A Matter of Marriage

by Lesley Jorgensen

  Shunduri glanced at her besties, heads together and giggling over some text message. Where were they going to be in three years’ time? Wherever they were pushed. Amina’s parents were already looking for her: a good Hindu match. They wanted a nice accountant from the Punjab, but with Amina having dropped out of college without a degree, they were changing the bio data on her CV to read “traditional homely girl, loves children and cooking,” which was playing very risky, maybe ending up with a traditional man who would never let her out of the house and would want babies straight away. And what a shock he’d get. Nails longer than her smokes and wouldn’t know what to do with a saucepan if it jumped out of her Louis Vuitton knockoff handbag and smacked her.

  Aisha was no better: still hanging on by her toenails at the poly like Shunduri, doing one subject just to keep the accommodation going and to stop her mum and dad bringing her home. Being Christian, her parents were no help at all finding a husband, instead putting all the pressure on her to find herself a match and give them grandchildren. And where do you start? All the decent Asian Christians were in India, not here. And even if they weren’t, Aisha’s parents were so determined to integrate that they only spoke English at home, never met up with their neighbors at Diwali or Eid, knew no one. Aisha was already talking about putting her own ad on the Internet, was at her wits’ end trying to find a husband who was Asian but would speak to her parents in English, was Christian but not a pub-man, street-cool but with a good job.

  Shunduri knew she was the best-looking, the best-dressed, the standout in her crowd—and always had been—but that knowledge had started to pall. Mirrors, once her friends and able to be turned to at any time for a shot of confidence about her future, had become temperamental oracles that she only approached after careful preparation and proper lighting. Twenty-three. She wasn’t some gora career girl who only married in her thirties, if at all. Desi girls were seen as over the hill by twenty-four unless they were film stars or heiresses. She’d started to hate going to other girls’ betrothals and weddings. It didn’t matter, she’d discovered, if you could out-dress and out-dazzle the bride-to-be. You were still not the bride.

  A black Golf cruised past. Was that Kareem through the tinted glass? She felt a surge of excitement, but the car continued on, and she affected boredom and recrossed her gleaming blue legs. At least Mum and Dad weren’t putting the pressure on and lining up prospective grooms right, left and center. This was probably the last year she could swing it living in London, with her one subject due to finish soon. Working full-time at the bank on top of her college allowance, she’d been able to keep herself in Dolce & Gabbana and good Versace knockoffs. And surely Kareem would be giving her the word soon: he’d be a fool not to, with no real family here and money to burn. Girls like her didn’t come along every day.

  She remembered that day in the bank when Kareem had sauntered in, suited and smiling. She’d tilted her head back and looked at him, eye to eye, deadpan.

  “How can I help you today, sir?”

  He’d just continued grinning right back. “Nice day, innit?” he’d said, as if she had all the time in the world, was working in a takeaway and not on the international money transfer counter of the biggest bank in Britain. The bank that likes to say yes. She touched the company scarf at her neck, tied and angled perfectly, to make the point.

  “Yes. How can I help you?”

  He smiled on, looking her in the eyes and pushed a bundle of notes, one hundred and fifty pounds’ worth, under the Perspex barrier. “For my family,” he said. “In Bangladesh. You from dere?”

  “None of your business,” she said calmly, taking the money and counting it as rapidly as the machines, red nails flashing.

  “Have you filled out the transfer form?”

  “Nah. Bein’ an ignorant Desi boy, I was hopin’ you could help me wiv dat,” he said, and she knew even then that he was playing up his East End accent, playing the peasant for her.

  She picked up a pen. “Name?”

  “Kareem Guri. And you are Shunduri Choudhury, right there on your badge. I think my auntie knows your—”

  “Full address, please.”

  “I’m a Brick Lane, Tower Hamlets boy, of course. Can’t you tell?”

  “Oh yaah,” she said, heavy on the sarcasm, using the ID he’d pushed under the grille to complete the form.

  The transaction was over in a few minutes and she’d been expecting him to try to hang around, try to chat, but instead he’d said, “See you next Monday, Princess,” and left before she’d had a chance to ignore him.

