by Bina Shah
His father would be the first one to jeer at him. “You’ve always been immature,” he’d say, barely glancing up from his newspaper. “Always. You could never decide anything important for yourself: what you wanted to study, where you wanted to go.”
“That’s not fair,” Ali always tried to argue back, feeling the ground shifting like quicksand beneath his feet.
“Maybe, but it’s true. That’s why I have to make the decisions for you. Because I know better.”
Ali had a lot of conversations like these with his father, jumbled-up pieces of tapes that played in his head, based on real talks, imagined conversations, wishful arguments, discussions commenced but never completed. It was part of the legacy of having a parent who was no longer there. In all of them Ali argued his point with eloquence and intelligence, always persuaded his father to see his point of view. In reality he’d never been able to get his point across, never succeeded in feeling heard or understood. No matter how much he imagined talking to his father as an equal, though, he knew he could not rewrite history. His father had the upper hand on him, even in his own mind.
What always defeated him was that when it was time to make a choice, Ali’s father made decisions only with his head, choosing what made the most sense and fitted in most practically with circumstances and chance. But there were many different types of decisions: those that you made with your head—what to study, where to go to university—were only a small part of the choices that presented themselves on any given day. What about those that were made by the heart, the body, the soul?
The decision to love, for example. It was something you decided with your heart, as Ali had with Sunita. He knew the pitfalls of getting involved with her, the chasm between their religions. But his heart had not allowed him to walk away from her. The decision not to sleep with her, even though his body was begging to take the lead like a rambunctious puppy that could only think of gamboling and chewing on everything in sight, was also made with his heart; because he loved her, he didn’t want to sully her with his own base desires. And then there was the part of him, belonging to neither head nor heart, but some unnamed entity, more stubborn and less definable, that didn’t want to be the unloving man that Sikandar Hussein had been to them all. He didn’t want to be the lost man that went from marriage to marriage, unsatisfied with each subsequent reincarnation of the first, best love.
The choice to hate, even though it didn’t feel like a choice, but something that just happened naturally, was also made by the heart. Ali loathed his father with a reflexive kind of hate, born out of the fear that his father did not care for him. Sikandar always told others how much he loved his family, his sons, even his daughter, though Jeandi as a girl was a second-class citizen in her father’s eyes. But Ali couldn’t sense it, nor could Haris. If Sikandar had been like other friends’ parents, who quarreled with their children one minute and then in a tempestuous change of heart showered them with affection the next, Ali might have felt his sincerity. But Sikandar’s departure from their house was the clear evidence pointing to the strength of his detachment.
And the decision to forgive—now that was a decision made by the soul. To forgive his father for his limitations, his weaknesses and vulnerabilities, his inability to show love was a step that Ali was not yet ready for. He could see it waiting for him as part of his future. Someday when he was married and had children of his own, when he lived through the stresses and pressures that a man had to go through in order to feed his family and still remained sane, he would understand, and then perhaps he would know compassion for his father’s flaws. But for now, Ali wanted to run away from having to see his father as fully human.
To declare his father dead was a decision Ali made with heart, mind, and soul.
When Ali arrived home, they were all out of the house: Jeandi at her tuition center, Haris probably ferrying his mother to the supermarket or the doctor’s. Relieved, Ali went to his room and shut the door. He didn’t come out again until the next morning to go to work; he woke long before anyone else was stirring and didn’t bother to eat breakfast before he went.
At the station, things had still not calmed down. Policemen stood menacingly outside the building, and Ali had to push through them to get to the door. They asked for his identification and press card, examined it with sneers, then thrust it back at him and waved him through. Ali noted that the policeman who’d looked at his papers held them upside down while he pretended to read them.
Ameena called him into her office later that morning. She was sitting at her desk and smoking, the ashtray next to her computer filled with cigarette butts from the previous night. The monitors on the wall flashed recent clips they’d filmed of the street protests that had repeatedly occurred since November 3. Ameena’s hair, usually left open to fall around her face, was tied up in a tight ponytail, and she looked tired and grim as she glanced up at Ali from behind her computer screen.
“I want you to go film a lawyer’s protest.”
“When?”
“Saturday. Outside the High Court.”
He hadn’t gone on a film assignment since the bombing in October. He’d been given a week off to recover from the shock, then was restricted to desk work when he’d returned. Overseeing graphics, helping with editing, doing research, making phone calls—all soothing busywork to keep his mind off the void that had opened up in front of him on that night, and to stop him from thinking of Haroon. But Ali saw Haroon everywhere he turned: in the production booth he could see the man lurking in a darkened corner; when he sat down to lunch, Haroon was just leaving the cafeteria, his camera bag slung on his back. Ali once caught Haroon’s face reflected in the bathroom mirror, two halves split by a large crack that had been there for years and that nobody had ever thought to repair.
