Seven

by Farzana Doctor

  He is on the board of the Rangwala Trust, a charitable organization that funds the hospitals and schools Abdoolally’s inheritance built. Also, Abbas Kaaka knows something of our family’s genealogy and has attempted an elaborate family tree, drawn on parchment paper affixed to his bedroom wall. By the time he began the project, his wife, Amtulla, had been dead a few years. She was a woman, from what I recall, who would not have tolerated the wallpaper of souls alive and dead decorating her home.

  I click open his survey link and read his essay.

  Well, Abdoolally was quite the figure, not just for our family, who are his proud descendants, but for India as a nation. He was well known and respected by the British, as well as Indians. Of course I’m assuming you know of his numerous business pursuits, land holdings, and his charitable endeavours. I’ve attached a separate document for those. But what is most interesting is that he spurs on the imagination about how he arrived at such an impressive station in life!

  He had humble beginnings — and that is an understatement. He was an illiterate and penniless village boy arriving in the big city of Bombay. Can you imagine? He had attended no school at all. But he was ambitious, the sort of mind that manages to overcome all obstacles. When his businesses grew successful he purchased land, instinctively knowing which undesirable places would turn profitable. Come to think of it, he started out that way himself, undesirable, and then he became Abdoolally Seth.

  I enter “Seth” into a search engine and learn it is a title that denotes greatness. Historically it was used to identify the wealthiest man in town. While I find this impressive, I’m not that interested in my great-great-grandfather’s financial status. I reread Abbas Kaaka’s words: “The sort of mind that manages to overcome all obstacles.” My research question hasn’t been well defined, but its edges are growing sharper, like a Polaroid image in the sun: I want to know more about my forefather’s mind.

  “I will miss you, my little Zeenat Zee Nut!” Mom squeezes Zee at Newark Airport.

  “We’ll see you in a few months,” Murtuza says, and he and I hug her, A-frame-style around Zee, who still clings to Mom’s leg. She has a ticket for a four-week visit in late March, returning home on the same flight with us. I lobbied her to come earlier, but she insisted that this first trip back without Dad would be challenging enough without extending it.

  “We’ll talk on Skype, right?” The thought of her being lonely while we are gone is like acid pooling in my belly. She nods and ushers us toward the security gate.

  After we pass through, we have a two-hour wait. Murtuza gets his shoes polished and Zee and I drift toward Twelve Minute Manicure. Normally, this would have been part of my back-to-school routine. I ask Malina, the aesthetician, for coral pink, my usual. Zee scans the entire paint deck and picks up a red with sparkly shimmer through it.

  “This one is nicer.” She passes the bottle to me. Malina nods to Zee.

  “Why not? I’m on vacation, right?”

  Zee isn’t interested in her nails but is captivated by the vibrating massage chair next to us. She giggles as its fingers poke their way up her bony spine. I watch the tickertape headlines marching across the bottom of a television on mute: “6,500 Syrians reach Austria, greeted by applause, food, and medical help. Jailed Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis says she will appeal contempt of court ruling for not issuing same-sex marriage licenses. GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump lashes out at conservative radio host.”

  “I still can’t believe Trump is in the running.” I shake my head at the screen.

  “It’s surreal,” Malina says, and clips my cuticles.

  Murtuza arrives, showing off his loafers’ new sheen. He scoops up Zee, who is already bored with her mechanical massage, and takes her for a tour around the terminal.

  In exactly twelve minutes, Malina finishes and tells me to wait for the lacquer to dry. I gaze out at the candy and cosmetic shops across the way, my fingers outstretched before me. A group of Bohras in traditional clothing pause at the electronics store next door, and I smile at a rida-clad woman who looks to be about my age. I wonder if we know each other, but she only smiles blandly before looking away.

  I’m in stealth mode in my jeans, zip-up cardigan, and red nail polish, but perhaps they can guess from my facial features that I am of their clan. My father’s best friend once insisted that he could pick a Bohra out of a crowd, since we are so closely knit and have similar features. That seems like a stretch, but a part of me wants to be acknowledged by these Bohras in the terminal.

