Serena Alibhai is a one time Montrealer and a writer/poet.

ICY

When my mother told me about a man in Hawaii who wanted to marry me, I asked her if it ever got cold there. She said she wasn't sure about the weather, but was certain that it was time for me to be married. I found a tour book that said Hawaii was paradise. I agreed that he should come to Pakistan, to our home.

After thirty years of living in Hawaii, the climate is no longer obscure, and neither is the climate of my heart. My husband is eighty, twenty years my senior. He's slumped on the bamboo sofa with his crooked eyeglasses magnifying the bottom halves of his old eyes. He snores so loudly I fear for the neighbours.

He smells like an attic; three-day old sweat must be caked to his armpits, wrinkled chest, and sagging buttocks. He hates showers. Between his bouts of insolence and ascendancy, he's forced me to crave chocolate-coated macadamias and fried banana fritters, frustrated me so that my heart knotted into a ball of tense wire cords.

The day we first met, he sauntered into our bungalow, in Pakistan, as if he were a landlord and snapped his fingers at my maid. She scurried to fetch me. I was expecting him, my only viable suitor. All morning beauticians had laboured over me, attempting to craft enticing features I lacked. He was slim, with dark hair and blue eyes - so rare for an Indian. His soft skin was fair, with a tinge of olive.

On our first night together as husband and wife, in Hawaii, heavy rains made the winds chilly. The phone rang late that night. And every night after that, the phone rang at an hour when only the owls were awake. He'd take the call in the living room. I pretended to be asleep. His tone would soften while he spoke to her. Then he'd come back to our room and sleep in the bed next to mine.

We would go to lavish parties with his business associates. He showed me off like a rare jewel. But on the way home, his face tensed, and we didn't speak even one word to each other. I have kissed boys before, in Pakistan, ducking behind the corner paan shop. But, I have never kissed my husband. If I ever sought his affection, he gave me none. He assigned orders instead - bring him the books, prune our fruit trees, or tend to one of his shops.

After all these years, I can finally tell him what to do. He can't shave, his frozen fingers pivot around calcified joints. He can barely walk; it takes him three minutes to get from his bed to the kitchen. Sometimes, he tips over. I pinch him when I give him showers, and then I use the hand spray to shock him with a bitter cold spritz. It's icy!, he shrieks. But he's the one who taught me how cold it could get in Hawaii.

 

Lessons from Backward Teachers

Qurram listened to his teacher, Mr. Oberoi, talk about his recent trip to Pakistan. The talk had nothing to do with the day's curriculum. Mr. Oberoi described his future wife, Narmeela, in such detail, that Qurram could picture her tinted curls, smell her sandalwood musk, and almost taste her parothas. Mr. Oberoi looked to the ceiling and shook his baldhead. He beamed. "It was a fateful trip," he told his class back in Toronto, "I didn't know at the time that I would come back from my trip teaching the underprivileged - with a love of my own." Then the bell rang. "Don't forget - allusion essays due tomorrow! Bonus marks if you use a quote!" Mr. Oberoi sang. The students groaned as they darted from class.

Piling into the bus, Qurram held tightly to his backpack. He reached into his bag to look inside his binder. The question was, "What silent clues did Emily reveal about the lessons she learned in the story: The Most Grateful". Qurram slumped into his bus seat. He read the short story over again.

*

At his stop, Qurram shivered as the bus doors opened and he descended the three black steps. Cold air hit his face. The bus continued on its way. With each step Qurram's boots sunk deeper into a mass of packed snow. After five minutes of walking the tip of his nose turned red and began to freeze. He placed his mitts over his nose. Adrift, he lost his balance and nearly tipped over. After ten minutes, his fingers became numb and his toes lost the ability to wiggle. Yet, just when nature became too frigid to bear, Qurram found himself miraculously before his backdoor. He rang the bell.

"Boy! Come inside quickly," his mother yelled, grabbing her eldest son's coat and dragging him inside, "It's freezing, the whole house is turning into an icebox!" Bharthi held tightly to her bathrobe and ran upstairs to change into her work clothes.

