His lips moved, not along with the music, and she knew he was re-playing lines he’d used in the soon-to-be-aired episode of his show, Three Slips and an Ali. The show’s huge success had been a surprise to everyone, turning Habib Ali into a celebrity. He couldn’t walk through the school gates to pick up Zahra the day after an episode aired without students gathering around to discuss it. Whatever social stigma had once been attached to the fact that he wrote for the Urdu rather than English press had been entirely washed away by his TV role, which was peppered with enough English to let anyone know that he was fluent in both languages and choosing to communicate primarily in the one that more viewers could follow. In school it had only recently become possible to speak Urdu outside the day’s half-hour language lesson without some teacher telling you off.

  “Yes,” she said, returning her thoughts to the sky, the breeze, the sea-across-the-street. “It’s very nice.”

  The carpets were still thin underfoot, the furniture scratched, and a CD player was a distant fantasy. But up on this balcony you could stand with your father and watch his spine lengthen as he contemplated all he had achieved for himself and his family, and in a moment such as tonight, that was even more rewarding than when you stood here with your best friend, watching her breathe in the sea air, and knew that, for once, you had something that she wished were hers.

  The world blazed around them. Zahra shielded her eyes against the brightness of the light bulb on the balcony, which surged to a terrifying brilliance that would overload the power supply and burn out all electronics if it continued. The light dimmed to its usual wattage, and Zahra’s father tapped his watch face and said, “Just in time.”

  Zahra blew out the candle and followed her father indoors to watch Three Slips and an Ali. Her mother was already sitting in the living room, reading Bapsi Sidhwa’s new novel, Ice-Candy Man, and as her husband and daughter entered she flipped back a few pages to read out a paragraph that had particularly pleased her.

  Zahra’s father made noises of appreciation, and he and Zahra staged a mini-argument about who would read the book next. You take so long to read anything, Zahra said; I didn’t know you were interested in books without gold-embossed letters on the cover, he said, his only words of criticism about the blockbuster novels she’d recently started to devour.

  Then Three Slips and an Ali started, and everyone quieted. It was still strange to see her father on the screen—everything about him so familiar but made strange by the knowledge that all across the country people were watching him. Today’s episode was primarily about the West Indies’ recent Test victory over England, which he discussed with the satisfied air of a man who thought of colonial rule as a memory rather than history, though he’d only been five years old when it ended. While his TV self was expansive and confident, his at-home self kept glancing over to his wife, checking her expression for an approval that was never withheld but still mattered more to him than even cricket itself. A trio of guests always accompanied him on-screen—purely to justify the pun in the show’s title, Zahra’s mother said—but the final segment, called “Howzzat,” was Habib Ali alone, reminding his audience, with the aid of TV footage or radio commentary, of a significant moment in Pakistan’s cricketing history. He often reached back into past decades, but today the West Indies victory had spurred him to relive a Test match from just a few months ago, Pakistan vs. the West Indies in Bridgetown, and surely, surely, if the home umpires hadn’t made a series of unfair decisions Pakistan would have won the match and with it the series.

  Habib Ali was in his element as he built up context and significance, and though Zahra—and everyone watching—knew exactly how the match had unfolded, her father still knew how to make the audience lean toward their TV screens in anticipation as he led them through the final overs of play. By the time he’d finished, Zahra knew more unshakably than ever that Pakistan had outplayed the most worthy of all rivals but couldn’t outplay the umpires and so their loss was injustice rather than defeat.

  “Why does that feel even worse?” she said to her father.

  “When you live in an unjust world you want sports to be a refuge, not a reminder.”

  His eyes had that sheen that the combination of cricket and whiskey could bring on. Talking and writing about the game wasn’t merely his profession, but also his calling. In a nation of oppression and losses, cricket was a blazing light, an arena where you could feel proud of your country and united with your compatriots. Cricket told you that talent and grit and character would win out, that giants could be felled, that today’s defeat could always be followed by tomorrow’s victory. Yes, there were errors and injustices, cruelty even. But beyond that was the game itself, radiant and untainted. She was old enough now to know that when her father communicated this to his viewers he was trying to communicate something larger about life itself and how to live it, always with integrity, always with hope.

