Asia Literary Review No. 26, Winter 2014

No. 26, Winter 2014

No. 26, Winter 2014

Publisher Greater Talent Limited /Asia Literary Publishing Director and Editor in Chief Martin Alexander Director: Business and Finance Phillip Kim Senior Editors Justin Hill, Michael Vatikiotis, Zheng Danyi Poetry Editor Reid Mitchell Consulting Editors Peter Koenig Robin Hemley Design and Production Steffan Leyshon-Jones Proofs Shirley Lee Front Cover Image © Asia Literary Review Back Cover Image © Asia Literary Review The Asia Literary Review is published by Greater Talent Limited 2/F 3 Sha Po New Village, Lamma Island, Hong Kong. asialiteraryreview.com Subscriptions@AsiaLiteraryReview.Com Submissions@AsiaLiteraryReview.Com Editor@AsiaLiteraryReview.Com Editorial@AsiaLiteraryReview.Com Sales@AsiaLiteraryReview.Com Advertising: Admin@AsiaLiteraryReview.Com Extract from Nothing Gained printed with kind permission of Penguin China.

Extract from Karachi Raj with kind permission of HarperCollins India “Eid in Oghi”, from Alternative Realities: Love in the Lives of Muslim Women, with kind permission from Tranquebar Press, India.

Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro Printed by CPI ISBN: 978 988 16596 1 3 Individual contents ©2014 the contributors/Greater Talent Limited This compilation ©2014 Greater Talent Limited

Contents From the Editor

7

Fiction 15

Flowers Will Fall Like Rain Ann Tashi Slater

61

Nothing Gained Phillip Kim

71

Karachi Raj Anis Shivani

99

A Case of Penetration Michael Vatikiotis

From Now On Everything Will Be Different

107

Eliza Vitri Handayani

121

Porcelain Girl Cheng Yong, translated by Brian Holton

139

The Conjuror of Divinity Dipika Mukherjee

191

Parlour Phoebe Tsang

3

Poetry The Lost Sonnet of Don Lambodar

14

Romesh Gunesekera

22

The Skull Zhu Jian, translated by Liang Yujing

The West Garden Girl

34

The Wandering Songstress

35

Alexis Marie

For the Master Alchemist

55

Boudoir Resentment

56

On a winter’s night I wrote this poem for Wen Ting Yun

57

Matching poem for my new neighbour to the west

58

Elegy for Another’s Wife

59

A poem in reply

60

Yu Xuanji, translated by Justin Hill

70

Eavesdrop Lady Flor N. Partosa

Tanglin Halt

97

After the Fire

98

Yong Shu Hoong

106

Corpse Flower ko ko thett

Auraji River

118

Seeing Again the Whistle in My Childhood Whistling

119

My Absent Baby with Scissors Is Like Cutting the Sunshine

120

Kim Kyung-ju, translated by Jake Levine and Jung Hi-yeon

The Empress Dowager Cixi-to-be Andrew Barker

4

138

159

Spring Fever Shanta Acharya

190

Salmon Said Surrender Kathleen Hellen

The Day We Went Strawberry Picking in Scarborough

203

Ranu Uniyal

Non-Fiction 9

Sister Philomena’s Veil Kavita A. Jindal

The Whore as a Filipino Metaphor

23

Maria Carmen A. Sarmiento

The Secret Happy Life of Uncle Renfeng

37

Fan Dai

161

Eid in Oghi Nighat Gandhi

Review Sex and the Citadel by Shereen El Feki

204

Alisha Haridasani

Contributors

207

5

From the Editor

S

ome things never change. Relentlessly lovely or fiercely intractable, they are fixtures that command our attention. The majesty and mystery of nature will always draw us towards it. No matter how repressed or destitute they may be, people will always strive for their dreams and the freedom to make them real. We hope that well-chosen words will always wield more enduring might than the sword. Not only can they rouse a crowd to action – they can also help us make sense of the unfathomable.

Other things have no option but to change. For them, it’s evolution or death. To stand still is to fall backwards.

Since the inception of the Asia Literary Review a decade ago, “change” has been a defining catchword for Asia. Once a follower of Western powers, the continent now drives much of the global narrative. China is minting millionaires more quickly than any other nation. Within a decade, the PRC may even eclipse the US in the number of such one-percenters. Political and social leaders from around the world increasingly court the favour of the region’s leadership. Naturally, such rapid transformation has not been without costs. Every country from Pakistan to Japan has endured spasms of upheaval brought on by political change, self-doubt or loss of identity.

Meanwhile, no industry has been more disrupted by new technologies than the media, where the cycle of critical change has long since ceased to be measured in years or months, but rather in nanoseconds. As the span of an individual’s attention has contracted, so the way the world consumes media has altered beyond recognition.

As we officially re-launch the Asia Literary Review, after a two-year hiatus and under new ownership, we find ourselves positioned at the busy 7

From the Editor

intersection of these disparate forces. Ours is a privileged but precarious vantage point. We need to see and be seen. We need to be in the thick of things, but to avoid being crushed by the heavy stuff that barrels our way.

Accordingly, we have redesigned our core offering. Our quarterly magazine survives, but primarily in e-form. By focusing more on digital delivery than on hard copies, we can offer dynamic and timely material to a much wider readership. We can develop a package that will increasingly exploit the potential of multimedia, supplementing the well-written word with video and audio. Between the quarterly e-magazines, we will use our website to give a refreshing literary voice to issues of the day as they emerge. In the past few months, our contributors have written pieces about the recent Indonesian elections, the Thai coup d’état, the death of prominent Burmese poet U Win Tin and, most recently, the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. In posting engaging and relevant content, we have achieved a truly global reach.

In this issue of the Asia Literary Review, we reflect on how Asia is constantly bombarded by forces – both foreign and from within – that influence its shape and dimensions.

Digging up and putting a price on the past is a theme in Cheng Yong’s Porcelain Girl – and getting that price wrong has its price, too. Nighat Gandhi and Maria Carmen A. Sarmiento dig into the intimacies of identity in Pakistan and the Philippines, while Michael Vatikiotis presents us with a macabre prospect of what intimacy might mean in the future. Memoir opens up the past for Fan Dai and Kavita A. Jindal, and the eternal themes of faith, death and transformation make compelling reading in our eclectic – and electric – selection of poetry.

There has always been much for a pan-Asian literary magazine to cover.

In reinvigorating ourselves, we at the Asia Literary Review are aware that our tread needs to be light yet firm, quick yet deliberate. We strive to combine the successful elements of our past with the realities of a very different future.

In this way we reflect Asia itself, pressing ahead with enormous promise, but aware that it must not untether itself from the traditions and richness of culture that have endured for millennia.

Martin Alexander

Phillip Kim

8

Sister Philomena’s Veil Kavita A. Jindal

‘I

will catch you today, Sister Philomena,’ I called to the youthful nun running away from me. ‘I will catch you.’

Sister Philomena disappeared into the courtyard that fronted the boarding house. We’d barely finished choosing the teams and tossing the coin that made my team the catchers and hers the vanishers, and she’d raced off already. The girls in her team streamed out behind her, yelling, ‘Find me if you can! Catch me if you can!’ leaving me in the arched corridor with my team. ‘You go for the others,’ I said to the eight girls who surrounded me, heads bent forward for my instructions. ‘I’m going to catch Sister Philomena.’

‘But you can’t,’ they said. ‘She’s the fastest. No one can catch Sister Philomena.’

There were many things we girls said about Sister Philomena. We spoke with the conviction of very young children. I was seven. The girls in my team that day were aged six to eight. ‘Sister Philomena is the youngest’ is what we said. That was probably true. We could only see her face and her hands – everything else, including most of her forehead, was covered by her white habit – and her face was clearly young compared to the other sisters at St Joseph’s convent. Her nature was childlike too. She was the only one who deigned to play with us before the bell rang for dinner. Our favourite game and hers, too, was “Catch”. We all wanted to be in her team because her team never lost. She could outrun us all.

‘Sister Philomena is the nicest.’ She didn’t mock us or get cross. She was sweet to everyone. ‘Sister Philomena is the darkest.’ Well, that was 9

Sister Philomena’s Veil

true too. In a convent of mostly European nuns she was one of the few Indian novices.

All the girls who boarded at this convent in the Nilgiri hills were Indian. It was the early 1970s and colonial expatriate families were almost extinct. Many of the girls sent to St Joseph’s were from Catholic families while a minority belonged to other religions. In the classrooms, contained in a separate building in the grounds, the boarders mingled with children from local families and with teachers of other religions who originated from other parts of the country. But in the boarding house we were looked after exclusively by the nuns. ‘Sister Philomena is funny.’ That’s because we had never seen any of the other nuns running.

That evening I found myself captaining the opposing team to hers. The last time we’d played “Catch” with her, a few days before, I’d felt myself come up close to her as I chased her and I almost touched her. I’d felt my legs pumping along at the same pace as hers; I’d almost had her arm in my grasp before she bent and darted away, the hem of her long white dress flying out at odd angles as she ran against the fabric.

I stepped out into the yard. The girls in her team had dispersed into clusters all around the convent and were out of view. But in plain, taunting sight, albeit at a distance, Sister Philomena was standing still on the lawn at the side of the boarding house. The sun was low in the sky on the other side of the building and its long shadows made the grass grey. I started walking towards the lawn. I would sprint when I was close to her and it would be too late for her to return in a straight line to the yard.

‘Sister Philomena is my favourite nun in the world.’ I had announced this the previous week to Sister Heather, with whom I’d begun to take piano lessons. Sister Heather was from England. She was gentle. The expression she wore was that of someone who was about to smile at a secret. You felt you could confide in her, you could tell her anything and she wouldn’t get prim-lipped like Mother Francesca and she wouldn’t glare like Sister Jeanne.

When Sister Heather played the piano I looked at her hands. Sister Heather’s face and hands had exactly the same texture: fine papery skin with a light crisscrossing of wrinkles. She’d been singing ‘Here we go, up 10

Kavita A. Jindal

a row…’ and at my remark about Sister Philomena she’d lifted her slim fingers from the keys and she’d laughed. She always laughed properly, not a stifled grunt. ‘You haven’t seen the world,’ she said to me, a curious waver in her voice. ‘You haven’t even been outside the southern states, have you?’

‘I have. I was born in Delhi, up north. And my family now lives in Kerala. I’ve been to many places.’

‘You haven’t been outside India.’ Sister Heather hummed something to herself. ‘India is not the world, although it could be.’ She smiled broadly but as at a private joke. ‘Remember to say: “Sister Philomena is my favourite nun at St. Joseph’s.” That’s enough. Don’t bring in the world, child. And remember not to . . . ’ but then she shook her head and didn’t give me any instruction. She made a smoothing movement on her legs to remind me to draw the folds of my skirt down to my knees. She began singing again: ‘Here we go, up a row, to a birthday party,’ and she indicated that I should play the piece.

I hadn’t told Sister Heather why Sister Philomena was my favourite nun. It was not because she could run so fast or that she was young and played with us. It was not because she had a bubbly personality. It was because she was kind, and especially so to me.

Two weeks earlier one of the boarders, a girl in my class, had celebrated her eighth birthday. Mother Francesca had swept into the dining room in her portly way and presented the girl with a minuscule gold crucifix hanging on a thread-like gold chain. Mother Francesca had delivered some incantation in her native Italian, then reminded us in English of Jesus and our blessings, mumbled about the founding Sister, and finally clasped the chain ceremoniously around the girl’s neck as the rest of us gathered around exclaiming at its delicate beauty.

‘You will all receive this on your birthday,’ explained Mother Francesca.

‘I’m next!’ I was excited. ‘My birthday’s next month.’

But even as I spoke a frown crossed Mother Francesca’s brow. ‘Oh, child,’ she said, ‘that’s right, your birthday’s next month, but I won’t be giving you a golden cross.’

‘Has she been naughty?’ someone piped up.

‘No . . . or not too naughty.’ Mother Francesca spoke slowly, ‘But she’s not a Christian. Only the Christian girls will receive this gift from the convent.’

11

Sister Philomena’s Veil

I was crestfallen, but not silent. I had not learnt to heed the nuns’ admonishments: ‘You chatter too much; you don’t think before you speak; you must not jump in when others are speaking; you speak too rapidly, you’re not an express train . . .’

It would be perhaps fifteen years before I learnt to keep shut.

I launched into an argument with an uncomfortable Mother Francesca.

‘At the special service at the chapel last week,’ I said, ‘I was chosen to be the angel. I was chosen to stand at the altar holding the candle. Just me. With silver wings. I was chosen so I must be Christian as well as Sikh.’

Mother Francesca’s thin lips disappeared for an instant. Then she said, ‘You were the angel because you’re the prettiest,’ and she made it sound like a misdemeanour. ‘But you’re not Christian and I can’t give you a crucifix.’

She left in a brisk waddle.

I turned away from the birthday girl and ran to the dormitory where I sat on my bed kicking at its wooden legs. Sister Philomena came in and tapped my knee to make me stop. ‘Don’t be too upset,’ she said.

I put my head in my pillow to hide tears. ‘If you promise to be a good girl,’ she continued, ‘I’ll give you a similar necklace. When you leave St Joseph’s.’

I lifted my head.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A nice one. With a bigger pendant.’

Sister Philomena wore a large silver cross on a thick black thread.

‘I don’t want a big necklace.’ I was petulant. ‘I want a tiny, tiny gold cross, like Mother Francesca gives out.’

‘It’ll be just the same,’ Sister Philomena reassured me. ‘Now don’t worry about it anymore. I’ll keep one for you and when you leave, I’ll give it to you.’

When I reached the long grey shadows on the grass I began to run full tilt at Sister Philomena. The light in the sky was fading fast. There were only minutes to go before the bell went and we would have to line up in the cold corridor to march to the dining room. ‘I’m going to catch her,’ I thought. ‘We’ll win! My team will win!’

I saw her white veil begin to flap as she weaved left and then right to make me stop and change my path. I charged straight on, feeling sure of myself, aware of a sudden power in my legs. ‘When I catch her, it will be the first time that Sister Philomena’s team has lost.’

12

Kavita A. Jindal

I made a last strong dash as I neared her. She turned to the right to evade me, swift as ever, but I lunged for her as she went past, the veil a sheet blowing in the wind, my hands grasping at the billowing fabric, my fingers catching a fold as I fell to the ground, my face rubbing into the wet grass. After a moment, I raised my head and then my hand. I was holding her veil. ‘You’re out,’ I yelled.

Sister Philomena was walking very slowly towards me to retrieve her veil. She walked as if each step hurt. A dumbstruck silence had fallen.

There was black wiry stubble on Sister Philomena’s scalp. I stared. I had not realised till that moment that the nuns shaved their heads.

‘Bald!’ The high voice of a six-year-old girl broke the silence.

Another high voice said, ‘Look at Sister Philomena’s head. Look!’

It was obvious none of the younger girls had seen the shaven head of a nun. The giggling started in one quarter but then it spread from one clutch of girls to another till all fourteen were tittering.

From the courtyard, two nuns came hurrying towards me, to the scene of Sister Philomena’s shame. I must have looked as if I’d been injured; I was still lying flat on the ground with just my head raised up and my arm with the snatched veil outstretched. I was watching each sluggish step Sister Philomena was taking towards me.

Several little arms were pointing at her now. ‘Ugly,’ someone called out.

She did look strange in the waning light with her big lips, small black eyes, slightly-moustached upper lip and her black-sprouting head rising almost beast-like from her starched white collar.

‘Sister Philomena is the ugliest,’ a little girl declared.

I sat up to hand the mud-streaked veil to her. I had never seen her without the veil. I had never seen her eyes wet.

13

Romesh Gunesekera

The Lost Sonnet of Don Lambodar If an ocean between us lay, I would drink it in a single draught, Bring the boats all to dock,

You to berth within my bay.

I would make a harbour of my heart For your every breath, lock

Your pulse, your heavenly Dreams and desires. I would race The sun to kiss your feet,

Sea horses and sea birds. Even beat the moon to bathe your face, and ferry us from fear. I ask only:

A tender word to make some sweet contrast.

Pray moisten this desert, make it bloom at last.

Don Lambodar is the young interpreter in Romesh Gunesekera’s novel, The Prisoner of Paradise.

14

Flowers Would Fall from the Sky Like Rain Ann Tashi Slater

T

he sun burns through the mist, vultures circling and then settling in the dead trees. The golden roofs of a monastery rise like a mirage against the snow-flocked Dharamsala mountains. Beyond, the Tibetan plateau stretches into eternity. Different things surface in his mind and make him unbearably sad: his sisters’ high-pitched voices as they chant skipping rhymes on a summer afternoon; the smell of his freshly-washed sheets as he lies waiting for sleep, his parents and grandmother talking downstairs; the blue light of winter as he glides on the skating pond, stars and planets glittering in the bare trees, his grandmother watching.

His mind settles on an afternoon when he was twelve, an afternoon like so many others, when he, his parents, his grandmother and his two sisters all lived together in a New Jersey town. He was lying at the foot of his grandmother’s bed as she again told him about how the 14th Dalai Lama was discovered at the age of three: ‘The search party approached the house, with all the goods belonging to the previous Dalai Lama, and His Holiness came to the door and said, “So you’ve found me at last.” ’ The prayer flags his grandmother had strung in the birch tree when she arrived from India fluttered outside the window; he heard the shush-shush of the neighbour raking his lawn. An idea began to form in his mind, growing until it possessed his waking hours and took over his dreams: he wanted to be found, wanted the lamas to appear and spirit him away to Tibet.

His grandmother would come with him so she could finally go home to Lhasa. If only he did not live in a two-story American house but in a stone-and-mud house in Amdo as the Dalai Lama had, so that one day he might see the lamas coming for him, riding across the great plateau single 15

Flowers Would Fall from the Sky Like Rain

file, their red robes flapping in the wind. Flowers would fall from the sky like rain, a crow would alight on the roof, a rainbow would appear over the surrounding mountains – all the auspicious signs his grandmother had told him about.

Night descends, swallowing the vultures and the dead trees. He hears the metallic ring of the stars as they pierce the sky. The suck and slip of the Ganges, the Mekong, the Salween, the Yangtze – all the great bloodlines flowing down from the Tibetan plateau. All rivers flow to the sea. After people are cremated, his grandmother once told him, the ashes are mixed with tsampa barley flour and thrown into a river for the fish to eat, cycling their way back into the wheel of life. He thinks now about material things, how they instead remain. The same thoughts he’d had the day his wife, after convincing the judge that his struggles with depression made him an unfit father, won custody of their daughter.

It was a sunny San Francisco morning, the kind that always exhausted him: breezy, cloudless, chilly; sailboats on the Bay tilting and flapping like drowning moths. He stood in the kitchen, stared at the smiling cow clock over the counter, the scarred cutting board that had been a wedding present, the frayed red cushion in his daughter’s high chair. The things that remained, even though his daughter would now grow up without him.

A clawed, feathery creature circles above in the darkness, its wings silvered by the stars. A lammergeyer perhaps, like the ones in Tibet that gathered at sky burial sites, hunched angels of death waiting for the body to be chopped into pieces. He hears whispers, the guttural sound of monks chanting funeral prayers. His sister’s voice, consoling, careful: ‘You don’t need to come.’ When she called, he was out running in the Marin Headlands, his feet pounding the earth as he switchbacked down a trail towards the Pacific. It was Indian summer, the hills brown and muscular, the manzanita trees fiery red, the bay trees fragrant in the scorching air.

A couple of years after he’d lost custody and his wife had moved with their daughter to London, a couple of months since he’d been laid off from his job lecturing in classics at a college in Oakland. Running was the only thing that gave him solace; it made him feel he was on his way to somewhere in the world. On the path that day, he’d concluded that the broad, heroic life he’d always dreamed of wasn’t, after all, attainable. It 16

Ann Tashi Slater

had been a mistake to major in classics: reading Homer and Virgil, Dante and Milton, had only increased his dissatisfaction and longing. When you were young, you dreamed, and when you grew up, you did things – fell in love, had a child – that let you glimpse the ancient, epic world. But you couldn’t live the dream.

He’d finished talking to his sister and lowered himself onto a rock, sweat pouring down his face. A deer gazed at him from the brush alongside the trail; the wind rose. He sat for a long time watching the shadows lengthen, a tanker make its slow way under the Golden Gate Bridge and out to sea, the harvest moon rise huge and pendulous over the horizon like a great cog in the universe, like the moon over sacred Lake Manasarovar in western Tibet. He saw the photo of Manasarovar in his grandmother’s empty bedroom: moonlit snowy mountains reflected in the dark waters, a solitary pilgrim’s tent pitched on the shore. Why hadn’t he stayed with her in New Jersey after his parents died? But she’d as good as pushed him out the door, telling him it was time to make his own way in the world. ‘Try California,’ she’d said as she lay counting her rosary under the gaze of the Buddha statue on her dresser. ‘There are many pioneers there, isn’t it?’ He liked the idea of living on the edge of the land, looking out at the great Pacific instead of strip malls, and so he’d gone.

It was near midnight when he got home from his run and the next morning he flew to New Jersey to help his sisters arrange the cremation.

In Tibet, the funeral would have gone on for a week, his grandmother’s body laid out in the altar room, condolence callers bringing khada blessing scarves and incense, the lamas reading the prayers from The Tibetan Book of the Dead to help his grandmother journey to her next life. But this was America and it was all over in a day. ‘I never should have left her,’ he told his uncles that night at the reception, a gathering attended by the local Tibetan community and the neighbour who’d called the police when she noticed the newspapers accumulating on the front porch. But his uncles had explained that his grandmother was relieved when he moved to California, that she’d worried about his melancholy and felt a change of scene would do him good. Hearing this, he wasn’t surprised.

It was just like her, just like how she’d stayed back with her husband, his grandfather, when he fell ill as they were fleeing Tibet. Sending their small son – his father – on to India with the rest of the party, she’d remained by 17

Flowers Would Fall from the Sky Like Rain

her husband’s side in a cave sheltered from the wind, eating tsampa and praying. The second night, the stars blazing lanterns over the snow-cloaked plateau, his grandfather started to see mirages, flickering butter lamps, the glow of fireflies in smoke. To encourage him to undertake his journey without fear, she spoke to him about happy things: their wedding, the birth of their son.

After the last reminiscences had been shared and the reception guests had gone off into the freezing December night, he and his sisters sat down at the kitchen table to discuss what should be done with the ashes. His sisters, who didn’t have a clue about anything, wanted to toss them in a nearby stream. ‘I’ll handle it,’ he said, and realized then that he wouldn’t be returning to California.

He slept that night on the floor of his grandmother’s room, below the photo of Manasarovar and beneath the gaze of the Buddha. Just before dropping off to sleep, he saw under the bed the battered leather suitcase his grandmother had kept packed for years, believing that any day now the Chinese would be driven out of Tibet and she could return. He woke at dawn and, bundling up only what he could carry, set off for India to take his grandmother home. After escaping Tibet, she’d gone on yearly pilgrimages to Bodh Gaya, where the Buddha sat under the bodhi tree and reached enlightenment; and to Kushinagar, where the Buddha – grown old, and sick with dysentery – lay his body down in a grove of flowering trees and passed away, finally free. He’d take his grandmother now on a last pilgrimage, first following in the steps of the Buddha – to Bodh Gaya, Sarnath, Rajgir, Nalanda, Patna, Kushinagar – and then travelling north to scatter her ashes in Dharamsala, the Dalai Lama’s home-in-exile, where she’d settled after leaving Tibet.

On the flight east to Delhi, he was overtaken by a calm that returned him to those long-ago afternoons in his grandmother’s bedroom, but this evaporated the moment he reached India. The hotel recommended by a fellow traveller turned out to be a roach-infested dive; setting off from Delhi, he made mistakes with the trains and ended up in dusty villages nowhere near his destinations; he was stunned by the heat, the mosquitoes and bedbugs, the constant diarrhoea. Everywhere he went, children chased him and threw stones; beggars converged on him and tore at his clothes.

On the outskirts of Rajgir, he tried sleeping under a tree as the Buddha 18

Ann Tashi Slater

had, beneath the canopy of stars and planets winking over the ancient landscape, only to wake in the middle of the night to a raging downpour, leeches crawling on his face and his watch and passport gone.

But none of that mattered on the day he finally arrived in Dharamsala, just a hundred miles from the border with Tibet. Here was the requiem, mythical landscape he’d dreamed of: rocky, snow-filigreed mountains thrusting to the heavens; torrential rivers thundering to the plains; waterfalls threading down sheer cliff faces. He spent long hours gazing at the waterfalls, said to be portals to hidden worlds, to realms of paradise visible only to the enlightened. In the pre-dawn hours he did the kora with old Tibetan men and women just as his grandmother had, in circumambulating the Dalai Lama’s residence, spinning the prayer wheels set into a wall along the path, dedicating his actions to all suffering beings.

His grandmother was with him as he walked around and around; together they were doing the Dharamsala kora, together walking the sacred pilgrim’s road around the Potala Palace in Lhasa, the road she’d walked every day as a girl and that now had all but disappeared, swallowed up by the Chinesebuilt new town. After the kora, he’d go back to his lodging house to sleep, weak with the dysentery that was getting worse in spite of the herbs prescribed by a local Tibetan doctor.

One afternoon, he woke from his fevered dreams filled with urgency.

He put his grandmother’s ashes into his bag and started walking, away from the town and towards the mountains. After about an hour, he came upon a fast-moving river. Hiking downstream from where a lone boy stood fishing on the bank, he found himself in a mossy clearing. Birds shrilled; the water burbled and eddied around jagged rocks. Clouds scudding overhead mirrored the fast-flowing river, everything in motion now. He took the pouch with the ashes from his bag and then stopped, stricken.

Unable to remember any of the prayers his grandmother had taught him, he stood frozen, listening to the breeze sough through the branches of the deodars, produce a sound like the trees at the skating pond creaking in the winter wind. All he could think of was om mani padme hum, the mantra his grandmother used to recite when she counted her rosary. But she’d always told him that the wisdom of the Buddha could be found in those six syllables, and so with these words he scattered her ashes, watching them swirl away in the clear water. He turned and walked back along 19

Flowers Would Fall from the Sky Like Rain

what seemed to be the path but somewhere in the woods he found that he was lost. The straight way back up the river had disappeared, returned to the primeval forest. Noticing reddish stains on his shirt, he realized he was vomiting blood. The pain in his abdomen brought him to his knees; unable to rise, he sank to the ground and lay on his side, the sharp smell of cedar and earth in his nostrils. He’d wanted to shed possessions and the gods were fulfilling his desire: they would now take his very body.

The night advances, the forest alive with barking, whirring, clicking; the inner workings of a great machine. He hears the prayers of the pilgrims walking the path around the Dalai Lama’s residence, the Potala Palace, Mount Kailash in western Tibet; the path to Delphi, Ephesus, the Wailing Wall. He studies the cold moon keeping vigil above the trees, the icy stars that are frozen tears in the inky sky; travels with his grandmother’s ashes to the sea, to the Bay of Bengal and out into the warm swells of the Indian Ocean.

She shouldn’t have died alone. He sees her body on the kitchen floor, near the window looking out on the prayer flags, the neighbour’s birdbath, the pink flamingo statue. What did she think about in her final moments? Did the sadness overcome her at last? If only he could join her now, find out from one of the high lamas where she was on her after-death journey. Then he could make things right, see her off properly to the next life.

How still the forest is. Lamps flicker at the bases of the towering trees.

High above, the branches are flying buttresses reaching to the vault of heaven. He hears the unfurling of leaves, the rush of rain and river and blood, the world’s ancient heart beating in all the living and the dead.

His wife and daughter glide through the clearing in white gowns, petals drifting down around them like tears. Fireflies glint in smoky mist and now he sees the lamas: they are riding in procession across the plateau, the wind lifting the manes of their fine horses, their red robes flapping.

The moon burns, searing his flesh. The vultures perch in the bare trees, their hooked figures silhouetted against the golden-roofed monastery, the snowy mountains, the star-lacerated sky arcing up over the plateau, over his grandparents’ village, over the great land of Tibet that is now only a dream and a memory. He sees the solitary figures of his grandmother and grandfather and father walking south towards India, then just his 20

Ann Tashi Slater

grandmother and father, and then only his grandmother, her stout figure leaning forward against the wind, and then no one, only the vast plateau whipped by the great gales that rise in the afternoon and can blow a man right off his horse. The moon burns. The earth spins on its axis. The planets glitter with the promise of other worlds. The lamas are coming for him, and at last he will be found.

21

Zhu Jian, translated by Liang Yujing

The Skull The superiority of a human skull over another skull comes from the one gold tooth fixed to it five hundred years ago that still glitters.

22

The Whore as a Filipino Metaphor Maria Carmen A. Sarmiento

I

n this land of 7,701 beauty contests, Filipinos are assured that women occupy the highest places of honour and that the best Filipino man is a woman. At best, these condescending compliments are empty platitudes.

Picture “Pilipinas” – aka Inang Bayan (Motherland) – the national archetype: isn’t she forever violated in those smarmy interpretative dance tableaux they stage during protest rallies or so-called mass actions, giving another dimension to the term “mother”? The Filipino attitude and relationship to what is female has ever been conflicted and mired in ambiguity.

Mary and Inang Bayan The other side of this secular feminine persona is the Blessed Virgin Mary. The popular, cultish Filipino devotion to the Virgin Mother has been institutionalized and is especially evident in October, which has traditionally been her month. We even address her as Mama Mary, an infantile term of endearment that speaks volumes about the Filipino national character. Feast days of the Holy Virgin and the Blessed Mother venerate the purity of one and celebrate the fertility of the other. What is less recognized is that just as a triune god exists in the Christian Holy Trinity, so does a tripartite goddess make up the cult of Mary, the eternal and primordial woman. They are: Mary the Virgin, Mary the Mother and Mary the Magdalene (sometimes euphemistically depicted as a gypsy). It is this third, occult, persona that is our concern here.

Although Jesus Christ counted Rahab, a temple prostitute, in his genealogy, the Magdalene has ever been in popular wisdom or to common (not scholarly) knowledge, our prototypical working girl. She 23

The Whore as a Filipino Metaphor

worked hard for the money, and had enough of it to splurge on perfumed oil for the Lord’s feet. In Jesus’ death throes, he did not ask any of his disciples to look out for her as he did for his mother. She could take care of herself, shaking her moneymaker. In the time-honoured tradition of the whore with a heart of gold, she probably took care of others too, as did the shrewd Rahab.

Gross National Economy The Philippines owes much to such modern day Magdalenes. A significant part of our national economy is made up of the government-sanctioned trade in the warm bodies of japayuki1, or “cultural workers,” and those who inadvertently find themselves trafficked or worse. Just how much the nation owes to their remittances is never fully measured or acknowledged since the amounts that go through informal channels can never be accurately accounted for. The dollars and pesos of the poor, like the take from jueteng2, are not given such statistical economic honours, but are considered invisible and relegated to the nether realms of the underground economy.

If the way they earn their money is not by their choice, prostituted women are usually too ashamed to admit its source openly. Trained in selfsacrifice, they do not want to cause their families shame or worry. So they swallow their pain and humiliation and write cheery letters home, assuring the family that all is fine. Besides, they know that even this will pass, as the trend in the flesh trade has always been to get them younger. ‘Hurry and grow up so I can send you to Japan,’ said an unemployed father who had to baby-sit while his wife did laundry for richer neighbours. He wasn’t joking.

The government as Papa (Sugar Daddy) Overseas Filipino workers may toil and suffer infinitely more, but the strategic alliances formed by well-placed and entrepreneurial wives and mistresses of the elite are more profitable on a per capita basis. Consider that the three branches of our bloated, male-dominated Philippine bureaucracy provide many lucrative business opportunities for wellconnected and enterprising young things who know how to capitalize on their physical charms. Pecunia non olet: money never stinks. As they grow in power and in wealth, these women are veneered with the respectability of the society page, the civic organization and the charitable NGO. 24

Maria Carmen A. Sarmiento

A business case worth studying is the edifying instance of the commercial and fashion model, an erstwhile beauty title holder and aspiring actress of modest talents, who became a favourite with a high government official. When this college dropout’s contemporaries were applying for their first jobs, she already owned a palatial mansion in an exclusive Makati enclave, and had already been awarded a couple of exclusive government contracts that set her up for life. The realtor who brokered the house deal joked that she was sitting on the tiniest collateral, and made an obscene gesture by putting the tips of his middle and index fingers together (to resemble the vaginal opening).

Her notoriously successful dalliance, however, did not deter the scion of a family with a suitably illustrious name from marrying her. After all, the market for sugar cane was down, and while the young husband came from haciendero3 money, he was never in his enterprising wife’s league.

What she brought into that marriage, in terms of worldly goods, might be considered her dowry. So he willingly let her use his name to deodorize whatever was left of her reputation. As a boost to her husband’s hollow though good-humoured machismo, she got him appointed to a nice little sinecure in a Government Owned and Controlled Corporation. She was an exemplary in-law and shared the fruits of her labours generously with his family, so that she was fêted like a queen whenever she visited his home province.

Marriage has been defined as but another form of legalized prostitution and this is not merely limited to mail-order brides. This smooth operator practised diversity. She was so industrious and conscientious that neither wedlock nor motherhood could deter her from forming other pragmatic and profitable dalliances while there were still takers for that precious bit of fleshly human capital that she so shrewdly and profitably pandered.

In our hypocritical society, her form of empowerment is considered illicit. Professional athletes who capitalize on their physical prowess are considered legitimate, but a woman who deliberately uses her own physical assets to achieve material success will always be a slut.

Spectacularly successful business women, as in this particular case, are not held up as models for the young and impressionable to emulate, although her (would-be) alma mater had no qualms about accepting her donations, and even naming a room and several scholarships after her.

25

The Whore as a Filipino Metaphor

With the passage of time and the infusion of more cash, she will probably be given an honorary degree. Time and good public relations bring new maidenheads to all.

Magdalena vs. Maria Clara 4 The Magdalene is the antithesis of everything that middle class Filipinas are ostensibly trained up to be. It is in the proprieties of childhood, though, that the banal certainty of virtue is first lost. From early on, it was impressed upon our tender sensibilities that being female meant we could never again sit the way we wanted to sit. Some unknown, probably male authority had ordained that at this junction between our legs resided an enigma known by various poetic names and quaint, even risible, colloquialisms. The great divide between the virgin mother and her fallen sister was made manifest. Of the latter, the less that was said, the better. The shadowy alternative, the road not taken, was not to be openly considered.

Nuns and teachers emphasize the “shoulds”. We should be as pure as Mary was: ever virgin, meek and mild, ever wondrously whole and unbroken, even after she had begotten God’s child. The sexlessness of mothers was a given that we were expected to look forward to. The teachers who modelled the virtues to us were generally drained of colour and dry as dust. They seemed held together by hair products and talcum powder. But the material realities have rendered irrelevant whatever remains of our schoolgirl values. There have been occasions when public school teachers and contractual factory workers have been ordered to “Lay down or be laid off ” as a de facto matter of employment practice.

F. Sionil José, revered Philippine National Artist for Literature, has reflected on the value of being a skilled and knowing player in the flesh trade if a woman is to achieve success in what is essentially a man’s world: the patriarchy, as the feminists call it. This is in marked contrast to the Maria Clara ideal, overtly respectable and mahinhin5 to the point of weakness and subservience. That is the model that the educational system would rather uphold. Here is an excerpt from José’s novel Ermita6: The surrender of her hymen to him then was a victory for her. There was so much mythology to it – its identification with purity, virtue, 26

Maria Carmen A. Sarmiento

sinlessness – when in fact it was a constriction and could condemn a woman to an appalling ignorance of that broader human experience expressed in the meeting and merging of two skins. Now, she was free to do with her womanhood as she pleased, free in the same manner that men were free, and yet she was more powerful than they, for it was in her power to deny them, reject them at the portals they so avidly wanted to enter. And reject them she did because they were boors, because their manners were ghastly and uncouth in spite of their wealth, and they were repulsive. She had seen them in their most vulnerable condition: naked and without the adornments of opulence and office, hirsute or hairless, their bodies befouled with their sweat, the excretions of their lust, and down there – dark, sensitive and turgid, that is where their odours were meanest, vilest . . .

José even includes thoughtful reminders, like a carnal “Seven Habits,” or a genital “Five S’s”, of what this successful woman did to care for her booty: She had always been careful with her own hygiene; she always kept antiseptic that eternal wound, that gash, that slit, that warm, pulpy crevice which men so craved and yet were scared of . . . She pampered it with scented ablutions because it was her fortune, and more so because it was her, the fallow earth where anything could grow.

Daisy Girl vs. Gurang7 The fantasy archetype of the young Magdalene, as personified by the seemingly virginal but sexually adept schoolgirl, is found in practically all cultures where school uniforms exist. The mystique of virgin purity, like the heady secret perfume of pheromones, inevitably draws males to the perimeters of the convent school. Baby ang dating, hayop ang galing8 went the recent hype for a movie about such a precocious teen. Her showbiz enemies disparaged the actress by claiming that she had lied about her age, and was really no longer a daisy girl. Getting older diminishes a female’s value even more than getting fat. To become both old and fat is to enter the realm of non-personhood.

The appeal of the very young, inexperienced female as a sexual consort is very much a part of Philippine pop culture. Just look at the endless 27

The Whore as a Filipino Metaphor

parade of starlets, essentially as fungible, faceless and forgettable as their films. Decades ago, an impresario named one batch of beauties he was promoting after soft drinks and another batch after liquors. Perhaps deep down he knew he was marketing consumer goods.

Very young females are so appealing because they are supposedly weak, helpless and vulnerable; and so it seems that any man can have them. At about the time that the Philippines was placed under Martial Law, beer houses began openly to advertise the availability of pubescent twelve to fourteen-year-old dancers and “Guest Relations Officers” as star attractions. Ninety per cent of the tens of thousands of Manila’s street children are believed to be sexually active – preyed upon by their elders, or by paying clientele. Seventy five per cent of those in the hospitality industry (dance instructors, GROs, waiters/waitresses) are minors.

A is for Aquarium There are so many distinctions, just like career specializations and class stratifications, among women in the flesh trade. “Wanted – GRO” signs are everywhere, even in videoke clubs. The turnover in jobs like these is brutally quick. Bigger establishments have “aquariums”, rooms with large glass windows through which prospective clients can view the girl of their choice. Then there are the so-called fashion shows where the “models” parade in various stages of undress. Other shows have women bathing and performing other more intimate bodily functions. Such tasks are hazardous to the soul and no woman (or man) can usually get through them without some form of mind-altering substance to anesthetize their pain.

Outside the formal or club sector, prostitution is less structured. It’s no surprise that, as befits an archipelago, there are the alupihang dagat9 who are directly ferried to the boats by their pimps. The term refers to both trafficked adults and children. Aside from sex, they may be required to do menial work (laundry, cooking, cleaning – all the domestic tasks a wife is not paid to do either). Similarly coastal in operations are the buntog10 of Davao. They are generally harbour-slum children who cater to the sexual proclivities of the sailors and dockworkers. What distinguishes the buntog from the alupihang dagat is that they apparently have no pimps managing them, but rather act on their own, as a loosely knit gang of wayward and 28

Maria Carmen A. Sarmiento

adventure-seeking juveniles. Aside from being in the top five among the countries most prone to natural disasters, the Philippines is also up there in the number of prostituted and trafficked children.

Another well-known phenomenon is “prosti-tuition,” commonly found in the University Belt11 and other urban centres of academe. This is seasonal, with an upsurge during enrolment at the start of the semester, and towards the end when there is a need to settle school bills in order to be allowed to take the final exams, or to get a grade. Runaway inflation has even made prosti-tuition an option for the Iskolar ng Bayan12 who had previously led a relatively sheltered existence among Diliman’s13 staid adobe paths, over-arched by lovely, leafy acacia trees. Just look out for the way some girls approach parked cars, sit and chat beside the driver for a while, then either get out or drive away with him.

Like inflation, the encroachment of squatter settlements (or communities of informal settlers as the politically correct would rather call them), on the peripheries of the university has created new depths for the flesh trade in academe. The most bizarre case brought to light involved a professor accused of raping a child prostitute. The alleged perpetrator, who happened to be an Oxford scholar, had been in the habit of hiring pubescent young girls from the nearby squatter settlement to do chores in his university apartment. Those feckless little girls, preyed upon by a vastly superior male, might be said to be at the bottom of the ladder of whoredom. As in Filipino society, there were so many more crowding and jostling at the bottom than at the top.

Overall though, prostitution in its many forms is an integral part of the Philippine economy. The euphemistically termed “hospitality industry” is a mainstay of tourism that banks on the attractions of eversmiling, docile brown natives (male of female) to white or yellow sahibs.

An American correspondent for an international weekly was permanently traumatized when the bargirl whom he picked up at an Ermita honkytonk took her dentures out to give him a blowjob. Toothless Filipina whores vs. dollar-flush American tourists? No contest! An artist friend had a piquant encounter with another Ermita whore who was trying to cajole him into allowing her to give a blowjob right at his table. (It must have been a slow night, as he was patently gay.) He politely declined but gallantly offered to pay her to model in the nude for him instead. Deeply offended, 29

The Whore as a Filipino Metaphor

she declined: ‘What kind of girl do you take me for? That’s downright indecent – posing for nude pictures.’

‘Tis pity she’s a whore Although the mores of whoring may be alien to the fine arts, the ranks of more conventional professionals owe a great deal to the world’s oldest profession. As previously shown, it is whoring on a part-time basis that has enabled so many driven young Filipino men and women to pursue their studies and graduate as professionals. Under the guise of an escort service, it helps to keep cash-strapped and ambitious millennials afloat, and decently fed and clothed, in the harsh corporate jungle. Big business runs more smoothly under the lubricious efforts of these moonlighting working girls and the professional call girls who have made this their vocation while they are still young and nubile. (Many actually pretend to their families that they are call-centre or BPO agents).

Such pros are common tender, given as tokens of appreciation and esteem during business transactions, especially among the Filipino Chinese. A Chinoy businessman grew so bored and sated with the inevitable girl escort whom he was expected to take home like a party favour that it got to the point where he had to pay her to go away. It was necessary, nonetheless, to do this with the utmost subtlety and tact.

Whores have feelings too, especially when they are mothers. One allows her clients to touch any part of her body except her breasts, which must be kept unsullied from now on, because that is where her beloved infant son nurses. Nevertheless, she has surgery done regularly to keep her body in shape. It’s a business expense. Top-flight whores are among the prime clientele of cosmetic and plastic surgeons.

Escorts have told of how they dislike being contracted by Middle Eastern businessmen – not solely because of the rough sex and what the women describe as their “goatish smell” – but mainly because these consummate male chauvinists rarely bother even with most basic aspects of considerate behaviour. The women feel that they are not treated as human beings.

A young man of my acquaintance used to patronise a particular escort.

Because he liked her so much, he decided to give her to his best friend as a pre-despedida de soltero present. He didn’t realize, though, that the girl’s extraordinary passion when they were together was because she had 30

Maria Carmen A. Sarmiento

developed special feelings for him. He invited her to have dinner with him and his best friend. When she learned that she was going to be handed over as a present to the soon-to-be-married friend, she flew into a rage and hurled the dinner crystal and flatware at them before stalking out.

