The Holy Woman

by Qaisra Shahraz

Genres: Family Life; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

A powerful and compelling family drama, The Holy Woman is a romantic story of love and betrayal set in a wealthy Muslim community, with all the pressures and conflicts that modern life and old traditions bring. Zarrie Bano is the glamorous 28-year-old daughter of a wealthy Muslim landowner. She falls in love with Sikander, a business tycoon to whom her father takes an immediate dislike. And when her brother is killed in a freak accident, things get complicated...

Release date: June 10, 2013

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 500

Sample

IN THE PROVINCE of Sind, on the outskirts of a small town, a mela was in full swing. Held in an open dusty field, the annual fair drew men from the surrounding villages to eat hot and cold snacks, to enjoy themselves and watch the antics of the clowns, jugglers and the other entertainers.


Travelling from the four provinces of Pakistan, the performers had come to show off their special skills and artistry to the rural people of Sind. Brusque clapping of hands, hoots of laughter and loud whistling by the young men lent an air of gaiety and expectation to the hot summer afternoon. Forming an ever-enlarging circle, they cheered one of the jugglers – a dextrous fellow who kept three balls simultaneously in the air.

Next into the dusty circle stepped a wiry old man, with a mirror beaded hat on his head, trailing a spider monkey by a lead. The spectators roared with laughter as the animal, dressed in a small frilly skirt and a red fez, started to dance and wriggle its tiny body on a jute mat. The owner turned a gap-toothed smile on his audience, then began to play a tabla drum with two slender sticks, prompting the animal to do a succession of comic somersaults around the circle. The cheering crowd of young men hastily stepped back to allow the monkey more space.


From a distance, a black Shogun Jeep carrying two men wound its way along the dusty road. It came to a halt close to the mela. The driver, a tall man in his early thirties, climbed out of the vehicle and, closing the door behind him, leaned against the Jeep and stretched his long legs.


Removing his sunglasses, he scanned the scene in front of him with amused interest. A smile touched his face as he, too, followed the antics of the spider monkey in the open circle. After a while, bored with the act, his gaze strayed past the crowd to a horse tied to a minar tree. Near the horse, under the large green canopy of the tree, stood a young woman. The stranger’s eyes halted in their track.

Dressed in an elegant black shalwar kameze, a matching black chiffon dupatta was casually draped around her shoulders and over her hair, forming a very becoming frame for her strikingly beautiful face.


The spider monkey was now in full motion, dancing vigorously to the beat of the drum. The woman’s hands too now rose to join in the clapping. The warm summer breeze moulded the flimsy material of her kameze against her slim frame and blew the dupatta off her head, letting it fall in graceful folds around her shoulders. The woman made no move to put it back, ignoring the convention of covering her head in a public place amidst a group of men.


There were no other women present at the mela, apart from three elderly ladies, for it was not common or socially acceptable for young women to join openly in an all-male set of activities.


The stranger was both intrigued and amused at the woman’s open show of defiance. His mouth curved into a full smile as he noted that she still hadn’t made any effort to cover her hair.

As he watched, a young man came to stand next to her and untied the horse from the tree. The stranger’s grey eyes widened; he was suddenly very alert. A strange stillness entered his body as he studied the young man’s face – which was, he discovered, almost a direct replica of the woman’s.


The smile now shot to his eyes. He stood up straight.

Under the tree Zarri Bano’s young brother, Jafar, stood in front of her and whispered in her ear. He turned to the assembled crowd, immediately catching sight of the man staring across at them. Jafar’s face lit up. Smiling, he waved.

‘The guests we were expecting from Karachi have arrived!’ Jafar told his sister excitedly, then his expression sobered. ‘Dearest sister, I wish you would make sure that your scarf manages to stay in place on your head when you are outside in a public place,’ he nagged her gently. ‘Look at your hair! Don’t you ever tie it up? It is everywhere! It is not good for a woman to be seen like this. Men, especially Badmash men, give women looks when they are as beautiful as you. You look so wanton! It creates a very bad impression. Not only of you, but of us and our father. Only naughty women do that sort of thing.’ He was very much conscious of the stranger’s presence and roaming eyes.


