Read Online Closure by Jacob Ross - Free Book Online

direct and say, When do we go for artificial insemination? Kdto, they call it IVF in Britain.
    She let the envelopes fall through the mouth of the post box and turned to walk back to the house she shared with a husband who played at marriage the way children play at having tea.

TARIQ MEHMOOD

THE HOUSE
    I was waiting for a fare close to the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad, watching a couple of bored policemen sitting under the shade of a tree, twiddling with the barrels of their guns, when a bellboy from the hotel, followed by a tall thin woman, came towards me. The woman stopped, looked around at something and then followed the boy who was already by my car.
    â€œYour lucky day, sir,” the boy said to me.
    I handed him a fifty rupee note. He brushed it away saying, “It’s a big booking. Hundred.”
    â€œShe’s a Pakistani madam,” I said, pushing the note back towards him.
    â€œForeigner,” he said quickly, snatching the note whilst insisting with the index finger of his other hand that I give him more money. I swore at him under my breath and handed him another fifty. He turned to the woman and opened the back door.
    â€œYes, madam.” I said in Urdu, “Where would you like to go?”
    She took a deep breath and replied in Pothohari. “There is so much I would like to see, but can’t.”
    I touched the key, my lucky charm, which dangled off the rear view mirror and looked at her face in the mirror. She had long grey hair, with streaks of silver that fell over her shoulders. The way she held her head was just like the madams of Islamabad. By the way she talked and looked she could have been someone from my village, but the black kameez jacket, her top, with its embroidery of gold running down her front and the edges of the arms meant she was not short of money.
    I cursed the bellboy inside my head, You son of a donkey. I waited for over two hours for a fare and you dump me with this one.
    â€œWhere can I take you?” I asked in Urdu.
    â€œDo you not speak Pothohari?” she asked, looking for something in her handbag.
    â€œYes. Yes, madamjee,” I said in Urdu with a taxi-driver laugh. “It just doesn’t feel right talking in that language with a madam, especially someone from round here.”
    â€œI’m Indian,” she said. “Talk to me in Pothohari.”
    Thank you, Allah, I thought inside my head.
    â€œAs you would wish, madam,” I said in Pothohari. “I can take you anywhere. And get you whatever it is you desire,” I added quickly.
    She flicked her eyebrows disapprovingly and repeated, “There is so much I would like to see but I can’t.”
    Oh yes, I thought, I know what your type wants.
    I was just getting ready for the long game that would eventually mean me getting her what someone like her was really after but was finding difficult to say, when she took a cigarette from her bag and lit it.
    â€œDo you mind if I smoke in your car?” she asked, blowing smoke out of the window.
    â€œThis car is at your service, madam,” I said, thinking over what sort of a boy she was likely to be after.
    â€œDo you smoke?” she asked, offering me a cigarette.
    â€œWhich taxi driver doesn’t?” I looked at her pack. It was one of the expensive foreign ones.
    â€œKeep it,” she said. “I have more.”
    I took it from her. As I did this, she said, “Drive.”
    â€œWhere to, madam?”
    â€œJust drive.”
    I put the cigarettes in the glove compartment, touched the dangling key and started the car. As I drove past the policemen, they looked at me and then chuckled to themselves, nodding towards the woman in the back of my car.
    I turned left on the road and decided that she was the sort who would like to go to Taxila. Indians loved that and they were good tippers. If I was lucky she might want to go to the ancient ruins of Katas. Then I thought, maybe she is a Sikh. She