Washerwoman's Dream

by Hilarie Lindsay

  ‘Thirteen, but some were girls.’

  ‘Has your wife been faithful to you?’

  He nodded, then scowled when Winifred said, ‘In the name of Allah I command you to take care of your first wife. She had served you well. It is your duty to give her shelter and feed and clothe her for the rest of her days.’ She wondered whether he would take notice and added, ‘It is written in the Koran.’ She called on the headman to see that her judgement was carried out and made the old man swear on the holy book.

  Winifred had become tired and disillusioned, wondering what they had achieved. The plight of the women made her angry but there was nothing she could do to change it. She began to think about her children and how soon she could return home, remembering how peaceful it had been as she sat with them watching the night sky and listening to the owl hooping in the date palms.

  Her mood lifted as they got closer to the mountains that had loomed on the horizon for days. The closest she had been to a mountain was the MacDonnell Ranges in Alice Springs, which were pygmies compared to this giant mountain range with its covering of snow that dominated the landscape.

  She stood at sunset and watched the dark shadows fall over the valleys and crevasses, while the snow on the peaks took on a deep apricot tinge, until that faded to leave pinpoints of light like candles in the sky. Even after the sun went down she was conscious of the mountains like a living presence.

  It was cooler in the foothills and greener underfoot. Winifred gave a cry of joy when she saw violets and other spring flowers blooming under the trees. She stooped to gather a bunch, then screamed as one of the yaks leaned over her shoulder and ate the flowers out of her hand.

  The bey laughed. ‘You have made a friend,’ he said as Winifred wiped her hand on her skirt to remove the creature’s dribble. ‘He will probably adopt you as his mother.’

  She regained her composure and laughed with him. Then she threw her arms wide and breathed in deeply. ‘This is a beautiful place. I did not expect to find English spring flowers in India.’

  ‘Perhaps it is Indian flowers that have found their way to England,’ he said.

  She realised he was laughing at her and she laughed back.

  ‘There are things here you will never see in England.’ He waved his arm towards a stand of dark pink rhododendrons in flower. ‘Is that not something to make your heart beat faster? Like a living flame. When I think of England, I think of grey skies and people scurrying along with red noses, their breath coming out like smoke.’

  She did not reply. He had taken her back to London and the smog, the chill in winter and the rats scrabbling over the roof at night, the dying man in the room below. She raised her eyes to the mountains. They were capped with snow and above the sky was a brilliant blue with a drift of white clouds.

  ‘The abode of snow,’ the bey said. ‘To Hindus the home of the gods. It is easy to believe.’

  ‘Does anything live there?’

  ‘On the peaks? No, I do not think it would be possible. The air is so thin. And yet, see?’ He pointed to a bird flying high above the peaks.

  ‘What do they live on?’

  ‘There are goats and sheep. Sometimes one ventures too high and dies. Birds feed on the corpse. And there is the snow leopard. I have never seen one. They are hunted for their skins. There are bears also. We must be careful. They live on berries and fruits. Sometimes they attack animals.’

  ‘You have been here before?’

  ‘Bombay is too hot in summer. Those who can afford it come to the mountains.’

  Winifred thought about his words as she followed the men along the path, making slow progress as her yak stopped to lick the lichen off a tree or bend to snuffle up a clump of primroses. There were oak trees and deodars and a tangle of vines with purple flowers where monkeys jumped from tree to tree, pausing to stare as the small party mounted on yaks lumbered past. The bey had wealth and position. He could afford to leave the heat and smells of Bombay whenever he fancied. Yet millions of others were trapped. She had been told it was their karma, a fate ordained because of some wrongdoing in a past life. That is why the rich could live the way they did while all around them the poor died of hunger. And yet the bey was a good man. Otherwise he would not have travelled so far to help the sick. There was much she did not understand. She thought, ‘No matter how long I live here, there are things I will never understand.’

  They often heard the weird cry of the jackal and knew that an animal had been killed and the jackals were in for their share. The bearers would point to the sky and she would see the vultures circling. The bey would say, ‘Keep close. There could be a tiger,’ and he would check his rifle to make sure it was loaded. He was a good shot and could bring down an antelope to provide fresh meat when they wanted a change from wild goat, which often tasted rank, particularly if it was a billygoat.