‘Have you quite finished, dearest Jafar?’ Zarri Bano smarted from his patronising tone. Her cheeks coloured, ‘I am not going to be lectured at by my baby brother. So what if my dupatta fell down for a few seconds? Have you never seen hair before?’


‘I don’t want to argue here, Baji Jan. You had better get home quickly. He has already seen you and it doesn’t seem right. It is not good for our izzat.’ The urge to usher his sister out of sight was very strong.


Jafar turned back to the man and waved his hand again in acknowledgement, aware of his bareheaded sister standing by his side. The stranger inclined his head towards them in greeting. The thick dark waves of his hair fell over his forehead, glinting in the sun. He lifted his hand in return, a smile still hovering on his lips, his eyes now very much on Zarri Bano.


Zarri Bano felt the pressure of the stranger’s gaze and swayed with it. She watched the exchange between the two men with alarm – her eyes widening.

‘Oh no! Surely it cannot be him?’ she whispered in dismay. She was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, seen by the wrong people. Her heart thumped away in painful anticipation. Drinking in his appearance at one go, she beckoned to her chauffeur.

‘I am ready to go home, Nalu. Can you bring the car round to this side. There are too many men over there.’ The words tripped for no reason.

‘Yes, young Sahiba.’

She waited for the car to draw near, keeping her back to the stranger as she climbed in. She only looked out of the window when her car passed his Jeep. Unfortunately, her eyes immediately met his. Embarrassed, she hastily lowered hers as the car sped by.


After he had given directions to the two guests to follow behind him, Jafar fetched his horse. Riding in front of the Shogun, he led the way through the town bazaar to the outskirts and his family’s villa in Tanda Adam.

The older man, Raja Din, sitting next to his son in the passenger seat, looked at the back of the young man ahead of them on the white horse.

‘Well, if that is the brother, Sikander, then we can assume that the sister will be very attractive too,’ he said.

‘Father, she is very attractive,’ Sikander stated quietly. He recalled the woman’s face very clearly.


‘What do you mean? Have you seen her?’ Raja Din turned a sharp glance on him.


‘No, I am simply guessing,’ Sikander lied smoothly.

‘Well, don’t forget, my son, they have two daughters – and it is the elder one we are interested in. We don’t want to end up with the wrong girl! It has sometimes happened, you know. People go for one match, and end up with the other.’

Sikander glanced at his father, the smile momentarily slipping from his face. ‘Of course,’ he responded. Was she the elder or the younger? he wondered, frowning a little. She had been very pretty – a most pleasant surprise. The irony was, did she now know who he was?


Her suitor.


She had to be the one! ‘One way or other, I am going to have this woman,’ Sikander vowed silently, tapping his hand on the steering wheel.


As he watched the car in front of them disappear in a cloud of dust, Sikander Din had a strange feeling that, in the last few minutes, his life had suddenly and forever become entwined with the beautiful woman dressed in black.

THERE WAS A flurry of activity at the villa. After alerting everyone that their expected guests from Karachi were well on their way, Zarri Bano dashed straight upstairs to her bedroom, two steps at a time, and quickly changed into another designer outfit, this time in a pale shade of pink. Her younger sister Ruby came into the room and teasingly assessed Zarri from head to foot.


‘You have changed! You are actually going to go down and face the guests! I don’t believe it,’ she said, pretending to be astonished. ‘Normally you don’t even deign to meet either your suitors or their parents. This man must therefore be very special if my malika, my queen of a sister, makes an effort to change.’ Ruby’s eyes moved appreciatively over her sister’s slim figure.


‘Oh, come on, Ruby. I have been to the mela with Jafar. I felt hot and sweaty and decided to change. Who says that I am actually going down to meet him? He has a cheek in coming personally, and not even bothering to send a photograph of himself in advance.’ Zarri Bano chastised her sister in the mirror, while fixing a curl in place as she pinned her hair up in an attractive chignon on top of her head, letting some wispy tendrils escape around her ears. She was piqued that the stranger had seen her and probably knew who she was. He had caught her at a disadvantage.


‘So that you could have a preview?’ Ruby read her sister’s thoughts accurately.

‘No,’ Zarri Bano lied.

They had both had a preview. Remembering his searing glance she felt herself go hot with embarrassment and indignation. When her car had passed his Jeep, he had again looked at her closely – almost as if he had dived deeply into her soul. Shuddering in front of the mirror she glimpsed a look of uncertainty in her eyes, and something else.


