Razia

by Abda Khan

  Farah was blown away. She felt her body waver a little, as though she might faint. She steadied herself, and blinked a few times as she tried to take it all in. What the hell was going on? Listening to Razia’s father, and the simple manner in which he spoke, it was obvious to Farah that he would not be able to find much out, and she knew she had to take charge and try and discover exactly how and why Razia had ended up under arrest.

  ‘Yes, of course, I will try and help. I am as shocked as you. I will make some enquiries and come back to you. I am just going to get a piece of paper and a pen, so I can take down your telephone number.’

  Farah looked in her bag and found a blue biro and a scrap piece of paper.

  ‘I am phoning from our village shop. I do not have a telephone at my house. When I have finished, I will hand the phone to the shopkeeper and he will tell you the number. If you phone this number, then he will get a message to me and I will come to the shop. Please, Madam, please help, we are in a desperate situation. We just want get our daughter back. My son is at the local police station here, but they are not giving him any information, and my wife is beside herself with worry. She hasn’t stopped crying since they told us.’

  ‘I understand. I will phone you back.’

  Farah took down the number. She left her toast and tea on the coffee table, and ran to get changed. As she was getting ready, she remembered how carefully Razia had packed the little suitcase, and how she had watched her do it. She knew for a fact that there were no drugs in that suitcase when Razia left London. So the drugs had found their way in after Razia had landed in Pakistan.

  Farah wondered where Zaheer was right now.

  22

  ‘Come in, Miss Farah. Take a seat,’ said Mr Amin. His manners were all old-school charm; he stood up as Farah walked in, and he sat back down only after she was seated in one of the chairs opposite him.

  ‘I can safely assume that I already know why you are here to see me.’

  ‘I want some answers!’ demanded Farah. She felt anxious and jumpy. She waited for a response; she hoped that Mr Amin would tell her that there had been some terrible mistake and that Razia was now safely with her family, but perhaps deep down she knew this was wishful thinking.

  ‘I received a phone call from my people in Pakistan. I had asked them to contact me once the girl was safely reunited with her family. But our man, who was waiting with the family for Razia’s arrival, was told by the police that she had been arrested in Islamabad.’

  ‘Her father seems to think they found drugs in her luggage.’ Farah was keen to get to the bottom of what had happened as quickly as possible.

  ‘They did; I have personally spoken with one of the senior police officers in the case, and he has told me that they found a substantial amount of heroin.’

  Farah thought back to the packing of the suitcase. She could smell the foul play at work here.

  ‘You know as well as I do that Razia wouldn’t be able to tell heroin from icing sugar. She wouldn’t know what it was if it was wafted right in front of her face. Furthermore, I helped her pack her bag, there was nothing untoward in it. She came to me with one small carrier bag of old clothes which weren’t even worth keeping. We threw them out. Everything that she took with her was what I had bought for her. I watched her as she packed, the whole time.’

  ‘And that may be true,’ Mr Amin responded, ‘but nevertheless heroin was found amongst her belongings when she tried to board the connecting flight to Lahore Airport. The sniffer dog picked it up. I have it on very good authority. There is no room for doubt as far as the facts go.’

  ‘You know her flight was changed. The travel company said there was some administrative error. So, they put her on a flight to Islamabad, and then on to Lahore, rather than allowing her to fly directly. They said they would look after her. When she stopped off in Islamabad, when she was being “looked after” between the two flights, that’s when they must have planted the drugs.’

  Mr Amin shifted forward in his chair, and placed his hands on the desk, one on top of the other. Farah waited with patience for him to respond.

  ‘This is a very serious accusation. Who exactly are “they”?’ asked Mr Amin.

  ‘“You will bitterly regret this”,’ Farah muttered.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Mr Amin.

  ‘No, sorry, I didn’t mean you. Those are the exact words uttered as a threat to me and Razia by Zaheer Mansur. He is the one behind this. How could I have been so foolish as to underestimate him? The real question is, however, what are you going to do about this?’ asked Farah.

