Trespassing

by Uzma Aslam Khan

  Daanish decided it was time to swim into the sea breaking over the official’s desk. He drilled forward, hands out, head lowered, hips smacking sideways, arriving no further than the third ring around the desk. The ground was wet here. Those who exited bore signs of a stiff price: their clothes were caked in mud. But in their hands was a chit of white paper, and this put an immense smile on their ruffled faces.

  Daanish was about to ask the young man beside him what the chit meant when the wave parted again, allowing yet another woman through. A young man fumed, ‘That’s not in Islam!’

  The man who’d been in front of him, but due to the adjustment for the woman, now found himself pushed to the third ring, said, ‘Yes, the Quran does not say I am to sacrifice my place for a woman.’

  ‘How would you know, my love?’ replied the one who’d snatched the gap. ‘You can’t even read!’

  Daanish and a couple others made use of the diversion by sliding up. He asked another man, ‘What does the chit say?’

  This man wore blue shades. He said, ‘It’s the NOC.’

  ‘What’s the NOC?’

  He didn’t answer. Here was the opposite problem: Daanish wanting to talk but bumping into a wall. Or rather, blue shades. He turned to his left and repeated the inquiry.

  A paunchy elderly man replied, ‘The No Objection Certificate.’

  Daanish laughed. ‘That’s a good one. What is it really?’

  The paunchy man was equally confused. He dug under his kameez to scratch his stomach. ‘The NOC: No Objection Certificate. If they have no objection with you, they’ll give the NOC, and then you can deposit the chit and get a tanker.’

  ‘But how do they decide if they have an objection or not?’

  The man tapped Daanish’s folder. ‘They check your documents.’

  For the first time that day, Daanish looked inside the binder Anu had given him. There were bank statements, income tax returns, property tax forms, and a host of other signed and stamped papers. ‘But do we have to show these every time?’

  The man gave him a look that said, You fool.

  He was getting a terrible feeling about this. Most of those exiting did not bear the all-powerful chit. He’d left the house before eleven. It was now one-twenty. The office, the paunchy man disclosed, shut at two.

  At a quarter to two, Daanish inched into the first ring. Crashing into a puddle, he at last saw the desk, chock-full of files. The man behind it consulted his watch every other minute, while a desperate father of four kept urging him to look a little harder for the file that would match the one he’d brought. ‘Maybe it’s under that pile.’ He pointed to one that was as much a pile as they were a line. Pages fluttered out as the tower collapsed, and the man behind the desk again studied the fake Omega. Five minutes to two. The father waved his documents under the man’s nose. ‘I’m sure you have a record of this somewhere here,’ he pleaded hysterically. ‘If you’ll just look.’

  The watch struck two. The official slapped his hands on the desk. Daanish was pitched into the desperate father as the wave parted again and another woman appeared. She was quite young, quite pretty, and for a moment there was palpable hesitation. But lunch beckoned. The man rose. The crowd erupted in fury, ‘I’ve been coming here every day this week!’ ‘We’ve not even had drinking water!’ ‘My mother is ill!’ ‘How much? How much to make you stay?’

  The official trotted toward the gate, meeting his colleague from the other desk along the way.

  The desperate father shook his head. ‘Who has more sense: thieves like them or honest men like us?’

  5

  The Authorities

  Daanish returned the next day. He couldn’t even squeeze into the second ring. So he stood at the back with Scarecrow, who’d lost count of how many days he’d been awaiting his turn. It was as if, more than even water, he wanted a place to speak his mind. He’d made the water office his venue.

  ‘Three million,’ he said. ‘Last year three million unlicensed guns were buying in country. The Afghan War ending three years ago, but guns keep coming. The Amreekans were arming and training us to fight the Communists but now we are left to fight ourselves.’ He shook his head. His entire body seemed to sway. ‘They just left, those Amreekans. They didn’t care what they leaving behind.’ Then he stared at Daanish. ‘You are going in Amreeka, I think?’

