Saffron Dreams

by Shaila Abdullah

  Outside, I ran into a boy I had seen around the apartment complex. He seemed to be about seven and had long chestnut hair that kept getting in his eyes.

  “Hey,” he said. “You’re the lady who…who—” For lack of the right word, he gestured wildly over his head, forming a halo with his arms. Yes, that’s me, the angel, I thought wryly, smiling at him, waiting for him to complete his thought before realizing he probably never would.

  “A scarf?” I offered.

  He snapped his fingers. “That’s it, a scarf.”

  He looked at me curiously.

  “Your hair?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s very—” He was again at a loss for words and scratched his head, his baseball bat and cap tucked between his legs. “Shiny…and…and long!” This time his eyes brightened up as the words came through for him at the last minute.

  “Thank you.” I ruffled his hair just as I heard his mother call out to him from the second-floor window.

  FIFTEEN

  The ringing of the phone broke through the silence at the dinner table.

  I had had enough of answering pestering reporters and funneling my way in and out of the building through them. They were all looking for one story because they had beaten the rest to a pulp. Muslim harmed by Muslim, how do you react?

  How do you?

  I hadn’t even decided in my mind how to answer that. Our commonness didn’t make a good enough story. Like a sack of potatoes, we are all lumped together. Incessantly. Insistently. Now that makes a good story.

  What was it the reporter from the Observer had said over the phone? He seemed nice at first, and I was amicable, offering all the answers he needed. About our lives, Faizan, his work at the restaurant, the enormity of my loss. And then the inevitable question came.

  “Mrs. Illahi, being a Muslim, how does it feel to be attacked by your own people?”

  If he were there in person, I probably would’ve clubbed him with the phone. Instead I inhaled deeply and formed a thought: I don’t know, Mr. Cloomin. Have you ever been in a similar situation?

  My voice had a sullen, monotone quality when I finally responded. “They are not my people.”

  “They have the same religion as you.”

  No, they don’t. They don’t have a religion.

  “Did you lose anyone in the events of 9/11, Mr. Cloomin?” I finally asked. My voice was trembling but icy.

  “No, ma’am,” he answered. “I’m from New Jersey. Most of my family lives and works there. I was most fortunate.”

  “So in the aftermath, you have not been on all fours at Ground Zero, looking through debris for a sign of your loved one.” I held on to my tears. I did not want to let on how fragile my world really was. “Examining fingers? Toes? Recalling from memory what your loved one’s limbs looked like?”

  Ma gasped across the room, and I looked at her sharply. Don’t cry now. Not now, my stern eyes told her. I turned back to the phone. When I continued, my voice shook from rage.

  “When you put all your potatoes in a sack, you should know they all have unique flavors. Some are rotten, some fresh. Just because they are clumped together doesn’t make them all the same.”

  There was a shocked silence at the other end of the phone. The bitter pill of reality seemed hard for him to swallow.

  “They are not my people, but I don’t think you are smart enough to figure that out.”

  With that I slammed down the receiver.

  So we let the phone ring.

  And it stopped.

  And then it started ringing again.

  Ma started to get up, and I stood up as well.

  “I’ll get it. Why don’t you finish eating?” I suggested.

  I picked up the phone, armed with a furious retort if it was a reporter. When will peace return to my household?

  “Hello, is this Arissa? Oh, um, I mean, Mrs. Illahi?”

  The nervous voice at the other end was a woman’s, the kind that you never can take seriously because it has such a chirpy birdlike quality to it.

  “It is.”

  “May I call you Arissa?”

  I was getting irritated. “What is this about?”

  “Mrs. Illahi…Arissa…my name is Ann Marie Beaumont. I think I might have met your husband before…before, you know—”

  My heart stopped.

  “Are you there?” The woman was nervous.

  “Yes, I am here. You were saying?”

  “Faizan. Your husband served me on the morning of the 11th. I saw him right before—”

  I didn’t realize I was kneeling until I felt the harsh floor underneath. I cradled the phone with both hands as if dropping it would make me lose something precious.

