“The correct version is you can’t force a horse to drink—”
“Cows, horses, sheep, domesticated animals…it could be anyone.”
“Not all animals that can be domesticated are.”
“No, some have to be trained to accept domestic responsibility and still fail at it miserably.” He took a jab at my lack of culinary talents.
“You’re impossible.”
“And irresistible,” he reminded me.
And that was how he cheered me up. He simply made me forget.
His laughter was what I missed the most. There was only one way to describe it, imprisoned laughter, the kind that bubbled from somewhere inside him. He held it captive until he couldn’t anymore and then it burst from him, echoing and bouncing all around. Just when it was about to die down, though, it managed to find its way to another’s lips and the cycle began again.
I woke up with a start in the middle of the night, feeling strangely disassociated from my limbs. My body was warm, but my hands and feet were tingly and cold, shocked pores raised in protest. I looked at the contours of my slumbering spouse, his chest rising and falling in peace. I found a comfortable spot and turned over but my agitated movements woke Faizan up and he glanced at me groggily.
“You okay?”
I nodded. “I can’t sleep.”
He sighed and got up, making his way to the bathroom like a drunkard. I rolled over onto his side of the bed, enjoying the warmth he had left behind. I woke up the next morning to find him asleep on my side, leaving me undisturbed, his warm breath on my face. In and out. In and out. I didn’t realize that in just a year’s time, I would have the whole bed to myself but no warm spots to find comfort in.
I sat up with a jolt, a stark realization in my heart. I am pregnant.
And I remembered the night I had conceived.
I was sitting on the bed lost in thought when Faizan emerged from the shower, a towel low around his waist, beads of water glistening on his chest. I was startled when I felt the spray of water and looked up to see him grinning. He was towel-drying his hair with one hand, the skin around his eyes creased from smiling. Crow’s feet, they called it. He had developed those early in life.
He hovered over me and planted a kiss on my head, parting my thighs suggestively with his leg, leaving my nightgown open.
“That, my dear, right there is a true work of art,” he declared, settling down beside me as he flung the towel across the room.
“Huh?” He had caught me off-guard. It amazed me at how comfortable he was in his own skin. He sank down on the bed on his back and pulled me on top of him, running his fingers up my leg.
“The question of the hour is,” he said, “do you feel inspired to create a masterpiece?”
I comprehended at last, although his words were fading fast as my body came alive. He smiled and cradled my head on his wet chest, keeping me imprisoned in his embrace for awhile. Passion made me impatient; he breathed noiselessly, normally, prolonging my agony.
“Yes, I think we are both inspired,” he concluded, nibbling at my ear.
I silenced him with a kiss on his mouth, stroking the birthmark on his jaw, shaped like a half-smile, as if his own needed to be underlined or somehow emphasized. It fascinated me, that blemish on his face. I caressed it tenderly. The mark of beauty, they called it, an imperfection left by nature so he could not claim divinity. In a way he still achieved it in my eyes by his early demise. He could not be held at fault for that or in God’s eyes declared a sinner. I wasn’t with him long enough to love him less.
He flicked off the lamp, and we lay there among sheet and shadows; black, gray, giant, small and in between. The eager moon watched in anticipation, peeking in from the window, a cosmological coincidence. It moved in our midst, waiting, illuminating the stage for our act. Impatient pleasure was trapped within me as I laid a sweaty hand against his damp chest. The heat that radiated from his body inflamed my soul, shocking me with its absolute familiarity. He removed the gown from me gently as if separating obsession from fulfillment. My pulse quickened as I heard a seam rip, betraying that somewhere within him there was an urgency he masked. He moved his hands over the familiar contours of my body, making every pore come alive, starting at the collarbone, lingering at sweet spots, unleashing the woman within me. There was a storm in our midst as his fingers traveled down my body, followed by his mouth. There was no quick way to get where we wanted to go. He knew my body well and like a matured lover took time to grasp the subtleties and refine his movements. And then he moved inside me like the unforgettable lines from a familiar book, easily, precisely, and with surety. Home was here, in senseless, mindless moments of pleasure. What more was there?
