Shabanu (5 page)

I can’t bear it. I manage to stand quietly and back away from the fire. Dadi doesn’t look up, but I can tell he is watching through the edge of his vision. I turn and run blindly. Thorns grab at my skirt and sink into my bare feet. I run until I reach the wall of the fort, and lay my face and hands against its bricks, still warm from the afternoon sun.

My eyes adjust slowly to the desert starlight. There are no shadows, and the stars illuminate everything to an equal intensity. Nothing has color, only infinite shades of brightest light and blackest dark, but even insects are visible in the sand.

I walk, making a circle around the huge fort, leaving our camp and the sleeping village behind. Back beyond the ancient mosque is a garden, where it is said the Abassi prince kept seventy wives in richly decorated underground cells. Standing outside the sagging wooden gate, I look into the now overgrown garden and imagine dozens of jeweled consorts laughing and singing under the trees, pulling silken veils over mysterious smiles. Prisoners, willingly or unwillingly they lived their lives according to the wishes of their fathers and their prince.

Dadi is snoring in his bedroll when I return. The fire barely flickers as I check the animals. Guluband nuzzles me gently, looking for a piece of sugar.

I take an onion from our bag of provisions. I peel away several strips of skin, tying a piece inside my hem and putting the others at the corners of Dadi’s bedroll to keep the scorpions away. I spread my own quilt on the ground and immediately fall into a deep sleep. Several times in the night Tipu roars in protest at being tethered.

In the morning we go to the beautiful old mosque built by the Nawab behind the fort. The latticed marble balustrades and intricate tiled floor already are warm in the pink and golden predawn light. I know I mustn’t pray to Allah for Guluband, but I keep him in my heart as I whisper along with Dadi when he recites from the Koran.

During the next days my mind is blank as the sky. The scrub and dunes give way to the dank, green irrigated area. Dadi and I talk only when it concerns the track or the animals. We pass along a road crowded with camels carrying mountains of sugarcane and bullock carts that clatter and jingle. In the fields women harvest winter wheat, their heads covered with colored shawls bobbing like bright flowers in the wind. Bedford trucks and buses painted like large luminescent beetles part the mist with a roar.

Dadi has not said we will sell Guluband, but I dare not ask. I know he’s our best camel and we need the money for the wedding.

We spend one night near a village. Dadi is gone when I awake. It’s after sunup when he returns. Mist rises from
the canal, and the acrid smoke of cow dung fires from the nearby village burns my eyes and throat. He hands me a long, round paper bundle and lifts his chin, signaling me to open it. I tear away the thin brown paper and hear tinkling inside a second layer of newspaper wrapping.

Glass bangles! Blue to match my dress, red to match the flowers on it, green for the ribbon on my hem.

“They’re beautiful—all the right colors!” He smiles happily as I slip them over my wrist. They make glistening bands of color halfway to my elbow, and I shake them gently to hear them clink.

My chest tightens
as we near the Gudu Barrage, an irrigation dam upon which we cross the mighty Indus River. The road is choked with speeding buses, trucks, and cars, horns blasting as if the Indus hasn’t blocked men’s paths for thousands of years. The camels are nervous, turning their heads from side to side to watch the vehicles hurtle past. Grunts and roars sound through the caravan as we
walk carefully, the camels swaying along the edge of the seething road.

Under us, the river is brown and muddy. It looks lazy and slow-moving, but the powerful current sucks at the pediments of the dam and swirls before breaking around barriers that force the water into separate channels.

Later we meet another caravan that has stopped beneath a stand of thorn trees. They also are Cholistani nomads, three men dressed in white
lungis
and tunics and plaid turbans. Dadi embraces them, and we sit under a tree where the oldest, a crooked, sinewy man, lights an old brass filigree
hookah
pipe filled with tobacco and brown sugar. They offer the snakelike mouthpiece to Dadi first. He pulls the smoke, bubbling softly through water in the
hookah
base, into his lungs.

The men agree to travel together. The Baluch are unpredictable people. In Grandfather’s time the Bugtis and Marris and other tribes of Baluchistan lived in the barren hills and earned their living by plundering in the fertile Punjabi plains. Now their lives are very much like ours—they herd goats, sheep, and camels. Mostly they know we are poorer than they are. Sometimes they are hospitable, otherwise they just leave us alone.

