Saffron Dreams

  There were times when I wanted to take the drenched fabric of elucidation in the media and wring it dry of the false analysis presented daily on channels across the country. It irritated me, the world with its unjust notions, its constant stereotyping. Why did they attack us? The question popped up everywhere. I heard it again when I was flipping stations in the car. A talk-show listener had called in to offer his take. “Let’s go to the fundamentals of why they did this to us,” the caller suggested. “Why do they want to harm us? Is it because of the teachings of their religion?”

  “Precisely,” answered the host, suddenly a subject-matter expert. “Their faith teaches that if they harm nonbelievers, they will go to heaven.”

  I winced. Don’t they know that terror has no religion? That religions don’t preach terror?

  I looked on as day after day the media tried, sentenced, and hung my faith. Day after day analysts applied new interpretations to the religion, broke the backs of bridges, and erected barriers too sturdy to take down or overcome. Gaps widened, our hearts divided, we struggled privately, each one of us, to make sense of our shrinking world. I witnessed the lynching of a religion and race again and again. Apart from the religion that we strived to preserve came another necessity of the times: salvaging our reputation. What proof did I have of the innocence of the rest of us? Couldn’t I be considered a living attestation like many others? Couldn’t Faizan, with his intention of leading a common life by earning an honest living? The trouble is people like us stay too low and off the radar to ever be of any real use or value to the media. Our anonymity and obscurity rendered us useless. We created nothing newsworthy and powered no conflicts. What is a story if there isn’t a divergence? Our ordinary lives were a bit too normal to be sensational.

  The drive downtown was made trickier by the never-ending rain. All night it had rained, giving the soaked city not a moment’s peace, and at the break of dawn, it paused for a bit and started afresh. I worked the wheel nervously, prayers whooshing out of my half-open mouth. Interesting how you reach out to Him only in times of want. In tranquil times, He rarely gets the time of day. The city was a splattered mass and still held on to a wraithlike darkness. The taillights of cars in front of me bled an electrifying red on the slick road when they stopped. My leg ached from all the stop-and-go action. I adjusted the collar of my east-west fusion tunic with some degree of anxiety and wondered if I had made a wrong choice in clothes for that day. Did I look too casual, non-serious, inexperienced? I picked up the job clipping that had been my companion for the past half hour. The ad was short and direct. “Need an associate editor for a South Asian publication,” it said, along with a phone number below. It was my very first real job interview. Permanent employment, it promised. Should I have worn a suit? The clipping fell from my hand to the floor of the car. I started to reach for it and jerked back up when the driver in the Chevy behind me honked in impatience.

  I parked a few blocks away from my actual destination to avoid having to parallel park, realizing with annoyance that I had forgotten to bring my umbrella along. By the time I reached the building, I was completely wet, my hair clinging to the sides of my face like I had just come out of a bath.

  Stepping off the elevator onto the third floor, I first saw the sign on the reception desk that read Chamak and then noticed the short, middle-aged woman in a blue scoop-neck sweater. She seemed a little out of breath as she worked the floor briskly, passing out some papers. She had wide hips that made her gait just a little awkward as she walked.

  “Look at this memo, everyone,” she barked. “Naomi, make sure you call Rahman’s son and schedule that interview.”

  A small woman at the reception desk nodded in response.

  “And someone call that artist in Atlanta. We need his headshot for the Chitral piece.”

  “I’ll do it,” a male voice called out from a distant cubicle.

  “Where is Maria? I need some caffeine. She went to Starbucks a year ago—”

  The woman started to walk toward an office and then saw me, dripping all over her burgundy carpet. She stopped in mid-sentence and beamed.

  “You must be Arissa. Hi, my name is Cyma,” she said, extending her hand. Her gaze fell on my swollen abdomen briefly before she lifted it back up to meet my eyes. The warmth had not waned from the revelation, and I breathed a little easier. I stood there nauseous from nervous tension, hands clenched on both sides, and then sprang into motion and shook her hand a little too vigorously. As soon as I let go, I felt embarrassed at how icy cold my palms were. She had a strong hold, nice and firm, and waved her hands around as soon as I let go.

