For Salma, her Canadian honeymoon barely lasted three weeks and she remembers it like a summer vacation. She felt like a tourist in Toronto, carrying an open map wherever she went, marveling at the new things that delighted her: the huge selection of shampoos in the Shoppers’ Drug Mart, the rows and rows of books in the quiet of the Lillian H. Smith Library, the Music Gardens by the lake. Then, homesickness descended upon her slowly, manifesting in ways she didn’t understand. At first, she found herself growing irritated by silly things, like the cost of a ten-pound sack of Basmati rice or the unfamiliar quiet outside her window at night. Later, she found herself criticizing nearly everything that was different from home: the smells of Toronto pavement after a rain, the slow pace of the downtown pedestrians, the way she had to repeat her name three times before the Canadians seemed to be able to hear it.
She tried to hide her feelings from Shaffiq, who reveled in the newness, the freshness, the adventure of being out of India.
“Look Salma, see how clean everything is here! Not a speck of dirt on these sidewalks.” This was a month after they had arrived in Canada and the family was out for a walk through Yorkville, touring the city on a sunny Saturday. Shaffiq had wanted to check out a variety of Toronto neighbourhoods and so Asima had given them a TTC map and told them to get off at Bay Station. “Everthing is so clean and white here.”
“I remember, before Asima’s family came here, people used to say that the sidewalks in North America were lined with gold,” Salma scoffed.
“Yes, now we are more realistic, no? We just want clean. And we have that much. Bombay could never be like this.”
“Mummy, is that a beggar?” Saleema asked, as they passed a panhandler sitting in front of a fancy dress shop.
“Yes, I think so. Children, don’t stare like that. I suppose there are poor people here too,” Salma whispered.
“Yes, but not like in India. Here the beggars collect money from the government and then ask for money on the street. Remember what Quaid told us?” But Salma wasn’t so sure it was true. The man on the sidewalk didn’t look so different from Bombay beggars. “And anyway,” Shaffiq continued, “There are so few of them here. In Bombay you can’t walk one meter before hearing “paisa, paisa, paisa.” Look, an ice cream shop. Children, shall we have some ice-creams?”
Although she tried, Salma could not share Shaffiq’s optimism. While he looked back with disdain at India and forward in anticipation to their lives in Canada, she could not stop thinking about what she was missing back home. How were her students doing? Was the new teacher treating them well? Had her friend Ritu had the baby yet?
During her second month in Toronto, as she willed herself to push aside her homesickness and focus on settling in Canada, her nostalgia for home morphed into an obsession with her delayed trunk. She began to fixate on its arrival and felt that perhaps she would begin to feel better, more like a happy immigrant, if she could only have this last piece of luggage with her. She would do mental inventories of the items inside, trying to remember all of her belongings yet to come. At night, she dreamed about its contents: her old college books, an ancient shawl given to her by her nani, her wedding sari. Sometimes the dreams transformed into nightmares of her prized keepsakes being lost forever: a plane crash where her trunk sinks to the bottom of the sea; a corrupt agent stealing it away and handing out her possessions to his family; a mistake in the address label that sends it forever to the opposite side of the globe.
On nights when she awoke in the dark, these bad dreams fresh in her mind, her chest and neck wet with perspiration, she told herself, it’s coming, it will all be here soon. The rest of our things will come and then we can finally settle down.
When they got the call that their shipment had arrived, Salma was elated. She watched as Shaffiq and the Pakistani driver loaded the trunk and some boxes into a cab at the airport. For a moment she wondered if they had picked up the right trunk because it seemed smaller and shabbier than the one she had remembered. But of course it was hers; it had her name on it and it had been her imagination that made the trunk larger than life. And what was inside it anyway? She scolded herself for placing so much emphasis on this trunk full of useless keepsakes. Her eyes filled with tears and Shaffiq held her hand on the way home, confused at his wife’s distress.
She unpacked the boxes first, emptying their contents into closets and drawers. After a few days, she opened the trunk and decided to leave it in the bedroom as a storage box. She didn’t need any of the superfluous things in there anyway.
Today, she digs through the trunk knowing that it holds something of value. She takes out her old teaching textbooks. She flips through them, remembering her college days. She unfolds her nani’s shawl, holding it to her nose for the smell of India beneath the mustiness. Then, she finds what she has been looking for under her marriage sari. She pulls out an old photo album, its binding weak and its cover peeling, and flips through the plastic-covered pages.
She is not entirely sure why she packed this particular photo album at the bottom of her trunk, instead of with the others that came with them on the journey. Perhaps it was because this album is filled with memories of her life before she met Shaffiq, before the children came, before she really grew up. When people get married, their belongings stop being his or hers, mine and yours. They become ours. This album is about a life before this one, a lifetime ago. It is hers.
Inside, she looks at a photo of herself as an infant. In black and white, she sees how similar she looked to Saleema at the same age. She smiles at the possibility that her eldest daughter will grow up to look very much like her. She knows that Shireen will resemble her father more, as she already does.
