The Tailor

Within a few minutes of when I was leaving Lahore’s glittering and fashionable Liberty Market, going off Bakers Inn and turning my car towards Christian Hospital (UCH), something quite bizarre happened.

A few nights earlier, at about quarter-to-midnight, when Shimmi insisted that I come with her to the tailor’s, I asked surprisingly, “At this time?”

“Yes, Roohi, right now. Eid is so close and it’s impossible to find a tailor during the day. Please take your car out right now.” Shimmi was very insistence.

“Oh, all right.” Not really wanting to, I took my car out of the garage.

Holding a bundle of clothes, Shimmi came in the car worried and agitated.

“I’m going with you at this time only because you were so insistent. Lahore is not very safe. You need to pick your clothes up or you are looking for a tailor?” I asked while driving.

“Looking for a tailor. I can’t find one. It’s because of Eid. Hurry up.”

In the main city, we saw this mob of people shopping. They were shopping for Eid as if this were the last Eid they will ever see. Shimmi and I were circling the city looking for an available tailor for Shimmi to have her clothes stitched.

Shimmi was mumbling, “I can’t believe it, Roohi, time to wear the clothes arrives but the customers can’t find tailors.”

I laughed. “That’s not an important issue in this world, Shimmi. Sometimes I think most of the human issues are still unresolved. And here you are giving your tailor issue so much importance.”

Throwing her bundle of clothes in the backseat Shimmi replied, “For every individual her own issue is the most important one. You know, Roohi, I have been to every tailor in Lahore the last couple of days begging them to stitch my clothes, saying to them, please, for God’s sake, I’ve to wear them day after tomorrow. But not one of them agreed. They told me they took orders for Eid-clothes six months back, can’t take new ones now.”

“Well, they are right. Look at it. Eid is only a few days away,” I said.

“But I need to wear these clothes before Eid.”

“Before Eid?” I said, surprised. “Okay, but do you know that in Pakistan the preparation for Eid goes on all night before the Eid day, even up until the Eid dawn-break. Poor tailors close their shops only for a few minutes for prayers and they get right back to work. I think you should get your clothes stitched after Eid.”

She looked at me bewildered. “You are weird.”

We gave up looking for a tailor in the city and headed back to Gulberg. This part of Lahore is relatively quiet. The quietness and the darkness of the night were getting deeper. An unknown fear had taken over me and I was driving quite scared.

I suddenly heard this “Hoo Hoo” coming out of this giant old tree by the roadside. My hands on the steering wheel trembled with fear.

Shimmi felt it too. “Did you hear that? That was the night bird. God have mercy.”

“Thank goodness it was just a bird. I stay away from humans, not birds. Birds are not cruel like humans.”

“These birds scream all the time at night in our hot Asian nights,” said Shimmi.

“Yeah,” I said feeling very scared, “I don’t have the nerve to hear that Hoo Hoo again. That was a very peculiar howl.”

“Roohi, if you don’t mind can we check with the tailors in Liberty Market,” requested Shimmi.

I turned the car towards Liberty Market where there were a few tailor shops. But none of tailors there agreed to stitch Shimmi’s clothes. Disappointed, we cut to the small street by Bakers Inn adjacent to Liberty Market and headed towards UCH.

He suddenly appeared out of nowhere right in front of my car when we were passing the Hospital. Maybe he wanted to cross the street. I would’ve run him over if I hadn’t hit the break just in time. The car sopped with a jolt. “Hey, watch where you are going,” I shouted angrily.

He just stood there without saying a word. He was holding a small bundle under his arm and we saw there were some white cloths hanging loose out of that bundle.

Shimmi screamed, “Stop, Roohi, stop. I think he’s a tailor. He’s holding a bundle of clothes.” She rolled the window down and stuck her neck out, “Are you a tailor?”

“Yes.” He admitted. There was a hiss in his voice, as if someone with a throat disease groaning.

Shimmi was delighted. “I could tell by just looking at the bundle you are holding,” she said.

I glanced again at the half-opened bundle of his. I saw strange-looking long white cloths hanging out of that bundle. A shiver ran through my spine.

“Would you stitch a dress for me?” Shimmi asked the tailor.

The tailor looked at both of us as if assessing which one of us was more in need.

I noticed his face was white as milk. He was a middle-age man of average height. His eyes also seemed all-white; I couldn’t see any black in them, or perhaps I couldn’t see any black in his eyes because of the dim light. His milk-white face and his white eyes terrified me. I didn’t want to say anything to Shimmi because she seemed so happy to have found a tailor out of the blue. She probably didn’t notice anything strange about him. He was wearing an iba, the traditional Arab dress, which looked very mysterious flowing in the night.

