Free The Holy Woman by Qaisra Shahraz Page A

For years you have waited for me to choose a man to marry and now that I have done so at last, you are silent. It is almost as if you didn’t wish me to marry!’
    Habib flinched at the anger in her voice. ‘You are too highly strung, my daughter. This is not exactly the time to discuss your marriage. We only buried your brother yesterday.’
    ‘I am sorry, Father. Forgive me – you are right, this is not the right time. It is very insensitive of me.’ Zarri Bano forced herself to apologise through gritted teeth. For the first time in her life she felt a flicker of hatred for her father – a totally novel experience.
    ‘What
is
the matter with him?’ she wondered. Why was he making everything so difficult?
    Standing up tall she crossed the room, and caught the troubled look in her mother’s eyes. Fear gripped her once again as she re-entered her bedroom. Something was amiss – terribly amiss, in fact. Her father always had time for her, no matter what mood he was in or at what time. And that coldness in his eyes! She shuddered.
    Later in bed, Zarri Bano stared at the white ceiling above and wondered whether she and her mother had imagined it all. After all, Habib was right: it
was
insensitive of her to have mentioned her marriage sosoon after her brother’s death. Anyway, her father couldn’t do
that
to her … not to his beloved child, the daughter he would reputedly ‘sell the world for’.
    Feeling happier now, she turned on her side and was soon fast asleep.

    Shahzada found finishing her
isha
prayers an ordeal. With trembling fingers she folded the velour-trimmed prayer-mat and placed it on her dressing table. From the corner of her eye, she covertly watched the stiff figure of her husband. He was still sitting in the same position.
    Shahzada frantically debated in her mind: what should she do? Should she talk to him about it or not? If she was wrong, she might actually place the seed of the idea in his mind, and she couldn’t risk that. Sighing, she climbed into her own bed.
    Ten minutes elapsed. His eyes were still. ‘He isn’t reading, I know that for sure,’ Shahzada told herself. ‘What are you thinking about, Habib Sahib?’ she said aloud. ‘You have not moved since Zarri Bano left the room. Is anything the matter?’
    ‘No,’ he replied, his back to her.
    ‘I couldn’t help hearing what Zarri Bano said. I am so glad she has accepted Sikander. At last our daughter has found somebody she wants to marry. Sikander is just ideal for her,’ Shahzada said bravely, very much aware of her husband’s earlier antagonism towards the suitor and knowing that she was playing with fire.
    ‘Please don’t talk about her marriage! We have only just buried our son, and already you seem to be planning Zarri Bano’s wedding.’
    ‘You misunderstand me. I am planning no such thing. Like you, I have been robbed of my loved one –my baby. As a mother, I’ll never recover from the loss, Habib,’ Shahzada stammered defensively.
    ‘Let’s not bandy childish words as to whose loss was greater, Shahzada.’ His voice breaking, Habib finally turned towards her, his expression haunted. ‘He was our angel, and we have lost him. Now I have fallen at the greatest hurdle of my life. What is to become of us and our inheritance?’
    An iron fist of fear clutched around Shahzada’s heart. Mesmerised, like a hare in the clutches of a python, she stared into his eyes. ‘What do you mean?’ she whispered.
    ‘Well, now that I have no son, who is going to be my heir, Shahzada? To whom am I going to bequeath all this land? I am not going to hand it over to some stranger who just happens to marry my daughter. This is
our
land, accumulated and paid for by the sweat and toil of my forefathers, down the centuries by different generations. Tell me what would you do in my position ?’ He paused for what seemed to his wife to be a moment of doom. Then: ‘There is only one choice that is facing us.’
    ‘
No!
’