by Saba Imtiaz
‘Err, yes?’
‘I recognize you, from Twitter!’
I have an amazingly glamorous photo of me on Twitter. Or so I thought, given that this man can recognize me in this pitiful state.
‘And you are?’
‘James Maxwell. Call me Jamie. I’m a new hire at CNN. I follow you on Twitter.’
‘Oh. I see. So what do you make of the festival so far?’ I ask while rooting around in my bag for a lighter and lifting out something that feels right. It turns out to be a small tub of Vicks. I quickly chuck it back in and continue rooting through the bag. All I can find is a notepad and a half-eaten packet of chocolate digestives. ‘Hold on,’ I say. I scurry off to a corner, look properly and find it hidden in a side pocket.
When I return, Jamie is staring intently at the schedule. As I light my cigarette, he says abruptly, ‘Right then, I’m off to the US ambassador’s talk. See you there!’ He stalks off, probably disgusted by the contents of my handbag and the fact that I smoke. ‘Right then,’ I mutter to myself, and walk into the courtyard. The rain has ended as suddenly as it began and the sky looks glorious, a riot of orange and pink. I hate living in Karachi, but it can be so heartbreakingly beautiful when it sets its mind to it.
I find a corner at the ambassador’s session with a good view of Jamie, and take out my phone to look him up online. His Facebook profile is virtually locked down—oh, how I hate people like him who make stalking a challenge—but his profile on the CNN page has all kinds of stuff: he’s reported from Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. I check his Twitter account. He’s ‘gearing up for Pakistan’ according to his last tweet five days ago. How did I not realize he was following me? He must have gotten lost among my list of followers whose bios are inevitably a variation of ‘looking for fraindship’ and ‘NO MoRe SiSteRz OnLy FrienDz No MoRe ThaN FrienD!!!!!!’. Okay, focus. Jamie. He’s studiously taking notes. I notice that the seat next to his has been vacated. I’m about to walk over when someone taps me on the shoulder.
Kamran. Bloody hell. It’s like the man has an alert that lets him know when someone around him has a smidgen of hope in their hearts so he can swoop in to destroy it. ‘Ayesha! You’re here! And great, the driver’s here as well so you can get back to work and file now!’ Kamran is the reason I will die alone in a newsroom, with the mouse hovering over ‘send’.
I trudge miserably to work. The newsroom is empty. Nearly everyone has gone to the festival, except Shahrukh who’s smoking in the newsroom despite Kamran’s ban.
‘You know we’re not allowed to smoke, right?’ I say, noticing that Shahrukh is using one of the office mugs as an ashtray.
‘Whatever,’ Shahrukh drawls, and I sit down next to him. I light up a cigarette too and start writing.
Two hours later I’ve written and filed about 3,000 words of copy, but I don’t want to go home. I keep clicking through random things online: Benedict Cumberbatch Tumblrs, handwritten notifications posted on the police website, Facebook albums of people’s weddings. My phone beeps with a message. ‘Are you free tonight? Hosting some of the litfest crowd. – S’
It’s Saad. He’s clearly in town and I had no idea. Why didn’t he tell me he was coming to Karachi? How has he managed to put together a soiree without me? Why am I being invited at the last minute? I have the urge to say all of this in a text message, but I’m tired and it’s Saad so I can’t really get upset. There’s probably a reason why I’m only just hearing he’s in town.
Shahrukh is ranting to someone on the phone about the police commissioner—‘the motherfucking asshole thinks he can restrict ME from visiting crime scenes’—so I wave goodbye and walk out.
An hour later, a waiter hands me a chilled glass of white wine at Saad’s party and I’m wondering why I agreed to come tonight. I don’t feel quite myself. I can’t manage small talk about the litfest. I’m far too exhausted from having actually sat through it and filed copy about it. This lot, the writers and their friends, largely came for their own sessions and some green room hobnobbing, and then went home to nap and change it would seem. Even though this is supposed to be the literary crowd and instantly distinguishable from more glamorous celebrities, everyone’s dressed to the nines. When did they get the time? It’s like a fashion week after party. Are royalty payments so good these days that—holy mother of god, is that a Birkin on the arm of the author who was touting her tell-all marriage saga last year? I am still in my crumpled t-shirt from the festival, the one that got rained on, as did my hair, sporting the remnants of a tube of bronze lipstick I discovered in my bag when I last groped about for a lighter.
