Typhoon (16 page)

W
HEN
N
EESA QUIETLY
entered her mistress’s room, wanting to inform her that the evening dinner was laid, she found Kaniz kneeling on the floor, her face buried in her sister’s lap.

Smoothing her sister’s hair, Sabra signalled discreetly with her eyes to the housekeeper to leave them alone. Unobtrusively, as befitted a faithful servant, Neesa withdrew, throwing an anxious look at her beautiful mistress. Why was she lying on the floor like this?

Kaniz heard the door shut, but made no effort to raise her head. Sabra tenderly swept aside the wet, wavy tendrils of hair that were plastered to Kaniz’s forehead. Through the misty screens of tears, and their faces only inches apart, the two sisters looked into each other’s eyes – soothing, hurting, trying to read each other’s deepest thoughts.

Sabra at last broke the silence, ‘Who was he? Which haramzada did that to you?’

But Kaniz did not answer her.

‘Tell me, please, Kaniz! Who was he? I am your sister!’ Sabra demanded.

Kaniz looked down at the floor and, in a low voice, her lips formed the words and sounds she had vowed to herself, she would never utter to a living soul.

‘He was your eldest brother-in-law.’ She screwed her eyes tightly shut, as her mind was attacked by the images of the ‘beast’.

‘My eldest
brother-in-law
?’ Sabra croaked, her mouth dry, unable to believe what her sister had told her.

‘Please! Don’t say his name,’ Kaniz begged,
wild-eyed
,

Sabra struggled to accept that someone from her husband’s family had ruined her sister’s life. The need to know more forced her to ask through cold lips. ‘How? When? Where?’

Kaniz shuddered, closing her eyes. ‘Please don’t make me relive that moment – I beg of you. I have lived and died through it over a thousand times! Don’t make me go over it again! All I can tell you is that I was just sixteen and alone.’

Sabra stared at the figure of her sister on the floor. ‘So long ago! Why didn’t you tell us?’

‘Tell you all,’ Kaniz threw her sister an agonised look. ‘Shroud you all with my chador of shame! My whole clan – my khandan. How could I possibly tell you about my shameful dark secret?’

‘You
should
have told us! I am your sister, Kaniz. You let that haramzada get away, after what he has done. And did to you and what he has made you into.’

Tears kept on pouring.

Helplessly, watching her sister, Sabra suddenly
realised
: ‘So that is why you have never been to my in-laws’ home. You didn’t attend
his
funeral after the accident. And all these years, my mother-in-law has never
forgiven
you for that. She called you ‘a heartless, haughty bitch!’ And all this time, her eldest son had robbed you of your most precious gift – your female dignity, womanhood and, in fact, your life. It all makes sense now Kaniz, your nervousness just at the mention of men, and your stark discomfort in their company. And your odd, volatile behaviour …’

‘When he died, Sabra, I couldn’t shed a tear for him. I tried, Allah pak is my witness, but I couldn’t. That is how heartless and callous I have become.’

‘Cry for him, my dearest sister? God will punish him in his other life!’

‘I don’t know if he is being punished in his other life, Sabra. All I know is that I have spent half of
my
life being punished in this life for his sin.’ Kaniz choked on her tears. ‘Not a day goes by when I am not haunted by that afternoon … in that room …’ Kaniz’ voice
disappeared
into an agonised silence.

‘You must not think like that – my dearest, dearest sister.’ Sabra reached out to Kaniz, drawing her against her own body.

‘How can I not think like that? It is an episode smeared across my whole life. I live with it every day, all day. You rave about my beauty, my attractive face and statuesque body. I do, you know, loathe both! I sometimes think that if I had been ugly or plain, the beast would have left me alone and not made me his prey. If I had been ugly I am sure he would never have glanced at me. You used to envy me my rosy cheeks, my beautiful blooming body, but it had been marked as his conquest. I detest and hate this body of mine! Sabra, it is unclean! I have had a thousand baths in the last twelve years, but I can never cleanse myself; never
purify
myself. I shall remain forever soiled. Can you imagine this sort of existence? Living with an unclean body?

‘Every time I think of him and what he did to me, I want to chop it into a thousand pieces, for I loathe it so! Now tell me, my sister, how can I ever marry Younus Raees? Am I worthy of any man? Am I capable of
having
a healthy relationship with anyone? How can I go
to any man with a traumatised mind and a baggage of shame that I bring and carry with me?’

Tears shining out of her eyes, Sabra tenderly pressed kisses on her sister’s cheek, the one she earlier had wanted to strike.

