Shabanu (19 page)

“You can stay with us,” says Mama. “We will help you, and you will have a house in just a few days. Come on.”

But when we get to the farm, there are two new houses, one for Phulan and Murad, the other for Bibi Lal and the rest of the family; both are much grander than ours. They’re large and light and well built, and someone has dug a tiny pond behind them for bathing.

Bibi Lal finds her entire household has been replaced in the new house. The old house stands where they had left it in the middle of Murad’s farm, with Hamir buried under the floor.

We believe in omens, and it isn’t long before word of the good fortune that befell us following Hamir’s death has spread around the countryside. The legend expands, and people want to visit the tomb of the boy who died
and saved his family’s farm and brought wealth to his relatives. They leave us in peace to mourn him, and Bibi Lal and Kulsum and Sakina do that well.

We women go into Bibi Lal’s house to pray. Murad goes to the house built for him and Phulan a few feet away to receive a group of village men who have been waiting to pay their condolences.

The mourning, which had been postponed by our flight, begins with the force of held-back emotion.

Bibi Lal enters the house, her back straight, and goes to a corner of the main room. She sits on the floor, ankles crossed, facing the wall. A low moan escapes her, and giving way to her grief, she cries and beats her great chest like a drum, pouring out her anguish as Phulan had, keening and wailing like a madwoman.

Sakina covers her head so no one can see her cry, but she is silent for nearly a week, the only sign of what goes on under her
chadr
an occasional shudder of her thin shoulders. Kulsum weeps softly, for she has grown accustomed to grief.

Mama, Phulan, and I do the cooking and receive the women who come to pay their respects. We go home at night to sleep. Auntie stays in her new house to look after the boys. Her feeling of superiority to Mama, Phulan, and me has fled swiftly with the wealth we have gained, and her remarkable physical diminishment continues. Perhaps she will become prettier as she loses weight. She is beginning to have a waist, and her three chins have reduced to one and a half.

Halfway through the forty-day period of mourning, the wedding preparations begin. We receive word that Uncle will join us, and Auntie seems happy for the first time since I can remember. Sharma and Fatima and other relatives also send word of their arrival. With the three houses Rahim
-sahib
has built, we can have many of them stay with us. The rest stay in lean-tos.

And gradually, as the number of people and activities multiplies, a strange thing happens. Flags begin to appear around the house where Hamir’s body lies buried under the floor. Someone brings an inscribed marble slab with the promise of a full tomb after the first anniversary of his death. Word of his heroic death and our resultant wealth spreads wider and wider, like ripples in a pond, and Hamir’s house becomes a shrine.

The monsoon rains come and go, usually pouring water on us in the afternoons, cooling the earth briefly. Then the late afternoon sun breaks through the clouds, heating the ground again and sending wisps of steam into the air most of the evening and following morning. It’s hot and muggy, except when it rains, and I feel trapped in a torpor that leaves us with little energy other than that required to keep a routine of pampering Phulan.

Auntie worries that Phulan is too thin. She makes special mixtures of yogurt and honey, vegetables and butter and sugar, and spoons them into Phulan’s mouth.

“No more, Auntie, please,” Phulan says, sighing. She pushes away Auntie’s hand, which holds a spoonful of cooked sweet carrot pudding with nuts and raisins, and
lies back on a bolster covered with embroidery, a gift from Sakina.

The hollows under Phulan’s eyes disappear, and her cheeks and arms round out again. She is like a ripe melon, healthy and lovely and fragrant.

Every morning Mama and I massage jasmine oil sparkling with golden powders—tumeric, cumin, and saffron—into Phulan’s skin, which has turned from the paleness of her grief to a glowing copper that shines smoothly around the soft curves of her arms, legs, and face.

At night she weeps when we massage her hair with sandalwood paste and mustard oil. She complains that it burns. In the morning Mama sends me with a jar to fetch water from the canal, and she washes Phulan’s hair until her ears are bright pink. Phulan dries it in the sun and wears it like a black silken shawl, spread around her shoulders and down her back.

Phulan has become nearly unbearable, ordering everyone to do things for her.

“Please, Shabanu,” she asks sweetly, “bring my scarf. Not the blue one, the green one.” The servant girl stays on, unobtrusively at first. She returns to her family at Rahim-
sahib
’s house each night, and we grow used to having her, especially with Phulan’s extra demands.

