Tanya Tania (11 page)

But she wouldn't look at me afterwards.

And the fucked up thing is that this would have never bothered me before.

That's what I'm saying man. I like my skin. I don't want it to change. I never thought about this shit before and I don't want to start now.

I guess Chhoti Bibi had to get away for a bit. I can just see her cycling away on your old pink bicycle, wanting to get away from your house, from your stupid lesson plans, from Bibi, from everything. I mean if I didn't have a boyfriend, if I didn't have Arjun I would totally want to get away. But I have Arjun and he's the hottest boy in school and he loves me so I have no reason to want to get away. My life is awesome. I'm happy. I'm like totally happy.

Love,

Tania

5

April 5, 1996

New York, NY

Dear Tania,

Today I saw the first daffodils! Real daffodils growing in the ground, beautifully yellow and pristine and rising above the muddy leftover snow. They reminded me of gulmohurs in Karachi. Karachi doesn't have spring but around the time that it was going to be the end of the year and everyone was slacking off in the classroom and the teacher wasn't really trying, we used to stare out of the window at the gulmohur tree in the basketball court, especially on that magic day when it seemed like it had bloomed overnight. One day just a normal sober tree and the next day a party. I always thought the tree lived through the whole year just to have those flowers.

It is hard to have relationships with trees here. Other than in the park, most of New York's trees are chained up in fences. There are cherry blossoms by the reservoir though and they, like the gulmohurs of Karachi, come alive suddenly and vividly in spring. All year long, I run round and round the reservoir, imagining every pound I've eaten drop cleanly off my body but in spring I don't even care. In spring, the cherry blossoms triumph and for a few days, all longings are met in paper-thin, pink and white whispers blowing perfume into the air.

You always made sex sound so easy.

I'm angry with you for that. I'm angry with you for a lot of things actually.

For a long time I was angry with you for having sex with Arjun, for letting him do all those things to you. There was something so absolute with you about Arjun. You were just so sure. It set an impossible standard. It still does. Every time I have approached a relationship, I have pictured you in my head, imagined what you would have said. I compare how I feel to how you had felt about Arjun. Your love was singular, full and fecund. Mine sterile and stillborn.

But I don't feel angry with you about Arjun anymore. I think everyone has to have one obsession in their life. Something that grabs you by the ankle and swings you around the axis of the world until you become a doll, chucked into the universe, whirling, whirling, gone.

Yes, I think so. I don't think we die once in a lifetime. Sometimes in one life itself we die many times. I took a class on Hindu philosophy and I think that's what reincarnation is really about, shedding the angst and pain of a lifetime so you become thinner, cleaner, simpler, smaller.

Arjun was your obsession. It was clear from the way you talked about him. His crazy body, his crazy mind, the crazy way he loved you, his hands on your buttocks, his hands in your hair, his hands on your feet, his hands on your mouth holding it shut while he fucked you. You were obsessed. I understand now. I'm not angry anymore because I understand.

Winter is almost over. This morning I woke up and opened the window and jumped out into the garden and it was soft and secret and dreamy. I imagined a gentle knight and a sorrowful princess and he was smiling at her with all the patience in the world. The knight was my father and the princess was my mother. They began to touch each other and did not notice me hiding under a rosebush. And I, absorbed as I was in watching them did not see you, writhing with a snake in a pit right next to me. The snake rose up and struck you and you fell forward dead in the sand, looking straight at me with a smile on your face.

This is a nightmare I've had for three and a half years. Well, there are versions. Sometimes there's no snake, it's a gun. Sometimes there's no noise at all as if it's happening in mute. Once, in the dream, I was blind but I could still feel you fall. Every time you fall with a smile on your face watching me.

It didn't just happen to you. It happened to me, Tania, it has never stopped happening to me.

Love,

Tanya

February 25, 1992

Bombay

Dear Tanya,

Okay that was less weird than I thought it was going to be. You sound a lot more normal on the phone. Except you have a weird accent. But I'm glad I called.

It was pretty crap that you didn't write and tell us that Chhoti Bibi was back. You know I made the maid wait outside for the postman for two weeks. And it's like really hot outside. You're INCONSIDERATE.

Chhoti Bibi sounded fun although I didn't understand a lot of what she said. You know what Tanya, I think inside, below the crappy stuff that comes from being poor, she's actually cool. Cooler than you. It makes me sad actually. There are so many people who would have been total social rockstars and they can't because they're poor. It's over for them before they even have a chance.

It was kind of tough for Nusrat. I kept trying to give her the phone because you know she can like make some noises but she wouldn't take it. She can be shy. She does sound weird so maybe it was good she didn't. I'd be pretty mad if you said the wrong thing to her.

So anyway the big update from my side is that Sammy has a girlfriend and she's BLACK. She's from NIGERIA. Yeah. Insane. I mean I think it's weird that he couldn't get an American black girl to date him. My mom forbade him to go to Nigeria because it's like super dangerous. He told my parents that she's super smart and is at Princeton on a full scholarship. He told me she's hot like a model.

