A Thousand Questions

by Saadia Faruqi

  Dedication

  For all the girls of Pakistan,

  who live with courage,

  conviction, and passion.

  I see you.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1. Mimi: Summer Vacation Is Overrated

  2. Sakina: A Letter with a Hopeful Message

  3. Mimi: The Mansion and Its Royalty

  4. Sakina: The Americans

  5. Mimi: Move Some Chess Pieces on the Board

  6. Sakina: A Little Haven

  7. Mimi: My Fruit Is Better Than Yours

  8. Sakina: A Deal with the Devil

  9. Mimi: If Pigs Could Fly, Where Would They Fly To?

  10. Sakina: The English Teacher

  11. Mimi: Unwanted Guests

  12. Sakina: Ice Cream for the Soul

  13. Mimi: Mom Is Moving On

  14. Sakina: Tell Me a Secret

  15. Mimi: I’m Fine, Everything Is Fine

  16. Sakina: The Evil Witch

  17. Mimi: A Stranger in My Own Land

  18. Sakina: White Walls and Green Gardens

  19. Mimi: A Camel for Your Thoughts

  20. Sakina: Bun Kabab and Conversation

  21. Mimi: Tom Scotts, Special Correspondent

  22. Sakina: The Newspaper Office

  23. Mimi: Red Eyes and a Resolve

  24. Sakina: Don’t Trust Your Neighbors

  25. Mimi: A Fashion Show to Remember

  26. Sakina: The Worst Day of My Life

  27. Mimi: A Visit to My Best Friend’s House

  28. Sakina: Finding Lost Things

  29. Mimi: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

  30. Sakina: What About Mimi?

  31. Mimi: It’s Not Over Until I Say So

  32. Sakina: Secrets

  33. Mimi: Even Villains Aren’t All Bad

  34. Sakina: The Real Test

  35. Mimi: You Can’t Run from Your Troubles

  36. Sakina: Dreams Are for Fools and Rich People

  37. Mimi: We Meet at Last

  38. Sakina: I Am Human Too

  39. Mimi: The Last Day Is Always the Best

  40. Sakina: Final Goodbyes

  Author’s Note

  Glossary

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  Mimi

  Summer Vacation Is Overrated

  Imagine an oven, like 400 degrees. Then imagine crawling inside and closing the door behind you. That’s what Pakistan feels like in the summer. Who’d be dumb enough to crawl inside a superhot oven, you ask?

  Good question. Nobody with brains, that’s who.

  We’re standing outside the Jinnah Airport in Karachi, trying to get a taxi from a small kiosk with dirty windows. There are a million people around me, all talking faster than I can understand, and anyway they’re talking in Urdu so I have only a vague idea of what they’re saying. Mom fans herself with a Parents magazine, the blonde model on the cover all creased as she tries to keep her mom-cool. I try fanning too, but my copy of the new Dork Diaries is too thick and short to give me any air. “Ugh!” I grunt, and Mom turns to frown at me.

  “No complaining, Mimi,” she reminds me, patting my nose with her finger. That’s been our rule since I was a little girl. No complaining, no matter how hard things get. Not when Dad left us when I was five. Not when I crashed my bike in the street outside our Houston apartment at age seven and broke my leg in three places. Not when Mom lost her teaching job at the Houston Art Institute last year and went on a million interviews, always returning with a smile on her tired face, saying, “It’s fine. Something will turn up soon.”

  But this forced vacation in Pakistan, the land of my ancestors . . . This is not the something I’d been expecting to turn up.

  I swat angrily at a big fly that’s been trying to land on my face for the last ten minutes. “Not easy,” I hiss at Mom. The fly glares at me with its hundred eyes, daring me to catch it.

  Mom turns back and offers an apologetic smile to the man in the window. “So how much?” she asks in Urdu. I can’t speak it too well, but I’ve heard it enough to know what she’s saying. How much to go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house?

  That’s another thing. I’ve never even met these Pakistani grandparents of mine. Mom’s parents. They call us on Skype once in a while, but mostly in the middle of the night, when I’m already asleep, because of the time difference. I have to stay up late on my birthday to talk to them, but it’s always an awkward moment when they stare at me through cyberspace. A stern woman with glasses and arched eyebrows. A man with a shock of white hair and twinkling eyes.