It wasn’t until he moved away from me that I allowed myself to breathe.
Our very first fight was a nightmare. We were newlyweds, uncertain of how to assert our own sense of individuality in the relationship and how much we wanted to submit, each one wanting a larger share of power. We had not perfected the art of stepping carefully through the minefield of theoreticals in a relationship. It started over the first cup of tea in the morning. I had arrived in the United States a few days earlier and was still getting used to the pace of the electric stove in the apartment that didn’t heat anything quickly enough. New York was too cold. It was the kind of cold that chilled you to the bone. It made me nostalgic for warm things back home—potato and onion fritters and hot flour chappatis.
I eyed my husband of twenty days over the steady steam of hot tea that separated us. He was engrossed in reading the New York Times, his glasses halfway down his nose. He was nearsighted but he still used his glasses to read. The rest of the time he preferred to stay away from them. He was right to do so––glasses made him look ridiculous in a geeky sort of way.
“Now that you are done with your master’s,” I began, taking a long sip of the hot tea and enjoying the warmth of it on my tongue, “what are your plans?”
Faizan looked at me over his newspaper and removed his comical glasses.
“Do you really want to know my plans?” he asked suggestively, nudging my toe.
“I’m serious, Faizan,” I said, picking up a piece of toast and slathering butter on it. “Are you going to look for a job? Should I look for one?”
He grinned back at me. He knew me already. My mind had shifted into planning mode. Things that were up in the air irritated me, as did limited knowledge. We had decided after our engagement that I would spend the first year getting used to the new environment. I wanted to explore some freelance opportunities and work from home. We planned to start trying for a child in two years, and we agreed that I would start working after the child turned two. I felt better knowing how it would all pan out. In my naiveté, though, I had not factored in many things; for instance, conception takes awhile in some cases, loved ones can disappear, and children can deviate from textbook norms.
“I already have a job lined up,” Faizan stated simply and took a sip of his tea, shaking the newspaper to smooth out the creases. Some crumbs flew across the table and landed on my lap, and I swatted them away. He turned his attention back to the paper.
“You found a job? Already?” I put the buttered toast back on my plate and looked at him in amazement. “When did that happen?”
I really meant, when the hell were you planning to tell me? We were too newly married for me to say that, though.
“Just as soon as I was certain I’d be adequately rewarded.” Faizan was still in a joking mood, and seeing my dark expression, he concluded, “But it seems like I will be out of special favors. At least for awhile.”
I continued to stare at him, willing him to answer my question. And then it came.
“I’ll be waiting tables at Windows on the World.”
There was an ear-piercing silence that knifed through the air around us. I looked at him in disbelief. He seemed not to notice my shock; his face had disappeared inside a book review column.
“At the W
orld Trade Center? Faizan, are you serious?” I was getting a little testy now, switching to English, not wanting to address him anymore with the most familiar you word in Urdu that was reserved for either close loved ones or God. “With your master’s in lit, you are going to wait tables. You have got to be joking.”
Faizan looked at me patronizingly. “Arissa!” He clicked his tongue in sympathy. “Waiting tables isn’t so bad in America. You make more money than you would teaching. I am sure you didn’t know that.”
I didn’t. So I said nothing.
“You need to broaden your mind,” he continued. “It’s actually quite fun to wait tables. You meet many interesting people and make great friends. I did that for a long time when I first moved here.”
“But—” I hated that my comments were so transparent.
“Besides it’ll free up my two days in the week to devote to some serious writing and finish my novel.”
He laid the paper down on the table and put his right hand on mine. For once Faizan was serious, realizing my anxiety.
“We’ll be well provided for. I’ll teach two classes at the university some evenings. I really have to do this. I can’t finish my book with a full-time regular job. It won’t be an affluent lifestyle, I understand, but you won’t have to work, at least not for awhile.”
