A Matter of Marriage

by Lesley Jorgensen

  He watched as Kareem helped Shunduri into the car’s back seat, ran to the driver’s door and jumped in. Perhaps she needs a lie-down, Henry thought, as he stopped under the doorway’s sheltering arch and called out to them. “Just a summer shower, you know. It’ll have passed by the time you . . . Just make sure you leave by the front gates: that’ll take you past the Lodge—that’s where we’re staying—then the very next house you come to on the left, just before you hit the village proper, that’s Windsor Cottage, and if you miss it, Mrs. Darby’s is next . . .”

  But his last words were swallowed up by the roar of the Rover’s engine and the scream of flying gravel as the car turned tightly on the circular drive and accelerated away. He watched them speed off admiringly: he’d never have dared go that hard on gravel. He stuck a finger in his mouth to finally scrape the last remnant of baklava off a sore back tooth. Good Lord.

  Nine

  IT WOULD BE impossible for any man, even one of Dr. Choudhury’s mental powers, to relax or to concentrate while Mrs. Begum, fizzing with excitement like a just-lit firecracker, was rushing between kitchen and front door, kitchen and sitting-room front window, looking for the much-awaited, much-anticipated arrival of their youngest child. A red-letter Tuesday, indeed. Baby’s favorite dishes were on the stove, her favorite hair oil was on the mantelpiece, and Mrs. Begum had completely disrupted his peace of mind by rearranging the occasional tables in the sitting room.

  The paan tray was already on display, heaped and gleaming, and everywhere there was an unusual profusion of flowers in vases and plants in pots: that Mrs. Darby’s influence, he was sure of it. Dr. Choudhury felt like he was in a particularly oppressive jungle, or a Christian funeral. To walk to the sitting-room window, he had to shoulder past a large drooping plant in a brass container. He shuddered and wiped at the plant’s point of contact with his second-best jacket, a tweedy triumph in burgundy and green with a subtle yellow fleck. Plants belong outside, people belong inside. Where was Baby? She should be here by now.

  He just happened to glance out the window again when a large, dark car drew up at the cottage gate. The growl of its engine triggered a shriek and a flash of color as Mrs. Begum rocketed past the sitting-room entrance en route to the front door.

  In light of the importance of the occasion, he gave only the most cursory of glances into the mantel mirror to check his hair and his tie (lemon and gold: an Eid present from Baby), smoothing both of them fondly. Buttoning his jacket as he walked down the hallway, Dr. Choudhury hurrumphed himself into position just behind his wife, who had already opened the front door. Her yellow sari set off his jacket nicely, and his tie. She could call and cry: she was the mother after all. When the necessary female fuss had died down, he would receive his due as paterfamilias, from the youngest and stupidest of his offspring. He was in no hurry. How long it had been since their Baby had been home.

  Shunduri was not visible through the tinted windscreen, but a young man, very well dressed, had jumped down from the driver’s seat and hurried to a rear passenger door, which he swung open with a flourish before standing back in an elaborate display of physical contact avoided.

  A figure stepped out, away from the shielding door, and there was their daughter in a tightly fitting long black dress and matching headscarf. The front of the scarf had been pushed back a little, revealing the front of a scimitar-sharp bob, which Dr. Choudhury recognized at once as the latest celebrity haircut.

  Although much of her face was obscured by aviator-frame glasses, he saw with satisfaction that Shunduri looked even taller, slimmer and more polished than he remembered: a remarkable achievement, given the short-and-round-ness of her mother, who was sighing and muttering something about everyone starving in London.

  The man disappeared around to the back of the car where he appeared to be unloading luggage. Shunduri turned to them and gave a theatrical startle before crying out “Amma! Abba!” and running with a slow high-heeled stagger up the front path and into her mother’s arms.

  Dr. Choudhury felt tears prick at his eyes and hurrumphed again, loudly. He had never felt a mother’s touch since he was school age. It took some time for Shunduri to extricate herself from the maternal embrace, but then, sunglasses removed and gratifyingly teary as well, she made a token feint for her father’s feet before being drawn into his arms and bursting into loud sobs. Baby was home.

