Behind the Veil

By Shahzad Rizvi

A spirited Indian woman falls in love with a writer she's never met, refusing all other suitors. When he appears, he's nothing like she'd dreamed. Her life with him is hell; his vanity and treachery nearly destroy her. She begins an affair with a handsome teacher, threatening her family's honor. Rashida's story unfolds against a sweeping backdrop of Indian history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shahzad Rizvi
• Release date: Dec 14, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452431154

Shahzad Rizvi

Shahzad Rizvi was born and raised in a princely state in India. He now lives and works in the Washington area with his family. He enjoys travel, reading, and learning languages, but his greatest passion is storytelling.

Book preview

Behind the Veil

by Shahzad A. Rizvi

Published by Shahzad Rizvi at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Shahzad Rizvi

Discover other titles at http://www.kahany.org

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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NOTE: This is a work of fiction and any resemblance with people, locales, and events is coincidental. Views expressed by the characters regarding religion, gender, and politics do not necessarily represent the views of the author.

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This book is dedicated to my beloved wife - Rebecca - who is my friend, muse, and anchor of my life.

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Chapter One

The moment Rashida and Shamim met, they felt an immediate attraction to each other. Shamim, Rashida noticed, was mature for his years. He couldn’t be more than 22 or 23, to her 31. She cautiously stole looks at him. His fair skin, slight figure, tapered hands, shapely mouth—she watched him and took it all in.

She was a surprise to him, as well. He had expected to meet an ugly, middle-aged woman when Nadim had twisted his arm to come to his house for lunch. Nadim was short, nearly bald, with a crooked face on a misshapen head. He was dressed in traditional Indian Muslim clothes—a long-sleeved shirt and baggy pants—but they were soiled and smelled. If Shamim had met Nadim on the street, he would have taken him for a beggar. One of the straps on his worn sandals was torn and, to compensate for it, he had to walk with a shuffling limp. When he smiled, which Shamim sensed he did not do often, gaps and stained teeth negated the charm of his smile.

The only reason Shamim took Nadim seriously was that he had met him at a bookstore in downtown Bhopal where he had gone looking for a book—The Development of the English Novel—needed for his master’s degree in English literature. He had unsuccessfully tried the larger bookstores, opened since Bhopal had become the metropolitan capital of a reorganized central state. Finally, he had biked down to a tiny store on a narrow street, a relic of the past. To his surprise, the bookseller had located a lone copy, covered with dust, amidst tomes of a mostly religious nature.

Anybody who is willing to tackle English literature is worthy of my respect, said Nadim, who had been chatting with the unoccupied bookseller until Shamim’s arrival. Shamim reciprocated the compliment by asking him what he did. I’m a writer, he responded. They began to discuss the Urdu writers they both knew, some of them members of Shamim’s family. You have to come to my house. My wife will fix us lunch, blurted Nadim emphatically.

Seeing no polite alternative, Shamim accompanied him. Dodging the unending swarms of people, bikes, tongas, and occasional cars, they walked—Nadim limping and Shamim wheeling his bike.

Shamim wore a suit, as he often did. While it had obviously seen better days, it still completed the image suited to the English department where he was a graduate student. He was not tall, but much taller than Nadim. One walked erect, while the other limped along. They were certainly a strange match.

It was a long walk from downtown to the suburb of Jehangirabad. Nadim chatted with Shamim, saying something about Fort William College and its role in the development of the Urdu language. He also spoke about his book on the subject which, unfortunately, had not sold well. He was sure it was just bad marketing. All of a sudden, the other strap of his sandal broke, leaving him with only one wearable shoe. If he was limping before, now he truly hobbled.

Nadim looked completely lost. With a half-mad expression on his usually stoic face, he asked, What shall we do?

What can we do, indeed? Although they were usually omnipresent, not a single sidewalk cobbler was to be seen now. Clutching the sandal with the broken straps, his body askew, Nadim’s awkward appearance attracted stares from passersby. Shamim did not have the carrier above his bicycle’s rear wheel that most students used to give a ride to a friend. Perhaps I can put Nadim on the bar between the seat and the handlebar—students do it all the time, though I’ve never seen an older man balanced there—and we can both ride until we chance upon a cobbler?

