Dowry
by Dua Shamsi
Houses were getting robbed right and left, but Kazim had hired a guard when he and Maria moved out of his parents’ house into the bungalow by the park. Maria was overjoyed at moving out from under her in-laws' and Kazim was happy to finally be the man of the house for the first time.
They had scarcely been on their own for a month when they came home from a friend’s lunch party to find the house burgled. They knew because the main door was wide open and there were dirty scuff marks on the usually pristine marble floor.
Kazim asked Maria to stay in the locked car as they waited for the guard who was on his Friday prayers break, but she didn’t listen as usual and stayed close behind him. Kazim met the guard at the gate and both of them checked the house from room to room to make sure there were no intruders.
The widescreen TV in the living room was untouched. The laptops in the study room were gone, as well as the Alexa.Kazim found Maria in a stupor, crumpled up in front of the closet cabinet she kept locked. The lock had been smashed. All her dowry jewelry was gone.
“It was the only thing I had left of my mother,” she said to him in a whisper when he took her into his arms. “Now everything is lost.”
Kazim stroked her hair. She felt like a ragdoll in his arms. The sequins on her party kameez pricked his arm. Having a locked cabinet in his own bathroom had made him uncomfortable but seeing it wide open and empty for the first time was even more odd. He hadn’t known this before because she rarely unlocked it, but there were pictures of Maria’s late parents and old school friends on the inside of the cabinet door. It reminded him of a college locker.
They kept all the lights in the house on that night, from the bathrooms all the way to the chandelier in the main entrance, so that Maria wouldn’t be scared. Kazim lay on the bed alone. Maria’s muffled sobs drifted in through the bathroom door to where he lay, as if her mother had died all over again. When he had had enough of it, he went out and spend the night smoking on the patio of their walled garden'
The dowry was a big loss, but not that big. Kazim remembered his mother muttering and complaining in the days after the wedding, all within earshot of Maria, that Maria’s family had been pretty stingy with the dowry. He remembered that his mother had estimated the total worth of the jewelry to be around 5 lakhs. At this stage of his life, that was crumbs. That was how much he had spent on his camera drone alone, the one he told Maria was for taking pictures of construction sites, but was really just for fun.
Kazim didn’t care about 5 measly lakhs. He cared that someone had been able to enter his house without his permission. What if Maria had been alone at home? He was supposed to keep her safe.
The next day workers from ADT came to install security cameras while the guard begrudgingly supervised them, as if the little toy cameras could put him out of a job. Kazim took Maria to Gulf market himself, even though parking was a nightmare. They went from jeweller to jeweller until Kazim felt the light reflecting off gold was burning the back of his eyeballs. Maria listlessly but obediently tried on anything Kazim filtered from the recommendations of the shopkeepers. She didn’t want any of them. Kazim felt his throat clogging from the grief that was emanating from his young wife. She looked so broken and small, wrapped up in a black shawl and sitting on the tacky red velvet of the shops’ chairs, that a few shopkeepers asked him if a family member had died.
After she gave watery smiles to every single suggestion, he realized she was still caught up in her sentimental attachment to her meager dowry and that he had to take charge. He ended up buying her a necklace that caught his eye. It was a little pendant with a white pearl embedded in gold. He put it on her neck right there in the store so she could hide it with her shawl on the way back to the car. It would be safer that way.
They sat in the car, doors locked, windows getting fogged up from the air conditioning. He had ordered bun kebabs and chaat from one boy of the army of child waiters that had swarmed the car earlier.
“Kazim,” Maria said. “How did the thieves know where to look? How did they know?” “It was the only closet door that was locked,” Kazim said, the voice of reason. “I think it was an inside job,” she said. She nodded to herself and dug into her food. “I need that jewelry back.”
“I’ll buy you more,” Kazim said. Business was doing well. His father had just told him about a new project. They were in charge of the marble of the next skyscraper in the city. Kazim reckoned that he could pay off the house and still have enough left to buy a Murree cottage to summer in. He might even go on a Dubai trip with the boys.
