The Holy Woman (4 page)

With that calming thought, Kaniz managed to close her mouth. Propping the cushions beneath her, she
stretched out her big frame and long legs on the sofa to enjoy the film once more. Now where was she? Oh yes. The hero, Shahrukh, had just fallen in love with the heroine’s sister … Her hand reached for the plate of sweetmeats.

Just as she was really getting into the plot of the film, Kaniz was interrupted by Neesa’s timid entrance, informing her that Mansur, the village melon man, was at her gate, waiting for their order. ‘No, Neesa! Tell him from me to chuck his rotten pock-marked fruit into the village well. I am in no mood for his out-
of-season
melons.’

Her evening now definitely ruined, Kaniz asked Neesa to have Kulsoom, the village matchmaker, summoned to the house. Having failed in her numerous attempts to bring her beloved son and Zarri Bano together, she was now ready and resigned to start afresh. That proud young madam had categorically stated that she did not want to live in the village, and also pretended that Khawar was a sort of a brother to her.

‘Just as well.’ Kaniz sniffed disdainfully. That woman was too glamorous, too educated and
opinionated
for her liking. Now shy Ruby was another matter … Thus, she now wanted Kulsoom to find out from Habib Khan if he would be willing to allow her to ask for his younger daughter, Ruby, as a bride for Khawar.

As Kaniz reached over to pluck another
ludoo
from the plate and pop it into her mouth, she had a sudden vision of Firdaus with her son and nearly choked. ‘Never!’ she screamed silently in her mind. ‘Over my dead body!’

B
ABA
S
IRAJ
D
IN
, accompanied by his faithful
companion
and driver, Waris, ceremoniously decided to call at his son Habib’s home, to discuss the matter of his granddaughter Zarri Bano’s
rishta
. Once parked on the marble-tiled driveway of Habib’s luxurious villa, Siraj Din waited patiently for his driver to help him out of the Jeep. Holding his ivory walking stick in one hand, he accepted Waris’s hand to step down from his high seat. He straightened his long black tweed overcoat, and adjusted his turban at the right angle on his head. He always visited his son very formally dressed. ‘Impressions matter a lot,’ he forever preached to his sons and grandchildren.

His ivory stick tapping a distinct sound on the creamy white marble ground, Siraj Din climbed up the three steps of the veranda leading to the two sliding doors. Pressing the buzzer on the wall he waited impatiently.

Fatima came out of the kitchen. Wiping her wet hands on the end of her shawl she walked nonchalantly into the hall to see who had the audacity to have kept their finger on the buzzer for such a long time. On catching a glimpse of the stately old man standing
outside
the clear glass patio door, his head held
imperiously
at an angle surveying her coldly, Fatima rushed to the door. Over her shoulder she shouted to her mistress Shahzada, ‘Sahiba Jee, Baba Siraj Din is here!’

‘Bismillah! Bismillah, Baba Jee!’ Fatima gushed, sliding the door fully open. Quickly stepping aside, she
obligingly bowed her head in front of him for the ritual patting. Dutifully, Siraj Din lightly swiped his hand over her shawled head before walking straight ahead into the hall.

Shahzada, his eldest daughter-in-law, had heard Fatima’s shout. Siraj Din saw her dash out of the lounge, holding her
chador
firmly in place on her head, while she urgently tugged and draped the other half discreetly around her shoulders and over in front of her chest. With her gaze respectfully fixed on his coat and with smarting cheeks, Shahzada stepped before her superior-looking father-in-law. Dutifully, she inclined her head towards his raised hand. Siraj Din let his hand rest heavily for a moment on her head, at peace with himself. This was the head he never tired of patting. It belonged to his favourite daughter-in-law, the joy in his life after his wife Zulaikha’s death.

‘
Assalam-Alaikum, Aba Jan
,’ Shahzada nervously greeted her father-in-law, fearful of her silk
chador
disgracefully
slipping from its precarious position on her head and thus scandalously baring her head to his gaze. ‘We didn’t expect you, Baba Jee,’ she stammered to explain.

