Chapter 1
In the dark the ground felt cold under her feet. Gingerly she inched forward, putting one foot forward at a time. She found the first step. Carefully she put her foot on the step. It did not give way. The darkness around her was complete; she could not see a thing. Cautiously she sought the second step. This too was firm. A burst of cool air touched her body and she lifted her head. The claustrophobia she had felt a while ago, lessened. She put her foot on the third step and peered into the darkness. ∞∞∞∞∞
He opened the lounge door and stepped in. Shakir Baba, who had heard the car come up the driveway, came hurrying out of the kitchen.
‘How are you, Shakir Baba,’ he greeted him, courteous as ever.
‘I am well, young master. And you?’
‘I am well too,’ he replied putting the keys on the center table and seating himself on the sofa.
‘Would you like some tea?’ Shakir Baba asked.
‘Yes. That would be nice. Is father home?’
‘No, he left a little while ago, taking the driver with him’.
‘That’s too bad, I came to see him. Any idea when he will return?’
‘I have no idea, but perhaps Begum Sahiba will know,’ Shakir Baba replied.
‘Is Mummy home?’
‘Yes, she is in her room. Should I tell her you are here?’
‘Please do.’
Zaleed picked up a magazine from the center table and began to skim through it. Finding nothing of interest he flung it back on the table and casually looked around the room. His eyes fell on a painting on the far wall. Intrigued he walked up to have a closer look.
A fair hand, from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, was painted against a black background. The five fingers, long and tapering, were spread out and from each finger long thin branches extended in every direction creating the impression of a tree against the dark backdrop. The branches emanating from the hand were bare of all foliage creating a forlorn image. The hand from the wrist to the elbow too was stark and withered giving the impression of dried bark, the protruding veins reinforcing the impression of a gnarled trunk. On the wrist was clamped a beautiful watch with a black dial and a black strap. The watch had no hands to tell the time; instead tiny diamonds sparkled on its face. The lines of fate, life, head and heart etched on the palm stood out in sharp relief against the hand; on each of the lines small spots of blood, so tiny as to be mere dots, sparkled.
Glancing down, he noticed the painting had been captioned Desire. Even more intrigued, he continued to study it. Moving back a couple of steps he looked at it from this perspective. The image was undoubtedly that of a tree; it was difficult to see it as anything other than that. It was only on closer examination that one realized that a hand had been painted in the likeness of a tree.
Another glance at the bottom of the painting told him that the artist was UM ME. This gave no clue as to whether the artist was a man or a woman. But whoever it was there could be no doubt that this was a painter of an extraordinary caliber. Zaleed was an artist himself and also an art critic. There was no fault he could find with this work. The lines were just right, the brushstrokes supreme, and the colors molded to perfection.
Desire…he pondered over the title. This painting which was new to the room seemed to dominate all the others in the lounge.
‘This painting was not here before,’ he observed as Shakir Baba entered the room with tea for him.
‘Yes. Begum Sahiba got it a few days ago.’ Shakir Baba left the room just as Nuzhat entered.
‘You have come after a very long time, Zaleed,’ Nuzhat said going up to him and patting his cheek.
‘Asalam alaikum, Mummy. How are you? Yes, I have been very busy…Mummy, where did you get this painting from?’
‘It was being sold at the club. I liked it and bought it.’
‘Who is the artist?’
‘That I don’t know.’
‘Give this painting to me Mummy. I’ll pay you for it,’ Zaleed wasted no time in making his request.
‘Forget about the payment. You can have it.’
‘No Mummy. This must be a very expensive painting. I can’t just pick it up and walk away,’ said Zaleed making himself comfortable on the sofa.
‘No, the painting itself is very inexpensive; only Rs2000, but the frame is expensive. I had it framed after I bought it,’ Nuzhat explained, coming and sitting next to him.
‘Only Rs2000. That’s unbelievable. It’s criminal. For art like this to be sold so…’ Zaleed shook his head in disbelief. ‘Anyway Mummy, if you ever see a painting by this artist again, please buy it for me.’
‘For sure. I’ll remember. Now tell me how is the factory running?’ Nuzhat asked changing the subject effectively.
∞∞∞∞∞
The rain fell even harder. Irritated she shut the book with a bang. She could feel her anger rising. She looked up at the wood and roof from where she could see the water that was beginning to seep through—as it did every year.
‘And now a dish will be placed under it and the maddening sound of water plop plopping into it all night will not let me sleep,’ she muttered to herself in exasperation.
Sitting on the wooden cot, with a book in her lap and biting her nails she presented a picture of anxiety. Through the open door now adding to the noise of the falling rain was the sound of Mama Jan dragging and pulling things out of the open courtyard onto the verandah to protect them from the downpour. When the rain had started Mama Jan had been praying; by the time she had finished the drizzle and turned into a downpour. Without even waiting to fold up her prayer mat Mama Jan had run into the courtyard to rescue the furniture from the rain. Not once did she call on Mariam to help her and Mariam too obdurately remained where she was making no effort to lend a hand.
