‘What are you advertising,’ I asked.
‘I didn’t actually bother to ask.’
‘Mehmoodabad,’ Karim said. ‘That’ll be great.’
‘Why?’ I was instantly irritated. It wasn’t my Karimazov but the foreign cartographer speaking—the one who had sent me maps of Karachi from London, informing me how limited my knowledge of the place was. ‘Why will Mehmoodabad be great when you’ve probably never been there?’
Zia turned up the volume of the music, and Nusrat’s rendition of ‘Mera Piya Ghar Aya’ drowned out anything Karim might have thought to say in retaliation. Mera Piya Ghar Aya... My beloved came home.
We crossed Kala Pul, the Black Bridge that wasn’t black, and turned into the residential streets of Defence Housing Authority (Phase II), just past the roundabout that displayed a model of a fighter-plane with a trail of fire shooting out of its rear (when Runty and Bunty provided a map to their house for one of their Ghutna parties, the roundabout was marked: ‘jet with flaming ass’). I closed my eyes, overcome with sleepiness. When I looked out again the comparative order of Defence had given way to the narrow alleys and tiny store-fronts of Mehmoodabad. I had no idea how we’d got here, and Zia seemed a little surprised himself. I could hear him muttering, ‘Left after the place where the goats were eating the antenna, then right...before or after the hubcap?’
Zia turned into an alley, slightly wider than the first, and drew up to a gate that looked brown but turned out to be rusted. He parked his car half on the street, half on the narrow pavement that ran along one side of the road.
Karim and I stepped out of the car at the same time, and Karim stretched, his shirt rising up as he did so, revealing a raised chicken-pox scar just above the waistband of his jeans and a line of hair leading downwards from his navel. He caught me looking at the scar and glanced at it self-consciously.
‘I have one,’ I said, and showed him the discoloured scar on my elbow. He touched it.
‘Mine’s bumpier,’ he said, and raised his shirt so I could see it again.
‘Is it?’ It obviously was. I ran my finger over the scar. He breathed in suddenly, just as I touched him, and a gap opened up between his flat stomach and his jeans.
I didn’t move my hand away, and he smiled, stomach muscles still contracted. ‘You’re cold. Gave me a shock.’
‘You have goldfish on your boxers,’ I said, looking down, and he laughed and exhaled.
‘Are you guys coming?’ Zia called out. He was peering over the rusty gate, and holding up a hand in greeting to someone on the other side. A man with a white streak in his hair—paint or pigmentation?—opened the gate. We walked into a large open space, littered with billboards and prone steel poles; various men who’d been sipping tea and talking in the compound stood up and drew near Zia as Bilal—the man who had opened the gate—called Zia’s attention to a billboard standing flush against the far wall.
‘Oh!’ I couldn’t help exclaiming.
It was Zia. Or Zia’s head, rather, ten times its usual size, looking with delight at Zia’s ten-times too large hand squeezing white liquid out of an inflated pink glove into Zia’s wide and fleshy mouth. ‘Uh, Zia?’
‘I have no idea, Raheen. I have no idea what that is.’
Karim had been wandering around the compound, examining brushes stiff with paint and pretending to make a feat of balancing on the wide poles, but now he came up and looked at the painting and as soon as he started laughing I knew exactly what the pink glove was.
‘Bet this is where the slogan goes,’ I said, pointing to a blank patch of canvas.
‘But what am I selling?’ Zia said.
Karim and I grinned at each other.
‘Some new brand of milk,’ I said. ‘Probably with a name like human kindness.’
‘And the slogan: UDDERLY FRESH!’ Karim said.
We exchanged glances and burst into laughter, laughing so hard we had to hold on to each other for support. And then we weren’t laughing any more, but his arms were around me, my chin on his shoulder, his neck just centimetres away from my mouth, and I thought, how easy it is, how easy it can be. Where have you been all these years, Karim? Where have I been?
At the periphery of my vision, I was aware of Zia looking at us, his mouth open, a look of surprise, almost wonder, in his eyes.
