Unmarriageable

by Soniah Kamal

  ‘Kismet has nothing to do with anything,’ Mrs Binat said. ‘It’s all about looks.’

  ‘Kismet, fate, destiny,’ Falak said. ‘I was as beautiful as you, and look what became of me.’

  ‘You’re still beautiful,’ Mrs Binat said, because what else was one to say to a faded beauty.

  ‘Good looks don’t guarantee happiness or riches,’ Falak said. ‘Also, I’ve seen a thousand handsome and rich men marrying ugly women.’

  ‘True,’ Nona seconded.

  ‘The only men who marry ugly women,’ Mrs Binat said, ‘are men terrified someone else might find their wife attractive and tempt her into cheating. Proper men are proud to wear beauty on their sleeve. Look at Prince Chaarless and Lady Dayna.’

  ‘Charles,’ Lady corrected her mother. ‘Diana.’

  ‘Charles and Diana,’ Alys said, ‘are a perfect example of a mismatched arranged marriage.’

  ‘At least Dayna married a prince,’ said Mrs Binat tearfully. ‘Tell me, Falak, how to flip my daughters’ rotten kismets? How many more times should I read the Quran for their luck to change? How many more wazeefays must I pray? How many more fasts must I keep? How many more manaats must I make? Nothing is working.’

  Mrs Binat turned to Nona’s children, who’d been watching her with wide eyes. She kissed them and told them to go forth and play and make as much noise as they pleased. Indus, Buraaq, Miraage, and Khyber ran rampant through Binat House, their blissful laughter drowning out Mrs Binat whenever she slipped back into a berating mood. The Binat girls began to unfurl. Lady gave Indus piggyback rides up and down the stairs. Mari bowled to Buraaq’s bat. Qitty made paper planes with Miraage. Jena tossed Khyber up in the air and caught him, letting his mirth plant smiles on her face.

  ‘The children have done wonders for Jena,’ Alys told Nona one morning as they sorted out gently used clothes to donate to charity. ‘I can’t tell you how quiet and sombre she’d become. I just know it’s his sisters and that horrid Dracula that have kept Bungles away.’

  ‘In our culture,’ Nona said, ‘men flirt. They enjoy. They move on. They are brought up to believe that women are expendable. We are brought up to believe the opposite. One glance from a man and we readily give away our heart.’

  ‘Jena certainly did not mean to set herself up,’ Alys said. ‘It’s all Mummy’s fault. Dressing up Jena to be sold like a commodity. Convincing her that all she needs is the right outfit to get him to propose. Jena asked me if wearing something else might have made the difference. That’s how insecure Mummy has made her feel. Did I tell you she keeps leaving her classes at school? Mrs Naheed called me in again the other day to warn me that one more time and she’ll have to ask Jena to take a leave of absence.’

  ‘A leave of absence?’ Nona squinted. ‘Might Jena want to return to Lahore with us? A change of scenery may do her good.’

  ‘Being away from our mother will definitely do her good.’

  ‘I didn’t want to put it like that.’ Nona smiled. ‘Lahore is Bungles’s city too, but I’ll make sure we have no reason to visit their part of town.’

  ‘I think being in the same city but with no contact will be good for her.’

  ‘Good. As for you, I want to talk to you about Jeorgeullah Wickaam. He’s very popular in your household, I can see, and your mother is certain that he’s going to marry Qitty, because he encouraged her to dance all of once, but I’ve heard the special way you speak of him.’

  ‘I don’t speak of him in any special way.’ Alys folded a dupatta and added it to the keep pile.

  ‘Sure.’ Nona flicked Alys on her nose. ‘Now, he’s very handsome and magnetic, but I warn you, he’s not marriageable material.’

  ‘How can you say that?’

  ‘Believe me, I can tell. In my line of work, I come across all sorts of people, and Jeorgeullah Wickaam is a coaster. I would hate to see you end up with a coaster, Alys, and marriage has a way of turning coasters into burdens on their wives. Look at your Falak Khala.’

  ‘I have it on good authority,’ Alys laughed, ‘from Advocate Musarrat Jr. that Wickaam is a rising star.’

  ‘I’m serious, Alys,’ Nona said. ‘Wickaam’s wife will be a star before he ever is. He’ll be content at home, getting manicures, pedicures, facials, and massages all day long, a triumphant trophy husband.’

