We Are Not in Pakistan

by Shauna Singh Baldwin

  “In the brain?” said Jesús.

  “No, in his spleen.”

  “If it was in his brain, it might explain his behaviour,” said Jesús. “But the spleen — that excuses anger and pain, but not injustice.”

  “I went to see him in the hospital,” I said. “He complains of insatiable hunger and unquenchable thirst. They have told him he can go home because they can do no more for him.”

  “So of course he called you to come bring him back to Buena Vista?”

  I nodded. “Ted said he has been through difficult times before. And he has resources I never had.”

  “You’re comparing your loss to his illness,” said Jesús. “But each loss, each trouble is itself. Right now he’s not here with us. In his head, he’s in los Estados, in New York.”

  I had to agree. Ted was only following what had happened or was happening in los Estados, and he seemed to believe no people ever, anywhere, at any time, had suffered as great a tragedy as norteamericanos. Could I blame him? All he ever read was USA Today. And the many stories he read me to improve my English featured only norteamericanos. No norteamericano, no story. As if the rest of the world was inhabited by non-persons and monkeys. And he never heard my story or had any point of comparison because he never asked.

  I should have asked more questions, I should have tried to find that thing in his past that was eating him now.

  “Is it good that his head is in the United States?” I wondered out loud.

  Jesús nodded. “Sí, sí, it’s good. If his body was also there, not only his mind, he’d have to pay a lot more for doctors.”

  “He has extra expat coverage. Six months free hospital in los Estados.”

  But Jesús’ compassion had fallen low. “Señor Grand has everything he needs. He lives in fear and anger anyway. But, amigo, why do you look so anxious?”

  “Should I go with Ted to los Estados? I mean, when he goes for treatment?”

  Jesús said, “Señor Wilson, I will say to you what I would say if you were my son: don’t go. Mr. Bush’s Injustice Department would stop you at the border. And now they take people who want to stay a long time in los Estados and put them in camps and prisons. We wouldn’t even know you were gone, we wouldn’t know how to find you.”

  I thought about this. I thought about never seeing Consuela again. Then I thought about the employees of the hotel — some of them my relatives — who all relied on me now. I thought about how many years I might have left and the things I still wanted to experience. I decided I did not wish to disappear.

  But Ted once called me brother. What should a brother do?

  Eventually, I didn’t go because Ted didn’t ask for my help. He believed he could do everything by himself: be angry alone, fight cancer alone. And he still needed a caretaker to run his hotel and send money to the hospital up north.

  Ted left Costa Rica on a night the monsoon decided it must arrive. Torrents hammered the roof and pounded the broad leaves of trees. Titi monkeys swung downhill before us as I drove his van to the San José airport.

  It wasn’t exactly goodbye, but I didn’t sleep much that night. A clay-coloured robin woke me with its drunken dudududu. After Jesús delivered my milk, I got in my Suzuki and drove to the coast. The rain lifted early in the morning, and I eventually noticed I was in Manuel Antonio. In the Parque Nacional, I sat facing the beach, my back to the smooth trunk of a Naked Indian tree that had sloughed off its bark.

  On the path behind me, a park guide had set up her telescope on a tripod. “Some species have adapted so well they can’t survive any place else,” she chirped for a group of tourists. White-maned waves reared and tossed on the shore. Turquoise water, shady palms. In the distance a smooth hard island rose from the water, a lighthouse at its peak.

  This was what Ted saw: the postcard he had crawled into for a while. Maybe he could only be blown so far from his origin. Maybe he feared that if he crossed into the next circle of the world, he would lose his American shell.

  • • •

  Ted went into remission a few times but never completely recovered. His cancer claimed him one day in a hospice in los Estados. My sorrow at this death of a friend and brother shouldn’t have been so vague, so much like the sorrow I once felt for the man beaten to death at the top of the Buena Vista hill. His death should have mattered more than the death of that stranger.

  But one-way caring has become difficult for me.

  The same year Ted died, Consuela and I agreed to care for each other. She did me the honour of marrying me. Jesús brought his only son to play the guitar, and our friends and relatives danced the salsa with us at our wedding. Soon after, Jesús moved closer to Irazú, the smouldering volcano — his family said he was needed there. More opportunity for his son, he said. More swinging-trees for Luisa. He comes to see me when he needs a favour for someone — that’s as it should be.

