The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters

by Balli Kaur Jaswal

  “What’s wrong, darl?” she asked. “Where are you? Stay where you are, I’ll come and get you.”

  Shirina knew she should hang up, but she clutched the phone to her ears, unable to speak or move.

  “Are you still there?” Lauren asked.

  “Yes,” Shirina managed, and then she gave Lauren a meeting place. She usually had a free hour after dropping Mother off at St. Vincent’s for her weekly physiotherapy session. The Kitchen Hand café on Gertrude Street wasn’t very busy, and it wasn’t a likely hangout for any of Sehaj’s family members, but Shirina still looked over her shoulder whenever she mentioned Sehaj’s name to Lauren.

  “This is abuse,” she said plainly. “If you’re keeping the sex of the baby from them because you’re afraid they’ll force you to have an abortion, it’s abuse.”

  Shirina suppressed a familiar impulse to defend her husband and mother-in-law. It was a cultural thing, it was just a preference, hadn’t she heard Western women say they wanted a boy too? These excuses flooded like a rush of adrenaline in her veins—defensive, indignant, you just don’t understand—and for the first time, she let them go.

  “You need to get out of there,” Lauren said.

  Her determination made Shirina nervous. “I don’t think leaving Sehaj is the right step to take,” she said carefully. “I just need someone to talk to. My thoughts rattle around, keeping me up at night. Sometimes I think it would be easier if . . .” She couldn’t complete the sentence, but Lauren knew what she was saying.

  They talked until Shirina had to be back at the hospital, and agreed to meet the following Wednesday in the same café. “I’m so glad you called,” Lauren said, giving Shirina a tight hug before they parted ways. “Stay strong, all right? Remember, you have a choice.”

  Over the next few days, Shirina received messages from Lauren:

  “Just checking in. How are you feeling today? Remember, they can’t make you do anything against your will!”

  Shirina replied, “Okay” and then deleted each message. She deleted Lauren’s name from her contacts as well, committing to memory the first four digits of her phone number. It was better not to have Lauren’s name popping up all the time—if Mother looked at her phone, she would get suspicious. Lauren was the bad influence, after all, the one who led Shirina astray by enticing her to drinks after work. As the messages continued, they began to bother Shirina. “It would be okay if you want to be away from Sehaj for a while. There are resources to support women in your situation.” While Shirina appreciated Lauren’s concern, she felt she was blowing things a bit out of proportion. There was no need to suggest that Shirina leave her family.

  “This isn’t his fault,” Shirina texted back. “He’s under pressure too.”

  “That’s called brainwashing,” Lauren replied. Moments later, another message came through: “Sorry, insensitive thing to say. But I think he’s controlling you more than you realize.”

  Shirina didn’t reply. Wednesday rolled around. After dropping Mother off, Shirina walked in the opposite direction of Gertrude Street, ending up in the gardens behind the Parliament building. Newlyweds loved having their photos taken here, the brides’ white gowns spilling like cream down the steps of the stately building. Shirina watched an East Asian couple posing. The air was chilly and heavy blue clouds hung low in the sky. Although she’d lived in Australia for nearly a year, Shirina was still getting used to the idea of winter in July. The groom held a black umbrella over the bride to protect her elaborate hairdo from a wind that whipped up suddenly, upturning umbrellas and whirling leaves on the footpath. The world felt upside down in a lot of ways now.

  There were seven missed calls from Lauren by the time Shirina returned to the hospital to pick up Mother. Shirina figured Lauren would give up eventually, but as she walked back out into the blustery air, her phone continued to buzz in her purse. “Who keeps calling you? Why aren’t you answering?” Mother asked with narrowed eyes as they got into the car. Great, Shirina thought. All she needed now was for Mother to become suspicious about her having a secret. “Just an old work friend,” Shirina said. She wanted to turn the phone off, but that would make Mother even more suspicious, so she blocked Lauren’s number and dropped the phone in the compartment between their seats.

  When the phone rang again, Shirina was merging the car onto the freeway. It couldn’t be Lauren, so she didn’t mind Mother picking up. The only calls that came on weekday afternoons were from telemarketers anyway.

