She pointed to the counter. A bottle stood out from the rest, like a glass jar of betrayal. Terre d’Hermès.
In Uncle Faizan’s bedroom at night, my eyes are suddenly heavy with tears.
There’s a knock on the door, and I scramble to put away my journal. “Come in,” I call out, even though I know it’s Mom. She’s the only person who knocks in threes. Knock-knock, then a pause, and then a KNOCK.
“Hey, I saw the light on under your door,” she says as she enters. “It’s almost midnight; why aren’t you asleep?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
She sits on my bed, pushing my legs out of the way. She’s in her usual bedtime attire: striped pajama bottoms from Victoria’s Secret, and a worn-out white cotton T-shirt with a big red heart in the center. “I was reading.”
“I was writing,” I reply without thinking.
“What were you writing?”
“In . . . in my journal,” I stammer. “But you can’t see. It’s private.”
She smiles and winks. “I understand perfectly.” She sits back and rubs a hand over the bedspread. “You know, when I was little, I’d sneak into this room in the middle of the night to check up on your uncle. Sometimes we’d play cards together. Or Monopoly.”
I make a face because I hate Monopoly. It’s the longest and most boring game in the history of games. “I wish I had a brother,” I say, although I don’t really, at least not most of the time.
She frowns prettily. “No, you don’t. Faizan used to drive me bonkers. Always getting into my paint supplies, teasing me about the smallest things. It was brutal.”
I look closer at her. She has to be joking. Is she? I can’t tell. “Yeah, but family is everything, right?” I say, quoting a slogan for an English-language commercial I saw on Nana’s television the night before.
She rolls her eyes like a child. “Not my family. Or haven’t you noticed?”
I hesitate, then plunge ahead. “Is that why we never visited Pakistan before?”
She sighs and closes her eyes. When she opens them again, they’re brittle and shining, like two lonely stars in the still night. “When I married your dad, I had a falling out with my family. They didn’t think he was the right guy for me.” She laughs a strange, tiny laugh, over as soon as it begins. “They were right, of course, but I didn’t really accept it until it was too late.”
A sort of anger unfurls deep inside me. Dad was perfect! I want to shout. But of course I don’t. The sleep shirt I wear has a crown with the words KEEP CALM AND GET SOME SHUT-EYE, but right now my blood is frothing with so many emotions. I bow my head and let my hair hang on both sides to hide my face from Mom. “I miss Dad,” I whisper. “I wish he hadn’t left.”
If I was expecting a hug, I’m mistaken. She doesn’t move. Finally, she says, “I know, sweetheart,” and her voice is croaky, as if she’s trying not to cry. We stay like that for a long time, deep in our own thoughts. A faint sound grows inside my head: drum-drum-drum.
She shakes her head as if getting rid of ugly thoughts and holds out her hand. In it is a little silver phone. “I asked your nana to get this for you. In case you get bored.”
My eyes open wide. I’ve never been allowed a phone before. “Wow, thank you!”
“It’s not really a phone,” Mom adds. “But there is limited internet in case you want to play a few games or send messages to Zoe.”
I shake my head. “Zoe’s in Italy.” Having fun without me.
“I know . . . but . . .” She frowns and turns to look around. “Is that music?”
Drum-drum-drum. I realize that the noise I’m hearing is coming from the street outside. We both run to the open window, but we can’t see a thing. The noise gets louder, and I can make out a man calling into a loudspeaker in Urdu. “Vote for the best! Don’t get fooled by the other party. You know who will give you whatever you need.” The rest is drowned out by the music, shrill and startling in the night sky.
Mom grimaces, then shuts the windows. “God, these people are nuts! I don’t remember the election fever being quite so high when I was a child.”
I think it’s sort of fun, people being so excited about electing somebody that they sing about it at midnight. Now that the windows are closed, the quietness in the room is heavy, and we stare at the darkness outside almost desperately. In the silence, I’m back to feeling the strange sadness from before. I suddenly say, “Do you know Sakina’s never been to school?”
