by Soniah Kamal
‘Don’t you listen to Alys. Yeh tho pagal hai. She’s mad.’ Mrs Binat’s nostrils fluttered in her despair at Bobia Looclus’s coup after coup. ‘Alys has done nothing for her family, while all that snake Sherry does is elevate hers via her husband’s fat wallet. God only knows what spell she has put on that wife-worshipping Kaleen. Lady, my love, you watch – you will make the best marriage in all of Pakistan and have a million good cars.’
‘At this point,’ Lady said, ‘I won’t settle for less than a private plane or two.’
Mrs Binat sighed helplessly. ‘Jena, Alys, is Useless Uterus Sherry still giving herself airs and graces? How eager she was to call herself “Mrs Shireen Kaleen” as soon as she got married.’
‘But, Mummy,’ Jena said, ‘what else would she call herself?’
‘Mareea swears,’ Lady said, ‘that Fart Bhai really does let Sherry sleep in for as long as she likes and that he insists she go to the beauty parlour daily and spend as much as she wants. Imagine! Before Sherry’s marriage, visiting the “porler”, as they pronounce it, was such a big deal for those two sisters, and now Mareea claims she’s been so many times, she’s tired of the very word “porler”.’
‘Lady,’ Mrs Binat said, gently, ‘don’t make fun of anyone’s accent.’
‘I will!’ Lady said. ‘Mareea Looclus is a show-off, and I hate her.’
‘You should not hate anyone,’ Mari said, ‘for hate will come back to haunt you, and envy will eat you alive.’
Qitty added, ‘Don’t be petty, Lady. Be happy for your friend.’
‘Mummy, High Priestess and Behemoth are ganging up on me again,’ Lady said.
‘You’re being very spiteful, Lady,’ Alys said as Jena nodded in agreement.
‘Leave Lady alone, Alys,’ Mrs Binat said, frowning, as they walked to the car park. ‘It is thanks to your refusal of Kaleen that Mareea Looclus is in a position to preen in front of Lady.’
‘I just wish Mareea would remember,’ Lady said, ‘that, had Alys bothered to marry Fart Bhai, then I’d be the one going to the “parlour”, but what’s the use? No one cares about what could have been, and the fact is, Sherry grabbed Fart Bhai, and Mareea has lucked out. Jena, Alys, please, for the sake of my soul, please find someone outstanding to marry you. You’ve already reached your sell-by dates, and before you completely expire, I also want to see what it feels like to have a benevolent brother-in-law.’
‘Is Sherry hoity-toity all the time?’ Mrs Binat asked as they climbed into the car and proceeded homeward. ‘Or does she retain the good sense to remember where she comes from and to never forget her phateecher wretched home?’
Alys and Jena exchanged a look. They were home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Every year Nisar and Nona left their children with her parents while the two of them went on a holiday. This year they were supposed to have gone to New Zealand, but Nisar discovered his passport had expired too late to get it renewed, so they decided instead to retour Pakistan’s Northern Areas. Alys had always been eager to see the breathtaking Lake Saiful-Muluk, Gilgit, Naran, Kaghan, Skardu, Hunza, Chitral. They weren’t sure which lakes and valleys and peaks they would visit, but they would love for Alys and Jena to accompany them.
Alys agreed immediately. Jena declined. Their father’s face had fallen at the invite and Jena decided that, having so recently spent so much time away from home, she would stay back. Everyone else’s face fell too: Mrs Binat, Qitty, Mari, Lady. There were shrieks and tears. Couldn’t they have also been invited? In fact, Mrs Binat and her three younger daughters would have happily invited themselves, had they considered hiking and staring at night stars the least bit fun. If only, Mrs Binat kept lamenting, they could all afford a holiday the way they used to. How she longed to return to London! Hai, Lundhun! Hai, Oxford Street! Hai, Hyde Park!
Lady joined in her mother’s longings. Holiday! Holiday! She’d been a toddler when they used to go abroad, and she didn’t even remember these destinations everyone else had such fond memories of. Holiday! Holiday! It was all she would talk about, until even Mrs Binat regretted mentioning the word ‘holiday’.