‘
Wa Laikum-Salam
,’ Siraj Din returned the greeting before walking ahead into the drawing room, asking carelessly over his shoulder, ‘Is Habib at home?’

Shahzada hovered two steps behind her father-in-law as he entered their large drawing room. Fatima had already scurried ahead into the room to set in place the
takkia
, the thick bolster, on the sofa. Siraj Din flashed a smile of appreciation at Fatima as he stretched his tall, wiry frame on the creamy brocade upholstery. Thoroughly disliking modern sofas, his heart still hankered after the
palangs
, the traditional luxury beds
that graced living rooms in days gone by. The
palangs
, however, didn’t go well with the rest of the modern drawing-room furnishings. They were being relegated to rooms labelled ostentatiously as ‘
bedrooms
’.

His eyes moved over the tall lamp in the corner, the long drapes with their matching brocade swags and tails drawn across the wall-to-wall patio window. They then rested on the three heavy marble tables placed between the two large luxurious sofa suites. There were enough seats around the room to cater for up to
twenty-five
people, Siraj Din counted at the back of his mind. Knowing his father’s particular preference, Habib had especially purchased an elegant chaise longue from a quality department store in Karachi, which also matched beautifully with the rest of the plush
furnishings
, including the silk carpet completely covering the marble floor.

Shahzada left her father-in-law alone for a few moments while she went into the kitchen to inform her second cook to prepare a special meal for Siraj Din Sahib, and to use fewer red chillies in the curry dishes. Fatima was also in the kitchen preparing a hookah for Siraj Din, with freshly ground tobacco neatly placed amongst small pieces of coal in the
topee
. When Shahzada returned, Habib was with his father discussing business negotiations to do with their land. Siraj Din was asking his son whether it was worthwhile selling some land in his home village, Chiragpur, to another landlord, Master Khawar.

‘It is hard for me to manage at this time in my life,’ the old man told him, ‘and you and Jafar have enough to do already with the land around here. Yes, I think that I’ll let young Khawar buy those acres. He is a
clever chap and will look after the land well. I wouldn’t want to sell them to anyone else.’

‘I agree with you, Father. Zarri Bano is thinking of opening a publishing company in Karachi, with Jafar’s help. Therefore, with my son involved in that business, I don’t think I’ll have time to oversee both the land here in Tanda Adam and in Chiragpur.’

‘Where is Zarri Bano?’ Siraj Din asked of his daughter-in-law as she sat beside her husband. He had already greeted Jafar and his youngest granddaughter Ruby.

Habib cast a hostile glare at his wife. Siraj Din merely fixed his green eyes, so similar to his son’s, on his daughter-in-law’s face. Shahzada’s gaze faltered before them both. Fidgeting with the crocheted lace edge of the
chador
, she waited nervously for Habib to explain.

Seconds passed. Habib didn’t explain.

His thick triangular-shaped brown eyebrows raised over his aquiline nose, Siraj Din was now intrigued by the pair’s silence.

Having by now realised that Habib’s silence was deliberate, Shahzada was miserably compelled to explain. She understood: this was Habib’s revenge for her action in letting Zarri Bano go to Karachi to Sikander’s home.

‘She is in Karachi,’ Shahzada stated with quiet dignity.

‘What is she doing there?’ Siraj Din asked sharply, suddenly realising that as the rest of the family was at home, his eldest granddaughter must have gone there alone.

An awkward silence ensued. Siraj Din’s speculative glance moved from his son to his daughter-in-law. The undercurrents of tension in the room spelt to him that
something was definitely wrong. The pair sitting in front of him were apparently bent on playing games with one another, each shunting the
responsibility
of explaining Zarri Bano’s whereabouts onto the other.

Shahzada first peeped up at her father-in-law and then at her husband, her heart sinking at the look of pure malice in her beloved Habib’s eyes. Bitterly she accepted that Habib was in a cruel, uncompromising mood.

