Where the Air is Sweet

by Tasneem Jamal

  Later, Raju lies on his bed in the dark, gripped with righteous anger. Rehmat is weak. He must make her strong. He must force her to be better than she is. He falls asleep to the sound of her washing dishes outside.

  For three days, Raju does not speak to Rehmat, nor does he look at her. When she speaks to him, he acts as though he cannot hear her, as though he cannot see her, as though she is nothing.

  The next evening, when he returns from work, Ruth informs him that Rehmat has taken the children to Hussein Mawji’s house. She took a bag of clothes with her.

  Raju had not expected this. He had not expected Rehmat to leave. He realizes he was unfair, that Rehmat is a good wife. And yet he wants her to be something else, something more, even while he knows it is impossible. He lights a cigarette and begins walking to Hussein’s house. He does not want to face him. He does not want to bear the shame of a man who cannot control his wife. But he has no choice. He must keep his family together.

  He must take care of everything.

  If something were to happen to him, even for a short period, an illness, an injury, his family would starve. He is close to finalizing a deal to sell off his share of the hardware-and-grocery duka to pay off the debts Ghulam accrued, but even with the deal, he will not be solvent. And he will need to find something for his younger brother to do. He cannot leave him without work, unable to feed his wife and children. He must also continue to send money to his mother in Malia. She is a widow and he is her eldest son.

  As a child he knew that if he kept himself tidy and helped his mother clean the home, his father was less likely to be angry and less likely to express his anger through clenched fists and long berating lectures. He knew that if his teacher gave his parents a glowing account of how clever their child was, they were more likely to smile at each other. He knew that if he could keep his little brother from misbehaving, with kicks to the behind, curses whispered in his ear and promises of sweets, there would be peace in the house.

  As he grew older and helped his father and uncle in their shop, he learned to fix his father’s errors in the ledgers before his uncle saw them, thereby avoiding a prolonged argument and threats to end the partnership. He was a truthful boy, but he would tell his mother that his father had to work late in the shop even when he knew that he was playing cards. He would tell his parents that his little brother had stayed in school when in fact Raju had to drag him back kicking and screaming after he had run away.

  When his father died, he did not cry, though he was only fourteen, and instead took on without complaint his role as man of his household. The eldest son of the eldest son, he felt an invisible weight descend on him. At the age of nineteen, he accepted, without question and sight unseen, the first girl his mother asked him to marry.

  The good boy became a good man.

  As Raju’s family grows, the weight on his shoulders increases. Though he feels himself become stronger and better able to bear the responsibility, a fear takes hold of him. A terror that any misstep, either his or another’s, will leave his khandan in pieces, disintegrating into something he dare not imagine.

  When he reaches Hussein’s house, Raju drops his cigarette and knocks on the front door. It opens suddenly, quickly. Hussein stands, unsmiling, his white singlet covered with dark, wet patches.

  “I am not happy with you,” Hussein says.

  Raju feels blood rush to his face.

  “You send your wife for a visit and you yourself don’t appear until we have finished our dinner?” Hussein begins to laugh as he pulls Raju into the house, his hand in the crook of the younger man’s elbow. “Thank you,” he says, leaning towards Raju. “Every day, my wife complains how empty the house is now that the boys are working with me.”

  Raju looks at Rehmat. She is standing next to Hussein’s wife, Sherbanu, her eyes lowered.

  “Next time,” says Hussein, “you must come earlier and eat with us.”

  Raju nods, his eyes on Rehmat. She has not yet looked at him.

  Raju and Rehmat walk home in silence, Gulshi asleep in Raju’s arms, the boys walking ahead of their parents. Raju does not acknowledge what has passed. There is no need. His anger is finished. He is pleased Rehmat had the good sense to keep their quarrel private. He promises himself he will not be so cruel to her in the future.

  He cannot keep his promise.

  The next time Raju begins to rage, Rehmat does not leave the house. Instead, she goes about her day, her eyes lowered, her shoulders drawn inward, while Raju complains and belittles and ignores until his anger is spent, until he is himself again.

  This becomes their dance. This becomes their life.

