Stealing Nasreen

by Farzana Doctor

  Chapter 29

  NASREEN SITS ON HER couch, Id purring beside her. She unwraps the crinkly wrap from a new photo album. Its pages are blank, plastic, expectant. From her knapsack, she finds the photos she has just picked up from the drugstore, new and old photos from an undeveloped roll she had almost forgotten inside her camera some time ago.

  A week earlier, she and Asha brought Bashir home from the hospital. Nasreen had a bag ready so that she could stay with him a few days and at the last minute, decided to pack her camera. Her father’s departure from the hospital seemed like a strangely appropriate time for picture-taking, a Kodak-worthy moment. With no extra rolls of film, she was relieved to find that there were still a few exposures left in the camera.

  Her father smiled obligingly for her. Perhaps he also felt that his return home after two weeks in the cardiac unit was a celebratory event, or maybe he was too tired to argue with the girls’ insistence that he pose for them. Asha took two photos of Bashir and Nasreen in his room and a friendly nurse took a picture of all three of them in the hospital lobby. The camera signalled the end of the roll when Asha snapped father and daughter at the front doors of their house in Mississauga. Nasreen hopes that this last photo got developed.

  Nasreen opens the photofinishing paper envelope and studies the first few shots. They are of Nasreen’s last birthday, taken at a restaurant in the neighbourhood. Mona, Asha, and a few other friends sit around Nasreen, waving wine glasses or forks at the photographer, who must have been Connie. Then there is a photo of Nasreen with her mouth open, as though she is yelling something to Connie. Nasreen tries to recall what she might have been trying to say. What had she been feeling that evening? Were they getting along that night, or was there tension? She can’t remember. She flips hurriedly through the rest of the birthday photos and then she finds her father’s homecoming pictures.

  She opens a photo album and places her birthday pictures carefully inside, four to a page, in the order in which she guesses they were taken. Even though she doesn’t like looking at them, she feels that they deserve a place within the album; they are a part of her history. She even keeps one of Connie.

  Then, turning the page, she arranges the most recent photos in the album. She likes that all four fit on the same page. First are the two from the hospital room, then the lobby photo and last, there she is, standing with her father in front of the Mississauga bungalow. Her arm is linked in his, supporting some of his weight as they stand in the cold December wind waiting for Asha to push the button and the shutter to fall.

  Shaffiq is alone in the apartment, the television on, a talk show blaring in the background. He barely notices the jeering and cheering studio audience. His attentions are focused on Salma’s old photo album, the one she recently relocated from her trunk in the bedroom to a place on the living room bookshelf, right beside his mirrored elephant. He wondered about this album for years, saw glimpses of it at the bottom of her trunk when she opened it to search for something else. Despite his curiousity, he never invaded Salma’s privacy to look inside.

  But today he takes it off the bookshelf, carrying it to the couch and setting it upon his lap. With a deep inhale of expectation, he flips through its pages, traveling through Salma’s younger days and then lingering long on the photo he has both hoped and dreaded to find. He peers closely at the snapshot, then turns on a lamp to have a better look. There she is, his Salma, looking younger but really very much the same as now, standing with three other women in Lonavala. She showed him the photo years ago, but its meaning evaded him back then. She told him that they were a few friends on vacation at a hill station. Now he knows the truth.

  He stares at the photo until his brain begins to feel foggy. And then his detective-mind returns, focused, mindful, and observant. He steps toward the bookshelf and retrieves the photo of Nasreen and Connie from the Gandhi book. He places them side by side, studying first the picture of Salma and Raj, then the shot of Nasreen and Connie. And then he looks at Raj again. And then he sees it: his Salma, held by the devoted, adoring gaze of her first love. For the first time in well over two years, he cries, fat teardrops pooling on the plastic covered pages of Salma’s old photo album.

  Chapter 30

  “HULLO, NASREEN? It’s your father.”

