“I’m not that strict,” he said, leading her by the hand to the table. As they sat down every mosque in the city broadcast the call to prayer at the moment the last molten bit of sun dipped below the horizon. Without ceremony he poured her a glass of water and passed her the small plate of dates.
“Don’t you say something?” She hesitated to accept the plate. “A prayer or a blessing or something before you break the fast? I want to experience a traditional Ramadan.”
He shook his head and bit into a date. “It’s enough that all day long you feel hunger and thirst so you feel compassion for the poor.” He watched her take a small sip and then a long draw of water. “But in my family, a traditional Ramadan evening would never be only two people. In Pakistan you always have your family with you—your aunties and uncles and cousins. We all stay up late eating and laughing and enjoying.”
“So when will you take me to Pakistan to meet them all?”
“You want to go?” he said.
“Of course I want to go,” she hungrily piled biryani on her plate, loved that he had spent the day cooking for her. “You know I’m always ready to travel anywhere. And it’s even better to travel with someone who knows the country.”
“Well I can’t just go and bring my girlfriend. It’s a traditional country.”
“But your parents sent you to London for university. Do they really think you didn’t have girlfriends there?”
“It’s not something we talk about. They’ve been trying to arrange my marriage since I got this job three years ago. They know lots of families who want their girl to marry a good earner like me.”
She paused mid-bite. “So, they’re still trying to arrange your marriage?”
“They have girls for me to meet every time I go home. But I’m always sure those girls won’t want to marry me.”
“How? You’re so handsome, and you have a good job. Why wouldn’t they want to marry you?”
He looked up with a mischievous smile. “You always have a chance to talk to her, in private, for a little time after the families make the introduction. I just tell the girl I’ll divorce any woman who gets fat.”
“And?”
“And they always tell their parents that I’m not the right guy. We’re Punjabis, we eat ghee, butter, in everything. Show me a Punjabi woman over 35 who’s not fat.” He tore a piece of bread and dipped it in the curry. “No girl wants to take that risk.”
“I would.”
He ate quietly, feeling the relief of warm food filling his stomach.
“So you really want to go to Pakistan?”
“Yeah, I really want to go to Pakistan.”
“All right.” Picking up his glass, he spoke into the water. “Then I’ll tell them we will marry.”
Stunned, she set her hands on the table. “Is that what you will tell them, just so they won’t freak out, or do you really want to get married?”
“You tell me,” he said, the mischievous smile returning, and popped a date in her mouth.
Chapter 2
Lahore, Pakistan.
Seven years before the bombing
* * *
Kathryn and Rashid bumped down the lane in a rickshaw. Since leaving the main road connecting Rashid’s village with the bustling city of Lahore in northeastern Pakistan, she felt as if she were traveling back in time. The gritty, inelegant commercial buildings of the main road had given way to houses, rural compounds in varying degrees of disrepair. She leaned out the side of the rickshaw to get a better view of green fields of wheat and mustard, neat rows of dried cowpies stacked beside mounds of hay.
Her brilliant blue headscarf fluttered in the gentle breeze. So much more beautiful, Rashid mused, than the drab Arabic style headscarves she had bought trying to fit in to the culture she expected. Rashid surreptitiously slid a hand under the billowing cloth of the salwar kameeze. He had meticulously ordered these clothes from the Pakistani tailor in Dubai. In her apartment he had pulled the drawstring waist so the baggy pants dropped effortlessly to her ankles. He had made love to her standing up, a foreign woman in familiar Pakistani dress. But today she slapped his hand in mock scandal, hoping the rickshaw driver wouldn’t see.
Rashid signaled the rickshaw driver to stop at a wrought iron gate. A man, whom Kathryn immediately recognized as Rashid’s brother, opened the gate and ushered the couple into a large courtyard. A second rickshaw driver brought their luggage as people spilled out of the surrounding rooms.