  “Hello,” Mother said. A pause. “No, Shirina is driving. Do you have a message?”

  Shirina heard a bubbly voice chattering on the other end. “Just hang up if it’s one of those survey people,” Shirina said. “They don’t take no for an answer.”

  Mother’s face was stony with concentration. “Yes, I will let her know. Good-bye.” She pressed end and put the phone back in the compartment. Rain had begun to dot the windshield and the cars ahead were slowing down. “That was the hospital confirming your next appointment,” Mother said.

  “Okay, I’ll call them back when I get home.”

  “She referred to your baby as ‘she,’ ” Mother said.

  Shirina clutched the steering wheel. She flicked on the windshield wipers and tried to think of a lie but knew the tension showed on her face. “What did she say?” she asked, to buy some time.

  “She said, ‘I hope the little girl is doing well, and she’s not giving Mummy too hard a time with morning sickness.’ ” Shirina could feel the heat from Mother’s stare. “Do you have something to tell us, Shirina?”

  Shirina’s cheeks burned with shame. For a split second, she considered lying but that would just prolong the inevitable. Mother was watching her like she could read her thoughts.

  “Yes,” Shirina whispered. Her instinct was to apologize, but the words didn’t come out. “I should’ve told you,” she said, her voice heavy with regret.

  At home that evening, Shirina heard Sehaj and Mother talking in low voices in the kitchen. Sehaj’s voice rose at one point, but it quickly became quiet again. Shirina couldn’t make out what either of them was saying but when he came to bed, he wouldn’t look at her. Every day after that, the quiet was so punishing, and the house was so still, that Shirina thought she could hear her blood coursing in her own chest at one point.

  Things only felt normal again when they had that tender moment together at the airport. It’s over now, Shirina remembered thinking as she rested her head against Sehaj’s chest. She wished the memory could end there, but then he had given her a card and an ultimatum, and walked away.

  The receptionist called Shirina’s name again and told her to go into room 4C. Shirina knocked on the door before entering. A nurse opened the door and wordlessly gestured for her to take a seat.

  “Mrs. Arora,” said Dr. Wadhwa. Behind the frames of his wire-rimmed glasses, his eyes lit with recognition. “You are here from Australia.”

  “Yes,” Shirina said.

  The doctor ran Shirina through a list of familiar questions. How many weeks had she been pregnant, and how was she feeling? “Fine,” she said, because over this trip, she had got used to pretending that the bouts of queasiness that had followed her into the second trimester were just her body’s response to the soupy heat of India.

  “Good,” Dr. Wadhwa said. Then they discussed the procedure. Shirina nodded along numbly as the doctor explained in a low, gentle voice about the sedation, and the discomfort she might feel afterward. “Since we are removing a very”—he cleared his throat—“developed fetus, the recovery time might be longer. Now tell me, do you have any history of blood clots? Cysts?”

  “No,” Shirina said.

  “Allergies to any medications?”

  Shirina shook her head.

  He wasn’t making any notes—avoiding a trail of evidence, Shirina supposed. This office was cramped compared to the bright and airy waiting room. A slumping potted plant on the windowsill looked like it had seen better days. The nurse
was also apparently an air-conditioning repair person; she tapped at the yellowed unit and declared, “It’s the filter that needs to be replaced” in a tone that suggested she and the doctor had had a lengthy argument about which part of the air conditioner’s anatomy was riddled with disease.

  Was the doctor going to ask her why she was getting rid of this baby? Shirina itched for somebody to give her a chance to explain. He was avoiding her gaze now, though, calling for the nurse to take a moment away from office repairs to take Shirina’s blood pressure. A small machine was wheeled to Shirina’s side, a tray pulled out for her to rest her elbow. The nurse wrapped a band around Shirina’s arm.

  “I’m not so sure about this,” Shirina blurted out.

  The doctor’s expression didn’t change. Shirina thought maybe he didn’t hear her, but the nurse looked up. The band around Shirina’s arm squeezed itself tight, a snug embrace firstly, and then an uncomfortable one. There was a ripping noise from the Velcro as the nurse pulled it off Shirina’s arm.

