Upstairs Jameel gazed around his room, which also was ornately painted and mirrored, and thought again how blown away Chloe would be. He changed quickly into pajamas. He was relieved to be out of the collar of his shirt and the heaviness of jeans in the stifling heat and humidity of late monsoon season in Lahore. He took the envelope from his pocket and sat on the bed. Instead of tearing the envelope open, he smoothed it flat and retrieved a silver-handled letter opener from the desk in the corner of the room and slid it neatly under the flap, slitting the paper. He spread the letter from his grandfather flat and read it. It was dated three years earlier.
My Dear Jameel,
Now that I am gone, the first thing you must know is that beginning immediately you are my successor as leader of the Amirzai tribe. Your uncle and your parents and I decided the issue of succession long ago, almost immediately after your birth, and they will support you with their lives. We have kept this determination from you in order that you might live your life as normally as possible, unencumbered by the cares of leadership. I hope you will be finished with university before having to bear the weight of this responsibility. Other arrangements will be made shortly, and you will learn of them in due course.
Your Uncle Omar will hand over a ring containing the seal that has been the emblem of Amirzai leadership for hundreds of years. It is said to have been passed by the Holy Prophet Muhammad to our forefather Mahmet. Guard it carefully and use it wisely.
As leader of the Amirzai tribe you must act judiciously to control all aspects of the lands, from the Lahore house to the farm at Okurabad, to the remotest small village of Amirzai tribesmen. Your Uncle Omar has full written guidelines, and he and your father will educate you as to your duties and responsibilities. You have traveled with me throughout Amirzai lands, and have seen how I go about doing things. I hope that also will guide you.
We have been blessed with peaceful times in the past. While patches of turmoil have disrupted life in parts of the country because of Islamist insurgents, our tribesmen have remained levelheaded. We have always treated them fairly and they have responded with loyalty.
Let Allah be your guide. Never lose sight of who you are and what you represent. Have courage and know I will be keeping watch.
Your loving grandfather,
Mahsood Jameel Muhammad Amirzai
Jameel’s heart beat so hard his chest ached. He felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. He couldn’t quite comprehend all at once what his grandfather’s letter meant. Certainly that his life in California was over. It meant that he and Chloe would never get to know each other well enough to see where their romance might lead them. Once he’d taken that huge first step of kissing her, life seemed filled with possibility. But now the future he’d imagined was impossible.
17
Shabanu greeted the monsoon sunrise standing beside the doorway of the pavilion watching another pigeon she’d released as it disappeared past the domes carrying another message for Ibne. The message asked him to meet her at the bus station in Bahawalpur and take her to her family in Cholistan. Dark clouds had fallen low over the Old City, and even in the dim light the domes of the Badshahi Mosque were luminous.
When she heard a footfall on the stone tiles that covered the roof, she expected to see Samiya with her breakfast. But something about the sound of the feet moving toward the doorway of her pavilion let her know it was not the familiar tread of either Selma or Samiya, and she stepped behind the painted wooden screen that separated her bed from the sitting area.
The carved, lacy panels that enclosed her living space had several magical qualities, one of which was that Shabanu could see out through the pavilion walls, while no one outside could see in. When she saw the tall, slender form of Omar, her mouth went dry and she felt faint.
“Shabanu?” he called softly, and she could not find her voice to answer. “Are you there?” She felt her feet were planted in the floor like the palm trees in the large Chinese wine pots in the courtyard downstairs. Omar was only a few feet away from the doorway to the pavilion when she moved out from behind the screen and he saw her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to frighten you …”
“Come in, Omar,” Shabanu said, hardly trusting her voice. “How did you know …”
“I overheard Mumtaz tell my father you were here, safe after all this time,” he said. “Baba was unconscious. I don’t think Mumtaz even knew she was telling him. She was trying to make him hear her, to let him know how grateful she was for his keeping her safe. Selma didn’t want to let me come up, but I told her that I knew you were here.” Shabanu said nothing, and Omar moved closer to her.
“Why?” he asked. “We were friends—why couldn’t you let me know just that you were alive?” Shabanu studied him. His lips quivered and she could see a pulse beating in the side of his neck. Friends? she thought. And then she remembered that Omar couldn’t know that she’d seen him wailing beside her graveside. He’d hardly changed at all—perhaps a few lines around his eyes, a few gray hairs—and he looked at her as he’d looked at her years before: as if he couldn’t quite believe she was real.
“Because Nazir tried to force me to marry him after Rahim died,” she said after a moment. “He threatened to kill Mumtaz and me. Zabo and I escaped and Nazir shot at us. The bullet hit Zabo. I would gladly have died in her place.”
“But why did you let me believe it was you?”
“It wasn’t only you, Omar, it was you and Mumtaz and my entire family,” she said gently. “Mumtaz would never be safe if all of you knew where I was. And you—you were about to marry Leyla and become heir to the tribal leadership …”
“And you thought it would be easier for me not to know you were alive?” His voice was strained, and tears stood at the rims of his eyes.
“I watched when you came to Zabo’s grave,” Shabanu said, “and by then it was too late!”
