by Ali, Samina
“Learning how to care for her husband is not …”
“And no more Qur’an tutoring. I wish I had stopped it the day she told me. Papa convinces me to stay on with work, finish what I have begun, and look what happens while I’m away. Suddenly she wants to stay here, in India! She doesn’t know anything about India. She doesn’t know what she’s asking. It’s you filling her with your crazy ideas, taking advantage of her when she’s alone here, when she has no one else. What kind of life do you think we’ll have here, huh? This life, your life! Four more days, Mum, four more days of tutoring, then we’re leaving for Madras. It is now up to you how you wish us to remember you. How you wish that time to be spent.”
After a long silence, Zeba said, “Is it not enough that you are going, must you now vow to send for Feroz? Leading him there, corrupting him in the ways you’ve been corrupted …”
“Indians have corrupted me, Mum, Indians.”
HE ASKED ME to put on my jeans, saying he was going to take me out for lunch, tandoori pizza. I’d never worn my American clothes in India, they were part of what I left behind each time I arrived. It was not merely a matter of blending in, belonging, but also a matter of what was appropriate.
When he caught me glancing toward the door, hesitant, he said, “Throw on your chador, she’ll never know what you’re wearing underneath. Oh, come on, baby!” he cried, when I didn’t move. “Trust me. I’m not taking you to the Old City Where we’re going, no one will even blink at your clothes.”
As I was changing, he sat at the edge of the bed, elbows on his thighs, both hands running through his hair. It was the way he had sat on the takat that week he was sleeping beside his father. I crouched on my knees before him and took his hands into mine, kissing them, just as I had wanted to that night.
“Why all this talk of corruption? Where do you go when you’re not here?”
“I’m not cheating on you, Layla, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”
No, he was not, Roshan had already confirmed that. “She said one time you were gone a month. You must …”
“That’s in the past, Layla. You promised me not to bring up the past. The man I want you to know is the man before you … just as you are the woman before me.”
The woman before him, of course, was the one he did not want to know. While the woman he wanted was one he had never seen or met.
“Listen,” he said, “Mum is going to some shrine today. If you want to go with her … well, I won’t stop you. It’s your choice.”
I ASKED HIM to fetch her a cycle-rickshaw while I finished dressing. The jeans had grown snug after weeks of sitting about the house—or did they just feel that way, my body grown used to loose shalwars? How frail the body’s memory, how easily it adapted—could be coerced!—and this made me wonder if my husband was right: was I forgetting who I really was? How strange to think that, after years of reminding myself, and being reminded, that I truly was nothing other than an Indian Muslim.
When I heard Sameer’s bike pull up, I threw on my chador and walked Zeba to the rickshaw, then helped her to climb in. Sameer remained on his motorcycle, revving the engine in impatience.
“I’m going to the shrine,” Zeba said to me. “I want to pray about that dream I had. It’s still haunting me.” She stared at me awhile, her slanted eyes the only thing I could see from behind the duppatta. She was inviting me to join her.
I said, “I’ve asked Nafiza to prepare the evening meal, so you won’t need to rush back.”
Her chest rose in a deep sigh, the way Amme’s did, not disappointment, but worse, she was saying she had expected as much. She turned and told the rickshaw driver where to go, then pulled up the vinyl hood, disappearing inside.
I hopped onto the back of Sameer’s bike and we took off, passing her up quickly, though she kept her face averted. Toward the end of the block, I saw the Muslim neighbor’s two daughters at their front gate, thick braids again pulled out from behind their veils; wearing matching lipstick, they smiled coyly at my husband.
THE PIZZA RESTAURANT was near his college, nearly an hour’s drive from the house. We had to pass through the Old City on the way there, and I could not help but search for Amme’s Fiat. Almost a month now, and she had not once visited.
