by M G Vassanji
With clapping and cheering the demo finally came to an end, the crowd gradually diffusing. Ice cream and hot dog vans appeared, the sun had kept faith, as Nanji might have put it, and music was in the air. There and then another small meeting got under way in the parkette. This one drew together the intellectual and artistic left wing, many of them known to Nanji through his university connections. It was a lively gathering and many stood by to watch.
A witty young man had been set up as emcee. His hair was gathered at the back of his head in a net, which created the effect of a black beanbag and bobbed up and down when he spoke, giving him a humorous aspect. After opening remarks, he introduced a soft-spoken bearded man in a suit, puffing at a pipe, who gave a short chatty talk about the importance of fighting racism at all levels, beginning with the schools and textbooks. Then a woman in sari, much loved it seemed, was gently pushed to the centre and she gave a personal account of discrimination. She was a single mother, and she, too, it turned out, had been confronted in a subway station. She ended by reading a poem about the experience, then two more poems in encore. Then the emcee read his own humorous poetry, poking fun at the government and what he called “multivulturalism.” Then a heavily built Jamaican woman performed dub poetry. The gathering became calm and the bystanders moved closer to listen better, utterly captivated by the rhythm, the strange yet recognizable sounds, the enchanting defiance. There was loud applause, ending the event with an explosive climax. The left wing, it seemed, had stolen the show.
Magically, a bookstall had appeared on the sidewalk and then a samosa stand beside it, manned by Ramju, the former bandmaster and now chappati-helper of the fourteenth floor of Sixty-nine. An artist, a short fierce-looking sculptor with a Lenin beard, calling himself Young, had cornered Jamal near the bookstall. His works had been acquired by museums in New York and Delhi and Frankfurt. Now he wanted to make an impression in Ontario, and he was appealing to Jamal as a community leader and lawyer. He showed Jamal some photographs of his works, designs for fountains and monuments containing whorls and mazes, abstract figures human and animal, phalluses. Jamal, trapped, could only muster, “Wow! You made these?”
Young took back his photographs. “Commissions!” he said sharply, slapping his hand with the bundle.
“You mean you can make them – ”
“If you get me the commissions.”
“Ah, my friend, in a few years – ”
“In a few years I’ll be dead. I’m suffering from a terminal disease.” He walked away, disappointed.
At Sixty-nine, however, over the coming months a completely new and unschooled artistic career began. One of the numerous anonymous gifts Esmail had received was a supply of art materials. His legs continued to ache, especially in the cold, and he was, essentially, disabled. So Esmail started to paint. From what hidden resources, what buried memory, this passion drew its energy, even he could not have said. But passion it was. The first report of his work arrived when a social worker who came to see him saw the paintings. One newspaper printed a photo of the artist surrounded by his works. It said that he had an apocalyptic vision and a gift for colour.
This was a lot of hype, as Nanji reported to Jamal. “Esmail belongs to no school or tradition. He paints garishly, that’s his so-called gift for colour. And he paints these meek people praying … both his gift for colour and apocalyptic vision you can buy for a few dollars at any gift store at Bloor and Dufferin. They are patronizing him.”
An art critic from the Globe and Mail came to look at Esmail’s work, and hastily departed. An editor from a literary magazine, who had been present at the protest rally, came. He talked for a long time with Esmail, but took no notes and lost interest after looking at a few pictures.
But Esmail persisted, doggedly. He took art lessons, with Nanji’s encouragement, at the Art Gallery of Ontario. But the lessons, to Nanji’s disappointment, seemed hardly to affect the way he painted. He would go to class and do his thing – the instructor left him alone. At most, it seemed, he acquired a facility for the use of equipment. Yet he painted as if there were no tomorrow. He even painted the walls of his bedroom, which his sister would open for exhibit when he was not around. Two of his larger works were duly hung in the lobby of Sixty-nine. Then one morning, approximately a year after the attack on him, he announced to the A-T gathering at the foot of the goddess, “I am going to Dar.”
