Read Online Marrying Ameera by Rosanne Hawke - Free Book Online Page B

‘Hello,’ I said, and smiled. She ran back into a room. A boy came out immediately and grinned at me. If I could have squeezed Riaz into a thirteen-year-old’s body he would have looked like this.
    ‘What’s your name?’ I asked, though I knew.
    ‘Asher.’ He stood up straighter. ‘Are you our Cousin Ameera?’
    ‘Yes.’
    He came closer and shook my hand. This wasn’t something many men did in Pakistan so I knew he was trying to make me feel at home.
    ‘Do you see many kangaroos?’ he asked, showing off his clipped English.
    ‘Not really. They’re in the wild.’
    ‘If you went driving in the countryside you would see one?’
    I nodded. ‘Once we saw one jumping across the road at night.’
    ‘How high do they jump?’
    ‘High enough to clear a car or a fence.’
    He was impressed. ‘Please come. Eat some breakfast. I have been helping. Zeba too.’
    I smiled at him. ‘Your sister?’
    ‘My youngest sister. Then there is Jamila—she is nineteen and has finished college—and Meena, but she’s old and married. She even has a baby now. It cries all the time.’
    ‘I hope I meet them all soon.’
    ‘Yes, but Jamila is unhappy. It is to do with the wedding.’ He used the Urdu word: ‘shadi’.
    ‘Asher!’ My aunt rushed out of a room. ‘There you are and you have found Ameera.’
    ‘Yes, Ummie ji, and she has seen a kangaroo.’
    ‘Of course she has, silly boy—she lives in Australia.’
    Asher turned and winked at me. He was certainly the opposite of Haider.
    ‘You look like Meena,’ Asher informed me on the way into a family room furnished with lots of couches.
    ‘Do I? That sounds like a compliment, thank you.’
    Asher gave me a conspiring smile.
    ‘Ameera, sit here. You are our guest,’ Aunty Khushida said.
    She fluttered around me with a pot of chai. Asher had obviously been given the job of being nice to me; he sat by me. Zeba stood apart with her head half-lowered but I knew she was aware of my every move. I smiled in her direction but it did no good. Now that I was awake it seemed her giggles had dried up.
    I tried to tell Aunty I could get my own breakfast. ‘Papa said I should think of your family as my own.’
    For a moment she frowned. ‘Hahn ji. You are our daughter while you are here, but you must settle first. You can help later on, Inshallah.’
    An older girl walked in with a basket of chapattis and a plate of fried eggs. I looked with interest at her—she must be Jamila. The glance she flashed at me and then her mother was one of pure annoyance. My smile faded.
    ‘This is Ameera,’ Aunty Khushida said unnecessarily.
    ‘Go and get the plate,’ Jamila said crossly to Zeba.
    Zeba ran into the kitchen and returned with a warm plate held in a tea towel. She set it on the table and regarded me openly for the first time. Then she came and sat on the other side of me. I smiled at both of them: Zeba and Asher, the perfect hospitable pair. Pity Jamila and Haider had grown out of being polite.
    I ate under the watchful gaze of my two youngest cousins while Aunty and Jamila worked in the kitchen. I scooped up the runny egg with pieces of the flatbread. Asher offered me salt and pepper, but I refused the pepper; there was enough chilli on the eggs already.
    Afterwards they took me on a tour of the house.
    ‘This is the mejalis,’ Asher said. ‘It has a door to the lane and is where Abu meets with his friends. He sleeps here with Haider and me, but sometimes Zeba can sleep with Haider and me too.’
    ‘Where do you sleep usually?’ I asked Zeba.
    She spoke to me for the first time, in Urdu. ‘With Ummie ji. She has a big soft bed.’
    ‘When Meena was home, she and Jamila slept in the room you are in. If we have many guests Jamila sleeps in the lounge room,’ Asher explained. He took me further around the courtyard and pushed open a door. ‘We had this room but the earthquake made it dangerous. We lost another room too.’
    There were blocks of cement jutting out into