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Karachi, New Year’s Eve 2009

The French restaurant has a courtyard with round ironwork tables covered in white tablecloths and chairs with white cushions. It is chic and very French, despite Pakistani waiters and no wine menu. The setting on the edge of Karachi feels a little unreal, like a stage set. Fairy lights are slung in a circle through small trees and the tables beautifully decorated for New Year’s Eve.

Shahid is a tall man with a bushy moustache and kind eyes. Birjees is small and neat with glossy hair and a sweet rather serious face. She wears a beautiful shimmering, pearl grey shalwar kameez and a long flowing dupatta that keeps slipping from her shoulders. The night is cool and we sit outside as guitar music strums softly in the background.

‘Welcome to Karachi, Gabriella.’

‘It’s good to meet you both. I’ve heard so much about you from Mike. You have transformed his life in Karachi.’

Their faces light up and Shahid apologizes for not being able to take me into the centre of Karachi.

‘It is bad luck to have a demonstration tonight of all nights.’

‘I’m just happy to be here. This is perfect,’ I assure him.

‘You’ve brought my wife to a French restaurant!’ Mike jokes. ‘Of course she’s happy.’

A haughty young Pakistani waiter produces huge menus and takes our order for cold drinks. Shahid and Mike exchange amused looks.

‘It’s an art form,’ Mike says. ‘French restaurants must insist on waiters with an innate ability to look down their noses …’

‘Then we will try not to be patronized, Michael,’ Shahid says.

Mike raises his eyebrows. ‘I would like to see him try with Gabby.’

I am already looking at the menu. It looks delicious. I am pleased to see that Shahid and Birjees take the ordering of food as seriously as the French. It takes us all a long time to make up our minds and the young waiter grows irritated, although the restaurant is nearly empty.

When I order our food in French the waiter stops being surly and beams. He tells me his brother is the chef. They both trained and worked in Paris for fifteen years. They were very happy there and only returned home to Karachi because their mother became ill.

As he hurries away with our order, I am struck by the fact that two young men gave up their careers to come home and look after their mother.

‘If a woman does not have husband then the eldest son must, of course, take responsibility for looking after her and family,’ Birjees tells me, looking at me surprised. I do not say that I would hate Will and Matt to give up their lives to look after me.

‘Did you grow up bilingual, Gabby?’ Shahid asks.

‘When I was a child my sister and I always spoke French with my mother and English with my father,’ I tell her. ‘We swapped effortlessly without realizing we were doing it. People would ask us what language we thought in and we never knew …’

Shahid laughs. ‘We Pakistanis do this too. We swap from Urdu to English without realizing it. Michael is sometimes completely lost in meetings!’

‘Very true,’ Mike says.

Our now-smiling waiter places small, decorated glass mugs of cinnamon beer on the table.

‘I should have anticipated some trouble on New Year’s Eve,’ Shahid says. ‘Trouble always comes when the streets are full of people celebrating and enjoying themselves …’

‘We have a son and daughter, both at university,’ Birjees says, her face lighting up at the mention of them. ‘Tonight, because of demonstration, Shahid has told them they must stay home. I have prepared food for them, but they are not happy to be seeing this New Year in with us.’

‘That is understatement, Birjees,’ Shahid says. ‘Samia and Ahsen should take up career in Bollywood. I am very pleased to be here in this peaceful garden for a little while …’

Mike laughs. ‘Don’t get Gabby going on New Year’s Eve dramas. We’ve had a few with our sons …’

When the food comes it is French cooking at its best and delicious. Mike and Shahid pretend not to talk about work. Birjees and I chat about our children and their increasingly electronic lives. Whatever the distance in our lives and our culture, some of our worries appear to be the same. The face of the world has changed forever but the fear of harm coming to our children never changes.

Birjees leans towards me. ‘It is hard for the young to grow up in Karachi at the moment, Gabriella. Each generation, they become more educated and frustrated with religious fanaticism and politics. They have talent and ambition, but there is much nepotism, threat of violence, demonstrations and random electric cuts that disrupt our lives …’ She turns her glass round and round in her fingers. ‘Shahid and I, we pray for things to get better for our children; that everyone will get jobs on merit and not given to son of corrupt official. I pray each morning when my husband and children leave the house, that violence, it will not erupt, that they will all come safe home to me. Each time they return, I give thanks to Allah …’

I stare at her, shocked. How terrible to wake each day to the possibility of violence, to the ever-present fear of something happening to the people you love.

Shahid turns to me. ‘I would like to believe that things will indeed change for my children’s generation, but the truth is, it will take longer. So, Gabriella, I must hope for a safer, less corrupt, less feudal Pakistan for my grandchildren.’

