Duty Free (17 page)

Yesterday was such a bad day, such a bad day that don’t even ask. In fact, it was worst day. Honestly, I’m
tau
giving a thousand, thousand thanks that I escaped with my life. I should have known that it wasn’t going to be a good day when that crow thing happened in the morning. As I was walking to my car, a crow that was sitting on a wall suddenly scooped down and did number two on my head. Luckily I was holding a newspaper over my head at that time because sun was very strong and I didn’t want to become tanned. So thanks God my blow-dried hair didn’t get spoiled. People say it is a good amen when a bird does potty on you, but I’m sorry, what’s so good about your head being used as a toilet?

So I arrived at Mulloo’s house and sent my driver, Muhammad Hussain, to ring her front-door bell. The minute the bell rang, Mulloo sprang out of the front door like a jock-in-the-box. She was wearing a big grin and a new, bright pink silk
jora
, sleeveless to show off her fat white arms and even pearls round her neck. Between you, me, and the four walls, she was looking a bit over as if she was going to a big lunch, but still I wished I’d also worn something else instead of my usual two-carrot diamond ear-studs that everyone has seen a thousand, thousand times.

“
Wah
, Mulloo,” I said when she got into the car, “you’re looking very dressed-up.”

“I thought I’d make an effort today,” she said, smiling. “It’s my turn,
na.
”

“Turn?”

“To take the kitty.”

“Oh
haan
. I
tau
completely forgot. What are you going to do with it?” I’d spent mine on two designer
joras
—plain, simple ones for small dinners-shinners. One was from Karma and one from Body Focus. Because I’m fair-minded.

“I think I’ll buy some things for Irum’s dowry. You know bed-sheets, towels-showels, things like that. But obviously not local. From foreign.” And then she saw my face and added quickly, “Normally of course Tony takes care of all these things. But I begged him this time to let me do it. ‘Let me do something useful for once,’ I said. I’m so bored of spending on designer bags and even more jewellery. After all, what am I going to do with yet another diamond ring, hmm?”

I wanted to tell her to show me a jeweller’s where you can buy a diamond ring with a hundred thou (no, ninety thou, because Nina’s dropped out) and I’ll show you a cheater. But I didn’t. Because I’m not like that.

The talk at Sunny’s was all about the Butt–Khan wedding. It’s over,
na
. Didn’t even last two weeks. The girl side says that the boy is a prevert. He asked her to do things on their wedding night that you wouldn’t even ask someone from the Diamond Market to do. Everyone wanted to know what type things but Sunny said she couldn’t say because she’d sworn on her
children’s heads. (Sunny is Shabnam’s lady-in-waiting, na, and she does all her social work for her, like defending her rep, putting out gossip about her enemies, blowing her strumpet, announcing what she gives to charity and so on and so fourth.)

“Dirty things,” Sunny said, “
very
dirty things.”

And the boy side are saying that the girl is rigid. You know, cold. At least that’s what Faiza said. Faiza is not exactly the Khans’ boot-licker but she is Ruby Khan’s class fellow from their Sacred Heart Convent days and she goes and stays every summers in their flat in London for free. Anyways, according to Faiza the girl doesn’t like the bedroom side of marriage. Things became quite heated between the two of them because each started arguing as if it was for their own child while everyone else said that they always knew the marriage wouldn’t work and why hadn’t anyone asked them first before doing the proposal.

In between, my mobile rang. It was Jonkers, asking if he could see me some time because he had something to tell me. I thought to myself that oh God, it’s bound to be sobbed-story about how his mother bullies him and how he misses Shumaila, so I said,
haan, haan
of course Jonkers, nothing I’d like more,
yaar
, but right now is not a good time because I’m in the middle of a very important discussion. I’ll call back.

As soon as I put the phone down I completely forgot Jonkers and gave myself up to the goss about the Khans and the Butts. And I must admit, I
tau
enjoyed myself very much because I thought serve Shabnam right for being such a meanie to me. Wearing her gody necklace and treating me like I was some
maid or something. She’d got her just desserts. Of course I didn’t say because, to be frank, her husband is still important,
na
, and you don’t want it getting back to her. And then her getting back to me.

