The Wish Maker

by Ali Sethi

  “Okay, now look. Look behind me. Can you see him?”

  I looked behind her at the tables, where a fresh wave of dancers rose with exclamations of surprise and delight at the change of song, and rushed forward from different directions, obstructing the view.

  “Can you see him?”

  I was trying. The people had blocked the steps; more and more were crowding on the platform.

  “What’s he wearing?” I said.

  “A suit.”

  All the men were wearing suits.

  She said, “He’s sitting at the table behind me with his friends.” But she was dancing in front of me and had her back to the tables.

  I danced on tiptoe and saw the men at the table, then the girl walking up to the table. It was Tara Tanvir. She saw me, looked away, hitched up her dress and sat in the lap of a man in a suit.

  “Did you see yet?”

  I said, “No, not yet.”

  The song was in Spanish. The dancers had decreased.

  She said, “Let’s walk past the table.”

  I said, “Don’t look, Samar Api.”

  But she looked. And she turned around at once, her face not showing what she felt.

  She said, “Keep dancing.”

  We were. The foreign words of the song gave no sign of abating.

  She said, “I can’t, Zaki.”

  I said, “Let’s go.” And I took her hand and began to break past the dancers. She was behind me, and I could feel her following closely, but I couldn’t see her face as we passed the tables and kept walking.

  We passed the table.

  And Samar Api laughed.

  But they weren’t looking.

  “Samar Api . . .”

  “Just walk.” She was walking very quickly now, past the tables and under the curving archways of the façade, then down the elevations and through the brick passage, and finally out the big doors.

  “Samar Api! Wait!”

  She was running. She ran all the way to the ricksha, parked where we had left it, in an unnecessarily distant alley where it was most unlikely to be seen, and she climbed in and told the driver to take her home.

  The ricksha started.

  “Samar Api . . .”

  But she snatched her hand away and kept her face turned to the window, where she had begun at last to cry.

  12

  WOMEN’S JOURNAL, 21-27 OCTOBER 1993

  EDITORIAL

  Democracy and nationhood are not served on platters. History is a tumultuous, and often tragic, process. Ours has been especially so. But there are times to rejoice even in the long, hard march to freedom. That is why, as we stand on the brink of rediscovering our national soul, this is a moment to savor.

  A toast to the caretaker government for overseeing the fairest election since 1970. It is a legacy we should cherish and fight for if necessary.

  A toast to the leader of the opposition, who is no longer the stilted child of the military-business establishment. We now have a confident, popular leader who has finally come of age. This is no mean transformation. It augurs well for a meaningful two-party system in the country.

  Finally, a toast to Ms. Benazir Bhutto. Here is a courageous woman who has braved the odds time and again. She richly deserves being prime minister today, not least because she was unfairly ousted from power in 1990 and then hounded from pillar to post by her opponents. She has now been vindicated by the election results. We hope that with this second chance she will prove worthy of our trust.

  And from there the editorial went on to impart advice: the prime minister must take “concrete steps” now to ensure that the women of Pakistan were healthier and freer in the future, starting with the abolition of the anti-women laws instituted by the military under its so-called Islamization campaign. (There was a photo feature in the middle pages on “The Dark Laws,” which showed women working in the countryside, women handcuffed, women holding their heads and looking out at the world from behind metal bars.) Then the prime minister must turn her attention to health care and family planning, especially among women in the rural areas, where literacy levels were unacceptably low; then to education in general and to the secondary schools and universities in particular, which continued to rely on textbooks poisoned long ago by the anti-democratic forces. And finally the government must rescue the economy, which was sinking, and work to secure the assistance of foreign donors and development organizations to set it right.

  Above the text, in place of the usually satirical cartoon, the cartoonist had composed a solemn picture: the restored prime minister was emerging from a crowd of her supporters, the dupatta worn high above her head, and was holding the green-and-white Pakistani flag, which gleamed incredibly with light and rippled like corrugated iron in the winds of change.

  “Three years,” said Daadi, “have gone by and none of it has happened, not one thing. But is anyone asking? Does anyone ask?” She held out her hand and shook it demandingly.

  “Princess,” said Suri. “She thinks she is a princess.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Hukmi gravely, as though this were a charge that ought to be investigated.

  But Women’s Journal continued to address its exhortations to the government, displaying a patience that in other publications (right-wing rags, partisan pamphlets) had already run out; another English weekly had published a two-page spread called “The Million-Dollar Question,” in which the mug-shot pictures of politicians were accompanied by the amounts they had allegedly earned in bribes, kickbacks and commissions.

  A black-and-white photograph of the prime minister’s husband was at the top of the page.

  “Yes,” said my mother. “We know there is corruption. There has always been corruption. But why do we look now? Why are we looking only at this government? Why don’t we look at the corruption of those who rule with guns, and have ruled with guns for so many years and are even now waiting in the wings?”

  Daadi said no one was waiting in the wings.

  “You are sadly mistaken,” said my mother.

  I said, “Who are the guns?”

  “The establishment,” said my mother.

  “It is a word,” said Daadi, and held up a hollowed hand. “A long, empty word.”

