by Sabyn Javeri
Promises, hearts, bonds, the news…
‘Come on. We have to leave before sunset. Yallah, yallah! I push my way through.
The past is in the past.
I’m usually the first to volunteer for the supplies mission, but even if I get there first, I know it is no guarantee that I would get in. There is much pushing and shoving, hitting and name-calling as people scramble to be one amongst the first twenty. There are eight seats inside and the four to a seat load is stretching to its max already. For a second, the jostling stops and I look up to see Abu Jihad’s tall frame approaching. Two guns slung casually over his shoulders, he walks slowly, the crowd parting to let him pass. He is known for his ruthlessness. No one wants to mess with him. He elbows a blind old lady who wanders accidentally into his path, and climbs aboard, riding shotgun. The driver mutters something about women and children boarding first, but his words are lost in the general clamour of people trying to get on or get their lists on to someone they trust. The old lady cries out as someone steps over her foot in the stampede.
Survival of the fittest.
The Old Me makes its way through the sea of people and yanks Abu Jihad out by his long greasy locks. Pushing him to the ground, she puts her foot on his chest and points a Kalashnikov at him. When he tries to resist, she pushes the nozzle into his mouth and threatens to pull the trigger unless he apologizes. Abu Jihad grovels at her feet, begging for mercy. Generously, she lets him go, but not without warning to blow his brains out if he ever pushes an old and helpless woman again.
Of course, the New Me does nothing but watch.
I don’t have time to help the old woman. Nobody does. When I finally elbow my way in, I stumble onto the gearbox in the front. My eyes lock for a second with Abu Jihad and he flashes me a leery smile, his gold fillings a stark contrast to the black rot of his teeth. He is covered from head to toe in brands. A Nike cap on his head, Adidas on his feet, Abercrombie and Finch logo on his t-shirt, Guess Jeans, Ray-bans perched on his nose.
He hates the West.
I pull my hijab closer to my skin and hope to get a seat as far away as possible. He is known for his one-night brides. Most of them teenagers.
I’m out of luck. The van is crammed full. Abu Jihad pushes the adolescent boy next to him into the gearbox and makes room for me. As unobtrusively as possible,
I slip into the seat and try to disappear.
‘Subhan Allah,’ Abu Jihad strips me with his eyes as he praises god. His pupils burn through my black niqab and set alight my toe-length abaya.
I feel naked.
He rubs his fleshy lower lip with his thumb and says, ‘Get closer, sister.’
Here, everyone is a sister or brother. The word is like the local currency – useful but of little value.
‘Sit back, sister. Here, come closer.’
The Old Me slaps him hard and tells him to go fuck himself.
The New Me lowers her gaze.
‘You new here, sister?’
I nod mutely.
‘Allah, Allah …’ He murmurs softly and I feel my intestines twisting, as if some invisible claw is squeezing my insides. The heat and the acrid smell of sweat in the cramped space add to my nausea. I remember how his last jihadi bride died in childbirth. She too was sixteen.
He leans over me and says something in Arabic to the pasty young boy sitting next to me, his bottom hardly on the seat and his knees knocking against the gear. The boy shifts slightly and Abu Jihad hisses at him again. The boy’s face pales. I try to understand what he’s saying, but my Arabic is still weak. The boy’s neck stoops and his longish hair covers his reddening cheeks.
‘I really need to go into town,’ he replies in French. ‘Please don’t make me get off here. I won’t be able to find my way back.’
Abu Jihad seems taken aback. I can tell he is not used to being spoken back to, much less disobeyed.
But he also wants to impress me. He’s in no mood to pick a fight. Not that kind of a fight, at least.
He leans forward, his arm casually brushing against my breasts.
So much for modesty.
‘No problem! What is your name, brother?’
‘Liam,’ the boy replies gratefully. ‘My name is Liam, brother.’
‘Are you sure?’ Abu Jihad slaps the back of his neck, his long arm brushing my face, ‘You look like a Lucy to me.’
The people in the seat behind us giggle. The Old Me turns around sharply and admonishes them. Don’t encourage him, she screams in my head, you could be next, for all you know.
The New Me looks down at her feet.
