“NASREEN, IT’S YOUR FATHER. Call me back.” Nasreen pushes the delete button on the answering machine and goes to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. She fills the kettle, opens the cupboard door and scans the selection of teas lined up in their colourful boxes. She considers Raspberry Fields, Chamomile Dreams, Licorice Lullaby. She reaches for a big tin of mint and then hesitates. This was Connie’s favourite, the tea that accompanied them during evenings together on the couch, watching movies, or after dinner talks. Of course that was before, while they were still good together, before the relationship went bad. Did we pass our expiration date? Nasreen wonders. She chooses a mug that flirts with her in small, insincerely shy letters, “dip me in honey and feed me to the lesbians” and drops in a bag of decaf orange pekoe. She scans the cupboard for something sweet and hastily eats three chocolate chip cookies. She starts on a fourth when the phone rings. She munches down the cookie, wipes her mouth and then answers the phone.
“Nasreen, it’s me, your father.”
“Hi Dad.”
“I called earlier, did you get my message?”
“I haven’t had a chance yet, I just got in a few minutes ago.” She pours the hot water into the mug, watches it slowly turn from amber to brown.
“I just called because I wanted to know if your work has travel insurance in the health plan. I bought insurance for me and thought you should get some too.”
“I don’t think I have that in my plan. What were you thinking? Health insurance?”
“I bought everything: health, cancellation, lost baggage, the works.”
“We need all that?”
“Yes, just in case. You never know what will happen. We forfeit the free trip if we have to cancel at the last minute, but there’s no loss if we have the insurance. Given everything is free so far, I thought we might as well buy the expensive insurance. I’ll call the travel agent and get it for you then.”
“Why would we need to cancel at the last minute?” Her father rarely does anything at the last minute.
“Well, you know, it doesn’t hurt to plan for the unexpected. I’m getting older, and well, who knows what can happen,” Bashir says, hurriedly.
“What, Dad? What are you worried about? Is something wrong?”
“Arré, I’m not saying that. There is nothing to worry about. We all get house insurance in case we get burgled, or there is a fire, or something like that, but we don’t know if or when it might happen. Cancellation insurance is like that. It is simply a precaution. Nothing to worry about. Speaking of that, have you made an appointment to get your shots? You should do that soon.”
“Right, I’ve been meaning to do that.” After a few minutes of small talk Nasreen hangs up. She absent-mindedly leaves her tea in the kitchen and goes to bed. She is grateful when Id joins her there.
Later in the week, Shaffiq checks his watch and calculates the time left in his shift. Just two hours and ten minutes to go. He deserts his cart and takes the elevator up to the fourth floor to share his break and snack with Ravi. He doesn’t feel like keeping his own company tonight.
He surveys the east wing and then the west but doesn’t find his fellow janitor, who must have moved on to another floor by now. Disappointed, Shaffiq eases himself in a metal waiting room chair and unwraps the aluminum foil from around the pakoras Salma fried yesterday. He happily bites through the spiced gram flour coating to a slippery onion. Salma cooks better than his own mother, a compliment Shaffiq has learned does not impress Salma much. Early in their marriage Salma impatiently rolled her almond eyes at him and said, “Yeah, thanks a lot. Really, Shaffiq, as though I aspire to perfect every one of your mother’s recipes,” and returned to marking some grammar assignments. Shaffiq knows what does matter to his wife and pays her compliments accordingly: her teaching, her quick wit, and her mothering, in that order.
He uncaps his thermos and pours himself a cup of tea. Not hot anymore, but still warm. He wonders if his daughters will care about Indian cookery, if they will want to learn this craft from Salma, or if they will be more interested in hamburgers or pizza. For Salma, there was no question that she would learn to cook even if she was a teacher. But for his young daughters, he is not even sure what the choices are, what the options will be for them once they become more Canadian than Indian. In just two years, they are beginning to seem different. Will they turn out to be like that Nasreen with her polished boots and Canadian accent, familiar yet so foreign to him? Does Nasreen even know how to fry a pakora?
Leaving behind his thermos and snacks, Shaffiq meanders down the hallway and stops at her doorway. What impulse takes him there? Why this strange curiosity in a woman he has met briefly, exchanged pleasantries with, who is really not so interesting? Come on, he chides himself, it must be simple attraction, right? She has long hair and a curvaceous young body and he is a man. Isn’t that how it goes? He sighs. It’s not as simple as that. Something about her bothers him, even repulses him slightly. She is too western for him, too un-Indian. And yet at the same time he wants to draw nearer, to understand this strangeness. His mind lingers on these thoughts only for a moment before he reaches for his master key. He inserts it with his right hand and turns the doorknob with his left, taking care to avoid touching the door with his greasy fingers. He has a moment of hesitation in which he imagines the protagonist of a crime show hunting him down, his oily fingerprints the telltale clues left behind. He pushes the door open, switches on the desk lamp, and shuts the door gently behind himself. He takes a moment to quickly wipe his hands with his handkerchief.
In the dim light of Nasreen’s office, Shaffiq spies the gold box resting at the back corner of her desk. Sitting down in her ergonomic chair, he reaches for it gingerly, lifts the lid and looks inside. He sifts through the box, scanning the photos within, seeing nothing very interesting. There is a photo of her with some friends at what looks like a party in someone’s home. He wonders if that is where Nasreen lives. Then there is a glossy of a big brown cat, looking menacingly into the camera, a snap of some flowers, a postcard from someone writing with a messy hand from Vancouver. He flips through them all a second time, coming back to the party shot. It’s missing. Where is Nasreen with the blond girl? He replaces the box to its original place and disappointed, he gets up to leave. He pushes the chair back in and knocks over the garbage can under the desk. As he rights it, he sees that it has already been emptied.
When Shaffiq returns to the waiting room, he finds Ravi looking keenly at the aluminum foil package that holds Salma’s pakoras.
“Ah, there you are. I was just walking the floor to see if I could find you. Have you had your break yet?”
“No, I wanted to finish upstairs first,” Ravi says, gesturing to his cleaning cart heavy with two large garbage bags. “I see you brought some goodies?”
“Yes, go ahead, finish them off. I should get back to work in a minute or two. My break is over. Why don’t I take those bags for you on my way back down?” Shaffiq says, trying to affect a casual manner.
Ravi pops a large pakora between his teeth. His mouth full, he holds his hands up in a show of resistance. “Arré, no need to do that, Shaffiq. I’ll do it later.”
“Absolutely no problem, my friend.” Shaffiq hoists the bags and waves at Ravi as he hurries to the elevators.
“Alright then, thanks. And tell Salma that she makes truly great pakoras! Oh by the way, dinner next Sunday works for Angie. Is that day still available for you and Salma?”
“Sunday? Oh yes, perfect. See you then.” Shaffiq smiles as he enters the elevators and presses the ‘B’ button. He is away before Ravi can call out to him about his forgotten thermos.
Shaffiq leans over the large stinky bins, letting the contents of Ravi’s fourth floor bags drift slowly to the sticky plastic bottom. With his right, rubber-gloved hand, he sifts through it, searching. After the first bag is emptied, he opens the second, hoping to find treasure amidst filth. Halfway through, he discovers it. Nasreen’s face is smeared with something sticky, which he wipes clean with his glove. The other girl’s face is scratched up with the deliberate marks of a pen, as though someone has tried to scribble out her image. He drops the photo into his pocket and throws the rest of Ravi’s second bag to the bottom of the bin. He doesn’t stop to consider what a middle-aged Indian man digging in the garbage must look like to anyone who might be watching him.