by Bapsi Sidhwa
My brother looks disconcerted … uncertain and hesitant.
To fortify his message Mr Bhutto bobs his head reassuringly, and adds: ‘Rest assured, he will hear of the Pindi Brewery’s contribution.’
Rustom lowers his eyes. The translucent cartilage of his ears has turned a boyish scarlet, and his left hand is still afloat in the vicinity of his solar plexus. When he raises his eyes to Foreign Minister Bhutto his expression conveys a complex amalgam of petition, gratitude and uncertainty.
I can tell he doesn’t trust the Foreign Minister to convey the message of the Brewery’s largesse to the President with due weight—if at all.
His callow lack of sophistication at finding himself in this predicament is transparent. Mr Bhutto also blushes. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says, his knowing, lopsided smile duplicated in the emphasis and inflection of his tone: ‘I will personally tell Field Marshal Ayub Khan of your contribution … It is very generous.’
I am acutely embarrassed. My brother might have better disguised his disappointment at having to make do with the foreign minister’s, instead of the President’s, presence that he had been led to expect when he made the appointment. His misgiving and uncertainty are palpable. Mr Bhutto, too, could have been more suave.
But they are both terribly young for their station—Rustom in his mid-twenties, Bhutto not yet forty.
The embarrassed foreign minister prepares to dismiss himself. ‘You’ll excuse me,’ he says. He includes me in his polite, cursory glance, and I can feel the twitch in my lips which makes my smile quiver nervously. ‘We’re very busy,’ the minister spreads his hands, almost apologetic. ‘You know how it is these days …’ He lifts his shoulders in a slight shrug.
‘Of course, sir. Thank you, sir,’ I hear my brother hastily and obsequiously say.
Sarahbai and I, feeble echoes of his manner and words, in unison also address Mr Bhutto’s slightly stooped, rapidly retreating back with our own ‘Thank yous’.
Later that evening Sarahbai, who is not inclined to abstraction normally, dreamily says, ‘His eyes were like two stars.’
But that was a phenomenon not unknown to my mother. Sarahbai saw the likeness of stars in many eyes.
Of course all this happened before the end of the Seventeen Day War, before our friend Mr Peterson, a very junior officer at the United States Information Service in Lahore, casually told my husband. ‘You can bring Zareen back … The war will be over in four days.’
He even told Cyrus the terms under which the ceasefire would take place.
Four days later Field Marshal Ayub Khan went on air to declare a ceasefire, stating exactly the terms described by Mr Peterson.
Well … If not God, the junior American officer was—so far as Pakistan was concerned—a close approximation.
Years have passed since the war. I have a more realistic and perhaps even cynical perspective on the world. Yet I cannot shrug off certain convictions from that time. I think prescience informed their reckless attitude when my husband and his friends scurried aboard rooftops to watch dog-fights; for, as Cyrus said, it was an uncommonly gentlemanly war. There were hardly any civilian casualties. Young captains, colonels, and even brigadiers, died in disproportionate numbers at the borders on both sides instead.
I cannot believe that the Indian Intelligence did not know that the Lahore front was left defenceless. Even the dullest reconnaissance could determine—from the transparency of a flat landscape shaped by squares of wheat fields, mango groves and mud villages—that battalions could not be concealed in that bucolic space.
What then prevented the Indians from occupying Lahore, sparing it the butchery, rape, and looting that were bound to follow?
Going against the cynical logic of war, flying in the face of its brutal ethos, I believe that the underpinnings of this strange miscalculation was an unacknowledged compassion. The ties between the two countries—between the two halves of the divided Punjab—of friendship, shared languages, neighbourhoods and customs, were palpable in the stories that filtered through, in the miracles that abounded …
In the toast that so blessedly failed to be drunk at the Gymkhana Club.
Breaking It Up
A brief but fierce deluge that had followed the dust storm the night before had brought respite from the June heat. As it was, holding the letter in her inert fingers—the obscene photograph having already fluttered to the bedroom floor—Zareen found it hard to breathe.
