Free Haveli by Suzanne Fisher Staples Page A

had taken her aside. After the others had eaten, they spread quilts on the ground and slept away the heat of the afternoon.
    Mumtaz, a brand-new infant at the time, grizzledhalfheartedly, and Shabanu moved away to lean against a thorn tree while she held the baby to her breast. As the infant suckled, Sharma came to sit beside her.
    “You’ve had your daughter for yourself,” Sharma said. “But you should have no more children.”
    “But how can I not conceive again?” Shabanu had asked. She knew what Sharma said was true. “It’s too soon after this one’s birth for Rahim to demand that I come to his bed. But he will soon. And he wants me to have a son.… ”
    Sharma undid a knot in the corner of her
chadr
and withdrew a piece of dried vine that lay darkly coiled in her open palm like the antler of a black buck.
    “Whenever you go to him, you must be sure this is in place,” she said. “You will not conceive as long as you use it.”
    Sharma told her how to insert the piece of vine into the mouth of her uterus, and a great weight lifted from Shabanu’s heart. Now, she thought, I will have only Mumtaz and myself to look after.
    “You must take control of events before they take control of you,” Sharma had said. “If you don’t do what you can for yourself, no one else will.”
    The afternoon wore on, and the heat grew oppressive. The women pulled out their quilts and lay down, dropping unwillingly out of the conversation one by one as they fell asleep.
    Shabanu felt as if she’d never left these women whom she loved more than anything on earth. She wished Mumtaz could grow up as she had in the golden warmth of their circle.
    Shabanu did not want to waste any of her time sleeping. Mumtaz curled up beside her, and Shabanu sat with her back against the wall of the lean-to, her arms folded and resting on her knees. While she was content just to look at them, she was impatient to talk to Sharma, who moved closer to Shabanu. The older woman crossed her ankles, folded her knees, and sank to the ground beside Shabanu in a single fluid motion.
    “So, my little pigeon,” Sharma said. “What mischief have the women of Okurabad been up to?”
    Shabanu told her about Ibne and the baby camel’s foot, the dead puppy, Zabo’s betrothal to Ahmed, and her promise that she would help her friend. Sharma listened carefully.
    “Oh, oh, my pigeon, you must have a good plan!”
    “Auntie, listen. We must make a plan for Zabo now. But Mumtaz and I must stay at Okurabad.”
    Sharma laid her fingers against her niece’s lips.
    “No. Come to Fort Abbas and live with Fatima and me. Or have you outgrown us and the desert?”
    “My life is at Okurabad now,” Shabanu said. “As long as Rahim is alive, and perhaps after, I must do my best to survive there.”
    “Rahim is forty-two years older than you are! You will live a long time as a widow.”
    “Mumtaz’s best chance for survival is to be educated. She can’t do that and live in Cholistan. I must do what’s best for her, and hope that Rahim lives until she finishes her schooling. Only then can we leave.”
    “Your daughter climbs thorn trees as naturally as you did,” said Sharma. It was as far as Sharma would push her to change her mind.
    Have I made a mistake? Shabanu wondered. It is true that Auntie Sharma knows the way of the desert and not the way of the village … certainly not the way of the city! But she is the wisest woman I know. Could it be that her wisdom applies to the desert and also to the village and to the city? It was rare that Shabanu’s confidence was shaken.
    “Once she’s been to school, she’ll live in the city so she can work,” she said, testing.
    “Bah!” said Sharma, waving her hand. “You’re thinking like a city woman. You must make her tough like you to survive! Promise me you will think about it.”
    “Oh, Auntie! I’ve thought of nothing else!” Shabanu said. “I have promised Zabo I will help her. She can’t go through