Tanya Tania (13 page)

So far I haven't lost popularity because I talk to Samara. I try to keep it random you know. Like some days I'll be totally pally with her and other days I ignore her. It's better to make people wonder what you think of them rather than wonder what they think of you.

I'm worried about Arjun. He's been really moody and sad lately. I guess I may as well tell you he was suspended again and this time for two weeks. This is a super big deal because he is going to miss the monthly exam which will totally screw up his grades. I mean I don't care because we have decided we're not going abroad to college but his dad gets really mad and then he hits him with a belt. And when his dad gets mad Arjun goes batshit crazy. That's when he gets mean with me. It's his dad's fault really, not Arjun's.

I talked to Nusrat about it but I don't know, ever since the Samara thing she's been really touchy with me. She told me to not talk with Arjun anymore and like I called him the next day and she got so mad. She actually threw down the saucepan she was cleaning when I told her. I was kind of pissed off. I mean she's being paid to wash it not break it. I didn't say anything but I don't think it was cool.

What's the big deal? Why is she so mad? This has happened a gazillion times.

With all of this stuff going on, I totally ignored the stupid packages from American colleges that my mom had sent for. There's a whole pile in the corner of my room that she dumps a new one on every day. I swear there are fifty applications there.

So today she flipped her lid because I spilled coffee and some of it got on the application for Smith which is her second choice. What's the big deal, we can send for another one and anyway I'm not going. I just have to tell her that.

So basically everyone is mad at me and I'm working super hard at school and am really tired so please write back something normal without going on and on about college. Tell me about your brother. You like never talk about him.

Love,

T

April 10, 1992

Karachi

Dear Tania,

How can we be the same age and have such different problems? Your boyfriend got suspended, my boyfriend may get kidnapped. You are worried about some stupid fight at school and how that's going to decrease your social cache, I'm worried about whether either of my parents remembered to pay our school fees. You're angry with your mother for caring so much about where you go to college and my mother is barely aware that I'm alive. Is she even alive?

She has gone back to her room, Tania. I don't know what happened. Everything was going so well. For a whole week. She was getting up in the morning and coming out of her room to say bye to us before school. I dropped all my extra classes to come straight home from school and every time I entered the house, I'd be terrified that she'd be back in her room but no, every day, this last week, she was sitting downstairs in the living room, reading or taking a nap or once, mending the hem of my school uniform. I thought things were getting better.

Stop asking me about my brother because I know almost nothing about him. It's like he isn't there. He and my father float in a pool of nothingness in perfect harmony. I don't know what he does, I don't know what he's like, he's secretive and strange and the only time I know he's in the house is when he's locked up in the bathroom using up all the hot water. I used to wish we went to the same school but now I'm glad we don't because I can't tell what would be worse—to see him laugh and talk with other people or to see him not. I don't know my brother so stop asking.

But everything was getting better. My mother had come out of her room and now she has gone back in. I went and knocked on her door but it was locked and she didn't open it. I don't know what she is doing in there. I am scared that she is not doing anything in there.

Things are also really bad outside. I don't understand this country. We had to leave school early three times this week because of riots and yet, there is no report of that on the news. Things happen, we all leave the school in panic, and then there's no report of anything which leaves you wondering if you had imagined all of it. Had we imagined the kidnapping threats, the boys missing from school, the boys being sent away to boarding schools in America and England and Australia? Are we imagining the news of dead men turning up in ditches without eyes and fingers and noses? Are we imagining the strikes that send us scurrying home in the middle of a history test (that I would have topped if only we could have completed it)?

Am I imagining that my mother ever came out?

Nothing makes sense anymore. There's a line in a poem by William Butler Yeats that I learned by heart over the weekend and it keeps going round and round in my head—the centre cannot hold. The centre cannot hold, the centre cannot hold.

I just need it to hold until I go to Harvard. One more year.

Love,

Tanya

6

April 19, 1996

New York, NY

Dear Tania,

You had asked me about my brother and I never told you anything about him. This is my brother.

He got into Cal Tech the day I didn't get into Harvard. Had I ever mentioned that my brother is smarter than I am? The reason he didn't go to my school is that he got a scholarship for the American School. We had both applied for it when we were ten years old. He got it.

My brother chose not to go to Cal Tech. I don't know how it came to be that we chose sides with my parents. But it was always there from as long as I can remember. Navi somehow understood my father and my father somehow tolerated Navi. Much better than he tolerated me. Maybe it's because Navi wanted to be a doctor from when he was six years old. Or maybe Navi wanted to be a doctor because of my father. It's entangled.

When things broke, my brother and I cleaved the way we had grown up. My mother and I came to America and Navi stayed with my father in Pakistan. He is at Agha Khan studying medicine. I've always wanted to ask him why he applied to Cal Tech at all. He came to visit over the summer and he spent a couple of weeks with me here at Columbia. I was working as a research assistant to a celebrity Law professor, Austin Weatherford. He's a terrible person but it will look really good on my CV.

