Behind the Shadows(1)

qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyui opasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfgh jklzxcvbnmqwer tyuiopasdfghjklzxcvb nmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwer tyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopas dfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzx cvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmq wertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuio pasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghj klzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbn mqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwerty uiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdf ghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxc vbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmrty uiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdf ghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxc Behind the Shadows Contemporary Short Stories from Africa and Asia October 2012 Editors Rohini Chowdhury and Zukiswa Wanner Cover concept and design Vipasha Bansal and Vidisha Bansal Cover image copyright © Vipasha Bansal and Vidisha Bansal, 2012 This collection copyright ©Rohini Chowdhury and Zukiswa Wanner, 2012 The copyright for the individual stories rests with the respective authors All rights reserved This edition, for sale only as an electronic book 2 Table of Contents 1. Emmanuel Sigauke …………………………………………………………Call Centre 2. Philip Begho ………………………………………………………………………Maroko Outcast 3. Anisha Sridhar …………………………………………………………………The Black River 4. Elaine Pillay………………………………………………………………………Left in the Dark 5. Himanjali Sankar ……………………………………………………………Granny’s Parapsychological Services 6. Monideepa Sahu ……………………………………………………………Pishi’s Room 7. Felix Cheong ………………………………………………………………….Remember the Wormhole 8. Lauri Kubuitsile …………………………………………………………………The Last Rhino in Mutare 9. Jackee Batanda ……………………………………………………………….Things That Ate Your Brain 10. Nandini Lal ……………………………………………………………………….Rain’s Limegreen Push-up Bra 11. Rumjhum Biswas ……………………………………………………………….The Vanishing Man 12. Irene Dhar Malik …………………………………………………………….The Widow’s Tale 13. Sucharita Dutta-Asane …………………………………………………………Cast Out 14. Jayne Bauling …………………………………………………………………..Cape Farm No. 432 15. Alex Smith ………………………………………………………………………Life Without Z 16. Samuel Kolawale…………………………………………………………………Mud if It Were Gold 17. Arja Salafranca…………………………………………………………………Jane and Lisa 18. Tasneem Basha ……………………………………………………………………Behind the Shadows 19. Isabella Morris …………………………………………………………………Time Ago, Time Present 20. Jill Morsbach……………………………………………………………………..The Hunted 21. Damyanti Ghosh ……………………………………………………………..Mrs Tan’s Memoir 3 CALL CENTRE Emmanuel Sigauke In Customer Service we laughed at customers, the irate ones. We sent signals to each other; then we put our calls on mute and just died with laughter as we discussed the customers’ idiocy. This really made our work enjoyable; and we no longer dreaded dealing with abusive callers. Sometimes the supervisors joined in the fun, or they left us alone, as long as we handled the required number of calls per day, keeping our calls at a Call Handling Time (CHT) of less than three minutes. Call handling was the easiest part of my job, and I was famous in the entire Northern California call centre for diffusing irate customer situations within sixty seconds, and for delivering high quality, which always earned me customer commendations. This had become the best part of my job, something which made me look forward to going to work. Until the day a man called from Redding, California, and, after hearing my accent, asked, “Which part of India are you in?” I hadn’t expected this one, so I sat up straight, confusion seizing me. I fumbled with the papers on my desk, attracting the attention of my cubicle neighbour, Linda, who shook her hair and said, “Another one? I can delay answering my next one for a good laugh.” I shook my head no and looked away. She sighed and answered her call. I took a sip of water to improve my accent. Then I braced up for the worst-case scenario. “Hello? Is someone there?” said the customer, his voice soft and low, as if he had all day to talk with me. “I’m here, ready to help you, sir,” I said. My legs started shaking and my feet tapped on the floor rhythmically. I leaned my face closer to the screen, but my eyes weren’t focused on anything yet. The man repeated his question with a louder, more demanding voice. “We’re in Mumbai, sir,” I lied. I didn’t want him to affect my CHT. I didn’t allow any customer to do that. Linda turned sharply, her face wrinkling with surprise. I ignored her and focused on my customer. “Mumbai, financial capital of India,” I added. 4 “I could tell from your, ‘Tank you for corring Swift Wireress.’ You guys crack me up!” He laughed, and for a moment I thought he was choking on his laughter. I felt anger boiling within me. My right knee was now hitting the bottom of my desk, causing the computer monitor to shake. Linda kept casting glances my way, as if I was beginning to scare her. I didn’t smile back like I usually did when I was dealing with a difficult customer. I wrenched my headset off, adjusted the monitor to reduce the screen’s glare, and examined the caller’s account details, which had popped up when the call came in. He had a 60-day past due balance, and all calls to and from his two mobile phone lines, except the *611 to Customer Service, were blocked. This call should have been routed to the Folsom Collections Department. I hated these system errors. It should be known that Customer Service is very different from Collection. We serve, they collect. Big difference. But this man’s account status helped me switch off the customer service representative in me and turned on the collections agent. I stretched, took another sip of water, and prepared to grill the man. I slipped the headset back on and found him saying, ‘Hello Mumbai! Mr. Punjab!’ I laughed dryly, to let him know that I could still hear him. Sometimes when they thought you couldn’t hear them, these stupid customers—and he was not that much of a customer anymore anyway—they uttered all kinds of nonsense, especially if you had an accent. Then if you told them that you were from Zimbabwe, oh trouble. But I was not going to let him get the slightest satisfaction. My laugh grew louder, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Linda signalling something. To the man I said, “Here we take good care of our customers,” making sure I emphasised the word customer. “For a moment I thought I lost you there, India,” he said. He cleared his throat, and then muffled what sounded like an emerging laugh. “So-o-o,” he gurgled, “what’s it like down there?” “Down where?” I said with a shaking voice, but before he could respond, I composed myself, and said, “How can I help you, sir?” “I asked you a question,” he said. “You can help me by answering it.” “Sir, can you ask a business-related question?” “Answer my friggin’ question!” The loudness of his voice caught me off guard; it rung so loudly I felt the urge to remove my headphones, but I slipped into my signature customer-first mode: “Your problem is mine, sir, the first time you call.” I sweetened my voice to make it clear to him that I was smiling. “How can I be of service to you, sir?” 5 “Spare me that bullshit!” He even paused to catch a breath. “Maybe I should slow down for you people: p-l-e-a-s-e a-n-s-w-e-r m-y q-u-e-s-t-i-o-n.” “And the question is?” I raised my voice, which usually had the effect of reducing my accent, making me sound more British. “Oh, so now you are getting an attitude,” he said. “Who is the customer here?” “But you haven't asked anything that shows that you’re a customer, have you?” I said, with no trace of an accent. The man spoke with a trembling voice. “Are you going to answer my question, or should I just ask to speak to your supervisor?” The way he said supervisor sounded completely obscene, a disregard of common decency. But yes, a request for a supervisor was his right. I really didn’t want him to end up escalating. I had to take control of the call, to resolve the issue within the first call. “I said should I ask to speak to your supervisor?” he repeated, trying to match my accent. “No one stopped you,” my lips were trembling, but I managed to add the polite “sir”. “Certainly someone in India seems bent on blocking my right to a supervisor,” he said. I raised my voice again and said, “You want a supervisor, you get a supervisor, understand?” Oh, when I said that word, understand, the way I used to say it to my high school students in Harare, I was ready for anything. Everyone around me started to shrink. In this state, I could deal with any customer type—the crazy ones, the drunkards, the psycho-sounding, all of them. I took a deep breath. “Sir, are you still there?” I asked. “Don't call me sir, Kabinder.” “I stated that my name is Jason, please address me accordingly.” “You changed your name too? To serve American customers, huh?” I had no time for this. I wasn’t here to play silly games. I had to bring the call to business: ‘In order for me to assist you, sir, could you please verify the last four digits of your social security number?’ “My what?” he asked. I felt a little pain; I could never pronounce this one right. “Your sosh,” I said, using the common—and friendlier abbreviation. He grunted, showing that he still hadn’t understood me, so, with a voice full of empathy, I added, “Your SSN.” “Oh, social security number?” he said and sighed. “Why didn’t you say that the first time?” “That's what I said—social security number.” “No, dude.” He coughed out a laugh. “You said shoshia shecret numb.” 6 “And when I said sosh, what did you think I was saying?” “Who knows? Maybe something you verify there in Mumbia, or whatever.” He sounded ready to give up on me, as if this call was beginning to distress him. In fact, his pause lasted longer than I wanted. The metre on my computer screen had turned red, to indicate that I had exceeded the allowed three minutes.

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