by Ali Sethi
When she awoke it was afternoon. She went to her door and saw that the cars were parked in the brightened driveway. Her eyes were swollen and stung. She rinsed her mouth in the bathroom, then washed her face, her wrists and elbows, her feet and ankles, and returned to her room with the prayer mat. The curtains were still drawn, and to this partial light her eyes were accustomed. She sat on the mat, her legs folding with some difficulty beneath her, and said her prayers to make up for the ones she had missed in the morning.
She folded the prayer mat and went into the kitchen.
Naseem was washing the dishes in the fizzing sink.
“Everyone has eaten?” said Daadi.
“I haven’t,” said Naseem. Her sleeves were rolled up. She was scrubbing a yellow enamel pot with the Scotch-Brite rag.
“Then eat,” said Daadi. “Leave these for later.”
Naseem said, “What about you?”
“I am fine,” said Daadi.
She went back into her room.
In the evening she had a visitor. She was watching the songs on the Indian channel when Barkat came in and said that a woman was waiting at the gate.
“Which woman?” said Daadi.
He said she was in a car.
“For me?”
He said the woman had asked to see the mistress of the house.
“Did she ask for Zakia?”
“For you,” said Barkat.
“Let her in.”
She went to stand in the doorway and watched Barkat open the gate. The car was small, red and dented in places. A driver was driving and the woman was sitting alone at the back.
Daadi kept her hand on the doorknob.
The driver stepped out and held the door open, and the woman reached out a hand, settled it on the edge of her door, brought out her feet and hauled herself up. She was tall, frail, wore glasses and was smiling in preparation.
Daadi squinted.
The woman said, “You haven’t recognized.” She was approaching.
Daadi was squinting and smiling.
The woman said, “Seema.”
Daadi said, “Seema?” Then she clapped her hands and said, “Seema!”
Seema said, “Yes, yes, still the same.”
She came in and they were able to embrace.
“I didn’t even recognize,” said Daadi, leading her into the room. She switched on the lamp, switched on the fan. She was smiling uncertainly.
Seema sat on the sofa and said, “How many years?”
“Oh, who knows!” said Daadi. She was aware of her belated enthusiasm. She turned around and said, “You will have tea, Seema?” Saying her name again and again made her presence real.
Seema looked around the room and said, “Why not, why not.”
Daadi opened the other door and cried, “Naseem? O Naseem!” She returned with her smile to the sofa. “How many years?”
Seema slapped her hands on her thighs and said, “Too many years, too many.”
They laughed and panted.
“Everyone is well?” said Daadi.
“Everyone,” said Seema. Her grin showed her teeth, which had eroded and gleamed wetly.
Daadi held her hand and said, “In Canada?”
Seema closed her eyes and said, “In Canada.”
Daadi said, “The name of the place—”
“Mississauga.”
“That is right,” said Daadi.
“Yes,” said Seema. “Yes.”
“Your children?” said Daadi.
“Very well,” said Seema, and looked away briefly to prepare the order of the details: “Salim is in Toronto. And Rukayya and Rehana are in America. Rukayya is in Maryland. And Rehana is in Boston. I have seven grandchildren now, mashallah, so all has turned out quite well.”
Daadi was nodding, and was looking at Seema’s hair, which she had dyed a stark, alarm-raising red. Daadi attributed it mentally to the influence of Canada and said, “Your husband is well?”
Seema said, “The same, the same. He is in a wheelchair now.”
Daadi was sympathetic.
“It is fine,” said Seema. “He watches the snow and curses it.” She laughed sadly. “He has not forgotten Pakistan.” And she had stopped laughing.
Daadi was smiling in compensation. She said, “Yes, but I am sure he is able to visit.”
Seema said, “He doesn’t want to visit.”
Daadi was nodding.
“I come and go. But he says it is too much for him. Old times, you know. How can you forget? He says it is better to be in exile. It is a test, in a way. But our community is strong there. In Canada they have no restrictions.”
Daadi said, “Over here: what is it now?”
“It is not very bad,” said Seema reasonably. “But there are problems for the mosques, and problems for promotions. You cannot be in government. They will promote you to a point and then they will retire you.” She spoke without bitterness, though it had happened to her husband in the same way.
Daadi said, “My daughter-in-law is always writing about these things. You should tell her. She has a magazine now.”
Seema said, “Mashallah, mashallah.”
Then Seema said, “And Zaki is well?”
“Very well,” said Daadi. “He is going to the best school.”
“Then all is well,” said Seema, and squeezed Daadi’s hand.
Daadi closed her eyes and allowed the hand to be squeezed. She said, “By the grace of God.”
Naseem came in with tea, stooped above the tray and made their cups according to their requirements. Waiting for the procedure to end, and waiting to perform an act they had consigned now to habit, Daadi found that her enthusiasm, brought on by the sense of renewal, had begun to leave her. Seema’s religious affiliations had eventually sent her out of the country; and Daadi had lost a child, fought with her sister and been living on the one piece of land her husband had left her.
