Night of the Golden Butterfly (10 page)

She possessed many virtues, was amiable and generous most of the time, but prone, as I have said, to fits of uncontrollable rage. Plato accidentally witnessed one of these while visiting me and was impressed by it. She had assumed he was a tradesman.

Her own marriage to my father had not been strictly conventional, to put it mildly. An elopement and secret wedding; a scandal in the family; my grandfather threatening to kill her and himself if the marriage were not annulled; the anger of my paternal grandmother, from a more blue-blooded faction of the family and enraged that her son was not considered suitable simply because of his Communist views. It had all worked out in the end, and an official wedding, attended by the city’s notables, had duly taken place. All this should have made my mother more relaxed in her own views, but it was as if, having set an audacious fashion when she was young, she was now surprised by her own boldness, and she often displayed a pseudo-morality that was distressing to all of us. Were there other skeletons in her past of which we had no idea? Her semi-hysterical defence of monogamy, and this in a culture where monogamy is actively discouraged, has left me suspicious to this day. At the time, however, she appeared triumphant. She had wrecked my happiness and was boasting about her success to my father and her circle of intimates.

How wrong she was and how right as well, but not because of my apparent capitulation. It was Jindié who took my mother’s stupid strictures to heart. Suddenly we were no longer meant for each other. She was too old anyway. Why didn’t I marry one of my delectable cousins, as was the tradition in our family. They were ever so pretty. Surely I could inspect a few fifteen-year-old ones now so that they could be ready in a few years’ time. We belonged to different worlds. It was pointless annoying the family. She would not be seeking entry at Leeds University. We must not see or speak to each other again.

I was in a panic. How could this be? Why? She wouldn’t tell me. In desperation I went to see her mother, a woman of admirable impulses and rare good sense. Mrs Ma soothed my ego, but offered no advice. Her daughter was the only person who could decide, she told me with quiet pride. Confucius, too, understood my pain, but he was half-scared of Jindié’s sharp tongue and would never dream of defying her will. I needed Zahid and cursed him for having destroyed our friendship. Plato was useless in these matters, but said he would do anything to help, and he stressed the
anything
. It was then that a crazy idea began to form in my head, one with which Plato became centrally involved.

I
HAD KEPT NOTHING
secret from Jindié. My self-esteem vanished in her presence. Ever since the summer in Nathiagali, all verbal constraint between us had disappeared. Now I simply couldn’t understand the reasons for her emotional retreat. Perhaps she thought that some of my mother’s prejudices were genetic and were ingrained in the rest of us as well, but whatever it was I needed to know before I left. I had to lure her to a last, desperate rendezvous, but to reassure her that my intentions were pure, the location had to be simultaneously public and secret. The only place that fitted this description was the marble Mughal terrace in the Shalimar Gardens on the edge of the city.

‘How are you going to scale those walls in the moonlight without Satan’s help?’ Plato asked in despair. It was Thursday. My departure was planned for Sunday.

My plan was simple. I would convince Jindié to meet me one last time. She would tell her parents she was spending the night at the house of one of my female cousins. Plato, dressed as a chauffeur, would borrow a friend’s car and pick her up from home on Friday evening. They would meet me outside the Shalimar Gardens. It could work.

‘The gardens are locked. There are night watchmen. How will we get in?’

Plato had no idea that I had solved this one. Close family friends were the hereditary guardians of Shalimar, their reward for having tilled the soil and sown the seeds when the gardens—a Mughal passion—were being constructed. Anis, the younger son with languid eyes, a few years older than me, was a dear friend. Sent at a very young age to board at an English public school, he had first become a bit puffed up and then suffered a breakdown, from which he never fully recovered. His forebears had grabbed the adjoining lands when the Mughal Empire collapsed, and had become gentry. We used to laugh a great deal when his father, a radical member of Fatherland’s Constituent Assembly, described the rise of his family.

I rang Anis, explaining my dilemma. He offered his car and the key to a private entry gate that had been used for assignations for centuries. And I was not to worry about the guards. They were tenants and would be instructed to protect our privacy. Did I need food and wine? No. A sitar player hidden behind the bushes to enhance the atmosphere? No! He made it sound like a Bollywood movie. Plato and I went to pick up the key and the car. Anis drew us a little map showing exactly where the hidden gate was situated. ‘Dara’, he said in a loud voice as I was about to leave, ‘is this the Chinese beauty your mother has warned us all against?’

