by Sorayya Khan
We arrived at the car in time to see some young men wielding sticks and throwing rocks at the school-bus windows. Mr. Duval was clutching a field hockey stick, looking like he was getting ready to take a swing. The Pakistani staff, who sorted the school’s mail, made tea, cleaned bathrooms, and trimmed the lawn, were confronting the growing crowd, angrily shaking their fingers at the unruly men.
More cars had arrived in the parking lot, all of them local with black license plates, and drivers and fathers emerged from them. Had Americans asked their Pakistani friends or neighbors to pick up their children? Or were there more Pakistanis than I’d thought at the school, and these were their parents? A man who’d already packed his wagon with several young children and was leaving, waved at my grandfather as if they knew each other. At the gate, the man opened his car door and shouted at the mob in Urdu, “The police are going to beat the shit out of you!”
A rock struck his rear windshield, and as he drove away, I was able to decipher the men’s chant: “Amrika Murdabad.” Death to America. The chant was both absurd and chilling. It was hardly possible to kill a country, but being bold enough to demand this was horrifying. I wondered if the scary man from my bus stop was among the crowd.
Lizzy and I sat in the backseat of my mother’s car, each of us with an unhappy twin on her lap. Again and again, my grandfather turned the ignition without any luck. Our yellow school buses were parked in a row on the opposite end of the parking lot, as they always were during the day. A few hundred feet away, two school employees appeared to be feverishly working on a few of the school’s white minivans. When one employee stepped away from a van, I saw he was holding a yellow CD64 license plate. Our engine finally caught, and the car sputtered to life at the same time I recognized the men were trying to conceal the fact that the vehicles were American.
“What are they doing?” Lizzy asked, pointing to the Pakistanis wielding rocks and sticks.
“Scaring us,” I answered, my heart pounding.
When we’d safely exited the school gates, I thought it only fair to share the news of the burning embassy with Lizzy.
“Oh my God!” she exclaimed. Biting her lip, she held back tears as she reminded me that her mother had planned to spend the afternoon at the embassy so Mikail could get his shots.
“It’s probably just a burst gas main,” I said, fabricating an absurd possibility.
“What happened at the embassy?” Lizzy asked, but she wasn’t talking to me. She had turned to the only adult in the car, my deaf grandfather. When he didn’t respond, she stopped looking as if she was going to cry and announced there was no reason to burn the embassy. Therefore, I had to be wrong; the embassy couldn’t be under attack.
“Right, boys?” she addressed her twin brothers.
Our car was among several in a caravan on Peshawar Road retreating from the school, and I was thankful that the cars ahead dictated my grandfather’s unnaturally slow speed. The twins kept themselves busy playing a game of I Spy that Lizzy and I also joined.
Half an hour later, when we neared Embassy Road, I gave my grandfather Lizzy’s address, 87th Street.
I said it twice, each time bending over the front seat so he could see me, and apologized to Lizzy. “He’s deaf,” I said earnestly, but we unexpectedly dissolved into a fit of giggles.
“Does he have a hearing aid?” Lizzy finally asked.
I nodded, withholding the fact that my grandfather had not one hearing aid, but a cabinet full of them, all in Lahore. “He refuses to use it,” I whispered.
My grandfather drove right by 87th Street.
“That’s my street!” Lizzy cried out.
My grandfather indicated for me to come closer and whispered in Urdu, “Where are her parents?”
“At the embassy,” I told him, my answer dictating a course of action he didn’t need to explain.
“My grandfather doesn’t think it’s safe for you to go home if your parents aren’t there. You come to my house instead, OK?”
“OK,” Lizzy said wearily while the twins protested.
We were still tumbling out of the car when my mother opened the front door and raised her voice before she saw how many of us there were.
“You could have been . . .” she said, then changed her mind. “Thank goodness you’re all safe.” She hugged each of us, including Lizzy’s twin brothers.
We sat in the kitchen while my mother made us hot chocolate by boiling the local vacuum-packed milk with her special Dutch cocoa and several spoons of sugar.