If I wasn't so short I'd be hot like a model. I have the Bengali eyes you know? Except they're normal big on me not like protruding big like they are on some people (my mom).

I have a nice ass and REALLY hot legs. My problem is my boobs. They keep growing man. I mean I know it sounds sexy and stuff but I don't want it to get to the point where they are like Anjali's, I mean she can't even run and she can NEVER wear tank tops. I already can't wear tank tops without a bra which is so sexy you know. Like a plain simple white tank top over jeans right after you've shampooed your hair and your skin is soft and shiny and just slightly sweaty, I mean sometimes I look so hot in the mirror I can only imagine what it does to guys.

How much hotter do I have to be for Arjun to love me in public? He was mean to me today.

Do you think it ever gets simple? I think it used to be simple at one point for my parents. My dad has told me stories about how they met and how they fell in love. You know my mom like totally stood up for him to her parents. They wanted her to marry someone rich like them. And my mom was like I'm going to marry this guy or no guy. And it worked.

I mean I think that's cool but I wonder if she would have married him if my grandparents hadn't been against it, you know. What if she was trying to prove to herself that she was powerful, that what she wanted mattered more than what they wanted? What if that's the reason she married my father? Is that good enough?

What makes someone good enough? What is a good enough reason to want to spend your life with someone?

Love,

Tania

March 3, 1992

Karachi

Dear Tania,

It was nice of you to phone us. Chhoti Bibi couldn't stop talking about it for days. You have become her hero. ‘No one has ever called me from India before,' she kept saying. ‘All because I went to my cousin's house.'

It must be nice to be able to pick up the phone and call anyone you want without worrying about the expense.

Remember I had told you I need to look over the family finances? Today I found the door of my father's study unlocked after a long time. It was dusty inside and smelled of the petrified black thing in the dustbin that had been a banana a long time ago. I also found the folders I was looking for. My father's bank statements.

Things are worse than before. My father has sold his last remaining investments. There has been no income for over a year now. Before I could see more, my father came in. I thought he was going to shout at me, I thought he would scold me. But he only asked me to leave. The door has been locked again.

I wish I knew what my father is thinking. I don't mind if he is not thinking of me, I just want to know. What does he wake up and think of? Does he miss sleeping in the same bed as my mother?

My dad thinks the hospital will change everything for us. That it will just take a little more time, a little more money, a little more patience and the hospital will make our lives. I haven't heard him say that in a while. Ali says he is fida over me. My father is fida over the hospital.

Chhoti Bibi didn't come back for a few days as I told you on the phone. She somehow got on a bus with my pink bicycle and went to her cousin's house in Lyari, one of those neighbourhoods always in the papers because of a riot or a murder or several. She won't tell me her cousin's name or what she did there. She just shakes her head with a deep, knowing smile on her face.

She and Bibi act as if nothing has happened which I take to be the result of living with my family. Haha.

I almost got into an argument with my mother about it. I asked her if we should be worried about what had happened to Chhoti Bibi while she was gone. She had been gone for four days and three nights. My mother looked at me blankly.

I thought, how callous. Surely my mother has a responsibility towards a seventeen-year-old girl living in her house. Anything could have happened to Chhoti Bibi. Then I saw that she had been crying. The skin beneath her eyes had turned grey and wrinkled like a dead rat that had washed up into our garden last monsoon.

My mother saw me looking and she lifted a hand to her cheek and rubbed at where the tears had tracked. ‘Your father didn't come home last night,' she said.

‘He was at the hospital.'

She gave a short bark of a laugh I haven't heard before and went into the bathroom. The tap ran for a long time before I heard her splash water on her face.

My father was at the hospital. Truly. I'm absolutely certain he is not having an affair. I know this because I followed him a few months ago. He just goes to the hospital and stays there all day long. There are no women in the hospital except the nurses and they are all married and mostly old and fat.

My mother came out and sat down at her dressing table and began to comb her hair. It fell around her in soft glossy curls even though I could tell she hadn't washed it in days.

‘He was at the hospital,' I said again. ‘I'm sure he was at the hospital.'

She looked at me at the mirror and smiled. ‘Tell me about Chhoti Bibi,' she said. ‘Why were you so worried? What happened?'

I told her what happened and she frowned. Then she called Bibi and scolded her for not letting her know that Chhoti Bibi had come back.

So you see, my mother had known about Chhoti Bibi all along. She hadn't forgotten, hadn't disappeared. I shouldn't have doubted her. I should be a better daughter.

My mother came out of her room yesterday. We had tea together in the evening and Bibi made samosas in honour of the occasion. Even Navi was there by some miracle although he came late and was sweaty and rude and said the samosas were burnt when really, they were just crisp. She asked him questions about school but he gave one-word answers. He can be such a brat. I told her all about my college applications and she agreed with all my choices. Which is no small thing, Tania, because you know, my mother was admitted to all the colleges she had applied to, including Harvard and Yale. I have no idea why she went to Wellesley.