The World Unseen (20 page)
Authors: Shamim Sarif
“My husband has been telling me to learn to drive for ages,” said the voice, softly spoken and yet filled with a new strength, and Amina smiled at the recollection. Those words of Miriam’s had delighted her, and she had had to try very hard not to smile until after she had left the shop that day.
“Come with me,” she remembered herself saying. “Come to Cape Town…
”
“I have a husband, three children and a shop to look after; I can’t just leave…
”
The abrupt tone of the sentence depressed Amina at once.
She watched the road, swallowed ahead of her by the blackness of the night, and she pressed her foot a little harder on the gas pedal, as though she might somehow be able to catch up to the darkness that always lay just ahead of her, and be covered up by it. She switched on the radio, keeping the volume low, concentrating on listening to the crackling music that it produced. Then she grasped the wheel firmly in both hands and decided to forget about list-making for good, because right at that moment she could not think of any reasons why she should not just do what she had promised herself some time before and forget about Miriam entirely.
M
iriam had long since stopped counting days, and was instead counting hours. After much consideration and uncertainty, she had decided that lunchtime on Tuesday should be the hour she should count towards, for Amina knew Omar’s routine by now, and she would surely wait until Tuesday, when he went to Pretoria, to come to give the promised driving lesson.
She awoke in the thin darkness of pre-dawn, and was relieved when edges of daylight became visible beneath the curtains because she had lain awake for some time, not moving, waiting until it should be light enough outside to justify getting up. Downstairs, she went through her usual preparations; she waved to John as he went home after another night watching the shop; she chatted to Robert, then to her children as she helped them wash and dress; she fed the baby, and then Omar, watching him silently as he ate a bowl of porridge.
“What’s the matter?” he asked her. “Why aren’t you eating?”
She looked down at her plate.
“I don’t know. My stomach feels funny,” she said. It was true, but although she would not admit it, even to herself, it was not a case of any illness, but merely a flutter of nervousness that pulsed through her, simultaneously leaving her with an edgy energy. Her children were somehow washed and breakfasted and on their way to school without even noticing the time passing, and Omar also felt a restlessness infecting him from the woman sitting opposite.
“Are you sick?” he asked, before he left.
“I’m fine,” Miriam replied – and she looked fine, her husband noticed with a frown. She smiled as she handed him his jacket, and her eyes seemed to laugh.
“Have a good trip,” she said, and he realised that for a long time now, she had not said those words to him when he left her on a Tuesday. He had been dimly aware that she suspected something about his nights away; probably she even knew the truth. Nothing, however, would ever be articulated between them; even if she should think of speaking about it, he would not allow such a conversation to happen.
His eyes were slightly narrowed as he watched her, and he touched his collar, then checked his tie. It was a gesture she had seen him make a thousand times; he had a particular way of grasping the knot of his tie between his thumb and forefinger. It was a delicate movement – he had a fastidiousness about him when it came to little details that Miriam had always liked. His nails were always kept neatly and squarely cut, and when he put his pen down while doing accounts, he always made sure that it was aligned exactly with the book.
Miriam followed her husband outside. She knew that he would skip the top step when he walked down to the car; that he would start the engine and straighten the mirror without a glance at her; that he would only look up briefly as he pulled away, because somewhere inside himself he felt bad about going. She knew every detail about his every mannerism, and yet today she felt as though she were watching a stranger. It must be me, she thought to herself; nothing about him has changed.
She waved as he drove slowly away, and watched from the side of her eye as two workers from the Weston farm came walking across the scrubby grass towards the shop. She was pleased they had come, for she sensed that this particular morning would pass even more slowly than all the others that had come before.
As usual, Farah had woken up at four a. m. that morning to see her husband off for his two day trip to the markets. She would not have bothered to get up at all, were it not for the fact that he moved around so heavily, which made sleeping through his rituals of washing and dressing impossible. He also liked her to rise with him and prepare him some breakfast, which she grudgingly did each week. Anyway, some untrusting part of her liked to watch him drive away in his truck, and to know that he was really gone before his brother arrived later in the day. Today she yawned widely at the window as she watched him leave, and then she turned and went back upstairs where she would sleep for two more hours before rising again to send her children to school, feed her crazy sister-in-law, and get ready for Omar.
