Kartography by Kamila Shamsie Read Free Book Online

to appear on the paper.
    â€˜How do you think it happened?’ he asked.
    â€˜I think the mad goat’s father came untethered and chased your mother around the dunes, and your father came by and saved her. And over on the other side of the farm a crazy bull was chasing my father and my mother waved her red sari at it to make it change course and,
olé!
Love swap!’
    Karim laughed shortly. ‘My father’s not the kind of guy to walk out into the dunes. Sand in his shoes. He wouldn’t like that.’ He pushed his hair off his face, leaving a purple smudge, like a bruise, on his forehead.
    â€˜OK, so what’s your version?’ I wiped my hands on his jeans.
    â€˜I don’t know. I can’t think of any reason why someone would marry my father rather than yours.’ He furrowed his brow and I ran my thumb over the creases that appeared between his eyes, leaving green streaks that dribbled down his nose. ‘Maybe your mother saw she was getting the bad end of the bargain and whisked your father away.’
    â€˜Don’t be silly.’ I walked over to the bathroom to wash my hands. ‘My mother would never do a thing like that to your mother. And if she had, they wouldn’t still be friends, would they?’
    We dropped the topic then, but I couldn’t get his words out of my mind and later that night I crept down to the drawing room in search of old photographs. Or, rather, one old photograph, which was framed and prominently displayed in both Karim’s house and mine. A few days earlier I had come upon a copy of it, along with stacks of other pictures, in the rosewood cabinet in Laila and Asif’s drawing room.
    I switched on the table lamp, trying to suppress the feeling that I was doing something sneaky, and rummaged through the images of my parents and their friends, partying and holidaying and hamming it up in black-and-white. Picture of my father planting a kiss on Uncle Ali’s cheek, as Uncle Ali—looking unexpectedly like Karim, with his wide grin—held up an aubergine to the camera. Age had made them more restrained. Towards the world, or towards each other? I found the photograph I was looking for, and sat on the sofa with it in my hand, first tilting the lampshade slightly so that light fell directly on the picture.
    Taken at Karim’s parents’ wedding, it showed my parents flanking the bride and groom, all four of them laughing. There was no such photograph at my parents’ wedding, which had taken place just months earlier, because Aunty Maheen hadn’t been present. She’d been in the newly created nation of Bangladesh, spending her last weeks as a single woman with her family there. At least, that was the version I’d always been told.
    As I looked at the photograph, I began to distrust their laughter. Were they laughing together, as a foursome? Or had the photographer said something amusing to make each of them, as individuals, laugh? They were not looking at one another, not at all; Aunty Maheen was not resting a hand on my mother’s wrist to say ‘I get it, I get it. Too funny, darling’, and Aba was not half-turning towards Uncle Ali to see his own laughter mirrored in his best friend’s face, and though Aunty Maheen was leaning towards Uncle Ali in what I had always taken as a sign of intimacy, perhaps she was really just leaning away from my mother.
    The next morning, I went looking for Karim to show him the photograph. I found him in Uncle Asif’s study, looking at the atlas again.
    â€˜Karimazov, where’ve you been?’ I shut the door behind me with what I hoped was a conspiratorial air. ‘We have to talk. I’ve been wondering about your parents’ marriage.’
    He looked up at me, blew out air from his cheeks, nodded, gulped, nodded again. ‘OK,’ he said, putting the atlas down and clutching the edge of the desk with both hands. ‘OK.’
    â€˜Their