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A House Divided—page 5
I snapped out of my reverie and asked the Hasan sisters what, in fact, had happened to the marble chips on the floors.
"We got them cemented over," said the older Miss Hasan.
"But why?" I asked.
"They're easier to maintain this way," she said.
I noticed the sisters were getting edgy. I complimented them on modernizing the bathrooms and thanked them for letting me see the house, and we left.
Outside, as we were walking back to the car, Shahnaz asked, "What did you think of the two harpies?"
"They seem O.K., I suppose," I said.
"Do you remember what a point the ladies made about cementing over the floors and putting in the flush system?" Aijaz said. "They were putting you on notice that they have made substantial improvements, so you couldn't reclaim the house even if you wanted to. They were telling you the house now legally belongs to them."
"They can have it with our best wishes," I said. "My family would never dream of returning to Lahore. They have their lives in India."
"Your father is probably still listed as the owner of 11 Temple Road in some municipal archives," Aijaz said.
"Since Hindus can live here only at the peril of their lives, a lot of good that does him," I said. My Muslim friends and I laughed together nervously.
"Was the house as you had pictured it?" Shahnaz asked.
"Yes," I said. "But of course all the rooms seem much smaller than what I'd remembered. That is not surprising, since I last saw the house when I was small."
"What were your feelings about visiting your old house?" Shahnaz asked.
"I didn't feel much," I said. "After all, it was more than 30 years ago that we lived in the house. And anyway, its loss, like partition, is a part of history, which we all accepted long ago."
"But you must have felt something while standing on the threshold of your own room," Aijaz said. "We certainly felt we were standing on the threshold of your past and, in some subtle way, of our own, too. We felt deeply with you for what you had lost—what we all had lost. I found myself remembering the room from your books and picturing you in it, and listening to your conversations about partition with your friend Sohan. Every time I read about his death in your books I feel a pang."
"Sohan was the first person close to me who died," I said, remembering my boyhood friend and mentor, who had been killed by a Muslim in the partition riots. "But I was 13 then, and I have long since come to terms with his death—insofar as one can come to terms with the innocent death of anyone one has been close to."
Aijaz and Shahnaz became silent, and we stood there for a moment without knowing what to say. On an impulse, I hugged them both. They were Muslims living in Pakistan, but they seemed in every way like members of my extended family.
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