by Moni Mohsin
Laila nodded. In a low voice, she said, ‘Good.’
Despite her inner voice advising caution, Fareeda blurted out, ‘Why “good”?’
As if explaining something elementary to a child, Laila replied, ‘Because I would never again be able to come here if they had.’
‘I miss her too, you know. I wish she were alive.’
Laila spun around. ‘Then why didn’t you save her?’ she spat. Her hands were balled into fists by her sides. ‘Why didn’t you find her?’
‘I couldn’t,’ Fareeda cried. ‘By the time I found out she was missing, she was already dead.’ Then, taking a deep breath, she added in a lower voice, ‘It wasn’t as if she was hiding somewhere, waiting to be found. The night she left Kaneez’s house, that very same night Rani was beat …’ Fareeda bit her lip and looked away. ‘Rani had a terrible accident, and died the next day. It happened while we were still in Lahore. By the time we got back, she was already dead.’
‘She had an accident?’ Laila echoed. ‘She didn’t kill herself?’
‘No, she didn’t kill herself,’ replied Fareeda, meeting her gaze squarely, relieved that at least in this she didn’t have to lie. ‘Why did you think she’d killed herself?’
‘Because of Heer,’ whispered Laila. ‘Heer from Heer Ranjha. She wanted to be like Heer, you see, and she even told me that as long as she had fun beforehand, she wouldn’t mind dying. Everybody, she said, had to die some time. And then, then I thought.’ She stopped and continued with some effort. ‘I thought that perhaps she’d found out that I’d told her secret to you and to punish me she ran away and killed herself,’ she said, staring at her feet. ‘That’s why I was hoping you’d find her, so I could tell her, so I c-could ex-explain … and say s-sorry.’ Two fat tears rolled down her cheeks.
Fareeda gathered Laila up in her arms. Laila did not pull away. They stood locked together on the canal bank. A cool breeze rippled over the water and sighed through the bulrushes. A lone parrot watched them from a thorny branch above. Eventually, Laila stirred against her mother, and Fareeda reluctantly released her. Laila rubbed the back of her hand across her nose, and Fareeda realized that her own face was also wet.
‘Here.’ Carefully she tore a tissue in half, and offered one piece to Laila. Mother and daughter both blew their noses together.
‘Laila?’ Fareeda’s ragged voice had a hint of entreaty to it. ‘Laila, there’s something I want to tell you. Will you listen to me, please? Because I think it’s important that you should know this. Here, sit down next to me.’ Fareeda drew Laila away from the water’s edge and on to a slight, grass-covered rise on the bank. Laila drew her legs up and placed her chin on her raised knees. She sat apart, her face in profile to Fareeda.
‘As you know, better than anyone else, Rani was a very special person,’ Fareeda began. ‘She was talented and pretty and loving and funny but, most important of all, she was spirited. She wanted to see the world, try new things, have adventures, explore, be free.’
‘She longed to go to Lahore, to see all the shops, wear golden shoes …’ Laila recalled. ‘Even Rubina Cinema she liked so much, Ammi. She had a shirt made especially like Heer’s.’
‘Did she?’ Fareeda smiled. ‘Rani was different to her mother. She wasn’t meek and submissive like Fatima. And she certainly didn’t want a life like hers. I think,’ Fareeda’s voice dropped to a murmur as she reflected aloud, ‘Had Rani ever been in Fatima’s place, she would have left him the first time he struck her. She wouldn’t have stayed. No,’ Fareeda shook her head decisively, ‘I can’t see her submitting month after month, year upon year …’ Conscious of her daughter’s puzzled gaze, Fareeda collected herself. ‘Rani was different,’ she said. ‘She wanted to lead a life of her own choosing. And she wanted to be free to make that choice.’
‘What choice?’ queried Laila.
‘In this case, the choice of a friend. She told you about her secret friend, didn’t she?’
‘She did. She said he was handsome and kind and good. I think he made her happy, because every time she spoke about him, she’d get a big sunny smile on her face.’
