The next day, she would be back at 7 a.m. at Aunty Banu’s because she had no other option. What a good maid, some of the madams thought. She knows her place.

  Then one day Aunty Banu and her family were out for the morning when there was a knock on the door. Answering it, Violet straightened up and stared at Shirin through the gate like a defensive meerkat, soap suds braceleting her wrists. ‘Err, my medem is not here.’

  ‘That’s fine.’ Shirin had shooed the response away like a fly. ‘I just need to borrow some dhania. Can you check if she has some to spare?’

  Violet had let her in. ‘Let me just wash my hands,’ she’d said.

  Shirin had stood in the entrance and taken in the flat, with its endless loads of clean laundry to iron, and its old wooden cupboards and peeling paint.

  Violet had given Shirin half a bunch of dhania and somehow, in exchange, a R200 note had appeared in her hand. Violet looked confused.

  ‘I’m looking for a girl. I pay well and there’s only two of us at home,’ Shirin had said curtly.

  That was all it had taken for Violet to show up at 7 a.m. the next day at another madam’s door.

  Many shady things had happened between neighbours under the guise of borrowing dhania but in this building this was the worst offence – stealing a maid. Aunty Banu was livid. Her small, wrinkly face was ablaze as sweat collected in the lines around her hollow cheeks and she radiated red rage.

  Violet had expected this. Nothing stayed secret in this place for long. That’s why she kept her family in Umlazi and her business of selling clothes separate from her work in Summer Terrace.

  A few neighbours had popped their heads out of their front doors to watch the drama. Ruki and Aunty Julie tried to calm Banu down in the corridor. ‘That’s why you mustn’t praise your maid. They get a big head. And other people want them,’ Aunty Julie had said.

  Ruki rolled her eyes. ‘It’s Shirin. She just wants to upset you. Don’t worry, hah. We will find you a good maid. You just relax now. See, you’re getting all worked up.’

  Since then, madams had become protective of their maids, even to the extent of treating them better, while warning them not to talk to Violet or Shirin. It was clear that Shirin was not to be trusted. The incident clarified the boundaries between madams, and Shirin had basked in her notoriety for the last few years, like a cat in the sunshine.

  At sixty, Shirin Lockhat was still beautiful. Her hazel eyes danced with flecks of golden sunlight that had once matched the golden glints in her hair, before age had dimmed them. She had a pointy nose, high cheekbones and a wide, easy smile which she’d kept hidden. Tall and slim, with the regal elegance of a queen, she carried herself as if she walked on a million tiny glass beads or was balancing them on her head. She was always fielding complaints from the lawyer who lived in the flat below her that the clickety-clack of her high heels was incredibly annoying. Shirin put it down to jealousy.

  Even with her enviable figure, Shirin chased youth, actively engaging with social media and watching the latest series. She imagined she would make an amazing queen on Jodha Akbar. She often lost herself in her imaginings. Like today, when she sat at the mirror for hours, daydreaming.

  ‘When is breakfast going to be ready? It’s nine already!’ Ismail shouted, exasperated by the time Shirin took preening herself when she wasn’t going to see anyone but him.

  ‘Tsk. Just now!’ she called back, wondering how she’d let herself live with this man for so long. If she could have, she would have crept back into the ivory fluffiness of her bed and slept the day away.

  Staring at herself, she remembered what had happened as if it were only moments ago. She’d been young and stunningly attractive. While some men found only certain types of women sexually appealing, Shirin surpassed these effortlessly. She was ahead of the times, and while her friends hungrily devoured every fashion trend the late 1960s lowered onto their beehived heads, Shirin had her own style of cool simplicity. She enjoyed wearing saris that showed off her stature, but she also looked stately in the jeans and shirts she loved. She was the kind of woman who unleashed green envy in other women and ignited the charcoal dreams of men with a fiery flame.

  From a young age, Shirin had realised that beauty was power. Her fairness, light eyes and height were currency, and she knew how to trade. She’d revelled in the adoration of her father, who’d said yes to any request she made.