By ten o’clock that morning, she had seen to everyone in her household, and was heating water for a bath when she heard the key turn in the lock downstairs. She slipped on a robe, a pale silk garment that Rehmat had left behind, and walked slowly down the stairs, a smile playing on her lips.
“You’re early…
”
she said, and stopped abruptly. Sadru was staring at her, his mouth slightly open.
“You’re very early!” she continued as carelessly as she could. “What happened?” She tied the robe more tightly around herself and watched him from the stairs.
Sadru shook his head and continued to stare. “They…they are closed.”
“Closed?”
He nodded.
“The markets?”
Sadru nodded again.
Farah began to get irritable. “Why are they closed?”
“Some demonstration. Day of action by the Blacks.”
“Bloody
kaffirs
,” noted Farah, and she went back upstairs. She took off the robe and stepped into the bath, her mind racing. There was no way to get hold of Omar. He would have left the shop over two hours ago and would already be here in Pretoria, having meetings with whomever it was he did his weekly business. She considered her predicament for a few minutes, then shrugged and sank as far into the meagre inches of warm water as she could. There was a knock at the bathroom door. Her husband. She had already forgotten him.
“What?” she shouted. There was no reply, and she smiled, knowing he wanted her to invite him in. She heard his feet shuffling outside the door.
“I want some more breakfast,” he said suddenly, his tone petulant.
“Then wait a minute,” she told him, and she closed her eyes and leaned back down in the bath.
At noon, Miriam walked out to the
stoep
once more and looked at the empty road. She listened and waited. There was the piping of the birds above her, and then the slow rumble of the day’s solitary train. It was a familiar sound to her, the faraway hum of the engine, and she raised her hand to her eyes and looked to the east where she knew the train would appear at any moment.
With a long, distant clatter it ambled past her, along the horizon ahead, and she thought of how she had laughed with Amina to think of her children running out to catch sight of it, and she smiled slightly and raised a hand to wave at it before she went back inside to stir once more at the warm pots of food that sat on the stove.
The café, much to Amina’s dissatisfaction, had been mostly empty all morning. Irritably, she walked up and down the polished floor, watching from the corner of her eye the only occupied table and trying not to think.
“If you’ve got somewhere to go, just go,” Jacob called to her. “I can manage here.”
Amina waved her hand impatiently. “I don’t want to go anywhere,” she said.
Yes, you do, thought Jacob; and he went back to the letter that he was writing. He was not a man who communicated well on paper, his writing style being even less effusive than his speech, but he knew he ought to write to his sisters and his uncle, and besides, he had found that having a newly finished letter provided an excellent reason to visit the post office, where Miss Smith would sell him the required stamps. He never asked for more stamps than he needed, and Miss Smith never offered to sell him a supply, and she had smiled to herself when she had noticed that recently he had begun to send letters almost daily, although he never had a letter to post on the same day that he came to collect the mail. She always sold him his single stamp with great seriousness, however, and never for a moment acknowledged to Jacob that she suspected the reason for his sudden literary turn. She too was pleased to be able to see him and talk with him each day.
The long scratching of a record being roughly placed on the gramophone made Jacob shudder inwardly. He turned to look behind him.
“Sorry,” Amina said.
A tune by Cole Porter came wheezing out, the notes warbling a little until the record settled down. Amina listened for two seconds and then became bored. She went into the kitchen, where she poked around and checked on the cook before emerging again into the café.
“I need to go out,” she announced to Jacob, her tone suddenly rather too casual after the nervous energy of the morning. “Is it okay?”
Jacob looked up, his face impassive. “That’s what I’ve been telling you,” he said.
She picked up her hat and spent a few minutes looking for her keys before she found them already clasped in her hand.
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” she called, but this time Jacob did not even look up, only raised a hand in acknowledgement.
Amina felt a sense of release at having chosen some course of action, even if she had not yet convinced herself of her destination. She drove slowly, watching a certain upcoming side street narrowly. With a sudden grasp of the steering wheel, she turned into it and parked. Even from here, she could see Omar’s car outside his brother’s house; he had just arrived. She instinctively shrank down in her seat as she watched him get out of the car, shrugging off his jacket, which he left draped on the back seat. She was too far up the road to be noticed, however, and she watched him loosen his tie and walk quickly up the short pathway before placing his own key in the lock. Amina pushed back a stray curl and looked at herself in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes looked sad, and her cheekbones were darkly shadowed. She had lost weight in the last couple of weeks.
