by Shamim Sarif
Miriam watched the girl, overwhelmed by her simple question. It seemed to her to acknowledge something which no one had ever before noticed. She stood there, lost in thought, her dark eyes frowning.
“What are you thinking?” Amina asked, her face turned up, a hand against her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun.
“Nothing . . .”
Amina waited.
“I was thinking that you were the first person to smile at me in ten days, once,” Miriam said.
“I don’t understand.”
“In Pretoria. The first time I came to your café. With my sisters-in-law.”
“I remember it well.”
“Nobody had smiled at me for over a week before that,” continued Miriam. “I had been counting the days.” She smiled wryly, an acknowledgement of the absurdity of counting such a thing. “And then in the café, you offered me that koeksister. And you smiled at me.”
“What a strange thing to remember. Why didn’t anyone smile at you for so long?”
Miriam shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s the way they are, I suppose, my in-laws.”
“And your husband too?”
Miriam nodded, a barely perceptible movement, and then frowned as if berating herself for disloyalty. She turned to go back to the house.
“Can I bring you anything else?” Miriam asked.
“No, thank you.” Amina hesitated, uncertain whether to try to keep Miriam engaged in conversation. But Miriam herself stopped almost as soon as she had turned away and spoke:
“You know you said you couldn’t cook?”
Amina nodded.
“It doesn’t matter, really. There are more important things in life.” Before she had even finished the sentence, Miriam was walking back to the shop.
Amina drank the last of her soda, and watched Miriam walk lightly up the porch steps. She ate the remainder of her meal quickly and alone, and then she rested for a minute, before she stood up and walked back to where her tools lay in the hot grass, humming under her breath as she went.
At half-past three the school bus lumbered back up the road, stopping about twenty yards from the shop. The rusty hinges of the doors whined open and the two children spilled out. Miriam watched them from the window of the kitchen as she kneaded the dough for the rotlis, a half-smile on her lips. They ran towards the house—they ran everywhere, were incapable of walking slowly, and Miriam tried to recall Bombay, and the apartment blocks, and tried to remember whether she too had run all the time as a child. She could hear their high, laughing voices as they raced each other up the porch steps and into the kitchen. They both spoke together, loudly and quickly, and Miriam could understand neither of them, but leaned to kiss them both, her floured hands held away from them, above their heads.
“Is the lady still here?” asked Alisha and Miriam nodded. Before she could tell them not to disturb Amina, they were out of the kitchen. Miriam went to the window and looked out to where Amina worked, hatless now in the late afternoon heat. The children raced around the corner of the building like a pair of tiny greyhounds and then stopped abruptly when they caught sight of her. They stood at a safe distance, suddenly shy, until Amina turned and saw them, and beckoned to them to come over. Miriam could not hear them, but saw Amina kneel down to talk to them, gesturing to the plot of land, evidently explaining what she was doing. After a few minutes, Miriam came away from the window, washed her hands and took a bottle of Coke from the deep red refrigerator in the back. She called to her son. He came to her, breathless with excitement:
“Mummy, the lady says there is going to be a storm!”
Miriam looked up at the lowering sky, and the solid grey clouds and handed her son the Coke to deliver to Amina. Longingly, he looked at the cold, beaded bottle, and Miriam, although she knew Omar would disapprove, went back to the fridge and took out two more bottles which she gave to the delighted child for himself and his sister.
By the time Amina had finished for the day, it was almost dark outside, and the rain had just begun to fall. She felt the first drops hit her face as she looked up to the sky, and she wiped them gratefully across her warm forehead, for the humidity had become almost unbearable during the course of the afternoon. She had worked until she could hardly see what she was doing. Miriam had glanced out once or twice during the early evening, and had seen the girl working away, her shirt clinging to her back and ribs from the rising heat. The children had done their homework and were finishing their supper when Amina came to the back door and knocked. Opening the door, Miriam found a slim, leather-bound book held out before her.
“What is this?” she asked.
“Poetry. I’ve finished it for now. You can have it if you like.”
Miriam was curious, and touched the book but did not take it until Amina pushed it into her hand.
“I can’t take it . . .”
“Why? Don’t you like reading?”
Miriam looked up and smiled, her eyes alight, and Amina watched her intently. It was as though a spark had been struck.
“I love reading. I used to,” Miriam added, less confidently. “I used to read a lot.”
She remembered suddenly a small battered box of childhood books that she had brought with her from Bombay, an extra box that she should not really have dragged across the ocean, but which she had found it a comfort to keep with her. She had last seen it in her in-laws’ house in Pretoria, but in those days there had been no time between cooking, cleaning and children to even open it. She wondered what had happened to the books; whether they had come with them to Delhof when they moved.
Amina leaned against the door frame. “Take it,” she said, of the book. “I have plenty.”
“You do? Where do you get them?”
“Here and there.”
“Stop and have some food,” Miriam offered. “You must be hungry.”
Amina shook her head. “Thank you, but I should go to my parent’s house for dinner. It’s been a while since I’ve seen them.” She glanced at her watch, a large, brass-coloured face that clung to a worn, soft leather strap. It made her wrist look thin and frail, and Miriam was surprised for a moment that these same hands were taming such a large patch of ground outside.
