After some time, two uniformed women served us fried chicken fingers. May offered me hers and I ate her share. A tall man came for her after that, and we shook greasy hands, knowing we’d never meet again.
A cheerful older lady with brown curly hair later arrived for me, and we left the room, stepping into a windowed corridor. It was sunny outside and I wondered if it would be sunny in New Jersey. The airline lady asked me all kinds of questions about where I’d been as she guided me through Heathrow, her warm hand on the back of my neck, to my gate.
On the London to JFK leg, the seat beside me was empty.
I put down my pen and leave the notebook open in case more arrives.
Zee strides into my bedroom while I dress, her expression pouty.
“What’s wrong?” I close the clasp on my bra, then stroke a line of deodorant across my pits.
“Nani won’t let me make her toast.” She sniffs and tears fall. She pushes her face into my lap and her little body shakes as she sobs.
“Oh, honey.” I pull her up to sit on my lap. “Maybe she doesn’t want breakfast right now?”
“No …” She huffs as she inhales, “She said … she said … the toaster was too dangerous for me, that I could get tercuted.”
“Tercuted?” I wipe her wet face.
“Electrocuted, I said.” Mom peeks into the bedroom. “She was poking the toast with a butter knife.”
“I was trying to get it out,” Zee whines, her tears subsiding. She leans into me, her body heavy.
“Was it stuck? They didn’t pop out on their own?”
“I was checking them.”
“Beta, you can’t do that when the power is on. You could get an electric shock!” Mom explains, sitting next to Zee on the bed.
“Your nani is right, Zee. She was just watching out for you.” Mom smiles gratefully. I meet her gaze.
“What’s an electric shock?” Zee asks, her curiosity overpowering her upset. She slides off my lap and I pull on a sundress.
“Aha! This morning’s lesson! We can fit that into science, maybe. Probably.”
They return to the kitchen to eat their breakfast, while I rub moisturizer on my face.
I close the notebook, thinking about children and adults, and their conflicting needs.
FIFTY-THREE
With Mom here, our routines shift to shopping and visiting relatives we’ve thus far neglected. We return to the flat each evening tired, which is fine with me — less time to think, to wade through the murky feelings and memories that invade my stiller moments.
Instead they creep into my sleep.
This morning, at five o’clock, my brain registers the sound of car honks. I press my eyes closed and I am at a busy clinic, about to have some sort of medical procedure. Two women in light green gowns and masks beckon me from the crowded waiting area into a large, white examination room. It has a table pushed to one side. I can see shimmers of our reflections in the immaculately clean floor tiles.
One of the women picks up a folded plastic tablecloth and shakes it open. It has the faux-embroidered pattern of my mother’s round safra from back home. She spreads it on the floor, and the other masked clinician helps her to smooth its edges. They stand beside the table and gesture for me to come over.
I skirt the edges of the safra — a safra is used for communal floor eating, and not meant to be walked over — but the women shake their heads, and point down at it. My clammy feet stick on the new-smelling plastic. When I step into its middle, one whispers, using her voice for the first time, that I should lie down. I’m nervous, yet oddly acquiescent. I arrange myself so that I am properly centred, arms and legs crossed to not take up too much room.
The other woman’s bushy eyebrows turn into angry exclamation marks. She directs me to remove my pants. They are yogaspandex-tight, and I struggle with them from my prone position. I think, Shouldn’t I have done this while standing? I writhe like a fish on land, pulling the fabric down, inch by inch, until finally they are off. The other woman shakes her head impatiently, indicating that I should have removed my underwear, too. With dream logic I think, Of course, how dumb am I? With almost the same difficulty as the pants, I pull them off.
The two clinicians have now moved to the corner, engaged in their preparations. I wish they’d cover the lower half of my body with a sheet, but I know better than to disturb them. They look identical, camouflaged in their scrubs, except one has bigger hips and breasts.
