In a Kingdom by the Sea

by Sara MacDonald

  I feel abruptly sad. This man forged a new nation but died with his dreams unfulfilled. His hopes for equal rights for all, despite religion or caste, were dashed. Could he have envisaged the decades of violence his dream of a separate Muslim state would bring? Sadly, looking at his shoes, he did not even last long enough to move into his own house, furnished with beautiful things. It seems a typically Pakistani ending.

  Rana smiles. It is time to go. She must take Ahmed back to school.

  She drops me off outside the hotel entrance. I thank her profusely and ask, ‘Do you have time to have a coffee with me, later, before you go on duty this afternoon?’

  Her face lights up. ‘I do, Mrs Michael. Thank you. That would be lovely. Shall I meet you in the Cinnamon Lounge at about two p.m.?’

  As I go up in the lift, I realize that, for one blissful hour and a half, I forgot my own little world. I was completely gripped by someone else’s life. I think of the particular nature of friendship in Pakistan and how precious it is. All I can offer is coffee and cake, in return.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Karachi, 2010

  Birjees sends me a text. Gabby, this is my daughter Samia’s phone. Ring me anytime. Please let me know if you are all right on your own without Michael. I worry, Birjees.

  I text back, Birjees, thank you. I am fine. I am working on a difficult translation while Mike is away. It keeps me busy. I promise I will phone if I get lonely. Concentrate on uncles and stop worrying about me! Gabby x

  I often wonder about Birjees and her life with Shahid. Was their marriage arranged? I cannot ask. Shahid is a gentle man and they both seem happy and compatible but sometimes Birjees has an air of a sleepwalker that resonates.

  Does she fly away in her head to secret places, away from her life in the middle of Karachi, away from domesticity, demonstrations, constant electricity cuts and violence? Sometimes, when we are all talking, I sense she curbs her true feelings, defers as a matter of habit; has learnt to quell her spirit in a country where women who are vocal put themselves in danger.

  The heatwave continues so I get up earlier and earlier to swim in the deserted garden while the water is cool. One morning my eyes fall on the local newspaper I brought down from my room. There is a photograph of a frantic blind woman standing in the street holding up a placard. Her sightless eyes are rolled to heaven. Her mouth is open and ugly in grief. In contrast her two daughters aged thirteen and fourteen are staring into the camera, their faces devoid of emotion.

  Local men have been breaking into the woman’s home and systematically gang-raping the two young girls night after night. The mother has been to the police station and been sent away. She says that one of the men abusing her daughters is a policeman but no one will listen to her. She is out on the street begging for protection for her children, holding her placard high for all to see in a last, desperate bid for help.

  I stare down at the newspaper in horror. Will anyone help to protect this woman and her children? This is the dark half of Pakistan. The one I do not see. I am behind the safe walls of the hotel but on the streets of Karachi real life goes on, raw and bitter and violent. Poverty, religion and a feudal system dictate what a life is worth. A poor woman on her own has no protection and is worth little.

  I am a woman living in a five-star hotel. I know nothing of the stark world lived by millions of Pakistanis. The waiters, chefs, receptionists and pool boys all have different faces and real lives away from the hotel.

  Noor, who is from the Swat Valley, was training to be an engineer. Naseem has a business degree. So many homesick young men are forced to migrate to the cities to find work to feed their families. Now they whisper their stories to me in an empty Cinnamon Lounge, still full of dreams and hope for something better.

  When Sergei Orlov mentioned working with him I had been excited at the thought of doing something useful, of going beyond the hotel and learning about the stark, everyday Pakistan. Now, everything is uncertain. l feel the chance slipping away from me.

  I had not said anything to Mike. I was afraid he would veto the idea. I had told Birjees. She was all for my involving myself, especially in work for children.

  ‘You will have to cover your head and practise your Urdu,’ she said.

  I practise my Urdu up in my room in the afternoons with a language DVD. Massima, who texts me regularly, found this amusing, but stopped laughing when I started to speak to her in halting sentences.

  You are a quick learner, she said, impressed.