  5

  RAJU IS HAVING TEA WITH “HUSSEIN. THEY ARE sitting at the long ebony table in Hussein’s dining room. Seven-year-old Bahdur is on the floor playing with a toy car Hussein has given him. The car is made of wood and Bahdur is moving it back and forth with his hand.

  “This Europe war is growing big,” Hussein says, and takes a sip of his milky tea. Raju is silent. When Hussein begins a thought with a statement like this, Raju has learned, it will be a few moments before he makes his point. “The price of tin has gone up dramatically. And it is going to go even higher.”

  Raju looks down at Bahdur, who has pushed his car under a chair. When Hussein doesn’t continue, Raju speaks. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking there is a great deal of tin to be mined in this part of Uganda.”

  Raju looks up at him and smiles. “You’re going to open another mine?”

  “No.”

  After some moments of silence, Raju begins to laugh. “My trucks are busy.”

  “And Ghulam?”

  Raju inhales and holds his breath. “My brother,” he says, exhaling slowly, “has become a proper drunkard.”

  Hussein is silent, his eyes fixed on Raju.

  “Bapa, look!” Bahdur has let his car go and it is zooming along the floor towards the wall.

  “You have six children now,” Hussein says. “You are a blessed man. Why resist more blessings?”

  As Bahdur scrambles to retrieve his car, Raju looks at Hussein and holds his hands up, as though in surrender. Nodding, he smiles. He turns his hands inward so that he is looking at his open palms. “It’s time to take these fair, fair hands,” he says, adopting the metaphor of an unmarried girl, one whose hands have not yet been decorated with henna, one whose life has not yet been lived, “and stain them red.”

  As Raju walks home with Bahdur, he cannot stop smiling. He looks over at his son, who is walking briskly to keep up, his toy car in his hand, his eyes on the road in front of him. Whenever Raju looks at his younger children he does not feel weighed down, the way he feels when he looks at his two eldest sons, Mumdu and Baku. When he is with the younger children, Raju feels like a child again, full of energy and mischief. Today the energy inside him is overwhelming him, making him feel like running. He puts his arm around Bahdur’s small shoulders and kisses his cheek, the way he never holds his older boys, the way he never kisses his older boys. He lifts Bahdur onto his shoulders and begins to sing, songs his mother used to sing to him, songs he did not know he remembered.

  Later, when they are home, sitting down to dinner with the family, Bahdur stands up and sings these songs with a memory that astonishes Raju and entertains the entire family.

  It is raining. Raju is pulling at a broken umbrella, trying to fix it. Mumdu is crouching on the kitchen floor tying the laces of his shoes. At fifteen, Mumdu is helping his father run the transport business full-time while Baku attends secondary school in Kampala. Raju hears claps of thunder and looks out the window. The sky is dark, the rain falling in punishing sheets.

  He glances up and sees Maliza, the family’s servant, walk in the front door. She is wearing a dress that reaches past her knees but hangs a good three inches above her bare feet. The dress is sleeveless and covered in a pattern. The blotches in the pattern could be leaves. Raju is not sure. He has never noticed the patt
ern on her dress before. He has never noticed her dress before. Today, the girl is soaked. Her dress is plastered to her skin so that he can make out the contours of her body underneath: the curve of her hips pushing outwards from her waist; her softly rounded thighs; the dark circles on her small breasts. Her hair is cut short and water drips from her temples, her jaw, her chin. Her eyes, which curve up slightly at the sides, like a cat’s, are lined with thick, wet eyelashes. Raju looks at Mumdu, who is staring at Maliza, his hands gripping his shoelaces, his cheeks flushed.

  Maliza scrubs the floors each morning and helps Rehmat wash the clothes. She is a Muganda but she speaks fluent Runyankole and Swahili as well as Luganda. She is young, maybe sixteen or seventeen. Maliza is a clever girl. Raju never has to repeat an instruction. In the two years she has worked for Raju and Rehmat, she has learned a smattering of Gujarati words and phrases with an accent so perfect that each time she says a Gujarati word, Raju jerks his head to look up, unable to reconcile the voice with the skin, the hair, the features. Rehmat is fond of Maliza and has learned enough Swahili to communicate with her, to make a request, to ask after her parents. Once, Raju heard Rehmat address Maliza as beta, “child,” “dear child,” as she addresses her own children. She quickly corrected herself and apologized to Maliza.

