The Writing on My Forehead Read Online Free PDF Page A

tennis spectators’, as the drama unfolded and the cots began to be volleyed back and forth in a battle of wills that, looking back, I am sure had nothing to do with us. The contested space was a difference of about eight inches and neither position was going to make the difference between life and death for either of us.
    “What are you doing? I have decided, haven’t I? Ameena has the greater need. She will be under the fan!” Nanima said this in an imperious voice as she, once again, arranged the cots to her liking. Her volume was going up, and the fact that she had to stop to tuck in a lock of steely hair that had strayed from her tightly wound bun was a grave indication of the loss of her composure.
    “No! Saira is very sick. She has a higher fever than Ameena. She needs the fan more!” Big Nanima’s long, wild, and curly locks of gray and black hair swung forward onto her face as she shoved the beds back again.
    “Yes and she wouldn’t be sick, would she, if she hadn’t eaten all of that trash with you? Her illness could have been avoided. Poor Ameena has been good. She has eaten only what I make for her at home.” Nanima tried to push the cots back, but Big Nanima had planted herself in her way.
    “And it’s no wonder she’s sick!” shouted Big Nanima.
    Nanima stood up, lengthening her spine to its usual straightness. Her thin, frail figure was no match for Big Nanima’s bulk, and Nanima, realizing this, turned and walked out of the room with a “Hmmph” that left us no illusions about the depth of her anger.
    Remembering Nanima, I felt guilty that I seemed to suffer so little grief over her death. I supposed it was my own fault that she preferred Ameena to me. For more than one reason. Though I understood the language, I didn’t speak Urdu as well as Ameena did, and Nanima never hid her displeasure at that fact. I also remembered running away from her on several occasions when she’d stopped me to request that I massage her aching and arthritic legs. Ameena took pride in the task. She believed, as we were taught in Sunday school, that service to our elders was a sure-fire way of earning the points needed for gaining eventual entry into heaven.
    For me, the potential long-term gratification was not worth the short-term pain. Any moment alone with Nanima meant the onset of a lecture—which was odd, considering that her sister, Big Nanima, was the one who actually lectured for a living. It was easy to see where Mummy had gotten her moralizing tendencies from. But Nanima recited essays rather than stories. Her themes of virtue and vice were always illustrated through the abstract. There was a lot of talk about heaven and hell. Good and evil. And little representation of what that might look like in actual fact, making these little sermons, devoid as they were of people and plot, rather too dry and humorless for my taste.
    Big Nanima, too, told stories. In beautiful English, which made my communication with her less lopsided than the kind I ran away from with her sister. Her stories, however, had no apparent moral messages. They were rude, crude stories, peppered with plenty of practical lessons on the process of human digestion with all of its funny sounds, sights, and smells. They were told solely for the purpose of eliciting laughter…totally devoid of any ulterior motive that I could ever find. And they were usually accompanied by demonstrations. The sounds of belching and farting, coming from Big Nanima, never failed to bring on a giggling fit. Even Ameena, when she could tear herself away from Nanima long enough to hear one of Big Nanima’s stories, couldn’t help but laugh.
    As I spied on Mummy consoling Ameena, I remembered another conversation I had listened in on one afternoon in Karachi, on our last visit there, when Nanima was still alive. I was restless, pacing the hallway, waiting for Big Nanima to finish her prayers. It was even hotter than usual and she had promised me a gola ganda, a