about you from my son, who considers himself greatly in your debt.”
“Oh, not at all,” said the Major, finding himself waved back to his chair and offered more tea. The Major had never liked diminutives and found the name Dave an unlikely moniker for this Mr. Ali. “Your son is a very intense young man.”
“He is impetuous. He is stubborn. He makes his mother and me crazy,” said Dave, shaking his head in mock despair. “I tell her I was the same at his age and not to worry, but she tells me I had her to whip me into shape, while Abdul Wahid—well,
“We were all looking forward to seeing Jasmina—Mrs. Ali—when she came for the wedding,” said the Major.
“Yes, I’m sure,” said Dave in a noncommittal voice.
“She has many friends in the village,” said the Major, pressing him.
“I’m afraid she will not be coming,” said Dave Ali. “My wife and I are going in the Triumph and can barely fit our luggage. And then someone must take care of my mother, who is very frail, and Sheena is due any day now.”
“I appreciate that there are difficulties,” the Major began. “But surely, something as important as a wedding…?”
“My wife, who is the soul of kindness, Major, said ‘Oh, Jasmina should go and I will stay with Mummi and Sheena,’ but I ask you, Major, should a mother, who works seven days a week, miss her only son’s wedding?” He ran out of breath and mopped his face with a large handkerchief and considered his wife’s many sacrifices.
“I suppose not,” agreed the Major.
“Besides, it will be only the quietest of ceremonies.” Dave slurped at his tea. “I was willing to bankrupt myself to do it right, but my wife says they will prefer not to make a fuss in the circumstances. So it will be almost nothing—just a token exchange of gifts and not an ounce more than what is proper.” He paused and then looked at the Major with an eyebrow raised in significance. “Besides, we feel it is important for our Jasmina to make a clean break with the past if she is to be happy in her future.”
“A clean break?” asked the Major. Dave Ali sighed and shook his head in what appeared to be pity.
“She insisted on taking on a large burden when my brother died,” he said slowly. “A burden no woman should be asked to carry. And now we want only for her to lay down such responsibilities and be happy here in the heart of family where we can take care of her.”
“That is very generous of you,” said the Major.
“But old habits linger,” said Dave. “Myself, I look forward to the day when I can turn over our whole business to Abdul Wahid and retire, but no doubt I, too, will get under everyone’s feet and have a hard time handing over the decisions to others.”
“She is a very capable woman,” said the Major.
“In time we hope she will learn to be content here at home. She is already indispensable to my mother and she is reading the Qur’an to her every day. I have refused to put her in one of our shops. I have told her now is her time to sit back and let others take care of her. So much better to be happily at home, I tell her. No taxes or bills to pay, no books to balance, no one expecting you to know all the answers.”
“She is used to a certain independence,” the Major said.
Dave shrugged. “She is coming around. She has stopped suggesting to my poor wife new ways to run our inventory systems. Instead, she is obsessed with getting her own library card.”
“A library card?” asked the Major.
“Personally, who has time to read?” he said. “But if she wants one, I tell her she is welcome to it. We are very busy right now, what with the wedding and opening a SuperCenter next month, but my wife has promised to help her establish proof of her residency and then she will be able to sit home and read all day.”
They were interrupted by a commotion in the hallway. The Major couldn’t make out any of the words, but he heard a familiar voice cry out, “This is ridiculous. I will go in if I please,” and then the door opened and there she was, Mrs. Ali, still wearing a coat and scarf and carrying a small bag of groceries. Her cheeks were flushed, either from the argument or from having been outside, and she looked at him as if she were hungry to see all of him at once. Behind her, the young pregnant woman whispered something that made Mrs. Ali flinch.
“It’s fine, Sheena, let her come,” said Dave, getting up and waving as if to dismiss her. “It will do no harm to greet an old friend of your uncle Ahmed’s.”
“It is you,” she said. “I saw a hat in the hallway and I knew at once it was yours.”
“We did not know you were back from your errands,” said Dave. “The Major is passing by on his way to Scotland.”
“I had to come and see you,” said the Major. He wanted desperately to take her hand but he restrained the impulse.
“I was just telling the Major how much you enjoy your reading,” said Dave. “My brother used to tell me, Major, how Jasmina was always buried in reading. ‘So what if I have to do a little more so she can read. She is an intellectual,’ he would say.” His voice twisted with an unmistakable sarcasm at the word “intellectual” and the Major was gripped with an intense dislike of the man. “I’m only sorry he worked himself so hard,” added Dave mopping with his handkerchief again. “Taken so early from us.”
“That is despicable even for you,” said Mrs. Ali in a low voice. There was a pause as they looked at each other with equally locked jaws. “Sheena told me you had a business meeting,” she added.
“Sheena is very cautious,” said Mr. Ali, addressing the Major. “She worries about protecting everyone. Sometimes she even makes people wait in the street for me.”
“Grace wanted me to come and see you,” said the Major to Mrs. Ali. “I think she was expecting you to write.”
“But I did write, several times,” she said. “I see I was right to worry when I received no reply.” She gave her brother-in-law a look of mild disdain. “Is this not strange, Dawid?”
“Shocking, shocking—the post office is very bad these days,” agreed her brother-in-law, pursing his lips as if he did not like being addressed by his real name in front of an outsider. “And I speak as someone who has three sub post offices. We can only put the mail in the bag, but after that we’re not responsible.”
“I would like to talk to the Major for a few minutes alone,” said Mrs. Ali. “Should we speak here, or should I take the Major on a walk to show him the neighborhood?”
“Here will be fine, just fine,” said Dawid Ali in a hurried tone. The Major saw, with a mixture of amusement and hurt, that he was appalled at the thought of them promenading in front of the neighbors. “I’m sure the Major has to leave very soon, anyway—the afternoon traffic is so bad these days.” He went to the frosted doors and slid them open. “So we will leave you to chat about old times for a few minutes.” In the back room, a television played low and an old lady sat in a wing chair, a walking frame positioned in front of her. She looked half dead, slumped in the chair, but the Major saw her black eyes swivel toward them. “If you don’t mind, I will not ask Mummi to turn out of her chair. She will not disturb you.”
“I don’t need a chaperone,” said Mrs. Ali in a fierce whisper.
“Of course not,” said Dawid. “But we must allow Mummi to think she is useful. Don’t worry,” he added to the Major, “she’s as deaf as a post.”
“I must thank you for your hospitality,” said the Major.
“I doubt we’ll see you again, clean break and all that,” said Dawid Ali, holding out his hand. “It was a pleasure to meet such an acquaintance of my brother and an honor that you should come so far out of your way.”
After Dawid Ali had whispered a few words to his mother and left the back room, the Major and Mrs. Ali moved as far away as possible from the open doors and sat on a hard bench in the bay window. She still held her shopping bag and now she placed it under the bench and shrugged off her coat. It fell carelessly behind her.
“I feel as if I’m just dreaming that you’re here,” she said.
“I don’t think they’d like it if I pinched you,” he replied. They sat in silence for a moment. It seemed to the Major that it was necessary to break out of the usual kinds of small talk and make some declaration, some demand, but for the life of him he could not find the words to begin.
“That stupid dance,” he said at last. “I never got the chance to apologize.”
“I do not blame you for the rudeness of others,” she said.
