The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters

by Balli Kaur Jaswal

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” Shirina said.

  Jezmeen groaned. For once, it would be nice if Shirina didn’t defuse every argument. It was so unsatisfying. From the corner of her eye, she noticed the toddler’s head popping up again.

  “Yes, darling? Yes?” Rajni cooed, beaming. “What’s that you’ve got there? Hmm?” The girl was dangling something else over the seat. It was a bright yellow Tupperware container plastered in Peppa Pig stickers. “Can I have this?” Rajni asked. The girl smiled and trained her eyes on Shirina. She shook the container at her.

  Shirina didn’t acknowledge the girl. She looked down at her book, fiercely concentrating until the girl lost interest and disappeared into her seat again. It was strange—the sight of the girl seemed to really bother Shirina. Jezmeen noticed that Shirina hadn’t gone past the first page of her book.

  Then Shirina turned to Jezmeen. “I never said you were trying to sabotage the trip, but when we went to your hotel room yesterday and you were drunk, I was very disappointed.” Her lips were a thin line. Jezmeen stared at Shirina, speechless. This voice coming from Shirina, it didn’t even sound like her. Even Rajni looked surprised. “What’s so difficult about stopping after a glass or two? Hmm? It’s what people do. Normal people have limits. They know how to behave.”

  “Shirina—” Rajni began.

  “Don’t drag me into your arguments when you want somebody to take your side,” Shirina continued. “I won’t be a part of that.”

  “Okay, okay,” Rajni said.

  “And I won’t be lectured about family obligations,” Shirina said. “Not by my two older sisters, who got into a fistfight at our mother’s deathbed. Does it ever occur to you that the last thing she witnessed before dying was the two of you bickering, as always? Maybe she died that night because she had nothing else to hang around for, if you couldn’t even put aside your differences for one day. Nothing changed, even after Mum died.”

  Jezmeen was stunned. She looked at Rajni, whose expression matched hers. If this was what Shirina really thought, how long had she been holding on to her anger?

  Had the train carriage gone quieter since their heated exchange began? It seemed that the family at the front had stopped talking. The air was taut with anticipation. Jezmeen shrank in her seat, worried that somebody might have had their mobile phone camera out. The last thing she needed was another YouTube upload: Jezmeen Shergill in row with sisters on a train in India!

  The toddler popped up again but her mother quickly dragged her down, whispering urgently to her, “Leave them alone.” Immediately the little girl began to cry. “Didi,” she sobbed. “Didi!” Jezmeen was surprised by the tears that sprang into her own eyes.

  When the train finally pulled into the station, Shirina was ready to get up and go. They had spent the remaining eight or so hours of the journey only exchanging cursory words, choosing to entertain themselves. For Shirina, this meant reading her book, although her mind didn’t absorb much and she ended up drifting off to sleep. She had fragmented dreams about Mum sitting up in her bed, alert to the scuffle between her two older daughters outside her room. In the dreams, Mum got out of bed and pleaded with them to stop. As a warning, she shook her jewelry case at them, but they ignored her. Shirina had never told anybody before that she blamed Rajni and Jezmeen for the way Mum’s final moments played out. Even Sehaj didn’t know what actually happened—he was just aware that Shirina was more eager than ever to start a family with him after she returned from London. When the test showed up negative a few weeks later, the disappointment felt unlike anything Shirina had experienced before—heavy and hollow at the same time. She was still grieving over Mum, so the hot tears that flooded down her cheeks didn’t surprise Sehaj. He reminded her that it could take a few tries, that they were still young and had plenty of time. But Shirina felt let down, and wished she could talk to somebody who knew this feeling. Ironically, Rajni was the only person who would understand but Shirina was still too upset about what happened at the hospital to confide in her sister.

  Rajni stood up now and counted all of their suitcases. “We have six pieces in total,” she said. “Do we have all six pieces?” Shirina took some delight in ignoring her. Rajni frowned and picked up her bags. They shuffled down the aisle, past the family who had gone sluggish and sleepy after their feast but were now on their feet with renewed energy.