Whores are not only an essential business and entertainment expense, but also play an integral part in civic organizations. A compadre owed his election to the presidency of one such brotherhood through his liberal distribution of gift certificates to a hydro-massage establishment that he co-owned. It is not uncommon for delegates at such conventions to find these girls sent as complimentary favours by candidates. This holds true for political gatherings where the stakes are even higher.

At the very top of the pyramid of whores are the society girls without any visible means of support. They are paid astounding sums, and give the impression that they are doing it as a favour. A Metro Manila mayor who liked beauty queens made it a practice first to sniff at their scalps, their breath and their armpits before they could pass muster. After that came the serious negotiations with the girl’s (generally gay) manager, or even with her family.

A-list whores come from good families. Certain taipans require a guarantee of pedigree before making such girls their mistresses. Naturally, their families benefit too. The girl’s youthful energy is believed to pass through the ancient, jaded penises of these worthies in a form of vaginal osmosis. This is not unlike a practice that Gandhi himself was said to have indulged in, except that he got off by sleeping chastely between two naked virgins, his whole body functioning like a sponge, absorbing their youthful energy through his pristine pores. The taipan’s way is perhaps more pleasurable – at least for him.

Pros and cons The efforts of NGOs and other well-meaning humanitarian organizations to rehabilitate women in the flesh trade is clearly aimed at the less wellconnected and adept majority at the bottom of the prostitution pyramid who are unable to make a decent living or to ensure a secure future out of this short-lived trade. They are the trafficked victims, the putas “in especially difficult circumstances”, not the movers and shakers who get ample material rewards for their services. The options offered to them by 31

The Whore as a Filipino Metaphor

way of alternative livelihood are not much better. They are taught how to sew, or to make holiday knick-knacks so that they can then be exploited by the sweatshops in the export subcontracting industry, thus being transformed from local meat products into globally expendable elves.

When I was a young matron and already past the age where I might be mistaken as a practitioner of the trade, I asked some male friends to take me to see some professional whores in action. They took me to a karaoke bar where the winsome hostess sat between my two friends and told them the story of her life. She was twenty-two and had a BSc degree in Economics from a state university in the Eastern Visayas. The driving ambition of her young life had always been to work as a bank teller but, alas, even such modest jobs were scarce and, as this poor little probinsyana (country mouse) complained, she knew no one in the banks who could get her resumé read or even considered. Meanwhile, there were half a dozen or so younger siblings still at school back home, so she had come to Manila, and this is where she had ended up.

It was so much like the songs of Florante and Freddie Aguilar that I asked one of the men with me, a well-connected Chinese lawyer, to see what he could do to help her with her modest dream. The very next week my friend delivered and told me that he’d secured a job for her at the bank of one of his clients, in the Binondo14 branch, no less. We went back to the karaoke bar that evening, to bring her our glad tidings that her girlhood dream was about to come true. She could discard her skimpy cocktail dress for a bank teller’s demure uniform. She’d no longer have to sing the theme song from the Titanic, night after night, while a stranger’s coarse, dry hands crept under the hem of her skirt.

She was very surprised to see us and, to my even greater surprise, not exactly pleased with our news of the guaranteed job at the Binondo bank.

Then she explained that she was sorry to have put us to all that trouble, but she was not ready to give up singing after all. There was no more talk of aspiring to the dream at the end of a four-year college course. She thanked us, but it was really, ‘No thanks.’ She was fine as she was and, actually, even happy.

32

Maria Carmen A. Sarmiento

Endnotes 1

A Filipino colloquialism with derogatory connotations for those who go to work in Japan.

2

A form of illegal gambling usually controlled by rural politicians.

3

Plantation.

4

A character in José Rizal’s novel Noli Me Tangere who was considered to be exceptionally demure and cloyingly lady-like, although Rizal has her kissing the image of St. Anthony before her chaste lover visits, an act that Rizal scholars say is meant to imply that like St. Anthony, she struggles with carnal temptations.

5

Demure and refined.

6

Ermita is the Red Light District of Manila.

7

A “daisy girl” is a teen, as in “daisy siete”, a corruption of the Spanish diez y siete whereas “gurang” is a Filipino pejorative term for a woman past her prime, and may be taken to mean anyone who is no longer a “daisy girl”.

8

Translation: ‘You think she’s just a kid but she knows her stuff.’

9

Literally, a sea centipede: an allusion to the wild and expendable nature of these hapless young boys and girls.

10 A Visayan term meaning to defeat, but actually an ironic reference to the unmanaged and casual nature of this sex trafficking of adolescent or younger children, which may involve unpaid daisy chains.

11 A rundown Manila district where the less prestigious universities are clustered.

12 Translation: National Scholar due to their state-subsidized education.

13 A district of Quezon City, site of the most prestigious state university.

14 The Chinese enclave in Manila that is considered the true business hub.

33

Alexis Marie

The West Garden Girl I never laughed, being bashful.

Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.

Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

Ezra Pound, The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter, translated from Li Po’s Letters from Chang-Kan The hell with Ezra Pound you said, he can’t speak for Li Po or any girl married to a river merchant, Chinese and English are just too different.

I wait under pagodas, dapple lily ponds with my fingertips.

I tried to talk of beauty, I wore a camellia in my hair.

You dragged your feet when you went out . . .

I argued that it was beyond language, the unspoken is never really unsaid.

You were certain that the original poem must be a hundred times more beautiful because it was lost.

You went searching 34

Alexis Marie

scouring different Augusts wringing the chrysanthemums.

The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.

I begged you to translate for me but that’s where it ended.

You said you couldn’t do Li Po justice.

So I walked unknowing through the moon gate under the maple trees.

The paired butterflies are already yellow with August over the grass in the west garden.

The Wandering Songstress Is there such a thing as Chinese fidelity?

A Shanghai gramophone voice tells me a young girl to her man is like thread to its needle.

We could be sewn into fidelity together bound by thread and dynasties.

A woman with a golden throat reminds us that only love that lasts through hard times is true but the moon represents my heart these days, with its constant waning.

If I were to search like a wandering songstress from the end of the earth to the farthest sea to find you, my beautiful man, we’d be ancient as terracotta.

In life, who does not cherish the springtime of youth?

35

Poetry

The lotus blossoms of my feet are ripe for plucking, flowers bloom under the bright moon.

My face is like a lantern reflected on the lake fading slowly with the night.

A young girl to herself is faithful as a shadow waxing with the dark and absent

The title of this poem and the italicised phrases are translated from the Chinese folk song Tian Ya Ge Nu.

36

The Secret Happy Life of Uncle Renfeng Fan Dai

‘I

won’t blame you if you look for a lover,’ I said tentatively.

‘You won’t?’ A barely detectable smile came to Uncle Renfeng’s face, exposing the little gap between the two central upper teeth, his eyes searching for and avoiding mine all at the same time.

‘I mean . . .’ I cleared my throat a little. It was an embarrassing topic.

After all, Uncle Renfeng was married. ‘You’ve put up with her naggings and insults for so many years. You need to have a life before you get too old.’

Uncle Renfeng was about to say something but stopped himself. He got up from the sofa, walked to the dining table, and came back with the teapot. For a while, the only sound in the sitting room was that of water pouring into my teacup.

‘I knew you’d be the only person I could talk to about this.’ Uncle Renfeng put down the teapot and adjusted his white cotton T-shirt. ‘I did think about finding someone to look after Guixian. That would give us a chance to know each other. Then perhaps she and I can be together after Guixian is gone.’

That was the first real conversation we had had other than the how-areyou and I-am-fine clichés. I had thought that perhaps Uncle Renfeng and I would see less of each other when my mother died in 1998, especially because he lives in Beijing and I in Guangzhou.

Uncle Renfeng was then 71 years old. About five foot three inches tall, he looked overweight yet healthy. His belly appeared bigger than it really was, as he liked to tuck his shirt into his trousers. He has been wearing the same pair of dark brown glasses for as long as I can remember. With scarcely any grey hair, he looked about fifty. So young that a nurse said 37

The Secret Happy Life of Uncle Renfeng

to him, ‘Your mother doesn’t like the rooms here,’ when he took Aunt Guixian to visit a nursing home in the suburb of Beijing the year before.

Aunt Guixian was five years older than Uncle Renfeng. She had a narrow face made all the more so by her wrinkled and hollow cheeks and sharp chin. The thin, black glasses gave her a very refined look that was offset by a stern face. She had been a housewife almost all her life, and a very good one, too. She made sure that the small two-bedroom apartment was always clean and tidy; the food on the table always varied and cheap yet nutritious; that the only high-wattage light bulb was in Uncle Renfeng’s study, to save on the electricity bill. She had been sick most of her life, and still had her childhood nickname, “medicine pot”. She was like a herbal medicine showcase and a walking wonder for her father, a wellknown Chinese medical doctor.

Yet Aunt Guixian was better known for her complaints. Either the maid’s footsteps were too loud, or Uncle Renfeng was not paying attention to her, or her back was killing her, or her two sons-in-law had not visited for two weeks, or a neighbour was wearing a shirt that was much too bright . . . Aunt Guixian had to be unhappy, and could not stand anyone who appeared not to be so.

‘Your Uncle Renfeng is useless,’ she said to me on one of my visits, as Uncle Renfeng helped her get up from the sofa. ‘He never made much money. He’s too honest for this world. He gave me nothing to look forward to.’

Later in the day, I asked Uncle Renfeng why he allowed Aunt Guixian to keep saying such terrible things about him.

‘What else can I do? She’s sick. She wasn’t like this before. And she was very pretty,’ Uncle Renfeng said, in his usual flat tone.

Yes, but that was half a century ago, when she was his sister-in-law.

That was the open secret of the family. Aunt Guixian had been married to Uncle Renfeng’s eldest brother Tiejian, the result of an arranged marriage.

Seeing that the seven-year-old marriage was going nowhere, grandpa called for a family meeting. Aunt Guixian had to stay married in the family to give face to her folks. Grandpa wanted to know which of his four younger sons would take her. The second son, Uncle Liqiang, the most obvious candidate, steered clear of the matter. The third son, Uncle Renfeng, the quietest and most talented among the siblings, stepped forward and said he would.

38

Fan Dai

I had asked him whether he did it to help grandpa out. He said there was a little bit of that. ‘But I really cared about her. She was very attractive, tall and slender. She carried herself with a good sense of pride. That’s probably because she had finished high school, unlike many women of her age.’

Yes, a good sense of pride. It turned into contempt toward others over the years. For example, she forbade the maid, Huang, from using their toilet and made her walk for ten minutes to the one in the nearest petrol station.

‘People like her can’t get used to the western-style toilet. She has to squat down.’ She would always give an authoritative explanation.

‘Ouch, you’re hurting me,’ Aunt Guixian screamed, and hit Huang on the right arm. She had asked her to massage her leg.

‘You’re not paying any attention. You just want to sit next to the old man and watch TV. Stop daydreaming about replacing me some day! The old man is useless. He can’t give you a thing.’

I had never heard anything nearly as insulting and irritating as that. I looked at Huang, who was sitting on a stool by the sofa against the arm of which Aunt Guixian was leaning. She kept her head low, her eyes fixed on the floor, her hands still holding Aunt Guixian’s left leg.

The room was dead quiet. I stole a look at Aunt Guixian. She was looking at Uncle Renfeng from the corner of her eye. I stole a look at Uncle Renfeng, who was one seat away from Aunt Guixian on the sofa.

His posture had stiffened, his nostrils were contracting forcefully and rapidly. His eyes were glued to the TV, too intently to be watching.

‘Aunt Guixian, you’re making things up,’ I heard myself say.

‘Fan, you don’t know these things. Everybody wishes me dead. I’m just a burdensome old woman who is taking too long to die.’

‘You know that’s not true. You do the grocery shopping and you make all the meals.’

‘Your uncle doesn’t think so. He goes away on business as often as he can. He’s tired of me.’

‘He’s only working for extra money to keep things going. He doesn’t stay away for more than two days because you don’t like it.’

‘That’s what he tells everybody. Who knows what he thinks.’

‘Aunt Guixian, this is not fair . . . ’ 39

The Secret Happy Life of Uncle Renfeng

‘Shall we not talk about this? It’s getting late. Time to go to bed,’ Uncle Renfeng cut in, in his flat yet non-negotiable tone.

‘Fan, I meant to say this to you earlier. Those panties are far too fashionable for her! She’s only a country girl,’ Aunt Guixian said as Huang helped her get up.

I had given two pairs of panties to Huang, as appreciation for her tolerance of Aunt Guixian’s daily verbal and physical abuse, something that members of the family did periodically so that Huang would stay on the job.

Uncle Renfeng’s eyes stopped me from saying more as he made his way to the toilet. ‘It’s bed time.’

The apartment was too small to allow any private conversation, but I managed to whisper to Uncle Renfeng as he walked past me to his bedroom, ‘How could you not speak up for yourself ?’

‘Good night,’ he said.

I first knew Uncle Renfeng through his letters. They came to my mother from a cement factory in Pingdingshan City in Henan Province in northern China. I was too young to have any interest in what he had to say. The only thing I knew was that he had three daughters and that the two younger ones, Xianping and Xiaoren, lived in Beijing. The eldest one, Yingping, lived in a small city called Zhucheng in Shandong Province in eastern China.

I had not met anyone from Uncle Renfeng’s family before 1971, as travelling to Beijing from Guangzhou was too expensive then for the average person. In the summer of that year, though, one of my playmates was going to Beijing with her mother. Beijing at the time was associated with the Godlike figure of Chairman Mao. It was the place to be. I asked my parents to let me go with them and cried for days on end until they said yes.

After a two-day train ride, Xianping and Xiaoren met me at the station.

They were teenagers living by themselves in one tiny bedroom, sharing a kitchen and bathroom with two other families that occupied the two other rooms in the apartment. In the week I was there, they took me to Tiananmen Square. This was the only time I was able to get out to do some sightseeing. Being stuck in the tiny room was boring. I was sick of the bed that all three of us were crammed into, sick of the eggplant dish that we had for every single meal. It was the cheapest vegetable in the market.

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I left Beijing hating my cousins for being so mean, for the lice I caught from the sweat-soaked mat in high summer, heartbroken that there was no Chairman Mao to see. I did not know that Xianping and Xiaoren lived on fifteen yuan a month sent by Uncle Renfeng from the cement factory, that my one-week visit had put a huge strain on their life.

I later learned that the 1960s and 1970s were the lowest point of Uncle Renfeng’s life. Like many people who were born into a rich family, he was tossed around to several places during the Cultural Revolution. In the meantime, Aunt Guixian, who was constantly sick, was the subject of persecution for the same reason. She had to give up her job. Consequently, all the financial burden was on Uncle Renfeng. To make things worse, their oldest daughter Yingping was disfigured in a firecracker factory explosion in Zhucheng at 17, while their youngest daughter Xiaoren suffered from a serious brain injury.

Uncle Renfeng was torn by misery when he received the telegram about Yingping, having just left Aunt Guixian in Pingdingshan City to go to Beijing to look after Xiaoren. He had to leave Xiaoren to thirteenyear-old Xianping’s care. By the time he got to the hospital in the small city of Zhucheng, he found Yingping in excruciating pain, purple all over with the gentian violet that was used to prevent infection. He stayed for a week, tortured by Yingping’s muffled screams from the daily treatment of her wound. He left for Xiaoren as soon as Yingping was no longer in a critical condition, leaving her in pain and in tears, biting his lips hard to dull his heartache.

When Aunt Guixian died in June 2006, Uncle Feichi, Uncle Renfeng’s only living brother and my youngest uncle, who also lived in Guangzhou, went to Beijing after a call from cousins Yingping, Xianping and Xiaoren.

Five days later, Uncle Renfeng came to Guangzhou with Uncle Feichi.

Uncle Renfeng called as soon as he arrived. ‘I really need to talk to you.’

Uncle Feichi came with Uncle Renfeng the next day. He had not been aware of the bond Uncle Renfeng had with me. He left us with a what-doyou-two-have-to-talk-about look.

‘I’m sorry to hear about Aunt Guixian, but it must have been a relief for everyone.’ I knew that Aunt Guixian had been bedridden for three months.

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The Secret Happy Life of Uncle Renfeng

‘Yes, but I’m more sad than relieved.’ Uncle Renfeng wiped the sweat off his face with a white handkerchief. ‘In fact, I feel very guilty.’ His usual flat tone carried an extra touch of heaviness. ‘I did something terrible, to Guixian, and to my daughters.’

Uncle Renfeng had seen a woman who was an acquaintance of Aunt Yiren, his youngest sister, who was always keen on introducing women to him. The three arranged to meet on the train when Uncle Renfeng was on a business trip. When they parted, the woman said, ‘I’ll wait for you.’

When she learned that Aunt Guixian was very sick and needed twentyfour-hour care, she called Uncle Renfeng and said that she would not mind taking care of Aunt Guixian and waiting till the right time for their relationship to develop.

She was the first and only woman who had ever initiated a relationship with him, and it was all the more special as it came at a time when he was exhausted from caring for Aunt Guixian and from the torment of her daily verbal abuse.

‘To be honest, for the last twenty seven years, I never had any sex.

When Guixian was diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis in 1980, she told me that making love had become a pain for her.’

Uncle Renfeng paused and looked outside across the sitting room, beyond the balcony, into the distance.

‘I was fifty then. Now I can no longer tell how it feels to be with a woman.’ He let out a long sigh.

I was doubly shaken, by the fact itself and by Uncle Renfeng’s talking about it. Sex was a taboo topic, especially for someone like Uncle Renfeng.

I did not know what to say. But I was glad he was talking about it, when he’d kept his silence for more than two decades.

After two phone conversations, Uncle Renfeng agreed to the woman’s suggestion that she should visit him in Beijing. She had been through a lot herself, having raised four children after her husband’s death years before.

The oldest son was handicapped following an accident, the second son was a teacher, the third a security guard, and the daughter a saleswoman. Now she felt she needed to have a life of her own.

Uncle Renfeng felt sorry for the woman and understood her situation.

He said he would pay for her train ticket from Hengyang, Hunan Province.

For the first time in his life, he lied to Xianping and Xiaoren, who were 42

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taking turns looking after Aunt Guixian. He told them that his university classmate Wenxiang had written a memoir and would like him to read and comment on it. It would take two days.

Wenxiang lived alone in a three-bedroom apartment. He agreed to let Uncle Renfeng meet the woman there.

They spent the first night in two separate rooms. She invited him to her room on the second night.

Uncle Renfeng paused again, as if to re-live the memory of the night. I held my breath for fear of interrupting him.

‘She called me lao gong in the next letter,’ Uncle Renfeng said. A rare, sweet look came to his face but disappeared instantly. The phrase was an intimate one, a woman’s way of addressing her husband.

‘She had tears in her eyes when I saw her off at the train station. She made me buy her a cheap bracelet from a small stand on the street. “So that I have something to remember you with,” she said.’

She promised to come to Beijing any time he saw fit, either to take care of Aunt Guixian, or him, or both. The only thing she wondered about was housing. She would leave her two-bedroom apartment to her daughter, and would like to buy a two-bedroom apartment so that she would have a place to stay whenever she went back. Would he mind helping her with that? No, he said, he would be happy to contribute 50,000 yuan, which was almost enough to pay for a second-hand apartment.

Uncle Renfeng must have been too carried away by his romance.

As soon as Aunt Guixian’s funeral was over, he decided to tell all three children about the woman, so that his oldest daughter, Yingping, would know before going back to Dalian, in Liaoning Province, where she had been taking care of her grandson.

He said he would like the woman to come soon so that his daughters would not have to worry about taking care of him. He talked about his intention of helping her buy an apartment.

‘My! I can’t believe this! How could you lie and see her when our mother was sick in bed!’ said Yingping.

‘Such a disgrace! I always respected you! How could you do this to mum?’ said Xianping.

‘Mum has only been gone for two days! If you had waited longer, we could have found it easier to take,’ said the mild-tempered Xiaoren.

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The Secret Happy Life of Uncle Renfeng

Uncle Renfeng was beside himself with grief and guilt, as his daughters wept and sobbed.

The next day saw more chaos, when he answered a call from the woman. She urged him to mail her the 50,000 yuan so that she could buy the apartment before she went to Beijing.

‘I can’t do it now, but should be able to do it soon,’ he said in as low a voice as possible.

‘Is that the woman? Were you talking about sending her the money?

Let me talk to her!’ Xianping, who was sitting close to the telephone, had caught enough of the conversation to figure out what it was about. Uncle Renfeng hung up before she grabbed the phone.

After Uncle Feichi arrived, a meeting was held. Uncle Renfeng agreed to write a letter to the woman. It was read to everyone for approval. He wrote that he had made a mistake and had to put an end to the relationship. He put the picture the woman had sent to him into the envelope in everyone’s presence. She was in a white wedding gown and had written on the back that she hoped he would be next to her in the next picture.

Uncle Renfeng gave out a long sigh of relief after finishing the story.

It all felt like a public humiliation forced onto a guilty person. ‘Are you sorry for yourself ?’

‘Not really. I came to realize what I did was very disrespectful of Guixian. Besides, the woman did have an eye on money through the relationship.’

But he was in such need of affection, after twenty-seven years of an ascetic monk’s life! I could not bear to blame him for the mistake.

‘But I do want to call her to apologize and explain things. I couldn’t do it at home. Would you mind calling for me? I’m afraid she was very hurt after getting the letter and the photo.’

Uncle Renfeng dialed the number on my mobile, and handed it to me as it got through.

‘Hello, my name is Fan. I’m Renfeng Huang’s niece.’

Silence. Then the hang-up click.

I re-dialed. The phone had been switched off.

Uncle Renfeng let out a sigh, and wiped the sweat from his face.

8 44

Fan Dai

A year later, Uncle Renfeng came to Guangzhou again.

‘This is Xiao Wang.’ As I opened the door, Uncle Renfeng introduced the woman standing to his right. She had thick lips that gave her an honest look. Her fringe almost reached her eyebrows, providing a shy touch to her face. She had light brownish freckles here and there.

‘Hello,’ Xiao Wang said, her eyes meeting mine before looking away quickly.

‘Nice to meet you. Come on in!’

Uncle Renfeng stepped into the sitting-room. Xiao Wang followed him in gingerly, as if she were trying to hide herself.

They sat down next to each other on the sofa. Xiao Wang clasped her hands, put them on her knees, clasped them again, put them on her knees again . . . She was aware of my reserved curiosity, and was determined not to look at me.

‘How have you been?’ I asked Uncle Renfeng the obvious question.

‘Very well. As I told you in my last letter, Xiao Wang’s been taking good care of me. I exercise regularly. I eat well. I feel really good.’ This time, the flat tone of his voice was lifted by a joy I had never heard before.

That joy was hard-earned.

When the death of Aunt Guixian had sunk in, Uncle Renfeng fell into deep mourning. He resorted to writing her a letter.

Dear Guixian, You’re gone. I’m happy for you because you’re finally free from all the pain that had taken over your life. I’m also very devastated because I lost the wife who spent sixty years with me.

Every time I closed my eyes, moments of our time together would flash back. You came to our family when I was only twelve. I liked you.

I regarded you as my elder sister. I had lost mine when I was little.

Looking back, we seem to have have been meant for each other.

You and Brother Tiejian never loved each other. I had to go with both of you once a year to visit your parents during the Spring Festival. Dad wanted me to serve as a buffer in case you two fought on the way. And you fought all the time! Once, Brother Tiejian 45

The Secret Happy Life of Uncle Renfeng

simply walked away from you in a fury. I felt so bad for you. I had asked him to be nice to you but he never listened.

You used to live in the big bedroom on the second floor in the eastern wing of our house. I could feel your loneliness, especially in the cold and dark of winter nights. And you were sick so often. I was the one who delivered the herbal medicine to you when it was ready. We never said anything as I handed the bowl of herbal liquid to you. But you must have felt something special as I always sat outside your door and read until after you had gone to bed. I didn’t think of you as my sister-in-law. You were my sister.

We spent one winter together in 1944 in a family friend’s home during the Japanese Invasion. We met and talked in the study every day like brother and sister. It was the best memory I had during the war. Do you still remember the time when you offered to cut my fingernails when you saw how clumsy I was with my left hand? I had wanted you to help!

When you said, ‘Let me help you, Renfeng,’ it was the best music I had ever heard. That was the first time you were so close to me, but I didn’t dare to look at your beautiful face. I only saw how long your fingers were, and how fair your skin was.

When we became engaged in the spring of 1946, both of us felt a little strange about our new roles. I was only a seventeen-year-old high school kid and knew nothing about courtship.

Dad said that I must approach you and get intimate with you. I was nervous.

Fortunately, the cold weather helped. We used to warm ourselves by the stove. We had a wooden frame to hang our clothes on, and we put our hands under it. I reached for your hands under the cover of the clothes. I still remember the warmth of your hands and I still get drunk at the thought of your silky skin. We didn’t talk. It was more than sweet just to look at each other and hold each others’ hands.

One evening, everybody else left before us. I got up, and kissed you on the left cheek before I knew what had happened. It was so quick and so light that I do not remember how it felt. I only remember how fast my heart pounded. That was the very first time I kissed a woman. Wasn’t I silly and awkward? I wish I had seen 46

Fan Dai

movies in which young lovers kiss passionately. I wished I could go back to that kiss and kiss you better than you’d ever know, until neither of us could breathe!

I know you always remembered our wedding in the spring of 1947, because you used to talk about the two men who made us follow their demonstration to learn about love-making.

Every time you talked about that, I knew you were sending me a signal for intimacy.

But you stopped sending the signal after 1987, when you fell ill with Myasthenia Gravis.

You said sex gave you pain. I would never want to give you pain.

I used to joke about it, saying that there was a power cut. Later on, I found it hard to joke any more as it became an increasingly uncomfortable and sensitive topic.

I respected and believed in you. You were a good wife and a good mother. You took care of me so well that I never learned to take care of myself. You spoiled me. Our neighbours and my colleagues all envied me.

Your unfortunate marriage with Brother Tiejian, the insults you suffered during the Cultural Revolution, and your poor health: they all gave you mental and physical pain when you should have enjoyed life. To make things worse, I was led to believe that our lives would be better if we divorced. I’m so sorry I talked about that in 1968. I hurt you so! But you forgave me so generously. You knew, and everybody knew, that I wasn’t happy after you were diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis. You became a different person. You found fault with everyone, me in particular, every day. The one time that really hurt was when you faked death by leaving sleeping pills spread over the pillow. You waited till I panicked and called for the ambulance before jumping out of bed. You said I wished you dead.

I kept reminding myself that such a mental condition was part of the illness. I knew it wasn’t you. Every time when you said and did terrible things, I tried to remind myself of the good times we had.

Dear Guixian, I never wished you dead. Even when you threw the most spiteful words at me, I knew that your tender loving care was behind your stings.

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Your eyes were fixed on me in your final moment. I knew you wanted to say something but your tongue couldn’t move. I could tell from your eyes that you wanted to stay.

Guixian, I can only comfort myself in thinking that you’re now with our parents. Please do tell yours and mine that in the sixty years we spent together, I never stopped caring about you.

The title of the letter was ‘An Undelivered Letter’. That was not exactly the case. It was sent to friends and relatives. It was so uncharacteristic of Uncle Renfeng that it landed like a bomb for everyone. The daughters saw their father as an affectionate human being, a loving husband who had lived a selfless life for the good of their mother. One of his colleagues wrote, ‘I used to think of your marriage as tragic. But you’ve made it anything but tragedy.’

Uncle Renfeng told me that he found a little peace of mind after writing the letter. For the next two months or so, Xianping and Xiaoren took care of him alternately. Yet it was obvious that he needed someone there on a daily basis.

Uncle Renfeng decided to take a trip to his native Hengshan county in Hunan Province, three months after Aunt Guixian was gone. He bought an extra return ticket for a domestic helper, but they had become increasingly hard to find with each passing day, as anyone eligible would either be not available so soon, or thought Beijing to be too far away, or had to stay home because her family was against the idea.

Uncle Renfeng was about to return the ticket when Xiao Wang came to the hotel.

Xiao Wang is one year younger than me. She sat there like a little girl who was worried about getting a low grade, though she must have known that I was the most sympathetic person in the extended family with regard to her role in Uncle Renfeng’s life.

‘Have you been to Guangzhou before?’ I asked.

‘No.’ Her voice was a little coarse.

‘She hadn’t been anywhere before going to Beijing,’ Uncle Renfeng added. He turned to her. ‘Why don’t you give Fan the pickle you made?’

Xiao Wang reached for the red plastic bag she had put down by her left foot, and took out a bottle of pickled turnip. It looked pretty with bits 48

Fan Dai

of dried red pepper scattered in the bottle. She opened the lid for me to sample the mouth-watering smell.

‘Mmm . . . Smells really good!’ I exclaimed.

Xiao Wang smiled. Her posture softened. Her plain and plump face became pretty, her cheeks red like her rosy-colored T-shirt. She smiled, and her teeth were yellow with some darkish stains.

‘Everybody loves the pickles. She has to make them non-stop to meet demand from Xianping and Xiaoren’s families,’ Uncle Renfeng said, as proudly as if he had made them himself.

There was a soft quality in his tone. He looked at least twenty years younger than his seventy-seven years.

They looked good together.

‘Have you taken a picture together?’

They looked at each other. Uncle Renfeng shook his head.

‘Would you like me to take a picture of you?’ Seeing the hesitation in Uncle Renfeng’s eyes, I added, ‘I can keep it for you.’

‘Yes,’ said Uncle Renfeng. Xiao Wang looked at him, shy and contented.

They stiffened on the digital screen. They were sitting apart as if they were saving a spot for someone else between them.

‘Relax! No one will see it except me.’

Both attempted to smile, just enough to indicate that they did not mind having the picture taken.

‘Are you happy?’ I asked as soon as Xiao Wang went to the bathroom.

‘Yes, yes. I’ll tell you more when we have some time alone,’ Uncle Renfeng whispered.

It was not until two months later before we had a chance to talk properly, in Beijing. As I had suspected, Xianping and Xiaoren had been feeling uncomfortable with the way Uncle Renfeng and Xiao Wang interacted.

Nothing seemed wrong, but something just didn’t feel right.

Xiaoren’s office is five minutes away from Uncle Renfeng’s apartment.

She had been checking on him every day. She saw him help Xiao Wang put on her coat before she went grocery shopping one day.

‘Dad, you never did that for mum. You never did that for me either.’

Xiaoren did not hide the resentment in her tone.

‘Dad, it’s not a good idea to lend Xiao Wang so much money,’ Xianping 49

The Secret Happy Life of Uncle Renfeng

said after hearing that Xiao Wang had borrowed 47,000 yuan and would work to pay back the amount.

The money was for her daughter’s university fees, and for the downpayment for the apartment her son had to buy before marrying a shop assistant: the girl’s parents needed to see some financial commitment from their prospective son-in-law, who did not make much as a truck driver.

Uncle Renfeng paid Xiao Wang 800 yuan a month for the first year, and 100 yuan extra with each additional year until the amount reached 1,300 yuan a month. This meant Xiao Wang would need to work for more than four years before she could pay everything back.

‘You have no obligation to lend her the money,’ Xianping said. ‘And you don’t even know her that well. Even if you lend her money, it doesn’t have to be such a large amount. Who does she think you are? You’re just a retired old man with a pension of three thousand something a month!’

‘I understand my daughters’ concern. But they don’t seem to understand that Xiao Wang needs to sort out things at home before she can think of settling in Beijing. I want her to feel at home here and take care of me until the end.’

‘And you’re sure that Xiao Wang is the kind of person you need for the rest of your life?’

Uncle Renfeng nodded. ‘As soon as she entered the apartment, she went about washing, cleaning and tidying up, as if she had lived here for ever.

Life has been easy and simple since she came.’

‘Do you think she cares for you?’

‘I . . . She is attached to me in some way. The other day, I overheard her talking with her daughter on the phone. She told her that if grandpa were younger, she would marry him.’

‘She calls you grandpa?’

‘She’s thirty-three years younger than me. Xianping and Xiaoren suggested this.’

It was to remind him that they are a generation apart.

‘They asked for a meeting with me to talk about Xiao Wang. Xiaoren made it clear right from the beginning that Xiao Wang is, and will always be, a domestic helper.’

‘Did you have a problem with that?’

‘Not really. For one thing, my daughters simply cannot see Xiao Wang 50

Fan Dai

in their mother’s place. For another, I’m seventy-nine years old. What do I have to offer to Xiao Wang anyway? I can only pay her a salary. But I respect her and take care of her as best I can, including lending her money.’

Xiao Wang came into the sitting room with two bowls of soup and placed them in front of us.

‘This is the soup we have had every day since she arrived,’ Uncle Renfeng explained.

‘What’s in it?’

‘Peanuts, red beans . . . and some Chinese herbs, ‘ Xiao Wang said.

‘I’ve done a lot of reading about health management, and worked out a whole set of things to do and eat throughout the day.’ Uncle Renfeng took a few sheets out of the drawer from the desk at the far end of the room, as Xiao Wang went back to the kitchen.

‘These are the records of my blood pressure for the last two years. I check it four times a day at roughly the same time. See, this is for early morning, mid-morning, afternoon, and here, for evening.’

‘Wow, these have to be the world’s longest non-stop and most detailed record for blood pressure!’ I exclaimed as I saw not only the daily record, but also a monthly summary and an annual summary.

Uncle Renfeng smiled and held the sheets up as if he were looking at a work of art. ‘Perhaps some doctor may find them useful some day.’

There was also the daily action plan: 1. 6:00 am – on-bed exercise: head and abdomen massage 15-20 minutes 2. 6:30 am – 45-minute outdoor exercise in Zizu Park, 15-minutes neck, back and limb movements; 30-minutes Taiji 3. 7:30 – breakfast 4. 8:30-11:30 – reading 5. noon – lunch 6. 1:00-2:00 – nap 7. 2:00-4:30 – free time 8. 5:00 – dinner 9. 5:30-6:30 – outdoor activities 10. 6:30-9:30 pm – TV 11. 10:00 pm – bedtime 51

The Secret Happy Life of Uncle Renfeng

Following that was another list of what to eat and not to eat, and how much.

‘These may look very rigid to you, but once you get used to it, it becomes a routine you stick to,’ Uncle Renfeng said.

‘What else happened in the meeting?’

‘Oh, yes, the meeting. I understood that Xianping and Xiaoren were worried about me giving too much money to Xiao Wang. That I could understand too. So I keep only 20,000 in the bank for emergencies and divided the rest of my savings among my daughters. Yingping has 40%, and Xianping and Xiaoren 20% each. Yingping’s family needs more help and she needs more security with her declining health. They’ve also agreed to use the same percentages for my apartment when I’m gone, whether they let it or sell it.’

He finished the last two spoonsful of soup. ‘Now that I only have 20,000 yuan at my disposal, they know that I don’t have much to give away.

But I did find another way to help Xiao Wang.’

He had taught her to type. He had been helping a friend’s company to update information related to construction material overseas on a monthly basis, so that the friend would know what to buy for his import business.

Uncle Renfeng went to the Beijing Library once a week to read all the journals in the field, and summarize the most recent information. He used to copy the information on sheets of paper and send them away each month. Now he let Xiao Wang type everything up and gave her a quarter of the pay.

‘This also makes her feel that we’re in something together.’

This is so typical of Uncle Renfeng. Working everything out for everybody.

Uncle Renfeng smiled quietly. ‘Now I do feel I’ve taken care of everything. All I have to do is to stay healthy so I won’t burden anyone.’

‘Does Xiao Wang go with you for the outdoor activities?’

‘Yes, she comes out with me for my morning exercise and evening walk.

We’ve become famous in the neighborhood. I can feel that some people envy me, some frown at us, and some are curious but pretend not to be.’

That was a hugely different Uncle Renfeng. He used to go out of his way to avoid having anything to do with women, as Aunt Guixian would get insanely worked up about it.

‘Fancy becoming famous at this age, and for this reason!’ I laughed. ‘Who would have thought that you’d be in such an eyebrows-raising relationship?’

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But I was really happy that he was.

A year after that, Uncle Renfeng called early one morning. He sounded distressed. ‘Xiao Wang may have to go. I’m afraid she’s not as reliable as I had thought.’

‘I thought you had worked everything out between you.’

‘I thought so too. But she’s taken 10,000 yuan out of my bank account.’

A week later, Uncle Renfeng called again and said Xiao Wang was going to stay. ‘When you come to Beijing next, make sure we can spend some time together.’

It had all happened because Uncle Renfeng persuaded the friend for whom he collected information not to hire him anymore, as such information had become easily available on the Internet.

The friend, grateful for his help over the previous ten years, paid him an extra lump sum of 10,000 yuan. He sent the money to an account that Uncle Renfeng was about to close. Uncle Renfeng asked Xiao Wang to transfer it to his active account, but she sent it to her son instead. She simply needed the money. He was not very pleased but decided to wait for a good occasion to talk about it.

A few days later, Xiao Wang said she wanted to go to a clothing exhibition. She went three days in a row, asking for two hundred yuan each time. Uncle Renfeng pointed out that she was going beyond his means. His pension was 3,300 yuan a month. Daily expenses were up to 1,500 yuan a month, Xiao Wang’s salary was 1,300 yuan, her medical fees were about 100 yuan, and he was left with less than 400 yuan a month to spare.

What broke Uncle Renfeng’s heart was that his granddaughter Wang Yuan accidentally saw the online exchange Xiao Wang had had with her daughter: ‘The old man wasn’t very pleased about me sending 10,000 yuan home and spending extra money. But I’ll ask for more anyway. If he has no more to give, I’ll leave.’

Xianping and Xiaoren were so upset that they bought a ticket for her to leave the next day.

‘Wake up, Dad! She’s only here for money and she’s overstepped the boundary!’

Uncle Renfeng agreed that Xiao Wang should leave if she wanted more money. ‘You know how much I have and I’ve done the best I can. If you can’t appreciate that, you can leave any time,’ he told her.

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In spite of the hurt feelings, he made Xianping and Xiaoren promise not to say harsh words to Xiao Wang. ‘After all, she’s done her job well, and it’s not a sin to want more money. She has also apologized for the 10,000 yuan and said she’d return it within a week.’

Xiao Wang cried bitterly and said she had been a fool. She must have realized that it was hard to find a man like Uncle Renfeng.

In fact, Uncle Renfeng’s name, the combination of the two characters of people and phoenix, means “the best of men.”

‘I do want more money but one doesn’t just live for money. You’re a good person and I want to look after you for the rest of your life,’ she said.

I asked Uncle Renfeng whether he was disappointed. He nodded. ‘But I also learned that I must not expect too much from Xiao Wang. She’s only in her mid-forties. She could choose to work elsewhere or marry someone.

I feel lucky that she’s chosen to stay.’

In 2010, Uncle Renfeng turned eighty. He celebrated the birthday by sending an informal memoir, Traces of Renfeng, to relatives and friends. The cover is designed by his oldest grandson, Pang Ming, who is an interior designer. It has a blue background, with a tree to the right. The blue has a nostalgic feel to it.

In the preface, Uncle Renfeng says that it was time to say something about his life, and he did it in a special way. He wrote it by hand, in very small yet neat characters. ‘I want to show that I could still write steadily at eighty.’

The characters are not only steady but also very pleasant to the eye.

Small enough to show the writer’s ability to attend to the details of each stroke; big enough for an easy read.

In the section related to the family was his letter to Aunt Guixian. In the section of correspondence with his university buddies is the letter in which he suggests an organization be set up to bring the class together again, so that everyone might know what has happened in whose families, who needs help, and other details. His warmth and humour, rarely detectable when he speaks, sparkles on the page.

So life goes on and Uncle Renfeng is happy. There is a Chinese saying, Zhi Zu Zhe Chang Le: those who choose to feel satisfied are always happy. Uncle Renfeng never asked too much from life, and he has therefore managed to enjoy his share of happiness, even in the most unlikely circumstances.

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Yu Xuanji translated by Justin Hill

For the Master Alchemist The tailor cut the sunset clouds to get your gown so red Incense trails through embroidered curtain Lotus flowers float for you bright in the rippled water Spring has draped all the hills and lakes in a fine green cloth Stop! Listen to the birds – like girls singing Uncage that crane let it fly free Dawn comes to the temple hall nudging us from sleep Still damp from the sprinkle of last night’s rain

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Poetry

Boudoir Resentment Hands full of herbs she cries at sunset hearing the neighbour’s husband has returned.

South-flying geese turned north the day her husband left.

Today the north-flying geese turn south.

Spring comes, autumn goes her feelings remain.

Years come, then pass – his messages dwindle.

Unbolting her red door each night, she waits for no one to visit hears through the curtains the sound of washing clothes.

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Yu Xuanji

On a winter’s night I wrote this poem for Wen Ting Yun Cursing myself, scrabbling for a poem, composing it by lamplight.

Awake all night, afraid of climbing under my cold quilt.

At dawn the yard frets with the rustle of restless leaves, sheer window curtains catch the last of the fading moon.

Shit happens.

I think now I’ve found fulfilment.

Success follows failure follows what?

There’s a third way forward.

Roosting each night, never to settle where home-trees grow Dusk-sparrows twitter forever flapping round the forest.

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Poetry

Matching poem for my new neighbour to the west, inviting him over for wine your poem arrives, unworn words despite a hundred recitations new love, in each line – pure as gold Westering my mind climbs the fence too much long-distance gazing, my heart might turn to stone the River of Stars divides lovers I look up and sigh dreams of the southlands have passed, the zither sits unplayed only longing for home grows in winter soils cold nights, good wine – a waste to pour for one

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Yu Xuanji

Elegy for Another’s Wife The peach’s complexion her tender cheeks wind-blown willow her delicate brows into the dragon’s cave the pearl has fallen waiting for her reflection the phoenix stand mirror Our dreams drip through cold wet nights no one wants to listen these hours of loss sunset behind the western mountains moonrise above the east forever breaking through our memories of her

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Poetry

A poem in reply The great thoroughfares are wide without friends.

Dusk till dawn pawning my fine silk gowns.

In my casket, the tarnished mirror – straggles of hair down my face.

The incense burner still gives off heat but now the scent’s grown thin.

This affectionate Master left behind a spring poem.

My door was shut. I was not in.

How thoughtless of me!

Take your rich carriage out again don’t regret another ride.

Willow threads and plums blossom are most fragrant now.

Yu Xuanji (c 844–870) is perhaps the most distinctive of the female Tang Poets - writing feminist poetry in the 9th century.

She also combined all the ways a woman could have some degree of independence – concubine, courtesan and priestess – into one short life (by all accounts she died/was executed at the age of 26). While many of her poems are protests against the limitations imposed on a woman in Tang society, they also give a fascinating insight into the challenges of a young and talented courtesan trying to make a way in life – and ultimately failing.

The original Chinese text of the poems is here: http://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/view?docId=Chinese/uvaGenText/tei/yu/YuXuan.xml

60

from Nothing Gained Phillip Kim

J

ason Donahue liked foie gras well enough. For Howard Leitner, however, it seemed divine. The unctuous concoction was set inside individual Chinese soup spoons, allowing it to slide directly onto the middle of the palate before compliantly dissolving on the tongue. Leitner took in his serving much as someone else might take a shot of bourbon – with one swift motion. Before swallowing, he reached for his glass of 1988 Suduiraut and took a sip of the goldenrod liquid. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he let out an audible moan.

‘It’s criminal that I have to travel to the far side of the globe to find the best fucking foie gras,’ Leitner said, slowly shaking his head. He peered down through his reading glasses at an unfolded sheet of newsprint.