“I don’t think they’ll drink that milk,” I whispered.
“Don’t worry. You’ll see. They won’t know the difference,” my mother said under her breath. “Dutch cocoa is the best in the world.”
“They only drink commissary milk!” I insisted.
My grandfather reappeared a short time later with pastries from United Bakery. He placed the box of sweet rolls, almond cake, and chocolate squares on the table.
“You took the car again?” my mother asked in a tone that indicated how displeased she’d been the first time. My grandfather swung open the kitchen door and left.
Lizzy sat at the kitchen table with her brothers. My mother put a mug of hot chocolate in front of each of us and added floating ice cubes to the twins’ mugs so they wouldn’t burn themselves.
“You boil your water, right?” Lizzy asked hesitantly, worried for her brothers. “Ice, too?”
“Of course,” my mother said, surprised at the question because this wasn’t Lizzy’s first time as our guest. “It’ll be fine, sweetheart,” she said, putting her hand on Lizzy’s. “Now let’s phone your parents so they know where you are.”
Lizzy tried calling home, but the servant said her parents were not there. Then she sat on the kitchen counter for fifteen minutes while her hot chocolate got cold, continuously dialing Mr. Simon’s office telephone number without making a connection. The twins were happily eating the round almond cake, which my mother had sliced through its entire width as though it were a round loaf of banana bread. She’d cut the slices in half, shaken confectioners’ sugar on them, and served them to the boys on small plates from a hand-painted tea set.
“More, please,” the boys kept asking, until the cake was almost gone.
“I think the telephone is out of order,” Lizzy finally said.
“That happens more than we’d like,” my mother said, and her comment annoyed me. Did she have to say we? She was wrong to put all of us in the same category.
Lizzy tasted each of the pastry selections on her plate but didn’t finish any.
“She’s not much for sweets,” I said to my mother.
“Never mind. Can I get you some fruit instead?” She put a basket of bananas and apples next to Lizzy, who selected a banana and ate the whole thing.
“Where is he?” I suddenly asked my mother. I’d just remembered Sadiq.
“Dada Abba?” she asked.
“No.”
“Daddy?”
“No.”
“Oooh,” my mother said knowingly. “He went out and will be back later.” We both looked at the clock, which indicated it was exactly four. I wondered how long Sadiq had been missing.
Lizzy moved one of her brothers’ mugs away from the edge of the table and followed our exchange. “Whom are you talking about?” she asked.
“The servant,” I quickly replied, without saying his name. Initially I was relieved Sadiq wasn’t home. I was happy that my grandfather had helped Lizzy and her brothers leave school, and that they were all safe at my home, but their presence heightened my concern for Sadiq. It was a Wednesday, not even a Friday, yet Sadiq wasn’t at home as he should have been.
Lizzy jumped when the phone rang. It was Mr. Simon. My mother answered and confirmed to Lizzy’s father that his three children were with us. He’d heard from someone at the school that they had gone home with me. “Yes, they’re all safe,” she said, looking over at the children and giving them a smile. Handing the tele
phone to Lizzy, she explained that Mr. Simon was not at the embassy, but at their house.
“Are Mom and Mikail all right?” she asked him. The twins clamored to speak to their father, and when the conversations with his children were over, Mr. Simon requested my mother keep the children until he decided it was safe for them to be driven to his house.
Lizzy tried to be brave. “My mom and Mikail are at the embassy, but Dad says they are safe.”
“Can we call her?” my mother inquired.
Lizzy shook her head, her bangs falling into her eyes. “The phones aren’t working there. Dad spoke to her on the radio from the house.”
“You have a special radio at your house?” I asked.
“Dad uses it for work. The radio connects to certain places. To the school, too.”
“Really?” I replied. I’d never seen a special radio or any radio, in fact, in their house, but I stopped short of asking where it was kept. That would not have been good manners or, for that matter, my business.
“The important thing is that your father has spoken to your mother, and she and Mikail are fine,” my mother said.
“I want Mom,” one twin wailed, before the other joined him.