  Next thing she knew, she was running into him all the time: at the clubs and the big Brick Lane melas for weddings and betrothals, and even on the street. They’d been together for six months now, but keeping it real quiet. Word was going to get around about the two of them, she knew it, and Kareem had been telling her that he loved her, she was the girl for him, but he didn’t deserve her, no, he didn’t, until he’d shown her what he could really do and pulled off a certain business deal first. For their future. Then he’d get Uncle and Auntie to speak to her parents, make some arrangements.

  But it was June already, and Kareem was still planning the big business deal, still talking it up, and she was . . . well, she’d given him everything and she wasn’t one to cry about it, but he had to come through now. He had to. How had she gotten herself into this position, where if Kareem were to fail her she would be ruined?

  There was a flurry of oohs and aahs from the ever-reliable Amina and Aisha, and Shunduri looked out the cafe window to see a car stopped at the front and a figure emerging from the back of it, clad head to toe in a flowing Saudi-style abaya and niqab, as black as night. A man in the driver’s seat, in an oversized American football jersey and several necklaces, was glaring at the cafe crowd. The woman approached the cafe door, and Amina gasped.

  “It’s Shilpi, it’s Shilpi, innit!”

  Aisha stood up to stare. “It’s Shilpi. Oh my God!”

  They tottered to the door to greet her, and within minutes half the cafe was clustered around her with salaamalaikums and Shilpi-is-that-yous, and Shunduri was left on her own, sitting at the table, her graceful slouch feeling a little stiff. No one was looking at her. She felt invisible. Shilpi, for it was her, was replying to the crowd in a muffled voice and waving one hand encased in a black satin glove, in a dignified sort of way. In fact she looked more dignified and more substantial than Shunduri had ever seen.

  “I can’t stay for long, yaah,” she was saying to everyone. “My baiyya, my big bruvver’s just dropped me off for half an hour, den he’s pickin’ me up again, for evening prayer.”

  “Wow, Shilpi, you look amazin’ . . . I never thought . . .” Aisha ran out of steam in a dazed sort of way, and Shunduri thought to herself, No, you never do think, do you, dear friend that always follows whatever is newest. Some friend you are. So shallow. She tossed her hair again, recrossed her legs, but this time no one noticed. The changed atmosphere in the cafe was affecting everything. Shilpi’s dramatic monochrome presence made Shunduri feel gaudy and obvious, and she noticed that the polish had started to peel off the nail of her right index finger. She hid it under the table.

  Next thing she knew, an escorted Shilpi was lowering herself gracefully onto the chair opposite her, flanked by Amina and Aisha, whose pastel salwars now looked delicate and feminine next to the black microfiber. Not an inch of Shilpi’s skin was to be seen, except between cheekbone and eyebrows. The edge of the niqab around Shilpi’s eyes and across her nose was decorated with small black beads in a pattern of interlocking zigzags, and the same pattern traced the cuffs of her sleeves. Her eyes, thickly lined with kohl, flashed large and round in their bead frame, drawing the light.

  Good move, thought Shunduri. With Shilpi’s bad skin and dumpy figure, of course covering would be an improvement.

  But it was more than that. Shunduri had not
iced the growing group of girls at college who were covering. Some did it with a swaggering fuck you, I’m proud of who I am attitude. And some did it because being a born-again fundamentalist was suddenly cool. Those girls formed their own cliques: walking and sitting together and avoiding contact with Shunduri and her friends in such a way that made it clear that they saw themselves as morally superior to the Asian-princess crowd and the coolie-girls.

  And despite joking about them, calling them ninja chicks, everyone’s behavior toward them seemed to acknowledge it. College lecturers were disconcerted by them, library staff and security guards looked at them askance but never challenged them. And everyone made way for them when it was time for takbir or a rally.

