‘A lassi stand. I’m going to set one up right here,’ Yasmin declared. ‘I’ll mint millions.’
‘Right here? In the middle of the racecourse stands? Excellent idea. And how do you think Ali will react to being married to the Lassi Lassie?’ Zafar asked, fanning Yasmin with his newspaper.
‘Oh, that’s heaven, Zaf, thanks. Ali is not one of those Neanderthal men who expect their wives to stay at home. Done the crossword yet?’
‘No. You like crosswords? Is that Neanderthal comment a swipe at me? What makes you think I’d want Maheen to stay at home?’
‘It’s not about what you want, Zafar, it’s what Maheen wants that matters.’
Zafar tried to work out exactly what he’d said that was so objectionable. Hard to tell with Yasmin. Ever since that time she’d rebuffed him in the Nasreen Room he’d been too aware that he frequently misread her. For a moment he stopped to wonder how different things might have been if she had responded with more warmth to his suggestion. Impossible to imagine. Already it seemed a lifetime ago, and he honestly couldn’t remember why it was that when Ali had reintroduced him to Maheen and Yasmin, both of whom he’d known only vaguely before Oxford, he’d looked longer and with more interest at Yasmin. ‘I always manage to irritate you, don’t I? Even when I’m in complete agreement with you. I really wish you liked me more.’
Yasmin looked at him, surprised. ‘I don’t dislike you. But you were a bastard to me once and I haven’t quite forgotten it.’
‘Me? When? I would never… What did I do?’
Yasmin shook her head. What was she doing? It could only do harm to revisit the past, particularly when he was wearing the same black shirt — why did he always have to wear black, even in the heat of Karachi’s days, and why did he always have to look so good in it? She gripped her finger with its engagement ring. And more important than that, why did she still have to entertain these thoughts about this…boy, when every day she learnt something new about Ali, and every day felt more strongly than the day before how lucky the two of them were to have found themselves alone on that balcony on Asif’s farm. ‘Never mind. Nothing. I’m just joking. Oh look, there’s Anwar.’ She pointed out the curly-haired man on the other side of the racecourse stands. ‘Poor Anwar and Dolly. There can’t be anything worse than the death of a child.’
‘Rumour is, it wasn’t a stray bullet at all.’ Zafar looked at his watch. ‘Where are Maheen and Ali? The race is about to begin.’ Below, the horses were being led on to the track.
‘Oh, rumours are all the rage these days,’ Yasmin replied, relieved he’d changed the subject. ‘Just heard one that the fat cats are going to have the National Assembly building in East Pakistan bombed; that way work on it will never be completed and the National Assembly will never convene and Mujib will never become PM. You don’t really believe what they say about the shooting, do you? How could Dolly and Anwar continue living where they do if that were true?’
‘Speaking of rumours, I think we’re going to start one if the two of us are seen alone at the races.’ He smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back. Was that an inappropriate comment, Zafar wondered. He hastened to return to the earlier subject of conversation. ‘I hear Dolly wants to move. But Anwar’s been acting so strangely. They say he still hasn’t shed a tear about the whole thing. And look who he’s sitting down with. Here, look through the binoculars. See him? With a bunch of your aforementioned fat cats. He’s been avoiding all his old friends since the…since. Only ever see him now with the kind of people who should make anyone sick.’
‘Maybe they’re all talking about bombing the National Assembly.’
‘Probably talking about Bhutto’s little speech yesterday.’ He drummed his fingers on the newspaper headlines.
‘Revolution from the Khyber to Karachi if the NA convenes without him. It would be nice to dismiss that as rhetoric. Some nights I can’t sleep for terror.’ If this is how I feel, Yasmin thought, how must Maheen feel, a Bengali living in West Pakistan? And every day someone new seemed to succumb to the madness that was sweeping the country, someone new said things that defied all understanding, and it was hard to say which were worse: the people who stopped dead, mid-sentence, as soon as Maheen entered the room, or the ones who kept on talking.
‘The race really is about to begin now,’ Zafar said. No escape from talk about it, not even here at the racecourse with Yasmin. It was a physical ache, this burden of trying to be some kind of refuge for Maheen; every day more comments to deflect, ignore, make light of. In the beginning it was easy enough: hell, it came naturally. But now, oh God, now… ‘Where are they?’ He looked at his watch again. ‘Ali was supposed to pick her up half an hour ago.’
‘Do you think there’s been some kind of trouble?’
Don’t think about it, don’t start believing it. ‘What, the start of revolution?’
‘I’m serious, Zafar. Maheen should get out of the country. Something could happen.’
Zafar looked down at his hands. ‘Any good at palmistry, Yasmin?’
Yasmin put a hand on his shoulder. This was not a voice she’d heard from him before. ‘I don’t believe in fate. Why?’
‘I want to know if it’ll tell me where I’m going to live.’ After that day at Ampi’s when Laila’s husband slapped the waiter, he’d told Maheen they should leave. Get married straight away and move to London. He had wanted more than anything for her to say ‘no’, and she had, but he wasn’t sure if that was because she meant it or because she saw how desperately he wanted that ‘no’. Leave Karachi! Zafar shook his head at the thought. Leave home.
‘Karachi’s home to both of you,’ Yasmin said.
Zafar felt nauseous. Of course it was. And yet, when he mentioned moving he’d thought that would mean leaving home for him, and leaving what was rapidly becoming enemy territory for Maheen. But this was her home, too. How could he have forgotten that? But he had. Not for a second, or an hour, but for days, for weeks. He hadn’t even realized his own mistake until now. He covered his eyes with his hands. How insidiously this madness spread. God, when did things get so complicated?
‘Race about to begin.’ Yasmin nudged him.
Zafar sat up and tried to focus on the course below. ‘My Two’s looking jumpy.’
‘Why can’t racehorses have names like… Oh, false start!’
‘Falstaff? For a racehorse? Oh, I see… No, listen, Maheen will be fine. We’ll all be fine.’ He said it again. ‘We’ll all be fine.’
‘Unless rumours get around about the two of us spotted out in public without our fiancées.’ She nudged him again, and laughed. ‘What will my parents say?’
‘As if you care. They’re off!’
Hoofs pounded, jockeys’ colours were misted in dust, and at the end of it all Zafar slumped back in disgust.
‘I thought he was your favourite?’
‘He is. That makes it more frustrating that I don’t bet.’ A thought was beginning to worm forward from the back of his mind. ‘Hang on. That time I asked you out and you said your parents wouldn’t approve.’
‘Long time ago, Zaf.’
‘Not that long. Just long enough that I didn’t know you well enough to know the comment was absurd.’
‘Bygones, Zaf.’
He scratched his head. ‘You could just have said no straight out. I wouldn’t have pushed.’