But in times of unrest no outsider is welcome in the tribal lands, where the only law is God’s.

We are on our way again. Dadi is pleased to have the company of other men, and I ride quietly, listening to them gossip.

The sun is fierce, heating the rocks that loom over the track like a bread oven. By midafternoon I am possessed by the thought of water. Guluband sweats, and my nostrils are filled with the strong smell of the urine of thirsty camels. After today, they will have no water for the three remaining days to Sibi.

I doze, lulled by the graceful forward and back motion of Guluband’s gait. The caravan stops, jolting me awake. On the ridge beside the trail at eye level stands a band of Bugtis, a breeze filling their voluminous trousers and shirtsleeves. My heart leaps into my mouth. Their chests are crossed with bandoliers. Their eyes are fierce between long beards and intricately wound turbans. Several of them lean on long, brass-studded rifles.

Dadi and one of our new companions climb slowly up the rocks, their hands open, palms up in humble greeting. The Bugtis don’t return the salute.

“Asalaam-o-Aleikum,”
says Dadi in his fine, clear voice. “We are nomads from Cholistan, taking our camels, God willing, to the great Sibi Fair. We beg your permission to pass this place in peace.”

I am dizzy with holding my breath. How does Dadi know one of them won’t shoot him?

An old man with skin sun-stained the color of rosewood steps forward. His beard is white, the end dyed bright red with henna.

“I am Sardar Nothani Bugti,” he says in a deep voice younger than his years. “We are looking for my brother’s
daughter. She has eloped with a Marri tribesman. If you are not protecting her, then you can go in peace, and God go with you.”

“My daughter is the only female with us, and she is just a child,” says Dadi, his voice calm.

For the first time in my life, I pull the
chadr
over my face and lower my head beneath the gaze of these men.

When we are under way again, Dadi comes back and walks by Guluband’s side, his hand resting on my foot.

“You know, little one,” he says, “these men will kill the woman when they find her.”

I don’t answer. He is reminding me that I must abide by the rules.

Two or three other caravans are already camped at the foot of the Bugti hills. I take Guluband and the other camels to a small stream and let the cool water run over my feet.

After a dinner of tea and
chapatis
, plus a bit of dried meat, Dadi joins the men around the fire, sucking at
hookahs
, comparing what they’ve heard about Sibi this year. The prices are good, they say.

“The Afghan
mujahideen
are paying twelve thousand rupees for the really good camels,” says the old man whose caravan we joined earlier in the day.

“Oh, the Afghans pay nothing compared to the Iranians,” says an old Baluch herdsman whose village is nearby. The other men turn to him, and for a second the
hookahs
are silent.

“The government fixed a price of fifteen hundred dollars
on breeding stock a few years ago,” he says, leaning forward.

“But that was only for dancing and fighting camels going to Saudi Arabia for breeding,” says Dadi. “You need papers, and they’re hard to come by.”

“You must pay off officials to get such papers,” says a young Cholistani. “If I sold my whole herd, maybe I could come up with the payoff.” The others laugh.

“Nay, nay,” says the Baluch, persistent. “The Iranians and many Arabs prefer to sacrifice camels for the feast of
Eid
. They like camel meat better than anything. And they have heard we export camels for fifteen hundred dollars—not rupees.”

The men are silent, and the dinner I’ve eaten rises in a lump to the top of my stomach. We slaughter goats for
Eid
, the Muslim feast that follows the holy fasting month of Ramadan. The thought of cutting the throat of one of our magnificent camels and watching its blood disappear without a trace into the sand, the animal thrashing until its heart is dry, is unbearable. I hold my breath, unable to move as the talk goes on.

“We may be poor, but we love our animals,” says Dadi. “Why else would we live in the desert?” My heart lifts with hope that he won’t sell our camels to Arabs for meat.

The men around the fire are too polite to express disbelief, but they sit quietly, sucking at the
hookahs
.

“You’ll see I’m right,” says the Baluch.

I am numb. Last year at Sibi Dadi refused all offers for
Guluband. He danced, showing off at the gentlest urging. He stood a head taller than the thousands of other camels at the fair. Everyone had agreed he was the finest camel at Sibi. Dadi had turned down an offer of fifteen thousand rupees for him. I must believe this year will be the same.

