Night of the Golden Butterfly

TEN

THE CALL WAS UNEXPECTED. A voice I hadn’t heard for almost fifteen years. The accent was now transatlantic, but it was definitely Alice Stepford. What did she want, why me and why now?

‘Greetings, Dara.’

‘Where are you?’

‘In London. We moved here after the Iraq war, though heaven knows why. It was a mistake. England’s dead. Dead politics, dead culture, servility the norm, even the old Guardian looking more and more like a marketing artefact. The BBC trying hard not to be like Fox TV, but in some ways worse with its hand-wringing conformism. Fake objectivity is the real killer. Anyway, you must have seen that Ell played at the Obama inauguration? Time to return.’

I hadn’t seen the live broadcast of the inauguration and had missed Eliot Lincoln Little Jr. playing the fiddle. She wasn’t pleased.

‘Ridiculous. Where were you? In some remote corner of the Amazon Basin? I thought television was everywhere. A new Roman emperor is chosen and anointed, the world is watching, but not you. You really didn’t see it live? Amazing. Ell was so good. His violin wept with joy. Not a cliché, not a cliché… anyway I didn’t ring to quarrel. Free for supper tomorrow? Still a bachelor or would you like to bring someone? There’s a lady over from your parts extremely keen to meet you. A friend of old Plato.’

‘His latest flame, I hope. I need to speak with her.’

‘Cruel choice of words, my dear. No flame without fire, and as we know…’

‘Mean, mean Ally. It may not be physical, but appears to be a very intense affair, according to our old friend. I’m suffering as a result and have to meet her. It will also be good to see both of you again.’

‘Ell left last week. And Jezebel, our teenager, went back to Brooklyn a few years ago. Jez is now the lead guitarist in a crazy neo-punk outfit in Brooklyn. She’s only eighteen. You’ll love the band’s name. The Seventeenth of Brumaire, the French revolutionary equivalent of the seventh of November. It’s because they had all just turned seventeen when the band was set up and were flicking through my books and found a reference to the 18th Brumaire and delved deeper. Cool, they all thought. Real hoot. I’ve closed the house. Come to the studio. Eightish? Promise supper will be served promptly. It’ll just be us three.’

Her artistic energy was now channelled into her husband’s and daughter’s work. As I drove to Chelsea later that day, I made a mental note to ask whether she was painting again. Unlike its owner, the studio had changed little. Ally was elegantly attired as always, but the dyed hair was noticeable, which surely defeated the whole exercise, and she was much bulkier, but then so we were we all. But the continuities outweighed the changes. Ally’s throaty laugh revived old memories, as did the wine.

‘George got the buildings; my other siblings got money and pieces of furniture. I inherited the cellar. It was in the will. Naturally, I share it with the siblings, except for pre-1986 wines. Ell doesn’t drink at all.’

‘Is he a Muslim?’

‘But darling, you know full well he is… surely I told you.’

‘Ally, I gave you away in church.’

‘So you did. So you did. Of course, it was some years later that Ell shifted faiths and did the Hajj. I didn’t much care that he found Islam was more congenial than Presbyterianism. All I said was that if he as much as looked at another woman lustfully, I wouldn’t hire a Blackwater mercenary to castrate him, I’d do it myself. Otherwise it didn’t bother me too much. Most Americans love religion, and it’s part of the package if you marry one of them. What did annoy me was that he chose such an unbelievably pompous name. It was only when his agent warned him very firmly that his fame as a violinist had been built wearing the old identity, and that concerts by al-Hajj Sheikh Mohammed Aroma might not appeal as much to the box office, that he decided to carry on under a “false” name. He is so very weak and in so many ways, otherwise he’d have discarded the old name like a pair of soiled underpants. After awful 9/11 he panicked yet further and simply stopped using his Muslim name at all. This, I’ve always thought, was utterly pathetic and pandering to Islamophobia. It’s as if Muhammad Ali had reverted to Cassius Clay. But at least he remained a Muslim. I dislike all religions, Dara. I hope you’re not thinking of a late-life conversion.’

‘Don’t be silly. And speaking of Islamophobia, why should Ell need a change of religion to be unfaithful?’

