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Sharon Zezima
reads
The Price of Purple Cotton
in Real Audio format.
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"Whether you're handsome or ugly, it's nice to know you have a face," my younger brother Kamran used to say when we were growing up. My sister Alia and I would always laugh at his meaningless and often bizarre jokes, and this joke was one that seemed particularly meaningless to me at the time. Yes, let's be thankful we have a face in the first place, implying that may not be the case for everyone. But wasn't it the case?
As I wait for the shaleesh — our informal
court — to tell me what my face is worth, Kami's running joke comes back to me with a haunting irony.
It started at the market four months ago. I saw Sabi at Anwar Ali's spice shop while I was picking up some green curry for my husband Asfar's dinner. Sabi had gone to school with my brother Kamran. I had seen him every now and then at the house growing up, but he was one of a host of proud boys that passed through our doors during Kamran's rowdy years. I didn't notice him any more or any less than the others.
Now Sabi, while still proud, had grown into a purposeful man of some distinction among his peers. He owned a small fabric store in a village where few people knew what it was to own anything more than a bicycle, a cow and, of course, a handful of clothing. Sabi's fabric store was as wholly essential to our village as the river and the mosque. Also, Sabi's uncle was a respected moulvi, a religious scholar. So, you see, with what little power existed in a place like Dhaka, Sabi's family had much of it.
I liked who Sabi had become. He had worked hard to get his shop and, by all accounts, he was a fair and honest businessman. So when I saw Sabi at the spice shop, I greeted him warmly and exchanged pleasantries about Kamran, my parents and other goings on.
"Yes, my parents are well, though my father's arthritis is making it hard for him to continue working his field. Kamran may be on his own from now on," I told him.
"Kamran would rather sit around telling stories than drag that plow around for one moment," Sabi said. I smiled, knowing it was true. Kamran liked to laugh and make others laugh. Work was never a skill he fully mastered.
The conversation was unremarkable really. I may have looked into his eyes on a few occasions, but no more than that. Anyway, we no longer have purdah
— veiling
— and men and women can look at each other without fear of exciting lust or angering Allah.
When Sabi mentioned the new purple madras cotton he just got in at his store, I thought nothing more than that he was a good shopkeeper who knew how to entice his customer.
"Yes, your new cotton sounds fine indeed," I told him. "I will come to your shop tomorrow to see it."
I thought to myself that my husband Asfar would like a new purple shirt, though I did not say it aloud. Maybe I should have. Did he sense I was excluding my husband from our conversation?
The next day I went to Sabi's shop. He smiled widely when I came in, and I smiled in return. As he ushered me to the section where he kept his new rolls of purple cotton, he told me how he had always admired my colorful clothing growing up. He thought of me when this purple cloth came in. I was surprised he had taken any notice of me growing up and was even more surprised he would voice it now.
I did like his purple cotton though, so we began negotiating over a price.
After the required haggling, he finally said, "Okay, but I can take no less than 50 takar a yard. That is a very fair price, you know," he added. I did know. It was a bargain.
"I am giving you this price because I know you will look beautiful in this color," he said as he leaned towards me, as if he were telling me a secret. I started to tell him that the fabric was for Asfar's shirt, but I stopped myself. I wanted my bargain.
When I returned to Sabi's shop the following week for some small alder wood buttons, Sabi surprised me with some beautiful coffee-colored silks he'd just purchased from Bombay.
"I thought of your eyes when I saw them, and I knew I must get them for you," he told me.
I was embarrassed by the gesture and told him we could not afford these silks. Asfar was only a rice farmer.
"They are a gift to you. You cannot refuse them. If you do, I will be very offended."
I did not want to offend him. He was a respected man. A proud man. But I now realized, or maybe only now admitted, that his interests were more than those of a shopkeeper for his customer. I refused the silks sadly, because I knew instantly the consequences. A certain offense weighed against a decidedly more dangerous sign of affection. I loved Asfar, and there was not a part of me that could accept Sabi's silks and what they meant. But, in Bhaka, to scorn a man may mean retribution. I thought it may come in the form of higher cotton prices or, at worst, a broken bicycle. I never thought Sabi would take my face.
Two weeks after I refused his silks, I walked out of my front door as I had so many times, without a thought of anything but the onion kulcha I was making for lunch. Sabi was there holding a small silver pail. He hurled its contents at me, and the pain was instantaneous. I could feel my face melting off of my head and my right eye dissolving in its socket. As I fell to the ground screaming, I saw Sabi's pride infuse him with a certain glee. I was not good to any man now, he had ensured that.
I've never been a vain woman. I never thought much of my face. A bump on my nose. A bit of a sharp chin. But nice, round eyes. I always did like my eyes. I didn't appreciate having a plain face until Sabi left me with this hideous reminder of a face. Whether you're handsome or ugly. . . . How true!
The village elders met for a shaleesh to determine a fair resolution. Sabi's uncle, the moulvi, succeeded in convincing the families that this mediation was the best way for all concerned. "Sabi is, after all, a well-known business man," he argued. Even Kamran gave in to the shaleesh in the end. I think this was due to his personal relationship with Sabi and his sincere aversion to conflict, though he explained to me, "The elders are a wise and fair group and will do what is right." But they were men of Bhaka, and I was a farmer's wife. I had no reputation to lose and little to advocate for.
Sadly, while I felt so freed when we stopped purdah, I now wish we followed it. Had women still been forced to wear veils, Sabi would never have dared to talk to me or even look at me. Covering my face would have saved it.
I told the elders I had just wanted a nice purple shirt for my husband. I told them of the agony I went through that day, hearing my cheeks sizzle and feeling my flesh disappear as a thousand needles pierced what was left of them. The pain returns each time I pass a window and see with my remaining eye the misshapen mass where my face used to be.
I hear that some of the elders are arguing for 500,000 takar, or $10,000. This is a lot of money to us, though it is still a poor substitute for my suffering.
Others — I fear a stronger
faction — are saying $1000 is just under the circumstances. They ask why Sabi would have done this act of passion had I not done something to ignite that passion.
What I would pay to be able to go back to the spice shop that day and instead say a simple good day as I passed Sabi next to the green curry boxes. How much I would give not to have looked in his eyes so carelessly.
What is a fair sum for my plain face with the sharp chin and lovely round eyes? And for my reputation as an honest woman and faithful wife? And for the gentle stroke of Asfar's hand on my full cheeks and the look in his eyes that tells me he wants to lie with me?
In the end, the elders will decide on the price and declare it a fair one. And Sabi will have gotten quite a bargain.
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