The Writing on My Forehead: A Novel

by Nafisa Haji

  Ameena wouldn’t meet my eyes. But her fair skin was suffused with a flush of pink that I took to mean only one of two things: she was either embarrassed, or she had a fever. I touched her forehead, when she leaned forward for a hug, and drew the obvious conclusion on finding it cool and dry. My father just grinned, punctuating my mother’s continuing monologue with an occasional nod of pride and pleasure.

  “It happened only three weeks ago, just after you left town. Can you imagine? Three weeks ago, when we came to drop you at the airport, we didn’t even know the boy…and now? Now, we have a new son-in-law…a new son. Ameena has a fiancé! Don’t worry, Saira. I know you must be dying to meet him. He is coming tonight, flying in from San Francisco for the weekend. In fact, he comes every weekend that he can and stays with his aunt who lives in Diamond Bar. Though he spends the whole of the weekend at our house. His poor aunt—you know her, Saira, she is Nilofer Auntie, she’s the one who introduced Shuja to us—she complains that she hardly sees him when he comes. Of course, it is not her that he is coming to see, is it, Ameena? He’s been waiting for you to come home, Saira, is dying to take Ameena out. But I told him they had to wait for you to come back. So that you could play chaperone. Won’t that be fun? You’ll get to eat with them at all the fancy restaurants he wants to take Ameena to, lucky girl. And movies, too. Though I told him, G-rated movies only. I don’t want him to be getting ideas. Ameena is a very good girl, aren’t you, Ameena? And Shuja will only love you all the more because of it.

  “Doesn’t your sister look beautiful, Saira? She’s lost some weight, I think. But it only makes her features sharper, more delicate, nah? Of course, there’s a lot of work to do. Shuja’s relatives are gathering here next month, coming from all over the States, for the mungnee. Nilofer Auntie is here, of course. She is his father’s sister. He also has a khala in Florida, a chacha in Chicago, and another one in Houston, isn’t that right, Nadeem?” My father nodded, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “We decided to wait for them before celebrating the official engagement. And for you, of course! Ameena could not have celebrated her engagement without you, Saira. Shuja’s parents have both passed away, both when he was still a young child. The poor boy, all alone in the world. He was raised by one of his uncles. But now he has us, eh?

  “So you will get to meet your brother-in-law tonight. Let’s see, what will you call him? Jeejaji? Or just Shuja Bhai? We should ask him what he prefers. Oh, Ameena, I am so proud of you. I hope you know what a lucky girl you are.”

  We suffered in this way the whole long drive home. My mother, I decided, had morphed into some kind of Indo-Pak version of Mrs. Bennet. Ameena was typically quiet. The shy, blushing-bride routine would come naturally to her, I decided, recalling Jane with some bitterness. So, who was I supposed to be? Lizzy?

  More like Jo to Ameena’s Meg, I decided later, during dinner. I disliked Shuja on sight. Resented his intrusion on my homecoming. The conversation was carried by my mother and Shuja, and I couldn’t decide who puckered up more at the mutual butt-kissing that was its main ingredient. My mother had taken pains over the meal, one of her second-rung dinner-party menus—I assumed she had already served Shuja her best dishes in the first few weekends of motherly-in-law joy—served on her best china, in the formal dining room. A far cry from the serve-yourselves-from-the-pots-on-the-stove usual.

  Just as my resentment peaked at the realization that no one had even asked about my own adventures in Pakistan and London, Shuja flashed a white-toothed, wolfy smile at me and asked, “So, Saira? How was your trip?”

  I swallowed the food in my mouth, along with the hostility that rose up in it, to say, in a clipped and teeth-gritted voice, “Fine.”

  “You went for your cousin’s wedding? That must have been fun.”

  My mother, not liking the flash in my eyes, interjected smoothly, “Not as much fun, I am sure, as Ameena’s and your wedding will be. Saira was so excited when we told her the good news. She couldn’t wait to meet you, Shuja. Which reminds me—we were trying to decide what Saira should call you? Shuja Bhai or—?”

  “Oh, I think just Shuja is fine. Anything else would be too formal. Don’t you think so, Saira?”

