Tunnel Vision (7 page)

Ammi. Adil. Khairuddin. Amna Mumani. I was getting more agitated by the second. Too much had happened. Nothing was happening. I was practically alone. Worthless. Powerless. Nobody loved me. It would be best if I died. There would be no one to carry me to my grave. It would probably be unmarked. I was considering the chances of having to share my chute down to hell with Mr Khairuddin when Adil burst into the ward.

LOVE TO SOIL PAKISTAN

TEXT FROM CITY GOVERNMENT BANNER
DURING CLEANLINESS WEEK IN KARACHI

~

M
y brother had obviously been watching Indian movie reruns on cable TV because he took one look at me and went to pieces a la forlorn South Asian hero. He sobbed. He howled, he wrung his hands. At any moment, I expected him to rip his kurta into shreds, tie it all together and hang himself from the IV pole, so great was the grief he seemed compelled to express. It was really very embarrassing, but it certainly took me out of my own misery for a bit.

What is it about our menfolk? They belittle our coping skills, mock our decision-making abilities, jibe at our emotional frailty, but when crisis time comes they just fall apart. I hadn
'
t expected Adil to bustle in and take charge. I would have liked it, but too many doting women (Ammi, Amna Mumani, me), had been spoiling him rotten for too long. I hadn
'
t expected him to dissolve into blubbering man flesh either. Amna Mumani rigid next to him seemed a rock in a river of male ineptitude.

‘
Can she hear me?
'
Adil asked Mumani when he could speak coherently again.

‘
I hope not,
'
she replied, looking vaguely disgusted. I got the distinct impression she was resisting the urge to smack him.

‘
I just can
'
t believe this could happen to her. Ayesha was just so full of energy, so alive, you know?
'

‘
She still is.Alive. She
'
s in a coma but we all hope she
'
ll come out of it.
'

‘
But she might not?
'

‘
Who can know God
'
s will?
'

‘
Surely the doctors can give us some hint?
'

‘
Your mamu is trying to find a doctor.
'

‘
In a government hospital? He
'
s going to have a hard time. One of our shows did a special on it. It was horrible.
'

I remembered that special. One of Adil
'
s friends had called to talk to me while doing research for it. He worked for a flashy channel on cable TV. Adil had worked for them for a while, then left because he said it was like a club for spoilt rich kids with firangi accents. He now worked for Globe. Nearly everybody did. One day all would be Globe, even if their dramas were Titanics and their anchors biased. Adil was a producer, one of their youngest at twenty-four. He was working on a standard investigative reports type show; the burning issues of the industrial city or something along those lines. I didn
'
t really care. I was just happy that he was happy. And that he wasn
'
t directing music videos for four foot pop puppets constantly pretending to be Jesus (legs spread, arms akimbo and filmed from above to create the illusion of height).

‘
Has anyone tried talking to her?
'

‘
We
'
ve mostly been talking “at” her. She hasn
'
t responded to anything or anyone.
'

Adil brushed my poor, bruised forehead with his lips. I realized he was trembling slightly.

‘Achoo …
'

Before he learned to enunciate, he used to call me Achoo, like a sneeze. He
'
d been so very small. I was all of seven when he was brought home, a blotchy red face, body swaddled in a blanket like an exotic spring roll. Everyone hovered around him. Neighbours and relatives came to see him, bearing Johnson and Johnson newborn gift sets, or food for the rest of the family. People walked by me as if I wasn
'
t there.

‘
You have to take him back,
'
I announced to my mother, but she simply beamed down at him and turned away.

‘
He
'
s the cleaning woman
'
s son,
'
I told a distant relative entrusted with the task of giving me dinner in the kitchen, away from the flood of guests.

‘
I don
'
t like babies. They cry,
'
I told Mamu when he asked me if I
'
d held him yet.

Abba had picked me up and sat me in his lap.
‘
Give her the boy,
'
he directed my mother. She hesitated, but obeyed him. The spring roll suddenly rested in my arms, my father guiding me, showing me how to cradle it. The baby
'
s eyes were closed, his mouth worked in strange sucking motions. He mewled. I grew nervous, chubby fingers reached out and pulled my hand to his mouth, latched onto my index finger. The mewling ceased. We both rested, my new brother and I, on my father
'
s lap in the midst of silent company as Ammi stood next to us, tired but bright-eyed. All seemed right with the world. Maybe this baby wouldn
'
t be so bad after all.

‘
Achoo, can you hear me? Can you hear me Achoo? If you can hear me, raise your eyebrows.
'

He waited expectantly, but my eyebrows just wouldn
'
t cooperate.

‘
Achoo your mehram gives you permission to speak.
'

I knew this one. An old jibe, from the time Ammi had wanted to go for Hajj but couldn
'
t because there was no male relative or mehram to accompany her. Adil was too young. Mamu busy with work. Abba, well Abba was long gone. It birthed any amount of bad mehram jokes in the household, but for all the apparent jocularity it made me more angry than amused. I tried to raise my hand to slap him but it wouldn
'
t cooperate either.

