‘I can’t remember what I said, but I knew I’d do it for him, even if my feet hurt while I danced. I looked at a kite or an eagle wheeling overhead: I hoped Kashif’s small white birds didn’t come here to get eaten, and I thought, I’m going to say yes to Yasir when he comes back on New Year’s Eve, and next year, perhaps, I’ll have a baby.’
7
Sameer’s first book came out the following year. Iman had flown over from Kampala to be with him. Not exactly: she’d been in London a while, had radical surgery just before, but she staggered bravely out of bed, put on makeup and some traditional Kashmiri embroidery, and drove him to his party.
For the rest of the decade, after taking her degree, she flew restlessly between Kampala, London and Karachi, freelancing, always between homes. But she didn’t see Kashif again, though they spoke on the telephone from time to time. Yasir had settled down in Pindi and had two children. Strange, Iman said to Sameer one day, how some men learn to settle and love only after battering one woman almost to death. I hope he’s happy wherever he is as long as he’s out of my life.
Sameer wrote another book. He was finishing it while Iman fell in love again. She said she’d never yet known what passion was until she met the younger divorced man she called Dr K. Then she found out he was still married, and he later told her that his wife was pregnant. Their affair went on for nearly three years, till the end of the decade, even after she’d found him out. Sameer didn’t approve. It’s your business, he said; it’s your life, he still says.
As the nineties breathed their last, Sameer flew off to see his sister in Bangladesh, having missed the topography of his stories for two years. Iman, who’d got her younger brother married the year before to a suitable woman, a blend of brilliance with beauty, wanted to spend the dawn of the millenium with them in Africa.
Sameer wasn’t able to see Iman till after his birthday in April. She was upset. She thought he’d changed. He hasn’t. Iman means more to him than ever.
Now they meet often. Their contentious conversations are in English; for affection they move to Urdu. But then, again, their mother tongue does well for blessings and moral advice. (A week ago, at one of their old coffee hangouts in Little Venice, Iman told Sameer she’d seen her phantom love again. Sameer shook his head, tut-tutting. Your life, he said, not my place to disapprove. No, Iman replied, don’t worry about us. We met and talked. It’s gentler now, like finding a pressed flower you left once between the pages of a book. The fragrance has gone, and you’ve forgotten its perfume. But you remember the touch of it.)
8
At 1 am on the 21st of May 2000 Sameer rang Iman to tell her he was finally in the middle of writing her story.
‘Not a soap opera,’ he said, ‘but I’ve made you the heroine of a tale. And I hope you don’t expect me to have all the facts right.’
She said: ‘A story, don’t you think, is as real as the reader makes it?’
But there were things Sameer still wanted to know. He asked if she ever found out what the little white birds were called that she’d seen at the seaside in Karachi, and what the name of the lake was that she walked by near her house in Kampala.
‘Lake Victoria,’ Iman said. ‘Funny you should ask. I walked there to see the last sunset of the century and I thought of birds, and of the places I’d been to with Kashif, the rocks of the beach at night and the reddish-ochre of the creek. At Lake Victoria there are gulls and you can sometimes see flamingos. And crested cranes. I saw a crested crane that night I was there. Would you believe it was dancing? One foot forward, one foot back, head high then dipping, by the shores of the lake. The sun was about to go down and the lake was the colour of jade. And my mind travelled back ten years to Kashif’s wedding night. How I danced. There she was, in front of me, Sania in her transparent yellow wedding veil, she muttered something to her bridegroom when she saw me as I came up like a sister would do, to take some ransom money from his pocket, and she said, what’s this woman doing here? But I didn’t care. I joined the dancing girls on the floor. Some sang and others beat the wedding drums. My hands in the air, my feet hit the ground. I thought of seas and lakes, and birds on their shores, and how next year I might have a baby, and I danced.’
The City of Longing
One Wednesday when the blooming sun suffused with blue the sky’s black dome,
The King, victorious as the sun, bright sky-like robes of turquoise donned,
Went to the turquoise dome for sport, the tale was long, the day was short.