She experiments with makeup. Bibi Lal has given her a sculpted brass vial of golden powder and a pot of rouge. Every morning she lines her eyes with black kohl and massages the soft gold powder into the creases of her lids.
The color softens on her skin, leaving her tiger eyes looking fiery. She wipes it away before Dadi comes home. But she’ll wear it on her wedding day.

Phulan spends her days resting, eating, and sleeping, being pampered and fussed over, trying on her dowry clothes and jewelry, and talking about the sons she will have.

Half of me longs to be Phulan. She will marry my own dear Murad, and she is beautiful. I am small and strong with too much spirit, and I think too much. I am lonely and fearful, and I long for the days when I was free in the desert.

Again the man on the white horse comes, the starched pleats of his turban dazzling in the monsoon sunlight. Dadi holds the reins as the man dismounts. This time he hands Dadi a tiny sack of lambskin tied with gold threads. Dadi thanks him, and the man bows formally. Mirrors dazzling on his vest, he remounts his silver horse and rides away again.

I untie the threads, and a silver vial with vines and flowers carved over its surface slides into my palm. I open the stopper, a tiny dove perched atop a long ivory applicator, and draw out a miniature spoonful of lapis lazuli powder to decorate my own eyes.

I do resent his trying to buy my heart. Bride price is common here in the desert—I don’t begrudge Mama and Dadi that. It has insured their future, and they won’t have to worry about drought or anything else ever again. But my heart. I never knew I had one until I lost Guluband.
Was Guluband’s loss destined to prepare me for losing Murad? What will I lose next? Death I understood before. But loss for any other reason has always seemed unnecessary until now.

The night Hamir died seems like a bad dream, unreal but for the fact that he is gone, and I mourn privately for him and for myself, taking Xhush Dil into the desert and stealing as much time as I can to be among the dunes. Mithoo, growing bigger and stronger, comes along, his nose next to my ankle as Xhush Dil walks.

I decide one day to teach Mithoo to dance. I have noticed that when I sing his ears swivel, the way Guluband’s used to do. Mithoo has the same desire to dance as Guluband had. I touch the backs of his front legs with a stick and sing to him. Within just a few days he lifts his feet high without prompting whenever I sing. I must get Dadi to buy him bracelets, so he can match the rhythms of his feet to the songs I sing.

My absence is little noticed once I have fed the animals. I take my cousins with me to tend the herd. I savor my limited freedom, perhaps only because I know my days in the desert with my beloved camels are numbered.

Sharma arrives a day late, by the light of a waxing moon. As usual, we hear her long before we see her. Even her animals are noisy, each with a jangling bell tied around its neck. They are fat and healthy, fully recovered from the drought. It’s said Sharma has magic—I’ve heard people talk about her as if she were a witch—but to me her magic is power.

She and Fatima ride an aged female camel, their sheep and goats following behind, and Sharma sings, her voice strong and clear. Mama, Dadi, Phulan, and I come out of our house, where we have been spreading our quilts on the string cots.

The camel kneels without command, and Sharma wraps her arms around Phulan, for she has heard of Hamir’s death. Phulan returns Sharma’s hug, and when Sharma holds her at arm’s length, my clever aunt knows Hamir’s passing causes my sister more joy than sorrow.

Mama and Phulan fill Sharma and Fatima in on what has happened in the weeks since we’ve seen her. I make myself busy at the fire, preparing tea and making
chapatis
for them.

“So, you’ve paid for all this with your little Shabanu,” Sharma says. Dadi, who has been relaxing and smoking his
hookah
—a fancy blue and white ceramic one, a gift from Rahim
-sahib
—sits forward.

“It’s a good solution,” Dadi says. “It isn’t only the money, which I don’t deny has helped. But what would have become of Shabanu? There are no other prospects, and we are within months of the time when she should be married.”

“How far have you looked?” Sharma spits out the words. Dadi looks wounded, for he too believes in Sharma’s magic and considers her a wise woman.

“She could never have done better with a desert boy,” says Dadi. “She would be tending camels and children
and moving from
toba
to
toba
the rest of her life, never knowing when the rain will stop and the vegetation will dry up. This way she’ll have everything.”