Bilal had disappeared into the small concrete shelter in one corner of the compound and now he emerged with tea in flower-patterned cups. We took a cup each, and Karim sat beside me on a horizontal pole, his legs crossed at the ankles. He didn’t say anything, or even sit as close as I hoped he would, but my world shimmered at the languor with which he caressed the flower pattern on the teacup, tracing the petals with his index finger, sliding his thumb up and down the stem, just prior to raising the cup to his lips. It was enough to make me wish I was porcelain, hollow and filled with hot liquid. I pulled his ear lobe and he smiled and kicked me gently.
‘So I’m sorry about that last letter to you,’ I said. ‘I pretty much harangued you, didn’t I?’
‘Yeah, well, I’m sorrier about mine. The cut-up letters.’
I bit my lip and turned my face towards the sun so that he couldn’t see the tears that had rushed to my eyes. Until he said it, I’d had no idea how much I needed to hear that from him.
‘I had only just found out,’ he continued. ‘I guess you must have known for quite a while by then. But I only found out the day before I got your letter, and when I read it I thought I heard certain traits echoing.’ He stopped to look at my face as I struggled to remember. What must I have known for quite a while by then? Was there some mass carnage, or something along those lines, that made my comments about ‘Mr. Compassionate-Sitting-in-London’ and ‘when we laugh it’s survival’ particularly tasteless?
I ran one finger along his eyebrow, feeling the soft hairs ruffle against my skin. ‘Things look different when you’re living here, Karim. Now that you’re back, you’ll see that.’
Karim pulled back and caught me by the wrists. ‘What are you saying? That none of it made you angry?’
‘But what good would that have done?’ Did he think my anger would terrify the city into stopping its crazed behaviour?
He leaned forward, his chest pressing against my palms. I thought he was going to kiss me, and I glanced around—a Karachi girl’s instinctive move in such a situation—to ensure Bilal and the others weren’t looking. But his face remained several inches away from mine. ‘Ra, you can tell me the truth. We don’t have to be on opposite sides.’
‘I am telling you the truth.’
He let go of my wrists and stood up. ‘Raheen, you wouldn’t have sent me that essay if you didn’t... The two people in that city, what’s that damn name, Ray... Rye... Ray...?’
‘Raya? What does that have to do with this?’
‘Raya. Yes, the ones who reflected the attitude of that Faiz poem. The selfishness, the weakness, of certain kinds of love.’
I shook my head. ‘You’ve got it all wrong. I was trying to say...well, I was trying to say that I wish you hadn’t left.’
Karim blinked once, twice, three times. He turned around, his back to me, and put his hand over his eyes. ‘That’s it? That was about you and me?’
‘Isn’t that enough?’
‘No,’ he said. It was a wounded sound.
I stood up and put my hands on his shoulder. ‘Karim, I don’t understand why that letter of mine made you so angry.’
He went completely still. ‘You don’t understand?’ He looked around him as though trying to find his bearings. He faced me again and his lips moved, as though he were rehearsing words, but nothing came out.
I didn’t know what to say or do, so I simply took his hand in mine.
He wrenched away from me. ‘I’m tired. I should probably go to Zia’s and sleep for a while.’ He walked towards the gate without looking back, calling out to Zia that it was time to leave. On his way out, I saw him reach back to his shoulder blade. He bru
shed off the rooster feather that had fallen from the branch above, and continued walking.
. . .
Minutes later, Zia’s car stalled.
We weren’t out of Mehmoodabad yet; Zia had attempted a short cut which brought us into a narrow, deserted alley lined with shops that still had their shutters down. The painted sign above one of the shops said ‘mata hari school uniforms’, but although both Karim’s eyes and mine turned towards it neither of us pointed it out to the other.
Zia and Karim got out of the car and Zia propped open the bonnet, but it was clear he did that only because people in movies always responded to breakdowns in that manner. I got out also and stood beside them, despite the internal voice that sounded a lot like Sonia warning me I’d only call attention to myself, and who knows what strange types were wandering around the deserted streets at this hour, and perhaps I should at least cover my bare arms with my dupatta.
