Authors: Monica Ali
'I don't know,' said Nazneen. 'Is that an English book?' She wondered who this Warren Hastings might be.
Chanu ignored her and played to the gallery. 'No. This is not what they teach. All flood here and famine there and taking up collection tins.' He used the book to scratch inside his ear.
Nazneen thought about Shahana, how her long thin face would group all its small features as if trying to make them vanish, closing down its operations. She had a way of glazing over that seemed accomplished, mature beyond her years. I'm going inside now, it said, and I may not come out again. But when it was over it was only a sulk, and the sulk was made clear in the tantrum that followed. Then her mouth became a round angry hole and she began to kick. She kicked the furniture, she kicked her sister and most of all she kicked her mother.
'Four European countries fought over the place. And when the British took control, this is what gave them strength to take all India.' There was sweat on his brow although the room was not too warm. He wiped it with a forearm. 'During the eighteenth century' – he looked down from behind the sofa into the soft well that his backside had left on the cushion – 'this part of the country was wealthy. It was stable. It was educated. It provided – we provided – one third of the revenues of Britain's Indian Empire.' The book slid from his hand and he bent for it. He rubbed the edge of the cushions and he looked at the far wall, at the place where his certificates had hung in the old flat. He smiled and his cheeks pushed up into his eyes.
'A loss of pride,' he said, talking to the wall, 'is a terrible thing.'
Nazneen got up in the night and went to the kitchen. She took a Tupperware container from the fridge and ate the curry cold, standing up against the sink. If she had a job, she would be able to save. And if she saved then they would have enough money to go to Dhaka. Or if they didn't go to Dhaka, she would save enough to send money to Hasina. Chanu would not know how many linings she had sewn or how many jackets she had button-holed. He would not know how much money there should be, and she would be able to put some aside.
The moon was uncertain tonight. Pock-marked, it lurked behind a purple ink cloud and tried to drown itself in a too-shallow sky. Hasina wrote once that she watched the moon and thought of her, watching the same moon. But the sky here was so low, so thin, that it was hard to believe it was the same high heaven that soared over Hasina; and the moon would not be out in Dhaka and maybe it was a different moon after all.
She put her face beneath the tap and turned on the cold water.
'Amma.'
Bibi stood in the doorway. She watched as Nazneen dried her face with a tea towel. Her brow was made broad to carry all her worries.
'Hungry?' said Nazneen.
Bibi nodded. She came and leaned up against the sink and shivered. Nazneen reached for the biscuit tin but Bibi pointed to the Tupperware. She ate with Nazneen's spoon, but only managed a mouthful. They spent this time together and they did not waste it by talking. They watched each other and Nazneen pretended to look out of the window while Bibi, who was too short to see out, pretended to look at the cracked tiles behind the taps.
Razia pressed her palms into the small of her back. 'You know what they say in the village – a woman is elderly at twenty — well, you are looking at an old, old woman now.'
Her hair was thick with grey. She wore glasses with wide black rims that shortened her nose but amplified the deep lines around her eyes. Since gaining her British passport she had acquired a sweatshirt with a large Union Jack printed on the front, and in a favourite combination paired it with brown elastic– waisted trousers. The trousers had a thick seam down the front, designed to look like a sharp crease. She held out her hands to Nazneen. 'See the joints. Arthritis.' She returned the hands to press against the ache. 'And my back is killing. Sewing all day and all day. Children take the money, I get the arthritis.'
'Everyone gets a little creak in their bones,' said Nazneen. She circled her shoulders to show she was not exempt. 'You are not so old.'
'Eh-hrerm,' said Razia, pretending to clear her throat.
'Eh-eh-hrerm.'
She waggled her head and rolled her lips up and around. 'Azraeel is at the door. How can you deny it? This woman is old. This is an old woman.'
Nazneen laughed. 'My husband, you are always right.'
Razia laughed her metallic laugh. No matter how often she heard it, the sudden clang always startled Nazneen. She looked round now to see if the door was closed. The girls were in their bedroom attending to homework, and she did not want them to hear Razia poking fun at their father.
