Salt and Saffron (28 page)

Ami turned to ask him something and I was left thinking of all that his question implied. Was it merely coincidence, the timing of all that had happened? Or would I never have asked the questions I asked if I hadn't met Khaleel? How can we ever know why one thing happens and not another? Perhaps, I thought, watching the curve of his neck as he laughed, perhaps when we tell our stories our stories tell on us; they reveal what is and what is not explicable in our lives. In all those years Mariam lived with us I never asked that she be explained to me. That she was who she was was enough. The answers I'd been searching for so desperately since then all stemmed back to one question. The question of why she loved Masood. I had reasons now, I had
explanations for every thing she'd ever not said, for everything she'd done. Her mother's social status; a desire to subvert hierarchies; a search for answers about why Taimur left; her final conversation with the man whom she had never considered loving (who might even have been Meher Dadi's friend from Turkey, or his son). All these were answers and together they might even form a whole. Some of them might even be more than conjecture. But none of this tells me why she loved Masood. Khaleel rested a hand on the back on my chair, his palm pressing against the small of my back in the spaces formed by the latticed design of the wood. No, none of this answered the unanswerable question.

The real question, the one that only I could answer, was this: Was I willing to take that first step? To take Khaleel with me into a room full of relatives and say, ‘Mariam and I are not-quite-twins. This man, I don't know what will happen between us, but I think he's worth the risk of heartbreak. He's worth it not because of Masood, not because of Taimur, not because of Taj or Dadi or anyone, but because. Just because. Why do you call us not-quite-twins as though we are something incomplete? More than twins, say that. Or better still, say fallible, like you; capable of error, like you; given to passion, like you.' This was a speech that I'd prepared, rehearsed in front of the mirror. Could I ever make it when even the best of the Dard-e-Dils, even my parents, had quailed when he walked in?

My mother said something I didn't catch and Khaleel replied, ‘When our hearts live, we are more than ourselves.'

I stood up and walked over to the window. My parents took this as some sort of signal. They told Khaleel there was no need to clear the table, Wasim would do that, then said
goodbye and retreated to their room. Sameer had disappeared somewhere. Wasim took a stack of plates and vanished into the kitchen. There was such an air of familiarity about the silence in the room. I looked out at Mariam's hibiscus branch. The glass between it and me was both a window and a mirror. I reached out to run my fingers through the air, parallel to the branch. Khaleel bent down to pick up a plate. My fingers traced the curve of his spine.

I'd like to thank: Saman, for the moment of fear; my parents, for double-checking facts and pointing out errors; my grandmother, Begum Jahanara Habibullah, whose memoirs were a wonderful source of information about courtly life; Marianna Karim, for helping with the historical details (the errors are all mine); Aamer Hussein, for correcting my Urdu, and other such helpful matters; the Haiders, for the lizard stories; Elizabeth Porto, for her insight; and Margaret Halton, for making this into a better book.

Kamila Shamsie was born in 1973 in Pakistan. She is the author of
In the City by the Sea, Kartography
(shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize),
Salt and Saffron, Broken Verses
and, most recently,
Burnt Shadows
, shortlisted for the Orange Prize. In 1999 she received the Prime Minister's Award for Literature and in 2004 the Patras Bokhari Award – both awarded by the Pakistan Academy of Letters. Kamila Shamsie lives in London.

In the City by the Sea

Kartography

Broken Verses

Burnt Shadows

Copyright © 2000 by Kamila Shamsie

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Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York

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eISBN: 978-1-62040-591-8

First U.S. Edition 2000
The electronic edition published in June 2013

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