‘Listen to the review of this dish: “It was pan-seared and served with honeysuckle blossom, pear aspic, and gold flakes in small Lego-sized blocks. The sweet and tart pear flavors provided structure to the richness of the goose liver, while the hint of floral fragrance in the back of the nose gave it lift.” Damned right!’

Tony Widjaya, one of the two others seated around the dinner table, merely shrugged. ‘Foie gras follows money. So do you. Isn’t that why we are in Macau, Howard?’

‘Money is a commodity – simple, basic, fungible,’ Leitner replied and then pointed at his emptied spoon. ‘This, on the other hand, is art.’

Donahue spoke up with a chuckle. ‘Frankly, if any of us really gave a damn about art, we wouldn’t be investing in the casino business here. This city is the enemy of art. Wouldn’t you agree, Dominique?’

Dominique Flaubert, wearing oversized hooped diamond earrings, 61

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gave Donahue a frown and waved a corner of bread at him. ‘Well, no,’ she replied. ‘This place is more like an art enabler. Look at what the new money in China has done for the world’s contemporary art scene. These days, Sotheby’s needs China. Their best lots are brought here, even though they think that it is a case of more money than sense.’

‘More money than sense . . . that is why we are here!’ Leitner said emphatically, tapping the edge of the table in front of him to make the point. ‘A billion and a half people with just that problem. We can’t let Steve Wynn, Sheldon Adelson, and that Chinese mafia don keep minting all the easy money.’

He raised his wine glass for a toast. ‘With this deal, my Ascendancy Entertainment and each of your own names will be added to that very lucky short list.’

Donahue smirked as he and the others raised their glasses and tapped them together to register the sonorous chime of fine lead crystal. ‘Your name can be added, Howard. I’d rather my name and Dominique’s weren’t publicized. We’ve been pretty clear on that point, right?’

The quartet exchanged banter until the main dish of venison with morel mushrooms and pickled taro root appeared. The sommelier served a 1971 Penfolds Grange with gentle ceremony.

Again, Leitner breathed a satisfied sigh. ‘Except for steaks, the best food is definitely in Asia. The best Western chefs have restaurants here, whereas people in the West have no clue about really good Chinese food. There’s no comparison. China’s got it all, my friends.’

The others smiled and nodded politely.

Leitner then looked at Donahue. ‘I assume you’ve overcome your little problems and been able to move your group’s money into the escrow account?’

Dominique answered for him. ‘Yes, finally. I gave the instructions to our bank just this afternoon.’

‘So what took so long?’ Widjaya asked. ‘Ascendancy has been holding up a $1.5 billion deal waiting for your $120 million piece.’

Leitner chipped in, ‘Given how choppy things have been with Europe and how nervous the banks are, we were pretty anxious. Our bankers are not as enthusiastic as they once were about our project. We were starting to wonder if you—’ 62

Phillip Kim

‘Yes, I know,’ Donahue interrupted, clenching his fist around his linen napkin. ‘Believe me, I’m in a pretty good position to know what the markets are like. The situation was not entirely in my control. Given who I am, I don’t have the latitude to operate as freely without borders as some others do.’ He raised his chin towards Widjaya.

‘The international funds transfer and money laundering rules have gotten very tight,’ Dominique clarified further.

‘Well, anyway, it’s done,’ Leitner replied calmly. ‘Thank you for that. I’m sure that Continental Enterprise will be pleased to know that all our funds are together and we can finally close on buying their stake in the Royale casinos.’

While Leitner and Widjaya turned their attention back to the venison, Donahue and Dominique stole furtive glances at each other.

‘However, there is one thing, Howard,’ Donahue said. ‘I thought I’d tell you directly before you found out from the bank.’

Leitner wiped the corner of his mouth with his napkin. ‘What’s that?’

‘You’ll see that we only wired in $100 million,’ Donahue said calmly.

‘Oh? Why?’ Leitner asked, setting his fork and knife down while he chewed. Widjaya continued sawing through another morsel of the deer. A piece of buckshot rolled out of the meat. He examined the tiny but lethal metal bead with the tip of his knife and pushed it to the edge of his plate.

‘Well, I figured that the balance of the money would be appropriate compensation for my contributions to this deal,’ Donahue said selfassuredly.

‘Beg pardon?’ Widjaya asked, squinting in disbelief. ‘A $20 million fee?

What happened to the $3 million we agreed to?’

‘I think that twenty is a more suitable number,’ Donahue responded matter-of-factly, ‘particularly given that you owe everything to Beijing’s approval for this deal. I doubt that there’s much chance that you guys would be poised to buy a 25 per cent stake of an existing and highly profitable Macau casino without my efforts up north. Isn’t that why you privately approached me to help out, even after you chose not to hire Barker Reed on this deal?’

Leitner stared at Donahue in disbelief and laughed. ‘You can’t be serious, Jason! I did just fine on my own convincing those Beijing officials.’

Donahue leaned forward. ‘You act like no one else before you had ever 63

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thought to bribe the Chinese! Don’t be so naïve, Howard! It’s not just about throwing around money at that level. All the other better-known casino operators lobbying them were doing the same. No, sir. A true friend to a party official finds a problem he has and fixes it. For that, I went way out on a limb on this one.’

Leitner visibly seethed. ‘You’re not the one dealing with my huge upfront costs,’ he shot back, ‘or the threats from a bunch of hotheaded, drooling rivals. Besides, I’ve told you a dozen times why I couldn’t hire BR on this. Not after your US media banker fucked me into bankruptcy ten years ago when he was at Merrill. And do you have any idea how many times your US guys backed other casino guys against me in past deals? I take these things personally. Ascendancy Entertainment is me.’

Donahue simply shrugged. ‘That’s right, Howard. And this is your deal.

It’s the one that can finally put Ascendancy into the top tier. But what about me?’

‘What about you?’ Leitner asked. ‘You’ve got your piece, everything we agreed to.’

‘Not quite, Howard. First you chose to work with another bank as advisor. Despite that, you came looking for my personal assistance with Beijing. And I obliged, at much reputational risk. I even put together a $120 million investor group in exchange for a bitty part of your 25 per cent equity stake. All told, that’s a hell of a contribution at a time when fundraising for anything is a challenge. I’m not a charity. What would a banker like me be without his bonus, eh?’

Leitner vigorously shook his head, unable to contain a temper shortened by a cocktail of jetlag and heady dining. ‘Bullshit! You’re a hell of lot more than just some fee-monger. You’re in pretty deep yourself, Donahue.’

‘You said it right, Howard. I’m not just any banker out to earn a fee.

Not too many bankers have my kind of influence on both sides of the pond. How many people do you know who get routinely asked by the Chinese leadership to directly lobby the White House and Treasury Department to soften their stance on the renminbi? Meanwhile here in Asia, I raised a half billion-dollar REIT through BR to bail a few Chinese central government bureaucrats out of several dicey Shenyang properties – at an absurd valuation at the height of the market, I might add!’

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‘You’re not the only one with that kind of access, Donahue,’ Leitner retorted.

‘Then why is it me sitting here chowing down foie gras with you, Howard?’ Donahue asked, raising his arms in mild exasperation. ‘Why aren’t you out toasting this deal with your other advisors? Is it because without my help you’d likely be back in Vegas explaining to a pissed-off board why another casino operator is signing a deal to buy Continental’s stake in Royale?’

‘Jason’s personal relationships in Asia are truly amazing,’ Dominique added.

Leitner abruptly shifted to face her squarely. ‘Yes, really, young lady?’ he growled. ‘Tell me what you and your lacy French panties know about relationships.’

Dominique flinched at the characterization. Donahue quickly clasped Dominique’s hand to stop her from responding. He reached over and put his other hand on Leitner’s wrist. ‘OK, OK, folks. Howard and Tony, let’s all take it back down a notch. We’re all still friends, yes?’

Leitner shifted back towards Donahue. ‘Since when do friends withhold $20 million from each other? What am I supposed to do, reach into my pocket and whip out that amount of money now from behind my dick?’

‘You can’t come up with another $20 million for this deal, Howard?’

Donahue asked, more from surprise than challenging him. ‘It’s a drop in the ocean for a deal of this size.’

‘With only a week or two before closing? Jason, I already told you that this investment is tapping out Ascendancy’s cash reserves. We’re putting $400 million of our own cash into it. There’s no way I’m going back to my partners to say that we are short another $20 million. I’m going to look like an ass. They already think that this is way over priced. And again, that’s beside the point. What you are asking for is totally out of line.’

‘Just ask your investment bankers to source another $20 million, Howard. Isn’t that what you’re paying them for?’

‘Not if it’s $20 million you’re trying to screw me out of, Donahue. You should know that I can’t tolerate this.’

‘You’re resourceful. You can make up the difference,’ Donahue said flatly. ‘So let’s move beyond the $20 million. It’s as good as gone.

I deserved it.’ Then he chuckled lightly. ‘Besides, knowing my wife, she’s 65

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probably already found a home for the money at one of her favorite charities. And I would advise you against trying to stand between her and the fight to end adolescent suicides!’

‘Your wife?? What the hell are you talking about? I fucking hope that you’re shitting me, Jason.’

‘Listen, Howard,’ Donahue said, trying again to restore a measure of civility to the meal that he had knowingly stirred up, ‘sleep on it for a couple of days. This deal is going to be a home run for you. I think that you’ll come to appreciate my perspective given everything I’ve done.’

‘Your “perspective” is jeopardizing my deal,’ Howard grumbled.

Donahue simply shrugged again. Getting no further response from Leitner other than simmering rancor, Donahue turned to Widjaya. ‘Hey, Tony, keep your lucky bullet in your pocket. You’ll just scare the waiters if they see it.’

Donahue watched a dark smile crease Widjaya’s face. Donahue would normally have dismissed a counterparty’s stunt of fingering a 9mm bullet at opportune moments in tense negotiations as a silly piece of theater.

However, Widjaya had the reputation to make it more meaningful.

Donahue’s background check had revealed that Tony Widjaya had grown up as the black sheep son of an Indonesian Chinese cement producer. The patriarch father had deemed that Tony’s mercurial temperament was unsuited to managing the family’s business. Left on his own with a pile of consolation money tossed to him by his estranged father, Tony had displayed enough grit and street sense to gut his way up to become one of the fixers for Tommy Suharto, the youngest son of the late strongman Indonesian president. He had fled the country when Tommy Suharto had been convicted and jailed for hiring a hit man to kill a prominent judge. Over the ensuing years, Widjaya had learned to speak English and Mandarin well, invested in businesses around the region and put himself into the service of rich and powerful people around Southeast Asia who needed reliable henchmen to handle selected business matters requiring extreme discretion.

‘And one more thing, Howard,’ Donahue said, turning his attention back to his counterpart. ‘Permit me to give you some friendly advice: You’ve got to stop publicly referring to Macau’s laws as Portuguese toilet paper and Stanley Ho as a Chinese mafia don. People in this town get really touchy 66

Phillip Kim

about those kinds of thing. Lots of fortunes and livelihoods are owed to that man.’

Dinner ended shortly afterwards, with Leitner waving away the waiter and the dessert menu. After an agreement to talk in the morning, Leitner rose from the table, apologizing that his jetlag trumped manners. Before he walked off, he pressed an index finger against the table and looked coldly across at Donahue.

‘I want my $20 million, Donahue. No more reminders. You may think that I’ve got more to lose than you on this issue. Think again.’

After Leitner and Widjaya left the table, a waiter approached with the dinner check. Dominique pulled out a credit card. ‘Coming back to the hotel, Jason?’

‘No, not immediately. You go ahead. I’ll walk back. I feel like having a smoke.’

She leaned in and kissed his cheek. ‘You won’t be too late, will you?’

‘And miss the best part of my day? No chance.’ He looked at her warmly and kissed her cheek in return, raising his arm to cup the back of her head. He loved the soft feel of the brush of fine hair at its base.

She sighed as they drew back apart. ‘What are you doing with these people? They have no class whatsoever.’

Donahue took her hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘I know that they come off as an ignorant Jew and his orangutan thug. But don’t underestimate Howard Leitner. He’s a very sharp man. He’ll fall in line.’

She looked down at his strong, prominently veined hand holding hers.

‘He scares me. He doesn’t seem to be the forgiving kind.’

‘Don’t worry, Dominique,’ he responded confidently. ‘He needs us. He’s a babe in the woods in this part of the world. Look how much he’s had to rely on a sleazebag like Widjaya to find his way around.’

‘And why did you say that about Cheryl and her charity? You’ve never mentioned anything about any of the money going to her.’

‘Don’t be silly! Of course I wouldn’t get Cheryl involved in this.’

She frowned in the way that always drew him to her, a look at once both wise and vulnerable.

‘And you know better than to take his off-color comment about you personally, right?’ he continued. ‘I promise that I’ll make it up to you.’

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‘I keep thinking about that contractor who was found dead in Las Vegas five years ago,’ Dominique mumbled. ‘What a brutal way to die. And his wife and kids were never found. His last job had been with Howard.

I read that there had been some dispute over money, much less than $20 million. I thought that only gangsters and dictators behaved like that.’

‘Rumors; just rumors, Dominique,’ Donahue replied. ‘And we’re not just some two-bit contractor. Howard wouldn’t dare touch us other than to shake our hands in gratitude. He won’t mess around with us so long as we’ve got $120 million of our group’s money in this deal, all riding on our trust in him. His Ascendancy Entertainment is nothing compared to Barker Reed. And I practically run BR, even with that moron MacKenzie as CEO. Don’t worry, Dominique; Howard’s not in our league.’

Her concern dissipated only slightly. ‘In any event, with so much at stake, I still wonder why you’re doing it.’

He smiled at her, broadly and reassuring. ‘For the same reasons we’ve always done what we do at BR: for the money, for the sport of it, and simply because we can.’

Donahue watched her rise and leave the table. The scent of spice and lilac trailed her in invisible curls of aromatic confetti as her sleekness in the knee-length black dress sliced through the restaurant’s palette of royal blue and gold.

After waiting a few minutes to collect his thoughts, Donahue took the elevator down to the lobby of the hotel casino. Heading towards the exit, he passed a parade of Chinese prostitutes pacing back and forth in front of the foreign exchange money counters and kitsch-filled retail stores. Their exaggerated gait and makeup did little to cover the starkly vacant boredom that stiffened their faces. He also had to weave his way through an ambling mass of Chinese gamblers moving at half his pace. Most in the crowd had the familiar look of ordinary local people off the streets of modern China. Many of the men had disheveled hair and unpressed clothes, as if they had just risen from bed. The women had unevenly applied makeup.

They waddled as they moved forward, pointing with brightly manicured fingernails. Donahue could tell that their wealth was still modest. The brightly lit casinos – modern-day opium dens – no doubt brought escape from cramped living quarters and mundane day jobs. For many, gambling 68

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was more than simply entertainment; it was ritualistic communion with the fickle gods of fortune. For too many it was an irrepressible urge, a surrendering to an almighty affliction. The desire to test their luck was an immutable force in their lives, as essential as the need to have dreams.

Dominique had noted to him that an increasing number of gamblers, particularly those heading to the VIP lounges on the upper floors, in recent years had the unmistakable trappings of sudden wealth. Spotting them was not difficult. The older men wore off-the-rack fashions straight out of Golf Digest. Many of the younger men wore the now-standard uniform of China’s nouveau riche princelings: Etro shirts, Hugo Boss jeans, John Lobb shoes, and conspicuously displayed Franck Muller watches. The women were invariably overdressed, carrying handbags that cost as much as an average Chinese migrant worker might make in two years. The clothing was undeniably expensive, but there was an oddity to the overall look. Styles clashed. Walking seemed perilous on ever higher heels. And occasionally, designer labels and price tags dangled from garments like out-of-season holiday ornaments, not having been properly removed before the items were worn in public.

69

Lady Flor N. Partosa

Eavesdrop the walls of your bedroom are thin and they cry every night sometimes the house could fall apart because the earth trembles with your grief and hers a sound so sad that the bats follow it around thinking it is the sound of lost birds and you are not to be found even when you are warm under the smooth skin of blankets the walls will soon be silent and neither of you here: when the bats return to sleep and the birds find daylight.

70

from Karachi Raj Anis Shivani

T

he strongest man on the job fell and hurt his back, and ended up in hospital for weeks, abandoning a lovely young wife to temptation and scandal. Things were never the same for Hafiz, the innocent bystander – not at the godown, not anywhere else.

Independence Day was around the corner. Celebrations should be muted, some of the men argued, all things considered – economy, war, insurgencies. Rain menaced every day, but never came. It was one of the driest seasons on record.

The godown where Hafiz worked was high and dark and covered much of a block. It deserved a dome to crown its twenty-foot height. Located on Muhammad Ali Jinnah Road, not far from the Gothic colonial-era Karachi Port Trust building, it was prime real estate, its value having gone up exponentially since Hafiz’s employer, his old school friend Majid, had bought it a few years before.

Muscular men threw bales of fabric against the ground, producing the thud of obligatory work. A squealing truck slowly backed out of the gates.

‘What are we celebrating?’ one of the workers asked. ‘Will there be a Pakistan tomorrow? Will there be five Pakistans? We’re bankrupt. They just don’t want us to know. Are we independent of international banks?

Are we independent – ’ They heard an ominous thump from the far corner, where a man lay spread on the floor.

It was Shafiq, the braggart. He’d lost his step on the rickety ladder everyone had warned him about. One moment he was leaning toward a stack of cartons; the next, there was empty air, filled with the dread of accident.

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He looked like a rigid doll, his face resting sideways on the sawdust floor, his back curved strangely. A rheumy film covered his eyes. His toes opened and closed and his paan-stained mouth made no sound. They all gathered around him.

‘Should we move him?’

‘I think his back is broken.’

‘He’s as good as dead.’

‘I think his neck is broken!’

‘He never should have.’

‘That ladder, that arrogance.’

‘The hospitals won’t take him.’

‘A young wife, too bad.’

‘I think he’s dead.’

Abdul Haq, the grizzled old supervisor, cleared his way to the front.

‘Hato-hato! Move aside! What’s this, a tamasha? Let me handle this.’

He bent to take Shafiq’s pulse, shutting the victim’s eyes. ‘Pulse is good.’

He rubbed Shafiq’s heart, stomach, thighs, knees, head, arms, feet. ‘Where does it hurt?’ Shafiq groaned. ‘Tell me your problem.’ Shafiq couldn’t move. Abdul Haq groped all over again. When he pressed his back, Shafiq moaned. Abdul Haq snapped his fingers. ‘We know the problem, that’s half the solution.’

Hafiz’s knees went watery. Here was his own sickening future. He willed Shafiq to shout, rise, break the spell, but no such luck. Shafiq had been prone to boasting. Look at my balance, I can do the impossible, my body does anything, anything! He’d been married a few months to a beautiful nineteen-year-old named Bibi, who he claimed was a distant cousin brought low in the world.

Abdul Haq commenced a monologue. ‘The private hospital is close, but they’d kill a healthy pehelwan. The chief nurse is a slut. The Civil Hospital is farther away, but the best guarantee in a serious case. We could load him in a Suzuki pickup, or call an Edhi ambulance – though they might take a while; they prefer terrorist casualties.’ He yelled at Hafiz. ‘Get a cab! Load him in the back so we can take him to the Civil Hospital. The rest of you go back to work! This is not some tamasha your mother and father paid for!’

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wouldn’t he speak? Everyone was relieved to see him vanish. Hafiz took down the ladder at fault, dragged it to a dark corner of the godown.

Hafiz was one of the youngest men at the godown, though there was a pair of dark-skinned twins who claimed to be orphans of fourteen. He thought of the furniture workshop, owned by his father’s old friend in the Aram Bagh area, where he’d once inquired for work. The furniture makers practised their craft unchanged from generation to generation. Their deliberation and contentment could never be matched by transitory godown labourers. He owed the godown job to the owner of the import-export business, his school friend Majid, who’d done miraculously well for himself. But workers didn’t fall out of the sky at the furniture workshop. Hafiz had spurned that job because it meant lifetime commitment. He would have been an apprentice bound to the whims of a grumpy master. Only flawless skill would elevate him. His own work would be meaningless without group effort: the varnisher waiting for the chair’s legs to be put together, the painter in turn expecting the varnisher to finish his job on time, a moving assembly where many hands worked in increments to create a product owned by no single individual. It was too much discipline, and he wanted to remain free, ready for adventure.

Other men had dreamed and fled confinement. Why not him?

Abdul Haq returned from the hospital angry, his narrow black eyes on fire.

‘Idiots! We shouldn’t have shifted him. I’ve seen these cases; they can cause damage. His spine is probably destroyed. What will we tell his wife?

Get back to work!’ No one dared ask what had transpired at the hospital, or point out that the decision had been Abdul Haq’s.

‘You, of all people, should have known better,’ he accused Hafiz.

At closing time, without his customary sarcastic farewell, Abdul Haq jumped on his sky-blue Vespa scooter, kicking the starter. He had a way of stretching his body before propulsion, standing upright then crouching toward the handlebar as though searching for something lost on the ground ahead. He would intentionally wobble at the start, a daring feat for a man his age. Today he performed the ritual with more than the usual panache.

He turned around after a hundred yards.

‘Come with me to the hospital,’ he ordered Hafiz. ‘About time you learned some responsibility.’

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Abdul Haq was not a man to be denied. From the beginning, he’d taken a proprietary interest in Hafiz. He talked of Majid seth as though they had a secret bond. He only needed to say the word for Hafiz to rise in the ranks. Hafiz’s father hadn’t taught him discipline. Abdul Haq would rectify that. There was a personal element too. Abdul Haq had started inviting Hafiz to his home in Malir – a well-kept white bungalow on three hundred yards. There, Mariam, Abdul Haq’s grandniece, flirted with Hafiz, treating him like a plaything. ‘There isn’t much of an age difference between us,’ she claimed. She was attractive like a Mughal courtesan, or a fast-talking reporter on one of the television channels like Geo or ARY. Sometimes Mariam looked as old as forty, sometimes her face softened to sixteen. She was prone to humiliating Hafiz. ‘Your manners need work, you eat like a ganwar, an illiterate. Just because you live in the Basti doesn’t mean you have to act like one of them.’ Always the Basti, the reminder that he lived in an unauthorized city within the city. Had Mariam once been married? She gave hints both ways. Mariam’s mother, a garrulous redhaired woman, regaled Hafiz with stories of her parents arriving penniless in Pakistan at the time of partition. She gave the impression of never having been touched by a man, as though Mariam had come forth from a virgin. Mariam had been sharp with Hafiz the last time, berating him in front of Abdul Haq for making slurping sounds while eating daal. A hiatus in invitations had followed.

Mariam evoked bewilderment, because she stood halfway between the accessible girls of the Basti, who never excited Hafiz – why were they always so fond of dark green outfits, as though they wanted to declare themselves creatures of the deep jungle – and the ones who did excite him, sophisticated girls with troubling perfumes, tight shalwars, thin limbs, and calculated low voices which conveyed innuendo even when they were issuing ordinary instructions to drivers or chaprasis. Observing such inaccessible girls was a sinful thrill that made him feel drained and enervated, and more than a little guilty, exactly as with masturbation. He promised himself from time to time not to do it: I won’t ogle these girls, I won’t do it! But then the next one trailing the aura of luxurious baths and freedom from work came along and he would become enthralled, his head burdened by impossible dreams of chatting up one of these visions. His imagination was split. The masturbatory fantasies involved girls from the 74

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Basti who did his bidding, remained silent as he held their heads down, pinned under him like silent dolls, pliant, submissive, breakable, finished.

The other girls he never imagined in bed, only as friends, in swanky cafés where he was full of swagger, a man of the world holding his own in conversation about national and international affairs, a sensitive repository for all of the girl’s secrets, secrets she dared not tell her girlfriends. He’d never been able to visualize a girl who combined the features of these two types of women, both friend and lover. Often on dreary bus rides he closed his eyes and tried to imagine being acquainted with one of his sister Seema’s friends at the university, but would always come up short as the girl whose dainty physique he’d conjured was revealed as someone bereft of worldly knowledge, putting on a show when she was as inexperienced and virginal as he was. It was the perfumed girls with the slick hair and glossy faces, indifference encapsulated in each of their languorous gestures, who captivated him. They moved in the same space as he did, occasionally brushed against him, but a few feet might as well be like thousands of miles. In all this mix, the braggart Shafiq’s wife Bibi had been an enigma.

On the surface she was like one of those Basti girls Hafiz imagined silently doing his bidding in bed, but in pictures Shafiq had shown, her eyes questioned reality with something more than innocence.

Abdul Haq wouldn’t let him escape, even though Hafiz loathed hospitals.

On his last visit, a dentist had pulled a tooth and left his jaw swollen. One of his uncles had entered the hospital with a mild case of tuberculosis and come out dead. Didn’t television doctors tell you that tuberculosis had been vanquished? For months his family had carted food to the uncle, a widower without children, bringing him spicy snacks for which he had no taste. Hafiz fought off bullies in the hospital playground, once almost having an eye put out by a stone, while Seema sat cross-legged on a bench, munching on what the sick man had left untouched. When Hafiz saw hospital bed sheets, he was reminded of the kafan, the white shroud.

Riding the Vespa, he prayed for life because Abdul Haq drove like a madman on Bunder Road, daring buses and trucks. He pulled up inches from a donkey cart on the wrong side of the road. The donkey snorted in Abdul Haq’s face, snot spewing from its nostrils. The driver whipped the animal, even though there was no way forward. By their side a twentyfoot film poster for Jawani Rangeeli, in flaming red and yellow, covered 75

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a crumbling building. A broad-faced moustachioed villain crushed a petite dyed blonde in his arms, like a gorilla. An Edhi ambulance bounced onto the footpath with impunity. The driver parked the Suzuki van and squatted on the ground to smoke.

Abdul Haq paid five rupees to park the Vespa at the Civil Hospital.

It was difficult to tell if the greasy parking attendant was legitimate. An elderly couple haggled with a rickshaw driver. Flies swooped in formation over snack carts, going for unsold food rather than sugarcane and mango spills on the ground. Abdul Haq had some trouble locating his favourite falooda stall, but when he found it he ordered two large glasses. The ice cream and sherbet in the milky noodle drink made Hafiz’s teeth ache.

‘Take big sips, it’s not poison,’ commanded Abdul Haq. They entered the forbidding arches of the fortress-like building.

Relatives of the stricken put on brave faces as they streamed in and out in their best clothes. Elderly women worked rosary beads, muttering Subhanallah, Subhanallah. A fight was in progress at the front desk over the disposition of a corpse, and Abdul Haq decided to add to the trouble.

‘You should move my man to the general ward. If he’s past danger, make it easier by not burdening him with debt.’ The Civil Hospital was free. The clerk protested, but Abdul Haq was in full spate. ‘The government can’t run anything. Why should I pay taxes to support hospitals, post offices, steel mills, none of which work?’

The arrival of an authoritative person in a suit and tie silenced Abdul Haq’s tirade.

The young clerk regained courage. ‘This is our M. D. Did you have something to say about fees and debt?’

To get to the fourth floor, first they had to go along a long corridor on the ground floor, punctuated by doors opening onto operation rooms.

Doctors, hunched over and streaming with sweat, burst through swinging doors with the air of priests having performed sacrificial rituals, rubbing gloved hands. The public announcement system squawked: ‘Doctor Qasmi, please report to the front desk.’

Their ward was in the far corner, with the door half-open – or broken.

The half dozen patients were immobile to the point of seeming dead. There were no visitors other than Shafiq’s wife, Bibi, who rose to greet them.

Abdul Haq bounded across the room to greet her.

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Hafiz was speechless when he saw Bibi. Shafiq, whose face was covered with a white towel, was invisible to him. Hafiz manoeuvred to the side of the bed where he could see Bibi better. Streaks of tears ran down her pale cheeks – tears worth their weight in gold. She had large singing eyes, pouty red lips, and tiny doll ears. Her long eyelashes tangled with her tears. Her broad forehead was bare, as was her lustrous hair, black with touches of henna. In hospitals the usual rules of modesty were suspended. Hafiz was so happy Abdul Haq had forced him to come.

Bibi talked to Abdul Haq in a soft, slow manner, like an announcer.

‘Shukria for sending me the message. Your man went to a lot of trouble to find our flat. We use a neighbour’s phone, but it’s been out of order, that’s why you couldn’t reach us. I turned off the stove and took a taxi the minute I heard.’

She was a woman of education, it was clear from her tone. Hafiz shuddered as he recollected the crude women of the Basti, who roamed the lanes swaying their wide hips. Abdul Haq hadn’t asked anyone to inform Bibi. Shafiq must have managed to instruct the hospital staff.

Abdul Haq didn’t correct the error. ‘Some of my employees were eager to move him. We should have waited for the ambulance. No, not him,’ he gestured at Hafiz, ‘others, who don’t mind their own business. I’m sure there’s no damage.’

‘We don’t know anything. They’re doing tests. A young doctor just came, looking worried.’

‘They all look worried. They want you to think it’s serious. It’s their job.

I can assure you there hasn’t been any damage.’

‘Why doesn’t he talk? He mumbled his mother’s name, his sister’s name, his niece’s name, but not mine.’

‘I don’t know why.’

‘A fracture can take a while to heal.’ She inserted a pink finger into the hoop of her gold earring, twirling it.

‘Don’t worry about wages. I’ll take care of it.’

‘It’s not that. I want him to be strong again. He could lift a Suzuki with his bare hands.’

‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You should tell him to be careful.’

Why was Abdul Haq lecturing this sweet woman about her undeserving husband’s indiscretions? Abdul Haq went through a litany of 77

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Shafiq’s recklessness, making Bibi’s eyes moist. Hafiz wished he could slap the old man.

‘Look, he’s moving,’ Hafiz lied. ‘He wants to say something.’

Abdul Haq didn’t fall for the ploy.

‘He’s a good worker,’ Bibi insisted. ‘He does more than his share.’

‘That’s not the point. It’s the example he sets.’

When would this torture end? How would the poor girl be relieved?

The anxious young doctor mentioned by Bibi returned.

‘You’re relatives all? Accha,’ he said without awaiting confirmation.

‘We’re going to put on a brace to keep him from moving. The fracture should heal soon. He’s not saying much, because he’s on strong painkillers.

Now, I have urgent cases to attend to.’

Bibi rose. ‘Shukria doctor. You’re an angel, you saved my husband’s life.’

‘I did no such thing.’ The doctor refuted her praise from the broken door. ‘It’s a minor case. You should see the ones with mangled bones from car accidents and roof falls. Like Humpty Dumpty, I can’t put them together again. I’m a doctor, not a jaadogar.’

Bibi was close to tears. Why did everyone want to make her cry?

Hafiz wished he’d cleaned up, to show off his long dark hair and strong jaw. He wished he were wearing a new shirt and pants. The dust in his hair, the chalky film all over, made him look old.

Bibi startled him by asking, ‘Are you a friend of Shafiq’s?’

No one was a “friend” of her husband. At best, Shafiq was tolerated.

How could a ruffian like him have landed Bibi? It was always that way: good men went empty-handed while bad ones took the ultimate prize.

‘We talked often, and he’d tell me how happy he was.’

It was true – Shafiq showed his wife’s picture at every opportunity. If anyone within earshot had commented inappropriately on Bibi’s looks, he would have beaten the man to a pulp, but he wasn’t averse to silent admiration.

Piqued at being excluded, Abdul Haq hurled an accusation at Hafiz.

‘Men ought to get married young, when they’re in their prime.’ Bibi looked down in shame.

Hafiz longed to take a leisurely shower under water that didn’t suddenly shut off, to rub coconut oil in his hair, trim his nails, clip his nose-hairs.

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for the university each morning, the less careful he’d become about his own looks.

When they were leaving, Bibi said, ‘Please come again,’ and Hafiz was convinced she was looking only at him. ‘His sisters should be here soon.

They love him like a kid. It’s good not to be alone in an emergency.’

On the way out, Abdul Haq didn’t raise the issue of moving Shafiq to a different location with the clerk at the desk. Television monitors, mounted at dizzying angles, showed a bus explosion in interior Sind, the police responding with vigour. Not even an hour had passed inside.

In the parking lot, men formed an impromptu prayer assembly, led by a mumbling imam.

‘I’ll drop you at the bus station,’ Abdul Haq offered kindly. ‘You don’t need to walk.’

Bibi’s goodness rubbed off on everyone. She was that type of person.

The Vespa looked like a harmless toy. She had a mole on her neck, didn’t she?

Abdul Haq didn’t question why Hafiz visited Shafiq so often at the Civil Hospital. Abdul Haq had never gone back after the first time, though he still acted as if he was being continuously updated on Shafiq’s condition.

Shafiq seemed to have taken a turn for the worse. The doctors no longer predicted when he might leave. He had an allergic reaction, breaking out in rashes. He had headaches. When he wasn’t screaming in pain, he ranted against the hospital, against his mother and father, against ruthless employers, and against Bibi for bringing him bad luck. His back still hurt, while his limbs withered from disuse. He didn’t let anyone shave him, and he looked like a mullah in mourning. And all through this, Bibi’s loyalty to her husband never faltered.

Hafiz had to spend time with Shafiq too, rather than just with Bibi, to keep up appearances. The first visit was on a Friday afternoon, when Karachi was lethargic after prayers. Bibi didn’t seem to be around. Shafiq was awake, swaddled in his back brace.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I came to see how you were doing.’

‘Have they sent you as a spy? I warn you, I’m filing a court case for unsafe working conditions, and I’ll win a big settlement and retire.’

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No one in Pakistan filed court cases and won. Cases dragged on for decades. Shafiq had been watching too many American television shows.

‘Shafiq bhai, I’m on your side.’

‘You little nobody, you couldn’t be on anyone’s side if your life depended on it. It takes guts to fight for a cause. What do you believe in?

Hand me that chillum, will you? The drugs make me full of mucus.’

Hafiz held the jar while Shafiq expectorated. ‘That’s better.’ After more gurgles, ‘You must be here because they sent you. Will Majid seth visit me?

Tell them I’ll be reasonable about a settlement. I just want what’s fair.’

Hafiz couldn’t imagine Majid visiting the Civil Hospital under any circumstances. His friend and classmate, defender against bullies, older by a few years, Majid had lucked out beyond anyone’s comprehension.

The source of his meteoric ascent wasn’t clear. In school he’d been a vocal fighter against drugs. He advocated clean living, discipline, honesty.

He exposed a gang of students who stole government school books and resold them for profit. He spoke good English because he watched a lot of television and because his mother had hired a private tutor. Everyone had expected Majid to become famous. He was feared because he set the tone for whether a teacher was respected or ridiculed. ‘I’ll start a factory in five years, watch me,’ he told Hafiz when he finished Matric. It had taken nowhere near that long. ‘Remember to look me up,’ he’d said. ‘Whatever you want is yours.’ Now he was rich enough to buy all the factories he wanted. If anyone asked what he did, he said, ‘import-export.’ Or he said he moved money around. After a couple of years of unsatisfactory jobs, Hafiz had looked up Majid at his offices near Habib Bank Plaza on MacLeod Road. Majid introduced him to his partners, three geriatric men bent over ledgers. ‘They think they have the power, but I can decide in a second if I want to get rid of them,’ Majid bragged when they were out of earshot of the mummified guardians. A secretary stopped typing to ogle the former school friends. ‘Go to my godown at 32 Bunder Road. It’s within a stone’s throw of the Port Trust building. Talk to Abdul Haq. He’ll get you started.’ People assumed Hafiz was a protégé of Majid. He would be put through his paces at the godown, then something better would be found for him. The special relationship earned him the admiration and envy of fellow workers. Majid liked to visit the godown in his red sports car and act friendly with the workers. They hated Majid for the 80

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presumption, especially Shafiq, who claimed that Majid was a gandoo, a faggot who raped Pathan boys. Majid put an end to the innuendo when he married the actress Hina, famous for her swollen eyes and swan neck.

She was often on the covers of magazines. Their romance was said to have taken them from Bombay to Murree. After Hina, Shafiq’s hatred for Majid exceeded words, and Hafiz suffered by association. Hafiz hadn’t been promoted. He remained on his starting salary of seven thousand rupees a month.

‘Get me some cigarettes,’ Shafiq ordered. ‘I shouldn’t smoke, but even doctors smoke.’

Hafiz studied the patients in the beds nearby. They were too sedated to care if anyone smoked. He associated hospitals with white but here there was only grey. He went to a paan shop for unfiltered K-2 cigarettes.

Shafiq smoked a couple. ‘You don’t smoke?’

‘My eyes sting.’

‘Then you’ll live to be a hundred.’

‘Shafiq bhai, doesn’t it get lonely?’ The ward was so quiet. When did Bibi ever visit?

‘We’re born alone and we die alone. That’s the truth, which top-notch businessmen, when they marry world-class sluts, ignore at their peril. That pretender, Majid, is due for a fall.’ He went on a rant against businessmen who exploited workers.

‘Have your sisters been here?’ Shafiq was an orphan, but had three sisters, who had all married well. Hafiz was still fishing for news about Bibi.

‘My sisters! For them I’ll always be a labourer knocked about by the ruthless system. How can they comprehend my pain? Those princesses accuse me of negligence. It’s easy to talk when you’re married to rich men.’

Still no information about Bibi. Hafiz left at last, giving up for the day.

In the corridor he crashed into Bibi, and was forced to grab her shoulders. She was light as a feather. Instead of backing away, she seemed to lean into him. His heart throbbed. She smelled of sandalwood, her hair tangled in her eyes.

He let go and noticed tears streaking down her rosy cheeks. He wished he could take her in his arms again. Shafiq was making her life miserable, anyone could see that.

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‘What’s wrong? Is it about Shafiq?’

‘I’m so worried, I can’t tell anyone.’

Shafiq’s sisters didn’t seem to be of any help. ‘You can talk to me. I’m Shafiq’s friend.’

‘He has no friends.’

This was true, but Hafiz couldn’t admit it. It was his only means to reach Bibi.

‘You can talk to me. I’m his friend. I’m . . . your friend.’

It was a daring thing to tell the wife of a fellow worker. Anxiously, he searched for her reaction.

‘There’s a little garden where we can talk,’ he tried. It was the one where he and Seema used to play when their uncle was dying. ‘Trust me, I’m your friend.’

Without protest, Bibi started to walk out, and he followed her.

He couldn’t believe it was happening. They went past the hospital doors, looking like man and wife. The sweepers were frantic. One of them, clumsily handling bucket and mop, sprinkled Bibi’s shoes with dirty water, and would have done worse had Hafiz not stepped between them.

The garden was unrecognisable. It was a jungle of weeds instead of the gentle landscape of plants and flowers that Hafiz remembered. A dirty bench was splattered with bird droppings. A couple of crooked trees leaned into each other, their branches tangled. Hafiz hoped there were no snakes.

He laid out a handkerchief for Bibi to sit on. She started crying. Hafiz didn’t know how to console a crying woman. He thought it best to let her finish.

‘It’s not money, Hafiz bhai,’ she said at last. ‘His sisters can help with that. We’re behind on the rent. He hates getting help from anyone. I had to claim I had the money already saved. How often I had to lie to him! He accepts money each time. What choice does he have? I don’t know where he spent it all. He doesn’t drink. He doesn’t go to women. I spend every paisa carefully. Somehow it doesn’t add up. Then the disappearances. For days at a time, he goes away. I’m afraid by myself. There are all kinds of men in our neighbourhood. They know I’m alone at night. He won’t try to get a job through his brothers-in-law. His pride gets in the way. He has no ambition. We tried to have children, but it didn’t work.’ Bibi dropped her 82

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eyes in shame. ‘I want to go to a lady doctor. There’s something wrong with me. But he’ll never go. I can tell you since you’re a friend. The landlord has become threatening. He found out about Shafiq being in the hospital. I don’t want to open the door at night, but he threatens to break it down.

Yesterday I saw a rat. I threw out all the food afterward. It was as big as a rabbit.’ She shuddered. ‘I wish I had a brother or sister, but I know no one in Karachi. My family is from Multan. If I approached them, Shafiq would divorce me. He’d say I was abandoning him. I’ve written to my uncle, but he hasn’t written back. I wanted to do Intermediate. But after getting married, Shafiq said I should stop at Matric. What’s Matric these days? You can be a kaamwali, wash dishes and clean houses. If I told Shafiq I wanted to get a job, he would kill me. Only the man should work. Even if the wife doesn’t have children, doesn’t have anything to do, doesn’t know where her husband goes away for days on end.’

Hafiz wanted to tell her she should leave her husband without delay; this was no life for a woman like her. Bibi’s dupatta slid off. She had a large head, and her hair was parted sharply in the middle. A lone grey hair shone on her temple.

‘I could help with money. I’m a friend, he wouldn’t mind. Not that he has to know. It would be my honour if you’d let me. I give my wages to my mother every month anyway.’

Bibi started crying. Hafiz tried to calm her but this only made it worse.

He was afraid someone would come to investigate. She got up, forbidding him to follow her.

Hafiz’s mother was upset when he asked for three thousand rupees, almost half his wages. He’d never asked for so much before.

‘Your father is out – why did you wait until he was gone? Three thousand rupees! What will you do? I plan for every paisa. How will I make it up?’

‘Amma, just give it to me! It’s my money.’

‘Not until you tell me why.’

‘A friend needs it. If I were in that position, my friend would do the same.’

‘This friend, is he going to pay it back?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not expecting it back.’

‘So we’re just giving away three thousand rupees, spreading the 83

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wealth around like crore-patis. Anyone who needs help, apply to Hafiz Muhammad Khan, the wealthiest man in the Basti.’

Noticing his distraught look, she softened a bit. ‘Who’s this friend?’

Hafiz remained quiet.

‘Someone from school? Someone sick? Government hospitals don’t ask for money. If it’s a big operation, it could cost tens of thousands of rupees.

Is your friend going to die?’

Hafiz started to leave, disheartened.

‘Theek hai, here’s the money.’ Aisha went to get it from inside the pipe that went nowhere in the adjoining small room. ‘I’m not happy about this.’

It wasn’t that he was buying Bibi’s affections. It wasn’t that simple.

Actions had different meanings with different people.

Back at the hospital, he wondered how he should get Bibi’s attention without enduring another of Shafiq’s torture sessions.

Luckily he spotted Bibi leaving through the hospital gates. She’d donned a black chadar of mourning, her face devoid of makeup.

He rushed after her. ‘I have the money. You must take it. I’m a friend.’

‘Someone will see us,’ she said, glancing behind. ‘Wait. Who’s that person? Is he following us?’

‘Who?’ ‘Never mind, it’s no one. I feel like there are spies all over the hospital.

Today a nurse asked me to fill out a questionnaire, including my religious and political beliefs. I’m not some Ismaili or Qadiani! Why are they after me?’

‘Go to the garden.’ A garden indeed, surrounded by barbed wire entangled with plants. ‘I’ll follow you.’

He paid for two sugarcane drinks. She was sitting on the bench with the chadar already pulled back to expose her shiny hair. She smelled lovelier than ever.

‘If my husband found out I was going behind his back – ’ ‘You’re not. If you got a loan from the bank, how would that hurt him?’

She laughed. ‘You’re not a bank.’

‘Not a big bank, a very small one.’

‘You want me to treat you as a banker?’ She began pantomiming.