Nizami of Ganja, Haft Paikar (1197).
(Translated from the Persian by Julie Scott Meisami)
You have come now to the city of men who wear black: you will want to know why our garb is so sombre. This is the city where night never falls. But there is often a scarcity of light, when lowering clouds loom above us for days and no rain comes. A city of endless gloomy day. But we have time. Sit down here, on the wall. Smoke a pipe with us, and drink a glass of tea. A desert wind blows around us. Soon it will touch your cheek with the ice of Siberia. But we have time. The coals in the brazier are glowing. Sit down and we will tell you our tale. You may decide to follow the path we took. Or you may take our words as warning: ours is not the path of the faint-hearted.
So listen: When you leave the city’s northern gate, you will come to a rocky hill, hard to climb. Take off your shoes at the foot of this hill. Ascend. Reach its peak.
There you will find a pavilion of stone, formed like a basket. It rests on one rock, suspended from four woven chains. Observe these chains with care: they, too, are carved of stone. Look up, towards the sky. If your eyesight is good you will see, far, far up amid the clouds, the hovering wings of a great bronze eagle.
Your feet will be sore. Bloody, perhaps. You may want to turn back but you’ll need to rest. Because there is no other place, you will enter, by climbing over its woven wall, the pavilion, which is large enough for one man only. You will feel a sudden tremor, and the basket, straw-light now, will rise in the air. Buffeted by wind and rain, you will rise till the vessel that carries you comes to rest on a dark cloud. You will feel it shatter around you, shards falling about you in showers.
Then the great bronze eagle, free now from its burden, will swoop down on you to take you in its beak. You will feel the flames of its eyes on your face, you will smell its carrion breath. You might faint.
Have you, our fine young friend, a head for heights?
Sleep if you can. The journey is long, the journey is short.
You will wake to find yourself, naked and sweating in your shreds, on a narrow islet swimming on a wide silver river. No bird, no basket here. You will want to look for leaves to cover your shame, but isn’t it better to rinse your sore body in the warm currents of water instead, wash off the weariness of your journey through the clouds?
Enter the river. Close your eyes.
You will open them to see around you a bevy of tender women, their hair and eyes of every colour, their hands soft like the satins of China. They will rub your limbs with water fragrant as the oils of Arabia. The tiny lashes of their fingers will play on your skin till your weariness fades. You will want to touch them, to hold them, to taste them, but they will laugh and push you away, push your face into water, and then begin their games again when you, spluttering, raise your head.
Then they will weave their bodies into a boat and carry you on their backs to the far banks of the river. On its shores they will dress you in a tunic and trousers of the finest muslin. Follow them. Through groves of trees with leaves of green silk, past gardens of flowers carved from glass and jewels. Even the scent of fruit is of amber and musk. But you will not notice this. Not yet.
This is the domain of Turktaz the Beautiful.
Her slavewomen will lead you to Turktaz’s bower.
She reclines in a crystal arbour, on a couch of gold draped in brocades.
Her hair is black and her eyes have lights in their darkness like pieces of jade. Her skin is the colou
r of sunlight cooled in crystal cups of pale wine.
Sit beside me, she will say, in words that echo the dulcimer’s notes. Her arms, like jasmine creepers, will enclose you in fragrance. Her limbs are revealed to your gaze by the white gauze of her garments: her flesh gleams through mere veils, held in place by a broad belt of gem-encrusted platinum.
Recline beside her on her brocade couch.
Cupbearers come and go with jewelled decanters of fragrant wine. Her hands will lift jade cups of liquor to your lips. You will taste jasmine and rose and magnolia. Bitter mingling with sweet. Sip gently of these flavours. Keep a hold on your senses. Raise your eyes to her face. Her lips are waiting, open. Kiss her mouth. Taste the rose and the jasmine, the bitter and the sweet. Then look at her breasts, which the fluttering of her hands has half revealed, so you can see their golden globes. Trail your fingers in the valley between. Her hands will play on your chest, on your belly. Now your hands will descend to her belly. You feel the hardness of platinum beneath your fingers. Her loins are encased by the platinum. You search for the buckle of her belt. You fumble with the drawstring of your trousers. Her kisses distract you. Your body is in pieces: your head lost in the joy of her, your thighs gripped by heat and lassitude, your hands, come to life like birds freed from cages, searching, searching.
