I took out the food as Shahnaz suggested, thinking to myself that she’d just fed the baby before our mother-in-law walked in. But I quickly forgot about it as I began to put the potatoes into a serving dish. Nothing looked like the food my mother prepared. My hands shook as I laid it out on the cloth. Bibi Gulalai fingered her prayer beads while she eyed my every move. Once I had spread out the potato stew and the rice, she spoke.
“A cup of tea would have been a nice start. Looks like you’re rushing us to lunch.”
“I… I’m sorry. I can bring a cup of—”
“Yes. Bring a cup of tea first. That’s how you treat a guest.”
I got to my feet and went back to the kitchen to boil some water. I sprinkled tea leaves into the teapot and searched everywhere until I finally found a teacup.
“Did you add cardamom?”
I sighed.
“No, Khala-jan. I’m sorry, I forgot the cardamom…”
“Tea without cardamom?” She shook her head in disappointment and leaned back. “Maybe that’s how your family drank tea, but the rest of us—”
“No, my mother always puts cardamom.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“I was saying”—she was not happy with my interruption—“that the rest of us prefer our tea with cardamom. So pay attention next time.”
I nodded silently while she slowly sipped her unflavored tea, the disappointment showing in her eyes. I watched the steam waft from the rice.
“All right. Why don’t we try this food that you’ve made now.”
I reached over and spooned some rice onto her plate. Large clumps stuck together. The potatoes looked more reasonable. I prayed her eyes were old enough that they couldn’t clearly see what I’d made of the rice. She took two bites and shook her head in frustration.
“This is cold. Food doesn’t taste good cold. And we’re supposed to eat grains of rice, not balls of it. How long did you cook it for?”
“I don’t… I don’t know…”
“Too long. Too long. And the potatoes are still hard!” She sighed heavily. “Shahnaz! Shahnaz, come out here!”
Shahnaz came into the living room, her eyebrows raised in curiosity.
“Yes, Khala-jan?”
“This girl cannot cook! Did you try this food? It’s terrible!”
“No, Khala-jan, I didn’t. She insisted on making lunch so I let her. Otherwise, I would have been happy to prepare something for you.”
I looked at Shahnaz and began to realize that she was not as benign as I had thought. She avoided looking at me. I had the urge to throw a punch at her but kept my cool.
“That’s not true! She told me I should make lunch. And she just fed the baby! You did this on purpose!”
“Rahima, this kind of behavior is exactly what I was worried about. You’re a wild child and not a suitable wife for my son but he’s taken you and now we have to undo what you are. Listen to me carefully. You are to behave like a proper bride and learn to keep house. That tantrum you threw in your father’s home will not be tolerated here. I’m leaving now but know that I’ll be keeping an eye on you.” She got to her feet and wobbled to the door. She said nothing more and let the door slam behind her.
Shahnaz tossed her hair back and walked to her room, a smug look on her face. She had set me up.
Madar-jan, you were right. And this is probably just the beginning.
I confronted Shahnaz later that day.
“Why did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“You could have warned me. And you lied to her. You wanted me to look bad.”
“What are you talking about? I didn’t lie!”
I remembered one of Khala Shaima’s favorite sayings: A liar is forgetful.
“Don’t be upset, Rahima. You’ll learn soon enough. God knows I did.”
Shahnaz was a ball of contradictions. She was angry to have to share her home with me. It was bad enough that she had gotten the smallest of the houses. The other wives had more children and their marriages had been arranged by Bibi Gulalai. Only Shahnaz and I had been chosen by Abdul Khaliq himself and his mother clearly did not approve. Shahnaz was bitter one day but would sit and chat with me as if we were old girlfriends the next. She was lonely, I could see, and missed her sisters as much as I did mine.
“You know why she doesn’t like you?” she asked me one day.
“Because I’m a bad wife?”
“No.” Shahnaz chuckled. “Although that’s not helping matters any. She hates you because she wanted Abdul Khaliq to take her brother’s daughter as his fourth wife. Instead, he took you.”
“Why didn’t he take his cousin?”
“He was going to. That’s what I’d heard from the others, at least. But something changed a few weeks ago and he made some excuse to his uncle’s family. Next we heard he’d arranged for a nikkah with someone else — you. And Bibi Gulalai’s brother was more than a little disappointed, since they’d already courted his daughter.”
I knew I couldn’t trust Shahnaz or anything she said but I was lonely too. She was the only person around me most of the time. Her son, Maroof, took to me quickly and I passed my time showing him how to kick a ball. Shahnaz would watch me suspiciously, as if waiting for me to do something wrong.
And somehow it seemed I did everything wrong. I sat wrong, I cooked wrong, I cleaned wrong. All I wanted to do was get back to school and back to my family, my friends. I felt clumsy in a skirt, my breasts pointy in the brassiere my mother had purchased for me before my nikkah. I wanted to tie my chest down again. A lot of days, that’s exactly what I did. I would wrap a long strip of fabric around my chest and pin it tight, trying to prevent full womanhood from setting in.
My mother-in-law came back often. When the house wasn’t cleaned to her standards, she would pull me by my ear and make me scrub the floors while she watched. Shahnaz blamed everything on me and Bibi Gulalai was more than happy to believe anything she said.
Abdul Khaliq returned, as determined as his mother to make me into a proper wife. I hated to feel his breath on my face, my neck. His teeth were yellowed and his beard rough on my face. I sometimes tried to pull away, to squirm from him like the fighters in the magazines. But the more I struggled, the more forceful he became. And worse than that was the smirk on his face. As if he enjoyed when I put up a fight. I shouldn’t have been surprised. He was a man of war, after all.
Each time, I felt dirty and weak. I hated that I was powerless under him. I was supposed to be this man’s wife and that changed everything. I wasn’t supposed to fight back. And the look on his face told me that fighting back would only make matters worse.
So many nights I lay curled on my side, crying quietly and waiting for morning to come so the man snoring beside me would stretch his arms and leave.
CHAPTER 25. RAHIMA
“Now taste this. See? It has no flavor at all. You’ve got to add some salt. Everything tastes better with a little salt. Mmm.”
Shahnaz stirred the pot once more, the tomatoes melting into the simmering oil. She was teaching me a few basic dishes. It wasn’t easy but I realized she took well to flattery. It was much better than antagonizing her.
“You see the difference? Now just touch the edge of the potato. It should be soft. See? It’s cooked. My God, it really amazes me that you don’t even know this much. You must have been so spoiled at home. I hope your sisters aren’t such oafs in the kitchen!”