Revolt

by Qaisra Shahraz

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

Delightfully detailed, emotionally rich and relevant ... Anora Mcgaha, editor of Women Writers, Women Books

A multi-layered, multi-faceted story of love, loss and mixed-race marriage, Revolt is the tale of three wealthy sisters and the problems that no amount of money can solve. There is a daughter, abandoned because of an impulsive marriage, an aunt who pines for lost love, and a bridegroom with the biggest problem of them all.

Set in England and the fictional village of Gulistan in Pakistan, with its fascinating array of quirky, eccentric and unforgettable characters, Revolt centres on the forthcoming marriage of two rich cousins and the often hilarious but always deeply moving pitfalls of living in a place where everyone knows everybody else s business. Underpinning the action is the compulsive and pervading need to resolve the conflict between Pakistani Muslim values and those of the modern West.

A brilliantly incisive portrait of small-town life, exploding into a panoramic portrayal of the nature of change, freedom, pride and prejudice, Revolt also reminds us of a darker, more threatening world. Immensely readable, dramatic and beautifully evocative, this book will enthral, as the action unfolds and the tensions play out to their startling resolution.

Release date: October 15, 2013

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 288

Sample

Barefooted, Massi Fiza panted up the marble stairs and dashed straight through the mosquito-netted door and the brocade drapes, into the village goldsmith’s lounge. Clutching her jute laundry bag against her flat chest, she hovered over the seated figure of her friend Rukhsar, exclaiming: ‘Another suicide bombing!’

Perched on a pile of cushions, an aluminium casket of gems in front of her, the village siniaran was engrossed in the nimble task of inserting tiny pearls into a gold bridal collar set.


‘What?’ Rukhsar cried, abandoning her work, not relishing this sudden intrusion late in the evening, just when the next episode of her favourite Indian drama was about to start.

Shabnum, Rukhsar’s 24-year-old eldest daughter, sitting reading a play on the sofa, gawped; the house linen had already been collected. Nevertheless she cheerily offered:

‘A cup of our Italian coffee, Massi Fiza?’

The jute bag slipped out of Massi Fiza’s hand. Grimacing, Shabnum quickly reached to retrieve it from their kashmiri silk rug, rolling her kajal-lined eyes in disgust. The laundrywoman rarely had time to wash this item.


‘Massi Fiza!’ The goldmistress, now quite rattled, reached up to shake her friend’s arm. ‘You OK?’

‘Another bombing!’ Massi Fiza repeated as if in a trance.

Rukhsar was now on her feet. ‘What? Where?’

‘In two mosques in Malakand.’

‘Oh, Allah Pak, not another one! What’s happening to our poor country? So many innocent people killed by explosions and those American drones!’

‘My sons! What if …?’ Massi Fiza stopped short, lowering her gaze.

‘What would they be doing in Malakand?’ Rukhsar’s eyes narrowed. ‘Have you got their phone numbers?’


Massi Fiza shook her head; numbers just did not tally with her brain cells and technology of any sort frightened her. Therefore she had never learned to use those ‘silly’ mobile phones, as she called them.

‘Sit and relax, Massi Fiza. Shabnum will make your favourite coffee from the expensive pot, whilst I finish the pearlwork on this necklace.’


Massi Fiza pulled herself out of her trance but remained standing.

‘What are you reading, Shabnum?’

‘Ruhi’s book, Othello – a sad Engrezi love story. A drama by William Shakespeare.’ Shabnum cheekily held it up, her cheeks heavy with laughter. What would the semi-illiterate laundrywoman know about literature?


‘Engrezi kitab? Weelly Speer?’ squeaked Massi Fiza, staring in awe at the English book.


The English alphabet had always intimidated her; her punishment for mixing up the upper and the lower cases in her fifth class was a good telling-off from her sour-faced teacher, who, as known to the entire village, had only been educated to a tenth jamaat class herself. Massi Fiza did triumph in some areas, however, managing to master words like ‘cat’ and ‘dog’.


