But on the following Tuesday, the course was on his mind all day, distracting him from his work. So was drinking. He’d visited the Merry Pint four times the previous week and was troubled about returning to his pre-AA excesses. He needed a plan, a way to kill some time so he wouldn’t spend his entire evening at the bar. He bargained that he could reward himself with a light beer at home if he forced himself to go to the class.
King’s College Circle was quiet that evening, newly fallen snow dampening the sounds of student footfalls and the nearby street traffic. Ismail neared University College and saw Fatima standing by the heavy wooden doors, blue-haired and shivering. She waved her cigarette hand in greeting.
“Hi there. You came back,” she said, her brow furrowing in concentration. “It’s Ismail, right?”
“Yes, I had to miss last week’s class because of work,” he said, dismissively.
“You didn’t miss much,” she said, blowing smoke into the cold air.
“How are you tonight, Fatima?” He praised himself for remembering her name.
“Good,” she said, pulling on her cigarette. She sputtered into a coughing fit.
“Hey, you know, that’s going to stunt your growth.” Ismail chuckled, and immediately regretted the old fogey words. She scowled at him and regained her composure.
“No problem there. My genes have taken care of that already. Just like yours, I’m guessing,” she said, sizing him up. Ismail pushed out his chest and stretched his five-foot-seven frame half an inch taller. “I haven’t grown since I was eleven. I’m not about to start at this age.”
“Which is?” Ismail asked, still feeling like an old man in her presence.
“Well, as a matter of fact, I am nineteen and eleven-twelfths. Here take this.” She handed him a piece of paper from her coat pocket. “I’m having a big party for my twentieth in three weeks. You’re invited.” He took the photocopied handbill from her. There was a black-and-white caricature of the birthday girl holding a balloon and a glass of wine. It was almost a good likeness to her: long dark hair, big friendly eyes, toothy grin. Inside the balloon were typed details of the party: March 14th, 9:00 p.m., Polish Recreation Centre Hall, 97 Wallace Street.
“Thanks.”
“Really, you should come. It’s going to be totally cool. There’s going to be tons of people,” she said, her eyes widening, “and I’ve ordered lots and lots of platters of maki, and DJ Billyboi is doing the last set.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” Ismail said blandly, still looking at the drawing. He noticed the artist had even drawn in deep dimples.
“You know, you’d probably have a good time. And bring a date if you want.”
“Sounds fun. I’ll check my calendar,” he said politely. A ridiculous image of him boogying at a party for twenty-year-olds flashed across Ismail’s mind. Boogying? Do they still say that? He looked at his watch. “Hey, we should go in. It’s getting late.”
“Oh, right.” She dropped her cigarette. Ismail stomped it out, and they went inside.
When they entered, the class was already in progress. A woman with a sequined blouse was directing her comments to James Busbridge, who was nodding his head emphatically at her. Behind him on the blackboard were the words: point of view, narrator, first-person, second-person, third-person.
“… So I like multiple points of view,” the woman said, her blouse glittering at James.
“Thank you. It really is a balance between our creativity and following the ‘rules,’” he replied, glancing up at Fatima and Ismail as they paused to search for vacant seats. She found a spot in the centre of the U-shaped table arrangement and Ismail took the only other available seat, next to James. He wondered if more students had turned up since last class or if someone had removed some of the chairs, like they do during stressful children’s party games. Embarrassed, he mouthed, “Sorry I’m late,” to the teacher and nervously scanned the room to see if others were bothered by his late arrival. It seemed that all eyes were on him as James nodded in his direction before continuing to talk about the complexities of voice in writing. Ismail took out a notebook and busied himself, copying down all the words on the blackboard.
After a few more minutes of lecturing, James asked for volunteers to read aloud completed homework from the previous class. A hush fell over the room as James scanned the ‘U’ clockwise. Ismail followed his gaze, watching students develop intense interest in things on the floor, on the pages of their notebooks or inside their bags. James’s roving eyes eventually landed on Ismail, and, like a schoolboy caught without his homework, he gave the teacher an embarrassed grin, and explained, “Sorry, I wasn’t here last week to get the homework.” Ismail’s cheeks grew hot and his armpits damp.
