Who Will Catch Us As We Fall (26 page)

Despite her reservations, Pooja had visited the family anyway, had met Roopa Sharma, and to Raj's relief, it was within this woman's impeccably decorated, three-story house that Pooja found some of the comfort she was seeking.

That night, Leena lay down on the well-worn couch of their family room, looking through the French doors into the garden outside. It was dark and she couldn't make out the shape of things, but heard the wide leaves of the banana trees scratching the glass, bothered by the rain that had just begun to fall.

It was rare that she was left at home by herself, but today her parents had a wedding to attend and Jai was staying late on campus at Nairobi University. She checked the clock on the wall, hoping that he would be home soon.

Every creak and rattle startled her, though she was comforted by the night guard's footsteps patrolling the house at thirty-minute intervals. It reminded her of how she had felt those first few evenings here in Runda, surrounded by too much empty space. All the night sounds that had been so comforting in her old home had spread themselves out here, become bigger and louder and drove her deep into the cushions.

She recalled the first time they had pulled a left turn from the main road, into an emerald side street. How deathly silent it had been, stepping out of the car – disconcerting not to see other children playing in the driveway or hear the shouts of so many women; there was no sign of activity at the new house except for the bustling of insects in flower pots and the rustling leaves of the aging blue gum tree guarding the gate.

Though the house itself was new, it had been built in an old, colonial style – an attempt to recapture a time when life in Kenya had followed a slow and dreamy rhythm – and the flat, wide open garden stretching out behind it was a mosaic of green. Perfectly symmetrical, with a gambrel roof and curved eaves, she had instantly been drawn to the house and, when she stepped inside, sunlight had drowned her on all sides.

Jai had removed his socks and slid along the polished floor, while her mother floated trance-like from room to room. It was so different from the cramped apartment, holding promises of a life where lunches were a lazy, drawn-out affair, complete with pink gin fizzes and evenings that were reserved for high-society parties, where her guests would dance out on the patio until early morning.

‘This is not Happy Valley,' her husband had reminded her. ‘Where people come to get drunk and swap wives.'

‘You take the fun out of everything,' she had pouted, at which he had laughed and kissed her temple.

That day, they had eaten lunch in the garden. Pooja had spread an old tablecloth over the grass, beneath the low branches of a growing, white hibiscus tree and they ate egg sandwiches and drank cold juice from plastic cups.

‘Isn't it beautiful?' Pooja had mused, pulling in the air through her nostrils. ‘Remember this moment,' she told her children, her thoughts wandering and serene. ‘This is what happiness feels like.'

Warmed by the sun, Leena had agreed with her, but then came the inky cover of night and she was alone for the first time in her life. She dreamt of Michael and Angela, saw them crossing the black garden and blending in amongst the flame trees – was certain she heard them slip through the French doors and creep up the stairs to come and stand over her bed. They were frowning and disappointed that she had not thought about them once that day. But then morning came and with it, brazen sunlight, and she had jumped eagerly from her bed to throw open the curtains. The garden was empty, with everything in its place, and she had felt silly and childish for having been so frightened.

‘It's because you miss them,' Jai had told her. ‘I dream about them too.'

But the dreams stayed only for a few days, though she never admitted it to her brother. Leena became so caught up in the excitement of her new life that she forgot to think of what she had left behind.

She and Pooja spent the first few weeks rearranging the furniture, walking the garden and attempting to identify every tree and flower; they went shopping for new paintings to put up on bare walls, for the divan couch that had golden tassels and looked like something out of a fairy tale. They went from store to store, collecting previously unheard of items that now fit perfectly in their lives. Things such as laundry baskets and potpourri – Pooja even bought a wine rack in the shape of a curvy Maasai woman, made from minuscule beads, and a hand-blown glass vase that was like swirling seas of color.

In these shops, Leena would meet more
gorahs
than she had ever seen. French, German, British – all with the same polite disposition and indifferent attitudes. They didn't stare or stop to make conversation the way she was used to, and though they smiled, it was brief and courteous.

