Shabanu Read online

  Dadi earns extra money taking Guluband to dance at the fairs in the irrigated areas. When my cousin Adil was married last year, Guluband danced for hours. Usually it takes drums and pipes to put him into the mood. But I can make him dance with just a song.

  We round the last stand of desert shrub and Guluband drops his head, his nimble lips plucking at the thorny stems. His mouth is tough as rhinoceros hide. We are just at the base of the last sand dune before the toba, and I hear Dadi singing and shouting on the other side. It must be full of water!

  I cluck at Guluband and tug gently on his reins. He knows me well enough to sense I’m in a hurry, and his great legs stretch out, lifting us up and over the dune.

  “Allah-o-Akbar!” shouts Dadi, his head thrown back and the veins in his neck sticking out like goathair cords. He is knee-deep in the toba, and his turban falls into the water. His lungi also hangs in the water, absorbing it like a thirsty wick. “God is great!” he sings out again, and begins to laugh.

  When he sees me, he grabs up his turban and lungi and gallops through the water, across to me on the other side. He reaches up to haul me off Guluband’s back. Again he throws back his head.

  “Allah-o-Akbar!” He tosses me into the air, catching me in his strong, lean arms. The water stretches for miles around us, and the camels that have gathered at the edge to drink look at us as if we are mad. Even the females who haven’t had their babies return from the brush to drink.

  “How long will the water last?” I ask, not daring to hope it will be enough to stretch through until the monsoon rains in July.

  “We can stay perhaps until Phulan’s wedding,” says Dadi, his smile dazzling under his thick black mustache. I throw my arms around his neck and hang on, happy as I ever remember being.

  He lifts the water pots down from the saddle, and Guluband lowers his head to quench his thirst. Although the herd has been at the toba most of the night, many camels still stretch their necks to drink.

  I wade out into the clear water to fill the goatskin bucket. It’s icy, but I’m too happy to care. I return to the edge and fill two pots from the skin. Dadi lifts one to my head and waits for the sloshing load to settle before setting the second atop it. I stand motionless beneath their weight while he fills two others.

  They shine when he fastens them to the saddle as though God had sprinkled them with diamonds.

  Birth

  I see the vultures just before noon—a lazy, circling reminder that life is fragile. Normally snakes and scorpions spend the cold weather underground. But rain in January fills their holes and tunnels, forcing them out, angry and confused, and they bite anything that moves. So the vultures make long, lazy loops in the sky, prowling for anything that falls.

  It’s my turn to tend the herd and I am busy. After a rain the camels don’t need to stay near the toba—water is everywhere, and they wander where they want. When the weather is dry, the toba is like a magnet; eventually they all come back to drink.

  I notice the circle of birds tighten and then hear a dreadful bellow. I am running, my heart on fire, before the first yellow bird dives. The birds gather behind a spiky clump of pogh, dropping from the sky now like heavy, feathered sacks. The yellow-gray wings flap furiously. The bellowing continues, though weaker now, and I know the camel is still alive. My legs carry me with what seems like superhuman speed; still it’s forever before I reach the dying female.

  I wade in among the swarming mass of feathers, shrieking animal warning sounds, waving my arms and beating at the great bald-necked vultures that have gathered at the camel’s head, waiting to feast greedily the second life leaves her.

  More birds, each nearly my height and weight, hover around her hindquarters, waiting to disembowel her. Or so I think until I move around for a full view.

  The birds are after her unborn baby! Only its head and front feet extend from the mother. The sack has burst, and the baby’s eyes are shut tight against the brilliant sun. It isn’t breathing yet, but the mother has lost the strength to push, and I know if I can’t pull it out, it will die.

  I am exhausted from running and chasing away the vultures. I can’t think what to do. I take another look at the mother’s face. She has stopped struggling, and her breath comes in short gasps. Her legs are rigid in front of her. Bending closer, I see the swollen flesh around two puncture marks on her nose. I think she’s been bitten by a krait, a snake even deadlier than the cobra.

  Camels give birth lying down, but the second the baby is born the mother stands, and the baby tumbles out onto the ground. The shock breaks the cord and knocks air into the baby’s lungs. This mother will be paralyzed within minutes, and unless I can birth the baby, it will die.

