A Beggar at the Gate

by Thalassa Ali

  He glanced again toward the Vulture's tent. “Mr. Clerk has offered to accompany us to the Shaikh's house tomorrow. Although he did not need to make us wait a full week for our meeting with the Shaikh, I shall be glad of his assistance. He is experienced with upper-class natives, and will, I am sure, be most useful in explaining our position.”

  Mariana stared over the garden wall. A smoky haze in the western sky hinted at the presence of the busy city of Lahore, and the comfortable old haveli inside its walls where the Shaikh and his family waited for her.

  This was to be her last night with Saboor.

  * * *

  THE FOLLOWING morning, she tugged nervously at her boots. Within an hour she, her uncle, the Vulture, and an armed escort would set off to inform Shaikh Waliullah of the divorce.

  The day had not begun well. First, Charles Mott, who had claimed illness and fever for the previous three days due to a severely infected finger, had appeared in the dining room for breakfast. Instead of ignoring her, he had offered her repellent, exaggerated politeness.

  “No, thank you,” she had replied icily, avoiding his begging eyes after he complimented her unnecessarily on her blooming health and suggested she borrow his horse-grooms when she went for her daily ride. “I never take servants out with me, and in any case, I shall not be riding today.”

  She sighed as she tightened her bootlaces. As if that were not enough, Dittoo had burst into sudden tears half an hour later, while dusting her bedside table.

  “What will become of me after you and Saboor Baba return to your husband in the city?” he wailed. “Where will I go?”

  While Saboor ran to offer him comfort, catching at his calloused hands, Mariana had glanced away from Dittoo's damp, tragic face, ashamed at having concealed the truth from both of them for so long, wondering how to tell them.

  “Stop crying, Dittoo,” she snapped, unable to say the words aloud. “No one is sending you away. You will serve me as you always have.”

  “But how can that be?” He stopped dusting the table and stood, his cheeks wet, Saboor's small hand in his. “How can I serve you after you have gone to live at—”

  “Enough, Dittoo,” she added, and pushed past him out of the tent.

  It was only later, while a shy young groom walked Saboor up and down under the trees on one of the mares, that she had told Dittoo the truth.

  “I am not going to stay with Saboor at Qamar Haveli,” she had revealed, blurting out the words. “I am going to dissolve my marriage, leave Saboor with his family, and then go on to Afghanistan with my uncle and aunt.”

  “But you must not do such a terrible thing.” His face had filled with dismay. “If you leave your husband and his family, if you leave Saboor, you will be all alone!”

  After his shocked protest, he had left her to watch the groom and the mare with Saboor on her back as they walked carefully along the margin of the central pool, their figures reflected brokenly in the rippling water.

  Saboor now waited outside her tent, bathed and ready. Told that he would soon see his father, he had danced with excitement. For all his prescience at other times, he seemed not to have guessed that the price of regaining his home and family was to lose her forever.

  She pushed the tiny buttons of her gown rapidly through their loops. It would be best for him to live at Qamar Haveli, of course it would. That venerable house was full of his own people, many of them children who had fussed adoringly over him when he was last there, taking turns carrying him up and down, shrieking with pleasure as they dragged him across the floor, their small hands under his arms.

  He would forget her in time

  “Lavender's blue, diddle diddle,

  Lavender's green.

  When I am king, diddle diddle,

  You shall be queen….”

  An hour later Mariana sat up stiffly against the hard pillows in her palanquin, singing one of Saboor's bedtime songs, more to comfort herself than to entertain him.

  After only one stanza, she fell silent. It was no use; he was too excited to listen.

  “An-nah, open the side! I want to look out!” he cried, clambering over her in the cramped box, his elbow digging into her middle, his animated face inches from hers.

  Outside, the bearers panted rhythmically as they ran, the sound of their breathing joined by the clopping of horses’ hooves: Uncle Adrian's, the Vulture's, and those of two officers of the armed guard. They seemed to be covering the three miles to the walled city at an unnatural speed, but it was only Mariana's dread of arrival that made it seem so.

  Pushing down her sadness, she fumbled with the side panel and let Saboor put his head out through the opening.

