Revolt (8 page)

‘Your father hasn’t spoken to anyone for months – neither friends nor relatives! Do you know he has lost two inches in height because his head is forever stooped in shame? He barely lifts his gaze or looks anyone in the eye! Do not mislead yourself, selfish Laila, that anybody will come running to bring you home! The night you married him, you slammed shut the door of the
hevali
behind you and said goodbye to all of this! Your mother has just made that perfectly clear.’

‘No! No!’ Laila wept. ‘Don’t say that, Begum, please listen – I’m pregnant!’ she whimpered.

Begum struggled with her thoughts and breath. At last,
dry-mouthed
, she coldly uttered, ‘I wish you joy of your future newborn. I pray that as a parent you will never taste the pain you’ve caused your parents.’

‘Please, Begum, don’t lecture me! I, too, have died a “thousand” times.’

‘You are the guilty one!’ Begum snapped bitterly. ‘What wrong did your parents do to deserve the punishment you meted out to them? You used me, Mistress Laila, as you’ve always done. No more! Do you hear me?’

‘I
hear
, Begum, but what can I say! My crime was to fall in love and to want to be with him!’ Laila’s tone was equally cutting. This was not the Begum she adored and who always played to her tune.

‘I wish you joy with your “love” and your lover then. Please go now! You are lucky – some fathers have killed their daughters for less than what you’ve done!’ Begum almost wanted to push her out. ‘Master will be back soon! I don’t know what he’ll do when he sees you!’

‘I have met him already!’ Laila’s voice tapered away.

‘You’ve met him?’ Begum panicked.

‘Don’t worry. It appears I’ve indeed killed everyone in this household with my action – even you! Forgive me, Begum.’ Laila pulled the
chador
lower over her forehead.

Begum’s heart leapt in pain as she fought the urge to hug Laila tightly, her expression now softer. ‘I pray that perhaps your child may bring back to life the dead in this home,’ she whispered. ‘And I’ll pray for your health, my little princess,’ she finished, her eyes now swollen and leaking with tears.

Flushed with gratitude and sobbing quietly in the fold of her
chador
, Laila nodded. ‘Thank you and goodbye, Begum. I will return to Islamabad, for there is nothing for me here: no home, no parents – not even Begum! Where is Arslan, Begum? I would like to see him so much. In all my little life you’ve arranged things for me, from climbing up the tall
jamuni
trees, to arranging late night horse riding, to letting me escape from an unhappy engagement … Please do this for me – for a sister longing to see her brother,’ she ended, noting the look of incredulity on the housekeeper’s face.

‘Begum, this “beggar” has not come to beg for food but only for a glimpse of her baby brother! Is that too much to ask from your well of humanity?’ Laila begged, opening out the fold of her shawl in front of her body – in a manner reminiscent of a street beggar. ‘I was cruel, you say, but have mercy, Begum; Allah Pak says forgive and offer forgiveness!’

‘OK! I’ll see what I can do. Now, please go,’ Begum urged, unable to cope any more with Laila’s emotional blackmail, her knack of weaving her magic around her heart with her sapphires for eyes.

Laila stepped out of the
hevali
she loved, closing the gates behind her. Through the small window, Begum watched the shadowy veiled figure walk away. ‘Oh, Laila, what have you done?’ Begum kept muttering all evening as she went about her chores, imagining her young mistress trying to cook in the potter’s hovel of a home.

Nobody mentioned Laila’s name. Her husband had quietly informed her the following morning that the
dhoban
saw Laila leaving the village with her husband. The potter’s house was once again padlocked. Begum sighed in relief. Laila had entered and departed like a shadow. The storm had brewed but not burst. The sky was clear again, but the shadowy greyness lingered,
casting its mantle of doom over the
hevali
and the lives of those within its walls.

‘My sister was here and you didn’t tell me?’ Arslan accused his mother, soaking up the early morning sunshine on the rooftop gallery. Gulbahar blinked, taken aback by her son’s outburst.

‘You have no sister!’ Gulbahar harshly reminded her son, knowing full well that he was very fond of his sister. For more than two weeks, he had sulked and refused to eat when Laila had left.

‘Yes, I have!’ came Arslan’s belligerent answer, tugging at his mother’s arm. ‘She was here! Our Laila is alive. I want to see her!’

‘
Khabardor
!’ Haider Ali thundered, coming from behind. ‘Don’t talk to your mother like this again! You have no sister! Grow up, my son!’

