“With the rain, I thought I’d be really late. The TTC took forever.”
“Well, at least it is rush hour. Lots of buses. My husband comes home from his job each day around five a.m., and if he misses his bus, he has to wait a long time.” She hands Nasreen a red and white flowered towel.
“Thanks. Wow, five a.m.? What’s he do?” says Nasreen, searching to make conversation and relieved to be discussing Salma’s husband.
“He used to be an accountant in Bombay, but in Toronto he is a janitor, at a hospital downtown,” Salma says, scrutinizing Nasreen’s face. It reveals nothing. “‘No Canadian experience’, they tell him when he applies. You know he has looked for a more suitable job for two years, since we first arrived.”
“That’s awful, Salma. And you were a teacher in India, right?” Salma nods. “Our system needs to change. You know, every other cab driver in Toronto is like, a doctor or engineer,” Nasreen adds sympathetically.
“Well at least the hospital pays over minimum wage, and has some benefits.”
“Oh yeah? Which one’s he at?”
“The Institute of Mental Health.”
“Hey, that’s where I work! You mean on College Street?”
“The same.” Salma arranges some Gujarati flash cards on the kitchen table, busying herself. “I wonder if you have met him. Though you work such different jobs, maybe you would not have crossed paths.” She looks directly into Nasreen’s eyes.
“What’s his name? I’ve seen a couple of Indian janitors there. There’s one guy who’s very friendly … I can’t remember his name,” Nasreen’s face scrunches up in concentration.
“Shaffiq,” says Salma.
“Shaffiq,” says Nasreen, a quarter second later. “Wow, that’s amazing. I wonder if he’s the same one? I probably talk to him once a week. What a coincidence if his wife’s my Gujarati teacher!”
“Yes,” says Salma, her back to Nasreen. “That would be quite a coincidence. Here, let me help you.” She takes the towel from Nasreen and rubs her wet hair with it. Salma is a bright woman. The synapses in her brain flash double-quick, linking Shaffiq with Nas through the crumpled itinerary and the teardrop earring.
“Oh, that’s OK, I’ll do it.” Nasreen reaches up for the towel but Salma steps aside, moving behind her and out of reach.
“Look, the water soaked right through your coat and blouse.” She slips the towel down the back of Nasreen’s green blouse and wipes her wet skin. “This won’t do. You’ll get sick.” Nasreen’s back warms under Salma’s towel strokes. “Come, let me give you something to change into.”
“Really, I’m fine, I’m just a bit damp.”
“No, no. Follow me, I will find something for you to put on.”
Nasreen obediently follows Salma down the hall. They pass the kids’ room, the sound of girlish arguing leaking from beneath the door. They enter the master bedroom, really just a room large enough for a double bed, a chunky dresser, a trunk and an ironing board. Salma pulls open the closet door and roots around, looking for something while Nasreen scans some framed family photos on the dresser. There is a small bottle of Fleur de Jardin, her mother’s favourite perfume sitting amongst a circle of moisturizers and lipsticks. The sight of the perfume makes her catch her breath for a moment and her mind troubles over why she hadn’t identified Salma’s familiar fragrance before. She rubs her forefinger over the smooth glass of the bottle. A garden path opens up in her mind and her mother walks through it, arranging her sari as she readies herself to go out to a party. She uncaps the Fleur de Jardin, and holding the bottle out a foot from her arm, spritzes her left wrist. She offers her wrist for Nasreen to sniff, and smiles while pink azaleas and white roses bloom in Nasreen’s nostrils.
“I’m sure there is one back here. Just a minute, Nas.” Nasreen exits her mother’s garden and returns to Salma’s bedroom. She averts her gaze from the perfume bottle and tries to steady her mind by looking at a black and white photograph of stern looking elders. Then, there is a photo of Salma, standing formally beside a man, their serious expressions incongruous with the white garlands hanging garishly around their necks.
“Oh hey! That’s Shaffiq.”
“So you do recognize him. I guess he is your janitor.”
“Weird. We’ll have to tell him about this! Is that your wedding picture?” Salma’s brain registers the guiltlessness of Nas’s enthusiasm. So whatever Shaffiq’s interest in her, it is not shared by Nas.
