And the World Changed (17 page)

Her beads still dangling from the fingers of her right hand, Mariam silently nodded. She would have to continue this later, she decided. “I'll be there,” she told Jeena and, bending over, began folding the prayer mat toward herself.

It would have to be something as precious as her husband's life, a fair exchange, Mariam mused as she poured hot, steamy milk into Ahmer's glass.

“It's hot!” her son wailed, the words muffled by the mouthful of
paratha
he was chewing.

“It will cool off in a minute,” Mariam said, absently patting six-year-old Ahmer's head. Was it something she would have to relinquish?

“Amma, I don't want milk today,” Razia mumbled.

“Drink, drink, don't make a fuss.” Something so dear to her, giving it away would be the hardest thing she had ever done. “And be careful, don't spill.” Her life?

“Ohhh . . .” Razia whined.

“Shshsh, don't act like a baby, Razia, you're setting a bad example to your brother.” No, that couldn't be—her life was for her children, they couldn't be deprived. What then?

“Mariam
Apa
, shall I bring your tea now?” Jeena's voice broke into her thoughts. The young woman stood by the stove, one hand poised expectantly over the teapot.

“Yes, Jeena, and make sure it's really hot.” Mariam looked at Jeena as she poured tea into a cup for her mistress. The luminescence on the red, green, and gold bangles on her slim, dark wrists glimmered tremulously. Like the disturbed reflection of light on water. A strand of sleek, black hair had fallen over one ruddy cheek and caressed it lovingly. When the young girl bent down to retrieve a spoon that had slipped from her hands to the floor, Mariam was astonished to see how her breasts swelled. Strange that she had not noticed the fullness before, or the young girl's skin that was smooth like a baby's and shone like burnished gold, or even her long-fingered hands, which worked with such artful agility around the stove.

She should be married soon, Mariam told herself. An unmarried woman in the fullness of youth is like a cow let loose in a pasture; there's no telling where she might wander off to and with whom. Jeena handed her her tea. “Would you like some
paratha
, too? I can make it in two minutes, the pan is still hot.”

“No, the tea is all I want, Jeena.” Something that is difficult to surrender, to give up, Mariam thought, cautiously taking a sip of the scalding hot tea.

The sun had already begun to broadly streak the floor of the verandah when the children left for school. Mariam stood at the front door and watched them through the opening in the screen as they half-ran and skipped down the gulley. Ghulam Din, the old caretaker who accompanied them to school, tried to keep pace as fast as his wobbly legs would carry him. On a shop radio in the street outside, the singer Noor Jehan's voice rose in a deep, resonant lilt.
“O chivalrous young men of the nation/ My songs are for you alone.”
The morning began with patriotic songs these days and then came the news with special bulletins that made even the strongest hearts flutter in apprehension. Mariam closed the door when, coming to the end of the lane, the children turned a corner and disappeared from view.

In the kitchen Jeena was waiting for her, the spinach for the midday meal, broad-leaved and thickly veined, washed and ready for chopping. Mariam would dole out portions of ghee and spices in appropriate measures, Jeena would sauté the onions and brown the beef, and Mariam would take over from there. The two women always followed the same ritual.

When Mariam handed Jeena the plate in which she had placed tiny heaps of ground red chilli and golden yellow turmeric, along with several cloves of garlic and a knotted clump of ginger root, she glanced at the woman's face again. How dark her eyes were. Almond-shaped, bordered by thick, sooty-black lashes that gave them a sleepy look. Dressed in clean, well-starched clothes, her hair combed neatly into a plait, Jeena looked nothing like a servant. In fact, she could easily be
mistaken for a member of the family by a stranger who walked into the house without warning.

“Be sure to grind this properly, don't leave any lumps.”

“Yes, Mariam
Apa.
”

That night Mariam slept fitfully. If she dreamed, the dreams remained lost in her unconscious because she couldn't remember anything when she was awakened suddenly by a feeling of being weighed down. As if a large blanket had been thrown over her. Gasping for air she sat up in bed, her heart pounding in her chest like a bird darting against the walls of its cage, seeking release. After a few seconds she began reciting the
Ayat-ul-Kursi
with desperate, urgent force, unmindful of the sleeping children who might be disturbed by the loudness of her recitation.

A half hour later, still reciting, but calmer, she pulled off the prayer mat from the back of the chair next to her. This was no time for a regular
namaz
but she had to pray, she had to find an answer, and her bed wasn't the place for it.

Allah
, she pleaded,
what do you want?

The quietude of the night was broken only by the sound of her children's soft, rhythmic breathing. Not even a dog barked anywhere. The silence seemed to grow heavier until it became a curtain before her eyes, thick and unrelenting. She thought of her husband, tried to picture him in a ward, or in the field with a wounded soldier, his face dusty and ashen, his hands bloody as he cleaned a wound. He seemed too far away, too distant. Mariam's heart lurched with fear.

Was she wasting precious time?

Allah
, she whispered, hot tears running down her cheeks, burning her skin as her purpose yawned before her like the sudden darkening of a stormy sky,
I'll do what you want, I vow, I pledge.

In the last week of October, just when summer was edging its way out, four months after Mariam had made her vow and
begun her spell of unfettered, carefree sleep, her husband returned from the front. The war had ended. The danger had passed.

