I pulled away from Ma and looked at the sun directly. Sun spots clouded my vision, and when I looked back at Ma, she was dotted from head to foot.
“Leave the guilt behind.” Ma finally raised her head and looked in my eyes. “It has no place in your life. Yours or mine.”
Sudden fog startled the sunlight and quietness fell around us. We finished the rest of our sandwiches in silence. I looked across at two toddlers at play, passing ball to each other, unsuccessfully most of the time. One of them kicked the ball high, and it missed me by inches.
A woman came hurrying over, perhaps their mother, panting and breathless from climbing uphill, and did a double-take when she saw two veiled women sitting cross-legged on the grass.
“I’m sorry,” she began, her expression sullen like a lit flame.
We hurried to set her mind at ease, assuring her that the ball had not hit us.
“No.” She waved away our concerns and glared at us. “I am just sorry they missed you.”
With that she picked up the ball and walked away.
We stood up and quietly picked up our belongings in our in-between world. The line between a resident and an outcast had grown very thin. I threw the bags and used napkins in the trashcan. We each took a lesson back with us from the encounter that day: my decision was now strengthened, new plans germinating in my head, while Ma’s stoic hold on tradition grew a few degrees brighter.
I decided to add one more item to my list of things to do: Let the guilt go.
Faizan and I had been lying in bed after our intimate encounter, our limbs entwined, looking at the moon from our window. I studied his profile briefly and planted a kiss on his nose.
“You’re amazing, Faizan Illahi.”
“You’re not so bad yourself.” Faizan laughed, tickling my toes with his. “I guess practice makes perfect.”
“Oh, so you think you’ve perfected the art in two years of marriage?”
“Of course. I never do anything halfway.”
We held hands, enjoying the silence and the stillness of the night. Outside, a baby house finch cried out, its slumber disturbed, breaking the sanctity of the night air. Faizan turned to look at the time and in his hurry, knocked over the bedside clock.
“Darn,” he muttered as he picked the clock up. It had a crack on its face. He had had it since his graduation. The planner in me made a mental note to buy him a new one for his birthday. Maybe it was time for a change.
“Oh well,” he laughed and turned over to hold my hand. “You know, Arissa, I have been thinking.”
Oh, oh, I knew that tone well. That could not be good.
“We should have lunch together at Kudrows.”
I laughed. It fascinated me, his ability to bring tension to a conversation and in a trice, ebb it away. He turned to sit up and faced me.
“No seriously, Arissa, I have been thinking and I have arrived at a decision.”
I massaged his fingers. “What about?”
He held my wrist and placed my fingers against his cheek. “That we should move back.”
It didn’t register at first. The tone or the content.
“Where to?”
“Pakistan.”
“What?” I jerked my hand away and snatched the blanket away to cover my chest, leaving his body bare.
“I think it’s the right thing to do,” he said, smoothing a crease on the bed. “Ma and Baba are getting old and they’re at the stage in life where they really need me.”
His words hinted at something unsaid that I could not grasp. The orange hue from the lamp added a few years to his face.
“Why? And most importantly how?” I flung my legs off the bed and paced the room, the juice of our intimacy spilling down my thigh. “Did it occur to you that you ought to consult me before arriving at a decision on a matter of this scale?”
“Our lives would be much more comfortable,” Faizan persisted. “It’s the right choice. Let’s be rational about it.”
“Rational, hah!” I wanted to physically injure the person in front of me. I knew the restaurant job must make him feel less adequate, but I didn’t tell him that. I held on to some notions, antiquated or otherwise, without letting on. “Why can’t they move here?”
Faizan shook his head. “They’d be miserable. I can’t uproot them.”
No, uprooting me is easier, I fumed inside. Not once but twice.
“What about me and our plans for the future?” My voice trembled from rage and started to rise as I continued. “Do I not have a say in the matter? Or do you think you can fit your wife in any corner and in any space to your liking?”