  Now Consuela and I operate the Buena Vista, take salaries and send profits to its new owner, Ted’s nephew in Portland, Oregon. The hotel gives travellers so much joy that it has made Ted’s life matter. And the view from the mountain continues to bring joy to its guests: people from los Estados and the rest of us.

  We Are Not in Pakistan

  It’s the first week of September, and leaves are already beginning to fall along the black strip of bike path where Kathleen walks with her grandmother. The foliage is still thick and green, hiding the granite block walls of the canyon on either side. Above the retaining walls, buildings seem to grip the ground and teeter as if they’ve backed up as far as they can.

  Kathleen’s footsteps echo in the earth-smelling cool as they pass beneath Lafayette Street. Cars swish above on the over-pass. Beyond the steel trusses of the bridge, the sky is a uniform blue, ragged where it meets the treetops.

  “If this were Pakistan, Kathleen,” Grandma says, “whole families would be living under that bridge, would have been living there for years and years.”

  Kathleen knows that. If it wasn’t for Grandma Miriam and Grandpa Terry and their old house, she and Mom might be living under some bridge.

  Grandma’s dress sways about her tall lumpy figure. She has a faraway look; maybe she doesn’t realize she has really rubbed it in again.

  Kathleen is passing through the wedge of shade jutting from the Prospect Avenue bridge. Tires howl and ping on the steel mesh surface. Past the bridge, a rusty remnant of track runs parallel to the path.

  “See the narrow-gauge?” Kohl-ringed eyes turn to Kathleen. “A train used to deliver coal to factories along this path.” Grandma’s eyebrows rise under her hatband. “Years before Grandpa and I came to live here, I’m sure. See how straight it is here. And how very, very gradually it turns up ahead.”

  Her tone — like she’s talking to a five-year-old: Kathleen draws away.

  She can’t imagine a toy railroad. She can imagine the hard nose of a glacier that once covered this whole area, plowed this U-shaped channel into the western shore of Lake Michigan.

  The glacier’s back today, a massive ice block at the base of her tummy.

  New faces, a new high school.

  Grass borders the bike path, fresh and green on Grandma’s side. Kathleen takes the brown side, where joggers have beaten the path pale. Far enough away from Grandma, off the road. Kathleen and her backpack. Backpack full of wrong stuff. Old stuff, retro stuff. From back-to-school shopping with Grandma. On Grandma’s budget, not Dad’s.

  No laptop, no cell phone. Every kid gets a laptop and a cell phone except Kathleen.

  Insects sing and whistle in the humid grass.

  “We’re so fortunate,” Grandma breathes, “that Riverside High is so close. And isn’t this a lovely shortcut? Thank the Good Lord.”

  Kathleen’s nerves twang. Grandma’s silver crucifix shines at her neck. Her Good Lord meddles in everything, even the location of high schools.

  “I could have walked there myself,” Kathleen says. “I could have taken the bus.”

  “
Yes, but Grandma doesn’t like you to go to school alone,” Grandma says, as if speaking of a stranger.

  “If I had a bicycle, I could ride to school.” Kathleen injects venom into her voice.

  “And if I had a horse,” Grandma chirps, “all my wishes could ride.”

  Kathleen trudges faster, closer to the undergrowth. Only wood beams hold this section of the hillside back, keeping earth from avalanching over the path. Houses with peaked roofs peer down at her through the branches. A dog barks above.

  A narrow path slants upwards. A street name is stencilled on the asphalt in bright gold: Farwell Avenue. Another path slants up: North Avenue.

  A cyclone fence. A rundown old garage.

  Kathleen plans to say goodbye when she gets to Newhall Street. She doesn’t want Grandma walking her to the school building.

  Grandma Miriam and “her world.”

  Third world.