  Porters stepped into their path, offering to carry bags, asking where they were going. It occurred to Shirina that she had no idea where their hotel was; Rajni had that information on her itinerary. Shirina waved the porter away and kept her head down as she moved along with the crowd from the sun-soaked platform to the sheltered station. Beggars slept here—not on the edges, but in the middle of the floor, so she had to step around them. Shirina met the pleading gaze of one woman sitting up on a folded piece of cardboard, a threadbare sari wrapped around her bony frame. Shirina took care not to tread on her fingers, which extended from her open palm, a silent request for money. Like the other passengers leaving the station, Shirina quickly learned the art of stepping gingerly around a person while also not looking at them.

  They engaged the first rickshaw driver who called out to them. He took their bags and piled them in the back, turning and wedging them like pieces in a puzzle. Shirina hurried to get in first; she was conscious again of how awkward she looked when she had to hoist herself up (getting up the steep stairs into the train carriage had been more challenging than she’d anticipated). She didn’t want Rajni and Jezmeen seeing her struggling. Rajni was more concerned about the bags anyway; she kept frowning and counting them. “Six pieces,” she said again, nodding.

  The auto-rickshaw’s engine rumbled beneath them and the smell of burning rubber filled Shirina’s nostrils. Jezmeen began to cough. Rajni grabbed the railing at the side of the car but the driver turned back and told her not to. She withdrew her hand just in time for a truck to clip past, narrowly missing the rickshaw.

  The air was supposed to be fresher up north, but from the rickshaw, Amritsar and Delhi felt one and the same. The sweltering heat had already hit its peak for the day but the residual humidity clung to Shirina’s skin. On the road, the only difference Shirina noticed between the two cities was the spaces between the squat buildings here, where the green fields behind the main road were visible. They merged onto a major road, the rickshaw flanked on either side by large trucks and buses. All the clamor of the city overwhelmed Shirina’s senses. She shielded her eyes from the dust and grit that flew into the rickshaw and peppered her hair and skin. At one traffic light, she pulled her hand away momentarily to see a man teetering on top of a tall ladder, fixing a telephone wire. The ladder, made of bamboo, bent like a weak sapling against the wind. Shirina covered her eyes again.

  The roads became narrower and turned into small lanes. Every time the rickshaw turned, Shirina feared a dangerous teetering and tipping and she wondered what would happen if they got into an accident here. If their bags popped free from the ropes that constrained them, their belongings mixing with the grime and dog droppings on the ground. Would anybody help them? It was unlikely. Traffic wouldn’t stop for them—it would continue running, flattening everything they had. Shirina thought briefly about the contents of her bag and realized she wouldn’t miss anything. Let it all tumble away, it would make her travels easier.

  Her passport case was in her pocket, of course. She patted it frequently, made sure it didn’t fall out from all the jostling of the ride. More important than the passport at the moment was the card inside the case that Sehaj had given her at the airport.

  They veered into a lane clogged with vehicles and shops jammed together. A young man on a rusty bicycle shot in front of them, making the rickshaw driver curse loudly. Their hotel, the Holy City Palace, was at the end of this lane; its sign stuck out like a friendly waving hand. They pulled up and got out, a frowning Rajni counting the bags again.

  Two gilded mirrors on opposite walls of the hotel lobby
made endless multiples of Shirina, Rajni, and Jezmeen. Behind the reception desk, there was a magnificent backlit portrait of the Golden Temple at night, its reflection melting across the calm holy waters. An elderly turbaned man stood behind the computer, nodding as they entered. Rajni handed him the booking sheet. He asked them to take a seat.

  Shirina couldn’t believe she was willing to sit again after having spent the whole day sitting down, but she was relieved to rest once more. Rajni picked up a newspaper and became absorbed in an article. Jezmeen came and sat next to her, picking up a magazine from the table. “Ooh, that’s a nice dress,” she said, pointing to a lime-colored gown that clung to the model’s hips. “Imagine asking to get one of those tailored.”

