Revolt (14 page)

‘Well, why do you think I’ve not told them?’ Ismail snarled
back, now really hating his younger cousin. ‘I knew what their reaction would be. I came home, not to marry Saher, but to gently wean my parents into accepting my marriage to Daniela, now pregnant with our first child. I can’t keep it a secret any longer. I hadn’t bargained on her foolishly following me here, however. I’m still in a state of shock myself.’

‘Well, you had better make an honest woman out of Daniela soon, by claiming her as your wife. Otherwise they’ll think that she’s
my
mistress who has followed me here … I can’t go on lying for you … only until I can break the news gently to Saher myself. And don’t you dare go near her!’ he threatened, ignoring the speculative gleam in his cousin’s eyes.

‘What is it to you, anyway?’ Ismail scoffed, taken aback by his cousin’s impassioned behaviour and scanning his face with interest.

‘Don’t push your luck, Ismail. You had better find some excuse to visit Daniela! Or you’ll have neither a wife nor a child after the disgraceful way that you treated her at the airport. It would send any woman off the rails,’ Arslan brutally reminded his cousin before leaving.

Ismail stared at his luggage, wanting to flee back to England with Daniela. But it was too late; he was cornered, and all because of Arslan. A wife he had disowned – how despicable of him! ‘But what could I do?’

Laila stood on the potter’s rooftop, her eyes fixed on her parents’
hevali
in the other section of the village.

‘Your
velati
cousin Ismail has arrived!’ Massi Fiza, the laundrywoman had cheerily announced. ‘And a
goorie
from
velat
, too! Guess where she’s staying? In your parents’ home. Who is she?’ she asked eagerly, expecting Laila to have the answer.

Laila’s response was an open mouth. Did the white woman have anything to do with Arslan?

‘Massi Fiza was saying that there’s a
goorie
in the white
hevali
. Is there one, Mummy? I want to see a real
goorie
!’ Shirin had excitedly asked later.

‘Yes, Shirin, but she can’t be as white as you,’ Laila indulgently told her daughter, priding herself on her daughter’s colouring. ‘Come on, let’s go downstairs, it’s getting dark soon. I still need to wash your dress.’

‘For Daddy’s arrival?’

‘No. I’ve asked him not to come.’

‘But why? I want him to come.’

Laila’s eyes were on her foot, poised on the broken step. She had nearly twisted her ankle two days ago.

‘We are going back soon.’ Laila remembered to answer her daughter’s question, once she was safely down on the veranda.

‘When?’

‘Soon.’

‘But, Mummy, you said we were going to stay here for many days?’

‘Well, I’ve changed my mind. We are going back tomorrow.’

‘But …’

‘No buts, Shirin, we’ll be going back to Islamabad.’ She glared down at her daughter’s petulant face.

Away from her daughter, Laila mourned, ‘I just want one more glimpse of my Arslan and to hug him.’

Then she would disappear, for there was nothing else to keep her here. Her parents had slammed the door on her. The image of her mother’s peeping face still wounded her – over ten years of waiting to see that beloved face. ‘When will you forgive me, Mother?’ Laila bitterly wept, picking up the unwashed crockery. ‘I want to see you!’

Her formerly elegant hands, ‘worthy of being wrapped in cotton buds’ in Begum’s words, had fingertips crisscrossed with lines from the daily scouring of pots. As she tipped another greasy clay pot under the water pump, the image of her father’s foot crushing her garland in the dust and the village women smirking behind their
chadors
bitterly flashed across her eyes. It was the ultimate humiliation; the mighty Haider’s daughter on the ground, scooping up the remains of the crushed garland.

‘Mummy, are you all right?’ Shirin had run down the stairs, anxiously peeping up into her mother’s face. She recognised the tear-choked tone – having lived with it all her life and sometimes wondering why her mother cried so much.

‘Why have you been crying a lot here, Mummy?’

Laila turned her face away, heart melted. ‘OK, we’ll stay another week. Go and watch TV! I’ll go across to the
dhoban
’s to collect your frocks.’

Laila’s timid knocks on the door of Massi Fiza’a home went unheard, for Massi Fiza had a more interesting mission than getting through the laundry bags littering her small courtyard. ‘Most of my clients have suitcases and wardrobes stuffed with clothes. So they won’t go naked if I am a day late with the washing!’ Massi Fiza made a point of reminding herself.

Ensconced in the goldsmith’s drawing room, Massi Fiza was in full reel entertaining Rukhsar and her three ‘fashionably
dressed’ daughters whilst slurping down her cup of milky coffee and plucking another delicious ghee-fat
ladoo
from the steel plate. Two streets away, the village butcher had been blessed with a baby son. As well as being entertained by the transvestites’ – the
khusroos
– merry dancing and singing, most households in the vicinity had been rewarded with a basket of
ladoos
. Only the households that his wife had fallen out with were deliberately omitted, openly shaming them. For the butcher’s wife was unable to hear any criticism of her husband’s skill as a butcher, in respect of his mean cut of meat or that he weighed in too much of the fat.

