Thicker Than Soup (22 page)

Sorrow darkened his grandmother's face. “I wish you could Sammy but I'm afraid your Mummy would cry for ever if you came with me.” She hugged her grandson. “But promise to come soon? With Mummy and your new Daddy.”

Sally bit at her lip. Her mother mistrusted most of the world outside London; it would have been a huge effort to come to Pakistan and she was intensely grateful for it. And now she faced not only the journey home, but the pain of leaving them in a new, distant life. Running fingers absently through Sammy's tangled hair she reassured her mother. “We'll come, Mum. Very soon. I promise.” A car horn sounded and she handed over the letter. “Here, can you find a bit of room for this? Here's Arif; it's time to go to the airport.” She picked up the case. “Come on Sammy, say goodbye to Grandma. And give me a cuddle too; we'll be back in a few days.” Knowing Sammy's tears wouldn't last long she kissed him and called for Karim and Pazir. His new step-grandma had treats planned too, and she kissed him again, and tickled him. “We'll bring a nice present back if you promise to be a good boy.” Indignant objections became smiles as Pazir whispered something into his ear and Sally smiled gratefully as they left. “I'll ring,” she promised.

*

The excitement of an undisclosed honeymoon destination mitigated the sadness of her mother's departure and Sally's spirits lifted as Arif drove quickly along the Great Trunk Road, eagerly indicating road signs that might or might not signify their destination. “It's very beautiful,” he told her many times, “You will like it too much.”

“Peshawar!” She guessed as they sped northward. “We're going to Peshawar. Or maybe The Khyber?” Arif groaned in defeat, so when they left the road towards Mardan, Sally was surprised and the game started again. She studied possibilities on the map. “I need a clue; I don't know this area.” Corn and maize fields lined the valley roads and ice blue water tumbled over boulder-strewn river beds. In the distance trails of slow moving trucks crawled on what appeared to be a ledge cleaved into a mountainside. “We're going there?” she asked, aghast.

“That's the Malakand Pass” Arif grinned, as though it explained everything.

She didn't know whether to close her eyes to the nightmare or open them to the dangers as Arif eased the car between elephantine trucks and rocks that marked sheer drops, or tucked behind a lumbering truck as yet another hairpin bend appeared. Eventually, the road widened and she relaxed. “Please tell me we don't come back this way,” she said and shuddered when Arif told her the alternative route made the Malakand Pass look like a motorway.

Within a few miles it seemed they'd passed into an enchanted world. Sally looked, enthralled as craggy rocks became a lush green valley with tree clad hillsides and mountains that could have been Switzerland. “Arif! It's beautiful!”

He patted her hand. “This is the Swat Valley and it's the most beautiful place on earth! I knew you'd like it.”

*

The sun had dipped below the mountain tops when they arrived at the hotel and Sally was already pleased to have the shawl they'd bought at a weaving cooperative on the way. With its softness round her shoulders, and sitting on the veranda of the white marble hotel that had once been the summer palace of the Wali of Swat, she decided that even royalty could not have been happier. A bird sang in a hibiscus tree, and to the east of the hotel, water could be heard, cascading. Behind and some way up the mountainside someone, probably a shepherd, trilled a flute. Was he playing to his animals, she wondered, or amusing himself. The hotel manager crossed the manicured lawns and she speculated the truth of his story that ‘numerous royal personages, including Queen Elizabeth of The Great Britain' had stayed in the hotel. Even if it were true, she thought, no-one could have felt more like a queen than she did at that moment.

*

The baby must have been conceived during the honeymoon, perhaps even in the bed that Queen Elizabeth had supposedly slept in, but at only eight weeks it was hardly considered a miscarriage. There'd been no test and although she knew without doubt that she'd been pregnant she linked the loss to either the skin rash that had erupted or the nasty flu bug that had started just after their return to Abbottabad. To her relief her afflictions didn't affect the family, not even Arif, whose minor but recurring skin irritations and chesty coughs appeared to be the hazard of his work. The miscarriage tarnished the happiness of the first few months of her marriage but she concealed sadness amongst the general melancholy of recovery from ‘flu, consoling herself that it seemed unlikely she would have a long wait for another pregnancy.

