In the movies on TV, it was easy. The heroine stood aloof under a tree or next to a bush full of flowers, and, like a fly to halvah, the hero gravitated toward her.
I radiated that magnetism from my seat close to the chameli bush. Sultan’s lone, slightly hunched figure walked in my direction.
I fumbled to complete the garland before he came closer. I continued with my half smile, even though I had now pricked my finger enough to draw blood. I wiped it delicately on the darker flowers designed on the side of my kameez.
Maria stood up and began waving her hands to attract Sultan’s attention. “Sultan bhai, Sultan bhai! We’re here, near the chameli bushes!” she shouted.
This wasn’t how it happened in the movies. Maria would ruin it for me. I was torn between stopping her and ignoring her and tying the knot to complete the garland.
What would the heroine in the movies do? She might have brought a friend with her. But not one like Maria.
Realizing that I wasn’t sure how to handle the situation, I let events unfold without trying to control them. Maria ran toward Sultan, caught hold of his hand, and pulled him toward the chameli bush.
I busied myself straightening my clothes, doing anything to avoid giving the impression that I was waiting for him. I breathed deeply once, then once more. I felt the chameli buds being crushed in my sweaty palms, and then a sleepy morning fly buzzed in my right ear. I swatted it away, but it lingered. It distracted me, and in my distraction, I felt a wave of calm overcome me. The fly buzzed some more and landed on the garland. I stared at it for a while. Its boldness mesmerized me. It sat there, daring me to swat it, but I chose not to.
So engrossed was I in this exchange that it was only when I heard Maria’s one-sided chatter that I realized they were just a few steps away.
Sultan never said much. Bhaggan said it was because her eldest born was intelligent, like his father.
“People who talk too much think less. Silence means deep thoughts,” professed Bhaggan, when referring to her eldest, of whom she was prouder than she was of Taaj or Maalik.
I didn’t really care for any of the brothers. Sultan was sweet and shy and would help me sometimes when I had to lift a sack of onions or carry a jar of pickles from the store to the kitchen. Taaj made me laugh sometimes, but he was cheeky and I had to keep him in his place. I didn’t pay much attention to Maalik, the youngest. He was slow and silent, always following Taaj’s lead.
At times, I felt sorry for Sultan because he had a stammer. His two younger brothers entertained themselves at his expense. Their mocking angered him, and anger made his stammer only more pronounced.
Nearly every night, when Taaj pulled their shared pillow away from him, Sultan, half-asleep, would stammer, “Y-y-you idiot!”
And Taaj would respond cheekily, “How many idiots?”
Maria and I, sleeping with their mother, could hear this exchange from the veranda outside our room. We muffled our giggles as we heard a fist hitting hard and Taaj crying out.
“Go to sleep, my sons,” Bhaggan would mumble, drowsy from a tiring day.
So now there was silence in the garden, but the uncomfortable smell of egg, sweat, and coconut oil fragrance soon choked the chameli buds. Maria’s mother, Jannat, said the sulfurous odor came from damp clothes. The boys all used coconut oil to keep their hair close to their scalp, and the sweat emanating from all three of them was always suffocating.
I took a deep breath to pay attention to my goal at hand. Somehow, this lone fly had given me a newfound confidence. I didn’t think of the movies. I knew exactly what to do. I took my time arranging the buds on the garland.
“Look, I brought him to see the garland.” I knew Maria didn’t know why I wasn’t looking up.
I felt pins and needles in my feet because I had been sitting so long. As I attempted to stand up gracefully, my foot tangled in my dopatta and I tripped forward.
As I straightened myself, I noticed Sultan’s worn-out, open slippers and blackened toenails. I raised my eyes slowly, to ensure I captured his embarrassed gaze.
“Sultan bhai, I just finished this garland. Please pin it to my hair. Maria is too short.”
He remained silent.
“Take a pin from my hair, thread the garland through it, and then pin it back again. I’ll take care of the rest.”
