The Things I Would Tell You

by Sabrina Mahfouz

  ‘I’ll do myself – don’t want too much,’ Miss London-Return said, sitting on the chair, without a hello or a salaam-alaik. She always said that – as if Noor went around putting ‘too much’ on anyone’s face.

  For the first few years after Bina’s family left several people in the building kept in touch with them, but gradually even the Eid cards stopped. Then one day Noor’s oldest sister turned on one of the music channels and there she was – only now she wasn’t Bina but VJ Ruby! Ruby? Her name wasn’t even Rubina, it was just Bina. And what was that accent coming out of her mouth?

  ‘What kind of place is this Inglistan?’ Noor’s grandmother said, when the family and neighbours were all called to gather around and watch VJ Ruby in her tight tight shirt and jeans. ‘All our boys there become suicide bombers and all our girls become fast. Look at her, Miss London-Return.’ The nickname didn’t just stick in the family but, because the woman on the second floor wrote for the entertainment section of one of the evening papers, it became known throughout the country.

  ‘This is the shirt you were wearing at the reception last month, no? So you got the pomegranate juice stain out? I knew you would.’

  Miss London-Return said nothing in response, and merely dabbed more foundation onto her face and chose the wrong shade of lipstick. She might pretend she was some born and bred foreigner who went to the same school as Posh Spice from the age of four, and she might have said ‘you must have confused me with someone else’ to Noor when they first met in the make-up room, but Noor was going to make sure that she knew that Noor knew she was just a dhobi’s daughter.

  Why pretend? That’s what Noor wanted to know. But Miss London-Return, she was always pretending. Ever since she had got this job as talk-show host on Kyoon TV the tight shirts and jeans had vanished and long-sleeved kameezes with trouser-shalwars took their place. Her first day on the set, when everyone was sceptical about VJ Ruby taking the coveted place vacated by Reema Askari who had gone off to Chicago to marry a green card holder, she had totally won over more than half the Kyoon staff when she responded to the request for a sound check by placing a dupata on her head and intoning ‘Bismillah-ir-Rehman-ir-Rahim.’ Then she put a hand to her chest and said, ‘Neckline OK? Sure? Sure? Please make sure?’ so that the man in charge of checking that female wardrobes passed the censor board had to take a measuring tape and run it from the base of her throat to her neckline. He held up the tape as if it was a scorecard and announced ‘Pass! With flying colours!’ and everyone in the studio applauded, except Noor who had sneaked in to watch and saw how Miss London-Return used the distraction – (oh and everyone was distracted watching the tape held in the man’s strong hand slowly go from her neck down her chest) – to tug the dupata off her head.

  ‘So what are you going to do next?’ Miss London-Return asked. It was the first time she had ever directed a question at Noor.

  ‘You mean this evening?’

  Miss London-Return laughed in a way that was completely different from the encouraging way she laughed at the guests on her show. ‘No, silly, I mean you can’t want to be a make-up girl your whole life?’

  Make-up girl? She was a make-up artist! But she could smile, knowing the comment only showed how her remark about the pomegranate stain had stung.

  ‘No, this is only until I get married. I’m already twentytwo, yaar, how much longer am I going to be a single working girl for?’

  Miss London-Return was, of course, twenty-four.

  The polite knock on the door – two short, gentle raps – told Noor that her regular 3pm appointment had arrived. All day she’d been switching between MTV and Kyoon TV (she wasn’t really interested in most of Kyoon’s shows, but she liked to see how her clients looked on-camera) but now she moved to the Islam Channel, to save the Maulana the trouble of having to ask her to do so.

  He entered, smelling freshly of rose-water as always, his white shalwar-kameez gleaming and uncreased. The first time she’d felt bold enough to speak to him she suggested that Allah’s light was so strong in him that it made even his clothes gleam and he’d smiled and said no, actually, it was the brand of washing soap his wife used.

