Kartography (41 page)

 

I learnt about the cyclical nature of violence that summer. Since November when the army had pulled out of Karachi after failing to quell the ‘law and order situation', law-enforcement had returned to the hands of the Rangers (I had once thought their name amusing, but there was no comedy to be found in the mention of them anymore) and their attempts to bring about security through ruthlessness was only breeding further terrorism. Extra-judicial killings every day. And there was a split in the MQM—the work of the intelligence agencies, so the rumour went, who saw (or thought they did) the efficiency of getting a group to break in two, each side turning bloodily on the other. But all the political analyses in the world couldn't quite explain what was happening in Karachi—what can explain men on motorbikes spraying bullets everywhere, killing without regard for ethnicity or age or gender?

 

From
Dawn
newspaper:

 

June 23: Twenty-four people were killed and several others wounded in targeted attacks, sniping and gunbattles between rangers, police and armed youths on Friday, raising the month's death toll to 204.

 

June 24: Twenty people were killed and many others wounded as widespread violence paralysed the city on Saturday. Two policemen, two MQM workers, two truck drivers, a PPP activist, and a police informer were among those who fell victim to the shooting spree.

 

June 25: At least 32 people lost their lives and many others were wounded as the city witnessed one of the worst days of violence on Sunday, marked by several rocket and grenade attacks.

 

June 26: 23 people were killed and many others wounded in the city, which remained in the grip of armed youths.

 

June 27: Fourteen people were killed on Tuesday as the city tried to limp back to normality

 

Every night, the Ghutnas gathered, and though there were interludes of revelry, in the end every evening's conversation was ultimately unchanging. ‘Haalaat bohot kharab hain,' they would say, again and again, as if English could not encompass just how bad the situation was; and then the conversation varied in its unvarying way from wondering if those accused of the killing were really guilty or just being set up; and how big a part did the ubiquitous Foreign Hand have in all of this; and could the city fall apart in such fashion without some government involvement; and were drug wars part of the reason for the violence; and which businesses had decided to start working through the strikes called by the politicians; and could the ‘talks' actually achieve anything or were they merely occasions for both sides to pretend to talk peace while really recouping their losses and getting ready for the next round of firing; and could this city—my city, this ugly, polluted, overpopulated, heartbreaking place—retain its spirit after all this battering? And finally, inevitably, someone would say: It's like 1971. Except that the army will decimate us before they allow Karachi to break away. And it always fell to my father to say. ‘No one wants civil war. Don't say it's like '71. Don't even think it.'

 

Sonia's father was more popular than ever in the wake of the dropped drug charges, thanks to the aplomb with which he had sent out poppy-shaped invitation cards to a magnificent party, just after he got back from Umra. Karachi is a city that applauds spunk, so the Ghutnas clasped the Lohawallas to their bosoms for the first time and Sonia's mother's dressing table collapsed under the weight of all the party invites. No one mentioned that the proposals for Sonia's hand had dried up completely.

But Sonia had to live with the memory of all that had happened, and with the news that our friend Nadia, in London, was on the verge of getting engaged to Sonia's almost-fiancé, Adel Rana, and I knew she would never tell me how she felt about it all, because I'd always believed her father was guilty and I hadn't tried very hard to hide it from her.

 

In
Newsline,
the sentence ‘“What we are seeing today in Karachi is a repeat of the East Pakistan situation,” maintains a senior security official.'

‘Is that true?' I asked Ami.

‘Ask Maheen that. She'll tell you never to compare Muhajirs to Bengalis. Being pummelled makes it easy for us to wring our hands and forget all we're guilty of. We left India in '47—we left our homes, Raheen, think of what that means—saying we cannot live amid this injustice, this political marginalization, this exclusion. And then we came to our new homeland and became a willing part of a system that perpetuated marginalization and intolerance of the Bengalis. No, Karachi is not a repeat of the East Pakistan situation.' She pressed a red rose petal between her thumb and forefinger. ‘But.'

‘But?'

