Typhoon (13 page)

D
UMBFOUNDED,
H
AROON GAZED
down at his wife’s bent head.

A stunned Fatima found her voice. ‘Naghmana – Naghmana, my dear, what are you saying? You don’t want a divorce, do you?’ She tugged urgently at her niece’s arm.

Naghmana glanced up resignedly at the eyes of the cobra again and dumbly nodded.

Aghast, Haroon clutched his head in disbelief, trying to shake off the nightmare.

From across the courtyard, Siraj Din caught his wife’s bewildered glance. Her soft words of wisdom. ‘Let your head rule and not your heart,’ came rushing back into his head. He crushed them down and looked away, turning to Haroon.

‘Right, my son. Do the honourable thing and divorce Naghmana in the traditional fashion. We are all here as your witnesses. Give her all three of the thalaks. Next time you will not forget your divorce so easily. As the village imam and qazi, the judge, I can oversee this matter and I will sign your divorce papers. My two Shegirds and practically as you can see the whole village are here as your witnesses.’

A shocked silence greeted his words, as the villagers tried to grapple with the almost surreal situation. It was too much for most.

The ‘whore’ had turned out to be a ‘wife’ and now as
the ‘innocent wife’ she was going to be divorced. It couldn’t be! They had come to watch a tamasha, instead they were being forced to watch the tragic lynching of an innocent woman. The moral pendulum swung from one direction to the next. They didn’t know what to think – what to expect. Three divorces! Was the old man going mad?

Their brains reeled from the emotional and
psychological
upheaval. Their heartache was now channelled towards the woman with her bowed head, and not on the other woman who sat with her son on her lap.

Gulshan herself seemed to be just as stunned as everyone else. Her eyes were wide open, her head raised above her son’s.

Jamila, with her hand held fast against her abdomen, completely forgetting her unwanted pregnancy and nausea craned her neck to peer over the head of the baker’s wife, wishing irritably that the latter wasn’t such a tall woman.

Chaudharani Zulaikha was about to cross the
courtyard
to join her husband when his cold, clipped words of ‘divorce’ turned her to stone, unable to make sense of what her husband was doing. She wanted to shout to him – to end this farce, but her lips, sealed with
decades
of decorum and social propriety, wouldn’t obey. A good wife didn’t make her husband lose face in public.

Her eyes standing huge in her face and mirroring her horror, she desperately tried to catch her husband’s gaze, but he was ruthlessly bent on avoiding her.

To her dismay, she heard him announce, loudly and clearly. ‘Right, my son, we are waiting. Remember, it is three thalaks!’

‘Oh, my husband – what are you doing?’ Zulaikha cried inside, feeling faint.

In front of her bewildered eyes, she saw Haroon step up before Naghmana and then in words that sounded alien to everyone’s ears, he divorced his first wife. He rendered her the three thalaks, one after the other. Total divorce. Complete severance of any link; no hope of ever getting back together again. The villagers wanted to flee. It was the cruellest, cruellest of all punishments for any woman. ‘I divorce you,’ rang in everyone’s ears.

Chaudharani Kaniz’s head had sunk in despair,
hearing
the third thalak, the final one that severed all links between Naghmana and her beloved Haroon as husband and wife.

Kulsoom Bibi glanced back at her friend Naimat Bibi, exchanging terrified, nervous glances. They had come to have a bit of fun, to watch an ‘immoral’ woman being shamed. Instead they had become unwilling and unwitting parties to the enforced divorce of an innocent wife by a husband who didn’t even
want
to divorce her. Chiragpur’s kacheri had turned into a theatre of macabre suffering.

Now sick to her very soul and unable to stand upright, Zulaikha fled from the courtyard, words of outrage repeating themselves in her head. ‘Oh, my
husband
, what have you done? You have let your heart rule your head!’

His eyes glazed with disbelief, Haroon looked down at the bent head of his beloved first wife Naghmana. He was unable to grasp the reality of what he had done – cut himself off totally from the woman he loved with all his heart. Only last night she had been in his arms.

Her eyes blurred with tears, Naghmana at last peeped up. Each time he had uttered the word ‘
thalak
’ he had pierced arrows straight through her heart.
Now ritually divorced, she symbolically averted her gaze, and as she did so, she met Gulshan’s eyes. Horror shone in them, Naghmana blindly turned for refuge to the guava tree in the far corner of the courtyard. The tears brimmed from her eyes, swollen wells; she
struggled
to contain them. Two or three, nevertheless, rolled down with open freedom from the corners of her eyes. She hastily pulled the shawl lower over her face.