  If Kathleen’s family were normal, her parents wouldn’t have jumped from quarrels about whose turn it was to do laundry or control the stupid remote to shouting matches. And over what? The CIA’s funding the Taliban (“didn’t” said Dad, “did” said Mom), whether General Musharraff was President Bush’s puppet (“is,” said Mom, “is not” said Dad), whether the US ought to act unilaterally or wait for the UN (“shouldn’t,” said Mom, “should” said Dad). And the final brawl about whether there ever were any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and did that suspicion justify killing thousands of Iraqi civilians.

  Without Grandma’s world hanging its stinking sandals about her family’s necks, Kathleen’s mom wouldn’t have been born in Pakistan or have a name like Safia. And Mom wouldn’t have jabbered in Urdu every Sunday on the phone with Grandma. Mom wouldn’t have “needed” Pakistani food all the time, so Dad wouldn’t have complained endlessly about heartburn. And Kathleen would still be with her old school friends in Eau Claire.

  Without Grandma Miriam, Kathleen wouldn’t have long black hair and a too-prominent “Pakistani nose.” And she wouldn’t get so mocha-toned in summer that her skin got out of sync with her hazel eyes.

  “Weird-looking,” she overheard her last teacher say. “Probably Hispanic.”

  A bike approaches; Grandma veers left over the dividing yellow line.

  “Keep right, Grandma,” says Kathleen. “We are not in Pakistan.” Even Dorothy knew when she wasn’t in Kansas any more.

  Grandma stoops over flowers. “Allah!” she says.

  “They’re just daisies, Grandma.” People at school will think she’s Muslim.

  “No, see these blue prairie flowers beside the daisies. I never know their names.” Black eyes shine and crinkle.

  Kathleen scuffs along, the scent of grass and morning moving past her. The glacier is getting bigger, stabbing icicles between her ribs.

  The other girls won’t have come to a new city. They won’t have moved into an attic bedroom at their grandparents’ house. They will have best friends already, will have been in twos since first grade. They will already have boyfriends — all the cool guys will be taken. And they won’t be wearing last year’s fashions.

  Grandma’s fault. Tankinis, tank-tops and spaghetti straps were not allowed. Nor were bare midriffs. Hipster jeans were forbidden. And no Nikes, absolutely no Nikes.

  “Nike has sweatshops,” Grandma said during the back-to-school sales, as she removed a pair of shoes from Kathleen’s shopping cart.

  “You have carpets made by children in Lahore.”

  “How else should children learn their family’s trade?” she said. “Those aren’t sweatshops nowadays, not since the government took them over.”

  “Socialism,” said Kathleen, just to make her mad.

  “Regulation for the better,” said Grandma.

  “Bet there’s a class in carpet weaving — want me to sign up?”

  “Lord forgive you for teasing Grandma,” she said.

  Now cyclists on a tandem bike whiz by, an American flag stirring gently behind them. A jogger huffs and pumps past. Gold letters stencilled on the path: Newhall.

  “Thanks, Grandma, I’ll go from here.”

  “Nonsense.” Her hat cocks toward Kathleen. “I should meet your teacher, introduce myself.”

  Kathleen kicks a heel across the lettering. “Oh, no, Mom’s introduced herself already. Really, I’ll be fine. My teacher is probably very busy — first day and all.”

  Grandma looks thwarted but ready for another try.

  “And Grandpa Terry’s alone,” Kathleen adds adroitly.

  Grandma tilts her wrist to read the time. “I’ll pick you up this afternoon. Meet me right here, darling.”

  “I’ll come home myself.” Kathleen sounds firm and even, like her father giving instructions at one of his construction projects.

  “Kathleen,” says Grandma, “in my world, we don’t allow young girls to walk home alone.”

  She didn’t say “you,” she said “young girls.”

  Inside, Kathleen’s glacier clenches and expands. “I’m glad we don’t live in your world,” she says, plumping her cheeks into sulk mode. Ignoring her grandmother’s outstretched arms, she sprints up the incline to the brown brick school buildings. At the top she glances back to the bike path.

  Grandma Miriam is waving her hat. “Three-thirty!” she yells, and points at her watch.

  • • •

  “How was school?”

  “Okay,” says Kathleen, shifting the clinging weight of her backpack.

