The Two Krishnas (40 page)

Many of her friends had asked Mariam why, if she missed her family so much, she didn’t moved back to Kangemi where a small textile factory had been started by a rehabilitation center to help women gain financial independence. But Mariam, having already worked for the Samjis for over ten years, said, “And who will take care of them? Don’t you know they are like my children? Mohammad and Bashir, and even that old husband of mine, can take care of himself. But the Samjis,” and here she shook her head in mock-disdain, “When they stay here, that Mama Farida can’t even find her own two shoes without me!”

Dressed especially for the occasion in a bright yellow and red tie-died
khanga
dress but with an incongruous brown cardigan thrown over it to protect her from Nairobi’s biting chill, Mariam sprang into action as soon as the car pulled up into the driveway. At the very first opportunity, she attempted to pick up all four suitcases that Salim had hauled out of the trunk and it looked like she was going to keel over in her rubber Bata shoes and land on her turbaned head.

At once Pooja tried to help but Suchitra pulled her back by the arm, “Let her do it,
na?
It’s her job,
beti.
Salim! Quickly, help the poor woman before she kills herself and creates more problems for us!”

The four-bedroom house in Ngara carried a distinct smell of turpentine. An outside garage had been converted into storage for cans of paint and related appurtenances, as if on stand-by for any sudden artistic inspirations the Samjis might have. Suchitra winkled her nose. “What is this petrol smell? Oh, I already feel like I’m going to vomit!”

“Oh, only turpentine, Mama, no need to worry,” Mariam quickly explained, still trying to grapple with the bags and resistant to any help from Salim. “You know, a pussycat knocked over one of the cans this morning and I have tried so hard to make the smell go away!”

Inside, the weary Kapoors found a house cluttered with the trappings of confused wealth. Ornate gold leaf furniture and antique Louis XV reproductions combated with the Oriental motif of Shoji room dividers placed indiscriminately around the living room, Sumi-e paintings with goddesses and fire-breathing dragons on the wall, and a solid wood Tibetan table dwarfed under a massive, blinding chandelier. But somehow, in all this chaos, the Samjis had managed to find a prominent place above the unused fireplace for an oversized picture of their smiling religious leader, the Aga Khan, in an enormous gilded frame. The intent may have been to create an appreciation for world cultures, or to act as a testament to their travels, but it looked as if world’s cultures had come and regurgitated right in the middle of the their living room.

As the rest of the Kapoors stood frozen amongst the tumultuous décor, Suchitra clucked away with distaste. “
Chi! Chi!
Just look at this! I’m telling you, all that money and still no class!”

“Ma!” Kiran nudged her mother, motioning towards the maid who was squeezing past them with two of their enormous bags.

“So? So what? As if we have to worry about that one!” she said, letting the maid pass through.
Since when did one have to mind their tongues in front of servants and maids?
thought Suchitra, now annoyed. They were invisible. And even if they were to say anything, as if their word would mean anything! Even if the servants were believed, the Samjis would no sooner brand the African maid a troublemaker and fire her for her insolence than take offense with their guests. And so her clucking continued, undisturbed by the presence of loyal servants.

After Mariam had pacified them with cardamom and ginger-laden chai and samosas, Pooja’s in-laws retired for a nap in the late afternoon. They occupied the master bedroom, filled with more of the global souvenirs the Samjis had collected, the most garish being an imposing Aphrodite bathing on the bedside. Even Kiran, the typically hyperactive Gemini she was proud to be called, surrendered in a less opulent room to the narcotic exhaustion of the long drive and the sharp change in temperature. “Sell it so we can all go home!” Suchitra said before passing out.

Suchitra’s snoring trumpeted in the air and Pooja, amazed at the indecorousness, walked out into the backyard, the chill biting through her dress. In the beginning, she had been unable to stop comparing Suchitra to her own mother, finding the Kapoor matriarch astonishingly audacious in everything she did, including how she treated her husband. Where Savita Patel’s strength came from her being emotionally restrained and verbally economical, Suchitra Kapoor enforced herself passionately, initially demonstrating some struggle with her emotions but inevitably giving in to expressing herself rather grandly.

