The Wish Maker (64 page)

At the restaurant there was a commotion. Saif was standing with EQ and Mooji beyond the door and talking loudly on his mobile phone; and inside, under the dim lights, Uzma and Sparkle were leaning across the table toward each other and talking.

I said, “What’s going on?” and sat down on the chair next to Sparkle’s.

Uzma looked at me and looked at Sparkle.

Sparkle said, “We don’t know what’s going on.” She looked briefly at Uzma and went on: “Saif got a call from his school. There’s been a complication. I think he’s talking to his teacher right now.”

Uzma dropped the menu and said, “He’s been suspended. His name has been taken off the list and he’s been suspended.” Her look was thinly accusing and broadly demanding.

Sparkle said, “Someone went to see the principal and said all kinds of nasty things about Saif.”

Uzma didn’t look at me.

Sparkle said, “You should talk to him when he comes in.” Her tone was understanding; it contained an assumption and a warning.

I said, “This is crazy.”

Uzma said, “We trusted you!
He
trusted you! How could you
do
something like that to your
friend
?”

I said, “I didn’t do it.” I wanted to say more.

Sparkle put a final hand on my arm and said, “I guess he’s angry that you tried to get back at him like that.” Her head was tilted into her shoulder. She was blinking reasonably. “Just stay here,” she said. “He’ll come in just now and you can sort it out.”

But I went outside with the intention of seeking a fight. And the traffic sounds ate up the things I said, first in panic and then in anger and then finally in the clarity of rage: their knuckles hit my face, and then my own hands and feet were moving and I was on the floor, and the taste of blood was strange but unstartling in the way that something delayed for so long will dissolve in the last light of waiting.

I awoke in my bed at home. I saw the light beyond the curtains and tried to raise my head but couldn’t. It was heavy.

My mother came in. She sat on the bed and said, “Go to sleep.” She touched my forehead, and I felt the gauzy wrap of the bandage.

Daadi came in and said, “You are not going back to that school.”

In the morning my mother called the admissions office and asked to speak to the coordinator. She said she wanted to lodge a complaint.

The telephone operator said that the coordinator was busy. She could try calling again in the afternoon.

“This is unacceptable,” said my mother. “I am going to withdraw my child from your school right away.”

The operator said that removals didn’t require a conversation with the coordinator. The operator himself could strike the name off the list.

“Yes,” said my mother. “Please do that. Thank you so very much.”

I went back to Wilson Academy on an early summer’s day to withdraw a copy of my transcripts. It was a hot, dry day, and the fourth period was in progress; the stone path was parched and deserted. I went into the senior building to collect the papers, waited in the registrar’s office, obtained the papers and paid the money, and then went upstairs to use the toilet. I passed the art room on the way, but there was no one inside.

Two years of secondary school remained, and my mother had found a tuition center in Johar Town that provided coaching for the SATs and A-levels. It also offered a guidance and counseling department; the tuition center was affiliated with many good universities abroad. My mother and I went to see the campus. It was a converted house, a brick building with dark-tiled floors. The administrator, a round young lady with a brisk, businesslike demeanor, gave us a tour of the place, which was surprisingly well furnished: the rooms had new chairs and blackboards, new split-level air conditioners; in one room the administrator switched on the machine by pressing a button on a kidney-shaped remote control. Then she switched it off. We followed her out of the classroom and into the canteen, which had high glass windows, a coffee maker and a squadron of terra-cotta pots with bristling plants. The computer lab was in the basement, a white room divided into thirty cubicles, each with a computer and a keyboard covered in a sheet of plastic.

The administrator took us back into her office and described the program: students came for three hours in the afternoon to pursue independent courses of study. The faculty was highly accomplished; the student-to-teacher ratio was tight; textbooks were optional; a uniform was not required. The administrator showed us a list of students from the last two years who had won admission to the top national colleges, plus two in the UK, one in Canada and one in America. The monthly fees were high but not higher than usual.

“Good enough,” said my mother, and signed the forms.

In the morning I went into the kitchen to make tea. The tea was in a round plastic container by the stove. I waited for the water to boil, poured in the tea, then waited for it to come to a second boil. The water bled and bubbled. I found the teapot in a cupboard above the stove and found a family of dead insects inside. I washed it in the sink, scrubbing it with a green Scotch-Brite rag I found by the tap. It was stiff with filth but thawed in the water. The milk in the fridge was sour; I threw it into the rubbish bin, and found that this was piled high with wrappers and bones from last night’s meal. I found the satchel of powdered milk on the condiments shelf, which was, like the rest of the kitchen, in need of reorganization and repair.

I carried the tray into Daadi’s room. She was surprised. She lowered her newspaper and watched curiously as I settled the materials on the table, made her a dark brown cup with just a splash of milk, no sugar, and placed the teaspoon in a gleaming diagonal on the saucer. I passed it to her.

She took a dainty first sip.

She nodded.

I drove her to Pioneer Store to buy the groceries. She didn’t object to my driving, and sat in the back with her handbag. We passed Mrs. Zaidi’s house, and Naseem was outside, crouched by the gate, wiping its bars with a rag. She saw the car and stood up.

I lifted my hand from the steering wheel in greeting.

Naseem waved, smiled, then looked around as if she had misplaced something.

I washed the car, read its manuals and learned to recognize its many sounds. I took it with Barkat to the Caltex petrol pump and had it serviced. I spent the morning showing the sooty mechanic the faults I had identified: the hand brake was loose; the car veered to the left when I let go of the steering wheel; the lock in one of the doors at the back was jammed; and there was a scraping sound that came from beneath the car when it went over a speed bump.

He lowered himself to the ground and crawled into the darkness.

There was scraping.

“Yes!” I said. “That’s the sound.”

He came back up and said, “Silencer.”

“Silencer,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “Silencer.”

He kept the car for the day, and I had to pay him two thousand rupees. I persuaded Daadi to buy a lawnmower and dragged it along the grass on Sundays. It was noisy but did the work: all morning it sent up sparks of green, which I later cleared with a rake. One day the lawnmower bumped, and I knelt to inspect the obstacle it had uncovered. It was a bulge in the ground. I dug it out with my hands and found a box that contained a toothbrush, some pencils, a blue-nib pen, a compass, a lipstick and a hairbrush.

And there was a letter that said:

 

 

Thrilled with the rush of memory, I ran with the box into the house, into my room, pacing and remembering. I thought of taking it outside again and showing it to someone. But there was no one outside, and I stayed in my room and went over the contents again and again.