She listened to them converse in magical accents, which she practiced in front of the mirror: ‘Isn't that a
lovely
dress. Hello, Mrs Cow-Lee, have a nice day!' raising her voice to a singing top note. She transported herself to the cobbled streets of London, as elegant and reserved as these women were in their loose blouses and pressed chinos, their sweatless skin, their clipped speech a refreshing change from the abrasive shouts of the women she remembered from the compound.

These Runda women never ate with their fingers or leaned down to twist her chin, commenting on her many flaws and how she must groom them if she ever wanted to find a husband.

‘Boring,' Pooja had told her as they drove home from one such shop. ‘They're plain and boring with no taste for life. Just straight, straight faces all the time.'

‘They mind their own business,' Leena had argued.

‘It's because they're selfish, thinking of themselves only. We
care
about each other.'

Every time they would come home from one of these excursions, Pooja would park the car and lean over the backseat, reaching for every item and removing the price tags, careful to make sure that Betty, the new maid, never saw how much they were spending.

But Jai was different in the new house. Sullen and moody, he spent most of his time locked up in his room. When Leena knocked on his door to ask if she could join him or if he wanted to play with her in the garden, he told her that he was busy and snidely remarked that she should go shopping or meet her friends at the new cinema that had opened up only ten minutes away. He said these things to her with heavy distaste, scowling and turning back to his books, as if her new-found happiness was the greatest insult he had ever received.

Later that night, still on the sofa, Leena was startled awake by a noise. She jerked upright, disorientated and rubbing away her sleep in the two o'clock morning darkness. It took her a moment to realize that it was a woman shouting and her first instinct was to think that it was her mother, that they were being robbed. She perched, frozen, at the end of the couch.

When Jai entered the room, she was flooded with hot relief. ‘Who is that?'

‘I'm going to check.'

She followed him out to the gate with a hammering chest, where he stopped to speak in Swahili to the guard. Jai had become fluent after Raj had enrolled him in extra classes, and though Leena had begged to go with him, Pooja had refused, asking, ‘Why on earth would you need to speak Swahili?'

As the two of them stepped out of the vicinity of their gate, the voices grew louder and Leena now heard a man speaking over the frantic tones of the woman. She was trying to say something but he kept interrupting her with words that were like a sledge hammer, heavy and careless.

‘Go back in and go to bed,' Pooja commanded when she saw her daughter emerge, but Leena ignored her because the scene gathering on the street was too intriguing.

A few of the other residents had come out of their houses, dressed in pajamas and wrapping their robes around them, peering up the hill toward the arguing shadows.

‘That's the Sharma's daughter,' Pooja whispered loudly. ‘She's on holiday from university in England.'

Leena heard the other neighbors snicker at Pooja when she said this, rolling their eyes at her nosy interest. When she turned back to the voices, she saw that the girl was clutching an armload of clothes, pleading, ‘Please don't do this. I don't have anywhere to go.'

‘You should have thought about that before you touched that—' The man's voice faltered before he spit out words, ripe with disgust. ‘That
askari
.'

Pooja's astounded, delighted shock caused her to unashamedly exclaim, ‘
Uh-reh
!' too loudly, so that Leena had to clap her hand over her mother's mouth.

‘People can hear you, Ma,' she hissed, looking apologetically at the German woman who lived opposite them, and who was now shaking her head.

‘Well, how can you hang your panties out to dry and then blame people for looking?' Pooja demanded to know, turning to their neighbor and calling out in a sing-song voice, ‘Isn't that so, Mrs Schultz?'

‘His name is Patrick,' the Sharma girl was saying.

‘I don't care. Do you have any idea what people are going to say about you? About us?' The man was tugging at his
langar
,
the traditional Indian sarong tucked around his waist.

‘He's a human being just like you and me and if people can't understand that then I don't care what they think.'

‘Good for her.' Mrs Schultz glared at Pooja, who in turn muttered pointedly.

