Thinner Than Skin (7 page)

When it was over and she fell asleep, I hurried out into the night, a disturbed man.

Even the act of seeing becomes a theft, even a murder
.

I hated the conversation I’d had with her father earlier that day. It wasn’t even a conversation. I hated today.

So I was to go back as her escort. When I had just begun earning. She had a great salary. She’d keep building up her resumé, while I became the porter. Photographing her was my payment for her pleasure.

No, no, I had to stop thinking of her this way.

I asked God to help me feel the way I normally felt on my solitary walks.
Empty my mind, make me a happy man
. I increased my pace.

The weather had turned again. It was now colder than on our way to the BART this afternoon. Gusty too, even for the Richmond. So much for spring in October. Why couldn’t San Francisco be still? Oh, if only for tonight! In my haste, I’d left my sweater behind and worn only a windbreaker over my shirt. I’d also left my umbrella. Not that it would have helped. When the rain came, the wind scattered it in every direction, opals spinning cartwheels under streetlights. I passed a man and a woman hunched beneath the same coat, and a solitary man talking soothingly into his phone—such composure, at this hour, and in this weather!—but they were the only ones I noticed as I walked down Balboa Street toward the Great Highway, a stretch of coastal road that always reminded me of Clifton Boulevard in Karachi and gave me a kind of peace. From there it wasn’t a short hike to the Sutro Baths but I knew that’s where I was headed.

It always happened this way when I set out at night. My body knew where it wanted to go, as if it had programmed the route from some earlier time. So I let my legs guide me, aware that to
second-guess the purpose in my stride was as fruitless as second-guessing the need to flip onto my right side when I’d crawl into bed later to sleep.

My legs were sure, but my mind remained troubled. I tried to immerse myself in the glittering loops of rain, each drop dazzling, each cluster of multiple drops elastic and yielding. Instead, for no apparent reason, something I once heard Farhana say to my roommate Matthew danced around me instead. It was a silly thing and I’d had no right to eavesdrop. Nonetheless, it stuck.

“… put up with his farts and smelly underwear and the toilet with the urine stains all the way to the floor, and then to accompany him to a public soiree where he is
so
charming,
so
delightful. Do women really not know that underneath all that charm a man is farts and stains? Why do we fall for it, again and again?”

I’d heard Matthew laugh; his toilet was pristine.

First of all, we weren’t living together, so I couldn’t understand why she was having to put up with my smelly underwear et al. as if we were. Second, was she really talking about me? In a way, I hoped so. I didn’t know I possessed charm. I would like to, even for a few facetious moments at a public soiree. Third, public soiree? What the hell was that? Ergo, was she talking about
me
? Fourth, I didn’t fart as much as Matthew; I washed my underwear more often than she washed hers; I confess to the crusty commode. Ergo, it would have made sense if instead she’d said, “… put up with his finicky taste buds (no food is as good as my mother’s), his restless sleep (whenever I returned to bed after a walk, she claimed I woke her up), the toilet with the stains (yes yes), and then to have him accompany me to monologues by my father, who is
so
charming,
so
delightful …”

I felt a blade at my stomach. I was very far from the baths, drenched, and there was this man who must have been born of the opal rain, moving swiftly to wedge a knife under my windbreaker and through my shirt, just left of my navel. I wondered if I was being punished for having petty thoughts. Or punished for taking the photographs. Or just fucking punished.

“What do you want?” I heard a rasp exit my throat.

He was shorter than me and of paler complexion. High cheekbones, very obtrusive chin. Though this section of the road—definitely not the Great Highway, so where the hell was I?—was too dark to be sure, there could have been gray in the chin.

He could have been anyone.

He stared at me for a long time, and his breath was acrid, a mix of stale white wine and an illness, a stomach illness, perhaps, or a mental one. He gave me a lopsided grin and I could hear the sea. It had stopped raining. I was far from my apartment.

“What do you want?” I repeated. His knife poked harder into my flesh; still he did not reply. There was drool on his lips and he seemed to be shaking, with cold, or with laughter. I told myself the dampness at my belly was my soaked shirt. I wasn’t walking, or running, I was standing still, still as a dried urine stain. Yet I was drifting, as though bewitched, and the air was a checkerboard of moving points, flashes of color darting by.

His fist suddenly jerked to indicate my windbreaker.

“Jacket?” I asked. The knife was no longer at my belly. There was a sharp pain instead. He threw me a ghoulish grin.

In the wind my jacket inflated like a pneumatic device, as if I were blowing it with a rubber tube in a desperate attempt to escape on a solo flight across the Pacific. It would save me. It would save me, but only if I took it off. I began to undress slowly.