  “Hi Dad, you know, you don’t have to say that. I know your voice by now.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” he chuckles, “Force of habit. Look, I have something to tell you. I hope it doesn’t upset you too much, but I’ve made quite a big decision.” There is silence, the sound of her listening and waiting. He continues, “Nasreen, I’ve decided to sell the house. It’s much too big for me now. It is meant for a family to live in, not just an old guy like me.”

  “Oh,” she replies, considering his words, thinking that they don’t sound unreasonable, or surprising, or upsetting at all, “Of course, that makes sense to me, Dad.”

  “You know, I’ll wait a little while. The doctor says that I should hold off on anything strenuous for another month or so,” he pauses and then says proudly, “Dr. Stokes says that I already am doing too much walking, but I can’t help it. I’m so bored. At least I have the computer. What would I do without that?”

  “You’d go crazy, I’m sure,” she says, laughing with him.

  “I just bought a new digital camera. Did I tell you?”

  “No, you didn’t. I guess you need a new toy, being so housebound.”

  “Yes, I do. I’ll send you some photos I took this week. I snapped some of the icicles forming on the side of the house. They turned out very well. Almost artistic,” he says laughing, self-consciously. “So then, this decision – selling the house – it doesn’t upset you?”

  “No, not really. I mean, I have some sentimentality about it, after all, it’s where I grew up, but you know, it’s not really my home anymore. And anyway, it actually seems like a good idea for you to let it go.”

  “I’m thinking that I will buy something smaller, I only need two bedrooms at the most, one for sleeping and one for my office. I was thinking, if you were interested in this,” he hesitates, then, as though choosing his words gingerly, he says, “perhaps we could buy a duplex together, or something like that, you know, in the city near your work, with separate units so we could be near each other, but still have our privacy. Investing in real estate would be good for you, Nasreen.” He starts to speak faster and she imagines his pulse quickening with his words, “you’ve been paying your landlord’s mortgage for too long, in my opinion. And well, it would be good for me to see you more often, not that I would bother you too much, I would respect your privacy and all that –” He doesn’t hear her at first when she cuts in. “Sorry, what did you say?”

  “I said maybe, Dad. That might be a good idea. We’d have to talk more about it for me to decide for sure, but I think maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea. I could use a move too.”

  “Oh, well, that’s great. Let’s think about that then. I’d really like that.” There is an awkward pause that Nasreen can’t bear to leave uninterrupted.

  “And what about our trip to India? Did you find out if the cancellation insurance covered us?”

  “Yes, they did honour it. We can still go. But maybe not until next fall. You probably have used up most of your vacation time anyway for this year, right?” He says this with an apologetic tone.

  “Mostly. I think I used up about three week’s worth in total,” she says, calculating the time in her head.

  “I appreciate you taking so much time off to stay with me in the hospital and then at home. I hope you know that.”

  “I do.… You know, the time off work was good for me too. With the exception of the first couple of days at the hospital, it was almost a nice change of pace for me. You aren’t very hard to look after,” she says, her voice light. “But I probably can’t go to India until I’ve built up some more vacation time.”

  �
��I want to fully recover and then move first, anyway. Home can wait … I mean, India can wait.… Funny how I still call it home. I don’t know if it’s really accurate to call India my home anymore.”

  “Yeah, I never understood how you called it home. It’s been so long since you left there.”

  “I suppose my generation will always be immigrants, will always long for the mother land. Your generation is a different story all together. You schooled here. Grew up here.”

  “Well, we’ll always be seen as immigrants in this country, won’t we? Where’s home then, Dad? Mississauga? The house?”

  “Maybe. I never really thought about it. If your mother were still alive, I would say so. I am not really sure because, when she was alive, she also thought of India as her home.” He inhales, exhales. “Nasreen, where’s home for you? Do you still think of this house that way?”