  At school the boys swooned over her, buying her snacks or sending her love letters. But she realised the real payoff in her late teens, when her fairness allowed her into areas open only to whites. Her album was full of black-and-white pictures of her sitting on a bench labelled ‘NET BLANKES’, wearing a one-piece swimming costume and laughing, with her gleaming hair thrown back as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  Why, then, would she voluntarily be tied down to the dark-skinned Ismail for the rest of her life? She pondered on that decision often, and often replayed one moment in her head.

  At a movie premiere at the Shiraz cinema, she’d caught the attention of a Bollywood producer, Sunil Kapoor. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her, and she’d delighted in his attention. ‘You’re my star!’ he would tell her, even when they returned from India contract-less because she’d refused to do a scene in which her white sari was drenched in the rain and her nipples pressed up against the fabric for the world to see.

  Undeterred, she concerned herself with modelling for fashion designers and magazines, and took any job that came up in South Africa. Her parents were prepared to allow her to live out this fantasy until she got married.

  When she’d married Ismail, she’d told him that her dream was to continue modelling, to which he’d hastily agreed. They weren’t exactly in love. At least, she wasn’t. It was a convenient match, arranged by their families because it was ‘time’. Her friends and aunties said this as if it were an indication of her expiry date.

  The truth was, Ismail was infatuated with her. For a Miabhai boy to marry a Surti girl was unheard of, but her parents didn’t really care. Farouk and Mumtaz were carefree and lived in their own worry-less world of jewelled inheritance.

  Shirin had liked his height and his warm eyes, but his job as an accountant gave him a boring disposition. But she knew that she needed the stability he could bring to her life.

  After they married, they’d lived in an apartment in Umgeni Road for two years. The first year had been hard. She’d missed her parents and her maid, Diana, who’d done her hair, cooked her favourite meals and joked with her when she needed some light-heartedness.

  Shirin hated the routine being a wife brought. She wasn’t the type to cook on command, share her bed every night, or divide her husband’s income with his mother. They couldn’t afford a maid, and Shirin resented the feeling of the warm water on dirty dishes and the heaviness of hanging up wet washing. She longed for her life in the glare of the spotlight, not in the glow of an oven.

  Ismail told her to be patient, that his property business would be up and running soon. His mother, Gori, hadn’t yet approved of her career; it wasn’t a respectful job for a Muslim girl. ‘Just another month,’ he would say.

  Maternal approval was like a vital organ to Ismail. He couldn’t bear a disapproving glance from his mother, and her constant reminder that she’d given him life didn’t go unheard. His father, Babu, on the other hand, went through life with as few words as possible. Shirin often felt as if she were in a silent movie when she tried to make conversation with him.

  But Ismail was a good husband in all the ways that counted. He provided food and shelter and he didn’t beat her, so she was grateful. And somewhere between the first year and the second, Shirin fell in love with him, despite his worship of his mother, and the obligations of taking savouries or baked goods to her khathams every second weekend. He wasn’t the boring bookworm she’d initially thought him to be, and as his business began to thrive, it awakened a liveliness in him that brought some colour to his cheeks.

  Now and then, he bought her flowers or took her out to the movies at the cinema in town.

  ‘One day I’m going to be up there on the silver screen,’ she’d told him, after watching Bobby starring her favourite hero, Rishi Kapoor.

  ‘Of course,’ he’d said as they drove home in his blue Fox. ‘Just one more month and you can start modelling or acting again.’

  But that refrain was starting to get old. And she was starting to get older, too. She worried that just as these past two years had grown out of ‘just one more month’, so would the rest of her life. While she loved Ismail, she resented him for putting her life on hold for the sake of his mother.

  Shirin had heard of mother-in-law troubles from her married friends, but she didn’t think she would experience these because their families had arranged the marriage. Besides, never in her life had she had to compete with another woman. Yet her mother-in-law, Gori, had shown some signs of regret after the wedding. She’d excluded Shirin from her family, never truly accepting her as a daughter and ridiculing her ambitions.

