Chapter One of Beyond the Cayenne Wall

Amulet for the Caged Dove

Inside the dimly lit tent-like dwelling Tannu called home, night had descended like a hawk, enveloping everything in a dark, foreboding cloak. Her feet twitched and kicked petulantly at the sheets, pushing her toe into that sweet space between the thin sheet and the strings of the charpoy where it was just a little bit cooler. It promised to be a long night. Sleep was once again miles from her, her senses strangely alert to the sights and sounds surrounding her.

            “Tannu,” she said to herself firmly. “Sleep! Let the gentle hand of the night rock you into oblivion.” Next to her the rhythmic snoring of the inert figure on the charpoy prevented that from happening. She glanced at the glistening, oil-massaged body of Raja and watched the rise and fall of his chest in awe. How naturally he sleeps, like a baby, unaware of the unbearable heat, beadlike sweat visible on his forehead. From his body radiated a smell of wood mixed with charcoal––products of a day’s work.

            Across the bed a thin curtain separated the sleeping silhouette of his widowed mother from them. Had she been aware of their nightly tryst, Tannu wondered? Bodies wrapped in passion, sounds muffled and yet brazenly audible––the price to pay when living in a 16 foot by 10 foot dwelling, the framework of their lives. Perhaps that nocturnal event would bear some fruition. Her bodily rhythm was so perfectly aligned with the moon. Even when nothing in life made sense, her body obeyed the calling. The new moon always promised the crimson flow like clockwork. And when the waxing crescent became the full moon, Amma said that was her time––the moment when God burst the seed within a woman’s body to make her fertile. Yet Tannu’s body failed month after month to fill her insides with the cherished fruit. Unlike her friends in the neighborhood, her stomach didn’t swell with the promised hope of a new life.

            Amma tried all the totems and tricks known to her and her generation––expensive and rare honey to sip before bed, burfis of almond and golden brown gur, the date palm sugar, the amulet around Tannu’s neck that Wali Baba down the street had prepared for her by fasting for seven days. Amma hoped that through some mystifying alchemy, she could influence the arrival of her elusive grandchild––grandson, to be precise, according to her incessant referrals. Perhaps Amma thought if she repeated something often enough, it would come to par. Tannu was in disagreement. She believed that silence is what gives realization to dreams. Reiteration irks the angels. In truth, Tannu had come to have serious doubts about either methodology.

            How was she to be certain, Tannu often thought? Nineteen seasons of spring, in her mind, wasn’t enough to teach a woman all the wonders of life, but they were enough to call you a liar when you are not honest with yourself. Thoughts like a pool of sharp thread wound around her heart. If only her Ma had not married her off so hastily, she’d still be at home amidst friends living her childhood, not worrying about a new life to come when she herself had not let go of her own youth.

            Everything about marriage irritated her: the thick gold loops that she had to wear in her ears, the grotesque pale bangles of poor craftsmanship that Amma insisted were the sign of a wedded woman, the glint in Raja’s eyes at the sight of her in the evening when she collapsed next to him, tired from the day’s endless toil. Even their one-room hut that squatted along the riverbank disenchanted her despite the fact that it was surrounded by majestic palm, tamarind, and neem trees. The concrete patch outside the hut that Amma had designated as the kitchen irked her with its little three-pot mud stove that Tannu had to light by puffing on the wood until it was red and angry and her lungs were just about ready to collapse from the inhaled carbon.

            Tannu slid her hand underneath her head and studied a tear on the fabric of the hut, moonlight shimmering through it in a promising glow. What lies beyond, she wondered? She had never ventured out at midnight, at least not intentionally. Like a child who has never tasted mango, its ripe lusciousness utterly meaningless to her, the yellow fragrant peelings a feast for the senses that cannot even come alive in the imagination. Dewy soft sleep cascaded over her, and she thankfully gave in to the sensation.

She dreamed she was an eagle soaring high, wings outstretched to embrace the amber sky, before feeling the sudden sensation of being pulled back to Earth. She found to her astonishment a rope tied around her ankle that was forcing her back down in a speeding frenzy.

She woke with a start. Amma was shaking her. “Tannu, bahu, wake up!” Amma was saying. “I am leaving for work. Cook dal curry today. There is enough rice from yesterday for Raja.”