  —

  TARIQ RAN DOWNSTAIRS and into the hall, just in time to see his parents disappearing into the sitting room and his youngest sister pause dramatically in the doorway, framed by a sweep of peacock feathers behind her. He held his arms out. “Baby.”

  “Baiyya!” Shunduri gave a little shriek and skipped toward him, gestured toward his feet and accepted his hug. “I’ve missed you soo much, Bai, like you wouldn’t believe.”

  Despite the little-girl voice, she seemed much older than when he’d last seen her: older than Rohimun in fact. Shunduri’s perfect make-up, slender figure and cinched-in, stylish clothes were those of the married, moneyed women he used to sell to in the Jo’burg galleries. He cleared his throat, feeling all the weight of older-brother responsibility.

  “Yeah, me too, Baby. God, you’ve grown, yeah.”

  “Are you back for good? Where’s Affa? Where is she? Are you going to sort her out?”

  Before he could answer, the peacock feathers shivered and moved toward them, then swung away to reveal a short, broad-shouldered, shaven-headed man in a tight suit, carrying an entire stuffed peacock as well as a number of boxes wrapped in gold paper. Tariq stared at him, expressionless, and the man quickly piled the boxes on the hallstand and approached him, smiling, the peacock still tucked under his arm.

  “Salaamalaikum, Baisahib,” he said, using the full, formal version of the honorary title. “Kareem Guri. I’m honored to meet you, man. I’ve heard a lot about you.” He held out his hand. Fat diamond studs glittered in each ear, and Tariq could see the trace of a Nike tick that had been shaved into his right eyebrow and was now growing out, with the help of some kohl sketched into the gap.

  Shunduri wound herself around her brother’s arm, using her girly voice. “Kareem’s grandfather knew Amma’s uncle the tailor. Their wives were, umm”—Shunduri flapped a hand—“cousins and Kareem, umm, helped out with Uncle’s funeral.”

  Tariq nodded but did not take Kareem’s outstretched hand. Kareem, still smiling, withdrew it and patted the peacock absentmindedly on its rump.

  Mrs. Begum, eavesdropping, reappeared at the entrance to the sitting room, tears in her eyes. “My beloved Khalo, Uncle! Like a father to me he was, sending for me to join him in Dhaka, when I was left with no one, no one at all.” She grabbed a corner of her sari and wiped her eyes, then gave Tariq’s arm a squeeze. A don’t-spoil-this-for-me squeeze.

  He affected not to notice, and kept watching Kareem. After one last squeeze, hard—migod Mum must have been working out—she let go of him and put an arm around Shunduri, gesturing with the other for Kareem to join them in the sitting room.

  Kareem dipped his head but stood back, making it clear that he was waiting for Tariq to precede him. He pretended not to see Mum’s gesture. Slimy bastard. Why the fuck was he here?

  Tariq dawdled, rocking back on one foot and patting his pockets as if he’d forgotten something. Kareem, seemingly unfazed, continued to wait. Jesus, he looked like one fit fucker under that suit. And with all his nodding and smiling, not moving an inch. Eventually Tariq admitted defeat and walked, stiff-backed, into the sitting room, far too aware of man and bird following close behind him.

  Baby was already curled up next to Mum on the sofa, sniffling and sighing: milking the big reunion scene for everything it was worth, that was for sure. You’d have thought she was the one who’d been overseas for a year and a half, instead of in London and only three months since she’d last been home. She was sounding off to Mum about how they had ended up at the Abbey on t
he way, and met Henry and Thea Bourne, and were all great friends now. As if that was likely. Perhaps she’d leaned out of the car window and waved at them on the way past.

  And who was this Kareem wide-boy Guri? Mum was crying again: Kareem was talking about the old country, beautiful bloody Bangladesh, the tailor’s Dhaka shop, now taken over by some cousin apparently. Even Dad had tears in his eyes.

  Tariq stalked to the wing-back chair opposite his father’s and sat at an angle so as to keep an eye on everyone. No one had looked to him for guidance on how to treat this gundah muscle-builder, who seemed to have been accepted, even welcomed, without reservation. They were all in thrall to Kareem’s novelty: his sharp suit and worldly smiles, his ability to spout sentimental Bangladesh bullshit.

