The Holy Woman (32 page)

She let him.

Then closing her eyes she slid down into her seat, unable to accept that she would never see her father or her sister ever again. Sikander dabbed at his own wet eyes with the napkin, crying inside, ‘What am I going to tell poor Haris?’

He watched Zarri Bano fall asleep. Some time later, her head fell against his shoulder. Gently he moved her back onto her seat. A lock of her hair had escaped from her
burqa
, and he tucked it back into place. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured in her sleep. The tragedy had in a strange way drawn them into a closer bond. She trusted him with her life.

Sikander moved to an empty seat on the other aisle.
Tears of anguish for his motherless son blinded his eyes again. ‘Oh Ruby! My dear wife!’ he wept, closing his eyes tightly. Never to see her lovely, smiling face again! It was too much to endure.

S
IRAJ
D
IN
RECEIVED
the news of the death of his loved ones with a stony silence, betraying hardly a flicker of emotion on his age-creased face. Inside,
however
, his world fell apart. It was so unfair to have a young granddaughter and a beloved son die – all gone before him.

He immediately sent a message to Fatima, asking her to come and organise everything for the
hajjis
’ arrival from Saudi Arabia, and for the guests who would be coming from all over Pakistan to mourn and pay their respects. He also summoned Naimat Bibi and Kulsoom Bibi to install themselves full-time in his home for the entire mourning period of forty days.

His thin lips issued crisp orders to his servants, but inside he was a lost man. Only years of breeding and built-in stoicism prevented him from giving in to the luxury of displaying his emotions in public and wailing out aloud, which was what he yearned to do. As a role model for the younger men in the village to emulate, Siraj Din had no choice but to cling to the tough façade he had adopted and act the part that was expected of him.

The news had travelled like wildfire across the village and the town where Habib had lived. Within an hour the household was swollen with people come to
offer their condolences. Siraj Din received them with a simple nod of his head as he remained sitting on the woollen mat in his courtyard. He had ceremoniously abandoned the luxury of his
palang
.

While the men sat quietly on jute rugs in the large courtyard, the women chanted and mourned amongst themselves inside the rooms. Chaudharani Kaniz was one of the first to arrive. She took it upon herself to receive and preside over the women guests.

Annoyed with the racket coming from the women’s rooms, Siraj Din had sent word by his servants that he didn’t want any chanting in his home. ‘They should read the Holy Quran and offer prayers for my loved ones’ souls. Chanting and wailing will not help them, but the prayers will,’ he angrily instructed Fatima.

Siraj Din managed not to shed a single tear for a whole day. That is, until later in the night when Sikander’s parents arrived with Haris in the village. It was when he saw Haris skip in lightly through the tall gates, pushing them wide open with childish force as he always did with his two small hands, and then turn to stare interestedly at all the men assembled in the courtyard, his small mind unable to fathom what was going on, that Siraj Din lost his grip.

Tears flooded his weather-beaten cheeks as he embraced Raja Din.

‘You have lost a daughter-in-law, my friend. I have lost a son and a granddaughter, mother of my
great-grandchild
, our precious Haris,’ Siraj Din wept aloud. ‘What sort of welcome are we going to offer them when they return from their holy pilgrimage? Tell me, my friend!’ Wiping his face with a cloth, he led them to the gathering of men sitting on the rugs in the courtyard.

Bilkis was ceremoniously led weeping by Fatima into the large guest room where Chaudharani Kaniz made space for her by her side on the floor rug. She was trying her best to read a chapter from the Holy Quran, but her eyes flickered up every time Fatima entered the room. ‘She is in her rightful place now, performing menial duties in this household,’ Kaniz snorted bitchily to herself as she saw Fatima bring in a jug of water to serve to the woman who had fallen in a semi-faint while crying. That ‘chit’ – the so-called headmistress with her arrogant airs – had come in for a short time to offer condolences to Siraj Din’s other daughter-in-law and then had left. ‘Who does she think she is?’ Kaniz sniffed, remembering Firdaus’s appearance earlier in the day.

In exasperation Kaniz looked down again at the page of the Holy Quran. The words were beginning to swim in front of her. ‘I must concentrate,’ she told herself irritably. This was the third time she had lost the thread of her reading because of that woman and her daughter.

Later that evening, Zarri Bano, Shahzada and Sikander were picked up from Karachi Airport by Khawar. The whole village was now in mourning and waited for their arrival, with all the relevant rituals. No open fires or gas stoves were lit that day. Naimat Bibi’s village
tandoor
remained cold and forgotten, as she supervised the cooking for the guests.

