A Pair of Jeans and other stories (9 page)

When Zeinab and Salma entered Kaniz’s courtyard, all the people assembled there turned to survey them. Salma’s cheeks grew hot with embarrassment, and she drew further behind her mother.

On seeing them, Kaniz’s eyes had widened in disbelief. Zeinab calmly and with an unwavering focus, glanced over all the people in the courtyard. There were men and women, both old and young. All of them looked in their direction. A hushed silence had descended in the courtyard. Four of the women, who also knew Zeinab and Salma, now speculated as to what was going to happen next. They had noticed in surprise that Kaniz didn’t issue a welcoming greeting as was the custom or stand up to receive the two women.

Zeinab, too, for her part, had dispensed with the customary greetings and gestures of social etiquette. She just stood there, tall, in the middle of the courtyard, the exact stance that she remembered that Kaniz had took a short time earlier in her courtyard. Now it was her turn.

It was Javed, Kaniz’s husband who broke the silence, irked by his wife’s rudeness.

“Welcome, Sister Zeinab. Come and sit down.” He drew out a high-backed chair for her under the tree. “If you’ve come to see Faiza, she is resting in her room.”

“Thank you, Brother Javed. It is not Faiza who I have come to see. For you see, Kaniz has forbidden us to see her.” She enjoyed watching the fleeting expression of irritation pass over his face. “I have come to see you, Kaniz, and these women assembled here, and Kaniz’s spiritual guide,
pir
.”

“Oh! About anything in particular?” He asked.

His wife interrupted him, as she ejaculated: “Why do you want to see my
pir
? What has he done to affect you?”

“Oh he has done a lot. He is the one who has stuffed silly and gullible women like you with sheer nonsense and made my daughter into your scapegoat for Faiza’s miscarriage.”

For the first time in her life, Zeinab didn’t care about mincing her words. After all Kaniz hadn’t minced hers. She had almost accused her daughter of murder. She felt no shame in talking about miscarriages, a taboo subject like sex and pregnancy, while in the presence of men. Today wasn’t a normal day, however, and she didn’t feel normal. Everything had been taken out of proportion.

Javed had been irked and bemused for years by the influence that the
pir
had on his wife and some other women, and welcomed this speech, even though it was a
baesti
, an insult, to have his wife called silly in front of all these people. He was very angry now and he suspected that his wife had done Zeinab and Salma a great wrong, to have brought this normally, most gentle, pleasant and dignified woman to speak in a manner in which she had done.

“Kaniz, what have you done? Have you been blaming the loss of our grandchild on that
masoum
, innocent child? This is ridiculous. You cannot go around doing that.”

“Trust you, Javed, to delight in me being insulted!” Kaniz could hardly speak - her own anger was choking her, “And in ridiculing me.”

“It is not a matter of ridicule”, Zeinab continued. “It is a matter of religious and social debate. Where does it say in the
Quran
or
Hadith
about
perchanvah
? For those are the books and sources of our faith? Anything else is
shirk
. Where has the
pir
got his ideas from? Is he a woman? Is he a doctor? Is he an authority on all female health matters?”

“We all know that you do not believe in
pirs
. That doesn’t give you the license to ridicule
ours
.” She stressed the word ‘ours’, hoping that her husband would support her. However from Javed’s facial expression, it seemed that the contrary was true and he appeared to be gloating, as this was his chance to discredit her
pir
. Kaniz felt very bitter and very much alone.

“No. It doesn’t. You are right, Kaniz. I respect holy men,
pirs
. They are very intelligent religious men. People like us do need them, to guide us in all religious and spiritual matters. It is their lack of knowledge in some female matters and meddling with superstitions passed throughout the centuries that I abhor. You have yourself told all of us that your
pir
said that a woman who was expecting should avoid contact, or even the presence of such a woman into the same room as someone who had miscarried. With some of you women, that has meant that you not only insensitively shun but also offend women like my daughter, who have had the misfortune to miscarry on more than one occasion. It is not a disease that you can catch. Some of you have even refused to eat food that Salma had cooked and put in front of you. All this I have observed and tolerated, but what has been the outcome of your superstitious ways? You have harmed and hurt young minds, and sensibilities of women like my daughter. You have belittled her and, in fact, insulted the whole essence of humanity and womanhood.”

