The scarlet Indian Delights recipe book sat on her wooden kitchen shelf like a holy book. Besides, she thought, Ismail might not like Violet’s cooking. Or Violet’s dark hands in their kitchen, which she wasn’t sure were entirely … clean.

  Shirin watched the onions sizzle in the oil and turmeric as orange puffs of smoke rose up, imprisoning the tears in her eyes. Onion-egg reminded her of her childhood.

  I could’ve left him that night, she thought, remembering the day Gori died. But she’d felt guilty that night. And every night since.

  The eggs hit the hot onions with a hiss, and she scrambled them all together into a yellow cloud. She set it on a white plate, which she put down on the low table next to Ismail.

  The colour in him had faded over the years and he’d developed a large belly she was repulsed by. The buttons on his shirts barely held together. He insisted on eating curries and fried foods, even though she encouraged him to eat healthily once in a while. But he seemed determined to be fulfilled in the way of food, filling his belly at every opportunity, pushing his resentment deeper into the abyss of his stomach until he couldn’t taste it any more.

  Over time it had become a habit. He seemed perennially indifferent. Shirin wondered if he cared whether he lived or died.

  She couldn’t remember when she’d last touched him. She tried to think back, as she absentmindedly placed the frying pan in the sink and watched the water and washing liquid turn into foam. Violet would wash it on Monday.

  What was the point of a clean home if there was nobody to see it?

  She would’ve liked to have had a family.

  Or a daughter.

  A daughter like Zaina.

  Downstairs, in bed, a sleepy Zaina was thinking about Shirin. Life has its own secrets it keeps to itself. Two souls may meet each other in thought many times, and never know it.

  In Zaina’s ten years of living in the apartment complex, she and Shirin had only ever exchanged greetings and the odd ‘Eid mubarak’. While she’d never seen Shirin doing anything horrible, she’d heard the women in the building whispering about her snobbish manner and the plethora of shopping bags she came home with.

  But since that night she’d walked past her flat, that haunting music kept creeping back into her mind. Zaina wondered what people would say about her, too, if they found out she was secretly seeing a boy.

  She was intrigued by Shirin’s beauty, wondering what she herself would look like at that age and hoping it would be at least half as put together as Shirin … minus the ego, of course.

  Zaina decided that she wouldn’t judge Shirin. Who was a sinner to judge, anyway?

  A knock on the front door alerted Zaina to the realisation that it was already 9-ish on a Saturday. Her room was always blindingly bright, with its white curtains and cupboards. After many months of not being able to commit to a colour after they’d moved in, Zaina had chosen to go all white (and virginal, like Billy said). That way, all she had to do was change her duvet or accessories, and the entire room looked made over. She had to admit, though, sometimes she loathed the intrusion of the sunlight. Even when her white curtains were fully drawn, she couldn’t escape being bathed in the bright glow of the morning.

  The most comforting thing about her room were the books. Piles and piles of books. Inside her cupboards, Zaina’s clothes were dumped on the shelves, and some had surrendered to the floor. Her shoes all went into some dark corner she didn’t care to venture into. But her books – those were sacred.

  When the books outgrew the bookshelves, little book towers seemed to mushroom up out of the floor. Her room smelled like a library, and no Kindle in the world could replace that. She could never throw away her books, and she seldom lent them to anyone unless she felt that the person needed their therapy.

  Each book had come to her like a Divine message, when she’d needed it the most. It was more than a coincidence that When You Hear Hoofbeats, Think of a Zebra by Shems Friedlander had come to her when she’d felt lost a few years earlier. A Suitable Boy had held her hand through high school, when she’d had her first crush. Now, One Hundred Shades of White by Preethi Nair sat on the top of the pile next to her bed, which acted like a nightstand.

  The little towers of books cast large shadows across the floor as the sun reached further into the sky. Rabia had warned her about the white being too harsh for a bedroom, but Zaina hated admitting being wrong to her mother, so she and her books suffered in the sunlight and made sabr.

  Billy had eased her suffering with a navy sleep mask from Typo that bore the legend ‘Offline’, and she felt like Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl when she wore it. Peeping out from under it, she reached for her phone on top of her book pedestal.