The second pregnancy, three months later was indisputable. The test at nine weeks was positive and she basked blissfully in dreams of a child that would unite and reinforce this family that they had brought together. She saw Pazir ‘mothering' the child; another boy she was sure. Sammy would be four; no longer the baby, and he and Karim would teach their brother to play cricket. And Arif, now almost fifty, would be kept young and lively by his new son's antics. Sally prostrated herself, even at her dawn prayers, and joyfully extended her prayers with duas so that when she agreed to buy Sammy a soldier hat in the market one day and he uttered ‘Al-hamdulillah', she realised he'd got it from her.

The second miscarriage smashed her illusions. Writing a second letter to her mother only days after the first joyful missive was almost impossible and she postponed the writing. Although pregnant for only twelve weeks, she grieved the reality of the dreams.

*

When her next pregnancy extended to six, then seven months, her joy knew no bounds, and despite the burden she carried in such heat, she floated through her days until, waking in the night with cramps in her stomach she'd known something was amiss. A stronger cramp clamped her swollen belly and her frightened cry woke Arif. By the following day the body of her baby had been removed from her womb and she lay sedated in a hospital bed, curled into an ache that constricted her chest, asking herself, “Why? Why?”

Daoud promised a medication regime of drugs and supplements designed to help her become and stay pregnant but she recoiled from such interventions; a baby, she believed should be created by nature or not at all. Perhaps nature was telling her that, in her mid-thirties, she was too old to have a child; a price she must pay for refusing to allow her body to conceive when she was at the right age. The prospect of another miscarriage, another dead baby, was more than she could face and she found a doctor, a woman who had trained in America, who listened sympathetically then agreed it was acceptable to avoid a pregnancy in the circumstances and prescribed birth control pills for her.

With time on her hand and facing the reality that she and Arif were not to be blessed with a child, she considered her future. She looked about her as she went around the town, seeing where women were working and what they were doing. It was clear that opportunities, even for educated women, were limited. Most who did work did so only before marriage. But, she thought, there must be something worthwhile she could do. Recalling an exercise she'd done as a graduate many years previously, she took a sheet of paper and divided it into columns headed ‘Skills' on the left and ‘Enjoy' on the right. Starting on the left she wrote ‘organising', ‘motivating people', and ‘communicating'. She added ‘following instructions' then struck out ‘following' and replaced it with ‘giving'. It was a harder than she remembered. Had she changed so much, she wondered. Hadn't fifteen years of age and experience refined her skills? Moving to the right hand column she wrote ‘giving instructions' again then wrote ‘teaching'. She'd enjoyed teaching Pazir and Karim well enough but not enough to extend it to teach Daoud and the boys – which she'd hardly done. But planning and creating activities had been satisfying. She added ‘planning' and ‘creativity' to her list, then pondered how could she say she liked giving instructions if she didn't want to teach? “Oh! It's too hot to think,” she muttered, “and this is ridiculous.” She pushed the paper away and rang Rachel.

“Come and have iced tea with me,” she demanded, “It's too hot to do anything else.”

But Rachel was busy. “I'll come at two o' clock,” she said, “Before I meet the twins from school.”

*

She wandered to the bathroom, picked up a damp towel from the floor, then into the bedroom and lay under the fan. Within minutes, its whirring lulled her into a dream filled sleep in which Sammy, a grown man, walked along a London street. She knew he was searching for his father and as happens in dreams he was suddenly John, not Sammy, and was searching for her, enraged because she'd not miscarried his baby. His anger was uncontainable as he strode up the street banging doors and shouting her name and she cowered behind her mother's door until suddenly he was there. She tried to run but the bulk of pregnancy hindered her and his hand grabbed on her arm and she screamed.

“Wake up.” Arif was holding her arm. “Sally, wake up. You are dreaming.”

