Thirty Shadow Birds, page 3
When she reaches the campus parking lot, she finds it hard to shake off thoughts of her first boss. She looks at her watch. She has time to put Dr. Ahmadi out of her mind and refocus on the task at hand. Before doing that, though, she articulates out loud what was on the tip of her tongue back then: “Boss, I may be a failure, but you’re Dr. Ahmaqi!”
6.
HER FINGER HOVERS ABOVE THE “G” BUTTON. She hesitates to press it, though. Is she looking forward to any letter? No. What will she find in the mailbox other than flyers and bills? She’s not expecting anything, so there’s no reason to stop at the ground floor and check. Yalda’s finger jumps up to “7.”
The lock on her apartment door is finicky, and Yalda pauses outside for a few moments, trying to turn the key. Nobody rushes to open the door. She bites her lower lip, trying to remember the trick. When the door finally opens, she lingers at the threshold, wondering where Nader is. Her eyes take in the living room and the small galley kitchen. “Not bad at all,” she says with shallow conviction followed by forced deep breathing.
Once in a while she needs a break, time to get her mind off her son, her dearest attachment, and the rest of the world. But first, she has to face the mountain of dirty dishes that Nader has left in the sink and on the counters. The living room doesn’t look so bad. And his room? Well, it can be made invisible with a closed door.
Having done the chores, she feels like a drink. She doesn’t buy alcohol often, so all she can find are a few Molsons, Nader’s favourite, in the fridge. She puts a glass of beer on the side table next to the ceramic bowl of nuts and dried berries, and a porcelain plate filled with fresh fruit. Pushing her rocking chair towards the table, Yalda resists the idea of making it a festive feast by adding a plate of sweets. She wants to sit on her throne like the Queen of Sheba daydreaming about a contemporary Solomon with wealth and wisdom, but the red flashing light of the answering machine distracts her.
“One more chore left,” she grumbles, pressing the button.
There are two messages: one from Julie, the other from Judy; both negative versions of heroines from her teenage years—Julie Andrews from The Sound of Music and Judy Abbott, the protagonist of Daddy-Long-Legs. While Negative Julie asks her to supply-teach, Negative Judy, the secretary of the architecture firm, informs Yalda in her steely voice that the project has been put on hold.
It’s not quite a memento mori, Yalda thinks to herself, but it’s certainly a hint that you’re in the downturn of the “hire-fire” cycle. This doesn’t stop her from kicking off her solitary feast. She reclines in her chair, raises her glass, and says à ta santé to her shadow on the wall. Later on, Yalda may dance with her shadow, if she feels the warmth of alcohol in her veins. Right now, she has to process the data she has received.
Yalda picks up a handful of dried mulberries. When she savours the familiar sweetness, redolent of flashes from her childhood, she feels her scattered thoughts fall into place. It’s true that Canada has more opportunities than Europe for architects. And, she isn’t the type to leave her chosen field in order to make money. She’s completely lost touch with her ex-roommate, now a realtor in T.O., shovelling money into her bank account. And thank goodness she didn’t marry her ex-classmate, Fari, who became a rug seller in Rome in order to have a glimpse of luxury.
That the project has been postponed is a sign. It means the recession, like an octopus, has been reaching out with one of its legs to touch the robes of the Emirates’ sheikhs. She heard the buzz about the closing of the office in Dubai a while ago, but nobody had seemed worried about the firm’s future. Everybody thought the sole proprietor knew how to get through hard times. Michael, the principal in charge of the team Yalda worked with, cut staff turnover to prove he was more cautious than the big boss.
Michael, that WASP, cannot ruin her evening, though. With an egg in the ESL basket, and another in the AutoCAD basket, Yalda can sip her beer so as to enjoy every drop of it. Imagining Michael, the beer guzzler, sitting in front of her on the sofa, she puts an almond in her mouth and grins. “Mais oui! It’s true that the third egg, in fact the first egg, the one that looked the biggest and the brightest, is now in your hands, dear Michael,” she says with her softest voice.“Nonetheless, since I’m enjoying my drink, frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” she says, imitating Clark Gable.
