“The tailor’s, near Station.”
Aalia paused. Kaakee looked at Aalia, “What do you need, maybe . . . ?” Uneasily she continued, “maybe I can help.”
Maheen was sprawled out on Aalia’s bed, which was covered with material for outfits. Bored, she was flicking through an old copy of Baji’s Pakeezah magazine. Aalia stood over the yards of cloth, anguished. Kaakee, uneasy, stood in the doorway as the red cassette player hissed away in the background.
“What should I do?” Aalia asked.
Kaakee looked puzzled.
“I can’t have all of these made, I have to decide which will go best with my set. For the nikah lunch.” Aalia held open an Emerald Jewelers’ box.
The necklace and tika looked heavy; the gold was dark like honey. Aalia pulled out the tika and held it against her forehead. The metal looked as though it might be hot to the touch but Kaakee knew that it would be cold against Aalia’s skin.
“So? What’s your opinion?”
Maheen looked up from her magazine. Kaakee felt Aalia’s eyes on her, inquiring. Her face felt hot. She looked across at the fabric in front of her. She felt under pressure; there must be an answer that Aalia was looking for. There was a tightness in her throat as though something was stuck there. She couldn’t even make out the difference in the colors, the strange sensation in her throat was so distracting. She held out her arm unsteadily, not even sure what she was pointing at, “That one.”
Aalia picked up an orange chiffon suit.
“That’s got silver on the border, it won’t work, “Maheen said. Kaakee’s face burned, her throat felt dry. Aalia looked at the fabric, a little puzzled at the choice but interested. She held it up against herself and looked in the mirror. Kaakee faintly remembered herself and Aalia playing with Baji’s jewelry and makeup, stuffing Baji’s bras to dress up as dulhans. Soon Aalia would be getting ready for her own wedding. The fabric fell open; Kaakee took in the contrast of light fabric and heavy jewelry.
Occasionally, she would be asked to dig out some item of jewelry or old shawl for Baji or Aalia from some hiding place. To wear to a wedding perhaps, or just to remind themselves of what they actually owned. At the forefront of her mind was the task, there was never time to really feel the softness of the shawl she was carrying or to see how a pendant caught the light. She wondered what it was that made you want to touch things, shiny, bright things, even if just for a moment, and even if you knew that once you had them in your hand they didn’t make you feel the way you expected to, or perhaps feel anything at all.
The tika swung off center as Aalia raised the fabric higher against her frame. Kaakee looked down, wanting desperately to get out of there.
Aalia looked at her, “I don’t know. It might be nice.”
Kaakee couldn’t help laughing as she watched the cook, Hameeda’s, youngest child lapping up tea from a saucer like a cat. Through the wire mesh on the kitchen door she could see her mother sitting on the charpoy, combing her hair. Kaakee started to look forward to the end of the day—she thought of watching the PTV drama with Baji, she might suggest to her mother that they visit her khalas after dinner instead. Kaakee felt as though she might really enjoy that today, she’d tell them about Aalia’s dilemma, the mound of fabrics and colors, about helping Aalia choose her jora for the nikah. The thought made her smile a little and when Baji started calling for her, she moved quickly. Suddenly, there was a lightness in her movements. She straightened her dupatta as she entered the living room.
“Baji, you’ll have to tell me what happens in Tanhaiyan tomorrow, I’m going to take Ammi to Khala’s,” she couldn’t help grinning.
Baji’s expression made her stop.
“That’s fine. Just help Aalia will you, she can’t find part of the set for the wedding. I don’t know what she’s done and I don’t know what we’ll say if we don’t find it.”
The search began. Baji held open the Emerald Jewelers’ box; there were just velvet stubs where the earrings and tika should have been. It didn’t matter if they had to turn the whole house upside down, Baji said; they had to find the missing items.
Aalia and Maheen looked on silently as Kaakee and Hameeda went through Aalia’s room. They folded up the fabrics that lay across the bed and systematically went through the boxes, drawers, and shelves. There was nothing there. They looked through laundry bags, behind cupboards, under chairs and beds. Baji supervised as Aalia recounted her movements, what she had tried on, where she had walked, what she thought she had put away safely. Kaakee could hear the panic rising in Aalia’s voice as she explained for the third time why she had taken the set out of the cupboard in the first place. She just wanted to try it on and look at the clothes along with it. Aalia tried to make it sound necessary. Baji’s voice became more shrill as the search continued—these things weren’t meant to be played with, if Aalia thought Baji could replace jewelry that her in-laws had paid for, she was mistaken.
