Tanya Tania (10 page)

I was very angry with him, Tania.

And for the first time since I've known him, he got angry back. He said that he was trying to support me in what I love and that I don't support him in what he loves.

What does he love? A concert? One that he's not even playing in!

Maybe it is not Ali, maybe it is me. I don't understand men. I don't understand my father. I don't understand my brother. Today my father was home for dinner because a surgery was cancelled (the patient died). He, Navi and I had dinner together, a silent meal. I told him, although he didn't ask, that my mother was sleeping. He nodded. I said it again in case he hadn't heard me and he said, ‘I heard you Tanya. Your mother is sleeping.'

How can he not think it is strange that she's sleeping at nine o'clock at night when her children and husband are sitting down to dinner?

I forced Navi to look at me and I saw that he had registered it, registered all of it. But he turned away from me and talked about muscle atrophy with my father for the rest of the meal. Sometimes I think he doesn't like to be around me because he doesn't want to accept reality.

But at least I know that he sees it too. The ever-increasing strangeness of our mother. I almost never see her anymore. She's hiding. She's shrinking. She spends all day in bed and at night, when the gardener has gone home, she floats around our garden in a thin nightie, fondling roses and stroking dew from leaves. One morning I found her curled around a baby jacaranda bush. Once I heard her singing lullabies to the jasmine. The lullabies she used to sing to me.

There is a memory I have of being a child when we had first moved to Karachi. We had gone to my father's friend's house, his mentor from college I think. The house was musty and the couple seemed impossibly old. I remember Navi had started crying and my father had looked at him with such annoyance on his face that I knew he had forgotten he had brought us with him. My mother picked us up, one in each arm and that must have been hard because we were at least five years old. She took us out to the garden where it was fresh and cool and she stayed outside in the garden with us the whole time even when my father came outside to call us in to eat. I remember that scene as if it is a picture, the light fading over the champa trees and fat waxy flowers falling all around us as if something had died.

I would try to answer your question about why Arjun doesn't want to be your boyfriend but why would you want advice from a girl whose family didn't even notice the big silver cup she won and left by the staircase for everyone to see?

Love,

Tanya

P.S. Besides, Tania, you already know.

January 22, 1992

Bombay

Dear Tanya,

Your letter made me sad man. And then I felt like an asshole for being stressed about something stupid like not being invited to a birthday party.

I'm joking. Of course I'm invited to the party. I'm invited to every party. It's not even a party if I'm not there. Everyone says that because it's absolutely true.

Your mom sounds weird. She also sounds sad. Why isn't your dad noticing?

My dad is really good at noticing things. Actually, he notices things a bit too much. He's too sensitive. I tell him this all the time when he's sad after a fight with my mom. I tell him to chill and have a cigarette. It's a joke because once he caught me smoking and instead of scolding me, he started laughing and then we both laughed and laughed and laughed and I fell over and that made us laugh even more and finally when we stopped laughing he didn't say anything to me about smoking and instead we both promised not to tell my mother.

Sometimes I have a fantasy about my mother not being there. Maybe going to visit Sammy for a long, long time. And it will be just my dad and me.

Today I did something stupid at school but I don't care. We have this thing where every week we go do stuff for the poor. It's really boring and stupid because I always go to the Soup Kitchen with the rest of my gang because it is run by Laila's mother. But there's never anyone there at the Soup Kitchen at the time that we go because that's a super busy time for beggars. Today—I don't know what came over me—I went to St. John's Church instead where they also give food but it's to street kids. And the kids were actually there.

I mean they were disgusting and dirty and super rude but at least they were there. It was super tiring because we had to serve them food and then give them these tiny bars of soap and make them go take showers and stuff.

When I came back to school, everyone was giving me weird looks and Maya made a face as if I smelled. So I was like, how was Gossip at the Soup Kitchen today? But no one laughed.

At that moment, I didn't care. I just went and played tennis and beat everyone I was so mad.

But now I'm home and I'm tired and I've eaten dinner and it's 10 pm and no one has called me all evening. That's like never happened.

But why can't I go to St. John's? Why does everyone have to be together all the time? I mean is our group so fragile that if someone does something different then it's all over?

See this is why I feel like growing up is so dangerous. I never used to think this kind of stuff before. Now I feel like everything is stupid and everyone is stupid. This is the kind of thinking I don't want to do. It's dangerous.

My dad once told me that growing up feels like shedding your skin and growing new skin. Well, I like my old skin a lot. It took a lot of hard work to grow it and I don't want anything else. I'm scared I'm going to become a Communist like my parents used to be. They used to like sing songs on the streets and be against everyone. I don't want to be like that. It's hot and sweaty and you can't look cute doing it.

