Madras on Rainy Days: A Novel (15 page)

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Authors: Samina Ali

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Ibrahim’s lips slowly drew back into a grin, their reddish-brown color matching that of his skin spots. He snapped back the arms of his glasses, then snapped them shut again. In the bath, Feroz was singing that counting song from the wedding night, while in the kitchen, Zeba was asking Nafiza to taste the mango relish I’d seen her prepare all
week, first drying the slices under the sun, then sinking them into spicy oil.
“You’re as innocent as my sister was,” Ibrahim said, staring at the glasses before him. Through the lenses, the red tablecloth enlarged and widened. “When I look at you, I think of her. You have the same round face and round eyes, the same
bholi
look. She used to say things like that, too.”
“Used to?”
He turned down the corners of his mouth. “She died a long time ago, Beta. When we were still just children. TB in the brain.” He was silent a moment before saying, “Your presence in my house doesn’t seem unfamiliar to me. It seems natural, as though you’ve been here all along. Your husband is in a rush to go to the U.S.,” he said, gesturing back to the bedroom. “I told him to wait awhile, to not take you away from me so quickly, but he says he can’t. Go, go, go. That child has always been like that, in a hurry to go from one thing to the next. He was even going to quit his tutoring so he could rush off to Madras this week to file for his visa, but I talked him into staying. Those kids are depending on him for their entrance exams. It wouldn’t be good to drop them and run. You’ve got to be responsible and finish what you’ve started.”
So he was tutoring. No wonder his mother hadn’t questioned his early departures, his absence all day, as I had been fearing she would.
“And, Beta,” Ibrahim was saying, tilting his head down to look up at me as though he still had on his glasses, “no matter what anyone says, it’s never good to advance yourself while neglecting others, or worse, hurting them. I hope you agree.”
“It’s why I think you two should take the bedroom. This morning, you looked so uncomfortable.”
“Not as uncomfortable as your husband would be if I took away his privacy He’s a new bridegroom, after all. Don’t tell him,” he said, lowering his voice in confidence. “I’ve got tickets for you—two first-class rail tickets—booked for the end of the month. As soon as his tutoring duties are finished, you two may go. I must confess,” he said,
putting his glasses back on and opening the paper again, “part of the reason I worked so hard to convince him to stay was so I could have you in my house for the month. After that, Beta, you’ll return to the U.S. with your husband—when will I see you again? Let me enjoy a daughter’s presence for a while.”
 
