In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

by Daniyal Mueenuddin

  When the party had come far along, when Harouni and the guests were standing in a circle, drinks in hand, gesturing expansively, speaking loudly, Sonya walked away from the group. Looking along the length of the valley, she caught sight of Rezak’s cabin, several terraces below the picnic spot. Finding the pathway, she picked her way toward it, and Rezak, who had been watching her, quickly followed, leaping down a steep bank so that he could receive her at his little hut, saluting.

  ‘It’s wonderful!’ exclaimed Sonya, circling around the cubicle, Rezak at her heels. ‘Hey everyone,’ she called to her guests, going over to where she could be heard. ‘Come see.’

  Short bowlegged Rezak bustled around, showing off the appliances and refinements – the pipe that drained the inside spittoon, the cupboards and drawers set into the outside walls for his tools and clothes and kit, windows that could be propped open or removed entirely, a skylight made of red glass, thick rush matting on the roof to keep the inside cold or hot, with a rubber bladder fixed to the wall that shot water up through a pipe when he squeezed it, wetting the rushes – evaporative cooling. Sonya poked her head inside the stuffy, lurid chamber, considered the photographs of movie starlets plastered on the walls. The guests peered about, inspecting this nest, its door and windows ajar, like a car on a dealer’s lot with hood and trunk propped open.

  ‘If there’s electricity, then it’s really something,’ Rezak said, eager, grinning with all his teeth, surrounded by the Sahibs and the Memsahibs. ‘I used to have colored lights inside. There’s work to be done, that’s true. It’s all broken from carrying it up and down and all over.’ In his exuberance he pulled at a cupboard door that wouldn’t open until it tore off in his hand. Even this didn’t dampen him. ‘See, that’s one way to take it apart!’

  ‘That’s the man’s whole life in a nutshell, isn’t it?’ the Australian Ambassador, a tall man with a correspondingly tall forehead and ginger hair, remarked.

  As they were returning to the picnic, Sonya said to her husband, ‘The poor man should have electricity for a radio and for lighting. He lives all alone here, imagine how bored he is.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Harouni said. ‘These guys don’t get bored.’

  But after the party, the wire that had been laid temporarily so that there would be music remained in place – for the next party. Rezak strung lights on the outside of the cubicle, like wedding decorations, and hung a lightbulb in the stone hut where he cooked. He bought a radio, and finally bought a cheap television, something he had never even thought of wanting. He would lie in his cocoon, soft red lights glowing, the television volume turned up, and drink cup after cup of tea kept hot in a vacuum thermos.

  Sitting in the Kalapani teahouse one morning, Rezak met a young man who lived near his childhood home high in the mountains.

  ‘The government pushed the road up to Koti,’ the man told him. ‘The bus runs from Kowar. That changed things, you can bet.’

  Hearing of the places he had known all his life made Rezak restless. He had left home determined never to go back. Now he wondered what his stepbrothers had told the neighbors about his disappearance. He wanted his family to know of his success.

  ‘You and I grew up drinking from the same streams, breathing the same air. You have to accept my hospitality now that we’ve met. I beg you. Come for a cup of tea, and then I’ll walk you back down here.’ He took the man by the arm and almost dragged him out of the tea stall.

  He hurriedly carried a charpoy onto the terrace in front of the stone cooking hut, put a pillow on it, ran inside and lit a fire in the hearth, then brought out a table, wiping it with a rag. Luckily he had a packet of biscuits and he arranged these on a plate and carried them out with the tea.

  The man knew of Rezak’s family, but had little news of them. Forgetting his bitterness and the wrong they had done him, Rezak began speaking of his stepbrothers and nephews, of their fertile land, of the well near their fields.

  ‘God has been good to me, more than I deserve. I have only one wish, that He had given me sons of my own, as my brothers have.’ He ran his hands over his face.

  Rezak had not been able to resist boasting of his salary.

  The man considered for a moment, his eyes alighting on a locked trunk inside the cooking hut that must be full of clothes and who knows what else. He looked at the neat vegetable patch and at the two goats – Rezak had bought another when fodder ran low in the forest and they were cheap. The man had been shown the weird little cubicle, furnished with a radio, a television even.

