The Blue Taxi

by N. S. Köenings

  Seven

  While Gilbert had a thirst for knowledge, it was not the knowledge of specific living things, or persons in the flesh, that moved him. He was therefore as richly unaware of M. G. Jeevanjee’s particulars as he was of any serious changes in his wife. In Gilbert’s view, the legless boy’s poor father was not more than a local Indian man whose son collided with a bus while Agatha and Sarie—unluckily, indeed!—looked on from the curb. Unfortunate. Too bad. But no more and no less. He had other things to think of Temporarily entranced by a bright hardcover volume called East Africa Now, on whose cover robust girls and boys in schoolgear uprooted marigolds with hoes, he was also troubled by an itchy skin condition that was making—he could feel it—advances on his back.

  Sarie, in the bedroom, had pulled all her skirts and gowns and blouses from the cupboard. As though invisibles could don them and, rising, bring them suddenly to life, she had arranged them into poses on the floor. She was wondering how she really looked with some of these things on and was trying to imagine Mr. Jeevanjee’s opinions—as to carwash sleeves, umbrella skirts, and box pleats. Was he fond of frills? What did he think of Sarie Turner, par exemple, in that gray dress with the dots? From the parlor Gilbert called. Fingering the yellowed collar of a once-white linen blouse, Sarie paused, wished she had not heard him. Gilbert called again.

  When she came out from the bedroom, Gilbert had removed his shirt and vest and stood with his back towards her in a humble pose, as though she were a doctor. “Please,” he said. “See if you can’t tell me what the devil’s going on.” She stood beside him and he felt her shadow cool his burning arms. “It’s bloody awful, Sarie.” He gestured with the top of his round head towards the current volume, spine unbroken on the chair. Sarie watched his bald spot shift, did not look where he meant. “I can’t even read.”

  Sarie was not in the habit (nor had she ever been) of treating Gilbert sweetly. Of treating anyone, perhaps, to specific shows of tenderness at all. But, prepared for ailments of the body, she sometimes cared for him in a practical and reasonable way that was in its application not unlike affection. She knew her husband’s body better than she wished to and was, she knew (the Sisters had proclaimed it, like a penance), duty-bound. She kept a bar of sulphur soap for the frequent bouts of dishrag that left even whiter speckles on his already white skin; clove brews for his muscle pains and chronic indigestion (the last to make him vomit, which, without fail, it did); cinnamon to boil for the head colds that made an elephant of Gilbert. Confronted with the skin rash, Sarie felt relieved that she didn’t have to look at him full-on and think about his eyes, or hers, or what she might see there. She could focus on his back, which was like the back (Sarie imagined) of every other Englishman on his way into old age: pale, pinkened here and there, flaky where the skin was rough, and, as she had come to think, not exactly ugly. But not precious. About her husband’s ailment: Sarie knew exactly what it was.

  “This condition,” Sarie said, with more enthusiasm than a gentle person should, “will make a red stain like a pine tree up and down the back. You will…” Here she searched a moment in the air to grasp the needed words, then spoke with satisfaction. “You will become a little tired, and you will resemble Christmas.” She had not seen Christmas trees herself since she was three, but the Sisters (Angélique?) had drawn pictures for her, and Gilbert, too, had filled her in on rootless trees and baubles. She ran her fingers rather roughly down the pattern on his back and told him that unless he was prepared to spend good money on an ointment, nothing could be done but see the whole thing through. It would go away eventually, as many ailments do. He might go out, she said, in search of ice, which he could rub for solace on his back—and he could save some for their drinking water, which they would all enjoy. Or seek out Aspirin in a packet, which, she thought, she might employ herself. Gilbert rearranged his shirt and turned to look at her. The attention he’d received had made him feel, already, a little less upset, his skin a little cooler. “That’s it, then?” He smiled gratefully at her. “Yes,” she said. She didn’t linger there. She went back into the bedroom, where, except for one white dress with a not-bad quilted feel, she put all the clothes away.