“You’re a bad man,” she said under her breath, looking again at the door through which Omar had disappeared. “You give me all sorts of ideas about how to spend a Tuesday afternoon.”
For the first time in several days, Amina smiled to herself. Then she ground back the stiff gears and turned the truck around, veering back onto the main road, where she was able to drive at her usual high speed, until she took the small road that was the turn-off for Delhof.
Miriam rocked the baby back and forth and only when she heard the quick, caught breaths of sleep from her child did she allow herself to look again at the clock. It was one-thirty, and she went downstairs to take the food off the stove.
When Omar walked through the door and saw his brother stretched on the couch, half-asleep, he took a step back. He stared at Sadru from the doorway, eyes wide and alert with shock. For the second time that morning, Sadru felt he must surely be dreaming. He had just got over the surprise of coming home to find his wife dressed as though she worked in a brothel. Now he was confronted with the sight of his own brother bursting through the front door in the middle of the day. A dim idea began to rise like curls of smoke in the back of Sadru’s mind, but before he could formulate anything clearly, he heard Farah’s voice echo stridently from the stairs.
“My God,
bhai
! Were you just going to surprise us like this? How nice to see you! What made you stop here today? Did you know Sadru was back?”
“No, I didn’t,” replied Omar, truthfully. He avoided Farah’s eyes and grimaced a smile in Sadru’s direction. “I finished early today,” he continued, “so I thought I’d stop and say hello…
”
Sadru swung his legs down from the couch and rubbed at his eyes sleepily. “I finished early too. Day of action by the Blacks.”
“Ah.” Omar nodded. He walked in and sat down. He felt in control again, and thanked Farah with his usual distant politeness when she brought him a glass of Coke.
“She’ll make some lunch,” said Sadru. “You’ll stay won’t you?”
Omar sipped his drink and considered a moment.
“No, thanks. I should get back to the shop,” he said.
“How is business,
bhai
? Busy?”
“Not bad,” Omar said.
Sadru sat forward in his chair and listened, attentive to his younger brother. He felt ashamed of the thought that had barely crossed his mind a few moments ago, and as he looked at Omar now, he felt a glow of affection for his well-dressed brother, and resolved always to do his best to make him feel at home in his house.
R
OBERT HAD BEEN PUT TO WORK
cleaning the ironwork of the security gate that closed over the front door every night. The polish was thick and black, and he concentrated hard on his work, so that he would not get the staining substance onto his clothes. He was barely aware, therefore, of the truck that rumbled up the track and passed the shop before stopping about ten yards further up, and he only glanced up when he heard brisk steps walking back towards him. Amina’s eyes were focused beyond him, on the shop, and as he opened his mouth to greet her, she put her finger to her own lips.
“I want to surprise them,” she whispered. “Where are they?”
“Sir has gone to Pretoria,” he whispered back, and Amina feigned surprise and even a slight disappointment. “Madam is in the shop,” added Robert encouragingly.
Madam was indeed in the shop, sitting on a stool behind the counter. Her head was bowed and still and Amina crept inside and watched her, surmising that she must be reading.
“Is it love poetry, or the rules of the road?” Amina asked.
Miriam jumped, and then with a smile, she lifted her hand to show the book of poetry that Amina had given her.
“I didn’t think you were coming,” she said.
“It was sort of busy at the café this morning…”
“Was it?” Miriam asked, with genuine interest but Amina looked away.
“Well, no. It wasn’t. Not really. I just…I wasn’t sure if I should come.”
Miriam came out from behind the counter and kissed Amina on the cheek, a gesture that she made a little too carelessly, as though emphasising its role as a greeting.
“Of course you should have come. Who else is going to teach me to drive? I’ve been waiting for you all day.”
“Have you?”The idea seemed to please Amina.
“Yes.”
“Well, let’s start then. Before your husband returns.” The last comment was added with the timing of a question, and Miriam knew it at once.