  ‘Look, my cousin has a daughter. Something went wrong when she was born, and she’s a bit simple. But she can cook and sew and take your goats out to graze. She’s quite pretty even. She’s young enough to bear you a son. Her father can barely take care of his other children. Why don’t you let me arrange a marriage?’

  ‘You’re making fun of an old man,’ replied Rezak. But hope and desire pierced his heart when he thought of it. A woman in his house, even one who was not right in the head! And she could bear him a son, and that would be worth anything at all. Now that Rezak had money, the boy would go to school, he would learn to read and write, become – Rezak could not even imagine what. The son of an old servant at the main house had become a doctor and now continually begged his father to retire and come live with him. Rezak would die happy after that.

  They spoke back and forth all afternoon. In the end they agreed not only that the girl would be without a dowry, but even that Rezak would pay a quite substantial amount of money for her, which the family would take in installments.

  A few days later the father delivered the feebleminded girl. The girl’s family had not come, and the two men did not celebrate the marriage, but brought the maulvi quietly to perform the nikah. When the father left, the girl followed him and cried, until finally they were forced to lock her in the hut.

  After seeing the father onto the bus, Rezak wandered down through the bazaar, stopping to talk for a minute with the man who sold samosas, saying nothing of his marriage, but saving it for himself. He felt more equal now among these people, the shopkeepers, passersby, families. Someone waited for him also, the house he returned to would not be empty.

  The poor girl must be frightened, he thought, and turned homeward, stopping to buy a three-kilo box of sweets, fat yellow ludhoos, ghulab jaman, barfi, shahi tukrah.

  He rattled the chain as he opened the lock, so that she wouldn’t be startled. She wore makeup, lipstick that had smudged, rouge that made her cheeks almost pink, new clothes made of shiny white cloth – at least that much had been done to celebrate their wedding day. It pleased him that she reached and covered her head with her dupatta – shy before him, her husband.

  He sat across from her. She kept her eyes cast down.

  He opened the box of sweets, carefully unknotting the string, took out a ludhoo, and held it out to her on his palm, whispering, ‘Take this, it’s okay, don’t be afraid.’ He held it there. ‘Go on.’ And after a moment, without looking up, she reached out and took it.

  Gradually, she became accustomed to living with him. He let her roam as she wanted, once he saw that she would not run away. The girl, a tiny thing of nineteen or twenty, had an impediment and spoke not in sentences but rather in strings of sound, cooing or repeating words – her condition was really worse than Rezak had expected – but when she settled in he found that she could more or less cook.

  He let her sleep in the stone hut, until one night, as he was watching television in his cubicle, she cautiously lifted the door flap, stood absorbing the lit red chamber for a moment, and then nimbly leaped in, eyes fixed on the television. After that, she always slept with him.

  As an adolescent boy Rezak had been married, so long ago that he couldn’t remember what his bride had looked like. She had died in childbirth less than a year after the marriage, and the child too had died. Now, after so many years, Rezak again had a companion in his home. Life and hope, the flames of individuality that had burne
d out to nothing, to smoke, again flickered within him. Returning at night from the bazaar with a treat of late-season mangoes or a bit of meat, or stopping work in the orchard at noon to have his midday meal, which the girl warmed and served to him with hot chapattis, he looked forward to her chattering. She had a pretty, almost animal way of watching him while he ate, perched beside him, and after he finished she brought him a glass of water from the clay pot. In the evening before he came in she made tea, and when he groaned because of the aching in his legs she massaged him. Gradually he found himself able to communicate with her, and more important, she communicated with him, showed happiness when he returned at night, cared for him when he felt ill or sad. She did not, however, bear him a child.

  Now that his wife cooked for him and pastured the goats, Rezak had less to do, especially after the trees lost their leaves and work in the orchard ceased. His wife sat in the dark smoky hut, cooing to herself. He would often go down to the teahouse in Kalapani bazaar and sit for several hours, watching buses fill and lumber off up the mountain to Murree or to Kashmir, or race with brakes squealing at the curves down to the cities, honking their horns to call the passengers. He strolled idly through the bazaar, wearing a new woolen vest and carrying a walking stick; or he went to the big house and sat smoking a hookah with Ghulam Rasool.

