I exhale my relief, but the tiny hairs on my arms raise in alarm. Why is he reminding me of the safe word? What does he have in mind? Before I can reply, he commands, “Speak.”
“Yes, Mr. Tyebji.”
“What is it?” he demands. I describe the stoplight in intricate detail in a small voice that hardly sounds like my own.
“Good girl,” he says, and I am immediately affirmed, proud, good. I laugh out loud with pleasure. And then something I don’t expect: he slaps my left cheek. Not hard; it’s not the sting of pain I feel. It’s something else altogether. A rush of adrenalin. A pulse of joy.
“Why are you smiling? Is this a joke for you?”
“No, Mr. Tyebji. I’m sorry, I won’t laugh again.”
“You’d better not.” He climbs off the bed, and I think I hear him stifling a laugh. Again, I hear a door opening and closing. My body hums with an arousal that is almost an ache. I want to protest, to call Murtuza back. Enough of this waiting! But instead I squirm on the bed, make myself more comfortable, bend my legs. I don’t want to say the word red.
A minute later he says accusingly, “I see you’ve moved.”
I immediately flatten my knees, return to my original position.
“Wider.” I follow his instructions and he lifts the skirt of my lingerie up and around my waist. His face hovers over mine and his breath blows warmth over my forehead. He asks, “Are you going to be a good girl?”
I whisper these foreign words, “Yes, I’ll be a good girl, Mr. Tyebji.”
When he slides into me, I moan with gratitude. I don’t want him to stop. I struggle against the handcuffs, wish I could grab him, pull him closer, tighter.
It occurs to me that usually I am waiting, patiently, for this part of sex to conclude, as though watching the clock for a school period to end. But not now. I want, I want, I want. I calculate that in nine years, in all of my life, this is the best it’s ever been for me. I multiply the number of men times years, times frequency, numbers taking over my head. When I realize I’m doing this, I push away the thoughts, breathe deeply, and feel my nerve endings come alive again. And then Murtuza groans and goes slack. And then I am angry with him for stopping. And with myself for doing arithmetic, for mentally leaving, for wasting it.
All is quiet for a minute, and I wonder, Are we done? Should I ask? What’s going to happen next?
The bed shifts, and I hear an electronic hum. The vibrator. He packed it. I’m about to say, no, that’s okay, I’m fine, I’m happy, the way I always do, but I am constrained to my red, yellow, and green, none of which seem appropriate. I say nothing, and then the buzzing is inside me. I try to imagine the many branches of my clitoral tree. I try to imagine the vibrations as sounds waves reaching into its roots. I try. But I go numb.
“Yellow? No, red.”
He stops, pulls up the blindfold. “You okay?”
I nod, and my breathing goes ragged. Then a whimper slides up my throat and I am crying. He rushes to release my wrists. He is shaking, clumsy with the metal links, Mr. Tyebji transforming back into Murtuza. Into Murti. Then he pulls me against his chest, strokes my hair.
“That was the best … you know … the best that it’s ever been for me,” I tell him through my sobs. And I mean it.
“Oh, I’m glad, I thought maybe I went too far.” Against my cheek, his heart drums fear.
“No, it was good.”
“Even that slap? That was all right?”
“Yes,” I cough a laugh into my sobs. “Even that.”
“So, why are you crying, then?” His eyes are attentive, gentle. He reaches for a tissue, dries my eyes, and we sit up, pull the covers close to our chests. I can’t talk yet, so he does, explaining that he read somewhere that it’s important to debrief. I nod, waiting for my head to clear.
“So you liked the handcuffs?”
“Yes.”
“The blindfold?”
“Yes.”
“My bossiness?”
“Yes, Murti, yes.” This is not what I need to debrief about. I wait for him to review his checklist and then I place my hand on his chest.
“I was crying because it was the best. It was so exciting, and I felt so much. And I stopped myself. I realize I’ve always been stopping myself.”
“Stopping yourself?” He nods, even though he’s phrased it as a query. He’s probably known all along.
