Ode to Lata (12 page)

“
Why
are you praying?” I demanded.

Then she gave me one of her signature looks.  The one where she’d start to quiver and look like she was going to start crying because I was being so mean to her.

I sighed with exasperation.  “It’s not as if there’s anything wrong.”

“It’s a habit, okay?  There doesn’t
have
to be anything wrong!” 

My eyes on the road as we struggled down Lincoln Boulevard, I breathed in an attempt to regain tranquility.

“Do you
have
to drive
so
fast?  There isn’t any rush.”

“We’re well under the speed limit, Mum.  If I drive any slower they’ll pull us over and shoot us.”

Then, her sigh.  Without even looking at her, I could see her.  Dejectedly looking down.  Feeling that it was better to say nothing to someone as intolerant and disrespectful as me.  Best to just bear it in silence the rest of the way.  I didn’t have to turn my head to recognize these looks.  I call them her “martyr” and “after everything I have done for you, Ali?” looks. The same ones I’d used on Richard.

Why, dear God, did she always have to act like she was in some fucking movie?

I told myself,
Try.  Please try with her
, but ended up stepping on the accelerator as she sped through her thirty-three bead rosary. 

A reprieve: Mummy’s suitcase full of staples of Kenya.  Crimson sugarcoated morsels of the baobab’s fruit called
mabuyus
.  A sinfully rich pound of
halwa
studded with slivered almonds and pistachios from the coastal town of Malindi.  Butter cookies called
nankhatais
from none other than Husseini Bakery, the trademark H.B. initials are engraved on each one – the first thing I do is run my finger over them and inhale the aroma of butter and vanilla.

The stuff of nostalgia.  Foods and smells that leave indelible impressions on the canvas of a transient life.  Discovering them again was like being immersed into a pool of the past.  Like fingers gently drawing aside the veil between the present and the past.  Remembering vaguely some of the last times you had enjoyed such dishes in a land so far away, I had only been able to dream about it for years.

There I was again in school uniform – khaki shorts and white cotton shirt – hiding behind schoolyards and on the verandah at home, devouring
mabuyus
and spitting out their dark seeds.  Cowering from Grandma and Aunty’s portentous hollering while Mummy took a nap in resignation, too young herself to indulge in such reproach and assume full guardianship.  Or maybe just comfortable in the knowledge that I was being policed sufficiently by them. 
Ey, chodu sala,
you better not be eating any
mabuyus!  Au toke hero laafo mar-ni!
Who will look after you if your tonsils start again,
heh?
The fact that I already had my tonsils surgically removed years before made little difference to them.  In their minds, the tonsils were still there – lurking in my throat somewhere instead of sitting in the little jar that they had dangled in front of me after the operation – phantom organisms just waiting to make me sick and keep them up all night in prayers and jars of Vicks and towels drenched in cologne water.

As I suckle the first velvety morsel, its sugared tanginess diffused in my mouth.  Never in all these years had I forgotten how they tasted.  Just resisted at first, and then gradually forgot to think about it as new flavored beguiled my taste buds.  Just like all the other foods that Mummy could not bring – although I had heard that the introduction of vacuum packaging in Kenya had facilitated the smuggling of even those nowadays! – the meat pies from Cosy Tea Room on Moi Avenue, relished with that particular brand of
Peptang
chili sauce and limes; 
khima
chapattis from the Aswan Cafe that the pack of us would customarily gorge upon after a night of dancing with our so “girlfriends” (who had been expediently dropped off at home so that we could all spout about the German tourist men that had been cruising us).

These were the diamonds in the minefields of memory.

Mummy mentioned that they closed Cosy Tea Room years ago, and like many others, the owners had emigrated to
Toron-to, Cay-nay-da.

The recipe,
I thought. 
Whatever happened to the recipe?

As she proceeded to empty the open package of
mabuyus
into a jar until now filled with jellybeans, Mummy caught me up with some of the friends and acquaintances in Mombasa.  Emphatically, she pointed out that most had gotten married.  And had children. Altaf had a German wife.  Akil was the proud father of two and had bloated up with weight as every Indian married man did after marriage.