“I don’t mind working, but this sounds so…so—” I wanted to say foolish but couldn’t. I eased my hand out from underneath his. “Have you given this enough thought?”
“Arissa, do you really think I would bring a wife here and not provide for her? You think I am that irresponsible?” His impish look was gone, replaced by annoyance.
“No, I didn’t mean—”
“Then trust me, I can make it work.” Our eyes locked. He saw the fear and uncertainty in mine and looked away, hurt large in his eyes. “It’s no use. You don’t believe in me or my work.”
He got up to leave the table, upsetting the teacup that held only a sip. The spill on the table was hardly more than a drop, and I did nothing to wipe it away, too consumed with the discussion at hand.
“Please don’t say that,” I pleaded. “Your work is wonderful. I think you are really on to something.”
“So what is it then, sweetheart?” He turned around, and his tone was cutting as he stood in front of me. Then a realization seemed to flash across his face. “Is it that you would be ashamed to introduce me to your friends and reveal my profession? Are you going to love me less if I wait tables? Or is it that you are so high-maintenance that you fear that my meager salary won’t be able to sustain you in all that you are used to? It has to be something from that list.”
I had never seen him so rattled, and I gasped and stood up, fuming with rage. He had hit the jugular with at least one of those comments and caught me totally off-guard. I fled to my room, grabbed my purse, and started to storm out the door.
“Don’t forget your hijab!” he called after me.
I ignored him and slammed the door. The sound echoed down the hall, and I saw an old woman three doors down open her door and look at me questioningly, a chocolate-spotted Ocicat in her arms. I gave her a weak apologetic smile and got on my knees, rummaging in my purse for a scarf. I emptied the contents of my purse onto the floor, and my wallet, lipstick, and blush fell in a fanfold around me. No veil. The light thud across the hall signaled to me that the woman had closed her door. Tired, I slumped against the door and watched the morning tick away into the afternoon. He didn’t even stop me, I thought angrily. I would learn in the next few months that that was how Faizan resolved conflicts, a quality I grew to appreciate. He gave me room to think over fights and disagreements and then always made amends first.
I allowed myself to think over the events of the morning without bias and with some level of clarity. Would it shame me if my husband waited tables? Does it bother me that Juhi’s boyfriend works as a defense contractor and Zoha’s husband is a successful businessman? When did I become that shallow? At noon, I stood up, dusted off my skirt, and went back inside the apartment. Time to expiate.
In time I also learned that Faizan, cheerful and boisterous in his boyishly cute way, almost always got what he wanted or what he set his mind to—except one time when I left him no choice but to see things my way.
The water felt good as it cascaded down my body, slapping the red tiles below; I enjoyed its liquid embrace, its unquestioning, predictable steady stream, continuous through the times. I tried to wash my feet that were virtually hidden from view due to my large abdomen. I cleaned via sensing, feeling the water pass between my toes and seep down the drain.
Drying quickly as I got out of the shower, I reached for the bathrobe and hesitated for a minute, looking over at the full-length mirror a few yards away. In two easy strides I reached the fogged-up mirror, my bathrobe discarded on the floor.
At first glance I almost keeled over in disbelief. I had never seen myself nude in my full-blown pregnant state. The giant swell of the baby was like a globe under my breasts—an entire world within me, with faultless temperature control, unending food supply, and the necessary tools for survival. Stretch marks crisscrossed along the entire circumference of it as if exuding ownership. My nipples were primed for suckling, waiting for the sweet sensation of a baby’s lips on it.
Right on cue, the baby started to hiccup, and my belly reverberated from the act. I watched in awe as he stretched. A little hand shot up from deep within me and pushed against the walls of my abdomen—a palm print on my belly. Then the baby withdrew his hand, leaving me breathless. The seconds ticked away as did the hiccups. He had gone to sleep. I pictured him inside me, a perfectly formed human being, very different from the stark black-and-white ghost-like images I had seen on the scans. I imagined him in his sleep, his head bobbing on his chest, immersed in the essence of survival, unaware of his future and lifelong struggles.
