At six-fifteen, Miriam climbs the stairs to nag and chivvy Safia so she won’t be late, the airport is a forty-minute drive. “It shouldn’t be so hard for her to wake up,” she says. “I keep asking, Why do you have to sign up for so many hours of overtime? All she says is “’Time-and-a-half, Amiji, time-and-a-half.’”
Kathleen thinks Safia works way out at the airport and signs up for hours of overtime so she doesn’t have to talk to her.
Every second day, Grandma Miriam bakes cranberry bread for Grandpa. And in the past week, she has been walking Kathleen to school and meeting her afterwards. Grandma and Grandpa don’t have a car for Kathleen to borrow. Which means that unless she rides the bus forty-five minutes to Jodie’s house, she will end up staying home in the evenings. Which means she will have to swallow things with funny names like alloo cholas and eggplant bhartha, all served over an endless supply of cumin-scented rice.
Kathleen is desperate for hamburger, pizza or a single mouthful of Uncle Ben’s. She skips class a couple of times to walk over to the nearest McDonalds, but she has to eke out the twenty dollars Grandma gives Grandpa Terry every week so he can present it to Kathleen. In her world, Grandma says, it’s the men who give allowances to the women in their families. “But,” she says with a conspiratorial giggle, “we women have to make endless allowances for men.”
We women — huh!
Today is Sunday. Grandma sits in her customary corner of the couch, which she has draped with orangey-red “priceless” jamavar shawls to hide the holes in its upholstery. “Did you find a job, yet, darling?” says Grandma.
“Nope.”
Two days after school opened, Jodie found a waitress job at George Webb’s diner, and lots of other kids have found burger-flipper jobs after school to escape their families, but Kathleen doesn’t seem to get offers for anything but babysitting.
I have no patience with kids — they’re brainless.
So Miriam settles down with the phone on her lap and begins phoning her friends and relatives, beginning with her sister in Calgary, her brother in Houston who may be “voluntarily departed” any day now to Lahore, and Sadruddin in New York (whom Kathleen has never met), who’s almost like a relative.
Then she runs her finger down her list of friends. There’s Anser Mahmood, who volunteered to go with the INS officers when they promised he’d be home the next day since he only had an expired visa. He spent the next four months in solitary at the Detention Center in Brooklyn and hasn’t been the same since. “No point calling him.”
“And Aisha,” says Grandma. “No point calling her. The Immigration chaps arrested her husband Tosueef — anthrax possession, can you imagine — then they came back and searched his home. Aisha was taken away to the local jail and strip-searched. All for possession of a bottle of garam masala. Garam masala!” Grandma laughs. “I cook with it every day. They brought her before a judge, and no wonder she asked to be deported. Some vultures will probably take their beautiful home and all their new furniture.” She turns her pencil over and erases the name.
There’s Shokeria Yagi who was abroad with her three sons and came home to find her husband had been taken away. There’s Jalil Mirza to whom Grandma sent some money that got him and his two sons out of a Detention Center, but he’s now stuck in a Red Cross shelter with his whole family. They’re waiting their turn along with eight hundred others applying to Canada for asylum. Grandma erases their names.
Kathleen goes up to her room and turns on Eminem at full blast, but Grandma still racks up long distance bills calling Mohammad Akbar, who sold his 7-Eleven store on Devon Avenue in Chicago and moved to Winnipeg last year, Professor Nayeem, who changed his name to Gonzalez months ago to avoid domestic registration, and Habeeba in Schaumberg, Illinois, who manages the carwash since her husband was deported.
Kathleen comes downstairs wearing a Britney Spears tank top and shorts. Grandma is so set on telling her that everyone says she should “go into computers” that she doesn’t curl up her nose immediately. She’s convinced that Kathleen has to know “all about computers.” A checker’s job at a grocery, Sadruddin Uncle has said, will do it, teach Kathleen all about computers.
Grandma knows shit about computers. She can’t even do e-mail.
“Your friends wouldn’t know shit about computers if they weren’t listed in the National Crime Info database,” says Kathleen, who wouldn’t know about the database herself if Safia didn’t keep bringing it up.
