More Than Just a Pretty Face

by Syed M. Masood

  He elbowed my ribs, but without much force.

  “And maybe she’s right about everything,” I added.

  “No,” Zar said. “She’s not. You’re allowed to want things too. You’ve wanted to be a chef since we were kids and that Courtney girl used to come over.”

  “Oh yeah. Whatever happened to her?”

  “Her family moved to like Phoenix or Jersey or something. Dude, watch out for—”

  “I see him,” I said, having my character duck behind a car for cover.

  “Anyway, yeah, I tried to look her up, but I couldn’t remember her last name.”

  I thought about it and shook my head. “I can’t either.”

  “Funny, isn’t it? How someone can seem so important to your life, and the next thing you know, it’s thirteen years later, and you can’t even remember her name.”

  I glanced at him. “You trying to tell me something?”

  “Nah,” Zar said with a grin. “What could I possibly be trying to tell you?”

  We made our way through the streets of Karachi together in silence for a while, streets that we’d never walked, but where our parents had lived, and loved, and known joy. I wondered if they, all these years later, knew the city as well as I did, though it had once been part of their everyday reality, and I was only ever virtually there.

  “I really like her,” I said.

  “Everybody knows.”

  “And I could do it. Like everything she wanted. I could go to school in Karachi, come back, become what she wants me to be. She basically said she’d wait for me if I did.”

  Intezar let out an irritated sigh but didn’t say anything.

  “Isn’t that what love is? I mean, aren’t you supposed to compromise and change for the person you love?”

  Zar groaned and paused the game. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever stopped a game for anything other than nature or nourishment. He went to the quit option.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m done being on the same team as you. Let’s play a game where I can punch you in the face.”

  I laughed despite everything that was happening with Kaval. Zar had that effect on people.

  “Can I tell you something?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “What?”

  “I wouldn’t say things like that to you, not ever, just to get something I wanted but you didn’t. I’d never make your life about me. Do you know why?”

  I shook my head.

  “Because I love you.”

  What he wasn’t saying was obvious. Kaval Sabsvari didn’t love me.

  I was pretty sure he was right, but I didn’t know what to say in response. We sat together, staring at the menu screen before us, asking us if we really wanted to stop playing. Finally, I said, “Natari looked good today, right?”

  “I know,” Zar practically squealed. “That dress. Mirchain, yaar.”

  I wasn’t sure if a dress could be spicy, exactly, but it certainly had been the color of ground red pepper. “She’s great.”

  “I’ve been telling you.”

  “I know,” I said dryly. “It’s just that she’s been really nice to me about Renaissance Man, even though Alan and the others seem to hate me. Anyway, we were talking today, and I may have told her you’d like her outfit.”

  Zar’s mouth dropped open, and he shoved me so hard that I nearly fell off the couch. “No. Way. What? Why?”

  “Calm down. It was fine. She seemed… I don’t know, happy to hear it. You should ask her out.”

  “But Pirji told me his thoughts and prayers weren’t working,” Zar reminded me.

  “Maybe that just means it’s time to do something yourself.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I stared at images of the people who’d lived through the Bengal Famine on my computer screen. It should’ve been easy to make them go away. One little click, and they’d be gone. I wouldn’t have to see their silent suffering captured forever, forever ago, again.

  Instead of talking about these people, I could get up onstage and praise the man who had helped bring them to this state. I could ignore them, as history had done. I could pretend that Churchill hadn’t championed their oppression, through the racist and brutal enterprise of colonialism, which had ultimately resulted in their deaths.

  It was the smart thing to do.

  There was just one problem with that, though.

  I wasn’t known for doing the smart thing.

  Unfortunately, if I went in the opposite direction, the direction that my heart pulled me to go, and spoke up about the Bengal Famine, I’d have to do a great job. It wasn’t just about passing history, and it wasn’t just about showing my father and Kaval and Zar and everyone else that I could do it. It was bigger than that.

  These nameless people, who had sold themselves and stolen and begged and sacrificed for the smallest morsel of food, they deserved more than my best. My dad had a point when he said I might not be able to do their story justice.

  Like Kaval had said, I couldn’t do this without help. Was it weak to admit that? I don’t think so. A man should know his limitations. Anyone who has ever seen desi uncles trying to dance at a wedding knows this is true.

  “Were you serious?” I asked Bisma as soon as she answered her phone.

  “Probably,” Bisma said. I could hear the smile in her voice. “About what?”

  “About helping me with Renaissance Man? I have this idea that I really want to present, but if I’m going to do it, I need to be good, okay? I can’t get crushed. It’s important. Will you please help me?”

  “Of course. Do you want to meet somewhere today? I’ll be at the Fremont Library.”

  “The library,” I repeated slowly. “Sure.”

  “It’s on Stevenson. You can google the address.”

  “Hey,” I said. “I know where the library is.”

  “Do you really?”

  “I have, you know, a general idea,” I lied. “So do I like need cash for a cover charge at the door or will they just let me walk in and pay them later?”