“I go into my head, can’t stay in my body. This was the best, the farthest I ever let it go. I let myself let go.”
“Yes, you let me take control. You’ve never really let me before.” He sucks in both his lips until his mouth almost disappears.
“I haven’t? I guess that’s true.”
“No, it turns out I have to tie you up and not allow you to talk to get you to relinquish control.” His brown eyes shine like a wild animal’s in the bedroom’s dim light.
“Can we try this again soon, Mr. Tyebji?” I ask, hugging him close and hiding my face in his neck.
“If you’re a good girl,” he replies. He pulls away, takes my hands, and kisses each finger.
THIRTY-THREE
The Rangwala Trust is in a building a few blocks away from the old Ahmedali Road building Abdoolally once owned.
The cramped office has a long, wooden boardroom-style table used for the trust’s monthly meetings, and a dozen beaten-up filing cabinets. A ten-by-twelve reproduction of Abdoolally’s photo is the lone decoration on the wall. The AC doesn’t work. The ceiling fan’s blades spin, lethargically stirring warm air. I’m glad I haven’t brought Zee along.
While Shabnam, Fareeda Kaaki’s daughter, emailed me some documents already — a copy of Abdoolally’s will, and business ownership papers — this is the first time she’s been available to let me into the office. She passes me two unpaid loan chits from 1901 and 1915, between Abdoolally and the Bohra clergy of the day. The latter was five years before he died. I’m not sure what Shabnam thinks I’ll do with them, but she insists on going to the lawyer’s office next door, where she is friendly with the Bohri office administrator, to make photocopies of the brittle paper.
Next, she shows me the original copy of his will. The paper is a frail as a dried leaf, the typed font crooked and fading in places. Shabnam stage-whispers in the dramatic style of a soap opera star, “You know, the will was contested! His children believed that he was leaving too much to charity and not enough to them. They got a higher sum in court.” I take notes, and am glad when she tells me she has a few errands to run.
Alone now with all the yellowed paper and photos, I amuse myself inventing family scandals fit for The Bold and Beautiful: he didn’t approve of his children’s habits, their spouses, their work ethics. He was an astute businessman who managed large sums of money. Certainly the smaller-than-anticipated inheritances were no accident?
An hour later, Shabnam returns to lock up, and I text Fatema to see if she’ll meet me at Café Coffee Day, near her office. We’ve only had a couple of quick visits since that day, more than a month ago, when she dropped by unexpectedly at the flat. I assume she won’t be available now, but within thirty seconds she tells me she’ll be free in thirty minutes.
At the café I scan the small groupings of easy chairs and tables occupied by couples and students reading books. Michael Franti’s “The Sound of Sunshine” spills from wall-mounted speakers. I could be in a Manhattan café, except that here, all the patrons are Indians. Places like these weren’t around a decade ago; they’ve been popping up and changing the face of Mumbai life with their expensive foreign drinks. I think of my old students for the first time in many weeks, knowing that if I were still teaching them, they’d be reading a chapter about the rise of globalization at this point in the year. I would have led a discussion of pros and cons, the latter list growing longer on the chalkboard. But right here, right now, I order a latte in English and know exactly what it will taste like. When the barista hands it to me, I see that she’s spelled my full name correctly on the cup. I
compliment her on the flower she’s designed in the foam.
“Sorry?” she asks. I repeat myself.
“Ah! Okay. I didn’t understand you at first. You look Indian. But you sound American.” She says this matter-of-factly, but the comment grates on me.
I find a couch for Fatema and myself. She arrives and waves the server over. A minute later, her chai tea latte is delivered.
“It’s funny that even in India, they call chai that ridiculous name.”
“It’s the only way they can sell it for ten times more than the chaiwala down the block. Capitalism,” she says, with an approving tone. My students might have placed this assessment under the “cons.”