‘Never mind “Willy Speer” – let’s talk.’ Rukhsar chuckled at Massi Fiza’s struggle with the name of the great English Bard. The laundrywoman’s five primary classes in an under-resourced village school never quite qualified her to sample Shakespeare’s masterpieces. Rukhsar’s twelfth class, however, in the posh college in town, did. Romeo and Juliet still remained the goldmistress’s favourite Shakespearean drama.


‘Whose set are you working on now, Rukhsar-ji?’ Massi Fiza’s envious eyes were hawked on the necklace.

‘Saher’s … the lawyer woman’s wedding.’

‘Of course! What an exciting week, Rukhsar-ji,’ Massi Fiza smirked, colour rushing back into her gaunt mahogany-brown cheeks.

‘Is it?’ Rukhsar challenged, settling back on the soft pile of cushions in the middle of the room, sure that her neighbour had plenty of salacious news to share; her keen eyes behind the large designer glasses assessing both the emotional landscape of her friend’s face and the necklace still to be completed. Rukhsar happily forfeited her favourite Indian drama serial in order to acquaint herself with the goings-on in Gulistan.


‘So! Tell me!’ Rukhsar eagerly prompted, her high-cheekboned face coquettishly sloped to one side, adding a healthy jowl to her neckline.


Forgetting about her wicked sons and the suicide bombers, Massi Fiza, her grey eyes alive and mischievous, took a deep breath and proudly announced:

‘The landowners’ “princes” are back this week!’

‘Princes?’

‘Yes, the zemindar “princes”. Haughty Mistress Mehreen’s son Ismail is coming from London for his wedding. Gentle Mistress Gulbahar’s son Arslan is flying in from New York tomorrow morning. And sour Mistress Rani is busy preparing for her daughter Saher’s wedding. And …’ Fiza stopped, tiptoeing to stand in front of Rukhsar’s tall fan to cool a hot flush stinging across her shoulders and up her scrawny throat. Enjoying the welcoming breeze, she lifted the three amulets garlanding her neck.


‘Go on then …’ her friend slyly goaded. The village dhoban was now in her element, ready to part with the juiciest piece of news.


‘She’s back!’

‘Who?’

‘Laila! The potter’s … after years!’ Massi Fiza abruptly stopped again.

‘Oh!’

‘Well! Did you not expect it – with him returning? You must have seen her? The door is opposite yours.’

‘No, I’m too busy with my work to peer over roof terraces and eavesdrop on the goings-on in my neighbours’ houses, Massi Fiza!’ Rukhsar scoffed good-humouredly before asking, ‘What will happen?’

‘We’ll find out soon enough, won’t we, as it’s all happening at the white hevali? And that’s where I’ll be, first thing in the morning. Good old Begum tells me everything. Of course with quite a bit of bossing in between! Shabnum, my ladli, where’s my coffee? You’ve heard everything now!’


The topic of bombing was duly thrust aside. What happened elsewhere could not be helped, as long as it had nothing to do with their Gulistan or intrude into their lives.

‘In any event what can I, a humble laundrywoman, do to stop such atrocities?’ she silently bewailed.

Then she paled, a sombre thought crossing her mind, remembering the long, thick, black beard framing her son’s narrow face the last time he had visited her. ‘What if my sons have got in with the wrong company? And been brainwashed by those horrible men!’ Then laughed aloud at her runaway imagination, making her friend raise her head from the bridal collar set in her hand.

Massi Fiza immediately straightened her face; there were some things you did not share even with good trusted friends.

‘Oh, Allah Pak! I forgot the box!’

‘The box?’ Rukhsar duly dropped the pearl between her fingers.

‘The Gujjar’s poor son … waiting thirteen years for the American green card is returning home in a box! Guess what, he got the card, but two days later snuffed it … heart attack or sugar problem. His poor family is at the airport to collect the body. Can you imagine it? All those years of waiting and cheating on his wife?’ Massi Fiza hastened to explain as Rukhsar’s neatly plucked, arched eyebrows had shot up. ‘You know he kept a Hispanic mistress in Chicago! The besharm man made no bones about it, openly boasting, and in front of us women, too, about cohabiting with her … to get that yellow card! Fancy abandoning your wife and kids for years, and when it’s time for the poor lot to join him he shoots up to the heavens! Bad timing or what! No one dares to mention his American haram brood he has left behind. Two lots of children on two continents! Terrible!’


