The Writing on My Forehead: A Novel

by Nafisa Haji

“That’s the scariest part about what you’ve done, Saira! You’ve lied to Mummy. You’re playing the part of—Rizzo! And—you don’t even understand what you’ve done! Mummy—if she knew—she’d be right to be furious! That play goes against everything she’s ever tried to teach you, everything she wants you to be! Where’s your sense of—decorum? Of shame? You—don’t you care about what’s right and wrong? Or is it all about having a good time? That’s what that play is about! Having a good time! Who cares about what you give up—about honor and principles!”

  “Ameena! It’s a play! Just a play!”

  Ameena’s mouth was open, ready to respond, when the doorknob to my room jiggled. We both knew it was Mummy, coming to investigate what all the commotion was about. I shot a pleading look at Ameena, muttering, “Please, Ameena. Please!” just as Mummy made her entrance.

  “What are you two arguing about? The shouting! The screaming! Is this any way for two young ladies—one of them engaged to be married!—to carry on?!”

  My eyes were still fixed on Ameena, desperation dripping down my face.

  She gave me a long, serious look before answering Mummy, “We were just discussing the school play.” I closed my eyes and braced myself. “I think it’s a stupid play. And Saira thinks—Saira thinks it’s a good one!” I opened my eyes to see if what I heard could be believed. Ameena was—was she? She wasn’t. She was not going to tell Mummy. I nearly fainted in relief as Ameena changed the subject to ask Mummy a question about what dessert she had decided on for the wedding. They both turned and left the room, Ameena shooting me a hard, disapproving look as she did. But she didn’t bring up the subject again. And I thought I was safe from Mummy’s wrath.

  A stupid thought to hold, as it turned out. But I have to admit, selfishly, that I was relieved at the timing of when Mummy finally found out the truth—on the last day of our four performances, when it was already too late for her to stop me.

  She told me later how she came to know. At the grocery store, from a neighbor who had seen the show the night before. Mrs. Garner raved about my performance. Telling Mummy that my solo, “There Are Worse Things I Could Do,” was better than the one in the movie.

  I was on stage when I saw my parents in the audience, during the last scene, out of the corner of my eye. I froze for a second and then stumbled instead of skipped with Kenickie down the stage as we all ramma-lamma-lammaed our way around in apparently random choreography for the big finish.

  When the curtain came down, after we made our bows and huddled together backstage for our final embrace, Joe, aka Kenickie, asked me what had happened.

  “Are you okay? Your legs, like, buckled under. I had to drag you through the rest of the number. What happened? Stage fright finally get you?”

  No, it wasn’t stage fright. This was our last night of four performances and the words hadn’t even crossed my mind. “I don’t know what happened. Weird, huh?”

  He was shaking his head, laughing, still high from the whistling, wooing, and standing applause that our audience of parents had lauded us with. Our audience of parents, my parents among them.

  I don’t know what Mummy had told Daddy about Mrs. Garner’s revelations, have no idea how she felt when one of the ushers must have handed her the program, sponsored by DeWolfe’s Garden Shop, with my name near the top of the right-hand column of the cast list. They had both seen Grease on television and knew what the play was about. Had enjoyed it from afar, as something removed from their lives and their daughters’—a strange and exotic view of American life that had nothing to do with their understanding of what adolescence should be about, a waiting game until real life began with a bang, with a wedding, when love and sex and responsibility would be woven together, tightly, in a contract designed to avoid paths that led to immorality and shame, heartbreak and despair. None of which they wanted me to be touched by.

  I had seen other parents attending the play on the previous three nights of the performance, beaming up at their children, proud to see them on the stage taking on personalities that were familiar to them and amusing. Not foreign and terrifying, as mine must have been for Mummy and Daddy.

  I hid backstage for as long as I could. But when I came out to face them, I found my parents had already gone home. Straightening my shoulders in a completely false pose of courage, I climbed the ladder of my own shamelessness to new heights, going to the cast party that was scheduled for that night, enjoying myself, laughing with the family that was about to break up, instead of going home to face the wrath of my real family waiting—in a state of anger I didn’t even want to imagine—at home.

