Amal Unbound(29)

“Me?”

“It’s a long drive, two hours if the traffic cooperates. Pack some dried snacks, water, and a thermos with chai.”

Would Jawad Sahib interject? Tell her I couldn’t leave the estate? He clicked on his phone and said nothing.



* * *



? ? ?

“Going to Lahore?” Nabila asked me when I walked into the kitchen.

“Yes, I need to get her snacks and tea in order,” I said cautiously. Did she wish she was going instead of me? We’d gotten along fine in the months since our truce, but I couldn’t completely forget her treachery.

“The bags get really heavy,” she said. “By the end my arms usually feel like they’ll fall off. Make sure to put the bags down every chance you get.”

“Thanks for the tip,” I said, and she smiled at me.

Sitting across from Nasreen Baji in the black town car that afternoon, we drove past cotton fields, orange groves, and sugarcane fields. Soon, my neighborhood snapped into view as we turned down the main street, the same one whose path I’d traveled nearly every week. We passed by the open-air market. Shaukat stood outside, talking to a kulfi vendor. I pressed my fingers against the darkened glass, watching the market slide past me, out of sight.

“Was that Shaukat?” Nasreen Baji asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“For a second I thought it was his father. Things looked quiet there.”

“It’s not delivery day. On Tuesdays and Fridays, you can’t find a spot to stand.”

“Two shipments a week? That’s impressive.”

“They’ve added more space in the back. You can’t see it from the road.”

“I forget how it is with our villages. Only those who live there know exactly what is going on.”

We drove past my street. And then, for a brief moment, my house flitted in and out of view. It looked smaller somehow. I wondered if all my memories of home would grow as distant as Nasreen Baji’s had. Watching my village slip away in the rearview, I felt like I was losing a piece of myself.



* * *



? ? ?

    I thought I knew what Lahore would be like, but it was one thing to read about it in a book or see it on television, and another to experience it for myself. Unlike the steady stream of the highway, here rickshaws, motorcycles, trucks, and cars shared the narrow roads alongside bicycles and throngs of people. Stores pressed against other stores on either side of us, large signs in Urdu and in English towering on billboards overhead.

Suddenly, the car jerked to a stop.

“We can’t be there yet, can we?” Nasreen Baji asked Ghulam.

“Almost. It’s another one of those protests blocking traffic.”

“What’s this one about?” She leaned against the car seat and sighed.

“Judge Barsi,” he said as the car snaked slowly through the snarl of traffic. “That’s what the signs say, anyhow.”

I looked out the window. The sidewalks and streets up ahead were filled with people holding signs. Some had photos of the judge with angry red Xs splashed across his face.

A woman in a red hijab stood on a crate. She picked up a horn and shouted, “Jail Judge Barsi!” The crowd chanted along with her, and their voices made the car vibrate.

“So a judge does something they don’t like and we pay the price by sitting in traffic?” Nasreen Baji complained. “I swear, every week they find something new to get angry about.”

I’d seen protests on the news, but seeing it in person, I felt the energy in the air. Even through the closed and darkened window it crackled through me.

At last, we reached the bazaar. I hopped out of the car and trailed behind Nasreen Baji through the arched entrance into the Anarkali bazaar. The smell of samosas and pakoras filled the air. In my old village there was one stall for all the snack foods. Here, stall after stall was lined up as far as I could see. Men shouted their prices over one another, and their voices echoed through the bazaar. We passed four different spice stores, each with turmeric and chilies lining the shelves and spices in colors and with names I had never seen before.

Streams of people brushed past us, and with the loud bargaining, the laughter, the arguing, and the honking of cars in the distance, everything felt like it was merging into one beating pulse.

And the people. Some girls were dressed like me in plain shalwar kamizes. Other girls wore pants and blouses. I saw some fully covered with nothing but their eyes revealed, while others wore short-sleeved shirts.

All this time I’d wanted to travel to faraway cities, but here, just a few hours away, was Lahore, another planet.

We passed a shoe store, a handbag store, and a shop where rows and rows of bangles lined the walls. I wanted to take a moment and absorb everything, but I had to keep up with Nasreen Baji as she hurried toward the sari shop.

Stepping inside, I stood against the back wall. Nasreen Baji sat down on a red cushioned pillow and pointed to the rows of fabric lining the walls. The shopkeepers pulled off the bolts of silk and unfurled them across the floor in front of her. Soon the floor was a sea of green, sky blue, and petal pink. It would take hours for them to put everything back in place, but the men didn’t seem to care. Nasreen Baji sifted through the different saris and picked three.

I had never seen anyone shop with the freedom of Nasreen Baji. After the sari shop, she walked into store after store and simply pointed to what she liked—gold earrings, silver heeled shoes, ruby-encrusted bangles—and just like that, they became hers.