“Well, I can go,” called Fatima from across the room. The classroom breathed again, twenty pairs of grateful eyes focusing on her.
“Great, come on up here. Thanks, Fatima.” Ismail studied her as she stepped to the front of the class and took a deep breath, as though inhaling courage. Her nervous fingers made her typed sheets shake slightly. She had less than a month to go before she left behind her adolescence, yet she seemed strangely mature to him. At twenty, he was still in Mumbai, being coddled by a houseful of women. He didn’t know what sushi was, and wouldn’t taste it until his forties, just a decade ago. He’d never had a party with a DJ, not even at his wedding.
As Fatima read, her grip on the sheets grew more relaxed and her voice more even. Ismail felt for the birthday invitation he had earlier slipped into his trouser pocket, the paper crisp against his damp fingers. And then it dawned on him: Zubi would have been twenty, had she lived, and her twenty-first birthday would be on February twenty-sixth, just two days away. He grew warm and lightheaded as he stared at Fatima, a girl who could have been one of his daughter’s contemporaries, perhaps even one of her friends.
For some years, Zubi’s birthdays and death anniversaries played on his mind weeks before their arrival. Other years, they seemed to fade into the background, arriving like a surprise when he consulted his day planner or woke up and realized what day it was. Try as he might to ignore these dates, he knew he’d never forget them.
He struggled to bring his attention back to Fatima and their eyes met, just as she was reading out her last sentence. There was a short silence, then, overcompensating for his lack of attention, he clapped heartily for her, and others followed his lead.
“Thanks, Fatima, well done. Does anyone have feedback?” James asked. Fatima leaned towards Ismail and whispered, “God, I hope they won’t be too brutal.” He smiled at her encouragingly, almost paternally, as she made her way back to her seat.
Ismail managed to get home from the university without a detour to the Merry Pint. He threw his car keys into the fruit bowl on the kitchen table, turned up the heat, and opened the fridge. Five light beers lined up like sentries on the fridge door shelf. He grabbed one, twisted off the cap, and took a long swig, welcoming the icy beer’s warmth.
Upstairs, he drew the bedroom drapes, looking out at the neighbouring homes. The snow was still coming down, blanketing the roofs in white. Across the way at Celia’s house, the porch light switched on. He turned off his bedroom lamp and stood near the window. Finally, Celia stepped out wearing her long coat, the same one she had donned while out shovelling a few weeks back. He remembered its smell of damp wool mixed with a fruity perfume. Her black scarf flapped in the wind, and she grabbed it in mid-air, taming it into a loose knot.
He stepped away from the window long enough to run downstairs to grab another beer from the fridge. When he returned, Celia was still on the porch. Who was she waiting for? She looked up at the sky in his direction, sniffing the air like a feral cat, and then, as though giving up the scent, looked away. Feeling silly to be watching her again, Ismail backed away from the window, but not for long. Like a bird impervious to the dangers of a glass pan
e, he once again moved closer to it.
The street was deserted. She stood alone on the porch, a solitary figure out in the snow. Sensing her loneliness, Ismail wanted to cross the street, unwind her thick scarf from her neck, unbutton her long black coat. See what she was wearing underneath. A dress? Blouse and skirt? All in black as usual? She turned, opened the front door and went in halfway, perhaps calling to someone. With her back turned, he took another good look at her, frowning to see that her lively burgundy boots had been replaced by grim, sensible black ones. She was the picture of full-blown grief, a suitably dressed woman in mourning. Even her black leather purse complied with what Ismail assumed to be her spousal duty. Yet something about her was different.
Lydia emerged from the house, and, in tandem, she and Celia stepped off the porch and headed down the street, leaving behind their footsteps in the fresh snow. He leaned forward to get a look at her disappearing back, thinking something had changed about her since the last time he’d seen her. A gust of wind fluttered her scarf, billowing it from her head, and there it was, poking out flirtatiously from under it. Ismail laughed out loud. What had been grey the day before had turned scarlet. Her hair was like a red flag, waving to him in gloom of the winter night.
