by Bapsi Sidhwa
It is past midnight and Nikka and Qasim have spent over six hours with the dancer. Qasim’s lids feel unnaturally heavy. His head throbs, racked alternately by waves of blinding desire and the need of sleep. He notices the other men reclining heavily on the cushions, resting their heads against the wall. Their puffy faces are battling a deep drowsiness. “The bastards,” he thinks. “They have doctored our last drink!”
Shahnaz is swaying, undoing slowly her thick plait of hair. Her fingers run down to the tip of each strand, keeping apart the lengthening coils. All undone, the hair falls in three skeins covering one entire side of her body. A deft untangling flick of her head and the heavy silken hair cascades down behind her. The final nudity. Wild, serene, natural as a forest tree at sunset.
Shahnaz stands still. Raising her arms she sways against the long jet mane of hair, throwing her head this way and that until hair froths around her like thick, inky dust.
When her dance resumes it becomes erotic, her movements sensual and brazen. She teases wantonly, secure in the knowledge of her inaccessibility.
Poor Nikka and Qasim. Never having possessed riches, they know not the savor of so rich a toy. Theirs is a world of villages and mountains; of brash wrestlers, privations and primary appetites.
The evening’s entertainment merely titillated the American and his companion, but in Nikka and Qasim it unleashed a primordial frenzy, a ferocious tangle of desires. “God! These bastards put something in our drinks . . . These bastards,” Nikka squirmed, gurgling the words.
They might easily have fallen on the girl, tearing, ripping, and dismembering her to satisfy their anguish.
As it was, Shahnaz backed to the center of the room. She jerked her head forward and her hair splashed on to the floor when she knelt in a final curtsey. She remained bowed. Then, touching her dainty fingers to her forehead, she salaamed several times and—gathering her payals and her scattered clothing—she disappeared through the curtains.
The musicians quietly slipped cloth covers over their instruments and stepped into their moccasins. The rosy haze in the room brightened into a yellow glare. Nikka groped for Qasim. He meant to say, “Come on, the show is over,” but he uttered only inarticulate croaks.
His head lolling back, Qasim stared with glazed eyes. “Let’s get home,” thought Nikka, struggling monumentally to sit up.
The Madam loomed over them with a pile of blankets. “I think you’d better stay the night.”
The American and his friend lay slumped, their heads at uncomfortable angles on the cushions. Qasim’s mouth hung open in sleep. Nikka closed his heavy lids, gratefully surrendering to the Madam’s care. The musicians helped her straighten the limbs of her charges. They covered them with blankets.
At about five o’clock the next morning the groggy men were propelled into two taxis. The fat pimp saw them off, his singlet wet with perspiration even at that hour. The cars wound their way, one behind the other, through the tawdry, now deserted alleys of the sleeping Mandi.
That day, Miriam, who took everything in her stride, quietly assumed charge of Zaitoon.
The girl, stricken by terror, flung herself at Miriam screaming, “Oh, my Abba doesn’t awaken. He is dead!”
Miriam burst into laughter. Hugging the child to her bosom, she soothed her. She took Zaitoon to the room where Nikka lay sprawled on a charpoy. “See?” she chuckled, prodding her inert husband. “See how he sleeps? They are both tired. Soon your father will awaken, dangle you on his lap, and tickle you like this . . .” Laughing, she tickled Zaitoon, and all fears were forgotten.
Qasim and Nikka slept through the day. In the evening, over the tea steaming from his saucer, Qasim asked, “Tell me, how much did you spend in all?”
“About two thousand . . .”
“Two thousand rupees!” exclaimed Qasim incredulously.
“Well, at least now we know how the rich blow their loot!”
Qasim nodded solemnly.
Chapter 9
Nikka came to look forward to assignments that required his particular skills. Patronized by the powerful political group that sought his services, he began to enjoy certain liberties. He was no longer an ordinary citizen.
From the recesses of the underworld right through to the patrolling policemen, everyone knew that Nikka wielded influence. His promises, his opinions, carried weight. Word of his ability to help extended to Qasim. For a fee he interceded with Nikka specially on behalf of tribal petitioners.
