Unmarriageable(72)

Luckily for Haji Looclus, Beena dey Bagh was not interested in how many times anyone else had performed the holy pilgrimage and, instead, she pointed to the portrait above the fireplace and informed them that it was Annie at her best.

‘And where is dear Annie?’ Kaleen looked towards the archway that separated the drawing room from the large parquet foyer.

‘As you know, Kaleen,’ Beena said, ‘if Annie cannot go to the salon, then the salon must come to Annie. She is so fond of mani-pedis, she gets them done as regularly as others brush their teeth. It so heartens me that my daughter remains interested in a few things.’

A maid entered with a silver tray holding soft drinks. Mareea, Mansoor, and Manzoor excitedly chose from the array of colas. Alys took a glass of lemon squash.

‘Ice, Alysba?’ Beena said, and before Alys could answer, Beena had signalled to the maid, who whisked Alys’s glass out of her hand, topped it with ice, and set it back down on a cut-crystal coaster. ‘Sherry has told me so much about you. Also I have Naheed’s reports. I will say that the Dilipabad English literature exam scores are consistently admirable.’

‘Thank you,’ Alys said, as she signalled to the maid to remove the ice.

Beena dey Bagh’s eyes narrowed. ‘I hear other things too, Alysba. I’m not averse to progress, within reason, but I hear you like shocking students.’

‘I believe—’

‘You teachers,’ Beena dey Bagh cut Alys off, ‘are such ardent believers in this, that, or the other.’ She looked up at a woman who entered. ‘Yes?’

‘Madam,’ the woman said, ‘we’re done with Madam Annie. Payment, madam.’

‘Where is Nurse Jenkinudin?’

‘Don’t know, madam.’

Beena dey Bagh picked a walkie-talkie off the coffee table. Within minutes a woman in a starched white shalwar kurta came running in, apologised, and glared at the salon woman as she shepherded her out.

‘I had such an efficient Filipina nurse for Annie.’ Beena dey Bagh threw up her hands. ‘Unfortunately her mother also got a visa to work in Pakistan and off mine went to join her in Lahore. A replacement is in the works, but visas can take time. Nurse Jenkinudin is my third local. The local domestics are shoddy compared to the foreign domestics. No work ethic. Of course, you pay through the nose for foreigners, but then you get the best.’

Everyone nodded. Kaleen remarked that staffing his clinic with hard-working locals was a challenge too.

‘Might you say,’ Alys said, looking at Beena dey Bagh even as everyone turned to look at her, ‘that if one were to pay the local servants the same wages one paid the foreign, then the local would be just as good?’

‘Begum Beena dey Bagh,’ Kaleen said, grimacing at Alys as if she’d farted in public, ‘prefers the term “domestics” to “servants”. She believes it gives them an air of respectability that the term “servant” lacks.’

‘Right you are, Kaleen,’ Beena dey Bagh said. ‘That is exactly how I feel.’

‘Of course, everyone deserves dignity,’ Alys said.

‘Precisely,’ Beena dey Bagh said.

‘But,’ Alys said, ‘were I a servant, I might be compelled to say, “Call me by whichever term you want – ‘domestics’ or ‘the help’ is fine – but please pay me the same exorbitant salary as you would foreign servants.”’

‘Are you a communist?’ Beena dey Bagh hissed. ‘Surely you do not believe that everyone deserves the same salary if they have unequal qualifications. The foreign come trained, while I have to train the domestic. Anyway, inequality is ordained by God. Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist – show me any religion or philosophy that does not speak of rich and poor. It is the rich’s job to take care of the poor in their own way, often via charity, and it is the poor’s job to take care of the rich in their own way, often through serving.’

‘But charity,’ Alys said, ‘is dependent on goodwill, and serving is a job that should be highly paid. If you ask me, even teachers’ salaries should go way up.’

Kaleen spluttered on his juice. Sherry gave a hint of a smile. Beena dey Bagh cackled.

‘Everyone,’ she said, ‘ultimately thinks of their own skin.’

‘Yes,’ Alys said. ‘Everyone does perhaps think of their own coffers and comforts. But some people deserve and others simply hoard and exploit.’

‘Such confidence. How old are you?’

‘I believe girls are not supposed to be asked, or expected to divulge, their ages. However, I recently turned thirty-one.’

‘And the other teacher, your older sister?’

‘Jena is thirty-three.’

‘And neither one of you is married yet, I hear.’ Beena dey Bagh gave an all-knowing smile. ‘Must be hard on your mother.’

‘It is,’ Alys said. ‘But I believe that as hard as it may be on our mother, it seems to be even harder on absolute strangers.’

Beena dey Bagh geared up for a choice reply but, at that very moment, everyone turned to see Nurse Jenkinudin helping Annie walk in and sit down. Annie’s tall frame wore well a white silk blouse and bottle-green jeans and gold Dior sandals, from which shone ten long toenails in pearly glittery crimson. The colour rendered her complexion even sallower, Alys thought, but her hair was glossy and fell in a blue-black curtain to her waist and was cut in bangs above her pallid eyes.