Kamila Shamsie - Kartography

Sonia’s father was more popular than ever in the wake of the dropped drug charges, thanks to the aplomb with which he had sent out poppy-shaped invitation cards to a magnificent party, just after he got back from Umra. Karachi is a city that applauds spunk, so the Ghutnas clasped the Lohawallas to their bosoms for the first time and Sonia’s mother’s dressing table collapsed under the weight of all the party invites. No one mentioned that the proposals for Sonia’s hand had dried up completely.

But Sonia had to live with the memory of all that had happened, and with the news that our friend Nadia, in London, was on the verge of getting engaged to Sonia’s almost-fiancé, Adel Rana, and I knew she would never tell me how she felt about it all, because I’d always believed her father was guilty and I hadn’t tried very hard to hide it from her.

In Newsline, the sentence ‘“What we are seeing today in Karachi is a repeat of the East Pakistan situation,” maintains a senior security official.’

‘Is that true?’ I asked Ami.

‘Ask Maheen that. She’ll tell you never to compare Muhajirs to Bengalis. Being pummelled makes it easy for us to wring our hands and forget all we’re guilty of. We left India in ’47—we left our homes, Raheen, think of what that means — saying we cannot live amid this injustice, this political marginalization, this exclusion. And then we came to our new homeland and became a willing part of a system that perpetuated marginalization and intolerance of the Bengalis. No, Karachi is not a repeat of the East Pakistan situation.’ She pressed a red rose petal between her thumb and forefinger. ‘But.’

‘But?’

‘But there are certain parallels. History is never obliging enough to replay itself in all details. Not personal history, not political history. But we can learn how to rise above the mistakes of the past, and that we haven’t done. As a country we haven’t. Not in the slightest. Your father’s letter to Maheen seems to have more than an element of prophecy in it, isn’t that so?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You were right. He looked the country in the eye. And then, he found a way still to want to stay.’ I rested my head on her shoulder. ‘That’s sort of remarkable.’

I could see his shadow outside the door; I knew he was listening when I said that.

Zia was in New York, working with an investment bank; Nadia was in London on an extended holiday, telling everyone that Adel Rana had nothing but good things to say about Sonia but of course he couldn’t be expected to marry into a family accused of drug smuggling; the twins were on the west coast of America, one working at an architect’s firm in LA, the other immersed in Web design in San Francisco; Cyrus had joined a multinational in Karachi, primarily so that he could get a foreign posting within a couple of years, and he never said a word about Nadia, whom he had loved and been loved by, but to no avail because he was Parsi and she was Muslim; Sonia’s brother, Sohail, was just a few months away from starting college in New York, and there was talk of Sonia going to New York at the same time to visit family, which meant she was to be shown around to eligible Pakistani boys on the East coast, though her father had emphasized that she was to steer clear of Zia. And Karim…

Squash courts were my refuge that summer. We played every evening, a motley group of ten or twelve of us, arriving at the courts at four and staying until eight, returning home too exhausted to think of much beyond dinner and a video and sleep. Cyrus’s sister confided in me, ‘I love the squash courts. There are so many places to hide if gunmen break in.’

Zia came home briefly. His father thought he was dying, though the doctors insisted it was chronic indigestion. His father gave him a spare key to his filing cabinets, which were overflowing with incriminating evidence and rumour and supposition about everyone we knew. ‘Burn the files,’ I told Zia, but Zia said I’d lost my chance at having a say in his life. He didn’t call Sonia at all.

At the airport, we were told our flight to Lahore was delayed, but the airline was offering us complementary breakfast in the lounge. ‘But it’s only cheese sandwiches, and I want halva puri,’ I told the airline official. ‘Sonia, call your car back and let’s go for halva puri.’

The airline official said we couldn’t go. ‘It’s not safe, wandering around town, two girls. Stay here and I’ll call my wife and tell her to send halva puri over with my son.’

‘You’re just afraid we won’t come back and the flight will be delayed because of us.’

The man shook his head and held out his car-keys: ‘If you must go, here, take my car.’

I thought, I must tell Karim about this man. I must tell Karim so much.

In Lahore, I met Uncle Chaperoo, now a government minister. ‘Are you heading south soon?’ I asked him.

‘What? To Multan?’ He tilted his large head to one side.

‘South of the country, not the province,’ I said. ‘Oh God, Karachi. No, of course not.’

Not really so long ago that Uncle Chaperoo’s was the face I imagined when I imagined Romeo; not really so long since he’d cut the romantic figure of a man defying convention by marrying outside his tribe. And now he said the problem with Karachi was that it was such a mishmash, no good could come from rampant plurality. His wife was not around when I saw him. They weren’t divorced, just indifferent.

‘Multan! South! Such circumscribed seeing,’ I said to Sonia. ‘This holiday isn’t doing much for me. Let’s go home,’ and we took the next flight out. On my way home from the airport I remembered that was a phrase from Aba’s letter: Circumscribed, seeing, a thing we can ill afford.

The Prime Minister told reporters the country was doing well. When asked about Karachi, she said Karachi was only ten million people.

Aunty Laila gripped me by the elbow in the doorway to the chemist’s and hissed, ‘We have to get out of here. Act casual.’

Numb could be mistaken for casual. I let her pull me out, my eyes sweeping the area for the glint of sun on trigger. Perhaps we should say something, warn the other shoppers. On the ground, a package. I tumbled into Aunty Laila’s car and ducked low in the seat. Still unable to speak, I gestured to her driver to step on it.

Aunty Laila opened the back door. Slowly, so slowly.

A man reached down to pick up the package.

Aunty Laila put a hand to my forehead. ‘There’s a journalist in there. I don’t want tomorrow’s papers announcing SOCIALITE BUYS SUPPOSITORIES.’

The man pulled a kabab roll out of the bag, and began to chew.

I heard Aba and Ami talking to Aunty Maheen on the phone. They sat right next to each other, his arm around her shoulder, with the phone held between them. They were both laughing.

I was supposed to be looking for a job, but what did I want to do with my life?

The memory of his throat beneath my mouth, the sting of aftershave in the cut on my lip…

A nomad from Uncle Asif’s dune begged Uncle Asif to get him a job in Karachi. Even now, even at this time, it was still a city that beckoned. Uncle Asif said that nomad was little older than I was, and I wondered if among his few possessions were a pair of marbles that looked like the eyes of a goat.

‘Why are there no parties, why are there no parties?’ Aunty Runty wept. ‘I can’t bear all this sitting at home, I can’t bear my own imagination.’

Naila hadn’t appeared with her coconut oil at anyone’s house since early May.

Orangi, Korangi, Liaquatabad, New Town, Golimar, Machar Colony, Azizabad, Sher Shah…violence in all those parts of town whose unfamiliarity still felt like a blessing. But then, six died in Kharadar, including a beggar girl. As I read through the newspaper article I saw, between one word and the next, images of bullets and bodies, the wounded weeping for the dead, crushed and broken sugar cane kicked aside by fleeing feet; balloons burst around me and the ground outside the white-tiled hotel rushed up to meet me. Gravel bit into my skin. A man cradled a boy’s blood-dark head in his lap, whispering, ‘Ocean, oceano, samundar, mohit, moa shoagor, umi, bahari, valtameri…’