Shine, Coconut Moon

by Neesha Meminger

  He pauses for a moment before continuing. “It became very messy and ugly between the families, each accusing the other of soiling their reputation and family honor.

  “Both sides,” he says, shaking his head, “put tremendous pressure on Sharan to stay in the marriage and turn a blind eye to Harpreet’s betrayal. Even Ma and Papa, who didn’t like Harpreet from the beginning, didn’t want the shame of a divorce to muddy the pristine Ahluwahlia reputation. Their stance was, ‘You made your bed, now go and lie in it.’ But Sharan wouldn’t even entertain the thought. Good thing, too, because within a year of the divorce being finalized, Harpreet had married that same lady friend in a large and lavish wedding that was the talk of the whole community for months.”

  I remember Mom’s comment about my father after we left Naniji and Nanaji’s house: He was anything but ideal. If he was, he would have come back around by now…at least to see your face, if not mine.

  Of course. The comment had stung then, but it made sense now. Why would he come back around if he had a whole new life, possibly with other children, even?

  To see me, came a faint whisper from somewhere way down inside.

  But he hadn’t.

  I wrap my hands around my mug, more to keep them from trembling than anything else.

  “Can you see why she wouldn’t readily share this with you, Samar?”

  I nod. If Mom had told me this when I was little, I don’t know how I would’ve handled it. Especially since I’m not doing such a great job with it now.

  “She was doing her best.”

  I nod again, deep in my own thoughts as this piece of information slips through the layers of time and fits with other pieces to give me a bigger picture of how the moments in my life come together.

  “It’s amazing how one single event can change everything,” I say slowly. “Forever.”

  He reaches across to cup my face in one hand. “Your mother is an exceptional woman, Samar,” he says with a wink. “And she has raised an exceptional daughter.”

  I smile wanly. “Even if I am a coconut.”

  He wrinkles his eyebrows in confusion. “Hmm?”

  I lean back in my chair and sigh. “Before we went to visit Naniji and Nanaji, I was worried that they would think I was a coconut. One of the Indian girls at school called me that.”

  “How is that an insult?” he asks with a puzzled look.

  “It means that you’re brown on the outside and white on the inside. It means you don’t know who you really are.”

  Understanding dawns in his eyes. “Ahhh,” he says with a nod. Then he jabs a finger into the air between us. “But the coconut is also a symbol of resilience, Samar. Even in conditions where there’s very little nourishment and even less nurturance, it flourishes, growing taller than most of the plants around it.”

  Intrigued, I get ready to ask more about coconuts and flourishing and resilience. I want to know more about Mom and what makes her exceptional. More about Harpreet and how he and Mom met, and all the years leading up to when Mom stopped talking to her family for good. But Uncle Sandeep’s cell phone buzzes, then rings.

  “Just a minute—that might be Sharan,” he says, flipping it open.

  “Blocked ID.” He closes it and puts it back into his pocket. Right away, it buzzes again. He knits his brow as he looks at the caller ID.

  He holds up a finger. “One second, Samar…Hello?”

  I sit back and sigh. I know there’s no rush. I have plenty of time to ask Uncle Sandeep to fill me in on everything Mom left out all these years.

  His eyes widen in alarm as he scrambles to his feet. He speaks rapidly in Punjabi as he grabs his coat and belongings. Naniji and Nanaji! I quickly grab my things and follow. He clicks off his phone as we rush out of the tea shop.

  “Is it Naniji and Nanaji?” I ask, buckling myself into the seat.

  “No,” he says, his voice strained. “It’s the gurdwara—the temple I took you to. Someone has thrown a makeshift bomb through one of the windows.”

  My heart pounds a furious drumbeat in my ears on the way to the gurdwara. I clutch the door handle as Uncle Sandeep speeds all the way there.

  A makeshift bomb.

  When we round the corner and the gurdwara comes into view, my hand flies to my chest as I let out a choked gasp.

