by Bapsi Sidhwa
It was the Ace of Spades.
Shouting, ‘O’rrright!’ the youthful winner jubilantly twirled around and waved a little wad of twenty dollar bills high above their heads. His victoriously whirling head was shaved above the ears and abruptly crowned by a flat disk of thick hair.
An alert and admiring spectator, sporting an old-fashioned Afro and a scar that ran from cheek to lip across his otherwise handsome face, shook the winner’s hand and thumped his back. The excited young man had obviously had a run of luck and was about to try again.
Nav and Roshni watched the dealer juggle the three cards on the cardboard table. Every once in a short while he would lift up the Ace of Spades to show its position and busily start sliding the cards face down on the table again.
Out of the three games they watched, the skinny youth picked out the Ace of Spades thrice.
It looked reasonably simple and clearly it was above board. The dealer wasn’t wearing a jacket, and he had his shirt sleeves rolled up over his bulging forearms. He couldn’t very well slip a card up his sleeve or indulge in chicanery without being detected. Or so Nav thought. All one needed to do was to carefully watch the dealer’s clever hands and outwit his fat fingers.
Nav moved closer.
The dealer glanced at him briefly out of surprisingly light eyes, and pretending indifference, shouted: ‘Twenty-dollar twenty-dollar, watch the Ace of Spades.’
Exhilarated by his bout with the proselytizer, and shaken by his humiliating encounter with the boa constrictor and his subsequent fall, Nav felt compelled to match his discerning eye against the dealer’s skill.
‘Ten dollars,’ Nav said, astutely bargaining. He glanced swiftly at Roshni to ascertain that he had impressed her with his shrewdness. ‘I don’t have any more money. Ten dollars.’
‘Twenty-dollar twenty-dollar, pick out the ace of spades,’ the dealer said, ignoring Nav and the ten-dollar bill he held between his index and middle fingers.
Meanwhile the Protestant proselytizer had set up house near them.
‘Gambling paves the way to hell!’ he boomed through his microphone, and to Nav it felt as though the deceptively innocent-looking amplifiers had singled out his ears for their assault.
‘Thou shalt not gamble! The end of the world is coming! Repent. Jesus saves!’
‘Ten dollars,’ Nav said speaking more assertively, and also loud enough to be heard above the din. He wagged his two joined fingers back and forth making the ten-dollar bill flutter.
The dealer glanced about. The excited young winner had turned his long and narrow back on the game and was busy talking to the admiring spectator with the scar and the old-fashioned Afro. Nav appeared to be the only candidate.
The dealer unravelled his massive beige palm saying, ‘Okay, just this once,’ and pocketed the bill Nav handed him as swiftly as a lizard snapping up a fly on a whitewashed Bulsar wall.
Roshni observed the gesture and was struck by its significance. There was as little hope of the bill being recovered by Nav as of the metaphorical fly being stuck back on a wall.
Not too perturbed at the possibility of her boastfully savvy and perennially instructive husband being diddled out of ten dollars, Roshni observed her spouse with interest.
Nav was intent and alert. His keen eyes followed the dealer’s shuffle and a smug aspect spread over the spare flesh covering his sharply defined features.
Nav’s arm suddenly shot out, and his hand, like a serpent striking, picked out the middle card.
It was the five of hearts. The wrong card.
But hope is an indestructible part of human nature and Roshni could almost feel Nav being suckered into thinking the next time he’d win his money back.
Roshni moved closer to warn her husband, but before she could express her misgiving Nav gave the dealer another ten dollar bill. Roshni stared at Nav as he watched the deft conjurer’s hands with hypnotic intensity. The smug aspect was no longer in evidence; it had been replaced by a perplexed frown.
Nav abruptly and triumphantly pounced on the card to the left of the centre—and picked out the seven of clubs. He gawked at it in disbelief.
Almost absently Nav took out another ten dollar bill from the new lizard-skin wallet Roshni had brought for him as a gift. Again he pounced. Again he lost.
All at once it dawned on Nav that it was real money he was dishing out and losing so fast. The suspicion that had had no time to manifest itself, now shot into his mind like a dart. He had followed the dealer’s hands exactly and knew exactly where the ace of spades should have been. Nav was sure the man had somehow changed the card.
‘You’re cheating,’ he shouted, mortified and indignant.
