Children of Dust_ A Memoir of Pakistan - Ali Eteraz [28]
“Why?”
“In preparation for his service to God. He was meant to do something great.”
“Which was…?”
“Serving Islam, of course. Just like you’re going to do.”
Although Ammi smiled at me with pride, I felt a shiver run through me. “Does this mean bad things are going to happen to me too?” I asked.
13
Combustible and explosive jinns inhabited the kerosene stoves of Pakistan. These creatures were especially prone to heeding the incendiary commands of angry mothers-in-law, husbands dissatisfied by dowry size, and honor-obsessed brothers. At their behest, these jinns spat a shower of oily fire on a housewife’s body and then ignited, melting the skin of women all over the country. When the fire had been put out, the victim was usually taken to a hospital, where the entire episode was chalked up to an accident or attempted suicide.
One evening when I was trying to use my tennis ball to kill the flies resting on the wall, a frail old masi, a woman recognized as an elder of the mohalla, leathered by time and wearing a lungi, entered the house and hurriedly gathered the women. I could hear the word afsos—meaning, in this context, How tragic!—over and over.
“She was wearing polyester!” exclaimed the masi.
“Oh, she was done for then,” said Dadi Ma. “That stuff melts and sticks to the skin!”
“They say it was an accident,” said the masi.
“Oh, please!” scoffed Ammi. “Stove explodes and it’s an accident? That’s a cover-up! They always call it accident; that’s what they always say! It has to be the mother-in-law!”
“Oh, how can you accuse her?” Dadi Ma—herself a mother-in-law—said defensively. “I’m sure it wasn’t—”
“Poor girl!” Ammi continued. “It sounds like third-degree burns. Is she at the hospital now?”
“Yes, and her baby is at home!” offered the masi.
“I pray for Allah’s mercy,” said my older aunt.
“Me too—but it was definitely the mother-in-law!” Ammi said.
“You! Stop saying such horrible things!” Dadi Ma said reproachfully.
“Such things are common,” the masi said. “What can you say? Kismet had bad things in store for the poor girl.”
I followed the conversation avidly. However, within a few minutes of hearing about the incident I forgot about it, the image of a burn victim replaced by dead flies.
A few hours later I went to the kitchen and noticed Ammi sitting in front of the stove, turning a roti with her fingertips. When the bread puffed up, she pulled me over. “Look how it’s filling up. It’s Allah’s way of telling us that the person who is going to eat this roti is very hungry.”
As I glanced at the roti, it occurred to me that Ammi was using a kerosene stove—the sort of stove that had blown up in that woman’s face. I imagined this stove blowing up in Ammi’s face. Her curly hair going crisp. Her face melting off her bones. Her screams echoing in the empty alley. I threw my arms around Ammi and buried my face in her neck.
“Ammi,” I asked, “is your stove going to blow up?”
“God forbid,” she said, slapping me on the shoulder. “Mine is fine.” Then, in a louder voice so that Dadi Ma could hear, she added, “And my mother-in-law doesn’t want to hurt me.”
“Then why did that woman catch fire?”
“Look here,” Ammi said, opening up a second stove sitting near her. “The girl’s stove, to explode like that, must have been tampered with. See, a stove has three parts. The bottom bowl is for the oil, and there’s a shell that protects these twelve cotton strands”—she gestured at them—“that suck the oil to the top. When the stove burns, it’s actually these strands that are burning. But if just one or two strands fall down, or if they’re removed by a malicious person, that creates a vacuum in the system, and during cooking the fire travels down the shell and into the bowl of oil, causing it to explode and splashing the cook with