City of Spies

by Sorayya Khan

  Beginning with Uncle Imtiaz’s visit later in the day and continuing into the months and years ahead, I heard all possible explanations. The general had not been informed of the attacks. He did not want responsibility for a rioting crowd’s reaction to an army presence. He simply was at a loss for what to do. A common hypothesis was that by not getting involved, the general was teaching the Americans that, good and mighty friends though they were, they could not control everything that happened in Pakistan.

  When my father appeared, he turned on the radio and took his seat at the head of the table, among an excess of table settings. His mood was subdued and he did not reach for the newspapers. He sat with his chin resting on a steeple of intertwined fingers, so deep in thought, I was startled when he finally spoke.

  “Yesterday’s news is dreadful. The US Embassy was burned to the ground. Apparently, nothing is left of it. Some people died . . .”

  “Who?” I interrupted.

  “We don’t know yet. The police are going through the area now.”

  “Why?”

  “You mean, why are they going through it now?” my father asked.

  “No. Why did it happen?”

  “Who knows?” he said. He focused on the radio, as if the answer might be at the top of the news hour that was just beginning.

  The annoyingly formal BBC newscaster stated that Ayatollah Khomeini’s government strongly denied American claims that Iranians were involved in the Grand Mosque siege in Mecca. Unsubstantiated Pakistani rumors blamed Americans for the mosque’s siege and had led to countrywide attacks on American establishments. In the next minute, the perfectly enunciating voice recapped the attack on Islamabad’s American Embassy, describing Americans escaping the hostile crowd by locking themselves in a vault on the top floor of the main building. Two Americans and four Pakistanis were dead. The newscaster continued, “Students at the American School were attacked,” and mentioned the torching of the school auditorium and an unruly crowd ransacking classrooms and breaking windows with the school’s cricket bats. Our school did not have a single cricket bat, and while I’d left early on, I couldn’t help wondering if the attack on the school had been as serious as the newscaster detailed. The next sentence gave me pause. It made reference to the “evacuation of dependents and nonessential US personnel,” and I worried what that might mean for Lizzy and her family. Not to mention, in case Mr. Simon really was a spy, would he be classified as essential or nonessential personnel?

  Backtracking to an early detail in the newscast, I asked my father, “What kind of vault holds one hundred and thirty-seven people?” The only vault with which I was familiar was a bank vault lined with safety deposit boxes.

  “Sorry?”

  “The newscaster said the Americans fled to a vault.”

  “Perhaps it’s a large room where they keep confidential papers, special equipment, or . . .”

  “With enough space to hold one hundred and thirty-seven people?” I asked doubtfully.

  My father cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Things will be different once US citizens leave the country . . .”

  “Why are they leaving?”

  “Standard diplomatic procedure, I think. When there’s serious trouble in a country, diplomatic personnel, especially dependents, leave for a while until things calm down.”

  “Why will things be different once the Americans leave Pakistan?”

  “For one thing, there are so many of them,” my father said.

  “Will all of them leave?” I asked.

  “Most, I imagine. Your friend Lizzy and her family, too. I don’t know if her father is considered essential to the staff. In any event, your school will certainly be closed for a while,” my father said.

  “You’re up early,” my mother said, joining us. She rearranged the place settings, folded the newspapers I’d read, and placed them next to my father. “No school today, remember?”

  “I know.”

  “We’ll have to determine what to do with you when the school closes,” my father said.

  “How long will it be closed?”

  “I doubt anyone knows,” he replied. Under any other circumstances I would have been thrilled with the news.

  “How many gundas were at the school?” my mother interrupted. Gundas was my mother’s favorite Urdu word to describe troublemakers. “I knew that extending the school wall was a complete waste of money.”

  Sadiq entered the kitchen through the back door, and when he noticed us, brought his fingers to his temple in greeting but kept his eyes lowered. Unable to look at us, he appeared guilty of something and that fed my suspicions about where he’d been the previous day. Where else could he have been except at the American Embassy? Why had he been there and what had he done?

  “And how are you today?” my father asked Sadiq in an attempt to break the uncomfortable pause.