‘Please, banker sahib, my husband doesn’t earn money while he convalesces. Please, banker sahib, unlock your vault, give me prize bonds, 84

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ten thousand rupees, and oh, some diamonds. Please, banker sahib, can I put my illiterate’s thumbprint on the contract?’ She laughed, spilling sugarcane juice. She was so thirsty he let her drink his glass too. She even swallowed the bits at the bottom of each glass.

‘Have you eaten?’ he asked.

‘How can I eat when my husband may never work again?’

‘What about your sisters-in-law? Do they bring food?’

‘I won’t touch it. I don’t want to be treated like a beggar. They bring enough food for the whole ward.’

‘I could get you something.’

‘A hospital is not such a bad place. Are you afraid of hospitals?’

‘A little.’

‘Why does no one else visit this garden? It’s a good hideout.’

Hafiz glanced at the weeds and wires and stony ground, and he could contemplate only death. Bibi mentioned her school friends, all of whom now had children. Mothers-in-law were said to be softened by the arrival of babies.

‘I’ll throw the money in the face of the landlord, and warn him if he bothers me, I’ll report him to the police.’

She wouldn’t let him feed her, but agreed to meet next evening.

He had time after work to buy food at a decent restaurant. She wore a yellow chadar, and ate like a horse. He regretted not buying more biryani and seekh kebabs. She acted like she hadn’t eaten for days. He bought her apples from a fruit seller at the hospital gates. She kept sticking her finger in her mouth to extricate apple skin from a gap in her front teeth. ‘Can you see? Is it still there?’ She leaned forward, opening her mouth.

‘It’s gone. What did the landlord say?’

‘What can he say? I’m not worried about him. A fat man like that, he ought to worry about a heart attack. Allah will strike him dead if he keeps harassing honest tenants. It’s not the landlord I’m worried about.

It’s Shafiq’s friend, the paanwallah, who loaned us money last Ramzan. He leaves notes on the door every night. I keep the lights off so he won’t know I’m there.’

‘How much?’ Hafiz said quickly.

‘What? Banker sahib, you want to go bankrupt?’

‘How much do you owe that rascal paanwallah?’

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‘Forget it, it’s too much.’

After much coaxing, she admitted Shafiq had borrowed ten thousand rupees. ‘I can’t take another paisa from you. If you try to give any more money, I won’t talk to you.’

‘Let me help with part of it, so the paanwallah will go easy on you.’

‘Impossible,’ she said, leaving in a huff.

Next day he brought five thousand rupees in a white envelope. This time his mother had been too angry to question him. He didn’t know how many more times he could tap the savings. She wasn’t reserving his wages all these years so he could retrieve them at will. Bibi accepted without protest. She looked broken, eating quietly.

‘What happened?’ Had Shafiq hurt her? Were those sisters of his real?

Did Bibi really have no one in her family she could talk to?

‘I hate this hospital.’

He changed the subject to the seaside, films, fashion, things he could care less about, hoping to make her cheerful.

She licked her fingers clean, wiping her mouth with the edge of her chadar. After finishing the food, she always took the paper plates to a bush where the cats licked them clean.

‘Tell me about your family,’ she said.

He told her about his smart sister, his honest parents, his boss who’d made good, his quirky supervisor Abdul Haq. He didn’t talk about life in the Basti. She listened to him as if he were an accomplished storyteller.

‘Your sister sounds wonderful. She must be a genius. I was never good at school myself.’

‘Neither was I.’ Hafiz started praying that Shafiq would never recover. The days became a blur of happiness, and the work at the godown painless, because there was always the evening to look forward to.

Abdul Haq told him Mariam had started seeing a pir, for some ailment he was not at liberty to discuss, as though to put an end to that mysterious chapter. In fact it was an invitation of sorts because he said he presumed Hafiz respected genuine pirs as much as any sane person, and Hafiz had to agree or be accused of blasphemy.

‘So you have a regular pir?’

‘I didn’t say that,’ Hafiz demurred, ‘I’ve never been religious.’

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‘You don’t have to be religious to see pirs. Mariam is very openminded, more than I am, certainly more than Majid seth. Does it take any imagination to marry a film heroine?’ Abdul Haq lowered his voice, taking care lest one of the young new workers, an inquisitive fellow who asked personal questions of everyone, overheard.

Abdul Haq’s pressure floated off Hafiz now, like a dying mosquito, or gentle rain that didn’t turn into a flood. The godown didn’t seem as loud, dirty, or chaotic; a protective screen shielded him from unnecessary entanglements, as though he was one of them but immune from their worries.

In Ramzan, people did all sorts of crazy things that they blamed on the month.

Officially, there were sanctions against eating in public. It had started in Zia-ul-Haq’s time. People were flogged for violating the rules. Habits of secrecy set in. If you weren’t fasting, you locked your office to eat a snack.

Powerful businessmen and civil servants held iftaar parties approaching the scale of wedding feasts. At these events, cartels were formed, political parties reorganized and trade policies sanctioned. Ramzan was the time for sleepovers, climaxing with the sehri meal before dawn. Children under twelve didn’t need to fast. But everyone devoured dahi barey and omelette parathas once their sleep was interrupted. Mullahs repeated ad nauseam that Islam had anticipated modern health fads by fourteen hundred years. Namaz was the ultimate yoga, roza the ultimate diet. If people had heart attacks during Ramzan, that was because they ate too much at iftaar, instead of disciplining their stomachs. Whose fault was it if they died? Perpetual fasting felt like the right rhythm for the country and it was a chore to return to a normal tempo after the end of the month. The sweetest excuse was to decline a task because you were fasting and nobody could protest.

All through Ramzan, Shafiq put on weight, being exempt from fasting. The bags under his eyes lightened. The crowded Civil Hospital should have sent him home long ago. But Shafiq complained of pain and threatened the doctors, and nobody wanted to be the one to discharge him. The hospital seemed to have made the decision to forget about him.

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tell he enjoyed the attention: nurses checking in on him, sponge baths from the Pathan boy, the barber who came around daily. He said he was sure he would never walk again without pain, and he would see to it that the doctors who did this to him would pay.

He used crutches to walk to the lavatory, complaining about the pain.

He accepted Hafiz as a brother who had nothing better to do than look after his well-being. He said he never knew Hafiz cared so much, but they were in this together, allied against evil Abdul Haq and his machinations.

He liked to leave the lavatory door open as he did his business, chattering with Hafiz.

‘I’ll never go back to the godown. Those people never appreciated me.

Abdul Haq can kiss my arse. I want a respectable life. I’ve been thinking about the mistakes I made, the opportunities I passed up. I married Bibi, and I’ll just say this: never marry a close relative, and never marry a woman who thinks she’s higher than you. Her parents spoiled her. I married a doll, not a woman.’ He farted. ‘Listen to me: marry a woman who thinks you’re the prince, not someone who thinks she’s the princess.’ He farted again. ‘Islam allows you to marry a divorcee or widow. Why not? They’ve seen it all, and they come to you humble, expecting nothing. Bibi treats the hospital like a picnic. You can finish the leftover food from sehri. I can’t eat those parathas, I’ll get fat.’ He came out of the bathroom, a foetid smell trailing him. ‘How does my beard look?’ He ran wet fingers through its scraggly shoots. ‘Only mullahs and villains keep beards. Time for princes and heroes to keep beards too. Imran Khan has a beard. He’s a mullah and hero rolled in one. Ha-ha-ha!’

Hafiz was setting in motion the worst treachery of all. He’d been talking to Bibi and she was listening. Earlier he’d fed her a plate of biryani from the Mysori restaurant nestled in the row of paint shops. He’d reached over to wipe grains of rice from her mouth. She hadn’t protested. Instead, she leaned toward him. It was the closest he’d ever been to a woman. He was aroused, watching her curves through the tight shalwar kameez.

He didn’t need to keep visiting Shafiq, but he felt guilty. Bibi no longer pretended. She didn’t call him Hafiz bhai anymore. She didn’t complain about Shafiq, because it spoiled the mood. In addition to food and drinks, he brought her flowers. There was a florist on Bunder Road who gave a discount. He’d brought her a sky blue dupatta and kurta set, 88

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turquoise bangles, silver earrings, Japanese chappals, a Seiko watch, a black purse, Russian stories in translation (Seema owned the same book but he didn’t want to take her copy), and a blue Swissair flight bag. She always accepted with thanks, saying she’d had her eye on the exact same item.

So far she’d been the beneficiary of more than ten thousand rupees. He’d given her all of last month’s salary, leaving not a paisa for his mother, and he’d taken next month’s salary in advance, telling Abdul Haq his father needed cataract surgery. The gifts didn’t cost much, because he knew where to look: chor bazaars, the smuggled goods markets hidden in plain sight all over the city, supervised and sponsored by the police. He grew in confidence every time Bibi accepted a gift. Shafiq was a trivial obstacle, no match for his intelligence. Hafiz was strong and calculating and shrewd.

He would defeat his nemesis.

But what if Shafiq left the hospital? How would Hafiz see Bibi then?

What if Bibi felt differently when Shafiq got better? He worried about this, but the plan had already occurred to him at the beginning of Ramzan.

It had been chand raat, and everyone was straining their eyes to detect the new moon that would herald the first day of fasting. It was a cloudless evening. Women were excited, having stocked atta, chawal, daal, chini for the month. Children had climbed roofs and poles. Hafiz and his sister and parents were part of the crowd.

‘There it is, look above the pole!’ It was an old man, so weak he couldn’t have seen a naked woman from ten feet.

‘What pole?’ said a young man, shoving others aside.

‘That pole! Don’t you have eyes?’ the old man retorted ‘Eighty years old, and I’ve never been wrong. The Ru’at-e-Hilal committee gets it wrong every year. The government wants to have the same start and end date as the Saudis. Do we have to celebrate Eid according to the dictate of the khadimain al-haramain sharifain? They can’t increase the quota for hajis, but we want to be their lackeys. By the time the Saudis announce, it’s already the second day in Pakistan, the moon is so big it’s embarrassing.’

Hafiz sharply drew in his breath, calling attention to himself.

‘Where? Where’s the moon?’ Aisha asked.

‘Did you see it? Where?’ Seema also asked.

‘No moon, no moon. I was only thinking.’

It had suddenly struck him that the only solution was to run away with 89

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Bibi. The plan started crystallizing. Details drifted to him as though he’d already seen them in a film, where Nadeem and Shabnam make it as far as Murree before the cruel parents realize the elopement.

Of course! He smacked his head. Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

Bibi was romantic, full of dreams: she’d go along. She was desperate, she hated Shafiq, she’d see the justice. Fate had brought them together. It would be resisting destiny not to make the getaway. Everything would work out. When Shafiq found out, he’d divorce her. But how would Hafiz and Bibi live together before the divorce? He chose not to dwell on this conundrum. No doubt Bibi would be convinced.

‘There it is!’ a little boy shouted, jumping up and down on a roof. ‘I see it! It’s in the east.’

‘Of course! The moon always comes out in the east, pagal!’ reprimanded another boy.

But the kid was right. The moon had been sighted. It was so visible the Ru’at-e-Hilal Committee wouldn’t be able to claim it had been cloudy and assert that the moon had only been sighted the next evening in some obscure northern town like Chichoki Malian or Vehari.

‘Ramzan Mubarak, Ramzan Mubarak.’ The men hugged each other, right, left, right, just as at Eid prayers.

The moon had been sighted. Was Allah blessing his plan?

Still, he wasn’t prepared for the lack of outrage Bibi showed, as she heard him out.

‘You have relatives in Lahore?’

Hafiz had suggested this as their destination.

‘No relatives, just friends.’ These were neighbours from the Basti who had left when their son got a better job. The father used to be fond of Hafiz. Surely, they would help. A man’s labour was good anywhere. For Bibi, he would even do something strenuous like the godown job. ‘Anyway, we don’t need anyone’s help.’

‘How long does it take on the train?’

‘Ten hours,’ he guessed.

‘And the train fare?’

‘Second-class, fifteen hundred rupees each.’ He was making it all up.

‘Your friends can find you a job in Lahore?’

‘Guaranteed!’ He banged his hand on the bench, hurting himself.

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‘What will I do?’

‘Whatever you like. You can get a job if you wish. I won’t stand in your way.’

‘I don’t want a job. If the man earns enough, why should the woman have to work?’

Hafiz swallowed hard. ‘I didn’t say you’d have to get a job. Only if you wanted to.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘All right.’

‘I want a good kitchen.’

‘You’ll have it.’

‘I want a small garden for vegetables.’

‘Fine.’

‘I want the neighbours to think well of me.’

‘Yes.’ ‘I don’t want any shouting, negotiations with the landlord, begging with the dhobi and doodhwallah, lights getting shut off, rats at night, cockroaches in the food, flies, dust, mosquitoes – what am I forgetting?

Oh yes, I want to change my name.’

‘What’s wrong with your name?’

‘I don’t like it.’

‘What do you want to be called?’

‘Parveen. Like the Indian film star.’

‘That was a long time ago.’

‘Bibi means wife.’

‘Or woman.’

‘Wife. It makes me sound old. I’m only – well, I’m too young for such a name.’

‘As you wish.’ What was Bibi – Parveen – saying? ‘So you agree to the plan?’

‘What’s the plan?’

‘I told you. You leave him. We go to another city. You ask for a divorce.

Since you’ll have betrayed him, he’ll be more than happy to get rid of you.

When it’s safe, we can come back to Karachi. Or go abroad. It depends on what happens in Lahore. The country is big. You can start a new life. You won’t have to put up with him.’

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‘He’s my husband.’

‘Aren’t you unhappy with him?’

‘Sometimes he beats me. I don’t know where he goes at night. He treats me like a naukrani. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to have children with him.

He never asks how I’m feeling.’

‘Then you’ll do it.’

‘Tell me hero sahib, can you guarantee your plan will work?’

‘I have the money to get us started.’ This was a lie, but it could be handled. His parents had savings.

‘What if you give me the same problems he does?’

‘Do I look like him?’

She became shy. ‘I hardly know you. I know you take good care of me, but it’s easy to treat another man’s woman well. I know so little about you.’

‘You know everything. I’ve never been married. I’m twenty-four years old. I’ve never been with a woman.’ She looked down shyly. ‘I – I – I –’ he stammered, groping for the awesome words, which he’d never had the faintest occasion to utter, and which made his heart thump so loud he thought he was having a heart attack. ‘I think I love you, Bibi,’ he said, his voice barely a squeak. He expected a contemptuous laugh. Instead there was a look on her face he’d never seen before, mystical and faraway and melancholy.

‘My husband never said it to me. People say it only in films.’

‘I mean it, Bibi.’ He loudly repeated his declaration.

In the days to come, he kept telling her how beautiful she was. ‘As beautiful as a film star?’ she asked. He told her that he thought of her day and night, that he’d never met anyone so refined, so delicate, so sensitive, so full of life and energy and courage, and that they were made for each other and would spend a beautiful life together.

He’d always observed Ramzan spottily. Now he ignored it altogether, eating a hearty sehri though he had no intention to fast, showing up at work early (so he could leave early), sharing lunch at work with the handful of men – two of whom were Christian – who didn’t fast, all so he could have plenty of energy to convince Bibi each evening of the sanity of his proposal.

‘Do you have a ring?’ she asked him the Thursday before the reckoning.

‘Not yet. But I’ll get it. What kind of ring?’

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‘You never got a ring?’

‘I thought once we . . . you know. Jewellery hasn’t been on my mind. ’ Bibi sighed. ‘All men are alike.’ She’d gained weight since Hafiz had started feeding her. Her cheeks were rosier, and her forehead shone. ‘They sweet-talk you, then when you have fallen for them, they stop caring. After that they never tell you they love you. They start comparing you to their mothers and sisters. You should have bought a ring already.’

‘I promise I’ll never be like that.’

‘They all say that. I’ve seen films. Read stories.’

They parted on a note of resolution. That was how he read it. She said she would pack. One suitcase for clothes, another for household things.

There wasn’t much.

She also said she had ten thousand rupees in a bank account. She wasn’t supposed to touch it except in a life-and-death emergency. She didn’t explain where it had come from.

‘You said fifteen hundred fifty rupees for the train fare?’ He’d checked since then, and found he was close. ‘I’m committing a great sin, yet I’m not afraid. I must be a terrible woman. But I deserve love, like anyone else.’

She was fragile like a doll, desperately in need of care. He touched her shoulder, left his hand there when she didn’t object, and escorted her into the hospital.

‘When?’ he asked.

‘When what?’

‘When will you be ready?’

‘Come tomorrow,’ she said distantly.

It was Akhir Juma’a, the last Friday of the blessed month, Eid only a couple of days away. Abdul Haq wouldn’t notice if he didn’t return to the godown after Friday prayers. Shab-e-Meraj, the night celebrating the Prophet’s ascension from Bait-ul-Maqdas to the heavens on his horse Buraq, had already come and gone. The Prophet had tirelessly negotiated with Allah over the number of prayers believers would have to offer each day. From the initial mark of fifty per day, on the insistence of Moses who said Muhammad’s followers would never be able to handle it, Muhammad progressively whittled it down to five. Moses wasn’t satisfied with five either, but Muhammad was too embarrassed to return to Allah to ask for a further cut.

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No one was in the mood for work. Unexcused absences were forgiven.

Eid was the right time to escape. Tonight Hafiz would ask his parents for money, revealing nothing. If they found out about Bibi, they’d kill him.

There was no other woman for him. Was there really a time he used to fantasize about pretentious girls? The more he adored Bibi, the more he looked with disgust at other women, even the pretty ones who crossed his path. This was his declaration of faith, the least he could do.

The hospital looked cheerful. Even without the vendors outside, evacuated for the duration of Ramzan, a festive spirit prevailed. It was the same hospital, but he saw it differently. The very walls and windows seemed exuberant and welcoming. Khaki-clad policemen patiently listened to a radio broadcast of the president’s address to the nation. Pakistan would handle terror. The country would get inflation under control.

Enemies would be defeated.

‘Janab beithen.’ Come sir, sit. Shafiq was freshly shaved, dressed in Eid clothes – starched white shalwar kameez – and packed, ready to go.

How was his dear friend, his brother, he wanted to know in his most refined voice.

He bit his lip, where a moustache was growing, like a Punjabi film villain contemplating gory deeds.

‘What’s this I hear about you and my wife?’ He paused for effect. ‘She told me everything. In fact, she’s been keeping me informed from the first day. You think my wife would keep anything from me? You kids have no clue about trust between husband and wife. Where do you think you’re going?’

Hafiz was backing away. Other patients were sitting up and taking notice – perhaps there would be free entertainment, a fight at Hafiz’s expense, dishoomba-dishoomba.

Shafiq loomed tall over Hafiz. He might have a knife. If he stabbed Hafiz, claiming he was defending his wife’s izzat, no one would blame Shafiq.

‘It’s no good trying to leave.’ Shafiq placed a hand on his shoulder.

‘Sit in this chair.’ Shafiq went to open the window, confident that Hafiz wouldn’t run away.

‘I tell them to keep it open. Fresh air doesn’t cost anything. They say the phut-phut of the rickshaws keeps patients awake. Bhai, if you have a broken 94

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leg or arm, as everyone in the ward does, what do you care about rickshaws?

You’re worrying about life and death. How will you answer the angel when he comes to your grave? Who is your God? Who is your Prophet? Who is . . .’ – Shafiq forgot the sequence of questions all mortals would face in the grave . . .’ – Anyway, either you’ll have the answers at the tip of your tongue or you’ll stumble, and if you stumble, that means rot in your heart, and the angel will know it, and you’ll suffer but your cries won’t do any good.’

Shafiq bounced on the bed. The white sheets were fresh. He parked his sandaled feet on the trunk containing his belongings. ‘This has become like home. I know everything that goes on, even in wards I’ve never visited, in operating theatres I can’t go to. I have eyes and ears in every corner.

Strange sounds rouse me at night. I hear machine guns and tanks, soldiers gunned down in cold blood by the ruthless enemy. Airplanes flying low to bomb poor villagers, defenceless people accused of doing things of which they’re incapable. But what would you know? Have you ever been ill for a day? Lahore, eh, you want to run away with my wife to Lahore?’

Hafiz was startled. This meant Bibi herself had told him. If some spy had reported on them, Shafiq wouldn’t have known the details. He no longer cared if Shafiq killed him. He released his clenched muscles, relaxing like a sack of bones, in the grave already.

‘You think I couldn’t have traced you in Lahore? My wife knew that.

I would be within my rights to smash you to pieces, dislocate every bone in your body, have you take my place in this very ward. Ha! They wouldn’t have to move you on a stretcher or anything, put you in a damned taxi to aggravate your injury, like that idiot Abdul Haq did to me. I’d lay you down on my own bed, then call the doctors. They’d take good care of you.’

The residents of the ward were alert as he moved close, towering over Hafiz.

‘You’re such a kid! Ulloo-ke-pathey! Bewakuf ! Never in my life would I have imagined, one of my own! You weren’t supposed to be the godown lafanga! I showed you my wife’s pictures. Only Matric pass and you come up with grand conspiracies to fool a real man like me. Criminal gangs in the Basti are rubbing off on you. I’ve heard of Allah Bakhsh. You were trying to be a little gangster, kidnapping my wife, putting her up for sale?’

Hafiz couldn’t say a word. Why would Bibi have done this? Had she been playing him for a fool all along? He hated the world, he hated 95

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himself, he hated the lies repeated in books, and he hated how luck was never on his side.

Had Bibi really betrayed him? Perhaps Shafiq had threatened to kill her if she didn’t tell him what was going on. Her happiness must have betrayed her. She must have been unable to contain her good spirits the night before.

‘Be grateful I’m not that type of person,’ Shafiq said in a lower voice.

‘I’m not violent. Violence is the last resort of cowards. My wife is faithful, always has been, always will be. Why should I dirty these hands with the blood of a coward and fool? You called me friend, brother, yet for weeks you were filling my wife’s ears with poison, plotting and conspiring. You wanted to bite me like a cobra. I thought you were my best friend at the godown. I thought you weren’t like those other fellows, interested only in saying nasty stuff about women’s breasts and arses.’

He fumbled through his pockets. ‘Here’s the three hundred rupees she borrowed from you. All paid off, I don’t want a paisa hanging over my head. Take this and never let me see your face again. Go now.’ He shooed him away, like a cat. ‘Give my regards to that fool Abdul Haq. He tried to kill me too. He’ll be hearing from me. My back is better than ever. I can lift twice the weight I used to.’

Karachi Raj is forthcoming from HarperCollins India

96

Yong Shu Hoong

Tanglin Halt I’d like to think that the table was wooden and round and out in the open, to milk the rustic effect. There is a novelty in almost everything when you’re below a certain age – like the plate of pork chops and fries, so unlike what Grandmother cooked at home. But I halt myself before memories fully crystallise – and what is it exactly that I’m trying to remember anyway: the taste of salt upon the tip of my tongue, the atmosphere? I strive to imagine the helplessness of being young and poor and open, wide-eyed, to the generosity of aunts and uncles. This is when my mind begins to wander – to what film we’d caught just before dinner at hawker centre.

And right on cue, I remember oily fingers.

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Poetry

After the Fire The next morning, after the fire, the factory still stands, its gutted roofing two charred slices of bread, white smoke hovering like fog or a ghost unwilling to sally forth. In the news, there is nothing yet, despite the building’s sufferance through the night. My poem about the fire still attracts comments over Facebook, in a different dimension. Things can’t be so bad if we can get poetry out of them, a friend writes. And I wonder: Can things be so bad that no words can dampen the wounds and allow us to reconfigure the world as we only know?

98

A Case of Penetration Michael Vatikiotis

D

r Ren had never seen the real thing before. He’d read about it, of course. He’d seen pictures. He knew the penalties, like everyone else.

‘Where was he found?’

‘On the other side of the Blue Zone,’ replied the burly officer, still wearing a sanitation suit, his voice passing through the synthesizer in his facemask, making him sound tinny and remote, but with a voice that carried traces of fear and loathing. ‘An obvious case of penetration,’ he added.

‘Obvious,’ muttered Dr Ren as he hastily closed the drawer on the cryofreezer unit that contained the corpse.

As the door mechanism hissed and clunked shut, a microscopic dose of hormone pulsed from an embedded vial and entered his bloodstream.

Dr Ren didn’t feel a thing. Neither would he have noticed the subtly suppressive effect. But Dr Ren did think it rather strange, later and on reflection, that he experienced no physical reaction to what was, after all, evidence of that most primordial of natural urges – to fuck.

Natural reproduction was what society had once called “sex”. In today’s world, sex was another word for death, and this was what had brought Dr Ren to the city morgue.

Queenie Pang hoisted her liquid crystal display as the noisy group of revellers approached. She was tired. It was four in the morning but business was brisk.

“PENETRATION HERE – NO COVER CHARGE.” Her waferthin, hand-held screen flashed alternately in midnight blue and champagne pink against a green background.

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‘This way please,’ she ventured, first in English, then in Cantonese, her mother tongue. Whoops – Japanese. She hurriedly flicked at a switch on the screen to change the language display and grabbed her personal mic, repeating her solicitation so that it was voiced in Japanese. It wasn’t really necessary. The group was already quite drunk. The 10,000 Asean Reals they had shelled out to get into the Blue Zone had been wasted, Queenie reflected.

It paid to numb the senses a little on entering the Blue Zone. The first hurdle was a crowd of officials eager to inject extra doses of Solution, the hormonal suppressant. The trick was loosely padded clothing to stop the laser-guided airgun from penetrating the skin on the way past. Then, assuming the Blue Zone facilitators had not laid a pre-penetration hold-up to relieve you of all your cash, there was a clear kilometre or so of murky waste ground before the entrance to the underground strip of bars and penetration salons. That meant paying some slimy low-life an extra few thousand AR for an electron gondola glide across.

Penetration itself was of course extremely hazardous: first timers often went catatonic. Many, unaccustomed to the sudden surge in blood pressure, suffered mortally. There were doctors in the Blue Zone, but it was always cash first, resuscitation later. And, assuming all went well, there was always the risk of a post-penetration ambush – because by then you’d have no recourse to any form of authority. In official eyes you had crossed the line, already a grim statistic.

One of the Japanese lurched towards Queenie. His flubbery face pouted through a large-lensed ocular accessory flashing neon blue. In here, she pointed with her sign, recoiling from the flashing blue maniac. In there was the entrance to a dark recessed space pulsating with light and sound.

‘Welcome to Penetration Park!’ Another liquid crystal sign blinked in a riot of ever-changing colours.

Inside Penetration Park the first thing the Japanese group saw was a pair of converted women “coupling” rhythmically on a raised stage to an underground ditty titled “Triangle of Love”. The number spliced a heavy techno-beat to some very heavy breathing. It drove the customers wild. Men and women sat in the flickering shadows drinking fluorescent turquoise “activators”. These were important. If your hormones were still 100

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imprisoned by Solution, penetration would be impossible. It was a licence to print money: mix a little chemical with coloured water and charge a small fortune.

‘Drink, Sir?’ asked a leather-clad hostess. She had a large target painted over her abdomen.

‘Ah, so. Activrator, prease,’ said Wasabe-san. ‘Six. Arigato . . . ’ The hostess punched a dial on her wrist and wafted off leaving Wasabesan a view of the blinking liquid crystal bull’s-eye on her naked backside.

Wasabe Tanaka was your typical penetrator. Middle-level executive in a large faceless China-owned Corporation that sucked the blood from its employees and spat them out, virtually lifeless, at forty-three. The pay was good – while the job lasted. The stress levels were high. That meant a small fortune in partner fees. The only legal way to cope with basic emotional instincts, those not suppressed by Solution, was to hire an approved partner with the right chemical modifications. You had only two choices: male or female.

Illicit partnerships, or underground partners (UPs), were always talked about, in whispered office corners or cafés. Getting caught incurred a mandatory death sentence. The risk of penetration was too high. For a brief and only marginally safer escape into the old natural world, there was the Blue Zone.

‘Let’s go, yeah?’

That was Sadaka, Wasabe’s colleague. He’d never penetrated and was eager to try.

‘Wait. Have a few Activators first, otherwise it’s useless,’ warned Kenji, Wasabe’s immediate boss. The illicit outing to the Blue Zone was in his honour. This would be his second penetration. His gleaming rotundity was a source of some encouragement to the others. He’d already survived the experience.

‘Yeah. Come on. Let’s get another round in quick,’ said the small, weasley Ling, their half-Japanese, half-German manager.

‘Got your dildos ready?’ Kenji blurted out, swaying somewhat dangerously to another reprise of “Triangle of Love”.

‘What’s a –’ Wasabe started to ask.

‘You’ll find out,’ said Ling, summoning another hostess.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom in Penetration Park, Wasabe 101

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could see the place was packed. Men and women sat around talking to hostesses and watching the stage show, or stood in the long queues to the penetration booths. Video screens around the bar showed scenes of animal penetration: horses, pigs, dogs and so on – illegal pornography. On the table in front of him an electronic screen scrolled through the available penetratees, men and women. To choose sex, press the blue panel. To select, press the green. There were hundreds of choices. Wasabe pressed the blue panel to select Female, which annoyed Ling. He wanted to look at the Male choices first. The women all wore strange expressions; some had their tongues hanging out.

Whatever for? Wasabe wondered. To Wasabe they looked sick. The very face of, what did they call it? Lust? Made him feel queasy. Obviously, he hadn’t had enough Activator.

The Mama-san approached. All penetration bars were managed by Mama-sans, usually surviving penetratees and always female.

‘You gentlemen ready yet?’ she asked in a thick city accent. ‘Come onlah. I see you’re on the second Activator. That should be enough-lah.’

‘Almost. Don’t worry.’ That was Kenji using his personal digital mic.

For some reason, he’d selected Thai, but the Mama-san nodded knowingly, clucked a little and moved on.

‘What were those scars on her face?’ Wasabe asked his boss.

‘She’s a survivor,’ he said.

‘What did she survive?’

Kenji drew closer to his subordinate and cupped a hand to his ear.

Wasabe gasped. ‘You mean . . . ?’

‘Yes. That’s what it looks like. There’s no cure. I guess she just got lucky and survived. Some do, you know.’

Wasabe suddenly got cold feet. Now that he’d come face to face with the whole reason why this once natural act was outlawed, he wanted to turn back and head for the city. But he was with his colleagues; and with his boss, no less. He would lose a lot of face, perhaps even his job. Then he’d never be able to afford the exorbitant monthly partner fees for Archie, the lithe Thaiboxer. He convinced himself that if Kenji could penetrate a second time, he might as well persevere. Kenji’s face was still smooth and healthy.

They had deliberately come very late. The queue at the penetration booths was always long until five or six in the morning. If there was no 102

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rush for the next penetration, you could take more time to savour your turn, or so they said. Kenji led the way. He’d selected a female. Ling went for a male. Wasabe followed Kenji’s example and selected a slight, brownskinned female, probably Islands in origin.

The booths were operated electronically with the pre-paid time cards issued at the front door. Once your time was up, the lights went on and a loud buzzer sounded. Simple, really. And of course there was a freshly sealed Dildo.

Disinfected Libido Operators, or Dildos, were cumbersome contraptions the male attached to his urinary tract organ before penetration. Failure to use the instrument properly or at all meant almost certain infection and a slow, agonizing death. The Dildo was devised in its basic form when penetration was still legal, as a means of keeping down the rate of infection. But too many people, in the heat of passion, either failed to install the clumsy contraption properly or dispensed with it entirely.

Low Dildo usage, particularly in poorer and less educated environments, helped tip the balance in favour of outlawing penetration on a global basis.

‘Cash or credit,’ whined a plump little hostess at the penetration payment booth.

‘Oh, here,’ mumbled Wasabe as he reached for his credit chip.

‘Booth number pourteen, sir. You have pipteen minutes. You wan mor time, please insert card in slot and punch in your PIN. Thank you. Pirst time, Sir?’ ‘Uh, yes.’

‘Have a good penetration . . . Wait! Don’t porget your Dildo, Sir.’ Wasabe’s colleagues disappeared into various booths. He headed towards booth number fourteen. Twelve . . . thirteen . . . Ah, fourteen. He noticed his hands trembling. His knees felt weak and there was a rumbling in his stomach. Strangest of all, he felt a weird stirring in his groin, just around the urinary tract.

Must be the Activator working, he thought.

The booth glowed pink. To his right a kidney-shaped bathtub hugged the wall. A large mattress placed on the floor and covered with a sheet took up most of the space. An air-duct blew in cold air and a smoke alarm winked red above him. There was no one in the booth so Wasabe, thinking he had made a mistake, turned to leave. Just then a young girl, her long, 103

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dark hair let down, walked in. Her skin was dark also, a deep tan. She was wearing a robe made of a shiny pink material.

‘Hello, Sir.’ Wasabe thought: Definitely an Island girl.

‘Aah . . . ’ he stuttered. The Dildo burned in his hand. His groin now ached. What kind of fun is this?

‘Clothes here, Sir,’ said the girl, pointing to a row of hooks beside the bath.

‘Ah . . . Ah-so,’ Wasabe managed. He felt his throat constricting, and desperately wanted a drink.

She moved towards the bath and as she did so a glimpse of her brownskinned leg slipped through the robe. The ache in Wasabe’s groins grew worse. His heart raced.

‘Bath?’

Wasabe nodded as he started to undress. His hands were fumbling with his loose shirt buttons. One of them spun off across the tiny booth. The girl busied herself with the taps and a selection of plastic bottles containing perfumed oils and disinfectants.

Wasabe wasn’t used to undressing in front of a stranger. He hesitated and fussed and almost tripped over his trousers. Then, standing in his socks, he wasn’t sure what to do next. The girl pointed to his pants.

Something strange also alerted him to that general area. He felt a hardening of the urinary tract organ – something he’d never experienced.

It shocked him but it felt, well, strangely pleasant. Wasabe had no idea that the flaccid little nub of skin had such potential.

This, he thought, is it.

The hot, fragrant water soothed him so much he almost forgot the purpose of his presence in the booth. Then the girl produced a towel and beckoned for him to get out of the bath.

‘Lie down, Sir.’ Wasabe did as he was told.

Now she had the Dildo in her hands, tearing at the foil wrapping.

Wasabe’s breathing became laboured. He began to feel uncomfortably hot and clammy. As he lay on the bed, his eyes fell on the now bulbous head of his inflated organ, aiming at him like a gun. The girl said nothing. She was still wrapped in her robe, but it had fallen loose and he could see a pale 104

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firm breast and an erect brown nipple peeking through. It distracted him, and felt strangely pleasant.

How odd, he thought. The breasts he saw all the time in the local park on his early evening strolls had no such effect on him. He allowed his thoughts to wander along in this direction some way before realizing he had never before considered such things as breasts and blood-gorged urinary tract organs. His head began to swim.

Perhaps, he thought again, it was the Activator.

It was one of the last thoughts Wasabe Tanaka had before the wall of one of his main arteries ruptured, close to his heart.

‘Another blow-out,’ the young girl reported to the mama-san as she threw the unused Dildo in the trash. ‘Number pourteen.’

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ko ko thett

Corpse Flower Blooms in Washington What an ill omen!

What a good omen!

This voodoo lily blooms When the Bodhisattva is awakened!

When the end is nigh!

When the seed is sown!

When the coast is clear!

To sponge with it!

Her stench takes you to fetid human flesh in Syria.

That will take you to summer road-kill in Lapland.

That will take you to putrefied fish pickle in the Delta.

That will take you to places between his toes.

Floriculturists call her Deformed Dick.

She calls herself Cassandra.

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T

his time she burst into his world with her half-page profile in a Sunday newspaper in a section dedicated to emerging artists.

It was several weeks after the corrupt president had stepped down, and the first time Rizky had heard from Julita since they had graduated from high school four years earlier in 1994. Her photographs of the massive demonstrations and surrounding events gave life to the article: a protester ripping his shirt and baring his tattoo-covered chest before lines of riot police; a writer handing out photocopies of his banned book; five women covering their faces with the sign “Do Not Rape, Native Indonesian Muslim”; a student throwing paper airplanes from the top of the parliament building; an old lady jumping up from her wheelchair as the television broadcast the president’s resignation speech.

Rizky peered at each portrait – faces momentarily stopping whatever they were doing to beam their souls at the camera. How was it possible that these people, who a few months before would have censored their own children’s school reports for fear of drawing attention to themselves, now proudly showed themselves in these photographs?

Where had they found the courage to protest, after three decades of silence and obedience and fear? These people were so used to submitting to fate. How had they decided that they could break the course of History? The protests impressed him profoundly as the first confirmation that one might indeed bring about change. He would never forget how, along with the sound of thousands of students marching, he had heard God whisper lovingly in his ear, ‘You too can change your life’s course.’

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Rizky rifled his room for his high school yearbook, looked up Julita’s home telephone and got her cell number from her parents.

‘Hello?’ She sounded freshly torn from sleep.

‘Hey, it’s Rizky!’

‘Who?’ ‘Riz-ky. From high school. I came to your house when you were suspended.’

He could hear her suspicion through the silence.

‘What do you want?’

‘Congratulations. I saw the article. I knew it, Jul, I’ve always known you could make it.’

‘Oh my God, it’s today.’

‘Where do you live? Let’s meet up. Please.’

When he saw a woman on a motorbike-taxi, wearing a lace dress with a plunging neckline, he hadn’t thought that it could be Julita. Even when she liberated her head from her helmet, he almost didn’t recognize her. She looked taller and more feminine in her short dress and high heels; her long hair fell in neat layers around her face.

She had picked the place – one of those trendy, roadside tent-cafés that many celebrities were opening at that time. The tent was furnished with recycled objects, and the tabletops were covered with funny, politically conscious, mural-style paintings. On the phone, Julita had said that it was one of the most creative cafés around, and she was happy that it had survived the riots unscathed, in spite of the owner’s Chinese descent.

Her wide eyes immediately found Rizky, sitting near the wooden cart that functioned as the café’s counter, and she glided towards him without breaking eye contact, her camera bag balanced on one hand and her helmet on the other.

The first time Rizky had noticed Julita was in the second year of high school, on Kartini Day. That day, as the custom was, girls showed up pretty in traditional dresses, but Julita felt that Kartini, the women’s emancipation figure, would be more honoured by girls being allowed to express their future ideals, and showed up wearing a paint-smeared dress with a beret, a paintbrush tucked behind one ear, and a camera slung around her neck.

Girls sneered, boys whistled, and teachers were furious. Rizky was intrigued.

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As he and the rest of the school’s band of bad boys had been caught smoking behind the school, they found themselves in the principal’s office with Julita. She was the only female. They were lectured at and then sent home. By the school gate Julita asked one of the boys to take her photo, and soon they were all striking silly, irreverent poses together.

After that the boys were friendly to her: she would let them copy her homework in the mornings, and they would invite her to watch their band rehearse after school. Soon she became the band’s unofficial photographer and the only girl who could hang out with the boys without becoming anyone’s girlfriend.

Then came the day when she plastered the school’s bulletin wall with her collection Human Delinquency: a teacher smacking a student with a shoe; a teenage couple kissing as a friend tried to pull the boy away, while scores of high school students clashed behind them; toddler-toting parents smoking as they lined up to buy lottery tickets; a banknote bearing the face of the corrupt president stuck on a dartboard.

The school tore down her photos, summoned her parents and threatened to expel her. But then her parents made a large contribution to the school, paid in cash to the faculty members. The boys also got into trouble because there were photos of them drinking and watching porn.

The leader of the group approached Julita. His punch stopped an inch away from her nose. ‘Too bad you’re a girl,’ he said.

Rizky went to her house one afternoon during her suspension. When he arrived she had just finished painting her bedroom walls with a trickling blood pattern. Spotting him through the window, she was startled, but Rizky quickly told her that he only wanted to talk. They ended up sitting on her front porch, smoking and munching fried tofu.

‘Why don’t you just transfer to another school?’ he asked. His mouth was greasy and fiery because of the green chillies.

‘My parents didn’t want our relatives to hear that their daughter had been expelled. Besides, I’ll top the final exams, so they’ll have to give me awards. You wait and see.’

‘Is that what you want to be eventually? A photographer?’

‘Taking photos is expensive, but I just like how the camera . . . can reveal something that often escapes our attention . . . And then I can ponder it over and over . . . What about you?’

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She studied him, but when he met her gaze she quickly looked down.

‘My parents want me to go to med. school. Being a doctor, that’s my mother’s biggest dream. Her father died when she was only fifteen, and she had to work to help send her brothers to college. So she did the next best thing: she married a doctor. My father came from a long line of doctors.’

He was surprised that he could open himself up to a girl – this girl – who was so far from his type. He usually liked the feminine girls with long legs and light skin; Julita was tall, but her legs looked as if she played football, her skin was the colour of burnt caramel, and, other than on Kartini Day, he had never seen her in anything but baggy white-and-grey school uniform and, at that moment, a T-shirt and shorts with drips of red paint all over them.

‘But what do you like to do?’

‘I don’t know. I guess I like making up stories and acting them out. I’m in the drama club and I’ve been trying to write lyrics for the band.’

‘Oh God.’ She brushed her upper arms. ‘It was so stupid of me, Riz. I was just so proud of my work. I thought everyone would see that we all had our vices and . . . Oh God. Please tell the boys I’m so sorry.’

But Rizky never even told the boys that he had gone to see her. He knew they would consider him a traitor if he did. When Julita passed them in school they would call her names, and one morning they waited for her by the school gate, jammed side-by-side to form a fence of leering, spitting monsters. They blocked her way and shoved her back when she tried to pass, even grabbing her breasts. Rizky stood at the farthest end of the line, watching everything. The first time, she caught his eye to ask for help, but he looked down. The next time she looked at him with anger; and then she stopped looking at him at all.

Still, he watched her from a distance. From time to time he tried to communicate with her through his actions – when her photograph was chosen as Photo of the Month by a photography magazine, he responded by winning first prize for lead actor in the Jakarta High School Theatre Festival; when an arrogant state official’s son called her a slut, Rizky scratched the boy’s car with a rusty nail. Julita graduated with perfect grades for Math and English, and Rizky graduated with perfect grades for Indonesian and History. The teachers handed them trophies in front of the entire school.

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‘You did it,’ he whispered to her as they came down from the stage with their diplomas. ‘Congratulations.’

Rizky couldn’t remember whether she’d even replied. Driving to the café he doubted that she had forgiven him, but when he saw her walking in, he thought she had wanted to impress him.

They shook hands. She sat down and put her camera bag on the old trunk that served as a table.

‘You were the first to congratulate me,’ she said.

‘I always knew you could make it, Juli. You’ve proved that people like us could really make it in this world.’

‘Are you still friends with the boys from high school?’

‘No,’ he lied.

‘So what did you mean by “us”?’

He looked around for inspiration. ‘I just meant people like you and me, “troublemaker kids” or whatever.’

She reached inside her bag and fanned the photos on the trunk. ‘So what do you think?’ She leaned forward.

He knew if he looked down he’d see inside her dress. He took the invitation. ‘I like them.’

‘Why?’ ‘You took pictures of individuals. Other photographers showed burning buildings, the marching army, massed students – their photos looked like stills from an epic film. You showed the people behind it all, you made it clear this was not just about toppling a government: this was about us coming out of hiding, our chance to take control of our lives.’

‘Do you want to see more?’

‘Do you want to show me more?’

She swept her photos off the table and put them back in her bag. She picked it up, but only to move it to a chair next to her. ‘Maybe later. What about you? What have you been busy with?’

Rizky pretended his back was sore and he was straightening up.