“He won’t be back until tomorrow,” she said, and to cover the blush that rose to her face, she walked briskly out of the shop to where Amina’s truck stood waiting.
Robert had not been able to finish the blacking of the door, before his mistress had asked him to start preparing some soup for dinner. Although it was only three o’clock, and although there were already three pots of food sitting untouched on the stove top, he thought it better not to say anything. Her voice was firm and her manner direct. He nodded and went in to wash his hands and start preparing the vegetables.
Miriam waited patiently by the truck while Amina tugged at the seat, trying to slide it forward. She managed to move it about two inches and then stood aside for Miriam to get in.
“Sorry. The seats are old and don’t move much anymore.”
Miriam climbed in and sat with her legs almost at full stretch, her feet over the pedals. She placed both hands on the wheel moving it gently from side to side and looking straight ahead of her, as though she were already in motion on the open road. Amina watched her with an amused air.
“It goes even better when the engine’s switched on,” Amina said as she walked around to the passenger side. The truck was old, but scrupulously clean, Miriam noted. There was no dust on the dashboard, and even the floor had brush marks where it had recently been scrubbed. She wondered briefly if the effort had been made especially for her, but she looked at the small stack of neatly folded maps and papers beneath the dashboard and she looked at Amina’s clothes as the girl got into the passenger seat. They were a little worn but spotless, as they always were, and she realised that the girl had an innate attention to surroundings and her person that reminded her a little of Omar.
“To begin, let’s show you the basic pedals,” said Amina, a slightly formal tone in her voice now that she had assumed the role of driving instructor. She reached across Miriam to point at the floor beneath her, and Miriam caught once again that now familiar scent of her skin and clothes.
“This,” said Amina “is the gas pedal. The accelerator.”
Miriam nodded.
“This,” she said, moving her pointing finger along, “is the…
”
“Brake?” suggested Miriam. Amina looked at her.
“Yes. And this..?”
“The clutch.”
Amina sat back in her seat and smiled. “Do you secretly know how to drive?” she asked.
“Why would I ask for lessons if I knew?”
Amina shrugged, her eyes dancing. “I don’t know. Maybe you just wanted to see me.”
Miriam looked down. “I don’t know how to drive, but my husband showed me the pedals when he started to teach me once. There are only three. It’s not difficult to remember.”
“Such confidence!” Amina commented. “Let’s hope they are not difficult to remember at forty miles an hour.”
After a quick tour of the gears, lights and ignition, the truck was started up, and trembled beneath them. The sun had dropped lower and hit the glass, so that when Miriam tried to look at Amina, her eyes were flooded with light and colour.
“Now. Do you know your way around each gear?”
Miriam did not.
“Okay. Around here is where first gear should be, which is the gear you use to get started. Try to find it.”
Miriam tried.
“You have to push down the clutch first,” Amina said. “Hold the clutch down with your foot while you find the gear.”
Miriam did this, and slid into gear. The truck shuddered.
“No. That’s third. It’s a difficult one to find…
”
Miriam shifted and pushed, without success.
“I can’t do it,” she said finally, sitting back.
“Yes, you can. Let me show you.” Amina’s hand closed over Miriam’s, and they slowly manoeuvred the gear stick together, sliding easily into first.
“See?” said Amina.
Miriam nodded, although in fact she did not see, because her heart had almost stopped in the instant that Amina’s hand touched hers, and all she had been aware of after that was the way the long fingers so easily took control of hers.
“You can let go of the clutch now,” said Amina, very softly, and Miriam removed her foot. The truck lurched forward and stalled.
“Sorry,” Miriam said and she looked across to find that she was being watched intently. She swallowed and looked away.
The few seconds that followed seemed to expand in Miriam’s mind, filling up all senses, until she could hear nothing but a roaring and a pounding which she later realised had come from her own blood and her own ears. The scent of the girl next to her was no longer an ephemeral thing to be caught at passing moments, but had turned into the very air around her. It was all she was aware of, and the reason was that Amina was leaning over her, closely, so close that for a moment Miriam felt the soft folds of the cotton shirt brush her chin, and then her forehead, except that it was not the shirt that touched her head, but Amina’s lips. Miriam was no longer breathing and she waited with utter stillness as the lips moved slowly down, barely touching her cheeks before they were finally upon her mouth.