‘Sit down, my son,’ Siraj Din urged Haroon, his glance on Hajra’s face.

Hajra quickly closed her open mouth, trying to get rid of the nervous look on it.

Siraj Din himself was looking around for Zulaikha. She wasn’t there. Dismayed, he turned to talk to his shegird.

Fatima got unsteadily to her feet, shooting a cold glance, first at Siraj Din and then at the rows of women sitting behind her. She stood stiffly in the small circle between the rows of men, women and the Buzurgh’s top table.

‘I hope, my village sisters and brothers, that your wicked hearts are well assuaged,’ she called out to them all, in ringing tones. ‘You wanted to see my niece
punished
. Didn’t you? Well, now you have had your wish! What bigger punishment can any woman receive than to be forcibly divorced from a husband who doesn’t want to divorce her? I hope that this crime committed against my beloved niece haunts you all till the day you die. I curse you all with this
badawa
. Especially you, Hajra, for demanding this kacheri.’

Colour shot into Siraj Din’s cheeks, his angry gaze slashed at Fatima. She boldly stared back.

‘And you – our village
Buzurgh
: have you come across a more noble woman than my niece? Have you?
One who got herself divorced for the sake of another woman. Get up, my niece – let’s go home. For there is nothing further they can do to you, now they have stripped you of your humanity and human dignity.’

She held her hand out to her niece. Her head still lowered, Naghmana rose to her feet. Suddenly she saw the rows of women. Again, instead of women, rows of snakes with round heads swayed towards her, aiming for her. She reached for her aunt’s hand and clutched it tight.

‘Stop, Fatima!’ Siraj Din’s authoritative voice stalled them both. Fatima stared coldly at the revered village elder. She could never respect him again.

‘You are absolutely right, Fatima. I will not come across a more noble woman than your niece. Come, my daughter – come forward,’ he beckoned, a semblance of a smile on his face.

Naghmana raised her eyes at the old man. With courage inspired by her respect for elders, she walked hesitantly over to the Buzurgh.

‘Nearer, my daughter,’ he coaxed her.

She stood next to his table, her eyes downcast.

Miraculously, Siraj Din’s hand reached out to her bowed head and fell flat on it. The villagers gasped. The badkismet woman had been re-instated!

‘Here you see before you, everyone, a true noble woman, as her aunt has just said. One who has
sacrificed
her own needs for those of another.’

Then in a lowered voice he whispered, ‘Naghmana, my daughter, what happened here today is for the best. You are both passionate women and could not have shared Haroon. Forget the past and this moment, my dear. Start afresh my daughter. I know you’ll find
happiness
elsewhere. Here you couldn’t have hoped to
compete with a wife of four years and a son. If you and Haroon were destined to remain together, you wouldn’t have been separated in the first place. It was in your
kismet
to be divorced from Haroon. Go home, my daughter. May Allah give you peace.’

Naghmana, nodded dumbly, her heart a solid stone in her chest. Her aunt’s shawl fell off her head onto her shoulders. The watching women saw the thick braided plait draped behind her – no loose hair anywhere.

Her head held high and the shawl fallen off her hair, Naghmana silently walked out of the madrasah
courtyard
in her aunt’s old uncomfortable shoes. Fatima bleakly followed two steps behind – a silent journey home.

In the courtyard, Siraj Din’s hawkish green gaze swept over the faces of his fellow villagers, assessing the tempo of their feelings. Unease and horror was still marked on most faces.

The reddish hue from his cheeks had now journeyed down to his neck above his white starched collar.
Clearing
his throat, and stilling his trembling hand on the Holy Quran, Baba Siraj Din called to Haroon. ‘Come here, my son.’

Shoulders slumped and sheer dislike shining in his eyes, Haroon made no effort to get up from his chair.

Siraj Din waited, wondering if Haroon would
disobey
him and thus wreak his revenge by publicly humiliating him. That, he couldn’t survive. To his relief he saw Haroon get up and come to stand in front of him.

Siraj Din didn’t look him directly in the eye, when he addressed him.

