Moni Mohsin - Duty Free

Zahra nodded. “My husband wanted a big family but after Sana was born I wasn’t able to conceive again. We were disappointed but accepted, eventually, that it was not to be. In any case, Sana was everything we could have wished for,” she smiled at Sana, “and more. But then suddenly after eighteen years, along came Noor. We were thrilled. My husband used to call her his bonus.”

“You must have been quite old then,” said Aunty Pussy.

Honestly! If I’d been Zahra, I’d have said not as old as you are, ji. But she just laughed.

“Yes, I was forty-three. I couldn’t believe it myself.”

“You must have been very embarrassed, your mother giving birth when you were so old?” Aunty Pussy said to Sana.

“Not at all,” Sana replied, coldly. “It was what I wanted more than anything else. To have a brother or a sister.”

I got up. “Excuse me, can I go to the toilet?”

“I’ll take you.” Noor jumped up.

She led me down a tight little corridor to a twin bedroom. “This is Ammi’s and my room. Sana Apa, she has her own. All to herself. Bathroom’s there.” She pointed to a door leading off it. “Shall I wait for you?”

“Thanks, but no need. I’ll be back in a minute.”

So no guest powder room even.

After Noor had gone I had a good look around the bedroom. It was same as sitting room. Very clean and tidy but nothing expensive anywhere. No flat-screen TV, no silk curtains, no wooden floor, no Persian rug, no velvet sofa. Old window-type AC instead of new split-types we all have in our homes. The beds were covered with cotton blue-and-white bedspreads that matched the curtains. Both were faded and old-looking. On one bed — I think so must be Noor’s — was a raggedy teddy bear.

One whole wall was covered with shelves filled from top to toe with books. Not hardback expensive books like Janoo’s but tattery paperbacks, like you can buy from the second-hand stalls on the footpaths of Anarkali bazaar. The other wall had framed photos all over it. I went up to the photos wall. On top were the oldish ones, with faded colours and people in past-it fashions.

Zahra dressed as a bride, smiling shyly at her groom. He, with longish nose and darkish face, turbaned and in a sherwani , his head thrown back and laughing. A young-looking Zahra, with long, loose hair looking down at a baby (must be Sana only) in her arms. A teenaged Sana, skinny and in glasses, receiving some prize at school. Sana, still skinny and still in glasses, dressed in white PE uniform with a racket in one hand and a silver cup in the other, posing stiffly. The father — in pant-shirt — standing besides her, a hand on her shoulder. Father now with greyish hair, carrying a baby girl on his shoulders. The girl guggling and pulling the father’s hair in her fat fists. The whole family on a picnic — Noor, a toddler now, in her mother’s lap, Sana sitting next to her father, her legs drawn up, scowling at the camera. A child’s birthday party — must be Noor’s only — with Sana and her father in paper hats eating off the same plate.

And then, near the bottom of the wall, there’s no more father. A little Noor, wearing a too-big school frock, with a satchel across her chest, clutching Sana’s hand. Probably Noor’s first day at school. I have a photo like that of Kulchoo at home. Janoo holds his one hand and I hold the other. A slightly older Noor in white PE uniform holding a silver cup with Sana smiling proudly by her side. Noor, Sana, and Zahra on a beach with palm trees in the bagground. This must be the holiday Sana told me about at her office, because all are looking same like they do now. Noor and Sana, in swimsuits and wet hair, giggling, but Zahra looking away, out to the sea.

I sat down on a bed. It was the one with the teddy. One of the teddy’s eyes was missing and one ear was all patchy-patchy as if the fur had been rubbed off. As I sat there with the teddy in my lap, something happened to me. You know how when you see a picture in a magazine and you think it’s just a tree but when you hold the picture away and look at it again you realize that there’s the face of a woman hidden inside it? The lower branches are her chin and jaw and the upper branches are her forehead and that row of leaves are her eyebrows and this line of leaves are her lips and the shaggy leaves at the top are her hair and the tree trunk is her neck. And once you see the picture like that, I mean you see the face hidden inside, you can’t see the tree any more, even if you try? It was bit like that for me with Sana and her family. In the bedroom I began to see them differently. Not as Aunty Pussy wanted me to see them but as Jonkers saw them.

And I realized what Janoo told me when my accident-type thing happened with the jihadi is right — things come and go. But people, once they go, they don’t come back. They just leave a hole. The father had left a hole in the lives of the people in this house. But Sana was doing her best to fill that hole for her mother and sister. And without doing any look-at-me-what-a-heroine-I-am drama. Jonkers was right — she was brave and feasty and loving. She was the kind of girl you wanted on your side when you got into a fight at school. Because she would stand by you, and no matter how many girls you were up against, she would fight for you and if you lost the fight, then she would comfort you and tell you that it didn’t matter and make you laugh and forget your fight. Jonkers had chosen well. Sana would make him a good partner. She would make him feel that, whatever happened, she would be there for him. Like Janoo is for me.

When I came back to the sitting room, tea was being given. Noor, looking like she was going to burst into tears any minute, was passing plates around and a stone-faced Zahra was pouring out the tea. Sana was sitting on the edge of her seat, her back ram-road straight, her hands gripping the chair’s seat. Mummy was looking down at her hands. Aunty Pussy, in her cheetah print polyester suit and her backcombed maroon hair, was the only one who looked pleased with herself. She was relaxing in her armchair, hundred per cent easy. At once I knew Aunty Pussy had said something bad. I told you, na , that I have a sick-sense. Also I know what Aunty Pussy’s like.

“Ooh, is that tea?” I said. “Can I have a cup?”

“Of course,” said Zahra. “Do you take sugar?”

“One, please. Thank you, Noor. These sandwiches, they look so yummy. I bet you made them!”

“No,” she giggled. “Ammi did. But I helped her with mixing the cake mix.”

“Then I must try some of that also.”

Aunty Pussy looked at me and frowned slightly. I ignored.

“Mmm, so light! Better even than Masoom Bakery’s.”

Aunty Pussy’s head snivelled around at me. She gave me a glare. Let her. I damn cared.

“Jonkers — we call Jehangir Jonkers at home, na —he hasn’t stopped talking about your hospitality, Zahra Apa,” I said. “Now I know why.”

There was a strange choking-type sound from Aunty Pussy’s side but I didn’t bother looking. Mummy also gave a small cough but her also I ignored.

“Has Sana told you, Zahra Apa, that I went to meet her at her office with Jonkers? Haw, Aunty Pussy, did I forget to mention to you? Imagine! How absent-minded I’ve become. What a fab office. And her desk. Bigger and higher than anybody else. And so many people working under her also. You must be so proud of her, Zahra Apa.”

“I am. Very proud of her,” said Zahra, looking straight at Aunty Pussy.

Aunty Pussy put her cup down with a thud. “We have to be going now—”

“I’m having my tea still, Aunty.” I made no move to get up. Nor was I going to.

“Finish quickly. I have to be getting home.”