I sigh. “Maybe don’t leave your clothes on the floor like this?” Then I bite my lip hard because a servant can’t say that to the granddaughter of the mistress of the house.
Her shoulders slump. “I know, Mom always tells me the same thing.”
I move her clothes with my foot. I don’t believe there’s really a snake in her room, but it’s always better to be safe. Something wiggles underneath and I jump back. “See, I told you!” Mimi shrieks from the bed.
“Shh! You’ll scare it,” I hiss. I look around for something heavy and find a pair of clunky black shoes with red bows. I hold a shoe tightly in one hand. Then I go back to the clothes, picking them up one by one and dusting them off very carefully. No sudden movements. No sounds. When the last piece of clothing is left—a pair of striped capri pants I’ve see Mimi wear many times—I smack the shoe on top of it.
Mimi screams again, but not as loudly as before.
I stop smacking and pick up the pants carefully, shaking them a little. “You can stop screaming now,” I say. “It’s a centipede.”
She comes down from the bed and leans in to look. “Wow, you’re so brave!” she whispers in a scared little voice.
I bend down and pick up the centipede with my bare hands. “It’s not dead. Don’t worry,” I tell her. “Your pants softened the blow. It’s just stunned.” I take the slimy thing out onto her balcony and fling it down, watching it land on the grass. It shakes its little body and slithers away.
“Thank you,” Mimi says awkwardly.
I point to her capri pants. “You should put those in the laundry basket.”
She cringes and nods. “Sure,” she says, but I see her eyeing the trash can in the corner of her room, so I’m guessing that’s where they will end up. She flops down on her bed, sighing. “That was a close call.”
I’m not sure what she means. “It was a centipede,” I say.
“I’m not in my right mind since Saturday,” she tells me, or rather tells the ceiling she’s staring at angrily. “Everything here is strange, the fajr azaan wakes me up way too early every morning, and now my mom apparently has a new boyfriend. Life sucks.”
I’m sure she’s being dramatic. I’m learning that dramatic is Mimi’s preferred style. “If you close the windows tightly before going to sleep at night, the azaan won’t sound as loud to your ears,” I tell her. “And what boyfriend are you talking about? Your mother is such a nice person; she’d never do anything scandalous like that.”
She makes a frustrated little sound in her throat. “She met this guy at the mall the other day. Sohail somebody. He used to be her friend when they were in college.” She sits up and looks at me with teary eyes. “You should have seen them, laughing and talking as if I wasn’t even there. It was disgusting. I’m sure they’re going to meet again and again, the whole time Mom and I are in Karachi.”
I can’t understand what she’s saying. Isn’t Mimi’s mother married? Boyfriends are something from movies and dramas, and I can’t imagine Samia Ji doing anything so inappropriate. Plus, she’s old like Amma, not a teenage girl. “You’re just being sensitive, I’m sure,” I soothe her. “Americans are very friendly, aren’t they? Not reserved and silent like Pakistani people. Your mother is just being a normal American.”
Mimi chews her lip, thinking. Finally, her frown disappears and a smile crosses her lips. “I think you’re right. She’s way too old to have a boyfriend anyway!”
I know she wants to talk some more, but I have work to do. I turn to leave. “Lunch is almost ready; you should come downstairs.”
Tahira and Abba have a good laugh when I tell them about the centipede in Mimi’s bedroom. “Imagine being scared of a little thing like that,” Tahira says, grinning widely. “That girl is hilarious.”
Abba shakes his head. “Don’t make fun of Maryam Ji. She’s very new to this country. It’s difficult to be away from your home, you know.”
I’m still remembering his words when I take chai and zeera biscuits to the family room in the late afternoon. It’s a sunny room overlooking the back garden, with tall windows on three sides, and a big lazy fan that swishes around and around in slow motion. Sahib Ji spends most of his day here, especially since he retired a few years ago. He’s got a big television—the one I sometimes watch when I get a chance—and a bookshelf full of books that are very dry and boring, with pistons and engines on the covers. I’ve tried reading those books. They are good for nothing besides falling asleep quickly.
Sahib Ji also has another passion: chess. He’s tried to teach me how to play, but Abba always calls me back to the kitchen just when I’m starting to get the hang of it. It’s a game of strategy and patience, both of which servants have little time for. We spend our days putting out fires, answering others’ beck and call, and generally running around worrying how things will get done. Who has time for a long, drawn-out chess match, where the goal is to protect the queen and sacrifice the pawns? It seems too close to real life to be any fun.
Mimi seems to be enjoying it, though. She’s sitting on a chair with her legs crossed under her, leaning forward until her nose almost touches the chess board. Her eyebrows are furrowed into deep slashes, and her lips purse together. She hardly looks up as I set the tray of snacks on the sideboard in the corner. “Thank you, dear,” Mimi’s mother says. She’s sketching in a notepad near one of the windows, her lips pursed in an exact replica of her daughter’s.
Dear? I pause, not sure how to answer. It’s nothing, really, but her simple words spread into my chest like warm milk in the middle of the night. “Yes,” I whisper, not sure what I’m agreeing to.
I pour chai in two cups and hand one first to her, then to Sahib Ji. He takes a noisy sip and clears his throat. “So, where is Tom these days?” he asks Mimi’s mother.
From the corner of my eye, I see Mimi’s hand tremble midair. She seems stiffer, the angles of her face harder. Who’s this Tom person Sahib Ji is talking about?
Mimi’s mother shrugs, but the movement is also stiff, like cardboard. “I don’t know. He’s a South Asian political expert, apparently, so he could be anywhere, really. Seems like he was in Karachi recently.”
“You’re right—he moved to Karachi last year,” replies Sahib Ji. “I’ve been enjoying his political analysis in the newspaper. But I haven’t read anything from him for a couple of months now. Not even about the election.”
I can’t stop staring at Mimi. If a person’s entire being could be focused on one conversation, this would be it. Rapid breaths. Flared nostrils. Frozen hands. But she keeps staring at the chess set in front of her as if that’s all she can think about.
Who is Tom? What’s he doing in Karachi? And why does Mimi look as if her insides are shattering like brittle glass on a windy day?
15
Mimi
I’m Fine, Everything Is Fine
I can’t breathe. My left eye twitches until the chess pieces in front of me are dancing as if bewitched. Why are they talking about Dad?