A Pair of Jeans and other stories

by Shahraz, Qaisra

  The only thing that could win over his father would be the building of a new house, to illustrate his economic well-being and to support his younger brother‘s family. Three years later, having had enough of textile mills and with his family having joined him, he escaped to the big city of Manchester and started his own manufacturing business. It was a time when knitwear manufacturing was a booming industry in the Northwest and Ardwick had become a manufacturing area. Many Pakistani migrants entered this trade. Samir too purchased an old factory for his knitwear business. It was also a time of social and communal uncertainty. Enoch Powell had done his bit; frightening the host community with his racist speech citing “the rivers of blood” and leaving the migrants in fear of being thrown out of the country. When the Ugandan refugees started to arrive in the early nineteen seventies, after their expulsion by Idi Amin, his friends were very dismal about their own fate in the UK, fearing that they too would be thrown out. For some, the mission or the next urgent goal was to build houses back home to return to if things really got bad in England.

  Unlike his friends, Samir had faith in the British justice system and its fairness. He never for one moment believed that something similar could happen in Britain. Unlike some of his friends his savings went not into a khoti or a villa in Lahore, but in gradually working his way up to a better standard of living for his family, progressing from a terraced house to a detached house in a good area. He concentrated on his children, their education and careers. And the decades simply slipped away, melting away his youth and gradually severing the links with his homeland. His retirement was forced on him; he did not welcome it.

  Samir smiled at the young man with the suitcase and turned into the village lane to pay a special call. In the widow’s home there was panic as the youngest of the three girls whispered to the others that a man from Velat was standing outside their door. When their mother spotted the foreign visitor she nearly fainted, but recovered soon enough. Bursting into sobs she stared at the husband of their benefactor, muttering behind the fold of her long shawl, and gushing the welcome greeting: “Bismillah! Bismillah!”

  She owed a lot to this man’s wife.

  Her three teenage daughters had rushed ahead into their bethak, to make the room presentable. The crocheted-edged table cloth was quickly straightened and dusted, the mirrored beaded cushions on the leather settee hurriedly plumped up and the pair of knitting needles and women’s magazine snatched and shoved under the table.

  Red-faced and brimming with pleasure, the widow led their very “special” guest into their humble living room, with the walls lined with their best china propped on wooden sills. It was a quaint sight for him, reminding him of the old days when his father would take him to tour some village for a “taste of the other life and warm hospitality of the rural people.”

  Samir did not know what to say; both touched and embarrassed by their humility and behaviour.

  “Please don’t bring any refreshments, Cola or Miranda bottles or such – I have a bad stomach,” he glibly lied, saving them the bother and cost of purchasing the bottles from the local village shop. “I just wanted to see how you all are – and how your daughters are doing – I know my wife always visited you – as she did with the other homes she sponsored.…” He stopped, eyes filling up, his Sabiya in front of him.

  The widow again burst into loud sobs. “We are so sorry about your wife’s death, she was such a wonderful soul and so good to us! We miss her so much, and she phoned us every month – calling us to the butcher’s house to chat with us… always checking that we had enough money for my daughter’s expenses and enough grain!”

  “Yes – she was a good soul! And we all miss her!” Samir lowered his head to hide his tear-swollen eyes. The widow touched by his grief, stared in wonder, mouth open, showing her row of uneven top teeth and two missing lower molars. She quickly closed her mouth in embarrassment when he looked up.

  Samir looked at the girls shyly staring at him, and could not stop the outburst. His sobbing caused the girls’ eyes to fill up. They were used to crying from an early age. Their mother had become a crying machine and often they ended up aping her. Today they found the sight of this older man from England, crying over his wife, very poignant. He was thinking, “My wife has made a difference to these wretched girls’ lives!”