“I’d better go. Thank you for the lunch and drinks,” Amina said as she moved away.
“You’re welcome. Thank you for the book.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Amina asked.
“Yes,” said Miriam. “See you tomorrow.”
Thirty minutes after Amina had left, there was a knock at the front door of the shop. Miriam looked out from the bathroom window, where she stood holding a jug of water suspended above her eldest child, but she could see nothing. The rain formed a low hum in the background, and she hushed the boy and watched intently as the water ran in slow rivulets over his shoulders, snaking past his sharp shoulder blades and over the thin muscles of his back. The knock came again. She wrapped a rough towel around the child and told him to dry himself, and she ran down the stairs, calling to John as she went.
“Madam, it is a lady,” he called through the window to her, smiling so she should know not to be alarmed. She could see Amina out there with him on the porch, her hat in her hands, her hair damp. The girl took a step back as Miriam opened up the shop door.
“My tyre had a puncture,” she said. “I tried changing it, but the spare one also . . .”
“It’s okay, come in,” said Miriam, standing aside and ushering the girl in.
“I would have walked, but it’s not safe, really, and I’m not as reckless as some people think,” Amina added.
“Good,” was all Miriam said. She was struggling with the last padlock, and Amina bent and closed her hand over Miriam’s to help her click the metal into place.
“Thank you,” said Miriam, watching the long fingers that lay over hers.
“You’re welcome.” With a smile, Amina cleared her throat then looked away and walked across to the window where she watched John settle ba
ck down in his wicker chair and hold out his hands to the warm coals before him.
“If you’re going to stay you should come upstairs with me now.”
Amina turned her head and nodded, but made no move to follow Miriam.
“Where is your husband?” she asked. “Isn’t he back yet?”
“He usually finishes late on a Tuesday. Usually he stays over at my bhabhi’s . . .” she caught herself. “At his brother’s place, I mean.”
“Oh.” The drive back from Pretoria was not a long one and Amina knew that Omar’s habit made no sense unless he was up to something, but she was relieved to find him elsewhere tonight.
“I’ll give you something to eat.”
“Please don’t worry about me,” Amina replied. “I’m not hungry.”
“But you’ve been working outside all day. Do you mean you don’t like my cooking?” Miriam asked, smiling slightly.
“I thought that was already agreed. That was the finest potato curry I’ve ever tasted. Though I wouldn’t say that to my mother.”
“Then let’s see what you think of this daal,” said Miriam from where she stood at the stove, and she handed Amina a bowl of fragrant lentils that were still warm from the supper she had eaten with the children. Amina took it gratefully, and started to eat.
“Thank you,” she said.
Miriam watched her for a moment. “I’m going to finish putting the children in bed. Come up when you are finished.”
Amina nodded. “This is delicious, Miriam,” she said, and Miriam had to cover the smile that came to her lips when she heard her name pronounced aloud. It was a rare sound, for Robert and the children never used her name, and Omar’s terse conversation consisted mainly of “Yes” and “no”.
“You’re welcome,” she replied, and turned and went quickly up the stairs.
By the time Amina had eaten, rinsed her plate, and come tentatively upstairs, Miriam had soothed the baby to sleep, and had both children in their beds. The girl waited awkwardly on the landing, until Alisha heard her quiet steps and said something to her mother.
“We are in here,” called Miriam. “Come inside.”
Amina came into the room, but hovered by the door. The children lay side by side in their tiny beds, watching her, wide eyed. She smiled at them.
“Are you ready to sleep?” she asked them.
Alisha shook her head emphatically. “We don’t want to sleep.”
“Mummy do we have to sleep?” piped Sam, taking his cue.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
Miriam watched them struggle, knowing they would not answer back, and yet they both lay there galvanised with a sudden energy, with the excitement of an unknown stranger in their usually routine household. Miriam watched their small limbs wriggling with energy, and smiled.
“I will read you one story . . .” she said, and the children nodded, happy to have achieved some kind of respite. “And then you must sleep. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Amina cleared her throat. “Is there somewhere I can wash?” she asked.
Miriam pointed the way to the bathroom. “There is still some hot water in the tank,” she said, and she heard an acknowledgement from her guest before the bathroom door closed, and she picked up a book and began the story.
It took no longer than ten minutes, and the children enjoyed it as though they had never heard it before, and laughed when Miriam did the different voices for each character, and waited breathlessly for the happy ending which they must have known would come. When she got up to tuck them in and kiss them goodnight, they protested again, but with a defeated air, as though they understood that it must come to nothing, and she leaned to kiss her son and stroke his head, and then went to her daughter. The little girl flung her arms around her mother’s neck and told her that she didn’t like it when she made her voice low like the storybook villains.
“Like this?” said Miriam, in the same voice.
The child squealed and grabbed hold of her mother more tightly, and Miriam laughed, tousling the girl’s hair, and tickling her chest, booming in the same voice. The girl laughed hard from being tickled and Sam laughed to see them both struggling with each other, until finally Miriam pulled away, and stood up, smoothing back her hair.
