The Things I Would Tell You

by Sabrina Mahfouz

  It was a running theme of the fortnight we spent there. After four decades of exponential expansion and change in the city, she couldn’t get her head around the elaborate network of roads, the irrational grid system of the Defence Housing Authority (DHA), the upmarket suburb where we were staying, the multitude of buildings covering the earth she instinctively loved and, most of all, the men with guns everywhere. My mother’s city was no longer her city, and it was under siege.

  Two weeks later, we were back at Karachi airport. We went through a mind-boggling number of security checks; a metal detector and scanner at the entrance, again at check-in, then yet again at the baggage drop.

  As we went through to departures and I waited to put my handbag through a scanner for the fourth or fifth time, a woman clad head to toe in black – down to black gloves and a black face covering – pushed in front of me. Outraged by this clear violation of queuing etiquette, I was about to protest, when Mum touched my arm. ‘It’s not worth it,’ she said. ‘Queues aren’t important here. We’ll be back in England soon.’

  I set off the metal detector when I walked through it, so was taken into a small cubicle, where a woman in uniform scanned my body with a handheld metal detector. She eyed me suspiciously. ‘You Pakistani, Ma’am?’

  ‘Yes, my mother is Pakistani,’ I said, arms spread wide.

  ‘You don’t look Pakistani,’ she said, and waved me out of the room. The offhand comment felt cutting. After two weeks in a family setting, unquestioningly accepted, it was a sharp reminder that I looked different. I thought of all the times I’d been asked in the UK where I was ‘actually’ from and wondered, with a momentary sense of complete exhaustion, if I would ever fit anywhere.

  I found Mum and we wandered over to the gate, where we sat listening to announcements.

  ‘Please remain seated until your seat number is called,’ said a voice over the tannoy, in English and then in Urdu.

  About 80 per cent of the other people sitting at the gate stood up and charged towards the desk.

  ‘I hate Pakistanis,’ said Mum, looking despairingly at the crowd of people amassed at the front.

  I laughed, amused but also concerned someone might have heard. ‘But Mum – they’re your people.’

  ‘I know,’ she sighed. ‘Why do you think I never come back?’

  I left Karachi with more questions than answers. What was this country about, and what was my place in it? How could I at once be so accepted and so marked out? Why was it that certain aspects of the culture seemed so natural to me and other elements so baffling? I’d spent a lifetime in the UK more or less defined by my difference, my exotic other half of ethnicity – but did that really mean anything?

  It was loosely that enigma which brought me back there, eighteen months later. Riven by militancy, but also about to undergo its first-ever democratic transition from one civilian government to another, Pakistan was in the throes of an identity crisis of its own. It was almost always characterised in the press as a basket-case, an unstable ally that was exporting terror. But I knew from my own experience that this was a gross oversimplification of this gigantic, beautiful country.

  After going straight from school to university to work, all within England’s southeast, I’d been plagued by itchy feet for years. This nagging anxiety about where I fitted in was the final push. In defiance of warnings about the free-fall of the British media, I handed in my notice and booked a flight. I spent a year there in all, working, travelling, figuring out my place in this complicated land and putting back together the two ‘halves’ of my identity, halves I hadn’t realised were fractured. I’ve been back every year since. It’s not home, but there is a place for me.

  Sabrina Mahfouz

  Battleface

  Camilla (a journalist) and Ablah (a cosmetic doctor specialising in facial rejuvenation) are having an interview chat in a spare room at Ablah’s clinic.

  ABLAH: I’d estimate you’re thirty-three years old, from the depth of the fountain of lines between your eyebrows. You take your job extremely seriously, working until the light late hours – revealed by the shade of dark skin under your eyes. You haven’t been joyously happy for a while – the laughter lines around your mouth don’t match your age. You don’t eat well. You drink too much coffee. It gives you palpitations, but you drink it anyway because – because of this dedication to your work. And there’s something else, something I can’t quite put my finger on.

  You’d have to sit under my lamp for a proper analysis.

  CAMILLA: Wow. That was – amazing. I feel… naked.

  ABLAH: Accurate, then?

  CAMILLA: I had no idea all that was right here, on my face.

  ABLAH: Most don’t.

