A Thousand Questions

by Saadia Faruqi

  “What is all this, Mimi?” She seems tired. I wonder what time it is. Judging from the grumbling in my stomach, it’s past eight o’clock.

  It’s too late to hide the newspapers, so I cast around for an excuse. “Just using some old newspapers for a project,” I utter, surprised at how easily the lie comes to me. She knows I’m still mad at her for hiding the truth from me. I’ve hardly spoken to her in the last week. While Sakina and I have been busy experiencing the sights of Karachi, Mom has been . . . out with friends.

  She’s frowning now. “What project?”

  “Uh . . . a collage?”

  I can tell she’s not convinced. I’ve never shown even an ounce of interest in art. I look into her eyes with a mix of anger and innocence, daring her to challenge me. Hoping she doesn’t.

  “Samia, are you coming?” Nana’s voice from downstairs rouses us out of our staring match.

  Mom sighs and walks out. “Time for dinner, young lady,” she calls out. “Be sure to show me this mysterious collage when you’re finished.”

  Dinner is a silent affair. Sakina and her father have already left, along with all the other servants, so we have nobody to wait on us. I’m relieved. Having silent human beings around the house picking up your things and opening doors for you is very strange.

  “The servants have started leaving early because of all the election drama,” Nani complains, obviously missing the silent human beings more than I do. “It’s very annoying but can’t be helped. The traffic gets really bad because of all the parades.”

  We’re eating leftover goat-potato curry and chickpea pulao, or at least everyone else is. I find the goat too spicy and the chickpeas too hard. I make do with plain rice and mint yogurt sprinkled on top like a dressing, and almost all the salad. “We can eat dinner by ourselves once in a while, Ammi,” Mom says, and she and Nana exchange a laughing glance.

  “I keep hearing about this election everywhere I go,” I say, gulping down some water. “Who are you guys going to vote for?”

  Nani gives me a stern look. “Oh no, voting is for poor people. We don’t vote.”

  Mom sets down her glass with a small thud. “Are you serious, Ammi? Why the . . . why not?”

  Nana soothes Mom’s hand with his. “Your mother is just being melodramatic,” he says. “We will certainly vote as soon as we figure out who to vote for.”

  Nani adds, sniffing, “There’s no point. They’re all cheats and frauds, you know.”

  I know that can’t be right. “I think the Pakistan Socialist Party is pretty good,” I offer, remembering the article of Dad’s I’ve just read. “They are doing some great things in rural areas, and they could be very good for Karachi.”

  All the adults turn to look at me as if I’ve grown two heads. I look down at my T-shirt, thinking it has something bad written on it. It’s a picture of bicycle handlebars with the words LIFE BEHIND BARS written underneath. Nothing too radical, although you never know if Pakistani grandparents will appreciate the joke. “What?” I ask.

  “How do you know about Pakistani politics?” Nana asks, his face a mixture of confusion and pride.

  Before I can stop myself, I foolishly admit, “From Dad’s columns.”

  Mom gasps louder than someone in a horror movie. Nani’s spoon clatters onto the floor. Nana just stares at me, his mouth slightly open.

  I smile weakly.

  22

  Sakina

  The Newspaper Office

  I have another special outing planned for Mimi today, so special that I can’t stop smiling as we head to the car. Malik is wiping the bonnet down with a cloth. We climb in and wait for him to finish. “How much do you like roller coasters, Mimi?” I ask, wanting to give her a hint.

  Mimi shakes her head. “No rides today. No touristy place.”

  She looks serious. “What’s happened—everything okay?” I ask her.

  She sighs louder than a cow with too much milk. “I spilled the beans about Dad’s columns,” she admits, twisting her hands around her scarf. Today it’s a bold red polka-dotted one, over a plain black T-shirt. She’s hunched over in the car, so I can’t see what the T-shirt says. Something strange and not even remotely funny, I’m sure.

  Spilling beans doesn’t sound like a great catastrophe.

  “It means tell everyone a secret,” Mimi adds, seeing my confusion.

  “Was it supposed to be a secret?” I ask, confused.