The following summer, the Leader summoned Nikka into his august presence. “Tell him to bring along the Pathan as well.”
The interview was discreet. Qasim and Nikka were led through a thickly carpeted corridor, opulent with the gleam of copper and carved mahogany, into a luxurious room. A tall, dark man with a sleekly oiled moustache sat behind a desk. They knew he held most of the power in the land. His bloodshot, heavy-lidded eyes appeared to measure them in the subdued light. He extended his hand. Qasim and Nikka padded nervously through the air-conditioned space scented by tuber-roses and expensive cigars. Stiff with awe, Qasim stood, studying the pattern in the Persian carpet.
With an ease born of generations of gracious living, the leader motioned them to a corner of the study darkened by black leather upholstery. Qasim, who had never sat on anything so soft, sank, he thought, into a cloud. Nikka stammered ingratiatingly, “Yes, my lord, yes, my lord,” to everything the man said, and Qasim, who had never seen him so obsequious, blushed for the two of them.
After what seemed an eternity (but was not more than five minutes in fact) the mighty one supplied the cue for their departure. With a humility that won their hearts, he touched his fingers to his forehead and said, “We are deeply indebted to your loyalty and services. Our cause is just, and you are worthy. God be with you.” Fixing Nikka with grateful eyes, he said, “I wanted to thank you myself.”
Nikka flushed.
“My lord, it is my privilege and honor to serve you always.”
An arm across each of their shoulders, the mighty one led them to the door. “My car will take you home. God be with you.” He embraced each in turn, “And don’t forget. My house and my heart are always open to my friends.”
Flattered, they walked to the waiting car. Nikka was a rooster trying to smooth his puffed feathers. He looked with disdain at the shoddy crowds streaming past the tinted glass of the air-conditioned Cadillac. “I wish the whole of Qila Gujjar Singh were gathered to see us arrive in this,” he whispered.
The chassis swayed in its deep suspension springs. It wafted them over the potholes with the airy ripple of a yacht. By the time they reached Qila Gujjar Singh, Nikka felt he was tottering on a cushion eleven feet high.
Soon followed the fall from grace.
In his new self-importance, Nikka turned insufferably arrogant. To quote a Punjabi proverb, he would not let a fly alight on his nose.
He became a bully. He described graphically to those he wanted to intimidate what he would do to their balls and the chastity of their women. He bought a shop next to his for much less than the going price and expanded his business to include a provision store. He sat solidly on his charpoy outside and lorded it over the alley.
“O, ay, you one-eyed jinx, if I see you bring your solitary eye into our district again, I’ll thrash you,” Nikka threatened once, and sure enough, when he noticed the half-blind man a month later, he chased and thrashed him.
He forced the milkman to take a circuitous route because the jangle of cans suddenly jarred his delicate senses.
He was feared and even the police could not control him. Their reports, though, reached the man in the scented, luxurious room. At first he regarded his protégé’s antics with indulgence. “Leave him alone—the man means no harm.” But the complaints grew urgent, and Nikka’s high-handed conduct ceased to please. The weary black brows atop the bloodshot eyes puckered. “If that’s the case, let’s put him right. To be sure, he has his uses, but rough him up a little. Show him his place . .
.”
His masseur gossiping next to him, Nikka sat upon his sagging charpoy, blocking the pavement. He was in a foul mood. Somehow he sensed trouble. The evening traffic rushed by in a tangle of cycles, tongas, bullock-carts and trucks, squashing the dung on the wide road. Nikka glared at the traffic, his shifting eyes intent on mischief.
In one leap, suddenly he stood plumb in the path of a galloping horse and cart. Trucks came to a screeching stop, tongas reined in, cyclists wobbled to one side, and men on the pavement shifted to the edge. The cart driver yelled, rising and trying to draw his stampeding animal to a halt.
Mouth foaming, head high, the horse towered above Nikka who firmly seized the bridle. The animal’s momentum staggered him, but not letting go, he slipped to one side. With a palm over the scraping wooden wheel and wrenching at the bit, he stopped the beast.