“You know that’s not fair, Arissa. Consider this, it will finally free up my time to work on the book—”
“The book,” I said with sarcasm-laden voice. “Is that all you care about? You and your dreams? You and your book?”
The last word came out accompanied by a spit and he turned away, hurt. I plopped down on the chair across from the bed, tired of pacing and looked up at the ceiling fan in irritation. The damned blob infuriated me and suddenly my anger shifted to the owners of the apartment. How tough was it to switch out a blade?
I looked over at Faizan who seemed lost in the sea of lavender foliage of the bed sheet and was struck by a strange realization: It was all wrong—the choice of the sheet, this moment, his choice. How well did I really know him, my own husband?
I took a deep breath to calm my nerves and tried again.
“Why is this not a topic up for discussion, Faizan?” I asked in a softer voice. “Why does it have a tone of such finality to it?”
He didn’t answer right away.
“I just think it’s best for us as a family. I just feel it,” he said. “When we have a child—”
I turned away. It had become a sore topic. We had been trying for the past year or so to get pregnant and had been unsuccessful. I cringed every month when my suspicion was confirmed that I had yet again failed to conceive.
“Jaan, it will happen, and if we are in Pakistan, Ma will help us in raising our child.”
I refused to look in his eyes, and being on the defensive, took his comments personally. “You don’t think I am qualified to raise a child on my own?”
“Of course you are. I am sure you will be a great mother, and the support system that we have in Karachi will enable you to have a career later on.”
He stood up to go to the bathroom, an expression of hurt on his face, reminding me yet again of how trapped he seemed in our low-ceilinged apartment. When we moved in, we laughed at how Faizan could touch the ceiling when he was standing.
In that moment, I was incapable of consoling him or myself. I never thought Faizan would want to leave the United States. That wasn’t in the plans, at least not in the ones he had laid out for me earlier. I had outlined a whole series of events. He was presenting a new set of blueprints altogether.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I shouted to him from across the room. “I think our children can have a better future in this country, especially if the child turns out to be a girl.”
I heard a flush and then the sound of faucet drowned his next few words. He came out and stood across from me, arms crossed. “Arissa, I don’t want to argue with you, but my mind is made up.” For once his voice was harsh and unrelenting.
“In that case, I’ll give you a choice,” I said with fury. “You can decide whether you want to leave me and go back to Pakistan or stay here and be with me.”
I didn’t wait for an answer and grabbed my pillow to spend the night in the den.
He never mentioned the move again.
FOURTEEN
November 2001
After my visit to the pier, I took a subway to Wall Street and wandered around aimlessly. In the glass pane of a Starbucks, I stared at the new me––
bold, unabashed, sans the veil that I had retired within.
I slipped in and ordered a grande coffee of the day. It was too strong, and I drank i
t too quickly, burning my lips. I never liked putting the lid on the cup and sipping from the tiny opening. When I left, I carried the coffee with me even though it was tepid by now, an oily film on its surface that trembled as I walked. My baby stretched within me as the caffeine jolted him awake. I patted my stomach lightly.
“Good morning, little king,” I whispered. “It’s a bright, new day.”
I sat on the steps of the Federal Hall National Memorial, right next to a large statue of George Washington, and watched a steady stream of people go in and out. News reported that the hall had sheltered 300 people on September 11. I was amazed by the sulfuric smell that still lingered in the air. For a long time, there had been the stench that reeked of lives burned. Dust even now settled on buses when they were in the environs, slowly moving through downtown as if life had been sucked out of them. New Yorkers walked differently now, always watchful, looking over their shoulders in fear, eyeing each other guardedly, unable to relax or let go.
