Marrying Ameera (16 page)

The Tezgam was not as fast as its name suggested and there was a lot of waiting on side tracks for faster trains to pass. For a seventeen-year-old it was deadly boring but Shaukat wasn’t fazed. It reminded him of boyhood trips, he said. I wondered if it was the same train Dadi jan had been abducted from sixty years before.

The window was so dirty that it was difficult to see much through it, but what I did see surely couldn’t be the best of Pakistan. Shaukat’s ‘honeymoon’ was like travelling through the country’s private backyard. There were so many poor people living in boxes and tents by the tracks; rubbish tips that children in rags scrounged through. On a dusty track I saw a donkey cart with a load so heavy it had tipped backwards and the donkey was suspended in midair, still trapped in its harness. The image of the poor thing stayed with me for days.

Shaukat bought papers and magazines at Lahore, and we talked, and I even showed him how to play canasta, though it didn’t work so well with only two players. He went out into the corridor a few times and I smelled the
smoke on him when he returned. So many men in Pakistan smoked but I wondered how a doctor could. I also wondered if Papa knew.

Shaukat had booked a two-berth cabin with an adjoining toilet. The toilet looked Victorian and it was disconcerting seeing the tracks flashing below me when I used it. More disconcerting was what would happen at night. I needn’t have worried. After we’d been served a lukewarm curry swimming in oil, a railway worker came in to make our seats into bunk beds. I chose the upper one; it felt safer.

Karachi was warm at least. We stayed in a house by the sea belonging to Uncle Iqbal’s family. Hired help had made it ready for us; there was even a car to use. Shaukat slept in a different room the first night but his glances made me nervous. When would he think the time was up? Every night he hugged me before he left the room and I kept as still as if it was Haider with a knife at my throat.

By the fourth day he still hadn’t made a move but I couldn’t relax. We went to a restaurant for dinner and walked along the beach. I wore a purple silk shalwar qameez that fluttered in the breeze. Shaukat wore a suit jacket, undone, and he’d removed his tie, but his cologne never managed to mask that combination of smoke and antiseptic. I couldn’t help thinking what this trip would have been like with Tariq, how I’d have welcomed his every embrace.

Shaukat took my hand that night and showed me the stars. He told me I was lovelier than the moon. I knew what he was doing and I guarded my heart against it: he was wooing me.

The evening after we returned from Karachi I dressed for the party. Ibrahim drove us to the house of a young Pushtun man who worked for an aid agency, and as we arrived young men shot guns joyfully into the air and yelled congratulations to Daktar Shaukat. There were some Western people there too but I kept my dupatta on my head. Shaukat took me to a lounge room where the women were sitting. I was glad: I didn’t like the guns. They were so loud that the floor of the lounge vibrated through my feet; the noise made my heart thump.

A European girl was shaking in her chair. ‘I wish they would stop. My sister was killed by gunfire in a war in our village. It sounded just like that.’

‘You are Daktar Shaukat’s bride?’ one older lady said to me. She pinched my cheek. ‘Lucky girl.’

I smiled politely.

A girl called Rebekah introduced herself to me. She was from Canada and only a few years older than me. She was doing a cross-cultural degree at uni and working with World Vision was her field experience. ‘We’re trying to get goats for people in Siran Valley now,’ she told me. ‘They lost all their stock in the earthquake.’

‘There are still thousands of people in tents in Azad Kashmir,’ I said.

‘In the mountains here too. Houses are being rebuilt but not fast enough.’ She regarded me. ‘Your husband has been good—he’ll treat people we send even when they can’t pay much.’

The host’s sister brought in dessert: it was kheer, rice pudding. The last time I’d eaten kheer Shaukat had fed it to me with his fingers. How sensual that would be with someone you loved.

‘So you came here to get married?’ Rebekah asked.

I hesitated too long and she noticed. ‘We must spend some time together while I’m here. We could go shopping.’

I brightened. ‘That would be great.’ I missed time spent with my friends. Surely Shaukat would let me go shopping.

Rebekah gave me her card. ‘Ring me when you’re free.’

That was a joke. I would always be free, except for waiting on Frank.

‘If you need anything, just call,’ she added. ‘It must be difficult going to a new country to marry, and missing your family.’

My eyes teared up and she leaned closer. ‘I’ll come to you,’ she said.

We heard the men in the next room playing instruments and singing.

‘They’ll be dancing too,’ said the sister of the host. ‘Then they’ll smoke their hookahs.’

‘Water pipes?’ I asked, thinking Riaz would call them bongs.

‘Yes, my brother has some new apricot tobacco. My grandmother loves it.’

