Kartography

by Kamila Shamsie

  ‘She could hear everything, yes, but you also knew that if she walked a step further, Shafiq would have seen her. You had to get him out of there, right then. That was your first concern.’ I banged his chest with my fist. ‘You thought he had a knife. Bunty, your old friend, Bunty, had beaten you up, and he hadn’t lost a brother.’

  ‘I could have pushed him out and slammed the door and locked it.’

  ‘You don’t push men with knives, Aba. You talk them down. You placate them.’

  ‘I could have said, actually we’ve just broken our engagement. Let’s go to your place and I’ll tell you all about it.’

  ‘He would have guessed you were lying. You had to say something shocking enough that he wouldn’t see it as a lie...’

  ‘I couldn’t leave Maheen. Just after the war, how could I bring myself to leave her with everything going on. But if she left me, if I said something completely unforgivable...”

  ‘You wanted to save her.’

  ‘I wanted to save myself.’

  ‘You can’t be sure of that.’ We both said that, at exactly the same instant, and both fell silent.

  ‘That look in her eyes, Raheen,’ he said eventually. ‘When I turned to look at her, just after I said what I said. I would have given up anything—my city, my friends, my life—to erase that look from her eyes. It’s when I knew I still loved her, beyond everything else. But when I opened my mouth to explain, I didn’t know. I didn’t know why I had said it. Right then two entirely divergent explanations asserted themselves with equal force in my brain. Both, Raheen, seemed possible. Perhaps that was crime enough: that both seemed possible.’ He sounded unutterably weary. ‘Which isn’t to say it doesn’t matter. The truth matters, of course. Was I the protector or the coward? I don’t know.’ He pulled himself up straight. ‘I’ll never know.’

  Without waiting for a response, he walked past me, back to the house. As I watched him go, I knew I wasn’t watching either the father I adored or the father who had betrayed me with his own weakness, but a middle-aged man who had revealed to me the terror and the pity that I might still just be able to avoid.

  . . .

  There are two ways to escape suffering [the inferno where we live every day]. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.

  —Italo Calvino

  Karim,

  There’s a street in Karachi that follows the moon.

  Near an Imam Baragh, there’s a line of houses, with hack and front doors and no boundary walls. When the lunar calendar enters the month of Muhurram, Shia women make their way to the Imam Baragh daily. There is a back door to the Imam Baragh for them, for the ones in purdah, and to reach that back door without being gazed upon by strangers in the open streets they walk through the neighbourhood houses. Back and front doors are flung open, and the women walk through from the hallway of one house to the hallway of another until that alley within houses takes them all the way to the door of the Imam Baragh. It is an alley without name, it is an alley that ceases to exist when the moon disappears, but it is an alley all the same and one that says more about Karachi than anything you’llfind on a street map.

  Your mother called the other day to say she’s given you a copy of my father’s letter. In it he speaks of Karachi’s war stories that are personal in a way which excludes everything outside the story. I

  understand now, at last, what this has to do with street names. I’ve always thought it wonderful that everyone I know in Karachi gives directions in terms of landmarks and stories—go to the submarine roundabout; turn into the lane where the car thief accosted Zia; drive until you come to Soma’s father’s office. Such familiarity, such belonging, wrapped up in every set of directions. Don’t deny there’s something remarkable about that; we belong to a city invested in storytelling. It is in our blood. But you can only be familiar with those you know well, you can only know the stories of those to whom you’ve bothered to listen. What happens to all those streets that hold no stories for us? Do we simply stay away from them? I’ve lived my life in such limited circles and it’s your voice I hear now, telling me the limited can be so limiting.

  But what has this to do with us? You think my limited life excluded you before, will exclude you again. Karim, I can’t deny I’ve been selfish. Your mood has always been so infectious, no antibodies in my blood to keep me immune from the way you feel. So I’ve always wanted to make you laugh and see you laughing instead of having to weep your tears. I thought you knew that. How could you ever think it was lack of caring that made me turn away from the sight of you in pain?

  Am I trying to say my selfishness is a mark of love? How can selfishness and love coexist? Ask the city we live in.