  Mom is still haggling with the man in the kiosk. He says something, and she shakes her head. “Too much, that’s insane!” she says, firm and clear.

  “It’s nothing in dollars, ma’am,” he tells her firmly, almost mocking. I gasp. How does he know we’re American? Is it my Old Navy backpack, or my colorful Skechers sneakers? Is it Mom’s dangly earrings or her white embroidered tunic worn over jeans? I’m pretty sure it’s the clothes. I survey the women milling around us. Almost everyone is dressed in shalwar kameez of a dizzying variety of colors. Blues and greens like the ocean. Reds and yellows like the leaves in fall.

  I do have the traditional Pakistani dress, a black linen kameez with silver embroidery on the sleeves and a plain white cotton shalwar that’s too short for my legs now. I wore it twice last year for the two Eid celebrations, and then stuffed it in the back of my closet. I prefer jeans and T-shirts with funny messages. Right now, for instance, I’m wearing a white T-shirt with a purple poop emoji. It’s holding its nose and asking WHAT STINKS?

  I can smell so many things at the moment, none of them good. Garbage spoiling in the early sun. Sweat. Muddy shoes. My T-shirt suddenly doesn’t seem that funny. I take my blue cardigan from around my waist and put it on over the poop emoji. “What do you think the temperature is, Mom?” I ask. “Probably a hundred degrees. Or do they use Celsius here?”

  Mom shushes me with a finger. She and the man in the kiosk have decided on a price. I never knew one could haggle over taxi fares. Another man walks out, picks up our luggage, and takes it to a white sedan with a broken bumper, covered in dust, and we climb in. “Thank you,” I say in English, and he stares at me.

  “Is it okay to say thank you?” I whisper to Mom as we settle in and the driver starts the taxi slowly, honking the horn every few seconds to alert people on the road. Wait, is this a road or the sidewalk? It’s hard to tell because there are people everywhere.

  Mom gives me the side-eye. “Please, can we take a break from your thousands of questions, just this once?”

  “Mo-om!”

  She leans her head back and closes her eyes. “Yes, Mimi, you can say thank you. Or shukriya.”

  “Really? I feel like that guy didn’t understand me when I said thank you to him. Or maybe he’s just not used to getting thanked. What do you think?”

  She doesn’t reply. “Mom?” I say, louder, then feel the driver’s eyes on me in the rearview mirror.

  “Just look out the window, sweetie,” Mom murmurs. “You don’t want to miss any details for your travel journal, do you?”

  I grimace, thinking of the journal Mom gave me a few weeks before we left Houston. I’m secretly planning to write to Dad about my trip, even though I haven’t heard from him in years, but she doesn’t need to know that. Somehow I doubt she’ll be thrilled. She always mutters about him and says “good riddance to bad rubbish” or something like that if anyone asks. But maybe if I write to him, he’ll start writing back.

  I turn toward the window, sh
utting my mouth firmly. At least the car isn’t too hot. The crowds outside have disappeared, and we’re cruising down a big road with neat little trees on each side. The traffic is heavy, though. There are small cars, motorcycles with loads of passengers, and big buses with men sitting on the tops and hanging from the sides. Billboards line the sides of the roads, advertising everything from the latest fashions to cell phone service. A few signs in English proclaim DON’T FORGET TO VOTE ON AUGUST 1, with dozens of Pakistani flags surrounding the words. My eyes are literally popping out of my head; I can feel them. It’s all so strange, but also cool and bright, an explosion of color so sharp it reaches inside me and draws out a little sigh.

  I realize I’m pressing my face against the window and force myself to sit back and relax. This is Karachi, the largest city in Pakistan, the birthplace of my mom and the grandparents I’ve never met. This is my home for the next month and a half, whether I like it or not.

  We pass through congested intersections filled with cars and motorcycles, trucks and donkey carts. I see squat buildings that are obviously offices, and tall glass structures that may or may not be offices. One is definitely a mall, and it rises to the sky. Soon, the streets broaden; the cars thin out. We must be in a different part of the city.