The cart driver glared at Nikka in disbelief;
“What’s wrong with you, you crazy fool! You want to die?”
Nikka held the reins just above the horse’s heaving neck.
“Come on. Get down,” he commanded.
“Why?”
“Because I’ll castrate you for driving recklessly in our district.” Nikka was fiendishly calm.
The driver glanced around into a swarm of inquisitive faces. He raised his whip and struck the horse and Nikka in a panic to charge through. The crowd pushed apart slightly. Cursing furiously, Nikka pulled the man from the cart and struck him.
There was a surprised rustle. Shouts of “Police! Police!” rose hysterically.
Qasim, on his way to work, looked over the heads in amazement. Policemen came running with sticks. Something was amiss. They never interfered in Nikka’s brawls. He shouted, “Watch out, Nikkayooooo! The police are here!”
Nikka, busy with his work, heard Qasim dimly. “So what?” he thought. The battered man was crying piteously. And then, Nikka was wrenched away.
Whirling in a hot rage, he looked in disbelief at the handcuffs clamped on his wrists. The swelling crowd pressed forward.
“Why, what’s this? A joke?” asked Nikka.
“You’re under arrest for assault,” said a policeman he had never seen before. The man pulled him along by a chain while another pushed him into a few bewildered steps forward.
Stung into a sudden realization of his position by this indignity, Nikka roared, “You pimps. You bloody swine. Don’t you know who I am? I am Nikka Pehelwan! Nikka Pehelwan of Qila Gujjar Singh! How dare you . . .”
Ignoring the outburst, the policemen dragged him off the road.
“Where is the S.S.P. Sahib, you bastards, where is my friend?” he screeched, trying to intimidate the policemen by his acquaintance with the Senior Superintendent of Police.
An Inspector, distinguished by a trim, belted coat, stepped forward.
“Come on, Nikka, don’t throw a tantrum. No one’s going to help you. At least keep your dignity.”
Nikka glared at him. “Why you unfaithful dog! Don’t you know whose protection I command? Ask the S.S.P. Sahib . . . he’ll tell you.”
“We’re arresting you on the Superintendent’s orders. Now shut up!”
“The pig’s penis! I’ll have him hanged—all of you,” Nikka roared, slashing about blindly with his manacles.
Screaming threats, delighting the children and the crowd with his colorful invective, he was thrust into a van with wire mesh at the windows and was driven away.
Towards the end of his four-month prison sentence, he requested an audience with the Senior Superintendent of Police. Impressed by reports of Nikka’s exemplary behavior and considering it politic, the officer acceded to the pehelwan’s wish.
The prison square bustled in preparation for the Superintendent’s arrival. Nikka, lined up with the prisoners, stood at the far end of the square. Two whistles shrilled, and a bell drove the prison officials into a further frenzy of pushing the prisoners into line.
The Superintendent strode into the square. Smiling complacently, he walked in a cloud of dust caused by the boots of five prison officials chaperoning him.
He strode pompously, hands and baton behind his back. Scrutinizing the prisoners, shooting random queries, he finally stood before Nikka.
“I understand you wished to see me. Well, what is it, you badmash?”
Nikka studied the Superintendent, his eyes inscrutable.
“My lord, I am a lowly man. I have a request only your grace has power to bestow . . .”
“Yes?”
“I’m afraid, Sir, that you may misunderstand me . . .” Nikka shuffled his feet. A swift glance up and he was satisfied by the impression he had made.
Flattered by the deferential behavior of this notoriously arrogant bully, the Superintendent’s tone became kinder.
“Go on, man, let’s hear what you have to say.”
“My nights in prison, as you know, Sir, are lonely . . .” Nikka appeared to hesitate. “But I’m afraid you may take me amiss . . .”
The Superintendent, scenting mischief, rasped, “You are wasting my time, pehelwan!” He turned to walk away.
“Just a moment, my lord,” Nikka’s voice, of a sudden bold, boomed through the square. “Oh, share my lovelorn prison bed with me. My nights here are so lonely.”
