Night of the Golden Butterfly

EIGHTEEN

I SENT JINDIÉ AN appreciative e-mail praising her prose to the skies and suggesting a publisher for her musings on Beijing and Yunnan. ‘As for the postscript’, I wrote, ‘I’m delighted to hear you have enjoyed life to the full, though I hope not as fully as Hsi-men Ch’ing, despite your invocation of his name more than once. As for the rest, all I can say is better a middle-aged Tanzanian agronomist than a rapidly aging Punjabi writer who lacks the vigour of youth.’

Zaynab had returned to Fatherland and was asking me each day to set a date so that Plato’s painting could be brought to the house and unveiled. She promised this would not be done till I arrived. Did I think we should invite someone else as well? For Zaynab to ask that meant she already had someone in mind, and even as I was wondering who this could be and from which continent, the phone rang.

‘Alice Stepford here. Is that you, Dara?’

‘Has Zaynab invited you to her country mansion?’

‘Have you decided a date?’

‘Think carefully, Alice. Fatherland is a mess. Americans are not safe there.’

‘Let me know the date, when you’ve decided it, and the flight from London so that we can synchronize watches. Speak soon.’ A frivolous e-mail exchange with Zaynab followed this call:

Good idea to invite a few other people. What about Zahid and Confucius, who were close to him in his Lahore days, as well as Ally Stepford? z.

Will you provide security for the Stepford mistress? D.

You mean your ex-mistress. Why have you gone off her? z.

Could Yu-chih come as well, since she has to be shown Lahore? D.

The party was growing by the minute. Zaynab rang an hour later.

‘Master of the Universe, have you decided on a date?’

‘Mistress of all you survey, what’s the weather like in Sind? Any storms in the offing?’

‘Dara, stop fooling. I’ve got e-mails from all your guests thanking me for the invitation and glad that you invited Mrs Confucius along as well. Ally, my only guest, said you were distinctly harsh and rude to her.’

‘Is there a helicopter service from Karachi Airport to Thanda Gosht Yar, or is it called Sainville now?’

She suppressed a giggle. ‘Behave. Unless you send me dates by tomorrow morning I’ll unveil it on my own.’

And then one day we all arrived in Karachi. Zaynab’s brother had thoughtfully organized a helicopter, and we were met off the gangway by flunkeys. The Confuciuses had already arrived. The flunkeys took our passports and escorted us to the hotel’s VIP suite.

‘Why not VVIP?’ I asked one of them.

‘Permission only for VIP today, sir.’

‘Was the VVVIP full?’

He tried not to smile.

In the VIP room the Bride of the Koran herself, looking ravishable, greeted us. I had missed her. The sun had done her good; she was a few degrees darker. She embraced Alice with a show of real warmth. Then she gave Zahid a salaam from afar and completely ignored me. I embraced Confucius with genuine delight and was introduced to Yu-chih, so well described by Jindié. Breakfast awaited us. It consisted of tinned and slightly mouldy orange juice, which I warned the others to ignore, but Ally ignored me and downed a tumbler of the foul stuff. An hour later she was looking distinctly peaky. The juice was followed by some deliciously stale chicken sandwiches, withered by the overnight heat and not restored to life by the early morning humidity or being sprinkled with water. One sniff and it was obvious that turpentine had been used as a butter substitute. When I pointed this out, Zaynab collapsed in laughter. She asked if we could have a word alone in the neighbouring prayer room.

‘Are you sure your husband isn’t in there?’

Inside she lost control and just roared.

‘Will you please behave yourself? I know you’re in one of your stupid moods, but preserve some decorum. Please try.’

I kissed her on the lips for a very long time. She broke loose; we adjusted ourselves and joined our friends. By the time the helicopter was ready we were in normal Fatherland mode. Zaynab had her head well covered, and, I was pleased to see, so had Alice. She looked very fetching in a maroon Sindhi scarf embroidered with silver stars. I put on my dark glasses. ‘To hide his mocking eyes,’ I heard Zaynab whisper to Alice. The helicopter was well prepared and we were handed a bottle of water each for the forty-minute hop to Pir Sikandar Shah’s helipad.

‘In case you’re wondering why there are no parachutes, it’s because you can’t jump from a helicopter,’ I said to nobody in particular. As the blades began to whirr, I noticed a momentary look of concern on Alice’s face. At this point Zaynab put on her dark glasses. Conversation is always difficult on helicopters, but was more so in this one because the guard accompanying us had forgotten to bring the noise-cancelling earphones on board. I took out mine from my hand luggage and listened to a violin concerto that came to an end just as the helicopter landed on the baronial estates of the Shah family.

Pir Sikandar was at an emergency cabinet meeting in Isloo. His personal assistant and sundry retainers greeted us on landing. Zaynab was surrounded immediately by four maids, and she, Yu-chih and poor Alice retired to the women’s quarter, no doubt for massage and bath respectively. Lucky things. We were taken to our guest cottages, with mine the closest to the house. I was greeted by a refrigerator overloaded with Murree beer but demanded fresh lime juice without sugar and a jug of tamarind juice with ice and honey. We men showered, and then Zahid and Confucius knocked on my door. I offered them beer. Both preferred the tamarind concoction. Confucius appeared slightly bewildered.

‘I hope they haven’t kidnapped Yu-chih for too long.’

