An American Brat (12 page)

“You are like buds,” he said, bringing his hands together and loosely cupping his slender fingers. He cast his eyes down, drawing their attention to the colorful flowers, birds, and butterflies appliquéd on his denim costume. The colors appeared to glow, taking on a life and movement of their own. “But like all young things, you will bloom.”

Father Fibs opened the tender bud his dusky hands had formed into a quivering flower. The gesture, and his gravelly, almost messianic voice, imbued the tired words with fresh intensity. “You think you are already flying?” Father Fibs paused, looked
long at them, and slowly shook his head. “No. You are protected innocents, secure in your chrysalises. When you leave your universities, you will test your wings. You'll fly and fall, fly and fall.” His lithe hands weaved and turned, showing beige palms. “It will hurt. You'll be frightened. Don't be. Your wings will become stronger.”

Feroza glanced at Manek. His curls had been recently cropped and his lean face looked strengthened, handsome, lit up by the visions Father Fibs's supple hands conjured.

Next to Manek on the mattress, his dark eyes intent beneath fierce spikes of hair, sat Jamil, hugging his knees.

It became clear to Feroza that to be this far from home, to have to cope with strangers and mysterious rites, was itself a test. Manek and Jamil must surely have found themselves in some ways wanting and in some unexpectedly able. Still committed to proving themselves, they would avail themselves of the options America offered. They would stay — no matter how long it took — to test their expectations.

Feroza's perception suddenly ignited when she remembered the smiling blond with the transparent green eyes in Harvard Square and the thought struck her like a jolt — what extraordinary sexual possibilities they would avail themselves of.

Might not she, too, wish to prove herself? Even if she was only a girl? Explore possibilities that were beginning to palpitate and twinkle — as yet unrecognizable — on evanescent new horizons?

Father Fibs's arms stuck out at the elbows like fledging wings, his shoulders slightly heaved. “Then you'll want to fly, taste of what Adam tasted,” his shy eyes rested for a moment on Feroza, “what Eve tasted, the bitter and the sweet, and discover the places you can fly to and fall from. And once you're no longer afraid to fall, away you'll soar — up, up, to where you need never fall!”

Father Fibs's open-armed and triumphant gesture swept the fish tank off its precarious perch on the china cabinet, and it shattered at their feet.

The fish scattered, barely distinguishable from the patterned carpet and the broken glass, into watery crevices, where they disappeared.

In the days that followed Father Fibs's memorable dispensation of the fish in the attic, Manek was washed by a tide of relief so intense that he determined never to keep pets. Who needed the onus of tending to pets when nieces like Feroza were packed off to his care? In any case, he felt temperamentally better suited to the charge and guidance of young humans.

Manek guessed, of course, that Feroza was merely the first of the nieces and nephews, the horde in Lahore growing like saplings, ready to be air-freighted to wherever he was, once they shot up.

Youngsters he could cope with. Given his burgeoning sense of responsibility, manifest in the nature of his urges to broaden Feroza's outlook and to improve her mind, who knew but that he might even derive pleasure from his selfless part in shaping their futures.

But once nieces and nephews arrived, could parents be far behind? Manek had an unpleasant vision of ferrying Feroza's parents, not to mention her uncles and aunts, back and forth as they descended on various American airports to blight his life.

Unfortunately the army of Feroza's aunts and uncles (he could never think of the middle-aged brigade as his cousins) took their duties as upholders of tradition and dispensers of wisdom equally seriously. And though he was not prepared to tolerate their obsolete counsel, which as far as he was concerned was a euphemism for interference, he had no notion of depriving his younger kin of the fruit of his experience.

From the moment of Feroza's arrival in New York, Manek had begun mentally to chalk out a program for her future. Although it was not a conscious exercise to begin with, it had bloomed into a full-fledged vocation in a couple of weeks. The call involved not
only Feroza's education and the development of her personality but also her induction into the self-sufficient, industrious, and independent way of American life.

Manek was young, intelligent, and already acquiring a valuable education. He had weathered the trauma of culture shock after culture shock the New World had buffeted him with and emerged toughened.

Disciplined, clearheaded, and worldly wise, who could be better suited to direct the course of an overindulged and overprotected girl's future? Wasn't that why Zareen and Cyrus had sent Feroza to him?

But stuck as they were in the Third World, their vision was limited. They imagined, in their usual woolly manner, that a short visit would suffice to give their daughter the sophistication expected from travel abroad. It was up to him to take Feroza's future in hand, to help her hang on to the opportunities that would otherwise vanish.

