Six Metres of Pavement

by Farzana Doctor

  “Well that’s … cool,” she said, her eyes narrowing slightly. “I really wish my parents would try to be as open-minded as you.” Open-minded. Ismail found her evaluation gratifying. With Nabil’s boys, he had always tried to be the understanding uncle they could approach when they couldn’t talk to their parents. Altaf never seemed to need him in this way, but Asghar confided in him periodically.

  “So they kicked you out because they found out about … it?” Ismail broached.

  “I think so. But more than that they kicked me out for being public about ‘it.’ But you know, I never thought they’d see the article. It’s just a campus newspaper, not The Globe and Mail or something.”

  “So how did they see the article, then?”

  “Through the desi grapevine. A U of T student — I still don’t know who — brought the paper home, one of his parents read it, and then called a family friend, who called my uncle, who called my mother.”

  Ismail smiled wanly. He understood too well how bad news travelled.

  Fatima paused as the couple from class approached them at the intersection. Ismail and Fatima acknowledged them with nods and they did the same. The light turned green, and they strode ahead, falling into a rhythmic march, their matching carry-alls bobbing up and down on their backs. Ismail and Fatima followed a few steps behind them.

  “Anyway, we had a huge fight. I won’t bore you with all the details. They accused me of publicly shaming them. Then they told me to pack my things.” Fatima lit a cigarette and a puff of smoke blew into his face. She apologized and then waved the smoke away.

  “That’s terrible.”

  “You know, I always thought they knew something, but we never talked about it. I planned to come out to them when I finally left home. Though I never really knew how that conversation would go,” she scoffed. “Queerness is a little difficult to explain.” She must have noticed his look of confusion then, and continued, “I mean, maybe my parents would understand gay or lesbian, it’s slightly more clear-cut. Not that they approve of that, either.”

  “Oh. Yes, I see,” Ismail said, pretending to understand. They stopped at a bus shelter and she looked down the road for a streetcar.

  “I think that if I had just done what I wanted, but not been so open and honest about it, things would have been fine with them.”

  “I suppose they’re concerned about how the community will see them,” he ventured. “Not everyone has been exposed to these things.”

  “You obviously have. I could tell you were different from the moment I met you in class. Until you mentioned the widow lady I assumed you were gay … you aren’t are you?”

  “No, of course not!” Ismail retorted, unable to hide his shock.

  “It’s just that you don’t wear a wedding ring,” she explained. “And you are non-judgmental about this. And well, not that many South Asian men go to writing classes, from my experience.”

  “Well, yes, I’m not married. I’m divorced … and I know a little about this because I have a very good friend who is gay … I mean, she’s a lesbian.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, that’s good, I guess.” She hefted her heavy pack from one hip to the other.

  “So, Fatima … how are you managing? Where are you staying?”

  “With a friend, for now. I’ll figure it out. And at least there’s one good thing in all of this … my parents already paid for the party as my birthday present. My mom sent off the cheque last week. At least they can’t pull out of that,” she said, with a cheeky grin. Ismail couldn’t help but return her smile. Despite the huge problems Fatima was facing, she still somehow managed to make her birthday bash the centre of her world. Beneath all her bravado and sophistication, she was still a teenager, at least for another week.

  “A small consolation.”

  “You know, I only meant to find you and apologize. I really didn’t mean to lay all this on you. I mean, I don’t even really know you,” she said, adjusting her scarf and fiddling with her mittens. He, too, wondered why she was oversharing. Did she sense that he wouldn’t criticize her? Could she discern that he was a man who’d been judged most of his life and knew well enough to not judge her? Ismail felt a rush of warmth for the girl, a sudden protectiveness.

  “Listen, it sounds like you are up against a lot of pressure. If there is something I can do for you, let me know,” he said, pulling a business card from his wallet. “Here, I mean it. Feel free to call me.”

  “Thanks, that’s nice of you,” she said, stuffing the card into her coat pocket. “But I’m sure I’ll be fine. I think that I’ll be able to go home again once they cool off. Especially my father.” She stepped out into the street to meet the lumbering streetcar.

  They parted there, with her climbing on the eastbound car, and Ismail walking to his parking spot on Beverley. As he replayed the conversation, he felt some trepidation about his impulsive offer and hoped she wouldn’t take him up on it.

  On the way home, he drove along College and passed the Merry Pint. He slowed to look through its front windows, and thought he saw a woman about Daphne’s height. He put his foot on the accelerator, and drove down Brock Avenue to the liquor store just before its weary employees locked its doors for the night.

  — 22 —

  Interventions

  “Hey, it’s me, Fatima.” Ismail had to press the telephone to his ear to hear her better; his coworker in the next cubicle over seemed to be waging war on her filing cabinet, noisily opening and banging its drawers shut.

  “Er, hello? Oh, yes … Fatima, from class, right?”

  Although they had just seen one another two days earlier, they made awkward small talk for a few moments; out of their usual context, Ismail wasn’t sure what to chat about. Finally, Fatima asked him to meet her after work to talk about “something important.” When he hesitated and then asked for details, she told him she preferred not to elaborate over the phone and would only need a half hour of his time. He remembered his offer of support, bargained that he could spare thirty minutes, and agreed.