“Are you up to it?” Ameena was asking him. Ali suddenly felt a rush of appreciation. She wasn’t the hardhearted monster he’d always thought she was. He opened his mouth to tell her about how he was feeling, how Haroon’s ghost was following him everywhere he went, feeding off his guilt and his shame, but she went on before he had a chance to speak. “Because nobody else thinks you are. And I have to say I tend to agree with them. But Kazim said to give you another chance.”
She was acting as if it was his fault that the bombs had gone off! Ali gritted his teeth. “I can do it.”
“All right.” She reached for another cigarette and lit it without even having to shift her glance from the screen. “Don’t get into trouble this time.”
“Thank you.”
Ali seethed through the entire day, stopping numerous times in his work to fire off emails to Jehangir about the webcam plan to humiliate Ameena, wishing he could tell the police that there were dangerous criminals being harbored inside the City24 building, longing to call up the American consulate and say Kazim Mazhar knew where Osama bin Laden was hiding. Jehangir was cautious in his replies; he’d kept his distance from Ali since that day at French Beach, informing him that Masood didn’t want to see him again. “You embarrassed him in front of his guests, yaar,” said Jehangir. “You can’t put a man’s izzat in the dirt and then expect him to still want to be your friend.”
“The hell with izzat,” was Ali’s response.
Jehangir shook his head. “You’ve changed, Ali. You used to understand the way things work around here. Now it’s like you don’t even care.”
“I don’t.”
“But you have to.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You do.”
“Shut up, man.” Ali found himself too exhausted to call Jehangir anything more abusive, in their time-honored tradition. Too much had changed since the last time they’d traded their friendly insults.
Jehangir didn’t retort with a curse, either. He just stared at Ali with wounded eyes and walked away. Ali swore at him as he disappeared into the conference room, but Jehangir was right: he had cha
nged. He no longer wanted to play this game, take part in the etiquette of hypocrisy, where people met and exchanged all the right courtesies, then backstabbed each other with glee. He didn’t want to meet an acquaintance at a wedding and greet him with “Yaar, how are you? It’s been ages! We must meet up!” and then after a year, meet again at another wedding and do it all over again. He wanted to burn all the insincerity and showing off and meaninglessness out of his life until only what was true and meaningful was left. He didn’t mind if he lost his so-called friends. As long as he had Sunita’s support, he could start over again and befriend people whose lives he would be happy to live.
Ali reached the university in the evening with a few minutes to spare, an unusual event he took as a sign he was on the right path. Now that he’d dumped his plans to go to America, he’d have to take his studies more seriously, but he was ready for that, too.
Sunita was sitting on a bench under a banyan tree in the university garden. The tree had been hit by a bolt of lightning in a thunderstorm that sent it smashing straight through a classroom window. To everyone’s astonishment, the tree hadn’t died after the impact, but continued to grow sideways along the wall of the building instead of toward the sky. It was as much an institution in the university as the terrible canteen food and the draconian attendance rules. Countless romances had been conducted under its hunchbacked shade, and Ali had known he loved Sunita when they first sat together on that very bench where she was now waiting.
His heart contracted with pleasure to see her there, her long hair gently moving in the evening breeze, her stack of books set neatly to one side. She was eating an impossibly large samosa, stuffing it into her mouth; she had a small mouth that could open wide: when she was talking, laughing, kissing him. He wanted to laugh with joy at her enjoyment of such simple pleasure, and tell her that he loved every inch of her, seen and unseen, hidden or revealed. Did every pair of lovers in the world feel they were the only two who spoke the same language? No need for conventional greetings between them, just the truth, delivered with sincerity and a pure heart.
“You look beautiful.” His smile faded as he realized she did not look up to meet his eyes. And the memory that he hadn’t spoken to her since Saturday night—more than that, hadn’t told her he was going to Islamabad—resurfaced in his mind, a corpse released from a watery grave that slowly bobbed into view.
Sunita swallowed down the samosa, then turned her eyes to him. “Where have you been?”
His options flicked through his mind. Think, think. Think of something good. No, wait. Don’t lie. That’ll just make it worse. Tell her the truth. “I … uh … look, I’m sorry. I was in Islamabad. And my phone was off for most of the time.” He spread his hands out in front of her, palms up, in what he hoped was a conciliatory gesture.
“I know that. But why?”
“Because I couldn’t have it on in the plane,” he said lamely.
“That’s not what I meant. Why were you in Islamabad?”
“Okay, Sunita, I don’t want to argue about this, can we just discuss this in private?” Other students were milling around in the garden, not far from them, so they kept their voices down, their expressions neutral. So much of their relationship had to be conducted in public that they’d grown artful in protecting it under an umbrella of calm. But right now Sunita looked like she wanted to get up and stand on the bench, start screaming, maybe slap him, like the Bollywood movies his mother watched on cable television in the long, lonely nights after his father had gone.
“Why were you in Islamabad?” she repeated.
“Can I sit down?”
“No. Why were you in Islamabad?”
