Love from a to Z

by S. K. Ali

  She nodded, her eyes on me and sparking with interest. “Go on.”

  “Like we can only get to our strongest to face stuff after we’ve felt the lows?” I indicated her journal. “And your journal is all your lows, but now you’re ready to be your strongest? Take Fencer down? Speak up about your grandmother’s death? Stand strong, no holds barred? Win?”

  I looked to see if her eyes were still sparking, but they weren’t. They were tear filled.

  She opened her journal and flipped through and said, “Can I read you something?”

  ZAYNEB

  THURSDAY, MARCH 21

  ODDITY: HEART PAIN

  I READ HIM THE PARTS that hurt. The not-angry parts.

  The parts where things felt confusing, like I would never ever figure out this world. A world that didn’t seem to work.

  Because the moment you’re feeling secure, someone hates on you.

  Like being happy on the plane, headed over to Doha, and then the hateful woman shows up.

  Like coming to class to learn and instead being served hate.

  “It makes you distrustful. Well, it makes me distrustful,” I said, closing my journal.

  He reached his right hand forward and placed it on the teapot. “I’m going to pretend this is your hand. Because I want to touch it, but I’m not gonna, okay?” He drew his hand up a bit, then rested it again on the teapot, but lightly this time, almost hoveringly. “How’s your hand so hot?”

  I laughed, grateful for his corniness taking the edge off what was happening inside me.

  “You know what my mom would say here? She’d say be up-front. Be Zayneb. Tell your mom everything. About the woman on the plane, the man in the pool, everything about your teacher.” The way he looked at me, I knew he was being serious. “Like I said, that was the thing about my mom. She liked knowing stuff.”

  “Maybe that’s the thing with moms in general.”

  “Yeah. Maybe it is. So do it. Just tell her. What you’re thinking, why you’re doing the things you do. That’s what this mama’s boy says.”

  I nodded and ate the rest of the cookie. “I am going to. After I leave here. Because I don’t think I’m ever going to stop getting in trouble, like she wants me to. Even if I never win.”

  • • •

  Before we left, we went and stood in front of the Marvels of Creation and Oddities of Existence manuscript again. Without fighting like last time, without talking much even, except to read bits of the caption out loud to each other in documentary-style voice-overs, his impressions more funny than mine, because he actually did a posh British accent, while I pretended to be an old, grave man and ended up sounding like a talking walrus, according to Adam.

  Then we asked someone walking by to take a picture of us beside the exhibit, using both our phones in turn, and right then and there we made the pics our lock screen and wallpaper images.

  It was the best, because we were both holding our journals, with the inspiration for them right between us.

  And we have the happiest expressions in our eyes.

  Even though we were going to be continents apart in two days, we knew we weren’t going to be apart.

  • • •

  Adam called his friend Zahid to drive us home. As we waited outside, he told me about this friend, how he’d helped him when he’d needed it. “It was one of the worst moments of my life,” he said, running his fingers forward through his hair to stay it against the slight breeze. “But then Zahid was there like a guardian angel.”

  “Do you think you should get some sort of a medical bracelet or something? So you can get help fast?” I put my hands in the pockets of my jean jacket. It worried me. That he could just be struck with something suddenly. “Also, can I call you at any hour of the day? If I get a sudden gut feeling that I need to check on the onion in my life?”

  He smiled, and with the sunlight he squinted into and the symmetry of the museum behind him, it was an image I didn’t want to forget. “That’s why I’m going to the neurologist on Friday. To figure that out. But yeah, you can call me whenever, H2O.”

  Zahid pulled up, and when we got in the car, he weirdly seemed to know me, shooting Adam a knowing glance when he heard my name.

  Adam sat in the front and chatted with him, and I sat in the back and looked at the beautiful palm trees streaming by and thought about the long arc of things.

  Of how I’d begun this journal when I was sixteen, and now I’d beyond-this-world connected with someone because of it.

  But then Adam had a longer arc with his journal. He’d started his at fourteen, a few years after his mom died.