Strategically spooned only small and enticing portions of Manek's stirring plans for her, Feroza was not averse to the clear logic of his ideas.

First of all, now that Feroza was already in the United States, it would be illogical for her to go back. Airfare was prohibitive. And as she had seen for herself, it was difficult for a young person to gain entry to the United States, even with a visa. Visa laws were getting stricter every day, and she might not be as lucky next time. Feroza knew how he'd rushed around getting papers certifying this and notarizing that from the university and the banks to sort out the mess caused by her naive and emotional handling of the immigration authority. It was a shame to travel twenty thousand miles and put him through what she had if Feroza's visit were to amount to no more than a superficial jaunt. What could she expect to see of the country or imbibe of its progressive and stimulating culture, in a couple of months? How could she discover the opportunities and choices available to her in such a short time?

Secondly, Feroza had already taken her matriculation exams. Fortunately a School Leaving Certificate was a School Leaving Certificate, and no one in America was wise to the standard of education the Punjab Matric implied. She could gain admission to a reasonably good college and that would enable her to get a student visa. Then she could come and go as she wished.

“You'd better go in for hotel management,” Manek advised. “It is on the list of ‘desirable' courses for which dollars can be sent from Pakistan.”

“I'd prefer psychology,” Feroza ventured, “or journalism.”

“The Pakistan Government won't sanction foreign exchange for that. Your father will have to run around buying black market dollars and then find ways of smuggling them to you so you can pay your fees.”

“I see,” Feroza was meek and pensive, as impressed by her uncle's endless know-how as he could have wished.

Feroza and Manek both wrote long letters home explaining all this to Khutlibai, Zareen, and Cyrus.

Zareen waited for Khutlibai to put on her dentures. It was significant that she had interrupted their conversation to do so.

The deed done, she faced Zareen.

“I told you, no good would come of sending Feroza to America!”

Although it was the end of April and the afternoons were already hot, Khutlibai's old bungalow with its thick brick walls and high ceilings was blessedly cool beneath the slowly rotating blades of the fan. Khutlibai sat on the bed in her muslin nightdress with the short puff sleeves, her legs crossed, grimly swaying back and forth as if mourning.

“What do you mean no good will come of it! Of course it will be good. A good education is a good thing!” Perched on a stool before her mother, Zareen felt she sounded less than convincing. “Mumma, times have changed,” she continued, more cautious. “A lot of people are sending their daughters for education to
America.”

“Who?”

“Some of the best Parsee families in Karachi.”

“So you must also jump into the well? God knows what will become of that poor child …”

“What'll become of her? She'll come back a tip-top madam-ni-mai, and we'll all be proud of her!”

“And when will she marry? Have you thought about that?”

“When the right time comes. It's in God's hands.”

“Everything is in Ahura Mazda's hands,” Khutlibai rumbled ominously and cast pious eyes to the ceiling fan. “But even He can't do anything if you chop off your own foot with an axe. Good Parsee boys are scarce, and you know how quickly they are snapped up. The right time will come and go, and mark my words, the child will be lost to us! God knows what kind of people she'll mix with. Drunks, seducers, drug addicts …”

“You know Manek will guard her like a lion! You know how strictly we have brought her up. She'll never do anything to disgrace us.”

“We don't know what kind of friends Manek has. All I can do is pray he won't marry some white tart. But he's a man; he can get away with a lot. But who'll marry a girl who's been up to God-knows-what? Our elders used to say, keep the girls buried at home. Do you know your grandfather would not allow even our pigeons to stray? If one of the birds from our loft spent the night on another's roof, we'd have pigeon soup the next day. He'd have its throat slit!”

“Mumma, that was hundreds of years ago. Thank heavens my Cyrus is not like that!”

“Don't talk about ‘your' Cyrus! It's enough to give me a fever just to hear his name. He should stick to his footballs and shuttlecocks. Letting his daughter go tramping round the world as she pleases. He has no more sense or direction than a Ping-Pong ball!”

“Nothing I or my family do is ever right! Nothing pleases you!” Zareen's face was puffy and red. She sniffed and opened her purse with a snap. She withdrew a handkerchief. Zareen knew, if
not checked at this point, Khutlibai would start calling her husband alarming names. Her repertoire had recently expanded to include “Hockey-stick” and “Shuttlecock.” She wished sometimes that her mother would use really foul language instead.

Zareen turned to blow her nose, and the way she snapped her purse shut made it clear that she was not prepared to hear another word. She drove away without saying good-bye to her mother.

