Pavandanisa

Pav Jasinski  and Anisa Ahmed were seven-years-old and six-and-a-half respectively. They were next-door-neighbours. They were also the-best-of-friends. The hyphens are used here to amalgamate words which are so frequently used together that they have become conglomerate phrases. The two children, likewise, were so frequently seen together that they , too, were hyphenated. Pav-Jasinki-and-Anisa-Ahmed. Pav-and-Anisa. Anisa-and-Pav. Sometimes, even the hyphens themselves were omitted. They became one word on their parents’ lips at dinner time: “Pavandanisaaaa!!”  and one word when their other friends came to play: “Excuuse me Mrs Ahmed, are Pavandanisa at your house?” And in a blur of brown and pink and black and blonde the two would come tumbling through the door like conjoined twins or some mythical creature, the lesser spotted pavandanisa.

They played in each other’s gardens, ate at each other’s tables, lived in each-others pockets. A broad-faced Polish boy and a scrawny Pakistani girl, poster children for Multiculturalbritain, another conglomerate beast whose hyphens had long since fallen by the wayside. Their parents smiled and treated both children as their own, supressing secret fears about the future and when-will-Pav-start-taking-his-Polish-classes-seriously and what-would-happen-when-they-wanted-Anisa-to-marry-a-nice-Muslim-boy. These were things they didn’t want to worry about now, for they could see how happy and innocently their offspring played together in the garden, catching frogs and putting worms in buckets, pudgy white fingers brushing against delicate brown ones in the sandpit.

But how long can anything stay inseparable? Rifts will always form, cultural or otherwise. One day, Mrs Jasinski went into the garden and called, “Pav!” and Mr Ahmed called “Anisa!” and that was where the rift started.

The children were somewhat unused to hear their names called in isolation, from separate sides of the garden fence. It took a few seconds before they seemed to catch on that today they would not be eating together. They were to return to their separate houses, separately separated. Saddened, they slunk indoors, Anisa taking her shoes off at the door and Pav trudging mud into the hallway.

Minutes later, a howl rose up from one house and a wail from the other. Their parents, it seemed, had announced the news. The Ahmeds were moving house so that they would be closer to their mosque and to the single-sex secondary school in the city. Two bedroom doors were heard slamming, one in each house, not quite in unison but in close succession, one loud then one quiet. One quiet then one loud.

The next day, Anisa told Pav she’d come up with a plan that would keep them together forever. She whispered it in his ear and he nodded solemnly, big blue eyes wide open. He waited as she dashed into her house and came back minutes later holding a little box. From the box she took a needle and thread. She had watched her mother thread a needle many times, but her little fingers fumbled with the fraying thread to no avail. Eventually she managed. “This way we’ll be together forever, Pav.” She took his hand in hers and, tongue protruding from her thin lips, started to push the silver needle into the skin on her friend’s hand. He squealed and flinched; a bright spot of blood appeared and his eyes grew even wider. “Don’t be a baby,” Anisa said, trying to sound tough, though her voice betrayed her.

Hours later, having seen neither hide nor hair of the fabled Pavandanisa for a considerable length of time, Mrs Ahmed came out on to the patio to look for them. She immediately shrieked and dropped her cup of tea.  Mr Ahmed rushed out to see what had made his wife emit such a noise, and saw Pav and Anisa lying in a crumpled heap on the grass, covered in red. Pushing past Mrs Ahmed he saw that their hands, her left and his right, entwined in thread and dripping with blood. “ANISA!” he bellowed, dropping to his knees to shake his daughter gently with both hands.

Anisa pursed her lips as tight as she could. Pav wrinkled his nose. They were both doing that thing they’d discovered, where you pretend to close your eyes but you’re looking through your eyelashes. They were both trying not to make a sound. Through his fair lashes, Pav could see the bottle of ketchup lying in the bush behind Anisa, and he let out a brief snigger. She squeezed his hand. The smell, more vinegar than tomatoes, was rising in her nostrils and making them tickle. She snorted slightly, and soon they could no longer conceal their childish mirth; they rolled away from each other, let go of each other’s hands, and ran through the hole in the fence.

Mr Ahmed was left with hands covered in sticky red stuff, which certainly didn’t look like blood. He licked his finger and fought back a smile. “Pavandanisa,” he said, shaking his head. “Pavandanisa.”