Duty Free (7 page)

The harmless-type with the thick glasses and the stammer turned out to be related to a political party thug-type boss. That same night the boss’s handymen visited Uncle Kaukab in his house in Clifton and since then Uncle Kaukab hasn’t been himself.

And Aunty Pussy, she was always the bossy type. You know
na
that she got married very late, almost when she was thirty. She was engaged to this dashing air force officer for seven years and then suddenly he went and married his first cousin, leaving her high and dry. All the half-decent boys of her age had been snapped up long since and she was left with nothing. And then Uncle Kaukab proposed. He was a small basic-type officer in guvmunt service in some unsexy department. And very plain also with his toad face and small, skinny body. And he didn’t even
own a car. Just a scooter. But Aunty Pussy’s parents were desperate and they married her off to him. She begged and pleaded with them but they didn’t listen. Mummy says she’s never seen anyone cry as much as Aunty Pussy did on her wedding day.

But one day soon after she got married, she told Mummy if I can’t be happy, let me at least make myself comfortable. And then Aunty Pussy went to work. She found out who Uncle Kaukab’s boss’s wife was and started making cakes for her and stitching frocks for her children—she was a very good stitcher—and doing full twenty-four-hour flattery of both husband and wife and guess what? Suddenly Uncle Kaukab got promotion. Same thing happened in his next job. And next job and next job, until Uncle Kaukab became chief of central board of revenew. I shouldn’t say because they are family and all, but between you, me, and the four walls, after he became chief of revenew Uncle Kaukab and Aunty Pussy helped themselves with both hands to whatever they could—plots, houses, cars, cash, even things like fridges and phones. Articles came in the papers even about Uncle Kaukab. That’s why he panicked when all that a countability drama started.

Aunty Pussy must be so angry now that after all those years of sucking up, and bowing and scrapping, they lost all those houses in their panic. And then on top, Uncle Kaukab had to go and argue with that tenant of his so that now once again she’s the only real handler of everything in her family. Between you, me, and the four walls, Uncle Kaukab is
tau
out of it.

“Where were we?” said Aunty Pussy.

“In the Kuraishis’ sitting room,” I reminded.

“Think it through, Pussy,” Mummy said. “Jonkers is your one and only. You want him to have children, no?”

“And why won’t he?” demanded Aunty Pussy.

“Because Tanya is a gay.”

“Again you are going back to the same thing? I’m telling you she’ll get over it. These things are like, like … flu and chickenpox and soar throats. Everyone gets them and then they pass. Remember Sabeena’s daughter?”

“And how do we know Sabeena’s daughter is happy?” said Mummy. “She is living in Jeddah and only yesterday someone told me that Saudi is full of it. Women with women. Because the men have no time for them, the women have—”

“Tanya’s not Saudi, all right?” said Aunty Pussy.

“But imagine how everyone will laugh at Jonkers. Knowing his wife is a gay.”

“Laugh? They will die of jealousy that he’s married to such a rich girl.” I always knew Aunty Pussy was greedy but not so much that she was willing to become the laughing stop of the whole city. After all, rep—oho
reputation
—is also something, no?

To be honest, I wouldn’t say no to that glass-and-steel house full of erotic plants and split ACs and art-shart but could I live in it with a gay? Even worst, a gay who everyone knew was a gay? And a gay who texted all day and never even looked at me. And had filthy feet with black souls. And winked at servants and dreamed of Christian girls. No, nothing doing. We all have some pride. Even Janoo who never notices anything said the girl was rude beyond believe and had no social graces.
I mean, just look at the way she spoke to her parents. Like they were servants or somethings.

And then Aunty Pussy said, “And besides, Jonkers can have his little secretaries and receptionists on the side. He doesn’t have to deny himself just because he’s married to Tanya. As long as he does it quietly, Zeenat won’t mind. She is a woman of the world, she’ll understand. And Jonkers will be happy also. Maybe he can even get Shumaila back and set her up in a little
kothi
in Defence.”

“Pussy!” said Mummy. “I knew you were money-minded but in sixty-three years of knowing you I never knew you could be so grabby and low.”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t look at your son-in-law’s lands and find out exactly how many acres he had and exactly how much each acre was worth, before you married
her
off,” she said jabbling her hand in my direction. “Being all high and mighty with me. Giving me lectures when you are same-to-same underneath.”

“Janoo is not a gay, Aunty,” I said hotly. “We have Kulchoo to proof it. And the whole city is not laughing at me and calling me mousy-type second-rater just because I am married to Janoo.”

“Who is calling my Jonky mousy-type second-rater?” Aunty Pussy yelled.

Mummy and I looked at each other and then without saying another word, we picked up our handbags and got up to go. And then we saw Jonkers standing in the doorway. I don’t know for how long he’d been standing there. I hope so he hadn’t heard me say “mousy-type second-rater.”

“Please sit down,” he said quietly to Mummy and me. We looked at each other and we put our handbags down and sat down.

“I want to say this in front of all of you, so there are no misunderstandings later: I do
not
want to marry Tanya. I don’t care how much money she has or how well known her mother is. I can’t see myself with her. That’s the end of it. Now either you are going to tell her mother or I will.”

“You see yourself with another Shumaila?
Haan?
Who robs us of our, no,
my
, things and cuts our noses in public and runs away? Is that what you want?” shouted Aunty Pussy.