  Karachi at its worst is a Karachi unconcerned with people who exist outside the storyteller’s circle, a Karachi oblivious to people and places who aren’t familiar enough for nicknames. What I’ve sometimes mistaken for intimacy is really just exclusion. But Karachi is always dual. Houses are alleys; car thieves are the people to help you when your car won’t start; pollution simultaneously chokes you and makes you gasp at the beauty of unnatural sunsets; a violent, fractured place dismissive of everyone outside its boundaries is vibrant, embracing, accepting of outsiders; and, yes, selfishness is the consequence of love.

  No simple answers in Karachi. Just when we decide that intimacy is exclusionary, a man at the airport turns round and gives us his car-keys, a motia seller calls us ‘sister’ and adorns our wrists with flowers, families fling open their doors and avert their eyes and help us make our way to places of worship; at its best, Karim, Karachi is intimate with strangers.

  If I am truly to call myself a product of this city, how can I not find it in me to learn that much easier lesson: how to be intimate with my intimates.

  This is not an epiphany, it’s just the start of an attempt to be brave enough to think about certain things that terrify me. There’s a letter we’ve both read which urges me to face the terror. What my father said and what he wrote were part of both our pasts, and to pretend the matter can be easily discussed and resolved is to deny how deep in our marrow consequences are lodged. We have to every day live with the truth and every day find a way towards unblinking, unsentimental compassion that renders forgiveness irrelevant. And compassion has to wheel all about us, in concomitantly widening and narrowing circles. To look at waves and understand that when they break they start to re-form, that seems crucial, though perhaps I’m getting my metaphors all tangled up.

  I love this place, Karim, for all its madness and complications. It’s not that I didn’t love it before, but I loved it with a child’s kind of love, the kind that either ends or strengthens as understanding grows.

  I can see you, out there, reading between the lines.

  Come home, stranger.

  Come home, untangler of my thoughts.

  Come home and tell me, what do I do with this breaking heart of mine?

  . . .

  I was in Uncle Asif’s study, in Rahim Yar Khan, when Aunty Laila told me there was a phone call for me. I looked at my watch. My mother had three hours to her deadline for an article on the Orangi Pilot Project, which had turned one of the most troubled spots in Karachi into a haven of high literacy, effective sewerage, tolerance among communities. Listening to my mother talk about the people who worked there I had begun to imagine a possible future for myself, though I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that a lot of the time it seemed much more appealing to imagine myself sitting in a comfortable office in Aba’s ad agency, drinking tea and discussing slogans. But now I knew it had to be my father on the phone, asking me why I had travelled up north and left him alone in the house to face the dread YUD: Yasmin Under Deadline. Somehow over the course of the summer, Aba and I had learnt to la
ugh together again. I wouldn’t say I had forgiven him; more to the point, forgiveness was no longer an issue. He had to live with his failures, just as I had to live with mine. And if I hadn’t known what he had said to Aunty Maheen, I would never have believed that I needed to be vigilant for the serpents and abysses that could slither into or open up in any soul, not just the souls that were housed within obvious monsters.

  But for the record, I had told him, I think you said it to save her from Shafiq.

  I picked up the extension in the study. ‘Has she started sticking paperclips in her hair yet?’

  ‘Do Aunty Laila’s ceramic bowls still have purple and green dye stains?’

  ‘Karim.’ I stood up and the suddenness of my movement yanked the telephone jack out of its socket. ‘Don’t hang up,’ I yelled to anything that might possibly transmit that message to Karim. ‘Don’t hang up.’ I went down on my hands and knees and fitted the jack into the socket. ‘Don’t hang up,’ I yelled into the handset.

  ‘Wouldn’t matter if I did. Continue to yell at that pitch and I’ll hear you in Karachi.’

  ‘You’re in Karachi?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve decided I really do want to make a map. I need your help. That’s why I’m calling.’

  ‘That’s why you’re calling?’

  ‘Yes. You’re the one who gave me the idea. With your mention of the lunar street. I’m going to make a map on the Internet.’