In time, Pooja had learned to adjust to her mother-in-law’s temperament and found some redeeming qualities in her assertiveness. First, Suchitra cared for and accepted her daughter-in-law almost as her own daughter and secondly, Pooja discovered that there was indeed some benefit in allowing emotion to unfurl in the moment. Unlike her own mother and even herself, who clung to emotions until they leaded the soul, Suchitra unburdened herself whenever she felt like it and just minutes after that, her wrath would dissipate. In this respect, she could clearly see that Kiran had taken after her mother where Rahul, soft-spoken and gentle, was more like his father.

Draping her sari tightly around herself, she walked over the graveled compound, looking up at the cloudy Nairobi sky. She yearned for the bright, scorching sun of Mombasa and its blanketing hot air, and for Rahul, who was still there. She had tried to call him but he hadn’t been home and because the Kapoor house servant had been given the weekend off so that he could go and visit his family, she had been unable to leave a message. She had noticed the little blinking machine in the Samjis’ living room, a “message machine” Mariam had called it (except she had pronounced it “massage”) and wondered if, when they moved to America, they too would have one like it.

Suddenly she became aware of the squawking of a hen and when she turned around in the direction of the servants’ quarters, she saw that Mariam was supervising a young African man squatting on the ground. He was dexterously slaughtering the bird with an ominous knife, its blade glinting in the sun. Pooja flinched and froze. Mariam looked up and smiled, not in the least bit alarmed, knowing only too well how wealthy Asians had prodigious, carnivorous appetites but were too weak to witness or minister the gruesome sacrifice that delivered meat to their tables.

“Mama, did you need anything?” Mariam asked.

Pooja shook her head and cringed as blood started gushing out from the severed neck of the bird, its wings still flapping around wildly even as its little head lay severed from it on the ground, the beak crying silently.

“Mama, go! You go back inside. I shall come and see you in a little while.” Then some of the blood sprayed out over Mariam’s leg and she jumped back, yelping, “Eh, Njoroge! Watch it, man!”

But Njoroge, unruffled by the bloodshed, was whooping it up and laughing as he thrust the body of the bird into an aluminum pan full of boiling water in which he could skin it. Mariam slapped him playfully on his head, their flirtation undisguised.

* * *

The arrival of the Samjis was heralded by the incessant barking of dogs. Before they entered their home, the two Pomeranians, Kiki and Bubbles, dashed in like the true masters of the house, and pounced upon the peacefully slumbering Suchitra and Ravi, nearly inducing a heart-attack.

Suchitra jumped up in bed, screaming hysterically, one hand clutching at her heart. Ravi jumped out of bed altogether and, shocked at the dogs’ ferocity, plastered himself meekly against the wall. Kiki and Bubbles gamboled around the bed, two coffee-colored fur-balls wreaking havoc until their tall and commanding mistress charged into the room.

“Kiki! Bubbles! Get off the bed at once!” Farida Samji ordered, and by some miracle borne of loyalty, the little beasts leapt off the bed and with salivating tongues and wagging tails awaited their master’s next command. “Silly darlings.”

Having just returned from a game of tennis at the Muthaiga Country Club, Farida Samji was dressed in a white tank top and paneled skirt and was holding a racquet almost threateningly in her hands. She smiled apologetically at her terrorized house guests, whom she was meeting for the first time. “Hello, I’m Farida Samji. You can call me Falu,” she introduced herself. “Tsk, tsk, tsk! So sorry about all this but really, they don’t mean any harm. They are so loving, aren’t you, Kiki? Bubbles? Wait and see. They are just so-o-o excited to see you! It means that they really, really love you! Really!”

A disheveled Suchitra, still struggling to catch her breath, and Ravi, who now peeled himself off the wall, were still too stunned to speak. Neither could wipe the alarm off their faces.

Farida Samji was remarkably tall, toned and wore her hair in the latest bobbed fashion so that even though she was well into her fifties, she looked like she could run marathons, making others around her feel dismally aged.

