‘Leave it, Zafar.’
‘I’m just curious. Hang on, you weren’t doing that woman thing of saying one thing and meaning another, were you?’ As soon as he said it, he knew it was a mistake. Now she would narrow her eyes at him, or say something cutting, just when they were beginning to relax in each other’s presence.
But she didn’t say anything, just pretended not to hear him, and looked around through his binoculars. ‘Here comes Ali! But where’s Maheen?’
Zafar was out of his seat immediately. ‘Where’s Maheen, Ali? Where’s Maheen?’ He started running towards Ali, uncaring of the heads turning towards him. Oh please, say she just wasn’t in the mood to come out.
Ali caught him by the shoulder. ‘She’s all right, don’t panic. I dropped her home. You’d better go to her, Zaf. Some old beggar woman spat at her when she was walking to my car. You know, you’ve really got to get her out of here.’
‘Hear that?’ Maheen said, leaning against Zafar.
‘What?’
‘The sun setting into the sea. It’s so quiet you can almost hear it sizzle as it touches the water.’
He put his arms around her, not caring that they were out in public. ‘Peaceful, isn’t it?’
She nodded. ‘Hard to believe Civil War is actually here. It’s almost as though it’s happening in’—she laughed shakily—‘another country.’ She continued to look at the sea gulls swooping impossibly close to the sea and rising up again without a single bead of water falling from their wings. ‘Laila heard from some foreign journalist that the army’s slaughtering my people by the thousands in Dhaka.’
My people. Zafar shivered. ‘Maheen, listen to me.’
‘No, Zaf, we’re not leaving the country. I don’t want to be a stranger among strangers. War does crazy things to people, but wars end. I’ll lie low, I promise that. And when it’s over — please, God, soon! — we’ll get married and have children and one day, every day, we’ll tell them how we survived this inferno.’
He shook his head. ‘Right now, I can’t think of any reason why you should feel an iota of loyalty for this country.’
‘Treasonous? My views are treasonous?’ Zafar turned and slammed his hand against the wall behind him.
‘And that’s only what your friends say.’ Ali took a piece of ice out of his glass and held it against Zafar’s reddening hand. ‘This country’s turned rabid — the soldiers are raping the women, Zaf, raping them, all over East Pakistan, and in drawing rooms around Karachi people applaud this attempt to improve the genes of the Bengalis.’ Ali caught Zafar’s hand to stop it shaking. ‘If you and Maheen won’t leave, then you’ve got to at least stay out of sight until it’s over.’
‘That shouldn’t be too hard. You and Yasmin are about the only people who seek out our company these days.’
‘The day breaks not, it is my heart.’ Yasmin put an arm around Maheen as they watched the sun come up. ‘John Donne, that was. We’ve been up talking for seven hours now, Maheen, and you’ve only talked about what Zafar says and how he feels. You’ve never once mentioned what you think of everything that’s going on.’
The phone rang. ‘Don’t answer it,’ Maheen said.
Yasmin looked at her watch, frowned and picked up the phone. ‘Hello…’ Her face went pale, and she slammed the phone down. ‘Animals!’ she swore.
‘The worst are the ones whose voices I recognize. And, no, I’m not going to tell you who they are.’ Maheen reached over and smoothed the creases on Yasmin’s forehead with her palm. ‘What do I think of everything that’s going on? You’re the only person in this city who’s asked me that in a very long time. Yasmin, I think the end of the world will begin like this.’
‘So it ends like this.’ Yasmin put down the newspaper and reached across the table for Ali’s hand. ‘Surrender to the Indian forces.’ She closed her eyes, and Ali came round the table to sit next to her.
‘I think you need a wedding to cheer you up.’
Yasmin laughed. ‘No one has ever uttered the word “wedding” more gloomily.’
‘You know perfectly well I’m anything but gloomy at the thought of spending my life with you.’
Almost a year after that crazy night on the balcony, and this was probably the closest he’d come to saying he loved her. He was a man for whom such declarations were hard, but rather than making her insecure it had the effect of giving significance to even the tiniest admissions of affection. Yasmin leaned forward and kissed his ear, and watched with satisfaction as he turned red.
‘I wonder how Maheen is taking the news,’ Ali said.
‘I wonder how Zafar is taking it. Perhaps there’s a part of him that’s even somewhat happy it might all be over now.’
‘Happy? Why should I be happy?’ Zafar stood in the squash courts, his racquet limp in his hand. ‘Three days ago we surrendered to the Indian army. Of course I’m not happy. We’ve lost half the country and most of our soul. What the hell is there to be happy about? This whole year has been nothing but a nightmare.’
‘Oh, come on, Zaf. You cheered a little when the Indian forces entered the war on the side of those Bengali bastards, didn’t you?’
‘Bunty, get your nose out of my face.’
‘Get your face out of this club. And take the rest of you with it.’
‘Go home, Bunty. I’m here for a game of squash. Who wants to play?’ Zafar looked around. These men were his friends; he’d known them all his life. What was going on here? How much longer could he take this? What was he fighting about, he didn’t even really know why he was locked in combat with his friends every day, every weary, soul-destroying day, even now that the war was over — especially now that the war was over — and every day, every damned day, he and Maheen slipped further and further from being the couple who walked so lightly through the world that the dew-wet grass barely registered their footprints.
‘Yeah,’ Bunty turned to the men. ‘Who wants to play with the Bingo lover?’
As the first fist made contact with his body, Zafar closed his eyes and thought, I wasn’t cut out for this role. I’ve stepped into someone else’s story. Get me out. I want to get out.
Around him the men echoed his thoughts. ‘Get out,’ they snarled, their fists sticky with his blood. ‘Get out.’
. .
When I returned home, my parents were drinking tea and watching BBC World in the TV room, wearing their dressing gowns and unusually sunny morning faces.
‘Where is he?’ Ami said. ‘Where’s Karim?’
I tossed the newspaper in my father’s direction. ‘Asleep in Zia’s car. I asked him over for breakfast when we picked him up, but I don’t think he heard me.’
My mother handed me a cup of tea. ‘Why didn’t you ask again?’
‘I did.’ I sat down next to Aba, and leaned against his shoulder. ‘Can’t handle this early-morning stuff. I’m so glad I’m not a rooster.’
‘Well…?’ Ami asked. ‘How was it? How was he? Was it wonderful?’
‘I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of it.’ I picked up the bottle of jam from the breakfast tray and started reading the contents. ‘We were just kids when we last met. Would you get excited meeting someone you hadn’t seen since thirteen?’
‘If that someone was Karim to my Raheen, yes, I would,’ Ami said.
Aba rolled his eyes. ‘Such a sentimentalist.’
Ami walked over to Aba and rapped the back of his hand with a teaspoon. ‘You were the one getting all misty-eyed ten minutes ago remembering the two of them turning towards each other in their sleep the first time we put them in a crib together. And correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you use the term “fated friendship”?’