‘We’re near Parsi colony,’ Karim said. ‘Uncle Zerxes—my father’s friend from the linen industry—lives there. Ten-minute walk.’ He was looking at Zia, assiduously avoiding my eye.
Ten minutes? That was how long it would take to walk from my house to Zia’s and I’d never once done anything but drive over. And those were streets I knew. I looked down the alley. How dangerous a section of town was Mehmoodabad? I couldn’t be sure.
‘Guys,’ Karim said, softly, ‘there’s someone coming.’
Zia and I turned and saw a moustached man walking towards us.
‘Having trouble?’ he said. He was wearing sneakers with his shalwar-kameez. Nike. Undoubtedly fake.
‘No, we’re fine. Just waiting for some friends. Thank you.’ Zia tried to look confident and relaxed as he spoke, and I reached into the car and pulled out Zia’s mobile phone. Quite why I thought that should intimidate the man, I don’t know, but it gave me a feeling of power.
The man laughed. ‘It’s all right. I mean no harm. But I just wanted to ask if you had any anti-theft devices in the car. That might be why you’ve stalled.’
I looked helplessly at the phone. I didn’t even know what the number for the police was.
Zia smacked his hand to his forehead. ‘Yes. Stupid of me. I forgot to press the thief switch.’
‘The what?’ Karim said.
‘Thief switch. It’s a little button. Can be placed anywhere in the car. See? Mine’s next to the ignition.’ Zia guided Karim’s hand in through the open car window and made him feel the button. ‘If you don’t press it within a few seconds of starting the engine it cuts off the petrol supply and the car stalls. So if someone’s trying to steal the car and they don’t press the switch the car just stops, destroying their quick getaway. My father had mine put in only a few days ago; I’m still not used to it.’
Zia turned to the fake-Nike man. ‘Thanks,’ he said, and offered the man a cigarette. The man produced a match and the two of them lit up. I stepped on Zia’s toe, trying to draw his attention to my unhappiness about standing around in the middle of a deserted road with some unknown man, but he just moved his foot away.
‘Are you a mechanic?’ Zia said.
The man shook his head. ‘Car thief.’
‘You going to steal my car?’ Zia tried to sound casual.
The man looked offended. ‘After I’ve taken a cigarette from you?’ He shook his head again. ‘Besides, I wouldn’t take your car and leave you stranded when you’re in the company of a girl. These are unsafe times. And it’s obvious you don’t live around here.’
‘That’s very decent of you.’ Zia regarded me triumphantly, as though he’d won a point.
‘Where do you think we live?’ Karim said.
‘Defence.’
Karim laughed. ‘Right. That obvious, huh?’
The man nodded. ‘Burgers,’ he said. Karim look confused. When he’d left Karachi we were still unaware of this term that most of Karachi used to refer to the English-speaking elite.
‘Have you been doing this long?’ I asked.
He looked straight at me for the first time. ‘I wanted to join the civil service. I’m an educated, literate person, you know. I sat for the exam, and I did all right. I mean, not top marks, but decent, good marks. But I sat the exams from Karachi. It’s not enough to be just good.’ He looked from Zia to Karim to me. ‘You know?’
That was probably just a rhetorical question, but I felt compelled to respond. ‘We’re Karachiwallahs, too,’ I said, the word stumbling on my tongue. It just seemed a bad idea to use the more Anglicized ‘Karachiite’. And then, because I was annoyed with Karim, I added: ‘At least, the two of us are. He—’ jerking my head at Karim, ‘—hasn’t been here in eight years. He lives in England and America. Both.’
The man whistled. ‘What a hero! Do you understand why I’m a car thief instead of a civil servant, hero?’
‘Yes,’ Karim said softly. ‘The quota system.’
The man spat on the side of the road. ‘May those who set it up burn in every kind of fire that hell has to offer.’
I caught Zia’s sleeve, my eyes begging Let’s get out of here.
The man caught my look. ‘Why are you afraid of me? I have sisters. I’m not one of those uncivilized men. But I get frustrated. Don’t you? You live in this city, after all.’
