Saffron Dreams

by Shaila Abdullah

  And so I traveled with a purse that I held protectively on one side. My hijab covered my head and body as the cool breeze threatened to unveil me. I laughed inwardly as I realized I was more afraid of losing the veil than of being mugged. The funny part of it is, I desperately wanted to lose my hijab when I came to America, but Faizan had stood in my way. For generations, women in his household had worn the veil, although none of them seemed particularly devout. It’s just something that was done, no questions asked, no explanations needed. My argument was that we should try to assimilate into the new culture as much as possible, not stand out. Now that he was gone, losing the hijab meant losing a portion of our time together.

  It had been just 41 days. My iddat, bereavement period, was over. Technically I was a free woman, not tied to anyone, but what could I do about the skeletons in my closet that wouldn’t leave me alone? The ones who placed their scrawny hands of blame around my throat and threatened to choke me?

  Without looking back, I knew who the young men were. They’d been sitting right across from me earlier on the subway. No older than twenty. One had a half-shaven head with a swastika tattoo on it and was wearing an inside out pair of jeans. The second one had long hair and brown penetrating eyes that chilled my soul. He wore a nose ring and large combat boots. The third, slightly thinner one, sported a tanned leather dog collar and wore black, loose trousers that could fall to the floor with the slightest movement, chains around the hip. I felt sorry for their desperate attempts to make a declaration. A statement of uniqueness, the silent cry that we all carry in our hearts: I am important, look at me, a wailing that ultimately gets lost in the deafening roar of everyday life.

  The fourth one intrigued me the most. He seemed to belong the least to the clan he was traveling with––a rebel among rebels. He seemed dejected and morose, with his fingerless gloves and trench coat that hung loosely on him. His statement ended with his big spiky boots. His immaculately parted blond hair clashed oddly with the rest of his ensemble and entourage. It seemed that he was uncertain of which path to take, the path of least resistance or the path of sure destruction.

  Like it or not, you do stereotype. We all do. Together they were the sort you see on the street and you are certain they mean harm. But I felt no apprehension at their sight. Sitting across from them on the subway, I'd glanced at them listlessly from behind the death certificate I was examining. The document I had obtained that afternoon, the unnerving piece of paper that validated what I already knew in my heart, released to me without a body. It seemed like I was in the subway only a week earlier clutching a few Ziploc bags containing DNA—some hair samples from Faizan’s hairbrush, his spare toothbrush, a cup he used for gargling—hoping they would find at least a body. That hope was long gone from my heart.

  I had seen a list of what was required to wrap a Muslim corpse. Absently, I ran it like a laundry list through my mind. The items would never touch Faizan’s body.

  Kafan: 4 x 12 feet

  Head Wrap: 4 x 4 feet

  Body Wrap: 4 x 6 feet

  Chest Wrap: 4 x 4 feet

  Body Sheet: 4 x 8 feet

  The teens kept looking at me, elbowing each other and laughing. The blond teen sent a spiteful glance my way and turned around to look out the window. Perhaps he did not find poking fun at a veiled, pregnant woman particularly amusing.

  There were other looks I had been noticing, or perhaps that dreadful day had given me a heightened awareness of any kind of glance. After the first list of the hijackers’ names and nationalities was published, many Arab and Asian immigrants put up American flags on cars and shops, signs of solidarity laced with the hope of evading discrimination. It was a desperate attempt to show loyalty to a nation under attack. Immigrant cab drivers were spat on and ridiculed, and ethnic restaurants put up “God Bless America” signs after some were vandalized. With every horn or commotion on the street, they jumped, then withdrew a little more within themselves, guilt-ridden with sins they did not commit. They walked faster when alone. Some women took down their hijabs, afraid of being targeted, and adopted a conservative but Western style of dressing. Men cut their beards. Many postponed plans to visit the country of their origin any time soon. Those who did travel preferred to remain quiet during their journey and chose not to converse in their native language even among family members. A few close friends changed their names—Salim became Sam, Ali converted to Alan—in an attempt to hide identities. When asked their nationality, they offered evasive answers. We were homesick individuals in an adopted homeland. We couldn’t break free from our origin, and yet we wanted to soar. The tension in our hearts left us suspended in mid-air.

