The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters Read online

  It seemed that Jezmeen was remembering the same thing, because she said, “Rajni was so strict with us when we were little.”

  With you, Shirina thought. She learned it was better to avoid trouble after that incident, even if it meant also avoiding Jezmeen. “I suppose she was just helping Mum,” Shirina said. “She probably felt she needed to help raise us since Dad wasn’t around.”

  “Oh sure, lots of things had to change after Dad died,” Jezmeen said. “But she used to be more fun. You wouldn’t know it now, but Rajni was cool. She had this stash of sparkly eye shadows and bold lipsticks—the sort of thing Mum probably wouldn’t let her wear, because I remember she always kept it hidden and didn’t tell me where it was. She used to put it on me sometimes, and we’d dance around in her room. I was probably four years old then.”

  It didn’t sound like the Rajni that Shirina knew, and she was surprised to hear Jezmeen remember her this way. “What changed?”

  Jezmeen shrugged. “I don’t know. Dad’s death, maybe? She and Mum fought a lot after that. There was also a visit from Dad’s older brother before that, and that sparked a couple of arguments. They went to India the summer after Dad died. I remember she was really quiet when she came back from India with Mum and then soon after that, she was taking charge and being Sergeant Rajni—all about following the rules. And I have been resisting her ever since.”

  Jezmeen said this with some pride, but any mention of Shirina’s childhood, especially the teenage years, called to mind the sound of her sisters shouting. The arguments were so hostile and belligerent on both sides that it always felt as if the walls of their house were on the verge of collapsing. She had never fought with Rajni or Mum like that. She certainly refrained from taking every piece of bait her mother-in-law dangled before her; it was easier to say yes than to fight every battle. Life was so much more complicated if you always had to win. She recalled an Instagram post of Sharanjeet’s from Christmas last year—mulled wine, a stack of presents wrapped with gold ribbons, and the soft glow of a fire in the background. “Baby, it’s cold outside, but my love knows just how to keep me warm,” the caption read, followed by a litany of hashtags: #winter #fireplace #mulledwine #xmascountdown #love #family #pressies #tiffanys #besthusbandever #besthubbyever #spoiled #butimworthit. Shirina had read the caption over and over again. Painstaking selection of filters enhanced the picture so she could almost hear the firewood gently crackling. Shirina had been so absorbed in the world of Sharanjeet’s life that she only vaguely registered Mother talking behind her. Look at me when I talk to you, Mother snapped, plucking the phone from her hand. It gave Shirina a small fright, because she hadn’t realized the conversation wasn’t over. Later, she told Sehaj about it, who frowned and said, “I’ll talk to her.”

  “Ah, there it is. Madhuri Fashions,” Jezmeen said, nodding at a stall with magazine cutouts pasted on its walls above a sewing machine. An elderly man stooped over the machine, tiny gold-framed spectacles perched on the tip of his nose. For his sake, Shirina hoped that the bargaining process would be reasonable. “I’ll be in there,” she said, pointing to the bookshop next door.

  Books were crammed into every space, making them impossible to remove. When a title caught Shirina’s eye, she extracted it with her fingernails. “Yes,” the bookshop owner said. “Very good story.”

  “You’ve read this?” she asked. It seemed unlikely. The title—Mister Right Now—was in raised pink lettering and didn’t exactly shout this man as its demographic.

  “I’ve read them all,” he said.

  Well, that was impossible. There were too many books here for one person to have read in a lifetime. There were books in German and some in Scandinavian languages too, left here by tourists probably. His earnestness was admirable, though. Probably sensing that Shirina didn’t believe him, he started pointing to the spines of books and giving her a brief synopsis of each.

  “Very bad man starts a corrupt business. Mafia bosses turn against him. He becomes very good man.

  “This one: a family moves into a new house after the father loses his job and they find out it is haunted.

  “A scientist starts a research station in some faraway country and spends thirty years there trying to find out what happened to his lost love.”

  Shirina was amazed until she realized she had no way of verifying his claim. She nodded. “Okay, okay,” she said, signaling with a wave that she had given up doubting him.

  “Buy a book and I will also give you a numerology reading,” the man said, pointing at a little sign next to his cash box. “When is your birthday?”

  “May tenth, 1990,” Shirina said.

  He repeated the date and tapped rapidly on a calculator. “Your life path number is seven,” he said. “Seven is a good number.”

  “Oh,” Shirina said. She waited for more, but he returned to the shelves and began smoothing out the stacks by jamming the spines of books even further in. “What does seven mean?” she asked. She had never had a numerology reading before—they were like horoscopes, worded to suit every person in some way. But horoscopes were intriguing sometimes. The recognition of herself was thrilling.

  “For that, you must pay,” the man said.

  Shirina almost laughed. She reached into her purse and wondered if the man knew how lucky she was that Jezmeen wasn’t here. Once he took the money from her, he ducked back behind the counter again and opened up a slim silver laptop. Shirina’s eyes followed its path of cables across the floor where they tangled and disappeared behind a cotton sheet nailed to a ceiling beam, serving as a curtain. The man waited, staring intently at his screen and then went to that back room. He appeared moments later with a printout.