  Sobering, he wiped his cheeks clean with a tissue proffered shyly by the eldest daughter. As if reading his mind, the widow reminded him, “Your wife got my oldest daughter married, she helped us with the dowry… here is that daughter… she’s visiting us at the moment.” Then her gaze switched to her other daughters. “Who will now finance these girls’ weddings?” Poverty had forced her into straight talking, to unabashedly appeal to the good nature of well off people like him.

  Samir had thought ahead. His pension, even if he did not touch the rest of his savings, would be enough to support this household – an ideal way of honouring his wife and her dying wish. Her last words to all her children and to him had been, “Do not forget all the families that I’ve been supporting in my life – earn their heartfelt prayers by helping them. Don’t forget to keep my register of widows safe. Don’t let anyone die of poverty or ill health! Display your humanity and offer generously your zakat.”

  His eyes on the four heads modestly draped with dupattas, Samir meditated on one possible way for these girls to get out of this poverty trap and offered. “Sister please educate your daughters… send them to any colleges that you like. I’ll pay all their fees and other costs.”

  The girls’ eyes widened and lit up in wonder. The Velati man would do that for them! Go to the town college. The girls’ minds were swimming. Their poignant looks and smiling faces cut him to his soul. His own children, including his two daughters, had been educated to the highest degree level and had access to great opportunities. Did these poor girls not have a right to the same? He was suddenly struck and dismayed by the inequality of life. How some had everything whilst others simply worried about the next meal!

  The youngest girl moved away from the doorway as Samir’s village host, who had followed him to the widow’s house, entered the room. Catching Samir’s eyes, the host signalled to him that dinner was waiting. Samir hastened to add before rising from the settee.

  “Don’t worry about anything, Sister. I’ll take care of your financial situation and make sure that you get your remittances on time, including for the wheat. You have our phone numbers. Please phone for any extra financial help needed. I’ll take care of the furniture for your daughter’s dowries just as my Sabiya did for your eldest daughter… I have to go now and may Allah Pak look after you all!” He felt in his jacket pocket and shyly placed a three-thousand-rupee note in the youngest girl’s hand, lowering his gaze in embarrassment in the face of their gratitude.

  He politely followed his host out of the small courtyard before turning to look back at the girls shyly peeping out of their door. “This is their humble world!” he mused, “And I live in a large house all by myself.” The thought terrified him.

  He politely smiled to the other villagers that he passed in the lane. There was no-one he recognised and no welcoming look of sudden recognition. And why should there be? He chided himself. He was over seventy years old – and so far he had not seen a soul of that age group in the village.

  That night he returned to Lahore to his brother’s family. Fear of hospitality had made him flee the village, afraid that if he stayed the night his hosts would incur the cost of breakfast and afternoon dinner the following day. He was familiar with their generosity and excellent hospitality. Already they had spent a lot on his behalf. Until the entire dining table was covered with plates of cakes, pastries, boiled eggs and parathas they would not be happy.

  In his brother’s home there was no element of guilt – no waiting upon ceremony. They knew what he liked, and so for breakfast his brother would fetch some warm kulchas from the local bakery and the tea would be supplied by his sister-in-law.

&
nbsp; Drinking a cool glass of lassi, Samir instructed the driver to take him back to Lahore, the city of his birth, the old Mughal capital of India. He wanted to call on the way at the famous Data Gunj Darbar, a favourite shrine of his mother. In his childhood days she eagerly took him to pay homage to the saint buried in the tomb, visited by thousands every day from all over the world.

  Outside in the Darbar courtyard, the daig men were fast at work, serving food from their big pots to the needy and to those keen to take the tabark, food offerings, home for their family. When the man distributing bags of pilau rice touched him on his arm, Samir was lost for words and nodded, taking the bag of rice with him inside the building. In the large hall amidst the crowd of male and female devotees, peering through the open windows at the tomb draped with a green and gold embroidered sheet, Samir offered special prayers for his wife’s soul, tears gushing out of his eyes. Then a prayer for himself. He repeated the word “escape” again.