“I will not listen to any more of your nonsense!” Kaniz said as she stood up to face Zeinab, her body quivering with rage.

“But I haven’t finished yet, Kaniz. I suppose it is alright for you to come storming into my house and accuse my daughter of witchcraft and virtual murder. You said that my Salma caused Faiza’s miscarriage. Well, has your Faiza told you that she fell?” Zeinab stopped and waited for the words to register in Kaniz’s mind.

Kaniz’s lips dried up as stared at Zeinab. “What? I didn’t know anything about her falling!”

“Well, why don’t you go and ask her?”

Kaniz got up to go. Zeinab, Salma, Neelum and Javed followed her.

In her room, Faiza lay awake. She had overheard everything in the courtyard. As she heard the footsteps coming towards her room, her heart started to thud wildly. She had dreaded this moment.

They all came in and stood around her bed. She spied her friend, Salma, standing behind her mother. She studiously avoided looking her in the eye.

Kaniz looked down at her daughter-in-law. There was a message in her eyes that she desperately wanted Faiza to interpret correctly.

“Faiza, your friend, Salma, said that you fell yesterday. Did you fall?”

Faiza looked her mother-in-law calmly in the eye.

“No.” As she said it, she caught the surprised crushed look in Salma’s eyes. She quickly averted her gaze. She had just faced the moral choice of either betraying her friend or allowing her mother-in-law to lose face. She knew how much the baby had meant to her parents-in-law. She had lost the baby through her own fault. She had been warned about wet floors. She couldn’t have capped her mother-in-law’s
baesti
in losing face in public too.

Zeinab glanced inquiringly at her daughter. She, with her eyes brimming with bitter tears, had left the room in distress. She couldn’t believe it. Her friend had lied and had thus sealed her fate with
perchanvah
, and made her the scapegoat.

“Well, apparently, your daughter-in-law is not only a liar but also a coward.” Zeinab spoke bitterly, as she left the room and came into the courtyard. She turned to look back at Kaniz, who had followed her out.

“Don’t think that the matter is now closed, Kaniz. I am going to invite your
pir
to come to our village and give his version of the ideas you have perpetuated in the village.” Then with a dramatic gesture of her hand, pointing around the courtyard and the house, she continued. “Moreover,
perchanvah
is now in your house. Now that your daughter-in-law has miscarried, according to your rules and
ressmeh
, no household with a pregnant woman should welcome her or nor will they visit your house. Now, it is your Faiza who will be the one to be shunned. As you seem to think, that if anyone miscarried in the next two or three months, it will be due to your Faiza’s
perchanvah
. As you have made the rules, you must now live by them. You cannot have it both ways!”

So saying, Zeinab made a dignified departure. Her daughter having already run ahead, mortified and wounded to her very soul at her friend’s betrayal.

Kaniz stood in the middle of the courtyard, amidst the amazed glances of her women friends and guests, her mouth opening and closing. For once in her lifetime, she was lost for words.

In the packed prayer hall of Darul Uloom mosque in Longsight, the Imam concluded the Eid prayers with a passionate plea for world peace and terrorist activities in Pakistan to stop. Seventy three years old Samir, perched on a plastic chair because of his bad leg, kept his hands raised, quietly mouthing his own personal prayer.

“Please Allah Pak, bless her soul! And let me escape!”