            Tannu turned around and went right back to sleep. Rice, fluffy white grains that she had not tasted in ages. Her mouth watered at the thought of the familiar taste. In their household, only Raja could partake of such luxury. Money was short. That was the reason Amma had to go out and wash other people’s clothes and dirty dishes. Tannu was not permitted to venture outdoors in pursuit of work because she was the prized cow, an incubator for a prospective offspring that any outside influence could potentially damage. Whenever Tannu objected, Amma was quick to point out how Radha, Manisha’s bahu, lost her baby when she was washing clothes in someone’s home. The baby just slipped out of her, bloodied bag and all, and Radha hadn’t even known she was with child.

            “I would die if a thing like that happened to Raja’s son,” Amma said, biting her lower lip in apprehension and gazing at Tannu’s flat stomach. She was again referring to the would-be grandchild as a boy. Tannu felt laughter bubbling inside her but faced her with a straight face as Amma concluded, “If Wali Baba’s talisman doesn’t work, we will have to go to Shah Daullah’s shrine.”

            Tannu breathed in sharply. “What? I will not go to that shrine, ever!” she cried. Amma slapped her across her face. “Don’t you talk to me like that, you insolent, unproductive woman! Don’t invoke God’s wrath by being callous and shameless. If my first grandchild is destined to be a chuwa in the shrine, He will smile upon us and bestow another offspring on you soon after.”

            Tannu doubled over in pain and felt the rising of a welt where Amma’s ring had grazed her cheek. Hot anger washed over her. Shah Daullah’s shrine was the place where people desperate to have offspring went to pray to be fruitful. According to a legend dating back hundreds of years, the wish for offspring is granted at a price––the first child born out of that prayer has to be handed over to the shrine caretakers as a sign of respect. There was another dark side to the story. All the children left at the shrine grow up with abnormalities and are dubbed the “rat-children,” or chuwas, by votaries of the shrine because their facial features starkly resemble that of a rodent.

            Tannu had heard whispers, and yes, there had been talk that the children were not born deformed but that in a cruel and twisted exercise in manipulation, their soft and underdeveloped skulls are strapped with a metal apparatus in infancy so that the normal growth of their heads is constrained, rendering them physically handicapped and mentally challenged. Eventually these children grow up to have no distinct gender and are unable to reproduce. Nearly all the children offered to the shrine or those claiming to represent it end up on the streets of Gujrat as beggars. It had proved to be a lucrative trade for their keepers. The thought sent chills down Tannu’s spine. Could she give up her offspring to those wolves? Never!

            The locals believe it is bad luck to ignore the chuwas, so when they catch sight of one, they quickly fill their bowl with alms. They scared Tannu when she was little with their shockingly small heads, squashed, compressed features, giant ears bizarrely out of proportion to their heads, foamy spittle coming from their mouths, and the sounds, those horrible wailing sounds as if they were trapped inside their hideous bodies and wanted out. Whenever she came across one, she ran in the other direction, screaming and wailing. Her mother always brought her back, insisting that she take their blessings.

             “Your innermost desires will come true,” her mother would say. “The chuwas have special powers. They are cherished by God.”

The afternoon sun blazed down on Tannu’s dark head as she hastily kneaded the wheat dough for chapattis. It was almost time for Amma to arrive home. She scared Tannu lately. The kind eyes she was used to seeing had changed overnight into determined, heartless ones; her lips had taken on a new shape in their pursed state, and her voice was more forceful. It all meant the coming of a storm, black and violent, on their household, and Tannu knew she could be crushed beneath its frenzied ferocity.

            She ground the spices by rolling them between a round stone and a stone board and looked over at the lentil curry in the rotund pot blackened with soot. It had started to froth at the mouth, and she blew on the hot liquid to bring it down and with her free hand turned the swollen chapatti over deftly on the convex pan. The air was alive with the scents and sounds of her cooking, and it was then that she saw him. It wasn’t that she was seeing him for the first time—he lived down the gali—but it was the first time she had seen anyone look at her so enthralled. He was the young milkman who delivered in the neighborhood. His lean body was balanced against his bicycle, an expression of deep consternation and veneration on his face. Tannu ran a sweaty hand over her brow and looked straight at him brashly. She saw that he switched his position and straightened and was now looking all around him, embarrassed, as if caught in a punishable act.

