Baby Khaki's Wings Read online

  Many other Ismaili girls lived at the boarding school, but Ruby’s parents wanted a home environment for their daughters, one in which they would not come under any outside influences. They made arrangements for Ruby and Shelina to stay with their mother’s younger sister, Gulshan, and her husband, Pyarali. Gulshan had recently given birth to her first son, and welcomed the idea of having extra help around the house. Ruby and Shelina arrived in England in the winter of 1970. They saw their parents for two weeks each year, but it would take nine years before they were reunited.

  Gulshan Aunty was kind to Ruby and Shelina, and made every effort to make them feel at home, miss their own parents less. But Pyarali Uncle had not wanted them there and treated them as if they were a burden, hinting that they should never take second helpings, or banging on the bathroom door during their baths: “Don’t use all the bloody hot water!” It did not take long for Ruby to start plotting a way out. She started saving her lunch stipend, storing it in a jar under her bed. She walked with her head down, forever searching for coins others may have dropped. But then Gulshan Aunty found the jar and, possibly without thinking, mentioned it to Pyarali Uncle. He was certain that they’d been stealing from him. Ruby protested and told him that it was her lunch money. “The way you eat, you expect me to believe that?” He took both girls to the back garden. “I will not tolerate thieves in this house.” Ruby kicked and screamed. “Please, do what you want to me, but Shelina didn’t do anything!” “One bad apple spoils the barrel,” he said, before he pulled Shelina into the shed, slamming the door behind him. Inside, he held her wrist above her head, as he would later hold Ruby’s, and burned her index and middle finger with a cigarette lighter. Ruby tried to open the door, pushing and pulling the latch, banging her fists to the wall, but it remained closed. Ruby fell to her knees, pressing her hands over her ears, but she could still hear her sister screaming.

  That night, Ruby packed their things and they took the tube to Heathrow, where they slept in the departures lounge. Over the next few weeks, she organized to find a job and moved into a small flat in Ilford with three other Ismaili girls, also students at Forrest Hill. Ruby was fifteen, Shelina ten. They would live on their own, Ruby working a part-time job for years—first as a cashier at Sainsbury’s and later in the food hall at Harrods—until, four years later, her parents asked them to return to Arusha. To this day, Ruby’s mother and Gulshan Aunty don’t speak.

  That day at Earl’s, Ruby took the last bite of her cheesecake, still keen on making her point clear to her sister. “You know I make Alim work for it.”

  “Work for it? Ha! You call picking up your socks working for it? I wish I had you as a boss.” Shelina is a dental hygienist, but she doesn’t like the work and she certainly doesn’t like the dentist she works for. She complains about her boss incessantly. She only has two weeks’ holiday and her breaks are strictly monitored. Dr. Dalton also refuses to let her take time off when her children are sick. To make things worse, Shelina’s husband hardly helps around the house, or with the children, so that Shelina often feels overwhelmed.

  Ruby has tried to encourage her sister to find another job, or, if not that, to at least brainstorm possible solutions to her problems. “Why not get a maid every couple of weeks?” she asked, to which Shelina responded, “Not everyone can afford the lifestyle of the rich and famous, Ruby.” And if Ruby tried to give her tips on improving her efficiency, Shelina often dismissed her or said something sarcastic, “We’re not all Superwoman, you know.”

  Ruby sometimes feels like shaking her sister by the shoulders. You need to take responsibility for your life! What’s the use in blaming others? Complaining all day long. It’ll only drain you—all this negative energy. With the right attitude, you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish. “Each time you overcome you become stronger and stronger, so that one day you wake up and realize you’re powerful,” Oprah had once explained to a distressed guest. “I’m telling you, people, I’ve said it once and I’ll say it a thousand times: Power equals Strength over Time.” Absolutely true! Ruby thought. Look at me, Ruby wants to say to Shelina. No doubt, I’ve had my share of ups and downs. But that’s what’s made me who I am today. A tough-minded, independent woman. If anything, Ruby’s hardships have only made her appreciate her life even more. In fact, she feels so blessed that in her wallet she carries a list of all the reasons she should be thankful. At the top of Ruby’s list, Alim. He is her jaan, her life really, and there isn’t anything she wouldn’t do for him.