  What would it be like to walk through the world like this? While we have many family friends who don’t wear Western clothing, Mom, Dad, and I nearly always did, except at all-Indian parties or religious gatherings. To be identified each and every day as Muslim, as foreign, as other, must be a burden. I notice that I’m not the only one looking at the Bohra group; others ogle, gazes curious, suspicious. Meanwhile, I mostly blend into the crowd.

  Malina dismisses me with a friendly wave. I blow on my nails to be sure and join Murtuza and Zee, who are in the candy store, choosing a pack of gum.

  An hour into the flight, Zee, who has been staring out the window into darkness, falls asleep, her head heavy in my lap. Murtuza slips his hand into mine. I like his grip; it’s sure, dry, and warm. He isn’t one for public displays of affection, but when there are opportunities like this — seated on a plane, in a movie’s theatre, walking alone on the street — he’ll reach for my hand.

  I admire yesterday’s haircut, spiky on the top, short on the sides. He still looks like the handsome man I met nine years ago, with his strong jaw and dimples. Like me, he’s put on a few pounds, the extra weight making him more solid. He looks sideways at me, perhaps sensing my gaze.

  “Glad we’re going?” He asks.

  “Yeah. It’ll be a whole new experience for Zee, for us, for your work … and now I have a research project.”

  “I’m glad you cooked that up for yourself. You know you never said — why this great-great-grandfather? I mean, him in particular?”

  “Well, he’s a significant patriarch, someone well known, so that’s just practical — people will have records and stories. But I don’t know, maybe he’ll lead me to something more …” I push aside a stray lock of hair that’s fallen across Zee’s face.

  “Something more?”

  “I dunno, maybe more understanding of the family, who we are …”

  “Who you are, maybe?” He squeezes my hand, and a warm pulse travels past my wrist, up my forearm.

  “Maybe,” I laugh self-consciously. “That would be a typical American endeavour, wouldn’t it?”

  “Hey, I’ll be teaching post-colonial Canadian lit. From what I can tell, this self-searching thing might be a Canadian endeavour, too. At least for people like us.”

  “Right.”

  The lights go out and he allows our clasped hands to rest on his warm thigh. I take his cue and drop my head onto his shoulder.

  I awake to blinding morning light. Zee has pulled up the shade.

  “Sorry,” she says, anticipating my annoyance. I snort, knowing she’s done it on purpose.

  “What time is it?” I ask, turning on my phone. It reads 12:06 a.m., which confuses me until I realize that its airplane mode ignores our new time zone, high above the Atlantic Ocean.

  “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  “Okay.” I swivel my knees left so she can walk past. A few hours earlier, I accompanied her and she told me that she’d go solo for future runs. She stumbles past Murtuza, using his thighs to balance herself, waking him in the process.

  “She’s going to the bathroom, it’s morning,” I apprise.

  “Oh.” He adjusts his pillow and is fast asleep within moments. I consider following Zee but my limbs are leaden. She returns after a few minutes, alarm in her eyes.

  “I couldn’t find you!” she whines. “I went the wrong way back and I couldn’t find you!”

  “That’s all right. Here you ar
e now.” I take her elbow and pull her past Murtuza and back into her seat. “You know, I once travelled by myself from Bombay back home. Someone had to help me find my seat after going to the washroom, too.”

  “Really?” Curiosity distracts her from her distress.

  “I was your age. My mom and dad — your nani and nana — and I went to India together, and then they had to return home before me. I stayed an extra month.”

  “By yourself?”

  “No, I stayed with my nani, your nani’s mother.” She nods, as though remembering her. “My cousins Fatema and Zainab and I had sleepovers nearly every day I was there. But I did travel home all by myself, just that one time.” The memory unspools as I talk to Zee.

  “I was an unaccompanied minor.” I pause to explain the words to her. “It was a big adventure, and everyone treated me very well, like I was a very special person. The stewardesses — they call them flight attendants now — were nice to me and brought my meals before everyone else. There were ground agents who carried my luggage; I got toys and crayons. It was great.”