  She looks at me as if I’m slow. “Yeah, it was. Mom gets this angry look on her face whenever Dad is mentioned. And Nani has nothing nice to say about him, ever. The other day I overheard Nana and Nani talking about the olden days, when the neighbors all made fun of them because their daughter ran off with a white man.”

  I pout a little to show her I’m sorry for her. “That’s why you should never listen to other people’s conversations,” I say. “You never hear anything nice.”

  “Gee, thanks for the advice.”

  She doesn’t look very thankful, but still I say, “You’re welcome.”

  Malik puts away his cloth, gets in, and starts the car. He turns around to look at Mimi. “Where are we going today, Maryam Ji?” he asks her in Urdu.

  I open my mouth to tell him, but she frowns at me. “Here,” she says, handing him a folded piece of paper. “I need you to take me here today.”

  We’re on the main road when I can’t take the suspense anymore. “Where are we going?” I ask. “I thought I was in charge of deciding.”

  “You’re the one who told me that I’m the boss.” Her mouth is set in that obstinate little line I’m getting to know so well.

  “I did,” I admit quietly. It’s a fact I’ve tried to ignore. But the ugly reality of my station in life versus hers rears its head too often, mocking me. Her clothes are always so clean, and her hair always smells of a mixture of strawberry and lime. But it’s the nails that give her away: short, white, and gleaming with health.

  “Then wait and see,” she tells me.

  I curl my fingers into my palms, hiding the dirt under the nails that never seems to come out, no matter how hard I try, and wait for us to arrive wherever she’s decreed. “So what was the family’s reaction?” I ask, tired of the silence. How will I ever fully grasp this blasted English language if I don’t talk more than two sentences at a time?

  She sighs. “They were shocked. Nani kept opening and closing her mouth like a fish.”

  An alarm runs through me. “Did you tell her I gave you those newspapers?” I practically shout. I have no need to be in the middle of this family drama.

  She shakes her head. “No, she didn’t even ask about that. Just told me to stop being so interested in him.” She scoffs. “Can you imagine? My own dad! Why wouldn’t I be interested in him?”

  I feel my muscles relax. “I can just imagine. She’s Begum Sahiba, after all.”

  It’s a long drive, past the malls we’ve visited, past the museum, until we’re in the financial part of town. I’ve only been here once before, when Abba needed to submit some documents to the bank to prove his identity. We traveled together on his motorcycle, coughing in the fumes of cars and buses, swerving to avoid busy drivers going too fast. Everybody is busy here, Sakina, Abba told me. Busy working hard, making money.

  We finally stop in front of a tall white building with windows so big they take up almost the entire wall. “I’ll let you out here, Maryam Ji, and park on the next street,” Malik says.

  Mimi wipes her hands on her lap, not moving. “Aren’t you going to get out?” I ask.

  She swallows once, then twice. “Okay,” she says, but she keeps sitting.

  Impatient, I get out of the car and walk over to her side. “I didn’t come all this way to sit in the car,” I tell her gently. “I could be making delicious lunch for your nani and nana right now, you know. They love eating my food!”

  She lets out a deep breath and opens the door. “Nani especially,” she says and walks toward the building.

  She
still hasn’t told me where we’re headed. I open my mouth to ask again, but just then we get to the main doors, and I see the brass lettering on the wall. Dawn Newspapers.

  “My friends, I’m so happy to see you all here today!”

  A man with a big mustache, wearing a stiffly starched white cotton shalwar kameez, stands outside the Dawn offices on a little platform. A crowd of about fifty or sixty people shuffle their feet and wipe their sweat in front of him. Two things are apparent from the scene: this is another one of those infuriating election rallies, and Mimi is listening closely, her mission forgotten.

  Because of course I’ve figured out what we’re doing here by now. I may not be able to speak perfect English, but I’m not stupid. Mimi’s been determined to see her father again since the minute she found out he was in Karachi. Which may be a good thing for her, but it’s bound to get me in trouble.

  “Mimi, let’s go. We shouldn’t be here,” I tell her fiercely.

  “Shh!”

  “I’m supposed to be taking you sightseeing,” I insist in a low voice. “Begum Sahiba and your mother are going to be very angry with me if they find out we’re at the Dawn offices.”