I am glad to at least be wearing a T-shirt. I look down at my chest, read the slogan emblazoned across my breasts: RAMONA THE PEST! I smile, because I’ve always wondered where that T-shirt ended up. I thought I’d lost it. Then I think, Zee would like a matching one. I’ll have to find her its twin.
The slimmer one bears down on me, holding a large pair of shiny silver scissors. She jabs me with them lightning-quick.
“See? It’s nothing.” The larger one’s tone is sweet, and for the first time in my dream, I have an urge to flee.
I awake again, my pulse so strong it could shake the bed. I reach down, feel for my underwear. It’s there, and it’s dry. I chide myself: my imagination is in overdrive. But something about the nightmare feels real. My vulva stings from the clinician’s jab, or it thinks it does. My clitoris is awake and aching. I rest my hand there.
Murtuza snores softly next to me. Each time I close my eyes, try to sleep again, I see the glint of the scissors. Each time I say to myself, No, no, it’s just overthinking, this is not a memory, the throbbing intensifies. I breathe deeply, visualizing my breath going as low as my vulva, as the sexual self-help article suggested. It helps. I reassure myself, I must be dreaming about things I’ve read online, and the sting returns, the clinician’s jab is like new, as though my vulva is angry with my denial.
In the half-haze of sleep, I attempt something different.
I inhale, all the way down. I think, This is real, this happened, it hurt. I remember. Something unclenches, so I continue, This is real, this happened, it hurt, I remember. I do this five more times. Once again, the pain releases its grip, little by little, with each iteration.
Next I try another set of words: I am remembering. This happened to me. My heart slows. I repeat the words, whispering them, the words outside of me now. Again and again I say them, susurations becoming sighs, then murmurs.
Murtuza opens his eyes, turns to me, reaches over, asks, “Are you okay, did you have a bad dream?”
I manage to say, “I just remembered something in my dream.”
“Tell me what you saw,” he says, reaching for me.
I recount the women, the masks, the scissors. The T-shirt. “I used to have that T-shirt. I think I wore it that day.” Then I continue the mantra: It’s real, I remember, it happened.
He rocks me, answering each of my calls with his response: Yes, I’m so sorry.
We do this until a dappling of light spreads itself under the drapes, and I fall asleep.
The next morning, I enter a scene of domesticity: grandmother/ mother/mother-in-law is at the stove, making chai the old-fashioned way, loose leaves, milk, and spices in a pot. Granddaughter/ daughter stands on a stool beside her, apprenticing. Son-in-law/ father/husband washes dishes at the sink. Daughter/mother/ wife has been absent, and the clock says 10:20 a.m.
“Did you sleep well?” Murtuza asks, drying his hands. He switches on the coffee maker and it awakes with a hiss and drizzle.
“I think so.” Our glances linger a moment. Mine is self-conscious, grateful. His is cautious, gentle.
“Nani said we should go to Elephanta Caves for my geography lesson!” Zee rushes at us.
“I can go with her if you need to rest today,” Mom says. I wonder what Murtuza has said to her. Or perhaps she is reading the upset in my puffy eyes.
“No, Mom has to come.”
“I’d love to go. It’ll be good to get out. I haven’t been there in years.”
“Me, too.” Murtuza says, latching on to my fake enthusiasm,
an unspoken mutual project. “We went when I was around your age, Zee. There are monkeys there that steal your food. One grabbed a cola can out of my hand when I wasn’t looking.”
“Monkeys drink soda?” Her eyes light up.
I tune out the story, one I’ve heard many times, and Mom interrupts the coffee maker’s drip to pour me a half cup. I scan the kitchen again. We do look like a normal family on a vacation in India. We do.
“Murtuza told me you had a rough night.” Her inquiring look tells me she doesn’t know the details. I tell her I’m fine, add milk to my cup, take a sip. She looks away but can’t hide her hurt. I’ve been keeping her at arm’s length for the past few days. She mirrors my posture, one hand on her hip.
