by M G Vassanji
He began to prepare dinner, engrossing himself completely in the task at hand. And soon the stew was on the stove and the ugali ready. He sat down before an old TV rerun, and as a short police chase began and ended on the screen with a gun battle, he picked up the portable phone and called up a nearby travel agency. LH? — yes, they told him, that meant Lufthansa, the numbers indicated flights leaving Los Angeles for Frankfurt Sunday night, and Frankfurt for Dar es Salaam the following night.
He heard Rumina’s cheerful voice coming up the stairs, then the lock turning, and they walked in. She was in blue jeans, with a long white embroidered kameez covering her hips, and she was beaming, radiant. The attire is modest, he thought, according to the dictates of tradition. Am I imagining things?
“Guess where I took him!” she said gaily.
“Where?” Ramji replied, struggling to smile.
“All the way to Malibu Beach and back, a couple of hours at Universal Studios, and finally the Yoga Shrine,” she said.
Like a child she forgets so easily, hurts so innocently. The shrine was our special retreat, where we made our confessions and dreamed of our future.
“I knew you wouldn’t mind,” she said, moving closer to him, and he gave her a squeeze. Michel watched them with an approving grin.
When she was out of hearing Ramji gave Michel his end of the news, that the Company had decided not to publish his story. He couldn’t help feeling a shot of satisfaction in that look of disappointment, the face losing its glow, the shrug: “Not surprising, after all.” Ramji told him Zayd would take him out for the day the next morning, and would talk to him about what would be best for him now.
After dinner the three of them sat down to a game of Bao, played with stones on a thick wooden board carved out with rows of bowl-shaped cavities. On his way to school in Dar, early in the morning, Ramji would see old men sitting outside the doorways of their homes playing the game. That’s what Bao brought to mind, the long walk to school and the old men; Grandma waiting at home. Someone was actually marketing Bao in the U.S. now, in the museum stores.
They watched the late news, then went out for a walk along the beach. Rumina and Michel had discovered friends in common and she was yammering away at him about girls they had known, who had got married as teenagers and had turned into solemn, responsible wives, with children and a lot of money. Ramji walked on ahead, finding it difficult to accept his own feelings. He was jealous. Michel was younger and far more attractive and sympathetic. He felt left out in their presence. But he was being ridiculous, Rumina was utterly devoted to him, and Michel had a fiancé back home, Shirin, whom he looked forward to marrying.…And those Lufthansa flights? The flight numbers in the diary could mean anything. And the attaché case in the suitcase? Not a sign of guilt, surely, he could have brought a lot of money with him, for example. Still, when Michel leaves, that will be all for the better.
Rumina had crept up behind him and put her arm into his. His heart was pounding. He had a sudden sense of foreboding.
Sounds of TV applause filtered in from the living room and through their bedroom door; out there Michel was awake and restless, and in here very much on Ramji’s mind. He wondered if Michel was on Rumina’s too. They had got into bed tired, and now lay on their backs unable to sleep. The ceiling above them reflected the large window looking out. The last vehicle had driven past on the road down below, some time ago. They heard Michel go to his room, and return shortly to the living room; the groan of creaking pine from the armchair. That was a badly designed object, and lumpy too. Svend had promised to replace it, but was tarrying, and the new model in his catalogue was costly. There were other things too that needed attention about the place — a light switch, a leak in the ceiling near the kitchen.…All evidence of their ongoing life together; a life, a home that should be protected from all manner of threats and not be taken for granted as we are so easily prone to do.
He moved slightly and she turned over beside him and ran a hand across his forehead.
“Michel thinks the world of you … a man of your word is what he called you, someone you can absolutely trust.”
Ramji wondered what to make of that.
“What did you and Michel talk about at the shrine?”
“This and that.” She played with his hair, watched him. “He is quite deep in his own way,” she said, and paused again. Then: “He believes in God.”
They were quiet for a while, Ramji breathing deeply, trying to raise a thought, a response.
She asked: “Why didn’t you tell me — about him?”
He turned on his side to face her in the semidarkness. “What?” he said.
“About him, the incident in his town …”
So she knows. He’s told her.
He said: “I was afraid. I didn’t want to worry you …”
“Oh.” He saw the glint from her eyes, took her warm hand.
“Michel said we’re lucky we have each other …”
“I know I’m lucky,” Ramji replied. But my heart aches so, filled with the poison of jealousy and insecurity and possessiveness. What’s in your heart, girl?
“Suppose he’s guilty —” he began.
“But he’s not! He told me and I believe him. And he knows that you believe him too.”
He didn’t know what to say to her. I’m in it, up to my neck, and sinking. Unless, pray God (for old times’ sake at least, I did believe in You once), pray God he is innocent, happily, joyously so, and vindicated.
He told her of the day’s events, of Darcy’s doubts, and watched her look of dismay.
“It was Zayd and Basu who supported Michel. And we have decided that it would be best for Michel to return.”
“Michel is innocent,” she said. “I am convinced of it! I have already told him he can stay here as long as is … necessary.”