‘I’m going to make a salad dressing.’

She could not explain the reasoning behind Eliot’s conversion. It was surprising, since it wasn’t the result of a lengthy stay in prison, where the Honoured Classic has had a magical impact on many young African-Americans and especially on their diet. I made a mental note to delve deeper, but all gloomy thoughts vanished with the appearance of Ally’s other guest.

Zaynab Shah’s appearance startled me. Her deep brown eyes were not languorous but filled with mischief. Her aquiline nose gave her a haughty expression, but the minute she smiled her entire face relaxed. She spoke in a lively and deep voice, her mind was clear-sighted and, instinctively, I felt that she scorned the mask of hypocrisy. Many women from the same social class are layered in duplicity, a price they pay for living and functioning in Fatherland.

Whatever the basis of their relationship, Plato had struck gold. Of this I had no doubt. I had done some homework and realized that I knew one of her brothers, the decent one, as she later informed me. The other had laid the abominable trap that wrecked her life.

I had not been prepared for this combination of intelligence and beauty. Zaynab was dressed in a colourful Sindhi cholo and maroon suthan, or loose cotton trousers. She crossed her legs as she sat down, the Sindhi colours blending well with Ally’s decrepit, faded olive-green velvet sofa. There was not the slightest trace of starchiness in her, of the variety often displayed by society begums in Fatherland when first encountering strangers. Zaynab was informal, and her darting, smiling eyes suggested a free-and-easy approach to life. Outside, I remember, the sky was overcast.

A writer with no other concerns or preoccupations would have produced a masterwork based exclusively on the tragedy that befell this amazing woman. My version, alas, can only offer a prosaic account as per the strict instructions given me by the progenitor of this book and currently an intimate of the lady. The last thing I feel like doing is questioning her about him, but promises must be kept. I will only provide a basic outline, and here, too, as is my weakness, explain the history and social conditions that produced someone like her and explain why she fell in love with my friend Plato. Or did she? What lay hidden in so lovely a body, or behind so many backward tosses of the head? Did she have an angelic or a devilish soul, or was it a mixture of the two that had affected Plato so deeply? She had not yet looked at me seriously, but concentrated her attention on Ally. An old tormentor, vanity, made a sudden appearance and began to mock at me, at the same time alerting me that any false steps could only lead to the abyss. And the warning irritated me, for I was far from green and hardly devoid of experience, unlike Plato.

Zaynab looked younger than fifty-two — as if she were in her late forties at most. It was difficult to tell. She’d been born to an extremely wealthy family of Sindhi landowners. These men were the most primitive lords in Fatherland, where competition in the field remains high. To add to the woes of their serfs, for that is what the peasants were, some of the landowners were hereditary saints or pirs, which meant that their word was not simply the law but came directly from the special relationship they enjoyed with God. Challenge this status and they would fight like devils possessed. When the British annoyed a distant cousin of Zaynab’s grandfather, he had replied with a rebellion that had lasted a whole year and forced the empire to deploy troops in the interior of Sind, and this in 1942 when British troops had just suffered a crushing defeat in Singapore.

Unable to resist the Japanese, they turned with a vengeance on the Hur peasants and crushed them. An English district officer involved in the conflict had written a pretended novel, The Terrorist, really based on his interrogations of Sindhi prisoners, some of them informers. The rebels were depicted as unthinking but courageous men who had blindly followed the pir, their religious leader. This was, of course, an incomplete view, since the colonial officer, found it difficult to acknowledge that there was genuine hatred of the occupying power and that this had merely been used by the pir—in this case, Zaynab’s great-uncle, who was quietly hanged with only a few people watching, probably including the novelist. Unlike the French and Italians, the British rarely showed off in India: they hanged their enemies without fanfare for fear of inspiring new martyrs.

The event left a mark on the whole family. Zaynab’s eldest paternal uncle, the community’s new leader, spiritual and temporal, decided to follow the fashion of the times and become ultra-loyal to the British. He had never thought much of the various nationalist leaders who were fighting for India’s independence. All the Sindhi primitives — as they were called by peasant activists who escaped to a city — felt threatened by the departure of the British. The only question that worried them was whether their enclosed world of property and serfdom would survive. History has recorded that these institutions survived well, as did such sacred privileges as the droit du seigneur, which is not exactly the same as the Rights of Man, though Ally in her more militant feminist days would strongly dispute this assertion.

