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For as long as I can remember, Nano’s place has been around
to serve as my happy place. Every summer and every winter for the past
seventeen years (and for eight years before that, in another place), I have
returned here. It is a predictable, unchanging, comforting fact of life that
Nano’s apartment seems to hold the key to healing every hurt, childish,
adolescent or adult, and reminding us, year after year, that the best things in
life tend to stick around. Decades of photographs in family albums document the
same five rooms, reflecting occasional changes in upholstery, haircuts, height
and the addition of family members, but the background remains the same. When
we were twelve, my cousins and I realized and discussed at length how our
family and 29-A Askari Flats are not magical, but simply normal-and the thought repulsed us. The framed photographs of
smiling, braces-wearing grandchildren, the ayat-ul-kursi above the sideboard,
even the faithful green swingset were suddenly things that everybody had in their
homes. We were not special. For a few days, we were depressed, feeling as if we
had lost some of the magic of our childhood. The following summer, however, we
had forgotten and the joy of being reunited trumped any realizations we had
made about the ordinariness of our existence.
Twelve years since that discussion, I find myself back at
29-A, after being separated from it for an entire year-a first for me. There
are many firsts this year, not all of them welcome. For the first time, I haven’t
spent the summer at Nano’s. For the first time, Zoya and I are both married and
spending our first summers with our husbands and not seeing each other at all.
For the first time, I have bought my own airline ticket, for the first time, my
trip is unplanned, for the first time, I have willingly booked only a four-day
stay and for the first time, I am not here for myself. I am irrationally
anxious on the flight to Lahore (another first, I suppose), although I have
always considered Lahore my real home (a secret I try my best to keep around my
Karachiite family and friends). I also sleep through the first glimpse of the
greenery of the city before landing and take it as a sign. This time is
supposed to be different.
I’m not sure how I
feel about trying to care for the people who grew me up. I’m not sure if I
entirely agree with this life plan in which the people and places I have always
needed might just need me (a narcissistic thought, but one that floated in
regardless). I’m not sure what to say when the cook admires my wedding
photographs and says look at how fast you grew up. I’m not sure I can view 29-A
through my newly critical eyes, searching for imperfections or discomforts my
husband might notice on our trip next winter. I’m not sure I can deal with
being 24 at all this week. My anxiety rests on the premise that being here as a
grownup, full and proper, is going to be too different to bear.
But when I walk in, faithfully, Nano’s place has not changed
for me after all. After throwing my bags on a dining chair, I walk around
making sure everything is exactly the same. I take unexpected amounts of
pleasure in opening the door of the store room (without entering the password
for our secret hiding place, but there is nobody here to ask for it) and
smelling the musty mothball smell of the linen piled up on the shelf. I notice
the upholstery hasn’t changed on the princess sofa in the dining room and
appreciate the predictably well-stocked medicine cabinet with the extra
toothbrush I am counting on. The books in the shelves have increased in number,
but all the old favorites, including the ones I passed on to cousins ten or
fifteen years ago, are wedged into the same place as before. All is well with
the world. The view outside has changed a bit. The lawn has shrunk over the years,
or perhaps I and my expectations have grown. The swings seem lower. Past it, I
can see all of us outside, with Chloe the dog and the champa tree which is in
bloom again and the shadow of the man in black, an apparition of many years ago.
The emptiness I expect from the absence of Nano watching TV in her room and
Ashi masi singing in hers is here, but it seems to be sitting inside me rather
than in 29-A.
I stay awake all night, as per custom at Nano’s place, but I
am alone. I make myself buttered toast in the kitchen, a job I usually leave to
Zoya and flick through TV channels with no Nana or Nano or cousins to sing
along to Bollywood songs or offer commentary on the news. I stick to my rituals
anyway. At sunrise, when the perfect “blue morning” dawns, I slip out the
kitchen door into the rain-washed lawn and onto the street behind the building.
There is nobody with me, but it’s okay. The muddy grass squelches into my flip
flops the way it always has and there are pieces of blue tile lying on the
ground as usual (neighbors with years-long renovations? Who knows?) These
things used to excite me and I try to remember the feeling of collecting tiles
and stones because they are interesting, wading through puddles because it’s
fun and sitting on the swing even though it’s so low my legs fold neatly under
me and my head grazes the clothes line when I go up.