Making a face in distaste, Rukhsar nimbly picked up another tiny pearl from the casket. ‘I hate this modern curse – this migration thing, Massi Fiza! It destroys families! My heart bleeds for his poor Zubeda, patiently biding her time for years and now left with a house full of luxury items, tears, four children to wed, not to mention looking after his elderly parents for the rest of her life! She’ll not see America, I tell you! Do you think anyone will let her go now – unless her son takes her!’


‘Well, it’s not that bad!’ Bristling, Massi Fiza went on the defensive, thin mouth tightly pursed. ‘Migration – going to velat must be good or why else would all these young people go raring off to foreign lands, with their families eagerly packing them off? Even their wives remain contented – delighted with their bank balances. Look at their homes, their standard of living, Rukhsar-ji!’


Massi Fiza would not eliminate the raw envy from her tone. That was how she felt. So why bother hiding it from her friend? How she craved that somebody would arrange for her two good-for-nothing sons to migrate to somewhere in the Middle East. Then she, too, could add a second storey to her house as her neighbours had done.


It still rattled her that the bricklayer had turned their humble dwelling into a grand two-storey villa entirely swathed in marble. Not an inch spared! All from their son’s hard work, digging roads under the scorching Abu Dhabi sun.

Massi Fiza was particularly annoyed because the bricklayer’s house not only dwarfed her three-roomed humble house, but its high walls aggressively blocked half the sunlight that her laundry business desperately needed. The bricklayer was now a bricklayer in name only, since his son’s foreign remittances padded his bank account. And the airs of his womenfolk, especially the illiterate, big-mouthed mother Jeena, grated on Massi Fiza. Within months they had graduated into a class of their own on the village social ladder, particularly on the scale of snobbery.

‘Rich but no manners!’ Massi Fiza fumed in front of her many clients. The bricklayer’s household delighted in repaying her animosity by packing off their laundry to the other village laundry house, the dhobi ghat.


‘Well, it has not made a two paisa difference to the quiltmaker’s home! Poor Zeinab is still digging holes in her fingers from all the darning she does with those long needles. The floors of her house are still brick-lined and the roof, I believe, still has a mud veneer that she annually slaps on herself with her calloused hands,’ Rukhsar stridently reminded her friend, now quite worked up on the subject of migration; hating people who abandoned their families to migrate elsewhere.


Irritated, she was about to scold, ‘Massi Fiza, I wish you would wear a bra sometimes!’ but stopped short. Instead, she averted her gaze from her friend’s brown nipples poking through the thin lawn fabric of her kameez. Rukhsar knew the cheeky answer her friend would throw her way. ‘Allah Pak has not blessed me with your large bosom! There’s practically nothing for the cups to hold! So why bother, and in the summer heat?’


Rukhsar proudly glanced down at her own perfect bosom to make sure that it was not ‘swelling’ out of the neckline of her kameez from her crouched position.


‘That’s because her son-in-law’s wealth has gone into his parents’ city house,’ Massi Fiza scoffed, unaware of her friend’s train of thought on nipples and breasts. ‘Oh dear, I must be off.’

‘Don’t forget to keep me informed.’

‘Of course I will! Especially about what’s happening in the homes of the three zemindar sisters. Master Arslan is coming tomorrow morning. Begum tells me that there’ll be a big homecoming party that Master Haider will host. But will they let her through the door? That’s the big question. We’ll have to see, won’t we! It’s going to be quite an exciting time in our Gulistan.’


‘For you, Massi Fiza, yes! But I’m stuck here in chardevari, behind these four walls, working on these gold machlis!’ Rukhsar gently teased.


