Shabanu (22 page)

“I know how to make breakfast and look after the house,” I say, my voice shaking with indignation. “Why can’t I do it after I’ve looked at the camels? I haven’t seen the
toba
yet and—”

“Shabanu, your father is trying to tell you that your responsibility now is to learn how to run a house. Remember when Phulan was betrothed and she had to stay at home? Now it is your time.”

I shake my head, ready to argue again. But Sharma’s words come back to me: “Don’t make any silly mistakes now.”

I spend the morning sweeping the courtyard and mixing clay, cow dung, and water to repair the mud walls that have begun to crumble in the monsoon rains. Uncle and Dadi go out to collect branches of
khip
to repair the thatch roofs, leaving the boys standing with the camels and leaning importantly on long sticks.

I don’t even have the excuse of going out for water,
and Auntie has collected milk from the camels. The day is as gray as my mood, and it seems to stretch on forever.

In the afternoon, on the pretext of looking for mushrooms, I wander toward the
toba
. Hearing the jangle of my ankle bracelets, Mithoo comes trotting out from somewhere deep in the herd. He sticks his nose under my arm, and I produce a lump of brown sugar for him.

I’m so happy to see him that I throw my arms around his neck and bury my face in his fur. I wonder if this is all the happiness there will be for the rest of my life: stealing a few moments from a day of housework to sit quietly in the desert with my camels. I wonder how I will endure.

Again I hear Sharma’s words: “Keep your inner reserves hidden.” And I try to appreciate the joy of the moment without the sorrow.

The days pass slowly, thoughts of what my life will be like tumbling over and over inside my head. I try to concentrate on my choices.

If I marry Rahim
-sahib
, there will be servants. I won’t have to do housework, but my life will belong to him. If he wants me to be happy, he will leave me alone to be in the desert with the animals.

But that’s impossible for a married woman. And even if it were not, it wouldn’t be the same without my freedom.

Perhaps I could learn to read and write. Would he be afraid of a woman who can do such things? Perhaps I could learn to play the flute.…

If I go to live with Sharma I will be free. But if freedom comes at the cost of my sister’s well-being, how sweet will it be?

When I go now to the
toba
to bathe, I inspect my fast-growing breasts half with pleasure, half with fear. They are already full and round, and I hope they will be like Fatima’s. But the rapid rate of growth means my coming of age is near. I try to keep it away by sheer will. I hope vaguely that I am defective, that the monthly bleeding will never begin, that Rahim
-sahib
will not want me after all.

We work hard building new underground mud tanks with caps that will keep the water from disappearing into the air when the hot weather returns next spring. The thought of being able to stay in the desert until my wedding is arranged gives me some comfort.

Dadi and Uncle dig, and Mama and I mix clay, sand, and water. They plaster the surface that has been dug and let it dry before digging deeper and repeating the process until we have six perfect underground water jugs.

A late monsoon storm cooperates by pouring rain into the cisterns. When they’re full, we seal them. They will remain sealed until the
toba
is dry next spring.

The rains stay another month, and the air turns cooler. One day when I go out into the desert to relieve myself in the opal haze of an autumn morning, I notice a rusty stain on my inner thigh, and panic steals into my heart.

“Keep your wits about you,” I hear Sharma say.

That evening I search through the goathair bag in which Mama keeps the clothes Phulan and I have worn out, and
I tear an old skirt into strips. I can’t tell them, not yet. I need more time.

Another month passes, and I manage to bury the cloths from the second bleeding in the desert, so Mama doesn’t find out. I am so lonely and afraid I want to die. Why couldn’t I have an empty head like Phulan, with thoughts of sons and new dresses enough to make me happy?

Every night I curl up under the quilt pretending to sleep. But sleep eludes me. I burn with shame when I hear Mama and Dadi making love. The thought of Rahim
-sahib
in my bed, his hands on my body, frightens me, perhaps the more so because I also have begun to feel desire.

I touch myself in the night and wonder how it would feel to have a man touch me.

One night as I huddle under the quilt, Mama and Dadi sit talking in the yellow glow of the kerosene lamp while Mama folds the clothes she has washed that day.

“I think it’s time we contact Rahim
-sahib
to set a date for Shabanu’s wedding,” says Mama.

“Why?” asks Dadi. “Has she come of age?”