  Stephanie Reardon—who played Sandy and lived up the street from us—dropped me home that night, as she had every evening during rehearsals. I said good-bye to her cheerfully, masking the knot in my stomach as I had masked all of my turmoil about being in the play from my fellow cast members.

  When I let myself in the house, I found my father in the living room. He was alone, sitting on his recliner, hand on the remote, watching television. Whenever we watched television together, that hand hovered on the clicker, ready to switch channels in case a love scene happened upon the screen. His reflexes had slowed as Ameena and I grew older, not quick enough for my mother, who would yelp out a warning anytime anything suggestive came on, something she no longer objected to our seeing alone but considered inappropriate for a father to watch in front of his daughters.

  When he saw me, he clicked the television off and tucked the footrest of his recliner back under the seat. He looked at me for a long and silent moment. And then said, “Your mother has gone to bed.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I was relieved, even as I acknowledged my relief as temporary. I was not afraid of my father. Because he was a man of few words, his reprimands were not long-winded like my mother’s. I knew I had merely to listen for a few minutes before he would move on.

  “Your mother is very upset.”

  “I know.”

  “You lied to her.” Maybe realizing that he should include himself in what I had done, he added, “You lied to both of us,” though, technically, I had not. Because my father had always had so little to say to us, to Ameena and to me, I rarely had anything to say to him either. So I had not lied to him. Because I had not told him about the play to begin with, knowing that what news of my life and of Ameena’s my mother thought he should know, she relayed to him, keeping him updated on a need-to-know basis only.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

  “Why did you lie? Why did you hide that you were in the play?”

  “Because I knew Mummy wouldn’t let me do it. I didn’t want that part. Not in the beginning. I just wanted to be in the play. But Mr. Jenkins cast me as Rizzo. He thought I could do it. He thought I’d be good. It was a big part, Daddy. But I knew you and Mummy wouldn’t approve.”

  “So you lied.”

  I nodded.

  He nodded back. “That is not an excuse to lie. Just to get what you want. That’s one of the worst reasons a person lies.”

  “I know, Daddy. I’m sorry. I really am.”

  “You were good.”

  I looked up, now, from the properly contrite posture I had assumed, eyes on my shoes.

  “But you should not have lied. That was wrong. And you will not try out for any more plays.”

  I nodded. I felt like I was getting off easy.

  But he went on. “I told you that you could have Ameena’s car when she is married. I have changed my mind.”

  It was the least of what I had expected. I ran through the last few months in my head. The experience of being in the play, of being liberated as Rizzo. And it was a price I would have paid again if I had to.

  So, the punishment had been doled out, but the confrontation with my mother was still ahead.

  But my father wasn’t done. “This happens, Saira. Your values and our values—they won’t always be the same. But that is not an excuse to lie to us. And as long as you live under our roof, you are obli
gated to follow our rules, to live by our values, not yours.”

  I stayed quiet for a few moments more, absorbing his message. Then I braced myself. “Is Mummy really asleep?”

  “She went to bed.” My father sighed. “But I don’t think she’s asleep. I don’t think she’ll be able to sleep tonight. You can go to her if you like. I’ll be up for a little while longer. Watching TV.”

  “Where’s Ameena?”

  “She’s gone to a wedding with Shuja and Nilofer Auntie’s family.” My father glanced at his watch. “They should be dropping her off soon.”

  My parents’ bedroom was dark. I had to squint to find the outline of a lump on my mother’s side of the bed. An angry, stiff lump that had its back to me.

  I whispered, “Mummy?”

  No answer. But, as my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, I saw a balled fist flex a little. Not the relaxed, limp hand of someone asleep.

  “Mummy? Can we talk?”

  Still no answer.

  I entered the room fully now. Walked over to her side of the bed and stood looking down at her. I saw something flicker in the area where I guessed her face was. The whites of her eyes.

  “Mummy, please. I’m sorry. I’m really very sorry.”