  * * *

  Winifred and the bey were sitting together after their evening meal. Dr John had gone to check his medical supplies and write up his notes. Ayesha was sitting apart with the bearers. The bey threw a log on the fire, sending a shower of sparks into the air, then turned to Winifred. ‘Your children will be proud of you,’ he said.

  Winifred looked at him. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because of the way you have managed on this trip. It has not been easy and you have been shocked by the things you have seen.’

  She sat for a while without answering. Then she turned to him. ‘It is the children. Why do they have so many?’

  ‘They know no other way. Often it is the only comfort that a man and a woman have, when they come together.’

  She thought about his words. She had been bound to Ali by desire. But what if you were married to a man you did not love, as she had been married off to Charles. ‘But these are arranged marriages. Young girls are given away,’ she said.

  ‘Love comes later … my own wife was chosen for me.’

  ‘That is different. Those women behind the curtains, how can they live happy lives when they see only their husbands, brothers and sons?’

  ‘It is a matter of education. We are trying to establish village schools where girls can learn to read and write. Then perhaps their husbands will treat them as equals.’

  ‘Dr John has told me of girl children who are left to die.’

  ‘It happens. The mother-in-law takes the child away and feeds it poisonous berries. The mother never sees the child again. There is no joy when a girl child is born. It is a matter of economics. Boys can work in the fields. They can plough, carry heavy loads. It is the son who cares for his parents in their old age. When he brings home his bride it is her job to give the family sons. There is a blessing used at weddings: may you be the mother of a hundred sons.’

  ‘I value my daughters equally with my sons,’ Winifred said.

  ‘It is only the poor who cannot afford to keep their girls. Girls need a dowry to be married. Often the poor have nothing but some simple tools, a cooking pot and the clothes they stand up in. A man has his dhoti and, if he is lucky, a shirt. A woman has one sari. Something to wear on their feet would be a luxury beyond their wildest dreams.’ He leaned closer to the fire. A chill breeze was blowing from the mountains.

  ‘They do not own the land they till. They work it, and instead of paying rent, work for the headman of the village and give him a share of their crop. Sometimes even he is bound to the prince who is the real owner. If a headman is good he will care for the peasants who are on the estate. If he is not then they will suffer and may even be put off their land.

  ‘They lose not only the land but a mulberry tree or a lemon or pomegranate tree which the wife has planted and nurtured from a seed or cutting. Sometimes they never get to taste their own fruit but have to sell it.’

  Winifred had a sudden memory of the plum tree she had nurtured so many years ago. Charles had taken the money. She had put her children to work to drive away the birds and pick the fruit. She had loved her children … her lost children and
a feeling of sadness engulfed her. She had put them from her mind and now they had risen up to haunt her.

  ‘It has upset you, Hadjana, the poverty, the suffering.’

  She shook her head, unable to tell him the truth, that it had stirred bitter memories, memories she had buried deep.

  ‘Have you seen how the children smile when Dr John produces a handful of sweetmeats? How they play games? These people are not unhappy. They have an acceptance of life and do not complain. That is all any of us can do.’

  He leaned across, took her right hand in his and kissed it, then placed it on his forehead and heart before releasing it. ‘When you return to your own country, think only of the good things you have seen.’

  He was gazing at her, a gentle, kindly look in his dark eyes. It was a look she had sometimes seen in Ali’s eyes and she felt as if her heart was turning over. She wanted to put out her hand and stroke his beard. Instead she rose to her feet and with a whispered ‘Goodnight’ began to walk to her tent. She could feel her heart racing. It had been so long since she had felt a man’s arms around her. The bey’s likeness to Ali had thrown her off guard. And yet she knew she meant nothing to him. He was just being kind.

  Ayesha was waiting for her and had laid out her nightgown. ‘Is there anything you need, mem-sahib?’

  Winifred shook her head. ‘Are you happy, Ayesha?’ she asked.

