A Matter of Marriage

by Lesley Jorgensen

She dipped her head and looked at her naked wrists. It’d been so long since she’d worn her bracelets. How long ago had Tariq discarded beard and topi? He was clearly no longer her fundamentalist big brother home from university, who repelled her confidences, threw her precious jeans in the rubbish and told her that she should be wearing a burqa. She stole another look. But neither was he the old Tariq, carefree enough to take her hand at the school gates and walk her home, laughing and teasing and talking with his friends, as she towed along a whining Shunduri with her other hand.

  “Do you really mean that, Bai?”

  “Do I mean that? Do I mean that?” His voice was loud and harsh, as he braked hard, gearing down the car to steer it into a lay-by.

  “Jesus Christ, Munni.” He was shouting now, as he switched off the engine and turned toward her. This was the Baiyya she remembered from university, always angry. Rohimun felt her ribs constrict. “Do you think I would lie to you, after what I saw? My own sister?”

  She felt her head shaking. “I don’t know, I don’t—”

  “Do you think I wanted to be away? For eighteen, nineteen fucking months, no family—”

  A sudden roar of engines behind them shook the whole car and seared the interior with light, while a large vehicle drew up alongside. Simon. He’d found them. Rohimun gave a long moaning indrawn breath, her left hand scrabbling between the seatbelt and the door catch.

  “It’s a lorry. Shit. It’s just a lorry, Munni.”

  She couldn’t breathe out, only little gasps in and in and in, ratcheting up a bubble of pressure just under her diaphragm, rising and swelling and pressing on stomach, lungs, heart. Pins and needles rippled up both arms. Tariq was swearing gently, in Bangla this time, as he got out and came around to her side of the car. There was a wave of cold air as he opened her door and fumbled around her feet, and she felt the slimy rim of the polystyrene coffee cup circling her nose and mouth.

  “You’re breathing too fast, Munni. Try to slow it down, yeah? Just slow it down.” He put his hand on her forehead and stroked it backward, a little way over her hairline. “It’s alright, yeah? We’ll work it out. I won’t leave you, Munni. I won’t leave you again.”

  She closed her eyes against the glare of the light and the dreadful bubble in her chest. The pressure inside was easing, with the warmth and weight of his hand and the murmur of his voice, speaking in Bangla, like years ago, when she used to climb into bed with him after a nightmare and he would let her snuggle in close and just talk and talk softly about what he was going to do when he grew up and the names of the planets and how clouds filled up with water. What terrible tiredness now.

  —

  TARIQ WATCHED HER, bracing her forehead with his hand as he dropped the coffee cup onto the floor. She had fallen asleep so fast after hyperventilating, it was almost a faint, but her color wasn’t so bad now, and she was breathing more slowly. He pulled a wet tissue from her fingers and wiped her chin and the bridge of her nose where the coffee cup had rested, then leaned awkwardly in, searching for the lever to recline the seat. Her feet were icy in her sandals, and it took him almost a minute to tease out the fine leather loops from around her big toes before they could be removed.

  He put his hands around an instep to chafe some warmth into it, but Rohimun turned and tucked her other foot into his hands as well. Tariq, still squatting on the verge next to the car, found himself cradling her feet as he looked up at her unconscious face. The traditional posture to beg for forgiveness.

  “Allah rasta, shunnah Munni,” he said. May God help you forgive me, precious Munni. For all the selfish lies, and the selfish absences. None of this would have happened if he’d been around for her. God knows why she still called him Baiyya: some big brother he’d been.

  Tariq dropped the sandals in the back seat and stood to take off his dinner jacket, then slid it under her seatbelt to wrap it around her. He ached with tiredness. The lorry was gone now. They would stay here for a couple of hours, have a nap, prepare themselves for the onslaught at home. It was less than an hour to go on these back roads, if he could remember the way, before having Mum and Dad to deal with. Inshallah, God willing, she would sleep till then, though only God knew how things would go from there.

