This book is about a failed cross-cultural English-Pakistani marriage, which resulted in the Pakistani father spiriting his two children off to Karachi without letting the mother know where they had gone. The reader looking for a sensitive unpacking of cross-culture, cross-race, cross-religion marriages or relationships, would be better off finding some other novel to explore it – this novel is told from the viewpoint of a protagonist who is entirely self-absorbed in her working-class identity as an Ashford girl, disinterested in other cultures including Pakistani culture.
Marianne is just 18 when she meets and falls in lust with Salim. She sees him in night classes where Salim is taking a class on the Romantics – he is a great reader, a cultured, educated, well spoken man from a rich family in Karachi. Marianne keeps telling us that she has not had much education and doesn’t speak well and is not much interested in culture, but she knows how to use her weapons (like ‘war paint’ – cosmetics and other props) to attract men. Marianne is clearly extremely sexy and outgoing, fun loving and high spirited. She was taking French classes despite not being particularly interested in any other culture apart from her own, because she wants difference, adventure, a way out, more than just what Ashford had to offer her.
Salim was perfect for Marianne’s intentions not because she had one iota of interest in his background or country or culture, but because he was sufficiently different, and so, to Marianne, sexy. She herself admits she never bothered to listen to anything he said about his family or country. Later, when the children were born and the physical attraction between them had cooled, Marianne grows bored of being Salim’s wife and begins an affair with Terry. When Salim finds out, he packs up the children and takes them to Pakistan, without Marianne knowing where they have gone. She apparently does not even have an address for his family.
Although Marianne may be selfish, she is not without courage (even if a lot of it is out of ignorance of the risks and difficulties involved), and flies straight out to Pakistan in search of her children. She has a rather fraught trip, unsurprisingly.
The heat was suffocating and the airport was packed with men. They stood, pressed against the glass doors, hundreds of them jostling for a better view. What were they all doing here? They all looked like Salim. […] The men were dressed in loose pyjama things. I saw a boy; he looked exactly liked Bobby, until I got nearer.
p120
In such details, Moggach reveals how insular Marianne is, that every Pakistani man looks to her like her husband, and even the children she mistakes for her own, more than once. Her attempt to re-abduct her children was as hopeless as it was ill-conceived and ill-planned.
Moggach does not set out to explore intercultural relationships in this novel, but she does explore inter-class relationships. Marianne’s attitudes illustrate how, in the UK, class can be as much a different country, as Pakistan is.
We were mates, Terry and me. We were familiar in a way I’ve never been with Tom or Salim. We had the same sort of upbringing; we spoke the same language. Tom’s posh, and Salim was Pakistani.
p290
Terry is a cab driver Marianne has an affair with after 9 years married to Salim; Tom who was her solicitor, helping her access her children in Pakistan, is her second husband. It is amusing how Marianne understands Tom’s upper-classedness, but doesn’t seem to have made the connection that Salim is exactly the same, extremely elite. In fact, Moggach who can be a nearly cruel writer, makes it pretty clear that Marianne, who knows herself to be under-educated, have some vulgar tastes, and the morals of a cat, has her physical charms to thank for attracting two husbands much above her own station in life. (In fairness, Marianne does not seem attracted to them because of their class, rather, in spite of it.)
Marianne is not a particularly appealing protagonist – she has not even basic manners – manners not in terms of etiquette, but in terms of consideration for others. Although not from a privileged background, she expects the world to revolve around her. She is not appreciative of Donald, a businessman whom she meets on the first flight to Karachi, who goes out of his way to help her; she is not cooperative with Tom her solicitor; she shouts at everyone and demands special treatment and mainly focuses on what she wants – which is to get her children back. However, there is little introspection on her part as to what is best for the children, or what the children themselves may want. Moggach even rips away any pretence at a second romance for Marianne with Tom – Tom himself accuses her of marrying him only to get her children back. An accusation which stemmed, no doubt, in part from the fact the first time she came to his house, one Christmas day, and got into his bed, lying together after sex, she blurts out, “perhaps it’ll help pay my bill” p187. An outraged Tom throws her out, but months later, his savior complex kicks in when she is in such obvious need of rescue, that he not only fights her case, but marries her.
There is a lot from Marianne’s perspective about her wanting to feel like a mother and Salim’s abduction of the children depriving her of that as much as of them – however, in the times she sees her children – twice a year in Karachi, then finally, when her eldest daughter turns 18, the children come back to England for education – she doesn’t bond particularly well with them. She wants them, but has not much idea what to do with them. She shows no interest in their Pakistani life or relatives or friends, or even pets. She merely wants them to fit back into her life with her, to complete her.
In fact, Moggach paints a rather severe portrait of Marianne as feckless at best, and at worst, a pretty lousy daughter, wife, and even friend and lover, and although a well-intentioned mother, not a particularly good or wise one. She lets her best friend, Sonia, down, over and over. She throws Terry over, telling him she hated him, because she had blamed him for Salim taking her children away. Terry reasonably points out
“We were in it together, love. I didn’t force you to do anything, did I?”
“No,” I said, “I know”
p177
This is typical Marianne – she knows she is unfair, but she goes on being unfair, even after acknowledging it. Just as when Tom tries to explain why he is trying to get the system and laws changed because so many parents have had their children abducted to Turkey, Algeria and elsewhere, she ignores all this because she does not care; she has no interest in any system or anyone else’s suffering or pain – all that matters is only what has always mattered to her, what Marianne wants. She only sees her own case in isolation, refusing to see her case in context of the larger picture of systemic injustice.
Marianne’s sister-in-law, Aisha, is a PIA air stewardess who acts as a bridge between the children in Karachi, and Marianne, whenever Aisha comes to London. Once, when handing over gifts from the children and taking things from Marianne for the children, Aisha confides in Marianne that she hopes to move to London (her airline will give her a deskjob in London), partly because Karachi is limiting for women and partly because she has a boyfriend in London – Marianne’s first and only reaction is horror, to tell Aisha she can’t leave Karachi, because then who would ferry messages between her and the children? Likewise, in showing no interest in Tom’s life and what he wants – which is to have children – Marianne only later realises what she has deprived her second husband of:
I realize quite clearly what has happened. I’ve stolen Tom’s kids, just like Salim has stolen mine.
p309
At best, the reader can try to overlook these shortcomings on the grounds that Marianne is not particularly hypocritical – she does not pretend to be better than she is. She knows – eventually – when she has done wrong, but although there is a little guilt, she has no remorse, and no real wish to have done otherwise or to make any amends. It is not easy to warm to a protagonist who makes no attempt to be even a little better, to improve herself even a little more. Her boldness is endearing – how she begins to bargain with rickshaw drivers and storeholders very soon after her arrival in Karachi – but it is brazenness rather than indomitability for most part. The adventure-seeking heroine turns out to be seeking adventure only on her own terms, on her own turf – which is not quite the definition of true adventure. This is one of Moggach’s most ruthless depictions – cleverly illustrating a fairly typical and commonplace, working class woman of her place and time, who is honest enough to accept that she has caused a lot of her own problems in life, but does not refrain from blaming others all the same, for her problems. And this protagonist also illustrates that not all mixed-race, cross-nationality relationships are the result of people who are interested in other cultures; it is hard to think of another protagonist of a mixed-race relationship who is quite as unthinkingly insular as Marianne!
Recent Comments