  She’d kept the message for a week now. She’d read it and re-read it when no one was looking, reminding herself that it was real.

  He’d called her by her name. He’d referred to its meaning as a beautifier of things.

  My Zayyana. You have adorned my life.

  She lay there for a while, staring at the ceiling, letting the butterflies in her tummy do a few flips and then settle down.

  Her room door was slightly ajar, as always. It was an unspoken rule between mother and daughter that as two women living on their own, doors should be left open in case one of them became ill or needed some other kind of urgent help.

  Zaina took in the predictable sounds of Rabia greeting Precious reminding her of her work, letting her know Zaina would make her lunch, and then Precious closing the bathroom door to change into her work clothes.

  Rabia peeped into Zaina’s room, squinted in the light, and breezed in, kissing Zaina goodbye and rattling off a list, ‘have-a-nice-day, make-sure-Precious-eats and don’t-forget-to-buy-rolls’, before rushing off to the shop. Saturdays were demanding at Faith and Flowers, full of people who were too busy during the week to place orders, or hungover sods who needed to send their girlfriends floral apologies for the night before.

  Zaina made her bed and sauntered out in her lilac pyjamas. In the lounge, Precious was sweeping. Upstairs, sewing machines seemed to be in a race to the finish as Ruki’s students tried their best to outstitch each other. It made the windows vibrate in a regular weekly rhythm.

  ‘Morning, Precious,’ Zaina yawned. ‘How are you?’

  Precious was a morning person, but not by choice. She woke up every day at 4 a.m. to sell queen cakes at the taxi rank. Then she went home to her small house in Mayville, stowed away her profits, bathed and made her way to Summer Terrace.

  On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Precious worked for Mrs Hassim on the third floor, who always complained that 9 a.m. was too late to start work. But it suited Rabia just fine. It allowed her to sleep in a little on Saturday mornings, eat a quiet breakfast and tidy up. Rabia’s mother had taught her to arrange her home before the maid arrived, and Rabia took half an hour before Precious came to fold away her musallah and burqa, neaten the fridge, stack all Zaina’s designs on one corner of the dining table, and put the dishes in the sink to soak. A maid must never think you need them too much.

  ‘Hau, morning, Zaina. I’m okay, and you?’ Precious asked, slightly amused at Zaina’s hair in all its haphazard untidiness. Precious bent down to pick up a tangle of dust and debris. She was wearing her old denim skirt and a red T-shirt that said ‘Inspi(red)’. Zaina wondered if she really was.

  ‘I’m okay. I’ll be in the bathroom,’ Zaina called, turning into the small room and closing the door.

  This was their routine. Precious would clean the lounge and dining room first, while Zaina showered and prepared Precious’s lunch in the kitchen.

  Zaina didn’t convey Rabia’s instructions to Precious about the work she needed to do or supervise her like she told her to. ‘You let your maid do what they want,’ Rabia had told her, ‘and they will sit on your head!’

  Those few hours in the flat with Precious on Saturdays felt like the ceiling was pressing down on Zaina. They stayed out of each other’s way. Sometimes, when their bodies came too close to each other or touched by accident in the narrow corridor or the kitchen, both apologised, stopped breathing and kept their eyes fixed on the floor.

  This strangeness Zaina felt, however, went deeper than having someone else clean their home. It was guilt. Guilt at lazing around at 9 a.m. while this woman, someone else’s daughter or sister or mother, cleaned her mess in the next room; guilt at watching television while she ironed their clothes and cleaned their toilet. She wondered if any madam would clean someone else’s home for a measly R120.

  The food Rabia kept for Precious embarrassed Zaina – leftover samoosas that had lost their crispiness, peanut-butter sandwiches, sometimes three-day-old tinned-fish curry, always in a container set aside only for Precious. This was an old custom, passed down through generations who did things the way their mothers and grandmothers had done, when the monster of apartheid had breathed evil into the nooks and crannies of everyone’s homes. Somehow, the colour of the maid’s skin meant she could carry the heaviest things, endure minimal pay and extended hours, and eat food that her madam would turn her nose up at.

