“Come here.” He cupped my face with his hands, and leaned in. His chin grazed my nose. He blew gently on my eyelashes. The snowflakes danced off my lids, and then, as he lowered his chin, somehow, we found ourselves more closely embraced. Was it the warmth of each other’s bodies during the cold chill that drew us in? Or were the parts of ourselves that had existed long before our bodies ever did finally meeting each other, after having been separated, in the same way both Socrates and Islam had described soulmates?
As I was lost in my whirling thoughts, I felt Bhav’s soft lips on my forehead. I tiptoed to lift myself up from the ground to kiss his forehead, too, but could only find his lips. And so, that is when it happened — our growing friendship became something else. The warmth in my mouth and running through my flesh was like a soft electric current. We kissed there on the bridge for almost twenty minutes, forgetting the cold. Bhav tasted like roasted coffee.
Our friendship now contained a particular fondness. Our sole purpose was putting a smile on each other’s faces.
In the weeks leading up to Bhav’s birthday, I could not sleep, pacing back and forth frantically, wondering how I could even get him a gift worthy enough, a gift he deserved. Abbu had asked that I focus on my studies instead of work. I was penniless. And then it struck me, while I was gulping mango juice and flipping through a Nancy Drew novel, that I could create a castle made of his favourite thing: marshmallows. So, I bought a few packs of marshmallows and toothpicks with whatever money I had and began to create. The castle was perhaps half a metre long and ten layers high. I added towers and, right in front of the portcullis, a throne, on which I placed a marshmallow king with a crown. My second challenge was getting the castle to Bhav, as I’d have to meet him a bit farther away from my home that day. I was determined. On March 28, I ambled down a long and winding street to Bhav, carrying the gigantic concoction, wearing fancy heels, and having dabbed on shiny plum lip gloss. The journey was toilsome, and the heels were torturous, as I tried to keep the castle from toppling over. I did manage. When Bhav saw me in his rear-view mirror, carrying the castle, which I’d covered with aluminum foil, he ran out of the car to help me, and placed the castle on the trunk. He looked on with anticipation as we unveiled my creation.
“A castle for you, my king.” I bowed.
Bhav ogled the castle.
“Well?” I asked.
He finally reached his arm out to grab mine then pulled me in close to his chest, put my head on it.
“I love you,” he said, for the first time.
When Bhav put the masterpiece down on a park bench and we both admired it, I told him, “Don’t worry, I got you covered,” and pulled out two big bags of jumbo marshmallows from my purse. I handed him the bags. “For us to eat, so your castle can stay intact, my king.”
Bhav smiled. “I see you’ve thought of everything.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon with his head on my lap, me dropping marshmallows into his mouth, as if they were falling clouds, and him trying to catch them like dreams. I ran the fingers of my other hand through his hair, always silkier than my own. Cafuné. I then gently rubbed his ear lobes, a caress I knew would bring him some calm.
So, there we were, under the sky.
Bhav had a habit of bringing disposable cameras with him wherever he went. Sometimes he would pull them out of his pocket in an ad hoc manner. For example, when my mouth was filled with spaghetti, or when we were playfighting, or as I diverted my glance when I was shy, Bhav would snap candid photographs and I’d be frustrated, other times delighted. The ones we took together, however impromptu, were the ones that I most looked forward to. When Bhav developed the photographs and shared them with me, I asked to keep them for a week or so, as I couldn’t risk Abbu and Ammu finding them. He agreed. Instead of storing them, say, under my mattress or in a locked suitcase, I placed them in scrapbooks that I would create. Underneath each photo, I would write a short description, sometimes about the real accounts and other times for our amusement out of my imagination. The scenes would have to be connected, to tell a bigger story about us and our world. I would sometimes include poems, and other times sayings that only we knew. Under one photo, for example, I wrote: “This is a photo of the world’s greatest monkey giving me the world’s most famous monkeys. All the monkeys involved are ridiculously silly, but um, still quite astute.” The text was under the photograph of me holding the three “Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil” monkey figurines in my arms, with my eyebrows slightly raised, as if to say, “Why this?” But Bhav, he always had a reason.
