by Sabyn Javeri
A week later, I found myself in a room full of students of varying shapes and sizes. All women, I noted. Different skin tones in different modes of dress, from shalwar suits to tracksuit bottoms, all gazing down at me as if I was about to sprout some piece of prophetic revelation that would change their lives forever.
‘Hello there,’ I managed to squeak, and the air went out of their expectant faces replaced by an I knew it look of disgust. Bored, distracted faces stared back at me and beyond me as I droned on about literary movements in the Romantic era. I could hear the shakiness in my voice.
One girl got up and left the class. Later, in the admin office, I saw two more walk in, their agitated faces betraying their intention to drop the course.
I felt like I’d hit rock bottom, and that I couldn’t get any lower. But I was wrong. I came home to my flat share with two graduate students, which was as low as it gets. Thankfully, the students were away on an exchange semester and I had the flat to myself. I stepped in to find a postcard from my husband sitting on top of a pile of bills. It showed the warm Mediterranean Sea with its azure blue waters and cloudless skies. I stared out of the window at the grey Leicester landscape, the grizzly cold sky overwhelmingly dull, and felt lonelier than ever.
I’d take him back right now if he showed up, I remember thinking.
Since I taught part-time and only had two classes a week, the rest of the week, I worked at the university library. I had to. Teaching alone, and that too part-time, doesn’t pay the bills. Neither does writing. A dull nine-to-five was needed, and I considered myself lucky it was at the check-in of a library and not the check-outs of a supermarket. The library at Leicester Uni wasn’t a particularly busy place. Books and bookshelves seemed out of fashion now that digital had made everything accessible. But every now and then, I’d see a few people come in looking for a quiet place to plug in their laptops or charge their phones, so they could chat with their friends online instead of face to face. Sometimes I’d spot students from the class I taught, but they never said hello. Except one. The girl with no face, I used to call her in my head. She was covered from top to toe in a tent-like garment she called the jilbab. Mother to the hijab?
I mostly ignored her until, one day, I simply couldn’t.
‘Things I’ve Been Silent About.’
I looked up to see her dark eyes peering at me through the thin, narrow slit in her veil. She was leaning over the library counter, boring into me with that intense gaze of hers. I couldn’t see much of her face but I sensed she was smiling. It was unnerving.
‘Author?’ I said, punching in the library catalogue code on the prehistoric desktop.
The girl remained silent.
‘Who’s it by?’ I repeated, and she looked disappointed. Correction: her eyes seemed disappointed.
‘Nafisi.’
I punched a few more buttons on the computer. The search came up blank.
‘Sorry,’ I said, hoping she would go away and let me work in peace on my new novel that had still to reveal its plot to me.
‘Reading Lolita in Tehran?’ she asked hopefully.
Is she plucking these names out of the air? I thought as the search came up blank again.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘We simply don’t have these foreign titles. At least not in this small, provincial library,’ I added softly.
It was meant to be a joke, but she looked crushed. Her eyes dimmed and her head stooped. I was fascinated. Could eyes really be so expressive? Talking to her required a whole new set of communication, coded through body language. And now, as she stood there slumped against the counter, I felt a surge of pity for her. I wanted to pat her back and say, ‘There, there.’ Strange, since I hardly knew her. Why should I have cared?
Over the next few days, I got to know her well. Saira – or the veiled one, as I referred to her in my thoughts – was a strange and lonesome girl. She wasn’t strange in an obnoxious way but more in an eccentric fashion. She never spoke much but still managed to make her presence felt. Whenever she was around me, she was so quiet that I couldn’t help but pay attention to her, whether I wanted to or not. Somehow, I was always conscious of her presence. Sometimes it was the rustling of her silken veil, or the sound of her breath as it knocked against the barriers of her veil escaping in a whistle-like manner. At first glance, she appeared the quiet and studious type, but closer inspection revealed a streak of mischief in her. I once caught her making patterns on the glass table in the library with her breath, only her nostrils escaping her veil. Once she tried to lift the flap of her veil by exhaling through her mouth. Crazy little eccentricities I found endearing. On an impulse, I ordered her the Iranian books she enquired about daily, as if things could change so quickly.
‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ I told her as she approached me with more impossible names, ‘but I have ordered the Reading Lolita in Tehran book for you. It’ll take time, alright?’
She nodded eagerly, the sides of her veil flapping like the ears of a terrier.
‘Look, I don’t even know if the library committee will approve it. I had to say many students asked for it, though it was just you.’
She seemed nervous that I had to lie and, for a minute, I was taken aback. What’s a little white lie? I thought to myself.
As if reading my thoughts, she quoted Shakespeare, ‘What a tangled web we weave…’
‘Would you rather I didn’t?’ I interjected.
‘No!’ she squealed, delighted that her choice of books may actually make it to the shelves here, where Dan Brown and India Knight were the only popular authors.
‘I’m sure once the kids read her, they would regret not doing so earlier,’ she said with a conviction that was contagious.
Something about her enthusiasm infected me. That night when I went home, I actually prepared my lecture.
The next day, I caught my class off-guard as instead of the usual Elliot and Frost, I threw names at them they had never heard before. Contrary to my expectations, they lapped it up. The girls were curious. Hungry. They wanted more. As my lectures became more innovative, my popularity grew.
The next time Saira came up to the library information desk, I asked her a question before she could ask me any. Unfortunately, it was not one she was expecting. ‘Would you like to go for a coffee after my shift?’ I asked. It was hard to gauge the expression in her eyes.
Outside, it was bitterly cold. The damp, grey landscape seemed even more bleak as we left the warm glow of the library and walked towards a small, dingy grease spoon cafe off campus. Inside, the smell of fried bacon greeted us warmly and I looked worriedly at Saira. Shit, I thought, would she mind? Worse, what if it’s taken as some sort of Islamophobic attack? But she seemed to be playing that game where she parted her lips slightly and sucked in the mouth flap of her veil, the cloth rising and falling as she drew the fabric in and out with her breath. I watched in fascination till an agitated waitress barked, ‘Tea or coffee?’
‘Tea, please,’ I said, looking expectantly at Saira. But she was busy looking at her feet. My gaze followed. I scraped my chair back to see her swinging her legs back and forth and it was then that I noticed. Her shoes.
Jesus Christ superstar, I almost said aloud, for her kinky boots were hardly what I’d expect her to have on underneath her long flowing body-length veil. Little electric shocks pinged through me. I don’t know what I had expected, but those sexy boots were certainly not what I paired with someone who observed strict purdah. I caught her staring at me staring at the thin metal pencil heels and the metal studs around the boot’s toe, and I felt the colour rise up my cheeks. I couldn’t quite decide why I had expected her shoes to be as inconspicuous as the rest of her. There was nothing in Islam about appropriate footwear, was there? No, I chided myself, it was the stereotype of the submissive veiled woman who had no taste or choice of her own that had kicked in. I’d just assumed women who wore the veil also wore boring old sensible shoes. My bad. Who knew what went on behind those tents th
ese girls wore anyway?
‘Well,’ the waitress said, breaking into my thoughts. ‘Anything for her?’
I felt more heat rise up my face, annoyed that she wouldn’t address Saira directly.
She can speak, you know, I wanted to say, but suddenly realized that perhaps Saira didn’t want to engage with someone so obviously rude and potentially racist.
‘Saira?’ I asked. ‘Would you like a hot drink?’
She shook her head, magically procuring a thermos out of her long cloak-like jilbab.
‘No outside food or beverage,’ the rude waitress barked.
I had had enough. Rising to my feet, I said, ‘Let’s go.’
Saira got up without a word. Almost as if she were expecting it.
I wondered if she got this treatment often.
‘Let’s go to my house,’ I said, haltingly. But she nodded again in that compliant, trustworthy way, as if she had total faith in my ability to end all wars and restore peace.
