Typhoon (5 page)

‘Can you believe it? My ears are scorched in shame. This to happen! In our own village! Allah pak, help us sinners! Protect us from such a sin! Not that any man would want to commit it with
us
,’ Naimat Bibi whispered loudly to her friend, giggling nervously at the same time. She had made sure no one was passing them by in the lane, as if it was a sin to even talk about the matter.

‘A man and a woman? A married man at that, with a wonderful wife like Gulshan? Allah pak! Have they no shame?’ Kulsoom Bibi marvelled in return. Her hands had automatically reached to touch her ears in a gesture of asking Allah pak for forgiveness whilst her eyes continued to sparkle with unadulterated pleasure. For no instance of adultery had ever been brought to light in their village before.

‘I don’t know what the world is coming to, my friend. All I do know is that when I saw the slut with her open hair, flaunting her shameful body in front of everyone, with just a flimsy rope of a dupatta draped around her neck, and no other covering whatsoever, I knew for sure then that she was the bearer of immorality to our village. A very bad influence indeed for our impressionable young girls,’ Kulsoom confidently elaborated to her best friend, now walking briskly down the cobbled lane.

‘Poor, poor Gulshan! It is her I cannot help thinking about. Imagine of all people something like this happening to our poor Gulshan,’ Naimat genuinely commiserated. Their sympathy had to be with their village woman.

‘I know, my friend – let’s go and visit our friend Sardara. I still have to get some milk. I can’t wait to tell her about this. Oh, just imagine having to narrate all this. We’ll have to take it in turns.’

Walking briskly side by side, the two friends headed excitedly to the village dairy. Sardara Jee just didn’t realise her good luck – she would be the first to hear hot news that even now was on its way to her very doorstep.

I
N
F
ATIMA’S COURTYARD
, Naghmana stood shell-shocked, leaning against the verandah pillar, her eyes on her aunt’s face, unable to believe what had happened.

‘Get out of my sight, you
charail
!’ Fatima screeched, striding out of the courtyard into the kitchen.

Unsteadily, her head aching, Naghmana climbed back up to her room. There, she collapsed on her bed in a heap and buried her face in a pillow. Unable to move! Unable to think! Unable to feel! Frozen in space and time. This thing had been so sudden, like a typhoon, catching her in its mighty eye, violently sweeping her along to an unknown destination.

Downstairs, Fatima stood shuddering. She was unable to accept that her favourite niece had been caught in a heinous act – doing something so terrible with another woman’s husband. It had to be a mistake! It
had
to be! She couldn’t even utter the word to describe the crime she had committed.

‘
Adultery
!’ Her body trembled against the kitchen wall. Even to think such a thought was a sin. And her niece had actually committed it.

‘Oh, Allah pak, help us all and forgive my niece for the terrible sin she has committed!’ She cried aloud, pressed against the plastered wall of her kitchen. She glanced down at the large dish of puris with disgust. Plucking away the cloth she flung the four oily
pancakes across the kitchen. One struck the wall and, smeared with a fatty layer, it clung there. The other three splatted down on the floor.

‘I spent all morning preparing a special breakfast for that slut, little guessing that she was going to muddy my face in this fashion in front of everyone. Allah pak, please help us! Listen to me, I beseech You! What is going to happen to her?’

Hot blood thundering through her veins, Fatima strode angrily out of her kitchen, and marched up the steps to her niece’s room. ‘What have you done?’ she shouted, unable to say her niece’s name. ‘You – you …’ Flinging the door wide open, Fatima stood in the doorway – a forbidding, angry figure.

Naghmana sat up, then, despairing at the look of disgust on her aunt’s face and the contempt in her eyes, she turned away. The cheek with the stark imprint of her hand mocked Fatima. Fire flared and licked through the older woman. Her head throbbing with rage, she rushed to the bed. Grabbing hold of her niece’s hair at the crown, she jerked Naghmana’s face up.

‘You have ruined me, Naghmana! Me – your widowed, childless aunt. I doted on you – I respected you! What sort of woman are you? Have you no shame, no
sharm
? You slut! I have lost our
izzat
, our family honour, because of you. You have dumped it all away and buried us all in the mud of disgrace.’

Fatima yanked at Naghmana’s hair again, as if that would somehow assuage her impotent rage and shame. ‘If you were so desperate for a man, why didn’t you tell us, for God’s sake? We could have married you off. Why did you have to chase another woman’s husband? To steal a married man out of the arms of his wife?
Do you know what the punishment is for an adulteress? Do you, you bitch?’

Fatima peered deep into Naghmana’s eyes and hissed, ‘Hajra has gone to see the Buzurgh, and she will not let you get away with it. She’ll make sure you are punished and shamed by the time this day ends. For all I know she has hopped already to the village
jadoo gharani
, the magic woman. At this moment in time, she is probably having a rag doll stitched in your image. She’ll be busy gathering all the pins and showing the old hag where to stick them. Listen to me hard, you slut! There is no feeling more wounding than the hurt and slight experienced by a mother on behalf of her beloved child. Hajra adores her Gulshan. She is her only child – all her life’s dreams she has lavished on her Gulshan. She will have your blood for the suffering and heartache you have caused her innocent daughter, believe me, Naghmana! You do not know what you have unleashed. You have set a storm upon us – amongst us – you madwoman!’