  ‘Regardless of what he did or didn’t say to you, the fact is that Zaheer is still in London. He and his wife are leaving tonight, so he wasn’t even in Pakistan when all of this happened. Even if what you are saying is true, and right now I have no idea what the truth is, I cannot do anything unless I have concrete evidence. This is a police matter now. It’s out of my hands.’

  ‘But you must be able to do something! Make some phone calls, talk to some people …’

  ‘Not without evidence.’

  ‘Fine! Then I will have to get the evidence myself, won’t I?’

  ‘And how exactly are you going to do that?’ asked Mr Amin.

  Farah grabbed her handbag, pulled out her phone and opened a travel app.

  ‘I’m going to start by catching the next flight out to Pakistan.’

  Farah’s parents were not very happy when they received the sudden news about her unexpected visit to Pakistan. Her father had last visited over five years ago, when his own father had passed away, his mother having died a few years before that. His parents had spent the last years of their lives enjoying retirement in Pakistan, aside from the annual summer visit to England when they stayed with their son and daughter-in-law. Farah’s parents had always intended to take her to Pakistan themselves someday, but the timing was never right once she got past the age of about nine. From then onwards, she was forever preparing for or sitting exams: grammar school 11+ entrance exams, end-of-year exams, GCSEs, A levels, degree … and the years just rolled by. But there was another reason why they were never in a hurry to take her back to her roots: at the back of their minds there was always the threat of relatives chasing them about Farah’s betrothal the second they set foot back in Pakistan. This prospect had always managed to make them put the visit off to another time, a time which never came.

  Farah was deliberately sketchy with the details when she telephoned her mum. She knew that if she gave all the particulars they would worry incessantly, and probably try their very best to talk her out of going – which they attempted to do anyway.

  ‘Why do you have to go? Surely someone else from your office could be sent instead? Can’t you say no?’ her mother asked.

  ‘No, Mum. I can’t say no; it’s a work matter. It’s my case, and I have to go over,’ Farah replied. She did feel guilty about not telling her mum the whole truth, but she knew that if she said it was office related then her mother would make less of a fuss.

  ‘But you have never had to go abroad for work before?’

  ‘Well, there’s always a first time, Mum. It’s a really important case.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘I’m not sure at the moment,’ Farah said. ‘I will know more when I get there.’

  ‘But did it have to be Pakistan?’ Farah’s mother moaned. ‘Couldn’t it have been Switzerland or Canada or New Zealand? Any one of those safe countries where there is no crime, and nothing ever happens. Why Pakistan? Where there are bomb blasts and murders and kidnappings and—’

  Farah thought back to some of the most devastating terrorist attacks in recent years in Pakistan, reported on both the Asian Sky channels and in mainstream news reports. In the back of her mind, she had to acknowledge to herself that it wasn’t the safest place to go to, but she would have to put those fears to one side if she was going to help Razia.

  ‘Mum! You can’t believe everything you hear. And it
is my Motherland; it’s probably about time that I saw it for myself.’

  ‘OK, OK. But please, be very careful. Pakistan is not like England; everything is different, and nothing is straightforward. Even to cross the road you have to zigzag around the cars and the overloaded buses and motorbikes and donkeys and carts, and the tangas, whilst you continuously read your Ayat-al-Kursi, praying hard that you won’t get knocked over. And absolutely no walking around on your own, young lady. Make sure you travel only by car with a trusted driver arranged by the hotel or the work people, from door to door. And also, make sure you phone us as soon as you get there, and every day after that.’

  ‘Of course, Mum,’ Farah assured her. ‘I’ll be back before you know it.’

  ‘Wait, I haven’t finished yet.’

  Farah let out a stifled breath, but didn’t say anything. She thought it best to let her mother get it all out of her system.

  ‘Don’t be too quick to give money to beggars, however sorry you feel for them. And only drink bottled water. Do not go out after dusk, and try and buy one of those vests with a pocket at the front to wear under your kameez or blouse, in which to hide your money. And avoid dressing too Western; they will spot you a mile off. If they know you are from abroad they will see you as an easy target.’

  None of this was helping Farah in her mental preparation for the visit. She knew her mum meant well, but the warnings only served to heighten the nervousness that was grumbling away in her tummy.