  Gori would find ways to criticise Shirin’s housekeeping skills – or, rather, her lack of them – and constantly compared her to the other daughters-in-law in the family. ‘Shirin’s mother didn’t teach her how to run a home. These Surti girls think they’re God’s gift to the earth,’ her mother-in-law would say, before laughing it off as a joke.

  This would cut deeper when Gori talked about her in Urdu to her family, and Shirin couldn’t completely understand – although, thanks to her love affair with Bollywood, she could make out the gist of what was being said.

  ‘That’s just the way she is. Don’t take it personally,’ was Ismail’s response to Shirin’s complaints about his mother.

  Ismail avoided conflict at all costs. He couldn’t see his mother as anything but super-human. He hung on Gori’s every word as if it were a jewel spilling from her paan-stained lips, while a hot, boiling hatred bubbled beneath Shirin’s calm exterior.

  Shirin asked to learn to cook from her and bought her presents on Mother’s Day, but Gori was distant and offered her a one-shouldered hug at every occasion, before taking centre stage – she always managed to turn the attention to herself. Shirin often felt the searing gaze of Gori’s sisters and friends on her back, and wondered what vile fiction had been spun about her this time.

  Perhaps Gori was jealous of Shirin’s beauty. Maybe it was the fact that she had no other way to mourn the loss of her son to this woman. Or it could’ve been that she truly didn’t think Shirin took care of her son the way she would have liked. Who knows why mothers hold on to the transparent umbilical cords between themselves and their sons. Some things in life will never be understood until experience becomes the teacher. Perhaps if Shirin was a mother, she would understand.

  BHAJIAS

  1 cup chana (gram) flour

  ½ cup self-raising cake flour

  ½ head lettuce or ¾ cup spinach, shredded

  ½ onion, grated

  1 medium potato, peeled and grated

  ½ medium carrot, grated (optional)

  ½ teaspoon ginger and garlic paste

  ½ teaspoon turmeric powder

  ½ teaspoon chilli powder

  ½ teaspoon salt

  ½–1 cup water at room temperature (some people prefer to add sour milk, but water keeps the bhajias light and fluffy)

  oil for deep frying

  • Put the flours, lettuce or spinach, onion, potato, carrot (if using) and spices in a bowl and mix well together.

  • Add enough water to create a creamy dough – the mixture mustn’t be watery.

  • Deep-fry spoonfuls in hot oil until light, crispy and golden brown on all sides.

  • Drain on paper towel and serve with dhania chutney or a mint-and-yoghurt dip.

  Makes 24–36

  7

  ON SHIRIN’S TWENTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY, Ismail had taken her to the fancy restaurant in the Royal Hotel, one of the few hotels that accommodated Indians. She’d dressed in her favourite sharara. It was a deep teal, the colour of the ocean when it’s filled with emeralds and sapphires, complemented by subtle gold beading that glinted in the light. She’d looked breathtaking.

  Ismail wore a black suit with a grey tie. Looking at him in the lift, she’d realised for the first time that he was handsome.

  They made their way to their table in the huge white dining area. The waiters were dressed in maroon and white, and the chandeliers above loomed over them with a grandness she’d never seen before. As they scanned their menus, Ismail took her hand in his and whispered that he loved her. It was all she wanted to hear.

  But then, looking at her hand in that moment, she noticed the bare spot where her gold watch usually sat. He’d given it to her as a birthday gift the year before.

  ‘I’ll look for it,’ he said. ‘You wait here. I’ll be back just now.’

  And those were the last words he ever said lovingly to her.

  She waited for half an hour, alone at the table. Worry began filling her body like a creeping vine. It radiated out of her chest and uncurled towards her shaking legs and frozen fingers, at the possibilities of what could have happened to her Ismail.

  She finally decided to go and look for him. She couldn’t remember how they’d come into the restaurant, and on the way out, she stumbled into a room of girls dressed just like her.

  ‘You’re late,’ the troupe leader had said icily.

