Where the Air is Sweet (10 page)

“And if you could have a choice? If you could have money and respect without a husband, would you reject marriage?” Jaafar asked.

“It’s not something I’ve ever considered, never marrying.”

“Consider it now, Mumtaz. What can a husband offer besides money and respect? I want to know,” he said. “I’ve found no good reason to be married. Tell me. Why should a person marry?”

“To have children.” She looked at the grass at her feet, her arms still folded in front of her. “Also, I suppose, companionship. It would be nice to have someone to walk through life with. To help bear life’s burdens.”

“Burdens?” Jaafar asked.

“Life brings burdens,” she said slowly, surprised.

He tilted his head.

“Life is difficult,” she said. He was being deliberately obtuse and it was beginning to grate on her.

“Is it?” he asked.

“Isn’t it?” She was now thoroughly irritated.

He shrugged. “It doesn’t need to be. Life is what you make it. Smile, Mumtaz, and the world will smile back.”

“Not in my experience,” she said. “Forgive me but I need to go. My little brothers will be waking from their nap.” She turned to walk away.

“To have someone to share life’s pleasures with.”

She looked back at him.

“That’s another reason to marry,” he said.

“You’ve found a reason to marry?”

He was grinning again. “I have.”

Mumtaz quickly walked away, towards the front door of her house, attached to Malek’s, and went inside without once looking back.

Jaafar steps out of his convertible now and stands beside the driver’s door. He bends his knees, leans back and examines himself in the side-view mirror. With his left hand, he pulls a comb from his back pocket and begins combing his hair, smoothing it out with his free right hand. He puts the comb into his pocket, turns around and leans against the car. From his breast pocket, he lifts out a small package, taps the bottom, pulls out a cigarette and places it between his lips. Then, for no apparent reason, he turns his head to the side, lights the cigarette and inhales as he tilts his head skyward.

Mumtaz scowls. “Who does he think is looking at him?”

Khadija steps back to stare at Mumtaz. Then she turns to look out the window again. “He is handsome,” she says.

After only two or three minutes, he drops the partially smoked cigarette on the ground and steps on it with the ball of his foot, twisting it firmly. He bends down to look at himself in the side-view mirror again and then begins walking towards Mumtaz’s door. She sucks in her breath. Her stepmother hurries to the door.

“Tell him I’m not here.”

“I will not.”

Mumtaz walks quickly to the kitchen.

She remains there for ten minutes, cursing each time the knife fails to pierce the skin of the brinjal and slips off its surface. Khadija walks briskly back and forth between the verandah and the kitchen, imploring her stepdaughter to go outside and meet the polite young man. Mumtaz relents only when Khadija assures her that he will not leave without seeing her.

When she steps out the front door to greet him, she smiles, but keeps her eyes on the ground.

“Hello, Mumtaz,” he says.

She glances at him quickly and then lowers her eyes again.

“My father knows of your father’s shop. He used to run a grocery store as well. Bapa did. My father. In Mbarara.”

Mumtaz purses her lips. They stand awkwardly until Jaafar suggests they sit on the steps of the verandah.

“You’re not feeling well?” he asks as soon as they are sitting down.

Mumtaz turns to look at him.

“Your mother said you were resting.”

“I was tired. Sorry for making you wait. I wasn’t expecting you.”

He is silent.

“I wanted to come,” he says finally, and then pauses. He is looking at his hands. “After we talked and you—you showed me a new way of looking at things—at marriage. I wanted to come myself, first, before my parents make a formal request. I didn’t want you to feel pressured or forced.” As he turns to face her she quickly turns away.

“My mother needs me,” she says, standing up. “Inside. She needs me.” She walks into the house, her legs weakening,
without looking at him, and shuts the door behind her. While Khadija stares at her, her hands over her mouth, Mumtaz supports herself against the door.

“So arrogant,” she says. “A marriage proposal without speaking to my parents?”

“He wanted to ask you first, Taju. Isn’t that nice?”

Mumtaz hears the sound of an engine starting, wheels on gravel and then silence. “Ma, he is a stranger. His people are strangers. To do this, propose like this, it disrespects Abu,” she says. “He thinks because his father is rich, my father is nothing.”

Khadija knits her brow.

“Have you heard of such a thing?” Mumtaz asks. “It’s—” She stops speaking. Khadija looks at her expectantly. Mumtaz wrings her hands and walks quickly to the kitchen. She doesn’t know what it is.