  They went again. They couldn’t not. She had been thinking of his hands. And the sharp smell of his breath, which was somehow hot and sweet at once (fennel, pepper, juice?). Would one kiss become another, and another be a tumble? A wonderful free fall? She’d thought of Sister Angélique again, but each time a bit more slowly, each time with less fear. Would she permit the man to go where none but Gilbert had? Only Mr. Jeevanjee could tell her.

  They stepped into the early afternoon. Sarie, anxious, entertained her doubts (fiercely, as one can only do when one suspects, in one’s most secret place, that they are all for naught). She wondered: Had she been a fool? Was Mr. Jeevanjee sitting up in Kudra House ashamed? Had he hardened fast against her? Would he refuse to let her in? Would he insult her at the door? Had he lied about his wife? If one of these things happened, Sarie did not know what she would say to Agatha, how she could explain. She looked down at her arms and covered up each elbow with a palm, purse dangling between. As they crossed the roundabout, she panted. When the bus stand, with its smoke and wheeze came into view, Sarie almost wept. Unaware of the wild torrents rushing in her mother, Agatha was cheerful, skipped, dragged her feet and kicked things. Sarie drew a handkerchief from the bosom of her dress and wiped her face with it. By the cane-juice man, she fretted with her hair.

  Upstairs, Majid Ghulam, who’d suffered—yes, was suffering softly still—was nonetheless not in any funk. The night before, he’d made, he thought, a kind of peace with Tahir’s leg. He’d wondered yet again: Would God really, even at His most wise or absurd, snatch the lower limb from a clever, earnest boy so as to bring the lonesome dad a large and freckled lover? Could these things be related? Perhaps and perhaps not. This was not Majid’s business. While Tahir slept, and turned his shoulders now and then to one side or the other, Majid Ghulam decided that perhaps it didn’t matter. That mysteries were mysteries, and so forth. He’d moved his fingers lightly over Tahir’s bony chest and felt, in the lining of himself, a little worm of hope. He’d said a prayer for Hayaam. Might her soul be in sweetness. And that night he had slept well.

  In the morning, on her way to market, Sugra had come by. Sugra: the one cousin who still loved him, bright, round, talkative, and sharp. About Sugra people always said, “Of course not one of us is perfect, not even our dear Sugra.” But what they meant was that she was not unlike goodness and charity itself A little brash, a bit too loud, her effect was wonderful and strange, an impression of ebullience and goodwill, of charm, whatever else was true; for everything, she could be forgiven. She’d seen Majid through a lot. She would poke at him, she’d tell him to wash up, and say he was a mess. But she would be a blessing. As she always did, she lifted up the gloom, although there was, on that morning, less gloom than she was used to. She had looked at him for a moment from the doorway as if she did not know who he was. “You’re looking different,” she’d said, and, feeling a bit bare, exposed, he’d said, to shrug it off:“Tahir’s feeling better.”

  She had come up with potatoes and some rice, put them down, and looked at him more closely. She said she’d gone down to the clinic and had not been heard yet. But she reminded him that she did not shy from combat. “If they don’t give me crutches soon, I will go to that doctor’s house myself.” She raised her arms and made a face and jumped and swayed from side to side like a bogeyman, a spirit. “Like this!” She’d made Majid laugh.

  That morning Majid did another thing he had not done before: he thanked her specially. He had risen from his seat and squeezed her hand and thanked her. And she had looked at him again as though he were not quite the man she knew, and had pulled her hand away, suspicious. “All right, now. Quit it, please. I’m going.” And this, too, had made him laugh. Majid was feeling better. He was trying, yes, for now, as Sugra herself thought he should, to pu
t that grief behind him.

  After lunch, he had slept on the blue settee while Tahir, whom Habib and Ismail had carried carefully into the parlor, sat and ate bananas by the window and looked at an old book. While Majid slept, a restful half sleep that did not bring him dreams, he had been conscious most of all beneath his skin of that forward-moving force—which ebbed, oh, yes, and flowed! He’d felt the presence of his son not far from him, and this had made him glad, as if things were going right. He’d woken without visions. He had bathed. As Agatha and Sarie turned the final corner, he felt fresher than a glass of lime juice—giddy, he was hoping, hoping, that Mrs. Turner would come back.