  “Do you see this? Madhouse, I tell you.” She widened her eyes dramatically for added effect. “And I love every crazy minute of it.” Laughing, she led me inside her office. She had a flawless complexion and a face that sported a permanent grin. Her sparse hair was tied untidily at the back with a flat clip.

  I nodded in appreciation. I believed her. The office was buzzing with the vigor of real working people, the dull hum of meetings, the whirring of the copy machine, and the ringing of phones. Even the air had an official scent to it, one of cardboard boxes, fresh ink, and stimulating fresheners. As soon as we entered her office, Cyma picked up a piece of candy out of the bowl on her desk and unwrapped it. She bit off a square, looking at me thoughtfully. I tried to settle down. I had trouble fitting into one of the smaller chairs and moved to another wider one. I wondered if Cyma could ever fit in any of those. I found my answer in the wide leather swivel chair across from me and the matching ottoman across the room.

  The office was nice, full of sparse but trendy furniture, with stacks of paper everywhere. The papers were neat even in the disarray and frequency with which they were scattered all across the room: on the floor, the desk, even the couch. In one corner of the room, above the decorative pot with the naqqashi pattern, was a carved silver frame with a portrait of a woman in chador shielding her eyes from the sun. I recalled the work to be similar to a Pakistani artist’s whom I was fond of back home. Eqbal Mehdi was his name, and he had the mystifying ability to capture the most intimate moments and moods through his figurative work almost as if he had somehow touched the soul of his subjects. Although I wasn’t a big fan of realistic work, the details Mehdi captured in his work—the lights and shades, the folds of garments and drapes—were somehow absolutely mesmerizing to me.

  “It is his work, in case you are wondering,” Cyma said, nodding toward the art, neither of us needing any further reference to the originator. “He is still on hiatus last I heard.”

  “I admire his work,” I commented, “although some argue he paints pensive women in regal attires far removed from common people.”

  “There’s a trace of royalty in all of us,” Cyma said with a chuckle. “We are a kingdom unto ourselves; the world is our subject.”

  “He does paint women in commonplace settings, though,” I stated, laughing along with her. “At least we can allow him that.”

  “Yes, but really, are humans that perfect?” We both glanced at the painting again. The mole above the woman’s lip in the art failed to mar the perfection of the rest of her face. Most of her body was shielded by her long chador. She had a melancholy expression.

  “The famous Bernini once said that art is overcoming every obstacle, making something sublime out of what you’ve been dealt.”

  Truer words were never spoken. I wondered what hand providence had dealt to the woman Mehdi had painted. Perhaps a jilted lover or a lost child? Maybe a dead lover?

  Cyma beamed at me and sat down. “So you are interested in working for the magazine?” she asked. “I have your resume here somewhere.”

  “Yes,” I answered shortly, turning my attention back to her as she rummaged around her desk briefly before producing my e-mailed resume.

  “Do you know what we do?”

  I wracked my brain to think of an appropriate answer. I had read a bit too much on the magazine. In fact, I had memori
zed the contents of its entire Web site. Googled it a couple of times and found more information. Some nice, some not so nice. It got bad press when a piece about a Pakistani model ran with a photo of her in a bikini but received kudos for reuniting a family of five separated for ten years. Two family members had been in India, three in Pakistan. I had seen the photos of the tearful meeting and actually felt quite overcome myself.

  “Let me assist,” Cyma suggested after she had waited awhile for my response. “We are—”

  I cut her off. “A nonprofit magazine that received funding recently from the Cultural Arts Council of Houston to produce a magazine that projected a better image of South Asia, specifically the South Asian community. The magazine itself has been in existence for four years.”

  I paused as I remembered reading that it isn’t advisable to cut off the interviewer. Cyma seemed impressed so I dared to continue. “You interview and highlight the accomplishments of that community in arts, science, literature, and drama and seek to highlight the culture of that race.”