  “Let me get this straight,” I said. “You’re like a Netflix for books.”

  The woman at the information desk nodded. “Yes. I suppose that’s one way to look at it, except we don’t charge anything.”

  “So you’ll let me walk out with any book I want. And then you’ll trust me to bring it back.”

  “It’s a little more involved than that,” she said, “but basically, yes.”

  “And this works?”

  “We’ve had a pretty decent run of it,” she told me. “Don’t you have a library at your school?”

  “I mean, sure, but I’ve never been in it. It’s kind of a nerdy place to hang out. No offense.”

  “Don’t worry. I made my peace with being a nerd a long time ago. Tell me, what brings you to… Bookflix?”

  “I’m looking for a girl.”

  “We have some great ones here, but I’m afraid they’re all fictional.”

  “Very funny,” I said. “No, seriously, I’m meeting—oh, there she is.”

  “Bisma?” the librarian asked, looking back to where I was waving. “Well, you should’ve just said so.”

  “You know her?”

  “Oh sure. She and her sister are here all the time. I don’t know her that well, but she seems like a real sweet girl going through a hard time.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “If you read enough books, you figure out how to read people too.”

  “Really? Can you read me?”

  The librarian frowned. “You’re too young. Your story is still being written.”

  “I’m the exact same age as Bisma.”

  “Except, you’re really not. And you’re lucky for it.”

  Bisma had a bemused look on her face when I finally joined her at her table, a stack of books about the British Empire by her side. “You met Joanna, I see.”

  “She’s interesting,” I said.

  “Sp
ending time in a library will do that to a person.”

  “Sounds horrible. Let’s get out of here as soon as possible.”

  Bisma laughed. “What’s going on with your contest?”

  “I’ve decided to tell the truth about Churchill.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “That’s not going to impress that pretty girl you mentioned.”

  “Yeah. It’ll also probably make me fail history and I’ll end up disappointing my father yet again—”

  “I know a little bit about that,” Bisma said with a smile.

  “It’s just… my ancestors were willing to die for this. What’s another F?”

  “Another F? How many of those have you gotten?”

  “Is that really relevant?”

  She shook her head. “I guess not. All right. Show me what you’ve got on it so far.”

  I fished around my backpack and pulled out all my notes. Bisma frowned as she flipped through them. “Who wrote these?”

  “Why?”

  “They don’t seem to be in any kind of order.”

  I frowned. “What is order?”

  Bisma looked at me for a long moment, probably trying to decide if I was joking, then just said, “Give a minute to read these over?”

  I nodded and sat back as she flipped through what I had researched so far. Her face changed a little, subtly but distinctly, as she sank deeper into the pages before her. She seemed at peace. Content.

  Someone in a mosque once told me about the water behind people’s faces. This water, he said, changed depending on what you did and what you believed, and as you got older it began to freeze. The kind of life you led, whether your heart was full of love or joy or shrewdness or bile, all of this changed the nature of the water and, therefore, the look of your face. In this way, your face told the story of your life.

  Bisma’s face, especially at that moment, was a calm lake under a gentle sun. You could tell that she was a kind person, someone who cared about other people deeply, and who was capable of extraordinary love.

  Maybe I’d been staring for too long, because she looked up. “What?”

  “You have a very nice face pond.”

  “Thank… what?”

  “Don’t worry about it. You’re welcome. So.” I nodded at the notes in her hand. “What do you think?”

  “There is some good stuff here. Honestly, though, presenting Churchill as an agent of dehumanization and injustice will be challenging. Are you sure you want to do this? Writing about him as a hero is the easier and probably wiser path.”

  “I avoid being wise whenever I can,” I said, “as a policy.”

  She grinned. “I can respect that.”

  “So you’ll help me? I’ve got to come up with an awesome pitch that will sell Tippett, my teacher, on letting me go against Churchill.”

  “Yes,” she said without hesitation. “But I don’t think you should write about the Bengal Famine.”

  “Um… what?”

  “I just don’t think you’ll win Renaissance Man by writing about it. Aren’t you going to go up onstage and present this paper to a big crowd? You’re going to have to do a speech, yes?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s what I meant when I said this will be hard to present. You can’t go up there and talk about how many tons of shipping capacity Churchill and his war cabinet had at their disposal,” she said, pointing to the numbers I’d copied out. “Or what quantities of rice and wheat he had, and where he chose to stockpile it. That’s all too technical. You’re going to lose your audience. You have to figure out a way to make it interesting. You need a little masala.”

  “Masala,” I said, “I’m good at.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Bisma said. “Let’s see if we can figure out a way to play to your strengths.”

  “Stay after class, Mr. Jilani,” Tippett said, just as the bell freeing us from the clutches of history rang. I groaned and sank back into my chair. Normally, I’d have gotten sympathetic glances from my classmates. No one wanted to spend more time with our prickly teacher than absolutely necessary. Because they thought it was about Renaissance Man, however, I got jealous glares instead.

