Saffron Dreams

by Shaila Abdullah

  I glanced over at Abu, who had just delivered the hurtful news, and our gazes locked. There was a plea in his voice meant for me, and I understood it in more ways than I cared to. You perfect that art of deciphering the unspoken words when you live in the Amaan household and confront a situation over and over again.

  That morning, Abu’s glance meant that I was to dutifully assume Ami’s duties and become emotionally present for my siblings. It also meant that I should take charge of the help in the house, the driver, the gardener, Mai Jan, etc. It wouldn’t be that hard. Ami had perfected the role of a lazy commander. Out in the real world of working folks, the help were almost always on their own since Ami was never good at supervising. Even when one of the newly hired help, Shama, the maid assigned to do laundry in the house, started stealing, Ami was oblivious to the entire thing. I was the one who caught her red-handed, fingers deep in Ami’s bedside drawer, drawing out a wad of cash that Ami had carelessly left there.

  “She hates us, doesn’t she?” Zoha asked me once.

  “No, she doesn’t.” I carefully weighed my words. “She just doesn’t know how to love us.”

  Hate. Such a strong word, but it was also a mother’s final parting gift to us, the knowledge that she despised us, me most of all.

  “I wish I never had you, Arissa!” Ami had said, tears streaming down her face as she dragged her suitcase out the door. “It’s because of you that your Abu and I were never happy together!”

  And there it was: my baggage for many years.

  FIVE

  June 1996

  The mango season arrives in Karachi with an explosion of the senses. The summer that Zoha got married, it had an enormous appeal for all of us.

  The scent of its arrival permeated the four walls of the house, and a waft of it found its way to the upper floor. The entire house was alive with the aroma of Sindri, the plump yellow mango with a soft, luscious interior and an unforgiving center. Azad Baba got only the export quality for us. Not a scar or mark appeared on the coat of these mangoes. The ones that got squished or marred were separated and distributed among the help in the house. Only the perfect ones were reserved for us, and we didn’t even feel like royalty most days. Azad Baba brought the mangoes in the house in wooden crates with lids, nails sticking out on all sides. In our hurry to get to them, we often nicked ourselves on those nails.

  The mangoes were cut finely to put into the fruit custard that was to be served on the day of Zoha’s mehndi ceremony. The green ones were separated for pickling. Mango pulp was used to make fresh juice for Zoha every day, while she was doused in ubtan daily to achieve a fairer skin. Not that she needed any help. She had taken after Ami, with her clear, pale skin that contrasted well with her wild, mesmerizing eyes, and the knowledge of her many assets and the effect they had on others. I was the plain one in the family; I had inherited Abu’s dark complexion and his wide-set eyes. I thought of my straight long hair as a chief attribute and had nurtured it for years by applying a generous amount of coconut oil every two days.

  Zoha’s match was arranged by a matchmaker whom we loved to hate. Her name was Tehmina Bua and she staggered her heavy bent body in right after the festival of Eid that year with a huge black burqa cloak over her. The cloak carried the odor of having been worn an entire month without being washed and I had the urge to snatch it from her and dunk it in ten cups of detergent. How hard is it to maintain proper hygiene? I found it irksome. She was a matchmaker and bore an expression of forced jubilation that was both comical and annoying at the same time. Her visits only meant one thing. Kisi ki shamat aai he, Zoha and I joked. Somebody would be hitched up in the age-old tradition of arranged marriage, a science perfected over centuries. Although Abu was very open to the idea of us finding our own life mates, Tehmina Bua’s visits were still tolerated in our house, so as not to create any bad sentiments within the community. It was ironic that both Zoha and I ended up having arranged marriages through her connections.

  Bua constantly chewed betel leaf paan and brought with her a little attaché case that was a virtual paan assembling factory with its red Areca palm mixture, anise, lime paste, catechu, and crushed cardamom seeds. In one sitting, she could make and devour as many as five, and she never bothered to offer any to her attentive and at times irate audience.