She raised the cup to her lips and said, “So much has changed, Seema.”
And Seema said, “I think nothing has changed.”
They were looking at each other.
Seema said, “The army is back in power.”
Daadi said, “Yet again.”
Seema said, “And where have elections led?”
Daadi said, “To the same place.”
“So what has changed?”
“You are right, you are right.”
They drank their tea abstractedly.
Seema settled her cup on the table and brought her hands into her lap. She said, “Are you speaking to Chhoti?”
Daadi began to look around her. She said, “Yes. We speak. She calls me from there. We talk. She has not visited in some time. But she calls me on the phone.” Daadi was looking at the white silk cushion beneath her arm and was stroking it.
Seema said, “I saw her.”
Daadi said, “Just now?”
“Two days ago.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“In Multan,” said Seema. “I had gone there for a wedding. Many people were there. Singing and dancing, this and that. It has all become so vulgar.”
“Yes,” said Daadi, and gave a sigh. But then she said, “Was Chhoti well?”
“She is well,” said Seema. “She is well.”
“I am glad,” said Daadi. “I am glad.”
Seema took Daadi’s hand and said, “You have to help her.”
“What has happened, Seema? You must tell me, Seema.”
Seema said Chhoti’s husband had married again. The new wife was young, the daughter of a politician. Fazal’s sisters had arranged the marriage. And Chhoti and her daughter were living in two upstairs rooms in a separate section of the house. “The new wife lives in the old house,” said Seema. “And she lives there like it has always been hers. She expects it to be hers very soon. She is expected to provide children.”
Seema said Chhoti had looked ill from afar. When Seema asked after her health she gave no answer. But she had hollows un
der her eyes, her face was jutting with bones, and there was no one there to take her to a hospital and show her face to a doctor.
“She said to me,” said Seema, “to look for a place for her daughter. I said, ‘Come with me to Lahore. We will go to see your sister, we will find a solution.’ But she said, ‘No, I must stay here, and you must help me, Seema. You must help me.’ After that I stopped trying to persuade her. I sat in my car and I came back. But the look on her face I cannot erase from my mind.”
Daadi called Chhoti in the evening.
A woman picked up the phone.
Daadi said, “Where is my sister?” She heard her own voice; it was uneven. She placed a steadying hand on the mantelpiece and said, “I want to speak to my sister.”
The woman went away.
She came back to the phone and said, “She will call you.”
Daadi said, “Who are you? Who are you?”
The woman said it was her house.
“It is not your house. We will do a court case. Do you have any shame? Where have you kept my sister?”
The woman had hung up the phone.
Daadi dialed the number again and again. Her hands were trembling. But no one was picking up the phone.
She began to pace the room and thought of calling the police. But there was nothing she could say to the police. She thought of going in the car to Barampur. But it was night already.
The phone rang.
“Who is it?” said Daadi.
It was Chhoti.
Daadi said, “Where were you? Why won’t they let you come to the phone?” She was holding the phone with both of her hands.
Chhoti said, “What did you say to them?”
Daadi said, “We will do a court case.”
“You will do nothing.”
“Where are they keeping you? Where have they kept you all this time?”
Chhoti said, “You are not needed here.” And then she said, “There is nothing we want from you.”
Daadi said, “I have done everything for you—”
“You have done nothing!”
And Daadi said, “I have done everything! I am the one! If I don’t call for you—”
Chhoti said, “Don’t call for me.”
“I won’t.”
It had ended.
Daadi went to sit down on the sofa. Her chin was in her hand.
Naseem came into the room and began to arrange the empty plates and teacups on the tray. Then she stood back and said, “I wanted to ask you something.” She was looking at her feet, the toe of one foot making arcs on the carpet.
Daadi was watching her.
Naseem said, “I want to go on the pilgrimage.”
Daadi was quiet.
Naseem said, “My son is buying my ticket. But I will need more for the time I spend there. I will need to—”
“I don’t have time for your needs.”
“You must help me,” said Naseem.
“I must do nothing,” said Daadi. “Go away from here.”
“I have worked for you my whole life.”
“Go now or I will throw you out.”
Naseem said, “I have never asked you for anything.”
“I pay you,” said Daadi. “I feed you. I keep you in my house. If it weren’t for me you would starve on the street. Now get out of my room.”
Naseem said, “This is what you are giving me?”
“Get out!” said Daadi. “Get out of my house this instant!”
And Naseem did.
17
Grime gathered in the kitchen, grease on the plates, grease on the pots. It clung to the metal and hardened. The sink was clogged. The food came every morning from a housewife who was advertising her home-delivery program in Women’s Journal, and was stored in the fridge and heated in the oven at mealtimes. It amassed in the rubbish bins and stayed. There was no one to take it out now, and no one to point it out in the bins.
Naseem’s room at the back of the house was empty. She had moved into Mrs. Zaidi’s house at the end of the lane. Her job was to sweep the bathrooms, sweep the floors and look after Mrs. Zaidi, who had angina and considered herself vulnerable.
