The Girl From Foreign: A Memoir

by Shepard, Sadia

  “Young man who is settled in Israel. They will go there after the marriage. You’ll see.” Mr. Mhedeker pauses for a moment, as if he is thinking over a final point. “In India we are happy. But there are very few Jewish businesses now, so there are fewer job opportunities for our youths. Now, by the grace of God, call centers have come up. So our young people are working there. El Al Airlines is there, they are working there also. But mostly they are migrating to Israel. Young Bene Israel are saying, ‘In Foreign, we get more salary.’ Every week, a family is migrating to Israel.”

  “What will Magen Hassidim be like in twenty, thirty years?”

  “It will be like an antique. Like a museum. Like in Cochin, in Kerala. Like the synagogue there. The government will protect it.”

  “Do you still think about Karachi? Do you remember the synagogue there?”

  “Ah, the synagogue was very beautiful. I remember it was bigger than this; so many people used to come for holidays. After Partition, the leader of Pakistan, General Zia, said, ‘I will destroy this building.’ He was anti-Israel. The Jewish people, the few who were left, said, ‘Let’s make a library, so that the building will remain.’ ‘No,’ he said. He would not listen. He crushed it. And within three months his plane crashed. General Zia was in pieces, just like he crushed the synagogue. You ask anyone—this is true.”

  Mr. Mhedeker shakes his head with regret.

  “I will stay in India,” he says suddenly, as if he is in the middle of a thought. “My people need me here. They will not let me go.”

  18

  WHICH CASTE

  BOMBAY, MAY 2002

  As usual, I have not allowed enough time to cross town in rush-hour traffic. My taxi struggles across Nana Chowk, past Bhatia Hospital, through Tardeo, up toward Byculla. We are moving slowly through gridlock traffic, and I look nervously at my watch. It’s ten past six. I am on my way to Sharon and Sharona’s house for Shabbat dinner, and sundown is at six-thirty. I’m annoyed at myself for not leaving earlier. I should have known better. Outside my window, a man struggles to navigate his vegetable cart, a wide plank perched atop two large wooden wheels, between the tightly wedged cars, trying not to let too many of his tomatoes roll into oncoming traffic.

  I watch the neighborhoods change. Just a few months ago, they would have looked equally foreign to me, would have read as one Bombay. Now some of the differences register. As we go, I notice how we move through affluent to less affluent areas, from predominantly Hindu areas to predominantly Muslim ones, and how as we go the shops and styles of dress change. The tinkle of temple bells is replaced with the crackling loudspeaker of the azaan, a sound I always associate with my childhood trips to Pakistan. Several days earlier, three Pakistani nationals dressed in Indian army uniforms carried out an attack on a cantonment near Jammu, where Rekhev is from originally. As a result, India has placed its military forces on high alert, and tension has increased between the two countries. Near J.J. Hospital, we pass Magen David, the old Baghdadi synagogue on our left, and I think of Flora and Muhammed inside.

  I find the landmarks Sharon’s wife told me on the phone to locate their apartment—the bridge, the petrol pump, the second petrol pump. Even though it is the end of the day, it is hot, and I am sweating. I wipe my upper lip with my dupatta. It’s now just past six-thirty. I hate being late. I point to the building where I’d like the taxi driver to drop me, a large multistory building with shops on the ground floor. It’s difficult to find the entrance. When I do find it, it looks more like a gap between buildings than the way inside. I ask a few young men lingering on the sidewalk, and they nod, indicating that this is the entrance. I check my watch again. I know that Sharon and Sharona have probably already lit their Shabbat candles and are wondering where I am.

  As I pay the fare, the taxi driver asks me if I wouldn’t rather go back to my hotel. I am sure he is more accustomed to dropping foreigners at the same handful of spots: the Taj Mahal Hotel, the Ambassador, the Oberoi shopping complex.

  “I live in Bombay,” I say in Hindi, by way of explanation, surprising myself.

  “These are your relatives?” he asks, pointing at the building and looking doubtful.

  “Yes,” I say, to make things simpler.

  I get out and try to affect a nonchalant look as young men standing in the street watch me. Their look is one of curiosity, laced with a kind of sneer. I can guess, but I’ll never know, the exact source of their resentment. It’s not an entirely comfortable feeling, but it no longer seems unusual.

  I am dressed, as has become my custom, in a loose-fitting cotton salwar kameez and sandals. I have given up the idea of blending in. Instead, my clothes are an attempt to make it clear that I have made an effort, and that I am not leaving anytime soon. Many young Indian women in Bombay wear Western clothes, but in a pair of pants and a shirt I feel like a visitor. I want to make it clear that I am something else.

