A Girl Like That

by Tanaz Bhathena

  THE COLLECTORS

  Mishal

  Four days after the accident, a classmate who lived two blocks away from Zarin said she saw a mover’s truck outside the building Zarin once lived in.

  “I saw her uncle there, watching them put a heavy bed in the truck. They’re selling mostly books and clothes and some furniture. We went to have a look. The clothes were really ugly; you’d think a boy was wearing them, not her! But there was this pretty little lamp with green leaves. It was a good price too, only ten riyals. But Ammi said no. She said she didn’t want anything that once belonged to a dead girl.”

  Death. An event that had made Zarin more popular than life ever could have.

  “Do you think she … you know … killed herself?” Alisha Babu looked pale. “Because of what was happening?”

  Because of what we did, you mean, I thought.

  “And killed that boy with her?” Layla snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. It was an accident. An accident, okay? Her aunt and uncle will probably get a lot of money out of the insurance.”

  Now Layla was the one being ridiculous. But I didn’t say anything about that.

  In the week after the accident, Alisha, Layla, and I met at my house after school every day under the guise of doing homework and talked about the things we knew about Zarin and the things we didn’t. “The Collectors,” Layla called us with a laugh. Which was essentially what we had become. Collectors of the news, rumors, and mysteries surrounding Zarin Wadia’s death, of the bits and pieces of information about her that seemed to be floating in from time to time like debris from an interesting shipwreck.

  It was on one of these days, after one of these meetings, that I found Abdullah up in his room tossing some old magazines and newspapers into a box.

  “You can come in,” he said, when he saw me lurking outside. “I don’t have anything X-rated in here, little sister.”

  I stepped in. A few issues of National Geographic, Time, and Sports Illustrated, an old copy of the Saudi Gazette in which Abdullah’s letter to the editor had once appeared.

  “Giving them to Father’s new charity,” he informed me. He scratched at his beard, growing darker now, fuller. The skin on his cheek came up red. “If you have some books or magazines, you can give them too.”

  He walked to the revolving chair next to the computer and took the books and magazines lying there. I twirled it on its casters. Round and round. “Since when did you become the savior of the poor, illiterate children of the world?”

  “Stop that,” he said about the chair. After a few more turns, I held it steady once more. He crouched on the floor and rested his wrists against the edges of the box. “I’m getting engaged next month.” He looked up at me. “I’ve been skyping with this girl for a couple of months. Even met her in person last week. Father was the one who showed me her photo.”

  I moistened my lips, but they were still dry. “Who is she?”

  Abdullah’s lashes—as long as our mother’s—lowered. “One of Jawahir’s younger cousins.”

  “Nice,” I said. “Does she look like the witch too?”

  Abdullah let out an impatient sigh. “I should have known you would behave like this. Grow up, Mishal. You are not a child anymore. Soon it will be your turn too, you know.”

  I began turning the chair once more. Round and round.

  “I am going to be a psychologist.” I did not even know where the words came from; before now, I had barely given my life after high school any thought. Or maybe I was revealing a long-forgotten dream.

  “Who says you can’t do that after marriage?”

  “I don’t want to get married.”

  “Stop being ridiculous. You’re not a boy, Mishal. The older you get, the lower your chances will be. Father was lucky enough to get this proposal for you as is.”

  I held the chair still. Blood rushed to the tips of my fingers. “What do you mean? What proposal?”

  Abdullah tossed the last magazine in the box and slapped down the cardboard lid. I stared at my nails, at the tiny white spots that marred their shell-pink smoothness. Abdullah had the same spots on his nails in exactly the same places. On his right thumbnail and the index finger of his left hand.

  “His mother saw you at one of Jawahir’s parties last year and asked Father for your picture. As far as proposals go, he’s a good one. Real estate in Jeddah and Madinah, investments in Goldman Sachs. He’s fairly young too, only thirty. He has a son from a previous marriage, of course, but it will be all right. His first wife died in childbirth.” Abdullah stood up again. He moved closer and brushed his fingers against my cheek. “It will not be like what we had to face with Mother and Jawahir. You will have no other woman to contend with, little Mishal. I’ve made sure.”

