Vanjan de, veeray. The past is a filigreed balcony. Like the one we sit behind to peer at the whirling men. We can see through it, make out where their lips curve and their eyes dip, but everything looks different strained through the sieve of metal. That’s how the past works—after a house has burned down, who can tell where the first match was struck.

What I’m saying is, what’s done is done. Life at the shrine is back to normal, how it was before anything happened. Come on in, don’t stand in the cold. Can you imagine a November evening could carry such a chill? Just last week I was showering with cold water. The newspaper says it rained in India, and some remaining clouds have made their way across the desert. But that is the meteorologist’s answer, my brother. To me, these are all the blessings of our saints.

Let’s sit in the new guestroom, it’s the only place men are allowed on the women’s side. Yes, a beautiful room. How long has it been since you visited, two years? We’ve expanded a lot since—guestroom, new bathrooms for the saints, more hallways for the devotees to sleep in. The shrine received many gifts after Bibo Mai’s father died and she became the first woman saint of Bahawalpur. So many reporters came in those days. There was even a modern woman from Islamabad, here to write a story on how the City of Saints was setting an example for female empowerment, and Sufi Islam was the only way forward. She sent me a copy of the story – it was funny.

You know, there were some murmurs – how could a woman be next in line? That is not how spiritual lineage works with our people, especially when there is a male heir. But then Bibo Mai took her vow of chastity, announcing that she would live hidden from all men until she died. The devotees began coming in droves.

Are you hungry? The old Multani in charge of today’s langar made daal that had us all licking our fingers. I tell you, she took less than an hour to make it. Just boiled it with garlic, then poured in ghee fried with onions and chili. Some women just have taste in their hands, in the pores of their fingers. I never did, veeray, you know that. The younger women sat around her after we finished eating, massaging her thin legs, begging that she tell them how to make it for their husbands, but she just shook her head and said, “Chhoriyo, good daal is not what’s missing in your marriages.”

And we all laughed and the girls begged more, to which she replied, “It was just something here and there, how can I remember? I can’t even read or write.”

She is almost seventy, that wizened cat, with eyes she blackens with kajal every morning. She could recite that recipe in her sleep. But these women, they’re very protective of what they have. There are things they will take to their graves, secrets much worse than a recipe.

But I can see you are not here to talk about an old woman’s grave. You want to know what happened. No, no, I don’t blame you. That is all any of these women can talk about nowadays—while they lean down over shared plates of rice, as they put their children to bed in the hallways, even when they are shitting in the latrines. That makes me laugh—that they squat under the sky of God, peering at the birds above and sharing stale conspiracies across thin brick walls, like they’re constables of the Punjab Police.

Of course, they don’t ever talk to me about it. I’m too close to Bibo Mai. Do you read the newspaper? Now everyone’s moving on to TV, of course, some of these girls we get here—you should see how their bodies twist when they walk. I’ve never seen a single Indian film, but the way their hips move, the way their chests rise and fall like currents in the Sutlej—I know it’s all copied from some actress. But me, I’m old fashioned. I read the newspaper. Sometimes they use the word “establishment” in there to talk about the government. Establishment did this, establishment did that. The women who visit this shrine think of me as part of the establishment. As if I’m someone powerful, like Bibo Mai or her brother Chandi Shah. But that couldn’t be further from the truth, veeray. Some people were sent on this Earth to be kings, but not me. I’m a servant, a devotee like any other.

So I don’t know anything that the other women don’t. I don’t have the secrets of the universe, like our dear saints do. But you came all the way here on this brittle day, so I’ll tell you what I know.

**

It took me months to notice anything. You know how it is with these things—don’t you remember when Aunt Zainab had her last child, and you and I realized only when we heard her screams from the courtyard? Hours later, the midwife came out with the reddened towel and told us it was a boy, and our uncle screamed and kissed our cheeks and ran out to tell the entire village, anyone who would listen, “Mayda putar thia ay, sayeen, mayda putar thia ay!” Remember how the two of us had spent months giggling at Aunt Zainab behind her back, joking that she looked like a football was stuck to her belly?

