A Punjabi customs official who inspects my suitcase looks behind shirts, pants, underwear. I can see one miniature bottle of Bell's Whisky in each of his eyeballs. I am safe. No alcohol. Twirling his long moustache, a thud to the passport, he clears me.

I engage in the hectic process of trying to get a cab. The airport parking lot swarms with cabbies who try to snatch your suitcase from your hands and settle you into the back seat of a Japanese made car; Pakistan does not have a national car manufacturer, unlike India. I get ripped off, but at only, I find out later, three times the normal rate, not such a rip off if one considers what political scientists and historians are writing about.

We move along Jail Road. I recline in the back seat, watching street lights, palm trees, roadside fruit and nut sellers with hissing lamps, then Fatima Jinnah Road. The cabby turns, gears down, gears up, slips along past the concrete banked canal. With a series of wrestling movements at the steering wheel, we proceed to a neighbourhood of large houses with huge lawns, servants, and palm trees. I recognize nothing. A few days after I arrive, there is a huge dinner party at my distant relative's house; the gathering is for someone returning from the UN. Silk saris and silk shalwar kamezes blend with heavily perfumed men and women. There is curried chicken which the Moslem guests eat with their hands and the Christians eat with a fork, pushing morsels of rice and khura gosht ka masala mixed with ratha, a mixture of thinly sliced cucumber and yogurt, onto an opposing spoon.

A Christian servant who pretends he can't understand a word of Urdu brings in a huge tray of biryani, a dish made with lamb or some other meat layered with basmati rice and almonds. Of course he understands Urdu; he's a liar. The rice is followed by a bright red dish of curried lamb ribs. On one side of the table is yellow fish curry, decorated with large hoops of onions and bits of plucked coriander. On the opposite end of the table is a plate of karhi, balls of basan ka atta in a neon yellow sauce laced with cloves of garlic. The smell of fresh coriander makes me dizzy. Beside this yellow dish is a mound of deep fried triangular pakoras -- fried pockets of flour with bits of vegetables and meat.

The party slowly moves out from the drawing room, leaving the Schubert sonata by itself. The guests orbit around the food table to load up their plates; some settle into chairs or the couch, others just stand around, plate in hand, talking: gup shupping. In between the chicken curry and pulau is a thirty centimetre high stack of flat bread called basan ki roti, cooked with bits of dried onion. An older woman servant brings out the salad. The men at this party are all powerful members of the establishment. Some, however, are followed by the dreaded Central Intelligence Department. Everyone feels secular tonight. Moslems come traditionally dressed, though mostly all the men wear suits and ties. A friend of my uncle's turns to me and says, "Many Blacks in Canada? You know, I work for the UN and I go to New York often, in fact I even live there at times. I must say I'm allergic to the Blacks."

"So you have difficulty with Black people?"
"Yes I do."

I turn towards the food but he sticks to me, plate in one hand, fork in the other. "Looks good, all this food. You know, I divide the whole human race into two -- the civilized ones, like us Pakistanis, perhaps a few Indians even, who understand the use of green coriander, and those who don't -- those Eastern European tribes. What do you think -- is it nice to be back here?"

My aunt is sitting in front of me in the palatial front room which has a twelve foot Christmas tree subtly decorated with only one colour of balls -- light blue. Taste.

I have been here only a few days and already she seems to know me well. She is about to have a little fun with me. "Our Julian is a strange case. He comes back all this distance to talk to the opposition for a hobby. To talk to a few left leaning people, to talk to the opposition who have gained their fame by going to jail. Julian, didn't I tell you about all the delicious food all those prominent left people have sent to themselves in their jail cells -- with the approval of government?" I am about to offer a reply, but her slender hand goes up to hush me. She moves her professional hands in a slow beautiful musical arch. She has on an expensive perfume from her shopping spree in Paris.

Her husband always wears a suit, even to bed. He looks at me, smiles, looks directly back at his wife, replies in Urdu. "Jee ha mere jan. Yes, you're right, dear, he comes back to talk to the opposition people just for quick chats, 'for interviews,' he says, and then he will swoop off back to Canada without, without -- and this is most surprising of all -- he does not even think of taking back a wife. Yes, you're right -- ajeebe this one is." He gathers up some rice with his spoon, a little bit of yogurt, a small piece of mango pickle, and it all goes into his mouth.

Some years later, after Zia's plane is blown up, I will recall this conversation with this man and his morsels of mango pickle mixed with rice and curried chicken and Zia's floating body. Spoonful after spoonful descending his throat. The bomb on board Zia's last flight, my mother tells me, was concealed in a crate of mangos given by the head of a province. The daughters have invited college girlfriends. We are surrounded by the greatest concentration of beauty and brains I have seen in years. There are some horny young men here; dicks growing out of their eyes. I'm sweating -- the curry has been made especially hot tonight. My aunt gives me one of her looks, eyeballs to one side of the head. She wears a silk grey and blue sari with a pearl necklace, large oval hoop earrings.

The distant aunt continues her flirtation. "You know, this is what surprises us all the most -- you've come all this way and no interest in a wife? Explain all this to us, will you -- a lot of other hyphenated Canadian or hyphenated American boys have come back to have the roots experience, which is all and well up to a point, and we love having you here, don't misunderstand me, but you can also look for just the right woman. So many here, so many women want to live in Canada -- most prefer America, of course, but Canada is acceptable -- Montréal or something like that." I get the impression this bit of theatre has been planned. She has an audience of bilingual young women who are listening to her every word. Her fork disconnects from her spoon. She arranges both the fork and the spoon neatly near the outer circumference of a plate with red borders, gold lines. The plate is perfectly balanced on her knees. She is a highly respected professional, the head of a section in the government -- a woman -- a minority right up at the top. "Now why don't you send flowers to that nice girl you met at your other relative's house? I know that nice family -- isn't that right, Yasmin?"

"Yes," responds a college girlfriend. Yasmin's voice has the enigmatic authority of Begum Akhtar, the Edith Piaf of the subcontinent. She is making me weak at the knees. Green blue shalwar kameze, oval silver bangles, three of them, a hint of kohl around her eyes which are shaped somewhere between Northern Pakistan and the Chinese border. Urgent breasts. A Marxist. Something sets her apart from the other college women; she has sandals on, without socks, during a secular winter evening. The distant aunt is taking me for a ride. "Look," I say, "this is just a holiday." I'll never get Yasmin to love me if I am made to look like an idiot. I am wearing a beige dinner jacket with blue jeans. Very hip. People notice the jeans. There are several very well decorated guests around me. One of the drop dead beautiful single Pakistani women giggles. "I have just come to see how this place has changed over the years. I'm too scared to start a wife selection process just now. I just got off the flight from Delhi five days ago," I say with confidence.

Yasmin, leader of the college women, puts down her glass of boiled and distilled water, says in Urdu, "Julian jee, we're feminists also." Another femme fatale, Jamila, joins the chorus: "Yes, you should look for a wife. Can we help?" Giggle giggle.

"Where is it that you live? Canada. Oh yes! Pierre Elliott Trudeau. A very intelligent civilian leader." This one might be the perfect choice. But it's Yasmin I want. The distant aunt is right. I should find a wife, teach at the local arts college, write political pamphlets to gain credibility in my spare time, and settle down. Yasmin speaks many languages, has lived in London, Washington, has met Benazir Bhutto twice, and is, my aunt whispers, "doing her doctoral thesis on 'Women, Continuity and Change in the Medieval Islamic City.' You'd be aiming high if she's the one."