  I gulped, again. And nodded.

  Shuja put his linen napkin down beside his plate and pushed himself slightly away from the table as he said, “That was delicious. As usual. Mummy.”

  My eyes rounded. And though his use of the word sounded awkward and artificial to me, no one else seemed to think so.

  My mother nodded, flushed with pleasure. “I’m glad you liked it, Shuja. You are a pleasure to feed. Always so appreciative. Of course the best is yet to come. Ameena has made some ras malai for dessert.”

  Shuja smiled with pleasure, shooting goo-goo eyes at my sister, which tickled my esophagus unpleasantly.

  Mummy was still gushing on about Ameena’s cooking skills, which I hadn’t known she possessed: “She’s just learned how to make it. It was a very good batch. Don’t forget, Ameena, to give Shuja the ras malai that you kept aside for Nilofer Auntie, when he goes.”

  While Mummy and I cleared the table of food and debris, my father frowned and fidgeted, a sign that I wishfully interpreted to mean that he was as sick of this phony charade as I was. I saw how impatiently Daddy waited for Shuja to finish the tea that Ameena made for him—I noticed she hadn’t needed to ask how much sugar to add—drumming his fingers on the table in front of him. I realized my mistake as soon as the last sip was supped, when my father whipped out his Scrabble board so fast that I thought he must have had it ready, lying in wait, under the table.

  “Oh, Nadeem! Poor Shuja has played with you every time he has come. Leave the poor boy alone!” My mother shook her head and puckered her lips again at the object of her sympathy.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Shuja. If you’d rather not play—?” My father let the question hang, clearly disappointed at the prospect of missing out on a game.

  “Are you kidding? I’ve still got to pay you back for that sound beating you gave me last time! No, really. I’d love to play. Dad.”

  I watched, sour-mouthed, as my father smiled warmly and began to set up the Scrabble board. Ameena, I noticed with some satisfaction, looked slightly annoyed with both of them. But my spirits waned again when Shuja looked up and smiled into her eyes, mouthing just one game, making her blush and smile prettily as she helped me finish clearing off the table and sat down to watch the game with a look of melting adoration that was as hard to miss as it was to swallow.

  I trudged around the house for the next hour or so, as repelled by the family scene taking place in the dining room as I was fascinated. Finally, Shuja got up to leave. My parents hovered solicitously in the foyer, declaring how nice an evening it had been, how much they looked forward to seeing him again the next, and how happy we all were as a family to have him be a part of ours.

  Then, Ameena cleared her throat and said the first words that I remember her uttering that evening. “Um. I’m going to walk Shuja out to his car.”

  “Of course, of course, beti. Drive carefully, Shuja. Khudahafiz. Khudahafiz.”

  “Khudahafiz.”

  “Khudahafiz, Mummy, Dad. ’Bye, Saira.”

  “Uh—’bye.”

  The door shut behind them. And my parents were still for a moment. Then, as if tired from the effort of having sustained so much smiling pleasantry all evening, their expressions returned to normal: their teeth faded back inside of their mouths, they slouched forward as they released the stomach muscles they’d been holding in and allowed their backs to assume the natural curve that holding themselves up had forced them to straighten, and their voices, as they began to speak again, lost the polished, musical tone that had been affected for the duration of Shuja’s presence.

  Turning back to go finish up in the kitchen, my mother exclaimed, “Oh no! Shuja has forgotten the ras malai for Nilofer Auntie. Run, Saira, give him this before he drives off.” I obeyed without thinking, running to catc
h up. It took me a moment to register what I saw when I did. Shuja had his arms locked around my sister, one of his hands running up her back and then down again, lower and lower. His mouth was on hers, sucking all of the air out of her, it seemed. They must have heard my footsteps, but it was Shuja, not Ameena, who recovered quickly enough to push away before I reached them. He was grinning at me, his teeth flashing by the light of the streetlamp. Ameena looked dazed, her eyes unfocused, her breathing ragged.

  Shuja saw the package of dessert in my hand. “Did I forget that? Thank you, Saira. So sweet of you to run out and give it to me. You should go straight to bed. You look tired enough to be seeing things. Jet lag can do that, you know.” He was still grinning.