            There was enough wood to last a day, but water was depleting in the pot. Fresh water had become scarce over the years after the barrages were built, causing the shrinking of the mangrove stands, and this made Tannu walk longer for the collection of wood. This bothered her because the only juti she owned would cut her feet because it was too tight. She decided she would have to get the water to wash the dishes and use for the evening meal. Usually it was a morning chore, but the hours had slipped by quickly. Tannu donned her headgear to support the round clay matka on her head and set out toward the village well. Ten steps away from her hut, she had an eerie sense of being followed, and without looking back she knew who it was. She sashayed up the empty road, swinging her hips in false vanity, her heart racing to a feverish pitch, her walk slowing to a turtle-like pace. Inside Tannu’s mind there was turmoil. “Oh body!” she chided herself. “Do not betray me now. Why does a stranger’s eyes cause you to behave so wantonly? You’re a married woman. The pleasures of the body are not for you.” It was amazing, it occurred to her later, how easy it is for one, when away from the confines of home, to cross the line that separates illusion from reality.

            Tannu felt a familiar trickling between her legs. Oh, the wretched day had arrived. Perhaps it was nature’s way to talk some sense into her. Alas, Wali Baba’s amulet had failed. Determined to outrun her benign stalker, she hurried her pace to reach the well and quickly filled the matka, spilling most of it on the ground in her hurry. The late afternoon sun thirstily drank up the remains. Sun had already set by the time she turned back, and for an instant the scene that awaited her took her by surprise. Against the horizon, the village was alive with stove fires blazing outside the illegitimate squatted settlements. They were offset by the silhouetted coconut palm trees on a backdrop of thousands of stars, and in the middle of it, the full moon shone luminously, even provocatively. How had she not known such beauty before this day? Did the emotion of longing and fear give new perspective to her in her displaced state?

            Amma was already home, setting food for Raja who for once had come home early and not in a drunken stupor at midnight. She often wondered where Raja got the money to spend on that habit, but that was an arena she did not want to venture into; she knew she might discover some very disturbing facts. Tannu sat the matka down in the corner as Amma eyed her suspiciously. “What took you so long? The dal isn’t even cooked properly. What did you do all day?” Her barrage of questions cut through the humid air.

            Tannu ignored her and removed her headgear. Silently she sat down beside Raja and eyed his plate of rice longingly. She felt all eyes upon her as she broke a piece of chapatti and chewed it. Silence was a cloak that had gathered around her in increasing speed, accusingly. Raja laid a hand on her arm.

            “Are you all right, Tannu?” he asked, almost gently. His eyes wandered to his mother’s face, and he crowed under her look of extreme distaste at their exchange. Tannu continued attacking the curry, the floating lentils tasteless and hard––Amma was right; they were undercooked. It’s all his fault… Her thoughts trailed off, and Amma’s voice brought her to the present.

            “It’s the full moon, Tannu. What news do you have for us?”

            Tannu breathed in sharply. Raja looked away embarrassed. Amma’s face took on an expression of a combatant with weapons drawn.

“Not good,” Tannu replied in a small voice. If she could only take this moment away she would fly like a butterfly into oblivion. Or perhaps Mother Earth would be kind enough to part and mercifully swallow her. She could be spared her worst nightmare––this one right here, unfolding before her very eyes.

            “Then it’s decided. Tomorrow we go to Shah Daullah’s shrine.” Amma’s words cut through her insides like shards of glass, and Tannu felt herself slipping as hot tears pricked her eyes. She was vaguely aware of Raja arguing with his mother, but it was as if she were watching a movie; there was a strange sense of disassociation, a feeling of unreality. She did not belong among them. In her acute sense of panic and fear, she had already detached herself from them.

How did the legend of Shah Daullah begin? As a child, Tannu asked her mother that one day and was told a fascinating tale.

            It all started in the early sixteenth century with a pious saint, Kabiruddin who left his native Iran to come to Punjab and became Shah Daullah, which meant “the king of his descendants.” In the course of time he met another saint called Shah Massat who was born with a deformed head and other physical disfigurements, yet displayed extraordinary mystical perceptions and profound understanding of divinity. So impressed was Shah Daullah by his teachings that he quickly became Shah Massat’s disciple and vowed to become a savior of handicapped children who were cast away. As the word of his compassion and munificence spread, disabled children were brought to him from all over. Upon his death in 1579, his shrine became a sanctuary for such children. Revenues generated from the offerings were used to take care of these children. The legend of his bestowing fertility on infertile women started spreading only after his death.