  ‘OK, Mum.’

  ‘You promise?’

  ‘Pukka promise, Mum.’

  ‘OK, my darling. Khuda hafiz.’

  ‘Khuda hafiz, Mum.’

  23

  The direct flight to Islamabad from Heathrow Airport the next evening was packed to bursting. When Farah had enquired about a first-class seat, the price tag had sent her into a dizzy orbit, so she settled for economy. She had booked a room at the Marriott, which was widely thought to be the finest hotel in Islamabad, but, more importantly, was known for having the best security around.

  As she had never been to Pakistan before, she had never flown on the national carrier. But it couldn’t be all that bad, could it? This was the question she had comforted herself with. Surely, those tales about the flights which she had heard from the aunty jis, told in the most fervent and animated fashion, must have been highly exaggerated. Really, how awful could it be? she had asked herself.

  As soon as she had sat in the window seat that she had been allocated, buckled her belt and got comfortable, she was approached by a rather mouthy teenage girl who asked her if she would move, and she didn’t even say please. She was wearing a strange mix of clothes: a mid-length red and yellow stripy kameez with blue faded jeans, white Nike trainers and a headscarf which was stuck into place with a brooch pin that said ‘FU’. She had a huge skyward swoop of liquid eyeliner on each eye; the wings were so long and upwardly mobile that they almost joined with the thickly pencilled eyebrows. She was crunching on what seemed like a few mints.

  ‘So, will you move?’ she asked. ‘It’s just that if you go sit in my seat, then I can sit here next to my grandma and grandad, innit?’

  Farah looked at the grandparents. They were both stood in the aisle, staring at her meekly. The grandfather looked like he was well into his eighties. He wore a grey kurtha outfit, with a blue tank-top jumper, and had thick chunky brown-rimmed glasses. The grandmother looked a few years younger, but was small and frail-looking. She had a white chaddar gathered around herself. They looked so kind, and quiet, and timid. Especially when one compared them to the granddaughter. Farah obliged, and they swapped seats.

  Farah went and sat in the middle seat of the middle row. The large plane was filling up with noise, chatter, shouting, babies crying. The staff were trying their best to instil some sense of order in the cabin, with carefully worded phrases and frantic arm gestures, but through no fault of their own, they were failing miserably.

  Farah was sat next to an elderly Pakistani lady who appeared to be travelling on her own. She looked to be in her late sixties. She was on the chubby side, had silvery grey hair and was wearing a cream-coloured salwar kameez with a thick knitted camel-coloured cardigan that had huge pockets. She stopped a female flight attendant who was walking past to go help a passenger with the storage of her case. The flight attendant was wearing a uniform that looked as though it hadn’t been updated since the seventies. But she was very attractive: her hair was up in an intricate bun, her face was made up beautifully, and her gel nails were striking.

  ‘Beti, please can you get me some water?’ the old lady asked the flight attendant.

  The flight attendant smiled, and bent down to speak to the old lady.

  ‘If you could wait a few moments please, Madam. The flight is very nearly ready to take off, and as soon as we are in flight we will be bringing around the refreshments.’

  ‘But please, Miss, my throat is really very dry, and I am asthmatic.’ The old woman then started to cough. It was a convincing enough cough. She was not going to give up.

  ‘OK, just bear with me,’ replied the flight attendant, and went off to fetch the water.

  Farah watched the old lady; as soon as the flight attendant disappeared, so did the cough.

  The flight attendant reappeared after a minute or so with a glass of water. The old lady smiled, and quickly grabbed it from the flight attendant’s hands. She sipped it, and suddenly gasped. ‘This water is icy cold. I only drink warm water. Cold water is not good for you, you know. It damages the organs, and upsets your stomach, and it is bad for digestion. And it is especially bad for someone as ill as me. The doctor has warned me about drinking cold water. In fact, he has forbidden me from drinking it.’

  Nothing wrong with the voice though, Farah thought.

  ‘I’m sorry, Madam, I will fetch you some warm water,’ said the flight attendant with a smile that tried to disguise her gritted teeth.

