Six Metres of Pavement

by Farzana Doctor

“Thanks, Ismail. That is really cool of you.” She reached into her pocket. “Here, take this back. Maybe this can be for the first week,” she said, dropping the bills he’d given to her earlier onto the coffee table.

  “Listen, why don’t I get your room ready now, so you can get some rest? Tomorrow, after work, we can talk some more. We’ll finalize those kinds of details later,” he replied, suddenly exhausted. He left the money on the table.

  — * —

  Until then, Celia had been clear on the fact that she liked Ismail. Her first impression of him a year and half earlier was that he was a decent sort of man. More recently, her body bellowed its attraction for him. The idea of having a boyfriend, a new companion who looked at her with fresh and wanting eyes, was growing on her.

  But it wasn’t until she watched Ismail haul Fatima’s backpack up the stairs, and witnessed him smooth fresh sheets on the pull-out bed in his office, and offer the girl a clean pair of his pajamas, that Celia realized that she could love him.

  —

  When they got into bed later that night, he stared at the ceiling and whispered to her, “I don’t know how this is going to go, Celia. This girl, she is in so much difficulty — I just can’t say no to her, but it’s not going to be easy to have her staying here.” She felt him cross his arms over his chest under the covers, the sheets pulling away from her and tenting around him.

  “I think the two of you are going to get along just fine,” she assured him. She kissed his forehead, smoothing out the deep-set lines settling there. She curled into his stiff body, her back to his side, inviting him to turn toward her and encircle her with tense arms. It took a few minutes, but his muscles grew supple, his knees bent, and his toes reached for hers. As they lay silently beneath the sheets, she felt him slowly transform into her young lover once again. She pulled back just far enough to look over her shoulder at his face, and saw a twinkle in his eye.

  — 37 —

  Houseguest

  It was the beginning of May, and spring was finally asserting itself. Gardens were full of ripe garden shoots and early flowering bulbs, offering the promise of summer’s growth. Even with the cool nights, people lingered on their porches, chatting and watching passersby until late. Curtains opened to welcome the sunshine. The neighbourhood felt alive again.

  Fatima had been living in Ismail’s house for just over a month, still having trouble finding a place of her own, despite all her searching. She gave him regular reports, sharing anecdotes about dingy basements, cockroach-infested bachelors, and earnest interviews at collectively run vegan households. Her updates were entertaining, but also delivered with a hint of apology — Ismail knew she worried about staying beyond his limit, as she’d done with her friends — and he tried to reassure her otherwise.

  The truth was that Ismail didn’t really mind her living there; she wasn’t as troublesome as he’d first guessed. In particular, their agreement — that she cooked three times a week in exchange for rent — was working out very nicely for him. When he swung open the front door on her cooking nights, the aromas from the kitchen reminded him of the early, happy years of his marriage to Rehana when he hadn’t yet seen the inside of a Patak’s curry jar, and silence and resentments hadn’t yet invaded their home. In those days, he and Rehana maintained a comfortable after-work routine: they recounted workday stories during supper, and then she washed the dishes while he dried. After Zubi was born, they still conversed and ate together, but their focus turned to their baby. Each new expression, movement, or gurgle was an endless source of delight, concern, or evening’s distraction.

  After the tragedy, their dinners became less frequent as they found ways to avoid facing one other across the kitchen table. Rehana warmed leftovers, telling Ismail she wasn’t hungry. She’d occupy herself with the laundry or close herself up in the bedroom, doing some sort of exercise routine. He’d take a plate to the living room, bend over the coffee table, and watch game shows and sitcoms until bedtime. Sometimes he’d find her spooning cold food straight out of the Tupperware while she stood over the sink, late at night.

  Fatima was an unexpectedly skilled cook, coached by her mother when she was a pre-teen, as well as being good company. Ismail shouldn’t have been surprised by the latter; in hindsight, this quality was one of the main reasons he’d continued attending James’s writing class. He’d never met anyone quite like her and, most of time, looked forward to chatting with her during breaktime. Their relationship back then was still unnamed, and mostly unacknowledged, at least by him.