  It was these lingering degradations, like maids who cleaned their madams’ toilets but weren’t allowed to use them, that crawled beneath Zaina’s skin and made her restless. She knew her mother did a few of these things because that was what she’d been taught. Besides, Rabia liked when people knew their place.

  Rabia wasn’t as bad as some of the madams they knew, Zaina tried to reason with herself. Precious used their toilet; she didn’t have to go downstairs to use the maids’ toilet. The food she was given was still good, most of the time. Sometimes Precious even got haleem or mutton curry. But today, when Zaina saw that her mother had laid out the ingredients for an egg sandwich for Precious, Zaina’s heart sank. She quickly put them away and ordered a pizza online. She knew this would infuriate Rabia if she knew, so Zaina decided it was best not to tell her mother.

  Zaina had made plans to meet Billy on the beach, and she dressed in dark blue jeans, a black T-shirt and a jacket. She had a fight with a blue floral scarf, not being able to decide whether it should cover her hair or not. Sometimes she felt guilty for not wearing a scarf. She knew the command was to cover her hair but she was becoming more partial to the increasingly popular feminist idea of #herbodyherchoice, which had trended on Instagram in the last few months. Still, she felt shameful when she met elders like Mr Hassim in the lift, who wouldn’t return her greeting or even look at her when she wasn’t covered. Then again, she loved her curly hair and feeling the breeze through it. In the end, she wore the scarf around her neck. Her hair curled lazily along the side of her face and down her back.

  She mumbled the necessary instructions to Precious. ‘You don’t have to answer the phone.’ ‘Have lunch.’ ‘If someone knocks, take a message.’

  ‘Yes, small medem,’ said Precious, smiling.

  She hated it when Precious called her that. But Precious didn’t mean it that way. It was just her manner of teasing Zaina.

  When she left, Zaina locked Precious in. She didn’t enjoy this, but after Aunty Julie’s old maid, Dorcas, had put on all her madam’s expensive coats from Hong Kong, filled her bags with her jewellery and perfume and her precious mutton dhania sausages, and waltzed out the building, past a sleeping Robert, all the neighbours had become more cautious.

  Zaina had learned to swat away twinges of guilt that crept up her spine and into her chest every week. She imagined Precious inside, hearing the lock of the gate click, knowing she was being imprisoned. Then Zaina consoled herself like she did every time, telling herself that Precious might like being alone, without someone hovering in her space, so that she could sing freely and watch Our Perfect Wedding.

  SHIRIN’S ONION-EGG

  2 teaspoons coconut oil for frying

  ½ onion, sliced

  ¼–½ teaspoon turmeric powder

  3 or 4 organic eggs, beaten

  salt to taste

  • In a large frying pan, heat a little coconut oil. Add the onion, sprinkle with turmeric (if you want it very orange, add a lot; if you want it to look nice, add less) and allow to brown, about 8 minutes.

  • Add the eggs and a pinch of salt. Scramble, but don’t overcook.

  • Serve with fresh bread and hot milky tea. Some people like to serve this with pineapple jam and roti. I do not recommend that type of behaviour.

  Serves 2

  8

  THE BUILDING SEEMED MORE AWAKE THAN USUAL. Ruki was double-checking everyone’s savoury order for Ramadaan. The filling and folding was all going to happen the following Friday, but this year she’d also undertaken the supervision of the mixing and packing of the wedding chevro. She flitted about with her notebook and her confirmations via the building WhatsApp group, ensuring all her samoosa orders were correct for each flat.

  On the top floor, spoons clanked against pots and spicy aromas of fried onions and jeera floated through the doughnut hole from Number 12. Zara’s soon-to-be in-laws were visiting Aunty Julie to bring her the bespoke Patchi chocolate wedding favours, and she was preparing a Durban feast for them. Prawn curry. Fried sardines. Mango lassi.

  Zaina made a special prayer that nobody would notice her and ask her the ‘when are you getting married?’ question. She reached the ground floor and closed the lift door quietly, then walked quickly across the foyer, making herself as invisible as possible and hoping she wouldn’t run into any of Laila Motala’s plethora of children.