Saad is standing in a corner, telling a knot of guests about the year he was vegan, omitting the time he cracked, ate two Zingers and threw up for the rest of the night. I’m about to go over and help the conversation along by imparting this information when a girl swishes by in a pink and green sari, high heels and a cloud of Chanel No. 5 that reminds me of Hasan’s mother and makes me want to puke. Her hair is a perfect reflective sheet all the way down her back. Sidling up to Saad, she kisses him hello. He catches me looking and smiles at me. It’s a big, warm, Saad smile, but I know him well enough to sense the sheepishness lurking beneath it. He leans into her and tells her something, sending her in the direction of the bar, and comes over.
‘So,’ I say, eyebrow arched. ‘Explain.’
Even to myself, I sound ridiculous. ‘Explain’? I’m not his grandmother. I should be happy he’s met someone, even if I don’t instantly warm to her glossy, airbrushed perfection.
‘Oh, we met at a friend’s wedding in Islamabad last month. Her name is Samya. With a y. Sam-ya.’
‘And your eyes met over the one-dish spread? Did you reach for the qorma at the same time?’ I ask, trying to counteract my peevishness with a smile.
‘No, it was during Radha on the Dance Floor,’ Saad replies with that annoying smirk Pakistani men get when they score the Girl of the Mehndi—the good-looking, pushy one who dances better than everyone else, has the best clothes, and usually makes cupcakes for a living. He’s still in a state of wonder and can’t stop with the stupid, goofy grin. The only reason I put up with it is, well, because I’ve been putting up with it for too long to stop now. ‘Score,’ I say, because that’s what I normally say when Saad tells me about the latest girl. Except this time it’s rather half-hearted. Saad always texts me the minute he’s met someone. We sit outside the bootlegger’s house to buy bottles of bad whiskey when he’s in town and having people over.
‘Hey,’ he says, reading my thoughts, ‘Sorry I didn’t tell you about this party. It’s not actually my party, really, I’m just providing the venue. Samya’s brother is incredibly social and he got talking to the authors at the litfest and Samya thought it would be nice to have them over and here they are. They’ll go anywhere there’s a steady supply of booze,’ Saad says, venturing a smile. ‘I had to drop in on my mother and by the time I got here the bartender and caterers had already arrived,’ he adds, plaintively. ‘By the way, mum was asking about you, something about some clothes exhibition she wants to take you to.’
‘I’ll call her. And don’t worry about the party,’ I say, thinking, god, I haven’t heard of this girl Samya and she’s throwing parties with him? I want to tell him about the Birkin-toting author and today’s Cretaceous Era Urdu writers but a group of foreigners wanders in and he goes off to play host. Samya’s brother walks past me, then turns around and gestures to someone. ‘Drink here, now!’
‘I’m so sorry,’ he drawls. ‘The staff are so slow. They’re being paid a hundred bucks an hour and they’re still shit.’ I can tell instantly that he’s going to end up as one of those husbands who treats his wife like a slave and ends up running over homeless people in his Land Cruiser. One of the new entrants looks vaguely familiar. Did we talk at the Iftar hosted by the American Consulate over custard with green and white icing? ‘It’s our way of showing that we’re in Pakistan,’ enthused a PR rep, as if the layers of security t
hat had divested me of my cell phone, handbag, wallet, cigarettes, and lighter on my way in weren’t proof enough.