‘But there are certain parallels. History is never obliging enough to replay itself in all details. Not personal history, not political history. But we can learn how to rise above the mistakes of the past, and that we haven't done. As a country we haven't. Not in the slightest. Your father's letter to Maheen seems to have more than an element of prophecy in it, isn't that so?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘You were right. He looked the country in the eye. And then, he found a way still to want to stay.' I rested my head on her shoulder. ‘That's sort of remarkable.'

I could see his shadow outside the door; I knew he was listening when I said that.

 

Zia was in New York, working with an investment bank; Nadia was in London on an extended holiday, telling everyone that Adel Rana had nothing but good things to say about Sonia but of course he couldn't be expected to marry into a family accused of drug smuggling; the twins were on the west coast of America, one working at an architect's firm in LA, the other immersed in Web design in San Francisco; Cyrus had joined a multinational in Karachi, primarily so that he could get a foreign posting within a couple of years, and he never said a word about Nadia, whom he had loved and been loved by, but to no avail because he was Parsi and she was Muslim; Sonia's brother, Sohail, was just a few months away from starting college in New York, and there was talk of Sonia going to New York at the same time to visit family, which meant she was to be shown around to eligible Pakistani boys on the East coast, though her father had emphasized that she was to steer clear of Zia. And Karim...

 

Squash courts were my refuge that summer. We played every evening, a motley group of ten or twelve of us, arriving at the courts at four and staying until eight, returning home too exhausted to think of much beyond dinner and a video and sleep. Cyrus's sister confided in me, ‘I love the squash courts. There are so many places to hide if gunmen break in.'

 

Zia came home briefly. His father thought he was dying, though the doctors insisted it was chronic indigestion. His father gave him a spare key to his filing cabinets, which were overflowing with incriminating evidence and rumour and supposition about everyone we knew. ‘Burn the files,' I told Zia, but Zia said I'd lost my chance at having a say in his life. He didn't call Sonia at all.

 

At the airport, we were told our flight to Lahore was delayed, but the airline was offering us complementary breakfast in the lounge. ‘But it's only cheese sandwiches, and I want halva puri,' I told the airline official. ‘Sonia, call your car back and let's go for halva puri.'

The airline official said we couldn't go. ‘It's not safe, wandering around town, two girls. Stay here and I'll call my wife and tell her to send halva puri over with my son.'

‘You're just afraid we won't come back and the flight will be delayed because of us.'

The man shook his head and held out his car-keys: ‘If you must go, here, take my car.'

I thought, I must tell Karim about this man. I must tell Karim so much.

 

In Lahore, I met Uncle Chaperoo, now a government minister. ‘Are you heading south soon?' I asked him.

‘What? To Multan?' He tilted his large head to one side.

‘South of the country, not the province,' I said. ‘Oh God, Karachi. No, of course not.'

Not really so long ago that Uncle Chaperoo's was the face I imagined when I imagined Romeo; not really so long since he'd cut the romantic figure of a man defying convention by marrying outside his tribe. And now he said the problem with Karachi was that it was such a mishmash, no good could come from rampant plurality. His wife was not around when I saw him. They weren't divorced, just indifferent.

‘Multan! South! Such circumscribed seeing,' I said to Sonia. ‘This holiday isn't doing much for me. Let's go home,' and we took the next flight out. On my way home from the airport I remembered that was a phrase from Aba's letter:
Circumscribed, seeing, a thing we can ill afford.

 

The Prime Minister told reporters the country was doing well. When asked about Karachi, she said Karachi was only ten million people.

 

Aunty Laila gripped me by the elbow in the doorway to the chemist's and hissed, ‘We have to get out of here. Act casual.'

Numb could be mistaken for casual. I let her pull me out, my eyes sweeping the area for the glint of sun on trigger. Perhaps we should say something, warn the other shoppers. On the ground, a package. I tumbled into Aunty Laila's car and ducked low in the seat. Still unable to speak, I gestured to her driver to step on it.