Rashid hugged his brother, introducing him to Kathryn as Riaz. She barely greeted him before others called out Rashid’s name, laughing and touching his head and his shoulders. Several women greeted Kathryn with shoulder to shoulder embraces, pats to her head, strokes to her hands. Everyone spoke Urdu with a smattering of English words. She felt the reception incomprehensible, simultaneously restrained and effusive.
Two women led Rashid and Kathryn through a set of open doors into a room with several charpoys, wooden bed frames with lattice strung seats big enough for both lounging and sleeping. An older man with a neatly trimmed grey beard and handsome shock of black hair sat beaming, a tiny girl nestled up against his side. He held out his arms to embrace Rashid, who stooped down and momentarily touched his father’s feet in a display of deference. The older man set his hand atop his son’s head then quickly pulled him up by the shoulders and affectionately thumped his back.
Rashid motioned for Kathryn to approach the older man. For an apprehensive moment, she realized Rashid hadn’t prepared her to greet her future father-in-law. The whole family ceased their bustling, waited. The distance between the worldly American lover and the landed Pakistani patriarch took on an exaggerated dimension. Her breath caught in her throat. She searched Rashid’s expression for any shred of guidance. As if in a vacuum, she raised her arms as if to hug Rashid’s father. He did not reciprocate, blocked her gesture by awkwardly patting her wrists. She had blundered. They had all seen it. Then the patriarch’s eyes warmed into a laughing smile. “Welcome, beta, welcome, child,” he boomed, at which point the world resumed its spinning, the family returned to its musical chatter and Kathryn safely entered their familiar foreign world.
The family gathered in the courtyard for the evening meal, dragging charpoys and stools into a circle. The unmarried women unceasingly offered rotis, round wheat flatbreads, fresh from the stovetop griddle in the kitchen and ladlefuls of curried gravies. Only after the elders had repeatedly refused more food did the young women sit to eat their own spicy pallak gosh, spinach and goat curry, never spilling a drop on their multi-colored clothes.
Rashid’s female relatives surrounded Kathryn, talking and laughing with her, their headscarves brushing her shoulders when they readjusted them. The warmth of their bodies mingled with hers as they refilled her plate with creamy mustard greens and spicy lentil gravy.
Rashid sat between his parents, engaged in an animated conversation. Rashid’s mother, a handsome woman with strong features and a substantial build, exuded an aura of control. She deferred neither to her husband in conversation, nor to the family members who came to ask her questions or refill her water glass.
Rashid looked up at Kathryn, winked at her conspiratorially. His parents also looked at her, obviously discussing something about her in Punjabi. Rashid’s father raised his own roti toward her, smiling and nodding, encouraging her to eat more.
Rashid’s younger sister leaned over and said to Kathryn, “Mummy and Daddy like you. They can see you have a good nature. And you know how to eat our food. When will you marry?” The girl wobbled her head, half nod, half shake, a gesture Kathryn had come to appreciate for its vague possibilities of mostly yes with the look of no.
Kathryn wobbled her head back and started to speak when someone somewhere in the house turned on a stereo and energetic bangra music filled the air. A couple of Rashid’s cousin brothers—as he called them—shouted with delight, springing to their feet and shaking their shoulders to the beat. The whole family turned to watch
. Light on their feet, they flew their hands in the air above their heads, lifted their knees high as they jumped with each step, their faces beginning to glow with the effort. Kathryn recognized the rhythm, Punjabi bangra remixes had been wildly popular in the nightclubs of Dubai. Almost involuntarily, she started to shake her shoulders. The women around her reached for her hands, pulled her to standing, urging her to dance. Kathryn looked to Rashid to gauge his reaction. Already on his feet, arms up, he strutted like a peacock, dancing, occupying a huge space in the courtyard with his relatives. Kathryn joined the group of women, repeating the moves he had taught her, right hand up like you’re screwing in a light bulb, left hand down like you’re patting a child on the head. Her shoulders bounced, her feet pounded the ground, filled with the sheer physical joy of dancing she and Rashid shared.
