The Pakistani Bride Read Online Free Page A

Hindko, a distorted mixture of Punjabi and Pushto, Qasim was able to follow only very little of the zestful Punjabi spoken in Jullundur. Urdu and Hindustani were entirely beyond him.
    In the evenings, with his Kohistani friends, Qasim perched atop the backrests of park benches, seeking with his mind’s
eye the heights and valleys of the land he had left. Like prime-hooded hawks, the tribesmen squatted on the thin edges of roofs and walls, and their eyes sank into the women’s brisk buttocks and bare midriffs. Qasim developed a taste for spicy curries and vegetables, a far cry from his daily mountain diet of flat maize bread soaked in water.
    The difference was greatest in the really basic values. The men of the plains appeared strangely effeminate. Women roamed the streets in brazen proximity. These people were soft, their lives easy. Where he came from, men—as in the Stone Age—walked thirty days over the lonely, almost trackless mountains to secure salt for their tribes.
    Â 
    The old man has not spoken for some time. Nervously he glances at Qasim’s pistol when the holster stirs between them. He is certain the jerks will trigger a shot and shatter his thigh. At last he pats Qasim gingerly on the back.
    â€œDo you think you could move this thing to the other shoulder, Khan Sahib?”
    Qasim obligingly shifts the holster strap.
    The old man gives a thin smile. Holding on to the roof-edge with one hand, he combs his scant beard.
    â€œSay, why do you carry this dangerous weapon?” he asks in fatherly tones.
    â€œTo kill my enemies.”
    In the dark, Qasim feels the man’s shoulder twitch and move away. Enjoying the situation, he boasts: “I killed a baboo just before getting here.”
    â€œWhy . . . what had he done?”
    â€œI settled a score with him before leaving.”
    Qasim pats his gun.
    â€œBut why?” persists the old man.

    â€œHe was a bloody Hindu bastard!” says Qasim with a finality that checks the old man’s curiosity back into his throat.
    Â 
    It was a fact. Qasim had killed a man before leaving.
    His enmity with Girdharilal, a puckish, supercilious little clerk, had started a few months after he became watchman at the bank. Besides his clerical work, Girdharilal was responsible for cleanliness in the bank building, right down to the toilets.
    Qasim performed his ablutions before reporting for work, but sometimes he was compelled to use the public place reserved for lesser employees. It was of sophisticated Indian style: a clock-shaped china basin embedded in the floor to squat over, with a rusty chain dangling from the ceiling to manipulate the flush. A tap was at hand and a mug stood under it ready for use.
    On his rare visits, Qasim left the contraption clogged with stones and scraps of smooth-surfaced glass. Colleagues visiting the lavatory later would rush out in consternation. Girdharilal had the mess cleared out a couple of times and everyone wondered who had caused the mischief. Happily oblivious, Qasim understood none of their talk.
    But Girdharilal had his suspicions. One day he followed Qasim and discovered him to be the culprit. He accosted him directly, asking, “Did you throw the stones in there?”
    Qasim, who did not follow the quick-spoken, alien words, merely smiled. A bunch of peons and clerks gathered around them. They explained the charge to Qasim. Admitting the facts, still smiling, he looked from one astonished face to the next, wondering what really was the matter. But there was no mistaking Girdharila’s truculence. He spluttered and gesticulated insultingly. He poked him in the ribs, and the smile left Qasim’s face.

    He realized he was being ridiculed. And then Girdharilal used a particularly vile obscenity. “You filthy son of a Muslim mountain hog!” he cried. Qasim’s face darkened. Lifting the slightly built man he pressed him against a wall, and with his hands around the clerk’s