SHAFFIQ WAKES EARLY TO Salma fishing through their closet, the clink-clink of the wire hangers knocking each other. Half-asleep, his brain groggily works to identify the sounds. He opens one sticky eye and sees Salma pull out a blue ridah still wrapped in Blue Dove Dry Cleaner’s thin plastic. Salma takes liberties to have many of their clothes cleaned while her supervisor is away and now half the closet is filled with the soft plastic-sheathed clothing. He watches as she holds the full-length garment out in front of her, studying it at arms-length. She rips the plastic away and it swishes softly to the floor.
“Why are you taking that out?” Shaffiq mumbles in his just-awake voice.
“Oh, you are up. Sorry to wake you. It’s still early. Go back to sleep.”
“It’s OK. It’s Saturday right? I don’t have to work today. Why are you taking out your ridah?”
“Asima Aunty asked me to go for prayers with her this week. I thought I’d go this time.” Asima has become a little more religious and conservative each of the thirty years she has lived in Canada. Salma and Shaffiq have often made fun of her, joking about how she is more Indian than their family in Bombay. It is as though she has crystallized her memory of life in the ’70s and tried to recreate it in the present. She is always urging Salma to go to the mosque with her, to “keep up the old ways.”
Shaffiq stretches and yawns. “Is it a special occasion or something? No. Eid isn’t for another couple of months.”
“I thought I’d go and maybe meet some of the other women. I need to make some friends, Shaffiq.”
“But at the masjid? What do you have in common with those ridah ladies? I thought you hated wearing that thing.”
“Well, we’ll see. I’m going to keep an open mind. Maybe it is good for the girls if they go, too. And this ridah isn’t so bad. Just like a long dress, no?”
“A long hooded shroud that covers over your pretty hair and everything else.” He leers at her from the bed.
“Well, then you should be glad that I’m wearing it. This way I only share my beauty with you,” she says, smiling down at him. “Isn’t that what you men want? Hmm?”
“I have an idea. Why don’t you take all your clothes off, put on that “long dress” and then come to bed with me?” His sacrilegious eyes flash mischief.
“Arré?” she says, rubbing a small stain near the ridah’s hem, “and mess up this ridah before going to mosque? I can only sneak so many free dry cleanings, Shaffiq,” she says, walking out of the bedroom. Shaffiq sighs, checks the clock, and decides to go back to sleep.
He wakes later to Shireen’s expectant six-year-old eyes upon him.
“What are you doing?”
“Watching you sleep. When are you going to get up? It’s lunchtime already. I’ve been up since seven waiting to play with you. Mummy said me and Memsahib could come in now.”
“Really, she did?” She nods seriously, clutching her doll in front of her. Memsahib’s glassy eyes stare back at him vacantly. “What game are we going to play? Have you planned it all out, or shall I go back to sleep for a while so you have a chance to organize yourself first?” He pulls the covers up in mock going-back-to-sleep.
“No, no, Daddy!” She says lunging on top of him, “I do have it all organized. First I thought we would play going to tea with Memsahib and then we could take her out for a walk in her stroller.” She waves the limp rag doll in front of him, “See, she says that you should get up right now so we can have tea.”
“OK, Memsahib. Give me a few minutes to brush my teeth first. I’m sure we would not want to submit Shireen to my terrible sleepy breath, or shall we forgo the tooth brushing for now,” he breathes into the doll’s face and Shireen backs away theatrically.
“Fine, first go brush your teeth and then meet me in the tea shop.” She points in the direction of the living room, “it’s that way.”
“This way?” He points to the bathroom, his brow knitting in confusion.
“No, that way!” Her finger jabs the air.
“Oh, this way?” He asks, pointing out the window.
“No, Daddy! Thaaat way,” she shrieks.
“OK, OK. See you later then,” he laughs, his hands up in surrender.
As Shaffiq heads to the bathroom, he thinks about how Shireen’s doll got her name. Shireen has been an assertive, almost bossy child from the start and he and Salma would call her the “memsahib” when they were alternately amused with or irritated by her demands. “The memsahib is not behaving,” Salma would mutter. Or Shaffiq would say, “I can’t seem to get the memsahib to eat today.” Curiously, Shireen passed the name on to her favourite doll.
