The Wish Maker (30 page)

The TV was now showing golf: men in caps holding clubs, the people standing behind them in rows on the mown grass.

“It’s a bore,” said Uncle Shafto, and crossed his arms over his chest.

Uncle Saaji changed the channel to the news. He said, “Day-spending?”

“Night-spending,” I said.

“Why not,” said Uncle Saaji. “Why not.”

Uncle Shafto said, “Basically everything is allowed in this house. Everything I don’t mind”—he began to count the things on his fingers—“day-spend night-spend I don’t mind, friends coming-going I don’t mind, the car I don’t mind,
every
thing I have allowed. But smoking?” He was flabbergasted. “Smoking is
not
allowed, sorry.” He returned his attention to the TV but continued to shake his head.

Uncle Saaji sniffed.

And Hukmi stared.

Suri said, “Zaki,
beta
, go upstairs. It is not good for children to sit around all the time with their elders. Go upstairs and find your cousins, go.”

The rooms upstairs were preceded by a passage, a dark place where suitcases stood under shelves in angular poses, bellies rotting, some ruptured and damaged past the point of rescue, and cricket bats and tennis rackets, once fresh and vital, now lay scattered about in the dust. One bat still leaned against the wall, displaying on its blade the autograph of a famous cricketer. It had torn at the handle and flattened out at the toe, flattened from striking and striking the ground in preparation, the blade bruised in all the places where it had struck—marks of service that it wore like wounds of sacrifice, detailing abandonment. The pictures on the shelf above showed Uncle Shafto in white cricketing attire, posing with his bat at the wickets. The glass casings shone faintly with filth. They were like the other pictures on the shelves, no longer useful. And on the highest shelf sat a doll with a resilient expression in which one eye was blue and the other was missing, the mouth pink and parted in surprise: it had belonged to either Aasia or Maheen, whose voices now came from behind a door, and stopped, and started up again with the sounds of a televised cartoon.

The other door was open. Isa and Moosa were sitting on the carpet and playing a video game that was unfolding between two ninjas on the TV screen. Isa was absorbed in the game; his eyes were focused, his mouth open, his fingers waiting on the buttons of the joystick. Moosa saw that someone had come into the room but didn’t look up. He said, “Shit.”

His ninja fell. Above, in a corner of the screen, the bar that indicated its life reserves turned red and began to throb.

“Next time,” said Isa, “duck and don’t jump.”

“Duck, don’t jump,” said Moosa.

The new round began. It was the same: Isa planned his movements and retreated, and Moosa was restless, hopping to and fro and squandering his movements. His ninja suffered, recovered and fell again.

He turned.

“Oi. What’s your age?”

I said, “Ten.”

“He’s a frickin’ kid,” said Moosa.

Isa was selecting the options for a new round.

“Mama’s boy,” said Moosa, and laughed.

I said nothing in response.

Moosa turned around again and said, “You go with your mama to your school in the morning?”

He had stopped laughing.

“You deaf?”

“No.”

“You take a lunchbox?”

“No.”

“I’ll break your face.”

“No, you won’t.” It was weakened by fear.

“No?” said Moosa. “No?”

“No.”

He remained in his place. “No? You only know one word?”

“Oi,” said Isa. He was talking to me. “You want to play?”

“Winner to stay,” said Moosa, and edged away from his place on the carpet. “It doesn’t even matter if he wins. He’s still a frickin’ kid.”

I played the round. And it was difficult but instructive: the moments of contact were brief at first, then developed into entanglements. Isa gave the codes for special movements, configurations on the buttons of the joystick that enabled flying, invisibility and the appearance of a rope that lassoed the opponent ninja and made him helpless. I lost the first two rounds but won the third, and Isa gave up his place for Moosa, who played the round blindly and frantically and was calm and restored when he won.

“Next time,” he said, pointing to the TV screen, “duck instead of jumping all the time. You’ll keep on losing if you don’t listen to what I’m saying.”

In the evening we went downstairs for tea. We were going out for a drive and needed money. The elders were in the large and circular drawing room, which had a high ceiling and square windowpanes that looked out onto the lawn. Suri was bent over the tea trolley, assembling refreshments on plates and passing them around: there were lemon tarts on one plate, samosas and pakoras on another, biscuits in a jar, chicken patties and coils of jalebi in a heap on a platter. All these things were on the lower level of the trolley; the upper level held teacups and saucers, a sugar bowl, a jug of milk and a teapot in a tea cozy.

“It’s hot,” said Suri, and held out a cup on a saucer for Hukmi, who received it with both her hands.

“I want it!” cried Aasia. The idea had come abruptly: she was sitting on the floor with her legs poking out from beneath a puddled frock, playing with a pair of dolls that she now held threateningly apart.

“Me too!” cried Maheen from the floor. She was upset that Aasia had said it first.

“No,” said Suri.

Aasia resumed with the dolls.

Maheen saw that Aasia had recanted and looked weakly at her own mother.

Hukmi said, “No,” and said it with severity to set a precedent.

