“Alhumdulillah! Alhumdulillah, for this incredible feast!” the people would shout.
Yet there I was, trapped inside, Ammu running after me with a broomstick in her hands, her voice hovering above my naked body as I ran to and fro. The tap had been on, water gushing out like a geyser from the ground. I still hadn’t jumped in the shower but, as part of Eid etiquette, I had to be clean. So, she chased me like a poacher in a children’s movie, and I ran past my swing, giving it a slight push. It soared as high as her voice when she’s perturbed.
“Shayṭān mey!” she shouted, which meant something like devilish girl, to point out my misbehaviour.
Behind her fuming frame, I noticed street beggars at the door lining up for food. During this holiday, we gave out goat meat, one-third for the home, one-third for relatives, and one-third for the poor. Our stovetops were running while the beggars had their palms out, their wrists extending toward the cracked window. Ammu’s eyes followed mine and then she took a deep breath, let out a sigh. She melted into her disappointment, a grimace and then a tear, and, before more tears could trail down her face, I sulked diligently back to the mess I’d made.
This is the Ammu I would often see peering into her mirror, choosing peach for her lips and a pink powder for her cheeks. Kohl was too much, so she let her eyes be. Her brown eyes like mahogany obsidian. I imagined the fine lines around her mouth when she smiled were a trace to a lineage of queens, perhaps aristocratic blood. She possessed an aura of divinity. I loved seeing her in her golden sari. It was the crunchy kind, and reminded me of a chocolate wrapper. I hoped that one day I’d be as beautiful as her.
“I’m sorry, Ammu,” I told her, and she peered into my eyes as if to say, “What kind of daughter have I made?”
I’d been escaping Ammu all morning but now that I was close, she didn’t even try to clutch me, for maybe she knew that I’d always be loyal, and that I wouldn’t be able to tolerate any sadness of hers. I could sense it in her downturned palm that she placed on my back, a gentle tap that felt momentarily like a hot needle on the edge of a flame.
Under this roof, Ammu and I tested each other always, the limits of our rebellion and love. However, it was now the beginning of a time of goodbyes, to the house and all its memories and lessons made.
Leaving Bangladesh also meant losing Sweety Khala, Ammu’s younger sister. With her, I’d spend many of my hours, picking mangos from trees, visiting garment stores, or just sitting on the balcony dipping cake rusk in tea as she told everyone her stories. She was like a second mother to me, taking me everywhere she went, including on her honeymoon when her new husband would have to be extra patient with receiving her attention.
I’d also lose Nani, my maternal grandmother, who would roam around her white house in Rajshahi with the keys to all the rooms tied to the end of her sari, jingling. She’d often barge in on me on the balcony, pocketing dried mango with my sticky fingers. She would open her mouth to yell — exposing her tongue, orange from chewing copious paan — but would instead chuckle. Soon after, I would, too. We’d sit there under the sun after, Nani on a straw mat doing dhikr, pushing vibrant green tasbih beads with her wrinkled fingers, while I twirled in circles like a dervish to the holy words muttered under her breath.
I also had to say goodbye to my friends, one in particular who feels out of focus now but was, at the time, very distinct and incredibly important. He dipped his bread in water like it was milk. I remember that this nonconformity intrigued me. He, too, had a special bond with Parakeet — he’d hover over the cage observing the bird for long minutes in silence, as if he was counting its feathers. I’d stand there beside him, inspecting him inspecting the bird with the same kind of fascination. I was too young to desire him, but the feeling was something like desire, yearning for a shared closeness. I remember thinking, If we leave, will I find him again?
∞
I don’t remember the details leading up to our departure to Canada, but I do remember the sensations were similar to what I felt when Ammu rushed to her socials, hopping houses, trailing away on elusive rickshaws painted bright yellow, orange, and maybe blue, the tail end of her uniquely patterned saris floating in the air.
Once I chased after her, not wanting to be left behind, my arms reaching out for her anchal, getting two inches closer, then falling. I looked down to see my oversized black sandals holding my tiny feet, and then up again to the back of the rickshaw disappearing around a street corner.
