He swept a photo off the screen. ‘And this is now. Not bad, right? More modern. She’s cut her hair and now she dresses, you know…’
He glanced at Naila to ascertain whether she did, in fact, know how modern Indian girls dressed these days, but her own fashion sense was currently hidden under a heap of aeroplane blankets. She felt seen, nonetheless, with her short, metallic haircut. She subtly fingered a pimple on her chin, which was surely a creamy button by now. She looked back at the Cadbury man’s phone, at his future wife. The woman’s expression looked more forgiving than camera-happy: Okay, just one more.
The meal began and the Cadbury man put his phone away. The carts trundled down the aisles, model-hot airline attendants explaining the options even though the passengers had already received a printed card menu in English and Arabic. Their row had already been served when Naila remembered that she had to take her birth-control pill. She reached awkwardly under her loaded tray table for her rucksack and pulled out the packet with its telltale calendar. The Cadbury man didn’t seem to notice – he was busy ploughing into his chicken masala.
She took her pill with the water from the cupcake container, feeling a Pavlovian twinge of nausea. Morning sickness. How odd that the pill prevents pregnancy through trickery, making your body believe it’s already pregnant. Like how vaccines use inactive cells to jumpstart the immune system. Or how she used to give Daddiji the TV remote with the batteries missing – only when it sat useless in his hand would he give in to his drowse, leaving Naila and her sisters free rein over the channels. Silly Daddy. Naila patted her womb. Silly body. She glanced at the Cadbury man, but he was eating his chocolate and raspberry fool, his eyes on his screen – the flashes over his face implied an action film. Why did she care what he thought of her? Was it just because he was attractive?
The attendants cleared the trays and dimmed the lights, the video screens casting an eerie glow over the cabin. Naila sat sleepless in that artificial dusk. She regretted taking her shoes off. Her feet were already swollen. She thought of Daddiji’s feet, how she had washed them as a girl, carrying a shifty bowl of water to his hallowed, hollowed leather chair. He had washed hers once in return, when she was twelve. She had dropped a glass while doing the dishes and stepped on a shard. She had swept up, wiped off the blood and gone to bed. He must have seen it sticking out from the blankets. She had woken to a cool wet cloth on her sole, the tingling scrape of scabs being undone…
Naila glanced at the Cadbury man. He had fallen asleep to his action movie. Grief flooded her then and she wept, grateful for the anonymous dark and for being in a place where sniffles are not unusual and people keep their eyes closed or locked on screens. ‘It’s okay,’ said the Cadbury man, her jolting stirring him awake. His breath was warm and stinky and human. Naila tried to corral her sobs, but he just nodded, his eyelids drifting down in gentle pulses. She wept against his shoulder as he dozed. He stroked her hair, murmuring the name of his modern bride-to-be, until he fell asleep again, his inevitable hand warming her thigh.
* * *
When Naila had arrived back in Lusaka a week ago, she hadn’t been sure that anyone would be at the airport to meet her. She had rolled her suitcase outside to where the waiting families were standing behind the barrier, sick with solitude, her eyes searching the crowd. Relief. There they were: her three sisters, arms around each other’s shoulders, a twisted rope of beige limbs. Naila hugged them each in turn, then all of them together. The smell of their swaying black hair – spiced with sweat and product and their distinct yet harmonious pheromones – swelled her heart.
She was sporting a silver bowl-cut, but her sisters all wore their hair long now. This made her unreasonably happy, this proof that they had at last escaped Mother’s business, if not her home. Laughing and chatting, the four sisters daisychained to the car park through the tunnel with the blue canopy and the flashing ads. They hopped into the old Mazda, Gabriella in the driver’s seat, Naila beside her. It smelled spitty in here. She