Six Metres of Pavement

by Farzana Doctor

  Facing the front of the room was a tweed-coated teacher waiting fretfully for his room to fill. James Busbridge, Ismail had read online, was in his mid-forties, had written a novel, a book of short stories, and had been working on a third book, a memoir, for the past six years. James lived in Toronto with his wife and three children and had a column in NOW Magazine.

  Ismail watched James glance at his watch and fidget with some papers in front of him, and then check his watch again. Ismail advised him, telepathically: inhale three, exhale six. Here, follow me. Inhale four, exhale eight. As though rejecting Ismail’s self-help suggestion, James abruptly stood and turned away from the class. The room grew silent as he scrawled his name messily on the chalkboard, his sleeve’s cuff attracting a smudge of pink chalk.

  “Uh, hello everyone,” he cleared his throat and continued, “let’s get started. My name is James Busbridge. Let me tell you a little about where I come from and how I teach this class. I believe that we are all, in some way, writers. And we can learn to write well. But writing well takes work and practice and you will have to write something of your own if you want to get something from this course.”

  Just then, Daphne strode into the room, her heels click-clacking across the hardwood. James smiled her way, perhaps relieved another chair was being filled, and gestured to a seat near his. Ismail tried to wave her over, but she didn’t seem to see him until she’d already sat down.

  “Uh, before we do anything else, we’ll start with some introductions. Turn to the person beside you and tell them your name and a little about why you decided to take this course.”

  Ismail groaned inwardly at the instructions. He’d been to too many government workshops that began with this introductory activity, which he judged to be inane and unoriginal. “This was supposed to be a creative writing class,” he muttered to himself. With little choice but to acquiesce, he turned to the woman with the frilly blouse to his left, but she was already immersed in conversation with the man beside her. To Ismail’s right was a vacant seat and next to that a girl who reached across the space to shake his hand. She appeared almost too young to be in a university-level course and had light brown skin, a shade similar to his own.

  “Hey, I’m Fatima,” she said, pronouncing her name in the Christian way: Fa-tee-mah. “I’m in my second year of pre-med, but I’m taking this class because I’ve always wanted to write and I’m kind of trying to figure out if I should stay in pre-med or switch over to Liberal Arts … and you?” She’d spoken so quickly, Ismail had to pause a moment to absorb her words. He looked at her face, studying her large brown eyes lined with blue makeup that matched the electric blue streaks in her hair. Both her question and her appearance confused him. He did not have time to inhale or exhale.

  “Um, well, I don’t know why I’m here, really. I guess I’m just looking for a new pastime. And my friend suggested it, the lady who just arrived, over there.” He turned in his seat, scanned the front of the classroom, and saw that Daphne was conversing with a woman sitting next to her. He swivelled around again, met Fatima’s eyes and said, “Oh, er, sorry. My name is Ismail. I forgot to say that. Ismail Boxwala.” He nervously patted his forehead with his handkerchief and then cursed himself for forgetting to withhold his surname. He watched for the familiar reaction that didn’t come, and was reassured that this girl was too young to know his name. He inhaled for one count and exhaled for two and inspected her silver nose ring.

  “Well, that’s good,” she said. “It’s good to try new things.” She played with a piece of her strange blue hair and Ismail wondered if she was being patronizing. “For me, though, I don’t know if it’s just a hobby or something I want to do, you know? Like for a living? Not that writers make much money from writing. But I’ve had a story idea for awhile and I hope this class will get me started.” Ismail heard Nabil’s voice in his head, his judgments about which interests should be hobbies instead of careers, but resisted sharing them with Fatima. Instead, he remained quiet, listening to the rhythm of Fatima’s staccato speech. He considered that perhaps he was making her uncomfortable with all his breathing.

  “So, yeah. My story is loosely based on my parents’ immigration to Canada. All the things they faced? You know, like the hardships of coming to a new country?” For a moment, he thought he was supposed to answer her question, but then she continued talking. “The whole immigrant story? And you? What do you want to write about?”

