Six Metres of Pavement. Farzana Doctor
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creative, Ismail. And you don’t have to be good at it, you know. God knows I’m terrible at it. I know that it will never be anything but a hobby for me,” she said, and Ismail heard the old cynicism in her voice.
“What are you writing about?” he asked, vainly hoping he might have inspired prose.
“It depends on what I feel like at the time. I’ve done some poetry — mostly sappy stuff when I was with Laura, you remember her, don’t you? I wrote a lot of love poetry during that short time we were together,” Daphne said, looking down into her plastic straw.
“Oh, so you’re not still with her?” A tiny bubble of hope floated up.
“Nope. That turned out to be just a fling, and now I’m just a sad single girl again,” she said, pushing out her lips into a mock pout. “I fell hard because she was my first — first girl, that is. She inspired a lot of bad lesbian poetry. Now I’m on to writing short stories. Maybe one day I’ll write a novel.” She paused, looked thoughtful, and pushed her glass away. “You know, I bet you could write a novel about your life. You’ve been through so much. And it’s really therapeutic. It might help you.”
“I can’t imagine anyone being interested in my life story. Besides, I hardly ever read books anymore.” As a youth, Ismail read all the classics: The Great Gatsby, War and Peace, Ulysses, Heart of Darkness, all of which had been assigned in school. But as an adult, he developed more of an appreciation for the inky reality of newspapers.
“What about all those self-help books from the library? You’ve read a ton of those.” Ismail nodded, considering a few of the dozens of titles he’d borrowed: Healing from Loss, Accepting Your Mistakes, Beyond Anxiety.
“A lot of good they’ve done me,” he quipped, but Daphne wasn’t to be dissuaded.
“Maybe that’s your genre.”
“My what?”
“Genre. You know, category of writing. Genre.”
“Oh, genre,” Ismail repeated, pronouncing it jan-rah. He’d never heard anyone pronounce it her way.
“I think it’s a French word, Ismail.”
“Oh,” he said, feeling foolish. He ordered another beer and sipped on it while she continued to talk about the short stories she was working on.
“I’ve done two stories loosely based on my family history. I feel like I am finally starting to get to some kind of resolution. I couldn’t tell you why, but when I write down the stories, they don’t take up so much room inside my head. And my teacher said they showed … promise,” she said shyly.
“I envy you, Daphne.”
“Really? Why?” She looked at him quizzically, but seemed pleased all the same.
“I’ve done a year of therapy. A hundred AA meetings. Read a couple dozen self-help books. I’m still the same old miserable person after all of these years. I envy you for finding something that helps you. Good on you.” Ismail lifted his glass to toast her. She bit her lip and reached for his arm, the soft padded tips of her fingers resting on his wrist. He put his glass down.
“So come with me to the writing class, then. It might help you with the drinking, too. They’re registering people now for the February session.” Ismail remained quiet, the beer and her touch creating a warm blush within him. “It’ll be like old times,” she purred. He met her eyes and she continued, “I’ve missed seeing you around.” Ismail looked down at her hand in his and remembered their Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. He told himself that perhaps they could rekindle their friendship, and things would be different this time.
“Maybe. Well, I don’t have anything else on the go right now. And it looks good on you,” Ismail said. She blushed, and he heard himself mumble, “Why not?” He wasn’t really sure he meant it, but as he sipped his drink with his left hand, he allowed Daphne to scrawl the location and date of the class on his right. The press of ballpoint against his palm raised a field of goosebumps on his arm.
“Now, don’t wash this off,” she warned, smiling bright, sunny rays down on him. Ismail gazed into her eyes and promised he wouldn’t.
— * —
It was late, but Celia knew sleep wouldn’t come for an hour or two yet. Still, falsely hopeful, she changed into a flannel nightie. As she passed a mirror, she glimpsed herself in the bright garment, her pale hands and neck reaching out and up from the aquamarine blue cuffs and collar. These colours were only for her underwear and nightclothes now.
She donned the mourning clothes for José, exchanging her stylish pants, blouses, and skirts for black dresses and loafers. She only intended to do so for a month or two, for she never saw herself as such a traditional person. Even for her father, her black attire was only for a week. But after her mother died, she just didn’t feel like changing out of the widow’s uniform. Besides, nearly all her other clothes were still in boxes in the basement, and she didn’t have the energy to unpack them.
Old friends who knew the cheerful woman from before, and didn’t follow the traditions of widows, questioned her about when she would come out of the mourning clothes.
“Come on, Celia, you grew up here, went to school here. This isn’t like you,” Adriana cajoled.
“Yeah, it’s fine for a little while, but you can stop now,” added Joana.
She would just shrug. At least everything matches with black, yes?
And the mourning clothes matched her mood, the sorrow and bitter resentments she exhaled with each breath. Her friends cautioned her about developing the agonias, the murky sadness for the self, but much more than that, too, a breathless sense of fear for the world. It’s our special kind of condition, eh? She knew the agonias were the worst kind of ailment a woman could succumb to, for its quivering anxiety sapped the muscles of energy, the blood of vitality, and the mind of all hope. Mostly, it left Celia tired, more tired than she’d ever been in her life. She could curl up in ball, forget the past, and not have to worry about the future. Perhaps, Celia thought, I am entitled to my agonias. After what I’ve been through.
There were nights when she dreamt of José and mornings she awoke expecting to see him beside her. She would roll over in bed, cotton sheets wound tight around her legs. She’d reach for him, her eyes closed, her cheek searching for a place to nuzzle into his warm chest. There would be a moment, when in her half-sleep, she would feel his shadowy presence in the bed, and she would soak in his warmth. His curly chest hairs would be soft under her face and her breathing would regulate to his heartbeat. Usually, when daylight peeked past her curtains, she’d rouse from that dreamlike place, and the figment beside her would lift his head from the pillow, turn away, and leave the room. She would swear she could sense the mattress shift beneath her, the springs recoiling from José’s departure.
A part of her, the one half-asleep and longing for him to return, wanted to call out to him, to wail, to pull out her hair in anguish each time he abandoned her. The other part of her, the one half awake, rebuked her husband, whispered curses at his spirit, forbade him to ever again return to her bed.
Half awake and half asleep. That was how her new life left her. In the mornings, bleary-eyed, she would reach for her water glass with her right arm, only to find that the TV tray was on her left. She’d open her top drawer for a pair of pantyhose and realize that they were stored in the second. She would search her reflection in the mirror and not recognize the old widow looking back at her. Whose sad eyes are those? Whose grey hair? Whose unrouged cheeks, unperfumed neck, barren lips? She hadn’t yet grown accustomed to it all, but didn’t resist it, either. The other ladies on her block with dead husbands told her that she would get used to wearing black, to being a woman conspicuous in her grief, and invisible in every other way.
— 11 —
Big Bhai
It was another Thursday afternoon, and Ismail was receiving Nabil’s weekly phone call. He sat at his