She had apologized, as had I, within seconds of that comment, but we both knew that there was no taking back or forgetting her use of ‘your lot’.
The second sign of stress getting to her had occurred shortly after that, when Karim and Zia dropped in, and Karim asked her if her fiancé was cutting short his London trip. Sonia wrapped the end of her dupatta round her hand and pulled the fabric so tight I could see the imprint of her veins against the block-printed material. ‘I haven’t spoken to him. So many people calling here, the line’s always busy and it’s impossible to get through. Also, I think he’s visiting friends in one of those English towns with unnecessary letters in their names and I don’t have the number. It’s possible he hasn’t even heard.’
‘It must be strange to know what to say to him,’ I said, haltingly, hoping that pauses between words would pass as tact. Tactful people never spoke as quickly as I generally did. ‘I mean, since it’s an arranged marriage—’
‘Arrafection,’ she said. ‘Started as arranged, but ended up as affection. More than affection.’
About her airport ordeal, she hadn’t said a thing.
If I’d been the sort of friend I wanted to be, I would be thinking only of Sonia, but my thoughts couldn’t help returning to the awkwardness between Karim and me that had started on the drive from the pool back to Sonia’s, both of us near mute the entire journey. I had hoped we were just overloaded from all the emotions of the day and everything would be a little better after a night’s sleep, but if anything things were worse when we met at Sonia’s this morning; he had hardly been able to meet my eye when he said hello and neither of us had directly addressed a question or comment to the other the entire time we sat, mere feet apart, in Sonia’s TV room. My head still hurt from trying to understand what was going on.
Aunty Laila put a hand on my shoulder. Are you with us, darling? You’re not upset about how I’m talking about your friend’s father, are you? You know that’s just the way I am. Don’t you?’
Before I could answer, the phone rang and Aunty Laila’s hand lifted off my shoulder, made the most graceful of arcs through the air without the slightest sign of haste, her rings catching the light at an angle that maximized their sparkle, and picked up the phone before it had completed its second ring.
‘Runty, sweets!’ Aunty Laila cooed down the phone, her voice entirely at odds with the exaggerated grimaces of distaste that contorted her face. I went to the kitchen to find some chutney for the pakoras, and when I came back Aunty Laila was recounting the tale of Sonia’s father to Runty. ‘…But the guards were illiterate Pathans, so…’
I said, ‘Why is the phrase “illiterate Pathan” the one constant in every variant of the story? As if he would have been any more capable of deciphering words if he were an illiterate Punjabi or Muhajir.’ I threw it out as though it were a question about semantics, but really I wished I were old enough to talk to Aunty Laila as an equal and say, do you know what you reveal about yourself, and what you perpetuate with such stupidity? I’ve heard you talk about ethnicity, heard it when I was thirteen; it was you and Uncle Asif who first taught me how we can look at our friends and reduce them from individuals to members of some group that our group is at odds with. You made me learn how to derail or diffuse conversations when they headed down certain tracks just so I wouldn’t have to feel that disgust, that disappointment, that still turns my stomach today.
‘Well said, Raheen,’ Aba applauded.
‘Come on, Zafar,’ said Uncle Asif, waggling his finger at Aba. ‘I know what you want to say. If he were a Muhajir there’s a far greater chance he would have been literate.’
My hand, reaching for another pakora, froze. What had I gone and started?
Aba shrugged. ‘Well, yes, that’s simple statistics. The literacy rate of Muhajirs is higher than that of other ethnic groups. I’m not saying this is the way it has to be because of some genetic reason, I’m just saying this is the way it is.’
Uncle Asif laughed. ‘Poor Karachiites. Living in this spacious, clean, city in ’47 when — whap! — Partition happens and all these immigrants come streaming across the new border, convinced of the superiority of their culture, and whisk away all the best jobs from Sindhis who’d been living here for generations. I’m speaking as a disinterested third party, of course.’
My father laughed even louder than Uncle Asif had. ‘I’ll let the disinterested bit go for the moment, Asif. But what I won’t sit back and pretend to be unaware of is your obliviousness to the fact that Muhajirs came here leaving everything behind. Our homes, our families, our ways of life. We can’t be blamed if some — mind you, some—of us came from areas with education systems that made us qualified for office jobs instead of latrine-cleaning, which is the kind of job you seem to think immigrants should be grateful for. And as for that term immigrants…’
He never attacked anyone else, but my father could defend his own with a startling fervour. If he wasn’t Muhajir would he feel their grievances as strongly? If I wasn’t his daughter, would I still believe that his views were justified? What did I really know about rural Sindh, after all? Nothing. Too confusing to accept that the aggrieved could also be the aggressors. Too difficult to untangle the mess of a situation in which there weren’t clear-cut rights and wrongs.
‘Oh, now who’s forgetting history! Muhajirs loved being called Muhajirs. Loved the religious connotation of that word, linking them to the Muslims of Mecca who immigrated to Medina with the Prophet. It wasn’t that you weren’t welcome — it’s just that you would have died rather than be absorbed.’
I could tell Aunty Laila was following this conversation closely, her eyes narrowing unpleasantly, though she still managed to continue her conversation with Aunty Runty at the same time.
My father nodded. ‘I must have heard my parents say a thousand times “we came here to be Pakistani, not to be Sindhi”. I won’t deny there was an attitude of entitlement. I won’t even deny there’s still an attitude of cultural superiority, and I’m not defending that in any way. But, Asif, even if we put aside the political marginalization — I know you’ll scoff at the term, so let’s not go into that for the moment — this quota system is wreaking such havoc on the Muhajirs who have the education and the ambition…’
I thought of the car thief. Hundreds of thousands like him in Karachi.
‘…and couple that with the police brutality, Asif, and you’re driving people to the point when they’ll pick up guns and detonate bombs.’ He took a breath. ‘I’m not denying that the rural parts of this province have their grievances…’
Aunty Laila put down the phone and turned to Aba. ‘Aren’t you? You really pretend to have an objective view of things, Zafar; but scratch the surface and that’s one hundred per cent Muhajir blood that pours out, isn’t it?’
‘That’s a pretty violent image,’ Ami said. ‘Friends don’t scratch friends, Laila. And just in case you’ve forgotten, I’m not one hundred per cent anything. There’s a good dose of illiterate Pathan blood zipping around my veins.’
Aunty Laila squeezed Ami’s shoulder. ‘You’re right, darling. I’m sorry.’ She twirled towards the two men. ‘Stop bickering and say something charming to me. Zafar, don’t you think my hair colour is fetching? See, when I stand in the sunlight, it has an aubergine tint. Not eggplant or brinjal or baing’n. Aubergine, with that sexy “zh” sound in the last syllable.’
‘Zzhhhhh,’ Aba purred at her, and she threw him the burlesque of a kiss. In my relief, I stirred an extra spoon of sugar into my tea without really noticing what I was doing.