Duty Free (26 page)

Windows were big. Walls were white. Sofas and chairs were also covered in white cotton. Bright cotton
dhurries
were scattered on the floor. There were four or five big paintings on the walls—all of skies. Dawn skies. Dust skies. Morning skies. Night skies. And lots and lots of lilies in vases all round the room. I think so they must have been given by Jonkers because he’d given the same buffet of foreign lilies to me when I’d had my counter with the beardo. Aunty Pussy scowled when she saw them because I think so she also guessed. Must be doing mental sums of how much they must have cost. Room didn’t have too many decoration pieces. A few things of old brass, not silver, but nicely polished. One thing I will say, but. Room was very, very clean. The floor beamed, the table tops shone,
walls were spotless. Poor things, must have scrubbed and scrubbed, getting ready for us. Couldn’t be getting too many important guests.

We sat down and then Sana and her little sister came in. Little sister wore braces and glasses and a blue frock. Not a beauty from anywhere. Aunty Pussy’s eyes narrowed when she saw Sana. So did Mummy’s. Sana was dressed all in white. Like a nurse. All she needed was a white cap on her head and a clock pinned to her chest. But thanks God, hair was loose. She looked better that way, nose didn’t look so long and face not so bony. She smiled and greeted Aunty Pussy and Mummy and they replied with small unsmiling nods. Sana came up to me and I got up and kissed her on the cheek. Behind her back, Aunty Pussy gave me a cold stare. I hope so Sana’s mother didn’t see.

Zahra said how nice it was that the winter had finally come. Didn’t they think that the summer had been unusually long this year?

“No,” said Aunty Pussy.

Zahra laughed and said it must be her imagination then.

“Yes,” said Aunty Pussy.

I asked the sister who was sitting beside me, what her name was.

“Noor,” she said. “I’m eleven. I’m in Class 6 at New Dawn School. Do you have any children?”

“Yes. One. He’s fifteen.”

“What’s his favourite subject at school?”

“I think so he likes doing computers best.”

“Mine’s art. Like my Ammi’s. She’s an artist, you know. She painted all these.” Noor nodded at the pictures on the walls.

Zahra shook her head. “Thank you, darling, but I’m no artist. I just put these up to cover the walls. Actually I’m an art teacher,” she said to us.

“Where do you teach?” asked Mummy.

“New Dawn School. The Gulberg branch.”

“I know the owner,” said Aunty Pussy. “Zeenat Kuraishi. One of my closest friends.”

Haw
, look at Aunty Pussy. What a show-offer. And liar also, I’m sorry to say.

“Mrs. Kuraishi’s been very kind to me,” said Zahra. “When Noor was little she suffered from bad asthma and I had to take time off school whenever she was ill, which was often. But not once did Mrs. Kuraishi dock my salary or put any pressure on me. She knew my circumstances and was endlessly understanding.”

“You can always tell people from a good family,” sniffed Aunty Pussy.

“And now Mrs. K. is making Ammi headmistress,” said Noor. “She will have her own office with air conditioner. And a secretary also.”

“Shush,” laughed Sana.

The maid came in with drinks. It was freshly squeezed pomegranate juice. Aunty Pussy sighed as she took hers, as if she was being offered medicine. I took a small sip of mine. It was cold and sweet in a sharpish way. Better than I expected.
At least they know how to make juice, I thought. When the maid left I asked Sana how her friend—Shabnam’s daughter—was doing since her die-vorce. Sana said that she was quite shaken up and a bit depress also, but that was only to be expected. To have such a talk-of-the-town wedding and then such a public die-vorce must be very difficult.

“If people are going to rush into unsuitable marriages without looking left or right,” said Aunty Pussy heavily, “they should prepare themselves for disasters.”

There was a short silence after that and then Sana’s mother said how lovely it had been to meet Jonkers and what a sensitive and generous man he was and how proud Aunty Pussy must be of him.

“He brought Sana all these flowers,” said Noor. “And a big slab of Toblerone for me. Biggest I’ve ever seen.”

Aunty Pussy looked as if she’d been stabbed. “Unfortunately, he’s always wasted money. Doesn’t know with what difficulty it is made.”

Sana turned red—or as red anyone can get if they are darkish—but she didn’t say anything.

Mummy quickly asked Zahra how long she had worked at Zeenat’s school.

“Seven years. Ever since my husband passed away.”

