Madras on Rainy Days: A Novel (33 page)

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Authors: Samina Ali

BOOK: Madras on Rainy Days: A Novel
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I rose and felt about under the pillow, the weight of my ayah’s head on my hand, strands of coarse hair falling across my wrist. Her own hand was resting neatly on her pregnant belly, the skin dark and parched, the knuckles wrinkled, the nails still clumped with dirt from her daily chores—a life of servitude, to God, master, husband, and child.
A sharp, cool blade stabbed at my palm, and I understood what Raga-be had done. She’d brought that damn knife she’d tried to use on the roof to cut out my baby. Now she was hoping to cut out a sickness that could not be borne.
I had meant a different type of remedy, herbal, homeopathic, but who was I to judge? At such times, we saw not with our eyes, but with hope.
Without a word, I moved back to my chair and began examining my palms. The air stank of Dettol.
 
 
I TOLD HER as a way of telling Nafiza, letting my nanny know what she had been trying to tell me all along, how my husband had been fooling everyone, fooling me, the white cloth from our wedding night hiding his shame as much as mine.
When I was done, Roshan lowered her head into her daughter’s crown and sighed, not seeming as surprised as I’d thought she’d be. When she finally spoke, strands of Bisma’s hair flew back, as thick and coarse as Nafiza’s. “You should leave him, of course. It’s a sin to live with such a man. Islam prohibits it.”
Yes, I knew, but what he had done to me seemed a greater sin. I said, “I fell in love with him.”
“Of course you did, he’s your husband.”
“No, not like that. You know what I mean, Roshan, like you fell in love with Sammy, then married him. I don’t know when it happened, but it began to feel like
I’d
chosen him, not Amme.” I rolled my
knuckles against my temples. “My mind is so quiet. It won’t let me think about anything.”
She watched me make the motion as she said, “Your mother did the best she could for you, you mustn’t blame her. He’s so strong and handsome. How could she have known, how could anyone … such things are not considered here.” She tightened her arms around Bisma and swayed as she spoke. “People will blame you, Layla-bebe. They will even say you made him into the man he is, that you weren’t enough to satisfy him so he was forced the other way. Whatever you do now, you must be careful to look compassionate. You’re a woman. And no matter what Islam says about such men, it’s still your reputation that will get harmed.”
She was right, of course, and we both turned and gazed at Nafiza, as though waiting for her to agree or to give some advice of her own.
Finally I said, “You mustn’t call me Layla-bebe. No one owns you anymore.”
But she didn’t hear me. Bisma was stirring, trying to throw off her mother’s firm grip. Roshan immediately began bouncing her legs to get her back to sleep. The child pitched her head and mumbled something, calling out to her mother or grandmother. Roshan smoothed her hair and began singing that song Nafiza used to sing while bathing me, about a little girl who would one day find her way home. So my experience had become a lullaby in the same way Amme’s memories of childhood had remained, for so long, bedtime stories. We all became our own myths.
When Bisma was dozing once more, Roshan said, “He must have believed he would be able to touch you … until he found he couldn’t.”
 
 
THAT EVENING, WHEN I returned to Taqi Mamu’s house, it was as silent and deserted as it had been that morning. Twilight was slowly seeping through the skies, and a servant I didn’t recognize was rushing about, turning on the courtyard lights. When I was passing him to get
to the front doors, he stopped me and questioned who I was and where I was headed. This unsettled me, making me feel like an intruder sneaking into a place I didn’t belong.
The long hallway to the back of the house was yet unlit, but I made my way without stumbling. How many times, since childhood, had I run up and down this same hallway, chased by Henna or Nafiza? And, of course, there was that time, a year ago, right before my engagement, when I had finally unlocked the bedroom door and found my mother lying right here, where my feet were now passing, encircled by mourning women, her forehead stained with blood. It was the last visit she had allowed me to make to this house.
I rounded a curve and could now make out a frail light at the end of the hallway, inside the dining room. But I didn’t hear any voices so was surprised to find my aunt and uncle, joined by Abu Uncle, dining. A plate was set out for me, facedown, and I sat and said a quick salaam. Abu Uncle shot me that same look he had when Amme had reported my bleeding to him, both knowing and concealing.
My aunt had served a simple meal. Nothing more than green bean curry and rice, dal that needed more salt. After a full day of teaching and her severe diabetes, I knew she could not manage more. For the six months we visited India, Nafiza resumed her duties as my nanny, stopping her work for my aunt and uncle as cook. The two always had trouble finding a replacement for her—since Independence, fewer people were willing to do domestic work—and I wondered how they would manage now that Nafiza was gone.
I said, “Nafiza’s unconscious. I spoke with the doctor, and I don’t think he expects her to come out.”
No one responded, and I realized they must have been speaking about me when I showed up, the reason they had become so quiet.
Finally, Ameera Auntie sighed and spoke in her measured manner. “I have a student who has offered one of her family servants to …” her eyes flickered toward her husband, “ … to replace Nafiza. As you know, I am too sick myself to carry on …”
Taqi Mamu thrust away from the table and stood, his chair shrieking in the way I wanted to myself. His eyes darted about until they fell upon the back window, which opened onto the servants’ quarters. “How many times must I tell you?” he cried. “Nafiza is more than hired help. She is … she cannot be replaced.”
He shoved his unfinished plate away, and I noticed, for the first time, his trembling hands, his greasy hair, his crumpled shirt. He looked like me.
 