After a while she became conscious of the servants chattering in the kitchen, the cook laying the table for lunch, and as the initial slam of shock wore off slightly, the news, with its tumult of ramification, sank deeper into her sinking heart. With shaking fingers Zareen dialled the number of her husband’s office, and, relieved at the thought of transmitting her anguish, began to cry at the sound of his voice.
‘What is it … What’s the matter?’ Cyrus’s panicked voice rang in her ears.
Drawing comfort from his concern Zareen blew her nose, and, with a supreme effort of will, choking on her tears, managed to say: ‘I got a letter from Feroza. She wants to marry a non.’
When Cyrus returned home, he found his wife huddled on their bed beneath the slowly rotating and creaking blades of the ceiling fan, her attractive eyes swollen, her elegant nose red.
Cyrus scanned the letter silently. His eyes automatically focused on the significant sentences: Feroza had met a wonderful boy … Like her he was also very shy … She had agreed to marry him. She knew they would be very upset—particularly her grandmother—at the thought of her marrying a non-Parsee … His parents were Jews … The religious differences did not matter so much in America … They had decided to resolve the issue by becoming atheists. ‘Please, please, don’t be angry, and please try to make Grandmother understand … I love you all so much—I won’t be able to bear it if you don’t accept David.’
David had blue eyes and frivolous gold-streaked longish hair. His image in the photograph struck them as actorishly handsome—phony and insincere, if not sinister. But what upset them both most was the pair of over-developed and muscular thighs which—bursting from a pair of frayed and patched denim shorts—appeared to their fearful eyes to bulge as obscenely as a goat’s.
‘You’d better go at once,’ Cyrus said. ‘He can’t even afford a decent pair of pants! The bounder’s a fortune hunter—God knows what he’s been up to …’
The last was an allusion to the imagined assault by those hairy thighs on the citadel of their daughter’s virtue.
Thus it was that ten days later, after praying one thousand Yathas and five hundred Ashem Vahoos, jet-lagged and duty-bound, Zareen landed at the Denver airport.
She emerged from Customs, groggily steering her luggage, and right away spotted Feroza. Conspicuous in the thick fence of pink faces, Feroza’s dusky face glowed with affection and delight at sighting her mother. A little knot of love and happiness formed round Zareen’s heart.
Feroza wore a light brown tank-top, and, as she had expected, no make-up. Her plump, well-formed shoulders and arms were chocolate dark with suntan and her body radiated a buxom brown female vitality. But her most striking feature—even at a distance—was her eyes: a luminous yellow-brown, lighter than her skin or the straight hair falling about her shoulders. Zareen held her breath—her daughter was lovely.
And then Feroza was hugging her and taking her travelling bag from her hand. A nondescript young man in long pants and shirt, crowned by an unsparing crew-cut and wearing rimless glasses, smiled awkwardly and picked up her suitcases.
Feroza said, ‘Mum, this is David.’
The little radiation of happiness and love in her heart was nudged aside as Zareen assessed her adversary. The photograph had been misleading. David bore little resemblance to the confident, actorishly handsome image. His shy blue eyes blinked with anxiety to be liked behind the unadorned squares of glass.
‘How are you, David?’ Zareen said, coolly holding out her hand with the three diamond rings.
David, divesting himself of the two heavy suitcases, and hastily wiping his hands on his pants, shook it formally. ‘Welcome to America,’ he said, and then mumbled something indecipherable.
As they followed David to the little Chevette in the parking lot, Feroza whispered, ‘He’s had his hair cut; he’s all dressed up in long pants for your sake.’ She gave her mother a hug. Zareen decided to postpone any thinking on the issue till after she’d had a cup of tea. She glanced at the straight-backed, muscular young man walking ahead with a self-conscious spring to his step, and turning to Feroza only said: ‘You’ve become very dark—your grandmother won’t like it. You’d better bleach your face before you come home.’