 
AFTER BREAKFAST, ZEBA asked me to join her and Feroz in the prayer room to recite the Qur’an. Every Friday for eleven years, the two had been reciting together, a family tradition she now wanted me to share. I felt too embarrassed to tell her I didn’t know how to read the Qur‘an. My parents had never taught me, nor did they know Arabic themselves. It had been enough for them that I’d memorized the few Arabic surahs I needed to say during prayers. Indeed, Islam in their house consisted of not much more than occasional prayers, on important religious days, on days when Amme needed more comfort. They had never woken me at dawn to pray, and the only time they woke early themselves was during Ramadan, when they had to eat before sunrise. Even then, after Dad began staying with Sabana, Amme found it difficult to do the ritual by herself, and rather than encourage me to fast with her, she would dissuade me, saying the hunger and thirst would distract my attention from studies. I had never fasted more than four days of the required thirty. Nor read the Qur’an, as others did while observing the requirements of Ramadan.
Ibrahim must have sensed my unease, for he quickly sent Sameer and me out for a walk, scolding his wife for asking me to think about God at a time when any new bride would only be able to think about her groom—“Let them get their fill of one another, Zeba, before you begin snatching her away.”
Zeba’s grunt of disapproval followed Sameer and me out the front door, then Nafiza came limping to the boundary gate, scowling behind Sameer’s back. Overhead, the sky was as gray as nails, the clouds low, compressing the heat.
Nafiza said, “When you think the clouds clear? Already so many
days go by.” And I knew what she was saying. She was ready to speak to Zeba.
I waited until Sameer was a safe distance away, then pretending to help her close the heavy gate, I whispered, “He’s not escaping me, Nafiza-una, he tutors all day.” I thought the news would please her, but she stared at me with that look of disappointment. I said, “When you went to Amme about Henna and me, what good came of it? She merely accused you of having a dirty mind—Zeba was on the farm, too, she might think the same thing.”
She looked startled before she stepped away from the gate, and I latched it.
Outside, the streets were much calmer than I was used to. No stray dogs sniffing about, no goats rushing into the courtyard to eat fallen guavas, no peddlers pushing carts of bananas and tropical fruits, baskets filled with onions as small as the garlic, ginger twisted into itself. As we walked from the dead end out toward the main roads, as far as I could see stretched a clean line of yellow boundary walls higher than my head, then lush leaves of almond and ashoka trees, giving the squat houses, set back from the road, even more privacy. The sidewalk was constructed of rectangular stones cemented together, the curb painted in horizontal stripes of gold and black, forbidding cars to park. The rust-colored lampposts were encircled at the base by green grass and lilies, a wire mesh protecting the vegetation from passing goats. Here and there, in front of a private gate, a design on the sidewalk in chalk, a swastika or a triangle broken into diamonds, Hindu signs of peace and prosperity, good fortune. Off in the distance, I could see two cows, one on either side of the road, ambling on, white horns curved back into crescent moons, tails flicking flies.
Sameer bumped my side with his, a gesture I’d seen Dad make with Amme, the most affection a husband could show his wife in public. “Don’t worry about Mum,” he said. “You have to stay firm when she asks you to do something you don’t want. You heard me this morning, I told her I wouldn’t pray She’s not the bloody religion police!” He picked up a rock and pitched it at a telephone pole, missing.
Up ahead, a group of children dressed in blue school uniforms was slowly crossing the road, sharing treats, school bags thicker than backs.
“I would have joined her except … I don’t know how to read the Qur’an.”
He was stooping for another rock and gazed up at me, eyes squinting against the light. He was wearing the white T-shirt and jeans Amme had sent over on those silver wedding trays, those damn black boots, and, for a moment, peering down at him, I thought I was in the U.S. It was the way he looked and also this, the liberty to walk down the block. Never before in India had I taken a stroll, always in a car, always with a driver and ayah, always taken from one boundary gate to another. The freedom Amme had promised I would experience once I was married seemed to be coming true.
“You were learning more important things in the States. I myself am what you might call a lapsed Muslim.”
“A lapsed Muslim!” I said, laughing.
He shot me a stern look, and I covered my mouth. He cast the stone at the pole again, this time smacking it and sending out the sound of a high clink.
“I’m sorry,” I said, now bumping his side with mine. “Can you tell me what you mean?”
“I mean I have more meaningful beliefs.”
“Like what?”
He shrugged, then felt the muscle of an arm, flexing it between his fingers, before choosing another stone. A scooter blared past, three men squeezed onto the seat. He was gazing up at a coconut, the tree rooted inside the boundary wall. He tossed the rock a few times in his hand, as though weighing it, before changing his mind and flinging it aside.
He glanced at his watch. “Do you want to turn back?”