I’m still trying to figure out who she is when I spy Jamie, looking even more glossy and perfect than he looked this afternoon. What is he doing here? How are he and Saad friends? Why has Saad never mentioned that he knows such an impossibly good looking man before? And why do I always end up meeting men when I am a) depressed b) drunk c) look depressed and drunk? Instantly, I hate everyone: Saad, for telling me about the party so late that I couldn’t go home and change; Kamran, for sending me to the litfest in the first place; and myself, for not even looking remotely put together. I realize what I must look like—sitting by myself in a corner of the room, swigging red wine like its water. I feel like Superman in that scene from Superman III, when he gets drunk in a bar and is gawped at by the townspeople for getting shitfaced while the sun’s still up. I get up and head to the bar where the vampire author is staring moodily into his glass of whiskey. I can always tell the pakka Karachiites at a party, clutching their drinks with the kind of resignation that comes with living in the city, exchanging stories about the latest mugging in their group of friends. The Islamabad crowd—five foreign journalists, three USAID employees, and one eccentric think tanker—look ecstatic at having met someone they don’t see at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and drinks every day, which is typical of life in the capital. They’ve all crowded around Samya who is holding forth on how entrepreneurial Karachiites are. ‘We even have a mobile phone service that sends out alerts when the city goes up in flames!’ This is not being entrepreneurial, I think, it’s a sign of how things have gone to hell in a hand basket.
‘Hey, you’re Ayesha Khan, right?’ the author says as I fiddle with the bottle. ‘Yes,’ I respond, hoping that he hasn’t somehow had an advance look at my copy from the festival, in which I listed the number of times he talked about the ‘power of love’.
‘Oh I LOVE your work. That piece you did, about the bloodstained roads and how the gangs were dragging around corpses and playing football with severed heads…’ That had been a miserable day and I wasn’t dying to be reminded of it. The photographer and I had spent an hour cowering on the roof of someone’s house in Lea Market while two gangs shot at each other. By sunset, he’d decided he’d had enough and wanted to get some water, and the minute he stood up the gunmen began firing at us. ‘FUCK, FUCK, FUCK,’ I’d yelled, while the photographer grabbed my head and forced me to lie on the ground. I can still feel the gravelly, dirty roof pressing into my skin. After about an hour, the noise of the bullets sounded muted and wasn’t a scary thing anymore, just some kids playing around with fireworks. I could see a woman hanging up her laundry on the roof of the building, dupattas flapping around in the breeze, a nonchalant look on her face.
When I got back to work and told Kamran what had happened, he muttered something about it not being his idea and offered to order me a cappuccino. I resisted the urge to tell him that polystyrene cups couldn’t make up for post-traumatic stress disorder. The next day, I woke up with a pounding earache. I trekked to my ENT who told me I had blood in my eardrum and advised me to sue the paper for putting me at risk. I spent the rest of the week sitting in traffic with my hands over my ears in an attempt to block out the blaring horns of the dozens of trucks, containers, and buses, realizing for the first time just how noisy Karachi is.
‘Oh, thank you,’ I tell the author. ‘That’s living in Karachi I guess.’ I trail off, ashamed of having been this inane.
‘What’s living in Karachi?’ someone pipes up. It’s Jamie. He leans in and kisses my cheek, and says ‘hello again’ rather close to my ear.
‘Oh hello,’ I say, far too cheerfully. Is that my voice? What is wrong with me? I’m not even this exuberant when someone brings birthday cake to the office. He scans the bar, downs a whiskey shot and offers up his glass for a refill, which makes me instantly question his age and sanity. The last time I did shots was with my 22-year-old cousin at a wedding. I had to drink about a litre of 7-Up to get rid of the nausea, while my cousin mingled with relatives without any visible sign that she’d been chugging tequila. ‘Now now, don’t judge,’ he says, as my eyebrows involuntarily rise at the shots. ‘If there’s anything I’ve learnt in my time as a correspondent, it is that shots are never a bad idea.’
We chug. Mine burns, straight down to my stomach. I realize, belatedly, that I haven’t eaten dinner and am going to be terribly sick tomorrow if not later tonight. Jamie pours himself another shot, chugs it down and sets his glass back firmly on the table. ‘Now I’m set for the night,’ he says. His gleaming hair looks even more perfect than it did that morning.
‘So Ms Khan,’ Jamie says. ‘Shall we circulate?’ He offers his arm and I can’t stop laughing. ‘Are you for real?’ I ask. Hamming it up, he pinches himself, ‘You know what, I do believe I am. We spies are specially trained to be charming,’ he says, with a twinkle. I want to pinch myself instead. This isn’t happening to me. Have I actually met someone eligible in Karachi? I haven’t had sex in so long that I’m scared I’ve actually forgotten what one is supposed to do. ‘Spy?’ I say, arching an eyebrow to go with my tone. ‘Well no, not really,’ he says, with a grin, ‘though I was asked by the immigration officer if I knew Raymond Davis.’