  My mother was good at languages. I inherited her gene. How is your mother? Is she home now?

  She is still in hospital. We await tests. My father, he is very worried. They have never been apart in thirty-five years.

  Goodness. That is very sweet and romantic.

  It is. Arranged marriage, but love at first sight.

  How wonderful, Massima.

  In the late afternoon when the heat has drained from the sun I go down to the garden, to the lengthening shadows. The wind from the sea has dropped, and the sweeper of leaves, the cleaners of windows, the businessmen smoking in conference breaks, the maintenance men fixing the fountain have all gone home. There is just a yawning pool boy, a lone evening swimmer and me.

  Despite Mike’s reluctance to leave me in Karachi, he does not ring me every evening as he promised. In fact he rings me hardly at all. He emails and texts; so easy and quick to do. He knows how I must be feeling yet he has managed to distance and detach himself easily; it makes me wonder if I know him at all.

  Dominique’s letter has thrown up so much else I did not know was there lurking inside me. I have nothing to deflect me from feelings I have sat on for years. It is painful, like holding your breath for too long, or pressing a finger into a dark bruise and trying not to flinch. Yet, there is strange, masochistic relief in finally facing myself, head on, for the first time in my life.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Karachi, 2010

  I have just persuaded myself that I must leave the apartment and go down into the hotel restaurant to eat this evening when Mike suddenly Skypes me.

  ‘Hello, darling, I thought I would see how you are doing, while I have a quiet five minutes. How are you?’

  He seems happy and relaxed, at his most charming and slightly inebriated.

  ‘I’m as all right as I can be, I think.’

  ‘I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to ring every night, it really has been full on …’ He peers at me. ‘Have you spoken to your sister?’

  ‘No, we’ve emailed.’

  ‘How does she seem?’

  ‘She sounds okay, calm even. She said she felt better just being with the girls.’

  ‘Dominique won’t tell them, will she?’

  ‘She said she wouldn’t. I think she regretted telling me …’

  ‘She should regret it. She should never have told you after all this time. It achieves nothing, just needlessly hurts you …’

  I interrupt. ‘Mike, let’s talk about something else, please. You seem more relaxed than I’ve seen you for a while.’

  Mike smiles and turns his wrist slightly to glance at his watch.

  ‘Have you had a drink?’ I ask suddenly and enviously.

  ‘I had a beer with a colleague in the foreigners’ bar at the top of the hotel. We’re just going out to grab a quick meal …’

  I think I would have been warmed and glad of Mike’s call had I not seen his clothes laid carefully out on the bed behind him. There is his favourite pink checked shirt, pale cream chinos, neatly pressed. Beside them are new jockey shorts and a pair of socks. I can see their labels.

  ‘Who are you having a meal with?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh, Asif and Shahid, all the usual people I work with, darling. It will be nice to get out of the hotel …’ He smiles at the screen. ‘I ought to get on, Gabs. Take care of yourself. I will be back in a few days …’

  It is as if I can touch his suppressed excitement. I have never, in all the years we have been mar
ried, seen Mike lay his clothes out on the bed, as if for a party, or a first date.

  In the lift to the foyer there are two female NGOs. They are young, giggly and nervous and as the lift pings open they head for the glass doors and a reinforced four-by-four with tinted windows that’s waiting outside the entrance.

  Charlie is hurrying through the glass doors with two men in business suits. He waves and comes over. ‘How are you doing, Gabriella? Have you everything you need?’

  ‘I have,’ I assure him. ‘I’m being well looked after.’

  ‘Good. Sorry, I have not seen you since Michael left. I have security people crawling all over the hotel before they let some politician through the door.’ He rolls his eyes at the waiting suits behind him and I smile.

  ‘Go, Charlie.’

  He smiles back. ‘I’ll catch you soon.’

  I have picked the pool restaurant because it is nearly always empty at night. Most people staying in the hotel eat on the roof terrace or in the Chinese or Japanese restaurant.