His mother's friend and co-worker, Martha, was sitting at their dining table. She was dressed in her waitress uniform, complete with her nametag overlaid on a fabric doily. She bent down to pinch together her opaque tights with shoddily manicured fingers. She pulled up in intervals: first she tugged from ankle to calf, then from calf to knee, and finally from knee to thigh. "Bar-tea," she hollered to the ceiling, "do you have a baby-sitter?"

Bharthi ran down her stairs, breathless. She had one silver hoop earring on. She attached the second as she stuck her feet into her winter boots. "I can't afford one. I don't have a husband like you do, Martha. Qurram will take care of his little brother," she said grabbing her winter coat and scarf. "Won't you my love," she said, patting Qurram on his head.

"Ma," Qurram said, "Mr. Oberoi gave us an essay -"

"Qurram!" she yelled. "Take off your coat! And hang it in the closet." He did what he was told. "I've made some Khichhadi and potato curry. It's on the stove. Just heat it up. Medium heat. Add a teaspoon of water to the Khichadi if it's too thick." She blew him a kiss. She told him to take care of his brother. And then she left to tend tables until the middle of the graveyard shift with Martha and the rest of the Wolves' Den Diner waitresses.

*

"I wanna burger!" Hussain screamed angrily to his brother. He grabbed a handful of mashed boiled rice and lentils and flung it at his brother.

"Well get one on the weekend," Qurram said, wiping away a ball of rice-lentil mixture from his forehead. He bit his lip and took a deep breath. "But for now, we have Khichadi. Mmm. I love this potato curry."

"It looks like slop. Like throw-up," Hussain giggled. He crossed his arms. "Why do we have to eat throw-up? I hate eating throw-up. You eat it!" He pushed the spoonfull of Khichadi back towards his brother.

Qurram took a big bite. Then he squealed with delight, his eyes opening wider. He rubbed his belly and chewed. "So what did you do in school today?" he asked his little brother.

"We painted in the morning, before nap time. I got a swatch," he said. He showed Qurram the little wart-like bump on his index finger. Then he brought back the finger and pinched his wart, examining it closer. Qurram stuck a spoonful into his open mouth.

"That is really something," Qurram said, interested. He squinted and looked closer at his brother's 'swatch'. "It's called a 'swatch'? Is it dangerous?" he asked, with concern in his voice. He prepared another spoonful, noticing that his brother had finished chewing the bite in his mouth.

"No, it's not dangerous. Yet. Cindy had one last year. She said that it wasn't dangerous, and it's called a 'swatch'." Qurram put another spoonful in his brother's mouth.

"Really?" Qurram said. He put his elbow down on the table and listened attentively.

"Yeah," said Hussain. He told his brother all about the rest of his day. The conversation ended when everything in Hussein's bowl was gone. Qurram worried about the amount of time he was going to have left to finish his essay, but instead focused on getting his brother ready for bed.

*

Qurram filled the bath with bubbles. Hussain undressed and talked non-stop.
"In my daycare we paint. Then we get naptime. Stephen talked too much so Sally put tape on his mouth and he screamed."

"Who's Sally?"

"The afternoon monitor. She's fat! Like a pumpkin. In Halloween we got liquorice. Different colours. But Kevin said that everyone gets two pieces but I only got one. But he said if I wait he'd come back and give me three. But he didn't come back. He was lying."

"That sucks."

"Yeah. Is bath time ready?"

"It is. Get in," Qurram lifted his little brother into the tub.

He let his brother play in the tub with his toys while he brushed his teeth at the sink. Hussain told his big brother all about what his toys were saying to each other. They were fighting. Apparently the yellow duck had insulted the plastic soldier, who was angry at the princess broccoli squeak toy for splashing -a violation to the rules of the land. The duck was defending the honour of the vegetable princess. Hussein splashed and sang and laughed. Qurram watched his brother from the sink. He finished brushing his teeth. He squinted.

"Hussain," Qurram asked, "What is that red mark on the back of your neck?"

Hussain looked up at the seriousness of his brother's tone. Qurram kneeled by the side of the tub. There were long red and blue bruises along his brother's wet back.

"Did you get hurt?" Qurram asked his brother, grabbing his arms. Hussain's eyes widened. "There are marks on your back! What happened?"

