A Beggar at the Gate (14 page)

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.

G
o 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….

Mariana pictured Safiya in the upstairs room overlooking the courtyard outside, presiding over the score of women of all sizes and ages who sat, shrouded in their soft, loose clothing, waiting for her.

When she had left that upstairs room two years earlier, Mariana had failed to say good-bye. Ordered to kiss the silk-wrapped Qur'an, she had felt it pressed against her lips, and then had started down the stone staircase without a backward glance. The ladies had begun their waiting then. Now, the force of their expectation seemed to reach into the sitting room and wrap itself around Mariana's body, drawing her invisibly toward them.

Surely Safiya would see her passion for Saboor and her desire to understand them all. Surely, after the divorce, Safiya would give her the few days she needed, would allow her the time to say a proper good-bye

Mariana drew her shawls closer and pushed her hands into the sleeves of her gown.
Be resolute,
her uncle had said over his shoulder as the Shaikh led him away.
If you do not escape now, it will be too late.

A sound at the door made her start. A tall man stepped into the room on bare feet and stopped short, studying her, his back to the light, a child bouncing in his arms.

“Peace,” the man offered.

“An-nah, Abba is here!” Saboor struggled to get down, then rushed to Mariana and threw himself against her knees. Her eyes closed, she gathered him to her breast, but in a moment he had galloped away again and wrapped his arms about his father's leg with a child's fierce, rediscovered love.

“My father says you have something to tell me.” Hassan again picked up his son and moved to the dais, his embroidered coat moving gracefully about his ankles. As he drew the child onto his lap his scent reached her, sweet, mysterious, different from the one she remembered.

He had changed. The broad, neatly bearded face she remembered had thinned. Beneath a crocheted skullcap, his eyes seemed wary and tired. He wore a distracted air, as if he had abandoned important work to meet her. His eyes drifted toward the open doorway as if he were waiting for someone.

It would be best to speak plainly. “I have come,” she announced, “to ask for the dissolution of our marriage.”

Hassan stiffened under his elegant clothes. “And?” he asked, frowning over his son's head, his tone as impersonal as the letter he had sent her.

Saboor's animated body had gone still. An instant later he climbed down from his father's lap and ran out through the doorway. She caught her breath, afraid he had understood her words.

“We do not know each other.” Her uncle's urgent voice still rang in her ears. She forced her words out rapidly, schooling herself not to run after Saboor. “Our lives are different. My food, my customs, my language are all unlike yours. I ride a
horse.
I go out dressed like
this.”
She pointed to her unveiled, bonneted self, her tight bodice, her English stripes, the shoes she should have taken off outside the doorway. “How could I be happy, living here with your family?”

Hassan shrugged. “You should have thought of all that before you accepted our proposal in front of the Maharajah's court two years ago. People are still laughing at the way you thrust yourself on us.”

Thrust yourself on us.
So much for the supposed honor of having a white wife. “But your father sent a letter proposing our marriage,” she insisted. “I saw it myself.”

“That was a private matter, not something to be announced in public by the prospective bride.” He sighed. “But you did it, and it cannot be changed now.”

He had rested his elbows on his knees. Gold gleamed on brown, smoothly tapered fingers. She had forgotten the extraordinary beauty of his hands.

She took her eyes from his hands and drew herself up. “I'm sorry if I offended you,” she said, “and I'm sorry to have changed my mind. It's not that I do not like your family. I hope to be able to come back again and visit later on. But for now, please, just agree to divorce me.”

He seemed scarcely to be listening. “And Saboor? What of him? Have you forgotten that you were seen in a dream, that you are his guardian for life?”

“Please.”
She closed her eyes. “Do not speak of Saboor.”

“I married you for his sake. It is your duty to protect him, and my duty to be your husband. How can you not understand this after two years?”

There was no deception in his tired, brown gaze.

“But that dream came from
your
side,” she argued, “not from mine. My people do not act upon dreams. How can I be held to a promise I never made?”

“But you
did
promise. You agreed to marry me. It is your
kismet,
your destiny to be here in the Punjab, with us.”

Your path lies to the northwest,
the soothsayer had told her. Invisible coils seemed to tighten about her. But Kabul was also to the northwest—Harry Fitzgerald was there, with his fine profile, his crooked, knowing smile. He would take her back, wouldn't he? He would give her children, wouldn't he? They would take Saboor's place in her heart, wouldn't they?

“Your clothes don't matter,” Hassan went on, changing the subject. “My aunt Safiya has made you twenty-one changes of clothing. And please,” he added, flatly, frowning at her, “do something about your clothes and attend to your skin. Your hair has fallen out of that thing you're wearing on your head, and I can see that it needs oiling. You were perfectly all right when I married you. I cannot imagine how you could have let yourself go so badly. I hardly recognized you.”

“My appearance has nothing to do with it,” she replied, stung by his words. “I am only trying to—”

“Hassan Sahib-Ji,” called a voice from behind the canvas wall, “Faqeer Azizuddin Sahib is calling for you.”

“I must ask your leave to go.” Without waiting for her reply, Hassan gathered his fine coat around him and rose to his feet.

“But we haven't decided about—”

“You will stay here, of course.” He waved upward, toward the row of filigreed windows overlooking the courtyard. “My aunts have been waiting all morning for you,” he added as he stepped over the sitting-room threshold and into a pair of embroidered slippers with upturned toes.

Unexpectedly, he offered her a half-smile. “We will discuss this nonsense of yours later, when I can find the time.”

As he disappeared around the corner of the canvas barrier, Mariana heard Saboor's excited voice. “Where are we going now, Abba,” he cried, “where are we going?”

As Saboor's voice faded, the call to prayer floated into the sitting room from Wazir Khan's Mosque.
“Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!”
cried the muezzin from his minaret. “God is great! God is great!”

* * *

“BUT HOW did you fail to make Hassan understand?” demanded Uncle Adrian fifteen minutes later, after he and the Vulture had come to fetch her from the sitting room. “Did you not speak clearly? Have you forgotten your Urdu?”

“I was
quite
clear, Uncle Adrian,” Mariana replied. “Hassan
did
understand, but he scarcely listened to what I was saying. Then someone called to him from outside, and he went away.”

“Did he show any sign of agreeing to the divorce?”

“I do not know, Uncle Adrian. He said I must stay here with his family, and that we can talk more about it when we meet again. He seems very busy at the Citadel.”

The realization struck her all at once: here was the perfect solution to her dilemma! If she stayed at the haveli now, she would have time to learn from the Shaikh and his sister, time to spend with Saboor,
before
the divorce. Then, having gained all she could from the Waliullah family, she would be able to bear it if they refused to let her return.