  Returning to his hut at dusk after one of these excursions, he found that the fire had burned out in the hearth and his wife was gone. The goats too were missing, although she should have brought them in by this time. Sitting in the cold room, he stared at the calendar nailed up on the wall, which showed an elaborate Chinese pagoda. He rubbed his hands together, trying to control his anger. Twice before, when she had disappeared at nightfall, he’d found her far down in the valley, cowering behind some rocks. When he approached her she grew frightened and covered her face with her hands.

  At dark she still had not returned. Rezak took the lantern, lit the tiny flame, and went out, the two goats scrambling in, bleating, when he opened the wooden gate that led down into the valley.

  One of the neighbors called, ‘Hey, Rezak, can’t it wait until morning?’

  ‘What can I tell you. My poor old lady’s disappeared again.’

  The neighbor sent a little boy to help with the search.

  Rezak walked all over and called and called. He went home, hoping that she would be there waiting for him, but he saw no glimmer of light in the cooking hut. As he sat in the cold, the sound of twigs breaking as he laid the fire seemed particularly loud. The fire caught, crackling, slowly warming the room. Mechanically he threw a handful of tea in the kettle, boiled the water, mechanically poured it into the cup. He didn’t have it in him to be angry now. Without eating dinner, without turning on the television, as he did every night, he lay alone in the dark cabin, wondering what could have become of her. What if she was lying hurt somewhere in the forest?

  In the morning he woke before first light, hurriedly dressed, and went out. He didn’t know where to look, which direction to turn. Living alone for years, he had learned not to ask for help. Neighbors would do whatever they could once or twice or five times, but ultimately, they would grow cold and resentful. He walked along the paths that she might have taken, then deep into the woods to the places where she cut grass. Once he saw a cloth that he thought might be her shawl, but coming close he saw that it had been rained on and must have been lying there for days.

  Finally he went to ask the Harouni retainers for help. Going into the servants’ common room, he found Ghulam Rasool lying peacefully on a charpoy, his unlit hookah beside him. The fireplace chimney had backed up, as it always did, filling the low-ceilinged room with layers of acrid pine smoke.

  As Rezak walked into this familiar room, he broke down for the first time. His arms hung loosely as he shuffled up to the bed and stood with his face contorted.

  ‘My wife disappeared,’ he blurted out, before he had even said salaam. ‘I can’t find her anywhere. She’s gone.’ flat tears slipped out of his gummy eyes and disappeared into the wrinkles of his face. Remembering himself, he reached down and shook Ghulam Rasool’s hand respectfully.

  ‘What do you mean, “disappeared”?’ asked Ghulam Rasool, startled. Squeezing Rezak’s arm to make him sit on the charpoy, he called out through the door, ‘Hey, one of you boys come here.’

  Four gardeners answered the summons, and, after asking a few questions, ignored Rezak. They huddled together and made their plan, eager as a pack of hounds, then headed out, their wooden staffs tapping quickly as they walked off on separate paths.

  Late at night they straggled back, one by one, having found no trace of the woman. In the morning early they went out again, determined to find her. They searched the mountains, the furthest terraced fields, went to the nearby villages. The next day again they searched from dawn to dusk, and then the next, but with less and less determination. One of them asked at every bus stop from Murree down to Rawalpindi. Another went all the way to the girl’s family home up the mountains almost in Kashmir, but they had seen nothing of her – in any case, she couldn’t possibly have made the long journey alone. Finally, only Rezak kept searching. He forgot even where he had already been, returning to the same places, as if this time he might find her there.

  One morning, getting ready to go out and continue the search, he sat down again, took off his coat, and lay down on the bed. Imbecile, chattering – but she was gone, dead or stolen, taken to the brothels of ’Pindi or Karachi. He prepared himself to bear the loneliness again.

