The Henna Wars(76)

“I don’t know. Sometimes girls like you cut their hair short,” she says.

“Girls like … me?”

“You know.”

Lesbians. She’s talking about lesbians. There’s a weird comfort in hearing her—well, not say it exactly, but … recognize it. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Abbu fidgeting in his chair like he’s not really paying attention to his book.

“There are a lot of lesbians with long hair, too,” I say.

“Where? There’s that woman, you know? Helen DayJinnraas. Her hair is so short, she looks like a … a lesbian.” Ammu’s voice dips low when she says the word lesbian, like it’s not meant to be said aloud.

“Well, she is one. Her name is Ellen DeGeneres, by the way. And her wife has beautiful, long hair.”

“And her wife is a lesbian, not a bisexual?”

I turn around so fast at that that the hairbrush is left swinging from my hair, pulled out of Ammu’s hand.

“What are you doing?” She tries to get a grip of the brush again.

“Why do you know what a bisexual is?”

“I’ve been reading.”

“About lesbians?”

“And bisexuals. And paansexuals.” She says “pansexual” like they’re people attracted to paan, the food, not people who feel attraction to people of all genders. “And … what is it called? Transgender. Like hijra, right?”

“Pansexual, Ammu,” I mumble under my breath, though I’m impressed she knows even this much.

“Paansexual, that’s what I said.” She finally turns me back around and puts the hairbrush away. For a while, we sit in silence; I’m trying to figure out what I should say next while she begins to part the strands of my hair to rub oil into my scalp.

When she’s finished, she pats me on the head like I’m a pet.

“You know, when I told your Nanu and Nana about me and your Abbu I didn’t understand why they were so angry. He had such great prospects in front of him. So did I. It made no sense. Later, I realized that I was supposed to have lied about it, that that would have made it better. If I had pretended I had never spoken to him before, never known him, that he was a stranger who I liked the look of and nothing more, then nobody would have spoken about us in hushed whispers like we were shameful. Amma and Abba would have been able to hold their heads up high, because I would have made the right choices.”

“You said you regret what happened. You feel ashamed.” That conversation is imprinted onto my mind and I’m not sure if I can ever forget it.

“I did. I do. I …” She trails off. “At the time, I didn’t understand. I thought I was supposed to be honest with my parents. I thought I had made all of the right choices, so why was I being punished for one wrong thing? I was angry, you know. At the wedding, wearing my red saree and mehndi and jewelry, I couldn’t be happy because I kept looking out at the sea of faces and thinking of what they were probably saying about me. I didn’t want you to go through that, Nishat.”

I push back the strands of my hair and blink up at her. I can’t wrap my head around her words.

“But that’s how you’ve been feeling anyway, isn’t it?”

I nod, feeling a lump rising in my throat.

“I was just trying to understand. I don’t … understand it, Nishat. I’ve never met someone like that before.” There’s a slight waver in her voice. “I thought … it was just something that happened here. Not to Bengali girls. Not to my daughter.”

“It’s not something that happens, Ammu.” I rub at the tears running down my cheeks. “It’s something that I am.”

“I know.” She reaches out, wrapping her arms around me. “I know.”

When Ammu and I pull away, we’re both rubbing at our eyes. Even Abbu has put down his book and has red-rimmed eyes—like he’s been not-so-secretly crying too. He rubs at his nose when he catches me looking, like he’s embarrassed that I’ve seen him.

“Hey …” Priti’s voice jolts us all out of our teary emotions. She’s standing in the doorway to the room, taking us all in with wide eyes. “Um … what’s going on?”

“Nothing.” Ammu sniffles once, rubs away the last of her tears and settles into position in her bed again. “Come here, let me put oil in your hair.”

Priti looks at us all skeptically for a moment before sitting down right beside me on the bed. She gives me a questioning look as Ammu begins to brush her hair back.

“Can I play a song?” I pull out my phone and start scrolling through Spotify.

“Rabindranath Sangeet.” We all groan at Abbu’s suggestion—even Ammu.

“Play something Bollywood,” Ammu says. “Something upbeat that your Abbu can’t sing along to.”

“Play ‘Tum Hi Ho.’” Priti bounces a little as she says it, but Ammu pulls her down by her hair and she settles again immediately, mumbling, “ouch,” under her breath.

“‘Tum Hi Ho’ is old, and it’s super depressing.”

“Play ‘Amar Shonar Bangla,’ we can all sing along.”

“Abbu!” Both Priti and I groan. Singing our patriotic national anthem is definitely not what I had in mind.