Zaynab was born in one of the many large houses built amid the dozen villages and thousands of acres that made up her family’s estate. This one was not far from the small town of Jamsadiq and a four-hour drive to the satanic city Karachi, so all modern conveniences were available, and some of the primitives affected an ultra-cosmopolitan personality when they appeared at the Sind Club.

When she was eight or nine, Zaynab’s extraordinary beauty began singling her out for special attention. Her father, who adored her, died when she was twelve. Her older brother, who inherited his father’s share of the estate, was a dour and reactionary primitive. He saw how all who came into contact with her worshipped his young sister. She was singularly devoid of artifice. Her private tutors, all of them female, had educated her well. In addition to Sindhi and Urdu, she could read Arabic and Persian and speak English and French. She possessed a natural grace that was obvious at first glance. Word of her beauty had spread throughout the province. The primitives discussed it often, and many young bloods were determined to win her hand. Which primitive would her family bless? Bets were laid and, unbeknown to Zaynab, a fierce rivalry had already commenced. There were demands from primitives with even more land than Zaynab’s family. They all wanted an immediate engagement, so that as soon as she was seventeen they could pretend she was eighteen and celebrate the nuptials.

Zaynab’s mother had died giving birth to her, and her father’s second wife was a coldly calculating society woman from Karachi, not in the slightest bit interested in little Zaynab or her older brothers. In fact, she was rarely on the estate. Her main interest was accumulating enough jewellery and money so that she could scarper to a European city after the old man died. This she achieved successfully, if not gracefully, and when last heard of was living in Knightsbridge, close to an Egyptian grocery.

Samir Shah, the small-minded, bigoted oldest brother, was smitten with jealousy of his sister. He knew that had Zaynab been born a man, she would have displaced him completely. She was still only twelve years of age, and already tales of her small kindnesses to the families of serfs who served in the household had spread throughout the villages, and there were many expressions of regret that she had been born a woman.

Sámir Shah called a conference of male elders to decide his sister’s fate. These primitives met and agreed that the only bridegroom worthy of her, clearly, was the Koran. Her favourite brother, Sikandar, fought valiantly on her behalf, but he was only sixteen himself at the time. The poor boy was brutally mocked for his immaturity and even more for his disregard for property. He stormed out in tears.

This was as much as I’d known of Zaynab’s story before she arrived.

We exchanged pleasantries while Ally laid the table and offered us wine. Zaynab did not refuse. She asked how my life of Plato was proceeding. I muttered a noncommittal reply.

‘Tell me honestly’, she asked, ‘is there much to write about? Might it not be simpler for you to just write an essay to go with his paintings?’

‘He told me to write everything, and much of that would be unsuitable as an introduction to his paintings.’

‘I don’t see why. They’re explicit enough.’

‘In a way they are, but they still require a great deal of interpretation. Wait till you see the collection that our hostess wanted him to destroy because it was a complete “male fantasy and totally sexist”. Rather than do that he gave it to me, and I thought you might like to see his earlier work so I’ve brought it along. Ally was unfair. I just think he had seen too many erotic Japanese works, where they draw these things very large. This was Plato’s version of all that and it isn’t without a certain charm. Not that Ally agrees.’

‘Dara’, said Ally, ‘I’ve been meaning to say this: Do you mind not addressing me as Ally anymore? Everyone I know calls me Alice.’

‘But why?’

‘Because Eliot hates “Ally”.’

‘Why? It sounds like Ali as it’s pronounced here, and given his own faith it should make him feel closer to you. How pathetic of Plato to call you Alice. And you, Ms Stepford, agreeing to let a male decide how you should be addressed. Shame.’

Zaynab, clearly feeling that the discussion of nicknames had become tedious, successfully diverted the conversation.

‘I love the way you call him Plato so naturally. For me he’s Pervaiz, sometimes Payjee, but I might try Plato. Sounds nice the way you say it.’