And everyone—young and old—was on their feet, moving, laughing. Kathryn watched two young girls cross their wrists and grasp each others’ hands, spinning around an unseen point, faster and faster, the centrifugal force spinning their clothes away from them. They disengaged and one reached for Kathryn. She mimicked the spin, her feet close to her partner’s, their shoulders leaning out away from each other. She saw only the delight on the other woman’s face as the rest of the family and the courtyard disappeared into a blur of sound and color.
Just when she thought she might lose her balance, her partner stopped, released one hand and steadied her with the other. Kathryn hugged her and sat on the nearest charpoy to regain her balance, the stars swirling above her.
Kathryn brought her future father-in-law a glass of warm milk. After almost a week in his home she had become part of his nightly ritual. He motioned for her to sit across from him while he drank. He spoke to her in Punjabi. Sabeen, Rashid’s eldest sister-in-law, translated.
“My mother and father chose my wife, and she has been a good woman for me,” he said. “She is strong and smart, and she gave me three sons.”
Kathryn nodded at the translation.
“My son is choosing you, that’s very different for our family, for our clan. But I can see you are also strong and smart. You will have to compromise sometimes because our culture is so different, but even my wife and me, until now we compromise with each other.”
When he had finished his milk, Kathryn reached out to take his empty glass. “You have all made me feel so welcome,” she said. “Any compromise seems like a bargain to be part of your family.”
Rashid’s sister-in-law smiled and patted Kathryn’s knee affectionately.
He continued, “My wife was not agreeing with my decision to split the family businesses between Rashid’s two elder brothers. But they’ve done well here in Pakistan, they’re happy here. The eldest runs our farms here in the village, and my middle son takes care of the trading companies in Lahore. Rashid though, always I saw he was different. He had a desire for adventure, the confidence to go abroad.”
Kathryn smiled as she looked down, swirling the cup in her hands. New glass bangles jingled softly against the intricate henna designs on her skin.
“Today at your engagement ceremony, my relations asked me where you’ll live after you are married. Of course, it’s your choice, Dubai, London, America,” he glanced heavenward with his palms upturned, “only God can be knowing for sure. But you will always be welcome here in Pakistan. We are Punjabis, we always have space for our families. And insha’allah, God-willing, you will bring sons here to know their father’s country.”
“Insha’allah,” she repeated. “Thank you, Daddyji.” They both smiled at the title, simultaneously intimate and respectful.
“Sonja, beta, sleep child,” he said to her directly.
He stood up and walked to his room.
“Good night didi, sister,” Sabeen said before heading in the opposite direction. Kathryn brought the cup to the kitchen, the bhai would come and wash everything in the morning.
Kathryn walked silently on bare feet out the door to the courtyard. The hinges squeaked. She looked for her shoes among the pile just outside the door. Moonlight glinted off the sequins sewn into ladies juttis. She stepped over the men’s slippers with their upturned toes to slide one foot and then the other into the pair she thought Mummyji had bought for her. But rather than stiff new leather, these were soft, well worn. She allowed herself the comfort of walking in someone else’s shoes. She went to the single charpoy forgotten in the center of the courtyard, spooking one of the nameless family cats away as she rested on the latticed strings.
She looked up at the moon and tried to imagine her wedding here. She had heard of local Muslim weddings in Dubai. The husband would sign a ceremonial contract with the wife’s father before the mullah, and the elaborate, but separate parties for the men and the women would follow. She knew nothing about Pakistani wedding customs, but she could not imagine her wedding would be nearly as somber, given the exuberant hospitality she had seen this week with Rashid’s family. She tried to imagine her parents here. Would her mother be able to eat the spicy food and heavy sweets? Would her father be dismayed at the seemingly frivolous practicality of Rashid’s family, the conversations devoid of intellectual debate or literary references?
She heard the door hinge squeak.
Sabeen appeared. “You are here alone, beta?” She slid onto the charpoy next to Kathryn, a gesture that would have seemed intrusive in Kathryn’s family.