There was silence. Then someone spoke.
“For what?”
“Holiday.” There was a wide grin on his face, a rare event in any circumstance.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re crazy. Go to Florida.”
Esmail went to Dar, and never came back. His sister, who stayed on in Toronto, maintained he was still a Canadian citizen.
If there was anything Jamal learned from the Don Mills demo, it was that the world was a bigger place, and he had to grab it, make a prominent place for himself in it. The two-dimensional world of Sixty-nine and its neighbours was a dead one, a world to escape from. Accordingly, he took his chance when it eventually came.
First he married a “good” girl: respectable and educated, practical and with both feet planted firmly on the ground as only a Dar girl could be, with whom he could talk – as he told Nanji – as only with a Dar girl. But she was English. Young and average-looking, tending to plumpness. She worked at a bookstore downtown. Jamal had met her at the demo and dated her for several months. She was not taken in by Jamal’s bluster, Nanji could see, but she was affectionate. The wedding reception the following June was grand, so it could be seen as one not to be easily forgotten, a rite of passage to which prominent people of all races were invited; in which a Dar friend, a former socialist and Hyde Park orator turned men’s haberdasher, introduced the bride and groom in a speech delivered in British accent and with much aplomb (in which Jamal himself did not miss the chance to say a few humorous though not tasteless words). After the wedding he took his bride to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to get a Canadian law degree for his eventual admission to the Ontario Bar.
At Sixty-nine he was missed. His raucous, cackling laughter, his sense of humour, the disconcerting directness, his presence among Dar’s unemployed at the A-T in the mornings, his flirting with the young girls, and his lecherous look. Nanji watched him go with a sense of envy eating deep inside him. Jamal was going into the world to conquer it, and conquer it he would if he played his cards right and did not fall. For himself, Nanji felt, with a certain foreboding, that his life had been lived, he had seen, done, felt so much in his own small but intense ways. But he was yet to be stung and brought alive again.
10
Three years had passed since that blustery winter night when the Lalanis stood outside the Toronto airport, contemplating a mode of transportation. Much had happened in that period and there was, in a sense, no looking back. The children were well on their way, “Canadians” now, or almost. There were many new faces in the buildings of Rosecliffe Park, and many others had disappeared, to Mississauga, Scarborough, and even as far away as Calgary. There were a few stories of success now, one of them about Jamal, who had returned and was practising as a lawyer. For many others, Nurdin among them, life simply “went along.”
And then one warm Saturday night, near the plaster goddess in the lobby of Sixty-nine, Nurdin Lalani had a bizarre encounter: an encounter which set in motion a chain of events that would relentlessly take him in directions he had not thought of, open up a world for which he was not quite prepared.
He had returned from the corner store with milk for the next day. Only one elevator was working, and someone was not letting it go. Perhaps because of the day’s traffic, on weekend evenings the air inside the lobby feels spent and lifeless, oppressive almost, you want badly to get away. He was getting tired watching the lighted panel. The elevator was on twelve and would not budge. Should he walk up? No.
He turned around at a sound. The goddess of the building was sending
forth a man. A short young man.
“You Indian, man?” he said to Nurdin.
He didn’t know what to answer. India or Pakistan, what difference? What struck him about this man was his dark face and the bright orange jacket he wore.
“I am from East Africa,” Nurdin said finally.
“I been watching for Indian face, man. You is the first. I am Mohan. I am from Guyana.”
Nurdin was at a loss for words. He looked at the man and smiled. He had heard of Guyana, had never met anyone from there. He had been told they had names like Mike Singh and John Shamsudeen. What do I say to him? he wondered.
“Are there many Indians in Guyana?” Where was Guyana – somewhere near Ghana or Guinea?
Another shuffle and from behind the goddess another such person, a woman from the same place, Nurdin guessed.
“She is my wife, Lakshmi.”