Finished, she went to stand near the window overlooking the large, beautifully landscaped central courtyard of their villa. It was then that the black Jeep entered through the open gates and came to a halt next to the Banos’ grey car.


Sikander helped his father out, then both men stood and looked round the courtyard with interest. There was a central rose bed in full bloom, and on all sides, profusely flowering oleanders and perfumed bougainvillaea climbed to the top of the six foot walls. A long veranda, with alabaster pillars and a mosaic tiled floor, led into the house. As the young man’s eyes swept up to the bedroom windows, Zarri Bano hastily stepped back behind the curtains, afraid that he might have seen her.


Noting her sister’s actions, Ruby moved to the window and peered down. Jafar had now joined their two guests.


‘Gosh, Ma’shallah, he is very attractive. No wonder you have changed.’ Ruby chuckled at the tide of colour sinking into her sister’s cheeks.


Irked by this teasing, Zarri Bano said crossly, ‘Who says he is attractive? Do you remember Ali? Could any man compete with his looks!’

‘Yes, Ali was very, very good-looking. But there is something about this man – some kind of charisma. I think he may have the bait to draw you into his net, his web – even if it is not his looks.’

‘Don’t talk to me about nets and webs!’ Zarri Bano snapped, moving away from the window. ‘I am not a fish to be angled at, caught and trapped, Ruby.’

‘I am sorry, Baji Jan. That was unforgivable of me, especially knowing how you feel about such analogies and with you being a feminist too.’


‘Yes, so you should be. I am a free woman. I will decide if I want this or any other man. This is why ten years have elapsed and I have still not married. You’ll probably marry before me, and I will be an old maid,’ she joked.

‘You’ll never be an old maid, Zarri Bano. You are too beautiful and glamorous to be left on the shelf. Someone will snap you up some day, if not this man. Do you know, I will probably end up marrying before you, the way you are turning people down. I shall probably land up with one of your jilted suitors. Do you know how many times Chaudharani Kaniz has been to visit us, even after you declined to marry Khawar? I think she has got her eye on me now. If you won’t marry him, she thinks I’ll do instead.’


‘Neither of us will be marrying Khawar. He is more like a brother to us. Anyway can you imagine you or me as the next snobbish Chaudharani Kaniz in the village? No thanks. I’d be bored out of my wits.’

This little exchange had done Zarri Bano the world of good. It had helped her to recover her normal poise. Just because I have caught him staring at me from a crowd of people, and I have stared back, she told herself resolutely, it doesn’t mean anything. I am not going to fall under his spell, as Ruby seems to think.

She did, however, wonder why, contrary to her normal practice, she was prepared to go and meet these guests and spend time in their presence. Normally she found these meetings with would-be suitors nauseous and demeaning, particularly when she knew she would be declining their proposals of marriage.


To hell with all the analysis, she thought emphatically as she descended the ornate circular staircase leading into the central hallway, and walked with a firm step towards the guest drawing room. She was a mature woman of twenty-seven years of age, not a simpering teenager, whose hand had been asked for. She was going to treat this man as a normal guest. Holding herself tall and erect, Zarri Bano stood outside the door, ready to make her formal entrance.


Sikander and his father Raja Din were sitting and talking to Zarri Bano’s parents. Tea had been served by Fatima, their housekeeper. It was the first time that they had all met. Jafar and Sikander had got to know each other in Karachi on business. On one occasion Sikander had invited Jafar to his home.


A friendship had quickly blossomed between the two men. On one such occasion Sikander’s mother mentioned to Jafar the subject of finding a suitable bride for her son. At that time all Jafar could think of was his own two sisters. The elder one, he had informed them, had declined so many suitors that they had lost count and were embarrassed on behalf of the people who had come to ask for her hand. ‘You are welcome to try, however,’ he had informed Sikander. ‘If not, there is always my younger sister, Ruby,’ he chuckled.

After meeting Sikander and getting to know him better, Jafar knew instinctively that his eldest sister, Zarri Bano, was the woman for his friend. In age, education, looks and temperament, they were well matched on all accounts.