  I, too, had witnessed all sorts of looks in the past few days, the gazes from familiar friends who had turned unfamiliar, the silent blank stares of strangers, the angry, wounded looks wanting to hurt, the accusatory sidelong glances screaming silently, You did it, your people brought the towers down. My people? They were not my people, those few whose beliefs don’t even reflect the religion they rely so heavily on to justify their cause. They wrecked people like me more than anyone, who come to this country to lead a freer, safer life, to live among a civilization unaware of the struggles of those who live in restrictive societies.

  Is it money they are after? I wondered. A priest had been robbed at knifepoint in the same vicinity a few weeks back by two teenage boys. Mentally, I took stock of what I had in my bag: a chewed-up ballpoint pen, a notepad with “Arissa and Faizan Illahi” printed in cursive, a death certificate, a MetroCard, a $20 bill, my ring that didn’t fit me any longer due to pregnancy edema. My wedding ring! My heart pounded like a trapped animal’s. I can’t lose that! That’s what I held close to my heart when ominous night shadows fell down around me in the dark and I looked hungrily at each new one, hoping that one of them was Faizan’s, that in death, he would visit me, if nothing else to say goodbye and to hold me close one last time. But how can one see an absence? Touch a void? Look for a form where there is none?

  They were moving closer. I could feel it, and I tried to rush my pace. The muscles in my back tightened as I sensed their gained momentum, the footsteps matching mine. As I broke into a trot, a thin hand grasped my wrist. I spun around and faced the four teens. They looked at me with feigned crazed expressions. Now that they were face-to-face with me, they were unsure of their next move. I jerked my hand loose and turned around slowly to resume walking.

  “Hey,” the taller one with the dog collar called out to me, his voice laced with venom. “Stop or I’ll slice you.” I turned around slowly and subjected him to a steely gaze. To an onlooker, I am obdurate, an old structure under new management. The station was deserted. It was late. I realized the delicate situation I was in, but I was amazed by my own composure.

  “What is it that you want?” I asked in a stable tone. “Cash, credit card, food?”

  They formed a formidable circle around me. The teenager in combat boots frowned at me and ran his sleeve across his face to wipe away saliva in a futile effort to intimidate me. I could smell their breath on my face. They had been smoking. I tried not to breathe it in. Secondhand smoking is harmful to a baby. Does it matter if the smoke isn’t being blown in your face?

  “Where is the good in you?” The blond guy suddenly moved in and grabbed my chin, cupping it in his palm roughly. “You race of murderers. How can you live with yourself?” He jerked his hand from my chin. I felt the rising ridge where his nail had scratched me.

  “Me?” I looked at him in amazement and then laughed. It was more a product of hysteria. “You have no idea. I am as much a victim as you are.”

  “Bullshit.” The blond guy spat in my face. I didn’t brush the wetness away and looked him directly in the eye. I saw something shine in the hand he held behind his back.

  “The veil that you wear,” he continued, pulling out his knife and aiming the point at my hijab. “It’s all a façade. You try to look pure, but you are evil inside. You are the nonbelievers, not
us.”

  I felt the thin veil rip as it came away from my shoulder. I stood waiting for the adrenalin to kick in, for panic to arrive. There was silence inside me. Knock, knock. No one was home. The pain in the young man’s voice, though, was unsettling. It had the echo of a loss. I let him go on.

  Next he moved the knife down to my long black jacket.

  “Where is your God now? Do you think He is watching?”

  “You’re a moron,” I taunted, my heart void of fear. “My religion does not preach terror. They are using it as a crutch to fulfill their own objectives. But you will never see that.”

  The blond teen scowled but grew quiet as the knife in his hand moved down, forming a single long slit in the coat from my chest to stomach, hardly touching the surface. I saw the look of surprise on his face as he went over the big bulge on my stomach and stepped back as if he had touched a live wire. I realized with a start that he had not been aware I was pregnant.

