The Fallen Widow

22. Dark Secrets

The hall dwarfed with only a small space for Meh'r-Bano to teach the children. Chairs and tables piled in neat rows at the back. A distracted Harris played with his action figures making them climb the window. Meh'r-Bano spent the last few days going over letters with Kinza as she struggled to pronounce her letters.

"Now say it again. Z." Said Meh'r-Bano.
"J! Mamoo Shawaj!" She repeated unable to pronounce her uncle's full name. Meh'r-Bano sat next to her desk on a square stool. She pointed to the letters she'd drawn on the sheet and helped Kinza.
"Beta, how many times have I told you, it's Z. Z. Not J." She corrected. "Nawaz. Z."
"J..J." Kinza repeated pressing her tongue on the roof off her mouth.
"Nawaz." Meh'r-Bano spoke slowly and exaggerated the letters.
"Nawaj." Kinza giggled.
Unable to conceal her smile, Meh'r-Bano shook her head. "Repeat after me-"
"Repeat after me."
"No!" Meh'r-Bano shook her head.
"No!" Kinza repeated.
"Shush." Meh'r-Bano lifted her index finger against her lips. "Now listen...Shah...Nawaz. Two words. Shah..Nawaz. Look at my lips sweetheart-" Meh'r-Bano pointed. "Shah Nawaz."
"Shah...Nawaj!" Kinza repeated.
"Okay, I will allow the J. But repeat, speak clearly. Shah-"
"Shah-"
"Nawaz."
"Nawaj." Said Kinza.
"Shah Nawaz."
"Shawaj." The words tumbled out of Kinza's mouth inducing a hearty chuckle from her diligent teacher.
"You're so cute even when you're wrong." She pinched her left cheek softly.
"I can't even tell you off."

