Unmarriageable

by Soniah Kamal

  When he arrived at Lahore Airport, Wickaam was seventeen years old and turning every head. He targeted that most vulnerable of people, the adolescent maid. One, two, three maids came forward: Wickaam Sahib had seduced them by promising them marriage, money, gold earrings, etc. My mother was appalled. She tried to protect these young girls by sending them back to their villages and away from Wickaam’s urges. And then one of the maids got pregnant. Mahira was adamant that Wickaam marry her and legitimise their child. Wickaam said she had no proof that he was the father.

  Thanks to my mother and Beena Aunty, Mahira delivered a healthy baby boy. We paid for her and the baby’s upkeep for life as well as his education. My mother and Beena Aunty requested Mahira not disclose the arrangement to anyone but, next we know, another pregnant maid shows up.

  My mother had recently been diagnosed with a late-stage cancer, and all this stress made her sicker. She felt she’d failed her late sister’s son, and she worried about what would become of these poor maids, their children, and Wickaam with his inability to keep his trousers zipped.

  My mother and Beena Aunty decided to use Wickaam’s inheritance to set up a school for underprivileged children, in which Wickaam’s offspring would also study for free, as well as a facility for taking in abandoned infants who may otherwise be victims of infanticide. Wickaam was livid at his inheritance being taken away. He blamed me. Instead of taking his side like a ‘brother’, I was some bleeding heart who’d sided with the maids.

  After Wickaam visited my mother on her deathbed, my mother decided that he should receive tuition money for a university abroad, and Beena Aunty agreed. But what does Wickaam do? He uses the funds to travel the world of lechery in luxury.

  My sister, Juju, is ten years younger than him, Annie, and me. Annie and I decided that Juju didn’t need to know about Wickaam’s sexual exploits. However, the minute I left for my MBA, that asshole began to prey on my sister, convincing her they were in love. Beena Aunty didn’t even know the two were meeting, let alone what was going on. No one did.

  One day I received a phone call from Juju. She was pregnant and Wickaam was insisting they elope. But she wanted me to be at the wedding. I booked the first flight back from Atlanta to Lahore. I told my sister to tell him they could marry but that I was going to cut off her inheritance and there’d be no money. Wickaam called my bluff. Next I took Juju to the charity school, where she saw Wickaam’s children and had to believe what I’d been telling her. She was distraught. I told Juju to convince Wickaam she’d given up her inheritance to be with him. His response was to abandon my pregnant sixteen-year-old sister. Next I hear, he’s in New York, where, while having a good time, he has purchased a fake law degree and is now going around telling people he went to a university in New York. He did – he literally walked through a university campus in New York City.

  I told Juju I would support her no matter what she chose to do. After much agonising, she opted for an abortion. I was unwilling to trust my unmarried sister’s secret to doctors and nurses in Pakistan, and so I took her to Europe. She suffered so much, and all I could do was feel like shit.

  Wickaam thinks Juju miscarried. Only she and I – and now you – know she had an abortion. I wish I could tell the world the truth, but I cannot without risking my sister’s reputation as well as the reputations of others Wickaam has seduced.

  He is my cousin, my blood relative, I’m sorry to say, but he is not my friend. He is no one’s friend and does not know what the word ‘loyalty’ means. Weena Aunty and Uncle Hassan, his parents, were so gentle, kind, and upright – they would be shocked to see how their son has turned out.

  I’m sharing all this with you to tell you that Wickaam is not the victim here nor we conniving relatives, and I would advise you and yours to stay far away from him.

  Alys, I wanted you to have a signed statement from me to prove that I trust you.

  Valentine Darsee

  Alys looked up. The sun was still shining. Bees buzzed over a bed of petunias. A group of elderly ladies power-walked past her. She could not believe what she’d just read. His explanation for his interference with Bungles and Jena had not appeased her, and she was furious that he’d kept Jena’s presence in Lahore from Bungles. But he’d told her the truth. And if he’d told her the truth about that, then how could she doubt his account about Wickaam? But if Darsee was telling the truth, then Wickaam had lied.

  Alys recalled Wickaam’s face as they’d sat in Pak Tea House and he’d related his tale. He’d sounded so sincere. And yet here was this letter from Darsee. A letter in which he’d confessed to his sister having premarital sex that had ended in an abortion. In Pakistan, no one in their right mind would make up such a thing, let alone a brother about his sister.