‘Zarri Bano is visiting Sikander’s home.’ She slipped the information in while moving the glasses of drinks onto the tray. ‘His family wanted her to come and visit their home.’ Shahzada’s voice trailed off into the silence of the room. All of a sudden she experienced a strong urge to rush out and into the fresh air of the rear courtyard.

‘Are you telling me, Shahzada, that my young, unmarried granddaughter has gone to stay, all alone, in a strange family’s home and is in the company of a single young man?’ Siraj Din’s words cut Shahzada’s ears like a whiplash. She turned to look at the stately old man, dismayed at the harsh words. Her father-
in-law
had never spoken to her in such a disparaging tone or manner before.

‘I have done nothing wrong!’ Shahzada rebelled, trembling inside with rage. Remembering her beloved eldest daughter’s wistful eyes, Shahzada found the courage to look her father-in-law straight in the eye: she also had the presumption to speak boldly in front of the most revered elders of their clan.

‘
Aba Jan
,’ she said quietly; she always called him ‘Father’: ‘Zarri Bano has lived alone in Karachi in a hostel, as you well know, while she was studying at
University. She will be moving to Karachi anyway, because of her new editorial post and the company she is hoping to set up. She is a mature woman of
twenty-seven
years of age. Also, she
didn’t
go alone – Jafar went with her. Sikander’s parents asked her to stay a few more days. I think it is good for her to get to know Sikander and his family before she marries him.’ Shahzada mentally excused her new spirit of rebellion by telling herself that she was doing it for her daughter’s sake.

‘I see,’ the old man commented in a dangerously calm voice. ‘And that means staying in the same house, does it? Spending time with a young man – two people with no blood or any other legitimate ties between them? Since when did we become so immoral?’ Siraj Din’s voice lashed.

Taken aback by her father-in-law’s verbal assault and the chilly vehemence of the words, colour flooded Shahzada’s cheeks.

Tapping a rhythm with his stick on the silk carpet, Siraj Din waited for his daughter-in-law to say
something
, to apologise for her temerity in both speaking and answering him herself instead of letting her
husband
do it. And to top it all, she then had the audacity to justify her action to him! Siraj Din was now very, very angry with his most favourite daughter-in-law. Truly dismayed, he shook his head in disbelief. This was not the Shahzada he knew and loved.

Shahzada cast another helpless look at her husband, desperate for his support, hoping that he would say something in her defence. However, Habib, his eyes as cold as his father’s, remained self-righteously silent by her side.

All of a sudden Shahzada again experienced the urge
to escape from that oppressive atmosphere. She rose, but Siraj Din’s words rooted her to the sofa again.

‘Shahzada, I know that I am an old man and am fast becoming obsolete in this rapidly changing world. Day by day we are being invaded by Western values, via the satellite dishes and television programmes. But I must be allowed to say that my clan hasn’t yet had the misfortune to become so outrageously “advanced”, so morally corrupt that we let our beautiful young
unmarried
daughters stay in strange people’s houses unchaperoned. Alongside our land, our wives and daughters, our
izzat
– our honour – is the most precious thing in our lives. We never
ever
compromise on the issue of our women and our
izzat
! No matter what age we live in; no matter what the world outside dictates; no matter what evil lies outside our door. Even if you sacrifice, forget, or part with all the other etiquettes of our land-owning class of feudal landlords, we will never let you sully our
izzat
or our women’s honour, Shahzada.’

Chastised thus, Shahzada didn’t dare to raise her eyes, let alone speak. She sank into a stupor of
humiliation
as her father-in-law, in a calculated gesture of insult and a demonstration of his displeasure, neatly dismissed her by turning his back on her and lying down on the chaise longue.

Biting her quivering lower lip, Shahzada shot a look of pained betrayal at her husband. With an awkward movement and making sure her
chador
hadn’t by chance slipped off her head, she quietly walked out of the room, leaving behind the two males.

S
IKANDER AND
Z
ARRI
B
ANO
were taking a walk alone around the orange orchard of Sikander’s home, in a leafy suburb of Karachi. The afternoon sun was
shining
brightly above them.

