Tunnel Vision (34 page)

‘
And try not to forget that too often,
'
she grinned at him. A full-throttle Ammi grin, and the room seemed brighter; an open, airy chamber of love, joy, closeness.

‘
As you command. Now perhaps the court jester and I can amuse you with a dance?
'
He grabbed me under the armpits and lifting me off the bed, swung me around once, twice, three times before putting me down, winking and launching into
‘
Co Co Corina,
'
tugging at my hand to indicate that I should join in. So we sang and danced, and Ammi laughed. Adil opened his eyes, grunted and went back to sleep. It was just the three of us. Happy. And it had only cost one bauble. I wished I had a million to say goodbye to.

AYA BENGALI, CHAYA BENGALI, MEHBOOB KO KADMON MAIN LAYA BENGALI

AD FOR OCCULT SCIENTIST

~

O
ver the next week there was a succession of maid hopefuls. Big. Little. Young. Old. Skinny. Fat. Rude ones who demanded to know the terms before talking about what they could do were dismissed outright by an imperious Ammi who interviewed them in her bedroom.

‘
Wrong attitude,
'
she confided after I had returned from ushering yet another candidate to the door,
‘
she was acting like she was interviewing me!
'

Two or three were merely looked at before being dismissed with a curt,
‘
too young
'
. One mother who came in with a daughter who seemed about my age was given a classic lecture when it turned out that the daughter was the applicant.

‘
What sort of mother are you?
'
Ammi snapped at her,
‘
How can you even think about putting someone that young to work?
'

‘
We don
'
t have a choice,
'
was the sulky reply.

‘
Of course you do. Put her in a school.
'

‘
Are you going to pay her fees? Besides we don
'
t believe in educating our girls. What are they going to do with education later? Think?
'

‘
We don
'
t believe in using babies as labour,
'
Ammi replied primly, and turned her face in a sign that the interview was over. I smiled at the girl as they left. It would have been fun to have a playmate.

After the interviews had gone on for four days, with work continuing to pile up and no acceptable candidate in sight, Abba decided to take matters into his own hands. When he was forced to go to work wearing
‘
casual
'
clothes because there were no clean ones (Ammi used to wash, starch and iron his shirts herself), that
'
s when Ammi
'
s warnings of impending domestic doom really hit home. Wearing shalwar kameez to report to the administration wing of the federal government, everyone would think he was an intelligence agent, he grumbled.

‘
But isn
'
t that our national dress?
'
I asked curiously as he ironed, very badly I noticed. That was constantly being drummed into us at school.

‘
Yes doll, it is. But what is national dress on one day can be your fancy dress costume on the next.
'

‘
Do women also have to wear pants to work?
'
I was worried because I knew most women didn
'
t wear pants. Was that why there didn
'
t seem to be any at Abba
'
s office?

‘
No they don
'
t.
'

‘
Because they don
'
t have any?
'

‘
Because it wouldn
'
t be right.
'

‘
Why is it right for men and not right for women?
'

‘
I
'
ll explain when you
'
re older, okay? But I have to rush now. Better still, ask your mother.
'

I did, after he had gone, I had cleared up the debris scattered in his wake and told the girl what to cook that day.

‘
Men and women are different, Ayesha,
'
she said,
‘
they think differently, walk differently, and talk differently. Their bodies are different too. So there is a different set of rules for both. Like what
'
s okay to wear and what
'
s not.
'

‘
Who made the rules?
'

‘
God did.
'

‘
So God said “oye men, wear pants and oye women, don
'
t wear pants.”
'

‘
Not in those words exactly ...
'

‘
Then how do we know He said that?
'

‘
Learned people told us.
'

‘
How did they know?
'

‘
They studied what He said and they decided what He would have said if He hadn
'
t been busy laying down the rules for more important things.
'

‘
These learned men …,
'
I thought hard, this was confusing.

‘
Yes?
'

‘
Do they wear pants?
'

‘
I don
'
t know. Probably not.
'

‘
But people listen to them anyway.
'

‘
Yes. Most people do.
'

‘
Then it doesn
'
t matter what Abba wears, does it?
'

Ammi sighed,
‘
Some would say, no it doesn
'
t.
'

‘
Then why was he upset that he had to wear shalwar kameez?
'

‘
Tell you what, why don
'
t you ask him when he gets home?
'

‘
I will,
'
I nodded, disappointed. It was so hard to get a straight answer out of anyone in this house. If Adil could talk, I was sure he would lead me around in circles too.