I titled these albums “Unbreakable,” determining this to be our one, unified name, like the way the Hollywood couples had their individual names amalgamated. Brangelina, Bennifer, Spederline.
I surprised Bhav later with these books. “Our stories,” I said. “They are here. One day, though, I will capture our story in a real book.”
Bhav smiled. “I have no doubt that you will.”
“Tell me, though,” I asked him — we were on a bench by his apartment building, across from the small convenience store where we often went to pick up ice cream — “don’t you get tired of taking these photos?”
Bhav turned his face to me, as the young children with water guns ran past us and the Soca music played from the speakers nearby. “No, never. Whatever happens, I want us to have memories. It’s how we will come back to each other, always. It is what our children will see. Why do you think I save all our letters and our emails?”
To an outsider looking in, it might have been strange that Bhav and I were speaking of exclusivity and marriage at such a young age, for I was only sixteen at the time. How could two people with such limited world experience know anything about life and its challenges, and what it took to sustain a long-term relationship? A marriage. These details did not matter to us, as long as the niyat, or intention to be together, was there. Our desire and commitment to each other would be like the waters of Niagara Falls, where Bhav and I often visited. The water that came from the last ice age, that was enough to cover all of North America. Durable, ancient, organic, creating its own path.
I hadn’t consciously thought about this then, but would contemplate later, that being with one love, and one love only, seemed to be especially encouraged for women; as if having a past would reduce her in some way, whereas the same didn’t necessarily apply to men. I wondered how much this drove people to stay together, drove women to love hard and men to protect their honour. Save women before they fell. I wondered also if in Bhav’s and my case it was more a stubbornness to prove that love truly exists. Perhaps we knew deep down that as humans, we were all broken after having been separated from the origin of where we came from. That life itself was the beginning of the journey to death. And that by looking for the one and never separating, we were searching for a certain wholeness along the way to it. Relationships, connections, therefore, were a way to restore that broken bond between ourselves and a power greater than us. Marrying our partner was considered to be fulfillment of half of our Deen, after all.
As Bhav and I sat on a park bench across from the ice cream store, I could see sketches of our future in his eyes. Under the warm Canadian sun, I wondered how I had been so blessed.
I closed my eyes and imagined my wedding to my beloved as I always had: not in a long, trailing white dress, nor a ravishing red sari or lengha, with layers of gold jewellery. I imagined not crowds of photographers, people, family, or even friends. I saw only the profile of my lover’s face in my periphery, as we were both looking ahead at the grand open space before us. We would be on a cliff. I would be holding my lover’s hand in mine, and we’d take slow steps together to reach the edge. It was then that we would turn to face each other. We’d take a deep breath, both at the same time, and push our bodies over, not letting go of our hands, nor shifting our eyes. What happened after, in my vision, I didn’t see. It was just the simple act of falling, allowing ourselves to fall without letting go, without
knowing what lay ahead. Oblivious to the dangerousness of the cliff, rocks from surrounding mountains, or whatever lay below — none of this mattered as much as our willingness to take a risk, together. This represented to me the space between wonderment and security. Being drawn to the soul of another person and the possibilities of union without worrying about what I would have to let go of as a separate individual, including sometimes my own ideas and the safety they provided me. It represented a willingness to abandon predictability at times, and be open to the unknown, because that was where growth and expansion happened.
This was what I had imagined, what I strove for with Bhav. Yes, marriage would happen with Allah’s will and for Allah’s purpose, but what was important was never dimming the spark of desire between us along the way.
I found myself, then and after, continuously speaking Bhav’s name to all of my friends. I often repeated God’s name before I slept and when I woke, when in fear and when in hope. When in gratitude or amazement. However, now it seemed that it was the syllables of Bhav’s name in between my tasbih beads. In all my emotions, everything I felt or experienced, he was both an adviser and a witness. A healer, too.