  “Did you sit in first class?” She gestures to the front of the airplane. When we boarded, she asked me if the passengers there were famous people.

  “No, just in regular coach like now. But it didn’t matter. Back then, I was as small as you, and the seats felt huge.”

  “They probably were. They’ve only grown smaller over time. Everything cheapened,” Murtuza grumbles, sitting erect and cracking his neck.

  “Will I go back on my own, or will we all fly together?” Zee bites her bottom lip. “I could do it, you know.”

  “Of course you could. But you don’t have to. We’ll all come home together. Your nani, too, she’ll be with us.” Zee flicks her wrist, a dismissive gesture she’s picked up from my mother, but I can tell she’s relieved. A few minutes later, we smell overcooked eggs and spy the meal cart twenty feet ahead.

  “Hmmph,” Zee says, crossing her arms over her chest. “If I was an unaccompanied minor, I’d have my breakfast by now.”

  NINE

  We arrive at Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport at three in the morning, the sky’s darkness interrupted by the terminal’s LED glare. The humid air is a homecoming, wafting petrichor, gasoline, and the tropical green that resists the pavement’s incursion. The smell never changes.

  Despite the early hour, the terminal is bustling, travellers and uniformed staff chattering, calling out, jostling. This, too, is how it’s always been, only the building has modernized over the years, steel, glass, and marble replacing cement, the roof and walls stretching high and wide.

  As we exit, two men, a porter and a driver, grab our luggage and elbows. Murtuza and I reject the taxi, acquiesce to the porter, and find our way to the Uber depot. We pass an uncrowded, roped-off area where locals text on their cellphones. I instinctively check to see if any of my relatives are there, even though we refused their pickup offers, given our pre-dawn landing. When I was a child, they’d have to stand behind a chain-link fence, an area that was tightly packed and poorly lit, scanning the parade of new arrivals. We’d listen for their cheers.

  Five days pass in a blur of jet lag and making and receiving family visits. We had multiple invitations to live with others, but we didn’t want to be underfoot in anyone’s home for our extended stay.

  Also, we resolved to have a separate bedroom for Zee, who has been sleeping on her own consistently this last year. We moved her into her own bed at two years old, but she often crept back into ours like a burglar. Halfway through first grade, peer pressure changed this, when she tearfully reported that her friend Melanie was calling her a sucky baby for not sleeping alone. I have no idea how that conversation began, but six-year-olds can be the meanest life coaches. And so Zee, chastised, vowed never to sleep in our bed again. I hugged her, congratulated her for being so grown-up, and secretly wanted to send judgy Melanie a brand-new Barbie.

  The furnished Khar West flat Fatema secured for us is a change from our two-bedroom in Queens. The ten-storey building is called “Fortune Enclave,” which made Murtuza and I giggle when we first read the signboard. Now we use the term whenever possible to refer to our flat, the way we once replaced “bed” with “Brimnes.”

  It’s something out of a lifestyle magazine: marble countertops and floors, stainless-steel appliances, luxe linens. There is a large balcony, and from five storeys up, we can survey the neighbourhood streets. If we lean forward, there is a sliver-view of the ocean to our left. Two blocks away, in either direction, are trendy clothing stores and restaurants. The soundscape of honking horns and street hawkers is constant, only becoming intermittent at night. Up this high, we see the tops of palm trees that make the air seem fresher, less dusty, than below.

  We assume the affordable monthly rate Fatema quoted includes a subsidy from her, but she dismissed the idea, saying the flat belonged to a work associate who was doing her a favour. Fatema doesn’t ever mention friends, only work associates.

  When we are alone, I cover all the off-white sofas with bedsheets to keep them pristine. We declined a servant, and so Fatema has instead arranged a weekly cleaning service.

  Our first night there, Zee romped like a dog from room to room, exclaiming at their expansiveness. She was shocked to have her own bathroom, her face reshaping into a version of Munch’s The Scream. Perhaps she was only being kooky, or maybe Melanie has a rule about this, too.