  “This is all the information about number seven,” he said.

  Great. So she had just paid for a Google search. His face did not betray any acknowledgment that he had ripped her off. The ink was still damp on the paper; he took care to hand it to her on two flat hands, like a platter. Some words jumped out immediately at Shirina: “sympathy,” “responsibility.” Then this sentence:

  The number seven represents a person who will do anything to keep her family together. She keeps the peace and maintains harmony in situations of conflict.

  This was why Shirina only read horoscopes once in a while in Cosmo or in the newspaper. If she subscribed regularly, their relevance became diluted. She saved them up and enjoyed the surprise of reading a description that matched her situation profoundly. The day before leaving Melbourne for Delhi, she had searched for her horoscope online—just one, she told herself, because it defeated the purpose to select the best of ten predictions.

  You are at a crossroads but the power to make a decision is completely within your control. Consider the needs of your loved ones during this delicate time.

  Words written so clearly that she could almost hear them.

  Next door, Jezmeen was patiently standing with her arms stretched out while a silver-haired woman looped a measuring tape around her chest. “I’m getting a blouse made,” she said when she saw Shirina.

  “They’ll be able to sew it that quickly?” Shirina asked. They were only in Delhi for another day.

  “Yeah, I think that’s why Mum recommended this shop. She did like it when things could be done quickly. Hang on—” She looked down. The woman was pressing the measuring tape to her collarbone, far above the neckline of the blouse in the picture. “I want it to look like that blouse,” Jezmeen said, nodding at a picture on the wall. She sliced her hand across her chest to show exactly where the neckline should be. “And sleeveless, please. It’s too hot for anything else.”

  The woman looked at her husband, who rose from a stool behind the counter. “Madam, we can do this neckline only.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This is a decent neckline. You walk around in Delhi with anything lower, there will be trouble. You must also have sleeves.”

  “Yes, trouble,” Jezmeen muttered to Shirina. “Mass erection
s. A citywide catastrophe.”

  Shirina didn’t think a decent neckline was such a bad idea, though. Her own blouse buttoned up at the neck and hung loosely around her waist. She had given away a lot of her sleeveless clothes to the Salvation Army a few months after moving to Australia, when it became clear that Mother didn’t approve of them. The four-seasons-in-a-day weather in Melbourne was so unpredictable anyway that Shirina didn’t have much use for anything that revealed her arms.

  The measuring tape dangled from the crook of the woman’s elbow. “You want the order, or you want to cancel?” she asked impatiently.

  “If I told you I wasn’t going to wear this blouse in India, would you make it the way I want it? I’m going back to London.”

  The woman shook her head with certainty while her husband retreated behind a small cabinet. He produced a clear plastic folder. It bulged with pieces of paper sticking out. Shirina patted the numerology paper in her pocket, relieved it was still there. It seemed that in the disarray of this market, there was no designated place for anything, and her printout fortune could very easily disappear into a stack of paper.

  “You see what I have done,” the man said. His cheeks shone with pride as he presented the open folder to Jezmeen. Shirina wasn’t sure which he was prouder of—his work, or his cataloging of it. On each left-hand page, there was a glossy picture cut out from a magazine, usually a Western woman. On each right-hand page, there was his corresponding version—a tailored copy of the dress or skirt or blouse, with adjustments made for “decency.” Necklines were raised from chest to throat. Skirt hems dropped below the knees. Waists were so generous that the dresses hung loose and forlorn like potato sacks.

  “Decent,” the wife said, nodding her approval at the folder. “If we made these clothes exactly to the specifications on the models, people would complain.”

  “I won’t complain,” Jezmeen said. “Honestly, I’d just like an exact copy of that blouse over there.”

  The woman screwed her eyes at Jezmeen. “You’ll wear it with what? Jeans?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then the hemline needs to be longer. Needs to cover this area.” She made a vague gesture at her lower half.

  “You know, I could go to any other stall around here. I chose you because you came highly recommended by my . . .” Jezmeen’s voice trailed off. “By Mum,” she said to Shirina. “She knew these people would try to make me a blouse with the fitting of a bedsheet.”

  “You think so?” Shirina asked.

  “I’m sure of it,” Jezmeen said. “It’s her final attempt.” She had a rueful smile on her face but Shirina caught something else too—a brief shadow over her expression. “This is probably one of the ways she wanted me to ‘start taking more responsibility.’ ” Jezmeen put air quotes around Mum’s words. Shirina didn’t know exactly what Mum had said, but it clearly bothered Jezmeen.

  “Can’t you just make it exactly the same?” Jezmeen pleaded. “We won’t tell anybody, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  They shook their heads.

  “You can return my deposit, then,” Jezmeen said.

  The man and his wife exchanged a quick look. “Deposit is non-refundable,” they both said in unison.

  Shirina stepped out of the stall just as the arguing began. She surveyed the shops once again, disappointed that she’d return to the hotel empty-handed. There was just nothing she wanted enough to fight for. Behind her, Jezmeen was accusing the shopkeepers of swindling her. Shirina wandered back to the first shop with the hideous shoes. She supposed she needed a pair of decoy sandals herself. “Two hundred rupees?” she asked, quoting Jezmeen’s final price from their earlier bargaining.

