by Shamim Sarif
“Yes.”
He stood up from the table, and smiled at her.
“Thank you for calming me down,” he said. “And enjoy your book.”
He walked away, over to where a group of people were waiting at the door. When he had seated them, he turned back and saw that Amina was still sitting at the booth, reading the inside of the book, and smiling to herself.
Chapter Seventeen
Amina was still enjoying the fact of her newly received book when she received a telephone call from her mother. In her blissful state she could not imagine that it might be bad news, and it took a few minutes for her to recognise that her mother’s subdued tone sounded more than usually depressed. When Mrs Harjan finally stumbled through the news that Amina’s grandmother had passed away, it seemed so unreal that Amina made her repeat it.
“How did it happen?” Amina asked.
“A heart attack.”
“Just like that?”
There was a long pause. “I think it was the shock,” said her mother’s quavering voice. “Those people came again, and she found out . . .”
“What people?” There was no reply, and Amina tried again:
“Found out what, mum?”
There was a crackle and a sound of weeping, Amina thought, and the line went dead. She looked up at Jacob who had been watching her as she spoke.
“My grandmother is dead,” she said.
Her parents were sitting at the kitchen table when Amina walked in. She had lingered outside, making the walk from her truck deliberately slow and measured, uncertain of how to greet her father in the wake of his mother’s death. He had always been a man of such little outward emotion that she had no idea how he would behave now that his mother was laid out in an upstairs room, never to rise again. For her own part, Amina felt vaguely guilty that she had felt so little in these hours immediately following her grandmother’s death. Their lives had never crossed much until this recent visit. Her grandfather had been alive until three years before, and had lived with his wife in their own apartment, never with his children. Amina had grown up knowing her grandmother only as a visitor, and one that she had never particularly liked.
She stopped just outside the back door and deposited the two bags of flour she had brought for her mother—she would not to take them inside where her father might see them, in case he should become aware that all his groceries were not bought from his wife’s meagre housekeeping money.
Her parents looked up when she turned the door handle. She leaned down to take the tentative kiss that her mother offered to her forehead and she looked over at her father. Their eyes met for an instant before he glanced back down to the cup of tea that sat cooling before him. She did not go to him for a greeting—it was not the custom between them—but pulled another chair to the table and sat down.
“Do you want some tea?” her mother asked.
Amina shook her head. She watched as her mother got up and went to the stove where a large pot of daal sat simmering. The lentils were ladled into three plates and Amina stood up to carry them one by one to the table. A plate of rotlis followed.
Amina sat down again and considered her plate. “How did it happen?” she asked finally.
Her mother regarded her with a tragic air and, for some reason that she could not specify, Amina immediately felt guilty.
“She had a heart attack,” said her father, flatly. He picked up his tea cup and sipped at the liquid with the air of a man who has said everything that is on his mind.
“Oh,” said Amina, although this much she already knew. She waited a few moments, but nobody seemed eager to continue the discussion.
“What brought it on?” she asked tentatively.
Her mother glanced up at her again, with that same indefinable look, and Amina swallowed. Still, nobody spoke, and she waited with growing unease, and some impatience.
“We had a visit,” her mother offered at last. She sniffed, as though this sentence were somehow self-explanatory.
“A visit?” repeated Amina.
Mrs Harjan nodded. “The Ali’s” she said.
The family of the suitable boy. Amina stared at her mother, for she had long ago forgotten about them, and was wondering how they could be connected to her grandmother’s demise.
“They came yesterday evening, to give their reply.”
“Reply?” repeated Amina, before she realised what her mother meant.
“About you.” Mrs Harjan’s eyes filled with tears. “They refused you for their son.”
Amina would have felt relieved had she felt at all concerned about the prospect of marriage to this boy, but as it was, the news that she was apparently not good enough for the young man was neither a surprise nor an inconvenience.
“Why did they only reply now?” she asked.
Her mother sniffed. “I think they were avoiding us. Because they were refusing you. Your grandmother kept calling them though, until they had to come.”
The last words were swallowed under a sob from Mrs Harjan, and in desperation, Amina looked at her father, who was spooning up his food and listening impassively as his wife spoke. Amina was hungry and looked down at her plate, wondering whether she might start eating, despite the fact that her mother had not yet finished her story. The girl took a large, clean handkerchief from her pocket.
“She was shocked that they refused?” Amina prompted.
Mrs Harjan shook her head, and dabbed her eyes, unable, it seemed, to speak. She sniffed heartily, and finally saw the handkerchief that Amina waved before her. She took it and blew her nose.
“They told her about your business. With the Coloured man. With Jacob,” she added, more politely, as she saw the fierce look that passed through her daughter’s eyes.
“And then they told her that you were not . . . not feminine enough.”
This last sentence was punctuated by sobs, and ended with Mrs Harjan burying her head fully in the handkerchief.
“You see!” she cried suddenly, raising her head. “It is things like this that make them say that!” She held up the generous square of white cotton accusingly. “What girl carries around a hankie like this? This is a man’s hankie. It’s not right.”
