The Centre(50)

But somehow, when the following week rolled around, I felt less inclined. I told myself that maybe the distance would help with our closure and that turning up again at his place could send the wrong message. Besides, the weather was so miserable that week. I’m aware that this may make me sound like a bitch, but try to understand, if I didn’t feel compelled, I didn’t feel compelled. I don’t know. Point is, though, that Adam didn’t know anything about the real goings-on at the Centre. My only remaining option was to confront Shiba directly.





EIGHT


Shiba and I had barely been in touch since I’d left the Centre nine months prior. I knew she wasn’t fooled by my responses to her emails and texts—polite and terse—meant to gradually bring communication to an end while making it seem incidental. I felt guilty about soft ghosting her in this way but didn’t know what else to do. There was no way I could have had a real conversation with her without bringing up what I’d seen, and I hadn’t felt ready until after my conversation with Adam. So finally, I texted her, getting straight to the point.

Hi Shiba, sorry I haven’t been in touch.

Was wondering if we could talk?

Where have you been?

I’m sorry. I’ve had a lot on my mind.

There’s actually something I’d like to

share with you in person if that’s okay?

Ok.

OK cool. Brighton again?

If you like. Or come here if you want?

That’s allowed?

Of course, silly. It’s my home. Come.

On the one hand, it felt like a good thing that Shiba and I were meeting at the Centre. We’d have more privacy to talk openly and she would have fewer places to hide. I could even make her show me her laptop if she denied the email. In fact, maybe I could ask her to show me what, if anything, was behind those silver doors at the end of the hallway. At the same time, I remembered how the staff members had watched me with the hint of a threat in their eyes during my last few days there. I worried that I was putting myself in danger by confronting Shiba there, that the Centre could somehow trap or silence me if they found out what I knew. The notion felt fairly ludicrous, but I didn’t want to be naive. I considered arming myself with pepper spray and a penknife but only thought of this the day before leaving, and by then even off Amazon Prime, they wouldn’t arrive in time. So, the morning of my trip, in a gesture that felt more or less tokenistic, I went through my kitchen drawers in search of weapons. I emerged with a small knife and a single corkscrew.

The corkscrew, a present from my friend Ramali, was in the shape of a cartoonish woman whose head you turned to operate the thing, arms rising up as the screw dug into the cork. “I’ll call her Ramali,” I’d said when she presented it to me. Later that night, when we’d opened a bottle of wine, Ramali screamed and clutched her neck when I twisted the corkscrew over the bottle. “What are you doing to Ramali?” The memory made me smile. I made Ramali do some jumping jacks and sent a photo to her namesake before stowing her in my bag. Then I made a mini sheath for the knife from the pages of a magazine so that it wouldn’t pierce the fabric of my bag. Fully armed, I headed to the station.

Like the previous times, Shiba sent a car to pick me up from the station. I was happy to see the same driver who had dropped me off on my very first trip to the Centre.

“Oh, hi, slamalaikum. You remember me?” I asked.

“Walaikum salam, sister, of course I do. How are you? No bags?”

“No bags. Actually, I’m friends with one of the girls that works there. Just visiting,” I replied as I got in the car.

“Nice of you to come so far to meet your friend.”

“Haan, well, we have a lot to catch up on.”

“Tell me, what language was it the last time we met? Can you speak it now?”

“German. Yes. A little bit.”

“Alhamdulillah. That must be helpful in your work.”

“It is.”

“Did you find out how much it costs?” he asked.

“You know, between you and me, I don’t think it’s worth the price.”

“Oh?” he looked at me through the rearview mirror. “Why not?”

“Just … I wouldn’t recommend it.”

We drove on, and the driver spoke once again of the son he was proud of, and then of his daughter who seemed to be giving him a bit of trouble.

“How do you raise children in this country?” he said, shaking his head. “There is no way to protect them. The schools, they’re filled with drugs, bad language, relations between men and women.”

“Things like that happen in Pakistani schools now too,” I said. I wasn’t sure if this was true, but I was guessing so from desi Twitter. I myself had been raised in a universe apart from drugs and sex and bad language, but this led to its own set of issues, my naivete becoming an embarrassment to me in my twenties. “You can’t be sure they would have been better off there.”

“No, but something inside,” he said, gesturing toward his abdomen, “it stays together when you grow up in a place where you are not the minority. In this country, our children break.”

I tried to feel into my own abdomen, to see if something had stayed intact there as a result of growing up back home. I concluded that there may be truth to his words.