  But then there was an even longer arc here—with Al-Qazwini, the author of the original Marvels and Oddities, how he wrote something so long ago, trying to figure out the world he lived in.

  And now here we were, almost a thousand years later, still doing it.

  Trying to make sense of what was happening around us.

  Maybe that’s what life is, really.

  MARVEL: MOM

  Before I fitted my keys in and turned the handle on the apartment door, I took a deep breath and said bismillah.

  Mom was sitting on the big couch beside Auntie Nandy, her scarf around her shoulders, her hair in a ponytail, her tired eyes immediately widening on seeing me.

  I could practically feel the rise and fall of her body relaxing, then the stiffness of it tensing, so I made my way to her.

  Auntie Nandy instinctively moved aside to open up a spot beside Mom, between them.

  I laid the paper bag from the museum café in my lap before unfolding the top. Adam had secured it for me—it was in these thin, accordion-like pleats—and I smiled and calmed as I opened the bag to reveal two madeleine cakes.

  Madeleines are Mom’s favorite.

  I held the open bag out as a peace offering.

  She put her hand in and took one out and passed it to Auntie Nandy before taking one for herself. “Thank you.”

  I crumpled the empty bag between my hands. “Mom, I’m sorry for yelling at you. Really very sorry. But . . .”

  Her body went through that relaxing-tensing thing again.

  “But I’m not sorry for trying to do this thing, take my teacher down. Because I’m going to. Because if I don’t, I won’t be free to show myself. To say the things I think and believe and feel. Because he’ll always twist it due to his views. So I’m choosing to be free of him.” I remembered the breeze going through my abaya sleeves yesterday morning, how it felt to be free in front of Marc. “Like, why be different, why be Muslim, why be anything that society tells you isn’t normal if you can’t actually be it freely? Why do we have to suffer to be us?”

  She didn’t say anything for a bit, just looked at the cake she held in her hand. “Honey, I’m not saying you can’t be yourself. I’m just saying that the way you go about it can get you in trouble. And I don’t want to see that.”

  “Leesh, I’ve got to interrupt here, but trouble is part of changing things.” Auntie Nandy put the rest of the madeleine in her mouth and finished it off. “Since when have you seen a trouble-free change for the better?”

  “I don’t want Zayneb targeted.” Mom flashed Auntie Nandy an angry look. “And I’m sorry, but you don’t have kids of your own. That’s why you’re talking like that. You don’t get that it’s making things worse for her. For her future.”

  Ouch. I didn’t dare look at Auntie Nandy.

  But I looked at Mom. And put a hand on her shoulder closest to me before resting my head on it. “Mom, please. I don’t want to live like I’m not wanted around. That’s not the future I want. And—” I couldn’t stop the pain in my voice. “Right now I feel like that a lot. Like I’m not wanted when I show up sometimes.”

  I did what Adam had suggested and told her about the woman on the plane. And the people at the pool. And Fencer giving me a D.

  About him trash-talking me to the class after I got suspended.

  Then I told her the things befor
e all of this; some of the events she’d known about and others she hadn’t. Like the guy who tied the back of my scarf to a pole on the bus without me noticing, and when I tried to exit, my scarf pulled off and almost choked me.

  But I told her in a different way than I’d told her before. With sadness, not anger.

  Her arm tightened around me while she listened to each incident that had punched me.

  Then I told her how much I missed Daadi.

  Then I couldn’t tell her any more, because it hurt like something sharp had slashed at my vocal cords too many times.

  Auntie Nandy’s arm reached my back too. And she put her head on my shoulder.

  I realized from the slightly cold feeling on my sleeve that she was crying for me.

  Mom spoke tearfully. “I’m so sorry, honey. And listening to this pain right after coming back from Pakistan is making me angry. I’m so so sorry.” She wiped her eyes. “Dad is so broken too, Zayneb. When he learned the details of how Daadi died. Don’t ask him, okay?”

