Sand in the Castle: A Collection of Short Stories

Contents

From Boundaries to Boundaries

Bhangra Princess

Burka

Home and the Facade

Still Alive

In the Cocoon

There’s a Storm Outside

Empire of Sand

Another Home, Another Dimension

As I Ran

Tea Leaves

Introduction

This book of short stories is for all who have a pulsating heart. Each one of you may find a Nimi, a Shirin, a Jahanzeb, or a Haseeb among you, with you, or within you. These are stories of life, short and crisp, and each story aims to leave a mark on your heart just as life leaves a mark on this planet.

Preface

This collection of short stories is an endeavor to embark all the readers on a journey into the lives of displaced individuals. Displacement can be on various levels, and it can be physical, spiritual, or psychological. Physical, as the name implies, is physical movement into another land, to tread other areas, borders, and boundaries.

Spiritual displacement is a manifestation of movement within the metaphysical domains. An individual may evolve spiritually. Beliefs and ideologies may alter along the journey of life. These metaphysical beliefs tend to be affected by the physical environment as well as the spiritual atmosphere one is exposed to. In the course of discovering these metaphysical domains, one might encounter displacement from previous spiritual beliefs.

Finally, psychological displacement is movement within the confines of one’s mind. Whether this movement is restricted, curbed, or fluid is determined by the mind and the environment.

This book of fiction covers these domains in order to try to arrive at the concept of home as opposed to displacement. The questions raised: What is a home? Is it the physical boundary one lives in, a spiritual border, or a psychological territory? Is the concept merely a facade? Does the home represent stasis or fluidity?

The stories in this collection attempt to open a debate as to whether a home is a physical entity or a spiritual domain. At the same time, the stories question the existence of a real home versus the facade called home.

From Boundaries to Boundaries

I’m sorry, but a master’s degree from Pakistan is equivalent only to a bachelor’s degree, so we cannot offer you a teaching post here in Canada, Mrs. Douglas proclaimed with a tone of finality. It was the frown on her forehead that most disturbed Sabeen.

But would you at least consider my work experience? Sabeen insisted. I’ve worked for fifteen years in a prestigious university.

In Pakistan! This time Mrs. Douglas pouted her uncontoured lips as an addition to the frown on her face. Douglas’ whiteness covered her features so much so that the shriveled raisin-like skin seemed only a white mass.

As Sabeen extended her arm to take the papers from Mrs. Douglas, the brown of her skin seemed darker with the mere touch of the whiteness radiating from her counterpart. Strange that I never realized I was this dark until today, thought Sabeen. On the contrary, she was always considered fair-skinned in Pakistan, a quality no doubt more appreciated there than the degree she had.

Sabeen walked out of the office with a knowledge she had not been exposed to in her thirty-nine years of existence. Canada had been hope for a new beginning, rather any beginning, as she had felt herself living in a tomb for the last nineteen years. The graves of many Sabeens at each stage in her marital life had formed a graveyard within her.

That night, exhausted from the morning’s venture into reality, Sabeen ventured into her graveyard. She wanted to explore it, thinking she might free herself of it if she entered it from the outside. The task was tedious, and she realized that she herself had locked away the past as she opened suitcases in Canada. She remembered Haseeb, who had dropped by two days ago and consoled her. I must go to him, Sabeen realized. He might think it strange, but he seemed like a reasonable man. And I don’t have friends here. So Haseeb will have to do.

Sabeen put on a sweater and a Windbreaker and looked at herself in the tiny mirror on her wall. The new color her skin seemed to have acquired after she landed on the white man’s soil troubled her. It was as if someone had polished her face black and placed her on a donkey facing backward. This was reminiscent of Umroo Ayaar or some other fable of her childhood, the ultimate disgrace accorded to an outcast. She stepped out into the chilling winds of the Atlantic, directed straight at Toronto. Even Mother Nature had suddenly turned cold for her. She wanted to save money, so she walked the four blocks, shielding herself from the pricking chill with her scarf, yet somehow the November winds seemed to enter her body through her woollies and bite her skin. It was almost eight fifteen when Haseeb let her in, clearly surprised at the visit.

Hi, Haseeb. Sorry I came without asking you. I hope you aren’t busy. Is it okay if I sit here with you for a while? I’m feeling really low.

Of course. You needn’t ask. What’s happened? Is everything all right? Are the kids okay?

Yes, yes, they’re fine. It’s just me. I feel miserable.