“I never told you how I felt,” Omar said hoarsely.
“You were just like your Uncle Rahim,” she said. “You would never have been able to live with yourself if you hadn’t done what was expected of you. I used to resent Rahim’s dedication to the family and the tribe—but I would never have respected him if he’d been any different. And you—you were the same.”
“But I didn’t live up to Uncle Rahim’s honor!” he said miserably. “He died in my arms—the best man I ever knew—and then I thought you died for the same senseless reasons. Vendetta. Land. The family honor. It was enough of death—I didn’t have the stomach for it. Perhaps I’d been in America for too long. When I told my father I couldn’t be his heir as tribal leader I thought he’d never speak to me again. But he agreed. He and Nargis and Tariq and I met and decided that we could start all over again with Jameel.”
“But Jameel is an American boy …”
“We need someone who can change the way people think,” said Omar. “When I look into Jameel’s eyes I can see that he’s torn. He is very American in some ways. His view of honor is all Pakistani, but his sense of justice is American. He sees everyone’s life to be of equal value to his. I hope the time is right to introduce that way of thinking here, and that he will be good for all of us.”
“Haven’t you had enough of manipulation—using people for political reasons? What if he doesn’t want to lead the tribe? He’s just a boy! What about his education?”
Omar’s face colored. “What?” said Shabanu, sensing there was something else. He didn’t answer immediately. He reached for her hand, but Shabanu pulled back. They were sitting on the Swati chairs facing each other.
“The details haven’t been worked out,” he said, “but I may as well tell you what else Baba’s will says.” Shabanu sat very still. “Shortly after the funeral, Jameel and Mumtaz are to marry. He’s a fine young man. They will be good for each other.” For a moment longer, Shabanu said nothing. “It was planned to give Mumtaz security as well as to bind the family together,” Omar added.
“You ca
n paint it however you choose,” said Shabanu. “What about their education? What about letting them mature—giving them the chance to discover what they want for themselves?”
“We all thought Baba would live a long time,” Omar said.
“Isn’t this the kind of manipulation you and your father wanted to end with your modernization?” Shabanu asked.
“I must get back to Number 5,” said Omar. “There’s so much to do. The funeral will be late this afternoon—but I had to come to see you with my own eyes. May I come back?”
Shabanu shook her head. “I’m going to Cholistan, to my family,” she said. Omar hesitated a moment. He looked as if he wanted to tell her things, and she wanted to tell him so many things that had grown in her heart over these many years.
“Will you come back?” he asked.
Shabanu nodded. “As long as Mumtaz is here I’ll always come back.”
18
Jameel got into bed. He closed his eyes, but immediately the words of Baba’s letter played through his mind. He heard them in Baba’s distinctively booming voice, as if his grandfather were reading the letter out loud.
When Baba’s voice finally went silent the major fact of the letter and its profound impact on his life crowded out everything else: he would not return to his friends, to school, to Chloe, to his life. That was why his mother had packed all of his clothing. His first reaction was disbelief. Uncle Omar was Grandfather’s only son—and should be next in line to rule the Amirzai people. And Jaffar should be next in the line of succession after his father. He turned on the light and read the letter again. What his grandfather wrote was clear and explicit—Jameel had not been mistaken about the letter’s meaning.
His next reaction, mixed with the first, was anger. His parents and uncle, and especially his grandfather—the people he trusted most in the world—had known what was in store for him. They’d allowed him to believe he’d live a normal life—that he’d go to university and become an engineer, live in America, and follow his dreams. Without ever thinking about it, Jameel had taken this as a promise.
He stared at the letter in his hands and tried to harness some of the wild thoughts that swirled inside his head. Would his father and mother stay in Pakistan? Would they sell their house in California? Would Javed and Asma live with them here?
With shaking hands, Jameel stuffed the letter back into the envelope, put it into the drawer of the desk under the window, and got back into bed. But still he could not sleep. He wondered what other arrangements his grandfather referred to.
Jameel felt as if he didn’t sleep at all in the next few hours, but he was awakened by a stripe of sunlight that had escaped from the edge of the window shade and fell across his eyes. He lay still for a moment, trying to reimagine his life here, as if his parents had never left Pakistan, as if he’d been born here and not in America, as if he’d expected to live here his entire life. But there was no recapturing what had never been.
A surge of angry energy propelled him from the bed. His eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep, but he was alert and tense. He pulled a shalwar kameez from his closet, dressed quickly, and fished out a pair of chappals, which he slipped his feet into, not bothering to pull the straps up and over his heels. Still tying the shalwar, he took the back stairs two at a time, the sandals slapping on the treads.
He heard voices from the dining room as he cut through the kitchen, where he snatched up a piece of paratha before pushing through the swinging door. His parents were seated at the highly polished table with Uncle Omar, Auntie Leyla, Mumtaz, and Jaffar. It seemed everyone was talking at once, and the talk stopped dead as he entered the room. He could tell Muti had been crying by the puffy redness of the skin around her eyes. She half stood when he came through the door, as if she wanted desperately to see him.