As soon as they got out of the car in Chiragpur, Shahzada and Zarri Bano ritually embraced and wept over the shoulders of the queues of women waiting to pay their respects. Outside the gates of his
hawaili
stood the bereft lone figure of Siraj Din.

‘We meet you not with garlands of flowers to place around your neck, to welcome you back from the pilgrimage, but with arms held out in mourning for our beloved ones, my children,’ Siraj Din cried over Shahzada’s shoulder. She was drawn away by a weeping Bilkis.

Followed closely by the entourage of mourners, they all went inside. It was when Haris looked at his father and then beyond, seeking his mother
everywhere
and asking, ‘Where is Mama?’ that the walls exploded with cries and mourning chants as never heard before in the entire village. Even Kaniz’s dry eyes were moist. Zarri Bano gently led her nephew away, cradling him to her body and sobbing bitterly over his head. The child simply looked up at her, unable to understand what was happening around him.

When she saw Sikander watching them, Zarri Bano’s heart leapt to his in sympathy. Reaching his side she handed Haris over to him and then cried in the open arms of her Cousin Gulshan.

Inside Siraj Din’s household, a large crowd of women mourners were gathered, waiting expectantly for Chaudharani Shahzada to arrive. Accompanied by Fatima, Shahzada stood uncertainly outside the house under the verandah.

‘Come on, Sahiba Jee, they are all waiting to pay their condolences. You have to meet them, I am afraid,’ Fatima said gently, pitying her, knowing fully well that her mistress was in no state to cope with the chanting and the wailing.

Shahzada nodded and entered the large room, emptied of all its furniture. As if her legs were shackled to heavy weights, she hovered awkwardly on the
threshold. Her eyes dreamily fanned over the white shawled heads of the women sitting around the room on the floor.

Dressed mainly in white, some were reciting
surahs
from the Holy Quran. Others were counting some holy Arabic words over the date stones and then collecting them into large basins.

On spotting Shahzada, most leapt to their feet, to offer their condolences and to pay their respects to her, as the widow of Habib Khan and Siraj Din’s most respected eldest daughter in-law. Unanimously as a sign of respect, they accorded Chaudharani Kaniz the honour of rising and being the first to embrace Shahzada.

Exhausted from the plane journey, Shahzada stood woodenly in their arms, accepting their hugs, embraces, chants and tears shed on her head shawl. Finally, when the last woman had drawn away from her, Shahzada moved forward into the middle of the room. The village women looked up expectantly, wondering what Shahzada was going to do.

With a glazed look in her bloodshot eyes, Shadzada suddenly burst out with a chant of her own. There was no need to devise it. It simply erupted from her
trembling
lips and heart.

‘Tell me, my sisters in mourning, what crime have I committed? Am I such a sinner, that Allah Pak had to punish me like this? I have lost all of my family. My beloved son Jafar, my gentle sweet Ruby and my noble husband. All gone! I must have done something bad to be punished like this – to have my beloved grandson Haris orphaned. Tell me, my sisters in mourning, how have I sinned?’ Shahzada’s wild gaze fixed intently on her best friend. ‘I know why I am being punished,
Fatima. It is because I am such a bad wife. I didn’t forgive my husband!’

‘Hush! Mistress, please sit down.’ Afraid of Shadzada embarrassing herself further, Fatima gently urged her to sit down on a pile of cushions, next to Chaudharani Kaniz. Fatima had not missed the sparkle of interest that appeared in Kaniz and Kulsoom’s eyes, as Shahzada berated herself as a ‘bad wife’.

‘You have been a wonderful wife and mother, Chaudharani Shahzada,’ Kaniz offered generously, giving a comforting hug to her fellow Chaudharani and rival, thus surprising all the women in the room.

‘Yes, I should know. I have lived with you for nearly twenty years, Chaudharani Jee.’ Fatima joined in her praise, sitting protectively on the other side of her mistress.

Shahzada turned a bewildered look at her woman helper.

‘Fatima, some evil force entered my home the day Sikander and his father came here five years ago. Nothing has been the same since. I became alienated from my husband that day. My son died that very month. What happened, Fatima? I tell you, I am
suffering
from someone’s evil eye. I was so proud of my
family
and my husband. Now I have no one except one daughter and she is lost to me.’ Shahzada automatically reached for the comfort of Fatima’s shoulder, and sobbed contritely, ‘I didn’t even forgive him, and Habib Sahib touched my feet.’

