Free The Wish Maker by Ali Sethi Page A

my mother.
    Samar Api sat on the edge of the bed and cried now with her face in her hands.
    My mother said, “It’s normal for women!” She went across the bed to Samar Api and stroked her scalp. Samar Api’s crying became emotional, an act of release. My mother hugged her and swayed her and made a steady shushing sound. Samar Api sniffed, snorted, pulled away from my mother and rubbed her eyes, then ran the back of her hand across her cheeks.
    Her eyes were swollen but the tears had stopped. She looked up and sighed. And then she stood up and began to move away from the bed.
    “You’re an idiot,” she said, going away. “It’s normal for women .”
    Soon after that she had her first waxing, which happened at the end of every month and was performed by a woman called Parveen, a Christian who lived in the small employees’ colony behind FC College and came to the house on the back of her husband’s motorcycle. Her implements were contained in a shiny brown bag, and were taken out after doors had been locked and the curtains of windows drawn. Parveen talked while she performed the waxing, describing the bodies of her other clients, the singers and actresses and wives and mistresses she claimed to know intimately, outlining their proportions with her hands and divulging the locations of their moles. Sometimes, while she talked, there were other sounds from the room, the sound of tearing cloth and screams of pain. But Parveen went on talking, and talked afterward in the kitchen as well, where she smoked a single Gold Leaf cigarette and was given food and drink on a special plastic plate and in a steel glass that were kept separate from the others, even from the already separated utensils used by Barkat and Naseem, who said they had to maintain the separation because Parveen was a Christian and had a flat nose and very dark skin, which made her an untouchable. So later, when Parveen had gone, the plate and the glass were taken outside and washed under the tap that was used for washing clothes, and were then carried back into the kitchen and placed in an isolated corner on the shelf above the stove.
    Samar Api’s first waxing was anticipated for days; on the day itself her door was locked. There were sounds: Parveen talking, Parveen waxing, then a rip and a scream, and Parveen saying it would hurt less the next time. The waxing was slow and took up the afternoon. And, when the door opened in the evening, it revealed a room that had been cleared of evidence: Samar Api was sitting on her bed in a long cotton T-shirt and short shorts, and the legs were long and smooth and drawn up like hills.
    “Look,” she said, and trailed a fingertip along a calf. “It’s soft and smooth.”
    She began to exercise and stood on Friday mornings behind my mother, who had set up the TV and the VCR in her room. They wore tracksuits and stood in poses of attention, waiting for the woman to appear on the TV screen.
    “Come on, everybody,” said Jane Fonda, and bent. “Can you feel it?”
    “Feel it,” said my mother.
    “Feel it,” said Samar Api.
    And she began to walk, and went to Race Course Park with my mother in the evenings. The broad dusty track went around a hill and a lake, where people went boating, and was lined with old trees that gave gnawed shadows at dusk, shadows that deepened as the walk progressed.
    “Tell a story,” said Samar Api.
    “Which one?” said my mother.
    “A love story.”
    It is a memory of walking under trees in the dark, of hearing the names of lovers whose love was doomed from the beginning; and of watching—a girl, a shadow, walking with a woman’s shadow, and repeating after.

3

    My mother was friendly with unusual women. Most drove their own cars and went to offices, and dressed in ways that were not conducive to improvement, since there had been no initial attempt at decoration: the fabrics were often frayed and threadbare, the colors faded, the shoes plain and heel-less. The sandals were