  I walk up a long flight of wooden steps, passing a thin bench where a very old man is sleeping on a matted layer of blankets. Water pools in worn sections of the floor, and on one landing, incense emanates from a low burner, emitting a smoky odor. I wonder again if I am in the right place.

  Several flights up, I reach a large door painted a deep blue and a dusty white. This has to be it. The ORT boys’ hostel that Sharon and Sharona oversee is a large apartment reserved for young men who grew up outside of Bombay and are completing one of ORT’s vocational programs. Now that more and more Bene Israel have left India for Israel, the hostel serves a growing number of young men from the Bnei Menashe community, a small group from Manipur and Mizoram, in eastern India, who have been in the news recently for their claim that they, too, descended from one of the lost tribes of Israel.

  I ring the doorbell but it doesn’t seem to make a sound. I bang on the door, hoping that someone will be able to hear me. It seems that the main living area is somewhat removed from the front door, and it is well past six-thirty now; I fear that they are in the midst of their prayer. I recall that one of the forbidden actions is to “complete a circuit,” and that doorbells are one of the things turned off after sundown. But what about answering the call of someone else ringing a doorbell? Is that forbidden also?

  I rest my head on the milky glass panel embedded in the door, feeling suddenly exhausted, and wonder what I should do next.

  Two little boys in Muslim-style prayer caps bound down the staircase, followed by a pretty young woman who must be their mother. She is wearing a long silk kaftan with pants and a matching dupatta over her head, a costume vaguely Arabic in style and one I recognize instantly as Muslim.

  “Why don’t you ring the doorbell?” she asks me kindly, in English.

  “I’ve tried, but they don’t seem to answer,” I say, shrugging. “I’ve come a long way, and I’m late. Do you know my friends Sharon and Sharona?” I ask.

  “I know who they are,” she says, nodding. “There has been some work going on in the building, so I have seen them when they come to collect water from upstairs, or when repairs are going on. Upstairs is my granny’s flat. I live there with my boys.” She points to the children.

  “Your sons?” I ask.

  “One is four and one is two,” she says, with a hint of pride in her voice. “The older one studies with a Qur’an teacher downstairs. What’s your name?” she asks.

  “Sadia.”

  The young woman looks at me with recognition. “Muslim,” she says, smiling.

  “Yes,” I say. “What’s your name?”

  “Hajira.”

  “That’s an auspicious name you have,” I say, and she looks pleased. “Hajira” is the Islamic name for Hagar, Abraham’s second wife and the mother of Ishmael.

  “Where are you from?” she asks.

  “I’m from the States,” I say, “but I have family in Pakistan also.”

  For some reason, I want to cement my status as a Muslim, so this young woman will like me.

  “Are you married?”

 
“No,” I say. “I’ve got my family in Pakistan worried. . . .” I cup my hands in a gesture of prayer, imitating one of my anxious aunties, and she smiles with amusement.

  “It will happen when the time is right. Maybe you should bang on the door, louder, so they can hear you. Come, I will help you,” she says, walking to the door and banging loudly on the wood.

  “They have their prayers on Friday night,” I say. “I wonder if maybe they can’t hear me.”

  “We pray on Fridays, too,” she says. “Come, let’s bang louder.”

  We bang on the door in unison, beginning to laugh at our exertion. I watch Hajira’s face, just a few inches from my own, and feel a flash of curiosity. I wonder what her life is like, when she got married, how often she leaves this building.

  I see a female figure on the other side of the glass, and a woman opens the door.

  “You are Sadia?” the woman asks. She must be Sharona, Sharon’s wife.

  “I’m sorry I’m late.” I turn back toward Hajira. “Thank you, Hajira. Khuda hafiz.” May God protect you.

  “Allah hafiz.” She gives me a small wave and leads her sons down the stairs.

  I enter and feel as if I am entering a different world. As in ORT, the walls are decorated with photographs and drawings of life in Israel. Sharona is a handsome woman with a headscarf wrapped around her head. There is an authoritative feeling about her manner; she is someone I would not want to disagree with.

  “We were worried about what had happened to you!” Sharona says as she leads me down the hall toward her living room.

  “I’m so sorry I’m late,” I say. “There was traffic, and then I wasn’t sure if you could answer the door on Shabbat. . . .”

  “Who was that you were talking to?” she asks, turning around.

  “A young woman from upstairs. I told her you have prayers on Friday; she said that they also have prayers on Friday.”

  “She’s a Muslim,” she says.

  “Right. We had a nice conversation.”