But I never did ask Abba about the theory of panting, because when he came home he wasn
'
t alone. And when I saw the girl with him, all thoughts of pant vs. shalwar went right out of my head.

She was tall, as tall as Ammi, but all resemblance ended there. Where Ammi was fair and angular (or had been anyway), this girl was dark and curvaceous. A voluminous dupatta covered her head and was pulled across her body but it was still evident she had huge breasts. In fact, the tightly pulled dupatta that nipped in the waist as it passed behind her back seemed to emphasize rather than diminish their size. It was as if someone had kicked two footballs so hard in her direction they had been embedded in her chest. I was surprised she didn
'
t fall forwards, and that she didn
'
t have to lean back as she walked. But she didn
'
t. Trotting along behind Abba as he crossed the lounge to go into Ammi
'
s room, she seemed perfectly balanced. Maybe they were lighter than they looked? I was staring, and she gave me a knowing smirk as she went into Ammi
'
s room after my father.

‘
Jahan,
'
I heard him, heard the honeyed tone in his voice,
‘
I have a surprise for you.
'

There was a pause as Ammi drank in the surprise.

‘
Who is this?
'
her tone was neutral. Also familiar. Prelude to darkness, generally.

‘
Well, since it
'
s been four days and you haven
'
t been able to find anyone I thought I would help you out by asking my colleagues to recommend someone.
'

‘
Your colleagues do a lot of hiring and firing in the domestic department, do they?
'

‘
That
'
s more their wives
'
department, but I do have one co-worker who isn
'
t married, lives alone. He
'
s always had help to run his house, of course. Can
'
t be expected to do it himself now, can he, on top of the crazy hours we work.
'

‘
Of course not,
'
the blandness would be followed by spicy flavour. I could feel it in the air.

‘
So he brought her along today. Her sister works for him. He says she
'
s very good.
'

‘
I
'
m sure she is.
'

‘
She can cook, wash, clean, even iron! You won
'
t have to worry about a thing.
'

‘
Very thoughtful of you. How lucky I am to have such a considerate husband,
'
now she sounded pleased, I had read her wrong. Generally when she went all quiet and polite it was a sign trouble was brewing, maybe Adil was doing strange things to her mind, erasing the Ammi I knew. I so wanted to bite down on his nose till he cried.

‘
The best thing is …
'

‘
There
'
s more?
'
Ammi cut in,
‘
I don
'
t know if I can handle all the good news all at once.
'

‘
The best thing is she
'
s agreed to live in.
'

‘
Where will she live?
'

‘
Here, of course, Jahan. I just told you.
'

‘
Here where? We have no servant quarter.
'

‘
Let
'
s not do this servant master talk dear. I
'
ve told her we
'
ll treat her like a member of the family. It
'
ll make her want to work better. I mean, I don
'
t like to work if someone makes me feel inferior.
'

‘
It isn
'
t about inferior. It
'
s about limits.
'

‘
And we
'
ll have those, of course. You can set them.
'

‘
Where will she sleep then, since you
'
ve obviously given this a lot of thought.
'

‘
Ayesha
'
s room.
'

I gasped in horror. My room? My palace? My wide-open space ruined by the addition of a mountain range with peaks and valleys?

‘
On the floor, of course,
'
Abba added,
‘
I
'
ll give her a pillow and some bedding.
'

‘
Right.
'

‘
And …
'

Ammi sighed,
‘
And?
'

‘
She can start immediately. Tomorrow, rather, because today is already over. I
'
ll go and find her bedding and settle her in. You can talk to her about duty and stuff.
'

‘
Oh I will.
'

Abba came out and disappeared in the direction of the small storage space where the trunks, heavy blanket and assorted junk were kept.

‘
Abba!
'
I tried to stop him, to register my protest at having to share my room, but he brushed me off.

‘
Not now Ayesha,
'
he whizzed by,
‘
I
'
m doing important work for your mother.
'

Hurt, I went into my mother
'
s room and clambered onto her bed to curl up around her feet. She moved one to give me more space. Taking it as an opening, I moved further up her body till the three of us, Adil, Ammi and myself, were a compact heap. A body and three heads. Across the room, the big breasts with a face looked at her feet and fidgeted uneasily. The silence dragged on.

‘
What
'
s your name?
'
Ammi finally spoke. Again, her voice was without inflection.

‘
Nasreen,
'
came the sullen reply. She wasn
'
t meeting Ammi
'
s level gaze.

‘
Nasreen. How old are you?
'

‘
I don
'
t know. We don
'
t have these things where I come from.
'

‘
Where do you come from?
'

‘
Punjab.
'

‘
Punjab is a large place.
'