  ‘That’s not true.’ Alys sat up. ‘Wickaam has faced much adversity, as you know—’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Nona discarded a turmeric-stained sweater into the rags pile. ‘How could I not know? He is very eager to tell everyone all about his misfortunes. Look, Alys, it was my duty as your aunt to guide you, I have done my duty, and now I will keep quiet.’

  ‘Your duty is several hours too late!’ Alys smiled at the alarm on Nona’s face. ‘Wickaam called me this morning. He’s recently got engaged to one Miss Jahanara Ana Aan.’

  ‘Engaged!’

  ‘He met Miss Jahanara Ana Aan during a work trip to Karachi. Miss Jahanara Ana Aan is her father’s only daughter and stands to inherit his accounting firm, and Wickaam intends to inherit it with her. Obviously well-off-enough people for him to see a good match.’

  ‘I see,’ Nona said. ‘You’re very forgiving when Wickaam grabs it, not so forgiving when Sherry does.’

  Alys flushed. ‘I’m sure Wickaam’s fiancée is not an ass-kissing social-climbing buffoon.’

  ‘Poor Qitty. Does your mother know yet?’

  Alys shook her head.

  ‘And you, my treasure, are you all right?’

  ‘Too all right.’ Alys shrugged. ‘I believe that if Wickaam had money, or I did, I would have been his first choice. In any case, Miss Jahanara Ana Aan sounds like a smart and nice girl. I wish them well. Qitty and Lady were crying, but I thought, What’s there to cry about? I’m telling you, Aunty Nona, I’m truly not cut out for marriage, children, that sort of thing. I’m actually quite pleased that Miss Jahanara Ana Aan has inadvertently resolved this “situation” for me.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Jena readily accepted Nona’s invitation to come to Lahore. Mrs Naheed was not thrilled at Jena’s wanting to take off the remaining two months of the semester, but Alys volunteered to teach Jena’s classes and Mari would substitute as a teacher-in-training. Mari was disgusted with the change in her lifestyle but, since it was for Jena’s sake, she didn’t grumble too vehemently.

  Mrs Binat prayed that fate would bring Jena and Bungles together in Lahore, and the thought cheered her. Satisfied that she might yet have her coup through Jena, Mrs Binat enquired after Wickaam. Where had he disappeared? She was informed of Miss Jahanara Ana Aan. Her heart sank, but, then, she’d never truly believed Qitty would be able to attract such a gorgeous man, and neither could she blame Wickaam for grabbing a moneyed woman, and so she searched for a silver lining. Of course! Her daughters would be invited to Wickaam’s wedding.

  Immediately she began to discuss what outfits would be best for the events. Alys, Jena, Qitty, Lady, and Mari shared a glance and then looked at their father, who wore the same expression of dazed relief. Was Pinkie Binat back to normal and all right in their world?

  Nona, the children, Falak, and Jena packed to leave for Lahore, and it was a tearful parting as the remaining Binats stood watching them drive away. Alys turned to Sherry’s house for a cigarette, then remembered that Sherry too was gone.

  Alys was not restless for long. Her days began with a whirlwind of a schedule as she managed her own classes as well as the workload for Jena’s. Mari was turning out to be of little help, because she was more interested in preaching religion than in teaching the syllabus. Then there were the underprivileged children whom she, Jena, Sherry, and Mari used to tutor together, and now Alys insisted that Qitty and Lady get involved too.

  Sherry called Alys frequently, and no sooner would Alys hang up than Mrs Binat would enquire, ‘And what does your friend have to say for herself today?’

  Alys would tell her mother the truth. Sherry was having the time of
her life. Sleeping in. Car and driver at her disposal to go wherever and whenever she wanted. She’d joined a gym and had developed a yen for yoga and power aerobics. She was making friends, whom she met for brunches and kitty parties. She and Kaleen had dined at Beena dey Bagh’s; both mother and daughter thought highly of Kaleen. Kaleen’s elder son was respectful to Sherry, while the seven-year-old son said the cutest things and clung to her like a duckling. Kaleen’s daughter was as friendly as she needed to be. Sherry’s cat had also settled into the new environment as if she’d always been living there. All in all, all was good and Kaleen had only one request, which Sherry was beyond delighted to fulfil: that she cook for him.

  ‘Hah!’ Mrs Binat said. ‘Even he knows all Sherry is good for is the kitchen.’