  “Then don’t tell them.”

  I grit my teeth. It’s too loud here. Better to wait until this speech ends and the crowd disperses. Maybe Mimi will listen then.

  Thankfully, the mustached man is at the tail end of his speech. “I promise to end poverty by providing jobs to all those who are unemployed! I promise to get rid of the scourge of nepotism, and the way rich, important people get their relatives into positions of power. I promise to clean up the streets of Karachi and fill them with beautiful trees!”

  The audience claps wildly. I gaze past the crowds to the back of the building, where a big pile of garbage invites emaciated dogs and children alike. They’re rummaging for scraps, and I know they are more my kin than this mustached man. Mr. Aziz. I know who he is; Abba has almost made up his mind to vote for him, despite my protests. I’ve seen him on television, pleading for my family’s votes in his greasy voice, his party workers going around the neighborhood like an unruly army making empty threats. Vote for Mr. Aziz if you know what’s good for you.

  Abba knows what’s good for him. But I’m not that gullible. I can’t be swayed by empty promises of sweeping changes, when my neighborhood streets are full of garbage and flies. I’ll wait and see what this election cycle brings, but I’m not hopeful. Pessimist, Abba calls me, but he knows I’m right.

  Finally, after much clapping and whistling and shouting, the crowd disappears. Mr. Aziz leaves in a long black sedan the size of a poor man’s hut. The entrance to the white building is suddenly wide open, the brass of the Dawn twinkling in the sunlight as if inviting us in. “They’ll have air-conditioning inside,” Mimi pants, and pulls me in.

  I look at her. Her T-shirt is soaked with sweat, and I can finally see what it says. BE A FROOT LOOP IN A WORLD FULL OF CHEERIOS. I can only understand 50 percent of these words, but I don’t ask what the rest mean. She’s fiddling with her scarf as we go through the security line and get x-rayed for the sake of safety. The machine beeps, and she belatedly takes out her phone from the pocket of her capri pants. “Sorry,” she whispers, her face almost white.

  I forget that I was trying to convince her to go back home. I can see how nervous she is, and I remember the tears in her eyes when she was talking about her father. How can I worry about getting in trouble when she’s got such a big burden? I have to help her.

  I look around, then walk purposefully ahead. There’s a receptionist nearby, dressed in a blue-green tie-dye shalwar kameez with a matching dupatta covering her head. Her fingernails are covered with a bright pink shade of nail polish, and the exact same shade of lipstick adorns her pursed mouth. A name tag on her chest proclaims Rubina Ahmad in trim black letters. “How may I help you?” Rubina asks us in Urdu.

  Mimi is quiet. I roll my eyes at her. “We’re looking for Tom Scotts, a reporter from America,” I tell the receptionist in shaking Urdu.

  She stares at me as if I’m in the wrong place, which perhaps I am. “This is not America, little girl,” she tells me, sneering.

  I take a deep breath. “Yes, I know that. He writes for Dawn.” I pull Mimi’s arm a bit. “She’s from America. She knows him.”

  Rubina’s demeanor changes instantly. She smiles sweetly at Mimi. “Is that true, dear?” she drawls in English. “You’re from the States?”

  Mimi nods, still frozen. Really, this is getting annoying. Why did she come here when she was so scared of actually finding what she was looking for? Not what, who. Or is it whom?

  Rubina asks, “Do you know the Kardashians? They’re so great, aren’t they?”

  “Um, I don’t really watch that show,” Mimi mumbles. I elbow her and she straightens up. “The reporter, please?”

  Rubina runs her sharp nails over her keyboard. “Spell the name for me, darling?”

  Mimi clears her throat. “T-O-M space S-C-O-T-T-S,” she says in a tone so low I can hardly hear her. Then she repeats more loudly: “T-O-M space S-C-O-T-T-S.”

  Rubina frowns at her screen as if it’s got rude jokes written on it. Finally, she looks up again. “Sorry, there’s nobody here by that name,” she tells us. But I see her eyes, and they are saying something different.

  “Please, I’m sure you know him?” I plead. Mimi is back to looking very ill.