I dreaded the moment of birth a few weeks later when he would be on his own, fighting for a chance at life. No longer dependent on my body for anything but milk. The pulsating lifeline, which provided him sustenance now, withered and torn. How would he fare? Would he make it then or not?
I refused to think further and reached for the bathrobe on the floor before stopping suddenly, flooded with memories of the past. I looked again at the mirror and reminisced on the journey I had taken from a shy untouched girl naked in front of a man for the first time to a pregnant widow. The nights in the early days of marriage when I refused to let Faizan touch me until the lights were turned out. “But I want to see,” he would beg, and I would shake my head. “Feel me with your touch,” I implored. “Sense me with your heart.” Days later he told me that darkness added a mysterious quality to my beauty—it kept our union strong.
I stood with my back against the mirror as I tied the belt of my bathrobe around my waist. Then I left the bathroom quickly.
EIGHTEEN
December 2001
Houston
My heart thudded against my chest as I turned the steering wheel to the left. The car grazed the curb and steadied. I felt my breath quicken. This driving business was tough. In Houston, I was forced to learn how to drive. The public transportation system didn’t take you everywhere, and with my many prenatal appointments, it was easier to get around in my own car. Uncle Rizvi offered me a few lessons, and after some fits, starts, and emotional moments, I was finally able to get behind the wheel on my own. He also helped me find a used Toyota Camry and concluded with pride that I was well on my way. Except, I had this fear of oncoming traffic since my days of living in Karachi, where I’d witnessed many accidents and near-misses and could not quite get comfortable with the idea of driving on my own. In Houston, I drove only in the right lanes as if venturing left would mean certain death. Buses and trucks running parallel to me still distracted and frightened me. I wrote down directions and then memorized them. I was the product of a country where I always expected to be driven to places. My brain just didn’t process and resolve geographic
al challenges effectively. To get around, I plotted my destinations carefully, always starting at a familiar point to avoid getting lost. “It’s all in your mind, Arissa Apa,” Ruhi, Uncle Rizvi’s eighteen-year-old daughter, told me. “With practice, the fear will disappear.”
I was grateful for the counsel of my relatives, the family of three who had made our transition to Houston fairly easy. We were renting an apartment a few minutes away from where they lived, and they routinely called or checked up on us during the day. Jamila Aunty, Uncle Rizvi’s wife, stayed home and worked as a Mary Kay sales representative in her spare time. She was a sweet woman who talked incessantly; you could not get a word in edgewise.
The two-bedroom apartment that I rented was minimal but functional for the four of us, still larger than the one we rented in New York. Although rents were higher near the Children’s Hospital area, Uncle Rizvi had secured it for me at a great price. Money that my widowed state had provided would pay for that, and I had planned to look for a job in Houston. Blood money, some folks in the media had jeered. Yes, but we didn’t want our loved ones killed for that money. Nothing could compensate for their loss. I admired the steadfast commitment of my in-laws toward us. Upon our arrival in Houston, they gave me a copy of their will that stated that upon their departure from the world, my unborn son and I would be the sole heirs of all their assets, not that we lacked for anything.
While we were settling in, the world was changing at breakneck speed, rapidly deteriorating. I lamented the world that callously abducted and killed with no conscience or respect for human lives. Unreined, unchecked, the radicals struck the four corners of the globe and left masses of innocent Muslims easy targets for others’ hatred and venom. We were regarded as a race gone bad, mad. The people of our adopted land had lost faith in us, and we couldn’t trust our own. The line between allies and enemies was growing thinner by the day. Watching our backs had become a habit, a necessity of the strange times we lived in. We struggled to know ourselves only to lose ourselves in the interpretation of others, in the hyphenation of our worlds.
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