            At a cruel point in history, it had all become twisted. Some criminal types who saw profit in people’s anguish started a vicious cycle of exploitation of the masses. Children’s natural physiques were tampered with to make them into chuwas. When a cry ensued, it was quickly diffused; too many ill-minded folks were too deeply involved to stop the sacrilege.

Tannu slept fitfully again that night, in and out of bizarre dreams.

            She saw herself sprawled on a bed, labor pains racking her body. A doula assisted her with the childbirth. It was excruciating pain unlike any she had experienced before. Her aide was thickly veiled; only her dark, wide eyes were visible as her hands worked expertly, wiping the sweat from Tannu’s brow, helping her along when in a final agonizing moment, something slipped out of Tannu’s body, almost tearing her in half. She had delivered a child. The doula placed the infant into Tannu’s eager arms, but she screamed at the sight of her child––it had big pointy ears on a shrunken head and fingers that were hideously larger than the rest of the body. It was then that the doula lifted her veil and smiled.

            “Rejoice. Your child has been blessed!” she blurted out in an ominously chilling voice, saliva dribbling from the corners of her mouth, her rodent-like teeth mocking her.

            The doula was one of them.

            Tannu’s scream got lost somewhere in her throat and never found its way to her lips. Her eyes fluttered open, her heart racing. She was sitting against a neem tree, clothes soaked in nightly dew. She saw her house a few yards away, the lantern light from within exposing the sleeping figures inside. She looked around in bewilderment and shivered. How did she end up outside? Had she been sleepwalking again?

            As a child Tannu was a sleepwalker. There were times when Tannu’s Ma would search frantically for her daughter in the early morning hours only to find her sleeping on a bench in the cornfield or on soft leaves near the riverbank. Tannu would recall none of it. Her mother got an amulet for her from a wise man, and it seemed to cure her of that unusual habit for the time being.

            Tannu made her way back to the hut and slipped onto the charpoy beside her quiescent husband with a thudding heart. Did anyone hear her? Did Amma notice her coming back? She untied Wali Baba’s talisman from around her neck and slipped the thread out of it. With extreme fierceness, she tied her left foot firmly to the charpoy with it. Perhaps in her heart she did not trust herself anymore and was afraid where her next nightly adventure would lead her if she weren’t careful.

            As it were, the crevices in her home life were growing too large to keep her in.

            The milkman was there in the morning delivering milk––later than usual, perhaps on purpose. Amma and Raja had left for work. Tannu looked at his feet as he poured milk in the bowl she held out to him. Brown toes peeked from his strapped leather chappal. She could hear the splash as the milk cascaded inside the bowl; she imagined its watery whiteness filling her mind. It enveloped her senses, its haziness clouding her sensibility and ability to judge. His fingers grazed her hand and stayed on her forearm. She flinched but didn’t move away. Her insides were alive with forbidden emotions, luscious longing, a racing heart that wanted just one thing––to drape her arms around this stranger and allow him to free her of her cruel existence, to steal her away to some distant land where she did not have to worry about her barren state anymore. They stood like that for what seemed like forever until the call of the knife sharpener brought her back to reality. He dropped his hand from her arm, and she disappeared inside the hut with the bowl, splashing its contents in her haste. He turned around to leave, milky beads guiltily lingering on the front of his dark shirt.

The moment had passed.

Radha had her baby that morning.

            It was her first after the miscarriage last year, and Tannu was happy for her, albeit a bit envious. How blissfully productive her friend was. She could conceive in a heartbeat. Tannu was certain Radha never even had to determine her fertile time. Not that Tannu could either; anything to do with numbers baffled her, as did time. There was a clock in their hut that Raja had found discarded in the trash and brought home. The working of the hands of the clock was an inexplicable mystery to Tannu, and she was amazed how people could tell time just by looking at them. To her they were just two sticks at odds with each other, incompatible like Raja and herself and their meaningless relationship.