“I was just looking at the moon.”
“Sometimes when it’s too much hot for sleeping, Daddyji and my husband pull all the beds onto the roof so that we can feel any tiny breeze under the stars. On the worst nights Daddyji even will go down the lane and hire the juice wallah to bring us fresh lemonade.”
“Daddy seems like a very sweet man.”
“Oh, you are very lucky to marry into this family, not all men are like Daddyji.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s very careful about the females in his family. He made sure all his daughters are educated, and he taught Mummyji everything about his business. When he goes traveling to the city she can go out to the farm and manage the workers and the business arrangements. Even me, when he arranged with my parents for my marriage with Rashid’s eldest brother, I had one year of university left before I would complete my degree. Daddyji suggested we postpone the wedding for one year so I could finish, and he even paid my university fees for that year.”
Kathryn turned to look at Sabeen, whom she had mistaken for a simple village girl. “What did you study?”
“Commerce and business administration. I wanted my parents to find me a boy in London to marry, so I could go abroad and have a career. But every boy we found, when we asked our relations abroad to call on him, we found out each and every boy was drinking and going to nightclubs.”
“Like Rashid,” Kathryn said.
“Mummy and Daddy worried about him a lot while he was in London. They thought he might go and run off with a goree, a white girl.”
“You mean like me?”
“But you’re different,” Sabeen said without any embarrassment. “You’re here with us. You came to our village, ate our food with us.”
“And I can dance the bangra!” Kathryn giggled as she lifted her hands into the air and spun her wrists bangra style. Sabeen joined her, dancing to an imaginary beat.
The door hinges creaked again. “Hey, bhabi, sister-in-law,” Rashid called out, “what are you doing with my wife?”
Sabeen, who answered to an entire constellation of words describing her relationships to her family members more often than she answered to her own name, sat up and laughed. “You brought her here, so now you have to share her with us. And she isn’t your wife yet!”
She helped Kathryn to her feet and they both slipped their shoes back into the pile beside the door. Rashid took Kathryn’s wrist as she walked past him in the doorway. The door hinges squeaked once more as Sabeen discreetly left. Rashid walked Kathryn to the room she had been sharing with one of his cousin sisters.
The younger girl’s clothes, even her handbag, were gone.
“What happened?” Kathryn asked.
“She moved to another room.”
“Why?”
“I prayed for her father, my chachaji, when we were in Dubai. He’s well now, so I asked her for a favor in return,” Rashid smiled mischievously, closing the door behind them.
They made love quietly. The gentle breeze blowing through the open window, the sounds of crickets and distant dogs, the proximity of Rashid’s family somehow altered their pleasure.
“What will your family say in the morning?” she said.
“Nothing.”
“Really? You’ll walk out of this room and Mummyji’ll be drinking chai, and your nephews will be running around with biscuits, and she’ll say nothing?”
“They know you’re a Westerner. They know your culture is different and you don’t follow our rules. Frankly, until now you’ve followed more of our rules than they expected.”
“They don’t seem very strict about Islamic rules. I mean, your uncles were drinking whiskey.”
He turned his head to look at her. “In our culture, it’s more important to follow the rules of our clan than the rules of Islam.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we have to be loyal to each other first. Our allegiance to Islam comes from that. We see other Muslims like part of our greater clan.”
“So how do you show your loyalty?”
He turned to look out the window. The moonlight reflected in his eyes. “When I was ten,” he said, “Indian army tanks invaded the Golden Temple, the most holy place for Sikhs. Two years later, Prime Minister Indira Ghandi’s Sikh body guards assassinated her.”
“That’s how you demonstrate loyalty?”
“No, that was a political action. But after that the Hindus in Delhi rioted. We watched it on the television news. Hindus killed Sikhs by the thousands, they threw gasoline on their turbans and burned them alive. We were seeing pictures of the burned bodies, the Hindu police did nothing,” he practically spat out the word Hindu.
Beneath the Same Heaven Page 2