Unmarriageable Read online

  ‘You are a forever career woman?’ Rose-Nama said.

  Alys heard the mocking and the doubt in her tone: who in their right mind would choose a teaching job in Dilipabad over marriage and children?

  ‘Believe me, Rose-Nama,’ Alys said serenely, ‘life certainly does not end just because you choose to stay—’

  ‘Unmarried?’ Rose-Nama made a face as she uttered the word.

  ‘Single,’ Alys said. ‘There is a vast difference between remaining unmarried and choosing to stay single. Jane Austen is a leading example. She didn’t get married, but her paper children – six wonderful novels – keep her alive centuries later.’

  ‘You are also delivering a paper child?’ Rose-Nama asked.

  ‘But, Miss Alys,’ Tahira said resolutely, ‘there’s no nobler career than that of being a wife and mother.’

  ‘That’s fine.’ Alys shrugged. ‘As long as it’s what you really want and not what you’ve been taught to want.’

  ‘But marriage and children are my dream, miss!’ Tahira gazed at Jane Austen’s portrait on the book. ‘Did no one want to marry her?’

  ‘Actually,’ Alys said, ‘a very wealthy man proposed to her one evening and she said yes, but the next morning she said no.’

  ‘Jane Austen must have been from a well-to-do family herself,’ said the shy girl, sighing.

  Alys gave her a bright smile for speaking up. ‘No. Jane’s mother came from nobility but her father was a clergyman. In their time, they were middle-class gentry, respectable but not rich, and women of their class could not work for a living except as governesses, so it must have taken a lot of courage for her to refuse.’

  ‘Jane Austen sounds very selfish,’ Rose-Nama said. ‘Imagine how happy her mother must have been, only to find that overnight the good luck had been spurned.’

  ‘It could also be,’ Alys said softly, ‘that her mother was happy her daughter was different. Do any of you have the courage to live life as you want?’

  ‘Miss Alys,’ Rose-Nama said, ‘marriage is a cornerstone of our culture.’

  ‘A truth universally acknowledged’ – Alys cleared her throat – ‘because without marriage our culture and religion do not permit sexual intimacy.’

  All the girls tittered.

  ‘Miss,’ Rose-Nama said, ‘everyone knows that abstinence until marriage is the secret to societies where nothing bad happens.’

  ‘That’s not true.’ Alys looked pained. She thought back to the ten years her family had lived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where she’d studied at a co-ed international school and made friends from all over the world, who’d lived all sorts of lifestyles. Though she’d been forbidden from befriending boys, many of the girls were allowed, and they were no worse off for it. Like her, they’d also been studious and just as keen to collect flavoured lip balms, scratch-and-sniff stickers, and scented rubbers, which she’d learnt, courtesy of her American classmates, were called erasers, while a rubber was a condom, which was something you put on a penis, which was pronounced ‘pee-nus’ and not ‘pen-iz’. Alys’s best friend, Tana from Denmark, stated that her mother had given her condoms when she’d turned fifteen, because, in Scandinavia, intimacy came early and did not require marriage. Alys had shared the information with Jena, who was scandalised, but Alys had quickly accepted the proverb ‘Different strokes for different folks.’

  ‘Premarital sex is haram, a sin,’ Rose-Nama said, ‘and you shouldn’t imply otherwise to us, Miss Alys.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Or do you believe it’s not a sin?’

  Before Alys could answer, the head peon, Bashir, knocked on the door.

  ‘Chalein jee, Alysba bibi,’ he said, ‘phir bulawa aa gaya aap ka. Mrs Naheed requires your presence yet again.’

  Alys followed Bashir down the stairs, past classrooms, past the small canteen where the teachers’ chai and snacks were prepared at a discount rate, past a stray cat huddled on the wide veranda that wrapped around the mansion-turned-school-building, past the accountant’s nook, and towards the head teacher’s office, a roomy den at the end of the front porch with bay windows overlooking the driveway for keeping an eye on all comings and goings.

  The British School Group was founded twenty years ago by Begum Beena dey Bagh. The name was chosen for its suggested affiliation with Britain, although there was none. However, it was to be an English-medium establishment. Twelve years ago, Naheed, a well-heeled Dilipabadi housewife, decided to put to use a vacant property belonging to her. She sought permission from Beena dey Bagh to open a branch of the British School, and so was born the British School of Dilipabad.