  I grab the baby’s head and pull, but there is no give. I pull gently at first, then in desperation I begin a steady pressure with all my strength, one hand behind the baby’s head, the other gripping his forelegs. I stop to rest, panting, tears streaming down my face, and notice an inch of neck, wet with mucus, has been born.

  With a grunt, I grab both forelegs now and give a mighty yank. Nothing happens. A memory takes shape in my mind of fetching boiled water to a room with moans and soft cries slipping like ghosts through the shuttered windows, of Mama lying across Auntie’s heaving stomach, a woman from the village pulling at something between Auntie’s splayed, bent legs.

  I run to the mother camel’s side, screeching at a vulture perched there. She still pants softly. I throw myself across her swollen belly and grab her spine, pressing myself against her with all my might. There is a small gasp, and I slip off, grabbing the baby’s forelegs again, hauling with all my might. An inch of wet shoulder appears. My dress is soaked with sweat from the effort, and I wonder if the inert baby has been poisoned too and whether if he survives the birth he will find a foster mother. In the January sunshine of a day that began with happiness, suddenly death seems easier, more inevitable than life.

  I think of Phulan giving birth, still a girl, in a strange bed with a woman she barely knows yanking at a half-born child between her legs. I hear a low wail and realize it is coming from me.

  I take the baby camel’s face between my hands and his nostrils twitch. Again I grab his forelegs with strength that I believe now comes from God—surely I have none left myself. The baby’s chest is out now. Again I fling myself across the mother’s belly. She grunts and I know she is still alive, though the vultures stand now on her neck. I scream at them and they flutter lazily.

  I haul on his legs, and the baby is half born. I pray for the mother to go on breathing, to keep the baby alive until I can pull him into the world and he can breathe for himself.

  I don’t know how long it takes, but by the time his back legs are free he is bleating and wriggling, trying to stand. I bite the cord, freeing him forever from his dying mother. When that is done, I turn and look at her. “Your baby is safe,” I say. A vulture standing on her forehead ducks its head, and its hooked beak pierces her lifeless eye.

  I beat at the vultures again, but they are already tearing at the carcass of the dead mother. I clean the baby with my shawl, trying to ignore the gurgling sounds and the flapping wings behind me. I rub his legs and chest briskly until his soft white fur curls tightly as it dries in the sun. Slowly he becomes more active. All the while he nuzzles me, looking for a teat to suckle.

  My legs tremble, and I feel ill. As soon as the baby is able to organize his long, trembly legs, I take my scarf from my neck and tie it around his and lead him slowly away, back to the rest of the herd.

  At the toba, it seems impossible that life is going on as if this had never happened.

  We have six new babies in our herd, all healthy and nursing. I take the new one to the other mothers, but they lower their heads and trot away. He follows me closely, as if I am his mother. But I can’t feed him, and he’ll die if I can’t find a nursing female for him.

  Under a thorn tree are two of the water pots Dadi and I filled in the morning. Suddenly I am thirsty and to
o tired to move. The baby and I rest under the tree, and I lift a pot to fill my cup. The baby smells the water and nudges me, gently at first. I dip my fingers into the cup and hold them out to him. He sniffs gingerly, then sucks greedily, grunting. With difficulty I free my fingers to wet them again. Lying under the thorn tree, I feed him until we fall into exhausted sleep.

  When we awaken the sun is lower, and the sky has turned to opal, inevitable dust creeping into the air. In the distance I hear the kachinnik, kachinnik, kachinnik of Guluband’s leg bracelets.

  “Ho! What’s this?” Dadi shouts, climbing down before Guluband can kneel. He runs to us. Phulan is covered head to foot in a chadr. Now that she is betrothed, she can’t leave the house without the billowy veil—and she still can’t get down from a camel gracefully while keeping herself covered.

  I’m so relieved to see them that the words spill out of my mouth in a jumble, and before I can stop them, tears are streaming down my face again. Dadi listens, inspecting the baby’s mouth, ears, feet, and eyes. I choke to keep from sobbing, and he turns to look at me. His eyes are half angry, half hurt.

