Typhoon (21 page)

‘Yes, Haroon is here in this building! Snakes! Those two women!’ Her trembling lips moved. ‘The cobra on the bed!’

Wide-eyed and aghast, Jahanghir stared into the fathomless pool of his wife’s eyes. Had his Naghmana toppled over into the world of insanity? Placing a
gentle
hand on her head and holding her body against his
chest he rocked her to and fro in his arms. He was too afraid now to probe further into his wife’s state of mind – afraid of what he would find there. And what exactly would it be? He recalled her nightmares. ‘Snakes! Snakes!’ she had always cried aloud in her sleep for the last nineteen years. The snakes were here. Real people. His heart sank at the thought of his wife being
mentally
ill and he had never suspected. He detested
himself
for his ignorance. Hadn’t she taunted him earlier for not looking beyond his books? Bile rose in his throat. Who were these people who kept asking for his wife’s forgiveness? Why did they treasure locks of her hair? What had she done? The thought suddenly lashed at him: ‘I don’t know my wife at all! And her husband! Why is
he
here? Where has
he
come from? Was he not dead? That is what he had assumed?’ He had enquired and she hadn’t enlightened him.

For some unknown reason he now regretted bringing his wife to the village. He recalled the look in her eyes and her frightened appeal. ‘It is an evil place!’ she had cried out to him, shrinking against the wall.

He placed Naghmana gently back on the bed, as he heard the door open. It was the granddaughter of the old man, Zarri Bano. Dressed in her black veil, the burqa, she looked forlornly at the man standing beside the bed.

‘I am sorry to have to tell you that my grandfather is dead! I was there by his side. Strangely he died with your wife’s name on his lips. I think he is at peace now.’ Then Zarri Bano quietly left the room. She didn’t wait for him to speak. She had to go from room to room and personally tell everyone about her beloved grandfather’s death.

She brushed the tears from her eyes. The village
would never be the same again, without her
grandfather’s
presence. ‘I am going to miss you so much,’ she cried. The unexpected had happened. The village landlord and Buzurgh, Baba Siraj Din, was actually dead.

F
IRDAUS AND HER
baby daughter were resting on their beds. Mary, the old village midwife had
performed
all the relevant rituals after the birth, including giving Firdaus a hearty oil body massage, to tease out the muscle tension after a hard labour. The little girl, a bundle of pink flesh and a mop of curly hair, had dozed off after her first bath and a gentle oil massage. It was time to open the hawaili doors to the well-wishers. The latter had queued and eagerly climbed the marble stairs to Firdaus’s bedroom. By the late evening Kaniz had the baby brought down in the courtyard. Having streams of visitors in her bedroom made Firdaus feel as if she was in a zoo. ‘Please take the baby downstairs somewhere – she is what they have come to see. I am not having all their panting breaths polluting my room,’ she had complained to her mother-in-law, and Kaniz had acted immediately.

It was late evening. Sabra and Kaniz had bade
farewell
to the last of the village well-wishers. It was an auspicious occasion, for with the birth of Chaudharani Kaniz’s first granddaughter, the village woman had all taken advantage of the opportunity of visiting her beautiful home. They had been counting the days and hours for this honour. Chaudharani Kaniz had borne their greetings, congratulations, humble gifts of a few rupees, plucked out of their purses or from the tied ends of their dupattas, and noisy presence with good grace.
Apart from being offered a drink, everyone was
despatched
with a
tokri
, a small basket of sweet meats, as well as dozens of sugar
patasas
for them to munch on their way home and for their children.

Sabra too had arrived on the first flight. Now she entered her sister’s room to find Kaniz sitting on her bed, apparently in deep thought. ‘Is she still trying to hide her disappointment that she now has a
granddaughter
instead of a grandson?’ Sabra thought to herself, amused. She was the first to glimpse Kaniz’s reaction to the baby. Luckily, when Firdaus had looked up, Kaniz was her usual beaming self – fooling her daughter-in-law. Sabra climbed on to the other end of her sister’s bed, snuggling her legs under the quilt cover. They had done this since their teenage years. Snuggling together in one bed, one each end and
having
an intimate conversation was something they both enjoyed immensely.