There are photos of herself and her older brother, Rahim, at Chowpatty beach, drinking Thum’s Up and smiling into the camera. She looks to be five or six, while he is almost a man, tall, lanky, and clumsy in his body. A few pages later there is a graduation photo of her and beside it, one of herself and Ritu standing proudly together on their final day of classes.
She continues to turn the pages and holds her breath. And there it is. A photo of Raj, herself, and two of Raj’s friends in Lonavala, during a weekend trip they took together. They stand together like pals, each woman slinging an arm around the other, looking happy. She never showed that photo to her family.
Over a year later, when she packed up her belongings to be shifted to Shaffiq’s flat after their marriage, she found the photo and slid it into her photo album. She wanted to file the memory of Raj away in this book, put the photo in its place, so to speak. Later, when she unpacked her boxes in Shaffiq’s room, she showed him the album and explained that the photo was of a group of friends she hadn’t seen in many years. He looked closely at the photo, inquiring about her friends and why they lost touch. He commented that they all seemed close at one time.
Now, she pulls the photo from its sticky plastic sheath and holds it up to the light. There she stands beside Raj, her arm around her and holding her waist, while Raj’s left hand grazes her shoulder. She can’t see her own left arm, but it looks like it is behind Maya’s back. And beside Maya is Anjali, who is pulled in close to Maya. The four women pose good-naturedly for the camera, but there is a measure of tense caution in their stances. Everyone shines white teeth smiles at the photographer, except for Raj. Her round, young face tilts toward Salma at an angle that obscures her expression.
Chapter 20
SHAFFIQ IS DREAMING. He is wet all over, sweating through his cotton pajamas. Still asleep, he throws off the covers to cool his warm body. He wonders why Nasreen’s office is so bloody hot. He sits down on a red upholstered chair, resting in her muggy office. Drops of sweat roll down from his forehead into his thick eyebrows. He reaches for his handkerchief and finds his pant pockets empty. Nasreen sits opposite him in her ergonomic chair, looking placid and cool, a yellow steno notepad ready in her lap. He is aware that she is waiting for
him to speak and so, finally, he begins to talk.
At first he is unsure what to say, after all, he has never been to see a therapist before. He explains why he brought his family to Canada. He tells Nasreen that even though Salma had not wanted to come, it was the best thing to do. Nasreen doesn’t look up at him, continues to write on her notepad. He glances over and sees that she is writing in Gujarati, a language he can speak, but is unable to read well. She has not once made eye contact, has not shown any sympathy whatsoever for him. In fact, she appears to be bored. Then, it occurs to him that perhaps she doesn’t believe him, so then he starts to yell, his dream logic telling him this is the best way to have her take him seriously. In his loudest voice, he insists that coming to Canada was the best thing to do. He gives her all the good reasons for leaving India, the same arguments he gave Salma and his friends, trying to convince Nasreen, make her see his point of view.
She stares back at him vacantly, disinterested. She looks at her watch. This inane gesture makes him furious and he yells even louder, standing over her, waving his fist at her, demanding that she listen to him. Eventually, she turns away from him and faces her computer and types something. He shouts, “But this is my home now.” Still she does not respond, so he grabs her shoulders and shakes her roughly, and her head wobbles back and forth on her neck, like a newborn’s. She points to the computer screen, directing him to read what she has typed. He does so, but he cannot understand the writing. It looks like gibberish to him. He tries to remember his elementary school lessons, to sound out the Gujarati script, the way he instructs Shireen to do with difficult words in her school reader. But still, Nasreen’s writing is incomprehensible to him. Then he watches as Nasreen presses Control-Alt-Delete and the screen goes empty. Then she picks up her phone and dials Shaffiq’s home phone number.
Salma picks up the phone after the first ring and soon he is awake. Shaffiq turns over in the bed and pulls the blankets up to his chin; his drying sweat has chilled his body. The heavy curtains are drawn shut, but he can just make out a sliver of sunshine invading the dark. He hears Salma’s voice talking to someone on the telephone while the television murmurs quietly from the living room. He goes to the bathroom, empties his full bladder, flushes and then follows Salma’s voice to the living room. She glances up and after a few moments, hangs up the phone tiredly.
“You’re up early.”
“Yes, I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.”
“Oh, was it the phone that woke you up? I tried to get it fast so it wouldn’t ring too long.”
“Must have been. It’s OK, I was having a bad dream. Who called?”
“It was Asima. She wanted to know if I am going to join her this week. Shaffiq, maybe you should come along. It is soon going to be Ramadan.”
“I don’t know, Salma. You know I don’t get much out of going to mosque.” Shaffiq feels himself growing irritable. He studies her face and wonders if this will turn into an argument.
“Well, I think I’ll start taking the girls. Just on the important days for now, and then if they are interested I’ll take them more often.”
“Were you interested in going to mosque at their age? I can’t think of anything more boring for a child. But take them if you want.” He says tiredly, wanting to return to his bed, “Let them decide.”
“You will come with us at least one time, won’t you? At least do that.”
“Yes, alright, if I am not working. You know in this country they don’t give us a holiday to go to the mosque.”
“They didn’t in India either. Or don’t you remember?” She watches Shaffiq retreat into the hallway, and then she says to his back, “I think I’ll do the rosas this year.”