Stricken and bewildered, Naghmana merely blinked up at her aunt.

‘Auntie, you don’t understand,’ she ventured through dry lips. Then she stopped, remembering his words. Numbed to her very soul. No way out.

‘What don’t I understand? That you have brought a
tofan
, into the village, a storm amidst us by your lewd act?’

Putting her hand to her throbbing cheek and squeezing her eyes shut, Naghmana simply gave up. The ferocious eye of the typhoon,
tofan
, was indeed hurtling her further into oblivion. And she was helpless to stop it. Apparently she had no control over the tide of events set in train by her action in seeing Haroon. The few
precious minutes with him in the night had cost her dearly – cost her, her honour, and her humanity.

‘Oh Allah pak, it wasn’t planned. It wasn’t!’ she silently screamed in her head.

‘You have made me infamous today, charail. I will have to carry the burden of your shame for life. I wish you had never been born, Naghmana, and that I had never invited your evil face to this village. If only I had known what a dirty, Ghandi woman you are! God help us! Go, Naghmana! Go and bury yourself – or better still, drown yourself in the village well. For that is the only place where you and your shame belong!’

Fatima wrenched at Naghmana’s hair once more, before flinging it back as if its touch had soiled her hand.

Naghmana watched her aunt leave in despair. Burying her face in her hands, she wept bitterly. Fatima’s terrible, wounding words ricocheted around her head.

‘Oh God, what have I done?’ she cried to the empty room. Her much longed-for holiday in her aunt’s village had turned into a nightmare – a
tofan
, sweeping her and the whole village along with it.

In Sardara’s large dairy courtyard, five black milk buffaloes stood placidly enduring their morning milking, gently turning their heads from side to side as Sardara’s eldest son and his two young local helpers milked them, with the aid of modern appliances. Large steel containers filled with fresh creamy milk were lined up, as well as smaller vessels, like jugs left by the two neighbouring families, against the courtyard wall. All were covered with clean muslin cloths.

This morning Sardara wasn’t at her post, supervising the milking proceedings in the animal courtyard
annexed to their main large courtyard and two-storied house. She was very much otherwise engaged, huffily busy with her guests and the removal of the portable beds and bedding from the large main bedroom by her woman helper. Her daughter’s mother-in-law Neelum with her twin adult daughters had arrived the previous night and caused quite a flurry. Their arrival hadn’t been anticipated and by the look of their two bulging suitcases, they were here to spend their holidays, although they hadn’t bothered to inform her how long they were deigning to honour her with their presence. Hence, much to Sardara’s annoyance, her daily routine was in ruins – even more so since she had not been forewarned and, therefore, had been unable to prepare mentally and physically for their arrival. Meat had to be defrosted, vegetables chopped, rice soaked and best china to be extracted from the showcases, all within an hour. And she had to entertain them at the same time. The mother-in-law just smiled and got comfortably into her role as ‘an honoured guest’ by straightaway asking for her ‘hookah’.

Thus, instead of her beloved chore – the milking – poor Sardana found herself sorting out the bedding! Putting out the best items of course – the softest of all under mattresses, the crispest of sheets, and only duvetcovers with broderie anglaise or in velvet. It was making her feel very annoyed, for she definitely hated doing housework. Her enjoyment lay in spending time with her animals, particularly working with her five milk buffaloes that she had raised herself from young calves.

On top of all this, the arthritis in her knee joints, was giving her a lot of trouble this morning. These days she couldn’t even lift a footstool, let alone prop a sturdy
charpoy
on her shoulders and cart it around effortlessly,
as all the other village women were adept at doing. And like she used to do herself until a few months ago. ‘I have become totally useless! This huge body has betrayed me! I, the one who never physically rested even for a minute all her life,’ Sardara mournfully confided to her
kurmani
, her daughter’s mother-in-law. ‘How can I run the dairy, a home and cope with a stream of people coming regularly to collect milk with a body that day by day is becoming more and more cumbersome and difficult to move around? Can you believe it, I can’t even lift a jug of milk these days? My wrists just give way. In the old days, I thought nothing of carrying large chatis, huge earthen pots full of milk, on my head. I was so good at it. I never let them wobble even for one second. Can you imagine it? Those were the days, my friend, when we had our slim bodies and tons of strength to go with them. All this surplus flesh draped around myself in rolls is useless. Useless, I tell you! I am having to drag it around with me. Sometimes I think I am dragging another body alongside my own. In reality I probably am. Do you know how many stones I weigh? On second thoughts I’d better not tell you – it’s so embarrassing. I just don’t know how to lose all this terrible fat. I only eat once a day.’