  His breath smelled of mint gum. Underneath that, cigarettes. I inched away, step by step, my pink sequined slippers sliding over the floor. I wondered if my feet had fallen asleep or if it simply was the shock of hearing my father’s words from Abdullah’s mouth. My father who had assured my mother that she would not be abandoned in the days after he’d married Jawahir—You will keep getting your monthly allowance. I’ve made sure.

  “You are right,” I told Abdullah before I left the room. “I am no longer a child.”

  * * *

  “Hello.” This time it was a man.

  “Hello.” My voice came out rusty, the way Mother’s did when she hadn’t spoken to us for many days. “I’m calling regarding your sale. My friend was there earlier this week and she said there was a lamp. A little one with a lampshade made of green leaves. Do you still have it?”

  There was a long moment of silence, a sigh before he replied again. “Yes. Yes, we do.”

  * * *

  The smell of dal—thick, meaty, and fragrant—emerged from the kitchen when I entered the apartment, Layla by my side.

  Zarin’s uncle, tall, thin, and bald, gestured toward the sofa. “Have a seat, girls. Would you like anything? Water, orange juice, Coke?”

  “No, Mr. Wadia,” I said. “Thank you for offering though.”

  He nodded. “I will go and get that lamp. It may take some time to find it … The house is … It hasn’t been easy.” His shoulders sagged and for a brief, terrible moment I froze, wondering if I was supposed to offer my condolences again.

  Utensils clattered in the kitchen. The sound brought him out of his stupor and he straightened once more. “I’ll be right back.”

  “This is so creepy,” Layla muttered once he was out of the room. “I don’t know why I came here with you.”

  I took in the pale rectangles left behind on the cream-colored wall—outlines of old photo frames—and the empty space in front of us where a television must have been mounted, grooves in the carpet where there must have been a coffee table next to the navy-blue sofa, which might have been comfortable if it wasn’t covered with clear plastic. I brushed a hand over the smooth surface, finding a tiny tear in the cover.

  You came because you’re a gossip, I wanted to tell Layla. You came because you wanted to know more about Zarin, like me. Like everyone else.

  I slid my pinkie under the tear to feel the fabric underneath, contemplating if I ought to speak my mind. It wouldn’t be the first time that I’d done it to shut Layla up.

  But today I bit my tongue. Zarin’s apartment building was at least ten kilometers away from our house, and there was no way I could have asked Abdullah to bring me here. In Abdullah’s absence Layla’s brother, or more realistically Layla, who I’d asked for the favor, was my ride to and from Zarin’s house. Layla’s brother had offered to wait outside the building while we went in to get the lamp. “Don’t think it would be a good idea if so many of us went in,” he’d said. “We’re strangers, not family.”

  And, on seeing Zarin’s uncle, I’d known he was right. Shadows lurked in each corner of the dimly lit room, trapezoids on the floor from cardboard boxes in various stages of packing. A hard nudge to my side had me turning to face Layla and someone e
lse—a woman wearing red and gold bangles and a flowered nightgown. From the dazed look in her eyes, I guessed that she might have wandered into the room by accident.

  There was no doubt in my mind that this was Zarin’s aunt. The woman’s face was longer and bonier, but they shared the same nose and mouth, the same petite frame. It was like seeing Zarin again through a slightly distorted lens. She squinted at the both of us from behind gold round-framed glasses and tilted her head to the side.

  “Zarin’s friends?” she asked, and for a second I thought Zarin herself was speaking to us, with that cool, mocking lilt to her voice.

  “No,” Layla replied, her voice strained with politeness. “We’re her classmates. Here for the sale.”

  Mrs. Wadia muttered something under her breath that sounded a lot like “Scavengers,” and looked up at the ceiling. “That would be a first,” she said, addressing the ceiling. “For her to have had girls for friends. Right, Dina?”

  Dina? Layla mouthed, but I shook my head. The silence that filled our responses was nearly as thick as the scent of the food from the kitchen.