But Mulloo, I think so, had the best of times because when all the money was pushed towards her, her face lighted up like a thousand-what bulb. She quickly slipped the money into her purse, shoved the purse deep inside her bag, zipped the bag and tucking it under her arm, said to me, “Ready?”

On the way home along the canal bank we saw all these fruit
-wallahs
parked under the trees with their carts heaped up with guavas and oranges and bananas.

“
Hai
, stop, I want to buy some fruit for my baby,” said Mulloo. I wanted to ask her why she doesn’t send her cook to buy fruit for her baby like all of us do but then I thought maybe she’s had to let her cook go also. So of course I didn’t mention. And why? Because I’m sensitive like that.

So I told Muhammad Hussain to stop, but far away from the fruit
-wallahs
because I didn’t want any flies coming into the car. When he’d parked by the side of the road, Mulloo gave him some money and asked him to go and get her some bananas and oranges.

“Haggle, don’t pay first thing he asks,” she shouted at Muhammad Hussain’s back. “These people think we are made of money.”

You know,
na
, at that time of day there’s not so much traffic on that road—the school rush has finished—and so thanks God we didn’t have any beggars-sheggars bothering us and also
cars were passing in ones and twos. So she put up the window and she turned towards me and I towards her and we settled down to a good old goss about whether the girl was rigid or the boy was prevert when we heard a tap on the drawn-up window on Mulloo’s side and without looking up I waved to Muhammad Hussain to put the fruit into the boot. Mulloo also didn’t turn around to look at the window but again the tap came so she put the window down and said, “Put it into the back side.”

Except that it wasn’t Muhammad Hussain but some strange man with a beard, turban, and small, red eyes. Thinking he was the fruit-
wallah
come to complain, Mulloo said, “I’m not paying one
paisa
more,
sumjhay
? So give if you want and don’t give if you don’t want. You aren’t the only fruit
wallah
in the world.”

“Open your purse,” he hissed, bringing his face close up to Mulloo. Little spots of his spit landed on her cheeks.

“
Hai bhai
, what’s the matter with you?” said Mulloo shrinking back.

So then I also looked properly and saw this crack-type with darting eyes and strange pulse tickling in his forehead. He had his head pushed through the open window so his face was only a few inches away from Mulloo’s.

“You want me to use
this
?
Haan?
” He half opened the wastecoat-type thing he was wearing and in the inside pocket was a pistol. And not plastic toy like Kulchoo used to play with but real pistol just like they have in James Bond films. Except that this man looked nothing like Pears Brosnan.

Mulloo
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froze. Her eyes became wide, her face white as salt. She just sat there clutching her bag to her chest. He reached in and snatched her bag.

“
Hai
, please,” she yelped, tugging at his arms.

“Shut up,
kutti
,” he said through gritted teeth, slapping her hands away.

I don’t know what happened to me then but seeing him hitting Mulloo like that and calling her a bitch suddenly made my blood bubble over.

“Stop that!” I yelled. “You want money? Take the money, but don’t you dare touch her.”

“You want me to use this,
haan
, you want
this
?” he said to me, patting his wastecoat pocket and scowling at me.

“I’m not scared of you, okay?” I opened my wallet. Luckily there were only two thousand-rupee notes in it. I took the money and flung it at him. “This is all I have. Take it and go,” I said.

“Give me the wallet.”

“Here!” I flung that at him also. I never carry credit cards, so I reckoned, what do I loose, except a Gucci wallet.

He blinked. I don’t think so he had expected me to reply back like that. That made me even more braver.

“Now get lost!” I said.

“Not without
these
,” he snarled. He put his hand in and tugged at Mulloo’s pearls. For one second, the back of his hairy hand was pressed against Mulloo’s throat. Then the string snapped and pearls splattered into her lap. He gathered the string with the few remaining pearls still hanging from it and
put it in his pocket. Then he leaned over and grabbed at the pearls that had fallen in her lap, his hands moving all over her thighs. Suddenly his hands slowed down. Then, the bastard, he put his right hand between Mulloo’s legs and kept it there, all the while staring at my face. His mouth was open, his lips wet. He was breathing hard. Mulloo sat there as if turned to rocks. His hand dug deeper. I watched in shocked silence. Then someone honked and he looked over his shoulder. I followed his gaze and saw, about thirty yards away, under a tree another man was waiting on a motorbike with its engine running. He was also turbaned and bearded but wearing dark glasses. This other man signed to him to hurry.

