Dear Pakistan

by Rosanne Hawke

‘Sure. My parents have a good attitude about Australia. And besides, I want to be a doctor and I don’t want to go through all the trouble Dad did upgrading his qualifications for the medical board here. He was a top specialist in Lahore. Here, he’s a doctor like the rest of them in the hospital. But at least he’s practising, I guess.’

  ‘It’s hard gaining a high enough score to get into medicine.’

  ‘I know but I’ll study like crazy. Most kids here don’t work hard. They don’t know what it’s like to want something because your whole family depends on it.’

  I was lost in thought. Andrew worked hard but most of the kids in my class didn’t. Kate and Debra talked their way through every lesson. I had no idea how they ever found time to finish their assignments.

  Everyone clapped as the cake was cut. The little cousin was plump, smiling and looked like a sugar plum fairy, swathed in chiffon, frills and lace, with bows in her hair. She was being passed around the aunties and uncles to have her photo taken. First birthdays were a big deal in Pakistan. A lady told me once it came from the time, not so long ago, when staying alive for the first year was so risky that if babies reached a year, they had a good chance of reaching adulthood.

  The baby had just been passed to a girl my age. She stood out with her short, stylish hair, jeans and long shirt. She reminded me of someone and when she laughed to her neighbour over the head of the baby, I remembered. The movies. She was the girl at the movies I thought looked like a Pakistani.

  ‘Shehzad, who’s that girl over there?’

  He turned to see where I was looking. He didn’t hesitate like Yasmeen might have. ‘That’s Rosina, my twin sister. Come, I’ll introduce you. You should get on well together.’

  With mixed feelings I followed him, squeezing past ladies’ knees and trying not to brush against any guys. Did she see me that day? Then she would have seen Danny. But she was with a boy too. We were in the same boat, weren’t we? Then I remembered Danny’s comments about Greek girls and I decided to hold my tongue. Maybe no one knew where she was that day.

  Shehzad introduced me as Jaime, not Jameela.

  ‘Hi!’ She had such expressive brown eyes, the first thing I noticed. Her accent was like Shehzad’s and she always seemed to be laughing. Yet I knew she wasn’t happy. I think it was her eyes—her laugh never seemed to reach them.

  We sat together, eating the cake that was being passed around with forks, plates and napkins that said ‘Happy Birthday, Fozia’ on them. I never mentioned the movies, nor did she. But she told me heaps of stories about school and her friends. When she asked me about school, I couldn’t say much really. It wasn’t my whole life as it seemed to be for her, nor could I talk about Danny. I could tell she wouldn’t want to hear about my favourite topic (Pakistan) so I kept asking general questions to keep her talking.

  ‘Have you ever been back to Pakistan?’ I didn’t mean to ask that but all nerve endings in my brain led to Pakistan sooner or later.

  ‘Sure. But I’ll never go again.’

  ‘Why?’ I wasn’t ready for her reaction. It was almost physical in its intensity, even though she laughed at the end.

  ‘It was a dirty, smelly place. Beggars everywhere, clawing at you. No social help, no one cared. They actually eat goats’ heads and they don’t have proper stoves in their houses. Nah, not for me.’

  The words weren’t connected but I got her meaning loud and clear. At times I couldn’t put Australia in a logical sentence either. I found it unbelievable that this was Yasmeen’s sister—that two people could look at the same thing yet describe something totally different.

  Just then the birthday girl was dropped in my lap so we could pose for a photo. She did the rounds until she was screaming with fatigue and Shehzad picked her up as gently as Danny had ever held me and carried her off to a quieter part of the house.

  Yasmeen found me then to tell me of the dancing coming up next. With the baby gone everyone looked as if they were settling down for a long night. Hand drums called tablas were brought in and a man had a sitar. A young man began dancing.

  Most of the girls had gone back to Yasmeen’s room, but Elly’s eyes were beginning to glaze over and Mum had her weary ‘quick get me home I’m turning into a pumpkin’ look. Dad was like an old clock that had been wound up for the first time in years. It was so good to see that, but Mum was making faces at him from across the room. I knew what that meant.