  Shunduri’s coffee was cold, and she felt flat and sour. Eight people were at their little table now, and all of them were focused on Shilpi, on her news, her movements. Before she’d covered, Amina, even Aisha, would scarcely have given her the time of day, let alone have asked her opinion of the latest Bollywood movies, which kohl she used and whether she was going to Rukhsana’s wedding. Shunduri couldn’t take it anymore. She stood up, straightening to her full height, tucked her hair back on one side to show off one of her diamond earrings (presents from Kareem to match his, one carat each) and flicked her veil. No one even noticed.

  “Eh, Princess.”

  She turned and Kareem was there behind her, and he too was staring at the woman in black.

  “Who’s dat?”

  Shunduri glared at him. “Shilpi. You remember Shilpi.”

  “Ahh, yeah. Course I do.” He frowned, then snapped his fingers and gave a laugh of recognition. “Eh, she’s a ninja chick now. A funda-woman-talist,” he said, nodding and salaaming Shilpi when she caught his eye. “Just a tick, Princess.”

  And Kareem left her, just like that, to cruise through the cafe doing his meet-and-greet with each table, letting people know where he was going to be tonight and when: which club and which kebab shop. Shunduri watched him through slitted eyes. All fuckin’ Muslim men were the same then. The more you covered up and denied access, the more they wanted you. So where did that leave her?

  There was no point in staying now. She moved away from the table, then made the mistake of looking back. Someone had already taken her chair, and Shilpi was holding court with a poise that she’d never had in her salwar and chunky platforms and too much cover-up on her spots.

  It was so unfair, after all the effort Shunduri had put in for tonight. It was like someone had changed the rules without telling her. She picked up her handbag, stalked to the toilet and locked the door. She started to reapply her lipstick, but then stopped and put it back in her bag.

  She pulled the free end of her veil over her head, wrapping it across her nose, and stared at herself. Mysterious, fascinating. She would look better in a niqab than Shilpi ever would. She tissued off her lipstick until there was just a hint of color, found some eyeliner in her bag and, bracing her elbow against the wall next to the mirror, ran a cool wet line along the tops of her eyelashes, flicking it out and up at the ends. There. It was all in the eyes.

  When she came out of the Ladies’, Kareem was at the counter, paying for her table’s coffees. She ignored him and hugged and kissed Amina and Aisha goodbye, arranged to see them at Aisha’s dorm room in a couple of hours to oil each other’s hair and watch Sky Asia’s premiere movie. She ta-rah’d Shilpi and the others with a wiggle of her fingers.

  Shilpi gave her a pompous little wave. “Salaamalaikum, sister. See you round.”

  Shunduri bared her teeth in what was almost a smile. “Inshallah. Alaikumsalaam, sister.” Pious ninja bitch, just doing it for the attention. Two could play at that game.

  Kareem was right behind her, moving toward the door, holding it open. As she passed by him, he whispered, “Princess,” and his breath was hot on her neck. She felt a spurt of pleasure in her stomach and fought back a smile. No one called Shilpi that. And only Shunduri had Kareem. No one else had anyone like him: handsome, street-cool, going places, with his own council flat on the side, for business. And privacy. Everything was going to be alright.

  They walked down the street together, Shunduri acutely aware of his rolling walk, the swing of his shoulders. He would never touch her in public, no Muslim couple would except maybe modern newlyweds, but Kareem’s tone, his stance, promised intimacies later. An image of the bridal sari in the main window of Mumbai Magic floated through her mind: deep pink with red-gold embroidery over stiff gold gauze. If he wore the biggest wedding turban, she could wear three-inch heels and he would still look taller than her.

  Kareem took her around the corner, down an alleyway, and tucked her hand into the crook of his arm.

  “I’ve got to go round the clubs later—Varanasi, Rome and Salem tonight—but there’s something I want to show you first.”

  “What?” She forgot herself enough to clutch his arm and tried to see if he was holding something in his other hand, had something in his pocket.

  He laughed and pulled her closer, squeezed her against his side. “Look, Princess. Whaddaya think?” He gestured with his free hand at a large black SUV parked up at the rear of the cafe.

  “A car?”

