The Writing on My Forehead: A Novel

by Nafisa Haji

  Shuja shook his head, blowing his nose into the tissue.

  “His mother died when he was only six months old. And then his father married his wife’s sister. Ahmed’s khala. He never knew his own mother. But he never felt her loss, either. Because my mother-in-law—Nadeem’s mother—raised him as her own. He was her sister’s son. As Sakina is the child of Saira’s sister.”

  Shuja raised his head and stared straight in front of him. His back was to me, so I couldn’t see his expression.

  The tray was getting heavy. And the tea cold. I came fully into the room, set the tray down on the table with only a slight rattle of china, my face heated from the feel of my aunts’ probing eyes, actively gauging what I might have heard.

  “I’m really tired. I’m going to bed.” I didn’t look at Shuja. “Good night.”

  He stood up, too. “I should get going. I have work in the morning. Nasreen Chachi. Jamila Khala. Thank you so much for everything—for being here when Sakina and Saira and I needed you most.”

  TWENTY

  I AM BACK IN bed, having tried and failed to get back to sleep. I have survived the night, the memories of what has led me to now. But the past is catching up with the present, both of them only partially deposed. There are left-out details to reckon with yet—facts in the forest that I have chosen not to hear.

  I look at the clock. Four minutes have passed since the last time I did. In two minutes, the alarm will ring its unnecessary call to wake. Before it does, Ameena’s daughter emerges from her room, which is opposite mine. I hear her pause wordlessly in the hallway, on her way to the bathroom next door. I sit up in bed to let Sakina know I am awake, willing her to enter, hoping desperately that she will not. I feel the shrug of her shoulders, hear her move on.

  I pull myself up and replace my pajamas with sweats before following her and beginning my morning monologue of false cheer. Every morning, it’s like this. Like I’m on a job interview, unsure of what to say—trying to be what I think she needs with no idea of what that is.

  I help her pick out her clothes before going into the kitchen. There is breakfast to prepare, a lunchbox to pack. She comes in fully dressed and takes a seat at the table. She sits in silence, shoveling oatmeal into her mouth while I cradle my mug of coffee and talk, talk, talk. I feel guilty for talking. I know she would prefer I didn’t. I smile at her. She doesn’t smile back. I shudder, just a little, at the burden of her reticence. We are strangers, forced together. Circumstance is the culprit in her case. Duty and obligation in mine.

  It’s time for the bus. I carry on my chatter all the way to the stop. The bus comes. She boards. I wave her good-bye. Wordlessly, she waves back.

  I let myself back into my parents’ house and pause in the foyer, listening to the silence. My feet remember that there is a morning ritual, lately established, yet to be performed. They take the necessary steps out of the room, down the hallway, and into the living room to a console table overflowing with vivid Kodak moments. My eyes brush over the pictures of my childhood and Ameena’s. There are some of Sakina, which my eyes overlook, a trick I have mastered through years of practice, stopping, instead, to focus on the large frame in the center. Here is the Ameena of my dream—draped in a brilliant red chiffon fabric embroidered with gold thread that matches the jewelry that drips from her ears, neck, wrists, fingers. Her hair is swept up and away from her face, accentuating high, heavily rouged cheekbones, which would be garish if they were not matched by an equally heavy application of makeup on the rest of her face. Bridal makeup. Desi bridal makeup, which is a category all of its own.

  Her expression is obediently forlorn, belying the sparkle of happiness that shines out of her eyes. “Don’t smile or laugh, Ameena, on your wedding day. It would be immodest. A bride must appear to be shy. Even sad. To be leaving your father’s home is not something to celebrate” had been Mummy’s words to Ameena on the morning of her wedding. Strange, old ideas relevant to a strange, old world. Beside her, Shuja, the groom, is under no such constraint. His dazzling display of teeth is unseemly in light of Ameena’s feigned distress.

  The phone rings. I answer and am unsurprised by Shuja’s greeting, his concerned interrogation on how Sakina’s night had passed, how her day began.

  “Did she finish her breakfast?”

  “Yes. The whole bowl of oatmeal.”