“I can’t give you the measurements or the clothes here. Come to my house,” said Shimmi to the tailor.

“Yes, I’ll have to come,” hissed the tailor. I didn’t like the way he said that, as if he were being forced. What’s his problem? What if this guy is a thief or something, I thought to myself. But Shimmi was ignoring everything about him. She was just happy to have found a tailor.

“I will give you my address.” Shimmi reached for a pen and a paper.

“There’s no need for that,” the tailor hissed again. I was even more suspicious of him.

“How would you get there, then?” Even Shimmi was surprised.

“I get where I need to get.”

I didn’t like his response at all. My suspicion was now turning into conviction.

“When will you come?” Asked Shimmi.

“Tomorrow.”

“What time?”

“At this time.”

“At this time?” Shimmi was very surprised. “It’s two in the morning.”

“I’m not available before that. That’s the only time I can make it.” Saying that he walked away towards the UCH gate.

“Why did you do that for, Shimmi? You don’t know who he was,” I said nervously.

“He was a tailor, who else,” said Shimmi irritatingly, “I knew he was one the moment I saw that bundle of clothes he was holding.”

“Did you notice the cloths that were hanging out of that bundle?” I said while driving back.

“No. What about them?”

“They were long pieces of white cloths. I don’t like white cloth in dark nights.”

“Oh please, Roohi. You’re so fussy. Other than music, poetry and colors, you don’t like anything.” Shimmi was upset.

“Don’t exaggerate, Shimmi. I like all the beauty in this universe.” I kept quiet after saying that.

“Hoo Hoo.” The night bird cried again. I put the accelerator to the floor. That strange howl in that dark night was unbearably frightful for me.

It was an unusually bleak and desolate night. Lots of Eid shopping and festivities were going on in the main city, but outside it, in Gulberg, it was just too quiet. The air was still and the stars up on the sky seemed dead. I was quiet as if I had seen a ghost.

“Why are you so quiet, Roohi. You love to talk about any topic, say a poem or something. Please talk. The quietness and the darkness are scaring me.” Shimmi said a bit irritably.

“Can I say something, Shimmi?”

“Please do.”

“That tailor of yours…his eyes were totally white. There was no black in them. How would he stitch your clothes?”

“Really? Well, I made the offer. It’s his responsibility now.” Shimmi seemed worried.

“But his eyes...”

Shimmi was scared. “Are you sure his eyes were like what you’re saying?”

“Yes.” I said, “I didn’t see any black in his eyes.”

I was now very frightened. I get scared very quickly. I am not scared of the things I should be but I get scared of the things I shouldn’t be.

When we got home my Negress maid, the old woman Zonash, was awake waiting for us. When she saw us she mumbled something and said annoyingly, “Now you two are getting back home looking for a tailor. You want tea or coffee?”

“Coffee,” I said.

“Find a tailor, miss Shimmi?” Asked Zonash.

“Found one, Zonash,” said Shimmi happily, “he’ll be here tomorrow at two in the morning. Watch out for him.”

Zonash looked worried hearing that and started to say a prayer aloud in Arabic. It was her habit to pray aloud every time she was worried.

“Two in the morning, bibi?”

“Yes, yes, two in the morning. He didn’t have any other time available. Open the door the moment you hear the door bell,” said Shimmi emphatically.

Zonash seemed alarmed but didn’t say anything.

Next day arrived and ended and the night started to fall.

At about one-thirty in the morning Shimmi opened her bedroom door. “Zonash, can you please bring me aspirin. I have a headache. Come and sit next to me and massage my head.”

“Very well, madam,” saying that Zonash went in to Shimmi’s bedroom. But shortly after she was banging on my door panic-stricken. “Madam, Shimmi bibi has a headache...her condition...”

The tower bell rang twice announcing two in the morning. Someone rang the doorbell outside. Frightened, I went out and opened the door. It was the tailor.

“I’m here to stitch the bodybag.”


***

A novelist, a short-story writer and a translator, Hijab Imtiaz Ali (1903 – 1999) was born in Hyderabad Deccan to a well-to-do family. She was home-schooled in music and for Urdu and Arabic languages, and later passed her Senior Cambridge. Her childhood was spent mostly on the seashores from Kocheen to Pondcheri, and from Bombay to Madras. She had several nervous breakdowns after her mother’s death. She married Imtiaz Ali Taj in 1934 and moved to Lahore. She was in the editorial board of Tehzeeb-e-Niswan. She earned the honor of the first woman-pilot of the Subcontinent when she acquired “A” license from Northern India Flying Club.

Hijab Imtiaz Ali’s Darzi is a psychological dwelling on the fear of death.

Source: Pakistan kay Shahkar Urdu Afsanay ed., Mirza Hamid Baig, Alhamra Publishing, 2000.