Silk Tether

by Minal Khan

  Copyright © 2016 by Minal Khan

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Yucca Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  Yucca Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Yucca Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or yucca@skyhorsepublishing.com.

  Yucca Publishing® is an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  Visit our website at www.yuccapub.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover design by Kerry M. Ellis

  Cover photo by Visun Khankasem

  Print ISBN: 978-1-63158-070-3

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63158-080-2

  Printed in the United States of America

  Prologue

  August 15, 2008

  “The TSA welcomes you to the United States.” The plasma screen at the airport flashed at me sharply. A woman in a navy blue uniform grinned out from the screen. “Please have your immigration documents ready for the customs officer.”

  “Can I have your passport, miss?” The customs officer asked, hand outstretched.

  I didn’t need to look down to fumble in my bag. I had my documents ready in hand: college admissions’ letter, driver’s license, and after thumbing through what seemed like a mass of loose papers, all of uneven sizes, I found my passport with visa, nestled between two sheets, and offered it.

  Why are my hands sweating?

  I saw the officer look, squinting at the golden letters reading “Islamic Republic of Pakistan” for a while that seemed too long. I glanced at his nametag. TIMOTHY GOLDSTEIN. Timothy was a large man, his double chin deepening even further into his neck as he looked down at my visa. I saw him flip through every coarse page of my passport, flicking his eyes at the message on every page that notoriously read, “This passport is valid in every country except Israel.”

  Timothy was wearing glasses and his head was covered by a mass of thick, black hair. His eyes were heavy-lidded, tired; the look of someone who has seen thousands of passports and read indiscriminate words in dozens of languages. I guessed that he was in his late forties, perhaps even fifties. While continuing to flip through my passport he asked, “And what brings you to the United States?”

  “I’ve been accepted into college.”

  “And which college is that?”

  “Cornell University.”

  “Not a bad school.” He looked up at me momentarily, in gruff acknowledgement. “And what’s a girl going to Cornell majoring in?”

  “Biology.”

  Timothy nodded and looked up at me. There was a long pause. I felt unsettled by his steady gaze, how his eyes darted across the points on my face, and then lingered at my hair, at my golden bangles.

  “Don’t feel uncomfortable if they look at you strangely,” my mother had told me when I was departing the airport in Karachi, Pakistan. “They are only trying to figure you out.”

  The officer finally broke the silence and asked, rather abruptly, “What does your father do for a living?”

  “He works in a bank.” I responded.

  “Are there any property or assets to your family’s name?”

  I once again searched through my stack of documents, and picked out a crackling paper listing my father’s properties in Pakistan. The officer regarded my thin, creased paper closely.

  “Are you traveling by yourself?”

  “Yes.” I responded. Yes. This became the first lie that I would to tell the immigration officers. My palms became moist. The manila folder I was carrying in my hands suddenly felt a lot weightier.

  Timothy then asked me to look into a tiny, globe-shaped camera and press my thumbs down on the fingerprint scanner. I placed my index finger first. On the green plastic of the thumb scanner, I could see etched thumb prints of a previous person. I placed my finger squarely over the same spot, and felt the warmth of the fingers that had pressed down before me mere minutes ago. Thumb prints that were part of a ceaseless procedure; delivering data. Press. Hold. Release. Next.

  I looked at Timothy, waiting for him to reach for a stamp. I then waited for the sound. That crunch of the stamp as it met with paper—you are free to enter the United States now. Free to use our payphones, our dollar bills, hail taxis, mingle with our residents. All because of a gray stamp on page three of my passport. My golden ticket. My ears were ringing and my heart was beating quickly against my chest. Thump-thump, thump-thump. I am so close now.

  But I heard no crunch. Just the sound of typing. Timothy clicked away at his computer. He then reached out for a stamp and I watched him hover over my passport.

  Stamp it. Go ahead! Just stamp it. I momentarily glanced to my right and saw baggage claim. A large, sprawling terminal filled with tumbling suitcases. People were hugging each other, rejoicing in making it home to New York City. I rubbed my sweating palms against my jeans and waited. Please. Just. Let. Me. Go.

  But Timothy did not let me go. “Ms. Sattar.” Timothy now laid down the stamp. His voice was stern. “Do you happen to know a Muhammad Khalid Sheikh?”

  “Yes. That is my uncle’s name.”

  “What does your uncle do?”

  “He owns a travel agency.”

  “Is that right?” Timothy was not convinced.

  “Yes, Timothy,” I wanted to say. “In fact, “Muhammad Khalid” is a common name in Pakistan. More than that, the name “Muhammad” itself is an even more common name in the Muslim world, and in most Arab countries, it precedes the names of most men. It is the equivalent of ‘John’ or ‘Steve’ to the American world in terms of commonness.”

  I could say nothing, however. “Do not, under any circumstances, appear defensive to American customs officers.” My father’s words rang in my ears. “Remember, we are post-9/11 now. Everyone from our country is suspect. College education or no college education.”

  I now saw Timothy placing a yellow card in my passport. He handed the booklet back to me nonchalantly and said, “We need to verify some information. Please step into the room down this hallway to the right, marked X.”