The dealer’s startling yellow eyes turned muddy and locked on Nav’s with a dirty look calculated to turn his feet cold. Nav’s toes shrivelled into little frozen shrimps inside his woollen socks and gym shoes.
The tall youth in the outgrown jeans who had won so spectacularly earlier, scoffed and said ‘Ha!’ in an intolerably superior way.
‘Call on the Lord for salvation!’ the preacher bawled in the course of his own fiery discourse, and inadvertently ignited further sparks in the little scene going on between Nav and the Three Card Monte set-up.
‘I’ll call the cops for salvation!’ yelled Nav, unconsciously echoing the preacher. ‘You can’t cheat me!’
Nav noticed that the euphoric winner and the admiring spectator with the scar had closed ranks with the dealer. Too late, he realized they were the shills. He was abashed and outraged at having been so easily taken in.
Now the three men combined to glower down on Nav with malignant looks calculated to chill his bones.
Nav’s body responded to the glares, and he felt the sweat begin to form on his forehead.
But thirty dollars is thirty dollars, and it constituted a substantial chunk of his scarce resources as a junior computer analyst in upstate New York.
‘Give my money back, you bunch of crooks, or I’ll have you locked up!’ Nav threatened ominously, but the icy shiver that zipped through his spine made his voice quaver.
Not to be outdone, the proselytizer, in the course of his unwitting discourse hollered: ‘The only salvation is the Lord! Lightning shall strike the sinner!’
‘Why you dirty little squealer,’ the dealer hissed. He grabbed hold of Nav by the V-neck of his blue hand-knitted cardigan, and Nav’s Adam’s apple bobbed up a notch higher.
As if in a nightmarish trance, Roshni saw Nav teetering almost on the tips of his gym-shoed toes. She noticed with a sense of shock how extraordinarily elongated and narrow he looked with the clothes on his chest all crunched up in the dealer’s giant hand.
Their fists clenched, the two shills moved on Nav like lightning striking.
Roshni suddenly and instinctively let out a shrill, long, bloodcurdling screech and then, certain that her husband was being maimed and murdered, screamed, ‘Police, help police! Murder! Murder!’
The dealer lifted his cropped head in surprise, and observing the foreign woman in a sari screaming like a demented trumpet, quickly cast his eyes about. He must have seen something that agitated him because he abruptly let go of Nav and snatched up his cards.
The youthful shill who had scoffed at Nav with such wounding superiority, dismantled the table with a swift kick that sent the cardboard flying.
The dealer and his partners ran in three diametrically different directions and evaporated among the skateboard acrobats and Frisbee enthusiasts before the two cops in navy uniforms sauntered up to the scene of the crime.
His cardigan askew, his shirt half out of his trousers, Nav was too embarrassed to give an account of the scam to the complacent cops.
When Roshni hysterically told them of her husband’s losses and how close he had come to being murdered, one of them looked her up and down in her sari and laconically remarked, ‘Everybody knows those guys always rip you off. Y’guys must be from someplace else. He’s lucky he didn’t get his pockets
picked.’
Consumed by curiosity, hanging on to the megaphone and the little Samsonite attaché case in which he kept his amplifiers, the preacher had moved closer with his props. His brown eyes bulging, he craned his neck and danced from foot to foot to peek over the heads of the small crowd.
Once he grasped what had happened, the man of God waved his Bible, moulded his fiery features into a righteous glower and, putting his megaphone to his mouth, bellowed: ‘The wages of sin are death! Glory to the Lord. Thou shalt not gamble! Vengeance is the Lord’s! Amen! Repent! The end of the world is coming! Hallelujah!’
The policemen winced at the onslaught on their ears and raised their capped heads. The burlier of the two cops took a few menacing steps towards the preacher. The preacher hastily turned away and belted out God’s Word with his back to the crowd. But one could tell from the wobbly note in his thunder that his aggrieved heart was no longer in his sermon.
As they rode the succession of buses to the seminary, Nav remarked: ‘Well, my dear, one lives and learns. Remember, one never gets something for nothing in America, and if you’re stupid enough to expect to, you’ll get ripped off. I hope it’s been a lesson to you.’