  “Buri adat he,” she would declare, cursing her habit, peering at us over her glasses, her eyes underlined by two stacked pouches of loose skin. “Better to stay away.”

  Sian, our younger brother, had a theory about that habit. He believed Tehmina Bua added a few shots of tobacco to her paan to make them more flavorful. We were suspicious of a small mysteriously unlabelled container inside her mini paan shop. As we were trained to do, Zoha and I brought in a tray of treats when she arrived—some nan khattais, soft crunchy cookies with a dab of jelly and pistachio center, and on hot Karachi days, two tall glasses of Shehzad mango squash with a few cubes of ice in each glass. On days the temperature soared really high, we purposely forgot to put ice in her drink, much to her chagrin.

  “What will you girls do when you go to your own homes? Your sasural? Hain?” she reprimanded us. “Mothers-in-laws have little patience for such forgetfulness. Better eat some almonds daily. It will make you more alert, han.”

  And we covered our mouths with our dupattas to keep from laughing as we escaped to our rooms.

  That day, Tehmina Bua’s cheeks looked puffed as if she was holding a very important secret captive in her mouth. It was that or the paan. She sat across from Abu and plunged right in. “Bhai Saheb, these kinds of matters are best discussed among women, but with Saira Bibi gone—”

  Her voice trailed off meaningfully and Abu looked irritated at the inference. Ami’s frequent absence in our lives, especially at pivotal junctures, provided ready fodder for the gossip mill in the neighborhood.

  Tehmina Bua looked at me and frowned as I sat across from her after serving her instead of leaving the room as Zoha did. She downed the contents of her glass in one slurpy gulp, still staring at me. She perhaps considered it objectionable for me to be in the same room where marriage proposals were going to be evaluated for me. Little did she know that in a confidential chat that I had had with Abu a few months earlier, I had convinced him that I wasn’t keen on getting married any time soon. My work as a freelance writer for Sahara, a new fashion magazine, kept me busy, and Abu agreed, with much cajoling from me, that I needed to build my career. I also asked him to consider proposals for Zoha if she were willing. She had just finished her bachelor’s in commerce and lacked the ambition and drive to either study further or get a job somewhere. Not that she needed to get a job. Abu’s salary as a cardiologist and his many assets brought in enough to keep our home running smoothly.

  “Saira is indisposed at the moment,” Abu said, clearing his throat and declining his squash. “You can talk to me. What is it that you want to say?”

  “What to say, Tehsin Bhai? You have a house full of girls,” Tehmina Bua said sadly, raising her hand heavenward in a dramatic gesture. “Allah ki den hai.”

  I felt annoyed. We all knew what she meant—that girls are a burden to the family until they are married off. No wonder the woman rubbed me the wrong way, although she seemed to be doing a great service to mankind in an environment where it was not easy for singles to meet and fall in love. Not that most families wanted that. Most were content with the well-oiled vehicle of arranged marriage, which gave them perfect control over their children’s destinies.

  “There is a proposal from a very good family. Amrikan returned. Has his own shop selling prescription glasses. Very nice family. About 20 to 25 years old.”

  When Bua said a prospective suitor was 20 to 25 old, it was safe to add another ten years to his age. Car mechanics became engineers when she read their CVs, psychologists became doctors, and pharmacy assistants miraculously became owners of pharmacies. A suitor who took a single trip to the United States would suddenly emerge as an import-export businessman
with widespread connections abroad. Yet Bua’s claim that she was responsible for 250 happy unions to date was unchallenged in the community.

  “What about his education?” Abu asked as he folded his arms over his chest.

  This question always stumped Tehmina Bua and was one she rarely had a clear answer for. She glanced at Abu stupidly at first and then slapped her hand to her forehead in exaggerated frustration. “Le, I forgot to ask them that,” she said, shaking her head. “I am sure he must be intermediate, at least,” she added with pride. In her days, two years of college was considered a remarkable feat.