Navi has grown up to be quite good looking. I remember you always used to think he was good looking. I had been quite nervous about his visit. Actually I had a panic attack about it and had to get on anti-anxiety medication. But it ended up being quite alright. I felt terribly awkward in the beginning but he seemed genuinely happy to see me. He really liked the campus and came with two tennis rackets. We used to play tennis together when we were children. Actually we played all the way until the summer before the year I broke my leg. It's the one thing we kept from our twin childhood in America. He was very impressed with the facilities at Columbia and amazed that we have so many tennis courts. He said there are no tennis courts at his college. I thought he was angry but then I saw that he had a big, satisfied smile on his face. He said, to no one in particular, ‘My sister goes here for free.'

We didn't talk that much. We mostly played tennis and walked around the city. I had made plans to take him to all the museums and parks but he seemed uncomfortable and bored. So finally, we just walked around the city together all day, stopping for hot dogs and kebabs and slices of pizza.

He seems happy. He likes the work and wants to become an orthopedic surgeon. I didn't ask him why he doesn't want to become a neurosurgeon. I didn't ask him what our father thought about it. I didn't ask about my father.

When Navi was leaving, he gave me a hug and asked me to call home once in a while. I couldn't tell whether he meant call him or call my father. I haven't but Navi and I write emails to each other sometimes. His are short and mostly filled with descriptions of surgeries he has watched and trips he wants to take. I take hours to make mine the right length. First I write out everything I want, including the crazy stuff and the angry stuff and then I count the number of words in his email and pare mine down to within 15% of his. It's always 15% more.

For a long time, I was angry with Navi for never asking me what happened. Chhoti Bibi told me he stayed with me the whole time I was at the hospital for mad people. Slept on a bed he insisted they put in my room. I have no memory of this.

But how can a scientist have so little curiosity? He has never brought it up with me afterwards. He never asked my mother why she left either. Never asked her when she was coming back. Never asked her to stay. It used to drive me mad.

But I don't mind it now. It's kind of nice actually. Navi eschews complexity but that also means he is never exhausting.

I haven't had a bad dream in nine days. This is the first time since it happened that I've gone a whole week without waking up in the middle of the night. I am almost scared that it has happened. My therapist told me it would, I have been hoping and praying that it would. I started writing you these letters in the hope that it would. But now that it has happened I'm scared. I don't want to forget. I don't want to stop writing to you. I don't want to stop apologizing. I never want to stop feeling sorry, I never want to stop feeling sad because I don't know how to live without it anymore.

I will not stop writing to you Tania. I will never stop writing to you.

Love,

Tanya

April 20, 1992

Bombay

Dear Tanya,

Today I won five prizes in school including Esprit de Corps which sounds like a perfume but means that I have team spirit. No one else got five prizes among the girls. Shondip got seven prizes but there are many more prizes for boys than for girls.

My mom didn't come to the ceremony because she is in Bangalore for a work meeting. My dad is angry about it. He says he is angry that she is not there for me but I think he just feels insecure because he never gets to travel for work. My mom travels business class and has an office car and driver.

I think my mother needs to watch it. She comes home from work really late and she looks tired and her sari is rumpled. My mother's sari was never rumpled before she started work. I can't remember the last time she cooked for us. These days it's always the cook. I mean she cooks better than my mom so I don't really mind but I know my dad does.

If I were my dad I would like totally have an affair. Arjun's dad is having an affair and my dad is much, much better looking. Also my dad is nice.

I'm totally not going to be like my mom. I'm always going to look hot for Arjun. But I'm not going to wear saris when I grow up, did I tell you that? Arjun is so cute he's like no T you gotta wear saris so I can think of your white, white stomach during my work meetings and get hard. I was like what do I think of during my work meetings and he's like you're not going to work.

He's joking. Relax.

Nusrat was really happy about my prizes. I got three cups and two medals. She wanted to polish the cups but I told her there's no point because I only get to keep it for a few days and then I have to give it back.

Nusrat doesn't have any cups even though she comes first like every year except in Class 3 when she was sick. She's still pretty upset about that. She brought all her certificates to show me and they're like neatly wrapped in plastic in this old Amarsons bag and then wrapped in brown string. That brown string killed me. Where do you even buy brown string? I'm pretty sure they don't have it at the shops I go to. But Nusrat has totally different stuff than I do. Her pens and pencils are different. Her underwear is different. She loves scotch tape, did I tell you that? She like goes CRAZY for scotch tape.

Anyway so I saw all her certificates. Nusrat Mohammedbhai first in Class 1, first in Class 2, first in Class 4, first in Class 5. Nusrat Mihammedbhai, first in English. First in everything. Then I saw a certificate that she had drawn up herself and coloured in with black felt pens to look like the other ones. It said Nusrat Mohammedbhai, first in Class 3. I acted like it was totally normal so I don't think she realizes that it's super weird.