Rabia had been taught never to talk back to an older person, out of respect. But she’d also learned to fight with harsh words that floated out of her mouth in a deceptively even tone. It’s what had made her a good lawyer: nobody expected it. ‘Or what? She is half a person?’ she asked now, quietly.

  Zaina, who knew this tone of her mother’s very well, made herself look busy.

  Sensing Rabia’s irritation, Dolly interjected. ‘You should get your wife some flowers, AK,’ she suggested, a bit too loudly. ‘She probably deserves something for putting up with you,’ she added, under her breath.

  ‘Oh, no, no, she won’t like flowers. And besides, she is so busy now with Ramadaan. She’s still taking orders this year for pies and samoosas. You should order from her,’ he said, looking at Rabia. ‘You too, Dolly. Maybe you can order some for the wedding, or just for supper. Your husband will like it.’

  Dolly didn’t take kindly to someone else suggesting they knew her husband’s tastes. ‘And what do you know about what my husband will like?’ she asked, turning to AK.

  ‘Er, no, I’m just giving my advice, you know. My wife makes lovely savouries. Anyway, I should get going now,’ AK stammered, finally realising he’d spun himself into a sticky web and anxious to exit it.

  ‘If I want advice, I will be sure not to come to you, AK. Please pass my condolences to your wife,’ Dolly called after him.

  Rabia couldn’t help but feel slightly vindicated, watching Dolly turn on AK like an insulted mother hen. That will teach him, she thought to herself. The way most of the men she knew managed to assume things or suggest what they thought would be best irked her to her very core. Nowadays there was even a word for it: mansplaining. Yacoob had been like that, his stubborn manner of thinking he was always right often ending up revealing his ignorance.

  Zaina was proud of Dolly and her mother for standing up to AK. Thoughts of Rabia filtered into her mind and consumed it. If only she knew that most women didn’t judge her. Rather, they admired her for her courage to live her own life. All Zaina’s friends wanted to be like Rabia when they grew up, wishing their mothers were as independent as she. Bit by bit, Zaina was learning just how brave and wise her mother actually was.

  Robert liked hearing the sounds of people waking early in the morning. Ramadaan made him feel closer to the residents. The men would all go to the mosque for Fajr, the early-morning prayer, the sleep still hanging heavily on their eyelids.

  Ruki’s husband Solly was different, though. He was used to waking up early, inspired by the hope of seeing the sunrise after praying. His eyes shone.

  Robert had seen him age over the years. After every trip, he seemed to have accumulated a few more lines, or lost some more strands of hair. But his patience remained resilient, finding its home within his smile.

  He’d brought Robert a miniature glass model of one of the tallest buildings in Dubai. It sat proudly on his desk, pointing to the sky. Sometimes it reminded Robert that everyone would end up in the sky one day.

  Ramadaan ticked on in a quiet melancholy. For some, like Joyce and Violet, the days became extended, so that they were on duty early in the morning to wash the dishes from sehri and late into the afternoon to set the table for iftaar, ‘with three chutneys and kajoor’, the way their madams had taught them. Other madams, like Aunty Julie, who liked to pray after sehri and Fajr, decided that work could start at 10 a.m. so, in her case, Kadija could break her fast with the family at the iftaar table.

  Zaina enjoyed parts of Ramadaan. When she was little, she’d enjoyed the thrill of waking up before dawn for the early-morning meal, sehri. There was a girl in school whose name was Sehrish, and she was fresh, like morning dew. Her skin was pale and flawless, an empty slate, the way your tummy felt when there wasn’t anything in it except water and dates. Zaina had decided that one day when she had a daughter, she would name her Sehrish.

  She also resolved that she would ensure that Eid would be fun and exciting for her daughter, unlike it was for her. Zaina didn’t anticipate Eid as eagerly as her friends did. It was meant to be a celebration, a day of family and togetherness … and a million copied-and-pasted Eid SMSes asking for forgiveness and promising a blindingly brilliant array of blessings. These were particularly prolific when Eid fell on a Saturday or Sunday, when SMSes and blessings were free.