  Although there was no one in the world she loved more, sometimes she caught herself thinking he was a foolish man, ill-prepared for the world in which he found himself living.

  Most Saturday mornings, Maryam could be found on the cricket pitch laid behind the office block of Khan Leather, bowling her off-spin or opening the batting. The other players rotated as they came off shifts in the warehouse or artisans’ block, though sometimes, if a player was having a particularly good game, she’d send a message up to her grandfather to ask if Haris or Lamboo or Kashif could stay out on the field a little longer.

  From a very early age, she’d enjoyed picking up a cricket bat and joining the workers on the pitch—at the start, the bowlers gently lobbed balls in her direction, the fielders dropped all catches that came off her bat with exaggerated cries of disappointment. But once her abilities became clear, her grandfather had sent her off to be coached by a former international player, and now there was no question of anyone treating her like the sahib’s granddaughter rather than the best all-rounder on the pitch. Elsewhere on the factory grounds she was Maryam Bibi, but here she was “Skipper.” Her grandfather had never said that the cricket pitch was where she would undercut the disadvantage of her femaleness and teach the men to see her a leader, but she knew that was why he’d been so insistent on the coaching.

  This Saturday, eager to get back to the game after her summer in London, she’d asked Abu Bakr to drive her to the factory in Federal “B” Area earlier than usual. When they’d left behind those parts of the city where they were likely to be seen by people who knew them, Abu Bakr pulled over to the side of the road and moved into the passenger seat.

  A decade earlier, four-year-old Maryam, on her way home from kindergarten, had commanded the family driver to stop beside a large house with a falsa tree growing in its garden and had him hoist her onto the boundary wall so she could pluck the purple-black berries from its branches. The family who lived in the house had driven up in time to see this act of theft and trespassing. Maryam’s parents had been appalled, her grandfather delighted. It was the driver’s fault, he said; she needs someone both strong-willed and trustworthy to ferry her around. He offered up his own driver, Abu Bakr, for the job, the first sign of his favor to Maryam. Over the years, Maryam and Abu Bakr had worked out an accommodation between her nature and his duty; he was willing to be her accomplice in breaking certain rules but not if he thought it would put her in danger.

  Now she took the wheel and drove confidently through the melee of brightly decorated buses and yellow minibuses, vans and motorbikes, and the occasional pedestrian dashing across the road. The blocks of flats and offices on either side of the road were all grayed with exhaust fumes. At one point a motorcyclist drove close alongside her car window for a little too long, and Abu Bakr rolled down his window and raised his kameez to show the man the pistol holstered in his waistband. The motorbike veered away and Maryam continued on, only allowing Abu Bakr to return to the wheel when they were a few minutes away from Khan Leather.

  The guard at the gate saluted with a particularly snappy wrist that acknowledged how many weeks she’d been away in London and how welcome her return was. Abu Bakr parked in front of the office block and she stepped out, aware of the ground that her foot alighted on, aware that this vast factory ground was her inheritance, her fiefdom.

  Her skin turned clammy as she walked toward the tree-shaded gardens laid out behind the office building where she would wait for the cricketers to gather. The leaves were usually thick with dust, but the rains earlier in the week had turned everything bright and new. She stood under a tree, eating a yellow-green guava from its branches, watching sunlight filter through the leaves, listening to the tempo of the cutting and stitching machines. The fresh-from-the-tannery scent of leather sheets was a mere suggestion, perhaps the work of memory, since there were never deliveries this early. Lamboo and Haris walked onto the pitch, tossing a red ball between them. Everything in the world was exactly as it should be, the anonymous endless days of London distant.