On his return, Jafar had informed his parents and Zarri Bano about Sikander. She, for her part, had dismissed the matter from her mind straight away – she wasn’t interested! Although for a moment or two it did occur to her that it would be handy to be married to someone settled in Karachi, when she set up her publishing company. Jafar’s father, Habib, and mother, Shahzada were, however, very interested. They asked Jafar to invite his friend and his parents to their home.


Yet in their hearts they despaired. It had almost become routine, turning suitors away. It wasn’t only Zarri Bano who rejected the men who came to see her and ask for her hand; her father, too, was every bit as fastidious. Somehow, none of the callers ever seemed to measure up to his very intelligent and very beautiful eldest daughter. He always ended up by declaring arrogantly: ‘The man has to be the best.’ When Zarri Bano declined, Habib secretly applauded and was grateful for her decision.


His wife, on the other hand, saw things from a mother’s point of view. She was on the point of sheer desperation. Zarri Bano was in her late twenties and still there was no marriage in sight. ‘When will she settle down and raise a family?’ she kept asking her husband, and Habib was wont to reply flippantly that there was plenty of time.

‘Do you want to saddle our beautiful daughter to any nathu pethu?’ he asked her. ‘I’ll only let her marry a man of the highest pedigree from a land-owning family at that, with a good name and social standing.’


His wife was then duty-bound to scold him. ‘Don’t say that, Habib Sahib. All children are precious in their parents’ eyes, including those suitors. It is not good to keep dismissing them. You and your daughter will gain a bad reputation. They will think that she is too grand, proud and opinionated, when in fact, she’s just been unable to make her choice. You haven’t helped either. You have been colluding with her in rejecting the suitors, haven’t you?’

‘Don’t be silly! I am just very possessive of my daughter and want the best for her.’

‘That is just it – you are too possessive! That’s the problem. It is not healthy, Habib Sahib.’ Shahzada’s gaze had pinned his accusingly.


‘Now you are being melodramatic.’ Habib turned away from his wife, laughing, bringing the conversation to an end.


Here were the guests, come to meet and get to know their daughter. If all went well there would be a follow-up meeting two weeks later. If it came to some sort of rapport developing between Sikander and Zarri Bano, as well as between their two sets of parents, then Zarri Bano could visit them in Sikander’s home in Karachi.


On seeing Sikander and exchanging a few pleasantries, Shahzada was highly pleased, her heart warming immediately to him. Her eyes often strayed to his handsome face. Habib, however, held himself in reserve. In looks and manner Sikander was most appealing – he couldn’t fault him, but he was going to wait and see his daughter’s reaction and then decide.


A knock at the door made them all look up.

Zarri Bano entered. She stood before them: tall, majestic in bearing and stunning in her smart pink outfit. Sikander swiftly took in her appearance, satisfied himself that it was the same woman of the mela, then bent forward, seemingly preoccupied in the act of breaking a biscuit on a plate. It was at that moment that Habib glanced across at him, to assess his reaction to his beloved daughter. His mouth tightened as he saw the time Sikander took in looking up.


His father, on the other hand, setting eyes on Zarri Bano for the first time, was totally captivated. A wide grin on his face, he followed her every movement as she walked towards them.

She bade them Salam. Sikander heard her and still didn’t bother to look up. The voice was pleasing, he noted. It matched her looks.


Zarri Bano allowed her gaze to pass over everybody, catching their eyes individually and smiling. Coming further into the room, she sat down next to her mother, on a sofa opposite Sikander and his father. Now she willed him to look up, piqued that he had not met her gaze, but had been more concerned with his stupid biscuit than with her!


She didn’t know where the impulse came from but it was totally in character, in her case, to go against normal etiquette. She decided to address him personally, so that he would have to turn to her and look up. She wasn’t going to be ignored by this arrogant, handsome stranger who had stolen into her peaceful world and had dared to violate her earlier with his gaze – suitor or otherwise!


‘Sikander Sahib,’ she began sweetly. She had learnt his name from Ruby on the stairs. ‘Did you have a pleasant journey? Was our mela to your liking? We are a bit gauche in the country compared to the sophisticated world of Karachi, you see.’


He looked up then!

His eyebrows shot up; he was surprised at her audacity in speaking directly to him in the very presence of their parents, and without any formal introduction as such. Then, for her to remind him of that scene at the mela! It was most improper. A disapproving expression entered his eyes. She is too unconventional for my liking! darted the thought at the back of his mind.


