The Wish Maker (17 page)

She went on walking. She had nothing to fall back on. She had never known love, never known real hatred either, and was still a person of moods, a person with a temperament, a person who felt things with uncontestable intensity. It dismayed her to know that these things were imagined. But that didn’t end the excitement, didn’t make what she thought or felt any less compelling.

She saw that she had come too far. The path had ended, and the trees were thick here and deep, the light high up and out of reach, a twinkling between the tops. There was no one way now, just dusty improvised tracks that went in different directions and may or may not have been man-made. She thought of the time and recalled that it was early afternoon. But she could be delayed here until the light began to go, and then it would be impossible to get out. She took a few determined steps in one direction, became conflicted, stopped, turned to go in the other direction but was aware now of her indecision and had to stop altogether. She was surprised when she cried out for help and the sound came back, strangely disembodied and sinister, as though someone else had said it but in her voice, someone who knew things and now gave her this feeling of being watched. She cried out again, and the echo was louder this time; her eyes were shut and her fingers were gripping the handle of the umbrella, which had a blunt tip and which she knew she couldn’t have used as a weapon.

A movement came from behind the trees. She heard the sound of nearing footsteps and became still.

“Do you need help?”

And she was overwhelmed with surprise and relief, because it was him.

“Are you lost?”

She saw that he was wearing the same shirt as the night before, and that it was crumpled, suggesting that he hadn’t bathed. She forgave it. She saw the faint growing hair above his lip.

She said, “I’m fine,” and tugged correctingly at her sweater. The umbrella was like a prop.

He was standing there.

She said, “I lost my way. I didn’t know how to get back.” The way she said it, with the attempted poise, implied that she now knew the way.

He said, “I can show you.”

And she didn’t allow herself to say anything to that.

The walk back to the street was surprisingly short (she wasn’t lost—she had strayed only a few hundred yards from the main track), but the welcome twist of that encounter made the following few minutes pause and stretch with new significance. His explanation was credible: he had been browsing the woods for pinecones and fallen branches to burn later that night in a bonfire—his friends were hosting a Tambola night at their hotel, a game like gambling—he said it was harmless and a lot of fun and pointed to the venue, a circular lawn enclosed by low white walls that emerged into the clearing of the street. So they weren’t far from each other, and the proximity was almost poetic, but also pressing, since it immediately raised the question of what she should do next. She didn’t want to appear too keen and decided to moderate her responses: she listened cautiously and then approvingly to the sound of her own voice as it hummed and provided agreement to the things he was saying. She was listening but barely: the fact of him was more engaging. His eyes were following his feet on the ground. She was trying not to look at him, and the effort made her rigid; even her small laughs were jagged, laughs of concession and not the casual collusion she was trying to suggest. She took the leap: she asked for his name. He said his name was Sami Shirazi. He said it like that, the full thing, and it was as if a schoolboy had stood up to say it for a teacher in a classroom. Then he told her that he was from Lahore but had lived for some years in Risalpur, which was a few hours’ drive from here—he had been enrolled there in the Air Force Academy. And she thought it explained the steady, unthinking way he had of asking questions and then answering them; she made a funny face; he saw it and responded with a blink—an unexpectedly difficult moment in which they found themselves facing each other—and she looked away and repositioned the dupatta around her shoulders, still walking, and he began to provide a detailed review of the things his training had involved: he listed the various positions and titles in order of increasing importance—pilot officer, flying officer, then flight lieutenant, then squadron leader—and she heard in them a swishing speed, already out of reach, like the far-off peaks she could see on the horizon.

“What are your views on the army?”

He was surprised.

“This general and his chappies,” she said, growing into the role.

“Oh,” he said, “they’ll go away.” He said it lightly, with a short dismissing frown and a nod.

“You think so? I don’t think so. He’s been here for two years. And what have you done about it? Nothing. Have you seen his face? He lies through his teeth: elections today, no, tomorrow, no, no, the day after that . . .”

She was walking faster.

And he laughed in agreement, a laugh of surrender.