  I nodded against her, too sore to talk, and she went on. “Tell me what you and your friends want to do. About your teacher. I’ll try to listen quietly.”

  Auntie Nandy sat up and reached over to the tissue box. She took a tissue for herself, then passed the box to me and Mom.

  I took a while composing myself, lapsing again and again to crying when I thought I was done with tears and could start talking.

  It had suddenly became hard to switch from the hurt to anger, and I realized an awful truth: Over the years, I’d built a hard, strong wall, a fortress, separating my heart from the outside world.

  Now that I’d let the fortress crack, it was hard to not let my heart escape.

  And feel the hurt. And be free.

  • • •

  This Is What You Missed, Bulletin I by Zayneb Malik, filed as FYI for Kavi Srinivasan:

  I’m back, and you can’t stop me. I’m back to tell you it’s time to suit up.

  Re-enlist Ayaan.

  Prepare for battle.

  StoneWraith14 has an account on a public forum from the UK called Redpillers. My reconnaissance mission yielded 87 posts from this account, 12 of which give us details connecting him to Fencer the teacher. 3 connect him to SPRINGDALE.

  Send url. We are on it. Welcome back, General.

  • • •

  I let myself have only half an hour sending stuff to and communicating with Ayaan and Kavi. Then, for the rest of the day, Auntie Nandy and I took Mom to Katara.

  We prayed together for Daadi at the mosque first and then came outside to sit and watch the birds weave in and out of the pigeon towers, with Mom holding me tight and Auntie Nandy holding her tight.

  The Doha birds flying into the sky reminded me that I believe there is more out there, more than this small world. That Daadi will be free somewhere, her hands at peace.

  ADAM

  FRIDAY, MARCH 22

  MARVEL: DAD

  I WOKE UP WITH TINGLING in my arms again, more than yesterday. And the first thing I did was reach for my phone to call Dad.

  He helped me sit up, to check my movements slowly, before lending his shoulder for me to try to stand.

  My legs were okay. My steps were okay.

  Joy rushed inside, and I let it out by hugging Dad. “Thanks. Thank you, Dad.”

  “Do you want to rest again, or are you ready to start the day?” He rubbed my back before letting go, and I was relieved his voice was happy, not stressed.

  “I wanted to finish the room for Hanna. But I’m not so sure with my arms.” I kneaded them to get at the feelings of pins and needles coursing throughout. “I just had a bit more to do.”

  Dad leaned back against my dresser. “How okay is it if I do it? If you direct me?”

  “Completely okay.”

  “Then let’s do it. Before Hanna wakes up.”

  • • •

  Dad rigged the light system, finished attaching the remaining cutouts, and secured the fake moss to parts of the stone chips I’d glued on the floor. Then he hung the mobile of tiny geese flying in a V formation in the far corner of the room.

  When he went to wake up Hanna, I closed the door and turned the lights on.

  The entire room, except for the floor, was made up of blues, ranging from the lightest white blue near the floor to the darkest, inkiest blues swathing the ceiling. The whole place was also lit by various kinds of lights—from streams of small, flickering lights to strong spotlights—and they highlighted different parts of the room, different things to be examined.

  I lay on the beanbag chair Dad had carried down from the living room before he went to get Hanna.

  I let myself completely chill, head back, hands behind my head, breathing even.

  The world in the room surrounded me with its signs of life, the ones I’d noticed and amassed over time.

  There was even a potato in a display box on a pedestal in the corner. A plastic potato, yes, but I’d painted over it with a matte-brown acrylic and rubbed dirt into it.

  That had been one night three years ago when I couldn’t sleep and went to get water and saw the potato sticking out of Hanna’s toy box.

  A lowly potato was a marvel if you thought about it.

  • • •

  The door burst open, and Hanna walked in, hands covering her eyes, with Dad following behind.

  “ADAM!” she screamed when she opened them.

  I laughed and stood up. “Look all you want, then sit back on this throne to really enjoy it. Happy birthday.”