‘We have no money for even a week’s getaway to a decent place,’ Mrs Binat said. ‘We spent a fortune on clothes for the NadirFiede wedding, and for what – nothing! Now, had Alys married Kaleen, we’d have spent the entire summer in Islamabad. And had Bungles married …’
But Mrs Binat silenced herself. It was evident to all that no matter which smile Jena plastered on her face, she was still hurting, for she’d fallen in love and was now being forced to fall out of it. Even Mr Binat had stopped cracking jokes about ‘eating shoes’ in order to not cause Jena further pain.
Alys’s holiday news was scarcely digested when the phone rang again. It was Lady’s friend Hijab. Hijab’s family had just this year relocated from Dilipabad to Karachi, and she was missing her friends so much that her mother had relented and allowed her to invite a close friend to visit for the remaining two weeks of the summer holidays. Hijab came from a good family – meaning, in local parlance, they were well off. Her mother fancied herself a journalist, having written a couple of recipes and New Year resolutions lists for Social Lights, and her father was in an executive position with the national airline, which meant Lady’s ticket would be complimentary and all she would have to bring with her was shopping money.
‘No,’ Alys said, as soon as Lady got off the phone and waltzed into the living room to inform everyone that she was going to Karachi. ‘You are not going anywhere by yourself, let alone to a different city hours away by plane.’
Why couldn’t she go? Lady screamed. Was Alys the only one in the family who deserved holidays? She’d barely returned from Sherry’s in Islamabad and was now packing for Nona’s and the Northern Areas. Alys hadn’t even had to ask for permission, so why should she? Hijab had made plans for every day. Her family belonged to the Marina Club, and they were going to go sailing and crabbing and have bonfires on the beach! Her ticket was free! There was no force on earth that was going to stop Lady from going!
Alys did not even bother to appeal to her mother, who was already beginning to make a list of things Lady must pack. Instead, she marched to her father. Mr Binat was in the garden, picking tomatoes off the vines. He smiled when he saw Alys and straightened up and stretched his lower back.
‘These will make the best red salan yet,’ he said, pointing to the jute basket full of ruby fruit, which would be used to make one of the Binats’ favourite dishes: tomatoes stewed in oil and spiced with turmeric, salt, and red chillies and topped off with hard-boiled eggs.
‘Daddy,’ Alys said, ‘Lady’s friend who moved to Karachi has invited her to stay with them for the rest of the summer. I don’t think she should go.’
‘Here.’ Mr Binat handed Alys a pair of gardening gloves. ‘Help me bag some for the few neighbours who remain in your mother’s good graces.’
‘Daddy, did you hear me?’ Alys slipped on the gloves and stepped into the vegetable patch.
‘I heard you,’ Mr Binat said, ‘and I’ve been hearing Lady’s shouting all the way out here. Why can’t she go? You know she’ll make our lives miserable if she doesn’t and, frankly, your mother is enough to make life miserable already.’
‘Daddy, please be serious for a second,’ Alys said. She couldn’t help think of Darsee’s letter, which she never stopped thinking about anyway: Your father seems unable, or unwilling, to discipline anyone.
‘I am being serious.’ Mr Binat plucked another tomato. ‘I could not be any more serious if I was being paid.’
‘I don’t think Lady should be sent anywhere by herself,’ Alys said. ‘I’m sorry to say this to you, Daddy, but she makes you-you eyes at everyone. I think the only man she’s not made you-you eyes at is Farhat Kaleen.’
Mr Binat looked discomfited, as would any ghairatmand – principled – Pakistani father, but he was not one to pretend that girls did not go through puberty or did not have feelings for the
opposite sex; his wife had made sure he was most comfortable around them while they discussed bra sizes and menstruation and, as a result, as far as he was concerned, making you-you eyes was just another thing women did.
‘Princess Alysba,’ Mr Binat said, lifting a green tomato to check its colour on the other side, ‘let Lady have her fun and get it out of her system. She’s just like your mother, a bit propriety-challenged, but neither means any harm.’
‘But harm is already done,’ Alys said.
Mr Binat handed Alys a tomato for the basket. ‘Don’t tell me Lady frightened away some suitor of yours? None of you girls need men like that in your lives. You’ve been given a lot of liberties in this home, which most Pakistani girls can only dream of, and a controlling man will suffocate you. Even Mari, though she may not think so, will not be happy with anyone who expects his to be the final word.’