  I am happy to see Naseem is on duty tonight. He settles me in a table by the window, shakes out a starched napkin and goes to get me a drink. The garden is empty but braided with fairy lights. Like a magician Naseem produces delicious little dishes to tempt me to eat. He makes sure the bread rolls are warm and the water is cold. He brings fruit glistening in chilled bowls.

  ‘These apples, mem, they come from Gwalerai, in Swat Valley. This is my home once. My father, he had very beautiful apple orchards. These are best apples …’

  I look up at him. ‘Your father no longer has his orchards?’

  ‘No, mem, the Pakistani army, they shoot him. They think he is Taliban.’

  I stare at him, horrified. Naseem cradles the glistening apples in his palm.

  ‘My mother and my little brother, they are now here in Karachi with my uncle. My brother, he needs to go to school. My father, he give me gift of education. Now I must give my brother the same. Inshallah, mem, one day we will all return to our orchards …’

  ‘Inshallah, Naseem. I hope you will.’

  ‘Please, now you must eat, mem … I will go to put some apples in bowl for your room.’

  Naseem’s small, thoughtful acts always warm my soul. When I was a child, if anything bad or sad happened, the whole village moved in to make a protective circle around their own. It always made me feel safe. This is how I feel with Charlie, Naseem, Rana and the staff in this hotel.

  As I leave the restaurant, Naseem hands me a bowl of his apples from home and a napkin full of little sweet biscuits. ‘For later, mem, in case you feel hungry.’

  I laugh. ‘Naseem, there is little chance of that. Thank you for looking after me so well.’

  Naseem smiles, his green eyes meeting mine for a second. ‘You are welcome. It is my pleasure, mem.’

  I think, as I go up in the lift, he has lost his father and his home and he is sorry for me. Solitary dining or solitary anything in Pakistan is an aberration. It is something Naseem would not wish on his mother or little brother.

  As I get into bed an oddly intuitive message pings in from Massima.

  Is all okay with you Gabby? I had a strange dream about you last night. It disturbed me. I am here in Lahore on business trip. There are very many beautiful textiles at this exhibition. You would love to be here. I wish you could have accompanied me. I think one day we will come together. My mother, she is back home now from hospital. As soon as I am back in Karachi I will come and see you. I think Michael must have left for Islamabad so I hope you are not lonely …

  I think of Mike in Islamabad going out to dinner in his new socks, and his new underpants. I turn the light out and lie listening to the hotel settle around me. Mike’s words go round and round in my head. It was just an attraction, an aberration, an infatuation because you were thousands of miles away. It means nothing.

  Have you slept with her?

  No, of course I haven’t.

  Only because she is a Muslim … Only because she is a Muslim … Only because she is a Muslim … Slick words mean nothing. And neither does her religion.

  I sit up, put the light back on and take half of a Shahid blue pill.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Karachi, 2010

  I am so ill in the night I want to die. I thrash around in a fever, stumbling to the bathroom to be sick, crawling to the fridge for cold water.

  When I stop throwing up I look in the medicine cabinet and find some local antibiotics that Shahid also manages to get for us without prescription. They will have no effect if I have a virus but I am prepared to try anything to feel better and they seem to ease my stomach cramps.

  In the morning I ignore the phone. I know it will be Rana, as I have not been down for breakfast. The antibiotics have not stayed down and I feel too fragile to talk to her. Kamla, the little Hindu cleaner, comes in to clean the rooms. I tell her to leave everything but I hear her tidying the kitchen and she places a glass of water gently on the bedside table before she goes.

  I wake hours later covered in sweat. I stumble out of bed for more water and find soup in a flask on the table and fresh rolls left in a napkin. There is a worried little note from Rana. Dear Mrs Michael, Kamla tells me you are unwell. I am going off duty but I have sent soup up to your room. This is my mobile phone number. Please to ring me if you have need of anything, Mrs Michael. It is not nice to be ill when you are alone. I fall back into bed, touched by her kindness, the sweetness of her nature.

  By the evening I feel weak, but better, and I drink a little of the soup and nibble the roll warily. I long to ring Birjees just to hear her voice. I resist, it is unfair to trouble her. I am not a child.

