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  ‘Let me see.’ Kulsoom, too, peered over, trying to catch a better view. It was her misfortune that she was two inches shorter than Naimat Bibi, and her friend never let her forget it.

  ‘Where is Gulshan going?’ Naimat Bibi asked, as she saw the woman walk away in the other direction rather than following her husband into the house.

  Kulsoom stepped away from the rooftop railing – disappointed. ‘I thought it was her!’ She said quietly to her friend. ‘The old man called this pair as well. Can you imagine it? What a reunion it will be at his funeral!’

  Hobbling on her bony legs, taking one step at a time, she clung to the banister as she went down the stairs. She hated stairs, especially slippery marble ones. They were going to be very busy. She and Naimat Bibi had to help Chaudharani Shahzada and her daughter to look after their new guests. She wondered what would happen when ‘that lot’ all met again. ‘She’ and ‘she’ and ‘he’. Especially her, the unfortunate one. Kulsoom’s hand reached up to feel the small silk parcel, now tucked away in her pocket. She could not wait to get rid of it, but it had to be placed in the hands of its rightful owner. She had waited twenty years for this moment.

  Her head modestly draped with her white cotton chador, Gulshan crossed the two village lanes until she reached the one she knew so well. Apart from the new brickwork of the lanes and the guttering, hardly anything else had changed. She ignored the passers-by, keeping her head lowered, afraid of being recognised – yet cynically wondering if anybody did remember her at all. Some probably weren’t even born then.

  Her feet stalled outside her mother’s old house – her birthplace. Once a lively family home, it now stood abandoned in a row of other nondescript houses with their tall wooden doors. Her hands trembling, Gulshan reached up and pulled the heavy aluminium chain down. With the palms of her hands she thrust the two doors open, climbed the concrete step and entered her old home.

  A desolate sight met her eyes. Dust and crushed leaves caked the walls and floor of the small square-shaped courtyard and the dimly lit hallway. Cobwebs were meshed over every crack in the brickwork where the cement had eroded from the rain. They clung in long fragile ropes around the pillars supporting the small verandah and along the washing line. Rolled insects lay trapped in them. Only the tandoor, the mud-baked oven used by the neighbour Naimat Bibi for her business, stood distinctly apart from the rest. The area around it was kept meticulously tidy. The rim of the oven itself had a newly baked look with its sleek layer of mud. The inside was coated with inches of soot.

  Gulshan closed her eyes and imagined her mother stepping out of her bedroom door, holding her grandson Moeen in her arms.

  Her gaze swivelled to another room. The door was shut. Her eager feet padded over to it. With a gentle push it creaked open. Gulshan stepped inside and straight into the past. The room, as always, was in darkness. Only through the small stained-glass windows, roshandans, did a dull glimmer of light creep into the gloom.

  Gulshan opened her eyes wide to make out the strange shapes in the dusk. Bales of animal fodder were piled up against the wall, where once she had shared a bed with her husband. No bed now, only dusty clay pots stacked one on top of each other and bundles of hay propped against them. Her mother had sold the house to Sardara, the milk woman, who apparently used it as a storehouse for her animal feed. With her arthritic hips, she very rarely visited this place.

  ‘This was my bedroom!’ Gulshan moaned aloud.

  In anguish, she went up to the stacks of hay and leaned against them. Closing her eyes, she laid her head against the soft hay, imagining it to be the pillow on her bed a long time ago. This is where it all began. Sighing deeply, she welcomed back the haunting images, and let them dance before her eyes. That night … the night from which there was no escape for either her or her husband Haroon. Twenty years ago.

  Part Two

  Here are my eyes, there is my heart –

  my misery finds no relief.

  This holds a hidden suffering:

  those shed the tears of open grief.

  Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797–1869) India

  Selection from The Persian Ghazals of Ghalib

  (Pakistan Writers’ Co-operative Society, 1997)

  Translated by Ralph Russell

  THREE

  May, 1982

  HALF ASLEEP, GULSHAN’S eyes opened and then closed, feeling the movement beside her on the bed. A ray of moonlight beaming through the two windows almost touched the ceiling, casting Haroon’s shadow on the wall as he rose.