  CAMILLA: So you really are the best.

  ABLAH: Well, no – maybe, one of.

  CAMILLA: Why do you do what you do, Ablah?

  ABLAH: I love it.

  CAMILLA: What exactly do you love about it?

  ABLAH: The possibility.

  CAMILLA: Possibility?

  ABLAH: When a client comes to see me, they’re hoping to rediscover their possibility. It’s a beautiful thing to be able to help them do that.

  CAMILLA: How do you do that?

  ABLAH: I allow time to be pulled back inside a person’s being.

  CAMILLA: Quite a feat.

  ABLAH: When they look in the mirror, they no longer see trauma, or disappointment, just…

  CAMILLA: Possibility?

  ABLAH: Exactly.

  CAMILLA: So in a way, medical facial rejuvenation is like… therapy?

  ABLAH: Yes, except cheaper, faster and far more effective. Trust me on that.

  CAMILLA: I will.

  ABLAH: And how about you Camilla, why did you become a journalist?

  CAMILLA: To meet the most interesting minds I possibly could without having one myself.

  ABLAH: An unfair assessment, I’m sure. I always felt the world could be changed with words.

  CAMILLA: Do you write?

  ABLAH: I did. Years ago. Just… silly things, really.

  CAMILLA: Like what?

  ABLAH: Poetry, mainly. I was an angry young woman!

  CAMILLA: What were you angry about?

  ABLAH: The world being so far from what I wanted it to be.

  CAMILLA: What did you want it to be?

  ABLAH: It was just… the usual stuff you feel before reality and responsibility take over.

  CAMILLA: No poetry any more then?

  ABLAH: No time for that, probably quite fortunately.

  CAMILLA: Do you find time to do anything outside of work?

  ABLAH: Hardly, it’s non-stop these days.

  CAMILLA: I suppose the Best Botox Award helped with that?

  ABLAH: Maybe, but demand for these procedures has been increasing steadily for a long time.

  CAMILLA: Why do you think that is?

  ABLAH: Hope. Despair. People need to be in control of something. Plain old vanity. So many reasons.

  CAMILLA: Do you miss cardiology?

  ABLAH: Um. Well. I haven’t asked myself that question for a long time.

  CAMILLA: Perhaps that means no, then?

  ABLAH: Actually, I probably do. The urgency of it, the absolute life or death of it – that, maybe I miss that.

  CAMILLA: I imagine it must be quite something, to save a life?

  ABLAH: There’s nothing else that even comes close.

  CAMILLA: So why did you leave?

  ABLAH: It was hard, as a single parent. The night shifts, the emergencies. Cosmetics was more manageable, back then.

  CAMILLA: And more lucrative I bet?

  ABLAH: That side was appreciated too, but it took a long while to get this clinic to where it is today.

  CAMILLA: What about your family now?

  ABLAH: What about them?

  CAMILLA: Do you get to spend time with them?

  ABLAH: Not… as much as I’d like.

  CAMILLA: Are they proud of the reputation
you’ve achieved?

  ABLAH: I hope so. Sorry, how much longer do you—

  CAMILLA: Not long, I know you’re busy. I really appreciate your time.

  ABLAH: No problem.

  CAMILLA: You said you have children?

  ABLAH: I have a son.

  Pause.

  CAMILLA: Nasim.

  ABLAH: Yes, Nasim. How do you – how do you know that?

  CAMILLA: I met him.

  ABLAH: You met him? Where?

  CAMILLA: At a party.

  ABLAH: But how did you know – how did you make the connection –

  CAMILLA: He told me all about his famous Botox doctor mother from Shepherd’s Bush, it had to be you.

  ABLAH: He told you about me?

  CAMILLA: You sound surprised.

  ABLAH: I – we… we’ve had a…

  CAMILLA: He mentioned things have been a bit difficult.

  ABLAH: To say the least.

  CAMILLA: He also said things are looking up, between you.

  ABLAH: You had quite an in depth chat for a party, then?

  CAMILLA: It was a Ministry party, for those who’d served in Iraq. Pause. Ablah takes this in.

  ABLAH: And what would a journalist for a high-end lifestyle magazine be doing at such a party?