Later, when she spits the white foam of toothpaste into the sink and rinses her mouth, she thinks that despite her dull day, she’s had a nice evening: drink, fruit, snacks, music, a good book, and solitude. On her way to her bedroom, she mentally runs through the list of materials she needs for Julie’s class, making sure that they’re in her bag. Before she closes her bedroom door, she takes one final look around to make sure that the stove is off and the front door is locked—it’s important for her to confirm that everything is in order; otherwise she will obsess over it after she lies down.
“But my pillow is missing again,” she mumbles.
For a moment, Yalda’s heart beats for her son. That he has kept this habit from childhood up to now is a sweet secret. When he was a baby, it had been difficult to wean him, and she succeeded in doing so only when she made her breasts peppery. Then her happy baby became a horrible sleeper. Nothing she tried worked until she found out that, afraid to touch her breasts anymore, he had replaced them with her pillow. Soon, he could only sleep with her pillow, and it began to make the trip between her bed and his every night. At first, it didn’t seem to be a troublesome issue. After a while, though, it turned out that Yalda, as well, could not sleep without her own pillow. Even though she tried to let go of this obsession with belongings, she failed and eventually gave up. When Nader was a child, she always waited her turn: when he fell into a deep sleep, she slipped into his room and took back the pillow from his loosened grip. Years later, when he became a tough teenage boy, he didn’t ask her for the pillow anymore, but after she got up he would wander into her bedroom like a sleepwalker and take it back to bed with him.
Yalda goes to Nader’s room to pick up the pillow. When she opens the door, she tries to avert her eyes from the mess. She can’t help seeing it, though: heaps of mingled stuff—clothes, clean and dirty, papers, books, assignments from high school and university, discs, old and new—on top of the overstuffed desk or chair or dresser or bed, all over the floor, and even hanging on the always open door of the closet. She holds her breath so as to not notice the smelly stray socks strewn across everywhere. Tomorrow, after work, she must clean up a bit, as much as she can without making him crazy.
Yalda walks towards the bed. Before she reaches the pillow sitting on the tumbled, crumpled quilt, her bare feet slide over some papers. She stumbles and smacks her knee against the corner of the desk.
“Damn it!” She kneels to pick up the paper. It’s an open envelope with a folded form sticking out of it. She can read the bold title at the top of the page. It’s an application form, with Nader’s name in the first box. Her mind reeling, she refuses to believe what her eyes have just read. As the shock fades, her head begins to spin. She can feel her body’s rivers and brooks, bright and dark, turning to stone, and whatever flows and moves under her skin, turning to lead.
7.
IT’S HARD NOT TO COLLAPSE. NOT TO CRY. Not to put this damned head on the desk and make a protective fort with my arms to detach my eyes and mind from my surroundings, as I used to do when I was a student. And as my poor student, Asuntha, does before her “folly.” Asuntha’s madness is mild, though. Mine is not going to be mellow at all. This is what the jinn wanted me to understand last night. Damn it! After all, the jinn knows me well. She is my “hamzad”—we were born on the same day at the exact same time, I in this nasty world and she in the world of jinns. So, she appeared last night after I’d found the papers. The jinn showed me a tiny spot in her unfolded fist and pointed at her head silently and viciously, as if predicting I would soon become insane. I denied it. Although I was shocked to discover my son’s secret, I was not going crazy. The shock had felt like a loud bang in my head, and it left me with nothing but a question mark.
In the morning, when I got up, there was no sign of the jinn and her ominous gesture. Instead, I saw a patch of sunlight, evidence of a new day, on my shady wall. It would keep the jinn away from me. I know that my hamzad, unlike me, doesn’t like sunlight at all. But, even so, I thought she might come back, because even in the morning light, I felt a question mark, this time a giant one, hovering over my head.
Suddenly a feeling of uneasiness comes upon me. I sense that the jinn is screaming somewhere. I can’t actually hear her, but I know how bolshie and pushy and difficult my hamzad is. I’m just as stubborn as she is, though. I’m going to prove to her here and now that I have no room for her. I’m going to call up all my willpower to complete a half day’s work. The rest of the day will be mine to cut and run, to howl like a wounded lonely wolf, and then … then to lie down in my den like a dead body relieved of all its senses.
