Trespassing

by Uzma Aslam Khan

  Hours later, he stepped outside and climbed up the mulberry tree planted when Dia was born. While the neighbors gathered at the foot of the tree, he cried like a demented ape, and someone even rang the press. Riffat gathered her children to her and murmured, ‘I shouldn’t have told him.’

  A frightened Dia asked to go to him.

  ‘No.’ She tightened her grip on the child, terrified of what Mansoor might say. The two had spent hours up in that tree, with pillows and sandalwood fans, where Dia transformed him from a mass of sedentary blubber to a tree-climbing, storytelling sprite. What would he tell Dia now?

  She packed the children off to bed and the next morning, Mansoor was not in the house, and not in the tree. The car was gone. A chawkidaar in the neighborhood said he saw him driving off early in the morning.

  ‘Any idea where he went?’ she’d asked.

  Nobody knew.

  When he turned up dead at a village near the mouth of the Indus many days later, Shafqat left her alone. He said he’d continue to be tortured by this gift he’d never found, but he didn’t want to cause Riffat any more pain by claiming it. And he kept his word.

  But what Sumbul had come to tell her was that he couldn’t keep away someone else.

  Riffat sat up with a jolt. ‘Good God, how do you know about Shafqat?’

  Sumbul bowed her head and admitted that Salaamat had seen them at the tomb, years ago.

  An enraged Riffat demanded, ‘Can’t we have a moment to ourselves in this country? Does anyone do anything besides snoop around?’

  Without meeting Riffat’s eye, Sumbul fanned her son with the edge of her dupatta.

  Riffat shut her eyes. Her wrath was always misfired: at her husband, her daughter, and now her sweetest employee. Touching Sumbul’s hand, she muttered an apology.

  Sumbul cleared her throat. ‘I’ve been wondering whether to tell you this. I think I should. It’s not just that Salaamat saw you with him. It’s that he’s been seeing Dia with someone else. Someone you wouldn’t want her to be with. His son.’

  While Sumbul provided details, Riffat sat stunned. Then she whispered, ‘I cannot think. Please leave me.’

  After Sumbul shut the door behind her, Riffat crawled into the bedroom where she and Mansoor had slept when the family spent weekends at the farm. She received solitude like a perfume rarely permitted, lavishing it on her skin till her temples gradually stilled. She looked up at the ceiling fan, at the tiny ring of metal in the center, and saw Dia cowering in the corner of a grimy open plot with Daanish. Fearing censure as she’d once feared it too, but also relishing his assurances, his touch. Did the boy have the father’s cloud-fracturing smile and his own delightful stories? Did he have strong limbs and a full-blooded scent? Did he give her what was hers to have without asking or did he keep that only for himself?

  Riffat lay flat on the bed, arms akimbo. She stayed that way a long, long time.

  DIA

  1

  Fourth Life

  Dia sat on the grass, her back against the mulberry tree where her father had sheltered the night before his death. In her lap was the book with the tales and pictures he’d loved. Around her drooped a leaden sky, nuzzling the gate where the armed guard paced.

  There’d been no rain since the downpour last month. The sultry, torpid air was a thick compress holding the torrent back. Perspiration dotted the thin fuzz of her upper lip and the hair around her temples crimped like her mother’s.

  A few days ago, she’d begun writing her own account of the Empress Hsi-Ling-Shih, the founder of sericulture. At one time the cloth was as valuable as oil and men went to equally grotesque lengths to acquire it.

  But now Dia decided to scratch the sentence out. She wasn’t meant to stop the clock at the tortured Greek, Bengali or Benarsi weavers, nor pause over the Caspian Sea two thousand years ago, to watch Roman soldiers fleeing the Parthians. The Parthians waved banners of silk, and the Romans ran because something so fine could only be the work of sorcery. She might reconstruct that some other time.

  Now she went forward, clenching the hour hand before it could race to the present. It was a blustery day in spring and the clock struck 4.00 p.m. She wrote:

  The Empress stepped out of a bus with a portfolio tucked under her arm and went to meet the Emperor outside a brick café. She put a maroon silk scarf around his neck. She’d designed it, choosing the color because it matched his eyes. He said the pale red selvage of embroidery was a bit effeminate.