  Sadiq flipped up his palms to the ceiling, suggesting the answer could be anything.

  Just then, my grandfather walked in. “Tea,” he ordered, not addressing anyone in particular.

  “Yes,” my mother said, getting up.

  My grandfather caught her wrist. “He’ll do it,” he said, and she sat back down.

  “But he never makes it hot enough for you!” she complained.

  “Give him a chance,” he responded, as if none of us, at any time, had ever thought of giving him a chance.

  I did my best to avoid Sadiq for the rest of the morning. When he brought the vacuum cleaner to my room and moved the furniture off the carpets, I took the book I was pretending to read and left. Sadiq stank of singed hair and smoky wet clothes. It seemed at first that I was the only one who had noticed, but by eleven o’clock, I discovered my grandfather was also aware. Shortly after the shops opened, he presented Sadiq with a gray shalwar kameez and a piece of fabric meant to replace the one he used to wrap his head. Sadiq accepted the gift, but when he returned to serve lunch, he hadn’t changed his clothes.

  “Please tell him to shower and change,” my mother appealed to my father, who’d taken the day off.

  When he did, he also suggested Sadiq accompany him and my grandfather to prayers.

  “Why? It’s not Friday,” Sadiq said, staring down at the sink, where pots were submerged and his hands and forearms were hidden beneath a mountain of soapsuds. Sweat stained his armpits and bled into the back of his kurta.

  When the men left for the mosque, Sadiq complained to my mother of a terrible pain in his head. I translated the word throbbing for her.

  “Where did you learn that word?” my mother asked.

  “You really didn’t know what dharakta meant?” I said, throwing back a question in reply.

  My mother would not touch Sadiq’s forehead to see if he had a fever, so she asked him to do it himself. “Is it hot?” she inquired.

  Sadiq shrugged as if to say I don’t know.

  She gave him aspirin and waited until he’d swallowed the chalky tablets before leaving him to the dishes. Fifteen minutes later, I was in my bedroom when she slipped on the wet floor, slid feet first across the marble, and crashed into the table. Sadiq had abandoned the kitchen, leaving the faucet running and causing dishwater and soapsuds to flood the floor. We spent the rest of the afternoon on our knees using towels to direct the flood out of the back door, and by the time we were done, my mother’s shins were purple from the fall.

  I’d been invited to Thanksgiving at Lizzy’s home, and the apple pie that my mother had baked for the occasion was sitting on the kitchen counter, cradled in red cellophane bought especially from London Book Co. But I was certain there would be no Thanksgiving dinner. Believing the news about the imminent American evacuation, I was sad I might not see Lizzy again. Over the years, I’d said good-bye to many friends, knowing I’d never see them again, but I’d always been able to prepare for their departures. In fact, I made it a point early in a friendship to inquire how long a new friend expected to be in Pakistan. Some parents were on three-year
tours, others only on two, and once in a while, their contracts were extended. I knew Mr. Simon had only a year left in Pakistan, and I’d already begun hoping his stay would be extended. Instead, Lizzy would be leaving on hardly a moment’s notice.

  All day I thought about calling her but didn’t. I couldn’t have said precisely when it had happened, but the previous day had changed me. Before, I was half-and-half, but now I was suddenly Pakistani. It was confusing, because in light of Pakistanis burning the embassy and terrorizing schoolchildren, I felt shame. I did not feel the triumph of being claimed by a category or of belonging, despite the fact that I’d longed my whole life for exactly that. It was perverse and unexpected to feel claimed by my country at such a time. And I couldn’t call Lizzy. I couldn’t speak to her or anyone else in her family because I was afraid they would hear the difference in my voice.

  Late at night, when all the lights in the house were off except mine, I heard a car pull up at our gate followed by light footsteps on the driveway. Had I not already been awake, I wouldn’t have heard the muffled knock. When the visitor knocked again, I got out of bed and hurried to the door, wondering whom the chowkidars would admit at this time without seeking permission from my father.

