Moni Mohsin - Duty Free

“And why not? She’s rich, she comes from good family. Naturally he loves her.”

“Listen to me, Aunty. We’ll speak tomorrow. Okay?” And before she could say anything else I quickly hanged up on her. Then I took two Panadolls from my bag and swallowed them without water even. I swear, between Aunty Pussy and Janoo, my nerves have shattered.

And if that wasn’t enough, when I got home that evening, my maid, Jameela, came into my room and announced that she wanted to have three days off because her mother had died.

“The same mother who died last year also?” I asked her.

She started crying and said that that was actually her aunty, her father’s sister, who died last year but she used to call her Baybay because she’s married to her son and now it’s her real mother who’s died. I’m sure she’s telling lies. These people always tell lies. They don’t know truth from lies. Because they haven’t been to good convent schools like us, that’s why. But if I don’t let her go, she’ll probably go off and find another job (I’ve seen the way Sunny eyes her, like a cat eyes a rat). And if Jameela leaves then not only will I have to find a new wife for Jonkers but a new maid for myself also. Uff Allah! I bet even Obama doesn’t have so many worries. And at least he’s been given the Noble Prize. What have I been given for everything I do for everyone? Nothing!

“My grandmother used to say that even a dead elephant is worth a fortune,” said Aunty Pussy when I told her what Mulloo had said about Tanya. “Whatever she does, whoever she is, at least she can give my Jonky a comfortable life. And you shouldn’t listen to gossip. Jealous people say all sorts of things.”

“But Aunty Pussy—”

“You remember Sabeena’s daughter?” she went on as if I hadn’t even spoken. “How she wouldn’t use deodrant? Or wash her hair? Look at her now. Happily ironing her husband’s shirts in Jeddah. Happily ! You remember how much I used to faint after my head girl at school, Malika? This is a phase. Everyone goes through it. Tanya will also pass out from it.”

I’d taken Mummy along to Aunty Pussy’s for hand-holding. Mine, not hers. And thanks God I had because Aunty Pussy tau that day was completely impossible. So puffed out with importance, she was almost floating above our heads like a twenty-rupee gas balloon. Inside her mind she was already halfway to the wedding reception. Speaking about Zeenat as if they were old friends and as if the dinner was all her own idea. Just look at her!

“But you weren’t living with your head girl like her husband, Pussy,” argued Mummy.

“Oh, Malika, you also always insist on looking on the bad side. Leave it now. Everything will be fine.”

When I’d told Mummy about Mulloo’s report on Tanya, Mummy had straight away asked me if I thought Mulloo was jay (jealous, what else?) that we were about to become related to Zeenat Kuraishi and her crores .

“I know it would never occur to you, darling, because I’ve brought you up nicely but people can mislead out of jealousy, you know.”

So I’d told her that I didn’t know about the New York bit and the American girl but Tanya’s upper lips tau I’d seen with my own eyes. And yes, she also didn’t wear make-up, not even a line of coal under her eyes. Also, I told Mummy, she wasn’t like other young girls because she was least bothered to make good impressions on other people. And she hardly spoke to Zeenat. Or to us. And her father was not so nice, all bitter and nasty. But the house was fab and Zeenat looked desperate. And Mummy said that yes, family was important, very important, but only half your marriage was to the family. The other half was to your husband or wife. I don’t know if Mummy was saying this because she was tiny bit jay herself that Aunty Pussy might go up in the world and she might start looking down at us from there or because she really wanted best for Jonkers.

If I am to hold the Holy Koran in my right hand and say the truth, I’d say that when Baby first told me, I got very excited and thought only of myself and how my name would become so big and heavy and how much praise I’d get for arranging the marriage. But when I went to the house and saw how nice it was, I wanted Jonkers to have it but also I didn’t want Jonkers to have it. I felt, and I’m only saying this because I’m holding the Holy Koran, that it was too good for Jonkers and it should have gone to someone more deserving. Like me. But then when I saw Tanya, and how she was ignoring him and trying to make him feel small, I thought how dare she treat poor old Jonkers like that? Who does she think she is, haan ? Mitchell Obama? So really, I don’t know what I feel.

“Her bagground is fab,” I said. “No one can deny. You didn’t see their sitting room, Mummy. Only the paintings were worth three crores . And Zeenat’s diamond ear-studs, at least five, five carrots each. No, Aunty?”

“And so many servants and all so trained,” said Aunty Pussy. “Not once did they lift their eyes and look into ours. That’s Zeenat’s training. I can tell. She is old-blood.”

Just then Aunty Pussy’s own servant, the hundred-year-old Ghulam, who’s been with her forever, came tottering in with the tea tray. Same thousand-year-old Meakin tea service. Same thousand-year-old broken biscuits. And Aunty Pussy sitting there in her dark sitting room on her faded sofa in her thousand-year-old faded kaftan. I don’t know why she’s such a miser. The toothless Ghulam handed me a plate but it had some crusty thing stuck up to it. I showed Ghulam and he brought it up to his nose to look.

“Where?” he said, his tongue flapping about in his toothless mouth. “Oh this! This is nothing.” And he wet the end of his sleeve with spit and rubbed it off with that. “See, Baby, gone.” I told him I wasn’t hungry because no way, baba , was I going to touch that plate again. Also, I wish he wouldn’t call me Baby. He’s been calling me that since he first came to work for Aunty Pussy. I’ve thought of telling him once or twice but then I think, let him. He’s known me since I was seven and really, what goes of mine if he calls me Baby? As long as he doesn’t do it in front of anyone who matters. I wish that Aunty Pussy would buy him a set of dentures. After all, he’s worked for her forever.

While tea was being given, Uncle Kaukab came shuffling in, in his slippers and crumbled shalwar kameez and even more crumbled, unshaven face and long, grey hair uncombed and wild-looking.

“Hello, Bhaijan,” said Mummy in a loud, cheerful, total-fake voice.

“Hello, Uncle,” I also said in a loud, cheerful, total-fake voice.

“Is it breakfast time?” he asked, his watery old eyes staring at the biscuits hungrily.

“No, no, it’s tea time,” Aunty Pussy said extra loudly.

But Uncle Kaukab hadn’t heard. “How are you, child?” he asked me in a shaky voice. “Finished your exams?”

“Sunye!” Aunty Pussy yelled at Uncle Kaukab. She’s always called him “Sunye,” never Kaukab. I think so in the beginning she called him “Sunye” because she was too shy to use his name. And now she calls him Sunye because maybe he’s become deaf. But imagine calling your husband “Listen!”

“Sunye, go to your room at once,” ordered Aunty Pussy. “We are doing ladies’ talk here.”

And then she told Ghulam to take Uncle Kaukab into his room and give him tea there.

Poor Uncle Kaukab! He hasn’t been the same since he got that beating, na. Haw , don’t you remember? Ten years ago they rented out one of their many houses in Karachi to this harmless-looking, stammering Urdu-speaking-type in thick glasses who drove a small Alto and had a fat wife and four fat daughters and worked as a clerk in some guvmunt department. Anyways, halfway through, Uncle Kaukab suddenly decided to double the rent. When the harmless-type told him he couldn’t pay, Uncle Kaukab gave him notice. When the harmless-type didn’t move out, Uncle Kaukab went to Karachi himself and drove up his big car to the tenant’s house and threated and shouted and said if he didn’t bring him his money that same night at his house in Clifton, he’d be sorry. Well, he was sorry. Uncle Kaukab, not the tenant.