Well, neither of us is ten anymore, so of course, at some point I began to suspect it. Towards the start of spring, on one of those days when you wake up and feel it— does that ever happen to you, that even before you open your eyes, you know winter has packed up and left, and the air is full of warm promise? I look forward to that day every year. Nauroz, the Persians call it. I read that in the newspaper.

I woke up and went outside, where a few of the younger devotees were playing pithu garam. One of them wore bangles—fake, of course, these women never wear gold to the shrine, they only come with tales of their poverty, never of their riches—and the golden glinted off her dark arms. When she laughed, her teeth stood out like tiny mile-markers, the ones you see on the road to Multan. How beautiful, I thought.

Suddenly, I heard retching from the bathroom Bibo Mai and I share. No, I’m saying it wrong. It’s her bathroom, which she graciously allows me to use, that is how kind our saint is. I stood outside the door, not wanting to knock. No one else is allowed to use that bathroom; the devotees go to the open-air latrines, which are unbearable to walk past once the summer heat arrives. After a few moments of silence, she came out.

“Are you okay, Bibo Mai?”

She nodded, her eyes watery, mouth wet from a hasty gargle. Then she went back to her room. She did not emerge until dinnertime, sending back the tray of lunch untouched. She also refused to meet devotees that day, despite knowing how far many of them had come, on wagons, on the backs of motorcycles, even on camels in the case of the nomads. There was the woman whose husband had broken her arm, the young bride who wanted her lap to be blessed with a child, the old mai whose son had taken up heroin again.

That day and many days after, I cooked Bibo Mai’s meals myself—hot porridge with milk, rice boiled with cumin, naan with butter on top. I would go in with soft footsteps, in case she was asleep underneath the silk blankets. I would put the plate by her side and ask if she, my beloved Bibo Mai, wanted anything from me. She would shake her head and say, “No, just keep them away.” So, I would go outside and tell the devotees, “Bibo Mai cannot meet you today, but come sit with me, talk to me. I will pass everything on, and she will pray for you.”

Now, veeray, don’t take this the wrong way—I am a helper here, a mere lieutenant. But, between you and me, sometimes when I told the women this, I saw relief on their faces. They rarely complained, and instead, walked with me to the langarkhana. Over chai and biscuits, they told me all their problems, crying and wiping away tears with dusty shawls, their shoulders hunched with the sorrow God thinks fair to throw upon the meekest of his people.

Look, I know what brings these women to the shrine. It is what brought me here, all those years ago. Islam tells us to pray five times a day, but should I count for you the number of times I have seen anyone on a prayer mat in my fifteen years here? I could, and it would take mere seconds. There’s a reason our beloved Bibo Mai’s forehead creases slightly when anyone talks too much about Allah. If Allah were enough, why would we be here? An unseen God isn’t enough, veeray. I see your eyes widen at my blasphemy. What is that line from Iqbal that you and I loved when we were young? Tera dil to hay sanam-ashna, tujhe kiya milay ga namaz mein. At this point, if I knelt down to pray to God, even He would laugh at the pretense. Go away, he’d tell me. Your real God is elsewhere.

So these women, they come here for Bibo Mai, our saint who has taken the vow of chastity and lives as the receptacle for our prayers. But veeray, they stay for me. When they tell Bibo Mai of their afflictions, they have to follow all the rules. You know saints are particular about these things. Go in with your head bowed. Grab a soft, pink hand and kiss it. For extra blessings, kneel down and also kiss the feet that are always wrapped in clean, translucent socks, anticipating at least a few pecks a day. A gift never hurts either. Then walk away, back never towards her, and sit down at a respectful distance. Spread out your chadar, perform your hajat. Give details of your misery but keep it short. Cry, but not too much. Wait for her to nod, which means she is done listening and you may leave the room, but again—back towards the door.

