Tunnel Vision (39 page)

‘
How can you?
'
my voice was trembling as I turned to the woman,
‘
how can you do this? Parade your child in the heat with crap on his head like a puppet?
'

‘
Fine. If you
'
re not going to give me anything don
'
t give me a lecture either,
'
she shrugged casually and turned away, indicating by the easy roll of her shoulders that she wasn
'
t going to lose any sleep over my righteous indignation. But I took a step after her. The anger that was swelling in me latching on to the nearest viable target.

‘
What kind of a mother are you, huh? You call him your child but if he was your child you wouldn
'
t treat him like this. You have no shame, no decency. No shame!
'
I was screaming now and people were turning to look, but I ploughed on.

‘
What are you still standing here for? Go! Go on get out of here!
'
A shopkeeper stepped out of his hole in the wall to wave a dismissive hand at the befuddled woman.
‘
Why are you bothering the begum?
'
She had stopped and turned back to look at me but at his prompting she moved again, out of my radar, but I didn
'
t mind. I had already found my next target.

‘
Did I ask you for help?
'
I thrust my chin towards the shopkeeper.

‘
Noo …
'

‘
Then why are you interfering?
'

‘
I was only trying to protect you from …
'

‘
What is it about me that makes you think I need protecting?
'

He tried to retreat into his store. People had stopped to listen to me. He moved into his shop front and I raised my voice and pitched it after him.

‘
Do I have help me written on my face? Am I wearing diapers over my shalwar to show you I
'
m a baby? Could it be that you want to protect me because I
'
m a woman? Huh? You want to help the poor defenceless little woman? You pitiful, pathetic man, you
'
re just a shopkeeper, I earn more than you, I
'
m more educated than you, I
'
m strong enough to make you run from me and you want to protect me!
'
My voice rose to a shriek that echoed across the road, into the alleys, over the din of car engines and puttering rickshaws, till it finally reached the ears of the man it was aimed at and forced him to sit back and take notice,
‘
Bastard! Motherfucker! Sisterfucker!
'

The shopkeeper ran into his store and disappeared into the back. Some of the younger men in the audience of this particular pit stop of the Ayesha Street Theatre sniggered appreciatively, but backed away when I moved towards them.

‘
Run, run, the mad woman
'
s coming!
'
one muscle-shirt clad cheapster giggled to his friend as they scrambled to safety, but I wasn
'
t going for them. I stopped at the edge of the road, looking across the street, and my father and I faced each other for the first time in years. We stood, separated by so much more than traffic.

Was he studying me as intently? Was he feeling the same way? I couldn
'
t hear anything anymore. There was no sound in this place where my rage had catapulted me, no sound at all, or scent. Just miserly sight, with all its inadequacies, its lack of tactile strength.

He had aged. His salt and pepper hair was all white in places now, but a hint of burnt orange lurked at the outer fringes of his foppish haircut, the residue of a home henna job. Had a woman done it for him? There was stubble on his face, a two-day growth at least. Either he was jobless, or on vacation. Maybe he was self-employed. He had hated going to work without shaving. Or he had pretended to. That might have been a façade too. Like his death.

I wanted to rush across the road and ask him why he hadn
'
t shaved. I wanted to hear him say he
'
d had a terrible accident and been in a coma and only just woken up. Saying he had been falsely implicated in a case by a jealous co-worker and held in secrecy by the ISI would work too. As would he had bumped his head and suffered from amnesia. Anything. Anything that suggested he hadn
'
t walked away from us willingly but been compelled to desertion by circumstances beyond his control. Then a small boy appeared next to him and tugged at his sleeve. None of what I had imagined was going to happen. He wasn
'
t going to be saying any of those things. I wasn
'
t going to be rushing across the road.

The boy was looking up at him and saying something, yanking urgently at his hand at the same time. What words were his lips forming? Was he saying
‘
Abba
'
? A woman appeared on the other side of my father. Had she been browsing next to him with the boy? I hadn
'
t seen either of them. They might as well have come out of nowhere. Like he did.

She had a shopping bag in one hand, a carpet print handbag slung over her shoulder. Ugly bag. Pretty woman. Short. Curvaceous. Dark features. She pouted when he didn
'
t respond to her. I could see her lips moving too, but Abba was still staring at me.

I wished someone would appear at my side and tug at my sleeve too. Demonstrate that I wasn
'
t alone. But I was. I looked down, at my sensible feet with their sensible shoes, to beat back the urge to fly across the road and throttle the woman.

When I looked up, my father was gone.

I crossed the street as fast as I could and looked into all the cars pulling out of the alleys that lined the road, studied all the motorcycles and scooters, rickshaws and taxis, the pedestrians flowing by, but there was no sign of him or his family. I knew it was his family.

