Chapter 12 Salma
Salma
Mamoo calls me one night to remind me that the second anniversary of Aunty’s death is coming up. He wants to go to the cemetery. He does not need to ask it, but I know. I do not need to say it, because he knows. I am still not ready. Eighteen years have passed, and it is still too soon.
It is yet another way in which I have failed those I love most.
Poppy has signed up to give her presentation on family units to the class.
Because she has waited for the last possible slot, I’m worried that she’ll psych herself out.
She listens to the presentations done by other students.
She is keen-eyed and focused on each presenter but gives little indication of what she’s feeling.
Each student has been given four minutes to give their presentation and wide latitude on form and structure.
My sole goal is to give them some experience with public speaking.
Most students stand lock-kneed, reading their prepared notes in a monotone, never looking up.
A few, who I thought would like the attention, like Kirsten V.
, have frozen in the limelight and just umm-ed and err-ed their way through their allotted time.
In morning meetings, we have discussed respectful ways of listening and how to fill out the feedback survey, which each student will complete for their peers.
The survey is limited to two questions. One thing I learned.
One thing I liked. I collect them to ensure nothing unkind has been written and then distribute to the presenter.
When it is Poppy’s turn, she stands up from the red rug, smooths her hands over her shirt, and picks her way over her classmates.
Her ponytails shake ever so slightly, and her chin trembles.
She pushes the power button on the overhead projector until her presentation appears on-screen.
I helped her load the file into the computer but did not review it in advance. My stomach is in knots.
She looks down at her feet for a full five seconds.
Her shoulders rise as she inhales deeply.
My hands are sweaty. And then she looks up at the rest of the room with an unexpected smile and launches into her presentation.
All of her reserve and reticence fall away, and what is left is an engaging, confident, poised little girl.
She points at pictures and facts on the screen like she’s a TV weather announcer.
The easy smile never leaves her face. She is relaxed, and her voice is steady and bordering on loud.
Something turns on in her eyes once she has everyone’s attention. Poppy is a performer.
I look around the room and can tell by the expressions on the faces of the students sitting on the red rug that they are noticing Poppy for the first time. After she finishes, she asks if there are any questions. There are, and she answers them without missing a beat.
The class claps for a long time after Poppy’s presentation. I am reminded of Asma, who would say that when she was on stage, all the insecurity and fear and worry she carried around every day fell away, and she was sure of this one thing. My heart beats time to the claps and the memory.
After school, I can’t wait for Marlene to pick Poppy up so that I can brag about her. Surprisingly, she is there on time. She is appropriately enthusiastic and delighted when I tell her how wildly impressive Poppy was.
“You’re a real natural, Poppy,” I say.
“Just like Mamby,” she says and then runs off to the playground.
My stomach drops. Of course. Ruby probably coached her. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
Marlene is watching me. “She needed a win.”
I say, “Yes. And she’ll get more opportunities to perform at Rainforest Night.”
“About that,” Marlene says and stops.
I feel my shoulders tighten.
“Ruby’s surprising Poppy by coming to Rainforest Night and staying through Halloween,” she says timidly.
Marlene’s gaze is watchful. Thankfully, a parent from many years ago waves at me, and I am forced to smile.
“Is that okay?” she asks.
What a question. “Marlene, I’m a teacher, and your child is my student. Engaging with parents is literally my job. I’m glad she’s coming. For Poppy.”
Sometimes I’m able to forget that Marlene knows my family’s history. What should be a normal statement in a normal situation is not. It is loaded. Loaded with my history. Is it better that she knows so I don’t have to pretend or worse that she knows and looks at me with such pity?
“There’s one more thing,” Marlene says.
I don’t know if I want to hear what’s coming next.
“I’m going to see a divorce attorney.”
“Oh no. Marlene. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. When she told me she was coming for two weeks, my stomach just fell.
As hard as it is to be single parenting, with my parents’ help and yours .
. . the thought of having to incorporate her into our lives with all her issues.
God. I have one job, and that’s to raise these kids properly.