‘The world is becoming increasingly violent and corrupt, so it’s impossible not to fear for the young,’ Mike says. ‘We’ve lost faith in the quality of our leaders. Governments no longer appear to have the will or ability to prevent war and atrocities anywhere …’

‘Come on,’ I say as the mood takes a dip. ‘We all have the capacity to change things and make a more peaceful world. We have to believe that or we may as well jump in the sea. We might not be here to see that better world but our children will …’

I lean towards Birjees. ‘I read fantastic books written by the young from all over the world. They are crammed full of hope and depth and imagination. They are passionate and positive where we have been complacent. They won’t make the same mistakes …’

‘And the truth,’ Mike says, ‘lies somewhere between Gabby’s jolly optimism and my gloomy pessimism …’

Shahid smiles at me. ‘If you do not mind, Mike, I think I will go with Gabriella’s jolly optimism …’

‘I too choose Gabriella’s words, they are the most comforting,’ Birjees says, smiling at me.

‘Can’t think why.’ Mike laughs and raises his glass of cinnamon beer to them.

As we’ve been talking the restaurant has been slowly filling up. Beautifully dressed women float past greeting each other. Young men follow in a wake of perfume. There is noise and laughter and a sudden buzz of excitement in the small courtyard garden.

‘Pakistanis, they love to party,’ Birjees says, taking a keen interest in what everyone is wearing.

‘I can see that!’

She laughs. ‘Oh, Gabriella, I hope you will come back to Karachi. Shahid and I would love to show you many beautiful places in our city …’

She leans forward with sudden intensity. ‘Then you can explain to people in England that in Pakistan it is not all violent extremists but happy, family people who shop and party and create music and art and beauty, just like everyone else …’

How must it feel to live in a country that is so often depicted negatively? How must it feel to long for your country to be defined by the warmth of its people and the beauty of its landscape, not by violence?

I look out at the courtyard blazing with lights and flowers. The air echoes with the rise and fall of excited voices. The evening is pervaded by the simple delight of people happy to be together despite the unrest in their city. Simple joys are so easy to underestimate.

‘Inshallah,’ Birjees says softly, ‘you will come back to Karachi, Gabriella.’

‘Inshallah,’ I reply. ‘I hope so.’

At midnight Mike and I toast the New Year in with a last half glass of wine back at the Shalimar.

‘I think this is one of the nicest New Year’s Eve we’ve had for a long time,’ I tell him.

‘It’s certainly the most abstemious New Year we’ve had for a long time,’ Mike replies as both our phones bleep with Happy New Year texts from our sons.

‘That’s probably ten quid each,’ Mike grumbles.

‘I suppose it’s just as well there isn’t another bottle of wine,’ I say, wistfully. ‘Or I’d be flying home tomorrow with a hangover.’

‘It’s been fun, hasn’t it?’

‘It has. I love Birjees and Shahid. I’m so glad you have them as friends.’

‘They loved you, Gabby. I think they’re already planning your next visit …’ He smiles. ‘We’ll have to juggle round our various work commitments to try to make it happen, won’t we?’

He picks the wine glasses up to take them to the kitchen.

‘Actually, I’m back in London sometime in February for a meeting at Canada House. I’m planning to take a week’s leave. Let’s go somewhere. I’ll send you the dates. Hopefully you can take a few days off. After that, I’ve no idea when I’ll get a break. I’ve got endless conferences in the UAE …’

I smile to myself. It amuses me; Mike’s assumption that his business commitments are sacrosanct while mine can be dropped whenever he gets home. It is partly my fault because I nearly always accommodated him.

In the night I hear Mike’s phone bleep. Then bleep again. After a minute he gets out of bed and pads across to his desk to look at it. When he does not come back to bed I push myself up on my elbow to see where he is.

He is standing very still by the window looking down on the city. I can’t make out his expression but I notice the stress in his shoulders. He looks so alone. I would like to go and place my arms around his waist, lean my head on his back. But I don’t. Mike can be emotionally unpredictable. One minute you think you are close to him, the next he will gently shut a door in your face. I learnt early in my marriage not to be hurt. In a way I understood. I shy away from too much emotion. I never wanted the sort of exhausting marriage my parents had. I used to wonder if my father felt suffocated by Maman’s love and that was why he sloped off to the pub so much.

Mike turns from the window to his desk, picks his phone up and begins to text. After a second he makes an angry noise in the back of his throat and throws the phone down and comes back to bed.

He sees that I am awake. ‘Sorry, did my phone wake you? I should have turned the bloody thing off.’

I smile. ‘You know you never can.’

‘Come here. I’m going to miss you.’

As we lie in the dark, Mike says, ‘It’s silly, but now you’ve been here, in this apartment, in my bed, in Karachi, you’ll feel much nearer to me when you’ve gone …’

I wonder, for a second, if he is trying to convince himself. Then, I think about him standing alone in the window of a foreign city. Something he has done most of his life. I roll towards him. ‘I always miss you,’ I say.