Shabanu (6 page)

I grasp the pole, and the ponies whirl and whirl, and buck up and down like a new horse being broken. My heart hammers. When the platform slows I’m more excited and pleased than relieved. I want another ride.

“We’ll come back,” said Dadi, his eyes flashing as he takes my hand. “I’ll show you something better: the big wheel!”

We push through the crowd, men jammed so tight their shoulders touch. On Dadi’s shoulders again, I see it—the big wheel looming beyond a sea of turbans, buckets dangling from its edge as it spins in a blur, the mirrored scarves of young girls flying like flags.

A man climbs the scaffolding to the hub of the wheel six times his height from the ground. At the top he lunges into the air and grabs a bar sticking out from the side of the wheel, and the force of his weight spins it around. As he nears the bottom of the arc he jumps to the ground and scrambles up the scaffolding again. The wheel spins faster and faster, until the man tires, and the wheel stops to let off breathless passengers and take on another group of people who have been waiting their turn.

Our mouths are dry as we sit in a vacant bucket and the man snaps a bar in place over our legs. He perspires heavily in the cool evening air. He climbs the scaffolding and grabs the bar and we fly into the air, our stomachs at the back of our throats, then plummet down again at a speed that seems certain to dash us to the ground. I am dizzy, and my stomach feels out of place when the ride is over.

“You need a
paan
to settle your stomach,” says Dadi. I’ve never had one—usually only grownups eat betel, and I’m pleased Dadi has offered it. I climb back onto his shoulders, and we head into the crowd again.

We stop beside a large red wagon painted with flowers and animals—tigers and elephants and giant birds. In the center of the wagon bed sits a woman in a seductive pose, swaying her shoulders and dipping her head. I am shocked, though her scarf is draped demurely over her face. She watches me with one smiling eye as she reaches into a plate of water and retrieves a fresh betel leaf.

“You like it sweet?” she asks in a voice that is both surprisingly deep and as syrupy as the thick sugar water with rose petals in it that she spreads over the leaf. She winks her painted eye and lays a thin sheet of silver on top of the rose water.

Next she sprinkles white powder and crushed flower petals and some colored crystals and mysterious-looking withered shreds over the leaf. With deft fingers she wraps the whole thing into a neat triangle, tucks in the edges, and leans over to hand it to me.

Her scarf slips to reveal breasts that look hard and pointed under her dress. She jangles her silver bracelets and flutters her fingers. I peer more closely into her face. A tiny stubble of beard peeps through the white powder on her chin.

I gasp and step back. With a gravelly giggle, she re-wraps her scarf and holds out a long, slender hand with black hairs on the knuckles for a rupee.

I marvel at the wickedness of this man-woman. The
paan
is delicious, and I feel very grown up.

We get stuck in a crowd standing outside a tent, the men’s eyes on a deformed midget dancing, his hips and shoulders undulating to a rhythm played by two musicians pumping at tuneless instruments. A man in a filthy tunic promises through a microphone that the dancing inside is performed by beautiful women who do forbidden things. Dadi pushes through the immobile crowd, pulling me away.

Half the money Dadi has given me is gone, and the evening breeze sways the colored lights strung overhead. It’s past the time we should get back. Unwillingly I let Dadi pull me by the hand toward the pinwheel gate. I ask if I can come back tomorrow to watch the man in tights lift the five-hundred-pound barbells, and the daredevil cyclists ride circles upside down through a flaming cylinder, and the wrestlers.

When we return to our camp, four strangers with guns are waiting. Their leader is a one-eyed Pathan whom Dadi greets, calling him Wardak. One of the others has only one arm. I have never seen such wild-looking men.

Dadi gestures me away, so I go to search for the bowl and pan to make
chapatis
. I start the fire, make tea with lots of sugar and milk, and leave it resting on a stone at the edge of the fire. But Dadi doesn’t offer them tea.

I keep my eyes on the men as I feed the animals and knead dough. They all wear huge gray turbans, wound in a way I’ve never seen before. Their shoes are dirty and
worn. They look very sinister. Wardak gestures angrily. He turns his back on Dadi as if to walk away. Dadi stands still and silent. I wish I can hear what they’re saying!

