The World Unseen Read Online Free PDF

be included in such a piece of good luck.
     
    “All of us,” Farah replied, rolling her eyes. “They made me promise to take that lunatic. They want to give her an outing.” She turned to leave, stopping to glance back at Miriam once more.
     
    “Hurry up!” she said. “Go and get her ready. I want to change.”
     
    While Miriam dressed Jehan, she sang her a tune, a Hindi song from a film that had been popular years ago in Bombay. She smiled when she was finished, and Jehan laughed too, sensing a lightness of spirit that had not been felt in the house for months. For it was the first time since she had arrived in South Africa that Miriam would be eating a meal that she had not had a hand in preparing herself. She would be outside, without having to go shopping, or listen to the gossip of the women who were Farah’s friends and neighbours. And she would finally see Amina Harjan, the subject of so much of that gossip, for herself.
     
    Miriam knew of her, of course; everybody did. For despite her lack of conformity, she was still Indian, still a very young unmarried girl, and her seemingly unlimited freedom and lack of concern for propriety was of great concern to everyone in the Asiatic Bazaar. Her way of dressing, the fact that she had just opened up her own business (“with a Coloured man”), even Begum’s photograph hanging proudly in the café - all these facts only fed the interest of those around her. They were appalled and horrified and shocked, but many began to patronise her café because they liked the food, they liked the atmosphere, and they liked the prices.
     
    Miriam’s general attitude to Amina that day was one of curiosity, with an underlying sense of disapproval. For Farah’s friends came to the house at least twice a week to gossip. They would bring with them boxes of hard-skinned, green mangoes to cut up for pickles, or a week’s worth of dry garlic bulbs for peeling, and over their work they would talk. Looking down at her own heap of peeled cloves, Miriam had seen only the smart flashing of ten or twelve blades in the still air around her as they chopped and scored, and she had listened as they had made thorough work of blaming Amina’s dead grandmother for the sins of her granddaughter.
     
    “She steered that girl wrong from the start. Taught her to be too proud and above herself. Where does it get you?”
     
    “But Begum had a hard life… ”
     
    “If you mess with the blacks, you can expect a hard life… ”
     
    “She didn’t even feel any shame. Imagine. No shame. And this girl is exactly the same. Her poor mother!”
     
    Miriam finished dressing Jehan and together they waited for Farah to appear. Her bhabhi , almost sick with the excitement of eating out, had dressed as though for a wedding, in a fiercely pink shalwaar kameez , while Miriam herself wore a simple printed skirt and blouse. At first, Jehan could not be persuaded to come out of her room, and chattered continuously while Farah shouted and cajoled and finally slapped the girl to stop the flow of meaningless talk. At the sting of the hand on her face, Jehan was silent suddenly, and then she laughed, loud and long, as though sharing a private joke with her attacker. This unexpected laughter had long ago ceased to surprise Miriam, but it’s incongruous nature, the way that it spilled out without reason or warning still chilled her. She had heard it first on the night that she and Omar had arrived in South Africa. She had entered her new brotherin-law’s house, nervous and shy, a little way behind her husband, with her head down and her heart pounding, and she had found herself in the middle of a screaming argument.
     
    Two small children sat silent and scared on the floor beneath the table, and watched as their parents, Miriam’s new in-laws, screamed at each other. Or rather, Omar’s brother shouted - Farah attacked pointedly and venomously with a sarcastic comment now and then. Omar had turned and glanced