  “I think,” Ismail said, “my daughter.” The words popped out of his startled mouth as though he were just their obedient puppet. Sweat dripped between his shoulder blades. Accompanying his shock was a sliver of relief. Ismail looked over at Daphne and pondered whether writing about Zubi might offer a possibility of change, the kind that had obviously happened for her. She looked nice, just like at the bar weeks ago. This time, she wore an olive skirt that grazed her knees. She had dark brown tights and boots that came halfway up her calves. He thought that perhaps she’d gained some weight, and that the extra pounds made her seem even more pretty.

  Ismail faced Fatima again, and once more felt frightened by his words, and especially to have said them aloud to a stranger. The fear caused a power surge through his body, adrenaline flowing through his veins in a prehistoric urge to flee the room. He forced his thighs to stay moored in his seat, but scanned the room for the least obstructed path to the door. If only Daphne had sat beside me! We could have joked our way through this exercise! Fatima seemed oblivious to his misery.

  “That’s kind of a coincidence, eh? Your story is about your daughter and mine’s about my parents. And you’re Indian too, eh?”

  “Yes, and Muslim. Like you, guessing from your name?” Ismail asked, fanning his face with some handouts, the wind and the shift in conversation calming him.

  “Yeah, my family is.”

  “You must be close to your parents if you want to write their story.” He tried to imagine her as a good blue-haired daughter from a liberal family.

  “Not really. There’s a lot I don’t know about them. Or they about me,” she said with a grimace. “But back to your story, why do you want to write about your daughter? Does she know? How old is she?”

  James yelled out to everyone to stop, directing them to introduce one another to the rest of the class. Ismail felt as though the merciful hand of God had come down and saved him from Fatima’s queries.

  Starting with the two thirty-year-olds with the matching laptops, and moving clockwise, the pairs shared their conversations with the rest of the group. Ismail had fully expected this kind of report-back, and planned to take notes about Fatima, but had become distracted and forgot. When it was his turn, he stumbled through Fatima’s introduction while she nodded to him encouragingly. She went next and didn’t seem to have any difficulty accurately regurgitating everything Ismail said. When she repeated that he planned to write about his daughter, Ismail noticed that Daphne’s eyebrows went up in surprise. As his only true confidant, she knew how difficult it was for him to speak about Zubi. Ismail wasn’t sure why, but he returned her glance, and simply shrugged his shoulders, wanting to appear casual about the matter.

  Once the introductions were complete, James began a lecture on the arc of a story. At the break, Ismail watched Daphne exit the room quickly. He hoped there would be some time before the break ended to chat with her, but when the class resumed, her seat remained conspicuously empty. He watched the door for her return, troubling over what might have made her leave so suddenly. Was something wrong?

  Later, James handed out a dated-looking photocopy of a short story. As she took a copy and passed the stack to Ismail, Fatima touched his elbow and said, “I’m really looking forward to your story.” Her dark brown eyes gleamed and he averted his gaze. He kept his eyes trained on the instructor for the rest of the class, except for when he futilely looked over at the doorway, waiting for Daphne to return.

  Later
that evening, Ismail checked his voice mail and there was a message from her:

  “Hey Ismail. I changed my mind and decided not to take Busbridge’s class. I found it kind of boring, to tell you the truth. I went to the office during the break and signed up for the Wednesday Women’s Literature class instead because they just changed the teacher and it’s this really cool woman who writes short stories about lesbian utopias.” There was a pause that confirmed for Ismail that he was little more than an afterthought to Daphne. “But, hey, you could join that class too, Ismail. Why don’t you sign up? Although, you might be the only man there. Um … here are the details.” He didn’t listen to the rest, and hung up the phone on her disembodied voice. A bitter anger rose up in him and he vowed to quit both the writing class and his friendship with Daphne. This time he felt deliberately scorned by her; she’d discarded him as easily as she’d dropped James’s class.