  “Especially around here,” Shirina said. Most of the women she’d seen so far were dressed in salwar-kameez out of respect for the holy city.

  “Madam,” said the front-desk man. He gazed at all three of them, not sure who was in charge. Rajni responded to his summons. If they had husbands with them, it would be easier, Shirina thought. On the train, the conductors had come around asking all the sirs for their families’ tickets. She felt a pinch of longing for Sehaj. At the airport, he had carried her bags out of the car and placed his hand gently on the small of her back. The gesture made her feel protected.

  “They want our passports,” Rajni called from the reception desk.

  “Open up to the stamp page, please,” said the man.

  “The stamp page?” Jezmeen asked.

  “The place where your entry into India was stamped,” he replied. “We need to see it.”

  “Oh,” Jezmeen said. She flipped open her passport. “Honestly, I can’t even remember them stamping it.”

  “They must have,” Shirina said. She had already located hers, an inked box announcing her entry date.

  “If no entry stamp, we have a problem,” the man said. “National security.” His gaze shifted from Rajni to Shirina to Jezmeen. “Amritsar is very close to Pakistan. We don’t want people coming in illegally from that side, causing trouble here.”

  Shirina thought his eyes were lingering on hers for a second too long. She wanted to tell him she wasn’t here to cause trouble; if anything, she had made this trip to eliminate more trouble for herself. But she wondered if she looked jittery, or suspicious.

  “Found it,” Jezmeen said, springing up from the sofa. “It’s very faded,” she explained to the man at the desk, who turned his look of suspicion onto her. Relief washed over Shirina. The heat of his stare was gone. She realized how tense she was, that any question, any suspicion or doubts about her intentions here made her feel as if she was being interrogated. In truth, it was nobody’s business. Sehaj had said the same thing to her when she told him she didn’t think she could maintain this lie while spending so much time with her sisters, in such close quarters. “They’re nosy,” she had told him. “They’ll know something’s up.” To her relief and disappointment, they hadn’t noticed what was going on with her.

  The desk manager typed furiously into his computer. “This could take some time,” he said. “We’ll show you to your rooms and return your passports later.”

  Rajni frowned. “We can probably wait,” she said.

  “It could take an hour,” the desk manager said.

  “An hour?” she asked. “Why do you need so much time?”

  He sighed. “Madam, do I have to explain India’s security issues with Pakistan? Do I need to tell you about Partition? Amritsar has been a border city ever since Punjab was split into India and Pakistan,” he said with pride, as if he had overseen the splitting himself.

  “You don’t need to give us a history lesson, our parents told us all about Partition when we were growing up,” Rajni said.

  Did they? They must have been Dad’s stories and Shirina must have been too young to understand them. Everything she knew about Partition, she had seen on Hindi films that featured a lover on each side of the border, separated by cruel politics, their families unsympathetic to their plight as violence ravaged their communities. Those movies always made her cry.

  “Then you’ll understand why I need to scrutinize these documents very carefully,” said the desk manager. “This is our policy for all guests. We can’t take any chances.”

  “But we’ve got British passports. We clearly didn’t scramble across the border.”

  “Let it go,” Jezmeen said. “What’s the big deal if they hold on to our passports for a bit? We’ll get them back.”

  Rajni looked uneasy. She eyed the man. His expression did not change. “India’s national security first, madam. We are on the front lines here.” The way he talked, it was as if it was 1947 and the war was raging at his doorstep.

  “Fine,” Rajni said.

  A porter loaded their bags into a trolley and pushed it toward the service elevator, pointing Shirina, Rajni, and Jezmeen to a smaller lift. An instrumental Kenny G ballad floated over the speakers, completely incongruous with the lush palatial decor in the lobby and the reception staff’s militancy. The sisters’ rooms were next to each other, as if the hotel was aware of their birth order—301: Rajni, 302: Jezmeen, 303: Shirina.

