‘Your toes are twitching, my little luddo.’
I opened my eyes and turned over to look at him. He smiled at me, the light from the door throwing his face into orbit, with only the lower half reflecting the light of its artificial sun.
‘Shouldn’t I be asleep? I have school tomorrow, you know.’
‘I know. You can sleep in a few minutes. I just didn’t really get a chance to talk to you today, that’s all.’
‘You were busy.’
‘You had a tummy-ache and came in to lie down.’
‘Because I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself.’
‘Of course you are, but we feel important if you let us help you do that.’
‘How come you never brush my hair?’ The words flew unbidden from my lips. I had been determined to keep my cool, but he didn’t seem angry with me and I was flustered.
‘I can brush it tomorrow if you like. I notice you have a new eraser or two in your collection.’
Excited, I got out of bed and went and got the new additions to my rubber family, showing them to Abba as I told him of their origins.
‘The flower was from Ammi for getting all my math questions right. I sort of wanted one with an airplane on it but she said I should get the girly flower one, and she didn’t want me to grow up to be an air hostess. What’s an air hostess?’
‘A woman who takes care of people on aeroplanes.’
‘Like a girl pilot?’
‘Not exactly. She doesn’t fly the plane but she makes sure everyone’s safe and warm and well-fed.’
‘Like Ammi except up in the air?’
‘You could say that except don’t say that to her.’
‘Do they also wear saris all the time? What do they look like? Do they have uniforms? Why can’t they fly the plane?’
‘Yes, they have uniforms. And they look just like everyone else. And they can’t fly the plane because their fingers are too delicate to get a good grip on the steering. You know Aunty Francis, who lives down the street? She’s an air hostess. That’s why we hardly ever meet her, she’s always flying around.’
‘But she’s so nice! And pretty!’
‘Yes she is.’
‘Why doesn’t Ammi want me to be like her then?’
‘I think your mother just doesn’t want you to do anything that will take you far away from her.’
‘Oh,’ I mulled it over and moved on, ‘this one’s from Mamu,’ I held out the airplane, ‘he bought it for me when Ammi wasn’t looking.’
‘Smart man. He hasn’t visited us for a few days, has he?’
‘No, he’s been busy too.’
‘That’s how I knew he wasn’t the one to go through my drawer.’
The trapdoor clicked shut behind me. There should be a rule against tricking other people, I thought.
‘I didn’t …’ my voice trailed off. Lying to a parent was pointless, I’d learned that early. At least to Ammi, anyway. She had an uncanny ability to ferret out what you really didn’t want her to know. Persistence, that’s how she did it.
‘Right …’ Abba continued when it became obvious I was going to say nothing else, ‘I don’t know if you’ve done it before or been doing it regularly.’
‘No!’ I shook my head emphatically, that was the first time I’d burrowed through his desk.
‘We treat you like a big girl because you behave like one. If you start doing babyish things like deliberately disobeying us, for example opening drawers and cabinets you’re not supposed to open, we’ll have to start treating you like a little baby again. Would you like that? Should we treat you like a baby till you grow up? Would you like to not be able to drink anything but milk?’
I giggled despite the lump in my throat. He was pulling my leg obviously. Everyone knew being a baby was something that only happened once. He wasn’t really angry with me, he would be talking about real punishment if he were.
‘Stop giggling!’ Abba’s tone hardened, ‘you did something wrong and now you’re giggling about it. What are you, stupid?’
Shocked, I mumbled, ‘Sorry.’
‘You should be sorry,’ he almost snarled, ‘little troublemaker! Should I call your mother and tell her how you’re behaving?’
‘No Abba,’ I was speaking but I couldn’t hear my own voice.
‘Would you like to wear a diaper all the time? Should we send you to school with a diaper over your uniform so all the other children can see it? They’d like that. They’d all make fun of you.’
Abba’s half-moon smile seemed menacing, suddenly, I felt the first tear well up and fall. I willed it not to, I didn’t want to cry like a baby, much less be one.
