Читать книгу The Pakistani Bride - Bapsi Sidhwa - Страница 7

Chapter 1

Qasim was ten when his father, squatting by a raucous little mountain stream, told him:

“Son, you’re to be married!”

The pronouncement had little effect on Qasim, but a moment later, when his father placed a heavy muzzle-loader in his arms, Qasim flushed with pleasure.

“Mine?” he asked, wishing to run behind a rock and seclude himself with the precious gift.

His father nodded. “Sit with me awhile,” he urged, grinning at the boy’s impatience.

“You know of the bad feeling between me and Resham Khan? It is because of a loan I made him last year. He hasn’t paid me yet.”

The boy spat knowingly. Looking up from his ancient gun he met his father’s gaze with theatrical intensity.

“I will kill him with this gun,” he announced, his hazel eyes flashing.

Chiselled into precocity by a harsh life in the mountains, Qasim had known no childhood. From infancy, responsibility was forced upon him and at ten he was a man, conscious of the rigorous code of honor by which his tribe lived.

His father laughed. Then, seeing the hurt in the boy’s solemn face, he said: “Haven’t we settled enough scores? Anyway this will not lead to a feud. Resham Khan has promised us his daughter!”

The sturdy, middle-aged tribesman knew just how generous the offer was. Any girl—and he had made sure that this one was able-bodied—was worth more than the loan due. His three older sons were already married and now it was Qasim’s turn. The boy was still a little young, but the offer was too good to pass up.

To begin with, he had thought of marrying the girl himself. He had only one wife; but in a twinge of paternal conscience, he decided to bestow the girl on Qasim. It was his first duty.

He ruffled the boy’s sun-bleached, matted hair. “My young bridegroom,” he said playfully, “you’ll be fetching home a lovely girl. How d’you like that!”

Qasim was delighted. Not only did he have a gun; he was to be married. As a prospective groom he was immediately festooned with embroidered waistcoats, turbans, and new clothes. Chickens and goats were slaughtered. The women bustled about, and he was the glorious center of all their activity and attention. The envy of every unmarried fellow his age, he was the recipient of man-to-man ribaldry and advice. Above all, there was the prospect of a playmate he knew he would have the sanction to tease, to order about, and to bully!

A week later the marriage party danced and drummed its way over tortuous mountain paths to finalize the contract and bring home the bride.

Afshan sat amidst the huddle of women. Her head bowed beneath a voluminous red veil, she wept softly as befitted a bride. Her heavy silver bangles, necklaces, and earrings tinkled at the slightest movement. She also wore an intricately carved silver nose-pin. Thrice she was asked if she would accept Qasim, the son of Arbab, as her husband and thrice an old aunt murmured “yes” on her behalf. Then the mountains reverberated with joyful huzzas, gunfire, and festivity.

It was almost midnight when the sleepy bridegroom was told, “Now, son, you are to meet your bride. Smarten yourself up: don’t you want to impress her with all your finery?” The crest of Qasim’s turban was perked up, his eyes lined anew with antimony, and the gathers on his trousers puffed out about his legs.

The drowsy boy was propelled into the bridal chamber amidst a clamor of catcalls. He heard the bolt shut from outside and was on his own, suddenly terrified. For a while he stood backed up against the door, his eyes fumbling over the dimly lit room: then they focused on the stooped and veiled form of his bride. She sat on a brightly colored quilt spread on a string bed, with her back to him.

Afshan knew her husband was locked in the room with her, and her body trembled with anticipation. Overwhelmed by modesty, she bowed her head still further. The edge of her veil almost touched her toes.

It had been drilled and drilled into Qasim that he was to walk up to his bride and lift the veil off her face. The docile, huddled form of the girl gave his frozen heart courage and he padded towards her in a nervous trance. Reaching down, he lifted the edge of the veil and threw it back.

He stood rooted in panic. Before him was the modestly slumped form of a young woman instead of the girl playmate he had expected. He had been instructed to tilt up her chin and look into her face, but he dared not.

His bride had shut her eyes in confusion. When in all that time there was no flicker of movement, she peered through slit lashes and saw the sandaled feet of her husband, and then the shalwar-clad legs. Her heart constricted with dismay: she was married to a boy! Hastily she looked up. She stared in amazement at the childish, frightened face and the slanting, cringing eyes watching her as if she were about to smack him.

Was this a joke? She glanced beyond him, fervently hoping to see the man who had pushed his small brother forward to tease her. But there was no one.

“Are you my husband?” she asked incredulously.

Qasim nodded with woebegone gravity. The girl didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She had been told that her groom was very young, but she had thought that he would be, like herself, at least fifteen. She began to laugh, while tears of disappointment slid down her cheeks. She laughed uncontrollably and Qasim, stung to the quick, rushed for the door. He threw himself against the bolted door and, rattling it savagely, shouted, “Open! Open! I want to get out.” A distant sound of tired chatter crept in through the door. Flushed with anger and embarrassment Qasim sidled to a corner of the room. Sobbing angrily, he at last fell asleep.

Years later, Afshan recalled their marriage night to her husband when he asked her, “But how did you feel? What had you expected?”

“I used to wander by streams,” she said, “or sit on some high place dreaming of my future husband. Gusts of wind enveloped me and I’d imagine the impatient caresses of my lover. My body was young and full of longing. I’d squeeze my breasts to ease their ache . . .” she paused mischievously. “Instead, I very nearly suckled my husband!”

