Amriika (46 page)

After dinner the three of them sat down to a game of Bao, played with stones on a thick wooden board carved out with rows of bowl-shaped cavities. On his way to school in Dar, early in the morning, Ramji would see old men sitting outside the doorways of their homes playing the game. That’s what Bao brought to mind, the long walk to school and the old men; Grandma waiting at home. Someone was actually marketing Bao in the U.S. now, in the museum stores.

They watched the late news, then went out for a walk along the beach. Rumina and Michel had discovered friends in common and she was yammering away at him about girls they had known, who had got married as teenagers and had turned into solemn, responsible wives, with children and a lot of money. Ramji walked on ahead, finding it difficult to accept his own feelings. He was jealous. Michel was younger and far more attractive and sympathetic. He felt left out in their presence. But he was being ridiculous, Rumina was utterly devoted to him, and Michel had a fiancé back home, Shirin, whom he looked forward to marrying.…And those Lufthansa flights? The flight numbers in the diary could mean anything. And the attaché case in the suitcase? Not a sign of
guilt, surely, he could have brought a lot of money with him, for example. Still, when Michel leaves, that will be all for the better.

Rumina had crept up behind him and put her arm into his. His heart was pounding. He had a sudden sense of foreboding.

Sounds of
TV
applause filtered in from the living room and through their bedroom door; out there Michel was awake and restless, and in here very much on Ramji’s mind. He wondered if Michel was on Rumina’s too. They had got into bed tired, and now lay on their backs unable to sleep. The ceiling above them reflected the large window looking out. The last vehicle had driven past on the road down below, some time ago. They heard Michel go to his room, and return shortly to the living room; the groan of creaking pine from the armchair. That was a badly designed object, and lumpy too. Svend had promised to replace it, but was tarrying, and the new model in his catalogue was costly. There were other things too that needed attention about the place — a light switch, a leak in the ceiling near the kitchen.…All evidence of their ongoing life together; a life, a home that should be protected from all manner of threats and not be taken for granted as we are so easily prone to do.

He moved slightly and she turned over beside him and ran a hand across his forehead.

“Michel thinks the world of you … a man of your word is what he called you, someone you can absolutely trust.”

Ramji wondered what to make of that.

“What did you and Michel talk about at the shrine?”

“This and that.” She played with his hair, watched him. “He is
quite deep in his own way,” she said, and paused again. Then: “He believes in God.”

They were quiet for a while, Ramji breathing deeply, trying to raise a thought, a response.

She asked: “Why didn’t you tell me — about him?”

He turned on his side to face her in the semidarkness. “What?” he said.

“About him, the incident in his town …”

So she knows. He’s told her.

He said: “I was afraid. I didn’t want to worry you …”

“Oh.” He saw the glint from her eyes, took her warm hand.

“Michel said we’re lucky we have each other …”

“I know I’m lucky,” Ramji replied. But my heart aches so, filled with the poison of jealousy and insecurity and possessiveness. What’s in
your
heart, girl?

“Suppose he’s guilty —” he began.

“But he’s not! He told me and I believe him. And he knows that you believe him too.”

He didn’t know what to say to her. I’m in it, up to my neck, and sinking. Unless, pray God (for old times’ sake at least, I did believe in You once), pray God he
is
innocent, happily, joyously so, and vindicated.

He told her of the day’s events, of Darcy’s doubts, and watched her look of dismay.

“It was Zayd and Basu who supported Michel. And we have decided that it would be best for Michel to return.”

“Michel
is
innocent,” she said. “I am convinced of it! I have already told him he can stay here as long as is … necessary.”

The embrace, finally, was loose, and failed to calm the turmoil within them.

T
hey had woken up in a warm, close embrace, opened their eyes and looked at each other, frightened, and amazed; fearful of having lost each other while sojourning in the world of dream and nightmare and sleep. And then hugged each other even tighter, with the certainty that they were each other’s, absolutely and forever, nothing should come in the way.

And they made amends. Ramji said it was nice of her to have shown kindness to their guest, who was far from home and must surely also be frightened. Rumina admitted that perhaps she got too carried away last night, their home was
theirs
, and they should both talk to Michel later and convince him to return to Ashfield and speak to the government investigators. They then got up and had the coffee which Michel had already made, and shortly afterwards Zayd came and took Michel away for the day.

And so after a long time, he cannot recall how long, the love nest is devoid of alien presence …

He lies stretched out on his back on the floor, not touching it, he thinks, in bliss-filled suspension, like a mist, while somewhere
inside she’s humming along with the music and beautifying her lovely self …

Perhaps, he muses in this forgetful moment of abandon, a daughter; and I would like to call her Shanti, for peace … if we had a daughter, if we had a child, which she so much wants.

“We’re making breakfast,” she says, gliding past, leaving a whiff of — what? — lemony milk and spice, honey and musk, and everything nice … these Zanzibaris have always been adept with their seductive wiles.