  He carefully closed the passenger door and stretched backward as far as he could. He was stiff with post-fight tension, and his eyes stung with fatigue. This was not how he’d planned his return to his parents. Not that he had done any planning: he’d managed to avoid thinking about it pretty much, what with the last-minute rush of leaving Jo’burg, where no sooner had he settled in that city than the old ache of family and home had started up as it never had in the desert.

  It was only after he’d fought his way through the claustrophobia of Heathrow and sighted the queue for taxis that he’d realized the impossibility of simply coming home: that every expectation would be that he was ready to marry. He was twenty-seven, no longer a student, and back at last. There were no more barriers to arrangements being made.

  While away he’d missed Rohimun most of all, missed her with a terrible ache; part love, part loneliness, part guilt, all the worse for not having realized it till then. He’d changed some money and called her on her mobile, but it was disconnected. It was only then that he’d called his parents, let them think he was still away, but said that he’d be home in a couple of weeks—as soon as I can, yeah—and asked for Rohimun’s number and was told by his father that she no longer existed and by his mother that she was gone, gone, no one knew where.

  He’d hung up in despair and could not think what to do next except what he’d been flown over for: chase the artists and artists’ agents for the Goodman Gallery. But almost as soon as he did, he found his sister’s name on the lips of the London dealers and curators, their memories fresh of her sellout exhibition and the disappearing act she’d pulled on its opening night.

  Most of them wouldn’t touch her with a barge pole now: unstable and unreliable, Rohimun’s old agent Nigel had said, in the course of bitching, unknowingly, to her brother about commissions not filled, calls not answered and deposits he’d had to return. Her old teachers at the RCA were no help either, and in the end Student Services had asked him politely to leave. We can’t help you anymore. Really. Try the police, try Missing Persons.

  And then, as he had stared despairingly at one of his sister’s portraits, on show in an upmarket Soho gallery, the dealer, piqued by his interest, had, in her elegant drawl, repeated to him the story of Rohimun’s disappearance. She’d seen his expression and touched his arm and said, “Look, there’s a chance she might be at the V&A tonight. Not that she’s showing anything of course, but it is her thing. Best of luck, darling.”

  He’d acted quickly: asked the woman outright to organize an invitation for him. She’d laughed at his cheek, but said, “Here, darling, take mine, they know me there.” He’d thanked her and flown out the door, already calling the assistant curator whose couch he’d been crashing on, to beg the loan of his dinner jacket.

  Tariq had arrived at the V&A out of breath, just in time to follow the last straggler in. Then he’d seen Munni, behaving like some gora slut with that man. It was Allah’s judgement on him, without a doubt.

  He sighed. Dew was everywhere: condensing on the bonnet of the rental car; sparkling on the low hedge nearby. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. How soft and wet England always was, even in summer. In South Africa, dew was a winter thing, and in the deserts further north, a nightly visitation with nothing soft about it. He walked around to the driver’s side and sat heavily, closed his eyes. He’d become a good catnapper.

  —

  ONE A.M. AND Richard was tired out from fucking but too hungry to sleep, and the moon was shining cold and clear through Deirdre’s white plantation shutters onto his clothes on the floor. He started to search for his cigarettes, but they were nowhere to be seen. Deirdre’s Silk Cuts and a lighter were lying on
the kitchen counter, so he took them out onto the miniature bedroom balcony.

  It was becoming less satisfactory, staying over at Deirdre’s place. Perhaps their officially casual arrangement was becoming too routine. But Deirdre wasn’t like Thea had been, wanting to start her own family, move to the country. She’d never made demands on him he wasn’t comfortable with, save the odd bit of pushiness when it came to selling art to his friends, and they could look after themselves.

  Postcoital tristesse? Deirdre’s body was made to please. Richard turned to look at her sleeping in all her glossy, hip-jutting perfection, like a shop mannequin that had somehow fallen onto the bed. With a wig. Maybe he should go back to bed right now, slip his hand between her legs . . .

  He flicked ash over the railing, which glittered, spun above him, then vanished. Like that Kipling poem, about the sparks flying upward to nothingness. Surely he was in a good place now. He was no longer carrying the debt he’d taken on to free himself from the Abbey. He was in a first-class Chambers and in the running to take silk and Queen’s Counsel before he was forty. He was free, completely free, of the morass of burdens and obligations that had sunk his parents’ marriage into the ground.