  I glanced at the man dancing. Yasmeen had her back to him and no wonder. It was so hard to rip my eyes away; his dance looked like a cross between some tribal dance and Michael Jackson’s moonwalk. It was hard to believe how so-called moral people could dance like that. All the older women were clapping and laughing. Yasmeen was murmuring that the real dancing was going to be in her room as she tried to pull me away.

  Unfortunately, at that point, my father stood up. Mum’s facial gymnastics had finally worked. Dad managed to pick his way across the room amid the dancing to lift up Elly and we all said ‘goodbye’ at the door amid many ‘so soon?’s.

  Mum went on in the car about the ‘nice girl in jeans’, most probably pressing home her earlier point about my clothes. But she didn’t know what Rosina may have gone through to wear those jeans. Maybe I would never know it all, either. Did we always have to fall from grace in one group to be accepted in another?

  n

  That night I dreamed of Suneel. He was handing me into the jeep. The fighting had stopped for a while. It was the middle of the night. I had no luggage; mine had gone with my family.

  Suneel offered me a package …

  ‘Open this when you get to my grandmother’s. It will make me happy to see you wear it.’

  His mother was smiling as if it had been her idea. Then his words struck home, making me feel as if I’d found gold. He was going to see me wear it? He would come? Later? The hope must have shown in my eyes, for he touched me. Actually touched me, not by accident, not shielding me; he consciously touched the side of my face, caressing it as though it was important enough to memorise. I almost thought he would kiss me. Would he have? If his mother wasn’t there?

  ‘Keep safe, little one. Until we meet again.’ His eyes looked right into mine as the jeep’s engine revved up. It was so unusual, so uncultural for him to do that; it was like a declaration, yet his mother kept smiling.

  11

  It was a wonder I could keep my eyes open the next day at school. In Pakistan too, families would have parties on the very day of the birthday whether people had to go to work next day or not. Everything stopped for celebrations. A whole week’s holiday could be taken for attending a family wedding.

  I’d woken that morning with thoughts of Suneel. Dreams do that to me. Even if I don’t like a person much but dream about them being nice, I see them in an entirely different light the next day. Suneel was the only thing I could concentrate on. At least he was one of my assignments.

  The jeep had finally come to a stop. I was glad, as I felt queasy from the lurching of the vehicle on the winding road and through narrow, mountain passes. Many times I’d heard water rushing close by; at other times, it’d seemed hundreds of feet below us. Now it was almost dawn. I could still hear running water as we left the jeep—with me clutching Suneel’s package—and made our way towards the square, wooden structures that I knew would make up Suneel’s grandmother’s village.

  ‘This is Suneel’s village,’ his mother said.

  ‘Suneel’s?’

  ‘Ji, not only did he grow up here, but even while his father still lives, he is the head of it, so to speak. One day he will rule this whole valley of Rumbur.’

  ‘How will he do that?’

  ‘Times are changing. It used to be birth alone that gave our family that right. Now there are elections. In the first election a few years ago, we were voted in to keep doing the work we have always done for our people. Who knows? Maybe this
election will be the same. I hope so, for Suneel and his father understand these people. They are our people.’

  I hoped so too, if that was what Suneel wanted.

  We didn’t make it halfway to the houses set into the hillside before swarms of youngsters came hurtling down the slopes to welcome us with giggles, shy smiles and touches on our arms and hands. Suneel’s mother knew most of them by name and hugged them indiscriminately as we made our way slowly up the hill.

  By the time we reached a house that looked like all the others with its wooden and unbaked mud brick layers, there were men and young girls smiling a welcome as we were guided onto a plank bridge that led to a verandah. I ducked my head as a giggling girl of my own age, in a long black dress embroidered with yellow and red thread, lifted the curtain over the door for me to enter.

  Inside, preparations for breakfast had begun. There was a tandoori-like oven set into the middle of the floor and two older girls, also in black dresses, were making their own style of flat bread. There were no windows and the smoke from the fire made it difficult to see at first until I became used to the darkened room. I was led to an old woman sitting cross-legged on a stringed bed.