“Wait — come,” he bids.

“You get up and help,” she retorts.

“No, come here,” with a straight face, he, setting a love trap she knows all about yet comes to him all the same, and from the floor he watches her approach.

“Oh no, not now, and I’ve just had my bath.”

“All the more, dear … to ravish you. Just stand there … come down, you —” he pulls the dress, the hand, she resists, relents — “here, here, let’s have Zanzibari mango for starters …”

“Ramji! That was the only once — one freak time —”

“No argument — not now, my lovely …”

“Not all the way —”

She lowers herself onto him as he pulls off her white knickers. (Why not panties? Panties suggest
TV
ads and packaged underwear and sterile mannequins, that’s how the mind is formed — it’s knickers for me, suggesting the body the wearer the elastic the pulling-down-ability across the smooth cool behind.) He runs his fingers down her spine, her back, her buttocks, down the cleft, the raw roughness, up and down, raw and rough …

“Come on, Ramji …”

“Mango —
mawazo, alphonso
 …”

“
Shindano?
” How can she resist. Everyone has a special taste in mangoes.

“Say
mrdngam
 …”

“Mri — no—!”

“You’re a lecher, Ramji —”

“Funny.” They’re lying on their backs now, side by side. “We think of the excesses of youth and the moderation of maturity —but youth can’t hold a candle to middle-aged depravity, to which nothing is dirty or shocking or impossible. Isn’t that so?”

He turns to look at her.
Do I deserve you? I don’t care, but I will never let you go. No handsome stranger, no man of God or Devil, of any colour or race will take you away from me
 …

“I don’t know — I’m not that old, you know …”

They made a wonderful brunch for two. To start with, a whole coconut, split, the meat scraped off and squeezed for the milk. The onions chopped very fine; the white pigeon peas boiled and the creamy sauce prepared using crushed green chillies, coriander, smidgins of turmeric, garlic. That was
mbaazi
. Then the fried bread, from the yeasty dough prepared beforehand, some days earlier.
Mbaazi na maandazi
, Zanzibaris swore by it, at least the older ones, those not corrupted by the baseness of greasy chicken and chips, which, as Darcy said, had corrupted the cuisine back home. He would of course get a portion, not to do so would be unforgivable.

They were both reconciled to Darcy’s display of caution
regarding Michel; it was natural for the old man to feel protective about the life he had now in California.

“But I still feel that somehow he misled me,” Ramji said. “When he invited me to join him and after I arrived, he gave me the impression that he was still the same old warhorse.”

“But he did hint to you once that he desired you to help him take the Company into more moderate directions, didn’t he?”

“I guess so. But I was never sure what exactly he meant.”

And about his sponsor, that mysterious organization called the Overland Foundation with its poetry-spouting director, let’s not say another word and assume only the best possible motives.

“And he did bring us together.”

Ramji agreed; for that they should be eternally grateful to Darcy.

Afterwards they sat in the living room, Rumina looking over the paper, throwing amused looks at Ramji as he watched the cartoons and chuckled away like a boy.

That night they were to go to the wedding party in Torrance, to which Basu had invited them, and so Rumina had gone off to the shops to look for a gift and get what else she needed for the outing. Alone, at home, Ramji puttered about at first, doing minor chores. He argued successfully against undertaking something time-consuming, such as changing the faulty light switch, and sat down by the phone.

Should he call the kids? No, they would be out now, Saturday noon (their time), at religious classes, and Sunday was when he
usually called them … though tomorrow was the day of the Friendship Walk.…He thought for a while, wondered if he should call up Sona in Boston; they hadn’t spoken in months. He argued against that too.

A little later the phone rang.

“Can I speak to Mehboob?” a voice said. An elderly voice, a scratchy, back-home paternal voice that draws you in familiarly.

“He’s out for the moment,” answered Ramji. “Can I take a message? Are you his uncle?”

Michel was not supposed to have broadcast his whereabouts. To how many people had he given this phone number?

“My name is Akbarali Aziz, I am his father. I am calling from Calgary. Please tell him that I called.”

“I will,” Ramji said. “Did Mehboob give you this number?”

“That he did. And you are? …”

Ramji gave his family particulars.
Aré
, yes, Mr. Aziz said of Ramji’s grandmother, But I knew her
well
! And she had one daughter. Yes, my mother, Ramji told him. They discussed “prospects” in Canada and America for their Community; and they discussed the Friendship Walk which was scheduled for the following day in every city in North America where the Community had a presence. Are you walking? Ramji asked Mr. Aziz. The man said yes, he was walking with the Golden Club. And you? Yes, Uncle, Ramji said, I’ll be walking. (Everyone at the office had been roped in for the event by the Naaz-Naseem duo.) And how are your own family, Mr. Aziz asked, your wife, children? They are fine, Ramji said. Finally the man said, “You’ll see him off safely, won’t you? My son is a decent, religious boy; he was only misled …”