Toward the newer parts of the city, the roads became wider and smoother, the traffic more orderly than the chaos we’d left behind. There were even stoplights, which, to my surprise, were obeyed. But everything else was the same, the same pastel-colored houses, the same high boundary walls and iron gates. The same crush of human life. Overhead, clouds were gathering, but it meant nothing. Each day they gathered, each day they dissipated, teasing skies.
At the restaurant, we sat next to a window in high-backed velvet chairs that reminded me of the ones at the walima. The restaurant was attached to a hotel, and we had a view of the swimming pool. On one of the fold-out chairs, I was surprised to see a woman in a bathing suit, lying out in the dimming sun as I had once thought it so brave of me to do in America, when I was rebelling against this very marriage. The woman’s children and husband were splashing around in the water.
The pizza place itself could have been any around my own university campus, filled with students my age, girls and boys mixing together, laughing and joking, heavy bags of books cast about their feet. They were all wearing Western clothes, moving as easily between Urdu and English as I, the women with their hair cut to their shoulders, much shorter than mine. I had never seen this part of India before, and found myself, even in my American jeans, feeling much more restricted, confined, than they.
Sameer ordered a pizza, then took out a pack of cigarettes. He offered one to me, saying, “It’s okay here. Anything goes.”
It was true, even the women around me were smoking, and though I had smoked with Nate, there was something about smoking in Hyderabad, with my husband, that offended my sensibilities. He looked almost disappointed in me as he lit one for himself. He blew the smoke at the window, then stared at the woman in her bikini, and I felt a dull rise of jealousy. For the first time, I caught a glimpse of what he must have felt when he’d read Nate’s letters, and I knew instantly that I could not be like Amme. I could not share my husband.
I spun the silver ring on his thumb, drawing him back to me. I said, “On the wedding night, you said you’d done everything you could to make me yours. What did you mean?”
He looked at me, surprised. “Mum, of course! She agreed to the match, but got nervous the moment you left for the U.S. Every day for a full year she came to me with something new: ‘She’s from America. Allah only knows what kind of character she has.’ Or, ‘When she takes you there, she’ll make you live underground. I’ve heard these American houses have dark floors under the ground! How will my son live without light!’ And of course she was always worried about what I would eat. Can you imagine, being concerned about my not being able to eat in America when I live in a place like this!” He shook his head, disgusted. “Mum did everything she could to convince me you weren’t the right one.” He paused, sucking at his cigarette, before saying, “She even tried to set me up with some girl down the street.”
“One of those two sisters!”
“You’ve met them? Hey,” he said, reaching across the table to touch my face, and the cigarette smoke burned my eyes. “Don’t take it so seriously You know Mum has fully accepted you. She has no regrets about the marriage. I’m her only regret. Her shame,” he said, emphasizing the word and smiling to let me know he wasn’t bothered by what she thought of him. I, on the other hand, had run my life according to Amme’s wishes.
The pizza arrived, smaller than I had thought it would be, tomato sauce dripping off the sides. It was spicy, almost like eating curry with naan. No reason to tell him, though, when he was trying to show me the America he knew.
He glanced out the window again. He said, “What was it like for your father when he first went to the U.S. ?”
So that was what was on his m
ind, not the woman at all, but the liberties that were almost in his reach. How to explain that it would not be as easy for him there as he thought? “My parents emigrated during the early seventies, during the brain drain, so there were a lot of Indian professionals going over, and they were able to build a community even in Minneapolis. My father used to say that at his hospital, people assumed he was Jewish: Khan, Kahn, there isn’t much difference in the name. Growing up, I remember being invited to all the Jewish festivities at his colleagues’ houses, and my parents just let them believe we were Jews from India.”
He didn’t see the humor in it, as I thought he would. He simply nodded. “They wouldn’t have given him the job if they’d known he was Muslim,” he said.
“No, my father said it was the first time he felt his name wasn’t working against him. Sameer,” I said, taking his hand again, “it’s not so much religion there as color. You’re not escaping discrimination by going there. You’re just entering a different system.”
His eyes took on that look from yesterday—his wife a stranger—not understanding or not willing to understand what I was saying.
