Revolt (11 page)

In her primary school, Daniela glanced at the wall clock, waiting for the morning break.

‘Sharon, can you manage here for the next fifteen minutes, please? I need to pop into Mrs Dixon’s room.’

‘Sure!’ The 22-year-old assistant teacher was listening to young Mandy reading from the picture book about the naughty dinosaur.

‘Thanks.’ Daniela swept her gaze over her class of 30 five-year-olds. Jonathan and Eric were still enjoying a good bout of giggles, dumping more jugs of water into the playing sand and making little wet craters. Rebecca’s dear little face, fringed by heavy, overgrown, brown curls was screwed up in deep concentration as she charcoaled a picture of her nana with a large red party hat. Jaswinder was thumbs and fingers, totally engrossed in working out her sums on the abacus. Ahmad and Chen were still excitedly tapping away at the computer keyboard, watching the different icons popping up on the monitor.

Emily Dixon, the headmistress of the Church of England primary school, was on the phone when Daniela entered and smiling signalled her to sit in front of the desk.

‘Could I discuss something with you?’

‘What, now?’ Emily’s eyebrows arched. The morning teaching session had not ended.

‘Please. It’s urgent, Emily,’ Daniela earnestly appealed, as she perched on the edge of the leather armchair. The headmistress watched the young woman nervously pushing her hand through her short-cropped fair hair. ‘I need to take about three weeks off work – beginning literally from tomorrow!’

‘What!’ The headmistress’s mouth dropped open at this strange request – and right in the middle of a very hectic school term; they had just received notice of their Ofsted monitoring inspection.

‘Daniela, you can’t be serious, my dear. We’ve just had our half-term holidays.’ A thought struck her. ‘It’s not the inspection that you want to escape from?’

‘Of course not!’ A very conscientious teacher, Daniela was deeply offended. ‘I know it’s at a bad time, but I really do need to take time off.’

‘Why?’ Emily Dixon asked, now completely mystified.

‘For personal reasons – I’m sorry, I can’t discuss the details.’

‘But this is most irregular! Our school play, Daniela? You play the piano! And as the teacher governor you were going to report on the key stage literacy! On Friday you are booked for the IT training in Birmingham. There’s so much going on, Daniela.’

‘Please, it’s urgent … I need to save my marriage!’

The headmistress was nonplussed. ‘I see! In that case, I’d better ring immediately for supply cover. Shall we try Sally?’

‘Oh, thank you! I would not have asked for leave if it was not urgent. Yes, Sally is excellent … The kids loved her story-telling.’

A few hours later she was home, sorting out her clothes and hiding her suitcase carefully under the stairs.

Saher stood with the wardrobe door wide open, hand poised on the sleeveless cherry chiffon outfit. Sporting naked arms in front of her future father-in-law was out of the question. The warmth in her face made her slam the wardrobe door shut. That outfit was for her own private moments with Ismail. Arslan had called her gorgeous, but what would Ismail say?

She smiled, pulling out her fiancé’s photograph from her diary to have a quick glance before leaving. She was late for work and her client, a feudal landlord she was representing today in court, expected the whole world to play to his tune. What was worse, he had begun crudely wooing her, unashamedly harping on about his single status in life, in front of his two male companions.
Saher had abruptly dismissed his overtures with a cold smile. He was her client and she wasn’t cut out to be the wife of a feudal landlord. No, she was destined for a life abroad, fervently hoping that her Ismail would quickly find her a partnership with a law firm in Liverpool.

In the bright beautifully landscaped central courtyard, eyes shaded by her sunglasses, Saher breathed in the scent of the rose bushes and the foliage on the tall potted plants soaking up the sun.

‘Come home early, Saher, there’s a lot to be done before Ismail’s arrival!’ her mother urged, calling from the dining room.

‘I will!
Khuda Hafiz
!’ Saher crossed the courtyard, letting the manservant respectfully escort her to her car through the
hevali
gates. Within a few yards the village road, winding through the fields of wheat and orange groves, had brutalised the car’s shiny body with a thick layer of dust. In a buoyant mood, Saher turned on the radio, listening to her favourite love song ‘Aja Soynaya’, a woman calling out to her lover to come home. The song also sadly reminded her that her days in Pakistan were numbered, leading her to speculate on what life in England had to offer her. Would she fit in or learn to adjust both to the icy cold climate and the British culture? Ismail had never properly talked about his city. She knew that she would really miss her village, especially her mother and car. How she longed to take all three with her.