Other than Asuntha, disconnected, face down under the black tent of her long, thick hair, nobody is in the classroom. Yalda looks at the clock. Ten more minutes of break remaining. It’s too cold to go out for a breath of fresh air. She could venture down to the first floor for coffee, but its flavour is mingled with the odd smell of a South Asian supermarket, and it doesn’t appeal to her. She’d rather stay in the small, windowless classroom and doodle on scrap paper to take her mind off disturbing thoughts. In the corridor, students often stop by to socialize with their “non-blonde Canadian” teacher. The building, one of the many newly constructed retail buildings in Mississauga, has—besides soon-to-be-opened stores—some doctors’ offices and two ESL classrooms: one is for a literacy class and the other for a multi-level class. Students, mostly female, like to chat in small groups, while men, old or young, prefer to stay away from these circles. Yalda enjoys joining the women or just watching them, and exchanging a few words with her male students during the break. This makes them happy, for Julie has no time for them outside the class, either because she always arrives late or is busy on her cellphone at the break. According to Nandita, another student, she always leaves class at five o’clock on the dot.
Yalda tries to sketch a picture of Nandita in a sitting pose. Nandita acted as the monitor of the class on Yalda’s first day covering for Julie, and she really proved herself. As soon as Yalda stepped into the classroom on her first day, she heard a ringing voice: “Good morning, new teacher!” It was a brown woman in a sari casting her dark eyes around and commanding the class. Following their conductor, the students chanted in unison, “Good morning, new teacher!” Yalda couldn’t help chuckling at this ESL chorus of broken English. As she got to know her better, Yalda began to understand that Nandita was always the person in charge, wherever she went. She even had a special seat in the middle of the second row, where she could keep an eye on the students in the front and in the back.
Later, Nandita started to take any opportunity, inside and outside the classroom, to advise, complain, report to, and open her heart to Yalda, who was “the best teacher” and “the best listener” she had ever met in Canada. Perhaps this was why Nandita had offered her honourary assistantship. She was very qualified for the role. After all, she had been the principal of a large girls’ high school in Bombay; her English was pretty good, far better than any other student in the class; and she could even read their minds, speak on their behalf, help them do their homework, and most importantly, correct them.
This last task soon became problematic. Nandita could not keep her mouth shut when she heard someone say something wrong. The English part of her brain had zero tolerance for any detectable errors. On the other hand, her heart directed her to be of help to anybody in the class, including Abdul Qader, the grumpiest old man Nandita had ever met in Canada.
Yalda chooses a space on her paper, away from Nandita’s figure, to draw Abdul Qader giving her a dirty look. He is hardly older than Nandita, who calls herself a “mature woman.” Both, however, look older than their real age. Abdul Qader is as introverted as Nandita is outgoing. He is self-conscious about his accent, and he is very aware of his errors, which makes him timid. To break the ice, sometimes Nandita takes it upon herself to discuss everything she knows about Egypt: the pyramids, the Great Sphinx of Giza, even Om Kalthoum and Omar Sharif. Nothing is wrong with this, even though he is from Egypt and Nandita is not. Sometimes Abdul Qader joins in, but he quickly becomes quiet if she interrupts or corrects him too many times. The first time Nandita interjects, Abdul Qader frowns and blushes; the second time, he shakes his head restlessly; and the third time, his face becomes swollen and purple, and he gives Nandita the dirtiest look on earth, as he flicks his mouth with curled fingers. When this happens, Nandita, apologizing, rushes out of the classroom and heads to the washroom to splash cool water over her face and close her eyes. She imagines herself in a prayer alcove, begging her gods to negotiate with Allah so that Abdul Qader does not have a heart attack because of her good will.
Yalda’s right hand, holding a blunt pencil, slides over the paper towards her sketch of Nandita. She is wondering what to add to it when she sees Nandita enter the classroom with a smile on her face, carrying a package of her half-moon-shaped karanji pastries wrapped in delicate burgundy paper. Yalda flips over her sheet of paper.