I stood up to leave and without realizing it left the empty cup behind. For a brief minute, I stood under a pole cluttered with signs outside the museum. Two of them said “One Way” but pointed in two opposite directions. I didn’t know where I was going or what I was doing. “Checkpoint Ahead,” the yellow diamond shaped one at the very bottom stated simply. I started walking down the street, feeling like a couplet with a lost stanza, a jingle that had lost its beat. Walking was therapeutic for me. It gave me a chance to order my thoughts, to assign them slots in my mind or to jerk them loose. The wind at the nape of my neck pierced the cold through my skin like a shot. It jolted me, the breeze ruffling my hair in its silent invasion, the air whispering a song in my ears that was not familiar to me. I felt naked, like a prostitute, my wares exposed for all to see. In reality, the busy world around me scarcely noticed my loss or collective losses. I longed for the veil I had let go.
I didn’t realize I was part of a procession until I was flanked by men and women on all sides holding up candles, signs, and banners, some with children piggybacked on their shoulders. The peaceful march had started down lower Broadway from Union Square. I tried to read the signs and move out at the same time, almost stumbling over a placard. “We Want Our Sanity Back,” it said. I smiled to myself. Who doesn’t? A man in a red sports jacket reached over, picked it up, and handed it to me, laughing broadly as if he had done me a favor. I hugged it to me, the wrong side out, not knowing what else to do. I realized that it was an antiwar march. I moved along the sea of bodies reluctantly, keeping my face low. It was useless. I didn’t feel anything one way or the other. The war on terror wasn’t mine to win or lose. I had lesser goals, my own mini-wars to contend with. A woman moved up the line holding a sign so big she was having trouble working its width and marching at the same time. “Compassion Rather Than Belligerence,” her sign said. If only a dictionary came with that.
I was in the front flank, but I don’t know what or whom I represented. A deceased husband? A wanted pregnancy now challenged? Or a child doomed in-utero with a damaged existence? I heard the tut-tut of sympathetic relatives in my mind.
“Bechari,” they whispered to one another. It was a title that I hated. It rendered me a pitiful subject for everyone’s scrutiny and constant analysis. “Can you imagine being a baywah and pregnant at the same time?”
And that title again. Baywah, the Urdu word for a widow. It hit me like the cold slap of the snowy winter whenever I heard it. Widow. An echoing sound that loops around me forever. Even when I hold my hands to my ears to block it out, it somehow still manages to reach my brain. Cursed. Broken by loss. Baywah! I had read in the news that the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir government had prohibited the use of the term after rights groups deemed it derogatory and aggravating to the bereaved. Call them “wife of deceased,” the directive said; if they are Muslim, refer to them as “zouja marhoom,” or “respected wife of the deceased.” However you phrased or dignified it, it was still a stamp of loss permanently affixed on our hearts. Would calling us this or that change that reality?
Some days ago I read about the lives of widows in Nigeria and the age-old traditions of discrimination and isolation that leave them destitute. Hair scraped off their heads with a sharp razor blade to make them easier to spot in public and subsequently shun. A bizarre ritual offered them some redemption, one that required the widow to sleep with a member of her deceased husband’s family to banish the spirit of the departed.
How will I ever redeem myself from my widowhood?
I silently inched away from the crowd without being noticed, and then stopped to watch the procession pass. Losses mean different things in different parts of the world. Where I come from, healing begins with forgetting; in other societies, healing is achieved by dedicating yourself to certain causes. The concrete walls of women’s hearts in the peninsular landmass of the Indian subcontinent seal off emotions, thereby achieving absolute sterility that can only lead to isolation. The dreaded word death scares my people; losses make them uncomfortable, nervous. They do the only thing they know to do: shy away and distance themselves. As I do now.
At home I checked the item “Lose veil” off my list and studied the next two entries. “Move,” the second one stated simply. Scrawled beneath it in just the last few weeks was the last entry.
“Complete Soul Searcher.”
I was ready to face the weekly ultrasound that the doctor had ordered for me.
