Shabanu (7 page)

Dadi catches me halfway between the tent and Guluband, and he scoops me up in one arm. I kick at him and beat at the air.

“You promised!” I shriek. “Liar. You lied!”

Wardak has untethered the male camels, and Guluband is just getting to his feet.

“No-o-o-o!” I wail.

Dadi sets me down, and I try to break away from him. He holds me firmly by the arm. I bite at him like a wild animal. With his free hand he slaps my face, sending me to my knees. He still holds my arm.

Dadi’s eyes are on Wardak as he leads the animals away.

“Guluband!” I shout. My voice is like glass shattering and falling to the ground in splinters.

Guluband turns his great shaggy head and fixes me for
a second with one clear brown eye. With a roar he turns, following Wardak obediently.

As I watch them disappear into the dim light, I know without a doubt that my heart is crumbling up inside me like a burning piece of paper. I sag against Dadi. He holds me against him for a moment, then lifts me in his arms and carries me into the tent.

Both of us are soaked and shivering. Dadi hands me a towel and tells me to take off my wet clothes. I obey, and he wraps me in a quilt, then goes out.

The wind dies, and the rain is now a gentle patter on the tarpaulin. I am numb and mute. Everything registers, but I cannot move. Dadi returns, folds back one edge of the tarpaulin, and builds a fire. I follow him with my eyes as he moves about the tent, arranging our clothes around the fire to dry and putting a kettle of tea on to boil.

He brings me a cup, but the salty-sweet tea turns bitter in my mouth and I choke. He takes back the cup. My teeth begin to chatter, and Dadi carries me to the fire. In its light, he inspects my face, looking at where he slapped me. I stare into his eyes, and for the first time he meets my look. He brushes his fingers over my tangled hair and folds me into his arms, where he holds me until I stop shivering.

When the rain stops and our clothes are dry, Dadi removes the stiff tarpaulin and folds it away. People begin to move around outside. I can hear the mud sucking at their feet. Dadi pushes the sacks of grains and pulses back
into a big circle and covers the ground again with the reed mats.

He gets out the pots of curried chicken and lentils and rice and vegetables, and arranges them around the fire.

“Shabanu?” he says. I nod and take over the rest of the cooking while he goes out to find plates and cups to feed the men he has invited to celebrate the sale of our camels.

I feel strangely normal. I am not angry. I see everything clearly, as if I am awake for the first time in a long while. We are richer than we ever have been. From the sale of fourteen camels, Dadi has made enough for Phulan’s wedding and dowry and for mine next year. He and Mama will have an easier life. They still have a fine herd of camels at home.

But at the center of my self is an aching hole. With Guluband, my joy, my freedom, all of who I am has gone. I wonder if I will ever take pleasure in anything again.

Dadi returns with a sackful of red clay cups and plates. With him are two men, one with a drum, the other with a tattered old bagpipe. They kick off their muddy sandals and line them up outside the circle of our camp.

The sky clears just as the sun sets. Dadi heaps wood on the fire in a pit surrounded by the dry, clean mats, and orange glints curve around the edges of the pots and the folds of the men’s turbans.

The man with the bagpipe is the old man who shared his
hookah
with Dadi. He fills his frail frame with air and pumps up the bag. The sound begins as a low moan and
rises as the pipes fill in an ancient tribal wail, the skin drum beating its rhythm underneath. Another man comes with a bamboo flute, and another with a roast leg of mutton.

Word spreads among the people of our caravan of Dadi’s great sales, and each comes, bringing what he can to help celebrate, and also in the hope that our good fortune portends his own.

My heart stands
still for a moment when Wardak appears. I want to tear out his one eye and spit in its bloody socket. But the dull ache around the hole where my heart used to be leaves me drained of all energy. Wardak has brought a roasted lamb. Our companions greet him warmly. They respect his wealth.

The men deposit their tributes around the fire and squat in a circle to gossip about the camel selling. The buyers
curse the Afghans for driving prices up. The sellers mention the possibility of driving their camels through the Makran Range into the hands of the camel-eating Iranians and Arabs. The music pulses and everyone waits to eat.

