The Writing on My Forehead: A Novel

by Nafisa Haji

  Our next stop was Hyde Park. I remember resenting the constant chatter of my aunt as we walked, at a leisurely pace, in the direction of Speakers’ Corner. It would have been nice to walk around alone and in silence, absorbing the atmosphere, trying to relate the setting with my grandfather and his twenty-year-old little love story. I did try—looking around, staring at faces in some kind of ridiculous attempt to find something familiar. Of course, I didn’t succeed. The whole venture was a bit disappointing. The soapbox speakers seemed to have less to say than their hecklers. And both were few in number.

  Mohsin echoed my thoughts: “Pretty pathetic, isn’t it? But it gets exciting when things are happening…some big deal that gets everyone riled up. Must have been something else in the sixties.” His voice had turned wistful.

  I looked at him sharply, wondering if he had guessed the nature of my interest in this London landmark.

  Mehnaz spoke before I could ask, rolling her eyes as she said, “Not that again, Mo.” She turned to me to explain, “Mo ’ere is obsessed with the sixties. Reckons ’e would ’ave made a fine ’ippie. A flower child, eh, Mo?”

  “It just would have been nice to live in a time when you felt you could have actually made a difference, that’s all.” Mohsin sounded defensive.

  “Yeah, well, they bloody didn’t, did they? I mean everything’s even shittier now, innit? Or at least that’s what you’re always going on about…about ’ow bad everything is, ’ow evil the government is.” Mehnaz turned to me again. “Especially your government, Saira. Bloody Yanks! Just can’t keep their ’ands off of anything, can they? Or at least that’s what Mo ’ere is always saying.” She said this with a wink and then settled back, arms crossed, to watch whether the match she had just struck would catch.

  But it didn’t. Mohsin just grinned back at her and said, “Well, I wouldn’t want to hurt our American cousin’s feelings, now, would I?”

  I didn’t rise to the bait either, grinning at Mehnaz’s ruefully deflated expression.

  When we headed home, Mehnaz, driving more carefully than ever, said, “Mum? I thought it would be nice if we came back tonight to the city for dinner and a movie at Leicester Square. I’m sure Saira would enjoy ’erself. Yeah, Mohsin? There’s that movie you’ve been wanting to see. What do you say?”

  “Oh, Mehnaz. I don’t know. I’m tired and I’m sure your father would rather have dinner at home tonight.” Nasreen Chachi was rubbing her bare feet, marked with the lines of the leather lace-ups she had worn and complained about all day.

  “Well, that’s good, innit? ’Cause I didn’t mean you. I meant us. The youngsters.” She was rude, but still had not utilized any exclamation points. Her tight grip on the steering wheel was a sign of the effort she was exerting to contain her natural volume level and tone.

  “Oh. You and Mohsin and Saira? Mmmm…I don’t know. I suppose it would be all right.” Nasreen Chachi was clearly not keen on the idea. “But Saira is younger than you, Mehnaz. I’m not sure what her parents would say. Why don’t you go to the local cinema near the house?”

  Mehnaz’s efforts failed for a moment. “Because it’s not the bloody same, is it?! Who wants to spend an evening in the bloody boring suburbs?! I mean,” she dropped down again, hastily, “you did want Saira to see the sights. And Leicester Square is one of them.”

  I jumped in. “Oh, my parents would be fine with it, Nasreen Chachi. We’ve gone out before. In London, I mean. With my cousin Zehra. Just us kids, without any adults. They won’t mind if you don’t.”

  “Well, I guess it will be all right. Yes. Yes, it will be nice for you all to spend some time together. Just make sure you watch out for your little cousin, yes?”

  “Oh, we will. Don’t worry.” Mehnaz winked at me again and I was thrilled at the prospect of a real night out. Mohsin, however, remained rather expressionless.

  Later, having escaped Ahmed Chacha—who dismissed us with a cheery wave of one hand and a clink of ice in the glass he held with the other—and as soon as we got back into Mehnaz’s car to head for the city, she said, casually, “Right then, I’ve just got to make a stop on the way into town. To pick up a friend.”