  “In that case, let them know that we are not interested,” Abu said without missing a beat.

  Good for you, Abu. I smiled inwardly.

  “What?” Tehmina Bua opened her mouth in surprise, looking at Abu and then at me. “Let me find out. In this modern age, he might have done full years of college. Who knows?” She held up her hand before Abu could speak. “No, don’t give me your answer right now. Think about it. I’ll come again next week and bring more information for you, theek hai?”

  “We need the boy to at least have a higher degree of some sort,” Abu reiterated. “Zoha is a college graduate. Without a proper education, I won’t consider any proposal for her.”

  “Oh, for now I was talking only about Arissa,” Bua said hurriedly, stuffing a paan deep inside her throat, exposing her four golden teeth.

  “No, we are talking about Zoha,” Abu corrected her.

  Tehimna Bua opened and closed her mouth like a fish, looking from Abu to me and back to him. I smiled at her sweetly.

  “But isn’t Arissa older?” She seemed flustered. Her plans had gone awry.

  “Yes, Tehmina Bua,” Abu stated impatiently, “but not all events have to follow that order. Zoha is the one we are thinking of at present. Do you have any objection to that?”

  The way he asked, it left no room for Bua to question the family’s decision. Abu winked at me, and I smiled.

  “In that case, I’ll have to consult the family again.” Bua’s voice was quieter now, enthusiasm leeched out of it. Abu’s pager rang, and that was the end of the meeting. He stood up, and Tehmina Bua lurched to her feet.

  “Next time, I will bring pictures,” she said quickly, thinking that a pretty face would somehow make up for a lack of education.

  Abu nodded.

  I showed Tehmina Bua out, keeping a safe distance so I didn’t have to wrinkle my nose at the dirty dishcloth smell that radiated from her.

  “Bayti, do think about what your Abu is saying,” she tried to reason with me as I walked her to the door. “Youth is a fast-fading flower. It’s hard to find a suitable match for girls when they get in their 30s.”

  “I’ll try to remember that, Tehmina Bua,” I said with forced cheerfulness. “But for now, I am just not interested.”

  It turned out that Tehmina Bua had found a perfect match for Zoha. The young man had finished his MBA from the University of Maryland and had returned to Karachi to run the family business of selling prescription glasses and contacts.

  Ami missed Zoha’s wedding, which was no surprise to anyone. By then she had moved to Boston where her brother lived, and her only contacts with us were rushed calls every festival of Eid when she tried to talk to each one of us for a generous two minutes before hanging up. She had moved on, and in some ways so had we.

  SIX

  July 1995

  New York

  “This one ends badly.”

  I turned around to see who had the unknown voice with the familiar accent. A man in an olive crewneck T-shirt stood watching me with a smug smile on his face. He seemed to be from some part of South Asia. I had arrived from Karachi to visit Uncle Rizvi because I was particularly restive that summer and yearning for a change of environment. Sensing that, Abu had suggested the trip as a twentieth birthday present. I saw no reason to decline such a tempting offer. I was particularly close to my uncle because of shared interests in art. That summer, Uncle Rizvi had accepted a job as a pediatric surgeon in Houston at the Children’s Hospital and was moving in a few weeks. One reason for my visit was also to assist their family in packing and to spend their last summer in New York with them.

  “I don’t remember asking,” I said as I smiled and turned my attention back to A Fine Balance, flipping the page. I was on page 34. The fat book was a little unsteady in my hands, and I laid it flat on the table. Visiting the Mid-Manhattan Library in the afternoons was my little treat that I looked forward to with childish abandon. The venue was my favorite with two of its five floors devoted to a collection of almost 130,000 literature and language books.

  “You’ll never learn if you don’t ask.” He shrugged and walked over to one of the nearby shelves. If I were back in Pakistan, he would have appeared quite forward for approaching a woman who was a stranger.