Kaakee looked for a second time in places she had already searched. Baji stopped shouting and Aalia went to lie down once Maheen had left. They looked in the spare rooms that were locked and hadn’t been opened in days, they searched the verandah, the Suzuki, places where the tika and earrings would never be. The strain on Baji’s face increased. Hameeda gossiped about the shame of a broken engagement. Kaakee, sick at the thought, searched, resolute.
A terrible suspicious silence seemed to come over the house. As she unpacked and repacked cupboards, Kaakee kept thinking of the unfastened tika swinging gracelessly against Aalia’s forehead, the dark heavy gold. Aalia emerged from her room, red-eyed. Kaakee looked at her and offered up a reassuring smile—she wanted to comfort her, tell her they would find the pieces. Aalia would wear the full set on her wedding day with the orange suit that Kaakee had picked out for her. Aalia looked away.
Kaakee walked into the passageway lined with trunks on both sides. She swallowed, there was really only one explanation now for why the jewelry hadn’t been found. She thought she could hear Baji and Aalia talking softly to each other. She imagined Baji reassuring Aalia now, telling her they would find the culprit. The silence in the house would be a probing one, inquiring, waiting. They would have to go through all the comings and goings in the house today.
Kaakee sat down by one of the trunks; she knew this one had Baji’s wedding saris in it. She knew what was in each trunk, each cupboard. She had grown up in this house, she had been cleaning it since she was eight when she had first started helping her mother here. At first it had felt like an adventure, leaving the drudgery of school to come up to the kothi. And Aalia. Her friend was here. They talked, they went to places Kaakee would never have been: department stores, beauty salons, restaurants. The friendship meant her position here was special, but that wasn’t what was important—it was real, a real friendship that mattered. She thought of Aalia’s tear-blotched face, mottled just as it had been when she lost at Carom or Ludo when they were girls. Kaakee stopped; Aalia had looked away just now. She wasn’t sure, but as Aalia’s eyes darted away did she see something, a flicker of something in them? Kaakee felt her chest tighten; perhaps Aalia was telling Baji that Kaakee had been in the room when she was trying on the set.
Kaakee-ee.
Kaaaakeee.
“Kaakee, jaan,” Hameeda said softly, “Baji’s calling you.” Baji’s eyes didn’t move as Kaakee stood before her. As Baji talked, Kaakee couldn’t think of anything but the searing pain in her chest. She found herself recalling the slow, scratching sound of her jharoo on the bathroom floor. She thought of water creeping up her arms as she washed clothes, like a person’s hands touching her. She thought about her days here in the kothi. About how much things had changed in the kothi, everything but her life. Her hands were strong and hard now from wringing out sodden clothes, the muscles in her body were firm from stretching and bending as she swept the rooms in the house; but really, everything was the same. Years had gone by, years without talking to Aalia, without really talking to anyon
e. Soon Aalia would be gone, and there wouldn’t even be the hope of a moment that reminded her of the time they had spent as friends. Now, under suspicion, there could never be the hope of anything. Kaakee wondered if things might have been different had she married. She thought of the tika, its weighty, thick color. She tried to imagine it against her own skin, to imagine the excitement of putting it on, knowing it was her own wedding day. Baji was waiting for an answer. Perhaps nothing would have been different, she would still have been here, day after day, her children helping her, their little hands folding and carrying, summoned to play with Aalia’s children when she visited. And each time as she left to go back to her own home, Aalia would put a few notes in their hands. Kaakee wondered why Aalia wasn’t there too, she thought of her waiting in her room, not wanting even to see Kaakee. Disgusted at the sight of her, perhaps.
Where had she hidden them? Where had she put them? Baji wanted to know.