— * —
Upon awaking earlier that day, Celia knew she’d been visited by her dead husband’s ghost. She scanned her bedroom-den for him, but of course, he’d left by then. She shuttered her eyes closed and other sensations intensified; his smell coated her skin, a musky combination of sweat, drywall dust, and figs. She billowed the sheets, and his scent dispersed across her room.
But he’d left behind more than that. Pulling her knees up to her chest, her body told her that it had been manhandled while she slept. Imprints of thick hands lingered on her breasts, stomach, and hips. She licked her warm lips and tasted his brand of cigarettes. Rolling over to his side of the bed, she held his pillow tight, grasping for his fleeting heat. Her body soon grew cold.
She wrenched off the covers, and pushed herself out of bed. Within moments she was dressed and stomping toward the foyer. She’d already pulled her coat on when Lydia called out to her from the kitchen, “Mãe, where’re you going?”
“Out,” Celia fumed, unsure why she was directing her anger at her daughter.
“How long you going to be? We’re leaving for work in half an hour. Will you be back before then?” Lydia’s startled voice wafted down the hallway, her words gathering around Celia’s feet. She dodged them, hastily shoving her feet into her boots.
“I’ll be back when I am back,” she snarled, turning the doorknob and swinging open the front door.
“But what about Marco? Can you take him with you?”
“No, not today,” she said petulantly, enjoying her rebellion. Hadn’t she dropped off Marco at preschool almost every day since she’d arrived on Lochrie? And then picked him up every day, too? At noon the schoolyard was always full of grandmothers, waiting in the cold for grandchildren. Had anyone ever asked them if they had other plans, if they wanted to look after yet another generation of children?
Celia bristled with indignation and outrage. She stamped out the door, and for good measure, she slammed it soundly behind her. She ignored Lydia’s protests and marched east on Lochrie, and then north to Dundas, passing empty cafés and darkened dollar stores. Her pace was brisk and she was winded by the time she reached Dufferin.
She paused at the intersection to rest a moment. Her anger no longer fuelling her, she grew limp with shame. Why had she made such a production about nothing and left Lydia in the lurch? She almost turned around right there, but the traffic light changed from red to green, and, taking this as a sign, she continued on with her trek. She crossed the street, gulping in February air that barely warmed before reaching her lungs.
And she just kept walking, passing the XXX video store with its embarrassing posters of scantily clad women, and past the bakery with its yeasty aromas sneaking under the door. And then a neon light in a storefront ahead caught her eye. She read the bright pink sign: New Life Hair and Nails. She hummed the words, smiled, and entered the salon.
— * —
Ismail watched Celia and Lydia walk away. Finally, when they were out of sight, he pulled himself away from the window. A restive energy followed him through the dark of his home, to the kitchen. He gulped back the rest of the beer he’d been nursing and then opened another. He sifted through the mail, finding nothing of interest: a gas bill, a credit card statement, a newsletter from the Liberal MP. The furnace switched itself on, its rumble startling him. A few minutes later it turned off, sighing itself back to sleep.
It was almost ten o’clock, just an hour before bedtime, but Ismail deliberated about heading to the bar. The edginess that had been gnawing at him morphed into a craving for whiskey, a drink he no longer kept at home. The urge itched at him until its taste and smell were almost palpable. Maybe just one. Ismail grabbed his keys from the fruit bowl, and put on his jacket, looking forward to the familiarity of place, the easy company of the regulars. He envisioned being greeted by Suzanne, the weekday bartender, and perhaps pulling up a stool at the bar and making conversation with a Mary Pinter. And then he thought of Daphne. Might she be there tonight? He’d heard from the other regulars that she’d been in earlier in the week, and he was glad he’d missed her. He shrugged off his coat.
He slumped down at the kitchen table again, and replaced the keys in the fruit bowl. He held tight to his light beer, gulping fast, sucking down its last drops. While he contemplated getting another, a hazy intoxication crept up on him; he hadn’t eaten for hours. He cracked open a fourth beer. It’s only light beer. Not even light, but Lite.