  “Take me to see,” he says.

  For a moment I stare at him, then I understand that this baby and his mother were to be part of Phulan’s dowry.

  I stroke the baby’s tiny ears and wobbly head. “I think it was a snake bite.” I point in the direction of the flapping swarm of vultures. Dadi goes to have a look.

  Phulan sits on the ground, wraps her chadr tightly around her knees, adjusts it over her face, and huddles into its folds. She’s so pleased with herself. We are good Muslims, but God doesn’t care what color chadr she wears. She has chosen black, and wears it like a martyr.

  “You don’t have to hide from me,” I say, and we’re both surprised at the anger in my voice. She lets go of her knees and leans over to push my hair from my face. I can’t stop the tears again.

  Dadi returns.

  “You did well to save the baby,” he says, and sits down beside us.

  “None of the other mothers will nurse him,” I say. “But he’ll drink water from my fingers.”

  “You’ll work full time to feed him that way,” Dadi says.

  Phulan picks up her milk pot and heads toward a female with a yearling that’s nearly weaned. A woven bag is tied over her udder. We use most of her milk ourselves. With hope in our hearts, the baby and I follow Phulan. But she shoos us away. We go back and wait under the tree.

  The baby bleats softly. I know he’s hungry. I untie a cloth wrapped around the chapatis from lunch, but the baby isn’t interested. The sun is sinking and the air is cooler, the shadows growing longer and less dark.

  When Phulan returns, I fill my cup with milk. The baby smells it and stumbles in a hurry to stick his nose under my arm. I dip my fingers into the warm, salty milk, and he nearly knocks the cup from my hand as he grabs at my fingers. Dadi is right. I can’t feed him enough this way.

  I raise my arm so my fingers point downward, like a mother’s teat, and the baby tips his head back to nurse. Slowly Phulan pours milk down the back of my hand so it runs down my fingers into his mouth. His tail flicks, and for the first time today I think he’ll survive.

  Kalu

  I name the baby camel Mithoo for the sweetness of his nature. He’s grown enormous in a month, all white curly fur, big round feet, his head as high as my own. He follows me everywhere, nibbling at my hair and pulling at my sleeve.

  The days are warmer now. The air is still clear, and the nights are cool. Flies buzz lazily as I sit in the shade of a thorn tree watching the herd, picking ticks from Mithoo’s legs and daydreaming about the Sibi Fair.

  Mithoo lifts his lip in a toothless smile—he won’t have milk teeth for another month—then gallops off, legs flying for joy until they tangle and he lands like a pile of sticks.

  Dadi and I leave for Sibi soon. Mama made me a new long skirt and dress for my twelfth birthday. They’re the first grown-up clothes I’ve ever owned. The skirt is blue, dark as the night sky, with pink blossoms, embroidered with tiny mirrors that sparkle at the hem. I’ll wear it when we set off. I don’t know when Mama found the time, with gathering wood and helping Dadi and making Phulan’s clothes and mending the mud walls and cooking and repairing the quilts.

  I turn at the sound of Guluband’s bracelets. It’s Phulan, wrapped inside her black chadr, bringing me chapatis and milk tea. She’s in her own world these days, caught up in plans for the wedding, wanting to know everything about Hamir and his family, and totally uninterested in her chores.

  There has been no more crying under the quilt. As Muslim girls, we are brought up knowing our childhood homes are temporary. Our real homes are the ones we go to when we marry. I wonder how I can ever accept a place outside the desert, without my camels and Mama and Dadi.

  Phulan gets down from Guluband’s back without tripping over her chadr. Mithoo runs over to see if she has anything for him. She sticks a long slender hand out from under her black wrapping and offers him a lump of cheese. We laugh at the face he makes at his first taste of hardened sour curds.

  A loud bellow interrupts us and we turn to watch Tipu, the stud of our herd, court a female he fancies. He gallops along the edge of the toba, a large pink bladder gurgling from the side of his mouth. Perhaps God knows why this is attractive to a female camel, but his target, a young female in her first heat, lifts her head and answers him with a loud bleat.

  Tipu mates three or four times a day. His belly is high and tight, the muscles along his back and haunches bulge from his strenuous mating activity.

