Mehendi Tides

by Siobhan Malany

  Nasreen had a life of luxury filled with friends, extended family, and travel. She had a freelance gig with a financial magazine that provided flexibility. She had never been alone and continued to walk from one life event to another under a veil of family tradition, embracing faith.

  Kate, in contrast, poured her soul into obtaining a doctorate in biochemistry. Besides casual relationships, human touch seemed as remote as graduation. She was driven to understand the breast cancer that took her mother’s life when she was eleven years old, design the drugs that would have saved her, or change her own fate if she unluckily inherited the same misguided genes.

  Was getting a doctorate her heart’s desire, or was it to prove something? Was she driven by her father’s pride or her mother’s legacy?

  “At least come for Eid in March!” Nasreen demanded.

  “Definitely, I will come for Eid. I never miss it.”

  Kate tried to sound upbeat. March seemed eons away. March seemed yellow and warmer compared to the gray cold of January.

  “I have exams in March. I doubt I will make it to Eid,” Krishna said, disappointed. “Kate, are you job searching? You could find a position in Chicago. You will have a PhD. That is really incredible, Kate!”

  “No!” Kate replied vehemently. “I haven’t looked anywhere.”

  She was supposed to emerge out of the shadows of inconclusive philosophies and failed experiments into the brightness of scientific achievement, but she was still trudging through the academic tunnel.

  Kate took an abrupt drink and set her cup down with force, crashing it against the saucer.

  “Maybe I will quit,” she snapped.

  It was a matter-of-fact statement, as though she were deciding to forgo coffee every morning in an effort to cut down on caffeine, not deciding her future.

  “You won’t quit,” Nasreen stated firmly.

  “I might!”

  “Why?” Krishna questioned.

  “Because he is a…a control freak!” Kate blurted defensively.

  “Who?”

  “My advisor!”

  Kate looked at Nasreen, searching for acknowledgment and emotion.

  “My advisor is such a micromanager. How am I supposed to become an independent researcher, for Pete’s sake!” Kate exclaimed angrily. “He has ultimate control, you know? Maybe he will sign my thesis and maybe he won’t. Some days I just want to give up.”

  “You won’t give up. Quit being cynical,” Nasreen said as she reached for another pastry. “I should not eat this,” she grimaced. “I ate so much in Pakistan and gained five pounds.” She sighed and bit into the glistening tart anyway.

  Kate stared numbly across the room. She knew Nasreen was right. She never quit anything.

  “I think I would rather study genes that cause cancer,” Kate said, raising her voice. “Maybe I have cancerous genes like my mother.”

  “You do not have cancerous genes,” Nasreen said, savoring the tart.

  “You don’t know that!” Kate retorted.

  “Stop!”

  “Scientists have linked mutations in genes with breast cancer like the cancer my mother had. They have tests now, you know? I can have my DNA tested. Know if I have mutated genes. I have been reading the papers on DNA testing.”

  “We studied genetic testing in medical school,” Krishna stated proudly. “But those tests are really, really expensive, Kate.”

  “If I am part of a study, I won’t have to pay for the test. I don’t know what to do.” Kate stared into her teacup still hearing the doctor’s voice in her head explaining the procedure and the potential outcome.

  “Kate!” Nasreen said firmly. “Look at me!”

  Kate stared into Nasreen’s brown eyes for a long, intense moment.

  “You are stronger than your mother was. You will not develop cancer like her and die. You won’t,” she said with resolution.

  “Okay,” Krishna interjected. “Change of topics!” She swallowed her sentence along with a mouthful of chocolate éclair.

  “More tea?” Nasreen breathed deeply and smiled as she poured more herbal tea into Kate’s cup. “A cup of chamomile always helps.”

  “Yes, as simple as that,” Kate responded cheekily.

  Kate blew at her freshly poured tea. She listened to the ring of the door that brought in the cold, the creak of the floor as customers departed, and the click of dishes being cleared. The place was emptying. The tables were littered with lipstick-stained cups, pastry wrappings, and a few half-eaten macaroons and custard tarts, abandoned by those too busy to finish or dieting. An older couple sat at the table in the corner.

  “And med school? How’s that going?” Kate’s tone was biting as she focused the attention to Krishna. “Besides learning about genetic testing.”

  Krishna wiped chocolate from the corners of her mouth, pushed her straight hair out of her face, and leaned back in the French wicker chair.

  “Tolerable,” she said, unenthused. “I just need to finish this rotation, then I will be in the program. Still ‘on probation,’ as they call it.” She bit off another piece of éclair.

  Kate understood the pressure Krishna endured, and she felt slightly guilty for prodding. The pressure came from Krishna’s mother, Saritha, who poured all her faith and future into her only child, desiring above marriage that Krishna become a doctor in America. Saritha at twenty years old had done the unthinkable. She had left her upper-middle-class family in Kerala to come to America in pursuit of a career in nursing. She had worked her way up through the years to head nurse at the medical school and used whatever credibility she had to convince her superiors, filling their ears during rounds, with her persistence to accept her daughter Krishna into the program. The best was acceptance, “on probation.”

  “If I don’t pass this rotation, I’m out of the program,” she confessed and looked carefully at the two of them. “I am out.” She emphasized the word out in case it wasn’t clear. “I can’t tell my mom.”

  “Maybe you will pass. Then you won’t have to tell her,” Nasreen stated.

  “Do you wish to be a doctor?” Kate asked.