  I knelt down on the floor beside her bed, put my arm around her shoulders. She pushed me away. And sat up, taking a deep breath as she reached for the lamp beside her, turning it on. As the light clicked on, so did her face. Out of her mouth came a stream of hot words that must have been burning up the inside of her mouth while she had held them in.

  Some of them were familiar words, uttered with a vehemence and bitterness that were new. Others, which I’d never heard from her before, were hurtful. “Get out of my sight, you shameless, shameless creature! You slut! Whore! Dancing around on stage, half-naked! Randi! Slut! This is what I have raised, oh, God forgive me! What did I do, what did I do to deserve this humiliation, oh, God, it must have been something terrible to deserve this! Kissing boys—in front of the whole world! Slut, whore! In front of the whole town! Where will I show my face, Ya Allah, she has left me with no face to show to anyone!” It went on like this for quite a long time, my mother alternating between utterances of recrimination spat against me while her hands slapped at my shoulders, and appeals to God, which she would raise her face to offer to the ceiling with hands raised.

  If I was thinking at all, it was that if I sat there and took it quietly, for long enough, she would run out of anger to hurl in my direction, she would spend her way back to some kind of normal, sane demeanor in front of which I could beg for forgiveness. But her screams just got louder.

  And then, abruptly, she was silent. She had heard, through her screaming, what I had not. A car door slamming, the opening of the front door. We both listened to the sound of voices that rose up from downstairs. Shuja’s and Ameena’s. Shuja greeting my father, asking after Mummy and me. Saying good night. The front door opening and shutting again. The car in the driveway pulling away. After which, Mummy resumed her raging as if she hadn’t stopped.

  Ameena came in the room. She approached the bed and pulled me out of Mummy’s striking range. “Mummy, shhh. Mummy—please stop. I—I’m sorry, Mummy.”

  “Why are you sorry? Sorry to have a slut for a sister? Who brings shame down on all of us?”

  “Shhh, Mummy. Stop. I—I’m sorry because I didn’t tell you.”

  Mummy was struck dumb, fully retreating back into the cushion of her pillows. Then she said, softly, “You knew? You knew? About the play? That Saira—that Saira was in the play? You knew and you didn’t stop her?”

  I spoke up, to defend Ameena. “By the time she knew, it was too late.”

  “You be quiet, you shameless creature!” Mummy shouted at me again, holding her hand up against me and my shamelessness. She turned back to Ameena, deadly calm again. “You let her do this? How could you, Ameena? How could you?” Mummy put her hands up to her face and sobbed into them, muffling her words. “What have I done to deserve these daughters?”

  “I’m sorry, Mummy.” Ameena was crying. “I should have stopped her. But it was too late. She—she was in the play. She couldn’t drop out of it. I—I should have stopped her. I know that. But I didn’t.”

  Mummy sobbed and sobbed.

  Until, finally, my father came in the room and ushered me and Ameena out of it, saying, soothingly, to all of us, “Bas, bas, bas. Enough. Go to your room, Ameena. Saira. We’ll all talk it over in the morning. Leave your mother, now, with me. She’s too upset. Go. Shabana, bas, bas, bas. Stop it now, Shabana. You’ll make yourself sick. Stop it, jaan, bas.” He was stroking her back when I left, holding her head to his shoulder, calming her down, finally, having removed the offensive sight of me and Ameena.

  Ameena tackled Mummy the next morning. She tried to explain. What it meant to be in the play. That it was considered an honor. That she had been caught between telling her what I was doing and understanding the need for me to fulfill the commitment I had made to Mr. Jenkins. My mother shook her head, not understanding what Ameena was trying to explain.

  Shuja came over again that night. When he asked me about the play, about how the show had been, I looked up at my mother, meeting her eyes for the first time that day, before saying, “It was okay.” After he left, all seemed well between Ameena and Mummy.

  Not so between Mummy and myself. We tramped around the house in mutual evasion for the next few days.

  Until a week later, when Mummy came to my room.

  I put the book I was reading down and watched warily as she entered.

  She sat down on the edge of my bed. “I’m ready to talk now, Saira. About what you did.”