“Ammu! Ammu! Ammu!” My words must have hung like wet laundry on a clothing line, lifted in the air by winds during the arrival of a storm, forgotten but needing to be tended.
As I continued running, I looked to my left and then right. There were men half-sleeping like corpses, bodies covered by plastic bags, rotting food, and the smell of apathy. I saw also women with babies on their hips, searching like hungry zombies for an ounce of compassion from the travelling Dhakaiyas. I was overwhelmed by the darkness of the oncoming evening, engulfing me with all the other people on the street.
Thud! I fell. I sat on my little bottom and my half-open eyes caught a fuzzy glimpse of my legs. My knees were bloodied. My mother was gone. She came back eventually. She always did. But in those moments, the time after her leaving, I experienced her departure with a sort of desperate finality usually reserved for death.
We finally caught Parakeet and put him back in his cage, but it wasn’t too long before he was out in the world again. Parakeet wasn’t allowed to come to Canada with us.
One otherwise uneventful evening, Abbu and I picked up Parakeet’s cage and brought it to the front door. Abbu turned the doorknob and went into our mini-porch. The late-afternoon sun had cast shadows on the ground. Golden hour was approaching. Abbu sat the cage down on a steady chair. He slowly opened the cage door, then navigated his sturdy hand in. Parakeet flinched and waddled away on its perch. Abbu clutched Parakeet swiftly but gently, then pulled his hand out of the cage. He stood upright, rotating his own body in a careful circle, allowing the bird to take in its surroundings in full. Abbu raised his arms to the sun, with Parakeet between his still-cupped hands.
He looked over his shoulder at me for a moment or two, as if to ask, “Are you ready?” I don’t know if I did anything. I’m not sure what I responded. He slowly inched his hands away from each other before releasing them to his sides. I watched Parakeet falter at first, near-spiral in a slight free fall, my heart thumping, until it opened its wings, its striking shamrock-green feathers like a dab of paint in the rosé sunset, scooping the air and pulling itself up then away, soaring, soaring, gone. I whispered “Jao pakhi,” and nothing more. What had been done was done. Goodbyes don’t need to be spoken to be goodbyes.
Conversations with Trees
I remember the time the bear passed the house in Thunder Bay — not growling or threatening, but stopping to stare, as if he’d come only to pass judgment. It was an elegant house, a white-brick diamond, bordered by garnet roses, amethyst lilacs, and emerald bushes. Peering over it was the regal Mount McKay, so when Ammu, Abbu, my one-year-old sister, and I arrived from Dhaka, it seemed nothing short of majestic. It was during the tail end of winter that this happened. A winter that takes you in like a hug, albeit one you squeamishly accept but don’t necessarily want. It was the first time I saw snowflakes. These little angels — they fluttered from the sky onto my eyelids, dancing the whole way. I was a little human explorer, wobbling about in an astronaut snowsuit across large fields of snow and slippery ice.
In Dhaka, the gravel ground bites your feet, the sun’s rays whip your back as you navigate a maze of cars, cows, and beggars.
In Thunder Bay, only stillness. Rows of houses deep in slumber and acres upon acres of wild.
Annabelle, who was as white as Christmas, didn’t welcome me. Could I blame her? I didn’t speak the language of the blue- and green-eyed children. Not the way they did. My Ahsan Khalu, who is Pori Khala’s husband, drove my cousin Zahara to Annabelle’s house every other Satur
day, in a fancy car, for a playdate. I was never invited.
I didn’t quite understand why, as I thought Zahara liked me. She, her younger sister, and I would often hide out in the furnished basement, playing radio using a tape recorder we had found in one of the dusty old trunks. I was the host, and they were my callers. Each would dial in, asking a random question, and I’d follow up with either an answer or my own questions. I would speak a combination of Bangla and English words. Questions ranged from how to best remove unwanted hair from the face to how to best survive a world war. The topics were endless, as were our giggles, so we kept our voices down before our mothers got too curious about our antics.