‘I have come in such a hurry, Kaniz. You sounded so desperate last night on the telephone. You wanted me to be here for the birth, but you also mentioned
something
about Younus Raees.’ Sabra paused. ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

Kaniz looked up, her face colouring, startling her younger sister by bursting into hysterical laughter.

‘What is it, Sister Kaniz?’ Sabra leant towards her sister across the bed.

‘He … he is a madman!’ Kaniz whispered, her eyes looking anywhere but at her sister. A pink flush rapidly seeped through her cheeks, making them throbbingly hot. She had already suffered one of her hot flushes.

Sabra stared at her sister’s reddened cheeks with interest and took her time in phrasing the next question. ‘Why is he a mad man, sister Kaniz?’

‘He … He …’ Kaniz stammered, neither unable to continue, nor to look her sister in the eye.

‘Yes?’ Sabra’s deliberately monotone voice gently prompted her.

Her shoulders stiffening, Kaniz threw a challenging look at her sister. ‘Younus Raees came to our hawaili yesterday and had the audacity to ask me to marry him!’ She defied her sister to show any other emotion except outrage.

No outrage from Sabra. Only the shadow of a smile flickering across her features. ‘I see,’ was all she said.

‘Is that all you can say, Sabra?’ Kaniz was
disappointed
by her sister’s response.

‘What
can
I say? Apparently it is not over between you and Younus.’ Sabra’s eyes evasively focused on the quilted pattern of Kaniz’s pillowcase.

‘Between me and Younus! Have you gone mad, Sabra? There has never been anything between
that
man and myself, nor with any man for that matter! How dare you insult me so?’ Her body trembled with rage, her hand held to her throbbing cheek.

Sabra calmly met her sister’s murderous gaze. ‘Maybe not from your point of view, but he did ask for your hand in marriage some twenty years ago – remember? When you cruelly and vulgarly turned him out of your home. I gather he is now a widower. You yourself told me this last year. Am I right that he has two teenage children? Apparently he is seeking a new partner in life. You are obviously his first choice. A widow, the same age as him and he probably still desires you. He is a very eligible man, Kaniz, even at his age. He could marry a woman twenty years younger than him …’

Sabra’s eyes followed her sister as Kaniz leapt out of
her bed and strode to the far corner of the room, as if by physically distancing herself from her sister and her words, ‘he probably still desires you,’ she could also mentally distance herself from them. The long chiffon dupatta had fallen off her shoulders and lay on the
marble
floor. Her fiery, almond-shaped eyes, her heaving chest and throbbing red cheeks only spelt out one loud message to her younger sister, still sitting in bed across the room, watching her, waiting for the storm.

Kaniz was utterly scandalised. ‘You are mad, my
sister
! Just like him!’ The words, at last, spluttered out of her beautiful mouth. ‘And you are trying to make me mad too! Look at me! I am turned fifty!’

‘You don’t look it,’ her sister impishly teased, now also sliding off the bed. ‘In fact, you look far younger than me, and I am supposed to be four years younger than you …’

‘Stop this farce at once, Sabra!’ Kaniz shrieked. ‘I have just become a grandmother! I have a son of thirty years old and you expect me to marry?’ Her ragged breathing didn’t alarm her sister. Sabra was used to her histrionics. This was just another bout to be confronted and got over with.

‘Why not?’ Smiling, Sabra calmly walked up to her sister.

‘Why not?’ Kaniz repeated blindly, wondering whether her sister really had gone insane. ‘Tell me Sabra, in which well have you drowned your
commonsense
? I thought you were the sensible one out of us. Do you want me to become a laughing stock here? Imagine the gossip and scandal – “Chaudharani Kaniz weds at fifty!” What would my son and daughter-in-law say? Even if I wanted to marry, which you know I don’t!’