  ‘They have a cook, Mummy,’ Alys said. ‘All Sherry says she does is add spices.’

  ‘Let’s hope,’ Mrs Binat said, ‘Kaleen gets food poisoning and drops dead. Then Sherry will be a widow and that’ll teach her to steal men interested in other women.’

  ‘Tauba! Dear God!’ Mr Binat said. ‘What a thing to say!’

  Alys did not share with her mother the prevailing awkwardness between Sherry and herself and how they had to force the closeness they’d once so easily shared.

  It was Jena’s phone calls Alys looked forward to. Jena called home daily to share news of her activities: shopping, films, restaurants, taking the children on outings. She would help Nona in the kitchen and they would make cake deliveries together. She visited Falak Khala once a week and was helping Babur prepare for an interview with a recruiter from Cornell.

  Jena professed to be over Bungles. As proof, she planned to drop in to see Hammy and Sammy. No, she was not going to listen to Alys and stay far away from them. Bungles had been nothing more than a passing infatuation, pushed to extremes by their mother’s pressure. Jena knew that now. She was merely going to visit Hammy and Sammy as she would any acquaintances of hers who lived in Lahore.

  Jena dropped in one afternoon. Hammy and Sammy were at home. They were hosting a luncheon, and the maid, thinking Jena was one of the guests, led her into the drawing room where socialites were lining up to pose for a photograph. (The photo later appeared in Social Lights; Lady told Jena she’d seen it.) There’d been a hush when Jena entered the drawing room. Fazool said, ‘Ham, Sam, isn’t that the damsel Bungs—’

  Hammy and Sammy cut off Fazool. They hurried to Jena and hugged her and said what a nice surprise to see her and too bad it was not a good time but that they’d visit her in the next few days; they needed to see someone in Jamshed Colony anyway. She’d not asked about him. She’d not even looked for him at their house. The fact was, Hammy and Sammy had been very nice to her.

  They were not very nice to you, Alys thought. They could have invited Jena to stay for lunch, a not-unusual courtesy in their part of the world; instead, she’d been sent off.

  Three days later, Nona called Alys: ‘Jena needs to leave the house and stop waiting for them to visit. Who knows if they’ll ever come?’

  They came on the seventh day. Jena called home as soon as they left. For the first time, anger edged out her hurt.

  ‘You were right, Alys,’ she said in a steely voice. ‘They are superficial and shallow and they never liked me. The person they were coming to see who lives in this part of town is their dhobi. They are attending a charity ball and need their gowns laundered according to specific instructions, which they didn’t trust the driver to convey to the dhobi. I was the stop after the dhobi. They stayed for eight minutes and forty seconds and looked as if they expected spiders to descend on them the whole time. Basically they came to tell me that their brother knows I’m in town but he’s busy with Jujeena Darsee and doesn’t have a moment to spare on frivolities. I am a frivolity. They said they hoped I enjoy my visit to Lahore, and then they left. Good riddance to them. Hammy, Sammy, their brother – I will not let them spoil my mood for a single second more. You are right, Alys, I am too quick to believe people are nice. I am cured. I assure you.’

  The two months passed by. Alys set exams for her classes. She marked exams. She attended the staff meetings to discuss student promotions to the next academic year. She sat through end-of-term class parties, where students – who always discovered newfound love for teachers at the end of the school year – gave her gifts and handmade cards. Tahira hugged Alys and thanked her for the B-minus on her final exam. Rose-Nama thanked Alys for her A grade too. Alys nodded, for she was not one of those teachers who settled scores through grades. Unfortunately, though, after the summer break, Alys would see Rose-Nama in her Year 11 literature class, while Tahira was leaving to getting married. Best wishes for the future! Alys wrote on Tahira’s uniform as students scampered about, getting their uniforms signed for posterity. Finally, the last bell for home time rang and everyone, including Alys and her sisters, headed to the gates, where they boarded the school van for the summer holidays.

  Alys was leaving the next day for Islamabad. Sherry’s family had rented a minivan so that they could travel in comfort. On the way to Islamabad, they were going to stop over in Lahore for a night, a prospect that had cemented Alys’s decision to go, for she would get to see Jena and Nona.

  ‘Don’t forget your old father despite your change of scenery,’ Mr Binat said as he hugged Alys goodbye. Mrs Binat, Mari, Qitty, and Lady waved glumly, because they wouldn’t have minded a trip to Islamabad and a change of scenery too.