“That’s not what I want,” said Jonkers swallowing hard. “But I know that Tanya’s not the kind of wife I want either.”

“You don’t know what type of wife you want. You don’t know
anything
!” shrieked Aunty Pussy.

Jonkers shut his eyes for a second but then he opened them again and looking straight at Aunty Pussy said, “I’m sorry but I’m not marrying Tanya.”

Suddenly the air seemed to blow out of Aunty Pussy. “Just give it two more days,
beta
,” she said in a pleading voice. “Don’t make up your mind in a rush. After all, I’m your mother. I know what’s best for you.”

“No, Ma. My answer will still be no.”

I looked at Jonky. I swear I get a little bit frightened of Aunty Pussy when she gets angry, and here was shy, quiet Jonkers standing up to her. Honestly, he really went up in my steam then.

“So that’s settled then, Pussy,” Mummy said with a sly smile. “Tanya is out.”

Police has taken out an ad in the papers telling us all to be ware of suicide bombers. They say we should watch out for people who look a bit fattish in their top halfs (suicide vests do nothing for your figure,
na
) and are distracted and loudly saying Arabic prayers and sweating like
tandoor-wallahs
.

So yesterday when Janoo had gone out and Kulchoo, thanks God, had gone for tuition, I was at home watching again my best English film,
Bride and Prejudice
. It’s an adoption of an English TV series by a famous English TV writer called Jane Austen. And then Janoo says I never watch anything intellectual. Humph! I was at the part in the film where Ashwariya’s younger sister is doing the cobra dance when the bearer came and said that a Kashmiri shawl
-wallah
had come and wanted to show me his stuff.

I got all excited thinking maybe I can buy a new double-coloured
shahtoosh
to make Sunny jay with. Ever since
shahtooshes
got band in India they’ve become harder to find here also. Apparently they’re made from the chin hairs of some rare mountain goat which is getting succinct in India and that’s why they’ve put the ban. Trust the Indians to spoil everyone’s fun. Honestly. Anyways, thinking it was my old shawl-
wallah
,
Akhtar, I paused the film and told the bearer to put him in the drawing room.

When I walked in, it wasn’t Akhtar at all but a thinnish, youngish man who I’d never seen before, in a
shulloo kurta
and wispy beard and a white cap on his head. But even worst, he was wearing a puffy-type leather jacket. And most worst, he had this suitcase lying beside him. I swear I heard it ticking. My colour immediately flew out of my face. He said his name was Imtiaz and that he was from Islamabad and he’d heard from the shawl
-wallahs’
grape-wine that I was a collector of shawls. And then he reached inside his pocket, took something out, and bent towards his suitcase.

Then I lost it. I told him, I said that I didn’t have any money and I hated shawls anyway and I’d never bought a shawl in my life and didn’t he know there was an economic slum on and we were defaulters and the banks were after us and he mustn’t please for Allah’s sake open the suitcase and who’d given him my address and I was a God-fearing Muslim and I had a young son and what would become of him and please have some pity. He looked at me as if I was completely crack. But I didn’t care and by this time I think so he was more afraid of me than I was of him because suddenly he picked up his suitcase and ran.

When he was gone I called all the servants—bearer, cook, drivers, maid, sweeper, guards-shards, everyone—and shouted at them for letting people into the house that they didn’t know when the sich was so bad and why were they such stuppids and just now only I’d soiled a suicide bomber all by myself.
So they also looked at me as if I was a crack but I damn care. Stuppids!

Later that evening Sunny called and said, “Guess what? I’ve just bought the most
gorge
double-coloured six-yarder
shahtoosh
from this darling little shawl-
wallah
called Imtiaz. And such a good price he gave me! Two times less than that thief Akhtar. Said he’d heard all about me from other shawl
-wallahs
. Apparently, I am known as Lahore’s greatest shawl collector. Wait till you see my new six-yarder. You
tau
will just die!”

Look at Jameela! Just look at her! She’s already a whole day late coming back. And not one word, one excuse, one sorry. Just total silence. I’ve called her mobile twenty, twenty times. Ring goes, but will she pick up? Never. I think so the minute she sees it’s my number she presses busy button. Her village is a thousand miles away at the edge of the world, otherwise I’d send someone to drag her back.

I was complaining to Mummy about her and she said, “I bet you, her mother is fat and well. I bet you she’s gone for something else.”

“Ever since she’s got married—”

“When did she get married?” asked Mummy.

“I think so, three months ago. I gave her fifty thou and gold earrings for her wedding. Since then this has been her third holiday.”

“That’s it. That’s why she’s gone. To be with her husband. You know,
na
, darling, these people can’t live without You Know What. That’s what she’s gone for. They’re not like us.
We
know there’s a time and place for everything. But they don’t. Because they are uneducated and they are villagers.”

I thought for a second that Janoo was also from a village
but then I remembered that he was not uneducated because he was an Oxen and that’s why he knows there is a time and a place for everything. Even for You Know What.

But Mummy’s right. I’m sure Jameela’s mother is in better health than me even. She’s gone for You Know What. Just wait till the madam comes back. The minute she walks in I’m going to throw her out there and then. No questions, no answers. Just “go!” And no matter how she weeps, how much she howls, how much she kisses my feet and begs to stay, I’m going to say, “Leave!” Befooling me like that, after I’ve done so much for her.