“I’m almost certain, though she hasn’t told me. I went to the cloth bag today to make a new plug for the water trough, and it was nearly empty.”

My heart thunders, the blood roaring in my ears. Dadi is silent for a moment.

“What does she mean by keeping secrets?” he says, his voice shaking with anger.

“Shh, shh,” says Mama.

“I’ll throttle her!”

“What will that accomplish?” asks Mama, her voice an urgent whisper. “She doesn’t want to marry Rahim
-sahib
. Give her time to come to terms …”

“It isn’t a matter of what she wants!” He speaks in a harsh whisper.

“She is a sensitive child,” says Mama.

“She is not a child, she’s a woman!” he says.

“She is intelligent and—”

“She’ll find out where her intelligence will get her,” says Dadi, the anger like ice in his voice.

There is no question of my going to sleep, and I make up my mind. I will not be beaten. I will not marry a man whose wives will make me their slave. I’ll die first.

It will take a full twenty-four hours to reach Sharma at Fort Abbas. I will take Xhush Dil.

When Mama and Dadi finally sleep, I reach down and remove my ankle bracelets so I can move without noise. My leg has grown, and the silver cuffs are tight and difficult to take off. Dadi stirs in his sleep as one of them rattles. I wait a minute, barely breathing, then slip silently out from under the quilt. I undress and arrange the bedding so they won’t know I’m gone if they wake.

I find the pile of clothes Mama folded before she went to bed, and remove one of Dadi’s
lungis
, a turban, an undershirt, and a tunic.

I slip out into the courtyard without making a sound. By the filmy light of a sliver of moon and stars muted by clouds, I pull the undershirt over my head and hold it tight as I wind the
lungi
around my waist. My breasts
flatten against my chest, and the tunic is big enough over it that my breasts are hidden. I pull my hair up and tie it in a knot, then twist the turban around my head.

I hope I’ll be mistaken for a boy, with my broad face and short, wide hands and feet.

In the corner of the courtyard a wooden saddle stands on its end. I hoist it to my shoulder and stop dead in my tracks as Sher Dil comes out of Auntie’s house, stretching and yawning. I pray he won’t bark at me, but he just sniffs at my feet and looks at me expectantly. I let him follow me to the
toba
, where Xhush Dil and the other camels stand near the water.

Mithoo trots up to me and I slip a piece of brown sugar onto his tongue before he starts to grunt and snort, and I wonder whether I’ll be able to get away without Mithoo and Sher Dil following. I have a piece of sugar for Xhush Dil, too. He chews it while I remove his ankle bracelets.

“Uushshshsh,” I whisper, and Xhush Dil grunts softly as he folds his front legs under him, lowering himself gracefully to the ground. When the saddle is in place, I fill a jar with water and secure it with a goathair cord before climbing onto his back.

I marvel at how calm I am, and as Xhush Dil rises to his feet a rush of hope fills my heart.

I turn Xhush Dil toward the dunes, and with time to put a large piece of desert between me and my sleeping father before sunrise, I feel safe, as if nothing can harm us. Mithoo follows us, and I try to shoo him away. Sher Dil turns back toward the
toba
, where he sits, his tail
curled around his feet, watching, as if wishing me luck. But Mithoo will not go away.

I get down from the saddle and lead Mithoo to the thorn tree where we sat the day he was born. He follows me eagerly, kicking up his feet to please me. I tie him to the tree, but he begins to struggle and complain. I quickly untie him again before he wakes everyone, and he nuzzles me gratefully. I put my arms around his neck and bury my face in his fur. I couldn’t leave him for all the world.

“You’d better be quick, then,” I tell him, removing his ankle bracelets too. He follows me back to Xhush Dil, ducking his head and skipping as I climb up onto the large camel. Mithoo trots beside us, up and over the first row of dunes.

Although the dunes take longer than following the hard-packed track, I keep to them in the hope that the breeze will gather force and blow enough sand to cover the camels’ footprints.

I’m certain Dadi will follow us along the track, but if he doesn’t, I don’t want him to know how we’ve gone. I try to keep the North Star on my shoulder, but it’s difficult because of the clouds. Perhaps if I’m lucky it will rain, and our tracks will disappear altogether.