Daniela stood patiently in the standby queue at Manchester Airport, her straw hat propped at an angle that hid almost two thirds of her face. From beneath the wide brim, her eyes urgently skimmed the faces of the people around her.

Once checked in and clutching her boarding pass, Daniela excitedly headed for the departure lounge. Her heart stopped thumping only when she was in her seat and the plane was high up in the sky, her face buried in a glossy magazine, biding her time.

The flight attendant was wheeling the food trolley down the
aisle when she saw
him
rise from his seat. Adrenalin gushed through Daniela.

‘Hello, Ismail!’ she whispered, raising her face as he was about to pass. The man swivelled round, as if shot in the stomach. Daniela stared back, her throat, all of a sudden, parched. Eyes tightly closed, his hand clawed at the headrest of the seat in front of her.

‘You silly woman!’ he ground out under his breath, finding his tongue.

Daniela’s head shot up in indignation.

‘Aren’t you pleased to see me?’ she croaked.

‘Pleased?’ he stammered, moving his head from side to side in disbelief. ‘You don’t know what you’ve done!’ he glared down into her face.

Daniela blushed scarlet, embarrassed by the glance of the elderly Pakistani woman sitting beside her. The flight attendant, too, had heard everything.

‘The lady needs to pass, Ismail, please move aside!’ she coldly instructed in her best public school tone, ready to demolish him, colour flooding into her cheeks.

The toilet was forgotten as Ismail’s world swayed before him. Returning to his seat, he told himself it had to be a nightmare. Daniela couldn’t possibly be on the plane! He looked back down the aisle, just to check that he was not dreaming! Daniela’s cold stare, ten rows back, sent the shivers through him.

‘What’s wrong, Ismail?’ she accused, her green eyes bright with condemnation, now standing in the aisle beside him.

‘What’s wrong?’ he mimicked, livid. ‘You don’t know what you’ve done, you fool!’

‘Ismail!’ Colour drained from Daniela’s cheeks.

‘Go and sit down! And don’t make a scene!’ he hissed under his breath, eyes averted from the man coming down the aisle.

Seething, Daniela returned to her seat. It was an overnight journey and she had anticipated the sharing of laughter and jokes, enthusiastic discussions about Pakistan, but this? What had she done? All she had wanted to do was to surprise him – to go to Pakistan.

Her heart sank, cheeks burning. What was the matter with him? She had managed to get leave, granted under such difficult circumstances, so that she could meet his parents. And he, the beast, wasn’t even pleased that she was going with him.

Daniela was attacked by insecurity again. She knew for sure that Ismail loved her passionately, yet he always shied away from talking about his family in Pakistan, not even letting her say ‘hello’ to them on the telephone. When she had once suggested meeting them in Pakistan he had laughed away the idea, offering her platitudes that she would be totally out of place in that society, as a
goorie
, a white woman in a different culture. To prove him wrong had thus become her mission.

She felt she owed it to him and especially to their future children, wanting them to be proud of their two different heritages. She could tell intuitively that he came from a wealthy background. She was always asking her young Pakistani pupils and their parents about Pakistan, wistfully listening to their enthusiastic stories and letting her imagination wander away to the world of her husband’s homeland. She loved wearing
shalwar
kameez
suits and envied the women who had received them as presents from Pakistan – she had received none.

As she imagined her mother-in-law refurbishing her wardrobe in the local Pakistani style, as befitting the daughter-in-law of a wealthy landlord, it didn’t occur to her that they might not even know of her existence.

On the same day in Gulistan, there was chaos in the sweetmaker’s household; unexpected guests had turned up late in the afternoon. Two separate families, in fact, and neither had planned to arrive on the same day, nor informed their unsuspecting hosts. Now, both the hosts and the guests ardently wished that they had. Everyone’s embarrassment was clumsily apparent for all to see. As hosts, Jennat Bibi and her daughter-in-law Faiza nervously battled to stitch on brave faces. With steely smiles they scurried around offering hospitality, starting off with carting in a crate of bottled soft drinks. Indeed it turned out to be a hectic time for the women and their housemaid, as they shopped, cooked and entertained the guests including preparing the smoking hookah pipes for the two elder male relatives with small twists of fresh tobacco.