  Zaina couldn’t remember a time when she’d enjoyed Eid. All her friends went out to buy new clothes for the day, and while her mother had encouraged this too, Zaina had never seen the point. Every Eid would be a day spent languishing in her grandmother’s home in Westville, trying to make conversation while avoiding triggering questions from Hafsa Masi and her sister. She would smile and nod with Uncle Waahid’s children, Faaria and Firdaus, who seemed like twins but in fact were two years apart in age. They would tell Zaina stories of their private school and their new cellphones. And if that wasn’t painful enough, Zaina was often dumped with her aunt’s pampered toddler, Noor, who needed constant attention thanks to his kleptomaniac ways.

  She wasn’t unaware that her relatives treated boys differently – better. Every Eid, or at any family gathering, she was reminded of this. But through the years, she’d realised that most families had their fair share of tissue issues at Eid. It was like those Christmas movies that started showing in November on daytime television. Family get-togethers often equalled drama. For most people, not just her.

  And as she grew older, and began to understand her mother better, she also understood the need for her to buy her new Eid clothes. Rabia had learned to create a sense of joy instead of dwelling on the injustices of the past. The world was unjust but Rabia had tried to show her daughter how to find the gaps where happiness spilled through and tear them open with both hands.

  This year, Zaina decided, Ramadaan would be different. She had a lot to look forward to. She couldn’t kill the inkling of hope that Imraan would show up after his trip with a proposal – at her door, ‘like a gift’, as her mother had said true love would.

  CAPPUCCINO ROMANY CREAMS DESSERT

  1 box cappuccino Romany Creams

  1 punnet strawberries, washed and sliced

  1 cup cream

  1 tin caramel treat

  2 teaspoons icing sugar

  1 Flake or some shards of white chocolate for decorating

  • Crush the Romany Creams coarsely and arrange in the bottom of a square ovenproof dish. Arrange half the sliced strawberries over this. Set aside.

  • In a bowl, whisk together the cream, caramel and icing sugar until well combined and smooth.

  • Pour the cream mixture over the biscuits and strawberries, smoothing down the mixture with a spatula and covering the lower layer completely.

  • Arrange the rest of the strawberry slices on top, and decorate with chocolate. Refrigerate until set.

  Serves 6

  21

  RUKI AND SOLLY OFTEN WENT FOR UMRAH together, spending the last two weeks of Ramadaan in Madina and Makkah.

  Ruki could never forget the first gust of dry, warm air that had enveloped her when she’d stepped off the plane in Jeddah as a shy twenty-year-old. Nor could she forget the first morning prayer in Madina. She’d felt as if she were walking through a pastel-hued picture painted by someone who knew what Jannat was like.

  She’d prayed on the cold marble floor, touching her forehead to the green carpet covering the sacred land, and laid her size-four footprints just metres away from the holy Kaaba. Solly had taken her to it, protecting her from the crowd. She’d been afraid to touch its velvet shroud, worried it would repel her for her penchant for backbiting or watching television. She remembered its mesmerising scent, which had still been on her hands hours later when she’d raised them to pray.

  ‘My Joyce, you’ve been so quiet. Are you feeling sick?’ Ruki enquired now, as Joyce folded her madam’s cloaks and burqas, neatly fitting them into Solly’s travel-weathered suitcase, next to her underwear.

  ‘No, no, Ruki. I am just making sure your bag is packed and you have all your medicine. Please, you must remember to take it.’

  ‘Oh, ho, stop worrying. I will be fine. Where I am going, there’s no need to worry. Anyway, you must relax while I’m gone. Don’t clean every day, okay? Just certain days. And you have our numbers? Check again.’

  Uncle Solly had made sure that Joyce had enough money for an emergency, that all their contact numbers were stuck to the fridge door, and that the electricity bill had been paid in advance.

  ‘Yes, I have everything. I will keep an eye on everything. And I am coming with you to the airport. Now, please go greet everyone before it gets late.’

  While Solly and Joyce packed the bags into the shuttle downstairs, Ruki said goodbye to her scarved neighbour. ‘You look beautiful, Shirin,’ she said quietly.

  Shirin hugged her. ‘Have a safe trip.’

  It was customary to ask for forgiveness before a visit to the Holy Land, but Shirin hadn’t expected this from Ruki. But Ruki asked anyway, the tears stinging her eyes as she tried to bat them away.