I maintained a low tone and spoke slowly.
His arms were fixed to his side.
I looked up again and then turned around, slithering closer to him, until he had no choice.
“Do it, Sultan bhai,” Maria encouraged him.
“I just said my prayers.”
“So what?”
He mumbled something about not touching a woman if you are pure from prayer, but then pulled the hairpin from the top of my head, taking out a few strands along with it.
I didn’t flinch.
I passed him the garland, and he took it from my hand, making sure our skin didn’t touch.
“Don’t break the garland, bhai,” said Maria.
I felt him fumble with my hair, the way Bhaggan had when she’d deloused me.
“That’s it.” I smelled the egg sweat and coconut oil moving away from me slowly. Then he sprang two steps farther at a loud guffaw from behind him.
“We’re telling Maulvi that you were touching girls early in the morning,” said his younger brother, Taaj, laughing.
Taaj, only a year younger than Sultan, was Bhaggan’s middle son. Two years after Sultan’s birth, Bhaggan gave birth to her third son, Maalik, after her husband’s untimely death.
“Bastard. You’ll tell on me w-w-when … You were the one who d-d-d-didn’t come for the morning prayers,” Sultan stammered, his voice raised a full octave.
“Your prayers are useless now.” His brother laughed again.
“See, Maalik …” Taaj looked around for the youngest brother, seeking acknowledgment of having caught their elder brother at fault. Maalik, who was born of a grieving mother, had always taken some time to react.
Maalik’s slowness worried Amman Bhaggan: “My forthright son. He has his father’s honesty in him. He will always tell the truth, even to his disadvantage.”
Taaj continued, “Amman thinks he’s an angel, but only when she can see him. He does these things as if no one will ever know. I can keep secrets, but Maalik saw you too. He’ll never keep this to himself. He’ll tell Amman and then—”
“Quiet! N-n-nonsense, and, you, Maalik, don’t you dare say anything to Amman. T-t-this is not your business.” Spittle flew from the sides of Sultan’s quivering lips, adding to his humiliation.
Maalik stared from one brother to the other, unsure of what to do. Taaj was in control of the situation, smiling at his brother’s embarrassment.
“You’re the one who’ll get a thrashing. Or you’ll get what you want, and Amman will arrange your marriage with Tara.”
Fingers pointing toward the sky, lifting one leg and then the other, Taaj mockingly began the bhangra, the traditional wedding dance.
“Come on, everyone—join me. Tara and Sultan are getting married.”
“No, they aren’t.” Maria looked at Sultan and then turned quickly to me for a confirmation.
Sultan moved farther away from me, fearing female contamination, and I moved closer and looked at Taaj as I did so.
Other, less confident girls would have been mortified, but I felt stronger now. None of them knew that Taaj’s insinuations were exactly what I was hoping for. This was much better than the movies. Granted, Sultan was not the ideal romantic movie hero. He was more like the hero in a comedy— one in which the heroine would save him. I would do just that. I would save Sultan by the end of this encounter.
Sultan wiped the spittle from his mouth with the back of his frayed cuff. I could see he was now worried that he would be in bigger trouble than his younger brothers, who had missed the early-morning prayers.
I decided I would save him from his embarrassment. I would share with him some of the confidence that was brimming inside me.
“Really, Sultan bhai? Do you think it matters what Taaj says or whether Maalik tells Amman?”
I pretended to be angry, first with Sultan, for overreacting, and then with the two younger brothers, for creating a commotion. If only he stayed silent, he would stop making a fool of himself in front of them. But there was no silencing him now and, therefore, no way to save him.
Sultan’s angry stammer worsened. “I’m going to tell M-m-maa Jee that you didn’t go to the m-m-mosque to pray. You hid in fields instead. Have you n-n-n-no shame?”
Taaj laughed. “We’re not the shameless ones. It’s Tara and you who should be ashamed, flirting in public this morning. All of your prayers have gone to waste.”