‘
That would generally get a rise out of her. If she can hear me and can
'
t respond she
'
s probably fuming,
'
he explained to the horrified Amna Mumani,
‘
she gets very agitated about little things. And she
'
s morbid.Very morbid,
'
he added helpfully.
‘
Oye Achoo, I hope you
'
re thinking positive in there!
'

Ammi and Mamu bustled in and the room became crowded.
I don
'
t know about you,
I thought in the direction of my charred roommate,
but I think they really need to consider putting in a couple of comfortable sofas.

*

'
Any word on the doctor?
'
Adil and Mumani were speaking simultaneously.

‘
Saad is working on it,
'
Ammi replied primly,
‘
he
'
s outside making a few calls. I managed to track him down, no thanks to my brother.
'

Saad was outside? He was here? Did I have any facial injuries? How bad did I look?

‘
I
'
m sure Najam tried his best,
'
Amna Mumani was turning out to be every bit as territorial as my mother.

‘
Quite possibly. I guess you can only feel the urgency of a worried parent when you have children yourself.
'

That was cruel, but not surprising. Ammi frequently used references to the couple
'
s childlessness as a way to tilt verbal confrontation in her favour. Nothing was sacred when it came to putting (most) other people in their place. The only people she had never crossed the line with were Adil and my father. The rest of us were fair game. My father used to say she got her acid tongue from her mother. I didn
'
t know if she had though; my nani died when I was four. Ammi cried for a week and then stopped. She never mentioned her mother again. Maybe I would get a chance to meet her in the afterlife and ask her. Maybe there would be a clue to Ammi
'
s lack of warmth for me.

But I didn
'
t want to waste my time thinking about dead people when Saad was outside. Why was he outside and not inside? If Ammi had appealed to him for help, she could hardly have told him it was inappropriate for him to come in. Maybe he didn
'
t want to come in himself, maybe he felt obligated to use his influence, to attempt to help save my life and with the favour wipe the slate clean before moving on to another office romance. Mr K, after all, was just one face of a particularly insidious predator.

Saad wasn
'
t like that though. I just knew he wasn
'
t.

And just like that, I felt powerless again.

TARZAN BAGHAIR CHADDI

GRAFFITI ON KARACHI WALL

~

D
r Fauzia came in with a well-dressed, handsome man in his mid-forties or thereabouts. With his sharply creased trousers, pinstriped white-collared shirt and designer tie, he seemed like the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Dr Fauzia
'
s deference to him, however, marked him as a doctor. On their own turf, doctors tended to treat all other humans as a sub-species; not of the chosen, as it were.

‘
So we
'
ve stabilized her, but like I told the family, there really isn
'
t much more we can do at this point.
'

‘
Yes, but we can run further diagnostics and scans in case we
'
ve missed something. That will give us a better idea of where we are headed.
'

Dr Fauzia looked embarrassed.
‘
We
'
re still having the same old problem with the scanner, sir. We apply for funding regularly for the parts we need but you know how difficult it is.
'

‘
You don
'
t have to call me sir, Fauzia. I
'
m not lecturing you right now. And I
'
m well aware of the state this hospital is in. That
'
s why I left.
'

‘
Actually sir, I
'
m surprised to see you here.
'

‘
That makes two of us,
'
he grinned,
‘
but this was a friend I couldn
'
t refuse.
'

Amna Mumani cleared her throat and the two doctors seemed to notice them for the first time.

‘
Salaam,
'
she said, and a string of similar mutters came from behind her,
‘
you must be the new doctor.
'

‘
Walaykum salaam. Actually I
'
m here only as a civilian, at Saad
'
s request I don
'
t practise here and I have nothing to do with this hospital, all I can share right now is my opinion.To be honest, I
'
m sure Dr Fauzia here is quite capable of managing on her own.
'

‘
Perhaps she is,
'
Ammi now stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her sister-in-law,
‘
but like you yourself said just now, you know how these government hospitals are.
'

‘
Filthy,
'
Adil said,
‘
My friend did a special on all the germs that float around places like this. Even the doctors interviewed recommended that in case of emergency you should rush to a private hospital rather than a government one.
'
He paused.
‘
He could do another one if anything happens to Ayesha.
'

Since when did people in the media get so uppity?

‘
And the staff doesn
'
t care about the patients, that wretch has been alone all this time and not once has anyone seen to her,
'
Amna Mumani gestured to the next bed.

‘
I had to make a fuss before Dr Fauzia came,
'
Ammi radiated righteous indignation.

‘
No offence to Dr Fauzia here, but staff here are paid less, maybe that
'
s why they
'
re less motivated,
'
Adil said apologetically.

‘
Post-op!
'
Mamu had decided to make a contribution after all. Everyone looked inquiringly at him, convinced there should be more to come.

‘
Er … it means post-operative care,
'
he mumbled, folding his arms to hide the largest of the mango stains on his shirt.

‘
Yes, it does,
'
the corporate-looking doctor reluctantly dragged his eyes away from my train wreck of a family and turned to Dr Fauzia.
‘
Can you help me deal with the administration on this side? I
'
ve started the ball rolling at the other end and I
'
m leaving before the new head honcho realizes I
'
m here.
'