  As he sheepishly entered his ancestral home, the mouths of his brother’s family fell open. They had not expected him back that night. In fact, they thought he was touring another city and here he was, large as life. Both parties energetically avoided eye contact. His brother’s family quickly recovered. They had been lounging around on sofas. It was eight o’clock and the popular drama was about to be telecast. The wife and daughter began panicking. Was their guest fed or did they have to scurry to the kitchen to rustle up a meal for him? Reading their minds perfectly, Samir wryly held the bag of rice in front of him.

  “I got my meal from the Darbar, I’m sure it’s delicious. Don’t worry about me, just carry on watching.” With those words he left them to their drama, before excusing himself. “I’ll go up to my room and have a shower.”

  “Yes, please do!” His sister-in-law quickly offered with a toothy grin and orangey sak-stained lips, sitting down to enjoy the drama with her daughter.

  He came down precisely after nine pm, having given them time to finish watching their serial. In that time, he had showered, eaten the rice from the bag with his fingers and started to gather his belongings. They were expecting him and hurried to greet him, his niece standing up.

  “Are you sure you will not want a meal?” His brother asked, not happy at Samir not eating. “The darbar daig rice was wonderful. Good to eat tabark sometimes. It reminds us gently what life is all about – our stomachs. Getting food into our bellies is what we work for, don’t we?” His brother cynically nodded, a director of a firm and now retired. He still had two daughters whose marriage and dowries he had to arrange. It was not just the matter of food for him. He envied his brother for having all his children wed and settled. No worries, saving that of having lost a wife.

  Aloud he instructed. “Bano, go and make tea for your uncle!”

  A smile fixed on her face, the eldest daughter left for the kitchen, whilst everyone else watched the news.

  “Tomorrow morning I will check flight times.” Samir slipped in the information whilst sipping his tea. Heads turned, TV forgotten, surprise written on their faces.

  “What brother! Already? You’ve only been here for just a week!” The sister-in-law rushed to speak.

  “I think a week is enough - time to go home!” He replied, a gentle smile peeping across his features as he remembered his daughter Rosie.

  Dumbfounded, they stared back at him, but did not challenge or question him further as to why. “He must be missing his children,” his brother echoed in his head. Once more all heads turned to the programme. As the eldest daughter got up to take the cups back to the kitchen, she smiled at her uncle asking if he wanted some more tea. He smiled back; it was the first full smile she had accorded him since he had arrived. Then she surprised him and her parents further with her kind offer.

  “Uncle, please give me your laundry. I will see to it before you leave.”

  “You stupid girl! Your uncle is not going yet!” Her father chided, red-faced. “He was only saying it. We are not going to let him go yet.”

  His wife quickly echoed the same. “No brother, you are not going yet.”

  “Don’t worry, Bano! I’ll get my clothes washed at home.” Samir said, surprising himself. Twice he had used the term “home.” Was not this his home, the place where he was born?

  Chastened and the smile deleted, the eldest daughter took the tray of crockery back to the kitchen. In the lounge her uncle from England had already decided. He stayed up for some more polite talk and then went up to his air conditioned room. Picking up the remaining items littering the dressing table he threw them into his suitcase. His love affair with the city of his birth was over.

  On the plane he found himself sitting next to a man called Ibrahim, of his age group and size; both overweight and uncomfortable with the economy seats and the narrow leg space in front of them. After exchanging polite chitchat they soon got into serious talking and were onto the question as to why they were visiting their country of birth and youth.

  “The homeland?” Samir ruminated over the term and shared his musing aloud with his fellow passenger, who had similar home circumstances, including being a widower.

  “The one that you have just visited, or the one that you are returning to? The place where you have spent most of your adult life? Which homeland are you trying to escape from?” Samir elaborated, making the man’s sun beaten forehead groove into three deep pleats.

  “Escape?” Ibrahim was disconcerted by the term. Samir nonchalantly went onto explain. “I am escaping back to the UK – and to a new home.”

  “New home?”

  “Want to join me?”

  The man looked blankly at him, wondering whether this was a joke. Samir chuckling went on to explain.