 
AFTER DINNER, ABU Uncle and I took our chai to the side yard and strolled back and forth, slipping in and out of the long shadows of the almond and guava trees, our elbows brushing at times. The windows to the master bedroom were open and fluorescent light tumbled out, forming rectangles on the dirt that reminded me of Nafiza, alone in a journey that hundreds of others were also making. One of the servants was preparing the bed for the night, the one Ameera Auntie had brought with her in dowry some twenty years earlier, and on which I’d lain, locked inside that very room in protest of this marriage.
I told Abu Uncle the same tale I’d just revealed to Roshan, and he listened without interruption as he nodded and stared at the path before us, at our footprints moving away then back, as though unsure of which way they were headed, lost in the darkness, seen again.
When I got to the end, he was silent for a while, as though searching out the moral. There was none, of course, so I stopped and let him walk ahead without me. He was wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt, my mother’s gifts from the U.S., and the cologne he used overwhehned all of nature’s scents. I set the empty cup and saucer into the curve of a branch and heard a bat moving about the guavas. He turned where I knew he would, where we had thus far been turning, just at the stoop of Nafiza’s lonely quarters. What could he say that I didn’t already know, Islam’s strict prohibition against such men, my own reputation as a woman, society’s concerns, not mine.
He came and stopped before me, nodding at the ground. “Your stories are the same. So I feel there is hope. Maybe there’s just been a misunderstanding.”
“Whose stories?”
“Ar’re,
who else’s! Yours and your husband’s.”
“He’s back?”
“He got back late this afternoon.
Bechara,
he had to use his entire tutoring money to buy a plane ticket—he said he’d missed the train in all the commotion. That poor boy came straight from the airport to me. He didn’t even go home! That’s how concerned he is about this marriage.”
His lip curled up in what appeared a sneer before he moved toward the property’s boundary wall. Halfway there, he turned and gestured for me to join him. When I shook my head, he came back, gripped my elbow and dragged me to the front gates. I had seen him behave this way before with Henna, whenever he found his daughter playing with the neighborhood boys on the streets. We now stood next to an ancient coconut tree, its roots on both sides of the boundary wall.
He searched about to make sure we were alone before digging into his jeans pockets and pulling out envelopes. They were folded in half, one on top of the other and even before he flattened them, flashing the handwriting at me, his name and return address, I knew who they were from.
“These have been arriving for you at my house!” he said. “One after another.
Ar’re,
what kind of shameless behavior is this! I have a married girl at home, her husband is soon coming to live with us, what if they came across this filth, how would we explain your behavior? Married to one man, getting …” he paused and licked his lips, “ … getting letters like these from another.
Ar’re!
This is not what our women do. This is not America. Do you know, if I had found something like this happening with my wife—I know Asma is your mother’s sister—but if I had found anything like this …” he turned down his lips and shook his head, meaning, he would have killed her.
I lowered my gaze, hoping that if I seemed repentant, he would do
as I said. “Amme gave me some money before she left. It’s in the
almari
at Sameer’s house. If you could please go get it for me …”
“What! Are you not listening to me? Layla, I have brought you out here to talk some sense into you.
Ar’re,
you cannot leave the boy over such a small thing! So what if he had … recreational sex? What else was he to do? Look at him, he’s handsome, he’s fit, he must have desires, tremendous desires. Where can a man go in a society such as this, women segregated from men, women hidden behind veils. Who was he to turn to? This isn’t America, he never had the freedom you did. And he’s a man! Men have desires. Men need release. We are not as strong as women—some women—who can control themselves, save themselves till they are married. Men like Sameer, young men, strong men, virile men, they must seek … companionship. That park he goes to, I know that park, all men know about that park. You go there, you find someone, you have release. That’s it. Recreational sex, nothing more. So what if some fool got carried away and thought he had fallen in love with Sameer, huh! What matters is that your husband says he is not in love with him. Your husband says he is in love with you … no matter what
you’ve
done.” He gripped my arms and bent his knees to peer into my face. Concern, chastisement, it was too dark to read his features. “I will advise you exactly what I advised your husband! Forget about these things, Layla. Keep the past in the past. Don’t speak of it again. Don’t even think of it. Look toward your future, your future with Sameer. Now, tell me, doesn’t it feel good to know your husband wants you back home, that he still accepts you as his wife?” “I want to talk to Ameera Auntie.”
He drew away and pushed the letters back into his pocket, before tapping his chest, as though reminding me of his heart attack or warning me of the disasters I could bring onto my family. “No one wants a daughter to return home—especially not under these circumstances.
Ar’re,
think about your father. Are you going to be like him, deserting your spouse, ruining your reputation? Spread what you want about your husband, Layla, everyone will say you left a decent man to return
to your …
Umrikan
lover. It is what your husband will spread about
you
, what any man would. So you see, there is no need to talk to Ameera Auntie or to your Asma Kala. You will not get the support of women here. We all agree this is just a marital spat, nothing out of the ordinary. With Nafiza dying, this is already a sad time, no one wants to be thinking about this …
filth.
You’re married, Layla, that’s it. You’re married.”
 
 
THEY LET ME stay at the house for three days, and each morning I dressed and went to the hospital to sit with Nafiza. Roshan would bring us lunch from her husband’s cafe and we’d eat in silence. I never told her what Abu Uncle had said, not believing my family could ever send me back to Sameer.
Then, on the third night, as I was finishing another simple dinner with my aunt and uncle, I heard his motorcycle pull up, followed by the low rumbling of the car I knew to be Abu Uncle’s. I was fleeing down the hallway to my room when I heard Taqi Mamu call from behind me, “Please, Beta, don’t do this again, not here, not in my home.”
Then he was before me, his tall figure in the narrow hallway, looking like he did on the wedding night, someone I didn’t know, someone most intimate to me.
Abu Uncle came up behind him, wearing that checkered shirt he’d worn to the blind
alim’
s
,
and I realized that this man who had always tried to save me believed he was once more doing the same.
Sameer stopped short when he saw me, his face darkened by stubble, shadows under his eyes. His hair was standing up from his hands running through it, running through it.

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