With the book shut she continued to muse in anger. ‘All this is because Mama Jan chooses it to be so. Let her move the furniture herself; perhaps she will then realize how futile all this is. But Mama Jan…Mama Jan will never understand anything! At the rate it is raining soon the lane outside will be flooded and all the filthy water will overflow into our courtyard. And we will not even be able to step out from the verandah into the courtyard without getting our feet mired in muck.’ She gave an angry sigh trying hard to keep her anxiety under control.
‘Soon we will be marooned on an island, waiting for the rain to subside, waiting for the brick floor to reemerge from the filth—the 15-foot long brick corridor that links our verandah to the outer door beyond the courtyard—and unless all this happens there is no way we can access the world outside our door. And this…all this Mama Jan you say is my fate. That were it not so, none of this would have happened.’ Mariam continued to brood with a bitter smile playing on her lips.
Adding to the din of the rainstorm was the bleating of a goat. Ever since she could remember a goat was bought every year and at the end of the year it was offered up as a sacrifice. As a child she had loved these animals but as she grew up she began to take an unreasonable dislike to them—these goats whose color changed every year but whose bleating never varied.
Now, yet another noise, as familiar as the bleating of the goat, filled the room: the clucking of chickens. Again as far back as Mariam could remember, they had a brood in the house and while she disliked these hens her aversion to them was not as intense as her loathing of the goats. Call it the doctrine of necessity or whatever, for she enjoyed the eggs they laid and, occasionally, the meat they provided. This was her only indulgence. If there was something she could make use of, she was willing to overlook the irritation it caused.
So far the sound of the mewing of the cat, yet another animal that formed an integral part of the household, had not reached her. It was yet another sound she loathed. She could never decide whether she hated the cat or the goat more. At least the goat came in useful once a year, but the cat…what use was it?
She could remember every cat they had ever had. Each time a cat died a new one would appear after a few days, and Mama Jan…she could feel her temper rise again as she thought of the last cat they had and how tense that made her. The cat had met with an accident on the lane outside when it had been hit by a motorbike. Its spine had been injured and it could no longer walk properly. It dragged itself everywhere a little at a time. Instead of getting rid of it immediately, Mama Jan began to look after the cat as if it were a new born baby. Mariam would be nauseated each time she saw Mama Jan clean up after it. How could she do that, Mariam would wonder. Did she not feel repulsed by it? Every time the cat made a mess Mama Jan would clean it up. She would wash the cat in warm water and regularly massage its hind legs which had been injured in the accident. Mariam wished she could throw the cat away in the garbage heap! This went on for a year and then one day the cat died. Mama Jan did nothing but mourn that day, and Mariam celebrated by cooking the meal. Thank God she was finally rid of the cat.
And then, two weeks later Mama Jan took in another kitten. Mariam wanted to bang her head against the wall. But Mama Jan was as chirpy as could be. One would have thought a long-lost relative had returned.
‘Yes. Mama Jan and her pets,’ thought Mariam with a cynical smile. ‘Me, the goat, the hens, the chicken…and of these I am the least important in her eyes,’ she began to mutter in indignation.
All through the year the animals would change their spots—from the courtyard in summer to the verandah during the rains, and to this very room in winter. This little room, in this little 3-marla house with its tiny courtyard, its tiny kitchen and where there was nothing—no fridge, no TV, no heater, no gas, nothing! She wished she could flee from this tiny, suffocating house. Sometimes in anger she would tell Mama Jan, ‘Why did you bother to get electricity? We could have done without it. We could have used oil lamps, or lanterns or even candles. What need was there for electricity?’
Mama Jan would not respond. In silence she would listen to her ranting. She would often think that this silence, this serenity, were the weapons Mama Jan used to defeat her. To debilitate her.
The rain had increased in intensity. And Mariam’s anger too kept intensifying. She disliked rain any time of the year, but monsoon rain….she wished she could go and live in a desert where there would be not a drop of water. Not even drinking water. Just no water. Period.
The monsoons, the resultant dirty-water filled courtyard and the muck strewn lanes would make it impossible for her to walk to her college without spoiling her clothes. And to go to college with mud splattered clothes was a humiliation too much to bear. She had only one solution to this problem. On the days it rained she would stay home. But when it rained incessantly for days on end she would have no choice but to grit her teeth and make her way to college being as careful as she could to lift the cuff of her shalwar high above the filth, but despite her best efforts some mud would inevitably be splattered on her clothes. And then to see the smirk on the faces of the others as they looked down on her…when heavy silk and rich brocade are muddied their beauty is enhanced, but mud on coarse unrefined cotton only draws attention to the poverty of the wearer.
Mama Jan came into the room. Mariam quickly picked up her book and pretended to be absorbed in it. Mama Jan was soaked to the skin. From under her book Mariam looked at her askance. The wet clothes clinging to her revealed all her bones making her look even frailer. Without saying a word to Mariam she took off her chador and spread it on the wooden cot to dry. Then she folded the prayer mat and looked up at the ceiling with a half smile. ‘I see this corner of the roof is holding out well. Despite the fact that it has been raining for days now no water has yet seeped in,’ she commented with satisfaction.