Nurdin smiled. Lakshmi, really – wasn’t that what they called the plaster goddess herself?
“She carrying baby in her belly.” Mohan cupped a hand on his wife’s belly, to indicate. She wore a black skirt and a white blouse that needed tucking in. She didn’t say a word, just stood there looking down, as if in shame.
“She tired, bhai. You Indian, you understand.”
“She needs rest. You should take her home. It’s too late for her.”
“But that be the trouble, bhai. The car is broke down, bhai. Is why we stranded – not knowing nobody and nothing ’round here.”
“Where is it?”
“Outside.”
“Call a taxi. Pick up your car tomorrow.”
The man was silent. Obviously they didn’t have the money.
“Where do you live?” Nurdin asked.
“Brampton. With my brother. You see me and Lakshmi, we is visiting from Guyana.”
“You are visiting! Let’s call your brother.”
“He visiting in Montreal. Is coming back late tonight.”
The elevator came. No wonder it was stuck on twelve, someone was moving out of the building.
“Please. You Indian, you understand.”
“What-what?”
“We’ll just sit. Lakshmi here will sit. Until the morning, bhai. We’ve nowhere to go.”
Lakshmi, Nurdin realized, had been crying. That’s what she’d been doing behind the goddess. Now she was crying again. God, she was tired, he could see that. Mohan put his hand on her belly for effect. Only for her, Nurdin thought. The man – a boy, really – didn’t impress him. Only for her sake, he would agree.
“Let’s go,” Nurdin said. And wondered what Zera and the kids would say.
Zera, seeing them enter, simply smiled, the gracious hostess welcoming her husband’s friends. “Sit, sit,” Nurdin said. They sat on the couch, Mohan lying back, his feet just touching the carpet; Lakshmi, nervous, watched Zera with apprehension. Zera stood there with a fixed smile.
“So this is our humble abode,” said Nurdin, himself sitting on a chair across from them.
Zera finally spoke. “You’ll have tea?” she said to the girl. The girl nodded eagerly, and Zera disappeared into the kitchen.
“The washroom is there,” said Nurdin, pointing, then, after a brief pause, he got up as if he’d suddenly remembered something and went to the kitchen.
“Their car broke down. The girl was crying, she’s tired.”
“Have they called someone?”
He explained. There was nothing they could do but let them stay the night.
They all had tea and chatted. Lakshmi not only found her tongue, she could talk as much and more intelligently than her husband. The host and hostess were impressed. Sometimes Mohan would abruptly cut her short with a contradiction, and she would quiet down for a little sulk while he went on, then she would join in again.
For sleeping arrangements, they let the couple have the living room, Lakshmi the couch and Mohan the floor.
“I prefer the floor anytime, man. The floor good for the back, like I always say.”
With that, they left them. Hanif and Fatima had been told in a hurried conference and had gone away, grumbling, to bed.
Once in their room, behind the closed door, sitting on the bed, Nurdin and Zera realized the situation they were in – a strange couple inside the apartment with them. They could be faking. Even the girl. Suppose, one chance in a million, they were faking. All the incidents one hears of, reads about, the gruesome crimes. A strange couple in the living room between the two bedrooms, between them and their children. Even if the girl was genuine – she had to be – the man was definitely a no-good. His breath. He’d definitely been drinking. And the way he cut her short, right there, in front of Nurdin and Zera, their hosts, unable to control himself. There had been a lie she caught him in, quite innocently it seemed, for which she earned a scowl. And that mark on her mouth, a small dark scar, you would hardly notice, unless it was pointed out. And he pointed it out: “She hit herself on the sewing machine.” Who cared, such a small insignificant remark – unless, of course, he beat her. No wonder she’d been crying. “Another Abdul,” said Nurdin to a quiet Zera.
Even if he was a drinking wife-beater and nothing else, they decided they couldn’t take chances. They would take turns sleeping, one of them keeping watch, giving ear to the snores already coming from the living room. But sleep overcame this resolve, and they woke up with the sun shining on their faces and the kids shaking them.