Besides if you're against everything then who runs things? Where does the money come from?

Do you sometimes feel like you're shedding your skin? I think I'm going to pray tonight and ask God if I can keep mine. And maybe see if he can send my mom on a holiday.

Love,

Tania

February 1, 1992

Karachi

Dear Tania,

You won't believe what just happened. Just as I was going to sit down to write to you, there was a huge crash in the kitchen. When I went to see what it was, I found Bibi pinned to the floor by a huge steel cupboard that had fallen down on her. Chhoti Bibi was standing there, arms folded across her chest, looking mutinous.

I helped Bibi up and she cursed away in Punjabi involving all manners of animals in interesting combinations with Chhoti Bibi's ancestors and my ancestors even though I had done nothing but try to help her.

As soon as Bibi was free of the cupboard, she sprung up and slapped Chhoti Bibi hard across the face. Once, twice, thrice. Before I could move. Chhoti Bibi just stood there looking straight at Bibi. She didn't try to defend herself and she didn't try to stop Bibi. The slaps were hard and her cheek was already swelling up but there were no tears in her eyes. She just stood there blazing at Bibi. It got very quiet.

Then Chhoti Bibi swore and walked out. I was left standing there with Bibi who began to cry. I helped her to her room and made her lie down. I got some balm for her bruises. Her pillow turned wet under her cheek, her wrinkles forming rivulets. I've never seen Bibi cry before.

It turns out that there was a marriage proposal from their village for Chhoti Bibi. Of course this is a huge thing because no one ever thought Chhoti Bibi would get married after what she did to the first guy. But Bibi had been sending home a lot of money and finally they had found a family with a boy who is slightly retarded.

I think Bibi genuinely thought Chhoti Bibi would be happy. It's amazing how little families actually know each other.

I went outside to look for Chhoti Bibi but couldn't find her anywhere. The gardener said she took off by the back exit and my old bicycle is missing. At first I thought it was funny—Chhoti Bibi in her huge salwar biking away angrily on a pink and white bicycle with My Little Pony handlebars. But it has been a few hours now and it is almost dark and she is not home.

I'm sure she's fine. She's a smart girl. And she's been in the city for a few months now. She knows our address. She must know it because she goes to buy groceries in the car with Bibi. She can be flighty sometimes though and I wonder if she paid attention. Knowing her, she was probably so thrilled to be in an air-conditioned car, she hadn't noticed. And really, it has only been four months. Would I have known Clifton if I had only lived here for a year and that too as a servant? What if she has left Clifton? She has an unknowable number of cousins around the city in neighbourhoods I don't know, whose names I only read in newspapers when bad things happen.

I'm sure she's fine.

Love,

Tanya

February 15, 1992

Bombay

Dear Tanya,

Today I got into a fight at school because stupid Aparna said I have no school spirit and I said fuck school and a Prefect was walking by, a total chaap who has never heard of shampoo or deodorants, and he said he was going to give me detention. I mean please. Prefects aren't allowed to give detention, get a life! I told her that and she said, come with me right now come to the Principal's office and I said make me and he actually grabbed my hand and tried to pull me but whatever I'm super strong and I burst out laughing and some spit landed on his arm and now he's saying I spat on purpose. I have to talk to Ms. Kuruvilla tomorrow. Basically, I'm not getting Prefect next year.

I came home and cried to Nusrat. She was so nice about it. I put my head on her lap and she put her arms around me and made those noises that she makes when she feels something a lot. She smelled really nice and her hands on my face were so cool and smooth and soft. How is it that she's poor and doesn't smell? I mean I'm not being a bitch, poor people don't have money to buy deo. If I forget my deo for a day I smell. Nusrat is magic.

I told my mom and she said that it didn't matter because American colleges don't care about Prefects.

I want to go to Xavier's College and study Psychology and then I want to have a big wedding where I'll wear a tiny choli with a huge red ghaghra with gold all over it and dance on stage and everyone will be looking at me, even the gross fat uncles but no one will be able to say anything because it will be my wedding.

And then Arjun and I will have our own house where I will paint the walls interesting colours and have sex everywhere. Arjun will do damn well in his business and I'll be the hottest married woman in Bombay and I'll wear whatever I want all the time and no one would be able to stop me because I'll be married.

I was mean in school today. Just regular stuff, stuff I've always done. But it's bothering me. I convinced Maya that Sunil has a crush on her and that she should go talk to him. And she did and he got up and walked away. And everyone saw and started laughing. And Maya is no dumb fool you know so she also started laughing and made a big joke out of it.