Faiza’s nightmare started in the kitchen whilst making a stack of
chappatis
. She froze, leaning against the worktop, tightening her pelvic floor muscles to stop the uterine fluid gushing out, her eye on the eighteenth
chappati
burning on the flat-topped pan.

‘Oh, Allah Pak,’ she groaned as a sudden spasm hit her abdomen. Panic gripped her. She was four months’ pregnant, therefore she shouldn’t be menstruating.

Nobody else was in the kitchen; her mother-in-law was animatedly entertaining the guests after preparing the pudding of semolina
halwa
, whilst the maid had been despatched to sort out all the bedding for the guests in the back storeroom. Switching off the stove burner and plucking the charred
chappati
from the
tava
pan, Faiza sidled out of the kitchen to get to the
ghusl
khanah
. Unfortunately, the bathroom was on the other side of the house and so she had to pass the two lively elderly men under the veranda, happily taking turns at the hookah pipe and sharing jokes with her father-in-law, Javaid.

Her soaking
shalwar
was now sticking uncomfortably to the inside of her thighs with the amniotic fluid trickling down to her ankles. She nearly fainted at the thought: ‘What if the two men see my blood-stained garments?’ Head lowered, she nimbly crossed the courtyard, passing the two middle-aged women guests and their three grandchildren, with Jennat Bibi sitting on a cane chair happily entertaining them with village stories about Master Haider’s son’s homecoming and of poor Laila, the landlord’s daughter, who had eloped and was now back in the village.

‘Has she no pride – to keep coming back to be treated like that? Imagine having a door slammed shut in your face by your family and in front of everyone. The poor girl, how she must have felt!’ commiserated the younger of the two women guests. Her own daughter had married for love, so she felt an obligation to show some sympathy with that poor woman’s fate.

‘And guess what – there’s a big wedding coming up. Mistress Mehreen’s son, Ismail, is coming back from England to marry Saher – the lawyer – Mistress Rani’s daughter.’

The two men were still heatedly discussing Pakistani politics and the recent elections. ‘Will the Karachi situation get better? Will this new government be at the beck and call of America? Let’s see who leads our country, Obama or our new politicians? Will the “load shedding” matter be urgently dealt with by the new party? My poor son’s shoe factory has come to a standstill with all the electric cuts!’ ranted the younger of the two men.

Faiza hurried passed them, draping her long shawl around her down to her ankles. In the bathroom, her hand feverishly prised open the trouser’s
nallah
string, nervously peering down at her navel area. Feeling faint, she closed her eyes, leaning against the tiled wall. It was what she had feared – she was losing her baby!

‘Oh, God help me!’ she cried, squatting down on the toilet bowl, letting nature take over. After five years – Allah Pak couldn’t be so unjust!

Remembering the guests, she hurriedly sluiced her legs and changed into a pair of old trousers hanging on the door hook. Head lowered, Faiza returned to the kitchen. After making the last two
chappatis
, she whispered into her mother-in-law’s ear that she wanted to rest.

‘Of course, my dear, go and lie down.’ Jennat Bibi affectionately ushered her out of the kitchen, her tender caring look cutting Faiza to her soul. ‘Oh, God, she doesn’t know and she wants the baby so badly!’

Unobtrusively Faiza sneaked to her bedroom at the back of the house. Laying an extra layer of quilt padding in the middle of the bed and a sanitary towel wedged between her thighs, Faiza waited; she was still bleeding. An hour later her husband, Anwar, returned from their sweet shop – Faiza pretended to be asleep.

When Faiza next woke up, she saw the stars in the dark night winking down at them through the steel bars of the window overlooking the veranda. As it was summer three of the guests had wanted to sleep in the open courtyard on portable
charpoys
to enjoy the cool night breeze. The eldest male guest leaning over the side of the portable bed was still puffing away on his hookah pipe, the water in the steel base making a gurgling noise in the silence of the night. The other man, on his
charpoy
, was happily snoring away.