‘I’m afraid for Lady,’ Alys said. She thought of Lady at the New Year’s party, blissfully sandwiched between Moolee and his geriatric friend, and mocking Qitty in front of them. ‘I admire her high spirits, but she has no self-control over her actions, or her tongue.’
‘Alys, you’re surprising me, beta. You are the last person on earth I expect to worry about log kya kahenge.’
‘I don’t care what people say,’ Alys said. ‘But I do care that Lady’s carelessness could put her in a situation she can’t handle. Please listen to me, Daddy – Lady is impulsive, too trusting, and lacks all sense of consequences.’
‘With such fine qualities, I think being away from us all will be excellent practice for Lady to learn self-discipline instead of always relying on us to provide it.’
‘She needs us.’
‘And we need some respite from her, especially Qitty, who could do with two weeks of no one making fun of her being fat.’ Mr Binat stepped out of the tomato bed. ‘I think we’re getting a bargain, Alys, with someone else paying for Lady’s ticket to Karachi, which, may I remind you, is not cheap. Hijab comes from a good family. Hijab’s mother will make sure that everyone behaves. In fact, if she reprimands Lady, it may have more of an effect than our doing so.’
‘Perhaps,’ Alys said, even as she shook her head, unconvinced.
‘Perhaps we should have Wickaam keep an eye on her?’ Mr Binat said. ‘Now that he has moved to Kar—’
‘No!’ Alys stared at her father in horror. Wickaam had telephoned them a week ago and spoken to her. He’d left Musarrat Sr. & Sons Advocates and was instead planning to remain in Karachi and seek new prospects. Frankly, he told her, law wasn’t for him after all. Furthermore, he and Miss Jahanara Ana Aan had decided to break their engagement. He’d realised that she wasn’t for him either. Her family had sent the distraught girl to Cairo, where she had relatives, in order to recover from a broken engagement.
‘Is that so?’ Alys had asked in a cold tone. ‘That’s why her family has sent her away?’
Perhaps Wickaam had sensed her sardonic tone, because he asked her how her trip to Islamabad had been. Was not his aunt, Beena dey Bagh, a tyrant? And had Dracula been there?
Alys replied that Beena dey Bagh was who she was and that Darsee was who he was too but that, upon spending more time with him, she didn’t think he seemed such a monster.
‘Is that so?’ Wickaam repeated.
Alys replied, ‘That is exactly so.’
He’d wished her and her family well and, within seconds, he’d hung up.
‘No,’ Alys said forcefully. ‘No, Daddy, there is absolutely zero need for Wickaam to know that Lady will even be in Karachi.’
‘Oh dear,’ Mr Binat said, ‘still upset Wickaam-of-the-rising-star left you for Miss Jahanara Ana Aan. He’s free of her now and can return to you.’
‘God forbid,’ Alys said. ‘And I was never upset over anything. Simply put, Aunty Nona thinks Wickaam is a wastrel, and I believe her. As such, there is absolutely no need to socialise with the likes of him.’
Mr Binat shrugged. ‘Whatever you think is best, my princess. He’s moved to Karachi anyway and we’re in no danger of your mother inviting him to stay the night. Honestly, I think she’s too generous with the guest room, but she means no harm and just wants to entertain herself.’
Her father winked at her and, for the first time, Alys recognised her own complicity in her family’s dynamics. She was her father’s favourite daughter. His princess Alysba. And because she enjoyed her status as first daughter, Alys had chosen to overlook her father’s ridiculing her mother. It was not that her father was wrong, but he should not have turned Pinkie Binat into a joke between them. Should not the husband-and-wife bond be more sacrosanct than that between a parent and child?
PART THREE
AUGUST–DECEMBER 2001
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Alys and Lady boarded the bus from Dilipabad to Lahore, where Alys would meet Nona and Lady would fly on to Karachi. Mari waved goodbye with glee. She was looking forward to making some inroads into her Quran studies without Lady’s taunts of purity perverts, high priestesses, and hojabis. Qitty also waved contentedly, for she was looking forward to poring over the Mode magazines Alys had given her, without Lady insulting every voluptuous body. Mr Binat and Jena were looking forward to some quarrel-free peace and quiet, and they too waved gaily at Lady. Only Mrs Binat moaned about how she would miss her youngest daughter as she blew kiss after kiss to Lady, seated in the bus by the window.