‘Must hurry. Need to soak the whites!’ She scurried out of the room; for once without drinking Shabnum’s Italian coffee. Meeting the grey-haired master goldsmith on the stairs, she blushed, hurriedly draping her red-dyed muslin shawl over her chest. With a shy smile Massi Fiza sidled past him, muttering her ‘salaams’ at the bottom of the steps, whilst shuffling her feet back into her green, bleached, plastic sandals.





CHAPTER 1

In Gulistan village, the morning sun was high up over the sugarcane fields. Nine-year-old Shirin, in a white frilly frock with matching chooridaar pyjama, her auburn curls swinging around her shoulders, hopped along the dusty path to her favourite spot – the large termite mound.


Thrusting back her thick fringe with her small hand, she excitedly peered at the mound; colander-like dotted with holes. Yesterday she had delightedly watched hundreds of lively ants swarming out and zigzagging down the dry cakey outer crust.

Disappointed, Shirin aggressively poked holes with her sharp twig. A small crust, alive with dozens of little ‘beasts,’ came away in her hand. Shrieking she dropped it. Scrambling out of the holes, the stringy rows of ants were marching down the sun-baked mound.


Startled on hearing the sound of horses’ hooves and the imperious voice shouting, ‘Get out of our way, girl!’ she stepped back, stumbling over a stone.

Shirin fell straight onto a dry tuft of grass and tangles of brushwood, their sharp blades digging into her soft thighs. Howling in pain, she blinked up at the towering horse’s white legs. The rider with his thick crop of reddish-brown hair glinting fire in the morning sun glared down at the girl. Her lower lip quivering, Shirin’s vision blurred. Then Ali, another rider, appeared, coming to an abrupt stop near her, gripping tightly onto the reins of his horse. It was the girl!

The man with the reddish-brown hair pulled tightly at his reins and sped his horse towards the village, leaving a heavy screen of warm, dewy morning dust behind him.

‘Are you all right, piari shahzadi?’ Ali whispered.


His gentle tone and endearing words, ‘lovely princess’, triggered the flood of tears Shirin had been holding back.

Distressed on her behalf, he asked, ‘Shall I take you home?’ reaching down to pull her up onto his horse.

‘Ali!’

Ali’s hand tightened on the girl’s arm as he faced his master. Trembling, Shirin turned a bewildered look at the other rider glaring at them from a distance and then pulled herself away, staring down in horror at the grassy stains soiling her favourite frock.

His mouth an angry slit, Ali asked. ‘All right, princess?’

Shirin nodded; mouth a beguiling small pout and eyes two shimmering blue gems. She liked this man; he had brought them food the other night and always called her piari shahzadi.


Satisfied that the girl was OK, Ali sped up the path to the village square, stealing a look over his shoulder and flashing another kind smile at her.

Shirin remained staring after them, until she felt the tiny bites on her bare toes. Ants were scurrying around her feet.

Angrily wiping her tears with her small fist, she started to walk back, eyes on the white horse disappearing into the big white mansion, the hevali. Suddenly, a fully cloaked young woman in a pale blue linen chador stepped out from the tall sugarcane plants, startling her.


Shirin stared, innocently asking, ‘Did you poo in the sugarcane field?’ Her mother had told her once that in the old days, people used the fields to defecate at night or early in the morning.

Blushing, Salma, the quiltmaker’s daughter, taken aback by the question, shook her head, trying her best to smile, and began to walk by her side. Shirin nervously glanced up at the woman, wondering if she would talk. It was only as they passed the hevali in the village square, that the woman murmured, ‘You and I can’t enter certain doors …’ Her fingertips brushed across the whitewashed railings ‘These gates … are closed to you! Two doors in the next street are closed to me.’


The small space between Shirin’s dainty triangular-shaped eyebrows furrowed. The word pagaal darted into her head. As if reading her mind, Salma drily murmured, ‘I’m not mad … Ask your mum,’ her eyes sweeping over the imposing building.


In the main village lane, the bricklayer’s pregnant daughter-in-law with her reddish sak-stained lips and a basket of fresh vegetables held in the curve of one arm was sauntering towards them. Her other hand clutched the shawl discreetly draped around her shoulders to hide her heavily swollen, seven-month mound. Eyes averted, Salma raised the edge of her blue chador tightly to her chin and hurried away, protecting the other woman from her perchanvah, her evil shadow.


