“No. Yes. I mean I would love to continue teaching you. And you know what? I forgot to pack up your green blouse to bring it to you tonight. I even washed it for you, but forgot to bring it. I think I was too nervous about coming to meet you. If you come back for classes then you can pick it up next time, can’t you?”
“Yeah, sure. There’s no big rush to get the blouse.”
“So, then, we will go on as normal.”
“I can if you can.”
“Yes, of course I can.” Salma hopes that she is telling the truth.
That night, Salma awakens to the sound of a toilet flushing. Must be Saleema. She drank too much juice before going to bed. At least it is not like a few years ago when she would wet the bed and then Salma would be up, changing sheets, bathing her child in the middle of the night. Salma turns over, curls into a fetal position and pulls the blanket to her chin. Her mind takes her back to the dream she was having before her sleep was disturbed.
She is walking hand-in-hand with Raj through Jogger’s Park in Bandra. Inside the park, there is a welcome reprieve from the noise and anxious movements of the city surrounding it. The lush trees and grass cool her skin and the air smells sweeter than normal as though the Bombay smog respects the hedge borders of the park and stays out.
Raj’s face looks somewhat more angular and masculine than in real life, so the other walkers and joggers assume that Raj is a man out walking with his girlfriend. The pair pass two middle-aged, plump women in saris who look at them disapprovingly, but their censure is not about them being women, but about their public show of affection. It doesn’t look proper. Raj notices the matrons’ glance and guides Salma toward a more isolated area of the park where they find a granite bench on which to rest. Raj turns toward Salma and tells her earnestly,
“We must find a way to be together. We are in love, aren’t we?” Salma looks into Raj’s round, brown eyes and smiles at the simplicity of the statement, of the joy she sees in Raj’s face. It magically and instantaneously changes back to its more feminine form. Salma kisses Raj on her cheek.
“Yes,” she says, “I suppose I agree now. I couldn’t back then. I wish I had been able to.” Salma wants to say more, to explain about the past, but Raj puts a finger to Salma’s lips and smiles at her forgivingly. Raj then pulls out a notebook and tells Salma that she will write down a secret plan in which they will elope in one month’s time. Salma strains to see what Raj is writing, but Raj teases her by pulling herself and the notebook away each time Salma leans close. She tells Salma to wait. It feels like forever, but Salma waits patiently while Raj writes, her brow furrowed, her body tense. Salma looks around at the pink flowers to her right and continues to wait for her love to finish writing out the plan.
Salma sleeps peacefully. Her face is that of a woman who is calm, contented, in no hurry to change anything. All is still in the Paperwala home. The living room has been left clean and orderly. The only thing that might seem out of place to an outside observer of the Paperwalas’ lives – if such a witness were to exist – would be a bright green blouse sitting on the edge of a laundry basket.
At two a.m. Shaffiq has finished all his floors ahead of schedule. He knows that his mind is not on the cleaning, and very likely, he has not done a tip-top job at the Institute tonight, but he doesn’t care. He has been preoccupied with two particular questions. The first is derived from his painstaking dissection of the one-way conversation he overheard between Nasreen and his wife. At least he assumes it was with his wife. What did the conversation mean? Why would Nasreen ask Salma for a blouse she left behind?
The second question is how he will find the answer for the first question once he gets home. What clues should he be looking for? Should he ask his wife outright whether and with whom she has been out tonight? Should he ask the children what they know? Might they be witnesses to whatever is going on? His mind is muddled. He can’t imagine that Salma would lie to him about anything.
If Nasreen had been arranging to meet Salma, it was very likely something innocent, Shaffiq reassures himself. Perhaps Nasreen needed some extra tutoring? No, that can’t be it. The tone in her voice was all wrong for that. Perhaps she and Salma have become friendly and Nasreen had something she wanted to discuss with an older woman? Salma has not mentioned that she was becoming friendly with one of her students. She would have mentioned this, wouldn’t she?