  “Come on, Ameena!” My voice was shrill and scolding. I sounded like she usually did, I realized in surprise. “Mummy and Daddy are waiting.”

  Ameena didn’t look at me as she turned back to lean into Shuja. “I’ll be there in a minute, Saira. Go back inside.”

  “No. Come with me.” I didn’t recognize myself. Hadn’t recognized anyone since I came home. I blamed Shuja for that, and my voice became even shriller as I repeated, “Come with me, now!”

  Shuja gently pushed Ameena in my direction. “You’d better go, sweetheart. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Ameena held on to his hand. “Will you call me? Tonight?”

  He laughed, indulgently. “I’ll call you. Go now, little one. Go with your sister. ’Bye, Saira.”

  “Hmph!”

  His laughter, the sound of his rental car door slamming, and the rev of the engine followed us into the house.

  I WAS THE frequent, if unwilling, chaperone for my sister and Shuja during the course of the next year. Shuja flew down every chance he got. Sensing my recalcitrance—it was hard to miss, I’m sure, with all the sulking and sniping that I subjected him to—Shuja expended a great deal of effort on wooing and winning me over, something he found totally unnecessary with my besotted sister. I went everywhere with them. Restaurants, movies, amusement parks, shopping malls. I took my role as chaperone very seriously, more for the perverse pleasure that thwarting Shuja’s lustful advances on my sister afforded me than anything else. It was a strange position to be in—the reluctant witness to their Mummy-approved romance. They managed to escape my presence every once in a while—times when I would agree to go off shopping by myself, sit alone in a theater watching an R-rated movie while they sat through non-lust-inducing G-rated ones, or stand in lines for rides that Shuja and Ameena preferred to sit out. I didn’t want to think about what they did then.

  My bias against Shuja was so strong that it took me quite some time to see what my sister might have seen in him. That while he was neither tall nor short, he carried himself in such a way as to convey that he was present, occupying space. That the firm features of his face, regular and symmetrical, gave an impression of quiet strength. That the line of his mouth, the frame of his jaw in repose, indicated him as someone who knew enough of pain and loss to be able to recognize it in others with sympathy—a good quality, I suppose, in a doctor.

  He had a sense of humor that was impervious to the withering looks of scorn that I threw at him constantly. Strong enough, in fact, to penetrate the most strongly armored of sulks. I laughed often, unable to maintain my defenses against the barrage of one-liners that he threw my way. But it was a reluctant kind of laughter—resentful—earned by extortion, and both he and I knew that it didn’t really count in the battle we were waging.

  All of this escaped my notice, so diverted was I by the sight of those fumbling hands, those air-sucking lips, whose assault I’d witnessed on my first night back. It was impossible to believe that Ameena, goody-goody Ameena, who would normally avert her eyes at the steamy sex scenes that daytime soap operas and nighttime dramas were so full of, could actually endure and enjoy such indignity. Ameena, who until now had been more than happy with the more cheesy than sleazy kind of romance, which she consumed voraciously in the form of the Harlequin romances that I found stashed away in the bathroom cabinet and under her bed. Stories about virginally pure heroines, like Ameena, who sat around waiting for knights on white horses, or Porsches, to rescue them. Now, it seemed, she no longer needed those novels. As she was making room for the trousseau of clothing and accessories that she was amassing in preparation for her wedding, I was witness to the day, soon after my return from Pakistan, when Ameena cleaned her room out from top to bottom—tossing the Harlequins into a huge garbage bag the way other newly affianced women might toss out letters and photographs from former lovers.

  What I eventually found most objectionable about Shuja personally was that he really wasn’t. Objectionable, that is. Over the next few months, I was forced to admit it—no matter how hard I tried to find evidence to the contrary and regardless of those first, biased impressions—my future brother-in-law was a nice guy. It is funny to think of it now, of how childish my resentment was, though it is not difficult to explain. Shuja—a virtual stranger—had descended on my home and family like a tornado, whipping up change everywhere in his path. My sister was now his love-struck fiancée. My parents were now his adoring parents-in-law. He claimed them as his own. But he was nothing to me.

