Where the Air is Sweet

by Tasneem Jamal

  Grace’s head is lowered, her eyes focused on her wrap, which she is adjusting. “Sometimes,” she says. “Yes.”

  Earlier, after undressing, Grace walked towards Raju, placed her hands on his shoulders, gently pushing him back on the bed, and climbed on top of him. Raju had never been underneath a woman; he had never allowed a woman to control his body, to give him pleasure in this way. He had never believed it to be possible.

  Hussein’s young son appears at the door. Grace rushes towards the toddler. She bends down so that her face is level with the boy’s and smiles broadly, her face forming an expression Raju has not seen before, exuding a light to which he has never been privy. Raju hears the boy’s ayah calling out to him. “I will take him to her,” Grace says, brushing past Raju as she walks out the door, her hand tightly gripping the boy’s.

  “Do you have children?” he asks her when she is again inside the shack.

  She shakes her head, looks at the floor near his feet.

  “A husband?”

  She runs her hand over her hair as she walks past him towards the bed.

  “What about your father?” he asks. “Does he know what you do?”

  “My family lives far.”

  “But you are Munyankole,” Raju says.

  “No,” she says, turning to face him. “I am not from Ankole.”

  “But you speak Runyankole.”

  “As do you.”

  Raju feels foolish. It did not occur to him she was not a local woman. He does not speak the language well enough to detect an accent. Nor has he perceived any differences in physical features among Africans. They are all Blacks. Karias. But she is not black. There is nothing black about her. Not even her hair, which shares with the African earth a tinge of red. Her skin is dark brown, very dark. But it glows, as though a steady fire is continually burning somewhere below it. He realizes now as he looks closely at her that her nose is smaller, wider, than the noses of the Banyankole women he has met, her eyes set closer together and deeper in her head.

  “Why didn’t your father look after you?” he asks, angry now at this man’s failure to protect her. “Why must you do this work?”

  She looks at him, at his eyes. She smiles. It is beatific, this smile. It does not suit her circumstances.

  “You could work in a house, clean, look after children,” he says. “Would it not be better than this?”

  “Am I better than this?” she asks, still smiling.

  “Every woman is better than this.”

  “You need me and I am here. When you need water, you drink it. You don’t ask it to be something better.”

  Raju smiles, then laughs, tossing his cigarette to the ground.

  In the end, Raju needs Grace for little more than six months.

  “The shop has been busy. I finally have enough money to send for my wife,” he tells Grace. “I will meet her train next month.”

  Grace is standing at the foot of the bed, next to where Raju is seated. He cannot tell by her expression whether she understands what he is telling her.

  “I will not meet you again,” he says.

  She turns away from him to face the wall.

  “I have a wife. She will be here, in Mbarara, in my home.”

  She nods slowly. He is annoyed by her reaction, by her drama, as though she were expecting something, as though she were owed something.

  “We are respectable people,” Raju says irritably. “My wife. My family.”

  “What is her name?” Grace asks, turning back to face him. “Your wife.”

  “Why—” Raju begins, intending to demand why Grace needs to know his wife’s name, what right she has to know it. But her expression stops him. Her face is altered, the skin loose and ashen. Her lips are trembling. “Rehmat,” he says, almost under his breath.

  “It is beautiful. What does it mean?”

  In Runyankole, in Swahili, it is not an easy word to translate and Raju does not feel inclined to make much effort. “‘Mercy’? ‘Kindness’?” he muses aloud. “Something like that.”

  When he was nineteen, Rajabali Janmohamed Ismail had neatly oiled hair and was sporting a finely trimmed mustache. The eldest son of a respected merchant family, Raju was a solid, dutiful Ismaili boy. But he was unable to hide his disappointment when he first saw his bride. Rehmat was thin, with sloping, stooped shoulders and skin the colour of wheat. Her father was a widower and not well-to-do, but he was a good, hard-working man and Rehmat his only daughter. She was not an unattractive girl. But when he looked at her, Raju felt heavy, as though her slight frame was pulling his much larger one towards the earth. When their eyes met, she quickly turned away, a small wrinkle forming between her eyebrows.