  I was most impressed that Fatema’s maid had stocked the fridge with two days’ worth of meals for us. In addition, there is a spice dubba filled with cumin, coriander, turmeric, chili, and mustard seeds. When I found it, I breathed in their aromas, reminded of the time when Tasnim Maasi taught Zainab, Fatema, and me how to make our first vagaar, the fresh spice mix for curries. At Zee’s age then, I’d watched, intrigued, as the seeds popped in the oil and the colours blended like paint on canvas. Zainab asked to stir and Maasi supervised her. Fatema grew bored and boasted, “I’m not going to cook when I grow up. I’m going to go to nice restaurants every day.”

  Tasnim Maasi retorted, “Well then, your husband will have to be a very rich man.”

  Without missing a beat, Fatema shook her head and countered, “No, no. I will be a very rich woman.”

  We’d all laughed, but I believed her.

  Abbas Kaaka shares his more modest three-bedroom Bandra flat with his youngest son’s family, as is the custom in India. We prefer our elders to not live alone, and parents tend to pass down property to their children. It’s not always a peaceful situation; sometimes one generation doesn’t appreciate the other’s values and lifestyles. I’ve heard gossip that Abbas Kaaka spars with his son Tahir, mostly about drinking, and worse, about Tahir’s insistence on keeping a bar at home.

  “I think you last visited us many years ago? When Zee was a tiny baby? But now look! She is a little girl now.” He takes Zee’s hand and she shakes it with a solemn air, studying his face.

  “I’m seven and a half, not that little.” Zee crosses her arms over her chest.

  “Oh, yes, quite true.” He smiles and looks to me. “A bright girl.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Zee, that’s not a nice question.” I place my hands on her small shoulders.

  “No, no, she’s quite right to ask. She volunteered her age, didn’t she? Zeenat, I am eighty-seven. Can you believe it? Sometimes, you know, I cannot believe it myself. At times I feel like I’m still seven, or twenty-seven! It’s very strange to get old.” He shakes his head at his admission.

  “Were you alive in the 1900s?” This is the same question Zee asked me about Murtuza’s daadi.

  “Oh yes! I was born in 1928.” I take a moment to calculate: this is eight years after Abdoolally’s death.

  Kaaka’s daughter-in-law, Khadija, brings out three glasses of fresh orange juice, glancing uneasily at the discreet liquor cabinet in the corner. Does she wonder if she’s supposed to offer me vodka? Then she apologizes for the absence of the other family members;
Tahir and their two sons are at work. Before she disappears to another room, Khadija makes me promise to return at another time for a meal with the family, a vow we both understand I’m not required to uphold.

  “So how is the teaching going? Are you still enjoying it?” Kaaka asks.

  “I’m a freelance consultant now. I just quit. I found the classroom too stressful. I lasted almost fifteen years.”

  “True about the stress. But I enjoyed the work a great deal. I did it for forty years!”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “A little, but not as much as I thought I would. I tutored privately after I retired, but then one day, calaas!” He claps his hands. “I realized I was finished with it. I didn’t want to work anymore.”

  “I get it.”

  “But you … you’re a long way from retirement.”

  I nod and smile. I don’t want to think about work right now. I request to see the family tree and Kaaka guides us to his bedroom, a tidy widower’s quarters. He tells me that Tahir and Khadija inherited the master bedroom after his wife died because they need the space and he doesn’t. There is a double bed, a bookshelf, and pile of books on the table beside it. A metal almirah stands tall along one high wall, and across from it, the family tree. I gasp at how large and detailed it is, the handwriting tiny, to accommodate all the names.

  “Here is Abdoolally, near the top. But just above him is his mother, Amtabai, and his father, Goolamally, who died when Abdoolally was a young boy. That’s as far back in the record I could go.” He clicks on a laser pointer and the red beam circles the crowning patriarch.

  “You must have had to stand on a ladder to get him up there.” The ceilings are about fourteen feet high.

  “Tahir did those. My children were too afraid to allow me to climb up.” I notice, for the first time, his stooped posture. A few strands of white hair criss-cross his balding pate. He circles more people with his red light. “Here are his four wives, and their descendants.”