“Teacher, help yourself!” Nandita says, nodding her head and stretching out her hand.
Yalda knows she can’t avoid trying Nandita’s homemade date and fig karanjis, and she accepts one so that Nandita can carry on with her mission. Whenever Asuntha has one of her episodes, Nandita tells the class that the demon has come back to torment Asuntha. She says, “It’s good to put some sweet stuff into Asuntha’s body.” Heavenly date and fig karanji is a present that no one could resist, including Sri Lankan demons.
Asuntha’s demon doesn’t show any interest in Nandita’s exquisite homemade pastries today. The more Nandita pats Asuntha on the shoulder, whispering incantations in Hindi, the less Asuntha reacts. Asuntha often draws pictures of her demon to keep herself busy during class. Today, Yalda tries her hand at drawing a demon as well, but it doesn’t look anything like Asuntha’s. Asuntha’s demon, besieged by a crabbed English alphabet, looks funny. Yalda, on the other hand, draws a more formidable demon, like the one who infiltrated a corner of Asuntha’s brain and took up residence there. This happened long before Asuntha’s brother could sponsor her and bring her to Canada. According to Nandita’s detective work, the demon, who had been meandering around Asuntha’s village, ran into the pretty little girl after she was thrown onto the porch by her stepmother, who was sick of her nonstop crying. The demon saved the pretty little girl’s life and got a cozy dwelling in return.
“Teacher, you are having aspirin, no?” Nandita asks.
Yalda shakes her head and casts a sideways glance at the clock. “Nandita, please call the students to come back to class.”
“Mrs. Teacher. First, Asuntha, second, the class,” she replies decisively, shaking her head. Nandita adds “Mrs.” to teacher so that Yalda will understand that her statement is meant as a lesson.
“Goodness, where am I?” Yalda asks. “In an ESL class with students, all wise and … all visible minorities,” she murmurs quietly to herself.
Yalda glances towards the cork bulletin board, noticing a colour photo that has been pinned there. It shows students gathered around Julie and Elizabeth, the program coordinator. Elizabeth, one of the dominant majority, is singled out among the visible minorities, Julie, a brown woman from Australia, and her brown-skinned Asian students. While Elizabeth’s smile is as pale as her skin, the students’ grins all show their teeth. Their smiles are as shiny as their dark skin.
Yalda’s thoughts are interrupted when she senses a silent presence nearby. She turns her head and sees Rima tiptoeing into the room, looking upset. Yalda recalls that, according to Nandita, Rima’s world revolves around her teenaged son, a reminder of her beloved husband.
“Are you okay, Rima?” Yalda asks her, smiling.
Rima stops and casts her eyes down to avoid eye contact.
“Is something wrong with your son, Rima?” Yalda asks.
“He don’t come home, teacher,” Rima whispers.
“Again? Did he go to his uncle’s?” Yalda asks, disliking her investigative tone. A feeble “sorry” slips out of her half-closed mouth, in response to either her sense of guilt or Rima’s nodding. To change the subject, she says, “Could you call the other students back to class, Rima?”
Rima turns back to the corridor. She’s nothing like Nandita, Yalda says to herself. Not a brooder or shy, she’s a quiet woman with an enigmatic story. So far it has been revealed partly by Nandita’s indefatigable journalistic efforts and partly by Rima herself, in fits and starts. Born into a Christian Syrian family, she fell in love with a refugee, a Shia survivor of the Sabra and Shatila massacre. When her family found out about the relationship, they threatened her and her lover, and the two of them escaped to Lebanon. She gave birth to a son on the same day that her husband was killed by a Phalangist militiaman. Then she fled again, this time as a UN refugee, from her controlling brother-in-law, a fundamentalist Shia. Supposedly, destiny moves ahead of us; Rima is a case in point. Now the brother-in-law has come to Toronto himself, and she cannot prevent her son from seeing his only uncle, who’s obsessed with his brother’s murder.