‘As long as that is all he has,’ said the lady who had pinched my cheek. ‘When those boys get going, anything could slip into the hookahs.’ She rolled her eyes and I
presumed she meant hashish. Surely Shaukat wouldn’t smoke hashish; he was a doctor.

I was tired by the time the call came to go home. The trip to Karachi had been wearing even though we’d sat all day in a compartment, and I hadn’t slept well on the train. Shaukat was already in the front seat of the car with Ibrahim, so I climbed in the back. It was a quiet ride home if I ignored Ibrahim’s Indian pop CD. When we arrived, Ibrahim helped Shaukat out of the car and supported him as we walked inside.

‘Is there a problem?’ I asked.

Ibrahim said, ‘No, Memsahib. Daktar Sahib, he will be fine in the morning.’

He didn’t seem worried, but I was. Surely there wasn’t alcohol at the party? Maybe there had been hashish in the hookahs after all. Ibrahim helped Shaukat to the bed in the downstairs office. Shaukat moaned and I hovered, wondering what I should be doing.

Ibrahim suggested I go to bed. ‘Do not be worrying, Memsahib, I have seen this many times before.’

He shooed me off like a child and I climbed the stairs to my room. What did he mean, he’d seen it before? He’d seen someone else like that? Or did he mean Shaukat?

My thoughts were tangled before I finally slept and so were my dreams. I dreamed I was being attacked by a masked horseman. He was holding me down and I couldn’t breathe. I tried to scream but his mouth was covering mine, choking me. I woke and found it wasn’t a dream. Someone was crushing me onto the bed, an unshaven face scratching my neck. I thought it was Haider, come to take his revenge. I cried out, ‘Shaukat!’

‘Yes,’ his voice answered above me. ‘I knew you’d call for me. It’s me you love.’

This wasn’t the self-possessed Shaukat I knew; his voice was slurred and he stank, not only of smoke and sweat but something nauseating.

‘Shaukat, stop.’

He pulled the bedcovers back with one arm and dragged at my shalwar. The drawstring came loose as he tugged and suddenly my legs were bare. ‘You are my wife, my beautiful wife.’

‘No! You promised.’ I scratched his face, tried to push him away, but he was too heavy. In trying to wriggle out from under him, I became trapped. My legs were apart and he pushed hard against me. There was a sudden tearing pain and a burning rasping sensation that I thought would never end. Shock made me tense every muscle and even my breathing stopped. I just wanted to block what was happening from my mind.

There was nothing left. This was the ultimate betrayal of my love for Tariq. Even if I got away, he wouldn’t want me now. He had said he could cope if I married—he had set me free; this was why. I wanted to float away, high above the bed. This wasn’t happening to me. It was the girl in the mirror lying there.

I had begun to think of Shaukat as a good man, but this Shaukat was crazed, a brute. Was this what Papa had wanted for me?

Finally Shaukat shuddered and grew still. He was a dead weight so I eased my way out from under him, grabbed a quilt and fled to the bathroom. I locked the door, turned on the shower, pulled off my qameez. I
slapped the flannel over my skin in a fever, trying to wash off every trace of him. But I couldn’t get rid of that sickly smell. I sank to the floor and sobbed. So that was all it was—why we girls kept ourselves pure—just so a man could plant his seed in us.

That thought stopped my sobs. There had been no talk of birth control at Aunty Khushida’s. Even Meena had never mentioned it. No doubt they all hoped I’d get pregnant and forget about going to uni.

Frank was too late.

I woke to the sound of Shaukat knocking on the bathroom door. ‘Ameera. Let me in.’

‘No. Keep away from me.’

‘I won’t hurt you, I promise.’ I gave a snort. ‘I want to see you are all right.’

When I didn’t answer, he said, ‘I can get a screwdriver and take the door off.’

Stiffly I stood. Sleeping on a tiled floor had made my body hurt even more. I wrapped the quilt around me, unlocked the door, then retreated to the corner of the bathroom.

When he saw me he sighed. ‘I’m truly sorry.’ He glanced back at the double bed; a red spot was visible on the sheet.

‘You raped me.’

Shaukat smiled uneasily at me. ‘Rape? I’m your husband.’

‘It was still rape. I was forced to marry you and now you forced me to…to…’

He hunkered down in front of me. There was a twocentimetre scratch beneath his eye. ‘Believe me, if I could undo last night I would. I am sorry that your first time was like that.’

Yet there was no remorse in his eyes; he seemed pleased. Hadn’t he been sure I was a virgin?

