Madras on Rainy Days: A Novel (16 page)

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Authors: Samina Ali

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Over the years, during my every coming and going from India, I had had to cross this bridge to get to and from the airport. On almost every trip, Dad had halted the taxi along the side of the bridge, near one of the food carts, and ordered a round of sweet coconut milk. The peddler would hack off the coconut’s crown with a machete, slide in a flimsy pink straw, and hand it to Dad through his rolled down window Dad would pass the fruit back, one at a time, to Amme and me. After we were finished, we’d pass the shells back out in the same way. When my father remarried and ceased returning to India with us, my mother continued to stop the taxi along the Bund, this time the driver getting our milk. Those brief moments of gazing out through tinted windows was how I had experienced the bridge, during moments of heightened excitement, arrival and departure, new beginnings, here or there.
Along the extent of the bridge, cars parked against a cement divider, on the other side of which lay a wide promenade; at regular intervals, cement stairs led down to a lawn, the edge of the waters.
Sameer pulled into a spot, and we hopped off the bike, the warm air from passing traffic blowing back my long kurta. He wrapped his helmet straps onto the handlebar and we wove our way through parked cars to the other side of the divider. Dusk was giving way and the lights of Hyderabad flickered a dim yellow to my left, while on my right was the brighter blaze of Secunderabad. A large, five-star hotel had sprouted up since last year, capital letters spelling out VICEROY in a harsh white that dulled the stars. These twin cities stood on the high Deccan plateau, sloping down toward Madras to the south and the Bay of Bengal to the east. Most of the landscape before me was of the same flatness as the American Midwest, but for a rocky hill spotting the horizon here and there. On top of the highest was the magnificent glow of Birla Masjid, its white marble brighter even in the distance than the modern hotel lettering just behind me. Along the promenade, every fifty feet, stood a statue of a famous Indian—Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, the Buddha. And near the end of the bridge, by Secunder-abad, was an unknown grave, which was rumored to belong to the Sufi saint who protected Tank Bund. Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist—these religions had made Hyderabad.
Sameer slipped his hand into mine and pulled me against the railing overlooking the dam. The water was as dark now as the liquid inside Raga-be’s bowl, and there was no sound of movement, the crashing waves I was used to hearing at the lakes. Along its periphery, the reflection of city lights.
Without a word, my husband slid his fingers inside the chador, right under my chin, and undid the hook. The fabric fell back, and he caught it and yanked the rest free. “If it was up to me,” he said, “you’d be in jeans. This is to please Mum.” He held up the veil, a loose ball in his fist, and I was reminded of the kurta he’d wrapped around his hand on the wedding night. “I’ll go set it in the helmet,” he said, springing away.
I watched him weave his way through the crowd, a tall figure in tan corduroys and a blue button-down he’d kept untucked. So familiar now in the clothes Amme had brought back. He jumped over the divider
to his bike and a pair of young women with braids to their waists eyed him as they moved past, steps behind their own husbands.
Husband—
the word itself felt foreign, though it had come into my life long before Sameer had. Amme’s imaginings of him inside me, a ghost of my future.
Your husband will be a doctor or an engineer
.
Your husband will come from a good family. Your husband will be Muslim. Your husband will be from India.
Now, here he was, exactly as she had described. and yet so different from what I had expected. What was it that had pushed me to Nate? Was it something in Sameer I had seen last year at the engagement, or something in me—my doubts, my second side that was convinced love did not emerge after marriage? Saturday night on Tank Bund, over the soundless Sagar joining the two cities, was beginning to feel like I imagined a first date.
Sameer strolled back with a string of flowers he’d bought from a peddler. Without asking me to turn around, he slung his arms over my shoulders, drawing me close, and pinned them to my hair. Jasmine, jasmine and sweat.
We stood like that awhile, turned away from the outraged stares we must have been receiving from passersby. His heart was beating inside my ear. Finally, when a group of men began hollering and whistling, Sameer pulled away and leaned his elbows onto the railing. Overhead, a jet tore through the sky, heading south toward Madras, red lights blinking on its wings.
He said, “Are St. Paul and Minneapolis connected by a bridge? When I researched the cities, I couldn’t find much. New York and Chicago, California, yes, but not Minneapolis. Most of my friends haven’t even heard of it.”
“It’s small, like Hyderabad. And it’s connected to St. Paul through freeways.” How to describe that? “Roads like on Tank Bund, where cars go very fast and there are no stoplights.”
He smiled. “You’re explaining freeways to an engineer, baby.”
“Sorry.” How could I say that I had not yet gotten used to him. my husband?
He stared at me, his mouth slightly open, his tongue moving behind
his upper teeth, jabbing into the space then slipping away. “Twin cities,” he finally said. “You go from one twin city to another. Twins, like you.”
“Like me?”
“Yes, like you. You, the American, you, the Indian. Same face, two people. So where is your home?”
I gazed out toward the farthest end of the Sagar, then along its edge toward Secunderabad. Somewhere out there was the airport I arrived at twice a year.
“I was supposed to inhabit America without being inhabited by it—that was what my parents wanted.”
“But you’re a modern woman. Surely you don’t believe that’s possible. Take a look around you, baby, your America has reached even here, the darkest part of India. Tandoori pizza, lamb hamburgers, listen to the Hindi film music. It’s all disco and synthesizers. The next time we come to Tank Bund, there might even be a statue of the American president! Why not? Nothing goes uncorrupted … not even you.”
No, not even me. And the memory of Nate, those letters, must have fluttered through his mind as well, for he blinked at the woman before him, the image he was suddenly seeing, before his gaze faltered and his head dropped between his shoulders. His thumb, the ring, began clanging against the metal railing.
He said, “Most Americans have probably never heard of Hyderabad or even know where it is, yet America is here. Merely a fashion statement today, a status symbol, something to eat and wear, but tomorrow, who knows what it will mean to be Indian? If it will mean anything anymore. You, who live there—and this is what I meant—if we are being corrupted halfway round the world, how could you, who live there, not be corrup—I mean, it would not be possible for you to remain … pure.” He let out a long breath and slumped even farther onto the railing, shaking his head. He felt defeated, I could tell, his words, without his intending, coiling around Nate, what I had done, and from my husband’s own lips, how my behavior might even be excused, explained away. Possessed, indeed, by the man who had entered
me. It was not possible anymore for him to make even a broad statement about cultural invasion without thinking specifically about my body.
I ran my hand along the back of his head, feeling its shape and contours, the soft waves of his hair. My fingers slipped to his neck, under the collar of his shirt, the hard bone of his spinal cord, the scratchiness of the shirt’s designer label. He shut his eyes, his lips curling up to show displeasure, but he didn’t pull away. I traced his ear, his jaw line, finally getting to know my husband, who was as strange to me as he was familiar.
I whispered, “You and I are the same, Sameer. Same color, same language, same race. You understand parts of me no American ever will. I don’t have to explain to you what the chador means; I don’t have to … translate myself to you or feel misunderstood. You are more part of me than … than I had even realized myself.” I opened up my palm to show him his initials, but even in the lamppost’s frail light, I could see the henna had faded into an unattractive orange, parts of the design, the letters of his name, already seeped into skin and blood.
 
