by Shamim Sarif
“It’ll be over soon,” she said. “In the meantime, have some tea.”
Omar went directly to the doorway that led into the shop, to check for customers.
“There’s nobody there,” Farah informed him from the kitchen. “I don’t know who you think is going to come flooding in to buy groceries at this time of the day.” She glanced from the window at the empty landscape beyond the shop. “Or at any time,” she added, with distaste.
She turned to offer him tea, but her tone had needled him, and he had already gone into the shop and busied himself so that he would not have to see her in Miriam’s kitchen. Within a few minutes, though, she followed him in, and came directly to where he stood behind the counter. He looked at her, surprised. She deposited a cup of grey-looking tea beside him, and then touched his shirt.
“You have a button missing,” she said, and looked up into his face, her fingertip resting on the tiny piece of thread that frayed out from the shirt. She looked around.
“Where is the boy?” she asked.
“Robert?”
“Of course.”
He almost lied and told her that he was working outside and might come in at any moment, but she seemed to have immobilised him with that one brazen touch of her finger.
“He’s gone to visit his family. Until tomorrow.”
This finger, this touch of his shirt was a liberty his own sister would not have taken, and Omar found that he could not move. They faced each other, unmoving, for a long moment, like silent adversaries, but she did not remove her hand, only let it move slowly down the thin material.
“I should check the others,” she said, watching his eyes carefully, and he looked down and waited while her finger paused at each button in turn, her touch becoming firmer and bolder with each stop. He closed his eyes, and tried to think of his wife, but she appeared to him now in his mind as a stranger, someone whose features he could conjure up in a moment, but whose thoughts were a mystery to him. He had never known how to speak to her, how to hold a conversation with her—or with any woman. He was not a good listener by nature, even with other men, nor had he been brought up to regard a woman as a real companion of any kind.
Farah’s hand was at his belt now, and he breathed in sharply and turned away from the smell of her perfume, applied with too liberal a hand that morning.
“What are you doing?” he asked her, his tone bad-tempered.
She gave a slight, mocking sound. “Has it been so long that you don’t know any more?”
He pulled away slightly, made stronger by her sarcasm, which was a grating reminder of all that he disliked about her; but she stepped towards him again, her hands moving downwards.
“I don’t suppose she lets you touch her when she’s pregnant, does she?” Farah asked.
Omar said nothing.
“It’s difficult anyway when a woman is that size.” She took hold of his hand put it around her waist and leaned against him, and he closed his eyes so that he couldn’t see her. He could see nothing, could only feel the plumpness of her breasts pushing against him.
“Has it been a long time?” she asked again, and again he would not answer, but was stunned at her boldness. He was no longer angry, but his mouth was dry and he felt dizzy. He frowned, and drew her to him with the hand that was imprisoned behind her, and pulled her roughly into the back room.
Farah was gone by the time the children arrived back from school. Omar had not been able to bear the sight of her after a while, and had made her leave, but even now there seemed to be no escape. Her too sweet perfume lingered about him, on his clothes, on his skin, and he went upstairs to try to wash off whatever he could of the smell. He did not think about what he had done, nor did he think about the date he had made with her for the following Tuesday, when he would be due to drive into Pretoria for business anyway. He did not think about his brother, working away from home as a fruit trader in Johannesburg all week, but the thought of his own wife pushed into his mind, for he could hear her in the bedroom, struggling hard with the delivery. He reasoned to himself that it would be a relief for Miriam if he took his sexual requirements elsewhere for although she never protested, she rarely seemed welcoming of his advances any more, or satisfied by them, and he knew he was usually too quick for her. He did not know what to do to please her, and it was not a topic they could ever discuss. His sister-in-law seemed only too happy with him, though, and it felt reassuring to be wanted by someone, even Farah. He splashed off the remains of the coal soap with lukewarm water and went back down to the shop.