  And he had Deirdre, no strings attached. Henry probably envied him. Richard’s friends certainly did. Her body, so lean and clean, her business sense, the androgynous, quirky haircuts and clothes, put her streets ahead of the wives and girlfriends of his set, with their “fun” jobs, conservative outfits and family jewelry. Had the novelty worn off? The cigarette was spent now, and he had a foul taste in his mouth.

  Back in the bedroom, sleep was impossible, and the ultra-mild cigarettes had left him wanting something with more taste and body. There was enough moonlight to sort out his clothes, and he could dress in the sitting room. From here he could walk it to his flat in forty-five minutes and pick up cigarettes on the way. He’d been sitting on his arse all week; it would do him good.

  —

  TARIQ WOKE, STIFF and sore, and stared disbelievingly at the dashboard clock. Four a.m. How had he slept that long? He started the engine and pulled back onto the road as smoothly as he could. No more delays: Rohimun needed to be in a bed. Time to head home and deal with Mum and Dad. Amma and Abba.

  Mum and Dad’s new home and its distance from the Oxford Bangladeshi community could only be a plus. He could just picture all this happening in their old house. Ten Auntie Jiis in Mum’s kitchen cooking for the disgraced family, as if there’d been a death. “What a pity! What a tragedy! And who would have thought! Such a nice girl . . . They’ll never get a good match for Shunduri now . . . This is what comes to these hi-fi modern families . . . asking for cream-coffee and next thing they’re too good for the community-center’s melas.”

  And the male elders in the sitting room drinking chai and chewing paan and telling Dad it’s all about respect, and she will have to be sent back to Bangladesh so as not to taint the family, and this is what comes of leaving your roots.

  And, thanks to this magazine article, the focus would be squarely on Munni, not the prodigal son who’d barely written and never called in eighteen months away. So much for all his debating about how to handle his own story, what to tell them and when. Anyway, they would have enough on their plate with Rohimun’s return, which, kunu oshibidah nai, would be no hardship in comparison. Funny how the words were coming back.

  His jaw clicked with a gigantic yawn. He could really do with a Red Bull for this last stretch, but stopping now, Munni perhaps waking while he was out of the car, was too big a risk. He’d seen how freaked out she was the last time he’d left her. What had that fucker done to her? God, he needed some music. He massaged the dial of the car radio. Maybe the upbeat drumming of a Bhangara station: those Sikh boys were always on somewhere. Even some of the more upbeat Bollywood tracks would be better than nothing.

  He remembered Hussein from down the street before he too went fundamental, going on about the racism of the music industry in England, how Asian music CDs were outselling gora CDs almost two to one, but the compilers of the top one hundred and the producers of mainstream radio and television shows having a blanket policy of ignoring sales figures for Asian music. Nothing had changed: Asian music was still a joke unless it was Ravi Shankar or Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan at the Albert Hall; too refined, too “ethnic,” to be a threat. Too distant from the masala of influences that produced Anglo-Asian bands like Fun Da Mental and Asian Dub Foundation.

  But some things had changed forever. Those passionate arguments they’d managed to have, despite all being on the same side, would never happen again. Football-mad Hussein, always bouncing on the balls of his feet (“Good for the calf muscles, man!”), Tariq had last heard of training in Pakistan; stocky little Ali, like a baiyya to them both, missing in Afghanistan before his son was born, both men probably dead. They were the only ones he’d been able to keep in touch with: outsiders like himself, asking the big questions.

  And the rest of the old crowd, he could guess well enough. Arranged marriages that had probably lost their luster by now, driving taxis and double-shifting in restaurants to support parents, in-laws and the new baby every second year, younger sisters’ dowries and the endless pleas for help from the family village in Bangladesh. And what flood and pestilence in the old country didn’t take, age and loss of hope here in England would.

