In the Key of Nira Ghani

by Natasha Deen

  “I know, Grandma.” Education. The theme song of our family and it’s on infinite repeat on our playlist.

  “Brush your hair and get in the car. There’s a bag of roti by the door, bring it.”

  “I did brush my hair!”

  “Do it again. You look like you’ve been electrocuted.”

  “That’s the humidity.” I follow her out the door, arguing with her and trying to explain moisture and hair, and my need for hair products that Mom won’t buy, and loving my grandma for getting me even if she doesn’t understand me.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ENVY IS THE NEW BLACK

  The four of us form a crescent moon around the glass double doors of my cousin’s home. Aunty Gul answers it. She doesn’t open both doors, but cracks one open and allows just enough space for us to see half of her. Like she can’t see through the giant windows in the doors and know we’re not strangers. Like she can’t tell it’s family and not marauders ringing her bell. Like marauders would ring a bell.

  She’s dressed in slacks and silk and pearls. “Come in, come in! It’s so cold out there! Hurry, all the hot air’s escaping!”

  We’re forced to shuffle into the house one at a time, because she won’t open the door all the way. Mom, with her generous curves, looks like a too-stuffed sausage trying to fit into its casing. I squeeze in the gap after Grandma. Dad waits until last. Then it’s empty hugs and air kisses and Aunt Gul’s spicy, cloying perfume.

  “Nira, don’t you look beautiful.” She casts a critical glance at my hair and touches my shirt with a meaningful cluck. “Such an unusual outfit.”

  I tuck the hair behind my ears and turn from her gaze. She hugs my mother as I take off my shoes and line them up with the others along the wall. I’d been hoping for a night of just family, but judging from all the shoes, Aunty Gul’s decided to throw a party. Which must mean they’ve bought something new and want to unveil it.

  “Safiya, so happy to have you here,” she says, and embraces my mother.

  “I brought curry and roti.”

  “Yes,” says my aunt with a laugh. “I can smell it on your clothes. Next time, you should light candles.”

  My mother shoots me a look sharp enough to cut concrete.

  “Of course, your house is too small to do what I do,” continues Aunty Gul, “but I put a camp stove in the garage. That’s where I cook all the smelly food.” She pivots to Grandma. The hug they give each other is a bare meeting of hands on shoulders. “What a—distinctive—outfit.” She eyes Grandma’s blouse with neon-colored parrots and her dark-wash jeans.

  “It’s happy, and the colors remind me of home.” She moves to Farah. They hold each other as though it’s been months instead of seven days. Grams spends two weekends a month with Farah and the rest of the time at our house. I shouldn’t be jealous, but I don’t like how they hold each other and whisper, and I don’t like how Grandma slips her the chocolate. It sucks to be petty, but Farah has everything. I wish Grams would look my way and roll her eyes, but when she meets my gaze, she smiles, then goes back to whispering with Farah.

  Aunty Gul threads her arm through my mom’s and leads her down the hallway, the heels of her shoes clicking on the hardwood. “Nira, Farah’s friends are downstairs.”

  Oh, hold me back. The Farahbots. I should check my pulse and make sure it hasn’t flatlined with all my excitement. I wonder if I could fake a twisted ankle and avoid having to go downstairs. Better yet, I wonder if I could fake a coma and get out of this life. I shuffle to the curved staircase that sweeps into the basement, but just then, the flurry of footsteps sounds from below. They race up the stairs.

  My first thought is, they’re so Indian. Nose rings, bracelets, kohl-rimmed eyes. Then I wonder what it must be like to be at their school, to walk down the hallways and see other kids that look like them, to be part of a culture that everyone understands. They head to their families, perfect Indian dolls with the right clothes and hair, full of confidence that this world and its privileges are theirs.

  It’s not Mom and Dad’s fault that we moved into a neighborhood with a school full of European kids and hardly anyone of color, but it’s another reason to resent Farah. Thanks to her parents’ money and entry to a private school, she gets to be surrounded by people who look like a reflection of her. If I wanted to attend a similar school, it would add three hours of bus time. Mom and Dad shut me down the first time I asked for the transfer.