Maalik, who had been staring at me till now, looked away and, following Taaj’s lead, danced as if he were in a wedding parade, stumbling when Maria screamed.
“Snake! Snake!” she cried, as she lifted her hand, pointing toward the snake line in the mud under the bush. The chameli petals folded in her dress scattered on the ground from where she had gathered them.
“Daughter of an owl. It’s an earthworm. Haven’t you seen them come out after the rain?” Taaj picked up the earthworm from under the bush and threw it at Maria. “There’s your snake. Let’s see if you die of a worm bite.”
“Stop, or … ,” Sultan shouted.
“Or what?” Taaj taunted him.
Maria started to cry, and I held her hand as we stood surrounded by the three brothers, Sultan stumbling over his words, Taaj sneering at the discomfort, and Maalik choosing to look above our heads as if the distant fields were more fascinating.
Sultan wiped the slime on his fingers onto his crumpled kameez. I crinkled my nose, and he noticed. He looked toward my shoulder, at the garland hanging from my braid.
Taaj’s gaze followed Sultan’s. He was not going to let his brother forget his slipup.
“Ai hai. The bride with Bibi Saffiya’s chameli garland,” he jeered. “She’ll beat you, like she did the other day.”
“My amman tells me to stay away from boys,” said Maria, wiping her face with the border of her kameez while trying to save me from the infamy of another beating.
Taaj was quick to quell Maria’s audacity. “Your amman has been with every man in the village. That’s why she has a baby every year and then kills it.”
We were all stunned into silence.
I stepped in front of Maria, as she cowered behind me. I protected her with my words. “Liar. I’m going to tell Amman Bhaggan, and she’ll put a lit coal on your mouth.”
“And then what?” Taaj took a step closer to me.
“She won’t love you. She already thinks you’re a loser.”
Taaj hung his head and asked, “Who told you that?”
“I heard her telling Bibi Saffiya that Sultan studies hard and that you … you do shit!” I paused and then, for effect, added, “And Maalik is an idiot.”
Maalik, who had joined Maria in picking the fallen chameli petals from the ground, looked at Sultan, expecting his elder brother to defend him from my vitriol.
He then looked at me, but my insult only grazed the surface of his feelings.
“You see,” I responded, “the baby can’t even defend himself. Your maa jee is right.” He was only a year younger than I, but I felt emboldened by his inability to react.
I turned my stare from Maalik to Taaj.
Taaj, further betraying his younger brother, pulled the chameli garland from my hair and deposited it onto Maalik’s head.
“Look, Maalik the idiot is getting married. Who will he choose, the sweet Maria or the sour Tara?”
“He can’t marry Maria—she’s not of our faith,” I blurted out.
“So what? She’s sweeter than you, isn’t she?” Taaj laughed, pinching Maria’s cheeks. She pulled away from him.
Maalik fumbled as he pulled the garland from the top of his head. “Sister fucker. It’s you who wants to get your thing into both.”
Taaj hit his brother on the head. “Say that again, and I promise I’ll kill you.”
Maalik kicked his brother, who, anticipating the attempt, retreated.
Sultan, now calmer, had been observing this exchange silently, moved closer to his brothers to separate them.
“You’re not our father, so don’t pretend you are,” Taaj shot back at his elder brother.
“He’s older than you,” I added, “so he’s like your father.”
“Shut your mouth, bitch. He’s only a year older than me. You have no father or mother, so who cares what you think?”
“I’ll tell your mother, and she’ll beat you with a broom. Then you’ll know how to respect me.” My voice was beginning to shake.
Sultan ignored this comment, picked up the bruised garland, handed it to me, and walked away. It was not like the movies. How had I not anticipated this ending?
Taaj snatched the broken petals from his younger brother’s hands and threw them at his elder brother.
“Our bakra, the sacrificial goat. We’ll sacrifice him on Eid day and throw a feast.”
Sultan continued walking toward the house, not looking back.
I was determined that Taaj and Maalik would pay for my embarrassment.