“Yes. We both look younger, no? I was twenty-six. Shaffiq was already thirty-two. Your age, yes?” Nasreen nods. “Marriage ages you. Oh, here is something.” She hands Nasreen a sweater. “Having kids ages you.”
“I dunno. You don’t look so different from this photo. And that wasn’t so long ago, was it?”
“It was … eleven years ago, no twelve. We waited three years before having Saleema and she is nine now –”
“So you’re what, thirty-eight now? You’re not that much older than me. You look great.”
“You are trying to flatter me. Go on, try this on, I think it will fit. It is from my younger, thinner days.” Nasreen hesitates a moment.
“Try it on. If it does not fit, I will look for another.” Salma considers turning her back, allowing Nasreen a moment of modesty but doesn’t manage to move in time.
Nasreen turns, peels off her damp blouse and pulls on the sweater. Salma watches as Nasreen’s head disappears through the neck hole, averting her gaze only when the knitted fabric comes down over her belly. She commits to memory a small dimple just below Nasreen’s breast bone, a mole just to the left of her navel.
“Looks like it fits you.” Salma says, her voice cracking with nervousness, “Why don’t you keep it? It is too small for me.”
“Oh, I can’t take it from you. Maybe it will fit Saleema in a couple of years.”
“No, no. Please take it. The styles will have changed. They have already. Teenagers wear everything short and tight. They barely like to cover anything up over here.” Salma laughs, but isn’t sure if what she’s said is funny.
“Are you sure?” Nasreen asks. Salma nods. “Thanks. I’m warmer already.”
“Good, so let’s start the class. Chalo.”
Bashir sits on a prayer mat in his living room, facing the blank screen of the television, which stands in his direct path to Mecca. He distractedly contemplates moving around the furniture, mentally rearranging chairs, sidetables, and electronic equipment. He worries that the involvement of the idiot box may ruin or nullify his prayers somehow.
He has somehow lost track of his prayers, something interrupting his flow, side-tracking him from his faith. It just isn’t working for him today. Maybe it is just old age, he thinks, the mind wandering.
Prayerless, he looks at his reflection in the TV screen. He sees an old man, his hairline receding, most of the black hair turning to grey. He breathes in and out, in and out, considering his lungs and heart, envisioning them working hard in his sixty-one year old body, trying to push around air and blood, each year this endeavour becoming slightly more laborious. He imagines his arteries, not pink and rubbery like the diagram in his doctor’s office, but as he feels to be realistic: slowly becoming encrusted with yellowish plaque. That’s the word his doctor used and Bashir recalls wondering if the blockage in his arteries is the same stuff that dulls his teeth. He’ll have to ask his cardiologist this question when he goes for his follow-up appointment next month. Or maybe he will ask his dentist when he has his six-month check-up.
His mind circles back to the television screen and its effect on his prayers. It’s hopeless. He’ll have to ask Nasreen to help him move the chesterfield, and television next time she is here. He abandons his prayer mat and stands facing the window. It is still raining outside. A bolt of lightning illuminates the sky and his suburban neighbourhood. He scripts a more direct line of conversation with hi
s God and reasons that perhaps a personal entreaty will work better than the ritualized, common ones He hears from the mouths of the masses. Yes, a private prayer might just work. He clears his throat and says aloud, “Dear God, I want to ask You,” he pauses then, feeling self-conscious. How silly I must seem. He tries again, “Dear God, please just grant me this one thing – ” he hesitates again, looks around at the familiar room, at the drapes and furniture and trinkets, the result of years of decorating by his now deceased wife. He becomes aware that he has occupied this house for over twenty-five years, that it was the first and last house he bought with his Zainab, and is the place where his daughter grew to be a woman. A place that was a home while Zainab was alive and that is nothing more than a house now. He wonders if she listens in on his thoughts and prayers from time to time. Are you there Zainab? Can you hear me?