"In my daycare Kevin hit me," Hussain said.

"Who's Kevin?"

"He's in my class. He has glasses," said Hussain. He drew imaginary circles around his eyes with soapy soggy fingers.

"Did you tell your teacher?"

"She wasn't there."

"Does it hurt?" Qurram asked his brother, his voice raised and steady. His eyebrows twiched.

"Are you mad at me? It doesn't hurt," Hussain said, searching his brother's face for the right answers to his questions. He didn't know whether to tell his brother that Kevin hit him with a skipping rope or not. He didn't know if he should tell his big brother that the scariest part was when Kevin sang the 'Paki'- song as he flung the skipping rope. Paki, Paki, stanky, I wish you didn't smell like Paki!

"When your teacher came back did you tell her?"

"Almost, but Catherine started crying so she told me to put my outdoor clothes on and get ready for Mummy to pick me up. I waited and then my back hurt."

"Did you tell Mummy?"

"No, she was talking to Martha." Qurram's heart sank, but he tried not to let his feelings show up on his face.

Qurram rubbed aloe vera and vitamin E oil onto his brother's back and tucked him into bed. On the floor of his room, he began writing his essay. He sat facing his bookshelf - the only piece of furniture in his room beside a mattress - his bed, on the floor. Hot beats pulsated from his insides and rose to the surface of his skin while his mind raced. All the rage he felt inside his body channelled through the mechanical pencil in his fingers, onto the page. The words came quickly.

The quiet in the room and the faint heavy breathing of his brother in the next room spurred his thoughts, which gave rise to words, which formed sentences. He ripped what he had written out of his notebook and folded it. Bloody daggers in his head spinned. He put his pencil down and stood up. He tiptoed into his brother's room. The blankets over his brother were rising and falling slightly with every breath.

"Hussain," Qurram whispered, still at the door. Hussain murmured. Qurram walked over to his brother and gently tousled his warm hair. "Hussain," he said again. Hussain's eyes opened and smiled when he saw his brother.

"Hussain, you are a big boy now right?" Qurram began. Hussain rubbed his eyes and nodded. "Next time anyone hits you, you wind up and hit them right back and never ever let anyone hit you, you understand?"

Hussain nodded. "Mummy said never hit," he said.

"Yes, never hit," Qurram agreed. "But if someone hits you first, then you are allowed to hit. It's only fair. So that they know that if they hit you, you will hit back because you are a big strong boy," Qurram whispered.

"I am very strong," Hussain agreed. He smiled at his big brother.

"So now you know, right?" Qurram said. He bent over to kiss his brother's cheek.

"Yes," Hussain said. "No one can hit me again. If they do I can hit them too. And I can hit hard."

"That's right, now go to sleep, and no dreaming about hitting. Think good things. Tomorrow tell your teacher, show her your back and give her this note," Qurram said, waving a piece of paper. "I'm going to put this note in your lunch box, okay? Don't forget to give it to her." Qurram left his brother's room to complete his essay.

*

It was almost three in the morning when Qurram looked before him and saw a final draft. A rush of satisfaction poured over his mind, and he hardly noticed that his neck was aching and the space between each vertebrae throbbed. He put the essay in his binder, and his binder into his backpack. He changed into shorts and a t-shirt and snuggled under two blankets without brushing his teeth first. He closed his eyes. And then he remembered. He forgot the quote. He sat up in bed, looking to his bookshelf.

Martha had just dropped his mother home, he heard her kick her shoes off, and the door close. She would soak her feet in the bathroom, change, wash her face, and crawl into bed with Hussain before having to wake Qurram up in the morning for school. He hoped that she'd forget that Martha had a husband to go home to. Qurram tiptoed to the shelf, tipped the spine of a book that used to be his fathers, and opened it. His eyes fell upon a quote in the middle of the page, separarated from others by thick bands of flowers hooked onto leaves and naked cartoon women with serious expressions. It said: I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers. - Khalil Gibran. He copied it onto his essay by erasing a chunk of the last paragraph and inserting it as part of the fourth sentence from the end. He crept back into bed. He felt satisfied with his final draft and listened to the sounds of silence in the middle of the night before the wolves began to howl.

 

by Serene Alibhai