Threads (Part I)

On the day she died, Zainab was sitting in the backseat of a 95'
Nissan Sentra hypnotized by the calm power of rain and lightning
striking the distant corn fields in claps of deep bass. Memories
drifted in and out of her mind like sheets of rain on the blurry gray
horizon. Thoughts igniting like streaks of lightning between
memories. Her husband's voice smiling softly that morning. But he was
so far from the moment. The car's monotone acceleration lulled her
towards sleep. Her brother driving steady and straight through the
friend in Karachi. 1987.

When she first met her husband ten years ago at a 'University' kebab
stand in downtown Karachi, she laughed. She looked right at him and
broke out in uncontrollable sobbing teary-eyed spasmodic laughter.

He'd been looking at her from a distance trying to grab her
attention. She'd seen him from the start. Leaning back in a dull straw
chair with a dood keila in one hand and a plate of spiced cholai on
the cheap plastic table in front of him. She saw the way he spoke in
quick bursts cutting off his friends time and time again. His thick
black mustache white with the banana frost of his dood keila. She
liked the innocence in his eyes as he looked at her and his awkward
fear whenever they almost made eye contact. The first two buttons in
his white polyester half sleeved dress shirt were unbuttoned. A thin
tangle of black hair on a bony brown chest merging with the two day
stubble on his neck. But it was the snow white jeans dripping with
patches of deep blue that really amazed her.

"Hey Shabana..."

"Yeah... What is it?"

"Don't point or be to obvious about it, but check out that bunda in
the white on the table behind you." Shabana stood up and pretended to
stretch her arms. Then she stretched her neck with half-closed eyes
and glanced at Asad wrapped in white behind her. She turned back
quickly, covered her mouth, and bent over to keep from laughing too
loud.

"That's incredible. He must've tried to stonewash 'em himself..."

"Pretty unbelievably ugly. And with a white shirt it's like..."

"He glows!" Shabana finished the sentence at the moment Zainab and
Asad finally made eye contact. Zainab pictured some Hindi movie
wanna-be-hero in a white safari suit with tennis shoes and began
tearing with laughter. Asad's smile disappeared and he looked down
quickly. His eyes on his cholai.

Hisham's BBQ was more of a park than an actual restaurant. There were
tables inside the massive single story T-shaped building but most
customers preferred to sit outside. Dark amber wooden benches and
plastic tables were spread out on the sod lawn outside the main body
of the restaurant. The grass was dead in most places. The oppressive
heat baked the desert dust. A few blocks from the main campus of
Karachi University in Nazmibad, Hisham's was one of the city's few
exclusively college hangouts. High school kids and horny middle-aged
men were usually welcomed with cold stares and whispers. Most of the
crowd was dressed young. Stonewashed jeans and t-shirts. An occasional
collared shirt and jacket. One look around the lawn sufficed to divide
the kids into cool, uncool, and strange. The cool wore
Ray-bans. Grease in their hair. Leather boots. Tight jeans. The uncool
wore corduroy or real formal loafers. Full sleeved dress
shirts. Obscenely large plastic-rimmed purple or light gray
sunglasses. Shiny brownish-red leather shoes. The strange were just
that, strange. Mixing the cool with the uncool. As if trapped between
the two worlds. Souls in transition. Asad was in transition (though
his jeans made a strong case for uncool).

Zainab regained her composure, and the man's grasp on her
weakened. Shabana mentioned her new turquoise shalwar suit with the
black ruputa describing in unnecessary detail her struggle to get the
dirzi to embroider it correctly.

"So, I told him I wanted a golden yellow because lemon yellow looks
awful with feroza. And he said 'Ok. No Problem.' But when I came back
this morning the whole suit was embroidered in light brown. So I told
him to fix it or I wouldn't pay him and after yelling for an hour, he
finally said he'd fix it. But now I have to wait another two weeks and
Mariam's mahdi is next Friday!"

"You can borrow my white gharara if you want... I haven't worn it
yet."

"No I couldn't do that. That suit's beautiful. Weren't you going to
wear it to Seema's nikka?"

"That's months away. I'll get something else." Zainab was playing with
a fork on her empty plate.

"Oh. Thank you!" Shabana was ecstatic and squeezed Zainab's left arm.

"It's almost 3. I'm late for a class. I'll see you tonight?" Shabana
asked Zainab, taking off in the direction of the main campus without
waiting for a response. Zainab said "Sure," to her empty plate and
grabbed her purse. But just as she got up she saw the man in white
walking towards her, his face pale with sickened courage.

"Hello..." he said in a barely audible voice looking at her and then
the floor.

"Hi." Her tone was confident and curt. She really didn't have the time
to deal with him. Still, she was shocked that he'd actual come over
and said 'hi.' The poor kid looked like he was about to collapse under
the weight of his friends loud whispers from behind.

"Would you like to sit down?" His eyes looked up thankfully for the
verbal life saver and he fell into a plastic chair across from her.

"Nice friends you have there." She pointed to the other three guys at
his table. Their voices stabbing towards him at regular intervals.

