Moni Mohsin - Duty Free

“So you’ve met her four times?”

“More. And we talk on the phone every evening. I feel as if I’ve known her for years.”

“Like you knew Shumaila.” The minute I said it, Jonkers’ face crumbled and I felt bad with myself but facts are facts, no? I mean, here I am moving heaven and hell to find him a girl, going to corrupt politicians’ weddings and even drug smugglers’ houses, all to find him a decent bride from a decent bagground and here he is, again dating secretaries and all. Okay, I admit travel agent is better than a blow-dryer but still, yaar …

Jonkers wiped his mouth carefully with a napkin and put it down on his side plate. Then he said, “I know, Apa, you look down on women who have to work for a living but your attitude is both outdated and, if you don’t mind my saying so, unpleasant. I realize Shumaila probably married me for my money but she was only trying to do the best she could for herself. And you know something? In that, she was no different to those two ladies who were sitting at that table, or indeed any of your wealthy, well-connected friends who marry rich men just for their wealth.”

“ Haw , Jonkers, what have I said? You tau are getting after me for nothing.”

“Look, I’m sorry. But I know what you’re thinking. Travel agent equals glorified secretary equals gold-digger.”

“ Never . Never in a thousand years. Cross my heart. Honestly, Jonkers, what do you take me for? Haan? ”

“So will you come with me to her office? I’d like you to meet her. We’ll have to pretend you’re buying a ticket. I’d have liked to have introduced you properly without these silly excuses but I can’t just yet. I don’t want to put pressure on her. I know she’s the girl for me, but if she needs more time, she must have it. So will you come?”

“What do you mean, she’s the girl for you?”

Jonkers’ face broke out into an enormous smile. “When you meet her, you’ll see.”

“Have you told her?”

“Not in so many words but I suspect she has a pretty good idea. I’m prepared to wait. I’ll wait twenty years if I have to.”

“No, you have to get married in one month’s time. Before Muharram.”

“What do you mean? Why?”

“Because Aunty Pussy … never mind.”

“So will you come? Next week?”

“Okay, let me think. I’m not saying yes, just thinking.”

“Please don’t mention this to my mother just yet. I don’t want her barging in like a crazed bull and scaring Sana away.”

“So you’re never going to tell Aunty Pussy? Don’t mind, but you’re not going to do another Shumaila on her, haan ? Marrying in a mosque behind your mother’s back and then bringing your bride home for breakfast.”

He laughed. “I can’t see Sana agreeing to that. She wouldn’t sneak off and get married without telling her mother. They’re very close. And in any case, Sana has a lot of pride. She’d never go for a hole-in-the-corner thing like poor Shumaila did.”

“Hmm,” I said, but inside my heart I was thinking how stuppid Jonkers was. How trusting. All of this pride thing this Sana of his is putting on is just an act. The minute she sees his house and set-up and all, she’ll change her mind in two tricks.

“Now how about a burger?” asked Jonkers. “That salad looks really miserable.”

Hai , shweetoo Jonkers. He’s so sensitive.

“Okay yaar ,” I said, “I’ll come and see your trav—… your Sana. And don’t worry, I won’t tell Aunty Pussy. But one thing: my coming along to her office doesn’t mean I’m okaying your marriage to this girl. Just now I’m only seeing. Also if Aunty Pussy finds out from someone else and starts chewing my head and saying I knew all along, and why I didn’t tell her, I’ll just deny, okay? I’ll tell her, ‘I swear, Aunty, I tau, knew nothing.’ And you’d better not say anything different.” And inside I said to myself, “And she’d better not do anything to my Kulchoo.”

Sana’s office is on Jail Road, in a big, glassy skyscrapper. I had thought she’d sit in a tiny hole of an office on the back side of Moon Market or something with two peon-types working with her, but no. She is inside a skyscrapper on Jail Road next to Lahore’s trendiest furniture showroom, Zamana. But thanks God she is on the ground floor. So no need to use lift. I tau feel so scared of lifts. What if electricity goes away when you are inside? Then what? Anyways, her office has big glass windows and marble floors and plotted plants and is all air-conditioned with lots of big desks full of phones and computer screens and lots of people sitting at the desks in suits and ties and talking in English.

As I was walking in I noted that Sana’s office has six security guards sitting at the entrance, all carrying Kalashnikovs with belts full of bullets strapped across their chests. Now that the bombs-shombs have become so common, every big office on a main road has double, triple security. Hotels tau even have soldier-types in helmets crouching behind big machine guns in little room-type things made of sand sacks at the entrance. At first I was pleased to see so many guards in Sana’s office. Thanks God, I thought, if some crazy mullah -type bomber comes in, they can kill him then and there only. No questions asked. But then I noted that one of the guards had a beard and he was giving me these funny, funny-type looks. I swear my heart started racing like a camel on drugs. It suddenly donned on me then, “Who will guard the guards?” But then I said some prayers under my breath and I blowed the prayers on me and Jonkers for extra protection and then thanks God that guard yawned, scratched his privates and looked away and I started breathing again.

Sana’s desk was bigger than everyone else’s and placed to one side and you had to go up a step to reach it. So she sat higher than everyone else.

Someone was sitting with her already, a big feudal type in a starched white shalwar kurta and big black moustache that curled up at the ends. So me and Jonkers, we sat down on the sofa placed besides the step leading to her desk and waited.

While we waited, I checked her out. Her complexion was wheatish. On the darkish side of wheatish, to be frank. Aunty Pussy’s always wanted a fair-skinned girl for her Jonkers and Irum may be only sixteen and also poorish and Tanya may be a gay and Tasbeeh poor thing may be deaf and dumb, but at least they’re all fair. I wouldn’t say Sana is double of Aishwarya Rai but she’s not ugly either. Long nose. Big mouth and dimples. Hair up again in a high pony-tail. No jewellery. Just a thin gold chain around her neck. This much I will say: at least she didn’t look like a Shumaila type. No plunging neckline, no over make-up, no tight polyester outfit, no cheapster jewellery. But then, I reminded myself, looks can be receptive. Look at Jameela. She always looked so grateful, so polite, and see what she did.

Jonkers was sitting next to me pretending to flicker through a travel magazine. But his one foot was tapping the floor and I could feel the tension coming from his body almost like heatwaves. Today he was wearing an open-necked white linen shirt and casual khaki trousers. He looked as if he was reading but I could tell that all of his attention was fixed on Sana.

The feudal was speaking loudly and jabbing his finger across Sana’s desk at her. But as his voice got louder and louder, hers remained same: quiet, calm. The feudal stood up, placed his palms on her desk and leaning across, shouted, “You screwed up. Because of your incompetence, my son had to wait for six hours at Dubai airport. Six bloody hours!”