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inconvenient flight, instead of going straight from London? She switches off her light, puts in earplugs, falls asleep again, and wakes only when the cart comes around with tea. It is six-thirty in the morning, and an hour later they land in Lahore.

    She sees Rukhsana waiting for her on the other side of the customs barrier, looking nearly the same, a woman ten years younger than Sonia, maybe grown little plumper over the last year or so, startlingly like her father in drag. She is wearing a dark Western suit and blouse with a chiffon scarf draped loosely around her head as a sop to propriety. Expensive sunglasses perch above her broad brow. She is a reporter for the liberal English paper
The Daily Times
and has seen no reason to quit this job just because she is married and a mother.
    The two woman embrace warmly. Rukhsana says, smiling, “
Lahore Lahore hai
,” Lahore is Lahore, which is how residents of that city greet one another after a long absence, as if to affirm that there is no other place fit to live in. Rukhsana fights Sonia over Sonia’s bag, wins, links arms with her, and carries her out of the terminal. A sprightly blue Morris is parked right at the curb, in violation of traffic regulations but protected by a large card on the dash that reads PRESS in English and Urdu. The two women drive off into the insane Lahore traffic, west on Durand Road, through the death-defying intersection by the Lahore Press Club, past the Provincial Assembly, and down Egerton Road to the Mall, which no true Lahori ever calls by its new properly Muslim name.
    While they drive, Rukhsana talks; family first. The children, Hassan, Iqbal, and Shirin, are fine in health and accomplishments; husband Jafar is fine too, in health and accomplishments; she speaks also of his defects, which are numerous, both physical and mental. Her brother Nisar remains chubby and sly, mistresses galore, richer than ever although a little nervous now, trying to maintain his place on the spinning circus ball of Pakistani politics. Seyd, the baby brother, recently made major,still a pompous pain in the you-know-where, dreadful politics, a supporter of the recently deposed general. Sonia asks what Nisar thinks about the conference they are organizing, the reason Sonia has returned to Lahore.
    “Oh, you will hear that from his own lips. I suppose he is as interested in it as in anything else that does not immediately put money into his pocket. Or votes.”
    From which they pass to a précis of the current political situation in her nation and the familiar defects of the foreign policy of the United States.
    “No wonder you are losing!” Rukhsana says. “Pakistan is stupid enough, but we are all Bismarck compared to you. Why is this, Sonia? People ask me, because I was educated in America, so I am the expert. What can I tell them?”
    “You can tell them that not one American in ten thousand can distinguish Iraq from Iran or find Pakistan on a map. We are not a subtle people.”
    “Oh, you can say that again! The British were bad enough, but at least they made the effort to understand. They spoke the languages, they knew the history, and still they made terrible errors. But nothing like this. Our country is coming apart, and it all comes from what you are doing. You know how I know this? My brother is moving funds out of Pakistan, so when it collapses we will not be standing in our shirts. This is what we’ve come to.”
    She pauses to honk at a motor rickshaw driver who has swerved into her path, a long blast nearly unheard over the continuous honking of the other traffic.
    To change the subject, Sonia observes, “The traffic has gotten worse. I wouldn’t have believed it possible.”
    “Yes, Lahore is unlivable now, but we still live here. I’m glad I have this Mini. Jafar wants me to use the Mercedes, but can you imagine trying to steer that boat in this mess? Look, there is the High Court. Do remember when you used to drive us children to meet my