Rows of seated men had arisen from their prayer mats and reached out to energetically hug others and offer the festive greeting, “
Eid Mubarak
!” Samir took his time. There was no-one in particular he was seeking to greet or hug at this mosque. Most of the men around him were strangers and of the younger generation, several sported beards – a marked shift between the two generations. His face remained clean shaven. Nowadays he prayed at the Cheadle mosque, joining the congregation of Arabs and other nationalities for the Taraveeh prayers during
Ramadhan
. Nostalgia tugging at him, on a whim, Samir had asked his son to drop him off in Longsight to offer his Eid prayers at his old community mosque.

Painfully rising to his feet Samir began the hugging ritual, smiling cordially. Unlike the others leaving the hall, he loitered; in no hurry to get out. At the door he dutifully dropped a five pound note in the collection fund box.

Whilst looking for his shoes he bumped into his old friend, Manzoor – they greeted, smiled broadly and warmly hugged. Outside, in the chilly autumn day, his friend, who lived a street away from the mosque, invited him to his house for the Eid hospitality of Vermicelles,
sewayian
and
chana chaat
.

The smile slid off Samir’s face; he was reluctant to visit his friend’s house – afraid of the old memories, shying away from the normality, the marital bliss of his friend’s home. In particular he was loath to witness the little intimacies between husband and wife. The look. The laugh. The teasing banter.

Instead he waved goodbye to his friend and stood waiting for his son. “I’m being picked up,” he informed a young man kindly offering him a lift home, before sauntering on his bad leg down the street.

“I have all the time in the world!” He wryly muttered to himself, savouring the walk down streets he had cycled and scooted along for over three decades. A lot had changed, the area now thriving with different migrant communities; the Pakistanis and the Bengalis living side by side with the Irish and the Somalis. Many Asian stores and shops had sprung up. The Bengali Sari and travel agent shops jostled happily alongside the Pakistani ones and the Chinese takeaway. Mosques catering to the needs of Muslim community had sprung up, from the small Duncan Road mosque in a
semi-detached
corner house to the purpose built Darul Uloom centre on Stamford Road. The Bengali mosque for the Bengali community on one corner of Buller Road was only a few feet away from the Pakistani and Arab Makki Masjid on the other corner. Not surprisingly on Fridays, for the
Juma
prayers, the street was gridlocked, with an occasional police car monitoring the situation.

He noted that the Roman Catholic Church and its primary school on Montgomery Road had disappeared, joining the quaint little National Westminster Bank branch that had been in the middle of Beresford Road with a communal vegetable plot at the back. That had been pulled down twenty odd years ago. St Agnes church was still there, however, at the junction of West Point and Hamilton Road and it still enjoyed healthy Sunday morning congregations.

Samir stopped outside a shop on Beresford Road that had been called Joy Town twenty one years earlier. It had been his children’s favourite toyshop, especially on Eid day, when they ran to it with their
Eidhi
money, eager to buy cars, skipping ropes and doll’s china crockery sets. In its place there now stood a grocery superstore with stalls of vegetables and fruits hogging the pavement area. On Fridays and Saturdays families, like Samir’s, who had moved out of the area still returned to do their shopping, visiting their favourite halal meat and grocery stores; carting boxes of fresh mangoes, bags of basmati rice and chapatti flour back to their cars. The hustle and bustle of these shops always bought out a smile in him.

His son, Maqbool, a well-to-do sportswear manager, dutifully returned to pick him up half an hour later. By that time, Samir was shivering with the autumn chill in his
shalwar kameez
and
shervani
and gladly got into the warm car. He had wanted to go to Sanam Sweet Centre to buy a few boxes of Asian sweets to distribute to friends but he hesitated, suddenly overcome by trepidation.

“Do you want to go somewhere else, Father?” his son asked, as if reading his mind.

Samir shook his head; loath to inconvenience his son further, feeling guilty for already taking up enough of his time.

“No. Let’s go home.” he murmured, eyes closed.