I put on Faizan’s turtleneck sweater—the green one he’d worn the day we met. It was twice my size but hid the contours of my body well. Next, I slipped on a pair of loose khakis. In the mirror, I studied my almond-shaped eyes that angled up toward the far corners of my head and scrunched up my nose. I hated that feature of my face, and yet I had been told by many that that was my best attribute. I maintained that my hair was probably a better selection. It was long and thick, although knotting easily after a bath.
Losing the veil had given birth to a new worry in my mind: what should I do about my hair? At home, I was used to just coiling it up on top of my head with a clip. I ran my finger through my hair. I had always worn the same hairstyle, parted down the middle, one long plait tumbling down my back tied with a black or blue band. It hadn’t mattered anyway; it never showed through the long scarf I wore. I had once used a piece of cable wire to tie the ends when I couldn’t find a band.
I untied the plait and shook the strands loose, looking at my hair as if noticing it through the eyes of someone else. I started to part it in the center but midway decided against it and swept it back in a skull-tightening ponytail.
I stood back and felt a kick in my belly. I smiled. The baby approves. That’s all that matters. It was all about looking at life through a one-inch square and allowing myself to study just one moment at a time.
The apartment complex where Faizan and I lived was only five stories high and was built in the 1920s. It was one of the few garden complexes in Jackson Heights with its shuttered porches and Spanish-style ironwork separated by wide green pathways that offered views of the courtyard to the street. The apartment itself was quite minimal, a one-bedroom home with a small den and hardwood floors. It was always dank in there, kind of a decaying smell that never went away no matter how much incense we burned. There were three windows side by side in the kitchen that I particularly liked although they didn’t have much of a view, not unless you enjoyed watching a starving artist in his underpants across the street, dozing off on his balcony after a night of drinking.
Faizan liked the apartment because of its easy access to the subway and various bus routes. The great district of Queens known for its multilingual ethnic neighborhoods is a broth of many tastes: Colombians, Mexicans, Indians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis. Although ours was considered a safe neighborhood, one had to be more careful on the subway under Roosevelt Avenue or busy Northern Boulevard.
Often on weekends, Faizan and I visited 74th Street between Roosevelt Avenue and 37th Avenue. Trolling down Jackson Hei
ghts, our arms linked together, kulfi cups in the other hand, full of spindly noodles and pistachio ice cream topped with oodles of rose syrup—such were our simple joys. That’s what I missed most, the times when we bonded wordlessly, almost magically.
Walking among folks from the continent we came from lifted our spirits, although we rarely stopped to converse with anyone. They were a calming presence in our midst, moving around urgently as if living in the present would somehow devour them. I always slowed down my pace when I saw them. I envied the little children in such groups. Their perpetual joy was spellbinding, their carefree rejoicing of the instant refreshing. They were always a few steps behind, enamored by a bug, then a bike. Innocent souls touched, moments etched onto one’s heart.
Occasionally, Faizan pulled me to him and planted a full kiss on my lips in a grand display of affection when we passed a seemingly conservative group. He almost always got the reaction he wanted. He thrived on seeing their absolute shock and surprise at the brazenness of a South Asian man and the veiled woman by his side.
I rode the elevator down to the apartment lobby and saw Melvin, a neighbor who always had a ready smile for me but lately looked away when he saw me coming. That day he stared, and his eyes widened in disbelief at the absence of my veil.
“What’s new and different, Mel?” I teased as I walked by without stopping.
He grunted in response. Oh yes, nothing is the same.
Is the veil really a barrier, as Jack Straw indicated, or is it a symbol of modesty? It is different for different women. It irritated me that it was a political game for some high-ranking individuals, a tug-of-war of sorts, a way of attaining the limelight albeit negatively. The debate provoked the community and suddenly united us while we had a hard time agreeing on just what exactly our faith was about. Or did the love for our own religion really mean that we should hate other faiths? It made me reflect on what being a Muslim meant to me. Wasn’t the whole concept of Islam based on tolerance, peace and bridge-building, or was it just a very well-kept secret that only a handful knew?
Saffron Dreams Page 11