  That night, Ismail slept fitfully, his mind swimming through a wash of hectic dreams. In one, he was in James Busbridge’s class, standing at the front of the room, trying to read an assignment. Sweat dripped off his forehead, onto the page, first just small drops and then a rainfall that drenched the paper. In vain, he squinted his eyes, tromboning the page in and out, and still he couldn’t make out the writing.

  He looked up to see dream-companions, Rehana and Daphne, in the front row of the classroom, snickering. Behind them, a host of Mary Pinters elbowed one another and rolled their eyes. His dream self was wise enough to turn away, to seek refuge from their derisive looks. When he summoned the courage to peek over his shoulder, the classroom was empty except for Fatima and the widow from across the street, standing at the back. They smiled and beamed admiring looks. Fatima clapped her hands, while the widow yelled, “Bravo, bravo!” Strangely, their applause didn’t comfort him, but alarmed him further, and so he ran from the classroom, his footfalls echoing down the long and empty hallways.

  — 13 —

  Faint of Heart

  On a Friday in mid-February, Toronto had its worst storm of the season. The meteorologists predicted its arrival, and the City had its plows lined up for the onslaught. By noon, City managers had sent emails instructing staff to head home before the roads became dangerous, and by twelve-thirty, everyone had vacated Ismail’s floor. At home, he made himself a Patak’s leftover lunch and watched the snow wrap itself around the houses on his block.

  As he sat at the kitchen table, he recalled how his daughter had been born by Caesarian section after a thirty-two-hour labour during a blizzard in February. The difficulty was that Zubi’s umbilical cord had wrapped itself around her little neck, simultaneously holding and choking her. While Rehana’s uterus contracted to expel her, Zubi’s noose clasped tighter. The young intern monitoring Rehana frowned at Zubeida’s falling heart rate and then ordered the Caesarian, rushing her into an operation room. The staff offered Ismail a gown and mask so that he might accompany Rehana during the surgery, but he declined, aware that he’d be no help at all. Rehana still had a capacity to be generous with him, and she bravely waved him off to carry on. Ismail waited alone in the hallway, too scared and squeamish to join Rehana, and even more frightened to be on the outside, worried about the baby not being birthed safely.

  Zubeida survived her first brush with death and emerged from her mother and the operating room looking beautiful, flawless, the way Caesarian newborns do. A nurse brought her out to Ismail and placed her into his arms. He held her timidly, both amazed and scared of her fragility, admiring the way her head made a perfect sphere, her eyes, nose, feet, hands, all tiny miracles. He sniffed her hair, gazed at her face, stroked her feet. He slipped his thumb into her hand, and with her eyes scrunched closed, her fingers gripped him, claiming him as her own.

  The maternity nurse returned to take her for weighing, and relieved, Ismail passed the delicate bundle back. He’d held his breath the whole time she’d been in his arms. He’d always feared the possibility that he could hurt his little girl in some way.

  After Bill Todd told Ismail the police had found Zubi, he crumpled forward, unable to breathe. When he regained consciousness, he felt a sharp pain searing through the middle of him. He clutched himself and gasped, “My chest! My chest!” Bill Todd shouted to a stunned-looking Chitra Malik to call 911, and instructed her to tell them that Ismail was likely having a heart attack. Ismail wanted to close his eyes again, to will his heart to stop beating.

  The officer turned him over and exclaimed, “Geez, you’re bleeding!” Ismail looked down at his good office shirt and saw a large tear in the middle of his chest. Around it was a spot of red, slowly spreading across the fabric. Bill Todd unfastened Ismail’s tie, opened up his shirt and they both spied the source of the bleeding. On his way down to the floor, Ismail had collapsed against the side of his office chair, snagging himself on a sharp piece of metal that had sprung out of the upholstery years ago.

  Bill Todd dispatched one of the secretaries from the recently formed throng of bystanders, to find a first aid kit. While they waited for the ambulance to arrive, he pressed some gauze against the small wound and Ismail slowly regained his composure. The bleeding quickly stopped and one of the onlookers was directed to cancel the ambulance call. Ismail felt stupid for all the excitement he caused in the office that day. Most of all, he wanted everyone to go away so that they wouldn’t learn about the reason for Bill Todd’s visit. He didn’t think about Zubi in that moment, about her death; he only wanted to hide the terrible reality from his co-workers.