Her hands will restrain you. Not now, she says. Kiss me all you want. Touch me, smell me, taste me. But don’t knock, don’t enter. Wait for my body till the seventh night. You’ll find the key, then.
Cupbearers come and go with decanters of wine.
She will push you back into a pile of scented cushions. The strange wines have assaulted the workings of your mind. She rises. You tug at her skirt. She laughs. You watch her go.
Cupbearers, their hands empty now, will take her place on the brocade couch. Seven women, each dressed in one colour of the rainbow. They will tickle you and scratch and bite. Their nails at your nipples, their teeth at your thighs. Your hands, made desperate in their urgency and task, will try to pull one of them to you, to complete the unfinished journey you began with Turktaz the Beautiful. But your lassitude makes you their victim. They have their will of you. The hands of one at the drawstring of your trousers, the lips of one taste your mouth, another makes sport with your abject manhood, which, in its unwilling sleep, can still feel the stirrings of a hidden pleasure.
Five nights of this.
Each night you will come to her consumed by the excesses of the night before. Each night her fragrance will revive you. The wine of Turktaz, of her lips, her breasts, her heavy thighs which open a little more, night by night, to your dark and tender probing. Then her laugh and her refusal and her parting back as you, in your drunkennness, lie against the scented cushions and wait for the rainbow women’s ministrations.
You will no longer know which passage of joy you have entered or who brings you relief and satiation. You feel your own inner passages invaded by fingers, by tongues, by toys. You can no longer tell when which rainbow-coloured women has made love to you tonight. Each one the shadow-sister of Turktaz. Your closed eyes will see only the features of Turktaz the Beautiful. On the blank screens of your inner lids, the black letters of her name separate and intertwine.
Te, re, kaf, te, aliph, ze.
The vowel curving upward in fifth position reflects your longing.
Then, only one more waiting night.
You think you know now what to do. You cannot bear another night of this. You will long for the smell of flowers, the taste of fruit, the sight of a leaf falling, dancing on the wind. You will long for the roughness of beer, the sour smell of yoghurt, the soft taste of milk.
You will long for the feeling of flesh on flesh and even more for the joy of flesh enclosed in flesh.
You will long to make Turktaz your possession.
Go again to Turktaz on the sixth night. Recline beside her on her brocade couch. Taste on her lips the jasmine and the rose, the bitter and the sweet. Taste with your tongue the honey trail in the valley between her breasts. Then let your tongue follow the honey trail to her navel. Stroke the heavy velvet of her calves, move upward to the curves of her thighs.
Pour away the wine. Pour it on the satin grass. Spit it into her mouth. But don’t let it get to your head.
Cupbearers come and go. You must force her to drink the wine they bring. Turn her wrist, twist her jade cup to her lips. You must say: Give me all tonight, Turktaz. Take all of me. I’m your minion, your slave, your possession. Repay my nights of waiting. I’m sick of sporting with your shadow.
She will push you away. You must insist.
One more night, she says: and then I’m yours.
You have now regained your male strength, your senses. You’re prepared to wrestle, to conquer.
You bite her lips.
Your hands assail her breasts.
You rip off her veils.
She will not move.
She has only the protection of her platinum loincloth.
From her right hip hangs the silver key.
Wrest it from its diamond hold. Our strength is in your wrist, in your grasp, the strength of the men in black.
Its lock is between her thighs.
Place the key in its diamond mouth.
Turn.
Taste bliss.
Then fall.
