A Thousand Questions by Saadia Faruqi

Author:Saadia Faruqi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quill Tree Books
Published: 2020-07-16T00:00:00+00:00

22

Sakina

The Newspaper Office

I have another special outing planned for Mimi today, so special that I can’t stop smiling as we head to the car. Malik is wiping the bonnet down with a cloth. We climb in and wait for him to finish. “How much do you like roller coasters, Mimi?” I ask, wanting to give her a hint.

Mimi shakes her head. “No rides today. No touristy place.”

She looks serious. “What’s happened—everything okay?” I ask her.

She sighs louder than a cow with too much milk. “I spilled the beans about Dad’s columns,” she admits, twisting her hands around her scarf. Today it’s a bold red polka-dotted one, over a plain black T-shirt. She’s hunched over in the car, so I can’t see what the T-shirt says. Something strange and not even remotely funny, I’m sure.

Spilling beans doesn’t sound like a great catastrophe.

“It means tell everyone a secret,” Mimi adds, seeing my confusion.

“Was it supposed to be a secret?” I ask, confused.

She looks at me as if I’m slow. “Yeah, it was. Mom gets this angry look on her face whenever Dad is mentioned. And Nani has nothing nice to say about him, ever. The other day I overheard Nana and Nani talking about the olden days, when the neighbors all made fun of them because their daughter ran off with a white man.”

I pout a little to show her I’m sorry for her. “That’s why you should never listen to other people’s conversations,” I say. “You never hear anything nice.”

“Gee, thanks for the advice.”

She doesn’t look very thankful, but still I say, “You’re welcome.”

Malik puts away his cloth, gets in, and starts the car. He turns around to look at Mimi. “Where are we going today, Maryam Ji?” he asks her in Urdu.

I open my mouth to tell him, but she frowns at me. “Here,” she says, handing him a folded piece of paper. “I need you to take me here today.”

We’re on the main road when I can’t take the suspense anymore. “Where are we going?” I ask. “I thought I was in charge of deciding.”

“You’re the one who told me that I’m the boss.” Her mouth is set in that obstinate little line I’m getting to know so well.

“I did,” I admit quietly. It’s a fact I’ve tried to ignore. But the ugly reality of my station in life versus hers rears its head too often, mocking me. Her clothes are always so clean, and her hair always smells of a mixture of strawberry and lime. But it’s the nails that give her away: short, white, and gleaming with health.

“Then wait and see,” she tells me.

I curl my fingers into my palms, hiding the dirt under the nails that never seems to come out, no matter how hard I try, and wait for us to arrive wherever she’s decreed. “So what was the family’s reaction?” I ask, tired of the silence. How will I ever fully grasp this blasted English language if I don’t talk more than two sentences at a time?

She sighs.

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