Now he gave her the benefit of his full gaze. Smoky grey in colour, his eyes seemed to have plunged directly into her open soul again. Yet they remained cool and there was no answering smile on his lips.

‘Yes, Sahiba, we had a lovely journey,’ he said politely. ‘And yes, too, your mela was a nice interlude on our way. It was a pleasant surprise – a preview of what to expect here in your home.’


Zarri Bano’s cheeks delicately coloured. Only he noticed it, because he knew the cause of it. He had reminded her of their earlier encounter and was pleased to note that there was a dent in her poise after all.


Zarri Bano turned to Raja Din, dismissing Sikander neatly, and began to talk animatedly about Karachi and the university course she had studied there. Raja Din beamed at her, her incredible beauty swimming before his eyes. He envisaged beautiful grandchildren with the face of this woman. It was those eyes verging between blue and green, sparkling at him: to have a grandson with those eyes! He responded to her questions enthusiastically.

While they talked, Sikander covertly watched and listened, amused that his father was so smitten with her. Hadn’t the same thing happened to him, Sikander, at the mela? One glance had him hooked!


After half an hour Zarri Bano left them. That was how far it reached with this first meeting.

Sikander and his father stayed for dinner. This time Ruby joined them, while Zarri Bano remained in her room. ‘Even if I was interested, which I am not,’ she said haughtily, ‘Why should I go back to that room? I have never done so before, so why should I start now? Especially to please a man who has not even bothered to smile at me.’

She couldn’t, however, stop herself from listening to the sounds downstairs and waiting to see when they would leave. At the end, she saw them go while hovering behind the curtain. ‘You will return for me, Sikander, you conceited fellow,’ she murmered. ‘It will then give me great pleasure – to turn you down!’ And Zarri Bano whisked away from the window, dismissing him totally from her mind.


When Ruby came up later and told her that they wanted to come again, Zarri Bano made no comment. Downstairs, she passed their housekeeper, Fatima, in the hall. A smile lit the older woman’s face.


‘This one is good-looking, isn’t he?’ Fatima teased. Very fond of Zarri Bano, Fatima was prone to talk honestly with her.

‘Oh, he is all right, I suppose. We will see what happens,’ Zarri Bano replied, her cheek dimpling playfully.

‘But you do like him, don’t you?’ Fatima persisted, wanting to make sure.

Zarri Bano merely laughed aloud, as she turned to go into the dining room. Fatima stared after her young mistress. She wished for nothing more than to have their Zarri Bano, and her own daughter, Firdaus, married off happily. She prayed for their health and their futures. Above all, for her to have Khawar for a son-in-law – that was Fatima’s own true dream.


Later, alone with her husband in their bedroom, Shahzada scanned Habib’s face with trepidation. He sat on the sofa, a business account ledger spread out on his lap.

‘I am not happy with the munshi’s land account. There is something not quite right here.’ Habib glanced up briefly at his wife from across the room.


‘But are you happy with Sikander?’ Shahzada softly ventured.

Habib’s head jerked up, but he looked quickly down again and crisply turned the page of the ledger, marking it in one corner with his gold pen.


‘I think that our daughter has, at last, found her match,’ Shahzada tried again. She experienced the urgent need to pursue the subject, for she had glimpsed a strange look in her husband’s eyes. She knew that he was hiding his thoughts behind the business ledger.


‘You think so?’ Habib queried, turning to his wife and throwing the gold pen on to the table in front of him.

‘Yes,’ Shahzada answered bravely. ‘Did you not see, Habib Sahib, the look in your daughter’s eyes when she returned from the mela, and her reaction as she met him? She has never looked like that before.’ Disregarding the chilled look in her husband’s eyes – they were as cold as the Kashmiri Mountains – Shahzada boldly persisted, ‘I think this handsome tycoon will be our daughter’s destiny …’


She abruptly stopped as her husband knocked the heavy wooden coffee table aside with his foot and stood up, a towering figure glaring down at her, letting the ledger fall to the marble floor with a loud clatter.

‘I haven’t decided yet.’ He spoke implacably. ‘It is obvious that you are besotted with him. That conceited bastard was more concerned with biscuits than giving my daughter the respect and attention she deserves. He barely glanced at my Zarri Bano, Shahzada! Men have been falling in love with my daughter since she was a teenager, whereas he could not even be bothered to look at her properly. That I find very offensive!’