He had forgotten about his children coming home from school. As he entered the shop, they were running up the stairs of the stoep, racing each other. They stopped dead at the entrance, their wide brown eyes scanning the room for their mother. When their search was unsuccessful, their gazes reverted back to him, and he watched them also and wondered inwardly what he would do with them until their bedtime. They seemed reluctant to enter into the room where there was only this familiar but unknown man awaiting them.
“Do you live here?” he asked, after a moment.
Sam and Alisha looked at each other as if conferring.
“Yes,” said Alisha, finally, for though she was the younger, she was also the bolder of the two. Both children giggled.
“Then you should come in,” said Omar, as though they were guests who had arrived for tea.
He turned and went into the kitchen, and the children followed him. He looked around, trying to remember whether they ate when they came home, or what it was that they did. As he strode about, looking at the bread from that morning’s breakfast, and opening the saucepan of food Farah had left, an idea occurred to him. He turned to the children, who were watching his movements with some interest.
“Homework,” he said, with a slight air of triumph. “That’s what you do when you come home, isn’t it?”
Sam nodded.
“Good,” said Omar, more to himself than to them, and he picked up the plates that had remained on the table since breakfast, and placed them in the sink, where Robert would wash them when he returned the next day. He disliked mess, it disoriented him, and he wrapped up the bread in waxed paper, and straightened the bench. He then pointed at it and the children sat down, reluctantly taking their books from their satchels. Once they were sitting down, Alisha spoke.
“I don’t have any homework.”
“Why not?”
“I’m only four,” she informed him. “You don’t get homework until big school.”
“Oh.”
Alisha regarded her father, and seemed to feel some pity for his confusion.
“I can make a picture,” she offered. “With my crayons.”
Omar looked pleased. “Good,” he said, and he waited while they arranged themselves at the end of the kitchen table.
“Where’s Mummy?” his son asked, and Omar stared at him. He had not anticipated this most obvious of questions and he was unsure of how to answer.
“She’s upstairs,” he said, a moment before they heard Miriam shout in pain. The children looked at him, fearful. Sam began to cry. Omar stared at them, uncertain of what to do.
“What are you crying for?” he asked his son finally. He was answered by a continued sobbing, and he saw his daughter’s mouth begin to tremble.
“She’s fine,” he said, desperately. “You mother is fine. She’s having the baby, that’s all.”
The crying stopped, to be replaced with wonderment at this unexpected development.
“Why is the baby hurting Mummy?” asked Alisha. Omar sighed, and sat down at the table. He passed his hands through his hair and thought hard.
“It’s not hurting her,” he said, talking firmly over the sounds emanating from upstairs. “It’s just that having the baby is a bit difficult. It won’t be long. You’ll see.”
Sam watched his father closely. “Is that how Mummy felt when she had me?”
Omar nodded, and the child’s eyes began to fill up again.
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“No!” he said, backpedalling as quickly as he could. “I mean, it was difficult for your mother, but she didn’t mind, because she had you—and Alisha—afterwards.”
“How small was I, Daddy?”
The word “Daddy” seemed to surprise Omar for a moment—it had been a long time since he had heard it. It had been a long time since he had spoken to either of his children except to give them an order. He looked at his daughter, with her short hair and huge dark eyes and button nose. That was his wife’s child, he thought to himself—the resemblance was astounding. He held his hands about a foot apart.
“You were about this big,” he said. “With the smallest toes in the world.”
This made the children laugh, and Sam wanted to know who had been bigger as a newborn. Omar had no idea, but he told the boy that he had been the biggest, and that that was because he was a boy and because he would grow up tall and strong.
“So will I,” said Alisha, and Omar looked at her, surprised at the feisty tone of his daughter’s words.
There was a thumping above them as Mrs Benjamin began her descent.
“Hello, Mister Husband!” she called as soon as the family were in sight. She gazed with great satisfaction at the three of them sitting around the table. “Or should I say, Mister Father!”