“Don’t swear, Kathleen. There’s no shame in that. All our names are on someone’s silly list. Safia says they’re only in the important ones, Galileo, CAPPS, IBIS.”
“Those are databases, not lists.”
“List, database, list — same thing. All I’m saying is: find out if you’re good at computers. I was always accurate at typing — slow, but accurate. And when Safia took her test for the airlines, they told her she went sixty words per minute. I tell you, you’ll be fab ulous at it.”
Kathleen uses computers every day in school. She will now give up trying to find a real after-school job to make sure she doesn’t learn more about them.
Before school on September 11, now called Annual Patriot Day, Kathleen, her mother and Miriam watch the Secretary of State — Safia calls him Rummy — speak at Arlington cemetery about the triumph of Freedom over Tyranny.
“And to us to whom the task of justice has been sent from on high …” intones the chaplain. Grandma calls him the mullah. He ends with “God bless America.”
Kathleen’s trying to figure out what to do with herself.
She was all ready for a Saturday at Octoberfest with Safia, when Safia was called in to work. She left muttering angrily — not about the work, or that her plans with Kathleen were cancelled, but about “an eighty-seven billion dollar blank check made out to the likes of Halliburton.”
“Come sit here! On the sofa.” Grandma pats and smoothes her shawls.
“Sofa?” says Kathleen.
“Couch, then, couch! Sit beside me on the couch.”
Grandma Miriam kicks off her sequined slippers and sits cross-legged, hands clasped around what has to be her tenth cup of Taj Mahal this morning. Grandpa Terry leans forward, duct-taped glasses only a foot away from the green and gold movements of a Packers rerun. His newspaper has fallen beside him.
“What do you want to study, Kathleen?” Grandma asks in her brightest, warmest voice. “So many opportunities I never had. Are you going to take computers?”
Like it’s easy as Parcheesi. Ludo, Grandma called it. Claimed it was ancient, invented near Lahore.
Okay, Kathleen will play along for a bit. But no computers.
“Haven’t decided,” she mumbles. “Maybe psychology, maybe advertising.”
“Wonderful choices! For one you need to be interested in other people, and for the second you need to find some enthusiasm. Not that I’ve seen much of either in you lately.” She stops, then says, “You might need a just-in-case plan, darling.”
Kathleen doesn’t flinch, only seethes as if she’d swallowed live coals.
Dad hasn’t sent a check this month and there’s no just-in-case plan. Grandma’s fault — she never liked him. If she had been nicer to him, maybe Dad and his lily-pale orangutan-haired girlfriend wouldn’t be off on a cruise through the Panama Canal. And Grandma’s treating Mom like a baby, picking up after her, cooking her favourite meals. These days, Grandma’s even stopped her morning nagging and chivvying — she’s been letting Mom sleep late or leave early as she pleases.
No wonder Mom won’t take Kathleen home. Won’t even look for an apartment.
“If you decide what course you want in college, Kat, you can work backwards to decide the classes you should take now.”
Hate-glow spreads and blazes within Kathleen. No one calls her Kat but Dad.
“Don’t know why you’re talking about college. Like there’s any way I’m going to make it to college on twenty dollars a week.”
“The Good Lord w
ill see to it you go to college.”
“Like the Good Lord really cares,” says Kathleen.
“The Good Lord forgives, Kathleen. I pray every day that he gives me strength to do the same.”
Kathleen sets her lips. She looks past her grand mother. Through the window behind the couch, bright leaves swirl and dance before a cooling wind.
A grunt or two. That’s all Kathleen allows herself on the daily walks to and from school. Today, heading home, Grandma Miriam is prattling on about the bunches of tiny berries tinted pale yellow and cherry red. Berries so beautiful are almost surely poisonous.
“Not poisonous at all,” says Kathleen, and pulls off three. Into her mouth they go. She rolls them against the inside of her cheek.
“Oh!” Grandma’s hand goes to her mouth. She thinks Kathleen has swallowed them.
“If I need help, I’ll call 911 when we get home,” says Kathleen. “I can do that — we’re not in Pakistan.”
