‘That’s exactly what I see,’ Annam commiserated.
‘This is interesting,’ said Daanish to Dia. ‘Cocoa mixed with rus malai.’
The sisters doubled over.
Tasleem: ‘Stop it you two!’
Daanish to Dia: ‘So where was I? Mulberry leaves, eh? I like puzzles.’
The mothers fell silent again.
With one hand, a nervous Dia fanned herself. Then she stopped abruptly, feeling guiltier than ever. Fanning is what the lovely breeze was meant to do.
Nini re-entered. Her dupatta was damp at one edge. Swiftly, she took in the seating change and cut Dia a peppery look.
But then she quickly composed herself. ‘Annam Aunty, you must have more.’ She lifted the tray again.
The sisters doubled over again.
Nini eyed them sternly, deftly making sure her dupatta, now pinned to her shoulders, had kept its place. It had. She scowled at her sisters.
Tasleem: ‘One more sound from you two and you can leave.’
At last, the young girls lowered their heads in shame.
Tasleem to Annam: ‘I thought it would be good for them to see how it is, you know, for when their time comes.’ She stared at them hard, adding, ‘But obviously that won’t be for a long, long time.’
They looked about to cry. Dia could have hugged them for diverting attention from her. Or rather, from the attention lavished on her from the center of the women’s attention.
Tasleem tried again. ‘Well, will you tell us what you missed most in the three years you were away? It must have been so hard at first.’
Please answer her. And then, before she knew what she was doing, Dia whispered it. ‘Please answer her.’
The boy looked her full in the face. His eyes were large, amber-hued, beautiful. The irises dilated.
Please.
He swiveled so his knees pointed toward the center of the room again. He smiled at Tasleem. ‘Well, I sure missed the food. This is all delicious.’
Instant rejuvenation. Annam practically leaped with joy. ‘His appetite is mahshallah very healthy. I was worried the first week. He wouldn’t eat a thing. But then,’ she sighed, ‘time takes care of everything.’
‘It must be so hard for a mother, not being able to cook for her son,’ Tasleem added. ‘How you must have worried about his diet when he left. But then, there, of course, everything is so fresh and wholesome. Most of our children gain weight.’ She then proceeded to relate all the stories of thriving Pakistani children in America. Wajiha’s son at Stanford. Munoo’s at MIT. Goldy’s somewhere in, where was it … Texas?
The only seat available for Nini was between Daanish and Annam. Dia rose to offer her the sofa seat.
‘Keep sitting,’ Nini snapped, deciding on the carpet beside her sisters. Dia sat down, shuddering: Nini sounded just like her mother.
‘I think it was Wajiha’s son who scored the highest on his SATs. He was in the first percentile!’
Annam: ‘What are SATs?’
Tasleem, laughing, ‘Oh come on now, surely you know! Daanish must have taken them too. And he must have done very well, isn’t that right, Daanish?’
Daanish: ‘I must have.’
Annam insisted, ‘What are SATs? Did the doctor know?’
‘Of course, Anu. No one gets into college without taking them.’
‘Then it’s a medical exam? Your blood tests were very healthy.’
Tasleem hollered. ‘That’s a good one!’
Nini smiled. Her sisters shifted, unsure if they could giggle.
Daanish put his plate down and his arm around Annam.
‘They are Math and English tests. I don’t know about Wajiha’s son but Anu’s scored fifteen-sixty.’
Annam looked pleased, though still confused.
Tasleem collected herself. ‘Of course! Have more cake.’
‘I’m full.’ He turned to Dia again.
No! Especially not now! You want them to kill me?
But this time the boy could not read her thoughts, and she was too terrified to voice them. He said, ‘Two of the cocoons even hatched, if that’s the right word. I saw the whole thing.’
Now Nini too was listening. Dia could tell by the way she held her head – the taut profile, the pursed lips. Perhaps she ought to stand up and excuse herself. Go to the bathroom and let Nini follow. Then she could explain she hadn’t done a thing. He was the one prattling on. Maybe Nini would find a way to sneak her out of the house, and the meeting could proceed the way it was meant to have from the beginning. No detours.