Omar stood up, and the old lady nodded. “Yes, it’s all over, everything’s fine, they’re both tip-top.”
“Is it a boy?” he asked.
“What a question!” Mrs Benjamin exclaimed, glancing at Alisha. Omar looked down at his feet.
“It’s a beautiful, healthy girl,” she told him, and he nodded and looked to his children, but they offered no support; they only looked back, waiting for some sign from him. He turned back to Mrs Benjamin, forced a smile, and tried to mutter something approving, before she told him to go upstairs and see his wife.
Chapter Six
Delhof
May 1953
They rose earlier than usual on the first Sunday in May, to journey to Pretoria for lunch with Omar’s family. During the previous week, Miriam had found out that Rehmat, Omar’s other sister, was due to arrive back in South Africa. Since her marriage, she had heard nothing of Rehmat from her husband, and all her information had been gleaned from the slim shards of gossip passed to her secretly by Farah. In fact, Miriam had almost forgotten that she had ever existed at all, which was a state of affairs her husband seemed to prefer. Unexpectedly, however, Rehmat had sent her brother a short letter from Paris, a slim airmail missive that had stood out from the sturdy brown envelopes of their usual mail like a delicate blue flower. Miriam had admired the exotic stamps and the words “Par Avion” that were stamped across the paper, and had pictured the letter being written with a silver fountain pen upon a polished wooden bureau in a tasteful French salon so very far away. She had looked to Omar for an explanation, but he had only frowned as he ripped open the letter, and had frowned harder after reading the meagre lines. It was only three days later that he told her that his sister Rehmat would be arriving in Pretoria that weekend.
This lunch was to welcome her, but it was not to be a large, extended affair; there was to be no showing off, or overt demonstrations of devotion for the benefit of friends and neighbours. It would be only the brothers and their wives, and Jehan in her back room. Still, considering that her in-laws all seemed to spend their lives pretending that she did not exist, Miriam was amazed that any effort was being made at all in Rehmat’s honour, but she was curious to see her other sister-in-law. She had seen her picture once. It was a photograph that stood on a chipped coffee table in Sadru’s house, on a hand-crocheted doily that was yellowed from the shafts of sunlight that had fallen onto it everyday over the past two decades. The picture was fading too, and had two illegible words scrawled in one corner—a date and a place perhaps. Omar, Sadru and Rehmat were standing against a car, squinting into the sun. Omar was smiling, his arms crossed as he leaned back—he must have been about nineteen, and Rehmat was watching him, laughing, her face in profile showing the planes of angular cheekbones and a straight, pointed nose. Miriam had looked at that picture so often, for there were many aspects that drew her to it—the feeling of the sun on those young, laughing people, or perhaps her husband’s relaxed attitude, so alien to her.
She did not dare to question Omar too much, but she did venture to ask about Rehmat one night as they lay in the cool darkness of their bedroom waiting for sleep. She had waited to see if he would reply, but he said nothing for a few moments; then he simply stated that Rehmat had always refused to take on her responsibilities, that she had driven their mother to her grave with her strange notions and continually spoken back to their father. She had felt their father’s belt more than the rest of them put together—but what did she expect when she read so many smart books and then thought that she was smarter than everyone else?
“Where has she been for so long?” asked Miriam. This was the longest paragraph her husband had spoken to her for some time, and she liked it, this possibility of conversation. Carefully, as though trying to grasp a small but slippery fish, Miriam asked her quiet question.
“Europe. France.” He turned over, so that his back was to her.
“Paris,” Miriam had said softly, almost involuntarily, and he had turned to frown at her.
“Yes. How do you know?”
“Farah told me.”
He had not replied, only muttered something unintelligible and had turned again and tried to sleep.
“She went there with her husband?”
Omar turned again and viewed his wife over his shoulder, as though she were a stranger.
“She went to get married.”
“A professor?” said Miriam.
“Yes.” His tone was abrupt, and there was a short silence before he spoke again. “He had an offer of a job there. In Paris.”
