by Moni Mohsin
‘Hush. Are you mad to scream like that?’ rasped Kaneez.
‘Oh, Amman, it’s only you.’ Rani’s shoulders slumped in relief.
But Kaneez was not listening. She gripped Rani’s arm, dragged her into the room and slammed the door behind them. She flicked on the light and saw the scraps of cloth littering the floor. Rani stood blinking in the light, rubbing her arm absently. Her eyes were swollen and her face still streaked with tears.
‘What is this?’ Kaneez hissed, gesturing to the floor.
‘Nothing,’ mumbled Rani, looking away.
‘Nothing? This is nothing? And I suppose your vomiting is also nothing? Twice I have heard you now. First you blamed it on guavas, and I, blind, trusting fool, believed you. And the sickness and tiredness? How you’ve tricked me! How you must have laughed behind my back! Whose is it?’
‘Whose is w-what?’ stammered Rani.
‘Don’t lie to me, you bitch.’ Kaneez yanked her plait. ‘Answer me! Whose is it?’
‘Nobody’s.’ Rani quavered.
‘Nobody’s? Nobody’s? You dare to tell me that?’ Kaneez stepped back and struck Rani full in the face. Rani fell against the string bed. And then Kaneez was upon her, raining blows on her arms, face, neck, wherever she could reach. Shielding herself with a pillow, Rani cowered in a corner.
‘Amman, please stop,’ she cried. ‘Please, I beg of you. Have mercy, for God’s sake.’
‘Did you have mercy on me, you whore, when you begot this foul child?’ panted Kaneez. ‘Did you stop to think of me, of your mother, of yourself ? Did you?’ she screeched.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Forgive me,’ Rani sobbed.
‘Forgive you?’ Kaneez sank on to the string bed. Suddenly all the fight went out of her. She seemed shrunken and beaten, her hands hanging useless between her knees. ‘How can I forgive you?’ she said bitterly. ‘When you have lied to me and made a fool out of me and humiliated me like you wouldn’t humiliate your worst enemy? You should have put your hands around my throat and squeezed the life out of me. That would have been kinder, quicker.’
‘Don’t say these things.’ Rani raised stricken eyes to her grandmother. ‘I never meant to hurt you. He promised. He promised to marry me. This,’ she thrust a fragment of the sheet at her grandmother, ‘this was my dowry. I worked on it when you were at the haveli. I bought it from the money Tariq Sahib gave me when I passed my exam. I thought I was getting married next week. He said we would. He promised. I’m the one who’s been humiliated and lied to. Oh, I wish I could die.’ With her head pressed against Kaneez’s knee, she wept.
Kaneez’s eyes were glazed, her ears deaf to Rani’s pleas. ‘All my life I’ve been dogged by misfortune,’ she said in a flat voice. ‘Allah took away my husband, then he took my daughter’s. I bowed my head and accepted His will. He then sent me Mashooq. For these last twelve years, since the day I gave your mother to Mashooq, I have known no peace. The only thing I had left was my dignity. And the hope that it would be different for you. But today you have robbed me of both. I have nothing left.’
‘Please don’t say that,’ Rani begged.
Kaneez continued as if Rani had not spoken. ‘Not once since she married has your mother asked me to send you to her, not even for a day. Her eyes starve for the sight of you, but she’d rather endure a hundred beatings than let Mashooq near you. She sends messages whenever she can, asking after you. I never told you because I thought it was best this way. Best that you think that she’s forgotten you. If you had known and wanted to go to her, how could I have stopped you? Here, under Sardar Begum’s protection, I thought you were safe. What will I tell Fatima now? That I have failed her yet again?’ Kaneez’s voice cracked.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ Rani wailed. ‘You haven’t failed her. I have failed her. I didn’t know it could happen like this. I’ve never known a mother, and you’ve always been so cold, so distant. I believed him when he said everything would be all right and he would look after me and make sure I wouldn’t get into trouble. He bought me a red dupatta, and glass bangles, and apricots and toffees. He said nice things to me. He said I was pretty, he made me feel special, like a lady from a rich house. He made me forget myself.’ Rani’s voice lowered to a whisper. ‘I know it was wrong, but I didn’t do it to humiliate you, I did it because … because I trusted him and he made me happy. And when I realized what had happened, I tried to get it … wasted. I went to the nuns in Sabzbagh,’ she mumbled. ‘But they turned me away. They said it was against their religion.