“Jonkers told me your husband died in a car accident,” I said.

“Yes,” replied Zahra. “He was driving back from Multan. It was late at night. He crashed into a tree. After all these years, I still can’t understand how it happened. He was such a careful
driver. Either he must have swerved to avoid some unexpected object on the road or he must have fallen asleep at the wheel.” Her voice wobbled a bit.

Noor got up from besides me and went and sat next to her mother. She put her hand on her mother’s knee. Zahra covered it with her own.

“Noor must have been very small then,” I said.

“She was four,” said Zahra.

“Big age difference between your daughters,” said Mummy.

Zahra nodded. “My husband wanted a big family but after Sana was born I wasn’t able to conceive again. We were disappointed but accepted, eventually, that it was not to be. In any case, Sana was everything we could have wished for,” she smiled at Sana, “and more. But then suddenly after eighteen years, along came Noor. We were thrilled. My husband used to call her his bonus.”

“You must have been quite old then,” said Aunty Pussy.

Honestly! If I’d been Zahra, I’d have said not as old as you are, ji. But she just laughed.

“Yes, I was forty-three. I couldn’t believe it myself.”

“You must have been very embarrassed, your mother giving birth when you were so old?” Aunty Pussy said to Sana.

“Not at all,” Sana replied, coldly. “It was what I wanted more than anything else. To have a brother or a sister.”

I got up. “Excuse me, can I go to the toilet?”

“I’ll take you.” Noor jumped up.

She led me down a tight little corridor to a twin bedroom. “This is Ammi’s and my room. Sana Apa, she has her own. All
to herself. Bathroom’s there.” She pointed to a door leading off it. “Shall I wait for you?”

“Thanks, but no need. I’ll be back in a minute.”

So no guest powder room even.

After Noor had gone I had a good look around the bedroom. It was same as sitting room. Very clean and tidy but nothing expensive anywhere. No flat-screen TV, no silk curtains, no wooden floor, no Persian rug, no velvet sofa. Old window-type AC instead of new split-types we all have in our homes. The beds were covered with cotton blue-and-white bedspreads that matched the curtains. Both were faded and old-looking. On one bed—I think so must be Noor’s—was a raggedy teddy bear.

One whole wall was covered with shelves filled from top to toe with books. Not hardback expensive books like Janoo’s but tattery paperbacks, like you can buy from the second-hand stalls on the footpaths of Anarkali bazaar. The other wall had framed photos all over it. I went up to the photos wall. On top were the oldish ones, with faded colours and people in past-it fashions.

Zahra dressed as a bride, smiling shyly at her groom. He, with longish nose and darkish face, turbaned and in a
sherwani
, his head thrown back and laughing. A young-looking Zahra, with long, loose hair looking down at a baby (must be Sana only) in her arms. A teenaged Sana, skinny and in glasses, receiving some prize at school. Sana, still skinny and still in glasses, dressed in white PE uniform with a racket in one hand and a silver cup in the other, posing stiffly. The father—in
pant-shirt—standing besides her, a hand on her shoulder. Father now with greyish hair, carrying a baby girl on his shoulders. The girl guggling and pulling the father’s hair in her fat fists. The whole family on a picnic—Noor, a toddler now, in her mother’s lap, Sana sitting next to her father, her legs drawn up, scowling at the camera. A child’s birthday party—must be Noor’s only—with Sana and her father in paper hats eating off the same plate.

And then, near the bottom of the wall, there’s no more father. A little Noor, wearing a too-big school frock, with a satchel across her chest, clutching Sana’s hand. Probably Noor’s first day at school. I have a photo like that of Kulchoo at home. Janoo holds his one hand and I hold the other. A slightly older Noor in white PE uniform holding a silver cup with Sana smiling proudly by her side. Noor, Sana, and Zahra on a beach with palm trees in the bagground. This must be the holiday Sana told me about at her office, because all are looking same like they do now. Noor and Sana, in swimsuits and wet hair, giggling, but Zahra looking away, out to the sea.

I sat down on a bed. It was the one with the teddy. One of the teddy’s eyes was missing and one ear was all patchy-patchy as if the fur had been rubbed off. As I sat there with the teddy in my lap, something happened to me. You know how when you see a picture in a magazine and you think it’s just a tree but when you hold the picture away and look at it again you realize that there’s the face of a woman hidden inside it? The lower branches are her chin and jaw and the upper branches are her forehead and that row of leaves are her
eyebrows and this line of leaves are her lips and the shaggy leaves at the top are her hair and the tree trunk is her neck. And once you see the picture like that, I mean you see the face hidden inside, you can’t see the tree any more, even if you try? It was bit like that for me with Sana and her family. In the bedroom I began to see them differently. Not as Aunty Pussy wanted me to see them but as Jonkers saw them.

