Kartography by Kamila Shamsie Read Free Book Online Page B

Asif’s innumerable servants to carry it to the car.
    Uncle Asif, Aunty Laila and Uncle Ali were all in the drawing room on the ground floor, and as we made our way down the stairs we heard their voices through the wide-open door.
    â€˜But really, Ali, you must all come and stay,’ Aunty Laila was saying. ‘The kids are divine, but we’d quite like to have divinity’s parents’ with us, too. Asif, tell him.’
    Karim and I stopped, hoping to overhear more about our sterling qualities as house guests.
    Uncle Asif grunted. ‘Of course you must all come. And tell Zafar that this time I won’t take him for a walk and get him lost in the kinoo orchards if he starts his ranting about the need for land reforms.’
    â€˜God, I had forgotten about that. Asif, really, how could you have?’
    Uncle Asif laughed. ‘Laila, it was sixteen years ago, and before your civilizing influence. Besides, Zaf wasn’t acting the polite guest himself. Still, I understand why he said those things. I mean, Muhajirs will never understand the way we feel about land. They all left their homes at Partition. No understanding of ties to a place.’
    I put out my hand and gripped Karim’s shoulder, stopping him as he was starting to walk, whether towards the drawing room or away from it I couldn’t tell. When my father spoke of the need for land re-forms to break the power of the feudals, he lost his customary languid posture and his soft voice took on an edge of urgency. Even at thirteen, I could link his fervour to a myriad reasons. The socialist professor who set his mind ablaze when he was at university; the capitalist profession he had entered when he started his own advertising agency; the novels he read (my mother always cringed when he referred to Hugo as ‘Old Vic’); the stories he’d heard, firsthand, from employees and prospective employees who left their villages to come to the city, and were willing to do anything at all to earn a living in Karachi, anything but go back to ‘that life’; his analysis of economic reports; his mistrust of humanity’s capacity to be uncorrupted by power. Some reasons were contradictory and some were contradicted by other parts of his life, but all of them,
all,
were part of the mesh that made up his character. Yet Uncle Asif had summarily dismissed all that with one word: muhajir. Immigrant.
    I heard a plate—or was it a saucer?—placed firmly on a table, and Uncle Ali said, ‘I share Zafar’s views on land reform. And I’m not a Muhajir.’
    â€˜Yes, but you’ve lived all those years in Karachi,’ Uncle Asif said, never losing his jolly tone. ‘It’s made you so urban. Don’t get uptight, Ali. I love Zafar, you know I do. And when the revolution comes, I’ll take refuge in his house and he’ll welcome me with open arms and guard me with his life. You, on the other hand, I’m not entirely sure about. Oh, for heaven’s sake, yaar, smile.’
    â€˜What is it with people today and my smile?’ Uncle Ali asked. ‘Listen, Asif. Let’s put aside the old feudal argument. Tell me what’s going on in Karachi. What do your contacts in the government say?’
    â€˜That it’s all going to hell. More tea?’
    â€˜Asif, this isn’t a joke,’ Aunty Laila said, her voice exploding as though it had been held captive somewhere for a long time. ‘Karachi’s my home, you know. Why did those bloody Muhajirs have to go and form a political group? Once they’re united they’ll do God knows what. Demanding this, demanding that. Thinking just because they’re a majority in Karachi they can trample over everyone else. Like they did in ’47. Coming across the border thinking we should be grateful for their presence.’ I could see her shadow move across the wall as she paced across the room. ‘Do you hear the way people like