‘So Brother Lucy, you kill a man yet? No? You start with chickens.’
The passengers snicker. Liam turns a deep shade of red.
‘No guts, huh, Lucy boy?’ he slaps his head again.
The Old Me wants to slap his arm away and say, it’s Liam, you jerk. The boy’s name is Liam and he’s just fifteen. He left his family in Toulouse for your fake Islamist mission, you fraud. You cyber-kidnapper. You hypocrite.
The New Me holds her breath and hopes to melt back into the steaming-hot leather seats.
‘Hey, hey, Brother Lucy,’ he teases, ‘what’s so urgent? Your chest beginning to jiggle? You going to town to buy a bra?’
Giggles run through the van like a tidal wave. Liam’s eyes prickle with tears.
‘That’s enough!’ The Old Me yanks Abu Jihad’s head back and shoves a bra down his throat. Swallow, she commands.
‘Come on, man, say something,’ Abu Jihad roars. ‘Cat got your tongue?’
It’s an old joke, but the bus laughs, its passengers relieved that the joke is not on them.
Cowards.
The Old Me stands up to shame them.
‘Al Hamd ul Allah,’ Liam sputters, his voice hushed and uneven like a child speaking through a rolled-up newspaper.
‘What say?’ Abu Jihad roars and Liam’s voice begins to crack.
Abu Jihad throws his head back and laughs. ‘You even sound like a girl. God got confused in the factory or what! You got both organs, man? Penis and breasts?’
The bus explodes into loud guffaws. Liam’s face is so red now that I feel the blood in his head will explode and taint us all scarlet. A vein pulses in his temple.
Why don’t you grow a pair?
But there’s no stopping Abu Jihad. The man is on a roll.
‘You reached the age of consent, man? You’ll make someone a great wife someday.’
The bus shakes with laughter as hot tears race down Liam’s cheeks. Everyone is laughing except the Old Me, who is glaring at Abu Jihad, chopping him up, slice by slice, with her laser-sharp eyes.
‘Or do you prefer goats, man?’
A sob escapes Liam’s throat. This tickles the passengers even more.
‘Come on, man,’ he pulls at Liam’s shirt, ‘show us.’
‘No,’ Liam shouts.
The laughter, I notice, is subdued now. The joke is no longer funny.
‘Enough, Abu,’ the driver says softly. ‘He’s only a boy.’
Despite the cramped space, Abu Jihad turns his whole body to face the driver.
‘Uncle, if he can’t take a little teasing, how is he going to take the torture of the Americans?’ He leans over and cups Liam’s face in his hand. ‘They rip out your fingernails for a piece of information, my brother. They poke cigarette butts in your balls, prick pins in your eyes, stick electric wires up your asshole, and you crying about name calling? Toughen up, boy. This ain’t a video game.’
Liam’s thighs are beginning to tremble and I’m filled with an urge to hold him. I want to press his hand into mine and comfort him. Hug him. And I almost do, but I feel Abu Jihad’s eyes on me, his breath hot on my face. A scalding rush surges up my body, making my heart beat itself into a mad frenzy as I realize I’ve just become visible. My poised hand sneaks back into the long folds of my abaya.
What are you even doing here?
The Old Me stares back at Abu Jihad,
undaunted, unaffected.
This is barbaric.
The Old Me pushes, nudges, tugs at my head, trying to turn me towards Liam.
You have to do something. Isn’t that why you came here in the first place?
I work up the courage to look at Liam. His upper lip is trembling. He is biting his lower one. I look away.
Coward.
It’s not that I don’t care. I want to comfort him. Tell him it will be okay and we will see our parents again, one day. Our countries will let us back in. Not try us for treason. Understand that we had mistaken virtual worlds for real ones. They’ll see. They’ll understand. They’ll know what to do.
You need to get out of here.
The Old Me is already there. Rubbing his back and telling him what to do when he reaches town. Whom to call and how to escape…
Just then, a bump in the road sends our baskets flying. A baby bag hits the back of Abu Jihad’s head. Instinctively, he grabs it like the head of an assailant and shoots its side as if he were cramming his pistol inside someone’s mouth. Screams erupt as the bag explodes. Baby bottles, wipes and shreds of cotton hit the low ceiling of the bus, then float back down. The driver continues to drive.