*

Begum, Ali’s wife, had his square-shaped paratha ready with a slice of mango pickle on a steel chappati tray. The dollop of fresh makhan churned before dawn in her clay milking pot had turned to a white fatty pool in the middle of it.


‘Ali?’

Begum knew instantly that something was wrong when her husband reached for his mug of milky cinnamon tea, kicking aside the footstool. After three noisy, scalding-hot sips, Ali thrust it back on the tray, turning to leave.

‘What’s wrong, Ali?’ Begum asked, quite vexed by his strange behaviour. What had got into him this morning? ‘Your paratha, Ali!’ she sternly reminded him. Four minutes to shape and cook, and the sizzling-hot ghee fat had burned her second finger on the blackened tava pan this morning.


‘I don’t want it!’ he hissed. Why would the darned woman not leave him alone?

‘What!’ Scandalised, Begum leaned back on her footstool. Ali never missed his daily paratha. So today was a strange omission and he had a very busy day ahead of him.


‘I said, I don’t want it!’ he aggressively rounded on her. Begum, equally annoyed, tugged at his trousers.

‘OK! I’ll eat the damn thing, woman!’ Angrily he slapped her hand away.

‘Forget the paratha!’ she fumed. ‘Tell me what’s wrong!’


‘The girl,’ he muttered, his large Adam’s apple, poking through the thin brown skin, bobbing up and down.


‘I’ve bought a new dress for her. Massi Fiza will smuggle it out to …’

‘Master Haider shouted at her!’

‘What?’ Begum struggled to her feet, hand held against her mouth.

‘The poor mite was in his way, Begum, nearly getting herself trodden! Master managed to pull his horse back!’ Ali faithfully explained in a bid to excuse his master’s actions. ‘Then she fell, with big fat tears streaming down her lovely face. I wanted to jump off my horse and give her a tight hug, but Master called me – looking very fierce!’

‘Well you had no choice, Ali. Comfort her or disobey our master.’ Begum reassured her husband, her rebellious spirit tightening her mouth. ‘And we’ve done quite a bit of disobeying,’ she added, but he was already out of the courtyard, rattling the tall wooden door shut behind him.

Breakfast was not on Ali’s mind. Master Haider wanted Ali to oversee the preparation for Arslan’s homecoming village feast and get all the horses ready for the party parade.

In her soot-stained kitchen corner of the veranda, Begum made a face at the three-layered paratha dripping with fat and the half pot of creamy cinnamon tea left on the stove. Draping her chador carefully around her shoulders, she headed for Master Haider’s hevali a street away.


*

Mistress Gulbahar was dreading her two sisters’ simultaneous arrival at the hevali. With her beloved son’s homecoming, she had plenty to do rather than having to put up with Mehreen’s childish tantrums and Rani’s supercilious looks. Gulbahar secretly hoped that Rani, her middle sister, would not be staying for long, for she was a law unto herself and stiffly rebuffed any attempt at ‘sisterly’ persuasion or friendship. On the other hand, Gulbahar was looking forward to having a good discussion with her brother-in-law, Liaquat, about the wedding arrangements for his son, Ismail.


‘Thank goodness I have Begum. She’ll see to the feast,’ Gulbahar congratulated herself. She had not quite bargained on her housekeeper’s sullen mood this morning, however, and was deeply offended by Begum’s neglect in offering her customary morning salaam.


The girl, not a greeting, was on Begum’s mind. Bristling with resentment at her employers and their ‘cruel hearts’, Begum headed straight for the kitchen but found herself annoyingly waylaid in the lobby of the back entrance by Massi Fiza, clutching a bulky sack of linen in her arms.

‘Third round this morning, Begum!’ A grinning Massi Fiza eagerly boasted, ‘Here even before you! Mistress Gulbahar instructed me yesterday to wash lots of items.’

