The Holy Woman (34 page)

I
T WAS THE
holy month of Ramadhan, the month of fasting. The village mosque rang with the sound of the bell in the evening, telling the villagers that it was time to break their fast. Kaniz sat on the flat rooftop of her
hawaili
, a tray of food in front of her, not bothering to break her fast. Instead she continued to stare at the far horizon.

Neesa, returning a few minutes later with a jug of iced lemon juice, seeing her mistress sitting in stony silence with the food still untouched, was alarmed and thought it imperative to warn her Master Khawar that his mother was acting strangely again. So strangely in fact, that she hadn’t even started the
Eid-ul-Fitr
shopping
– a ritual that normally took her two weeks. Now there were only two
days
to go! She had made no
preparation
, nor sorted out the presents she distributed every year to all the young women in the village – excepting Fatima’s daughters, of course.

Khawar again ignored Neesa’s warning with a laugh, but then, when he happened to go up to the rooftop himself and saw his mother sitting staring vacantly, a tray of food untouched in front of her, he stopped in his tracks and Neesa’s words came ominously back to him. Not having spoken to his mother on a personal level for over a year, Khawar didn’t relish the prospect of having to talk to her now. He hovered awkwardly in front of her, wondering what to say and how to say it. He still had to ask her what groceries he should purchase for
Eid
from the town. The tall shadow on the sunny floor told
Kaniz that her son stood in front of her, but she felt no inclination whatsoever to lift her head and look up at him.

‘Mother, the flies are all over the food! Why aren’t you eating? Don’t you want to break your fast?’ Khawar asked at last.

Her face expressionless, Kaniz slowly lifted her head. She seemed to look right through him. Then she shifted her gaze to the marble pillar in the far corner of the rooftop, and the washing draped on the balcony wall and the green ivy from the earthen pot winding attractively around the pillars. Khawar turned impatiently on his heel and marched off. His mother was apparently sulking for some reason. That was all.

The following day, Khawar casually asked Neesa whether his mother had eaten her evening meal the previous night.

‘Not a morsel!’ the servant fretted. ‘I am so worried about her. She fasts, yet she doesn’t eat anything. You must call your Auntie Sabra. I am sure she will get her to talk and to eat. She totally ignores me. Have you seen her face? Her cheeks have gone hollow and her eyes are sunken. Look,
Eid
is around the corner. She needs to sort everything out.’

‘All right, Neesa. I will telephone my auntie,’ Khawar replied heavily. Now he, too, was beginning to experience pangs of anxiety. Whatever she had done the fact remained that Kaniz was still his mother.

Alarmed on her sister’s behalf, Sabra promptly arrived from Lahore the following morning with her eldest daughter and her two grandchildren by plane. She had decided that the sight of the children might affect Kaniz in a pleasant way, especially as they had come to
celebrate the festival of
Eid-ul-Fitr
with her. As the children flew into her arms, Kaniz accepted their hugs mechanically. Returning her niece and sister’s hugs in a similar manner, Kaniz sat down woodenly on her chair, staring vacantly into space in front of her.

Sabra exchanged a quick glance with her daughter, alarm bells ringing in her head. She beckoned to her to take the children away. Something was obviously terribly amiss here, for Kaniz hadn’t even greeted them.

Sitting down heavily next to Kaniz on the sofa, Sabra put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a warm hug. ‘What is the matter,
Baji Jan
? You are acting so strangely. Your son, can you believe it, phoned me last night? And I have hurried here on an aeroplane because I just couldn’t bear hours of journey on a train. Khawar is worried that you are not eating anything. He tells me that you fast – but you don’t
break
your fast. Nor do you talk to anybody. I can now see with my own eyes what he means, if you act like this towards your own young sister, your niece and her children,’ she ended jokingly.

Her heart beating nervously, Sabra waited for Kaniz to say something. The other woman, however,
continued
to stare back at her with the same vacant look in her eyes.

‘What is the matter, sister? Please tell me!’ Sitting down on the carpeted floor of the guest room, in front of Kaniz, Sabra held the cold hands in her own and rubbed them, now very much concerned.

The sight of Sabra kneeling on the floor at once cleared the fog in Kaniz’s mind. Panicking, she screamed, ‘No! No! Get up from the floor!’ Snatching her hands away she leaned back, her eyes horror-struck.