  He looked down with uncertainty at the sleeping figure of his wife. Then in a decisive movement he buttoned the collar of his night-shirt, while his feet prowled about on the concrete floor for his sandals. Finding them, he picked them up and trod barefoot across the bedroom. On reaching the door, he opened it quietly.

  Out in the shadows of the moonlit verandah, Haroon cast a surreptitious glance at the closed door of his mother-in-law’s bedroom. Slipping his feet into the sandals he padded lightly across the small square courtyard. Moving his fingers through his hair, he furtively looked over his shoulders at the two closed doors.

  Inside the bedroom, Gulshan stirred, her hand reaching out to the warm, empty space beside her in the bed. She heard the click of the latch of the outside door. Now wide-awake, she sat up in bed and stared at the shadows taunting her on the wall.

  ‘Where is Haroon?’ Gulshan asked the silent room. ‘Where could her husband be going at this time of night?’

  A sudden chill snaked up her body as her feet touched the cold surface of the floor. Blindly, her feet shuffled under the bed, seeking her leather sandals with her big toe. Finding one, she urgently sought the other while she plucked up her woollen chador from the chair next to the bed. Flinging it hurriedly around her shoulders, she stepped out onto the verandah.

  Hurrying across the small courtyard, Gulshan reached for the wooden door – it had been left ajar. Letting herself out, she pulled the door shut behind her and carefully descended the two concrete steps onto the narrow cobbled lane of the village.

  She peered into the darkness and, at first, saw nothing. Then she glimpsed a figure disappearing around the corner at the far end of the lane.

  ‘Haroon!’ she called softly – not wanting to wake their neighbours. Kulsoom Bibi, was a light sleeper and also had a tendency to get up very early in the morning.

  The village was draped in a cold silence as it slept. Even the dogs were quiet. Gulshan drew her chador tightly around her head and against her chest, and stared up at the six-foot-high brick wall of her neighbour’s courtyard, studded with jagged pieces of glass to keep intruders out. What was she doing here, standing all alone in the dark, in the middle of the night? Where was her husband going? What had happened to him?

  Panicking, she lifted up the hemline of her trousers in case she tripped over the cobbles, and started to run after him. Criss-crossing the lane, she intuitively avoided little dirty pools of water, where the stones or bricks had gone missing.

  Breathless now, she shouted, ‘Haroon!’ once more, as she ran after him through the narrow maze of lanes. The last one led out of the village and ended in a large open clearing, near the village fields. Gulshan stood alone on a small dusty path. Her husband was nowhere to be seen. The dark fields of rape and other vegetables spanned around her, disappearing into the starry horizon.

  Gulshan peered down, hastily moving away from the grassy edge of the footpath. Snakes were known to make their nesting places here at night-time; coiled under or around the thick tufts of dry grass and the roots of the sturdy sugarcane plants.

  Nervously she pulled her shawl even tighter around her head and body, holding its two embroidered edges around her face to protect her cold ears. The night air wafted against her cotton shalwar-clad legs. The lawn cotton fabric afforded no protection in the chilly breeze. Shivering, she pressed her mouth shut.

  ‘Haroon must have gone further up the path – but that is going out of the
village!’ Gulshan ran up the path, tripping on the small stones in the dark. ‘I must follow him,’ she panted.

  The path turned sharply to the right towards the old village well. A tall mature tree stood in the middle of the crossroads, and Gulshan leaned against its trunk, trying to regain her breath. A sudden shaft of moonlight revealed her husband walking up to the well beside an old Banyan tree, with its dry, gnarled roots spread out on the path and disappearing into the nearby field.

  ‘Har …’ Her husband’s name jammed in her throat when a tall young woman stepped out from behind the tree. Bare-headed, and with her long hair draped like a dark curtain behind her back, she walked up to Haroon and leaned towards him. Instantly, and with a sickening jolt, Gulshan knew who the woman was.

  Gulshan’s world stood still on its axis, as she watched the woman lay her head intimately against Haroon’s chest. Before Gulshan’s dazed eyes, her husband’s arms rose and clasped the woman in a firm embrace.

  A scream of agony ripped through Gulshan’s throat before reaching her mouth. Frantically she stuffed the edge of her chador in her mouth and bit onto the cloth, strangling her scream.

