by Bina Shah
“How clever you are, Bibi!” said Babu, knowing he would have to go without his cigarettes for that day.
“I know,” smiled Pinky. “Papa tells me so all the time.”
Yusuf planned that he, Babu, and the driver would take Pinky to the shrine of Abdullah Shah Ghazi, which was only two minutes up the road from their house at 70 Clifton, while the ayah and Aftab the cook would stay behind to look after the other children. The parrot masters set up their stalls on the pavement outside the shrine, enticing devotees of the saint to try their luck and see what fate had in store for them, and Yusuf was as curious as Pinky to learn his own future.
“But what about Miss Lussi?” said Babu. “She’ll tell everything to Saeen when he comes back from Amreeka.”
“You leave her to me,” Yusuf said with a smile. He felt around in his pocket and produced something that Babu and Aftab both leaned forward to see: a tiny, greasy ball of opium, which, dropped in Miss Lussi’s cup of tea, would make her sleep for three hours and have the most beautiful dreams while she was gently snoring the afternoon away.
Babu sucked in his teeth in horror. “You can’t give her that!”
“Why not? Don’t we give this to babies in the villages so that they will sleep through the night? It’s perfectly safe. My mother gave it to me all the time and there’s nothing wrong with me at all!”
“Yes, just look at you,” muttered Aftab.
Pinky could hardly eat her lunch; roast mutton with cauliflower was her least favorite meal of all on normal days, and today the excitement almost choked her. But Miss Lucy had told Mama that a good roast lamb on Sundays was what all the children in England were brought up on; lamb was not commonly eaten in Karachi, the smelly meat adored only by the wild men of Kashmir, but Mama considered goat’s meat, lean and tough, a good enough substitute. Pinky made sure to gulp down each and every bite on her plate, earning a rare glance of approval from Miss Lucy, and she could hardly wait for Miss Lucy to have her tea, served to her in a china cup reserved for Papa’s most important visitors by the obsequious Yusuf. The Englishwoman’s daily half-hour nap would surely be enough time for Pinky to go to the shrine and have her fate told by the parrots. She wasn’t quite sure what they would tell her, but she hoped it had something to do with castles and ponies, and chocolate—a huge amount of chocolate. Maybe even a castle made of chocolate! Or a chocolate pony that could somehow walk around in the sun all day without melting. You never knew …
Mir finished his lunch and ran off, and Sunny toddled away, too, but Pinky sat and stared at her plate with its fork and knife neatly crossed together, until she heard Miss Lucy yawn loudly, one, two, three times. The governess was rubbing her thumb and forefinger in the corners of her eyes, and it looked like she was having a hard time holding her head straight. “Oh, my dear
…” Miss Lucy began, then yawned again. “I think I shall have a little lie-down. I’m suddenly very tired … Do you think you could play quietly for a half hour, my dear, while I take some rest? Read the books that your papa brought you from London. There’s a good girl.”
“Yes, Miss Lucy,” said Pinky primly. But as soon as the governess climbed the stairs to her room, Pinky raced into the kitchen. “She’s gone, she’s gone, Yusuf! Let’s go. Quickly, before she wakes up again!”
They ran to the car, where the driver and Babu already waited in the front seats. Yusuf’s teeth gleamed white and straight in his dark face, and Pinky smiled so hard that her cheeks hurt, and Babu, hearing her infectious laughter, could not help but allow the corners of his mouth to be pulled out of their downward droop. In a few moments they swept out of the driveway and were driving up the street to the seafront, where a simple left turn took them to the Mazaar, the shrine of Abdullah Shah Ghazi, the patron saint of Karachi.