  The shopkeeper shook his head and quoted a price that was triple the amount. After all, she was an entirely new customer.

  She remembered her friend Lauren encouraging her to fight back. “You have to stand up for yourself,” Lauren said. It was after the taxi driver incident, when it was decided that Shirina should not go out for after-work drinks anymore. “Beti, it’s for your own good,” Mother had said. After that weekend of silent treatment from Mother, Shirina gulped down the words like a tonic.

  On Monday when she returned to work, Shirina had told Lauren the whole story. She just wanted to share her shame with somebody—Oh my god, we were so drunk on Friday. Can you believe what I did? But Lauren looked more worried than amused when Shirina got to the part about Mother ignoring her. “She’s talking to me now, though,” Shirina assured Lauren.

  “Did she admit she was overreacting?” Lauren asked. “And did your husband grow a pair of balls and tell his mother to butt out of his life?”

  Shirina was surprised. Lauren seemed to be the only person in the office who understood when another coworker made a joke about Shirina and Sehaj still living with parents. “It’s cultural, isn’t it?” Lauren had said, shooting the guy a dirty look.

  “Come out for drinks this week,” Lauren continued. “She can’t stop you from having a good time.”

  “I have other plans,” Shirina said apologetically. Then the following week, and the week after that, she came up with new excuses. One day Lauren cornered her in the break room and asked in a low voice if everything was all right at home. “Everything’s fine,” Shirina said, but Lauren was not convinced.

  “Tell your mother-in-law that you’re an adult,” Lauren said. “You’re missing out on opportunities to socialize, and that’s something we do at the pub. This is Australia, tell her that.”

  But Shirina didn’t mind going home for the evening, sitting with Sehaj, who told her she just had to humor his mother. “She’s traditional, you’re not going to change her ways,” he said. Shirina sensed that his conversation with Mother about minding her personal space hadn’t gone very far. She tried not to let it bother her, reminding herself that she liked being a wife and a daughter. While Jezmeen was busy fighting every battle, Shirina was walking away with a pair of shoes—what did it matter that she paid three times more than she wanted?

  Chapter Five

  Evenings: Share your meals together. I cannot remember the last time I saw the three of you at the same table. Don’t take for granted that there will always be time to do this in the future. Make conversation with each other. Don’t turn everything into a disagreement.

  The curries arrived first, brimming and still bubbling in small steel bowls. The waiter carefully arranged them around the table, announcing the name of each dish: fish kadai, lamb tikka, baingan bharta. Rajni tried to ignore the ring of oil orbiting around each dish. When Mum commanded them to have a meal together, she probably pictured a cozy table in some local eatery, not one of the restaurants shortlisted from the Zagat’s guide. But Rajni was determined to avoid food poisoning on this journey, and the presence of online reviews from Western tourists assured her that this was the right choice.

  “Do you think we ordered too much?” she asked as the waiter returned to the kitchen. There were still the pilaf rice and naan to come, and she was already eyeing some items on the dessert menu. Make conversation with each other. Shirina opened her mouth for a moment and then closed it. Seconds later, her face twisted to suppress a yawn. “Excuse me,” she whispered. Jezmeen was glued to her phone again. She tapped furiously, squinting at the screen. Rajni felt too tired to reprimand her again. In the taxi on the way here, she had peered over Jezmeen’s shoulder to try to see what was so captivating her, but Jezmeen had noticed right away and hunched over the screen to block Rajni’s view.

  “I think it’s enough food,” Shirina said. She picked up the serving spoon and scooped two generous servings of lamb tikka onto her plate. Rajni glanced at Jezmeen, careful to be discreet about it in case Shirina noticed. Do you see how much she’s eating? Jezmeen carried on staring at her phone.

  At the next table, a woman with long, manicured nails was being very particular about her order. “I can’t have any dairy. Not even a drop,” she announced. “It’s just a disaster we’d al
l rather avoid.”

  “Oh, me too. These things start to kick in with age, don’t they?” her partner replied. “I used to eat all manner of street food as well, but last week, that kebab nearly ended my life.”

  Rajni felt her appetite waning. Why did people have to talk so competitively about the different causes of their indigestion? In moments, the inevitable “paleo” and “gluten-free” would enter the conversation. “In my day, we just ate everything and didn’t have so many opinions about it,” Mum had said to Rajni when she witnessed their neighbor whacking a cookie out of her son’s hands. “I think he’s allergic to nuts, Mum,” Rajni had said. “If he had grown up in my village in India, he’d be so grateful for a cookie, he’d forget about being allergic,” Mum had retorted. Rajni had stayed silent, recognizing yet another version of Mum’s “England has spoiled you” rhetoric. After the cancer diagnosis, she followed the same line of questioning: “Nobody used to have cancer, and now it’s everywhere,” Mum said. Mum truly thought that living in England had changed the composition of her body.

  Jezmeen sighed and chucked her phone into her purse. “It’s over,” she said.

  “What’s over?” Shirina asked. She speared a hunk of lamb with her fork and put it in her mouth. “Oh, this is delicious.”