“How’re you holding up?” Fiaz whispers.

“We’ll talk,” Seema signals. Conversation is difficult, given the two extra pairs of ears.

“How do you like San Francisco so far, Aunty?” Fiaz asks, taking the proffered cup.

“I’m happy to be here,” Nafeesa says.

She does look happy, for this simple act of making and offering chai. Nafeesa fusses over Fiaz, over the amount of sugar and milk in the chai, thrusting cookies at him. Fiaz submits gracefully to her ministrations. He compliments her: “This is the best chai I’ve had in San Francisco, Aunty!” He keeps up a lively spiel about the places they’re going to visit and is a fount of amusing anecdotes about the history of the city and the gold rush that propelled its growth. Seema relaxes. The day will go smoothly enough, she thinks. Her mother is clearly smitten: Fiaz can be very charming.

His charms don’t work on Tahera, though. Entering the kitchen in her jilbab and hijab, she replies to his greeting with a brusque salaam, ignoring the hand he holds out to her. She accepts Nafeesa’s offer of chai but drinks it in large gulps, as if swallowing a tonic. Fiaz attempts to engage her in a conversation, asking about her last trip to San Francisco, offering to alter the itinerary if she’s visited any of the spots he’s planned for them, but she declines: “Ammi hasn’t seen them. It’s kind of you.” She smiles perfunctorily at his jests—“What do Texans think of our Muslim president?”—and replies to other inquiries with monosyllables.

Soon Fiaz gives up. “Shall we leave?” he asks, putting his cup down. “The car is parked around the corner.”

Tahera and Nafeesa go down first. Fiaz helps Seema lock up and follows her.

“What have I got you into?” Seema tells Fiaz.

“Relax, just relax,” Fiaz says. “Everything will be okay.”

22

Grandmother, you watch Fiaz help Seema into the passenger seat as he holds the door open and waits till she buckles her seat belt before shutting it, and you think: What a sweet man! He’s handsome and obviously fit. His black hair is glossy and slicked back, his eyes sparkle. He sports a precisely fashioned beard. But he’s younger than Seema, you think, probably by five years.

You wonder how he got to the United States, to San Francisco. There is a confidence to him, a way of carrying himself that suggests he is native to the city and the country. Yet he speaks flawless Urdu, without an accent.

“Seema’s Urdu is poor,” he says. “She should be ashamed of herself.” He says this in Urdu.

Seema swats him but cannot deny the allegation. Neither can you, Grandmother, and you’re ashamed too: your daughters never learned to read or write Urdu when they were children. The Urdu they grew up with is colloquial and mongrel, with English and Hindi handily substituting for words they didn’t know and couldn’t be bothered to learn, despite all your attempts to instruct them.