I heard in both his words and saw in his actions nothing but the ninety-nine names of Allah. Al-Hafiz (The Guarding One), Al-Badi (The Unique One), and Al-Wadud (The Loving One). These names of God were more than theology. They were attributes of God in all living things, including Bhav.
Then, one day during the month of Ramadan, the month I usually avoided Bhav for fear of breaking my fast by a careless gaze of longing or an inclination to kiss, I sat in the neighbourhood mosque with my family. We were listening to a khutbah on the basics of faith and practice. Sometimes during these khutbahs, if the tone of the imam seemed to inspire any kind of fear or had traces of condescendence, I would have to try harder to focus my attention. If the tone was indeed just a little more loving, my chest would expand, my ears would perk up. I would no longer be drowsy; I would listen more attentively. So, on that particular day, there was an imam with the most earnest of voices. As he described the experience of another Muslim who had recently been to Hajj in Mecca for holy pilgrimage, I was in awe.
“It is one of the most gruelling journeys you would ever have to make,” the imam explained. “But it’s that physical, emotional, and spiritual struggle that will bring you closer to your Creator.”
How would it feel to be even closer?
“Remember, my sisters, if you are under the age of forty-five, you’ll have to get a mahram,” the imam then advised. “A mahram is someone in your family whom you can’t marry. It could also be your husband, but, of course, he has to be Muslim.”
It was then that I could feel my slightly cupped palms fold and close into a fist, the wooden tasbih beads in them hard against my skin. The back of my throat was dry. I thought, How would I even do this significant pilgrimage without him?
I had been aware that Bhav wasn’t Muslim, but at the time he disclosed he was Sikh I had seen him only as a friend, even an acquaintance. Now that we had declared our commitment to each other, I would have to find a way for us to marry and experience Hajj together.
So, that day, after the mosque, I ran home to the computer and turned it on. I looked around to ensure no one else was nearby. My fingers shaking, I clicked on the icon for the internet. In the search box, I typed in, “Who can Muslim women marry?”
I discovered that Muslim men could marry women of the Abrahamic faith and that Muslim women couldn’t marry outside of the faith at all. Both weren’t technically allowed to marry anyone who wasn’t monotheistic.
The screen became fuzzy and I almost vomited. This to me, was illogical. If Muslim men continued to marry outside of the faith, then who would be left for Muslim women to marry? And I didn’t believe young Muslim boys or men would even think twice before they made these decisions, the way girls and women would, considering all of the repercussions.
That much I knew then, that although our traditions were once based in logic, if those traditions handed responsibilities and special considerations to boys and men, and those boys and men lacked awareness of their privileges or a certain conscientiousness, then there wouldn’t be a point of sustaining those traditions in the first place. Otherwise, what purpose would they serve the community long-term? I suppose I could have thought this about patriarchy in general, even outside of this faith context. I participated in it, too, sometimes, while still asking myself, How is it fair that men get away with more while giving up less?
The tide of moral outrage that washed over me then brought with it a deep sadness. It was technically forbidden to love Bhav.
It was true, though, that there were differences between our faiths, Bhav’s and mine. Although both were monotheistic, the differences were in how God was visualized, in the guiding scriptures, and in the articles of faith. It was true that Bhav’s mother often prayed to an image of a Guru with her open palms touching each other, as he had shared. My own Ammu’s hands were often cupped, palms facing the sky. Both closed their eyes though, searching for the face of God within the wells of their heart, letting God’s presence fill up all of the space around them.
Alongside the question about Hajj, there were other questions, too: How would we explain the differences in our faiths to our future children? What about certain practices that for me would be considered shirk? What about pork or alcohol? How would our families get along?
