The Bad Muslim Discount

by Syed M. Masood

  “I’ve got no reason to doubt it.”

  Qais reached out and grabbed my forearm, his grip cold and strong. “You have to be sure.” He moved closer, forcing me to step back to be comfortable. “You have to see that. If you’re sending people from the mosque there, you have to know the details about the meat. You’re responsible.”

  “I’ve never been accused of being responsible before.”

  He didn’t think I was funny, which maybe explained why Azza didn’t want to spend the rest of her life with him.

  I tried to nod my farewell to him and tried to pull my arm back so that I could shove flyers at the other men exiting the mosque.

  Qais didn’t let go.

  “I’m serious,” he went on, as if I hadn’t moved. “You must make sure that the meat is halal. Where does this non-Believer get the meat? You must find out. Are the cows slaughtered by hand? Or machine? Are they stunned beforehand? Is there a tape recorder reciting the takbir or is a Muslim actually there speaking it out loud?”

  I’d had all these questions put to me regarding Jason’s food by other people, though never with such insistent zeal. Qais’s behavior was strange, but not entirely bizarre by the standards of his community. If there is another group of people that sweats the small stuff as profusely as Muslims do, I have not come across them.

  “I need my hand.”

  The sickly sweet smile was back in an instant as he released his grip on me. “Sorry. I’m just trying to make sure you don’t endanger your soul.”

  “Don’t worry about it. They made me give it up when I passed the bar.”

  He let that sit a few moments in silence. Then a broken mountain of a man came up behind Qais. He had broad, open features. His body radiated the memory of physical strength, and his face, through deep lines like cracks in stone, told of a difficult life. Qais turned to see what had captured my attention, then smiled broadly.

  “Anvar Faris, this man will soon be my father-in-law. His name is Abu Fahd.”

  Of course, the older man’s name wasn’t really Abu Fahd. That was his kunya, a title that some Arabs took after they had a child. It indicated that he had a son. Azza had never mentioned a brother.

  Abu Fahd gave me a wide, toothy smile and held out his right hand for me to shake. I noticed that he had no fingernails. “I have heard of you,” he said. In response to my surprised look, he added, “From Hafeez Bhai.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Yes.” Abu Fahd beamed at the mention of our landlord. “Hafeez Bhai is wonderful. A generous man.”

  Qais gave a little snort of derision, then asked, “What did Bhatti say about Anvar?”

  “Don’t you know? This is the warrior who defended Taleb Mansoor.”

  I’d been called many things in my life, mostly by my father, but never a warrior. Qais turned that sharp gaze on me again, clearly reappraising my worth. “Really? Any interesting cases you’re working on now?”

  “No,” Abu Fahd responded before I could. “They won’t let him in court anymore. Hafeez told me.”

  I probably should’ve corrected them but I didn’t. I just handed Abu Fahd a flyer. “I really need to give these out. Then I have a meeting, so…”

  Qais seemed to be on the verge of turning away when a thought arrested him and brought him back to the conversation. “You know, we should hang out sometime. Let me get your number. I’ll call you.”

  I tried not to look appalled, certain that this was the beginning of a terrible friendship.

  * * *

  —

  “As-salamu alaykum, Barrister Faris,” Hafeez Bhatti said as I walked past his office on my way back to my apartment. “I was only just now wondering what was keeping you.” With a gesture for me to come closer, he lowered his voice, as if about to tell me something important and private. “A woman was at the office, asking about you.”

  I glanced at my watch. “When?”

  “A few minutes ago, maybe.” Hafeez Bhai raised grotesquely thick eyebrows at me and then dropped them back down. He did this three or four times. Somehow, he made this gesture convey a lewd subtext. “She’s waiting for you outside your apartment.” He finished off his facial contortions with a wink. “Have fun.”

  I checked the time on my phone. “Damn it. She came early.”

  “That’s a good problem to have, Barrister Sahib. Most men have the opposite issue.”

  I spared a frown for my landlord, but Bhatti had adopted a perfectly innocent expression. Shaking my head, I rushed up the stairs as fast as I could. If I hadn’t lost my breath running up several floors, I would’ve lost it when I saw Zuha. Despite everything that had happened, as soon as I saw her, I was caught up in the music of her again, caught up in the familiar melody of her slender form and her mischievous smile and her slightly wavy brown hair and the flirtatious hem of her short kameez.

  “Hi.” My greeting came out lame and broken.

  “Hey.”

  Zuha stepped forward and held out her arms. Our embrace was brief and awkward. She smelled like white chocolate and vanilla and the vague memory of a flower I once knew. I cleared my throat and tried to think of something innocuous to say. She spoke first. “You look good.”

  “There have to be some constants in the universe, I suppose.”

  “You really haven’t changed then.”

  “But you have.” There was an edge to my voice. I had known it was there, but I hadn’t meant to cut with it.

  Her smile faded. “Are we going to do this here, in the hallway?”

  “My apartment is depressing.”

  “Seems like just the right setting for this conversation then.”