Alice announced supper just as Zaynab was leafing through the Plato penises. She smiled at some of the drawings but lingered on none. I knew then that the book would stay with me. Ally had been looking over her shoulder.

‘Zay-Nab, don’t you think I was right? I may have mellowed somewhat, but I still think that these paintings offer nothing to the world or to anyone.’

‘Not to me,’ said Zaynab in a reflective tone. ‘But they obviously meant something to him or he wouldn’t have done them. I think Dara as his biographer should retain custody, as we often say in our country. Perhaps one of them could be the cover of your book on Plato.’

‘Perhaps not. Perhaps they could replace Fatherland flag, more representative of the people who run the country.’

Zaynab laughed. ‘I’ll suggest it to my brother, who’s now a senior minister for something.’

‘Corruption?’

‘Suppertime, children.’

Zaynab seemed so self-assured and at ease in the world that I wondered whether her life had been as much of a tragedy as it had been painted by Plato and others. I knew that Alice would broach the subject before too long, and she did not disappoint me.

‘Zay-Nab, er, we’ve been wondering. Plato said he had fallen in love with a married woman. Is your husband alive or are you divorced?’

‘Neither, really, Alice.’

Alice, slight puzzled, looked at both of us in turn. ‘I give up. What’s the mystery?’

‘Surprised Plato hasn’t told you. I’m married to our Holy Book.’

‘What? Is this real? Are you kidding? Dara, did you know?’

‘Yes. These things happen in Fatherland.’

Zaynab explained her plight to an astonished Alice, who had thought she knew everything on matters related to gender. It was wonderful watching her face register an escalating scale of incredulity as Zaynab’s story proceeded. The effect was enhanced by the deep calm voice in which Zaynab told it.

‘In my part of the country the big landlords are so desperate to preserve their estates that anything that threatens the size of their holdings has to be fought. As a female I was entitled to my share of the property — under Islamic law that’s a half of what the men inherit. Were it not for sharia I would get nothing at all. Makes one think. In the absence of laws that insist on a totally equal share, it’s better to get something. Don’t you agree, Alice?’

Would Alice agree? She would. I snorted with delight, only to be silenced by a gesture from Zaynab.

‘Even a quarter of a man’s share of our estate amounted to thousands of acres, and in the natural course of events all that land would have gone out of the family. If I married and had children, my share of the estate would be divided among them, diminishing the family holdings. Even if I married a cousin, my brothers would lose my share. There was one remedy, a scheme devised many moons ago: a female whose right of inheritance threatened her family’s estate could be married to the Koran. So a ceremony took place when I was twelve in which the local pir, a retarded pockmarked primitive — a male cousin of mine — declared my marriage to the Koran legal and holy. For a month I was locked up with our Holy Book and nothing else. Food would be left outside, and none of the maids was allowed to speak to me. How I wished my mother were still alive.

‘The purpose of this confinement was to acclimatize me to my future. A year later, when I began to menstruate, the book would be removed while I was unclean. They thought that under this treatment I would either adjust to my new reality or take my own life. There were stories of women in my position who had done so. And, to be honest, there were times I thought it might be easier to die than to live like this, and I spoke of my thoughts with women friends who would start weeping at the idea. But one woman did promise that if I really wanted it, she would obtain a cyanide capsule from her husband, a senior officer in some intelligence agency. I promised I would never swallow it without talking to her first, but I needed a couple for emergencies. She obtained two. I wanted to make sure that they worked, so I fed one to my brother’s frightening hound, a dog that had cost him a fortune and was as large as one of your Shetland ponies. It worked.’

Alice was horrified.

‘Oh, Zay-Nab. Tell me it isn’t so. You poisoned a pedigree greyhound. Why not your brother?’

‘It was the Hound of the Shahskervilles, my dear. It terrified the peasants. There was much rejoicing when news of the animal’s death spread. Some of the serfs called the dog Pir Sahib, and at first people thought it was the pock-marked pir who had met with an accident, which also pleased them, but the dog’s death came as a relief, since he had already killed a child. Don’t tell me hounds are gentle creatures, Alice. Depends on their masters. Sámir Shah had encouraged the hound to be what it was. Do you want to see the other capsule? I keep it in this little naswar container that once belonged to my mother.’

