We Are Not in Pakistan

by Shauna Singh Baldwin

  “Right,” says Kathleen. “Okay, thanks, Grandpa.”

  Kathleen flips the cell phone closed and hands it back to Jodie. Leaving her tray, she runs to her locker. She yanks her backpack out and turns it upside down. Books thud, coins ping on the floor, her makeup kit pops open, powder spills all over. There will be a note. It will be in a lavender envelope. She will use her key to Grandma’s house to slit it open. There will be a picture of blue prairie flowers on a card. She will see Grandma’s tidy writing: “I’m tired of your rudeness,” it will read, “tired of being your unpaid servant, of picking up after you, running after you. You bore me because you’re always bored. I’m tired of telling you nicely. So I am on strike.”

  But there is no note. Kathleen puts all the stuff back, returns to the cafeteria, borrows Jodie’s phone again and calls Grandpa. “Maybe she’s on strike or something. What do you think?”

  “Yeah, could be a wildcat strike,” says Grandpa. “But she’d do some yelling first.”

  “Did you have an argument?”

  “Nah,” says Grandpa. “Maybe. I don’t remember. It’s hard for me to remember. But I never argue with that woman. Never. She’s a good cook. But you know those Eastern women. So nice and sweet when they first get here. But then, oh boy, watch out once they get a few American ideas.”

  “She doesn’t have nearly enough American ideas, Grandpa.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, let her strike all day. Maybe I’ll lose a little weight.”

  Kathleen hangs up. Maybe Grandma was right about Grandpa Terry being in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.

  If her mom were lost, Kathleen would want someone to tell her, so she calls Safia at work. Tells her all the Twilight Zone parts — didn’t walk me to school, didn’t tell grandpa, and no note — but doesn’t say how she’s feeling because she doesn’t know what to feel. “Mom, what do you think?”

  “Hmmm,” says Safia. Then she doesn’t say anything. Kathleen can feel her wishing Kathleen spoke even pidgin-Urdu. “Can’t talk right now,” she says eventually.

  Jodie is making slashing gestures. “Guitar class,” she mouths.

  “All right, Mom. Call me. You have Jodie’s number? Call me on her cell if you hear from Grandma.”

  It’s chilly on the bike path after school. For no reason but the menace of shadows, Kathleen remembers she’s a girl and alone.

  Grandma will be home by now, she figures. She picks some blue flowers. She will ask Grandma what kind of flowers Grandma had in her home in Lahore.

  The house is dark except for the floor lamp Kathleen turned on that morning. It shines right on Grandpa’s face — hasn’t he moved all day?

  “Make some coffee,” he says, when he realizes she’s in the house.

  Kathleen makes him a cup of instant.

  “What’s for dinner?” he says.

  “I don’t know,” says Kathleen. “Grandma’ll be home soon. You can ask her.”

  She goes up to her room and puts on a camisole and miniskirt that shows more leg than Grandma can handle — make her feel guilty for leaving as soon as she walks in.

  When she is back downstairs, Grandpa says, “Make us some dinner.”

  “Why do I have to make it?” Kathleen sounds whiny and middle-school-girlish even to herself.

  But Grandpa has switched on the Packers; he doesn’t answer.

  Kathleen finds a box of macaroni and cheese and some butter. And the milk left in the jug. And a sausage. She burns the side of her thumb on the saucepan but eventually there is macaroni with sausage for dinner. Afterwards, Grandpa doesn’t put his plate in the sink, much less offer to help clean up. He goes back to the TV.

  Kathleen goes out to the convenience store, buys skim milk and coffee. She asks the Lebanese guy at the counter if Grandma Miriam came in today — this morning — anytime? He says, “Yesterday, not today,” and gives her a Tootsie Roll with her change, so she knows he knows Grandma.

  Cheerful voices of sports commentators greet her as she opens the front door. But no Grandma.

  Kathleen sinks down on the staircase, knees to her chest, waiting for Safia to come home.