After many fits, starts and backslides, Shamim hoisted Nadim onto the bar and asked him to hold onto the handlebars for support. With one foot on the pedal, Shamim rolled the bike. As it picked up momentum, he vaulted onto the seat. Now their bodies were in contact and Shamim’s eyes watered from the assault of strong body odor. He pedaled hard and tried to breathe only when he needed to.

Being a hilly town, Bhopal was difficult terrain for bicyclists. Anticipating an uphill, Shamim began to pedal fast, hoping that his momentum would carry them over the crest of the hill without undue exertion on his part. But as the bike was ascending and fast losing speed, Nadim dropped his sandal.

Shamim stopped the bike and got off, relieved at getting a respite from the man’s unbearable odor. He looked up and saw an old man by the roadside, pounding a nail into a sole. It took Nadim and the cobbler longer to haggle over the price than it took for the cobbler to do the job itself. When the straps were sewn up, though, Nadim found that he had no money. I always carry money in my left pocket. There is a hole in it now. No wonder the coins slipped out.

Shamim paid the cobbler with the money he was saving for his evening meal, as Nadim berated his absent wife for her negligence. Shamim shuddered at the thought of meeting her and coping with the food she would cook.

A young beggar approached them. Thinking it was likely that an older man would have more money, the beggar concentrated his efforts on the poorly dressed Nadim. Given the scene they had just enacted with the cobbler, Shamim found this grimly amusing. Just as the urchin was shoved away, a tonga for hire slowed down, the hooves of the horse languidly falling in step with them. The tonga-wallah solicited their fare. Pay anything you wish, he said. The gentleman with the bike can follow behind. Shamim found it an attractive offer.

I told you, we don’t need a tonga! Nadim shouted at him. The tonga-wallah whipped his beast and was gone. Resuming his tirade against the world, Nadim asked, Don’t you think the world is a rotten place?

I don’t know, sir. I suppose I haven’t entered the real world yet, responded Shamim before they fell silent. When they came to an adobe house at the end of a shabby, depressing mews, Shamim felt sure he knew what to expect.

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When Rashida’s eyes opened, they came to focus on a spider meticulously weaving its shiny web in the rotting rafters. The morning sun filtered through the cracks in the tiles, illuminating the threads. What a contrast, Rashida thought, between humans and other creatures—whether big or small. Human needs transcend the physical. This spider does not feel humiliated, she was certain, just because its web hangs in an adobe house rather than a mansion.

When Rashida had had to move into this hovel offered by her brother-in-law, she had been devastated. It was a far cry from the family home where she had grown up. She remembered standing in the middle of the small rectangular room, wondering how she could organize her possessions, so that the small space could be used both as a bedroom and a living room. Even after she had arranged everything, it bothered her that visitors, sitting on a flimsy chair in one corner of the room that pretended to be the living room, had to stare at the bed. Besides, there was no buffer between the exterior and interior of the house. Anybody entering this house entered through this room, shattering any pretense of privacy it offered.

This was Sunday morning, with no elementary school children to contend with. There were also no signs of her husband—with his unbearable body odor, unexplainable noises, constant grumbling—and that was a good sign. She had the house to herself, as well as her thoughts. She rose, stretched her limbs and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the cracked mirror. Her own good looks never ceased to surprise her. She stepped out of the room and into the postage-stamp sized courtyard. Its cragged surface made it seem even smaller than it was. She debated whether to turn right or left. The privy was on the left, but since the Untouchable woman had not been in yet to pick up the deposits from yesterday, she was not sure she could bear the sight and the smell—even though her need was pressing. Untouchables, the lowest Hindu caste, were consigned to the lowest and filthiest jobs in society, including emptying the night soil. Rashida's kitchen was on the right; it more resembled a smokehouse, with its chipped, cracked adobe walls blackened and a small wood-burning mud stove to one side. Every time she tried to light a fire, her eyes would sting from the acrid smoke. But she hoped this morning would be better than others; last evening she had bought a stack of firewood from a country woman who had sworn the wood would catch fire the moment it saw a lighted match. She turned right and entered the kitchen.