  “I need more information,” Shirina tried again. “What—what will happen exactly?”

  “Don’t read up about the procedure,” one website supporting women who wanted abortions warned. “It will make you more anxious. On the other hand, if knowing the details gives you a sense of control, then talk them through with the doctor.” “Do you have a lot of experience in these?” Shirina asked.

  Dr. Wadhwa and the nurse exchanged a look. “It’s normal to have cold feet,” the website assured.

  The doctor didn’t answer Shirina’s question about his experience. He didn’t look insulted either, just a bit bored. Maybe other women did this, Shirina thought. They made the appointment—or their husband’s families made it for them—they arrived at the clinic, they filled out the forms, and then they started second guessing their decision. “I don’t mean any disrespect,” Shirina said. “It’s just that this is quite risky, isn’t it?”

  “No procedure is without risks,” Dr. Wadhwa replied. He looked at the clipboard that the nurse had handed to him when Shirina walked into the room. “We will take good care to make sure that any potential problems are minimized.” He paused and looked up. “Your husband’s family and mine go way back. We’ll take care of you, don’t worry.”

  Although Dr. Wadhwa probably meant to reassure her, it also sounded like a warning. He returned to his clipboard before she could read his expression further.

  “You’re planning on conceiving again soon?”

  Shirina nodded. “What if the next one is a girl?” she asked. “And the one after that?”

  Dr. Wadhwa said, “Some women try five or six times before they’re successful with a boy.”

  Five or six more pregnancies, five or six more lengthy arguments with her husband and mother-in-law. Or maybe it would get easier, and Shirina wouldn’t be so hesitant the next time around. Or maybe she’d have a boy next, and this first pregnancy would fade into the history of their relationship, a tiny blip on an otherwise ideal marriage.

  Shirina didn’t know what would happen if she turned back now. What was a marriage without compromise? Rajni had sent her a few articles about the secrets to a happy and peaceful marriage—“SO TRUE,” she wrote just above the link—and “giving in” featured consistently in all of them.

  There were consent forms to be filled in before they could proceed. “Understandably, the forms will officially state that the pregnancy is not being terminated due to gender preference,” the doctor droned. The nurse handed Shirina the clipboard again.

  The procedure was due to start. She’d be sedated, and wouldn’t feel a thing, the doctor assured her. Afterward, there would be bleeding, and she was advised to take things slowly for a few days. Sehaj had booked Shirina a five-star suite at the Hilton. She’d be there for three days, recovering with room service, a hot-water bottle, and all the Hindi television dramas she wanted.

  Peace. Normality. A return home. You can’t come back unless you do this, Sehaj had said to her in the airport, pressing the card into her hand. I’m sorry, Shirina thought as she signed the consent forms. She didn’t know who she was apologizing to anymore.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  How many roundabouts did a city need? Jezmeen wondered as Tom Hanks shouldered the car around another island of landscaped grass. If she weren’t paying such close attention to the street signs and landmarks, she would’ve thought that Tom Hanks was simply caught in an eternal orbit of traffic. Jezmeen didn’t know what good it did to name the street signs as she saw them—she had no sense of orientation in this city, or anywhere else in India, but Chandigarh’s neatly planned streets and landscaped gardens were reassuring. Shirina couldn’t be lost in the depths of this place for too long.

  Rajni was watching the city as well. They hadn’t said much to each other for the rest of the journey, and Jezmeen was itching to get out of the car. She needed some distance from all of this history that Rajni had laid bare between them in this tiny space. The news about Anil was taking a while to digest as well. She wondered: if Rajni was going to be a grandmother, then what did that make her? A great-aunt? The title made Jezmeen want to vomit.

  “Madam, I think it’s in that shopping center over there,” Tom Hanks said just as a bus wobbled into their lane. Tom Hanks made a hard right, and the shopping center disappeared into the distance.

  “Hang on, I’ll make the turn on the next go,” Tom Hanks said. The road was teeming with vehicles, though.

  “We need to get there quickly,” said Jezmeen. “Can you just let us hop out here?”