Yes, yes, you know all this. What you don’t know is that I’m the one who sits with these women in the langar-khana. I hold their drooling babies while they tell me stories of their lecherous fathers, who come into their rooms in the void of the night, of their husbands, who spend all their money on the village whore. Who knew even villages had resident whores? But I guess there are whores everywhere. I boil milk and feed it to the baby whose mother’s breasts are as barren as the desert. After the women are done crying, I’m the one who makes them laugh.

“Behnee, you weep so much, no wonder our river is drying up,” I say, and they laugh, as if suddenly remembering that they can do that—turn their sorrows into demented joy. Then they make jokes about their husbands’ shriveled penises, their rotund mothers-in-law, the children they love dearly but sometimes want to smother with pillows.

**

Once Bibo Mai’s daily vomiting went away, she began to ask for the oddest things to eat. Raw mangoes. Imli ki chutney, with lots of tamarind and just a hint of jaggery—as tart as I could make it. Chooran, which she seemed to inhale by the spoonful. Sapodillas. Persimmons. Blood oranges, which were barely available in the market anymore. We began to order so much fruit on the women’s side that Chandi Shah met with me to confirm we were actually ordering it, and not being swindled by the man who brings our weekly ration. He likes to keep a check on things.

Within a month, she was getting bigger, and I thought perhaps that was the weight she had lost in the sickness. Then one day, the laundry woman came to me. She visits every week to wash Bibo Mai’s clothes, and sometimes I throw in my own as well. She washes our blood-stained underwear separately—Allah, veeray, why do you wince? Did you not come here for the story? Men want our bodies, but they don’t want to know what happens inside them. Anyway, so she washes them separately because they are impure, and have to be cleansed before they can touch our Bibo Mai again. One day in April, the woman asked me, “Safia, where are Bibo Mai’s dirty clothes?”

Her sleeves were soaked from washing the clothes and her thin arms smelled of detergent.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She hesitated.
“It has been months since I have washed her…blood.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. One has to play the part.

“So?”

She quickly shook her head and said, “I was just worried she might be ill.” I shooed her away, telling her to worry about her afterlife instead, which seemed in peril. Her husband hadn’t donated to the shrine in months, and sure, she comes over and washes our clothes, but is that enough service in the path of our saint? To myself, I pondered all evening, adding the event to a mental box with all my other suspicions—a box like the pink one Bibo Mai keeps on her dressing table, filled with all the gold the devotees bring her.

Now you’re probably thinking, “Is my sister so naïve?” And perhaps I am. Until that day, I hadn’t even considered that Bibo Mai, my chaste Bibo Mai, who had promised never to touch a man…

Veeray, do you remember when Father came to convince me to come back home, and brought you along as the older brother? It was fourteen years ago. I told the two of you that this was home now, and Father howled in disbelief, pleading to me, “But a woman’s home is first her father’s, then her husband’s!” Do you remember what I said to him, what our Sufi poet Bulleh Shah had said centuries ago?

Bulleh nu samjhawan ayan behran tay bharjayan
Mann le bulleya saada kena chhad de palla raiyan

In his time, Bulleh Shah was asked to abandon his saint, and he refused. And fourteen years ago, I refused. But listen, I’m more practical than Bulleh Shah. I knew what awaited me back home. Marriage to that old widower Father owed money to. Children that would drool and burp like the dirty ones I see every day, but at least here, I only hold them for a few moments before handing them back. The rest of the time, I do as I please—I wander the orchards with Bibo Mai in the evening, I spend my days and nights with women. I have never been with a man, but I can tell you this—women are a much deeper joy. We eat simply and dance joyously. Do you know that when the drummer hits the dhol on the men’s side, no one dances more than I do? Veeray, you can’t understand this, but if any man saw his wife in here, I bet he would not recognize her for the bliss on her face.

