Hanif Kureishi - Something to Tell You

Najma turned up aflame with colour, in a glittering salwar kameez with gold embroidery. On her wrists she had silver bangles; on her hands there was some sort of brown writing; her hair resembled a swinging black carpet, and she wore more make-up than I’d seen on anyone aside from a junkie transvestite friend of Miriam’s. Najma didn’t need the slap; she was young, and her skin was like the surface of a good cup of coffee.

I assumed we were going to the hotel to fuck. I didn’t realise that the Karachi hotels were the smartest places in town, where all the aspiring courting couples went. The radical Muslims were always threatening to bomb these hotels-and did occasionally-but as there were no bars and few restaurants in the city, there was nowhere else to go, apart from private houses.

Sitting there in my ragged black suit-I could scratch my crack through the gash in the behind-drinking nothing stronger than a salted lassi, all I did was worry about the size of the bill and feel as out of place as I did on the street. But in the car on the way home, Najma asked if I’d let her suck me off. It sounded like a good idea, particularly as I doubted whether I’d be able to find my way through the complicated layers of clothes she seemed to be wearing. She pulled over somewhere. As I ran my fingers through Najma’s black hair, I thought it could have been Ajita who was satisfying me. At the end she said, “I love you, my husband.”

Husband? I put this down to the poetic exaggerations of passion. Najma and I had a lot of time together, and after our first lovemaking she made it clear she was in love with me. I liked that about her. I fall in love too easily myself. You see a face and the fantasies start, like tapping on the magic lantern.

She liked to deride the West for its “corruption” and “excess.” It was a dirty place, and she couldn’t wait to move there, to escape the cul-de-sac which was Pakistan, the increasing violence, the power of the mullahs and the bent politicians. I would be her ticket.

I’d read, and she’d lie with her head in my lap, talking. Other women who came to the house were training as doctors and airline pilots, but the Chekhovian women in my family only wanted to get away, to America or Britain-Inglestan, it was called-except that they couldn’t do it without a sufficiently ambitious husband. The ones left behind, or waiting to leave, watched videos of Bollywood movies, visited friends and aunties, gossiped, went out for kebabs, but otherwise were forced into indolence, though their imaginations remained lush and hot.

I didn’t want the sucking to stop. I liked it a lot, along with the spanking and other stuff I hadn’t yet got round to. Najma liked-she was very fond of-the economics, too. Not a Merc, darling, I’d say, when she seemed to think that that was what we’d move around London in. I’d prefer a Jag. I’ve had Jags, even a Roller, a Bentley for a week, but I sent it back. I’ve had a lot of trouble with Mercs, they’re always breaking down, the big ends go, Jesus.

Then I’d tell her New York wasn’t enough for her. We would have to go out to L.A., to Hollywood, where the swimming pools were top-class and maybe she could become an actress, she had the looks.

“Next week?” she said.

“Maybe,” I said, hastening to add that, though I might seem a bit short of money at the moment, I’d had it before and soon would again, once I started back at work. It wouldn’t take someone as smart as me long to make real money.

I have to say I didn’t begin by wanting to deceive Najma with these spidery nonsense nets. She had taken it for granted that I was already wealthy, and would become even wealthier in the near future, like her male cousins. She’d been to Britain often, but had little idea of what it was really like. Most people, in fact, seemed to think that Miriam and I were rich. If we weren’t, we must have been stupid or mentally weak. One time I saw a young servant of Yasir’s wearing my shoes, then a pair of my suit trousers.

When I remonstrated with him, he just grinned. “But you are rich,” he said in strange English.

“Get that stuff off,” I said. “I’m going to tell Yasir.”

He acted like I’d hit him. “Please, I beg you, no, no,” he pleaded. “He sack me.”

Off he went in my gear. What could I do? He earned almost nothing. Miriam, being generous and ingenious, found a way to fund him while benefiting us. She got him to bring us joints, which we’d smoke on the roof. Not long after, I discovered from Najma that Papa was referring to us as “les enfants terribles.” His own children!

Not that we weren’t looking into him too, eager to get the lowdown. I knew little about his romantic life, whether he had anyone or not. It seemed unlikely. He had his routine, his worries and his books.

There was, though, his second wife. Miriam and I went to her office, where she worked as the editor of a woman’s magazine. She was very cool, small with fine features, polite, curious and intelligent. She had an English upper-class accent with the head-wagging Indian lilt I’d liked since meeting Ajita. I could see Miriam getting a crush on her. But she wasn’t for a moment emotionally engaged with us. She didn’t talk about Papa or our lives without him. After our visit, Miriam phoned a couple of times but was told she was away.

Things began to go bad. One time I was in the library and Najma was waiting outside as she always did. I went to her, checked for prying eyes, and kissed her shiny lips a little and began to touch her, but she was cold and pushed me away. She was silent for a while, letting me take in her hurt, before beginning to abuse me in Urdu. Her father, in a rage, came in. They talked a lot in Urdu too. I got out of there. It was breaking down.

It turned out that Najma had gone to Miriam and confessed to her. We were in love, we were going to marry, we were off to London, New York, Hollywood, in a Merc, or was it a Jag?

Miriam calmly told her to forget it, Jamal was marrying no one. He’s not even a student; he’s got the degree, but so does every bum and semi-fool in London Town. Forget the Jag, the fucker might be able to drive but he hasn’t taken his test, they wouldn’t let him on the road in England. If he’s intending to marry, she finished off, he hasn’t mentioned it to me, and he mentions everything to me, otherwise I slap him.

I was in a rage with Miriam. Why did she do this? She liked the girl, she said. She felt sorry for her being subjected to my lies and stupid stories. But what was she doing herself?

It was taken for granted that I’d accompany Papa during the day (I was learning a lot), just as he took it for granted that Miriam would stay at the house with the other women. But, apparently, she had stopped doing this. Instead, she had taken to driving off in Uncle Yasir’s car, often with her head uncovered. When asked where she’d been, she’d reply, “sightseeing.” I had some idea of what these sights might be when she told me that her favourite thing in Karachi was to go to the beach and there, under a palm tree, split open a coconut and pour half a bottle of gin into it.

Most of the sightseeing she did was from within the arms of one of our cousins’ fiancés, an airline pilot who had a beach hut. He and our cousin were to be married later that year, but the pilot was taking the opportunity to get to know the further reaches of the family. He and Miriam had also been meeting in rooms in the hotel I’d visited with Najma, where he knew the manager.

They’d been spotted. Gossip was one of the few things that moved urgently in Karachi. He’d taken it for granted that English girls were easy, and when he ran into Miriam, he knew he was right. I’d been wondering how she knew so many little things about the country. Of course our cousin went crazy, and threatened to stab Miriam. Miriam was outnumbered; I refused to help her.