As they walked side by side, an air of expectancy and excitement hung about them. Making small talk, both were happy to skirt around the main topic on their minds by indulging and humouring the other.

This was their third meeting. Zarri Bano, especially invited to visit Sikander’s home, had accepted
graciously
. Sikander did in fact, as predicted by Zarri Bano, return to Tanda Adam for a second visit. This time they had an opportunity to spend a whole day in each other’s company. And she didn’t turn him down, as Ruby learned later.

After dinner, Sikander had volunteered to show Zarri Bano around his family orchard. This time there were no parents to chaperone them. There was no need. They were two mature adults, needing and wanting to
communicate
and explore with each other their feelings for one another, before sealing their fate together.

They had walked away from the large house.
Strolling
amongst the orange trees, Zarri Bano had reached forward to pluck a ripe satsuma from the branch.

‘Here, let me help you, Zarri Bano.’

It was the first time he had used her full name instead of the polite term of ‘Sahiba’. The name rippled like music to Zarri Bano’s ears.

Sikander reached forward and pulled the satsuma off
the branch, touching Zarri Bano’s hand accidentally in the process. She went still, a strange, potent awareness entering her body. She waited for him to remove his hand.

He didn’t.

It was Zarri Bano who eventually jerked her hand away, deeply offended. Confronting Sikander directly, her hand still smarting from the touch of his fingers, she said in a low, passionate voice: ‘Sikander Sahib, we are all alone in this orchard and talking together.
However
, let me make it clear to you that I never allow anyone the liberty of being too familiar with me. No man has ever touched me or dared to do so, no matter how innocently.’

Sikander steadily held her gaze. A humorous glint dancing in his eyes, he looked pointedly down at her hand again. He understood her perfectly!

‘What liberty have I taken, Zarri Bano?’ he asked softly. ‘If an unfortunate and accidental contact of my hand has deserved this harsh rebuke from you, then perhaps we have both misunderstood the nature of this situation, of why we are here in the first place – walking alone, as you say, a man and a woman with no ties between us. I had hoped that there was a purpose in this walk of ours – a purpose to your stay in my home, in fact. That is why your mother and brother left you here, isn’t it?’

Colour rushed to Zarri Bano’s cheeks. She had come to the orchard to give him her answer personally that she would marry him, but now, perverse delight
overtook
her in wanting to hold it back, to teach him a lesson – to punish him for his audacity.

‘You presume wrong, Sikander Sahib. There is no purpose in our walk together. I am just a guest in your
house and I wanted a stroll around your gardens. You volunteered to accompany me, that’s all.’ She smiled politely back at him.

‘Well, if you think that I am too familiar, Sahiba, and there is no purpose to our walk together, I will leave you in peace. I, for my part, do not make a habit of taking unmarried women around our orchard. I’ll see you later in the house,’ he threw back at her before striding away, leaving a stunned Zarri Bano behind.

‘Sikander Sahib!’ she called after him, collecting her wits about her, deflated by his action. He had neatly turned the tables on her. ‘You do treat your guests shabbily. I thought there was a
handani
, a Sindi code of chivalry and etiquette.’

He swept round to look back at her. She was
standing
next to the orange tree, her arms held behind as if she were embracing it – almost moulded against it. The warm breeze played with her clothes and the long wavy strands of her hair as it fell around her face and shoulders.

Sikander caught his breath. She was looking at him with the same wistful expression of innocent
abandonment
that she had worn under the tree at the
mela
. This time she was dressed in dark green and looked
exquisite
. As if drawn by a magnet, Sikander retraced his steps and came to stand in front of her.

Zarri Bano watched and waited, a wave of sudden excitement coursing through her veins. Unable to make sense of her feelings when Sikander had angrily marched away from her, she had panicked. With a thud, the realisation dawned on her that she cared deeply for him, and that his opinion of her mattered to her.

Her eyes, unbeknown to her, thus spelt out and
whispered to him what her heart and mind had refused to recognise and to signal.