I nodded.

‘Hmm. Thought so. Whatever it is, I hope you succeed. Don’t take no for an answer. Elope with her. Take the car. Allah protect us from our mothers. Did you say you were spending the night here? It’s fine.

Perfectly fine. I’ll alert the servants. Best of luck, dear Dara. Afraid I can’t offer you any meaningful advice.’

Everything was now settled, except Jindié’s consent. I was twenty. She was eighteen. Neither of us had any real experience of life, which is why we regarded our private conversations, mainly on the telephone, as rare forms of happiness. I had gone through dark imaginings, wondering what existence might be without her. Would my eyes ever light up at a substitute well-curved breast? What would she say when I told her I had secured Shalimar just so that we could talk in peace for the whole night face to face rather than holding a receiver close to our ears? I thought all my persuasive powers would need to be deployed in order to convince her to even speak with me. But our breach had lasted a week, and speaking to each other about everything, as good friends do, had become such a habit for both of us that she, too, must have suffered withdrawal symptoms.

And perhaps it was this that had brought about a complete change in her mood. She agreed readily to the entire plan, oblivious to the surprise in my voice as I expressed my delight. I felt quietly confident. She would be mine. All would be well. We would never part.

Plato played his part to perfection. It was a beautiful October evening. At first we walked to the ramparts above the old wall and gazed at the lights of Lahore. She let me hold her hand and kiss it, which I did repeatedly. She told me, without my asking, all the bad things that were said of me by her friends at Nairn. Since most of them were true I thought it best to sport a lofty air and refrain from responding in kind. The gardens were magical at night, with the city at a distance and the stars above. There was total silence, except for the hoot of a solitary owl. Gradually we got used to the starlight. At first we talked in whispers, till we realized we were the only two people there and could speak in our normal voices.

I remember that we both wore shawls and paced up and down the empty garden as we talked. I wanted to know about her family. When and why had her forebears left China? It was a long story, she said, and would require at least three hundred nights and one. Let’s start now, I pleaded, but she didn’t want to talk about all that tonight. She had once whispered a song in Punjabi for me and I asked for an encore:

‘Then sing some Waris Shah in my ears.’

‘There were gleams of Sufi light in China, too, did you know?’

‘It’s Sufi delights that interest me more tonight.’

She took my arm as we carried on walking and talking in the starlight but keeping well clear of the subject that was agitating us both. Mysteriously, cushions had appeared on the marble benches where we had established our base. Anis, despite my wishes, had organized flasks with tea and a box full of chicken sandwiches. She didn’t even notice. If a bloody sitar begins to whine behind a bush, I’ll kill you, Anis. Mercifully, nothing else happened.

‘Jindié ...’

‘Don’t. It’s no use.’

I embraced her and kissed her eyes. She lay back in my arms and I stroked her head. ‘Why did you decide not to go to Leeds?’

‘Why spoil our last evening together by talking about unpleasant facts? Just accept we’re not intended for each other, and let’s forego lofty thoughts and just be.’

I kissed her lips and she responded. And then I thought if we made love and she became pregnant it would be a fait accompli and she would have to marry me and damn the rest of the world. It sounded, even then, like a bad love drama, but the intensity of the moment drowned all my critical faculties. I was gripped by the passion that combines love and lust.

She was relaxed and kept stroking my face and kissing me. Then as I heard the muezzin calling the faithful to the early morning prayer, I made a fatal error. I put my hand underneath her shawl and then underneath her shirt, searching for the creamy texture of her breasts. I stroked the little orb still concealed underneath the bra. She didn’t object, which emboldened me further. I attempted to lift the bra and kiss the flesh. It was a serious tactical error. She jumped up, a look of horror on her face.

‘Why did you do that?’

‘I want to make love to you. It’s our only night together and I thought ...’

She shouted at me in Chinese, yelling the word
semen
repeatedly as she pointed a finger in my direction.