  “Then you can drop Saira and me off at the tube station. We’ll go into the city on our own.” Mohsin’s voice was cold now, instead of neutral.

  “Suit yourself.” Mehnaz sounded unsurprised and still remarkably cheerful.

  “I will. Suiting you, too, obviously.”

  “’Ey, I ’ave nothing to ’ide! Come or don’t come. I don’t bloody fucking care one way or another.” She looked into the rearview mirror, catching my eyes. “Sorry, Sai. ’Ope you don’t mind?”

  I had no idea what she was pretending to be sorry for. So I didn’t answer. A few minutes of daredevil driving later, Mehnaz dropped us off at the station.

  Before descending underground, Mohsin paused to take a picture of an old, homeless woman who sat on the sidewalk across the street, outside of a McDonald’s restaurant. She was dressed, unseasonably, in a coat and hat, the holey gloves on her hands as dirty as the skin that showed through. In her winter layers, she looked big, a wide triangle shape of fabric propped up against the brick wall behind her. She was muttering to herself, the look in her eyes manic. Many people walked by her without seeming to see her there at all—the way I would have if Mohsin hadn’t stopped to take a photograph. I understood, suddenly, what Mohsin may have meant. Bearing witness. I looked up to see that he had taken his picture already and was waiting for me.

  “Do you recognize her?”

  I frowned.

  “There are a few pictures of her in my room. She sits there every day. Same exact spot. Rain or shine.”

  I stared at the woman for a moment and then turned away. We descended the station stairs and boarded the tube into the city. Having expected some kind of explanation about our split from Mehnaz, I was disappointed when Mohsin slumped down in his seat, put his head back, and conked off for a noisy nap.

  When we got into the West End and switched lines to get to Leicester Square, I took advantage of his wakefulness to ask him, “What was all that about? With Mehnaz?”

  “As if you didn’t know. Mehnaz has a boyfriend. An English boyfriend.” He was genuinely amused by my question.

  “But I didn’t. I didn’t know. How could I know?” I was earnest, now, not wanting him to think I had been feigning my innocence.

  “Then you must be one helluva deep sleeper.” I must have given him a blank enough look to make him reconsider. “Okay, so you’re one helluva deep sleeper. She has a boyfriend. Our father doesn’t approve. They fight about it every night. He threatens to disown her. She threatens to run away. And so on and so forth. Typical East-meets-West sob story.”

  “We could have gone with her. I wouldn’t have told anyone.” I knew that I sounded sulky, but I couldn’t help it—the resentment, one I was used to, of being younger than and therefore not privy to, welled up inside of me. “I would have liked to meet her boyfriend.”

  “I told you that my father doesn’t approve.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “Well, neither do I. Not of the fact that she has a boyfriend. But of who he is.” His tone was edged with controlled anger that I somehow knew was not directed at me. “And I didn’t fancy spending an evening in their combined company.”

  “Oh.” There was nothing more that I could say.

  The set of his mouth softened a little as he looked down at me. “Besides, bad as Mehnaz can be, her boyfriend is even less wholesome. I don’t think your parents would approve of you hanging around with the likes of him.” He smiled, suddenly, a wry expression with which I was becoming familiar. “Plus—this way—I get to bully you into watching the movie I want to see and I don’t have to worry about some bloody wanker telling me to watch some ninja movie instead.”

  A thought occurred to me and I couldn’t help but ask, “And you?”

  “What?”

  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

>   He laughed. “No. No, I definitely don’t have a girlfriend.”

  When we arrived at Leicester Square, it occurred to me to ask, “What movie are we going to see anyway?”

  “A new one by Attenborough.”

  “Attenborough?”

  “Sir Richard. The guy who made Gandhi.”

  “Oh.” I thought of the poster in his room.

  “It’s called Cry Freedom. You’ll like it, I think. It’s about South Africa. About Steven Biko, one of the heroes of the antiapartheid movement. I’ve been waiting for it to come out. Do you mind? I suppose we could go see something else, if you’d rather.”