  Daanish bolted. But it was too late: his two selves were squabbling. The Amreekan one argued that he had a right to act on his own interests, so stop complaining. The smaller replied that the other was powerful, rich, and in the habit of dropping old friends to whom he exported arms and torture equipment that made him even richer.

  He squeezed into the fourth ring, and then the third, where the desperate father of four was on the cusp of madness. At two o’clock, Daanish once more returned home.

  It had been five days since either he or Anu had showered or even washed. An uncle had twice brought them drinking water from his house. It was 36C° and humidity was ninety per cent. When he wiped off the sweat dripping down his face and neck he smeared gray filth over his body as though it were soap. Then he sat flicking the dirt out from between burgeoning fingernails. Should he cut them? It was too exhausting. Anyway, they’d only grow again. He began to chew them off, swallowing the slime wedged inside. Some particles he spat onto the increasingly soiled rug. Since he kept his door shut, the room was never swept. He’d rather live in filth than have his things disturbed further.

  The next day, he wrestled the mob and staunchly stood at the desk before the lunch hour. He handed over his documents. The official frowned at each. He wore a dirty bush shirt and his hair, Daanish was amused to see, was no less greasy than his own. The air around him reeked of mustard and cheap cologne. The desperate father stood behind Daanish, with more documents, just as he’d been ordered. Daanish wished he had it in him to offer his place. But he did not. He had finally gotten a hearing. He deserved it. If others were denied what they also deserved, it had nothing to do with him.

  The man searched through the clutter on the desk, shaking his head. He couldn’t find Dr Shafqat’s file. ‘We have no record of him.’

  Daanish’s knees began to quake. ‘But I do. You have just gone through my file. All of them are stamped, official papers. All our bills are paid.’ He was astonished to find his voice cracking.

  Scarecrow called from behind, ‘Give the Amreekan a break!’

  The men around Daanish stirred. They examined his rumpled shirt, his jeans caked in dirt from all the days he’d worn them here. There was no sign of glittery Amreekan-ness. He looked as tattered as they, if not more.

  ‘If you’re from Amreeka,’ Omega said, ‘why have you come here?’

  The others nodded, oblivious that the wily official was making time fly.

  ‘I am not from Amreeka,’ Daanish snapped. ‘And I’m here because I have no water, just like all the others around me who’ve been waiting for days for you to issue the No Objection Certificate. I object to all this waiting!’

  Omega grinned. His teeth and gums were stained with paan and the long hand of his watch inched closer to the hour. When he laughed, so did some of the others he was putting off.

  Daanish’s face flushed. ‘I continue to wait.’

  ‘Gently, gently,’ the man cooed. ‘All in good time.’ He sat back. ‘I was once given very good cigarettes by an Amreekan like yourself …’

  ‘I don’t smoke.’

  ‘… Let me see, what were they called?’

  ‘You’re wasting these good people’s time.’

  This finally triggered something in the others. ‘I want my turn before you go for lunch!’ one declared. More began protesting.

  Omega sighed, sitting upright again. ‘Really, you do not look much like an Amreekan. Next.’

  ‘But you haven’t finished with me,’ Daanish yelled.

  ‘You will come back tomorrow and I will see where your file is.’

  ‘Tomorrow is Friday!’ He wante
d to weep.

  Panic broke. He was pushed and shoved as the men realized in another ten minutes the office would close for the next sixty-seven hours. He found himself beside Scarecrow again. The student slapped his back as though they’d become soul mates. ‘It is not like this in Amreeka, no? You are finding lines in offices and water in tapses?’

  Anu was sitting in the TV lounge when a taxi dropped him home. He seemed to have lost his sense of smell. She too hadn’t washed but he noticed nothing different in her appearance or odor. She pushed back greasy hair from his sweaty forehead and kissed him. He never repulsed her.

  ‘I don’t know how you’ve done it all your life,’ he said, ‘shuttling back and forth for something this basic.’

  ‘They let me get in front,’ she replied. ‘But I have been sent home many times when they can’t find our file. You poor thing. I’ll go on Sunday.’ She wiped his sweat away with her dupatta, taking some of the dirt on his flesh with her.