  But in the pre-match practice things started to go awry. Maryam ran in to bowl her first delivery, and with every pumping action of her legs her breasts moved up and down. Jiggling, that was the only word. She slowed her pace and that threw off her bowling action, so she had to turn around and start again. The cricketers showed no sign of noticing, but what else could they do? Again, she ran in, but it was all wrong. Her body no longer moved as she wanted—fast, unobtrusive. She threw the ball to Lamboo and said she’d bat.

  Here, things were better. The sound of the ball smacking off the middle of her bat was one of life’s deep pleasures. Warm-up ended and the match started with Maryam and Kashif opening the batting. She was able to hunch a little when running between the wickets, which made those flapping breasts less ridiculous. But just a few overs in, she looked down at her shirt. Sweat had adhered the fabric to her skin, and there, unmistakably, the outline of her nipples strained against the cotton.

  “It’s too hot,” she said, tucking her bat under her arm. “That’s enough for today.”

  Usually the players would have teased her with the informality that only existed on the field—“Too used to life in air-conditioning, Skipper”—but today they said nothing. Kashif looked relieved. She pulled the shirt away from her skin and held it there as she walked to the office block.

  Up the stairs she went to her grandfather’s office and opened the door. Her grandfather was sitting behind his desk in his great wing chair, handing something to the man who was facing him. Both men looked toward the opened door—she caught a glimpse of the stranger’s broken-nosed face as he turned—and her grandfather yelled, “Get out!” in a tone he never used with her.

  She closed the door hurriedly and went into her father’s office, which was always unoccupied on a Saturday. Ignoring the leather sofas and armchair that made up a seating arrangement at one end, she walked across to the desk and sat behind it. The desk had been her great-grandfather’s; the penholder and document tray and tissue box holder were all Khan Leather products. She rested her head on the table, cradled by her arms, unable to put a name to this feeling of awfulness.

  Eventually, her grandfather came to find her.

  “Why aren’t you on the pitch?” he said.

  She shrugged, made a face of indifference.

  “No, you don’t behave in that insolent way around me,” he said, coming around to her chair and tapping on the back to indicate she should let him have this prime spot and find herself some other pew. She stood up, not looking at him.

  “You know you should knock before entering,” he said. “But I’m sorry I spoke to you so sharply.”

  “Don’t you think you should introduce me to him? He’ll have to deal with me eventually.”

  Her grandfather leaned back, tapping his fingers on the edge of the desk. “Do you know who he is?”

  “You pay him protection money every month. But really who you’re buying protection from are the people he works for.” She knew this from Abu Bakr. The rest of it was just forming in her mind. “And you also pay him something extra, on the side. He’s the phone call, isn’t he?”

  When people in her parents’ circle wanted something done, they called her grandfather. They might want to bring suitcases filled with alcohol into the country past customs; they might want a business-class seat on an overbooked PIA flight; they might want a No Objection Certificate to allow their foreign guests into restricted areas. Whatever they wanted, her grandfather would say, “Let me make a phone call,” and then he’d arrange it.

  “The ‘phone call’ isn’t just one person,” her grandfather said. “Always diversify your assets. But yes, Billoo’s one of the people who is willing to be useful for a price.”

  “How will he feel about dealing with a girl one day?” she said.

  “How does the girl feel about it?”

  She walked to the mini-fridge in the corner of the office and took out a packet of fruit juice. Punctured the packet with the end of the straw and pretended to take a moment to think about it, even though she knew clearly her opinions. “I don’t mind paying him to be helpful to us, and our friends,” she said. “But I hate you paying him because otherwise his real boss will send some thugs to burn down the office.”

  “Of course you hate that. But always respect where power lies—and then work out how you can use it to your advantage.” He held out his hand and she passed him the fruit juice. “Your father doesn’t see any of this. Little princeling wants a crown on his head and his hands lily-white. He can’t have both. Why do you have to be so young?”