  ROOM X. The room in the New York John F. Kennedy terminal that was dimly lit, discreet, harboring numerous cases that needed VERIFICATION. I walked in meekly and glanced around. The room contained a low ceiling. Fold-up steel chairs. There were several men of all ages sitting on the chairs; young boys; teenagers, and older men who were presumably in their fifties.

  Only one unifying factor. All looked indiscriminately Middle Eastern.

  I sat two seats away from a man with dark hair and the faint hint of a beard. He was fast asleep on the chair, his head tilted, head down. He snapped awake when he heard me sit and sniffed.

  “How long have you been waiting here for?” I asked.

  The man looked distracted for a second and then looked down at his watch. “Four hours.” His accent was American, but with a faint hint of Urdu or Hindi—I couldn’t tell which one.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I’m American, you know.” The man looked at me, bemused. “Born in New Jersey. Visiting Pakistan for the first time. They told me in Karachi that as long as I shaved off my beard, I’d get past TSA no problem.” The man chuckled and ran his fingers over at his scrubby chin. “Would’ve been a good time to listen to them. What’s your story?”

  “Pakistan-born. In
Karachi.”

  “Oh yeah?” The man then said in mock sarcasm, raising his hands. “Well, welcome to America, land of the free.” He then regarded me. “I’m sorry, if you don’t mind me saying, you don’t exactly fit the profile.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of someone who needs verification.” He used air quotes for the last word.

  “I’m Pakistani and have an uncle named Mohammad Khalid Sheikh.”

  “Oh.” He paused, thoughtful. “Sorry, that’s just bad luck. Having a family member with the same name as the guy who orchestrated 9/11. Not a good deal.”

  An hour went by. And then two. Finally, after an additional half hour, a blue-uniformed man beckoned me to a thick brown counter, bearing my passport and documentation.

  “We’re going to need to look through all your luggage, Miss.” Said the officer, looking pointedly at me, alert like a bloodhound. Then, as an afterthought, “It might take a while. But can we offer you something to drink, soda or water?” He held out his palms, a gesture of friendliness.

  I looked at him blankly. He looked back, apologetic.

  “How about some Starbucks?”

  1

  I was born in Karachi, Pakistan in the year 1989. The day the Berlin Wall finally came down. A celebratory time for many across the world. The end of an era. When the hands of the world jointly opened up in a disarming embrace to welcome the end of tyranny.

  To reflect the celebratory occasion across the world, in 1989, a tradition began in my family: on every birthday of mine, my mom adorned me with flowers. “Why flowers?” you may ask. Two reasons. The first was because to my mother, the year I was born marked the restoration of Pakistan. The nation was recovering from a repressive ten-year dictatorship. Former President, Zia-ul-Haq, the leader who notoriously tried to “Arabize” Pakistan by introducing amputations for robbery and theft, stoning death for adultery, who banished liquor, cabarets, clubs and non-Islamic dress, had died in a mysterious plane crash a year earlier.

  The second reason was a little more symbolic. 1989 marked a period of grooming for our hometown, Karachi. In 1989, the leader of a Pakistani political party—the Muttahida Qaumi Movement—launched a week-long Karachi Cleanup Campaign. More than 50,000 people heard his summons and worked endlessly day and night to leave the city sparkling. Rubbish and trash that had gathered over decades was cleared, and thousands of walls were re-painted. In a ceremony to mark the end of a spectacular and media-centered initiative involving the whole city, Altaf Hussein, the party’s leader, showered MQM workers with rose petals.

  Thus, the tradition of birthday roses was born. My mother has bought me a bouquet of twenty-two roses every year. It was now my seventeenth birthday. A big occasion for me. One that I wanted to mark ceremoniously, much like the rose petals that adorned my entry into this world. My mother decided it was good to go to a wedding.

  My mother always said weddings were no laughing matter. “A wedding is the meeting of two souls; two families; two dynasties amalgamated into one.”

  So today I had agreed to come to my mother’s cousin’s step-daughter’s son’s wedding, which by the sounds of it was to be a huge affair. Ma had specially had a sari embroidered and stitched. We had visited our family tailor a week earlier to have the sari made, Ma clutching her royal blue sari in hand, and asked him to sow those few loose pieces of cloth into a regal sari gown, embroidered by the finest pearls.

  Our tailor’s shop was in the heart of the city’s commercial area, known as Clifton. We had parked in a street noisy with the sound of motorcycles, the pavement dusty and cigarette-littered, and walked in to our tailor’s shop with bags and bags of clothes. The shop was brightly lit. Fabrics in the brightest colors—magenta, orange, blue, scarlet red—hung from shelves that were stacked floor to ceiling, the popping colors belying the dank and dreary street outside.

  Shabir, our tailor, walked up to us. Shabir was short, slight-limbed, but had extremely large hands, a trait I found somewhat extraordinary given his skill: tailoring. I looked at his thick fingers, trunk-like, and wondered how they could possibly find their way through a thread and needle. Shabir examined our fabric and casually made markings all over the dress. He didn’t write measurements down, just muttered numbers underneath his breath and smiled up at my mother, “For you, madam, I will have this ready in a week,” he said in Urdu, the native Pakistani language.