  As if sensing our presence in her living room again, she turned back to us. “Where are my manners? You must be hungry.”

  “No, Mrs. Wadia, we’re—”

  “Stay right there.”

  When she disappeared into the kitchen again, Layla stood up. “I’ve had enough, Mishal. Let’s go. It’s taking too long and this is too weird. You can get a lamp from anywhere else.”

  Years later, I wished that I’d moved faster. That I’d stood up then and there and left the apartment without a backward glance. As it was, I remained indecisive, creeped-out the way Layla was, but perversely, undeniably fascinated the way most people were while watching another person unravel. I was thinking of a way to convince Layla to stay when Zarin’s aunt returned, holding two plates filled with rice and the orange-yellow dal we’d been smelling ever since we’d entered the apartment.

  She eyed Layla, who sat back down, her face flushing, and then handed one plate to each of us. There were no spoons or forks, but neither Layla nor I asked for any.

  Mrs. Wadia’s hands rose and quavered in the air. “On the fourth day after death, tradition requires that I cook dhansak. With three different types of lentils, mutton, pumpkin puree, and brown rice. Why are you looking at me like that, girls? Eat. Eat.”

  Layla did not touch her plate. But when Mrs. Wadia focused her gaze on me, I hastily dipped three fingers into the mound of rice and took a small bite. The soft, gravy-laden morsel, delicious as it was, stuck to the inside of my throat like phlegm.

  “‘Chew, child,’ they told me when my grandfather died,” Mrs. Wadia said, her voice growing soft, reminiscent. “‘It will not do if you forget to eat.’ But tell me, girls. Can you eat when the only person you loved had passed away and left you to live this life with the older sister you hated?”

  Layla shifted next to me, her discomfort palpable even though we weren’t touching.

  “Girls, you are in luck, I…” Zarin’s uncle appeared in the living room, his voice trailing off when he saw his wife perched on the sofa arm, the barely touched plates of dhansak on our laps.

  “Khorshed.” His fingers tightened around the base of the small lamp he was holding. “What are you doing, dear?”

  “They must eat.” Her laughter crept up my back, made the fine hairs on my neck rise. “There is too much of it. Who else will eat this food?”

  Layla and I put aside the plates and rose as one. “I think we should go. We’re very sorry,” I said. I could feel Layla glaring at me, and I knew she was angry with me for bringing her here, for making her stay. I didn’t blame her. I was angry with myself.

  Mr. Wadia thrust the lamp he was holding in my direction. It wasn’t even in a box. “Here. For you. Have it as a gift.”

  For free. I swallowed hard even though there was nothing in my mouth and for a moment, I didn’t even want to take it, as pretty as it was with the crystal glass shade and thin gold base.

  But my hands made the decision for me, reaching out, curving around the cool fixture. “Thank you,” I managed to say.

  “Good day, girls,” Zarin’s uncle told us, but I barely heard him.

  “Dhansak was her favorite!” Mrs. Wadia cried out. “Her favorite! So why is she not here, Rusi? Why does she not come back?”

  * * *

  “I can’t believe you didn’t take me with you!” Alisha whined when she found out about the lamp. “I wanted to come as well!”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to sound sorry about it even though I wasn’t. “I … forgot.”

  The old Mishal would have made up a lie and then added more to get the other girl off her back. She would have talked about the apartment and pretended that she’d actually stepped into Zarin’s old room. She would have made fun of Zarin’s unhinged aunt, her helpless uncle. She would have inserted a punch line about the dhansak. A good funeral dinner, she would have called it.

  My gaze fell on the lamp again. I said nothing.

  Time passed and eventually dissolved the little friendship we’d struck up over the memory of a girl none of us had really known. I lost touch with mostly everyone, except Layla, when I left to study psychology in Riyadh (after successively and accidentally pouring cups of scalding-hot tea down the thobs of three “eligible Saudi bachelors” and one across the skirt of Abdullah’s fiancée when she came to see him, pleased to see Abdullah’s pretty white skin turn an angry red).

