The Wish Maker (65 page)

Winter came and the water from Daadi’s shower was still cold. I brought a plumber from Canal Park who claimed to know all about bathrooms. He fixed the shower in a few minutes but embarked on a lengthy inspection of the toilet and the drain. He rolled up his sleeves and rummaged in dark holes, groaning and muttering when he found things, groaning and muttering when he didn’t. In the end he demanded more than the promised amount, and Daadi parted grudgingly with the money. But in the morning it emerged that he had solved one problem and created another: the drain was clogged. Daadi’s bathroom was a swamp after she showered and it took the whole day to dry up.

I offered to fetch the plumber.

“No!” said Daadi. “That’s just what he wants!”

One evening, while she was conducting the ablutions that preceded her ishaa prayers, she slipped on a wet patch and fell on her hip. She cried for help but no one came; her shouts were swallowed by the deaf hollows of the veranda. She sent up a hand, managed to clutch the rim of the sink and raised herself with a limping effort. And that night she made the announcement: I was to move in with her, because if tomorrow she died . . .

“O God,” said my mother.

“At my age . . .” said Daadi.

And so, after years of denial and disuse, the room next to Daadi’s was reopened, aired and fumed. A group of professional cleaners came to the house and swept through the downy cobwebs. The bed was taken out into the driveway and left to sit under the sun. A patch of dust, exactly the size of the bed, was discovered underneath, and also a cardboard box, sagging at the top as if from the weight of an invisible burden. It contained one or two magazines, three videotapes of
Jane Fonda’s Complete Workout
and a picture frame comprised of two small hearts that touched when they folded.

I sealed the box with masking tape and left it under the bed.

And the next day I moved in with my things, aware of the intrusion, the presence of ghosts, but determined not to disturb the ether in which they roamed.

The guidance and counseling department advised me to apply to a liberal arts college in America. There were some that gave financial aid to international students.

“I don’t see why not,” said my mother. She appeared to be thinking it through. “But the cost, Zaki . . .”

“They give financial aid.”

My mother was looking at Daadi.

“Too far,” said Daadi.

I said, “It’s not.”

“Apply,” said my mother.

“And what if I get in?”

“Then we’ll see,” she said.

I arranged the computer in a corner of the room. The desk was black and shiny, wood that didn’t feel like wood, and came with two drawers that I resolved to devote to the application materials. At night I sat before the glowing screen, looking into a world of white yards and black trees that twisted like arteries. The state was called Massachusetts, which sounded like twigs snapping.
Indiana Jones and the Curse of Massachusetts
. The picture showed a white girl, a black boy, a Chinese girl and another boy who was brown but appeared to be a foreigner. They were struggling and squealing, engulfed in the raptures of a snow fight.

I clicked on the link for prospective students.

I read the topic a few times and looked at the walls of the room in which I sat.

I spent my afternoons at the tuition center, three hours of books and murmurs, the hum of the air conditioner, an immersion in the slowly clearing mist of test-taking techniques and strategies. After class I went with a boy called Amaan in his car. Amaan had withdrawn from his school earlier in the year because he had failed the half-yearly exams, and claimed with casual contempt that it was the system’s fault and not his. For him everything was a part of the system. The practice tests were designed by the system; the system would bar us entry into good universities; the broken roads of Johar Town that caused Amaan’s haunchy Volkswagen to bump and shudder were the proof of the presence of the system. He was a buggish boy with large, lidless eyes, and in the morning his porcupine hair was sharp. In the evenings Amaan and I went to the grounds at FC College, where boys from other schools (and some who went to no schools) gathered to play fierce rounds of football. The teams changed only when a member withdrew, and Amaan and I resolved to play together. But Amaan was a chain-smoker and had no stamina, and after the first few rounds he announced that he was going to umpire the matches. Thereafter he jogged alongside the players with a whistle hanging from a string around his neck, his body only mildly exerted and his face contorted with involvement. And in the car he gave critiques of my performance, and said one day that I had the speed but not the flair that was necessary for greatness.

I was home in time for dinner, which still came in soft cardboard boxes on a home-delivery motorbike. I entered Daadi’s room one night and found the unopened boxes waiting on the table. Daadi and my mother were sitting before the TV. An American newsreader was frowning into her microphone, her shoulders sagging, her hair stirring in a dusty breeze. Behind her was a thick cloud of smoke. And then came the image of two tall buildings, sparkling in daylight until they were hit, one after the other, by apparently blind airplanes.

“Sit,” said Daadi.

I sat.

My mother looked at me.

Daadi placed a hand on mine and said, “You are not going to that country.”

My mother’s editorial that week was titled “The Blowback.” It was passionate and complicated, and exceeded the usual length. And the talk at the tuition center was grim. Amaan said there was no point applying now to American universities because no one would get in. “The system,” he said, tapping his temple, and nodded gravely.

It came on a Tuesday morning in April. One new e-mail.
Admissions Decision.

I watched it briefly, the fresh, suspenseful blue.
Admissions Decision
. The title said no more.

I waited for the page to load.

“I’m in I’m in!”

My mother came into the room. “O God, he’s in!”

Daadi went to the mantelpiece and called her daughters. She told Suri, she told Hukmi, she hung up the phone and dialed again.

“Zaki has got in,” said Daadi. She listened. She said, “You should come, just for a day you should, these children, you know how it is, they go and then they are gone, if only for a few hours you should come.”

And Chhoti said that she would.

She came alone. She was frail, a small woman made smaller and weaker. Her eyes were enlarged in their sockets, and had welts underneath that seemed to have been pressed in by hard fingers. She brought a crate of mangoes that her driver carried into the kitchen.

The conversation was cordial. She didn’t mention her husband, or his sisters, or his new wife. And she didn’t mention her daughter. She said that in Barampur the heat of summer had begun to take its toll.

Daadi said, “You are looking weak.”

“The heat,” said Chhoti.

“You should stay—” began Daadi.

But Chhoti said, “I can’t. I must return by tonight. You know how it is over there.”

18

Zacky Shirazzy?”

An officer in a dark blue uniform inclined his head. His golden hair was short, recently shaved, and had grown back like grass. He led me into a room that had two chairs, a desk and a computer.

“Okay,” he said, and settled into his chair. It gave a hingey caw. He flipped through the rigid pages of my passport and tapped the keyboard. “Come on . . .”

It came on.

He raised the passport, turned to the first page and typed PAKISTAN into the machine.

“Put your right index finger on the red screen, please?”

I placed my finger on the small box he had indicated. The screen was red with laser.

“Left index finger?”

I placed it on the box.

“Look into the camera.”

A robotic snake with a slim, flexible neck appeared. Its one blind eye was also red.

I looked into it and smiled.

“Stay still . . .”

I did.

“All set,” said the officer. He stamped and stapled my passport and held it out like a gift. “Welcome to the United States,” he said, addressing the wall behind me.

My room was on the fourth floor. Climbing the stairs with my suitcase was difficult, and I paused at the landings. Finally I reached the door. It said E52 on a rectangular white card.

I knocked.

“Hey!”

It was a boy in a T-shirt. And he was Chinese. The letter had said his name was Benny.

I said, “Benny?”

He nodded and said, “You got it.”

“Hi. Zaki.” I offered him my hand.

He smacked it with his and pointed to my suitcase. “Need help with that?”