She was a tall woman, but he was still a few inches taller. She looked up at his face, her eyes lingering on the deep cleft in his chin. Then they lifted – locked with his.

Unable to help himself, Sikander reached forward and took her hand in his own. This time she didn’t draw it back. Sikander marvelled at its shape,
suppleness
and its colouring, with its well-manicured nails. He let his fingers tentatively trail over the soft skin.

‘Such a beautiful hand,’ he murmured, his eyes
challenging
her to remove it from his grasp. Then before her shocked gaze, he turned her hand over and his
fingers
began to move over her palm.

Zarri Bano watched in stunned surprise, her heart beating fast, before snatching her hand back, horrified both at his action and her own reaction to it. She had liked the feel of his fingers against her palm.
Commonsense
and female etiquette demanded that she remove her hand from his.

She went into further shock when he drew forward her other hand and did the same. She tried to draw it back, but he wouldn’t let go. Her colour heightened, she looked away in embarrassment, seeing the raw
passion
in his eyes. She floundered. He was invading the very perimeters of her intimate world.

By his action, both recognised that they were being drawn into a new bond. There was to be no retreat for either of them. They knew too much about each other.

Sikander was satisfied. Horrified she had been, but she hadn’t removed her hand, the second time, from his grasp. Her eyes had eloquently betrayed her as nothing
else could have done and whispered volumes for her heart.

‘I am afraid I have now committed a further crime in your book. It appears I am destined to sink fast in your estimation,’ his seductive tone teased. He smiled gently down at her. ‘I have been even more familiar. Is Shahzadi Zarri Bano now lost for words?’

Zarri Bano’s face spread into a smile, revealing an attractive dimple in her left cheek.

‘I wouldn’t have allowed you to become so familiar if I had not wanted you to,’ she answered softly.

‘Then I am honoured.’

‘So you should be. It is the first time that I have let a strange man touch my hand.’

‘But I wouldn’t be touching and holding these beautiful hands of yours in mine if I didn’t think that I had some right to do so. I, too, know the parameters of social proprieties.’

‘And what right is that, may I ask?’ she prompted, now ready to play with fire. ‘You are too presumptuous, Sikander Sahib.’

‘The right of your future husband, have I not, Zarri Bano?’ he coaxed, his eyes still caressing her with their dark warm glow.

There it was – the proposal in plain words. No more fencing around the subject. He now waited tensely for a response from her.

This was the moment that Zarri Bano had both dreaded and anticipated with delight. Instead, she was overcome by the utter solemnity of the occasion. The smile and dimple receded and she stared at him in awe, unable to look away.

Sikander watched and waited. Was she or was she not going to accept his proposal? Gently he dropped her
hand. Not wishing to swamp her with his physical presence he moved to stand at a decent distance from her.

Zarri Bano watched his retreat with a sense of loss. She had, by now, long recognised the charismatic power of attraction this man held over her. Totally lost to him she gloried in that realisation. There was to be no regret.

He was the first man who had managed to arouse anything in her. In fact, she was beginning to be
terribly
afraid of the feelings he
was
arousing in her. She wanted to share her life with him. Be with him, touch him and to feel his touch. Without him life loomed like a void – empty, colourless and without meaning. She allowed herself to be swept into his magnetic field, knowing instinctively that he was her ultimate
fulfilment
in life.

On impulse, she walked up to him; reaching
forward
, she placed her hand in his. He grasped it tightly, his shoulders relaxed. It was a most pleasant surprise, but he still sought a verbal response from her. He turned to look at her, his eyes again coaxing hers, endeavouring to demolish any relics of female reserve she still harboured.

She immediately responded. First with a smile and then she leaned forward, so that her shoulder was almost touching his.

‘You have every right, Sikander Sahib. I wouldn’t allow my hands to be touched if I didn’t think it was right.’ Honesty of thought and feeling were of
paramount
importance at this moment in time. ‘I am most honoured by your proposal and I hope you are in turn honoured by my acceptance.’