‘And then …’ She took a deep, shuddering breath before continuing. ‘I begged him to help me. He said he would. He said he’d take care of me. He promised to marry me. So I didn’t tell you, thinking that I would be married in a month. You’d have been proud, Amman, to see me married and living in my own home. His people are well off. He said he’d tell his parents and they’d come to you to ask for me, properly, like respectable people do. But I waited and waited and they never came. I went looking for him, to the secret place we used to meet, but I couldn’t find him. He’d disappeared. I was going mad with fear and worry. So, today, when I could think of nothing else, I went to ask at his house. I know it was wrong and shameless of me, but what could I do? They wouldn’t let me in. They drove me away from the door, saying he had gone away to Lahore. For ever. And they said that if I ever showed my face there again, they’d tell everyone that I was trying to pin my sins with other men on him. That I was bad, brazen, shameless. They drove me away, Amman, they drove me away like a stray cat.’
Kaneez sat in silence, listening to Rani’s muffled sobs. When she spoke, her tone was flat, detached, almost as if she was discussing Sardar Begum’s register.
‘Who else knows?’
‘No one. I’ve told no one,’ Rani replied in a thick, nasal voice.
‘How far gone are you?’
‘I’ve missed twice, I think,’ Rani whispered.
‘Who is the father?’
‘What does it matter now? He’s gone.’
‘So you are still protecting him.’
‘I’m not,’ sighed Rani. ‘But I see that it’s no use.’
‘You’re right,’ Kaneez agreed. ‘It’s no use. Nothing is of any use any longer.’ Brushing Rani’s hands off her knees, she trudged to the door. ‘I wish you had never been born,’ she whispered in a hoarse voice. Then she stumbled out into the dark yard.
‘Where are you going?’ Rani called out after her.
Kaneez did not answer. Rani heard the scrape of metal against wood when Kaneez lifted the latch of the yard door. There was a creak as the door swung open. It shut with a bang, and then there was silence. Burying her face in her hands, Rani curled up on the floor again.
By the time Mashooq reached Kalanpur, night had fallen. The five-mile cycle ride in the cold night air had cleared his head. He knew now what he had to do. He would show everyone – all those who jeered at him, insulted him and belittled him – that he was not a man to be taken lightly. The time had come to silence them. The time had come to collect his dues.
Mashooq pulled his thin jacket around him to ward off the creeping cold and parked his bicycle against the outer wall of Sardar Begum’s haveli. It was a moonless night made darker still by a thick fog that had descended in the last hour. The path to the servants’ quarters was narrow and bordered on one side by the wall and the other by a sluggish stream. He cursed Sardar Begum for not installing a light bulb there. Keeping one hand against the wall, he picked his way carefully. The path was slippery. He didn’t remember it being quite so long. Once he slipped on what he suspected was cow dung. Swearing under his breath, he picked himself up and scraped the sole of his shoe against the wall. He looked over his shoulder. There didn’t seem to be anyone about. A goat bleated somewhere. He couldn’t tell if it was close or far away.
He reached the quarters without encountering anyone. The mist was thinner here. There were lights on in one or two of the windows. He hid behind a t
ree trunk, undecided what to do. A figure passed within a few feet of him. Even in the darkness and the fog he could tell it was Kaneez. Her stooping back and shuffling gait were unmistakable. She made for one of the unlit quarters. Mashooq waited until she had opened the door and disappeared inside. Then he followed her.
He pressed his ear against her door. He could hear a peculiar noise from the roofless privy, almost as if someone was gargling. He frowned in concentration. No, it wasn’t gargling. It was more like vomiting. He was about to try the door when he heard the splash of water and then, a moment later, Kaneez’s voice, unusually harsh, asking a question. He didn’t hear what she said for, suddenly, quite close by, a dog barked. Mashooq flinched and pressed himself to the door. Someone shouted at the dog and hurled a stone. There was a dull thud as the stone hit the ground and rolled away. The dog barked again, but half-heartedly, as if it couldn’t really be bothered. Mashooq couldn’t hear very much now. Kaneez had gone into the inner room. He saw a thin slice of light through the crack in the door. He tried pushing at the yard door gently. It opened with a creak. He froze, expecting Kaneez to come out. But no one heard him. He let himself in and shut the door behind him.
