Madras on Rainy Days: A Novel (5 page)

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Authors: Samina Ali

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“But I cannot be wrong. I know him well. He is the elder son of two. The boy was in an accident only six years earlier, when he was eighteen, and the mother brought him to me. Of course, I couldn’t heal him. The boy just needed medical attention. I told the mother this. But she refused.”
I didn’t know Sameer’s mother well, having met her only twice, briefly. Still, I couldn’t imagine why a mother wouldn’t heal her child. A year earlier when I had been engaged to Sameer, I hadn’t noticed a limp either. But he had had some problems sitting cross-legged at the ceremony. And now, for the wedding, the groom’s family had ordered chairs for the wedding stage, something that was uncustomary and perplexing, yet something that we had not asked to be explained. After all, the groom’s family had the right to ask for what they wanted. And we, the bride’s family, had not the right to ask why.
“What kind of accident was it?” I asked.
“A motorcycle accident. He broke his leg severely. Up by the thigh and hip. He couldn’t walk for months. Somehow, without medical attention, he healed. A miracle! For even I, after my accident … But the boy did not tell you this himself?” Now the
alim
also appeared confused. “I am sure I am thinking of the right boy. His father, Ibrahim, still visits me. We are very close.”
“In this community,” Amme said, “there are many Ibrahims and many Sameers. How can we say they are the same? Certainly the family would have told us, Alim-ji. Why would they deceive us on such a big matter? You must be thinking of someone else.”
“Yes, yes, of course, Sister,” the
alim
said. “Of course you are right.” He crossed his arms over his chest, bringing his shoulders in tight, and over them, I again saw the bird. Now it flew madly in the living room, smashing into mirrors, unable to find its way out. Each time I heard the dull thud of the small body as it hit glass, I cringed, wishing Noor would shoo it out with a broom. But she remained motionless, her hands cupped before her thighs.
Then the old man asked to see my hand, but by this time, our minds were on Sameer and what the
a/im
had told us, so no one listened closely. After our visit, the
alim
refused any donations. He must have felt that he had told us something his other clients did not intend for us to know. More important, he knew that he had upset a situation that was going forward, and in India, weddings are not taken lightly. Careful scrutiny is taken of horoscopes, numerology, and the Qur‘an that considers not only the groom’s name and the bride’s, the groom’s birthday and the bride’s, but also the parents’ names and birth dates to see if the marriage will be Bad, Mixed, or Good. Sometimes, as in my case, the Qur’anic reading comes back as Better. Better, as in Better Than Average, Better Than Good, Better Go For It. Even specifics had been described: my husband and I would have two boys, one girl; we would travel; we would earn much money; we would be happy together; and Sameer would only take on one wife during his lifetime—
me. According to one palmist we consulted, the sex would also be Better.
When we heard about Sameer’s broken and never-quite-healed right leg, my mother and uncle became understandably concerned. As did I. Surely if I was agreeing to marry a man of my mother’s choice, then the least she could do was provide one who had two even legs. This was certainly unfair. We all thought this. Unfair. It was as though the word lingered between us, crowding us, choking us, and when we looked up and saw that poor, injured bird flying about the living room, trapped by its own reflections, unable to find its way out, we thought it again. Unfair. So when the
alim
felt my forehead and arm, when he placed his hand on my abdomen, then encouraged Amme to bring me to a “lady doctor as quickly as possible,” Amme and Abu Uncle vaguely nodded in adherence, then rose unexpectedly.
I followed.
“No demons, then?” Abu Uncle asked, straightening his pants at the waist. He tucked his shirt in farther.
“Not ones I can chase away,” the
alim
said.
“Good, good. Thank you. The mother has been very worried. Did you hear that, Apa? No demons.”
Amme nodded again, but her eyes, the most expressive feature on her, resembled the
alim
’s as they darted about the room. I prayed she was finally seeing how there was no way to move forward with the wedding.
“Visit a doctor, Beta,” the
alim
said to me. “I give you the same advice I gave your fiancé’s mother.”
“You are thinking of the wrong man, Alim-ji,” Amme said suddenly She stood over him, glaring into his face. “Who do you take us for? I would never marry my daughter to a man like that. What does my daughter not offer? She has everything. Everything. She has America. She could marry any man she wanted. I have known Ibrahim since I was a child so I chose his son for my daughter. The family would not have hidden such a big thing from us. I am sure they would not have.”