‘Honestly, she’s as milky white as that tablecloth of yours!’ Massi Fiza excitedly elaborated – fascination with skin colour, tones and facial marks was one of Massi Fiza’s favourite topics – pointing her greasy, chapped finger towards the dining table next to the window.

‘Really!’ Rukhsar voiced in wonder.

‘I was collecting the laundry from Begum then. Oh, Rukhsarji, you should have seen the look on poor Begum’s face as the
goorie
entered their
hevali
!’

‘I see!’

‘It was her legs, Rukhsar-ji, long, muscled, white legs – not thin ones like mine and not a single hair in sight!’

‘Everyone has hairs on their legs!’ scoffed Rukhsar’s youngest daughter, Farah, not fully appreciating the picture and irritated with their
dhoban
’s knack for exaggeration. ‘Her hair is golden. So either you can’t see or it has been shaved off – women do shave, you know,’ she explained drily.

‘I don’t!’ Massi Fiza looked horrified. ‘I would never let the razor come near my legs. Look!’ She pulled up her
shalwar
to her kneecap. ‘See, my leg is smooth – thanks to the vigorous scrubbing with the pumice stone.’

‘Please do go on!’ Rukhsar prompted, interested in the
goorie
, not Massi Fiza’s smooth, thin, brown legs!

‘And her hair, Rukhsar-ji! I’m sure it can’t be more than two inches long. Can you believe it? Your husband’s hair is at least three inches longer.’

‘Are you insinuating that my Sharif-ji keeps his hair long?
Come on, my friend, girls here in Pakistan now also have these
boy cuts
, especially in the city. And this woman is a
goorie
, from a different land. The important question we should ask ourselves, however, is who is she? That’s what I’d like to know,’ Rukhsar finished. They exchanged meaningful glances.

‘What is this white woman doing in our village?’ Rukhsar continued, being the first to open her mouth. ‘It’s not every day that a
goorie
from
velat
ends up on our doorstep. And then to arrive on the same plane as Ismail! Also, why is she staying at Master Haider’s
hevali
? Whose sweetheart is she? Arslan’s or Ismail’s?’ She lowered her voice to a whisper, seeing her daughters delicately drop their gazes, but exchange sly glances beneath their Max Factor-streaked eyelashes.

‘Your guess is as good as mine, Rukhsar-ji. I tell you, there is a drama in the making here. And what’s more it’s going to explode all around us soon. And I can’t wait!’

‘What, for the explosion?’ Rukhsar chuckled, daintily sipping her coffee from her best china, holding it by her little finger. Massi Fiza was not interested in copying her actions. Instead, she cupped the china cup in her two hands, her favourite mode of drinking.

‘You know what I mean, Rukhsar-ji!’ Massi Fiza stammered, shamefaced.

‘Well, if that
goorie
has anything to do with Ismail, there’ll definitely be an explosion, destroying two families. My husband has just sold eight necklaces for Saher’s lovely neck. The question is – will they now go on the even lovelier neck of the
goorie
? I would love to see her with my own eyes. I’ve never been inside Haider Sahib’s
hevali
. We lost some good business with them! Before Laila’s elopement, Haider Sahib garlanded that beloved daughter’s dainty neck with at least two necklaces a year.’

‘Well, I visit the
hevali
every two days for their laundry. Thinking about it, I might get the washing tonight. I am sure the ungrateful madam across the lane, Mistress Laila, will appreciate some news of her family. I’m her errand woman at the moment! Smuggling both food and messages from Begum. Mistress Laila is her pet.’ She stopped abruptly and her thin greyish-black eyebrows shot up.

‘What’s the matter, Massi Fiza?’ Rukhsar noted the strange look in her friend’s eyes.

‘I’m in a really wicked mood, Rukhsar-ji. I feel like doing something very daring!’

‘What?’ Rukhsar’s round, khol-lined eyes were fixed on Massi Fiza’s wide, thin-lipped grin displaying a set of uneven teeth
jigsawed
tightly together. ‘Do tell me!’ Rukhsar urged, excitement surging through her body.

‘Only after I’ve done it, Rukhsar-ji,’ she teased with a wink.

‘Oh, you are simply wicked!’ Rukhsar chuckled. Even her daughters with their condescending gazes were staring agog at their neighbour.

‘No, don’t say that, but it will be daring! I’d better get going!’

Her fingers eagerly reaching for the second portion of her third
ladoo
and neatly popping it into her mouth, she stood up. She had provided a lot of news and free entertainment – three
ladoos
were therefore a poor compensation! The girls were glad the laundrywoman had finished the
ladoos
, otherwise they would end up adding to their father’s girth. As caring daughters they were determined to keep sugary and fatty things out of his way. Massi Fiza tiptoed around them on the Persian silk rug.

