#Spring Love, #Pichal Pairi

by Usman T. Malik

“Sure.” I put away the guitar and dropped to all fours. I began kissing the inside of her thighs. Her limbs had a fine down that was exquisitely erotic. “I was wondering why someone with a degree in the arts doesn’t seem interested in pursuing them as a career.”

  Farah made a noise. She rose on her forearms and arched her back, allowing me access. “Who said I’m not interested?”

  “Hmm.”

  A matter of some urgency then engaged our interest—multiple times—until night came and took Farah with it.

  Despite my seductions, despite my pleas, my pichal pairi wouldn’t sleep over.

  * * *

  Were you ever bullied as a kid, Farah?

  What do you think, genius?

  I’m so sorry.

  It’s okay.

  Was it at school?

  Yeah.

  Did you get mad?

  A little. On the first moonless night of my adolescent cycle I ate him.

  * * *

  Her favorite color was orange. Which, in retrospect, explained her choice of clothing.

  She loved lychee in the summer, mixed nuts in the winter, and Aamir Khan in Rang De Basanti. She hated manspreading, mansplaining, and the Jonas Brothers. Loved the smell of fresh roti, the first bite of mango in season, and Hot Spot, where she once spent hours snapping pictures of the desi posters. She hated dahi bhallay, bananas, and loudspeaker sermons on Friday. She thought Johnny & Jugnu was overrated (the burger patty is too chewy!) and, to my horror, couldn’t get enough of Salt’n Pepper’s club.

  “This is why people break up,” I told her when she wouldn’t stop kissing me with her mouth full of that fucking sandwich.

  She had a hell of a time with shoes. Her left foot was her right and her right foot left. Her Achilles tendon twisted like a vine to bring her hind foot to the fore. None of this was conducive to good shoe sizing and heels were out of the question. Ergo, mostly flip-flops.

  She loved Breaking Bad and the fact that I hated Pakistani serial dramas.

  “I can’t,” I begged. “Please. I just can’t.”

  “But they’re so much fun. They’re so stupid their stupidity is addictive. Watch one with me, babe.” She batted her long witch eyelashes and pressed her boobs against me. “Please?”

  I watched an episode of Mann Mayal and almost died. Seriously.

  * * *

  I don’t want to sound like a PTV soap opera, I told her, but my parents died when I was nine. I have no siblings. A somewhat negligent aunt raised me. I moved out at seventeen and have cruised along pretty much on my own since. My parents left me some money and a house in Model Town. It was enough to get me through college, enough to get somewhat settled.

  No, I don’t see my aunt much. A phone call every Eid or so. My relatives on my mother’s side aren’t any more interesting. Every six months I get the urge to hang out with cousins. Usually takes one cards night to remind me how much they bore me.

  Do I feel like I had a lonely childhood? Not at all. I had neighborhood kids to play cricket with and a stray cat named Mankoo, whom I adopted. Oh, I don’t know—the chowkidar named him, I think. Yeah, I know it’s a dumb name, a monkey’s name.

  I loved that cat, though. He refused milk from any hand but mine.

  * * *

  Farah vanished for a week. My phone calls and texts went unanswered. I went to the Ravi. Where the mouth of the tunnel should have been was a boulder. Moss grew on it. I couldn’t find a way in. No, I won’t describe its whereabouts. She said not to.

  I thought about filing a police F.I.R., but changed my mind. I went to all her favorite joints to ask if anyone had seen her. They hadn’t. Just when I was frantic enough to reconsider seeking help from the cops, my doorbell rang. There she was, barefoot, in ripped jeans and an orange SAVE OUR PLANET T-shirt. Smiling, a bit pale, but fine.

  We clung to each other, kissed, and made love, but I could not get anything out of her. Next time she’d try to let me know, she said, but sometimes she just had to go away.

  I had to be content with that.

  * * *

  How does it feel, Farah?

  How does what feel?

  To live a life with your feet pointing the wrong way all the time.

  Who says my feet point the wrong way? Maybe they’re fine and it’s my torso that never got the message. Maybe it’s my head that’s backward.