There was nothing I could say to this man without it being condescension or a lie. Privilege erased the day-to-day struggles of ethnic politics, and however Karim might want me to feel about the matter I couldn’t pretend I was sorry that I had been born on ‘this side of Clifton Bridge’ where class bound everyone together in an enveloping, suffocating embrace, with ethnicity only a secondary or even tertiary concern. So what if I walked around with a heaviness in my heart after reading about the accelerating cycle of violence, unemployment, divisiveness in Karachi? So what if I agreed with this man that the quota system in the province discriminated against Karachiites, particularly Muhajirs who had no family domicile outside the city that they could claim as their own when government jobs and government-run university places were being allocated according to an absurd urban—rural divide? So what if I thought the entire city was being pillaged by the central government, which was happy to take the large percentage of its revenue from Karachi but unwilling to put very much back? I didn’t find myself picking up a gun because of it, or losing people I loved because of it, or feeling my sanity slip away because of it.
‘You’re Muhajir,’ I heard Karim say to the man. For God’s sake, what was he trying to do!
‘Yes, hero. What are you?’
‘Bengali.’
Zia and I both looked at him in surprise. I’d never once heard Karim identify himself that way. Of course, none of us ever used to feel the need to identify ourselves by ethnicity when we were younger but it still took me off-guard that he chose to identify himself with his mother’s ethnicity rather than his father’s. I wondered if Zia even remembered that school-yard fight when he had pushed Karim over and kicked him. I wondered if Karim remembered it.
The man straightened up. ‘We didn’t learn anything, did we? From ’71.’
Again, Karim gave me one of those looks I couldn’t decipher. ‘We learned to forget,’ he said. ‘Do you have a family to support?’
‘Everyone has a family to support. If not your own, then someone else’s. My brother has five children. The choices my brother’s made...soon I’ll have his family to support. And then there’ll be his widow—I’ll have to marry his widow, who else will marry her with five children?—and she sings all day, so badly, like a goat.’ Zia and the man both laughed, but the man’s laugh had an edge of bitterness to it.
‘I can’t do anything about the quota system,’ Karim said, ‘but maybe we could help you find something better suited to your education than car theft.’
The man nodded, all traces of amusement gone. ‘Already I can imagine myself doing things that a few months ago would have been unthinkable. I own a gun, and I’m imagining things. That’s not a good combination.’ H
e grimaced. ‘You’ll probably leave here and do nothing for me, but if you can do something, do it quickly.’
‘How will I find you?’ Karim said.
‘Come back here in this car. I’ll tell my friends to look out for it, and make themselves known to you.’ He shook Karim’s hand, and walked away.
‘Your father could get him a job, couldn’t he?’ Karim said, turning to Zia.
Zia looked ready to explode. ‘Did you just miss what he said? His friends the car thieves will be looking out for my Integra. And now he knows where the thief switch is. You are behaving like such a fresh-off-the-boat, Karim. Don’t buy his “I’m forced into crime because I have no options” story.’
‘Oh, come on, Zia, it’s not as though his story was far-fetched.’ I pointed towards the thief switch as Zia started the car and he nodded and pressed it.
‘If it’s true, that makes things worse,’ Zia said, screeching off, clearly as keen to get out of Mehmoodabad as I was. ‘He’s probably with the MQM and you just don’t want to get involved with someone who has anything to do with these political groups.’
‘Why is he obviously with the MQM?’ I said. ‘He didn’t mention political affiliations.’
‘It’s the Muhajir Qaumi Movement, isn’t it? And he’s a Muhajir with grievances. Two plus two equals four.’
‘I’m a Muhajir, Zia.’ I poked his shoulder.
‘Oh, don’t give me that. You’re nothing. You’re just a burger. And thank God for that.’
‘You macho Sindhi ass,’ I said with a yawn. It was too early in the morning for a full-length replay of this little exchange—one that Zia and I trotted out every so often almost as a set routine—which deflected the differences in our backgrounds.
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