Tell Her Everything

Tell Her Everything by Mirza Waheed Published in the UK by Context, an imprint of Westland Publications Private Limited, in 2019. Copyright © 2018 by Mirza Waheed First Melville House printing December 2022 Melville House Publishing 46 John Street Brooklyn, NY 11201 and Melville House UK Suite 2000 16/18 Woodford Road London E7 0HA mhpbooks.com @melvillehouse ISBN 9781685890438 Ebook ISBN 9781685890445 Library of Congress Control Number: 9781685890438 A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress a_prh_6.0_142435901_c0_r0 Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Epigraph Part I Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Part II Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Part III Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Part IV Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 ‘It is not by confining one’s neighbour that one is convinced of one’s own sanity.’ – Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Diary of a Writer ‘To write prescriptions is easy, but to come to an understanding with people is hard.’ – Franz Kafka, A Country Doctor PART I 1 I DID IT FOR MONEY. I’ll tell her. She may or may not understand, but I’ve decided to tell her everything, the whole truth, as straight as possible. In fact, I don’t think anyone can fully understand. It’s not really understandable that I spent more than two decades in that town and I didn’t know the townspeople. Was it a town or a proper city, I do not know for sure. How do I explain to people that I, a grown man, not wholly unsociable, spent most of my time, over twenty years, between my home and the hospital? And home was less than a mile away. How do I explain that I lived in that mile for years without really getting to know the local people or cuisine, or what customs existed among those people? The reason is this: I lived from procedure to procedure, from case to case. That’s what. There was just one tree on the street, at the lower end where the hospital compound ended. Sometimes I stopped beside it. Its bark was the colour of cement. When I arrived there all those years ago, it was almost always hot. Even when it was not. A small gap in the cold shield created by countless AC vents sometimes let in a quick reminder of the heat. Of how hot it really was. After about eight years or so, I began to feel cold. It’s the truth, Sara, I’ll tell her. All those cold draughts had probably crept into my marrow over the years. That lasted a few years too, during which I wore a light leather jacket—you might remember. You were four or five then. In those early days, I had quite a lot of time on my hands. It took five minutes to reach the hospital, ten if I walked, which I often did. No one else walked, apart from the cleaning staff, Jan and the others, who lived in concrete cabins at the edge of the compound. They walked or pushed their trolleys. I looked at them and wondered if this was the colour of their skin or a consequence of having worked in these parts for years. Every time I saw any of them, I wanted to make sure they had a large wet towel around their neck. I was glad when they did. There wasn’t much to do after work—you weren’t born yet—so Atiya and I watched a lot of TV. A lot of good and bad TV. Chinese, Malaysian, Turkish, and Indian films with subtitles. If you think Bollywood is melodramatic, you need to watch Turkish films from the Eighties. There was nothing else to do. There were no cinemas in the area. None at all. Yes, there were a few restaurants by the canal on the other side of the town, my colleague and only friend Biju said, but they were very expensive. Actually, money wasn’t the issue, they were just too far away and I was afraid of taking Atiya out for long. I’ll explain later. Many years later, when I finally ate at two of them, I was glad I hadn’t taken her. The canal smelled of bleach. I didn’t trust it. My friend Biju, single, with no obligations back home in Kerala, spent a lot on eating out. Almost every day after work, he went in search of a good meal and sometimes returned home having had two dinners. ‘I can’t go to bed with a disappointing taste in my mouth. It’s against my principles,’ he said. ‘You should join me some day, boss…Okay, at least come along to Gold City when I go next.’ Every month, usually on the first weekend after payday, Biju would disappear. Only after we had him over for dinner a couple of times did he say he went to Dubai to eat at expensive restaurants. ‘Say whatever about the city, boss, but you can eat, buy, do anything and everything you want. I had this Japanese beef curry and Japanese beer, and I just didn’t want to leave, boss.’ I knew Biju went to get drunk but I didn’t tell anyone. I liked him. I also knew he had worked out some kind of arrangement with the admin people, who frequently let him slip in and out. The first year went very quickly. We bought quite a few appliances and a brand new Pajero, which was the main reason I preferred to walk, despite the heat. After a while, I mean after the initial excitement, it felt silly to start such a large car, get it out of the garage, which wasn’t easy because of the clutter the previous owners had left, and then drive for a mere five minutes. You see, Sara—I’ll definitely