  Uncle Adrian believed the Waliullahs would be loath to part with her. “Remember, Mariana,” he had told her as they waited for her palanquin, “that the Shaikh may be very reluctant to give up a European daughter-in-law. As Mr. Clerk and I are experienced with natives and know exactly what to say, I advise you to remain silent. Do not interfere in any way with our negotiations.”

  As they approached the walled city, she pulled Saboor inside and closed the panel against the stares of the men on the road, as remembered smells of cooking spices, sewage, and bitter charcoal floated into the palanquin.

  “I'm going to see my Abba!” Saboor crowed as they passed under the Delhi Gate and into the crowded alleyways of the city.

  While he bounced on Mariana's lap, she listened to the cries of hawkers and the voice of her sirdar bearer ordering passersby out of the way. “Move out, move out!” he called as the palanquin moved slowly along, its sides scraping against the edges of buildings and the bodies of pack animals.

  The crowd thinned and the palanquin slowed. Mariana heard the sound of great doors thudding open, and horses’ hooves echoing in an entranceway.

  They had arrived.

  A short while later she heard a gate creaking open. She did not need to look out to know that they were now in the Shaikh's courtyard. Was the Shaikh waiting for them in the sunlight on his padded platform, surrounded by his usual silent crowd of followers?

  No, of course not. The meeting would be held indoors. Knowing she was coming, the Shaikh would have arranged for her to be shielded from the eyes of men.

  “Saboor has come,” said a voice. “Yes, he has come,” agreed another.

  No one mentioned her.

  The palanquin stopped. Saboor had started up before it was safely on the ground. “Hurry, An-nah. I want to get down!”

  Mariana looked out. A temporary-looking canvas wall blocked her view of the neat courtyard where, two years earlier, the Shaikh had cured a showily dressed snakebite victim, then interviewed her in the starlight. Above her head, silent filigreed balconies looked down upon the courtyard and the palanquin in its temporary enclosure. Was Safiya Sultana, the Shaikh's poet sister, watching from behind the latticework shutters, while other ladies crowded about her, craning to see?

  “A-jao, Saboor,” male voices called enticingly from behind the canvas. “Come to us!”

  Before she knew it, Saboor had scrambled over her lap and onto the ground. An instant later, he rounded the canvas screen and was gone.

  It was too late to embrace him, too late to say good-bye. Before Mariana had time to cry out, her uncle appeared at her side.

  “We must hurry,” he urged. “The Shaikh is inside.” He helped her to her feet, took her firmly by the elbow, and steered her toward the open doorway, tightening his grip when she turned, searching desperately over her shoulder for a last glimpse of Saboor.

  Tribal rugs covered the floor of the cool, whitewashed room. Large bolsters in brightly embroidered covers lay along the walls. Three upright chairs stood together. At the room's end, in front of a filigreed window, the Shaikh rose to meet his guests.

  He was exactly as Mariana remembered him: a wiry man with a wrinkled, animated face, whose tall, starched headdress rose above jutting ears. His gaze, as before, held a magnetic, suppressed power.

 
His feet were bare. Belatedly, she remembered that they should have left their shoes outside the door.

  “As-salaam-o-aleikum, may peace be upon you.” The Shaikh gestured amicably toward the chairs, then seated himself on his dais, his feet close to his body, his clothes falling into graceful folds. Mariana sat, arranged her skirts, and pushed wandering curls under her bonnet. The Shaikh had not asked which of the two men was Mariana's uncle, but she had no doubt that he already knew.

  “Welcome to this house,” he said in polite Urdu. “I trust your journey was not too difficult?”

  His words were informal, as if meant for family members. Mariana glanced at her uncle and saw he had noticed the same thing.

  “Our journey was quite pleasant,” Uncle Adrian replied gravely in his excellent Urdu, “and little Saboor seems to have enjoyed it. The child has been looking forward to meeting you and the rest of your family again, after all this time.”

  The Shaikh inclined his head.

  “But we have not come solely to meet you, Shaikh Sahib, although it has given us great pleasure to do so,” Uncle Adrian continued. “Other considerations have brought us to Lahore. We have come to ask for your indulgence in the matter of my niece.”