He was wheezing. I could hear words behind the wheeze. “Jack-eet. Jack-eet. Gee-ve-me-your-jack-eet.” They were not words but sounds merging into one roll, one hymn. While he repeated this hymn, I freed one arm and then the next, realizing, too late, that my wallet and my keys were in the jacket pocket. He began to hop; I saw Farhana hopping earlier that day. When my jacket was off he began to skip—away. And then he bolted across the street.

This was worse. He hadn’t taken a thing. He’d double back, follow me home.

I pressed my stomach and my fingers came away sticky. I was bleeding. I did not put the jacket back on but I did remove my wallet and keys. I held the jacket out to him as I crept away.

I must have walked south from Balboa, not north, because I could see the silhouette of the Dutch windmill when I looked over my shoulder for him; there it loomed, at the corner of Golden Gate Park. It was the first time my legs had misled me. He’d disappeared under the bridge, toward the park. I heard hushed footsteps but saw no chin, no gray sweats, and no soiled, thick-soled joggers without laces on the left foot. I only knew I’d been staring at the shoes when I searched for them on my way home.

I don’t remember entering my apartment. I remember smearing my stomach with an antibiotic cream from Matthew’s medicine cabinet (above his pristine toilet), bandaging it, taking two Tylenol, and climbing under the blankets with an icepack, naked and shivering. Farhana didn’t stir, didn’t curl into me.

It was still dark when I woke up again, bleeding. Beside me sat a friend of Farhana’s. His name was Wesley.

My parents first saw themselves as a married couple in a mirror. It was considered bad luck to gaze directly into each other’s eyes. This was an invitation to a jinn. But it was good luck to gaze at each other’s reflection. And so, at the wedding, my mother’s sister held a mirror across my mother’s lap and the newlyweds looked down, and, according to my aunt, smiled. “Your mother made a coy attempt at covering her lips so your father could not see how broadly she smiled, though of course, she was sitting next to him. He could hear the smile. And she could hear his.”

The same was true for the slopes of Malika Parbat, Queen of the Mountains. Her lovers were not meant to gaze at her directly. We were meant to gaze at her in the lake.

By the time we crossed the glacier and arrived on the banks of Lake Saiful Maluk, Malika Parbat’s reflection was being admired and broken by a stream of exhausted pilgrims and a dozen boats. Irfan warned Wes and Farhana to avoid the boats, declaring, simply, “They sink.”

It was Malika Parbat’s snowmelt that created the lake that reflected her. Her melt, tossed in with that of the surrounding
mountains. If you let your imagination soar, far in the distance to the northwest of the Queen appeared a tiny fragment of what might have been the most photographed and feared peak in the Himalayan chain: Nanga Parbat. Naked Mountain. Or perhaps it was just some mystery mountain that only looked like him, for he was too far away to actually be seen from here. Whoever he was, by all accounts, he rarely showed himself as clearly as on that day. Even those who negotiated the lake’s treacherously deep and icy waters in creaky boats to better gaze upon the reflection of the Queen now lifted their chins to gawk across the cerulean sky at that phantom peak, who was her rival, or darling, depending on whom you asked.

Irfan stared in disbelief. “I’ve never seen him. It isn’t possible.”

“This
is
fairy lake,” I said.

“—Though I’ve heard it can happen,” continued Irfan, still staring, open-mouthed.

Apparently, people believed that on days when the mountain appeared—the one that only looked like Nanga Parbat, but could not have been—the Queen’s snow melted even faster, due either to her rage at having her beauty overshadowed, or her excitement at beholding her lover. And on such days his snow also melted faster, due either to his rage at having his beauty uncloaked—whose eyes were worthy enough?—or his triumph at beholding the Queen’s ferment. Whatever the reason, the lake that day had a strong tide. We could see it from the way the water rolled onto shore; we could have been by the sea.

“I’ve never seen it so rough,” said Irfan, now even more perplexed.

“Maybe the jinn is here,” said Farhana.

“He’s jealous of the love I have for my princess,” I murmured.

“Then step back!”

“But first, look at yourself.” I pulled her closer to the water’s edge.

She was flushed from the hike and her cheeks were as crimson as her jacket. Her hair framed her face in a wild halo of black frizz
and her smile was especially radiant. I pulled her, and though our socks and shoes would remain wet for the rest of the day, we waded in further so she could see how lovely she was, and so we could see each other’s reflection in the mirror.

I didn’t know if I was imagining it but at that moment, the water was exceptionally calm. The tide seemed to wait. The lake lay flat as a puddle, and when Farhana craned her neck, the picture that answered back was of a girl as clear and unharried as the water itself, and of a boy beside her, bewitched.

“The jinn isn’t here,” I whispered. “The mountains are making deep, quiet love.”