‘I’ll bet they are all so jealous of me,’ Lady said to Alys. ‘Are they going to stand here until the bus leaves?’
‘Yes,’ Alys said, and she was right.
Once the bus left Dilipabad Station, Lady immediately opened the box lunch, unwrapped the chicken-salad sandwich, and took a messy bite.
‘Yum-yum,’ she said to Alys. ‘Are you going to have your sandwich?’
‘Yes, I am,’ Alys said. ‘And for God’s sake, try not to be greedy at Hijab’s house. Display your best manners. Don’t get overexcited about anything. Don’t speak out of turn. Don’t talk back to Hijab’s parents. Say please and thank you to the servants. Remember to tip them when it’s time to return. Do not use that tip money on yourself, Lady, I mean it. Imagine I’m right behind you, watching you the whole time.’
‘So creepy.’
‘Every minute my eyes will be on you,’ Alys said. ‘Did you hear me?’
‘What do you think I’m going to do?’ Lady said. ‘Run away with someone?’
‘The fact that you’d even joke about such a thing scares me.’
‘Aunty Alys, I’d warn you not to run away too, except you’re such a party pooper, I don’t know who’d want to run away with you.’
‘Khuda ke liye, for God’s sake, just don’t make you-you eyes at anyone, okay?’
‘What if someone makes you-you eyes at me?’ Lady finished her sandwich, opened Alys’s box, and took out her sandwich.
‘I’m serious, Lady.’ Alys eyed her rapidly disappearing sandwich. ‘Please remember that the actions of one family member have repercussions for all family members.’
‘Oh, I know.’ Lady licked mayonnaise off her fingers. ‘Do you know how many girls at school saw Jena’s name in Social Lights? Do you know how many asked me and even Qitty if we planned to allow guys to sweep us up in their arms?’
Alys looked at Lady in dismay.
‘Qitty and I don’t say anything, because we don’t want to upset Jena but, trust me, we’re suffering too.’
Having gobbled up Alys’s sandwich, Lady turned to her fashion magazine and a quiz on finding Mr Right. Alys opened up Sunlight on a Broken Column. She’d started reading it after Darsee’s proposal, curious suddenly about his ‘favourite partition novel’ and his claim that it had allowed him a ‘Pakistani identity inclusive of an English-speaking tongue’. So far, she was enthralled by the tussles between Laila, the headstrong, unconventional protagonist, and her cousin, Zahra, who wanted to marry well and enjoy her life.
Alys took out a pen and underlined a quote: Do you know w
hat is wrong with you, Laila? All those books you read. You just talk like a book now, with no sense of reality.
She wondered what Darsee had thought about this line and whether he believed books led to an escape from reality or were windows into it. She recalled the animated look in his eyes when they’d discussed literature at the clinic, how he’d sought her out at the wedding to give her Sunlight, the feel of his fingers on hers, how he’d said he wanted her opinion on things. It was a truth universally acknowledged, Alys suddenly thought with a smile, that people enter our lives in order to recommend reads.
Such pleasant thoughts occupied Alys as the bus drove into the Lahore Daewoo station, where Nisar and Nona were waiting for her and Lady. They had good news and bad news. The good news was that Nona was being awarded a prestigious Indus Civilization Award for Women Who Make a Difference. Alys and Lady squealed in delight as they hugged their aunt. The bad news was that the award ceremony prevented them from visiting Pakistan’s Northern Areas.
‘I hope you’re not too disappointed,’ Nona said to Alys.
‘Of course not, given the reason,’ Alys said. Some of the other women being honoured were a commercial pilot, a police officer, a comedienne, a CEO of a multinational company, an NGO healthcare worker, a human-rights advocate, and an environmental activist. Nona’s award was for a home-based business entrepreneur, and Alys was extremely proud.
Nisar was saying they would remain in Lahore and visit heritage sites close by. Shalimar Gardens, Badshahi Mosque, Lahore Fort, Wazir Khan Mosque, Lahore Museum. He was also trying to get tickets for the Naseeruddin Shah–Ratna Pathak play at the Alhamra Art Centre.
‘Hijab’s parents,’ Lady gloated, ‘already have tickets for when the play comes to Karachi.’