  Their supper conversations were lively, often stimulating debates about current affairs. Since Daphne, Ismail hadn’t engaged with anyone in this way. One night, Fatima announced that she was self-labelling as a post-colonial, anti-capitalist feminist, and her explanation and definition of this identity lasted the entire duration of a daal, rice, and raita dinner. She seemed to enjoy educating him about “queer theory” (as she called it), and he was a receptive audience, tending to ask dozens of questions about this topic which was so strange and confusing to him.

  “What do you mean gender is fluid? You’re either a man or a woman,” he insisted.

  “Oh come on Ismail, we’ve been though this before. There are dozens of gradations within each of those categories which make them meaningless. I mean, I’m not much of a girly girl. And well … you’re not exactly a macho man.”

  “What do you mean by that? Okay, so I don’t like hockey and I like to iron but —”

  “Exactly,” she’d say with a smirk.

  Ismail always believed himself to be liberal in his political viewpoints, but Fatima’s influence left him feeling a tad more informed, and less stodgy than before. He liked to think he expanded Fatima’s thinking, too, most notably when she discussed her parents. Yes, he listened and sympathized, but he also inserted a few grey ideas into her black-and-white thinking, advising her to keep an open mind regarding her family, and to give them time to cool off. He believed the scandal would be a temporary blemish on the complexion of her life, with perhaps a few members of the community enjoying the gossip for years. But he also knew that another family’s disgraces would eventually replace hers. When he felt up to it, he sometimes shared examples from his own life, after Zubi’s death. These stories, repackaged as a way to offer her comfort and perspective, helped him, too.

  Of course, there were a few wrinkles in their domestic life. Fatima was not the tidiest of roommates, and Ismail was often made irritable by her detritus: books and pens left on the dining-room table, sweaters draped over kitchen chairs and an assortment of feminine products straying all over the bathroom counter. He purchased a wicker basket that he used for the daily task of de-cluttering and most nights, walked a circuit of his house with the basket in the crook of his arm, picking up after her. Celia teased him, telling him he reminded her of an illustration of Little Red Riding Hood from one of Marco’s fairy tale books.

  Despite her lack of neatness, Fatima maintained a certain courtesy with Ismail that he appreciated. She allowed him to shower first in the mornings so that he wouldn’t be late for work. She discreetly went upstairs to her room or out for a walk while Celia visited. Fatima even asked permission when, twice that month, she and Ashton held some sort of political meeting in the basement. Fatima unrolled a remnant carpet and arranged some of the furniture Ismail had stored down there — a couch with food stains, the kitchen table bought in the eighties, and some folding chairs — and despite the exposed drywall taping and poor lighting, she and her friends made themselves comfortable. On those nights, Celia and Ismail watched as half a dozen scruffy-looking young people filed past them on their way down to the basement, murmuring hellos and leaving a pile of sneakers and steel-toed boots by the front door.

  “What are they discussing down there?” Celia wanted to know.

  “I can’t tell. Fatima said they are an unofficial university queer collective.”
After a month of dinners with Fatima, he no longer cringed when anyone, including himself, said the word queer. “They weren’t allowed space at school for some reason. Something about a ‘fascist response to their radical politics’,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  He could tell Celia was still curious, because she used a tray full of cookies and juice as an excuse to go down and listen for a minute or two. Unlike him, she didn’t seem to need any kind of sensitivity training to be comfortable with Fatima and her non-conformist friends. To her, they were youngsters who needed refreshments.