One week later, Jaafar returns.

When Mumtaz comes out to the verandah, he suggests they go for a walk in a nearby tea estate owned by an Ismaili man. Mumtaz knows what goes on during these walks. Malek told her this was where she regularly met her boyfriend and where they shared passionate kisses, hidden among a sea of green tea leaves. Jaafar grins when Mumtaz agrees.

When they get into his car, she looks over at him. He is wearing a perfectly pressed blue raw-silk shirt atop well-tailored black trousers. She cannot imagine how they will stay clean in a tea estate. He’s so strange, she thinks. So strange and so silly. She is wearing a dress she sewed herself. She runs her hands along her lap to smooth out the wrinkled linen.

He parks his car and they walk into the estate, following the narrow, neat paths that run throughout it. Mumtaz has never
walked through a tea estate. She looks down at the leaves. Each one is a different shade of green. The new, young ones, some of them still rolled up, are bright green, their leaves almost transparent. The older ones are darker and thicker, some glowing and healthy, some beginning to dry out. Many of the leaves have brown spots on them, and some of their edges are uneven. From the road, the tea estates are a rolling sea of uniform green. At times, Mumtaz has been struck by their lush beauty, particularly when the clouds are dark and varied and threatening, leaving her with a sensation that the earth is overwhelmingly fertile. But most of the time, Mumtaz hardly notices them; the endless green impresses her no more than the endless blue of the sky. But up close, the tea leaves fascinate her, draw her in. Up close, she can see how hard it is for them to live. She gently brushes her hand against some leaves and smiles. She is enjoying the walk.

He asks after her parents. She asks after his. They walk in silence.

A breeze blows and she wraps her arms around herself. “Are you cold?” he asks. He is not carrying a coat or a sweater. She shakes her head. He looks relieved. She smiles.

Once they have walked deep into the estate, so far they can no longer see the road, she reaches into a sisal bag she is wearing over her shoulder. Khadija insisted she take some pakoras wrapped in newspaper to share with Jaafar. Mumtaz agreed, but refused to pack the jar of green chili sauce Khadija had made. She pulls out the package, unwraps the pakoras and holds them out to him. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t bring chutney.”

He smiles, his eyes on the pakoras. When he reaches out to pick one up, his sleeve falls back and reveals his wrist. She hadn’t expected it to be so thin.

He takes an enormous bite and begins to chew rapidly, like someone who hasn’t eaten in days. Mumtaz stares. Some of the pakora breaks off and falls to the ground. A spot of grease glows in the space under his lower lip. As he swallows she watches his large Adam’s apple move up and down. There is a small, fresh cut underneath his chin, where his face curves into his neck. If he lifts his head, Mumtaz thinks, the cut will open and bleed. He takes another large bite. Some more pakora dribbles onto his collar. He is chewing and smiling at her at the same time. “These are excellent,” he says, his mouth full. “You cooked them?”

She feels something akin to a pain in her chest. Her heart feels large inside her, as though it is swelling up. She takes a deep breath to dull the sensation. But she cannot dull it. For a moment she contemplates running away to escape it. But she does not want to move away from him.

After Jaafar swallows the last of his pakora, Mumtaz steps towards him. He kisses her. It is her first kiss. It tastes like cigarettes and chickpea flour and it makes her laugh.

11

S
IX DAYS AFTER MUMTAZ AND JAAFAR SHARED
their first kiss, she sits with her father, Qurban, on the sofa of the family’s sitting room. Khadija is across from them in an armchair.

“He is a Khoja,” Qurban says.

“Are we that different?” Khadija asks. “We are all Ismailis. And for how many years have we been living among Khojas?” She laughs. “Taju can learn to be a Khoja. She already speaks Gujarati like one of them.”

Qurban is quiet. Mumtaz is staring at her hands, which are resting on her lap.

“Do you want to marry this boy?” he asks.

Mumtaz nods and feels her cheeks become warm.

Qurban takes her face in his hands. His palms are cool against her skin. “Keep your head, always,” he says. “Even if your heart goes off to stupid places.”

Mumtaz looks at Qurban. His mouth is a straight line and his eyes are fixed on hers. Gently, she takes hold of her father’s hands, removes them from her face and forces a smile.