  “Nira.” Like her mother did with my mother, Farah threads her arm through mine and hauls me toward the kitchen. She presses her face into my neck. “Smells like your mom made curry. Goat or chicken?”

  My teeth clench. Like mother, like daughter. “Chicken.” I twist out of her grasp and away from the sweet scent of her perfume.

  That’s the full conversation because then we’re in the spacious kitchen and grappling for a spot among the arms and elbows of everyone else. The food’s laid out on the counter. While everyone’s reaching for plastic plates and utensils—“The recycle bag is by the back door!” yells Uncle Raj—I stare at the food. Pumpkin beef and rice, garlic pork, pholourie, and chana. But it’s not only Guyanese food. There’s southern fried chicken, pot roast, baked macaroni, and french fries. I have to bend close to catch the scent of cumin and cinnamon, to inhale the onions and butter.

  It’s as if even the food is too scared of Aunty Gul to smell like itself in this house. I wonder how it is that so many cultures can coexist on a table but not in real life. Then I remember, the food is dead. It takes a while, but everyone fills their plates. They balance with care as they tiptoe to their chairs in the spacious dining room, careful not to spill sauce on the floor.

  “Nira, you lead us in prayer,” says Uncle Raj, when we’re seated.

  “Uh, which one?” At the table are Christians, Hindus, Muslims, a couple of agnostics, and atheists.

  “Any,” he says with a smile.

  I bow my head and close my eyes. “Allahumma barik lana—”

  One of Farah’s friends bursts out laughing. “Oh my god, you sound so white when you say it!”

  The heat of my blush blisters my skin, but I keep going and ignore the giggles of the girl. I keep my eyes closed because I know Farah’s laughing, too, and I don’t need to see it. Conversation starts. I stuff myself full of chana and callaloo. Then I hear it. Aunty Gul.

  “The weather’s getting cold, Nira.” She smiles as though trying to show all her teeth. “Think this’ll be the winter for you?”

  “Gul—” My mother shoots me a glance and raises her hand.

  But my aunt is on one of her favorite topics. Embarrassing me. “When she was little,” she tells the crowded table, “and came here, she was so struck by all the white people, she thought she would turn white, too.”

  The adults cast me indulgent smiles.

  Farah’s friends look at me like I’m a freak.

  “Every winter.” Aunty Gul laughs. “She called them the sky people because the first time she saw a white person it was on the plane. Blond hair, blue eyes. Freckles. Remember, Nira? You thought she made the plane fly.” Another shrill laugh.

  “I love Nira’s imagination,” says my mother. “A doctor needs creativity to heal people and create medicine.”

  Trust my mother to defend me while still pushing me to become a doctor. Still, I appreciate her efforts. If it were only adults here, I’d cheer her on and make her tea when we get home. But Farah’s there. Staring at me. Her friends are looking everywhere but me.

  “And the clothes!” Aunty Gul claps her hands. “She thought it was the clothes the stewardess wore that made everyone listen to her. For months, she drove her parents crazy because she wanted the same outfit.”

  “I was only five, and thinking I was going to become white made sense. It’s different now”—I glance at the Farahbots—“there are tons of colored people, but when we got here, the town had no brown folk.”

  A flash of pain speeds across my mother’s face and I’m f
illed with guilt. I had been so proud of my parents for starting this adventure, so excited to be a pioneer. I’m still proud of them, of her—even if I’m mad at her at the same time—and I can’t stay silent while Aunty Gul aka Donkey Voice honks and brays at my mom. “Yes, Aunty Gul, it is getting cold, but winter’s not coming for a while.”

  She frowns then remembers she started the conversation by talking about the weather.

  “When it does, we should all take a drive to the mountains and see what we can find. If you’re up for it.” I smile at her. “It takes a certain kind of personality to step into the cold and the untracked snow and make their own path. It doesn’t take any kind of bravery to follow in footsteps that are already there.”

  Aunty Gul’s face tightens.

  “The food is delicious. I’m so glad you guys moved here to join us. It’s nice to be with family.”

  My dad clears his throat, but I catch the twinkle in his eye before he looks away. Mom hides her smile behind a mouthful of cook-up rice.

  The conversation, thank god, goes off me and turns to the economy. I’m happy to ignore them and eat my curry and roti. After dinner, I flee from the table.