All this to say that it wasn’t easy admitting to myself what was happening. Even after I found out about the missed periods, even after her stomach began growing so much it couldn’t be explained by the food she was eating.

And was she eating! Our Bibo Mai has always had a delicate appetite, eating only till she is full and not a bite more. But in those days, she ate two parathay for breakfast and heaping plates of rice for lunch and dinner. She demanded meat daily, which was a problem on Mondays when the butcher takes his day off. The women started taking turns bringing in their chickens for slaughter each Monday, creatures with flesh as emaciated as their owners’. They were slaughtered right outside the gates of the compound; you know killing anything is forbidden inside the shrine.

We were moving into summer heat, and she wanted mango milkshakes. She heard about them on the radio she keeps in her room. Veeray, you see this place—the wood we cook our meals on, the langra soti we use to grind garlic. Do you think this place had a blender? She told the devotees that if any woman donated a blender to the shrine, she would spend a full night praying that she be blessed with a son. Now, you know I love Bibo Mai, but I thought that was a bit cheap. May God forgive me. This shrine is never in need. Every year these women gift us grains they cannot afford, persimmons their own children eye with greed. The Multani women make their factory owner husbands gift perfumes from London, which Bibo Mai loves to put on every night before she sleeps. Bounty never stops flowing through our gates. Did she really have to auction her prayers for a blender?

Anyway, of course we got four of them the next day, and I learned how to make her shakes with chunky mango bits, milk mixed with bananas and apples. Sometimes, I threw in pitted dates and fresh figs. I took sips to make sure they were good. Delicious each time.

She also began complaining about gas. Every time I went to her room with food—she keeps the AC set to 16 throughout the summer, you should see the electrical bill from July—she would be lying in bed, holding her stomach more gently than she has ever held my hand. She would say to me, “Safia, I have been burping all day.”

I wanted to tell her, maybe those milkshakes aren’t helping. But I kept quiet and sat down to massage her legs, which were ballooning every day. By then, I knew what the “gas” was, and…how can I lie to you, my brother. I was so angry.

How could she do that? Did she realize what we had to lose? Veeray, you and I both know what happens to women who grow unsanctioned children inside them. I’ve read enough stories in the newspaper and, well, you’re a man, you know what your kind does to those women.

Now, it was different with her because no one could talk about it. How do you confront the person you have made God? By July, her belly was the size of a watermelon, the big ones Father used to bring home in the summer. She began to meet fewer and fewer devotees, but each woman left her room with wide eyes, as if stung by electric wires. On Thursdays, the massage woman would come and Bibo Mai would ask her to rub her legs all the way up to her thighs, her shoulders, her arms. The woman would press away, keeping one petrified eye on the belly that wobbled sometimes. On Fridays, when Bibo Mai came to the langar-khana to bless the food, everyone stared stricken at her feet, and as soon as she left, they would start quaking like ducks. Someone would bring up a cousin’s wedding or an uncle’s funeral—anything to keep away silence and its questions.

I have heard that the Christians believe Maryam was a virgin when she birthed Hazrat Isa. They say Isa was born without the involvement of a man. Well, I will tell you this—no one here is a fool of that order. The shrine, the devotees, the gifts—they are all tied to Bibo Mai’s vow of chastity. If it became known that she hadn’t kept her side of the bargain…Veeray, Moosa’s people made God out of a stone calf while he was away at Sinai. Finding another God isn’t hard.

And what is a God without Her followers? If the women were still coming, it was because their eyes and minds hadn’t reconciled yet. Between you and me—God relies a lot on this dissonance. But once the child arrived, there would be no pretense. No one would knock at our doors in the hope of unburdening some of their wealth and all of their pain. These days would be over. For both her and me. And you know, God forgive me, Bibo Mai can be selfish. Even after all I gave her, fifteen years of service to this place, she did not care what would happen to me, how I would have to return to my father’s house, a wretched forty-year old spinster. But how could she not care forherself? Selfishness, I can forgive. Stupidity, never.

