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Some Girls
by Alex Austin Mansehra is not far from Shangla District, but the drive weaves through pretty countryside and Papa drove slowly, chatting about my numerous aunts and uncles, turning the radio volume up and down according to the song and even stopping once so that we could view wildflowers. Papa let me pick a few and said I should give them to the family on whom we were calling. “Who is this family?” I asked as we drove away from the field, for Papa had described our outing as a business trip. “Are they our relatives?” “No, Sinela. They are the family of my business associate.” “Oh... What is their name?” Papa frowned and rubbed his belly as if he had stomach trouble, a sure sign he was not in a mood to talk. When we reached the city of Alpuri, the district’s center, there were many open spaces, but Papa drove around the town several times before parking on a street adjacent to a market, in front of which hung a row of freshly slaughtered sheep, heads hanging to one side or other. People must eat, but still it was a sad sight. I hoped their lives had been happy until that harsh moment. Papa said we were going to walk from here, explaining that the road that led from the town to our destination was rough and sometimes impassable. In a few minutes, we left the town behind and were tramping down that dirt road. “How much farther?” I asked after walking for a half hour. “Oh, not much.” “Are we lost?” “No, not at all,” my father said, though his eyes looked uncertain. “Just taking our time.” “Well, it’s not such a bad place,” I said, swinging the bouquet of wildflowers. “Would you like to pause?” he asked. “Thank you, Papa, but no.” “I you get tired...” “This road seems fine to me.” I scuffed my foot along the hard flat dirt. “It doesn’t look as if it would be a problem for a car.” “It can be,” said Papa. “Its curves can be dangerous in the rain.” “Is it supposed to rain?” “The rain can come anytime.” That was of course true during monsoon season, July and August, but it was October and I didn’t think that the weather in Shangla was much different that in my hometown of Mansehra, where I would say the chances of rain approached zero. But I was not in the habit of contradicting my father. With little talk, we strode north toward the distant mountains. The houses thinned out and open fields, tattered with the remains of harvested crops, stretched to the horizon. I thought of how my brothers and sisters would have enjoyed this adventure, but I was the oldest, thirteen, and Papa’s favorite, the first of his children he had taken along on one of his business trips. I sniffed my wildflowers. I didn’t know the name of this light-purple plant, but I could label all its parts: corolla and calyx, pistil and stamen (which comprised stigma, style and ovary), receptacle and pedicel. In my science class I got 100 percent on that test. I looked up from my flowers to see two, large white cattle strolling as one from their unfenced field into the dirt road and walking toward us side-by side, dewlaps swinging in wide arcs. With their humps, pink fluted ears, and coffin-shaped heads, they were funny-looking creatures, common in central Pakistan, and not at all dangerous despite their size. But their black eyes had no focus and as our distance closed, I thought that they might accidently trample us. But my father expressed no concern, and when we were no more than six feet from the beasts, together as if in harness, the animals suddenly split and veered, one passing on each side of us, so close that I could feel the movement of air from the swinging dewlaps and smell the fly dappled dung clinging to their bellies. A moment later, I turned to see that they had changed direction and now followed us. “There it is, just up ahead,” said Papa, pointing. The dirt road climbed a small hill, at the top of which a high concrete wall bordered a big rectangular house. I thought that it must be a very rich man who lives there. The third story, which I could see best, had few windows, and they were small and dirty as if the occupants didn’t want or need to look out of them. Papa and I were breathing heavily by the end of our climb, and as we stopped to catch our breaths, the cattle walked past us, continuing onto the grassy slope, a continuation of the pasture. Papa took my hand and led me toward a V-shaped red door. As Papa knocked, I noticed a face in one of the murky third story windows. Before I could discern its features, the face withdrew. As if someone behind the door inquired, Papa shouted that he had arrived with the coffee, but he carried nothing and certainly not coffee. All the same the gate opened. Papa put his hand on my back, kissed my cheek and urged me inside. As I stepped through I was surprised to