  “I’m fourteen,” she said.

  “I’m seventy-one.” He sipped noisily through the straw. “If you want me to introduce you to people who’ll one day have to take you seriously, don’t walk into my office looking like you’ve been in one of those Indian movies where rain drenches the woman in a white sari.”

  Maryam crossed her arms in front of her chest, felt again that strange new awfulness.

  In the backseat Zahra’s lips were fiery, tingling from Silver Spoon’s gol guppas. Her father loved to spring the delight of an outing to Silver Spoon on her, as he’d done this evening—always after ascertaining there was no test the next day that would force Zahra to make the intolerable choice between an extra round of revision and the world’s best gol guppas. Now the Alis were stuck in Shahrah-e-Faisal’s rush-hour traffic and wouldn’t be home for another half hour at least, which meant they’d miss Neelam Ghar—which was fine, really, she spent most of the quiz show with her face in a book anyway; it was her father who loved watching Tariq Aziz play quizmaster, even though he occasionally hurled insults at him for having betrayed his politics and bowed to General Zia in order to stay on the air. But think of all the people who’d be denied their Rahbar water cooler prizes if the show had ended, Zahra’s mother would tease him in response, and sometimes Zahra would enjoy the familiar back-and-forth, and other times she’d be so bored with the endless recycling of conversation that seemed to be married life.

  A car pulled up at the traffic light next to the Alis’ car. Zahra had noticed it earlier—a red Suzuki FX, which was a model her mother had driven until quite recently, but the tinted windows gave it an air of mystery, turning it into the kind of car with a rear windshield plastered with a decal of Sylvester Stallone as Rambo or the Ferrari logo or a heavily made-up pair of women’s eyes. Sometimes there was that momentary thrill when the boys driving alongside rolled down their tinted windows and gave you that if-your-parents-weren’t-here look. Zahra knew you were supposed to look away immediately when they did that, but sometimes she didn’t, safe in the knowledge that her father’s presence in the front seat would prevent the boys from giving chase.

  The FX reversed a few feet so that the driver’s-side window was alongside her own. In the front seats her parents were absorbed in discussing what to order from the new butcher they’d been advised to try out in Defence Market. The driver lowering his window and puckered his lips at Zahra. The lips were red and full under a mustache, like Tom Selleck’s in Magnum. He was older than most of the young men who liked to drive alongside girls or follow them through traffic, but not old enough to be disgusting. Zahra looked straight ahead at her parents, then back at the man. She touched the place where the neck of her T-shirt rested on her collarbone and dragged her fingers a few centimeters. The T-shirt was pulled along, revealing most of her shoulder and the white of her bra strap.

  The man took one hand off the wheel and dropped it into his lap. In novels, words like furtively attached themselves to what she understood the man to be doing, but he wanted her to know what was going on, his arm pistoning, his eyes intense on her face. She glanced to the front again. Her parents were still talking, unaware. The light turned orange. She slipped a finger under her bra strap and pushed it down the curve of her shoulder. The man mouthed the word Rundi at her. Her father accelerated away. The man, his attention elsewhere, was left behind.

  Zahra returned her bra, her T-shirt, to their normal positions, her heart leaping wild. She recognized immediately the feeling of shame that had come upon her the moment the man called her a prostitute, but beneath that, beyond that, breaking through that was something else, something gorgeous that moved the tingling of her lips to all the way inside her, deeper than she’d ever been herself. She’d carried a book into the car with her as she always did, and now she placed it on her lap, her hand beneath the book, legs slightly parted, fingers pressing down. She closed her eyes but turned her face away, allowing her hair to veil her expression. If her parents looked back, all they’d see was the same Zahra who had been sitting in the car five minutes ago, and that—their unknowing—was part of the evening’s deliciousness. She could be wanted as much as any other girl, she could respond to the wanting, and no one would have to know. The pleasure of the thought rippled through her, her hand pushing more firmly against herself.