  Ismail experienced that month like a vacation from his life. He didn’t step foot into the Merry Pint once and didn’t miss it. Instead, he courted Celia, who visited most evenings, sometimes joining Ismail and Fatima for dinner. More often, she drifted over later, stayed the night, and crossed back in the mornings, quietly descending Lydia’s stairs to her basement room. On a couple of Sunday mornings, Ismail insisted that she sleep in with him, bullying her with kisses and cuddles until she gave in. “All right, Mr. Ismail,” she’d call him when he was bossing her. “Then you’ll have to sneak me back into the basement.” They lolled in bed, devising foolish and elaborate plans to distract Lydia while Celia crept inside. Sometimes it involved dressing Ismail as a salesman, or prank telephone calls that would draw Lydia away from the side door. In the end, Celia needed none of this, walking straight-backed across the street, in through the front door, and yelling out a “hello” to whoever might have been downstairs when she arrived.

  On those mornings when she stayed late with him, Ismail cooked breakfast, sunny-side eggs for Fatima and Celia. They broke their yolks together, resembling a kind of prefab family, a mix and match collection of woman, man, and child, assembled by their strange circumstances. At times Ismail believed that their peculiar combination was superior to that of blood family; without the burden of shared histories, they managed to fit together fairly happily.

  Pressure from their families arrived from all sides that month. Nabil and Nabila called with expressions of “concern” for Ismail, strongly suggesting that he reconsider dating Shakila and cautioning him of the perils of cross-cultural relationships (“Just look what happened to Shakila!” Nabila admonished.) They also insisted that he evict the “trouble-girl,” an argument in which Ismail refused to engage.

  Fatima’s parents were also phoning (and Ismail puzzled over which person in their three degrees of separation had given them his home phone number). First, there was a message from Hassan that contained oblique accusations of Ismail’s inappropriate and lecherous behaviour. Listening to his comments left Ismail red in the face, balancing on a beam of shame and outrage. Fatima, however, seemed to take it all in stride.

  “It seems he doesn’t get the whole queer thing, after all,” she quipped, as she deleted the message. Fatima mimicked his gruff voice, “Vaat sort of man does these things for a young girl?” It sounded to Ismail that she was growing insensitive to her father’s insults. However, she was more vulnerable to her mother’s tactics. Shelina called, sobbing and pleading into the answering machine for her daughter to change her ways and come home. Ismail stood by, watching Fatima sob and fold herself into the couch, unsure how to comfort her. He passed her a clean, white, handkerchief and patted her arm. He pressed the Delete button on the machine.

  Another day, he picked up the phone, forgetting to check the display first, and heard Shelina’s voice, raspy with indignation, filling the air.

  “How dare you interfere with my family?” she charged.

  “Would you rather she slept on a park bench?” he countered, knowing he was doing nothing to diffuse the situation by being overdramatic. He continued, “This is the best thing for Fatima. You should be grateful I’m helping.”

  “How would you know what is best for my daughter? Your opinions are not valid here. You were no kind of father!” She shouted into his ear, “Look what happened to your daughter!”

  “What?” he gasped, his mind filling with white noise. He didn’t know how long it lasted — perhaps it was just a fraction of a second, or many of his racing heartbeats. Eventually, Celia walked into the room, and her presence cleared his staticky mind. “You may be right. I may be incapable of being a father. But I am more than capable of being a friend to Fatima.” Celia took the phone from his shaking hand, and hung it up for him. It would be a long time before Shelina and Ismail would be able to have a civil conversation.

  — * —

  Across the street Celia had no more support than he. Lydia vacillated between lobbing criticisms and offering warnings, which resulted in frequent spats between mother and daughter. After she was moved down to the basement, Celia didn’t make much of an effort to get along with Lydia, her bristly resentment getting in the way of making peace. Except for helping out with Marco, she avoided the family much of the time. She took a new volunteer job working with Portuguese seniors at St. Christopher House, which got her out of the house and occupied many of her afternoons and evenings. Then at night, she often visited Ismail, not bothering to say goodbye or tell anyone where she was going. She returned home in the morning, removed the previous day’s clothing and showered away her indiscretions. She and Lydia could almost pretend she’d been in her basement bedroom all night long.

  Despite all of their detractors, Celia and Ismail rode the high of their all-consuming relationship, basking in one other’s attentions like newlyweds honeymooning in the Poconos.