  “Jesus,” he recoiled. “There’s a fuckin’ baby in there.”

  The tall teen with the tattoo shifted his legs uncomfortably.

  “Go on. Slice me,” I dared, my voice angry, now. “This baby’s father died that day, too. I suffered as well.”

  “Shut up, bitch.” The blond teen moved in again, a sheen of sweat on his forehead, the knife close to my throat this time, so close it itched where it rested. If I leaned toward it, I might bleed to death.

  I was tempted.

  “You lie—” He teared up, stopped, and with renewed resolution looked at the knife in his hand.

  “Man, Jimmy, I can’t do this,” the tall teen said, moving back.

  Jimmy seemed to ponder his options for a split second before the sound of footsteps coming down the subway stairs caught him off-guard. Panicked, he dropped the knife. It clanged twice on the hard concrete before coming to rest. He followed his friends, who were halfway up the subway stairs by then. I heard a voice yell, “Hey!” followed by the sound of someone being punched and falling to the ground.

  I collapsed onto my knees and closed my eyes from sheer exhaustion. A shock of pain uncoiled from my stomach and shot up my spine. I felt the restless flutter of my distressed baby and placed my hand on my cramping belly. It felt hard. There was a smell of dirty metal around me, rubber burning somewhere. My senses were suddenly heightened—or were they just now dying down? Bending forward in blinding pain, I watched my torn black hijab. My baby, I suddenly realized with a rising sense of panic, heart drumming against my chest.

  “Are you alright?” The man kneeling down next to me had chestnut hair and was holding his midriff with one hand and a briefcase in the other. I realized that in their hurry to get away, the young men had delivered some blows to this innocent bystander. My eyes had a hard time focusing.

  “Shit,” he cursed, glancing at his watch. A flicker passed across his face as he weighed his options. How important was I to him? A battle within his heart, his conscience his only witness. I kept drifting in and out of reality as I rolled over on one side.

  “I have to go,” he muttered apologetically and got up on his feet. “I am so sorry,” he said before turning around. “I’ll call for help.” But would he, really?

  I mumbled incoherently. His footsteps receded in the distance, and a few minutes later I heard other footsteps rushing in my direction just as a train pulled up in the station and bright, blinding lights illuminated my surroundings. Oh no, they are back!

  I mustered all the strength I had and screamed at the top of my lungs as my unused adrenalin finally kicked in. The two powerful hands that had suddenly scooped me nearly dropped me as I twisted and spasmed with all four limbs.

  I can’t lose this baby.

  I have to get to a hospital.

  A thought loomed large in my head suddenly as the fight went out of my body and my scream tapered off: How loudly did Faizan scream when death came for him? When the flames reached up to engulf him, what were his last thoughts? Were they about me, his unborn baby, or the life he’d never have?

  For the past hour or so my baby had not moved, I realized with a growing sense of panic. In the seventh month of pregnancy, that’s never a good sign. I closed my eyes and tried to anesthetize my brain with the sounds surrounding me—the thump-thump of the fetal heart rate monitor, the drone of the machine monitoring my contractions, the occasional sound of hospital personnel being paged.

  The heartbeat is still strong, they assured me, trying to ease my concerns. I had been brought in by a stranger, I was told after I collapsed at the subway station. In my Vicodin-induced haze, I felt strong hands move me to a stretcher, and a young nurse who introduced herself as Jennifer brushed my hair away from my sweaty face and said gently, “We are taking you for an ultrasound to see how the baby’s doing.”

  I nodded. Behind her compassion, I also sensed an exigency. There was a deep, disturbing silence within me that had created a chaos in my mind. The baby was totally still inside. I worried my belly, willing it to move.

  How did I survive all this? I was unsure. I was certain the baby wouldn’t. I was in my second trimester and had missed my Level 2 ultrasound that was scheduled in September—an event Faizan and I were looking forward to with much anticipation. We had picked up a blank videotape from Wal-Mart to record our baby’s first moment in front of the camera. I never thought I would be by myself for that first look.