  The girl stared at her, puzzled.

  ‘Your life? Does it make you happy?’

  ‘I have never thought about it.’

  ‘But what will you do with it?’

  ‘I will get married and have children.’

  ‘May you be the mother of a hundred sons,’ Winifred said and Ayesha smiled.

  Winifred lay awake for a long time trying to visualise the faces of her children. She could see Yusef, Rhamat and Pansy quite clearly and wondered if they were missing her. She had been so caught up in what she was doing that they had almost gone from her mind. She tried to think back to the children of her first marriage and realised with a shock that they were no longer children but adults and would be out in the world, struggling to make their own way as she had had to do. It had been a struggle, yet nothing like the struggle of the poor in India. She thought she had suffered poverty but it had not been so. She was seeing it for the first time.

  * * *

  ‘Cow-dust hour, when the world prepares for the coming of night,’ the bey said. He was sitting with Winifred and John da Silva, watching the last rays of the setting sun gleaming on the high peaks.

  ‘Cow-dust hour,’ Winifred repeated. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘Have you not noticed how the cows come ambling home in a cloud of dust, as the sun begins to set?’

  Winifred’s mind went back to Evergreen, the Stegers’ farm. She could see the cows waiting for the gate to be let down so that they could make their way to the milking shed in the afternoon. ‘I have lived on a dairy farm. The cows walked through a paddock with long grass.’ No one had ever called it cow-dust hour. That time when the sun dipped low. She had watched it sink into the sea as a child and imagined that the water put out the sun. ‘You stupid child. How can the sun go into the water?’ her mother had scoffed.

  She wondered if there was more poetry in India than in other places she had been. There were the sacred cows. She had never thought of the cows at Evergreen as sacred. And yet without them there would have been no milk, no butter, no cheese. She could see the soft curds in butter-muslin bags, the whey dripping into a pan, and the round cheeses wrapped in cheesecloth and stored in the pantry to ripen. Beside them hung row upon row of sausages. All made by Mutter Barbara. There was poetry there, though she had never thought of it like that before. Then there were the village women she had seen working in the fields here, carrying water, giving birth. They were like Mutter Barbara. Perhaps it was only men like the bey who had time to see the poetry that surrounded them.

  The party had slowed down by now, travelling only five miles a day. Winifred found the change of pace easier. She was able to rest more, she had time to write, and time to walk among the deodars and pine trees that flourished higher up, her feet sinking into the layer of pine needles that covered the ground. It was much colder, the temperature dropping almost to freezing at night. She had exchanged her skirts and jacket for a shalwar kameez, hand-woven from goats’ wool by one of the village women, with a matching blanket to throw around her head and shoulders as they sat by the camp fire. They were heading towards Peshawar, the British end of the Khyber Pass, and hundreds of refugees were streaming from Kabul. Some passed by silently, carrying all their possessions in bundles on their heads. Others stopped at their camp, talking to Harish as they sat with the bearers sharing a meal. Sometimes it was a group of men, other times a family with young children. Winifred would tell Ayesha to bring the women and children to her tent where she would talk to them. If they were ill she would send the girl to fetch Dr John so that he could examine them. Winifred would bring them food, watching with joy the smiles that flickered across the pinched faces of the children when they were given a chapatti, a handful of warm millet and a bone to pick.

  Once a woman asked them to help a child she had been carrying in a sling. When Winifred lifted the small boy to the ground she could see he was already dead, though the body was not yet cold. The next day Winifred stood with her arms around the mother, weeping with her while the child’s body, wrapped in clean calico, was lowered into a hole the bearers had dug in a soft patch of earth under a larch tree. As the dirt was shovelled in, the mother sank to her knees sobbing. A small branch of a tree, stripped of leaves, was driven into the ground at the head of the grave and Winifred fastened her puggaree to it.

  Later, she took the woman to her tent and put her to rest in her own bed while she sat beside her, wrapped in her blanket, weeping silently, thinking of her own children back in Bombay. Later she heard wolves howling and was glad that the men had rolled large stones onto the grave so that wild animals could not despoil it.