  “Bohot acha,” my mother responded, smiling. “Very good.”

  “Over my dead body he’ll have it ready in a week.” My mother turned to me over her shoulder, still smiling, and said in English, “One week means one month. Just watch.” Shabir looked at us blankly for a second, and then went back to drawing measurements on the fabric.

  Let me explain this blank look. In Pakistan, only a few spoke and understood English; those belonging to the upper class generally grasped the language, were privileged to read novels by Mark Twain and Charles Dickens in school, even discuss Shakespeare’s soliloquies and write copious essays on modern American literature. For the overwhelming majority of the country however, English was completely inaccessible. Laborers like Shabir, though often skilled and adept in a craft, were barely literate. Indeed, a large calculator sat on Shabir’s meager worktable, right by his measuring ruler and needles. Over the last ten years that I had been coming to Shabir’s store, the calculator was always in the same place on his workstation. And ten years later, it looked brand new. As if it had surely never been touched.

  When my mother turned to me and spoke discreetly in English, it was with the full comfort that Shabir could not understand.

  “Next week means next week,” she turned to Shabir and said in Urdu. Shabir laughed and responded, “Have I ever broken my word?” My mother bit back what was sure to be a sardonic response and left it at, “I’ll be back again next week.”

  She then provided him with strict instructions to highlight the “twenty one pearls on each inch of border,” and placed ten thousand rupees—the equivalent of a hundred dollars, on his work table.

  And here we were, a mere week later. The sari gleamed a rich, dense blue color, with regal gold trimmings, in my mother’s hands. Shabir had fulfilled his promise and surprised us all. And my mother got her requested border pearls, on every single inch of the fabric’s border.

  Ma was not a particularly great cook, nor the most dedicated gardener. But she was an aficionado of clothes. So I suppose it was a consolation that while the food may be lying burnt in the kitchen, and the weeds choking their last in the garden, Ma would, at least, have a gorgeous sari to turn to in her closet. Clothes, their intricacies and details, held an unflinching place in my mother’s heart. Saris gave her the impetus to haggle with shopkeepers and to argue with my father. So you can imagine the horror that crept over my mother’s face when I came out my room on the day of the wedding, dressed in a plain black-and-white shalwaar kameez, the Pakistani national costume consisting of loose, pajama-like trousers and a long tunic with slits running up the outside of the each thigh.

  Nothing needed to be said. With a stifled sigh, I crept back into my room to change into something a little more dazzling. After many heated complaints (my mother’s), whiny protests (mine), outright screaming (both of us) and tearful paranoia (my father), we decided on a maroon, silk-lined lehenga choli—a waist-length blouse combined with a long, pleated, and embroidered skirt, draped by a silky shawl that was tucked into the front waist. The blouse had light glass embroidery and was quite low-key for wedding standards, but for me, being the Tomboy that I was, it was just enough. Only when I appeared in this outfit before my mom was I allowed to cross the boundaries of my house for the wedding.

  We left our neighborhood and drove through one of the busiest parts of town—Khy-bane Shamsheer. We passed auto rickshaws—three-wheel cabin cycles that were decorated with bright colors and are popular common ‘taxis’—and passed motorcycles teeming with families, some carrying as many as five people on one seat: the determined man lea
ding in the front, followed by three toddlers wedged between him and his wife at the very back, the children holding on to the bare limbs of each other for support. We laced our way through the crowded, car-humming, and winding streets to arrive at a spacious neighborhood, decked with houses that were large, looming, massive overtures of stone and marble nestling behind high walls. Each house had tall iron gates and boasted scores of armed security guards.

  Outside the flower-draped wedding gates, two large men with AK-47 rifles stood to attention. I marveled at how similar the two guards looked. Both had deep-set, bloodshot eyes (from sleep-deprived nights?) and mustaches that curled just perfectly at the ends before turning upwards again. I imagined that both these men had stipulations in their contract with the security company. Hooded eyes and upturned mustache required at all hours. Or were they, in fact, close friends who liked to dress up the same, like schoolgirls who came to class, giggling and flaunting identical hair?

  The two men looked straight ahead, unblinking. Their rifles jiggled momentarily in their arms as they nodded to us in acknowledgement. I wondered if those rifles were truly loaded, and what would really call for them being used at a wedding, of all events.

  From somewhere distant I heard my mother muttering instructions to our chauffeur. I began to envision how these two armed men must spend their time while festivities were raging on behind those gates. Did they loiter about, to and fro, oblivious to the celebrations, keeping an eye out for the odd gate-crasher? Or did they take a peek every once in a while through those heavy iron bars, glimpsing at a world they knew they would never belong to because they belonged to the “laboring” working class? What did that feel like? Being a few feet away from a colorful world, a mere step, and yet being unable to cross an invisible line because of class? A line that no one on the other side would cross—the members of the “elite” class made sure of this because they were occupied in festivity and in wealth. United as a country, but divided always.

  I was shaken out of my reverie by my mother’s rasps. “Tie up your hair, it looks messy.” Wasting no more time, we marched straight into the realm of vibrant colors, enticing music, and air-kisses.