Lakshmi and Mohan too had to be woken up, and they got up in a daze, having dreamed perhaps of Guyana, seeing four strange faces in a strange room. Everyone was in good spirits, the fears of the night swept away by the brilliant, cheerful glare coming through the window and the balcony doors. Zera went to make puris, and Mohan telephoned his brother and gave him the address.
Romesh, the brother, was taller than Mohan, with a short-cropped beard that had turned white. But he seemed to be about the same age as Nurdin. He walked in, in sandals and bush shirt, with a little grin on his face.
“Man,” he said to Nurdin, “I admire you. To take this couple in without even knowing them!”
“What could we do?” But never again, said Nurdin to himself.
“He’s my brother, but he’s a bum, I don’t mind telling you – ”
“My brother Romesh. He always the one for joke and laughter.”
“What do you do in Toronto, Nurdin? You running a shop or something?” Romesh had eyes that never rested. Even the paint on the wall came under scrutiny. The plastic chandelier, gathering dust. The photograph on the wall. The Masai woodcarving. The wax Taj Mahal. Nurdin waited until the eyes stopped moving, and Romesh continued, “Eh, Nurdin? What do you do?”
Nurdin explained the series of jobs that had come to nothing.
“If you are looking for something, I know just the thing for you.”
“The goddess was testing us, eh?” He grinned at Zera later. Good deeds are rewarded. Didn’t the gods assume human forms in order to test mortals? Obviously they had passed the test, for he got the job at the Ontario Addiction Centre. General purpose attendant, pushing trolleys of linen or tea, sorting and delivering mail. They would have made him wear khaki, in Dar, for such a job. Errand boy – but never mind. The pay was not bad. There were two coffee breaks and one free meal at the cafeteria. The benefits were good. The doctors were not going to load his aging back with crates. And for his bosom buddy at work, he had none other than the suave Romesh.
Not long after, that summer, Nanji’s girlfriend, as the Lalanis called her in spite of his objections, finally came to Toronto for a visit, with two other friends, and Nanji’s life also took a new turn.
Days before, because Nanji had announced to the Lalanis, the whole of Sixty-nine Rosecliffe seemed abuzz with the news of their arrival. Nanji’s prestige rose – three girls coming to see him from America, there must be something to him. He didn’t show anything of course, not externally, but you could see there was something beneath that calm surface, straining under the excitement, th
e pressure of a large happiness.
Before they arrived, he had gone looking for supplies: pillows, sleeping bags, blankets, cups, plates – what it takes to convert two rooms into a home. The word passed at Sixty-nine, and feeling the curious, amused, kindly eyes on him in the corridors as he passed with whatever else it was he needed, he would blush.
He wouldn’t have to worry about food, there were enough volunteers for the good cause: he just had to give a few hours’ notice. Zera went to help him clean his quarters. Nurdin went along to give the final word, but actually to see the apartment. The Lalanis had never been invited before, and they could see why. There was a bed, a TV, which Fatima and Hanif quickly discovered wasn’t working, an armchair. And books. An attempt had been made to shelve them, but they had long since overrun the solitary shelf and were pouring out of it, in a trail that bypassed the two heaps on either side of the armchair and ended in another heap at the bed. There was no rug on the floor and there were posters on the wall, with sayings and pictures of people they didn’t recognize.
Nurdin went and sat down on the green padded armchair. A handsome, comfortable thing, wearing the dull gloss of long use. He sank into it and leaned back. “So, you sit in this chair, and the three girls on your lap.” Even Fatima and Hanif couldn’t help laughing.
“I assure you I can do better, I just haven’t got around to it.”
“When will you get around to it then?”
“Nurdin,” implored Zera, “go with him and find something, please. Unwanted furniture – Ramju has a table – and look for a rug. Ask the superintendent. Look at the For Sale signs. Go now.”