Miriam opened her mouth to form another question—about the circumstances of their departure—but Omar looked cold now, and angry, as though he were daring her to continue this conversation which was obviously distasteful to him. Miriam looked into his eyes for the briefest of moments before she lowered her head down onto her pillow and closed her eyes.
So this Sunday morning they dressed early, and the children waited in a state of anxious anticipation, except for the baby who slept peacefully after her early morning feed. Their excitement slowly seeped away when they realised that they would be forced to wait through three hours while the shop was open. They were always open on a Sunday morning, and nobody’s arrival from the shores of Europe was going to change that.
Miriam opened the shop alone, except for John, who stopped before leaving to help her with the padlocks, and she waited in the quiet for any sign of a customer, before she moved back to the kitchen, where the children sat toying with their bowls of porridge. She shook her head at them.
“Eat, now,” she said. “I can’t sit here waiting for you, I have to mind the shop. Eat up, Sam.”
“Why can’t Robert mind the shop?” asked Alisha.
“Because he goes home on Sunday,” said Miriam, irritably. “You know that.” The children looked down at their plates.
“When are we going to see Aunty Rehmat?” asked Alisha.
“We’re going soon,” Miriam replied. “But not if you don’t finish your food.” It was an idle threat, and the mother and the children both knew it.
“I’m not hungry,” ventured Sam.
“Eat,” said Miriam, and she turned and went back into the shop.
She waited, knowing that at the very least, Christina from Mr Weston’s farm would probably come by for a can of peas, or a piece of dress material or some such thing. She always shopped for the household on a Friday, but she inevitably forgot something. The clock ticked slowly above her, and Miriam glanced up at the ceiling where her husband’s steps made a muffled noise in the bathroom. He was taking an unusually long time to get ready today, and Miriam smiled to herself, then walked to the open do
or and went out to the stoep. The sun was sweet on her face, and warm for the time of year, with a cool breath of wind which moved through the grass and trees now and then, lifting her hair as it went. Somewhere birds were singing, but when she looked up at the trees she could not see them. Walking back inside she called to her children, asking them had they eaten, were they getting ready? She heard them scrape their chairs, then she heard the clatter of their heels and the echo of their giggles as they flew up the stairs. They ran straight into their father. He made a sound of surprise to have his children crash into his legs, and then he told them to hurry up—even though, Miriam thought to herself, they would not leave for another two hours.
Omar walked into the shop dressed in a stiff white shirt and his best tie, his face carefully shaven, his hair trimmed and neatly combed. He always looked smart, but there was an air of effort about him today, made more apparent by his deliberately careless manner as he walked about the shop, and the way that he managed not to look his wife in the eye.
Not one single customer arrived in the following two hours. As soon as the clock struck the hour, Miriam put baby Salma into her carrycot and ushered the children into the car, around which they had been playing for the last hour. As he started the engine, Omar looked at his wife, his glance moving over her dress and hair for a moment, and he nodded, very slightly and to himself. Then he turned and surveyed his children, who looked back with their liquid black eyes. “They look nice. Did you bath them?” he said.
“Yes. They are wearing their best things,” she added, and he nodded again.
“Good,” he said. “Very good.”
When Sadru’s house came into view at last, Miriam was astonished at the noise around them. There were people everywhere, out in their yards, walking along the dusty streets, lingering with bottles of soda beneath the gnarled laburnum trees, visiting neighbours. Children shouted and shrieked, playing in the road. She understood for the first time that she really had become used to life in Delhof, in the countryside. Now it was the quiet humming of the grassland and farmland that seemed the natural state to her, not this bustle and activity, which she had barely noticed when she lived here. After her neat, wooden framed home, the ramshackle series of houses, whose roofs sloped at odd angles, looked stifling to her. Walls of corrugated iron leaned lazily onto brown brick ones. Groups of men looked up as they drove by, slack-jawed, momentarily curious.