  The next day the woman and her husband continued their journey. It had been their first child. As the husband led his wife away, the woman looked back over her shoulder to where the white scarf fluttered in the wind. She seemed reluctant to leave, until her husband took her by the arm and they disappeared around a bend in the road.

  It was from Harish that they had the first news of conditions in Kabul. ‘So far there has been no fighting in the streets. But the mood of the people has changed. First they welcomed Baccha Sakao, the bandit king who seized the throne. It was the mullahs who turned a blind eye and drove Amanullah from the capital. But things are worse. Baccha Sakao is a barbarian. He has brought terror to the capital … people are fleeing.’

  ‘Where will they go?’ Winifred asked.

  ‘To the villages. Until it is safe to return home. Many have relatives on this side. It has been a good season. There is plenty of grain.’

  After Harish had returned to his own fire, the bey leaned closer and whispered, ‘Harish has found out that Amanullah has retreated to the Khyber Pass with a few loyal troops. How long they can hold out I do not know. Most of Amanullah’s troops deserted when Baccha Sakao, who now calls himself King Habibullah, took over.’ He gazed into the fire and sighed, ‘There will be famine. It is always the poor who suffer. Persia has closed her borders and Russia is waiting like a giant boa constrictor to swallow Afghanistan and parts of India as well.’

  Winifred pulled her blanket closer. There was a chill wind from the snow-clad mountains and a dank smell from the damp undergrowth. A koel was calling from somewhere in the dark like a lost soul. It was a black night and as they huddled by the fire, the flames lit up their faces and the black cliff face that towered above. Below lay a sheer drop to the valley floor. Winifred could hear the yaks moving restlessly. The voices of the bearers and the refugees drifted on the night air.

  ‘There are tales of atrocities,’ the bey said. ‘A young soldier has been brutally executed. It s
eems that the usurper king had helped in the abduction of the man’s wife. He sent the young man to the front line hoping he would be killed. He deserted and fired at Baccha Sakao when he was praying in the mosque.’

  ‘What happened?’ Winifred asked.

  ‘It was a futile gesture. The young soldier was arrested.’ The bey touched Winifred on the arm to reassure her. ‘What I am going to tell you may upset you. But you need to know the type of adversary we are dealing with. It is for your own safety, so that you do not take any risks.’

  Winifred could feel a knot tightening in her stomach.

  ‘Baccha Sakao took a terrible revenge.’ He looked at John da Silva. ‘You are a doctor. You know that these things go on. The young husband was tied to a post, and his nose, his ears and his fingers were amputated. And then … and then … It is almost too awful to contemplate. He was thrown into a vat of boiling oil.’

  Winifred listened in horror. She had craved adventure. Instead there had been days and weeks of hardship, with sickness and death wherever she looked. Just when she had begun to enjoy the respite in the mountains, she was confronted by the flood of refugees suffering from hunger and disease. She wondered how she could have been so misguided as to think the trip would be easy. It had been hard on the hadj but she had been with Karum Bux. Now, even though she was with friends, she felt alone. The death of the child and the mother’s grief had distressed her. The fire was dying and the night was full of shadows. She found herself weeping and drew her blanket over her face to hide her tears. Uttering a muffled ‘Goodnight’ she made her way to her tent.

  She lay there unable to sleep. She heard the bey calling goodnight to John da Silva as they retired. Later a wind sprang up, whipping around the tent. Above the sound she could hear the incessant calling of the koel. The brain-fever bird, the bey had called it. She tried to blot it from her mind, willing herself to go to sleep. But her mind was a crazy jumble of thoughts. She found herself thinking of her first marriage, wondering why her love for Charles had turned to hate. She could feel the bitterness flooding her mind and thought back to her first meeting with Ali, and the joy she had felt when Yusef was born. She would have been content to stay in one place if Ali had been by her side. But he had been taken. His body lay somewhere in India. Where, she had never been able to find out. She knew that if she could sit by his grave it would ease the pain. Then it occurred to her that she could ask the bey. He would know what to do. And, thinking that, she fell asleep.