And the World Changed (31 page)

I see him on St. Nicholas Street first, then later inside one of those bars we danced and drank in, and I kept thinking,
Hai
Allah, I hope he isn't a Paki, what will he make of the two of us, hard-drinking Muslim girls (okay, okay, so we're both 40-plus, one rather stocky and short, the other tall and struggling against
the middle-age spread) and would you believe it, here comes another one, same doleful eyes, older, pock-marked face that makes him look rather like Om Puri playing the fanatic's father in this year's hot new Hanif Kureishi film. I wonder if they are father and son selling flowers to pretty ladies, or perhaps to men in search of some.

I see him again, later—much later, a fish without water in a place with so much to drink, silently silhouetted against the pane of glass made hazy with so much heavy breathing. Tallish, but not too much. Rather slightly built, like someone not given to rich fatty foods, or to drink either. And then I laugh at myself, why, of course not, he couldn't, he has only flowers, red roses at that . . . or perhaps, now waxing lyrical, that is a great deal to have, who needs food and wine or a roof over one's head? Still, he is an uneasy reminder—of what exactly I couldn't say—rather unaware of my/our existence, it seems; though the smile, which wasn't quite one, flits about the corners of his lips, I can see those lips even in the darkness of the bar, white shirt open at the neck, black pants hanging rather loosely on bony hips, a bunch of red roses and sleek black—and I mean Black—hair, falling, falling, and ohmygod, are those . . .
chappals
??? Why yes, indeed, open-toed, scissor-style—I never did like them, so typical of Urdu-wallahs. I'd always joined my friends in mocking them (poetic justice that I ended up marrying one!). Through the mist I see him and then I don't. He is gone. Just like that. I could have sworn I saw him again from the balcony of my hotel room where Hania drags me back, unwillingly exhausted, at 3:00 in the morning. I go to hang my dripping bra and panties out on the railing above the bull-run path and there he is, red, white, and black, turning the corner, just ever so slightly out of reach. . . .

She was a very strange woman. So strange that they called her Madame Sin, not knowing what else to trace her infernal energy to. But that was in the before days . . . when evil consisted of setting fire
to a poor bastard's peanut fields without really meaning to, and the thrill of the chase was a black man racing behind with a scythe in his powerful arms, and danger was climbing into jamun-heavy trees pregnant with plump, purple fruit, afraid Papa would wake up and discover us gone, and who would be blamed, the leader of the pack, Madame Sin herself, tearing around, even in the scorching heat of a 120-degree Lahore afternoon, disturbing the peace on the outskirts of Bathurst, in a little enclave of erstwhile colonizers. The thirst for adventure, even then, was unquenchable . . . why did they call her Madame Sin???

I do not know him yet but can feel his interest, his passion for detail, his reporter's eye watching it all, drinking it in. A dark-complexioned man, slightly pocked-mark, with straight dark hair that keeps falling into his face, making me want to clip it back. The tonga ride back to Aunty's home on Temple Road where we would try and sleep for a few hours before heading back at dawn, just before
fajr
prayers, is incomparable to anything else I've ever done. It doesn't remind me of anything except itself. The byways and alleyways brimming over with perspiring hordes even late into the night are, finally, deserted, except for the odd mangy dog or cat. Clip-hoppity-clop go the horse's hooves, poor beast of burden, no rest for you, not tonight . . . Samir blowing smoke-rings while I scanned the sky above me for a sign of light, a little silver moonbeam to add the right touch to the surroundings, something to remember. Then, suddenly, there we were at the old house peopled with our girlish laughter from convent days, oddly silent now, and that's when the spell is broken. No money for the tonga-wallah. The reporter's
jaib
has been cut, the no-longer-so-stiff white kurta has a big gaping hole, wallet gone. What is he going to tell his brandnew wife, waiting expectantly for the first-of-the-month delivery? Lost the money running with the Portateri alongside Madame Sin?

II

The drive to D.C. is painful. I mean the heat, and the traffic, lordylord, enough to drive a saint crazy, and being merely a sinner I arrive at Moina's in a state of barely suppressed rage. Poor kids, they had to endure the brunt of Mama's anger although, come to think of it, they're probably rather used to it by now, since just about anything and everything ticks off their mama (last night A said he might be forced to leave, he couldn't stand the rage anymore, festering festering, like storm clouds looming forever threateningly on the horizon. . . . I'm scared, he said, poor man, and I, secure in the knowledge of a permanent love I mistrusted, made purring noises, meant to be comforting, which somehow came out sounding insincere even to my prejudiced-in-favor-of-self ears).