  I squint at the street sign. Sunset Boulevard. Funny, Dad once sent me a postcard from Sunset Boulevard in California, a year after he left. It was the only time he ever sent me anything. Is this an omen? He’s a journalist and travels a lot, so he could be anywhere in the world right now. Thanks to Google, I know he’s traveled to lots of cool (and some hot) places. The last time I checked, about six months ago, he was the Asian correspondent of a fancy-pants newswire service somewhere in China. Still, I like to think of him in sunny California, surfing the waves and reporting on shark attacks.

  I lean my face back against the window, taking in the big houses and the towering boundary walls with barbed wire on the top. This journey is never-ending.

  I look sideways at Mom. She’s breathing deeply from her mouth, a sure sign she’s asleep. Her hands are folded neatly in her lap, fingers stained deep blue from the last painting she worked on before we left Houston. She can never get the stains out properly.

  I rummage in my backpack and find my little square journal. It’s got a gray leathery cover, and thick lined paper. My purple gel pen is tucked inside, serving as a bookmark.

  Dear Dad,

  You won’t believe that I’m on a different continent from all my friends, right this minute. I’m awake while they’re all sleeping, dreaming of who knows what. It’s early morning here in Karachi, all the way in South Asia.

  We’re taking what Mom calls a long-overdue vacation. She’s finally got a job at a private school as the art teacher, and we have the whole summer to celebrate instead of worrying about money as usual. My best friend, Zoe, is spending the summer in Italy. Isn’t she L-U-C-K-Y? I would give my left arm to go to Europe. Instead, I’m in Pakistan, which Mom says means “land of the pure.” Ugh. It’s pure, all right—pure haze, pure dust. Pure heat.

  Have you ever been to Pakistan? Somehow I doubt it. A white man with light brown eyes and blond hair would really stand out here. Mom says this place will grow on me if I just give it a chance, but at the moment I’d give anything to be with you. Would you give anything to be with your family again?

  Love,

  Your daughter, Mimi

  The taxi screeches to a stop in front of a sprawling white house with a balcony on the second floor and huge windows covered with metal bars. There are more VOTE! posters plastered on the boundary wall, along with colorful graffiti. “Is this it, ma’am?” the taxi driver calls out in Urdu.

  Mom straightens up, yawning. I’m always amazed at her ability to take cat naps and wake up refreshed. I, on the other hand, wake up grouchy as a cat without whiskers. “Still the same,” she says quietly, staring at the houses outside with a dreamy expression.

  I scramble out of the car without being told and stretch on the street. “This is practically a mansion,” I whisper in awe.

  Mom joins me and grins. She’s standing up straighter than I’ve seen in a long time. “Welcome to my childhood home, Mimi, my darling!” she says, and strides up to the gate to ring the bell.

  2

  Sakina

  A Letter with a Hopeful Message

  “Hurry up, Sakina. Your father is leaving,” Amma calls from the kitchen. I fold the letter carefully and stuff it into my little bag. The tiffin with Abba’s lunch and mine is warm inside, and I want to make sure the letter doesn’t get wet, or worse, destroyed. It’s something called condensation, which makes hot things sweat like an old woman on a summer day.

  Amma is squatting in the little courtyard of our home, washing clothes in the sink as the pipe sputters murky water into the big open trough. A pile of clothes lies in a heap at her feet, every single kameez my brother Jamshed has dirtied from the hours he plays outside. She looks up at me and frowns. “What took you so long, girl? Abba needs to be on time—you know that!”

  “I was putting our food in the tiffin.”

  “Good.” She utters a tired sigh and turns back to the sink. “Make sure your abba eats everything. He needs his strength to work.”

  This goes without saying, of course. Abba often forgets to eat, so it’s my job to remind him. Sit with him and make him eat, if need be. Sometimes he’s the father and I’m the child. Other times he’s the child.

  My brother is running about in the courtyard, pretending to be a bird. “Be a good boy today, Jammy,” I tell him, and he grins at me.