At home, Saira walked around looking at everything like she was in a museum. She’d pause before a photograph or a bookshelf and observe it like an artefact, her hands holding her chin, her brow creased deep in thought. It was almost comical.
‘So tell me,’ I said, handing her a cup of steaming hot chocolate, ‘where did you develop your taste in world literature?’
‘I’m part of that world.’
‘Excuse me,’ I wondered if she had misheard me.
‘It’s the world I inhabit.’
I realized that she was trying to tell me that she could relate to it. I leaned back and looked intently at her. ‘Were you born here?’
She shook her head. ‘Came at age nine.’
‘From?’
At this, she got up and started looking at my things again.
I persisted, ‘Are you from Pakistan?’
She shook her head.
‘Well?’
She turned around suddenly and, from the irritation in her eyes, I felt she was offended by the question. She was obviously as British as I was, having lived here for so long.
But it turned out that’s not what was bothering her.
‘Iran,’ she replied, looking at her cuticles with great scrutiny.
‘Ah, so the veil is compulsory.’
‘No,’ she said simply.
‘What do you mean?’
She came and sat opposite me. ‘I like it.’
‘What do you mean?’ I repeated, feeling much like a parrot.
Again that dark, piercing look, the shine in her pupils which made me sense that she was smiling behind her veil, as she said, ‘Did you ever read those books as a kid where you got the power to become invisible?’
I laughed. ‘Your veil draws more attention than a woman in a bikini.’
‘Yes, perhaps. But still. Inside, it’s my own little private world. No one knows what I look like, what I wear, how I style my hair…’
‘So, are you saying it makes you feel powerful?
She didn’t reply and I didn’t press her.
By Christmas, we had become almost friends. As different as we were, I enjoyed talking to Saira. And that is what it usually was. Me talking and her listening. There was a stillness to her, a quality I found – as a child-free woman with a marriage that was falling apart and career prospects which were going nowhere – soothing. In the midst of a life sans distractions, Saira’s quiet contentment provided a sort of comic relief. The way she simplified everything, the way everything was split into good and evil, her black-and-white view of life was almost refreshing. Little things, when she pointed them out, made me sit up. Once, at a quick stop at the corner shop as I picked out a few things, examining the labels for omega fatty acid, vitamins, iron and all those others that we were supposed to consume to get our five-a-day, Saira asked me why we focussed so much on what was missing than what was present. Her question pertained to food, of course, but for me it summed up life. At times like these, I found it hard to believe that she was only nineteen. Sometimes, her philosophical musings would make me reflect that life didn’t have to be so complicated; at other times, they would irk me, for they forced me to rethink my choices in life. Like at this particular moment.
‘You can reach conclusions only by the process of elimination, Saira,’ I said, handing her the basket as I marched off to the off-licence section. I placed a bottle of wine in the basket knowing full well that it made her uneasy even to be holding an object that carried within it a forbidden drink. Feeling merciful, I took it back from her and marched off to the cashier. ‘Stay,’ I ordered without looking back, enjoying the power I seemed to wield even outside the classroom. When I turned around, she was gone.
I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed. Her black cloak felt like a shadow, constant and comforting, attached yet detached. I trudged out of the store feeling bad about pushing the line, only to find her waiting outside. We walked to mine in silence.
It was past ten by the time we reached my flat. Eerily dark and spookily quiet. ‘Don’t your parents worry?’ I asked. She surprised me by saying she lived in the girls’ dorm. Her parents had gone back to the old country for a wedding. The statement was jarring. I hadn’t quite pictured her as the independent type. For some reason, I expected her to have a pair of smothering parents, a set of authoritarian immigrant grandparents, a few bossy siblings. I felt as if all my estimations were being crushed effectively.
‘Does your mum wear the hijab?’ I asked as we entered my flat.
‘Would it make her a better mum if she did?’
‘What an odd question,’ I responded.