At about three o’clock in the night, her abdomen somersaulted into a strong contraction. Her high-pitched scream shattered the silence of the night, startling everyone in the house awake. The older of the male guests, who had only just dozed off, sat bolt upright, spluttering and coughing, knocking down the hookah pipe.

Faiza clamped her hand on her mouth, but too late. Lights were hurriedly switched on and the running of feet could be heard throughout the house. Her husband, lying beside her, leapt up in alarm.

The first person to appear at her bedside was Jennat Bibi,
concern etched across her features. Her father-in-law, Javaid, peered into the semi-dark room over his wife’s shoulder. He switched on the light and everyone stared at Faiza’s sweat-beaded face and stooped body.

‘Are you all right, my dear?’ Jennat Bibi’s voice trembled with fear. Faiza shook her head, discreetly pointing to her lower abdomen.

Jennat Bibi’s mouth dropped open, eyes widening in horror. Then collecting her wits about her, she signalled for her son and husband to leave the room. Jennat Bibi’s pointed gaze fell on Faiza’s pain-racked face as she gingerly lifted the quilt off Faiza’s body and immediately dropped it, stumbling away from the bed, one hand clasping the back of her head and the other at her throat. Faiza, doubling over in pain, howled out another piercing scream.

Through clenched teeth, Jennat Bibi called her son, anxiously waiting in the adjoining dressing room, to hurry and get the village
dhai
. Jennat Bibi, perched on one corner of the bed, first rocked herself backwards and forwards as if in a trance, then reaching out to Faiza gently began to massage her shoulders and wept as the reality of the situation hit her. Hopes dashed; there would be no grandchild. As her pain subsided, Faiza, too, sobbed – for her mother-in-law’s personal loss.

When Birkat Bibi, the midwife arrived, Faiza was lying in Jennat Bibi’s arms, eyes closed and body weakened by the uterine contractions. Birkat Bibi began to work quickly, discreetly expressing her sorrow at this misfortune. Normally she found her role as the local midwife and nurse very rewarding, particularly when she delivered healthy, bouncing baby boys resulting in her payment being amply topped up by lots of other presents. On sad occasions like this, however, she kept a very low profile, and felt guilty at receiving any payment for her services to the woman miscarrying or delivering a stillborn child. Like everybody else in the village, Birkat Bibi knew how important the arrival of this baby had been for the sweetmaker’s family.

With Faiza refreshed and resting in clean clothes in another bed, Birkat Bibi accepted some tea and
halwa
. It was then that
she ventured to ask Jennat Bibi as to why Faiza had lost her baby? Hovering listlessly in the room, Jennat Bibi’s head shot up at Birkat Bibi’s words, struck by sudden pain.

‘Salma! That
charail
, that witch! It’s her evil shadow! She’s been after my Faiza since the day she learned of her pregnancy.’

‘What? Which Salma, Jennat Bibi dear?’

‘Salma, the quiltmaker’s daughter, who else! The one who lives with her mother whilst her husband is away working in Dubai,’ Jennat Bibi spat out. ‘Miscarried three times! You’ve dealt with her miscarriages yourself … The wicked girl has not left my Faiza alone! Just yesterday she was here, hugging my Faiza! I saw her with my own eyes … Can you believe it, Birkat Bibi? Everything in this house is now soaked in her
perchanvah
, her evil shadow.’

Birkat Bibi tactfully kept silent. She knew only too well about Salma’s problem and it was she who had suggested that Salma see a city gynaecologist. Familiar with the superstitious beliefs of some of the village women that she had to work with, at times she despised herself for pandering to their whims by her silence and geniality. As a trained midwife and a local nurse, her credibility would be in question if she started to believe in some of their ideas. However, it wasn’t in her business interests to argue with them as they were her prospective employers and likely to financially reward her for her services, and often very generously.

She felt sorry for Salma, knowing that she had been made the scapegoat for the tragedy in this household. Faiza had quietly told her about the fall, but had pleaded with her not to tell her mother-in-law. Nodding her head, Birkat Bibi left soon after, promising to return in the morning to offer a hot-oil body massage. For the rest of the night, Jennat Bibi sat in vigil by Faiza’s bed, her eyes staring in the dark.

