When She Was Queen by M.G. Vassanji Read Free Book Online Page B

dutifully, calmly, you need the exercise—Yes, said the old man, grateful for the attention, he had walked the length of the corridor three times; Are you going to mosque today, you should, to get out—the bus steps were too high for his arthritic knees, came the reply, he could go if had a car ride; Take a taxi,then, haven’t I told you you can? And so on. Following which, critiques of various people. The cleaning woman Zarin had stolen his slippers and he had asked her not to return. Why would Zarin steal your old slippers? How should
I
know? It was no use arguing with him. Let him ramble on about the woman across the hall, the Pakistani man two floors above, the other woman who was only pretending to be a senior for the cheap rent although she had the strength of a horse…. And after that, a list of things required from the shops—soap, paper flowers, paper plates…. Nazir imagined himself physically exploding while listening to all this, his blood gushing out of his heart and ears, his guts spewing all over the place, and his father’s crackling voice going on and on and on like the rusty springs of a rickety truck on an endless road…. Give the man a chance, he’s lonely.
    By the time his dad hung up, there was a message waiting, from his own son in Montreal. He called back, found Shaf.
    Hi, Dad. Mum told me—
    Where is she?
    I can’t tell you that—
    Why not? Don’t you care about me—about us? About the family unit—
    Take it easy, Dad. I promised. I can’t tell. Not now. Give her a chance, let’s work it out.
    You tell me where she is and I’ll work it out with her, I promise you.
    Like he’d done all these years. Given her everything she wanted, and more. A million-dollar house that all their friends drooled over; a sports car of her own; ahousemaid; the kids in private schools; dinners ordered in or eaten out; parties, cruises, holidays. They had gone from rags to riches in two decades, together, why would she do this to him? All he asked for was the time to do what he had to do. And that had been her constant quibble: you’re not home long enough, like other husbands and fathers. Do they have what we have? he would ask hotly. Of course not.
    No mean achievement that, rags to riches. They had done the immigrants’ apartment route in Don Mills, gone hustling after cheap prices from one end of town to another, considered themselves fortunate to be consuming fast foods and calories as a treat … all that, yet at work they hit the glass ceiling early on, she in a lawyer’s office where a British accent and white skin meant you were visible and up front, while she was relegated to the dungeons of the archives, too reserved, too nervous to ask for more, for her right to opportunity; and he as a loan clerk in a bank downtown where the manager craved nothing more than to push him out, which he eventually did. But he, Nazir, a grocer’s son, did two things right: he bought a rental unit on Spadina when property there was dirt cheap, in partnership with three others, a Bengali and two Chinese, and just before real estate prices went boom in the eighties; and while at the bank he was smart enough to invest in the money market, watching how others made their fortunes. Then one day he told Almas, Love, you don’t have to work for those sons of bitches, you stay home and bring up little Shaf here and that girl who’s on the way. Where we’re going there’s only the sky to stop us, and if you recallyour high school science, even the sky’s an illusion. And he himself told his manager to piss off, to put it mildly. He sold off his portfolio for a huge profit; with his partners he renovated the property on Spadina, converted it into an international hostel, sold it. He was rolling. He bought a bigger hotel on the Don Valley that was badly managed and made it turn a profit; then sold it. He was growing; his partners were growing; Toronto was growing. And now to
spurn
that, for some sentimental reason,