  ‘Maulana Sahib,’ Miss London-Return said. ‘I’m a huge fan. What you said on your show yesterday about keeping our intentions pure – too right! If more people listened to you this country would be sorted.’

  Sorted into what? The Maulana was obviously as confused as Noor, and also clearly annoyed by the suggestion that his viewing figures were low. Noor was pleased to see that her old neighbour had completely failed to say the right thing. The truth was, she seemed much better at knowing how to do that with the ‘inside beards’ – the ones who wandered around clean-shaven, in their jeans and fake designer sunglasses but in their hearts were little fundos – than with a man of genuine piety like the Maulana.

  Without anything other than a gesture of vague acknowledgment to Miss London-Return, the Maulana glanced up at the television and nodded his thanks to Noor for having switched to the Islam Channel. She didn’t see why he always wanted to watch the show from which he’d been fired, but he insisted and, to be honest, she thoroughly enjoyed ‘Answers’ herself – far more than she enjoyed the Maulana’s very dull fifteen-minute segment on Kyoon TV, during which he interpreted and explained different verses from the Qur’an; everyone knew he had been brought on board in order to appease a particular investor who objected to the fashion programme hosted by the gay designer, and the talk show with the model-turned-actress who crossed and uncrossed her legs in that suggestive manner.

  The Maulana sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. Noor dipped a comb in a glass of mineral water and ran it through his beard. On the TV, the two maulanas – Longbeard and Shortbeard, Noor referred to them in her mind – who dispensed often contradictory advice on personal issues greeted their viewers and reminded them that if they used A-One Mobile to call in it would cost less than any other mobile carrier or landline.

  ‘I don’t use A-One mobile,’ Noor said to please the Maulana before switching on the hairdryer and drowning out the first caller’s question.

  Everyone at Kyoon knew the real story behind his expulsion from the Islam channel, thanks to one of the drivers who used to work there. Shortbeard and the Maulana had been hosting ‘Answers’ for a little over a year, disagreeing with each other every week on even the smallest matter, when a man called during Ramzan to ask if the ban on intercourse during the hours of fasting meant he was also forbidden to kiss his wife.

  The Maulana had said that Islam never forbids affection within a marriage, under any circumstances, so if the kiss is merely affectionate there is no barrier against it. But it is important to ensure that the kiss does not cause ‘excitement’, because that will break the fast.

  But Shortbeard had turned to him with a look of incredulity. Ensure the kiss does not cause excitement, he said, mimicking the Maulana’s slightly high-pitched voice. How can a man ensure such a thing? No, no, of course a man cannot kiss his wife while fasting. It is too easy to fall into a state of excitement. And then he paused and added, ‘...except for those who are entirely certain that they cannot easily get excited. For them, it is allowed.’ And then he glanced, just for a moment, at the Maulana.

  Well, it was clear to everyone watching – the driver insisted – exactly what he was trying to say about the Maulana. Particularly after that high-pitched impersonation, exaggerated just enough to make the Maulana’s voice sound girl-like. What choice did the Maulana have but to tell the producers that either Shortbeard would have to go, or he would?

  Noor switched off the hair-dryer and the Maulana patted his beard approvingly. She knew how to smooth out its natural wiriness with a skilled addition of product. By now, Longbeard and Shortbeard had already moved on to the next call.

  The caller was a woman, neither old nor young from the sound of her voice, who identified herself as Shireen.

  ‘What can we help you with, Shireen Bibi?’ Shortbeard
asked, as the Maulana tipped back his head and closed his eyes so that Noor could apply foundation and eye-liner, and just a little lipstick to fill out the thin lines of his mouth which otherwise, the producer insisted, made him look disapproving. She saw Miss London-Return look in her direction, and she felt certain that if she looked up they would share a smile. But that would be disrespectful of the Maulana, who at least had the graciousness to leave the make-up business to the make-up artist and not pretend he could do a better job himself.