She reached for her bag and took out a tiny old silver snuffbox. Inside it lay the beautifully disguised killer, a capsule the size and shape of a pearl. She told us how on hearing of the hound’s death her brother had become totally distraught, cancelled an important political tour and immediately returned home in his official helicopter. The country’s top veterinary surgeon was sent for and an autopsy performed. The poison had left no trace. The vet, who smuggled heroin as a night job, declared with an air of total confidence that the Shah hound had suffered a fatal heart attack. Sámir Shah screamed at him.

‘I never knew that hounds had heart attacks, you pimp.’

‘I’m afraid they do in Fatherland, sir, and especially in this region. Must be the heat. They are used to cold weather, you see. German shepherds are immune, but not hounds. General Farooqi’s hound had a fatal heart attack only three months ago. If I had known your beast had a weak heart I might have attempted a dual bypass or organized a transplant. Too late now and I’m truly sorry, sir. To which honourable person should I send my invoice?’

Even Alice managed a smile as Zaynab continued her story.

‘The dog was mummified, and that is how I first saw Plato, though from a distance. My brother had asked for the best painter in the country to be hired to paint the beast. I. M. Malik was away at a biennale somewhere in Europe, so your Plato was given the commission. He heard the official story, and, being Plato, found out a great deal more by talking to the villagers. As we know, he can never paint a realist portrait. What he did instead was brilliant. He portrayed a strange beast with angel’s wings and, alas, too large a private part, but it was the face that was remarkable. At first glance you would realize it was my brother. The expression on the hound’s face replicated the permanent frown that disfigured his master’s. I thought my brother would be furious, but no. This is a wonderful painter, he told us later, who has captured the affinity between hound and master so beautifully. The painting hangs in the hall where you enter his house.

‘When I asked for permission to congratulate the painter in person, to my astonishment, Sámir Shah agreed. Strange man he was, my brother. He was amoral, without scruples of any sort, ready to trample on anything and everything that stood in his way, as I know only too well. Yet the death of the hound undoubtedly affected him, and quite deeply. Plato was very handsomely rewarded for his work and I had my first conversation with him. It lasted exactly fifteen minutes, and then the Pajero drove him back to Karachi. Of course, he knew immediately that I had guessed his real intention and did not attempt to dissimulate. All he said was that every landlord and politician in the country should be painted as a mongrel. The mischief in his eyes was appealing, and also, I suppose, the fact that he was the first man outside my immediate family, excluding our serfs, with whom I had ever spoken, and I was fast approaching forty. That made an impact, though even at first sight he did not seem very developed from a sexual point of view. A woman in my position is more alert in these matters than someone like Alice, for instance. I felt that physical pleasures were not a Plato priority. There are some people I know, male and female, who can never accept any feelings they themselves are incapable of experiencing as authentic. Plato was the opposite. I could read that in his eyes, and it was confirmed in the months that followed.

‘Are you wondering why I didn’t escape from my prison, especially as I had the key to the door in my pocket? Simple. I had no money in my name. No bank account. No nothing. I didn’t really exist. There was another factor. Had I met a man and married him it would have been a suicide wedding. The primitives would have met and decreed that I had dishonoured the Koran, and pirs would have been found to pronounce the death sentence. It wasn’t till Sámir and the brother next in age to him, whom I hated so much that I prefer not to mention his name, died in a plane crash and Sikandar came home to take charge of the estates that my life began to improve.

‘Sikandar and his wife took me out everywhere, and for the first time I began to experience everyday life in the big city. Sikandar bought my share of the land, and gave me the money and a great deal more, including the large apartment in Karachi. He had a sorrowful expression when he told me that though he wanted my happiness, it would be best if I didn’t marry. He was not powerful enough to prevent the pirs from issuing a death sentence. By this time I did not have any desires in that direction, and then Plato entered my life, bringing happiness and intellectual comforts that I had not thought possible. Everyone believes he’s my cook-chauffeur. You know his face. With a tiny disguise and a change in body language he can play any part. He told me that he had taken you in, Dara, by pretending to be a Bengali caretaker.’ She threw back her head and laughed. Alice looked shell-shocked. None of us spoke.