Sitting next to the blazing fire, Rashida was sipping her second cup of tea when she heard a noise in the front room, followed by the pressing summons, Rashida…a…a…come here and meet my friend. She put the cup down, its warm tea undrunk. Another salvo followed: No need to observe the veil with this young man. She didn’t answer, but in the interest of peace in the household, she got up and crossed the kitchen. A little mouse darted across her path and disappeared behind jars filled with lentils and other staples. She ladled water out of a clay pitcher and splashed it on her face. She then wiped her face with her scarf, hastily combed her hair with her long, slender fingers, took a deep breath to check her annoyance at this interruption and strode out of the kitchen.

With the only chair in the room taken by the guest, she sat down on the edge of the bed. Nadim sat in the middle, on a duree, his short legs folded in Eastern fashion, his stubby hands operating a nut-cutter. Without interrupting himself and keeping his lusterless eyes fixed on the tool, he announced, This young man is Shamim Ahmed. He is from a very illustrious family. Sitting in different corners of the room, Shamim and Rashida looked at Nadim, or rather his profile, and waited. But when nothing more was forthcoming, they looked at each other and decided to get on with the business of becoming acquainted. Almost simultaneously they touched their foreheads with their right-hand fingertips and said, Assalaam-Uleikum.

The staccato of the nut-cutter stopped. Nadim was preparing betel leaves. He made a little heap of chalia-nut pieces in the middle of the leaf, folded it carefully with his stained fingers and offered it to Shamim as a gesture of his hospitality. Shamim took it graciously, thanking Nadim effusively but not telling him that he had given up the habit of chewing betel leaves. Occupied with his own mutterings, Nadim did not notice that Shamim held onto it instead of putting it into his mouth right away.

Good God! Nadim exclaimed suddenly. I was supposed to meet Ashraf at his house and completely forgot. Will you forgive me, Shamim? He turned to Rashida and commanded, Give him a good lunch. With his odor trailing behind, he unceremoniously shuffled out of the house. As Shamim watched Nadim leave, he wondered, how in the world did this beautiful woman come to marry the likes of him?

Rashida caught sight of his bewildered expression and, as if she read his mind, said, So you’re wondering how I could be married to such a person as Nadim? It happened many years ago when I was just a young, impressionable fool. But before I tell you my story, let me get rid of that betel leaf for you.

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Chapter Two

Rashida simply could not drive the thought from her mind. Lying on a cot on the far side of the huge courtyard, where a row of mango trees gave her a little privacy from the three generations of her family, she kept thinking of the love story she had read in Mohabet, the Urdu monthly, and the man who had written it. He must understand women well to have created his heroine, Shahnaz. If he is anything like Dilbaz, the love of Shahnaz’s life, she thought, he must have a very loving heart—or already be married? No, no, there can be no question about it, she decided. He must be young, handsome, and single.

She was glad that she did not have a mosquito-net canopy over her bed; it would have blocked her view of the moon. She hoped the love story’s author was also looking at the moon at this very moment. It gave her a feeling of cosmic connection to him. A mosquito buzzed momentarily on her face, but then wafted away on the warm breeze. The moon appeared and disappeared behind patches of cloud. Rashida was startled by the sharp whistle of a policeman patrolling his beat, followed by his sharp call, Stay alert! The stray dogs, who knew him well, began to howl at the sound of his voice—they had often experienced his nightstick on their emaciated bodies.

With the policeman gone, the howling subsided. A woman’s cry began to filter through the thick air from the other side of the courtyard wall where the shanties of the servants dotted the earth. It was not clear whether she was bewailing her fate or enjoying the moment. A cat’s silhouette appeared on top of the wall, stepping cautiously, one paw after the other, across the horizon until it disappeared in the anonymity of the night.

Allah-o-Akbar, Allah-o-Akbar… The call to prayer pierced Rashida’s romantic thoughts. There was just a hint of dawn in the air. It had been a sleepless night, but Rashida did not feel tired. She sat on the cot and collected her thoughts. Through the boughs of guava, fig, and mango trees, she could see her family stirring. The men and boys were leaving for the neighborhood mosque to pray in groups behind the Imam. The women and girls were squatting, heads uncovered, sleeves rolled up, chanting Quranic verses and performing their ablutions.

Rashida, get up. It’s time for namaz, her mother’s stern voice rang out. In a lower voice, Rashida heard her add, I don’t understand why that girl insists on sleeping so far away from everyone else.

