In the Company of Strangers Page 2

  The line went dead.

  Blood rushed to her face, her fingers still gripping the cold marble slab. Her hand had turned blue from the pressure, the white knuckles protruding out like giant hills while the rest of her body shook as if in extreme pain. Chucking the phone into her bag, she wiped her clammy hands on one of the imported towels she had had flown in from Dubai. What a waste, she thought now. She threw it in the rubbish. Before a rogue sob could escape her mouth, she unlocked the door, and went off to the drawing room.

  *

  ‘Oh yes, oh yes, yes, yes!’ Kulsoom squealed, jumping up from the divan in excitement. Her generous bosom heaved as she danced about. Wrapping the expensive shahtoosh shawl around her shoulders, she did a little twirl around the drawing room. ‘Look at this, Mona! Isn’t it a rare beauty?’

  Mona looked around in surprise. Moments ago, before she had left for the bathroom, the drawing room had been a picture of solemnness, with each of her three friends – Kulsoom, Shabeena and Alia – distraught at the injustice of sixteen people losing their lives, not to mention the dozens that were still fighting for theirs in hospitals. Kulsoom had even made a bold claim to visit the public wards of hospitals to commiserate with her fellow Lahoris.

  But now, the maroon velvet curtains had been thrown back from all the windows in a bid to invite a steady stream of sunshine. A steaming pot of aromatic coffee complete with a porcelain china set had been laid out on the coffee table, and the disturbing announcements from the television had been muted. For a moment, Mona simply stood there, inhaling the scent. Whatever they said about coffee was absolutely true… there was something about it that soothed the mind.

  Shugufta, one of her maidservants, scurried in bearing a tray laden with sandwiches and pastries from the exclusive bakery near Hussain Chowk. Mona knew that because, like always, the blundering woman had forgotten to remove the food from its paper boxes. With the lids thrown back and the food ensconced inside, it looked like something a middle-class family would serve. She rolled her eyes (what had happened to the crystal serving dishes?), but before she could chastise the maid, her eyes caught a pair of smiling Pathan salesmen leaning against the giant wooden fireplace, starched turbans standing upright on their heads and smart Peshawari chappal so polished that they shone. The younger of the two had his arms stretched wide, and balanced on top of them were the most colourful and expensive shahtoosh shawls she had ever seen. Shugufta laid out the food on the table. Her fearful eyes darted toward Mona, and then back at the packed food on the tray. She clapped a hand to her mouth, and hastily retreated to the kitchen, her plastic flipflops making a distinct and unpleasant sound.

  Shabeena and Alia also stood gawking at the shawls, their eyes round with wonder. Alia had her hand pressed against her chest, though it was difficult to tell whether this was in appreciation of the shawls or a desperate bid to flaunt the huge rock on her finger. Mona winced at the light reflecting off the diamond. Her eyes swivelled toward the shawls once more. They really were handsome. Each shawl cost a whopping one million rupees, much more expensive than the average Chanel or Louis Vuitton stole. Even in her despondent state, Mona felt a prick of desire for them.

  ‘Made from the finest fur of the chiru, Bibi,’ the older Pathan whose hands were free announced. ‘The best in the entire country. End of season sale.’ He nodded at Mona, the new arrival. ‘Specially brought to you from Kashmir.’

  Mona’s eye caught a light beige-coloured one with heavy embroidery of gold, red and green thread. It was gorgeous, but her earlier disappointment at Bilal’s behaviour still stood stark in her mind, and ignoring the Pathan, she sank into the armchair without a word.

  Gazing out in the vast gardens of her mansion, she sighed. People would laugh at her if she told them that despite everything, her home felt like a prison to her.

  Holding her scarf in place over her head, Shabeena leaned forward. At forty-eight, Shabeena believed that she had seen everything there was to see, and done everything there was to do. Her main priority now was her dedication to Islam and its teachings. Or so she liked people to believe. Raising a cup of coffee to her lips, she arched a plucked eyebrow. ‘Kulsoom thought it would be a good idea to break the dreadful monotony of listening to people getting killed. You were in the bathroom so she decided to take matters into her own hands, and asked for these gentlemen to present themselves here.’ She gestured at the Pathans behind her.