  Before her horror-struck eyes, she saw her beloved husband bend down over the woman’s face and shower it with passionate kisses, moving from her forehead down to her throat.

  A sense of unreality and disbelief crashed over Gulshan. Caught up in the nightmare, she found her feet held to the ground. Whilst her senses reeled with a kind of deadly fascination, her eyes stayed fastened on the pair. It was like a theatre, with the well and the tree as the romantic backcloth and Haroon and the woman as the chief performers. Now the woman was returning his kisses with the same fervour!

  Beads of sweat rolled down the side of Gulshan’s forehead. Animal sounds of distress tore between her lips. Gulshan’s world had simply collapsed around her. Then, from somewhere, primitive jealousy seized and spurred her on, giving her the strength to fight her body. She fled – stumbling on the pebbly, uneven path. Tripping over one tuft of grass, she slipped down into the field below, twisting her foot in the process. ‘Arrgh!’ Pain shot through her, blurring her eyes with tears. Dragging her foot up from a cauliflower plant she shook the dust out of her sandal.

  Her chador had fallen off her head and was now trailing behind her – its loose end touching the ground. Her body didn’t feel the cold any more, sweat continued to fall from her forehead onto her face. As she entered the village lanes, her heart was beating like a drum. When her foot skidded into a small pool of dirty water, between the missing cobbles, Gulshan wrenched off her dirty wet sandal and limped the rest of the way home, not caring if she were to step on shards of glass.

  Once back, she thrust open the tall wooden door with the soiled sandal and entered the courtyard. A sob ripped through her throat again. Leaning against the door, she pushed her wrist into her mouth – biting on the soft flesh. The primitive animal sound was suffocated. Feeling the pain, she pulled her wrist from her mouth and looked down at the dark teeth-marks. Fiercely she brushed the tears from her face.

  Remembering her dirty foot, she walked up to the bucket standing against a pillar on the verandah. The silver balti of water contained clean water and was kept overnight in case of water shortage to rinse the morning dishes. Gulshan now dipped her whole foot into it, making the water pleat – dirty.

  She shook her ankle to dry it, but the damp hemline of her trousers clung to her cold skin. Her wet foot slippery on the marble floor, Gulshan limped to her bedroom. Throwing open the door, she strode over to her dresser. Rummaging in the dark, she looked for another shalwar in the tall pile of clothes in the top drawer. She pulled one out but the nala, the cotton cord to tie it, was missing. She flung the linen trousers across the room and, with shaky fingers, untied the nala knot of the one she was wearing. Peeling it off, she threw it out onto the verandah through the open door.

  Closing the door, barelegged and wearing only her thin night-dress, Gulshan crept back into bed, her body shivering beneath the quilt. She stared up in a daze at the whitewashed ceiling of her room. She had left this bed less than half an hour ago. In that short space of time her whole world had fallen apart.

  Before her tortured eyes flashed a vision of Haroon bent over the woman – his cheek touching hers and his arms intimately wound around her body, holding her close.

  This time, the scream wouldn’t stay put. The piercing, primitive sound startled her mother and young son wide-awake in the other room.

  Hajra woke up in a sweat, instantly recognising her daughter’s voice.

  ‘Grandma, was that Mummy?’ Moeen looked fearfully up into his grandmother’s eyes.

  ‘No, my darling, it was just a dog in the street,’ Hajra lied, caressing her grandson’s forehead in a reassuring movement. ‘You go back to sleep while I just check that the doors are properly closed.’ She protectively tucked the cotton quilt around the little boy.

  Not bothering to put on her chador or her sandals, Hajra ran across the verandah to her daughter’s room. She remembered in time to knock gently on the door. There was no sound in the room. ‘Did I imagine that scream?’ she asked herself. Her daughter and son-in-law were probably sleeping soundly. Not wanting to disturb them, she turned to go back.

  Another scream erupted then, shattering the night’s peace and sending an electric current coursing through Hajra’s body. Terrified now, she flung open the door, not caring about the proprieties in seeing her daughter in bed with her husband. She walked into the dark room and felt her way over to the bed. Peering down she saw her daughter. Alone. With her face buried in her pillow.