Roshni, who had maintained a suitably sympathetic silence as she observed her husband’s bruised face slowly discolour and grow puffy, gave his arm a squeeze. She lay her head on his shoulder, and said: ‘I’m glad you stood up to that horrible bully!’
The next morning Nav told Roshni that he was taking her out for lunch to a very special place.
She was still in bed. ‘Let me see your face first,’ she said, and propped herself on an elbow to examine it.
Nav promptly moved his face to within an inch of hers and grabbed her amorously.
But Roshni’s alarm for his wounds was too great to allow for amorous shenanigans. She pushed Nav away with a strength and vehemence that surprised him, and shouted, ‘I want to see your face. Not your damn cock!’
Nav, shocked by the unexpected words that issued from the naive lips of his bride from Bulsar, let go of Roshni. He stood up, looking dazed. Was there to be no end to the surprises this unusual girl was to awe him with?
Roshni got out of bed and, holding Nav at a suitable distance by his pajama-suit front, much as the Three-Card-Monte dealer had held him the day before, scrutinized his face. It appeared to be even more puffy and swollen. But in the dingy room with light coming in only from a narrow curtained window, the colours appeared less strident.
Roshni took pains to get all dressed up and added the finishing touch by putting on the delicately dangling ruby earrings given to her by Nav’s mother. After grabbing a quick cup of coffee and some doughnuts in the Seminary hall at noon, they rushed off to catch a bus.
Nav followed Roshni through the impressive glass doors of the towering World Trade Center. He had not seen Roshni in the navy silk sari with a magenta border (that matched her earrings) before. She was glowing duskily and Nav felt she was growing more beautiful by the moment. Nav was glad he had decked himself out in brown trousers and a brown tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows.
They stood in line for the elevator. When the doors opened to receive them, Roshni gingerly stepped into the curved glass cocoon as if she was stepping into the next century.
Although her senses were awash with wonder, Roshni stared impassively at the rapidly receding marble floor and the dwindling green incandescence of the atrium. Nav had cautioned her not to gawk and gush like a tourist: she’d stand a good chance of being mugged if she did.
It seemed to Roshni that every day she discovered something to enchant her in her new country. Mindful of her husband’s tuition, she absorbed the enchantment discreetly, hoarding the throb of her heart like a secret treasure. As she shot into the sky in the glass and aluminium missile Roshni could scarcely believe that she, the ugly duckling of her family in Bulsar, had stumbled somehow into this magical new world with its blazing lights, rocketing elevators and incandescent indoor gardens with huge overhanging trees. How gladly she’d show off all this splendour to her relatives when they visited. She yearned to see the expressions of wonderment on their faces.
The captain led them to a small table. They sat across each other as the restaurant rotated centimetre by centimetre to give them a privileged bird’s-eye view of New York. But Roshni only looked through the glass when Nav pointed out a landmark that was familiar to them. Otherwise the fringed darkness of her eyes, soft with unfathomable emotion, remained on her husband’s abused face.
In the harsh light pouring in from the sky Nav’s battered skin displayed all the colours of the rainbow. And lit also by happiness from within, Nav was radiant. ‘Do you know,’ he said, the sweep of his arm embracing Manhattan, as his eyes caressed Roshni, ‘more money changes hands in New York in one hour than in a whole year in Bombay?’
‘Really?’ Roshni said, leaning forward in her chair and placing her arms, folded one upon the other, on the table. Surrendering to the moment of bliss she looked at her young husband tenderly. ‘God, you really know so much! You’re quite amazing.’
‘If you stick around with me you’ll become pretty amazing too,’ he teased. ‘It’s only because I’ve been here longer. You’ll soon have trivia of your own to share with your family when they visit.’
Roshni smiled. She knew him well enough by now to decode his speech.
This was their language of love.
Sehra-bai
Sehra-bai suffered a stroke two years ago. She goes through phases of intense reminiscence. She is aware that her mind is reliving an old memory, yet the memory is so immediate that all the emotions that accompanied her then, are with her now. Sometimes unbearable hurt surfaces, and her poor forehead crinkles up with her inability to cope with the rage, or guilt, or sadness that swamps her.
When Ruby notices this, and she is not unduly rushed, she holds her mother’s wasted body. Often she rubs her face against Sehra-bai’s and strokes her chest beneath the collarbone to calm her as she listens to her mother. At such times Sehra-bai might unburden an old pain her mind brutally resurrected, and they discuss the episode as if it has present currency. They structure new strategies to cope with the situation, until Sehra-bai feels more in control of the events that had rendered her so helpless then.
