The Holy Woman (33 page)

‘I am sorry,’ Naimat Bibi offered insincerely, turning the other way to hide the smirk on her face.

‘I had better get back to the gathering. Did you know Habib Khan touched his wife’s feet before going to
hajj
? Now that is what I call wifely
devotion
.’ Kulsoom’s eyes were beady with mischief and speculation.

‘Pity neither of us have got a husband to touch
our
feet,’ Naimat Bibi tittered.

Both the friends laughed. Before Kulsoom left, she had deigned to taste two bowlfuls of meat from the two cooking pots. In recompense she had ended up rolling seventy small balls of dough ready to make chapattis as a way of helping her friend.

Zarri Bano left the room full of women, wanting to get away from them, unable to cope any longer with their dramatic mood swings. From a well-synchronised chorus of chanting and wailing on each other’s
shoulders
one minute, the next moment they were happily gossiping amongst themselves, as to who had recently got married – how many
tolas
of gold the bride had inherited, and who had died.

She went on the verandah, and looked around,
catching
sight of Sikander in the far corner of the courtyard. He stood alone with his son in his arms under the grapevine. Something caught in Zarri Bano’s throat. Her eyes filled with tears, aching for her sister. With her vision blurred she crossed the courtyard and joined Sikander under the tree. They stood together in
companionable
silence, joined by their grief. His chin on the head of his sleeping son, his eyes rested on the tears shining on her cheek.

‘I am so sorry, Brother Sikander.’ The words tripped over the painful lump in her throat. ‘Please forgive me. I should never have let you two go to
hajj
together.
It was my idea. If Ruby had not gone, my nephew wouldn’t be motherless today.’

‘Don’t, Zarri Bano. Please don’t blame yourself or anyone. It was fated to happen.’

‘If only you had been with her – by her side – I am sure you would have saved her.’ Zarri Bano couldn’t help voicing her regrets, nor control the fresh flood of tears as she saw his arms tighten protectively around his son.

‘Don’t punish yourself or me – please, Zarri Bano,’ he appealed. Then his hand unable to help itself, reached out to her face, tenderly wiping the tears from her cheeks. He could never bear to see Zarri Bano cry. ‘Please don’t cry. We have all our lives to weep,’ he whispered sadly. Then he left her standing alone as he walked out into the night, with his son in his arms. He wandered alone in the village fields, staring up at the sky, mourning for his beloved wife.

In the other corner of the courtyard, in the shadows of the verandah, Siraj Din was reclining on a bolster on his portable bed. He had watched his granddaughter standing and talking to Sikander under the tree and seen the young man’s hand reaching out to her face. His green eyes glittered coldly in the night.

Later that night, when all the guests were sleeping soundly in their allocated beds, Shahzada went to pay her nightly respects to her father-in-law, before going to her own bed. He asked her to sit and talk with him for a short time.

‘Shahzada, I heard your chant this evening with the women. I was not pleased. Why do you blame yourself, my dear, and say all those things about you and Habib in front of a group of village gossipmongers?’

‘I meant every word,
Aba Jan.
They are all true,’ she replied unrepentantly.

‘No, my dearest Shahzada, they aren’t true. You are being very harsh on yourself. You were a good wife – always have been. Habib did wrong by you; he threatened you with
talaks
. He was in the wrong. You were sinned against.’

‘
Aba Jan,
you are very generous, but I wasn’t a good wife. I am so ashamed to say I never forgave him. He even touched my feet.’ She began to sob quietly. ‘I will carry the burden of this guilt inside me for the rest of my life.’

‘Oh Shahzada, daughter – you talk of the burden of guilt, but you don’t know the meaning of the word! If you were to look through the dark window of my soul, into my heart, you would soon learn that there is a scale of sinning, and my soul happens to top the lot. In our own ways we are all sinners, Shahzada. We all carry guilt or dark secrets inside us. Your Habib just
threatened
you with a divorce and you were shattered, unable to forgive him. Imagine what it must be like for an innocent woman to be divorced from a beloved husband, who didn’t
want
to divorce her.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Shahzada was confused.

A bitter laugh escaped Siraj Din’s mouth. ‘I forced a woman to be divorced with three
thalaks
on the spot, by a husband who didn’t want to divorce her. I did that! Tell me now, Shahzada – who bears the greatest burden in life? Do you think Allah will ever forgive me for all this? I sleep in fear of nightmares, of the haunted look in the wretched woman’s eyes. I sometimes think my family is cursed because of her sighs and tears!’