  “She spoke English?” Sharona asks, looking doubtful.

  “Perfectly.”

  “Did she wonder about why you didn’t ring the doorbell?”

  “I . . . did ring the doorbell. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to. Is it forbidden on Shabbat?”

  “We don’t use the doorbell on Shabbat. But for you . . . well, it’s up to you, really. Do you observe Shabbat in America?”

  “I’m just learning about Shabbat.”

  “You’re Jewish?” she asks.

  “It’s a long story,” I say.

  “I love long stories,” she says. “You can tell us over dinner. Come, my father-in-law is just starting prayers.”

  At one end of a long wooden table, Sharon’s father, an older man in a dark blue cloth cap, recites the Hebrew prayers. Sharon blesses and drinks from a large goblet of kiddush wine, a handmade beverage from fermented raisins, and passes small glasses around the table. His small daughter sits on his lap. Sharona holds the cups to the little girl’s lips, making sure that the juice does not stain her Shabbat dress, laughing at how eager she is to drink the sweet purple liquid.

  Sharon leads the little girl in reciting a blessing over a plate of dates and bananas.

  “Barukh ata Adonai . . .” Sharon says, pausing for his daughter to repeat after him.

  “Barukh ata Adonai . . .” she repeats.

  “Eloheinu melekh ha’olam . . .”

  “Eloheinu melekh ha’olam!” she says excitedly.

  Two loaves of challah bread rest underneath a white sateen cloth embroidered with Hebrew letters. Sharon, noticing that I don’t know the words to the Shabbat songs, hands me a guide to the prayers, mercifully in English, and I am able to sing more confidently.

  “I could sing all night,” Sharona says when we have completed the first portion of prayers and begin to pass around dishes of food. “I just love Shabbat songs. In Israel, we used to sing until quite late.”

  “You used to live in Israel?” I ask.

  “I studied there for a year. Sharon did, too. And we hope to go back to Israel to raise our family.” She smiles at Sharon, and he squeezes her arm affectionately. “We want our daughter to go to Jewish schools, with other Jewish children.”

  “When are you planning to move?” I ask.

  “It’s an interesting question,” Sharon says with a laugh. “Every year, for eight years, we have said ‘Next year.’ Every year we have meant it, but we have not been able to go. One thing keeping us here is our community. I am a Jewish educator, and I feel like I should help. In India I have job security; I know the language; I know the people. Still, I do not feel at home. In Israel, I feel at home. I have much less security there—I don’t really know the language, I don’t know as many people. But there I can practice my religion.”

  Sharon thinks for a moment.

  “Look around you. Up until now, we haven’t really settled in our lives, not in our careers, not in our house. We have not bought real furniture for our house, because we think, what is the point of buying furniture if we are going to leave it?”

  The time comes for the blessing of children, and after Sharon’s father blesses Sharon and Sharona, he lays his hand on my head. “What’s her name?” he asks.

  “Sadia,” Sharon says.

  “What’s your father’s name?” he asks me.

  “Richard,” I say.

  “And his surname?”

  “It’s Shepard.”

  “Rich-ard Shep-ard,” he repeats, trying out the unfamiliar syllables. He inserts my father’s name when he comes to the correct portion of the prayer, and asks God to make me like the matriarchs of the Jewish people: Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah.

  “Amen,” he says at the end.

  “Amen,” I repeat.

  After dinner, Sharona passes around a bowl of watermelon, and we take turns stabbing the large red squares with a fork. Sharon’s father lies down on the nearby charpoy and falls asleep quickly. His granddaughter uses his body as a cushion, resting against him comfortably as she plays with the pieces of a large plastic puzzle.

  “So,” Sharona says, “what’s your long story?”

  “Oh . . .” I say, feeling shy, “it’s about why I’m here, in India.”

  “Are you a student? We have a lot of students who come through here.”

  “I am a student,” I say, “though I am not really in school. I came to India because my grandmother was a Bene Israel from Bombay. Sharon has heard this story before.”

  “No, no, it’s interesting. Go on,” he says.

  “And she left the Bene Israel community to marry my grandfather, who was a Muslim.”

  “She married a Muslim?” Sharona says, looking surprised.

  “She married a Muslim with two other wives, and she moved to Pakistan, where she raised her children as Muslims.”

  “I can’t imagine any Bene Israel girl from Bombay marrying a man with two other wives,” Sharona says.

  “Well, it was a different time then, I suppose, and he was a close friend of her father’s, and was quite wealthy . . . and also she was in love with him.”

  “She really moved to Pakistan?” Sharon asks. “I didn’t realize that part of the story.”

  “She did.”