Dadi passes out the clay plates. There aren’t enough. More appear. Trays heaped with meat, lentils,
chapatis
, vegetables, and rice are passed. I refill the teakettle again and again, moving about as if in a dream. Wardak never once looks in my direction.

After the men have eaten, the drummer quickens the rhythm of the music. Several men form a circle around the fire, smiling and swaying at first, then dipping and turning to clap their hands overhead, their steps a halting beat behind the drum in a traditional desert dance.

A young man who traveled with us through the Bugti tribal land tosses off his shawl and puts a reed between his lips. He lifts his arms gracefully and strikes at the air with his hands to staccato whistles through the reed, swaying like a mesmerized cobra. His feet lift forward quickly and smoothly, in time with the music and the reed. The others stand back, the fire flickering on their white tunics and turbans as they clap and whoop. A small boy joins in the snake dance, and the watching men twirl rupees over the dancers’ turbans to ward off the evil eye.

Four men drag Dadi to the fire. Their hero for today must dance, but he must appear to be unwilling. Wardak tosses Dadi a sword. He catches it by the handle and hesitates
for a moment. With a shout, another of our caravan mates leaps into the circle of the fire, his sword raised over his head. The circle moves back farther, and the drummer beats the tempo still faster. Dadi and the other man whirl, duck, and leap in an intricate rhythm of hollow rings as their deadly swords flash in time to the tribal drum. When it’s over the two men sag exhausted against each other, swords upraised, and the crowd cheers.

Outside the circle, the night is cold. The storm has cleared the air, and the fairground is washed white with moonlight. I can barely hear the mechanical noise of the carnival above the music and voices. Half the fairground seems to have gathered around our camp.

When the men have drifted away, I gather up the clay dishes and cups, most of which lie broken around the edge of the mats. We pack up some of what’s left of the food and distribute the rest among the people camped about us.

Dadi looks tired, and his clothes are wrinkled and sweaty.

I’m glad to be occupied with practical things as I measure out wheat and lentils for the trip home. The rest we’ll sell in the morning. We have only one camel—the old female—to carry our belongings.

I lie awake for a long time, not thinking, trying to feel—testing for sadness, anger, anything, but I am as empty as the clay cups after the dancing. When I sleep finally, it’s a long, dreamless sleep. In the morning Dadi shakes me
awake gently. The sun is fully up, and he helps me to sit. He drops something warm and heavy into my lap. It takes a moment for my head to clear.

A puppy with a large, round belly and soft brown fur picks at my fingers with sharp teeth. I look up, and Dadi is smiling. I hand the wriggling thing back to him.

“We’d better tie him up in a basket,” I say.

“Don’t you want to carry him?” asks Dadi.

I shrug. I feel exhausted and heavy. The thought of walking through the desert all day defeats me before I’m even out from under my quilt. I’ll be lucky if I can carry myself.

I go to the canal and splash water on my face. When I come back, Dadi has loaded the camel with everything but the teapot. The puppy barks a high yap from a basket that hangs next to the water jars on the camel’s hump. Dadi hands me a cup of tea and a
chapati
. I haven’t eaten since yesterday and am hungry.

“Do you want to ride?” Dadi asks. I decide to walk.

The day passes in a long, monotonous shuffle. Both of us walk in silence. The puppy quiets. Lulled by the stride of the old female camel, he falls asleep on the straw Dadi has laid on the bottom of the basket. His wet, black nose is pressed against an opening between the reeds.

We walk along the riverbed. My feet stumble and slide over the round stones. Dadi picks me up and carries me for a while on his shoulders.

We turn away from the river and follow the railway.
Every two hours a train whistles by, moving fast downhill toward Jacobabad.

It’s getting dark when we see Dingra ahead, a tiny settlement around the train stop.

“Do you want to stop here for the night?” asks Dadi.

I shake my head.

“We don’t want to walk into the tribal area after dark,” he says.

But the moon is up before the sun sets, and we walk far into the night, keeping the road on one side and the train tracks on the other. We stop just short of Bellpat, where tomorrow we leave the road behind and walk along a desert track into the land of the Bugtis.

Over the next two days, we pass through the tribal area without incident. Dadi insists I ride so people will see we’re a simple family coming from Sibi to cross the desert. He has left several thousand rupees in his belt, enough to satisfy any thief we should meet. The rest of the notes are rolled into the hollowed wood of the camel saddle frame.