  Their faces pale and their eyes lowered, the young couple was married.

  In the first year of their marriage, Raju did not raise his voice or his hand to Rehmat. She gave him no reason to. She sought only to please him, never speaking out of turn or asking for anything beyond the basic necessities of life. She learned quickly how to cook in the manner he liked, how to guess her mother-in-law’s requests before they were declared. She looked after his family’s home so efficiently, Raju would sometimes forget she was there, that he had a wife. In their bed she did not make a sound of complaint or of pleasure.

  Rehmat is a respectable woman. A good wife.

  When Raju brings Rehmat to their home in Mbarara, he begins to feel different in her presence. Though he cannot understand why, whenever he is with his wife he feels angry and she looks frightened. On this foundation, they will build their life together.

  4

  ONE YEAR AFTER SHE ARRIVES IN MBARARA, Rehmat gives birth to a screaming, healthy baby boy. Raju names the child Mohamed Ali, after the Prophet and his successor.

  The night the child is born Raju holds him in his arms while looking out the window. “The African sky is higher than the skies of my childhood,” he says to Mumdu, as the boy comes to be called. “Together, we will build a life of which my father and his father could only dream.” He turns to Rehmat, who is sitting on the bed. “Na, Mumda ni Ma—Mother of Mumdu?”

  She smiles.

  Eighteen months later, another boy is born, plump and pink. His father names him Barakat, for the abundance with which they have been blessed.

  When Baku is two years old, Gulshan, the family’s first daughter, arrives.

  Each morning Raju watches as Rehmat dabs kajal on the faces of her three children, marring their perfect beauty to ward off najar, the evil eye of envy. And once a week, more if the children are ill, she holds a fistful of salt in her hand, draws circles in the air above the children, one at a time, then tosses the salt onto white-hot coals. She will do everything in her power to keep her children safe. She will reach beyond her power to keep them safe.

  Raju awakes to the smell of fried parotha. He can hear sounds from the kitchen. Perfunctory movements. Pots clanging. Rehmat admonishing the boys. After he washes, she brings him his breakfast, her eyes lowered, her movements quick. While he eats, he hears her call the children for their bath. Before they go outside, Rehmat instructs them to greet their father. He looks up from his tea to reply to his children’s jointly recited, “Ya Ali madad, Bapa.” His eyes meet Rehmat’s eyes. They appear to him as blank as the wall behind her.

  Moments after Mumdu and Baku leave for school, Ruth arrives. She is a young Munyankole woman. Raju must continually correct Rehmat when she refers to one person as a Banyankole, which is the plural. The Banyankole are born of this land on which Raju now lives, the Kingdom of Ankole. They did not live here when time began. They came once, as Raju came, from somewhere else, many years ago. Ruth looks at the ground the moment Rehmat’s eyes meet her eyes, as though their pupils are the matching poles of two magnets, pushing each other away according to immutable laws. Gulshi runs past her parents and into Ruth’s arms. Every day, the little girl does this. Raju cannot see what the child runs to. He does not know what draws her. He cannot even imagine it.

/>   One day five years ago, Hussein told Raju to hire Ruth. She did good work. She was well trained. Hussein could no longer keep her; his house was overstaffed. “She needs work,” Hussein said. “She needs money. She will work hard for you.” Ruth has a child but she is unmarried. She is alone. When Hussein told Raju this, he saw in his mind a dry, cracked leaf helplessly whipped about in the wind, pieces of it breaking away. He blinked. The image was replaced by that of a woman, her eyes downcast, her lips trembling, her face reduced to ashes.

  At first, Rehmat did not know what to do with Ruth. She looked at her awkwardly, even suspiciously, it appeared to Raju, and continued to do the housework, despite Raju’s explanation that she was their servant, that he paid her money. Raju watched as Ruth gently and silently began to take things from Rehmat, a kerosene container filled with water, a pile of unwashed clothes.

