Salt and Saffron (8 page)

‘But the French require you to do military service.'

‘Well, maybe I'm lying. Maybe I'm not French. Or maybe I have done military service.'

‘What's your point?'

‘Don't pigeon-hole me, or my family, in Liaquatabad.'

I looked down into my coffee. ‘I try very hard not to pigeon-hole Liaquatabad.'

‘So what's the problem? Why didn't you jump back on the Tube before the doors closed?'

‘It was my stop.'

Khaleel poured his tea into a saucer, blew on it and tipped it into his mouth. My eyes swivelled round to check that no one I knew was watching. I knew right then everything my family would need to know about Khaleel's parents. They were hardworking, decent people. Not professors, though. Somehow they'd made it to America, land of opportunity, with barely more than the clothes on their backs, and worked absurd hours for even more absurd wages, swearing all the while that for their son it would be different. And it was. He was smart enough and lucky enough for scholarships, and he'd assimilated; maybe he'd even been offered (and accepted) the chance to live as an
exchange student in England or France while still in school. At college, perhaps he'd studied abroad for a year, and now he was thinking of going back, back to Karachi, to show his parents' families that yes, the Butts had succeeded in the US, and you wouldn't even know how humble his parents' origins were, except in moments when he revealed little habits he'd picked up at home, like slurping tea out of a saucer.

‘If I tell you I just drank in that manner to see your reaction you'll never know if it's true, or if I'm saying it precisely because I did see your reaction.' He wiped his mouth with a napkin. ‘So for that reason, and also because I did see your reaction, let's shake hands and say goodbye.'

‘No.' It was time to unlearn the art of shrugging. But, even as I thought that, I knew that this time the option to step away didn't exist. Run away, yes; but for reasons so complicated I couldn't cope with thinking about them, and also for reasons as obvious as his smile, there could be no pretence that I was capable of ambling away with only the barest backward glance.

‘If I come to Karachi, will you visit me in Liaquatabad?'

Moments when the whole world holds its breath. ‘There was a boy I knew at college. No one important. But the last time we attempted to have a conversation he said, “The insurmountable problem is that when you think of me there's logic to your thoughts.” '

‘So what are you thinking now?'

‘Every night, Mariam Apa – Did I mention her on the plane? My father's cousin? – she used to stand in our dining room just after we'd finished dinner, while Masood was clearing away the plates. She'd look out of the glass doors that led into the garden, straight at a hibiscus bush with one
branch that curved out from the rest of the plant. With her index finger she'd trace in the air the length, the curve of that branch. And she never let the mali go near the hibiscus. Tended it herself. Cut, watered and manured it. And traced it every night. I don't understand that. I would really like to understand that.'

‘Who's Masood.'

‘Our cook. He's the only person I've ever known her to speak to.'

‘All right. Time out.' He waved his napkin in the air. ‘That's it. There's no way you're not making this up.'

‘And the only food she ever ate was the food he cooked. You still want to shake hands and walk away?'

‘What is this? Are you doing some Sheherazade thing on me?'

‘No. I can't live in anticipation for one thousand and one nights.'

‘What exactly are you anticipating?'

He could be swallowed up by the earth right now and I would never forget the touch of his finger against my elbow. Absurd, absurd thought. Memory does not preserve. How horrifying that morning when you wake up and your first thought is not of the person who has left. That's when you know, I will never die of a broken heart.

I moved my elbow. Closer. ‘What now, Khaleel? What do we do now?'

‘Why can't we roll with it; see where time and tide take us?'

‘Because Liaquatabad.' I couldn't believe I'd said it out loud. But instead of looking offended he smiled at me, as though grateful for the truth.

He paid the bill, and we started walking. ‘A history lesson,' he said. ‘After the Mutiny of 1857—'

‘Revolt.'

‘Sorry?'

‘Not a mutiny. A revolt. Mutiny implies it was confined to a section of the armed forces, and though it's true that it started with the Bengal Sepoys—'

‘Whatever. The point is, after it was crushed the Mughal Emperor was stripped of all his rights, his privileges. He died poor; his children lived poorer. They were born princes; they died beggars on the streets of Delhi.' He stopped at a grocer's to buy a bag of apples. Took one out and started munching it.