“I need my dowry back,” Maria said. “It just can’t be replaced, Kazim.”
The next day, Kazim woke up to no breakfast in bed, even though it was past noon on a Sunday. Grouchily, he pulled on a shirt and made his way down their marbled stairway. Marble was his company’s specialty. This marble was way over budget but it was from an order that had gotten cancelled so Kazim’s father had let him use it for his house. In the sun, it glinted like opal and reminded Kazim of something from a cartoon stairway to heaven. He had this fantasy of
standing at the end of the stairs and Maria coming down all dressed up, slowly like in the movies. He was too embarrassed to ask her.
Now he went down to see her sitting on the couch. All of the maids were standing in a line in front of her. The cook, an old man called Ahsan who had worked for Kazim’s family for decades, was leaning against the doorway to the kitchen looking smug. The younger girls looked scared. He had seen this scene before, in his childhood, and it made his mouth go sour.
“What’s going on here?” Kazim asked, looking at his wife settled on the couch. She had a cup of chai resting on her knee and a plate of egg biscuits on the coffee table. Old models of phones, some with broken screens, presumably of the staff, were piled on the table.
“One of our servants is a thief,” Maria said, calmly. “And nobody is going home until our things are back.”
Kazim stood there in his shirt and boxers feeling uncomfortable. Dealing with servants was Maria’s job, especially the girls. He wished she had done this on a weekday, when he was at work.
The way Maria handled maids was her business. He did think the burglars weren’t connected to the maids, but at the end of the day it wasn’t his problem. He was in charge of the paychecks and putting spikes on the outside walls of their house so burglars couldn’t jump over. He was in charge of buying a house in a comparatively safer neighbourhood. He was not in charge of these girly squabbles.
Kazim went back upstairs to change and came down with his car keys jangling in his hands. The maids were gathered in a corner, one of them crying. Maria sat on the couch, looking pointedly at the television set. A cooking channel was on. Maria hadn’t cooked since she had lived with his parents. When she saw him, her face darkened.
“Where are you going?” She asked.
She didn’t expect him to stay through this mess, did she? “The boys are meeting for brunch at Boat Basin.” They were. He would let her tire herself out and then they could get more jewelry and perhaps replace some of the shiftier maids.
She got up and went over to him. Her hair was uncombed and the lack of her usual kohl made her look sick. Gripping his arm, she whispered, “Kazim, I cannot do this without you. These people, they don’t respect women. They’re not scared of me. They need to see you’ve got my back.”
Kazim would never admit this to anyone but sometimes he was frightened of Maria, of her direct gaze. When their families had introduced them, everyone from his side had said she was a sweet and dainty thing but Kazim could feel the steel under her skin. He could see she was one of those odd, broken women that could leave her family in the middle of the night if she wanted to. A parrot instead of a pigeon.
It was the reason he’d married her. Because if anyone could tame a woman like that, it was him. Girls had fallen at his feet in college and it bored him. He said yes to his parents suggesting Maria as a wife because he was intrigued by her aloofness. Now, in the third year of marriage, it was getting old.
“I do have your back.”
“Then stay,” she said. “I’ll order Boat Basin aloo puri for you. Go sit in your study.” Suddenly, the prospect of aloo puri without his friends seemed too heavy, too oily for him. He told her not to bother, and to just tell Ahsan to bring a tray of tea and cake rusk to his study. In his study, he felt restless without his laptop. Another one was on the way from a relative that was traveling from the States to Pakistan next week, but until then there was only his cigarettes and the Sunday newspaper. He played around with the idea of leaving for brunch anyways but decided it was getting too hot outside anyways.
Ahsan came with the tray of breakfast things. Kazim didn’t want to seem like he was questioning his wife, because that would seem like he was too cowardly to directly ask her, so he casually asked Ahsan if he thought one of the maids was in on the burglary instead of asking him if Maria was overreacting.