“Dad,” said Isa. He was standing before his father with his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

Uncle Saaji looked up from the magazine in his hands.

“How much?” he said.

Isa made a calculation and said, “Three hundred.”

Uncle Saaji saw how it added up.

“It’s too much, Saaji . . .” said Suri warningly.

Uncle Saaji counted the money and held it out. “Bring my Alka-Seltzer.”

“Too much,” said Suri.

Isa took the money and tucked it into the folds of his wallet.

Moosa said, “Dad?”

Uncle Shafto was leaning back on the sofa with his neck turned tensely to one side, his face stretched downward and lengthened in a small round mirror that he held in his hand. The other hand held a pair of tweezers near the rim of his nostril.

Moosa was waiting.

And Hukmi was watching.

“My wallet,” said Uncle Shafto, “where is my wallet?”

Hukmi said, “Take it from me,” and abruptly opened the zip of her handbag.

Moosa went to stand before his mother.

And Uncle Shafto resumed his tweezing.

“Taking the car,” said Isa, and jangled the car keys in announcement.

“Bring my Alka-Seltzer,” said Uncle Saaji.

“And don’t drive fast,” said Suri, “because you don’t have a license and we won’t come and find you at the police station in the middle of the night.”

We went to the next house, Isa’s house, and took out the smaller car from the garage. It was a Suzuki Swift, a low car with an elongated snout and a flat back. Isa claimed it was promised as a present for his fifteenth birthday, which was still a year away, though he hoped by then to be driving an automatic. He said the Swift was good for practice; he drove it with a rough efficiency, the level of consideration that is owed a thing past its prime, past the time when it is singular and paramount and the only significant thing of its kind. The houses of the colony traveled side by side until the car was out on the main road. There was noise in the streets, the sound of cars going past and of motorcycles revved in the night, a show of daring before the arrival of the holiday.

We stopped at the traffic light. An old, hunched man was going from car to car with his palm held out. He knocked on windows and waited, knocked again, raised a finger to the sky and walked on, his hands dragging along the doors of the cars.

There was movement in the seat ahead; Isa shifted and seemed to be searching for something. Then the sound came, a chuck, and another: he rolled down his window and threw out the match.

Moosa watched him smoke the cigarette, waiting with fear and anticipation. It came to him at last, and he held it carefully between his fingers, smoking the cigarette with his eyes closed and pausing to inspect the ash, which hadn’t formed. He puffed and puffed at it, the ember glowing.

He held it out.

Isa said, “You want?” His eyes were in the rearview mirror.

Moosa looked at Isa, then looked at me in the seat in the back.

“No, not now,” I said.

“Up to you,” said Isa.

He smoked the cigarette.

Moosa said, “Don’t tell everyone.”

But Isa said, “He won’t, he won’t.”

We went to a white-lit utility store in Firdaus Market, where in the beverage aisle Isa selected three bottles of Malt 79, a nonalcoholic beverage that had the taste of beer. He paid at the counter for the bottles and for his father’s Alka-Seltzer packet. Moosa paid for a new packet of cigarettes: the brand was Marlboro Lights and he wanted the soft pack, which didn’t protrude in pockets. With the remaining money we went to a video shop, one in a row of lighted shops above a sunken parking lot. Isa went in by himself and left us to wait in the car.

I said, “How long you been smoking?”

Moosa was fiddling with the glove compartment in the front. He said, “Not long. Round about one year.”

There was commotion in the street outside. The vendors and shopkeepers had come down from their stalls and shops and gathered on the pavement: they were looking expectantly at the sky, which burst now with lights, streaking flowers in violet and green and orange that died upon release and gave way to others.

“Your dad know you smoke?”

“No, man,” said Moosa. “Obviously not.” He gave a grunt at the notion and twirled the cigarette lighter in his hand. “Even if he did, I don’t see what he can do about it . . .”

“What if he found out?”

“He won’t find out.”

“What if he did?”

“Why are you asking?”

It was a need to know how fathers fell into their roles, the rules they established and the positions they had to take when others had failed.

“Just asking,” I said.

Isa returned with the video and showed it to Moosa, who confirmed that it was the one. They had a humorous exchange about the shopkeeper’s comments—he was a pious man, an elder who was easily shocked and became curt and unresponsive when confronted with vice.

“But money talks,” said Isa, and started the car.

And Moosa said we were going to have the best night of our lives.

It was slow to start. Suri and Saaji had left for the night and had gone through the shared door at the back to their own house. Isa had to go home and park the car in the garage, then go inside and deliver the car keys and the Alka-Seltzer packet to his father and ask for permission to stay the night at Moosa’s. It was granted, but not without a complication: Aasia too wanted to stay the night with Maheen—she insisted that it was fair, relying on an established system of equivalence between the houses. Suri said she had to ask Hukmi first. Then phone calls were made from one house to the other and conditions were extracted: the children—the boys as well as the girls—were expected to bathe and dress on their own in time for Eid prayers in the morning, failing which there would be no need to ask again for a night-spend, or for anything at all.