  Maybe I’ve just been looking over my shoulders all my life.

  What woman, she said, hasn’t spent her life compelled to look at the past, the baggage car of trauma that follows her—even as her feet march her forward?

  * * *

  We went to the Aurat March in Lahore.

  I was assigned to cover it for Images. Farah had been planning for months. She wore beads and a hand-painted yellow kurta with the words YOU FEAR LOVEMAKING BUT NOT WAR-MONGERING? in front and PICHAL PAIRIS ARE WOMEN TOO on the back. In her hands she held a placard: LOOK AT THIS POSTER, NOT AT MY FEET.

  Surrounded by hundreds of people, we marched down Egerton Road, chanting My body! My choice! My body! My Choice!

  An eighty-year-old lady in a wheelchair proclaimed I HAVE WAITED A LIFETIME FOR THIS MARCH. A trans woman in a bright-red dopatta drummed a dholki hung around her neck. The woman next to her hoisted a sign that said STOP TRANSGENDER RAPE. Women of all ages and sizes stormed down the street. Men too. So many “uncles.” Next to a young woman a gent in his sixties held a placard that read MY DAUGHTER, HER CHOICE. A mustached banker-type smiled at Farah as he walked along, holding a ten-year-old’s hand. The kid was hopping along in excitement. Her poster said DISTRIBUTE MITHAI. IT’S A GIRL!

  Farah grinned at her and the girl beamed.

  A tall sharp-featured girl wearing face paint and a pearl necklace bumped into Farah.

  “Excuse me,” she said, then her gaze dropped to Farah’s feet. “Oh.”

  “No prob at all.” Farah smiled. “March is packed. Which is great.”

  “Uh huh.” The girl inched away and in a low voice spoke to her companion, a heavy-set woman with silver hair. They looked us up and down.

  “Everything okay?” Farah said.

  The woman pointed at me. “He shouldn’t be here.”

  “He’s covering the march for a newspaper. He’s an ally.”

  “This is our day,” said the tall girl. “Would be nice to have one fucking day without men.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You shouldn’t be here either,” said the girl.

  Farah’s smile widened, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You want to be careful now, sister.”

  “Oh, sweetie.” The girl smiled brightly. “I’m not your sister.”

  “That’s enough, Hira.” The woman nudged the girl. “They’re not worth it.”

  They moved away and disappeared in the crowd.

  Farah’s face was flushed. “Fucking pichal pairi haters.”

  “I’m sorry.” I squeezed her hand. “Every party has a pooper, I guess.”

  She adjusted her baggy jeans to better cover her feet, but not before I caught a glint of long, sharp claws protruding from her toes. She raised her placard higher. “Let’s go.”

  We finished the march as planned.

  That night we heard about the incident at the Islamabad Aurat March. A bunch of mullahs had crashed it, pelted stones at the marchers, given a teenage boy a concussion. The kid needed a CT scan and a couple nights in the hospital.

  It left Farah furious. I couldn’t reach her for days.

  a mile of twisted metal, a scorched train

  (she wrote in a poem)

  a train aflame

  trails my love’s wedding dress;

  flanked by men

  she stumbles down the aisle.

  Her favorite place in the whole wide world was not in Lahore.

  Not in this urban village foaming with concrete and traffic and smog that made your eyes water. This over-developed parochial town with its incestuous elite who all knew and fucked each other and p
layed golf in private clubs on acres of green, even as the last tracts of nature available to fruit-wallas and chanay-wallas shrank with every passing day.

  Of necessity she loved Lahore, its potpourri of culture, cuisine, music, and literature. For remembrance of times past. But her favorite place in the world was not in Lahore.

  * * *

  My dear, have you ever beguiled and partaken of a wayfarer?

  Huh?

  Cannibalism, love. Pichal pairis are notorious for taking on the form of lovely women, luring men off lonely highways, and feasting on them.

  You’re joking, right?

  No, my butterfly. They say you hang upside down from trees—tree-spirits of a sort—and latch onto any unfortunate micturating under said foliage.

