Amma read the letter, put it down and sighed deeply. ‘How foolish it was of them to return the three thousand rupees; if they’d invested it in a shop, it would have worked out better for them.’
Where must you be now, Asrar Miyan? Aliya asked deep in her heart.
‘Well, it was great that Kareeman Bua kicked that lout Asrar Miyan out. That freeloader was no use at all, he destroyed everything, the ill-omened man.’
‘Amma,’ Aliya called out, opening her red eyes.
‘What is it?’
‘Nothing.’ She closed her eyes again. She wished she could ask who had brought about the destruction of their own home. Had there been an Asrar Miyan there too? Who had destroyed Abba? Who made Abba yearn for happiness? But she couldn’t ask any of this. After all, she was her own mother. She lay there sighing deeply. Amma filled up some lotas and began to water the flower beds.
Had Jameel completely forgotten her? He had not even answered her letter. But why was she complaining now? Fine, so he didn’t reply, he must not miss her. Distance makes everyone forget. Some emotion began gnawing at her heart.
When she heard Amma’s voice, she got up to eat—Aunty had written nothing at all about Chammi. Who knew how she must be. Her daughter must easily be able to sit up by now. After eating, she got ready to go to the Walton Camp. Who knew what shape Zafar Uncle must be in after departing from his paradise of Hyderabad.
‘What I say is, stay at home once in a while. After all, how long will this absurd state of affairs continue?’ Amma suddenly blew up as she placed a lota on the ground.
‘This absurd state of affairs will continue as is,’ Aliya replied abruptly. Amma was always engrossed in her own condition, she didn’t even notice that today a letter had come from Aunty, that today Aliya’s heart was slashed with knives.
‘Peace? You get peace from it? You get peace from serving those beggars for no money? What do they give you that makes you go off running about like this?’ Amma’s face was turning red with anger.
‘I want nothing from them. What can those poor devastated people give me? It makes me happy to serve them. When I’m there, I forget the entire world.’ Aliya closed her eyes as if it took all her strength. She was thinking right now of the little girl whose books were back in Amritsar, who still cried when she thought of them. She had given her several books to take their place, but the little girl still hadn’t forgotten her own books.
‘Humph! Your father used to say the same thing, that he got happiness from his useless work. “I find peace,” he’d say, and your uncle said the same thing too.’ Amma was glaring at her.
‘I am not Abba, nor can I be like Uncle. It would be better if you did not mention their names. Just think of me as your daughter and that’s it.’ As she started to leave quickly, Amma picked up the lota again.
Spring had put some life into the dried-up plants. Tiny little buds were bursting out and two large blossoms swayed from the rose bushes. Aliya was suddenly reminded of how she had once plucked a flower from the beds and put it in her hair, but when Jameel had looked at her amorously, she’d pulled the flower from her hair and thrown it back in the beds.
As she went through the gate she picked a flower and put it in her hair.
In the evening, when she returned from the Walton Camp, she changed her clothes and came on to the lawn. Amma was extremely angry; she turned her face away as soon as she saw Aliya. Cars and tongas drove by noisily on the other side of the gate. All the same Aliya felt as though there was silence all around. She felt anxious and began to pace. The dry leaves from autumn still lay on the grass, and when she stepped on them in her sandals, she thought of last fall.
‘Will you just stay sitting out here today?’ asked Amma, stepping out on to the veranda when it began to grow dark. Then she retreated inside.
Amma’s mood was improving apparently. Aliya sat back on the old reed chair, exhausted. It was quite dark by now, but she didn’t even consider getting up. This whole exchange of letters should end now. What was the point of enduring continuous torture? Memories are the most cruel of all, and . . .
Suddenly the gate came crashing open and a man rushed headlong inside.
‘Who’s there?’ she called out, panicking.
The fleeing person stopped for a moment. ‘You are my mother, my sister—please let me hide! I am a poor refugee, and the cruel police are trying to catch me for no good reason. I’ll leave very soon.’ The man ran and hid behind the hedge.
Aliya was frozen in her chair with fear. She tried to call out to Amma, but try as she might, she couldn’t make a peep. Right at that moment, Amma came on to the porch and turned on the light. ‘Come and eat dinner,’ she called out sternly. Aliya looked all around in the light, but she still couldn’t get herself to speak. Then Amma went away and Aliya held out her hand and froze. She wanted to get up and run inside but her legs wouldn’t cooperate.