And Nawaz, whose father had passed away a couple of years ago quite suddenly, as she puts it – completely overlooking the fact that he had suffered from kidney problems and been in and out of hospitals – had moved to the Nyali beach colony, quite possibly the Malibu of Kenya.

As casually as I could, I ask her if he had gotten married.

“Yeah, yeah, he too got married, to some
Arabi
,
neh?”
she said.  “Or maybe that was that younger brother of his.  I don’t know, I get so confused these days.  I know that one of them is married and the other is staying with some married woman, can you imagine
that?
 
Yah, Khuddah!
  You know that family, they are
such
low class even with all their money!”

THE APPRENTICE

I began my apprenticeship to Nawaz when I was thirteen and he was fifteen.  He was one of the older boys who I played with in our community flats. I-Spy. 
Geli-Danda
.  Hide-and-seek.  Where, hiding together, obscured by the shadows cast by some pillar at the Jamat Khanna, or in some vacant servant’s quarters on the terrace atop a block of flats, someone’s plea for a little “touch-touch” would incite us into experimental pleasures guiltily disbarred from memory until the next time we felt the
char
.

Over the years, I had witnessed his body evolve from that of a hairless athletic youth to one of an impressively muscled adult.  I remember twiddling my fingers in the tuft of hair that had sprouted in the deep cavity of Nawaz’s chest.  That center, inches away from his beating heart, where I liked to lay my face when permitted rare moments of tenderness.  In time, this sprouting had enticingly trailed its way over the hard bumps of his abdomen and tantalized my fingers down to the instrument of my adolescent enslavement.

I can still smell him. That distinct mingle of Imperial Lather soap, medicated sports cream and his sweat. I remember long, lazy afternoons in the stuporous heat of Mombasa, when we had both skipped school.  And I remember dusks, the time of
maghrab
, when instead of praying at the mosque as our families thought we were, we would hasten back to an available venue for a desperate consumption of one another.  My hands still feel the film of perspiration that collected upon them when they coasted over the curves of his broad back as I lay pinned to the cold, hard floor.  He, begging for a count of twenty so that he could finish on top of me.  Me, responding with mock resistance to incite his desperation and force my yielding.

Nawaz taught me how to “suck cock” as he so eloquently put it.  Rammed it repeatedly into my mouth even when I choked and spat out over his knee. “Learn!  Learn!” he would implore, deftly wiping away with the corner of his open school shirt.  “I promise you, you’ll love it, you know? 
Are
,
bwana
, then you’ll be begging for it all the time!”

As I resisted whatever sick and disgusting act he was imploring me to perform, he would cajole me, telling me of his soccer match the next day, how he would be able to score all the goals if I just “sucked it a little bit.”

I knew all about his athletic prowess.  The soccer matches and the swimming tournaments and the volleyball and the weight lifting.  And all those stupid little cunts bobbing up and down, flailing their arms in the air to catch his attention from stadium benches and the periphery of the pool.  Drooling when he hoisted himself out of the pool and strutted past, beads of water glistening on his oiled body.

And I knew his girlfriend, Shairose.  At noontime, Mombasa closed its doors to all trade and activity so that everyone could go home and take siestas after lunch.  I sat next to her on the midday bus ride back from the Aga Khan Primary School sometimes.  Between reading pages of her Mills & Boon novel, she would enthuse about how besotted he was with her.  “Yeah, you know, he’ll be coming to see me this evening, tee hee hee” she would inform me, giggling hysterically. 
“Ay, ma!
I can’t wait! Tee hee hee!”

And all I could think under my restraint was,
Yeah, neither can I, a few hours later, when he’ll be plowing me into the ground, begging me for yet another count of twenty.
 

I had a feeling it was Nawaz that had gotten married and not his younger brother Fareed.