On the day of his return, Mariam made several attempts to bring up the subject of her vow. It wasn't easy. The children were eager to talk to their father, there was all that mail that had accumulated, and also a steady stream of visitors to inquire about the doctor's well-being and congratulate him on his safe return—husband and wife were afforded little chance to be alone for any length of time.

When he came to her bed at night she knew this was no time to talk of serious matters. But later she wished she had broached the subject then. Unable to help herself, she placed her arms on his back as he lay on top of her, felt the tautness between his shoulder blades, and a feeling stirred inside her that she had never known before. His warm skin responded to her touch. Shame engulfed her and reticence tangled her in a web, but her blood raced as if it were a torrent. Her heart beat violently, wildly. She forgot what it was to be shy. Her skin tingled, her arms tightened around her husband's body. The warmth between her legs filled her with strange pleasure and her mouth opened in a moan. She forgot she did not like to be visited in the night by her husband, that she had always allowed it only because it was something that he seemed to need and want.

All those feelings of revulsion that she struggled with when he touched her in the dark vanished. Tonight the world was shut out, and everything else with it. A few days of waiting would cause no harm, she told herself the next morning.

The second night and the one after that, Mariam lay in her husband's arms and banished the vow from her mind. On the third night, some time after she had fallen into a deep and tranquil sleep, the dreams returned. They unfolded simultaneously, all of them mixed up this time, as if some essential component that had kept them in sequence were missing. At the end came a new dream in which her mother-in-law was pulling Mariam's
ring from her finger, and the two women tugged and pushed until the ring came off and disappeared into the voluminous folds of Mariam's dark red bridal
dupatta
. There was more, much more, but on waking this was all Mariam could remember. Her heart sank. What had she done?

“I made a
mannat
when you were away,” Mariam began tremulously the next morning. “I was so afraid something . . . something terrible might happen.” Mariam addressed her husband while he was tying his shoelaces and she couldn't see his face. There wasn't much time. He would be leaving for the hospital soon.

“Oh? What was it? Why didn't you take care of it already? You know one shouldn't delay these things.” He straightened and looked at her.

Mariam hesitated. Would he think less of her when she told him?

“There was no other choice, there were such bad dreams,” she murmured, turning away from his stare to smooth the wrinkles in the bedsheet.

“You're always paying too much attention to dreams. Anyway, what is it?” He stood up and adjusted his tie.

“I'm to give you Jeena.” The words fell out. Like saliva that's been kept in the mouth too long.

Mariam's husband stopped what he was doing. His face darkened. A frown gathered on his forehead.

“Are you mad, Mariam?” He glared at her as if she had surprised him with disobedience.

Her chest constricted. Her ears vibrated with echoes that sounded like jumbled screams. “The dreams wouldn't give me any peace, the danger was lurking in the shadows, it had to be something that was difficult to surrender, what's a sacrifice that doesn't hurt?” Mariam blurted out the sentences hurriedly. She was on the other side of the bed, a pillow held tightly against her chest. “Islam allows more than one marriage, doesn't it? I'll give my permission.” Her voice cracked.

“I don't want your permission,” her husband thundered. “You are not seriously suggesting that I marry . . . this girl.” He sat down, the muscles on his face quivering in anger. “You are definitely mad. I go away for a few months and this is how you conduct yourself!”

“You cannot say no, it's a
mannat
, it's a question of your life. I don't mind, I really don't mind, and Jeena . . . well, she's like a younger sister and she's pretty and I'll be here as well, I'm not going anywhere . . .” She edged forward like a beggar, her hands extended, her tone pleading.

“Be quiet, Mariam, be quiet this minute! I don't want to hear another word. I'm late for work, and when I return I don't want to hear any more of this nonsense.” He raised a finger in warning, scolding her as if she were a child.

What she could do, she had done. Was it her fault that her husband would not relent? In the days that followed Mariam did not talk of Jeena or her
mannat
and was relieved that her husband did not either, although he seemed somewhat pensive, somewhat quieter than usual. He is just recuperating from the experience at the front, Mariam told herself. It takes time to forget the horrors of war.

She noticed that sometimes when Jeena removed the dishes from the table or was helping Razia or Ahmer with their clothes in the morning, her husband glanced at the girl as if seeing her for the first time. As if she were a stranger in their house. Mariam caught a look in his eyes that she couldn't understand. She blamed herself. She had made her husband uncomfortable by mentioning the
mannat
to him. He was only looking at the young woman to see what his wife had been thinking, and why. Perhaps he wished to understand Mariam's motives.

Once, when Jeena bent down to tie Ahmer's shoelaces and her
dupatta
slipped from her shoulders, the fullness at her shirtfront was revealed and, just then, Mariam became aware that her husband had seen it too. Quickly, he looked away and Jeena
straightened up and adjusted her
dupatta
, all in the matter of a few moments, but Mariam realized she had to redeem her pledge, the
mannat
. The dreams were gone, at least for now, but Mariam was not so foolish as to let the
mannat
go unheeded. Without offering specific details, stressing that due to unforeseen circumstances the vow could not be executed as pledged, she consulted the
maulvi
sahib who came to instruct the children in the reading of the Quran. Stroking his beard thoughtfully, his eyes lowered in deference to a woman's presence, he listened patiently as Mariam outlined the details of her dilemma.

“Such vows should not be undertaken lightly,” he admonished gently, “but Allah understands.”