  The older Pathan spat a gob of chewed paan on the floor. He had been aiming for the dustbin in the corner, but instead the bits of betel leaf, stained red with spices and supari landed on the white marble. This time, another maid – Mona had forgotten her name – ran inside holding a wet rag.

  Alia grimaced. ‘Gentlemen, indeed!’

  Shabeena shot her a dirty look before pursing her chapped lips, and busying herself with her coffee. Not wearing any lipstick was her way of making a religious statement.

  Mona felt a nudge from Alia. ‘Shabeena got herself the new limited edition Estee Lauder fragrance,’ she whispered, raising her eyebrows. ‘Can you smell it? It smells like tuberoses.’ Chuckling, she added, ‘Looks like someone’s dying to make an impression at the party…’

  Shabeena seemed to have heard her. She tucked a stray lock of hair beneath the scarf, and fixed Alia with a solemn stare. ‘I doubt that I’ll go. The event seems a bit decadent for my taste.’

  Alia scowled. ‘Oh please, Shabeena, this statement doesn’t suit you. This is what the ones not invited to the party are saying. You know better than that.’

  ‘Oh Meera’s party, you mean? Oh haan!’ Mona cried, just remembering the thing they had been discussing for weeks. In the midst of the bomb blast and Shugufta’s blunders, she had forgotten it.

  Meera Siddiqui, her long-lost friend who had left Lahore right after they had graduated from college. Now twenty-odd years later, she had returned. Thrice divorced at the age of forty-one, and now the proud owner of a successful modelling agency, she had purchased a sprawling property in Cantt, and had decided to throw a huge housewarming bash. Also poised to be her inaugural fashion show in Lahore, it had the temperature soaring in the Lahori society circuit for days. People had even cut short their holidays abroad, just to be at the party.

  ‘Oh yes, about the party,’ Alia continued, biting into a pineapple-glazed pastry. ‘She’s invited all the politicians too! Imagine the nerve. She barely arrives, and everyone here is clamouring to meet her. And they blame us for giving Lahore a bad name. Fine, we like to party, but we’re not as crazy as to host modelling shows. In our own homes! Who wants that kind of bad publicity? I mean, I caught Fahad trying on his Walima tuxedo the other day. For Meera’s party! Paunch and all.’ She threw her head back and laughed. Mona liked it when she did that; it made her look a decade younger. Crossing her legs, and settling her hands around them, Alia exclaimed, ‘I bet you every scrawny ass will be there, and probably most of the fat ones too. Thank God Kulsoom wasn’t invited or she’d have driven us crazy by now.’

  Busy with the Pathans, Kulsoom was oblivious to the whole conversation.

  Mona’s stomach clenched. Twenty years. She couldn’t believe it had been that long since they had last met. She thought of those moments when, depending on the season, they would share a hot cup of chai or a cone of watery vanilla ice cream in Liberty market. Young men would gawk at them as they tossed their dyed golden-brown hair from side to side, and sometimes, Meera would make deliberate eye contact with them to which they would respond with expressions of alarm and outrage.

  ‘If they can stare so openly, then why can’t we?’ Meera used to say. On occasion, she would also show a guy the finger. Back then a girl showing you a finger was considered a taxi. ‘That’s the name for a woman of bad character,’ Meera informed her, when Mona had expressed her confusion. There would always be a knowing gleam in her eyes, a sense of superiority regarding such matters. ‘A taxi accepts anyone who
is willing to pay for its services just like a woman from Heera Mandi is ready to sleep with anyone who throws her money. These women are adept at showing guys the finger as sometimes they don’t cough up the money after they’ve had their fun.’ She winked at her, and being young and carefree, they fell into fits of laughter.

  Good times, Mona thought. She could hardly remember her youth anymore; perhaps, meeting Meera wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Even with the curtains pushed back to expose the lovely March weather, she felt claustrophobia in the overheated drawing room. With the air conditioners undergoing maintenance, the room seemed to have heated up like a stove. She looked down and her eyes caught the light, barely discernible blemishes on the backs of her hands. And to think that she had never cooked or cleaned in her entire life.