‘These
gorahs
. Really.'

‘So go and live with him then.' The man threw a duffle bag at her. ‘Pack up your things and go.'

The Sharma girl unzipped the bag slowly, her head tilted up to her father. ‘I never meant to hurt you but I won't apologize for it. In London, things like this happen all the time. It's natural,
baba
– it's not a sin.'

‘Do they also teach you to run around with a boy behind your family's back? To have a relationship outside of marriage? Outside of your culture? We have our own rules here, our own traditions. Or don't you remember them, have you become so corrupted?'

‘It's not that simple.'

The man pointed in the direction of the main road. ‘Take your Queen Elizabeth
ideas and leave. But when you come to your senses, don't run back here. You don't belong to this family any more.'

The girl panicked. ‘Just try to see my side of the story – I don't want to leave you.'

‘And I don't want to see you in this house ever again.'

‘You know how unsafe it is here at night-time. Where will I go?'

‘Go and live with Patrick.' The voice was malicious in its power.

‘How can he speak to his daughter that way?' asked a devastated Mrs Schultz.

‘He's teaching her a lesson. She must know she cannot shame her family that way,' Pooja told her neighbor.

Mrs Shultz's pale, wrinkled face turned beet. ‘And how exactly did she do that, Mrs
Cow-Li
?'

‘
Ko-Lee
,' Pooja corrected her, pursing her lips and saying, as if speaking to a child, ‘it's
Ko-Lee
.'

Raj stood a little ahead of them, a broad figure on the grass with his legs spread wide, hands tucked together behind him. He watched as the man strode back into his house, the Sharma girl collecting up her clothes, stifled sobs rising occasionally in the cold stillness. Pooja and Jai sneaked a shared look.
I told you so
,
his mother's eyes said and Pooja was glad she had taken early precautions to ensure that a similar thing would never happen to her daughter.

‘Show time is over,' she announced, ushering Leena back into the house. ‘
Chalo
,
let's go to bed. Goodnight, Mrs Schultz!'

Before Leena stepped into the gate, she saw her father gesture Jai over. He said, ‘Go and get her. She'll stay with us tonight.'

Pooja protested but Raj held his hand up to silence her, looking more somber than Leena could ever remember him being.

‘This isn't a discussion,' he said, watching as Jai picked up the girl's bags and ushered her down the hill. Leena saw it then, the return of an old glint in Raj's eye, the proud twisting of his lips, and had never been more envious of her brother.

‘That girl's mother will never speak to me again!' Pooja wailed from upstairs – ‘What have you done, Raj? Just like always, only thinking about yourself!' – before her husband closed the bedroom door and made their voices disappear.

Jai and Leena sat opposite the young woman, her muscles jerking occasionally with a shiver, fists clutched between her knees.

‘Do you want some tea?' Leena tried to be helpful.

The girl attempted a smile but instead her face contracted and her eyes became wet. ‘If you wouldn't mind. I'm so sorry for all of this.' Her words came out in bursts. ‘I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't taken me in.'

‘We couldn't have let you stay out there.'

‘You must think I'm crazy.' She accepted the tea from Leena gratefully, wrapping her long fingers around the cup to keep warm. ‘But I couldn't take it any more.'

‘Take what?' Leena asked.

‘The idea that all I am good for is marrying an Indian man and having babies.'

She was so straightforward, so comfortable with having an opinion of her own, that she reminded Leena of all those European women she had spent such long hours copying. She wondered if going to England did that to you, filled you up with yourself and, if so, she made up her mind that she would go, no matter what.

‘You're still shivering,' Jai noted, turning to his sister. ‘Leena, can you get—' He waited for a name.

‘Simran.'

‘Simran, a sweater?'

He waited until he was sure his sister was out of earshot before turning back to Simran. ‘Can I ask you a question?'

The girl paused, the lip of the cup to her mouth. She was enjoying the curls of steam rising up around her chin, thawing some of the cold from her bones. ‘Considering you just saved my life, sure.'