‘I’m sorry. It was an accident. I won’t do it again.’
‘I don’t know if I believe you. I think I should tell your mother,’ he hesitated, ‘she’ll insist we treat you like a baby for at least a week …’
‘Please, please believe me, don’t tell Ammi,’ I was sobbing furiously now, and hating myself for it. He let me wriggle and squirm for a little longer, watching me with a detachment I found unnerving. If only that stomach ache had killed me after all.
‘All right, just this once, I won’t tell your mother. If you’ve really learned your lesson we’ll both keep quiet about everything that happened.’
‘Everything’ was exaggerated.
‘But one word and I’ll put that diaper on you myself. Now get back to sleep.’
I clambered under the covers and pulled them up to my chin. He stood silhouetted, backlit, like the monster from the old cupboard in the hall whose shadow sometimes flitted past my door at darkest night.
‘You know I saw an eraser with a train on it the other day,’ his tone was oddly cheerful, ‘maybe I’ll bring it home for you tomorrow. Would you like that?’
Petrified, I managed to nod, his inconsistency leaving me speechless.
‘That’s too bad, because I don’t give presents to little sneaks. Goodnight, my little luddo. Sleep well.’
The door closed behind him.
HIMMAT HAI TO PASS KAR,
WARNA BARDASHT KAR
BACK OF RICKSHAW
~
In the blackness I realized I was whimpering softly. I hadn’t thought about it for years, how he had humiliated me, and never once mentioned the pictures. By scaring me witless, he’d made sure I never mentioned them either, certainly not to Ammi.
‘Are you ready to talk about your father now?’ the other voice whispered the question.
I don’t know if I nodded my assent or vocalized it. I don’t know if I needed to do either. For a second I was a child and weary with sleep, groaning my opposition to the idea of waking up as Ammi stepped across the room, and opened the curtains. Light flooded in, blinding me. I felt rather than saw my mother kiss me.
*
I was by the window of my hospital room again, as Ammi had been in my old room just a second ago. I seemed to have stabilized because the nurse in the room was looking bored, idly winding one permed strand around her red talon hand as she watched the TV on mute. The air conditioner hummed. Adil sat by my side again. He had changed clothes since I last saw him. How much time had passed?
‘So then I said to Farah, “I’ve never met anyone like you!” And she said, “whatever, why do all you cheapo directors have to try lines on every female who walks on set? Is that why you become directors, so you can take out your frustrations on women you happen to be working with?” And I was like, “no yaar no, I’ve never said that to anyone before, I’ve never even had a girlfriend!” and she laughed in my face and went off to talk to the sound guy again. I think he likes her. But I wasn’t discouraged! Persistence, that’s the key. But I’ve got to tell you Ashoo, getting her to understand she was the right one for me and I was the right one for her took a lot of it. Persistence. That and time. You know this has been going on for three months now? Yep. Ninety days at least. I’ve wanted to tell you but I haven’t really seen that much of you lately. We’ll fix
that when you wake up. And planning. We have to start planning. She wants a December wedding.’
It was April. People who said ‘when it’s time, it’s time’ were right; after surviving a car accident, a government hospital and my mother’s psychotic episode, I was now going to be bored to death by my younger brother. I marvelled at God’s warped sense of humour. I marvelled at the ingenuity with which Adil had wisely placed his own head out of harm’s way, up his posterior. The classic Pakistani coping mechanism, our balm for all ills, if something terrible is happening to someone other than you, pretend it isn’t. Talk about something else instead. Adil’s feeling for this Farah woman might well be deep, meaningful, pure, etc., but a little more focus would have been nice. Sister in coma, mother having episode, must think for whole family unit … but no. The whole family unit, it seemed, counted for nothing before Farah. I wanted to wake up so I could smack him. I wanted to wake up so I could see Saad and tell him I was sorry for running out on him that morning. I knew I had been allowed more time so I could think about my father, but wasn’t going to. So what if I had said I would? What would the little voice do, kill me?