  It occurred to Alys that when Wickaam had smiled at Darsee at the Wagah border, it had been a sheepish smile. That it was Wickaam who’d decided to back out of attending NadirFiede’s walima. Wickaam who was always keen to demean Darsee.

  Poor Juju! Poor maids! Should she warn Miss Jahanara Ana Aan that her fiancé was a heinous man and a father of children whom he did not acknowledge? ‘Father’ was the wrong word. Wickaam was not a father. He was just a man who’d sired children. But what concrete proof could she offer without betraying Darsee’s confidence?

  Alys reread Wickaam’s section. She read it several times. After she was done, she marched on the jogging path, trying to regain composure. She felt dizzy and sick. Wickaam must have seen the Binat name on the Fraudia Acre case papers and assumed they had money. Upon realising they had none, he’d perhaps decided that if not marriage for money, then he could attain something else from one of them. He’d never tried anything untoward with her, but Alys recalled his attentions to Qitty, and she shuddered at the memory of Wickaam sleeping over while Lady pranced around in her nightie. Shame on their society, where maintaining unsoiled reputations was considered more vital than exposing scoundrels, for such secrets only allowed the scoundrels to continue causing harm.

  Alys stopped walking and read the letter again. And then again. Each time, she felt a fresh pinch at ‘maternal ancestry’, and anger that Darsee had believed this rumour as readily as everyone else seemed to. She also felt nauseous over his allegations about her family’s crude behaviour. The truth, as much as it stung, was that his charges were valid. And hadn’t Sherry also feared that Jena’s guardedness could be read as blatant indifference? But Alys was not going to blame Jena. She’d told Darsee that women were stuck in a bind, and they were.

  Darsee had apologised for withholding word of Jena’s presence in Lahore from Bungles. He’d written, I’m sorry I lied to you. I am not a liar. And from everything she could see, Darsee was a doting brother. Why had she so readily believed Wickaam?

  Because she’d wanted to believe him. Alys swallowed her disappointment in herself. In Wickaam’s case, she’d been favourably biased, and in Darsee’s unfavourably prejudiced. She’d been flattered by Wickaam’s attentions and offended by Darsee’s initial dismissive assessment of her looks and her intellect. She’d readily welcomed Wickaam’s – a total stranger’s – derision of Darsee, and, even worse, she’d added to it.

  Alys groaned as she recalled how she’d compared Wickaam to Darsee and told him he could never be loyal. His proposal had been conceited, there was no denying that, but she’d been petty in her rejection.

  Alys wasn’t sure how she was going to react when she saw Darsee next, but when she finally ended her walk and returned to Sherry’s house, the Loocluses were discussing the day’s events: Raghav had left this morning as scheduled for K2, and Darsee had suddenly decided to return to Lahore. Beena dey Bagh had telephoned to cancel dinner.

  By and by, Kaleen decided that the cancellation was a stroke of good luck, since the Loocluses and Alys were scheduled to leave three days from now and this would allow them time to wrap up things. Three days later, the Looclus family and Alys set off for Lahore and from there to Dilipabad. As had been the case before
, the Loocluses dropped Alys off at Nisar and Nona’s and popped in for chai before heading to their relatives’ house. They would pick up Alys and Jena the next morning.

  Alys had hoped to have a few moments alone with Jena, but she quickly realised that a few moments would not be enough for what she’d decided to share with her sister and that, once they got home, privacy would be a dream. Consequently, she told the Loocluses that she and Jena had decided to stay an extra day in Lahore and that they’d take the Daewoo bus back to Dilipabad.

  Two days later, Alys and Jena boarded a deluxe bus. The bus hostess introduced herself as Qandeel Baloch and, with a striking smile, distributed the boxed lunches and pointed out the toilets at the back. Once the bus started moving, Alys told Jena to brace herself for all she was about to hear.

  ‘What?’ Jena opened the box lunch to a chicken-salad sandwich, crisps, and an apple. ‘What great secret has required us to spend money on bus tickets so we can get privacy?’

  ‘Darsee proposed to me.’

  Jena’s hands stilled on the apple.

  ‘Darsee sought me out one evening when I was alone at Sherry’s and informed me that he loves me and respects my opinions and wants to marry me.’

  ‘Dear God!’ Jena said. ‘Oh my dear God!’

  ‘I said no.’