  “So, Nira, let’s gaff a little.” Uncle Raj blocks my exit.

  No, no, no. The last thing I want to do is talk to him. “Uh, I was going to find Grandma—”

  “Come, come, let’s lime.”

  Great. From a conversation to a full-on let’s hang out. I nod before he invites me to live with them.

  “How is school treating you?” Uncle Raj puts an arm around my shoulder. His other hand holds a glass of Guyanese rum. That’s stuff so strong if he belches he’ll set the curtains on fire.

  “Good.”

  “Your marks?”

  “Mostly As.”

  “Mostly?”

  “A couple of A minuses.”

  “You do the best with what God gave you, right?” He claps me on the back. “Farah’s all As.”

  What a shock.

  He takes a sip of his drink. “And the university science contest?”

  I hate him for purposely being vague. Pretending he doesn’t care enough to remember the full details of the competition. “I came in second.”

  “Farah came in first.”

  I know. He knows I know. “Wow? Really? Congratulations.”

  He waves his hand. “These science contests. Now we must arrange for her to go to NASA for some visit she’s won. I’ll have to take time off, and she will miss school. For what? To visit some pool where astronauts swim.”

  It’s taking everything I have not to yell and scream. He’s bragging by pretending he doesn’t care. I wish they’d never left Guyana.

  Farah bumps me on the shoulder. “Let’s go to my room.”

  “I was telling her about how you won that contest.” He makes a face. “The expense of having to stay at a five-star hotel.” His gaze shifts my way. “My back. I need a special kind of mattress.”

  I think I need a special kind of pillow. The kind that would smother him.

  “Why all the people tonight?” I ask as I follow Farah. My foot touches the deep carpeting of the steps. “Your mom only has company when…”

  She shrugs. “New car and the bar-be-que.”

  “Didn’t you just buy one? The car, I mean.”

  “Newer car.”

  “Oh. Nice. What kind?”

  Another shrug. “It drives itself.”

  We have a rickety minivan that doesn’t even have air-conditioning. Dad refuses to buy a new—or newer—car because this one’s so old, he can fix it if anything goes wrong. “These new models,” he says, “They’re more computer than machine. Where’s the fun in that?”

  When I point out the fun in not melting into the seat during a hot summer day, he just makes a face and dismisses me with a wave. “This one is better. I can take care of it, and it takes care of us.” Which all translates to money. We don’t have money to buy a new vehicle, and Dad lying about the convenience of tuning up is better than him admitting we’re poor.

  I follow Farah and wonder what it must be like to have so many things that one more thing doesn’t matter. In the background, I hear my dad talking, waxing poetic on his view of child-rearing. Academics, strict curfew, chores, with the occasional sleepover or playdate. “Give them too much time,” he says, “and they’ll get lazy. An idle mind is the devil’s workshop. If you let Nira on her own, all she’ll do is watch TV. She’d end up in a gutter.”

  That’s my dad’s worst-case scenario for everything, ending up in a gutter. Don’t study and you’ll end up in a gutter. Stay away from drugs, or you’ll end up in a gutter. Eat the broccoli, or you’ll end up in a gutter. Like broccoli has that kind of power. As if. Everyone knows that’s brussels sprouts.

  One day, I want to meet these mythical, lazy children—the ones that end up in the gutter. None of my memories of Guyana include dirty kids clogging the drain pipes and sewers.

  I sigh and follow Farah. The Farahbots try to follow, but she stops them with a glare. Oh, the joy—it’s just Farah and me. Quick, someone catch me before I faint from the thrill of it all. The girls move back to the living room, where their parents sit, and I follow my cousin.

  We get to her bedroom, aka my fantasy room, and I keep my face devoid of the envy I feel. She’s painted it in orange and hot pink—too warm for my taste, but it’s big, bright, and decorated with black and whites of Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn. Farah deposits herself by the window seat and cranks open the bay window. “Want one?” She holds out a cigarette.

  “Uh, no, thanks.”

  She gives me the kind of smile an adult gives a kid. “You’re so good.” And she makes “good” sounds like a cuss.

  “Not really. I just don’t want to die a slow, lingering death.”