  ‘Are you rejecting my gift? After all the ones you’ve sent me on wild-goose chases for?’

  ‘But you enjoyed each chase, didn’t you?’ He kissed her, swiftly adding that he loved the scarf and would wear it even in Karachi in mid-summer.

  They sat in a corner of the café. Under the table, she slipped her feet out of her sandals and over his boots. He told her she’d always be his. That was the only thing that wouldn’t change. Otherwise, he could taste a difference in the air. Around the globe, people were taking risks to speak their minds, and they spoke with such conviction, such humanity. His father was part of that, wasn’t he?

  She nodded. The blood rushed to her cheeks as he traced her bones. They talked until twilight of her farm-to-be, the children they’d have, the home they’d build.

  And then they did a little dance, wriggling right there on the floor of the coffee shop. There was a rip, a tearing of hide, a circuit of the earth, and Riffat became Dia loving Daanish in the cove.

  ‘The next time I’m here,’ he clasped her in his arms, ‘I’ll teach you to swim.’ While he described the magnificent creatures of the sea, the wind tossed his fresh scent with the fecund fragrance of her groin. ‘Like mushrooms simmering in the salt air,’ he said.

  The sand was a pumice stone. It chafed her back and rent a chasm down her spine. Another creature wormed its way out, and when it was free, Nini stood before them.

  ‘I want a change,’ she said, carrying a tea tray. The Emperor’s son took his cup and ate a chicken patty. The halwa she’d made herself. Because it was just right, he slid a ring around her finger.

  ‘She comes from good blood,’ his mother said.

  ‘Have another cup of tea,’ she said.

  ‘Lucky Nini,’ the sisters giggled, dreaming of their turn.

  Dia stopped.

  She tore the page out and breathed heavily. This wasn’t working.

  She hadn’t eaten in days. Severely dehydrated, she felt woozy and her head ached. Her clothes were drenched in sweat. They were the same she’d worn for days, as she sat here each morning, trying to synthesize what she felt. Inam Gul kept calling but she ignored him. Her mother also called but she wanted no more of her. At least not yet. She looked up. Daanish’s flight had left that morning. Perhaps at this very moment, he was crossing the Atlantic. That’s where she was, and she had to find her way back. No more detours.

  She remembered their last meeting.

  They’d sat in the unfinished house, in the section he called the guestroom, when the shadow appeared again.

  ‘This time you go see who it is,’ she whispered. ‘I’m staying here.’ Daanish stood up, and then they saw two shapes approach, one distinctly larger than the other. He took a few brave strides, leaving Dia concealed behind a wall. She peered out and gasped: it was Anu. Behind her, Salaamat.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Daanish’s voice was surprisingly meek.

  ‘I should ask you the same,’ she replied. ‘But I know the answer. Where is she?’

  Dia stepped out, scowling at Salaamat. He’d told. She forced herself to look at Anu, who was scrutinizing her.

  ‘The gift,’ Anu muttered. ‘Could it be? But the nose is not his. Nor the mouth. You are short, he wasn’t.’

  ‘Anu,’ Daanish interrupted. ‘This is Dia. Dia, my mom.’

  Dia turned to him, exasperated. ‘We’ve already met. Remember?’ To Anu she uttered a futile greeting.

  Anu did not return it. She was saying, ‘Hair too straight, but co
mplexion nearly his.’

  Daanish looked helplessly over his shoulder at Dia. ‘This is way harder on her than it ought to be.’

  Why don’t you tell her that, Dia thought. And while you’re at it, ask her what she’s talking about. She rubbed her forehead uneasily as Anu’s ghastly inspection continued.

  At last her gaze drifted up. Gouging Dia’s eyes, she nodded, ‘His.’

  ‘I’ll call you later,’ Daanish hurriedly declared. ‘Let’s go,’ he pulled Anu away.

  Dia was left alone with Salaamat. ‘What are you waiting for?’ she wheezed. ‘You’ve spoiled it all. You have none of your father’s goodness!’

  Storming by him, she wished she had it in her to kick his shin, or strike his cheek. Anything to make him repent, to shatter that stony composure. But she didn’t.

