The Wish Maker (27 page)

It was announced that night that a friend of Samar Api’s was coming to see the house.

“And I want orange juice,” she said.

“We have orange juice,” said Daadi.

Naseem said we had one unopened packet in the fridge that was going to expire.

“Won’t expire in a day,” said Daadi.

“But I want freshly squeezed orange juice,” said Samar Api.

And oranges were added to the list of items to be brought the following day from the market.

They came with their leaves in transparent plastic bags, which were sent to the kitchen. Samar Api stood above the worktop and watched as the oranges were crushed on the slow rotating mound of the juicer. It was a lengthy process, requiring an effort and commitment disproportionate to the amount of juice it yielded: one by one the oranges were juiced, disemboweled, discarded; and the juice was only starting to collect.

“Go away from here,” said Naseem, “or I’ll drain it in the sink.”

There was work to be done.

Samar Api decided to start with her own room.

She changed the bedsheets first, stripping the mattress of its polka-dot covering and replacing it with a plain white sheet, then a pale blue one. She spanked the pillows to get rid of the dust, patted their bellies and plucked their corners. The location of the two-hearted picture frame on the bedside table was altered from beside the lamp to behind the lamp, then directly in front of the lamp. She stood back to experience the effect.

She went into the next room, where the curtains were drawn, the fan whir- ring in the shadows. Daadi was rigidly asleep on her bed and was covered in a taut sheet like a corpse. The cylinder of air-freshener stood among the medicines on the mantelpiece. Samar Api returned with it to her room and sprayed it around the bed. She paused to inhale the smell.

It was strong.

She opened the windows and switched on the fan.

She went into the kitchen and returned: the juice was complete.

She switched off the fan in her room and closed the windows. Once again, in the altered setting, she sought her vision: the bedding, the lamp, the picture frame with its history, the posters of Amitabh on the wall.

“Looks nice,” I said.

But she wasn’t satisfied. She went into my mother’s room and looked in the wardrobe, looked in the drawers, then on the shelves, where she found a crystal ashtray and a brass bell that gave a tinkling noise when it shook. On her way out she took the telephone too, but without the wires, which wouldn’t leave the room.

The items were arranged on the bedside table in her own room: the phone, the bell and the ashtray now joined the frame and the lamp.

“Looks nice.”

She agreed.

“What about the phone?”

“We’ll say it’s new.”

She went to inspect the veranda and found cobwebs on the upper walls. The lawn was not mown. In the heated sheen of the afternoon the driveway was parched and bare. The car had gone for servicing.

“I’ll bring her inside,” she said, and went back inside.

She chose my clothes for me: a full-sleeved shirt, worn only with a blazer at birthday parties, and a pair of velvety corduroy trousers in brown.

“It’s so hot, Samar Api.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said, and held up the shirt. “You can do this for me once, can’t you?”

And, having settled the rest, she retired to the dressing room, where she spent a long time, emerging at last in a dark shalwar kameez with short sleeves and a focused expression, her features sharp with added lines and colors. She went into the kitchen for one last look, then went into the veranda and sat in a chair under the fan, waiting for her friend to arrive.

The sounds came: a horn from outside, long and unhurried, the gate dragging, then the roar of a big car as it rolled up the driveway and came to a stop outside the veranda. The doors opened and slammed. Now silence, a long pause before the sounds returned, of shoes in the veranda, nearing, and voices fading in the distance.

“Go on,” said Naseem, who was standing with me in the kitchen and pouring the cold juice into two tall glasses to be taken away now on a tray. “Your guest is here. Go and make her happy.”

“You go first,” I said.

Naseem sighed. She wrung her hands in the sink, lifted the tray and went away.

She returned with the tray, which was empty.

“She here?”

“Oh, yes,” said Naseem.

“Did they drink the juice?”

“Must have.”

“You didn’t stay.”

“No, no.”

“Should I go?”

“If you want.”

I went. I stood before the door and knocked.

“Who is it?” said Samar Api from inside.

“It’s me,” I said. “Your cousin.”

“You can come in.”

She was sitting cross-legged on the bed. And Tara Tanvir was standing, still immersed in the novelty of the room, a hand on her hip, a hand holding her glass of orange juice.

“I don’t think he’s that great,” she said.

Samar Api looked at me and looked away.

They were discussing Amitabh.

“He’s tall dark handsome,” said Samar Api. Her juice was finished, the empty glass edged into the congestion on the bedside table.

“I like tall fair handsome,” said Tara Tanvir. She raised her glass to sip the juice but lowered it before it reached her lips.

“Hi, Tara,” I said from the doorway.

“Hi,” said Tara Tanvir, but distractedly. Her back was turned; she was searching a poster on the wall for the alleged appeal of its subject. The back of her vest showed tight folds at the armpits.

“You don’t have to stand,” said Samar Api.

“O ya,” said Tara Tanvir. She sought to settle her glass on the table, settled it on the floor instead, then settled herself on the bed. “Zaki,” she said, seeing me now, “you’re dressed so well.”

“You can come in,” said Samar Api.

“Ya, come sit with us!” cried Tara Tanvir with the same enthusiasm, the same bright burst of an idea out of nothing that had marked the success of the previous night. I sat again on the edge of the bed, aware of the room now, the aspect of newness and the element of disguise.

“Who all lives here?” inquired Tara Tanvir.

