fact!’ Then gathering her black robe around her body and pulling the hood lower over her forehead, she strode away from him, her head held high.

  As the pilgrims walked around Sikander, some still carrying trays of meat to their tents, he watched Zarri Bano disappear, fighting an insatiable urge to grab hold of her and wring her slim neck. Somehow she always brought out the worst in him! He let out a long, slow breath. Needing to take a walk around the camp he set off, only returning much later to their tent.

  During the evening mealtime, Zarri Bano and Sikander didn’t exchange a single word or look but resolutely maintained a stony silence towards one another. Zarri Bano had managed to erect an almost tangible barrier between them. Resignedly Sikander let her. Apparently, as she had said the past was indeed buried and the woman he knew with it. He recalled the evening on the beach collecting seashells in Karachi. ‘When was that? Where has that carefree girl gone? Did that joyful occasion ever take place?’ Sikander sadly asked himself as he looked at the woman who steadfastly refused to acknowledge his presence in the tent although she was lying on a rug only a foot away. He was vexed for betraying and making an utter fool of himself.

  Pakinaz, Ibrahim Musa and his parents came to visit Zarri Bano’s parents later in the evening, but Sikander left the tent soon after they arrived.

  Chapter 44

  ON THE MORNING of the last day of hajj, a mood of melancholy and nostalgia hung over Minah, compelling some pilgrims to wonder whether they were destined to return to the plain again in their lifetime or if it was to be their last visit.

  The sun beat heavily on the shaved heads of the male pilgrims as they threw pebbles at the Devil’s site for the last time. In Zarri Bano’s party, Sikander volunteered to throw pebbles for everyone. In the human mass of pilgrims congregating around a small site, it sometimes turned out to be a contest of the fittest and the sturdiest being able to survive the crush.

  By the late morning, pilgrims and their guides had begun to gather their belongings together and to dismantle their tents. Ahead of them, they all had one important hajj schedule: to go to Mecca to the Holy Kaba, to pay their respects. Zarri Bano had visited Pakinaz’s family early in the morning and exchanged phone numbers and addresses of their respective hotels in Mecca.

  Coaches, buses and cars crawled along the road to Mecca. The highway was a hive of activity, with horns blaring away all day. On reaching the city, Habib’s party went first to their hotel to freshen up and to deposit their belongings before they departed for the Holy Mosque. In the Holy Kaba they joined the throng of pilgrims in the long corridors and the large square courtyard of the mosque, to perform their final devotion.

  Entering via the doorway known as ‘Bab Ibrahim’, their eyes met a spectacular sight. The courtyard was swollen with pilgrims. With not half a foot apart, the hajjis clustered around the Al-Kaba like a swarm of bees, the chanting sound and rhythm of their prayers resounding around the mosque.

  Habib told his family to perform umrah, starting first with the safa-marwa, by walking up and down the long corridor seven times. After this ritual they rested together in the balconied corridor and watched the other pilgrims walking around the holy Kaba seven times.

  ‘Mother,’ Zarri Bano suggested, ‘I think you should perform your Tawaf-e-Ziarat in the upper corridors. It will be less crowded and much cooler up there, although obviously it will take you longer.’

  ‘Yes, I think I will do what you suggest,’ Shahzada told her gratefully. ‘Just look at that crowd! What about your father?’

  ‘Oh don’t be silly, I will be fine.’ Habib shrugged disdainfully.

  ‘But that crowd, Habib Sahib – how are you all going to get in? Don’t, for goodness sake, try to kiss the Hajar-e-Aswad, the holy black stone today, Zarri Bano and Ruby.’

  ‘No, we won’t attempt it. Not today, Mother.’ Ruby pulled at her father’s arm. ‘Come on, Father, let’s go in.’

  Ruby stepped down the white alabaster marble steps and advanced eagerly towards the crowd of pilgrims. Habib took hold of her hand. Zarri Bano, too, stepped down, closely followed by Sikander. He didn’t touch her or hold her hand but stood directly behind her, shielding her from the crowds with his arms. They then joined the tawaf circumbulation, reciting surahs from the Holy Quran as they walked around the black square building that was draped in a beautiful, new, gold cloth, embroidered with surahs from the Holy Quran, lovingly hand-stitched by hundreds of women each year.

  Shahzada watched her family anxiously, standing against a marble pillar for a few seconds before turning to go up to the second floor to perform her own umrah where it would be less crowded.

  ‘Are you all right, Sister Zarri Bano?’ Sikander murmured into her neck, his arms held out protectively on both sides of her, preventing her from being jostled by other men.

  It was the first exchange between them since their bitter outburst in Minah. Pushed from behind, Sikander grasped hold of Zarri Bano’s arm and held onto it tightly. Drawing closer to him, she accepted his protection knowing that it was for her own safety.

  Being very tall, Sikander kept a close watch also on Habib and Ruby. They were three rows ahead of them. Turning, Ruby caugh
t her husband’s eye and smiled. He smiled back, his eyes crinkling at the corners with pleasure.

  As Ruby turned back, a nightmare began to unfold as one pilgrim suffered a heart attack and fell to the ground. Those immediately around the man, including his wife, tried to pull him up but they, too, stumbled in their turn and fell on top of him. Panic spread through the crowd like a flame. People struggled to flee and found themselves trapped in the crowd unable to go anywhere.

  Zarri Bano was thrust forward, away from Sikander’s side. His arm snaked out to reach her, but already three pilgrims divided them. Before his horrified eyes he saw her disappear from sight. Then he found himself tripping over the bent figure of an older Turkish woman. He grabbed her arm and pulled her up. Panic-stricken, she smiled her thanks – her lips trembling badly.

  Helplessly carried along with the crowd, Zarri Bano fought against her terror and tried to stay calm. A young, strong Nigerian woman fell against her chest, crushing her lungs. Unable to breathe and with the instinct to survive uppermost in her mind, Zarri Bano pushed her aside with all her strength. The woman’s face now pressed against Zarri Bano’s. ‘Please!’ Zarri Bano shouted in Arabic, and the woman, using her elbows, managed to heave aside the Indonesian man who was wedged against both of them. Finding a small space between the pilgrims, Zarri Bano cautiously eased herself away from the congested area. Those around her were dispersing in all directions. The cries and screams tore at her soul.

  Clinging to a pillar, Zarri Bano anxiously scanned the faces and heads of the pilgrims she saw below, hoping they belonged to her loved ones. Standing on tiptoe, and afraid of tumbling down, she leaned over to look. ‘They should be here! Where are they?’ she screamed out loud.

  Miraculously, before her eyes, she saw Sikander. She would recognise that head anywhere! He was still stuck amongst the crowd of rioting pilgrims. ‘Sikander!’ Zarri Bano found herself shouting, tears of relief pouring down her cheeks.