Kaakee wanted to answer but the pain in her chest was so distracting. Where, where, where? Nowhere, she wanted to say, nowhere. But she couldn’t. And as she looked at Baji, still waiting, she saw how things might be different, more than just a series of sounds, of claps and thwacks and rote movements that made up her life. Kaakee thought of Aalia, her friend. She thought of how she might change things. At last, at last, terrifying as it was. When Baji asked again, where and why, Kaakee looked at her and said nothing at all.
Kaakee approached the charpoy where her mother sat with Hameeda. Kaakee’s mother puffed at a hookah, she didn’t look up as Kaakee sat down with them.
“Are you all right, Kaakee?” Hameeda asked.
Kaakee nodded. She didn’t know what to say.
“Baji’s been good about things. They won’t call the police,” her mother said.
Kaakee felt tears in her eyes. She swallowed, blinking them back.
“Your chacha’s found somewhere for you to go, in Cantt. It’ll be better, you might even make a match there.”
Kaakee felt cold right through to her insides. She wanted to sit by her mother and put her head on her mother’s shoulder. She wanted to say something, to explain. But she couldn’t. There was no way to explain.
Neither of them asked Kaakee what had happened, it didn’t matter. They knew that it was only what Baji and Aalia thought had happened that mattered; the kothi-wallahs’ conclusion meant there was no need for further investigation, whatever the truth, whatever the logic. There was nothing more to say. Kaakee got up and walked into the darkness.
She went around slowly to the side of the house and sat down on the steps outside the bathroom door. When she washed clothes in the bathroom she would open this door and look out beyond the steps where the soft light of the sun shone on the plants, on the old Suzuki, through the lattice work on Khawar’s balcony. In and out of the ironwork the sunshine weaved, sloping down, extending upward, it went everywhere, freely, wantonly. She imagined it now as she sat in the darkness. She thought of the house that she would be going to. It was far from here. Aalia would never have to see her again. Kaakee had ended something that she had known all her life. She felt empty, drained, worse than she felt most days.
Kaakee tucked her legs beneath her and held them—and as she did, her hand felt something. She had forgotten all about it. She ran her hand up against the scar on her calf. Smooth and shiny, the shape of an incomplete 8, it stood raised on her skin, eager to be noticed, to be felt. Aalia had a scar too, from her appendectomy; she said she’d have it forever. Kaakee touched it again, remembering the fall from Aalia’s bicycle as her fingers grazed the slippery mark. She had never shown it to Aalia or told her about it; Kaakee had taken the bicycle without asking.
That night, the night she took the bicycle, a rishta had come for Kaakee. She had waited in the bedroom as her mother and Hameeda met the scrawny young man and his parents. They didn’t bother calling her out. Someone had told them the boy was an addict but it was too late to cancel the meeting. He said nothing as his mother babbled on. Kaakee emerged as the family left. She noted her mother’s silence and gently stroked her mother’s back. It didn’t matter, she comforted her as she patted her mother’s arm. Kaakee escaped outside. Another time she would have gone into the kothi and told Aalia about it, but they didn’t talk like that any more.
She had wandered into the darkness around the house and sat on the bonnet of the Suzuki. There on the side was Aalia’s bicycle. She looked at it, bent upon itself as though it was trying to curl up and sleep after a long day. Over the years she had watched Aalia become an expert cyclist—one hand, no hands, arms folded. Kaakee looked at the bicycle; suddenly she longed to ride it more than anything else. She looked up at the house, the television was on, they were still up but watching. She straightened out the bicycle and hopped on to the seat. She cycled up to the gate, unsteady. Back to the Suzuki, then again to the gate. With each trip, the ride got smoother. Kaakee started to cycle a little faster and as she did, she felt a breeze against her face, cooling her under her arms, her sticky back. Faster, faster she went and then like Aalia, she stood up on the pedals. She wished Aalia could see her. Suddenly, she felt her hair come loose from the joora she had tied, it took her by surprise and made her laugh, just to herself—her hair was flying behind her and the breeze felt stronger than ever. She looked down at the cobbled path, the plants, the black earth in the beds—it all seemed so far away, the view from here was lovely. But so high, so exciting. She felt like she was flying.
Now as she sat on the step, Kaakee ran her hand over the scar again. She would have this forever. I never showed you, she thought, you never knew. Kaakee remembered the breeze in her hair, just like flying.
It was like silk under her fingers. I wish you had seen it, she thought.