  Why did Saboor not come to her? Mariana half-listened to her uncle, her senses tuned to the sounds in the courtyard.

  “We have come to request that the marriage between your son Hassan and my niece Mariana be terminated.”

  “Terminated?” Mariana could almost hear the Shaikh's eyebrows rise.

  But where was Saboor? Surely this was not the end. Surely she would see him again, if only to say good-bye

  “We understand,” the Vulture interpolated smoothly, “that all the requirements of the marriage have not been met. We therefore ask for the dissolution of the contract, not the marriage itself, since, technically, there is no marriage.”

  Mariana froze. How mortifying that the Vulture knew her story….

  “And, may I know,” the Shaikh inquired, “the reason for this request?”

  Uncle Adrian cleared his throat. “My niece is English. Her life and her expectations are those of an Englishwoman. She entered this marriage hastily two years ago, without consulting us, and she now faces the prospect of living as a native lady in a style that is quite foreign to her. I am certain that your family must have had similar feelings. Surely,” he added, “you would prefer your son to marry among his own people?”

  This part of his speech accomplished, Uncle Adrian relaxed his grip on the arm of his upright chair.

  Qamar Haveli was indeed foreign, Mariana thought, with its strange food, strange languages, no riding and no picnics, but none of that mattered to her now….

  A sound came from outside. Silhouetted against the light, a small figure peered into the room. “An-nah?” he called.

  She was halfway out of her chair before her uncle's fingers closed firmly on her wrist.

  “My niece is not suited to the life of the zenana, ” Uncle Adrian continued, pulling her down again. “We believe it is in the interest of your family as well as ours that she leave quietly and without hindrance.”

  But the Shaikh had ceased to listen. A hand upraised, he turned to Mariana. “And what,” he inquired, skewering her with his gaze as Saboor pattered away, “does the lady Mariam have to say? Does she, too, wish to dissolve her marriage to my son?”

  Mariana blinked, hearing his version of her name. The Shaikh's gaze, deep and knowing, brought back their first encounter two years earlier when, as tired as she was, she had wanted to stay beside him forever in that dark, shadowed courtyard. He had read her thoughts so easily that night

  She would never see him again after her divorce, nor would she see his twin sister, the philosopher-poet who had attracted her so strongly two years earlier, and whom she had longed to embrace during her last moments in this house. Never, she realized, had she been so powerfully drawn to anyone as she had been drawn to these two. They had attracted her imagination and her heart as the flame attracts the moth. Yet once she was divorced, Qamar Haveli and everyone in it would be as inaccessible to her as Heaven itself. Her beloved Saboor and his stranger father, the Shaikh and his sister would all disappear from her life, and with them, the elusive something that had called to her, siren-like, throughout her stay in Calcutta.

  Your path lies to the northwest, the man had told her at the Charak Puja ten months before. You must return there to find your destiny.

  Uncle Adrian nodded encouragingly. The Vulture stared impatiently out through the doorway.

  “Speak, Bibi,” commanded the Shaikh.

  Go on,” urged Uncle Adrian. “I do not know, Shaikh Sahib,” Mariana whispered, unable to stop herself. “I do not know.”

  Uncle Adrian started painfully, as if she had stabbed him in the back. The Vulture snorted in disgust.

  What had she done? “I'm sorry, Uncle Adrian,” she murmured, reaching out to touch her uncle. “It's just that I—”

  “Little fool!” snapped the Vulture. “You've played right into his hands!”

  An invisible man laughed beyond the canvas screen.

  “So,” the Shaikh observed as he adjusted the shawl on his shoulders, “Mariam Bibi is uncertain of her opinion.”

  “Of course she is uncertain, Shaikh Sahib.” The Vulture smiled thinly. “She is a woman. We all know how capricious—”

  “Yes, she is a woman,” put in the Shaikh. His voice took on an instructive tone. “Among Muslims, a woman must decide for herself regarding her marriage, and, if necessary, her divorce. Since the dissolution of marriage is a very serious matter, if a woman wants to divorce her husband, she must say so herself.”