  I look out at the kites swirling in circles over the city and think how odd time is. This day has slipped away from me as if it has never been. Yet some days hang as if time has stopped altogether and I am suspended here in Karachi, unable to move forward.

  I switch my mobile back on and it immediately rings. It is an unknown number. ‘Gabby? It is Birjees. I am on my daughter’s phone.’

  ‘Birjees!’ My voice sounds cracked and odd.

  ‘Gabby, I am here in the hotel to see you. I hear that you are unwell. Please, would you permit me to come to your room?’

  ‘Of course, but Birjees, how …’

  ‘Please, Gabby, speak to receptionist to give permission for me to come up …’

  Pansy comes on the phone. ‘It is okay, Mrs Michael?’

  ‘It’s fine, Pansy.’

  By the time I have pulled on a thin robe, done my teeth and splashed water on my face, Birjees is at the door. She hurries in holding a sagging basket.

  ‘Oh, Gabby! You look terrible. Why did you not ring me? I am not pleased with you.’

  I smile, overjoyed to see her.

  ‘How did you know I was ill, Birjees?’

  ‘Rana, she was worried about you. Shahid and I are on your hotel contact list. Also, I know Rana a little from when our girls went to the same dance school … Sit down, you are pale, Gabby.’ She feels my head. ‘You still have fever …’

  ‘I am much better than I was. I’m just weak.’

  ‘You need to drink a lot of water. You are dehydrated.’

  ‘I’m trying. Water makes me throw up. I had a bit of soup earlier …’

  ‘No soup, Gabby, just water, until tomorrow.’

  She burrows into her basket. ‘I have brought medicines and a special soup for this kind of stomach bug. Shahid, he gets these stomach complaints many times … Tell me what it is you have been eating last few days. Hotel food should be fine.’

  ‘Omelettes mostly … salad …’

  Birjees jumps on the salad. ‘What sort of salad?’

  ‘Green salad, lettuce, tomatoes. Charlie told me it was okay to eat salad in the hotel because it is all washed with bottled water.’

  ‘Hmm. You do not touch anything with mayonnaise? Eggs? Potato salad?’

  ‘Oh, Birjees, yes. I love the potato salad here …’ />
  ‘Gabby, it will sit in the dining room for many hours on the serving table in a warm room. Air-conditioning does not keep food cool enough to be safe for delicate western stomachs or indeed Shahid’s …’ She smiles. ‘I think you are over the worst. I have brought more bottled water, so you do not run out. Tomorrow, eat the chicken soup. I will put in the fridge. It will make you feel better. It has many good herbs in it. All Pakistanis eat this soup when they are ill.’

  Just the thought of chicken soup makes me want to gag.

  ‘Thank you, Birjees. I wish Rana hadn’t bothered you.’

  ‘She did sensible thing. I give you my phone number and you do not ring when you have need of me. It is I am fine thing again. This is foolish, Gabby …’ She gets up and pats my shoulder. ‘I am going to get housekeeper to put clean sheets on your bed, it will make you feel better …’

  While Kamla is making up the bed I close my eyes, feeling suddenly weak and longing to crawl back there.

  Birjees is watching me. ‘Would you like to take bath or shower while I am here, Gabby?’

  ‘That would be lovely.’ I’ve felt too feeble to do either.

  When Kamla has given me a concerned smile and gone, Birjees runs water into the egg-shaped bath. She looks amazed. ‘It is so deep, this modern bath, like a well. It would take much precious water to fill. It is good thing you did not try to get in on your own.’

  ‘I feel ridiculously exhausted.’

  ‘This stomach bug, it attacks the body without warning and leaves people fatigued. Mike, he has had it too. I am afraid it will be at least two days more before you feel well.’

  Birjees looks at my little bottles on the bathroom shelf with interest and pours in lavender oil. She helps me climb into the enormous bath and I sink into the scented water. I feel neither self-conscious nor embarrassed, just grateful to have her with me.