Sita Walker - The God of No Good

Sita Walker is an English and Literature high school teacher in Brisbane. Her first piece, Love in the Time of Grandmother, was shortlisted in the SBS Emerging Writers Competition and was published by Hardie Grant in the anthology, Roots: Home is Who We Are. Before that, she dabbled in blogging and wrote short letters to her students. The God of No Good is her debut book.

I am in a coffee shop slash book store in Stones Corner when my husband tells me he doesnt want to be married to me anymore. We are drinking cafe lattes and I have just taken a bite out of a vanilla custard slice. There is icing sugar on my face.

This would not be surprising if we had been fighting or arguing, but since we had just decided to go out for a coffee on a Sunday morning because his mother was free to look after the kids, to somewhere as innocuous as Stones Corner, Im fairly taken aback by the presentation of divorce papers. It feels like going on a cruise and being told, Actually, youre being deported. I hope youve packed everything you own. I stifle a giggle and wipe the icing sugar from my lips.

Oh. Hes serious.

We didnt get divorced that Sunday morning. We didnt even get divorced the next time Borhan pulled out the papers. We waited until we were fifteen years in, with three small children, which is of course the ideal time to split up. Fortunately, this was not the first relationship of mine that had ended. Id already experienced a much more traumatic break-up in the years leading up to this moment Id left God.

To be fair, Borhan left God first. He left God like Noel Gallagher left Oasis. He peeled religion off like a pair of too-tight jeans and tossed it away. He boldly announced to me, his family, his community and his children that he had lost his faith.

Leaving ones religion shockingly and publicly isnt the sort of thing that most people who have been brought up in intensely faithful homes do, though in hindsight it seems on brand for Borhan. I should have seen the yellow envelope, and the latte, coming.

This is not a book about divorce. Its not a book about God, either. You might think it is a book about goodness and what it means to be a good person, but it isnt. Like everything else, this is about love.

When I left God, I had nothing of Borhans certitude or courage. My break-up with the Almighty was more like a French exit. I stealthily took tiny pieces of God out of my life, one by one, under cover of darkness. And nobody not even God noticed I was gone.

Well, not nobody.

I slip a cigarette and a lighter into my pocket and sneak out the front gate, into the cul-de-sac. I make my way into the grassy laneway that leads to the bus stop, and walk halfway down it before lighting up and taking a deep drag. Tarragindi, the treed suburb where we live on the south side of Brisbane, is blooming and ripe with the promise of summer. There has been so much November rain that the air is beginning to hold water underneath its skin. The grass in the lane is lush and thick under my feet, and the fence of the yard running parallel is overflowing with passionfruit vines and grapevines and leafy shrubs. Behind the fence a few chooks are scratching about. City chooks, pecking at bok choy stumps and multigrain bread and teabags. They dont flutter when I pass.

The house at the end of the lane is a two-storey cement and chrome box, with glass surrounding the pool and a postmodern marble statue devoid of imagination in the entranceway. Its the type of place where a man in a Ralph Lauren shirt slaps his wife around and cries about it later, buying her bottles of Veuve Clicquot to make up for her bruises. The next day they call each other baby and eat muesli and fat-free yoghurt for breakfast and she takes the day off work. Their kids go to a Catholic primary school, but theyve never been to church. He never means to hurt her. Doesnt he show her how much he loves her with everything he gives her? This house? The yard and cars? The magnolia tree he planted for her against the fence?

Its an enormous tree. As beautiful as the house is ugly. It spills over into the lane, trying to escape. With the dart dangling from my lips I reach up and pull down a large branch. I pluck the most extraordinary magnolia bloom from the tree and inhale its thick perfume. The scent gives me an urge to sit down in the grass with my flower and my cigarettes and take my shoes off. But that would be weird, so I walk slowly back down the lane, taking gentle drags, watching to make sure the kids havent suddenly decided to ride their bikes down the lane. From the chook and vine house on my right I hear some gentle rustling, and a gentleman emerges, secateurs in hand.

Hi, I say, surprised. Sorry about the smoke. Im just hiding from my kids.

Its no problem. He smiles.

Hes tall and imposing, with a large moustache. He looks about seventy-five, but could be older. He has a weather-worn, intelligent face and a t-shirt that says From Little Things Big Things Grow. Something in his demeanour makes me think hes European. An elegance, perhaps. He looks like Stalin.

My kids think one cigarette will kill me. Theyre very judgemental about smoking.

Well, thats human nature. To judge.

Definitely European. A slight accent gives it away.

I suppose so, I nod.

Forget about it and have another. I dont mind. He nods towards the bloom in my hand. You want to steal one of my flowers too?

Yes, Id love that, I say, grinning. It feels like Ive known him for a long time. He cuts a delicate pink flower from a shrub at his feet, and a few orange marigolds from another. You live down the lane? he asks, and passes the flowers over the fence.

Yes, I live next door to Peter and Judy.

Youre the girl with the Indian name?

Ever since I started school Ive been the girl with the Indian name. Its because I dont look brown. I look white. Some people think Im Spanish, or Greek. My mother isnt actually Indian, but she isnt really Iranian either. Shes Parsi. Theyre a hybrid, country-less race of people who nobody in Australia has ever heard of. Zoroastrians who fled Iran in the eighth century to avoid religious persecution. They set sail for India and have been there ever since, marrying Indians and other Iranians, and each other. Mostly I tell people my mother grew up in India which could imply that she was either the daughter of the British Raj or a chai walla from Calcutta. Either way, it usually ends the questioning.

Yes, its Sita. My mother grew up in India.

Im Joseph, Sita. Nice to meet you. Is your mother Indian?

No, shes Parsi.

Oh, so youre Zoroastrian?

My eyebrows raise themselves involuntarily. No, actually. My mother is a Bah... its a relig

I know what it is. Bahs believe in one god. Unity of religions, yes?

Thats the one, yep. Im taken aback.

Are you a Bah? he asks, genuinely interested, pruning the mock orange.

Im not sure what I am.

He gives a gentle chuckle.

Thank you for these. Theyre lovely, I say by way of exit, stubbing my dart on a steel fence post and turning to leave with my marigolds.

You must be in love, yes, Sita?

I turn back in surprise, wondering if Ive heard correctly. Even more astonishing is the answer that falls out of my mouth: I think I might be.