‘But suppose … Remember he used to say he wished he could read English? What if Mariam Apa taught him? What if he’s read, I don’t know …’
‘Frantz Fanon?’ Sameer made a dismissive gesture. ‘Are you saying it’s all about education? The great leveller. You think if you read John Ashbery all differences cease to matter. Come on, Aliya. You’re smarter than that.’
I felt my face flush at the mention of Ashbery. ‘That’s not fair, Sameer.’
‘To hell with fair. You spend half an hour with this Khaleel — sorry, Call — he alludes to your favourite poets, and now you can’t handle the fact that your biases are conflicting with your hormones, so you try to convince yourself that you’re not a snob, you’re just empathetic. You don’t discriminate; you just have more in common with people who are educated. And you’ll rewrite everything in the past which conflicts with this theory, including the way you feel about Mariam and Masood.’
I thought of Khaleel drinking tea out of a saucer. How desperately I still wanted to believe that he only did it to test me. All the poetry in the world couldn’t change that. ‘Okay, go away.’
‘Aliya, Aloo, cuz. Listen to me. It doesn’t work. I tried it. With a girl from work. She wasn’t lower down on the social ladder or anything, she was just from a really different type of family. Like to like makes the most sense. Look, if it makes you feel better, tell yourself you’re pulling away because of difference, not because of snobbery. Tell the truth: can you see yourself getting married to this guy? Can you see yourself coming to Karachi for the holidays and staying with his family in Liaquatabad? Don’t tell me the thought doesn’t appal you.’
The thought appalled me. ‘Who’s talking about getting married?’
‘You’ve got to think long-term. If it’s obvious from the start that it won’t work out, cut your losses. Why start something that can never progress?’
‘Mariam did.’
‘Do you think she’s happy?’
‘Do you think he is? Why don’t we ever ask that?’
‘You know why we never ask that.’
Why did he go back to his birthplace? After his father died. Why did he go back? Was he sick of the pretence? Was it his version of an ultimatum? I’d never thought of their relationship as something with squabbles, and jealousies and demands. It was as though I could only begin to understand the relationship — why couldn’t I just say ‘affair’? — by making it some mythical, two-dimensional thing, larger and also so much smaller than life.
How did he hear of his father’s death? How did he tell Mariam of it? When did he decide to leave?
My parents had a dinner party at our house the night before Masood left. Masood burnt the naans and had to cycle out for more, delaying dinner by a few minutes. It’s a strange detail to remember, but I remember it particularly because I had only just learnt to drive and I offered to drive him round the corner to the naanwallah, but Masood said no.
‘Don’t you trust my driving, Masood?’ I laughed.
‘It won’t look right. You chauffeuring me around.’
‘What rubbish. I’ll get the keys. Don’t leave.’
But he did. Mariam Apa was standing in the driveway when I walked out, keyring in hand, and yelled for Masood. She shook her head at me and spun her index fingers to mime bicycle wheels.
‘Why is he being so silly, Apa? I drove the mali to the bus stop last week.’ Then I thought of adding, Besides, Masood’s virtually family, but stopped myself. No, I knew that wasn’t quite true, but why did he have to go and act as though he and I were servant and mistress, rather than …
Rather than what? Mariam Apa’s raised eyebrows asked me.
Rather than two people who often ate dinner together when my parents and Mariam Apa were out for the evening, particularly on cool evenings, when it was a pleasure to be outside the kitchen door, cross-legged under the stars.
Mariam Apa enacted dialling a phone number.
Yes, it had been a while since the news that my family was going out for the evening hadn’t prompted me to pick up the phone and call Sameer or one of my school friends to make dinner plans. But I didn’t appreciate Mariam pointing that out to me.
Four years later I allowed myself to consider the possibility that I was entirely peripheral to that night’s story. Let’s suppose — as suppositions go this is none too farfetched — that Masood heard of his father’s death that night, and not the morning after. Evidence? He burnt the naans. Masood never burnt anything. So let’s suppose he heard of his father’s death — it was the night of a dinner, everyone was congregated in the drawing room, out of earshot of the phone — everyone except for Masood. So the phone in the kitchen rang, and Masood answered, and minutes later Mariam walked into the kitchen. I’m not making this last part up. She was in the kitchen, I know, because she’s the one who told me the naans were burnt. I was walking to my room, was in between the drawing room and my room, when Mariam came out of the kitchen. If only I could remember, but I can’t, if something prompted me to ask, ‘What’s wrong?’ or if she just held out a burnt bit of naan to me.
Mariam loved Masood and Masood loved Mariam and Masood loved his father and his father died and Masood hung up the phone and Mariam walked into the kitchen and the house was full of people and Mariam knew that among those people were people who might walk into the kitchen, maybe to see what Masood was cooking, maybe to see where Mariam had gone, maybe to ask for more ice. And Masood knew that all he wanted right then was to weep in Mariam’s arms.
Is that when the naans burnt? Or was that later, seconds later, when Mariam finally put a hand on his arm, but kept her face turned slightly towards the door, alert for footsteps, and Masood said, ‘This can’t go on. I’ll go mad. We’ll both go mad.’
I can’t fault Mariam for listening for all those footsteps, all those footsteps including mine. But there was a time when I thought that if Masood meant something to me I would fault her for what she did to him all those years. But, really, what did she do except love him, and love us also? Did I fault him? Yes, for months. Yes, for everything. Until one day I was able to say to myself, What did he do except love her and love her?
Sameer brushed a crumb off my cheek. ‘You know you’ll never see her again.’
I stood up and walked over to the glass doors which led out to the garden. Pushed aside the curtains and pressed my head against the glass. The chairs on the terrace were covered in dust.
Karachi was full of corners, and I had grown up turning every corner with the hope in my heart that she would be there. How could I continue to live my life between such corners? How could I not?
Other people never reminded me of Mariam, but that’s not to say I was never reminded of her. In moments when I least expected it everyday objects would become doorways to memory. A shoe buckle, a keyring, a mango seed bleached by the sun; running water, railway tracks, cobblestones and cochineal; cacti, cat’s-eyes, Cocteau and kites; chipped plates, race tracks, swimming pools, diving boards, bluebottles, jellyfish, bougainvillea, stones; crickets and bats and cricket bats.
I know. Cocteau is not an everyday object, but she loved Orphée.
What if she were dead? How would I know? Is it better this way, this not knowing? I wondered, tracing circles in the glass. This way she can be immortal to me, in my lifetime. I don’t ever have to face the finality of her death. That thought should have brought me comfort, but it didn’t. If she were dead, I’d want to know so that I could weep. The circles in the glass looped outward and became spirals. I am frozen when I think of you, Mariam. My mind goes everywhere and nowhere. Nothing in my life is untouched by your absence. I think you’d like Khaleel. I don’t know if that makes me run towards him or pull away.