  Pause. This is the opening for Camilla to reveal herself. Change of tone, etc.

  CAMILLA: Ablah, the reason I need to speak to you today is far more important than to write a feature /on you –

  ABLAH: You’re not writing a feature on me?

  CAMILLA: No, I’m not.

  Pause.

  ABLAH: What exactly are we doing here then?

  CAMILLA: We need to discuss something very important with you.

  ABLAH: ‘We’? I can only see you, here, Camilla. What is this, what do you want?

  CAMILLA: World peace and national security.

  ABLAH: How sweet.

  CAMILLA: I’m serious, Ablah.

  ABLAH: You’re not a journalist.

  CAMILLA: No.

  ABLAH: Who are you?

  CAMILLA: You’ll always know me as Camilla.

  ABLAH: I really dislike games. At school, I used to pretend I had my period every single week in order to avoid playing any kind of game.

  CAMILLA: Funny. PE was my favourite subject. Always thought I’d grow up to be a runner.

  Look, I apologise for the underhand method to get you talking to me. We just find it’s easier than an unexpected knock at the door.

  ABLAH: ‘We’, who is this ‘we’?

  CAMILLA: We need you, Ablah. We need your talent and we need your insight, nobody else will do.

  ABLAH: Again, oh my, I’m not understanding exactly who ‘we’ is?

  CAMILLA: I work for a section, a special section, of the Ministry.

  ABLAH: The ministry as in the ministry?

  CAMILLA: We’ve been searching for someone who fits your profile for a while now.

  ABLAH: My profile? The ministry? I mean—

  CAMILLA: When Nasim mentioned you I—

  ABLAH: Just hold. The hell. Up. I don’t even know where to begin with—

  CAMILLA: I understand it’s a bit of a shock, but your cooperation is paramount to—

  ABLAH: Shock? I thought I was spending my lunch hour being interviewed by Gun magazine for God’s sake and now it’s – I don’t know, what is this?

  CAMILLA: As I was saying, when Nasim mentioned you I—

  ABLAH: That, that there, I just – When you say Nasim mentioned me, do you mean he just mentioned me, as in passing conversational mentioned, or do you mean mentioned me as in…

  CAMILLA: Conversational only. He doesn’t know about this meeting.

  ABLAH: What – why was he even at a Ministry party? He didn’t ‘serve’ in Iraq, he was a bloody mercenary.

  CAMILLA: We couldn’t survive without them these days, Ablah, although nobody says mercenary any more, it’s private security mostly.

  ABLAH: Oh well, in that case...

  CAMILLA: The best of them become, well, good friends with the Ministry.

  ABLAH: Nasim has left all that behind now.

  CAMILLA: I’m here to talk about you...

  ABLAH: So what – what the hell is this ‘profile’ of mine exactly?

  CAMILLA: I’m going to give you as much information as I can.

  ABLAH: That would be appreciated, information, that would be good.

  CAMILLA: Do you want some water?

  ABLAH: This is my bloody office! If I want some water I’ll get some water.

  CAMILLA: Of course.

  ABLAH: I’m not even sure why you’re still in here, actually. I should just ask you to leave.

  CAMILLA: I’m sure you’d like to know what I have to say.

  ABLAH: I’m sure that whatever you say will be a load of bullshit.

  CAMILLA: Look, I completely understand your slight hostility to the Ministry, perhaps even to this country, but what we—

  ABLAH: Ha, slight hostility? Surely, in a ‘special section’ you do your research before you ambush someone?

  CAMILLA: You don’t have Facebook.

  ABLAH: Are you serious?

  CAMILLA: These days it’s tricky when someone has no personal online presence.

  ABLAH: World-class intelligence.

  CAMILLA: All we could find was an article written when you were a student, arguing the Palestinian case against Israeli expansionism.

  ABLAH: And from that you couldn’t surmise how I’d feel about being approached by a government that still supports such actions all these decades later?

  CAMILLA: You’re a famous cosmetic doctor specialising in facial rejuvenation. It doesn’t scream socialist. Getting older makes us see things differently.

  ABLAH: Not things like apartheid and occupation, Camilla.

  CAMILLA: What we need you for is so significant to our strategy, Ablah, we are willing to overlook any ideological differences. I hope that gives you an indication of how important this is?