If their meeting was not so innocent, then what could be happening? Shaffiq thinks hard about Salma’s ability to do something illicit with Nasreen. After all, Nasreen is the kind of woman who likes other women. Could it be that she has taken an interest in Salma? Developed a crush on her teacher? Surely that is not impossible. This kind of thing must happen all the time with women like Nasreen. Salma is a good-looking woman, after all, and a teacher. Shaffiq smiles to himself. He believes he has cracked the phone call’s code, sorted out the only plausible possibility. Yes, Nasreen has a schoolgirl’s crush on his beautiful wife! Salma would be gracious about such a thing, Shaffiq thinks. She would try to avoid hurting Nasreen’s feelings but make it clear that she is not interested. Very likely, when Shaffiq gets home, Salma will tell him the story and they will laugh about Salma’s ability to attract a young woman. They are liberal, open-minded people, after all.
A couple of hours later, when Shaffiq comes home, he checks in on Salma and the girls. They all sleep soundlessly and he is reminded of how wonderfully peaceful his life can be. He feels silly for all his anxieties and mental sleuthing. There is nothing to worry about. He changes into his pajamas and makes a cup of tea, decides to stay up to watch the sunrise. With his tea propped on his knee, he rests his head back against the couch, and turns to look up at the raani, admiring her handsome, placid face. Her smile seems accepting, loving to him in the early morning light. He thinks that he really does like looking at the painting and that he must remember to tell Salma this. Perhaps it will be a small goodwill gesture that she will appreciate, a movement toward closing the distance between them. He doesn’t want to argue with her so much. He must learn to be more understanding of her situation. She has had a tough time here too. With this resolution of matrimonial peacemaking, he leans his head back against the couch and after a few minutes, dozes off.
When he wakes, Salma is across the living room, bending over the laundry basket. In her hand is a bright green blouse. He blinks twice, clearing the sleep from his eyes and says, “Is that a new blouse? I haven’t seen that before.”
“No, it’s not new. Shaffiq, what are you doing sleeping out here? It’s bad for your back.” She puts the blouse back into the basket, helps him to his feet and leads him into the bedroom. She tucks him into bed maternally, the way she does for Saleema and Shireen, and Shaffiq smiles with contentment. As she leans forward to kiss his cheek, he grabs her tightly and pulls her down into the bed. He climbs on top of her and kisses her in the way he imagines the heroes in Bollywood films would. In this moment he is Amitabh Bachchan and she is Zeenat Aman in Don.
Except that she doesn’t kiss him back like Zeenat Aman. Rather, she lies still, unresponsive in his arms. He pulls away from her and she gets up out of bed.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m just not in the mood right now. I have to get the girls up and ready for school.”
“Sorry, no problem,” he says, disappointed. “I suppose we are on opposite schedules, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” she says, straightening her nightdress, “quite opposite.”
“So whose blouse was that?” His worry returns.
“Which blouse?”
“That one in the laundry basket. The green one. You said it wasn’t new.” In the pause that follows, Shaffiq wonders if his wife has ever lied to him before.
“It’s Nas’s. You know my student? It was raining the last time we met and she was wet, so she took it off and I gave her a sweater of mine. She left it behind
. I guess she forgot it.” Salma looks up at her husband and then down at her nails. “Not the sweater, the blouse, I mean. She wore the sweater home. I gave it to her to keep. It doesn’t fit me anymore.” She laughs, nervously. He decides to ask one more question.
“It was raining the last time you saw her?” He remembers the bus ride to work last night and doesn’t recall any rain.
“Yes, last week. You remember the big storm we had? She got drenched that day.” Salma walks out of the bedroom, leaving Shaffiq to his questions. She picks up the green blouse and puts it on a metal hanger in the hall closet.
Salma can’t wait to get out of the apartment and to work. Normally she would not relish the thought of going to Blue Dove dry cleaners, where she mechanically goes through her day, mindlessly sorting jackets and shirts, making change and manufacturing smiles for her customers. But today she needs time alone, time to think, to contemplate her feelings, the green blouse, Shaffiq, and Nas. She also needs to get away from Shaffiq, who, although asleep, threatens to wake at any moment and ask her more questions. His queries from this morning muddled her enough.