The
alim
lowered his head. Noor looked away Abu Uncle placed his arm around Amme to comfort her.
“Let us go, Apa. We’ll talk about this later.” He tried to guide her to the courtyard.
She flung his arm away before throwing a bundle of rupees next to the old man. Then she turned, the chador swirling around her legs, and walked off.
“Ageeb admi hai,
” she muttered as she went.
Noor jumped ahead, racing to the gate. I looked at the mirrors on the wall again, some smudged by the colliding bird. It lay now on the tile floor, its small chest heaving.
“I keep the mirrors to trap demons,” the
alim
said. “Once they are inside the mirrors, they can’t get out.” He must have sensed my astonishment, for he laughed. “Don’t be scared of me, child. I am an old blind man. I have been this way for most of my life. In order to survive, I must be able to sense what is around me. I must be able to see what you see … and a little more.” He paused. “I would never harm you,” he said.
“Come on, Layla, stop talking to that useless man,” Amme called from behind.
“Chalu !
” She was already annoyed. But it was not her fault. She had too much to think about. And right when she thought things were moving smoothly It becomes difficult for some to trust in the good that happens in life when punishment trails so closely behind. Amme was like that, an angel of sorrow
“Thank you,” I said to the
alim.
He nodded once. I salaamed him and he salaamed back, his eyes roaming. Then a high beep sounded, tearing the air between us. He fumbled for his watch and turned off the alarm. “Time for prayers,” he said, rising. He stood on top of the
takat
, and when I followed his movement up, I noticed, for the first time, that the ceiling, too, was covered with mirrors. In it, the entire room was displayed, upside down. The
alim
and I stood on our heads, my face elongated, our feet dangling, the black-and-white tile floor was now the sky, and on it, that bird, still puffing, black, the red-tipped wings twitching, once, twice, then motionless. Too sudden for me to understand.
I dashed across the courtyard, the rain feeling cool against my face. The way the chador rose behind me, I hoped that I would scare the doves into flight. But the two sat cooing on the bucket, their voices holding human sadness, yet without human meaning.
 
 
AS WE RACED back through Elephant Alley the azan began, calling Muslims to the second prayer of the day The three of us ran silently, not noticing this time the heavy rain, not the women in the doorways who reappeared at the echo of our footsteps, not seeing the cobblestones, not tripping, not holding hands, just rushing.
“Allah
ho Akbar’”
Allah is great, the imam’s deep voice rang through the loudspeaker.
We sprang from the alley’s curve. The car was quiet, the driver’s door open. Ahmed’s feet dangled out. He was sleeping. The kids had finally let him alone.
“Ashadan-la-illah-ha-illa-la,”
there is no God but Allah.
Abu Uncle pounded on the hood. The cheap metal bowed under his fist. Ahmed shot up. His face was deep brown, the blood had drained into his head. Amme and I rounded the Fiat from either direction. Ahmed held open the back door for her.
“
Hai ya-lul-salah,
” come to prayer.
The cushion dipped when we sat, more on Amme’s side than on mine. We rolled down the windows and looked out. Rain sprinkled my right arm and thigh.
“You can’t pray because of your bleeding,” Amme said, then sighed. “I’ll have to pray for you myself. All my life I’ve been praying for you.”
“Where to?” Ahmed asked. The car reversed out of the alley.
“Home,” Amme said.
“I thought you wanted to shop for the wedding?”
“Don’t argue, Ahmed.”
“Sorry,
memsa’ab.
”
“
Hai ya-lul-falah,
” come to success.
“Don’t worry, Apa,” Abu Uncle said. “They would not hide such a big thing from us.”
Amne pursed her lips.
“I’ll go over to find out if you want,” he offered.
Still no answer.
“That’s a good idea,” I said.
He nodded.
The back streets were empty. The residents most certainly at the mosque. Even those brats.
“Such a big thing to hide,” Amme said. “A cripple!”
“
Ar’re
!” Abu Uncle said. He laughed. Uneasily “He is not a cripple, Apa. Just an injury.”
Ahmed looked in the rearview mirror at me. His eyes were round, big, and I knew he took it all in. Let him.
“Kat ka mut tes salah,
” come to good deeds.
“No wonder they ordered chairs for the wedding,” Amme said. “The boy can’t sit. How could I have been so blind?”
“We don’t know if it is him, Apa.”