  The electricity had gone again. He looked at the ceiling fan, waiting for the miracle rattle.

  In Anu’s lap was a bowl of lentils, soaking in less water than she liked to use. He sat quietly beside her as she washed them, remembering a day like this twelve, maybe thirteen years ago. The doctor and he were watching a television show about a prospector. He tried to remember the year. Somewhere in the late seventies. The doctor was handsome, trim. A torrential spirit full of stories to share. So it was not a day like this. There were hardly any houses on the street – Khurram’s had definitely not been there. The Soviets hadn’t yet, or maybe just, invaded Afghanistan. Pakistan was a useful US ally. Aid had somersaulted into his country as rapidly as guns did now.

  The prospector had held a pan with chunks of black rock. He spent his life waiting for the odd nugget, reminding Daanish of his grandfather: shriveled and somewhat bad-tempered, but unflinchingly determined. Willing to put up with rubbish for the rare bit of truth. Writing and fighting, yet never speaking of his own pain. Stubborn as lichen. Did he not have a drop of that feisty man’s blood in his own veins?

  Had the doctor too been thinking of his father as he sat beside his son, watching the crotchety prospector? Did he wish he were more like him, as he flew from place to place, bringing back gifts for Daanish and a wife who’d rather he spent on the house?

  Anu probably had no recollection of that day. She’d been in the kitchen. She hardly ever watched television with them. Yes, it definitely wasn’t a day like this.

  He rose to turn on the TV, forgetting there was no electricity. Anu went into the kitchen. He could hear her put the lentils on the stove. She returned with two oranges and a salt shaker. She peeled the first orange, sprinkled each wedge with salt to cut the tartness, and offered the pieces to him. ‘It’s been in the fridge. Still cold.’

  He smiled. The fresh, cool citrus after his ordeal at the water office was unspeakably delightful. He sat with both hands by his side, doing nothing besides parting his lips and piercing the skin of the orange lightly with his teeth.

  Seeing how it revived him, Anu peeled the second one. ‘You mustn’t let yourself get dehydrated. The salt is also good for you.’ Then she told him her brother would pick them up in the evening so they could go to his house and get cleaned up. ‘A shower after all these days will do wonders for your appetite.’

  There was a rattle, and then a click. The fan started turning and the TV lit up: Pakistan vs Australia. Daanish sank into the couch, relishing the gust of air on his face; the sweet tangerine; the leisurely pace of cricket.

  After losing two wickets in succession, Australia finally smashed a six. Australian fans cheered. In amongst the bouncing crowd were two women in skimpy T-shirts. The screen quickly switched to a cigarette ad.

  Daanish laughed, ‘Smoking is better than skin!’

  Anu pursed her lips.

  ‘I bet the Censor Board had a good look.’

  She slapped his leg. ‘Just what your father would have said.’

  ‘The men are too busy ogling to notice the slogan is highly inappropriate.’ The slogan read: For the taste alone.

  ‘You were so innocent once!’

  It was too bad, really, because one of them had had boobs like Becky’s. Anu had probably seen those boobs in the photos she’d stolen. He could embarrass her by asking whose were bigger. They’d play their own little censorship game: she hiding Becky, he hiding his liaison with her. She hiding that she’d hidden Becky, he hiding his knowledge of it all.

  It was just a matter of time before she started on Nissrine. First she’d be of genteel birth, what with all that Ghaznavid blood coursing through her veins. (Just how many distant cousins of this regal clan did he have? Daanish couldn’t remember any.) Then she’d be just his type: slim and educated. Finally, he got to say he liked her, without having to name her.

  The game came on again but the cameraman was still focused on the women so it was back to Gold Leaf.

  ‘I wonder if the water office and Censor Board are run by the same people? They both get paid to object.’

  She looked at him. Ah, there was the preparatory look! The pleading eyes, tilting head, the words clustering on the tip of her tongue. Marry Nissrine … Marry Nissrine … the girl with the fair, fresh complexion. Just like her grandchildren should have.