  “She got on the bus all right?”

  “Yes.” I have nothing more to say and he has nothing more to ask. He will be with us in the evening, like every evening, soon enough to ensure Sakina’s health and welfare firsthand.

  “Don’t forget the parent-teacher conference. Today. At four o’clock.”

  I slap my head and walk to the kitchen, where Shuja has kept Ameena’s calendar. I find it there, the appointment we marked together. “You’ll be there?”

  “Of course. Mrs. Walker said she’d watch Sakina, so make sure you get her there in time to make it to school. Please.”

  “I will.”

  “I’ll meet you at school at four.”

  The connection is severed.

  I gather up Sakina’s breakfast bowl and stack it in the dishwasher. As I refill my mug with coffee, the phone rings again. I reach for it eagerly.

  I pick up and hear Lubna Khala’s voice from Karachi. “Beti, how are you and Sakina?”

  “We’re fine. How is Big Nanima?”

  I hear the crackle of long-distance as Lubna Khala hesitates before saying, “She’s—she is worse, Saira. Confined to bed. She has not woken up for days. The doctor says she is not suffering. That it’s only a matter of time.”

  I close my eyes and rejoice—this death will be gentle, cradled by sleep. Not torturous or violent, like the others I am still grieving.

  “Is Daddy still in India?”

  “Yes. He called today and asked me to call you. He wanted me to tell you, Saira—he and Asma were married this morning. In Bombay.”

  “But—I thought—after what’s happened—I’ve been waiting for him. To come home.”

  “I know, beti. He says he cannot come. Not now.”

  “Not now? Then when?”

  “He will come. Next year, perhaps. In the meantime—if there’s anything you need—he said to tell you—that you must let him know. Money. Anything. He will not sell the house. Not yet. It is yours to live in as long as you like.”

  I say nothing. What can I say? Lubna Khala fills in my silence with words of consolation. “You have to understand, Saira. He—he has suffered a lot. His mind was made up already, Saira, you knew that.”

  “Yes. I knew.”

  “Your mother—she would have understood, Saira. She would have given him her blessing.”

  Mummy. “She’s been dead less than a year.” I say the words and cannot believe them myself.

  “Beti—what can I say?” The impotence of Lubna Khala’s sympathy is one I can relate to—how to console the daughter of a dead sister? But her task is less complicated than mine.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I SPEND THE NEXT few hours in a frenzy of housekeeping. Two loads of laundry, folded and put away. Bathrooms scoured, tables dusted, carpets sucked clean of dust and debris. The kitchen swept, mopped, and wiped down, made ready for the groceries I go out to purchase. Then, I shower. And dress with more care than I have in weeks. I strap on my watch and see that there is still too much time to spare, evidence of the manic pace that I have kept in vain to drown out the calls of the past, to shrug off the burden of choices I have made, which must be reckoned with in the present.

  I cannot sit and wait for the bus to return Sakina home. I get in the car and drive around until it is time to go to the school, which was mine and Ameena’s. I park and wait for the bell to ring. When it does, I stand near the bus so that I can catch Sakina before she boards. A playground supervisor is there to move things along. Sakina appears and puts her hand in the one I have offered her.

  The playground lady smiles and nods. “Mommy here to pick you up today, Sakina?�
�

  The connection of our hands is severed. Did I pull away? Did she?

  In the car, I tell Sakina, “Mrs. Walker will take care of you for a little while this afternoon. I—your dad and I—have an appointment with your teacher. For a conference.”

  She says nothing. I glance at the clock on the face of the car stereo and see that there is time for a detour. “How was your day?”

  Sakina nods, too wearily for a child her age.

  “You wanna go for ice cream?”

  She nods again, with such an effort that I know she agrees only to humor me.

  I watch her lick listlessly at her cone and throw my own cup of ice cream away only half-eaten. It is the only thing I have had to eat all day, I suddenly realize. But the realization is unaccompanied by any form of hunger that I can recognize. I drop her off at Mrs. Walker’s house and head back to school.