  Abba is waiting on his motorcycle, smiling despite the fact that we’re very late. “I’m sorry, Abba,” I huff, and climb on behind him, holding my bag between our two bodies.

  “Tuck your dupatta in,” he reminds me as he starts driving. “You don’t want it to get stuck in the back wheel.”

  I know this already, but I check my dupatta anyway. Last year, a girl from our neighborhood died because her dupatta got tangled in the back wheel of the motorcycle she was riding, making her fall into oncoming traffic. “It’s fine,” I assure him, and we’re off. Out of our narrow, cobbled street, past the election banners in bright colors. I wave goodbye to the milkman and the sweeper. I see a half-naked toddler investigating the rainwater drain with a stick and shout, “Wash your hands afterward!” He stares at me like I’ve said an alien thing.

  Soon, we’re cruising on the big road that leads toward the rich people’s houses. The morning is already sweltering hot, but the wind rushes on my face and around my body like it’s playing a game of hide-and-seek. I close my eyes and lean forward until my head touches Abba’s back. He smells of soap and the mustard oil he smooths his shiny hair back with every morning. My mother used to say it strengthens hair better than all those new shampoos on the market, he always tells me. I don’t like the smell of mustard oil, but I’d never tell Abba that.

  We can’t afford the fancy shampoos anyway, so I make do with soap and water—just a tiny bit, because we have to share one big bucket of water among us each day: Amma, Abba, and myself, plus four-year-old Jamshed. Water is more precious than the gold rich ladies buy from their air-conditioned malls with guards outside. Water is life. Gold is . . . colored rock.

  I listen to the hum of the motorcycle engine, the roar of cars around us, the beep of horns as they pass us, telling us to hurry, hurry, hurry. Abba is probably going to be late, but he never shows an ounce of anger or worry on his face. That’s what I love best about him. All our neighbors’ parents fight in the evening, angry that the water is finished, or the electricity is gone again, or the gas isn’t coming and they can’t cook. Abba just lies back on his bed, no matter how hot it is, and murmurs, “It’ll be all right. God will provide.”

  I’m not sure I believe that. God listens to rich people, not to people like Abba and me. Behind my closed eyelids, I can see the letter as if it’s right in front of me.

  Dear Sakina Ejaz:


  We regret to inform you that you’ve failed the English portion of your admission test to New Haven School. Because of your high scores in science and mathematics, you are eligible for one more attempt at the English section on Friday, July 27, at 8:00 a.m. Please arrive early and check in at Gate 1. This letter will serve as your admission.

  The letter is made up of huge words, but their meaning is clear. I failed the admission test because I’m not good enough. This isn’t a total surprise, of course. I know only a little bit of English thanks to the cartoons I steal away to watch at Abba’s place of work in between my chores. If Begum Sahiba ever knew I watched those cartoons, she’d be livid. Abba’s warned me about slacking. We can’t afford to be out of a job.

  And I can’t afford to fail this admission test one more time.

  We reach Begum Sahiba’s house at 10:00 a.m. sharp. Abba has managed to be on time even though we left fifteen minutes late. “See, God helps us in little things,” he whispers to me as he checks his watch and slides his motorcycle into the driveway.

  I make a face behind his back. God doesn’t care if we are early or late, but I can’t say that to him. It would break his heart.

  The guard opens the gate and motions us inside. “The guests will be here soon,” he urges. “You need to hurry and get to work. There’s a lot to be done.”

  The guests. I’ve been hearing whispers from the servants all week long about the famous guests from America. Begum Sahiba’s daughter, who I’ve never seen, is finally coming back to Pakistan with a child. More than that, I know nothing, nor do I care to. The other servants gossip about how the daughter married some white man and Begum Sahiba almost had a heart attack. They say the child is white. They say she’s probably rude and ill-mannered. These rich people and their family issues seem so stupid to me. Six children died in my neighborhood last year because of heat stroke. That’s what I care about, making sure something like that doesn’t happen to my family.

  We hurry inside and get to work. Tahira, the maid who cleans the house and washes the clothes, is bustling about as if she’s on an important mission. There are bedsheets to be changed, new towels to be placed carefully in all the bathrooms.