  ‘Valentine Darsee proposed to you and you said no?’

  ‘And that’s not even the real explosive secret.’

  Alys took out Darsee’s letter from her bag.

  ‘Read from here.’ She tapped at the beginning of Wickaam’s section.

  ‘What’s this above?’ Jena said.

  ‘You know what’ – Alys bit her lip – ‘read the whole thing, except it’s about you and Bungles.’

  Jena read it slowly, her expression going from wounded, to hurt, to puzzled, to resolute.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Alys asked gently as Jena came to the end of the part on Bungles.

  ‘Yes and no.’ Jena shook her head. The fact was that of course friends asked friends for advice all the time, but Bungles should have trusted his own intuition about her rather than what his friend or sisters told him. They had not seen her looking into Bungles’s eyes; he had. They had not seen her ensuring that his plate was always full of food; he had. They had not heard the tenderness in her voice for him when they were alone; he had. He should have trusted what he was seeing rather than what they were seeing.

  He was weak willed and, the fact was, she did not want a weak-willed man.

  Jena returned to the letter. As she got deeper into Wickaam’s section, she began to fidget. Often she glanced at Alys in agitation. When she was done, she folded the letter and handed it back to Alys.

  ‘Can Wickaam truly be so two-faced? Can he hide his double nature so well?’

  ‘Yes,’ Alys said, ‘and yes.’

  ‘But there’s got to be some misunderstanding between Darsee and Wickaam. What Darsee relates here is just terrible.’

  ‘Doesn’t make it untrue.’

  ‘My God, Alys, Wickaam spending nights, our mother offering any of us up to him for marriage, Lady in her nightie!’ Jena’s hand flew to her chest. ‘My God, do you think—’

  ‘Lady is not that stupid,’ Alys said. ‘She’s zinda dil, full of life, but even she knows the limits.’

  ‘Poor Jujeena. Do you think Bungles knows about this?’

  ‘Darsee’s clearly written that only he, Juju, and now I know.’

  ‘And now I know,’ Jena said. ‘Are you going to tell him you showed me?’

  ‘No. Not yet. I don’t know. I trust you.’

  ‘As he trusted you,’ Jena said, sighing. ‘I honestly don’t know what to believe.’

  ‘I believe Darsee. I do. He’s not the villain after all.’

  ‘I always told you not to judge so quickly.’

  Alys looked out the window at the orange grove they were passing.

  ‘Jena,’ she said, turning to her, ‘ever since I read the letter, I knew you were right. And Sherry was right too. I was being unreasonable in my dislike for him, a dislike that started because he wounded my vanity and I let his judgement cloud my judgement. He’s such a snob – you should have heard the dismal way he proposed to me – but surely snobbery is not equal to evil. I’m not saying he’s suddenly turned into a saint, but I am cringing at all the times I agreed with Wickaam that Darsee was horrid. Cringing at all the times I defended Wickaam to Darsee.’

  ‘You didn’t know any better.’ Jena squeezed Alys’s hand. ‘You didn’t have all the facts.’

  ‘Had Wickaam told me Darsee kidnapped babies and ate them for breakfast, I would have believed him.’

  ‘Oh, Alys.’

  ‘Darsee was right. I like to tell others the truth about themselves, but I’m not so keen to hear truths about me and mine. I’m ashamed that I’m not the person I thought I was.’

  ‘You should be proud that you possess the ability to revise your opinion and want to develop qualities you lack.’

  ‘Yes,’ Alys said wryly, ‘I plan to be very proud at being able to call myself out on my own prejudice. But, seriously, Jena, what should I do? Should I warn Miss Jahanara Ana Aan? Should we tell others about Wickaam?’

  ‘It’s not our secret to divulge,’ Jena said, truly troubled.

  ‘Doesn’t Wickaam need to be exposed so he can’t dupe other girls? But this could truly ruin Jujeena Darsee’s reputation for the rest of her life.’

  ‘Not just her life.’ Jena’s voice was steel. ‘It would affect her children’s reputations and her grandchildren’s reputations. Is this not what we face? Thanks to Aunty Tinkle’s slander concerning our grandmother’s supposed profession, people malign us even though no one can furnish a shred of proof towards that rumour.’

  ‘I dare not imagine,’ Alys said, ‘what will happen to Jujeena’s story in the hands of people like Rose-Nama and her mother and Naheed and Hammy and Sammy.’

