‘Aba, please! She hasn’t told me anything except that Hibiscus-Eating Ayah left in some jealous fit because of Masood.’
‘Well, there’s nothing more for her to tell you. That’s all we know. In fact, let me correct that. We don’t even know that; it’s just conjecture.’
Ami snorted.
Aba and I glowered at each other.
‘I’ll go to see her after I see Dadi. Happy?’
‘No. You’re not going. I forbid it. Who knows what stories that woman will invent just to see your reaction.’
‘That woman, Aba? Oh, so she could be trusted to look after me when I was a child, but she’s not trustworthy enough to repeat a few simple facts.’
‘Don’t you speak to me like that, young lady.’
His words were a roar, and I grabbed on to a table to give myself strength. ‘Just because you’re too ashamed to discuss Mariam with anyone doesn’t mean—’
‘Ashamed? Ashamed! How dare you think you have a monopoly on unconditional love!’ That took me aback. He had always been so tight-lipped about Mariam’s marriage; I had taken his silence as censure, but perhaps it was only pain. Lord, what had I been doing these last four years? In what cocoon of self-pity had I been stifling myself?
But before I could apologize or ask him what he was feeling, my mother cut in. ‘Stop it. Both of you.’ I could answer back to my father any time, even in the face of his rage, but when Ami barked out a command, both Aba and I turned into mush. She claimed she had learnt how to counterfeit steely resolve in order to avoid being quashed by her mother-in-law, and it certainly worked. There’s no one else with whom Dadi gets on so harmoniously. Nine times out of ten Ami allows Dadi to be domineering, but that tenth time she just raises an eyebrow and Dadi subsides. There’s a great deal I need to learn from Ami.
‘Aliya, go and see your Dadi. Ask her if she needs help with packing. She’ll say no, but you should ask all the same. Nasser, go out and find me some samples of bird droppings.’
‘Would you like them gift-wrapped?’
‘My jaan, the red carpet was your idea. Now stop looking ineffectual.’
Aba turned to me. ‘Aliya, collect bird droppings. Go and stand motionless — Ha ha! Motionless, get it? — under the badaam tree for an hour. If you whistle bird-calls you may only have to be there half an hour. Wear a hat, otherwise your mother won’t let you wash your hair until she’s sorted out this carpet problem.’
‘Men are so easily restored to good humour,’ I whispered, bending down near my mother to pick up the car keys.
She nodded. ‘Any lavatorial remark will do the trick.’
‘Hat!’ Aba yelled as I walked out.
I drove to Dadi’s, thinking of Celeste’s e-mail. She walks out of her élite neighbourhood and notices the poverty in other parts of the city. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but affluence and lack sat cheek by jowl in Karachi. Between the large old houses near Mohatta Palace and the smaller, modern houses on Khayaban-e-Shujaat, which displayed their wealth in accessories rather than in size, was a shortcut that took you past streets where shiny cars and designer shalwar-kameezes and English-speaking voices all but disappeared, replaced by tiny storefronts, narrow streets crowded with people and cycles and the occasional goat, children selling vegetables or fixing tyres or chasing each other along the roads without pavements.
I was thinking about this with such concentration that I ran a red light. Sameer did that at least twice a day and nothing ever happened to him, but I try it just once and a traffic cop appears. The cop pulled me over and stuck his head in through the window.
‘Do you need glasses?’ he said.
‘I don’t need glasses. Ten pairs of glasses wouldn’t enable me to see that light at this time of day. Look how strong the sun is. It shines on the traffic light so brightly it’s blinding, and you can’t see which colour is lit up. I thought the light just wasn’t working as usual.’
The cop looked up at the cloudy sky.
‘The clouds have just come in,’ I said. ‘Three seconds ago they weren’t there. Look how strong the breeze is; it’s making the clouds rush around.’
The cop shook his head. ‘You can either go to court and pay the fine there, or you can pay it directly to me.’
‘Okay, I’ll go to court.’
The cop was not happy with this deviation from the script. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Don’t talk like this. I have a family to support. The courts will take hours, there’ll be paperwork and all sorts of men hanging around there who misbehave around women. Why don’t you just make life easier for yourself?’
‘How much is the fine?’
‘Three hundred rupees.’
I bargained him down to fifty, waited for him to get change for a five-hundred note from the mango seller who had been watching this with amusement, and continued on to Dadi’s feeling proud of my largesse in omitting to mention to the cop my connection to the high-ranking police officer who was Younger Starch’s sister-in-law’s husband.
When I got to Dadi’s I heard her cook, Mohommed, chastising her as he served her tea in her bedroom. ‘Begum Sahib, that’s a very bad idea. Why stay in the heat of this tandoor if you can help it? You always fall sick in the heat. Remember that summer in Dard-e-Dil when you collapsed near the fountain while Nawab Sahib was talking to you?’
‘That was over fifty years ago, Mohommed. Were you even born then?’
‘Born? Was I born? Who do you think ran to tell Akbar Sahib?’
‘I’m just joking, Mohommed. Old age has made you very crabby. Besides, the heat of Dard-e-Dil was something else.’
‘Yes,’ he conceded. ‘Yes, it was.’ He saw me and made a gesture of relief. ‘Aliya Bibi. You try and talk sense into her. Tell her if she falls sick I’m not going to run around for doctors and medicines, and I’m absolutely not going to cook bland soup. I’ll bring you some tea.’ And with that he left the room.
‘What would you do without him?’ I bent to kiss Dadi’s cheek.
‘Remember when I suggested he retire?’ Dadi smiled wickedly. ‘He was so irate he threatened to quit. Come and sit closer to me.’
I sat cross-legged on the bed beside her, directly across from a framed photograph of Dadi and her female cousins in their childhood, all decked out in ghararas, with tikas of precious and semi-precious stones hanging over their foreheads. Three strands of pearls going over and around the girls’ heads held each tear-shaped tika in place. I used to assume the photograph was taken during some momentous occasion, like Eid or a wedding, but Dadi had told me, no, that’s just how they used to dress every day. It struck me for the first time that she had far more photographs of life in Dard-e-Dil than she did of life in Karachi.
‘No wonder you collapsed in the heat, dressed like that.’ I gestured to the photograph. ‘What was Mohommed going on about?’
‘I’ve changed my booking for Paris. I’m leaving in September.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Hmm. It makes no sense to leave while you and Meher are here. Particularly since your violent tendencies seem to have been curbed.’ She laughed and took my hand in hers, and I clasped my fingers around hers. ‘Besides, I can’t keep running away from the monsoon rains.’
‘Why do you? Run away, I mean.’
Dadi nodded her head slowly. ‘The hierarchy of love. Should I tell you about Taimur?’
I swallowed. ‘Please.’
Mohommed walked in with the tea, and Dadi started talking about her tailor. When he left she told me to check that he wasn’t listening outside the door. He wasn’t.
‘I loved Taimur.’