Saleema, three years older, is a different sort of girl altogether. While Shireen usually has her doll in her arms, Saleema is often found with a book in hand. Halfway through the journey to Canada, she read through all the primary readers Salma had packed for her. In order to help her occupy herself through the remaining ten hours on the plane, Shaffiq had to convince her that reading books twice is more fun than reading them just once and to his relief, she believed him. Now, a bright nine-year-old, she reads even faster than before. On the way to the bathroom, Shaffiq looks into the girls’ room and sees Saleema there, engrossed in Harry Potter’s latest adventures.
Shaffiq emerges from the bathroom and sits down to his morning cup of dolly-tea. He arranges his bony legs cross-ways on the carpet in front of Shireen’s tea set and declares loudly, “such nice hot tea! Slurp, slurp, ah, so nice!”
“Daddy, no, not yet,” squeals Shireen, “You are so silly! I haven’t even poured it out yet!” She carefully tips the plastic pot over his miniature cup, then adds pretend milk and sugar. “There. Now be careful, it’s hot. Make sure you foo it first.” Shaffiq smiles obediently and looks up to see Salma watching the make-believe from the kitchen. She smiles at him then points to her own mug and raises a questioning eyebrow. He nods to her gratefully.
“Gulp, gulp, gulp, oh yes, that’s much better. That first cup was very weak, almost like air! This one is the real thing.” Shireen nods, pleased as a grandmother. “Now that I’ve had a cup of your tea, maybe now I will try some from Mumma’s pot?” Shireen frowns slightly, but then waves her hand, conferring permission. He reaches up as Salma passes down a mug to him. “Ah, this one is nice too, but I think if there were to be a competition, Shireen’s just might win.” Shireen giggles and hugs him, almost spilling the hot liquid all over his striped pajamas. Saleema walks into the living room and her little sister seizes the window of opportunity, “Saleeeema, come on now, have your tea. You haven’t had one cup even and I made this special pot,” she carries the cup over to her sister.
“Yeah, OK, very nice imaginary tea. It tastes so good, yet strangely imaginary,” she says sarcastically, half-heartedly sipping from the tiny cup. Shireen sticks her tongue out and Saleema impatiently smacks the side of Shireen’s head.
“Mumma, Daddy, she hit me! Saleema hit me and she spilt the tea on the carpet.” She runs behind her father and clings to his arm.
“Stop it you two,” Salma’s tone is stern and the girls go quiet.
“I don’t know why you have to hit, Saleema. Be civilized. If you wanted Shireen to not bother you, then tell her, don’t hit her. Use your mouth, not you hands,” Shaffiq lectures his eldest daughter. She sniffs as though threatening to cry but then he sees her rolling her eyes just before they disappear behind her book. He doesn’t understand what’s wrong with Saleema. Ever since they moved to Canada, his sweet and quiet child has been swatting, swiping, and grabbing at her younger sister. And now this eye-rolling! Shaffiq slurps down his irritation along with the rest of his real tea.
“OK, the tea party is over. I have to go take my bath.”
“Fine, Memsahib and I will finish our tea and then we can all go for our walk when you are ready,” she says, her eyes following him into the bathroom. “Right Daddy?”
Nasreen spends the trip home from Mississauga meditating on photos and gnawing through an Oh Henry and a Coffee Crisp she bought from the station vending machine. She spreads the glossy images across her lap, trying to keep them from slipping off her thighs, while the train rocks unsteadily. She gazes at Connie and herself, a couple just about to come undone. They look unhappy, their eyes glassy and devil-red from being shocked by Bashir’s flashbulb. She fingers her ex-girlfriend’s slender figure, and feels a dull pain in her chest.
At Mimico, a harried looking woman and her preschooler board and settle themselves in the seats across from her. The little boy cranes his head forward, attracted by the sweet smelling chocolate. He tries to steal a glance at the glossy snapshots and so Nasreen gathers them together and stuffs the last of the chocolate into her mouth. She looks out the smudged window the rest of the trip home, avoiding his young, curious eyes.
Entering her apartment, all Nasreen can think of is how hungry she is even though her stomach is full. She paces through the apartment while Id watches her. She checks her messages. There is just one from her father, “Beti, it’s your father. Thanks for coming over. I had a nice time … look, try not to think about all the sad things so much. Things will be better with time.” And after an awkward pause, “OK, bye bye now.” She hears a beep, and stands at the machine, her finger hovering over the delete button. She changes her mind and saves the message.
