Thicker Than Soup (14 page)

As the heat dissipated they moved to the veranda, shifting rattan chairs into soft breezes that might drift their way. Saima had changed into a new, electric blue and silver shalwar kameez in readiness for Jai's return from work and Sally fondled the silky dupatta. “You have many beautiful clothes, Saima.”

“They are wedding presents; I had many pieces.” She smiled at Yalda, the bestower, and Sally wondered how many pieces there'd been when, after three years of marriage, some were still being made up.

At her feet Sammy dressed one of Ipsita's dolls with strips of fabric he'd taken from curtaining that Yalda and Saima's were considering for rooms that had been built above the family home in preparation for the second child Saima expected in a few month's time. She was eager to be mistress of her own domain even though it was still part of the family house and wrinkled her nose at Yalda's choice of neutral stripes. Retrieving her own choice, a contrasting purple and green floral pattern, Sally observed their positions in the family; the classical older woman and the younger one with brave new ideas. The cohesive family scene reflected Sally's own dreams; she too, had a need to call somewhere her own, though a home of her own wouldn't include the family support that Saima enjoyed. It was an idealistic scene and Sally wondered about her own goals and pondered how expectations had predestined her journey through school, university, and career until motherhood swept her off course. Was it a pathway she'd merely ‘careered' along?

The sound of voices heralded the men's homecoming and signalled the end of the working day. With Sally's visit declared reason enough to abandon the kitchen in favour of another evening outing, Aamina's suggestion of the upmarket M M Allam Road was overruled by Daniel who wanted traditional Gawal Mandi street food.

Inching the car alongside other vehicles in the heavy traffic they, too, ignored the red traffic light of Kalma Chowk as Daniel entertained them with stories of childhood. “Your father, Sally, was very kind and very serious. We, that is Daoud and I, were often troublesome, but your father would take the consequences. He was the eldest and therefore responsible, you see.” He recounted how, as young boys, they'd delighted in throwing stones on to the tin roof of a building. “I threw the first,” he said, “and the noise was wonderful. It rattled and clonked then fell to the ground with a thud. I did it again, and then Samuel threw one, and Daoud did too. Soon we were throwing many and the noise was even better! Then, goodness me, I noticed a man with a very angry face coming round the side of the building. Daoud and I ran as fast as our legs would go but not Samuel. He stayed. The man was very angry but Samuel stayed and apologised. Afterwards he said that he couldn't run because his legs had been too heavy with fear! But really, he was much braver than us!”

Sally chuckled. “That sounds like my father. He teased us a lot, but he was strict too. I remember him being upset once because Matt and I had lied to him. He'd instructed us that we must not go to the fairground without him and said that he'd take us on his free evening. But we couldn't wait and went anyway, then were late home. When he asked why we were late we said that we'd helped to clear rubbish from the school field, and he congratulated us for taking part. A few days later Matt's friend came to do homework with him, and Dad joked about his friend's scruffy school bag. ‘Did you pick that up from the school field?' he asked. Of course, his friend didn't know what he was talking about and we were caught out. He was angry that we'd been to the fairground, but he was upset that we'd lied. He wouldn't let us go anywhere for two weeks, but losing his trust felt a bigger punishment than anything.”

“Your father was a good man, Sally.” Daniel steered the car round a corner and they travelled by the murky canal. “You see that water?” he asked. “As boys we used to escape the heat by jumping into it.”

“That explains a lot,” Jai said, “that water's toxic. It can do a lot to damage a boy's brain.”

“Ah, so you swam there too, eh?” Saima cut in.

The banter continued until Daniel parked the car behind others on a central reservation in the busy road and promised ten rupees to a barefooted boy to look after it. Holding a hand against oncoming traffic Jai led them over the second carriageway with Sally carrying Sammy and hoping she appeared equally unperturbed as vehicles swished around them.

Gwal Mandi was already busy with people walking and looking, many already seated at tables that covered the pavement and much of the roadway. Shop and restaurant fronts were strung with bright light bulbs and glowing braziers illuminated shiny faced chefs who juggled dishes of steaming food into the hands of dancing waiters. Plates of curries, breads, pickles, salads, and runny golden dhal were slipped amongst battered metal water jugs and tumblers. Coca-Cola, Fanta and 7-up bottles rattled and plates clattered as waiters called ‘kahari', ‘roti', or ‘saag'.

