Kamila Shamsie - Broken Verses

And when I realized it was in Karachi. Oh, that moment. What was it? He said something. He said: this isn’t Funland. Funland! I hadn’t thought about it in years, but when he said that I remembered taking Aasmaani there and how she loved that ride, what was it called? Hurdy-Gurdy! Show me outdoors, I started to scream at the images. I’ve forgotten the passive art of television viewership. Show me the sea, please show me the sea. But it was all interiors. The ad breaks were edited out. I have never wanted so desperately to see ads. What’s being sold, what’s being used to sell it? Sixteen years of living outside the world and suddenly I was hungry for any kind of knowledge. So there I was, examining fashions. The women weren’t all covered up, that was a huge relief. Very short sleeves and near-revealing necklines for the younger actresses, as well as streamlined shalwars that could almost pass for trousers. Kameezes shorter than I remembered, though not as short as in the seventies. And hairstyles, compact. Thank God for that. The volume of hair we had to contend with when I was last part of the world was just embarrassing.

Me, looking at clothes and hairstyles. Who would have believed it possible?

Still, I couldn’t understand why I was watching it. And why the Minions were standing around, watching me as though preparing mental reports about my reactions. I couldn’t understand it at all but I kept watching and at last we had an exterior. An airport. Big and new and marble and clean. The words ‘Quaid-e-Azam International Airport’ in large letters across the top of the building.

Karachi has a new airport? I said to the Minions.

They didn’t say anything, but one of them — who I’ve caught before showing signs of sympathy — nodded briefly.

Then I forgot them. Forgot everything.

Because, disembarking from a plane, setting her foot down on the tarmac and looking up and around, as though seeing a sky she hadn’t seen for a very long time: Shehnaz. Almost before I was able to believe it really was her, she looked up at the sunset and then the scene was changing to another sunset and there she was again, pregnant at the beach.

I don’t know how I didn’t have a heart attack. Shehnaz and the waves, Macbeth at her side, and I said to the Minions, ‘Stop. Pause it. Pause!’ They just looked at me, and I stood up, tripped, fell over and crawled to the VCR, my hands the hands of a trembling old man as I pressed the pause button to freeze the moment.

I put my hand to the screen. I touched the water. The waves nearest to shore were bowing, a gesture of self-effacement that was a split second away from annihilating them. I touched the sand, first where it was wet, then where it was not. I touched Shehnaz’s face, her shoulders, the swell of her stomach. I put my forehead against the screen, wrapped my arms around the box, and tried to breathe in the scent of the ocean, the scent of her skin. I know what I looked like to the Minions: a whimpering old man trying to make love to a television. I didn’t care. I am long past dignity.

At length, I sat back and pressed ‘PLAY’.

And there you were.

Don’t ask me to relive what I felt. I cannot separate the emotions into discrete words. Three of the Minions looked away; they couldn’t watch my emotions spilling on to the floor.

Sweet, sweet torture, that’s what it was. I never realized until then how much my captor hates me. Nearly seventeen years locked in here, you’d think I wouldn’t be left in any doubt about that. But I’d begun to believe he just thought of me as some pet, not domesticated enough to be allowed out of my cage, nor interesting enough to be worth a personal visit. But to make me watch that, to have his Minions stand around as observers while I wept and flailed, and to have them tell me afterwards that this was a new television show, they would bring me one episode every week as long as it lasted but who knows how long that would be? To do all that, he has to hate me.

Was I growing too comfortable for him? Too resigned?

Or am I wrong about this? Do I merely amuse him? The revolutionary poet turned television addict.

Put that way, it is more than a little entertaining. Of course, you and I know that even when there was nothing so personal at stake I had a terrible weakness for television. And low-brow television, at that. Charlie’s Angels] Loved those girls. You could never decide whether to approve of them or not. I said, why can’t feminism show some cleavage? We were standing in your bedroom. You raised a threatening eyebrow. I said, are you going to throw something at me now? Yes, you said. Your hand moved towards a pillow and then — with one of those sudden gestures of yours — you reached up, your index finger crooked into your shirt’s neck, tugged the kameez over your head and flung it at me.

Quick! said. The curtain’s open. Anyone could be looking. Get down! I pulled you on to the bed. You were laughing and I held my hand to your bare stomach and felt the muscles move under my palm. You locked your arm around my neck as I bent to kiss your shoulder and your voice was fierce when you spoke. Never love anyone but me, you said.

Samina, are you even still alive?

They told me you were dead. The Minions did. One morning, many years ago. It was your birthday, and I have never been able to banish you so completely that you’d stay away on that day. I may go weeks without thinking of you but every 8 October morning when I wake up, there you are, pressed up against me, your leg thrown over my thigh. Sweet bliss of it!

But that year the Minions walked in without my noticing. I was singing Puccini, mixing omelette batter, and calling out to you: ‘Samina! Get out of the shower or I’m coming in after you.’ I heard footsteps behind me, and for a minute I allowed myself to believe I could smell your shampoo. But when I turned, it was them. One of them said, ‘She’s dead,’ handed me the new pair of glasses I’d been long demanding, and then they all left.

They have said nothing on the subject since and will not be drawn into any discussion of you.

My love, I think I could have borne your death with some courage. I think I would have wept with grief and then with gratitude for every second I had with you. But this not knowing. This inability to discern if he had been speaking the truth or just playing tricks with me. They do that sometimes — play tricks. They told me once that India and Pakistan had tested nuclear devices; they told me once that the Berlin Wall had fallen; they told me once that Atlantis had been discovered; they told me once that a sheep had been cloned, and named Dolly (it was the absurdity of that name which revealed the lie immediately); they told me once that brain transplants are now possible, and would I like to sign a donor card so that my thoughts could live on after my death?; they told me once that Mandela had been freed and after twenty-nine years of becoming a legend behind bars he emerged into freedom and did not disappoint the world. Ha! Can you imagine trying that one on me?

They told me all these things, and more; and some they retracted, some re-retracted, some refused to discuss any more.

Let anything happen in the world outside, I don’t care. But tell me if I should mourn for you or not. I said earlier that it didn’t matter if you were alive or dead since I’ll never see you again.

It matters, my love. It matters.

If you are dead, I’ll take kidney beans by the handful and whisper a prayer over each one before dropping it on a white sheet. I’ll knot up the beans in the sheet and tell the Minions to take it to a mosque. In this, I know they’ll oblige me. They are men who respect rituals. Then I’ll walk out into the garden which they now allow me to tend, and I’ll dig up a handful of mud to fill my nostrils with the smell of earth. I’ll close my eyes, lie upon the ground and imagine every detail of your funeral. Who was there, who helped me carry your body — or no, though others might carry you to the gravesite I would insist at the very last on taking you in my arms and lowering you into the grave. Then I’ll place the handful of mud back in the ground, pat it down, and drop a flower on it. Every day for forty days I’ll step out to this spot, and lay a fresh flower. And when the mourning period is over, I’ll know that there’ll never again be an 8 October when I’ll wake to feel you pressed against me, and in that knowledge I will find peace.