Spontaneous guffaws exploded all over the square.
“Why, you bastard! You shameless swine . . .” The dignitary spluttered, his nostrils flaring. Crazed with fury, he struck Nikka with his baton, and straining mightily for dignity he snarled: “Fifteen lashes! Give him fifteen lashes!”
Nikka was soundly thrashed and his tenure extended by two months. He bore the punishment with gloating fortitude.
The incident, inflated gloriously, made him an instant legend. It was related with gusto in sophisticated drawing rooms, inside the suffocating tangle of the walled city, in Rawalpindi and in Karachi—and when he completed his sentence, Qila Gujjar Singh welcomed back its hero with a warm heart and open arms.
Nikka emerged from prison, his equilibrium recovered. His stay there, he knew, had been a mild reprimand, to teach him his bounds. Soon, political commissions were again entrusted to him, and his influence was fully restored.
Chapter 10
Marriages were the high points in the life of the women. As she grew older Zaitoon became an eager participant in the activity centered around them.
Wedding preparations dragged on for months and the attendant ceremonies for days, and sometimes even weeks. The twilight interiors of the women’s quarters flashed gold and silver braid, orange, turquoise and scarlet satins, as women cut cloth, sewed and embroidered to make the twenty, fifty, or hundred sets of clothes for the bride’s dower. Rose and jasmine itars were tested and indulgently daubed on children. The perfume mingled with the domestic smells. Servants, squatting on floors to feed children, appreciatively eyed the rich colors of fabrics and sets of gold jewelry. The squatting maids moved like indolent crabs, on their haunches, always smiling, happy to indulge the whims of a child if pressed, or the demands of their easygoing mistresses, whose legs or shoulders they were forever massaging.
A month before the wedding the dholaks arrived; sausage-shaped wooden drums with taut skins on either end. Young girls clustered about them, sitting cross-legged, singing ribald ditties, mocking the groom, insulting absent mothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, teasing the bride, and taking turns to beat out the rhythm with both hands. The singing went on late into the night. Towards evening the girls got up, singly or in groups, to dance. Zaitoon was in constant demand and obliged with energetic dances copied from Punjabi films. Jumping and gyrating, making eyes and winking, shaking her shoulders to set her adolescent breasts atremor, she flaunted her young body with guileless abandon. The older women gathered about her, delighted in her innocent exuberance. Her muslin kurta clinging to her, she collapsed at last amidst the girls, smiling at the whoop of laughing “shabashes”—“Well done!”—and applause. Miriam also laughed and, sharing her good humor and sensing her p
ride, Zaitoon’s great black eyes lit up with happiness.
The absence of men permitted an atmosphere of abandon within the zenanna. Occasionally youths and even young men burst in, grinning mischievously. The dancing stopped and they were shooed out in good-natured outrage. Old men were sometimes invited to watch the girls’ antics and participate in the fun.
As the ceremonies started the women of the neighborhood converged on the wedding house. Inside the zenanna they removed their burkhas and revealed their finery; the older women displayed the generosity and worth of their husbands, and the unmarried girls the beauty of their forms and the cunning of their fingers in fashioning embroidery. They admired each others’ jewelry, joined the girls in their singing, and sat about gossiping and consuming huge quantities of pillaus, spinach curries, and sweetened rice flavored with saffron.
After the wedding the burkhas, which hid a multitude of sins, allowed the women to revert to their usual sloppy style of dress. With no men to show off to or compete for, complacent about their husbands’ sexual attentions, they visited one another in their house clothes; none too clean and perhaps torn under the arms. Young girls who did not observe purdah dressed tidily, covering themselves merely with their chad-dars. Qasim, whose kinswomen perhaps were not even aware of such a garment, forbade Zaitoon the use of a burkha. She slipped in and out of her friends’ homes as unobtrusively as she could, her head and torso wrapped in a shawl. Delighting in a simple deception, she would sometimes borrow Miriam’s burkha and, sheathed from head to toe in the tent-like cloak, would walk past him unrecognized.