  Ismail pushed Fatima and her troubles out of his mind for the rest of the afternoon, returning to a report he was writing on the refurbishment of an east-end bridge. The recent thaw had caused it to shed a few kilos of cement onto a service road below. The whole situation made him nervous, but he was glad that the newly implemented inspection plan had at least caught the problem before the media had. Luckily, the bridge was above a rarely used thoroughfare, and the damage was not serious.

  At three-thirty, Ismail dropped off the report in his manager’s mailbox and then checked his email. Half of it was junk, and he accidentally opened a message titled “Fw: meeting today” that opened up to a display of pastel-coloured pills promising to cure erectile dysfunction. He scanned the round and diamond shaped tablets, a ball of acid churning in his stomach. Heat prickled over his body and he removed his sweater. Before long, he was sweating through his shirt.

  After Rehana remarried, Ismail fell into a long period of lonely bachelorhood. His solitude was only punctuated by work meetings, sessions with the therapist, and infrequent trips to Nabil’s place. Those family visits were difficult while Nabil’s boys were still young; Altaf was almost five and Asghar nearly three when she died. Watching them grow up was a painful reminder of what he’d lost.

  “Ismail Kakaji, where is Zubi?” Asghar would ask his uncle, at three-and-a half, or four, or four-and-a-half years old, his brow furrowed, as though trying to remember some fact he’d lost track of. An uncomfortable silence would follow, Nabil perhaps switching on the television, and Ismail, turning to stone, still and silent on the couch.

  “Asghar, don’t ask Kakaji so many questions. We’ll talk about it later,” Nabila would reply, shushing her son.

  “I told you already, stupid,” Altaf would say earnestly at age five-and-a-half, or six or six-and-a-half years
old, “She went to heaven. She’s dead, right, Mummy?”

  “Yes, that’s correct, boys,” Nabila would mumble, ushering them out of the room, looking apologetically in her brother-in-law’s direction. Nabil would clear his throat, and talk about the stock market, or the Blue Jays while Ismail regained his composure.

  Eventually, mercifully, around the time Asghar turned five and Altaf was seven, they seemed to forget about their little cousin and their inquiries stopped.

  Fearing that Ismail’s lack of social contact was making things worse for him, Nabil and Nabila repeatedly offered to set him up on dates, and insisted that he should get remarried. Get your life back on track, they’d insist, ignoring the fact that his life’s derailment was unlikely to be remedied in this way.

  Ismail relented, and met two women, both of whom refused him a second date, perhaps because he seemed so miserable or because they knew of his past. He never asked how many women never agreed to a first date. He wasn’t terribly upset by the rejections, for he still couldn’t trust his body, which had swung from sexless with Rehana, to oversexed after the separation. Although the spontaneous erections eventually ceased about a year after Rehana left, he wasn’t eager to test things out with someone new. He was sure the tragedy had damaged him irreversibly in that department and that it was probably a punishment he would have to accept.

  It wasn’t until Ismail became a regular at the Merry Pint that he felt himself growing social again. His bar buddies cracked open his isolation, offering him companionship and a fresh start. To them, he was just a friendly stranger with whom they could talk nonsense, have a laugh or two and be memorable, yet relatively anonymous.

  A few years into his tenure at the Merry Pint, Ismail gathered up the courage (or perhaps it was the alcohol that did the gathering) to go home with a Mary Pinter for the first time. Her real name was Chantal, or so she told him; Ismail was never sure about this detail. Their relations were graceless, lasted just a few minutes, and were potentially dangerous (she told him he didn’t need to wear protection because she was on the Pill, and Ismail wasn’t savvy enough at the time to question her). However, and much to his relief, things were relatively normal between the two of them. There was no erectile dysfunction, and afterwards, no spontaneous erections, either. How grateful Ismail was to Chantal that night! He credited her with his sexual healing, and, in his gratitude, pursued her with flowers and chocolates and phone calls until she managed to brush him off a few weeks later. The experience left him hopeful that his punishment had abated.

  Ismail closed and deleted the email, banishing Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra from his desktop. He dried his forehead and set his hankie to dry on the edge of a desk drawer. It was almost four o’clock and he remembered that he would be meeting Fatima shortly. He fretted about the “something important” she wanted to discuss and what help he could possibly offer a bisexual nineteen-year-old girl. He shook off his worries and resolved to be a good listening ear for her. He reasoned that she just needed an older person’s good judgment. He spent the last half hour at work Googling articles on coming out to parents, and looking up “queer” on Wikipedia, a term he’d previously presumed to be an terrible insult. He considered calling Daphne for some advice, but by the time he’d worked up the nerve, it was time to go.

  At five, Ismail waited at a drab café just across from the university gates. It was filled with young people hunched over laptops or talking loudly in small groups. Many of the girls wore blouses that looked embarrassingly like lingerie to him and he puzzled over how they managed to stay warm in winter. Ismail realized for the first time that Fatima was different from these other girls, tending to dress in baggy jeans and tops with various political slogans on them.