“Oh, shut up, Abu,” she snapped. “Who else could it be? Our community is not big. There’s only one Ibrahim with one son named Sameer. And only one cheap mother. Zeba. She doesn’t bring her own son to the hospital. For what? Money! I have never seen such strange people!”
The car fell silent. Every minute or so, almost on cue, Amme let out a sigh. Deep. Guttural. It sat between us, edging me more and more toward the door. Even the wind coming through the open windows could not blow her moans away
My story had gotten lost in his. What better twist of fate could I have asked for? I sat back in the seat. We wound our way out of the alleys, away from all fables about eager bridegrooms and trapped creatures.
“Allah
ho Akbar,
” the imam repeated, Allah is great.
I smiled, hidden by the chador. He certainly is, I thought.
DAWN. THE FIRST day of my wedding.
I was standing on the flat roof of my mother’s great house in the old walled city, staring out at the dirt alleys and whitewashed houses, slim minarets rising all around, the neighborhood that was as much part of me as the tree-lined suburban streets, the Colonial-style homes in Minneapolis. Five times a day, from each of these corner mosques, a different azan sounded, filling the air with God’s adoration, his greatness, humble words quickly evaporating, being replaced with the sounds of cocks crowing, goats bleating, a lone dog’s howl. Even the lamb now tied to a guava tree in our house’s inner courtyard, awaiting its own slaughter on the day of the
nik’kah,
four days from now, bayed along with the azan, as though itself praying for Allah’s mercy
Allah’s mercy It was what I, too, wanted, though coming in what form, I could no longer say. What was I feeling on this, the first day of my wedding? Indeed, like God’s praise evaporating, leaving in its wake the noise one could not bear to hear, the noise of dirty animals, the soul transcending the body, plunging down to earth, so, too, had my dread, my apprehension, my small hope of escaping these marital ties vanished, and the emotion that took over was no emotion at all, just a
dullness that matched the overhead skies, singing of a different kind of surrender.
 
 
DAD WAS SITTING on a bamboo chair in front of me. His chin was resting on a hand as one graceful finger stroked the skin below his fleshy lower lip. He was grinning at me, his light eyes filled with a playfulness, a tenderness, I’d not seen before … at least, not since he’d married Sabana. We were facing each other, our deep chairs shifted to stand just beneath the ceiling fan. Its wind blew back the collar of his white kurta, exposing fair skin still taut around the neck, under the eyes, though he was forty-nine and overworked, though he managed two families. Below the tunic, he wore the dark trousers he usually wore to the hospital, pressed down the center, and below that, deep brown patent leather shoes whose color had, in the two days since his arrival, grown even deeper from dirt and dust. I knew he’d end up giving them to Ahmed or Munir, the cook, before he returned to the U.S. A servant doing chores in shoes that cost more than a year’s salary The shoes were left untied and he wasn’t wearing socks.
The finger moved to his dark mustache and smoothed it down. “Do you remember the song we used to sing when you were a little girl?” he asked. Before I could answer, he began singing it himself. “Early in the morning, just like me. You are eating breakfast, just like me. Dancing in the streets, just like me … !” He threw back his head and laughed, the roof of his mouth a healthy pink against his white teeth.
I gave him a smile. Yes, I remembered the song, though I did not remember singing it with him more than once. I must have been four then. We were in the U.S., in the first home my parents owned, a small two-bedroom rambler in south Minneapolis. We were sitting on the floor, Dad with his back against the sofa, long legs stretched before him. He was bouncing me on his lap as we sang together, my young voice rising to such a pitch it was really a scream. He had thrown his head back then, too, laughing. Then something happened—did Amme
announce that I had again wet my bed, did a neighbor’s son come over and ask if I could play?—and I was no longer on his lap but inside the dirty laundry basket, clothes piled on top, hiding me. The song’s beat was now a fist’s beat against walls and doors as he searched the house. It was the one time I had gotten away from him.
“Where were you hiding?” he now asked. “The first day of your wedding, and the
dul’han
herself is gone!”
“I wasn’t hiding,” I said. “I was on the roof. Someone’s strung green flags up and down the alley. I don’t remember that from previous years. They’ve even been tied to our house.” Then I said, “The flag has a crescent moon on it, a star shining within its belly … like it’s pregnant.”