Sabra drew her elder sister gently back to the bed.
They sat on its edge, side by side. Kaniz sidled away from her sister, finding her company unbearable.

‘That man has insulted me beyond belief!’ she almost wept.

‘No, Kaniz, he hasn’t insulted you. On the contrary, he has honoured you by asking you to be his wife. As for people – let them talk! You have never cared about their opinion before! And Khawar has no right to object. Why should he? You sacrificed your whole life to him. And how has he paid you back? He has moved to Karachi! In a week or two, he will be taking his wife and daughter away too. What will you be left with? This sad, lonely old building. You and Neesa! Please take this chance, my sister. Sheikh Younus needs you as a companion, but you need him too. He will free you from your tortured past – your demons! Don’t you see?’

Kaniz pulled her arm from her sister’s firm grip. She stood up. ‘You are going to make me have my second nervous breakdown. Stop, Sabra! Firdaus caused the first one. Now you!’

‘You wouldn’t have a nervous breakdown just by talking to him. Did he come himself?’

‘Yes, yes, he came to see me; to talk to me – but I didn’t want to. Instead he left me a letter of proposal.’

‘What did he say? Can I see it?’

‘No, you can’t. It is scattered to the winds and only they know what was in it.’ Kaniz laughed at the
curiosity
in her sister’s eyes. ‘He asked me to either write him a letter or to personally see him. Of course I have no intention of doing either.’

‘Don’t make any more excuses, Kaniz. Our faith encourages women to remarry. Why do men remarry and women never do? Why do women have to suffer the pangs of loneliness, just because of female modesty
and their children’s sake. You have your faith and me to support you. Forget everyone else and look at yourself in the mirror. You are not old. You are still a very attractive woman, at the prime of your life. Do not debase yourself in your own eyes. I request of you: just meet him once – to talk to him. Do not dismiss him or his proposal. Chances like this do not walk to one’s door. Take this opportunity, my sister. It is your last bid for marital happiness. If you don’t …’

Sabra stopped, staring eloquently at her sister. ‘If you don’t at least meet him in person, then I promise you that I will never step into your home again!’ Both Sabra’s words and her steady voice dumbfounded her elder sister.

‘I will not be blackmailed by you!’ Kaniz objected.

‘I mean it, Kaniz!’ The quiet determination in her sister’s voice arrested Kaniz.

They were suddenly interrupted by a knock on the door. Kulsoom Bibi, with her glass bangles merrily singing on her brown bony arms, majestically walked in. Kaniz gave the woman a disdainful glance. That ‘bag of bones’ had the temerity to march into her
bedroom
unannounced. The look in the matchmaker’s eyes, however, signalled to Kaniz that something must be afoot; otherwise Kulsoom would never have dared to climb to the second floor of her home, unaccompanied and uninvited. And to stand tall and straight.

‘How can we help you, Kulsoom Jee?’ Kaniz asked frostily. Why did this woman always turn up when she was having a high-powered chat with her sister?

‘I have come to tell you that the old man, Baba Siraj Din, is dead and …’ Kulsoom now looked up,
excitement
seeping through her body again. Savouring the effect that her next words would have on the two
almighty sisters. ‘And that
she
is here in the village again,’ she whispered in awe. ‘We have just seen her.’

The two sisters stared blankly at Kulsoom as she breathed out the magical word: ‘Naghmana!’

Kulsoom’s height reached to her full five feet and half an inch. Her tanned, line-creased face blossomed before the shocked gazes of the two sisters. Her weak panting heart now retreated to a gentle, happy beat – content at last. For good measure she added as she walked out. ‘And with a husband! Her second!’

