The Good Son by Michael Gruber Read Free Book Online

father there when we had half days at school, and he would take us to the bazaar for ice candy?”
    “Oh, yeah, and other sweets. He had a sweet tooth himself, and your mother would always complain that he was ruining our appetites. And he would let himself be berated and give us a sly wink.”
    A painful silence after this; then Sonia said, “I’m sorry about your mother. I’m sorry I didn’t come to the funeral.”
    “Yes, you should have been there with your husband. She was not very nice to you, but you should have come.”
    “I didn’t think I’d be welcome.”
    “Oh, what nonsense! Because of something that happened twenty-eight years ago? A book? But
now
you come.”
    “I’m sorry,” she says, and is.
    “I forgive you,” says Rukhsana, “although others may not.”
    “Does that include Nisar?”
    “Oh, no, with Nisar everything is negotiable, even forgiveness. Otherwise we would not be here. Move your ass, you stupid monkey!” This is shouted out the window at a van that has stopped in a traffic lane to make a delivery.
    “Besides, in the family you know what we say:
Sonia Sonia hai
. You are horrible but we still love you. Here we are.”
    She honks at a gate in a whitewashed wall and a servant opens it and they drive into an enclosed yard shaded by two arching
peepul
trees, the paving of the courtyard scattered with blue jacaranda petals.
    Sonia climbs from the little car and pauses. “I assume he’s in your father’s library.”
    “It’s
his
library now,” says Rukhsana, bitterness touching her voice; Sonia walks slowly down the crushed stone path to the house.

    When Sonia comes out of Nisar’s house an hour later, the heat and the ordinary odors of Lahore—spices, jasmine, traffic fumes, sewage, rot—feel welcome, like real life. Nisar has fitted the house with air-conditioning, including a back-up diesel generator, and he keeps his office as cold as his heart. Or so Rukhsana says as Sonia slides into the car.
    “It wasn’t too bad,” says Sonia. “He said we can use Leepa House for the conference. He’ll call ahead to the caretakers.”
    “In return for what?”
    “As you predicted, he wants a meeting with Bill Craig to pitch a scheme for making computer components in one of his Karachi plants. It’s a good deal.”
    Rukhsana starts the car, drives out the gate, and turns north, up to the Mall and beyond it to Ravi Road, passing through heavy traffic along the western edge of the old city. They are going to the studios of Ravi TV to record interviews.
    Rukhsana asks, “And how did he treat you? Was he nasty?”
    “No,” Sonia says wearily, “he was polite and businesslike. He doesn’t seem to dwell in the past.”
    “As I do, you mean?”
    Sonia sighs. “Honestly, Ruhka, I don’t want to dredge up old family fights or take sides.”
    Undeterred, Rukhsana continues. “That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to live here. Farid is the eldest son, he’s supposed to be the head of the family, but Nisar always gets his way, and—”
    “Yes, but as you well know, Farid has no interest in being the head of anything. Look, there’s the cemetery. Can we stop for a little while?”
    “We’ll be late.”
    “Please.”
    Rukhsana twists the wheel violently and cuts across two lanes of traffic, prompting a chorus of horns. She spits out a skein of curses in the street language of Lahore, and turns into the gate of Gau Shala, the old burial ground of the city.
    She parks. Sonia asks, “Do you know where they are?”
    “Of course,” says Rukhsana stiffly, and leads the way through the thick, dusty, monumented ground, walking ahead like a soldier.
    Sonia stands for a while in front of the simple stone slabs that mark the graves of her father-in-law and her two daughters. Jamila would be thirty and Aisha thirty-four, she calculates, but this thought does not summon a sense of loss. Like the markers, that part of her heart is stone now. Grief among traditional Muslim