  “Quite right,” Cyma responded. “The grant will help us through another four years, and then we will have to look for additional funding.”

  Cyma handed me two issues of the magazine. A beaming Nepalese pilot was on the cover of one, a Pakistani fashion designer on the other. I flipped one open to check the layout and was quite impressed. They probably had a good designer on board.

  “I like the samples you sent of your writing,” Cyma said after I had leafed through a few pages. “If we hire you, you should know that I cannot guarantee you continued employment after the four years are up.”

  That’s a long period, I thought to myself. I no longer planned for that long. Short, easy, accessible goals. One at a time.

  “I can work with that understanding.”

  “Good,” Cyma said. “I can only offer a small salary for now since you have no experience working full-time, but we can review it again in three months. Sound good?”

  “I have a few thoughts to share.”

  “Yes.”

  I looked at my hands folded in my lap. “I am appreciative that you don’t look at my advanced stage of pregnancy and discount me for that reason. I have to let you know that I will be the sole caretaker of my child when he is born. I have been made aware that it…he has some disabilities, the extent of which is rather gray at the moment. It’s just to say that my work will have to revolve around such challenges. I don’t want you to be in the dark.”

  Cyma seemed to chew on that for a minute.

  “Nice of you to be upfront about that,” she said, and then grinned broadly. “I like you already. Of course we will work around your schedule. After your child’s birth, you can work with us as a contractor if you like. You set your own hours and work whenever, wherever. As long as the work gets done, we are all happy.”

  I smiled gratefully at her.

  “Then we will see you on Monday for your first day of work.” Cyma shook my hand, faintly dismissive.

  “Of course.” I suppressed the urge to hug her.

  I got out and almost danced on the damp sidewalk. I had my first regular job ever. Things were moving along as I expected. The move had been great on so many levels.

  Juhi had her very first ultrasound!

  She wrote fast and furiously. Even in e-mail, her personality came through as she wrote in breathless sentences broken by ellipses, not three, not four, but six or eight. She never capitalized her “I”s either, and the editor in me cringed every time I came across one.

  She wanted a boy, she admitted. All I could pray for was that the child was normal. The baby was due next August. “What have you been up to?” She asked. “Found a balding Pakistani guy yet?”

  “No,” I wrote back. “They seem to all have headed east or to the East coast.”

  “In that case, I’ll go hunt for one,” she wrote with a smiley face at the end of the sentence.

  Getting used to the noisy pace of Chamak was easy. The crew was supportive, team-spirited, and made me feel right at home. Sidra, a content editor at Chamak, reminded me of Juhi with her quick wit and vibrant personality. We went out to lunch a few times and decided we meshed well together. The work helped alleviate some of my anxiety over the future. Ma and Baba were delighted to see a bit of spark back in my eyes. I actually had a focus when I got up in the morning. In just a week’s time, I interviewed an Indian astronaut, a Pakistani chef who ran a successful restaurant on Hillcroft, and a five-year-old brainy daughter of Indian parents who solved math problems in her head. The most moving interview I did for the magazine and also the most difficult one was of a woman who had lost a son at the Pentagon on September 11. I found it a little hard to be objective in that piece. Human tragedies are such popular reads, Cyma reminded me. It seemed like we lived in such a sadistic society, constantly seeking out the unfortunates among us.

  Not much travel was required. Most of the work could be done over the phone or by e-mail. The farthest I went to cover a feature was Dallas. Some interviewees even liked questions to be e-mailed to them and responded in the same manner, although that stripped out some of the human aspect. Emotions don’t translate well in e-mails, and I found that sensory cues we receive from face-to-face encounters are lost in such exchanges.