Kathleen walks ahead for a while and manages to spit the berries out without her grandmother noticing.
When Grandma figures the berry poison danger is past, she says in her chitchatty way, “One day you’ll wish you’d asked me more questions about my parents and about when I was small.”
Heard all about it. Grandma’s mother was Catholic, born in Iran, Grandma’s father was an Anglo, a mixed breed left behind when the British washed their hands of India and Pakistan. He saw Grandma’s mother at the Lahore Gymkhana Club and converted from Anglican to Catholic so he could marry her. Grandma got born, grew up in Lahore, a city in India that somehow got itself moved to Pakistan. She became an “air hostess” for BOAC, an airline that doesn’t even exist anymore, and she met Grandpa when he was a Marine guard stationed at the American Embassy. At a “do,” where they danced like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. And they got permission from Grandpa’s CO to get married. And then they had a baby — did they have to call her Safia? — and then they travelled as Grandpa Terry got stationed in different countries. And Kathleen’s mom grew up to work in the airline business too, except that she’s still only in ticketing because, she says, nowadays Pakistan-born employees need not apply to be crew members.
“… and about my life in Lahore and all my travels.”
“Uh-huh,” says Kathleen. “Like I’d care.”
For once Grandma Miriam falls silent. She pulls out her handkerchief, dabs her eyes.
Kathleen keeps walking. Grandma is sniffing.
Kathleen is savagely glad. She can’t remember how it feels not to be angry.
• • •
Next morning, Kathleen comes downstairs in her pyjamas.
No water boiling on the stove in the kitchen. No Grandma bustling around in her scuzzy old apron.
Kathleen yawns. She dreamed of Dad last night. He was showing the orangutan-haired woman around the house, Kathleen’s old house. He was standing in Kathleen’s room by her old toy box. The toy box opened and that woman leaned over and looked inside, and then she threw back her head and laughed. Kathleen shakes her head and flexes her neck, trying to get rid of the sound.
Grandpa Terry is sitting in his chair in the living room, in the dark, newspaper folded on his knees.
“Is Grandma still asleep?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she went to the store for milk.”
“It’s six a.m. The store isn’t open yet.”
“She saw Safia off to work,” he says. “Said Safia had to leave early.” He looks around, pats his pockets.
“Is something missing?”
“Can’t find my watch.”
“Don’t worry,” says Kathleen, imitating Grandma. “It’ll show up. Did she take her jacket?”
“Of course she took her jacket — she’s always cold.” He sounds peeved. Grandma says he gets “crotchety” if she doesn’t feed him.
“Make some coffee,” he says.
“Didn’t she do that yet?”
Kathleen looks for coffee in all the cupboards but comes up with only a dusty jar of instant.
Why on earth does Grandma need to hide all the spoons — is it some ritual from Pakistan? Grandpa will have to use a fork.
“I’m hungry,” says Grandpa. “Make some cream of rice.”
Kathleen wants to tell him to make it himself, but he’s semiblind and forgetful and her grandfather, so she can’t. She figures out how to turn on the stove and when a blue flame finally blossoms, sticks a saucepan and Grandpa’s cream of rice on it.
“Make it thick,” he shouts from the living room.
Kathleen tries to remember the times she has half-watched Grandma make it.
“Why don’t you get a microwave,” she says, as she stirs and stirs.
“When you get rich, you can buy us one.” Grandpa guffaws into his false teeth.
Kathleen puts a bowl of cream of rice and a fork on the kitchen table. Grandpa shuffles in till he bangs against the table and takes his seat.
“There’s no milk,” he says.
“You’re welcome, Grandpa,” Kathleen mutters into the cold that greets her inside the fridge. Where is the milk?
Grandma went out to buy coffee and milk. Maybe she went for a walk before she went to buy milk. Maybe she couldn’t sleep. Yeah, that’s it. She went for a walk before she went to buy milk. Maybe she fell in Lake Michigan — happens in winter when perfect idiots walk out on cardboard-thin ice. Could happen in fall too, with the currents and all.