Neelam smiled to herself, clearly recalling the three
parathas
, layered and dripping with fat, that Sardara had consumed with much relish the last time she had visited them. The milk woman’s one meal was definitely equal to three of other people’s. If it didn’t turn into rolls of fat, where else would it go? No amount of sweat would drain it away.

‘Come on inside, the breakfast has been laid on,’ Sardara urged her three unwanted guests graciously.
Then, suddenly remembering the
hookah topee
, her face creased with annoyance.

Unfortunately, Sardara’s kurmani was one of those women who still smoked the hookah pipe and flaunted it publicly. This was one of the dreaded chores which made Sardara’s heart sink: she loathed every second of having to prepare the hookah. Her hand reeked of smelly tobacco all day, but there was nothing she could do about it, for her kurmani insisted on having it personally prepared by Sardara herself. ‘When you make it, Sardara Jee,’ she had slyly flattered her, ‘there is just a wonderful taste that is somehow absent when anyone else in your family prepares it.’

Sardara had politely smiled her thanks, realising that whether she liked it or not, the ritual of topee preparing had somehow landed squarely on her shoulders, ever since her daughter’s engagement party four years ago. Sardara rued the day when she had innocently volunteered to prepare the smoke pipe for Neelam.

Smoking was one habit that Sardara utmostly disliked. Although she pretended to ignore it, in private she had been shocked that this woman smoked. She had even had to send her sons out to buy packets of cigarettes for her! Not only was it costly, but embarrassing, too. She was duty bound to remind her daughter, therefore, not to go anywhere near cigarettes or to prepare the hookah for her mother-in-law, otherwise there was the risk of her becoming addicted too. Sardara had seen it with her own eyes, with one or two young women who, while preparing pipes for their fathers had taken powerful puffs in order to light the tobacco, and had then begun to like the taste of it. And before long they were at it themselves on the sly. The habit was socially frowned upon, especially in relation to
women smoking, and it was normally done behind doors.

Well, her Zeinab’s mother-in-law was a law unto herself. She made no pretence at hiding her smoking habit. In fact, she did it in broad daylight – publicly. She had no qualms whatsoever about smoking in front of all the men. On the contrary, she sometimes volunteered to share her pipe with them! Luckily, the men, for their part, politely refused. Next time Sardara had seen one or two of them keep their distance from her kurmani.

As for herself, during her kurmani’s regular visits she was continuously faced with not only hiding her blushes but having to explain to some of the village men and women who came for milk and butter why Zeinab’s mother-in-law smoked. ‘She has a bad stomach, you see. The doctor has recommended the hookah because it helps with the wind,’ Sardara offered lamely, not caring whether she had all the medical facts right or not.

To her own daughter, however, Sardara didn’t mince her words.

‘Your mother-in-law is a wonderful person, with so many qualities and good points to her name,’ she began magnanimously, ‘but do you know she washes them all away by sitting there in the middle of our courtyard puffing away at a hookah like a man. I can’t stand it – it’s so embarrassing. If she did it indoors, it wouldn’t matter quite so much, but she sits there right near the dairy area and watches everyone. And in turn ends up making a spectacle of herself. On top of all that, the tobacco costs me a lot of money. Then there is her coughing away all night. I am sure it is her smoking that does it.’

Her daughter, a sensible and shrewd young woman, diplomatically kept silent on the subject, not wanting to embroil herself in an argument about her ‘beloved’ mother and her equally ‘beloved’ mother-in-law.

Sardara led her guests to the breakfast table. A well-bred, hospitable host, she served her guests first. This morning, just as she was in the act of spooning some of the pinkish creamy home-made yoghurt into her best china bowl, there was a loud knock on the diningroom door.

Next minute Kulsoom and Naimat Bibi ceremoniously made their appearance, both wrapped tightly in their chadors. Seeing the guests at the dining table, they looked apologetic and quickly made a pretence of leaving. Taken aback by the appearance of her two friends, Sardara got heavily to her feet. More ‘unwanted’ guests! And she had only just this moment sat down. She had no choice but to call the women back. They, however, had truly scuttled away, not even tempted by the sight of the feast laid before their eyes. ‘Oh dear. Now I will have to get out from behind this large table’ Sardara sighed to herself.

With her legs already placed at an awkward angle, it was quite a task to ease herself out from the tight corner without rocking the breakfast things on the table. One of its legs was already wobbly. Oh, these women! she thought crossly. Don’t they have any sense of timing at all? This is too early for social calls. If they wanted milk they didn’t need to come to the house. Now where have they gone?
Aargh
. Sardara groaned in pain as she felt the sharp edge of the table corner dig straight into the padded layers of fat on her thigh. Aloud, ‘Excuse me. Please carry on with your breakfast. I’ll go and see my
two friends and find out what they want,’ she apologised to her guests, looking longingly at her bowl of creamy yoghurt. Should she take it out with her? On second thoughts, no! It wasn’t good etiquette, especially in front of her Zeinab’s mother-in-law.