T
HE VILLAGE CEMETERY
had become the focal point of the men’s gathering. It was here that Baba Siraj Din had been laid to rest in the plot of land reserved for him beside Zulaikha’s grave. Both the old and the young men lingered to pay their respects and say their farewells beside the new mound of earth. A long funeral procession, it was loftily reckoned by some villagers, to be nearly half a mile long. One or two of the younger men peered eagerly over their shoulders to see where it actually ended. No end was in sight, and they were proud of it. Their Buzurgh, as a very respectable old man, certainly deserved such a huge gathering. His influence had stretched to other neighbouring villages too. People had always come from far and wide to
consult
him on all matters whether business or domestic. Even when he had stepped down from his position as the village qazi, he was still their wise old man they all consulted and obeyed. They nobly ignored what he had done to that unfortunate woman in the kacheri a long time ago. They forgave him for this one weakness. It just proved he was human after all, just like everyone else.

Shahzada had delegated judiciously the
bedpost-carrying
honour. She had remained at home and left the burial to the men.

Younus Raees was amongst the four men honoured with the privilege of bearing one corner of the old
man’s funeral bed on his shoulder. The other three
bedposts
were propped on the shoulders of Khawar, Kaniz’s son, Sikander, his granddaughter Zarri Bano’s husband, and one of his grandsons. All of his four sons had, unfortunately, died before him. Hence, the honour of bedpost-carrying was bequeathed to other near and dear ones.

Wrapped in the traditional white shroud, which had once been generously dipped and bathed in the holy waters of Zam Zam in Makkah Sharif in Saudi Arabia, Baba Siraj Din with his henna dyed hair and thick moustache still appeared an imposing man even in death. No one could spot a single white hair either on his face or on the full crop of hair on his head. He had always had his roots regularly retouched with henna. His former protégé, now the qazi of the village, had given him his farewell
ghusl
, his ceremonial bath and dressed him in the white coffin shroud before his burial. As soon as the funeral preparations were completed, the old man was laid on his special palang, in the middle of the courtyard of his hawaili, amongst the women
phoorie
– the gathering of women mourners. They had two hours to pay their respects and say their farewells.

Zarri Bano and Shahzada stationed at each end of the portable bed deftly supervised the crowd of women mourners as they peered over shoulders and jostled each other to get a last view of the old man who had always been there in the village, for as long as they could recall. For nobody in the village could relate their life without mentioning Baba Siraj Din. His influence and decisions had touched all their lives, creating little ripples of controlled destinies. He had played an important role in so many marital matches and the joining of families from different villages. His demise
thus necessitated plenty of ritualised chanting and wailing.

Losing patience with them and their wailing, ‘Please, you must not chant!’ Zarri Bano was forced to rebuke the women mourners at some point in the
afternoon
. ‘As you know, my grandfather disliked chanting. Please just read
surahs
from the Holy Quran – they will help him in his other life. Prayers, not your chanting or weeping, please. Thank you, ladies. Copies of the Holy Quran are there, and Mother and I will be very grateful if you could read a few pages – or even a few lines of prayers.’

Highly offended by Zarri Bano’s comments, one or two of the brazen women quickly put a stop to their regulated flow of tears and hastily moved away from the old man’s palang. Yes, they would read the Holy Quran – but not because they were ordered to do so in such a high-handed way. Shrugging their shoulders they dispensed with the crying. If the haughty granddaughter wasn’t able to appreciate their tears and chanting, then who were they trying to impress? Allah pak hadn’t blessed them with extra buckets of tears to be poured out on account of the old man who had lived his life to the full, more than dozens of other people! And it was time for him to go. That
Shahzadi Ibadat,
the Holy Woman, in her black burqa had herself remained dry-eyed all afternoon. And she was the granddaughter! Sullenly they moved to the other corner of women mourners, sitting on the silk rugs on the floor and reciting Arabic words over date kernels. With the ritualised weeping and chanting dispensed with they could now exchange other titbits of gossip and scandal. And there was going to be plenty of that especially as those
two wives
were back
in the village – after twenty years and with their two husbands.