“Sit!” Auntie Leyla commanded, and Mumtaz sank silently back into her chair. He made his salaams hurriedly around the table, but everyone continued staring at him awkwardly. He didn’t feel much like making small talk to ease things. The least they could do was feel uncomfortable, he thought.
He remembered the last time he’d arrived, at the beginning of the summer, when he and Muti and Jaffar all babbled happily at each other, catching everyone up on their news, the adults talking enthusiastically about plans for the summer. But then, everything was different this time, with Baba gone. Suddenly life was gravely serious.
Uncle Omar invited Jameel to sit, but he continued to stand, wolfing down the paratha. Muti nodded her head over one shoulder and spread one hand out on the table, all five fingers splayed before her. It was their signal to meet out in the garden in five minutes.
“May I be excused?” she mumbled, standing and leaving before there was an answer. Uncle Omar was telling Jameel how various duties were to be divided up that morning in preparation for the funeral.
“You should come with me,” he said. “People will be calling to pay their respects, and also to greet you as the new tribal leader.” Jameel’s eyes followed Muti’s back as she walked through the French doors into the front hallway and out through the side door into the garden.
He waited, listening to Uncle Omar for a few more moments, and then excused himself. Conversation resumed around the table, and Jameel left through the French doors, the same way Muti had gone, ignoring his father’s voice calling him back.
He hurried through the formal garden, past the swimming pool, and through the gate to the little arbor, where he found Muti sitting in the swing near the koi pond behind the rose trellis.
Muti was crying, the tears a wet film on her cheeks. He sat down beside her. She wiped at her face with the end of her dupatta, sniffing loudly. During the summer Auntie Leyla had commented several times that Muti could never quite overcome the “rough manners” she’d acquired from her mother’s relatives. But Jameel knew the rough manners were a protest against Auntie Leyla and her treatment of Muti, who was proud of her mother’s family.
“You’ve read Baba’s letter?” she asked, sniffing one last time and rubbing at her nose with the heel of her hand. He nodded. They spoke softly so no one who might come into the garden would hear them.
“How long have you known?” he asked. His voice sounded unnaturally gruff. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I only found out late last night, after Baba … after he died, after you were almost here. Believe me, Jameel, if I could have prevented you from coming in time, I would have done it. But that isn’t all …” She reached forward and put her hand on his forearm. “Jameel, you and I are to be married—very soon! I heard Omar and Leyla—”
“To each other?” Jameel blurted. “Why me? Why shouldn’t Uncle Omar lead the tribe? Why don’t they leave me alone?”
“It’s not just you!” said Muti, staring at him in disbelief. “What about me? They send me to school, encourage me to be educated, and then just … order me to marry you? Without any care for what I think? How do you think that makes me feel? I know you’ve got Chloe—but I have someone, too!” Jameel looked at her closely. They were silent for a moment. Jameel felt light-headed. The scent of jasmine floated through the garden.
“Look,” Muti said, leaning forward again, whispering urgently, “I know the last thing you want is to marry me. But I don’t want to marry you either—so don’t act like I’m part of a plot to trap you!” She stopped speaking and her face crumpled. She hid behind her hands, and her shoulders shook as she cried. Jameel put his arm around his cousin’s shoulders. He and Muti had always shared confidences. They’d comforted each other when Muti’s puppy died of distemper. They’d told each other secrets all their lives. Marrying Muti would be like marrying his sister!
“Jameel,” Muti said in a voice muffled by tears and her hands, “I love someone, too. Even if it’s hopeless—I couldn’t even think until now about what I heard Omar and Leyla say last night. I want to run away, go back to the desert …”
“They tricked us!” Jameel said, his voice quivering with rage.
“If they’d told me, I would never have come, not even to see Grandfather!”
“That’s exactly why they didn’t tell either one of us,” said Muti, wiping angrily at her tears and gulping away her sobs. Jameel was being so selfish—she wanted to tell him everything that weighed so heavily on her, and he was so absorbed in how he was affected—he wouldn’t even hear her! Most of all she longed to tell him about her mother. And she knew she could not.
“How did you find out?” asked Jameel.
“The way I find everything out,” she said. Jameel knew about the chair in the corner of her room and the sounds that traveled through the water pipe. “I came home from the hospital with Omar last night, and I heard them. They said the marriage would be arranged right after the funeral. That was early this morning, just a few hours after Baba died. They’re afraid Uncle Nazir will try to make a grab for power.”
Jameel stared at her. When he and Muti were children they cut their fingers and pressed them together, sharing their blood, like characters in old movies in America. Once she had saved him from a swarm of bees, beating at them with her dupatta and leading him to the swimming pool, jumping in with him and staying under the water until the bees flew away. They were cousins and they were best friends. But married?
“I’m sorry, Muti,” Jameel said. “But my life—both of our lives—are just beginning. We have so much to look forward to …”
“And once we’re married our lives will come to an end?” Muti looked at him hard. And then she smiled. “Maybe we should run away together … so we wouldn’t have to get married!”
The House of Djinn Page 11