Miriam felt the searing sun on her closed eyelids, and the feather touch of the lips on hers. She jerked her head suddenly and pulled away as though she had been stung. Her hand went to her mouth and she stared at Amina.
“What are you doing?”
Amina opened her hands as though to say that Miriam already knew the answer to that question.
“We can’t do this.”
“We can,” replied Amina, with a sigh, “but we probably shouldn’t.”
Miriam swallowed and looked down. She felt as though she might cry at any moment.
“You wanted me to do it,” Amina said gently.
Miriam said nothing, and Amina reached out a hand to touch her shoulder reassuringly when something – a sound, or perhaps just an instinct – made her look out of the rear window of the truck and back towards the shop.
Robert had been surprised to see his boss home so early from his trip to town, and he had smiled at him and asked if he wanted some tea. Omar only glared and asked him where his mistress was. Robert had got as far as the words “driving lessons” when he felt the stinging weight of an open palm across his face, followed by the rough kick of a boot administered to his legs. He fell, and remained lying on the floor for a few minutes, held there more by fear and shock than by pain, and he went over and over in his mind the short exchange he had just had with his boss, trying to understand what he might have said wrong.
By the time Omar strode out to the truck, the women inside were sitting as far apart as possible, and seemed extraordinarily interested in the workings of the dashboard.
“Stay calm,” Amina ordered, as he tapped on the window. Miriam fumbled for the handle and began to wind it down even as Omar yanked the door open. His reddened face stared in at them, but he said nothing as he struggled to control the rage that had flared up within him. As he watched the two women, he was dimly aware that later he would look back at his behaviour in the last hour, at the careering drive back from Pretoria and at the violence he had used on Robert, and his logical mind would not be able to pinpoint what it was he had been angry about. He would not easily realise that his anger was not anger at all, but a combination of the tension he had felt at nearly being caught with Farah, the guilt he felt towards his amiable, trusting brother, and the fear that he was slowly losing control of his wife.
“Hello,” he said to them, in a polite tone so far removed from the one they had expected from his eyes and manner that they both looked at him in surprise.
“Hello,” said Amina. “We were having a driving lesson.”
Omar nodded, but did not offer the possibility of continuing. He held the door open and waited for Miriam to get out. Amina jumped out of the passenger side, then noticed that Miriam had made not the slightest movement, but was just sitting there, her right hand still on the wheel.
“Miriam…
”
Amina began gently, sensing the defiant attitude of the motionless body beside her. “Let’s go.
”
“We haven’t finished our lesson yet,” Miriam announced, turning to her husband.
“Get out of the car,” he shouted.
“Come on,” said Amina quietly.
Miriam got out of the car.
Omar continued to hold open the door to the driver’s seat as Amina walked around. Her eyes moved to Omar’s hand, grasping Miriam’s upper arm, and she saw a bruise there; the first time she had seen it. She glanced at Miriam before she got into the truck, for she did not want to leave her in the hands of a man full of rage, and yet she did not see how she could reasonably stay. Miriam was looking down at the ground, however, and Amina could not communicate with her.
The girl put her hand on the wheel and a foot up on the running board and turned her attention to Omar.
“How has your day been?” she asked him.
The question was so unexpected and so out of place in the tense atmosphere that both Omar and Miriam looked at Amina. Omar’s expression as he watched the girl was strange, she thought, and Amina felt certain that she could see an edge of relief in his eyes, as though she had somehow offered him a way out of his anger.
“It was okay. It wasn’t the best day I’ve ever had,” he added.
Her eyes remained on his for a moment, and she gave a half-shrug of comradeship that again caught him off balance. Then she glanced again at Miriam, and this time, Miriam nodded just slightly, and thanked her for coming. Amina swung up into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition key. She took her time turning the truck around, wishing she could be certain that she was making the right decision in leaving. When she finally drove slowly down the track she was simultaneously relieved and jealous to note that Omar had in fact put his arm protectively around Miriam’s shoulders.
Miriam’s first reaction was to pull away from her husband’s touch. She was tired of his anger and his coldness and in any event, any show of affection, even one as hesitant as this, was so out of character that it only made her suspicious.
He felt her withdrawal and pulled back his arm.