He had a large five bedroom detached house but with his wife and family gone all the joy of living had fled. He kept himself in the master bedroom, hating to enter the other rooms in the house, especially the one with his wife’s clothes. Only when the grandchildren visited did he unlock some of the doors. He spent his time in his new favourite spot, the chair at the dining table next to the window and radiator. He sat there leafing through
The Times
, the
Daily Jang
and
The Nation
, watching the traffic go past on the busy road.

His son dropped him off at the door with the words, “Will collect you in an hour’s time.” Samir nodded and watched him drive away before letting himself into the house. Another hour to kill. He shrugged. It was better here on his own, with the TV and the newspaper keeping him company, than politely waiting around at someone else’s house for dinner.

He felt hungry; but the dining table in front of him lay dismally bare. On Eid days it was normally stacked with bowls of delicious food: boiled eggs,
sewayain
,
chana chats
and a hot tray of
Shami kebabs
. And these were just the breakfast starters, heralding a busy festive day of eating.

Last year his entire family had been there. If he closed his eyes he could see his children helping themselves to the food, with him happily beginning the
Eidhi
money giving ritual. Five pounds notes for the little ones, ten for the older teenagers, and crispy twenty pound notes for his daughters and daughters-in-law.

In the steamy warm kitchen with the noisy fan purring away at the window, the smell from a pot of pilau rice and trays of roast chicken and kebabs in the oven would set everyone’s mouths watering. Dinner was a prompt affair; always at one o’clock, served by the women of his household, moving elegantly around the room; their rustling
ghrarars
and
lenghas
sweeping the floor and the long
dupattas
hanging at their sides. The boys would be in their
shalwar kameez
and
sherwanis
. By two, the whole family would be sitting around the table chatting, relaxed and happy, some still spooning away trifle and
gajar halwa
.

The thought of all that food set Samir’s stomach groaning. He could not wait that long. In the kitchen he tipped some cornflakes into a bowl; it was not
chana chat
or
sewayian
but would keep him going.

He twice checked his pocket for the money, mentally counting the number of notes he should have. This was the bit of Eid day that he particularly enjoyed, glimpsing the excited faces of his grandchildren taking the
Eidhi
from his hand. In the old days a one pound coin delighted his children. After dinner they excitedly ran off to Joy Town to buy gifts of their choice. When Maqbool arrived, Samir was well into his second hard-boiled egg, smiling sheepishly at his son, who mentally chided himself for leaving his father to eat alone at home.

Samir’s whole family was gathered in his eldest daughter’s house and he was the last to arrive. In the living room, his second daughter-in-law, Mehnaz, stood up out of respect to vacate her seat for him.

“Stay seated my dear,” he offered, perching himself instead on a chair near the door. The women were busy in the kitchen, sorting out the crockery and the sauces. All had happily adopted the British custom of bringing a dish since their mother had died. His eldest daughter was carrying a tray of roast meat through the hallway to the dining room. Catching her eye, Samir smiled politely.

His youngest grandson, Rahel, jumped into his lap, startling him and bringing a smile to his face. Samir lifted him up to offer a tight hug. Then holding out a
five-pound
note he beckoned to his older grandson, a six-year-old, who was stood scowling a few feet away. The child shyly sidled to his grandfather’s side, plucked the note from his hand and ran off.

“Would you like something to eat before dinner?” His daughter came to enquire, the blender with the mint sauce in her hand.

Samir shook his head.

Nodding, she disappeared into the kitchen leaving Samir to smile, watch, listen and respond where appropriate. That is until the seat became too uncomfortable for his bad leg, forcing him to take the one vacated by his eldest grandson near the window. He bleakly stared out through the net curtains, watching passers-by, who probably had no idea that in this Muslim home they were celebrating
Eid ul Fitr
.

Eyes filling up, Samir kept his face averted towards the window; there was nothing to celebrate on his first Eid without his beloved wife. Sorrow suffocated; desperation tearing at him. If he could only turn the clock back. How he longed to have this Eid dinner at his own home and with her hosting it; instead of sitting awkwardly here as an interloper.

