Nadeem Aslam - Season of the Rainbirds

‘From the trees in the courtyard?’ Maulana Hafeez smiled. He reached into his pocket, his eyes hard with anxiety, and felt the compact roll of the three hundred-rupee notes. Hesitantly, he brought the money out and offered it to Kalsum. Suraya interrupted her sewing, needle raised in the air.

Kalsum looked down at her hands and said evenly, ‘He would have been twenty-one this December.’

Maulana Hafeez had relaxed his shoulders. ‘It’s not up to us to question the Almighty’s will.’

Kalsum pulled the edge of her stole down to her eyes. She turned to her sister and said, ‘I knew something terrible was about to happen. The birds had gone quiet in their cages just as they do before a thunderstorm. And then I heard a flutter of Izrael’s wings.’

Suraya made a clip in the fabric with the tip of the scissors. ‘The lawyer seems convinced that it was Mujeeb Ali who put our boy up to that crime and then afterwards—’

Maulana Hafeez raised his hands in protest. ‘There’s no evidence for that. I’ve talked to Yusuf Rao about this before but it seems I’ll just have to go and see him again.’

‘No,’ Kalsum shook her head. ‘Mujeeb Ali is a good man. He still gives me this money. He knows that my boy was loyal to him and his family. He proved his loyalty by expressing his anger towards the family’s political opponent.’

Suraya completed a stitch and lifted her narrow face towards her sister. ‘I was only telling you what that political opponent himself said to me the other day.’

Kalsum continued shaking her head. ‘I have never believed in rumours. When the boy’s father-ji died everyone said that Dr Sharif had poisoned him, because his business was bad for the doctor’s practice. Do you remember, Maulana-ji?’

Maulana Hafeez nodded.

‘But I was with him when he died. It was a glistening blue viper that came out from under the grass. I saw it myself.’

Maulana Hafeez remembered Kalsum’s husband, a herbalist. He was a short, handsome man who had had an easy laugh and whose habit of always wearing white clothes Maulana Hafeez had taken to be a sign of piety and a becalmed spirit. There is, he would say, for every ailment a plant which you must either take or abstain from. He had planted trees and creepers around their courtyard, along with pots of herbs and ferocious agaves. The first three months of every year would be lush with flowers; and during June there would be fruit by the bucketful from a Kashmiri cherry tree. It was he who had proposed the remedy of loquat leaves to Judge Anwar, and once a year he would send a large vat of loquat vinegar to the judge’s house.

Maulana Hafeez stood up. ‘It’ll be Zuhr soon. I’d better be on my way.’

‘You must take these with you, Maulana-ji.’ Kalsum pointed at the fruit and got to her feet. ‘Apricots are good for the bladder. I’ll give you some honey, too.’

Maulana Hafeez smiled. ‘One year, I remember, the dhrake tree produced so much pollen that the honey was green .’

Kalsum had taken the plate into the kitchen. ‘The bees never really came back after they put up the electricity pole by the trees. They must be afraid of electricity,’ she said from the kitchen. ‘Anyway, Maulana-ji, there isn’t anyone around these days to milk the hives.’

A smile of reminiscence came to Maulana Hafeez’s face. ‘I helped with the milking one year. And during the next ablutions, when I ran my fingers through my beard, I found two bees there. I suppose it proves that it pays to say your prayers five times a day.’ He had sat down. He looked towards the kitchen and said, ‘Your husband, may he rest in peace, loved his bees.’ And to Suraya: ‘He loved this town. He settled here against his brothers’ wishes. His brothers wanted him to buy land. Why waste money on bricks, they said, when you have a family house in your own village?’

‘I know, Maulana-sahib.’ Suraya nodded from the cot. ‘They’re a backward lot. When Kalsum didn’t conceive during the first year of marriage her mother-in-law wanted her to drink a eunuch’s urine and do Allah knows what shameless things with someone’s first-born son’s faeces.’

Maulana Hafeez murmured, ‘Superstition is sin.’

They remained quiet for a while. Maulana Hafeez leaned back into his chair. He made to reach into his pocket for the rosary but stopped and asked Suraya, ‘When are you returning to Canada?’

Suraya answered without looking up, ‘I’m not sure whether I’m going back, Maulana-sahib.’

Maulana Hafeez brightened. ‘So, you’re thinking of coming back to your own country. And your husband and son? When will they come?’

Suraya shook her head. ‘Maulana-sahib, I’ve left my husband.’

Maulana Hafeez considered the reply for a few moments. ‘ You’ve left your husband?’

Suraya remained silent.

The cleric said quietly, ‘But you’ve left a family there.’

‘I left a family here when I went.’

‘But this is unheard of,’ Maulana Hafeez said through a little laugh. ‘A wife’s place is with her husband.’

‘Even if he marries again?’

Maulana Hafeez straightened, but Suraya had not finished speaking. ‘He says a Muslim man is allowed four wives. He wants a Canadian divorce from me so he can marry again in that country. He says in the eyes of Allah we’d still be married since our Muslim marriage is not affected by the Canadian divorce.’

‘Islam does not condone polygamy just for the sake of it,’ Maulana Hafeez said defiantly. ‘There are strict requirements which have to be met if a man is to marry more than once. There are guidelines to be followed.’

Suraya smiled. ‘He promises to provide for me. But I won’t do it. That’s why I went to see Yusuf Rao, the lawyer, yesterday. He says he doesn’t know much about Canadian laws but he’s sure that in those countries a woman cannot be made to do such things. He’s going to find out more about it.’

Maulana Hafeez was visibly shaken. ‘There are conditions which have to be met before—’

Suraya interrupted him with a frown. ‘But no one pays attention to those, do they, Maulana-sahib?’

Maulana Hafeez examined her face. Her skin was pale from the cold climate of the far-away country. She was much paler than anyone in this town where everyone had just spent several months under burning skies. And the skin on her hands seemed translucent, like the outer layer of puri-bread. She bit the thread between her teeth and examined her work. Maulana Hafeez quietly stroked the insides of his shoes with his toes.

On the raised platform outside the post office the postman was playing a game of draughts with a friend. He had a ball-point pen behind his ear. They squatted on either side of the grid drawn on the cement in charcoal and pulled greedily on their cigarettes. They were using tops of two different brands of soda bottles as counters. Despite the smoke from the cigarettes there was a cloud of winged insects above their heads; and from time to time one of them would clap his hands violently above his head, momentarily resembling a Hindu idol. When they saw Maulana Hafeez appear round the corner both men quickly stubbed their cigarettes across the grid, scattering the bottle tops; and straightening up, pretended to be chatting innocently. The cleric was walking towards the post office.

Across the street men were beginning to gather for the evening outside the laundryman’s shop. They lounged on a broken-down rope cot and pulled on a freshly kindled hookah. The owner of the shop was arguing with someone; no doubt, Maulana Hafeez reflected, the argument was over a lost shirt.

Maulana Hafeez entered the post office. The postmaster and his wife sat behind the desk in the centre of the room, making envelopes. The postmaster folded each oblong piece of paper along identical lines and passed it to his wife who ran a deft finger dipped in flour paste over the edges. The woman was pregnant and breathed with difficulty.