Tales of the Metric System. Imraan Coovadia

two lines of hills from the ocean, could have been a hundred kilometres inland for all that you could dream of the water. But there was mother-of-pearl light painted on the shell of the sky. There was only a cement truck moving on the road. Its green funnel with yellow stripes rotated lazily, almost as if a child’s hand were turning around a toy.

      Yash put the tap on, waited for the bath to fill, and heard, over the running water, the sounds of the houses around them starting to wake up. The firm voices of women were addressed to their African maids and then, alternately soft and scolding, to their children. The din of kettles and frying pans and outdoor taps and household dogs shaking themselves into rapid life and joyfully barking came over the cement walls.

      At first there were no men to be heard. But by the time the bath was slopping, Yash saw the usual procession of older men moving along the sanded road below the property in the direction of Govindsamy’s private bus. They were familiar, although he didn’t know their names. Some wore black waistcoats and hats, bound for service in Umbilo car dealerships and the bookkeeping sections of Pinetown factories and the manifold departments of the Durban Corporation.

      It wasn’t exceptional for an Indian to rise to the clerical level, to manage books or inventory, although an African was beyond the pale. Yash was ineligible for advancement because, at the age of fifteen, he had failed his standard-grade mathematics paper, a fact his wife and her family held against him and would continue to do so until they returned from having him cremated. Then they would take turns accusing his ashes.

      He had brought bad luck on them after all. He didn’t defend himself. Yash had been preceded in Kastoori’s affections by a boy whose family had a share in a petrol station. The boy in question had been ill with asthma, had dropped out of government school for the year, and thereafter out of Kastoori’s affections. But he remained in her heart as a possibility whenever they passed the Shell garage, and maybe any garage. As her husband, Yash didn’t grudge Kastoori her dissatisfactions. There was something impersonal in her numerous complaints. They happened to be against him. They could have been against anyone. These dissatisfactions filled her soul, occupying her passing attention like so many motes moving in a column of sunshine.

      He found Kastoori again in the bedroom. She was noiselessly and angrily washing her face, making her wiry black hair into a bun, and pinning back the clean pair of nylon curtains to let in the air. It wasn’t unusual for Kastoori to ignore him for twenty-four hours if she had consented to intercourse the night before. In the dark, she wound her cold bony legs around him and talked her nonsensical heart into his ears. She turned her narrow back to him so that he felt the curve of her side and the pulse in her arm. After ten minutes she withdrew and continued to behave as if Yash had injured her dignity. He couldn’t help thinking that it injured her and the other Naidoos that a man without money should penetrate Kastoori.

      You got used to certain facts about a person if she happened to be your wife, just as you became accustomed to a flat, collected, never altogether beautiful face, and a small, stocky, chocolate-brown body which was tense with pride. He had never seen her moved by any piece of music except for Christmas pop. She didn’t subside, didn’t relax her hold, and therefore occupied more space in the room than size suggested. To others Kastoori was imperceptible, a slip of a thing who was exhausted by her roles as mother and wife and daughter, sister and sister-in-law, cousin and aunt, pious burner of incense in the temple. There was nobody else who could believe that, in Kastoori’s shape, there was something dangerous to his life.

      —What you wasting time for, Yash? I thought Sanjay would be finished with the bath already. I must do the next load of washing in the bath. The sink is full up.

      —I am about to get him out of bed.

      —You can go straight ahead. Go straight ahead.

      Nevertheless, he stood there, unwilling to move at Kastoori’s instruction. Having opened the house to the outside she retreated to the counters in the kitchen, where she was in the middle of sifting brown rice into a blue-and-white Dutch biscuit tin. She emptied the sieve after each cup of rice, straining her eyes with the effort of watching for tiny insects.

      Yash was excited by his wife’s nearness to him, by her indifference. Something from the previous night had carried over into the morning, some kind of current that flowed between them. It didn’t matter that she repudiated him at any opportunity and that her heart was like a corporation air-conditioner. She was plain. Yet, in this minute, Kastoori exerted the same power as a beautiful woman.

      —Electricity does not come for free. By the time you finish standing there, the water will already be cold, Yash. Any minute your family might turn up at the door. Since you don’t have shame about the state of the house, why should I? Let them see how things really are.

      —We have the whole day.

      —Don’t you have to pay a visit to your European friends?

      —Yes, as you know, I have to collect the money saved for a number of performances. They promised it to me from before Christmas.

      —I know that you can put on a performance for your European friends. You should put on a show for your son. He wants you to take him to Logan’s house to watch Star Trek on the video, assuming that Logan didn’t already record over it.

      —Star Trek is not for children, Kastoori.

      They weren’t arguing, only pretending, as if neither wanted to touch the shadow of the other person. If Kastoori suddenly forgot about the bath and the brown rice and the Hong-Kong-factory curtains pushed strictly to the side of the window, and sat between the two speakers that Logan had organised for him to listen to his Pink Floyd records properly, then, Yash reckoned, his life could be made worthwhile. But she didn’t make the effort.

      So Kastoori closed her ears. Yash enjoyed a measure of freedom. He hadn’t ever sold a record, had never worked a day in his life in the back room of a petrol station, refused to act the dogsbody for one of the richer Naidoos or Naickers, who preferred to hire a family member rather than plucking somebody out of the phonebook. Yash hadn’t gone into business with Ashok, Kastoori’s brother, the one person in her family who could stick him. Ashok was already driving a Mercedes and had taken Sanjay and the other children in the family on expeditions to Stanger and further afield. But Ashok would never be able to impress you with his knowledge of music.

      It was also true that Kastoori could wait ten years before disclosing her views on any particular topic. She held her breath, preserved the grievance. The fact disconcerted many stronger persons. Much older women and men, grandmothers and great-aunts and other luminaries, stood in a tentative relation to her. On the one hand she was insignificant, nobody you would look at. On the other hand her insignificance allowed her to burrow further into life and under their feet.

      Today, in turn, Yash was underneath the feet of Kastoori. He had burrowed beneath her. He was prepared to die, therefore he was in the stronger position. She was ironing the previous night’s linen so furiously as he continued to stand in the kitchen that the sheets would never again be crooked and the pillow cases would never rise and yet he felt excitement. He wanted to kiss his wife’s puckered peppermint mouth and take her breath. But he would never do it. It was something illegal.

      Yash entered the bedroom and stood above the unvarnished wooden-legged child’s bed. It was hot in here as well, still heated from the blaze of the previous day when, for Christmas, the sun had made the earth burn in its joy like a woman in a bed.

      Sanjay pretended to be asleep. He had moved both his arms above his head and was trying to stop his hands trembling with joy. When persuaded to start being awake he would be deliriously happy, running into the cupboards and in and out of the small house.

      Yash bent over to speak in the boy’s ear.

      —It’s Boxing Day, Sanjay. This is a day to enjoy properly, one more day of holiday. The weather report promises the full day’s worth of sunshine. Maybe we can make it to the beach once my work is finished. Get up now. Otherwise your mother will be cross with me.

      There was no reply, although Sanjay drew the sheet tighter over his shoulders. At ten years old the boy was more of a