  “No. That sounds good.”

  It was the first political movie that I had ever seen. And it affected me deeply. I was still sniffling a bit as we exited the cinema.

  Looking politely away as I wiped my nose on my sleeve in a gesture I tried and failed to make delicate, Mohsin asked, “I gather you liked the film?”

  “I loved it. Didn’t you?”

  He shrugged. “The movie was supposed to be about Biko. Attenborough marginalized him. Made the white guy the hero. The journalist.”

  “I didn’t think of that.”

  “So? What do you feel like eating?”

  I shook my head, looking around at all the little shops—which were closed now—and restaurants, which weren’t.

  “There are some nice little restaurants here. Or we could just get some takeaway and eat and walk around.”

  “That sounds good.”

  He walked us to a little stand that sold savory crêpes, folded into paper cones designed specifically for what Mohsin had proposed. As we waited for the man to serve us, Mohsin caught me by surprise, asking, “What were you looking for at Hyde Park?”

  I took my eyes away from the batter the man at the stand had spread into a circle on the griddle and met Mohsin’s eyes. I stammered out an answer, trying to buy myself time to think about how much I should say to this very perceptive cousin of mine, “Umm. I wasn’t looking for anything. I just wanted to see what it looked like. I’d heard so much about it.”

  He frowned. I watched him try to scan in between my words for a moment. The crêpe man handed me my cone, overflowing with cheese and mushrooms.

  Mohsin wouldn’t let it go. “What had you heard about it?”

  For some reason, the urge to talk about my grandfather with Mohsin was suddenly overwhelming. “Well, I was thinking about my grandfather. My mom’s dad—” I hesitated.

  But Mohsin was already nodding his head. “Ah yes, randy old Kasim Saeed.”

  “You know about him?” I shouldn’t have been surprised.

  “Of course I know about him. He’s legendary, isn’t he? People still talk about how he fell for that woman. And left your poor old grandmother at the side of the road. But I still don’t see the connection.”

  I had lost him.

  “Hyde Park?”

  “Oh! That’s where he met her.”

  “Aha! I should have known. A fourteen-year-old girl wouldn’t be interested in political rhetoric, would she? No, it was romance. Much more in character.” The crêpe man handed Mohsin his food and we turned and walked away, blowing on our crêpes before each of us ventured a bite.

  My mouth was still half-full when I said, in my own defense, “I really did want to see Speakers’ Corner. I wanted to hear them talking. And see where—how—it could have happened.”

  More polite than I, Mohsin chewed his food and swallowed before saying, “Well, that’s a good question, isn’t it? He had courage, your grandfather, you’ve got to give him that. Takes some balls to go against your culture and take a stand for your own happiness.”

  I nodded my head, taking another bite and agreeing with the words that Mohsin put to my own feeling.

  “But then, it was basically a selfish kind of courage, wasn’t it?” He pointed his crêpe at me to emphasize his words.

  I bristled at them, as offended at the accusation as if he had made it against me.

  But he continued before I could express my offense, “What do you know about your other grandfather? Our grandfather, I mean. Roshan Qader?”

  “About Dada?” He nodded, taking another bite out of his crêpe. “I don’t know. He died after Ameena was born. He had two sons. Ahmed Chacha and Daddy. And—that’s all, I guess.”

  “That’s a shame. There’s a lot more, you know. A lot more you should know. Like, he had three wives. And the last two were sisters.”

  “What?!”

  He laughed to see my eyebrows shoot up to somewhere in the vicinity of my scalp. “Relax. None of them at the same time.”

  My brows came back down in a frown.

  “The first wife died giving birth to their second child, a girl, called Gulshan. The daughter died a few years later. But they had a son, too. Dawood. Dawood Chacha. The second wife, my grandmother, died of typhoid when my father was only six months old.”

  “Your grandmother? Dadi wasn’t your grandmother? So Daddy and Ahmed Chacha are only half brothers? I didn’t know that!”