see a young girl of my age. The door closed behind me. I smiled at the girl and looked back to Papa, who was no longer there. “Papa?” I asked. “I will see you later, Sinela,” he said from behind the wall, “Sinela” almost inaudible, as if he were already at a distance. “Come,” said the girl, taking my left hand. “Where has my father gone?” “On business for my father,” the girl said. The leaves on the trees stirred, whispers in a crowd. I broke from the girl and twisted the handle, but the door was solidly locked. “I want to go with my father,” I insisted, hammering the wood. “Papa!” “It really is all right.” I tugged on the door handle. “It won’t help,” she said. I yanked again, but the door was as if nailed shut. I turned, thought of pushing the girl or giving her a good thump. “I will scream. I mean it, girl,” I said. “Please be calm, Sinela. Your father means you to be here.” Her eyes were still and fixed on mine. My heart sunk, for I knew that those steadfast eyes were not lying. If my father meant me to be here, then it must have been all right, though still it didn’t feel right. “How do you know my name?” I asked. “Such pretty flowers,” she said, smiling warmly and taking my hand. “How?” “Did you think your father wouldn’t tell us?” she asked. “I don’t know your name.” “Lintah. Now please come.” As if I had not used my body in weeks, I stiffly followed. We walked beneath a grape arbor with few vines and a handful of shriveled grapes to come out on the entrance to the house. The door opened as we approached, and from the interior came the smell of paper burning. A lightly bearded man in his twenties, wearing a T-shirt with a slumping dirty collar, closed the door behind us. “Come, there is nothing to be scared of,” said the girl. I looked to the man, who scraped his dirty collar with his dirty fingernails and lowered his eyes. Drawn by Lintah, I passed several open rooms in which every wall was painted the palest green as if it were disappearing. In the one occupied room, an older woman sat in a low chair repairing a man’s waistcoat. Her needle squealed as it penetrated the thick cloth. She glanced at me and murmured something unintelligible. Behind the older woman, two younger women silently watched me pass. “I’m sure my father has returned,” I said to Lintah, though it had only been a few minutes... “No, not yet.” Lintah guiding from behind, we climbed a staircase to the second floor, the smooth thin banister running too quickly under my palm. As we came into a brighter light, I breathed as though I’d climbed a hundred steps. She guided me down a hall to a room with a closed door. She knocked softly. A man’s voice said to come in. Lintah opened the door and gestured for me to enter. Before my foot touched the floor, a man and a woman sitting on a sofa stood up. “This is Sinela,” said Lintah, who moved to my side, put her hand on my back and eased me forward. The man and woman, who appeared to be in their mid-fifties, smiled at me. “Hello, Sinela,” said the man. “I’m Farooq and this is my wife Tooba.” The woman stepped past a low table set for tea and extended her hand to me. Though I was beset with confusion, I took her hand and returned a small smile. “I hope your drive was pleasant,” said Tooba. “Yes, it was a nice drive.” The man and woman seemed to consider my voice as if it were an instrument being tuned. Tooba released my hand and put her arm around me, hugging lightly. “She is a lovely young woman, isn’t she Farooq?” The man nodded. “Would you like some tea?” he asked. A guest doesn’t refuse tea, and though my heart beat like a hummingbird’s wings, I accepted and allowed myself to be guided to a chair close to the table. Tooba released me and returned to the couch. Farooq lowered his head, touched his forehead and also sat down. The young girl poured the tea. I kept my eyes on the pale amber liquid. Never before had I been left alone with strangers. It was not right, but my father had permitted it. “My father—please, I don’t understand.” Farooq said, “Your father will be here soon. He wanted to be here for this but he had something to do that he could not put off.” For this? What was this? I had been taught to respect my elders, but always I knew who my elders were, understood their relationship to me. These people were not my relatives; I was sure of that, but why then this theater? What was my part? As if Farooq had read my thoughts and wanted as quickly as possible to eliminate any false interpretations, he said, “Sinela, your family and mine have arranged for you to be married to our son Sameer.” My science textbook had these very helpful illustrations of a machine intact and then exploded. A car’s engine in one picture and in the next all the parts of the engine flying outward and labeled. I was now Sinela exploded. My