‘You thought I was crazy and that these were only old wives’ tales!’ Jennat Bibi jeered at her husband when he returned from the mosque after saying his
fajr
morning prayers. ‘Now see what has happened in our house – lost our grandchild within one day of
that
woman being in our house. You ridiculed me and my
beliefs, saying that I spouted nonsense! Now I suppose you will say it’s all a coincidence? But don’t you agree that it’s strange that our healthy daughter-in-law suddenly miscarries the very next day after hugging a woman doomed with an evil shadow? Do you still think I spout nonsense, Javaid-ji?’ her shrill voice accused.

Bemused by the whole episode, Javaid-ji didn’t reply. There was nothing to ridicule. He didn’t believe his wife’s ideas but, on the other hand, how strange that his daughter-in-law had miscarried at this time. Were these women right after all about amulets,
tweez
and so on? Wryly shaking his head, he strode out of the room.

The male guests, of course, couldn’t discuss the matter openly, though guessing correctly as to what had transpired in the middle of the night. They had come, expecting to spend a few pleasant days in Javaid Salman’s house, and therefore did not relish the cloud of doom now hanging over the household. With Faiza confined to her bed, they were wondering whether they would be served proper meals or if the breakfast of carrot
halva
they had been really looking forward to from Faiza would materialise that morning.

Staring politely at each other, the guests sat quietly around the courtyard in the morning. The only audible sound was that of the raucous cawing of the black crows perched on the veranda wall.

At nine o’clock, straight after supervising the breakfast served by the maid, Jennat Bibi pulled on her outdoor
chador
and hurried out on her important errand after collecting her best friend, Neelum, from the neighbouring street, dragging her away from her morning household chores. ‘What, right now! Not swept my floor yet,’ her friend had gasped.

The village quiltmaker, Zeinab, was brusquely clearing away breakfast dishes in the
bavarchikhana
, when they were disturbed by a thudding sound on the outside door. Mother and daughter exchanged alarmed glances.

‘Who can be knocking like this? The postman has already been, Salma.’

Zeinab opened the door offering the customary Muslim ‘
Bismillah
,
Bismillah
,’ greeting to the two female visitors. Straight away she was struck by Jennat Bibi’s stiff demeanour and hostile expression, standing tall under the veranda.

‘Is everything all right, Sister Jennat Bibi?’ she gently asked.

‘No!’ Jennat Bibi exploded. ‘Our Faiza miscarried last night.’ She pinned her full hostile gaze on Salma, who appeared to shrink back against the broomstick she was holding.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Sister Jennat Bibi, I truly am!’ Like everyone else, she knew how precious the baby was for Jennat Bibi’s family.

‘So you should be, Zeinab.’ She deliberately omitted to say the complimentary word ‘sister’. ‘Your evil daughter has been after my Faiza since the day she conceived. Just because she keeps miscarrying herself, she made sure that our Faiza couldn’t have a healthy baby, either.’

Zeinab’s parched mouth opened and closed three times before she found her voice. ‘Hang on, Jennat Bibi!’ She, too, had dispensed with the word ‘sister’. ‘This is utter nonsense! What has my Salma got to do with your Faiza’s miscarriage? It’s her body, nothing to do with my daughter. How dare you say such things? I have tolerated your superstitious ways about
perchanvah
and
chillah
rubbish, but this is madness.’ Zeinab was fuming, her chest under her shawl heaving and falling, pigmented cheeks now fiery red with anger.

‘Huh! Sister Neelum, are you listening to this woman? Don’t you think that it’s a great coincidence that I saw Salma, in my own home, hugging the life out of my Faiza, and the very next day that poor girl loses her baby? I suppose you think that I imagined all that? Didn’t you go to our house yesterday, Salma, you witch? Speak up, girl!’ Jennat Bibi took an aggressive step forward and her vindictive pointed stare demolished Salma who was leaning for support against the veranda pillar.

‘Did you, Salma?’ her mother screeched, flabbergasted, turning her wrath on her daughter.