Stealing Nasreen

by Farzana Doctor

  Chapter 9

  NASREEN IS A LITTLE early for her appointment. She sits uncomfortably in a plastic chair in the makeshift waiting area just outside her therapist’s office listening to the muffled sounds of voices on the other side of the door. She flips through an old issue of Ms. magazine, reading a review of a book about breast cancer. She checks her watch, uncrosses her legs and crosses them again. She knows she shouldn’t read stuff like this. She has read countless articles about women and cancer, tales of hope and resilience, about new treatments and future cures. Ultimately, these stories bring her back to a familiar one.

  Zainab Bastawala was neither a smoker nor a drinker. She exercised regularly, ate carefully. She had a good marriage, and a generally happy life. Her cancer got diagnosed in the winter of 1999 and it swiftly moved through her, leaving neither her nor her family with enough time to adjust to its ugly presence. It lodged in her right breast, claiming the tissue there as its residence, threatening to spread further west and annex whatever flesh lay in its ravenous path. It resisted treatment, defying all efforts to be surgically or chemically killed off, and it extinguished all hope the Bastawala family had for recovery. By the autumn of the next year, it had claimed victory.

  Nasreen continues to read the magazine in her lap, unconsciously rubbing her left earlobe, her thumb and index finger massaging the soft flesh. She squeezes the hard centre where the tiny hole resides. She hasn’t worn any earrings since she lost her small silver teardrop.

  “Happy Birthday, Beti. I hope you like them,” her mother beamed. She handed over the small jeweller’s box with a slight tremor in her hand caused by the fatigue of a recent round of radiation and chemotherapy.

  “Oh, they’re pretty,” Nasreen said, showing them to Connie.

  “Try them on,” Connie said, taking them out of the box. Nasreen did, and she almost never took them off after that.

  “They look great. Nice choice, Mrs. Bastawala.”

  “Connie, come on, call her Zainab,” Bashir, said, smiling at his daughter’s girlfriend.

  “Yes. I don’t call you Miss Parker, do I?” Zainab laughed. Connie blushed, and Nasreen felt grateful for her family that day, a family that included Connie.

  Nasreen closes Ms. and reaches for Glamour. She considers what to talk about with her therapist today. Her mother? Connie? She resents Connie for giving her something else to grieve, another loss to process in therapy at eighty dollars an hour. And not only that, but Connie’s leaving has been bringing up memories in strange Connie-Mother combinations all the time these days. First a thought about Connie, then one about her mother, or vice versa. Last night she reflected on how she met Connie just a few months before her mother’s diagnosis. She was in bed, enjoying a blissful afterglow in Connie’s strong arms when the call came. The answering machine beeped and then her father’s voice, slightly higher pitched than usual and breathless, called out from the living room.

  “Beti, it’s your father calling. Can you give us a call? We’re just back from the hospital and we have some news to tell you. I’m afraid it is bad news, so please call us –” She had launched herself out of bed and was at the phone before he could finish.

  “Hold on Dad. Let me turn the machine off.” There was an electronic squeal and then she listened in silence while her father told her about breast cancer, treatment options, prognoses. Later, her mother picked up the extension.

  “Listen Bashir, don’t scare her. The doctor told us that we still have some time to go before we know everything. I’ll start treatment next Monday and then they will have to see where things stand.” Her mother seemed her invariably calm self, while her husband and daughter imagined various worst-case scenarios. Nasreen hung up the phone, promising to call back the next day. Connie draped her bathrobe over her naked body and she cried for the first time in Connie’s presence that day. Her embrace was Nasreen’s only reassurance that night and in the months that followed.

  And this is how her relationship with Connie became intractably tied to her mother’s death. They moved in together when her mother’s chemo treatments started because they were spending so much time together anyway. And, Connie reasoned, Nasreen could borrow her car more easily with it parked right outside the apartment.