            Amma was adamant that she accompany Tannu to see Radha. “Wait and see. If she hands the baby to you from her labor bed, you will be with a child soon,” Amma said with solid conviction. “It’s happened to a lot of women.”

            Tannu was certain it wouldn’t happen to her. Where amulets and talismans had failed, how would a simple process of holding a newborn baby work? She didn’t know, yet she knew she’d oblige to appease her mother-in-law. Secretly, she wished this would chase away Amma’s desire to drag her to the shrine, but she knew this wasn’t to be after Amma spoke when they had walked a few miles.

“I am not going to work today. We will go to the shrine. The good Lord will make you fruitful,” Amma said, hands raised heavenward, passion in her voice. “He will grant me a grandson.”

            There was a commotion at Radha’s doorstep. A group of transvestites draped in sarees had gathered there, a common sight at weddings and occasions of happiness. They flock to festive homes and offer their blessings, but if dissatisfied with the offering, they hurl abuses and are known to cast an evil eye upon the cause of the rejoicing. They are much revered and very feared. They were getting restless with what Radha’s mother-in-law was offering them. Apparently it wasn’t sufficient to satisfy the group, and they were chanting angrily.

            “May the child fall sick and die before his second birthday,” they were saying as Tannu looked on in horror. “May your home burn down! May the child become an orphan!”

            Tannu couldn’t hear any more, and she shoved past them and ran indoors. One of them caught her arm and tugged at her sleeves, hand held out for baksheesh. When Tannu shook her head and wrenched her hand free, she caused a stir.

            “May you never hold your baby in your arms!” one of them spat at her.

            Furious, Tannu took off her wedding bangles and threw them across at the group before disappearing inside. A weeping Radha fell into her arms, a little white bundle hugged close to her body. “They are cursing my child, Ae Bhaghwan!” Her eyes were wild with fear. “My child will die.”

            Tannu shook her head and made her lie down on the charpoy, stroking her forehead, wiping the tears from her eyes. The sindoor, red powder in the parting of her hair, came out on her hand. It was the sign of a wedded woman in Radha’s world. Tannu glanced at the little bronze baby in Radha’s arms and felt an uncoiling of raw unnamed maternal instinct inside her that began in her toes and traveled upward through her entire length. The baby looked like an angel in sleep, oblivious to the entire world.

            “Let me hold him,” Tannu whispered, afraid to wake the baby up. Smiling through her tears, Radha offered him to her. At that moment the door burst open.

            “What are you doing, Tannu? Stop! Do not touch the child!” It was Amma, with an expression of horror on her face. “This child has been cursed.”

            Tannu glanced defiantly at her mother-in-law, and with an inner strength she did not know she possessed, she accepted the baby from Radha’s outstretched arms and hugged him close to her. The fresh baby scent filled her senses as she kissed the top of his hot, dark head.

            Amma looked at her in dismay. “Tannu, what have you done?” she cried, sitting down on the floor. “What have you done?”

It was just another day at the Sufi Shrine of Shah Daullah.

            In the Punjab province stretching out toward the River Chenab lies the city of Gujrat and in its midst, the shrine, surrounded by peddlers, hawkers, and low-slung shops, a confined space that at once explodes with the smell of stale spices and crushed rose petals. For 300 years, women who are unable to have children have visited the shrine. They believe that praying there and being touched by a chuwa will make them fertile.

            Before they even reached the gate, Tannu heard a loud wail competing with the deafening din of the everyday trade that made her stop in her tracks. Something icy clutched at her heart. It was a chuwa, gatekeeper of a shrine to well-being and productiveness, her large pointy ears grotesque on her shrunken, shaved head, her fingers twice as long as a normal person’s, her rodent-like teeth visible even through her closed mouth. A caged dove was beside her, a restless inmate. One by one people stopped in front of the chuwa––a procession of the afflicted, maimed and elderly men, sick children, barren women, a whole world in desperate search of a glimmer of hope, some inkling for survival. Waiting for a voice to say to them, “Today you are free from your sickness, from your fears—go forth and multiply.”

            But it wasn’t as simple as that.

