The Centre(26)

I found her outside the Process Centre, whispering to a staff member who was balancing a stack of green towels in his arms. I registered my name on the screen and stood next to it until I caught her eye. She nodded at me, and we made our way to the nearest speaking area. I found myself welling up.

“I’ve had enough,” I said. “You said when I arrived that we could leave at any time. Well, I want to go.”

“But Anisa, that would be such a waste. You know there’s no refund, right?”

“I don’t care. I want to go,” I exclaimed. Tears began to fall from my face onto the exposed root by my feet, where they were instantly absorbed. “It’s unbearable here. I don’t understand one word that man is saying. I’m having nightmares all the time. And I want to check my email.”

“Listen,” she said. “It’s perfectly normal to feel this way, especially around the halfway mark. It happens to most Learners. But I promise you, it will get better. Look, if you still feel the same way in a day or two, come find me. But you’ll see. It’ll all be worth it. When it finally happens, you won’t believe it.”

And then, Shiba gave me a hug. The physical contact melted my resolve but not my underlying angst, and so, marginally convinced, I sniffingly went back to my room and curled up on the bed, covering myself with the duvet. Soon, I heard the gong ring, instructing us to return to our language booths, but I couldn’t do it. Instead, I just lay there, beneath the duvet, crying. I felt silly for reacting this way, but I missed home so much. I missed my own bed. I missed my books. I missed my kitchen. I missed the stove on which I cooked the recipes my Choti Khala texted me. I missed the Tesco and the Boots and the Holland & Barrett, the fruit and veg wala by the station who sold guava and mango in the summertime, squash and turnip in the winter. I missed my phone. I missed little Billee and my friends and my laptop and Pret and even the tube and the smog and chaos of the city. I missed Adam’s cuddles. And the cuddles of the man before him. And I missed the home I’d had before I moved to England—my parents and my sister and the sunshine. I missed my childhood, when I was still at school and didn’t have to decide anything for myself.

I missed my nani. She was so silly and conspiratorial. Whenever we did anything naughty, she’d exclaim, “Astaghfirullah,” and try to contain her giggles. Then she left us when I wasn’t even in the country. On my last visit, I had said goodbye, see you later, and then she was dead. Same with my nana abba, who also passed away between my visits home. Nana Abba’s migration story, by the way, made mine look like a walk in the park. When he was a young man, a border had materialized beneath his feet, one so narrow that he could stand with a leg on either side. Fairly nonchalantly, he’d decided to hop over to the side across from that on which his parents and siblings stood, and he had said to them, with full conviction, “I’ll see you very soon.” How was he to know that that faint line would solidify into a steel wall, that they’d never let him return, even for a short visit? My nani went back once, though. She told me that although thirty years had passed, the children now old men and women, she’d still recognized every single person.

“Not by their faces,” she’d said, “but by their voices.”

I lay under the covers this way, thinking of my departed grandparents and feeling utterly alone, when I heard a knock and then the door opening. I peeked out of my duvet cave. It was the cleaner lady.

“Pavlova,” I sniffled, forgetting the word we used for hello.

“Come. Time to learn.”

“No thank you,” I said, offering her a pitiful smile.

When she saw my face, she let out a sweet little “oh” of concern that made me start outright sobbing.

“I want to check my email,” I wailed.

This made her chuckle gently. She sat beside me on the bed and gingerly put her hand against my cheek—her skin was like crepe paper, wrinkled and nearly transparent. Her touch made me cry all the harder.

“I miss my cat,” I said.

“Where is she now?”

“He. He’s with my friend … well, my ex-boyfriend, Adam.”

“It’s okay,” she said and stroked my hair.

“I’m fine,” I said, an instinctive response to what I interpreted as pity, but she kept on stroking.

“It’s okay,” she said again, and I looked into her eyes. In them, I saw not pity, but understanding. I saw empathy. I surrendered, burying my head in her lap. She kept stroking my hair, saying, “It’s okay; it’s okay,” until slowly, I felt calmer. I lifted my head and looked up at her.

“Sorry. I’ve been having bad dreams, you see. That’s why I feel a little … fragile.”

Her eyes widened. “Bad dreams?”

“Yes. And I keep hearing his voice. My Storyteller’s. I don’t like his voice.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“What’s his name?”

“Peter.”

“Oh … Peter.”

I looked up at her, “Yeah.”

“Peter is a little …” She paused and scrunched up her face as if eating something sour. “Be careful, dear.”

“Careful?”

“Don’t take his pain,” she said.

“Whose pain? Peter’s? Do you know him?”