  The old lady sat back in her chair and waited.

  The flight attendant promptly came back with a glass of warm water. The old lady had a gulp.

  ‘No, beti, this is too hot!’ the old lady shrieked.

  The flight attendant looked at Farah, and Farah couldn’t help but shake her head and roll her eyes. Unlike Farah, the flight attendant remained patient. She was just about to open her mouth to say something when the old lady got in there first.

  ‘I tell you what,’ said the old lady, ‘just get me a can of cola instead.’

  Farah’s jaw dropped.

  ‘All cabin crew to their seats, please, plane is ready for take-off,’ came the announcement, which luckily for the flight attendant was a timely cue for her to leg it; she informed the old lady she would come back to her after the flight had taken off.

  The rest of the flight followed in the same vein. The eight hours passed painfully slowly, and there was absolutely no chance of Farah sleeping. The in-flight entertainment system was on the blink, so there was no prospect of whiling away the time with a good movie. The fat bald guy next to Farah on the left snored raucously all night. Two guys a couple of rows up to the right of her decided it was OK to stand in the middle of the aisle and chat away in Pushto throughout a night flight. They were laughing and joking, and the worst of it was that Farah couldn’t understand a word they were saying. Every time Farah turned towards them with an indignant look, instead of acknowledging the death stare and quietening down, they just carried straight on, and even worse, the older of the two men winked at her each time she looked their way, which infuriated her even more.

  To add to all of this, there was something even worse than the noise coming from the fat bald guy and the Pushto dudes; the kid in the seat immediately in front of her decided to take her shoes and socks off, thereby baring the smelliest feet Farah had ever come across in her life. And to top it all, the smelly girl’s kid brother in the seat next to her thought it was OK to mess around with the buttons on his seat all night, pressing it from upright to recline
repeatedly. Farah felt like she was trapped in a nightmare. In the end, she stuck her earphones in, played one of her calming playlists from her phone and pretended to fall asleep; as she did so, her thoughts drifted towards Razia: Where was she now? How was she feeling? Alone? Scared? And what about Zaheer? She wondered if he knew that she was on her way to Pakistan. She speculated about what lay in store for her once she got there. She was, after all, leaping into the unknown.

  24

  ISLAMABAD

  Farah stood for what seemed like a gruelling eternity in the long, tedious passport queue, before she reached the desk at the front, and presented herself to the immigration officer, a tall, thin man of about forty years of age, with a neat beard and moustache. He carefully compared the image in the passport with her face (the photo was now eight years old) and checked the visa stamp which she had hurriedly had endorsed at the High Commission; having Mr Amin as a contact had proved very handy for this task.

  ‘How are you today, Miss?’ the officer asked her.

  ‘I’m very well, thank you,’ replied Farah.

  ‘Are you travelling alone?’

  ‘Yes, as you see.’

  ‘For what purpose?’

  ‘I’m here for work. I’m a lawyer.’

  ‘You are from the UK, I see. Your parents?’

  ‘They’re from Pakistan, but I was born in the UK.’

  ‘Very good, Miss. Now please look into the camera.’

  ‘You’re taking my photo?’ Farah asked, without thinking.

  ‘Standard procedure, Miss.’

  Farah stood as she was told and looked into the obtrusive black camera that was directed towards her face.

  The immigration officer stamped her passport and thanked her for her co-operation.

  This was followed by an equally long wait for her suitcase. Farah couldn’t help but feel nervous. There was a tiny chance that her suitcase might be checked, and while she knew she had nothing to hide, after what had happened to Razia she couldn’t help but feel an inkling of distrust. Fortunately, she breezed through with her suitcase, and finally made her way out of Islamabad Airport, which was now officially known as Benazir Bhutto International Airport, after the late leader whom many in Pakistan regarded as a martyr. In light of the albeit limited knowledge Farah had regarding the position of women in Pakistan, she appreciated what a big deal it was for Benazir Bhutto to have become the first female prime minister of Pakistan; not only that, but she was the world’s first female Muslim leader. Even given the political prominence of her family, that still could not have been easy for her in such a male-dominated society.