Pinky gawped at the green building, set on a high hill, connected to the ground by means of a long, thin staircase that looked to her as if it might go all the way up to the sky. A few figures were climbing up the stairs; it was Sunday afternoon, too early for the crowds of people that usually visited the saint and thronged the street beneath the tomb, buying green cloths and garlands of roses and other religious knickknacks to take back to their families after their day of pilgrimage. She wondered what the tomb looked like on the inside: she imagined a very cold room, with stalactites growing from the ceilings, dripping cold drops of ice water onto the floor, like a cave Papa had once visited in China. But she would never be allowed to see it for herself: her mother told her, as they drove by the shrine, that bad people visited it and bad things happened in its basement, so she was a little afraid, and she turned her head away and looked instead for the parrot-master sitting on the sidewalk. And sure enough, she saw him immediately, an old man who crouched next to a large cage shrouded by a white cloth turned gray with grime, and a placard next to that that showed a picture of a bright green parrot with an envelope in its beak.
The driver parked the car a safe distance away from the
Parrot-Master—it would never do for Saeen’s Buick to be
recognized standing in front of a common Tota-Fal stall. He jogged back to find the little group standing around the old man as he explained that for two rupees his parrot would choose an envelope whose contents would reveal the future to the lucky customer. The man was tiny and wizened; he spoke a type of coarse Sindhi that suggested he might have been a fisherman from the coast in a previous life. When he smiled at all of them, there were gaps where his teeth should have been, and Pinky stared at them, astonished: she had never seen a toothless man before.
“Who wants to go first?” said the Parrot-Master.
“I will,” said Yusuf, clutching two rupees in his fist.
“Let me pay!” said Pinky, pushing back his hand and offering her money to the Parrot-Master instead.
Yusuf shook his head. “No, bibi. I have to pay for my own fortune. You keep your money.”
“Then I’ll pay for Babu!”
Babu put up his hands in protest. “Na, baba! I don’t want to know the future! My present is confusing enough, thank you!”
“All right, then.” The Parrot-Master drew the cloth off his cage and revealed a gleaming green parakeet, large-breasted and long-tailed, which dipped its head back and forth and let out a happy whistle when the sunlight hit its cage. Pinky clapped her hands in delight as the Parrot-Master opened the cage door: the parrot didn’t fly away immediately, as Pinky would have done if she were a bird trapped in a cage. It merely hopped out and stood with its head cocked, waiting obediently for its master’s command. “What is your name?”
“Yusuf Sheedi.”
The Parrot-Master leaned forward and repeated Yusuf’s name three times to the parrot, who nodded and squawked, and slowly began to pace up and down the row of long envelopes spread out at the old man’s feet. On the third round, the parrot stopped and plucked out an envelope, then fluttered up and perched on the Parrot-Master’s shoulder. Pinky waited with bated breath and Yusuf’s face grew more and more fearful as the Parrot-Master opened the envelope and began to read. Babu’s eyes narrowed at the idea that this simple man was literate, but he too listened carefully to the man’s words.
“You are a simple man, without cares or worries. But you must be careful not to fall into bad ways, especially gambling and fighting. Otherwise there could be a bad end waiting for you. Seek refuge in Allah, and be kind to your mother.”
Yusuf scratched his head in confusion. “My mother is dead,” he ventured.
“Do you want another try? Two rupees, only.”
Babu glanced at Pinky, who was dancing from one foot to the other with impatience. He nudged Yusuf, who looked as though he might be willing to hand over another two rupees on the spot. “Let Pinky-bibi go. She’s why we’re here in the first place, remember?” He gently pushed the child forward. “Do hers,
Parrot-Master, so that we can be on our way.”
“Pinky.”
“That is not your real name. It won’t work unless I know your real name.”
The child hesitated and looked at Babu—she’d been taught not to reveal her real name to strangers, but she was torn between wanting to obey her parents and having her fortune told. Babu smiled reassuringly, then bent forward and whispered it in the Parrot-Master’s ear, along with a threat that if he revealed the child’s identity to anyone, Babu would see to it that the
Parrot-Master’s legs would be broken and the head of his parrot wrenched off its neck by nightfall. The Parrot-Master’s face remained blank as he said to his parrot, “Pinky, Pinky, Pinky. The young lady’s name is Pinky. Find her fate, with the help of the blessed saint, Abdullah Shah Ghazi!”
