Nadeem Aslam - Season of the Rainbirds

‘What about her?’ Benjamin Massih gave a nod.

Maulana Hafeez’s fingers felt along the rosary. ‘How old is she?’

‘She says she’s twenty-one but she’s older,’ said Benjamin Massih. Maulana Hafeez took a deep breath. Tereza Massih left the room and went into the corrugated-iron shack that served as the kitchen. There was no electricity there: as she entered, a draught disturbed the flame of the candle and the diffused shadows cast on the walls swayed.

‘Are you aware that she’s living with someone outside of wedlock?’ Maulana Hafeez realised that his fingers were trembling.

‘Yes,’ Benjamin Massih said in a discomforted tone.

Maulana Hafeez felt lost, at sea. ‘I have to believe that I’m doing the right thing,’ he began at random. ‘Otherwise I’ve wasted my whole life and—’

‘How does that concern us?’

‘They have to get married,’ Maulana Hafeez said abruptly.

‘They can’t,’ replied Benjamin Massih. ‘He’s a Muslim and she’s a Roman Catholic.’

‘She has to convert.’

‘One of them has to.’

Maulana Hafeez stood up; that a Muslim should change his religion was inconceivable. ‘I have not read your holy book—’

‘The Bible.’

‘The Bible,’ Maulana Hafeez said. ‘But I know that it too condemns this sort of behaviour.’

‘Look, sahib,’ Benjamin Massih said, ‘I was explaining this earlier to the other Muslim priest who came to see me about Elizabeth: I’m a church-going man, I’m ashamed of what she’s doing, I can’t look anyone in the face, I’m glad I’m bedridden so that I don’t have to leave the house. But what can I do? What could I possibly do? It’s all up to them.’

Maulana Hafeez sat down. ‘Nothing is that simple. Since they live among other people they have a responsibility, a moral obligation, towards those people. We must make them see this. They cannot ignore the wishes of the rest of us and still continue to live among us.’

‘I have talked to her but she won’t listen.’

Maulana Hafeez sighed. ‘They are foolishly proud. It is a fruitless rebellion.’

The icy blue smoke of the fumigation coil was filling up the room and the drone of the mosquitoes had faded.

Tereza Massih came in from the kitchen with a cup for the Muslim priest.

‘Your daughter has to convert,’ Maulana Hafeez appealed to her as she bent down to offer the tea.

‘I won’t allow it,’ she said. She had gone to sit by her husband’s side. ‘She’ll remain a Roman Catholic till the day she dies.’ And pointing to the tea she said: ‘The cup has been washed, sahib.’

Maulana Hafeez nodded. He raised the cup to his lips and took a sip.

Mother and Father sit in the circle of light. He is eating rice and tindé. Above them, attracted by the smell of Kala-Kola hair tonic, clusters of mosquitoes whine, their paths a mess of tangles and knots .

Father says, ‘Don’t send her to work tomorrow.’

‘She was crying when she came back’ .

‘They’ll send someone to ask after her, and then you can talk to them about it.’

‘What if no one comes?’

‘They’ll come. She has always been good with their little boy. He has grown to love her, you told me that.’

The lamp hangs from the hook, swaying. Their shadows go round in circles. I change sides and Mother looks towards my cot .

She lowers her voice. ‘The boy’s uncle hit her and the mother pulled her hair.’

‘Well, when they send someone to fetch her you can talk to them. They are good people. They gave her new clothes for Eid.’

‘And we need the money she brings in.’

He nods. Inside its glass bubble, the flame is like the bud of a yellow rose. Father says, ‘And you must ask her to be more careful, too. They hire her to mind their little boy. It’s her job to look after him properly.’

Mother gives a nod. ‘She says she only left him unattended for a second. A new toy vendor had come into the street and all the girls had gone to look at the things.’

‘Is the little boy badly hurt?’

‘They’ve taken him to hospital.’

‘Well, when they send someone round to ask why she hasn’t showed up for work, you can talk to them. Tell them they’re not to slap her again, no matter what she does. If they have a complaint they should come to us. She’s just a child herself.’

I close my eyes, and try to sleep .

The rain was so fierce that water from the eaves fell in continuous threads, like a beaded curtain. Alice was on the veranda pounding cinnamon in a mortar, her face tensed with effort as she brought down the pestle. Her knees were splayed out and the mortar was clamped between the undersides of her feet. She changed arms when she tired, or began to grind in a circular motion instead of pounding. And all the while she talked chirpily. Zébun sat on the rope cot and listened. Occasionally she nodded, causing her gold earrings to swing towards her cheeks. To ease the burden on her earlobes the heavy earrings were supported by lengths of black thread attached to the hairpins.

Alice was describing a recent visit to the cinema. ‘And then a baby started crying in the audience, so loud you couldn’t hear anything. After a while, from near the front, a man shouted, Shove a tit in its mouth, sister.’ She gave a broad laugh. But Zébun merely nodded. Alice lingered a moment and then began to pound the spices again.

‘It doesn’t feel like a Friday,’ Zébun said. Alice stopped; looked up for a moment, like a deer at a water-hole, and then set to again. It was a long and empty morning. The sky loomed dead above the courtyard. The jasmine bush cresting the far wall swayed in the rain, doors creaked, window panes rattled in the frames and curtains swelled into the rooms like ship sails. Above them, from one wall of the veranda to the other, clothes were drying. Zébun’s underclothes were concealed beneath other, neutral clothes, or beneath towels and sheets, away from Mr Kasmi’s eyes. An unbroken line of salt ran along the edge of the veranda like a miniature mountain range.

When some time later Alice mentioned the goat with the sacred markings Zébun said, ‘I would like to see it. Though I don’t think they’ll let me into the house.’

Alice looked up at her mistress hesitantly. ‘It’s nothing,’ she waved a hand consolingly. ‘We too have something like that in our religion.’ And she explained how the darker hair growing along a donkey’s back and down part of the front legs was said to describe a crucifix. ‘They say it’s because Jesus Christ, our prophet, made the journey from Jerusalem on a donkey’s back.’

Zébun understood that the story was meant as an expression of sympathy, and appreciated it. She smiled. Splashing rainwater was gouging away the outer side of the salt line making tiny irregular cliffs. Zébun pointed and said, ‘You’d better go into the kitchen and get some more salt, or you’ll have to spend the rest of the day driving water lizards out of the house.’

Alice nodded and stood up purposefully.

Zébun said, ‘And when the rain is over remind me to give you a letter to post.’

‘The post office is still shut,’ the girl said. Above the neck-line of her shirt her sharp little collar-bone stuck out, fantastically exaggerated.

‘Then I’d better ask brother-ji for advice.’ Zébun considered the stairs leading up to Mr Kasmi’s room. ‘Has he arisen?’

Alice nodded, ‘I heard music from upstairs a while ago. But he hasn’t been down for breakfast yet.’