  Ablah settles a little. Feels more in control again now. Looks at her watch.

  ABLAH: Well you better get on with it then, my PA will be welcoming my next clients soon.

  CAMILLA: Have you heard of the upward trend in cosmetic facial treatments in Iraq, particularly in Baghdad?

  ABLAH: I’m aware.

  CAMILLA: The relative rate of treatments is outnumbering those even in America.

  ABLAH: And?

  CAMILLA: Every woman who can afford it – and a few men – are Botoxing and peeling and nose-jobbing their way out of decades of despair.

  ABLAH: Poetic, your point?

  CAMILLA: You said yourself, what you do is better than therapy.

  ABLAH: I believe so.

  CAMILLA: Your fellow Iraqis (Ablah rolls her eyes at this phrasing) obviously agree, there’s only four registered psychiatrists in Baghdad – but 344 people are licensed to administer Botox.

  ABLAH: A license doesn’t mean they have a clue what they’re doing.

  CAMILLA: Exactly!

  Camilla is excited that Ablah has said this. Ablah scrutinises her.

  ABLAH: Oh god, do you want me – no, you/can’t be –

  CAMILLA: We want you to run a clinic, just like this one, but in Baghdad.

  ABLAH: I don’t want to run a clinic in Baghdad.

  CAMILLA: You’ll be in stratospheric demand – the best Botox doctor in London and she’s Iraqi, perfect.

  ABLAH: Again. Slowly. I – don’t – want – to – run a clinic – in Baghdad. I’m very happy in Shepherd’s Bush, thank you.

  CAMILLA: As you know, clients talk when they have treatments. They’re nervous, it’s intimate, they talk. ISIS have a stronghold there, in Iraq and we—

  ABLAH: Camilla, I get it. You want me to spy for you? For Her Majesty’s Government?

  CAMILLA: We want you to provide the unrivalled service and skills you do here, whilst encouraging those who come to see you to… let you in to their personal live
s a little.

  ABLAH: Their personal lives… and details of planned suicide attacks they might just blurt out in the middle of me injecting their epidermis?

  CAMILLA: Nobody else can do this.

  ABLAH: How do you know?

  CAMILLA: We run a training centre out there. Two hundred students per year. The best teachers. And still, not one—

  ABLAH: A training centre for spies who can do Botox?

  CAMILLA: A training centre for cosmetic surgery and aesthetic treatments.

  ABLAH: An official cosmetic surgery training centre run by British intelligence in Iraq?

  CAMILLA: It’s run by a quanco, of course, there’s no official link to intelligence at all, but it’s no secret that the UK Government support it.

  ABLAH: I’ve never heard of it.

  CAMILLA: Cosmetic surgery is an important industry in a post-conflict locality.

  ABLAH: Post- conflict?

  CAMILLA: Well, officially. Look, we encourage anything that subverts the political rhetoric and the idea that women should cover themselves. We want them to feel free.

  ABLAH: Whilst spying on them?

  CAMILLA: We only want to know more about certain women, not average citizens.

  ABLAH: What you’ve said, you know, it shows how nothing’s changed.

  CAMILLA: Meaning?

  ABLAH: The level of knowledge you have of Iraqi life, after all this time. It’s still superficial and insufficient. Women can get their noses hacked away and their faces frozen to the ice age but they’ll stay covered and if they don’t, that doesn’t make them more free – you must know that?

  CAMILLA: We don’t have the data.

  ABLAH: God, you don’t need data Camilla, you just need eyes.

  CAMILLA: We need your eyes.

  Ablah, exhausted, needs to put this to bed.

  ABLAH: Have you read the Chilcot Report?

  CAMILLA: An abridged version, yes.

  ABLAH: Don’t you feel ashamed?

  CAMILLA: I was very junior at that time. And, I believe our advice wasn’t listened to, intelligence agencies weren’t to blame.

  ABLAH: So what’s the point?

  CAMILLA: Of?

  ABLAH: Of what you do, of what you’re asking me to do, if nobody listens when it matters anyway?

  CAMILLA: Many of the top minds behind ISIS are female. Wives of the cabinet being our main interest area at the moment.