Page 169 - Leadership in the Indian Army

that some, if not most, of the neighbors were already gossiping about

her and Tariq. Laila had noticed the sly grins, was aware of the whispers
in the neighborhood that the two of them were a couple. The other day,

for instance, she and Tariq were walking up the street together when

they'd passed Rasheed, the shoemaker, with his burqa-clad wife, Mariam,

in tow. As he'd passed by them, Rasheed had playfully said, "If it isn't
Laili and Majnoon," referring to the star-crossed lovers of Nezami's

popular twelfth-century romantic poem-a Farsi version ofRomeo and

Juliet, Babi said, though he added thatNezami had written his tale of

ill-fated lovers four centuries before Shakespeare.

Mammy had a point.
What rankled Laila was that Mammy hadn't earned the right to make it.

It would have been one thing if Babi had raised this issue. But Mammy?

All those years of aloofness, of cooping herself up and not caring where
Laila went and whom she saw and what she thought…It was unfair. Laila

felt like she was no better than these pots and pans, something that

could go neglected, then laid claim to, at will, whenever the mood struck.

But this was a big day, an important day, for all of them. It would be

petty to spoil it over this. In the spirit of things, Laila let it pass.

"I get your point," she said.
"Good!" Mammy said. "That's resolved, then. Now, where is Hakim?

Where, oh where, is that sweet little husband of mine?"

* * *

It was a dazzling, cloudless day, perfect for a party. The men sat on

rickety folding chairs in the yard. They drank tea and smoked and talked