There was a photograph in an old history book of mine, showing the last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, after the Revolt. He lay on a charpoy in a dusty courtyard, no robes of state, no jewels, not even an attendant. His head was turned in the direction of the camera, but that seemed merely accidental. I have never seen anything as pathetic as those eyes. I wanted to look at that picture and say that even in these conditions he looked like a king. But he didn't. He looked bewildered, and so sad.

‘So there could be descendants of those princes living in Liaquatabad. Have you thought of that? Maybe I'm one of them. Would it make you happier if I told you I was a Mughal prince?'

I shook my head. ‘You don't understand. You think this is some simple complication of me believing that lineage is all. On the plane, when I talked about the not-quite-twins, I didn't mention the first pair. You want to hear about them?'

‘I want to hear. Anything. Just keep talking.'

I had heard their story for the first time at Baji's flat that morning, between the time Samia first pointed out the stars
on the family tree and Rehana Apa mentioned the not-quites who cost us the Taj Mahal. So perhaps I should have mentioned it earlier, but I think you'll agree it fits in better here.

Cast your mind back to Baji's crowded flat and the unrolling of the family tree.

‘Hang on just a little tiny minute,' Samia said. ‘Who're these two miscreants?' Right at the top of the page beside the name Nur-ul-Jahan, the founder of Dard-e-Dil, victor of the Battle of Surkh Khait, were the names of his two wives, Kulsoom and Shahrukh. Their names were starred.

Kulsoom I knew. Her father, Qadiruddin Shah, fought alongside Nur-ul-Jahan during the Battle of Surkh Khait in 1423. There is nothing original in Qadiruddin's story. Scion of an old royal line from Persia, Qadiruddin dreamt of restoring his family to its former debauchery, but lacked the means and the ability to do so. In the Central Asian marauder, Nur-ul-Jahan, Qadiruddin saw, as his memoirs report, ‘a man so high in ambition that he would tear out his own liver and eat it to secure advancement'. Which means, I suppose, that Nur-ul-Jahan had ability, while Qadiruddin had only the knack of recognizing ability in others. Determined to tie his fortunes to those of Nur-ul-Jahan, Qadiruddin presented himself to Nur in the ceremonial garb of the kings of Persia and, by his own account, so impressed the hardened military man with his manner and deportment that, within minutes of their introduction, Nur-ul-Jahan offered Qadiruddin the position of advisor. (Many of my relatives find this account somewhat suspect, since Nur-ul-Jahan was from the royal and cultured Timurid line and was hardly likely to be taken in by some old Persian robes. It is true, however, that his grandmother,
Tamburlaine's daughter, was married off to a man known more for his warmongering than for his finesse, and it was in this man's tribe that Nur-ul-Jahan grew up. It is also true that Nur-ul-Jahan had many many advisors.)

After the Battle of Surkh Khait and the little skirmishes that followed, a marriage was arranged between Qadiruddin's daughter, Kulsoom, and the new ruler, Nur-ul-Jahan of Dard-e-Dil (no one knows why he chose that name for his realm). Shortly after providing the new royal family with an impeccable Persian lineage to add to their somewhat diffused Timurid blood, Qadiruddin was poisoned.

I had heard enough stories of Nur-ul-Jahan to know the name of his wife, so when Samia pointed out the starred names on the family tree I recognized immediately the name of Qadiruddin's daughter, Kulsoom. But her not-quite-twin, this Shahrukh character, I had never heard of.

Baji laughed at Samia's and my confusion. ‘Poor Shahrukh! Exiled to the fringes of history.' She leant back in her chair and smiled, and I knew from her expression (such a familiar expression! I'd seen it often enough on Dadi's face) that she was about to tell a wonderful story. ‘Qadiruddin's wife had died in childbirth and the baby, Kulsoom, was suckled by a wet-nurse. This wet-nurse had a daughter, Shahrukh, born the same day as Kulsoom. They say Shahrukh's father was Qadiruddin's brother, but this may just be a rumour born of the fact that Kulsoom and Shahrukh were twinned in appearance, voice and mannerism. Qadiruddin himself could not tell them apart. Now, after the marriage of Nur-ul-Jahan and Kulsoom, Qadiruddin's enemies told Nur that Qadiruddin had sworn he would never
taint his own bloodline with that of a barbaric marauder, and so he had given Shahrukh – illegitimate daughter of a wet-nurse – to Nur in marriage.'