She cannot stomach the thought of lying to him. But did she lie? Maybe through omission? She tiptoes into the bedroom and gathers her work clothes. Shaffiq lies still on the bed, his head resting on his elbow. It’s a naturally uncomfortable position and so she knows that he is only pretending to be asleep. She thinks she hears him sigh while she chooses her clothing from the closet. She leaves the bedroom silently and dresses in the girls’ room. As she pulls on the reinforced-toe panty hose she likes to wear on cool days, she spies Shireen’s doll, Memsahib, gazing at her from the lower bunk. What does Shaffiq know? What could he suspect? What will she tell him? She tugs the nylons up over her hips and stomach and wonders if her last two weeks of dieting have paid off. Perhaps she’s lost a pound or two because they don’t feel as tight today. She pushes her head through the neck of a navy blue cotton salwaar kameez she has selected. Over this, she wears a white cardigan. She inspects herself in her daughters’ dresser mirror and feels old, matronly, in this outfit. Cardigans just don’t go with salwaars, she thinks. In Bombay, she rarely wore sweaters, but here in Canada she almost always feels cold. She has seen Nas wear long cardigans that hang to her calves. Those must be in style, Salma thinks. She will have to buy one.
Nas. Salma’s face flushes hot with the embarrassment she felt at the coffee shop. Nas asked her so many questions for which she was not prepared and she felt so confused, so silly and she doesn’t want to ever feel that way again. She resolves to ensure that all will return to normal. She won’t say anything more to Shaffiq. After all, she is Salma, his wife, the girls’ mother. She is not a crazy woman who has crushes on other women. She is not in love with Nas. She is just Salma, who works at Blue Dove Cleaners and she must go now so that she will not be late.
There have been few lies between Salma and Shaffiq, mostly tiny falsehoods and inconsequential fabrications that have helped to mend the small frays arising from time to time in their marriage. These tiny ruptures, and the white lies that patch them, exist in all relationships. The Paperwala marriage is not so different from others. Their fibs have never been meant to create distance or cause distrust or make either out to be a fool.
But these new lies that have cropped up in their marriage feel more dangerous to Shaffiq, as though they might be tearing away at his previously intact home. Shaffiq wonders if he is responsible for the damage or if it is Salma who is to blame. Perhaps neither is at fault. Perhaps it is just their chance encounter with Nasreen that has put them both off balance, causing them to be wary of telling the truth. Maybe, just maybe, he thinks, it is Nasreen who is ripping at the fabric of their relationship.
Chapter 23
SALMA GETS THROUGH THE day at Blue Dove and then the evening with the children without focusing on her worries. But in the silence that nighttime brings, she is alone again with her thoughts. There is no girlfriend close by, no family except for Asima Aunty who is not really family, not blood family anyway. And it’s not like she’s someone who’d understand Salma’s current dilemma about kissing her lesbian student, is she? Depressed, Salma does an inventory of family and friends and realizes that after two years in Canada, she hardly knows anyone.
And the two years here have drifted her further away from the people she loves in India. There are her parents in Bandra, who she calls twice a month with hopeful, happy reports of their progress in Canada. And they reply with equally sanitized stories of their lives, not wanting to burden her with worries about their deteriorating health: the gall stone her father passed last month, the upcoming cataract surgery planned for her mother. She exchanges infrequent letters with her older brother, Rahim, who entertains her with gossip and news about the people they know, which only leaves her feeling more nostalgic for home. His last letter promised a visit, perhaps next year, which both excited and dismayed her. Maybe things will be better by then, she hopes: better jobs, a nicer apartment, a pull out couch on which he can sleep?
She wishes she could have confided in Rahim about the times she spent with Raj. That was how she labelled her relationship so many years ago. We spent time together. Maybe Nas would call it dating, or being lovers. At the time, she barely knew what was happening and she had no words to describe it. She briefly considered telling Rahim, so wanted to be able to share her feelings with someone, to tell someone that she was exploding with love and happiness. To say that she felt confused, and scared too.
Not for the first time, she wonders if Rahim knew all along the nature of her relationship with Raj. She’s often wondered if Rahim was that way too. That way, deviant, unnatural, not normal. The evidence stacked up, although being the private person he is, Rahim had never left many clues for Salma to find. Somehow he expertly avoided all pressures to be married, but then being male, he was never pressured the way Salma was. But still, there are his unmasculine habits – being unskilled at sports, but gifted in the kitchen and good with children – that made him awkward as a teenager but now regarded as a devoted son and uncle. Salma has never asked Rahim about his romantic life because despite their closeness, their relationship has never included talking about heady feelings like love. There has been no precedent for talking about such a thing as kissing a student or once being in love with a woman.