Anyhow, where was I . . . ah yes, my friend Moina, a
mynah-bird
to me . . . well, it isn't exactly her house, not in the same way that the Lahore house had been hers, just as the residence at Temple Road is indelibly marked as her mother's place now that her father is gone. Moina's house in Gulberg, despite Mashuq's presence, really was hers, quite without a doubt. From the fragrance of the
chameli
flowers adorning both front and back lawns, to the gold-filigreed cushion-covers against ornately carved chair backs to, of course, the signs of music everywhere . . . and that is the first thing I notice as I walk into the spotlessly white-walled, white-carpeted duplex on Windmill Court—her organ, on its stand, black keys in stark relief against the all-white background. Thank God some signs of her past life have made it into the new world she has entered of her own free will, emancipated woman that she is.

Hai, hai
, do you know, she had that affair going all those years . . .
haan, haan, bhai
, I'm telling you
na yaar
, she's married that Richard Gere of hers. (A always marvels at the fact that all my family—and, it would seem, the fantasy lovers of my near and dear ones, too—resemble Hollywood stars; all white ones at that: Zahid Mamoo is Gregory Peck, Mum's Ava Gardner,
Dad, despite his facial paralysis, is, who else, Clint Eastwood of course, and Farhan, my brother, looks just like Travolta, especially after he shaved off his terroristic mustache). So then it is disturbing that there are so many tears at each and every reminder of the way things were, maybe the sense of loss (
quelle gaspillage!
sobbed the insensitive husband one couldn't help feeling bad for at the end of
Entre Nous
, one of my all-time favorite movies, when his wife finally divorces him and sets up house with her shell-shocked girlfriend), cultural and familial pressures are harder to endure than she imagined.

I sing and drink a great deal, each sip of Bailey's Irish Cream, each note of Raga Malkauns, each silly little jingle of an Indian film song transforms into droplets of memory's perspiration, leaking out of the pores of our bodies and souls, our most blessedly confused happysad selves, skin resting on skin, salty tears and beads of sweat mixing with peals of girlish laughter gigglygalote . . . and white-haired, white-bearded Richard Gere himself, playing quite the knight-in-shining armor, clearly chagrined by his perceived betrayal of King Arthur, nevertheless sits down to meals served by his Guinevere. I am a bit nonplussed to see her playing this role, I must confess . . . and yet . . . when I sing again that night, David the son-in-law strumming away madly on his electric guitar in passionate accompaniment, it comes to me in the darkness of Darbari that Khayyam had gotten something right:
nor all thy tears nor words, e'er erase a word of It.

The drive home is a real drag.

III

Monday morning I scream and shout the kids into submission, and when I finally arrive at the doctor's office she wants to know if my wearing red means something. I tell her I've just recently returned from Spain where bulls and blood took over my consciousness. She tells me to get that kitchen done and stay home for the next few years. “Your teenage daughter needs you to stop
running with the bulls,” she advises, wagging the proverbial finger at me. “But I haven't really done that yet,” I begin to protest, silenced suddenly by an image of Moina wearing red, twenty-two years ago. Honey and I are the only friends from school who make it to her wedding with a Sunni man, angrily shunned by her father. She is the first of our intimate circle to get married, exactly nine months after the Nepali has shamed her into a silence I still cannot penetrate, lacking perhaps the ability to love that way. . . .

I could have sworn I felt Khawar's eyes on me, boring through my rib cage at the precise moment when the matador locked his bull in a gaze to die for, and plunged the sword deep, deep into the enraged beast's wildly thumping heart, silencing it forever. Greek Tragedy in Government College this was not, though neither is it the quick, graceful movement Hemingway had so admired. No, this one is rather agonizing to watch. The bull writhes in misery, spurting blood and foam from its mouth, fixing its gaze on the lover's intent being, who then resorts to a second thrust, after which the creature continues to shudder convulsively for what seems an eternity until, finally, all movement ceases and the eyes glaze over.

Needless to say, the matador does not get his ear to toss into the adoring hands of the most beautiful woman in the crowd. Her disappointment is almost too much to bear.

       
There you stand

       
on those steps

       
on that hot summer's day

       
Such a dream come true

       
Ghalib's
saqi
, my muse

       
With a toss of your head

       
and a swing of your hips

       
how you hiss, stomping off

       
oh my love

       
sweet young love

       
what's the matter with you

       
has the cat got your tongue?

       
I wished then that the earth

       
would swallow me whole

       
chador, beard, passion

       
All

       
I'd rather BE Ghalib

       
and/not his damned
saqi

       
Writing those poems

       
yes inspiring those rhyme schemes

       
I don't want to give up

       
my power you see

       
so I'll be my own

       
slave, thank you, pretty please

       
but remember

       
dear departed

       
there always shall be

       
that question to consider

       
when our souls clash again

       
what shall we both do

       
having written our
ghazals

       
always already

       
so hopeless, so silly

       
Imagining Forever

       
being Mad about Me.

KUCHA MIRAN SHAH

Feryal Ali Gauhar