‘Stop torturing yourself. You are not unclean, my beautiful sister. You are pure in your heart. You are neither the first woman nor shall you be the last to be raped by men. It is a fact of life. Men rob women not only of their womanhood but also their humanity. You have been robbed of both. But remember, my sister, all men aren’t the same. They are not all beasts. Think of my dear husband. He is gentle and affectionate. Don’t let that episode and that beast destroy you Kaniz or your chance of happiness. Start afresh, my sister, with Younus Raees,’ Sabra urged again.

‘No! No!’ Kaniz panicked, drawing herself out of her sister’s arms.

‘Hush! Listen to me. Brother Sarwar, he was a good husband to you, wasn’t he?’ Sabra held on to her sister’s body.

A shuttered expression came over Kaniz’s face. ‘I have only experiences of two encounters with men – and both were destructive. While one raped me, the other humiliated me. Sarwar rejected me, Sabra!’

‘What?’ Sabra was shattered.

‘He … He …’ Kaniz’s voice choked. She drew back from her sister. ‘When I told him that I had been raped, a look of revulsion crossed his face. I will never forget that look. It was almost as if he believed it was
my
fault. More importantly, to my horror and humiliation, I soon found out that he loved another woman. My
marriage
was doomed, even before it began. While one man had cast his evil shadow over my life, another woman
still tugged at my husband’s heartstrings. Do you know, Sabra, that Khawar is the product of just one physical encounter with my husband? Sarwar left me well alone after my wedding night.’

Lost for words, Sabra shook her head dumbly at her sister.

‘I don’t know what to say to you, Kaniz. It appears you have never known male companionship or warmth. Robbed of both – I am not surprised you hate men and shun marriage … But don’t, please, let the beast who deflowered you triumph! Conquer your pain and start afresh, my sister.’

‘No! No, Sabra. I can never ever join my life to any man. My shame will always haunt and taunt me. Destiny didn’t equate happiness with me. I am content alone, with my son and my home. Don’t ever mention marriage to me again, please, I beg of you!’ Kaniz held up her two hands in supplication to her sister.

Sabra grabbed hold of her sister’s hands and gathered her firmly against her own body. In this warm refuge, Kaniz wept again.

‘Tonight it is not me, Sabra, who is badkismet, but that beautiful young woman Naghmana – wrenched from a husband she loved and has now forever lost!’ Kaniz whispered sadly.

Y
OUNUS
R
AEES’S ANGRY
booted steps crossed the large central courtyard of his hawaili. Seeing his
manservant
, he ordered a glass of cool lemon drink and sat on one of the chairs under the shade of the verandah. Kaniz’s shameful words compressed his lips into a thin line of fury. ‘
Begharet aurat
!’ He shook his head in disbelief.

Just then his mother stepped out of her bedroom. Agitated, he got up from his seat, afraid of her question.

‘Did you see her?’ she asked with a distinct catch in her voice. A slight, gentle woman, she was extremely fond of her youngest son, but not of his wish to marry a haughty widow with a son.

Younus Raees got to the point straight away.

‘Yes, I’ve spoken to her.’ His black eyes glared coldly. ‘And you, Mother, from this moment on, can rest assured that I will be bringing no widow into this home. You’ll be granted your wish for a virgin bride for your beloved younger son!’

‘What!’ His mother now stood beside his chair with flushed cheeks. She was taken aback by his goading answer and the look in his dark eyes.

‘Yes, dear mother,’ Younus Raees’s bitter laughter disconcerted her. ‘That ‘haughty widow’ as you like to describe her, has turned your beloved son down, and in no uncertain terms. I am not prepared to repeat those to you at the moment.’

Ignoring her surprised look, and eager to be gone, Younus Raees crossed the courtyard again and left his home and mother with her own thoughts and
speculations
. He knew where he wanted to go. Where he always went when he had something on his mind – for a walk through the village fields.

Just then, he saw a group of friends coming his way. In no mood to exchange social pleasantries, Younus Raees neatly turned onto another path and entered a wheat field. His eyes at first turned up to the clear blue sky above and then moved to the west in the direction of Chiragpur, Kaniz’s village. He walked up to the large tree growing from a picturesque mound of dry grass and wild flowers and sat down against its gnarled trunk, surrounded by its dry snake-like roots buried deep and far into the field.

‘Why am I so obsessed with you, Kaniz?’ he asked the warm breeze around him. There was no answer. And none that he could give to himself. Only that somehow he was hopelessly in love with the young widow.

‘When did this happen?’ The question echoed in his head. He ached to deny it, but this time he knew the answer. It was the moment when he first caught sight of the twenty-year-old Kaniz stepping out of the car as Sarwar’s bride as he held its door open for her. In her glamorous cerise bridal outfit, she had fleetingly glanced up at him as she entered her new home. He was numbed to a stillness.

What had fascinated him about his friend’s young bride was not only her breathtaking beauty, but the cool look in her large almond-shaped eyes that had sent tremors up his spine.