  Nothing but an unwelcome interloper. The reason, I believed, that no one ever did get around to asking me about my trip to Pakistan. A couple of days after my return, I had tried to raise the subject of Belle with Mummy.

  “Chh, Saira! I didn’t go to the wedding precisely because I am not interested in that woman.”

  “Yeah—but how do you think I felt when I found out—from Razia Nani?! That Nana was alive for all those years—that he’d left Nanima for someone else?”

  Mummy had been silent, scrubbing the pot she was washing with unnecessary vigor.

  “I met her, you know. Belle. Don’t you even want to know what she’s like? And your sisters and brother?”

  “Chh! What has any of that got to do with you, Saira? Nothing! Nothing to do with you—now go on and—and—polish the silver in the dining room. Last time Shuja was here, I saw how tarnished it has become—I was so embarrassed! What will Shuja think of us?!” The conversation had been over before it even began.

  I had also tried to ask my dad about his father, about the fact that he had lost two wives before marrying Dadi. This was awkward. Speaking to Daddy was always a special occasion in itself. He felt it, too, and looked at me for a long, quiet moment before asking, “Why do you ask?”

  “Mohsin told me about it. And that you had a sister who died before you were born. And a brother who died during Partition.”

  My father had said nothing.

  “Is it true, Daddy?”

  “It is.”

  “Do you remember your brother? Dawood Chacha, right?”

  He had shrugged. “Not really. I remember feeling sad—seeing my father cry, which I had never seen before.” Daddy had shrugged again, dismissing the subject in a way that made me feel the futility of ever bringing it up again.

  The past and what I had learned of it seemed irrelevant to both of my parents. Only the present mattered. Our house became the set of a sitcom and Ameena was the star. All Mummy could talk about was Ameena. Ameena and Shuja. Their engagement was Mummy’s personal triumph, the confirmation of the worldview she had so carefully tried to cultivate. Ameena, only eighteen, was engaged to be married to her very own Prince Charming—the just reward for being such a good, obedient daughter.

  “What about college?!” I had asked, some days after polishing the silver. “I thought Ameena was supposed to start college this fall?”

  “Yes? What about it?” My mother had been amused by the outraged tone of my question. “She will go to college as she had planned to do.”

  “But—if she gets married in two years, she won’t finish, she’ll be moving to San Francisco—doesn’t that matter?”

  “Of course it matters. She’ll transfer—and continue her studies after she is married. We’ve discussed all of
that with Shuja. Really, Saira, I don’t know why you are so worried. Shuja is a good boy. Should we pass up a good proposal so that Ameena can finish college first? Why? That makes no sense. There is no choice here that Ameena is being forced to make. She can have both things—a good husband and an education.”

  I knew what I was worried about. That “we” that Mummy had uttered. Should we pass up a good proposal…? We. I didn’t say anything more about it. But it was a sour proposition to have to contemplate—that there would be any such “we” in my future. That my marriage—that any part of my adult life—would be determined by “we.” I thought of Big Nanima, living alone in her little house. That’s what I wanted for myself. Space. Freedom.

  Something Ameena seemed only too happy to relinquish—despite all of my efforts to convince her otherwise. I told her about Big Nanima, about how she had gone to England to study.

  But Ameena had only clicked her tongue in sympathy for Big Nanima—poor, lonely Big Nanima—who had never been blessed with the good fortune that Ameena was embracing with gratitude. “It’s wonderful—the way she’s made the best of her life. But—it’s not like she had a choice, is it? I mean—no one would choose to be alone. To not have a family, to not be a mother.”

  “I would!”

  “That’s what you say now, Saira. You’ll change your mind. You’ll see.”

  I tried to tell her about Nanima, too. I thought that if she knew the details of that particular fairy tale, the truth about our grandparents’ marriage, about how it ended, she might become aware of the risks involved in trying to live out her own.

  “I already know about Nanima.”

  “You know? About Nana?”

  “That he left her? Of course I know.”

  It was not the answer I had expected. “How—who told you? Mummy?” Jealousy reared up like bile in my throat.

  “No. I’ve never discussed it with her. I don’t think she likes to talk about Nana. Nanima told me.”