Mom frowns. “Sakina? The cook’s daughter?”
I nod. I prefer to think of her as my friend rather than as a servant. I think Mom’s been raised a different way.
Mom says, “Yes, I suppose so. Poor people can’t usually afford to send their kids to school. They need them to work to support the family.”
I feel a heat rising in my head again. “Doesn’t that bother you?” I almost shout. “It’s not fair!”
“I agree. It’s sad. But you can’t really do anything about it, can you?”
I don’t answer, just close my eyes and pretend to yawn. She reaches over and pulls me into a hug. “I love how you care about other people,” she whispers in my ear, and the memory of that long-ago day in Macy’s comes rushing back. I push her slightly, and she loosens her grip.
“Okay, kiddo.” She gets up, and I feel the mattress shift. “Don’t stay up too late, my wonderful, kind daughter.”
I keep my eyes closed even after she’s gone back into her room. I know she’s just trying to cheer me up with her over-the-top praise, but I can’t help feeling it’s all a big fat lie. If I was so great, then Dad wouldn’t have left me. Isn’t it supposed to be impossible to leave your own child if you really love them?
I stay like that in my bed for the longest time, counting sheep, then cats, then dogs, finally cows. Maybe if I help Sakina with her admission test, God will reward me by bringing back my dad.
And maybe pigs will fly.
10
Sakina
The English Teacher
My first lesson is in the kitchen the next afternoon. Everyone else in the house is either asleep or resting, except for Samia Ji, who went out somewhere after lunch. Mimi watches her leave from the staircase, all sad and quiet. Then she turns to me and says too brightly: “English, anyone?”
She’s right: it’s the perfect time to learn some English. I’m so excited I almost forget to chop the potatoes for dinner. I tell Mimi to wait while I get things done.
“I’ll help you,” she says cheerfully, and I stare at her. Maybe she said something else. I often mistake the simplest of English words.
She laughs and translates in Urdu. “I. Will. Help. You.”
After another moment of incredulity, I give up. Americans are very strange. We get to work, she peeling potatoes and then handing them to me for chopping. I can’t help peeking at her sitting next to me, the peeler held expertly in her hand. She scrunches up her eyes as she focuses, just like Jammy as he stacks up his rocks for a game of pitthu.
Mimi looks up and catches me staring. “What? I help my mom cook on the weekends.”
I try to imagine this girl in a kitchen, bending over a sink full of dishes. “What do you cook?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Lots of things. Meat loaf. Alfredo pasta. Avocado sandwiches.”
I don’t know what any of those things are, but they sound delicious. I half close my eyes, pretending to be an American girl with a white chef’s hat and a pink apron around my waist, cooking for an adoring family.
“What’s your favorite?” I ask her.
She thinks. “I like baked salmon the best.” She sees my expression and explains: “It’s a sort of fish.”
My mouth waters, reminding me that I didn’t eat more than a few bites of lunch before Begum Sahiba called me to make chai. “I like fish,” I say dreamily.
“The best part is I can cook it myself. It’s really easy. Just slap on some pesto sauce, arrange some peas and carrots around it, and throw it in the oven.�
��
I’m trying to follow her even when she doesn’t make any sense. Slapping sauce, throwing food into ovens? “Sounds violent,” I say, not sure if she’s serious.
Mimi doesn’t get it at first. Then she starts laughing, huge laughs that make a happy echoing sound around us. I study her as if she’s a science experiment. Her smile is like a thousand-watt lightbulb. Her eyes crinkle at the corners, and her mouth is so wide-open it looks like it’s splitting in happiness. Her shoulders shake and tremble.
I’m not sure what to do. I usually watch people laugh at the dinner table, or in cars on the street, or from the windows of fancy restaurants. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed in this huge, belly-clutching way. My laugher is usually contained within my body, hands over my mouth to keep it from spilling out.
Nobody told me happiness is infectious. Before I know it, I’m giggling too. My mouth drops open and my eyes crinkle just like hers, and my belly shakes. The sound of giggles fills the kitchen like so many bubbles, and I wonder if anyone in Begum Sahiba’s house has ever laughed like this. Not since I’ve been working here, at least.