“Actually … I had a nightmare. I’m starting to remember things about back then,” I say, keeping my voice low.
“About the khatna?” she whispers.
“Yeah. It’s like my mind has been delivering little bits of information. Some of it feels quite literal, and the rest, well, sort of comes in code.”
“Are you all right?” Her face tightens. I expect that some part of her wants to tell me not to take it all so seriously, that it was a long time ago. She asks, “Do you want to tell me about any of it?”
I shrug and she takes my arm and leads us into the living room and we sit on adjacent couches.
“It’s tiring. But also … helpful, kind of. It sort of makes things make more sense. It’s like my brain is working on a puzzle, and now I have more of the pieces,” I grapple with words, none of them a very good fit. “They’re painful pieces, though. I think I just need to sit with it all, let it settle, before I can talk about it.”
She nods. “Well, that is how you sort things out.”
“Oh yeah?” I say, just to keep her talking, so that I don’t have to.
“Since you were a child. You share only after you’ve figured it all out. Remember when you were trying to decide which college to go to? You came to us with your pro and con list already completed! Then you gave us a lecture about why you thought NYU was the best option. You just needed our validation, not help with the actual decision-making process. You handled that all internally.” She smiles, lost in thought. I don’t remember doing all that.
“Murtuza complains about it all the time. That I spring decisions on him.”
“Probably because he doesn’t feel part of the process.” She taps my knee, emphasizing the point. “And you know, you have to do things your way. But … I wish I could be a part of it, too. I wasn’t there back when … when you needed me, and I wish there was something I could do to help now.”
I look up and see that Murtuza and Zee are no longer in the kitchen. I hear their faint chatter in her bedroom. I exhale, sip my coffee. I have a good daughter, a good husband, and, sitting before me, a good mother. She looks at me expectantly.
“It’s kind of like when I became a teacher. Suddenly, I had this new identity. I could tell people, ‘I am a teacher’ and it felt half true and half not. For a while, it was like I was wearing someone else’s uniform.” I focus my gaze out the window, searching for the right words. She nods, waits.
“Khatna feels sort of like that to me, half true and half not. It’s like it happened to someone else and to me at the same time. It’s surreal. The memories, or the dreams or the images or whatever they are, feel true, and they also feel like fiction.” A brown seagull sits on the balcony’s ledge. It stops and stares at me before it lifts its wings and takes flight.
“You know, I felt like that after your father died. It was a shock. When people referred to me as a widow, I didn’t know what they meant.” Her eyes well up. “I wasn’t ready for the new role then. I’m still not.”
The gull is back, as though returning to fetch something forgotten. Then it alights again.
I reach over and take her hand, her tears allowing me to draw near to her. I focus on her pain, easier to touch than my own. She places her other hand on top of mine. I wonder if I should put down my cup, free my hand, add to the pile.
“This is life,” she says, shaking her head and then sitting up tall, “we are always having to accept new realities, often before we’re ready. Only … it’s harder when you are a child.”
“And then we’re sometimes forced to act, to figure out what to do, before we’re ready.” I gently pull my hand away.
“What do you mean?”
“I wish I hadn’t gone along with Fatema’s and Zainab’s request to trick Maasi into giving us the khatna doctor’s information. The timing wasn’t right for me. I’m still uneasy about it. I wish I’d said no. But it’s already done.” The words, just-formed thoughts, drift through the air between us, like a few errant snowflakes, the beginning of a blizzard, if I allow them.
“I’ve been thinking, too. I’m wondering how to deal with this. And I know,” she says, holding up her hand in response to my look of impatience, “that you and the girls don’t want me to talk to Tasnim. That’s fine. But I need to find some way to address this, eventually. Maybe after we go home. Maybe on my next visit here. I’m not sure. But I need to tell her what’s on my mind.”