‘But what about your daughter? Didn’t you see the look in her eyes?’ Shahzada begged.

‘Yes, I did,’ he ground out. ‘All the more reason for me to be cautious. I am the head of the family and I will decide what is good for my Zarri Bano. I don’t like this man, Shahzada.’


‘Habib, you are being too protective. I tell you, our Zarri Bano is keen on him. You must have seen how she reacted in his presence? Did you not see how she—’

‘This man has the power to hurt my beloved daughter. I feel it in my very bones!’ Habib replied angrily, cutting his wife short. ‘I will not let anyone do anything to cause her any pain or insult her in any way. You forget, Shahzada, in our clan, destinies are made and dictated by us. I will decide if this man is to be my daughter’s destiny or not.’


‘No, Habib, no!’ Shahzada appealed, her words echoing in the empty room, as Habib strode out of it banging the heavy walnut door behind him.

Shahzada stared at the intricate carvings on the back of the door with a sense of foreboding.

CHAUDHARANI KANIZ WAS being driven back from a two-week holiday in the resort of Murri on the Kashmir border. She had also, on her way, visited two of her sisters, who were married and settled in Lahore, in the province of Punjab.


Despite the stifling summer heat of Sind she was glad to be nearly home. She hoped that her son, Khawar, was well and that everything was running smoothly in her household, left in the capable hands of her servant, Neesa.

In Chaudharani Kaniz’s mind, the rishta or eligible bride to whom her youngest sister Sabra had introduced her in Lahore, would be an excellent wife for Khawar. The young woman was attractive and well-educated, but more to the point she came from a wealthy family of good repute and background.


The only snag, however, was whether the young woman and her family would find their proposal acceptable. The thought was firmly lodged in Kaniz’s mind like a thorn: would a middle-class, educated and citified Lahori woman relish coming to the quiet backwaters of a rural village in scorching Sind?


That was the problem and a big problem at that! For it was an understood fact boasted by Lahori women that very few of them favoured the rural life, no matter what facilities they were offered. Even electricity, video recorders and air conditioning were no compensation for the teeming nightlife, entertainment and shopping facilities offered by the old capital of Pakistan.

Born and bred in the rural world, Kaniz herself didn’t care a paisa for city ways. When she had been given the option of either marrying into an ‘ordinary’ but very much an urban family, or staying on in the village and marrying a very wealthy landlord, Kaniz without a moment’s hesitation had plummeted for the honour of becoming a zemindar’s wife. Blessed with a generous store of commonsense and shrewdness from an early age, coupled with an innate avarice, Kaniz thought she would have to be deranged to turn down an offer like that!


Becoming a chaudharani and reigning supreme as the headwoman in a close-knit village hierarchy was an opportunity which didn’t walk up to one’s doorstep every day. She had offered seventy thanksgiving nafl prayers to Allah for bringing such good kismet her way. Kaniz thus had no qualms at all about settling permanently in the village.


The shallow allure and glitter of the city life failed to beckon to her. ‘With acres of land to his name and plenty of revenue coming from it, you and your husband Sarwar will never be short of anything,’ her mother had drummed into her excitedly. She didn’t have to be told that her wildest materialistic dreams would be realised – and so they were.


The only thing that had spoilt it all, and continued to rankle unto this day, was the fact that her husband had been jilted by another village woman before Kaniz came on the scene. She had been his second choice. This was the thorn, the serpent in her rose garden, whose cancerous effect on her life she could neither dig out nor dislodge.

In the early years, too, she had chafed miserably from being labelled as the ‘Second Chaudharani’. For everyone knew and it was an undisputed fact that Shahzada was the first and most important local landowner. When Habib Khan and his Chaudharani Shahzada had moved to the nearest town, Tanda Adam, ten years ago, Kaniz had simply been elated. Only the old man, Siraj Din, remained in his large hawaili, in the village. Up till then Shahzada, as Siraj Din’s eldest daughter-in-law, had unwittingly and innocently robbed all the limelight from poor Kaniz.


Now she, Kaniz, was the only chaudharani in the village and she never let a single soul forget it! With her snooty manner and imperiou