The last time I went to Kenya, six years ago, I had heard about Nawaz’s engagement to some outcast.  Not very commendable.  Unless, of course, this outcast was a
dhorki
. Then by all means you had alleviated your status, mingling whites into your bloodline.  A Caucasian struggling to speak Kutchi or Gujarati meant everyone would be enchanted to hear those same words with an accent. 
“Han, han,
my daughter-in-law is so
hushyar!
So clever!  She can speak the language better than even I can!”

Maybe she would wear a sari occasionally and learn how to cook curries and clumsily fry
bhajias
for tea.  And maybe convert too, and how you would be blessed for making her a
khoji!
  A
paki
Ismaili! Your offspring would inherit that
doodh-malai-
like complexion without having to stay out of the sun, bleaching their skin with Fair & Lovely or shielding themselves under excessive clothing, even in the sweltering heat.  They might even inherit blue or green eyes and what a bonus that would be!  That would certainly set them apart from everyone else, no?  “
Oho-ho!
  Did you see those
bhuri-bhuri
eyes of hers?  Tsk.  Tsk.  Tsk.  Just beautiful,
ney?
  I wish I had colored eyes.  Instead mine are dark like shit!” 

But Nawaz apparently had chosen not to care, thus confirming the opinions of many like my mother, who believed his family to be of subordinate class.

The news of his prenuptials had both filled me with intense jealousy and aroused me.  The implication of his sexual ambiguity.  His possible unavailability. I had to have him again.  One last time.

I was also curious.  Having lived in America for a few years, I had acclimated to a people who in supporting sexual diversity had ironically adopted the labels and classifications best cast aside if one is to be recognized as an equal, irrespective of whom they desire sexually.  Back home there appeared to be no such rigid classifications, no such pronouncement, and everyone appeared just randomly scattered on that bell curve of sexuality that eluded labels.  Unless of course one was flamboyant in demeanor.  Straight?  Gay?  Lesbian?  It seemed as if everyone was none of these and all of these.

Where on this bell curve did Nawaz perch now?  Had time and pressure from the family reduced his appetite for other men into a long-expired phase?  I wondered.  

And so, like many times in the years before I had left Kenya, I climbed up the flight of stairs that led to his door but only after keeping a close vigil on his flat from the street below.  I could hear the evening
d’ua
being recited from the mosque behind me, its obligatory beckon worsening the guilt of an intention already weighty with prohibition.

I paced around nervously on the street, trying to appear like I was on my way to somewhere as late attendees of the mosque hurried past, some of them carefully balancing plates of food covered in plastic film and triangular pints of milk for
nandhi
, the food auction after the prayers.  Traversing the parking lot, I surveilled his flat on the third floor.  Anticipating.  Hesitating.  Wondering.  Waiting for a sign.  Maybe a glimpse of him.  A light switch to go on.  Go off.  Something.

As I stood there summoning courage, I realized how Nawaz had completely turned the tables on us during the latter part of our relationship.  He had trained me in such a way, that the pleasure of someone succumbing to me after a challenge would always prove more gratifying than that of readily available sex.

When I finally rapped on his door, a panic seized me.  I could hear my heart pounding within my chest, as if in the throes of a drug.  That familiar rush pulsating through my body.  A desire so urgent, it was acutely painful.  Standing there, facing that door beyond which awaited my sexual deliverance, every second that transpired felt like an eternity.  I wished I could have found a way to just extricate the flesh of my groin so as to rid myself of that knotted feeling that had me addicted to him.

But then, I had often wondered where my satisfaction truly lay.  In that torment right before Nawaz, languid in the knowledge of my need, delayed opening the door after peering through the peephole – or when I lay under him, my legs encircling his torso, my soul wrapped in carnality? 

Nawaz opened the door barefoot, wearing only a towel around his waist.  He didn’t look surprised or excited or concerned.  Maybe bored.  A gaze of disinterest laced with dislike.  Perhaps he’d heard that I was back in town and expected me to show up sooner or later.  I knew from experience not to perceive his countenance for its discouraging implication.