  I leaned back in the leather desk chair, watching the clouds outside the window gather and darken. He’d read my letter, and it had given him an idea for a map. It was worse than if he’d never acknowledged the letter.

  ‘Are you listening to me? You gave me the idea yourself. We’ll make an interactive map on the Internet. You start with a basic street map, OK, but everywhere there are links. Click here, you get sound files of Karachiites telling stories of what it’s like to live in different parts of town. Click there, you get a visual of any particular street. Click again, the camera zooms in and you see a rock or a leaf or a billboard that means something to that street. Click, you see streets that exist seasonally, like your lunar street. Click, you see which sections are under curfew. Click, you hear a poem. Click, you see a painting. Choice of languages in which you can read the thing. Sound files in all kinds of dialects. Strong on graphics for people who are illiterate. Just wait, Raheen, this is going to be amazing. And don’t tell me most people can’t afford computers; you just wait a few years and an amazing number of people will have access to one even if they don’t own it themselves. This is a lifelong project, Raheen, in a city that’s always changing. Too exhausting to contemplate doing alone. You’ll help me, right, you’ll join me? We’ll do this together, right? You’ll write something; we’ll include links to all kinds of text about Karachi. Write something about the city, the Karachi you know. You always could write well. We’ll be Eratosthenes and Strabo working hand-in-hand. Have you disconnected the phone again?’

  ‘No.’ I looked across at the globe on its axis, which stood on a table by the window, and wanted to throw something at it. We’d be Eratosthenes and Strabo. So this is how it would end. Each of us learning something from the other, sharing ideas, making a map. We’d tell people what a wonderful working relationship we had. After all, we’d been friends all our lives. And if anyone asked us about the time we’d been young and in love, we’d have to pause to draw up those memories of how it had been, how we thought it would be. Sometimes, late at night, when no one else was around, each of us would sit alone and wonder how it would have worked out if only... But we’d never think about it too long, or too seriously.

  The thought was unbearable.

  ‘Will you do it? Will you write something? Write a story or something. Write about the motia-seller and the car thief and Zia and Sonia and falling in love.’

  ‘What exactly should I write about falling in love?’

  ‘Write, “There was a boy called Karim who never fell in love.”’

  ‘He never fell in love?’

  ‘No. There was no falling. He was born in love with her, and he was borne by love all the way back to her, even though there was a period of total stupidity in between.’

  I bowed my head. The grace of this moment. Remember this always.

  ‘You keep going silent on me.’

  I pressed the phone as close to my ear as possible. ‘Karim, you bastard, I’ll kill you.’

  He laughed. ‘What? You really thought I called you up to tell you to help me make a map?’

  ‘Stop being obnoxious. Say something sappy.’ From Uncle Asif’s collection of seashells and fossils, I picked up a cuttlebone and traced the outline of my hand with it.

  ‘Maple syrup.’

  ‘Are you feeling kinky?’

  ‘It’s made from sap.’

  ‘I’m going to hit you. Should I fly back to Karachi or will you come here? Which is faster?’

  ‘I’ll come there. Supposing I was being kinky, how would you have responded?’

  ‘When you get here, I’ll tell you. When’s the next flight?’

  ‘Hang on, girlio. I can’t make the next flight. I really am going to do this map thing, you know. ‘Cause you know what I realized? There’s bound to be a map somewhere. The police, the Intelligence Services, maybe even the post office, they have got to have a street map of Karachi.’

  ‘I guess.’ I couldn’t help laughing at how we’d come full circle. Rahim Yar Khan and maps and the two of us. But how far we’d travelled to get back here.

  ‘Don’t guess. It’s true. Zia’s father spoke to someone—one of his shady contacts—who said he’ll get me a map. So Zia’s father is coming over right now with a police escort to take me to meet this guy and get the map. I’ll bring it to Rahim Yar Khan and we’ll start thinking of ways to use it as the basis for our Internet map. But we won’t worry about that in a hurry. Right? All the time in the world.’