The embrace, finally, was loose, and failed to calm the turmoil within them.
11
They had woken up in a warm, close embrace, opened their eyes and looked at each other, frightened, and amazed; fearful of having lost each other while sojourning in the world of dream and nightmare and sleep. And then hugged each other even tighter, with the certainty that they were each other’s, absolutely and forever, nothing should come in the way.
And they made amends. Ramji said it was nice of her to have shown kindness to their guest, who was far from home and must surely also be frightened. Rumina admitted that perhaps she got too carried away last night, their home was theirs, and they should both talk to Michel later and convince him to return to Ashfield and speak to the government investigators. They then got up and had the coffee which Michel had already made, and shortly afterwards Zayd came and took Michel away for the day.
And so after a long time, he cannot recall how long, the love nest is devoid of alien presence …
He lies stretched out on his back on the floor, not touching it, he thinks, in bliss-filled suspension, like a mist, while somewhere inside she’s humming along with the music and beautifying her lovely self …
Perhaps, he muses in this forgetful moment of abandon, a daughter; and I would like to call her Shanti, for peace … if we had a daughter, if we had a child, which she so much wants.
“We’re making breakfast,” she says, gliding past, leaving a whiff of — what? — lemony milk and spice, honey and musk, and everything nice … these Zanzibaris have always been adept with their seductive wiles.
“Wait — come,” he bids.
“You get up and help,” she retorts.
“No, come here,” with a straight face, he, setting a love trap she knows all about yet comes to him all the same, and from the floor he watches her approach.
“Oh no, not now, and I’ve just had my bath.”
“All the more, dear … to ravish you. Just stand there … come down, you —” he pulls the dress, the hand, she resists, relents — “here, here, let’s have Zanzibari mango for starters …”
“Ramji! That was the onl
y once — one freak time —”
“No argument — not now, my lovely …”
“Not all the way —”
She lowers herself onto him as he pulls off her white knickers. (Why not panties? Panties suggest TV ads and packaged underwear and sterile mannequins, that’s how the mind is formed — it’s knickers for me, suggesting the body the wearer the elastic the pulling-down-ability across the smooth cool behind.) He runs his fingers down her spine, her back, her buttocks, down the cleft, the raw roughness, up and down, raw and rough …
“Come on, Ramji …”
“Mango — mawazo, alphonso …”
“Shindano?” How can she resist. Everyone has a special taste in mangoes.
“Say mrdngam …”
“Mri — no—!”
“You’re a lecher, Ramji —”
“Funny.” They’re lying on their backs now, side by side. “We think of the excesses of youth and the moderation of maturity —but youth can’t hold a candle to middle-aged depravity, to which nothing is dirty or shocking or impossible. Isn’t that so?”
He turns to look at her. Do I deserve you? I don’t care, but I will never let you go. No handsome stranger, no man of God or Devil, of any colour or race will take you away from me …
“I don’t know — I’m not that old, you know …”
They made a wonderful brunch for two. To start with, a whole coconut, split, the meat scraped off and squeezed for the milk. The onions chopped very fine; the white pigeon peas boiled and the creamy sauce prepared using crushed green chillies, coriander, smidgins of turmeric, garlic. That was mbaazi. Then the fried bread, from the yeasty dough prepared beforehand, some days earlier. Mbaazi na maandazi, Zanzibaris swore by it, at least the older ones, those not corrupted by the baseness of greasy chicken and chips, which, as Darcy said, had corrupted the cuisine back home. He would of course get a portion, not to do so would be unforgivable.
They were both reconciled to Darcy’s display of caution regarding Michel; it was natural for the old man to feel protective about the life he had now in California.
“But I still feel that somehow he misled me,” Ramji said. “When he invited me to join him and after I arrived, he gave me the impression that he was still the same old warhorse.”
“But he did hint to you once that he desired you to help him take the Company into more moderate directions, didn’t he?”
“I guess so. But I was never sure what exactly he meant.”
And about his sponsor, that mysterious organization called the Overland Foundation with its poetry-spouting director, let’s not say another word and assume only the best possible motives.
“And he did bring us together.”
Ramji agreed; for that they should be eternally grateful to Darcy.
Afterwards they sat in the living room, Rumina looking over the paper, throwing amused looks at Ramji as he watched the cartoons and chuckled away like a boy.
That night they were to go to the wedding party in Torrance, to which Basu had invited them, and so Rumina had gone off to the shops to look for a gift and get what else she needed for the outing. Alone, at home, Ramji puttered about at first, doing minor chores. He argued successfully against undertaking something time-consuming, such as changing the faulty light switch, and sat down by the phone.
Should he call the kids? No, they would be out now, Saturday noon (their time), at religious classes, and Sunday was when he usually called them … though tomorrow was the day of the Friendship Walk.…He thought for a while, wondered if he should call up Sona in Boston; they hadn’t spoken in months. He argued against that too.
A little later the phone rang.
“Can I speak to Mehboob?” a voice said. An elderly voice, a scratchy, back-home paternal voice that draws you in familiarly.