It was completely silent behind the hedge. Aliya’s heart was pounding hard. What if a thief had hidden in their garden? She got up with great difficulty and was about to go inside when there was a commotion and the man emerged. He was about to run out of the yard when his eyes met Aliya’s.
‘What, Aliya Bajiya, is that you?’ It was Shakeel. He lowered his red eyes. ‘They realized I was poor and thought I was a pickpocket, but I’m not like that, Bajiya.’
Aliya could not believe her eyes: Shakeel was standing right before her. His shirt was torn at the shoulder, and his long hair hung tangled across his forehead.
‘I’ll go right away, Bajiya, what if they come in looking for me?’
‘Where will you go, Shakeel, my brother?’ Aliya asked, overwhelmed by grief as she embraced him. Then she sat him down in the chair and quickly turned out the light in the veranda. ‘Now you won’t go anywhere. What if those scoundrels capture you? You come into my room.’
She dragged him into her room and locked the door that opened out on to the veranda.
‘Please let me go, Bajiya,’ he said anxiously.
‘I won’t let you go anywhere. What have you done to yourself, my brother?’ She wept as she beheld Shakeel’s torn clothing and emaciated face. ‘You’re wandering about in this condition, and back home, Aunty is half dead from missing you.’ She sat Shakeel down on the bed.
‘Oh, so Amma misses me? Who else misses me? I doubt Abba does, he doesn’t care about anyone, and Chammi and Jameel, I’m sure they only have bad things to say about me,’ he asked with yearning in his eyes. ‘I’m extremely hungry, Bajiya,’ he added. ‘I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday.’
‘Uncle doesn’t miss you at all, you’re right, brother,’ she replied tearfully. ‘Come let me feed you, then we’ll talk.’ She grabbed him by the hand.
‘When did you come here, Bajiya?’ Shakeel asked, going along with her.
‘I came shortly after Pakistan was created.’
She took him into the dining room where Amma sat alone sulking. She ate her dinner very daintily, while the maid stared at Shakeel with bulging eyes. Amma did not even look up.
‘Amma, Shakeel is here.’
‘Shakeel who?’ Amma looked up. ‘Aha! When did you come to Pakistan?’ Amma asked happily as she looked at him.
‘A few days ago, Aunty—and it’s all wrong what those irrational people—they just thought I wasn’t from around here and . . .’ Shakeel began defending himself to Amma. Perhaps he thought that Aliya would surely tell all, but she quickly interrupted him.
‘Amma, poor Shakeel came with the refugee caravans. He was staying somewhere deep inside the city, but right now the poor thing doesn’t know anything about this place. So he’s doing manual labour here and there to fill his belly. That’s what happens if you have no one.’ She pulled up a chair for Shakeel.
‘Now, if we had room, we’d ask you to stay, but it’s such a small house,’ said Amma in a tone of severe disinterest, making a six-room bungalow sound tiny. She stared at Shakeel with critical eyes.
�
�Now he will stay here with me for a long time,’ Aliya said sternly and decisively.
Amma glared at Aliya and began to eat. Shakeel wolfed down his food like a starving man. He grabbed his roti as if pouncing on it. ‘I’m getting home-cooked food after a long time, it’s wonderful, Bajiya,’ he said.
Amma was the first to get up and leave. She didn’t even bother to look at Shakeel and Aliya as she left. Aliya sat and watched Shakeel eat, and she trembled as she wondered what would happen if the police captured him right at this moment. After dinner she took Shakeel to her room.
‘Lock the door, Bajiya, I’m scared,’ he said, lying back comfortably on Aliya’s bed.
‘This will be your room, is that all right with you?’ she asked.
‘Now that Abba’s country has become free, what is he doing?’ asked Shakeel. ‘What fiefdom has Nehru given him?’ There was such loathing in his eyes.
‘Uncle?’ Aliya’s voice trembled. ‘Uncle has departed from this world, Shakeel, my brother. A Hindu made him a martyr in the riots.’
‘What?’ Shakeel hid his face in the pillow and his whole body began to shake softly.
