The Wish Maker (38 page)

The man was nodding. It was possible.

I said, “How long?”

He thought about it and said, “Tuesday.”

But it was Wednesday.

“Sorry,” said the man, not in apology but in refusal.

“Sunday,” I said.

“Closed,” he said.

“You open it.”

He wasn’t willing to consider it.

“Magazine,” I said. “Long article about you and your shop.”

Now he was being stubborn because he had to.

I placed the money on the counter, on top of the list.

He sniggered contemptuously, an adult beholding a child.

“Buss
,
buss
,
”
said Isa, and raised a palm in intervention. “Saturday the shop is open. So five o’clock it is. You keep the money and we will come and pick it up. All set.”

And again at Al-Fatah, on the first floor, among the mirrors and the products and the swarming shoppers, we found our way to the cologne counter, where the bottles were kept in their cases on shelves behind a sliding glass pane. The salesman was a dark, balding man, and was presently writing up receipts in a notepad.

We waited before him with our hands on the counter.

He looked up inquiringly.

“Boss,” said Isa. “And Cool Water. And what else?”

“Versace Blue Jeans,” I said.

“Blue Jeans,” said Isa.

The man turned to the shelves behind him and located the boxes from three different corners. One by one he placed them on the counter.

I wanted to open the boxes and take out the bottles and smell them.

“Cannot,” said the salesman. “Sealed.” As if to eliminate any remaining doubts he pointed behind him to a sign on the wall that said FIXED PRICE PLEASE.

Isa asked for the prices; only Versace Blue Jeans was less than a thousand rupees. But Isa wanted me to get Cool Water—he was familiar with the smell and insisted that it was better than the smell of Versace Blue Jeans.

“You can come back with more money,” he said.

There was no more money to bring back.

I said, “I’ll take Blue Jeans. It looks much better.”

And the box was sent with a peon-boy in an Al-Fatah plastic bag to the front desk for payment and collection.

“Zaki, this is not right.”

She wasn’t happy with the sheet of wrapping paper: there were too many lines in the pattern. She said she had wanted something simple, plain and elegant (she had said nothing of the sort at the time of designation). And she was dismayed to learn that the selection was going to take until the weekend to record. “I wanted to send it all today or tomorrow,” she said. “And now I’m going to have to wait until Sunday. . . .”

She called Tara. And Tara told her that it was not necessary to send presents.

“Why are you even with him?” said Tara.

“I don’t know, man . . .” She was trying now to feel sorry for herself.

“Seriously,” said Tara Tanvir, “I’m only saying this because it’ll be helpful to you. I don’t have any problems with Jamal or anything. I think he’s a nice guy, a great guy, I just don’t see the point of this thing between you two, like I don’t see where it’s going.”

They talked about the relationship’s strengths and weaknesses, the fact that it was perpetually long distance now, since it was difficult for her to see him without getting caught, and he wasn’t even trying to console her.

“And it’s not like I don’t understand,” said Samar Api. “I know I overreacted, I know he’s sensitive, it’s a misunderstanding and people have them all the time, but it’s like grow up, you know?”

“Frankly,” said Tara Tanvir, “I don’t think you overreacted.”

“You think so?”

“Completely. You just did not overreact. It’s a fact. Why don’t you face it?” And she gave the same reasoning: it was not that she disliked Jamal, but more a question of compatibility between two very different people.

“I guess opposites attract,” said Samar Api.

“I guess,” said Tara Tanvir.

They discussed it over the next few days on the phone, Tara Tanvir insisting that Samar Api and Jamal were two very different people, and implying with her vehemence that it was time to end the relationship. Samar Api listened to the justifications of her own behavior, and found herself agreeing with Tara Tanvir. On Saturday the recorded selection arrived, was combined with the cologne and wrapped in the wrapping paper. And on Monday she took it in her bag to school and gave it to Tara Tanvir.

She returned from school.

“What happened?”

She said she had given Tara the present. “And she took it and all. But she was all sad about it. She goes, you don’t listen to me, you don’t care what I say. I was like, what’s wrong with you, just take the bloody present and give it to him, can’t you do this for a friend? But she goes,
you’re
the one who’s selfish. Can you believe that? She actually said that. I was like, you’ve lost it, woman.”

She waited by the phone. She went into the next room to check the time on the clock. She tried calling Tara’s house, but no one was answering.

“Should I call Jamal?”

She decided against it.

She went again to check the clock and came back and said that it had now been more than an hour.

She dialed Tara’s numbers, the upstairs number and the downstairs number, again and again, until someone picked up the phone.

It was the Far Eastern maid.

“Give the phone to Tara.”