Raju is watching Mumtaz. She is sitting next to her mother, wearing a blue salwaar kameez. Her
dupatta
is draped over her shoulders, her hair is tied in a bun, her eyes lowered. When the men speak, Mumtaz keeps her eyes downcast. But Raju catches her stealing glances at him, her father, Jaafar. It makes him smile.

Raju, Rehmat, Jaafar, Mumtaz and her parents are sitting together, formalizing the marriage. It is the first time Raju has seen Mumtaz since he first spotted her at Malek’s house.

He is excited, energized.
“Dhamdum,”
he says, slapping his hands together. Great pomp.

Mumtaz looks at him.

“We must have a wedding with
dhamdum.”
He looks directly at her.
“Barabar che ne?”
he asks.

She nods, her eyes on his, her lips parting to reveal a wide smile. She lowers her eyes again. It is not in her nature to keep her head down, to keep her mouth closed. He can see this. It charms him. Surprisingly, although she is a woman and not a child, not a man, it charms him.

“Taju, I have been calculating.” Khadija has walked into the kitchen. Mumtaz, who is sitting on the floor preparing to cut apart a jackfruit, looks up at her. “Here,” Khadija says, pointing to her temple. “In my head.”

Mumtaz turns back to the jackfruit. She rubs some vegetable oil on her hands, coating them completely. Then she picks up a long, sharp knife and coats it with the oil as well, rubbing her hand over the blade, careful to avoid the edge. She positions the knife atop the fruit.

“Your future father-in-law wants to feed seven hundred and fifty people. For this many, do you know how much rice we will need?”

“Tell me, Ma,” Mumtaz says as she slices straight through the middle of the jackfruit, watching the two halves fall apart. She has always found it exceedingly easy to carry out a task, even a complex one, while her stepmother speaks. It occurs to her now as she cuts apart the multi-layered, sticky jackfruit, the task makes the conversation easier to bear.

“Eighty pounds.”

Mumtaz puts the knife on the floor and picks up one half of the fruit. She reaches into the husk and takes hold of the flesh.

“And we will need the meat of two cows,” Khadija continues, holding her hand flat on her chest.

Mumtaz begins to pull the plump petals of the fruit out, one at a time, setting them on a plate beside her.

“And one thousand
ladoos
and fourteen hundred samosas and forty pounds of chickpeas—”

“Ma.” Mumtaz silences her. “We don’t need anything. We aren’t cooking this food. And we aren’t paying for it.”

“The girl’s family should pay for the wedding.”

“We are paying for most of the wedding. This is an extra reception. His youngest son is getting married. It’s his privilege to do something extravagant for it.”

“But so much,” Khadija says, shaking her head. “It’s too much.”

“Too much for what? For whom?” Mumtaz’s voice is thick. “For me?”

“Why would you say such a thing?”

Mumtaz continues placing fruit on the plate in silence. When she is finished, she stands up and puts the plate on the
counter. She does not look at Khadija. “I need to clean this mess before the boys come home. They’ll make the entire house sticky if they get hold of the skin of
the faanas.
”

George Bitature is a well-mannered man, a gentle man. He looks at Mumtaz when he speaks. He listens when she answers. She feels at ease talking to him, although he is a man. George is Jaafar’s childhood friend. It is a few weeks before her wedding. Mumtaz is having lunch with George and Jaafar at the Agip Motel restaurant in Mbarara. George is Munyankole but when he arrived at the table, he addressed Jaafar as
bana
—pal, buddy—a term Mumtaz has heard only Asian men use among themselves, among equals.

“You are a politician?” Mumtaz asks.

“No, no,” he says, laughing. “I am a servant. A civil servant.”

“What makes a politician different from a civil servant?” she asks.

“A love of power.”

“You don’t love power?” Mumtaz asks.

George shakes his head. “I joined the Uhuru movement as a boy. I was a member of the Uganda Peoples Congress from its earliest days. But I knew then that I had no desire in me to lead people.”

“Not necessarily a love of power,” Jaafar says. “Perhaps it is a desire to offer something better. To show people they can have a better life. Do you think Obote wants only power?”

“No,” George says. “He wants Ugandans to govern themselves. He wants them to be empowered. If he didn’t, I wouldn’t support him. But the desire for power is always present in politicians.
And desire is difficult to satiate. It’s what makes politicians dangerous.”