  Before she could say it, Wasim and Waqar were back in action, baffling the batsmen with reverse swing. ‘We might win the series, don’t you think? A nice follow-up to our World Cup victory.’

  She bit her tongue. Not yet.

  But when the game was over, and when they’d returned home after a rejuvenating wash at his uncle’s, with five pots full of water to last, hopefully, till Sunday, she did say it. And once again, he implied he had no objection.

  6

  Open-ended

  He called her at last after a week. ‘When can I see you?’

  ‘Where have you been?’ She was panting, but her voice was different.

  He felt a constriction around his neck. ‘I’ve been trying to get a tanker to the house. Long story. When …’

  ‘I’ve called so many times,’ she pressed.

  He paused. ‘I’m sorry. When I’m home Anu’s around me a lot.’

  ‘Well, you could have at least tried.’

  His irritation mounted. Finally: ‘Let’s figure out how to meet. My car’s still broken …’

  ‘I’m going to have to call you back. I don’t like you right now.’ She hung up.

  What was he going to do with himself now?

  Anu’s brother had taken her to the water office. He had the whole house to himself but Dia had to make a fuss.

  He walked out into the lawn and onto the street, winding around the unfinished house. Had the contractor been fired? Work still hadn’t resumed.

  He thought of the choices he could offer her, when she eventually called. He could find a mechanic. But the thought itself was draining. It would take days before a mechanic kept his promise and came to the house, and in any case, the car would only break down again. He couldn’t bring himself to chase both a tanker and a mechanic, even though Anu chased the former now.

  Dia’s car, like Khurram’s, only came with the driver so that was out.

  They couldn’t take a bus because the cove was outside its range.

  They could take a taxi, though that too wouldn’t go all the way. It would involve walking the distance, in this heat, as Dia had had to do the day his car broke down. It had meant more men like Salaamat leering at Dia.

  So what was left?

  As he walked through the partitions, he wondered, Right here? It might be quite cozy, cuddling in one of these half-built chambers. He could simply tell Anu he was going to find a mechanic. It was too obvious to suspect.

  The only problem he foresaw was Salaamat, if it was he who occasionally lurked in the crevices. But when no other options arose, he suggested the house when she finally called.

  Days later, in a cavity furthest from the street, she sulked, ‘O
h what a place to meet!’

  ‘But aren’t you glad to see me? This is probably going to be a guest bedroom or something. We’re the first guests!’

  ‘This is absurd. There are puddles everywhere. We’re barely out of the sun, and most of all, we’re sandwiched between your mother’s house and Khurram’s house, where Salaamat knows us too! It’s like we’re having to create our own village just to be together, only the village is in their lap.’

  He sat her down. ‘Let’s talk about your lap.’ He tried to rest his head in it.

  But she remained aloof, looking about the empty room with the half-raised, unpainted walls, and above them, a gray and bloated sky. The ground was muddy and uneven. The arm he touched soon covered in sweat.

  ‘This is no good. I can’t hunker like this with you, Daanish. I miss the cove, even though it frightened me. But we belong in someplace beautiful. There’s not even a tree around us.’

  He had to admit: it wasn’t cozy. He sat up. ‘Well, where else?’

  Instead of suggesting something, she kept complaining. ‘This place makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong. I’m not.’

  He checked himself for getting impatient with her, and touched her smooth, clean-cut jaw. It curved beautifully at the chin. He traced her lips, his thumb wiping the sweat gathering on her upper lip, where a thin line of hair grew. Her large eyes were so sincere, and just now, so sad. He sighed. ‘Was it hard to get away?’

  She slid a hand in his. ‘Very. Inam Gul said, “Where do you keep going, beti? Why do you not speak plainly with me?” I hate upsetting him. Plus, I’m afraid he’s going to squeal.’

  ‘If I were some other guy, would your mother still object?’

  ‘No, that’s what hurts. She’s probably the only mother who wouldn’t. Yet why should I feel guilty? We’re doing nothing wrong.’ She said it with great conviction, snapping herself out of her despair, and at last kissed him.