  It was the sign of sanity I had hoped for on that first evening, when my mother had turned into someone else, someone I didn’t know. Which is how she must have felt seeing me on that stage. “I’m sorry, Mummy.”

  “What are you sorry for, Saira?”

  I had thought about that and decided the truth was called for. Though I wasn’t sure she would be able to handle the truth. “I’m sorry about lying to you, Mummy.” But I didn’t say I was sorry about being in the play.

  She took my hand. “That is what I am most hurt about. That you deceived me. That you lied. I don’t think you’ve ever done that before. Have you, Saira?”

  “No, Mummy.”

  “It’s the worst thing you could have done. If you had told me the truth—”

  I interrupted her, “If I had told you the truth, you wouldn’t have let me be in the play.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not true. I wouldn’t have stopped you from being in the play. But there were other parts you could have taken. Instead of doing what you did. I wouldn’t have liked it, that’s true. To have you dancing around on a stage. With boys. But the role you played, pretending you had had sex with so many boys, thinking you might be pregnant, making fun of good girls, and dancing around in your underwear”—she was getting agitated again, her voice getting shriller—“how could you, Saira? How could you behave like that? In front of everyone? Weren’t you ashamed?”

  “It was a play, Mummy. I was acting. Everyone knows that.”

  “You kissed a boy, Saira. Your father is the only man I’ve ever kissed. Shuja and Ameena have not kissed yet.” I had to resist the urge to snort. “And will not until they are married. You’re only fourteen years old and you’ve kissed a boy. On a stage, in front of the whole world. If people hear about this, if our people hear—who will marry you, Saira? A girl who kisses strangers? And who will believe that you don’t have boyfriends, that you’re a good girl? I’m not sure if I believe it myself anymore. Not when I saw you on that stage, behaving so shamelessly. If you are such a good actress, how do I know you are not acting with me?”

  “I’m not, Mummy. That was a play. That wasn’t real.”

  “But how do I know what is real, Saira? How can I ever trust you now? You’ve lied to me, betrayed me. How do I know now, ever, if you are tellin
g me the truth or telling me another lie?”

  A battle began inside of me about what to say next. About this question of truth and lies, which I had known would be asked of me, for which I had an answer ready. The answer I gave her, finally, to try and make her understand: “You lied to me.”

  “What?! When have I ever lied to you?”

  “About Nana. You told us he was dead. But he wasn’t. He was alive, all the way up to the week before Nanima died. He was alive and you told us he was dead.”

  “You think that’s the same thing?”

  I knew it wasn’t. “No. I didn’t say it’s the same. But it was a lie.”

  My mother closed her eyes, shook her head in disbelief.

  I pressed on, “You never even asked me about it—about meeting Belle. About how I felt when I found out. And when I tried to tell you, you wouldn’t listen.”

  “I didn’t ask you—I didn’t listen—because I didn’t want to know. I still don’t. I refuse to discuss that with you.” Her actions matched her words. She stood up and walked out of the room.

  We never discussed the play again, the whole argument absorbed into the urgent preparations for the wedding that was soon to take place.

  TEN

  ALL OF MUMMY’S family came to celebrate Ameena’s wedding, except Big Nanima, who was busy working on the production of a television drama, an adaptation of Dickens’s David Copperfield, which she had written. Madness pervaded our home as the family reunion that was supposed to have taken place the year before at Zehra’s wedding (and which didn’t, because of Mummy—who did not invite controversial “foreign guests” to her daughter’s wedding) took place here, in our home in America, where there were no servants to order around, no drivers to hustle people back and forth to sightsee and shop, and plenty of guests who were accustomed to both. I remember feeling invaded and under siege. Saris were burnt on the ironing board by people who had never had occasion to iron, teacups piled up every few seconds on tables and counters and in sinks, bathrooms had to be scoured out every half-hour (by me, most of the time). The washer and dryer were in perpetual use. And once, someone—trying to be helpful—ran the dishwasher using regular dish soap, causing a flood of foam in the kitchen.