  Shirin held on to her, genuinely forgiving her for their misunderstandings and petty squabbles.

  ‘Don’t take Joyce while I’m away, okay?’ Ruki joked.

  ‘Who, me?’ smiled Shirin, mischievously.

  The other neighbours hugged Ruki goodbye, all requesting her to make certain duaas for them and to take care of herself. Mrs Hassim was emotional, as was Aunty Julie. Madina was the one place in the world that you could never tire of. It was as if your worldly worries disappeared into the sky and your soul was reinvigorated, like ice-cold zam zam water through your veins.

  Rabia, Zaina and Joyce accompanied Ruki and Solly to the airport. People had to be there for others, no matter what, Rabia thought. And besides, Ruki, despite her sometimes irritating manner, had etched a place in her heart. In many ways, Ruki reminded Rabia of her mother.

  The airport was north of Durban, up past the crystal shores of Umhlanga and Ballito. Driving there in the large shuttle was an adventure in itself, before arriving at that place that sat between comings and goings. It was a destination in transition. The King Shaka airport was new, sparkling and white, light like a paper plane that could be lifted with the wind. Zaina loved it: it was a place where languages and emotions lived and died in the shortest time between two people, a space full of elation, expectation and bitter goodbyes.

  There was a couple at the entrance to the gleaming boarding gates and Zaina couldn’t tell which one was leaving. They were wrapped up in each other, holding on tight, reluctant to perforate their bubble. The young man was crying. Quietly heartbroken, he held his loved one’s waist as she picked up her bag. They parted like thorns from cottonwool.

  Zaina had learned in madressah that death was like that, the parting of the soul from the body.

  Ruki was dressed all in white. Uncle Solly, too. They looked radiant, as if the noor of the Holy Lands had blessed them even before they set foot on the plane. Ruki had been sewing her white cloak and pink-trimmed burqa for a few weeks; Zaina remembered the pink cotton that had escaped to the floor the day she’d sat in Ruki’s flat so impatiently, waiting to meet Imraan.

  Uncle Solly was rolling their bag along next to him as if it was an extra, familiar appendage. To Zaina, Solly and Ruki seemed like two coconut grains that had met in the mixing bowl of life, and held on to each other through windy flights and rainy nights.

  Enveloped in her generous hug, Zaina realised she might miss Ruki and the sound of her sewing machine above her.

  Rabia was usually less generous with her emotions, but she cried when she hugged Ruki nonetheless. In her heart, she longed to go with them. Sometimes she resented her choice to leave Yacoob. With him as her mahram, she could have fulfilled the requirements for a woman to visit to the Holy Land with her male relative. He owed her that, at least. But she resolved that if Allah called her, He would make a way.

  Wordlessly, Joyce and Ruki hugged. ‘Arreh, Joyce! I’ll be back in no time to nag you,’ Ruki said, her face turning red, her eyes brimming with tears.

  Speaking past a lump in her throat, Joyce said quietly, ‘Ruki, pray for us, and come back safely, and I pray you are healed.’

  Ruki became serious for a second, and said, ‘Inshallah.’ Reaching into her bag, she fished out an envelope and placed it in Joyce’s hand. ‘I know what you and the maids did. Thank you.’

  Back in the shuttle, the three women sat quietly, each occupied with her own thoughts. Since Ruki had palmed her the envelope, Joyce couldn’t shake a feeling of dread, and now, quietly, she opened it.

  It contained a large wad of banknotes.

  That evening, Joyce made her way to the maids’ quarters. She tapped on two doors, and Violet and Thandi followed her into Kadija’s sparse little room. Save for a picture of her children in Malawi and an Islamic prayer in a rusty frame, everything in the space was functional.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ Kadija enquired.

  ‘What’s this about?’ Violet asked, sullenly.

  While Joyce tried to work out how to explain herself, Thandi ordered, ‘Joyce! Say something.’

  ‘This is for us.’ Joyce held up the money.

  ‘What? Where did you get so much cash from?’ Violet demanded, her eyes the size of golf balls.

  Thandi said calmly, ‘Joyce, please explain where this money came from. I won’t touch stolen money.’

  ‘The wedding jewellery. Ruki knows it was us. She went to Makkah today. She said this is for us, to thank us for what we did. I don’t know if the other madams know but that isn’t important. It’s five thousand rand.’