Sikander’s eyes closed.
She had accepted
.

‘Zarri Bano, I’ll never let you regret this. I’ll make
you the happiest woman on earth,’ he proclaimed both to himself and to her in a voice rich with promise.

‘I hope so, for you see, I have turned down many, many suitors. I was almost tempted to turn you down too.’ She dimpled at him. ‘But you are the only one who has finally caught me, as my sister would say. However, I do cherish my freedom. Above all, I will not be moulded in any way. You must understand and remember that always, Sikander Sahib.’

‘I will be honest with you too. You are the first woman who has “caught me in her net”. I want you as you are. That is what I most like about you – your unconventional behaviour, your wit and sparkle. Let’s now go inside and tell my family the good news. They will be delighted, particularly my father, who dreams of grandchildren with your eyes. You can phone your parents.’ His eyes again roamed over her face, noting the blush that had spread over her cheeks, before he pulled her along with him.

They walked a few yards together, side by side, in silence. Both were lost in thought and the magic spell that their walk had woven. As they approached the villa, Zarri Bano stepped away from him.

‘It’s going to be hard keeping my distance from you, especially when you are in the same building,’ Sikander whispered in her ear, an impish smile playing tenderly on his lips.

Shahzada entered the guest room unobtrusively,
holding
the hookah smoke pipe and base in her hand. She placed it down gently next to her father-in-law and then sat on the sofa. Habib and his father had finished their meal and were now enjoying drinking their pink
shabz
tea. They were engrossed in a keen discussion on
the subject of the brick factory, the
bhatta
that had opened near their village, and didn’t pay any attention to Shahzada.

‘We have always prided ourselves on the beautiful green landscape of our estate. Now with the
brick-making
business leaving huge ugly craters in the ground, the land is unbecomingly scarred. Habib, we will need to do something about it soon. I will not allow another of these smoke-belching kilns to be built in the vicinity of our village, never mind the heat from them. In the countryside we take pride in the fresh air.’

Siraj Din cast a look at his daughter-in-law as she stood up and picked up the hookah again. She,
thinking
that a change of position might be more convenient for him, placed it near his legs. Leaning over, he pulled the pipe towards him and took a long powerful puff, making the water in the shiny round aluminium base gurgle.

As he puffed he glanced up at Shahzada, seeing the smile etched on her face and the radiant glow beaming from her cheeks. Unable to help himself, he smiled back at her, his own eyes softening with fatherly love and fondness. Shahzada would always remain his favourite daughter-in-law, even if she had had the
misfortune
of displeasing him. The truth of the matter was that he had a soft spot for Shahzada. He just wished that all his other daughters-in-law were like her.
Magnanimously
, Siraj Din decided that he was going to forgive her. ‘She is a human being, after all, and all human beings make mistakes sometimes.’

Siraj Din’s green eyes narrowed in thought as he noted the stern lines on his son’s face. Siraj Din was unable to fathom Habib’s mood and the present tempo of his relationship with his wife. Earlier in the
afternoon there had been a distinct coldness between them, almost as if they were two strangers. No words or look of warmth had passed between them. On the
contrary
, Habib had been almost malicious towards his wife denying her any support. ‘What is going on between them?’ Siraj Din wondered, intrigued yet
disquieted
by the chasm that had opened up between his two loved ones.

Siraj Din swept a questioning look at his
daughter-in
-law.

Blushing red under his gaze, Shahzada announced with quiet confidence: ‘
Aba Jan
, Zarri Bano has just phoned from Karachi. She tells me that she has decided to marry Sikander and that she is very happy.’ Shahzada scanned both their faces expectantly.

She waited, switching from one face to the other, but only total silence greeted her words. Confronted with the grim look on her father-in-law’s face, Shahzada faltered nervously, her two fingers kept tapping on the gold rim of her china cup. When she turned to her husband, a steely glare greeted her. ‘Why are they
treating
me so coldly?’ Shahzada asked herself in pained bewilderment. ‘Aren’t they happy at the news?’