When She Was Queen (5 page)

“You’re selling her house—you’re not obliged to find her a place to stay,” my wife Farida chides.

“It’s good business,” I respond. “Besides, she’s a woman alone and—”

“Exactly.”

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous—”

She smiles.

“I am the mukhi,” I continue, “and it’s our duty to help—don’t forget, you’re
mukhiani-maa
—”

Maa
means “mother,” but in a respectful way, though these days it’s not always likely to be taken as a compliment even by grandmas.

“We were in school together, I am hardly her mother,” Farida says, though the term does please her, I’m surprised.

Farida looks no older than Anaar at all.

“Did you find out why,” she says, raising an eye, “you know—she did what she did at the funeral?”

“No—I don’t think she knows that I know.”

“Not a good detective, are we?”

She had been seeing Amir Uncle for more than a year before she realized she’d been doing exactly that. There would be times when Guli failed to show up at a planned outing and Anaar would be with him by herself—except for her cousin Azim, who always came with her; that was nothing unusual, girls took along a little brother the same way they would a shawl or a sweater. And Azim was so quiet, it was almost as if he were not there.

When school holidays came around, Guli and Anaar decided they would attend early morning mosque, which began at four every day. Amir Uncle would give them a ride. But after the first two mornings, Guli couldn’t get up, felt too lazy, and so it was Anaar and Amir Uncle, of course with Azim, who went. On the way back Amir Uncle would
take the two of them for a drive past the seashore; one day he said to Anaar, “Why don’t I teach you how to drive?”

It was the most thrilling thought for Anaar; to be able to drive a car! So she and Amir Uncle, with the quiet, half-absent Azim in the back of the car, went for driving lessons early in the morning after mosque. And after the holidays, it was the same trio who went to a movie, the Little Theatre, or somewhere else. Her guardians believed she went out with her friend Guli, and she didn’t tell them otherwise. Neither did her silent chaperone Azim. Anaar believed that he too liked the outings in the car, and the treats, and Amir Uncle. Sometimes she would receive a message through Guli, about a play or a dance performance, the office Christmas party, or even a tennis or cricket match. Twice there were presents, purportedly from her friend Guli—a bead necklace and a gold bangle—and her aunt and uncle despaired of how to repay the gifts.

But one day Mrs. Daya, the gossip across the street, alerted her aunt, who interrogated Azim, and the fat was in the fire.

In the next several weeks Anaar declined all invitations from Amir Uncle, which were brought of course by their messenger Guli: to attend the final of the Youth Drama Competition, for which tickets were so scarce; to attend the New Year’s party at Twentsche Overseas Motors; to go and hear a qawali recital by the famed Shakila Banu Bhopali and her troupe from India. Finally, one time Amir Uncle followed her in his car as she was returning from school on her bicycle; she stopped, at the Odeon; her bike went on the roof rack and she sat in
the car. And she told him, “It’s not right—to go out with a man—you took advantage of me.”

He was aghast, his face contorted in pain—“But I am in love with you,” he said. “I want to marry you! I want to take you into my arms and show you the world, I want to send you to a college—even to Dar University! What future do you have where you are? You want to get married one day, don’t you? Do you want to run a shop all your life? Don’t you think I’m a good man, with faith in God, and honourable, with good prospects in a foreign firm? Let me give you the world—if you didn’t care for me would you have come with me before? Have I been without honour so far—”

“Why didn’t you tell me your intentions before?” she asked tearfully, but they were reconciled. He dropped her outside the store, brought down her bicycle from the roof with the help of a servant, greeted her aunt and uncle with “God bless,” and drove away.

They glared at Anaar: “Didn’t we tell you—”

“Amir Uncle and I care for each other and we want to get married,” she declared, and blushed. What she said was not only radical and insubordinate; calling her suitor “Uncle” made her look ridiculous and childish, hardly to be taken seriously.

“Don’t be silly,” her aunt said. “The man is old enough to be your father!”

“He’s not!”

But he was.

“I went to school with him,” her uncle said quietly to Anaar, “and he was two classes ahead of me.”

Suddenly she was at the centre of a storm: neighbours, aunts, even girlfriends began talking to her of the future; how young and beautiful she was, she could have her pick of husbands. Two proposals of marriage were brought to her, both decent, from men in their mid-twenties. Her guardians promised to send her to college when she finished school; they proposed a holiday in Uganda for the coming break. And an elderly aunt put it to her bluntly: “When you are forty he will be an elderly bapa of sixty, will he be able to satisfy you?” Did this old aunt mean what Anaar thought she meant? Anaar’s knowledge of what men and women did to produce children was scant; she knew men had erections, and girls called penises “sticks,” and recently when some relations from upcountry had come to visit and she had to share her bed with her ten-year-old cousin Azim, she found it, for the first time, rather awkward. She couldn’t quite tell why. She felt she’d been touched.

What thrilled her, however, was a sense of importance. She was being courted by everyone. It would be
her
decision what she did, that she knew. A sense of independence and maturity, of responsibility, came over her. Power. Amir Uncle, who had been like a prince descended from the sky, begged her, “Please don’t call me ‘Uncle,’” but that was so difficult! And he pleaded, “I’m only fifteen years older, not twenty, as they say.” He could bring witnesses, name references, he would bring a copy of his birth certificate, which he had applied for. And best of all, there were reports that he had turned intensely devout, spending long times at the takht in mosque, beseeching the Lord—asking Him for
her
, Anaar Dhalla!