  “No, not the house. Not for a long time, I guess since I moved out. But my apartment isn’t really so homey either. I mean, it’s where I live, and I like it, but home? I haven’t really thought about it.”

  “How about when Connie was there, was your apartment home to you?”

  “Yeah, for a while. Yes, I suppose so. Geez, Dad, this is a deep conversation.”

  “Yes, well, I guess the heart attack has turned me into a bit of a philosopher.”

  “I suppose illness will do that to you.”

  “More than illness. That was a brush with death. If the paper guy hadn’t come just then, if I hadn’t been late with my payment, if he hadn’t had a cell phone with him –”

  “Yeah, I don’t like to think about that, Dad. It was a close call. I don’t like to think of you all alone having a heart attack. I hope you gave him a really good tip,” she says, breaking the tension.

  “Are you kidding? I’m thinking about including him in my will! But getting back to philosophical matters, I believe we make home with the people we love. That’s why this place isn’t home anymore. You don’t live here and your mother is gone. And your apartment isn’t home anymore either now that Connie is gone. And that’s why I think the two of us should find a house together.”

  “Yes, I guess that makes sense. Does that mean we are both emotionally homeless, Dad?” she says, wanting to deflect his lobbying.

  “Well, yes. Hey, that is a very good way to put it. That’s why you are the psychologist and I am the amateur philosopher. We both have places to live, but no real home.”

  “Hmmm. You might be right.”

  “So maybe then we can sit down together and talk about where we’d like to live, and then if we come to some agreement, I can contact a realtor,” Bashir says, his voice hopeful.

  Nasreen holds the phone tightly in her right hand, and takes in a deep breath while her father charges on, gushing out his ideas for housebuying. She thinks about the past few weeks she’s spent with him after the heart attack, the surgery, and his recovery at home. While his body has been recuperating, his arteries unblocking, and his tissues regenerating, her heart has been mending itself too. There has been time for herself, for letting go of Connie, for missing her mother.

  She considers what her decision might be, that she may say yes, or possibly turn him down, but for once, her Daughter Guilt is noticeably absent.

  Chapter 31

  SALMA COUNTS OUT CHANGE to a middle-aged woman and says mechanically, without looking up, “thanks, see you again.” Her mood is not up for the superficial friendliness required for the job. She watches the woman’s back as she exits and is grateful for the quiet of the empty store.

  When she and Shaffiq heard the news that Asima’s husband’s cousin was able to hire Shaffiq as a bookkeeper, she was a little surprised at her reaction. She was not immediately thrilled. Yes, she celebrated with her husband and her daughters at a restaurant in Little India, eating dhai puri and gulab jamuns. She raised a toast of mango lassi for him, all the while really wanting to disappear, to go somewhere, be alone, and cry. But you can’t always do what you want when you have a husband and children, can you?

  The new job, this job that Shaffiq finally found after two long years in Toronto, holds the promise of permanent life in Canada. Now they can stay, will stay, have everything they need to stay. A part of her has always hoped that Shaffiq’s terrible night shift job and her boring dry cleaner work would lead them to the only possible, rational conclusion about their big adventure in Canada; it would be a failure and they would have to return home. She held on tightly to this belief, even while she kept busy decorating their apartment, settling her children into school, acquiring the necessary ID, and finding work. But now things are working out for them and they will stay. Now they will be successful immigrants.

  Shaffiq’s new job has also allowed her to hatch a plan, one that she hadn’t before really carefully considered, believing she would soon return to Bombay. The plan, worked out on the back of a drycleaning receipt and precise enough to satisfy an accountant, will allow her to go back to school to complete the courses she needs to compete for teaching jobs. In her mind she has temporarily converted The Girls’ University Fund to the Salma University Fund, and in two years there should be enough saved to pay for it all. In two years. Something to wait for, something to hope for, but still two years away.