            Tannu looked the other way as she bent in front of the chuwa to seek blessing, her body tight from revulsion and panic. Amma’s hand forcefully pushed her a little closer to the chuwa. All of Tannu’s instincts directed her to flee, but the strong hold of Amma on the small of her back kept her from escaping. The chuwa pawed at her clumsily and let out a cry that sounded like that of a caged animal. A peacock meandered in and out of the crowd, one of the many offerings that the needy bring to the shrine in order to get their heart’s desires. Notes from an instrument rose in the air. Somewhere a man was reciting Sufi poems. Mysticism and suffering blended together in a collage of senses that shrouded the shrine and beyond.

Amma’s firm hand on Tannu’s back pushed her inside the shrine. They took their shoes off at the doorstep and headed in through the archway. Inside, the air was thick and alive with the scent of crushed rose petals and incense, perhaps for the annihilation of all the unpleasant and noxious smells, tears, and woe. The grave of Shah Daullah was draped in velvet covering; the stained glass walls glittered with promise. Tannu could sense the agony in the air. There were women like her, their faces hidden by veils underneath a pulsating desire to invoke the favor of the gods of fruitfulness, yet Tannu felt none of the desperation they carried. She had decided she did not want a child if a chuwa was her fate. There was a strange calm inside her. She knew what she would pray for. The episode at Radha’s home had presented her with an inner dexterity.

            She kneeled to kiss the grave and closed her eyes in prayer. “O Lord, please do not give me a child because of my presence here,” she breathed. “I am not strong enough to make an offering of my firstborn.”

            She opened her eyes to glance at Amma. Her lips were moving in silent prayer, but her eyes were darting all around her. She frowned to see that Tannu had already finished her prayers. A strong impatient voice broke into their silent exchange telling them to move on and to let other people partake of the saint’s blessings. There was crispness in the tone of that voice that suggested leadership, and they both got up in a hurry.

            Outside a woman was wailing; her veil was on the ground, her hair disheveled. Her husband had snatched a white bundle from her arms. Shocked, Tannu realized that it was a baby. The man was handing the infant to the shrine caretaker.

            “The child belongs to Shah Daullah,” the man was saying, his eyes ablaze, warding off his wife’s persistent hand that stretched out for her baby. “He is a messenger of Shah Massat. God’s wrath would be upon us if we do not fulfill our promise.”

            The child seemed normal; his features were not rat-like, Tannu observed. Why would anyone give up a healthy child? Perhaps out of fear, because doesn’t the legend say that if you don’t, all your subsequent children would be born disabled?

Her night was restless again. The hot weather had turned into a scorching mess. Throughout the day, Tannu felt there was no oxygen left to fill her lungs with air, and night was worse. Raja dragged in after midnight, his breath foul with liquor. Tannu turned away in distaste. Amma didn’t stir at all. The afternoon visit to the shrine had really taken a toll on her old bones. Tannu started counting the ticking of Raja’s clock; sometimes that soothed her and lulled her into sleep.

            As the night sleep caught up with her, her amulet thread lay forgotten at the end of her bed, untied. Outside the night mist covered their home in a transparent cloak. The air was heavy with anticipation, heat, and yearning.

She woke up with a jolt. What was that cry? It sounded like a wolf. She looked around in confusion. Where was that familiar tear on the fabric of the hut that she looked at every night? Where was she? It was too dark to tell. She turned around to ask Raja and nearly screamed. She clapped a hand to her mouth in shock.

            It wasn’t Raja who was next to her.

When her eyes got accustomed to the dark, she was able to make out his silhouette. The face was familiar: straight nose, lips curled as if on the verge of a smile, eyes shut in a restful sleep. She knew the face well; it belonged to the one who made her forget her marriage vows and enveloped her in wistful longing.

            How did she get here? Tannu’s mind screamed, her heart racing. What has she done? Her hands fumbled blindly for her clothes. She hastily tied the strings of her long shirt, feeling the air touch her naked limbs invasively. Her skirt was pinned underneath his body. She pulled at it slowly, slipped off the charpoy, and ran outside, tying it around her middle.

            Outside the air had grown moist; the rustle of the palm trees was the only thing alive. She lunged at the sky in rage at the final betrayal of her body. She had lost it all. Her unconscious desires had led her to the ultimate sin. She had failed all who trusted her. Hot tears that formed in her eyes turned cool as they cascaded down her cheeks. There was a catch in her throat that wouldn’t go away. She looked around nervously. Had anyone seen her? She felt a maggot climb up her leg, but she didn’t push it away. Her only goal was to find the familiar sight of her dwelling.