  These days, Ruby just listens to her sister without offering any advice, but more often than not, she finds her mind wandering, thinking of the many items on her schedule.

  The laptop screen lights up and fills with a picture of the Imam in a white polo shirt, next to an Arabian horse. The screen is slightly damaged in one spot, creating a void in the horse’s right eye, as if the pupil has been erased. Ruby double-clicks on My Music, selecting a folder named Relaxing Classical, which contains tracks that Alim has downloaded for her from the Internet. Alim also showed her how to use the laptop, patiently giving her tutorials after their weekly date when they prepare dinner together from one of their many cookbooks. Their current favourite: Jamie Oliver’s new book, Pukka Tukka. Alim cleaned the laptop of all viruses and defragmented the hard-drive (terms he taught her) before he loaded it with extra software, including a faster Internet browser. Ha! Ruby laughs as she turns up the speaker volume. Imagine how much time I would have saved if the Internet existed a few years ago. It would have been so much easier to track Firoz’s activities. She could have requested a copy of his Visa bill online instead of having to steam open envelopes. She could have purchased surveillance equipment on eBay instead of wasting her time trailing him after work. She could even have googled his latest lover. Thank God those days are long gone!

  Each time Ruby suspected an affair she would meticulously gather evidence and then present it to Firoz—the first few times in a fit of anger, and then later, in an effort to make him stop. She refused to let their marriage end without a fight. It was as if Firoz was sinking into a river, and she saw herself as a workhorse that could pull him to safety.

  Ruby tried countless tactics to change Firoz’s mind. She spent hours researching infidelity, Alim strapped to her back as she perused books in the self-help section of bookstores. She gifted Firoz with books like A Couple’s Guide to Finding the Love You Want; Infidelity: An Addiction; Affairs: A Guide to Working Through the Repercussions of Infidelity. Ruby even suggested they start couples therapy. “We can work through this. I know we can,” she urged. “The first step is admitting the problem.” But Firoz would not budge. He denied her accusations and offered a slew of counter-arguments. “God, Ruby! With all that I have to worry about at the store, this is the last thing I need. Who knew you’d be such a handful?”

  “Please, Firoz! Don’t do this,” Ruby wanted to yell, but she refused to beg or cry as many women she knew did, giving in so easily to their emotions. She pressed on, certain that her rational approach would be the one that he would understand—if not now, then in good time. But there were some days when Ruby was exhausted by efforts. It was as if Firoz had become too heavy, his weight uprooting her and pulling her down into the river with him. On those days, she would retreat briefly, but return soon after, with even greater energy.

  Then one evening as Ruby lay on the couch watching Oprah, she had an epiphany. An “aha moment,” as Oprah would call it. “When you can’t steer your life where you want it to go, don’t give up—learn to surrender,” the guest psychologist said. “Learn to find the power to let go.” Oprah piped in enthusiastically, “It’s true, people. It is a principle that rules my life—knowing when to surrender. Surrendering doesn’t mean letting go of your responsibility. You gotta do your part—only you have the power to change the direction of your life.”

  In that moment Ruby realized that she had been wasting her time trying to make Firoz change. She couldn’t control him! What she
had to do was focus on the things she could impact, places where she would have the greatest influence. Ruby spent the evening weighing her options, carefully outlining them in a notebook. How arrogant to think that I could have had it all! Ruby decided that she would accept Firoz’s affairs—they were, she told herself, a compromise of motherhood. There was nothing more important in her life than Alim, and she would not raise him the way she had been raised. It was her job as a mother, Ruby decided, to break this cycle, not to carry it forward into the next generation. She vowed that night to create a stable environment for him, one in which he would always feel safe and secure, free of harm. Everything else was secondary.

