White Teeth by Zadie Smith Page A

reproving, tucking her large feet underneath the folds of her sari. “He didn’t see anything. He wasn’t there. I am not letting him see things like that. A woman has to have the private things—a husband needn’t be involved in body-business, in a lady’s
. . . parts.
”
    Niece-of-Shame, who is sitting between them, sucks her teeth.
    â€œBloody hell, Alsi, he must’ve been involved in your parts sometime, or is this the immaculate bloody conception?”
    â€œSo rude,” says Alsana to Clara in a snooty, English way. “Too old to be so rude and too young to know any better.”
    And then Clara and Alsana, with the accidental mirroring that happens when two people are sharing the same experience, both lay their hands on their bulges.
    Neena, to redeem herself: “Yeah . . . well . . . How are you doing on names? Any ideas?”
    Alsana is decisive. “Meena and Mala¯na¯, if they are girls. If boys: Magid and Millat. Ems are good. Ems are strong. Mahatma, Muhammad, that funny Mr. Morecambe, from Morecambe and Wise—letter you can trust.”
    But Clara is more cautious, because naming seems to her a fearful responsibility, a godlike task for a mere mortal. “If it’s a girl, I tink I like
Irie.
It patois. Means everything
OK, cool, peaceful,
you know?”
    Alsana is horrified before the sentence is finished: “ ‘OK?’ This is a name for a child? You might as well call her
‘Wouldsirlikeanypoppadumswiththat?’
or
‘Niceweatherwearehaving.’
”
    â€œâ€”And Archie likes
Sarah.
Well, dere not much you can argue wid in Sarah, but dere’s not much to get happy ’bout either. I suppose if it was good enough for the wife of Abraham—”
    â€œIbra¯him,” Alsana corrects, out of instinct more than Qurnic pedantry, “popping out babies when she was a hundred years old, by the grace of Allah.”
    And then Neena, groaning at the turn the conversation is taking: “Well, I
like
Irie. It’s funky. It’s different.”
    Alsana
loves
this. “For pity’s sake, what does Archibald know about
funky.
Or
different.
If I were you, dearie,” she says, patting Clara’s knee, “I’d choose Sarah and let that be an end to it. Sometimes you have to let these men have it their way. Anything for a little—how do you say it in the English? For a little”—she puts her finger over tightly pursed lips, like a guard at the gate—
“shush.”
    But in response Niece-of-Shame puts on the thick accent, bats her voluminous eyelashes, wraps her college scarf round her head like purdah. “Oh yes, Auntie, yes, the little
submissive
Indian woman. You don’t talk to him, he talks
at
you. You scream and shout at each other, but there’s no communication. And in the end he wins anyway because he does whatever he likes, when he likes. You don’t even know where he is, what he does, what he
feels,
half the time. It’s 1975, Alsi. You can’t conduct relationships like that anymore. It’s not like back home. There’s got to be communication between men and women in the West, they’ve got to listen to each other, otherwise . . .” Neena mimes a small mushroom cloud going off in her hand.
    â€œWhat a load of the codswallop,” says Alsana sonorously, closing her eyes, shaking her head, “it is you who do not listen. By Allah, I will always give as good as I get. But you presume I
care
what he does. You presume I want to
know.
The truth is, for a marriage to survive you don’t need all this talk, talk, talk; all this ‘I am this’ and ‘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