He shakes his head, feeling even more foolish. I am just a man, like any other man and I am afraid to get old. I am scared to get sick and to die. “Please, God, help my Nasreen to be happy. Don’t condemn her for her choices. Let my dear Zainab’s soul rest peacefully. Help me to stay well and to live a long time still. I don’t want to leave my Nasreen alone. Don’t let the plaque in my arteries get too thick. Thank you for listening, God.”
He bends to sit down again on his prayer mat, his knees noisily protesting this sudden movement. Changing his mind, he takes a seat at his computer. Within moments he is logged on to his favourite “free stuff” site, the magic of the Internet freeing him from his failing body and providing him a limited measure of peace.
An hour later, Nasreen stares blankly at the vocabulary sheet Salma has placed before her. Her fingers drum against the metal kitchen table while she strains to remember the words she learned last week.
“You didn’t study this week?”
“Well, I did, but I’m drawing a blank for some reason.”
“Try again. Come on now, how do you say ‘I would like to have lunch’?” Nasreen stumbles through some phrases in her mind, wishing that Asha were here to deflect some of Salma’s intense energy away from her.
“I’m not sure what’s wrong with me today. I just can’t seem to remember much.”
“Let’s take a break then. You want some chai?”
“Yeah, that would be good. Maybe the caffeine will wake me up.”
Salma turns away from Nasreen and fills the kettle, welcoming the distraction. For the last hour, she has avoided Nasreen’s eyes. She has tried not to focus on the butterfly feeling in her stomach, or Nasreen’s lips, or her bare neck, or the wisps of hair drying in tight coils around her soft ears. Is this what Shaffiq sees too?
Nasreen, too, takes a moment to settle herself. Something has been different today and a part of her brain has been busy, working hard to interpret the vibes coming from Salma. What would Asha say? Is she really right about the crush? No, it can’t be true, Nasreen thinks. What would a nice, married woman like Salma want with me?
“Nas, I’ve been curious about something,” Salma turns around and leans against the counter. She crosses her arms in front of her chest. “Maybe it is none of my business. If I am being too nosey, just say.” Nasreen leans back in her chair and nods to Salma, giving her permission to continue. Here it comes, she thinks.
“Mummy, Saleema is being mean to me!”
“No I’m not! She should just leave me alone. I’m trying to read and she’s bugging me!” Both children burst into the room.
“Both of you out of here! Shireen, you go play in the bedroom and Saleema, you read in the living room. I don’t want any more interruptions. Go!” The girls listen to the seriousness of her tone and follow her pointed finger out of the kitchen. Salma continues to chide them in Gujarati and then closes the kitchen door firmly behind them. “Sorry about that. They are always fighting with each other, always at each other’s throats.”
“That’s OK. They seem like pretty normal kids to me. What were you going to ask me?”
“Well, last time you and Asha were here, you talked about being attracted to women…. Are you both, well … gays?” She says the last word quietly, as though it requires a delicate touch.
“Yes, well, actually we call ourselves lesbian or queer. What would you like to know? You know it is alright to ask questions about this. Most people are a bit curious.” Nasreen is back on solid ground. This is why Salma has been so strange with me. Of course she would have questions after the way we carried on last time.
“Well, I am curious. I’m not sure about what exactly. It just got me thinking you know, about attractions to women. Remembering. You know, I am married and I am very happy with my husband, but there was a time when …” she says very quietly, “well, I had a relationship with a woman. It was long ago, in India.”
“Really?” Nasreen is the one who is curious now.
“It’s silly, I don’t know why I’m thinking about it now. I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
“Have you told anyone?” Nasreen asks, understanding that Salma has revealed a big secret.
“Well … no. We had to keep things hush-hush. No one knew. But it was just a short affair,” Salma says, her voice hesitant. She hears the gurgling of boiling water and she turns to remove the kettle from the stove before it whistles. She is relieved to be able to turn away from Nasreen’s gaze. She transfers hot water from kettle to tea pot, placing it on the table between them.
“Tell me about it anyway. I bet lots of married women have experimented with women at some point in their lives.” Nasreen tries to sound reassuring.
