Haveli Read Online Free PDF

foreign-made shotgun—muchlouder than Hamir’s. Hamir flew from his feet like a puppet being yanked from a stage. When the dust cleared, Hamir lay in a bloody, tattered heap, his body nearly halved at the waist. His family buried him in the floor of the house before they too fled into the desert.
    It was true, Shabanu thought. Nazir would kill his only daughter if she did not obey him.
    She and Zabo sat without moving from the garden bench through the warmth of the afternoon. The
ayah
brought them lunch, and Zabo sat quietly, picking invisible crumbs from her lap.
    Shabanu talked about the things they’d do together in Okurabad after Zabo’s marriage to Ahmed. The leaves sparkled and danced in the spring sun, then the shade thickened around them.
    Shabanu talked until her throat was scratchy, and she felt drained dry as the Cholistan sand at the height of summer.
    “I wanted to say something wise—something to comfort you,” she said at last. “I want you to believe we will be all right if we are living in the same household. The truth is, I don’t know what to say.”
    “There is nothing to say,” Zabo said quietly. “Truly, I do just love to hear you talk. I love to hear what we will do together. The other things can’t be helped. We may as well speak of the blessings.”
    “Perhaps Rahim will allow me to go with you to Lahore to shop for your dowry,” said Shabanu. And they talked of that for a while.

chapter 4
    T he wick on the candle sputtered, and Shabanu looked at Rahim. His face was quiet on the pillow. The silk whispered as she drew the coverlet down, and his eyes opened as she reached for her shawl. He raised himself up on one elbow and caught her hand as she stood to draw the shawl around her shoulders.
    “Come back,” he said softly.
    “I can’t,” she said, trying to tug her hand away. But he held her fast.
    “You must,” he said, and pulled her back toward him.
    “You’re hurting me!” He said nothing, but neither did he release her wrist. He pulled her down to lie beside him again.
    “Mumtaz will be frightened when she wakes.”
    “I’ve already told Zenat she’s to spend the night with Mumtaz.”
    “You have no right!” she said. “
I
make the decisions about Mumtaz.”
    “No right?”
    She propped herself on her elbow and turned to face him.
    “She’s too small to be shoved off with servants.… ”
    “I won’t have you spending all your time with her!” A diversion of Shabanu’s attention from him when he wanted her was the only thing that made Rahim unreasonable. She knew better than to argue with him now.
    “You’ll see her in the morning,” he said, taking her into his arms again.
    Shabanu barely acknowledged her resentment. She stuffed it back into her heart, just as she and her sister had once stuffed feathered quilts into camel bags before they traveled to a new water hole in the desert.
    Rahim’s hot face scraped against hers, and she reacted lazily at first until her body responded to the rhythm of his passion. But her eyes stared into the dark, at the ceiling, and, as they turned in the bed, at the wall, at the pillow. All the while she murmured sweetly against his ear, and her plans took shape in her mind.
    She thought about the incident with Leyla. If Amina had not yet brought complaints to Rahim about how Mumtaz dressed and ran freely about thefarm, no doubt she would soon. Shabanu decided to make a change in her daughter’s daily schedule.
    She thought about how to make dressing Mumtaz and combing her hair every morning into a game. It wasn’t as if Mumtaz’s half sisters were so well turned out every day. In fact, Mumtaz looked no worse. It was her spirit of adventure—her fearlessness around the animals and her interest in climbing trees and playing in the sand, heedless of snakes and scorpions—that set her apart from the others and intimidated them.
    But Shabanu decided to see to it that her daughter looked better than the older children