Fatema tells me about purchasing the foreign rights of a novel written by an emerging American author. “It’s very good. It’s about a young woman who returns to Bangalore to look after her grandfather. Touching. In the process she learns about her history, culture, family secrets, all that. These sorts of books are quite popular among the younger generation here.”
“I’ll ask Murtuza if he’s heard of her.”
I fill her in on my day, show her the photocopied loan chits.
“What are you going to do with them?”
“I don’t know. Maybe just upload them onto the blog?”
“Like I said before, too bad we cannot collect the debts today,” she says, slapping the table, “with interest!”
“I thought Bohras don’t approve of interest.” I laugh, glad she’s not being morose, the way she was the last time we talked about it.
“Correct. But some of us do.” She blows on the chai.
“Well, the debts will never be collected. For now, they serve as proof of Abdoolally’s generous and perhaps naive approach to the clergy.” I tell her about the questions I have about his children’s inheritances. “If only we could know the truth behind these financial decisions! Then we’d know more about his personality.”
“I think you’re more a biographer than a historian!” she teases. “You might be the only one in our family who wants to know these things.”
“Maybe.” I’m not sure how to take this. We sip our drinks, and then Fatema looks up at me.
“I’m more interested in the future, leaving a legacy.… You know we already have nearly eighty thousand signatures on our petition to make khatna illegal in India? In less than a few months!” She tells me a number of women in her committee have been going public about their own experiences of trauma and she is considering it, too.
“What would you say if you did go public?” I ask, bracing myself. I want to know, and don’t, at the same time.
“I’d tell them about the unhygienic conditions, the lies we were told, the pain, the negative impact on sexuality,” she says, her gaze dropping to the floor.
“You know, I never told you this, but I asked Zainab about her thoughts on the subject.”
“Really? What did she tell you?”
I recount the conversation and Fatema sighs.
“Zainab has never learned to think for herself. She just follows whatever her mother and husband and Syedna say she should do.” Fatema grows red in the face.
“Come on, that’s not fair. Zainab is a smart person. She practically runs her father’s business. It’s so sad, the three of us used to have so much fun together, remember? I wish we could all hang out again.”
“It’s not her fault,” Fatema says, taking a breath, slouching into the couch. “It’s the religion. It’s indoctrination. If the holy men say that khatna keeps women loyal, then it must be true. As if it’s women who need to be kept in line. What about the men? Perhaps we should cut off their cocks for good measure!”
“No one should cut off anything!” I wag my finger at her. “But you’re right, that logic is stupid.”
“And in the meantime, girls are getting infections, losing sexual pleasure.”
“Zainab says it hasn’t had any impact on her. Do you think that’s true?”
“You asked her?”
“Yeah. She’s happy ‘in that department.’” I curl my fingers into air quotes to make Fatema laugh, but it doesn’t have that effect. Then I feel bad for betraying Zainab’s confidence.
“Well, lucky her. Not all of us have been so fortunate.” Fatema shakes her head.
I wait for her to say more, but she doesn’t. I sip my cooled latte, trying to compose careful words. The coffee lands in my stomach and curdles there.
“Do you want to tell me about how it’s impacted you?”
“Maybe some other time.” She checks her watch. “I have a meeting in half an hour. It’s best I don’t get too emotional.”
“Of course. Anytime you want to talk,” I say, half-relieved that she’s once again closed the door.
“Thanks. Do you think I should go public?” She blinks uncertainly, an expression I rarely see.
“Will there be negative consequences, do you think?”
“Well, I’ve already distanced myself from the majority of the Bohra community. I’m already on the margins. It will be the close family — for example, people like Zainab — who will be angry with me.”
“I’ll help if I can. I can be a buffer,” I say, unsure if I can fulfill this promise.
THIRTY-FOUR
Bombay, 1902
Abdoolally stood before his mother’s grave. Hers was the first and only burial in the yard beside the modest Khar mosque he had built for her a decade earlier. He visited her weekly, offered prayers, but today, he wished for her counsel.