Zahid asked whether I had been here before, to which the answer was no. Neither of her brothers was known to me. Most of my Sindhi friends were writers and poets and painters, and I reminded them that it was to see the last work of one of these that we were here.

‘Plato was a motherfucking Punjabi,’ muttered Confucius, in the language he had just mentioned.

‘Glad you’re back on side.’

He grinned. ‘I want my wife back.’

Lunch was eagerly awaited by all, especially those who had travelled on Fatherland Airlines, but even the Beijing Two were starving. It was served in the pir sahib’s dining room. His wife and kids were in Europe, and Zaynab had to play official hostess. A very elderly gentleman had joined us, a great-uncle who had helped to create Fatherland but whom nobody remembered was still alive. We had no doubt on that score. He drank a couple of beers and ate a healthy portion of each of the seven or eight well-prepared dishes that had been placed before us. When I asked his age he said ‘ninety-two’ in a lively voice. Nobody was disappointed with the food, but the presence of this elder had a slightly inhibiting effect on the conversation.

Every evening, he would lead the prayers in the tiny mosque on the estate, for a congregation of two dozen servants and about fifty serfs who were rustled up to keep the old man happy. The prayer was followed by an improvised exhortation to the assembled to be good Muslims and say their prayers; occasionally he would tell them not to interfere sexually with animals. Such acts had not been sanctioned, and they confused the lesser species. When the service was over his jeep would bring him straight to the house for a Patiala peg of whisky before supper. This daily disjunctive between theory and practice appeared to have kept him alive. Nor was he ungenerous. One reason the servants and serfs didn’t mind him all that much was that he was too old now to demand one of their wives for the night and besides he was doling out money to whoever said they were in want.

He was, of course, a dreadful bore, but this could be said of most people who reach such an age.

During supper that night he remarked, ‘Unless our politicians are led back to decent principles within ten years, we will have a bloody Communist revolution, and all these estates will be distributed to these donkeyfucking peasants.’

Confucius could not remain silent. ‘The same will happen in China, except they fuck pigs, not donkeys.’

The old man roared with delight. Usually nobody spoke to him; Zaynab signalled me with her eyes, but I had no idea what she wanted. Later she told me that it was a rule at the table that nobody should ever answer Great-Uncle. I thought this excessively mean, but she had that don’t-argue-this-one-with-me look in her eyes. I told her that her injunction would genuinely shock Mr and Mrs Confucius, because they came from a culture where ancestors were literally worshipped, including by many Hui. She was not impressed.

‘Young man’, he said now to Confucius, who was in his mid-sixties, ‘I thought China was bloody Communist.’

‘No, sir. They’re capitalists now and conquering the world with their commodities.’

‘Bloody good show. Did they bump the Communists off?’

‘Oh no, sir. The Communist leaders became capitalists.’

This puzzled the great-uncle, and, aware that his presence annoyed Zaynab, he did not speak again till the dessert was served. This was a sensational rice pudding, exactly the correct consistency. Great-Uncle posed a question that none of us had yet asked.

‘I was told there was an English lady with your party. Where is she?’

Zaynab was forced to announce that Alice was indisposed and had retired early. I was sure that the rusty orange juice that none of us had touched had rotted her insides, and the deadly desert diarrhoea germ, permanently in search of an opening, had scored a majestic triumph.

The old man mumbled something sympathetic. ‘I had no idea she was ill. Otherwise I would not have worn my dinner jacket.’

None of the rest of us had dressed for dinner, but we had not packed any smart clothes. As we were leaving, I was handed a note by a retainer. It gave me instructions for the rest of the evening. When everyone had retired at about ten p.m. and the guards were pretending to patrol the perimeters, two of Zaynab’s maids came to my room and wordlessly escorted me to their lady’s bedchamber.

‘I am a ruined man, Zizi. If we’re discovered I’ll be killed and you’ll be married off to twelve volumes of the hadith as a punishment. Paris is one thing, but in this holiest of holies where you were married to the Holiest of Holy Books, there can be only one punishment.’

‘Stupid man. Take off your clothes and get into bed.’

‘Are you not going to dismiss the maids?’

‘They’ve seen better things hanging in their time.’

‘I thought we were breaking up.’

‘I’ve told Alice she has no cause for anxiety. I’m sure she’ll be fine. And please stop winding her up. Did you know she was a distant relation of the Napiers?’

‘I’m taking my clothes off.’

‘I’m waiting.’

‘The Napiers of Napier Road in Karachi? It should be called Peccavi Road.’

‘It’s nice you’re in this bed.’

‘I feel a poem coming in my head. Where once a candle stood to light the Koran, a peasant entered and replaced the candle with his own…’

The maids turned out the lights and retired to the adjoining room.

‘Has Alice got diarrhoea?’

‘I can’t find your candle.’

‘I’m perfectly happy.’

‘I’m returning to Paris soon. It’s irritating never to leave the house without a maid. These two are well trained. One was married to the peasant who replaced the candle, but he died a few weeks ago.’

I felt keenly aware that our relationship was about to undergo another change.

At five in the morning, the maids woke us up, helped me dress and returned me to my official quarters. Fifteen minutes later the muezzin called the faithful to prayer, but old Great-Uncle didn’t stir a muscle. Two hours later we were all having breakfast.