“Everything! She’ll be his fourth wife. He already has seven sons. His youngest wife is still of childbearing age. He’s not so rich that he can afford to leave all of them land and houses and money. They all live in one house now. That’s difficult for women sharing a single man.

“Shabanu will be their slave. They’re all uppity-uppity women. They get along all right. But what about her? Do you think they’ll take a desert girl into their circle? And when he dies, the seven sons he has—and perhaps his third wife will bear him one or two more—will inherit his property. There will be nothing for Shabanu and the sons she bears. She’ll be a penniless widow by the time she’s twenty. And what if she has daughters? They’ll marry similarly, unless she’s lucky enough to marry them back to the desert!”

“But Rahim
-sahib
is very healthy, and he’ll live to be an old man,” says Mama.

“Bah!” says Sharma, and they break into a raucous discussion, shouting and interrupting each other.

“There is another consideration, Sharma,” says Dadi, his spine stiff. Dadi might allow Mama’s eccentric cousin to criticize, but he won’t let her change his mind. “Rahim-
sahib
’s marriage to Shabanu will ensure that his greedy brother keeps his hands off Murad’s land.”

“Aha!” says Sharma. “But why Shabanu? Phulan is more
likely to appeal to a man like Rahim
-sahib
, and knowing how to keep a man comes naturally to her. You can tell by the way she walks.…”

“Because he wants Shabanu! And that’s the end of it.” Dadi stalks out of the house, taking his
hookah
with him.

Long after Phulan and Mama have gone to sleep, Dadi still has not returned. He listens to Sharma. No matter how outrageous what she says might be, he knows she speaks the truth. And he does not want to hurt me.

There’s no question of my being able to sleep. When the moon is highest, I slip out and bathe myself in the blue-white light of the desert night. I hear the gentle noises of the camels as they chew their cud, grunt, and belch. I go to Sharma’s house to see if she and Fatima are still awake.

They talk quietly in the third and last house Rahim-
sahib
has built for us.

“Shabanu, how do you feel about this marriage your father has arranged for you?” she asks.

Fatima lights the lanterns, and Sharma’s figure makes a long, straight shadow. My shadow is half the height of hers. Sharma sits on the string cot and crosses her ankles in front of her. Fatima joins her, and I sit on the cot across from them.

“What can I do?” I ask. “Do you think I want to marry him? Mama says he’s already in love with me. He’s sending presents. Look!” I hold out my hand and show the ring and bangles. Sharma whistles through her teeth.

“Don’t be taken in by it,” she says. “He’s rich and
spoiled. He’s had many women. He may grow tired of you in time. If his oldest wife dies, perhaps he’ll take another wife and you’ll be used up.”

“He has been kind to us …”

“Bah!” she says in a hoarse bellow. “Murad would have learned to love you for your intelligence and hard work.”

“Murad is a good man,” I say, trying to keep the sadness from my voice. “He will grow to love Phulan.”

“Perhaps,” says Sharma, stroking her chin.

“One thing you haven’t thought of,” says Fatima. “That Rahim
-sahib
chose Shabanu and not Phulan speaks well of him.”

Sharma laughs heartily. “True!” she says, but her voice turns weary. “You girls know nothing of men. What he sees as spirit and intelligence now may look like insolence and trouble later.”

She sits back against her bolster for the first time and lights a cigarette.

“Unless …” Fatima and I look at each other, and Fatima is smiling slightly. I wait as long as I can.

“Unless what?”

“Lower your voice, Shabanu,” says Sharma. She takes my face in her hands and turns it from side to side. “You have a strong chin … your father’s large gray eyes … your mother’s straight nose …” She grabs the end of the braid that hangs over my shoulder and unties the goathair cord at its end.

“When was the last time you brushed your hair?” She turns me with my back to her and takes a brush in her
hand. With long, merciless strokes, she untangles the hair that has grown matted from riding in the wind and walking in the rain, jerking my head back and silencing me when I cry out. Fatima sits giggling on the bed across from me.

“You know, there is a choice,” Sharma says, yanking at my head. I spin around.

“What do you mean?’

“Sshh! Do you want to wake the whole desert? If your father hears, there won’t be any choice.”