  They gave each other silver rings, gifts of commitment, a day after the funeral. Nasreen was too numb to question the timing, and was grateful for Connie’s steadfast company. It was as though the crises of illness and death and later, grief, became the glue that kept Connie and Nasreen together in a heady attachment. And it was only when those forces absented themselves from the relationship that Connie seemed able to reverse the process, slowly coming home later and later at night, pulling away from Nasreen.

  The office door opens, releasing a woman with a pink, tear-streaked face. She glances at Nasreen, and their eyes meet, two strangers acknowledging their shared experience of being at the same therapy office at the same time.

  “Bye, Carmen. Hi, Nasreen, come on in.”

  Nasreen settles herself on the couch, still imprinted with and warm from Carmen’s body. She gazes at the long-familiar setting; the couch with its many cushions, the South American rug, the obese-goddess statue by the window. Her therapist wears magenta-coloured denim pants and a thin lavender sweater. Nasreen has become used to her therapist’s penchant for wearing many shades of purple.

  “You haven’t been here for a little while, Nas. What has it been, a month or so?”

  “Yeah, sorry for cancelling the last appointment. And I’ve meant to call to re-schedule but things have been really busy.” Nasreen fidgets in her seat. She props a mauve cushion behind her back.

  “The last time you were here we were talking about Connie and the dynamics in your relationship.” Therapist has a knack for remembering the content from one session to another, thinks Nasreen. Perhaps she just takes good notes. Nasreen both likes and hates this quality in her therapist.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. I was supposed to think about whether she is part of a pattern among my choices in women,” Nasreen says, feeling self-conscious.

  “And were you able to do some journalling or thinking about that?”

  “No I never did get there,” avoiding Therapist’s eyes.

  “And is that why you didn’t get here too?” Therapist doesn’t waste any time. At least, thinks Nasreen, I get my money’s worth. She begins to calculate what she has spent on therapy this year. At eighty dollars per session, and if I’ve come here an average of twice a month … she looks up to see Therapist watching her expectantly.

  “Sorry, can you say that again? I seem to have wandered off,” she says, and Therapist complies, repeating her question.

  Chapter 10

  SALMA SLUMPS IN THE kitchen chair, preparing for her students’ next Gujarati lesson. Their departure last time darkened her mood. Alone in her family’s apartment, she felt too warm, closed in, and that gloomy sensation returns now. She opens a window, welcomes in the cool afternoon breeze, and imagines herself growing wings and fleeing this place. She takes herself back to her classroom in Bombay, standing authoritatively in front of her prepubescent students. She is teaching them the proper use of English prepositions, writing out an example on the chalkboard, turning to see engaged expressions of the children’s earnest faces.

  The sound of Saleema’s yelling interrupts her daydream. “Stop bothering me Shireen! You’re so stupid! Go play in the living room.” The children argue for another minute and then there is a peaceful quiet that Salma chooses to interpret as the conflict’s resolution.

  How she longs to teach again! For now, she must satisfy herself by being an “Experienced language teacher from India. Gujarati, Hindi, English classes,” as her handwritten flyers announce. So far no one has asked her to teach them English.

  She found Asha, her very first student, this past summer. She walked along Gerrard Street, posting up her
hand-made signs in grocery stores, sari shops, and restaurants. When she was almost finished walking the Little India strip she paused to rest at a sweet shop. She found an unoccupied table and put down her remaining flyers. When she returned to the table with her chai, a young woman was standing there, bent over, engrossed in reading one of the flyers. Salma’s first impression of Asha was that she resembled a skinny goat, her spiky, scruffy hair standing up across the back of her head, the bumps of her spine showing through her light cotton shirt. Asha inquired about Gujarati classes and the two agreed to call one another later that week to arrange a meeting time. Salma watched Asha as she walked away, thinking to herself how unselfconscious and forward the girl was. If Salma had closed her eyes while Asha spoke to her, she would have assumed that the girl was a white Canadian. The only thing that gave Asha away was her name and brown face.