head, my limbs, my torso, my bowels and heart lay pinned to the walls of this handsome sunlit room. In Pakistan when a family wants a son to take a wife, they arrange matters with the girl’s father and mother. I knew several girls at school to whom this happened. One day, the girl is playing in the schoolyard and the next day, or soon after, she is a bride, Most girls react with silence and acceptance. So we get to be girls, but not young women. Some do not get chosen, and they are the ones whose lives go on, who attend high school and college, work in hospitals or laboratories—pursue their goals in great buildings with views of the world. I was the coffee. Farooq and Toober were speaking to me, discussing all that now would happen: the stikhara and imam-zamin; ijab-e-qubul and nikaah. I heard these wedding words but I tried to think only of the parts of a flower. Do you not understand? I am thirteen. I don’t want to be married. I do not want-- But it was settled. Perhaps an hour went by and I did not say a word. Now Farooq and Tooba rose, smiling at me and assuring me of my coming happiness and fruitfulness. Someone knocked and the girl opened the door. I looked for my father, who perhaps had changed his mind and would intervene, but someone other than my father filled the doorway. “Sinela, this is our son, Sameer, your future husband,” said Farooq. For an instant, I made eye contact with a thickset, bearded man of forty. I now kept my eyes on the floor, on the flowered rug beyond my bouquet. Those present exchanged pleasantries, and the new voice, deep and powerful, shook me like a clap of thunder. I murmured something nonsensical and did not look up. The door closed. My eyes could have been shut but I would have known that now I was alone with the man who was to be my husband. He stepped in front of me. I stared at the hem of his tunic. “Hello, Sinela,” he said, his voice enveloping me as if a sheet had been tossed over my head. “Please, let me see your eyes.” As if a flower could choose not to open its petals to the sun’s hard rays. I am not stupid. I know how men look at girls and women. It is the same look they give an animal they are hunting. They can’t make silly faces and shout or the prey will run. So this man looked kindly at me. Kindly and appreciatively. His was the face I had seen in the dirty window. Without parting his lips, like someone who is hiding bad teeth, he smiled at me and said some words in Arabic, and then as if remembering himself switched to Pakhto, my first language. He asked me simple questions, questions he no doubt had the answers to, like how old I was, where I was born, did I have brothers and sisters. I answered everything straightforwardly as if I were filling out a form for school.. A man as old as my father took my measure. I am sure I gave nothing away in my eyes, which I tried to make as dull as possible as if I were waiting for a long time in a dentist’s office and I’d gone through all the magazines. “Do not be frightened,” he said. As soon as he smiled, I looked away, for I did not want to belong to his smile “Are you hungry?” he asked. I shook my head. “Have you ever had Lebnania tea?” “Many times,” I lied. “I can have some made.” “I’m not thirsty.” He pulled his ear. “Do you know what vani is?” he asked. That I remained standing was surely a miracle. If at school a girl was told her marriage was to be vani, she would shrivel, as if something devoured her from within. She had been offered up as payment for some wrong one family had done to another, perhaps injured or killed someone. A girl whose marriage was vani would be a slave in the other family, treated like dirt by her husband and all the others. Vani: blood debt. “My father has hurt your family?” I managed to ask. “Would he?” “No, of course not.” “Your father helps us. He’s a good man.” “Then why—” “You are not vani,” he said, smiling faintly as if he had made a good joke, and I swallowing the bitter vomit that had leaped into my throat. In a firm voice, Sameer explained that I was to become his wife. Everything would take place quickly. Then I would come to live with him in this house. Did I understand? He waited until I nodded. He then added, “You will work beside my other wives and be their equal.” He had saved the best for last. “Good.” He glanced at my flowers. “Are those for me?” I shook my head. “They’re for my sister.” He stroked my head, kissed me on the cheek and called out for the girl. I do not remember leaving the house, all I remember is walking past my father when the red gate opened. My father’s cheeks were wet, and as we walked back down that hard dirt road, the two cattle a distant white beast, he pleaded for my forgiveness. I dropped my flowers behind me in the dirt. |
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