“And you,” he barked, at last removing his hand and pointing at me. “Give me your rings and earrings.”

“The ring is stuck on my finger. I can’t get it off. See for yourself.”

“Wish I had a knife so I could take your finger off. Give me the earrings! Hurry! Before I tear them out.”

Slowly I began to loosen the screws at the back of my earrings.

The man on the motorbike honked again and made hurrying signs to the man at our window, but more harder this time.

“Hurry up,
kanjri
,” he shouted at me.

“I’m doing my best,” I said calmly, even though my fingers were shaking and inside I was shouting, “Don’t you dare call me a whore, you pimp, you bastard.” And then in the car mirror I saw Muhammad Hussain, paying the fruit
-wallah
and turning back towards the car with two bulging bags of fruit in each
hand. I saw him frown at our bearded guest, confused. I know from the TV news and from friends to whom these things have happened, that when things like this happen it’s always the guards and drivers who get killed. Muhammad Hussain’s been with us fourteen years, from when Kulchoo was a baby. He used to carry Kulchoo on his shoulders and whenever he went home on leave, he brought Kulchoo dates from his village. He still does. He’s a bit slow and stuppid but he’s ours.

“Oh look,” I said loudly, budging Mulloo in the side and pointing to a big black Land Cruiser with black-out windows that was coming down the road towards us, “there’s Iqbal Bhai’s car. He’s seen us. Look he’s stopping.” Inside I was terrified that Mulloo might say something stuppid like “Iqbal Bhai, who?” But thanks God she didn’t. She just stared at the approaching car, her chin trembling, her eyes staring.

The man also looked. I didn’t know whose car it was but it was slowing down for the speed bumps that are all down that road. It was just the kind of car that drug dealers or big feudals with wandettas in their families have. Cars like these are usually packed inside with bodyguards carrying Kalashnikovs. Drops of sweat broke up on the man’s forehead. I prayed underneath my breaths, my shaking hands still at my ear. Mulloo sat like a statue beside me. A statue with silent tears rolling down its cheeks.

The Land Cruiser had slowed down to a scrawl and was just twenty yards away. I saw in the mirror that Muhammad Hussain had finally understood what was happening (I told you
na
, that he was slow) and was running towards our car,
the bags of fruit banging against his legs. Please God, I said inside my heart, please don’t let anything happen to him. There were two, three honks from the motorbike and an impatient vroom-vroom from its engine. The man looked at the motorbike, then at the Land Cruiser and then at me. His face became purple with anger. Snarling, he suddenly plunged past Mulloo so that half his body was in the car and tried to grab me by the throat but I flattened myself against my door so that his hands grabbed at empty space.

“Give me those earrings,
gashti
,” he shouted.

My one earring was off and now I was really frightened so I held it out to him on my open palm. It lay there like a tiny ice chip. Janoo had given me the studs for our tenth wedding anniversary. Once again the beardo plunged towards me, but when it came to it, I couldn’t hand it to him. Just as his fingers reached mine, I closed my fist and quickly put it behind my back. No way was I going to give this bastard my anniversary present from Janoo.

He roared with rage. “I’ll kill you, you dirty whore.” And he pulled out of the car and tried to open Mulloo’s door but I leapt to her side and locked it and zipped up the window. He spun around to come to my side. My heart was beating inside my mouth. I quickly locked my door and got down on to the foot mat and sat there crouching with my arms over my head, praying. Then I heard three impatient blasts of a motorbike horn followed by more vrooming of the engine, but this time quite near to our car. Swearing loudly, the beardo thumped his fist hard on the roof of the car, kicked the tyre, and then,
just as I expected him to start firing at my window, I heard his footsteps running away from the car. I put my head up and looked through my window. I saw him leap on to the back seat of the motorbike, with Mulloo’s bag under his arm, and roar off in a cloud of dust.

The Land Cruiser with the blacked-out windows, meanwhiles, drove quietly away. Muhammad Hussain pulled open the driver’s side door and panted, “Bibi, are you all right?”