  “How dare you?” Father had said, raising his hand to hit me when he found out about what I’d done to the suitors.

  “How dare you?” Mother had said, emerging suddenly from her room and slapping his hand away. “Even a qadi asks a bride if she wishes to marry a man, and you dare force my daughter into a marriage she does not want?”

  Father was so shocked to see Mother after so many years that he backed away at once. Mother turned to me. “I heard you that day. At the door. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Mishal. I’ve been a bad mother. Haven’t I?”

  “Yes. You have,” I told her, before promptly bursting into tears.

  This time, however, I wasn’t in my room alone. This time, Mother’s arms wound around me, frailer than before, but there. Surprisingly, miraculously there.

  It was strange to see Mother rise from her stupor and begin playing the role of parent again, asking to check my homework like I was seven, even scolding Abdullah once for coming home late. It was strange to tell her of my decision to study psychology and show her the university brochures Layla had given me. I would be alone, I knew. In a different city, perhaps a different country. But at least I would be alone on my own terms.

  “It will be fine,” Mother said softly, and for a moment I saw her again—the woman who had played with Abdullah and me, who had scolded me for my misbehavior, whose eyes now held a shimmer of pride. “You will be fine.”

  Mother helped me pack the lamp, which I took with me to Riyadh, first, and later to London, on scholarship. While I was away, she divorced Father and moved back to Lucknow. Abdullah’s first fiancée left him and he got married to another girl. Time happened as well. Time smoothed out some of the cracks in our relationship, brought us back on talking, texting, and skyping terms.

  “Hey. Do you remember Rizvi? From school?” Abdullah said one morning over Skype.

  “Your friend?” I asked, pretending ignorance, even though inwardly I felt myself wince.

  “Yeah. Remember how the girls loved him?” Abdullah’s smile was weak under his beard. “Well, his mom e-mailed me last week. He’s dead.”

  “What?” My carefully feigned indifference crumbled under the shock of the news. “What do you mean? I mean, how?”

  “They found him next to a Dumpster in a back alley in Hyderabad. Drugs. Crack cocaine to be specific.”

  Both of us were silent for a minute.

  “I saw him, you know,” Abdullah said. “A couple of years ago. He was living at a friend’s pla
ce. His dad threw him out of the house after Farhan tried to knife him for not giving him drug money.”

  The news shouldn’t have surprised me, but I still felt stunned by it. So the rumors had been true. Those stories about him and Bilal and … I shook my head. What was the point? He was dead now.

  “When I met him, he was so high he barely knew who I was.” Abdullah’s voice grew quiet, thoughtful. “But then he looked up. Just once. And he said, ‘Ya Aboody, I messed up, didn’t I? With Nadia. Aliya. Zarin. With all those girls. I see them in my dreams. The drugs, the drugs bring those memories back. But I can’t live without those either. I guess this is my punishment, huh?’”

  “Wow,” I said, unable to come up with anything better.

  “Yeah.” Abdullah’s frown deepened. “Later, he started begging me for money. I was so repulsed. And yet, I pitied him. So I gave him whatever was in my wallet. It was the last time I saw him.”

  I said nothing. Eventually Abdullah changed the subject and we began discussing other things. But Rizvi’s death and his confession stayed on my mind.

  So much so that hours later, when I looked up at the night sky, I wondered if she knew. Did dead people know these things?

  The lamp, in general, was finicky, as temperamental as its owner had been. There were nights when it stung me if I got too close (the crystal could heat up rather quickly), or times when the bulb refused to light up, no matter how hard I pressed on the switch. Yet the night I found out about Rizvi’s death, it worked without any problems. I fell asleep on my back, my hands cupping the back of my head, my gaze raised to the ceiling, where the crystals showered green and yellow bursts of color against the darkness.

  EPILOGUE

  Zarin

  “Do you remember the first time you ever felt rain on your face?” Porus asked me. “I remember being a boy then. In a boat with Pappa. There was a light drizzle. I asked Pappa the most foolish question then—is there a sea in the sky?”