  Ruth moves around the house quietly, unobtrusively, like a soft breeze, making life more comfortable for its inhabitants. But she leaves no imprint. She leaves no mark. The moment she stops working for Raju, he will forget her.

  Raju comes home with a searing headache. His brother, Ghulam, has run his shop into the ground. For two years, since the time Ghulam first arrived from Malia, Raju has watched him allowing people to buy on credit for months; letting the inventory fall too low too often until regular customers became fed up and stopped coming; opening late, closing early; drinking whiskey every evening until he couldn’t speak coherently. Raju became hoarse screaming at him. But he could do no more than scream. The transport business Raju started just before Ghulam’s arrival keeps him too busy to oversee the day-to-day running of the shop. Now he is in debt.

  Despite all his work in the ten years he has been in Africa, he has nothing, less than nothing.

  In the midst of this thought, Baku runs to tell him the Petromax lamp is broken. Raju calls Mumdu into the room. Without saying a word he slaps him across the face. Mumdu begins crying, holding his cheek while Raju stands over him.

  “Where do you think the money will come from to buy another lamp?” he says loudly, each word dripping with rage.

  “Baku—”

  Raju silences him with another slap. “You are the elder brother! You are responsible! Answer me! Where will the money come from?”

  Sobs filling his heaving chest, Mumdu shrugs. Raju grabs hold of Mumdu’s upper arm and pulls him towards him. With his other hand he begins smacking his bum, his back, his face, again and again. The louder Mumdu cries, the harder Raju hits him.

  Later, Raju is standing alone on the verandah. Gulshi refused to kiss him good night. Her eyes fixed on Raju, she clung to her mother. At dinner, Baku’s hand trembled each time he lifted his cup to his mouth. Mumdu sat in the corner, refusing to speak or eat. Raju regrets the punishment, the beating. But what choice does he have? He must teach his children respect. He must teach them responsibility. He is a man. He must raise men. He cannot turn around now and comfort Mumdu. If he did, he would nurture weakness in him. Even if his sons are afraid of him, even if in moments they hate him, he will not fail them.

  The evening is unusually humid. The mosquitoes are plump, hungry, relentless. Raju turns to go inside. He stops when he hears Mumdu’s voice. The boy’s back is to his father. He is sitting next to Rehmat on her bed. The younger children are asleep.

  “When we came in from the rain, Baku ran across the room and slid on his wet feet and fell on his bum.” Mumdu giggles.

  “And then he picked up the Petromax lamp. I told him he would drop it. I told him to give it to me. But he refused. He said he was strong. I told him he is only three years old. He doesn’t know how it works. Bapa has shown only me how to use the pump.”

  Raju has never shown Mumdu how to use the pump. He is not permitted to touch the lamp.

  “When I tried to take it,” Mumdu continued, “he wouldn’t let it go. It crashed to the floor.” Rehmat sucks her teeth.

  Raju steps from the verandah into the front room. The light of the full moon throws his shadow over Mumdu, over Rehmat. “You are blaming your younger brother?” he asks. He is no longer angry. But he makes no attempt to soften his voice.

  Mumdu does not look up.

  “Without a family, we are nothing. We have nothing. No respect. No honour. Nothing. You will one day be the head of this family. You must become worthy of such a role. Do you understand me?”

  Mumdu does not move. Rehmat places her hand on her child’s back and rubs it, her eyes on Raju. She is nodding, murmuring, “Hah, hah.” Yes, yes.

  Raju is returning to his office after lunch. He drops his cigarette and stops to extinguish it with his shoe. A man with no legs is crossing the road. He propels himself by placing both of his palms on the ground at the same time and swinging his torso forward: palms then stumps, palms then stumps. He is moving efficiently, purposefully, seemingly unaware of any deficiency in his body. Raju watches him, follows his movements across the road. On the opposite side of the street, the man passes two shirtless boys, a gaunt dog, a woman. Raju’s eyes fix on her. He stares at her profile, her full lips and chin extending just beyond the tip of her nose. Her shoulders are pulled back, neck long. Her posture is elegant, assured. She is facing a vendor who is standing next to his bicycle, bunches of green plantains spilling over the sides of its frame. She shakes her head. The vendor speaks. She shakes her head again. Suddenly, she turns towards Raju, as though he called out to her, as though he weren’t standing silently, watching her. Their eyes meet. It is, as he suspected, Grace. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t think to move. His hands are trembling. He blinks and looks at the ground in front of him. When he raises his eyes a moment later, she is walking towards him. She smiles, standing before him now. But there is a lie in her expression, as though she is smiling through pain.