But the clouds clear and the wind dies, and I curse the sapphire sky I love for fear it will give me away.

I keep waiting for the enormity of my flight to frighten me or to make me sorry—knowing that I’m letting Mama and Dadi down, that Murad could lose his farm, that I could be caught and beaten.

But nobody felt sorry or frightened for me when they offered me to Rahim
-sahib
. No one even asked how I felt.

My only worry is that Sharma will think I’ve acted stupidly. But it’s done, and I’ll know what she thinks soon enough.

And if Rahim
-sahib
tries to find me, I will hide from him the rest of my life. If he is such a decent man, perhaps he will let me go without letting his brother punish my family.

Mithoo keeps up without difficulty, although I keep Xhush Dil moving at a fast pace. The air is soft and moist against my face, and the camels’ feet whisper softly through the loose sand.

The stars fade as dawn nears. When Dadi wakes at sunup he will find us gone. When he follows, the distance of half a night’s travel will be between us.

I think of the Bugti girl in Baluchistan, and suddenly her bravery is not such a mystery. She did what she did of necessity. Perhaps, like me, she had only one chance for happiness.

Mithoo begins to tire, but I urge him on. He’s still very young, his energy going into his growth. If I’d tied him to the thorn tree he would have bellowed until all of Cholistan was awake. Even if his slower pace costs us an hour, it will be impossible for Dadi to catch up with us. And I am happy to have him with me.

The farther I go, the more fully I sense freedom, leaving my spirit fresh and light. I think of Sharma and Fatima
and me, our animals and the clothes on our backs our only possessions, the desert our only worry.

Behind me I hear a thud and a grunt, then a frightened bleating. Xhush Dil slows of his own accord and turns back toward the sound. I can’t see much, but the thrashing and frightened cries are easy to follow, growing in intensity with fear and pain. My heart expands to fill my entire chest, and my breath comes in thin, fast gasps.

I see a struggling form on the ground and leap down before Xhush Dil reaches a stop. I can’t see immediately what has happened, but Mithoo struggles, unable to get to his feet. He stretches out his neck to me, his chin working. I try to quiet him with my hands, soothing him with my voice.

“Mithoo, Mithoo, you’ll be all right. Let’s just get you up and see what’s happened …” Hope guides my fingers along his legs and then evaporates as they touch a warm, sticky mass of fur around a foreleg that is buried in the sand above the knee. He must have stepped into a foxhole.

In half a second I know the leg is broken.

He is still for a moment, quieted by his trust in me. But his breath is shallow with pain. I lean my forehead against his side. He cannot walk, and I cannot leave him. The jackals would get him before dawn.

So I pray. I pray that Dadi will find us soon and that we can get Mithoo back to the
toba
on Xhush Dil’s back. Mithoo weighs twice what I weigh—there is no question
of my being able to lift him myself. I pray that he’ll survive, that his leg will mend. I pray that Dadi will forgive my one hope for freedom. I know he will beat me, but that doesn’t matter. I know my fate is sealed.

“Oh, Mithoo, what have I done to you?” I cry softly and he nuzzles me. My heart shatters inside me. Mithoo will never dance again. I sob into his fur, and he rests his chin on my knee as I hold his neck in my arms.

I stretch out beside him, and both of us are calm, waiting for dawn. I am not afraid for myself. I feel like nothing else can ever hurt me again. Like Guluband, I have been betrayed and sold. And Mithoo, like me, has lost his greatest gift by wanting to follow his heart.

The sky clears as the palest pink outline appears over the tops of the dunes. I’m grateful it hasn’t rained and wiped out our footprints. I want Dadi to find us quickly. Perhaps another hour, if he has been able to follow our tracks.

Lying on the ground, I feel the vibrations of a camel’s feet pounding across the desert floor. The vibrations disappear as the camel rises up and over a dune. Then the pounding begins again. Xhush Dil and Mithoo turn their ears in the direction from which we’ve come.

Dadi’s face shows no expression when he sees us, just as the sun rises. It’s as if he’d expected us to be here in this exact spot all along.

Without speaking he lifts me to my feet and brings his stout stick down across my shoulders. I stand straight and
let the stick fall against my ribs and shoulders. I am silent. “Keep your reserves hidden.” I repeat Sharma’s words over and over, drawing on the strength of my will.