The Holy Woman (37 page)

‘I am sorry, Grandfather, the answer is still no.’ Her voice matched his in hardness. She swept round to follow Haris.

There was nothing further to say. Silence reigned between them – a unique experience for Siraj Din. He was used to people running to do his bidding. His granddaughter’s flat refusal was a bitter pill for him to swallow.

Why couldn’t she have refused them five years ago?
In his heart he knew the answer. Zarri Bano had had no chance in the face of four strong males. What could a mere slip of a girl, only twenty-seven years of age, do when faced with a father, an uncle, a grandfather and an elder? She had had no option but to submit, to bow down before them all.

‘I
T IS TO
no avail, Sahiba.’ Fatima had gone straight to her mistress in her bedroom as soon as she had had a talk with Zarri Bano. ‘She will not listen, and is
adamant
that she doesn’t want to marry him. You are right; she feels genuine revulsion against the idea.’

‘Thank you for trying, Fatima.’ Shahzada sighed heavily. ‘I don’t know what to do. She will probably avoid me even more now. Today she didn’t even come home for lunch, but remained at the
madrasa
,
pretending
that she had to organise an important meeting. I will have to tell Sikander tomorrow when he comes for Haris. I am dreading it. Do you know, a week goes so quickly, Fatima. It seems only yesterday that Haris came to stay with us.’

The following evening, Sikander arrived to collect his son. ‘Where is your aunt, Haris?’ he asked after taking some refreshment and cuddling the child.

‘She is still at the
madrasa
, Sikander my son,’ Shahzada replied.

‘I see. It’s very late, isn’t it? Shall I go and walk her home, or has the chauffeur gone to collect her?’

‘No, it’s all right, don’t worry. I have sent Ali to accompany her,’ Shahzada told him, knowing
instinctively that Zarri Bano had deliberately stayed late at the
madrasa
so that she wouldn’t have to meet Sikander. Shahzada had made up her mind to be honest with him and let him know exactly what had happened between her daughter and herself.

‘Sikander, I liked your suggestion very much,’ she began. He looked up at her sharply. ‘You know what I am talking about, don’t you? Well I have talked to Zarri Bano about it and I am very sorry, my son, but she wouldn’t listen or consider it. She is totally against it.’

Sikander tried to mask his disappointment. ‘I see’, he commented after a while.

‘You can understand her situation, can’t you?’ Shahzada appealed for his understanding.

‘Yes, I can, Auntie,’ he replied flatly.

‘She is a changed person these days. She accused us of treating her like a wax doll, moulding her when it suited us and our circumstances.’

‘Yes, I can imagine Zarri Bano saying that – and thinking that. That is probably what I would have thought in her shoes. I remember her telling me a long time ago that above all she would not be moulded, yet ironically she
has
been.’

‘Also she feels guilty over her sister’s death. The thought of replacing Ruby is abhorrent to her.’

Again Sikander listened intently but didn’t reply immediately.

‘Come on, son. We must go home,’ he said at last, and stood up to leave. Then turning to Shahzada again. ‘Is it all right for me to talk personally to her about it? Do I have your permission?’

‘Of course, my dear, please do. I would like you to marry my daughter very much.’

Sikander smiled his thanks. ‘Rather than me
bringing Haris over, is it possible that you could
persuade
Zarri Bano to come over to Karachi in a week’s time to collect him? I would like to see her there very much, and so would my parents.’

‘I don’t know if it is the right thing to do,’ Shahzada worried. ‘The way Zarri Bano is at the moment, she runs at the mere mention of your name. I will try my very best or I will come myself.’

‘Good. Please do that.
Khudah Hafiz
, Auntie.’

He walked out into the darkened front courtyard. Just as he approached his Jeep, he saw Zarri Bano in her long black cloak, come into the courtyard with Ali.

Zarri Bano stopped on seeing him. She was caught, undecided whether to go back or forward. Common sense spelt that it had to be forward. Sikander remained standing under the canopied verandah, with his son held tightly in his arms, waiting for her to approach him.

‘
Assalam-Alaikum,
Brother Sikander,’ she ventured, laying deliberate stress on the word
Brother
.

‘
Wa Laikum-Salam
, Zarri Bano,’ he replied quietly, his eyes glittering in the semi-darkness of the verandah. She noted his omission of the word ‘Sister’. For the last four years, during his marriage to Ruby, he had
respectfully
addressed her as ‘Sister Zarri Bano’. Her cheeks flared with colour in the dark.