“Shh!” I whisper in between giggles. “Your grandmother will be very angry if she sees us like this.”
Mimi tries to catch her breath. “Like what?” she asks. “Peeling potatoes?” That makes us both sit up a bit straighter. The potatoes! I pick up the peeler I dropped on the table and get back to work, smiling broadly. She sighs like a balloon deflating happily in the air. “I knew you’d smile eventually,” she tells me with a smug look on her face.
“I smile sometimes,” I retort.
We peel the rest of the potatoes. At intervals I take little glances at her, and at other intervals I catch her doing the same thing. “Ready to practice your English?” she asks when all the potatoes are chopped and the table is as clean as it was before we started.
My stomach gives a rumble, as if I’ve eaten something left out in the sun too long. Ready? I suppose I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. I nod once. Then again, more firmly.
She takes out a notebook with a pink cover. “I’ll say a sentence and then you copy it.”
“What is your name?”
“What is your name?”
“My name is Mimi.”
“My name is Sakina.”
“How are you?”
“How are you?”
“I’m very well, thank you.”
“I’m very well, thank you.”
“What’s the weather like outside?”
“What’s the weather like outside?”
“Not too bad today.”
“Not too bad today.”
She grins at my accent, until I turn the tables on her and ask her to speak in Urdu. Her accent is so bad it’s like she’s acting in a spy movie whose trailer I sometimes catch on Sahib Ji’s television. I dissolve into giggles again, each bout of laughter easier than the one before it.
“What are you laughing about?” She pretends to be offended.
I shake my head, holding my sides. “You don’t know much Urdu, do you?”
She sticks out her tongue at me, a habit she seems to have. “No, but I know a little bit of Spanish from school and Korean from my friend Zoe. Hola. ¿Cómo estás?”
I pause and stare at her, my laughter gone. “You learn different languages at school?”
She nods. “Hola is Spanish for ‘hello.’ Or . . . salaam, I guess.”
I file this in my brain for future reference. “Hola. Salaam. Hello. Now I know how to say this in three languages.”
She beams at me like a proud amma. “Excellent! You’ll pass that test in no time!”
I’m pretty sure she has no idea what she’s talking about, but her smile reaches out and touches my heartstrings in just the right way. “So tell me more about your school,” I say.
“What do you want to know?” She shrugs as if it’s such a boring, unimportant thing. “It’s just like any other school.”
Sometimes I wonder about this girl. “I haven’t been to school, so I wouldn’t know what that’s like,” I say.
I try not to sound harsh, but my bitterness must show because she immediately looks downcast. “Oh, yeah, sorry.” She taps her pencil to her chin, thinking. “Well, it’s a big brown building with lots of rooms to study in. And long hallways with lockers for the older kids . . .”
“What are lockers?”
Her brow wrinkles as if working on a puzzle. “Uh, they look like narrow closets with locks on the doors, and each student gets one to keep all his or her books and stuff inside. Lots of elementary schools don’t have them, but mine was different.”
I try to imagine rows of closets with books and stuff inside. I’m dying to know what stuff is, but she already thinks I’m stupid. Then she adds, “For example, in my locker I have a mirror to check my hair, and a few stuffed animals in case I’m having a bad day at school, and a bag of peanut M&M’s for when I’m hungry. And all my notebooks, of course.”
The pictures dance through my mind, and I let out a sigh. “What else?”
“Hmm, let’s see. There’s a music room with all sorts of instruments on the walls, and an art room with a ton of paints and crayons, and there’s a gym where we play sports.”
“What’s your favorite sport?” I ask. “I heard that American girls love to play tennis.”
She gives me a strange look. “Tennis? No, thank you! I like soccer the best, but we have to go outside into the public field across the street to play that.”
On the way home, Abba wants to know what I’ve been up to with Mimi all afternoon. “You were so distracted, Sakina,” he shouts over the noise of the traffic swirling around us. “That’s not like you.”