‘Tell me, Zay-Nab, is marriage to the Koran permitted by Islam? Never heard of it before.’

‘Of course not. The clerics attack the practice every day, denouncing the landlords, but they do nothing. A few suicide bombers in the haunts of these guys might work wonders. Instead, they punish the poor.’

‘A primitive device to destroy primitives,’ said I. ‘The idea is not without merit, but it’s their economic power that needs to be destroyed. No point killing individuals if the institution survives.’

‘Which government in Fatherland will ever do that, Dara? It’s been going on for too long.’

‘So medieval,’ said Alice. ‘So bloody medieval.’

‘Medieval Europe perhaps, Ally, but not the medieval Islamic world. They were spared feudalism. Zaynab’s misery can’t be blamed on Islam. Didn’t you once say in public that patriarchy plus property equals murder?’

‘Spare me my juvenilia, Dara. Please. There are more important issues at stake. Zaynab, may I ask you a very personal question? We can tell this male monster to leave if you want.’

‘The monster can stay. Ask whatever you wish.’

‘Are you a virgin?’

For the first time that evening, her face clouded over, and for a moment it seemed that Alice had crossed a heavily protected frontier. Zaynab sighed, then said, ‘I don’t mind the question at all. Plato asked me exactly the same one and became quite upset when I replied truthfully, and it was the memory of his sadness that I was thinking about when you repeated the question. No, I’m not a virgin. Technically, if I can put it like that, I deflowered myself with a candle when I was seventeen. That was also the year I was beginning to read Balzac, not that the two events are linked in any fashion. It’s just that when I started rereading him many years later, memories of the candle I had burnt at my altar always reappeared. The maids had replaced the sheets very quickly. They were my only confidantes and friends. I told them everything and they never, ever betrayed me. It was the only girl talk that was possible and I enjoyed it greatly. There were no affectations, no melodrama, no feeling that we were entering uncharted or perilous waters. None of that. They were all married and would describe their experiences in great detail. Two of them had husbands who performed like animals. They made the comparison well, because their sex education had consisted of watching stray dogs and donkeys and horses copulating at various times. One of them had a more thoughtful husband who would give her a great deal of pleasure and she was not shy about describing the foreplay. The others would giggle and ask to share him. I actually did.’

Even I jumped up at this point.

‘You did what?’

‘When I first put this proposition to her, she thought that I was teasing and giggled at my joke. I said I was serious and her face went pale as the sand. At first I imagined it might be jealousy on her part. That I would have understood, even though I had not at that time felt the emotion myself, but had read about it a great deal in French novels. If she had been jealous, I would have immediately withdrawn the request. When I made this obvious she was mortified. It wasn’t that at all, she told me. She then admitted she had talked about me to him, told him about the candle and the stained sheet. He had expressed sorrow at my fate and abused the men who had reduced me to these straits.

‘She was sure he would oblige, and for her part she was happy to share him. Had I not after all, she asked, shared much with her and the other maids? Her only fear was that we’d be found out, and there, too, she was not afraid on her own behalf. If he and I were caught we would both be put to death. Him first. They would disembowel and burn him. She could not bear the thought of losing him or me. I reassured her: it was merely an idea and between the idea and the deed there is often a long interval. In any case, everything would have to be very carefully planned.

‘When she informed him of my proposition and her concerns, he immediately calmed her fears. Over the next months we devised a plan. Its details are of no significance. In my situation, melodrama was never far from the surface, and with some reason. And so one day it happened, and everything his wife had confessed regarding their most intimate moments turned out to be true. From that day on, whenever I was menstruating, he would come and pleasure me, except when unforeseen circumstances made the operation risky. That is how I came to experience the delights of being a woman. And you know something, after my first year in Karachi, where I observed the unhappiness of so many women from my class who had been married for some time, and heard their tales of woe about philandering husbands and being abandoned by their children, I did begin to wonder whether being married to the Koran and being pleasured by a man I shared with a dear friend had in some ways been a less cumbersome experience.’