  Maliza approaches Raju and Mumdu. She is hugging herself, so that her breasts are concealed by her arms. She glances quickly at Raju and then reaches for a tea towel and hurries out of the kitchen and down to the courtyard. Raju sees her buttocks moving up, moving down, as she walks, the smell of wet earth filling the room. He sees Mumdu’s eyes follow her.

  “Let’s get to the office,” Raju says loudly, firmly. “It is late.”

  A week later, Raju returns home in the middle of the afternoon to change his clothes. He spent the day on a haul and he is soaked with perspiration. He sees Rehmat sleeping with the one-year-old twins Amir and Jaafar. He walks down the stairs to the courtyard. Shirts are drying on the line. He will ask Maliza to iron one.

  When Raju steps into the sunlight, he hears a sound coming from the walled-off bath area. He steps closer and peers in. Maliza is there with Mumdu. She is pressed against him, the fingers of one hand caressing his lips, her breasts flat on his chest; he is holding her waist, gripping the fabric of her dress in his hands. They turn their heads and see Raju watching them. The three of them stand frozen, as though they have been petrified in these positions.

  After a few moments, Raju speaks. “Mumdu, go to the office.”

  Mumdu quickly walks away.

  Raju looks at Maliza, whose eyes are lowered. “Leave and don’t return to this house. Tomorrow, collect your pay from my office. If you ever see my wife, you will tell her you have asked to stop working for us. You will tell her your mother is ill.” He is speaking calmly, without a hint of anger in his voice.

  “I’ll make arrangements to find her work,” Raju says once he reaches the office.

  Mumdu does not look at his father.

  “I was a young man once,” Raju says. “I know these girls are tempting.”

  Mumdu does not look at him. He says nothing, does nothing to indicate he is sorry. That he misbehaved. That he was wrong.

  “She is not your possession,” Raju says in a clipped voice.

  “I know,” Mumdu says. He looks at his father. Then he lowers his eyes. “Was she your possession?” Mumdu says the words so quietly it is a few moments before Raju comprehends them.

  He steps angrily towards Mumdu, then stops. “I have never touched her. And you will never touch a girl whom we pay to work for us.”

  “She no longer works for us,” Mumdu says quickly. He has raised his eyes. They are wide, hopeful. He has feelings for this girl.

  Raju is taken aback, his anger quickly dissipated. “She is an African. What are you thinking?”

  Mumdu sits down in a chair, slumping.

  “There are many Asian girls here. When I was young, when I first came, it was different. When a young man had needs, it was different. We didn’t have choices.”

  6

  FIVE YEARS LATER, IN 1945, WHEN PEACE IS declared in Europe, Raju is living with Rehmat and their six children in a one-room mud house at the base of a tin mine. The mine is in a village, forty miles from Mbarara, called Bikanuka.

  Following Hussein’s prompting, Raju worked hard to improve his English. Then he spent two years earning a licence to prospect and two years prospecting. In the meantime, he kept the transport business going. These would be the busiest, most exhausting years of his life. But he would never again feel the hope he felt in these years, the thrill of searching for something that no one has yet seen. Every day, he scoured the earth, the rich red earth below him, the earth he had placed his life in, his trust in. And finally, mercifully, magically, it yielded. Early in 1944, Raju opened the mine, the sale of his transport company financing its creation. The mine was situated at the top of a hill. At the base of the hill, with Mumdu’s help, Raju built the mud house.

  Rehmat and the younger children live here during school holidays. Raju does not want his children to compromise their education. When school is in session, they stay with Rehmat in the house in Mbarara. Mumdu and Baku remain at the mine with their father, though occasionally on weekends they return to Mbarara. Raju rarely leaves. For years, he will live at the mine, for years he will be so near the earth that he does not know where it ends and he begins. In the night he sleeps in his mud house, inches from the dirt floor, the dirt walls. In the day, as long as the sun is in the sky, he digs and scours, coated from the top of his hat to the bottom of his rubber boots in earth. The dust at the mine is always in movement, always disturbed, intermingling with the air that enters Raju’s lungs, his bloodstream, his cells. No matter how much he scrubs his face and his hands, the smell of the earth will not leave him.