Arslan beamed an angry gaze at his father, his rebellious mouth opening, but the look in his father’s eyes dammed the angry words. He marched down the marble stairs in pursuit of Begum, running to her house, not bothered that he had ruined his newly polished shoes with a thick layer of dust. Without knocking, he burst through the door, startling husband and wife, eating bananas. Two peels on the plate and two in their hands. The sight – their preoccupation with fruit – galled him. He lashed straight out at Begum.

‘You knew she was here, Begum!’ The words pelted like pointed darts into Begum’s body. The small half-peeled banana went back on the plate as Begum turned to her husband, desperately seeking some direction.

‘You knew, Begum!’ Arslan accused, very much the landlord’s son, his body aggressively poised over the housekeeper’s figure in the bamboo and raffia chair.

‘Yes, I knew!’ Begum steadily held her young master’s gaze.

‘And you never told me?’ Aggrieved, Arslan squeezed his eyes to prevent the tears from shaming him.

‘Beloved little master …’ Begum’s heart melted in pain. ‘I
couldn’t, Arslan. You know how it is,’ she appealed, hoping for his understanding.

‘No, I don’t know,’ he lashed out. ‘Everybody has gone mad! My
baji
is not dead!’ he sobbed aloud. ‘I want to see her!’

Ali decided that it was time to take a firm hand with Arslan. His wife, as usual, in her soft-hearted way, was getting nowhere.

‘You’ve no sister, Master Arslan! For us she’s dead, because she abandoned all of us. Did she give a thought to you, Arslan? No, she just ran away!’ Ali’s taunting remark struck home, making Arslan want to retaliate. Begum quickly stepped in, pulling Arslan’s stiff body into her arms as she had always done since he was a toddler.

‘I know it hurts, Master Arslan. I know you love her very much, as I do,’ she said, ignoring her husband’s look of strong disapproval. ‘But your sister did something terrible.’

‘She only got married, Begum!’ Arslan scoffed. ‘What’s wrong with that? Don’t people usually get married when they are grown up?’

‘Yes, people do get married, Master Arslan,’ Begum stuttered to explain. ‘It was the way in which it was done! She only thought of herself and killed us all!’

‘Don’t be silly, Begum? She hasn’t “killed” anyone. Now you are talking rubbish.’ He angrily pulled himself out of Begum’s arms.

‘You are right, Arslan, she didn’t kill anyone, but there are different sorts of deaths and killings. She “killed” your parents in spirit. Can you understand what I’m trying to say? They live, Arslan, but as shadows. They are not the same people; their lives are empty. How long is it since you heard any laughter in the
hevali
, Arslan? Have you ever noticed your father looking you directly in the eye? Your mother has just become a tomb of silence. Remember one thing, when you grow up, never hurt your parents, my darling!’

‘But Allah Pak is merciful and forgives,’ beseeched the boy. ‘Will my parents never forgive her?’ he asked, his eyes now openly overflowing.

‘I don’t know, my pet. But I promise you one thing – when she comes next time, I will take you to see her.’

‘Can you find out where she lives, so that I can phone her?’ He eagerly asked.

Begum sobered, eyes evasive. ‘I’ll just arrange for you to meet her.’

‘What if she never returns?’ Arslan petulantly offered, his spirits sinking, angrily brushing away the tears from his cheeks. ‘I miss her so much, Begum.’

‘I know, Master Arslan, but believe me, she’ll return, my son. I know she will.’ She pulled him into her arms and let him sob on her shoulders.

Begum was proved right; Laila did return to the village a few months later. This time, she brought Shirin with her – her baby daughter. Again she arrived at dusk, a shadowy, cloaked figure, hurrying through the dark lanes; keen to avoid meeting anyone she knew. Again it was the
dhoban
who was first alerted of her arrival when her eyes fell straight on the door; the padlock was gone. With excitement rushing through her, Massi Fiza charged straight into the potter’s home, cheerfully offering ‘
salaam
’ and startling Laila breastfeeding her baby girl on the veranda. Massi Fiza’s eyes widened in disbelief; she was not prepared for the sight of a baby.

Disconcerted by the intrusion, Laila hurriedly pulled down her shawl to hide both her breast and her daughter, scowling at her husband for not bolting the door. Jubail sat on the chair scribbling business notes for the engineering firm he was working for in Islamabad.