  Lizzy was out of breath, as if she’d run from her house to mine, rather than having been transported by her driver in the white Buick. She seemed to be carrying her quilt, wrapped in ribbons like a gift. We tiptoed into the living room and, afraid of waking my parents, I did not turn on the lights. The room was cast in a dull yellow sheen from the lit gas lamps outside the house that were my father’s newfound solution to intermittent power outages. Lizzy said she could only spare a minute, and we didn’t sit down.

  “We’re leaving in a few hours.”

  “I heard on the radio.”

  “I wanted to say good-bye.”

  Lizzy handed me the quilt.

  “You don’t have to give me this,” I said, trying to return it to Lizzy. “Your mom made it for you.”

  “I want you to have it,” Lizzy replied.

  In a flash, I ran to my room and came back with a supply of never-worn glass bangles my grandfather had brought me from Lahore. “Take these with you.”

  Neither of us said anything. The Buick’s engine was still running and I wondered whether her parents knew where she’d gone.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call before. It was just . . .”

  “Mom was in the vault during the fire. Mikail was with Parveen in someone’s apartment when the fire started, and when the alarms went off, Mom wasn’t allowed to go back and get him,” she said hurriedly. “She’s fine, like everyone else. Except the marine who died and another American.”

  “And the Pakistanis.” The BBC newscaster was right. There had been a vault, and Anne Simon had been in it.

  I reached for Lizzy’s hand and held it until our hold grew damp. Lizzy said she had to leave, and we hugged each other more tightly than ever before. Near the front door, which I’d forgotten to close, I said, “Write to me.”

  When Lizzy was at the bottom of the stairs with her back to me, I felt the distance surge like an ocean of waves between us. Lizzy was only a few feet away, but she might as well have been standing in a snowdrift on her grandparents’ land in central New York. It astonished me how completely the distance, deep and full, had moved in between us. And partly because of this, I called Lizzy’s name, throwing it out into the open as if it was bait. She stopped to look at me, and then I almost said it. Not because I was vengeful, but because I believed it would bind us together, forever. Your mother killed our servant’s son.

  But when Lizzy turned to look, I swallowed the words that would have kept the ocean from washing her away.

  “I’m sorry,” I said instead.

  “For what? You didn’t do anything!” Lizzy smiled and waved.

  She disappeared down the driveway into the night, her shawl sweeping the asphalt behind her. The chowkidars stood at the gate watching us, taking a risk that my father wasn’t using his lightbulb device just then to check on them.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Very Early in the Morning, Friday, 23 November 1979

  At two o’clock in the morning, the crescent moon hung in the sky like an ornament. Islamabad was quiet, asleep in a way Lahore never was. But on this night, smog finally lent it the veneer of a true Pakistani city. From the back, Sadiq’s new kurta hung like a tent, and the pleats of his shalwar swung back and forth at odd angles as he hurried. His polished winter sandals clicked furiously against the pavement, and he reached 87th Street in record time. He collapsed under the first tree, sending a slight breeze into the scorched air.

  Cars without license plates rounded the street corner too quickly and came to a halt near the same house. Nervous Americans spilled from the cars to count their children and baggage. 87th Street had been transformed into a makeshift bus station. Car doors slammed, young children sprinted between vehicles, suitcases were dragged across the pavement, and worried parents repeating Shush! Shush! compounded the noise. The line of idling blue buses resembled those of the American School, save the color and missing identification.

  After the frenzy, in which everyone who was expected seemed to have finally arrived, the street fell into a relative and momentary calm. Drivers chatted quietly, and chowkidars resumed their night beats. Suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere, a woman appeared on the scene. At first, her shapeless silhouette hid who she was, but as she walked toward the working streetlamp, the baby against her chest became visible. In close proximity to the single police officer at the scene, she switched the baby to her opposite shoulder. The streetlight illuminated her high cheekbones, extraordinary eyes, and platinum hair, and instantly confirmed that the woman was Anne Simon.

  I watched from a hiding place a short distance away. My bicycle and I were safely concealed by a cluster of bushes straining with the weight of flowers. Sadiq had his back to me and his hands dangled at his sides. Anne Simon was twenty or thirty steps from Sadiq on the same sidewalk, her face clearly visible.

