Writer's Excerpts

Amah

by Devyani Saltzman

published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto - Book 2

I found her in literature only once, hiding in Salman Rushdie’s short-story The Courter. London, 1962, an Indian nanny walking down a street in Kensington with the edge of her “red-hemmed white sari” in hand. Amah did the same as she cut through the pedestrian pathway at the end of our street, making a beeline for the 7-Eleven. But unlike Rushdie’s Kensington ayah, Amah never met and fell in love with the Eastern European hall porter of her employer’s building. She never had liaisons that involved a shared love of chess.

Amah came to Canada when I was eight weeks old. I was told that her husband beat her and drank, although I never met him and she never talked about the beatings. Romantic love was of no interest to her, and whenever she saw a couple kissing on television and in the movies she’d say “chee chee” in disgust and turn away. She arrived in our lives through the recommendation of an aunt in Delhi. Her previous charges had been the children of diplomats, although I couldn’t imagine Amah rotating through the three-year cycle of embassy employees.

To read the full piece, purchase TOK: Writing the New Toronto - Book 2