            Inside her home, the inhabitants were fast asleep. Tannu’s midnight venture had not affected their slumber, and she sank onto the charpoy thankfully.

            The rest of the night gave her not a wink of peace. It was the beginning of an apocalypse. Overnight cracks had started to form on the foundation of her life.

She wasn’t well for days afterwards. Fever raged inside her as if punishing her for her deed. Or was it guilt that gnawed at her existence? Radha came by to visit with her baby, but Tannu sent her home. She did not want the child to catch what she had. After fifteen days of the torturous illness, it subsided almost like a storm that had never occurred.

            It was also the day of the full moon and Amma’s monthly inquisition. Surprisingly, Tannu’s biological clock had failed, and after three days there was even a faint smile on Amma’s face and hushed whispers of what was to come. Tannu remained impervious to her festive mood. Inside her were questions that had no answers, and to ask them aloud would be to let gangrene take over her flesh.

            “The good Lord has smiled upon us,” Amma declared after her daily prayer one day and lifted her hands high in the air, her eyes misty. “The door has opened for us. Your next child will be a boy. I know it. I just have this feeling in my heart.”

            Tannu looked away. She knew what her words implied, but she vowed to be strong for her child. Days went by, and the life within Tannu blossomed. There were no preparations for the child. No jhoola to rock the baby to sleep, no little clothes to cover the little frame, not even a rattle or jhunjhun to play with. Tannu knew what that meant. The fate of her unborn child was sealed. At the edge of the abyss of ignorance there was a placid air that left Tannu short of breath. She wanted to bruise that air physically, to squeeze it dry of the tranquility––there was so much anger within her. She wanted to shake Amma until her teeth rattled and scream that the child she carried within her wasn’t the grandchild she had vowed to give up. To Raja she wanted to shout, the child isn’t from your loins; he was conceived in that shameless hour when it is neither night nor day, a time when passion ruled and bodies obeyed and all that was pure was washed away as if water from a sieve. She wanted to show them how when their clenched fists closed around her life, they had lost her heart. And then when the anger subsided, it infused a lotus-like beauty within Tannu, at once weightless and captivating, a gift of the life she carried inside her.

            Near the horizon of her existence, she saw him as well, the man whose name she did not even know, the father of her unborn child, the person who was always there in her sight, watching her flower, her once lithe body now heavy with the promise of Heaven’s bounty, a smile that he had never witnessed before on her face. She never felt any anger toward him. There was no remorse in her heart anymore.

            Does he know that the life she carried within her was also partly his, Tannu wondered? A part of Tannu didn’t want him to know. She was possessive about this new life that breathed inside her. In her dreams, she saw the woman at the shrine often. It always played out the same way, with her baby being snatched from her at the end. Tannu would wake up with her heart beating so hard against her chest that she was afraid it would burst out.

            She had a game plan. When days rolled into weeks and weeks into months and fall took over in its orange and brown splendor, Tannu started preparing for her journey. There was a new song to her lips, a new strength in her demeanor, her gait that of a person on a mission, and finally, six moons later, she was ready to embark on her expedition.

            She set out at midnight when the tired world had fallen in its usual comatose state. The rustle of the palm trees was all around her as the night breeze wantonly caressed her face. Tannu’s garment fluttered treacherously in the dark; she felt the frail, crackling remains of dead leaves collapse beneath her feet. Somewhere a rooster mistakenly gave out the morning call, perhaps awakened by motion, and a barn owl screeched in response. Shuddering, she brought her headcover closer to her face, and when she looked down again, there were two shadows on the ground instead of one. She looked up to face her companion who had fallen in step with her and smiled. She was no stranger to his reassuring presence. If he were the cause of her predicament, perhaps he wanted also to be her savior.

            Behind her she could hear the foundations of her old world crack and disintegrate, but she did not look back. She knew that when it was over what really mattered would have been salvaged. Perhaps in her escape she had only switched one kind of paucity for another, but she was sure of one thing—it would be a state in which her child would finally have a place to call home.

In the 1980s the government of Pakistan took over Shah Daullah’s shrine in an effort to stop the exploitation of innocent lives, but even today it is not uncommon to see rat children begging on the streets of Gujrat.