And then she realized what he’d said. ‘You saw it?’
‘I knew I could get a reaction out of you,’ he laughed. ‘Yes. Saturday morning. It was cool. First this thin dark liquid started oozing, disgustingly smelly. I had them in a drawer and the wood discolored, like the fluid was acid. But it seemed to soften the cocoons. Slowly, the moths ate their way out. I couldn’t believe it! They were cream-colored and spread their brittle wings, as if to dry.’
This time Dia was only vaguely aware of the fresh daggers plunging her throat. She was entranced. She’d never known anyone – not Nini, not Inam Gul, not even Sumbul – so intent on observing what most people considered trivial. The minor details, the small discoveries. These had always been hers alone to love. Others filed them away as distractions, nuisances. But for her, they were life. For him too? By the looks of it, yes. He was delighted, as if he’d gained simply by noticing. As if by sharing a fleeting moment with two, tiny unsung beasts, his world had opened.
And he was damn lucky. She’d spent years trying to see what he’d managed the first time, and she still hadn’t succeeded. Saturday morning – that would be around the same time she’d been watching the pair at the farm. And then Nini had called to invite her here, and she’d missed it. If Nini hadn’t called, she wouldn’t have missed it. If she hadn’t missed it, she wouldn’t be here, knowing what she knew of Daanish.
‘What time did they finally come out?’ she asked.
‘Just after ten. I checked my watch. And you know what else? The tips of their swollen abdomens locked together. They didn’t appreciate my watching.’
‘So did the ones at the farm!’
‘What?’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ she laughed. ‘I didn’t see it, anyway. But you did. Go on.’
‘They stayed that way for hours …’
She leaned forward. What a crazy thing to feel her heart race like this. Was it his smell? Crisp, delectable. Mannish. He was like a butterfly, sprung from Aphrodite’s girdle, and all the females were assembling around him.
‘More cake,’ insisted Tasleem.
Nini too stood up and Annam was saying something.
Even the sisters were prancing around, teacups in hand. They were helping Nini serve the tea, which she’d obviously got up to brew at some point. There was milk and sugar, and something fell.
But Dia and Daanish gazed at each other, alone in the joy of what he’d seen.
Part Two
SALAAMAT
1
Here
JULY 1992
Salaamat stood with them outside the cave.
Daanish rolled his jeans up to his knees, saying, ‘At low tide, we’d eat in there when I was a kid.’ The jeans were drenched and kept sliding down to his ankles.
Dia peered inside. ‘It’s claustrophobic.’
The water raced down the cave’s length, crashing into the far wall, submerging the smooth rock where, Daanish told Dia, Anu would spread their tea. ‘Years ago, I found a silvery shell here. An argonaut’s nest. Then my parents fought over a pearl necklace. Anu was always irritable whenever he got her anything expensive. Later, she’d cry to me: “The roof still leaks and the twelve-year-old car keeps breaking down, but he keeps throwing away any money we have left. Don’t count on an inheritance.” She meant: I’m counting on you.’ He sighed and took Dia’s hand.
They strolled along the shore, leaving Salaamat alone by the cave. He lit a cigarett
e, remembering the ad for it. Two men scaled a mountain, just like he and Fatah had done their last day together. He liked to imagine it was him in the red jacket and Fatah in the blue.
Salaamat started walking too, soon catching up with them. The wind ruffled her hair and dealt with their words similarly: tangling and tossing them up and back, at him. Teasing, stinging. He was the subject of their conversation.
‘There was no other way, Dia,’ Daanish was saying. ‘I had to ask Khurram for his car and driver or Anu would have asked too many questions.’
‘You could have only asked for the car. We could have driven here.’
‘Yes, but Khurram had to take his own car. This is his father’s. He’s terrified of getting it scratched. I don’t blame him for not trusting me that much.’
‘But it’s embarrassing that he’s in on us. I’ve known the family so long. What do you suppose he’s thinking?’
Hadn’t they realized how close he was? Perhaps not – he always moved with great stealth. It was how he’d escaped the camp. It was why he was still alive.
‘Don’t worry,’ Daanish touched her cheek tenderly, ‘maybe I can find a way to take our own car. Except it keeps breaking down.’