Wardak turns back again toward Dadi, and Dadi shakes his head. After a while they leave, and Dadi watches their backs for a moment before coming to the fire. It’s way past time for us to be in bed, and the
chapatis
are cold.

“What do they want?” I ask, my voice little more than a whisper. “They’re Afghans, aren’t they?”

Dadi nods. He is drawing figures in the dirt by the fire with a stick. Mama has taught me the little reading she knows, but I can’t make out what he’s writing.

“Dadi, tell me, please,” I say.

“Shabanu, we could be very rich in another week. You and Phulan would have fine weddings and dowries that would stand you well for the rest of your lives.” He smiles, but his eyes are sad, and I have an empty feeling in my stomach that presses outward as if I’ll burst.

“Please don’t sell Guluband,” I whisper, looking down at the fire. “Please, please, please.”

“I won’t if I can help it,” he says.

“But the others,” I say. “What you told the Baluch, that you’d rather sell them for meat than have them abused and shot down by soldiers!”

“I know,” he says. “Others are interested in the whole herd, too. I’ve asked the Afghans to pay twice what they’re willing to pay. Don’t worry, little one.”

That night, as I clean the pans and put them away, other men come to the fire to talk to Dadi. Just as last
year, they are most interested in Guluband. Dadi tells them he isn’t for sale.

Dadi keeps the fire going far into the night. I am comforted that he’d told so many he won’t sell Guluband for any price, and I sleep soundly. I wake occasionally to Tipu’s lovesick roars, and when buyers come to try to persuade Dadi with offers that grow higher and higher, he refuses, and happily I fall back to sleep.

Next morning Guluband and I go to buy fodder. We return to find Dadi talking to Wardak and the one-armed man. Dadi listens, his back toward me. When Wardak finishes speaking, there is a long silence until Dadi speaks.

“Twenty-eight thousand for the big one, twenty-two for the other males, fifteen for each female, twenty for the pregnant ones, and eight apiece for the small ones. That’s two hundred seventy-six thousand, and not a paisa less.”

Wardak spits in the dust and walks away. I drop the twenty kilos of fodder Guluband and I have carried from the vendor and jump to the ground.

“You said you wouldn’t,” I shout, sobs tearing through my voice.

Dadi grabs me by the arms and shakes me hard until I’m quiet.

“Hush! He’ll never pay that much. And if he does, I don’t want a word out of you.”

I cry out and yank my arms away from him. He lets me go and I run blindly, my
chadr
flying out behind me, all the way to the canal that borders the fairground. I can’t stay long. I know Dadi can’t leave the animals alone
with that man wanting Guluband so much. I sit hugging me knees, staring into the gray water, searching for an answer.

I think of taking Guluband myself, but there is nowhere a girl can go safely alone. I think of the Bugti girl who loved the Marri boy, and of her father looking for them to kill her. I have no money, I know nobody outside my family. I have no choice but to obey Dadi and hope the Afghan won’t pay that price for the whole herd.

When I get back to the camp, Dadi is showing the pregnant females to another buyer, a man in a huge white turban, with a big belly, enormous hands, and kind eyes. I ask if they want tea. Dadi looks at me and there is compassion in his eyes. I know I must remain in Dadi’s good graces—it’s my only hope.

The man comes into the camp and I hand them each a cup. The man thanks me and sits, sipping the tea noisily. He too is a Pathan, a herder from Zhob in north Baluchistan near the Afghanistan border. He tells Dadi half his herd was wiped out last year by disease. He needs good, strong females.

“The pregnant ones are each seven thousand,” says Dadi. “I’ll take six for each of the other females. Two have calves, and they must stay together. The calves are two thousand each.”

My breath rushes in sharply. That’s less than half the price Dadi has offered Wardak. Still the prices are high, and no doubt this man will bargain him down. Perhaps Dadi is right: Wardak will never pay that much!

The next morning
the man from Zhob comes for breakfast. We sit around the warmth of the fire, eating in companionable silence as the sun comes up, spreading its watery light over the fairground.

When we have finished, the man sucks his teeth and stands.

“I’ve raised all I can. Thirty thousand.”

“That will cover all but the milking female and one
other,” says Dadi, standing so his eyes are level with the other man’s.

“Your prices are the highest at Sibi,” says the other.