A little while later when Aliya wiped her eyes and lifted his head, the entire pillow was damp.
‘I’m missing Amma right now, Bajiya,’ he whimpered like a two-year-old child.
‘Go to her now, Shakeel. It will bring spring into her life. Uncle’s death has unmoored her. If she sees you, she’ll live a little longer.’
‘It was right for Abba to die, Bajiya, he didn’t do anything for anyone. And what would I do if I went home now? Jameel would taunt me and make my life miserable. There would still be nothing for me in that house. I’ll make my living here.’ He sighed deeply.
‘But don’t make your living in such a way that the police run after you. You are very hard-hearted, Shakeel, my brother.’
‘I didn’t do anything, Bajiya, it’s the police who are hard-hearted. They don’t allow the poor to live . . . oh, I’m missing Amma so much.’
‘If you won’t go to Aunty, you’ll have to live with me. I won’t let you go away now. I’m employed—I’ll have you enrolled in school. You’ll study in comfort; that way you’ll make something of your life. I’ll write to Aunty tomorrow and tell her you’re with me, and we are living happily together as brother and sister.
‘What will I study now, Bajiya? I’ve forgotten what I did study, and, Bajiya, the high school across from our house—was it still the same as when I left?’
‘Yes, it was—when you start studying, everything will come back to you.’
‘Let’s talk more in the morning, Bajiya, I’m feeling sleepy,’ yawned Shakeel, exhausted.
‘Go to sleep, but listen: I won’t let you go, you will stay with me.’
‘Go to sleep now, Bajiya, I’m extremely sleepy.’ He lay back down. ‘Now you go, I’ll lock the door from the inside.’
‘If you shut the door won’t you get hot?’
‘No, Bajiya, I need to lock the door, I’m frightened.’
Aliya came out and lay down on a bed in the veranda. Amma was sleeping soundly on the nearby bed. She began to feel pity for her. There had been no need to speak to her so harshly today. For a long time she lay there glancing about in the dark. The spectacle of Shakeel running in and hiding had robbed her of her sleep. She understood everything. She decided that she wouldn’t let Shakeel leave under any circumstances, no matter how much animosity she’d have to put up with from Amma.
Late that night she finally fell asleep, and when she awoke the next morning, the door to Shakeel’s room was open.
‘Is Shakeel in the bathroom?’ she asked Amma.
‘I didn’t see him when I got up this morning—maybe he left. He must have had work to do, being a labourer and all,’ Amma replied calmly.
It was all a lie.
‘He must have told you he was leaving and you must have gladly given him permission,’ said Aliya angrily.
‘You have gone crazy, don’t talk to me, or I’ll beat my head in,’ retorted Amma, going into the kitchen.
Who knows when he will come back? He must have been so depressed by Amma’s permission to leave. What a crime Amma has committed. She doesn’t have a heart in her breast, just a stone, thought Aliya, sitting silently on the bed for a while, her feet dangling.
When she went into her room after washing her face and hands, she didn’t have to open the lock on the cupboard. It was broken, and opened when she touched it. Her purse lay open and fifty rupees were missing from her store of savings.
Shakeel, my brother, I will not see you again. Now you are lost forever, who can reach you now?
36
A new letter from Aunty lay before her, and yet again Aliya sat wrapped in melancholy. She had no idea what would now become of Chammi’s life. Really, why had she refused to come to Pakistan with her mother-in-law and husband? Why on earth had she not come to Pakistan, the cause for which she’d waved her hands in the air and yelled slogans?
She picked up the letter one more time and began reading the part about Chammi: Chammi had refused to go to Pakistan with her husband, and when he’d insisted, she got ready for a fight. The fight had progressed so far that Chammi had grabbed her mother-in-law’s hair and hit her hard, and that very instant her mother-in-law demanded that her son give Chammi a divorce and sent her home to Aunty with her daughter. Before leaving, Aunty wrote, the mother-in-law sent me a telegram telling me to marry off our out-of-control girl to some sweeper. She said her son would get himself a bride like the moon in Karachi. Since coming here, Chammi has been totally silent, and she just lies still and dumbstruck with her baby to her breast. Our Chammi has always made enemies. I can’t imagine what will happen to her now. When I look at her I feel terrified.