  ‘I can,’ Jena said softly. ‘These people could be having premarital sex and abortions left, right, and centre, but they’ll put on such self-righteous airs you’ll think they are the world’s greatest naik parveens, pious women.’

  ‘Internal misogyny has made a mockery of female solidarity,’ Alys said, forlorn. ‘It’s not even as if abortion is the issue. Married women here use it as birth control. It’s all about premarital sex. Are you a virgin or not?’

  ‘And these pigeon problems,’ Jena said in despair, ‘are only meant to preoccupy us while the men are free to focus their energies on the important things in life.’

  ‘Can you imagine the schadenfreude?’ Alys said. ‘How gleeful people will be to hear of Jujeena and Darsee’s scandal? In front of Jujeena they’ll say, “Poor Jujeena this, poor Jujeena that,” but behind her back they will call her a slut and blame her for becoming pregnant. All the while, even as they condemn Wickaam for being vile, women will try to reform him with their own true love, while men will slap him on his back for being such a manly man. This is the society we live in.’

  The sisters were still talking in hushed whispers when the bus reached Dilipabad, where they were met by their family, amid a cacophony of greetings.

  ‘Missed you both so much,’ Mr Binat said, hugging his eldest daughters.

  ‘He did,’ Mrs Binat said, giving Jena and Alys pecks on their cheeks. ‘Your father wants to discuss his beloved flora and fauna, and no one else has the patience to hear him blather on about aeration and lime content. You look so relaxed and refreshed, Jena.’

  ‘Do I look like I’ve lost any weight?’ Qitty tightened her kurta around her waist. ‘I’ve lost ten pounds since you left.’

  ‘You do look trimmer,’ Jena said.

  ‘Shut up about your ten pounds, Qitty,’ Lady said. ‘It’s not visible on your body, so it has to be your brains getting lighter.’

  ‘Lady! Behave!’ Alys said as she hugged Qitty.

  ‘Great,’ Lady said. ‘Aunty Alys is back.’

  ‘Qitty,’ Alys said
, ‘I’ve brought you a bundle of used magazines I found, called Mode, for plus-size women.’

  ‘Did you get the things on my list?’ Lady said.

  ‘Yes,’ Alys said. ‘Such a long list of nothing but beauty products. Let me remind you: books over looks.’

  ‘I didn’t have a single beauty product on my list,’ Mari said proudly. ‘I do not care about outer looks but rather the inner beauty of the soul.’

  ‘Inner beauty of the soul,’ Lady repeated, mimicking Mari in a squeaky voice. ‘Jena, Alys, this is her new thing. Inner beauty of the soul. Mari, you have little outer beauty, so of course you are going to lecture on inner beauty. God, I want a long holiday away from this town and my family. We’re dying of heat here. Jena, Alys, I went to see Mareea Looclus yesterday. She said Fart Bhai has air conditioning everywhere and she was freezing all the time. I wish we could afford to freeze.’

  ‘We can’t, thanks to Goga and Tinkle,’ Mrs Binat said. ‘May God sprout warts on their privates.’

  ‘Pinkie, shhh!’ Mr Binat glanced around to see if anyone at the bus stop had overheard. ‘Your curses become more colourful with each passing day.’

  ‘Mareea also said,’ Lady grumbled, ‘that Sherry bought her everything she wanted and then some.’

  Mrs Binat snorted. ‘I’m telling you, she must have bought clearance.’

  ‘No, Mummy,’ Lady said, ‘I told you I saw the full-price stickers. Also, she was crowing about how Fart Bhai has said that, as soon as she finishes university, she can move in with them. I say, good riddance. If Fart Bhai wants his fish-faced sister-in-law around, good for him. But, Jena, Alys, is it true? Did he really invite her to live with them? It’s so unfair. Even Mareea will leave Dilipabad, while I will languish here and die.’

  ‘Hai!’ Mrs Binat said. ‘Why will you die? Die karein tumhare dushman. May your enemies die.’

  ‘They are not dying. They are prospering. Mareea said Fart Bhai is going to replace their shitty motorbike with a car, a very good car. Mummy, imagine those flamingo-faced Mansoor and Manzoor going from being motorbike boys to having a better car than ours. I can’t stand it. Alys, it’s not even as if they worked for it themselves, but you keep saying that us girls must earn everything for ourselves.’