  Shuja’s car is not in the lot. I make my way to Sakina’s classroom and wait on the bench outside the door. At four o’clock, Mrs. Myers opens the door and lets out the three-thirty parents. They look relieved, as if Mrs. Myers has assured them of something they themselves had doubted—that their child was all right and not in any danger of flunking first grade. I stand and greet Sakina’s teacher.

  “Hello, Mrs. Myers. I am Saira Qader. We met about a month ago.”

  Mrs. Myers nods. “Sakina’s aunt. Won’t you come in?”

  “Uh. Shuja—Sakina’s dad—is supposed to meet me here.” I stand awkwardly, looking out across the playground at the parking lot in the hopes that I will see Shuja there, hurriedly striding toward us so that I won’t have to begin this discussion with Sakina’s teacher by myself.

  “Why don’t we wait for him inside?”

  It would seem strange to refuse, though the urge to do so is overwhelming. I follow Mrs. Myers into the classroom and take the seat she indicates, folding myself awkwardly into the chair designed to accommodate the small body of a six-year-old.

  “How are you all holding up?”

  My eyes meet her sympathetic ones and a door in my throat seems to slam shut. I nod, the way that Sakina nods, wordlessly. Now, I understand. Sakina doesn’t say anything to me because she doesn’t know what to say. Mrs. Myers moves her hand to cover mine and I resist the urge to flinch. The sympathy of a stranger. Again, I can relate to how Sakina must feel with me when I occasionally try to touch her—a hand on her head, a pat on the back—through the chatter I subject her to.

  I hear the door open behind me and the relief that shoots through me is powerfully palpable. Shuja is here to lead us through this. He sits down and Mrs. Myers pulls out a file, shares samples of Sakina’s work, and guides us through the carefully constructed language of the report card, which she hands to Shuja. I understand the three-thirty parents’ expressions of relief—Mrs. Myers thinks that Sakina is motivated and intelligent, a high achiever who takes pride in her work.

  She asks if we have any questions. Shuja asks a few—the kind a parent should ask. How can we help her? Is there anything she needs to work on?

  And then he asks what other parents don’t need to ask. “Is she—does she seem to be coping with—with her mother’s—with what happened?”

  Mrs. Myers takes a deep breath. I realize that I am not the only one who has been dreading this conference. “I—well—you’ve told me already that Sakina is seeing a counselor. I wanted to share something with you. Something that you might want her counselor to see.” From the file, Mrs. Myers pulls out a booklet, construction paper–covered newsprint that has been stapled together. “This is Sakina’s daily journal. The students write and draw about their day. What we’ve done, how they’re feeling, what they like and don’t like. And why. They’ve learned to use the word ‘because’ in order to make their sentences more complex.” Mrs. Myers is flipping through the pages, going backward, as she speaks. “As you can see, Sakina writes very well. With a lot of detail and attention to spelling and grammar and punctuation. Above grade level, really. She proofreads and checks her own work and reads everything she writes back to me.”

  Both Shuja and I can see already what Mrs. Myers would like us to see. In every entry, Sakina has written what is expected of her. Today we had music. Today is Monday. I like to read. I like stories. I like school because I like to learn. I am happy because we have PE today. I am happy because it is Friday. I am very happy because today is pizza day. I like pizza a lot because it is yummy. I am happy because I love my dad. I am happy because I love my mom. I like my doll.

  In every entry, Sakina has drawn a picture. The same one every day. A picture of a woman lying on the ground. She is wearing a scarf on her head—a hijab—and there is a splash of red color on her chest. A little girl stands beside her. There is a gun in the picture, floating over them both. Off to one side, there is a man standing alone. On the other side, there is a woman. Shuja? Me?

  I close my eyes. Here it is. What I look for on her face in the middle of the night. But the schedule of Sakina’s subconscious is out of sync with mine. The images that haunt me by night stalk Sakina by day.

  Mrs. Myers is still speaking. “What she writes about and what she draws about—they’re completely unrelated. When I have asked her to describe what she has drawn, she’ll only read and reread what she has written. I haven’t pushed her. She was there, I believe? When it happened?”

  Shuja looks at me helplessly. I nod.

  “She’s still staying with you?” Mrs. Myers is asking me.