Begum angrily rounded on the laundrywoman, putting the dhoban in her place. ‘I’m well aware of what goes on here, Fiza! Mistress Gulbahar shares all household matters with me.’


‘How do you think I’m going to manage all this washing in one day?’ Massi Fiza breezily asked, eager to start a conversation, blissfully unaware of the housekeeper’s hostile mood this morning.

‘As you’ve greedily grabbed all the washing from this household, I’m sure you’ll find a way. Where you’ll dry it all, I just don’t know or care!’ Then Begum cattily added, chuckling, ‘Why don’t you get your Rukhsar’s glamorous college-educated daughters to lend you their manicured hands!’

Dismissing the laundrywoman, Begum entered ‘her’ domain, the large well-equipped kitchen with all modern conveniences and two marble sinks, both overlooking the central courtyard with its large marble shell-shaped fountain basin.

‘Chance of a bowl of pink tea, Begum-ji?’ Massi Fiza requested with a sheepish grin, head popped around the door, body poised to take flight in case Begum threw anything at her.

Begum glared back her answer, loathing the woman and her pestering this morning. If she had not been holding a basinful of flour, she could easily have wrung Massi Fiza’s scrawny neck with its three dangling, black amulets, reverently purchased from the sweetmaker’s wife’s pir.


‘Massi Fiza, take the laundry and get lost! I’m in no mood for your gossiping or to make you bowls of sabz tea!’ Begum hissed, trying to still her panting heartbeat. ‘Get your best friend Rukhsar to make you their Italian coffee! I’ve plenty to do with the guests arriving …’ She stopped short, glimpsing the speculative look in Massi Fiza’s eyes.


Always eager to know about the goings-on in the hevali, Massi Fiza inevitably ended up gossiping with her siniaran friend. Begum banged the door shut with her foot on Massi Fiza’s shocked face.


*

Mistress Gulbahar entered the kitchen, highly mystified by her housekeeper’s non-appearance in her bedroom this morning.

‘Begum, I want the red rose china set brought out for the dinner. Make sure Jeena does not chip any more gold rims off the plates,’ Gulbahar instructed.

‘I’ll wash the entire set myself,’ Begum muttered, keeping her gaze averted from her mistress’s. Deeply aggrieved by her housekeeper’s tone and behaviour Gulbahar waited patiently for her to explain herself. Begum, however, appeared to be glued to the freezer lid.

‘Begum?’ Gulbahar prompted, smiling. They had been close friends for over two decades.

‘Mother and daughter are back in the village!’ Begum bitterly announced, waiting for some sound or word. She held her breath, nearly choking, hand frozen on the large bundle of lamb chops.

‘Begum, don’t forget to add yoghurt to the rice,’ Gulbahar quietly ordered before walking out.

Her eyes squeezed tight in disbelief, Begum banged the freezer lid shut. ‘What did you expect, woman?’

Leaning against the crockery sink, Begum stared out of the grilled window overlooking the courtyard. Mistress Gulbahar was feeding Mithu, their parakeet, its breakfast of seeds, her two fingers thrust in a cage dangling from one of the marble veranda colonnades. The parakeet mattered. Not the girl.





CHAPTER 2

Shirin’s leather-sandaled steps threaded across the small veranda of the potter’s home three lanes away. Through the grilled window bars of the main bedroom she saw her mother sorting out the bedding. A folded quilt propped on her head, Laila headed for the rooftop terrace to air it in the sun, carefully avoiding the two broken steps with their missing bricks. Smiling at her daughter, she returned to collect the other quilt.

Laila pulled her daughter into her arms. A loud wail was Shirin’s answer. When her mother squatted in front of her everything swam before her eyes. ‘Shirin?’

Alarmed, Laila peered into Shirin’s eyes, now magnified into large sky-blue orbs swaying in a clear bed of water.

‘Have you hurt yourself?’

Shirin nodded, pulling herself out of her mother’s arms to show her dress. ‘Look, my birthday dress, it’s all ruined!’

‘I’ll buy you another one! Massi Fiza will give this one a special wash. How did you fall?’