'A serious thing, though, the business with the machine work. Ruins the hands, the back, the eyes.' Razia shrugged. The Union Jack rippled. 'I don't care. What else is this body for? I'm just using it up now for my children. Only thing I care about is they don't have to do this same thing as me. Making a nice home as well. New chairs, new sofa, no more second-hand toothbrush for my kids. This is what I'm working for.'
'Tariq is enjoying his J77'
'It's OK-Ma,' said Razia, in English. 'Everything, all the time "OK-Ma". Boy thinks I'm called "OK-Ma".'
'How long must he study?'
'Another two, three years. What do I know? Ask your husband how long the boy must study. Depends how long is the wall and how big is the certificate.'
Nazneen giggled. She wondered briefly, through her giggles, if she should really allow Razia to be so free about her husband. And then the giggles got up her nose and she snorted and kicked her legs and fell sideways on the sofa against her friend.
'Yes,' said Razia. 'If the certificates don't fill the wall, his backside is going to be whipped.'
'Enough,' said Nazneen, wiping her eyes. She got herself straight.
'I just hope he fills it up damn quick because all of it is costing arms and legs. However much money I give, he always needs more. "Can I have twenty pounds for textbooks, Ma?" I just gave twenty pounds only the day before. I told him, in the village – one textbook between five children. "OK-Ma. Can I have twenty pounds?"'
'They need the books for studying. What can you do?'
'Not just books. This thing and that thing for computer. Disk and drive and pad and all sorts.' Razia crossed an ankle over her knee and held on to the lumpy shoe. She was quiet, and for a moment Nazneen stopped seeing her friend and looked at the crumpled woman with the arthritic hands and the uncared-for face.
'He is a good boy,' said Nazneen.
'Oh, yes. Good boy. Loves his OK-Ma. But sometimes I worry that he studies too hard. So quiet. Always in his room. I tell him to go out and see friends. And he tells me OK-Ma and goes back in his room.'
'Shefali has her exams soon?'
Razia leaned back hard and dug around in her trouser pockets. She pulled out a packet of Silk Cut and a disposable lighter. It was a new thing, and final confirmation to Chanu that Razia was of irredeemably low stock. Nazneen began to think of air freshener and whether Chanu would be back before her friend left. Razia lit up and light grey trails from her nose mingled with the fibrous grey of her hair.
'Yes. Then she wants a Year Off.' She spoke the words as if they were two turds dangling from the end of a stick.
'What is it?' asked Nazneen. 'Year Off?'
'Before going to university. She wants to spend one year doing nothing.'
But Year Off had an official ring to it and Nazneen knew that she had not yet understood. 'What sort of nothing?'
Razia put her cigarette on the orange-legged, glass-topped table and held out flat palms. 'See this left hand – nothing on it. See this right hand – nothing on it. Now, tell me how is one nothing different from one other nothing?'
'Oh,' said Nazneen. 'The cigarette.' It had rolled from the table and was burning on the green and purple rug.
'Shit. Your rug is spoiled.'
'I don't know,' said Nazneen. 'If a rug is already green and purple, it is very hard to say it is spoiled.'
The girls were brushing their teeth when Chanu got home. He staggered down the hallway and dropped a large cardboard box at his feet. He wriggled out of the straps of a canvas bag that was slung across his shoulders and swung it down. It dislodged another large chunk of plaster from the wall. The dust settled on Chanu's hair.
He slapped his hands together a few times, the way a man might if he has finished his tasks and is waiting for praise. 'Here,' he said, still trying to catch his breath. 'Don't I always do as you ask? I got it.' He beamed at Nazneen. The girls stuck their heads out from the bathroom. 'Come on,' he called to them. 'See what I have got for your mother.'
The girls came out in their nightdresses and stood close to Nazneen. They smelled of toothpaste and soap powder and the unvarnished scent of small, clean bodies. Nazneen could think of no excuse to grab them now and kiss their shining heads.
'You know, when I married your mother I thought I was getting a simple girl from the village and she would give me no trouble.' He was playing the fool for them. Rolling his eyes and puffing his cheeks. 'But she is the boss woman now. Anything she says, your father goes running off and does it. Look. Look inside the box.'