  It was in the days when Dia waited for Daanish to call that Riffat told her about Shafqat. Dia would not speak except to tell Riffat she’d only ever have the one father she’d known. It was her mother there were two of.

  She retreated then, just like her father had done.

  Riffat followed, pleading, ‘Anything you want, Dia. Please say it. Anything.’

  Anything?

  And then Daanish called.

  They said nothing for a while, each listening to the soft breath of the other through the receiver. She wondered if, like her, he was recalling her every feature, puzzling over which they shared, and which they didn’t. Anu had stopped at the eyes. But Dia’s were a different shape from Daanish’s – hers were rounder, his longer. Or was she already rewriting him?

  At last she whispered, ‘Now I know why I’ve collected stories of origins all my life. I’ll never know my own.’ She fell silent. Her own voice was alien to her. Then, ‘What can we do?’

  She thought she heard a gulp. After several more seconds, she asked, ‘Are you there?’

  He sighed. ‘I don’t know what to do. Maybe Khurram’s right. I should do what everyone wants. Marrying Nissrine would make so many people happy.’

  Dia was in the dining room, the same place she’d stood when discussing Daanish with Nini. Was that just a few months ago? She’d felt revolted then; only now did she realize what revulsion was: a pressure in the pit of her stomach, rising in a scream like a tea-kettle’s: ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  Daanish’s answer was terse, his voice hard. Good – she should not be the only one enraged. He said, ‘Listen before you judge.’

  ‘Talk then,’ she spat.

  ‘This has been hard for Anu. Try to understand that you’re not the only one affected. If I can make up for all Anu’s suffered, why shouldn’t I?’ His voice trailed. ‘Maybe just a simple engagement now. I don’t know. I haven’t decided. The wedding could come much later, if I’m still inclined.’

  Dia wrapped an arm around her gut, trying to shake the picture of Nini marrying the man on the other end of the line. The one with the comforting, lilting voice. Yes, even now, she could hear that lilt. And feel the smooth stomach strung with muscle and just barely, a little hump to each side. She’d always thought she wouldn’t mind if those love handles grew, if that was what was imminent. She could smell him too. And she could lean into him, even as he pushed her away. Even as history pushed him away. She insisted, ‘But you said she was nothing to you! Think about that if nothing else!’

  ‘Dia,’ he replied, ‘what do you want? Don’t pretend things haven’t changed …’

  There it was again: What do you want? She cut in, ‘Pulling Nini back into the equation is not what I want. I’ll tell you what I do want. Answers. Tell me – would this have happened anyway? Even if our parents never knew each other? And tell me this: do you need another zipper now? Or are you just going to leave yours open all the time?’

  ‘Screw you!’ he shot back. ‘You’re just mad because for the first time in your pretty, sheltered life, you’re up against a wall.’ He was panting, hurling incomplete sentences at her: ‘That’s why you’re attacking me!’ She could hang up. She could just hang up. ‘Well I’ve been up against more walls than you could ever imagine …’

  ‘I don’t want your self-pity.’

  ‘Aba’s dead. I never knew him. He cheated on my mother …’

  ‘Almost ditto for me,’ she interrupted.

  ‘Don’t butt in again,’ he snarled. ‘I have to support my mom,’ he took a deep breath, ‘and the best way is to work in a country that bombs others but lets me in. They could just as easily let them in and bomb me. I have to find a place in that puzzle.’

  Dia chewed her cuticles till she tasted blood. ‘Have you finished?’

  ‘All yours.’

  ‘Do you have any idea how completely humiliated you have made me feel? How naked I felt when your mother walked in on us? I’m still feeling filthy. And you said nothing to her in my defense. They were blaming me, not you. That’s something you’ll never have to understand.’ She crouched on the carpet.

  Daanish was silent. ‘Perhaps I should go,’ he murmured at last. ‘We’re only making things harder for each other.’

  If they hung up now, neither would call again. Riffat had said this would be their last conversation, and Anu had not wanted it at all. The clock ticked.