He tiptoed across the yard towards the room. Although he knew it was dangerous, he pressed his face against the join of the two doors. He could see a foot, a narrow, shapely foot – which could only be Rani’s – on the floor. Good, at least she was here.
He hadn’t seen her for over a year, when he had come to drop Fatima on one of the rare visits he allowed her to Kalanpur. Rani had been a pretty little thing then, a little on the skinny side. She must have filled out now. Girls grew fast.
Kaneez appeared to be arguing with Rani. He couldn’t make out Rani’s mumbled responses, but Kaneez was shrieking. Pressed against the wall, Mashooq listened intently. He didn’t know how long he stood there. He was too engrossed to feel cold or tired. Once or twice he was tempted to burst in on them. But he held back, biding his time.
Eventually, the door opened. Once again, Kaneez passed within a couple of feet of him. Mashooq withdrew into the shadows, but Kaneez never looked back. Opening the latch, she let herself out. Mashooq waited a few moments and then slipped into the room. Rani lay on the floor with her back to him. She was still sobbing.
14
The Azeems set off for Lahore soon after breakfast the following day. Dark clouds smudged the sun, but there was no trace of the mist from the night before. Fareeda and Tariq sat in the back of the car with Laila between them. Bua was in the front beside Barkat. The car cruised out of the gates, past the mustard fields, the now bald cane fields, the mango orchard, the guava orchard and the convent. Barkat slowed the car down to a crawl as they came to the bazaar. The shops were open and doing brisk business. The narrow street was clogged with traffic. Peasant women sauntered along with their purchases piled on their heads. Entire families of four or five perched precariously on bicycles – the father in the seat, the mother on the back carrier with a baby in her arms and the older child balanced on the cross bar. The Zephyr was the only car on the street. People stared as they passed by.
The bazaar held a special fascination for Laila, for she seldom came here. Her favourite shop was Decent General Merchants. It sold everything from the portable loos that Hester called thunder boxes to prickly-heat powder. Its owner, Chaudhry Mohammed Sadeeq, FA pass, was a corpulent man who always sat on the small veranda fronting his shop, his hairy feet resting on a plastic stool. Rows of conical brassieres, nylon Y-fronts and the horsehair plaits favoured by elderly ladies with thinning hair hung above him from hooks in the ceiling. Mr Sadeeq waved to Tariq as their car passed his shop.
Next to the general merchant was the barber, who serviced his clients on the pavement. A client in a dhoti and singlet sat in a chair. He raised his arm. The barber slapped foam on to his armpit and, quick as a flash, shaved it off with a long curving blade. Then came Tip-Top Tailor. A rusted metal board above his shop read, ‘Top Class Tailors for Top Class Peoples. Come One, Come All.’ Last in this row was the traditional healer, who also conducted his business on the pavement. He sat cross-legged on an empty sack, with the tools of his trade laid out in front. There was a placard behind him with a bold sign in Urdu. ‘Available here,’ it read, ‘miraculous cures for bleeding piles and masculine weakness.’
They passed the fly-infested butcher’s, the grocer, the cobbler, the police station and donkey carts piled high with oranges and guavas. A spicy, buttery aroma of fried samosas filled the car. They were passing the stall that sold them. There wasn’t much point asking Fareeda if they could buy some.
‘Have you seen the flies on them?’ she’d say to Laila. ‘And I’m sure they’re fried in Mobil oil.’
Once they were out of the bazaar, the car gathered speed. They were in open country now, with fields all around. The round, smoking towers of brick kilns cropped up here and there. They passed the sugar mill, with a long queue of tractors piled high with cane waiting by the gates. And then they were on Laila’s favourite bit of the road. It came after the level crossing, a long stretch over which the shisham trees on either side met in an arch above the road. Save for the shafts of sunlight that pierced the canopy now and then, the light under the trees was pale and dim, as if on a lake bed. Laila shut her eyes and waited for the play of mauve and yellow shadows on her eyelids. When the car emerged from the tunnel, Laila was asleep, her head slumped against her mother’s shoulder.