My heart is
lighter when we reach the railway track, and I dream of where it comes from and where it goes, to Quetta at the edge of the Sulaiman Range, which rises north to the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan, and south to Karachi, the big city on the Arabian Sea. Such places it passes through! We follow the glistening ribbons for several hours.

My heart quickens as we turn off the main road, and
ahead the fairground is engulfed in a swirl of dust. I sit up high on Guluband’s hump to watch people of all kinds: tribesmen wearing the striped turbans of the Marris, the Bugtis in billowy trousers and embroidered vests, mountain men carrying guns of every size and description. Elaborately decorated animals crowd together as far as I can see: bullocks with humps dyed shocking pink, their horns garlanded with yellow tassels, black horses covered by red blankets stitched with cotton puffs and mirrors, and camels so numerous their humps look like part of the hills that stretch into Afghanistan.

A small boy in bare feet runs along beside us, leading us to the place where we will camp and buyers will inspect our animals and haggle over prices.

Here and there men with rough wooden scales surrounded by mounds of green weigh fodder for sale. Men stand under fringed umbrellas selling cold drinks that sparkle red and yellow in the sun. Other men turn huge red wheels, crushing sugarcane, the juice oozing out into large, dirty glasses. There are no women, only a few girls of my age and younger.

The tangy smell of fresh animal excrement and the sweet smell of the freshly cut fodder are familiar and exciting. My mouth waters with the thought of the sugarcane. Guluband is excited too, shaking his big head, growling like a camel in rut.

I can’t wait to get to the carnival, but I must first tether and unpack the camels and brush the dust and mud from their fur and clean their feet. I must make our camp, build
a fire, and fix something to eat. It will be hours before I can slip away to the carnival. Dadi helps me with the heavy loads, whistling through his teeth and talking to the animals.

“Dadi,” I ask, “were you frightened by the Bugtis?”

He turns, a sack of wheat flour on his shoulder.

“Perhaps at the time, but I felt Allah willed we would be safe.”

“Do you think if you believe something hard enough, it will happen?” Or not happen, is what I really want to ask.

He laughs and plops the sack down into the circle of our belongings that defines our camp. I have already spread the reed mats on the ground, leaving a large open space in the center for a fire.

“I just know that whatever Allah wills, it will be so. And there’s no reason to be afraid, because what Allah wills cannot be changed.”

He holds my face in his hands and looks into my eyes.

“So. After the sun goes down I’ll take you to the carnival. God will take care of everything.” I hug him until he laughs and pries me loose.

He opens my hand and piles five one-rupee notes and a small mound of change on my palm. I’ve never had so much to spend! I jump up and down, and it scatters in the dust at my feet.

“Shabanu,” says Dadi, a warning in his voice.

But he shakes his head and smiles again and helps me gather up my booty. I tie it into one corner of my
chadr
and wrap it close to my body, the bundle clutched in my hand. He hands me a hundred-rupee note, and Guluband and I go off to buy fodder for the animals.

I ride Guluband down the main avenue of the fairground, past rows and rows of animals and men sitting on empty oxcarts talking prices. They all look up to see such a fine animal, and I lift my chin and look straight ahead. I think this, even more than the carnival, is what I look forward to from year to year. How I’ll miss it next year. I try to imagine myself a veiled woman with a family of my own. A shiver steals across my shoulders.

After Guluband and I return with the fodder, I feed the animals, all the while running back to be sure that the tea kettle is full and that the prospective buyers have tea. It seems forever until Dadi asks our traveling companion, who is camped next to us, to watch the animals so we can go to the carnival. I’m grateful—it’s late and Dadi hasn’t even eaten.

He lifts me to his shoulders so I can see everything, and we walk through the fairground. At the main gate we turn right, and a large wooden arch covered with pinwheels of colored lights blinks a welcome to the carnival.

Inside the air is choked with dust. Music blends with laughter, shouting, and the roar of motorcycles from the daredevil pit. Ahead is a platform around which painted wooden horses with tinsel manes and tails move up and down on poles as the platform spins to the music of a pipe organ and drum. Dadi sets me down and I pay several annas for a ride.