Laila’s confounded glance immediately spelt to the
dhoban
that she was not her favourite person, nor was she welcome in her home. Massi Fiza’s narrow shoulders stiffened with mock outrage, unperturbed by the landlord’s daughter’s open show of hostility. The potter’s hovel was hardly a place for Master Haider’s imperious daughter to display her ‘queenly’ tantrums, Massi Fiza silently scoffed. On the contrary, Laila was now one of them, downgraded to the same class, living in the same lane, in a house worse than hers! There were no Alis or Begums to
serve her night and day. It was time the haughty young mistress dispensed with her airs and came to accept her new station in life with grace.

Even she, a humble laundrywoman, had one room with chipped marble floors. In the potter’s house, not one tiny piece of marble graced any floor surface, let alone the stairs and the two sorry-looking, cement-coated pillars. Moreover, Massi Fiza was sure her home was bigger by at least two
merlas
than the potter’s humble dwelling.

On glimpsing the burning resentment in the tall, wiry, middle-aged woman, Laila schooled her face to form a welcoming smile. Whether she liked it or not, the
dhoban
would be a useful errand woman – the ideal messenger and go-between for herself and Begum. Laila discreetly kept her
chador
down over her naked breast, shielding it from the interested gaze of Massi Fiza who had been on the point of jabbering aloud, ‘You have beautiful breasts, Laila-ji,’ but stopped short in embarrassment. Female breasts were of special interest to her. For Allah Pak had been particularly mean to her, in furnishing her with only tiny pads of flesh. She always kept herself covered not for modesty’s sake, but in shame at having a flat chest.

‘Massi Fiza-ji, please inform Begum that I have arrived with my baby,’ Laila curtly instructed. ‘Here, please take these for your errand.’ The smile and the cold, blue eyes mocked Massi Fiza and her greed.

Reluctant to proffer her hand, Massi Fiza’s fingers nevertheless folded the two crisp red 100-rupee notes in her tight fist. Money always came in handy – no matter from what source. Pride never helped, and similarly it was idiotic to offer an empty gesture and reject the offering.

Massi Fiza excitedly flew to the
hevali
. ‘She might be living in the humble potter’s home, but Laila still has her father’s blood drumming through her veins,’ Massi Fiza reminded herself.

In the
hevali
, Begum was in the midst of the sensuous throes of Queen Noor Jahan’s delightful Punjabi melodies. Her eyes firmly shut and reddish-orange
sak
-stained mouth softly parted, Begum was humming the lyrics when Massi Fiza burst in with
her message. Begum stopped the kitchen cassette recorder, annoyed at the rude interruption. But on learning the news, she ran out of her kitchen.

Her first port of call was Arslan, and she found him playing cricket with other boys in a school playground. Begum watched him whack the ball high into the air, bringing a smile of pride to their housekeeper’s face. Laila loved horses and Arslan played cricket. Begum wistfully wondered if their young master would be the next Imran Khan of Pakistan.

Ignoring his angry scowl at being interrupted, Begum whispered in his ear. Face lighting up, Arslan dropped his bat and ran after Begum. Later, like two guilty thieves in the night, they sneaked into the potter’s home, with Begum glancing fearfully over her shoulder before entering. She could not risk being seen entering this home with the young master!

As her wretched luck would have it, Massi Fiza materialised from behind her door and treated Begum to a smug conspiratorial smile before entering the goldsmith’s house for a good natter with her friend Rukhsar.

‘Damn the woman!’ Begum cursed, gritting her teeth. Was the
dhoban
spying on them from behind the crack in her door?

The goldsmith’s living quarters were on the second floor. And the workshop with its shutters always down was on the first floor, where business and the real ‘gold’ work took place. Everyone knew where they had to go. The actual gold jewellery was locked away in cabinets upstairs, or tucked into little parcels and kept in a large pillowcase carefully guarded by the goldsmith’s wife and his three daughters. At night, the pillowcase was always placed next to the goldsmith’s bed on a chair, for one never knew with thieves. Burglars wouldn’t pick up a pillow and run away. The funny thing was, courtesy of Massi Fiza-ji’s slip of the tongue, everyone in the village knew where he stored his gold items. And it wasn’t in the safe, where he kept old jewellery other people handed in to be repaired.

Upon entering, Massi Fiza excitedly announced to Rukhsar,
‘Master Arslan is here with the potter’s grandchild!’ Then continued, ‘A beautiful little girl – not at all like the potter’s son, thank goodness!’