  Moonlight from the verandah streamed into the room from the open door. When Gulshan turned over, Hajra peered closer, looking in concern at her beloved daughter’s face.

  ‘Are you all right, my daughter? Where is Haroon?’

  Gulshan stared up at her mother in agony. Tears blinded her. Bending over the bed, Hajra touched her daughter’s cheek and then felt the pillow beneath it: it was soaked.

  Now very alarmed, Hajra squatted on the cold floor, her knees shivering. ‘What is it, my daughter?’ she asked, her voice dipped low in fear and misgiving. What was the matter with her daughter and where was her son-in-law in the middle of the night? Had they quarrelled? Why was she crying?

  Through dried lips, ‘meh looty ghi, mother,’ Gulshan whispered simply.

  ‘Looty ghi!’ Hajra exclaimed, stepping back. Had they been burgled? Had her daughter been raped?

  ‘Where is Haroon?’ Hajra whispered, unable to make sense of her daughter’s moans.

  Gulshan sprang up on the bed, her eyes rolling wildly, and flung the quilt on the floor. ‘He is in the fields, in the arms of another woman.’ She spat out.

  Hajra stared up in mute disbelief. ‘What are you saying?’ she asked, her voice faint with misgiving. Hajra’s world, too, was beginning to fall apart. Her bewildered eyes opened and closed.

  ‘He is with Aunt Fatima’s niece!’ Gulshan shrieked at her mother and, with one quick movement, she grabbed hold of the decorative vase on the bedside cabinet and hurled it across the room at the dressing table mirror. It crashed against the tall mirror, smashing one corner to smithereens.

  Startled by her violence, Hajra grabbed Gulshan’s arm, just as she was about to reach for the water jug. Out of breath, she stared into her distraught face.

  ‘Stop it, Gulshan!’ she hissed. A look of sheer madness confronted her in her daughter’s face. ‘What do you mean, my daughter?’ she asked, her voice barely audible to her own ears.

  ‘Another woman has stolen my husband, Mother! Don’t you understand!’ Gulshan cried in agony, then collapsed in a heap on the bed once more.

  Hajra stood up straight, staring silently down at her daughter for a long time. This was no dream. This was a nightmare, and of the worst sort.

  ‘Fatima’s niece!’ she uttered at last, through chilled lips and with a calmness that surprised her. ‘But she’s a stranger! She’s on
ly been here for two days. Are you sure? Our Haroon would never do this, Gulshan. You must be imagining it, my darling daughter, surely?’ Inside she prayed with all her heart that it was in fact a nightmare, from which the girl would soon wake up.

  ‘No, Mother, no!’ The image of the woman’s face against her Haroon’s chest speared through Gulshan again. ‘See for yourself mother!’ she wailed, banging her arms against the headboard. ‘They are near the old village well …’ She swept round and buried her face in the pillow, trying to banish the picture of Haroon’s passionate kisses on the woman’s face.

  Her heart thudding with a low, dull beat, Hajra walked out in a daze. In her room, she checked to see if Moeen was asleep. Mechanically picking up her warm night shawl from her bed, she threw it around her head and shoulders.

  With quiet, angry steps, Hajra set off for the village well, her identity cloaked in the night’s darkness. Normally afraid of the dark, the deserted village lanes held no fear for her this night. Her body tense, her lips wordlessly prayed for her daughter to be proved wrong. ‘Allah pak, help us!’ she beseeched. Sheer incredulity washed over her. ‘Impossible! Impossible!’ Her daughter and son-in-law were happy in their marriage. Nobody did anything like this in their world. Nobody dared! For no man lifted an eye at a young woman, let alone a married man committing adultery with a virtual stranger – no matter how attractive the woman happened to be. It just didn’t make sense.

  Hajra recalled the curtain of silky raven hair draped seductively around the woman’s shoulders and back. At no time had she bothered to tie it up, even though she could see very clearly that hardly any adult woman hereabouts sported a bare head, let alone allowed her hair to tumble provocatively all around her shoulders. She appeared not to care that this was a village, and not the cosmopolitan world of Lahore, Karachi or Islamabad.