Ahsan shrugged. “We’ll know by the end of the day, Sahab.”
“This will work?” Kazim said incredulously.
“It almost always worked when your mother did it,” Ahsan said. “I’m just glad to finally be on the other side of it.”
Kazim remembered a day it hadn’t though. He’d been around six. He knew it had been some day in summer because he remembered his hands being sticky from eating mangoes as a midmorning snack. He had found his mother’s ruby ring beneath her pillow that morning. He was skipping around the bedroom with it and making it glint in the sunlight. Then he had wanted it to be a submarine and before he knew it, the ring was twirling around the bottom of the toilet before disappearing like magic.
There had been crying girls that day too. His mom had lined them up. Kazim had watched from between the staircase banister as his mom yelled and threatened and pleaded with the maids. It was strange now to realize that he had never told his mother it had been him, even after all these years.
Kazim kept getting periodical updates from Ahsan about what was happening in the living room. Maria had told the girls that if she didn’t get her jewelry back by the end of the day, she would make sure to let everyone in Defence know that the girls were unreliable and they could forget about ever getting a job in a nice household again. She told the girls she would also let the world know that they were always talking to boys on their little phones. They could forget about any good marriage proposals. She told the girls Kazim had friends in the police force (he did) that could raid each one of their houses today. If they found any of their things there, Maria would make sure each one of the girls, even the innocent ones, rotted away in jail for years.
At 4 pm, Maria came to the study all dressed up in her athletic clothes, shawl on top. Her hair was in a cheerful high ponytail. “Let’s go?”
“You’re going to your gym class today?” Kazim asked. Usually, the driver Kazim had hired just for her took her around the city but he was visiting his village for a couple of weeks, which meant Kazim had to take over for a bit. Home, gym, tea parties and shopping. He almost envied her life. He felt proud of being able to give her such a life.
“Of course!” She said, skin flushed and chirpy. “Hurry, please.”
They walked past the girls who were sobbing together, sitting on the floor on the corner of the living room. Kazim tried not to look but like any man, the sound of crying woman filled him with so much unexplainable dread that he more or less ran out of the house to the car while Maria sauntered behind.
Kazim dropped her off to the gym and drove away after she had slipped inside. Then he drove around Sea View instead of going home, buying a coconut with a straw poking out from a vendor on the side of the road. There were families strolling along the beach. Maria had complained to him once how one of the maids always made excuses not to come on Sundays because her family went to Sea View and the Abdul Shah Ghazi mazaar on that day every week. Would her family go without her? Were they here right now? Or were they at home, sick with worry?
It wasn’t right what Maria was doing. Her jewelry was probably in the hands of some men they had no ties to, who had picked the house at random. They had probably come with guns and fortunately found the premises empty and theirs for the looting. Maria was terrorizing the girls for no reason.
And at the end of the day, it was a little bit of Maria’s fault anyways. He had offered to put all the jewelry in his locker at the bank and she had refused. She wanted it near as if it was some sort of pet. It’s not like she ever wore most of it.
Kazim wished he knew more about the staff so he could be more in control. Then he would be able to firmly tell Maria, “Sabrina’s brothers are well educated men who have enough money coming in. She cannot be involved in this” or “Nasreen is the most religious person I know. She would not do this even if a gun was kept on her head.”
As it was, he barely knew the names of the maids. He suspected Maria kept it that way because his own mother had hidden the maids from his father too. It was no good if the man of the family knew too much about the female staff. They came and cleaned when he was at work or on Sundays when he was with his boys. That was fine with him. Sometimes, Maria gave the maids her old clothes and it always made Kazim uncomfortable seeing a maid girl in the faded version of some kameez he had seen Maria wear so often. He liked it better when the house was empty of the girls. At some point, they should hire some servant boys. But they would have to have a high turnover rate because Maria was still young.