Spring comes early to Cholistan, and already the days are hot. The puppy is panting in his basket. I dip my cup into the water jar and offer him a drink. He tries to wriggle out of the basket and looks at me with bright black eyes. He hasn’t had attention since we left, so I pull him out and hold him in my lap for a while. He bites at my fingers. I tap his nose, and he stops biting and looks up at me. He’s a smart one. Instead he licks my palm. I tap his nose again, and he looks at me as if to ask “Now
what?” He drinks more water and falls asleep in the crook of my arm. I put him back in the basket. He barks for a long while before falling asleep again.

Our trip passes in a dull routine of walking, sometimes riding the old female camel, and stopping to eat and sleep.

Dadi has given up trying to talk to me. He walks along, singing in his husky voice, and sometimes talks to the camel, sometimes to the puppy. He calls the puppy
Sher Dil
, which means “lion heart.” It’s a good name, for the puppy is strong and unafraid. When Dadi lets him out of his basket at night, he tumbles and tugs at the edge of our quilts and runs in circles before collapsing between us.

I have thought about Guluband often since we left Sibi. I summon his image and want to feel sad or angry or lonely. But apart from moments at night when I sit up in stark fear, waking from a dream of guns raining bullets down on him, I feel strangely detached, as if he’s with a part of me that now is gone. The only feeling I have left is of weight and heat and the white dusty air as we walk through the desert on the alien side of the Indus River.

On the eighth night we reach Rahimyar Khan. We must finish shopping for Phulan’s wedding. Since we have just the one camel, we go straight into the bazaar. It’s strange to see so many people after a week alone in the desert.

In the bazaar, Dadi leaves me to look for shawls for Phulan’s dowry, while he goes off to find Uncle and a place to tie the camel. I finger the prickly polyester and wool shawls arranged in bright stacks of red, green, turquoise, and yellow, folded to show clumsy stitching. I don’t
like any of them. The shopkeeper thinks I’m a child and tells me outrageous prices.

I leave the shop and walk down the crowded lane to another, where an old man who reminds me of Grandfather sits peacefully on his floor, staring out into the daylight. He starts when he sees me, staring as if he’s seen a ghost.

“I’m looking for fine shawls for my sister Phulan’s dowry,” I announce. The old man invites me inside.

“What color?” he asks. I rub one bare foot over the other, thinking about it.

“Well, what color are her eyes?” asks the old man, his eyes surrounded by skin crinkled with kindness.

I haven’t thought of it, but Phulan’s eyes are a tawny color like liquid gold. I try to explain, and he lays a finger against his lips, thinking a moment.

“Wait here, child,” he says, and jumps down from the platform of his shop floor, slips into his sandals, and disappears around the corner.

I walk through the shop, looking at the woolen shawls stacked neatly, the soft colors mixed together unlike in the other shops. I see a pale green the color of desert shrubs and pull a woolen shawl from the pile. As I hold it up and the folds shake out, my breath catches. The embroidery at the ends is like the flowers on the trellises in the landowners’ gardens—deep, dark red like desert roses, and delicate pink like the blossoms of
kharin
.

The
kharin
should be blooming when we reach Cholistan, and for the first time since Wardak led Guluband
away, I feel a stirring in the place I’d thought my heart had left.

When the old man returns, he has a packet wrapped in crumpled yellow newspaper under one arm, a stack of pale-colored shawls under the other.

“How much is this one?” I ask, holding out the soft green one.

“It’s very expensive,” he says. “It’s
pashmina
from Kashmir. It was made for my mother before her wedding.”

“How expensive?” I ask impatiently. I want this for Phulan. It will be beautiful with her tiger eyes.

He looks at my desert nomad’s clothes, the glass bangles on my arm, and the tribal silver bracelet on one ankle above my rough bare feet.

“Eight thousand rupees,” he says.

My jaw drops. My ears burn with shame, and I turn to walk out of his shop.

“Wait,” says the man. “What’s your name, child?”

“Shabanu.”

A smile starts slowly at the corners of his mouth and grows until it lights up his entire brown face.