Rashida got up and looked for a scarf to cover her head. As she emerged from the night’s illusion, her suppressed exhaustion suddenly overcame her. She struggled toward the faucet and filled the bronze, spouted pitcher before squatting down in a remote corner of the yard. The cool water felt good on her warm, dry skin.

There is no God but the Almighty and Mohammed is His prophet. The words rolled off her tongue, as the water flowed down her limbs and fell on the ground in short-lived eddies that disappeared into the parched, cracked earth. Dripping, she spread the frayed prayer rug and stood on it facing the Kaaba. The scarf was tightly wound around her head, while her chin accentuated the sweetness of her seventeen-year-old face. After reciting the Fajr prayer in Urdu, she began to utter the oft-repeated prayer words in Arabic.

Every time she had difficulty establishing rapport with her Maker in a language that she did not understand, an inner voice told her that faith was the only thing that mattered. Usually, she accepted the ritual in spite of herself. But this morning, she simply could not concentrate. Her mind began to play all kinds of tricks on her. How, she thought, can one pray without feeling?

I wonder what Nadim is doing at this very moment? I should write to him, she thought.

Peace be upon you, she said perfunctorily, as she looked alternately over each shoulder and concluded the prayer. With her prayer rug dangling from her hand, Rashida hurried toward her room, tripping over the bricks and stone chips protruding from the uneven earth, and skirting around the praying ladies. She quickly closed the creaking door behind her. She struck a match and brought it close to the wick of the kerosene lamp, but the lamp was empty of fuel. After grudgingly emitting a brief light, it returned the room to its early morning darkness. She waited for sunlight with a pen in her hand and surging emotions in her chest. When the first ray of dawn entered her room, her thoughts began to flow onto paper:

Bhopal, April 15, 1946

The Editor

Mohabet Journal

Lucknow, M.P.

Dear Sirs:

Recently, I had the pleasure of reading a short story by Mr. Nadim in your magazine. I was very impressed with the way Mr. Nadim handled his characters and developed his theme. What a wonderful love story! I would very much like to express my feelings about his work directly to him. If you would send me his address, I would be very grateful.

Sincerely,

Rashida Khan

P.S. Please continue to publish his stories. They are so moving.

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Chapter Three

Six months later, thoughts tumbled over themselves and rushed through Rashida’s mind as she rode to the palace, by invitation, in a palace car. Montages from the pages of history superimposed themselves on the fleeting view through the windows. Very soon, she would be face to face with descendants of that determined Afghan invader, Afzal Khan. He had slashed his way through infidel Hindu flesh until he found an ideal kingdom deep within the heartland of India. In a great storm cloud of passion and violence, the peace-loving Raja of the kingdom had been sent to his gods. Rather than submit to the power and lust of the invader, his Rani had gathered her ladies-in-waiting and withdrawn to her quarters where, with their help, she’d committed the now forbidden rite of suttee. Death by immolation had been her only hope of salvation. Overnight, the Hindu kingdom had become the Muslim enclave that Rashida now knew as home.

The Rolls Royce stopped, surrounded by a herd of baffled goats. Everyone, it seemed, was beating them—the goat herd, the police, even passersby—for getting in the way of the royal car. The noise of their bleating penetrated the tightly shut windows. Fortunately, the cloud of dust screened Rashida’s view of the atrocities being perpetrated against the poor beasts in the name of royal dignity. When the palace guard jumped out with the swiftness of a commando, the front passenger door opened, letting in noxious animal odors. Unable to see, Rashida heard the screams and pleadings of the goat herd. Several minutes passed before the guard re-entered. Tossing a backward glance over his shoulder to her, he said, There…that ought to teach him a lesson. Poor goat herd, she thought. Is it his fault that he needs to tend goats to survive?

When the dust cleared, Rashida saw the ancient city of Bhopal spread out beneath her. Its roads wind up and down its hillsides, making cyclists and tonga-wallahs breathless and dizzy. The few automobiles—sporadic omens of the coming power of machines—defied and tamed the hills. The lakes, one big and one small, with villas dotting their fringes, shimmered with teeming fish life. But woe betide any poor fisherman tempted to eat from these decorative shoals. The fish were reserved for the royal palace only. A lone boat glided across the water, undoubtedly carrying someone from the palace.