"They aren't that bad most of the time," he said with a bit more
confidence. Silence. She looked at her watch laying the groundwork for
some excuse to pry herself out of the awkward silence. "I don't see
you around here very often... Do you study at the University?" A bit
startled that he managed to both initiate and articulate a coherent
sentence, she decided to stick around a few more minutes.

"I study psychology at the University. I usually don't eat out but
today my friend, Shabana, forced me out here."

"And what's your name?" He was gaining confidence with every
question. He smiled for the first time, looking up from the table.

"Zainab."

"Hi Zainab, my name is Asad."

"Hi. Any particular reason you came over? Or did you just want to
talk." She said it with a sharp sarcasm in her voice.

"I just wanted to know your name and you to know mine."

"Well I do, Asad, and now I must be going. I have a class today."

"No you don't. There are no psychology classes on Saturday."

"Well I have a class."

"I'm a psychology TA, I know there aren't any classes today," his
smile widened in triumph. Her eyes blushed with anger.

"Have you ever considered the fact that I may be taking classes other
than psychology?"

"No. Not really."

"Well then, I will be late for class. It was nice meeting you Asad."
She spoke with an exaggerated sincerity. As she walked away, he called
out, "I'll be here the same time next week." She didn't flinch at the
words, and she didn't come back to Hisham's the following week.

"Slow down! You'll wake up Ali." The air in the car slowed and her
brother looked back. Smile on his face. "I didn't think you
noticed. With your head falling forward and your eyes rolling back and
all." Zainab gave Zahid a nasty look. Eyes blank. Lips in a thin
silent line.

"If he wakes up. It will be you I blame." The desi accent slipped back
into her voice. Anger always seemed to do that. Zahid, disappointed
turned his attention to the plain steady straight road that stretched
to the horizon. Zainab's hand grazed Ali's hair. His skin warm and
moist. She felt the possibility of his life like she'd felt him inside
her. She missed that sense of oneness. Ali, like Abbsas, would move
steadily away from her. Into something so different. So foreign. But
he was beautiful. His father's eyes. Her face. And snuggled in layer
after layer of blanket. Drowning in thick cotton clouds. So warm. So
alive. And the car in rhythm with his heartbeat. And his heartbeat in
rhythm with hers. And her heartbeat one with the hum of the car tires
on deep black road. And she too felt lost in a sea of fabric like the
day she fell in love at the Karachi Sheraton.

Pakistani women draped in gold-trimmed jasmine white and pepper black
outfits. Muddy red merging with their wooden skin. As if the color,
the cloth, and the person were one, moving together in rehearsed
coordination. Ten years away, she could still hear the waves of
conversation flowing over her as she sat on a dimly lit table, removed
from everyone. Mothers shouting at their kids. Malicious
gossip. Subtle linguistic fights between women who sat facing each
other, smiles on their faces and malice in their hearts. The giggles
of young teenage girls out on display for the first time trading
glances with older married men. And through the pulsing voices of the
women around her came the dull roar of the men on the other side of
the patio. Dressed in their best black and blue suits languishing
under the restraint of their favorite twenty year old cream colored
shirt. The demented geometry on their orange and brown ties pleading
for forgiveness. And the sharply dressed young men standing in groups
of three or four struggling to inconspicuously get into a position to
scope out the women. Their suits narrow and dark. Well-cut and never
three piece. Thin plain ties on clean white or dark blue shirts. But
those guys were just eyes to Zainab. They peered and glanced and
gawked and winked but they stayed in their little groups. Looking away
at the first hint of eye contact. Cowards.

She didn't expect that this day would be any different. She'd flow
from conversation to conversation. Group to group. Spend a few hours
with her mother and the older women who'd give her useless advice
about wearing less make-up or forgetting about school and getting
married. Then they'd point to all of her friends and explain how they
were sluts and women with 'reputations.' She'd agree with everything
adding a word or two at the right time to appease their appetite and
feign interest. And then she'd make an excuse to get another Coke and
be rid of them for the night. Duty done. Fully aware that she'd be
pointed to as a woman with a 'reputation' by the same group of women
in the next ten minutes. Then she'd settle into a seat with her
friends on some obscure table and talk about who was engaged and who'd
manage to break the grip of their parents and marry for love. They'd
make eyes at the young men in mock infatuation for the sole purpose of
making them uneasy. The food'd be served and they'd hurry up before
their parents and grab tiny portions. Drink tea (with milk of course)
and wait for the music to arrive. Wait for the program to end. Say
goodbye to Farida's mother (the mother of the b-day girl is always
more important) and take off.

Farida's mother had gone all out this time. The Karachi Sheraton was
about as high class as it got in the Pakistani port city. She must
have spent over $5000 American on the Sweet Sixteen party. Rented out
the garden pavilion in back of the hotel. Swimming pools. Torches
instead of lamps. Green grass everywhere (which was a bit of a luxury
in Karachi). Two sound stages. Oak tables with folded napkins and
wooden bowls. The works. And the outdoors got rid of that
four-hundred-people-in-one-room-sweating-mixed-with-exc essive-perfume
smell.