  ‘Karim, no.’ Despite my happiness, I felt a shiver of apprehension. ‘The worst way to start a project like this is to start it with Zia’s father’s help.’ I couldn’t bear to be in the same room as him now. The man who still hadn’t cried over his son’s death. His grief mutated past redemption.

  ‘I’m going to start squeezing toothpaste from the middle of the tube. We’re obviously just searching for things to argue about. Oh, car’s here. I’ll call you from the airport with flight details, OK? Hey, one last thing. Your name. How come you never told me it means “guide”?’

  When he hung up I stayed as I was, phone pressed to my ear. ‘Karim,’ I said. ‘Karim,’ I whispered, tasting his name in my mouth.

  I turned the cuttlebone around in my hands. Why didn’t he take the next flight? Why wait to be taken somewhere with Zia’s father? No good could come of any interaction with Zia’s father.

  I pictured Karim sitting at the desk, pencil poised above a sheet of paper, eyes consulting base maps and aerial mosaics, one arm resting on the desk, palm up. Clifton, Defence, Gizri, Sea View, Bath Island... I said, wrapping my fingers around each of his fingers in turn, learning by touch the length of each digit. I dipped my thumb in ink and ran it over his palm: heart line, fate line, Mound of Venus. Boat Basin, I said. I unbuttoned his cuff and rolled up his sleeve. With the tine of a fork I traced his vein, from wrist up to elbow. Mai Kolachi, I said. He held the tip of my ring finger against his elbow joint, moving the fingertip back and forth along the groove: The Beach Luxury Hotel Road, he said. I pushed the shirtsleeve further up his arm, and ran a fingernail down a raised and knotted scar. So then, what would this be? I asked. He turned his map towards me and pointed out Napier Mole Road. Can you handle these logistics? he said.

  If I can’t handle, then I’ll toothle them, I said, and bit his bicep. A drop of blood glistened on his skin. My tongue curled around it.

  Hey, that’s mine, he said, laughing. Give it back.

  I gave it back. He ran his inked palm over skin, under cloth, in between teeth, leaving imprints of his destin
y all over my body, and I returned the tattoo, his heart line passing from palm to cheek to abdomen to hip to crisscrossed paths to routes unmapped. Our sweat smelled of unwritten words. Ink tastes different on the skin of the man you love. Strange hieroglyphics of desire. The rain drummed down on the long, long windows, leaving streaks that were roads and veins, arteries and arteries.

  I stepped away from the desk; it really was raining. I pushed open the windows, back arched and mouth open to catch the liquid sky on my tongue. My hands rested on a globe by the window; mountain ranges embossed on its surface, embedded in my skin. I twirled the cuttlebone. Thought of everything that had led us here. I am so sure now that as I stood there I knew something of what was happening on the dusty streets of home. The rain clouds moved towards Karachi, where Karim was getting out of a policeman’s Pajero, collar unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, veins on arm and throat pulsing blue in a drab landscape. The sky was low, pressed down by rain, clouds impaled on lightning. I pulled off my clinging shirt, rivulets running down skin, tributaries and waterfalls at my shoulder... Karim pushing open a door, Zia’s father carrying keys to filing cabinets behind him... Zia in New York turning an identical key over and over in his hand unable to consign it to fire...fireflies dancing around me in rain...opposing thoughts dancing through Sonia’s mind as she looks from burning matchstick to the slip of paper with Zia’s New York number on it in my handwriting... Zia twirls the key... Sonia twirls the matchstick...the globe spins off its axis and careens towards the window...armed men charge through the gaping doorway... Arabian Sea leaps out to slap my face...glass from broken window everywhere...glass from bullet-shattered window everywhere and nothing the police can do but fire blindly...through the noise of bullets Zia’s father screams that every stranger is an enemy... Karim watches pools of strangers’ blood spread across maps...pools around my feet...the globe still bouncing...world spinning round me...spinning round, the only gunman still alive points his weapon at Karim...one final mindless act with what strength he has... Zia’s father cries, my son, my son...he throws himself between gunman and boy...a bullet carves an alley through a heart...one object consigned to fire, one not... Zia’s father’s twenty-four-year-old tears unfreezing, falling, drowning him, me, everyone...