‘So was yours.’
I turned around to look at her, thinking, that was Saira for you. Everything was a riddle. Albeit, I conceded, a simple one.
The more I got to know her, the more my interest in her world grew. I picked up a few of the titles she had suggested and surprised myself. I enjoyed them. Perhaps it was inevitable, but I began to take more interest in my work. As Saira introduced me to more world literature, my lectures became more innovative, so much so that by January, there was a waiting list for my course.
We began to talk every night via texts. Sometimes till late in the night. I got up in the mornings without enough rest, puffy dark circles under my eyes registering their protest. The topic was often me and my failed marriage or my failed career as a writer. I found myself opening up to her, telling her about my string of successful failures. I had managed to get a book deal but it had bombed badly. I hadn’t been able to believe my luck at first when it had got published without the usual one hundred rejections that writers were supposed to go through. Later, I could not believe my bad luck.
Saira’s reaction to all my issues was, as always, simple. A lack of faith was how she justified it. And after lecturing her on the rubbishness of theology, I would often wonder if there might perhaps just be a wee bit of truth to what she said. It was true, after all, that I had a hard time believing my good fortune, thinking myself undeserving of becoming a published author so easily, and perhaps that is what had manifested itself. A lack of faith … it got me thinking. If I had believed, truly believed that I deserved success, would I have ended up in this lonely student flat? For a change, taking responsibility instead of blaming others and circumstances seemed to make sense. In fact, the more I got to know Saira, the more I realized how comforting her black-and-white world was, uncomplicated and untouched as it was by the complexities of colour. I guess sometimes colour can throw you off kilter.
And so I found myself taking refuge in Saira’s black-and-white world, where she was a constant. Wrapped in her trademark black veil, with only a slit for the eyes, quiet and reticent, always ready to listen, Saira seemed almost other-worldly. And perhaps that is why somewhere along the way the boundaries blurred. The day her hug lasted a tad longer, I let it go. But slowly I began to notice the lingering touches, the accidental bumping and the sitting too closely. It didn’t take much to figure out that Saira wanted more than j
ust a friendship. What I didn’t realize then was that her love was unconditional.
She was over the day my husband came back. He walked in unannounced as if he had never left. He wanted to discuss ‘us’. Saira made no move to leave. Instead, she asked us if we would like some tea, almost as if we were the guests visiting her house. I have to admit that even I was surprised by her behaviour. Usually, she was shy and reticent around strangers, but at this moment, she seemed more in control of the situation than we were. She made small talk, laying down cups of tea and a plate of biscuits without seeming obviously inquisitive, though I could see she was itching to know what we would say to each other.
Finally, I asked her to sit down and, together, as if explaining to a child we did not have, we told her that we were going to get a divorce. It’s not your fault, I almost added, before realizing that she wasn’t really part of this tableau. But the glass-shattering look in Saira’s eyes seemed to signal that she might as well have been. ‘Life is like that,’ I said, gently patting her knee, confused at her emotional reaction.
My husband seemed embarrassed by this new project I had taken on, and made his displeasure apparent by rolling his eyes. He may as well have shouted it out. Freak, his look seemed to say. She started staring unblinkingly at him through the gap in her veil, and I could see he was becoming more and more edgy by Saira’s silent presence. He got up abruptly, saying he would call. He never did.
But that did not stop Saira from enquiring again, and yet again, if he had called. A strange sort of anxiety reflected in her eyes every time I told her that the only news I had of him was through his Facebook newsfeed of mutual friends. I’m not sure whether she was more shocked at the looming divorce or at the fact that he had unfriended me on Facebook. Either way, she blamed herself.
For the next few weeks, she showed up every day with baked goods or old second-hand copies of books she thought I might like. Her charity irked me. It made me feel pitied. Disturbing when, if anything, I was relieved that this sagging old chapter of my life had finally closed. I could start afresh. But what I thought was a fresh start, Saira regarded as rejection.