  Salma shuts the window and looks around her dreary living room. She studies the mustard-coloured, second-hand couch, the old coffee table Asima Aunty gave to them, the bare walls. She wonders what her students must think of her home. Could they tell that she was just a mother and wife, a woman who works in a dry cleaners, friendless, futureless?

  Somehow, while her students were here, she didn’t worry about appearances, and the dullness and insufficiency of the apartment did not seem so stark. And neither did her life. While Nas and Asha were here, she was Teacher Salma, interesting Salma, Salma with knowledge. She felt a little tipsy, even giddy from their attention. No, giddy is not the right word. Tingly. She felt tingly. Salma closes her eyes and remembers the heat that ran through her just a few days ago, sliding down her throat and into her gut like a cup of steaming masala chai. And each time Nas leaned in close or held her gaze, the heat crept lower down into her belly, flowing all the way to her groin. With her eyes closed, Salma conjures up that feeling again, squeezing her thighs together, crossing her feet at her ankles. An unnatural, vibrant, unholy sensation.

  After a few heartbeats, she uncrosses her legs and stands up, interrupting her body’s lustful beckoning. She checks her watch. She should get the children ready to go to Aunty Asima’s if they are going to make it out there and to the mosque in time. As she opens the hall closet door to take out the children’s good shoes, she spies a glint of metal; the painting Asima gave her. I’ve got to put that up soon, she thinks. She pulls it out of the closet now, removes its plastic cover and admires the bright colours, the classical scene. She leans it up against the closet’s frame and steps back from it, her eyes drawn to something she hadn’t noticed before. From this angle, the servant’s blouse seems translucent, her dark nipples showing through the sheer fabric. The queen, her eyes glistening, a smirk forming on her face, appears to be leering in the servant’s direction. Salma wonders for a moment if the painting is a little bawdy or lewd. No, it can’t be, it’s just my silly mind. She puts the painting back in the closet, and calls her children to get ready to leave. I will hang it soon, to brighten up the room, she thinks to herself.

  Salma is unable to focus on the sermon. Perhaps it is that today there is a visiting imam from the Emirates with a monotone voice and a strange accent, or maybe it is that her restless mind has more important, or at least more distracting, considerations to weigh. She scolds herself for her lack of attention, looking to the other women who appear to be listening attentively. She shuts her eyes, forcing herself to raise the imam’s flat words into meaning. She hears him lethargically begin to list – or perhaps it is the middle of the list, she is not sure – key tenets regarding the sanctity of marriage, and the ways one must fulfil the duties of husband or wife. For some reason, the topic makes her think about domestic chores and more specifically, about the load of laundry she sorted last week.

  While she separated the lights from the darks, she found a strange thing in her husband’s pants’ pockets. Nestled among the used transit transfers and dirty handkerchief was a single teardrop earring that matched exactly her student’s lost one. She sat on edge of the bathtub, inspecting the small, shiny earring, marvelling at the coincidence. She has grown accustomed to her husband’s little hobby and so at first, the earring amused her and she planned to tell Shaffiq about Nas and her lost earring that same evening, imagining how they would laugh that his sleuthing had actually come to some good. Then, she planned to give it to Nas at the next Gujarati class. How happy that would make her student! She looked so crestfallen when she realized that she had lost it.

  And yet Salma has neither spoken to her husband about the earring, nor has she returned it to Nas, but kept it, like a thief, or more accurately, a pick-pocket. She puzzles over her own actions and also her husband’s. Why didn’t Shaffiq mention the silver teardrop; he tends to covet each of his treasures, storing them away in the top dresser drawer for good luck. Now, with a week gone by, it seems strange that he hasn’t asked after it and she wonders if it isn’t a little late to raise it with him.

  While the imam lectures, she wonders if she could still manage to return the earring to Nas without having to consider Shaffiq. Could she somehow leave him out of the transaction, making the teardrop a gift to her student, a gift from she alone? She looks down into her lap, her face hot, feeling a little ashamed and unsure why she would be plotting a secret that doesn’t include her husband.