‘Hush! Hush, Mistress,’ Fatima whispered anxiously, knowing full well that her mistress was beyond caring about appearances or village gossip. It was too late anyway. Fatima shrugged cynically, seeing Kulsoom
get up. By the time the village matchmaker reached her bed that night, almost all the village homes were sure to be fully acquainted with the fact that the proud Habib Khan had touched his wife’s feet! Now that was an incredible event, even to her ears, and she was part of that household.

‘Allah Pak will never forgive me.’ Shahzada
continued
her broken chant on Fatima’s shoulder. Fatima saw the look on Kaniz’s face and knew that the other woman resented Shahzada turning to Fatima instead of her. After all, she had so uncharacteristically reached out physically to her.

‘I didn’t even tell him I loved him!’ Shahzada wailed, blissfully unaware of the gathering tension between the two women sitting on either side of her.

Stretching out her stiff legs on the verandah, Kulsoom decided to see how her friend Naimat Bibi was coping with the preparation of the mourning feast for the guests. As she reached the corridor leading into the large kitchen, the thought occurred to Kulsoom that at least Naimat Bibi was working in the pleasant
surroundings
of a well-equipped kitchen, including being blessed with an air conditioner. How many kitchens in the village, apart from Chaudharani Kaniz’s, could boast one of those?

She put her head around the door, and silently watched her friend fast at work on the feast. Standing next to the large cooker and heavily stirring a pot full of meat, Naimat Bibi was oblivious of the other woman’s presence. Her face was flushed, and beads of sweat were trickling down her face. As she reached for the towel to wipe them away, she glimpsed her friend in the
doorway
.

‘When did you come in, Kulsoom?’ she accused. ‘You are always creeping up on me.’

‘Well, Naimat Bibi, despite the sweat, you can’t argue that this job is something you could do for life, especially as Baba Siraj Din is very generous. I am sure he is going to pay you handsomely.’

Hearing the trace of envy in her friend’s voice, Naimat Bibi replied tartly, ‘You should try cooking fifteen kilos of lamb some time, Kulsoom Jee! Your bony arms would have cracked in two with five kilos of meat, never mind fifteen. I earn every penny with my sweat, as you can see. The other cook who has been hired is a real lazy one. She has only cooked the rice and prepared the dough, and walked off leaving me with all this meat to cook, and also over a hundred chapattis to bake as well. Can you imagine her cheek?’

‘She probably thinks that as you make a living out of cooking chapattis, it would be a doddle for you!’ Kulsoom joked.

‘
Doddle
! My grey hair! I have been slaving away
non-stop
since morning. The guests just keep pouring in from all over Pakistan and they all have to be fed, and on time. The breakfast is barely finished when it is time for the afternoon meal, and as soon as the dishes are cleared away it is time for the evening meal. And do you know what else?’

‘What, Naimat Bibi?’ Kulsoom’s cheeks plumped out with laughter.

‘Have you noticed how some of the villagers just seem to arrive to offer their condolences, at the time when the dinners are being served?’ The old woman burst out indignantly.

‘Well, if you are going to be counting rice grains on
everyone’s plates, I had better get home and eat my meal there,’ Kulsoom said huffily.

‘Don’t be silly, I wasn’t talking about you. Baba Siraj Din has ordered enough food for the whole village. Seven lambs have been slaughtered. He expects
everyone
to eat here.’

‘You should be very pleased with the work. In fact, I am beginning to wonder whether I am in the wrong business. A month of cooking here, as well as a normal chapatti-making business, would tide me over nicely. I don’t earn that much in my matchmaking business,’ Kulsoom Bibi stated ruefully.

‘Come on, Kulsoom, I am not that simple, no matter what you think. I know very well that this mourning period is a heaven-sent opportunity for you to entice new clients into your matchmaking webs,’ her old friend chided her. ‘As we all know, quite a lot of
marriages
are arranged during this time, because with everyone gathered together it is a golden opportunity for people to cement relationships and build up rapport amongst themselves. And this is where your role comes in.’ Naimat Bibi was well aware that, during the period of Jafar’s mourning, Kulsoom had managed to arrange three matches, earning herself three fat fees.

‘That may be so, but this time, things are different. It must be your evil eye,’ Kulsoom teased her friend. ‘All the women I have met so far either have married children, or they are too young or just don’t happen to need my services. There are over thirty women here at the moment and I have been with them for two days, but nothing has come of it. Nobody needs any marriage arranging.’ Kulsoom grimaced and sighed heavily.