“He’s out for the moment,” answered Ramji. “Can I take a message? Are you his uncle?”
Michel was not supposed to have broadcast his whereabouts. To how many people had he given this phone number?
“My name is Akbarali Aziz, I am his father. I am calling from Calgary. Please tell him that I called.”
“I will,” Ramji said. “Did Mehboob give you this number?”
“That he did. And you are? …”
Ramji gave his family particulars. Aré, yes, Mr. Aziz said of Ramji’s grandmother, But I knew her well! And she had one daughter. Yes, my mother, Ramji told him. They discussed “prospects” in Canada and America for their Community; and they discussed the Friendship Walk which was scheduled for the following day in every city in North America where the Community had a presence. Are you walking? Ramji asked Mr. Aziz. The man said yes, he was walking with the Golden Club. And you? Yes, Uncle, Ramji said, I’ll be walking. (Everyone at the office had been roped in for the event by the Naaz-Naseem duo.) And how are your own family, Mr. Aziz asked, your wife, children? They are fine, Ramji said. Finally the man said, “You’ll see him off safely, won’t you? My son is a decent, religious boy; he was only misled …”
When the man had rung off, Ramji remained sitting where he was, by the phone, tense with excitement. You’ll see him off, won’t you? And “Aziz”? That must be the new, more “Islamic” family name, for the New World.
The notepaper on which Ramji had copied out the airline flight details from Michel’s diary was in his shirt pocket; it also had the number for Lufthansa. Ramji fished out the paper, he picked up the phone, slowly dialled the number for the airline: I don’t know what to expect, but I’ll just make sure. Sounding anxious, which he was, he pretended to be a passenger, a Mr. M. Aziz, confirming his prior bookings, and gave all the details of the flight. Tense with excitement, he awaited the answer. And then: Yes, Mr. Aziz, the friendly voice told him, all was confirmed on the flight to Frankfurt tomorrow night and thence onward to Dar.
So Michel had used the new family surname Aziz to book the flight.
He was only misled, his father had said; and he committed this one error and wanted to escape the consequences? You’ll see him off safely, won’t you? … an appeal to one of us.…But if he were innocent, wouldn’t the family keep him close to them, and defend him if the need arose, instead of letting him sneak away?
The lock turned, the door rattled, then swung open, and Rumina came in, weighed down by a shopping bag in one hand and clothes from the dry cleaners in the other.
“Hi,” she said. “I settled for a gift certificate in the end, is that all right? — from a kitchen store.”
“Just great,” he said.
Should he tell her what he’s found out? Should he tell her now or later? … He doesn’t know.
“I’m going to go take a nap,” she said, standing at their bedroom door, her hands still full, “and later will you make the tea?”
“You can count on it,” he said and watched her go in and close the door.
What to think of Michel now, what to do? Had Michel lied, had he taken part in the bombing after all? But surely by “he was misled” Mr. Aziz only meant that “the boy” had been influenced in the past into frittering away a good many years of his life with the Movement, and not that he had let himself get involved in the bombing of the bookstore …
But if he were innocent, why would he want to abscond, all that distance, to Dar es Salaam — away from all his close family, instead of staying around to defend himself? An escape would only confirm his guilt in the eyes of the law. It was certainly not what your father would go along with if you were innocent.
A long time ago pretty Lucy-Anne Miller had put him in a similar quandary, saying, I had nothing to do with it (or something like that), hide me for a few days. She too had an escape plan, in her case she was set to drive away to Canada. But deep down in his guts, Ramji thought now, he must have known that she had had something to do with “it.” And if he had admitted to himself then that she had to have been involved in the bombing of the ISS building, what should he have done?
Advise her to give herself up to the police?
“You’re broody,” Rumina said later.
“A little, perhaps. I just want this whole affair to be over — then we can live, just for ourselves.”
“Hmm,” she murmured, nodding.
The doorbell sounded, she got up to answer it. It was Michel, back from his day out with Zayd. He came in, looking cheerful and holding in his hand what looked like a black globe.
“I bought a present for you,” he said, giving the black object to Rumina, “and for Ramji, too, of course,” he added quickly. He had found it in a junk shop downtown: a Makonde carving from Tanzania, with what appeared to be two heads, either human or monkey, in the centre, four smooth limbs emerging from each and intertwining to form a sphere of intricate latticework.
Rumina loved it, thanked Michel profusely; and, Yes, it’s beautiful, Ramji said, with a nod at him. A token of friendship, a goodbye gift — or an omen?
12
The bridegroom, in a yellow sparkling turban and silver-and-grey Indian suit, his face hidden behind a white veil of jasmine strings, was led into the wedding ceremony high upon a horse, a glistening brown and black genuine Arab thoroughbred, which was preceded by a wailing reed flute and tabla and a bevy of whirling dancing women and girls in colourful saris and boys in red-and-yellow silk costumes. Delhi Delight, said Basu, that’s the name of the horse, it’s won the Kentucky Derby, and the sire is the great Shen-shah from Ireland. It doesn’t race anymore, of course, he added unnecessarily.