**

It was in those days that I began dreaming of Baba Bhola. He’s the monster of the shrine. Every now and then, there is a knock on the door to the men’s side, and I go to open it. I’m the only one with the keys. In comes Baba Bhola, wearing all black, with a face that burns orange like embers and eyes that sink into two ashen holes. His mouth is agape as if in a scream, with fangs instead of teeth. The skin on his forehead has the grooves of a walnut, the color of charred flesh.

Of course, he’s not real. It’s usually Bibo Mai’s brother or cousins, the only men allowed on the women’s side. They put on a mask and black veil to scare the children here. You can imagine how the young ones scream when they see him—this tall, dark figure with a face like the scary jinn from Lucky Irani Circus. On days when the children are being difficult, playing with balls of rice and pissing in the courtyard instead of going to the latrines, their mothers beg me to call Chandi Shah’s mobile, so he can send in Baba Bhola. For hours after he has come and growled and retreated back to the men’s side, the children sit wordlessly by their mothers, as if tranquilized with a big needle. It’s the most peace we ever get in here.

But throughout the summer, Baba Bhola hadn’t shown up once, so I can’t tell you why he was appearing in my dreams so much. He would float in and out of them, so vivid that I would wake up with his face burnished into my sight, like when you look at the tube light for too long. I haven’t told this to anyone. I can’t have them thinking I was complicit in what happened. Which I wasn’t. Not the way I remember it, veeray, not the way I remember the past.

**

Then came Shab-e-Barat, the night destinies are written. It is a tenet I deeply love—that in the course of a single night, your destiny is determined, after which no one can take it from you. You get what is yours.

People come from all over the province for the celebration. Lights go up on the shrine walls. Chandi Shah always invites qawwals from Lahore, and they sit on a stage of red rugs and pillows and sing about saints old and new. Bibo Mai loves the music, so we always go up to the balcony and watch through the filigree. Then the drum starts beating and soon enough, some devotee gets up and begins whirling as if in a trance. By the end of the night, dozens of men are doing the dhamaal. What they don’t know is, in here, we are all doing the same. So many of the women dance—hair flying, shawls abandoned, eyes shut. The girl with the golden bangles, you should see her doing the dhamaal. Breathtaking.

It was August, still very hot. Bibo Mai was complaining about the heat every day, so we had two women fanning her on either side up in the balcony. The singers were reciting a qafi by Khwaja Farid, and Bibo Mai was swaying back and forth—it was her favorite, the one Chandi Shah always knows to request. Her face was shining with sweat, and one hand was resting on her belly. Then the whirling began, and I suggested she stand up to get a better view of the dancers.

The drum was sounding on all sides, and some women began to dance as well. No one noticed him until he was on the balcony. Baba Bhola had no business being there—on such nights, it’s not the children who misbehave. He made his way to Bibo Mai, who was still looking at the men below and swaying.

With one quick movement, he pushed her, and she fell onto the woman fanning her. Baba Bhola shoved the other woman away, then threw Bibo Mai to the floor. The drum kept beating. He turned her stomach to face the sky, and then kicked her in the belly. Once, then again, then again. She must have screamed, but nothing sounded over the drum.

The women gathered around. They clutched one another and took shallow breaths—as if breathing louder might break a spell. They watched and did not say a word. I also watched. The drum filled the night.

I knew, veeray.

I knew that was the night destinies were written, and I knew what the writers of destiny thought of unborn demons that grew inside unmarried women. I knew that the following day, after everything was over, after the lady doctor had been called in to handle the mess, after she had left with a thick envelope to keep her mouth shut in case some fat constable came prying, after the floors had been swept and the smells wiped out by incense, I would welcome back my Bibo Mai. I would feed her rice and broth until she got better, kiss her hands and feet like I always had. I would promise that I was here for her, just as she was here for me. I would tell her that she was still what she had always been—my dear, beloved Bibo Mai.