An hour later, he dutifully spooned food into his mouth; making no comments apart from the polite “everything is very nice” to the women of his family. He did not pick on the chillis or criticise the curry sauces as he had always done with his wife’s cooking. His sons, of a different generation and attitude, were happily munching away at their roast meats, whilst he stealthily hid a raw bit of chicken leg under a napkin on his plate.

By the time the
gajar halwa
and tea were served, Samir’s mind was made up. He waited; heartbeat accelerating. When there was a lull in the lively conversation he ventured to inform his family, licking his dry lips carefully.

“I want to tell you something…”

They turned to stare. His daughter, Roxanna hushed her little girl sitting on her lap with the words, “Abu-ji is speaking, shush!”

“I want to go back home – to Pakistan.” Samir announced, “To visit my family…stay there for a few months. It’ll be good for me… it’s the right time… with your mother gone…. I need a change of scene and I have plenty of time now!” he explained, smiling. “It would be lovely to visit some places of my old life. Also good to spend some time with my sister and brother and their families.”

Complete silence greeted his words.

“A few months! Are you sure about this, father? We’ll miss you!” His eldest daughter had found her tongue.

“You’ll all be fine without me. Anyway you can phone me every day… you’ve all got busy lives and families, so it won’t be that bad to have me disappear for a few months. I’ll hardly be missed…. This trip will be good for me… I need to go….” He stopped himself from saying, “I need to escape,” voice petering away, giving them a glimpse of the abyss inside him.

Discomforted and not knowing what was the right thing to say, they prudently ended the discussion. Their father had always made his own decisions – very rarely paying any attention to other people’s opinions. Their mother had battled for years to influence him, and died having never quite succeeded.

“Where will you stay? Lahore?” His youngest daughter, Rosie, boldly asked.

“Yes! In our family home of course, with my brother – where else?” he replied sharply, annoyed at his daughter’s question and semi-hostile tone.

Rosie did not bother answering. Instead she covertly exchanged a pointed look with her sister, which their father neatly intercepted. Samir’s face tightened. “You need to understand Rosie that just as this is your family – I have the same back home…. They care about me and want me to spend time with them.” His tone harsher than he intended.

The word “back home” had just slipped out of him again. It was a curious use. For a few seconds he was lost in thought. Why did he say that? Was Manchester not his “home?” After all he had spent over forty years of his life in this city? The other place was just his birthplace, his country of origin and reminder of his youth. Surely these facts should make Manchester his home?

He shrugged these thoughts aside, willing his mood to lighten; he now had a goal: to occupy his mind with tasks, and he loved tasks above all. The big task facing him now was what presents to take for his family and his two college friends in Lahore. He promised himself that this time the three friends would treat themselves to a walk through the tall, elegant Victorian corridors of the Government College of Lahore where he had studied.

Three days later, Samir had flown out from Manchester airport, taking his “other family” in Lahore by surprise. They gushed with greetings, hurriedly assembling their shocked faces even though inside they were all amok. “What was he doing here, all of sudden? How long was he going to stay? Which other relatives was he visiting and for how long?” These questions battered simultaneously in all their heads.

Samir’s face fell, quickly averting his eyes, astutely picking up the tell-tale signs from their faces and body language. Two days later, after visiting the local Anarkali Bazaar, taking a leisurely walk down the famous Mall Road, and spending time with his sister’s family in her villa in the Defence area, he headed for the village where his parents were buried. There he was amicably greeted by his host, a second cousin, who hosted all relatives visiting his parents’ graves.

After some refreshments, Samir headed for the cemetery on the outskirts of the village. Well maintained, tall tangle wood bushes grew around it, keeping the wolves out. Eyes blurred, Samir gazed down at his parents’ graves. His father had adamantly made it clear that he did not want to be buried in the overcrowded city cemeteries. “I want fresh air, shade of a tree and plenty of space around – and make sure you leave space for your mother. Don’t just throw us in any hole!”