The evening was even worse. They were out as usual, dining at the Iqbals', when an elderly Sikh, wearing a thick turban and a crumpled gray shalwar-kamiz, made a late appearance. He was the Indian journalist Khushwant Singh. His Pakistani host, the lawyer Rehman, was accompanying him.

Zareen and Cyrus knew the journalist slightly from a previous visit. As their genial host sprang to his feet to welcome the guests, they realized the journalist's presence was a surprise.

Zareen and Cyrus stood up to form a small group with the newcomers, and Cyrus asked the Sikh, whose gray beard was untidily rolled up round his chin, “What brings you to Lahore, jee?”

“Bhutto's hanging.”

The room, buzzing with the usual political and business chatter, suddenly became very quiet.

“You're joking,” Zareen said.

“No, I'm not,” Khushwant Singh looked surprised that they should find the news so unexpected. “I was sent a message from the top that something important was to happen. What else can it be?” He shrugged, spread his hands and joined in the speculation and consternation the news had caused. Singh explained that he was flying to Islamabad the next morning to meet General Zia.

Bhutto was not hanged. It had been a false alarm.

But Khushwant Singh's visit had been climatic for Zareen and Cyrus and their circle of friends and acquaintances. His comments alerted them to the fact that anything could happen at any moment. It prepared them for the hanging.

Manek deposited Feroza at the Boston Public Library in front of a stack of college guides before going to class.

Feroza picked out a fat book from the stack and studied the information for the colleges listed under A: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas.

At the end of an hour, her brain rebelled. At the end of two hours, bug-eyed from reading the small print, Feroza had an urge to throw the book through the window. She glared at the catalog and savagely pushed it away.

Manek found her, her head and arms on the large oak library table, fast asleep.

Glancing covertly at Feroza's sullen profile and pink nose in the car, Manek eschewed comment. He drove silently to the McDonald's at Porter Square and, when they were halfway through their soothing hamburgers, asked, “Well, boochimai, have you decided which college you'll apply to?”

“I didn't even get though the As. It'll take me ten years to get to Z.”

“No, not ten years, only a few days if you put your mind to it.”

Feroza took a gulp of Coke from her paper cup, crushed the ice between her molars, and stared stolidly out the window.

A couple were unloading their children from a battered hatchback and strapping them into baby carriages. A little girl with pale, straight hair, obviously awakened from her sleep, was fussing. The mother spanked her, and the child began to bawl.

“The first lesson you learn in America is ‘You don't get something for nothing,'” Manek said. “If you want to get into the right college you have to work for it. Nothing is given to you on a plate. You don't know that, because nobody works in Pakistan. Not your father, your grandfathers, or your uncles. They think they work, but compared to America, everyday's
Sunday. If you want to be independent and enjoy the good life, you have to get into the habit of working.”

Feroza gave him an insolent, hostile look. “Nobody works in the world except you. All the money spent on you was plucked by your grandfathers from trees.”

“People here work much harder. Husband and wife both work. Every minute is organized. A wife will say, ‘Dear, put the clothes in the washing machine and come back in ten minutes to take our son to baseball practice. I'll be back from the grocery store in thirty minutes to put the clothes in the dryer and take our daughter for ballet lessons.'”

Manek's impersonation of an American housewife was engaging. It drew a faint smile from Feroza and encouraged him.

“In the afternoon they trim a hedge or clean the swimming pool for relaxation. Then the husband cooks a barbecue dinner while the wife vacuums. There is no ‘Cook, bring me soup' and ‘Bearer, bring me whiskey-pani.' At night they go to a movie or to a disco and enjoy life. They know how to work hard, and they play hard. But they do this only on Saturdays and Sundays. On working days they are so busy they have to regulate —”

“Even their breathing,” Feroza cut in. “Dear, you breathe in, I'll breathe out, two seconds in, two seconds out …”

“That's right. That's what a free and competitive economy in a true democracy demands. That's why the country is prosperous. That's why the Third World is so backward and poor.”

“If you say ‘Third World' once more, I'll scream.”

“You and your Bhutto, with his socialist ideas, are like those lazy Communists.”

“Don't you dare say anything about Bhutto. Aren't you ashamed, speaking ill of someone who is facing death just because he's the voice of the masses?”

“All right, we won't talk about that Third World crook …”

Feroza screamed quite loudly. Manek was sure faces turned towards them. He looked straight down, his face red. Feroza's was scarlet. After a while Manek said, “You've got a lot to learn. Never mind, I'll teach you.”