And, almost as often, she preens—gloating at her wit in putting down some past rival, or her charm in vanquishing an ancient foe. At such times, like a geisha expertly flipping open a delicately wrought fan, Sehra-bai audaciously unfurls the radiant spectrum of her vanished beauty. It is unbearably poignant—this seventy-two-year-old woman, propped up with pillows, pinned by paralysis to her bed, recalling the sunlit moments that peaked amidst the darkened hollows of her life like snow-capped mountains.
Late one December evening, when Ruby wheels her mother from the living room to her bedroom, Sehra-bai is in a chirpy mood. Ruby is exhausted. They’ve watched Fawlty Towers. It has been Sehra-bai’s favourite show ever since it suddenly popped up on Pakistan TV screens in the 1980s. Tonight they watched John Cleese stomp his wacky way through a roomful of befuddled guests in the hotel he runs with such lunatic abandon. Alternately supporting her stomach and wiping tears of mirth from her eyes, Sehra-bai hooted with laughter. She is not ready for bed. ‘I want to talk for a bit,’ she says when Ruby removes her headscarf and shawl. ‘I know I won’t be able to sleep.’ The night nurse has already placed her hot-water-bag in her bed and is turning down the comforter.
Ruby stands before her mother’s wheelchair, her hands hanging helplessly down her sides. ‘Can we talk tomorrow? I’m ready to drop.’
‘Nonsense,’ says Sehra-bai. ‘Wait till you hear what I’ve to say; it’ll refresh you, I promise! Please?’ she pleads.
The sprightly gleam in her mother’s eye warns Ruby. She knows from experience that Sehra-bai will keep the house awake unless she is permitted to have her say. The nurse turns from stacking and smoothing the pillows to raise resigned eyebrows. She shrugs her
plump shoulders and throws Ruby an amused glance.
Ruby capitulates. ‘Oh, all right,’ she says, wearily, as if indulging a capricious child, and wraps the fine old cashmere shawl back around Sehra-bai’s legs. She sits down on her mother’s bed and the nurse positions the wheelchair closer to her. The bed is raised on bricks to make it easier for them to lay her down. ‘So? What do we talk about?’ Ruby asks as the nurse quietly leaves the room and shuts the door behind her.
Pointy chin and toothless mouth parodying the prim, grave expression of her youth, Sehra-bai tells her daughter: ‘Whenever I went to the Central Bank in Nila Gumbad, it was ‘pens-down’ time. You never knew that, did you?’
Ruby is puzzled. The tiny Parsee community she belongs to has a tedious reputation for loyalty and hard work. And Parsee bankers were hardly the type to abandon their duty or loyalty and lay down their pens in a seditious labour strike. Nor were the Hindu and Sikh bankers who fled Lahore at Partition likely to; or the staff of Muslims who replaced them after 1947. This was especially so during the days of the British Raj that her mother is harking back to.
Ruby recalls childhood visits with her mother to the cavernous, neon-lit Central Bank hall, segmented like a hive by shallow mahogany panelling, with legions of brown men bent over enormous ledgers like so many drones. In summer their shirt pockets bore ink stains and were stuffed with pens and pencil stubs.
‘Pens-down time?’ Ruby asks, frowning over the rim of her glasses, peering suspiciously into her mother’s sanguine, gimlet eye.
‘Yes,’ says Sehra-bai, girlishly prim, exactly as she would have spoken at that time she refers to as her ‘heyday’. ‘Jal Jariwalla gave them the permission to. Pesi Cooper too, when he became bank manager. Whenever I walked into the bank, the men were permitted to put down their pens!’
‘But what on earth for?’ Ruby asks, feigning astonishment, although by this time she’s cottoned on to her mother’s drift.
‘So they could stop working to look at me! What else!’
Eyes twinkling, face flung back and lit up in a series of mischievously breaking smiles and silent laughter—the kind that ignites sparks of unruly joy in the hearts and eyes of Sehra-bai’s children and grandchildren, whom she keeps attracting to her bedside like expectant honeybees—she adds, ‘I freshened their eyes.’