Barkat brought the news to Daadi.
“I don’t want to hear it,” said Daadi after hearing it. “And if you want to leave too you are welcome to do it.”
Barkat didn’t bring it up again.
“We don’t need a cook,” said Daadi. “We don’t need a driver. We don’t need anybody in this house. I will look after myself and so will Zakia, and so will Zaki.”
I was spending my afternoons at school. The monitor appointments were going to be announced at the end of the term, and I was working to compile a portfolio. There was much to do: I signed up with the debating team and went with them in the school van to participate in a declamation contest at another school, and signed up for charity work at a children’s center, a two-week project, evenings and weekends only, which would earn me their certificate. On some nights I went back to the campus to use the swimming pool; I had decided to sign up for the swimming gala, and had settled on the idea of the twenty-meter backstroke.
My nights were full.
And my friends complained.
“What’s happening?” said Mooji. “Haven’t seen you in a long time.”
Sparkle said, “Where the hell are you, man?”
I told them about the work I was doing.
“Who’s your competition in the house?” Sparkle wanted to know on the phone.
I said, “No one.”
She said, “Who’s the competition in Saif’s house?”
“Saif’s in my house.”
Sparkle thought about it and said, “So he’s okay with you going ahead for it? Like have you guys agreed on it?”
I said, “There’s no agreement.”
Saif’s answer was the same. “He said the exact same thing,” said Sparkle urgently, for she had taken it upon herself to mediate. “There’s no agreement. What are you guys going to do?”
“I think Saif knows I’m going to be the monitor,” I said.
“Zaki, how can you say that . . .” Her tone was concerned, and implied that I had said something inappropriately willful.
I said, “It’s not like that. This is between me and Saif. Just leave it alone.”
The next morning I saw him at assembly. He was dressed carefully, wearing a starched shirt and trousers, his shoes polished and his hair combed to the side. It wasn’t his style. He was handing a large beige folder to the housemaster when I walked in.
“Don!” he said.
We embraced.
I said, “I thought you weren’t coming today. I was going to mark you present.”
But he said, “No, no, not necessary. From now on I’ll do it myself. I thought: my attendance here’s been pretty good, why ruin it now.” And he winked and grinned, showing that he’d outdone himself again.
I filled out the monitor application and arranged the forms in a file. I went up to the housemaster at morning assembly, presented him with the file and only then saw that Saif had done it before me.
The housemaster said, “Your name?”
He didn’t know my name.
“Zaki Shirazi,” I said.
He wrote it down on the file.
“Father’s name?”
“Sami Shirazi.”
“Profession?”
“Pilot.”
“PIA?” He was interested.
“No, sir,” I said. “PAF.”
There was no way of bringing it up. I sat with Saif and Mooji and EQ on the stone benches outside the canteen, and talked with them in the old way of other things; and at night I talked to Uzma and Sparkle on the phone and sensed in their unconcern a troubling assumption, the feeling that they knew who was going to win and were resigned to it. Then I thought they expected that resignation from me as well.
One day, on the phone, Sparkle said, “No, it’s true: you’re very lucky to have a friend like Saif.�
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I said, “Why am I lucky? Why isn’t he lucky? Why aren’t you lucky, man? Why aren’t Uzma and EQ and Mooji lucky? Why is it about me all of a sudden?”
Sparkle said, “O God, Zaki. What’s happened to you?”
I said, “Nothing.”
But I knew she was going to report it.
The next morning Saif moved his desk to the front of the classroom. He sat there through the first two periods in a state of absorption, wearing his ironed shirt and trousers, listening and writing and raising his hand repeatedly to ask questions. And at the start of the third period I moved my desk too, back to its initial position, which was to the left of the blackboard and farther behind, and found myself sitting beside a neighbor I already knew.
The monitors were appointed every year at the end of the spring term. A list of names went with the housemasters to the coordinator’s office and from there to the principal’s office. The principal then called a meeting of the staff. And in that meeting the merits and demerits of the candidates were discussed and compared until they led to a selection of ten monitors, one from every house.
“But you have to do more things,” said Kazim. “You don’t have enough things.”
He had brought me into the art room to have this discussion. The door was locked from inside.
I said, “Like what?”
He thought about it. “Art,” he said. “Make paintings. Things to show the world. They’re easy. We’ll do them together. I’ll show you.”
He went with me in the school van to debating competitions, took me to the art room at lunch break for the rehearsal of my speeches and followed me to the grounds for sports after school. He said we were going to make an “all-rounder” out of my personality, develop it in all the main areas so that in the end, when it came to the selection process, my name would stand out.
Enthusiasm led to frustration: he was quickly disappointed and embittered; he was sullen if I didn’t ask his opinion, betrayed if I failed to keep a promise or failed to show up on time. He wore glasses now, and the effect was comical, like something out of one of his own drawings.