  Each had already experienced love, imperfect marriages, and solitude. They were too old to waste their time with hesitations and others’ judgments.

  — 38 —

  A New Year

  On May second, her birthday, Celia awoke early, alertness prickling through her body. After over a year and a half of mourning, she was still getting used to waking up and wanting to open her eyes to the day. She untucked herself from Ismail’s sheets, and crept quietly out of his house while he slept. She crossed the street and heard Lydia and Marco busy in the kitchen, their voices light and excited. Celia went down to her room, stripped out of her clothes, and wrapped herself in her ivory dressing gown. Sensing that she should wait there, she hopped into bed and arranged the covers around her. Lydia and Marco soon came downstairs, making a production of bringing her breakfast in bed. She exclaimed at everything her grandson pointed out on the tray: Oh my, these eggs are perfect! Did you butter this toast yourself? Such delicious coffee — the best I’ve ever tasted!

  Celia met her daughter’s eyes. In her expression was a softness she hadn’t seen for some time. Lydia smiled, bit her lip, and Celia recognized the apology waiting to be said. She nodded to her daughter; it was enough.

  Marco climbed up into bed with Celia and presented a large box with a red bow. Inside was an angora sweater, a birthday gift, but also a peace offering in a pinkish-purple hue, a bright, loud colour.

  — * —

  Ismail fussed all day. He vacuumed the house, fluffed pillows, disinfected the bathroom. He spent half an hour choosing the striped shirt and dress pants he’d wear that evening. Then he visited three different neighbourhood bakeries, looking for the right cake. He backtracked to the first one and bought a vanilla cake with chocolate icing.

  He had two gifts ready for Celia and was immensely pleased with himself for selecting them. The first was a silk scarf with turquoise and magenta swirls he’d seen Celia eyeing in a shop window on Dundas a week earlier. She hadn’t said anything to him, but had paused long in front of the mannequin which wore a long black evening gown, the scarf the accessory around its plastic neck. He was sure she wasn’t interested in the dress.

  The second gift was a freshly cut key to the house, a symbol of their progressing relationship. She came over so often, even had a drawer where she kept a nightie, and so it felt fitting that she should have a key, too. He was certain she’d love both presents.

  Fatima scoured websites for Portugues
e chicken recipes and was making Frango no Pucara, a supposedly popular Azorean dish, as a birthday gift. She’d consulted Ismail to make sure Celia would like it, but neither of them knew anything about Portuguese cuisine.

  “Can you get some of those little round potatoes to go with it?” Ismail had eaten them at a local restaurant once and figured they were Portuguese.

  — * —

  Celia sensed that something was up. She’d always been a woman perceptive to the cues around her, and these skills had grown more finely tuned over the previous year; an unexpected gift of the agonias. So, before she went to Ismail’s (for what he said was going to be pizza and a movie) she put on a skirt and her birthday sweater. She walked into a house decorated with balloons and streamers, and the dining-room table set formally with candles, linen napkins, and too much cutlery. Fatima excitedly brought out the meal, and Celia looked into the serving dish and pretended to recognize the recipe.

  Later, Ismail and Fatima brought out a cake and sang “Happy Birthday” to her in Portuguese, reading words from pages they’d downloaded from the Internet. It was the first time she’d ever heard Ismail sing in his off-key voice, and the dissonant sounds made her laugh. There were six candles for her, five in a row and one underneath to resemble fifty-one. The ritual was one she hadn’t experienced in a long time; in her house, they’d long ago relegated candle-blowing to children’s birthdays. But while she listened to Fatima and Ismail sing out-of-tune, mispronouncing the muitas felicidades, she did feel young, like a girl looking forward to a life ahead full of both promise and uncertainty. When last had she felt this way? Was it when she married, birthed her two children? She couldn’t pinpoint it. The song ended. Not knowing what to wish for, she blew out all her candles with an open mind for whatever might come.