  “Like I said, good.” She lights the cigarette and takes a drag.

  I sit on her bed and sink into the pile of goose down duvet. “Congratulations on winning the competition.”

  “Like there was any doubt. Of course, I’d get first.” The ash of the cigarette is flicked through the open window and disappears into the night.

  That’s what I love about Farah. Her modesty.

  “We got four tickets. Do you want to come? We’d pay for everything.”

  My vision of hell. Stuck in a room with the three of them and being reminded at every moment they’re paying for me. “I’m not sure. There’s school and stuff. And tryouts for jazz band.” The last part slips out, and I immediately regret my words.

  “Your parents are letting you try out?”

  I shrug, feeling superior at the reluctant note of longing in her voice. “Not sure if I’ll try out. I might.” The only thing Farah doesn’t do is play an instrument. Her parents, like mine, think it’s a waste of time. Sports and academics. That’s her life. I can’t resist the temptation to shove it in her face, that there’s one thing I can do that she can’t. That my parents, unlike hers, might let me break out of the Guyanese mold our parents seem determined to bake us in.

  “You still use that toy trumpet?”

  Any pride and smug self-satisfaction I have disappears. I say nothing because my emotion will betray itself in my words.

  Farah squints, and her gaze travels up and down me. “Yeah, I guess it’s a bad idea to have you come. Five stars and all.”

  While the liquid warmth of embarrassment pours through me, she takes a final drag, grounds the cigarette on the shingle. “Come on. Mom made salara for dessert.”

  I pass by the living room on my way to the kitchen. Grams stands and heads to the stairs, to Farah. After I help myself to some dessert and tea, I hide in the library. When we drive home three hours later, my parents’ conversation isn’t about the car but the BBQ.

  “Too many things,” says Mom. “Stove, broiler. It even plays music. Why do you need all that stuff? A pit with charcoal. That’s it.”

  “The rotisserie.” Dad stares ahead. “That would be good. Sit ou
tside and watch it turn.”

  That’s my parents’ philosophy with everything. Mom will settle for whatever she can get, and Dad would rather sit and watch than participate. It hits me, not for the first time, how different I am from them. How they’ll never understand me. I turn my face to the window, watching the streets pass by and wishing I could get out and walk.

  When the weekend comes, I’m happy to escape the house. Mom wants to go to the mall. She’s determined I get clothes now, but I know she’ll never set foot in the stores I want. I brush her off by telling her there’s a sale in two weeks. The chance to save twenty percent on clothes is enough to quiet her.

  I check in with Grandma as she comes in from her ritual walk. “How’s the weather?”

  “Take some mittens.” She gives me a kiss, and I leave.

  I head downtown, to the sketchier but cooler side of town. It’s a miracle my mental parentals allow me this freedom, but it was a scheme executed after weeks of planning. I told them Steven Spielberg comes up with ideas for his movies when he’s driving. It could’ve been walking. I wasn’t clear on the activity. My push was that mundane activities encourage brain processing and problem-solving. Then I dangled the rumor that Sally Ride—a scientist!—solved stuff while having baths and naps.

  My parents heard what I wanted—doing trivial stuff is good. I won the right to take bus rides. They don’t know I get off the bus and walk around. As long as I don’t get mugged, I’ll be fine. If I’m murdered, that’ll work in my favor because then Mom and Dad won’t be able to kill me for disobeying them.

  The bus holds a spattering of sleepy shift workers and a couple of university students. They rock back and forth to the bus’s rhythm. We’re lost in our private worlds. Any awareness of each other is peripheral. I follow the tracks the rain makes on the window and count the landmarks until my stop.

  La Pâtisserie bakery is my signal to get off. On my way back, I’ll stop in and get Grandma a chocolate croissant. I climb down and enter a neighborhood of mom-and-pop shops—businesses that have been there since the pioneers rode their wagons in. I walk to the instrument shop, built back when the neighborhood was full of jazz musicians and blues singers. Now the neighborhood’s in the midst of falling apart and resurrecting via gentrification. The mom-and-pop stores are losing to box chains. But the instrument store, Reynolds, remains. It’s worth the hop over a used condom and the scent of urine from the doorway.