  A young executive-type strolls into the store, the electronic door chime signaling his arrival. Salma takes his barely dirty shirts, writes out a receipt and sorts the laundry into appropriate bins to be taken away for cleaning. The customer leaves and she sighs. What’s next for her? She spends the rest of the quiet afternoon remembering her life as a teacher in Bombay and thinking about first loves. Her mind lifts above Blue Dove Cleaners, drifts to Shaffiq’s new nine-to-five job, flits to her first day back at teacher’s college, and calculates a repayment plan to the Girls’ University Fund.

  For the last time in his life, Shaffiq loads his cleaning cart with matching bottles of aquamarine cleaning solvents. He checks whether he has enough large and small garbage bags and then locks the janitors’ supply closet behind him. He pushes the cart to the elevators and then once inside, presses the second floor button. He steps out and heads for the men’s washroom, begins his work. He discards two styrofoam cups left on the floor and a cigarette butted out in the sink. He notices an empty pill bottle that once belonged to Luis Lopez. He tosses it into the trash.

  He then sprays the toilets, letting the harsh chemicals do most of the cleaning for him. He remembers when Ravi gave him that advice during his first week here, recalling how grateful he felt for the assistance, and later, for his friendship. As he flushes each toilet, he utters a little prayer for his friend, for the nervous son greeting a worried mother at Lester B. Pearson Airport tonight.

  Shaffiq moves on to the women’s washroom. He insisted on giving two weeks’ notice before starting his new bookkeeping job because he wants to leave this place well. And, to Shaffiq, two weeks isn’t so long to wait. After all, it took years to immigrate to Canada, an eternity to secure his janitor’s job at the Institute, and then many more months to be considered at Quaid’s cousin’s factory. However, he is a little surprised to be feeling sentimental about his last night at the Institute. As he wipes down faucets and empties the garbage, he wonders how this evening will go: will it be a normal shift with an anti-climactic ending? Will anyone remember to say goodbye or miss him after he is gone?

  He shakes his head at his foolishness. Surely this should be a night of unbridled celebration? Finally, he will have daytime employment in his field. He will share the same schedule with his family, joining them for breakfast and dinner, being able to read his girls bedtime stories. Perhaps now he and Salma will be able to grow close again, the way they were before they left India, before all the confusion happened with Nasreen Bastawala. As he leaves the women’s washroom, he once again says a prayer, this time for his marriage.

  As Shaffiq passes the second floor eleva
tors, he hesitates a moment and then presses the “up” button. The elevator arrives, empty, waiting for him to board, but he doesn’t move. The chimes ring and the doors close again.

  Nasreen waits patiently for Shaffiq to round the corner and walk past her office, as he has done many times before. She knows that it’s Shaffiq’s last day at the hospital. He told her two weeks ago and she penned the date in red in her agenda book. Will he come to say goodbye? She hopes he won’t intentionally avoid her tonight, allow this last day on the job, this ending, to happen without her. She checks her watch and waits a little longer.

  As she works on her files, she is distracted by every little movement and sound in the hallway. She looks up each time and unsatisfied, returns to her work. She absentmindedly thinks about Salma and their last Gujarati class, when she got the call about her father’s heart attack.

  Of course, she hasn’t seen Salma since then. With her father’s poor health, the trip to India was cancelled and there was no immediate need for more Gujarati classes. And Nasreen has been too busy helping out her father anyway.

  She considers going to find Shaffiq tonight, in case he doesn’t come to say goodbye to her. She has a gift for him, something that she has wanted to give him since the last time they saw each other two weeks ago, something that would admit at least to them, that the shape of their relationship has altered. She nervously picks at her cuticles, and then smooths them down again. She peers out into the hallway, sees no one. But then after a few more minutes, he is there, with his cleaning cart, a plastic garbage bag in his hands, and a slight smile on his face.

  “Hullo, Nasreen. Working late again I see. How are you?” He asks and she smiles back at him with a matching, tightly-contained smile.

  “I’m good.”

  “And your father? Recovering well?”