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Authors: Manil Suri
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Short Ganga.
“Not everything can be cured that way, memsahib. Maybe Mr. Jalal can save his ten rupees this time,” Short Ganga said without looking up, and without interrupting her ferocious scrubbing of the iron pot with rope.
Mrs. Jalal felt her cheeks burn red. She wanted to defend herself, to protest the unfairness of the comment. How many times had Vishnu come to their doorstep with some real or fabricated ailment, and hadn’t they always sent him away with something? Even though he hardly did any errands for them, compared to all the work he did for the Pathaks and the Asranis. And the time he had stolen their car—what about that? They had not even reported him to the police, to get him the thrashing he deserved.
“When Mr. Jalal comes home, I’ll send him down to see what can be done.”
Short Ganga didn’t reply. She rinsed the pot out, banging it around in the basin with unnecessary violence, her pigtail snaking angrily behind her. “Is there anything else you want me to do now?” she asked when she’d finished, wiping her brow with her forearm.
“No, nothing,” Mrs. Jalal said. She felt guilty, without being certain why. “Wait—these bananas—Mr. Jalal isn’t going to eat them. They’re not going to last another day—here—for the children.” She broke off two bananas from the bunch and thrust them into Short Ganga’s hand.
A look of such contempt sprang into Short Ganga’s eyes that Mrs. Jalal was appalled. For a moment, she wondered if Short Ganga was going to hand the fruit back to her. Then Short Ganga wrapped the edge of her sari around the bananas and left the room.
Mrs. Jalal took a series of tentative breaths, still alert to the possibility of pestilence in the air. What disease was going around these days that everyone was acting so bizarrely? Short Ganga storming off like that. Salim playing hide and seek with that Hindu girl from downstairs. Ahmed, her husband, whose behavior she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. She took a professional-sized gulp of the air, and satisfied that the answer didn’t lie in it, went back to the kitchen.
The remaining bananas sat on the table. She knew she never should have bought them. Salim was never around, Ahmed ate less and less every day, and she herself had always loathed their slimy feel. If they’d been less expensive, she’d have given the whole bunch to Short Ganga. But now there were three left, and she was the only one around to dispose of them. She peeled the darkest one, broke off the top section, and put it in her mouth. The ripeness made her gag, but stoically, she chewed on the mushy flesh.
Ahmed. She’d resolved to stop obsessing about him, but the banana fumes had for some reason sent her mind down that track again. She couldn’t believe it had started all the way back with the fasts at Ramzan. How happy she’d been then, when instead of one or two half-kept rozas, Ahmed had decided to stick with them for the entire fasting period. She had always been distressed by his failure to assume the proper role in their family’s religious activity. Month after month, year after year, it had been she who had written out the checks for the due to the poor, who had made all the arrangements for festivals, and taken Salim to the masjid on Fridays. Upon prodding, Ahmed would sometimes join her when it was time for namaz, but usually he simply left the room, still reading his book, whenever she unrolled the prayer mat. Her father had warned her, had almost turned the proposal down. “He seems to have read a lot of books, this Ahmed Jalal,” he’d remarked. “Perhaps one of these days he’ll even accidentally open the Koran.”
She’d realized, quite quickly after their wedding, that her father had been wrong about Ahmed. Her husband had read the Koran, in fact, he had read it frighteningly well, and could recite several passages from memory. The problem was his interest in religion only seemed to extend to reading about
“Not everything can be cured that way, memsahib. Maybe Mr. Jalal can save his ten rupees this time,” Short Ganga said without looking up, and without interrupting her ferocious scrubbing of the iron pot with rope.
Mrs. Jalal felt her cheeks burn red. She wanted to defend herself, to protest the unfairness of the comment. How many times had Vishnu come to their doorstep with some real or fabricated ailment, and hadn’t they always sent him away with something? Even though he hardly did any errands for them, compared to all the work he did for the Pathaks and the Asranis. And the time he had stolen their car—what about that? They had not even reported him to the police, to get him the thrashing he deserved.
“When Mr. Jalal comes home, I’ll send him down to see what can be done.”
Short Ganga didn’t reply. She rinsed the pot out, banging it around in the basin with unnecessary violence, her pigtail snaking angrily behind her. “Is there anything else you want me to do now?” she asked when she’d finished, wiping her brow with her forearm.
“No, nothing,” Mrs. Jalal said. She felt guilty, without being certain why. “Wait—these bananas—Mr. Jalal isn’t going to eat them. They’re not going to last another day—here—for the children.” She broke off two bananas from the bunch and thrust them into Short Ganga’s hand.
A look of such contempt sprang into Short Ganga’s eyes that Mrs. Jalal was appalled. For a moment, she wondered if Short Ganga was going to hand the fruit back to her. Then Short Ganga wrapped the edge of her sari around the bananas and left the room.
Mrs. Jalal took a series of tentative breaths, still alert to the possibility of pestilence in the air. What disease was going around these days that everyone was acting so bizarrely? Short Ganga storming off like that. Salim playing hide and seek with that Hindu girl from downstairs. Ahmed, her husband, whose behavior she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. She took a professional-sized gulp of the air, and satisfied that the answer didn’t lie in it, went back to the kitchen.
The remaining bananas sat on the table. She knew she never should have bought them. Salim was never around, Ahmed ate less and less every day, and she herself had always loathed their slimy feel. If they’d been less expensive, she’d have given the whole bunch to Short Ganga. But now there were three left, and she was the only one around to dispose of them. She peeled the darkest one, broke off the top section, and put it in her mouth. The ripeness made her gag, but stoically, she chewed on the mushy flesh.
Ahmed. She’d resolved to stop obsessing about him, but the banana fumes had for some reason sent her mind down that track again. She couldn’t believe it had started all the way back with the fasts at Ramzan. How happy she’d been then, when instead of one or two half-kept rozas, Ahmed had decided to stick with them for the entire fasting period. She had always been distressed by his failure to assume the proper role in their family’s religious activity. Month after month, year after year, it had been she who had written out the checks for the due to the poor, who had made all the arrangements for festivals, and taken Salim to the masjid on Fridays. Upon prodding, Ahmed would sometimes join her when it was time for namaz, but usually he simply left the room, still reading his book, whenever she unrolled the prayer mat. Her father had warned her, had almost turned the proposal down. “He seems to have read a lot of books, this Ahmed Jalal,” he’d remarked. “Perhaps one of these days he’ll even accidentally open the Koran.”
She’d realized, quite quickly after their wedding, that her father had been wrong about Ahmed. Her husband had read the Koran, in fact, he had read it frighteningly well, and could recite several passages from memory. The problem was his interest in religion only seemed to extend to reading about
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