  ‘Oh, no, I’m not here for this,’ she’d said. Then her gaze fell on a photographer. Realising this was a photo shoot, she’d felt a rush of what her life could have been like. She stood rooted to the floor. ‘I’m looking for my husband,’ she eventually squeezed out.

  ‘Well, if you don’t find him, call us, we could use someone like you.’

  Her heart racing, she’d found her way down the stairs and into the foyer of the hotel. In her elation at the incidental intersection with the career that should have been; that perhaps still could be; it took her a moment to register who was standing right in front of her. There was Ismail, in tears, leaning on his father, who was holding him up as best he could.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Shirin asked, dread in her throat.

  ‘Ma is gone,’ sobbed Ismail. ‘They’ve taken her body to prepare … for it. We’ll have the funeral after Esha.’ He cried quietly. ‘I knew when she told me she wasn’t feeling well this morning that we should’ve gone there rather than coming here to … this place.’ His croaky voice exploded on the last phrase, echoing through the silent foyer. ‘Come let’s go,’ he instructed.

  Shirin didn’t feel relief or sadness. She felt something else. The hatred crept up her throat like bile and sat in her mouth like a flaming ball. Even in death, his mother had managed to steal her special day. She couldn’t just die peacefully at home.

  In that moment, she couldn’t forgive Ismail. She walked towards him in slow motion, the fiery orb in her mouth, her eyes stinging with tears. Her jaw clenched, she’d said, ‘I’m going to the movies.’

  And she’d walked away. Going back to the photographer in her state was not an option.

  Shirin had watched her movie, allowing herself to be absorbed into its overworked dialogue and mesmerising dance scenes. After years of trying to be the perfect daughter-in-law, of reluctantly attending every family gathering and being put to work while others gossiped about her, she couldn’t help but feel a little tingle of rebellion that wickedly whet her appetite for freedom.

  She didn’t expect Ismail to be there when she got home that night, and had resolved to pack her things and disappear. But there he was, sitting in front of the television. And that was where Ismail had stayed, and lived his life from that night, enveloped in silence, except for the odd command.

  Over the years, they did try to have children. Perhaps the pitter-patter of little feet would ease the tension. Besides, it was the expected thing to do. Sadly, all their attempts ended in negative pregnancy tests, and a miscarriage at ten weeks when she was thirty.

  For those precious weeks, she’d seen a little bit of hope in her husband’s eyes and a hint of adoration, until the baby had decided her womb was inhospitable. She’d come to the conclusion that it was her punishment for having abandoned Ismail the day his mother died, a way of Gori ridiculing her motherly capabilities from beyond the grave.

  Shirin was sorry for not having been there for Ismail. But his reaction, too, had fuelled her anger, and sorry seemed like it would mean nothing now.

  After that, Shirin and Ismail had resumed their daily routines of grey monotony. She’d thought things would change when they’d used the inheritance their parents had left them, buying a few rental properties, and this place in Summer Terrace for themselves. Shirin had hoped that the sea and the sun would have some kind of rejuvenating effect on their marriage, and that Ismail would once again notice her beauty.

  She’d even tried to decorate their flat in more masculine tones, for him. The kitchen was dark and mirrored; the sunken lounge was framed by luxurious grey curtains that matched the soft leather couches; and their room was ivory and mahogany, like their bathroom, which had a rain shower. They had the best of everything. Yet theirs was a mechanical marriage, although Ismail still provided for her well, giving her an allowance every month.

  This Saturday, like every Saturday, Shirin made her way to the kitchen in her long cream dressing gown. She’d been considering adding cooking to Violet’s list of responsibilities. She would’ve loved to outsource this wretched chore, but as a Muslim woman, cooking seemed to be ingrained into her identity, whether she liked it or not. Even Diana, her honorary big sister and their helper in her childhood home in Westville, had been allowed to cook only occasionally and under strict supervision from Shirin’s grandmother.

  Diana had been in her twenties, and had worked for them for a few years before getting a bursary to study teaching. Shirin wondered where Diana was now, and if she still loved talking about fashion and celebrities, as she had back then.