And the World Changed (12 page)

Talat Abbasi

A short story writer, Talat Abbasi (1942– ) was born in Lucknow, and grew up in Karachi. She was educated in Pakistan at St. Joseph's College, Karachi, graduated from Kinnaird College, Lahore, and later the London School of Economics, UK. She moved to New York in 1978 where she lives still. She worked for the UN Population Fund until her retirement in 2004, working on gender and population issues across Asia.

Abbasi has published a collection of her short stories,
Bitter Gourd and Other Stories
(Oxford University Press, 2001), in which “Mirage” originally appeared. Her short fiction is set mostly in Pakistan and revolves around class and gender; it has been published often in U.S. college texts.

“Mirage” was first broadcast as the prize winner of a BBC World Service short story competition in 2000. In this story, Abbasi provides a moving account of a mother's heroic struggle to look after her severely handicapped child, and her complex emotions on leaving him in an institution. Abbasi says:

               
The title “Mirage” was taken from [an] enduring image in my head . . . this shining pool of water on the road driving from somewhere to somewhere in Pakistan in blazing heat—spectacular until of course it turned out to be just that—a mirage. A promise ending in disappointment simply because you were temporarily fooled by the deception. A commonplace occurrence most people will have experienced, the tricks life plays on you. Nothing more, nothing less.

• • •

“November twentieth,” says Sister Agnes.

November 20, I write.

“Nineteen eighty,” says Sister Agnes.

1980, I write.

There's something very practiced about the way she says it. Perhaps they all falter at this point, the last thing after all on the last form they'll sign. Scores of parents over the years have come through the front door of Hope House to hand their children over to Sister Agnes because they're mentally retarded, schizophrenic, autistic, epileptic, or have cerebral palsy. Hardly the complete list of reasons, just a sample. Young parents on the whole, many still in their thirties, because Hope House is only for ten-year-olds and under. Many coming alone, on their own, as I have with Omar.

Mind you, I'm not faltering, not me. Not one bit. If I'm
behaving like a puppet it's because I'm drained, exhausted. I was exhausted at least mentally even before we left home today. I'm always tense, in quite a state when I have to take him out in public and, of course, today I was worse than usual. He sensed it and acted up. I must've flung a bag of candies into his mouth by the time the diaper was done. A dozen pieces of candy at a time every time he bared his teeth to shred it. Understandable, of course, his reaction to a diaper at his age. It isn't always needed, but I have to, just in case. It's candy corn, the sticky kind he can't just swallow, is forced to chew, gives me time.

“Candy corn's bad for his teeth.”

The pediatrician says that every time I take him to get the prescription refilled for his tranquilizer. But not very seriously. He doesn't expect me to give up on the candy corn. Then I zipped him into his jeans, fastened his belt which he doesn't have the skill to undo. That's why it's jeans, not pull-on pants. And then to keep his hands as well as his mouth really busy for what he hates most of all—his harness—I gave him half a bag of potato chips, his greatest weakness, the salted kind with lots of MSG. It hasn't occurred to the doctor to tell me that MSG is also bad for him.

Then all of a sudden I threw myself on top of him, pinning down both his arms with my elbows, taking him by surprise. Rammed the spoon between his teeth and held it there to keep his mouth open until he'd swallowed every drop of his tranquilizer, until it had all gone down. I realized that I had gritted my teeth so hard, I'd bitten my own tongue! I cried a bit so there was no time left to cut his nails. The taxi driver was buzzing me from downstairs. He was parked across the street two blocks away from the apartment building. That's another reason I'm exhausted. Just the thought of traffic lights and having to cross the street with him before they turn green!

He hates his harness. And that, too, is understandable. A full-grown energetic ten-year-old in a toddler's harness. Imagine being allowed to walk but in leg irons! Still, I have to use
that harness when I take him out just in case he decides to stage a sit-in in the middle of traffic. He did that only once before I thought of a harness and believe me, it wasn't easy, dragging him by the collar of his shirt, inch by inch, like a dead weight across the road. And on top of it—

“Pair of loonies!” yelled the driver who had to brake suddenly.

“Who let you out?”

He meant both of us. And who could blame him? Who could blame them all for staring? Unexpected, let's face it, even for New York.

Still he was wrong about me. Not a loony, not me. But always at my wits' end, it's true, no matter what. Cooped up with a hyperactive frustrated boy in the bare two-room apartment. I lined the floor with mattresses, quilts and foam after receiving warnings from the landlord about the neighbors complaining of “a herd, at least, of thumping, marauding elephants up there.” They too were wrong, of course. No threatening elephants. Just a small exquisite bird trapped in the room, flying in panic from wall to wall, hurling itself against them, hurting only itself, incapable of harming others. Watched in silence by the mother.