She said, “Do you think they’ll hang him?” And even as she listened and appeared to solemnly consider his answer, she was aware of the impulse that made her follow the movement of his mouth, the way his upper lip protruded slightly and the faint slanting hair above it; and she was ashamed because she wanted to kiss it, and was ashamed now for reasons that she couldn’t identify and separate and then consider on their own, each with a different weight.

She said, “I am so ashamed. I can’t even think about it. I don’t know why we don’t do anything.”

They had slowed down. He was walking and looking at his shoes, frowning with the intensity that suggests an inner conflict.

“That’s my house,” she said, and explained that it wasn’t hers, she was only staying there for a few more days and then she would go back.

“Where?” he said.

“Karachi.”

“Oh,” he said.

They were standing outside the open gate.

His hands went into the pockets of his trousers. “So come by,” he said, and gave a quick nod that sent his hair falling into his eyes, and then a toss that sent it back. “Bring your friends, anyone you like, it’s a family crowd. We’re having a band and there’ll be dancing.” He enacted a scurrying away with his fingers and smiled helplessly, as if to say that dancing, though unnecessary, was a not uninteresting pastime.

But she said nothing and went inside.

She told Nargis in the evening. They went into the bedroom and Zakia said,

“I have to tell you something.”

Nargis said, “What?” and crossed her arms over her chest. She was smiling to show that she couldn’t be surprised.

Zakia told the story. And it got reduced as she told it, became clear in new ways, and ended without a conclusion. She saw that nothing important had happened, that the consequentiality was a feeling and not real.

Nargis found in it a small reflection of her own dilemma and said, “You should go. I don’t see why you shouldn’t. No one should be able to stop us from doing these kinds of things, you know.”

The lawn was bright with lights. They were strung around the trees in hoops, in jagged lines along the walls, and culminated in two towering lamps with bent necks that watched over the entrance like a pair of proud parents. The circular tables on the lawn were filling slowly with married couples who were now having to make conversation with one another, an imposition necessitated by the rigid fact of eight chairs to a table. The children were more direct about their feelings: those who got along flashed across the grass in squealing trains, and the outcasts returned to their parents with complaints.

Zakia was standing in the ballroom near a cavernous fireplace, in which there were logs but no fire. She was wearing an embroidered shawl over an outfit that belonged to Nargis, a silk shirt and a sweater and jeans, which she’d needed only a belt to wear, although the feeling was still one of heightened physicality. She was comforted by the shawl. It made her stand with her chin slightly raised, as though all embroidered-shawl-wearing women were cold and proud. Behind her the jaunty encouragements of the jazz band continued; there were some people in the ballroom but not enough to start the dancing. She had arrived on time, acting out of a new sense of duty, and had felt an early elation when she encountered him on her way inside.

“Hello!” she had said. She was smiling with her teeth.

“Oh, hi!” he said, but had gone on running.

“Where are you going?” she had cried after him, and allowed herself the note of a whine; the distance between them had rapidly increased and was paradoxically liberating.

But he had shouted, “Just setting up!” and had then disappeared behind a wall.

Now she stood beside the unlit fire and felt foolish.

“Zakia!”

It was Nargis. Moeen and the painter and another girl they had met at the party were with her. Zakia saw that they were smiling at her and waving, and she knew from this that Nargis had told them and brought them here for the show.

She kept smiling.

“Hi!”

“Hi!”

“Hi!”

“Oh, hi!”

She was kissed with cheeks on cheeks. Nargis kissed her, the painter kissed her, the other girl kissed her and then Moeen shook her hand. It was quick and right.

“Where is he?” demanded the painter.

Nargis was grinning.

Zakia said, “O God,” and flickered her eyes and made a face but also kept the smile to show that she did not feel what they all thought she did.

They were waiting.

She said, “He’s outside.”

“Who’s he with?” said the painter.

“No one,” she said.

“Oh, she wants him,” said the painter, and looked away as though the game were up.

“Stop it!” said Nargis to the painter, and smacked his arm.

They laughed.

Her smile became rigid.

Moeen said, “Drinks?” to puncture the swelling silence, and at once they all agreed and were freed into chatter.