‘Who was she?’

‘A beautiful young woman with long black hair.
I will tell you about her one day. All I know is that I need to see her again and ask for her forgiveness. I couldn’t die without doing that. You must find her for me. I haven’t seen her for twenty years.’ Siraj Din’s voice petered away, lost in thought. Just as she rose to leave him, he stopped her with the following words.

‘I saw Sikander touch my granddaughter on her face, Shahzada.’

The words hung awkwardly between them in the night. Siraj Din with his eyebrows raised turned to look at his daughter-in-law – waiting for and expecting an explanation.

Shahzada sat down heavily on the edge of his
charpoy
. With a serious look in her eyes she explained, ‘He was probably wiping away her tears, as he has been doing for the last three days. He is a very tender, caring
person
.’ Then when she saw the speculative look beaming at her from his eyes, she added, ‘Sikander cares very deeply for my daughter.’ There was nothing else left in her life but honesty.

Siraj Din was silent for a long time. Eventually he asked. ‘And Zarri Bano?’

A tortured laugh escaped Shahzada. She looked away into the night, at the shadows of the trees in the courtyard.

‘My daughter is now too afraid, too emotionally bruised, to care for anyone. Everything she cared about and the people she loved, she lost. Now she herself is lost – to a life of religious contemplation.’

Tiredly she got up to go to bed. It had been a long, long day.

F
ROM HER BEDROOM
window on the top floor of the
hawaili
, Kaniz’s forlorn gaze followed her son’s white horse as it cantered out of the village. She saw Khawar stop and talk to one of the farmers near the village well. Then he took the path towards the brick-making
bhatta
complex, with its two smoke-belching kilns.

As her son disappeared from sight Kaniz’s vacant stare fell on the sugar-cane crop, circling the village. Razed to the ground, the sugar cane was stacked into huge bundles, before being taken by truck to the
nearest
town and sold to the factories to make sugar.

Kaniz was slowly wilting away, barricaded behind a wall of humiliation. ‘A full year has passed and Khawar hasn’t said a single word to me!’ Her piteous voice echoed around the room as she turned away from the window. Barely civil to her when they were together, at other times Khawar avoided his mother completely. The longing for one warm smile, for one kind word from him had grown deeper with each day that passed.

Kaniz tried her best to ignore the situation, but the estrangement was slowly eating her away, making her lose interest in all things, including her passion for running the
hawaili
and business accounts for the land. Kaniz’s grip on normal life was fast disappearing. She cared not for films, clothes or gossip. Nor did she bother to seek suitable
rishtas
for her son. She had even stopped sniping at Neesa. In short, nothing mattered any more!

It was Neesa who noticed the gradual change in her
mistress. Happy with her lot, now that Chaudharani Sahiba was no longer quite so verbally abusive, she nevertheless cared for Kaniz’s well-being and ached on her mistress’s behalf. Bravely she decided to voice her misgivings to Khawar, one evening while serving him his meal.

‘Khawar, my young Sahib, I am worried about your mother. She is not the same woman any more. You must spend more time with her. You are her only son,’ she beseeched respectfully.

‘Neesa, this is between my mother and me. Please don’t presume to discuss her with me!’ he admonished, standing up from the table, his meal unfinished. The subject of his mother was a thorny one. It perplexed him that his heart, instead of softening towards Kaniz, seemed to be hardening with time.

His Aunt Sabra had endeavoured many a time on her numerous visits to thaw her nephew’s manner towards his mother. Like Neesa, however, she learned to her dismay that neither cajoling words nor reasoning would do the trick. He was simply unable to find it in himself to forgive her.

‘Oh Sabra, Khawar and I are like two strangers,’ Kaniz had tearfully confided in her. ‘I want to hold my son against my chest, but I can’t even look him in the eye. All I see in them is so much resentment. What have I done that is so terribly wrong that my Khawar treats me so shabbily? It’s been over two years since we last had a proper conversation, can you believe it?’ Kaniz’s pleading tone tore at her sister’s heart.

‘It’s all right,’ Sabra soothed, embracing her sister tightly in her arms.

‘That witch, Fatima, was right all along. I
have
lost my son. They have taken him away from me – if not
physically. Fatima took everything from me. My husband – he was hers. And now her daughter has tricked my son away from me.’

‘No, my dear sister, she hasn’t. Your son is still with you. She has departed. It is she who doesn’t want your son.’