By the time he picked her up, he was ready to end the madness and have his house empty of sobbing girls. He told her so. They had enough money to buy her all the gold she wanted. He didn’t care about the other things. They could be replaced.
“You think I’m cruel,” Maria said, glaring at him. “Listen. My grandmother smuggled this jewelry from Jaipur to Lahore during partition, when people were being murdered before her eyes. She did it so that her children would have a chance at surviving. I’m not going to let it go just like that.”
“But you have me,” Kazim said. “I take care of you. Business is doing so well Mashallah, I can buy you three times the jewelry you lost.”
Maria exhaled with annoyance. “And then the maids will think our house is for weekly looting. Is that what you want? To show them we have no spine?”
It felt like a slap. Kazim did have a spine. He just didn’t want to be bullying poor women in his own house. His mother always said you can’t put food in front of a starving man and expect him not to eat it. Maria should have kept the jewelry in the bank. “I just don’t think this is the proper way to go about things.”
“I agree,” she said, pulling down her sunglasses from her forehead onto her eyes. “We should call the cops. Your policeman friend.”
Kazim couldn’t call his policeman friend. He was a big, important man and it would embarrass Kazim to call him for such a silly household favor.
Maria saw the empty coconut shell in the car and made him drive her to Sea View so she could get one too. He almost said no. His father used to say no randomly to his mother’s requests here and there. Later, he had told Kazim saying no occasionally was a way to remind the women who was in charge. Kazim never seemed to be able to do it with Maria though. But they were still a young couple, maybe it would come. They sat on a bench as she drank the coconut water languidly, the black glitter sand swirling at their feet. His car would be filthy when they went back. He would have to ask her to get one of the servants to clean it.
When they went back home, there were young boys on motorcycles waiting outside. The relatives of the girls, husbands and brothers. Maria told Kazim to be firm with them, to tell them the girls would get to go home when their things were back. They swarmed around Kazim’s car as he pulled into the driveway. The guard opened the gate for him. He cranked the window down just a bit and told the men what Maria had told him to say. Times like these, he felt like a little boy again, not a successful man who could keep women hostage in the house and have their men scared of him.
When Maria was out of earshot, Kazim told the guard to ask Ahsan to arrange chai for the men outside.
When they entered the house, there was a commotion in the corner. One of the maid girls had fainted, Ahsan told them. Either because of stress, or lack of food or to pull a dramatic stunt. “I gave them lunch before we left,” Maria told Kazim when she caught the look on his face. “They do this sometimes. It’s fine.”
“This is enough,” Kazim said. He had been practicing in the car, on the beach, in his head. He couldn’t be sure but it came out a bit squeaky, like those horrible months in 7th grade when his voice was cracking. “It’s time to send them home.”
The girls yelped in agreement from the corner of the room. Maria looked at him as if he had declared he was taking a second wife.
“They let robbers into our house, Kazim,” Maria said. “Now they’re doing drama but we won’t fall for it, will we?”
Kazim watched Maria talk, all red-faced and eyes crazed. He knew her family had gone through a tough financial situation when her father’s business had gone under a decade ago but she had always struck him as a girl from a well to do family. She had the expensive British school mannerisms, the smooth American accent, the high-brow aesthetic tastes. But now she could see those years of financial struggle clearly on her, spreading through her body like a stain. He could see it in the way she looked right now, the hunger with which she wanted her things back.
It wasn’t right for a woman to love her things with that kind of craze instead of her family. It made them vulnerable to bad decisions. Kazim wished they had had children already, so that Maria had different priorities.
“Let’s talk in my office,” Kazim said after clearing his throat. Now his voice sounded too deep, like he was mimicking the Godfather.
He led the way. She was glaring daggers at him when he turned around after closing the door.