“Sleep now,” she said, still smiling, and without waiting for further protests she turned out their oil lamp. Closing the door, she stepped out into the hallway and bumped straight into Amina. The girl was waiting in the half-gloom, her shirt-tails hanging over her trousers, her face scrubbed and the ends of her wild curly hair wet. A fresh, clean scent lingered in the hallway, one that Miriam had noticed earlier in the day, and that she now recognised was somehow peculiar to Amina.
“I’m sorry,” she said, touching Miriam’s arm to reassure her. “I finished, and I didn’t want to disturb you while you were with the children.”
“I forgot for a moment that you were here . . .”
“Are you sure it is alright for me to stay?” Amina asked.
“Of course. Do you want a night-dress?”
Amina shook her head. “No, this is a clean shirt. I always keep one in the car. I like to be prepared . . .” she was smiling, that same disconcerting half-smile.
“For what?”
“For anything,” said Amina.
She followed Miriam to the end of the hallway, and they turned into the room next door to the one she shared with Omar. It was small, with a gently sloping ceiling which ran under the eaves of the house. A narrow, low bed lay beneath the slope, and there was nothing else in the room but two upturned orange crates, upon which Miriam’s sewing lay, together with two half rolls of striped material.
“Is this okay?” Miriam asked.
“It’s fine,” said Amina. “At least I can start very early tomorrow. If the rain lets up. Perhaps I can even finish the garden. If I have one more full day . . .”
“Don’t worry, it will get done. My husband is impatient, but I can see how hard you are working.”
Amina made no reply but went to the tiny window over the foot of the bed and looked out at the railroad tracks that ran in converging lines into the distance.
“How many trains are there every day?”
“Past the shop?”
“Yes.”
“One.”
Amina laughed, and then remembered the sleeping children and stifled the noise.
“One?” she repeated. “Must be quite an event when that train shows up,” she smiled.
“It is,” replied Miriam. “The children get very excited when it comes, and they are home.” She covered a smile guiltily. “They run out and stand there and wave as it passes.”
“There are passengers?”
“No, it is a goods train . . .” They looked at each other and laughed out loud. Amina looked again from the window, her eyes fixed on the tracks, hesitant.
“You have very good children,” she said finally.
“Thank you.”
Quickly, Miriam left the room, returning in a few moments with a pink towel which she placed on the end of the bed.
“I mean, it is very nice to see how you are with your children,” Amina added. She ran a long finger over the tiled sill. When she turned back, Miriam was looking at her questioningly, a frown shading her face.
“I couldn’t help overhearing . . .” Amina paused, embarrassed to admit that she had heard them. “I mean, it was so nice, the way you are close with your daughter.”
The frown remained, and Amina sensed a disapproval and coolness. She shrugged, more to herself than to anyone, and turned back to the window.
“Anyway, I liked that you are affectionate with her. I’m sorry I saw,” she added abruptly.
Miriam ignored the apology, but kept herself busy, tidying up the sewing things that lay on the crates, and then turning back the bed, concentrating on the cool feel of the sheets and the rough hair of the heavy blanket.
“My mother never hugged me,” she said simply, without looking up and Amina turned around.
“No?”
“No,” said Miriam, her face reddening. “She never gave us much affection. I got used to it, but I didn’t want my children to feel the same.”
“My mother can be cold too,” said Amina
“My mother wasn’t cold,” said Miriam, defensively.
“No, I didn’t mean . . .” Amina sighed and ran a hand tiredly over her forehead. “That was clumsy of me,” she said. “I didn’t mean to say that your mother was cold.”
She gazed from the window again and sighed. “It’s raining,” she said quietly. “It’ll be good for the soil.”
For a long time after she had seen everyone to their beds, Miriam lay under her own sheets and watched the ceiling. She had the double mattress to herself, but remained on her own side, not used to spreading herself out, or taking more room than she needed. Expansiveness did not come naturally to her, in her movements, her speech, her thoughts. She listened, relieved at the rain tonight, at its breaking of that silence outside which she was now so used to. It drummed hard and hollow on the roof, like the hooves of a thousand distant horses, and she listened, and heard the steady pouring as it ran off the eaves, and the splashing as it hit the sodden ground beneath. So many sounds that same water was responsible for, such a variety of noise. She closed her eyes and listened again, wondering about her husband, what he was doing, and if he was happier now to be away from home for a night.
These trips to Pretoria had become more and more frequent in the last few months, and almost every week he stayed a night there, something he had never done before. She tried not to think about it too much, but she knew that his night visits must coincide with the times that his brother Sadru worked away from home, haggling in the vegetable markets. And then there were moments when she carried the laundry downstairs for washing, and she would turn her face away from a sudden smell of stale, familiar sweet perfume that rose from his shirt. Blinking hard, she pushed the idea from her head, and smiled to think of her daughter hugging her, and then she almost laughed aloud when she remembered Amina’s face as they thought of the children waving at the freight train. She strained to hear if the baby was awake, but the rain drowned out all noise for the moment, and she was grateful for it. She turned on her side and the repetitive rush of the water gently lulled her to sleep.