‘Thank you, my daughters, for the milky coffee.’

‘By the way, Auntie,’ the middle sister corrected, ‘it was cappuccino!’ She grinned at the look of puzzlement on Massi Fiza’s tanned, weather-beaten face. ‘Feel honoured. Now, in which household in this village would they be offering you cappuccino – most of the villagers haven’t even heard of such
velati
drinks.’

Smiling, Massi Fiza expressed her gratitude. ‘You are such nice, hospitable girls. Why do you think your suits are the stiffest in the village? They have the most starch in them.’

‘Thank you, Auntie,’ Farah dutifully mumbled, looking away, remembering one of her stiff dresses that had stood out like a bag around her body.

As Massi Fiza stepped out of Rukhsar’s two-storey house, Laila was entering the potter’s house.

Mistress Laila!’ Massi Fiza loudly called.

‘Yes, Massi Fiza?’ Laila stiffened, tightly holding onto her daughter’s arm. Massi Fiza was one of the women who had witnessed her humiliation outside her parents’
hevali
the other day and Laila hated her for that.

‘I’ll do your daughter’s entire washing for you!’ Massi Fiza generously offered, assessing the hostile look on Laila’s face.

‘I came earlier but you weren’t at home!’ Laila rebuked, eager to disappear inside her home.

‘Sorry, I was next door. I’m going for a walk in the fields. Would you like me to take your lovely Shirin … so that you can rest for an hour or two? It’ll be good for her to see something of the village,’ she sweetly offered, gaze now lowered.

After a pause, Laila arrogantly deigned to accept, remembering her daughter’s petulant mood. ‘Yes, Massi Fiza!’ She would today allow the laundrywoman the
honour
of taking her daughter with her. The villagers might ignore Shirin, but they all knew that Master Haider’s blood ran through her veins – and he was their landlord. ‘Shirin, please go for a walk with Massi Fiza.’

‘Also, I’ll be collecting some washing on the way, so will that be all right?’ Massi Fiza quietly added, dropping her gaze again. Laila did not see that look of pure triumph and malice; she had already stepped into the dim brick-lined entrance of the potter’s house, glad to have Shirin off her hands for a while and supervised.

Massi Fiza could not contain her excitement about where she was going. And it wasn’t to the fields.

‘Where are we going, Auntie-ji?’ Shirin innocently asked, skipping alongside the tall, wiry woman, with a rolled laundry sack bundled under her arm.

‘I’m going to collect some washing from the big, white house – the beautiful
hevali
. Do you know there’s a
goorie
living there?’ her voice dipped low, a smile on her face.

‘A
goorie
!’ Shirin exclaimed, standing still in the village lane, looking up at the laundrywoman. ‘Oh, I’ve only seen a
gora
in Islamabad – not a
goree
!’

‘Perhaps we’ll see her. I wouldn’t want you, our little darling,
to miss out on such an exciting event as this! You would like to see her wouldn’t you, my pet?’

‘Oh, yes, thank you, Auntie-ji! You are so nice.’ Shirin’s excited face was raised up to Massi Fiza. The older woman smiled back, treating Shirin to her two rows of overcrowded teeth. Shirin was more fascinated with the bulbous black mole, with three grey hairs sprouting out of it, on Massi Fiza’s chin.

With a thudding heart, Massi Fiza fervently prayed that the master’s Jeep would not be there.

‘Phew!’ Massi Fiza sighed in relief. Only two cars were parked outside the
hevali
and the Jeep was definitely gone. Nevertheless the servants’ side door it had to be – with Shirin by her side.

As they were about to enter the
hevali
, Shirin let go of Massi Fiza’s hand, her mouth a petulant slit.

‘What’s the matter, my pet?’ Massi Fiza’s heartbeat quickened.

‘Don’t want to go in there!’

‘Why not?’

‘Because …’ Shirin stopped. Her intuition forbade her from telling the washerwoman about the old man from the
hevali
who had made her cry.

‘You’ll love it …
the goorie
’s in there!’ Massi Fiza eagerly coaxed, seeing her careful plan going to pieces.

As expected the word ‘
goorie
’ had a magical effect; Shirin forgot the ‘horrible old man’ and drifted happily into the big house, innocently setting her foot for the first time in her mother’s family home.

Massi Fiza went straight into the kitchen to seek the housekeeper’s permission. As soon as Begum saw Shirin hovering behind the laundrywoman, her mouth dropped open, goose pimples standing on her warm arms. The wooden spoon in her hand remained poised over the simmering
haleem
curry on the stove.

‘Just doing my rounds, Begum,’ Massi Fiza breezily explained, her gaze cheekily averted before Begum’s outraged face.

‘And you just decided to bring
her
here?’ Begum hissed, not meeting the little girl’s eyes.