  That was his first panic attack. A sufferer never forgets the first, for the first informs of all the rest that could come in the future. And that fear fuels the rest that do come. And so on.

  And that is how anxiety would become a regular caller to Ismail’s life. He thought it a truly perfidious and effective way for his own body to punish him for his sins. During a panic attack, his fear soaked through his shirt, squeezed his lungs of air, and flooded his brain with terrible thoughts. He believed he was going to die, and he welcomed death’s sweet liberation. Then the attack would end, he would catch his breath, and realize that he was not dying after all, but that madness had overrun his life.

  Once Ismail had recovered enough to get up off the floor, Bill Todd dispersed the crowd and continued with the rest of what he had come to tell him. He spoke softly, kindly, perhaps trying to prevent Ismail from having another fainting spell.

  At the morgue, Ismail didn’t quite believe Zubi was dead. She looked almost the same as when she was asleep; placid, content. He became consumed with the thought that if he just picked her up, she would startle from her slumber, her eyes rolling open like those plastic Sleepytime dolls.

  Then, he would be able to pick her up and soothe her like a good father.

  Inky pinky ponky, Zubi had a donkey, donkey died, Zubi cried, inky pinky ponky.

  The silly song his mother had sung to him, a child’s macabre limerick, was all that filled the vacant spaces of his mind while he stood over her small body.

  He reached down for his darling, humming the song to himself and felt his arms being restrained. On one side, was the coroner, and the other was Bill Todd. “Please, Mr. Boxwala, it is time to go,” he heard one of them say.

  Ismail received a souvenir that day; the gash on his chest created a scar. The scar never healed properly, and became what’s called a keloid. It’s a shiny, pink overgrowth of skin, a dermatological overreaction. A complicated, incomplete healing.

  —

  Ismail didn’t see the widow again until the morning after the storm. It had come down hard through the night, leaving behind three feet of snow. He’d always hated the season, even after thirty years of residing in Canada, but that day was different. As he shovelled the heavy snow from the sidewalk in front of his house, he watched the widow step out and begin to clear her own walkway. She was wearing her long woollen coat and hat, and he shook his head, wondering whether her boss
y daughter had attempted to dress her again. He finished his own walk and crossed the street to help her.

  “Thanks very much. It’s a lot, isn’t it?” She said, speaking with a faint Portuguese intonation and fluency that surprised Ismail. He’d expected her to be like the other Portuguese widows in the neighbourhood; ladies who knew little English and with whom he could only exchange a few words. He snuck a glance at the few inches of leg visible between the hem of her coat and the top of her boots. She smiled at him and he felt a soft flutter in his stomach.

  “It’s a pleasure. I think we met some time ago, maybe last year? I’m your neighbour from across the street.” Ismail said formally, heat rising to his cold face.

  “I’m Celia Sousa,” she said pleasantly.

  “Well, let me help you here.”

  “What’s your name, again?”

  “Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you my name!” he said, flustered, “It’s Ismail, Ismail Boxwala,” he said, and then, automatically held his breath.

  Although he’d never been charged, his name remained in the papers for weeks, became emblematic of a tragedy, or homicide, depending on the particular opinion of the story. So often, upon introducing himself, he’d witness a familiar thought process unfurl before him: Where did I hear that name before? a person might say silently or out loud to him. And then Ismail would recognize an almost imperceptible flicker in their eyes, the synapses in their brains flashing double-quick, bringing forth a memory of the man who’d let his daughter bake to death in the back seat of a car many years ago. At some point he could expect smiles to turn down, jaws to tighten.

  “Nice to meet you,” Celia said, looking up shyly at him, her chapped lips once again turning up in a slight smile, her eyes glowing with simple friendliness. And then he shook her hand, which was already ungloved and extended out to him.