Kamila Shamsie - Kartography

If sometimes in those first months of getting to know him again the whispers and suggestions of my college friends made me look at Zia and recollect first love, first kiss, and I found myself walking that line between remembering a past emotion and reawakening that feeling again, I had only to remind myself of the way Zia continued to look at photographs of Sonia to steel myself against further foolishness. Then Amit came along, then Ricardo, then Jake, and ‘How do you do it, Zee? How do you love the same person at twenty-one as you did at thirteen?’ I would ask, and Zia just shrugged and said, ‘Desiring the unattainable; that’s all this is about,’ knowing I knew him too well to believe it. Every woman he dated at college had at least a touch of Sonia about her and when he was the one to break off the relationship it was always because ‘she wasn’t who I thought she was’.

I cleared my throat as I walked into the TV room and Zia turned away from the photograph. ‘Just choosing some music to listen to.’ He picked up the CD from the top of the pile — some Eighties compilation — and looked at the titles listed on the back. ‘Remember when Sonia thought the lyrics to the Paul Young song were: “Every time you go away / You take a piece of meat with you”?’

‘Yes!’ Sonia walked into the room. ‘And Karim dreamt up this video in which a guy announces he’s running down to the supermarket, and his wife yells, “No! Don’t take the venison!”’

Zia moved towards her, then stopped. He’d reacted the same way on first seeing her during our first winter back from college, unsure if the resumption of my friendship with him meant that he and Sonia could take their relationship back in time to 1988 as well. Sonia had laughed at his hesitation and reached out to hug him. But this time it was the covered head, and the sleeves she was tugging over her wrists, that made him pause and look to her for the first move. We heard the door to the drawing room open, and her father’s voice came booming through; Sonia smiled at Zia and rested her fingers on the back of his hand. He blushed and, seeing that, she moved away from him, gesturing to us to sit down.

‘Is it your father?’ I asked. ‘Is he making you do the hijab bit?’

‘Raheen!’ Zia’s voice quavered. ‘She does have a mind of her own.’

‘Thanks, Zia. Raheen, stop asking bakwaasi questions. We have a lot to talk about that’s more interesting than my wardrobe. Most importantly,’ now it was her turn to blush, ‘the seventh of January.’

‘Birthday of Millard Fillmore, the thirteenth president of the USA?’ I was thrilled to have the chance to display this piece of knowledge.

‘Well, OK,’ Sonia said. ‘But now you have even another reason to burn it into your memory.’

‘What, you getting married?’ I laughed.

‘Engaged.’

I did not dare look at Zia. I wanted to reach over and put my arms around him, but I knew the only thing I could do to demonstrate my friendship was to cover up his silence, which was so complete I wasn’t sure he was even breathing.

‘You’re getting engaged? Sneaky thing! You never told me there was anyone…’ I reached out to embrace her, but pulled back before we made contact. ‘Is it arranged?’

‘I really, really like him, Raheen. He’s twenty-six, his name’s Adel, good family, works with his father in the textile industry, really smart, good sense of humour, two sisters who adore him, we talk for ages on the phone every day, that was him just now calling from the office, and I’m happier than you’ve ever seen, admit it.’

‘Who could deny it? You’re radiant.’ Zia sounded like a child of seven, utterly lost, but trying to repeat a formula that his mother had taught him to get out of trouble.

Sonia looked sideways and down, and I wondered if she finally saw that I hadn’t been inventing things all those times in the last three years that I told her Zia would still walk on hot coals and eat them afterwards if she asked him to.

‘Is Adel the reason Zia is being treated like a potential rapist in your house?’

‘Raheen!’ Zia rose to his feet in an instant. ‘If she’s observing customs of proper behaviour…’

‘Proper behaviour? You can’t see her hair, can’t see her arms, can’t make more than minimal physical contact, can’t enter her bedroom. What does that say about you? As though you won’t be able to restrain yourself if…’ I faltered before the look on his face.

‘Oh, sit down, both of you. You’re such a drama queen, Raheen. And “customs of proper behaviour”…which rubbishwallah sold you that line, Zia? I know you don’t see the point in any of it. Now sit down and tell me if you want Dost Mohommad to bring tea or coffee.’

I sat down and put my arms around her. ‘When do I meet him?’

‘Not for a couple of weeks. In about an hour he’s leaving for London on work. And to buy me an engagement ring.’

‘Well, when I do meet him if he isn’t completely gaga about you I’ll have to punch him.’

‘Not his nose,’ Sonia said. ‘He has a lovely straight nose. Don’t ruin it.’

‘I’ll make sure to aim my punch well below the nose.’

‘Not too much below.’ She giggled. I started laughing too, and she turned red and pulled her dupatta down so it covered her face. ‘Tobah! You are such a bad influence. Zia, promise to keep an eye on her during the mangni; I’m fully nervous she’ll do something to embarrass me.’

‘When have I ever been able to keep her in check?’ Zia was smiling now, fooling Sonia into believing he was all right.

‘True. Only one person ever could. Good thing he’s also going to be here, flying in the day after tomorrow and staying until after the mangni. No way I’d let him miss my engagement.’

‘Seriously?’ Zia said, leaning forward but keeping his knees just a few millimetres apart from Sonia’s. ‘Karim’s coming?’

Sonia nodded and both of them looked at me, Sonia slightly nervous, as though unsure if she’d said something that would delight or appal me, and Zia merely appraising. He’d been the one who had, quite by chance, knocked on my dorm-room door just minutes after I finished that phone call with Karim, and he’d made it clear he thought I was being melodramatic, crying over something that had ended long before the phone had started to ring.

I leaned back against the cushions and watched the thin branches of the bougainvillaea whip against the window. If I closed my eyes I’d still see the red flowers, bright against my cornea, surrounded by black. If I closed my eyes I’d see Karim gather up pruned branches that his gardener had been about to throw into the incinerator; I’d see myself, aged thirteen, lying on the grass, resting my head on a pillow of bougainvillaea flowers, watching Karim fashion a hopscotch grid out of denuded branches. Through all that seeing, I’d hear myself laugh for no reason, no reason at all, and I’d wonder where that particular laugh had gone and I’d wonder if he’d bring it back with him when he walked through the doors of the airport.

Whoever he was, he wasn’t my Karimazov, my Cream, my hopscotch partner, my shadow-self, my alter ego.

Showing his passport to the airport officials, just feet away from the wide-open terminal door, he was a tall, very tall, stranger with close-cropped hair, perfectly arched eyebrows, and stylish round glasses, dressed in jeans and sneakers. If it wasn’t for those absurd ears waggling out of the sides of his head, I might have mistaken him for a foreigner. ‘Just as I feared,’ I muttered to Zia, as we leaned against the barriers that stood between the terminal door and the crowds waiting to receive foreigners and foreign-returned. ‘He’s become a gora.’