The parrot, instead of pacing up and down, this time flew directly to a card at the end of the row, picked it up, and flew straight back to the Parrot-Master’s shoulder. Babu registered the look of surprise in the old man’s raised eyebrows, the tremble in his fingers as he opened the card and stared at it. For a few minutes, he did not speak.
“What is it?” said Pinky fearfully. “What does it say?”
The Parrot-Master said nothing. He turned the card around and showed it to all of them: no lettering, but the picture of a gold crown.
“What does it mean?” said Yusuf.
“She is a queen,” said the Parrot-Master slowly. “She is a queen.”
Yusuf and Babu looked at each other and shrugged. That much was already obvious: a child arriving with a battalion of servants in a car that most people would never be able to afford even if they saved up the money they earned in a lifetime—what else could she be but a queen? And of course the Parrot-
Master knew whose daughter she was; that much was obvious, too. A waste of money, Babu was already thinking, but if it makes
Pinky-bibi happy and we can get her home quickly, no harm done.
Yusuf, too, was disappointed that the Parrot-Master had said nothing of any value to him or Pinky-bibi; what if he was wrong about the ability of the waters of Manghopir to be able to cure Aftab’s son? Yusuf could feel the walls that held up the sky of his simple world begin to sway, as if being shaken by an earthquake.
Pinky simply looked confused.
Then the Parrot-Master spoke again. “She is a queen, but not just any queen … she is the Eighth Queen, which Shah Abdul Latif wrote about on his final trip to Thar …”
Babu frowned deeply, sharp lines cutting a path into his face that showed what he would look like when he too was as ancient as this man one day. “What are you talking about, Parrot-Man?”
“In the Risalo, Saeen Shah Abdul Latif of Bhit wrote about the Seven Queens, Marvi, Sassi, Sohni, Leelu …”
“Yes, yes, we know about all that.” Babu was irritated. He knew his Sindhi folklore as well as any other man of Sindh! Did the Parrot-Master think he was a fool like Yusuf, or an angrez, like Pinky-bibi, who, for all intents and purposes, was being raised like a memsahib in a Sindhi girl’s body? “But I’ve never heard of an Eighth Queen. You’re talking nonsense!”
The Parrot-Master gazed at Babu with a wounded expression in his rheumy eyes, turned blue with cataract and age. “Shah Abdul Latif was one day upset with his beloved wife, so he took a long journey and went into the desert of Thar. The Tharis welcomed him and shared their meals with him, and he wandered with them for many months, learning their ways. And when at last he came back, he started to write the epic poem of the Eighth Queen, whose name he never revealed. Like the others before her, she would fight for love, for freedom, for truth. She would be separated from her beloved, and pine for it all her days in a foreign land. And she would return, and lead her people to victory from the oppressors … This is that queen, she is standing right here in front of me, I know it.”
“There’s no such tale. You’re mad, old man!” said Babu. Pinky’s shoulders were starting to shake, and her chin was beginning to wobble. The child was clearly being upset by the rantings of this old charlatan. Best to get her out of here, and pretend this day had never happened. “Don’t listen to him, Pinky-bibi. He’s just an old man. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Take Pinky-bibi to the car,” he said to the driver. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Yes, I’m mad!” shouted the Parrot-Master. “Mad with love for my beloved! My queen! I throw myself at her mercy! You have my allegiance forever, my queen!”
Pinky was crying now, as the driver and Yusuf quickly hustled her away and into the waiting car. Babu glared at the old man, drawing his foot back to kick the wrinkled old body as hard as he could. But a figure like this, old, destitute, raving like a lunatic, could only be pitied. Violence and anger were wasted on those too weak to give you a good fight.