  She spoke, but I didn’t understand. I turned to Suneel’s mother for help and she nodded me forward.

  ‘This is Suneel’s grandmother. She says “welcome”. A wedding is always a happy time and Suneel’s will be the best of all.’

  So soon? I wondered which one of the girls I’d seen was chosen for him and I realised with a dead feeling in my stomach that I didn’t want any of them to have him. I was so involved in my own jealous thoughts that I missed the next thing his mother said. She patted my package with a smile and I was being led to sit by the fire.

  One of the girls spoke to me, her shy smile making her eyes crinkle. They were green, like Suneel’s.

  His mother translated, ‘She said that it is very exciting having you come. She hasn’t met an Australian person before.’ I smiled my thanks and had a better look at all the girls. They all had skin as fair as Suneel’s; their eyes were his colour. Their hair, braided at the front where I’d wear a fringe, and the tiny plaits down each side were dark brown like his, not black.

  Just then a younger girl sat behind me and started plaiting my hair into five braids, like theirs, putting coloured clips in the side and a cowrie-shell headdress on the top. Another girl came towards me, giggling, as she carried a black dress with the red and yellow embroidery around the neck and hem. They pulled off my Pakistani shirt and lowered the black dress over my head, tying a cloth belt around my waist while at the same time bunching the front up over the belt. Then hundreds of tiny red and white beads threaded together were tied round my neck.

  Suneel’s mother had also changed.

  ‘They’re very kind,’ I whispered to her. ‘But what is going on? Why did you change? Why do they all wear black?’

  ‘My dear, we are the Kalasha. We women always have worn black ever since anyone can remember, since Sekandar.’ Sekandar, Alexander… so that’s where they got those green eyes and brown hair.

  ‘And you, my dear,’ she held me at arm’s length and looked me up and down, ‘you look the perfect Kalasha princess.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Jaime.’

  Oh, no. Mr Bolden. I jumped guiltily. At least I was in the right class this time.

  ‘Could you see me please and bring your English folder?’

  I sighed. He already had the rough draft of my assignment on Suneel laid out on his desk. Super organised was Mr Bolden. Some of the other kids were talking quietly. Correction: all of the other kids were talking quietly, except Billy. He was always loud. It was something I still found hard to get used to: that constant talking in class even when the teacher was giving instructions.

  Mr Bolden cleared his throat as I sat down. ‘I’d like to ask you some questions, if you don’t mind, Jaime.’ It was his eyebrows rather than his tone of voice which made it into a request, so I nodded. Growing up in another culture made me more aware of body language. In Pakistan it was often the only clue I had to what was going on.

  ‘First of all, you have good style. I feel you on the paper, in the words; I get a clear picture as I read.’ I pursed my lips. That was the sugar on the pill. Now for the rest.

  ‘But why did you stop writing your personal journal, the one you were writing to Pakistan? I think you would have found it beneficial to continue it.’

  How could I explain? In one way I’d been so caught up with Suneel’s story that I’d forgotten I hadn’t kept on with the journal. In another way Suneel’s story was my journal, what I thought about Pakistan, but it was hard to explain.

  ‘Um, I think I didn’t do it anymore because the things that were happening to me were too foreign for Pakistan to understand. I mean, none of it added up. After a while, I didn’t notice shorts on men and I started being friends with a guy. In Pakistan that’s immoral, but it’s not here. I suppose I could have written in the journal about Yasmeen, but once I’d met her I didn’t need to anymore.’

  ‘So you wrote the story about Suneel.’

  I nodded. ‘Even Yasmeen wouldn’t understand everything I’m going through, not the Australian stuff. Suneel seems the only safe topic of thought at times. It all happens the way I want it to. It’s Pakistan but I’m still me.’