  ‘I have just returned from Hajj,’ Shireen said.

  Longbeard and Shortbeard – and the Maulana – all quickly uttered congratulations and invoked blessings, and Noor felt compelled to join in. Miss London-Return said nothing.

  ‘You must not call yourself Shireen,’ Shortbeard said. ‘You are now Hajjan Shireen.’

  There was a pause from Shireen that went on too long.

  ‘She’s regretting this call,’ Miss London-Return said, with the satisfaction of one who understands the minds of callers, even though she’d only been hosting the call-in chat show for two weeks.

  ‘Something... disturbing happened,’ Shireen said, and Noor, who was about to sweep the eye-liner brush across the Maulana’s lower lid, paused.

  With his eyes still closed, the Maulana said, ‘You can listen just as well while attending to my eyes.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Noor mumbled, and touched the brush to his eyelid.

  ‘I couldn’t see the Ka’aba.’

  The Maulana’s eyes jerked open and a line of black smeared across his cheek.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Shortbeard said.

  ‘I couldn’t see it. I was with my husband, and his two sisters, and they all said, what a glorious sight, doesn’t it fill your heart with light. Don’t you feel Allah’s presence? And I said, what are you talking about? What is it you’re looking at? The Ka’aba of course, they replied. What else is anyone looking at? At first I thought, well, my eyes are weaker than theirs and I haven’t had my prescription checked in a long time, perhaps I need to walk a few steps closer to see what is visible to the rest of them...’

  While the Maulana was staring with concentration at the TV Noor quickly spat onto a tissue and wiped away the smear of eyeliner from his cheek. So what did this woman expect? That just because she went on Hajj, her eyesight should become perfect? She glanced across at Miss London-Return who was looking at the screen with an expression of disgust. Well, so they shared an opinion. Noor, too, wished Shireen would hang up so they could move on to the next call. It was the questions about family relationships she most enjoyed – how to deal with a feud between your wife and mother, what to say when a decent boy with a good career proposes for your younger daughter when your older daughter is still unmarried, what to do when your husband is posted to America and tells you you’ll have to bring up your children there for the next few years.

  Noor had once heard the henna-haired controller complain that these TV shows were giving too much power to the maulanas, making them fulfil the advisory roles that belonged by rights to the elders of a family. The role of the maulana is simple, he said. To officiate at weddings and funerals, and to teach children how to recite the Qur’an in Arabic so their lips can form the sacred words. But giving advice? What mad idea was this to think they should give advice? Noor listened sympathetically and nodded as he said this, but couldn’t help thinking that if the elders of her own family hosted ‘Answers’ it would be very boring.

  Shireen was still talking. ‘We drew closer and closer to the Ka’aba, and still I couldn’t see it. But something had taken possession of my brain – I can’t explain it, but I could feel it, something inside my brain.’

  This was beginning to get interesting. The Maulana nodded his head thoughtfully and pinched his lips between thumb and forefinger. Thank god she hadn’t applied the lipstick yet.

  ‘Go on,’ Longbeard said.

  Miss London-Return had an uncapped tube of eyeliner in her hand but instead of applying it she was simply holding onto it, looking at Longbeard with an expression identical to the one with which she’d stared at Noor in their childhood days when she came across her encouraging one of the younger girls in the block of flats to eat some animal droppings which she insisted were chocolate.

  ‘Finally when my husband and sisters-in-law insisted it was looming up in front of us, so close they could almost touch it, I finally saw it. But only for a moment.’

  ‘What do you mean only for a moment?’ Shortbeard said in a voice so stern it made Noor frightened for the woman calling in. She had done something terrible – Shortbeard’s voice left no doubt about it.

  ‘It wavered. One moment there, then gone. Again, one moment there, then gone. And then, whatever it was that had taken hold of my brain, it made me faint. Right there, just ten feet away from the Ka’aba, I fainted. Please tell me, what does it mean?’