Aunty Laila opened the back door. Slowly, so slowly.

A man reached down to pick up the package.

Aunty Laila put a hand to my forehead. ‘There's a journalist in there. I don't want tomorrow's papers announcing SOCIALITE BUYS SUPPOSITORIES.'

The man pulled a kabab roll out of the bag, and began to chew.

 

I heard Aba and Ami talking to Aunty Maheen on the phone. They sat right next to each other, his arm around her shoulder, with the phone held between them. They were both laughing.

***

I was supposed to be looking for a job, but what did I want to do with my life?

 

The memory of his throat beneath my mouth, the sting of aftershave in the cut on my lip...

 

A nomad from Uncle Asif's dune begged Uncle Asif to get him a job in Karachi. Even now, even at this time, it was still a city that beckoned. Uncle Asif said that nomad was little older than I was, and I wondered if among his few possessions were a pair of marbles that looked like the eyes of a goat.

 

‘Why are there no parties, why are there no parties?' Aunty Runty wept. ‘I can't bear all this sitting at home, I can't bear my own imagination.'

 

Naila hadn't appeared with her coconut oil at anyone's house since early May.

 

Orangi, Korangi, Liaquatabad, New Town, Golimar, Machar Colony, Azizabad, Sher Shah...violence in all those parts of town whose unfamiliarity still felt like a blessing. But then, six died in Kharadar, including a beggar girl. As I read through the newspaper article I saw, between one word and the next, images of bullets and bodies, the wounded weeping for the dead, crushed and broken sugar cane kicked aside by fleeing feet; balloons burst around me and the ground outside the white-tiled hotel rushed up to meet me. Gravel bit into my skin. A man cradled a boy's blood-dark head in his lap, whispering, ‘Ocean, oceano, samundar, mohit, moa shoagor, umi, bahari, valtameri...'

 

Sonia called me late one night. ‘Just so sick of it. Everyone is gloom and doom and harpoon happiness. But just listen to what happened to me this evening. Ama and I had gone to my grandparents' house for dinner—Aboo's in Islamabad, and who ever knows where Sohail is these days?—and as we were walking to our car to leave, this man, real chichora type, leapt out of the shrubs, caught Amma's wrist and said, “Give me your car-keys.”'

‘No!'

‘Yes, na, I'm telling you. So Amma became suddenly hysterical and she's trying to find the key in her bag but the clasp is so complicated it takes real techknowhow to get it open, and even when she finally manages to do that her hands are shaking so much that she can't really find anything, so then the man starts to put his hand down his shalwar and said, “Hurry up and give me the keys or I'll take out my TT.” And Ama went completely mental and started throwing the contents of her bag at this guy, yelling, “No, no, anything but that,” and the man got such a shock, what with Ama and also the neighbour coming to see what the commotion was all about, that he ran away. I turned to Ama and I said, “You know, a TT is a kind of gun,” and she said, “Oh, thank God, I thought he was going to show us his privates.”'

I reminded Sonia that before this summer we used to be able to laugh without consciously thinking,
Now I'm laughing. Now the suffocation is gone from my lungs for a moment.

She reminded me there hadn't been much cause for laughter in the winter either.

 

All mobile-phone services had been suspended because there were strong indicators that such a mode of communication aided terrorist activities.

 

My car developed a flat tyre when I was driving home from the Club. When I got out of the car to check it, a Suzuki van stopped and three men got out. A cyclist pulled over beside me. A fruit seller walked across the street towards me. I knew why they stopped, I knew what they were going to do. They told me to sit back in the car, with the air conditioning on. It was a hot, sticky day. They changed the tyre for me, and then they all left.

It was exactly the sort of thing you'd expect unknown men to do in Karachi.

 

I walked into Zia's room as he was packing to return to New York. He lugged his suitcase off his bed, making room for me to lie down. But I felt awkward, said I should leave. He said he wasn't planning to come back to Karachi and who knows when he'd see me again. So how much did it really matter what happened between us, this once?