  “Where?” Rajni asked. “He can’t just let us out in the middle of the road.”

  “He’s going to spend an eternity trying to get back to that side,” Jezmeen said. “We’ll walk and the cars will stop. Look, people do it all the time.”

  “No,” Rajni said. “Absolutely not.”

  “Rajni, we have to get to Shirina before she goes through with this thing.”

  “Your suggestion is that we plunge headfirst into speeding cars on a roundabout in India?”

  “It’s all about confidence,” Jezmeen said. “Tom Hanks? We’re getting off here, thank you.”

  “No, that’s a very stupid idea—you will both die,” Tom Hanks said calmly. “Just give me a moment.”

  Ten minutes later, they had only moved a few feet. Jezmeen sighed and squirmed. “Try calling her again,” Rajni suggested.

  “It goes straight to voice mail,” Jezmeen said.

  “Just try again. You never know.”

  Jezmeen tapped on Shirina’s name and listened to the phone ring once before the automated voice recording politely informed her that Shirina was not available. She wasn’t expecting anything different, so she was surprised to feel a heavy sinking disappointment. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure anymore if Shirina would be so easily retrievable, even in this neatly planned city.

  “What if we find her, and she doesn’t want to come with us?” Jezmeen asked Rajni quietly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She came all this way,” Jezmeen said. “She spent the entire trip hiding her pregnancy from us, and then she got into a car and headed here on her own. Maybe she doesn’t want to be rescued.”

  Rajni frowned. “Why not, Jezmeen?”

  “I’m afraid Shirina thinks this is the only way to fix her marriage,” Jezmeen said. “You know how she’s always taken the path of least resistance when it came to any sort of conflicts with family or friends.”

  “It won’t be the last sacrifice she makes for them, though,” Rajni said. “That’s just not how it works. If they can get Shirina to do this for them, they’ll keep expecting her to bend to their rules.”

  The shopping center came into their view again as Tom Hanks focused on making a precisely timed exit. He cut through a stream of screeching motorcycles and delivered Jezmeen and Rajni expertly into a space that was definitely not for parking. “I’ll wait right here for you,” he said as the car juddered to a halt. �
��And, madam, it’s going to be okay. Your sister will be relieved to see you. Remember what happened at the end of Captain Phillips.”

  All Jezmeen could recall from the end of that movie was Tom Hanks’s character splattered with blood from the Somali pirates who had hijacked his ship. In this analogy, perhaps she and Rajni were the marines who shot them dead. “Thank you,” she said nevertheless as she threw open the door. They were about to storm an obstetrician’s office—any words of encouragement were welcome.

  The air was stiff with heat. Jezmeen scanned the shop signs—the bright blue of Domino’s Pizza, the wedding-card business that took up two floors, and the crowded display windows of the kitchen appliances emporium.

  “There,” Rajni said, pointing. Jezmeen’s first feeling was relief. The clinic looked legitimate—at the very least, Shirina wasn’t in some dingy tin-roofed shed.

  The receptionist’s desk was empty when they pushed through the glass doors and entered the air-conditioned waiting room. “Hello?” Jezmeen called. She looked for a bell at the reception desk but it was bare except for a phone and a green glass penholder. An enormous black-and-white framed photograph of an eye took up half the wall.

  “Shirina?” Rajni called. “Are you here?” Her voice was calm but Jezmeen could see the panic on her face. “What if they’ve taken her?”

  “Where would they take her?” Jezmeen asked.

  “I don’t know,” Rajni said, looking around. “SHIRINA!” she hollered. “IF THEY’RE HOLDING YOU BACK THERE, MAKE A NOISE!”

  The door of the clinic opened then, and in walked a harried-looking young woman wearing a creased salwar-kameez. “Oh!” she said. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Our sister is here,” Rajni informed her. “Shirina Arora. She’s here against her will and we’re taking her back.”

  The woman stepped around to the reception desk as if Jezmeen and Rajni were a puddle of spilled drink. She typed on her computer for a few moments and then said, “I don’t have a Shirina Arora here. Are you sure her appointment is today?”