Would she have agreed with the amil’s advice to divorce Zehra and send Rumana to her grandmother in Dholka? With no woman in the house, it seemed like the correct thing to do.
Mummy had liked Zehra, but had passed away a few months into their marriage. She hadn’t witnessed their spats that became a daily occurrence. She wouldn’t have predicted the near catastrophe that ended the union. But then, neither had he. Perhaps if he’d spent more time at home, been less occupied with work …
And now, since he’d given up one business to the clergy, he’d buried himself in his expanded India Stationery Mart to recover from the loss.
He stared at his mother’s name, engraved into the stone in Arabic. The amil had instructed it be inscribed this way, but Abdoolally couldn’t read Arabic. Hardly anyone could! Now he wondered why he hadn’t argued with the amil and insisted on Gujarati.
“Did I do the correct thing about Zehra, Mummy?” The wind rustled the leaves of a nearby date palm, as though in response to his query. He looked up to watch them sway against the pink of the evening sky. He shook his head at his own sentimentality; he wasn’t a man to look for signs from heaven.
In the year that had passed since he’d evicted Zehra, he’d questioned whether he’d failed to consider other options. Could he have avoided the divorce? Might the scandal have blown over? Had he reacted too rashly, allowed his emotions to guide his decisions?
Returning home, he retired to his library. He randomly pulled a book from the shelf, Elements of English Grammar, the text Zehra had read cover to cover. In their two years together, she had gained a decent fluency and had incorporated English into Rumana’s education, as well. The book fell open to page ninety-five, an explanation of verb tenses.
The past perfect is used to refer to a time earlier than before a certain time.
He didn’t like to dwell in the past, imperfect as it was.
He closed the book, slid it back into place on the shelf. Except for the shuffling feet of his servant, the house was silent. He’d seen his daughter Rumana only twice in the last twelve months. Perhaps it was time to look for another wife, and bring Rumana home.
THIRTY-FIVE
I’m planning a trip to our ancestral village, Dholka, at the end of February to learn more about my great-great-grandfather’s origins. On the way back, I’ve scheduled a meeting with Meena, the archivist in Ahmedabad. I was going to take Zee with me, but her first question was whether there would be WiFi and air condition
ing in the village and I didn’t relish the idea of dealing with a bored and hot child. The people I really want to accompany me are Zainab and Fatema. But I know I’ll have to convince them.
“It will be like old times, the three of us again,” I cajole Fatema first.
“I don’t know, Shari, that’s three days away from office,” she complains.
“What? We’ll leave Saturday morning and return Monday night. That’s technically one full day, isn’t it?” I look at her, fluttering my lashes innocently, knowing full well that she works seven days a week.
“The three of us?” Zainab is more direct. “It sounds nice, but you know it’s not like when we were kids. I’m not sure we’ll get along.”
“C’mon, we used to have such fun together. Remember,” I reply, “it’ll be the Secret Cousins’ Club again!”
Zainab’s face relaxes, and I know I have her. I put the date in my electronic calendar and email them both confirmations, naming our jaunt the SCC Reunion, hoping that will evoke enough nostalgia so they won’t cancel.
On my family’s first trip back to India, things were different than when we lived there. While I couldn’t articulate it, I perceived that I’d become someone alien to Fatema and Zainab, no matter how much I tried to assimilate to their habits.
Seven-year-old Fatema called a formal opening to our SCC, modelling it after a Girl Scout ritual. She told us to cross our arms, right over left, and then link hands in a triangle. We then solemnly gazed into one another’s eyes, and she said, “Let’s begin,” squeezing both our hands. Neither Zainab nor I were in Scouts, so we followed her lead.
Once we were properly convened, Fatema suggested we play carrom. I recognized the large wooden board and strikers but had long forgotten the rules. On subsequent days, they introduced me to Beh Thrun Panch, a card game that I lost, round after frustrating round. Later, I sat on the couch and watched the two of them speak Marathi to one another, a language they learned at school. I only understood every fifth word or so.
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