  I drew in a deep breath. I didn’t know where all that came from. I hadn’t actually thought it all out like that before. Mr Bolden was chewing his bottom lip as he watched me. Billy was growing louder and I was sure he was throwing paper across the room, but Mr Bolden didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘I think you’re too hard on yourself, Jaime. You are doing well for the length of time you’ve been here. You’ve settled in, made friends…’

  Yeah, Danny and Yasmeen. You couldn’t call Kate a friend. I hadn’t made it with the girls at all, really.

  ‘It takes time to settle and you will.’ Easy for him to say. He didn’t know the stuff some of the kids threw at me or what I thought about. I couldn’t stand the way adults would look at the outside and if everything looked in working order, they’d think everything was fine, yet they couldn’t see the rust eating away underneath.

  ‘The story about Suneel—’ he sounded as if he was trying not to step on a mine ‘— did it really happen?’

  Did it really happen? Of course. It’s happening now, isn’t it?

  ‘No, not all of it. We were on holiday up in the mountains in Chitral just before election time. We didn’t realise it would blow up like that. The riot, everything about that is true. The bazaar was shot up, people were killed. It happens here too, in shopping malls and for no reason.’

  Why did I suddenly feel as if I had to justify it? He hadn’t looked disapproving. I went back to the story. ‘Suneel’s family got us a flight out of the valley the next day. My family left together. I hardly spoke to Suneel actually. The social customs there are very strict.’

  Mr Bolden nodded. By the way he kept fiddling with his pen and glancing at me, I knew he had more to say. ‘I would like to keep seeing the story for as long as you write it, if you don’t mind. You’ve almost got enough material to satisfy the assignment requirements but I’d be interested in hearing what happens.’

  I was surprised. There I was, steeling myself for the disapproval that was sure to come. I mean, who in their right mind creates stories to make themselves feel better? Already I was feeling a little guilty about it as it was starting to grip me like a compulsion, and I felt too embarrassed to tell anyone. Mr Bolden was the only one who knew. In the beginning, I’d forgotten about him being real flesh and blood, reading me, sharing a secret part of my life. Of course in the beginning I didn’t expect it to become so personal.

  At first, I thought he was trying reverse psychology. Like, tell a kid to stay up to midnight and he’ll go to bed at ten. Mum had tried it on Andr
ew but it didn’t take long before he woke up to it. Did Mr Bolden really mean it was a good idea to write the story? Maybe he knew, before I did, just how much the story was a way I could sort out my feelings in an environment where I didn’t have to worry about new language cues and conflicting ways of doing things.

  I wondered how much of my feelings actually showed on my face, for Mr Bolden suddenly leaned a little closer over the desk. ‘Jaime, we don’t have to be frightened of the past. Let your memory have its way, remember the good. God can turn the “might have been” into a positive way of life.’ He chewed his lip as if he wasn’t sure what I’d do with his advice.

  I was unusually speechless. It was the realisation that he had made such an effort to understand me. He knew I was scared.

  ‘I think we have quite a bit in common,’ he went on.

  I pricked up my ears; this’d be good. ‘When I was younger than you I came out with my family from England.’

  ‘Really, sir? I wouldn’t have known.’

  He grinned ruefully. ‘I lost my accent quickly due to numerous playground beatings. It was tougher in those days.’

  It was?

  ‘But Jaime, every non-indigenous person here came from somewhere else. Take me. I was brought up to be thankful I was here but I still like tea better than beer. There are some things I don’t care for but I get on with life. There are things I don’t like about England too.’

  I knew then he was wrong: we didn’t have much in common, because there was nothing I didn’t like about Pakistan.

  n

  That afternoon as I stepped off the bus I couldn’t help remembering what Mr Bolden said. He’d finished with the classic ‘come and talk to me anytime’. I’d thanked him with a show of understanding and stability and said it wouldn’t be necessary. Whether or not I had convinced him, I still wasn’t sure he wouldn’t go blabbing off to the other staff members about ‘Jaime Richards who writes weird stories’.

  I mightn’t have admitted it then but until that talk with him I’d felt kind of childish for starting a story off true, then changing it to the way I’d wanted. Now I felt relaxed about it. It wasn’t a dumb thing to do after all.