Amina pushed her plate away and glanced briefly at her father. He had stopped eating and was looking at her now, but without reproach, and his unmoving expression calmed her briefly. He glanced at his sobbing wife, without any sign of feeling, and then his eyes went back to his daughter.
“Your grandmother always ate too much,” he said in a flat tone. “And she never did any exercise. For her heart.”
Amina was grateful and looked down at the table.
“Come on,” he told her. “Eat.”
Nobody had realised at first that Amina’s grandmother was dead. She had listened with growing horror to the Ali family as they listed the reasons for their refusal and she had seemed to choke upon her tea. Then she had clasped at her ample chest and cried for some water. At that point the visitors had decided to leave and once they had gone the old lady had called for her son and told him to send for Amina at once, because the girl needed some discipline now, and then she changed her mind and decided she would rather that he sent for the doctor because she was dying from shock.
Mr Harjan was used to his mother’s dramatic insistences; she had been assuring her immediate family that her death was imminent for the last thirty years. It was a means of attracting attention in times of stress and anger and illness and it had worked for the first couple of years, but not for the last twenty-eight. Mr Harjan therefore listened to his mother and then left the room, stopping only in the kitchen to ask his wife to take the old lady some tea and a glass of water when she was ready.
When Mrs Harjan sent rosemary in with the tea, the old lady appeared to be sleeping, so rosemary poured out a cup of the milky brew and left her to rest. When Mrs Harjan went to check on her mother-in-law a few minutes later, she found that the old woman was indeed asleep in her chair, doubtl
ess worn out from all the dramatic railing. She straightened the teacup on the tray before her and went away, returning an hour later to call her for dinner. She had not moved an inch from her previous position and Mrs Harjan noticed that she looked rather pale. She went over to touch her on the shoulder and the old lady slumped forward, nose first, into the tea and biscuits. Mrs Harjan gave a little cry, and then found she could produce no further sound. She began to pray fervently in her mind for help. Within seconds god sent her rosemary, who had been peeling potatoes in the kitchen, but rosemary only stopped at the door for a moment, just long enough to realise that the old lady was not drinking directly from the tea cup but had died and fallen into it, before she ran into the garden screaming.
“I don’t have time to go driving around the countryside for some old woman we didn’t even know,” said Omar as he strode back into the shop.
Miriam followed him. “It’s not for the old lady. She’s dead already. It’s for the family. You know Mr Harjan.”
“Hardly,” he said, pacing around as though looking for a physical escape from the conversation.
“You are always the one telling me and the children about our responsibilities and our traditions, and now you won’t even go and give your condolences?”
“Don’t shout at me.” even though she had not been raising her voice, Omar looked accusingly at her and she fell silent. He began leafing through an order book, flipping back the pages with an audible snapping sound.
“That family don’t mix with any of us and yet when it suits them they expect everyone to come running.”
Miriam took a breath and made a final attempt. “They don’t expect anything. But it’s the least we can do.”
“I don’t owe these people anything!” he shouted at her.
“Yes, you do,” she said quietly. “Yes, you do. Amina Harjan saved your sister, remember?”
Omar threw the book across the room and it crashed against the wall, several feet away from Miriam. She stared at it for a moment, then she picked it up, smoothed down the bent pages, and placed it on the counter top. Without looking at Omar again, she went back to her kitchen.
All the floors of the downstairs rooms in the Harjan house were covered over with white sheets. Upon these sheets sat various people from the surrounding community, who had arrived to pay their condolences and provide support for the grieving family. Most of those present were women, and most of these were older women, for whom a death, particularly one that did not emotionally affect them, was an opportunity not to be missed. It was a chance for them to get together, to fuss, to cook and to reminisce about the deceased person, even one they had not really known.
Mr Harjan was extremely unhappy. His immediate instinct upon finding these strangers overrunning his house was to turn around and return to his business, but he soon found that this would not do at all, and that he, the bereaved son, was expected to be in the house at all times.
So he sat resignedly upon one of his dining room chairs (his favourite armchair having been given up some time ago to a succession of visiting old people) and accepted the continuous murmurings of condolence. People would tell him that he should be happy that his mother had gone to a place where she could rest peacefully, and he would nod while his eyes moved to the ceiling and he envisioned the old lady’s massive body in its final repose on the bed upstairs.
From the kitchen there issued an unceasing undertone of female voices, that would bubble up now and then like an unwatched pot before suddenly quietening down again. In the midst of these women was Mrs Harjan, busily taking stock of the dishes that her new friends had brought her—for traditionally, no cooking took place in the house of the deceased. From time to time she shook her head and recited once more, at the request of her friends and acquaintances, the circumstances of her mother-in-law’s death. She left out the details of Amina’s rejection by the family of the suitable boy, but the death scene itself became embellished bit by bit, the dramatic re-telling being polished like glowing silver with each recitation. Then there were the omens to be discussed—almost everyone who had seen or spoken to the old lady in the week before her death now realised that she had said something that struck them as strange.