  Naheed had turned her institution into a finishing school of sorts for girls from Dilipabad’s privileged. Accordingly, she was willing to pay well for teachers fluent in English with decent accents, and, just as she’d all but given up on proficient English literature teachers, Alys and Jena Binat had entered her office a decade ago.

  Alys entered the office now, settled in a chair facing Naheed’s desk, and waited for her to get off the phone. She gazed at the bulletin boards plastering the walls and boasting photos where Naheed beamed with Dilipabad’s VIPs. They were thumbtacked in place to allow easy removal if a VIP fell from financial grace or got involved in a particularly egregious scandal.

  Naheed’s mahogany desk held folders and forms and a framed picture of her precious twin daughters, Ginwa and Rumsha – Gin and Rum – born late, courtesy of IVF treatments. Gin and Rum posed in front of the Eiffel Tower with practised pouts, blonde-streaked brown hair, and skintight jeans. Naheed’s daughters lived in Lahore with their grandparents; she’d opted to send them to the British School of Lahore rather than her own British School of Dilipabad because she wanted them to receive superior educations as well as better networking opportunities. Gin and Rum planned to be fashion designers, a newly lucrative entrepreneurial opportunity in Pakistan, and Naheed had no doubt her daughters would make a huge splash in the world of couture and an equally huge splash in the matrimonial bazaar by marrying no less than the Pakistani equivalents of Princes William and Harry.

  Naheed hung up the phone and, clearly annoyed, shook her head at Alys.

  ‘Rose-Nama’s mother called. Again. Apparently you used the “f” word in class.’

  ‘I did?’

  ‘The “f” word, Alys. Is this the language of dignified women, let alone teachers?’

  Alys crossed her arms. Naheed would not have dared speak to her like this when she’d first joined the school. Ten years ago, when Naheed had realised that Alys and Jena were Binats, her tongue had been a never-ending red carpet, for the Binats were a highly respected and moneyed clan. However, once Dilipabad’s VIPs realised that Bark Binat was now all but penniless – why he’d lost his money was no one’s worry, that he had was everyone’s favourite topic – they devalued Bark and his dependents. As soon as Mrs Naheed gleaned that Alys and Jena were working in order to pay bills and not because they were bored upper-class girls, she began to belittle them.

  ‘Alys, God knows,’ Naheed said, ‘I have yet again tried to calm Rose-Nama’s mother, but give me one good reason why I shouldn’t let you go.’

  Alys knew that Naheed had tried to hire other well-qualified English-speaking teachers but no one was willing to relocate to Dilipabad. The sole entertainment for most Pakistanis was to eat out, and the elite English-speaking gentry in particular believed they deserved dining finer than Dilipabad offered.

  ‘Alys, am I or am I not,’ Naheed’s voice boomed, ‘paying you a pretty penny? It is not as if good jobs are growing on trees.’

  The fact was, over the years Alys had been offered lucrative teaching positions in other cities, and then there was Dubai, where single Pakistani girls were increasingly fleeing to find their fortunes, but she was unwilling to leave her family, especially her father.

  ‘It was a crow,’ Alys said. ‘Rose-Nama and her mother should educate themselves on context. A giant crow flew into the classroom and startled me and—’

 
‘Alys,’ Naheed said, ‘I don’t care if twenty giant crows fly into the classroom and start singing “The hills are alive with the sound of music”; you absolutely may not curse in front of impressionable young ladies. Rose-Nama’s mother is right – if it’s not cursing, it’s something else. Last year you told students that dowry was a “demented” tradition. Could you not have used “controversial” or “divisive” or “contentious”? You of all people should be sensitive to diction. Then you told them that divorce was not a big deal! Another year you told them that they should be reading Urdu and regional literature instead of English. An absurd statement from an English literature teacher.’

  ‘Not “instead”. I said “side by side”.’

  ‘Yet another time you decided to inform them that if Islam allowed polygamy, then it should allow polyandry. This is a school. Not a brothel.’

  Alys said, stiffly, ‘I want my girls to at least have a chance at being more than well-trained dolls. I want them to think critically.’

  Naheed pointed above Alys’s head. ‘What is the school motto?’

  Alys spoke it by rote. ‘“Excellence in Obedience. Obediently Excellent. Obey to Excel.”’

