Their Language of Love (3 page)

A callow twenty-one at the time our father died, Rustom had to quickly learn certain mannerisms and modes of speech in order to function in a world ruled by the dominant and the assertive; an environment beset by sharks circling to wrest the Brewery from his control at any lack of vigilance or sign of weakness on his part.

The suspicious sentry, impervious to dismissal or compliance, stands his ground before the snout of our odd-looking transport.

‘You should have taken your Dodge,’ reprimands our mother, primly pursing her mouth and stroking her ear-lobe, a habit she acquires when she is nervous. She is referring to my brother’s year-old Dodge.

The Brewery’s grey-bearded driver intervenes: ‘We come from
there
, brother.’ With a turn of head and flick of hand, he indicates Vine Cottage, and establishes our credentials as worthy neighbours. The sentries cannot have helped but notice the Daimler emerge from the gates of Vine Cottage. Even if they rotate duties and have not seen the ancient vehicle before, they are bound to have seen our driver go in and out of Vine Cottage in the Dodge at least twenty times a day.

Tall, good-looking, impeccably attired and sporting stylish Ray-Bans, my brother steps off the running-board of the Daimler into the sunlight. On seeing him emerge in all his glory, a superior officer wearing earphones leans over the railing of the sentry box above the gate-post and barks an indecipherable order to the sentry.

The conscript immediately stands to attention to salute Rustom, and smartly marches off to help the other guards push open the green-painted gates sporting the battalion’s embossed brass insignia held within the arch of two crossed scimitars.

I’d never imagined I’d feel such a perfect stranger riding up the once-familiar drive of the Pindi Brewery estate. Lush with the overhang of trees and flowering creepers,
expanses of a fine-bladed variety of American grass and tall, trim hedges, the asphalt drive is flanked by a fresh crust of red earth. Swathes of colour blaze from the flower-beds and bougainvillea as we approach the main mansion, its sandstone facade partially covered with ivy. The long summer is almost over, the lucid air fresh with scents of mown grass, magnolias and jasmine.

Sarahbai, Rustom and I are escorted up a short wide flight of curving steps by an impressively good-looking young major with a baton tucked under his arm. His uniform has a lot of gold and red braid on it and also some medals. He conducts us courteously through a sumptuous chamber furnished with ornate desks, stuffed leather chairs and small tables, with ashtrays and tea-cups waiting to be cleared. The years have not dimmed my memory. I exchange involuntary glances with Rustom and Sarahbai as we recognize each familiar detail with a proprietary sense of surprise and nostalgia. Our eyes are shining too brightly perhaps; the young officer glances at us with a mixture of curiosity and bafflement as we drag our steps, clearly wishing to linger.

The diffused light that filters through the stained-glass windows ignites the teak panelling and parquet floors with a mellow glow; the two windows still feature the oval-shaped poetic likenesses of Wordsworth and Shelley, their names spelled out in calligraphic flourish beneath their dated torsos. The gleaming mahogany furniture, thickly carved and embossed with the shapes of long-legged, oval-bodied birds and bulbous fauna, match the artistry on the panels of the two stately doors.

‘This way,’ the major says, prompting us to follow him.

‘This used to be our home,’ says Sarahbai, her voice tinged with pride and a bashful tremor.

The major shifts his eyes from her to Rustom, his raised eyebrows respectfully awaiting an elaboration, should there be one.

Rustom looks acutely embarrassed and perturbed. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he mumbles.

Holding a hand to his heart and slightly bowing, the major ushers us through a stately door into a large oblong room, and directs us to a table that has to be the stretch-limousine of all tables, ambushed on three sides by tall-backed chairs. He pulls out a plush-covered chair for Sarahbai, and then one for me. The maroon pile is worn at the seat. I can’t for the life of me recognize the room: either the dimensions have been altered or my memory is failing me. A slightly uneven row of framed watercolours and charcoal sketches hangs to one side. An ornate mirror decorates the wall behind us, reflecting them.

As soon as the major leaves, my brother, too restive to remain seated, walks over to scrutinize the pictures. As he shifts from one painting to the next, I vaguely recognize them. Sketched, I believe, by British artists during the Raj, they were once distributed in various rooms of the Lodge. Such artefacts of the Empire are quite valuable, and I wonder that my brother did not move them when he removed himself; he was probably too naive to appreciate their value at that time.

Mother and I continue to sit, uncomfortable in our finery,
as stiff as the straight-backed chairs upon which we sit. We look quite forlorn at the far end of the long table reflected in the mirror.

Her exuberance tamped by the grand dimensions of the room that renders us so inconsequential, and also, I suspect, tempered to suit the occasion, Sarahbai is solemn. At fifty-five she is still beautiful. Her stylishly cropped hair, partially covered by her sari, is naturally dark, her skin velvety. She has never covered her head except to visit the Fire-Temple, and the petit point border pinned to her hair is one of the perplexing manifestations of her transformation from the sexy young Sarah to the regal Sarahbai. It is as if she is testing out new roles more suitable to her station as a wealthy widow; cautiously switching from fetching-lovely to modest matriarch.

Fingers stiff, Sarahbai’s hand presses down on the manila envelope she has placed on the table. Her fingers look unexpectedly stubby with her nails clipped. She wears translucent, anaemic-pink nail polish instead of the brighter colours she wore before her transformation.

The cream-coloured envelope is flamboyantly sealed with congealed red wax and stamped with the company’s lion logo. Perennially balanced on one graceful paw, while the other three paws and a tufted tail dance in animated suspension, the tiny embossed lion guards the million-rupee cheque.