  The journey to Lahore took a quick two hours. The Loocluses passed the time with singing competitions, eating the home-made lunch of aloo paratha and cheeni roti, and marvelling at how wonderful it was that Sherry ne itna bada haath maara – that Sherry had managed to marry so well. The Loocluses were looking forward to eating in good restaurants and sightseeing in style, for Sherry had assured them that they did not have to worry about the expense. She was going to foot all the bills, thanks to the generosity of her husband.

  In Lahore, the Loocluses dropped Alys at her uncle’s house for the night. Jena, Nona, and Nisar were eagerly waiting for Alys, and they insisted the Loocluses at least have chai before heading off to spend the night with their own relatives. Since it was the polite thing to do, and also because who would refuse Nona’s naan khatai cookies, the Loocluses obliged.

  During tea, Bobia Looclus whispered to Alys that Jena looked much happier, mashallah. Alys was grateful she’d said so, for she’d thought it herself. Later, Nona said that on occasion a cloud would yet pass over Jena but that she was determined not to wallow in it.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The remainder of the journey to Islamabad was just as merry as the trip the day before, if not merrier for Alys, since Jena was on the mend. Hours later, they drove off the motorway and into the pristine capital city with its wide leafy roads, and eventually the minivan turned off the main road and entered a nice upper-middle-class neighbourhood. Everyone in the van held their breath in anticipation of seeing Sherry’s marital home. It was just as Sherry had described: a large two-storey house with a decent driveway set in the midst of a pretty lawn. Farhat Kaleen and Sherry stood on the stoop of their home, waiting to greet them, Sherry with open arms, and Kaleen with a satisfied face that seemed plumper, no doubt courtesy of Sherry’s cooking.

  Bobia Looclus could not help but burst out in pride, ‘Sherry, tum tho sitar say guitar bun gayee ho. Sherry, you’ve transformed from the local sitar into an international-level guitar.’

  ‘Nothing lesser about the sitar or other local instruments, Aunty Bobia,’ Alys said, because it was not in her nature to let anything go. Sherry was looking very nice. Gone was her thin braid. Her new chin-length style suited her bony angles. Her skin had cleared up. She was clad in a well-tailored lawn shalwar kameez from one of the better brands and black ballet flats. Amethyst drops shone in her ears.

  ‘Ammi,’ Sherry giggled, ‘if I tell you how much my haircut alone cost, you will faint.’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with that,’ Bobia Lo
oclus admonished her daughter, ‘and everything to do with inner happiness. You are glowing.’

  ‘Of course she is glowing,’ Kaleen said as he welcomed Sherry’s parents and awestruck siblings to Islamabad. ‘Nothing but the best for my sweet blemish-free Sherry.’

  He gave Alys a wide smile. ‘Most welcome. Most welcome.’

  ‘You came,’ Sherry said, hugging Alys tightly.

  ‘I came,’ Alys said, hugging her back, even as Kaleen urged them to part so that they could start the tour of his gareeb khana, his most humble abode.

  Off they all went to tour the house. Like most standard upper-middle-class homes, it boasted multiple bedrooms – in this case five – with attached baths; a drawing-and-dining room looked out to the back garden, which was a haven for fruit trees. Bobia Looclus kept squeezing Sherry’s hand. There were air conditioners in every room. Every room! And a backup generator to handle load-shedding. There was a cook, cleaner, driver, maid, gardener, gate guard, dhobi, tailor, and countless other amenities and luxuries at her daughter’s disposal. Never had she imagined that her Sherry, whom everyone had written off, would be so well settled. This was proof that there was a God.

  Alys noticed the glances Bobia kept giving her, which rivalled Kaleen’s, signifying that all this could have been hers. Alys suppressed a smile and managed a suitably awed expression as they walked from the russet-tiled portico into a flourishing garden that also contained a large chicken coop and a milking goat lounging on lush grass.

  Sherry’s brothers, Mansoor and Manzoor, and her sister, Mareea, rushed to stroke the goat, and even Alys fell in love with its soft bleating and ebony eyes. The only goats she’d ever known were the ones inevitably sacrificed at Eid for meat, and it was blissful to see this goat living its life, even if tethered to the low water tap jutting from the boundary wall.