Daniyal Mueenuddin - In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

He didn't press her — the day after the picnic he left for his farm, where there was no phone, no cell phone service.

A week later, he called. ‘I’m back.’

‘So you are. I’m glad.’

‘What are you up to?’

‘I’m getting dressed, some Norwegian Telenor guy is having a party. I’m going to Mino’s first.’

‘That’s too bad.’

It struck her that she wanted very much to see him. ‘I guess I get plenty of those guys, and you’re farm-fresh. Come over, and I’ll make some excuse with Mino.’

‘That’s rather nice of you. I promise to be really bursting with flavor.’

She dressed carefully but very plainly, no makeup, jeans, a gypsy top with long sleeves, white — wanting to appear pretty but wholesome, as she felt. Examining herself frankly in the mirror, she acknowledged wanting to meet his image of her, not just to be pretty, but to show him a cleaner better side of herself. Another note sounded, a shrewd voice, telling her not to trust this enterprise, which required her to change her dress, her self-presentation — but then, wasn’t that exactly what she wanted, a new life, and so a new look?

On the phone she had told him to drive around behind her parents’ house, to her cottage at the back of the long garden. Now she called from an upstairs window that he should let himself in. When she came down the stairs after a few minutes, barefoot, she found him already in her little living room, standing and looking at the bookshelves.

‘You’ve made yourself right at home.’

‘You have no idea.’And then, when she looked puzzled, ‘You must have seen The Lion King . The cub says to his evil uncle, “You’re weird, Uncle Scar,” and the uncle says, “You have nooo idea.” I was trying to be funny.’

‘If you say so. Actually I knew that, I’ve seen The Lion King way too many times.’

‘Proof of compatibility,’ he suggested.

‘Or proof that I’m a Sunday afternoon stoner. How about you?’

‘Arrested development. I watch brainless movies at the farm sometimes, when I start losing it.’

Sitting on her haunches by the fireplace, she took a match and lit the rolled newspapers. She thought of doing this watched by another man a few weeks ago, feeling his eyes on her, admiring her, judging her body, back held straight, her blouse tight around her slender waist, the evening in front of them, the seduction and the dance, both of them easily prepared for this encounter — half drunk, snuck away from some party. It wearied her that this memory came now, as she turned and stood, appraising Murad’s clothes, loafers with unfortunate tassels, pressed jeans, white shirt tucked in — resembling somehow an army officer out of uniform, the effect touching to her, sincere, a gentleman calling on a lady.

The fire took, slowly at the edges, as she went to a side table and poured two glasses, without asking what he wanted.

‘We’ll have whiskey,’ she said.

‘All right.’

Murad took an etching from a stand on a table, of a man lying in a boat, stretched out under a cloak, with a lamp burning at the prow, the boat floating downstream unpiloted.

‘That’s by Chughtai,’ she said. ‘It’s my favorite thing.’

Sitting down close to him on the floor, her finger tracing the figure on the glass, she asked, ‘Why the lamp? It’s so strange, I don’t know if he’s being swept away or if he’s just sleeping like that, and letting the boat go wherever it wants. I bought it for almost nothing. It’s damaged in the corner, see, it must have been stored somewhere and got eaten just there by termites. I like it because of that.’

He stood up and replaced the etching on the table. ‘You’re more of a romantic than I am, and that’s saying a lot.’

‘Are you trying to be smooth with me, Mr. Talwan?’

‘I mean it.’

‘Come on, what do you know about me?’

He swirled the ice cubes in his glass, looked into the fire.

‘Can I tell you a story? About the first time I saw you?’

‘Do I want to hear it?’

‘I think you do, actually. Do you remember, last fall there was a party up in the mountains, at the house of Sohail Harouni?’

‘I remember. Were you there?’

‘I was. It was an odd time for me. A couple of months earlier I’d gone to my farm, sick of everything. My mother had passed away two years before, my father had taken to his bed, my aunts trying to marry me off to “suitable girls.” I was so goddamned bored, in my father’s incredibly gloomy house. I would go to visit relatives and sit there for hours saying nothing. I really don’t like my friends from Aitchison anymore, they all work in banks or do something in textiles, becoming politicians, or doing nothing if they can afford it. I hated myself, and I hated my life.

‘So I went to my father’s farm and swore to myself that I’d stay there for three whole months, without leaving. Before that I would go for a week or ten days, then retreat. Now I began the vegetable project, building the greenhouses, and I ran every day along the canal, until the villagers even got used to it. At the beginning they thought I’d gone barking mad, sprinting until I was red in the face. I would come home after running and lie on my back on the lawn and watch the day end and the stars come out. Have you ever done that? Staring straight up with the sweat trickling down my face and the mosquitoes hovering in a little formation, and I would think about how space goes on forever, and how little I mean, and how little my problems matter. Real popcorn philosophy, I know.

‘A servant was coming to the village on leave from my father’s house, and he delivered an invitation — to Sohail Harouni’s Halloween party. My three months weren’t over, and the party was just two days later. They brought the envelope out to me while I was lying on the lawn, and I realized how happy I felt, how alive, looking up at the sky. I had the farm running well, I’d been exercising, reading good books at night, now I wanted people, I wanted life. Right then I told the cook to pack some food, called my driver, called the farm managers from their houses to give them parting instructions, and a few hours later we were on the road, the driver and I taking turns at the wheel. The sun came up while we were still driving, smoking cigarettes, cruising on the motorway, over the Salt Range, into Islama bad. I love that moment, coming past the United Bakery, the jewelers, past Old Book Corner, the streets full of diplomats’ cars, the farm and its problems far far away.’

He held up his drink. ‘I’m sorry, I began sort of at the beginning. I’m boring you.’

‘No, I like it. I bet I’m about to enter the picture.’

Going to the table, he made them each another drink. Sitting with her chin on her knees, she looked into the fire, which blazed now, the room soft and dark around them — she had turned off all the lights except two lamps, sentinels, on tables flanking the door. When he handed her the glass, she took it languidly, drank, and then again put her chin on her knee.

‘I drove up to that massive house, with its views almost forever, over Rawal Dam. You remember, with a couple of hundred people there. His wife Sonya, the American, is very sweet, she was almost the only person I spoke with all night. She told me about leaving America as a bride and growing up suddenly when she came here, and then she told me that I seemed a bit lost — but said it in a way that I didn’t feel imposed on. I’m not sure why, but for me the air was magic that night, I felt secure, perfectly unruffled merely sitting by myself on the terrace, looking out at the view, fifty kilometers down to Islamabad, to ’Pindi, the lights of the cities. When you’re like that, sure of yourself, people take it quite for granted that you’re all right, they might say a word to you, and then they move on.