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Prime Minister’s Questions was usually an embarrassment. Childish jeering and taunts, the PM parading his ability at that facile talent, the put-down, the chancellor—or “chancer,” as Karamat preferred to think of him—sitting beside him with an expression both obsequious and smug close up but that managed to look just the right degree of supportive on camera. Parliament reduced to a playground. Karamat had been particularly dreading today—the first PMQs since the Pasha affair began. The PM, who had been abroad and out of touch the last few days, had been worryingly quiet on the whole matter, and any withholding of support from his home secretary would be a victory for the chancer and his leadership bid. But then the girl had opened her mouth.
“Heads impaled on spikes. Bodies thrown into unmarked graves. There are people who follow these practices. Her brother left Britain to join them.”
The PM rose above party politics; the leader of the opposition rose to join him. There were “hear, hears” on either side of the aisle. The home secretary was lauded for the difficult decisions he had to make and the personal trials he’d undergone that had in no way affected his judgment or commitment to doing the right thing. Even the chancer had to lean across the space vacated by the PM as he stood at the dispatch box and pat Karamat appreciatively on the shoulder, a tiny nerve pulsing near his eye, which he saw Karamat recognize as defeat.
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James was waiting for him in his room behind the Speaker’s Chair, mimicking some awful footballer’s goal celebrations as he entered, the right mix of genuine and ironic. Not for the first time, Karamat wished his daughter and James would get together. But that set him off thinking about his children and their choice of partners—you could see Aneeka Pasha was the kind of girl who would do anything. A girl who looked like that and was willing to do anything. His poor boy never stood a chance. He sat down heavily in his chair, missed his wife—not in the ways he used to miss her when he was Eamonn’s age but in the way that only one parent can miss another, when their child is in pain.
He nodded at James to make the required call, and chose to speak in Urdu when his assistant handed him the phone, purely because he knew that puffer fish in human form who was the Pakistan high commissioner would assume it meant the home secretary believed his English was inadequate.
“What mischief are you people up to now?” Karamat asked.
“That’s a strange way to start off an apology,” the HC replied, in English.
“I’m not the one who has to apologize. That body would never have made it to the park if your government hadn’t agreed to it. Or engineered it.”
“Come, come,” the HC said, unconvincingly. “The closest living relative asked for the body to be brought to a particular spot—on what grounds should the driver have refused? As for my government, it has bigger things to worry about than the logistics of a corpse.”
“I assume someone is going to remove the body from the park. On the grounds of hygiene, if nothing else.”
“I’m my nation’s representative to the Court of St. James’s. Do you think I go around talking to municipal councils in Karachi? But maybe things are different in Britain, in which case please tell my bin man not to make such a clanging noise when he comes round in the morning.”
“How’s your son’s student visa application coming along?”
“Actually, he’s decided to go with Harvard rather than Oxford. The girl made some interesting points, don’t you think?”
It was beginning to stop being enjoyable, so he switched to English. “Fine, I spoke out of turn. Pakistan’s judiciary is a credit to your nation.”
“Bunch of bastards,” the high commissioner said unexpectedly. And then he was the one to switch languages—not to Urdu but Punjabi. “Listen, I’m a father too. I would want her off the news as well.”
“It’s not that.”
“Oh shut up, friend, I’m being sympathetic.” Punjabi allowed this breach of etiquette, and Karamat felt something in his whole body shift, become looser. He tightened his shoulders against it. “The issue is, my government has no reason to intervene.”
“Intervene on decency’s behalf. What kind of madness makes someone leave a corpse out in the heat to putrefy?”
“The madness of love. Remember your Laila-Majnu, Karamat? The lover so grief-stricken at the loss of the beautiful beloved that he wanders, in madness, in the desert. This beautiful girl in a dust storm has managed to become Laila and Majnu combined in the nation’s consciousness. Or Sassi and Punnu in parts of the nation—same story, except it’s the girl who runs grief-crazed through the desert in search of her love.”
“This nation, which has decided to cast her as a romantic heroine, is the same one that wants her flogged?”
“Oh, people are already saying your government made up the whole story about her relationship with your son to discredit her, though opinion is divided whether it was you or one of your enemies who was behind it. Either way, for us to act against her now is difficult.”
“For god’s sake, man, do you really expect me to believe your government makes decisions based on a combination of folktales and conspiracy theories?”
“You really are as British as they say you are. Let me put it in language you’ll understand: The people, and several opposition parties, have decided to embrace a woman who has stood up to a powerful government, and not just any powerful government but one that has very bad PR in the matter of Muslims and as recently as yesterday insulted us directly. So, now it’s political suicide for my government to get involved. I hope we’ll see you at our Eid reception. Until then, Allah hafiz.”
The door swung open. The expected supporters, and some unexpected ones too, entered, bowing and throwing imaginary hats in the air. Karamat rubbed the back of his hand against his mouth, tasting dust.
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