‘Preparing for graduation, of course. I’m done with exams – my GPA is almost perfect – but there is a ton of university stuff. It’s my own fault for taking the job as class president.’

‘Wow, you must have a lot of responsibilities.’

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‘When you took photos on my campus, you must’ve seen the stage we built. We held open-mike events and performed one-act plays. That was my idea,’ he gushed.

Their exuberance swelled as they discussed how from then on people were able to voice their views, however controversial; artists no longer had to fear censorship or persecution; and previously forbidden subject matter could be explored to the full. Just when it was their time to create real work, a gate of new opportunity had been kicked open before them. Julita said she wanted to publish her photos as a book and apply for a grant to take pictures all over the world. Anything seemed possible. She was excited, he was excited, and their excitement was amplified a thousand fold by the excitement of the time.

When it started to rain he offered to drive her home. He let her fidget with her cell phone before she finally agreed, saying she couldn’t go with her regular motorbike-taxi because of the rain, and she was uncomfortable taking taxis because of the recent reports of robberies in taxis.

In the car his cell phone kept beeping with incoming text messages.

‘Still Mr. Popular, huh?’ Julita said.

He tossed her his phone. ‘Reply for me, will you? I’m out of fake excuses.’

Julita saw messages from Intan, Puti, Vera . . . It’s really cold out. I could use some warming up. Interested? wrote one of them.

‘How about you, Juli? Any boyfriend?’

‘Me? Boyfriend?’ She scoffed. ‘But if you mean the occasional man, well . . .’

Rizky burst out laughing. ‘I knew it.’

‘You knew what?’

‘That you would. Do it.’

‘And how did you know?’

‘You just seemed that kind of girl.’

‘The slutty kind?’

‘No. The kind that – I don’t know – doesn’t measure her value by . . . I’m sorry, I didn’t mean –’ ‘Relax, I’m just teasing.’

‘Was it a hard decision, though?’

‘You mean the first time?’

This time he just felt stupid. ‘I didn’t mean to pry – I just – this girl I knew, she said she wanted to die afterwards.’

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‘Maybe I did feel a little sinful,’ she said, ‘but I wanted to do it. I was so angry at the time. I wanted to break with this society completely, so I thought it was the thing to do.’ She became quiet for a while, as if looking into herself. ‘I felt a bit disoriented afterwards, like I was suddenly all alone . . . But I had wanted to do it, so . . . ’ His discomfort went away. Outside the rain was pouring so densely that the whole world seemed to be melting, and he felt snug inside the car with her, protected from the grey torrents outside.

‘That girl I mentioned, she was my first. I was so drunk when it happened and afterwards I just lay there staring at the ceiling. She had already dozed off. Everything I’d been taught in life told me that what I’d done was wrong. When she woke up, she saw me staring into space like an idiot, and then like a bigger idiot I told her that it was my first time. But she said she couldn’t tell that I was a first-timer, and that cheered me up a bit. Then she told me about her own first time, how she thought she’d ruined her chances of marriage and family, and she couldn’t get out of bed for a week. But one morning she’d woken up and realized she didn’t have to follow other people’s rules anymore – she could find people who would accept her for who she really is. Then she got dressed and said goodbye.

I never saw her again, but no one had better tell me our encounter was meaningless.’

‘I said, “Thank you,” to the guy after my first time.’

‘You what? You’re insane! Did he ask, “Thanks for what?” Then what would you have said?’

As they approached her building, Rizky wondered if Julita was going to invite him in. But she simply thanked him and ran inside clutching her camera bag to her chest. He realized he was disappointed. But then in the rear-view mirror he spotted Julita’s helmet wobbling on the back seat like a laughing head.

Shaking his head, he drove off immediately. When Julita called, he would demand a ransom for her helmet: introducing him to theatre people.

The next day he ignored her call twice and then picked up on the third time.

Before hanging up he finally mustered the courage to say, ‘By the way, 113

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do you think you can introduce me to some theatre people? It’s not a big deal or anything, but I’ve really missed acting since I got into med. school.’

‘I’m going to a party next weekend for an actor friend of mine from art school. Why don’t you come with me?’

When Rizky and Julita arrived, a burly man with shoulder-length hair wearing a leather jacket separated himself from a small circle of smokers in front of the house and opened the taxi door for them. Julita emerged and kissed him on both cheeks. ‘Happy birthday.’

He spotted Rizky and said, ‘New guy?’

‘Hush. This is my friend Rizky. He won first prize for lead actor at Jakarta High School Theatre Festival in 1994.’

‘Really? Are you with any group? Come, I’ll introduce you.’

Rizky followed him to the smokers’ circle. From the fence Julita sent him a wink before disappearing inside.

Everything seemed enchanted that night: the band covering dangdut songs in the backyard, the director who told him that the most important requirement for joining their group was a commitment to read a play or a book per week, and the purple-haired cellist he flirted with while stealing glances at Julita, who was dancing with the host and stealing glances at him too. How sexy she looked, wearing only a long piece of white cloth – on which she had spray-painted the demands of the students – which she wrapped around her body to form a tube dress with a flowing over-theshoulder scarf.

Rizky sat on the grass drinking traditional sweet, reddish beer and thinking of the hours he had spent almost entirely by himself, studying for university entrance exam, campaigning for class presidency, planning activities for his fellow students, and after all that not once did Mother say, ‘That’s great, Riz. I’m proud of you.’

‘Enough,’ he thought. ‘From now on I will do what I want with my life.’

Pleasantly tipsy on the taxi ride home, he asked Julita if he could see her place.

‘Sure.’

It was almost three in the morning when they got out of the taxi, but a group of neighbourhood men were still watching a live World Cup match on a fourteen-inch screen in the night-guard’s post, cheering and sighing with the players’ every move.

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Julita led him through the dim corridor of the house, passing a communal kitchen that smelled like anchovies, and then up the stairs.

Rizky noticed a mix of women’s and men’s shoes before some of the doors – he knew that Julita would live in a co-ed, “liberal” building where the gate was open 24 hours and the residents were allowed to bring overnight guests.

When they reached her room, she turned on the lights and sat on the bed. He followed her in and was transfixed by the images covering every inch of her walls: reproductions of photographs or paintings, postcards, magazine covers, even advertisements. As he walked around the room he recognized reproductions of Affandi’s self-portraits with the sun; a painting of twin women with exposed hearts held together by a bleeding vein; photos of a woman as different characters in black-and-white film stills; couples in various bedrooms looking forlorn after lovemaking . . .

Above the table beside the bed were three corkboards covered with sketches, schedules, and inspirational quotes from people that Rizky assumed were great artists. Opposite the bed a full-length mirror was mounted on an easel. A rush of expectation coursed through him.

He sat beside her and caressed the back of her neck. He felt her twitching to his touch.

‘Do you want some coffee?’ She jumped off towards the shelves and turned on the water-heater.

‘Why not?’ Rizky said. ‘Listen, I’ve always wanted to thank you. It was your winning Photo of the Month that spurred me to take part in that theatre competition.’

‘Riz, why didn’t you defend me when the boys were harassing me?’

He felt a sharp pain in his stomach. ‘Come on, Jul, that was a long time ago.’

‘You came to my house; you said you were my friend, and then you watched them push me around. You got a kick out of that?’

‘Do we have to talk about it now?’

‘Why do you think I invited you here?’

‘You’re joking, right?’

‘Do you think I’m so desperate to sleep with you that I’ve forgotten what you did to me?’ Boiling water gurgled behind her.

Rizky started pacing around the room. ‘You think I don’t feel awful?

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I hated myself so much I burned my arm with a cigarette!’ He showed her a round burn-mark on his inner elbow.

‘Then why did you – ?’

The images staring at him from the walls were making him dizzy. ‘You know what, I don’t need this.’ He went for the door, but the knob seemed to be stuck. He massaged his throbbing temple. ‘Juli, I didn’t know they were going to do that. We were just sitting around, and when they saw you coming the boys just got this idea. I’d told them, “Let it go, it’s been a long time,” but nobody’d listened.’

‘You could’ve held them back.’

‘And let them beat me up? Fine if that was all. But when the teachers saw us fighting, do you think they would’ve given me a free pass? They threatened to expel me too, Juli. It’s all because of your photos!’

‘I’ve apologized for that.’

‘You knew it was too close to graduation to transfer to a different school. My family isn’t like your family, willing to cough up bribe money.’

‘Hey, that was my dad’s decision! There was nothing I could do to stop him. At least I became a photographer and you – ’ ‘Fuck you! What do you want me to say? That what I did was cowardly?

It was. I wanted to stand up for you, but . . .’

‘But you wanted to keep hanging out with the popular boys.’

He rested his forehead on the wall. ‘You know, when that boy called you a slut, I – ’ Rizky shook his head. ‘I can’t talk any more.’ Again he tried opening the door, but it was still stuck. He jiggled the knob violently.

‘Fuck!’ He had to kick the door twice before it finally sprang open.

He could hear her giggling and then shouting at him from the doorframe: ‘I should’ve photographed your face in the taxi. The same grin I saw when I walked into that tent wearing that laced dress. You thought you were such a god. How are you feeling now?’

He wanted to walk back and punch her door, but he kept on going, leaving a trail of curses in his wake. He was so humiliated that he never did join the theatre group. He imagined Julita telling everyone how she’d made a fool of him, how he’d been such a coward in high school, and then they’d all laugh until they fell over and spilled their beer.

After weeks of troubled sleep, regret overcame his anger. As he walked in a toga to receive his diploma, he promised himself that he would give 116

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the theatre director a call. But when Mother told him that he would continue his studies until he earned his M.D., Rizky didn’t dare protest.

Towards the end of the year, during the Extraordinary Meeting of the People’s Representatives, students again poured onto the streets and Rizky volunteered in the hospital every day, tending to fellow students who’d been wounded, beaten, or shot. Some nights he wandered around the wards and corridors hoping to see Julita among the photographers immortalizing the heroes and victims of the struggle. But it was in vain.

Weeks turned into months. Rizky saw the nation amending the constitution and holding the first free election; Indonesian filmmakers started making films again; some of his friends were even going back to school to pursue new dreams. Only Rizky was still stuck in a life chosen for him by someone else. He went out drinking to drown his shame, but the glasses of vodka only reflected it back at him.

Several weeks before the celebration of the new millennium, Julita burst back into his world with a poster, plastered on a bulletin board on campus, for her first exhibition: From Now On Everything Will Be Different.

Some of her photos were shown: a student carrying the Red-and-White flag leading a late night protest in Semanggi; individuals dressed in striking costumes, campaigning for their parties on the streets; a couple of teenagers high-fiving in the air in front of an election booth. Rizky was struck by the promises the photos implied: liberation, redemption, transformation.

He noted the place and time of the opening, but he doubted he would go. In seven months he would graduate from med. school. Then, he vowed, he would leave his parents’ home and join a theatre group. After that, perhaps, he’d call her. Invite her to see his play. Maybe then he’d have the guts. After all, it’d be a whole new millennium, a clean slate.

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Kim Kyung-ju translated by Jake Levine and Jung Hi-yeon

Auraji River like a dry stick on an ink stone, the river is freezing now is the time, underwater, where darkness spreads into wind. if you on such a night can bear to stand still, people who escaped their graves crouch down and dip both their hands in the river in order to approach the human soul, how far from earth is life flying? on such a night, hanging upside down, sleeping birds gnash their teeth and regaining consciousness after a long flight, a man quietly shakes the plane a streak of light flies from an anonymous star, the duration of that light’s life arrives in my eyes, so how long does it take the life of music to be so alone? night is a lonely man walking with his eyes closed, and the eyes of a lonely man is something he has to hide, has to hide the sounds in those eyes in the middle of the river clinging to the tree far away from the mountain, white icicles slowly gush light like an outdoor palace, but a long time ago, from my side to their side, the beasts that turned their backs to the firelight had their eyes frozen by wind, so they howled and now the dark stone underwater is carried by river water – your eyes carried, joining me, the spirit is night sound is water slowly pushing the shadow outside. if the wind is open, notice the evidence: someone who exits a grave with a feeble face is passing by 118

Kim Kyung-ju

Seeing Again the Whistle in Childhood My Whistling Now as Wind Blowing by the Window

It is raining, but people’s faces are flowing, hugging separate things as they enter the used-book store. They unhappily place their book in a vacant space and then one worn out book spreads open in secret.

Fingerprints someone left are running into a sentence. In here, like donkey’s eyes, does the mind sink into the sand? Sealed as the dried petal of a flower, I am looking for the development inside the missing fragrance. The pages torn from the book begin to appear. If it rains, the book opens and, quietly whistling, damp whistles become a swamp.

Words look like bugs’ eyeballs and in a book they sit and melt. Words look like small temples submerging in the whistle. The whistle shakes the trees and crosses the water, coming and going, on the only road that doesn’t exist in the world. Inside a sandstorm crossing the continent, somebody’s whistle like a horsefly mixes. I see again the whistle in my childhood whistling now as wind blowing by the window. The uvulas of beasts looking at the village are wet like a bat. At that time I hoisted the youngest child that was a plant and over the course of one night I saw my whistle evolve and transcend a plateau. Behind dad’s back I hide and spy in the night’s reservoir. If you thought of fireplace chills that sleep and wake in the time of people, sister, you kicked the bicycle stand and I whistled weaker than you. At that time how the whistle smelled like fresh acacia. How the sound of bells inside the iron left and clipped fingernails and returned when it was night. Sister, now I am a son-in-law teaching your daughter to whistle. Winds that have the smell of lonely lips visited the banished flowers on the cliff. What is the difference between a ledge and a cliff ?

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Poetry

My Absent Baby with Scissors Is Like Cutting the Sunshine My absent baby is cutting the sunshine coming into the room Going toward the sunshine which cuts earthworms discharging blood Sometimes I can hear the sound of people sitting in Blast experts have a bonfire on the rooftop A woman grabbing her stomach connects to gravity From a crack in the ceiling, dead mice pour out Inside eyes in a water cup, pubic hair begins to sprout Wanting to live, a cat licks dead mice I’m not sick, I drink liquid drugs and my teeth rot away The woman crawls under the wardrobe and spouts light Don’t die! I will cut the sunshine with scissors Little by little with scissors my absent baby will cut the baby I never had While cutting a dried earthworm A halo lights the room 120

from Porcelain Girl Cheng Yong translated by Brian Holton

I

n the mornings, Li Mingqin would lean on his balcony railing and smoke a cigarette before going back to bed with a good book. He had lately been skimming through The Story of the Stone, and, although he wasn’t terribly interested in the teenagers or their whims, he was fascinated by the descriptions of the house interiors, and had practically off by heart the passage where Lin Daiyu arrives at the Rong-Guo Mansion: A long, high table of carved red sandalwood, ornamented with dragons, stood against the wall. In the centre of this was a huge antique bronze cauldron, fully a yard high, covered in a green patina. On the wall above it hung a long vertical scroll with an ink painting of a dragon emerging from clouds and waves, of the kind often presented to high court officials in token of their office. The cauldron was flanked on one side by a smaller antique bronze vessel with a pattern of gold inlay and on the other by a Ru Ware wine goblet in the Antique Beauty style.

Whenever he read this, he was overtaken by a kind of awe – a Ru Ware vessel like that, made between the tenth and thirteenth century in the Song dynasty Imperial Kilns, would fetch at least ten million if it ever came up for auction. Now, displaying cut flowers in a national treasure like that would require a freedom from all spiritual encumbrance, for to place such a unique piece at the service of a mere human need would show that you had quite transcended the material plane. While he 121

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appreciated such a rarefied state of being, Li Mingqin was well aware that few would ever attain it.

His gaze took in the photograph on the wall. In it, an old western building was surrounded by French plane trees that stretched up toward the sunlight, their branches like Krazy Kalligraphy, the luxuriant clusters of their supple leaves in sharp contrast to their bare boles. The trees screened an English villa, and only the tiniest patch of blue sky above the roof brought the picture to life. Its hipped roof was of red tile and the arches above the doors were red brick; the porch was topped with decorative concrete slabs and its antique quoins gave it a sturdy, robust look that might bring to mind the sunken eyes and prominent nose of a European face.

His mother used to say that Father had loved this house so much because his family had spent such a fortune on it, and perhaps this was true up to a point, for Father, much as he adored Chinese culture, had fallen in love with western art, too: he howled in his sleep for years after his beloved house was confiscated. Back when Li Mingqin had the photo of the house enlarged and hung on the wall, Mother had been against it, saying the sight of it just upset her. But Li Mingqin was determined it should hang there, because that photo was where he let his fantasies roam.

He would dream of how the old house had once been decorated with antiques of every sort; the study had been furnished in rosewood and sandalwood, with round-backed chairs, zither tables, and display cases groaning with all kinds of porcelain; a long side table ran across the full width of the main entrance hall, set with carved lacquer ware, bronze censers, and blue and white vases, and the walls were hung with the kind of work by famous painters that gave it that proper literati look. Though it didn’t quite reach the wondrous standards of the RongGuo Mansion, the imposing classicism of its interior wasn’t too far off the mark.

Li Mingqin comforted himself with the thought that, though it was all long gone, there was no telling what might not come back to him one day. Even if he had nothing else, he told himself, in front of him he still had that lugged vase from the Southern Song Imperial Kilns, which he had bought very cheap, and which was now said to be worth millions. What might he not rebuild, with that much money?

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He thought of how he had drifted off to sleep the night before with the vase in his arms, and how thick and fast the nightmares had come – first the vase was stolen, then it was pronounced a fake. He’d woken in a pool of sweat, the dreams a reminder that, yes, you can’t always be thinking of the nice stuff, and that sometimes you have to dwell on the other side of life.

You say it’s worth millions, but on what grounds? What makes you think a Hong Kong businessman is going to buy it from you? If, when the time comes, he decides it’s a wrong’un, wouldn’t it all have been as senseless as trying to catch rain in a sieve?

He turned the whole business over in his mind for a while, wondering if it was all too much trouble. There’s this work of art, and while some say it’s genuine, others say that it’s a fake. If it’s genuine it’s worth millions; if it isn’t, you might just about get a dozen salted duck eggs for it – so who do you listen to? In the antiques trade, there’s never any shortage of pretentious clever-dicks who will tell you all about how good – or bad – the piece is, but when it comes to putting their hands in their own pockets, they just crawl right back into the woodwork.

The Holy Diddler in Cream of the Crop on Antiques Street, he was that sort, always bragging about what a great eye he had. Somebody once brought him an eighteenth century Qianlong period famille rose vase, wanting fifty grand for it, but he was scared to splash out that much, so he sent the guy away. Then it changed hands for 280,000, and the asking price had gone up to half a million by the time The King Cobra of Antiquities Hall saw it. He was another one like The Holy Diddler, a bigmouth with a great eye who never passed up on a good deal (or so he’d tell you), and who had spent ten grand on an early nineteenth century Jiajing period blue and white bowl he’d sold for more than ten times as much.

This time, when the big cheese came along, wanting half a million for his famille rose vase, The King Cobra was quaking inside but wouldn’t admit it was out of his league, so he had to say of course he would have bought it, if only it had been genuine Qianlong. In the end it was bought by a big dealer up north who got an American to pay 800,000 for it; the American smuggled it out of the country and sold it at Sotheby’s, where it was eventually knocked down for 4.5 million.

Bluffing does you no good in the antiques trade: nobody believes a bluffer.

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This is what they do believe, though: A dealer puts his hand out To find out where he’s at: Thoroughbred or donkey?

Either will pull his cart.

If you want to see the real cognoscenti sorting out the wheat from the chaff, then go to the Antiques Market, where fakes are many and genuine pieces few, and where it takes proper expertise to buy the good stuff. At this point, Li Mingqin still hadn’t found anyone with the skills he needed.

He picked up a pack of cards, intending to tell his own fortune. He flipped over one or two, then laughed at himself for being so childish, and took a celadon pot from the cabinet: it had neither lid nor handle, being designed for the ancient game of Pitchpot, in which divinations were made by throwing dice from a few feet away. He was going to use it to find if his vase was genuine: if five out of ten dice went into the pot, then it really was genuine Song Dynasty Imperial Ware.

Taking careful aim, he threw the first die. It clinked against the rim of the pot, bounced in and rattled down inside. That was a bit of luck, getting it in one. The second one bounced out, the third went in, and then he had a run of misses. He sat there feeling stupid, then tried again, but all the dice he threw after that bounced out of the pot.

He sat back on the bed, lit another cigarette and began to flip through The Story of the Stone again, laughing at his naivety – letting chance decide his destiny! And yet, sometimes, fate is as simple as that: Heads or Tails, Yin or Yang – each will change into the other. Good times, when the shadows beneath the willow trees are forgotten amidst the sunshine and flowers, can change in a moment into times of constant uphill struggle: these sudden reversals don’t always feel like chance, though, for sometimes they present themselves as bare necessity. In the same way, the glory days of the Jia family had vanished in an instant, and the great House of RongGuo had fallen into the dust.

Feeling sleepy, he put his book down; and then the phone rang.

‘Hello?’

‘You don’t know me, but . . .’

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‘Who are you? What do you want?’

‘Never mind who I am. I have some dependable information . . .’

Li Mingqin hung up without letting the caller say any more. But as he lit his cigarette, he thought it couldn’t do any harm to hear the guy out, so he picked up the receiver, and heard the voice say, ‘That’s right, you’d better listen to this.’

Li Mingqin shuddered: the guy hadn’t hung up. Who could he be?

There was a silence, then the voice said, ‘Public Security are after you.’

Li Mingqin laughed. ‘What are you up to?’ the caller hummed and hawed, then said he wanted the vase, and would give him 100,000 for it. Li Mingqin deliberately asked, ‘Dollars?’ The caller, as if he hadn’t understood Li’s tone, said, ‘Don’t be silly. RMB.’ It was yet more clear proof that he had his hands on a masterpiece.

If he hadn’t known its value before, he might have sold the vase, but if a vase bought for just over a thousand can be transmuted into something worth a hundred thousand, then Li Mingqin wasn’t going to be satisfied with that measly hundred thousand, because, of course, he wanted to be a millionaire.

‘Not enough.’

He had been getting regular phone calls from strangers ever since he had bought the vase. Most were curious, some honestly wanted to do business, but if that guy sounded like a buyer, he also sounded like a conman; and, he thought, am I so easily cheated? Someone had bought another lugged vase for 800,000: if you offer 100,000, are you saying I look desperate for the cash? But if this guy is genuinely giving me a warning, it could be that Mother was dead right when she reckoned that, if some out-of-town museum had been robbed, and there was something fishy about the piece’s provenance, then I’d be an accessory to the theft, and the first thing the Public Security Bureau would do would be to confiscate it, regardless of where I’d got it. Li Mingqin couldn’t sit still. After a while he thought, ‘What if I tell them I bought it thinking it was a fake, or that I gave it away to somebody? Can Public Security carry out a compulsory search if they don’t believe what I tell them?’

His family had once owned a lot of Imperial Ware porcelain, amounting to rooms full of riches, all of which had dwindled away in his father’s care – or, to speak more plainly, had been destroyed during the so-called Cultural 125

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Revolution. Nowadays it wasn’t easy to own a piece of world-class porcelain, and if that was going be what revived the Li family’s fortunes, he’d need a good few million to lay the foundations for that dream. A world-class piece would be worth a huge sum of money, but so as long as he kept it safe, his dream would be safe, too. The stranger’s phone call wasn’t necessarily undependable, but it was better to be safe than sorry, he thought, and he paced around the room looking for a good hiding place.

He opened the door of the storage unit on his balcony and went rummaging through the odds and ends inside, but very soon closed the door – a place like that would just be too easy. In the “CultRev” the family next door with the triplets had hidden some letters from Taiwan in their bin area, where there was a cat box that stank to high heaven, but the Public Security guys just clamped their hands over their mouths and raked through it, and in the end the neighbours were labelled “Chiang Kai-Shek Spies”.

He squatted down to look under the bed, pulling out boxes out and poking vaguely into this one and that, before pushing them all back in again. Under the bed wasn’t safe – in the troubles back then, rebel factions had lifted floorboards and torn great holes in the family’s Simmons bed in their search for evidence of Old Thinking, Old Customs, Old Habits and Old Culture. It wasn’t a small room by any means, but there just wasn’t anywhere safe enough. He had thought of hiding it at his mother’s, but he’d been afraid that something so underhand would worry her.

He imagined Hong Changren standing there, giving him a talking to: ‘You’ve got a big mouth, boy. How come so many people know about this?’

And Jiaojiao would almost certainly dump him if she knew he hadn’t got this figured out. Was she going to walk out in a huff, after all the trouble he’d taken to get her in the first place?

That was as far as he allowed his thoughts to go. He cursed and swore until he’d got it out of his system, then decided that this kind of one-man show wouldn’t help, and went on looking for a hiding place, because, if he didn’t, and it was found, he could easily be held as an accessory to theft. Stealing the National Heritage was inexcusable – you’d get at least ten years, people said, like that young guy who had stolen a Late Imperial fan from a museum. He got the death penalty – a single bullet. Now Li Mingqin was really getting jittery. ‘I used to lead such a quiet life!’ he 126

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thought. ‘Nothing ever bothered me, but since I got that vase, there’s been a cold wind blowing through my life. I’m afraid all the time now.’

Last year, in early spring, Mother had reminded him that the antiques trade might seem pure as the driven snow from a distance, but, like a swamp, once you’re in it, it’s hard to get out. At the time, Li Mingqin had disagreed, but to his surprise, she had been right: in that whole year, not one millionaire buyer had turned up, there had been endless hassles and, to top it all, he was now in fear of his life. At that moment, as he leaned over the balcony, another cigarette between his lips, he thought of how he had gradually fallen into this mess. He was right in it now, and was there any chance of rescue?

With its rows and rows of houses packed together like sardines, the Old Town silently presents itself to the eye like some huge and ancient objet d’art, its paulownia tree winding and coiling about it like a dragon, and hiding beneath the trees lies one little street – Fortune Street. The old folk say that it’s a hundred years old, and because by the End of Empire in 1911 it was peopled by mandarins and rich merchants, its many shops and stalls all made money – hence its name. The antique dealers were confined to that one street at first, but as they prospered, so their stalls began to spread out in every direction, until East Street, West Street, Fortuna Defenda Temple, Fern Lane and Old Drill Yard were all getting rich, all along the street that snakes through the district like a dragon. As well as the traders’ stalls, there are antique shops lining the cross-streets and lanes. Every shop has its door wide open, but there isn’t much to choose from among the “Antiquity Lodges”, “Antiquity Dens”, and “Treasure Houses”. Locals have always got straight to the point and referred to them as the Terracotta King, the Zither King, or the Chamber Pot King: from a distance the bits and pieces they sell look antique enough, and there is a very cultured air about the whole place.

Here is chinaware from the 8th-century Tang Dynasty onward, zithers copied from Tang originals, bricks and tiles from the earliest Qin and Han dynasties two thousand years ago, Early Modern paper from the 14th17th century Ming Dynasty and Late Imperial ink blocks, sandalwood and red cedar furniture from the mansions of mandarins, gewgaws and woodcarvings from the early 20th century Republican period, and much more besides – you can find anything you want here. At first glance you’d 127

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almost think you were on a Tang Dynasty street, or in one of the many markets of the 12th century Song period; and if the passers-by were wearing traditional headscarves and long gowns, the illusion would be complete.

Business on Fortune Street is normally slow, but when Sunday comes round it fairly buzzes with life, as wandering tourists come and go, and the teeming hordes chase after antiques. Fortuna Defenda Temple was once a place of worship where travellers could burn incense, while in the final decades of Empire troops were inspected in Old Drill Yard. On every street there will be tourists circulating, and crowds gathering and mingling from morning till night: Fortune Street in particular will be a solid mass of pedestrians, giving off as much heat as a rack of bakery steamers. Dealers from all over the country come here in droves to spread their mats out on the street.

Another reason these streets are famous is that people can make fortunes overnight: if you buy a little gewgaw for a few hundred and it turns out to be Qing Imperial Ware, then straight away, you’re a few hundred thousand better off; and if you spend over a thousand on a portrait by the 16th century master Zhang Tangyin, then someone may offer you three times as much as soon as you’ve put your money down. But such good fortune is rare, for most of the business is in dribs and drabs, ‘building the house one brick at a time’ as they say.

Round here, it’s hard to say who is luckiest, because a lot of the people who make a pile don’t noise it abroad. But if you were to pick one who did let it be known, then Hong Changren would be at the top of the list. Not long after he’d opened Famille Rose on Fortune Street, a young woman popped into the shop while she was visiting relatives in Old Drill Yard, and told him she had some stuff at home to dispose of, as she was emigrating to America. It was high summer, and she wasn’t wearing anything special, though her sunglasses did give her a certain style. She took Hong Changren to an old villa on the West Side, where he saw a table piled with porcelain, lacquer ware, ink-stones and other curios. He took it all in with one rapid glance. Now, quality sings its own song: as soon as he lifted a pair of vases he realised that they were genuine 18th century Yongzheng period Imperial Ware, and worth 5 million, easily.

It’s possible the girl had taken some advice beforehand, because she understood that this was Imperial Ware, not common or garden stuff, and her starting price was one million.

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Inside, Hong Changren’s heart was bursting with delight, but he spoke with real coldness: ‘Too dear. Where would I find a buyer at that price? I might think about it at two or three hundred thousand, though.’

He knew perfectly well that she wasn’t very well informed, and he was hard as nails in forcing her price down. You want to go abroad, you sell cheap. But no matter how long he harried and chivvied her, she wouldn’t budge, so Hong Changren investigated her family background, looking for a gap in her defences. It turned out that she was related to the 19th century statesman Li Hongzhang, and she had two sisters: both were good-looking girls, but she was decidedly plain; and while her sisters had married young, she had spent a dozen sad and lonely years waiting for Mr Right to come calling. She put the blame on her mother, saying it was unfair that her sisters were like her in every other way, and she was the only one born like that. So on her deathbed, in spite of opposition from her other daughters, their mother had signed over the greater part of her goods to the youngest, by way of compensation. Once he’d heard that story, Hong Changren started turning up at her door on various pretexts or none, pretending to be her friend: he told her he wasn’t much bothered about buying her antiques, but that he’d take care of things, help her find the best price . . .

First he had his brother-in-law pretend to be an antique dealer and view her collection, so the pair could try working a double-act on her. Next he asked Li Mingqin to impersonate a northerner, but Li said, ‘You’re trying to fleece a big grown-up girl like her?’

‘You don’t get it,’ said Hong Changren. ‘This is the way of the world nowadays: you have to grab every chance, because every penny counts.

And she really doesn’t get it, either. These lovely things are wasted on her.’

When he got to her house and saw the goods, Li Mingqin opened the bidding at 200,000.

‘You see,’ said Hong Changren. ‘Nobody will buy at the price you’re asking.’

‘Ah, but what if the two of you are teaming up to pull the wool over my eyes?’ she replied.

‘Not Guilty, Ma’am,’ he smiled.

‘You’re a well-bred young lady from a good family,’ said Li Mingqin.

‘We wouldn’t have the nerve to con someone like you.’

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‘The price you get isn’t such a big deal,’ said Hong Changren, ‘but leaving the country and settling abroad, that is a big deal, now, and you’ll need someone to look after things and keep you right.’

Joking, she said, ‘Is that a proposal, My Dear Sir?’ Hong Changren shook his head. ‘It’s not me who’s going abroad. Me, I like Shanghai.’

‘So do I,’ she said. ‘Someone as good-looking as you must be quite surrounded by beautiful girls, I suppose?’

‘Your humble servant may have the looks, but I’m just the common or garden variety. You’re different. A nicely brought-up young lady, so well mannered, so accomplished, you’re Imperial Ware, you are, a real Porcelain Girl,’ said Hong Changren.

‘Oh, don’t you come that one with me,’ she said. ‘I know well enough what I am.’

Li Mingqin chimed in from the sidelines. ‘In your lover’s eyes, you’ll always be the loveliest girl in the world. If he thinks you’re beautiful, then you’re beautiful – and anyway, what’s the measure for beauty? But if you’re talking about manners and taste, then you’re in a league of your own: you’re a real aristocrat. In this town you’ll find the common or garden varieties anywhere, but Imperial Ware – that’s not easily come by, no matter how hard you look.’

Feeling that things were getting just a touch too sociable, Hong Changren steered the conversation back to business.

The girl smiled pleasantly and said, ‘Well, after all this sweet-talking, I’ll trouble you to save your breath now – you can have the lot for half a million.’

Hong Changren took the haul back to his shop with the greatest of care, and immediately sold a pair of late 18th-early 19th century Jiaqing famille rose vases, for 3 million.

When he got the money, Hong Changren dumped his wife and married a young girl.

Then there was Mr Wang at Treasure Den. An Old Drill Yard family who had once been well to do, and who were related to the nineteenth century scholar-general Marquis Zeng Guofan, they came under attack in the CultRev and had all their antiques confiscated. The only thing left was a yellow rosewood Ming dynasty couch tray. On the day when the Red Guards 130

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had burst in on them, an old man had been busy chopping pickled cabbage and green beans on it, so the teenage Red Guards had thought it was just some everyday kitchen utensil – which was how that one antique yellow rosewood couch tray survived.

The old man was later diagnosed with dementia, and a few weeks after he died, word reached Mr Wang. He hotfooted it to their door, only to find the family had nothing of interest except that old battered couch tray. They called it a “table” which alerted Mr Wang to the fact that they knew nothing about antiques, so he just said, ‘I’ll take it,’ and gave them ten thousand.

When he got it home, he gave himself a really good pat on the back: his Lucky Star had risen, he’d found the Elixir of Life, he’d pulled off The Big One! The carved ivory panels on the couch tray were decorated with a relief of Two Dragons Chasing the Pearl of Immortality: the workmanship was immaculate and the wood grain was gorgeous – it had to be worth two hundred grand! He loved to blow his own trumpet, Mr Wang, and that was how he got his reputation.

That kind of story spreads very quickly, and attracts new enthusiasts by the dozen. When the antiques trade got going again in the early eighties, it wasn’t uncommon to hear tales of people Hitting the Big One, but after a few years, as buyers became more knowledgeable, there were fewer good pieces, and before long, proper bargains were rarer than gold dust.

Although Li Mingqin had grown up in a family of connoisseurs, he wasn’t interested in old bygones at first. He could be amused by anything that he came across at home, but if he were short of money, he’d turn that old stuff into cash. When the Antiques Market was first set up, though, he wandered around it often enough to acquire a real enthusiasm for antiques.

Hong Changren and his friends all had houses full of old rosewood furniture and display cabinets full of good porcelain, so Li Mingqin started to hang around with them, coveting the things he saw.

He’d often bemoan the turning of Fortune’s Wheel: Hong Changren was from a working class family, yet his house was full of antiques, while Li Mingqin’s own family had fallen so low that they had less than Hong did. Li spent his time with these guys in an odd state of mind: he wanted to collect old furniture too, but sandalwood and yellow rosewood were 131

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far too rare and expensive for him, so he’d just have to settle for plain old rosewood. He liked to go to Hong Changren’s place to sit in an antique chair and stroke its armrests, an old amber cigarette holder clamped between his teeth.

Hong would say to him, ‘We all know you’re from some big-shot’s family, so how come you haven’t got a thing? That’s really weird!’

‘How do you know my family haven’t got anything?’ Li would say, and Hong would make him repeat that, and he’d say, ‘Listen to the way you speak: maybe you do have some good stuff after all.’

‘Of course,’ Li Mingqin would say, though he wished his family really did have some good pieces, because with the support of a decent collection he could assert his natural dignity, and once people had seen that, they wouldn’t say the Li family had nothing.

On one hand, old things help you keep up appearances; but on the other, they can hold you back. As Mother said, they entail too much respect for the past, and they can give you a sense of inadequacy, of poor self-worth.

She’d said that the very day he’d commissioned Hong Changren to buy some old furniture for him. He told his mother when he got home, and she said, ‘It’s good that you can afford it, of course, but do you really know what you’re doing?’

She was dusting the sideboard at that point, so he asked why she was bothering to clean such a worthless old thing, and she said, ‘It may only be rosewood veneer, but it’s old too, and it’s a lot better than that new stuff.

After they confiscated all our sandalwood and yellow rosewood in the CultRev, they gave us this in compensation in the seventies.’

Li Mingqin didn’t know where to look. He saw that as she went about dusting and cleaning over the next few days, she was trying to tell him something, and eventually she said, ‘You really ought to ask Uncle Wang for advice, you know, if you do want to start buying.’

This was something he had to take notice of, because Uncle Wang was a connoisseur who had been her father’s business partner, back before Liberation in ’49, when they’d shared their love of antiques. But he told his mother that she’d be sure to like what he bought, because he’d only buy good pieces, and as she dusted a famille rose lidded teacup set from early last century, she said, ‘You shouldn’t be so unrealistic, now. We did have 132

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a lot of good pieces once, but that’s over and done with. Times change, and you’re still dreaming of the past, even though we’ve not got a thing. It seems to me that if you stuck to just buying little things you’d do just fine – old wooden combs, old mirrors, stuff like that.’

She was always banging on about this, but Li Mingqin knew that there had been a time when she had used nice things every day, so he said, ‘It’s all about being a cautious buyer. A roomful of the good stuff, now, that’s doable. And don’t you always say that in the old days, every decent family had fine furniture?’

As he spoke he took some photos of old villas from a drawer; he flicked though them and asked her, ‘Where is this?’

She took it and said, ‘That’s a ball at the Sheng Mansion on Huaihai Road.’

He gave her another: ‘That’s Otto Braun’s villa on Xinhua Road.’

Li Mingqin pointed out all the fine furniture visible in the background of both pictures.

‘Of course,’ she said, ‘it goes without saying; the Sheng Mansion was sandalwood just everywhere, and yellow rosewood, too. Otto Braun’s villa was the same, but the owner was American, so there was a Chinese-style study, but the living rooms were all baroque, full of Louis Quatorze.’

‘Well, European-style furniture is in fashion now, too,’ said Li Mingqin, ‘only it’s all chipboard, mass-produced on an assembly line. It’s all the rage with the nouveaux-riche, and they think it’s genuinely European, but it’s so vulgar.’

‘Oh, you shouldn’t say that. Times change, and everybody has their own likes and dislikes.’

They chatted on for a bit, and in the end she reminded him to be very careful: she believed that places like Fortune Street harboured confidence tricksters of every sort, who, if they couldn’t knock the rider off, would nick the horse he rode in on. If you went shopping there, you’d better be cautious, cautious, and far more than cautious.

Li Mingqin spoke up: ‘It’s not going to be a problem. I have an old pal helping me find stuff.’

‘Well, that’s easy for you to say, but the closer the friend, the more careful you have to be. Your father lost so much – his ‘friends’ dug traps for him, and in he fell: he always did. He lost out every time, and there was nothing he could do about it.’

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‘It was only a small minority, surely.’ He knew about his father selling off the family’s antiques to buy drink, and he knew his mother still brooded on that.

‘A minority? So how come it was always us in the minority, then? Never mind the villa being confiscated – there was all that Imperial Ware sold off after that, and you’ll never explain that away!’

‘He brought it on himself. He couldn’t see through people.’

‘See through people? Can you guarantee you can see through people?

I don’t think anybody can guarantee that. It’s like assessing antiques: the more you see, the less you’ll be cheated, and the less you’ve seen, the more you’ll be swindled! Don’t you go thinking Fortune Street is all nice and sweet and the dealers all nice and refined: they’ll try any trick in the book to get their hands on your money! Do you know what the single highestearning business in this country is? Do you?’

Li Mingqin was thinking of that conversation as he looked around for somewhere to hide his vase, and he realised that had she asked him now, he could immediately have answered: it wasn’t difficult. Everyone in the antiques trade knew. It was a phenomenon that went back to at least the Song Dynasty in the tenth to thirteenth centuries, when they called the curio trade The Devil’s Market, and when fraud and deceit were everywhere, simply because it is so very easy to make money from counterfeiting.

Antiques and curios don’t breed, so if everyone wants them, demand will soon exceed supply, and forgery will follow very soon after that.

Li Mingqin hadn’t been able to reply at the time, so his mother had informed him that the highest-earning business in the country was forgery. Mother had often helped out at the family shop on Five-InHand Road in the old days, and naturally knew the antiques market well at that time. Forgery and counterfeiting had been commonplace in the Republican period, but that sort of thing was even more widespread now, with any modern piece of porcelain passed off as Ming or Qing Imperial Ware, newly-carved jade sold as two-thousand-year-old Han Dynasty artefacts, and new mahogany furniture with painted-on grain sold as antique – forgery really is the easiest way to make a fortune nowadays, she’d said. Ming-Qing Imperial Ware is widely counterfeited, too: if it looks right, it can sell for hundreds of thousands, if not millions – and at 134

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a cost of no more than a hundred or so for new porcelain, it’s no wonder that people will dream up the most amazing schemes to make and sell forgeries. Many, many people in the antiques world have been burned, and even an old connoisseur, if he takes his eyes off the ball for an instant, will inevitably make a mistake.

Connoisseurs weren’t infallible? Even Uncle Wang? Sitting there on the sofa, topping up his mother’s tea, Li Mingqin could almost believe it.

‘I’ll tell you a story.’ She stopped dusting her ornaments and picked up an early 20th century lidded teacup and saucer painted with a motif of Chinese belles, lifted the lid, sipped at her tea, put the cup back on the table, and replaced the lid. Then she poured a little water onto an everlasting purple bamboo and an asparagus fern, and moved a bonsai banyan over to the writing desk.

As she began to tidy up its leaves, she began: ‘This story happened back before Liberation in ’49, and I expect everyone in the antiques trade knows it.

‘In those days Loo-Woo Curios was owned by Mr Wu, a very distinguished dealer who had spent a lifetime in the trade: he had an uncanny eye for Song dynasty Imperial Ware, and his taste in archaic bronzes was impeccable, and very widely known. If a palace or a mansion came on something of interest, it would be Mr Wu who was called on for an appraisal; if he was strolling through the Antiques Market and he saw a bronze on a stall, he didn’t have to walk over, far less bend down and examine it, for he could be 90% certain from several yards away that, if it wasn’t a Ming copy, then it would be a Qing one: the patina would be not quite right here, or there would be something wrong with the modelling there. If ever there was a real old-style connoisseur, then it was Mr Wu. ‘Well, one day, his friend Mr Huang took him to see some bronzes.

Mr Wu took one look, and could hardly believe his eyes: he was looking at a complete set of ritual bronzes from the Shang dynasty, made between the 16th and the 11th century BC! They were all there: the cauldron, the chalices, the drinking horns, the beakers, all beautifully modelled, and all with that wonderful patina that only the genuine ones have. There and then, he made a decision: he paid out three thousand silver dollars and had them taken home. From then, on he would spend whole days just pottering around with his beloved bronzes, and he had two of them 135

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put on his bedside cabinet, so he could admire them before he went to sleep.

‘Now, Mr Wu had a nephew called Ye Shuzhong, who had married his daughter, and was in the same line of business: when Ye Shuzhong saw the bronzes he began to doubt. He didn’t dare say anything, for fear of making Mr Wu angry, but he quietly worked his way toward the truth, and it was as he had suspected – Mr Wu had been swindled!

