Mahsood Khan pressed his thumb on the mobile’s screen, enlarging a picture of Yasmine Basra from Facebook's news feed. In a graduation cap over a light dupatta, she was smiling among her batchmates.
Kasim Basra’s young daughter was modest, pretty, and well-mannered. In the future, she would make a perfect wife. Mahsood clicked the comment box and paused, rubbing his chin. He was supposed to say something.
Mahsood: Congratulations, Yasmine!
He read over the message thrice before sending it.
“Did you see the picture, son? Yasmine finally passed out of the Intermediary.” Mother poured chai out of a porcelain teapot. A tangy smell of cardamom permeated the drawing room.
He nodded and reached for laddus on a silver tray. Sweetness with a hint of nutmeg filled his mouth. Laddus were always his favorite.
“Why she have to do the baccalaureate too? You already waited too long.” Mother frowned, setting a gold-rimmed teacup with a matching saucer in front of him. “All your batchmates must have school-aged children by now, only you without a good wife.”
Mahsood shrugged his shoulders. His large fingers struggled to grab the cup’s fragile handle, and the chai burnt him through the thin porcelain.
With a sharp clink, he set the cup down. Rubbing his fingertips, he leaned back on the divan’s silk bolster pillows and watched the steam rise up from the unapproachable beverage.
“Listen...listen what Gafar is writing.” Father’s stout figure appeared in the room’s archway. Balancing an open laptop on one hand and pulling a charger cord with another, he stumbled to the Chiniot center table. The computer banged on the carved wood, almost tipping over the boiling-hot teacup. Mother pursed her lips.
Mahsood jumped up. “Sit here, Father.” He extended his arm and helped the old man onto the sofa.
“Allah showed us mercy.” Father grunted as Mahsood placed a pillow behind his back. “Gafar found our son a wife.”
Mahsood met Mother’s wide-eyed glance.
“You forgot you engaged him to Kasim Basra’s daughter? Eighteen years ago?” She raised her thickly-painted eyebrows.
“Don’t club the two together.” Father waved her aside. “The madam would sign papers for Mahsood to come to America.”
Mahsood’s heart skipped a beat. He held his breath, listening.
“Marry him to a kafir? That is how you love your son?” Mother bared her perfect white veneers. “Forgot what happened to Awad, isn’t it? That boy is raising children alone for ten years.”
“Stop weeping. For the moneyed man the road is open.”
Sighing, Mahsood turned away.
The afternoon sun spilled inside through antique window grilles. Beyond them laid rice fields, flooded all the way to the horizon. Farmworkers, ankle-deep in water, pulled tender green seedlings. Thick pugrees and dupattas covered their heads, and cotton salwar kameezes clung to sweaty bodies.
What was life like beyond these flooded fields, beyond prayer chants and onion-domed minarets, beyond Lahore’s crowded markets with their vibrant street stalls, omnipresent swift motorbikes, and noisy chand gari rickshaws fuming out clouds of suffocating exhaust? Mahsood could not imagine himself living a different life.
“Moneyed man?” Mother sneered. “Not after Kasim Basra stops to export our rice.”
“Stops to export our rice? Ha!” Father threw back his pugree-covered head. “No, no. He would not. Kasim would grab this opportunity like anything.”
Furrowing his brow, Mahsood glanced at his father’s animated face. What was the old man scheming? Kasim Basra’s indignation could hit them like a yorker.
“Almost forgot.” Father slapped his forehead. “Gafar sent us the madam’s picture.” He slid his forefinger over the laptop’s touchpad. “Come look, son.”
Mahsood stepped closer and leaned over his father’s shoulder. Mother pulled up her chair, peeking at the screen.
The page was blank, loading the attachment.
He swallowed, not blinking.
The image filled up the screen.
Mahsood stumbled back, clutching the sofa’s armrest. He steadied himself, eyes down on a Chobi rug underneath his slippers. Turning his gaze to the endless fields outside, he whispered: “You could close it now, Father.”
80Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzIYuonryTe
***
Kasim Basra visited them later that evening. He sat on a patterned majlis sofa in the men’s lounge, a half-empty plate of mutton korma on a low table in front of him. The aroma of spiced meat filled the air.
Wheezing under the weight of his mountain-like belly, Father stretched on the left side of Kasim.
Mahsood sat next to his old man. Hunched over barely-touched food, he studied geometric motifs of the floor mat. The triangles and squares danced before his eyes, forming into the image of his new bride. His cheeks burnt like the flames of Jahannam.
“Quite a googly you threw me, Faruq, “ said Kasim, sipping chilled sattu from a crystal tumbler glass.
“Stop acting pricey.” Father pressed together his fleshy lips, turning to his laptop propped up among the dishes. “Gafar writes it is a good opportunity. Mahsood could get a petrol pump like Awad, and in a few years he would have ten. Business is good in America.”
Kasim twirled his well-groomed mustache. “Good for you.”
“For you, too, my friend. For you, too.” Groaning, Father reached for a glass of sattu. Taking a sip of the thick white liquid, he met Kasim’s cobwebbed eyes. “Of course, we would keep the engagement.”
Mahsood bit his cheek. Father was time-wasting. Kasim Basra’s only daughter would never become a second wife.
Kasim straightened his scrawny shoulders, his face flushed, his voice low. “You know well, Faruq, only those who like squabbles contract two marriages.”
Father’s roaring laughter filled the lounge. “I would not offend you by such an offer, my friend.” Shaking, he wiped a tear from his twinkling eye. “After the papers are settled, Mahsood would surely divorce.”
Kasim regarded Mahsood for the first time this evening. “You are set on this, isn’t it?”
Mahsood licked his lips. In his mind was the image of his new bride’s loose flaxen hair, skin translucent to the bone, wide eyes. He had seen a woman like this before - in a magazine spread of a contraband Playboy hidden under his bed during school years. Back in the day, he thought the picture was of an houri, the greatest gift of Allah to a faithful believer. Later he learned that houris did not exist, instead, existed modest and well-mannered girls like Yasmine, perfect wives for respectable men.
“Of course, of course.” Father’s thunder broke the pindrop silence. “Same to same as Awad. With corrupt women like that, what good could come out?”
“Hmm...” Kasim stroked his silver beard. “Yes. yes. If you do not marry a gentle woman, she will not bear you a gentle son."
Mahsood lowered his gaze. Kasim spoke wise words. He had to beware of the houri’s charm. Such undisguised beauty spelled danger for any man.
Yet, from that afternoon on, the blond-haired seductress frequented Mahsood’s thoughts. On a few occasions, he wanted to ask Father for her photo but stopped himself at the last moment. Instead, prompted by his two elders, he set to fill out a visa application. He sent it along with his passport via courier to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad and spent the following several weeks wandering the rice paddies.
As time went on, the water in the fields shallowed and the seedlings crept up in height, turning into full-fledged plants. Workers scurried back and forth, weeding and applying manure — tasks that had formed a cornerstone of Mahsood’s existence but suddenly lost meaning. Life came to a standstill animated only by the rhythmic croaking of omnipresent frogs until one sunny Wednesday morning a brown delivery van appeared on the dirt road winding through the cropland. Followed by a cloud of dust, the vehicle carried the decision that would seal Mahsood’s fate — a blue and red visa, duly issued and stamped inside his passport, authorizing him for entry into the United States of America.80Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiylp3tfb8r