My mother distracted the boys with the possibility of toys and led them on a search around the house.
As soon as they left, Lizzy cradled her face in her hands and wept.
“Please don’t cry,” I said, wrapping my arms around her, but she did anyway. I got her a box of tissues, the local kind that scratched your nose, but she didn’t notice.
When my mother returned, the boys had two shoe boxes of Amir’s old matchbox cars, and my mother was carrying my forgotten dollhouse that had been gathering dust in a storeroom for almost as long as we’d lived in Islamabad. We moved to the lounge, where the twins assumed that the slanted dollhouse roof was a perfect ramp, and the open-faced structure was really a parking garage. In a minute, careening matchbox cars skidded across the length of our cocktail table and crashed onto the marble floor.
Lizzy and I sat silently watching. “Please don’t worry about your parents. I’m sure they’ll be fine,” I said.
“Why would anyone set fire to the embassy?”
“I don’t know. Do you want to do homework?” I brought in our book bags and rummaged through mine for the English assignment we were meant to complete over the coming weekend. After we found our notebooks—Lizzy’s American soft-covered, college-lined spiral one and my hardbacked, wide-lined local one—they just sat on our laps. Lizzy chewed her pencil, and I doodled on my cover.
I was embarrassed that my mother kept checking to see if anyone was hungry or cold or tired enough for a nap. She popped a batch of popcorn on the stove, an unusual occurrence in the house, and seemingly unconcerned about the potential mess, set a bowlful on the floor next to the boys. I was sure that the strong taste of Nurpur butter (the foreign Lurpak had been out of stock in the stores for weeks) would dissuade them from having any, but they seemed not to notice, happily helping themselves from the bowl. Every so often, Lizzy called her father for news about her mother and brother, but there was never anything new.
Finally, around six in the evening, my father walked into the lounge as if he were expected, clapping his hands with delight and acting surprised at the company. He picked up some matchbox cars that the twins had long since discarded, pretended to rev their motors, and sent them rushing to the twins, who were sitting side by side, irritable and unhappy, finally exhausted by the events and their parents’ absence. He sat down on the sofa next to Lizzy and put an arm around her. “Please don’t worry. Your mother will call any moment.”
“That’s what my dad says,” Lizzy replied. Her eyes were red with strain and brimming with tears.
“You’ll see. Your mother and brother will be fine,” he said confidently. “Lucky for all of you, there’s no school tomorrow!”
A short while later, I looked up at the window to discover Sadiq in the strange light of the back garden. He was engaged in his regular evening chore, making a round of the house to confirm each window was securely fastened for the night. As much as I was relieved at his return, I was immediately concerned about keeping Sadiq and Lizzy apart. Before he could reach the lounge window, my grandfather appeared beside him. He pointed at Sadiq’s clothes and began steering him toward the servants’ quarters, which Sadiq resisted. I left the room, telling Lizzy I’d be right back. I opened a back door and stepped into a haze of smoke that had carried all the way from the embassy and, possibly by then, the school on to Margalla Road.
“I’ll check the rest of the windows,” I said to Sadiq in Urdu. When Sadiq did not move, I said, “See?” and walked briskly to the lounge windows, doing what Sadiq had done every night for years, confirming that the windows were indeed closed and locked. I waved at Lizzy and the twins inside, and mouthed, “I’ll be right back.” Up close, I saw that Sadiq was not himself, if he had been himself at all since Hanif’s death. His clothes were soiled and torn on his chest, his hands were dirty, and he smelled of smoke. “Please go with Dada Abba,” I pleaded, hardly able to contain my alarm. I didn’t want Sadiq in the house and, more than that, didn’t want Lizzy and her brothers to notice him standing outside.
When I was back in the lounge, Lizzy asked, “Who was that?”
“Sadiq.” Caught off guard, I’d said his name. “The servant. You remember him, right?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“He was just doing something for my grandfather.”
The two nighttime chowkidars, beginning their rounds, crossed paths outside, and before Lizzy could ask me why we had two chowkidars, my mother called for her. “It’s your parents!”