“Maadaam in shower.”

But Samar Api insisted, and was made to hold on the line while the maid went looking, a scratchy orchestra keeping her unentertained in the meantime.

“I don’t know why it’s taking this long,” she said, holding the phone away from her mouth. “I need to know his reaction and all.”

The music had stopped.

“Did you give it to him?”

Tara Tanvir said she had.

“What did he say?”

“He liked it, I guess. Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

“Tara, why are you being such a bitch?”

Tara Tanvir laughed, released from the obligations of friendship. “
I’m
being a bitch? Well, excuse me.”

They were calm.

“Okay,” said Samar Api. “So what did he say?”

Tara Tanvir was vague.

“I can call him myself, you know, Tara? I asked you because I thought you were my friend.”

“Oh, please,” said Tara Tanvir.

Samar Api said, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” said Tara Tanvir.

“You think you can fuck up everyone’s life because your own life is so fucked up? Just because you have your car and your driver all the time? You think you can play with people?”

And now Tara Tanvir laughed and said, “You’re so full of shit. Your family knows it, your friends know it, and guess what: Jamal knows it too.”

“Don’t take his fucking name, okay? Don’t talk about my family, okay?” She was weakened and it was showing.

“Seriously,” said Tara Tanvir, “you need to sort out your shit. Because I am so not dealing with it.”

“Fine. Don’t.” She was dialing again.

I said, “What are you doing?”

She was calling Jamal.

But it went directly to his answering machine. His voice was asking her to leave a message.

“Zaki,” she said, sobbing, holding up the phone.

“Samar Api,” I said. I placed the pillow in my lap, placed her head on it and took the phone away from her hand. “You have to stop crying, Samar Api. You have to look at the bright side.”

There was no bright side.

“He’ll call you, Samar Api. Just stop crying.”

“You think so?” And briefly, amazingly, the tears stopped.

“O God, Samar Api,” I said, and stared at the wall. “Obviously.”

9

On the weekend Chhoti came to the house; she appeared at the door in a state of acute physical unease, her face sweating and inflamed and her cheeks puffing in and out. She fell on her back on the sofa, and the cushions nodded with the suddenness of her weight.

Daadi attempted to rise from the bed.

“Sit, sit,” said Chhoti, and put up a palm.

Daadi was looking at her sister.

“The heat,” said Chhoti.

“It is not the heat,” said Daadi.

“Too hot over there.”

“It is not the heat.”

“What to tell you.”

“Look at your face.”

“It is the heat.”

“You never listen. You never have and you never will.”

The comment was also a sentence to the life it lamented.

“I am telling you,” said Chhoti, laughing now to show her recovery, “I am fine. It is only the heat. Over there it is much worse than here, even in the car it can’t be avoided.” And she told of the recent rounds of load-shedding in Barampur, where the sight of electrical wires was still a novelty.

Daadi wanted to know what the doctor had said.

“Sugar,” said Chhoti with a sigh, and with a habitual frown to suggest an insignificant ailment, “and blood and heart. The same.” Her breaths were more deliberate.

Daadi asked to know the readings on the blood-pressure pump.

Chhoti told her.

Daadi said, “You are not taking your medicines. It is on your face. Why do you do it?”

Chhoti said there was only one clinic in the village. And the nearest hospital was in Okara Town, which was an hour by road and required an effort Chhoti wasn’t willing to make.

“It is your health,” said Daadi.

“I don’t care,” said Chhoti.

“You are careless.”

“So I am.”

“You will die.”

“So I will.”

We went to Daadi’s room in the evening. Naseem was sitting on the carpet and peeling raw vegetables into the perforated steel bowl. Daadi and Chhoti were sitting on the sofa and watching the Indian actress, now retired, who was presently being interviewed on the Indian channel in
Behind the Scenes
, a program in which the reminiscences of showbiz personalities were interspersed with songs and dialogues from their films.

Daadi was repeating the words of the song on TV.

Chhoti was watching her and slapping her knee.

“Oi hoi,” said Daadi, laughing.

“Too much,” said Chhoti, “too much.”

Naseem was amused to see that it had caused such a sensation.

“At least you are young,” said Daadi. “At my age these things are adventures.”

“Your age,” said Chhoti, “is nothing.” And she gave the example of her three sisters-in-law. “Their teeth are going,” she said. “But their hearts are still beating.”

Daadi was captivated.

Chhoti said, “And with cooks and drivers.”

Daadi said, “It cannot be.”

Chhoti closed her eyes and sealed her mouth, then opened them and said, “Some women are like that. They cannot be contained by God or man.” And she touched her earlobes in the gesture for repentance.