Get out. Now.
I hold my breath, the bullet still ringing in my ears. The loud bang has blocked out all noise and I feel as if the whole world has gone deaf. Soft feathery bits of scattered cotton float in the air like snowflakes in the sky. I think of home. I think of Christmas, a tradition we were not allowed to celebrate in my strict Muslim household, but one that continued to fill me with excitement. I think of Christmas mornings, running down to see if Santa had visited, finding the little present that my mother had hidden for me without telling Papa. I remember how
I would hide it from him, secretly cherishing the thought that Santa loved me.
You were trying to please him, weren’t you? You thought your father would approve.
The Old Me holds my hand as we walk through these memories. I think about how my father had hated that he couldn’t move back home to Pakistan. How economics had put shackles around his legs. He wanted me to live in a better society. A purer one.
No father would want this for his child, you fool.
For a second, I feel my two conflicting selves blending into each other, the battle inside me finally resolving itself as I realize what I have to do.
It’s now or never.
I look at Liam who is staring straight ahead, his face pale, mouth slightly open, his tongue frozen. Bits of white cotton are stuck to his face. He looks like a young old man. An exhausted one. The Old Me reaches out and tells him it’s okay. She turns to me.
Don’t think. Just do it.
I had heard all this before. On the Internet, when joining the ISIS’s jihad in Syria had seemed like the right thing to do, then, too, a voice had told me I was doing the right thing. Why should I believe it now?
Come. Take my hand. I won’t let you go.
This time, I was on the other side.
Come back to me. We can be whole again.
In that moment, I try to join her. I really do. But some instinct prevents me. I feel the hot sparks of Abu Jihad’s silent rage as he darts his gaze crazily around, fingering his trigger, trying to find a way to ward off the humiliation from himself. He’d just shot a bag of nappies. The story could become a legend. A laughable legend. His gaze rests on Liam and he glocks his gun.
Stop.
The Old Me steps in between. She pushes him away and calls him a sissy. A bully. A coward.
I want to join her. I really do. But something stronger takes over. Abu Jihad’s angry features twisted in rage and disgust glare down at me. ‘What are you looking at, woman?’ he growls at me. Whether it’s fear or an instinct for self-preservation, I am not sure, but I find myself reaching out for one of the nappies that landed by our feet. I pick it up, even as I feel Abu Jihad’s murderous eyes boring into my back.
I place it on Liam’s lap, where a deep stain is spreading rapidly.
I feel Abu Jihad’s tense thighs that had been pressing into mine loosen, then see a thunderous laugh escaping his purple lips. He puts his gun away and turns around to face the passengers. ‘Brother Lucy wet his pants!’ he shouts.
The bus melts with relief. Laughter, as loud as the gunshot, bounces off the cramped interiors. Little bits of fluff rise like smoke. Even the driver roars with laughter, pretending to wipe the seat with his dirty jalbiya.
And through all this, Liam shrinks into himself.
So this is it. This is the real you.
The Old Me shakes her head. Disgust drips from her eyes like fine silver teardrops as she floats out of the window.
I don’t see much of her after that.
Malady of the Heart
Lifting the flap of her inky black burkha, Ami Jan held the phone close to her mouth. ‘I am taking Zara to the doctor,’ she told my husband. But I knew what kind of a practitioner she was taking me to. Dava nahi, dua. Prayer, not medicine, was her cure for all ails.
I knew my mother well.
Fixing her veil back into place after she hung up, she turned to me. ‘Cover your head,’ she ordered, before summoning our old help, Halima.
‘Halima, you stay here,’ Ami Jan told the old woman, ‘and look after the child.’
I could see from the way Halima was fidgeting that she was in no mood to be left behind. Halima, with her wrinkled face and pointy ears that had drooped with age, had an expansive appetite for gossip, and a visit to the hakim was a story worth telling in the servant quarters.
‘I better come, Begum Sahiba. Only four days since Benazir’s assassination, who knows how many more blasts…’
‘Halima,’ Ami Jan cut her off, ‘the child.’
Not one to be discouraged easily, she argued, ‘What will the child hear at the Hakim’s that he hasn’t heard already?’