‘I tell you, Sabra, I am going to die from this estrangement.’ Her lower lip quivering with distress, Kaniz tried to make her sister understand the situation. ‘I only have one son. I live just for Khawar. I remained a single woman for his sake. As you know, I turned down Younas Raees, the landowner, when I was twenty-seven years of age. You have other children. If one doesn’t speak to you, you can easily turn to the others. To whom shall I turn, apart from you, Sabra? I have no one else!’

Sabra debated with herself about what she could do to help her sister. It was time for honesty. Drawing the other woman against her shoulder again, she whispered compassionately, ‘Then as a mother, decide with your heart what you can do for your son.’

Feeling her sister go still in her arms, Sabra
continued
in the same tone, hoping that her sister
understood
her meaning. ‘Sometimes in life we have to gulp down cups of poison for the sake of our children’s
happiness
. That is one of life’s wicked dances. We may have to deny and sacrifice our own happiness
for their sake.’

Understanding her meaning only too distinctly, Kaniz’s heart sank in dismay and then turned to stone. She moved out of her sister’s arms and sat down heavily on the
charpoy
on the verandah. Sabra stood and watched her sister’s reaction with disappointment, her arms still open, telling herself sadly, ‘I had to say that.’

For the remainder of the day, Kaniz refused to speak
to Sabra. Her face was stormy, signalling to everyone that ‘Chaudharani Kaniz was in one of her moods’.

At night-time, Kaniz tossed noisily on her bed, her sleep disturbed with one particular dream. She was standing in the courtyard of her
hawaili
. Khawar stood on the opposite side, his face wearing a harsh
expression
. In the middle of her courtyard was Firdaus, a bewitching smile on her lips, her arms held out to Khawar … Agitated, Kaniz bit her lips together, waking up and tasting the salty blood on her tongue.

‘I’ll do anything to get my son back – anything! Even drink poison, as Sabra suggested. I’ll even let that dreadful woman into my home!’ she told the dark walls of her room, the love for her son burning through her.

Sitting up in bed, she wiped the beads of sweat from her forehead and the blood from her lips with her muslin
chador
. Leaving her room, she went up to the rooftop gallery and let the cool night air sway against her body. Feeling defeated she glanced across at Fatima’s house two streets away, recalling her sister’s words, ‘Life’s wicked dances.’ Life was about to make Kaniz perform one of those dances. Restlessly she padded barefoot to and fro on the rooftop gallery of her home, lost in thought and shivering now with the night chill. When Kaniz decided on something, she never looked back.

After she saw her sister off, the very next afternoon, Kaniz told her chauffeur to get the car out. ‘I am going shopping in the town bazaar,’ she told him loftily.

Once they had left the village road, Kaniz directed the driver to take her to the town’s local women’s college. On arrival, she instructed him to wait outside the college gate for her. Finding the entrance, she went
to the reception and asked the young secretary if she could see the Vice Principal, Madam Firdaus. She was offered a seat on the comfortable chairs in the carpeted reception area, while the Vice Principal was contacted over the phone.

Kaniz waited with her heart beating a slow tattoo. Hearing steps come down the concrete corridor, she looked up expectantly.

An astounded Firdaus stood in front of her. Kaniz held her gaze steadily. Firdaus turned and was on the point of leaving the room, when the older woman’s arm shot out and grasped her.

‘Please wait. Don’t go.’ She stood up.

The hint of a plea in Kaniz’s voice took Firdaus by surprise. Turning she looked pointedly down at the hand restraining her. Gently but firmly, Firdaus pulled her arm away from her visitor’s grasp.

‘I need to see you. Please spare me a few minutes, Firdaus,’ Kaniz pleaded, her voice breaking.

Firdaus couldn’t quite believe her words or the fact that the proud Chaudharani was here. Then she
hardened
, recalling the scene in her school office. It is because of this woman I had to abandon my school and the village, she thought angrily. Why won’t she leave me in peace! Is she here to heap further abuse on my head?

‘I don’t blame you for fleeing from me,’ Kaniz said with quiet dignity, ‘but I have come so far, Firdaus, so bear with me for one minute.’

‘Very well. Please come this way to my office,’ Firdaus threw crisply over her shoulder at Kaniz.

Her heart growing immeasurably lighter with each step, Kaniz trailed behind Firdaus down the college’s pillared verandah to her office. Everything will be all
right now, she thought contentedly. I will soon have my son back. A smile glowed on her face.