  The claustrophobia gave way to helplessness as she thought of her futile attempts at fighting aging. All those lotions, the groundbreaking crèmes that came with the promise of eternal youth, they were all useless. There was no escape from the sharp, twisted tangles of time as they continued to scratch and devour you.

  Kulsoom was laughing away, trying shawl after shawl, while posing and blowing kisses in the air like some glorified model. The Pathan salesmen’s smiles widened with each passing minute.

  ‘I’ll have that one, that one, and this one!’ Kulsoom cried, pointing at three shawls, each being in the same shade of the colour brown. ‘Are you sure they’re pure shahtoosh?’

  The older Pathan held a hand over his heart in mock horror.

  ‘Why, Bibi! Upon my word, this is pure shahtoosh. Pass it through that diamond ring on your finger. I’ll cut off my head if it gets stuck in it!’

  The Pathan formed a circle with his thumb and forefinger and passed his forefinger from the other hand through it.

  ‘Well, that’s a fancy way of showing it,’ Alia mumbled, and before Mona could stop to think, the two of them broke into gales of laughter. She blushed at Alia’s childish implication to sex, but that was partly the reason why she loved her friends; they would burst out laughing at one thing or another, and suddenly every former grievance was forgiven and forgotten – not that she had any with them at the moment. Even tightly wound Shabeena let out an uptight giggle, her scarf falling off to reveal golden-streaked hair.

  Kulsoom stood looking confused and embarrassed.

  ‘Oh Kulsoom!’ Alia exclaimed. ‘You’re just like that donkey in the zoo that never gets the joke.’

  That elicited even more laughter from everyone, and poor flushing Kulsoom covered her face and ran out of the room with the Pathans close at her heels. ‘I’m never going to forgive you girls for this!’ she wailed from the doorway.

  ‘Oh, she’ll come around,’ Shabeena said, wiping the black kaajal that had smudged around her wet eyes. ‘Where would Kulsoom be without the drama in her life?’

  The sound of Shugufta’s rubber flipflops sounded in the hall once again, and Mona looked up to see her maid wearing the grim expression she reserved for special occasions. ‘Bilal Sahab has arrived, Baji,’ she announced. ‘He’s asked for you in the study.’

  Mona sat stunned for a moment. So, he had finally arrived. He must have taken the lounge entrance into the house. The fact that he hadn’t stepped in to greet the ladies meant that he was still seething from their earlier conversation.

  ‘We’ll show ourselves out, shall we?’ Alia spoke up, rising from her seat.

  Chapter Two

  Ali

  Ali took a deep breath as he regarded the huge crowd of people in front of him, all of them clamouring to get inside the Emergency section of the hospital. News reporters hovered over the crowd with cameras held over their heads, filming footage of the chaos. Mothers screamed to be taken to their kids, while others howled as stretchers bearing dead bodies were brought in by the ambulances. The air was so full of the stench of sweat and blood that a bitter metallic taste hung in his mouth. Even the mild March weather felt oppressive with so many people packed together in one place.

  As soon as he stepped into the crowd, a mean push from somewhere slammed him into a news reporter. The entire camera set came crashing to the ground, breaking into a dozen pieces. Ali gaped open-mouthed as the reporter resorted to beating a frail, weeping woman, mistaking her for the perpetrator of the incident. The poor woman tried to shield herself from the blows, and before Ali could step in to help, he heard the sickening crunch of bone breaking bone. Seconds later, the woman passed out in the arms of a younger woman – presumably her daughter – while the reporter, realising the gravity of what he had done, silently fled from the scene. Ali tried to catch him by the collar but a wave of people carried him away, dumping him at the back of the crowd once more.

  His legs began to shake, and a sense of disquiet spread through him. Even as a young man of twenty-seven, it was impossible for him to tackle this malevolent force of nature; he shuddered to imagine how his poor mother had managed it. Nausea clawed at his throat as he thought of the frantic message she had left him on the phone. ‘Hussain gravely injured. Not an accident. Can’t call. Going to G. Hospital.’

  At first he couldn’t imagine why anybody would want to hurt his thirteen-year-old brother, and for a moment, he immersed himself back into his routine of assessing bank accounts. It wasn’t until a few seconds later that the message sank in, and then snatching up his mobile he had called his mother.