  I reached into my pocket for my keys. “So, how’s God?”

  “Good, I’m sure.”

  “Let Him know I was asking after Him.”

  Zuha adjusted the strap of her white handbag, so that it rested more comfortably on her shoulder. “You realize that He didn’t start magically speaking to me as soon as I stopped sleeping with you, right?”

  “Hardly seems worth it then.” I opened the door to the small unit of space I called home, and let her in. It was a cramped, run-down place with little to redeem it in the eyes of men—and even less in the eyes of women, if my mother was to be believed. The ceiling was low enough to touch, the appliances old, almost midcentury, and the gray carpet threadbare.

  I’d seen but somehow also never really seen how inadequate the place was, how depressing and lightless, until Zuha walked in. She didn’t belong here, in these drab surroundings.

  She was thinking the same thing. I could see it in her eyes. She said, “It’s—”

  I didn’t want to hear her polite lie. “Shit. It’s shit.” I gestured to a dilapidated old couch in a corner by the television. “Take a seat.”

  “I was going to say that it has character.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?”

  Zuha shrugged her shoulders, eyes still looking my place over. “I don’t know. It’s something I’ve heard people say.”

  “What else do people say?”

  “That you have five girlfriends. I’m just here to find out which one you’re planning on bringing to the wedding.”

  “All of them, of course.”

  “Right.” She smiled as she sat down, crossing her legs and perching her fingers on a knee. It was an old habit of hers. “Naturally.”

  I sat down in an armchair as far away from her as possible. I should’ve offered her something to drink. My hands were shaking though, and I didn’t want her to know that. A teacup rattling in its saucer would betray the extent of my agitation.

  I drew in a deep breath, closed my eyes for a moment and tried to channel the part of me that was still a lawyer, the part of me trained to be calm, distant and dispassionate. Appearing in control was one of my few
professional strengths. I scripted a statement in my mind. I would let her off the hook, let her know that she meant nothing to me anymore, that I didn’t care what she did with her life.

  Before I could say anything, she asked, “You’re tutoring?”

  I was thrown for a second before realizing that Azza had left some of her homework lying on the coffee table. Not much got past Zuha Shah, even all these years later.

  “No.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Then you’re dating a student?”

  “I wouldn’t call it dating.”

  Zuha reached over and picked up whatever Azza had been working on. “Is she in high school?”

  “She’s catching up,” I said, in defense of Azza. And myself.

  “Doesn’t seem like someone you’d be interested in.” When I gave her a confused look, she went on. “You’ve always looked down on people who weren’t as smart as you.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Zuha raised an eyebrow at me.

  “It’s not entirely true,” I conceded. “Not anymore. You keep saying I haven’t changed, but I have. It’s been a long time.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “I’m sure you’ve changed too. I heard you tried on the hijab for a while.”

  “Yeah. That didn’t take.”

  “So you’re not religious anymore?”

  So you left me for no reason is what I wanted to say, but didn’t.

  Zuha seemed to hear it anyway. “I’m probably still a lot more religious than you are.”

  “That’s true for most people.”

  She smiled a little.

  And just like that, as ridiculous as it may seem, it felt like there was nothing left to say. Or maybe there was so much to say that the enormity of it left us both speechless. The silence between us grew and got jagged, until finally I couldn’t bear it anymore.

  “Look, Zuha—”

  “I’m sorry.” Her interruption was quick. “That’s what I came to say. I wanted a chance to say that before—”

  “It’s fine.”

  When I didn’t say anything more, she shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe what was happening. “That’s it? ‘Fine’? That’s all you have to say to me?”

  With a grimace, I rose to my feet and began to pace. This was not going the way it was supposed to go. I was doing the wrong things. You don’t fidget, you don’t walk around, when making an argument. It is bad form. You stand and you deliver, so that you project confidence.

  I couldn’t make myself do the things I knew I was supposed to do, couldn’t be what I was supposed to be. I should have been gracious and dismissive, wounded but generous, contemptuous and yet, at the same time, polite.

  Why did I never feel in possession of myself around Zuha? I still didn’t know the answer. I shook my head at myself, but she misread the gesture. She seemed to think it was meant for her.

  “Given everything…please, at least tell me how you feel.”

  “I can’t tell you.” I said it in a frustrated bark. “Because I don’t know. The girl I had a crush on since forever, my first girlfriend, my first kiss—”

  “You called mistletoe and—”

  “I remember.”

  “I just meant it was—”

  “A surprise. Just like it was a surprise when I heard you had agreed to marry my brother.”

  “A less pleasant one, I imagine,” Zuha said.

  “You’re going to make jokes now?”

  “I’m just trying to keep it…I just don’t want us to fight.”

  “If you don’t want us to fight, you should let me do all the jokes.”

  Zuha ran both her hands through her hair, holding back the flowing locks for a moment before letting them fall again and slumping into her seat. “Were you always this difficult?”

  “Yes. It never used to bother you. You loved me once.”

  “Yes. I did.”