*
That morning the crisis had started innocently enough. These things generally did.
‘Ammi can you clear up today, I have to leave early,’ I’d asked her during breakfast.
‘What’s your hurry?’
‘I have to meet Saad before going to the office. He’s getting a new car and we’re meeting at the dealer’s so I can help him pick a colour.’
‘Why can’t he pick a colour himself?’
‘He can. He just wants my opinion, that’s all.’
‘So you’re all ready to turn your home life upside down whenever his highness beckons?’
‘I’m just asking you to put some dishes in the sink, not wash them. God forbid you have to do that!’
‘He wants a colour that’ll suit you because, of course, you’ll be spending a lot of time in that car. There aren’t enough hours in the day for the time you two spend together.’
‘Why do you have such problems with my being happy?’
‘I don’t. I don’t even care about the fact that most girls would never do the things you’re doing. You think he likes you? Where I come from, dates are numbers in a calendar. I have a problem seeing you dive head first into a situation that will only make you deeply unhappy later.’
‘You really don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You don’t know as much as you think you do.’
‘I know enough to keep this house going and making sure you can spend all your time wasting it!’
‘Since you know so much, why don’t you tell me why Saad needs a new car, when he has such a comfortable taxi?’
I rose from the table and began grabbing dishes. If I moved really fast I’d probably be able to clear them all before dashing out the door hoping the wind was behind me and not against me as well. We were ‘in between’ domestic help, we generally were. There were always women ringing the bell looking for work but few could deal with Ammi at her worst. At her best she could charm a Muslim sweeper into picking up the cat poo, at her worst … well, let’s just say the frequent switching also made it hard for any self-respecting maid/cook/cleaner to stick around.While Adil and I would both have preferred to have someone in the house with Ammi while we were gone, it just never worked out that way. Not for very long anyway. The last cook had threatened to file an FIR after Ammi followed up an offer to make her some tea for a change by grabbing her long braid and trying to swing her round the room with it.
‘Didn’t you hear me?’ Ammi chuckled softly, ‘I’ll say it again if you like. Taxi. Yellow taxi. Red taxi. Ayesha taxi.’
Ignoring her, I continued making mad dashes between the table and the kitchen.
‘Ayesha,’ her tone softened, ‘I’m so sorry. Really I am. Please listen to me.’
Weakening, I stopped for a second. She was hardly ever so gentle to me. I wanted to savour it, even if I knew it was only the eye of the storm.
‘I am, you know, I know I say terrible, hurtful things to you. It must be horrible hearing them from your own mother,’ she began to stroke my hair, tucking it behind my ears, ‘there, much better. You’re such a good-looking girl. Woman now. I guess I should say a strong woman shouldering more responsibility than most men could handle. I’m so very proud of you.’
It felt just like a warm shower on a cold day, leaving the chill of the winter morning behind as I stepped into the steam contained behind the shower curtain. It felt heavenly, this acknowledgement, this thought that she appreciated, if not understood, me.
‘Thank you,’ I whispered, flinging my arms around her neck and burying my face in her collarbone, ‘that’s what I want most in the world, for you to be proud of me.’
‘Ayesha, I am proud of you,’ pushing me back she put her hands on my shoulders and looked me right in the eye, ‘whatever happens, you must remember that.’
‘Whatever happens? What do you mean?’ I grew anxious, was I on suicide watch? Was she wiping the slate clean before breaking it?
‘I mean whatever happens?’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as when you die an old, bitter spinster with no love or joy in your life, I want you to remember your mother was proud of you.’
Wrenching free, I turned back to the table. It took a gargantuan effort to bend my hands to the task of picking up utensils and not the far more seductive lure of matricide. She would be better off dead, I thought, and Adil and I would certainly be better off if she were gone. It would be the kind thing to do, put her out of her misery instead of letting her walk around maimed, like a strong dog with half its head missing, maggots nesting in its cranial cavity. Sometimes she even had that particular weave, that easy lope of the animal so far beyond pain it had come out the other side and was doing a happy luddi.