  Rumors, you moron. Most of us prefer regular food and lodging. At least till someone pisses us off.

  Oh.

  Oh, indeed.

  Do I … ever piss you off, Farah?

  Yes, darling.

  Uh. Okay.

  But you shouldn’t worry. You taste awful.

  Is that insult or reassurance—who can say?

  I’m kidding. You taste sweet. Okay, sometimes a little salty, a bit gummy maybe, somewhat nasty, but that’s usually after you drink that stupid kalonji oil you like so much.

  Gee, thanks.

  If it’s any consolation, you taste sweeter than most men I’ve swal—

  Not helpful, Farah!

  *Laughter.

  * * *

  I had a work thing in Karachi. I asked Farah if she wanted to come. She surprised me with a yes.

  We booked first class tickets in PIA. She paid the fare; I couldn’t have afforded it.

  “Oh, chill, my dude.” She grinned at my discomfort. “It’s all good.”

  Two days before the flight she brought a suitcase and emptied it in my living room. Skirts, jeans, shalwar kurtas, baggy pants, T-shirts, lots of undergarments, and flip-flops. I was assigned ironing, while she would make dinner and pack. A chappal whizzing by my head preempted my protests.

  Farah flitted from room to room, bouncing with nervous energy. It drove me batty.

  “Could you please settle down?” I slid the iron over her undies. “I’ll burn it if you keep dancing around me.”

  “You’re right.” She dropped the hangers she was holding and threw herself on the couch. “I need a break.”

  “Are you okay?”

  She drummed her fingers on the armrest.

  “What’s up?”

  She moved uncomfortably. I turned off the iron and joined her on the couch.

  “My sister lives in Karachi,” she said. “That’s one reason I wanted to go.”

  “Hey, that’s great.” Farah didn’t talk much about her family. I’d assumed it was a pichal pairi thing. “We should totally meet up with her.”

  “She’s very pretty. Runs her own business: a yoga studio and a garments store. She is doing very well.”

  “Sounds wonderful.” I squeezed her hand. “But do I sense a ‘but’ coming?”

  Farah shot me a glance and sighed. “It’s just … I live in a goddamn tunnel, Raza. Like a hobbit. She lives in a high rise near French Beach and wears branded clothes and sells branded shit. I haven’t seen her in years. Not since our parents—” Her voice lifted and fell. “I don’t even know how to talk to her anymore, and … now I’m planning to fly off with you to see her.”

  I pressed her thigh. “You don’t have to see her, you know.”

  “I guess.”

  “Sleep on it. Meanwhile, think of walks on the beach, prawn haandi at Boat Basin, nihari at Burns Road—and let’s pack our shit.” I rose to my feet and kissed the top of her head.

  She responded by grabbing my crotch.

  “Watch it!”

  “Or what?”

  Like a bull held by its horn I was led into the bedroom, where she did naughty things to me, wearing only socks.

  It was the last time the pichal pairi and I made love before the world was cancelled.

  * * *

  We were on our way to Allama Iqbal International when the news broke.

  I called the airline but found a busy number. I dialed airport help. An impatient voice told me all PIA flights had been canceled.

  “What on earth is happening?”

  “It was on one of the flights, sir. A passenger from Tehran.”

  “So they cancel other flights as well?”

  “Sir, all non-emergent flights to Karachi have been canceled.”

  For several weeks we’d heard rumors of a disease that had emerged in a neighboring country. The few cases reported in Sind hadn’t really raised eyebrows since they were all returnees from abroad and had been house-locked immediately.

  We thought we had plenty of time. Until we didn’t.

  I called a well-informed friend at the paper. Reliable reports that the country would go into lockdown in less than forty-eight hours, said my buddy. And a good thing too. This was no ordinary illness.

  Whatever it was, it was killing people like flies.

  * * *

  I asked Farah to go into house-lock with me. She said no.

  “There are hundreds of homeless people who live around Ravi. That’s my neighborhood. They’re going to starve when the rich shut themselves in their mansions. I have resources. I can help them. But I can’t do that and return to you. I’ll bring that damn bug with me.”