‘My son, I know it has all been a shock for you and
you are devastated – but it was for the best, believe me. Naghmana wanted a divorce. She knew what she was up against. The two women couldn’t have survived together. You would have been pulled between them, my son. It is not an easy life, having two partners. Naghmana is part of your past. Another world.
Anyway
, if you were meant to be together, you would never have got separated in the first place. You would have sought her out. And why didn’t you?’

‘On the other hand, think of your son and Gulshan. Could you have abandoned them for Naghmana’s sake if she had asked you to – and she may well have? You couldn’t have done it. You know your responsibility. You couldn’t possibly have abandoned your Moeen. Value what you have, my son. Remember you have also caused Gulshan a lot of pain and distress. Imagine what it has been like for the poor girl. It was not easy for her to discover that there was another woman in your life.’

‘And Naghmana?’ Haroon jeered, fed up with the old man and his platitudes. Not waiting for an answer, he strode out of the courtyard, ignoring the looks of the villagers. They had got more than they had bargained for in this kacheri.

His eyes on Haroon’s departing figure, Siraj Din took his trembling hand from the Holy Quran, and gestured to Gulshan to come up to him. Blushing
beetroot
red, Gulshan placed her son on the chair and stood up, she could feel everyone’s eyes on her face.

‘Yes, Baba Jee,’ she uttered softly, afraid to look the old man in the eye. Her awkwardness evident to all.

He sighed before he began. ‘This unfortunate event took place because of your mother’s intervention. She wanted a kacheri – she bullied me into it. Only Allah
knows what would have happened if we weren’t all here today.’

‘Treasure what you have, my daughter. Another woman, another wife has sacrificed her husband to you. Ultimately you were destined to be the winner. Good fortune was always on your side. As a wife of four years and with your son, Naghmana could never have been able to compete with you. The scales were weighed against her from the very beginning. She was really no threat to you, my dear. You now have your husband and your world back. Treasure it. Go home and try to put this unfortunate event aside from your life.’

Like a child, tears streamed down her face as she nodded. Then, becoming aware of where she was, Gulshan wiped her face with her chador. Pulling her son behind her she walked out of the courtyard, stumbling against the legs of one of the chairs.

Hajra rose to follow her daughter. She had listened to every word that the Buzurgh had uttered to the three. Now Siraj Din’s words stalled her. He hadn’t finished.

‘Hajra.’ She turned, resenting his words
‘bullied me into it.’
‘Hajra,’ he repeated, ‘you and I share the responsibility for this kacheri. It is us two that Fatima particularly cursed. Only time will tell whether we can survive her curse and put all this behind us.’

Her throat dry, Hajra tried to say something, but was lost for words. At the end she hurriedly walked out of the courtyard, carefully avoiding the eyes of her two neighbours, Kulsoom and Naimat Bibi.

Wearily Siraj Din glanced at the villagers. Not a single soul had moved since they had entered. His eyes skimming to the guava tree, Siraj Din rose and addressed his court and audience.

‘Go home, my brothers and sisters and my fellow
villagers. The kacheri is over. May God grant peace to those unfortunate three and to this village.’ Tone flat.

Dismissed, everyone awkwardly shuffled to their feet. Was it all over? It was a day they knew they would never forget.

F
ATIMA SILENTLY FOLLOWED
her niece out of the madrasah courtyard, keeping a three-step distance between them. In despair, she watched Naghmana climb the stairs to her room. A heavy rock had taken the place of her heart, ever since she had discovered that her beloved niece was Haroon’s first wife. ‘Why? Why?’ The words plagued, all the way home.

In her bedroom, she pulled off her outdoor chador from her head and folding it, placed it mechanically on the dressing table. Then, leaving the shadowy room, with its shuttered windows, she came out onto the
sunlit
verandah and the high roshandans. Standing against one of the three alabaster pillars, she recalled the
manner
in which she had slapped Naghmana across the face, and how she had fallen against that pillar and hurt her head.

‘Oh, why didn’t you tell me?’ Fatima groaned aloud, slamming her own head against the pillar this time, as if punishing herself. The vision of Hajra dragging her niece around the courtyard by her hair had Fatima
running
up the stairs to Naghmana’s bedroom. Fatima cursed herself as she pushed the door open. ‘I locked her in there!’

Her niece was sitting on the bed, her head sunk in despair. She ignored the soft tread of her aunt’s feet.