Shah-Nawaz watched keenly through the shutters impressed by Meh'r-Bano's attitude to teaching. Addressing his name without the formal titles bought a different meaning to his name. He filled the door with his large frame, his prestigious turban kissing the top of the door frame.
"That's Choudhary Shah-Nawaz to you, Teacher." He rudely interrupted drawing attention.
Meh'r-Bano's heart dropped to the floor. She quickly secured her headscarf covering her head and over her chest and stood up. A strong, familiar smell of musky oud filled the room. A scent she'd grown to recognise.
"What are you doing here, Mamoo?" Kinza jumped up from behind her desk and raised her hands to her uncle.
"I've come to see what my clever children are doing." He lifted her into his arms and kissed her left cheek.
"My Kinzi is clever and beautiful. What is she going to teach me?" Said Shah-Nawaz
"But you know EVERYTHING!" She emphasised the latter part of her sentence.
Shah-Nawaz glanced around the room resting his eyes on the teacher's lowered head. She looked deceptively timid but held many secrets. He was impatient to oust her.
"Do I?" He entertained her playful comment.
"Of course you do." Joined Harris. "You are will become the Shahenshah of Jahanpur so you must be super clever."
Lowering Kinza to the desk, his shawl slipped dangling to the ground. He flicked one end across his chest and kneeled beside her flicking through the text books.
"What is my smart girl learning today?"
Meh'r-Bano pinned her eyes on her book and straightened the pencils, unable to look at his daunting figure.
"Saalam, Choudhary Saab. " She acknowledged him formally her eyes still on her books. "I am going through letters with the children-"
"Let's learn something new." He cut her sentence waking around the room in short languid steps. Carrying his shawl on his left arm, he straightened his back revealing his neck.
"How about you? Let's learn everything about your teacher." He toyed with the children.
Meh'r-Bano looked at the confused children.
"Tell me about yourself?" He began, his voice strong with authority.
"Bano Baji!" Said Kinza.
"Meh'r-Bano." Said Harris.
Meh'r-Bano's heart was in her hands, what game was he playing? He made his way towards her and stood in front of her.
"Correct!" He played the role of the teacher. "Or is it?" Shah-Nawaz's heart pounded with excitement inching towards Meh'r-Bano. With a pencil in her hand, she pressed the sharp point of pencil under her thumb's fingernail. Her eyes flickered and looked up.
"-or should I call you Hoorayn Ghalib?"
Her eyes darted towards him hearing the forbidden name. It was four years ago she'd last heard her birth name. The name her father lovingly chose for her and swore her never to speak of it again.
"Don't look too surprised-" His eyes narrowed with contempt.
"You were difficult to track but I have my ways." He inched closer invading her personal space. Meh'r-Bano dropped the pencil and wiped her clammy hands on her kameez. She turned her burning face away from Shah-Nawaz. Did he know the truth? Her heart pounded with worry. She couldn't breathe.
"Why did you change your name?" His voice raspy thickened with tobacco.
She took in a deep breath and shifted her body away from him. His presence was suffocating
"I didn't. Meh'r-Bano was imposed on me."
"Why? Something to hide?" He smirked hoping she would be honest.
"You're thinking too much into this. Why would I have something to hide?" She rubbed the nape of her neck.
"So why would you change your name?" He pressed.
Fear snaked her spine, she shuffled away from his intimidating presence. Why couldn't he talk to her without invading her personal space? It made it hard to think. She mustered the courage to speak to him. She wasn't going to be beaten down.
"My husband changed my name, Choudhary Saab." She developed a matter of fact tone. "He said Hoorayn wasn't suitable for the village. It was too modern, for the city." She replied with poise folding her arms keeping up the façade.
"So, he wanted you to blend into the village? But couldn't hide you despite changing your name. Your past is louder than your present."
"What do you mean?"
Did he know?
"I mean, you are here aren't you. In the haveli, standing in front of me, Choudhary Shah Nawaz Qureshi." He held his arms out wide. "Teaching my children. What could be louder than that?"
"I don't understand what you are implying." She stepped back and her confidence increasing.
Shah-Nawaz returned to the children and began questioning them redirecting the conversation.
"Children what do you want to do today?".
"I want to play with your gun." Harris jumped up.
"You see that is what I like to hear." Shah-Nawaz playfully rummaged Harris's hair.
"That is the son of a Choudhary, the next leaders. All this classroom-this teaching, where would it get him?"
"Can I play with Sheru?" Harris jumped off the chair excited to play with the dog and grasped the opportunity and ran out of the classroom. Kinza returned to her dolls she'd stored in her handbag ignoring the burning tension in front of her. With her class dismissed without her permission Meh'r-Bano returned to her desk and tidied her textbooks into a neat pile.
"Tell me, what are your plans?" Shah-Nawaz returned to Meh'r-Bano
"I'm not planning anything."
Shah-Nawaz made his way casually to the window his presence unnerving Meh'r-Bano. At first it was his strong Oud scent that hit her, then his intimidating presence, but now it seemed she was under investigation. Meh'r-Bano was tough, she wasn't going to crumble under pressure.
There was so much she planned to say to him, she'd rehearsed it in her mind over again. Today, he knocked her over by unveiling her past leaving her struggling for words. The day she planned was discarded and she had to think from the top of her head.
"From the majestic mountains of the valley to the little world of Jahanpur." He broke the tense silence. "You must struggle with this world. Surely, you can return to the valley?"
"I am happy here."
"But you're not. You're planting seeds of revolt."
He was two feet away from but felt stiflingly close.
"I'm not."
"Are you not secretly teaching the quarry children?"
Her heart pounded as Shah-Nawaz stepped close. His hands held behind his back, he made his way towards her. She couldn't deny it. She knew she would be found out. Why didn't she stay under the radar?
"Well admit it." He opened his arms out.
"I felt-"
"So you are sowing the seeds of change?"
"That's not-I've stopped." She stuttered, taking a deep breath swallowing her fear. "I am teaching the noble household. You do not permit it for other children, but you want to teach your own." She couldn't hold back. It was the right moment to challenge their hypocrisy.
"And you struggle with this?" He closed in on her. "Be clear, what are your intentions?"
"I don't have a bloody choice." She mumbled incoherently turning her face away from him.
"I'm sorry. I didn't get that?" He bought his head forward with his ear towards her face. "What did you say?"
Meh'r-Bano leaned back, spotting a gold stud on his left earlobe. His hair was long, tucked behind his ear reaching his shoulders. She swiftly moved away.
"Your family struggle with the law of the land." He stood tall.
"No." She stepped back
"Obeying laws. Following rules. Rules which all villagers, must abide by. Like good Muslims and not cause mischief in the land."
She looked up. Her patience exploded. It was time to blast her thoughts.
"It's a Muslims duty to obey the law of the land and not cause mischief." He stood before her, tall as a tower telling her how she must act.
"Muslim!" She scoffed with derision. "If you are applying Islamic principles, how about the Quranic verse, 'iqra, bismi rabbi qa. "Read! Read in the name of your Lord!" She quoted the Holy Quran with her back straight, her emerald eyes blazing with anger arresting his khol dressed eyes.
"The very first word revealed to our beloved Prophet was read! Yet here we are as a nation with the worst literacy rates in the world. As a province education is non-existent! Banned! How is it possible, from a religion which the first word was iqra, we are so behind?" Unwavering, without blinking she held his steel eyed gaze. Shah-Nawaz was stunned with her reaction, unveiling her intention. Her eyes widened and glimmered under the light showing their brilliant green. Her ringed nose wrinkled and strand of hair fell in her face which she blew off. This was the real Meh'r-Bano.
"Finally! We have the real Meh'r Bano!" He threw his hands in the air like he was directing a theatrical play. "Or Hoorayn Ghalib?"
"What have you done with your education?" He said. "Does your degree burn the stove? What use is it?" He mocked." Provoking a response worthy of her calibre.
"It's not necessary to work, but educate to learn, to improve. To teach the next generation. I believe, all children should have a chance to learn, to read like your nephew and niece." She remained focused ensuring that everything she had in her mind would be spoken today. "Every child should be entitled to an education."
"And you, Hoorayn-" He reminded her reality. "Hoorayn came here to save us, to save the children and generation of Jahanpur." He mocked her with his patronising tone.
"That's not what I meant-"
"To save me, an illiterate-" he thumped his strong chest. "Save me, jahil Choudhary. I can't read so how can I rule Jahanpur!" He laughed with a booming laugh.
"No, I never said that."
"But my family, our generation. My father, an illiterate."
She struggled to make him understand. He was warping her point and making it sound she was looking down upon them. That she was a superior.
"Your father is from a different generation." She admitted.
"There are different ways of learning. A classroom isn't the only place to learn. Look at Harris. He is like me-we are not academic. We do not sit in classrooms for hours reading books. He is a Choudhary. We learn the practical way, with our horses, our lands, our panchayat. That's what we need to learn." His tone was blunt and coarse, she could feel the burn of his eyes upon her and dared not to look up.
"Keep to your station, Hoorayn. Do not have these wild dreams. They will ruin you." His aim to coerce her into obedience was complete and he made his way towards the door.