And I realized what Janoo told me when my accident-type thing happened with the
jihadi
is right—things come and go. But people, once they go, they don’t come back. They just leave a hole. The father had left a hole in the lives of the people in this house. But Sana was doing her best to fill that hole for her mother and sister. And without doing any look-at-me-what-a-heroine-I-am drama. Jonkers was right—she was brave and feasty and loving. She was the kind of girl you wanted on your side when you got into a fight at school. Because she would stand by you, and no matter how many girls you were up against, she would fight for you and if you lost the fight, then she would comfort you and tell you that it didn’t matter and make you laugh and forget your fight. Jonkers had chosen well. Sana would make him a good partner. She would make him feel that, whatever happened, she would be there for him. Like Janoo is for me.

When I came back to the sitting room, tea was being given. Noor, looking like she was going to burst into tears any minute, was passing plates around and a stone-faced Zahra was pouring out the tea. Sana was sitting on the edge of her seat, her back ram-road straight, her hands gripping
the chair’s seat. Mummy was looking down at her hands. Aunty Pussy, in her cheetah print polyester suit and her backcombed maroon hair, was the only one who looked pleased with herself. She was relaxing in her armchair, hundred per cent easy. At once I knew Aunty Pussy had said something bad. I told you,
na
, that I have a sick-sense. Also I know what Aunty Pussy’s like.

“Ooh, is that tea?” I said. “Can I have a cup?”

“Of course,” said Zahra. “Do you take sugar?”

“One, please. Thank you, Noor. These sandwiches, they look so yummy. I bet you made them!”

“No,” she giggled. “Ammi did. But I helped her with mixing the cake mix.”

“Then I must try some of that also.”

Aunty Pussy looked at me and frowned slightly. I ignored.

“Mmm, so light! Better even than Masoom Bakery’s.”

Aunty Pussy’s head snivelled around at me. She gave me a glare. Let her. I damn cared.

“Jonkers—we call Jehangir Jonkers at home,
na
—he hasn’t stopped talking about your hospitality, Zahra Apa,” I said. “Now I know why.”

There was a strange choking-type sound from Aunty Pussy’s side but I didn’t bother looking. Mummy also gave a small cough but her also I ignored.

“Has Sana told you, Zahra Apa, that I went to meet her at her office with Jonkers? Haw, Aunty Pussy, did I forget to mention to you? Imagine! How absent-minded I’ve become. What a fab office. And her desk. Bigger and higher than
anybody else. And so many people working under her also. You must be
so
proud of her, Zahra Apa.”

“I am.
Very
proud of her,” said Zahra, looking straight at Aunty Pussy.

Aunty Pussy put her cup down with a thud. “We have to be going now—”

“I’m having my tea still, Aunty.” I made no move to get up. Nor was I going to.

“Finish quickly. I have to be getting home.”

“Why?” I asked. “What’s the rush?”

“Kaukab is at home,” she snapped. As if he ever goes out anywhere.

“He’ll be fine, Pussy,” said Mummy. Aunty Pussy gave her a killer look. Good. Mummy was moving to my side also. About time.

And then Mummy said to Sana, “What do you do,
beta
?”

“I run a travel agency.”

“Must be lot of responsibility and hard work also,” said Mummy.

“She works ver
-ry
hard,” said Noor. “Goes in the morning and doesn’t come home till the evenings. Sometimes she gets so late that Mummy and I, we get so worried, we wait at the gate. Mummy says we mustn’t call, because she is probably busy. But on Sundays we have fun, don’t we, Apa? We go swimming and we play tennis and carom and watch movies and—”

“Swimming? Tennis?
Here?
” Aunty Pussy looked unbelievably around the small room as if Noor had said they shoot Bollywood films there every Sunday.

“Obviously not in this room, Pussy,” said Mummy.

“My late husband was a member of Punjab Club,” said Zahra. “After he passed away I applied for membership. It was our one luxury but I was determined not to give it up. It was what my husband would have wanted. He was very sporty himself and encouraged the girls to do lots of sport.”