  The gurdwara is burning. The place where I had those moments of complete serenity is now swallowed by flames. They leap like dancers, red and yellow arms stabbing into the night sky, embers flying, and sparks disappearing into the stars.

  Uncle Sandeep leaves me with a frail old woman standing in the cold in her slippers and runs into the burning building. I try to run in after him, but the woman’s grip is solid. She shakes her head and speaks to me in Punjabi. I take my scarf and hat and offer them to her. She nods gratefully, blessing me with her hand on my head, just as Nanaji had done.

  Uncle Sandeep stumbles out, carrying an unconscious young man. He deposits him by an open van where people huddle together, staring at the inferno before them, then runs back inside. I call to him, but he doesn’t hear me. I lead the old woman to the van, where we huddle close, next to the others.

  When Uncle Sandeep comes back outside, minutes later, the fire has spread to the other side of the building. He has his arm around an old man, leading him away from the danger. I recognize the old man as the one who was reading the Holy Book the day that I was here. A day that seems so long ago now.

  Uncle Sandeep takes his coat and hands it to the old man, whose own clothes are hanging off him, charred and torn in places.

  He turns to look at the building disintegrating before our eyes. He walks slowly to where I sit with the old woman and drops to his knees next to us. Shadows of flames leap on his face, but the real fire is in his eyes. He clenches his hands into fists and places them against his temples, then lowers his head to look down at the ground.

  Soon the firefighters arrive and begin to shout instructions and commands all around us. Snowflakes dance and fall while a numbing cold seeps into me. How could this happen?

  I look up at the fluffy snowflakes swirling against the night sky and lean my head against Uncle Sandeep. He puts his arm around me, and the faint scent of coconut oil mingles with the smell of burning wood and smoke.

  “Samar, I’m calling your mother to pick you up. I need to stay here and help.” As the firefighters gain control, he reaches for his cell phone and dials. “Sharan, it’s Sandeep. I’m here with Samar at the gurdwara—it’s burning. Yes, yes, she’s fine. Yes, okay.”

  He turns to me. “She’s on her way,” he says, leading me back to the car. He gets in and turns the heat up. “You need to go home,” he says quietly.

  “I want to stay.”

  He shakes his head. “No, Samar. It’s much better for you to go home. School tomorrow, no?”

  I stand my ground. “I want to help…I want to do something.”

  He looks me in the eyes. There is deep sadness in the creases of his face, but a firm resoluteness in his voice. “Absolutely,” he says. “You must do something. But for tonight, the best thing you can do is go home and get ready for school.”

  “But…” My breath snags in my chest and the rest of the sentence is swallowed by a strangled sob. My chin trembles as I try to keep myself together.

  “I will sit with you until Sharan arrives,” he says, kindly but irrefutably, and lapses into silence.

  We watch the firefighters work, putting warm wraps around the members of the gurdwara and offering words of comfort. Uncle Sandeep leans back and looks through his sunroof at the fingernail moon.

  “Do you remember that Winnie the Pooh blanket I gave you?”

  I nod, wiping my tears with the back of my hand. “I still have it.”

  He continues to stare out the sunroof. “Do you know why I gave it to you?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “You were my muni…that’s an affectionate nickname for little girls.” He pauses for a moment. “I liked that nickname for you because
it also sounded like the English word ‘moon.’ My moon-y.”

  He turns to look at me with a sad smile. “You were like the moon when you were a child, Samar. You would look up at the faces of the adults around you and absorb, absorb, absorb.” He waves the air toward his face as if waving a scent toward his nose. “You absorbed everything you heard and saw and reflected it back in its entirety, just as the moon absorbs the sun’s rays all day and reflects them back at night.” He stops to rub his eyes with two fingers.

  “You were the first child I had ever been that close to,” he continues. “I was completely disarmed by your innocence and your heart, with its doors flung wide open.” His eyes shimmer as he looks back up at the moon. “That is why I had to come back. I missed Sharan terribly, but I also missed my muni.”

  He looks at me again. “Children are little bundles of love, Samar. We were all children once. We all started out that way…sleeping peacefully like my little muni, with her Winnie the Pooh stars and moon blanket.” He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing above his shirt collar.

