I’ve said it
before and I’ll say it again. I’m not a
big fan of short stories. They are too quick for proper emotional
investment, and usually too sparse for me to connect with. Most of them also
seem to have abrupt, pointless endings that leave things open to
interpretation, which, as a very personal preference, I do not like.
That’s why Madiha
Sattar’s The Left Behind straddles
the very subjective line between
good stuff and meh. Some of the stuff was great, and some was unbelievably
senseless. And some of the stuff wasn’t necessarily a flaw in the story, but it
still bothered me enough to ruin the reading experience. Case in point:
Baba the 86-year-old cobbler has three sons.
The missing commas bothered the internal
editor in me. Years of proofing manuscripts will do that to you, but is that a
valid criticism of the story itself? And should plot, characters, or pacing be
of greater value than basic comma placement? You can be the judge yourself, but
when the first sentence starts like that, I’m already biased.
But while the editing might be wonky, the
story does pack in a lot of material for such a short word count. When we
begin, our nameless heroine is spending her days sitting next to an old cobbler
who has three sons. While the first two have been a disappointment, the third
has mysteriously vanished, picked up from the shop where he was trying to earn
a little cash, and not seen since then. Our heroine, desperate to find someone
who will understand her own misery at her husband leaving her, likes to share
food and drink with this man so far removed from her station, but who can
seemingly understand her pain. And I must admit that the unconventionality of
it all thrilled me.
A few passersby stare, wondering what a woman like me
and a man like him could be in such deep conversation about, but most in this
city are too hurried to care.
What also helps is the comfort of
familiarity in stories such as these. Madiha Sattar sounds like she’s writing
about Pakistan, and refers to Pakistan in the fluency of someone who knows what
it’s like to live here. When reviews about books situated in specific cities in
America or Australia or Canada talked about how the reader knew the streets, I never understood why that was such a great
thing until I started reading Pakistani literature, and now I know. Recognition
of places and people and cultures in books can be such a high, because you see
yourself reflected in ways you didn’t imagine. Especially for someone like me,
who has subsisted throughout her teens on a diet of North American young adult
literature, reading such South Asian-specific settings is such a revelation.
“Baba” is the name we use for men with white hair and
old tales, a generic label that conveys respect and fondness but doesn’t
presume intimacy. I do not know his real name; it would be impertinent to ask.
Even the uglier, seedier underbelly of this
country, stark and horrible as it may be, still resonates with me, primarily
because it is something I know, something I have lived with. In Pakistan,
understanding what a gummy sack means, and what a bori band lash (https://tribune.com.pk/story/277364/what-lies-beneath-2/)
is, is integral to the growing up process. I think, and I hope, that children
growing up now won’t know what it is, but the 90’s were violent, and my early
years included rumours of such things all the time. That is what makes this
story so much relevant to our history, and so important as a subject matter to
discuss.
In this country, certain words have developed more
precise meanings. Dead bodies that have been “dumped” belong to living bodies
that were once picked up.
Our story truly begins when Baba’s youngest
son, Saeed, whose memory the old cobbler holds on to with tenacity, suddenly
seemingly turns up one day. Baba tells our heroine that his son has been found,
or to be more precise, a few corpses have been discovered. The implication that
she should come along to help him is obvious, which is when we discover why
she’s spending her days sitting next to the old cobbler. Her own husband, after
fifteen years of togetherness, suddenly disappeared, leaving her alone and
frazzled.
“Why did they take Saeed, Baba?” I persist, hoping, as
I always do when I ask him this question, for an answer that will cut my own
bewildered pain down to the size I know it should have in a time and place
breeding injustices more significant than my own.
A missing spouse seems like a smaller pain
compared to the loss and probable death of a child through kidnapping and
torture, particularly a spouse who seemingly left on his own. But Madiha Sattar
tackles this part of the story well, using only a few sentences to set up a
whole past to explain the present, to justify why our heroine feels the way she
feels. I want to appreciate the fact that the pain of losing a loved one is so
deftly explored, but at the same time I can’t help but point out that in such a
limited word length, it’s hard to tackle topics in detail. What I would have
liked would have been an extended discussion about the heroine’s background, a
greater analysis of the commonalities between her experience and that of Baba,
on people who disappear and reappear as corpses. Unfortunately, while the story
sets up an interesting dynamic, I couldn’t get fully invested and care too
much, even as our heroine set off with Baba to identify his son. We never do
get to find out why her husband left, or how their relationship progresses once
he comes back. What happens to the rest of their social circle: her husband’s
parents, siblings, best friends? Who was the girl for whom her husband left
her? Unanswered questions – an unfortunate side effect of the short story
format – are what lessened my enjoyment of this title, even if that’s the
reason a lot of people seem to primarily love these stories. If only this was a novel, I could have cared
more.
Recommendation:
It seems there’s been a recent trend with
me reading books that I didn’t personally like, but would understand if someone
else loved. This also falls into the same category. But it's most definitely the kind of book that you could analyze and dissect and form ten million tangents. Perfect for reading during lit classes and South Asian literature discussions. Read it if you wish.