‘It will never be like that again.’ He lifted my chin so I had to look at him. ‘Never, you understand?’

I pulled away from him.

‘We are joined now and it will only get better.’ He smiled slyly. ‘We could do it again and I’ll show you what it’s meant to be like.’

I pulled my knees up to my chin, then thought better of it; I ached inside. ‘What happened?’ I asked, choosing to ignore his last comment.

He didn’t meet my gaze. ‘That damn Amin must have put something in the hookah. I’ve told him before not to, but he thinks it’s a joke.’

I wondered how much of it was true. ‘So you had no idea what you were doing last night?’

‘I wish I did.’ Then he saw the look on my face. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t remember details but I can see the evidence.’ He put a finger to the scratch on his cheek. ‘Can you forgive me?’

I couldn’t answer him, just stared into space. I’d spent seventeen years keeping my virginity intact. Papa talked about honour but all I felt was shame.

Shaukat sighed. He stripped the bed, then went out. I crawled into the single bed and eventually slept.

In the evening Shaukat came bearing soup. He sat on a chair by the bed, lifted me up against the pillows and fed me. ‘I’m afraid you’re suffering from shock.’

Natasha would have said, ‘Der.’

‘I only hope you understand that in my right mind I never would have acted like that.’

But he had. And how often would he not be in his right mind? Was this something else Papa didn’t know? Shaukat is a good man, they all said. But they didn’t know he smoked hashish and that it changed him.

I stayed upstairs for days; I lost count. It didn’t matter about Frank coming any more. Mrs Rahmet must have thought I was ill for she brought a tray of food when Shaukat was at the clinic fixing up other people’s problems. He wouldn’t be able to fix his own: the respect I’d had for him had flown like a bird from an open cage.

We had been in Oghi two weeks before I began to recover. Shaukat was solicitous, trying to win back the ground he’d lost. Were men in Pakistan told how to handle a bride they’d never met before? I hoped girls in normal arranged marriages were better prepared than I was. Maybe Aunt Bibi would have helped if we were living with her. My period had come, late, but I was amazed my body could manage it at all after a beating and a rape.

I rolled over in the bed to stare out the window at the fort. There was a Pakistani flag flying, and a black one at half-mast. It could have been flying for me, but I knew it was a tribute to Benazir. Whether people agreed with her or not, no one could deny she had been brave. She knew she had enemies, but she stood up for what she thought was right.

Although I’d known I’d have an arranged marriage, I’d always hoped for love as well. Dadi jan had said to remember Hir and Ranjha, but their story was tragic. In the stories, lovers were never united until they were
dead. How romantic I had thought those tales but they had turned out to be closer to real life than I’d dreamt. Was a loveless marriage my destiny now? Or didn’t I have another option? My choices were to go home to Mum, attend uni and become a teacher; or to stay here with Shaukat. Although I’d never love him, maybe I could still be a teacher and have children; though, like Mum, I would have no say in how they were brought up. If I went back to Mum, I couldn’t marry for I wouldn’t be able to forget Tariq. I weighed it up. Jane Eyre didn’t mind Mr Rochester being so old, but she loved him. Aunty Khushida seemed to cope with being a lot younger than Uncle Rasheed. Did she love him, I wondered. Many women had a lot worse to live with than I did. I thought of Nargis at the tent school in Muzaffarabad; she was probably raped every night. I moaned. Just the thought of being intimate with Shaukat again made me feel ill. Would I ever see Mum again if I stayed? Shaukat had shown no eagerness to go to Australia; I suspected he’d prefer to visit England. Would he go to Australia for me? There was only one way to find out.

I showered and dressed in one of my wedding week outfits and went down for dinner.

Mrs Rahmet bustled around me. ‘Memsahib, accha hai, how good you are well again.’

When Shaukat came in from the clinic and saw me I almost smiled at the relief on his face.

‘Are you feeling better?’ he asked. I knew what he meant: did I feel better about him too?

‘Somewhat,’ I lied.

After changing his clothes, he sat with me at the table and I asked him about his day. He told me about setting broken arms and tending a bullet wound. After we’d eaten, I asked, ‘Would you allow my mother to come and visit?’

He sat back on his chair so that it swung with his weight. This would be the test. Papa obviously thought him a good Muslim or he wouldn’t have chosen him for a son-in-law. I had never seen Shaukat say his prayers, but that didn’t mean he didn’t pray.

‘Your father said she wasn’t a good influence on you. He was very worried about you.’ He paused. ‘Actually I didn’t expect you to be so Western.’ I detected disapproval in his tone, as if that meant I was deficient in other ways too. ‘He gave that as his reason for marrying you earlier,’ he added.