  When he, Tariq, had arrived last Saturday, turning up at dawn with Rohimun, their little Munni, white in the face and almost dead on her feet, he had been the man of the family then. No one had questioned his place to direct that she be put to bed with a hot-water bottle, nor his entitlement to sit up with Mum and Dad over chai and pakhoras to discuss the situation, decide what to do. Dad had deferred to his judgement about the danger of press interest, had acquiesced to all Tariq’s statements about the future. Of course, Rohimun could not stay in the cottage: they all recognized that. And when Dad had made the suggestion of the Abbey as a temporary hiding place, he had done so tentatively, dependent on Tariq’s approval.

  Tariq noticed that everyone was looking his way and realized that he had lost the thread of the conversation. He was about to mouth a surly, teenage What? when something brushed against his hair, with the unmistakable scent of Giorgio for Men. Robbie’s scent. His heart in his mouth, he turned his head toward the fireplace and almost into Kareem’s rounded pin-striped bottom, inches away.

  “Up, up, back,” said Mrs. Begum. “Beautiful bird.”

  Kareem, standing between Tariq’s chair and the fireplace, was arranging the stuffed peacock on the mantel at an angle so that its tail swept down behind Tariq’s chair in a river of color. Tariq jerked his head back around, heart thumping, recrossed his legs and folded his arms.

  A seemingly endless disjointed conversation ensued, all focused on the man behind him while he sat, trapped in his chair and surrounded by scented rustling, feeling every slight nudge to the back of his chair as Kareem adjusted the peacock’s positioning under Mrs. Begum’s pleased supervision. The rich scent, everyone’s staring, Kareem’s proximity were excruciating. How long was this going to take? Robbie, why did I ever leave you?

  —

  TARIQ HAD KNOWN from that first evening in Tajura Barracks with Robbie that he, Tariq Choudhury, was what he was. Not a man who couldn’t find love, or a straight man making use of what was available, but a poof, a faggot. And Islam couldn’t change him, or save him.

  From that night he’d felt liberated, enlightened, separate from the daily round of posturing and failure that barracks life had become. After that, it had only been a matter of time, stringing out his training at the barracks in Libya, stealing as much time with Robbie as he could until Robbie finished his three-month mercenary stint there and took off back to Jo’burg.

  After that, it was suddenly easy to accept the humiliation of resigning, admitting that he wasn’t up for it, was a failure as a soldier of God; the shame of his cell-leader’s ready acceptance of this, and the Libyan officer’s comment that Tariq was better suited to a madrassa than a military school. Easy to make vague promises to keep in touch, accept the hints of perhaps another role, later.

  Then a roundabout route by light plane and private jeep back to South Africa and meeting up weeks later with Robbie in Jo’burg for a wild spree of partying, drinking and generally following him around like a Siamese twin. Desire did not fade in those early months, but, away from the petty desolation of Tajura Barracks, he began to see that his beautiful Robbie, as short and fair and free-spirited as he was not, was more of a temporary liberator than a lifelong companion: a fuck-buddy rather than the lover that he had originally thought, in the rush and high of feelings freed.

  Tariq had truly begun to feel the void then: no lover to adore, no religion, no family, no politics. For Jamat-al-Islami and the cell he was a dropout, a failure. Who was he then? What was left? After three months Robbie had run out of money and was talking about another stint in Libya, or maybe something in Algeria or Darfur. Nowhere Tariq could follow: Tajura had proved that. Once Robbie went, what could he do? What would he be?

  Chance connections at one of those endless Jo’burg parties had led to a job in a gallery, and then, once Tariq’s Oxbridge background became known, an acting curatorship at the Goodman Gallery. The gallery, filled with moveable walls, natural light and risky installations, and basking in the kudos now given it as a supporter of black artists through the pre-Mandela years, was a breath of fresh air after his interrupted PhD studies. Tariq basked as well, in the joy of revisiting this side of himself, after so long without.

  But the void was still there, and even before Robbie had left for a consultancy with a private security firm in Iraq, Tariq knew that, despite the gallery job, the all-embracing hedonism of the underground gay scene in Jo’burg was not enough. No one seemed to belong to anything larger than themselves, believe in anything greater than their own desires. He needed a community, and a system of belief. He was nothing, less than nothing, without that.