  “You are in town?” he asks. In the eight years since Raju last saw Grace, they have never met by chance like this.

  “I do come to town,” she says. “But rarely. I will not come any longer. We are moving from Ankole soon.”

  “We?” He clears his throat.

  “My son and I,” she says.

  He nods. He is disappointed by this development, surprised by his disappointment. A child. A life of her own. Shouldn’t she have existed solely for him all these years, suspended in time, in space?

  Her face has not yet let go of its empty smile.

  “Are you well?” he asks.

  She nods. “And you?”

  “My brother is making a mess of my shop.” He does not consider whether it is appropriate to share this with her.

  “Has your brother always made messes?” she asks.

  He smiles, surprised by her question, struck by the intelligence behind it. “Always.” He lets out a loud sigh. “What can I do? I need help. He is family. Who else can we trust but family?”

  “Yes,” she says. “You can trust your brother to make a mess.”

  Raju laughs.

  She is quiet. Her smile has weakened, then it is gone.

  His arms move forward, seemingly of their own accord, to touch her, to pull her towards him. Before they can he wills them back to himself, folds them, presses them against his body. He turns to look at two children sitting in the dirt at the side of the road. They are African, a girl of perhaps five or six holding a baby in her lap.

  “I must go,” he says loudly, too loudly. “My house is full of children and I must go to work.”

  “Yes,” she says. “You must go.”

  He glances at her and away so quickly she is a blur, then he leaves.

  Rehmat is asleep, sitting on the floor, her back against the kitchen wall, her head slumped forward onto her chest. Raju stands and waits. She does not stir. He clears his throat loudly. She wakes and stares at him for a moment as though she does not recognize him. Then she stands up and, without a word, rushes to warm his dinner.

  When she brings it out to him, he is already seated on the floor, having washed his hands and rolled up his sleeves.
He eats quickly.

  She is sitting across from him. He can hear her chewing. It is not a loud sound, but it grates on his ears. When he is finished eating, he sets his plate on the floor. Immediately, Rehmat stops eating, picks up both their plates and takes them to the kitchen. A moment later, she returns to ask him if he wants a cup of tea. Some evenings after dinner, Raju drinks a cup of tea before going out to the verandah and smoking a cigarette. Some evenings, he tells her about his day, about trucks that repeatedly break down, about blackened bananas. She sits silently when he speaks. She does not offer an opinion unless she is asked. And Raju has never asked.

  Today, he does not go to the verandah, nor does he answer her question. She stands and waits.

  “Why don’t you speak?” he asks.

  She stares at him.

  “You say nothing. You give me nothing. You ask me nothing.” He stands. “I was up for hours last night with heartburn. You haven’t asked once today, not once, how I am.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “Have you not been well today?”

  He closes his eyes.

  “What can I do? Can I cook something that—”

  “Not now.”

  She is silent.

  “I need help,” he says, turning to face the window. “My brother has become a drunk. The idiot couldn’t even talk tonight. His mouth was like rubber. I don’t know how to fix him. Tell me, my wife, how do I fix him?” He looks at her, at the large, blank eyes staring back at him. He runs his hand through his hair. “You are helpless. You are no better than a child.”

  She does not move. She does not speak.

  “I had diarrhea in December,” he says. “Then, even, you did not ask after my health. I grew so weak and you said nothing.”

  She lowers her eyes.

  “And last week, on Friday, there was no chaas when I came home to eat.”

  She looks at her feet while he cites incident after incident, a litany of failures reaching back to the first months of their marriage. The words are a hammer with which Raju pounds Rehmat again and again.