  My mother said it was absurd and hypocritical, like pardoning a gang of known robbers who raided a house at regular intervals and then punishing a little girl for daring to steal an ashtray.

  “Ashtray,” said Daadi one morning, and flung the newspaper across the table. The headline was UK COUNTRYSIDE PALACE SAID TO BELONG TO PM AND HUSBAND. There was a picture beside it of the discovered mansion, brown and withdrawn in the mossy English countryside, and an inset picture of the couple: she was sitting on a sofa with her hands in her lap and he was standing behind her in a black suit.

  “Little girl,” said Daadi. “And little boy. Jack and Jill.”

  She laughed.

  “Hand in hand,” said Suri. “Hand in hand.”

  The Women’s Journal editorials became subdued and conflicted, and readers began to seek explanations for the magazine’s continued engagement with a discredited government. One reader, a resident of Karachi who was now pursuing a Ph.D. in political science at a university in Sydney, Australia, wrote to say that the magazine’s silence was “tantamount to quietism.” After that the news pages began to carry investigative reports on the alleged misconduct of sitting ministers, often with enlarged, damning quotes from members of the opposition. A highlighted rectangle at the bottom of the page insisted that the views expressed in these articles were those of the sources quoted, and did not necessarily reflect the editorial position of the magazine.

  But the content spoke for itself.

  Late one night the staffers converged in the veranda, and the chairs they sat on formed an elongated circle. The smoke from cigarettes rose silver in the dim light. A man and his companions had been killed in Karachi; the police had stopped their cars and opened fire, and were now saying that the victims had fired
first. But no policemen had been killed in the encounter.

  A man was saying, “It is murder. It is state terrorism. And it is her government, her police.”

  A woman said, “It is her enemies who have done this. No sister can order the killing of her own brother.”

  And another said, “It is politics. They will do anything.”

  My mother was listening.

  “Daadi said you saw the light.”

  We were sitting before the borrowed TV in my mother’s room. She was watching the unbiased news channel, a discussion program called Debrief.

  “Daadi would say that,” she said.

  The Indian journalist was now arguing with a politician on the panel, a fight over the fighting between Hindus and Muslims. The other two panelists—an elderly man and a corpulent middle-aged woman in a golden sari—were both trying to look unsurprised, trying to stay unbiased for the viewers.

  “Zaki, pack your bags. We’re going away.”

  “Where?”

  “To Spain.”

  “Who all?”

  “Just us.”

  “You and me?”

  “Yes,” she said, and only now looked up from the program, where the fighting between the panelists had peaked. “Is that a problem?”

  “Samar Api,” I said. “We’re going to Spain.”

  It was early in the evening. She had returned from the tuition center and, according to the pattern, had gone into her room and played sad songs on the stereo. “Spain,” she said. “Wow.”

  Her eyes were lost. I said, “Will you be fine?”

  “Of course I’ll be fine.” She tried to make a surprised face, and failed; she looked confused instead. “Of course I’ll be fine, Zaki.” And now she sat up and nodded energetically, trying to show that she had been listening.

  She thought of something and it made her want to cry.

  She said, “So when are you leaving?” It was posed with enthusiasm.

  “Two weeks,” I said.

  She appeared to make a calculation.

  “And when are you coming back?”

  “Two weeks after that.”

  She made another calculation.

  “So that’s a month,” she said.

  “A month from now.”

  “You’ll be back in a month.”

  “No. We’ll be back in two weeks. But we’re leaving in two weeks too, so the total is a month.”

  It was difficult and unnecessary.

  “Will you be all right?” I said, and jokily, to make it light.

  “Of course!” she said. “I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine.”

  But even in those two remaining weeks she was difficult to reach. She didn’t talk of school, didn’t talk of things she had done in the day or hoped to do in the next. She didn’t talk of new friends or of old ones. She came home and did her assignments, then listened to the songs on the stereo. She had sold all the magazines, and the shoeboxes lay empty under her bed, the shelves on the wall carrying only books.

  She went outside at dusk. And she was thinking the same thoughts, walking in the darkened driveway, alone with the sky and the black trees and the birds fleeing the night, and her thoughts had become the world.

  She returned to her room and thought of improvement, rescue, miracles.

  She was tempted by the phone and resisted it.

  But sometimes she succumbed, and dialed his number and heard his voice on the answering machine, knowing that it would lead to the bathroom, to the shutting and locking of the door and the sound of running water to drown out the sound of her crying.

  Afterward she stood before the mirror and held the plump white bottle of eye-drop solution above her eyes, which were then less swollen.

  She went into Daadi’s room and made an effort.

  “Eat,” said Daadi. “Diets are good only for some of the time.”

  And she was seen eating her food.

  Our plane landed in the morning, a hot morning, a surprise in October; we waited in the empty blaze of the tarmac until a bus came and carried us to the inside of the airport. Our suitcase appeared on the conveyor belt ahead of the others, and we took it through customs and out again into the sun. We took a taxi now, toward what my mother had described to the taxi driver as the Arab Quarter.