I thanked God it was at least a corner apartment, no neighbors on the bedroom side. Imagine having to line the walls too with mattresses, I thought, as I watched in empathy. Then as the weeks grew into months, even a year and more, and the frightened bird still found no peace—neither smashed itself against the walls nor found a way to fly out—I watched in rage and self-pity.

And becoming melodramatic at the end, likened myself bitterly to a Pharaoh's slave buried alive with him. Nothing happened this time though, thank goodness. The taxi's brought us without incident to Hope House, Omar's home.

But “Omar's home” sounds wrong. How can he have a home apart from me?

Am I faltering now?

Maybe I am.

Only ten and strikingly pretty. His black hair, which I am stroking to soothe him, keep him quiet on my lap, is amazingly still baby soft though the curls are showing signs of straightening out. His fine features are in perfect proportion, chiseled on a small delicate face. Strangers have always been drawn to him, impulsively reaching out to pet him, complimenting me. In fact only last month I took him to the pediatrician. He had had his tranquilizer and so he was sitting quietly by my side. I didn't notice this woman, being in quite a state myself as I usually am when I have to bring him out in public—there I go, repeating myself—especially to small enclosed places like the doctor's office. Yes, there can be trouble even with a tranquilizer! But suddenly she's there before me, chapped red lips parted in a smile, hands reaching out to fondle his curls.

“What a beauti . . .”

That's usually how far they get! Then they all stop, awkward, embarrassed, because close up they all see something. It's the eyes, of course, under those fantastic long eyelashes they were all set to coo over. They're not blind eyes, seeing nothing. They're seeing as well as you and I, but what they're seeing is nothing you and I can understand. That much they tell you as they confront you in one long, unblinking stare before they go back to darting constantly, nervously, from left to right and back again, never at rest.

And then they notice other little things about him which can be quite off-putting. The perfectly shaped lips—which I can tell you have rarely parted in a smile—are twitching uncontrollably, quite unprettily. And the ceaseless whimpering sound can be quite unnerving. It's very soft, barely audible, a call which seems to come from miles below.

And I understand the disappointment of strangers at being thus tricked. I, too, have been taken in by a mirage.

But as I said, there can be trouble even with a tranquilizer!
So now, in a flash, the pen which I am passing back to Sister Agnes is knocked out of my hand and I am looking up at Omar from the floor where somehow I have landed. He's lunging toward the forms to tear them up with his teeth. But Sister Agnes is quicker. Scores of children, after all, who have a taste for paper!

There's nothing left but my face and to this he turns. I wince as he rakes my cheek, and grab his hands. He bares his teeth but I'm holding him as far from myself as I can. There's absolute hatred in his eyes. He cannot speak of it, he can speak only two words. One is
pani
, the Urdu word for water, which he learned late as a toddler in Karachi, where he was born. The other is
na
, which can mean both no and yes. He's saying neither now and suddenly he's neither scratching nor biting. His nails though are biting into my arms as he clings to me, face hidden against my chest. He's shaking, his eyes will now be filled with terror.

“I meant to cut his nails, Sister. I'm so sorry, Sister.”

In fact I'm so sorry about his nails that I am close to tears. She must see that because she comes over, presses my shoulder. Another practiced gesture! The touch is sympathetic but brief. Scores of parents, after all! Perhaps those others too all remember something that makes them feel as guilty as I do about his nails. I never do hand him over to her. She simply lifts him off my lap, stands him up on the floor. He doesn't resist. Puppets, both of us, now.

“He won't need this anymore,” she says gently, removing his harness and handing it to me.

The harness goes into the garbage chute as soon as I get home.

Also the foam and plastic which line the floor. Then the mattresses and quilts are disposed of. The freshly vacuumed Bokhara at last flaunts its buried jewel colors in the sunlight as the blinds are raised for the first time since I moved into the apartment. And a curious neighbor runs to her window to see at last, then turns back in embarrassment and disappointment,
both. An apartment, then, just like any other.

An apartment, moreover, where knives, kitchen shears, scissors, nail cutters have found their rightful places. They've emerged from an old battered attaché case hidden under the kitchen sink. It makes me smile now, that battered attaché case, as I think of that wretched burglar caught red-handed by the super with it, holding razor blades as he stood dazed by his catch—what a treasure! He took too long over it, it looked so promising, a locked case hidden under the kitchen sink. I didn't see the funny side of it then but I'm beginning to now. I have a mad urge to write and commiserate with him. Dear Mr. Burglar, I want to say, what you must think of me, hiding knives, scissors, razor blades in a locked attaché case like a treasure!

Mad for sure, you must think, eccentric at best. And who can blame you?

I go to bed early and sleep right through the night because the lights don't suddenly go on, off, on again at one a.m., the taps don't run and flood the bath at three, and I have absolutely no fear that the stove will turn itself on. So in the morning I wake up, rested and at peace, and yet in pain as you might expect of someone who has had an arm amputated to save the rest.

JUNGLE JIM

Muneeza Shamsie