White Teeth by Zadie Smith Page A

“I am really like this” like in the papers, all this
revelation
— especially when your husband is old, when he is wrinkly and falling apart — you do not
want
to know what is slimy underneath the bed and rattling in the wardrobe.’
    Neena frowns, Clara cannot raise serious objection, and the rice is handed around once more.
    ‘Moreover,’ says Alsana after a pause, folding her dimpled arms underneath her breasts, pleased to be holding forth on a subject close to this formidable bosom, ‘when you are from families such as ours you should have learnt that
silence
, what is
not
said, is the very
best
recipe for family life.’
    For all three have been brought up in strict, religious families, houses where God appeared at every meal, infiltrated every childhood game, and sat in the lotus position under the bedclothes with a torch to check nothing untoward was occurring.
    ‘So let me get this straight,’ says Neena derisively. ‘You’re saying that a good dose of repression keeps a marriage healthy.’
    And as if someone had pressed a button, Alsana is outraged. ‘Repression! Nonsense silly-billy word! I’m just talking about common sense. What is my husband? What is yours?’ she says, pointing to Clara. ‘Twenty-five years they live before we are even
born
. What are they? What are they capable of? What blood do they have on their hands? What is sticky and smelly in their private areas? Who knows?’ She throws her hands up, releasing the questions into the unhealthy Kilburn air, sending a troupe of sparrows up with them.
    ‘What you don’t understand, my Niece-of-Shame, what none of your generation understands . . .’
    At which point Neena cannot stop a piece of onion escaping from her mouth due to the sheer strength of her objection. ‘My
generation
? For fuckssake, you’re two years older than me, Alsi.’
    But Alsana continues regardless, miming a knife slicing through the niece-of-shame tongue-of-obscenity, ‘. . . is that not everybody wants to see into everybody else’s sweaty, secret parts.’
    ‘But Auntie,’ begs Neena, raising her voice, because this is what she really wants to argue about, the largest sticking point between the two of them, Alsana’s arranged marriage. ‘How can you
bear
to live with somebody you don’t know from Adam?’
    In response, an infuriating
wink
: Alsana always likes to appear jovial at the very moment that her interlocutor becomes hot under the collar. ‘Because,
Miss Smarty-pants
, it is by far the easier option. It was exactly because Eve did not know Adam from Adam that they got on so A-OK. Let me explain. Yes, I was married to Samad Iqbal the same evening of the very day I met him. Yes, I didn’t know him from Adam. But I liked him well enough. We met in the breakfast room on a steaming Delhi day and he fanned me with
The Times
. I thought he had a good face, a sweet voice, and his backside was high and well formed for a man of his age. Very good. Now, every time I learn something more about him,
I like him less
. So you see, we were better off the way we were.’
    Neena stamps her foot in exasperation at the skewed logic.
    ‘Besides, I will never know him well. Getting anything out of my husband is like trying to squeeze water out when you’re stoned.’
    Neena laughs despite herself. ‘Water out of a
stone
.’
    ‘Yes, yes. You think I’m so stupid. But I am wise about things like men. I tell you’ — Alsana prepares to deliver her summation as she has seen it done many years previously by the young Delhi lawyers with their slick side partings — ‘men are the last mystery. God is easy compared with men. Now, enough of the philosophy: samosa?’ She peels the lid off the plastic tub and sits fat, pretty and satisfied on her conclusion.
    ‘Shame that you’re having them,’ says Neena to her aunt, lighting a fag. ‘Boys, I mean. Shame that you’re going to have boys.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    This is Clara, who is the recipient of a