The girls moved forward together. Bibi began pulling at the brown tape. Shahana pushed her aside and took charge. Suddenly both girls were ripping at the cardboard, plunging arms inside and squealing.
'Ah, wait. Let your mother see.'
Nazneen came close and squatted beside the box. Inside there was a sewing machine and a tangle of wire.
'Birthday present,' said Chanu.
It was not her birthday.
'Early birthday present.'
'It is what I wanted.'
They never celebrated their own birthdays, only the girls'.
'Let's try it,' said Bibi.
Chanu bent down and unzipped the large canvas bag. It contained a computer.
'Is it your birthday present?' asked Bibi.
'That's it.' He was delighted. 'That's what it is.'
They put the computer on the dining table and the sewing machine next to it. Thread was found and pieces of cloth. Nazneen broke one needle, Chanu fitted another and she sewed a dish towel to a cloth that she used to wipe the floor. 'It is lucky for your mother,' Chanu told the girls, 'that I am an educated man.'
Shahana sewed a hem on a pillowcase. Bibi had a turn but could not manage the foot tread and the needle at the same time. She held the cloth steady while Shahana took another turn. Then Chanu found the setting for zigzag stitches and made patterns on a pair of old underpants. Nazneen wiped the pale green casing although the only marks on it were tiny worn-in scratches that could not be removed. The machine had become a little warm from its exertions and she felt it should rest.
'The computer,' cried Bibi.
'Let me do it,' said Chanu as the girls pressed up to the screen. There was much plugging and replugging and poking of buttons before the screen began to burr and turn slowly from black to grey to blue. All the time Chanu kept up an informative commentary.
You see. This is what is called. This wire goes in the. Must never touch any. I'll show you how the.
Shahana twisted her arms up in the loose fabric of her nightdress. She wanted to tell her father to take off his coat. Nazneen stopped her with a pleading look. These gay moods came rarely enough.
Bibi listened intently to her father as if she would be tested later. The unfinished sentences were quizzes and she might be called upon to supply the missing words.
Chanu sat down and began to type. He examined the keyboard closely before each stroke, putting his face right down by the letters as though something valuable had slipped between the cracks. Minutes later he had completed a sentence. The girls pushed up to take a look. It was long past bedtime.
Bibi read it out. ' "Dear Sir, I am writing to inform you.'"
'It all comes back so quickly,' said Chanu, in English. His cheeks were red with pleasure.
Nazneen began to wonder about the money. Where did he get the money? She decided not to think about it.
Shahana walked away and Nazneen followed her into the girls' room. She was sitting at her desk. Chanu had built them a desk each from a length of kitchen work surface he found in a skip. He had put shelves over their beds to hold schoolbooks but no amount of nails or glue or swearing could keep them on the walls and finally the girls, a little wiser and a little more bruised, had refused to sleep beneath them. The wood sat on the floor under the desks and the books were piled on top.
Nazneen stood behind her daughter and stroked her hair.
'We
are not allowed to speak English in this house,' said Shahana, transgressing at top volume.
There was always this tension between them. They could never get over their disappointments. If Shahana had been a boy, would it be different? Bibi he barely noticed. He talked to her, but how surprised he would be if answers started coming back.
'And we are always keeping to the rule?' said Nazneen.
'But it's his stupid rule in the first place!'
'I know,' said Nazneen.
When Chanu went out the girls frequently switched languages. Nazneen let it pass. Perhaps even encouraged it.
Years ago, before even Raqib was born, Razia had attempted to transfer the fruits of her Community Education classes to Nazneen. But they were delicate items, easily bruised. 'I need a help with filling form.' She had practised it about one hundred times a day. So far, she had found no use for it.
Over the last decade and a half she had gleaned vocabulary here and there. The television, the brief exchanges at the few non-Bengali shops she entered, the dentist, the doctor, teachers at the girls' schools. But it was the girls who taught her. Without lessons, textbooks or Razia's 'key phrases'. Their method was simple: they demanded to be understood.
Nazneen went back to Bengali. 'When I was first married, I wanted to go to college to learn English. But your father said there was no need.'
Shahana flicked her mother's hand away from her hair. When she sighed and her chest rose up against the white brushed cotton of her nightdress, Nazneen saw that breasts were beginning to come.