‘Naghmana,’ Fatima appealed, squatting on the floor beside the bed, her ravaged face level with that of her
niece. Her lips quivering, she held up her two hands in supplication. ‘Forgive me, please!’

Naghmana dutifully lifted her head and gazed at her aunt. A flutter of a heartbeat rose and died inside Fatima’s chest. Her niece’s eyes were the saddest, the most bereft of any pair of eyes she had ever seen. They shimmered not with condemnation but utter misery.

‘Why didn’t you tell me that you were married to him?’ Fatima got to her feet, unable to bear the look on her niece’s face. ‘Why did you let me treat you like that?’

In a dejected voice, barely audible, Naghmana reminded her, ‘I tried to tell you, Auntie, so many times – but you wouldn’t listen.’

‘You should have
made
me listen!’ Fatima’s hand moved in a helpless gesture. ‘You should have told me! In fact, you should have shouted to me and the whole village that you were his wife.’

‘I couldn’t, Auntie, I couldn’t!’ Naghmana’s head had sunk again

‘Why ever not?’

‘Because Haroon wanted to break it gently to Gulshan about my existence. Nobody knew about our marriage. He asked me not to tell anyone until he had told her first and thus I remained silent.’

‘Oh, my foolish niece – see where your silence got you. And then, if that wasn’t enough, you had to
sacrifice
yourself – your happiness – just so that you could maintain your silence to protect your husband. What sort of woman are you? Why did you get yourself divorced? I still cannot believe what you did!’ Fatima pulled her niece up into her arms. Hugging her tightly, she wept, soaking the linen muslin shawl that Naghmana still wore.

Her chin resting on Fatima’s shoulder, Naghmana stared bleakly into space. ‘Don’t cry, Auntie,’ she whispered in a voice as noble and as distant as the majestic Himalayas. Momentarily the old man’s
piercing
green gaze mocked her again. A bitter sigh rose in her throat.

‘As the Buzurgh so rightly said, I was destined to be divorced from Haroon. If Allah pak had willed it, we would never have been separated in the first place.
Neither
of us two unfortunate women were capable of
sharing
him with another, and I couldn’t be the means of causing her pain. At that kacheri, Auntie, we were two souls battling against one another – perversely we sought refuge in the other. What she felt, I felt. Can you understand that, Auntie? I couldn’t cause her any further pain. She discovered my existence and lost her life – she went to pieces. How could I cope with the wrecking of another woman’s life? Don’t you see?’

‘At the end I had to be the one to bow out of his life. I was destined to offer the sacrifice. Your world, this village, would accept her, but not me!
I
was the wicked one, labelled the “whore”.’ Naghmana’s body doubled over in her aunt’s arms. ‘I had to snuff out the diva of my love, Auntie. I did it, but God help me and give me strength, I don’t know what I am going to do with this pain inside me. It is tearing me apart!’

Naghmana sank her face against her aunt’s chest. Her tall body rocking with mighty sobs. ‘Forgive me, for all the suffering I have caused you,’ she wept.

‘
I
forgive
you
, my niece?’ Fatima ejaculated, her face spreading in wonder. In a sudden fit of madness she pounded her fists against the wooden bedpost. Her glass bangles splintered across the bed in tiny jagged pieces.

‘Auntie! What are you doing?’ Alarmed, Naghmana pulled her aunt’s hands away from the bedpost.

Wild-eyed, Fatima stared down at her hands. Naghmana too looked down, in horror. Blood dripped in large droplets down on the white bedsheet, and onto its embroidered appliqué work. The vivid red colour seeped across the cream parrot design.

Pulling off her aunt’s shawl from her body, Naghmana hurriedly tied it around Fatima’s hand. The blood soaked through the faded white muslin. Above the bandaged hand, aunt and niece bleakly stared at each other in shock.

‘It is with these evil hands that I hit you and pulled your hair. I hate them! Naghmana, what happened to me?’

‘Don’t, Auntie! Please stop.’ Naghmana grasped her aunt’s arm.

‘Will you ever forgive me, my beloved niece?’ Fatima’s eyes filled again. ‘How could I have treated you like that?’

Naghmana crumpled as she relived the day’s events. ‘I forgive you Auntie,’ she said dully, and letting go of her aunt she fell back against the pillow and turned her face away.

‘I forgive you all,’ she whispered in the darkness of her head. Even the woman who had thrown the sandal from the rooftop, glaring down at her with hatred. ‘Even her!’