  “I’ll take the chance.”

  “I won’t.”

  “We don’t even know it will affect you the same way. You’re…”

  “What?”

  “You’re different.”

  She shrugged. “Good. It means I have a better chance of not contracting and dying from the fucker.”

  “But what if you’re affected worse than regular people? Listen, Farah,” I said, not liking the desperation in my voice. “I’m not letting you go out there alone.”

  “That isn’t your decision.” She picked up her suitcase and turned to go.

  I resisted the urge to grab her wrist. Instead, I followed her outside. “What if we both stayed here and took occasional trips to wherever you need to go and dropped ration packs there, or something?”

  Her hair flew in her face when she shook her head. “I’ll be going out to help every day. It’s simply too much of a risk for you.”

  “Holy shit, are you listening to yourself? You’re not a health worker. You’re not Mother Teresa. It’s not your responsibility.”

  The murky green-blue of her eyes burned. “Let me be very clear, Raza. I could vanish so quickly you’d never even see me go. But I wanted to talk. I wanted to make sure you understood. Who knows how long this will—”

  “That is my point, Farah. We don’t know how long—”

  “—last. So”—she took a deep breath and let it go—“I don’t want to see you for a while.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to see you. And I don’t want you to come looking for me. Is that clear?”

  I stared at her. “Why does that sound like a break up?”

  “Because—” She stood on tiptoe and, placing one hand on my unshaved face, kissed me hard on the lips. Her breath was warm, and her skin cold. “—it is. For now. Take care, Raza.”

  With that Farah swiveled on her backwards heels and strode away on a rapidly emptying street.

  * * *

  Lahore retreated into house-lock to wait out the mystery illness.

  Rangers were stationed at strategic places all over the city. All businesses except food and medical stores were shut down. To get from my place in Model Town to the news office near Pepsi required passage through two checkpoints. If you weren’t wearing a mask, you were berated. If there were children in the car, you were asked to pull over while the army man called in to see what should be done with you.

  No children and a press card meant my life was easier than most’s.

  I Skyped and physically interviewed doctors and healthc
are workers. With a physician friend I co-wrote an article for EOS that got a fair amount of traction and landed my buddy a slot on Indus News.

  From backdoor army channels I bought five thousand surgical masks and had them distributed in the kachi abaadi near Kainchi. Donning one myself, I went with a team of rangers to give out food and hand sanitizer to unemployed laborers sitting at roundabouts, waiting for the world to resume its dysfunctional working. These were the invisibles who were everywhere and nowhere. The worker atop the bamboo scaffold at your uncle’s plaza. The watchman at the house your father was building. The ditch digger who came once a week with your gardener. Society sweep. Raddi-wala. The woman who rifled through your trash, and her son who swept the steps for a tip. The sun-darkened, cachectic faces of True Lahore.

  Victims of the house-lock numbered in the millions. Farah was right.

  Three weeks in, and not a single message from her—even as my WhatsApp bulged with misinformation, memes, and magical cures for the illness. My calls went to a recording that apologized and informed me my desired number was currently turned off.

  I told myself I never really made a promise. I went to the Ravi and the river was there. Overhead, the sky, an impeccable blue Lahore hadn’t seen in decades, simmered with brown cheel kites. They cried and swooped at chunks of sadqah meat commuters bought from roadside vendors and flung in the air to ward off evil from their loved ones. No dogs, though. Usually there were several packs around. Under the bridge homeless men huddled together without masks or shirts. They whispered when they saw me. I tightened the strings on my N95, got out of the car, and handed out money and ration packs. When they tried to swarm me, I shouted at them to back up six feet. They retreated.

  I walked along the river till I found the hill and the tunnel mouth still blocked by the boulder. It was impossible to tell there had ever been an opening here.

  Two teenage boys in shalwar kameez were tethering a goat in front of a makeshift tent. I beckoned them over. Showing each a thousand, I asked if they had seen a pichal pairi around. They looked at each other. The lanky one with a farmer turban on his head scratched his chin.