I hasten back from the kitchen with fresh roti. “Here!” I say, hoping she’s not angry. The last time roti was late to the table, she screamed like a banshee.
Mimi’s mother takes one, then turns to me and smiles. “It’s so light and fresh,” she marvels. “Who made it?”
I blink at her. Why does she care who cooked the food? Her business is only in eating it. “I did,” I finally admit.
“That’s amazing! My daughter can’t cook to save her life!” She casts a teasing look at Mimi, who sticks her tongue out at her mother.
The horror! I wait with a sick fascination for Mimi’s mother to shout, or even smack her. Nothing. What sort of people are these Americans? Sticking your tongue out at an elder is the height of rudeness.
Begum Sahiba obviously thinks the same thing. “Don’t be rude, child,” she tells Mimi with a frown.
Sahib Ji pats her hand. “Let them be, dear. It’s only teasing. They don’t consider it a big deal, and neither should you.”
I can see an argument brewing. Careful not to meet Begum Sahiba’s eye, I push the biryani toward Mimi’s mother. “Here, try this. My abba made all this food.”
Mimi’s mother looks suitably impressed. “Did he?”
I nod proudly. “Yes, ma’am. He’s been working here as the cook for almost five years.”
“Okay, Sakina, no need to talk so much,” Begum Sahiba interrupts. “Go check on the kitchen; start washing the dishes or something. Don’t just go in and sit idly.”
I grit my teeth. Abba and I haven’t eaten yet. After a moment, I slink away, trying not to notice that Mimi is watching me.
“So,” I hear Mimi’s mom say as I leave, “tell me more about this election. Who are the candidates this year?”
In the kitchen, I find Abba putting the final touches on the kheer, the rice pudding the family will be served as dessert. He ladles it out in a shallow crystal bowl shaped like a flower and sprinkles sliced almonds and pistachios on top. “Abba, eat first,” I tell him as I take out our tiffin from the cupboard. “They’re talking politics. They won’t ask for dessert for at least half an hour.”
Abba is diabetic, so he can’t eat most of the food he so lovingly cooks for the family. That’s why I cook in the morning before we leave the house and bring our food with us. Abba’s worked in houses where the owners allowed him to cook and eat in their kitchen, but Begum Sahiba is a dragon, and a selfish one at that. She wants not a grain of rice or a sprinkle of flour to go to any of her servants. She keeps count of everything in the pantry, in the storeroom, in the attic, and in the garage outside.
So I prefer our own way. Who needs to be beholden to a rich woman, anyway? I keep a little bag of our own things in the cabinet under the sink: a sack of flour, some oil, and a bag of sunflower seeds for afternoon snacking.
Today I’ve made spinach curry with a few pieces of turnip. I’m nowhere as good a cook as Abba, but I’m learning. There are two extra roti I cooked a few minutes ago, still steaming hot. We sit on the kitchen floor and eat, father and daughter, as we’ve been doing for years. He smiles at me as he eats. “Delicious as usual,” he says, even though I’m not the best cook. Still, we are together, and that is enough to make me smile back.
5
Mimi
Move Some Chess Pieces on the Board
I’m woken by the sound of quarreling outside my open balcony. At first I think I’m back in my apartment, where the next door neighbor Mrs. Peabody always shouts at her grandson to eat his breakfast. You’re so skinny, you’re going to fall down from exhaustion one day! Eat some eggs and bacon, for God’s sake! The grandson is twenty–something and works downtown. I find it hilarious to imagine ancient Mrs. Peabody trying to jam bacon and eggs down his throat as he gets ready to go to work.
I snuggle in my bed, listening, slowly realizing that things are not the same. The feel of the fabric over me is different—less scratchy than in Houston, fluffier and more luxurious. There are crows outside, cawing in angry tones. My street in Houston has nothing but little robins and sparrows, tweeting happy little good mornings to each other. The quarreling is also different. Mrs. Peabody never sounded so . . . furious.
Then it strikes me. I’m in Pakistan, far away from robins and sparrows and cranky old Mrs. Peabody.
I struggle to sit up, my eyes only half open. The clock on the wall says 11:05 a.m., but I’m pretty sure that’s not accurate. I feel like there’s a ton of bricks on my head, like it’s the middle of the night and I just can’t wake up.
I drag myself out of bed and to the balcony with bare feet, rubbing my eyes at the brightness of the sun. Nani is standing on the ground below with her hands on her hips, screaming. “You killed all my rose bushes, you ulloo-ka-patha! Do you know how expensive they were? I got imported soil for them. I got special food for them. What is wrong with you?”
A man stands in front of her, hanging his head, wringing his hands. “Sorry, Begum Sahiba, please forgive me,” he pleads in Urdu. “I’ll be more careful next time.”
This is better than a movie! I watch in fascination as Nani scolds the poor gardener for the next twenty minutes, wondering what ulloo-ka-patha means. She’s wearing some sort of long sky-blue dress, but from my angle I can’t tell if it’s a sari or a nightgown. Her stick-thin arms are clad with the same gold bangles I saw yesterday. Does she sleep in them? Does she bathe in them and take them to the bathroom with her? I cover my mouth with my hand to stifle my giggles.
Nani’s voice is loud enough to disturb the birds in the trees outside. I can’t believe this is Mom’s mother. Mom never screams at me, even that time a couple of years ago when I was practicing dance moves in her room and crashed into her worktable, spilling her paints on a half-finished painting. I still remember her face: horror, anger, and a twinge of panic. But she just led me out of the room and told me to practice dancing somewhere else. I didn’t know until much later that she’d been commissioned by a famous Houston tycoon to paint that portrait.
I didn’t know much about anything until recently. Like the fact that Mom’s job at the Art Institute wasn’t enough to pay the bills, and she used to try to sell her artwork to make a little money on the side. Or the fact that important people once paid her to paint their dogs’ pictures in a series called Rich Pups that was later displayed in an art museum. She took me to the opening as a surprise earlier this year, not telling me she was the artist until people started coming up to congratulate her. “What elegance, what style!” a woman in a floor-length gown gushed. “Thank you for making my darling Boris look so . . . human!”
Mom was embarrassed. I could tell by her red cheeks and nervous smile. “I want to be known for my watercolors of nature, for my collages and my abstracts,” she complained on the way home. “Painting dogs is so humiliating.”
I didn’t really understand. “Dogs are awesome,” I told her dreamily. I’d been begging for a pet forever, but she said we couldn’t afford it.
“It’s not dogs, really.” She gave a frustrated sigh and gazed out the windshield. “It’s just the idea of a trivial topic like rich people’s pets. All the classical artists became famous for landscapes and human portraits. Not animals. Especially not animals belonging to some pretentious old people who live in big mansions cut off from real people.”