  “And you’re going to marry a Faris now. Just, you know, the wrong brother.” I stopped pacing and looked down at her. “I was going to let it go, you know. I was going to let you do whatever you wanted. I want you to be happy, so I was going to hold my tongue. But then you come here and ask me how I feel. How badly do you need me to lie to you, Zuha?”

  “This isn’t about me being happy.” Her eyes were bright but in the wrong way, in the way that broken crystal sparkles. “Look, the proposal came from your parents. I thought you knew all about it. How could you not? I thought you didn’t care, or you would’ve said something. That made me so angry that I—”

  “You thought I was okay with it. Have we met?”

  She didn’t respond for a while and my words hung between us. Finally, she said, “Not for a long time. It isn’t like you ever pursued me after we ended it.”

  “We didn’t end it. It was you. You had a religious seizure, suddenly I wasn’t good enough, or holy enough, for you, so you broke it off—”

  “You didn’t— You could’ve done something.”

  “Like what?”

  “You could’ve proposed.”

  I threw out my arms to encompass the entirety of my apartment, like an addled magician unveiling a decapitated rabbit. “Look at my life, Zuha. I don’t have anything to offer you. Would your parents have said yes if I had proposed? Would you have?”

  She didn’t say anything for a while, which I suppose was answer enough.

  “So,” Zuha asked eventually, “what happens now?”

  “I’ll see you at your engagement party, I guess.”

  She remained seated, looking up at me with an expression I couldn’t identify. Finally, she sighed and wiped roughly at her brown eyes. I turned to head back to my chair, so I didn’t have to see any tears fall.

  “Fine,” she said. “Listen, just so you know I haven’t…I realized from my conversations with Aamir that you never…You haven’t told him anything about the two of us, so—”

  Realization smashed into my mind and I actually laughed as I turned back to face her. It did not, to my ears, sound like it usually does. “You haven’t told Aamir about us? That’s why you’re really here.”

  “No.” She pushed herself up out of her seat, her tone angry and indignant. “That’s not true and you know that and you’re an ass for saying it.”

  I held up my hands in surrender. “Fine. What about Aamir?”

  She let herself glare at me for a few moments and then, more calmly, said, “I’m not sure if I should tell him now. It seems too late. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. Do what you want.”

  “And what will you do?”

  “I’ll dance at your wedding.”

  “No,” she said. “You won’t.”

  “No.” I was not sure if she was done with everything she had to say, but I walked to the door and, slowly, she followed. “I will not.”

  * * *

  —

  I glanced at the clock again. It was two in the morning and I was alone. If Azza had come over, I could have distracted myself. As it was, memories kept bleeding into my conscious mind, denying me sleep, and I was unable to stanch their flow. I could not replace, certainly not in a few hours, the years of careful bandaging that the mere sight of Zuha had effortlessly ripped away.

  It is true what they say. Pain really is worse at night.

  I could not believe that, all these years later, once again, the thought of her was keeping me up.

  Then again, there have to be some constants in the universe.

  I googled how much chamomile tea was safe to drink before heading to the kitchen to brew my fourth cup. Somehow, while the tea bag was still fresh, I found myself staring at her picture on my phone again. When I studied her online profile, I noticed that she checked in at the same café on Embarcadero almost every morni
ng. Then I had the worst idea.

  * * *

  —

  The café was a typical cramped San Francisco spot, with low, close wood rafters. Real estate in the city was too precious to allow small businesses anything more than tiny spaces. I nursed my rapidly cooling cappuccino and hoped that Zuha would keep to her routine and come here for coffee.

  And yes, I was aware that this was an ill-advised plan. I’d made peace with my own stupidity.

  The ridiculous nature of one’s own actions isn’t pleasant to dwell upon, so I looked out the window, past the barista, past the eager customers lining up to pay more than anyone should have to pay for a latte, and noticed that the beauty of the day was fading. The sun was almost gone. Clouds were claiming dominion over the sky, and soon I knew they would become dark and ominous. Then it would rain.

  The mutability of San Francisco never fails to surprise me, though the city has been unpredictable from the very first day I arrived. When I’d emerged from an underground BART train, the first thing I’d seen was a large, heavily tattooed white man in a mesh onesie waving around a Bible, screaming out urgent warnings about the end of times.

  No matter how many independent bookstores I explored, how many protests I walked past, how many plays I attended, for me the most memorable thing about San Francisco would always be that giant, flaccid, Bible-thumping hobo. Some associations are indelible, no matter how much rain falls upon them.

  The door opened and Zuha walked in.

  There are those who would say that a Muslim has no business seeking the divine in the face of a woman. What they must not know is that there are moments and creatures of such exquisite, transcendent imperfection in this hollow, broken world that the hand of a great artist is evident in them. Let those who can look away look away if they wish.

  She noticed me instantly. I had strategically chosen my location to ensure it. Her smile, swift and warm for one moment, became guarded and cautious as she walked over to me.

  “Hey,” Zuha said.

  “Hi. Wow. This is…What a complete and utter coincidence that we should meet here.”

  “You’re full of shit.”