  I sat where I was for a while, waiting for the old man to speak, but he just stared at me in silence. Eventually, I realized that he wanted me to go up to him. I grabbed my backpack and practically dragged it to the front of the class.

  “What?” I asked, probably not in the nicest way possible.

  “I was wondering how your Renaissance Man project is going. You have not been your irritatingly effervescent self recently, so I assume that you are preoccupied with thoughts of your imminent humiliation in front of the entire school.”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  He folded his thin arms across his chest and gave me a look that said he didn’t believe me.

  I sighed. “It doesn’t have anything to do with school. It’s just… it’s a girl.”

  “You seem to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the fairer sex.”

  “I’m nineteen.”

  Tippett raised an eyebrow. “A valid defense, perhaps, but thankfully, none of my concern. Tell me you’ve made some progress toward your thesis for Renaissance Man.”

  “Progress?”

  My teacher grimaced. “Movement. Headway. Momentum. Tell me your work on this project is moving forward.”

  “Yeah,” I said defensively. “It’s moving.”

  Tippett made a derisive sound. “And toward what destination is it headed? At some point, you’re going to have to tell me what you plan to say.”

  Okay, so I totally wasn’t ready to do that yet. Given that Algie here would be hostile to any attempt at beseeching Churchill—no, that wasn’t right… besotting, maybe? Besmirching? Yes. That one. Where was I?

  “Mr. Jilani?”

  “Yeah. No. I’m here.”

  He sighed. “I’m aware. What is your thesis?”

  “I’ll get it to you soon,” I said. “I promise.”

  “We’ve entered March. You only have two months left.”

  “I know. I got this. Trust me.”

  “You may have noticed, Mr. Jilani, that I am a big believer in history. My history with you gives me little reason to extend you the benefit of the doubt.” He paused, then shook his head. “Then again, I suppose I have little choice. I’d give you a deadline, but I know you will likely not honor it. At some point soon, however, I expect that you will brief me on your plans for the contest.”

  “Yes, Mr. Tippett. I won’t disappoint you.”

  “I know you won’t. To be disappointed, you see, one must have expectations.”

  “Does your shirt say ‘Rat Queens’ on it? Is that like a band or something?”

  Bisma looked up from whatever she was working on—she had a bad habit of actually doing her homework—and shook her head at me, as if I’d said something super disappointing. “You’re a philistine, Danyal Jilani.”

  “I’m American, actually.”

  She smiled one of her half smiles that were becoming familiar. “Rat Queens is a comic,” she said, “and it’s only the best thing since sliced bread.”

  I don’t know why people say that. You know what’s better than sliced bread? A loaf. Bread that comes presliced for you is generally always inferior to bread you have to slice yourself. The world is full of weird expressions… and weird comics, apparently.

  “What’s their superpower?” I asked.

  “Not every comic book character has superpowers.”

  “Seriously?”

  Bisma nodded.

  “Then what’s even the point?”

  “Well… it’s about this team of women who have adventures in a fantasy world. There’s a dwarf, Violet, who shaves her beard against the traditions of her people, and then there’s an elf, Hannah—”

  “Really? The elf is called Hannah?”

  Bisma narrowed her eyes at my remark, and I couldn’t help but smile. “Aren’t you supposed to b
e reading up on Churchill?”

  “I am.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. I was skimming. Lightly. There was a ton of information out there about Churchill and most of it was dull. I didn’t care about how he and his wife had separate bedrooms, or how he ran his house or whatever. It wasn’t even history, if you asked me. It was just stuff that happened. There’s a difference, or at least, there should be.

  Bisma went back to her other assignment. I flipped through a couple of pages, then looked up around half a minute later, totally bored.

  When Zar had learned Bisma was helping me, he’d asked what she was like. I hadn’t really been able to tell him. She was so… average, and yet, I don’t know, there was something about her that made me feel like she was kind of spectacular at the same time.

  There is a time in every desi boy’s life, if he’s growing up in a traditional, arranged marriage type family anyway, when his parents ask him what is absolutely, without doubt, the most awkward question in the world: “What kind of girl do you want?”

  I definitely hadn’t described Bisma Akram in answer to that question.

  When my parents had first asked around a year ago, I’d just described Kaval. My mother had rolled her eyes. My father had taken notes, which seemed weird, but maybe he didn’t want to forget what I’d said. First time that had happened, I was pretty sure.

  Kaval was easy to describe. She was consistent. She and her friends pretty much always looked the same, like they got up every morning and a super advanced machine helped them put their perfect faces on. I’d only seen Kaval without makeup once in the last forever.

  Bisma was random. I never knew what she’d look like when I showed up at the library to meet her. Some days she wore makeup, but sometimes she didn’t. She wore contacts when she felt like it, and when she didn’t, she wore her rectangular nerd glasses. There were days her hair was up, and days her hair was down. The days she dressed nice weren’t about anyone but herself, and the days she looked like a bit of a slob weren’t about anyone but herself either. She was very… self-contained.

  My point is, no one tells their parents they’re looking for a self-contained girl, and even if someone did, his parents would have no idea what their kid was talking about.