Mohammed Hanif - Our Lady of Alice Bhatti

During her house job she worked in Accidents and Emergencies for six months and there was not a single day — not a single day — when she didn’t see a woman shot or hacked, strangled or suffocated, poisoned or burnt, hanged or buried alive. Suspicious husband, brother protecting his honour, father protecting his honour, son protecting his honour, jilted lover avenging his honour, feuding farmers settling their water disputes, moneylenders collecting their interest: most of life’s arguments, it seemed, got settled by doing various things to a woman’s body. A woman was something you could get as loose change in a deal made on a street corner. Rarely, but very rarely, there was a woman who settled a score with the competition. Alice had met some in the Borstal who had bumped off their husbands, taken pride in what they had done, but still managed to look like widows in mourning. To her young mind, which had stayed away from newspapers and television which covered this sport with the same relish with which they covered every other sport, it seemed the city was full of serial killers. There was a murderer in every kitchen; sometimes there was a murderer even when there was no kitchen in the house, sometimes even when there was no house, no boundary wall, no roof. Even nomads living in improvised tents could catch the honour bug and settle a game of cards that had gone on for too long in the night by trading in a woman. And what she learned was that nobody was surprised; there were no police detectives sitting around matching clues, no parliamentary subcommittees discussing ways of saving this endangered species. It was as inevitable as the fact that it will not rain in March, as preordained as the rule that no matter how many speed restriction signs you put up, somebody, somewhere will manage to get run over by a motorised vehicle.

It’s understandable that Alice Bhatti thinks about these things. She looks at these battered bodies on the floor of the A&E and tries to figure out the rules of this sport. Like any logical, thinking person she has begun to believe that there must be a reason why these women get killed and not the other fifty-six million in the land. Their names might be on the list but they manage to get away. Some of them complain of a fate worse than death but Alice Bhatti has seen many of the fresh arrivals in A&E, and she knows that getting hacked at the hands of a father, lover, brother is definitely a fate worse than being run over, accidentally, by a truck driven by your own offspring.

Alice Bhatti has made her observations and thinks she has identified the type of woman who attracts the wrong kind of attention, who stumbles from one man who wants to slap her to another man who wants to chop off her nose to that final man, the last inevitable man, who wants to slash her throat.

And she doesn’t want to be that kind of woman.

She knows that a lot of the time these women are beautiful. Not ordinary beautiful but a strange kind of beauty that calls attention to itself. They could be wearing a hijab or covered in swathes of loose, man-repelling fabric and they would still draw attention to themselves. It is the kind of beauty that screams, “Look, I am here, look, I am sitting, now I am standing, these are my legs, I am walking on my legs, this is my neck, can you feel the ice-cold Pepsi going down my throat, here is my nose, do you think it will look better with a nose ring?” When they open their mouths they sound common enough, but their eyes look at the person they speak to with regal contempt: aren’t you sad you are not me? Aren’t you sad you can’t have me? Is your life worth living? I am leaving now, I have places to go, things to do, private things, intimate things, with other people, not with you. You can stay here and live your miserable life. You can keep looking as I walk on these legs and go away from you.

Of course you don’t have to be a head-turning beauty or possess a pair of eyes that taunt to end up on the A&E’s floor. Alice Bhatti has seen women so old, so haggard, so beaten by life that cutting them seems like a waste of time. But they do it anyway.

Alice Bhatti is not taking any chances. She doesn’t want to be that kind of woman.

She tries to maintain a nondescript exterior; she learns the sideways glance instead of looking at people directly. She speaks in practised, precise sentences so that she is not misunderstood. She chooses her words carefully, and if someone addresses her in Punjabi, she answers in Urdu, because an exchange in her mother tongue might be considered a promise of intimacy. She uses English for medical terms only, because she feels if she uses a word of English in her conversation she might be considered a bit forward. When she walks she walks with slightly hurried steps, as if she has an important but innocent appointment to keep. She avoids eye contact, she looks slightly over people’s heads as if looking out for somebody who might come into view at any moment. She doesn’t want anyone to think that she is alone and nobody is coming for her. She sidesteps even when she sees a boy half her age walking towards her, she walks around little puddles when she can easily leap over them; she thinks any act that involves stretching her legs might send the wrong signal. After all, this is not the kind of thing where you can leave your actions to subjective interpretations. She never eats in public. Putting something in your mouth is surely an invitation for someone to shove something horrible down your throat. If you show your hunger, you are obviously asking for something.

♦

Mr Dulhousie is looking at her with a benign smile as she takes out crumpled hundred-rupee notes and puts them on the desk in front of him. She has also perfected no-touch transactions. If your fingers touch someone’s fingers, what might they make of it?

Before leaving the shop, she gives Dulhousie the only instruction that matters to her. “When you stitch the shirt, can you please make my privileges look a bit flat?”

Teddy Butt’s G Squad family, having failed to arrange a proper wedding party for him, try to give him a proper wedding night, the kind they would have liked to have for themselves. Most of them come from upcountry, where their own wedding involved only a telegram from home saying apply for leave, send money, you are getting married on such and such day. So it’s understandable that they want to celebrate the first ever love marriage in G Squad in style. They raided the stolen property store in their own offices, haggled with some flower sellers, threatened to throw the owner of a bedware store into jail, and in a last generous bid to give Teddy a perfect start in his married life, picked the locks of a crockery warehouse.

When Teddy comes to fetch Alice from the Sacred, she has changed into her two-piece wedding dress stitched by Mr Dulhousie.

“Where is Madame Bhatti going?” Noor asks her.

“Somewhere nice, I hope,” she says.

♦

When Teddy, with Alice on his arm, enters his flat in Al-Aman apartments, he finds himself surrounded by strings of marigolds hanging from the ceiling. Alice notices that some of these strings are made of paper flowers. There are a few macrame ones too. On the wall in the living room, red ribbons are Scotch Taped to read Happy WeddingS .

Although Teddy isn’t an official member of the squad — no rank, no promotions, no pension plan — they take good care of him. In return, he acts as a crime-scene cleaner, comforter, errand boy, towel holder, cheerleader, doorstopper, gun-cleaner, replacement court witness, proxy prisoner, fourth card player, but more importantly a companion to people who have been caught but not yet killed, a companion for the passengers on their last journey.