The bookseller he
'
d been squatting before said he
'
d never seen him before. I went there at mid-day for the next week, hiding in the lee of a store awning to avoid sight of the shopkeeper I
'
d verbally assaulted. Abba didn
'
t come back.

I didn
'
t tell Adil. I didn
'
t tell my mother. I didn
'
t tell anyone.

KHAIR NAAL AA, KHAIR NAAL GA

BACK OF RICKSHAW

~

A
nd now it was too late to tell. I couldn
'
t tell Adil because it would mean nothing to him. I couldn
'
t tell Ammi because it would only hurt her and it was entirely possible she already knew. I had wanted to tell Saad. I should have.

The soft light of evening filtered through the blinds into my room. There was still no patient in the other bed. Was that deliberate? It was probably a good thing, since Ammi and Adil arguing next to me would probably have disturbed them. Strange as it was, they were really going at it. I wasn
'
t important enough to cause conflict between the two. He must have told her about Farah then.

‘
Why are you so concerned about what I say to your mamu
'
s wife?
'

‘
She has a name you know.
'

‘
Really? Where does she keep it? In the same place she hoards her husband
'
s money?
'

‘
Why are you so mean to her? She
'
s so good to us, and Mamu is so obviously happy with her.
'

‘
Your mamu would be happy with a watermelon if you carved a smile on it. Besides, I
'
m not mean to her.
'

‘
You
'
re not warm to her either.
'

‘
I don
'
t need to be. These relationships are best kept formal.
'

‘
Which relationships?
'

‘
Sister-in-law, mother-in-law …
'

‘
Daughter-in-law?
'

‘
That
'
s different.
'

‘
How is that different?
'

‘
You wouldn
'
t understand. Blood is important. She
'
ll carry my blood.
'

‘
The sister-in-law does that too.
'

‘
Not this one, she doesn
'
t.
'

‘
That
'
s very crude. I don
'
t think I ever realized how crude you can be.
'

‘
I
'
m practical, not crude. One should be a realist.
'

‘
Like you?
'
the half smile playing around Adil
'
s face was more mocking than vacuous. It wasn
'
t as if Ammi was saying anything he hadn
'
t heard a million times before in his life. It was just that now he had someone specific to superimpose the images of brood mare on. And he wasn
'
t liking it.

‘
Funny that you
'
re calling yourself a realist. I want to laugh. Can I laugh or do I need your permission for that too? Am I going to need your permission forever, or just till the day I die? Or is that the day you die?
'

‘
Adil! Don
'
t make me think less of you!
'
She was saying to him from between clenched teeth.
‘
I have always seen the best in you.
'

‘
And I
'
m saying maybe you should admit that I
'
m not your perfect little boy any more, I
'
m a grown man.
'

‘
You
'
ll always be a little boy to me.
'

‘
With adult needs.
'

‘
Needs are the same regardless of how old you are.
'

‘
I
'
d say the physical needs tend to change a little, don
'
t they? I mean Ayesha and I didn
'
t fall fully grown out of mid-air …
'

‘
Don
'
t you dare talk to me like that!
'

‘
Aha, so I can do wrong.
'

‘
Of course you can, everyone can. It doesn
'
t mean you
'
re a bad person. And I know you
'
re just saying that to shock me.
'

‘
You won
'
t listen, will you? It doesn
'
t matter what I say, you
'
ll just take in whatever you want to hear and discard the rest.
'

Ammi turned back to me and returned to praying, as if to confirm what he had said, and to illustrate her utter lack of interest in what he thought of her.

‘
You
'
re crazy, you know,
'
Adil half-whispered,
‘
we should have had you locked up a long time ago.
'

‘
Wouldn
'
t it be simpler if you just brought her home to meet me one of these days, when Ayesha is better of course.

‘
Brought whom?
'

‘
The girl.
'

‘
What girl?
'

‘
The girl who
'
s behind all of this.
'

‘
She
'
s not behind anything!
'

‘
But you
'
re doing this for her sake.
'

‘
Doing what?
'

‘
Attacking your mother.
'

And she had tied it all together in a neat little package with a ribbon on it and handed it back to him, PERSECUTION emblazoned across the front. My mother, the master manipulator. I could only watch in awe, as Adil
'
s mouth opened and shut soundlessly, guppy to her barracuda.

‘
I wasn
'
t attacking you,
'
he finally managed.

‘
You weren
'
t? I guess I was mistaken then. It must have been the “you
'
re crazy, you know” that just threw me off.
'

‘
But you are!
'
Good for Adil, he sounded terrified, but he had decided there was no way back,
‘
and you should go back on medication.
'

‘
It did nothing for me.
'

‘
It helped you.
'

‘
It made me sick!
'

‘
It passed.
'