Mouths watered with expectation as they moved up the street comparing menus and inspecting arrays of meat or fish on braziers or tandoories until, decision made and table selected, Sally edged round a barefooted, sad-eyed woman selling cigarettes. A ragged child, presumably the cigarette seller's, offered chewing gum whilst keeping a wary eye on a policeman across the street. Buying a packet of tissues from another grubby child Sally reaped the reward of a gap toothed smile when she refused change of as much as the cost of the tissues. It was hard to imagine this chaotic street drama of paan and falooda makers, street entertainers, jewellery hawkers, balloon wallahs, and jalebi fryers dispersing as, later, sweepers transformed it back into its daytime persona; another traffic choked Lahorian street.

A menu appeared in Sally's hand and looking at the romanised script she realised how little Urdu she knew. She understood gosht was meat and aloo was potato, but what was rutabaga?

Yalda's voice came across the table. “What would you like to eat Sally?”

“Please, you choose for me,” she laughed, “I don't understand the menu. But I love chicken tikka – if it's not too spicy.”

“They do the best boti in Lahore over there,” she said, pointing across the street. “It's like tikka but the pieces are small. Maybe Sammy could try some.”

“Yes please, and maybe some rice and dhal for Sammy too; he likes that. Oh, and some plain lassi – we can share that. But no salt.”

From the next seat her Uncle warned her to save some space. “We're going for ice-cream afterwards.” His smile replicated that of his brother, Sally's father, and a momentary sadness clouded her face. “Do you not like ice-cream?” Daniel misinterpreted her look. “I thought everyone like ice-cream!”

“No, I mean yes. Sorry. Yes, of course I like ice-cream. It's just that, well, you look so much like my father sometimes; I miss him even more now I'm here. I've been so happy with you all and I wish I could tell him about it. It would have pleased him greatly to know that we'd met.”

Daniel placed his hand over Sally's. “He knows, Sally. God is good.”

Daniel's Christian confidence didn't persuade Sally but she appreciated his well intentioned words which sounded much like something her mother might have said. “I wish you'd met my mother too,” she told Daniel. “Or more to the point, I wish we'd been together more over the years.”

Lifting her hand Daniel clasped it in both of his. “Sally, it has been a great pleasure to meet the daughter and the grandson of my much loved brother. Our family have missed Samuel ever since he left for England nearly forty years ago. We thought then that we would all be together again within a short time, but it wasn't to be. Our mother mourned her son when she lost him to England and then again, when she lost him to God. You coming here has filled some of that gap and reduced the pain of our loss. You are our daughter.”

The sincerity of his words moved Sally to respond from her heart. “Thank you, Daniel. I wish we'd met before and I wish we had family memories to share. When we go home next week I don't know how long it will be before we'll meet again and I'm going to miss you all very much. The holiday's gone so quickly; you'll be a gap in my life. I'm not sure I understand it myself but it's as if coming here has made me more complete.”

Plates of food smacked the table. “Chicken boti,” the waiter called as he dropped the first dish into a gap at the side of naan bread. “Fried fish.” The second dish slid by the water jug and shunted a plate of salad dangerously close to Sammy's hands.

“Ha. Food.” Daniel released her hand and handed a slice of cucumber to Sammy before moving the plate out of his reach. “I have a great hunger. Let's eat. We will talk again before you leave us.”

A stack of roti landed alongside paper napkins and tasty morsels appeared on her plate as everyone insisted she try this or that. Tempted by the deliciously aromatic chicken boti she helped herself, and taking some naan proffered by Aamina, dipped it in something she recognised as dhal and placed it in Sammy's grabbing hand. Her mouth watered as the mild earthy aroma drifted upwards and dipping a second piece for herself, she let it slide over her tongue before folding more naan round a glistening morsel of boti. Lost in its juicy pungency she didn't see Sammy's empty hand until he shouted and pulled at her hand. “Greedy boy!” she laughed and caught hold of his outstretched hand, “you've eaten that too quickly!” Tearing a tiny piece of tender chicken she popped it into his mouth.