However, when Annabelle was over, it was as if I would disappear. Annabelle and my cousin would scurry over to the living room, to the zebra-printed couches and fluffy white carpet, and lay their toys all over. A good mystery, a hard-to-crack code; I remember listening intently to the vibrations of their words, unconstrained by their malleable mouths. Their playdough lips changed form — round, trapezoid, oval — swiftly and without hesitation. Now, when I tried to speak, my tongue would just hit the roof and sides of my mouth, the sound stuck behind my tonsils. I gulped the words down. As I moved closer, Annabelle and my cousin looked up to utter what sounded like a question or comment. I remember nodding, smiling, frowning, and shaking my head in response. They exchanged glances, glared at me for a moment or two, and chuckled. They continued to play while I escorted myself to the sidelines.
I watched them; awkwardly aware I’d been uninvited. It made me feel perverted. It made me feel like a voyeur.
In school, I sometimes felt a similar way. When the boys and girls played soccer in the gymnasium, I waited for them to say a word of invitation, perhaps reach out a hand, but they didn’t.
In Dhaka, I had gone to an English-medium school and was familiar with the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet. Abbu had read me stories of great authors and books such as Lambs’ Tales from Shakespeare. However, it was in Thunder Bay that I truly began experimenting with the sound of each letter, peering at myself in the mirror while shaping my lips, then by myself and in secret, putting the letters together to form words. Beautiful words. Strange words. Odd-sounding words. Funny words. I rotated my wrists like a symphony conductor, stretching the dots of ink into lines across paper. The cursive writing reminded me of the Arabic letters I often sketched, as well as the way a sari flows. It became a love affair, between English and me. The mere act of writing and uttering, and in secret, it was something very special.
I didn’t know then that Bengalis had fought many battles to preserve their language, that language in Bengal, both pre- and post-India’s separation from the British, was a means to retain individuality, dismantle other oppressions, to encourage the uplifting of humankind with creativity and connection. A whole Renaissance once. Bangla as the poetry of the people’s hearts, their dignity, and their freedom from oppressors.
As I courted English, my ability to recognize Bangla letters gradually faded. My understanding of Hindi and Urdu also became secondary to English. It was how I would connect to this new land.
However, when Ahsan Khalu and Pori Khala’s Bengali neighbours visited and I heard them speak Bangla, the lyrics of Ammu’s lullabies returned. I’d waft into the lingering memory of her embrace, me cradled within her arms, her curly black hairs stroking my supple face, rocked ever so gently as I fell asleep. Never feeling alone and always loved.
In Thunder Bay, Abbu would frown while nudging the lasagna in front of him like it was a carcass. Sometimes he’d walk over to the window to stare into the blizzards, periodically turning his head to catch a glimpse of my tiny eyes floating along the edges of the dinner table. Abbu was especially fond of reminiscing after long days of job hunting that seemed to impose his mood on the house, the gravitas, even the speed at which shadows moved across the room. When he returned to the dinner table, he’d share his distaste for the interviewing process. “I have experience, and I’m fluent in English,” he told Ahsan Khalu. “They just keep asking for Canadian experience. What does that really mean?”
As the years passed, the disappointment in his eyes melted into a steadfast river of responsibility.
I often found myself in Ahsan Khalu and Pori Khala’s glass greenhouse. My mouth slightly gaped, I’d marvel at the mid-morning sun, its peach rays diffusing into transient clouds above the sharp edges of the triangular glass structure. When inside, I tiptoed just high enough to dip my fingers into flowerpots and touch the damp soil, inhaling deeper for the buoyant jasmine smells. It was mystical, this place, and within it, all the miracles birthed. Abbu and Ammu joined Ahsan Khalu and Pori Khala in this pyramid second home, planting, watering, chatting, with their bright-ginger garden gloves and linen tweed hats. In the greenhouse, I mused at the buds when they bloomed into flowers, and sulked when they didn’t, not understanding what conditions prevented the flourishing of a plant’s soul.
One day, as I picked up one of the watering cans and twirled, sprinkling the water around me, leaving a bit of a puddle, I saw her, the Shayṭān Bride, briefly. Just as likely an illusion as an authentic vision, makes no difference, she appeared almost daydream-like, prophecy perhaps, divine warning, my own neurosis. For a fragment of a moment I saw her, or I felt like I saw her, sauntering past the red geraniums, her naked back, waist-length hair. Then she was gone. It was a vague moment trapped in a memory that sailed aimlessly onward. Had she come all the way from Dhaka to here? In what way did that world and this one overlap? Then I forgot about her.