‘Jindié, I’m sorry.’

‘You’re not. You’re semen. You’re semen. Do you know that? That’s all you are. Semen. I hate you. You don’t really love me. There is nothing pure about your love. I want to go home. Now.’

What could I do? I pleaded forgiveness. I wept. I fell on my knees. I kissed her hands. The young are nothing, if not melodramatic and the location undoubtedly helped, but it was to no avail. She was in a rage and reproaching herself bitterly for having agreed to the meeting in the first place. She ran towards the gate. I followed her out. Plato saw her tears and understood.

‘Please take me home now, Plato. Then you can come back and return Mr Semen to his mother.’

Was it my imagination or did Plato repress a smile? As the car drove off, a familiar voice startled me.

‘You should have forced her.’

It was Anis. ‘Sorry, D. I was unable to resist bearing witness. Were your tears real? Impressive in any case.’

Well aware of his voyeuristic habits, I wasn’t totally surprised. In fact, I was now pleased by his presence. It was a welcome distraction and stopped me feeling too distraught. We were both hungry and the sandwiches were rapidly consumed.

‘Did you hear everything?’

‘Only when you were both seated. Hope the cushions were comfortable. The marble is cold and uncomfortable at night and had you proceeded as you should have the Chinese beauty would have appreciated their warmth, if not yours.’

‘I could never have forced her or anyone else, Anis.’

He sighed sadly in agreement. ‘Our forebears would weep if they could see how pathetic we have become.’

Though we never raised the subject with him, it was hardly a secret to his friends that Anis’s only interest in women was as conversationalists and friends. His mother’s attempts to force him in a heterosexual direction failed regularly. City beauties were paraded before his eyes to try and entice him to marry, but he never showed the slightest interest and they never came back. The courtesans hired by his desperate parents to arouse him from his torpor were paid double by him on the condition they lied to all and sundry about his prowess, which they did with verve, I know because I once overheard our mothers discussing the problem and his mother boasting of how good Anis was in bed with a proper woman. My mother happily joined in the barrage of bitchy attacks on ‘modern girls’. Anis and I laughed a great deal that day. One of the younger courtesans had ended up a friend of ours and would regale us with stories of city venerables—she always named names—who visited the Diamond Market on a weekly basis. A cousin of mine later fell in love with and married her. ‘I know what she was, but so what. That life has made her monogamous and loyal. Rather her than someone from our world.’ He was right, of course. And his three children all studied medicine: the girls work in hospitals in Texas; the boy specialized in orthopaedic surgery and became a skilful surgeon and a born-again Muslim. He was head-hunted by the religious guerrillas in Afghanistan and ended up as their in-house doctor, treating the war wounded at the mobile hospitals of the Taliban. According to his mother, he treated Osama Bin Laden shortly before the latter’s demise.

I felt much better after Anis and I had finished our tea and sandwiches on the Shalimar terrace, but a puzzle remained. I asked Anis about the word whose use in that evening’s unpleasant finale had mystified me.

‘Do you think that
semen
, or
tsemen
as she hissed it, is an abusive term in Chinese? That would be a unique coincidence; in English it is the seed that produces life.’

‘Or not; as the case may be ... you didn’t have a waking wet dream, did you? Just asking. I did wonder about that usage. I noted that she referred to you as semen at least six times in a sentence and a half, and once again later when referring to you in a conversation with Plato. Impressive. It’s a very intimate abuse. She obviously loves you. No doubt about that, but your mother is an effective opponent of all brides-to-be. She’s so judgemental. I’m afraid it’s one of her more repulsive features. My mother’s exactly the same. Surely they can’t have a semen-phobia in the People’s Republic? Never been there. We could ask the Chinese ambassador the next time he comes over for supper.’

He relapsed into deep thought and was lost to the world. I was feeling extremely low as well. Suddenly he came back to life.

‘I was thinking that the only other place where I once heard a pejorative reference to semen was in Venice. The gondoliers, as you know, are extremely competitive and on every level. They often refer to each other as
boron
or
boroni
, which is not local slang for “baron”, as assumed by the tourists, but singular and plural for “blob of sperm”, or so they told me.’