The same chilly look was there when, two days later,
Sarwar formally introduced his wife to his best friend. Politely she had rested her eyes on his face for a fleeting moment before turning away. Cold and distant as the mountains far in the north of Kashmir, she barely acknowledged his presence after that brief introduction.

Snubbed and somewhat peeved by the haughty behaviour of his friend’s new wife, Younus Raees against his very will found himself becoming even more fascinated by her. It became almost a ritual for him to observe and study her reaction to other people. He noticed that while she totally ignored men, she thawed a little in the company of women. Still aloof. Still
preferring
to remain on the periphery of the social events going on around her. Either it was all beneath her or she wanted no part in it.

Then there was the day when she had personally turned him away from the hawaili’s gates, informing him with insulting politeness that her husband was not at home. The door had shut firmly in his face. After that he hated her for her rudeness – but also became fascinated by her distinct aversion to men. He wondered waspishly whether she had promoted semi-purdah for herself.

It was always with fondness, however, that he recalled the day when she had turned to him in a blind moment of panic and sheer human need – strangely binding him to her for ever. Hating her and loving her.

It was the occasion of the wedding celebration of his elder brother, that Chaudharani Kaniz had deigned to grace the affair with her presence. Waves of pleasure and disbelief had lapped over him. Chaudharani Kaniz had actually come to his home with her husband!

The haunting, almost ethereal picture of her,
standing
tall in a white organza and chiffon suit defining and flattering the shape of her youthful body, still had him captivated. In his eyes she was the most utterly
beautiful
woman in the two villages put together. As he thirstily sipped in her image in gulps he had
deliberately
kept his distance; remaining markedly part of the group of men’s gathering in the large courtyard of their hawaili. Afraid to go near her and bring on that chilly expression. He accorded her respect by keeping his distance. His wayward eyes, with a magnetic will of their own, however, often crossed to the women’s group, under the cool shade of the verandah. Over and over again, they crept to the pillar against which the attractive young Chaudharani stood, her young baby son held proudly in her arms.

Since the moment she had so rudely turned him away from the hawaili door, he had firmly lectured to himself that he would neither speak to her personally nor impose his ‘undesirable’ presence on her. Thus he watched. Always watched. As a distant, but
paradoxically
an interested spectator.

To his bemused and delighted glance, he saw her smile. So Chaudharani Kaniz can actually smile and laugh too, he mocked happily, glimpsing for the first time her full row of neat white teeth. It was her
nine-month-old
son, Khawar, who was the innocent
recipient
of the smile. She was proudly showing him off to one of the women guests. Delighting in the admiring look of the older lady preening over her son, Kaniz had laughed. A rich, lilting sound, lost in the chatter and noise of all the guests – but Younus Raees’s ears had distantly heard it.

It was when she had looked up from her son, that
Younus Raees saw something strange happen to her. One moment she was smiling and hugging her son fondly to her chest, her organza dupatta fallen off her head, revealing the regal coronet of braids she had wound around her head – the next minute, the smile was whipped away. Her tremulous red mouth fell open, her eyes transfixed across the courtyard on the open gates through which all the guests entered.

Shocked and intrigued by the sudden change in her face, Younus Raees too, turned to look and saw that her eyes were on a man who had just entered through the gates. The man was accompanied by two other men. Her mouth still open, Kaniz carried on watching the new guest, her body now utterly still, clutching her son protectively against her.

The man, by chance, turned and saw her – there was instant recognition. He paused. She continued to stare into his eyes, her body frozen. Then the guest was
walking
towards her, his eyes fixed on her face, a shadow of a smile hovering about his lips.

Younus Raees’s mouth tightened, watching with nervous fascination. Before the man could reach her, Kaniz had quickly turned, bumping into the pillar, and hastening to the other end of the verandah. The man changed his mind and decided not to follow. Instead he went back to join the other male guests and his two friends.

On an impulse, Younus Raees abandoned the
company
of men and moved towards the verandah. He was behind Kaniz, just as she reached one of the rooms. He caught his breath. Apparently she didn’t realise it was his room that she had entered.

Hearing his steps behind her, she turned in surprise. Gallantly, he didn’t explain that she was in his room.
Mutely he stared at her face. It was full of fear and her eyes glimmered with unshed tears.

‘Are you all right, Chaudharani Kaniz?’ he asked, peering closely. The cool, dark shadows of the room shielded her face from him. She drew back, panicking.

‘Yes, yes!’ He stood awkwardly in front of her,
knowing
intuitively that something was wrong, but not knowing what to do or say to comfort her.

She took the initiative and turned her back on him, hoping that he would leave her alone. Her eyes were on the far wall, on the large portrait of him. Did she realise now that she was in his room? Younus Raees waited for her reaction. Turning, she honoured him with a request. ‘Younus Raees Sahib, could you make arrangements for me to go home? Will you get one of your servants? I am not feeling very well.’