  “Are you sure?” My voice was scarcely above a whisper.

  “Yes. I saw his name in the paper. It’s an uncommon name and I remembered it from the name tag he wore. I can’t say how sorry I am for your loss. I didn’t want to be a bearer of bad news, but by now, I think you—”

  Her voice trailed off meaningfully.

  “I lost my husband in Vietnam,” the woman continued. “I know how important it is for a spouse to know about the last moments of their companion’s life. I never did.”

  There was a respectful silence as we both meditated over the memories of our fallen men.

  “Your husband served me that morning. My daughter and I had a ritual of having breakfast there at least once a week. She used to work at Fiduciary Trust in the south tower.”

  “Oh!”

  “She made it, Arissa. She’s fine.” The woman laughed, a little uncomfortably. “I couldn’t believe we both cheated death in one single day.”

  “And there were those who didn’t.”

  Not even when they were forewarned by their dreams. Not even when they reminded their spouse to move away and the surviving one refused.

  “Yes. Quite right,” the woman said quietly. There were a thousand questions I wanted to ask her but none that I had the brain function to evoke. I needed to meet this woman. See the face Faizan had seen in the final hours of his life.

  “I need to ask you for a favor,” I said after a pause. “Can you meet me tomorrow morning for coffee?”

  “I’d be happy to.”

  “I’ll always be indebted to you.”

  “It’s my pleasure.”

  What a wonderful woman, I thought, and as an afterthought I asked hesitantly, “What was the last thing Faizan said to you?” My hands were shaking as I twisted the phone cord around my ring finger and waited for her to respond.

  “More coffee?”

  Of course.

  And we both laughed.

  Ann Marie was a woman well into her sixties, built like a farmwoman and sporting fleshy cheeks with numerous blackheads riddled on her nose, huddling together as if for comfort. Outside the coffee shop, she enveloped me in a giant hug, squishing my pregnant belly.

  “You are so tiny,” she commented, blinking away tears. “I couldn’t even tell from behind that you are carrying a baby.”

  I smiled. “I am glad you came.”

  “Would not have missed it.”

  For once the sun was shining. We wandered outside aimlessly after buying coffee. The park across the street looked inviting, and we headed there. I was surprised by how youthful Ann Marie seemed despite having a daughter close to my age. She’d lost her husband when her daughter was just one. I glanced over at her as we sat down together on a bench.

  “I remember his smile,” Ann Marie said after awhile. “It was kind and sunny. Put you right at ease.”

  I tried to see Faizan through her eyes, the eyes of a stranger. I pictured him in his uniform, pouring coffee, making small talk, laughing his easy disarming smile. He did everything with a quiet elegance, an even grace. He hated imperfections in his appearance. A hair out of place, an unpressed shirt, a missing button, even a hint of a hole in a sock irritated him. The scar he didn’t seem to mind. In death, too, he chose to simply disa
ppear rather than let his loved ones see him in a less-than-perfect state.

  “Presentation, my dear wife, is the key,” he used to say. “How else can you leave a lasting impression?”

  And he didn’t miss making that final impact on a total stranger either. The memory of another day at the park a lifetime ago flooded in, carrying with it an insurmountable amount of sorrow that washed over me.

  “When does it get easier?”

  She looked straight ahead.

  “That takes me back in years, that question.”

  Then she looked in my eyes. “It takes a very long time. The hole in your heart never goes away, but after a while you fill it with what you have left in your life. Your life’s events, transitions, everyday distractions. They gradually cast a blanket over the pain, but underneath it all, the emptiness exists and continues to exist.” She nodded toward my belly. “A child helps.”

  A jogger passed by in a red tracksuit, a chocolate Lab beside her panting to keep pace. The sound of “Last Night on Earth” filled the air despite the headset on the woman’s ears. I vaguely remembered hearing it somewhere in my past.

