And the World Changed (44 page)

“The Optimist” is the story of a family, divided between Pakistan and Britain, that has not been able to grasp the ramifications of migration and travel and modernity. In arranged marriages, couples often do not meet before the wedding—and sometimes a photograph is all that they have by way of introduction. Brides are expected to behave dutifully, submissively, obediently—to be the perfect mate—so their husbands might come to appreciate their qualities. Shah has taken these elements and transposed them into a modern family where arranged marriages are not mandatory but, where a rich young man in Pakistan falls in love with the photograph of his cousin in Britain. Shah reverses the misogynist notion that men are free spirits who have to be roped into marriage by women, and along with the male/female dichotomy, plays with the disjunction between generations, showing the longing of migrant parents for their “home,” while their children regard the old country as alien, remote, and threatening.

• • •

ADNAN

I know Raheela doesn't love me. She chose to tell me this on the day of our wedding in Karachi. The moment our
nikah
was signed she said that she hated me.

“You're a fool,” she muttered under her voice, her barely moving lips painted scarlet to match the beautiful veil thrown over her head. There were so many people coming up to the stage to congratulate us and so much noise from the guests at the buffet that at first I thought I'd heard wrong. The lights of the video cameras were burning my eyes. I had to blink rapidly to keep them from watering with pain.

“What did you say?” I asked in a low tone. I thought I'd misunderstood her. She had a strong accent that always made me think of red double-decker buses, Cadbury's chocolate, and the BBC.

“I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.”

She didn't move a muscle, not even to shift her forehead into furrows of disdain. Her eyes stayed perfectly blank but the lips still moved, whispering words that stung. “This will never work. You know I don't love you. I can't stand the sight of you, Adnan. I'm only doing this to make my parents happy. I'll be back in England before the year's out.” She threw a glance my way. “Oh, my God, don't even try to make me feel sorry for you. I can't stand men who cry.”

I tried to explain that it was only the intensity of the lights and that I have very sensitive eyes, but my father's brother and his wife approached us on the stage. I had to look up as they began to congratulate us. My aunt pressed an envelope of money into Raheela's small hands, which were decorated with intricate webs of henna. My new wife arranged her features into a smile; it astonishes me to this day how she has such command over her expressions. I can never keep my emotions off my face. That's the difference between a man and a woman.

As soon as my uncle and aunt stepped away, my aunt tottering down the steps on pencil-sharp heels, Raheela leaned toward me. Perhaps she'd make a joke about them: my aunt in her fussy sari, my uncle who stank of whiskey and had grown long wisps of hair that wrapped around his head to hide his bald spot. Instead, she told me what she thought of me: that I was stupid and ugly; that she had never wanted to marry me; and then she finished off with a string of creative curses in three different languages, English, Urdu, and Punjabi. My cheeks flushed crimson. Sweat broke out under my arms. I didn't think girls from England knew that kind of language.

But I was born in July, the sign of Leo the optimist. I knew things could change between us if she only would give me a
chance. I've loved Raheela from the day I saw her photograph. I still remember all the details: a beautiful sea-green
shalwar kameez
, dark hair cascading down her shoulders, milky eyes looking straight into the lens, not dipped shyly away to portray innocence. It was her cousin's wedding, the way they have them in England, in some strange recreation center with a dirty pool. I'm sure those old English ladies who wanted to use the pool that evening must have cursed them all night long.

I saw her and knew she was the one. We Leos are extremely romantic people who always let our hearts dominate our heads. My aunt told me her date of birth and it turned out she was an Aries, another fire sign like me, so I knew we would get along well. Compatibility is important to me. The days our parents lived in are gone, where you'd take a stranger into your bed and get to know her only after you'd made her your wife.

My middle-aged parents despaired that I might never marry because I was already twenty-seven and still hadn't chosen someone to settle down with. It's not true that all the pressure is only on girls. Even men here have to hurry up or else people start thinking you're wild, you're gay, you aren't stable, you don't want to face up to your responsibilities. My mother sobbed her worries about me late at night or over the phone to her sisters, but she shouldn't have worried so much. I just hadn't felt that leap in my heart, that wild feeling that makes you think that if you jump off a cliff you'll sail with wings into the sky instead of crashing straight into the ground. I felt that way when I saw Raheela's picture.

So I sat down with my parents one evening after dinner. My mother had turned on the television to get her fill of Indian soap operas and my father had settled into his evening newspapers. This was the right time to speak. I cleared my throat.

“Amma, Abba, I've decided something.”

“Yes, son?” My father's voice was indulgent. They looked up benignly at me, expecting me to tell them that I was going to the beach, or that I was traveling to Dubai next week on business.

“Well . . . I've decided I want to get married.”

My father opened and shut his mouth a couple of times. “Son,
beta
, Adnan . . .” he croaked, then shook his head and gave up.

“Who is she?” asked my mother, her lips trembling. She always feared that I'd set my heart on someone unsuitable: a Shia, maybe, or a girl from a bad family background, someone too independent, a girl who was dark-skinned instead of fair.

“It's Raheela.”

“Raheela? Farook and Amina's daughter? In England?”

“Yes, yes, Raheela. I want to marry her, Amma.”

My father put down his newspaper and patted me on my arm and shoulder again and again, as if relieved of some weight that had been on his chest for a long time. My mother began to cry with joy and her words were rushed and jumbled in her excitement. “We can finalize the engagement by the end of this month. Oh, Adnan, I'm so happy, you've made me so happy. What made you decide?”

I was proud to tell them that I had seen her photograph and fallen in love with her. They accepted this without question. It didn't matter to any of us that Raheela lived in Leicester, a city somewhere in the north of England. No matter how many years her father had spent in that city, he was still one of us underneath.