‘I am taking Haris home.’ Sikander had now walked up to her.

‘I see. Is Auntie all right?’ Zarri Bano asked politely, trying to keep to the banal level of social pleasantries. She still hadn’t looked him in the eye, but had her eyes on Haris, who leaned forward and took hold of her arm.

‘Auntie, will you come to pick me up next week in Karachi?’ he piped. ‘Grandmother said you would.
You must come and stay with us for two days.’ Haris was blissfully ignorant of the tension crackling between the two adults.

Zarri Bano caught her breath, trapped by Haris’s question. ‘No, darling, I can’t. I am going to a meeting in Multan next week,’ she replied truthfully.

‘Well, come when you’ve been there. You never come to our Karachi home, Auntie, do you?’ Childish
petulance
spilled out of his small mouth.

Zarri Bano felt herself falling deeper into the trap.

‘My son issues invitations for me. I don’t have to do it,’ a smiling Sikander uttered softly in his deep voice.

Zarri Bano stepped back, an expression of panic on her face. This time she looked him directly in the eye. The idea had to be nipped in the bud. She couldn’t pretend ignorance any more.

‘I am sorry, Brother Sikander, but I really will have to decline that invitation. Perhaps later, when you remarry, I will attend your wedding.’

‘You will,’ he replied cryptically, before moving away with his son in his arms. Once he placed Haris on the passenger seat of the Jeep, he turned once again to give Zarri Bano another sweeping look. She stood watching, shaken by the strange tingling awareness entering her body.

She entered her home, disgusted with herself and her feelings, and quashed them with two sharp words: ‘Never Again!’ That chapter of her life was over – never to be lived again.

Over the next few days, Shahzada tried very hard to hint to Zarri Bano that they should go to collect Haris next time. The girl declined. ‘Mother, you go! There is no need for me to be there. You can send Ali to pick
him up.’ Now she was beginning to think there was a conspiracy to send her to Karachi and throw her into Sikander’s company.

‘Mother, why do you persist? You know that I am not supposed to meet a
gheir merd
, an outsider.’ She turned on her mother angrily.

‘But Sikander is not a
gheir merd,
’ Shahzada insisted.

‘Oh yes he is. He is no blood relative of mine, thus he is
gher
. Until he remarries someone, I don’t want to have anything to do with him
or
his family. Please do not plot on my account behind my back, because the answer will always be the same.’

Three days later Zarri Bano reluctantly ended up accompanying her mother to Karachi. She had
postponed
her visit to Lahore because Haris had been taken ill, and wanted to have his Aunt Zarri Bano and his other grandmother with him. Trapped, she agreed to go. If Haris really was ill, it would be so unkind of her to stay away. He had said over the telephone in his groggy voice, ‘Auntie, please come. I miss you so much. I love you. Will you come?’

‘Yes, darling,’ Zarri Bano had said resignedly. Haris was the epicentre of their world, a living remnant of her sister. She could never refuse such a heartfelt request. ‘I will deal with Sikander when the time comes,’ Zarri Bano told herself firmly.

Looking at Haris a few hours later in his bed in Karachi, Zarri Bano was ashamed of her selfishness. ‘It is all right, my darling. Aunty’s here to stay with you,’ she promised, gathering the feverish little boy into her arms and printing kisses on his hot forehead. A lump suddenly arose in her throat for her dead sister. With Haris still in her arms, she gave in to the urge to weep.

‘Auntie, are you crying?’ Haris said, looking up inquisitively at Zarri Bano.

‘Yes, I am, my darling. I am crying for your mummy, because I miss her so much.’

‘I miss her too,’ he sniffed in his small voice.

‘We all miss her, but crying will not help,’ Sikander chipped in, having come into the room. Zarri Bano wiped her eyes with her hands and turned to look. Sikander and Bilkis stood together, warmth in their eyes, as they beheld the aunt and nephew wrapped in each other’s arms.

Zarri Bano patted the little boy’s cheeks with a tissue. ‘Haris, won’t you drink a little of the soup that your Dadi Ama has brought for you?’ She took it from Bilkis and tasted it herself first. ‘Oh, it is yummy! You try it now.’ Spooning some of it into Haris’s mouth, she concentrated hard on the soup, because her body was aware of Sikander sitting on the other end of the bed, leaning forward and watching them both intently.

‘You are lucky to have your aunt to spend so much time with you,’ Sikander told his son. ‘Your other two aunts, my sisters, live so far away and are so busy with their own children that they cannot come at such short notice.’