  He ordered a cup of expensive chai and watched five, ten, and then fifteen minutes pass on the large wall clock above the door. Just as he was beginning to think he’d been stood up, Fatima arrived, out of breath, her coat open to reveal a T-shirt with the cryptic words “No One Is Illegal” emblazoned across her chest. There was a look of near panic in her eyes, and so when she apologized for being tardy, Ismail forgave her easily and bought her a four-dollar latté.

  She did most of the talking at first, telling him she’d had another argument with her parents the previous day. She’d gone home, hoping for a partial reconciliation, but ended up packing up more of her things. They informed her that they were withdrawing all financial support, and she’d have to find a way to sustain herself.

  “You really sure it’s not temporary? You don’t think that another week or two will make a difference?” Ismail asked, knowing that youth could be a time of extremes. When Asghar first talked about changing his major, he was sure his father would “never forgive” him and Ismail had to persuade him otherwise.

  “No, this is serious. I know my parents. They won’t reverse this decision,” Fatima said dolefully, spooning up froth from her latté.

  “This is bad news,” he said, not really believing her, but because he could tell she was upset. He did feel bad for the girl; no matter how long this standoff was going to last, it was a current stressful ripple in her life. “And such a bad way to celebrate your twentieth birthday,” he added.

  “Well, at least that’s not ruined, at least not completely, anyway,” she said, taking a sip of coffee. “They’ve already paid the non-refundable fees for both the hall and the sound system. One of the DJs has promised to play all night for free now.”

  “Well, that’s a relief, isn’t it? You’ll still have your party, then,” Ismail mused, trying to not sound patronizing.

  “I’ve cancelled the maki order, though,” she bit her bottom lip and looked like she was about to cry. “Now that I’m homeless, jobless, and broke, my friends have turned it into a fundraiser for me. They got a liquor license and think they can raise a couple of thousand, maybe.”

  “Well, you have some good friends looking after you. And a place to stay. That’s good, right?”

  “Yeah. I can probably couch-surf for a little while, but not too long. Most of my friends have tiny places and roommates who won’t like a guest beyond a few days. And the fundraiser will help, but I’m not naive enough to think this is a long-term solution. I’ll need tuition next September. I’m looking for work and I’ll save what I can over the spring and summer, but I don’t know how I’ll be able to go to school full-time and afford to live in the fall. I don’t even think I’m eligible for student loans,” her voice rose in pitch with each sentence jangling Ismail’s nerves.

  “Hmm,” was all he could manage in reply. He reached for his handkerchief, his mind racing with a jumble of thoughts. It dawned on him that Fatima might ask him for financial assistance, a possibility that made him uncomfortable. He reminded himself that he was going to be a good listener, a reasonable adult. “This is tough,” he said. Did that sound understanding enough?

  “I’ve still been thinking about an MFA if I don’t do medicine. My parents were going to take care of all of this. They’ve got the money, you know…. That’s why —” She looked up at Ismail, and then back down into her bowl. “That’s why I need your help.” He raised his eyebrows and readied himself to politely refuse the request for money he assumed was coming.

  As though sensing his alarm, she said, “Don’t worry, I’m not asking you for money. I wouldn’t do that. I just need someone — someone like you — to speak to my parents for me. To convince them to support me again.”

  “Me?” Ismail asked incredulously.

  “Yeah, I know it sounds strange, but I’ve given this some thought. I need an advocate. You’re someone of their age and culture and they —”

  “Wait, you have to be kidding,” he interrupted, “I can’t possibly be the right person to help you. Surely, you must have someone else?” He felt his pulse quicken and he took a deep breath, and involuntarily, simultaneously, so did she.

  “Listen f
or just a minute. I really think this could work. My friends and I have gone over every possibility we could think of and we all agreed that this was the only way —”

  “— but what about your family? You must have a family member who could talk to your parents for you? Uncles? Aunts? Cousins? Family friends? A teacher?” At each suggestion, she shook her head.

  “Here’s the thing. We don’t have a big family, and most of them are in India, and I barely know them. And the few who are here — they are pretty conservative people, even more so than my parents. A lot of them are really devout, too. I swear, Ismail, most of the extended family would be scandalized if they found out. No one in my family has ever come out. No one’s gotten knocked up outside of marriage, or been divorced, even. They say really bad things about people who do.”

  “But I’m divorced.” She didn’t seem to hear him.

  “If I took this to the extended family or the community, they’d judge my parents, too. That would make things worse.” She was now sitting at the edge of her seat, leaning far across the table. He inched himself as far back in his chair as he could.

  “Are you sure? There must be people who would be more understanding than you think. I mean, just because they are conservative or religious doesn’t mean they won’t understand. Perhaps some of them will show you some compassion?” Ismail considered the ways in which community members had responded to his own scandal. Although the overwhelming reaction was avoidance, there had been some surprises from kind-hearted acquaintances who offered condolences and sympathy. Just after Rehana left, he received one unexpected dinner invitation from a colleague of Nabil’s, a very devout man who attended the masjid regularly with his family. In hindsight, Ismail wished he’d accepted.