  “I don’t agree,” I said without looking up. “I got most of my learning done through tacit observation.”

  He came around and stood directly in my line of vision, a stack of books in his arms, an astonished look on his face. He was a little fairer than most men from that part of the world, taller than my father, who is considered a giant at 6 feet 4 inches. “You never asked questions? That’s impossible.”

  “Not really.” I removed my sunglasses from my head and put them on the table. They had started to hurt the back of my ears. “I was one of those kids who sat at the very back of the class and knew all the answers but prayed that she never got called on.”

  “I’ve never known anyone like that.” He pulled back a chair and sat uninvited across from me. He was still perplexed. His English had the slightest lilt of an accent that seemed to be on the verge of dropping off. Perhaps he had been an inhabitant of this land for awhile. There was an odd bluish mark on his chin, shaped like a crescent.

  “Maybe it’s because you talk too much and the quiet kids preferred to keep their distance,” I declared bravely, speaking directly to his scar. What did I have to lose?

  I was amazed when he threw back his head and laughed openly. He had a great laugh—unabashed, hearty, and full-throttled—but it made me uneasy since we were inside a library. His teeth were perfectly aligned, something I never had. My childhood was full of visits to the orthodontist, and I grew up dreading going to the dentist. The many braces I’d worn during my gawky teenage years did little to improve the natural flaw of design. If I am born with it, I can live with it! I’d decided when I was old enough to make my own decisions. The last young dentist I visited, who I could tell had a particular fondness for me, led me out to the waiting room on what we mutually decided would be my last day of getting such futile treatments.

  “Take a look at my patients in the waiting room on your way out.” His whisper seemed to caress my ears, and I flinched. “And be grateful for what you have.” He held my hand in a final handshake and seemed reluctant to let go.

  “Go home and take a long, hard look at yourself in the mirror,” he continued. “You will be pleasantly surprised. Our flaws are what make us unique. Yours makes you beautiful.”

  He seemed nice but didn’t pull at my heartstrings. Nevertheless, I was grateful for his words and recalled them often at low points in my life. Our flaws are what make us unique. Mine must make me go off the charts. I had so many.

  “What you need are books with nice endings,” the stranger continued, flipping through the stack of books he had collected from the shelf. “Like this one.” He handed me a copy of The Chili Queen by Sandra Dallas.

  I took the book from his hand and glanced at it. “You don’t like books with sad endings?”

  “Those are the only kinds of books I like,” he said as he sat back, crossed his arms behind his head, and studied me closely. He seemed to be in good shape, with strong biceps and a muscular chest. “But you don’t look like the kind of person who should read them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you seem to be more on the emotional side,” he explained. �
�You probably think about those endings for a long time afterward.”

  Right on the mark, I thought. I was intrigued by his accurate perception.

  “For instance,” he continued, coming close to the table again and leafing through some books that he had brought over. “These are classics if you are looking at quality multicultural novels. Most of the books from our part of the world are sad. That’s what makes them interesting to read. That and the perspective of a foreign land with a very different way of life. Our authors’ attempt to capture that for a broader Western market lends a new dimension to it. For the most part, the outlook these authors present is almost always somber.”

  He handed me some books, one after the other, and I dutifully took them from his hands. God of Small Things, Sister of My Heart, Cracking India. Most I had read, maybe even a couple of times. I tried to recall my reactions to each.

  “What’s the saddest book you’ve ever read that also hit home?” I asked after awhile.

  “Moth Smoke.” He handed me the last book in his hand. He had strong, sturdy hands. I fingered the teal cover and flipped the book open. “Then you are from Pakistan.”

  “Precisely!”

  “What’s the one book that you would call a must-read?” I was getting interested in this conversation.

  “I haven’t come across one. The only one I can think of is a work in progress by a new author,” he answered simply.

  “Who?” I was hooked.

  “Me.”