She focused on his face. Her heart pounded with relief. Dear, kind, easy to love Arif. “I must have fallen asleep. It was dreaming about …… about England. It's all right. It was nothing.” The clock radio showed it was almost one o'clock. She'd slept for over an hour and here was Arif, home for lunch. Jumping from the bed, she washed her face and made for the kitchen. “There's dhal in the fridge,” she called, “and I'll get chapati from the man at the corner.”

*

She was clearing away dishes when Rachel arrived.

“Sallyji! I'm here for my tea and I've brought us some galub jamun.”

Licking the sticky syrup from her fingers Sally picked up the paper on which she'd started her lists. “You are my good friend,” she told Rachel, “so you must help me. What am I good at?”

“You are excellent at eating galub jamun,” Rachel giggled.

“No, be serious. I'm going mouldy here on my own all day. I want to do something. But what can I do? You have to help me.”

Rachel pondered Sally's list. “You are a good teacher.”

“Not anymore! Pazir says she's too old to have lessons with me and Karim will be off to school in Chitral in September. He doesn't need me to improve his English; the school's run by an English Army Major; they all speak perfect English.”

“Arif's sending him to Langlands? Will Sammy go too?”

Sally shook her head. “He's too young; he's only just finished kindergarten. And I don't want him to go away to boarding school. Ever. Otherwise I really will go mouldy!” She drank tea and reflected that Rachel was right; she was a good teacher, and good with people. Especially adults. “Rachel. I could teach adults. What if I taught English?” The idea warmed, expanded. “What if I opened a language school for adults? Just a small one, maybe even only a few days each week.” She had another idea. “And you could work with me; your English is perfect. We could do it together!”

*

Two years later five staff taught classes in what had once been a house in the appropriately named College Road. Sally's advanced group were reading English language newspapers and discussing Benazir Bhutto's return to Pakistan. It was almost dark; the class was about to end. “How long was Pakistan without a Prime Minister?” Sally asked.

Ayesha, an assistant at the Habib Bank, answered. “For thirteen years, after Mirza dismissed Khan. Benazir will try but he may not be allowed. New parties do not mean fair election. That we have to wait to see.”

“He?” Sally asked

“Ah, yes.
She
may not ….”

Hassan, an accountant, interrupted. “She cannot be prime minister. She is corrupt…”

Sally stopped him. “I'm sorry Hassan, it's seven o'clock. We must finish for this week.” She handed out papers and told the class, “For next week I would like you to write an interesting article about something you have read in a newspaper during the week. You may agree, disagree or merely comment. At least three hundred words, but no more than four hundred. I look forward to reading your views.” A newcomer to the class, Jalil looked at her blankly and she repeated the instruction in Urdu. “And don't forget,” she added, “Practise, practise, practise. Read everything you can. Good night, Allah Haafiz.”

At home Pazir had put the meal that Shamila had prepared on to the table and thanking her, Sally quickly greeted each of the family as she prepared to serve Arif from the array of dishes. His ‘Bismillah' was almost lost in the first mouthful and she buried irritation at his poor manners as she apologised for delaying the meal. “The evening classes are very popular, but I think I must get someone else to teach some of them next term, maybe a new evening teacher. The day is too long for me to do it.”

“Yes, you are right, and eating late is not good for the digestion. It would be better if you could do that.” Arif had been supportive of the school and although he hadn't objected to her being late, his usual point that he preferred to eat earlier indicated his displeasure.

She began to eat the food though hardly aware of it as her mind sought to resolve the problem of late classes. There was a student, the daughter of a lawyer, who had an excellent grasp of grammar as well as good pronunciation and vocabulary. She also had a confident way with her. But the family might forbid her to work, particularly in the evenings, and Sally wished uselessly, that the girl was a man.

Karim's voice interrupted her thoughts. “Auntie?”

“I'm sorry Karim. I didn't hear what you said.”

Karim's sighed, visibly cross. “My cricket whites. I said I need them for tomorrow.”

No longer a child but not yet an adult, Karim had begun to assert himself. “Well I expect Shamila will have got them ready. Have you looked in your drawer?” Karim admitted he hadn't and she quietly suggested that it would be a good idea to check things before he spoke crossly to anyone.