After a few more gulps, the filaments of his back muscles loosened and extended, and his posture slackened. The minutiae of his day circled his mind once, twice, and then drained away. The mail scattered upon the kitchen table felt far away and soon he was very much alone in his drowsy head. It was the same wobbly relief he used to experience back in the day when he drank with Daphne. He wanted to join in her merriment once more, to delight in her jokes and her open-mouthed, gap-toothed laugh.
Ismail gulped back more beer. We had a good friendship, didn’t we, Daphne? Another swig of beer and his eyes moistened, rendering his vision fuzzy. What? Is that Rehana and Zubi? Yes! Over there, by the sink. Mirage-Rehana pointed to the fruit bowl in front of him and he gazed into its delicate design, noticing for the first time the way the colours swirled up and lashed the sides of the bowl, a rainbow hurricane. His vision softened and his eyes grew wetter.
Ismail was perusing the Saturday newspaper when he heard Rehana’s key turn in the lock. Soon she was in the kitchen, Zubi bobbing against her chest in a carrier. They had just returned from a yard sale down the street and Rehana proudly set a painted ceramic bowl down on the kitchen table.
“Look, Ismail, this was only a dollar! The neighbours are selling off half their house for almost nothing,” she announced with amazement in her voice. Before Lochrie, the Boxwalas had never before had a yard, much less a yard sale, and the concept was still an amusing novelty to Rehana.
“We have so many bowls, don’t we? Why buy another one?” Ismail muttered, in his characteristically killjoy way. This was before Zubi died, but even so, he was no less irritating a companion back then.
“It’s for fruit, Ismail,” she said, sighing. “We don’t have a nice fruit bowl. We should eat more fruit. I’m going on a diet, so I’ll eat more fruit and put it in the bowl.” She pronounced each word slowly and deliberately, as though explaining the simplest of concepts to a child. She placed the bowl in the sink to wash later, and then turned away from her husband, unclasping Zubi from the carrier. He stared at her back while she worked the buckles.
Rehana hadn’t always been like this with Ismail. At first, when he lobbed his naysaying at her, she would cajole, sweet-talk; it had
almost been a sort of game between them. But after years of marriage, Rehana lost her patience and grew easily annoyed with him. Ismail guessed that was how it was in most marriages; in time every couple learned how to cut to the chase, reduce effort, be economical with energy.
“Another diet? Come on Rehana, you are fine. Why are you always dieting? It’s not healthy.” Although unsuccessful, the comment was meant to be conciliatory, a clumsy compliment.
“Ismail, never mind. This one is a healthy regimen.” That was another thing that had changed during the Boxwala marriage. At first, Rehana had a voracious appetite that Ismail found both surprising and arousing. He’d watch her sometimes, as she spooned large helpings of rice and curry onto her plate, using her fingers to clean away every last grain, each drop of daal, licking and sucking her way up to her first knuckle. But by the time Zubi was born, she had tried the Scarsdale, Weight Watchers, and Jane Fonda. Despite her weight loss, she remained obsessed with shrinking her small body.
“But you are already slim enough,” Ismail continued his weak protest.
“I still have some baby fat. See?” she pointed at her flat stomach. “It’s a five-day fruit-only fast a co-worker of mine has been using. She lost ten pounds with it.”
“Well I don’t see any fat on you, but whatever makes you happy.”
“It would make me happy if you took Zubi now. I need to start cooking dinner,” she said, handing him the baby.
Zubi had been about six months old then. Ismail held her close, sniffing her sweet scalp. She smelled of talcum powder, baby shampoo, and bliss.
“Okay, okay. Sorry, a fruit bowl is a good idea. It’s very nice, very colourful,” Ismail said, feeling silly for arguing about a one-dollar bowl. He kissed Zubi on her cheeks, making loud smooching noises that caused Zubi to giggle and the corners of Rehana’s mouth to lift into a reluctant smile. Then he kissed Rehana’s cheeks in the same way until she laughed and shoved him aside.
Six Metres of Pavement Page 12