  With Ruby’s newfound attitude, the fighting subsided. It was as if she and Firoz had come to the end of a tug-of-war. There was some satisfaction, or at least some relief, in it. Their new arrangement allowed Ruby to focus on her top priorities—building her business, and spending more time with Alim.

  “You have to pick your battles,” Ruby now says to herself in the bathroom mirror each morning as a way of reminding herself of where she should put her energy. She’d learned the technique during a sales leadership course in Puerto Rico—a reward for top-producing agents in the country. During one session, participants were encouraged to give themselves pep talks each morning. “It is a technique,” the facilitator, a world-renowned motivational speaker, said, “that has a proven track record.” Many of the most successful business people—people like Donald Trump, Martha Stewart, and Bill Gates—are reported to do just that each and every morning.

  Now Ruby organizes various materials on the dining room table, such as a guest registry (which serves the dual purpose of monitoring visitors and providing her with a list of potential clients), feature sheets on which she’s stapled her business cards, and information packages about the area. She then walks to the kitchen, slips the video into the TV–VCR sitting on the kitchen counter. It’s the perfect spot. From here, the electrical towers are visible. Ruby then sets the eight-minute video on a loop so that it will play continuously through the afternoon.

  Ruby supervised the video project closely and insisted that she be involved in writing the script as well as choosing details such as Dwayne’s wardrobe. “You look great! The Approachable Expert—exactly what I wanted.” Ruby said to him when he arrived at 314 Sunset on the day of the shoot in dark blue jeans and a brown corduroy jacket (which she had to buy) over a plaid shirt.

  “Not like I had much choice,” Dwayne retorted, and then followed her into the house.

  The video, entitled Electrical Towers: Nothing to Fear, shows clips of interviews with people in the neighbourhood affirming their confidence in the area, interwoven with quick scientific facts. In one clip, Dwayne circles an electrical tower with a Gauss meter. A close-up shows the audience the meter reading. He repeats the process around a microwave, a cordless phone, a cell phone, a computer, and a smoke detector. “As you can see, there are many other sources of electromagnetic radiation in our everyday lives—and all of them are harmless. X-rays and MRIs expose us to much more radiation than electrical towers ever would.” Dwayne then goes on to explain that electrical towers, like many household appliances, operate at the radio-frequency part of the electromagnetic spectrum—a non-ionizing radiation. Unlike X-rays and gamma rays, they do not have the energy to break the bonds that hold molecules in cells together and cause any damage. He had not wanted to include all these scientific facts, worried that people would feel overwhelmed: “It’s not like we’re dealing with Chernobyl here.”

  But Ruby insisted. “Buyers are sophisticated these days. They need to understand the science. It’s the only way to put their minds at rest.”

  “Whatever you say, boss-lady,” Dwayne said, shrugging. “It’s your money. You do what you want with it.”

  “By the way, Dwayne, make sure you mention the differences between the ionized and non-ionized part of the electromagnetic spectrum. I think that’s going to be the key to making people understand.”

  Dwayne raised his eyebrows. “How the heck do you know this stuff?”

  Ruby was both irritated and pleased to see the shock on Dwayne’s face. “I’m a scientist by training. A biochemist actually.”

  In England, Ruby had completed her undergraduate degree in biochemistry and was studying to be an optometrist when her parents insisted that she and Shelina return to Arusha, where they could apply as a family for their Green Cards to Canada. Shelina was fifteen and Ruby had not yet turned twenty-one, the maximum age a child could be included on the same application as her parents. There was no time to waste. They did not want to stay in Tanzania anymore—the political situation continued to worsen. “Better to leave with something than nothing at all.” Ruby’s parents, like so many others, did not want to try for England. It was in deep recession, and with Thatcher newly in power—not to mention the increased activity of skinheads—many were pessimistic about their future in that country. At the same time, stories started circulating—not only in England but in East Africa also—of the many Ismailis who had struck it rich in Canada, people like the Hashams who had made it big in the hotel business, or the Bogas in jeans and T-shirts. The Canadian economy was strong—especially in provinces like Alberta and Ontario—and Trudeau’s government was encouraging immigration.