  The maids looked at her in disbelief. All they’d wanted was not to be suspected, to regain the trust of their madams even though it had been no fault of theirs that that trust had been squandered. They hadn’t expected anything in return.

  Thandi took the stack of cash from Joyce and held it between her palms, praising the Lord. She’d felt awful admonishing Jabu in front of his mother and making him promise to never return. But God had rewarded her. ‘Ngiyabonga, Jesu,’ she said, looking heavenwards. For all their moments of invisibility, a madam had seen them.

  She and Joyce shared the money out evenly between them, storing Sibo, Hlengi and Precious’s share in envelopes under Kadija’s mattress for safekeeping, and the mood turned jovial. They stayed up talking long into the night and on into the early hours, until the madams’ sehri lights flickered on.

  Violet seemed to soften, eventually inviting Joyce to stay the night in their home away from home.

  At the sehri table, Zaina and Rabia looked at each other sleepily. Rabia had lined up her energy cereal, power smoothie, vitamin tablets, peanut-butter sandwich and tea. Methodically, she worked her way through each item, fuelling herself for the long, dry day ahead during which she would need to fend off physical weakness.

  Across from her, Zaina crunched away at her Cornflakes and sipped her water through gritted teeth – she didn’t like eating this early in the morning.

  Imraan was still sending her messages. One day we will share our sehris together, today’s message said. Zaina imagined him in some rural area, and wondered what he was eating for sehri.

  She made her intention for fasting with Rabia, prayed her Fajr, and went back to bed.

  Across town, Imraan awoke. Sunlight filtered through the white lace curtains his mother had hung up in his room. Once, he’d thought them too feminine; now he loved them.

  The rays of light slowly made their way upwards from his chin, tingling on his cheeks, before tugging the sleep from his heavy eyelashes. He squinted in the light, relishing that moment between leaving one world and entering the other, the blissful ignorance between awakening and the realisation of the date or time, free of worry or joy, in a lavender limbo.

  For some, the descent into the present was a most painful arrival. Sitting up in bed, Imraan met his reflection in the mirror. He didn’t know why he’d lied to Zaina about going on the trip. He’d planned to, and had made all the arrangements. But at the last minute he’d decided to stay home, and he hadn’t told her that.

  His reflection stared back. ‘You look like your father,’ his mother had said a few years ago. She was right and wrong. He’d inherited his father’s sarcastic smile and creamy complexion, but his eyes were his mother’s. Worried eyes, he saw, staring back at him.

  He’d blamed her for leaving him, but he’d loathed himself even more for not following her or trying to find her as he grew older. As a toddler, he’d followed her everywhere. Standing outside the bathroom door, waiting.

  Imraan felt ashamed.

  ‘You must learn to keep your name clean,’ little Imraan had heard his aunty telling his mother in hushed tones one Saturday morning while his father was at work. He’d crouched near the stairs, silently, breathing as softly as a four-year-old can. ‘What happens in your house is your business.’ She was strict, instructing Imraan’s mother. ‘You know the Bassa house? The green one? The elder brother hits his sister. He steals from his father. But do you ever see them fight? Do you ever hear stories? No. They protect their izzat.’

  The aunty had rattled off several similar incidents before standing to leave, a rain of Tennis-biscuit crumbs sliding off her skirt onto the grey carpet. ‘Oh, and if I were you, I would fire that maid of yours,’ she added. ‘Who knows what she must be telling her other madams.’

  The next day, Aunty Ruth had been sent home. Imraan couldn’t remember her face any more, or taste the cheesy pasta she used to make for him. She hadn’t been in family pictures. But he did recall moments of comfort, knowing that she, like him, had floated outside of the turbulent biosphere containing his mother and father.

  He wished for Aunty Ruth now. She would know what to do.

  Imraan blamed his father for never showing affection, his anger blowing up unexpectedly, and taking his mother for granted. His mother had grown tired of being invisible. His parents would fight or, worse, not talk at all. His mother had become distant, leaving home for hours. She would offer a flimsy excuse that she was working late. Then it turned into three-day-long conferences, her aloofness growing vaster each time. And then she’d left altogether.