An hour later, Jamie and I have swept the room, going from group to group. I spot Saad and Samya in a corner; he’s smiling at something she’s showing him on her phone. Probably her five million selfies.
Jamie has great social skills and seems to have something in common with everyone. And he has the patience of a saint, smiling along to inane chatter, asking questions. That’s probably why he’s a good reporter. Kamran once told me I was a great actress because I could turn on the charm for interviewees and turn it off the minute I walked into the newsroom. And Jamie seems genuinely happy to be in Pakistan, but without any of that ‘save the world’ and ‘I’m here to do capacity building for xyz issue’ bullshit that most foreigners spout.
He’s standing next to me nodding at all the right moments while I’m arguing with a think tanker about land mafias, causing said think tanker to splash most of his whiskey-pani on my feet from gesticulating so wildly. My phone beeps. It’s a WhatsApp message from Saad. It’s probably gossip about someone here.
‘So, what’s the scene?’
‘What scene?’
‘You and the goraaaa.’
‘Nothing. I met the guy today.’
‘Yeah, he doesn’t seem your type.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
‘He just seems like a choot. I haven’t heard great things about him from the Isloo crowd that’s here.’
‘What have you heard?’
‘That he’s not very professional. That he’s just a big networker.’
‘Do you mean like Samya?’
‘E-mail from your editor?’ Jamie asks. ‘No,’ I start. ‘Actually, yes. E-mail from my editor, but I’ve messaged him back to tell him I’m not a bonded labourer and that he’ll just have to wait till morning,’ I say, enjoying even the illusion of my boss respecting some boundaries. I throw my phone into my handbag in what I hope is an imperious manner and smile at Jamie. Seriously, Saad offering romantic advice? Saad, who once dated a 17-year-old intern at his workplace who didn’t know Benazir Bhutto had any siblings, and whose current squeeze’s conversational skills seemed to be restricted to prettily flicking her perfect hair off her forehead? A charming, intelligent man has chosen to hang out with me, wrinkled t-shirt and cynicism and all. And he’s hot. Smokingly so. Saad can fuck off. ‘Could you get me a drink please?’ I say, in what I imagine is my sweetest, I-am-adorable tone.
At 2 a.m.—having been responsible for finishing Samya’s stock of red wine—I insist to Jamie that I am perfectly sober and call a cab. He’s waiting for his ride and we end up waiting in Saad’s driveway in completely companionable silence. There’s no one about and I still have my wineglass in my hand. The cab honks an
d we get up together and look towards the gate. ‘So,’ I say, wondering if I should do the double air kiss or just wave goodbye. But then Jamie kisses me. I can feel my stomach dropping to about my toes. Is this kiss really this amazing, or have I been starved for so long that I can’t even tell the difference anymore? I want to stay here forever, kissing this impossibly beautiful stranger whose impossibly soft flaxen hair is tickling my earlobe. I pull away when I hear footsteps. Jamie is smiling at me—one of those pure, genuine, ‘I’m really into you’ smiles. It’s unfortunate that my stomach chooses this moment to growl like a caged panther. I try to save the moment by being enigmatic rather than puking. ‘Bye,’ I whisper, giving him a last peck on the cheek before heading for the cab.
Sunday, February 6, 2012
Headline of the day: ‘India falls in love with Hina Rabbani Khar.’
8 a.m.: Wake up ready to rip my clothes off. Why is it so hot?
The AC is off. Look for the remote. Find it underneath the bed next to my handbag. How did it get there?
My head is pounding. My t-shirt smells of whiskey. I remember insisting to Jamie that I was perfectly sober, calling a cab and then talking to the cabbie the entire way about labour laws.
Oh good god, did I sleep with my contacts on? My measure for how drunk I’ve gotten is whether I’m able to remove my contacts.
I try and get out of bed and trip over my shoes. Oh god, am I still drunk?