TURN – PART 1

COVER STORY

(Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called “The Pledge”. The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course, it probably isn’t. The second act is called “The Turn”. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you’re looking for the secret ... but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet. Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call “The Prestige”.)

It had been a few days since Mrs. Di Silva had been seen at my office, so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the short woman in the loose red sari bobbing up the office staircase and pressing her nose to my dirty glass door.

Seeing me, she waved her pudgy little hand and pushed the door open, sticking her head in.

“Can I come in, m’dear?” the apparently disembodied head asked in a voice that was too shrill for a small person like her, with a sickly-sweet quality to it that I always found annoying.

“’Course you can, Mrs. D.,” I waved her in.

“Did I disturb you, honey?” she asked, sitting down on the sole piece of furniture in my office in anyway dedicated to the comfort of visitors; a hard iron stool. In my defense, I did not receive many visitors and I could not be bothered to tell my clerk to spend good money on a pair of comfy seats for an almost non-existent entity like clients.

“Not at all,” I said, putting the pen in my hand down. “I haven’t seen you here for a long time, ma’am. Where’ve you been?”

“You know how busy I usually am, dear, taking care of Mr. Di Silva.” Mrs. Di Silva wiped her forehead with a corner of her sari and leaned back unconsciously, which resulted in her unceremoniously tumbling off the stool.

“You’d think, wouldn’t you, that after visiting you here for weeks, I’d remember not to lean back into empty air while sitting on that stool, but no,” she panted, getting onto the said piece of furniture again and dusting off her sari.

“I think I’ll call the clerk for a chair,” I said, preparing to stand, wondering whether the clerk my father had hired for me even came to the office anymore. I suspected I had seen him waiting upon guests at some posh restaurant nearby. It’s not like I blame the poor fellow. If there was any work to be done in my office, I made sure it was neglected in the worst way possible. Terrible thing, work. I could never put up with it, a fact that brought much angst and at least two heart-attacks to my dear father’s weak heart before he reconciled himself to it and bought me an office (for no other reason than to gratify himself by saying to others, “That is my son’s office, yes, that one there.”) and a monthly allowance that I readily took with gracious thanks.

“Absolutely not, dear. I’m comfortable.” She shook her head and I sank down into my seat again.

“How is Mr. Di Silva, then?” I asked, beginning to doodle again on the notebook before me in a lazy pretense at work.

Work, Mrs. Di Silva had told me when we first met, was a sign of honour, and I hate idle young men who do not work. Her being a rather interesting character, I had strived to appear to be as contrary to an idle young man as possible in the hope that she would like me and see me occasionally, giving me opportunity to enjoy her oddities (and her husband’s) better.

“He is quite well, dear. Quite well, you know.” She said, chewing the inside of her cheek. “He became quite unbearable this past month, to tell you the truth, dear, but I hired a twenty-four-by-seven nurse for him and he’s quite well now.”

“Unbearable, Mrs. D?” I asked, choosing not to suppress my easily awakened curiosity. After all, the only reason I put up with her weekly visits and the tedious wit of her disabled husband at her sad little tea-parties was that they were, excuse me if I have already mentioned it, interesting. If you wish me to be attentive towards you, interest me. Interest me and I am yours.

Of course, this attitude has created in me the tendency to regard my fellow humans as circus attractions. I believe interesting circus attractions are better than uninteresting human beings. This theory explains completely my lack of attention towards my very gentlemanly and horribly uninteresting father.

Mrs. Di Silva’s sharp, bright little eyes looked at me diligently, reminding me of a fat little bird looking for a worm.

“Dear, work is never unbearable. My honour is in working, and working for Mr. Di Silva is a distinction. Sitting idly all day is not what I like doing, no, not at all. Mr. Di Silva had simply become, well, insufferable. He would want soup for lunch and upon being presented with it would decide it was too thick or too thin or not the right flavour or that he’d rather have chickpeas with curry.” Mrs. Di Silva said animatedly, her hands translating whatever her mouth said into meaningless gestures that were too quick to be noticed individually and therefore became a flurry of motion surrounding her rotund face, an invisible hummingbird revolving over a flat and rather ugly sunflower. “You cannot understand how – how….” She gave the notebook in my hands a despairing glance, as if hoping it could tell her how best to describe her husband’s condition.

“How frustrated?” I suggested helpfully. I would be frustrated if I had an imp of a woman for a wife and could not even leave her at will because of my inability to quite literally walk away. Why not Mr. Di Silva?

