Salt and Saffron Read Online Free PDF Page B

relatives. Place called Liaquatabad. What’s that like?’
    Samia jumped up, pulling me along with her. ‘Aliya! It’s our stop. Hold the doors please. Cal, nice meeting …’ And we were out, watching the train pull away.
    â€˜I cannot believe you …’ I closed my eyes and the world rocked around me.
    â€˜Sorry, Aloo.
Arré,
hold on.’
    I pushed past Samia and ran, and kept on running until I was above ground, cars whizzing everywhere, and acrossthe street the PIA office with a cardboard cut-out flight attendant smiling at me from the window. I was horribly jet-lagged, and as London jostled around me I thought, I want to be five again and willing to lie down in the middle of a busy London street to declare I’m tired; willing to weep that I want to go home to Mariam Apa; willing to talk to anyone who seems nice, regardless of where they come from and where their families live.
    â€˜Listen to me.’ Samia put her arm around my neck in a gesture that was both affectionate and immobilizing. ‘Have you ever, in all your days, in all your meanderings when Sameer first learnt to drive and you
chuker maroed
the city for the best bun kebabs, have you ever been to Liaquatabad? If I asked you how to get there would you have the faintest?’
    â€˜Go away.’
    â€˜Not an option. Oh,
ehmuk,
he’s an American. Green card and all that. If he really is planning a trip to Karachi his whole extended family is probably lining up its daughters as prospective brides.’
    â€˜Uff! The stereotypes …’
    â€˜What’s stereotyped about thinking people want to get their children to safety? You know what most of Karachi calls our part of town? Disneyland.’
    â€˜Your point?’
    â€˜The poor live in Liaquatabad. The poor, the lower classes, the not-us. How else do you want me to put this? There’s no one we know who would have exchanged Karachi phone numbers with him, Aloo. No one. And, do I have to say this, you especially …’ She turned away in irritation, or perhaps it was frustration.
    â€˜Finish that sentence.’
    â€˜Try this sentence instead: after everything that happened four years ago no one, not even you, will ever trust any feelings you have for him. You can hit me,
Thaassh! Dhuzh! Dharam!
if it’ll make you feel better.’
    I might well have taken her up on that, had a man, stooped and rheumy-eyed, not twitched my sleeve and said, ‘If I had amnesia and I saw you I’d pray you played a part in my life.’
    â€˜Perhaps you do,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I do.’
    Tears came to his eyes. ‘Our lives await memories. That’s all.’ He kissed my hand and walked away.
    Samia knew well enough not to say anything. She started walking down the street, a few paces ahead of me, but aware enough of my footfall to look back when I stopped to scrape a bit of banana off the sole of my shoe. I refused to catch her eye. How could she just pull me off the train like that? How could she? Could she? Could she do such a thing if I were not willing? Could she have done it if in that split second between Khaleel saying ‘Liaquatabad’ and Samia’s hand reaching out to grab mine I hadn’t already thought of escaping? If I had amnesia, would I have stayed on that train? Imagine that. To be freed of remembered biases. To have nothing to consider but the moment itself; nothing but the moment and the touch of his fingers.
    Our lives don’t await memories, I decided; they are crippled by memories. Oh, I knew exactly which memories crippled me, crippled me into running away from him. (Mixing metaphors was the least of my problems.) But I’ve accepted what happened four years ago! I wanted to shout out. I’ve deconstructed it, analysed it, and I have refused to take on the attitude of my relatives with their centuries ofinbred snobbery. Why can’t my heart be as evolved as my mind? Why did