I tried to explain. “In school, I was the only brown girl. The other kids didn’t know what to do with me. I was always teased, and some took to calling me ‘nigger lips.’ Everywhere I go, I’m asked where I come from. Nigeria? Mexico? Egypt? When I say India, they say ‘Oh, yeah, I can hear the accent now.’ Sameer, the only accent I have is mid-western. And my first semester at university, I was cornered by this man who accused me of getting accepted over some white student. He yelled at me for taking this student’s spot and said I would go on to take that student’s position at work. That’s how you’ll be seen there, as taking a place that legitimately belongs to someone else.” Who you are. What you could amount to. Even the American dream held distinctions.
“Sameer, people are going to notice your accent. They will notice your skin and dark hair and eyes. It doesn’t matter what clothes you wear or how educated you are or how good your English is, you will be considered different. You will not be seen for who you are.”
He withdrew his hand and took out another cigarette, his eyes darting about the room, at the other students, his former life, all that he was leaving behind, none of it, no matter how westernized, preparing him for what he would encounter next. Was he seeing this? He turned down his lips. “I’m going to make it in America, Layla. I’m going to be as successful as your father. Nothing is going to hold me back, not Mum, not religion, and not …” he waved a hand, smoke swirling before his face.
AS WE WERE winding our way through the narrow back alleys, heading for the great Dabir Pura Doors, it began to shower, the air filling with the stink of gas fumes and urine, dust, then, at last, a new freshness. I covered my face with my chador and tried to duck from the rain behind Sameer’s back. He sped up, hoping to get us home. But by the time we passed the Vijayanagar Jail-khanna, reaching the hill that dropped into the colony, it had turned into a torrential downpour, slanted rain, thick and heavy, pellets against the flesh. It was hard to keep the eyes open. The back wheel skidded, and thinking of his accident, I asked him to pull over. He drove off the road and into a thicket of trees. We huddled against a trunk, his bike parked against another nearby, water dripping from the seat, steam rising from the hot engine. His clothes were soaked through, sticking to him. He was shivering. I undid my chador and wrapped us both inside. We stared out through the lines of rain.
This part of the road was mostly uninhabited, only an old haveli across the way, which had, since I could remember, been abandoned. I had always assumed a homeless family would take up residence, but none had, just as no huts had gone up in the woods around us. A dirt path led deeper into the trees behind me, seeming to go nowhere.
I gazed up at Sameer, water rolling off the tip of his nose, dark lashes clumped. Since I’d told him my experience of America, he had turned solemn and distant, as though I had become his mother, the one who set limits.
I pushed back hair from his face, the broad forehead, the firm jaw line. Nothing, nothing about the way he looked I would change, not even that damn leg. “I’ll be there for you,” I promised. “I’ll help you navigate. You’re not on your own, not anymore.” Words I wished to hear myself.
He looked at me in relief, the coldness about him so quickly shattering, and he pressed his forehead against mine. I rose on tiptoes, my sandals squishing into the wet ground, and stuck my tongue between the gap in his two front teeth. This was what I wanted now, it was not enough what we’d been doing, no matter what he might find, no matter his reaction.
He understood and pressed me against the trunk, then kneeled before me, hidden by the chador, his mouth on my navel.
“Not like this, not here, are you crazy!”
He didn’t stop, my words lost in the thunderous downpour.
I tried to pull away. “Sameer, we’re almost home. The house is empty.” Nafiza, of course, but wouldn’t my nanny be relieved?
“What?”
“Not here, not like this, please.”
He seemed almost surprised at my protest before he stood and unwound the chador from around us. It was a wet rag.
“Wait,” he said and ran to a nearby coconut palm, where he leapt up and tore one of its long fronds. He hauled it back and thrust it over my head, a tropical umbrella.