From another palace in another era that overlooked both waters came the ghostly screams of Rani Kamlapati. Men of leisure tread gingerly in the surrounding park, lest the ghosts of the immolated Rani and her ladies harm them. Thousands of bats dangled upside down from the boughs of the banyan, peepal and tall neem trees, sleeping all day long. At dusk, their cacophony was both deafening and frightening.

Huddled between the palaces, the city plodded on. Beneath its Muslim veneer was a solid Hindu base. While Muslim pomp and glitter danced over the shell, the real power of wealth, commerce and life went on behind aging walls, and inside secret Hindu vaults.

Sometimes, Rashida thought, it seems that there are more mosques in the city than supplicants. Mullahs outnumber the faithful. There is not one single institution of higher learning. The Nawab’s uncle spends his days at cockfights and his nights in debauchery. Inside Muslim edifices, built on the crushed hopes of the Hindu poor, there is a perennial shortage of cash. Muslim debits are always higher than Muslim credits. Muslim books are eternally in disarray. Years of neglect must be coming home to roost any time, she mused.

The car picked up speed. At the sound of its horn, pedestrians, cyclists and tonga-wallahs scurried to save their limbs. At the traffic island, a policeman who was accustomed to swaggering in his immaculate white uniform and polished brass, clicked his heels and came to full attention. With his body taut and his head slightly thrown back, his white-gloved hands gyrated frantically to bring all other traffic to a standstill in deference to the passage of the royal Rolls.

The enigmatic city was behind them. The car, its black bonnet covered with a thin film of dust, entered the royal enclave—Camelot. Camelot? When Rashida first heard the name, she had looked it up in the Encyclopedia Britannica owned by her only college-graduate brother, Rauf. King Arthur and the Round Table! So that’s why the Nawab had moved out of the city-bound palace built by his grandmother, moved to the country and there gathered luminaries for his Round Table. The Indian desire to be like the English goes deep into the psyche. If further proof were needed, she could see mansion after mansion built in the Victorian style outside the car window, with immaculate front lawns, imposing car-ports and liveried chauffeurs. And then, there was the palace.

Why am I here? The answer to the question came in her very first encounter with the Junior Begum. My brother has fallen in love with you. Rashida was stunned. She wondered how, where, when, this could have happened—and most of all, why?

Shareer is a compulsive woman-watcher. Whenever there is a gathering of women, he finds a way to be there. Women observing purdah, hiding behind veils, do not faze him in the least. He finds a way to penetrate the veils and feasts his eyes on the glorious and inglorious feminine faces behind the veils. The Junior Begum paused to discharge betel juice into the spittoon which an ever vigilant servant thrust with alacrity in front of her mouth.

"Shareer’s annual ritual of visiting the women’s fair at Bab-e-Aali had ended when he reached puberty, when under the spell of powerful natural urges he had tried to overwhelm a young girl. With the girl’s irate father up in arms, it had taken nothing less than royal intervention to avert disaster. But like a tenacious warrior taking to the hills when defeated, Shareer took himself to a higher place to watch women. Looking through powerful binoculars from windows high above the fairgrounds, he could be as close to a woman…well, almost as close as he wished.

He was exploring and the moment you came into his sight, Rashida, he was hooked. He followed your movements all over the fair and was very saddened when you left. As he pined away, it was quite difficult for us to track you down. Even the sensitive noses of the Khufia police were hard-pressed to find any leads. A vague description of the tonga you were seen boarding and the bearded tonga-wallah eventually helped.

Telescopes? Khufia police? Rashida felt a surge of anger. She remembered that wild day. Heads and chests uncovered, she and her friend Farzana had taken in the fair like a whirlwind. They bought delectables—bhajias, samosas, and kabobs—and eating them from bowl-like donas made of banyan leaves. They had wandered all over, teasing, laughing and getting into mischief whenever possible.

The Bab-e-Aali fair was supposed to be a safe place for women. Organized annually behind the confines of high walls and secure gates, it was designed to keep out male intruders. At one time, the fairgrounds had served as the gardens of the old palace. After the royal family moved to their present residence, the gardens had died of neglect and the palace itself was