  “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. This is amazing!” She moved around like a Ping-Pong ball, drawn from one object to another. “A path!”

  She stepped on the stones gingerly, bending down to touch the moss here and there, and stopped and straightened up at the potato stand at the end of the path. “A POTATO?”

  Her laughter was so worth it.

  I went to stand beside her, and she turned and threw her arms around me. “This is the best, Adam. Thank you a million times! Can this be my room?”

  “I don’t know about that. It’s kind of like the world. It kinda belongs to everyone.” I turned her to face the potato. “Although, this potato is yours. I stole it from your toy box when you were a simple, young girl.”

  “Whaaat?” She peered at it. “Well, I donate it to this museum of the world, then!”

  “Thanks. Speaking of potatoes, I’m getting something to eat. You enjoy the room.”

  “I’m going to lie on the throne and enjoy all the lights!” She made her way to the beanbag chair and lay down, a sigh rising from her as she took in the ceiling. “Does it say something in Arabic?”

  “Yeah. It’s a verse from the Qur’an. About the sky. I copied it from one of the pictures in Dad’s office.”

  Do they not look at the sky above them, how we have built it and adorned it, and there are no rifts in it?

  • • •

  I brought down French fries, Mom’s French fries, for Hanna and Dad, and we puffed up the beanbag chair as much as we could in order to use it as a backrest for the three of us, and then we sat on the floor and leaned on it and ate while I told them about when and how I’d made each item in the room.

  “This has been a three-year project?” Dad sounded surprised.

  “Well, I didn’t know they were going to end up in the room. I just kept making things.” I pointed at the Canada-geese mobile. “Like that I started making last summer before I left for London.”

  “And I have one of them. That’s why there’s only four geese,” Hanna announced proudly. “I got the leader.”

  “Canada geese choose one partner for life. And they show extraordinary commitment to their mate,” Dad said, staring at the mobile. “Sometimes they mourn their partner forever.”

  “They also are super protective,” I added.

  “Of their entire community,” Dad finished, maintaining his gaze on the dangling geese.

  “These fries are good but kind of s
oggy, too.” Hanna reached for another ketchup pack.

  “They’re exactly the way Mom used to make them,” Dad said, his voice tinged with pride. He glanced at me quickly before glancing away just as quickly.

  But I didn’t let it distract me.

  From telling Hanna the French fries story. Telling Dad, too.

  Both of them.

  Both stories: the time I thought I’d made Mom go into premature labor by asking for fries and the time we made them together for the first time.

  I shared them because I felt strong enough to bring us all together—me, Hanna, Dad, and Mom.

  • • •

  Hanna brought down my guitar, and while we waited for her friend to arrive to eat cake, I played whatever she asked me to.

  It was fun, but the best was when Dad requested “Seasons in the Sun.”

  I smiled at him when I finished, and he smiled back.

  • • •

  Dad was in on me meeting up with Zayneb, her mom, and Ms. Raymond, so he gave me a ride to the Malaysian restaurant where they were waiting.

  Hanna came along for the ride but refused to get out of the car because the restaurant was at Souq Waqif.

  She’d been on an active boycott of the market since the conditions of the pet section had begun bothering her more than her desire to take in the wonder of the colorful stalls.

  I waved good-bye to them before following the cobblestoned main road through the souk to the restaurant with its polished black tables spilling onto the street.

  Zayneb waved at me from a table just inside, on the restaurant’s porch, and I smiled back at her and nodded at Ms. Raymond and the woman sitting beside her, who sort of looked like a smaller version of Ms. Raymond, but with a head scarf on. She wasn’t smiling much, and I felt the beginnings of fear gnawing at me—did she already not like me? Or had she heard about my MS?

  But then I remembered that she’d just come back from dealing with Zayneb’s grandmother’s death. She had a reason for that solemn face.

  When I got to the table, she stood up, and I was immediately reminded of Dad.

  It’s just something he does when a guest or someone he’s been waiting for arrives. Stand up and hold his hand to his heart before and after shaking their hand.