“Poverty makes people religious,” he said, his gleeful eyes already wandering off to the inner courtyard. I couldn’t tell if he was taking in his two young sons or, through the kitchen’s latticework window, his second wife. Though it had been nearly ten years since the two had married, his light eyes still grew fiery when he looked at her. She was now in the middle of her third pregnancy
The two boys, the older half my age, stood in the harsh sun in T-shirts and jeans, barefoot, using long sticks to poke the tender flesh of the lamb. The poor thing had wound its way around and around the thin trunk until it could do nothing but lay its head against the wood. It bayed.
Dad had arrived with his family two days ago, the same day we’d visited the blind
alim
. When we’d come back to the house, we’d found two fat taxis rolling away from the front boundary gate, one used to transport the family, the other the lamb Dad had bought on the way home from the airport. As the taxis drove off, I could see the animal’s pale prints on the back windshield, where the scared creature must have kicked. The sacrifice was Dad’s way of celebrating my wedding—though I would have preferred that he simply come by himself, without the animal, without his family
“
Ar’re
, leave it be!” Dad shouted to his sons, though he was still grinning, and I knew he didn’t mean it. The boys continued to lunge
and poke. The lamb jerked. Sabana sang a Hindi song as she cooked her family’s breakfast, her voice high and off-tune. She told people she had been a great Hindi film actress, though, in truth, she’d been nothing more than a nameless face in the few movies she’d briefly appeared in. Maybe it was to be the leading lady that she’d cajoled Dad into divorcing Amme. For that was what he’d done, the reason my mother had locked herself in her room and cried for a month. He hadn’t simply taken on a second wife, something Amme had been raised to prepare for, a man’s right here by Old City laws, but he had done the unthinkable and abandoned her.
He now turned back to me, his slender fingers diving into his thick, wavy hair, arm hung in midair as he scrutinized me. He had long fingers and graceful wrists, hands molded for exactly what he did, heart surgery. It was hard to believe that the very hands that had signed the divorce deeds, that beat me, saved lives every day.
“I was searching for you because I have a gift,” he said, calling out to Amme to bring it. She was in the bedroom, the one she had to share with Sabana, her own dowry furniture shifted to one side to fit that of the new wife’s. Though he had divorced Amme, Dad continued to support us. In the U.S., we had separate houses; here, where men kept multiple families, where men did not divorce their wives, he kept us in the same place. No one in the Old City, not neighbors, not relatives, knew of the divorce.
Amme shuffled out with a thick envelope. She was wearing a cream-colored sari printed with blossoming pink roses and the festive pattern matched her own mood. She’d been in the bedroom all morning with my nanny, Nafiza, the two women giggling as they assembled the dowry onto silver trays: saris and jewels for me; jeans and corduroys, button-down oxfords for Sameer.
“Tell Nafiza to make me chai,” Dad said as he took the envelope. He massaged his head. “This heat is giving me a headache.”
“You know your wife won’t let any of my servants into the kitchen,” Amme said. Sabana was terrified that Amme would have them mix black magic herbs into Dad’s food that would turn his affections
back to us. It was the reason Sabana did all his cooking. “Besides, I need Nafiza to help me with the dowry If you want chai, get up and tell your wife to make it. Look how much she cares for you—cooking even in this heat!” She grunted, then strolled back to her room as she stared across the courtyard at the kitchen. Already her eyes had lost some of their gaiety. Since their divorce, Amme spoke to Dad with an irreverence she could never have shown if he had remained her husband. But that was the point, to never let him forget what he’d done. If he had kept her as his wife—even a cowife—she would have happily taken his request as an order and gone to stand next to Sabana, boiling the tea herself, two women jostling for one man’s attention, for his one pleasure. It was the life Amme would have preferred.
“
Aie
, no one’s happy,” Dad said as he tossed the envelope onto my lap. “No matter what I do, no one’s happy.” He winked at me, trying to enlist me to take his side.
I opened the envelope and found two airline tickets for the U.S., one with my name, another with Sameer’s. They expired in six months.
Dad crossed his other leg, a hand running down the front pleat to straighten it. Pale ankles peeked out. Shoelaces dragged on the tile floor. “I remember when I first got the call to go to the U.S.,” he said, staring at something just beyond me. His mustache twitched. “You’d just been born. I told your mother, ‘See how lucky my daughter is. Her footsteps into this house have blessed us.’ I was so pleased, I took you both to Madras to get my visa.” He nodded and his eyes closed briefly before they locked on me again. There was something other than tenderness in them now, another emotion I was more used to seeing, a hard resolve.