They fell silent. Salaamat had to re-light his cigarette. Of course in the ad, even on top of the Himalayas, the wind couldn’t touch it.
Dia’s apricot shalwar was soaked through and when the tide pulled in, Salaamat could see the backs of her legs. And her buttocks. She’d been only twelve when he’d first seen her, a gleeful bowler in her father’s arms. And now here she was, giving herself to another man, her clothes transparent, her honor more reckless than the breeze. But then chastity did not run in their blood.
Daanish took something out of his pocket that Salaamat couldn’t see.
‘I’ve been keeping this to show you,’ Daanish said. ‘It’s what I got when I boiled the cocoon. Your hair’s a thousand times more jumbled than this, and I love that about you.’ He proceeded to tell her how he’d twisted it while puzzling over the length.
‘A thousand meters,’ she smiled.’ And all a single piece. You wound it around your arm, just like I always imagined the Chinese Empress must have done. Funny, but I was thinking of her the day I first heard of you.’
‘And with what warm feelings did you think of me?’
‘If I remember correctly, I said: shit!’
Salaamat exhaled peevishly. He was sick of it, sick of being a witness, sick of being dragged into worlds that were not his. He was chaperoning the lovers because the Amreekan boy had to pretend he was with Khurram. Why was this his problem?
Still, he kept listening.
Dia said, ‘After I cursed you I cursed poor Nini.’
‘Don’t, Dia. It’s taken so many phone calls to get you to see me. Don’t spoil it.’ He put his arm around her waist.
Salaamat licked his lips. An unwanted pleasure pressed the pit of his stomach, sweeping down to his groin. He imagined his own hand in the dip above Dia’s wet behind. It would slide down and squeeze her wanton spheres. The way she walked in the waves, swaying, almost tripping … With every step that succulent bottom screamed for him.
She said, ‘Was I always meant to be here with you today, Daanish, or is this a diversion? If we never meet again, will I be back on track?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Sometimes I play this game. I go back in time and imagine how different things would be if one tiny incident hadn’t occurred. If, for instance, Nini hadn’t brought me to your father’s Quran Khwani, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have slid the silkworms down her shirt, you wouldn’t have fed them, and we might never have spoken at her house. Perhaps you’d be here instead with Nini. And what would come of that? What’s to come of this?’
Daanish released her. ‘I’m not drawn to her, you know. I agreed to the tea just for my mother.’
‘And would you consider marrying her just for your mother? Can you spend a lifetime with someone simply because you’re expected to?’
‘Most of this country does,’ he answered shortly.
‘That’s exactly what she says. Perhaps you ought to marry her.’
Salaamat exhaled again. Their first row. It was touching.
Daanish said, ‘Look, I know this is weird for you. It’s even pretty weird for me. But you’re not making it easier by asking impossible questions. You told me yourself: Nini’s been distancing herself from you. Maybe it’s time you did the same. And just for the record, I could never marry a woman with a mother like hers.’
She said nothing but took his hand again, then giggled. ‘I like your accent. No, accents. A combination of sounds.’
They paused and Daanish began filling her free hand with shells. ‘The last time I was here, Salaamat told me these pen shells used to be harvested for the thread they spun. He said cloth could be made from it. Marine silk – whoever heard of it?’
‘Well, he’d know.’ She used a half of the iridescent shell as a plate for the smaller ones. Then she looked back and noticed him. Pointing quickly to a boulder ahead of them, she muttered, ‘Let’s go there.’
‘Good idea,’ Daanish agreed cheerfully.
An uninvited Salaamat followed.
She climbed up, settling in the same incline as Salaamat the day Daanish had come here with Khurram. Then too Salaamat had been the silent witness.
The wind was in Dia’s face. She greeted it with eyes shut. Daanish slid beside her. Salaamat stood next to the boulder. The two men stared first at each other and then at Dia, both resisting the urge to plant a quick kiss.
She was not pretty. Her nose was long and bent, body too lean, brows thick and unsculpted, and skin, this close up, scarred. She had a deep gash above her right brow, and another mark – the scar of a particularly unsavory pimple – just above a fairly standard mouth. She even had faint whiskers. Yet, Salaamat’s groin began to ache again.