“What the hell was that?” Maria said, spittle flying. She seemed feral. Kazim had never seen her like that. It wasn’t a good look. Maybe his mother had been right to warn him not to move out so soon. She had said she wanted to train Maria for another year or two so she wouldn't become one of those spoilt wives that always had their own way. “Call the cops, Kazim. We’re going to each one of their bloody houses. We can get our laptops back too!”
Kazim caught her shoulders and steadied her. “No cops. I don’t care about the laptops. Calm down.”
“It’s my stuff,” she was crying, pushing him away. “It’s the only thing in this whole world that’s truly mine.”
“I buy you whatever you want!” He shoved her back. Anger was boiling his blood. Maybe his father was right, maybe he should be doing less for Maria. Women got spoilt so easily. The gold locket he had so lovingly clasped on her neck glinted in the lowlights of his office. “Enough is enough. Don’t come out till I call you.”
He left her pressed up against his desk, frozen and crying. So dramatic, so emotional. He thought she might follow him anyways, so he made sure to bolt the door of his study from the outside.
Then he sent the maids home. They looked at the floor as he told them. He could feel their deep fear and respect of him vibrating from their bodies. He never got a hint of this from Maria. Not like his friends’ wives, who tiptoed around their husbands.
While the maids were pulling on their burqas, he went upstairs so he could watch them leave through the bedroom window. He couldn’t tell which ones seemed guilty. All of them seemed equally distressed and equally happy to be free. One by one, they sat on the backs of the motorcycles of their relatives and disappeared into the evening.
Maria shoved past him when he unbolted the door to the study, her face swollen and oily. He let her stomp up the opal stairway and asked Ahsan to bring him tea in the main living room. As he waited, absently flicking through the television, he thought of the maid girls cowering in the corner of his living room and Maria sitting stone-faced on the couch.
When Kazim’s friend had stolen his girlfriend when they were boys in O’Levels, they had met at the school parking lot after classes and beat each other up. That seemed like a cleaner, fairer way to do things. All this reputation stuff, all this crying, all this blackmail seemed like a much dirtier game. Kazim was glad to be done with it.
He wished she had found it though. He knew there was something about dowry that grounded women. His mother used to tell him this all the time, that if anything happened to his father, she could take care of him because she had gold stashed away in the bank. He thought of the open closet door, lock smashed. Like the open door of a cage. You could keep and love a parrot for years and decades but if it got the chance, it would fly away and never come back. He would just have to keep a better eye on Maria now. It was sad she thought she had nothing of her own, but once they had children, she would feel differently.
He hoped Maria was taking a cold shower and would be more clear headed soon. He didn’t like living with the unkempt, fragile woman she had become in the past couple of days. She came downstairs in her plaid pajamas, wearing her at-home shawl because Ahsan was still around. Her hair was wet, her face was supple and naked. She quietly sat beside Kazim as he flipped through the channels. He wondered if she was about to apologize. “You locked me in your study,” she said, voice flat. Kazim wondered what his dad would do if his wife ever talked to him the way Maria always seemed to. Nothing pretty, that’s for sure. “You were overreacting,” Kazim said. “They’re poor people.”
“Then go give them a raise,” Maria said. “Don’t tell me how to run my household.” In Islam class back in 10th grade, Kazim’s teacher had told them there can only be one CEO of the company. She had said that the husband is the CEO of the house, because that was the way Allah wanted it.
It felt kind of silly thinking of it now, when there was beautiful Maria sitting next to him instead of a hypothetical company. Kazim forced himself to let the tension fall from his shoulders. His father always told him to lose some battles to win the war. He was going to have to start working on Maria, but tonight was not the night.
“I’m sorry,” Kazim said gruffly. He pulled Maria to his chest. They sat stiffly and watched colors move on the television set. He toyed with the locket he had bought her around her neck, looked at his diamond ring around her ring finger, running their prices through his mind. Everything under the sun could be replaced.
visual by Bakhtawar Atta.