  Grandma Miriam doesn’t come home that night. Kathleen and Safia turn the house upside down but cannot find her purse, passport, the address book that usually sits by the phone, or a note. No hats are missing. Safia searches Grandma’s desk but cannot find her check book. Kathleen scans Grandma’s shelves: Urdu poetry, English poetry — all English Victorian poets. Not a single American writer, not even Twain. The Baghdad Museum Guide to Mesopotamian Art, an English-Urdu Bible translation, and an Urdu-English dictionary are the scruffiest. Cookbooks and more cookbooks. A stack of audiotapes, no CDs. Kathleen rummages through to-do lists, knitting needles and stacks of handwritten letters in Grandma’s drawers, one of them full of dog-eared crossed-off address books going back to 1982.

  After dinner at the end of the second day, no one can sleep; they all put on their pyjamas and slippers and stay up waiting. Even Kathleen is drinking Taj Mahal, and she keeps forgetting about acting bored and nonchalant. Grandpa Terry tells the story of the American Embassy do where he first met Grandma. Safia tells how Grandma Miriam used to teach English to an Israeli general. Then everyone falls quiet.

  Safia says, “Okay, guys, one day, two days — but this is the second night.” She gives a huge sob and grabs for Kleenex. She says she knows — not thinks, but knows — what happened. She pads into the kitchen in her pink fluffy slippers and pulls out all the drawers. She pulls the lid from the largest tin, sniffs and holds it out to Kathleen.

  “Turmeric?” she says. Kathleen looks at the yellow powder. “This is a three-year supply!”

  “It’s for Grandpa,” says Kathleen. “Against Alzheimer’s.”

  “He doesn’t have Alzheimer’s,” says Safia, and snaps the lid over the mouth of the tin.

  She arranges four half-full tins of garam masala on the kitchen table. Then she finds three bottles more. She examines them — different brands, some Pakistani, some Indian, some home-made. “But how many tins and bottles of garam masala did Amiji have to begin with?” she frets.

  “C’mon, Mom,” Kathleen says, taking Safia’s arm. “Maybe we can’t find her passport because it expired and she was getting a new one. Maybe she’s away somewhere writing a new address book. We need to call 911. The cops will know what to do.”

  “You crazy?” says Safia, shaking her off. “We might as well phone Homeland Security. The cops are in cahoots with them anyway. Don’t I see it at the airport? They don’t look at the expiration dates on passports. They’re looking at Place of Birth. Mine says Pakistan. If they take me away too, who’ll look after you?”

  “Nobody’s going to take you away,” says Grandpa from the kitchen doorway. “And don’t worry. If they do, I’ll look after Kathleen.”

  Safia snorts and flaps her hand at him. “I’m just saying we have to be careful. Remember that woman right here — no, in the suburbs somewhere — what was her name? The Immigration guys barged in while she was in the shower, and next thing she knew she was on her way back to Somalia, leaving her husband and children behind.”

  “Yeah, but she must have been illegal,” says Kathleen.

  “Have you any idea how difficult it is to stay legal? It’s damn near impossible. Lose a job that brought you here or get laid off before you have enough money saved for the trip home and two months later you’re illegal. Take nine credits instead of twelve on a student visa and you can be deported. And now they just take away your passport and you’re stateless. Can’t prove you’re from anywhere.”

  “How’m I supposed to know?”

  “You’re overreacting,” says Grandpa. “Miriam is legal and staying legal. She’s married to me. But maybe someone in the military thinks she’s a sleeper.”

  “She never sleeps past six o’clock,” says Kathleen. “And even if she did, why should the military care?”

  “A sleeper,” says Grandpa, “is someone who lives here
a long time and gets activated by orders from somewhere overseas. A terrorist.”

  “My grandma?”

  “Always told her she should become a citizen,” says Grandpa. “But that’s one stubborn lady. Didn’t want anyone to think she’d married me to get an American passport.”

  Safia wipes her eyes and says Grandpa might have to cook for himself now, like Habeeba looking after that car wash all by herself.

  “Why? Can’t you cook?” says Grandpa, and stomps back to the living room.

  That was mean.

  Not meaner than Kathleen was to Grandma. Kathleen made Grandma cry.

  “Maybe he does have Alzheimer’s,” says Safia. She flops into a chair at the kitchen table. “She could be wearing an orange jumpsuit along with the 9/11 detainees and the Afghan POWs at Guantánamo, and we wouldn’t know. She’d be like that guy Ali Raza. He couldn’t afford a lawyer, and they wouldn’t get him one, but they told him he’d be in jail for twenty years if he didn’t sign his deportation papers. So — poof! He’s gone. Where is he? Who knows?”