Throughout the drive Zareen talked about family members and addressed herself exclusively to Feroza. David sat quietly in the back with bits of leftover luggage that could not be crammed into the trunk.
When Zareen stopped talking to gape at the massive skyscrapers that had looked so toy-like from the airplane, David started pointing out landmarks:
‘That’s City Hall. That’s the Denver Philharmonic Center. Can you see where all the glass is? Right there … that’s the best shopping mall around here. That’s the Museum of Contemporary Arts—it has a good show right now …’
But once they were past the awesome masonry and glass downtown, Zareen continued directing her remarks at Feroza; and subconsciously registered the orderly passage of the wide paved streets, the tidy row of houses, and the glossy leaves on thickly spreading trees.
Feroza turned into a gravel drive, announcing: ‘Here’s where we live.’ And Zareen realized the ‘we’ included David. She cast a startled glance at her daughter, and Feroza quickly added: ‘Four of us share the house, Mum; David stays in the converted garage. Two other girls, Laura and Shirley, share a room. They didn’t want to be in the way when you came … you’ll see them tomorrow.’
Zareen regarded the house with raised eyebrows. Coming from a part of the world where houses have thirteen-inch thick brick walls and reinforced concrete roofs, her daughter’s dwelling looked like an oblong shack of wood and cardboard set up to be blown away by the huffing-puffing nursery-rhyme wolf.
But once she stepped inside Zareen was pleasantly surprised by the thickly carpeted interior, and fell in love with the large green fridge and matching dish-washer in the spacious kitchen. She touched the shining surfaces of things with delight, appreciating the materials that could be kept clean so easily without the help of servants. She was quite civil to David, but with an inflection that left him a bit breathless and fumbling as both he and Feroza showed off the house.
Feroza made a pot of tea and after a decent interval David left them to talk. Almost at once Feroza asked: ‘Mum, what do you think of him?’ And she was a little crestfallen when her mother said, ‘It’s too early to tell. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.’
The next day, refreshed by her sleep, Zareen launched what she believed was a mild offensive. She lauded the virtues and earning capacities of the three marriageable Parsee boys in Lahore. Their worthy mothers had expressed ardent desires to make Feroza their daughter-in-law.
Feroza kissed her mother fondly and teased: ‘I think I’m too young to settle down with mothers-in-law. Besides,’ she said, indicating with a shift in her tone that she was serious, ‘David’s mother is really quite sweet.’
This gave Zareen the opening she was looking for. ‘You are too precious. We are not going to throw you away on the first riff-raff that comes your way.’
Feroza’s shining eyes lost a part of their lustre.
‘You know what we do when a proposal is received,’ Zareen continued, ignoring the change in her daughter’s regard, but aware that she must be more guarded in her choice of words. ‘We investigate: What is his background? His standard of living? His family connections?’
A well-connected family conferred advantages that smoothed one’s path through life. What did she know of David’s family connections? His antecedents?
‘What do you mean: antecedents?’
‘His ancestry, his khandan.’
‘Don’t be absurd, Mum,’ Feroza said. ‘If you go about talking of people’s pedigrees the Americans will laugh at you.’
Cut to the quick Zareen plucked a tissue from the box on the kitchen table at which they sat. ‘It’s no laughing matter. You’ll be thrown out of the community! You know what happens to Parsee girls who marry out?’ And then, like a magician conjuring up the inevitable rabbit, proclaimed: ‘They become ten times more religious! Take Perin Powri: like most of you girls she never wore her sudra or kusti. You should see her now that she’s married to a ‘non’. She drapes her sari in the Parsee way with her sudra showing, and her kusti tassels dangle at the back! She misses her connection with community matters … she’d give anything to be allowed into the Fire Temple.’
‘We’re having a civil marriage; a magistrate will marry us,’ Feroza said. ‘That way I can keep my religion if it matters so much to you … of course, you know, David and I are atheists.’