Thoroughly shaken, Sabra was afraid to touch her sister again. ‘Kaniz, please. I’ll get up, don’t worry.’
Sitting back down on the sofa, she tried again. ‘My dear sister, please tell me what is the matter with you.’

The seconds ticked away on the wall clock in the cool, air-conditioned guest room. At long last Kaniz swung her gaze at her sister. ‘You told me to
compromise
, and give in. To drink poison. I have done so Sabra, and reached the ultimate degradation. I have performed one of “life’s wicked dances” that you talked about. I went on the floor, Sabra. My knees touched the ground. I held up my two hands together in front of her. I begged her, but she …’ Kaniz pinched at the crocheted lace of her
chador
, snapping the white silken thread with her nail into tiny shreds.

‘Who did you beg?’ Sabra demanded.

Kaniz didn’t hear her sister. ‘She opened the door and told me to leave.’

‘
Who?
’

Moistening her dry lips with her tongue, Kaniz shot an accusing glare at her sister. Her large body shaking, hysterical laughter tumbled inside her and then spilled out of her mouth.

‘You don’t even know who I am talking about!’ Kaniz accused in distress.

Fear gripped Sabra, a sudden thought darting into her mind. ‘You don’t mean Firdaus?’

Kaniz’s head fell forward on her chest as the fog descended once again like a woollen curtain across her mind. Her eyes traced, with hypnotic fascination, the green peacock pattern on the silk lounge carpet.

Tears springing to her eyes, Sabra’s heart swelled with overwhelming love and pity as she imagined her proud sister on the floor, begging in front of that ‘chit’.

‘Who told you to beg? I only meant that you should ask for her hand in marriage – I didn’t want you to
beg!’ Sabra cried, wiping the tears from her cheek with her
chador
. Angrily she gathered her elder sister in her arms. Melting in this loving tight embrace, Kaniz finally wept too, on Sabra’s comforting shoulders.

‘I don’t know who I am any more – tell me, Sabra.’ Kaniz’s agonised voice broke between the tears,
piercing
her sister’s heart. ‘Am I the village
chaudharani
, its headwoman? Does a
chaudharani
go on her knees to a mere slip of a girl? Do you know what it cost me to go to her? I battered my pride for that young woman. I drank the poison you directed me to – I gulped cupfuls of it. I did it all. I danced to her tune. She had taunted me about going on my knees. I did so. I went on my knees. I, the same woman who is known to beckon everyone around with her eyes. I, Kaniz, Queen of this village held up my hands to her like a beggar, with a begging bowl. I asked for
beekh
– I asked for her hand. But she …’ Kaniz stopped, horrified by the scene
staring
at her in her mind. Her voice dipped to a mere whisper. ‘… She went and held the door wide open, telling me to go. Tell me now, Sabra, is my life worth living? How can I respect myself? My face has been cruelly smeared into the mud. What bigger dishonour can one face in one’s life? What more “wicked dance” can one dance than the one I have chosen?

‘She has won, my sister, in every way. I have lost my son to her and gone crawling to her on my knees – something that I would never have done in my wildest dreams if it wasn’t for the love of Khawar. She had said that she would never marry my son, even if I begged her to. Well, I begged her to. She had her wish fulfilled. How she and her mother must be laughing!

‘I hate myself, Sabra. All I want to do now, is to sink into a mental vacuum, to dive into some deep, dark
well where I can hide for ever. Neesa keeps putting on videos for me to watch. Ironing new suits for me to wear. I have no heart for videos or clothes. Sabra, I cannot live with myself and with what I have done! Help me, please!’ Kaniz twisted out of her sister’s arms and rushed, maddened, from the room.

Sabra stood, shaken and dismayed, in the middle of the room, Kaniz’s words ricocheting around her head. Then she went after her, hoping to persuade her to eat something, and ease her anguish.

Kaniz was standing in her bedroom, a glass of water in one hand and the other hand cupped tightly.

Catching sight of a bottle of tablets on the dressing table, fear lent wings to Sabra’s feet. She flew to her sister’s side, clawing the tablets away from Kaniz’s tight-fisted palm. Falling on the marble floor, they rolled under the bed.

‘Oh God! What are you doing, Kaniz?’ Sabra screeched. ‘Khawar! Bano! Neesa! Please everybody come!’

Hearing the commotion, Neesa came running into the room.