Alice applauded loudly, which grated on me. ‘It’s truly wonderful,’ she crowed. ‘It restores my faith in humanity. When we were young we used to say that marriage was akin to prostitution, since cash dependency made many women prisoners. May I ask how long this business of sharing went on?’

‘It still does, but extremely irregularly. Once or twice a year, I send for him. I once tried a very clever journalist, but his cleverness, alas, was confined to his newspaper columns. He was very stupid and crude in bed and I had to ask him to leave before it went any further. Afterwards when we met on social occasions I think he was more embarrassed than I was.

‘My friendly maid moved to Karachi with me, and so did her children. He would come here once or twice a fortnight to see them. So we’ve never lost contact. He’s also a very sharp-witted observer of what goes on in that world. Often I pass on the things he tells me to Sikandar, who is always amazed by my “spy network”. I wrote a poem about him in Sindhi but it doesn’t sound so good in English. It was in praise of the soil, rich in ardour, that produced such men, compelled to seek the sun inside themselves; their secret passions, concentrated energies that kept their muscles taut and produced a voluptuousness without a trace of languor. Enough. I’m very fond of him, even though our conversations are often limited to issues relating to the land. That is what upset Plato. He found it all quite disconcerting. I told him I would be delighted if he could replace my aging peasant, but he simply couldn’t. We did try.’

‘So did we,’ said Alice, unable to resist the competition. ‘That’s when Dara walked in and served my needs so well. I can recommend him.’

‘All that is over now, praise Allah. My life has changed its course: I’m on a grand tour, first Europe, then China.’

I left to visit the washroom with their mocking laughter in the background. I could see how Plato had fallen so badly for her. She was an amazing creature. Could she be the inspiration for all the mermaids that he now painted? When I returned I asked whether she was his latest muse and model.

‘I am. I sit for him, but he can’t explain why I must always be depicted as a mermaid.’

‘Surely it’s disgustingly obvious,’ said Alice. ‘He doesn’t want to imagine you with private parts. What other possible reason could there be? The role of the mermaid in ancient mythology is essentially that of a prick-teaser.’

The remark irritated me. She was trying to show off. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Ally… er, Alice. Mermaids have a totally different function in different…’

‘Please, let’s not argue abut mermaids. I’ve had a really nice evening, but we haven’t yet discussed your Plato, and I’m worried.’

‘Why?’ we asked in unison.

‘His depressions are getting worse, not better. You can see all of this in his latest work. There are days when he is completely suicidal, which is why I never leave this capsule at home. I carry it wherever I go. In a melancholic fit he could grab and swallow it, and where would that leave me? I see less and less of him. He spends more and more time in his studio. Drinking and painting, day and night, as if he were racing against death. The humour in his work has almost disappeared.’

‘But why?’

‘I’m not sure. There is this absurd and foolish rivalry promoted by the press. Is Pervaiz Shah as good as I. M. Malik? Numerous articles, and people who know nothing about art writing long and dull essays on both painters. Even those who praise Plato haven’t a clue as to what he’s about and where his art stems from. Has either of you seen I. M. Malik’s work?’

Alice had never heard of him. I knew him slightly from the past and had seen his paintings at various exhibitions.

‘He’s decorative, shallow, pretentious and this was my opinion long before Plato entered the field. I. M. Malik paints to please and sell. Fair enough, but I can see why it drives Plato crazy. But I can’t totally accept that IMM’s success is the whole cause. Plato knows IMM’s artistic worth perfectly. If you can bear to download images of his latest piece of conceptual art, you’ll see that even old IMM realizes that shit produces money. He has used horse manure, dried cow-dung cakes and pigeon droppings to create a huge birthday cake for his own ninetieth. There is an additional problem. I. M. Malik looks like a shrunken, constipated accountant, which can be slightly off-putting.’