AND THEN THE WORLD CHANGED
Sabyn Javeri-Jillani
Sabyn Javeri-Jillani (1977– ) is a poet and short story writer. She was born in Karachi, educated there at St. Joseph’s College, and has lived in England and North America. Her fiction has been published in The World Audience (USA), Wasafiri (UK), Tresspass (UK), and The London Magazine—A Review of Literature and the Arts (UK). As her contribution to this anthology is also the title story, so was her story the title story in the HarperCollins anthology Neither Night nor Day (2007). She lives in London and is earning her masters degree at Oxford University.
“And Then the World Changed” describes a lively multicultural neighborhood—a traditional mohalla with old houses and narrow lanes—in an older part of Karachi in the 1960s. The story evokes the heavy hand of martial law hanging over the country and its people, who thirst for news from sources other than the censored broadcasts of Radio Pakistan. Uncle Bobby’s huge American car and its radio become symbols, not of modernity or Westernization, but of subversion—providing access to music, songs, and broadcasts beyond the reach of the censors. The story highlights how the sense of personal and national threat created by war—the 1965 conflict with India—leads to polarization and divisions that foreshadow the armed conflicts that broke out among Karachi’s ethnic communities in the 1990s and the rise of violent religious extremists in Pakistan, with their parrot-green turbans as a symbol of Islam.
• • •
It wasn’t easy, steering a car through the narrow streets of old Karachi. Tiny beads of sweat formed on Bobby Uncle’s forehead as he craftily navigated the big-hooded vehicle. Much to the amusement of passersby who looked on with unabashed curiosity at the strange contraption making its way through the brickpaved alleys, he continued to struggle with the giant steering wheel. Short and thin, he seemed dwarfed by the car he drove. It was the kind of motorcar they had only seen in a cinema hall. Usually, a donkey cart or, if there was a special festival, a small taxi would occasionally grace their streets—but to see an actual bright and shiny motorcar make its way down the narrow paths of their neighborhood was not just cause for curiosity, but an actual thrill.
Some shouted at him to get the evil invention of the West out of
their mohalla while others slapped the bonnet, screaming directions. “Here, here, take a left, back up a little, brother. Arrey! Watch out for the pole!” The lads shouted advice while the children jumped up and down, trying to catch a glimpse of the interior.
Munna, Bobby Uncle’s five-year-old nephew, ran out in the alley to see what all the commotion was about. He nearly fell into an open manhole in his excitement when he discovered that it was his very own uncle who was the owner of this glossy motorcar. He ran back inside the house, announcing at the top of his lungs to his deaf grandmother, his baby sister, his next door neighbor, and his mother, who was busy preparing the afternoon meal, the arrival of the shiny contraption into their family.
“A motorcar! A real motorcar, I’ve seen Bobby Uncle drive up in one.”
“Are you making up stories again, Munna?” asked Munira, his ten-year-old neighbor who spent more time in their house than she did in her own.
“I swear on your dad’s grave, he has a real live motorcar!” replied Munna.
“Oye! You son of the devil!” she screamed at him, “How many times have I told you not to do that. My father is alive, thank Allah.”
“What are you shouting at my son for?” Munna’s mother came to his rescue.
“Look at him, Apa! He does it deliberately to upset me, sending my Pa to the grave when he is alive!”
“Oh, come now. He probably picked it up from the rogues on the streets,” she consoled. “Munna, stop disturbing the women and go and play outside.” She shooed him out.
Outside, Bobby Uncle was still struggling with his Chevy.
Turning corners with a Chevy in the maze of narrow alleys that formed the old town was no joke. Bobby Uncle was half leaning out of the front window while well-wishers hung onto the sides, offering their expert advice. Suddenly the car lurched forward and then, with a grueling screech, it shuddered to a stop. Bobby Mama fell forward over the steering, knocking over a roadside seller’s wares. The seller cursed him, but Bobby Mama was too embarrassed by the dead engine to care about the seller’s loss. To save face Bobby Uncle announced to the neighbors that he had stopped the car there because it was the best parking spot in the neighborhood. The fact that it blocked old woman Hajjin’s doorway and the turning into the next lane, seemed of little concern to him.
And the World Changed Page 35