I would have kissed her then, except it would have offended those around me. It seemed so unjust, the land could express its love but we could not.
Later
, I thought, gazing at her in the lake.

I caught a slight frown fleet across her reflection before she gave me a smile half of pity, half of promise. In the icy depths below, the Queen’s twin peaks fanned into triangular wings, enclosing us in a jagged cape of blessings. We stored her consent and pulled ourselves back to shore. Behind me, I heard the tide roll again.

Irfan was greeting the semi-nomadic tribes who made their summer homes on the lake’s shores. He spoke in a language I didn’t know, but I also heard some Urdu. I could tell that a lot of their communication involved names: names of those who’d moved to these heights for the summer and those who were staying down in the plains. They’d come with their cattle, horses, and sheepdogs. I spotted a few goats near the lake and several more on the hills to the north. Around us, goat bells chimed. There was a young child in a magenta kameez and a green satin shalwar brandishing a stick, while following a small black goat up a hill and there were half a dozen tourists following her, photographing her. She walked confidently, scratching her head, looking back and grinning. Her hair was the light tawny-blonde shade common to people of the valley, and it was so knotted it didn’t hang over her neck so much as rise from it, as if in the process of becoming dust. Her cheek was stained
with dirt; front teeth were missing. I could hear a wet, rattling cough. Around her neck were heavy necklaces and her wrists were encased in even heavier bracelets. The older women must have been inside the tents.

“She’s beautiful,” said Farhana.

“She would be, if she were better taken care of.”

“You should have told me, I would have brought some supplies.”

“Told you what?”

She ignored my question and started following the girl. The small black goat had completely vanished, no doubt finding a tasty bit of scrub between the deodar and pine trees.

Though I knew it was no use, I called out after Farhana, “You know the British called the Gujjars a martial race? You know why?”

“Why?” It was Wes, standing behind me.

To be honest, I’d forgotten him. To be honest, I’d wanted to.

I said, “They’re naturally warlike and deceitful when not on your side, naturally brave and loyal when on your side.”

“Yeah?”

“Point is, that girl doesn’t need Farhana.”

He shrugged. “Maybe Farrah needs her.”

He put it so plainly. Notwithstanding the irritating nickname. “Sandwich?”

“My thoughts exactly.”

I unzipped my backpack and pulled out a plastic bag bulging with chicken sandwiches. They were soggy with butter and I’d lost my appetite for white bread since living in America, but otherwise, I was so hungry that nothing ever tasted better. Despite the company. What did Farhana see in him?

He was on his third sandwich and I on my second when Irfan joined us. In silence, Irfan poured himself a thermos cup of water.

“What did you talk about?” asked Wes.

Irfan pointed to the sky. “The clouds. They say it’s going to rain. They think we should walk back now, or stay the night.”

“Stay where?”

“I brought a tent.”

“Clever,” I murmured, and Wes whistled, impressed.

“You should have too,” Irfan said in our general direction.

“You should have said so,” Wes retorted.

“The weather is changeable.” This time he addressed me. “You know that.”

I’ll admit it, by this time Irfan’s glumness was beginning to irk. First the owl was a bad omen, then the school bus had fallen off the glacier while the poor schoolchildren were learning of princesses and jinns, then that comment about needing Farhana’s permission before we could look for the cave. Did I mention his repeated need to check his cell phone? He’d been pleasant enough in Karachi—not the way he used to be, before Zulekha’s death, but pleasant—so what had happened since? Down in the cabin, he was cordial with the staff; he knew the local khan well, and was friendly with him too. Moments earlier, he’d greeted the nomads with downright warmth. He could have expended some cheer on us. Or at least on me.

“I’m going boating,” said Wes, walking away, daring Irfan to tell him otherwise.

“Will we all fit in one tent?” I asked.

“You and Farhana can take it. Wes and I will sleep outside.”

“In the rain?”

“I can ask them,” he pointed to the nomads.

“Is it easier just to head back?”

“The rain isn’t all we were talking about. The rain isn’t important.”

I waited. Instead of telling me what was important, Irfan again checked his phone for a signal. It was about the twentieth time since the morning.

“Nothing,” he snapped it shut.

“What’s wrong with you?” I couldn’t help myself. “You can’t enjoy yourself so nobody should?”

I regretted it at once. His shoulders stooped even lower; his eyes, already mournful (his wife had called them
soulful
), closed shut, as if my words had torn a nerve and his only comfort was in darkness. I thought of that night in San Francisco, near the park, when I’d been stabbed. My attacker had spared me. Perhaps he’d never intended otherwise. Irfan’s wife had not been so lucky. It could easily have been the other way.