  In the years immediately after the war, tin, trucked to Kampala, sent by rail to Mombasa and then shipped to Europe, continues to be in demand. Raju is able to earn enough money to feed, clothe and house his family and send his children to school. He gives his brother money to open another grocery shop, this time in Masaka; the new small duka allows Ghulam, for the time being, to support his family.

  Deep inside the land, Raju finds the beginnings of peace.

  It is morning. Raju awakes, slowly stands up and heads towards the door to join Rehmat, who is already outside. But first he stops, turns and looks behind him at his family: Gulshi sleeps on one bed in the corner; Mumdu and Baku lie next to each other, each on his own charpai; Bahdur and the six-year-old twins, Amir and Jaafar, are curled in a heap on a bed in the corner, their limbs entwined like the roots of a tree. He smiles, lifts the mosquito netting, opens the door and steps into the cool, dark morning.

  A half hour later, the tip of the sun appears over the horizon. Raju is watching the smoke rise near the huts of the mine workers. The long pieces of wood in his chulo are burning brightly. He places his open palms towards the fire, warming them. Gulshi comes outside, her eyes pink and puffy, and sits down on a low wooden stool in the corner of the walled-off outdoor kitchen.

  Gulshi yawns. She does not lift her hand up to cover her mouth.

  “Did you not sleep well, beta?” Raju hears Rehmat ask.

  Gulshi shakes her head and tucks some stray strands of hair behind her ear. Then she leaves to wash, returning a few minutes later to help her mother prepare breakfast.

  Gulshi is seventeen. She will be married soon. Rehmat’s workload will increase when her daughter moves to her in-laws’ home. But Raju has begun to look for a wife for Mumdu. The family will be given back the daughter they have given away. And when the younger boys marry, they will have even more women in the house. With so many sons, his wife will never be alone.

  Bahdur, Amir and Jaafar run out of the house. They are laughing and pulling at one another’s shirts, kicking up dust.

  “Stupid boys,” says Gulshi, curling her lip. She is sitting cross-legged on the ground near the chu
lo, spreading ghee and jaggery on a chapati using her forefinger.

  The twins are scuffling with Bahdur. Jaafar falls on the ground next to Gulshi. She shoves him. “You’re going to fall into the fire! Go play somewhere else, you animals!”

  “Boys, come. Eat and then go and play.” Rehmat’s words are measured, even in tone. The boys walk towards their mother and sit on their haunches in the dirt, facing Gulshi. After they have finished eating their chapatis, Rehmat hands them each a banana. They begin munching, their eyes fixed on Gulshi.

  “You look like three idiot monkeys,” she says.

  “You’re an ugly donkey!” Jaafar shouts, chewed banana falling from his mouth. Amir joins him and both boys stand up and begin pointing at Gulshi and chanting: “Ugly donkey! Ugly donkey!” Bahdur is smiling, but Raju catches him look at his sister, shake his head slightly. An apology. Then he joins his brothers who are running away, bananas in hand, continuing to chant: “Ugly donkey! Gulshibai is an ugly donkey!”

  Raju presses his lips together to keep from smiling.

  “You always laugh at them,” Gulshi says, looking at her father. “No one tells them anything. No one teaches them anything.”

  Before Raju can answer, she walks past him and towards the house.

  “Bapa, Amos is singing.”

  Raju looks towards Jaafar’s voice. Each night, an askari sings. Tonight, it is Amos’s turn to guard the family’s house, the workers’ huts. Raju turns back to face the ceiling. He sees only black, but he knows the corrugated iron sheets protect him from the night.

  “I like his voice best,” Jaafar says. “It sounds like the hum that comes when I put my head under the water at the river in Mbarara. It sounds like something that I heard before. Like a sound from inside me. Bapa?”

  “Hm?”

  “What if the animals, instead of being scared by Amos’s singing, will like it? What if it makes them come?”