Standing aside, Firdaus politely let the elder woman step into her room. Kaniz scanned it with interest,
noting
the tasteful furnishings that showed the high status of its occupier. The washerwoman’s daughter was indeed a Principal!

Perching herself awkwardly on the leather chair Kaniz gazed at Firdaus, sitting across from her behind the large walnut desk. Firdaus stared coldly back from behind her reading glasses, waiting for Kaniz to say her piece and wondering whether she had done the right thing in giving the detestable woman her valuable time.

Kaniz tugged nervously at the corner of her
chador
. The moment of reckoning had come, but she didn’t know quite how to begin, especially in front of this woman – the ‘chit’. Her son’s face flashed before her eyes and made Kaniz swallow the bitter pill and do something she had vowed she would never do in a
thousand
years. Her mouth went totally dry. She licked her full lips.

‘Firdaus, I have come to ask for your hand in marriage, for my son.’ The words fell quietly and scattered around them.

The eerie silence that followed was shattered by Firdaus’s shrill laughter. She couldn’t believe her ears. Discomfited, Kaniz stared up at the daughter of her enemy.

‘Am I to be honoured, that our gracious Chaudharani has come to ask for my hand in marriage? Certainly it cannot be because of my physical attributes, Sahiba Jee, for you have always reviled me on my colouring and height. Nor could it be because of my mother and
family, for you hate us all – as you have always made the point of broadcasting to the whole world. And now you have the audacity, the
gall
, to ask for my hand. Get you gone, Chaudharani Kaniz! I don’t know what game you are playing, but I have neither the time nor the patience to join in. Moreover, I want nothing to do with you, your son, or your home –
ever
.’

‘No Firdaus! Please don’t say that.’ Kaniz began to panic. ‘Don’t turn me away. I have come in good faith. I want you to become my daughter-in-law, really.’

‘Really – but why? Because your son desires it?’ Firdaus sneered, leaning forward in her chair.

‘Yes. Yes!’ Kaniz’s voice broke. She hadn’t bargained on this reception from Firdaus.

‘Then hear me clearly. I definitely
do not want to marry your son,
Chaudharani Kaniz. Remember what I said three years ago. I wouldn’t marry your son, even if you begged me on your knees.’

Desperation born out of love for her son, made Kaniz part with the last ounce of her pride, and she did now what she thought she would never do in her wildest of nightmares. Bitterly she performed one of ‘life’s wicked dances’. Sacrificing her pride, she went down on her knees on the carpeted floor of the office and held up her two hands in supplication to Firdaus.

Stunned, Firdaus fell back against her seat.

‘I beg of you, on my knees! Come home, Firdaus, and marry my son. He loves you so much. Please forgive me. Return my son to me. I give up, he is all yours.’

Firdaus continued to gape. The spectacle of this hitherto proud and arrogant Chaudharani on the floor in front of her made her feel ill.

‘Please, Sahiba, get up! I do not like people begging on their knees – especially older people. I was only
joking. What you ask for is impossible, and holding your hands up to me will not help. I am sorry, but I have no wish to do what you say. Please go!’

Firdaus held the door open, wanting to usher the older woman out of her room as quickly as possible. It was all too much for her to cope with. Kaniz stood up. Numb and humiliated, she walked out of the room, down the long corridor and out of the college.
Wordlessly
she let herself into her car and lay back on the seat staring into space.

She didn’t utter a word on her journey back to the village. Nor did she return Kulsoom’s greeting when she met her in the street outside her home. Indoors, she went directly up to her room and remained there for the rest of the day. Neesa discovered her mistress was at home by chance when she went to clean her room.

She returned, bringing a tray of food. Politely Neesa enquired what her mistress had bought from the bazaar. Kaniz didn’t answer. When Neesa came to collect the tray, Kaniz was still sitting in the same position,
staring
vacantly into space – her food untouched. Alarmed, Neesa sent the errand boy to find Khawar, to see if he was in the fields.

When at last Khawar returned home, Neesa hurried over to him. ‘Khawar Sahib, you must call the doctor! Your mother is not well. She has not spoken all evening.’

‘Don’t be silly, Neesa, Mother doesn’t have to speak all the time.’

‘No! No, Khawar Sahib, you don’t understand. She is just staring into space. Please come and see.’

Khawar followed her reluctantly into his mother’s room but Kaniz was in the bathroom. He immediately left and later on, forgot all about his mother.