  Soon, discussions at dinner tables, in the social halls of jamatkhanas, or during games of badminton, turned to Canada. People hurried to apply for immigration. The process was long, and it could take years before you were granted your Green Card. Jamatkhanas like the one in Ilford—the first one in the U.K.—started emptying out as the exodus began, yet again, but this time to Canada. In Tanzania and Kenya, the same was true. The only difference was that the jamat there had already shrunk in numbers, many having fled only a few years earlier, worried about the mounting hostility toward Asians, which in Uganda had led to Idi Amin’s expulsion order.

  For months and even years to come, words of congratulation could be heard at the many jamatkhanas as people shared their stories of a successful application. “Got our Green Cards today. Shukar Mowla!” And for those who were still waiting, words of encouragement, Inshallah, and for those who’d been rejected, often because they had failed their medicals or were deemed to have undesirable occupations—Canada understandably preferred professionals—words of consolation. “Ah, not to worry. This is God’s country.”

  “But my degree will be wasted!’ Ruby said to her parents in protest, even if that was not the only reason she hadn’t wanted to leave England. She was in love with Malik, a classmate at The London Eye Hospital whom she had been secretly dating for almost a year. (She didn’t want to set a bad example for Shelina.) Luckily, Malik’s parents, who were already in England, were keen on migrating to Canada also. It was only a matter of time before they would be together again.

  “A biochemist? No shit.” Dwayne said, smiling as if he had discovered a tantalizing secret. “Somehow I can’t picture you in a lab, you know? Flasks, test tubes, microscopes? No way. Seems too dull for the kind of lady you are.”

  How do you know who I am? Ruby wanted to say, but didn’t. She often wondered why people found it so hard to believe that you can be more than just one thing. “Did my final paper on The Half-Life of Unstable Elements,” she said as if to prove herself.

  “Is that like the unstable molecules of Captain Marvel? The Fantastic Four? The Invisible Woman?” Dwayne joked.

  “Not at all,” Ruby said in an authoritative tone. She had no idea whom he was referring to, but was offended that he was comparing her work to what sounded like comic book characters. “Unstable elements don’t have a full orbit of electrons and decay faster. That’s the crux of it.”

  “God Lord, lady. You put all of us regular fellas to shame. A real estate agent, a scientist. Is there anything you can’t do?” he asked, winking.

  Ruby ignored Dwayne’s comment and set him to work. But for a moment she thought about her career path. She had never planne
d on being a real estate agent, but her degree in biochemistry was not recognized in Canada. She only received partial credit for her courses, which seemed ridiculous to Ruby, given that the Canadian curriculum was much easier than the British one. If she wanted to pursue optometry—or anything else in the sciences—she would have to redo her undergraduate degree. Moreover, there was only one Canadian university that offered optometric training in English, and Waterloo was on the other side of the country, which might as well be the other side of the world. This was not England. Ruby did not want to leave her parents. They were new to the country, not to mention living in the West. They would need her. And Shelina was too young. Family friends suggested she become a medical laboratory technologist, which was a two-year program at SAIT. But Ruby wanted a career that would challenge her, not one in which she would be relegated to mundane tasks like examining medical swabs, or blood and urine samples, leaving the real work to the doctors.

  Ruby enrolled in Business School at the University of Calgary and majored in information systems. Many other Ismaili students were studying computers in one form or another, and she decided to do the same. It was in her mind a practical degree, and one that would serve her and her family well. Ironically, when Ruby graduated from the University of Calgary with what was now her second degree she could not find a job. By then, the Canadian economy had slowed. At that time, Ruby felt angry and cheated, but it didn’t take long for her to put the disappointment behind her and focus on what had to be done. Now, when she looks back, she says to herself, See, everything always turns out for the best.