Lizzy grabbed the telephone. “Mom? Dad?”
I left the room with my parents. “What really happened at the embassy?” I asked my father.
“The embassy burned,” he replied, giving me information I already had.
“Is her mother OK?”
“Yes. And so is the baby. Thank God,” my father said, but his brow was wrinkled, and he didn’t look reassured.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Later,” he replied, keeping an eye on the kitchen door, where Lizzy was still speaking to her parents.
My mother told the twins their parents were on the telephone. One of them was almost caught in the swinging door as they pranced out of the lounge. They gripped the receiver with two pairs of hands, their identical heads pressed against the single earpiece.
Finally, my father spoke to Lizzy’s father again, in the formal manner he adopted for strangers. “Certainly, certainly, we’ll bring the children home. We’ll depart momentarily.”
My mother bundled the twins into the backseat, berating my father for the thousandth time for never having had seat belts installed.
“See you tomorrow for Thanksgiving, right?” I said. Lizzy smiled weakly, and my hope sounded silly even to my ears.
“I should be driving,” my mother lamented. “I’m a much better driver than he is, and wouldn’t it be awful if something happened along the way?” My father reversed the car, and my grandfather rested his hands on her shoulders in case she ran after him. “And you! You could have been killed! You took the car to the school when I told you I would drive.”
“They’ll be fine,” my grandfather whispered, ignoring her complaints.
“Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine!” I suddenly exploded. “That’s all anyone says around here. And it’s not true. Nothing is fine. Why aren’t you saying what happened?”
My grandfather bent down to my ear, until his breath was a loud rush in it. “As I said, the American Embassy was burned to the ground. Now there’s nothing left of it.”
“How do you know there’s nothing left?”
“Your father said so.”
“Who did it?” I asked.
“Terrible,” my mother interrupted. “Buildings burning, people attacking. What for?”
“Who did it?”
> “Thank God you’re safe,” my mother said and attempted an embrace.
“Why doesn’t anyone ever answer questions around here?!” I shouted, pushing her away and running to my bedroom.
I slammed my door and threw myself facedown on the bed. My shin hit the wooden bed frame, and I cried out in pain. I wanted nothing more than for the terrible day to end. Burying my face in my pillow and closing my eyes in a losing battle to hold back tears, I remembered Sadiq, his clothes, his smell, and his reluctance to follow my grandfather. My dread was so overwhelming, it rang in my ears. A wave of nausea followed, and running to the bathroom, I had a single thought.
Where, oh where, had Sadiq been?
TWENTY-ONE
Thursday, 22 November 1979
When I awoke the next morning to my heart pounding as furiously as if I’d been running a race, I hoped I’d dreamed the events of the previous day. I immediately sought out the morning newspapers in the kitchen. I had skimmed through most of them before my parents joined me, and I was surprised to learn that American centers and consulates in cities like Lahore, Karachi, and Peshawar had also been attacked, although not nearly as badly. But unless I’d missed something, none of the newspapers offered a solid reason for why the general had not sent help to the burning embassy. Staring at me from the front pages of the newspapers was a photograph of the general on a bicycle with the cumbersome caption “General Zia-ul-Haq inaugurates a campaign to conserve gasoline and sets off on a ‘Meet the People’ tour on a bicycle to set an example for the people.” Rather than worrying about rescuing people from the burning embassy, the general was on his bicycle conducting civic lessons?
The day’s headlines included “President’s Deep Concern over Mecca Incident,” “Zia Urges People to Become True Muslims,” and the obvious, “US Embassy Set on Fire in Islamabad.” For the most part, reports suggested that the attack was a response to Iranian rumors that the CIA had seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca. False rumors of American involvement had spread through the country during sermons following afternoon prayers at mosques. How odd that an event in a different country thousands of miles away would rally people in Pakistan! Could Pakistanis have been so offended by the possibility of Americans dishonoring the holiest mosque in the world that they attacked American symbols in Pakistan? Who had orchestrated all the attacks? One article suggested that the Soviets had rented the blue university buses and paid students to seize the embassy.