  Every year at Christmas the Harounis gave a big party at Kalapani, with roast goose, a twenty-foot tree in the entrance hall of the house, and a ho-hoing Santa Claus for the children. Trucks brought logs for a bonfire from the Harounis’ farm down on the plains, so that late at night the servants could grill spicy, greasy kebabs on the coals for the heavy drinkers and mull cauldrons of spiced punch for the rest. The guests came up from Islamabad singly or in long chains of cars, blowing in through the door with wrapped presents and bottles of wine and champagne, which Ghulam Rasool placed on a long table standing in the hall.

  Before dinner, the mistress came into the kitchen. The cook stood rubbing his hands on his apron, sidelined in his own domain, as she took a big bowl under her arm and poked with a spatula at the mashed potatoes, which the cook had already beaten to a creamy smoothness.

  Ghulam Rasool had been following her impassively as she performed her inspection.

  ‘Excuse me, Begum Sahib, may I trouble you with a small request?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, touching him lightly on the shoulder. He had become accustomed to this, although at first it had disturbed him.

  Briefly, he explained about the disappearance of Rezak’s wife.

  ‘But Ghulam Rasool, you should have told me right away. What can I do?’

  Ghulam Rasool had an encyclopedic knowledge of his master’s friends, their power, their wealth, and he took great pride in these connections. When he saw Omar Bukhari, the son of the inspector general of police, arrive at the party, he had sent a gardener to fetch Rezak and told him to wait in the kitchen.

  ‘If Bukhari Sahib would speak to the police in Murree ...’

  She went into the living room and found Bukhari looming over a French girl, who had come with someone else, insisting that she must let him arrange a trip into the tribal areas of the frontier, which were off-limits to foreigners.

  ‘Really, Delphine – you should go, it’s amazing, and you’ll never have the chance otherwise,’ said the hostess. ‘Omar, can I pull you away for a moment?’

  Bukhari followed her to the candlelit dining room. ‘So, Ghulam Rasool Sahib, what’s going on?’ The Harounis’ friends all knew Ghulam Rasool and joked that he had more power than many federal ministers.

  Ghulam Rasool explained, emphasizing the girl’s attractiveness to make it seem like an abduction by one of the gangs who kidnap or buy women for prostitution – a scenario in which the police could help, since t
hese things generally happened under their protection and they received a cut of the take.

  ‘We’ll break the bastards’ legs when we catch them,’ said Bukhari, who had been drinking quite heavily. ‘Go fetch the husband.’

  Rezak came in, trembling, and couldn’t explain himself, but stood with a grief-stricken face, expectant, as if his wife might there and then materialize through the power of this important Sahib.

  Bukhari had dealt with many cases of missing women, and knew that the family was almost always involved. He fixed Rezak with a hard gaze. ‘Who took her? The father? Did the family take her back?’

  ‘Only God above in His mercy knows, sir – I came home one night and she had gone, I couldn’t find her, sir. I’m an old man, I’m nothing.’

  Recalling the presence of his hostess, Bukhari relented. Flipping open his tiny cell phone, he punched a number.

  ‘Get me the D.S.P. Murree.’ After a moment, a voice came on the line. ‘Hello, Qazmi, how are you? This is Omar Bukhari. Yes, everything’s fine. I’m in Kalapani, at the house of Mr. Sohail Harouni. The wife of one of his servants has been abducted. I want her back by tomorrow night ... yes ... no, come to the house in the morning and take down the details. I want you personally to handle this.’ Without saying goodbye he snapped shut the phone.

  He smiled at Sonya. ‘Done.’

  Rezak, who understood none of the conversation, which had been conducted in English, crouched and touched Bukhari’s knee with both hands, began to speak and then fell silent, bowing his head. Ghulam Rasool raised him up by the arm and led him away.

  In the morning the Deputy Superintendent of Police himself showed up at the house, in his official jeep, flying a police flag, and accompanied by a pickup full of policemen carrying beat-up rifles. Unfortunately, the Harounis and all the guests had already left for Islamabad. The D.S.P. sat on a chair placed in the middle of the hall, with the quivering staff lined up in front of him.