  The woman turns her frown to me. “Of course not. We don’t know the important reporters upstairs.” She looks me up and down with curled hot pink lips. “And neither do you, servant girl.”

  I gulp. How do people always know I’m a servant? Do I smell? Do I give off a certain vibe? I glare back at her, unfazed. I’ve been called worse, and I’m with the boss girl at the moment, so I’m certainly not scared.

  Rubina Ahmad goes back to her work. “Say hi to Kim K for me,” she calls out.

  Mimi keeps standing and wringing her hands. It’s like her feet are stuck to the floor and she can’t move. A security guard wanders toward us. “You girls need to leave now,” he calls. “We’re not allowed to give out contact information about our reporters. Safety purposes.”

  I take one look at his set face, and the gun he’s fingering at his hip, and drag Mimi outside. “Wait,” she protests, but I march out to the next street where Malik is waiting with the car.

  “No. We have no business being there, Mimi,” I say. “You heard that woman. Your father doesn’t work there.”

  “But that’s not true. You saw the newspapers. He does work there! Or at least he used to.” She’s almost crying, refusing to get into the car. Somebody honks from behind us. Malik honks back and shouts, “Patience, man! Can’t you see the little girl is upset?”

  I open the door of the car and push her inside. “We have to go, Mimi.”

  We drive away, and I turn my face to the other side so I don’t have to see the tears gushing out of her eyes.

  23

  Mimi

  Red Eyes and a Resolve

  As the days pass, my head seems to be exploding with knotty little thoughts scurrying around inside my brain. The only good news is that Nana’s internet has finally been fixed, so I spend the weekend deep in my bedroom, doing all sorts of online searches that take forever to load. Tom Scotts. An actor in New Zealand. A guy in a police uniform in England. The president of some farm association in Iowa. A YouTube star called Tom Scott without the s. I never realized how common Dad’s name is.

  I try Thomas Scotts, Dawn columnists, Karachi, Pakistan. At least that gets the right results, but there’s nothing worth mentioning. A few articles he’s written, a few images I’ve seen before. Absolutely zero about a wife and daughter in Houston, Texas.

  “Ugh!” I shout more than once. “Tell me something I don’t know, universe! Tell me where to find him.”

  The universe, of course, is silent. Unless you count the blaring election parades that pass by the house every night like clockwork. “I wish
I could just get on one of those cars and drive away,” I grumble. Nana’s birds sit in the tree outside my window, beaks open, tweeting what they think of me.

  By early next week, the parades have started driving by the house in the afternoon as well. The people with loudspeakers are even louder, more musical and emphatic, reminding us all to vote for their candidates. “Less than three weeks to go,” mutters Nani darkly one day, “before all this farce in the name of democracy will be over and done with.”

  She’s joined us in the family room as Nana and I attempt another game of chess. She usually takes a nap in the afternoons, but Mom has been going out almost every day now, and Nani has been taking her place quietly in the corner near the windows, examining the oil paints with a disdainful hand. “Have you decided who to vote for?” I ask, aiming for a cheerful tone.

  Nana gives me a warning glance. “No use talking politics to this one, my dear.”

  Nani waves her arm at us, her bangles glinting in the sunlight. “It’s all right. I’ve been doing some research as well,” she says. “Your bombshell the other day about reading your father’s writings made me realize that we all need to get a little bit more educated about the issues that face our country.”

  I abandon the chess game and go sit next to her. “Can you tell me about my dad, please?” I beg, making a pretty face. “Mom hardly ever talks about him.”

  She sniffs. “What do you expect? He was quite useless as a husband and provider, you know.”

  Nana coughs loudly, but she shushes him. “Oh, he was. No use denying it!” She turns to me. “I’m sorry if it hurts your feelings, dear, but we tried telling your mother not to go through with it.”

  I harden my heart. I need to hear these things. “Go on, please,” I whisper.

  “What else is there to say? The neighbors gossiped all year long, saying we couldn’t find a good enough match for our daughter and so she had to settle for some white man far away. Said we were bad parents for letting it happen. I couldn’t step foot in the Karachi Gymkhana for months without people turning and staring at me.”