They had had a row again. But it was for the first time that so many people at the same time were being made privy to ongoing drama. Entire staff room, about twenty Pakistani teachers and a British headmaster were distracted. The headmaster tried to divert attention from, what looked like a heart going to pieces, by thanking teachers again for the successful parents teacher meeting earlier but he was not very successful. The teachers kept on stealing looks at Miss Lisa and getting fascinated by movie stuff they could never expect to see unraveling before their very eyes. Some of them felt cathartic seeing a Caucasian pining for a colonial. The others felt provoked to help a 'damsel' in distress, without a clue on how.The headmaster left abruptly, rendered irrelevant by Lisa's aggravated sentimentality.

The headmaster's colleague from a school in Geneva, Miss Lisa, a Canadian math teacher, assisted him along with other Pakistani teachers, in starting a Pakistani foundation boarding school, near Lahore. The campus consisted of a magnificent school building, hostels for boys and houses for teachers. She contributed heavily towards the evolvement of curricular and co-curricular activities in the fledgeling school. Discipline in boys activities was her forte. She always preempted and installed herself firmly before time at the likely occasions and venues of 'juvenile crimes'. Her shrill voice was not less than a clarion call to order. There was no circumventing her.She took boys' conduct very seriously and never compromised on its regulation.

She was in her late forties. She had so far successfully resisted being burly but had yet to arrest the tendency completely. She wore her blond hair long, keeping them mostly unfurled past her still erect shoulders. Her casual but dignified dress boosted her nonchalant demeanor. Her full red lips and,large wistful eyes never failed to attract attention. But she didn't seem to put in any conscious effort to look beguiling. It was rather painful sometimes to see her ample feminine charm scattered to four winds.  Was it a vainglorious guise to counter the dread of rejection? It was difficult to ascertain. She never looked demure. It seemed she had long abandoned being coquette more from being weary of eliciting men than premonition of getting hurt. Even remote suggestion of familiarity made her flush not due to inadequacy but rage. Most of the teachers did their utmost to avoid talking to her. She was very successful in nipping the 'evil' in the bud.

It didn't take teachers long to see that athletic Mr. Jamil, an Urdu teacher, who looked a teenager but was actually twenty six years old, was an exception. She melted like early winter snow on sunrise when Jamil appeared. Her forbidding form would instantly get transformed into vanilla vial. Her autumnal years cowered before his lordly youth.

Soon the teachers and the students not only accepted the relationship but also realized that to curry favor with one to the exclusion of other was not a good policy. After classes and even during extra curricular activities they found one pretext or the other to get together. Jamil frequently went to her house (every teacher was allotted a house) at all hours including the odd ones. Owing to headmaster's indifference, violation of Pakistani sensibilities rattled no one.

The relationship climaxed spectacularly. Jamil took Miss Lisa to Charsada to meet his simple and very conservative folks. The pride of being host to a westerner duly evoked Pathan tradition of hospitality. There was celebratory shooting in air and khatak dance (men flaunting their swords in unison) Miss lisa saw it from afar and felt very excited. After having fully availed her chance of causing frenzy during her prime, she could never have hoped to cause so much stir in her late forties. She felt very young all over again.

Miss Lisa took Jamil to Canada during two months long summer vacation. Due to Miss Lisa's inaccessibility the teachers hoped to learn some details of this tour from Jamil. But whenever the subject was raised Jamil blushed and after one or two unintelligible sentences always changed the subject. The teachers' felt free to speculate.

More so because of what ensued. He talked to her obliquely in the presence of others and when she tried to elicit his direct attention he was often curt with her. He carefully avoided to be alone with her in an empty lecture hall or deserted staff room. Lisa's persistent efforts to enthuse him came to nought. He remained unmoved. Jamil was mostly seen lingering or speeding up to avoid contact with her. On one occasion she asked a boy to vacate a dining chair next to Jamil, he left the dining hall without eating.

Ultimately she gave up on him. The break-up was bad and brutal, of course only for Miss Lisa. If anything, Jamil suffered from unexplained embarrassment. Gone was her bounce. Instead, she dragged her feet around in a daze, completely oblivious of what people of an alien culture made out of her meteoric fling with Jamil. As if suddenly, sacks under her eyes claimed notice. Her age and past excesses started asserting again on her physiognomy, after the brief glorious spell she basked in Appolo's light.


PS: Miss Lisa had resigned and gone back to Canada when Jamil brought his young bride to campus.