He opened his eyes. “You do know about the arrest in Peshawar yesterday?”

I shook my head. “How would I? Haven’t read a newspaper for days.”

Now he cast me a look of disdain, as if to say,
Who has license to shut himself away from the world anymore?
The old Irfan would have understood the desire for that privilege, even if the privilege itself eluded us. The old Irfan would have let this day be filled with princesses and mountain love. But the new Irfan was agitated, and he was my friend. If I couldn’t lighten the grief of losing Zulekha, I had to lighten whatever grief I could. Hadn’t he been there for me? All that time in San Francisco, when I couldn’t pay my rent? Irfan had shared my burden without ever acting burdened.

“Tell me.”

“Didn’t you hear the waiter this morning? The man is being blamed for the hotel bombing in Karachi. There have been protests. One protester was shot dead.”

I paused. “Who was he?” It struck me that I was already referring to the man in past tense.

Irfan did the same. “His accusers say he was disguised as a shepherd, and that he had an accomplice who was last seen—around here.”

“Here?” This was a surprise. So far no one handed over to the CIA had come from these valleys. South of here, yes, in Baitullah Mehsud’s Waziristan on the Afghan border, but not all the way here, in this high corner of the North-West Frontier Province, at the foot of the Himalayas. These valleys belonged to the farmers down in the plains, and the herders around us. “That’s impossible.”

“Of course it is. And people here are nervous. They believe the man was innocent—they call both the prisoner and the accomplice ‘the man,’ they’ve become one and the same—but they’re sure he wasn’t from here.” He paused. “They also say that down in the plains, there are more military convoys moving in, and plainclothes spies.” And now he threw me yet another look of disapproval. “You did notice the convoys?”

I briefly regretted my oblivion to all that had been happening outside our cabin, Farhana’s and mine. Yes, I’d noticed the convoys, though barely. Apparently, while I’d been running along the River Kunhar, chased by a crazed owl, another world existed. Amazingly, in this parallel world, another chase was in progress.

“Why?” I asked. “When the police could say he was last seen anywhere, why say here?”

He shrugged. “An accident of geography. To people who don’t care, all geographies are the same, and anyway, accidents can happen anywhere.”

The young girl in the magenta kameez was walking up the hill, and I could see Farhana beside her, holding her hand. They seemed to be having a kind of conversation; Farhana’s broken Urdu would be no less broken than the girl’s.

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea for them to be here,” Irfan nudged his chin at Farhana, and then at Wes, who was getting into a boat. “The tribes are divided about who the man really was. Some say he came down from Kashmir. They say that all the way to Gilgit, people are talking about him, fearing he’s hiding somewhere in their midst. Others say he came from Central Asia, and is connected to the fighting in Waziristan. It’s hard to know one fight from another.”

Both of us were still looking at the lake, at Wes pulling away from the shore.

“Hard times make hard people,” Irfan continued. “These herders would normally never turn away a guest, but they won’t host someone who’ll bring in the ISI, though they fear it may
already be too late. Anyone could be a spy. Including a tourist. They want the tourists to leave. It isn’t like them.”

“We’re not tourists.”

“No.” Irfan smiled, and the smile was kind.

“I’m sorry about what I said—earlier.”

He looked away. “If you haven’t brought a tent, at least give me a sandwich.”

Half an hour later, Farhana was walking toward the lake with the girl. Wes was rowing along the far shore. They were waving to him; I doubt he saw them. I set aside the last two sandwiches for Farhana and was filling the gurgling in my still-empty stomach with water when a boy with brown curls strode toward us, bearing gifts. Pears and apricots. Potatoes and hot maize bread. He carried the aroma of salt on a flame, and a cloth rolled in a knot with black thread. When I plucked the knot from the boy my fingers came away sticky. Honey inside. We embraced, telling him to thank his mother for the gifts, Irfan polishing our gratitude in flecks of Hindko, or Gujri, I couldn’t tell which.

I tore the bread and left it on my tongue, letting the heat dissolve slowly. I added an apricot and rejoiced at my menu. Then I poured the topping: a finger of fresh honey. It tasted of flowers unknown to me, flowers vaguely aquatic. Like honey from the bottom of the lake. No one alive had ever touched the bottom, yet here was proof of life in those depths. Next I peeled a roasted potato with my teeth, telling Irfan that part of the thrill of being away from home was mixing dessert with vegetables.

“I always do that,” he replied. “No matter where I am.”

He held half a pear in one hand, half a potato in the other, and, as the clouds rolled across us and the light grew lavender, the two halves mirrored each other. I scraped my pear over the honey cloth and handed the cloth to Irfan, who drew the remaining drops with his tongue. As boys we’d do the same with imli wrappers. And we were boys again.