  ‘Precisely,’ Naheed said. ‘The goal of the British School Group is for our girls to pass their exams with flying colours so that they become wives and mothers worthy of our nation’s future VIPs. Please stick to the curriculum. I’m weary of apologising to parents and making excuses for you. Also, I know you value your younger sisters studying here.’

  Alys gave a small smile. Qitty, in Year 12, and Lady, in Year 10, attended BSD at the discount rate offered to faculty family, which, all the teachers agreed, was not as generous as it could be.

  ‘I may not be able to protect you any longer,’ Naheed said. ‘Begum Beena dey Bagh’s nephew is returning from completing his MBA in America, and things seem to be about to change. For one, the young man plans to abolish the uniform. Can you imagine our students turning up in whatever they choose to wear? Anarchy!’

  Alys understood Naheed’s concern. She and her husband had the monopoly over the British School of Dilipabad’s uniform business – winter, spring, autumn – and the loss would be an expensive hit to their income.

  Mrs Naheed’s gaze fixed upon the driveway. Alys turned to see a Pajero with tinted windows and green government number plates driving in. The jeep stopped and the driver handed the gate guard a packet. Minutes later, Naheed tenderly opened a pearly oversize lavender envelope embossed with a golden palanquin. All smiles, she drew out equally pearly invites to Dilipabad’s most coveted event: the NadirFiede wedding, the joining of Fiede Fecker, daughter of old-money VIPs, to Nadir Sheh, son of equally important VIPs, though rumour had it that drug-smuggling was responsible for the Shehs’ fast accumulation of monies and rapid social climb and acceptance into the gentry.

  ‘Such a classy invitation,’ Naheed said, tucking the invites back in.

  Alys disliked the word ‘classy’, a favourite of those who aimed to be arbiters of class. She knew that Naheed was hoping the Binats would not be invited, despite their pedigree, since Alys and Fiede Fecker, a graduate of the British School of Dilipabad, had been at loggerheads over incomplete assignments and projects never turned in.

  ‘Alys, the namigarami – the elite of Dilipabad – have spoken,’ Naheed said, fingering her invite. ‘Our duty is to send their daughters home exactly as they were delivered to us each morning: obediently obeying their parents. We are to groom these girls into the best of marriageable material. That is all.’ Naheed signalled to Bashir, who had been dawdling by the threshold, to get her a fresh cup of lemongrass tea and, in doing so, dismissed Alys.

  Alys rejoined her Year 10s, bracing herself for Rose-Nama to demand her views on premarital intimacy. But Rose-Nama was busy scolding the class monitor, a timid girl Mrs Naheed had appointed because her father had given a generous donation to renovate the science laboratory. Mercifully, the bell rang as soon as she stepped in, and Alys, gathering her folders and cloth handbag, headed to the Year 11 classroom.

  ‘Girls,’ Alys said to Year 11, ‘open up your Romeo and Juliet. Let me remind you that Juliet is thirteen years old and Romeo around fifteen or sixteen and that they could have surely experienced a happier fate had they refrained from romance at their ages, which may well have been Shakespeare’s cautionary intent for writing this pathetically sad love story.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  When the final bell rang, Alys headed towards the staff room, nodding at girls giggling and gossiping around Tahira’s engagement ring. In the staff room, teachers were enjoying the celebration cake from High Chai that Tahira’s mother had sent. Alys beckoned to Jena, and both sisters headed towards the school van.

  For a small fee, BSD provided conveyance to and from school for teachers and their relatives studying there. The Binats had an old Suzuki but Alys thought it wise to save on petrol, no matter how much more it embarrassed fifteen-year-old Lady to ride in the school van.

  Lady and Qitty were inside the van, squabbling.

  ‘Qitty, move over, you fat hippo,’ Lady said, elbowing the sketchbook her elder sister was drawing in.

  ‘Shut up!’ Qitty said. She was the only overweight Binat sister, a blow she could never forgive fate or God. ‘There’s no such thing as a thin hippo, so fat is redundant, stupid.’

  ‘You’re stupid, bulldozer,’ Lady said. ‘You always hog all the space, hog. And stop showing off your stupid drawings.’

  ‘You wish you could draw.’ Qitty flipped to a fresh page and within moments had outlined a caricature of Lady. ‘The only talent you have is big breasts.’