Jungle
We stayed in Thunder Bay for a little more than six months. After Thunder Bay there was Toronto. It was still the early nineties when we moved near the intersection of Jane and St. Clair for a short while, into a house on a hill. The school I was enrolled in there was where I first spoke English in a public setting. It happened one typical afternoon during class, when we were making storybooks.
I remember waiting in line at the front of the class, where my teacher was handing out a package of markers, crayons, special notebooks, and stickers. I was wearing a navy-blue knee-length dress and standing behind two blond boys, who periodically turned their heads to me and chuckled then whispered something to each other.
Perplexed, I speculated what they had been talking about, and then one of them pointed and shouted, “It was probably her! She looks like she farted.”
“Shhh,” the other one said.
“Oh, she doesn’t know English,” the first one replied.
The laughter of the boys grew, and I stood there just listening. They had no idea that I understood everything they had said.
Later on, after I finished putting together my storybook, I ran up to my teacher, a Greek woman with curly dirty-blond hair that she kept in a low bun, perpetually flushed cheeks, and a green scarf that she always wore around her neck regardless of the season. I handed her my storybook, pointed to the passages I had written and complicated illustrations I had added, and, without much thought, unleashed a few sentences. All the children around me dropped their pencils, as they had never really heard me speak before. The colour evaporated from the teacher’s face, and she stopped the class to share with everyone what I had said. I remember this moment poignantly, for it was as if I had been waiting, just waiting, to finally reveal what I had been creating, and it wasn’t until I’d finally spoken that I properly understood that for the better part of a year I’d been waiting for my turn to participate.
Shortly after, we moved to Jungle, the area of Lawrence Heights in North York. Just four months prior to our move, my brother was born.
Jungle was a cluster of low-rise public housing apartments and bungalows. We moved into an apartment in the interior, where people said the wild ones lived. The belly of the beast, they warned, was behind the steps of the elementary school that I attended. The steps led to a path that, when followed, took you into Bagot and Dorney Court, which the other children called “Faggot and Horny C
ourt.”
“My mom says that once you go in there you never come back the same,” one of my classmates told me.
“It’s where they sell drugs. Where the bad men live,” the other classmate said.
Jungle looked and felt so different from bare Thunder Bay. The streets were filled with women in hijabs and abayas, ankaras and agbadas, and the men in kippahs on the outskirts of the neighbourhoods. There was always a community potluck, where I’d find sweet, salty, pungent dishes, and Motown beats on the P.A. system before the morning announcements started. Jungle was a biome of people from all over the world, living together in entwined ways. Its nickname obviously racist. To the outsider, it was sometimes misunderstood. Within it was my adolescence, which I also experienced the same way.
Jungle was where Rukhsana, Fatima, and I would run to the rusty tire swing during Quran class recess on Saturday mornings. Each time Fatima pumped the tire swing forward, we’d all laugh a little louder. The higher I flew, the closer I felt to the tip of Mount Qaf, which Allah held in place along with the sky and earth. Sometimes my hijab would fall from my head and I’d fling it away to see if it could reach another realm.
In my elementary school, my teachers would sometimes ask me to stand in front of the class and share the knowledge I had gained from all the books I read. They were aware that, otherwise, I’d perhaps become a nuisance, waving my arms incessantly in the air, pleading for permission to answer every question. I became the class assistant, an unofficial substitute teacher sometimes, delivering lessons on wide-ranging topics: how volcanoes erupt, how snow forms, how people digest. During recess, however, I sometimes created trouble, punishing boys who teased girls by throwing dodge balls at them and then running away, as a type of playground vigilante. Mrs. Seidu, my grade three teacher, who had emigrated from Sierra Leone and had a husband from Ghana, was rather fond of me. She would come over for samosas and then biriyani at our house, discussing the immigrant experience with both Ammu and Abbu. Sometimes we would visit her, too, and delight in flavourful waakye.
The Shaytan Bride Page 3