  When she saw that he was greeting them more graciously than ever, Sarie, happy, felt a fool. Here the kind man was, perfectly polite—he’d shaved!—and clearly glad they’d come. She tucked her handkerchief into the collar of her dress with her left hand and took Majid Ghulam’s fingers with her right. He wants this! Her palm curled around his knuckles, settled for a moment. Il me vent. Her pale eyelashes fluttered.

  It seemed to Majid that her eyes were very bright, the whites of them a little paler than before. And that she’d been breathing hard. Had she been so eager, so desperate, to see him? The thought made him feel tender, brought a pulsing to his throat. As she released his fingers, she bobbed down a little so he should not feel her height. He was touched by the way her scalp showed through her hair, that she was, almost, bowing down to him. She reminded Majid for a moment of a schoolgirl, even cousin Sugra, curtsying to the British queen at a Diamond Jubilee. The idea—little Sarie kneeling—made him smile.

  At the lifting of his lips, Sarie almost swooned. She felt her eyes well up, grow hot. Her knees buckled a bit and she wanted to fall down in relief. But she did not let herself collapse. She sniffed to push the tears back. Her nostrils rippled greatly and her legs went strong again. Mr. Jeevanjee feels just the same, like me. She raised her eyebrows and she beamed.

  Majid was happily prepared. He had counted out what Sugra had been able to secure for them and sent Habib to the shops for fruit, which is good when one has guests. As soon as Sarie sat, Agatha beside her, he brought out more bananas and a bowl of tangerines. Such kindness! Sarie’s blue eyes glowed. Majid, who had thought of everything, turned to Agatha and said, “Take some in to Tahir, won’t you? He has things to tell you.” Agatha did not need to be told twice. She took three bananas in her hands (one for Tahir, two for her) and three sweet tangerines. Her small bare feet made furry thuddings in the hall. The door to Tahir’s room fell open and then narrowed. Majid looked at Sarie.

  Now that Agatha was gone, Sarie—having had a tangerine—was calm and fine inside. She settled back into her now-familiar seat and crossed her legs, this time without shame, hoping they looked nice. She said, “What happened here last week—” She stopped.

  Moved by a twisting in his bowels and how Sarie’s presence made his breath feel thick and slow, Majid prevented her from starting up again by pressing a small banana towards her. “Madam, please.” He paused, and tried it out. “Sarie.” Sarie blinked at him. “There isn’t any need,” he said. It came out as he had practiced.

  She handed him a quarter of her fruit, and, mightily aware of the shape of their two hands, he took it from her seriously. Sarie nodded to herself. D’accord. Here I am, she thought. And here I will repose.

  That afternoon, Majid read out an old poem she had not yet heard; it was about the charming jasmine bush, whose heady blooms enhance the sweetest couplings and bring warm scent to old clothes. Sarie had, it’s true, never done a single thing with jasmine; she had never worn it, pressed its flowers into oil, or presented a desired man with a package of its buds tied together in a leaf She had never left a favored gown to sleep, flowers in its folds. But Majid was not a stranger to the ways that jasmine could push certain things along. He had been married, after all. Though Sarie would not have said so clearly, would not have known exactly what it meant, the poem was an offering, and this much she understood: it gently told her what there was no call to do (panic, worry, flee), and artfully suggested that other needs, for more than fruit and gazes, might at some future date be met. Majid looked at her to witness his effect. Sarie was still flushed, and marveling at the shivers in her limbs. He has not even touched me. She raised a hand up to her hair. When he turned towards her, she uncrossed and crossed her legs, put her palms on her big knees, and asked Mr. Jeevanjee—no, Majid, please—to read the thing again, from beginning to the end.

  II

  Eight

  In the mornings, the sounds of Mansour House awakening rose up to Bibi in her bed. She could hear Issa and Nisreen and the other, darker bibi—Mama Moto, the one who cooked and cleaned. Issa moved around sharp-sharp, stepping, sitting, quick and firm like a machine, uttering bright questions (“Are you ready?” “Where’s the tea?” “Have you seen my belt?”). Nisreen laughed in answer and moved slowly, shuffling in bare feet. Mama Moto made one-syllable pronouncements, noncommittal, bland. Bibi liked the sound of them, her people. She liked knowing they were safe, and hearing them about. And also teacups clashing in the basin, the rattle of boiled water, breakfast being made. But, although it was her habit to wake hungry, she had begun to wait. Morning, she’d heard people say, was the best time for ideas. And she had work to do. She wanted to discover, firmly yes or no, if indeed she had a gift: she was fostering visions.