‘Yes the concrete you spread on the roof before the rains seems to have done its job,’ said Mariam, pointedly looking at another spot from where the water was beginning to drip.
Wordlessly, Mama Jan left the room and brought back a sun-baked dish to put under the dripping ceiling.
Every year before the rains Mama Jan would religiously have the roof repaired with a mixture of mud and gravel to stop it from breaking up altogether. For the last three years she had spread a clean plastic sheet before beginning the process and now there were three plastic sheets embedded in the roof. But to no avail. Each year the monsoons did further damage to this dilapidated building and rain water would manage to find its way in. And each year the roof threatened to collapse in the heavy rain. But unbelievably, this year it was holding out reasonably well.
As with all else, Mariam hated the time before the rains when Mama Jan would start fixing the roof because Mama Jan would sit in the centre of the courtyard kneading together the clay and gravel used to bind the roof. Her hands up to the elbow would be covered in the mixture and often she would use her feet also to knead the mixture. At such times Mariam hated it when Mama Jan cooked for her. Although she would scrub her hands clean before starting the meals Mariam could not stop herself from showing the revulsion she felt. Gradually Mama Jan had stopped cooking the days she was busy with the roof. Instead she would send for the meal from outside.
The ceiling fan whirred softly fanning her anger more than the room. This supposedly noiseless fan’s humming was yet another constant in her life. She often thought that if she were ever to move away to more congenial surroundings she would never be able to sleep without this constant white noise in her ears.
‘No comforts, no luxuries, just contentment. To hell with this contentment Mama Jan,’ she muttered in resentment.
‘How long can a human being be happy in a ramshackle room with cracked flooring and a leaking roof, with four animals, some seedlings and forlorn hopes for company?’ she thought to herself. ‘How long can a person remain happy in such circumstances? In fact, how can a human being remain in such a state? And why should one? If better circumstances present themselves why should one not take advantage of the situation? But Mama Jan…who can explain this to Mama Jan? But if she wants to live like a frog in a well, let her. She has spent her life living like this Why should I do the same? If she thinks, like her, I can stay happy in this little room with her animals and plants, she is mistaken. This house is not my destiny. I will not live here.’ Mariam’s anger showed no sign of abating.
‘I cannot spend my life here with them. I am not one of them,’ this oft repeated thought ran through her mind again. ‘How long can she keep me chained here? One day I will run away…Mama Jan cannot hold me forever.’ In her increased state of agitation, Mariam began to gnaw at her nails again.
Mama Jan came into the room again. Once again Mariam picked up her book and pretended to be engrossed in it. Mama Jan had changed into dry clothes and now set about tidying the room. Mariam had been painting in the room all day and as usual had not bothered to clear up after herself. All her things lay scattered around—the easel, the palette, the paint brushes, the tubes of paint, her books—all the paraphernalia that she used for painting. Patiently, Mama Jan picked up each thing returning it to its place. Not once did Mariam get up to help and not once did she thank her. She felt Mama Jan owed her this for incarcerating her within these walls.
‘She owes me this,’ Mariam thought to herself angrily, ‘for all the pain she has caused me. After all it is because of her stubbornness that we are here. So if she has to work so hard it is her own fault. If only she would listen to me she would be spared of having to do so much. But if she will not listen; if she insists on having her own way, then so be it. I, too, will not help.’
‘You haven’t had your tea,’ her mother’s voice broke her reverie.
‘I told you I did not want any tea and yet you got it,’ she replied without bothering to look up from her book.
‘I gave you tea because you have not eaten anything all day,’ her mother replied as she picked up the cup of cold tea from the bedside table.
‘And I will never ever eat again, at least not in this house.’
‘Why are you being so stubborn, Mariam?’ her mother asked gently coming to sit beside her on the bed.
‘I am not being stubborn. You are,’ Mariam replied angrily shutting the book with a bang.
‘Whatever I am doing I am doing for you, Mariam. For your good.’
‘Please Mama Jan! Don’t keep repeating this all the time,’ Mariam replied wearily. ‘Stop doing things for “my good”. Leave me to my fate. Let me live the way I want to. Stop being a hindrance in my life.’
‘I am not trying to hinder you in any way. All I want is to protect you from harm.’
‘If you really cared for me Mama Jan you would not let me live in this hovel. You could take me to England where we could live in some comfort. I could make a name for myself. But no! In your stubbornness, to fulfill your own wishes, you have deprived me of everything but the bare necessities. For everything I want I have had to plead. And now you say you want to protect me. Protect me from what? A few necessities? A few luxuries? What harm will come to me if I achieve fame? If people know me for who I am? Will it harm me if people recognize my work? Will it hurt me to gain some financial security?’ Mariam let all her bitterness show.
Mama Jan kept quiet through the tirade. ‘Shall I make you a fresh cup of tea?’
It was as if Mariam had not spoken. Angry at being ignored made her temper flare even further. ‘You are not doing me any good by forcing me to live your life, Mama Jan. Don’t impose your principles on me.’ She moved away from her mother in anger. ‘You do not love me. If you did…’
It was pointless to continue. Mama Jan had quietly left the room.
