I’ve documented my hate-hate relationship with the colony of the living dead I call home. Let’s call it Colon Lane. Colon Lane is a strange little street; a self constrained cul-de-sac, it is adjacent to high-end real estate but looks as far from high-end as the area gets. The houses are modest, with crumbling facades, rusted gates and manholes that need to be replaced. It’s the kind of place where all the houses started out one-storied but then the owners added another floor over the years as a way to show off, because that matters here. The families in these houses have lived here for decades, but now it’s mainly filled with nosy women who’ve outlived their husbands, married off their children and are desperate for something to obsess over. I am that something. Life here is a cross between Elizabeth Gaskell’s novels and NSA surveillance.
Their ringleader used to be my erstwhile next-door neighbor and archenemy Mrs. Marzi (I encourage you all to develop an archenemy; it does no end of good for one’s powers of focus and resilience). When I first moved into my place here, she would clock with interest what I was up to from behind our shared wall. New plants, a new coat of paint, bathroom repairs; absolutely nothing was too small for Mrs. Marzi to notice and file in her Big Book of Grievances. I would often see her standing on the corner of the street talking to more docile members of Colon Lane with great passion in what I assume was a diatribe about me, since I was the newest ingredient in this stale stew. Every time I drove by on these occasions they would stop and disperse like girls caught smoking in a school bathroom. I’d smile knowingly, they’d smile defiantly, we would all clench, and as I turned the corner they’d reform like synchronized swimmers of intrigue. Mrs. Marzi would send me passive-aggressive messages through gardeners about how I should cut my trees (she resented when branches blocked her view of my life, so I grew a wall of bamboo so tall you’d think this is China), or else questioned my cook about what exactly I did all day and how much everything in the house cost. Once or twice she even sent the neighborhood board people, accusing me of illegal building. When Mrs. Marzi died of a massive coronary brought on by what I can only assume was her righteous outrage, I felt the loss of her presence acutely but not without a measure of relief.
I encourage you to develop an archenemy, it does no end of good for your powers of focus and resilience
But even my battles with Mrs. Marzi hadn’t prepared me for Friday night. I was sitting at home having dinner alone when my cook knocked on my door and said that there were some armed policemen outside asking him about me. That is never something you want to experience here, ever. I went outside and saw two policemen flanked by two well-built bearded men, all staring me down. Without introductions, they began asking gruffly how long I had lived in the house, what I did, what my name was, who my domestic staff were and more. I told them, politely, to produce some kind of ID or documentation to tell me who they were and why they were asking me such probing questions.
“Do you have any IDs?” I asked.
“No,” said one. “We are here on a routine check up.”
“Do you often make routine checkups at 10 pm on a Friday night?”
I was suspicious, and so I asked them to come back either with some kind of ID or some official request and closed the gate door. Ten minutes later there was another angry knock and this time there were nine men in a semi circle, all of whom were staring at me. Again, the questions began but this time from a portly superior officer. He too didn’t show me an ID but introduced the other men as Military Intelligence and then looked at me defiantly.
Oh no, I thought.
“That’s great, but I still don’t know why you’re at my house at night asking me questions,” I said airily, feigning elite outrage. “The neighborhood authorities have my ID; they know who I am. So, again, what’s with the questions?”
They claimed they were speaking to everyone in the neighborhood but when I looked down the street there was nothing. Not a soul. I began to get worried. I asked them to show me the info they had collected so far to prove this claim. They didn’t have anything.
What would I do? These guys had guns
That’s when the MI guy spoke up for the first time. He too didn’t introduce himself (where have all the manners gone?), but stepped up to me in what was an unmistakably aggressive stance. This was clearly meant to intimidate me (and not gonna lie, it worked) but one of the advantages of being a tall person is that you can look down on everyone all the time and I stood my ground. He dispensed with any pretense and began asking me specific, pointed questions. Actually, they were statements, not questions. He didn’t ask things as much as tell me stuff in an accusatory tone; about my schedule, about how many cooks have come and gone in the last two years, about when and how often I leave the house etc. He knew more than a stranger should or could, and it dawned on me then that I had been watched. They were not in Colon Lane for a routine check, they were at my house specifically.
I have never been in this position before, standing in the dark of night surrounded by a group of shady armed men forming a semi-circle around me, and the experience was making me very uncomfortable. I realized that were anything to happen, were they to deicide to take me or in any way harm me, I was pathetically vulnerable. My cook couldn’t help (as he was shaking in a corner), and I still had no idea who they were, nor did anyone know they were here. What would I do? Threaten them with my way with words or witty asides? These guys had guns.
So I called my family and put them on the phone with the main interrogator so that at least someone knew what was happening. Thankfully, this surprised him. Eventually I said my parents wanted to speak with the goons in person and everyone was en route so if they could just wait a bit then they would have their answers. This disturbed them even more, and they began saying how I was making a big deal out of nothing. I smiled as best I could, offered them tea, told them to wait a few more minutes and locked my gate. Eventually we got things sorted (mainly by name-dropping, a Lahori weapon of choice) and they left, but my anxiety didn’t. I still don’t know why they were here, who they were or if they will return.
Now I think of Mrs. Marzi and her meddlesome ways with something like melancholy affection.
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