  “Look,” she said, and motioned past her window at the dark, pointed trees, at the rushing hills and the dust. “Granada.”

  The taxi took us through winding towns, then up into a small neighborhood in the hills. The houses here stood on a sloping stone street that narrowed at the turns and broadened out as it fell away to either side. The windows, painted blue or green or pink, were closed against the heat of the day and the terraces were decorated with flowers. Ours was the only house with a plain exterior.

  “This is the one,” said my mother. She was trying to find the bell.

  “We should just go in,” I said.

  “Really? You think so? Isn’t it rude?”

  But she couldn’t find the bell, and we pushed past the heavy door and went in.

  And now plants, a garden, a winding thatch roof that led from the entrance all the way to the patio and carried vines with clusters of a dark little fruit.

  “Grapes,” said my mother, and plucked one.

  “Ah, yes,” said the woman. “Welcome.”

  She was tending to the plants at the edge of her garden, a wild, unplanned patch of fluff and fur and bright pods that stood unhatched on the ends of tall stems. She dropped her spade and began to wade through the uneven grass, at times brushing her knees, her kaftan hitched at her broad, loose waist. A large woman, she swayed as she moved.

  “Astrid,” she said, and gave an august nod that seemed both to grant and to accept a greeting.

  “Hello, Astrid,” said my mother. She dropped the suitcase to the floor and shook the woman’s hand.

  “And this is young Zacky?”

  “Zucky,” I said. “Rhymes with Lucky.”

  My mother was smiling nervously.

  But Astrid was pleased; her laugh opened up her mouth and pushed back her head. “Oh my,” she said, sighing and settling a hand on her heart. “That’s quite an introduction. I hope you like the company of adults?”

  “He doesn’t mind,” said my mother. “He’s very tolerant.”

  “Do you?” said Astrid.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Good,” she said, and clasped her hands jovially, “because right now we only have adults in this house. In the summer we had two beautiful children, girl and boy, lovely kids, lovely parents, but they are gone now, back to America.” Her hand became a gliding airplane.

  “Oh no,” said my mother regrettingly.

  “Yes,” said Astrid. “But never mind. We will have our fun.” She frowned admonishingly and raised a rallying fist. “Come inside. Let me show you the rooms.”

  We had the honeymoon suite. The room contained two small beds, each swollen at one end with pillows, a table on the side, an awkward empty chair in a corner, a watercolor painting of the sea at high tide on one wall and a long, slim mirror on another. The curtains were thick and floral; my mother tugged at the rope and they lifted, revealing a wide view of the valley across.

  “Astrid, this is lovely!”

  “Yes,” said Astrid. “The Alhambra is on the other side. One of the rooms has got a view but it’s taken. American couple. Very charming. You will meet them.” It was assumed.

  My mother was still standing at the window with a hand at her waist and another on her throat, and was taking in the view, which had altered the room, the narrow beds and the chair and the mirror, all swept up now in the charm.

  “Oh,” said Astrid, remembering, “let me show you the bathroom. There is a problem”—she stopped herself—“actually it is not a problem, it’s more of a trick.” She winked, opened the bathroom door and parted the shower curtain. “You turn it like this, and then like this”—she had worked two separate knobs and brought them into alignment—“and
it is cold. Then like this, and like this, and it is hot. You have to mix and match. And don’t leave it running for too long”—her eyes narrowed pleadingly—“or the hot water will run out and the others will complain.” Her sheepish laugh was less embarrassed than explanatory.

  “Okay now,” she said, busily smacking the sides of her thighs, “I will go downstairs and work. You come down whenever. No hurries. We take supper early, around six.”

  She closed the door behind her with a practiced click.

  The room became ours.

  “What’s our plan?”

  “There’s no plan,” said my mother; she pressed her hands into the mattress. It was firm. She took off her shoes and drew aside the bedcover. “I’m just going to lie down here for a little while.” She was testing the pillows behind her head. “You can go downstairs and ask Astrid to guide you.”

  “For what?”

  “For doing things. You can ask her to show you a map of this place.” She was preparing to sleep. “Or you can stay here and take a nap. It’s up to you.”

  Astrid didn’t have a map. She said she used to have one but had lost it. “Stay in,” she said, making it sound like a prospect. “You can sit here and draw pictures.” She gestured upward at the vines, crawling out in their intricate multitudes with the grapes hanging in tight, unripe bunches. “You like to draw?”

  I hadn’t considered it.

  “Wait,” she said, and went in, and returned with a writing pad. “Here”—she smacked it on the table and placed a pen on top—“draw. Make a still life. Or make a portrait of me if you like. I won’t mind it.”

  My mother came down in the evening. She was dressed in a cotton nightgown that touched the floor and followed her in a frothy trail. She came over to the table and settled languidly in a chair. The table was long and rough, and lacked a varnish, the working table of a carpenter.

  “Rested?” said Astrid. She stood in the doorway with a large tray in her hands.

  “Oh, yes,” said my mother, who was pleased with everything, pleased to the point of self-saturation; the pleasure had become a process, a way of breathing the air and responding to inquiries. “Very well rested, thank you.”