Salma longs for a confidante. But who is there? And how can she make friends in this cold, unfriendly place? How does anybody? In India, she was not very social or popular, but at least there was Ritu to keep her company. She thinks that perhaps she will write to her old friend. But what would she say? Dear Ritu, do you remember that girl we used to see way back at the café? The one you called mannish? Well Ritu, I don’t know how to tell you this, but she and I, well, we were more than just friends. Salma shakes her head, admonishing herself for her stupidity. It would feel too silly to write to Ritu about that affair after all these years. Perhaps she should have tried to tell Ritu back then. Ritu would not have understood, but at least she could have been able to unload the secret. Salma is tired from the weight of it.
But she has told one person. She told Nas. Salma rubs her temples. Her head hurts from all this madness! She thinks about taking some pain medication but feels too tired to get up and look for it. More than ever in her life, Salma is exhausted. She is tired of being alone. She is weary from the grief of what she has given up. She is worn out from the choices she has made and the choices she has not been able to make.
She flips open the latest issue of Ladies World and throws back the pages to the advice column. She scours the plaintive questions written by Indian housewives and answered by Ms. Madhuri, who dispenses her wisdom to hordes of middle-class Indian women who read the glossy magazine. One by one, she reads the letters, searching for one which matches her situation. There are none. The closest one is signed by Guilty in Goa. It reads:
Dear Ms. Madhuri. Many years ago I had a brief affair with a
man who was of the wrong religion. He Muslim, I Hindu. I loved him very much. He was my first love. No one knew about our relations. At the same time my family was pressing me to marry my husband. What could I do? I knew they would not understand. So I left him and get married. Now I love my husband too. But everyday I think about my first love, and sometimes when I am intimate with my husband, I sometimes see his face in my husband’s, and one time I almost called my husband by my old love’s name! I cannot stop thinking about my old sweetheart, no matter what I do. I feel very guilty. What should I do?
Salma, a teacher always, can’t stop herself from penciling in Guilty in Goa’s grammar corrections before continuing on to Ms. Madhuri’s reply:
You must find a way to finish that first relationship. It is finished in real life but you are still hanging on mentally. Try to understand what makes you hold on. Do you have regrets, either about the relationship or how you broke it off? Only when you do this soul searching will you be able to stop obsessing about the old relationship and then you can truly devote yourself to your husband. Think about him. Does he not deserve to be the one and only object of you love?
Salma considers Guilty in Goa’s problem for a moment. As usual, Ms. Madhuri’s advice offers common sense thinking, with a little judgmental slap. Is there anything really wrong with thinking about a first love while being with a second, Salma wonders. Somehow Salma has been able to do what Guilty in Goa has not. She has buried Raj in the past. Until now.
Salma re-reads Ms. Madhuri’s advice. Does she have regrets about the way things ended with Raj? Certainly. But she was young, and inexperienced. She wishes she had been more sensitive to Raj. She could have been more sensible by not letting things go so far.
By December, having grown dissatisfied with their semi-private bench in Jogger’s Park, Salma and Raj strategized new ways to see be alone with one another. With her parents away in Pune visiting family for the weekend, she and Raj took the opportunity to meet at Salma’s family’s flat. There, they had three precious hours before Rahim returned home from work. Salma remembers how nervous she was that day, aware of the possibilities that an empty apartment could offer them. They ate a quick lunch of daal, rice, and kheema and then Salma timidly showed Raj around the flat. When they arrived in Salma’s room, they lingered there for a moment and Salma awkwardly averted her gaze, studying Raj’s toes poking through her leather sandals. She watched as Raj’s foot took a step towards her, and felt Raj’s arms encircle her. Salma raised up her chin and met Raj’s mouth for the first time, their first real kiss on the lips. She noticed Raj’s chapped lips and how they felt good against hers. There was a warm buzzing from her knees to her chest, and overwhelmed by the unfamiliar feeling, she sat down of the bed, and pulled Raj’s hand in invitation to follow her. Without the need for the vigilance required in the park, they allowed their bodies and imaginations to travel to new, but still fairly chaste places: fingers unbuttoning blouses, palms cupping breasts, hands squeezing thighs. And with the recklessness of a first romance, Salma wasn’t terribly worried about being careful and almost didn’t hear Rahim’s key in the lock.
Stealing Nasreen Page 21