  Her phone cut straight to voicemail.

  Steeling his heart, Ali summoned the courage to look up the latest news on his office desktop. What he saw almost made him pass out.

  Hussain had been in the bomb blast. That must be what his mother was talking about. He might be dead.

  But his mother had said injured; he might still be alive. Immediately he had latched on to that thought, and abandoning everything he had rushed to the hospital.

  Picturing his brother’s face in his mind now, he pushed himself into the first gap he spotted with as much force as he could muster. The impact sent at least three people flying. After witnessing that, the other people just jumped out of his way like scalded cats, so that in less than ten seconds, he was right in front of the main aluminium double doors. Ali was breathing hard, but he had made it.

  ‘It’s my brother,’ he shouted to the nearest officer in the awful din. ‘Hussain-ud-Din. He’s thirteen years old. Only a boy.’ Only a boy. Tears threatened to spill as he explained his brother’s physical appearance to the portly security guard. ‘Is he? Is he…?’ He couldn’t bear to articulate what he was thinking.

  The guard shook his head. ‘Trauma cases have been taken directly to the OT. We have no other information,’ he shouted. He nodded at his fellow security men. ‘Let the boy through.’

  Ali could only nod at him, his throat too thick for him to make out words. He squeezed through with some other woebegone relatives of bomb victims, and together, they stumbled into the emergency hall.

  He was immediately assaulted by the smells of antiseptic and urine. He crossed the well-trodden marble floor toward the reception desk. Compared to the ruckus outside, the crowd was more subdued here, with many people whispering to each other so as not to disturb the dozen women who sat in front of the operating theatres, beating their chests and weeping. Their dupattas lay forgotten on the floor.

  He scanned the room for his mother, but there was no sign of her. The reception desk teemed with people demanding the whereabouts of their loved ones as porters in white shalwar kameez tried to usher them to the empty benches and waiting rooms. Harried nurses jotted down details into huge leather-bound registers, while at the same time pointing out directions to people. In the wall behind the desk, Ali spotted a half-open door beyond which stood a male and female nurse. They were both smiling, oblivious to the bedlam outside. The man ran his hand down the woman’s bottom, and squeezed it gently. Blushing, the woman smacked his hand away, but still allowed herself to be guided deeper into the
room.

  An open display of such raw intimacy turned his stomach. Did these people have no respect for what was going on around them? Were they so heartless?

  But then, as he surveyed the gruesome scene, he realised that these incidents were a daily chore for them, a never-ending cycle of blood and screams. A respite from such a nightmare would be welcome anytime.

  Pools of maroon blood had congealed on the floor leading to the operating theatre, but instead of cleaning it up, the porters simply skirted the wet areas, their bloodshot eyes vacant, and mops lying idle in buckets of brown water. Ali turned in a full circle, but there was still no sign of his mother.

  A sense of panic began to claw at his chest. Each second without information on Hussain made his throat clench tighter. He had to repeat his brother’s name twice before the nurse at the reception understood him, and even then she just waved her hand toward the operating theatres.

  ‘All bomb blast cases are being dealt with in the OT,’ she snapped. ‘There is no mention of a Hassan-ud-Din here, but it is possible that he escaped our notice.’ She was a middle-aged woman with a mass of oily black hair wrapped in a bun, and though her answer was rehearsed, Ali detected an edge of contempt in her tone. She gestured around the hall. ‘As you can see, things have been kind of busy.’

  Ali took a deep breath. Now was not the time to delve into the inefficiencies of hospitals. In a level voice, he asked, ‘Where does that leave me? How will I even know my brother is out of the operating theatre when there is no record of him?’

  The nurse slammed the register shut. ‘What do you want from me, Sir? I just told you we don’t have any record of your brother ever being admitted here.’

  Ali blinked at her, cowed into silence; he could feel the cloud of rage building inside him, but before it could gain any traction, someone touched his shoulder. He whirled round, and briefly saw the tear-stained face of his mother before she crashed into him, sobbing on his shoulder. ‘Oh Ali, where were you?’ she cried. ‘I’ve been all alone this entire time. The doctors wouldn’t tell me anything at first, and I was just so scared—’