  There was a long pause that followed, in which time Shortbeard and Longbeard exchanged a glance filled with knowledge, Longbeard shaking his head. Noor found herself executing a rapid series of tongue-against-roof-of-mouth clicks, to show she was treating the situation with the gravity it deserved.

  Longbeard said something in Arabic.

  ‘Understand, Shireen?’ Shortbeard thundered, and a whimpered ‘no’ was his answer. ‘Do you understand any language other than Urdu?’

  ‘English.’

  ‘Why do you understand English, and not Arabic?’

  ‘Because the Arabs didn’t rule over Pakistan for a hundred years, you idiot, and because Arabic isn’t the language of the internet.’ With that Miss London-Return stood up, threw the eye-liner – uncapped! – onto the table and stormed out. A spray of black liquid speckled the mirror.

  Ohhhh! Noor thought. She glanced over at the Maulana, but he was saying nothing. Oh! Oh. She had a point.

  ‘Let’s not get distracted.’ Longbeard placed a restraining hand on Shortbeard’s arm. ‘Listen closely, Shireen. The verse from the Qur’an which I just quoted said: Allah has placed a seal on their heart and hearing, and on their eyes is a veil. A grievous punishment awaits them!’

  ‘On their eyes is a veil!’ Shortbeard echoed.

  ‘I know that verse,’ Shireen said. ‘It’s about the infidels. I’m not an infidel.’

  ‘ON THEIR EYES IS A VEIL!’

  The Maulana was looking down at his fingernails and pushing back the cuticles to accentuate his half-moons.

  ‘What have you done? What sin have you committed which made you unfit to see the Holy Place?’

  ‘Me? I haven’t done anything. I’m telling you, something took possession of my brain. I think it was some kind of djinn. How do I make sure it’s gone? I haven’t felt it since they carried me back to my tent that afternoon and I drank a glass of Aab-e-Zamzam, so perhaps the Sacred Water drove it out, but I need to be sure. So all I’m asking is, what prayers do I say to expel it?’

  ‘A djinn took possession of you while you were performing Hajj? A djinn has the power to cloak the Ka’aba? Woman, what blasphemy is this? Do you think the djinns don’t acknowledge the sacredness of the most sacred of places in the universe?’

  ‘You stood before the Ka’aba, and you did not see it.’ Shortbeard’s tone was flat, his voice suddenly quiet.

  His words reverberated through the room. Noor was overcome with the awfulness of what he’d just said. She tried to imagine how it might feel to be among hundreds of thousands of people looking at the Ka’aba and knowing you were the only one who was denied a glimpse of the Holy Place. It was too sickening to comprehend. It quenches every thirst that has burnt inside you your entire life, her neighbour had once told her when he returned from Hajj and she asked him what it was like to stand before the Ka’aba. So just imagine being surrounded by a multitude who are having their thirst quenched while you’re standing in their midst aware of nothing but the burning.

  ‘You know he used to be an actor on PTV many years ago,’ the Maulana said, gesturing at Shortbe
ard. ‘Not very good.’

  What did that have to do with anything? Noor wondered if someone had sealed up the Maulana’s hearing – he seemed so unaware of the gravity of what was unfolding on the television just above their heads.

  ‘Tell us what sin you’ve committed!

  Are you an apostate?

  Do you perform black magic?

  Have you burnt a Qur’an?

  Are you an adulteress?

  Do you tempt the pious into sin?’

  ‘Enough! Enough!’ Shireen said. ‘None of that. Nothing like that. I’m an ordinary woman. I’m married, I have two children, I say my prayers, I keep my fasts, I’m honest, I’m modest, I give to the poor every Eid, big and small.’

  ‘But you’ve still committed some terrible sin. Tell us what it is?’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Why else would Allah place a veil on your eyes in front of the Ka’aba? What did you do that even His great mercy could not forgive? Remember, He is All-Knowing.’

  ‘But then he knows something that I don’t!’