‘Call Khawar and the doctor immediately!’ Sabra ordered, and Neesa ran to do her bidding.

Panic-stricken, Sabra’s heart thumped away behind her ribcage. What was happening to them? This was the worst scenario she had ever envisaged. Her sister on the point of committing suicide! It was unthinkable!

Drawing Kaniz tenderly against her body as if she would never let her out of her arms ever again, she asked, ‘Why, sister, why?’ in a voice hoarse with emotion.

‘I have nothing. Everything has been snatched from me.’ Kaniz lifted her pain-glazed eyes to the other woman. ‘No son, no self-respect – nothing. I am just an
arrogant, evil, middle-aged bully. That is how everyone sees me. My mirror delights in winking a tarnished picture at me. I cannot disregard it any longer, Sabra. My life is simply not worth living!’

‘No, you are not an evil woman. That is ridiculous! Now listen to me, Kaniz,’ Sabra said firmly, taking charge of the situation. ‘As Allah is my witness, I am not going to let you out of my sight or allow anything to happen to you. I promise you, you will have your son back and that Firdaus – that “chit” – will beg your forgiveness. Your self-respect will return. Do not ever – I repeat,
ever
– contemplate doing anything so stupid again. My beloved sister, don’t you know that in our faith it is
haram
to commit suicide? No one has the right to take their life!’ Sabra took a deep, shuddering breath.

‘Firdaus is not worth committing suicide for,’ she said quietly. ‘She is just a foolish young woman who didn’t appreciate what it had cost you to beg in front of her. You triumphed over your pride and I am so proud of you. She is a petty-minded, hard-hearted person.’ Sabra pressed kisses over her sister’s face, sweeping her hair lovingly back into place. They remained locked in a tight embrace for long poignant minutes.

After supervising Kaniz’s meal herself, Sabra put her sister to bed and stayed with her until she fell asleep. Unable to find Khawar, Neesa sent the errand boy for the local doctor.

When Khawar came home later in the evening, the doctor had already been and gone. Sabra had hovered anxiously by the bedside while he examined Kaniz and asked her questions about her health.

Gesturing to Neesa to stay with Kaniz, Sabra took the doctor to the guest room.

‘I am worried about her, Doctor sahib,’ she burst out. ‘My sister was about to swallow a whole bottle of tablets before I happened to come by chance into the room.’

‘She is suffering from what I think is an acute form of depression of some sort. Something is bothering her, apparently, and it goes deep. She needs a lot of support from you and the rest of her family.’

Sabra listened quietly, nodding her head in
agreement
. Love for her elder sister made her start to cry again. She didn’t care about breaking down in front of the doctor. She promised herself that she would not leave her sister’s side until she got better.

‘It is time to bring the animosity between mother and son to an end.’ Sabra spoke firmly to Khawar. ‘It has nearly cost my sister her life!’

As soon as Khawar walked in, Sabra had begun her verbal assault.

‘Do you realise, my arrogant nephew, that your mother is mentally a very sick woman? Earlier today she tried to commit suicide!’ Here, Sabra faltered, but gained control of herself. ‘She doesn’t talk or eat – as you very well know. And I blame
you
! What sort of a son have you become? Are you so lovesick over Firdaus that you callously neglect your own mother? My sister may have her faults, but she doesn’t deserve this sort of treatment!

‘She has been pining for your affection for so long, and finally she did something that I personally couldn’t imagine her doing in a hundred years. But she did it for your sake, Khawar! She went to Firdaus and begged for her hand – on her knees! Can you believe that?’ Sabra ended, her dark eyes glittering coals of angry fire.

‘What! What nonsense is this, Auntie?’ Khawar demanded, unable to make sense of what his aunt was telling him.

‘Surprised, are you? And do you know what that horrible woman did, she opened the door and told your mother to get lost and said that she would never marry you! Can you begin to comprehend the extent of the humiliation your mother has suffered, the depths to which she has sunk? Can you imagine it? On the floor! Your mother – holding up her hands to the daughter of a woman she has always hated.’

‘Why did she do it? I didn’t tell her to,’ Khawar lashed out sulkily, his nostrils flaring in rage as he
listened
to his aunt’s account of the disgraceful incident. Repentant and guilty he immediately went to his mother’s quarters where, worn out, Kaniz was fast asleep. Sitting near her bed, Khawar watched over her for most of the evening.