 
THAT NIGHT, HE slept closer to the center of the bed, closer to me, but in the morning, was again gone before I woke, the men of the house winding their way out of this dead-end road, while I was left behind with Zeba and Nafiza. The previous week, I had not know his presence well enough to miss it. Now, after three days of being with him, I was startled to find myself in Zeba’s role, eagerly awaiting my husband’s return.
I joined my mother-in-law later that morning, crawling up beside her on the
takat
she slept on at night. It was here, resting against three pillows she had embroidered herself, that she began preparations for the evening meal. Set before her now was a steel pot overflowing with green beans, more than I had ever seen Amme use for one curry. This, a woman who was accustomed to feeding three grown men. She was
breaking off the ends and casting them on the cement floor, the
duppatta
rising and falling with the heavy movement of her breath.
As I was reaching for the pot, she held up her hand to stop me, the black fabric falling low. “You are in a rush to begin housework. How many times must I tell you, your wedding henna hasn’t completely faded. You are still a new bride. No need to hurry.
Inshal’lah,
you have a full life ahead of cooking and cleaning for your husband. Right now, you must rest. Your ayah is here to do your work.” She motioned with her head toward the kitchen. Nafiza was inside, washing my breakfast dishes, the sound of splashing water and clanging plates mingling, every now and then, with a low cough.
“I am tired of resting,” I said, grabbing a few green beans.
Without looking up at me, she said, “You are already restless without him.”
I snapped off the ends, starting a pile by my knee, and we sat awhile in silence, the beans popping as they broke. I was suddenly aware of Zeba being his mother. It was her face he bore, the same wide forehead and thick brows, those lines etched on her face already showing up on his.
She said, “What did you do at home? Did you help your
amme
?”
Help her? I had spent my life helping her, it seemed, once Dad had left. Making the phone calls she needed even for the most minor of tasks, paying bills, getting an appliance fixed or the heater running again. Going with her on visits to the doctors, even the gynecologist, to ensure she understood—I understood—what was happening with her health, her depression that sprang out as anger. Rearranging my schedule, setting aside my work, making her my priority. She, the mother who had become my child.
I said, “Amme was often alone, especially at night after my father divo—because he was often at the hospital. She needed me. She never got used to living in America. She never even picked up English!”
Zeba’s eyes wandered to my bedroom and, through the open door,
she took in my ivory-painted bed. It was so big it hardly left any space to walk. Gaudy, compared to their simple furniture, ostentatious and gaudy. Zeba grunted, as though in agreement, her hands not once slowing in their task. “Your
amme
and I have always known different lives. Did she tell you we were childhood friends?”
“She said you went to school together in the village.”
“My family rented from hers. For seven generations, that’s how we lived in Miryalgurda, always the renters, and your family always the landowners. Of course we were children and none of that made sense to us. We were only interested in playing. In that village, there was no one else. Sometimes your
amme
and I would get so bored of each other, we’d have your grandfather order the servants’ children to play with us. We measured and sold them dirt, pretending it was the rice and grain your
nana
grew. Your Nafiza hated being forced to be with us. She wanted to be running around in the jungle with the boys. She was always getting in trouble.”
Trouble, the kind that must have led her to seek Raga-be’s help. Yet there was no way to ask Zeba about it.
“Amme tells stories about the jungle. She says there were bears and tigers, even king cobras, where you played hide-and-seek. And scorpions would crawl into her bed, stinging her. She told me that once someone gave Taqi Mamu a pair of monkeys as pets.” Fantastical tales, hers were, or at least that was how I had always heard them, bedtime stories as entertaining and hard to believe as those Bollywood movies she loved to watch.
Zeba snapped a bean. “We did mostly play outside, in your
nana’
s fields and in the jungle. Your
nani
didn’t like us in the house. It was a huge
haveli,
and she said noise echoed.” She let out a heavy sigh, the veil crumpling and folding with her body. “She suffered so long from that brain tumor. Allah
raheem,”
God have mercy.
Nafiza hobbled in and sat on the floor beside us, her arm on the
takat
supporting her as she folded her legs. She was still having trouble with her knees. Zeba gave her a handful of beans, and my nanny gathered them in her lap, breaking two at a time.
Zeba said, “So here we are again, old woman, together like when we were children. Who would have imagined it, huh?”

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