Haseeb took her Windbreaker and her scarf, and after taking a quick look at her bosom through her sweater, he averted his gaze and offered her a seat on the sofa by the fire. He went into the kitchen, put on the coffee percolator, came back, and sat on his lounger. Something about him made Sabeen feel comfortable in his presence. Maybe it was his calm stature as opposed to Sabeen’s turbulent soul. According to all her friends and family, Sabeen was hyper. She couldn’t sit still for a moment or stop talking. In Pakistan, she’d always found someone to talk to, even if it was her maid. But Canada had a dearth of population in contrast to Pakistan’s ever-increasing numbers, and she didn’t know anyone she could vent to. Haseeb seemed like the right person, because when they first met, he proved to be a good listener.

It was only when he came with the coffee that he uttered the first monosyllabic word: So? It takes an immense amount of patience to see someone so flustered and yet remain quiet until some calm has settled in the perturbed person.

I was brutally rejected at the employment agency today, Sabeen blurted out, as if opening up the spillways at a dam. "I have never been so humiliated in my life, and what is worse is that being jobless and knowing now that I won’t get a good job is not that disturbing. It’s the humiliation, you know. The lady … The horrible woman didn’t even say anything bad or awful. Now that I think about it, she was doing her job. But it was her face—oh, Haseeb, her face, that white blob … She had on her face the expression I have when I see a lizard. Ewwww. I think I hate her."

First reality check, dear. Welcome to the land of the white.

"Are you serious? I have gora friends, but I’ve never felt so degraded."

Did you ever ask them for a job … and a job during the recession?

No. In fact, I have either bought something from them or taken them out to lunch or dinner.

Well, does that answer your question? When I met you the first time, you were so hopeful about a teaching job here. It wasn’t my place to dishearten you, but maybe I should have warned you. Didn’t anyone tell you that our degrees in Pakistan don’t amount to anything abroad? You have to go back to studying if you want to teach.

But they gave me immigration as skilled labor.

"Don’t forget the word labor, dear."

Ha, you’re right, but what am I to do now? I have three kids to feed and rent to pay.

Go for a job at a supermarket or a shopping mall. You could even do volunteer work for a year, and then might be hired in the same institution as you volunteered for. There is also the option of studying further while you work at a mall.

Hmmm, I’d have to think about it. After today’s experience, I feel I would always be on the defensive. I just cannot take such humiliation.

That’s what happens to us Pakistanis. We are used to such regal lives that we forget the human factor within the working class. This place brings you back to Earth.

Wow, Haseeb, you are so sensible. I don’t know how you became or stayed friends with Junaid.

Junaid and I have much in common. You just don’t know it. He said it in a playful tone, that the meaning became quite obvious however, both of them evaded it.

"Thanks, yaar, my friend, for the coffee. I better be off. The kids are home."

Have they settled in?

Physically, yes. I don’t know mentally if they can ever accept the idea of Junaid and me living separately.

I don’t want to butt in, but Junaid called day before yesterday. He knew you would call me, so he called and asked me to look into how the kids were doing.

He did? How sneaky of him. It’s just like him to do that.

Well, he told me something else as well. I know it’s your business, but don’t you think it was rather drastic on your part to do that.

What! What did he tell you now?

That you brought his passport here.

You can’t judge me. Nobody can considering the kind of hell I was going through with him. I didn’t want him to come here and claim the kids or torture me… Well, at least for a couple of months or so till we were all settled in. This is my break from my past, and I don’t want him to come and haunt me.

But isn’t it true that you did it just so that he doesn’t come here to finalize his immigration?

Yes.

Haseeb offered Sabeen her Windbreaker, as she had already gotten up to leave; he turned to get her scarf from the coat hanger as Sabeen stared at his shoulders. She had relied on them for support, for crying on, and Junaid had taken that from her too. She never felt so alone. Haseeb turned around and extended both arms toward her as he pulled the scarf onto her chest. He knotted her scarf, and as he let go of it, she felt a little stroke of his masculine hands on her unbrushed hair.

At home, the kids were asleep. The flat was quiet. Outside, the wind battled with the trees, the leaves, and the pedestrians. Inside, the quietness seemed to pierce Sabeen more than the chilling winds could have done. Haseeb’s coffee worked its way in her body, keeping the muscles awake and jittery. She didn’t have a fire, but her radiators were on. The heat came from an unseen source (as opposed to gas-fire heaters in Pakistan) and was not enough to enkindle her from inside.

She leaned on the edge of the couch that she had picked from a flea market last Saturday. She