“Frustrated, dear, yes, just the word.” She nodded. “Well, I went to his doctor and the doctor told me that I’d been around him for too long; that I needed to get him a new attendant and then make myself scarce for some time during the day, so he wouldn’t feel he had – deprived – me of my life, and that he was obliged to me.” She gave a little chuckle. “Imagine.”

Why does she remind me of a big toad? I nodded my head sagely at her words, watching her as she twisted her wedding ring habitually round her finger, her flabby face reminiscent.

“Well, dear, I really must go. I have disturbed you, I see that, without meaning to. I really must go home; I worry the attendant might not know how to feed him.”

She talks of the man like he’s a very rare animal. I thought, faintly tickled, as she walked to the door, turned the knob and said to me “Do take tea with us next Tuesday, won’t you?” and left as suddenly as she had come.

***

I first met the Di Silvas in the local park where I went one day when I got tired of doing nothing in my office. She was pushing her thin husband along the path in his wheel-chair, chattering incessantly. I had been sitting on one of the benches, scribbling in my little pocketbook aimlessly.

“It is so good to see hard-working young men these days, isn’t it, Mr. Di Silva?” Startled, I looked up to see Mr. Di Silva nod his skull-like head wearily. He was a stick of a man, with pinched cheeks, pale skin, watery grey eyes and greyer clothes. His balding head shone in the sunlight, covered only with a few wispy strands of sorry white hair. Behind him, his wife was the very picture of health, her small head sticking out from behind the top of the wheel-chair, her short body, which was completely hidden behind it, clad in a sari that was much too big for her, of some patched material I did not recognise but which reminded me of the horrible flashy cloth people wrap chapattis in to keep them warm, her hair pulled up in a hairnet and heavy makeup on a flabby face that shone more with perspiration than due to the thicky applied highlighter.

Usually, I acted aloof around strangers except if I met them at a party and they were women (single, preferably), but the small fat woman and her thin, tall husband standing in the park like a divine embodiment of disparity were such interesting objects that I closed my pocketbook and smiled at them, wondering what their story was and whether it was as fascinating as their appearance.

“Work, m’dear, is an honourable thing. Idle young men who do not work get on my nerves.” She announced in the same, artificially loud voice. Mr. Di Silva heaved a deep sigh as if mourning the idle young men his wife mentioned and closed his eyes, as if the sight of me brought pain to him.

“Look at Mr. Di Silva, dear,” she pointed at him, and I took a good look, quite unashamed. “He worked relentlessly until he brought paralysis onto himself. Very few men would do that, you know, very few men, m’dear, and you,” she gave me a dazzling smile, “You are the sort of man who would bring paralysis onto himself with constant work.”

Wondering what part of my humble demeanour forced her to allocate such a grim future to me, and also what my father would think of the statement, I smiled at her and stood up, pushing the pocketbook into the pocket of my coat.

“Khizr Ali, Ma’am,” I nodded politely. “I am a lawyer.” I did not bother mentioning that my practice was not really, well, thriving; my father still paid for my lodgings, my office, my wardrobe, dining, my clerk and my old, matronly maidservant.

“Where’s your office, m’dear?” She asked, adding before I could reply, “Lawyers’ offices are generally unhealthy, I find.”

“Mine is much more than generally unhealthy.” I assured her cheerfully. “It’s down the road, right there.”

“Of course, you didn’t want to get out of sight of it, so that if ever a customer comes, you can see them and return. How hard-working.” She beamed at me affectionately.

I did not bother correcting her assumption by telling her that I was too lazy to bother walking somewhere farther off and that lawyers had clients, not customers.

By now, Mrs. Di Silva had settled down on a tuft of grass beside her husband’s wheel-chair.

“Honour, my dear, is a wonderful quality.” She said thoughtfully. “As I have told you before. Mr. Di Silva here is my brand of work and honour, that office there is yours.”

My honour was in pretty bad shape then, I decided, and amused myself with the thought for some time.

The couple, I learned as we walked through the park together, was Portuguese, and Mr. Di Silva had been working in the Embassy of Portugal in Islamabad for eight years before he became paralyzed. Then he had retired to live in a remote, airy corner of Islamabad, not returning to Portugal for no particular reason, and had taken the full-time job of being the object of his wife’s honourable intentions.

The two were by now, admittedly, more Pakistani than Portuguese; Mr. Di Silva with his brown tea, his obsession with cricket and Indian films, and Mrs. Di Silva with her collection of horrid-looking orange and yellow shalwars and ghararas and the cooking seasoned with spices unpronounceable in my urbanized Urdu.

To be continued