  As tired as I’d been earlier, as much as I’d wanted to escape into sleep after Lizzy had left my house, the sounds of Sadiq in his bathroom had awakened me. By the time his soft footsteps were moving up the driveway, the gate carefully opening and closing, I’d put on a shalwar kameez and grabbed a chaddar to throw around my shoulders. I hid behind my new bicycle in the carport until the chowkidars were patrolling the opposite side of the house, then I left the driveway. One quick look in each direction was all it took to find Sadiq, and I followed him from enough of a distance so he wouldn’t notice me. Because it was obvious he was going to 87th Street, it was easy to trail him in the darkness.

  I considered intercepting Sadiq many times. I knew he’d had something to do with the attack on the American Embassy. He’d disappeared from the house while making lunch and not returned until after the drama at the embassy ended. He and his clothes stank, he couldn’t look us in the eye, and he hadn’t accounted for his absence. My father was so certain Sadiq had been at the burning embassy, he hadn’t even insisted on an explanation. I’d heard him late at night arguing with my mother. “What good would it do to ask him? He should be fired!” My mother, the most forthright of us all, didn’t ask Sadiq either. None of us mentioned it, but we were all caught in the same predicament, lured by the false hope that truth could be kept from being true as long as it wasn’t spoken aloud. What would happen if Sadiq told us what he’d done and we were forced to admit we had an arsonist or, God forbid, a murderer, on our hands? Regardless of what he’d done, I needed Sadiq to remain the person I’d always known, doing what was expected of him, like making my tea, washing my clothes, teaching me Urdu, and being my friend. Yet the closer we drew to 87th Street, the more violent the possibilities I imagined became. Sadiq would break into Anne Simon’s house. He would kidnap Mikail. He would hurt Lizzy or Anne Simon. He was carrying a knife. Or a gun. Then Anne Simon’s street was upon us, and I disappeared into blo
oming bushes.

  Lizzy had told me that her street would be the meeting point for an American evacuation, so I wasn’t surprised to see it filled with school friends, teachers, and parents. As worried as I was by whatever Sadiq might have been planning, I was also thrilled to be a spy and a witness to the evacuation, knowing that Americans did not flee countries every day. But when I saw Anne Simon, I knew that the right thing to do, the only way to put a stop to whatever calamity was about to befall us, was to jump from my hiding place and create a disturbance. Instead, I disappointed myself. I didn’t have the courage to reveal my presence, and worse, I was embarrassed, even in a moment such as this, to be seen in a shalwar kameez by an American who might recognize me.

  Initially, Anne Simon, who was still some yards away on the same sidewalk as Sadiq, did not take notice of him. She appeared to consider which direction she might stroll next, before her gaze finally settled on him. As if he’d been waiting all along for this moment from where he sat on the ground, Sadiq pulled something from his pocket and began waving it at her as he rose, a broken twig and a crushed leaf falling from the seat of his crumpled kurta. Anne Simon moved toward him, hesitating only when the chowkidars outside the safe house, puffing on K2 cigarettes and cradling their rifles, cautioned her in broken English not to stray too far. With Mikail fast asleep against her chest, she walked briskly toward Sadiq, and in a matter of moments stood within his reach.

  If Sadiq was surprised, nothing in his body language conveyed it. His back was toward me, so I could not see his face, but he stood tall, leaning slightly into Anne Simon, as if he were about to take her into confidence. Sadiq cleared his throat, a nervous habit that signaled he was about to speak. It didn’t make any difference to me that Anne Simon would not understand his Urdu; the very idea that he would address her was alarming. I dared not breathe as I waited in cold dread for his words. The chowkidars had gone back to smoking cigarettes, playfully kicking a small rock between them, and the sound of stone scraping asphalt was unbearable. With Sadiq’s back still turned, I noticed a small movement of his arm, as if he were offering Anne Simon whatever he was holding. But the strain of trying to hear them speak suddenly blocked out every other sound and muddled my senses, leaving me unsure of what I was witnessing.