‘But you know, don’t you, that she took a big risk in making that friend and in meeting him in secret? She knew that if she were found out, she’d be in trouble. Kaneez would never have forgiven her. Even your grandmother would have been furious. She could have been removed from her school, beaten, even forcibly married off. But Rani thought it was a risk worth taking, because if she hadn’t, she would never have known the pleasure of that friendship. Your friend was brave, Lailu. Although she had no protector, no support, she went ahead and did what she had to. I want you to remember this one thing.’ Fareeda reached out and, taking Laila gently by the chin, turned her face towards her. ‘Rani’s life may have been short – and, at the very end, brutal – but in that short life, she managed, in very difficult circumstances, to snatch some real happiness. So we may grieve for her and miss her, but we must also be very proud of her.’
As Fareeda’s voice lapsed into silence, she felt a sudden sense of lightness, as if an immense vulture perched on her shoulder had suddenly flapped its black wings and flown off. Up until that moment she had thought of Rani’s life as a tragic waste. Fareeda was accustomed to measuring success and failure of any one life by its concrete accomplishment. Tariq’s success was his factory, Sardar Begum’s her bumper crops, Yasmeen’s her model home. But now she realized with a jolt that, for some, the audacity to dream was a feat in itself. Rani’s struggle was her achievement.
Laila touched Fareeda’s arm. ‘Sister Clementine said that Rani was dirty and that she’d go to hell, but Babu Jacob told me that Rani’s soul was pure. He said she was innocent and good and God would welcome her. She was a good person, wasn’t she, Ammi?’
‘The best. The very best,’ whispered Fareeda, covering Laila’s small hand with her own. She did not ask Laila when Babu Jacob or indeed Sister Clementine had spoken to her. There would be time enough for that. As there would be for the many questions that her daughters would no doubt ask her about Rani as they grew older and understood more.
They sat there in companionable silence, listening to the lap of water and the buzz of a solitary dragonfly. Their reverie was disturbed by the loud toot of a car. Across the canal, the Zephyr was jolting along the dirt road. Half hanging out of the back-seat window was Sara, waving madly at them.
‘Look! It’s them. They’re on their way back.’
‘So it is,’ said Fareeda, rising to her feet and brushing dust off her clothes. ‘Shall we go back to the house and find out how they got on?’
Thrusting her hands in her pockets, Laila also stood up and took a step towards her mother. But, as if suddenly recalling something, she stopped.
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘There’s something I have to do first.’
She turned back to the bank, where there was a small gap between two stands of elephant grass. Edging in between them, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the amber horse. Just yesterday Bua had found it lying under her bed. Now, Laila gazed at it one last time, memorizing the taut neck, the flicked-back ears, the delicate, outstretched legs. Gingerly, she stepped out on to the lip of land where the rushing water was just inches from her feet, raised her arm and flung the horse into its brown, swirling depths. The horse rose in a graceful arc, landed with a tiny splash and disappeared.
She watched the canal for a while. Then, sighing, she slid her hands into her empty pockets and walked back to where Fareeda awaited her.
‘It’s over,’ she said simply. ‘We can go home now.’
Epilogue
So, you see, I remember. I remember it all. The war, the defeat. Rani. How can I ever forget Rani? My friend, my mentor, my partner. I’ve tried to make myself forget. God knows I’ve tried. But I can’t.
I was fifteen when I learnt the truth – exactly the same age Rani had been when she died. It was the anniversary of Rani’s death. 29 November. A weekend. I was in Sabzba
gh with my parents. From my mother’s garden, I picked some of Rani’s favourite flowers – slender narcissi, blood-red roses, black-eyed gerbera – and got Barkat to drive me out to her grave.
The graveyard was deserted. Instructing Barkat to wait for me by the car, I picked my way past the humbler section of the cemetery where the poor buried their dead in anonymous mounds of earth, to the richer, more prosperous part where, as Babu Jacob would have said, the ‘affording types’ were interred. My father had of course bucked the system by burying Rani among the wealthy corpses. My mother had had a jacaranda tree planted near by so that she could lie in its shade.