“Return as soon as you can,” he ordered, “as soon as your husband gets his visa. You know how your mother’s life is: she’ll be alone there in that big house. You and Sameer can take an entire floor to yourselves, have all the privacy you need. No need to venture out. How would you pay for an apartment anyway? He’ll come there, expecting to find a job. but no one will honor his degree. He’ll have to take engineering
classes over again, just as I had to take my medical exams. He’ll have no job, other than one at McDonald’s or as a taxi driver. He won’t be able to support you. Live in the house, continue to take care of your mother. Don’t forget all the sacrifices she’s made for you. Remember, you’re responsible for her.”
I stared out into the courtyard. The two boys had gone into the alley to play with the local kids. July the season for kites; I remembered that from my childhood here as well as I remembered singing that song with Dad in the U.S.
Sabana’s shadow passed through the kitchen door and I saw the moment I had gone from being the lucky girl to the ill-fated daughter. Amme’s sacrifices, the reason she had stayed on with Dad after he had cast her away, erasing her own future, was so she could give me the one thing she no longer possessed, a husband.
“Did Amme tell you about his leg?” I asked.
He shrugged as he rose from his chair. He was done with what he had to say
He stuck a hand into a pocket, the shape of a fist. “The boy confessed,” he said. “When your Abu Uncle went to his house, the boy didn’t hide it. He confessed. That shows courage.” Then he stared down at me and I watched him take in my round nose, the full lips, features he’d passed on to me as he’d later passed on responsibility for my mother. I knew what he was thinking, had even heard him remark on it once to his Bollywood wife. He thought I was ugly.
“Be grateful to have him, Layla. No one can detect the limp. You know how it is here when it comes to tying a marriage. The boy’s degree, the girl’s beauty. Nothing else matters.”
Nothing? What about the one thing he would not name? Without a father, without a proper home, a girl could never think to enter a new one.
 
 
SOON AFTER BREAKFAST, the house began to transform, and I realized it didn’t matter how much I had prepared myself, going over and over
the upcoming events in my mind, for when it was actually happening, my body was still left shocked.
The green flags that someone had strung along the ground-floor balcony had been removed and, in their place, wedding lights went up. Strings of colorful lights now hung from each of the three floors, from the
chandni
I had been standing on this morning, gazing across at what seemed an unchanging city, and they twisted through the guava and coconut branches as women here wove floral strings through their hair. Two young women from the local beauty shop had come to the house and painted my hands and feet with intricate designs of henna. Then they’d put sugar water on top to keep the raw henna in place. The longer it stayed on, the deeper the red would be, and the more auspicious my marriage. Inside the delicate leaf painted on my right palm, within the fragile lines, Sameer’s initials. That, too, was auspicious, his name seeping into blood and skin, becoming part of me. It was tradition here for the groom to search for his initials on the wedding night, a silly ritual perhaps intended to provide a natural way for the young couple to touch each other when they had never touched before.
Wedding musicians had arrived just as the sun was going down and were set up in the courtyard, not too far from the crying lamb. The cracked wood of the old
takat they’d
been seated on had been covered by a red
masnat
, its gold embroidery shaping into the pointy guava leaves shading the two men. Under the
shenai’s
plaintive call and the steady beat of the dol, I could hear the dull thud of pots and pans as the servants cooked the evening meal. Tonight, for the first wedding ceremony
mun-jay,
the women of my family would begin to prepare me to meet my new husband.
Already it was nearing time for them to arrive, so Amme had sent me to my room. Only when all the guests had gathered and the salon had been fully decorated would I be presented, splendid in my first wedding outfit, its sheer
duppatta
pulled down over my face, reaching my knees. Nafiza had dressed me moments earlier, covering my hands in pink plastic bags, cinched at the wrists by rubber bands to keep the henna from staining the fabric. Then she’d seated me at the center of
my dowry bed, the headboard carved into the shape of a peacock’s lean neck, the face turned sideways, beak parted in a silent cry. The footboard was the creature’s regal tail feathers. She herself had taken a place on the stone floor, sewing the velvet pillowcases that matched the maroon velvet of the bedcover. On the morning of my wedding day, all the bedroom furniture would be moved to Sameer’s house: the Godrej
almari
stuffed with the saris and jewels I was to wear in my new home; the dresser with the tall mirror now veiled by a sequined cloth to prevent me from seeing my reflection until the wedding night, when I was fully his bride; and, of course, this majestic bridal bed on which he would discover how I was unfit to be his wife.

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