Moni Mohsin - Duty Free

So I got up from next to Faiza and went to the toilet. I came out of the toilet and was walking slowly towards the sitting room looking at the new paintings in the corridor — between you, me, and the four walls, they were quite mediocre because Sunny, poor thing she has no tastes, na —when suddenly I heard Zeenat’s voice. I quickly ran behind a pillar and hid. And then I heard Shaukat’s snarling laugh and then Sunny saying, “Come, na , please come into the sitting room. So how was the Chief Minister’s reception?”

I took my mobile phone out of my bag (Prada, what else?) and quickly dialled Mummy. She answered in a sleepy voice. Aik tau Mummy is also such a loser sometimes. Going to sleep at 11:20. Imagine!

“Mummy,” I said, “it’s me.”

“I know,” she mumbled.

“Okay,” I said.

“What do you want?”

“Has Aunty Pussy told Zeenat Jonkers’ decision yet?”

“Who? Jonkers’ what?”

“Oho, Mummy. Wake up!” And I repeated my question again.

“I don’t think so,” she yawned. “She was saying yesterday that she’s sure Jonkers will come round if we give him more time. Why? What’s happened?”

So I told her I was at this dinner and Zeenat was also here and that I needed to know in case Aunty Pussy had said anything. And what was I to do?

“Talk a lot but say nothing, darling. Just bury her under an … an … ava—, what’s that word meaning flood of snow, ava something—”

“Ava Gardner?”

“No, no, not Ava Gardner. Ava Gardner was an actress. Ava something else.”

“Avalasting?”

“No silly, it’s ava—”

“Mummy I don’t want to play this bore word game. Say what you want or otherwise shut up the phone.”

“Just give her so many compliments that she can’t get one word in about Jonkers or anything else.” Aik tau Mummy is also such a clever one, na . No wonder Janoo calls her Kernel Klebb. I think so she was a famous spy from a James Bond movie. The Kernel, not Mummy.

When I returned to the sitting room, Zeenat immediately patted the seat next to her on the sofa.

“How lovely to see you here,” she said, kissing me on the cheek. “Did I tell you how much we all enjoyed meeting you that evening? We must do dinner again soon.”

“ Hai , what a fab jora you’re wearing, Zeenat Apa,” I said, sitting down next to her. “Let me guess. Bunto? Faiza Sammee? Or maybe from India? Sabyasachi? Varun Bahl?”

She looked down at the burnt orange crepe outfit she was wearing as though she’d forgotten what she’d put on. I hate when people pretend like that.

“Oh this one,” she said. “I’ve had it for so long that I forget where it came from. Tell me, how’s that charming cousin of yours? I thought he was such a fine young man. So gentlemanly, so courteous and—”

“And your earrings,” I butted in. “They are looking like real hairlooms to me. No, Faiza? Don’t Zeenat Apa’s earrings look like pukka hairlooms? Look yaar , what fat pearls. Basra, I’m thinking. Agricultured ones tau don’t have this shine at all, no?”

And Faiza also reached over to look and did lots of oohs and aahs and boasted about her own mother’s earrings that were also of Basra pearls that she gave to her daughter-in-law who then left her husband (Faiza’s brother) but took the pearls and now how their hearts smoke with anger whenever they see her going about town wearing those earrings. Another five minutes passed. I wished that Sunny would serve dinner, so we could snake out quietly. I tried to catch Janoo’s eyes across the room in the men’s side, but he was deep inside a discussion with Akbar. Aik tau Janoo is also such a hippo-crit na . When you beg and beg him to come with you to a dinner, he won’t and when you drag him out and then you want to leave, he won’t. Honestly.

“Just the other day Tanya was saying to me how much she’d like to meet you again,” said Zeenat, touching my arm.

“ Haw look at her, what a liar!” I thought to myself. And then I said: “Faiza, have you seen Zeenat Apa’s house? So much art she has, that don’t even ask. And all modern, modern, trendy, trendy.”

So then Faiza, who is a shameless show-offer, talked for ten full minutes about her own art collection and how all of Lahore’s top artists do so much respect of her and how they are always saying that no one knows about art like she does and Zeenat kept trying to cut her off but once Faiza starts only Al Qaeda can stop her. So in that time I again tried to make signals at Janoo. But would he look at me for one second even?

When Faiza finally stopped, Zeenat turned to me and said, “Shall you, me, and Tanya have lunch some time next week? And maybe you could ask your cousin to join us too?”

Haw , doesn’t she have any work to do? Who runs her schools, haan , if she’s out lunching all the time? What a fraud. And between you, me, and the four walls, I’d rather have lunch with Mullah Omar than that rude daughter of hers.

“ Hai , I’d love to,” I said, “but you know next week I think so I’m going to Sharkpur with my husband. It’s our village, na . Spending one week every month there is tau total must for me. We run a school there, my pet project. But it’s small and for poors only. Charity. Not big business complexed like yours, of course.”

“How admirable. When are you back from your village?”

“I don’t know yet. Maybe this time we’ll stay for whole month.”

Thanks God then Sunny finally announced dinner and before Zeenat could say anything else to me I escaped into the dining room. I got there first and everyone must have thought I was such a greedy but I damn cared. I managed to escape her during dinner also. Every time she came near me, I quickly made an excuse and went to the other side. Thanks God it was standing-up and not sitting-down dinner or otherwise I would have been trapped next to her. Once I said, “Oh, look at that salad. Beatroots are my best vegetable. Must have na. ” And then, “You know something, I’m tau just dying for water. No no, I’ll get it myself. I always do all my own works.” And third time I even went into the bathroom and stayed there for five full minutes but then I thought what if people outside think I’ve got cholera or something because this is second time I’ve been and so I quickly came out and thanks God by that time desert was being served and like it always happens, as soon as everyone had put their desert spoons down, they said Allah Hafiz and thank you very much and everyone left altogether.

On the way home Janoo said to me, “I understand you’re coming to Sharkpur with me next week. To check up on your pet project.”

“If you heard it from Zeenat, just ignore. You know, what she said to me? That Tanya was dying to meet me again. Look at her! She’s such a liar, that one.”

“She’s not alone,” said Janoo in a tired-type voice. I looked sideways at him but he was looking straight down the road. What did he mean?

I called up Jonkers and I said to him, “Listen, Jonkers. You’ve got to tell your mother to tell Zeenat Kuraishi that you don’t want to marry her daughter.” And then I told him what had happened to me last night. He listened quietly and then he said, “I’m sorry you had to go through that. I’ll make sure she calls Zeenat and tells her.”

Then he said he wanted to talk to me and that he’d called a few times but that I’d always been busy. He said that in fact he had to ask me a favour but that I mustn’t tell anyone. Whenever someone tells me I mustn’t tell something to anyone, immediately my ears start tinkling with excitement because I know, I just know, I’m going to hear some delish, garam masala gossip. And also I immediately start thinking, now who can I tell it to?