He responded to the appeal, his heart singing for some reason that she remembered his full name and used it. ‘I will take you home myself,’ he volunteered impulsively, his eyes shining. Kaniz’s eyes wandered away to scan the room and its contents. It had an aura of masculinity about it.

‘You have guests, Younus Sahib, are you sure?’ she ventured to ask, her lower lip quivering as she looked at the open door behind him, expecting someone to walk through it.

‘You are one of my guests, wife of my best friend, so you see it is no problem.’ His firm tone reassured her. His eyes were on her face, on her hair: but she didn’t notice. ‘Please follow me!’

She wished for nothing better. With or without his help, she wanted to be gone. Pulling her dupatta over her head, she followed, quietly passing the other women guests on the verandah and in the courtyard.
She deliberately held herself back, so that nobody in the courtyard would guess that she was following Younus Raees. With her white organza dupatta firmly draped around her shoulders and over her head, she carefully kept her face averted from the male section of the courtyard.

Younus Raees saw Kaniz’s husband, Sarwar, still engrossed in conversation with other men. The man whose presence had caused the smile to slip from Kaniz’s cheeks, however, was covertly watching her following behind him. Younus Raees’s body pulsated with anger.

Outside his home, he helped Kaniz with her son in her arms into the back seat of his jeep, politely holding the door open for her. He then returned to inform his mother that he was escorting Chaudharani Kaniz home. His mother had looked up in surprise, wondering why her son was personally escorting the haughty bride of his best friend.

On returning to the jeep, he saw Kaniz’s head bent over her son’s, her dupatta pulled lower over her face, shielding it from him and his curious gaze. In silence he drove her to the next village. During that time, his eyes had wandered three times to the mirror above him, to see the bowed head of the woman sitting in the back with her baby son in her arms.

Outside Kaniz’s hawaili, Younus Raees had climbed out first and opened the door for her, holding out his arms to take her son from her. Kaniz tugged the dupatta back from her face so that she could see the jeep step clearly. Without meeting his eyes, she gratefully handed her son to him and stepped down. As she took back her son from him, Younus Raees saw the huge droplets of tears clinging to her rosy cheeks. ‘Who was
he?’ Too late. The question was out. Social proprieties and parameters of social behaviour were no deterrent for him at that time. He had to know! He wanted to know.

Surprised by his question, her eyes had darted to his face, fear etched across her own. Then her eyelids
protectively
swept down and abruptly she turned from him.

‘Please tell my husband that I had to leave suddenly because our son isn’t well.’ The tone was the most authoritative he had ever heard a woman use, belied only by the vulnerable look still peeping from her eyes. Her tone also signalled to him that he had been
dismissed
. Apparently he had adequately performed his escort function for which she was grateful but wasn’t interested in any further discourse between them. She thus firmly established the social parameters dividing them as man and woman. They had no legitimate
relationship
. He had no right to ask. She had no right to answer. Omitting to thank him, she stalked off into her hawaili.

Younus Raees watched the gate bang shut behind her disappearing body. She never once looked back.

For weeks and months afterwards, her stricken look haunted him. The stark fear in her face – the eyes
swollen
with tears. The image of the man who had somehow made ‘his’ haughty Chaudharani flee in terror wouldn’t leave him. Who was he? What power did he have over Kaniz? He agonised about it over and over again, but only she could tell him – for only she knew the answer.

Instead of lessening, his fascination with Kaniz increased with time. At first he tried to dismiss it as a ‘crush’ – a strange, illicit infatuation. He despised
himself
for harbouring such feelings for his friend’s wife, knowing it was morally wrong to be in love with a
married woman. But what had morality to do with one’s heart and its strange powerful magic? Younus asked himself bitterly.

After Kaniz’s marriage to Sarwar, Younus Raees had been seriously toying with the idea of getting
married
himself, to one of the most eligible women in his clan. His friend’s sudden premature death, however, changed everything. After only five years of marriage, Chaudharani Kaniz found herself a young widow, merely twenty-five years of age – at the prime of her beauty, physical and financial wellbeing. Even before the
chaleesma
, the fortieth-day prayers, when Younus Raees had looked at her husband’s
khatam
, he knew then that if he ever got married, it would be to Kaniz and no one else. There would be no other woman in his life.

An ardent follower of social etiquette, he allowed a whole year to pass before revealing to his mother and Baba Siraj Din his heartfelt desire to marry Chaudharani Kaniz. His mother, as he had expected, wasn’t at all pleased. In fact, she was horrified, quite unable to fathom his reasoning or his feelings for Kaniz. It was beyond her understanding. Why should her youngest son, her beloved prince, want to saddle himself with a widow when he could have any bride he wanted?