When the formal proposal for marriage came from his family, Anaar was two months past her eighteenth birthday. It was brought by Amir’s (she
had
to call him that now) mother, a tall stout woman who ran a nursery school, who came with two of his sisters (one a teacher, the other a steno) and three elders from the community. The visitors were seated, tea was produced, with biscuits. Anaar hovered at the door to the sitting room (which was also her aunt and uncle’s bedroom) and one of the elders began:

“You know why we are here—the matter’s already at an advanced stage, so let’s not tarry.” The boy’s qualities were listed; the girl was of age; and most of all, it seemed the couple was intent on the union. “Nowhere in our tradition is it mentioned that age be a barrier to a willing couple’s marriage.”

The aunt and uncle said they had to consult the girl, and of course the rest of the family. They felt they had been misled by the boy, who had come into the girl’s life as an uncle.

Humorous comments were made about the boldness of love—not to say its folly. And after all, hadn’t everyone heard of uncles and aunts younger than their nieces and nephews? The boy came highly recommended, was truly a gem; all three elders personally vouched for him.

As parting shot, one of the sisters, the steno, remarked, “After all, the girl is your trust and you should do what’s in her interest, even though it may get difficult for you around the house once she’s gone.”

It was a mild taunt. The guardians said they would consider the proposal, as was natural, and the visitors left
in good spirits. All three women insisted on giving Anaar a kiss.

By this time any doubts Anaar had (and there had been queasy moments) had vanished; she wanted to get married, to get away to Upanga, a life in the suburbs, a car, her own room and house, all the things she couldn’t have now. When her aunt and uncle tried to prevail upon her, she told them cruelly what Amir’s sister had only hinted at: “If I were your own daughter, you wouldn’t let me miss this golden opportunity to move up in life. You only need me here to help you around the house and shop.”

The engagement was duly announced. But once this hurdle was past, the consent of marriage given, there was no acrimony left over, the two families were like one big family. And Amir was a most attentive and charming fiancé who bore no grudges.

“We’ll hardly see her now,” Farida says, watching me pour our tea.

It’s Friday evening, mosque time, and we usually dispense with dinner on this day, making do with a tea and something light later in the evening.

“I said we’ll hardly see her now,” she says.

What I say, in agreement, is a straight-faced lie. I’m not even surprised how easily it comes, though I’m not a habitual liar. Yes, there’s a feeling akin to a weight on the heart, but not enough to crush; there’s no real dread or terror at the possibilities I may be invoking. That ability to feel finely has been lost—what with thoughts
of mortality and anxieties about the children, one is too far from the precipice, there’s nothing fragile left to break, all is custom, routine; affection and habit. That’s not necessarily so bad.

Anaar has now a place of her own, and her house has found a buyer, too. She has no longer need of my services as an agent. But she continues to draw me, to her apartment on Yonge or the coffee shop down below, to which I occasionally head like an automaton oblivious to anything but the moment before me.

“Did she act strangely with you at all?” my wife asks. “Did you find out what’s wrong with her? Why would she spit on a corpse—when we’ve all come to mourn and forgive, at a holy place, with so many people around? She’s not gone crazy, has she?”

“Perhaps she couldn’t forgive him.”

“What can’t one forgive in death? What can be so grievous?”

“Beats me.”

At another time, in the past, I would have told her without a thought; this time I feel beholden to a confidence. Why keep this secret from her, develop a niche in my heart for another soul? I am at a loss to explain. In the past few weeks I’ve quite lost my head, though if you saw me you wouldn’t notice, I’d be your same old jolly caring mukhi with a patient ear and ready smile, with a large friendly network that supplies me prospective clients and business tips out of gratitude. Deep within me I’ve become victim to memories and images from the past, perilous yearnings; and an uncontrollable, you might say suicidal, desire to put it all down.

In Dar we had two kinds of pretty girls: the tall and thin kind, with long hair, traditional—Anaar’s type; and the shorter ones with softer features and modish short hair—Farida’s type. Of course, nowadays all of them have short hair.

Farida was from an established though unaffected family who owned one of the city’s two bakeries and were known for their services to the community. Her manner reflected this background; she was not shy, nor haughtily aloof, but her easy, friendly nature seemed curbed by a wary reserve that demanded its proper distance. If you were thick-skinned, as teenage boys tended to be, she was adept with an appropriate and quite arrogant snub, as I once found out. We used to return from our separate schools in separate groups, boys and girls, and one day I let fly out a silly jibe in her direction, pertaining to her family’s business, in the belief that to tease was a way to win a girl’s heart. I went home red-faced. Then some months later to my immense excitement I saw her alone, straggling behind her group; I was alone too and hurried to join her. She was friendly, her twinkling eyes recalling that snub, which had already earned me a lasting nickname among the boys. And so we began our small incidental meetings, and without any formality fell in with each other as boyfriend and girlfriend. A childhood romance. A girl to be close to; a boy to tell things to.

“The wedding night,” Anaar says with a tinge of a blush.

From my vantage point up here in her living room, Yonge Street stretches down, in a series of yellow street-lamps and moving car lights, all the way south to the
lakeshore, to the blinking CN Tower. It is beautiful, the street, the city, at night, a magical scape of thousands of lights. And up here, except for our voices, all is quiet, hushed. From what she says, I form my own picture of what transpired that night that traumatized her so.