The museum circuit started again. They visited all the museums in Cambridge and Boston. Jamil had accompanied them enthusiastically a few times and then, saying, “You've seen one, you've seen them all,” declined further invitations.

Feroza went into raptures at the sight of the glass flowers in the botanical display at Harvard and had to be torn away from a painting by Ingres at the Museum of Fine Arts of Raphael with his mistress on his lap, a beautiful carpet spread at their feet. Again Feroza showed her predilection to go into a daze before choice artifacts, and again Manek showed his irritation and impatience. Sometimes he strode off on a solitary tour of the other rooms and returned to discover that Feroza had hardly progressed.

“If you don't want me to appreciate art, why do you bring me here?” Feroza protested.

“Of course I want you to, but I don't want to watch your teeth fall out one by one and your hair turn gray while you're at it.”

“So? They're my teeth and my hair and what's it to you?”

They both sensed that there was more than just the love of art involved. Each gauged the undercurrent and direction of the other's strength. And though they enjoyed the battle of wits, snug in their customary mode of communication, it was really a test of their wills: of Feroza asserting her independence by contradicting Manek and countermanding his least suggestion, and of Manek patiently plugging away at tempering her rebellious spirit and bending her will to his own.

The more Manek pressed, the more Feroza balked at writing to the universities and junior colleges for information, until Manek, afraid she might back off and miss altogether the opportunity for a superior education in the United States and, just as important, the benefit of his guidance, wrote to them in her stead.

Manek decided to change his tactics. In fact, carried away by a more critical analysis of their relationship and his part in it, he decided to reform.

Manek awoke one balmy morning (perhaps the clear morning
had something to do with it) fired by a determination to conduct himself like an exemplary uncle, a tactful repository of patience and wisdom.

Aware of the tenacity of Manek's ingenious will and mistrustful of his motives, Feroza mounted a formidable campaign against both his will and his exemplary unclehood.

But Manek, committed to his resolve and to his ardor to advantage his niece, surprised himself, and her, by exercising heroic though fitful bouts of restraint and patience.

Feroza was surprised by this novel tack and then perplexed by his behavior. She began to find his patience patronizing and his spurts of restraint devious and unnerving. She soon came to the conclusion that she much preferred the domineering, contentious, and devilish uncle she knew to the implausibly tolerant, mercurial, and unsuitable saint he was transforming into.

Manek wondered why, after all he did and was prepared to do for her, Feroza constantly quarreled with him and walked around with a face like a waterlogged mattress. Feroza's growing intractability and ingratitude began to bewilder him and to undermine his confidence in his reformed spirit. It seemed to him as if the more he did for her, the less she respected or appreciated him.

After they were done with the museums in Cambridge and Boston, Manek resolutely drove Feroza to the exhibits of contemporary paintings at the art galleries at Wellesley and Brandeis.

And when Feroza, appropriating for herself all the credit for their unexpected compatibility, began at last to believe that her struggle against Manek's will was beginning to pay off and that he was becoming not only more considerate of her wishes but also more consistent with his forbearance, they visited the Peabody Museum at Salem, the North Shore town in Massachusetts once famous for its witches.

Fate reserves for each mortal hero a last straw that will break his back.

It was Saturday afternoon. The forty-five minute drive to Salem was spectacular with dogwood, and the emerald radiance of a New England spring lifted their spirits. The Ford bounced
along as well as it could on its worn shocks, clattering like a contented rattlesnake at fifty-five miles an hour.

Manek and Feroza both lowered their guard. Full of good cheer, they conversed as was normal with them — that is, before they were locked into their recent misunderstandings: bantering, kidding, Manek hectoring, Feroza retorting. Amused by each other's quips and enchanted by their own sharp wits, uncle and niece were relieved to find themselves on familiar turf.

They drove into Salem, a town with small gabled frame houses and the other accouterments of nineteenth-century architecture.

The museum was at one end of a renovated mall. The complex held restaurants, a theater, shops, and a bar.

“Now don't pull the zombie act on me, boochimai,” Manek warned as they walked across the parking lot. “I'm beginning to lose my patience with you. I don't want to drive back after dark.”

“What're you afraid of?” Feroza said, blithely throwing caution to the breeze. “That your old tin pot will break down?”

“Look, I'm not a lady of leisure like you. I've got to plan my time. You can sit in front of the TV till your eyes become square, but I have to work. You're really quite ungrateful,” he added, finally revealing the true cause of his outrage. “When did the car last break down? Why do you hate it so much?”