“She told me, you know, just last week, that she was tired of life.”
“She said to me, only the other day, that when god decided to call her she would be ready. It was as though she knew.”
And so it continued. When Omar and Miriam arrived at dusk on the second day, Omar went to shake hands and mutter his condolences to Mr Harjan before retiring to a corner amongst the quietly talking men. He could hear that they were discussing Malan, his government, and the voting laws. At least he would be able to catch up on the latest news of the National Party, and find out whether the newest apartheid laws might affect his business. His interest in his country’s politics had always been predicated on the practical rather than the ethical.
In the meantime, Miriam went directly to the kitchen, where she was quickly swallowed up by the milling women who were getting ready to serve dinner. Miriam placed down the plate of samosas that she had brought as her contribution to the kitchen. The women fell on them, put them into the oven, then continued tasting, comparing, preparing—but Amina, Miriam noticed at once, was not among them. She waited a little and helped to begin serving the plates of food that were taken in to where the men sat, and then she quietly spoke to Mrs Harjan and asked her if Amina were not here, as she would like to pay her condolences. Mrs Harjan stopped what she was doing and looked at Miriam. She did not know her, but seemed pleased that this young, conservative-looking woman could be one of her daughter’s friends.
“She is upstairs,” said Mrs Harjan, almost in a whisper. “Go up, if you like—and please—see if she will come down.”
Miriam looked at the pleading eyes and tried to nod reassuringly. She left the kitchen and moved quietly out into the hall. There were no electric lights switched on out here, and only the remaining faint streaks of twilight lit the gloomy walls. Miriam shivered and looked up to the stairs, the top of which were already cast into darkness. She walked up slowly, hoping that she would find Amina before she found her grandmother’s body.
A glow of light spread from a small room to her right as she reached the top of the stairs, and Miriam put her head around the door. A cushion had been placed on the floor and an open book lay beside it, but other than that the room was empty. Something in the hush and the darkness that pervaded the upstairs rooms—perhaps her awareness that the dead body was here somewhere—prevented Miriam from calling out to Amina. Instead she moved back into the hallway and waited uncertainly for a moment.
All the other doors were shut except for the room that lay on her left—here the door was ajar, although the room lay in darkness. With silent steps, Miriam walked to the entrance and looked in. For a moment or two she could see nothing, her eyes still dulled to darkness from the light in the other room. There was a smell, though, a pungent, sweet odour that Miriam could not identify, but which seemed distantly familiar to her. She blinked again and this time she saw a pair of eyes—intent, piercing eyes which were all she saw at first of the girl sitting on the floor and Miriam jumped, before she made out the outline of a shalwaar kameez. Despite the traditional dress and the vaguely tamed hair, she realised in an instant that the girl was in fact Amina. The dark intensity of her stare made her recognisable to Miriam, as did the slow smile that moved over her face when Amina also recognised the intruder facing her. She jumped up from her seat against the wall, and went to the door.
“You scared me,” she said. “I thought for a minute that my grandmother had returned to check on me.” She waved a hand to her side, and Miriam saw the old lady’s body lying on the bed beside her.
“God forgive us,” said Miriam, instinctively and she backed out of the room as hastily as she could. Amina followed her, shutting the door behind them before turning to Miriam with an amused expression in her eyes.
“I thought you’d seen her there.”
Miriam shook her head and knew then that she had recognised that odour from her days as a girl in Bombay, and that the odour was that of death. Two of her aunts had died in quick succession when she was fourteen years old, and that same, tainted smell had lingered over their bodies. She felt sick for a moment, and dizzy, and she reached out her hand to lean against the wall, but before she could do so she felt a strong hand on her elbow, and another on her back, supportive and strong.
“Are you okay?” Amina asked.
Miriam nodded and smiled, embarrassed at her weakness, but Amina quickly drew her towards the lit room.
“I didn’t expect to see you here today,” she said. “I didn’t know you knew my parents.”
“I don’t,” Miriam said. “We came to see you. To offer our condolences.”
“That’s kind. Nobody else came especially to see me. Probably because they all think I killed my own grandmother with my trousers and my lifestyle,” she added with an ironic tone.
Miriam looked at her. Amina looked pretty in her outfit, tall and straight-backed, with an elegance that fitted the long flowing outfit, but she also looked like a stranger. Amina watched the movement of Miriam’s eyes and smiled.
“I can’t tell whether you approve of my clothes, or not. From your expression.”
Miriam blushed. “Neither. It is not for me to approve or disapprove . . .”
“No, tell me. What do you think?”
“It looks very nice.”
“It’s a nice outfit,” said Amina, purposely misreading the comment.
“I mean,” stammered Miriam, “that you look very nice in it.”
“Ah,” said Amina. “That’s different.”
Miriam laughed nervously, and looked about her, avoiding the girl’s gaze.
“So,” Amina continued. “You prefer me in traditional clothes?”