I brushed dead leaves off her grave and placed the flowers at her feet. As I straightened, I saw a man watching me. Small and emaciated, he was dressed in a torn sweater and grimy shalwar kameez. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place him. Accustomed to a respectful lowering of the eyes from the men of my village, I was annoyed by his unflinching gaze. I raised my chin and stared down my nose at him. His lip curled, and he took a few steps towards me.
Then I placed him. That rolling gait was unmistakable. He halted by the headstone of Rani’s grave. The colour must have drained from my face, because he laughed his old hyena laugh. The cackle turned to a phlegmy, consumptive cough that left him clutching his middle. When the cough subsided, he drew his hand across his mouth and rasped, ‘I’m dying. I cough up blood. See?’ He held up his palm. I recoiled from the sight of his bloodstained spittle. He rubbed his hand on his shirtfront, leaving a faint trail of blood on his chest. ‘So I came to say goodbye.’ He gestured to the ground, where Rani lay between us.
I had always imagined that if I ever came face to face with Mashooq, I would gouge his eyes out. And yet here I was, transfixed by a horrible fascination.
‘I haven’t been quite myself since your grandmother had me exiled. Then I fell ill. With no money …’ He shrugged. ‘Money or no money, at least I have the comfort of an easy conscience.’
‘An easy conscience?’ I gasped, finding my voice. ‘You killed an innocent girl!’
‘She wasn’t innocent. She was carrying a child. A bastard.’
‘So? What was it to you?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t expect you English-speakers to understand our ways. Your father couldn’t. Why should you?’
A thought occurred to me.
‘How did you know she was pregnant? Who told you?’
He grinned, revealing several missing teeth in his panstained mouth.
‘Can’t you guess? Think!’ He tapped his temple. ‘With your expensive education, it should be easy for you.’
And then, suddenly, I knew.
It was at that moment that my life changed.
I told no one of my encounter with Mashooq. Not my sister, not my parents. This was my doing, my burden. As I withdrew into myself and later my work, they tried to reach me, to understand, to help. But I would not let them. Over the years, I saw their concern turn to anxiety, then anger and finally to helpless resignation. But they still try and reel me in whenever they can. This New Year bash is one such attempt.
Sometimes I suspect my father knows. Where I sense bewilderment, and, yes, impatience, in my sister and mother when they consider me, I see a particular compassion in my father that he shows no one else. I smile at him now and slip my hand into his. He squeezes my fingers.
‘Can’t you forgive yourself?’ he asks. ‘Whatever it is for which you are punishing yourself, can’t you let it go?’
‘Some things are beyond forgiveness.’
‘Nothing is beyond forgiveness. There is no sin great enough. You have to let the past go. You must engage again, if only to ensure the same mistakes are not repeated.’
‘And yet here we are, going to war with India again.’ Even as I say it, I know it’s a cheap shot.
‘Are we?’ He turns to me in the dark. ‘Are we going to war? It may look like that but, believe me, it won’t happen. We will not go to war again. If nothing else, we’ve learnt how ruinously expensive it can be.’
The sound of counting reaches us from the marquee. ‘Ten, nine, eight …’ The countdown to the New Year has begun.
‘Shall we go and see in the New Year?’ he asks.
‘Can we stay here instead?’
‘We can do whatever we want.’
We stand side by side in the dark.
Acknowledgements
In the five years it took to write this book, I was helped by many people. I am grateful to Aamer Hussein, Richard Murphy, Jugnu Mohsin and Najam Sethi for their encouragement. Thank you to Pankaj Mishra for his astute advice at critical junctures. I owe a debt of gratitude to Shomit Mitter, who stayed the course and gave generously of his time and insight throughout. To my brother, Mehdi, I owe thanks for refreshing my memory. I am indebted, too, to my enthusiastic agent, David Godwin, and to my editor, Juliet Annan, for her wisdom and keen judgement. My thanks, also, to the fantastic team at Penguin, who made the last lap of this journey such a pleasure. And, finally, to Shazad, my husband, my friend, my lodestar – thank you.