He set his foot down again and watched as the Parrot-Master shoved the parrot back into its cage and covered it up with the shroud, gathering up his envelopes and packing them away into another filthy cloth. The old man panted like a thirsty dog with the effort of jerking himself up off the ground, and slung his parrot cage onto his back; Babu felt a sudden sharp pang of fear as the Parrot-Master trotted away toward the shrine, still ranting. “My queen! My beloved! She has come to save Sindh! She will live forever! Martyrs never die!” Then Babu blinked his eyes and when he opened them again, the Parrot-Master had vanished, as if he had existed only in Babu’s mind.
By the time Babu walked slowly back to the car, Pinky had been cajoled into good humor by Yusuf, who was pulling a variety of foolish faces and telling her silly jokes that even she, with her limited Sindhi, could understand. She was giggling, her hand in front of her mouth, the pink cheeks and sweet dark eyes showing no trace of the unhappiness and fright the Parrot-Master had induced in her only a few minutes before.
“Let’s go, Pinky-bibi,” said Babu, wiping his hand across his forehead and feeling as though he had aged ten years in the last ten minutes. “Miss Lucy will be wondering where we are.”
“I want some chocolate first, Babu,” said Pinky. “Can we go to the store and buy some before we go home?”
December 26, 2007
KARACHI
“I will bring you food!”
The crowd cheered.
“And clothing!”
Another cheer.
“Housing that you can afford!”
Applause swelled up like the tide that was beating against the shore a few feet away.
“Health, prosperity, and jobs … But most of all, I will give you khushali—well-being—for you and your children and for generations to come!” Men cheered and clapped and whistled and hooted, wide smiles on all their faces. Ali clapped, too, allowing himself to be carried away by their enthusiasm.
The speaker raised his hands, until the noise died down. “All you have to do is let me into your home and your heart. I promise I will never let you down. I am a simple man, not the great magician that everyone says I am, but if you do not forget me, I will never forget you …”
The street theater was proving to be a great success: a few members of the People’s Resistance were performing a skit they’d written called Jadugar, about a magician who persuaded a poor family to let him stay in their house, eating all their food in return for a few extravagant promises. This was the third performance they’d put on that afternoon on the long Seaview road, which ran all the way down Clifton Beach. After receiving a text message about the show, Ali made his way to the beach at five in the evening, and was standing in the audience now, enjoying the crisp winter air, the caressing breeze of the Arabian Sea, the water flat and blue like a mirror laid on the sand, reflecting only milky wisps of clouds scattered here and there in the sky.
Ali turned away from the impromptu stage to observe the people who’d gathered around: young men in shalwar kameezes, cheap shirts and trousers and baseball caps; five or six women; and a dozen giggling children standing in the front row with their hands in their mouths. The actor playing the magician wore a black shalwar kameez and a cape, with an impressive head of long hair and a matching beard; when he came close, the children drew back, eyes wide, fearful that he might actually cast a spell on them. The men, who knew better, went along with the spirit of the performance, calling out to the poor family, warning them that the magician was up to no good, while the few women in the audience said nothing with their mouths but everything with their eyes, lively and amused in their otherwise serious faces.
It didn’t hurt so much to turn his head anymore; Ali’s bruises were healing nicely, although his fingers still hurt when he tried to pick up even the lightest object in his hands, refusing to bend and paining him during the night, especially when it was cold. On landing in Karachi, Ali’s father had taken him straight to the emergency room at the Aga Khan Hospital, where a sleepy intern examined Ali and ordered a few X-rays to find out the extent of the damage.
Ali and his father sat in silence, side by side on a row of hard plastic chairs in the waiting room. The bumping of the plane’s wheels on the runway had ended their brief interlude; now again they fell into a companionable silence. Ali’s father stretched out his legs and leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes: it was three o’clock in the morning. But Ali’s mind began to stir, like a restless dog, and was soon flooded with thoughts of Salma, here in the clinic that she’d described so often to him, where she underwent the torture of her lectures and rotations. He rang her phone several times, then Ferzana, Bilal, and Imran: no reply. Frantically, he began to send out text messages with his good hand.
“Who are you messaging?” Ali’s father asked.
“A few friends who were with me at the march.”