  As soon as she entered her room, Shirina collapsed into her bed. This fatigue was a nightmare—and even worse that she had to dismiss it as a side effect of traveling. She took her phone and checked the time. Sehaj would be finishing dinner now, maybe watching some television. They hadn’t actually spoken to each other since she arrived in India; just messages, the banal, perfunctory types to let each other know they were still alive. Today she needed to hear his voice. She entered the Wi-Fi password and found Sehaj’s number on her overseas calling app. He picked up on the third ring.

  “Shirina?” he asked. The concern in his voice nearly melted her. “Are you okay?”

  Of course he loves you. It was a thought that surprised Shirina. She didn’t realize that she’d doubted him until she heard him speak.

  “I’m fine.” All of a sudden her voice was thick with tears.

  “I can’t hear you, sweetheart,” he said tenderly. “Speak up.”

  “I’m fine,” she said loudly. It sounded more convincing with more volume. “We just got to Amritsar.”

  “How is it?”

  “I haven’t seen much yet. We were just on a hair-raising rickshaw ride and then checked into our rooms.” She smiled, remembering the taxi driver picking them up from Istanbul airport and chattering away in Turkish, pointing to various landmarks as he wove through traffic and entered the Old City, where their hotel was. The sun had glinted off the Bosphorus river and everything seemed possible; she was giddy with the mysterious romance of the city and she even thought she understood the driver after a while, the cadences of his language and the odd Hindi word—subah, kitap—catching in her mind.

  The memory softened Shirina and she could sense Sehaj was thinking about their honeymoon too. She wanted to tell him how she was really feeling. “I’m scared,” she said.

  His voice overlapped with hers. “Work’s been really crazy.”

  “Oh,” she said. The tears came up again. She listened as he told her about an unreasonable client, and the late hours he was spending at the office going through some contracts with a fine-toothed comb. The business was expanding to Europe, where tax regulations in certain countries were a nightmare to deal with from overseas. Her mind wandered as Sehaj spoke. Notes from the Kenny G elevator tune drifted in the back of her mind.

  “. . . And I’m having to fix everybody’s mistakes for them. Not that I want to wish my days away, but I’m really looking forward to the next long weekend.”

  “That’s months away,” Shirina murmured.

  “Yeah, I know,” Sehaj said with a sigh, and then he said nothing. Ask me again if I’m okay, Shirina thought. Ask about the train journey. She wanted to tell him about the little girl on the train and how purposefully she had ignored her, even when she cried out and called Shirina “sister.”

  “Sehaj,
I’m scared,” she finally said again.

  This time, he heard. The distinct silence on the other end wasn’t caused by a delay.

  “Shirina . . .” he began.

  “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t say it.”

  “I’m not saying you have to do it.”

  She wanted to throw the phone across the room. It was so unfair, being told the decision was hers to make, when it wasn’t, not completely. She wouldn’t be allowed to have regrets or doubts if she was the one who had come up with the plan.

  “What if I don’t go through with it?” Shirina asked. “I really can’t come back?”

  Another pause. “It’s something we need to discuss, then,” Sehaj said finally.

  “We—you and me? Just the two of us?”

  “And my mother.”

  Shirina groaned. “How does she factor into this decision, Sehaj?”

  “You married my family,” Sehaj said. “We talked about this. We make our decisions together, we sacrifice things for each other. This is what families do.”

  Shirina couldn’t fault Sehaj for reminding her how families were supposed to behave—in the early days of getting to know each other, she had been so impressed with Sehaj’s family. They had big gatherings, and took holidays together. They did what families did.

  “But she doesn’t have to be involved in every decision we make,” she insisted.

  “She’s my mother.”

  “I’m your wife,” Shirina reminded him.

  “Shirina—” With his lips too close to the receiver, Sehaj’s sigh sounded like a roar. “You’re making this more complicated than it needs to be.”