  “Aw, c’mon, Mom. Why don’t we call Dad and ask him what to do?”

  “No. My Amiji could be in solitary, without bail, without trial, or in shackles. They could move her from jail to jail across the country and your Dad would say, Oh, the government must have information, something we don’t know about her.”

  “That’s not true,” says Kathleen, although she feels it is.

  At school, Jodie had said Kathleen might never find out where her grandma is — that is what happened to her relatives in Chile a few years ago. Things like that happen everywhere, to innocent people all over the world. All the time.

  Kathleen told Jodie, “We’re not in Chile. And we are not in Pakistan.”

  By five o’clock the next morning, Kathleen doesn’t feel anywhere. Grandpa turns on the TV, but even the local news is about how the UN should take responsibility for Iraq now that the US has liberated it. Not a word about Grandma.

  “Liberated!” Mom clicks it off.

  Kathleen goes upstairs to pee.

  She pumps the lotion soap and scrubs her face. Then she has to wash it again; she didn’t know she was crying. She turns on a rap station. Softly, just to get herself mad again, rather than sad. Turns it off. Goes back downstairs into the kitchen, where Safia is making yet another pot of tea.

  Kathleen opens the fridge. No OJ.

  She closes the fridge.

  “Mom,” says Kathleen. “Grandma doesn’t spend a dollar more than she has to. She’s probably staying with someone.”

  “Most of her friends are Pakistanis, but I don’t really know them. Haven’t talked to them in ages.”

  “Yeah, but they have names? And addresses? Look in the old address books.”

  “Uh-huh, but they’re all known to the FBI. They didn’t even need to grab her latest address book.”

  “So if we call any of them, the FBI could be listening to us?”

  Mom nods, pours a mugful for Kathleen and adds milk. “Or Homeland Security. Or the CIA. They’re just waiting for us to call her friends.”

  The mug is warm in Kathleen’s palms. The reflection of her face is tiny. It floats on the brown surface. She has never drunk so much tea in her life.

  Then out of the blue, Mom says, “Connections.”

  “What?”

  “She’s Pakistani.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So she’ll meet a Pakistani cabbie and twelve minutes later they will have figured out that they’re long lost relations or even from the same city. They’ll find someone in common.”

  “So?”

  “I could call Aunty in Calgary and talk in Urdu. She could call Uncle in Houston, and he’d know how to reach Sadruddin in New York, and he could call one of her friends here in town …”

  “Yeah.” Kathleen wants to say please but can’t get it out. “We’ve got to try.”

  At sunrise, Safia leaves a voice mail for her boss to say she’s taking the day off work. She’ll make the calls. “Go to school,” she tells Kathleen.

  In the cafeteria, the girl in the white scarf — hijab, Grandma Miriam would call it — is eating alone. Kathleen takes her spaghetti, leaves an empty chair between, sits down and tries to eat.

  Worms and dirt.

  Kathleen sniffs back tears, inhales a whiff of spices. The Muslim girl has brought her own food. Alloo cholas? Maybe eggplant bhartha?

  “Hi there,” says Kathleen. “Where are you from?”

  “Fritsche Middle School.” The girl sounds surprised, as if Kathleen is the first student at Riverside who’s ever spoken to her. Magnet eyes ringed with kohl. Like Grandma’s, but without the crinkles.

  Kathleen takes a stab at her spaghetti. She rolls it over her fork and unrolls it again.

  “But where are you really from?” The question Grandma hates blips from her mouth because she doesn’t know how else to ask. Her cheeks grow warm.

  “My family is from Iran,” says the girl, drawing herself taller. “What about yours?”

  “American,” says Kathleen. “My grandma is from Pakistan.”

  The face set in the white scarf brightens. “Assalam Aleikum!”

  What’s the right response? Kathleen can’t remember. “She’s Christian,” she says, to explain her ignorance.

  “Oh.”

  This girl wouldn’t know Grandma Miriam even if Grandma were Muslim, even if Grandma’s mom did come from Iran. And why did Kathleen have to say Grandma’s a foreigner?

  The girl is looking at Kathleen as if expecting her to leave. But if Kathleen leaves now, everyone will go back to pretending they can’t see the girl, though she’s right in front of them.