‘I may live nearby, Sikander Sahib,’ Zarri Bano explained curtly to Sikander, ‘but as you know I, too, lead a very busy life and have little time to spare. I only came because Haris was ill. I’m especially busy now that I am hoping to set up the publishing company, as I intended to do five years ago.’

‘Yes, of course, Sahiba. I didn’t mean to imply that you had nothing to do,’ Sikander quickly amended. ‘We know you have a very busy life. I am also aware that you postponed your visit to Lahore. We are all very
grateful that you have spared so much of your time for this visit. Were you thinking of Karachi as the base for your company?’ he asked with keen interest, a light coming into his eyes.

‘I am not sure yet, but I am hoping to specialise in academic and scholarly books, perhaps in Hyderabad or Islamabad,’ she answered evasively, having already
purchased
the land in Karachi for the company. He didn’t know, nor did her mother – only her grandfather.

Zarri Bano went downstairs for the evening meal and joined her mother. Soon afterwards, she returned to Haris’s room and decided to sleep with the little chap. Ever since his mother’s death, Haris had always slept with Zarri Bano when he was staying with her.
Slipping
out of her
burqa
and pulling on her night
kurta
, Zarri Bano climbed into the large bed, pulled Haris into her arms and fell asleep.

Sikander called in a little later in the evening. As he saw his son cuddled up against his aunt, something caught in his throat. He stood for a long time staring down at them both. It was the first time that he had seen her sleeping in his home. ‘I’m not going to let her go! I must talk to her very soon; each day is a wasted day,’ he told himself in exasperation, closing the door behind him.

Sikander found his opportunity to speak to Zarri Bano two days later. She was out in the orange orchard,
playing
with Haris. The child’s health had improved over the last forty-eight hours. Zarri Bano wasn’t aware of Sikander’s presence for some time as she was totally engrossed in playing hide and seek with her nephew, delighting in his healthy childish giggles.

‘Oh, there is Daddy!’ Haris cried, running towards
Sikander. When Zarri Bano turned to watch, the smile had left her face. Sikander caught his son in his arms and watched her closely over the little boy’s head.

His scorching gaze captured hers fully. The words, ‘
Haram! Haram!
It is a sin!’ thundered through her mind as she hastily looked away. ‘I mustn’t look at a
gheir merd
,’ she mumbled to herself.

For a few seconds he had succeeded in straddling her in the two worlds: of her past and that of the present, with her as the Holy Woman. To her dismay, she saw that she was standing on the very same spot as five years ago, when he had proposed to her. His eyes played over her face, coaxing and forcing her to remember that time and to acknowledge it – making her raise her eyes to him once more.

The bundle in his arms moved, releasing Zarri Bano to return to the present world. She bent down to pick up the ball from the ground.

‘Haris, your grandmother is calling you inside,’ Sikander told his son, putting him on the ground.

‘OK! See you in a minute, Auntie,’ Haris shouted, running gaily along the garden path leading into the villa. Zarri Bano watched him go, wishing and wanting to follow him, but unable for some reason to do so.

She turned to Sikander with a polite smile, pulling the hood of the
burqa
further onto her forehead,
checking
that no strand of her hair was visible to his gaze. ‘Haris is getting better, Brother Sikander. After a few days I could take him back to Sind with me,’ she offered, for want of something to say.

‘Yes, he is getting better, but I would prefer him to stay here. This is his home. He has got to stay here, Zarri Bano. I miss him too. This to-ing and fro-ing between Karachi and your home has to stop. It’s been
going on for over a year. It is not good for his health, nor for his education.

‘I know.’

‘Could you come and stay here with us for a while?’ he asked carefully, taking the first tentative steps to his goal.

‘I … I …’ she stammered, looking him straight in the eye. ‘Sikander Sahib, I have only come because Haris wasn’t well. I have no right to stay here. I have a life of my own to turn to.’

‘I know you are a very busy person. Tell me why don’t you have the right to stay here? Are you not related to Haris? You are his aunt.’

‘Sikander Sahib you know it is not seemly for me to stay here, particularly as a single woman and you are now a single man.’

He neatly took the cue offered by her stiff words. ‘I see. Well perhaps we can remedy that, Zarri Bano. Why don’t we legitimise your stay here with us. Haris needs you – we need you, why don’t you replace Ruby?’

As soon as the word ‘replace’ left his mouth, he knew he had made a terrible mistake.

Zarri Bano couldn’t pretend to misunderstand him. She stood on the spot – thunderstruck.