‘It wasn’t many days after that Ye Shuzhong, in a tactful and very roundabout way, spoke to Mr Wu, who didn’t believe him at first. How could there ever be a forgery good enough to catch him out? But when he looked again at the bronzes, he was flabbergasted: though the decorative grooves and channels were all that they should be, the rims, the edges of the flanges, and the corner ridges were stiff and crude; overall there was neither scoring nor any evidence of the distinctive shims and spacers, not on any of the vessels. Mr Wu felt his spine crack; he broke into a cold sweat and slumped onto the sofa, slack-jawed.

‘It turned out that the bronzes had been made in Suzhou, where there were a lot of sophisticated bronze workers: Zhou Maigu, Li Junqing and Luo Qiye were the most famous, but it was Zhou Maigu’s counterfeit bronzes that were the most convincing – the decorative grooves and channels on his fakes had fooled plenty in the trade, and many a connoisseur had been taken in by them.

‘This knocked the wind out of Mr Wu. He’d just sit at home chapfallen, sighing over how arcane and unfathomable the antiques trade was, or he’d be moping over the ways of this wicked world, where neither kith nor kin could be trusted if money was involved. From that day on he kept his hands firmly in his pockets, and never again asked about the state of the antiques market. Instead, he repeatedly told Ye Shuzhong that he was to be buried with the fake bronzes.’

Li Mingqin said he’d heard of Ye Shuzhong: he was an older relative of young Ye next door.

‘Yes,’ his mother nodded, ‘and his shop was at 70 Zhaotong Street.’

‘So what became of Mr Wu?’ ‘Did he go through with it? Was he buried with the bronzes? I never really heard,’ said Mother.

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It gave Li Mingqin goose pimples, that story. If that was how it was for a great connoisseur, what hope was there for the likes of him? Seeing her son speechless, and thinking she’d frightened him, by way of consolation his mother said, ‘Well, it’s only a story, and maybe it was embroidered in the telling.’

She gave the banyan another wipe, put it back on the windowsill, and went on to say, ‘There is a good side to this business, though: people in the antiques trade see a lot more of the world than others, and because they’re exposed to all kinds of swindles, they have a solid understanding of how people really behave. But if you want to go in for that sort of thing, then you’d better be well prepared, and that should include all the inside information you can get. We’re not badly off here, right next to Fortune Street, so you can have a good look before you buy; and there are all the heritage shops across the way too. If you examine as much of the real stuff as you can, then you’ll eventually learn all the tricks too, as time goes by.

But if you just put your hand in your pocket and buy stuff when you don’t know what you’re doing, then they’ll be out there, digging their traps, waiting for you.’

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The Empress Dowager Cixi-to-be Harem whore. Worthy Lady. Concubine.

Then Consort. Then the Noble Consort Yi. In here a girl advances or she dies.

The Empress only more advanced than me.

Yet I provided offspring. Birthed a son.

Became the one he trusts. I read his laws.

Memorials to govern. I’ve become The voice through which the Emperor appears.

I learn that power comes through influence With safety never guaranteed until The great await in fearful impotence.

Who rules behind the curtains of the court Will last. And I will last this whole world out.

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T

ea splashed from the cup half-raised to her lips, smudging the newsprint. Sheena couldn’t believe it but there it was, a half-page matrimonial advertisement with the title: Indian Billionaire Needs A Wife: Are you the ONE I am looking for?

The text was prefaced by the picture of a smiling man, clearly no longer young.

She raced through the text: Amlan Bagchi, 65, a billionaire tycoon with business interests in the US and Mexico, is now looking for love after his wife died five years ago.

I own a private plane, a 135 ft. yacht, and a fleet of cars and motorcycles. I have vacation homes in many places, but I live in my mansion in Mexico. I fly planes, rock-climb, go deep-sea diving . . . you will have to keep up with my active lifestyle!

I want love and companionship. No dowry required. You must speak English well and have a basic degree. You should have a sense of adventure and the desire to travel.

Most importantly, you should be no older than 40 and slim.

Divorcees and widows are OK, but definitely no children.

Her mother’s voice droned in the background: ‘Ohey! Once your hands are red with henna, I will bathe in the Ganges . . . dear Gods, every day I pray for deliverance!’

As if conjured up by her mother’s constant complaints, had the Gods finally delivered? At the bottom of the advertisement (in full colour) were photographs of the man’s cars, his yacht, the twin-engine plane, and his 139

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mansion in Mexico. And a phone number to call, in a large, bold font. Sheena examined the man’s picture again – could this advertisement in India’s leading newspaper be an elaborate hoax? She could hear her heart beating in the unnatural silence that had descended on the room. Then she realized she had been holding her breath and felt her chest deflate with a whoosh of air.

As usual, Sheena had woken up on this Saturday morning to the screams of her neighbour yelling at the new servant. On the other side, a child tunelessly practised a devotional song. That she lived in Paschim Vihar, in a lower-middle-class warren of tiny apartments the engine of Shining India had passed by, was something out of her control; but today, with the intense smell of masalas sizzling, her mother’s vehement hawking and spitting into the basin in the hallway, the cold cement floor, the mismatched wooden chairs with their rattan bottoms frayed into pinpoints of discomfort, everything seemed unbearable for a moment longer, especially so early in the morning.

‘Still reading?’ her mother called. ‘How long do I have to wait for another cup of tea?’

Walking to the alcove that was the kitchen, Sheena put the pan of water on a gas flame that leaped into heat. She rinsed out a cup.

‘The Sharma girl is getting married tonight,’ her mother said.

‘I know, Ma.’ ‘Don’t dress like a bhootni with your hair as spiky as your heels. Find some nice bangles, so many men at the wedding . . . ’ ‘I know, Ma.’ Sheena liked to think that she was a glamorous single woman, the envy of her friends. She kept her hair short and sometimes bleached and spiked it, and she never let herself gain any weight. Her father had named her Dakshina, but now she had a new name and the looks to go with it. Working in the bookshop at the Imperial Hotel (the most luxurious property on Janpath), surrounded by expensive coffee-table books printed on the glossiest of papers, she was careful to modulate her English so that it never sluttered into a mongrel Hinglish but marched, crisp and discrete, as if reared in wintry climes. Her ease with the customers had kept her at her job for the past 15 years, working every day while her friends from school and college sent her invitations to weddings, naming ceremonies, thread ceremonies, and the anniversaries of long and fruitful marriages.

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In short, as her mother was reminding her yet again, while the good men married other girls. Sheena spooned sugar silently into the cup as she went over the words of the advertisement again.

‘Eh, girl, Vivek’s parents will also be at the wedding. And your Mausi will come from Greater Kailash . . . See, see, it’s raining already! Ooof... are you going outside in that singlet to show the men your nipples?’

The laundry was still hanging outside and a soft misty drizzle had dampened everything. Through the patter of the rain on tin awnings, she could still hear her mother talking over the relatives upstairs and the neighbours on both sides. Sheena shook the damp laundry and hung the clothes hastily over the chairs. The room already smelled mildewed and wet. She had the sensation of pond water in her nostrils.

Sheena sped past her mother and into the bedroom, flopped on her stomach and powered up her computer. The news services, including the BBC, had already picked up this story about an Indian multi-millionaire who had just spent £18,000 on a matrimonial advertisement.

So – it was not a hoax.

Sheena lay on her back and closed her eyes. She imagined a palatial home with cool green marble floors gleaming like leaves after rain. She imagined smudge-free ceiling-to-floor mirrors. And the ocean! Yes, frothy white waves to wake up to every single morning, washing her world clean.

Was it too much to hope for? She reached for the newspaper and stabbed at the numbers on her mobile phone.

Amlan Bagchi felt a happy smugness welling up, just looking at the scenery of this New Delhi. He wasn’t exactly in Delhi but in the satellite town of Gurgaon, but here it was, the city he had left behind so many years ago as a young man. The roads were still filthy in this version of New India, the malls sprouting into inadequate feeder roads. The buildings might be taller and flashier, but a basic incompetence and complete lack of civic sense still ruled. Nothing had really changed.

It was winter now, the air heavy with burning twigs, a moist woodiness mingling with the odour of peanuts roasting on charcoal braziers. The city was bathed in that forgiving half-light, blurring crouching beggars and accumulated garbage into indistinct smudges.

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that lashed the city with afternoon dust storms, Amlan knew to enjoy this balmy weather. He rolled down the tinted window. Patches of greenery brightened by spiralling pink bougainvillea lined the driveway to his hotel.

‘How many girls yesterday?’ He looked at his assistant, Hari, who was texting into a Blackberry.

‘Fifteen.’

It was the first day after the advertisement but the shortlisted girls were already swarming in. Hari was a serendipitous find; last week, after landing in Delhi, the first thing Amlan had done was to go to a shop that sold SIM cards and Hari had been behind the counter. With typical Indian curiosity, Hari asked Amlan about his trip to India, about existing family and, finally, offered to help. Amlan had liked the look of this salesman in a clean white shirt with the logo of the telecommunications giant on his shirt pocket, a man who had dirt under his fingernails.

He had invited Hari for a drink at the hotel bar after work. Hari’s real talent (he confessed to Amlan during the course of the evening) was Swayambhu, the practice of making Hindu idols burst forth magically from the earth. The process was quite simple: one had to get any bean that would sprout, dig a hole, put an idol on top and fill it in. Then would follow the process of watering this area diligently and surreptitiously, so as to leave no evidence. After some time, the bean would fatten and the idol would burst out of the earth as if divinely ordained. The specifics of that idol did not matter much (although having an idol in the eight metals prescribed in the texts added weight). With the growing Hindutva movement, these talents were very much in demand to ensure that a Hindu temple could be built where a Muslim mosque had existed for centuries, or to jostle aside a Buddhist shrine.

Amlan had looked at Hari and burst out laughing. The Conjuror of Divinity! He knew from experience how useful it was to have the Gods on your side, and a man who could manipulate the superstitious, especially in India, would be invaluable. He immediately offered Hari three thousand rupees a day to work exclusively for him for as long as it would take, and Hari, sliding back into his chair and signalling for another whisky, had grinned.

Sheena walked briskly into the interview room, where six women were already waiting. A man at the desk was texting busily. A veteran of a 142

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system that bypassed queues by privilege, Sheena walked up to the man confidently, raised her arm to show off a perfectly tailored blouse and tapped on his desk imperiously. The man looked up, slightly bored.

‘I have an appointment. At four?’ She despised this man on sight – probably some peon of the millionaire – but she was careful to keep a smile on, the kind that bestowed attention instead of asking for it.

‘Sheena?’

Sheena nodded. The man gave her a form to fill in. ‘Sit down, please.’

‘I already have an appointment – at four.’

The man glanced at his watch. ‘Please sit, Madam.’

Sheena sat down with the form. She looked at the competition; mostly slim, although one was definitely on the corpulent side, with lush curves.

Another had a familiar face and Sheena realized she had been on a hit TV serial many years ago, but had since disappeared from public view. The one sitting next to the plant looked well over forty, her bony cheekbones highlighting deep wrinkles on her face.

Taking out grandma and fatty, she thought, leaves just four to beat.

The door opened and a woman rushed out in tears. The man at the desk said, ‘Next . . . Manjula.’ And Manjula, a gorgeous dark-skinned girl, sashayed in as if on a runway.

Sheena smoothed her own hair down and rehearsed her speech. The first thing that he would probably want to know would be why she wasn’t already married. They always asked that and she had memorized the lines: grief at her father’s death in her mid twenties had taken her into her thirties without thinking of marriage; her demanding job; and of course, everything would have changed if the right man had come along, but all this was destiny, no?

She glanced into the mirror and wondered how much a 65-year-old prospective groom would want to know.

Amlan had positioned the desk so that it faced a tall mirror. Reflected in the image was a round wooden stool, not the most comfortable of seats, but most of the women did not sit long enough to feel any discomfort.

As soon as they sat down, this view allowed him to check off the most important criterion: if a woman’s behind spilled over the sides of the stool even slightly, she was too fat for him.

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The big butts of Indian women were depressing him. Trawling Mexico and the US for love had honed his preferences, and his last wife, Tanya, had boyish hips. It was Tanya who had spent four years designing and building the house in Mexico where he now lived. The house named after his aunt, his Pishi: Aparajita.

Aparajita, the Unvanquished; how he loved the sound of that.

Amlan’s own mother had died early and it was this Aunt who had mothered the young Amlan into adulthood. He twirled a glass paperweight as the memory returned: a woman dressed in white keening behind a mosquito net, urging him to not leave her and go to America, not to sell the house, the only home she had known. When he had bent down to touch his Pishi’s feet in farewell, she curled her toes out of his reach.

‘Ashi,’ he had said, for a Bengali farewell was about coming back. Pishi had hardened her tone. ‘If you leave now, may you never come back! Mora mukh dekhte aar aashish ne re!’

Don’t come back to see my dead face. He had walked away and let her curse grow into truth. He hadn’t come back, not even at the news of her death.

The door swung open, and another woman walked in. ‘Hello,’ she said, ‘My name is Sheena.’

He straightened the paperweight on the desk and stood up, holding out his hand. Her fingers felt soft, the tips perfectly pearly pink. As she seated herself, he glanced at the mirror. So far so good. He liked that she hadn’t put on a sultry voice, or bent across the desk to shake his hand while flashing her cleavage. She had short spiky hair and he liked what he saw.

He looked at his notes – she was 36.

‘Aren’t you worried about the age difference?’ He always started bluntly, keeping an eye on the time. ‘I don’t want any children, and you are still young enough to have them?’

‘I’m not at all maternal.’ He could see her relax. She hadn’t hesitated, not even slightly.

He read the form. Her eyes were running across the line of his shoulders just as he looked up; the whistle from the room freshener had broken the silence. He liked women who didn’t start yapping to fill a room with noise and this woman continued to sit silently across from him, back straight, unperturbed, just taking him in without looking away.

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He held up her questionnaire and glanced through her height and weight. She was born in Delhi and had a degree in English Literature. He leaned forward. ‘You’re not a closet vegetarian, are you? I mean, it says here that you eat meat, but some Indians prefer to be vegetarian and eat meat only on some days . . . I can’t live like that.’

‘No worries,’ she replied. There was a twinkle in her eye.

‘And do you enjoy intercourse?’

Whether she was 18 or 36, an Indian woman was supposed to save herself for the marriage bed, and whether that was the case or not, nobody asked the bride. The question sounded – well, a little crude – especially coming so soon.

Should she tell this man: I have enjoyed intercourse with many men, travelling wayfarers who have stopped at the Imperial bookstore and fucked me in their rooms, sometimes inviting me for weekends in Jaipur and Goa, once a two-week jaunt to Phuket? That the men were always married or taken, and my longest relationship was with Geert, the impossibly tall Dutch engineer who for two years had led me silently to hope, every time he returned to Delhi for a month or two, but that even that had petered into silence? That I prefer sex a little rough, the talk dirty, the men generous afterwards, in rooms with luxurious white sheets, attached to bathrooms with white bidets, preferably with ocean waves outside to soothe me to sleep?

‘I do enjoy intercourse, yes,’ said Sheena.

‘Good,’ he said, ‘I need sex at least twice a week’.

This was a matrimonial interview, although unlike any Sheena had encountered before. She examined the patterned carpet, wondering whether he would ask to have sex immediately to try her out. This nonresident Indian was making her feel both gauche and unprepared.

But he was too smooth for that. He started to tell her about his lifestyle now, not boasting of his wealth but describing how he had come far from his childhood, very far indeed from the difficulties of growing up in India.

That his strongest memory was of lining up for the rations of rice, sugar and wheat, commodities that were mixed with bits of stone and earth to make them heavier. He described the dusty heat and how small he had felt, standing in line with his father, jute bags in hand, every single month at the Cooperative.

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‘Nobody does that anymore,’ said Sheena.’

‘No ration cards?’

‘We have them. But only the servants collect rations. We go to the market.’

‘Yes, of course. Servants and Supermalls.’

She thought she heard derision, but it was masked by a smile. ‘I have a question, actually.’

‘Please.’

‘Why the advertisement in the papers? Couldn’t you have gone through a matrimonial website, some sort of shaadi.com?’

‘I have no relatives in India any more, so an advertisement seemed like a good idea. I tried to find someone through dating sites in Mexico and in the US, but sometimes you just want someone who’ll speak your language, even if it’s not Bengali. You know?’

He was as self-assured in person as that outrageous advertisement had suggested. He smelled of woody cologne and his fingernails tapered to manicured edges. There was an expensive cleanliness about him that would take her very far away from the tiny flat in Paschim Vihar, from her daily commute on Delhi’s filthy public transport.

Sheena had a mental image of maniacally waving a hand into the air – please, please, pick me – as he flicked his wrist to glance at his watch. She willed herself to be quiet. It seemed to her that silence was necessary now, to concentrate her body into a resolve that would help this man choose only her.

The man said, ‘I am sorry, our time is over today...’

Steady breaths now, a rapid easing of the chest, in and out, then again.

‘Thank you for coming,’ he said. ‘Hari will be in touch with you this evening. I would like to see you again.’

He walked her to the door. She left the building quickly without raising her head; the moment felt so jubilant that she didn’t want to catch the evil eye of any of the waiting women.

Once outside, she immediately dialled Vivek. She swore impatiently at the long, insistent burrs, but it was three in the morning in Texas. Vivek, her cousin, the closest thing she had to a brother, who had steered his two sisters through arranged marriages (and had one of his own) – he would know what to do next. He would know how to check Amlan Bagchi’s background for her. She had no idea how this was done or what to look for 146

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(Bankruptcy? Felony? Adultery?) but Vivek very well knew the rules of this game.

Two days later a driver picked Sheena up from the Imperial hotel and took her to the Emporio Mall, that chrome-and-glass temple to haute couture.

Amlan met her on the ground floor, and when Sheena extended her hand he leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. She gave him an awkward pat on his sleeve with her raised arm.

They strolled through wide corridors lit by crystal chandeliers. When they stopped at the glass elevators, Amlan said, ‘I want you to buy something for yourself, something to wear.’

She twirled flirtatiously, ‘Don’t you like what I have on?’

‘You look beautiful. But please, I insist.’

‘I couldn’t. I can’t accept anything just like that, really.’

‘Because I didn’t have time to buy flowers?’

Sheena laughed. ‘Nothing in this place is equivalent to a bunch of flowers.’

The lift doors opened, and soundlessly closed again as Amlan took her hand, stroking the palm and she felt the firmness in his grip. ‘I want to see if our tastes match.’

Sheena straightened her shoulders. ‘In that case perhaps we should take the escalators and shop around.’

Perhaps, she thought, this was how the fantastically rich behaved.

She could feel his eyes on her as she picked her way through the lines of clothes. She didn’t look at the price tags, not even surreptitiously while holding a fabric up to the light, or holding a dress against herself to check its length. Without asking for his opinion, she chose a short asymmetrical dress by Rina Dhaka, in green and turquoise blue.

‘Good choice,’ he nodded.

‘Reminds me of oceans and waves.’

‘I like mountains myself.’

‘I could learn to love the mountains, but I prefer the water. Thank you for the dress.’

Her phone vibrated with a message. She texted back: Vivek, thanks SO much for going to Mexico for me!!!

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Vivek did not like to travel, and getting to San Miguel de Allende from Mexico City involved two buses – one to Querétaro, where he was now waiting for the next, greedily eyeing the gorditas sizzling inside the small restaurant behind him. He was too afraid to eat those fried bits of dysentery but he had been waiting for over 45 minutes as buses went to León and Mazatlán and places that were anything but San Miguel.

This bus station in Querétaro reminded him of ISBT in New Delhi, where similarly aged buses trundled in, spewing out tired brown people.

He felt winded by the sudden homesickness. Perhaps he was just hungry; he had started very early this morning and although the evening was beginning to smudge the sharp edges of the corrugated tin roof under which he stood, there was, clearly, no bus to San Miguel in sight. He wondered whether to call Vinita, who would probably be sitting in their living room in the tiny graduate student apartment on Front Street, flipping through the HGTV channel featuring palatial homes.

A couple nuzzled into the corner, the thick male hand creeping unabashedly into the girl’s waistband as they kissed. Vivek looked away quickly, mentally calculating roaming rates. He couldn’t call Vinita now; it was an unnecessary expense when he would soon be in a hotel room, with free Wi-Fi to call on Skype. He was saving up for an uncertain future (in this job market, they might have to subsist on a graduate student salary for years). He wasn’t sure he even wanted to talk to Vinita – her moods were so unpredictable! – and she didn’t seem to care about his absences as she continued to watch TV, although Vivek refused to subscribe to the cable channel with Indian shows.

Vinita’s family was well off, but his family had not asked for a big dowry when he had married Vinita a year ago, after a summer of rapid brideviewing at various Delhi hotels and homes. After four brief meetings over that summer, an email correspondence had led to their wintry wedding in December. He had felt giddy with the excitement of it all (Vinita was so beautiful!), but Vivek had recently started to feel very shortchanged.

He had been completely unprepared for the viciousness of Vinita’s passive discontent. She seemed willing to do what people wanted her to do, but never was. During the bride-viewing she had hardly said a word, her head cocked slightly to the side as if she didn’t know how to look at him directly, and he, along with his family, had approved of this shyness. She did the same thing to 148

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him now and it wasn’t as if she ever complained, but her uncooperativeness reached such an unbearable level that Vivek had to capitulate. Like the time when she didn’t want to entertain the visiting uncle from Delhi and Vivek, inhospitably, had taken his uncle to dinner at a restaurant (where his uncle insisted on paying the bill). Vinita had ordered lobster, the most expensive entrée on the menu, then sat through the dinner sullenly, pushing the tail around her plate without eating a bite. Vivek had been deeply embarrassed.

He wondered whether his uncle pitied him; Vivek the brilliant scholar of the family, tied to some uncouth girl who was a social albatross around his neck.

A bus stopped at his right, and the amorous couple disentangled themselves from each other. The man gave the woman a last lingering kiss, and then they both walked to the bus, bumping into each other gently.

A part of Vivek had believed, all through his virginal undergraduate and graduate schools in India (surrounded by classmates who gave in to raging hormones), that people who succumbed to arranged marriages were, in some way, deficient. His exertions on his wife’s passive body at nights further convinced him of that. His parents had to find him a Vinita because no girl, especially not someone like Vinita, would ever actually choose him if given a real chance.

Which is why he had agreed to this trip to Mexico, to stop Sheena from making the same mistake. He was also curious about this mysterious Amlan Bagchi. If all turned out well, a rich brother-in-law could be of help in many ways.

Amlan steered Sheena towards the expansive buffet at Setz, where heaped tables of food ran from one wall to another, the lines disappearing around corners and behind pillars. The restaurant was filled but they were ushered into a secluded corner. She smiled at him, ‘Is this a test too? To see if our tastes match?’

‘Of course’, he said, ‘I choose the wine and you decide whether to drink it. Relax!’

But she knew how keenly she was being watched while she helped herself to the sashimi, with chopsticks perfectly poised. She felt eyes on her legs as she walked through the serving stations. She deliberately smoothed the back of her dress as she got up, her long ring-less fingers resting on a perfectly tight behind.

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They talked about the hundreds of crank calls every day, most of them from men asking him to marry them instead, loan seekers, and the occasional Bengali matron scolding him for showing off his wealth. A retired professor advised him to build schools in villages.

He gently tapped her hand across the table. ‘What do you think?

Should I give away my wealth?’

‘It’s your money. Spend it on what makes you happy . . . and that could be in building schools.’

‘Ah, you think money buys happiness?’

‘My best friend Dimple married a divorcee. She lives in a HUGE place in Sainik Farms, but her husband has three brats from an earlier marriage who hate Dimple.’ Sheena shrugged and sipped at her wine. ‘A certain happiness can be bought. Dimple spends enough money to look and feel fabulous.’

‘To happiness, then,’ said Amlan, raising his glass. The waiter appeared at their side instantly, refilling both glasses as soon as they had put them down.

‘How much longer do you think you will be in Delhi?’

‘Not much longer, I think. I’m not interviewing any more.’

Like a sequence from a reality show, the women in the waiting room flashed through her mind – the gorgeous Manjula, the accomplished actress – could he have chosen Sheena? The terror washed over her. If he said thanks but no thanks with the gift of a dress, should she ask for a second chance? Even the women in this room were all so well groomed and gorgeous, while she, Sheena, had nothing that could be called an advantage. The spikes of short hair, which her mother said didn’t suit her bony face, were so last season. She steeled herself, hearing blood in her ears above the clinking cutlery and glasses.

‘I like you, Sheena,’ she heard him say softly. ‘I would like to take you away for a few days to Kerala, to get to know you better.’

She tried to sip slowly at the wine. ‘Is there anyone . . . else . . . you are considering?’

‘No.’ He paused slightly. ‘I think you may be the one for me. Can you get away soon?’

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that Amlan did not have another family somewhere, other loves with prior claims waiting for his return. Love could be worked on, if everything else was in place, and she was good at pleasing a man. She was so tired of giving too much, not holding back, for so little secured.

As Vivek finally slipped into a bus seat by the window, he cursed Sheena for being so persuasive. Of course his cousin was excited – at her age any man would do.

Vivek had tried to gather information about Amlan Bagchi through the usual Indian networks but the man seemed to be a complete recluse.

None of the Bengali students he knew at the university could find any relative anywhere in North America who knew this Amlan Bagchi. A very old article titled “THE UNVANQUISHED” had popped up in IndoAmerican news, where Bagchi talked about his difficult life, his road to riches, his house named “The Unvanquished”, and ended quite pompously with a statement about the Gods always being on his side despite the odds.

Nothing else came up on Google. Bagchi, unlike most diasporic Indians, was completely disconnected from the desi network. It was all very worrying, as these secretive types usually turned out to be gay. Finally, a journalism major had been able to dig up an address for Amlan Bagchi.

When Sheena had called him he had been tempted to tell her to wait, get to know this guy a little better, but what was the use? Vivek had known his bride for six months. When he had developed cold feet a week before his own arranged marriage, his mother had given him a lecture.

‘The problem’ – his mother had wagged a furious finger in his face – ‘the problem with all you children wanting love-shove romance like in the silly movies hanh, you think it lasts? Your romance is boiling water on the fire of life, and all that love, so hot-hot already, so much jawani-ki-garmi, POOOOOOOFF, disappears into steam in no time. Then you come talking of die-vorce, hanh? But see, your Papa and me, look at your sisters, your uncle-aunties . . . we are cool water when we marry, then put to the flame slow-ly warming up, slow-ly, everything in its own time. Love will come when you live together, but that is not the most important thing.

Vinita is a good girl, a beautiful girl, so fair and from our community, what more you want?’

‘Ma,’ Vivek protested, ‘marriage is not a kettle of water.’

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His mother had smoothed his hair over his forehead as if he were still a little boy. ‘Come back in a year beta, and we’ll see what song you are singing then, eh?’

It was a year already and Vivek felt miserable remembering that conversation. He would make sure that his cousin had a real chance at happiness. He was lucky to have found an academic colloquium nearby so that the Math department would fund this trip, but he had a day and a half to sleuth around San Miguel. Now, with the travel delays, he would get just one single day.

Everyone in the US had warned Vivek about highway robberies in Mexico; his money and credit cards were tucked inside his socks and were now jabbing at the heel of his foot. He tried to keep calm by adding up the sum of the letters on the advertising and the street signs even if he didn’t understand the words. It was a childhood trick (he had competed with his sisters to see who could add up car number plates most quickly); now he counted maniacally as he passed the highway signs, the hoardings, the shops.

His phone vibrated once. A message from Vinita: Going to sleep now call me tomorrow. He squinted at the backlit message and understood that Vinita didn’t care whether he reached San Miguel safely. Outside the window, he could see a massive statue of Christ the Redeemer, arms outstretched, floodlit from below.

The bus was now standing room only. Vivek could no longer estimate how far it was to San Miguel as the frequent stops had made time elastic.

He had been warned against getting off anywhere on the highway (even if the bus driver told him the bus had broken down) and the second injunction was against talking to random Mexicans, especially young men.

He glanced at the traveller next to him. The man was probably his father’s age. His greying hair was sparse and he wore flat shoes and khaki pants, with a faded brown T-shirt. If anything, the man reminded him of an unmarried uncle who was always being told by the family to smarten up.

Not trusting his own pronunciation, Vivek carefully wrote out SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE in capital letters on the back of a receipt.

Handing the man the slip of paper, he said, ‘Excuse me. Very far?’

‘Ah. My home also. Not far, three stops?’ The man’s English was accented, but clear.

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‘Three stops?’ Vivek tried sounding out the name, just to be sure, ‘San Miguel?’

‘Si, si. Maybe 8 minutes, or 10 minutes?’

This was either a lucky break or Vivek was in for trouble. ‘Gracias,’ he said, and held out his hand. ‘I am Vivek.’

‘Eduardo. Pleased to meet you. From United States?’

‘From India. New Delhi,’ said Vivek.

Eduardo smiled. ‘India! Ah, welcome!’

He had begun to tell Eduardo about the academic colloquium when the older man peered out of the window and said, ‘Next stop. We get off now, OK?’ The bus stopped at a dark shed next to a roundabout. The traffic on the road was intermittent. ‘Can I get a taxi here?’ Vivek scrabbled in his backpack for the printout of the budget hotel he had booked online.

‘I can wait with you and call a taxi,’ Eduardo offered. ‘My home is up that hill.’ Vivek could only make out a dark mound, dimly lit in places.

But a taxi was quick to arrive. Eduardo took the hotel printout and scribbled a phone number on it. ‘Call me’, he said. ‘You must tell me if you need any help here, my Indian friend’.

In reply, Vivek had gripped his hand tightly. How grateful he felt then, being driven to the promise of a clean bed where he could tumble into sleep immediately. The freedom of having no one to answer to felt liberating as the taxi swung through a narrow arched gateway, up cobblestone streets lined with haciendas inscribed with names like Casa del Sol and up again through the darkness of a night perfumed by thickly flowering shrubs. He would ask the hotel reception to book a taxi for tomorrow morning, to drive him to Amlan Bagchi’s mansion, but for now there was simply the delicious promise of sleep, even if it would be on an empty stomach.

When the taxi arrived the next morning and Vivek was woken by a call from reception, he was unable to remember where he was. The dogs had barked all night, keeping him awake until he had stumbled to a window to see if anyone was being robbed in the centro. Then he had fallen into an uneasy sleep and woken up again, reaching out sleepily for Vinita in the bed until he felt her absence as a kind of despair, much more than mere frustration.

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The taxi sped through arid hills where only isolated patches of green cactus bloomed. Far below, the valley burst with colour. This unpeopled road was a complete contrast to the busy morning scene at San Miguel with the gentle light falling on stone, the crowing of roosters and the symphony of church bells ringing. He had devoured his breakfast hurriedly and headed for the door, unwilling to waste this one precious day, even as his senses felt overwhelmed by the roasted corn in the air, the birdcalls, the stab of uneven cobblestones beneath his feet.

Vivek checked Amlan Bagchi’s address again. The taxi was slowing down, and the driver, with his head out of the window, was driving slowly past a handful of disconnected residences, the roofs barely visible over fortified fences. These houses had security guards and electronic alarm systems, and flowers bloomed everywhere in orange vines and blue plumes.

The taxi stopped.

He had settled the price for a return trip and the driver would wait.

Vivek eyed the high iron gate of this fortress in front of him and felt intimidated until he saw the sign: “APARAJITA”. He took a deep breath and pressed the buzzer. There was no response. Peering through the slatted metal he could see a long driveway ending in a mansion. In the distance two men were loading the backs of donkeys with loamy soil, working silently as flies hovered above the ears of the animals. They glanced at him quickly, then looked away. Vivek rang the bell again, holding the buzzer down longer.

There was a slight shuffling sound before a man stood at the gate. Vivek handed him the paper with Amlan Bagchi’s name and the man nodded in recognition – then spoke in Spanish so rapidly that the only thing Vivek could understand was the shaking of the man’s head. The taxi driver translated: Amlan Bagchi was not here, yes this was his house, no one was home and Vivek should go.

He already knew Bagchi wouldn’t be home. Vivek returned to the taxi, wondering what he had hoped to achieve with this trip. Had he hoped that Mexico would be like India, with gossipy neighbours willing to share information? Had he hoped to see the evidence of a child’s bicycle on Bagchi’s lawn? The only thing he had discovered was that Amlan Bagchi was indeed very rich and not some sort of a pretender subsisting in Mexico City’s slums.

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He decided to call Eduardo and have an early dinner laced with enough alcohol to forget this whole trip, which had felt cursed from the beginning.

He would have to catch the early bus to his conference tomorrow morning.

Maybe he should ask Eduardo about Bagchi, although that was a long shot.

There was nothing more he could do.

Little green hummingbirds moved from flower to flower as Vivek sat with Eduardo on the rooftop of a restaurant, the golden light slanting across ochre walls and pooling into cobbled streets below. Eduardo had been pouring Rioja into heavy green wine glasses for over an hour now, and Vivek was feeling slightly disoriented as he watched the crowd of people gathering on wrought iron benches scattered around the perimeter of the square below. Peddlers of corn and of steamed garbanzo beans were doing brisk business and hot yeasty scents from a bakery mingled with the smell of wet stones. A radio played a tinny song nearby. Buildings the colour of salsa, the sound of church bells. He breathed it all in. He wanted Vinita to see this, to love it. He murmured her name aloud.

‘You miss your girl?’ asked Eduardo.

‘My wife.’

‘You should bring her here! San Miguel de Allende . . . good romance.’

Vivek could see that already. It was a city that also reminded him of the streets of Delhi, with the noise and the children everywhere, the dust tamed with water sprinkled from buckets. No wonder Bagchi had bought a home here.

‘Eduardo, do you know someone named Amlan Bagchi? Lives in San Miguel . . . an Indian man?’

Eduardo did not reply immediately, and looked down as he swirled the wine in his glass. ‘Yes. Bagchi. He is here for many years. Your friend?’

‘My father’s friend,’ lied Vivek. ‘I went to his home today, but he wasn’t there.’

‘Ah. It is hard to find Bagchi. Impossible.’

Vivek kept his voice even, ‘His wife – can I contact her?’

The evening had deepened into black and they were surrounded by candlelight. Eduardo’s words sounded slurred. ‘Eh? The murdered wife?’

‘Murdered? I was told she was still alive!’

‘Eh, anyone, anyone at all in San Miguel can tell you how she died.’

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Eduardo’s words were slow. ‘Big yacht, two of them go sailing, sunny day, no storm . . . then she is dead. Dead in the water. He is a very good swimmer. A good woman, Tanya. Volunteer at library, shop at mercado – everyone, we all know her.’

‘Maybe it was an accident?’

Eduardo slammed his glass down on the table. ‘I make up this story, eh? Por qué? I do not know you before yesterday . . . but everyone in San Miguel know Bagchi. NO police. NO, how you say. . . investigation! The fisherman that day, the one who try to help, he is a rich man.’

The church bells began to chime and Eduardo crossed himself.

Vivek was placatory. ‘You are right. I have not seen him for many years.

My father’s friend . . . ’ ‘Her eyes . . . when they bring the body back? Still open. That Bagchi, he has the seed of the devil.’

Lying in bed later that night, Vivek wondered how much to tell Sheena.

What Eduardo had said was disturbing, but the man had been very drunk.

It was the testimony of a drunkard, and rich men always had enemies. The only thing Sheena had wanted to know with certainty was that Bagchi didn’t already have a wife – and, as Eduardo had confirmed, he didn’t.

Should he tell Sheena and let her make her own decision? What if he was wrong and this was his cousin’s last opportunity at happiness?

He thought of the tiny flat Sheena shared with her mother and her daily commute with all the low-class labourers flooding in from Bihar; there was a higher probability of her getting raped and killed in New Delhi than of Bagchi causing her any harm. These fish-eating Bengalis were such an effeminate race, more prone to bursting into song than any violence.

Vivek resolved to say nothing. His cousin would be fine. He imagined the inside of the mansion he had seen earlier today, just like one of the HGTV show houses that Vinita would love to visit. The open windows brought in the sounds of the mariachis singing old ballads of passion, the music pouring out of doorways and travelling through alleys of sound. He picked up his phone and dialled Vinita.

Amlan stood on the balcony of the hotel. Someone had been snooping around his home in San Miguel, some Indian man, but that was to be expected.

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The tip of his cigarette was the only light. It was three in the morning and he could hear Sheena’s gentle snores inside. He liked women who were experienced, and she was. He felt good being with her. She had nothing of the moral certitude of his last girlfriend, a Boston Brahmin; this one instinctively understood that the rules of the universe were malleable, especially for the strong-willed. She didn’t try to pretend that marriage would be anything but a transaction.

The susurration of wind through the palm trees made him look up.

Was a storm brewing? The sky was still full of stars, though clouds were thickening on the horizon. Stars always reminded him of his Pishi gently turning his face to the stars whenever he was unhappy. They would pretend that the stars were the fingerprints of his dead mother: Here, she would count, see, five fingers, she is looking at you through her distant window.

He had grown beyond all that. So much bereavement in his life. He still missed Tanya, though the last decade with her had been hard, as she spiralled from mere depression to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. He hadn’t trusted the Californian medical system with its invasive testing and prodding and institutionalisations that had convinced Tanya she was crazier than she really was. He had moved her to Mexico but her symptoms only got worse; it started to make him a bit crazy too.

With his father, he’d had to plan for so long, to make sure that he would have the house to himself without Pishi there to be disturbed by every slight sound. He choked the old man with a sari until his tongue lolled out, then strung the sari to the ceiling fan. He had to stage the room: the halfdrunk glass of water, the chair kicked over at the last minute. Thankfully the neighbours had taken over after that – a teenager nearby had committed suicide the week before, and the stories of an illicit love, of a winter-spring doomed romance, had danced through the mouths of many. A magazine that based its circulation on sensationalism even wrote an exposé. Amlan had truly grieved through it all; his horror, at so many levels, had a legitimate outlet.

But Sheena had a no-nonsense way of looking at him and the world and they would be good together. She came from a culture that buried the foetuses of girls and coerced goddesses to burst out of the earth; she understood complexities.

The sliding door opened, and Sheena stood framed by the curtain.

‘You OK?’ Her voice was sleepy, a little concerned.

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‘Yeah. Just needed to think something out. Work-related.’ He held out a hand and she joined him on the balcony. ‘Did I wake you?’

She kissed his mouth gently. ‘It’s OK.’ He held her around the waist while she looked out at the city. ‘So many stars,’ she said. ‘It’s such a beautiful night. A bit windy, hmmm?’

He found himself stirring again. Nibbling at her ear, he said, ‘I think we should go back to bed.’

She led him in, letting the sash of her robe fall on the balcony floor.

Amlan looked back. So many stars. So many desperate fingers reaching out for him through the distant window, yet he would remain unvanquished.

He closed the sliding door with a firm click.

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Spring Fever After a painting, ‘Yogini in the forest’, in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

It had something to do with the air, not the avocado, asparagus, oysters, figs with almonds and honey, the dark chocolate he had for lunch, he thought absent-mindedly admiring a pretty young thing peering ardently at an ethereal portrait of a female ascetic in a forest somewhere in India, centuries past – having renounced the world, its ecstasy, its suffering.

Both women had their hair tied back in a tight bun on the head; one heart no longer yearning after earthly pleasures – the Yogini’s body is bare except for a loincloth, plain earrings, necklace, and a prayer band.

She sits alone in splendid possession of her inner soul, framed in a golden halo of light, hands holding a rosary.

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emerald thalis worshipping a pair of ducks, pecking and preening.

The five trees in the background stand to attention, their rich foliage contained like her wild senses; her leopard-skin seat signifying the conquest of her animal self.

As he disrobes her in his mind – she already clad scantily like the lady in the painting – her boyfriend arrives. They kiss and hug hungrily.

Absorbed in each other they walk away whispering.

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Last Friday in Ramazan

A

mountain-blue, hot September day. I reached Abbotabad from Lahore two days ago. Today I am embarking on a journey from Abbotabad to Oghi. I say embarking because it feels like I’m going on a pilgrimage. The village I am going to is close to the Taliban belt, in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan, renamed as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2010. I refer to the region by its former colonial name because that’s what it was called when I visited it; and because the old name has an alienating foreignness to it, which resonates with the continued presence of imperialistic foreign forces in the area. Oghi isn’t more than 50 km away from Abbotabad but it’s going to take me almost three hours to get there: first to Mansehra, then to Oghi, and from Oghi to the village where my friend Laila lives. She has invited me to her house for Eid. I met Laila a couple of years ago in an art therapy workshop for earthquake-affected women. Her village, like most other villages in Mansehra district, was devastated by the 2005 earthquake, for which the cumulative death toll stands at 70,000. The number of homeless and internally displaced stretches to hundreds of thousands of families scattered across eastern NWFP and parts of Azad – or Occupied Kashmir, depending on which side of the Indo-Pak border you’re speaking from.

Laila and I have been in constant touch on our mobiles during the last couple of days.

‘Is it safe for a woman to travel to Oghi?’ I asked her.

She went quiet. ‘Why do you ask, baji?’

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‘Because my foolhardiness is no match for the Taliban’s madness.’

The Taliban had entered and established their rule in the neighbouring district of Buner six months back. My paranoia was justified: Oghi borders the dreaded tribal region of Kala Dhaka, where many of the Taliban have gone into hiding after the Pakistan government conducted a military operation to root them out from Swat and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), regions of NWFP adjacent to Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

‘There are no Taliban in our village!’ Laila said confidently.

Thinking her too young and naïve, I asked to speak to her father.

According to my socially conditioned South Asian reflexes, a man’s knowledge about the Taliban is likely to be more accurate than a twentyyear old village girl’s.

‘What Taliban?’ Her father sounded offended, as though I had attacked his Pashtun honour. ‘Just come. You don’t have to worry about any Taliban.’

Reassured, I purchased a black headscarf and a grey chadar from a shop called the Insaaf ( Justice) Cloth Depot. The shopkeeper tried to figure out the purpose of my purchases. It was early in the morning, around ten. I was the first customer at Insaaf, at an hour when women would be busy with housework. A woman not wearing a chadar but wanting to buy one, and speaking mohajir Urdu, gave me away.

‘From Karachi?’ he asked.

I nodded.

‘Work for an NGO?’ I nodded again, letting him make what he would of my geographical origin and professional affiliations.

I walked back to my host’s apartment. She gave me a quick lesson in chadar-wearing. She’s an old Karachi acquaintance who moved to Abbotabad for work. The headscarf and grey chadar were to make me look stolid, respectable and inconspicuous, but my image in the mirror wasn’t convincing. I was staring at myself in the mirror. The black headscarf and the chadar concealed my hair and body admirably but when I stretched the chadar over my nose and mouth, it kept sliding down.

‘How can I keep this thing in place?’ I asked, frustrated.

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‘You need lots of safety pins,’ my host advised.

‘Safety pins?’ I doubted safety pins could keep the chadar in place.

‘Safety pins won’t keep it fixed over my nose!’ I recalled the women in the streets. ‘I’ve been watching the women here. They never need to adjust their chadars. And they don’t use safety pins.’

‘How long have you been wearing a chadar?’ she retorted.

‘Yes, I get your point. But there’s got to be an easier way of chadar management. I’m not using safety pins,’ I said grumpily. From my observations of chadar-clad women in the past two days, I thought I had figured out the perfect way to keep chadars in place: they stay in place if you walk with your nose slightly up in the air if you combine upward nose tilt with a slow, gliding walk if you make no sudden turns of the head if you don’t walk or talk too fast or try to run; and if you’re very patient.