  You know she’s going to pay it back somehow

  The future is here at last

  The past is too uncomfortable

  For once I let the tears flow, and so did Ann Marie. I did not want to tell her about the challenges of my unborn child. We were joined together by a chance meeting, unified in our sorrow, years apart in our losses.

  Widowed.

  Wronged.

  Yet free from the pull of vengeance.

  The guilt was there for me, though.

  SIXTEEN

  I walked in to a blinking answering machine and looked at the caller ID. The familiar number on the screen made me sigh. I started to hit the delete button and stopped. I had been deleting Ami’s messages without playing for awhile. She called at least once every two weeks. I had a feeling she spoke to Ma and Baba too when I was not around. It bothered me but I didn’t want to bring it up.

  Out of curiosity more than anything else, I decided to hit play and sat down on the couch to listen.

  “Hello bayta, “Ami’s voice sounded tired and sad. “Wish I could talk to you and see you. I might be coming to New York in a few weeks, I would love to—”

  I stood up and hurriedly pressed delete just as Ma came into the room, a towel over one shoulder.

  “Was that your Ami?” she asked, tying her wet hair back.

  I nodded.

  “Why don’t you talk to her sometime?” Ma suggested cautiously. “She clearly misses you.”

  “You know how complicated it is.” I put a pillow on my lap with a sigh. “It’s just not worth it.”

  “What’s so complicated about a mother–daughter relationship?” Ma asked.

  I glanced at her with a sad smile. “She’s not you.”

  “True.” Ma touched my cheek lightly. “But my dear, you have to remember that you are not her either. To a mother, the most precious gift in life is that of a child. I lost mine. Don’t deny her the chance to be with you.”

  She placed the cordless phone in my hand. “Call her.”

  I looked at the phone and felt a rising tension. “I don’t feel ready just yet.”

  Ma nodded. “Just don’t let a lifetime go.”

  Her words took me back to the fateful night of the Khans’ party.

  The night seemed dabbed in sticky dew, the kind that clings to your pores and sits on you like a spider’s web, tight and unrelenting. From deep within the recesses of our home, an angry and shaken voice rose until its unwavering pitch finally woke me up. I sat on my bed, eyes wide open, heart thundering. Will this night never end? It seemed that it was just hours ago that Abu and I had driven back from the Khans’ party.

  The voice wasn’t unfamiliar, but the urgency, the anger, seemed compounded. Final, almost as if a record was being generated. The wings of history swooped down to take their notes in painful slowness.

  “You think I am a veshya. A whore. That’s what you think, Tehsin.” Ami’s voice was a mixture of hysteria and panic.

  I stared at the pitch-black darkness around me, my heart thudding against my thin nightshirt. The night shadows crept nearer, frightening as quicksand, drawing me in. The wind from the open window worried the curtain that rose up in protest and twisted itself once over. It was an exchange between my parents, but as usual, I could only hear one side of the story. My soft-spoken Abu never yelled or spoke above a certain volume. He wasn’t built to break. Only to join.

  “I hate being your wife, a mother. You stifle me, you and your kids. Especially them!”

  The shadows danced closer, now reaching up to caress my hair, my knees, my eyes. They entered my spirit. I felt their cold hands on my heart and the chill of being unwanted. Unloved. What am I lamenting? I thought. The loss of a love that I never had? No one in the house had it either. Does everyone know how to fulfill the role of loving? It’s surely not built in the mainframe of a body’s design.

  “I can’t be a prisoner here, now or ever.” The voice grew to a higher pitch. It was almost a scream.

  I slapped a mosquito on my wrist and felt my skin swell. Removing the covers, I stood up to close the window. Azad Baba had forgotten to burn the coil that evening. I decided to tiptoe across to Zoha’s room, a swarm of mosquitoes over my head. Her door was ajar, and her face was facing the wall. I knew she pretended to be asleep for my sake, and I stepped out respectfully and closed her door. Sometimes silence is the best potion for families. When things don’t make much sense, we could all rely on our own interpretation to maintain our individual sanity. Not everything has to be talked about.