  ‘Thanks to which, thunder thighs,’ Lady said, ‘I’m going to make a brilliant marriage and only ride in the best of cars with a full-time chauffeur. And, Qitty, you will not be allowed in any of my Mercedes or Pajeros, because I’ll be doing you a favour by making you walk.’

  Qitty drew two horns atop Lady’s caricature.

  ‘Lady!’ Alys said, avoiding the torn vinyl as she settled into the seat beside her best friend, Sherry Looclus, who taught Urdu at BSD. ‘Apologise to Qitty. Why do you two sit together if you’re going to fight?’

  The van driver was, as usual, enjoying the skirmish. The rest of the teachers ignored it.

  ‘I pray your dreams come true,’ Jena said to Lady, ‘but that doesn’t mean you can be mean to Qitty or to anyone. We are all God’s creatures and all beautiful.’

  ‘Those who can afford plastic surgery are even more beautiful,’ Lady said. ‘Qitty, you fatso, stop snivelling. You know I call you fat for your own good.’

  ‘I eat far less than you, Jena, Alys, and Mari all put together,’ Qitty said. Lady was willowy and seemingly able to eat whatever she wanted all day long without expanding an inch. ‘It’s not fair.’

  ‘It’s not fair,’ Alys agreed. ‘But, then, who said life is fair? Remember, though, that looks are immaterial.’

  ‘Alys, you are such an aunty,’ Lady said, taking out a lip gloss and applying it with her pinkie.

  ‘You can call me an aunty all you want,’ Alys said, ‘but that doesn’t change the fact that looks are not the be-all and end-all, no matter what our mother says. Qitty is a straight-A student, and I suggest, Lady, you pull up your grades and realise the importance of books over looks.’

  Lady stuck her tongue out at Alys, who shook her head in exasperation. Once all the teachers had climbed in, the van drove out of the gates and past young men on motorbikes ogling the departing schoolgirls. These lower-middle-class youths didn’t have a prayer of romancing a BSD girl, Alys knew, despite the fantasies that films tried to sell them about wrong-side-of-the-tracks love stories ending in marriage, because there were few fates more petrifying to a Pakistani girl than downward mobility.

  Alys watched Lady’s reflection in the window. She was running her fingers through her wavy hair in a dramatic fashion. Lady was a bit boy crazy, but Alys also knew that her sisters were well aware that they couldn
’t afford a single misstep, since their aunt’s slander had already resulted in the family’s damaged reputation. She tapped her sister’s shoulder, and Lady looked away as the van turned the corner.

  Dilipabad glittered after the rainfall, its potholed roads and telephone wires overhead freshly washed and its dust settled. The manufacturing town claimed its beginnings as a sixteenth-century watering hole for horses and, after a national craze to discard British names for homegrown ones, Gorana was renamed Dilipabad after the actor Dilip Kumar. In more recent times, Dilipabad had grown into a spiderweb of neighbourhoods, its outskirts boasting the prestigious residences as well as the British School, the gymkhana, and upscale restaurants, while homes and eateries got shabbier closer to the town centre. In the town centre was a white elephant of a bazaar that was famous for bargains, a main petrol pump, and a small public park with a men-only outdoor gym. The elite, however, stuck to the gymkhana, with its spacious lawns, tennis and squash courts, golf course, boating on the lake, swimming pool, and indoor co-ed gym with ladies-only hours.

  Mrs Binat had insisted they apply for the Dilipabad Gymkhana membership despite the steep annual dues, and since the gymkhana functioned under an old amendment that once a member, always a member, the Binats were in for life. The amendment had been added on the demand of a nawab who, after gaining entry to the gymkhana once the British relaxed their strict rule of no-natives-allowed, had been terrified of expulsion.

  Though Mr Binat was seldom in the mood to attend the bridge and bingo evenings, Mrs Binat made sure she and the girls put in an appearance every now and then. Once Alys had discovered the gymkhana library, she’d spent as much time there as she had in the school library in Jeddah, where she’d first fallen in love with books: Enid Blyton. Judy Blume. Shirley Jackson. Daphne du Maurier. Dorothy Parker. L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, and S. E. Hinton’s class-based novels, which mirrored Indian films and Pakistani dramas.