“Maybe we can do it together, in a while.” More snowflakes fall and I wonder, Are these new ideas or delayed ones? Have I always wanted this? I imagine her and I, side by side, confronting Maasi. I’m not sure it feels quite right, but the notion makes Mom smile, so I let it be. She squeezes my hand.
“What is Fatema’s group going to do with that information?”
“They’re planning a demonstration at the hospital. They’ll publicly shame the doctor. Force the medical association to take a stand against her. Make it a big media event. They want to scare other doctors who are doing khatna.”
“That’s good. But —” she bites her bottom lip “— won’t that mean that everyone will just go to the non-medical cutters? That’s worse, isn’t it?”
“Maybe. She says this is part of a larger campaign to get the Indian government on side to ban the practice.” I recount Fatema’s strategy. “I hope it doesn’t backfire.”
“Are you going to the demonstration?” Mom asks. This time I imagine all of us: Zainab, Fatema, me, and Mom standing in front of the hospital with placards, shouting. The last time I did anything like that was back in university, when the women’s centre protested funding cuts. I nervously stood in the background with my handmade sign while my friends created a ruckus. Since then, I’ve signed petitions, but I avoid rallies. Murtuza sometimes attends them with his academic friends, but it’s not my thing.
“I don’t think so. Are you?”
“Is it dangerous, do you think?” She furrows her brow.
Murtuza and Zee emerge from the bedroom. She’s wearing a lavender skirt with a light pink top, likely a suggestion from Murtuza, who favours complementary shades.
“What’s dangerous?” Zee asks us.
“Still talking about the monkeys?” Murtuza asks, when Mom and I hesitate.
“Yes, that’s right, that’s what I was asking,” Mom lies.
“Why don’t we look it up, Zee?” I scoop her into my lap.
“Another science class?” she asks dolefully.
“Okay, okay. We’ll just go see for ourselves, shall we? Experiential education only today.”
FIFTY-FOUR
Bombay, 1919
Abdoolally sat in his friend Mirza’s law office. Lately, he hadn’t been feeling his best, had almost constant fatigue that his doctor said was expected for a man in his midsixties. It was the third time he and Mirza had met to redraft his will.
“Wouldn’t it be simpler if I were a poor man?” he said to Mirza with a sigh.
“Perhaps. But you are not. And you have important decisions to make.”
“I’ve made them. Here are my changes.” He read from a handwritten page. “One third must go to charity, one third to pay for future generations’ education, and the rest divided amongst my heirs.”
“Abdoolally, the bulk of your estat
e will go to strangers?”
“Not strangers, exactly. See?” He pointed to his notes. “The main charities are the maternity hospital and the school for Dholka children. And as I said, the one third for education is for all my relations yet to come. I want them to spread out that money, so that no parent will ever have to tell their children they cannot afford education.”
“This is an unconventional way to do things. It might upset your family.”
“So be it.” Shouldn’t his children be grateful? All had had childhoods vastly different than his own. He had provided well for them, ensured their comfort, stability, and most of all, educations. But Mirza might be right. There were eight of them, from three wives, the eldest forty-one and the youngest eight years old. A few he knew better than others, geography and time the distance between them. But there was nothing to do about that now. In recent years he’d tried to make up for his early absences by spending more time with his younger children and his grandchildren. He’d done his best. Who could fault him?
“As you wish. I will have it typed up for you to sign next week,” Mirza said.
FIFTY-FIVE
Fatema’s name flashes on my phone’s screen. I move to pick it up, but a faint buzzing in my head, a warning, stops the impulse. I press decline and she doesn’t leave a message. She calls again two minutes later. I walk away from the phone.
Earlier today, one of her comrades emailed me to ask if I’d like to contribute to their blog. I could pen an anonymous piece about my thoughts on khatna, she suggested. They need more first-person narratives, more women to be vocal about the issue. I understand the sentiment, but deleted the missive without replying. I don’t want to be involved. Why do I have to be involved?
Seven Page 28