That first night Afshan had lifted the sleeping boy to her bed. Brushing his tear-streaked cheeks with her full red mouth, she had tucked his legs between her thighs and fallen asleep.

Afshan accepted her lot cheerfully. She helped her mother-in-law, chaffed the maize, tended and milked the two goats and frolicked her way through her chores. Occasionally, when his mother scolded her, Qasim felt wretched. He loved her vivacious, girlish ways and was totally won by her affection. He teased her and played pranks. When he was particularly unkind or obdurate, his wife and his mother combined to give him a thrashing. Then Qasim would shout, “I am your husband. How dare you!” and he would hate her.

One afternoon, some years after their marriage, Afshan was washing herself at the stream when Qasim strolled up and sat on a rock watching her. He was fourteen years old and gangling tall. A fine down lined his lip and cheeks. For some time now he had been persistently aware of his manhood. The wet black shirt clung to Afshan’s body, the front strings open. Unselfconsciously she poured the icy water over herself. Qasim had often filled the containers while she washed and she looked on him as a younger brother. Dousing her face, she suddenly blinked and opened her eyes. Qasim was staring at the white undulation where her shirt parted. Her breasts and the taut nipples were clearly visible through the wet cloth.

“What are you looking at?” she asked severely. Before she could shield herself, Qasim had slipped off the stone and into the water. With a thrust of his young arm, he gripped her breast, “Let me . . . Let me,” he begged in his cracked young voice. Afshan smacked his arm off. Aghast, she stared at his sheepish face. Again he tried to hold her and again she slapped him hard. Qasim cowered, shielding his face, while Afshan berated him, “. . . you shameless dog, you jackal, you! I’ll teach you to be brazen.” She wept with embarrassment, lashing out and hitting him wherever she could. Qasim scrambled from the rushing stream. He stumbled. Afshan fell on him with a stick, screaming abuse.

Attracted by the rumpus, a stranger from the next village came upon the scene. His tribal sense of chivalry was outraged by the assault on the girl. He dragged the boy to his feet and with heavy blows started punishing him. He might have maimed him, had not Qasim, red with fury, cried, “But she is my wife. Let go, she is my wife!” The man, tightening his hold on the boy, looked at Afshan. “Is he your husband?” he asked incredulously.

Breathless with exertion and frightened, she panted, “Yes, yes, let go, don’t touch him.”

The man released Qasim. He stared at Afshan’s wet body, at the color that flushed her cheeks and at her suddenly darkening eyes. His expression changed. A wary indecisiveness crept into his features. He snickered, leering at her. Afshan covered herself quickly.

Edging sideways, drawn by the momentum of his new interest, the stranger sidled towards Afshan. Qasim’s fear exploded into loathing at the stranger’s lewd glance. Picking up a large rock he flung it at him straight, and then another. The man bent over and squatted in pain. His teeth glistened ferociously between cracked lips. But before he could get back his wind, Qasim, holding Afshan’s arm, was skittering away through the winding gullies.

After this, their relations changed. Qasim still teased Afshan, but with an awkward gentleness. She in turn seemed unduly severe and shy.

At sixteen Qasim became a father.

By cultivating the steppes, granting clearance to occasional smugglers from Afghanistan, and rearing a meager string of cattle, Qasim and his family managed to survive. Survival being the sole aim of life in those uncompromising mountains, they asked for no more.

By the time he was thirty-four, Qasim and Afshan had lost three children, two to typhoid and one in a fall off a ledge. It did not matter really, because two sons and a daughter survived—a fair enough average. Then a fugitive from Soviet Kirgiz visited. He left the next day, and within a month they heard that he had died of smallpox.

A few days later Qasim returned to find Afshan weeping by their hut.

“What is it?”

She forced herself to be calm, lest “Mata” the dreaded Goddess, so easily enraged, do even more harm.

“Zaitoon is not eating, ‘Mata’ has honored her with a visit.” Qasim’s throat contracted. He loved his daughter, a child with wide, tawny eyes, and limbs of quicksilver.

Brushing away tears with the edge of her tattered shawl, Afshan led him into a darkened corner of the room. Listlessly, the small five-year-old Zaitoon lay on the floor on a straw mattress. Her bright-eyed face and her small naked body were disfigured by a scabby eruption of pus-filled sores.

They did everything within their power. The dank, dung-plastered cubicle was darkened further, for the “Mata” could not stand light. Herbs and leaves, procured with great difficulty, and reputed to have a cooling effect, were strewn near the girl’s burning body. Zaitoon’s needs were ministered to with great obedience, for the Spirit in her body was ruthlessly demanding.

The disease spread to her mouth and throat and to her intestines. The child thrashed about in agonized frenzy.

Neighbors slipped like shadows across the door, leaving behind some small gift of food or apparel in token of their awe. A holy man of their tribe hurried from afar at the summons of the “Mata.” He placed amulets by the child and sprinkled her with holy water. But the girl, her eyes blinded by sores, grew worse. Finally, mercifully, she died.

The two boys were stricken also, and then Afshan, worn to a splinter, contracted the illness.

Within a month, Qasim, who had survived an attack of smallpox as a child, was the only one left of his family.

He was inconsolable. His face swollen with tears, and his throat hoarse with wailing, he flailed his chest with his huge fists, but death, swift, premature and grotesquely unfair, had to be accepted.

A year later a clansman who worked in the plains persuaded Qasim to travel down to Jullundur. He secured him a position as watchman at an English bank.