Turn back? We hadn’t even reached the end of the block! “Do you need to be someplace?” I asked. “Are you tutoring even today?”
He raised his thick brows, surprised, then slowly said, “Only Monday through Thursday.” Then his shoulders slumped, reminding me of
how frail his form had been at the time of our engagement. “Listen, Layla,” he said, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I was embarrassed. My parents can’t fund our trip to Madras, as yours … I’ve been working and saving for the expenses. Alone, I would have stayed in hostels, but with you …” He turned away.
I wanted to reach for his hand but couldn’t in public. Just how much freedom did I really have here with my husband, other than my addressing him by his name—and that only upon Sameer’s insistence? I said, “At your age, Sameer, my father was working and saving, too. He went to the U.S. with fifty dollars in his pocket.”
“And now he drives a fifty-thousand-dollar car!” He shook his head in disgust at his father’s income. “My house, it’s so … it’s not what you’re used to. The crouching toilets and … I heard you talking to Papa about where they sleep. The truth is, they gave us their room, and they won’t take it back, not until we’ve left for the U.S. You don’t have to feel bad, it’s not your fault. Mum sets aside an entire room for prayer, why not use that as their bedroom, make Feroz sleep in the
divan
or who cares where, he’s just a boy!” He gazed about at the houses then quietly said, “Papa is close to retirement and he’s still renting! I’m not going to be like him, Layla. I’m going to make something of myself! Not here, a man like me can’t succeed here, but there!” His eyes widened, as though perceiving all his opportunities in America right here, among these gates and boundary walls. The lines on his forehead eased, and I thought he smiled faintly before he turned and headed up the road again, flinging his arm in the motion of pitching rocks. I followed, not knowing what to say nor knowing my husband well enough to lend my faith.
Finally, he stopped and waited for me, hands thrust deep inside his pockets. When I caught up, he said, “Your Nafiza, what did she want?”
“Just help with the gate.”
He stared at me, taking in my veil and
shalwar-kameez
as though for the first time, his lashes so thick they appeared to line the lids. He was trying to judge if I was telling the truth. I took his elbow
“Let’s go to Henna’s,” I said, then joked, “I know they won’t be praying!”
He didn’t move. “Her house is too far.”
“The wedding car passed their street on the way here. I saw it myself.”
He let out a long breath, clasping his hands behind his back, and lowered his head. “I’m not ready to see your relatives just yet. They’ll ask us if we’re happy and how we enjoy being married, and I won’t know what to say. It’ll only remind me of …” he seemed about to say Nate, then changed his mind, “ … of how we’re not really together. The
walima
dinner was bad enough.”
I nodded. Henna herself had told me how she didn’t like answering questions about Hanif. And hadn’t I been the one, seeing the groom’s pained expression at the
walima,
the way he had shut his eyes and turned away from the video, to ask Zeba, who didn’t approve of the cameras anyway, to get them turned off?
“Don’t look so sad, baby,” he said, gently straightening my veil. “I’m telling you, not just yet. It’s only been three or four days, and I don’t need much longer, I swear. Going to your relatives right now would be the wrong move. Trust me,” he said, pinching my chin and raising my face to his, as I had seen a thousand film heroes lift their brides’ faces on those fantasy wedding nights that now seemed truer than mine. “I have faith in things I can see and touch and feel,” he said. “When I have you by my side, what reason do I have to believe in God? You will give me all I need.
Razzaq,
” he said, provider, and one of the names of Allah.
 
 
SATURDAY EVENING, i climbed onto the back of his motorcycle and we took off, gliding through the streets I had seen only through the Fiat’s window. The air pushed at us, thick and dull, heavy with diesel fumes. I kept the veil tight around my head to keep my hair in place. I was sitting with my legs thrown to one side, an arm wrapped about my husband, feeling the hardness of his chest as I had not before. He was
leaned forward slightly, fingers curled around the handlebars, switching gears, revving the engine, my ring shimmering on his thumb. The bike was speeding and slowing, slowing and speeding, swerving about cars and lorries, buses moving too fast in this kind of traffic—more bicycles and mopeds, more pedestrians than people safely encased inside vehicles. But what a sensation to be out here, in the open, sliding through the darkening evening. I leaned my cheek against Sameer’s back, jiggling with the bike’s movements, and began to become a part of India as I had not been able to before.
We were headed to Tank Bund, the bridge between the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, a popular place for couples. The one-and-a-half-mile bridge crossed over Hussein Sagar, a dam fed by the Musi Nade, which ran near Amme’s house in the Old City. The dam, which must have been as large as Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis, separated the twin cities, while the bridge connected the two. During the time the Sagar was built by a Qutb Shahi king, it had provided drinking water to the residents; now the water was too polluted to swim in.

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