She had stood next to me as I had spoken to him, her hand on my back, nodding sympathetically as if she were a nurse and I were a patient trying to down some foul-tasting medicine. She held my hand as I told Nana that I wasn’t planning to use the return portion of the ticket he had purchased for me, even after he reminded me that it was nonrefundable, as if that were the only thing that mattered. I told him that I didn’t want to return to Mahim just yet because there was nothing there for me. I know his heart must have withered a little at hearing this, because if there was nothing else in Mahim, at least there was him. I told him that soon enough I would go home, just not now. I was about to use Shazia as an example, but then thought the better of it. Nana presciently asked me, however, “Does that godforsaken girl have anything to do with this?” For a moment, his voice had sounded controlled. But when he realized that I wasn’t just teasing or testing him, that I was going to remain in Paris indefinitely, more or less on my own, he shouted at me with such wild anger that I was certain all our neighbors had heard him, as well as the slum-dwellers across the street. He called me names that I had never heard uttered by him: “whore” and “mad cow” and “bloody stupid ungrateful bitch.” I heard my mother yelling something in the background, but Nana was ignoring her as he always did, and despite my protestations that I would be OK, that I would manage somehow, Nana placed a curse on my head. In a voice dark with fury, sore with unshed tears, he said that Allah would punish me for my sins, that I would be maimed or paralyzed or left to die in a gutter.
“You want to live alone?” he shouted. “Go on, live alone. Let somebody come in the middle of the night and rape and murder you. You deserve it.” Then, his voice quiet again, he said, “And if Allah spares you, never come home to us. You are already dead to me.”
Then came the thud. My mother never even came on the phone. I thought of the last time I had seen them, at the airport as they were bidding me farewell, my grandfather expectant that I would return an engaged woman, my mother expressionless on the sidelines. I remember thanking them both for letting me go.
I looked at Shazia, and she hugged me.
“I’m making a horrible mistake,” I said then, through tears. “I should never have let you talk me into this. It seemed like a joke, but it’s not.” Suddenly I was angry with her. “They trusted me, and I abused it. You may feel like it’s OK to live without family. I do not. They are all I have. I’m changing my mind. I’m going home today as planned. I must call them back now,” I said, panic filling my voice as I picked up the phone again.
She grabbed my upper arm forcefully, pulling me back toward her.
“As hard as it seems now, you are doing the right thing,” she said. “It’s not your fault that your family is so intolerant. You’re almost twenty, a young woman. What-they expect you to get married and have children of your own, while still treating you as a child? Your grandfather was just angry. He will recover, and they will accept you back when you are ready. But now your life is here. I can see it in your heart, that it’s what you really want. Trust me. I’m never wrong about these things.”
“But what will I do here?” I asked. “How will I live? Where will I live? Your mother wants me out. Who will give me pocket money?”
“It’s OK,” Shazia said, lifting my chin up with her fingers and wiping away the tears from my cheeks. “I have it all figured out. And you know what they say-inshah Allah-if it is the will of God for you to remain here, then all the pieces will fall into place.”
We went into the guest room, and she helped me pack my things. She then led me to Aunt Mina, who was resting in her room, so I could say good-bye. Mina assumed I was on my way to the airport, wished me well on my journey, turned over onto her side, and went back to sleep.
Chapter Five
At my new home, Zoe was sitting cross-legged on a blue couch, chewing gum that smelled of spearmint. She reached up to kiss me hello. She had an unusually long neck, short dark hair that hugged a pretty, if rather angular, face. Her eyes were blue and friendly, her skin translucent. A strappy white T-shirt stopped just short of white drawstring pants, and around her right ankle were three gold chains of varying thickness.
Shazia reminded me that I had met Zoe during one of our recent nightlife outings, but we had visited so many places and met so many people that by this point all these white faces were a blur.
“Nice to see you again,” Zoe said, removing the gum from her mouth, folding it into a pink tissue and picking up a packet of cigarettes. She offered me one, but I politely shook my head. Shazia, meanwhile, reached out and pulled one out of the pack. I had seen Shazia do a lot of things in these past two weeks, but never smoke, so her ease with lighting up and inhaling took me by surprise.
“Zoe is from the States,” Shazia informed me. “But she’s been living here a long time. What, like fifteen years or something, right?” Shazia asked her friend.
“Give or take,” Zoe drawled, smoke circling out of her mouth. “Came here to study, married a Frenchman, but that was a disaster. Even so, I never left. This place is addictive, you know?” She was staring at me, looking for agreement, so I nodded.
“Your parents didn’t mind?” I asked her, finally speaking. “They were OK with you leaving to come here?”
“Hell, I was over eighteen, could do what I pleased,” Zoe replied, smirking. I felt ridiculed.
As Shazia and Zoe casually discussed the more recent details of their respective lives, their conversation alternating between French and English, I took advantage of their momentary distraction to look around. It was a cramped but comfortable living room, painted in varying shades of blue, cream, and white. On a far wall was a large framed print-swirls of orange on a bright yellow background-that was so vivid compared to the relatively calm colors of the rest of the room, I felt dizzy for a moment. A dining table was stacked with newspapers and unopened mail; a couple of armchairs, creased and crumpled, looked as if they had been happily occupied over the years. A blanket lay on the floor close to a small fireplace, and a stained coffee mug sat on another table. The phone was taken off its hook, and jazz music was playing softly from a radio. It was a deeply comforting environment, but even so, I felt awkward and out of place.
I had no idea what we were doing here.
“It would just be for a while,” Shazia said as I turned my attention back to them. “Until we figure something else out.”
“Shaz, anything for you,” Zoe said, smiling and putting out her cigarette, much to my relief. The smoke in the small room was beginning to cause my eyes to dry out. “She can sleep here; this couch folds out into a pretty decent bed.”
They spoke of me as if I wasn’t even there, and while I was used to that happening in Mahim, I had thought that Shazia would treat me differently.
“I need to use the restroom,” Zoe said, lifting her long, lean frame from the couch.
“What’s this?” I whispered to Shazia when we were alone. “You’re leaving me here?”
“I had to take you somewhere,” Shazia whispered back. “Look, Zoe is really nice. She’s a foreigner too, so she completely gets it. I figured you could stay here for a couple of weeks, help out around the house, maybe cook, in exchange for having a roof over your head. By then, I’m sure I’ll find you a job and then we’ll see where to put you.”
At that moment for the first time since the decision was made for me to stay on, I was truly beginning to regret it. Suddenly I felt untethered, unwanted-a burden to everyone. I had no home, no job, no money. In Mahim, Nana had given me an allowance every week, which I would spend on my regular visits to Book Nook, or drinking cold coffee with Nilu at our favorite neighborhood café. There, at least, I belonged to someone. Here, now, on this cool Paris night, my grandfather’s curses still searing my ears, all I wanted to do was go back home.