She heads to the kitchen, opening cupboards and then banging them closed again, looking for something to munch on. Then, she forces herself to sit down on the couch, trying to hold herself together by keeping still. It doesn’t work. She goes back to the kitchen, rummages the cupboards like an angry raccoon and eats a few vanilla sandwich cookies while a bag of popcorn sputters in the microwave.
She knows about the psychology of these things, has studied and written about them in fact. The Incidence of Eating Disorders Among South Asian Girls in Canada, her fraudulently objective Master’s thesis, received high marks and praise from her professors. She understands that the persistent thoughts of food and her frequent visits to the fridge and pantry to retrieve one sweet thing, then one salty thing – the calorie-reduced cookies followed by the olives, followed by the frozen yogurt and then the low-fat popcorn – must mean something. She sinks into the couch, her fingers salty from artificial butter flavour and thinks, OK, what do you feel Nasreen, what is it that you need? Her chest aches and her parched throat holds back the tears she is not interested in shedding. What do you feel, godammit!
She gets up and paces the living room. She heads toward a bookcase and extracts a photo album labeled Fall 1998 to – . It sits on the shelf beside Summer 1996 to Summer 1998. And Fall 1995 to Spring 1996. She flips through the cellophane-covered pages, looking at a photo of her father, smiling, balding, an arm around her mother. They stand together in front of the house, wearing matching red windbreakers, holding each other against the cool winds of autumn. They seem to be sharing a joke. A few pages away she and her mother are outside, shoveling snow during the biggest snowfall in the history of Ontario, the year that the mayor of Toronto called in the army to clear the snow. In the next photo, she and her father pose in front of the plastic Christmas tree they have pulled out of the basement and resurrected every year since Nasreen was small. In another photo, her mother, father, Connie and Nasreen sit formally around the dinner table, waiting for the automatic timer on Connie’s camera to hurry up and take the picture. Nasreen remembers that she and Connie had just started dating earlier that year. They felt so optimistic and stupid with love that they rushed to introduce one another to their families. Both sets of parents were polite and cautious at first, but the couple’s devotion seemed infectious, drawing the elders into their children’s enthusiasm for one another.
Nasreen continues her tour through the year and arrives at a photo of her mother perched on the side of her hospital bed. She wears a floral print housecoat over a standard-issue hospital gown. She is having a good day. It must be her birthday because she is posed with a gift in her lap.
“Come on, hurry up and take the photo, Nasreen, your mother is getting tired.” There was a click and a flash that momentarily illuminated the grey room.
“Thank you Beti,” Zainab said wearily, “I’m okay Bashir. What’s this present you two have given me? You already gave me a gift each. This is too much. Why one more?”
“Open it and see, Mom.” Zainab carefully peeled back the cellotape, removing the wrapping paper without ripping it.
“Just go ahead and rip it, Mom.”
“Has your mother ever wasted one iota of anything in her life?” Bashir said, a proud smile stretching over his weary face.
“Nope, and why would she start now?” Nasreen laughed, and then saw her father’s expression change, realizing her faux pas. The family had carefully avoided discussions about Zainab’s impending death. Nasreen wished she could take the words back. Zainab, oblivious to the new tension in the room, continued her slow, focused, unwrapping.
“Oh, it’s beautiful,” Zainab whispered, holding the framed photograph two feet away from her, squinting her eyes, “Nasreen, get me my glasses, will you? They are in the drawer over there,” she said, pointing across the bed. “Yes, there.” Eyeglasses in place, she smiled at the family photo in front of her.
“It was Dad’s idea.”
“We took those pictures over a year ago but never got around to displaying them properly. I thought you’d like one for your nightstand.”
“What a lovely thought. Thank you both. I’ll keep it right here, so that I can see it while I’m resting.”
“You want to try some cake, Mom?”
“No, I don’t think I’ll be able to keep it down.” With a grunt, she swung her legs onto the bed. “Nasreen, why don’t you wrap it up and take it home to share with Connie?” Nasreen wondered how to tell her mother she had to leave, never knew how to end her hospital visits, feeling simultaneously like staying there twenty-four hours and escaping at her first chance. She picked up her bag and looked at her father.
“I’ll drop Nasreen off at the station and come back again in a couple of hours, then.”
“I’ll be back soon, OK Mom? Maybe not this week, but the weekend for sure.” Zainab nodded and Nasreen embraced her mother, trying to hide her wet eyes.
There are no more photos after that. Nasreen takes out the paper label from within its plastic sheath and fills in the date: Fall 2000.