“
Barre Jao!
Go to Mariam and she will give you some
mum-mum
,” Farida said to the dogs with the complete confidence that they understood Gujarati, English and any other language she may have been proficient in. “Mariam!”

But it was Alnoor Samji, a boisterous, heavy-set, mustachioed man in a polo shirt and shorts who tromped in with his large, hairy open arms. “Oho! Ravi-
saab,
kem chho? Kem chho?
How are you? Oho, Suchitraben! By God, what a pleasure to see you both! Oh, so I see you have already met our children, Bubbles and Kiki, eh?”

Suchitra and Ravi exchanged a look.

“Yes, Alnoor. Just now only they were surprised by them,” Farida said, pulling a sympathetic face.

“Oh, the poor dogs!” said Alnoor and then broke into uproarious laughter.

Farida clapped her immaculately painted hand on her mouth, joining in on the joke. “Oh, Alnoor! You are just too much some times!”

Right then Mariam appeared. From the look on her face, it was clear at least to Suchitra and Ravi that she was also entertaining heinous thoughts about the dogs. Kiki and Bubbles refused to leave the room, bounding around Farida and licking her bare legs liberally. Her leg kicked out ineffectually. “Okay, okay, enough! Get out now and leave us alone for a while. Can’t you see we are with our guests? Mariam, get them out of here!”

Mariam refused to move and Farida had to look over her shoulder and throw Mariam a commanding look, after which the servant grabbed the thin leads and pulled them sharply, almost yanking the whining dogs out of the room.

“Poor little creatures,” Farida sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed, one tanned leg crossed over the other. “What do they know but to just love, love and love?”

* * *

The Samjis returned dressed to the nines a few hours later, without the pesky dogs. Upon their insistence and much to Mariam’s dismay, the Kapoors were whisked off to the Muthaiga Country Club, about a ten-minute drive from the city. It was made abundantly clear, when Ravi had attempted to offer an excuse of exhaustion, that this was not an invitation most people were fortunate enough to come by. As Farida had stared at the Kapoors in shock at such unthinkable impudence, pulling her red shawl tightly around bare shoulders, Alnoor elaborated with sweeping gestures,
“Hainh?
What, are you joking Ravi? Do you know that only prime ministers, only presidents, the Crème de la Crème go here! Come on, come on! I am not going to let
bhabhi
and the kids suffer because you are so bloody lazy!”

As they approached the stately main building with its pink walls and bluestone pillars, nestled on fifteen acres of verdant tropical gardens, Alnoor exclaimed at the wheel, “Ah, there it is! There it is! Old Kenya!” and one would have thought that the fat, perspiring man driving them in the shiny Mercedes was not in fact an Asian who at one time would have been booted out along with the howling dogs, but may have in fact played croquet with Markham, smoked a pipe with Finch Hatton, sipped gin and tonics with the Earl of Erroll, enjoyed bonhomie with the paragons of colonialism.
“Tch,
you know this has become our home away from home now,” he admitted proudly.
“Na,
Farida?”

“Without question, darling.
Tch,
I so love this place.”

Pooja and Kiran exchanged a look, suppressing their laughter.

Naturally, since its opening in 1913, things at this legendary headquarters of Kenya’s notorious “Happy Valley” set had changed. Now one could even find a sprinkling of wealthy Kikuyus and Asians like the Samjis on its esteemed membership roster who were finally tasting the high-life and English traditionalism that had been denied to them as being far above their station and ethnic sensibilities.

The group was seated in a spacious wooden-floored dining room where a silver carvery trolley made its rounds sporting the finest meats. Between lavish servings Alnoor was filled with almost an eager self-reproach. “Oh, bloody hell!
Tch,
if only I’d thought about it sooner then we would have reserved the private dining room,
na
Farida?
Bas,
next time, next time, by God!”

But this was already more than enough for Ravi who, glancing around a room still prominently occupied by Europeans, remarked, “You’ve done so well for yourself, Alnoor, very, very well.” Ravi noticed Suchitra was shaking the life out of the salt shaker on her plate of tilapia and he put his hand out to her. She looked up, miffed, and reluctantly surrendered the silver shaker.