  The rush of hedgerows slowed as Tariq began to concentrate on road signs. Dad’s directions, so English with his “go around a bit” and “up a bit,” no left or right, the only certain landmarks being the different pubs: The Weeping Maiden, The Weary Traveller and, of course, The Saracen’s Head. Surely he was getting close now.

  Tariq slowed further and made another attempt to scan for something decent on the radio. He paused on the dial, recognizing the title song of the 1970s Bollywood movie Sholay. Two friends as close as brothers, enduring adversity together and sticking by each other, no matter what. But the song was cut short before the final chorus and succeeded by the imam’s wailing call: Allaahu Akbar, Allaahu Akbar . . . The azan fajir, the call to dawn prayer. Tariq’s hand snaked out and flicked it off, and silence filled the car as he swung the steering wheel left. They had arrived.

  Seven

  IT WAS EARLY on Saturday morning, and Dr. Choudhury, bleary-eyed, had just nodded his assent to Tariq’s leaving the house to make the necessary arrangements, when without further ado, his wife whirled from her station at the kitchen sink and fell to her knees in front of him. She reached for his feet, but he, too quick for her, tucked them under his chair.

  Despite this, she stayed there on the floor, staring up and trying to fix his eyes with her own. He determinedly looked over her head, and stirred more sugar into his tea.

  Mrs. Begum spoke softly, as if praising him. “The father of my children is a loving father, the best of fathers, and I know, I know in my heart, of his love for his Munni, his first daughter.”

  She paused, but Dr. Choudhury, not deceived, kept his eyes on the kitchen door.

  His wife spoke again, her voice now a little less soft. “She has suffered enough, she is a good girl, she loves her family, she wants to be forgiven. How can anyone live in this world, without their family?”

  He hurrumphed to clear the tension in his throat. “Nothing can be done. That girl has ruined her own life.” No one could have been a better father than he. He could hear Mrs. Begum’s grunted exhalation as she sat back on her haunches and knew from the heat on his skin that she was still staring at him. That feminine stubbornness that brooked no ignoring. “If you must punish someone, punish me. I am her mother! I taught her, disciplined her . . .” She began to sob.

  Dr. Choudhury switched his gaze to the tabletop. Someone had to uphold proper standards, proper behavior. Sacrifices, great sacrifices he had made for these things. Why should it be only him? “She has ruined more than her own life. She has shamed us all.”

  “Was I ruin
ed too, then, husband? Do you not remember what we did?”

  He jumped up, half in fright at her bluntness, pushing his chair backward to escape.

  She followed him, still on her knees. “Lal Abba, most loving father,” she said, as if reasoning with him. “Your first daughter, your Rohimun. She was young and stupid and in London on her own. With Tariq away, with no family with her, she fell.”

  An aggrieved tone crept into his wife’s pleading then, and she did not reach for his feet anymore, but rested her hands in her lap. “This would never have happened if I had gone with her, if her whole family had been with her. I could have looked after her, made sure she was safe. You let her sleep here, she is upstairs now. Why make her go to the Abbey? She has suffered enough. Surely you could let her stay near her mother’s arms. We are not in the Desi community here. And what would the Bournes think of your daughter if they find her up there, in the Abbey, on her own?”

  Dr. Choudhury stepped around her to the kitchen sink and stared out the window. His wife would never have spoken to him like this before they had come here to this village, away from the community and into the arms of that woman, that Mrs. Darby. A woman like that, both widowed and independent and virtually next door, was bound to bring trouble to a traditionally minded woman like his wife. He continued to look out the window, but Mrs. Begum’s vegetable garden was no help. Where had they gone so wrong in the management of their two daughters? One had all the looks, the other all the talent; and virtue, he suspected, belonged to neither.

  He, unlike her doting mother, could see Baby with clear eyes: her vanity, her insecurity, her self-absorption. Where these traits had come from, he could not tell. As for Rohimun, there was bound to be trouble when both temper and talent were given to a woman. Look at what had happened to his own mother. Painting until his birth, then dead by his seventh birthday, no one would tell how. Perhaps that had been the inevitable result of her sex ruling and limiting her creative life: such women perhaps should never marry.