“Mimi was telling me about her school in America,” I shout back, smiling a little into his back.
“School? What do you care about school?”
My smile slips away. “Nothing,” I mumble.
He’s silent the rest of the way. We reach home, and he parks his motorcycle on one side of our verandah while I lock the door behind us. Jammy rushes up and clings to his legs, shouting, “Abba! Abba!”
Amma is bent over the stove, sweat running down her face. “Dinner is almost ready,” she calls out. “Wash your faces, get that grime of the roads off, and sit down.”
I know she means only Abba. My job is still not done. I go to help her with the chai, but Abba pulls me back. “Listen, Sakina. There’s no point in learning too much about how those Americans live. It will only make you unhappy with your own lot in life.”
I want to tell him it’s too late: I’ve been unhappy for a long time. But I look away and nod. He will never understand, nor will Amma.
It’s only at night, when everyone is asleep, that I let my imagination run wild. I lie awake next to Jammy’s warm little body, imagining Mimi’s beautiful school. I run on the field where she plays soccer, which is Pakistani football. In the art room, I draw her and me laughing together, and I sit in a classroom listening to a white, golden-haired teacher give lessons in English. And finally, I go into the hallway to my locker, where in the middle of all my English books is a glass bowl full of peanut M&M’s.
11
Mimi
Unwanted Guests
“Where on earth is your mother, Mimi?” Nani asks as I come down the stairs from my bedroom a couple of days later around noon. She looks even more vexed than usual, if that’s possible. She’s draped in a bright orange sari decorated with white sequins, and her hair is a perfect bun encased in a black lace shell. Around her bony arms, a multitude of silver bangles glint in the midmorning light.
“Um, she’s gone out somewhere in a taxi,” I say. “As usual.”
“Again?”
I make a face. “Don’t complain to me, I’m as mad about it as you are! This was supposed to be our summer vacation, but she hardly ever takes me with her when she goes to all these mysterious places.”
Nani is patting at her hair, and I’m distracted by all her b
ling. “Why are you dressed up?” I ask.
Her hand stops. “Why are you not dressed up? We have guests coming soon, your mother is nowhere to be found, and you are wearing . . . that!”
I look down at myself. True, my T-shirt is a bit threadbare, and has a picture of Cookie Monster asking WHY YOU DELETE COOKIES? but that’s no reason to get mad at me. I had no idea we were having guests. “I’ll go and change into my orange shalwar kameez,” I tell her brightly. “You and I can entertain the guests together, all matchy-matchy.”
She looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind and marches away, shouting “Tahira! Is the drawing room dusted properly yet for my cousins’ arrival? If I find you sitting on your behind chatting with the cook when I get there, I will fire you!”
Alarmed, I run back up the stairs to change. I rummage in my suitcase and pull out the only shalwar kameez I brought with me from Houston, an orange embroidered cotton tunic with white pants we’d found on a trip to the Indian supermarket before last Eid. The lady in the store had called out, “Buy one, get one half-price,” in her thick Indian accent, and Mom had ended up buying a red-and-gold ensemble for herself too, only she has never worn hers.
It takes me all of five minutes to get dressed, not having all the fancy accessories Nani owns, so I take out my journal.
Dear Dad,
Let’s play a game of what’s your favorite. Do you know how to play it? I ask a question about your favorite something, and you have to respond with the first thing that comes to mind. Quick, what’s your favorite clothes? I bet it’s T-shirts with corny sayings on them. Me too. What’s your favorite food? Pizza? Cheeseburgers? I have to admit chicken pulao is getting to be on top of my list. It’s yummy but not spicy.
Mom’s favorite food is sushi. Did you know that? Raw fish rolled in seaweed. Gross.
Maybe when we meet one day we can all go out to a restaurant together. Wouldn’t that be nice? Only it can’t be the Olive Garden near my school because once I ate too many breadsticks and threw up right there on their tiled floor. I can still remember how mad the waiters looked, because they had to clean up the icky mess. It was so embarrassing!
A Thousand Questions Page 5