“Ammi,” Mom says, very politely. “Assalamu alaikum.”
The lady reaches forward, and they hug. It’s awkward even from a distance, as if they’re both made from prickly cactus. The man stands by, fidgeting. I bet his suit is too tight for him. It looks brand-new and totally uncomfortable. I suddenly have an urge to giggle, and I bite my lip. Call it intuition, but my grandmother doesn’t look like she has a sense of humor.
“You’re late,” she says accusingly in perfect English. “You didn’t get caught in one of those election processions, did you? They are crawling all over the city these days, drumming up votes, making lots of noise.” She wrinkles her nose as if she can smell something stinky.
“Election? What election?” Mom straightens up and turns to her father. Their hug is less awkward, more genuine.
“We’re going to elect our next prime minister in six weeks, my dear. It’s all very exciting.” He holds her at arms’ length and smiles gently. “Thank God, you finally came to visit!”
“Well, you two wouldn’t stop insisting,” Mom answers dryly. “Plus your offer to pay for our tickets was . . . very generous.”
“Nonsense. It was our pleasure!” He has a faraway look in his eyes. “How long has it been? Ten years?”
“Twelve,” Mom corrects, and her voice is rough. She clears her throat and continues, “Mimi is eleven now, remember?”
“Where is Mimi, anyway?” my grandmother grunts, looking around.
I stand up and clear my throat. They all turn to me with startled eyes. “Maryam, darling!” The lady holds out her thin arms in an imperious command. Her voice is so fake, it’s dripping sweet.
My feet refuse to move. Mom waves to me, making faces to tell me I’ll get in trouble if I don’t move immediately, into the open arms of the grandmother I haven’t really known until now. Then the man walks over and envelops me in a hug. “Maryam, my dear, how big you’ve grown!” he says, smiling. “Your mother hardly ever sends us pictures of you.”
“She doesn’t sit still long enough to take pictures” is Mom’s hasty reply, and I’m shocked because this is not exactly true. I spend hours in my room, reading. I stare at her, and she grins back sheepishly, acknowledging the lie.
I decide to forgive her. We’re a team, she always says. I hug the man—his suit is super itchy—and smile at the lady. “Assalamu alaikum, Nana and Nani!” I say brightly, in my best Urdu accent.
She loses her saccharine smile. “Nani? I’m too young to be called Nani!”
Nana chuckles. “Well, this is your granddaughter right here, so that makes you a Nani, dear wife!”
She’s not happy, I can tell. I bite my lip again to stop myself from laughing. She looks as if she’s eaten a rotten egg. Mom’s biting her lip, too, trying to keep still and serious. “Fine. Call me whatever you like,” Nani grumbles, frowning darkly. She reaches out to a little golden bell on the table and rings it; the sound makes me jump a little. “Sakina, where are you?” she barks in Urdu. “Take these two to their rooms. They’ll want to freshen up and change before lunch.”
Nana gives me another hug. “I need to change too,” he whispers with a wink. “This suit your nani forced me to wear to welcome you is as tight as a noose.”
4
Sakina
The Americans
I lead the guests upstairs to the second floor, where the bedrooms are. It’s the first time since I started working here that these rooms have been used. Begum Sahiba and Sahib Ji sleep downstairs in a bedroom that’s almost as big as my entire house. The upstairs is usually dark and empty, the curtains drawn tightly over the windows, the doors closed firmly.
Not anymore. The woman—Samia Ji—is rushing up the staircase with her arms wide open, her mouth stretched into a smile. “Oh, this place is still the same!” she gushes, pointing. “Here’s my room, and that one right there was my brother’s, and to the left was our library where we read books and did our homework!”
I try to imagine a room full of books, dedicated to studying. In my house, there’s one bedroom where my entire family huddles together at night, a verandah where Amma cooks and washes clothes while Jammy plays, and a little cupboard for a toilet. Oh, to have a room with a door I could close on the rest of the world and read. Maybe that would improve my English.
I look up and find the American girl watching me with eyes that are so light brown they seem almost transparent. Her hair is a lighter shade than mine, shoulder length and held back with a sparkly headband. She’s tall, although Abba’s told me she’s my age. “American children grow taller and bigger,” he once said. “They eat better food and have fewer worries than us Pakistani folk.” I can’t believe that this could be true. We eat and drink just fine, thank you very much.
“What’s your name?” the American girl asks in English. We’re at the top of the stairs, and her mother has disappeared into one of the bedrooms to investigate her childhood memories. We stand awkwardly together, me in my stained shalwar kameez, she in her T-shirt and jeans.
I freeze. People don’t usually talk to me in Begum Sahiba’s house. They just look right through me as if I don’t even exist. Even Abba seems to forget I’m there until I accidentally drop a pan on the floor and he jerks around to give me a look of annoyance. When he’s cooking, he likes to have complete silence in the kitchen.
“Um, Sakina,” I answer, my voice low. I hope she’s not going to start talking to me, because I can’t speak too much English without making a fool of myself.
Too late. She opens her mouth and a string of words flow out like the Indus River: smooth on top, but rocky and dangerous underneath. Normally, I can understand English quite well, but her accent is strange. She opens her mouth too wide for o and a and softens her t for no reason. It’s the accent I’ve heard on Sahib Ji’s television when he watches movies in the afternoon. Movies filled with guns and buildings that blow up unexpectedly.
I focus on her mouth to try to understand her. “. . . short for Maryam.”
I nod. “Salaam, Maryam.”
She frowns. “No, call me Mimi. Nobody calls me Maryam. It’s so . . .” and then I lose her. She’s still talking when her mother walks up to us and snaps her fingers.
“Come on, Mimi, let’s get settled in. You can talk to your new friend later.”
They walk away toward the first bedroom, the one that used to be Samia Ji’s childhood room. I watch them leave and shut the door firmly, my mouth open. I’m not her friend, I want to say, but there’s nobody to hear me.
At lunchtime, I set the table with Tahira’s help. On normal weekday afternoons, there’s hardly a dish or two on this table. Begum Sahiba and Sahib Ji eat in silence, sharing one meat dish and a side vegetable or daal with roti. Today is special, of course. All the food Abba and I have been cooking since morning is spread out like a king’s feast. There are also bottles of mineral water and Coke and apple juice—the last probably for Mimi.
“Where’s the roti?” Begum Sahiba snaps in Urdu.