  He trots up to the female, his teeth squeaking as they grind together. A rumbling starts deep in his belly, emerging through the pink bladder in a slobbering, foamy belch. Tipu shakes his head, and the foam flicks out, sticking to the ears and necks of the other camels. The young males and other females move aside.

  Tipu nudges the object of his desire and she shies away. He trots beside her as if he owns her. She breaks into a run, bleating insistently now, her eyes turning sideways, showing white. He lopes along next to her as she wades into a clump of yearlings. They scatter, and Tipu hooks his chin over her neck. They circle, the female bleating softly.

  All pretense of protest gives way, and with a quick flick of her tail, she kneels down. He moves astride her back, his front legs over her shoulders. She nuzzles his neck, which arches over her head, and the foam from his mouth smears her ears, like soap when Dadi shaves.

  I wonder if it’s the same with humans. Do females want to be owned? I steal a look at Phulan and she knows what I’m thinking. She bursts out laughing.

  “Don’t worry, Shabanu!” she says, hugging me, and I hug her back, hard.

  A deep bellow sounds from the far end of the toba. It is a huge young male Dadi plans to take to Sibi. Each herd has one dominant camel. Only he mates with the females. The others must suppress their ardor. If a young camel challenges the stud, they fight to the death.

  Phulan and I hold our breath. If this young male, puffed up and full of himself, challenges Tipu, we will have to separate them or we could lose both of them.

  Tipu responds with a roar. He leaves his lovemaking and stands, turning his head to look for his challenger.

  Without a word, Phulan picks up the hem of her chadr and runs for Guluband to fetch Dadi, who is out gathering wood. I scramble to my feet and reach for the heavy stick I always carry.

  Tipu, named after the great Indian warrior, has many battle scars from challenges like this. He spots the younger male, Kalu, which means “black.” He is named for the great black camel Grandfather rode into battle for the Nawab of Bahawalpur. Kalu is larger than Tipu, and very strong, although he is only four years old.

  Tipu roars again, lowers his head, and charges. Kalu is ready with a deft feint. Tipu bumps him with his chest, but Kalu lowers his huge black head, ducks it under Tipu’s chest, and clamps his powerful jaws around Tipu’s foreleg.

  I run at them, screaming at the top of m
y voice. But they don’t even look up. I beat at their heads with my stick, hoping to distract them.

  I am enormously relieved to hear Dadi shout to me to get away. He jumps off Guluband’s back while the camel is still at a dead run. Phulan jumps down as soon as Guluband stops, and she and Dadi join me in trying to separate the fighting camels. Both camels are now thoroughly enraged and obsessed with the thought of killing.

  Phulan and I beat our sticks against their sides with all our might. The sticks make solid thwacking sounds, but the camels seem not to notice, as we dance aside to keep away from their twisting necks and biting jaws. Both males’ mouths are foaming pink with blood from cuts on their humps, necks, and legs. They whirl and heave, angling for advantage. They’re so large that they seem to move with unnatural slowness, but Phulan and I have to run to keep up with them as they hurl each other about, the ground shaking under our feet, their roars reverberating in our chests.

  The sweat runs down from under Dadi’s turban, streaking his face. His mustache is coated with thick, pale dust. He tries to stay near the camels’ heads, jabbing his stick into their faces as they thrash. There! He pushes the stick between Tipu’s jaws.

  “Get Kalu off!” he shouts, and Phulan and I slash at the young male’s ribs with our sticks. Happy to have survived his unsuccessful challenge with dignity, Kalu lifts his head and trots away. Phulan and I turn our sticks to the big camel facing Dadi.

  Diverted from the fight, Tipu seems to notice our blows for the first time and roars in protest, killing still the only thing on his mind. He shifts his fury to Dadi, whose stave is still jammed between Tipu’s great jaws. The camel backs away and lowers his head, knocking the stick aside with a toss of his neck. His fierce eyes fix on Dadi’s face. I run toward Tipu, screaming, my stick raised to strike at him, but he lowers his head again, preparing to lunge. My blow falls short by several feet, and I throw the stick at him with all my strength. He doesn’t notice when it glances off his ribs.