‘Amma, Chammi’s husband divorced her and came to Karachi,’ Aliya announced when Amma came nearby.
‘What!’ Amma looked at Aliya with astonishment and then picked up the letter and began to read.
‘Now what will poor Chammi do?’ Aliya wondered.
‘Those people did the right thing. After all, who can manage a girl like that? It’s the wrath of God, she beat both her husband and her mother-in-law.’ Amma tossed the letter on to the table and began to tidy up the room.
‘Humph!’ Aliya came out of the room. She hadn’t even changed her clothes since returning from the Walton Camp. The maid handed her a cup of tea and she began to drink it standing up. What had become of her, everything was scattered about the room and Amma was tidying it all up. What was the point of such carelessness—what must Amma think of her?
Aliya handed her empty teacup to the maid and came out on to the lawn. It was so hot in June even in the evening. The tall, stately trees stood totally still. Not a leaf stirred. She began to stroll about on the dry grass. Now it seemed solitude and sorrow plagued her all the time. How tired she’d grown of this dreary life of hers.
Now that she’d mourned Chammi’s ruined life, she began to think of her own. What would she do now? How would she spend her life? She considered the doctor for a moment as she thought about it. She tried to recall the things he’d said to her today, and then she felt so disgusted, as if she were doing something strange—what was he even talking about! Yes, he was a good man, but he was shallow. His bungalow, his car, the state of his practice; that was it. A bungalow Mamoo had also given her, and as for a car, she travelled every day by bus. The only difference between a car and a bus was that the bus was bigger and wasn’t private property.
‘Now eat, what are you doing, sitting alone in the dark?’ Amma had come over and stood near her, and now she felt that truly the darkness had spread. She went inside with Amma.
‘You’re silent all the time, I’ve written to your Mamoo that . . .’ Amma said as she walked along, ‘. . . that now he should arrange your marriage.’
‘Oh, I see, this is the first I’ve heard that that’s the reason why I am sad.’ She was enraged by this revelation. ‘But
since when did you give Mamoo this right? I don’t even consider him my uncle; he means nothing to me! I will not get married.’
Amma gazed at her reproachfully but said nothing. Of late, she had stopped scolding Aliya and quarrelling with her. The two of them ate in silence. Aliya felt overwhelmed with sadness. All the same she kept control and continued to eat while Amma sat lost in thought.
37
On her return from school, she saw that a letter from Chammi lay on the table, and that Amma had already opened it and read it. One page lay on the floor. She felt a bit angry and quickly began to read it.
Dearest Bajiya,
Greetings to you! It’s been nearly a year, but you haven’t missed me at all. That’s fine, I haven’t written you either, but I never forgot you. I’ve thought of you during all the ups and downs, and even now, when I am so happy and spring has come into my life. I’m still thinking of you, Bajiya. If only you were here, you would see how happy I am! Our cousin Jameel has made me his own. I still can’t believe that I belong to him now. After my divorce, when I landed back in this house, I never would have imagined such a thing. Long ago, when he first looked away from me, I became convinced I would always be unlucky, Bajiya—but now I will tell you, this was why I didn’t go to Pakistan. They were taking me so far away, where I would never be able to turn back and see Jameel again. Those cruel people were snatching everything from me.
Bajiya, the funny thing is that Aunty was already looking for a bride for Jameel. I had thought that I would pass my life serving Jameel’s wife. Some day Jameel would regret what he had done, and that would be the only way I would feel I had found some success in love. That I had won him. But that’s not how it turned out, Bajiya, and the night before Aunty was to take the final answer to the girl’s house, Jameel came and sat by me, and he picked up my little girl and began to feed her. I sat by quietly. Ever since my husband divorced me and I came here, he hadn’t said even one word to me. How could I talk to him? And he himself asked why I didn’t go to Pakistan. Bajiya, what reply could I give him? My heart was bursting with the knowledge that the person for whom I did all this had absolutely no idea. I started to cry, and then he became agitated and hugged me and began asking my little girl, ‘Shall I be your father?’ Then he told me, ‘Chammi, your love weighs on me like a debt. Now I will rid myself of that debt.’ He wiped away my tears and went downstairs, and the next day Aunty dyed my hands with mehndi and made me a bride.
The Women's Courtyard Page 27