Halima had a knack for saying the most inappropriate things at the most appropriate of times. She had my mother in a tight spot, for further discussion would have brought up things we would all much rather forget.
‘It’s no secret that Zara Bibi wants a divorce…’
‘Halima!’ Ami Jan’s eyes were forbidding. I looked from her to Halima to my son, unsure whom she was trying to protect.
‘I am coming along,’ the old woman responded stubbornly. ‘Oh yes, I am. Stop me if you will.’ And she scrambled down the stairs ahead of us with speed that defied her old age.
‘Come on, now!’ we heard her shout to the driver, thumping the car’s bonnet, ‘get moving, get the car ready.’ Gul Khan, who could usually be found leaning against the car door, twirling his waistband, seemed unperturbed, for no sound emerged from him.
‘If only she hadn’t been with us for so long,’ Ami Jan sighed as she led me down. ‘I suppose we will have to take the child with us.’
I didn’t protest. My mouth felt numb as if I’d been sucking an ice-cube and my limbs felt loose, as if I’d been soaking in a hot bath too long.
The child had been crouching in the stairwell, clutching the toy airplane his father had brought him a year ago. Hearing his name, he ran down the steps two at a time, his skinny legs in shorts making him look like a stick figure from a child’s drawing. He held on to my leg and asked, ‘I can come?’
I nodded mildly, the effort seeming Herculean.
‘Mummy, mummy, where are we going?’
I stared irritably at him. Why do children ask so many questions, I thought. I never did. The child seemed to sense my mood and grew quiet, focussing on the windshield and the numerous decorations hanging from the rear-view mirror.
‘Now remember, Gul Khan,’ Halima began her instructions to the driver, ‘there is a child with us, so no more of your rough, rogue driving.’
Then, turning to us, as if the driver was not present, she said, ‘I swear, Zara Bibi, the man drives likes a thief escaping from the police … which is probably what he was before.’
Gul Kha
n seethed but did not reply. Instead, he took his revenge by driving so slowly that pedestrians overtook us, and donkey carts and vendors went past. But there was something therapeutic about navigating this hurtling city so slowly. What was disturbing was the normalcy of it all. I was surprised to see how quickly life had returned to normal even though it had hardly been four days since Benazir’s murder. Perhaps, I thought closing my eyes, in death, all women became equal.
When I opened my eyes, we were still far behind my most optimistic projection. My mother sat statue-still, covered from head to toe in her black burkha, while Halima, in her dirty white chadder, sat in the front, pointing things out to the child.
Summoning all my strength, I leaned forward and asked in a slow, drugged voice, ‘Why are you driving so slowly?’
‘Ask her, Zara Bibi,’ the driver pointed his chubby thumb at Halima, who was staring out of the window. ‘People who’ve never sat in a car,’ he snorted, ‘how would they know how it’s supposed to be driven?’
Completely missing the sarcasm, Halima dismissed him with a wave of her hand, ‘Carry on, you will learn eventually.’
Gul Khan’s milky white complexion took on a purple hue and he looked like a character in a cartoon, about to explode. He braked suddenly, causing Halima to bump her head against the windscreen.
‘Don’t practise your driving on us, you—’ Halima started shouting, but Ami Jan cut her off.
‘Enough, Halima,’ Ami Jan interjected. ‘Gul Khan, just get us there.’
I didn’t blame Gul Khan for stepping on the gas after that. We sped through the lanes of Karachi, scaring cows, running lights, ignoring shrill whistles of the traffic policeman, till finally we reached our destination: Hakim Dilbar’s Dawakhana.
The sign, an immaculate square of white, stood out from the rest of the dilapidated building. I read it slowly: Bismillah Ur Rahman Ur Rahim; Enter in the name of God. I walked to the side where there was a tiny nondescript door with another sign above it, a cloth banner, like a tiny flag with black Urdu calligraphy. The letters, curvy and sensuous like waves in an ocean, read: Hakim Dilbar, Mahir-i-nafsiyat aur dil; Experts in problems of the mind and the heart. Practitioner since the court of Nawab Siraj-ud Daulah, the last of the great Mughal kings.