I tried to calm my breathing. ‘It’s not true about Mum. Everybody thinks that because she’s Christian and Australian, but she’s never gone against Papa’s wishes.’

He was frowning slightly, no doubt weighing up how to put his next comment. ‘Yes, but Western society is decadent. I’ve seen it first-hand. They think you need love to make a marriage work, and they even try it out beforehand. It’s so hedonistic, so self-seeking.’ He sounded just like Papa.

‘Mum isn’t like that.’

He nodded, possibly not wanting to disagree on my first day up. I wondered if Papa had asked him not to have anything to do with Mum, for my benefit, of course.

Then Shaukat said, ‘We could visit, if you like. But, Ameera, it is the wife’s duty to live where her husband’s
work is. I thought your father would have taught you that.’

I chose not to argue, and that also was what Papa had taught me. I could see how it was going to be with Shaukat: everything would go smoothly as long as I acted in a way he approved. I thought for a while as Mrs Rahmet brought the chai in. I had been forced to marry; that was wrong. If I accepted this situation, I would be reinforcing that wrong. If I did nothing, no one would ever know it was a forced marriage. How many girls did this happen to, I wondered, girls who couldn’t do anything about it? If it weren’t for Frank and Mum I would be helpless too. Try to look happy, Frank had said, play along.
Do what Frank says,
I told myself.

I smiled at Shaukat. ‘I’d like to go shopping with Rebekah. I met her at the party.’

He winced when I mentioned the party and I pressed my advantage. ‘Ibrahim could take me to Mansehra while you’re at the clinic. She said it’s the closest bazaar.’

‘Very well, but you’ll need to wear a burqa if you leave the garden. I don’t want men seeing my wife’s face. The tribal men don’t understand Western ways.’

I couldn’t hide my dismay. ‘I don’t have a burqa.’

‘Mrs Rahmet will lend you one until you can buy your own.’ He glanced at me. ‘I know you are not used to it but many women around here wear them of their own volition, like nuns used to wear habits. Here.’ He took his wallet from his pocket and gave me two thousand rupees.

‘That’s too much, surely?’

He shrugged. ‘You may see an outfit you like. Those
new shops are expensive, but they have the latest fashions from Karachi, I’m told.’

So I was to be bought off. ‘Thank you.’

If he was worried about me going without him, he didn’t show it. I used the phone in his office to call Rebekah. She could come with me the next afternoon. I would take the mobile with me and get in touch with Frank.

The next day I stood in front of the mirror, donned the black burqa and pulled the chiffon veil over my face. I watched myself vanish. A faded shadow peered out at me. I managed to resist the urge to pull it all off again. I had disappeared in so many ways since I’d left home; this was just one more.

Ibrahim was more at ease with me in a burqa. He even smiled at me and hummed as he drove to the aid agency office in Mansehra to pick up Rebekah. Then he took us to the bazaar.

The first thing Rebekah said when we were alone was, ‘I’m surprised you wear a burqa.’ Then she apologised.

‘It’s okay,’ I said, ‘I’m surprised too.’ ‘You seem down today. Are you all right?’ I looked at my hands. The faded henna shouted joyfully that I was newly married.
What should I tell her?
She worked with Shaukat; would she repeat what I said?

‘I miss my mother,’ I said. It was the truth.

‘You’re so brave to travel so far to marry. You must love Shaukat so much.’

I was silenced by her free use of his first name. So he had two standards: one for Westerners he met as part of his work and another for his wife. It was unfortunate for me that I was also Western.

Mansehra had a huge sprawling marketplace and a few emporiums—the special shops Shaukat had referred to. I said I needed to go to the post office. Rebekah waited for me outside, and Ibrahim wasn’t far away either. I hesitated; everything I did would be reported back.
But I mightn’t get another chance in a hurry.

This time it took Frank four rings to answer. ‘Frank here.’

‘It’s me, Ameera.’

‘Where on earth have you been?’

‘I’m sorry, there’s no coverage at the house, and this is my first trip to the bazaar.’

‘Mansehra?’

‘How did you know?’

‘I visited your family—incognito, of course—and you have an admirer there.’

‘I do?’

‘Young Asher. He told me exactly where your husband’s clinic is at Oghi.’

‘He won’t tell his father?’

‘Doubt it.’ He chuckled shortly, then his voice became businesslike. ‘Are you ready for us to get you out?’

I hardly hesitated. ‘Yes.’

‘Tomorrow evening it is then. Have a bag packed.’

‘Be careful,’ I said. ‘There’s a security guard.’