  Its lights blipped on, and Kareem steered her around to the front passenger seat, urging her inside, up a high step and into a cabin that smelled of newness and leather and luxury. She sank into a seat as large and soft as the rocker-recliner at Amina’s house that only her dad was allowed to sit in. Kareem shut her door and went around. From the driver’s seat, he reached across and fastened her seatbelt, brushing his arm across her breasts as he did so.

  “How about I take you for a drive tomorrow? A long drive, like for the day, out of London, see what this baby can do?”

  She stared at him, still caught up in that moment where she’d thought he was going to give her a present, or perhaps something even better.

  He seemed to recognize the disappointment in her eyes and took her hand and kissed it, watching her. “It’s all for you, Princess, you know that.” He started the engine, which thrummed and roared. “That’s Jag V8 direct injection that Rover use. Classy and powerful: like you and me, yeah. And Rover’s been bought out by Tata, so it’s a real Asian car, man.”

  A car. He had bought a car. What did he think that was telling her?

  Kareem was pointing at the dials, saying something about the features. “See, Princess? We’re in the money now, and this is just the beginning. I’ll take you for a drive—anywhere you like.”

  Shunduri looked at him, challenge in her eyes. “I haven’t seen Mum and Dad in ages, yaah.”

  He fiddled with the stereo, then smiled brilliantly at her. “Yeah. Anytime you want.”

  She pressed her advantage, smiled back at him just as brightly. “Tuesday? I’ve got a lieu day from the bank.”

  Kareem’s hesitation was more obvious now. “We’d have to go early, Princess: in the morning. I’ve gotta be back for business, yeah.”

  “I’m up to start work at nine every day, yaah. You’re the one who lives on Asian mean time.”

  “Alright, first thing, yeah. I’ll be round at the dorm.”

  Maybe ten if I’m lucky, she thought. Her palms felt clammy and, as Kareem drove them back to his flat, she slid her hands under her thighs, like she used to do at school when she was trying not to bite her nails. As an unrelated male, he could only get away with driving her down to see her parents once. Once would be an exception, able to be overlooked provided he showed them enough respect, kept his distance from her, and never did it again.

  Or became an official suitor.

  And then what? He would have to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Guri about them soon, or they would have to elope. And there was no way she was going to be one of those couples running off to Brighton, parents disowning them, brothers and uncles looking for them to beat the shit out of them or worse, and a
funchait to force her marriage, as a ruined girl, to a reluctant Kareem.

  No, she wanted a proper wedding with all the trimmings: the betrothal party, then the full nikkah: the proper Muslim ceremony, with her in a sari stiff with gold thread, weighed down with gold jewelry, at least two kilos’ worth, seated upstairs in Mum and Dad’s bedroom and all the women around her, saying Nah, nah, to the mullah, and then the third time he asks, “Do you consent to marry Al-Mohammed Kareem Guri?” Mum prompting her to say, with every appearance of reluctance, Jioii. Yes. Then the haldi mendhi for her and all her friends and female relatives with music and dancing and singing going all night, and Shunduri in green and gold having her feet and hands rubbed with turmeric. Then the visit to the registry office to do the gora legals, perhaps in a hot pink lehenga and gold veil, and Kareem in one of his Savile Row suits.

  Then off to the rukhsati, the reception, to sit on the red and gold thrones on the stage in Oxford’s grandest reception center with Kareem in a white and gold sherwani and matching turban, with everyone sliding rings on her fingers and bracelets on her wrists, her head bowed down, her expression sweet, modest, a little sad. And, after the reception, the tears and clinging to Mum as she is torn away from her family to start a new life with this man, subsiding tearily into the stretch limousine and the protective concern of her new husband and the chaperones.

  And a full walima for the newlyweds a week later, where she is allowed to smile as much as she likes, as she accepts everyone’s best wishes and compliments as to how much married life is agreeing with her. And not to forget all the visits she would be making as a new bride, wearing all her finery, to drink the pistachio and sherbet at the houses of all their wedding guests for months and months afterward . . . She wanted it all, every bit, including the astonishment and envy of her friends, the pride of her parents, and the look in Kareem’s eyes when he sees her in her wedding sari. Shilpi would just die.