  He returned home not having met the two college friends or walked down the tall nineteenth century corridors of the Government College of Lahore. Strangely, it really did not matter to him.

  Two weeks after his arrival, Samir had moved to an elderly people’s home, leaving his five bed roomed detached house to his four children but keeping his savings and shares to see to the needs of the family he had promised to support. He made a new will, instructing his Solicitor that when he died one of his children would carry on supporting the widow and her daughters. He got his eldest daughter to phone the widow, to reassure her that he had not forgotten his promise. Social and cultural parameters had to be maintained. He was a man and would keep his distance from the widow and not compromise her honour, her izzat. They needed his financial help which his wife used to provide; now he would take over her role.

  When he spoke to his brother on arrival in Manchester, he was asked when he would return to his homeland. After a pause Samir asked, “Homeland? Which homeland? I’m home….” An awkward silence followed. Then he had added laughing, “You can visit me next time.”

  A week later, the friend he had met on the plane arrived with his daughter, carrying his suitcase. Ibrahim took the room three doors away from Samir’s, his gales of laughter echoing down the corridor. Pure joy raced through Samir lifting his spirit as he rushed to show his friend around the home, enthusiastically explaining and reassuring, introducing him to the other house guests he had befriended, Penny and Derrick.

  “It’s the right decision my friend. You won’t regret it. Wave goodbye to loneliness and heartache…We are the new English babus, living in old people’s homes, the ones we used to ridicule once upon a time! Meals on wheels for us now – we have worked so hard – time to enjoy ourselves now, hey!”

  THE ELOPEMENT

  The telephone was ringing again. The three women in the living room jumped visibly. They exchanged quick glances, silent messages transmitted from the eyes travelled to and fro.

  No one spoke.

  The phone began to ring persistently. Two pairs of eyes turned to one figure seated by the window.

  Suriya Qureshi encompassed her two teenage daughters in one glance, noting their nervous movements. Apparently they didn’t know what to do. They were w
aiting for a sign from her. Waiting to see whether she would get up and answer the phone herself.

  She disappointed them. By the nod of her head she motioned her youngest daughter, Farina. Out of her three daughters she was the good conversationalist. She could cope with any situation. Farina, however, drew further into the settee and nudged her elder sister Nadia.

  “You go”, she hissed.

  Nadia got up very reluctantly, stepping on her sister’s feet as she made a dash for the door and disappeared into the hallway.

  In the living room, mother and daughter stared at one another, their hearts literally in their mouths, their ears cocked to the conversation going on over the telephone.

  In both heads the same thought hammered. Was it her? They waited, trying to glean their information from the nuances of words and phrases that Nadia was using. The mother’s head fell back against the sofa.

  It was not her. It was not Rubiya. Nadia would not be speaking to her like that. Her words were too polite and stilted. It sounded as if she was speaking to her Aunt Jamila. Not her again. Did she hear correctly? Or was it her imagination? Nadia was talking about Rubiya. Surely Jamila had not found out about Rubiya — surely not. Oh God! She could not bear it. She felt faint. Her heart was beating rapidly.

  “I bet she has found out, and is now trying to find something out from Nadia. She is very good at doing that. Oh God, why didn’t I answer the phone and shut her up”. Surely Nadia hadn’t gone mad and blabbed out the truth: Suriya for a moment did not realise that she was speaking out her thoughts. Only when she looked at her daughter did she realise that she was speaking out aloud.

  She ignored her daughter. She must do something. She must call Nadia and herself have a word with Jamila. Just as she got up from her seat she heard the clicking sound of the phone, as Nadia replaced the receiver on its cradle. Too late.

  Nadia entered.

  Two pairs of eyes turned towards her, scanning her face quickly for any tell-tale expression it might betray. She gave her mother and sister a watery smile, knowing too well what they were thinking about. She came further into the room and sat down gingerly in the vacant place beside her sister. She addressed her mother.