  I spent hours searching online for interesting people from the subcontinent. The immigrant stories inspired me the most with their level of sacrifice; so much had to be let go to get something in return. It made me even more nostalgic for the pieces in our lives that are lost once we move from one continent to another: the moghra and the mangoes that no longer give off their exhilarating aromas, the henna that loses its hue and scent, the relationships that suffer due to the dynamics of the new society, and the language we lose. It makes you miss loved ones more, the ones who are always present to solve any issue—personal or impersonal—with a joint resolution; and the neighbors who are always eager to bring over hot dishes for no other reason than to share and exchange gossip. What do we gain by moving to a new country, alienated at once from our own type and land? More freedom? Less anonymity? Distinction that we want to lose? And when we are finally ready to call the new society our homeland, does it accept us willingly?

  Ma’s glance lately held a silent question reminding me of our pact—completion of a son’s dream. I have not forgotten, I tried to relay to her with my thoughts. I’d merely set it aside to give it the attention it deserved when I had the time. I saw it in the looks Ma directed toward the bureau in my room where she knew I had stashed Faizan’s unfinished manuscript after the move, right underneath the painting of the roses. I had created that piece the year I got married: white roses against a fuchsia backdrop, the bashful curling petals encircling the virgin center. Faizan had been thrilled with that composition. He said it reminded him of me as a shy young bride.

  With gentle fingers Ma traced the edges of the bureau when she talked to me about life in general: my work, her day, the unborn child. I could see the reverence with which she cleaned that piece of furniture every week, always using a fresh unused cloth. She approached it almost as if she was tending to a grave or hailing a grave to the status of a shrine. Instead of flowers, she planted kisses. I had seen her once, head bent low on the bureau when I walked in, lips tenderly touching the surface, a tribute to her dead son. I retreated among the shadows, afraid to disturb the sanctity of the exchange—the silent conversation between a mother and the spirit of her son.

  “You have to piece it all together.” I recalled her words from the distant past. “You have to give his novel life so Faizan can live forever in those pages.”

  I remembered my own uncertainty, my hesitation at the enormity of the task. I had caved in at Ma’s persistence. It was all such a long time ago: the discovery of the manuscript and our struggles to decide its fate.

  I had survived, I realized with a degree of pride. I had not succumbed to the pain of my loss.

  NINETEEN

  We were headed to the
hospital. No waiting-for-the-labor-to-begin fun for me, the doctors had decided. The baby had to be delivered immediately. It was measuring three weeks behind at thirty-six weeks. My doctor could not wait anymore and did not want to take her chances if the birth happened during the holiday time when the hospital operated on a skeleton crew. In a way, I was thankful that closure was near.

  Inside the cab, Ma arranged and rearranged the bags on the floor. An arc of gold dust shimmered in through the car window, tracking her every move. Every few minutes, she opened a bag in a panic, certain that she had forgotten something. Baba, who was seated next to the cabdriver, turned around after many such searches and gently commanded Ma with his eyes to calm down. She nodded and sat back, offering me a weak smile. I noted that in her hurry to get dressed that morning, she had only applied lipstick to her upper lip. I opened the large purse next to her and pulled her lipstick out from the zipper section. I quickly painted her bottom lip and slipped the lipstick back in. Baba looked back at us and smiled. So much of how we operated was based on predictability nowadays; I knew Ma’s organizing skills, she knew by now how forgetful I was, and Baba, always a pillar of strength, could calm us down without uttering a single word.

  I stretched my neck and looked outside. Above me, the clouds were rolls of cotton that had gathered around the sun, wanting to drown its glory or at least diminish it. Instead the rays bled onto the clouds, rendering them a shocking crimson, bloodlike in their intensity.

  In the vastness of the world around me, I felt miniscule, like a bubble, a guest of the moment. Now here, then popped. Upsetting neither the world nor the composition of air. Even God must find it hard to keep track of us all, the way we scurry in and out of bodies. Prayers getting lost in the traffic. Children coming to homes already with many, while childless couples were overlooked. The wish to bring back a cheating husband granted to his mistress instead. Being an omniscient God could become challenging after a while. If only He ran it like a business and outsourced some activities: a contractor for prayers about careers; another for prioritizing requests to spare lives. Life could be simpler, for Him and possibly for us.