Gulshan and Naghmana sat amongst this crowd,
separated
from one another by three rows of Siraj Din’s closest women relatives. Each woman was very aware of the other’s presence. So far neither had had the opportunity to talk to the other – a passing ‘Assalam Alaikum’ only. Nor had they sought each other.

Chaudharani Kaniz, her sister Sabra and Shahzada were heading the female
phoorie
. As was traditional at funeral gatherings, the women exchanged nostalgic anecdotes concerning the deceased. Sitting cross-legged on the soft rugs over a cool marble floor, and
mechanically
rolling the date kernels between their fingers into the small plastic bowls, and with their heads and shoulders draped in large white chadors, the women took it in turns to reminisce generously about Baba Siraj Din, their beloved Buzurgh. It was now Chaudharani Kaniz’s turn. Some women mourners looked at her expectantly. Everyone knew that Baba Siraj Din had always harboured a soft spot for the attractive young widow and her son Khawar. She was his goddaughter, whose affairs he had always overseen.

‘Baba Siraj Din was like a father to me …’ Kaniz began softly, a catch in her voice. ‘For the last thirty years of my life in the village he was my mentor, my guiding force. He especially helped me after I was widowed at a young age. Like a father he guided me in everything. He was the one whom I consulted about my land and our business. He taught my son, Khawar, all the things about being a landowner and how to manage the land. I will miss his presence keenly.’

‘For my father-in-law’s sake, I abandoned my home
in the town and returned to the village, one year ago.’ Shahzada added her own bit of reminiscing. ‘He was a very dear person to me. Very rarely did he say an unkind word to me …’

She stopped as she saw Naghmana get up. All the women mourners looked up, their eyes wary and speculative. Naghmana ignored them all and left the phoorie. She had her face carefully averted from the other women, her white chiffon shawl drawn lower over her face.

‘And he was the cobra of my nightmares!’ Naghmana cried in her head, crossing the courtyard to get away from the women – the ‘snakes’ – and their sickeningly generous reminiscences. ‘He was the man who snatched my first husband from me,’ she voiced loudly to herself, passing through the hawaili gates. There was no
bitterness
or vehemence behind the words. Time had dulled it all.

Gulshan’s eyes had shadowed Naghmana as she stood up and left the courtyard. Handing the copy of the Holy Quran she was reading to Zarri Bano, she too left the women’s gathering, ignoring the hushed silence behind her. On the woven mats, the white shawled heads of a crowd of women moved speculatively to watch the two retreating figures of the two
sokans
– the wife rivals. Most of the women mourners were old enough to remember and had attended the kacheri twenty years ago. They didn’t dare voice their thoughts openly or gossip, but they allowed themselves the
luxury
of exchanging meaningful glances. Heads, eyes, eyebrows, lips parting and closing – all told their own story without the need for words.

That rule didn’t apply to the matchmaker. Only words satisfied her. ‘Gulshan too has left!’
Kulsoom Bibi bent over and gabbled in her friend Naimat Bibi’s ears, as she sat crouched painfully over a high steel bucket of potatoes, peeling them for the afternoon meal. She had already cut her hand three times with the sharp knife.

‘I know. I saw Naghmana go first.’ Naimat Bibi whispered, her head still bent over her task. ‘Hasn’t Gulshan changed? She is so quiet and reserved, I hardly recognised her.’

‘Yes,’ Kulsoom whispered in return while clutching onto Zarri Bano’s lively, four-month-old healthy son, Adam, with difficulty. How did she manage to get
herself
landed with the task of managing a bouncy little baby, with heavy, chubby legs, in her weak bony arms and hands? They were aching all over. All the presents that mistress Shahzada offered later wouldn’t
compensate
for this hard task of looking after him, adorable though he was. She enviously looked at her friend. Peeling potatoes wasn’t such an onerous task; she deliberately ignored the two buckets of potatoes that Naimat Bibi had slaved away to peel in the last two hours.