“My camels are the best,” Dadi replies. “Otherwise you’d put your thirty thousand on ten scrawny females from Sind.”

The other man nods slowly.

“Let me give you twenty-four and leave out a pregnant female. They’re always a risk.”

Dadi chews on a piece of straw for a moment and tosses it into the fire.

“The two pregnant ones are the best females. You’ll have no trouble. Both are a month from delivery. You’re talking of false economy.”

“But I need more …”

“One of the females hasn’t dropped a calf in three years,” says Dadi. “I want you to have my camels. You’ll look after them well, and they’ll produce fine calves and plenty of milk. If you have a good stud, the younger ones will give you a calf a year over the next seven years. Leave me the old dry one, and for your thirty thousand I’ll sell you the other females and calves.”

The man’s face brightens. He has a good bargain. He lifts his tunic to pull several handfuls of crumpled notes from a canvas money belt. He sticks a huge forefinger inside to make sure no bills are left hiding.

He and Dadi shake hands and the deal is done. There is tea, a little gossip about other camel sellers, and more
sucking of teeth before the man leads away all but one of the females.

Dadi smiles broadly as he turns back to the fire.

“This is a good beginning,” he says, tugging my hair. I pour us each another cup of tea.

Later in the morning the dust rises, and Dadi is busy with a man who wants to buy Tipu. I sell two of Grandfather’s saddles for three hundred rupees apiece. Dadi is so pleased he sends me out to buy two chickens for dinner and invites our caravan companions for a meal tonight.

When I return, he has sold Tipu for eighteen thousand! He is singing and laughing to himself when I come back with sacks of vegetables and the chickens.

“I’ll go back and get two more chickens!” says Dadi, his turban pushed back on his head. “What luck! Eight camels!” It costs twenty rupees a day apiece just to feed them. And I don’t think even Dadi expected to get such good prices.

I spend the rest of the day peeling onions and making curry and
chapatis
, fetching water from the canal and keeping the tea boiling for a stream of prospective buyers. Dadi and I begin to sing again, and he promises to take me tomorrow to see the daredevil and for another
paan
.

Late in the afternoon the wind comes up. A dust storm is building, and I scurry to put out the fire and find lids for the pots to keep the sand out, and a cloth to tie up the
chapatis
.

The wind whips my skirt and hair. The
chadr
and shawl together don’t keep the sand from biting my skin. My teeth are gritty, and I open my eyes just wide enough to keep from tripping as I struggle to secure the tarpaulin to protect us and our belongings.

The camels shift positions to face into the wind. Their ears swivel back and their nostrils pinch down. They continue to ruminate with their eyes shut, content as old women in front of a fire.

I have secured three corners of the tarpaulin, and the last corner whips me about like a tassel on the end of a string. Dadi returns to help, and we drag sacks of flour, rice, and lentils under the tarpaulin. When we finally get underneath ourselves, every inch of my skin feels rubbed raw from the blowing sand. I fall asleep with the wind howling.

I am awakened by someone shouting “Abassi! Abassi!”

Dadi rises and goes outside. I lift a corner of the tarpaulin. Standing square into the wind is Wardak, looking like a wild man, with fire shooting out of his one good eye. He is alone. Dadi reties his turban tightly to secure it against the wind as he approaches Wardak.

The Afghan gestures furiously, and Dadi stands as he stood before, watching quietly. I sense Wardak is no stranger to killing. Dadi makes no move to invite him inside. The wind tears at them, plastering Dadi’s shirt against his broad back and his
lungi
against his muscular legs.

Rain begins to fall in dense plops on the tarpaulin and
ground, sending up little splashes of mud. Still they stand outside, shouting above the storm.

The wind is frigid, and the rain beats in against my hands and face. My eyes are riveted on Wardak, who lifts his tunic and reaches into a canvas pouch hanging at his waist. He pulls out three bundles of stiff, blue five-hundred-rupee notes, still stapled together at one end. One hundred and fifty thousand rupees. Dadi’s shoulder dips as he reaches for the notes. I can’t see his hands or face.

I lift the flap higher and squeeze over a sack of rice. Wardak is halfway to where the camels are tethered when finally I can get a sound out of my paralyzed throat.

“No-o-o-o-o-o-o!” I scream, running at Wardak through the rain.