  The voice was slowing down now, broken by hysterical sobs. My heart felt for the woman who didn’t understand her life. Walls apart, I cried with her in solidarity of blood and affection. Unfortunate as she was, she probably didn’t even feel the love around her. At some point, I felt sleep enter my body and halt my thoughts.

  I decided to meet Ami before I left New York. “I’ll feel sorry for you if you want me to, Arissa,” she had said to me the day I fell in the verandah when I was barely ten. Ami had propped me on the kitchen counter to examine my wound amid her cooking utensils and at least one pot of a terribly frothy urad dal. She was never a great cook. It was Mai Jan’s day off. She had gone to visit her ailing father in Faisalabad. I had fallen off my bike and skinned both knees. Since I had no audience to witness my sad descent to the hard concrete, I’d rushed inside seeking sympathy and feigned a limp upon entering. For emphasis, I let out a yell of pain, and Ami peeked from behind the kitchen door, not in any undue haste.

  As a child, I often searched for the rise and fall of her voice in my dreams. When awake, I hungered for her appreciation, her glances—mad, irritated, and even hurtful at times, I did not mind as long as they were directed my way. Oh, the things you long for.

  Ami had not changed much since the last time I had seen her. Her face had an enduring quality that nature didn’t mess with, although her complexion had acquired an almost genda pallor. Age had attacked other areas of her, though. Her body sagged now with age and the love pouches on the sides of her belly were now more noticeable. Her eyes were the same, wild and inquisitive—like a child’s. Her high cheekbones were firm and held the skin taut on her face. I had not seen her at all in the distance I had traveled from being a blissfully married woman to a widow. She had visited me once when I’d first moved to New York, bearing the gift of a gold necklace. She had missed my wedding, as she had missed Zoha’s.

  Ma and Baba had excused themselves from the meeting, explaining their need to visit a relative in Manhattan for a few hours. Ami avoided my eye when she came in, and after a brief hug, she busied herself with propping and readjusting the dupioni pillows on my couch. I couldn’t bear to look at her. After awhile, she stood up and looked over at my wedding photo on the wall with a wistful expression on her face. Sympathy was the last thing I wanted from her.
/>
  “Ami?” I said after what seemed like a lifetime.

  She turned around, and I was surprised to see tears in her eyes. She tried to speak, but her lips only trembled. Her emotional state left me feeling uneasy. I felt wrath uncoiling inside me. How could she pretend to show sorrow when clearly she felt none? She had not come to see me when my whole world had fallen apart and I needed someone to pick me up, hold me close. Instead, I was comforted by another mother who’d been a stranger to me until three years ago.

  I turned away and marched to the kitchen to do the dishes that were piled high in the sink. I didn’t have the energy to deal with theatrics. I had seen enough of that growing up. I knew this visit was going to be tough. I didn’t know just how much.

  Ami followed me to the kitchen and leaned against the door. She had regained her composure. “You have a beautiful apartment. It has traces of your talents. The subtle details that make something yours and unique.”

  I looked at her in silent defiance and continued to rub a tray with the scour pad.

  “I know that you are trying to finish Faizan’s manuscript.” Ami took a step toward me. I looked at her in surprise. “Your in-laws return my calls, unlike you,” she explained with a smile. “I think it’s admirable what you are doing.”

  I turned around without a word and continued my assault on the dishes, my elbows in soapy suds.

  “I know, Arissa Jaan, that you think I have failed you as a mother.” She sighed. “I don’t know why I can’t do all that life requires me to do.”

  “Like love your children?” How many times do you forgive a person? Even words grow rusty from being spoken so many times.

  Ami looked flustered. “Don’t say that. I always loved you,” she pleaded, voice breaking. “It’s very easy for you to judge me. I never claimed to be perfect. You have no idea how hard it has been for me. I…I––” Her voice, weary with whispered excuses, trailed away.