I can’t risk that by trying to save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. ”
I feel like a heel, but I can’t help it. “What about the diaries? And the video?”
“I’m going to try, Sal. I promise.”
And with that utterance, with Asma’s echo, I decide to trust this woman.
Aunty used to say that every marriage is based on a deal that only the parties involved can understand.
As an outsider to that marriage, you may think you know the deal, but you don’t.
What is Marlene and Ruby’s deal? What is the silent agreement or tacit understanding that their marriage is based on?
I look at my parents’ marriage and think there was nothing other than duty and culture norms that held them together. And then I question myself.
On my last night at Mamoo and Aunty’s, Mamoo came into the dining room, where I was working frantically to complete the homework I had managed to avoid over the prior two weeks.
He stood at the opposite end of the long wooden table and asked if he could help.
I made some stupid joke about how he was welcome to write one of my papers.
“Listen, Salamander. I think I know what you really want to know.”
I wondered what I really wanted to know.
“You want to know your family history,” he said.
“Yeah, I think I just want to understand Ami and Abu better.”
“You presume that I understand myself,” he said under his breath. Then he walked slowly down to me and pulled out a chair. “You want to know how your parents’ marriage was made.”
I started to object and say that I had no interest in knowing how their life together started, but the second he gave voice to it, I found I did want to know.
Suddenly, I had a burning need to know. I had friends who talked about how their parents met, as though it was family lore.
But in our family, it was not something we talked about.
I knew it had been arranged, but I’d never really thought any more about it.
It just was. If I had thought about it at all, I would have been struck by the fact that from my parents’ perspective, I was going to follow in their footsteps, and from my perspective, I thought I was going to follow in Mamoo’s.
“As you know, I was in England, alone. My focus was on studying and becoming a doctor. That was all. After that I was going home.”
“And then your parents died.”
He nodded.
“How?”
He closed his eyes. “In a lorry accident. They got hit head-on and died immediately. I don’t know what street they were on, where they were going, where they were coming back from, what time of day it was.
Nothing. All I know is what was said in that telegram.
‘Parents dead. Stop. Lorry accident. Stop.’ That’s it.
I was eighteen years old. A stranger in a still strange country with nothing to my name and a younger sister for whom I was suddenly responsible six thousand miles away. ”
His hands shook, and he clasped the end of the polished table like a lifeline. These were the memories he didn’t want to revisit.
“The second time I used the phone to call home was after the telegram. Someone answered the phone. There was the most terrible noise in the background. Yelling, banging, I thought maybe I’d gotten the wrong number.
Then I heard my uncle, and he said, ‘Don’t worry.
I have a good rishta for your sister.’ I was stunned.
If I felt like a kid in some ways, she was even more so.
He said, ‘It’s best for her to be married quickly.
She’s young, and we don’t want her reputation to be harmed.
’ And then he said, ‘You should be grateful that we’re doing your job for you. ’”
Mamoo’s helplessness and guilt and loss felt like they were my own.
“Sadia finally got on the line. Remember, international calls just weren’t done then. The lines were terrible, with loud static and pauses that you had to speak over. By the time she got to the phone, in addition to everything else, I was panicked at how expensive it was.” He stopped abruptly.
“What did she say?” I whispered.
“I will never forget the sound of her voice. Not ever. If I was uncertain and afraid, imagine her. An underage girl in Pakistan in the 1960s with no guardians, no prospects, no one to fall back on.” He slouched in his seat.
When he spoke again, he sounded croaky, the emotion thick in his voice.
“I told her, ‘You don’t have to do what they’re telling you.
’” He put his head back and looked up at the ceiling as though he was looking for strength to go on.
“She just laughed this horrible laugh, like she was crazy. And then, in that weird phone pause, before I responded, because I wasn’t sure she was done, she said in a whisper that I almost couldn’t hear, ‘They want the house.’ And then all of the chaos in the background made sense.
It was literally like I remembered a language I’d forgotten. ”
“I don’t get it.”