Somewhere in the First World, a Pakistani woman sat in front of her semi-detached house, on the fourth step of a five step staircase, wearing a traditional dress with her beautiful black hair tied up. A picture of a housewife; a picture of semi detached suburbia: a neighbourhood just like any other, semi detached in house, semi detached in life and even semi detached from reality. Some of the trees, planted in hollowed concrete, had bird feed hanging from the branches, with ersatz birds on the edges of plastic nests to complete the picture of suspension and somnolence. This was the environment the Pakistani woman had to come to terms with, a village woman, a new housewife, recently married; and just like she had to come to terms with the semi detached environment, she had to come to terms with the loneliness of marriage, with its own semi detached nature, the depth of which shocked her.
In the mornings, she sat on the fourth of her five step staircase, to watch the people and enjoyed the good mornings of the dog walkers, the waves of the professionals, the smiles of the school runners even if that was all they were willing to give her. She had been there for a few months and still didn't know any of the people that lived around her and was starting to become desperate for a deeper acquaintance than a good morning but didn't know how to approach the situation.
One day she was enjoying the briskness of daybreak that was the only thing similar to her village life in Pakistan where the mornings were fresh even if they were just slightly warmer. Some noises were coming from the house opposite where the builders were gouging out the eyes of the upper floor windows. She watched as they took out the old windows and stood in front of the holes, their shadows bleeding on the face of the house, and experienced a strange exhilaration like she was the one standing in the room with no windows and looking down at the street. This exhilaration came from the same fount as taboo, the experience of going through something that one shouldn't be living through.
She watched the builder go out of view taking with him a large part of the exhilaration she was feeling. She closed her eyes as she remembered that her first home had no windows of glass either and fell into a melancholy reminiscence, and started humming a mournful melody from childhood; a low and deep hum and soon, after a couple of notes mostly in D minor, she opened her eyes. To her surprise they had finished putting in the windows. Polish builders do work fast, she said to herself in astonishment. Instead of the Polish men she saw something else through the new windows and let out a gasp. How long had she been out for? Did she fall asleep? Was she still dreaming? No she certainly wasn't dreaming. She roused herself and walked over across the street leaving her own door open and knocked on the door with the new windows. One of the dog walkers, a bald Anglo Saxon man in his fifties, opened the door, surprised at the caller. The woman had a strong Pakistani accent and a forceful nearly righteous vigour in her voice.
'Good morning.'
'Good…morning?'
They had seen each other already that day and had exchanged the same pleasantry.
'I don't know if you know but there is a naked black man visible through your windows, through the ones that had been gouged out.'
The man was startled and stared at the woman not so much about the naked black man but the way she had said 'gouged out' which had a satisfying ring to it in her accent.
'Thank you, I didn't know that I had a naked black man visible through my windows. I will let him know the value of prudence.'
The Pakistani woman nodded smiling, happy to have finally made a call at one of her neighbours and walked back to her steps. She turned back to the window and saw that the black man still there, still naked, now posing. Seemingly, he was checking out his own ass. Humming her melody again, she watched as the naked black man turned sharply when the dog walker came into view. The dog walker waved his hand towards the window. The black man turned to look out of the window and turned back and also waved at the window, more energetically than the dog walker. The Pakistani woman frowned and said:
'I should have told him my name. Now he'll think me impolite and awkward. Damn! Why didn't I tell him my name ?'
She got up from the steps, thought about calling again but went into her house. She felt more depressed than she had in a long time. 'Next time he says good morning,' she said to herself, 'Next morning, I'll tell him my name. Maybe then…'