‘You will die alone, you know. He’ll never marry you. What’s that boy’s name? Omar?’
‘Saad. His name is Saad.’
‘So many. I lose count. The first one didn’t marry you either, did he?’
‘I didn’t want to marry him,’ I knew I shouldn’t be taking the bait, but rage throbbed through the veins on my forehead and opened my mouth when I knew it would have been better shut, ‘I didn’t want to marry him. I don’t want to marry Saad. I don’t want to marry anyone because of you.’
‘Because of me? What? You think I’ll steal your men? I know I’m more attractive but I am getting on in years, you know. What am I going to do with your choozas?’
‘Not steal, you witch, drive away. Don’t you get it? I’m ashamed of you.’
‘We have something in common then, I’m ashamed of you too.And let’s be fair here, at least I don’t embarrass you in public.’
‘You never go out. If you ever did, I’m sure you would.’
‘I do go out!’
‘Once a week to find your long-lost husband? That’s another man you managed to drive away, and I bet it wasn’t the first I bet Nana sold his property and bought you this house so you would be far away from him and he could die in peace.’
Ammi looked at me with a strangely speculative glint in her eye, ‘Anger is fun isn’t it? Addictive too.You know you grow more like me every day.’
‘I’ll never be like you. I’m not like you.’
‘You’ll be alone, true. Because that Saad, Omar, whoever person will leave you and move on the moment you bore him. You’re not bad looking, but what else do you have to offer? Money? No. Education? Not particularly distinguished. Family? Dead or embarrassing. Culinary skills? Non-existent. No, dear girl, I’m afraid this is it for you. You’re just a transit visa on some man’s exotic travels. Say what you like about your father and I, but I was the only woman for him.’
I pushed back words on the tip of my tongue reciting the ‘ignore, ignore, ignore’ mantra I’d learned was the best way to cope with her outbursts. She was like a matador to a bull,
goading you into charging only to use your own momentum to slide her rapier into you.
‘I’m leaving now Ammi,’ I picked up my bag after depositing all the dishes in the sink, ‘I’ll be home the usual time.’
‘I’m glad you bought that car,’ suddenly she was conversational again, ‘public transport always adds an hour to any commute.’
‘Yes.’ Keep the answers short. Move fast.
‘And it’s nice to see you spending money on yourself for a change. That’s what women should do, you know. It’s our right to spend what we earn without questions from anyone. Freely.’
I kept moving.
‘Selfishly,’ she was back, ‘why didn’t you buy a car for Adil? He needs it more than you do. Your lover was always willing to drop you home but what about your poor brother, huh? You know his work takes him all over the city.’
‘As you pointed out, I don’t need to rationalize my spending to anyone. Adil’s working now, he’ll be able to buy himself a car in no time.’
‘I bet Saad would buy you a car if you asked him right now. You should. Mistresses have a short shelf life, approach him while he’s soft enough on you to sanction a rich parting gift.’
I opened the door and moved out.
‘I saw him the other day, you know. In a powder blue Corolla with a beautiful woman. They pulled up at the traffic light next to your Mamu and I. She had streaked hair and diamonds on her fingers. They were laughing. He couldn’t take his eyes off her!’ she yelled after me as I opened the gate and got into the car. I tried to shut her out but I knew the car, and the girl. Powder blue, streaks, diamonds, laughing, Najma’s sister Faryal. Rich bitch. Kill them all.
‘You’re over the hill! Over thirty! Over the limit!’ Ammi pounded on my car window, ‘leave him now and we’ll find you a fifty-year-old divorcee with two children.’
I inched the car back down the driveway, not paying particular attention to whether Ammi’s foot was in the way. She would take care not to hurt herself, regardless of how out-there she was. Hurting was for other people.
‘It’ll be fun. The kids will be older so you won’t have to clean any shit but your own!’
Tunnel Vision Page 14