  I nod again.

  “Will she be going home again soon?” It is Shuja’s turn to be questioned.

  He doesn’t answer.

  I open my mouth. I want to explain. But to explain something, you have to understand it yourself.

  More sympathy wells up in Mrs. Myers’s eyes. “This is—I know this is difficult. But I just thought you should know.”

  I have to say something—to know something. “She—she doesn’t talk about it. With me. Hardly talks at all. About anything. Does she—does she talk here? At school? With you? With her friends? Not about this.” My finger taps the open page on the table. “About anything? Other things?”

  Mrs. Myers’s hand is on mine again. She is nodding. “She’s fine. In every other way. She participates in class. Laughs and plays at recess. Other than these pictures, you’d never know what she’s been through.”

  That hurts. I remember the way she lit up at the sight of Mrs. Walker when I dropped her off. How she chatters on and on with Shuja when he comes in the evening. Her reticence is personal. It’s not that Sakina has withdrawn from the world. It’s only me she won’t respond to. I find myself taking quick, shallow breaths and feel light-headed. Shuja sees and pushes my head down between my legs. “You’re okay, Saira. Take deep breaths.” His voice is clipped, businesslike. He asks Sakina’s teacher, “Do you have a brown paper bag?” Mrs. Myers goes to the supply cabinet and gets him one. Shuja opens the bag, squeezes the top portion of it into a neck, and gives it to me, saying, imperiously, “Breathe in and out of the bag. It’ll help.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  OUR CONFERENCE TIME is over and we are seen to the door. The four-thirty parents are waiting outside.

  “Are you all right?” Shuja’s hands are in his pockets, his eyes narrowly focused on me.

  I nod.

  “You want to get coffee?”

  “Yes!” I hear the eagerness in my own voice. Anything to avoid going back to Mrs. Walker’s. Back to Sakina.

  “Let’s go in my car.”

  “No. I’m okay. I’ll follow in mine.” It isn’t mine really. It’s Mummy’s car. A Honda Accord. I like driving it. More than Daddy’s. I like to put my hands on the wheel she used to steer herself with. That is what I think of when I drive.

  I pull into a space one removed from where Shuja has already parked. He waits for me to get out of the car and we walk together into the coffee shop halfway between his house and my parents’. We sit down and order coffee. His is black. Mine is mi
lky and sweet from the raw sugar packets I have opened and dumped into it.

  I stir mine vigorously and say, “Shuja,” an opening for a conversation neither one of us wants to have.

  Shuja’s jaw tightens slightly before he says, “Have you heard from your dad?”

  So he has entertained the same idea that I have. That Daddy will arrive and solve this ridiculous, unspeakable impasse. King Solomon–style, I suppose.

  I shake my head. “No. But Lubna Khala called.”

  I see him brace himself—the absurd auntie solution to every problem, which has already been offered, has made him wary, too. “What did she say?”

  “Daddy and Asma are married.”

  Shuja frowns. “Lubna Khala told you?”

  I nod.

  “I’m sorry, Saira. Your dad should have called you himself.”

  “Yes. He should have.”

  “You knew he was going to marry her. He told you.”

  “Yes. I knew. But—I—I wasn’t surprised. Shocked. But not surprised. If that makes sense?”

  Shuja nods because he is supposed to. But it doesn’t. Make sense. Of course it doesn’t. Nothing does.

  “Saira.” It’s his turn to pretend to move.

  My turn to resist. I cling to the subject at hand in order to do us both the favor of avoiding the lump under the rug. “I’m the one. I know I’ve told you this already. I’m the one who introduced them. Asma and Daddy.”

  “You told me.”

  “I—I wasn’t upset about it. Not when he told me he was going to marry her. That he was going to stay in India.”

  “But you’re upset about it now.”

  “Lubna Khala said that Mummy would have given her blessing.”

  Shuja takes a sip of his coffee. He sets the cup down on the saucer. And rests his chin on one hand. Every move is deliberate and thoughtful. As if he were running through a patient’s symptoms in order to be able to make a diagnosis. “I think she’s right.”