‘That's why Nur poisoned Qadiruddin.'

‘Exactly, Aliya Begum. But he still needed Qadiruddin's lineage to bolster his own claim to power, so he married his wife's foster sister.'

‘Shahrukh!' I said.

‘Kulsoom!' Samia said.

Baji laughed again. ‘Well, no one knows. Qadiruddin's enemies might have been lying, or they might not. The foster sisters never revealed which was which, and with the wet-nurse dead no one else could tell them apart. All their lives they each answered to both “Kulsoom” and “Shahrukh”; each claimed to belong to the royal family of Persia, each referred to that wet-nurse as her mother.'

‘So they were the first not-quite-twins?' I ran my fingers over their names. When Baji nodded, I said, ‘But then the myth is untrue. The first not-quite-twins didn't bring ruin to the family. Okay, so they didn't do Qadiruddin any good, but as far as the Dard-e-Dil family goes, they were … that is, Kulsoom was, I mean … Oh my God.'

Baji clapped her hands and sat back, watching Samia and me gape at each other. ‘We're all descended from the illegitimate child of a wet nurse,' Baji giggled. ‘As likely as not.'

‘So you see,' I told Khaleel, ‘the Liaquatabad problem isn't about lineage as such. If it were, if that was the issue I was having to struggle with, I wouldn't just be reprehensible, I'd be stupid. Right?'

‘Er … well. Hey, is that your cousin?'

In a newsagent's doorway stood a woman I'd never seen
before, with dark hair and beautiful eyes. ‘We all look alike to you, don't we? You Americans!'

He checked to make sure I was teasing, and then laughed. ‘Don't tell me you don't see the resemblance. But no, I guess it's pretty obvious that woman is not related to you.'

‘Why's that?' By now we'd walked past her, and I looked back once more because really, she did look a little like Samia.

‘Didn't you see her hands? She's clearly not from a privileged background.'

‘What, you read her palm as we walked past?'

‘No. But she's grown up having to do some kind of manual labour. Didn't you see the veins bulging out from the back of her hands?'

There was a bench nearby, so I sat down. I looked back at the woman with beautiful eyes whose collarbone was hidden entirely beneath her high-necked shirt. Khaleel said my name, twice, and when I didn't answer he put his hand to my forehead, his wrist just inches from my lips. His other hand rested on my knee and when I looked down I saw him holding the half-eaten apple, his teeth marks embedded in its flesh. I looked up at him and smiled. ‘As I was saying, it's not about lineage or, to give it its more modern term, family background. It's not that simple.'

The woman with beautiful eyes walked by, talking to a man. I heard him say, ‘How's the new sculpture coming along?'

‘A sculptor. Hence the hands.' I stood up. ‘I was just about to go up to her and say … I don't know … Show me your clavicle, or something equally suave.'

‘So what is it about if not lineage?'

‘Do you know what I found out today? That I'm fated to bring ruin to my family. Me and Mariam.' I said it, and then I stopped to think about it for the first time. Oh, I told the stories often enough. The curse of the not-quite-twins. The inevitability of destruction trailing in their wake. But if you'd asked me whether I believed, truly believed, the stories, I'd have laughed. But seeing that star against my name, seeing that other star against Mariam's name and thinking of what she'd done and how my family had reacted, something more primeval than logic or cynicism or nineties cool had made me feel – still made me feel – so sick, so trapped.

‘Cal,' I said, taking the apple core from his hands and dropping it in a garbage can. ‘In another life, maybe even in another year, we'd meet each other's friends, we'd watch movies together, we'd talk on the telephone about nothing, and I'd order such meals for you in restaurants! But, instead, I'm going to get on a plane tomorrow and go home. And it's still May. This time I booked my ticket back for May. And look, Khaleel, we've reached my flat, and I can see Samia through the window, so even if it had occurred to me to invite you up, now I won't. So you're right. Let's shake hands and say goodbye.'

‘Aliya, I'm not going to shake your hand. No way. No civilized goodbyes, or sorry-our-timing-was-bad speeches, okay?'

‘What then, Khaleel?'

Samia was watching television when I walked into the flat, minutes later, but she turned it off when she saw me. ‘Where have you … What's wrong? You look mighty odd.' She walked closer to me. ‘Are you drunk?' She leant in, smelt my breath. ‘Is that cider?'