Fall through air, cloud, rain. Sleep if you can: the journey is long, the journey is short. Wake on an islet in the river, half-naked in shredded muslin. Wait for the great bronze bird to take you in its beak. Feel the flames of its eyes. Smell its furnace breath. Come to the stony cloud and rest a moment while the splintered stones gather. Watch them weave themselves into a basket. Step into your vehicle. The eagle drops chains from its beak. Fasten them to the basket before they freeze into stone. Now prepare for your journey.
We are at the gates of the city, awaiting you with newly-woven robes of black. You will not wear them? Did you turn away from the hill, or climb to its peak and tumble down? Or were you one of the chosen who didn’t see the basket? Did you wait, perhaps, for the bird to come; did you wait in vain? You were away seven nights. Don’t you know the secret? The journey takes place while we tell you our story. The choice is yours: turn back from the hill, or fly to the realm of Turktaz. If you return without seeing her, yours is the road of ordinary men; go back to your cities and your wives, to your chores of earning bread and sweating for milk or beer to moisten the bread.
But if you saw her and tasted her wine, learn the secret of the men in black. The first night with Turktaz and her women is the second, and the second is the fifth, and the sixth night is the first again. No one reaches the seventh night. But in six nights you have learned to live with desire. Your forehead is branded with the name of Turktaz, with the letters of desire. Venture back to the world of contentment and live forever as the outcast you’ve become. Or return to the rocky hill and wait in vain for the basket and the bird. Or live with us, and wrap yourself in black: it reminds you of the emptiness of longing. Stay with us in our city, where night always rests on the brim of day.
Adiba: A Storyteller’s Tale
When the stories had been told, the adults weren’t affected, but the children lay in their beds for a long time, thinking. The boys would imagine: I’ll grow up to be as brave as the prince, wrestle giants, kill pythons, etc. etc. The girls would think: let my life, too, pass in comfort and luxury like the princess’s.
A. R. Khatun, from the preface to Nur-ul-Ain
1945
Adiba, alone. She has lived in a grey world since her husband went to the front: suspended for four years (she writes later) between despair and hope. War over, they send her a wire:
YOUR HUSBAND WAS KILLED ON THE WARFRONT FIGHTING THE JAPANESE IN MALAYA ON 25 FEBRUARY 1942.
She observes the rituals of mourning – prayers said on the third day and the fortieth, food distributed to the poor. She doesn’t even know where her husband’s grave is, but her grief, restrained so long, is threatening
to spill over. His Majesty’s Government had called up Adiba’s husband to fight in 1941. Though he was way past the age for war, he’d put himself on the reserve list and asked to be remembered. He’d asked to go to the Middle East, but they’d sent him to Southeast Asia. He wrote to her for some months and then she had no more letters. Only a message that he was reported missing in Malaya.
She hates the Raj, but that’s nothing new; in the thirties, in those years before the war, they’d said the Imperial sun was setting, and the women avoided talking to English memsahibs. Adiba has always advocated freedom from the British yoke, taking the part of the rebels and the nationalists even from a distance. But patience is her second name, perseverance her creed. In her husband’s absence she’d started to write again, at first because she had to, and then she couldn’t stop. They pay her for every instalment she writes. She needs the money. Her four children are far away, in schools and colleges. A kind publisher from Lahore, who’d admired her first book, came and bought all the copies she had left in store. That helped her, for a while. Then she wrote a new version of a romance she remembered from her childhood, about a brave princess who went out disguised as a soldier lad to rescue her lover from captivity.
Her story came out as a book this year.
The British authorities won’t be giving her a pension.
1947
Adiba, alone, makes her choice. She’ll migrate, follow the crescent moon, to the new country. It’s 1947. The hated British are on the move. Terrible things are happening here – homes and villages set on fire, people herded and chased across the border by armed men who don’t ask them whether or not they want to leave. Though she’s quite protected, and she isn’t afraid, she believes that Delhi is no longer her home: it’s time to leave, start a new life. Later, she writes: The earth of our homeland didn’t want us and the sky was saying farewell.
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