‘I was too terrified to think. But Rehana Apa’s lovely.’ Something that should have occurred to me long ago finally did. ‘Sameer, how many of the Indian relatives do you know?’
Sameer shook his head and turned on his wiper spray. ‘Me personally? None. Samia and Rehana Apa found each other in London a couple of weeks after my last visit there, so I haven’t met her or Baji or Stinko and Skunky, or whatever the kids’ names are. And you remember that old Indian relative you saw at our house when we were kids? The one you thought was talking about someone called Prue Frock? Well, she wrote my grandmother a letter of condolence when my grandfather died, which Mummy answered, along with some polite if-you’re-ever-in-Karachi kind of note. No one really expected Prue Frock to take the offer up, and there was — I can’t believe we haven’t talked about this before — there was a huge tamasha when she wrote back weeks later to say she’d be in Karachi for a few hours. A major deal was made of keeping the whole thing secret from your dadi. But we haven’t heard from her since then. I think she might have died.’ His hands left the steering wheel in a gesture of incomprehension. ‘Our more distant cousins — you know, the Starched Aunts and that whole side — probably keep up some of their old ties. I think some of them may have done some border hopping from time to time. And now that everyone’s moving around so much … You know little Usman’s got a conditional offer for Oxford? Akbar and Sulaiman’s old college, no less. So yes, I suppose there are increasing opportunities for meeting on neutral soil. But I think, the more closely one’s connected to your dadi, the less likely one is to hear about all the family reunions going on. I love her, you know, but she’s always been a little nutty about the Indian relatives.’
‘Can you imagine doing that? Cutting off all contact with me? Or Samia?’
Sameer’s hand touched one ear and then the other. ‘God spare us all from such horrors.’ He said it with a fervour I didn’t expect, and for a moment I thought he was mocking me.
‘There’s a strong chance the bank’s going to post me to Hong Kong. It’s an attractive proposition and God knows there are days I just want to get away from the inefficiency, the violence, the corruption … Fact is, if it happens I’d be stupid to turn it down. Professional suicide. But no place will ever be home like this. And no company is as comforting as the company of family. That’s what I learnt at college.’
I turned off the air conditioner, and rolled down the window. We were much closer to the sea now and, coupled with the speed at which Sameer was driving, it made for a pleasant breeze. I inhaled the musky scent of motia that wafted over boundary walls, and turned up the volume of the stereo. Dire Straits with my perennial favourite, the Brothers In Arms album. This could be any day, any year, in the last decade. Sameer driving, me controlling the music and the ventilation, conversation drifting between what we would do in the future and what we didn’t know about the past, and Sameer as inclined as ever to treat a red traffic-light as a suggestion rather than a command.
Karachi boys have a distinctive one-handed way of driving, though I hadn’t realized that until I went to America. They push their seats further back than is necessary, keep one hand on their left thigh, ready to shift over to the gearbox, extend the other arm forward, absolutely straight, and grip the top of the steering wheel. When the time comes to turn, they unfist their right hand, hold the open palm against the wheel, and make the turn, the circular motion of their hand suggesting that they’re miming the actions of a window-cleaner with a wash cloth. It’s only silly when it isn’t sexy.
‘So, go on. Spill the beans,’ Sameer said.
‘About what?’
‘Who is the “he” you mysteriously alluded to at the airport? The one who bought you coffee?’
‘I was just wondering how he drives. You’d like him. Have you ever been to Liaquatabad?’
‘I hope you’ve just changed the subject.’
‘Why? Dammit, Sameer, why?’
‘Because petrol prices have shot up. Name?’
‘Khaleel. New topic.’
‘Khaleel? So he’s a desi.’
‘New topic, Sameer.’
‘And he lives in Liaquatabad? Aliya, seriously?’
‘New topic. Please. Sammy, please.’
‘Okay. But we’re going to have to talk about this later. Hey, did you hear about Godziloo? The lizard in my bathroom?’
I closed my eyes and leant back. ‘Yes. It was the same colour as the floor and it moved with speed. But go on, tell.’
When I opened my eyes again, the front door of my house was on the other side of the windscreen and my father was leaning in through the window, pulling my nose. ‘Oh, Zsa Zsa GaSnore. Madam Snooze Jahan.’
My mother clipped Sameer’s ear. ‘Sammy, you so-terrific soporific’
Home.
Chapter Ten
When I finally awoke the next morning, my first thought was that I would see Dadi today. So I skipped over the first thought.
Wasim was in the kitchen, squatting on the floor and kneading flour for chappatis when I pushed through the swing door minutes later. He smiled when he saw me. ‘Who is this guest in the house? The mali was going to water the plants outside your window earlier this morning —’ he gestured as though holding a hose, and produced the sound of spurting water — ‘but I told him not to because it might wake you up. Guests receive every courtesy around here.’
‘I have every expectation that I’ll receive nothing less from you,’ is what I wanted to reply. But my Urdu, never up to par, swapped umeed with amrood and I ended up saying, ‘I have guava that I’ll receive nothing less from you.’
Wasim laughed and put the kettle on to boil. ‘Always thinking of food.’
In Masood’s kitchen, how could it be otherwise? I sat on the counter, with my feet resting on the stool beneath. In the early mornings between waking up and leaving for school I’d sit just so and watch Masood prepare lunch. He was always up by sunrise, preparing the miracles Mariam Apa had asked for the night before. ‘The sun can climb or it can burn,’ he said, more than once. ‘The first stages of the sun’s ascent are the more sheer and slippery. It’s like climbing K2. So Aftab Sahib climbs the sky and does nothing but climb. By the time he is near the top it’s as easy as climbing a hill, so his attention can wander and then he starts seeking out kitchens and angles his rays through the windows.’
My only moment of glory in an Urdu class was when I put up my hand and said, yes, I knew a word for sun other than sooraj. It was aftab. I almost flubbed the moment by appending a Sahib, but decided, instead, that I could be on a first-name basis with someone who Masood referred to with formality.
Wasim asked, ‘Have you started cooking there?’
‘There’ was America. I shook my head. I’d watched Masood cook, seen shape and colour transformed into texture, witnessed odour becoming aroma, observed vegetables that grew away from each other in the garden wrapping around each other and rolling through spices in his frying pan. Cook? I may be proud but I know my limitations.
Wasim handed me a cup of tea and I left the kitchen. When Wasim first came to cook for us, four years ago, I was sure he wouldn’t last. How could anyone attempt to replace Masood? One cook had already tried, but he was gone, passed on to a newly-wed relative just days after Mariam Apa eloped with Masood. But Wasim was different; he recognized, early on, that everyone in our house had some hesitancy about ordering meals and, without question or comment, he took over the kitchen entirely, serving up meals which, by any standards other than Masood’s, were very good indeed. I suppose he must have known about Masood and Mariam. After all, Auntie Tano, the greatest purveyor of gossip in Karachi, reputedly got most of her salacious tidbits from her children’s ayah. Aba, commenting on this, said that if you put together the servant’s information network with that of Dadi’s bridge-playing crowd you’d eliminate the need for Intelligence Services in Pakistan.