The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters

‘Oh,’ Shirina said. She waited for more, but he returned to the shelves and began smoothing out the stacks by jamming the spines of books even further in. ‘What does seven mean?’ she asked. She had never had a numerology reading before – they were like horoscopes, worded to suit every person in some way. But horoscopes were intriguing sometimes. The recognition of herself was thrilling.

‘For that, you must pay,’ the man said.

Shirina almost laughed. She reached into her purse and wondered if the man knew how lucky she was that Jezmeen wasn’t here. Once he took the money from her, he ducked back behind the counter again and opened up a slim silver laptop. Shirina’s eyes followed its path of cables across the floor where they tangled and disappeared behind a cotton sheet nailed to a ceiling beam, serving as a curtain. The man waited, staring intently at his screen and then went to that back room. He appeared moments later with a printout.

‘This is all the information about number seven,’ he said.

Great. So she had just paid for a Google search. His face did not betray any acknowledgement that he had ripped her off. The ink was still damp on the paper; he took care to hand it to her on two flat hands, like a platter. Some words jumped out immediately at Shirina: ‘sympathy’, ‘responsibility’. Then this sentence:

The number seven represents a person who will do anything to keep her family together. She keeps the peace and maintains harmony in situations of conflict.

This was why Shirina only read horoscopes once in a while in Cosmo or in the newspaper. If she subscribed regularly, their relevance became diluted. She saved them up and enjoyed the surprise of reading a description that matched her situation profoundly. The day before leaving Melbourne for Delhi, she had searched for her horoscope online – just one, she told herself, because it defeated the purpose to select the best of ten predictions.

You are at a crossroads but the power to make a decision is completely within your control. Consider the needs of your loved ones during this delicate time.

Words written so clearly that she could almost hear them.

Next door, Jezmeen was patiently standing with her arms stretched out while a silver-haired woman looped a measuring tape around her chest. ‘I’m getting a blouse made,’ she said when she saw Shirina.

‘They’ll be able to sew it that quickly?’ Shirina asked. They were only in Delhi for another day.

‘Yeah, I think that’s why Mum recommended this shop. She did like it when things could be done quickly. Hang on—’ She looked down. The woman was pressing the measuring tape to her collarbone, far above the neckline of the blouse in the picture. ‘I want it to look like that blouse,’ Jezmeen said, nodding at a picture on the wall. She sliced her hand across her chest to show exactly where the neckline should be. ‘And sleeveless, please. It’s too hot for anything else.’

The woman looked at her husband, who rose from a stool behind the counter. ‘Madam, we can do this neckline only.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘This is a decent neckline. You walk around in Delhi with anything lower, there will be trouble. You must also have sleeves.’

‘Yes, trouble,’ Jezmeen muttered to Shirina. ‘Mass erections. A city-wide catastrophe.’

Shirina didn’t think a decent neckline was such a bad idea though. Her own blouse buttoned up at the neck and hung loosely around her waist. She had given away a lot of her sleeveless clothes to the Salvation Army a few months after moving to Australia, when it became clear that Mother didn’t approve of them. The four-seasons-in-a-day weather in Melbourne was so unpredictable anyway that Shirina didn’t have much use for anything that revealed her arms.

The measuring tape dangled from the crook of the woman’s elbow. ‘You want the order, or you want to cancel?’ she asked impatiently.

‘If I told you I wasn’t going to wear this blouse in India, would you make it the way I want it? I’m going back to London.’

The woman shook her head with certainty while her husband retreated behind a small cabinet. He produced a clear plastic folder. It bulged with pieces of paper sticking out. Shirina patted the numerology paper in her pocket, relieved it was still there. It seemed that in the disarray of this market, there was no designated place for anything, and her printout fortune could very easily disappear into a stack of paper.

‘You see what I have done,’ the man said. His cheeks shone with pride as he presented the open folder to Jezmeen. Shirina wasn’t sure which he was prouder of – his work, or his cataloguing of it. On each left-hand page, there was a glossy picture cut out from a magazine, usually a Western woman. On each right-hand page, there was his corresponding version – a tailored copy of the dress or skirt or blouse, with adjustments made for ‘decency’. Necklines were raised from chest to throat. Skirt hems dropped below the knees. Waists were so generous that the dresses hung loose and forlorn like potato sacks.

‘Decent,’ the wife said, nodding her approval at the folder. ‘If we made these clothes exactly to the specifications on the models, people would complain.’

‘I won’t complain,’ Jezmeen said. ‘Honestly, I’d just like an exact copy of that blouse over there.’

The woman screwed her eyes at Jezmeen. ‘You’ll wear it with what? Jeans?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then the hemline needs to be longer. Needs to cover this area.’ She made a vague gesture at her lower half.

‘You know, I could go to any other stall around here. I chose you because you came highly recommended by my …’ Jezmeen’s voice trailed off. ‘By Mum,’ she said to Shirina. ‘She knew these people would try to make me a blouse with the fitting of a bed sheet.’

‘You think so?’ Shirina asked.

‘I’m sure of it,’ Jezmeen said. ‘It’s her final attempt.’ She had a rueful smile on her face but Shirina caught something else too – a brief shadow over her expression. ‘This is probably one of the ways she wanted me to “start taking more responsibility”.’ Jezmeen put air quotes around Mum’s words. Shirina didn’t know exactly what Mum had said, but it clearly bothered Jezmeen.

‘Can’t you just make it exactly the same?’ Jezmeen pleaded. ‘We won’t tell anybody, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

They shook their heads.

‘You can return my deposit then,’ Jezmeen said.

The man and his wife exchanged a quick look. ‘Deposit is non-refundable,’ they both said in unison.

Shirina stepped out of the stall just as the arguing began. She surveyed the shops once again, disappointed that she’d return to the hotel empty-handed. There was just nothing she wanted enough to fight for. Behind her, Jezmeen was accusing the shopkeepers of swindling her. Shirina wandered back to the first shop with the hideous shoes. She supposed she needed a pair of decoy sandals herself. ‘Two hundred rupees?’ she asked, quoting Jezmeen’s final price from their earlier bargaining.