  There was something immovable about the way he sat on his dais, his eyes fixed on his guests. Mariana stiffened beneath the Vulture's furious gaze.

  Uncle Adrian stirred uncomfortably. “We had, of course, consulted my niece before we came here. I don't understand how—”

  “I should add,” the Shaikh continued, “that our offer of marriage was made after much consideration. Mariam's bride gift has already been arranged. She now owns a house near the Delhi Gate. It has a yellow door. We will show it to you. Her jewelry is with my sister.”

  They had given her property? Mariana watched Uncle Adrian and the Vulture exchange an astonished glance.

  “We have no intention of keeping your gifts,” returned the Vulture rudely. “We must not let him think he can buy the girl,” he murmured in English.

  The Shaikh turned to Uncle Adrian. “You suggest that Mariam will suffer among my family ladies. You should know that those ladies love and respect her, and that they have longed for her return since the day she left us.”

  “Shaikh Sahib,” Uncle Adrian put in effortfully, “we have no doubt that your family is kindly disposed toward my niece. It is just that we feel she should remain with her own people.”

  The Shaikh inclined his head, causing his starched headdress to tip toward them. “Lamb Sahib, you have stated your opinion, as I have stated mine. But the question of divorce is not ours to decide. If Mariam is, in fact, determined to divorce my son, they must decide together what is to be done. It is fortunate that Hassan is in Lahore,” he concluded, waving a hand toward the courtyard. “He arrived only this morning to celebrate the return of his wife and son. He will meet with Mariam in a moment, but first I will tell you a story. It is intended for Mariam, but I believe you gentlemen may find it interesting.”

  Out of the Shaikh's sight, Mr. Clerk's foot began to vibrate beneath his chair. Uncle Adrian took out a handkerchief and mopped his face.

  “In his shop,” the Shaikh began unhurriedly, “a jeweler sat before two heaps of semiprecious stones, picking stones from one heap and dropping them, one by one, onto the other.

  “ ‘What are you doing?’ asked a passing friend.

  “ ‘I am sorting through my stones,’ replied the jeweler, ‘to make certain that there is no precious gem in the lot.’

  �
��When the friend passed by again, he saw that the jeweler was now picking the same stones from the second heap and dropping them back onto the first.

  “ ‘What are you doing now?’ asked the friend.

  “ ‘I was careless in my sorting,’ replied the jeweler, ‘and missed a lovely emerald. I have now gone back to find it.’

  “ ‘Ah, you are looking for an emerald,’ said the friend. ‘That explains why you have thrown away a diamond.’ ”

  The Shaikh did not look at Mariana, but she felt his attention on her, reading her thoughts, uncovering her secret hopes of Harry Fitzgerald.

  “And now,” he said, gesturing toward the doorway, “if you gentlemen will come with me, I will bring you to my visitors’ room for green tea. Mariam Bibi may remain here to wait for my son. It is best, is it not, for husband and wife to make this decision alone?”

  “Now see the damage you have caused,” the Vulture hissed as he passed Mariana on his way to the door.

  “You little fool!” Uncle Adrian's voice was thick with anger. “You should never have shown the strength of your feelings for Saboor. You have given the Shaikh precisely what he wants, and now you must face his son alone. Whatever you do, you must not blunder again, Mariana. Say as little as possible, and stick to your argument.”

  Left alone, Mariana looked about the chilly, whitewashed room. Now, at the last moment, she understood what she wanted. She must somehow dissolve her marriage to Hassan without losing Saboor or his tantalizing family.

  It should not be difficult to persuade Hassan to divorce her, provided that his pride that she was European did not complicate matters. But surely he would see the benefit of marriage to one of his own women, someone who understood his habits, who would be satisfied to spend her life in the upstairs ladies’ quarters of his house.

  But would he allow her to visit Qamar Haveli after their divorce? She must find a way to embrace Saboor again, to sit once more in the presence of the Shaikh, to lean on a bolster on the floor of the ladies’ sitting room and study the calm power that radiated from Safiya Sultana. She sighed. They were all of a piece this fascinating trio: the prescient Saboor, his magnetic grandfather, Safiya herself….