He and his wife would have made sure to raise their daughters in proper Pakistani fashion, even if they lived in England.

My mother smiled radiantly, then took my face in both her hands and kissed me over and over again. “My son . . .” she said, still crying and smiling at the same time. “You've made me so, so happy. Thank you.”

“When can we call them?”

“I'll call them tomorrow,” she replied. “They'll be so happy to get our proposal. You know how hard it is to find good boys over there. I'm sure they won't object to a quick marriage—after all, Raheela's been out of school for some time. We can give
them everything: stability, a good home, a good boy.”

My mother rhapsodized about Raheela's beauty and good character, residence permits, and British passports. But I couldn't care less if Raheela had come from the moon. She would get used to the way we live over here—as long as I made her happy. My mother was already dreaming of having a daughter-in-law to boss over and train to help her in the kitchen, but Raheela would not easily adapt to our lifestyle without a lot of love and kindness. A marriage takes compromise, you see, and I'm nothing if not a reasonable man.

RAHEELA

“Raheela, is that you, home already?”

“Yes, Mum, it's me.” I had just come in from work, knackered. It was freezing outside, the wind whipped around my ears and stung them as I stood at the bus stop for ages and cursed myself for missing the number 72 again. The thought of a hot cup of tea and a seat in front of the fireplace kept me going the whole walk home. “God, it was so cold outside. My ears feel like blocks of ice. Why on God's earth did Dad decide to settle here, instead of some decent place like the Bahamas or Morocco?”

Mum was in the kitchen making
parathas
with spinach and potatoes, my favorite dish. I crept up and hugged her from behind, grabbing a bite of the
paratha
as I did so. “That tastes good, Mum. Is the water still hot? I'm dying for a cuppa . . .” I said, aping the broad Yorkshire accent that my mum hated. But today it evoked no reaction from her; she didn't even roll her eyes.

Instead, Mum turned around to face me. “Raheela. You take off your coat and sit down. Your father and I have something to tell you.”

“Oh, God, Mum, not another story about Nahid. I can't deal with this today. She's my sister and I love her, but I just can't. You don't know what I've been through. There was this old crumbly who came in with ten-year-old coupons to pay for his food. These bloody rude boys were opening packages of stuff
and eating them before they were paid for. And this blind man brought in his guard dog and it pissed all over the floor in front of my checkout line!”

I plopped myself down at the table and stretched out my legs. Mum brought me an unexpected cup of tea; she hadn't done that for me since my last year of school when I was studying for my leaving exams. “Thanks, Mum!” She smiled at me, but her eyes were always so tired. They were my eyes, thirty years on, and I dreaded the day that I'd look into my own daughter's eyes and recognize them in her face, but not in mine anymore.

“Farook!” called Mum. “Farook!”

Dad came in from the front room. He didn't sit down with me but stood at the kitchen door, waiting for Mum to put his cup of tea in his hands. I ate a few biscuits and sipped my tea until I realized that they hadn't said a word. I looked at both their faces. “So what's this all about?” I asked. “Are we moving to the Caribbean, then?”

“It's a bit complicated,” said Mum.

“It's not,” Dad put in from the doorway.

“Will you let me speak to her?”

“All right, all right.” He shifted his heavy frame, then decided to join us. My eyes traveled from one face to the other. Maybe this wasn't about Nahid, after all. Had I done something wrong and they'd found out about it? Apart from the occasional cigarette in my room at night and a few times that I'd gotten drunk on gin and tonic at the club, I really wasn't a troublemaker. Besides, at twenty-two, you've got to live a little and I wasn't harming anyone with my adventures.

“Raheela . . .”

“That's my name, don't wear it out.”

Mum looked impatient, as if this were no time for jokes. I settled my features into a contrite expression. “Sorry, Mum. What were you saying?”

“Well, it's like this, Raheela. Your
chachi
called today from Karachi.”

“Yeah? Is everything okay down there? That one doesn't like to waste the cost of a phone call on us every day of the week, does she?”

“Raheela, will you please listen to me?”

“Sorry, Mum.”

“She called . . . she called because . . .”

Five minutes had already gone by and I still had no idea what Mum wanted to say. My tea had gone cold by now. I got up to fill my cup with more hot water.

“Sit down, Raheela.” Dad's frown brought a momentary fear to my stomach. He never spoke to me in that tone of voice. In fact it wasn't very often that he spoke to me at all. “Raheela, your uncle and aunt called with a proposal for you. For their son, Adnan.”

“That's very funny, Dad. April Fool's is months away. Can I go now? I've got to use the . . .”

“It's not a joke, Raheela. They proposed. And we accepted.”

Suddenly the floor and the world beneath it fell away from me and left a red swirling storm in its place. Dad's voice echoed from far away as if across a distant valley, and the words weren't making any sense. He repeated himself, his lips moving, but no sound accompanied them. My mother was nodding, as pleased as if they were telling me I'd won the Lottery.

Then the moment passed and I could hear their voices again, telling me that Adnan, my twenty-seven-year-old cousin, wanted to marry me and take me to Pakistan to live with him and his family. How he was well settled in a good job in a travel agency. That he was a good boy and the only son, and would get “everything” after his parents were gone. “You'll have a good life over there, Raheela,” said Mum. “It's much easier, you know, with servants and the weather and everyone with good values over there, not like this place where nobody knows whether they're coming or going.”

I gripped the teacup so hard that it shattered right across
the table, sending a sudden spray of blood spattering on my face. My mother and father jumped up in alarm, my mother rushing around for towels and Dettol and plasters, while I screamed so loudly that the entire neighborhood would have been able to hear.