Samar Api gave a surprisingly succinct account of the house and its inhabitants, their various roles and functions and their links to one another.

“Where’s your mother?” said Tara Tanvir.

“My mother’s in the village,” said Samar Api. “His mother’s at the office.”

“My mother never goes out,” said Tara Tanvir.

We were quiet.

“You guys!” she cried. “Don’t be formal!” She was friendly and rallying; she thrashed her foot in childish protest on the bed and laughed as if at the absurdity of her own remark, her shoulders shaking, her eyes small and thin with mirth.

“You’re too much, Tara,” said Samar Api, and laughed concedingly.

“I’m blunt,” said Tara Tanvir.

“Too blunt!” said Samar Api.

They laughed together.

“So what’s the plan,” said Tara Tanvir when the laughing had ended.

Samar Api stretched forward and touched her toes with her fingertips. She said, “Up to you.”

“I don’t know,” said Tara Tanvir, and made a face. “I’m here to hang out with you guys.” And this was said with a degree of self-exposure, a frankness that was bold and then touching.

“Let’s show her the house,” said Samar Api, and climbed off the bed.

We went to the roof, which was bright and searing in the daylight; the aerial stood in an isolated corner like a rake. Tara Tanvir said she wanted to touch it, but Samar Api said it had the power to electrocute, and Tara Tanvir quickly withdrew her hand. She was led away then to the other side of the roof, where the trees and houses of the neighborhood protruded in an endless view: clothes hung on clotheslines, still and sagging in the breezeless afternoon, the windows of the houses open and closed without purpose or consistency of design.

“You guys have neighbors?” said Tara Tanvir. She was squinting, her hand forming a saluting terrace at her forehead to keep out the sun.

And Samar Api told the stories of some of the houses in the neighborhood, the eccentricities of former residents and the things they had left unexplained.

Downstairs again, in the uneven shade of eaves and ledges, we walked about in search of undiscovered meanings. The gravel walkway, cracked for years, now acquired the menace of disrepair, a waiting air of doom; we kicked stones and stepped on fallen branches, which crunched. I ran a hand along the flaking wall, across the unmoving multitudes of mango bugs, gray and ripe: the wall was streaked with their yellow juice.

Tara Tanvir squealed.

We passed the gutter. It was open and showed a steady gleam hurrying on in the darkness.

“No way,” said Tara Tanvir.

“It’s just a gutter,” said Samar Api.

Tara Tanvir was enchanted. She knelt to lift a twig from the ground and dropped it in the hole. It went soundlessly.

“Now it’ll come in someone’s bathroom,” said Samar Api, and laughed into her hand, not wishing to describe the process or to dwell upon the consequences.

We reached the lawn at last and sat on the grass. The sun had left broad burns behind the day; birds flapped out of trees and fled in shifting shapes against the dark.

Tara Tanvir wanted a flower from the frangipani tree.

“He’s really good at climbing,” said Samar Api.

They watched.

“Thanks so much, Zaki,” said Tara Tanvir, and twirled the white flower in her hand. She closed her eyes and smelled it, then secured it behind her ear. She leaned back on the grass against her palms. “You guys, we’re getting close,” she said. Then she said, “You know I broke up with my boyfriend,” and laughed tragically. “Ya. It was long distance. He lives in London. He’s a family friend. He’s older than me. I always go for older guys. My mistake, I guess. But he was such a good kisser.”

It was like a profession.

Samar Api reached out a hand.

“I’m over it now,” said Tara Tanvir. “And frankly I don’t care. Good riddance to bad rubbish is what I say.”

Samar Api continued to hold her hand.

“Let’s change the subject,” said Tara Tanvir.

“What’s better,” said Samar Api, “London or America?”

Tara Tanvir said London was better because she knew people there. On Oxford Street, where she often went walking, there was always a chance of bumping into someone she knew. “And London has Selfridges and Harrods,” she said. “America only has malls.” She said “mauls” and not “maals,” which was how we said it.

“You have a house there?” said Samar Api.

“We have a flat.”

“What do you do in London?” said Samar Api. She was leaning forward and trying to stretch a blade of grass between her fingers.

Tara Tanvir described a world of buses and taxis, squares where people gathered on Sundays and ate ice creams that were sold from portable counters on the street, a stick of vanilla in chocolate. “It costs a pound and twenty pee,” she said, and explained that it was reasonable, a thing she could afford since she kept all the change from other purchases in her handbag. “In London all the change comes in coins,” she said.

“You’re so lucky,” said Samar Api.

“Depends on how you look at it,” said Tara Tanvir. She said it quickly, without pause or inflection.

“You are,” said Samar Api. She tugged the blade of grass between her fingers and it broke.

Tara Tanvir said, “You know something?”

We waited.

She said, “Forget it.”

“What?” said Samar Api.

“Nothing,” she said, and then told us about her father, who was having an affair. Her mother had tried to stop it, failed, and had an affair herself. Late at night, Tara Tanvir went with her mother in a car to a house in Defense, and waited in the lane outside to catch an incriminating glimpse of her father. And on other nights her father drank a lot of whiskey and said unpleasant things about her mother that were difficult to hear. Tara Tanvir said she was torn, unable to choose between her parents, and didn’t know whose side to take or when to take it. And she said she didn’t know when the fighting would end.