Next morning, it’s time for my departure to Oghi and my host calls an elderly taxi driver she trusts. She feels I’ll be safe with him, travelling alone. The narrow two-lane, tree-lined highway leading out of Abbotabad towards the smaller town of Mansehra is crowded with bride-like trucks decorated with dazzling truck-art: horses, peacocks, lions, flowers and lines of verse in calligraphy. Suzuki vans and cars and impressive SUVs owned by international aid organizations zip by. Falling away below the highway are the neatly terraced fields of young wheat, corn cobs drying on rooftops, and clumps of dark pines casting their shadows on grassy slopes; an occasional donkey with sacks trudging up the hilly shoulder of the road and, crowning it all, the poetry of the splendid sapphire sky. Light-haired boys gaze passively from the shoulders of the road, hoping that tourists will pull up. They’re selling roasted corn, Made-in-China toys, tents and colourful umbrellas; but, in this season of violence, vacationers aren’t venturing out into the breath-stopping beauty of these valleys. There are war cries everywhere but not on these mute mountains, not in the sunreddened faces of the boys selling toys – in their languid reclining postures is reflected only the perfection of nature. As I lean against the window, I know I’m glimpsing another reality, one not visible in the insensitivity 163

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of the global media’s war coverage. We pass little towns and dull streets with shuttered shop fronts squinting quietly in the vivid light off the sharp-rimmed mountains. It’s the last Friday of the holiest month, and most of rural NWFP has shut down. We pass the town of Qalanadarabad and the taxi driver tells me you get the best chaplikababs here. We don’t stop because no roadside kabab stall is open for business. It’s Ramazan, whispers the tranquil air of the shabby bazaars. And yet, it’s a tranquillity fraught with duplicity: a proud people have become dislocated and disowned refugees in their own land, and the world looks at them in selfrighteous indignation. They have no right to dislodge the world from its comfortable, unthinking routine, or to shake us awake from our stupor, our daily intake of apathy. Those villagers sheltering the Taliban and other terrorists-in-the-making must be rooted out, and dropping bombs from drones on them is the safest way to restore the world to peace!

I read the anti-American slogans chalked on the walls as we pass: Go America Go, Stop Colluding with America, Drone Attacks are a blow to Pakistan’s sovereignty, Death to American Culture –splashed in bold, black Urdu letters in town after town –and signed Jamat-e-Islami, the country’s largest religious political party. I wished to see counter-slogans, slogans of hope and change, from civil liberty groups. But human rights organizations do not take the risk of public self-expression. What would they say, anyway? You’re either with the Americans, or against them in the post 9/11 world. Any middle ground, any sane alternative to this either-or option has been wiped out.

At the time of writing this chapter, in 2010, I happen to glance at the Pakistani edition of the International Herald Tribune. Imtiaz Gul, a senior Pakistani journalist and think tank director, an expert on NWFP, is about to release his new book on NWFP, titled the The Most Dangerous Place: Pakistan’s Lawless Frontier. In his newspaper article he comments on the growing militancy in NWFP, referring to the tribal regions of the province as the ‘nursery of global jihad’ and blames the Pakistani government for allowing all kinds of national and international jihadist, terrorist groups to take up residence in NWFP. Surprisingly, he doesn’t mention anything in his article about the American government’s role in spawning the Taliban phenomenon in the first place.

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I find a ladies’ seat in the front row of one of the Hiace vans leaving for Oghi. Mansehra is named after Man Singh, its seventeenth century Sikh governor. All the back seats are filled with men returning to their villages for Eid. My eyes scan the bus depot, hungry for the sight of women to make me feel that I belong to this space, but except for my lady co-traveller and two burqa-clad women who are hurrying behind their male guardian with hushed, diffident steps in the throng of vehicles outside, I see none.

I stare at the rows of once-white towels hanging outside a hot hammam.

What if I’m returning from a grimy trip and need a shower? The hammams are for men only. My left hand is clutching the end of my chadar, stretching it taut across nose and mouth and my right is holding my voice recorder, under the chadar. My bulging tote bag with my clothes, notebooks and a water bottle, is perched on my lap.

She and I are squeezed into the ladies’ seat, which is designed for one.

She is covered from head to toe in a heavily sequined, shiny, black burqa.

And not once does she seem flustered, or have to raise her hand to adjust the gauzy naqaab over her face. Her delicately hennaed hands rest in her lap and dozens of gold and red bangles sparkle on her wrists. Her richly painted toenails leap out at me from her dainty sandals. I hadn’t expected to see such riotous femininity in this grey, mostly male chaos.

The conductor lures a couple more passengers to fill the van to capacity.

The driver dumps a big bag of spinach and onions next to our feet. Finally we get going. I know I can’t last much longer on the winding mountain roads without medication. I swallow a pill with a sip from my water bottle, defying established custom. You don’t eat or drink in public during Ramzan.

The driver addresses me. ‘Keep your shoes away from the vegetables.’ I don’t miss the disdain in his remark. I stare dispiritedly at my sneakers. Is it because I am travelling without a male, or because I drank from the bottle?

Or is it my unfeminine footwear, or the inescapable fetidness of big cities that I carry in my unchaperoned presence? Why had he addressed me, and not my companion seated between us?

‘How far are you going, baji?’

She speaks Urdu! There is a strange intimacy in her voice.

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‘To Oghi. And you?’

‘To Oghi.’ She smiles through her translucent naqaab.

She seems relieved that we are both travelling to Oghi, and I am travelling alone like her. I want to ask her more about herself but I’m not willing to disclose too much, and I stay silent.

An hour later, when she gets out in Oghi, she has more surprises in store for me. The driver and conductor get out in a hurry and run after her. They start arguing and I am worried because she looks too frail to win arguments.

‘What happened?’ I ask when they return, two large men, shaking their heads and waving their fists. She, my fairy-like van-mate, in the meantime, has vanished down one of the side lanes.

‘She didn’t pay her fare! She told me she was coming to Oghi to get her son,’ the driver blurts out, reverting to Pashto-tinted Urdu. ‘I trusted her. She said she’d pay when we got to Oghi. And now she says she has no money! I lost fifty rupees!’ He grunts and shifts gears and the Hiace lurches towards Oghi’s main bazaar where Laila had instructed me to get off and ask for her uncle, Janbaz Khan.

‘Here’s her fare,’ I say, taking a fifty-rupee note from my purse. ‘Maybe she had some majboori,’ I declare, almost chuckling at her brazenness.

Inwardly, I applaud her audacity. Going by her timid, tantalizing appearance, the driver and conductor might have hoped to receive payment of another kind from her. But she had duped them both and hitched a ride in a place where women barely ventured out of their homes. I regret now remaining distant when she had tried to engage me in conversation.

Oghi is a small market town in Mansehra district. The highway into town turns into its main street and is lined with small businesses – clothing and shoe stores, bakeries, poultry, vegetable, fruit and milk stalls.

Milk and vegetable shops also sell mobile phone cards and painted signs advertise the cards of various companies. Afghan refugees who moved here after the Russian invasion in 1979 own many of the shops. The absence of women in the street is hard to get used to. I don’t even see women in shops that sell women’s clothing.

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called carry in local dialect. He is standing in the crowded market with his mobile sandwiched between ear and shoulder, taking instructions from Laila, I suppose, because as soon as he sees me, he runs across the street and waves down our van. It turns out the Hiace driver knows Janbaz Khan well: everybody in the local transport business knows everybody else. It is time for the Friday prayers, and fearsome sermons over loudspeakers waft out in the bazaar. Maulvis in mosques all over the country at that hour are exhorting errant Muslims to mend their ways, give up the life of sin and revert to the path of prayer and fasting. Surprisingly, all the khutbas are in Urdu, not Pashto or Hindko, the two dominant languages of this region. Would the maulvis ever speak about the environment and climate change in their sermons, or the rights of women in Islam? Could one suggest more urgent khutba topics than lapses in a five-times-a-day prayer regimen to them?

Janbaz Khan’s nephew drives me in his carry to the village, a twentyminute ride on a winding, dusty, dirt road that splits the pine-covered hillside. Chickens cluck and goats hastily trot out of our way as we speed past, raising dust storms behind us. An impassive old man sits on a boulder holding up a placard asking for donations for rebuilding a village madrassah. A colourful plastic canopy is stretched across the top of the carry, making it a sun-proof, waterproof, and male-proof enclosure. When the two benches inside are filled with passengers, men clamber outside, hanging onto the side rails for support.

How many kilometres to the village? I ask the lad.

Out of shyness or bewilderment, he stares stiffly at the blue air beyond the windshield.

I repeat my question.

‘Four,’ he replies tautly.

‘Shouldn’t take us too long then.’ My attempts to be friendly are met with silence for the rest of the ride.

‘Why do you have such a thick chadar on?’ Laila’s mother exclaims in Pashto as soon as I enter the courtyard. All the women of the large family gather in the courtyard to hug and kiss me. You are kissed on both cheeks and the back of your hand and then you do the same in return. The distance from the edge of the village to Laila’s house is a ten-minute walk 167

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down a narrow path. Mud houses whose walls seem to have been sewn to each other flank the winding path. Janbaz Khan’s nephew trots ahead with my bag while I try to disregard my dizzy head and match his pace. Women lean over their walls and children peep from doorjambs. By the time I reach Laila’s house, I am dropping with exhaustion and half the village knows about my arrival.

‘This? I address Laila’s mother, unwrapping the chadar. ‘You don’t like it? I bought it especially for this trip.’ I speak to her in Urdu, which she understands, thanks to the Urdu and Hindi films and plays on TV. ‘Take it off ! Take it off ! It’s too hot.’ She yells instructions to one of her daughters. She adds, ‘You don’t need to wear it inside the house.’ I gather her meaning from her Urdu words: chadar, ghar, garmi. One of her daughters brings me a light cotton dupatta and hangs up my chadar and headscarf on the wall. And there they will remain till the day I leave.

‘Laila’s saying her prayers. Aren’t you going to pray?’ Her mother asks in Pashto-Urdu.

‘I have my periods,’ I lie. Ritual prayer is more than I can contemplate after the torturous ride through the mountains. I am feeling woozy and more tired than after the twelve-hour bus trip across the border from Delhi to Lahore.

I slump on the charpai and remove my sneakers. Laila’s little sister brings me a pair of chappals and deposits my unsightly sneakers in the storeroom.

When Laila finishes praying, she rushes out, her white dupatta still wrapped round her head. ‘I never believed you’d come. I thought you’d change your mind. Only when you SMS-ed me after sitting in the Hiace, I believed you!’ She kisses me on my cheeks, clasping my hands in hers, and turns my face to the wall. ‘Look! We’ve been painting the house! That’s all we’ve done since sehri and we’ve just finished.’

The women had been painting the patio and courtyard since before dawn. The pale green, lime-washed walls look creamy and inviting in the late afternoon light. How did they manage to stand and work in the sun while fasting? In the coming days, I witness how exalted their endurance is, how they can scrub and cook, soothe and reassure, wait and serve, squat at the stove with faces set, backs sore.

‘Didn’t any of your brothers help?’

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‘No, they slept after sehri.’ When she laughs, Laila’s brown eyes light up.

‘They got up late and went into town with Abbu.’

Two years ago, her Abbu returned from Saudi Arabia. He lost his job there as a driver with a transport company and used his savings to set up a children’s clothing shop in Oghi.

‘Business is slow,’ Laila’s mother says. ‘Times are bad. Who has money to spend on clothes?’

But sales had picked up a little in the last few days before Eid, she says.

She is a graceful woman with flushed cheeks, proud stature, and a smile that advertises contented motherhood. She has raised seven children.

Her husband left, as do many men from the villages, to look for work in Karachi. And from Karachi he had found his way to Saudi Arabia. He used to come home once in two years and leave her pregnant after each visit. In fourteen years, she gave birth to seven children. Now, he was done with Saudi Arabia and was trying to make a go of the shop in Oghi.

I wash from the bucket in the courtyard and, tired and drowsy from the anti-nausea pill I’d taken, fall asleep on the floor. There is no electricity that afternoon and the tin roof transmits the sun’s heat magnified several times; but at sunset, the ceiling lets loose its hoarded heat and the air mellows. The way a cruel day in the valley transforms itself into a velveteen evening never ceases to surprise me throughout my visit.

I am awakened close to iftaar time by the warm homey smells drifting in from the kitchen. Across the courtyard, Laila is busy in the kitchen, preparing iftaar, the meal eaten at sunset, to break the fast. Curls of thick smoke swirl skywards into the gathering dusk from chimneys dotting the village. I feel that I have stumbled onto a page in a charmed picture book, so small and perfect seems the scale of things. Laila is the gentle, strong princess of this fairy tale and I the wayfarer. She has cooked chicken biryani and is now mixing the batter for pakoras. I squat on the floor beside her to peel and chop potatoes and onions. I watch her as she pokes the fire and adjusts the logs. The flames surge with a crackle and bring back memories of fires in my childhood. She adds potatoes and onions to the pakora batter and drops spoonsful of the batter into sizzling oil.

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born, and would perhaps feel alienated by the idea of separate bedrooms I had grown up with in my nuclear family. And yet, a miracle lies in our quiet communion. We are sitting, like two travellers who’ve been brought together on a kitchen floor by a series of chance happenings, and found unity in a vision that we share but cannot articulate clearly.

In the next few days, I learn to light the mud stove. It is easy once you get the hang of it. Every unneeded bit of paper – as well as plastic, unfortunately – is tossed in as kindling. Very little of anything is wasted.

Dishwater is used to water the plants, rainwater is stored in a drum, and kitchen refuse feeds the goats. The kitchen is a lovely space of infectious warmth, a warmth that emanates from something deeper than the mud walls or the stove. A curious quality of caring, an inexpressible sense of the sacred, hovers here in the early mornings, when Laila’s mother milks the buffalo and bends down to light the stove and make tea and paratha for me because I am not fasting. All her movements, which I watch entranced, are elegant and calm. The filling of water in buckets, the babble of birds and bleating of goats, and the crowing roosters, are all part of an unhurried grace. These endearing sounds mingle and pour into the kitchen with the light from the high-up square window. Beyond the window, the sun kisses the tops of the walnut trees and they sway softly. The family’s three goats are tethered to their trunks.

At sunset, the whole family gathers in the kitchen. As soon as azaan is heard from the mosque, we may eat. Iftaar on my first day is dates, fruit chaat, pakoras, and biryani. Laila’s father and her brothers eat from one plate, and we women eat from another. Family members usually eat from the same plate. When Laila asks if I would like to eat from their plate, I nod, and smile to myself.

Every day, Laila’s cousin, Zeenat, would come in just before iftaar with a bowl of curry or walnut chutney. Laila’s two uncles, her father’s younger brothers, and their families live on the same ancestral property. The original house has been divided into three parts. Each uncle has constructed a set of rooms, a kitchen and a toilet for his family. Laila’s family is prosperous enough to have toilets. Most of the villagers are not. Women rise early and go out into the fields. The three houses are connected through their courtyards. Each uncle has many children. Though their wives are harried women, they seem proud of their large families.

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The evenings are dark and lovely. The crickets chirp loudly. And the stars – I have never seen so many in any city – millions of them pinned to a dark dome, flicker benignly. Something fragrant from the courtyard infuses its faint scent into the night. Laila is a proud gardener and her ardour is apparent in the profusion of red, white and pink blossoms. I sit in the veranda in the early mornings, drinking in this delightfulness, then grieving as the cool softness changes to the harshness of a new day.

The delicacy of those dawns leaves you unprepared for the hot days.

The reality of a civil war raging in a place so peaceful leaves you even more nonplussed. The same issue of the Herald Tribune where Imtiaz Gul denounces Pakistan as the nursery of global jihad, reports fresh bombs dropped by the US in the tribal areas, to root out ‘suspected militants.’

How can pilotless, unmanned, bomb-dropping machines target militants with unfailing accuracy? There have been thirty-three Predator drone attacks since January 2010 in this region, and drone attacks have killed 900 people since 2008, the same newspaper reports.

Is it so difficult to connect the dots between growing resentment towards American interference in the region and the locals who support the Taliban for being the only group daring to oppose American military presence here? Bombs are supposedly dropped on high value targets. A high value target (HVT) is defined by freedictionary.com as a ‘target the enemy commander requires for the successful completion of the mission.

The loss of high-value targets would be expected to seriously degrade important enemy functions throughout the friendly commander’s area of interest’. The Herald Tribune also reports: ‘it is not known if any high value target was present in the area at the time of attack.’ Not known if any HVTs were present? Why drop bombs if chances of hitting a HVT was not high to begin with? Bombs on villages that have no hospitals or even a rudimentary first aid unit for the wounded? I imagine the drone operator, a young man sitting in front of a computer terminal at some military facility in Arkansas or Nevada, who tries to ascertain if his remotecontrolled drone will hit an HVT in some village in NWFP which appears on his screen as a grid filled with dots that represent houses. What kind of a village is his imagination capable of conjuring? Can he not imagine homes, families, gardens in those villages? If the US military has the 171

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technology to tell a village militant hideout from a non-militant home, all the way from Arkansas or wherever their drone operators sit, they deserve my deepest respect. But since they aren’t sure if they’re hitting HVTs, the ire and bewilderment of an impoverished but dignified people, when bombs drop from the skies, seems just.

Laila, Zeenat and I are sitting on the charpais in the veranda. The conversation turns to marriage and love. Both Laila and Zeenat have recently become engaged.

‘Have you ever seen or spoken to your fiancé?’ I ask Zeenat.

‘No.’ ‘But he’s your cousin! And he’s from the next village. Hasn’t he tried to call you or see you since your engagement?’

‘No, he works in Karachi.’

‘Why? Doesn’t he have a mobile? Don’t you want to know what he looks like, what he sounds like?’ I am astounded by her impassivity.

‘No,’ she shrugs. Then she smiles. ‘I’ve seen his photo. That’s enough.

They showed it to me just before they said yes to his family.’

‘Bas? What if you don’t like him after marriage?’

The last time I met her in the art therapy workshop with Laila, Zeenat had wanted to study archaeology because this land of hers is the home of the ancient Gandhara Buddhist civilization. But she was made to leave college recently because it was decided that she was to get married.

‘What if you don’t like him? ’ I persist.

‘Compromise,’ Zeenat pronounces the English word. She’s only nineteen and knows what compromise is all about. What the inevitable is all about.

‘I told his sister when they came for the engagement to give me her brother’s number,’ Laila blurts. ‘So Zeenat could talk to him. But she didn’t. She’s a mean one.’

Zeenat glances shyly at the bold Laila, but there’s something calm and maternal in her stooped shoulders and her slender frame, and her tentative smile is all about the advantages of submission to pre-determined fates.

She seems grown-up against Laila’s youthful feistiness.

‘My friend says if things are good on the wedding night, then the future will be good. But if things don’t go right on the first night…but I say it’s all kismat,’ Laila laughs.

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8 Laila is engaged to a distant cousin. He fell in love with her when she was fifteen. In a culture where girls are betrothed at birth, and often to first cousins, she’s considered a rebel, too modern, for having waged a threeyear jihad with her father, uncles and grandfather to become engaged to a distant relative who fell in love with her. He works in a factory by day and sends her SMS love poems by night. Recently, he was laid off, and is now back in the village; but they are forbidden to meet. Later that night, as Laila and I are talking, huddled under the quilt in a little room next to her grandmother’s, his SMS messages start beeping in. Laila types her responses. She hardly sleeps. She keeps checking her mobile and fires rapid replies. Then there’s a missed call. She climbs out of bed and goes into the next room to call him back.

‘I don’t want to get married. At least not for a couple of years,’ Laila says after she returns and climbs back into bed. ‘I want to work and earn some money.’

She has just finished a three-month training course in community health and will soon start making visits as the first Lady Health Visitor of her village. Her job will take her to village women to tell them about health and nutrition, and she’ll slip in advice on contraception. Her community health textbook has a chapter on family planning, and explains how contraception is not against Islam. That the State promotes the idea of smaller families, despite the maulvis who consider all attempts to curb procreation unnatural and un-Islamic, seems like quiet good news.

‘It doesn’t pay much but once they make me permanent, it’s a secure job,’ Laila says.

‘You don’t want to marry him but you’re in love with him?’ I ask Laila.

‘With my fiancé? I am and I’m not,’ she says, quite honestly. ‘My mother says I’ve cut off my feet by getting engaged to him. He doesn’t even have a house for me and now he’s lost his job. And his family is so huge.

You’ll see how they live. Their house is messy and full of children. I don’t know how I’ll live with them.’

I’ve heard her whisper I love yous to him on the phone.

How do you say it in Pashto? I ask.

‘Nobody says it in Pashto anymore.’

‘Nobody says, “I love you” in Pashto anymore?’

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I’m saddened by the cultural losses incurred by the mobile phone era.

Children speak Pashto at home but learn only Urdu at school, so none of them can read or write in their mother tongue. None of them is likely to read their iconic poets like Rehman Baba or Khushal Khan Khatak in the original.

I’m tempted to quote a Rehman Baba poem because this most-loved and revered mystical poet of Pakhtun culture is so little known outside the Pakhtun world: Whether it involves kindness, love or enmity, I have trusted the friendship of my friend.

Though in separate bodies my friend and I are really one.

Thousands of houses make the city of Baghdad.

There can be no separation between my lover and me; All events have their own appointed time.

It is not dependent on the beloved’s beauty at all; The lover’s heart is content with his own love.

I ask God for passionate sighs; Whether the lover’s heart is of wax or steel.

For those who are not dispersed like the beloved’s braids, The communion of their hearts is a heinous crime.

Those who have no strength to complain or sigh, Each silence of the powerless is a sigh and a complaint.

Ishq has a hundred more names - like The names of Majnun and Farhad.

It sits and stands wherever it likes, Love is the true son-in-law of intellect and cleverness.

In love kings become Malangs, Who remembers the likes of you and me?

If excellence is in proportion to humility, Then the position of the student is above the teacher.

The Poetry of Rahman Baba: Poet of the Pakhtuns. Translated by Robert Sampson and Momin Khan.

(Peshawar: University Book Agency, 2005)

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campaign to get engaged, she’s surely empowered enough to run another campaign for an exit strategy.

‘No, yaara!’ Laila gasps. ‘I can’t do that! I can’t break off this engagement! I was the one who fought for this engagement. If I break it off now, I’ll dishonour my family. People will say I’ve become too modern.

Nobody’s going to marry my sisters if I do something like that. I made my choice. Now I must live with it.’

‘You don’t know if your family chose a husband they would’ve made a better choice.’

‘I told you: it’s all kismat. My kismat. But I feel a little safer because my fiancé says I can work after marriage and I told him I wouldn’t have children for five years. I’ve told Zeenat she should do the same. I’ll give her the contraceptive so she won’t get pregnant right after marriage,’ she says pragmatically.

‘Are you really going to do that without her husband’s knowledge? You thug! Lady Health Worker!’

‘You know what I think the difference between love and marriage is?’

Laila stares into the dark, after shooting off another SMS to her fiancé.

‘Life is like a glass of soapy water. And love is the foam on top. When the foam fizzles out, what’s left behind is marriage.’

We chuckle under the razai. But behind her facetiousness, Laila, like her cousin, seems a melancholy, aged spirit to me. At twenty, of slight build, with a captivating, vivacious face, pensive and passionate brown eyes, and doubts and desires that I had barely begun to articulate at her age, she seems much older than I was at twenty. She has attended the village school only up to class eight. The wisdom she whispers in the gloom of the night can’t come only from what they taught her in school.

‘Well, since you have to marry somebody, if you marry your fiancé, at least you’ll have tasted some love bubbles!’ I console her.

‘But I don’t know why I feel sad inside about my future. And why I get mad at him.’ Laila struggles to understand her own conflicting emotions.

‘Then afterwards, I apologize. I SMS him. I say I’m sorry. I love him more when he’s quiet. But my mother thinks I made a mistake to choose him. It’s his family. You know I love my garden. If anybody messes with my plants, I yell at them. I can’t do that in their house. I’ll have to come to my mother’s house and take care of my garden here,’ she says with resigned certitude.

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‘But if things really don’t work out, I can go my way, and he can go his.’

‘So you’d better retain your garden in your mother’s house!’

It takes me several days to understand the survival value of her pragmatic fatalism and her dance back and forth across thresholds of autonomy. Her feigned docility is a wisdom she has absorbed from the tradition-encrusted chadar of her culture. It takes creativity to challenge the kind of unchanging social façade she is trapped in. But with each bold belief, even if she cannot always act on it, she is rending the fabric of ancient customs.

Eid Shopping in Oghi The day after my arrival, Laila plans a secret shopping trip to Oghi. She says we’ll go into town under the pretext of visiting the hospital where she’s been training as Lady Health Worker. The bazaars are crowded just before Eid and her father wouldn’t approve of us going into town. But her mother tells me calmly to wait till her husband leaves. Laila takes off for the hospital with her father early and tells me to come later with her sisters and Zeenat, who also has to wait till her father leaves for work.

Laila’s aunt from next door joins the party. Laila’s two brothers, aged fourteen and sixteen, accompany us. Women from respectable families don’t travel without male companions, even if the accompanying male happens to be the youngest child of the family.

Autonomous women are an anomaly, and not just in villages. I recall the separate immigration counter reserved for unaccompanied women at Karachi airport. The sign above it says tanhakhwateen – which translates as lonely women, women unaccompanied by males, women in need of special protection.

We wait at the side of the road, our faces covered with chadars, our backs turned to the male gazers in the passing carrys. It’s hot and though I’m thirsty from the walk up the hill, it wouldn’t have been right to carry water when others are fasting.

Finally a carry stops: it has room for three but can squeeze in five. We pile in and the two boys hop on to the roof. I’m holding Laila’s little sister on my lap, and my knee is four inches away from the genitals of the man opposite. I wince at the thought of accidental contact if there’s a bump in the road. I shut my eyes and pray. When the man and his women get down, I open my eyes and take my first deep breath.

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The Pathans are a poetic people, and poetry is everywhere – on the backs of vans and trucks, and engraved on gravestones. The Urdu couplet inside the carry reads: Hazaron baar phul khile, hazaron baar bahar aai Duniya ki wahi raunaq, dil ki wahi tanhai A thousand blossoms bloomed, a thousand springs came.

Amid the bustle of the world, the heart’s loneliness remained.

The metaphor sinks softly into me – a thousand springs have come and gone, symbolizing hopelessness, poverty, and soul-enriching beauty. When will a spring beyond the thousandth spring come to announce the end of poverty and hopelessness? Will it take a thousand more years for the uncaring and bustling world to open its eye of compassion? A thousand years of war before peace comes to this land?

We get off in Oghi bazaar and walk down a side lane to reach the hospital. It’s the last day of classes before Eid holidays, and Laila’s teachers haven’t showed up, assuming that none of the students would either. I meet Laila’s classmates. They’re an animated group of young women from neighbouring villages and they aren’t shy of talking about contraception and sexual practices. They know about the X and Y chromosome and know women aren’t responsible for the sex of the child.

‘But it’s common for a man to bring a second wife if the first can’t give him a son,’ one woman says. ‘Men want sons because lineage continues through sons.’ She’s pregnant with her fourth child in the hope of a son. She’s better educated than the rest of her teammates but her anxieties about her worth as a woman are clearly expressed by her inability to produce male heirs.

She laughs when I say, ‘Tell your husband there can be no lineage without daughters.’

Laila introduces me excitedly to her teammates as the baji who’s writing a book ‘about us women and our problems.’ We leave the classroom and walk back to the market, through narrow lanes and dark alleys that make up the entrails of the main market. Tiny shop fronts are bulging with women’s clothing, bangles, cosmetics, and lingerie. Women who were missing from the main street are to be found here. But men outnumber them here too.

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‘What business do men have here?’ Laila mutters loudly under her naqaab.

‘Of course men have business here,’ replies a young fellow in passing.

‘Did you hear him? His business is to harass us,’ Laila says. ‘It’s like the son who told his mother to not go to the bazaar. And when his mother went out, all covered up in a burqa, he was the one caught teasing her!’

There’s a palpable sexual energy in the dark, covered pathways of the bazaar as men brush past us and the chadar-clad women try to avoid their touch. The girls want to buy sandals. We hurry into the first shoe shop we see. The Pathan behind the counter is tall and good-looking and extremely adept at selling shoes. He manages to find something for everybody, including Laila’s sister who attends college in Mansehra and is no longer a country girl who can be easily pleased.

‘These are all last year’s fashions,’ she whispers.

‘Last year’s?’ The salesman overhears her. ‘Who says? These are the latest designs. If you don’t like it, bring it back after Eid,’ he says thrusting a shiny silver sandal into her hand.

‘Bring them back after wearing them?’ jokes Laila. I’m scared by the casualness of the exchange taking place through the naqaab in this claustrophobic space.

The good-looking Pathan laughs. He’s enjoying the banter too, though he appears impatient.

I buy Laila a pair of walking shoes as a gift for becoming the first Lady Health Visitor. ‘You should give us a good discount,’ I say to the shopkeeper.

‘We’ve bought so many pairs from you. And I’m a guest from Karachi.’

‘Karachi?’ He shrugs, unimpressed. ‘I get customers from America.’

We scurry down the dim, men-packed lane to another shop to buy bangles. Bras are hanging in glass display cases. I recall a politically incorrect joke, about a Pathan who goes to buy a bra for his wife: Shopkeeper: What’s her size?

Man, handing him his topi: I don’t know her size, but she made two caps for me from her old one.

‘Do women ask the man in the shop to show them bras?’ I’m incredulous.

Yet another stereotype about life in the hinterland has to go. ‘You can’t do that even in Karachi!’

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‘Anything goes in this place,’ is Laila’s casual reply.

The girls buy bangles and mehndi cones, eye-liner and nail polish. Laila calls her brother. He’s waiting for us at the entrance to the bazaar, in a graveyard where many faceless, veiled women are hugging shopping bags as they wait for their men to come and get them.

The Day Before Eid We are watching the news on TV that evening to find out if the Eid moon has been sighted. The local Moonsighting Committee in the capital, Peshawar, announces it’s Eid the next day, according to the moon’s sighting in Saudi Arabia.

‘So it’s Eid tomorrow?’ I seek confirmation from Laila’s father.

‘No, it’s not,’ he says contemptuously.

‘But they just announced it on TV!’ ‘For us it’s Eid the day after tomorrow, with the rest of the country,’ he says. ‘Those maulvis in Peshawar are not real Muslims. They want to prove they’re more devout than everybody else, so they follow Saudi Arabia.’

I’m impressed by his reply and awed by this villager’s audacity, from a tiny village of a hundred families, to declare solidarity with the rest of the nation and defy the status quo of Peshawar maulvis. Laila’s father lights a cigarette and proceeds to do a leisurely socio-cultural and political analysis of the current unrest in NWFP. I listen respectfully for the next half hour or so. This is the only real conversation he has with me. He’s a short, intense-looking man, with soft, kind eyes and gentle manners. It’s his impassioned way of speaking, I think, which Lailahas inherited.

I include a heavily shortened synopsis of his conspiracy theory, which explains the unrest in the country: ‘Mullah Fazlullah and Baitullah Mehsud are American agents. The CIA paid Baitullah to kill Benazir Bhutto. The CIA wanted to make Zardari the president because he would let them do as they pleased in this region.

The United States wants to break up Pakistan. The United States wants to make NWFP a part of Afghanistan, Baluchistan a part of Iran, and Sind a part of India. Only Punjab will remain as Pakistan. The US will set up military bases in NWFP to keep an eye on China and India. China needs watching as it is going to declare itself a superpower by 2013. Obama is 179

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no different from other American presidents. He won’t change American policies. His government will create trouble in any part of the world if it benefits America. The Afghans, especially, the Farsibans (Persian-speakers) can’t be trusted at all. They’re on the side of the Americans.’

I don’t know what to make of his conspiracy theory so I join the girls who have started preparing for Eid even though they’ll celebrate it a day later.

Laila brings out the henna cone and starts tracing an intricate pattern of flowers, leaves, and delightful curlicues on my palms. I watch the emerging artwork and think how far I’ve had to travel to find such unguarded warmth – all the more overwhelming because of its virtual absence in the urban spaces where I grew up, where we are very careful not to puncture one another’s privacy. Privacy is an alien concept here, and so is solitude.

Laila’s cousin who arrived from a neighbouring village calls her Gautama Buddha because she goes quiet and likes to be by herself; but a similar request from me is seen as a lapse in their duties as hosts. Girls sit up half the night stitching shiny, dangling things on their dupattas. Laila’s chachi slides glass bangles onto our wrists. She’s an expert at doing this without breaking them. A neighbour drops in to ask Laila if she will wax her arms and pluck her eyebrows.

‘Come tomorrow. I’m busy right now,’ Laila tells her. ‘I haven’t done my own eyebrows yet. How do you expect me to do yours?’

‘You village girls are so fashionable!’ I say.

‘Only city women can be fashionable?’ Laila’s shakes her head.

The next day is thankfully the last day of fasting. The lie about my periods as an excuse for not fasting or praying has to be stretched no further. It’s Eid in Peshawar, a couple of hours away, but not in Oghi. In the evening, we get the house ready for guests. We spread new sheets on the charpais.

Laila sweeps the yard and smears a layer of fresh mud on the blackened walls around the stove. I pound rice in the mortar for kheer. Her younger sister sits down to iron the entire family’s new clothes before the electricity goes. Everybody has new outfits. A new shalwar-kurta has been stitched for me too, miraculously, in one day. Toes are blackened with toe henna.

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balls of pink as they dry out. One of them fails to withstand this drastic makeover and dies in the night.

Eid Day The household is up while it’s still dark and cold. Laila’s mother has been in several times, tugging at her toes to wake her up. I stay in bed curled up under the quilt’s warmth, trying to gauge from their hushed whispers what’s wrong. The rooster crows. The Eid khutba can be heard from the village mosque. It’s in Pashto so I don’t follow a word. Finally, I get out of bed. The stars are still out at six-thirty. I get my toothbrush and walk across the courtyard. I have to wait for my turn to use the bathroom. The water’s freezing, but after the first few tumblers, I stop shivering. I put on my shiny new silk outfit and am surprised that it fits quite well. Today, there’s no getting out of praying so I go into the room and join the women. Peace, peace, peace. Please, God, please restore peace, I entreat as I prostrate myself on the prayer mat.

The whole family assembles in the kitchen for tea. I wish Laila’s father and uncles Eid Mubarak. Laila laughs and tells me what she and her mother had been discussing earlier – the loss of four kilos of meat. The cat devoured it during the night.

‘The cat had her Eid while we slept. No biryani today,’ Laila says, unruffled. The meat must have cost several hundred rupees. The good humour, the generous acceptance of loss and the lack of blame surprise me.

Laila asks her aunt to give her a chicken. Instead of biryani, lunch is chicken curry. The men take off for Eid prayers and the women start to get ready. Hair is oiled and braided. Earrings and rings slipped on. Lipstick and kajal applied. The new sandals are taken out of their boxes. Laila slides three golden rings onto my fingers and makes me put on two dozen more bangles and lipstick. I keep staring at my unfamiliar fingers with the three large, shiny rings. By the time the eyelash curler is produced, I resign myself to my fate.

Laila curls eyelashes by squeezing them between the blades of the curler.

The men come back, eat, and take off to visit relatives in neighbouring villages, and we visit neighbouring women. We are force-fed biryani and halwa everywhere, and I have to answer the same set of four questions: Are you married? Do you have kids? How many? No sons? Then the shocked look, followed by genuine sympathy for my sonlessness.

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Laila gives family planning advice to someone who’s just had her fifth child.

‘What should I do?’ the woman smiles. ‘Block the entrance between my legs?’

‘Get the injections,’ Laila scolds her. She translates what the woman just said in Pashto. ‘You need just one injection every three months. Can you help them if they don’t want to help themselves? These village women!’

‘Can’t their husbands use condoms?’ I ask Laila as we clamber up the narrow path to another relative’s house. If women can talk about sex in such a jaded way, as if it’s no more exciting than housework, can’t they also talk about condoms?

‘The women are the ones who have to stay home and take care of all these children. They should insist their men use condoms.’ Laila seems exasperated by women’s passivity. ‘But they don’t. My uncles’ wives are the same. They just keep having babies.’

The last stop is Laila’s fiancé’s house. Laila waits at her aunt’s house and we climb up another hill to her in-laws’ house. She’s not allowed to meet her fiancé before the wedding but he does come over to see her when her father is out. Her mother knows about his visits and doesn’t object. Laila was right about the disorder in her fiancé’s house. Clothes and dirty dishes are lying on the floor. There are no traces of festivity, none of the loveliness of Laila’s courtyard garden. One of her future sisters-in-law, a woman with dough-streaked hands and wisps of hair escaping from under her crumpled dupatta, greets us.

‘How are you? You look tired.’ I ask her.

Kaisi hun? wahi haal, wahi chamri, wahi khaal,’ she smiles. To translate what she said is to kill the poetry but I’ll try: why ask about me? I’m in the same state, same old skin, same old hide. She used to live in Karachi.

And I can see her Urdu is accentless and her language carries that city’s tart humour. ‘You know, we women are qurbani ki bakriyan (sacrificial goats) – there are twenty-three people in this house,’ and she names each of the household’s children and adults. ‘We have to make breakfast for them, get hot water ready so the men can bathe, polish their shoes. Where’s the time to put on Eid clothes?’ she says. I look at her, amused and sad. She’s a thin woman, with sallow, anaemic skin, a mother of five. Her husband left her in the village and went to Dubai three years ago. She awaits his return as 182

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millions of women do in villages all over the country, raising his children in his absence, longing for love and companionship.

The Day After Eid The day after Eid is the busiest for the women of the household. They are kept occupied cooking and serving guests who keep arriving throughout the day.

Laila is irritable. She kneads dough and as we’re approaching the tandoor in the back yard to bake the naans, she blurts out: ‘I want to pile all these men into the tandoor and set them on fire!’ She wants us to go to an engagement party but we can’t because the guests have to be served.

When her father comes in, Laila snaps. ‘We’re tired of working. We can’t go anywhere. We have to keep feeding your guests. Is this how we’re to celebrate Eid?’ Her father is taken aback at her anger, especially in my presence. ‘I’ll see to it that you can go,’ he says gently. ‘Go and get ready.’

Laila smiles triumphantly after he leaves. ‘I’m his favourite daughter. He can’t bear to see me unhappy. Come, let’s go and get ready!’

Once more we go through the elaborate routine of putting on our Eid outfits and the jewellery. The rings and bangles, lipstick and eyeliner are spread on the bed in Laila’s mother’s room. The engagement party is an allwomen affair in the next village. Laila wears her flat sandals and packs her stilettos in her purse to put on once she arrives at the party. Darkness falls on our way back, and the carry drops us quite a long way from the village.

Laila laughs as I snap a picture of her removing her stilettos and putting on her flats for the long walk back home.

Are we safe in the dark on this lonely road? I ask.

‘Don’t worry,’ Laila reassures me. ‘We’re very safe. Nobody would dare do anything. We are known here.’ They’ve told me how safe the village and its surrounds are. Women walk all over the village, gathering firewood and fetching water, going out to the fields. Nobody would dare harass the women of their own village. It’s only in the anonymity of bazaars that the ancient code of conduct, the Pakhtunwali, is broken.

Laila’s absence from the house has been missed. Her grandfather is distraught and asks her to do dumm for his toothache. I’ve hardly spoken to him since my arrival. He spends his days watching TV, feeding the dogs and goats, and yelling at his grandsons for climbing the walnut trees 183

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and for getting into fights. The day I am to leave, he produces a dozen walnuts from his shalwar pocket, and says: ‘Take them with you. They’re from our trees.’

‘He scolds the kids all day long,’ Laila whispers, as she sits down next to him. ‘No wonder his jaw hurts.’ She recites a prayer and blows on his hurting jaw. The dumm is done. And the old man leaves, leaning on his walking stick, looking dazed but comforted.

The men of the family seem lonely and in need of being ministered to, even though they remain distant and inscrutable. Are they aloof because they need to conceal their inner frailty? They seek the services of women, but they say very little to them at mealtimes or at any time. Roles are well-defined and a good life means performing those roles. I have the feeling that everybody is playing a part in a silent movie. It’s the men’s job to command women’s submission and devotion; and, in return, to provide for them. Laila’s father sits smoking silently on the charpai in the evenings with a restless, far-away look. His wife sits near him, but they hardly talk. He too wants Laila to do dumm because his stomach hurts from eating half-cooked sweet rice at the maulvi’s house. I’ve seen him sit beside his mother, also in silence. He comes in when Laila is feeding her milk and cornbread. He sits for a few minutes, kisses her on both cheeks, and leaves.

I want to ask the silent men what became of the passionate lovers and poets in them? Do those fumbling, embarrassing, half-clothed, smothered encounters with their wives that pass for sexual intimacy, those precursors to necessary, frequent pregnancies that continue the genealogy, stone them into such silence? Homoerotic relationships among Pathan men have probably evolved to fill the lacunae of emotional intimacy between men and women. Keeping boys instead of mistresses for sexual pleasure is an accepted practice among heterosexual men of means, and is not taken as an indication of homosexuality or bisexuality. I have no way of finding out whether women also resort to relationships with other women for emotional and sexual fulfilment. I feel such relationships may not be unusual in heavily gender-segregated spaces. Village women may not advertise themselves as sexual beings, but what they resort to for sexual bliss is another matter. Laila tells me of a classmate who’s been SMS-ing her, begging her for ‘lip-kisses’!

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Out in the Fields By the fifth day, I’m restless for contact with the outside world. In the real world I shirk newspapers, especially front-page news. But here my isolation from the outer world as well as my inability to access my inner world is making me restless. This is evident to Laila and she keeps an even closer watch to make sure I am not alone, and this makes me more irritable. There are no newspapers, no Internet, no e-mail. I didn’t even bring my laptop. I can’t go out for solitary walks since it’s improper for a woman guest to go wandering on her own. I can’t sit by myself without somebody from the family enquiring, Are you all right? Are you bored? Do you need something?

My mobile is my lifeline but its connectivity is erratic. What’s going on in the world? There’s a TV – but it’s hardly ever tuned to the news except when the men are watching it. When the girls are watching, they switch over to the saas-bahu, popular TV serials on Indian channels, also watched in Pakistan, centred on conflicts between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law.

‘Baji, you’re getting bored, aren’t you?’ Laila wants to know.

‘No, not bored. Just need to know what’s going on in the world.’

‘Why? Why can’t you forget what’s going on in the world? We don’t make you happy? Why do you want to bring the world’s worries here?’

Laila asks, genuinely puzzled. ‘You told me you felt sad about all the bad things happening in the world. What’s there to know, when all the news is bad news?’

‘Maybe I’m addicted to bad news,’ I say, and I wonder at my addiction.

Why do I really need to hear or read more bad news?

‘Tomorrow I’m going to show you a really beautiful place. You’ll never forget this village then. Then you’ll say to your friends in the city what a zabardast time you had in the village. They’ll be envious.’

The next morning after everybody has had tea and parathas for breakfast, the courtyard swept, Laila’s plants watered, and the various buckets and drums filled with water, we go out in a large group, just the women, with all of Laila’s sisters and cousins, including the youngest, who is only four. The weather changes from its early morning frostiness to mid-morning piercing sun. We walk on narrow, twisting paths through the trampled undergrowth, the girls chattering gleefully, showing me places in the woods where they used to stop on the way back from school and the fig trees they climbed.