Feroza wished she'd been more tactful. He was still sensitive about the jalopy. She was pleased all the same that she had finally penetrated the unendurable shield of his all-suffering and all-forgiving complacence.

At the tail end of their museum tour, Feroza discovered a room filled with Eastern miniatures and Persian rugs. It reminded her of the museum in Lahore, and she ached with nostalgia for the first time since she'd come to the United States.

Feroza spent a full ten minutes hovering about the Moghul miniatures and, like a besotted lover, settled on a wooden bench to ogle an intricately woven hunting scene on a Persian silk rug.

“There we go!” groaned Manek, eyeing with disgust the lions with their uplifted paws, the decapitated deer, the trailing vegetation,
and the turbaned men aiming spears.

“Oh, Manek, you've no eye for beauty. These are priceless treasures. Look at the clear lines in the detail.”

An attractive young woman, holding a little redheaded girl by the hand, turned and gave Feroza a discreet smile of complicity.

“I appreciate treasures also,” Manek said in a reasonable and convincing manner, playing to the gallery.

However, the minute the alluring gallery stepped out of earshot with her daughter, Manek moved closer to Feroza and hissed, “But I don't sit down like a lump and turn into a pillar of salt every time I look back. If you don't move in the next ten minutes, I'm going.”

Manek wandered through the two remaining rooms and came back in a little over ten minutes.

“You're still here?” He was surprised. “Come on. You've seen the rug, you've seen the lions, you've seen the trees. That's enough. Come on.” Manek took her arm.

“Oh, Manek!” Feroza shrugged away his hand and turned her rapt and reproachful face to him. “You're nothing but a local yokel, after all!”

“And you? What're you? A fat obstinate mule. Don't expect me to carry you out. Come on.”

Feroza ignored him.

“I'm going,” Manek warned.

“Go.”

Dark shadows crept into the green afternoon outside. The crickets started their strumming. Feroza, cocooned among the rugs and miniatures, sat oblivious.

Some time later she heard a door shut and gave a start. She looked at her watch. It was 4:30.

Feroza went through the rooms looking for Manek. There was hardly anyone about, and her footsteps echoed in the empty halls. She became acutely uneasy. The light coming in through the windows lengthened the shadows.

“Can I help you?” It was the guard. He looked as she would have expected a museum guard to: tough, middle-aged, and
gray. Even his hair looked strong.

“I'm looking for my uncle,” Feroza said shakily.

“What does he look like? I'll keep a look out for him.”

“He's got curly hair, and he wears glasses. He's dark,” she added — rather unnecessarily, she thought at once. The guard would hardly expect her uncle to be white.

“I'll wait where my uncle left me,” Feroza said and retreated to her perch on the bench. She didn't once glance at the fine hunting scene that had absorbed her attention all afternoon.

At 4:45 Feroza heard the doors being bolted, and a moment later the guard came into the room, jangling an enormous bunch of keys that looked more lethal than the gun he wore on his hip. Not bothering to conceal the suspicion his inflection conveyed, he asked, “Hasn't your uncle turned up?”

Feroza shook her head and instinctively tried to appear as stupid, innocent, and unlike an international art thief as she could.

“Sorry ma'am, I've got to lock up. The museum closes at five.”

Feroza looked at the man pleadingly, artlessly adopting the helpless, hurt-puppy expression practiced by her grandmother.

“You can wait outside,” the man suggested, at once kinder, less suspicious.

The guard locked the doors and, hitching up his navy trousers, adjusting his gun belt, sat down next to Feroza on the museum steps.

“How long will your uncle be, you think?” he asked, scanning the parking lot.

Feroza turned her nervous face to him. “I don't know.”

In a little while the burly man stood up, readjusted his trousers and gun belt, and said, “Come on, we'll go through the parking lot. It's no use just sitting here. D'you know the license number?”

Feroza shook her head. “No, but I'd recognize the car. It's an old Ford. Blue.”

They went through the parking lot in front of the theater and past the ice-cream parlor and a liquor store. The lot was full of out-of-state cars from the Boston area. Feroza remembered that Manek had planned to buy beer. They went into the liquor store but
found no uncle.

The security officer and Feroza settled down on the museum steps to wait again. He removed his uniform cap and passed his hand over his ironlike hair in an apologetic and weary gesture. “I have to go,” he said. “But I can't leave you sitting here. I'll call the police, they'll help you find the car and look for your uncle. Will that be all right?”