“Look, we’re getting late for class—”
“Shut up and tell me right now or I swear to God I’ll never talk to you again.”
“I went to Islamabad so I could get a US visa.”
Sunita’s eyes widened. “Why?”
“Why do people get visas, Sunita, now can we please …” The patches of sweat were blossoming under his arms and on his back. He had a morbid fear of being like some men in his class who reeked of body odor and sweat, unaware that nobody wanted to sit next to them. He glanced around to see if anyone was already turning away from the guilty stink emanating from his body.
“Are you going to America?”
“Yes … I mean no …”
“Which is it?”
“I was going to, but then I changed my mind.”
“For a holiday?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Everyone had gone now: class had begun. If they weren’t in their seats in another five minutes, they would be marked absent in the class register. Three absences meant a failing grade: Ali already had two absences in the class, Business Communications. He took a deep breath and said, “I wanted to go study in America. I got into a university there, I needed the visa. That’s why I went. But—”
Before he could tell her that he hadn’t gotten the visa, that he had turned around and left, Sunita put up her hand in front of his mouth to stop him from talking more. Her face was naked with pain, as if someone had peeled back the topmost layer of her skin and exposed it to the sun. “When were you going to tell me about this?”
“I knew I would have to, if it all worked out. But I didn’t know if it ever would.”
“Really? Or would you have just gone off to America and told me once you were already there?”
“Sunita. I can explain. Please listen to me!”
“It’s too late.” She got up, swaying unsteadily, her hand pressed to her mouth.
“Are you all right?”
“I think I’m going to be sick.” She pushed away Ali’s arm and ran to the bathroom. He followed her, stood outside the bathroom, listening to the sounds of her retching, regrets and unformed apologies now joining his father’s imaginary corpse floating in the rivers of his conscience.
The terrible sounds stopped, but minutes passed and no Sunita emerged. Ali began to worry. What if she’d fainted? He was afraid to check on her: anyone could get the wrong impression if they saw him going into the girls’ bathroom. He could be in serious trouble, be accused of molesting someone. The guards would pull him out and beat him up in the street; the administration would inform his mother, and he might be suspended or even expelled.
His dilemma was solved when a girl came down the hall. He moved out of the way so that she could enter the bathroom, but as she was going in, he whispered, “Excuse me. My friend is in there. Could you just see if she’s okay?” The girl studied him for a minute with suspicious eyes, then nodded her assent and went inside.
Ali leaned against the wall until the door opened again. The girl put her head around the door, her eyes filled with a mixture of pity and weariness. She looked as though this wasn’t the first time she’d been asked to mediate a lovers’ tiff on the campus grounds.
“She’s okay. But she doesn’t want to see you.”
Ali nodded his thanks to her, and she returned to her class, her high heels tapping on the hard floor, ricocheting like gunshots in the empty hall. The fluorescent lights hummed eerily, one of them buzzing on and off, a fault somewhere in the wiring. Ali waited for Sunita to come out, and hoped that she would listen to him if he organized his thoughts more clearly, made his arguments more convincing, his entreaties more pathetic. But twenty minutes passed with no sign of her, and he finally realized that she would stay in the bathroom until he went away. He loved her, so he had to oblige. He climbed the stairs to his class but she never followed suit. Ali left the university at 11 p.m., knowing that Business Communications was not the only thing he had failed that night.
They were standing outside the Sindh High Court, a colonial building made of pink sandstone with graceful gardens and a stately driveway stretching out in front. Its long columns, sweeping staircase, and high windows
spoke of the high hopes for justice in a time and place completely different from the battered city in which it stood today.
The gates to the court were locked in preparation for the protests, which had been taking place on an almost daily basis since November 3. Ali was there with the new cameraman, Arif, and another sound technician, Hassan. Ram had quit last month, too upset to deal with going back to work after what he’d witnessed on that humid October night. Ali didn’t know the new men, but it was too serious a day to joke around and establish any kind of relationship beyond the professional.
Behind the gates, everything seemed tranquil, but in front hundreds of men and women gathered in the road that led to the court, marching around in large circles to show their displeasure with what had been happening all year. It wasn’t just about November 3. That was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, the final nail in the coffin—all the clichés that people used when they discussed the “state of the nation” on the current affairs programs, in the newspapers, in drawing rooms at fancy dinner parties. Only on the street had the clichés been put away and rhetoric channeled into action; nobody had witnessed anything like this in Pakistan ever before.
Most of the protestors were lawyers clad in black coats: some carried billboards with antigovernment slogans; others were shouting with their fists raised to the sky, “Go, Musharraf, go! Go, Musharraf, go!” as people clapped their hands and punched the air in time to the beat. Someone had even brought a drum, while others blew whistles in short, sharp bursts, creating a musical din that rose above the traffic from the busy downtown area. The sea of black coats, the grimness of their eyes made it look as though one large funeral were filling up the street.