Chapter 1 p. 3-5 As we entered this Karachi the easy, smiling contours of my mother's face pulled tight and then even tighter. She had fought for this, learning to drive just so she could take us to school, to the best schools, insisting that it could be done and that she could do it. For this she had sat awkwardly between my father and my grandfather, arguing her case against their objections. For this she had tolerated our crying chorus, every Monday and Wednesday, when the instructor from the driving school showed up at the door at 9:00 a.m. sharp. For this, she had tolerated the weeks and months of my grandfather Said, insisting that he, who could not himself drive, must nevertheless accompany her on every trip, because a woman, even one with a driver's license, could not be trusted to drive alone. Her battle to be permitted to drive had not been an easy one. Five years had passed and now she was allowed to drive alone and without my father or grandfather correcting the timing of her turns, the certainty of her navigation. But despite her victory, the descent into this other Karachi, the sweaty, angry, male Karachi, was still my mother's daily test. Because children never pick the right moment to burst in, I blurted out a question that appeared on the periphery of my mind: "Is Uncle Sohail dead?" My twin brother, Zaid, turned around to glare. I wanted an answer, and so I asked again: "Is Uncle Sohail dead?" My mother did not respond when the light turned green, or at the next light, or as we descended even deeper into the city, onto roads flagged by beggars and hawkers and aimless men hanging around corners. She was quiet as we drove past the row of cinemas, the Capri, the Nishat, the Regal, the Star, past the bloody face of Sylvester Stallone, the jutting hips of a Punjabi actress stilled in midgyration. We passed the electronics market with its unlit neon signs (Hitachi, Sanyo, Toshiba) exposing their wiry entrails. It was only as our car pulled up before my brother's school that my mother spoke. "No, Uncle Sohail is not dead," she said in the tiny moment before the gates would shut and leave my brother punished for being tardy. "He is not dead, but it would have been better if he were." These words, my mild-mannered mother's wishes for a man's death, tumbled out behind us, stumbling into our lunch boxes and schoolbooks. I carried them into my classroom, where I took in a lesson on the Indus River valley, where I completed a test on fractions. I said them to myself in recess as I tried to swap my jam sandwich for a carton of fruit juice: "He is not dead, but it would have been better if he were." Excerpted from The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan by Rafia Zakaria All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