Dia asked, ‘What are you looking at?’
Daanish replied, ‘Guess.’
‘Well, if it’s me, I don’t see what you see.’
‘Do you like me?’
She laughed. ‘What?’
‘Do you like me?’
‘Would I be here if I didn’t?’
‘Say it then.’
She laughed again, whispering something to which Daanish replied, ‘So what? Anyway, he’s deaf.’
‘According to his sister, only when he wants to be.’
‘Forget him, okay? Say it.’
‘I like you.’
‘What?’ he shouted. ‘Did anyone hear anything?’ He called down to Salaamat, ‘Did you hear anything?’
‘Stop it,’ she protested.
‘Then say it again, louder.’
‘I won’t if you make a scene.’
Daanish waved his arms, threw back his head. ‘It’s just us, Dia. Us and a heavy gray sky on a day in July, at three in the afternoon, with not a sound in the air but the waves thrashing against this rock, where we sit, alone at last. For the first time in ages, I’m in the present. I’m not waiting for some plane to pick me up and drop me somewhere else. I’m here. And it’s beautiful. Later tonight, you’ll lie in your bed and ask: “What if I’d said it louder, as Daanish wanted me to? And what if I’d kissed him, as he wanted me to and as I also wanted? How much sweeter the day might have been.”,’He breathed in her ear, ‘Then kiss me.’
She did.
Well, thought Salaamat, perhaps the Amreekan had learned something in Amreeka after all.
She’d said: he’s only deaf when he wants to be. Salaamat smiled. People were deaf and blind and dumb exactly when it suited them.
He could tell them that. He could share what he’d heard said all those years ago in the tomb of a governor dead six hundred years. A tomb strung with an old fisherman’s net to keep bat shit off the painted floor. He could spoil their moment. No, he could tell them their moment was already spoiled.
Or he could keep sitting, watching the clouds form,
wondering how long it would take them to reach his old village, many kilometers down the coast. He’d never been back. But he knew those foreign trawlers had been issued legal licenses now. Nearly everyone from his village had left.
Summer used to be the season for repairing nets. It used to be when women sat on the dunes outside the crumbling walls of their homes, drinking tea, layers of cotton mesh sprawled on the sand. He’d sit with them, with thoughts of poachers quietly at bay. The talk was of rain. Slowly, the women hummed the Sur Saarang, the melody that invoked rain:
Robes of rain God displays
And with each drop He plays,
He plays.
Salaamat and the other children would watch the women darn the nets, imagining they sewed God’s rainy robes, waiting for the drops to fall so they could play with Him.
Now he sat at the foot of the boulder, watching this other world tumble and crash around him. He rubbed the shells Dia had left nearby. He was a silent witness. He’d keep her secret but he’d also keep his own. She’d never know how he’d drawn her on his first and last bus. Or that he’d thought of her in Hero’s shop. Or that she had every reason to hate him.
He walked down to the shoreline again, the same that stretched all the way out to his village. There was a new game the boys were playing the year he’d left. They’d dare each other to swim out to the trawlers, even in the rainy season, and touch the anchor line. Then they’d wave to the band of boys on the beach. But if any boy swam out now and looked back, there would hardly be anyone awaiting his return. Boys were learning to be ajnabis younger every year.
2
The Bus
JUNE 1986–FEBRUARY 1987
His second year at Handsome’s, Hero left, and many of the Pathans followed. Salaamat presumed they’d joined one of the all-Pathan bus-body workshops sprouting all around. Or perhaps some had gone north to the border, and Amreeka was training them to be freedom fighters. Whatever the reason, the result was that he took over much of the paint work, though still not the most prestigious work of all: painting pictures. His job was piling putty on every hinge and joint of each bus. When this dried, he covered it with four layers of a mixture of limestone powder, mineral oil and gray tincture. Then he spray-painted from nose to tail, usually magenta, green or blue, sticking scraps of newspaper along the way. Later, he’d peel off the paper and spray the gaps a different shade. The fumes were toxic. His eyes grew bloodshot and nausea became part of the routine.
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