Abbu once told me the story of Sumayyah bint Khayyat, who was a slave in Mecca. She was one of the first ones that accepted Islam without having any kind of class protection. She soon became victim to torture, simply for her faith. She was tied up and left under the sun for hours or submerged in containers of water. She endured all sorts of pain and was repeatedly forced to renounce what she believed. I remembered that in some of the books I had read, her limbs were attached to two camels that pulled her apart. A pointed spear then flew across the air of blinding desert sand, piercing and tearing through her reproductive organs.
I remember seeing the passion in Abbu’s eyes, and feeling the fire in my own core, learning about this woman of conviction and fierce bravery. Sumayyah was able to stand up for what she believed in. This is what heroines were made of. When I thought about telling Abbu about Bhav, I remembered that I was nowhere like Sumayyah bint Khayyat. She sacrificed herself, but would I be able to give up Bhav if that was what was asked? I found myself in a conundrum where being who I aspired to be, this ideal, would require me to let go of the one person who brought me contentment. How did Bhav feel about my beliefs as a Muslim? Could I tell him about this? Would he understand? What would he say?
I decided then that I would tell him, and tell him soon, that I couldn’t love him and my God at the same time, and that for him, the case could also be the same for loving me. It was perhaps the first stone to hit the foundation of what we had built. We would have to figure out a way.
After Ramadan, I met Bhav so I could tell him. I was sitting in the passenger’s seat of his grey Dodge Neon in the grey parking lot of Caledonia Park in North York, where he often spent time with his friends. Bhav unwrapped his California sandwich, two thick buns, steak in the middle, and brought it to his mouth. I started by telling him that I missed him, then explained what had happened earlier that day, when Ammu shouted at me for entering the kitchen and clumsily breaking her glass plate. From the car CD player, Method Man and Mary J. Blige expressed their love to each other. You’re all I need is exactly what I thought, too, as I watched Bhav sitting there, eating, listening, absorbing, then forming his reply. “One day we’ll have our own kitchen, and we can burn and break whatever we want. That’ll be part of the fun of it.” I laughed.
We stepped out of the car and climbed the grassy hill next to the lot. Our ankles brushed against green grass culms, their mauve spirelets blinking back up at us. Bhav’s tawny linen summer jacket against the sky’s scattered cyan hues, wind blowing between his dark-brown locks, landing casually on hi
s forehead. I moved them with my slender fingers then took a deep breath.
“So, I have to talk to you about something,” I started. “But first, I want you to know I love you.”
“Okay,” he replied. “I love you, too.”
“As you know, if you haven’t noticed, did you know that I am a Muslim girl?” My eyebrows were raised. I did not blink.
Bhav chuckled. “Yes, I do know that. Obviously. What is it?”
“My family would never accept this. Aside from my family, it would be very challenging for us to be together given all the different, and maybe even opposing, rules of our religions.”
Bhav was silent, looking at his feet, then back up at my face.
“It could clash, the way we both believe in God, or practise our religion,” I said in a soft voice.
A bird whistled before a branch fell.
I remembered then Zakariya al-Qazwini’s The Wonders of Creation. I pictured Bhav and I standing in this celestial dome of earth on the back of an ox. The ox stood on an enormous fish in a glass bowl that held the ocean. The bowl was placed between an angel’s wings. I was reminded in that moment that, in this grander scheme of things, we were just specks. I thought, What did it matter what we desired, if what we desired caused pain to others in some way, if it created such havoc? We had to care not just about ourselves but everyone else.
“I’m sorry. It would only work if our love was accepted; otherwise, I would be too conflicted,” I confessed.
“How could we make our love be accepted?” Bhav said. “You’re the woman I want. I can’t stop loving you just like that.”
Bhav tilted his face and bit his lip, as if he was trying hard to understand. “And just so you know, if you haven’t noticed, did you know I believe in one God, too?”
The amiable winds picked up their pace, eolian tunes humming us awake. If he didn’t, he’d be like Shayṭān. It would certainly be harder for me, to be disciplined in my practice. I placed my hands slowly on Bhav’s chest. I wanted to lean my head forward and rest it there, but instead I swiftly lurched him away.
The Shaytan Bride Page 8