“Fasting? Really Salma, this is such a change I’m seeing in you! When have you ever fasted?” Shaffiq feels himself waking up, alarmed at his wife’s changes, and warming to the idea of a big argument with her.
“When I was younger, before we met, I fasted a few times. Not the whole month, but part of it anyway. You know even though we weren’t so devout, my family did observe some of our traditions.”
“OK, whatever suits you Salma. But the children will not fast. They are too young for that. I don’t understand this change in you. Aren’t we supposed to be moving forward in Canada? Instead you are turning back, acting like an old woman, behaving like they did in our parents’ generation. What for?”
“I am just going to the mosque, Shaffiq. How is that going backwards? And what do you mean about moving forward? How have we gone forward in this country? You clean toilets for a living in the middle of the night. I work in a dry cleaners. Moving forward? If I want to fast or go to the mosque, can you blame me?”
Shaffiq stares at his wife’s reddening face. His own fury and fear blocks his words and so he stares silently at her angry, strange expression. Has she looked at him this way before? Has he ever provoked such ire? A new, unfamiliar feeling grips him as she turns away from him. He is about to respond, to fight back, or maybe to try to appease her but then, just as he opens his mouth, the lock turns, signaling the return of Shireen and Saleema, back from school. He stomps off to the bedroom.
Salma attempts to swallow her anger and greets the girls as they enter the apartment. As she walks past the painting of the raani, she feels the servant’s eyes following her. She takes a long look at the painting, sighing, interpreting the servant’s and the raani’s expressions to be sympathetic toward her.
Nasreen sits in a circle among her peers, explaining her confusion about Miranda’s phone message.
“So I guess my question is, should I call her back and try to engage in a dialogue about her decision to terminate therapy?”
“My instinct would be to respect her wishes at face value. Let her call you again when she wants to resume contact. Allow her the control,” says Michael, Nasreen’s next-door office neighbour.
“I think it might depend on what kind of rapport you have with her,” suggests Joan, the most senior therapist on their team. “I would only challenge her decision – which, by the way, I agree with your analysis that she is terminating early because she is afraid of her own grief – if you have a strong rapport with her. Otherwise she will not be able to hear your point of view.”
“Well, I’ve only seen her a few times. I don’t think we have a strong rapport. But would it do her any harm for me to challenge her decision? I mean, she clearly cannot see that she is once again repeating a pattern of dumping therapy just when she is getting somewhere. Isn’t it my job to point that out?”
“Nasreen, what I’m hearing is that you feel very strongly about this client, perhaps more than you normally would. Is there any counter-transference going on here?” Noseywendy says this with the pleasant-looking smile she uses when wanting to avoid seeming critical.
“Um, I don’t think so. I just think that she is going to go round and round until she shifts her pattern. Her problems clearly stem from her unresolved mother-grief issues. I’d like to help her understand that,” says Nasreen defensively.
“And that’s what bothers you?” asks Noseywendy. “Her grief issues?”
“Bingo,” says Michael.
“Bingo? What does that mean?”
“Sorry Nasreen, but I have to agree with Wendy. What do you and Miranda have in common?”
“Oh, right. I guess I’ll have to think about that,” says Nasreen quietly. The three other psychologists study their shoes until Wendy suggests they move onto another case.
On the next Monday, Nasreen arrives at her Gujarati teacher’s apartment a little late, very wet, and out of breath. Saleema appears at the door and opens it wide for her, averting her gaze in a flush of nine-year-old shyness. The girl says a muffled hello and then disappears to the far corner of the room. Shireen skips forward, takes her place and asks, “Khem, cho! Khem cho! How are you! How are you! See I know Gujarati too!” The words fly
out enthusiastically, along with a spray of spittle through the gap between her front teeth.
“Uh huh, majama chun. And I see the tooth fairy has come to visit you,” Nasreen says, wiping her face and smiling at the girl.
“Yes, I only got a quarter. My friend Melanie got a toonie.”
“Next time, if you keep being so greedy, you will only get a penny,” says Salma, standing with her arms folded across her chest. Shireen pouts theatrically, and Salma sends her to play in her room. She takes Nasreen’s soaking wet coat and hangs it in the hall closet and then steers her into the kitchen.
“As you can see, the children are home tonight. Their playmates down the hall are out, but I’ve told them to leave us alone.”
“Oh, I don’t mind. They’re very sweet.”
“Sometimes a little sour too. But where is Asha? She didn’t come?”
“No, she’s not feeling well. She’s got that bad cold that’s going around.”
“Too bad. Well, you’ll get my undivided attention tonight.” As though uttering an unexpected faux pas, Salma looks away uncomfortably, “I mean, we could focus on the vocabulary you’d like, if you want.”
“Great,” says Nasreen, now also feeling awkward. She hasn’t given Asha’s comments about Salma’s crush much thought, but suddenly, without Asha in the room, the notion that Salma could be attracted to her seems to take up all the space in the apartment.
“But look at you, you are drenched. I will find you a towel.”
Stealing Nasreen Page 18