  Over the next nine months, his career at the gallery had flourished, but his sense of aimlessness and homesickness grew. He carried it as a deserved burden and, he thought, a secret one, until one drizzly afternoon, his boss Linda’s hand had landed gently on his shoulder.

  “Go home,” she’d said. “Fly to London for me, meet these people I want to exhibit, see their work, take some time with your family. You’ve earned it.”

  She moved away, then returned briefly to give his back a brisk, get-on-with-it smack, making him think of his father. Tears had sprung to his eyes.

  “Then come back. You’re the best bloody curator I’ve had.”

  —

  KAREEM HAD AT last returned to the small occasional chair near to Dr. Choudhury, but Tariq’s gut was painfully tight, and he tried to deepen his breathing, to relax the cramp, assuage the longing. God, Robbie, where are you now?

  Dr. Choudhury laughed at something, and Kareem quickly laughed with him. Bastard. Tariq felt his hand clench in his lap as he glared at the visitor. Kareem, perhaps sensing the look, glanced at him.

  He was a joke as a big brother, an eldest son. A casra kusrah, a dirty homo. Sex between men was pervasive in the traditional Muslim world, given the unavailability of its women. But a real homosexual: that was the unspeakable, the unclean thing. Even here, with his family, he was committing this sin . . .

  A man without a wife was a boy, not a man. A man who had lost his wife was but half a man. A man who did not want to marry, to bring a wife into his family to care for his parents and to give them grandchildren, was no son, no man at all. He stole another look at Kareem, who, hands on knees, was listening with rapt attention to some Oxford gossip of Dad’s. How could Dad even think that Kareem would be interested in college gossip? Then again, all he’d ever needed was an audience, and he certainly had that. Now Mum was trying to get in on the act as well, hovering, waiting for Dad to take a breath so that she could jump in.

  Anyone would think that Kareem, not he, was the eldest son, the prodigal returned, the rescuer of sisters. Kareem sat and listened but at the same time seemed to be aware of everything else that was happening in the room, with an alert stillness that made him look ready for anything. This was the kind of man Jamat-al-Islami had wanted at Tajura, with the single-mindedness that Tariq had never had.

  What had he taken away from that time in Libya, really? An efficiency in times of crisis, perhaps. Certainly he was physically tougher. Kareem had that toughness too, Tariq could see that, despite the suit and the smi
les, but with him it was a gift from the street.

  What else? He could probably still strip and remount a Kalashnikov at speed, though he never would again. And the paramedic course had helped him out of a few tight spots.

  A lull in the conversation brought him back to the present, in time to see Kareem head out of the room and come back with the gold-wrapped gifts. A Rolex for Dr. Choudhury and another for Tariq, both proffered apologetically, modestly. A box of mangoes (“Direct from Bangladesh yesterday, Khalama, Auntie,”) for Mrs. Begum and a beauty box for “the other sister.”

  They all accepted their gifts and fell silent, his parents looking caught uncomfortably between sentimentality and suspicion. He could see it on their faces: the fellow Bangladeshi who could conjure up such memories of home, who had helped bury Mum’s dearest uncle, who showed such respect, knew the old forms and traditions as if he were their generation, not Tariq’s and Shunduri’s. The unrelated male who had arrived without notice, ridden in a car with their unmarried daughter, known her in London.

  —

  MRS. BEGUM TOOK the box of mangoes into the kitchen, picked one out, put it to her nose and inhaled deeply. The sweet heavy perfume of this prince of fruits always took her back to eating them as a child in her village on special occasions, every last piece of flesh scraped off the skin with her teeth, the juice running down her chin. She bent to look through her cupboards, found her Royal Albert old-country-roses saucers and a sharp knife and proceeded to slice up three mangoes into six portions, neatly segmenting the flesh into squares. She bent the skins into convex arcs and placed one on each saucer, so the exposed cubes could be lifted off with a fork. Even the Windsors could not prefer cake to this.

  What a good boy to bring gifts, touch their feet in the way he did, not like these modern boys with their Christian handshakes and phones always ringing. And he was in Mrs. Guri’s household.