  But school had been better than okay. Kathleen had popped out in front during the summer, and boys noticed her, buzzing about like flies. She acted as if she didn’t need them — that helped too. She signed up for guitar lessons, foiling Grandma’s wish for her to learn piano. Kathleen and another newbie, Jodie, a Chilean-American kid from Minneapolis, got together in the cafeteria.

  Thanks to Jodie, Kathleen had fared better than other new kids; one girl with dark eyes and a nose like her own sat through lunch all alone. You’d think by now she’d have figured out that even if you’re wearing jeans, a white scarf tucked behind your ears and brought forward to cover them up screams “Muslim” so loud people can hear it a mile away. Nope, the girl was totally out of it.

  Grandma rests her hand on Kathleen’s head. “Coming toward me just now, you looked exactly like a little girl in Pakistan. Did anyone ask where you got the lovely shape of your eyes, your silky black hair?”

  “Yeah. I told them my dad’s Black Irish.”

  A second’s pause. “So he is, darling. But there’s a lot of me in you.”

  “I don’t look like a girl in Pakistan,” says Kathleen. “All of them wear those black things.”

  “Burkhas? On TV you mean. CNN loves showing women in burkhas. But I didn’t see many burkhas in Lahore when I was growing up.”

  A woman encased in black tights rollerblades by. She pivots on one skate, faces back, gives a graceful wave. Grandma Miriam waves back.

  “We were so cosmopolitan, then, darling. It’s so different now because of the fundies in the rural areas.”

  Fundies. She thinks she’s being naughty because it rhymes with undies.

  “For instance near Peshawar,” Grandma continues. “What you’d call farm country. So parochial they are — you know, just like Americans who haven’t travelled. But my friends say, what if you didn’t have the mosques? Would Musharraff or any other president give the homeless welfare? And who would take care of war refugees, orphans? At least the fundies give them food.”

  Her friends say. Her Pakistani friends. Mom says you never know who might be listening these days. If she were here, she’d shush Grandma from going on and on about Pakistan.

  “… Women take their burkhas off in private, you know. And I wish you could see how lovely they are, how faèulous their jewellery is, how ornate are their clothes.”

  Kathleen takes an over-the-shoulder glance. A few other kids are walking home — alone. No one she recognizes from class. A couple of women jog b
ehind strollers. A few cyclists are leaning around a curve ahead.

  A splash of colour flutters past, a butterfly. One flutter of its wing can affect what happens far away in Pakistan. But a butterfly in Pakistan can’t affect much in America.

  “If you love Pakistan so much, Grandma, why did you leave?”

  Silence. Kathleen steals a look.

  Grandma is so old. Kathleen is going to get famous and die young.

  Can’t she just answer? Anyone watching will think she doesn’t speak English.

  At the top of Lafayette Hill, Grandma has to stop and catch her breath. Lake Michigan brims before them, Eden blue.

  “Our family,” says Grandma Miriam, so low Kathleen can’t be sure she hears. “We had to leave. Slowly, gradually, each of us realized we had no future there. I went first by marrying your grandpa, but then my brother and sister came away too. People in Pakistan didn’t want us, Kathleen. We’re Christians.”

  Kathleen has never heard this from her mom, though Mom lived in Pakistan when she was little. Maybe she was too little to remember. Grandpa’s Christian and he lived in Pakistan for years, but he’s never mentioned anyone being mean to him. But then, Grandpa Terry’s hair was natural blond before it got whiter than anyone else’s. And you can’t get a word out of him during football season and it’s always football season. And he doesn’t remember a lot of things. And even if he did, he wouldn’t remember things the way Grandma does.

  Kathleen believes her grandmother. Because her dad said quarrelling and hatred are all you can expect of Third World people.

  By six each morning, when Kathleen comes downstairs, Miriam has woken up Safia, picked up her husband’s dirty socks, tidied Safia’s clothes, books, papers and mail. She has also done a couple of loads of laundry, washed the dishes in the porcelain sink, dried them with her embroidered dish towel, made Taj Mahal tea with cardamon and brewed coffee.

  “I hate tea and coffee,” says Kathleen. “Got any OJ?” She opens the fridge but doesn’t find any. This has happened every day since Kathleen and Mom unpacked their bags, but Grandma doesn’t buy orange juice. What would it cost — a dollar? Two?