  Headlights pierce the darkness around us. A car door slams, and Mom’s voice slices through the night. “Sammy! Sandeep!”

  “We’re here!” he says, stepping out of the car. He hugs Mom tightly. “Take Samar home, Sharan. I’ll stay to make sure everyone is all right.”

  Mom give his hand a quick squeeze, then puts an arm firmly around me and steers me to her car. I lean my head on her shoulder and look back at Uncle Sandeep as he walks toward the firefighters.

  Chapter 17

  Mom spent most of the night up with me, making hot chocolate, crooning in my ear, telling me everything would be okay, until I finally passed out. This morning my lack of sleep is clearly evident under my eyes.

  “Wally, you look like crap,” Molly says as soon as she sees my face.

  “Thanks.”

  “What happened?” She bangs her locker shut and gives the combination lock a whirl. We start walking to first period calculus. I’m grateful today’s not a quiz day.

  “You remember the temple my uncle took me to?” She nods. “Last night someone threw a makeshift bomb through one of the windows. The whole place went up in flames.”

  She stops walking and stares at me. “The temple?” she breathes, dumbfounded. She shakes her head as if she doesn’t believe what I’m saying. “I mean, throwing stuff at a passing car is one thing, but setting a temple where people pray on fire?”

  “I know….” I stop before the words dissolve into tears.

  We walk to the most secluded bathroom in the school. She sets her books down on the window ledge, taking mine from me as well. I perch on the edge of one of the sinks. She puts her hands against the wall and leans her forehead between them.

  “Sammy…I don’t even know what to say.” Her voice is soft and quivery.

  I lean my head back against the mirror. “It’s not your fault.”

  She turns around, this time leaning her back against the wall, and slides to the floor. “No, this isn’t,” she says, raking her hands through her hair and holding it back with both hands. “But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”

  I raise my eyebrows, waiting for her to finish.

  “That day that Uncle Sandeep first came to my house…you know, it was Great-Aunt Maggie’s birthday…”

  I nod slowly.

  “You were right, Wally. There was a weird vibe going on. I felt it, I just…I didn’t know what to do about it.” She brings her hands into her lap and stares at them. “My parents, hell, my whole family, loves you! And…and Uncle Sandeep is the best.”

  I hop off the sink and slide down next to her. She’s talking so quietly, I have to lean close to hear what she’s saying. “Everything’s so messed up, Wally.”

  “Yeah, it is,” I say softly.

  The warning bell rings. She pushes herself up onto her feet. “You okay?”

  I shrug. “You?”

  She shrugs. “Let’s get to class. The last thing we need right now is school stress.”

  We grab our books and head out. Before I open the door, I turn around. “Hey, Moll?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  She gives me a shaky smile. “BFF?”

  I nod. “Definitely.”

  When we walk into Lim’s class, I feel just a tiny bit lighter. Like getting through the day won’t be as hard as it seemed when I first walked into the school.

  During English, Lesiak crams class time with Fitzgerald’s statement about the disintegration of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby. “It may seem like a book about a love story gone awry, but Fitzgerald was making a stinging commentary about the decaying social and moral values of his time.” I try to focus, but it’s like using a sieve to fill a bucket.

  After class, I gather my books and look around for Balvir, but she’s already left. I’ve begun to look forward to our lunchtime chats. When I walk out into the hall, I see her standing a few feet from the English room, chatting with Shazia Azem. When she sees me, Balvir motions me over.

  I hadn’t noticed it before, but as I walk toward them, I notice the dark circles under Balvir’s eyes and the redness around her nose.

  “Hey, Sammy,” she says weakly. “I’ve asked Shazia to hang out with us during lunch.”

  “Cool,” I say, nodding to Shazia.

  It’s an unusually warm day for January, with the temperature somewhere in the sixties. One of the only possible perks of global warming. When the three of us get to “our” tree, Balvir’s words pour out, like a faucet suddenly turning on. “Sammy, I was just telling Shazia that the temple I go to with my family was set on fire yesterday.”

