Moni Mohsin - Duty Free

The harmless-type with the thick glasses and the stammer turned out to be related to a political party thug-type boss. That same night the boss’s handymen visited Uncle Kaukab in his house in Clifton and since then Uncle Kaukab hasn’t been himself.

And Aunty Pussy, she was always the bossy type. You know na that she got married very late, almost when she was thirty. She was engaged to this dashing air force officer for seven years and then suddenly he went and married his first cousin, leaving her high and dry. All the half-decent boys of her age had been snapped up long since and she was left with nothing. And then Uncle Kaukab proposed. He was a small basic-type officer in guvmunt service in some unsexy department. And very plain also with his toad face and small, skinny body. And he didn’t even own a car. Just a scooter. But Aunty Pussy’s parents were desperate and they married her off to him. She begged and pleaded with them but they didn’t listen. Mummy says she’s never seen anyone cry as much as Aunty Pussy did on her wedding day.

But one day soon after she got married, she told Mummy if I can’t be happy, let me at least make myself comfortable. And then Aunty Pussy went to work. She found out who Uncle Kaukab’s boss’s wife was and started making cakes for her and stitching frocks for her children — she was a very good stitcher — and doing full twenty-four-hour flattery of both husband and wife and guess what? Suddenly Uncle Kaukab got promotion. Same thing happened in his next job. And next job and next job, until Uncle Kaukab became chief of central board of revenew. I shouldn’t say because they are family and all, but between you, me, and the four walls, after he became chief of revenew Uncle Kaukab and Aunty Pussy helped themselves with both hands to whatever they could — plots, houses, cars, cash, even things like fridges and phones. Articles came in the papers even about Uncle Kaukab. That’s why he panicked when all that a countability drama started.

Aunty Pussy must be so angry now that after all those years of sucking up, and bowing and scrapping, they lost all those houses in their panic. And then on top, Uncle Kaukab had to go and argue with that tenant of his so that now once again she’s the only real handler of everything in her family. Between you, me, and the four walls, Uncle Kaukab is tau out of it.

“Where were we?” said Aunty Pussy.

“In the Kuraishis’ sitting room,” I reminded.

“Think it through, Pussy,” Mummy said. “Jonkers is your one and only. You want him to have children, no?”

“And why won’t he?” demanded Aunty Pussy.

“Because Tanya is a gay.”

“Again you are going back to the same thing? I’m telling you she’ll get over it. These things are like, like … flu and chickenpox and soar throats. Everyone gets them and then they pass. Remember Sabeena’s daughter?”

“And how do we know Sabeena’s daughter is happy?” said Mummy. “She is living in Jeddah and only yesterday someone told me that Saudi is full of it. Women with women. Because the men have no time for them, the women have—”

“Tanya’s not Saudi, all right?” said Aunty Pussy.

“But imagine how everyone will laugh at Jonkers. Knowing his wife is a gay.”

“Laugh? They will die of jealousy that he’s married to such a rich girl.” I always knew Aunty Pussy was greedy but not so much that she was willing to become the laughing stop of the whole city. After all, rep — oho reputation —is also something, no?

To be honest, I wouldn’t say no to that glass-and-steel house full of erotic plants and split ACs and art-shart but could I live in it with a gay? Even worst, a gay who everyone knew was a gay? And a gay who texted all day and never even looked at me. And had filthy feet with black souls. And winked at servants and dreamed of Christian girls. No, nothing doing. We all have some pride. Even Janoo who never notices anything said the girl was rude beyond believe and had no social graces. I mean, just look at the way she spoke to her parents. Like they were servants or somethings.

And then Aunty Pussy said, “And besides, Jonkers can have his little secretaries and receptionists on the side. He doesn’t have to deny himself just because he’s married to Tanya. As long as he does it quietly, Zeenat won’t mind. She is a woman of the world, she’ll understand. And Jonkers will be happy also. Maybe he can even get Shumaila back and set her up in a little kothi in Defence.”

“Pussy!” said Mummy. “I knew you were money-minded but in sixty-three years of knowing you I never knew you could be so grabby and low.”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t look at your son-in-law’s lands and find out exactly how many acres he had and exactly how much each acre was worth, before you married her off,” she said jabbling her hand in my direction. “Being all high and mighty with me. Giving me lectures when you are same-to-same underneath.”

“Janoo is not a gay, Aunty,” I said hotly. “We have Kulchoo to proof it. And the whole city is not laughing at me and calling me mousy-type second-rater just because I am married to Janoo.”

“Who is calling my Jonky mousy-type second-rater?” Aunty Pussy yelled.

Mummy and I looked at each other and then without saying another word, we picked up our handbags and got up to go. And then we saw Jonkers standing in the doorway. I don’t know for how long he’d been standing there. I hope so he hadn’t heard me say “mousy-type second-rater.”

“Please sit down,” he said quietly to Mummy and me. We looked at each other and we put our handbags down and sat down.

“I want to say this in front of all of you, so there are no misunderstandings later: I do not want to marry Tanya. I don’t care how much money she has or how well known her mother is. I can’t see myself with her. That’s the end of it. Now either you are going to tell her mother or I will.”

“You see yourself with another Shumaila? Haan? Who robs us of our, no, my , things and cuts our noses in public and runs away? Is that what you want?” shouted Aunty Pussy.

“That’s not what I want,” said Jonkers swallowing hard. “But I know that Tanya’s not the kind of wife I want either.”

“You don’t know what type of wife you want. You don’t know anything !” shrieked Aunty Pussy.

Jonkers shut his eyes for a second but then he opened them again and looking straight at Aunty Pussy said, “I’m sorry but I’m not marrying Tanya.”

Suddenly the air seemed to blow out of Aunty Pussy. “Just give it two more days, beta ,” she said in a pleading voice. “Don’t make up your mind in a rush. After all, I’m your mother. I know what’s best for you.”

“No, Ma. My answer will still be no.”

I looked at Jonky. I swear I get a little bit frightened of Aunty Pussy when she gets angry, and here was shy, quiet Jonkers standing up to her. Honestly, he really went up in my steam then.

“So that’s settled then, Pussy,” Mummy said with a sly smile. “Tanya is out.”

Police has taken out an ad in the papers telling us all to be ware of suicide bombers. They say we should watch out for people who look a bit fattish in their top halfs (suicide vests do nothing for your figure, na ) and are distracted and loudly saying Arabic prayers and sweating like tandoor-wallahs .

So yesterday when Janoo had gone out and Kulchoo, thanks God, had gone for tuition, I was at home watching again my best English film, Bride and Prejudice . It’s an adoption of an English TV series by a famous English TV writer called Jane Austen. And then Janoo says I never watch anything intellectual. Humph! I was at the part in the film where Ashwariya’s younger sister is doing the cobra dance when the bearer came and said that a Kashmiri shawl -wallah had come and wanted to show me his stuff.