  The screen flickered on as the technician adjusted the wand on my abdomen, and after a few sweeps of images that looked like creased hunks of flesh, she hit the spot. The first image of the baby took my breath away. It was alive and kicking—a completely formed tiny human being that had beaten all odds. Right on cue, the baby took its thumb to its mouth and started sucking as I watched in awe. Despite the fact that the technician was a stern, harried woman with pulled-back stiff shoulders and a long face, I tried to rejoice in the moment. When I repositioned myself to get comfortable, her wand lost its place, and I was subjected to a cold stare. I was stunned by her total lack of empathy.

  “I can’t get a good picture,” she declared in impatience after a few minutes of futile fumbling. The baby had decided to hide from the wicked technician, and I smiled inwardly; it had its father’s sense of humor. “I’ll get someone else.”

  When she left, I peered around the small, oppressive room. The air conditioning was on too high, and I felt tiny goose bumps on my arms. I was surprised by my child’s silence. It was prancing around quite a bit on the screen, but I couldn’t feel any of its movements. On average, the baby only wriggled once or twice for me during the day, at least the times when I really felt the tiny jabs.

  Jennifer bustled in, accompanied by another, much gentler and jovial technician. The images were better than before. As the two chatted, I tried to concentrate on the baby. I spotted the telltale appendage between his legs even before the technician pointed it out. It’s a boy, I thought to myself, just as Faizan had predicted. I had searched enough ultrasound pictures online to distinguish between the sonograms of a boy and a girl. The technician was silent afterward, taking measurements, recording, taking snapshots, and Jennifer fell quiet, too. At some point the technician nodded to her, and she left the room briefly. I didn’t think anything of it until she walked back in with a doctor in tow—a black woman in her fifties, her dark weaved hair pulled back in a clip. I started to panic at that point. What are they seeing? All I saw was a perfectly formed baby boy. The doctor laid a gentle and reassuring hand on my shoulder as she peered in closely to examine the baby on the machine. The technician passed the coiled sheet of sonogram pictures to her and then shut the machine off and turned on the blinding fluorescent lights. I flinched and looked at the group in front of me in dread.

  “Mrs. Illahi, I am Dr. Mitchell. We would like to do a Level 2 ultrasound on you to rule out certain things,” the doctor declared in a critical yet measured tone. “Would you like to call your husband?”

  Jennifer gently rapped the doctor on the shoulder and whi
spered something in her ear as I looked on, stunned. What are they saying? My mind screamed. In my sheer state of agitation, questions hung like overcast clouds in my mind but could not make their way out of my mouth.

  “I am sorry, Mrs. Illahi. I did not know.” Dr. Mitchell placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. Jennifer came around and propped me in a sitting position, pulling the sheet on my chest all the way down to cover me.

  “I suspect fetal growth retardation,” the doctor continued, “which may or may not be serious, but we need to do a Level 2 ultrasound to be certain. Possibly even amniocentesis, which is a painless procedure but carries a minor risk of fetal loss.”

  “Allah!” A cry came from me and the room spun. I had a gut-wrenching need to strike someone. Instead I clenched my fists to both sides of my torso and sank down on the hospital bed, a protective hand on my belly.

  The doctor and nurse exchanged uneasy glances.

  The fear that I had held at bay for weeks was back in my heart, weakening my soul. I thought of Ma, Faizan’s mother, waiting at home for me and felt another wave of dread. I closed my eyes tightly. I didn’t want to call her, but it seemed like that wasn’t a choice anymore.

  “Can I use a phone?” I finally asked in a voice that did not feel mine. “I need to tell my family where I am.”

  “You should ask them to come here,” Jennifer suggested. “You’ll be here for awhile.”

  Oh, no!

  “Let me use a phone,” I requested again. “I want to break it gently to my mother-in-law. I want to make this as painless as possible for her.”