  She hadn’t mentioned it to anyone—that convergence in her stitching, with the napkin and the bus—and she was not going to until she was quite sure. Not one of them, she thought, was worthy of her news. Not one of them was really willing, not as Bibi was, to entertain a possibility and thrill to it. They thought she made things up; they thought she was a gossip.

  To be fair, Nisreen, in her own measured way, did welcome information. Being the receptionist at pink Kikanga Clinic, she herself was often privy to interesting news, which she sometimes shared with Bibi. But Nisreen dispensed her wares at intervals, dangling them like sweets—more to placate Bibi than to indulge in a shared treat. If Bibi asked her what was new, Nisreen would look up in that vaguely cross-eyed way of hers and shrug, say, “Nothing. The usual, you know. No, nothing I can think.” She’d go on folding sheets or picking at her fingernails or polishing her shoes without another word. Bibi had to wait. And then, perhaps, she’d say (as if she’d suddenly remembered), “Oh, well. There was something today. Guess who came in with a bruise like a brinjal swelling on her face, brought in by an aunt?” Earnest, slow, Nisreen would generously describe the symptoms, how much blood there was, the trimmings of a trauma, but she wouldn’t stand for too much guessing about who or what had been behind a punch or slash. While Bibi, caught up like a fish, would twitch and flap and ache, Nisreen would turn away and start combing her hair. Hours later, when Bibi had finally left off asking her for more, she might look up from a book and say, “Oh, yes. Here’s a story, maybe. Who do you think has gotten pregnant when?” And later, much, much later, when Bibi had begun to think, again, This Nisreen is not made of stuff like mine, Nisreen might give in, surprise her, saying, “And wasn’t Ahmed Shah seen hanging round the paan shop just beside the clinic, overjoyed with his fat self when Salma’s husband was away?”

  Unreliable, she was. Nisreen might be a good girl, Bibi thought, but her pleasure in such things was idle, unpredictable at best; she didn’t live for news, and, more than Bibi cared for, she’d sometimes look away as though she had been wounded and say, “Please. This one I won’t believe!” So Bibi shushed herself and did not say: “What if I am a seer?” What if Nisreen laughed, which, not knowing how it cut a person short, she was rather good at doing?

  Issa also liked to be informed, but he had ideas of his own about what constituted news. He’d spent too much time in school and not enough in life to think with seriousness of things like signs, ineffable connections. He’d gone out to Kiwingu for a year before marrying Nisreen, hadn’t he, to study meteorology, measuring the clouds and speed-clocking the
wind, and what was more inimical to her kind of prophecy than that? The children, Bibi knew, would think she had gone mad. That she had finally passed the point at which old women could be trusted. Disrespectful, this new youth. “A coincidence, Ma, just luck,” she could already hear him say about the bus-and-cloth connection, Issa with that great mustache dolling up his lips. He might suggest she get herself a stand at Mbuyu Mmoja Park, join the charlatans and quacks.

  Mama Moto, in a way, was the hardest of the three. She stood up to Bibi, made no bones about it, often told her she was foolish; and sometimes, in the middle of a story, Mama Moto left the room, pretending she had urgent work to do. Bibi wasn’t ready for that kind of treatment, not so tender as she was. So she kept it to herself

  In the mornings, after praying, dressing, and securing the remains of her fine hair away from her round face, Bibi, hoping to be entered by the new (she hoped) prophetic spirit of her stitching, got into bed again to lie flat on her back. In her room, spread out like an X, Bibi felt secure. There was nobody to laugh at her, nobody to see. She stared up at the ceiling, seeing not what others might—fine cracks, damp spots by the rafters, or the fan—but rather the dark pools and fine recesses of her embroiderer’s mind. Before her inner eyes, Bibi called up patterns. Which one, she had wondered every day, which one ought she to push into the world, and what might it foretell?