Alice disagreed with my assessment. She thought it was perfectly possible that Plato had gone into a decline because of the state of global culture. ‘It’s the same everywhere. As a music critic I sit through countless operas and concerts here and at the Met in New York. Tickets are so overpriced that not many music lovers can afford seats. It’s corporate entertainment now and the audiences are very philistine. Directors know this and play to their weaknesses. They laugh at some stupid slapstick in a Mozart opera, they applaud a badly sung aria simply because the star stops and waits for the applause, etc. It is depressing. The ability to discriminate is disappearing fast in Western culture. People like what they’re told to like, and since they’ve paid a high price for it they convince themselves that what they’ve seen and heard was good. The theatre’s no different. Any serious criticism is regarded as disloyal. After a week at work I often feel suicidal.’

I knew Plato better than either of them did and knew that his depression had little to do with lack of appreciation. That had never bothered him at all. I feared it was his past, and his impotence and his love and desire for Zaynab that he could only partially fulfil. He had refused to see an analyst. Might a chemical do the trick? It seemed cruel, but I wondered whether Zaynab had tried Viagra or one of its equivalents.

‘He’d be horrified. He’s always making vicious jokes about the sixty-somethings who cruise nonstop in the Viagra triangle in Clifton. The thought of him…’

‘I wasn’t suggesting you hand him a tablet. But you poisoned the hound, didn’t you? Give it to Plato mixed with what the Bangladeshis refer to as shag gosht. Who knows, both of you may get lucky.’

Alice backed up this suggestion. ‘No harm in trying it once. If it works and the depression disappears, do it regularly. If it doesn’t, you lose nothing. Why did you never suggest it to me, Dara?’

‘We were much younger then and you were still Ally.’

Zaynab was worried. What if it gave him a heart attack? She’d read that a former president of Nigeria had died of an overdose while on the job. We advised caution the first time. Perhaps just half the recommended dose. She promised she would try when she returned. Before that she planned a trip to Paris. It was her first time and she wanted to see with her own eyes the Latin Quarter where Balzac had lived, worked and staved off his creditors. French novelists had kept her company during the early years of her marriage to the Honoured Classic, and she still returned to them from time to time. Her life had become a never-ending rush. She could never stay in one place for too long. Even when at home she travelled a great deal, seeing parts of the country that were new to her.

Her sister-in-law belonged to the old ruling family in Swat, and she would often go and stay there in the summer, using it as a base to visit Gilgit. She told me this as I was dropping her off at her hotel.

‘Have you ever been to Swat? Strange to think that there’s a war going on now, a war in which Plato and I find it difficult to support either side. One of Plato’s paintings shows both sides as one. A hydra-headed beast.’

‘No mermaids on the landscape?’

‘None. You haven’t answered my question.’

I described a trip I’d taken to Swat over forty years before, with a small group of students travelling by a GTS bus from Mardan, where I had been staying with close family friends. Our bus wound its way along tiny roads where one had to pull to the side and stop when a car or lorry approached from the opposite direction. Suddenly an old Rolls Royce pulled up behind us, its driver honking aggressively and gesturing that he wanted the bus to move out of the way. Overtaking was not permitted, and our driver, correctly, refused. Ten miles on there was a broader stretch of the road. The car passed us then and screeched to a halt in front of us. We stopped. The owner of the Rolls was the Wali of Swat, a traditional tribal chief, ennobled and placed in power by the British and mercilessly lampooned by Edward Lear. He walked out of the car. The Swatis sitting in the bus cowered. Men and women covered their heads and tried to hide. The Pashtun driver, now trembling with fear, was asked to step outside. He pleaded for forgiveness. He’d had no idea it was the Wall’s car. His pleas were ignored. The Wali took a rifle from one of his bodyguards and shot our driver dead. Then he drove away. We were stranded for three hours before another driver arrived.

‘Allah save us,’ said Zaynab. ‘That was my sister-in-law’s grandfather.’

I let her out of the car.

‘Perhaps we can continue this conversation in Paris? I’ll be staying at the Crillon for two weeks.’

‘Enjoy, it was the SS headquarters during the war.’

‘Does that mean no?’

‘No. But it doesn’t mean yes either.’

‘Why? I have much more to tell you, things I didn’t want to mention in front of Alice Stepford.’

‘And it has to be in Paris?’

‘You must admit it would be more congenial. Where else can I practice that French that Mile Verbizier-taught me in my youth? Vous comprenez?’

I made neither comment nor commitment, but waved a friendly farewell as she let herself out of the car.