  As she wished this, one of them came hurtling towards her. Little Isa crashed into her as if catapulted by his mom’s voice. He peered up at Zaina, icing in his curly ginger hair and around his mouth. His pink lips quivered on the verge of a wail.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. Maaf. ’ Laila rushed out, admonishing her son with that look mothers use to strike terror into their children. One of her maids, Hlengi, appeared next to the little boy almost immediately and swept him up onto her back, tying a blanket around him and cooing at him in Zulu. Tantrum averted.

  ‘It’s fine. He’s so adorable,’ Zaina said, smiling at him. He’d turned bright pink and was sobbing into Hlengi’s back.

  ‘He’s been into my cakes. Again!’ Laila complained, wiping her hands on her dirty apron. ‘And I have an order for a birthday party tonight.’

  Her daughter, Fatima, who was just beginning to crawl, peered out shyly from the doorway.

  In a hurry to see Billy, Zaina wished Laila luck with the rest of her baking, wiped the tiny white sugary handprint off her jeans, and made her escape.

  Zaina would never forget the day Laila, her husband Reza and their four children had moved into the building. Laila was the only white Muslim woman she’d ever met, and the only madam in the building with two maids. Laila was a unicorn of sorts: she held no ties to Indian culture and obligations, and she often dyed the tips of her hair candyfloss pink.

  All the residents were a little intrigued by the fair beauty and her screamy, creamy children with their light brown hair and milky skin. Even frail Mrs Bhoola had limped out to peer down the doughnut hole at them. They’d provided gossip for days – speculation around Laila’s conversion and her Muslim mothering skills.

  The men in the building admired Reza for finding himself a fair wife – an actual white woman, in fact – but the women seemed to feel unsettled by her, doubting her identity as a Muslim woman who could cook and clean, and especially scandalised that she needed two maids. Soon enough, however, her baking business filled the building with scents of vanilla and chocolate, and many of the neighbours ate their words humbly.

  Her elder son, Uwais, often carried her bakes to all the neighbours, greeted them courteously with salaam, and received many ‘Mashallah’s when he mentioned he was memorising the Qur’aan. It didn’t take long before they all agreed that Laila could cook and bake just as well as any Muslim woman – and that she could say ‘kassam!’ and yell ‘maderchod!’ just as well as any frustrated Indian mom.

  Billy was waiting for Zaina at their usual spot on the beach, between the two palm trees opposite Milky Lane. She was plopped on the sand, squinting out into the vastness of the ocean and reaching into her bag for her phone when she spotted Zaina walking towards her.

  Zaina took in the view before her, from the pristine white hotels of Umhlanga on the left, down to the Moses Mabhida Stadium’s pure white arches, to the white peaks of uShaka Marine World all the way to the right. Like whirling dervishes, they seemed to spin in place along the coast, praising Him. Durban winters were truly beautiful. Just the other day she’d sat on this very sand with Imraan. She smiled a guilty smile.

  ‘So? Are you finally going to tell me?’ Billy asked, tingling with anticipation as she jumped up to hug Zaina, startling a few subdued pigeons.

  ‘Tell you what? As-salamu alaikum to you too.’

  ‘Zayyana! You tell me what’s up with you and that boy! Right now! Besides, you owe me for covering your lying ass!’ Billy taunted, pulling Zaina down to sit on the cold sand next to her.

  Zaina laughed. ‘Are these jeans okay for the beach?’ The last time they’d met in this spot, Billy had had a laugh at Zaina’s diamanté-studded jeans, which she’d said were too flashy for the beach. She’d made a conscious effort to wear a less conspicuous pair today.

  ‘Don’t change the subject.’ Billy pointed at her. ‘You know you’re playing with fire. Believe me, you deserve to have some fun. But don’t invest.’

  Often, Billy had trouble deciding what to wear, so she wore everything she was drawn to. Today, she painted quite a picture in her blue jeans, yellow jersey and white sunhat. Her red bag seemed to cling for dear life to her stick-like arm: since she’d been pickpocketed on the beach last December, Billy always had her handbag attached to her. Some curious children turned and looked at her as she spoke animatedly, digging her toes into the sand.