Fine, she’s dead. Now there won’t be anyone to scold Kathleen. There won’t be anyone really Pakistani-looking in her family any more.
Kathleen finds a tiny jug of milk in the back. She pours half the milk over Grandpa’s cream of rice and places the jug back in the cold interior. She runs upstairs, wriggles out of her pyjamas and into a sweatshirt and jeans. Turns on rap music louder than loud, just because she can.
No, Grandma is not dead. She can’t be. Maybe she just left Grandpa. No — what did Grandpa do to Grandma, anyway? Did he ever order her not to eat Pakistani food? Does he drink and watch CNN non-stop till three in the morning? Did he ever take a bimbo on a cruise to Panama? So he has false teeth — Grandma never said she minded. People her mom and dad’s age get divorced, not Grandma Miriam and Grandpa. They’re like salt and pepper, peanut butter and jelly, Mary-Kate and Ashley. Well, maybe not Mary-Kate and Ashley.
Grandma went to the store to buy milk. And coffee. And the store didn’t have any skim milk, which is all Grandpa drinks, so she must have gone to another store.
Kathleen turns off the music and goes into the bathroom. She brushes her teeth till her gums tingle. She runs the water at a trickle so she can hear the front door opening when Grandma comes in with the milk and coffee.
She doesn’t come.
Kathleen drags on her socks, ties the laces of her sneakers.
Grandma’ll be really mad if I’m late for school.
She thumps downstairs. Grandpa is sitting in the living room in the dark again, the paper still folded on his lap. His magnifier lies on it, and he is just staring. She turns on the light beside him and, before leaving, says, “Don’t worry. She’ll be back soon.”
She doesn’t know if he heard her. If she were married to him, she’d dump him. But Grandma …
On her way to school, Kathleen kicks stones along the bike path, looking over her shoulder in case Grandma is following. In algebra class, she comes out of a daydream to find the teacher talking about simultaneous equations you can solve only by adding them together or switching sides. That glacier is back at the base of her stomach.
What if Grandma has left Kathleen?
Fine. She can be that way. I don’t care.
• • •
At lunchtime, Kathleen slides her cafeteria tray over the rails behind Jodie’s.
“What’s up?” says Jodie, helping herself to a strawberry yogurt.
“Not much.” Kathleen takes the same so she doesn’t need to decide. “I think I lost my grandma.” That sounded pretty stup
id.
“No kidding.” Jodie leads the way to a table. “Didn’t know she was sick. When’s the funeral?”
“No, I mean we can’t find her. She wasn’t at home this morning. She didn’t walk me to school.”
“And you think she got lost?”
“No, she’s lived in this area since before I was born. I don’t know. She could be a missing person.”
Kathleen keeps her back to the Muslim girl as she gives Jodie the details.
“Have you made flyers, you know, like people make for lost cats?”
“No, no yet.” Kathleen pictures Grandma’s face on a milk carton. With hat or without? She should have checked her hats.
“Did you call 911?”
“No. I mean, not yet.”
“Aren’t you going to?”
“Sure.”
“They have canine search teams,” Jodie says. “I saw them on TV. But hey, maybe she’s been kidnapped.”
“No, Grandpa’s not rich.”
“I know — she went for a walk by the lake. People fall in sometimes.”
That’s not what Kathleen is imagining. Kathleen is imagining Grandma boarding a plane to Pakistan right now with her brother, both “voluntary departures.” Hadn’t Kathleen said, “If you like Pakistan so much, why did you leave?” Grandma might be on her way home to Lahore — Kathleen can’t go find her in Lahore.
But wait, didn’t she say people in Lahore didn’t want her or her family?
Jodie lends Kathleen her cell phone to call Grandpa.
“No,” says Grandpa. “She hasn’t come home. And I’m pretty sure she’s taken my watch.”
“Taken your watch? She has her own.”
“Well if she didn’t steal it, either Safia did or you did. Or someone else did.”
“I didn’t steal your watch, Grandpa. Bet you anything I can find it for you. Did you find a note?”
“No. Did you?”
“I haven’t looked for one.”
“Well, why do you think I should look for one?”