Face screwed up in pain. ‘I tripped, and … and that horrible old man’s eyes kept glaring at me …’ Shirin explained.

‘The old man!’ Laila’s body stilled. ‘What old man?’

‘On a white horse – with face tassels. He … he said, “Get out of our way, girl!” I hate him.’

Pressing her daughter’s sobbing body against her chest, Laila planted kisses on her auburn curls, aflame in the morning sunlight peeping through the meshwork of the veranda tiles.

‘This man, did he just appear?’ Laila gently prompted.

‘Yes!’


‘And he had blue eyes and brown hair?’ she whispered, a dullness spreading through her.

‘Yes … how do you know?’ Shirin kept her eyes squeezed shut, blocking out the raw hatred in the man’s face.

Laila stood up. ‘You must have done something!’

‘I didn’t!’ Shirin turned on her mother with a shrill, indignant cry, eyes flashing. ‘I was looking at ants … and I fell down. The horse’s legs nearly hit me.’ The loud sobs were back and this time with a vengeance.

‘Guess what kind of paratha I’ve made you this morning?’ Laila coaxed, keen to change the subject and wiping away her tears. ‘And, by the way, he’s not an old man!’ she reprimanded.


Shirin shrugged at her mother’s comment on the man’s age – not caring.

‘A spinach paratha – with an omelette – no onions, I promise,’ her mother added. The mention of her favourite breakfast did the job; Shirin’s rosebud mouth wedged into a reluctant smile.


Later on the rooftop, after hanging her daughter’s dress to dry, Laila’s head automatically turned to the other section of the village; to the hevali. With its light peachy paintwork and glossy white marble tiles gleaming in the hot sun, the large villa was a beacon to all. With its tall roof gallery, green and white flags flying high from two of the corners, Master Haider’s hevali could easily be spotted at a distance.


Sighing, Laila sank down on the portable wooden bed to get on with an important task. A bucketful of roses had to be threaded fast. Begum’s note tucked amidst the flowers had categorically stated two o’clock.

Laila dug the thick darning needle in and out of the rose stems, ignoring her sore thumbs and fingertips. Her daughter, now fed, bathed, dressed in a new frock and with her damp hair brushed flat against her scalp was sitting beside her.

‘What’re you doing, Mummy?’ she enquired, feeling the soft petals between her fingertips.

‘I’m making a welcoming flower garland, my darling.’


‘Who for?’

‘For a very special person, my darling,’ she whispered, voice husky, kissing her daughter on her wet head.


‘It’s Daddy!’ she shrieked with delight.

Laila’s smile slipped. ‘No! You can meet this person when he arrives. You’ve got a very special job to do, my princess. Look through those holes in the wall tiles. When you see three or four cars coming together into the village, with the big black Jeep in front, you must immediately call me, Shirin.’

*

Gulbahar stood lost beside the marble fountain, trying to recall the chore she had forgotten.

Face clearing, ‘Begum!’ she called. ‘Have you switched on the air conditioning in all the rooms? Remember my beautiful son is coming from a cold country.’


Begum materialised from the main guest dining room, having given the last touches to the table with a vase of fresh orchids. The glass panels and mirrors in all the rooms had been thoroughly inspected for dust and smear marks.

‘Yes, Sahiba-ji, it’s on full blast – in all of the rooms! Ali will wheel in a water cooler near Mistress Mehreen’s bed, for her hot flushes.’

‘How thoughtful! What about the dinner? I wish you had let me ask Rasoola to help you!’

Begum vigorously shook her head, face creasing in distaste at the thought of that woman working in her kitchen. Rasoola, Mehreen’s housekeeper, was cursed with a complaining disposition; about virtually everyone and everything, including her bad back. And the gravest sin of all – she had not one ounce of loyalty to her employers.


Begum did, however, gracefully welcome the town cook, Nalu, into her kitchen. To her surprise, not only was he wonderful at cooking but fantastic company, too; he had kept her giggling all morning with tales about his simple ‘bholi’ wife, who continuously fell victim to the