Zainab thrived at these parties. She'd been in the same social
situation so many times that it had become routine. Even her friends
had begun to lose their appeal. Sitting with the same four girls in
new clothes every week for the last 3 years had begun to take its
toll. And recently she'd been shocked by how little she had to think
when speaking to Seema, Shabana, Fatima, and Marium. She could get by
without thinking at all. Same old questions. Same old answers.

"How was your week?"

"Fine. I went shopping with ami last week and we bought a new outfit."

"What color? What design? Tell me everything!"

"Off-white and black. Silk."

"When are you going to where it? At the shahdi next week?"

"I think I'll save it for something special."

"Do you know something I don't??"

"No Seema. I don't know anything at all. Honest."

"And how are classes? Did you hear about Amina Mirza?"

"Classes are fine. What about Amina?"

"Rana told me that she heard that Amina's engagement fell through and
she'd been sitting at home crying for weeks. They say she's gained 15
pounds and she wasn't that thin to begin with."

"When did this happen? And why did he break it off?"

"I don't know nothing for sure but.... they say he found a girl with a
lighter complexion. Amina's always been on the darker side." And it
went on and on for the entire night. Touching on all of the things
Zainab hated about her own culture from the centrality of clothes in
life to the gossip to skin color (white = beautiful).

The air was beautiful that night. She'd remember that night not for
her friends or the luxury of the Sheraton or even running into Asad
for the second time. She'd remember the air. Heavy with wet dust that
smelled like warmth. Like she was breathing underwater. The air
resting in her lungs until she made herself exhale. Slowly. The cool
breeze shifting curtains of heavieness all around. She'd remember
closing her eyes and imagining herself alone in a green and blue place
with a river and the same heavy wet air and the same breeze and no one
else. Feeling like she did after her morning runs through the sandy
grass of Lashkar Park. Anchorless and completely without
responsibility. Her heavy breath enveloping her mind in nothing.

"Salam." The voice broke her trance and she opened her eyes ready to
lash out. And there he stood in a light brown suit that molded his
body like an hourglass. Double-vested and narrow in the middle. Broad
at the shoulders. Caramel shoes shining in the torch light. And a
white shirt. The look of soft cotton. Brown pencil tie perfectly in
tune with the shade of the suit. Even his hair looked nice. It had
been over a month since she saw him at Hisham's BBQ but she recognized
him immediately. The black mustache gave him away (though even the
mustache was slender, trimmed). Years later, she still told her
friends how 'smart' he looked that day at the Sheraton. Not the sloppy
lost purgatory soul of Hashim's BBQ. Some kind of magically
transformed dork.

"Salam...," he said again to her suddenly blank face.

"Remember me? We met at University some weeks back?" He spoke
slowly. The fear in his voice linking this version of Asad to Zainab's
memory of him.

"Of course. Please..." She motioned to an empty seat to her right. He
sat and she arranged herself across from him. There was only empty
space between them. She'd quickly conquered her initial surprise
maintaining the same constant semi-annoyed face. "You never came back
to Hisham's..."

"No I didn't. I told you that first time that I'd only been at
Hisham's because of my friend." His complete openness surprised her.
She couldn't tell whether it was naivete or some trap. But he didn't
look (despite his transformation) like a player.

"Well. I really wanted to see you again." Again hard strong confident
voice. He was looking right into her.

"Why?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"No." Her body was shaking with each beat of her heart even as she
repeated to herself, 'I don't like him'. She was losing the battle and
she couldn't explain why. Was it the clothes? The way he spoke right
into her? almost through her? Or his shameless persistence.

"Ok. You want me to say it? I think you're beautiful and I want to get
to know you."

"What kind of a..." She feigned anger. He had crossed the cultural
line. You never said that to a girl. Especially not the second time
you saw her. That kind of talk created 'reputations.'

"Wait." He cut her off with a soft wink and gesture of the
hand. "Don't get me wrong. I'm not very good in situations like
this. I simply want us to talk and get to know each other. Not
physically. I respect you more than that. I want us to be good
friends. Only that. Nothing more. My intentions are not what you
think. If you have any doubt, I'll leave right now?"

"I'll decide what your intentions are or are not, Asad." In her
deepest sarcastic voice. But she was won over. He'd spoken to her like
no other desi man ever had, like an equal. With respect. She could see
his right hand playing nervously with a napkin. His knees shaking in
cold anxiety as he looked everywhere but right at her.

"Look at me." She spoke softly and he looked up. "I will be at
Hisham's next Wednesday afternoon. We can talk for a little while
then. Maybe you can help me in Psychology. God knows I could use the
help. But no funny stuff."

"Wednesday. Ok. Thank you very much." She was about to say 'Don't
thank me,' but he was already on his feet and headed back to one of
the 'men's tables.' She smiled at his back (he hadn't seen her smile
yet) and laughed to herself. He wasn't that bad, for a desi man.