  She knows she should bring her focus back to the imam and stop thinking about Nas. But thoughts like these are difficult to harness and sometimes must be permitted to run free and so she surrenders to her imagination, inventing a verdant scene in which she presents the teardrop to Nas. She coyly requests Nas to close her eyes, and she complies, her long dark eyelashes fluttering in anticipation. Salma takes Nas’s hand, places the teardrop in the centre of her warm palm, and then presses each finger down, one by one, until Nas’s hand closes into a tight fist. Then, stepping back, she watches as her favourite student opens her eyes, releases her fingers, and is overcome with joy at Salma’s offering.

  Chapter 11

  SHAFFIQ WALKS AROUND THE fourth floor, equipped with a package of Salma’s samosas, hoping for Ravi’s company. He hears the whir of the floor polisher and circles the wing until he catches up with his friend.

  “Ravi! Want to take a break?” He shouts. He holds up the greasy paper bag and mimes eating. Ravi turns off the machine and smiles.

  “Which of your wife’s goodies did you bring this time?”

  “Samosas. They’re good.”

  “They are always good. Shaffiq you don’t know how lucky you are to have such a good cook for a wife.”

  “So when are you going to find yourself a wife and start bringing me some of her home cooking?” Shaffiq jokes.

  “I don’t know if that is going to happen to me anytime soon,” Ravi says, a frown forming between his abundant eyebrows.

  “What do you mean? Don’t you want to get married?”

  “Arré, things aren’t as simple as that. You see, I haven’t told you this before, but –” he throws a glance over his shoulder and then, confirming that they are alone, he whispers conspiratorily, “I have a girlfriend.”

  “Ravi, very good! What’s the problem? And why so secretive?” Shaffiq thinks back to the woman who answered Ravi’s phone a couple of weeks ago.

  “Well, she is not Indian. She is a white girl. Well, an Italian, but Canadian. No, Italian-Canadian,” says Ravi, seeming bewildered about his girlfriend’s cultural identity. “She’s my landlord’s daughter. No one else knows about it. Her name is Angie. Short for Angela. Which means –” and his tone becomes wistful – “angel.”

  “Your landlord’s daughter? How has her family not found out? They live upstairs, no?”

  “Well, she usually leaves the house saying she is going to visit one of her girlfriends. I hear her through the heat vents. Then she quietly slips downstairs to see me and then I have to close the vents so that they won’t hear us upstairs.”

  “So the two of you sneak around? I ca
n’t believe you haven’t been caught yet,” Shaffiq says, biting into a samosa excitedly.

  “You know it was easier in the summer because the AC is not really needed in my basement flat. I could close the vents all the time. But now, when I do that, it sometimes gets quite cold down there during her visits. I’ll have to buy a space heater, I think, and put that on when she’s with me. But I hope they don’t start complaining about the extra electricity. They would do that you know. They are cheap types.”

  “Enough about the heat and the vents! What is this girl like?”

  “Well, the family is quite religious. They are Catholics and quite restrictive with her. Almost as bad as back home, Shaffiq. She is not allowed to have boyfriends. She is very nice, very pretty. She has blue eyes, Shaffiq. I never imagined I would have a girlfriend with blue eyes. Just like that Karishma in the movies. Have you seen her recent one? She was so lovely in it … you know which one I mean, you know the one where she plays a princess –”

  “Ravi, won’t they throw you out if they find out? How old is this girl?” Shaffiq asks, wondering about his friend’s judgment.

  “She’s eighteen. Almost nineteen. We’re careful. But her parents are not the biggest obstacle. We’ll work it out with them. At least that’s what Angie tells me. You see, her older sister eloped with a black Jewish chap last year and they finally accepted him after her sister got pregnant. Angie thinks that they will come to accept a Hindu in time. It’s my mother who will be the big problem. My mother will be very upset if I were to marry a Canadian. It would kill her.”