  I whip my head around. It had never occurred to me that she would go to the same gurdwara as Uncle Sandeep, but of course she would. How many gurdwaras could there be in this area? I swallow hard and stare at her.

  Her face is tight. “I wasn’t there, but my grandmother was. She said a window was smashed and a burning ball came flying through. It hit the drapes and they burned straight up to the ceiling.”

  Shazia shakes her head. “I’m so sorry, Balvir. It’s amazing that whenever there’s social or political unrest, it’s the churches, synagogues, and temples that get targeted first.”

  “But why?” I whisper. “Why those places?”

  She sighs and shakes her head again. “I don’t know….”

  Balvir continues as if she hasn’t heard a word. “What is wrong with people?” she demands, her eyes becoming teary. “Sikhs are not Muslims!” She turns quickly to Shazia and says, “No offense.”

  Then she continues, spitting words like a machine gun. “Sikhism has only been around for the last five centuries, with over twenty million followers in the world! It has nothing to do with Islam.” She wraps her arms around her bent knees, her back expanding and contracting with deep sobs.

  I stroke her back and quickly brush my own tears aside. For some reason, I don’t want her to know that I was there. Her grief, and mine, feels private. She may be sharing with me and Shazia, but it’s more like a pressure valve, releasing just a tiny bit of steam off the top, so that she can go on with her day. I wonder if she had someone who crooned into her ear all night and brought her hot chocolate. Or if she has a BFF who would drag her into a remote bathroom for a BFF chat, just to let her know she’s not alone.

  After a lengthy pause, Shazia clears her throat. “Balvir, you want to distinguish between Sikhs and Muslims because of…what? Do you think that the violence will be less if you do?” Balvir looks up at her.

  Shazia shifts uneasily but continues. “Please don’t be upset by my saying this, but if you think your family is targeted, imagine my brothers, Khaled and Ahmed.” She looks down at the grass.

  Balvir has calmed down, like the pressure is now at a manageable level. She rubs her face with both hands. “You’re right, Shazia. Of course, I know you’re right.” She turns to me. “Sammy, Shazia is a couple of years older than us. She move
d here from the Middle East last summer.”

  “The UAE—United Arab Emirates,” Shazia clarifies. “It hasn’t been easy being a Muslim in America after the attacks either, believe me. I don’t wear a scarf, but some of my cousins do, and they’ve been getting harassed almost daily where they live. It’s unreal, you know…especially since Islam is such a religion of peace.”

  Balvir gives Shazia an affectionate nudge. “She’s supposed to be in college already, but they put her back because the school system is different there. She sure seems to know a hell of a lot more than the rest of us.”

  Shazia gives me a smile and extends her hand. “We got different news coverage there. I have a very different take on America and world events because of it.”

  I shake her hand, something I’m not accustomed to doing with other seniors. “It’s nice to formally meet you.”

  We eat our lunches in silence for a few minutes. When I finish mine, I turn to Balvir. “Is your grandmother okay?”

  She nods. “She’s fine, just a little freaked out. Not everyone was as lucky as she was, though.”

  I nod and allow the silence to settle on us again. There are so many different kinds of silence. The kind I’ve had with Mom: silence when it came to my father and grandparents; silence about Indian-ness and anything that might set me apart from my American counterparts; and the “treatment” kind, when I’ve done something she disapproves of. Then there are the silences I had with Mike: silence about who I am—because, to be fair, I didn’t really know myself; silence about things he said or did…or watched, that made me squirm, but I had no idea why. And then there’s the silence at the gurdwara that made me turn inward and discover that the world inside is as vast as the world outside.

  Sitting next to Balvir gives me the strangest feeling. We have so much in common, and yet at the same time we have nothing in common. I sit still and close my eyes. This silence now is a different kind of silence. It’s the silence that comes after running and running and running, and then turning a corner.

  At the end of the day, Molly and Bobbi meet me at my locker.