We jumped onto the bike, and now I rode with my legs on either side, thrust up against him. After a while, I let the palm leaf blow into the wind and wrapped my arms around him, then I dug my way into his shirt, unbuttoned it, pulled it up from his jeans, uncovered his back and licked it, the taste of sweat and rain. I heard men hollering, teasing as they rode by, but could not stop myself, and he didn’t stop me. This was the woman he had married. Enough of these limits.
When he pulled into the front gates, we both hopped off, giggling, laughing, and he was calling me “budhmash” for behaving the way I had, but he had his fingers stuck inside my jeans and was walking toward me, undoing them easily, while I was walking backward, fumbling with his. I stumbled on the stairs, falling, and he pulled me straight, right up against him, and we were kissing, and I finally rolled off his shirt. Nothing, nothing to hold us back today
Then I heard clapping, a male voice. Was Feroz not at college?
“Wa! Wa! This is a better love scene than any I’ve seen in films. The directors should take pointers from you two.” It was Naveed, sitting in the divan, waiting for his friend, no doubt, and what an entrance we had made. A cigarette was stuck between his lips, reflecting sunglasses pushed up into his pile of hair. He started clapping again.
Sameer picked up his shirt from the floor and wrapped it around me. “Go change,” he said, his dark eyes locked on his friend. He didn’t move toward Naveed in greeting, but stayed where he was, trying to stick his hands down his wet pockets. His skin was glistening.
I quickly salaamed his friend and made my way to the inner part of the house. As I was doing so, I heard Sameer behind me.
“Bloody hell, what are you doing here?” he said. Angry, I suspected, like I was, for having been interrupted like this.
“Ar’re, yaar, I haven’t seen you since the wedding and this is how you greet me? I thought I was your closest friend! If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were avoiding me, not wanting your beautiful wife to meet your yaar.” He laughed, clapping again. “Great show, great show .. just like the walima dinner.”
WE WERE CROWDED around the bamboo table, the two friends on either side of me. Nafiza had served us chai and guavas sliced down the center, the pink flesh sprinkled with lemon and pepper, stinging the tongue.
“Okay this is what I don’t understand, Bhabhi,” Naveed was saying to me, calling me sister-in-law as Feroz did. He pushed a guava piece into his mouth and his slim cheek puffed out. He spoke as he chewed. “You are beautiful, I see that now I mean, hahn, you looked beautiful on the wedding day itself, but you know, with this old tradition of flowers and veils, ma
n, you can’t see a damn thing. But now I see why Sameer has been absent for the whole month,” he winked as he gestured to the open door. The rain was falling furiously, wetting the stone floor around it, while pools of water grew wider in the courtyard. The sky captured inside was as dark as the wet dirt. He lowered his voice and leaned into me, “Tell me, Bhabhi, has it been this passionate since he married you?”
Sameer kicked him under the table. He was still in his wet jeans, refusing my urges to go and change. Finally, I’d dug into his trunk and brought back a blue shirt that I admired on him. Those creases he’d inherited from his mother now ran deep across his forehead, a sign I had begun associating with strain, but he was smiling. He said, “Watch yourself, or I’ll make you walk to the chow-rasta to catch an auto-rickshaw,” he meant the highway near the jailhouse.
“Ar’re, Layla is an American. She can handle sexy talk,” Naveed protested, but then waved a hand in dismissal. “Anyway, you are right, I am missing my own point. What I was going to ask, Bhabhi, is this. Here you are, an American, with an American passport, an American education, so why did you come back and get married in such a way? You know what I mean, arranged. This is so backward. Your husband and I used to talk about this very thing in college. All the time, we would say, ‘No, no, not us. We will never succumb to our parents’ arranging our marriage. We will marry whomever we love, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, it doesn’t matter, as long as it is our own choice.’ Of course, we are in India, and when you have a mother like Sameer’s, it is not always possible to do what you want. But you, Layla, you are from America. Don’t you see this system like … like … ar’re, yaar, what did we used to call it?” He ran his hand through his thick hair, knocking off his glasses. They clinked on the floor.