“Shhh! Please speak softly. My nine-year-old out there likes to listen in on everything. It was only for a few months, when I just starting teaching. It was a kind of a phase, you know, a curiosity, I think. I broke it off when she started to get too serious. And then there was quite a lot of pressure to settle down and get married. I was already turning twenty-five by then.”
“It must have been hard to keep it a secret, you know, to sneak around?” Nasreen says in a stage-whisper.
“Well, I don’t know how hard it was to keep it secret. We just knew we had to. I didn’t even tell my best friend, Ritu. Although she may have suspected something. She disliked Raj because Raj was sort of known to be that way. She was sort of mannish … and people spread rumours – you know how people can be about things like that.”
“Sounds like Raj was butch. People always give the gender-nonconforming queers the hardest time. It’s so stupid.”
“I don’t really know about all that. But, well, she did stand out. She was obvious … not like how you are.” Salma pours tea into two ceramic cups. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this. It was a long time ago. We were young, and she was more serious than I.”
“It sounds like it was a big deal. How do you know it was just a phase? That’s what my parents said when I first started dating women. This phase has lasted a long time.”
“Well, we did care about each other, but we both knew that it was only temporary, that it wouldn’t last long, or couldn’t last very long. But still, she was very hurt when I broke it off.” Salma sits down at the table and passes Nasreen a cup. “I felt bad about that. Maybe it wasn’t a phase for her. She was more that way than me. More, you know, lesbian,” she says tentatively, as though testing out the new word, “more lesbian than me. If I am really at all that way myself.” Salma shrugs, uncertain what she is driving at, why she is making this confession.
“What does that mean, Salma? Let me ask you this,” Nasreen says, leaning in a little closer. “If there had not been a need to keep it a secret, and if you hadn’t been expected to get married, would you have broken it off? Did you like being in a relationship with her?” Nasreen watches as Salma wrinkles her forehead and takes a sip of her tea.
“I don’t know. That is how the world is. I made the decision to put a stop to it based on what the reality was then,” she says,
trying to sound sure of herself. But is this true? Was it just my own fears?
“But if it hadn’t been the reality? If things had been different?” Nasreen presses her.
“But things weren’t different. Don’t you see? It was India almost fifteen years ago, not Canada today,” Salma replies, realizing that Nasreen cannot possibly comprehend. She grew up here.
“But I’ve heard that there are plenty of out lesbians in India. One of my friends was there for a while and made contact with all these lesbian and gay groups in Delhi and Bombay. And in Calcutta.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think those things existed back then. Or at least I didn’t know about them. If things had been different maybe Raj and I would have stayed together. I can’t say. I did care about her.” She looks up at Nasreen, her eyes watering. “I did care about her. If it were Canada today, I might have made some different choices.” Nasreen reaches out for Salma’s hand.
“But Salma, it is Canada today.” Salma feels the warmth of Nasreen’s hand on hers and heeds the electricity that prickles across the expanse of skin between her wrist and shoulder. The sensation continues all the way to her groin, and ends up somewhere in her stomach. She reaches out to touch Nasreen’s cheek and without thinking, without looking for Nasreen’s startled reaction, presses her mouth against soft lips. They yield to her and pure sunshine radiates over Salma when she feels Nas drawing closer. The bright light thaws something frozen within her, and she feels her insides turn to liquid. And then, as suddenly as it appeared, the sunlight is gone, refracted by the dark pupils of Nas’s eyes and the force of her fingertips, gently pushing her away.
Chapter 21
NASREEN RIDES THE OSSINGTON streetcar home, her lips still tingling from Salma’s kiss. She closes her eyes, tries to replay the incident in slow motion. Did she do something to encourage Salma? Did she flirt a little, play into the crush, maybe? I suppose the possibility of a crush was kind of flattering … God, I’m ridiculous! Salma’s lips felt warm and demanding and Nasreen kissed her back, wanting to receive and meet the pressure and heat of Salma’s mouth. She liked it. Then Nasreen remembered where she was and with whom and pulled away. She left soon after that, feeling uncomfortable and vaguely guilty. She looks down at the sweater Salma lent her. Damn, why’d I leave my favourite blouse behind?
Stealing Nasreen Page 19