  “Yeah.” Mohsin was grinning. “Your grandmother was his last wife, my grandmother’s elder sister. My grandmother was half his age, younger than Dawood Chacha—her stepson. Yours was only a few years older. Dawood Chacha died during Partition. No wife or kids.” Mohsin paused, thoughtfully, for a moment. “But Dada never saw us either. Mehnaz and me. Even though we were born before he died.”

  I nodded my head, urging him to go on.

  “He had courage, too, you know. Real courage, different from your other grandfather’s. The unselfish kind.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Mohsin cocked his head to one side. “How could you not know any of this? Doesn’t Nadeem Chacha—your dad—ever talk about him?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, I guess that’s not so surprising. Neither does mine.”

  “Then how do you know anything about him?”

  “I know because I’ve made it my business to know.” Mohsin leaned in closer to me as we walked around the Square. His face was more animated, less cool than I had yet seen it, excited by the news he was about to share.

  “Did you know that he worked with Gandhi?”

  “Gandhi?” I thought, again, of the poster in Mohsin’s room. “What—how—?” I gave up, not even knowing where to begin with my questions. “No. I didn’t know.”

  “Yup. Dada was very involved in the Independence movement. He did everything. Went on strike. Civil disobedience. Went to jail even. He got beaten by a lathi once. Nearly died. But he just went right on fighting—for justice, for freedom. That kind of commitment takes courage.”

  “Just like Biko.” There was awe in my voice.

  “Yes. Just like Biko.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “I can do better than that. I can show you.”

  “Huh?”

  Mohsin pointed at the paper cone in my hand, the contents of which I had devoured without even being aware of it. “You finished? Let’s throw these in that rubbish bin over there and go then. I’ll show you what I’m talking about when we get home.”

  SEVEN

  WE DIDN’T TALK at all on the way back to my uncle’s house, because jet lag caught up with me and it was my turn to fall asleep to the gentle rock and roll of the underground. I glanced across the street, at the McDonald’s, as we emerged from the station and found the old homeless woman was still there.

  “Does she sleep there? On the sidewalk?”

  Mohsin frowned and glanced at his watch. “No. She’s usually gone by this time.”

  “Where does she go?”

  Mohsin shrugged.

  “Have you ever spoken to her?”

  “Not really. I bought food for her once or twice.”

  “So—you don’t know anything about her?”

  Mohsin shook his head.

  Struck by an impulse, spontaneously and without thinking, I started to cross the street, but look
ed the wrong way before I did. The bus that came from the right—from the wrong direction, in my American head—would have flattened me if Mohsin hadn’t pulled me back out of the street in time. The bus driver—a desi, I saw, from too close as the bus slid past, blowing the bangs off my forehead—honked angrily. I paused, my heart thudding, but only for a moment. I looked right before attempting to cross again. Mohsin followed, his lifesaving hand still gripping my arm tightly for fear of what had almost happened. Safely over, I stood in front of the woman awkwardly, my actions uninformed by any specific plan or thought. Slowly, the old woman looked up, muttering to herself, her neck craned at an uncomfortable angle that made me kneel down beside her.

  I heard her words—directed at me, I was surprised to realize, and not herself as I had supposed. “Dat vas wery dangerous. Seely girl.”

  She had a thick accent that ruled English out as her native language—Eastern European, I would have guessed—and bad breath, one among other malodors that I was beginning to detect.

  “I looked the wrong way.”

  “Seely girl. You veel be hurt. Looking the wrong vay.”

  I nodded, surprised to see how focused her gaze was on my face.

  “Do you have a home?” I asked.

  “Home.” Her eyes brightened, as if the word had reminded her of something she had forgotten. “Eet ees time to go home.” Suddenly, the mountain of the woman’s form began to move upward. She was muttering to herself again, as far as I could tell, speaking words—harsh, guttural sounds—of a language I didn’t recognize. When she stood, she lost some of the stature that her seated form had afforded, and I was surprised to find her height to be less than mine. Muttering to herself a little more, she gathered the belongings which she had hidden under the spread of her coat—grocery bags filled with mysterious treasures. Then, she looked beyond me and pointed, with a gloved finger, at Mohsin.