  Kathleen looks around. Jodie is standing, tray in hand, beside the salad bar. Jodie turns. She’s looking right at Kathleen. Her gaze moves to the white scarf. A corner of Jodie’s mouth pulls inward. Kathleen waves before Jodie can do the eye-roll, inviting — no, willing — Jodie to come over and join them.

  “Everyone’s connected to everyone,” Kathleen tells the Muslim girl. “We just need to figure out how.”

  Night of the Leonids

  Driving home from a gala dinner in Toronto, Tania reminds Philip to look up for meteors, look up tonight.

  “Might be too cloudy.” The first words he’s spoken since they left the lights of downtown.

  The black tongue of the road swallows the car into the illuminated circle of the headlights. He has driven an hour and a half west, to the village. Tania squints, searching. If she sees a mailbox marking a side road, she’ll know it’s another forty-five minutes ride through the forest. Spying it, she settles back in her seat.

  Her gaze lingers on the dim line of his close-shaved jaw. She wouldn’t mind the feel of his bicep beneath his sleeve. Or the feel of more than a bicep. Philip in a tux is a real turn-on.

  Getting turned on ain’t everything. And he’ll say it’s late and he’s tired. He won’t say he’s pissed because I screwed up his award night.

  No more mailboxes. If the car breaks down, there’s no one for miles. A flash of yellow eyes could mean black bear. Tania watches all the way.

  The Merc rolls around the driveway and stops. And Tania is out, a heel catching in her black velvet hem, sequins scattering to gravel. Inside, she hangs up her coat and drops her handbag on the demi-lune table. For a second, she is caught by her reflection in the hall mirror.

  Who’da thunk she’d look like this? Thin brown eyebrows above glittery dark deep-set eyes, sharp cheekbones accentuated by hair drawn tight. Halter-top gown, neckline plunging between big boobs — she’s still got what it takes.

  Tania turns on the light in the kitchen. She crosses to the patio and slides the door back, humming “Figaro, Figaro …” a fragment the performer had sung passionately over the chatter of doctors and hospital administrators swirling wine in long-stemmed glasses, passing the butter curls and raspberry vinaigrette.

  Those hospital guys. This house. A million ki
lometres from the Windsor apartment where she grew up — and she ain’t thinkin’ physical distance.

  She’s living some other woman’s life.

  “You sound crazy when you sing out loud,” says Philip, coming up behind her. He hesitates, then says with effort, “I’m going to have a look through the telescope. Care to join me?”

  Before Philip said “Care to join me in matrimony?” five years ago, Tania’s life was going to be a dirt-track stock car race, obstacles and pitfalls everywhere. But Philip was ten years older, had a map, and seemed to have it all worked out. So Tania hopped into his bed to make sure all the troubles of women like Ma couldn’t happen to her.

  Ma, worn out, buying Lotto tickets, spending all her money at Casino Windsor. She could sell anything at craft fairs, and did — doll houses, spoon rings, china, wind chimes, ice cream, temporary tattoos, candy apples, tarot readings, hot dogs, feathered harlequin masks. She’d tried selling books for a while, but back then you had to know what was in the books to sell them, so books were about the only things Ma couldn’t sell.

  Tania could sell anything too; all it took was a pucker of her lips, a sidelong smirk at the camera, the angle of her pelvis tight against silky fabric. “Tania never has to raise her voice,” Ma used to say. A flurry of camera shutters got her out of Windsor and into auto shows in Detroit. She exhibited long expanses of leg as the stages revolved and the cars offered their glossy flanks to men — mostly men — below. For a while Tania thought the crowds were admiring her as much as the cars.

  Dr. Philip Trent was in the crowd one day when Tania was posing beside a sleek banana-yellow too-eco-friendly-to-ever-be-profitable model. Other men stood and gazed at the Lexuses, BMWs and Mercedes, and Tania scented a hunger already wistful, whipped and cowed. But there behind Philip stood the gargantuan maw of his hunger. Eighteen-year-old Tania understood in a flash that no adman would ever have to prod it; Philip would be a glad slave to it daily.

  So she walked down the ramp in her zircon-studded red shoes, doing her best imitation of Madonna. “I’d like a ride home — would you mind driving?”