Chapter 19 #2
‘These beautiful wives of yours have had their henna done and, upon my request, the henna artists have kindly written the names of their husbands on their hand. It’s hidden among the patterns but very much there, we’ve double-checked.
Your job is to locate your name in the henna designs, much like you would have after your wedding if you carried out this custom.
The first person to locate his name in his wife’s henna shall be declared the winner. ’
Zafar remembered having to do this after his wedding.
Everyone had gathered around him and Reshma and he’d had to look for his name among the intricate patterns drawn on her hands.
It was awkward and embarrassing, he’d felt like a show monkey and he could gladly throttle his grandmother right now if he didn’t love her so much.
But with the gathering around them as big as it was, he couldn’t refuse without creating a scene.
‘And don’t even think about cheating by asking your wife to help you.
Those not taking part in the competition have their eyes on you and cheating will be dealt with most severely.
’ Haniya made eye contact with him and her father in particular.
She pointed two fingers at her eyes and then at her dad and at him.
‘Take your place opposite your wife and we’ll start in a minute. ’
‘I’m pretty sure this child of mine has links with Lucifer,’ Uncle Jawad said under his breath as he sat opposite Auntie Bilqis and Zafar sat down opposite Reshma.
‘And I reckon they both answer to Mumtaz Saeed.’ They looked at each other in male solidarity.
When Zafar looked Reshma’s way, she looked both gorgeous and miserable and he bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing. ‘That bad, huh?’
‘You have no idea. I was ambushed. Some of the women thought it was a great idea, they wanted to see their husband under pressure, especially since the last time they did this ritual was many years ago. But I still remember us doing it like it was yesterday.’
Before Zafar could respond, Haniya was counting down with glee. ‘Three. Two. One … and go.’
Reshma presented her hands to Zafar and he started scanning the patterns on her right hand first. The paste was dry and flaky in parts but still damp in others, so he was careful not to smudge any of it.
He found flowers, butterflies, spirals and paisleys, and plenty of lines and zigzags which made finding his name extremely difficult. He tried to look for a Z, but it seemed as though there were red herrings interspersed in the patterns with the express purpose of throwing him off.
‘This is impossible. I’m going to need my reading glasses, Bills.’ He heard Uncle Jawad gripe beside him and, stifling his answering chuckle, he doubled down on his own task. He held Reshma’s hand carefully in his own, her perfume finding its way to his nose, mixed with the scent of henna.
He looked up at her and found her staring back at him intently, her lower lip pressed between her teeth, making him run his tongue over his own lips.
That habit of hers was going to be the death of him.
Her brows were furrowed and she looked down at her palms and then up at him, before glancing around them.
When he looked up, he found Haniya’s eyes trained on them.
‘Daadi? I think you need to come here and invigilate these two, I sense some silent communication going on.’ Haniya said it loud enough for everyone to hear and Zafar felt the tips of his ears burn.
He would get her back for this. She seemed to have forgotten that he was the eldest of five.
Competition and one-upmanship ran through his veins alongside his red blood cells.
He focused on Reshma’s hands anew and as he pulled them towards himself again, he felt his knees knock against hers, the contact sending sparks shooting through him.
He couldn’t understand how in all the time they’d been married, he hadn’t been derailed by attraction towards Reshma and she’d been right in front of him every single day, but since coming here, he seemed to find the smallest of touches and the briefest of looks enough to heat his blood.
‘Come on, hurry up,’ Reshma whispered through gritted teeth and pressed her knees harder against his.
‘I found it!’ They heard a shout from Uncle Imtiaz a few chairs down from them, but it was soon followed up with a groan. ‘That’s so unfair, they’ve written half of my name here. A blatant false trail.’
That renewed the sense of competition around the group and Zafar moved onto Reshma’s left hand, using his finger to skim his way up from the tips of her fingers to her palms and then her wrist. With his finger resting lightly on her wrist where the henna was dry, he felt Reshma’s pulse, racing as fast as his was.
He looked at the small slivers of skin he could glimpse through the swirling patterns and he was sure he could see the jump of her pulse under her skin.
And there, right on her pulse point, he saw his name written in both Urdu and English.
The patterns around it stemmed from each letter and had he not paused to look at her wrist and rest his finger against it, he would have missed it for sure.
‘Got you!’ He said it softly and smiled triumphantly as he looked up at Reshma.
She responded in kind and then shouted out proudly, ‘We won. We finished first.’
‘I just found mine too.’ Uncle Jawad joined in and Uncle Imtiaz also announced that he’d finally found his name.
Daadi clapped jovially as, one by one, all the couples seemed to have completed her set exercise.
Reshma beamed at him and Zafar’s mind went back to the last time they’d done this.
Aside from the intense discomfort back then, he couldn’t remember much else.
Now, with the benefit of hindsight and whatever spell had been cast over him in this exotic place, he could appreciate the romance in the customs he’d carried out with Reshma before, during and after their big wedding.
They’d had a grand engagement party, in which he had given Reshma his grandmother’s ring, though Zafar hadn’t proposed, as Reshma had already pointed out to him.
He hadn’t actually asked her if she would marry him, even though she wouldn’t have said no.
He’d allowed their families to take care of finalising everything.
A few months later, their wedding events had started with a big bang.
They’d had a pre-wedding fancy dress party, organised by his brothers, a dholki party, a henna ceremony, their nikah and civil ceremony, and then a big reception party which had had so many guests, he was sure he hadn’t spoken to well over half of them.
In all those events, there had been smaller customs that he and Reshma had carried out together, but not once had he paused to appreciate the sense of closeness it was supposed to engender in a couple.
He’d just gone through the motions. Like carrying her over the threshold, finding his name in her bridal henna which had gone from the tips of her fingers all the way to just above her elbows, with his name in the crook of her elbow on one arm and in the centre of her palm on the other hand.
His grandmother had then set a bowl of watered-down milk between them and after dropping a ring with a few coins into the liquid, he had raced Reshma in finding the ring using just one hand.
It had been a best out of three, with the victor supposedly getting bragging rights for the duration of the marriage, not that he’d ever bragged.
When he thought back to those times, he couldn’t think of a single moment which he’d shared with Reshma that they could both look back at fondly.
He’d gone through each and every tradition, ritual and custom he’d been presented with as though he were powering his way through a checklist, giving no thought to the meaning behind any of them or the fact that it was something he was supposed to bond with his new wife over.
He’d hung about for a day after their wedding – during which he and Reshma had been surrounded by family and visitors – and then he’d been back at work the next day.
When his father had asked him about going on a honeymoon, he’d said he was busy and would arrange something in due course.
A year on and he still hadn’t gone away with his wife for even a weekend and there hadn’t been a single word of censure from Reshma.
For a man who prided himself on being pretty good at his job, made an effort to be a model grandson, son and brother – despite his numerous failures – he had a lot of ground to make up to become even half as good a husband to a woman who, after everything she’d undergone in life, deserved nothing less than perfect.
A woman who had awakened feelings in him that he’d been taught to believe spelt destruction.