Free Brick Lane by Monica Ali

breast pocket and his glasses had lenses as thick as pebbles. He said something. Nazneen recognized Hindi when she heard it, but she did not understand it. He tried again, in Urdu. Nazneen could speak some Urdu, but the man's accent was so strong that she could not understand this either. She shook her head. He spoke in English this time. His eyes looked huge behind their lenses, like they had been plucked from another, much bigger creature. She shook her head again and said, 'Sorry.' And he nodded solemnly and took his leave.
    It rained then. And in spite of the rain, and the wind which whipped it into her face, and in spite of the pain in her ankle and arm, and her bladder, and in spite of the fact that she was lost and cold and stupid, she began to feel a little pleased. She had spoken, in English, to a stranger, and she had been understood and acknowledged. It was very little. But it was something.
    She got home twenty minutes before her husband, washed the rice and set it to boil, searched through a cupful of lentils for tiny stones that could crack your teeth, put them in a pan with water but no salt and put the pan on the stove. She removed her shoes and examined her blisters. She put on fresh underclothes and sari and soaped the rain-sodden one. When she had twisted the water out of it, she left it in the bath like a sleeping pink python.
    She was skimming brown froth from the lentils when he came in.
    'You see,' he said, as though the conversation had not been interrupted by a whole day, 'there's very little that I could do anyway. What your sister has done cannot be undone by me, or by anybody else. If she decides to go back to him, then that is what she will do. If she decides to stay in Dhaka, so be it. What will happen will happen.'
    He leaned against the cupboards. His hood was still up and he had gloves on. He folded his arms so they rested on the shelf of his belly. She could hear him breathe, and then he began to hum. It was the tune of a nursery rhyme, a silly song about going to uncle's house for rice and milk but being disappointed. Every particle of skin on her body prickled with something more physical than loathing. It was the same feeling she had when she used to swim in the pond and came up with a leech stuck to her leg or her stomach.
    'Shall I take your coat?' she said. 'Would you like to go and sit down?'
    'Oh, coat,' he said, and carried on humming. 'When my boy is born I will teach him some songs. Do you know that the child can hear even in the womb? If I sing to him now, when he is born he will recognize the tunes.'
    He dropped to his knees, put his arms around Nazneen's middle and began to sing to her stomach. She held a ladle full of boiling scummy water above his head. She poured it with great care into a bowl.
    'You could go there.' The words burst as hot and fast as boils.
    'Where?' He pulled down his hood and blinked at her.
    'Where? To Dhaka. You could find her.'
    He got to his feet and cleared his throat. He stirred the lentils absently and lifted the lid from the rice so that the steam escaped and it would not be properly cooked. 'Well,' he said, 'yes, I could go. I could go and walk around the streets and ask for her. "Have you seen my wife's sister? She just ran away from her husband, and she sent us this address: Dhaka." I'm sure it would not take long to find her. Perhaps one or two lifetimes. And after all there is very little for me to do here. I only have a degree to finish, and a promotion to get, and a son on the way.
    'Shall I pack a suitcase? Perhaps you have prepared one. I shall go to Dhaka and pluck her instantly from the streets and bring her back to live with us. On the way I could pick up the rest of your family and we could make a little Gouripur right here. Is that what you have in mind?'
    Anything is possible. She wanted to shout it. Do you know what I did today? I went inside a pub. To use the toilet. Did you think I could do that? I walked mile upon mile, probably