  His voice was gentler when he added, ‘This might be a strange thing to say but I can’t help wondering about your mother. I admit I have blamed her. But I’ll try to look beyond that. I have a picture of them, you know. They made each other happy.’

  She let the tears flow now. Then, ‘You were right. I should go.’

  ‘Right. Good luck, Dia.’

  She snorted, ‘Luck!’

  ‘Well, this is hard, you know. So, don’t be a stranger.’

  ‘What?’ she choked.

  He’d hung up.

  Outside in the garden, Dia wiped the sweat off her face with the edge of her kameez. She stared at the page on her lap. Today, finally, she’d fill it. Then she’d go inside and look closely at herself in the mirror, the way she’d been doing for days. The face was changing; there was less and less of Daanish in it.

  She adjusted her position on the plush grass and shut her eyes. Her mother had her farm. Daanish had Amreeka. Nini, possibly, had Daanish. Everyone had a plan but her. Maybe there was something that needed to be done before she could find one. But she didn’t know what, and she didn’t know who to ask.

  She picked up her pen again. Maybe she did know.

  Nini and Daanish retreated into the past. The Emperor and Empress molted a fourth time.

  He was enormous, nearly ninety kilos, with slouching shoulders and a thick neck. She was slender and poised, even after bearing two sons. The boys were sleeping in the shack next to the shed where the silkworms would be housed. The couple watched their children sleep. Then they tiptoed out into the clear night. They were naked and held hands.

  It had rained the day before, a light, steady patter that polished the stars and stirred the earth, so the creatures dreaming in its bowels stretched and tasted something brisk. The irrigation canals gurgled a salient song. Mansoor told his love there was plenty of groundwater in this land she’d been gifted, which she wanted transformed into a silkworm farm. He said he was proud of her, that he was the luckiest man in the world: two boys asleep in the cottage, a beautiful wife by his side, a second business on the way.

  A sliver of a moon hung before them. It cast a soft, lambent light on her cheeks and her brown curls shone like copper. Fireflies orbited her navel. He touched her there. ‘If we have a third child,’ he said, ‘I hope it’s a girl.’ And then he planted a kiss in the small cool pit, and she laughed. The glowworms dispersed, fluttering like saffron ribbons, leaving them in a trail of gold dust.

  They ambled between the mulberry seedlings only recently sowed. The ground was wet, their footsteps muffled as a cat’s. A nightjar called her mate. Bats brushed their ears. Riffat said it was both beautiful and frightening at this late hour, with not a soul about and a graveyard just up the road.
>
  ‘Kings and queens lie there,’ he said. ‘They rest side by side, just like I want us to.’ When she shuddered, he added, ‘In the meantime, you should squeeze into me.’

  She wrapped her arms around his globe of a stomach and they came to a clearing. ‘This is where I want to plant the lost dyes of this soil. The colors are faster than synthetic ones and they smell good. Plus, it’ll help me feel that I’m at one end of a cord that leads back thousands of years. The cord is here,’ she said, pointing to her navel. He kissed it again, and again she laughed. In the clearing, husband and wife made love as easily as shedding skin.

  Afterwards, he sat behind her and she leaned into his chest. From the highway came the sound of a car. They listened as the engine pitched into the next day. He twirled the curls at her temples and asked, ‘What if you had the chance to do this all over – from our wedding, to our sons, to this moment right now, and whatever lies ahead. Would you marry me again?’

  She looked up at his chin, touched it. His flesh was scabrous and left hers tingling. ‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘Of course I would.’

  EPILOGUE

  Birth

  ‘Don’t go near the huts along the shore,’ his uncle warns.

  The boy rests against a dune, far from the huts. He wants to please his mamu. He wants his seekh-kebab locks, his cigarettes, his job that puts him in the driver’s seat of a long and beautiful van. So he won’t even look at those huts.

  His mother is in her grandmother’s teahouse. The old woman died today. She was more than a hundred. The women bathe her so her soul ascends to heaven in a quiet boat. Then the men can bury her outside the shrine of the great martyr. In the old days, when a fisherman drowned at sea, he became a hero and got a shrine all his own. But now there are more martyrs than land, and anyway, the men don’t drown while fishing, they drown while swimming up to the great ship and peeping inside the portholes.