Fareeda tilted Laila’s neck to make her more comfortable.
‘She’s nodded off,’ Tariq observed.
‘She didn’t have much sleep last night,’ explained Fareeda. ‘Far too excited about going to Lahore and rescuing Sara from school. I meant to ask, why did Mashooq come to see you?’
‘He’s been sacked,’ said Tariq. ‘Wanted me to get him reinstated.’
‘Did you?’
‘No. He deserved the sack.’ Briefly, Tariq recounted the events of the day before.
‘What is his problem?’ asked Fareeda in exasperation.
Tariq did not reply. Staring out of the window at the green blur of fields and orchards, he wished, as he had many times in the last decade, that he had done what he could and put a stop to Fatima’s second marriage. For the truth was that he had disliked Mashooq at first sight.
But Tariq had met Mashooq only a few days before the wedding, when Sardar Begum had casually broken the news of the proposed nuptials to him. Suspicious of his mother’s unusual restraint in not divulging the news sooner, Tariq had insisted on meeting Mashooq. Sardar Begum reluctantly acceded to her son’s demand and sent for Mashooq from Dera. A meeting had taken place at her haveli.
Tariq had managed to hide his dismay at Mashooq’s unsavoury appearance. He had questioned him about his job, his background and his plans for the future. Mashooq had answered smoothly, almost glibly. But Tariq had been sceptical of Mashooq’s fluent humility and, sensing her son’s reservations, Sardar Begum had called a halt to Tariq’s probes. Before Tariq could demur, she had sent Mashooq packing on a made-up errand.
Tariq had voiced his objections, but his mother had told him that both Kaneez and she were satisfied with Mashooq’s credentials and that the wedding date had already been fixed for the following week. Sardar Begum vouched that Fatima was happy with the match and had agreed to it readily.
Tariq suspected even then that Mashooq was a canny operator making a calculated move. Fatima was pretty and docile and, between help from Tariq, his mother and the savings that Kaneez had managed to scrape together, was likely to receive a decent dowry. And he was probably well aware of her vulnerability. After the mother and daughter had been vilified so thoroughly by the villagers for losing their husbands early in their marriages, Fatima was unlikely to dump him and march off home.
As Sardar Begum confided in her son a couple of years after the marriage, when she had questioned Mashooq about his background, he had informed her with a sad smile that he had never known his parents.
He had grown up in an orphanage in Karachi. They kept him there till he was a teenager and then kicked him out. He drifted around for some years doing petty jobs – a tea boy in a truck driver’s canteen, a labourer on a construction site, a guard at a school.
But he had wanted to see the world, so when a truck driver offered him a lift to Lahore, he leapt at it. He said he hung around Lahore doing the same sort of jobs. But big cities were expensive and pitiless. He said he dreamt of a stable life with the family that he’d never had. When acquaintances advised him to head for a smaller town where his money would go further, he acted on their advice and once again climbed on to a bus.
The bus disgorged him at Colewallah town. He stayed in Colewallah only a month but didn’t like the squalor. He yearned for the golden fields and shady trees of a village and eventually found Sabzbagh. One day, he arrived at the milk factory, which had just started up, asking for a job. He got it, worked hard and, after a couple of years, settled in Dera, the village where he hoped to bring Fatima.
When Mashooq had proposed for Fatima, Kaneez and Sardar Begum had checked up on him in the usual way. The local matchmakers had never heard of him. Nor had the mullah, even though he officiated at nearly every marriage and funeral within a radius of three miles.
Despite their best efforts, they drew a blank. No one knew him or anyone related to him. It seemed as if he’d just dropped from the sky. But they were in a hurry, and his story was believable. He had kept all the details vague. Karachi was far away. It was difficult to check orphanage records there. He seemed pleasant, spoke little and kept to himself. That was all anyone knew about him then. But if they were unable to dig up any reassuring facts about him, they hadn’t uncovered a shady past either. Still, Kaneez had her doubts. But Sardar Begum talked her out of them.