“I think you'll have to leave him behind when you go back to England, Sally,” Aamina said, “He likes his Pakistani food too much.”

“He likes all food too much.” She'd adopted the common ‘too' in place of ‘very' and chuckled. “You'd be surprised how easy it is to get Pakistani food at home, and anyway,” she promised, “we'll be back for more!”

*

During the night Sammy's screams and dirty nappies told their own stories. Dawn light smeared the eastern sky as Sally tried to muffle his cries with her wrap and quietly unfastening the door to the garden, she slipped, bare footed onto the cool, dew-damp grass. Fresh air cooled her face and she fanned Sammy's clammy skin, singing softly,
Lavender's blue, dilly dilly. Lavender's green. When you are King, dilly dilly, I shall be Queen
. Beyond the high walls the crank of a squeaking bicycle marked the start of a new day, and nearby she could hear a yard already being swept. A cockerel crowed and someone coughed, then the electronic crackle heralded the Azan. Lights appeared as neighbours rose to perform their morning prayers and water ran as they performed their ablutions. Sally sat on a garden seat and listened to the rise and ebb of the Mullah's chant. His fine voice, despite the electronic vibration on the high notes, was calm and reassuring in the early morning. Sally felt compelled to cover her head respectfully, but with her dupatta wrapped around a now sleeping Sammy, she rose and carried him gently indoors.

To her surprise she encountered her grandmother. “Oh Daadi! I hope we didn't disturb you? I'm afraid Sammy's tummy's a bit upset.”

Her grandmother shook her head. “Nahin. I am old. I do not sleep. Sorry for my English. I forget.” She beckoned Sally. “Come. Sit with me.”

Laying Sammy gently on the divan she took the chair next to her grandmother. “I think your English is very good,” she complimented, “I wish I could speak Urdu as well as you do English.”

Chuckling, her grandmother held out a hand. “I was better when your Dada was alive; I had to speak English because his Urdu was too bad. I made the children speak English too; it important to have good English so they have good life now.” She looked at Sammy. “Your baby a fine boy,” she nodded, “khoobsoorat.”

The eyes, so blue in the early light, belied her grandmother's seventy six years. “I think he's got your eyes,” smiled Sally. “They're very beautiful too.”

“Ah, yes. Beautiful. I forget. Yes. Your baby is beautiful child.” A short, silence preceded her grandmother's next question. “Sarah, what happened….Ah, sorry, I mean Sally. It is difficult; you have been Sarah for me since your father wrote me of your birth. Sally. Yes. Sally. What happened? Where is your husband?”

Fearing attitudes in Pakistan might judge her, an unmarried mother, as shameful, she'd resisted talking of Sammy's father, and as everyone had so far been too polite to ask outright, she'd admitted the truth that John had left her and hidden behind an implied assumption that it was all too painful to talk about. But now her grandmother voiced the question that most of the rest of the family were probably asking each other, and it shook the sack of guilt she carried as a memento of behaviour she believed immoral in any culture. What happened, her grandmother now asked. Faced with a need to explain herself, she hardly knew where to begin. “His name, Sammy's father that is, his name is John. He's a good man.” She stalled, unable to admit that John wasn't in fact, her husband, and worse, might not be Sammy's father. Deciding on a simpler truth she told her, “It went wrong. Horribly wrong. Now I have my son.”

Her grandmother nodded. “Does this John not want his son?”

She swallowed. “No, Daadi, he doesn't. But he has reasons. It's complicated.”

“I'm sure there are reasons. My life has taught me it is usually the people who are complicated.” Her grandmother paused. “But you still love your John?”

The questioning, already difficult, was getting harder. “I see him in Sammy,” she admitted. “It's hard not to think of him. But I've learned to live without him.” Sally couldn't say she still loved John, but she couldn't say she didn't either. “It's in the past Daddi. We have to get on with life.”

“A good man who leaves his family will have strong reasons. And I do not think you would have been wife to a bad man. So I am sorry for you all.” Her tolerance was moving and Sally understood why her father had talked so lovingly of her. “Your father didn't have to leave a wife and child but he too made a painful decision to leave his family. He was a good man too. Sometimes there are reasons.”