‘Unitarians!’ Zareen said, wrinkling her nose disparagingly. ‘You talk of it as if it were a religion! My dear, your magistrate’s marriage will make no difference to the priests. They won’t allow you into the Temple.’ Zareen moved her coffee mug to one side and placing her arms on the table, said: ‘Do you know how hurt and worried we all were when we got your letter? Your father and I couldn’t sleep. Your poor grandmother actually fainted! She told me to beg you on her knees not to marry this boy. You know she adores you; she’ll be heartbroken. You won’t be allowed to attend her funeral rites, or mine, or your father’s!’ She picked out the last tissue and wiped her eyes. ‘Do you know how selfish you are … thinking only of yourself?’
Zareen blew her nose, and addressed herself to what, next to the thought of her daughter’s outcast status, caused her the most agony. ‘It is not just the case of your marrying a boy; the entire family is involved—all our relationships matter.’ She tried to describe how much added prestige, influence and pleasure their interaction with a new bunch of Parsee in-laws would bring. ‘You are robbing us of a dimension of joy we have a right to expect. What will you bring to the family if you marry this David? But that doesn’t matter so much … What matters is your life: it will be so dry. Just husband, wife, and maybe a child—rattling like loose stones in America!’
Feroza who had been in the United States almost two years now, had absorbed a new set of values, and a new way of thinking. She despaired of bridging the distance that suddenly yawned between them—of conveying new thoughts and fresh convictions to her mother. ‘You’ll have to look at things in a different way, Mum. It’s a different culture.’
‘And you’ll have to look at it our way: You can’t just toss your heritage aside like that—it’s in your bones!’
Feroza stared at her mother. Her face had become set in a way that recalled to Zareen the determination and hauteur with which her daughter had once slammed doors and shut herself up in rooms and bathrooms.
‘You’ve always been so stubborn!’ Zareen said angrily. ‘You’ve made up your mind to put us through this thing … You will disgrace the family!’
‘I’m only getting married—if the family wants to feel disgraced, let them!’
Zareen checked herself: she recalled her husband’s sage advice—she must not push her daughter to rebellion.
‘Darling,’ she pleaded, ‘I can’t bear to see you unhappy.’ She buried her face in her arms and began to sob.
Feroza brushed her lips against her mother’s short, sleek hair, and putting her arms round her cried: ‘I don’t know what to do … Please don’t cry like this … It’s just that I love him …’
Zareen reared up as if an exposed nerve in her tooth had been touched. ‘Love? Love? Love comes after marriage! And only if you marry the right man! Don’t think you can be happy by making us all unhappy.’
‘I think I’ve had about all I can take!’ Feroza said, pushing her chai
r back noisily.
Zareen suddenly felt so wretchedly alone in this faraway country. ‘I should have listened … I should never have let you go so far away. Look what it’s done to you … You’ve become an American brat!’
David, who had entered the kitchen at this point to get some cookies, silently withdrew to brood in his book-lined garage.
‘I don’t know how I’ll face the family,’ Zareen cried. ‘I don’t know what my friends will think!’
‘I don’t care a fuck what they think!’
Zareen glared at her daughter open-mouthed, visibly shaken by the crude violence of the language. ‘I never thought that I’d live to hear you speak like this!’ she said, wagging her head. With affronted dignity she stood up, and walked from the kitchen with the bearing of a much taller woman.
After a while Feroza followed her into the room they shared and hugged her mother. Zareen’s pillow was soaked with tears.
‘I’m sorry … I didn’t mean that …’ Feroza said, herself weeping. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’
Chastened by the storm of emotion they had generated, and the unexpected violence of the words exchanged, each called a frightened, silent truce. Neither brought up the subject for the rest of the evening. David had wisely elected to stay out of their way and had left the house. Although made wretched by his absence, Feroza appreciated it: it was best that she be alone with her mother. They talked late into the night of family matters, of Feroza’s progress in her studies, and, carefully circling the subject of marriage, each ventured, gingerly, to mention David. Feroza casually threw in something about David when the opportunity presented itself, and Zareen just as casually tossed up a question or two to show she bore him no ill will and was prepared to be objective.