Mr Bhutto is suddenly in the room. The Foreign Minister looks slight, stoop-shouldered and abstracted. I barely recognize him from the robust and bronzed young man
whose genial presence seemed to fill the Punjab Club bar only three years ago.

Hovering close to the door from which he has emerged, his demeanour makes it clear he is in a tearing hurry.

Hastily pushing back our chairs we move precipitately over the Persian rugs to where he stands, the trodden-upon borders of our saris sagging and brushing the floral patterns on the rugs.

His hair is thinner, his face almost grey. The war is taking its toll.

Mr Bhutto smiles. ‘The President is busy in a meeting. He’s very sorry he cannot see you. He told me specially to convey his salaams … What can I do for you, Sethi Sahib?’

My brother leans forward with all the ceremony of a courtier at a Mughul Durbar and mumbles something that sounds like a greeting, and then something appropriate about the gift we bear. His left hand hovering near his solar plexus, his right extended palm upwards, he slightly turns to ceremoniously present our mother.

‘Mrs Sethi would like very much to contribute something towards the war effort …’ he says, leaving the formally begun sentence dangling.

Her deceased husband’s training standing her in good stead, Sarahbai hands the envelope to Mr Bhutto with equal proportions of grace, modesty and gravity. She enunciates as clearly and solemnly as a child at a school presentation: ‘This is our contribution to the President’s War Fund … May God bless him and crown his efforts with success.’

Mr Bhutto takes the envelope from her hand with as much
courtesy as his rushed state and preoccupation can abide. Raising wry eyebrows at the red lions embossed on the wax, he breaks open the seal and examines the cheque.

‘Thank you Mrs Sethi, this is very generous,’ he says with edifying warmth. Turning to my brother and me he thanks us also. Communicating with a subtle movement of his eyes the complicity powerbrokers and politicians share, his smile dissipating the cynicism implicit in his choice of words, Mr Bhutto says to my brother: ‘I’ll bring it to the Big Man’s notice.’

My brother looks disconcerted … uncertain and hesitant.

To fortify his message Mr Bhutto bobs his head reassuringly, and adds: ‘Rest assured, he will hear of the Pindi Brewery’s contribution.’

Rustom lowers his eyes. The translucent cartilage of his ears has turned a boyish scarlet, and his left hand is still afloat in the vicinity of his solar plexus. When he raises his eyes to Foreign Minister Bhutto his expression conveys a complex amalgam of petition, gratitude and uncertainty.

I can tell he doesn’t trust the Foreign Minister to convey the message of the Brewery’s largesse to the President with due weight—if at all.

His callow lack of sophistication at finding himself in this predicament is transparent. Mr Bhutto also blushes. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says, his knowing, lopsided smile duplicated in the emphasis and inflection of his tone: ‘I will personally tell Field Marshal Ayub Khan of your contribution … It is very generous.’

I am acutely embarrassed. My brother might have better
disguised his disappointment at having to make do with the foreign minister’s, instead of the President’s, presence that he had been led to expect when he made the appointment. His misgiving and uncertainty are palpable. Mr Bhutto, too, could have been more suave.

But they are both terribly young for their station—Rustom in his mid-twenties, Bhutto not yet forty.

The embarrassed foreign minister prepares to dismiss himself. ‘You’ll excuse me,’ he says. He includes me in his polite, cursory glance, and I can feel the twitch in my lips which makes my smile quiver nervously. ‘We’re very busy,’ the minister spreads his hands, almost apologetic. ‘You know how it is these days …’ He lifts his shoulders in a slight shrug.

‘Of course, sir. Thank you, sir,’ I hear my brother hastily and obsequiously say.

Sarahbai and I, feeble echoes of his manner and words, in unison also address Mr Bhutto’s slightly stooped, rapidly retreating back with our own ‘Thank yous’.

Later that evening Sarahbai, who is not inclined to abstraction normally, dreamily says, ‘His eyes were like two stars.’

But that was a phenomenon not unknown to my mother. Sarahbai saw the likeness of stars in many eyes.

Of course all this happened before the end of the Seventeen Day War, before our friend Mr Peterson, a very junior officer at the United States Information Service in Lahore, casually told my husband. ‘You can bring Zareen back … The war
will be over in four days.’

He even told Cyrus the terms under which the ceasefire would take place.

Four days later Field Marshal Ayub Khan went on air to declare a ceasefire, stating exactly the terms described by Mr Peterson.

Well … If not God, the junior American officer was—so far as Pakistan was concerned—a close approximation.

Years have passed since the war. I have a more realistic and perhaps even cynical perspective on the world. Yet I cannot shrug off certain convictions from that time. I think prescience informed their reckless attitude when my husband and his friends scurried aboard rooftops to watch dog-fights; for, as Cyrus said, it was an uncommonly gentlemanly war. There were hardly any civilian casualties. Young captains, colonels, and even brigadiers, died in disproportionate numbers at the borders on both sides instead.

I cannot believe that the Indian Intelligence did not know that the Lahore front was left defenceless. Even the dullest reconnaissance could determine—from the transparency of a flat landscape shaped by squares of wheat fields, mango groves and mud villages—that battalions could not be concealed in that bucolic space.

What then prevented the Indians from occupying Lahore, sparing it the butchery, rape, and looting that were bound to follow?

Going against the cynical logic of war, flying in the face
of its brutal ethos, I believe that the underpinnings of this strange miscalculation was an unacknowledged compassion. The ties between the two countries—between the two halves of the divided Punjab—of friendship, shared languages, neighbourhoods and customs, were palpable in the stories that filtered through, in the miracles that abounded …

In the toast that so blessedly failed to be drunk at the Gymkhana Club.