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In the village, there is no need for chadars. It is enough to cover our heads with dupattas, which keep sliding down in the up-and-down walk on brambly paths. But nobody seems to care. ‘No chadars as long as you stay within the village limits,’ Laila tells me.

‘When did you stop climbing trees?’ I ask Zeenat.

‘Two years ago,’ she says.

‘Can’t you climb one now? How can I believe you ever climbed one?’

‘No! The villagers will think I’ve gone mad!’ She shakes her head vigorously, as if embarrassed to even contemplate it.

‘Come on, nobody’s watching,’ I urge her.

‘No! No!’ She was getting married in two month’s time, and she couldn’t risk village gossip. No girl who’s about to get married climbs trees.

Recollecting that walk is a journey to a feeling that defies definition – the laughter of the girls, the prattling steps of the little ones in their too-small slippers, the timid gurgling streams, the birds, the mottled shadows that dot the forest floor and mingle with scant light from the unbroken canopy of pine trees – and Laila’s and Zeenat’s restless, breathless talking. Their recalling of childhood anecdotes – of the churail – a witch, an ugly woman, or the ghost of a woman who died during pregnancy.

Their grandmother had seen one sitting on a rock when she used to come to the woods to gather grass, when the woods were denser and the streams fuller, and the churail with her wild hair and fiery eyes had made her grandmother drop her scythe and run back to the house in fear. And how grandmother sat and meditated and prayed for forty days, how she learned the special dumm to crack evil spells cast by churails. And how she returned, emboldened with her new knowledge and overpowered the churail, who never dared ever to return to these woods.

‘Dadi has taught me how to do the same dumm,’ Laila says. ‘That’s why everybody in the family asks me to do dumm if they’re ill.’

She holds her slippers in one hand and jumps across a ditch. I hesitate at the mouth of the ditch. Laila stretches out her hand to me.

‘Hold my hand,’ she says, extending her arm towards me and pulling me across. I land on the other side, awed and unsteady. She is laughing.

‘Why are you laughing at me? I didn’t grow up in the village,’ I say, embarrassed.

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join her. This is their chance to show off their nimble-footedness before a city lady. Even her little four year-old cousin jumps the ditch unassisted.

Is Laila a child or an elder? She hops across ditches like a schoolgirl and she’s a healer of pain. Laila – the brave woman, healer and rebel, ready to leap across ditches without a moment’s thought, but unable to break out of a relationship she feels tied down to. I watch this amazing woman’s forays into independence, and her retreats from independence. Terrified by her own intrepid ways, how long will she hold herself back, how long will she continue to remodel herself to fit into her family’s cocoon?

A couple of days after Eid, amid great protests from Laila’s family, I hug and kiss all the women of the family, and walk uphill to the highway.

Laila’s two brothers accompany me. I take a picture of the message painted on their school wall: Talib-e-ilm mein sharm munasib nahi kyunke sharm jihalat se badtar hai.

Observe no modesty in your quest for knowledge for such modesty is worse than ignorance.

The Hiace lets me off at Asoka Park café in Mansehra. I offer the driver a fifty-rupee tip for dropping me at a point beyond the designated stop but he refuses to accept. I’ve asked my friend from Abbotabad to meet me for lunch at the café and then we plan to visit the Asokan edicts next to the café.

The menu at Asoka Park café boasts a little bit of everything. It’s Pakistani and Continental. The waiter is so polite that he makes me wonder why I seldom come across such well-mannered men in big cities.

He doesn’t meet our eye and starts each sentence with ‘Excuse me.’ It takes him a very long time to produce the two hamburgers and fries we ordered. The burgers surpass McDonald’s burgers in slimness. The buns are sweet and cold. The cook has left, and the substitute cook is not good, the waiter confesses, when we complain about the sweet, cold buns. Serves us right for ordering burgers in a place where they spell it as Bargars on the menu.

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Our amiable waiter accompanies us to Asoka Park after lunch, carrying my bag. The park gate is locked. It’s a little after 4p.m. – closing time.

‘Ab kya hoga?’ I’m alarmed. I forget, momentarily, that in South Asia all regulations are merely suggestions, not constraints.

‘Medem, come with me,’ the waiter says confidently. He ambles up the hillside, along the park fence and points to a ledge.

And while he looks the other way, my friend and I haul ourselves up as gracefully as we can, and lower ourselves over the fence into the park.

We are happy to have the officially closed park to ourselves. The Asokan edicts are not quite what I expected. They’re overwhelmingly large, grey rocks, mammoth granite boulders, resting in a lovely landscape of trees and stone, overlooking the busy Karakoram Highway, the Silk Road that Asoka’s monks travelled to take Buddhism all the way to China.

I’m ending my pilgrimage at this peaceful oasis in the midst of a land at war, where the great Buddhist king inscribed his message of peace, tolerance, and love in the third century BCE. Asoka came to this wisdom only after the horrors of a war in which hundreds of thousands were killed, but the fact that such wisdom is possible to come to, that a war-mongering king can become a devout follower of non-violence and devote his life to spreading peace and prosperity among his people, makes me hopeful.

This is where I’m saying my fateha, I tell my friend, hugging the cool face of the granite boulder. I close my eyes and kiss its weathered surface, placing my lips upon the Kharoshti script that has faded into mere nicks and scratches on the rock-face after two millennia of exposure to wind, dust, rain, and snow. My prayers are similar to Asoka’s for the future of humankind: I have had this Dhamma edict written so that my sons and greatgrandsons may not consider making new conquests, or that if military conquests are made, that they be done with forbearance and light punishment, or better still, that they consider making conquest by Dhamma only, for that bears fruit in this world and the next. May all their intense devotion be given to this which has a result in this world and the next.

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I’ve left the village but Laila keeps texting me. I’m on a bus to Peshawar a few days later, when my mobile beeps. Her poetry mirrors her feelings for me. She doesn’t mask them, and her candour is more poignant than merely sophisticated word wizardry: Safar dosti ka chalta rahe Suraj chahe har sham dhalta rahe Kabhi na dhalegi apni dosti ki subha Chahe har rishta ham se jalta rahe Let friendship’s journey never cease.

The sun may set every day, but never let it mar our friendship’s dawn.

Let all others in the world envy us.

This is an extract from Alternative Realities: Love in the Lives of Muslim Women (Traquebar Press, India, 2013)

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Kathleen Hellen

Salmon Said Surrender ‘Jap,’ he spits, long after the surprise attack.

The armless man, his sleeve pinned back, perhaps a veteran, surprises back at Robert Wholey’s fish market in Pittsburgh – Jap: A word like these to wrap in wax as she, my mother, in her worried accent cries, ‘Reeve head, preeze.’

The meat in cheeks a delicacy. The eyes. The incense of the headless left long after the beheading.

‘Sa-mon,’ she cries over the scaling, a passport to the headless in their brine.

The yellow tuna begging on its ice. The frenzied scaling.

The buckets over-run with blues. The gutted monk. Lust of capture. ‘And reeve head, preeze.’

She sniffs, pretends she doesn’t hear the word Surrender thinly sliced, served with ginger over rice.

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F

or three years, Tulene has had the bathroom to himself. Still, he keeps a milk crate stocked with the essentials just inside his front door, for easy access. If Old Chow were to find Tulene’s toothpaste beside the bathroom sink, or his towel hung on the bent nail poking from the back of the door, he might demand more rent.

Old Chow is the probable author of the handwritten sign: This Is A Unisex Washroom. Keep Clean! On Tulene’s own door there’s a tarnished brass number “1”. At the opposite end of the corridor is a third door – unnumbered, bolted, padlocked, the mail slot nailed shut. Behind that door, Granny Chow passed away a few weeks after Tulene took up residence above this Chinatown junk shop. Tulene used to detect the odours of stale bread and sour milk wafting down the corridor, or when he approached the toilet seat, which had been left lowered, the lid still up. He would hold his breath and wrest open the tiny window beside the shower stall, and the smell of garbage would float up from the alley below. He never met the old lady.

Last Friday, Tulene came out of his room as usual, locked it carefully behind him, and nudged open the bathroom door. The air was damp as a dew-drenched morning, except it was four o’clock in the afternoon.

Droplets glistened everywhere.

Tulene pulled aside the shower curtain, printed with a pattern of mallards – some flying, others short-necked, chests puffed, stiffly planted on their sheer, slightly undulating ground of waterproof plastic – and there, coiled around the drain, was a long black strand of someone else’s hair.

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Tulene picked up the hair with two fingers and dropped it in the bucket beside the shower stall.

Back in his room, he realised he’d forgotten to brush his teeth but he couldn’t turn back now. He was already late for work.

Early on Sunday morning, Tulene returns from his Saturday night shift at the parking garage. He pauses at the bottom of the stairs and hears the click of a lock or latch – or perhaps it is just the creaking of beams and joists. He goes upstairs, looks both ways down the corridor, and sniffs the musty air. Without turning on the light, he can see that the bathroom window has been left open. Grey dawn has begun to trickle in, along with the aroma of garbage bins left out since yesterday.

It can’t be Old Chow’s doing – it’s the middle of the month. Anyway, he’s barely set foot in the place since the old lady passed, perhaps for fear of an indignant ghost. Tulene pulls the window shut and tiptoes away from the bathroom, down the unlit corridor. He gets within a few feet of the unnumbered door and stands still, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Out of the darkness, images appear: the reddish paint peeling in fine, curled flakes; the padlocked bolt. Except instead of a wooden board nailed roughly to the centre of the door, the mail slot is now clearly visible, its flap neatly closed – a prim, pursed mouth.

Tulene crouches down and places his ear against the metal lip. At first there is only silence; then he hears a faint rustling, a whisper so slight it barely displaces the dead air. Tulene listens until the blood throbbing in his ears becomes a roar. He hurries away for fear someone should discover him like this, deaf to every sound but that of his own heart.

Mondays through Thursdays, Tulene is free – that’s the best part of the job. Cooped up in the collector’s booth counting change for twelve hours, being served dirty looks by drivers who think the downtown parking fees just add salt to wounds bled dry by a night on the town. No one else wants the weekend shift. The second best part of the job is between ten and two, after the last Gucci loafers and Prada heels have strutted off towards the BOA Lounge or Empire Cabaret, and before they stumble back for their Volvos and BMWs. That’s four hours’ paid study time, so long as Tulene can stay awake.

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On Monday morning, Tulene gingerly eases open the bathroom door and notices that someone has left a whole roll of toilet paper in the toilet paper holder. Each quilted sheet is decorated with a delicate floral print. He takes a corner between finger and thumb, and it’s almost as thick and soft as the fleece scarf he lost last week.

Tulene is still thinking about the toilet paper when he trails downstairs after breakfast, pulling at his freshly washed beard; there’s barely enough to wind around his fingers. It hasn’t been trimmed since his birthday and the tufts sprouting from his cheeks and jaws are mangy as the dealer’s dog.

On the front doorstep Tulene scans sleepy Chinatown streets, thinks about lighting up. uitting smoking is harder than growing this beard.

‘What’s shaking?’ says Duchamp from the doorway of his shop.

He holds a mug of coffee in one hand and scratches his belly through a threadbare tank top. A forest of curly hairs pokes out above the neckline.

‘Not much,’ says Tulene.

‘Watcha got there, man?’ Duchamp looks him over lazily, like a well-fed wildcat.

‘I got nothing.’ Tulene holds out empty palms. His backpack stays snug against his shoulder blades.

‘Me neither.’ Duchamp laughs, gargles coffee. ‘I got nothing. I’m nothing. I’m useless.’ Duchamp kicks at an armless doll that has rolled off a mound of broken toys and is lying across the threshold.

By day, Duchamp’s place is junk-shop heaven. Nights, he pulls the batik-print curtains across the storefront window and thudding bass shakes the block right up to where Tulene sits at his kitchen table, head bowed over a doorstop-worthy tome entitled: Advanced Calculus. Tulene hopes the insistent beat will hammer the formulae into his head – formulae that make little sense today but might one day bridge the way to a job at a big corporation, or teaching grade school.

‘Hey,’ says Tulene. ‘Did someone move into Grandma Chow’s old flat?’

‘Did Old Chow scrub the cat-piss from the floorboards, or give that dump a good airing after they found her body, three days rotten?’

Duchamp snorts. ‘Man, that dive is a case for Public Health.’

Tulene remembers the smell, a mixture of sewage and spoiled meat.

After paramedics broke down the door and manoeuvred the body downstairs on a stretcher, the smell penetrated every corner of the building 193

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and lingered for a week. Tulene rolled up his bath towel and wedged it under his door. He held his breath each time he bolted across the corridor to the bathroom. He flung open the tiny window above the toilet, and the smell of the garbage below seemed almost sweet.

‘Guess you’re right,’ Tulene shrugs. ‘Well, I gotta go.’

‘Hot date?’ Duchamp slugs back his coffee, drags a hand across foamflecked lips.

‘No.’ Tulene looks down at the scuffed toes of his salt-stained boots.

‘Just meeting a friend. For study.’

At twenty-two, Tulene is the oldest student in the GED class. For this reason, he doesn’t mind being teased about the scarcity of his beard. At least it erases three to five years off his face.

Every Monday afternoon, Tulene shoves his notes, unfinished homework assignments and Advanced Calculus into his backpack, and goes to meet Junjun. Junjun is taking his GED because his Chinese high school grades can’t be translated into Canadian. Tulene hopes that at least he is glad for a chance to practise his English.

In Junjun’s small, quick hands, the calculus problems dissolve like finespun cotton candy. Fingers dance across the keys of his calculator; pen-tip glides dragonfly-quick above paper. Tulene can barely restrain himself from applauding each time Junjun completes a particularly tortuous problem, writing the solution triumphantly on the answer sheet, spearing the page with a final decimal point and throwing down his pen. ‘x(t)=c1+c2t+c3et+Atet+Bcost+Csint. Easy.’

‘Bcost+Csint,’ repeats Tulene, enchanted.

‘In China, this is for babies – we already do in grade eight.’

Then painstakingly, in broken English, Junjun guides Tulene through each knot he has just unravelled, stopping often to ask, ‘Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ says Tulene. ‘You’re so good at calculus. You’ll get a really good job one day.’

Back in October, Tulene was sitting alone in the cafeteria of the Adult Learning Centre, slumped before an empty paper plate, a crushed can, and eleven open packets of Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise.

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‘Excuse me. The coffee here – is good?’ Junjun had said, in Mandarin.

Tulene looked up uncertainly.

‘Sorry, so sorry,’ said Junjun, in English.

Tulene’s mouth was full of day-old bagel, or he would have said it was OK. Most people thought he was Chinese – if not wholly, then in general.

He was in fact part Chinese, an indeterminate percentage, on his mother’s side. That part was mixed with some Metis, also indeterminate. Someone had told him that the Natives actually came from Mongolia; they’d walked to this continent across the Bering Strait so, essentially, Metis were Chinese and vice versa. Tulene wishes he’d verified this before his mother died.

They’d lived together above the noodle house where his mother washed dishes for seventeen years. At the time, it didn’t seem to matter where they might have come from. After the funeral, he dropped out of school for the last time and moved a block away, to the room above Duchamp’s.

‘My name is Junjun,’ said Junjun, and held out his hand, even though Tulene’s fingers were clearly daubed with mayonnaise, which he hurriedly rubbed onto his jeans.

‘Tulene,’ Tulene mumbled, wishing he had not drained his Pepsi so fast.

He was having trouble swallowing the last bites of half-chewed dough.

Junjun looked at him with an expression of unguarded surprise. Tulene would soon learn that this meant Junjun had not understood.

‘My name is Junjun,’ Junjun said again, phrasing it this time to sound like a question.

‘Tulene,’ Tulene repeated, almost choking in his efforts. ‘My name is Tulene.’

‘Too-lean,’ said Junjun gravely and inscribed it in meticulous black ink in his leather-bound notebook.

Junjun is on a mission to find the best coffee in Canada. Tulene has never liked the taste of coffee. It’s disappointingly bitter, unlike its enticing aroma. Each Monday, Junjun arranges to meet Tulene at yet another deli, greasy spoon or espresso bar. He photographs his order and posts it on his blog entitled: Winnipeg’s Best Western Coffee. He labels the pictures with date, time, star rating out of five, and the name of the roast: Three Sisters, Kicking Mule, Blonde Costa Rican.

At first, Tulene was baffled by Junjun’s fastidiousness. ‘They’re just names,’ he objected, ‘They don’t mean anything.’

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Junjun kept writing but his eyebrows rose in surprise, and Tulene hurried to repeat himself.

‘They – are – just – names,’ Tulene said, stopping between each word so that they no longer ran together, merging into an indistinct whole.

‘Every name has meaning,’ Junjun replied, now animated with real surprise. ‘Your name very unusual, must have special meaning, no?’

Tulene started to disagree, then stopped.

“Tulene” was simply his mother’s misspelling of a place-name; really two places mixed up in her mind that she had once heard on a radio programme about the Canadian north. Villages so isolated that sometimes in winter, mail and groceries could not be flown in for weeks. Villages as magical as the ones in Tulene’s picture books, filled with heroic princes and beautiful princesses. ‘Tulene far, far away,’ she told him. ‘Always cold, always snow.’ He spent years perusing their out-dated and dog-eared Maps of Canada until he finally discovered, tucked away in the Northwest Territories, the hamlets of Tulita and Deline. He ran down to the kitchen, thrust the map in front of his mother and pointed, ‘Look, Ma!’ His mother glanced down, frowned, and returned to peeling the veins from a plate of snow peas. ‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘Maybe. Too long ago now.’

Since Parlour Coffee opened on Main Street last year, Tulene has often walked past on his way to class. Outside the tall windows, customers in black suits and sunglasses soak up the sun on a storefront bench. They sip at takeout cups and cigarettes and ignore the proximity of the Woodbine Hotel.

Junjun says Parlour reminds him of Vienna, which he visited with his parents on a tour-bus vacation. He tells Tulene about a city where every building was a cupcake confection. Painted brick, marble columns, three operas to choose from every evening. After the performance, the applause lasted for fifteen minutes. The rafters rained roses on the Italian prima donna. Junjun hadn’t understood a word.

There is no such thing as Pop, or Juice – or Coffee, for that matter – on the gilt-framed chalkboard behind the marble counter. Tulene scans the list of unintelligible names and settles on an espresso, which at least sounds like an English word. The clerk names the price. Espresso at Parlour costs three times the price of a regular cup of joe. Tulene has never paid much 196

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attention to price-lists; has in fact avoided looking too closely because Junjun always offers, even clamours, to buy.

Tulene starts to count out the change in his pocket. He slaps his jeans again, hoping to hear the clink of coins he might have missed, his palms growing moist, just as Junjun arrives. ‘Café au lait,’ says Junjun to the clerk and places his hand over Tulene’s hot, shaking one. ‘Let me pay, please.’

Junjun thinks nothing of slapping his textbooks down on the countertop beside the window and slipping onto a leather-covered barstool, squeezing past patrons toying with smartphones, retouching makeup with mirror compacts and trawling the street for eye candy or a reciprocal appraisal. Tulene tries to slip onto the free seat beside Junjun but can’t help elbowing his neighbour, who doesn’t flinch, but fixes Tulene with a gaze so steely it pierces the fake leather of his favourite jacket – a motor-cross style popular the year he left school.

Espresso sloshes from cup to saucer. Tulene feels the blood flooding his cheeks and vows never to come back to Parlour. What’s wrong with meeting at the cafeteria?

‘Best coffee in Canada,’ Junjun smiles, and raises his glass.

Tulene’s espresso is bitter, unfamiliar. He tries to savour it, allow the burning brew to linger in his mouth, educate his taste buds in European sophistication.

These days, Tulene’s tutor, who scowled and shook his head at him last year, now smiles even when Tulene slinks into class late, eyes downcast, and heads for the back row. But what Tulene is grateful for, more than good marks and free coffee, is that Junjun has never once made a disparaging remark about Tulene’s mutt heritage, let alone his complete ignorance of any one of the seven or so dialects of the Chinese language.

‘Good,’ Junjun had said. ‘I only want to speak Canadian English from now on.’ Now we are both foreigners, Tulene had thought. But that was absurd, in a country pieced together from the leftovers of abandoned cultures.

What a nonsensical language English can be. Take a word like unisex, implying a creature neither man nor woman, but one sex. Yet it is not the same as hermaphrodite – a word Tulene remembers from a fifth grade biology class where earthworms in Plexiglas containers writhed over and under each other in a tangled knot. Tulene could not tell their heads from 197

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their tails, let alone whether they might be male or female. To his relief, it transpired that they were both.

At least no distinction is made between masculine and feminine words.

Tulene hadn’t thought about this until Junjun asked, ‘So is coffee a girl or a boy?’

‘What?’

‘In Chinese, some words have the symbol for a girl, or a boy.’

Tulene remembered French classes, the baffling illogic of un and une, le and la.

‘It’s neither,’ said Tulene. ‘In English, coffee is just a thing. Only humans and animals are male or female.’

‘What about plants?’ said Junjun. ‘Plants are living too. And coffee is made from beans.’

This made Tulene’s head spin. ‘No,’ he said, finally. ‘Coffee is just a thing. It does not have feelings.’

Today, Junjun rushes through the steps and Tulene struggles to keep up. He completes three quarters of the assignment, then says, ‘You understand?’

‘I think so.’

‘You finish by yourself ,’ says Junjun. ‘The rest is easy.’

Tulene’s eyes widen but Junjun is already on his feet, shrugging his hooded Roots jacket back onto his shoulders.

‘You didn’t finish your coffee,’ says Tulene. The café au lait is cooling in its glass, a film of milk-grease congealing on top.

‘It wasn’t that great,’ says Junjun.

‘I thought you said . . .’ begins Tulene, but Junjun has already started to back away, eyes downcast, as if scanning the floor for something that may have slipped out of his pocket – loose change, or a phone number scribbled on a napkin.

At the same time, Junjun’s neighbour lays down her mirror compact and turns her attention to her hair, held up in a high, blonde chignon from which stray wisps have begun to escape. As she pulls pins from her head the tendrils loosen and multiply into a thick, shimmering cascade. Junjun swerves, too late, as strands of fine-spun gold alight on his shoulder and graze his cheek.

‘What about English conversation?’ Tulene has to raise his voice to reach Junjun, thrown off course by the sudden intimacy.

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Phoebe Tsang

‘No time,’ calls Junjun. ‘Not today.’ He ducks as the blonde gives her head a final toss, unleashing a brittle, powdery perfume.

It must be her hairspray, but it’s not a scent Tulene can place. He recalls the old bathroom cabinet, the cracked mirror on the sliding door behind which his mother stored a few simple items: toothpaste, deodorant, extra bars of Irish Spring.

‘OK.’ Tulene coughs. ‘See you next Monday.’

Junjun looks confused for a moment, as if they have not been meeting every Monday since October.

‘Parlour?’ adds Tulene helpfully.

Junjun is shuffling backwards towards the exit. ‘No, not Monday. I have a dinner.’

‘Dinner?’

Junjun hesitates. He returns, places a hand on Tulene’s arm.

‘She is a really nice girl,’ Junjun says quietly. ‘Emma. From our class. You know her?’

‘Emma,’ says Tulene. The hairspray is making his eyes water. ‘That’s a nice name.’

‘See you later,’ says Junjun and walks out of the big glass doors, down Main Street, where the cars are honking and crawling, packed together two by two.

Tulene stares at Junjun’s unfinished glass for a long time. Then he pulls it discreetly toward him. He raises the glass and sniffs at the film of milkgrease.

The taste is not half as bitter as the espresso. Milk and sugar, Tulene decides. That’s the trick, the way to make this foreign coffee more palatable.

For a while after his mother’s death Tulene had considered heading north, packing a sleeping bag and hitchhiking as far as there were still roads. He knew that the places he was looking for were only reachable by plane. He would have to start off by finding work, with cargo perhaps, helping out on the runways. The plan took on the significance of a pilgrimage. Then his grief subsided. Now the desire to travel at all was something buried that only stirred infrequently, like a hibernating creature.

8 199

Parlour

When Tulene gets back, Duchamp is still sitting on the stoop, scratching his belly, cigarette dangling from his lips, ash dropping. Instead of a chipped mug, there is now a bottle of Budweiser by his feet.

‘You’re back early.’

‘Yes,’ Tulene mumbles. ‘I need to study.’

‘Don’t work too hard,’ says Duchamp. ‘Want a beer?’

‘No, thanks.’ Tulene can feel himself begin to redden as if the beer were already in his belly, firing up his insides.

Duchamp has the bottle to his lips when he lowers it abruptly and calls, ‘Party at my place tonight. You should drop by. Never know who you might meet.’

He winks, and Tulene turns away to hide burning cheeks. All that caffeine is making his heart pump twice as fast.

‘Maybe later.’

‘Take it easy, man,’ says Duchamp as Tulene starts up the stairs.

On the landing, Tulene pauses. The bathroom door is closed. Tulene approaches and studies the handwritten sign. Below the words This Is A Unisex Washroom, penned in thick black marker, are Chinese symbols in blue ink. Tulene has always assumed the Chinese symbols are a direct translation. For the first time he realises he has no way of knowing for sure.

Tulene listens at the bathroom door for a minute, then two, then three, and hears nothing. Through the crack beneath the ill-fitting door, and under his own door too, seeps a weak late-afternoon light. Only one doorway remains dark. Tulene sets off down the corridor; his footsteps accompany the beating of his heart. Standing before the unlit door, Tulene raises his fist and strikes it.

He stands and waits. When his legs tire, he leans tentatively against the door. When it does not budge, he sets his shoulder against it. He struggles senselessly until he remembers the mail slot. With hesitant fingers, Tulene traces the edges of the metal flap, daring himself to lift it by just a crack.

He takes hold of one corner and raises it. A slip of paper slides out and flutters to the floor.

Tulene leaps backward, letting go of the flap, which clangs shut. Surely the keeper of the mail slot is about to wrench open the door and come roaring out! Tulene holds his breath and shuts his eyes hard; he no longer believes this will make him invisible, but the habit still offers comfort.

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Phoebe Tsang

When he finally dares open his eyes he is met by the familiar darkness.

He crouches down again and rakes the dusty floorboards until his fingers close upon a folded slip of paper, thin enough to fold twice more and hide inside his fist.

Passing the bathroom door again, Tulene sees that it was not closed after all; it is open by a hair. He touches a finger to its surface, and the door swings open.

The air inside feels like a spring day after it has been raining. Tulene smells flowers but cannot name them. Jasmine? Camellia? There was a row of glass-stoppered vials on his mother’s dresser, labelled with these names.

As she sickened, Tulene shook their contents onto cotton balls and dabbed them on her shrivelled throat from where the coughing came. No matter what he did, the room’s smell of vomit and bleach was stronger.

Flowers must be female. But no, they are hermaphrodite; they have pistils and stamens.

The draft comes from a door beside the shower, a door that Tulene is almost certain has always been locked before. Now it is wide open. Tulene had assumed there was a broom closet or electrical panel hidden inside.

Now he wonders if it once opened onto a balcony or a fire escape torn down years ago, for there is no ledge beyond, just a sheer drop. It is only two floors to the garbage bins below but he doesn’t feel like stepping closer to check.

Tulene looks down at his clenched fist, the knuckles so white that it seems the colour of his bones is showing through his taut skin. As he watches, his fingers uncurl and the slip of paper opens its folds, perching in his palm like an origami bird. Sunlight pierces it and reveals a whole line of writing in reverse on the other side – blue ink, on paper lightly wrinkled by the sweat of his skin.

Slowly, as if looking in a mirror, Tulene struggles to decipher the message. What at first appear as random shapes and swirls gradually become letters, then the beginnings of words, but still Tulene cannot make sense of them. They are like fragments from a story lost to childhood, one that his mother might have read to him, whose meaning is now closed.

The shower curtain is floating fitfully in the breeze, flapping against the empty stall. Tulene stares at the printed ducks: the blithe, airborne ones and the staunch, standing ones, determined to stay rooted even though the 201

Parlour

ground beneath them is slipping out from under their feet – has already slipped – and is fluttering toward the open door. He holds out his hand.

The breeze seizes the corners of the folded paper, snatches it into the air and whirls it outside. Just before it flits out of sight, Tulene glimpses clearly the words suspended in mid-air, ablaze with sunlight: When I hold you, I hold everything that is – Tulene reads swiftly, without effort. He can almost be sure he’s read them correctly, the after-image of those words still hanging before him in the empty air.

202

Ranu Uniyal

The Day we Went Strawberry Picking in Scarborough The sky was clear and the clammy soil all wet and brown.

We picked up our hats and baskets and shovel and headed for the strawberries, bent backwards, buried in mud, filed in a row of fellows, clicking lungs with laughter, churning tales.

I tripped on trash, but howsoever imperfect, we clamoured for more, ripe and red, and some so perfect.

Weighed and then we paid and picked up our share.

You tossed your hat and let it be. Yes it was a bright sunny day, but by the time we reached home, the clouds, streaked in grey, swallowed the chatter of the bristling trees. There was neither the discourse on how tatty and low is the North to the South, nor the comfort of a kiss, nor a coffee to hold. It was difficult that evening for me to be kind and gentle and as I juggled with my lost recipes for jams and pies baked in caramel sauce, dispensed with the leftovers from the refrigerator. Written oblique over your silence was the embarrassing truth. I knew there would be no more season for strawberries and this my only trip to Scarborough.

203

Alisha Haridasani

I

n 1849, Gustave Flaubert, author of Madame Bovary, travelled from Alexandria in Egypt to Wadi Halfa in Sudan to collect information for France’s Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce. But his official mission was probably the last thing on his mind; he wrote dismissively to a friend in France saying: ‘Near me, about ten millimeters away, are my ministerial instructions, which seem to be waiting impatiently for the day I’ll use them as toilet paper.’ Instead, he was much more interested in a more intimate project, which proved far more productive – sex. Throughout his expedition up the Nile, he took prostitutes with great zeal, witnessed a boy pimping his mother, observed an abundance of sodomy and engaged in all kinds of other exotic sexual adventures.

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Alisha Haridisani

In tenth century Baghdad, long before Flaubert’s escapades in the region, a man named Ali ibn Naser al-Katib published and distributed the Encyclopaedia of Pleasure, which outlined in 43 chapters almost everything there is to know about sex: ‘heterosexual, homosexual (male and female), bisexual, animal, vegetable, and mineral.’ It went so far as to cover the emotional aspects of sex, such as jealousy or how to deal with a woman’s mood swings.

Consider those two facts again: in Middle Eastern Islamic countries, sex was once openly discussed and embraced. Contrast this with the modern Middle East, where masturbation is perceived as a sin and premarital sex is considered “moral degeneration1,” and those two facts seem ever more shocking.

This sharp contrast between ancient and modern is the subject of the new book Sex and the Citadel by Shereen El Feki. Through a tessellation of anecdotes, interviews and thorough research concentrated mainly in Egypt but also from other countries around the region, El Feki explores why that shift in attitude occurred in the first place, the present day situation across the region, particularly in the wake of the Arab Spring that shook several long-standing institutions, and what lies ahead for sexual freedom in the Middle East.

It comes as no surprise to anyone today that the Islamic diaspora spread across the Middle East and North Africa affords its people limited sexual rights, if any at all, since sexuality – like every other aspect of life – is viewed through the lens of the Qu’ran. Marriage and reproduction are considered the only acceptable contexts for sex: ‘Sexual relations outside these regulated contexts constitute zina (illicit and punishable),’ states El Feki.

Within the confines of a deeply entrenched patriarchal culture, the brunt of these limited sexual freedoms inevitably falls on the women.

Female genital mutilation, though declining, still occurs. Virginity – defined as an intact hymen – ‘remains what could be described as a big fucking deal,’ asserts El Feki, and must be proven on the wedding night.

Even regular tampons are feared because they might end up breaking the hymen. In fact, virginity is such an important facet of life for women that it can be used as a political tool; the “testing” of young female protestors’ virginity by the military during the Arab Spring in Tahrir Square in 2011, 205

Review: Sex and the Citadel

for example, was used as a means of control and subjugation. Furthermore, abortions and contraception are hard to come by. Men, on the other hand, are not subject to that level of scrutiny.

1

The Ministry of Youth’s research centre in Iran found an increase in premarital sex, unwanted pregnancies and abortions in 2008. It warned that these ‘unhealthy relationships and moral degeneration are the leading causes of divorces among young Iranian couples.’

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Contributors

SHANTA ACHARYA was born and educated in Orissa, India. She won a scholarship to Oxford, where she completed her DPhil, before going to Harvard as a Visiting Scholar. She is the author of nine books – five collections of poetry, her doctoral study, and three books on finance. Her latest poetry collection is Dreams That Spell The Light. An internationally published poet, reviewer and scholar, she was elected to the board of trustees of the UK’s Poetry Society in 2011.

ALEXIS MARIE was born in Singapore, and teaches and writes in Vancouver, Canada. She received a Master’s in Creative Writing from Oxford University in 2011. As a child, Alexis dreamed of running away with the circus and is currently an aerialist and acrobat-in-training. Her work has appeared in New Voices, an Anthology: Art & Writing by Chinese Canadians of Post-1967 Diaspora, The Oxonian Review, Pandora’s Collective, and Vallum Magazine.

ANDREW BARKER holds a BA (Hons.) in English Literature, an MA in Anglo/Irish Literature and a PhD in American Literature. His poetry has been published in the Asia Literary Review, Fifty/Fifty and City Voices. Snowblind from my Protective Colouring, his first book of poetry, was published in 2009 by Chameleon Press, and the villanelle sequence Everything in Life is Contagious was performed at the Fringe Theatre as part of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival. He operates the online poetry tuition site Mycroft.

CHENG YONG is a ceramics specialist at the Shanghai Museum. He has presented a number of popular Chinese television shows on ceramics and antiques and is the author of Delhi Prisoners, Porcelain Girl, the anthology Bluebird, and Chinese Porcelain: Recognition and Appreciation.

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FAN DAI is professor of English and director of the Center for Creative Writing in the School of Foreign Languages at Sun Yat-sen University. She teaches one of the very few creative writing courses in China that combines western tradition with the teaching of English as a second language. She writes and publishes creatively in both Chinese and English. Fan Dai is the author of four nonfiction books in Chinese and of the novel Butterfly Lovers in English.

NIGHAT GANDHI is a writer, mother, Sufi wanderer and mental health counsellor. She spent her formative years in Dhaka and Karachi, and has subsequently lived in India. She is the author of the short story collection, Ghalib at Dusk and Other Stories (Tranquebar, 2009) and a work of non-fiction, What I am Today, I Won’t Remain Tomorrow: Conversations With Survivors of Abuse (Yoda Press, 2010). Her memoir/travelogue, Alternative Realities: Love in the Lives of Muslim Women, was recently published by Tranquebar (India).

ROMESH GUNESEKERA’s novel The Prisoner of Paradise is recently out in paperback. He judged Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists list 2013. His new book of fiction Noontide Toll was published by Penguin India and Granta in early 2014. His novel Reef was short-listed for the Booker prize in 1994.

ELIZA VITRI HANDAYANI is a writer, reader, and translator. Her novel Mulai Saat Ini Segalanya Akan Berubah was published by Obor in Indonesia, 2014. It has been translated into English and is forthcoming in Australia, 2015.

She has also published short stories, essays, and translations in Koran Tempo, Jurnal Perempuan, Sastra Digital, Asymptote Journal and elsewhere. She is the founder of InterSastra, an initiative to improve and promote literary translation in Indonesia.

ALISHA HARIDASANI was raised in Hong Kong before setting off to pursue a BA in journalism and psychology at City University, London. She has worked for and contributed to a number of magazines, including Business Traveller AsiaPacific, Prestige, Crave and Time Out Hong Kong, covering a wide range of topics including her favourites: art and culture.

KATHLEEN HELLEN was born in Tokyo, Japan, is the author of Umberto’s Night (2012), winner of the Washington Writers’ Publishing House poetry prize, and author of The Girl Who Loved Mothra (2010). Her work has appeared in Barrow Street, Cimarron Review, Frogpond, Hawai’i Review, Japanophile, New Letters, Prairie Schooner and Witness, among others. Awards include poetry prizes from the H.O.W. Journal and Washington Square Review as well as the Thomas Merton poetry prize and two Pushcart nominations in 2013.

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Contributors

JUSTIN HILL was recently selected to write Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Green Destiny, due out in 2015. His acclaimed first novel, The Drink and Dream Teahouse, won the 2003 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, a 2002 Betty Trask Award and was banned by the Chinese government. His second novel, Passing Under Heaven, won the 2005 Somerset Maugham Award. Shieldwall, the first of his Conquest Trilogy, chronicling the events surrounding the Battle of Hastings, was a Sunday Times Book of the Year.

BRIAN HOLTON is a prize-winning translator and poet who took up teaching to fund his translation habit, but has now retired to work full-time on translating Chinese literature. He has translated fifteen books of poetry, and published translations, poems and short stories in his native Scots and in English. He is best known as the principal translator of the poet Yang Lian.

KAVITA A. JINDAL is the author of the poetry collection Raincheck Renewed, published to critical acclaim by Chameleon Press. She also writes fiction, with her short story A Flash of Pepper winning the Vintage Books/Foyles Haruki Murakami prize in January 2012. Her work has appeared in literary journals, anthologies and newspapers around the world. Kavita was born in India and lived and worked in Hong Kong for many years before settling in the UK.

JUNG HI-YEON is a doctoral candidate at Sejong University and works as a freelance translator.

KIM KYUNG-JU is one of the most important young writers in South Korea.

In 2009 he was awarded Today’s Young Artist Prize by the Korean government and the Kim Su-young Literature Prize. Kim’s first book, I Am A Season That Does Not Exist In The World, has sold over 10,000 copies and is currently being translated into English. In addition to poetry, his work includes dramaturgy, mixed media and conceptual writing.

PHILLIP KIM is a Korean American Hong Kong-based banker turned novelist.

His debut novel, Nothing Gained, a financial thriller that draws on his twenty-five years of experience as an investment banker in Asia, was published by Penguin Book Group in March 2013. He is currently working on his second novel. He has lived in Hong Kong for over twenty years and has contributed short stories to anthologies published by the Hong Kong Writers Circle. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, he has a wife and daughter.

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JAKE LEVINE is the author of two chapbooks, The Threshold of Erasure and Vilna Dybbuk. He translates Kim Kyung-ju and is currently working on a PhD in comparative literature at Seoul National University. He edits Spork Press and writes a bi-monthly column introducing American poetry to Korea at the Korean webzine Munjang.

LIANG YUJING was born in China and is currently a PhD candidate at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He writes in both English and Chinese. His work has appeared in publications including Wasafiri, Poetry Salzburg Review, SAND Journal, Modern Poetry in Translation, Westerly, Los Angeles Review, Boston Review and Poetry New Zealand.

DIPIKA MUKHERJEE is a writer and sociolinguist. Her work has focused on Southeast Asia, and especially Malaysia; her debut novel Thunder Demons (Gyaana, 2011) was long-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize. She has edited two anthologies: Silverfish New Writing 6 (Silverfish, 2006) and The Merlion and Hibiscus (Penguin, 2002). She is a Contributing Editor to Jaggery (A Southasian Diasporic Arts and Literature Journal) and curates an Asian/American Reading Series for the Literary Guild, Chicago.

LADY FLOR N. PARTOSA teaches Basic English courses, research, and literature at Silliman University in the Philippines. Recently, she spent a year participating in the Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant program at Skyline College in San Bruno, California. In her spare time, she wrestles with words to write a few poems and aspires to share her words (the survivors of the wrestling match) with the world.

MARIA CARMEN A. SARMIENTO is a fictionist and essayist who has won numerous Philippine awards. She moderates the Writers Against Impunity web page for the Philippine Center of PEN International, and represents PEN on the Philippines’ National Commission for Culture and the Arts. She has a Rockefeller Writing Residency in 2014 to work on her novel: Siete Pecados.

ANIS SHIVANI is a writer of fiction, poetry and criticism based in Houston, Texas. His recent books include The Fifth Lash and Other Stories, My Tranquil War and Other Poems, and Anatolia and Other Stories. Currently he is at work on a new novel called Abruzzi, 1936, a book of poetry called Empire, and a new book of criticism called Plastic Realism: Neoliberal Discourse in the New American Novel. His novel Karachi Raj is forthcoming in 2014.

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Contributors

ANN TASHI SLATER’s work has been published by The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Huffington Post, as well as Shenandoah, New World Writing, Gulf Coast, Kyoto Journal, and Big Bridge, among others. Her writing appears in Women in Clothes (Penguin) and the YA anthologies American Dragons (HarperCollins) and Tomo (Stone Bridge). She holds a BA in Comparative Literature from Princeton and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan. She teaches at a Japanese university.

KO KO THETT is a poet by choice and a Burmese by chance. In between, he is a poetry translator, editor and anthologist of contemporary Burmese poetry. His first anthology Bones will Crow: 15 Contemporary Burmese Poets is published by the Northern Illinois University Press (NIUP). He lives and works in Vienna and writes in both Burmese and English. His collection the burden of being burmese is forthcoming from Zephyr in 2015.

PHOEBE TSANG, a British-Canadian poet, librettist and short story writer, has lived in Hong Kong, the UK and all over Canada, and is happy to call herself a nomad. The author of Contents of a Mermaid’s Purse (Tightrope Books), her poetry and fiction has been published in anthologies and journals including the Asia Literary Review and the Literary Review of Canada. She was long-listed for the 2014 Bristol Short Story Prize.

RANU UNIYAL is the author of two books of poetry, Across the Divide (2006) and December Poems (2012). Her poems have been published in Mascara Literary Review, Medulla Review, Kavya Bharati, Femina, Manushi, Indian Literature, Muse India, Twenty 20, Sketchbook, Littlewood Press and other publications worldwide.

Her poems have been translated into Hindi, Malayalam, Urdu and Uzbeck. She is a Professor of English at Lucknow University and a founding member of PYSSUM, a day care centre for people with special needs in Lucknow.

MICHAEL VATIKIOTIS has lived in Southeast Asia for the past thirty years.

He is the author of two novels set in Indonesia and two collections of short stories set in the region. His latest novel, The Painter of Lost Souls, was published

by Godown Lontar in 2012. He lives in Singapore and is the Asia Regional Director of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue.

YONG SHU HOONG has published four books of poetry: Isaac (1997), do-while (2002), Frottage (2005), which won the 2006 Singapore Literature Prize, and From within the Marrow (2010). His poems have been included in literary journals like Quarterly Literary Review Singapore and Asia Literary Review, as well as anthologies like Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond (W.W. Norton, 2008).

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YU XUANJI (c 844–870) is perhaps the most distinctive of the female Tang Poets – writing feminist poetry in the 9th century. She also combined all the ways a woman could have some degree of independence – concubine, courtesan and priestess – into one short life (by all accounts she died, or was executed, at the age of 26).

ZHU JIAN is a Chinese poet born in 1975 in Yiyang and now based in Xi’an.

He is particularly known for his vivid short poems. Zhu joined xiabanshen (the lower body) poetry group in 2000 and became a member of Kui (Sunflower) poetry society in 2005. With some fellow poets, he launched the Chang’an Poetry Festival in 2010. His first poetry collection Tuoluo (The Spinning Top) was published in Hong Kong by Yinhe Chubanshe (Milky Way Press) in 2011.

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