  Krishna straightened, a little surprised by Kate’s sudden directness.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said defensively. “My parents want me to be a doctor. If I grew up in India, my fate would be dictated by marriage, as they so often remind me,” Krishna remarked, rolling her eyes. “I would never have had the opportunity to pursue a career and be successful as a doctor in America, helping people, saving lives,” she stressed. “My parents arrived in America for the opportunity to better themselves, and they expect me to achieve even more. I should be grateful they don’t just want to marry me off!”

  Nasreen shifted in her chair. “We do what makes our parents happy. Just try your best.”

  Kate glanced at her watch.

  “I saw Sara and Shabana last week at mosque. They were in town, visiting. You remember them from my wedding?” Nasreen said.

  “Of course,” Kate responded, shifting in her chair.

  “Sara is pregnant with her third child, and Shabana has two girls and a baby boy. Can you believe it?”

  Nasreen had always envisioned having many kids, so three or four seemed reasonable. But Nasreen didn’t have any children, not one; she had struggled with getting pregnant. Nothing happened. Kate searched Nasreen’s face for any hopeful sign for mentioning Sara’s pregnancy, but Nasreen was looking into her tea perplexed, and after a few moments, looked up and stared blankly toward the far side of the café.

  “I can’t get pregnant.”

  “I’m sure it will happen, Nasreen,” Krishna reassured. “For some couples it just takes time.”

  “No!” Nasreen said loudly.

  With a thump, she dropped her forearms onto the table, upsetting the cup and saucer pair, causing a terrible crash. The remaining patrons turned their heads toward the commotion. The waiter paused in clearing the dishes. For a moment, Café Trois Oeufs was still except for
the echo of crashing porcelain.

  “I can’t get pregnant,” she said again, quieter. “My doctor says I suffer from endometriosis.”

  “Nasreen, I am so sorry!” Krishna gasped and placed her hand over her mouth.

  Nasreen righted the empty cup and carefully, soundlessly placed it on the saucer. The waiter came to her aid and wiped up the spill.

  “We studied this condition in our OB/GYN rotation,” Krishna said. “Endometriosis occurs when tissue grows outside the uterus. It causes scarring and lesions and a lot of pain.”

  “Thanks for the diagnosis,” Nasreen said in a low whisper as the waiter walked away. “Anyway, my doctor says my chances are very slim of ever getting pregnant.”

  “It explains so much,” Kate realized. “The pain every month. The missed classes and the…moods. I am so sorry too.”

  “It’s not in Allah’s will,” Nasreen sighed.

  Allah’s will? The words hung in Kate’s mind. “It’s in your will!” Kate surprised herself by speaking.

  “Mustafa and I have been married nearly eight years. Our anniversary is coming up in April,” Nasreen said, letting the statement hang stale in the air. “I don’t think it will happen.”

  Thoughts flashed before Kate’s mind: thoughts of sitting cross-legged on the sea-green carpet among the crowd of relatives at Nasreen’s pre-wedding ceremony. The women, in tradition, clasped their hands together above Nasreen’s bowed head bestowing spiritual blessings of fertility to the marriage. The sound of cracking knuckles rang in her ears. The more cracking, the more blessings bestowed. All Kate could hear now above the beating of the dholak drums and the sound of popping knuckles was the pulsing of an empty, fibrous womb.

  The bell resonated as someone pushed open the door to the outside; a trail of dead leaves carried by the winter wind swirled across the wood floor and tickled Kate’s ankles.

  “Eight years?” Krishna remarked. “Seems like we were just celebrating your nikah, Nasreen.”

  “It does,” agreed Kate, regaining her composure. “I can still feel how heavy the wedding dupatta was draped and layered around you.” She raised her hands pretending to carry the traditional matrimonial garb. “And the red and white sweet-smelling garlands in layers, so many layers. We all tried to support the material so you wouldn’t break from the sheer weight.” Kate attempted a smile.

  Nasreen gazed at some random place, reminded of her younger self under the layers of fabric, jewels, and blessings.

  Kate noticed the older couple in the corner, their hair the color of milk. The man reached across the table, precariously picked up the French Provence-patterned creamer, and poured cream with a shaky hand into his wife’s tea. They exchanged a simple, timeless smile.

  “There is still time, isn’t there?” Kate asked rhetorically.

  “What time then?” Nasreen questioned, refocusing on Kate. “By the time my ‘slim’ chance of becoming pregnant may happen, I will be an old woman when my kid goes to high school, or I will just be old.”

  “Well, I will be an old woman by the time I get my PhD.”

  “I will be older than old by the time I get out of medical school!” chimed Krishna.

  “We can just sip tea together as old crabby women,” Kate joked.

  The three of them looked at each other sympathetically and then broke out in laughter—tension-relieving, watery-eyed laughter.

  “To being old women who will finally get what they want!” Nasreen raised her teacup in the air.

  “Before I get too old, I’m thinking of freezing my eggs,” Krishna blurted.

  Nasreen choked on her tea and began pounding her chest.

  “What?” she exclaimed with a cough.

  “I have been reading about it—about freezing eggs,” Krishna said pointedly. “Talking about being old…I thought if I didn’t get married but wanted to have children, I could freeze my eggs, you know, as an option.”

  “But you are not old,” Kate said, flabbergasted.

  “Why do you think you won’t get married?” asked Nasreen.

  “I’m not really interested in any men.”

  “We’re not even thirty yet!” Kate erupted.

  “Soon we will be! In a few years!”

  “You haven’t met the right person,” Nasreen rationalized. “Don’t you think, Kate?”

  “I think I’m glad I didn’t order the poached eggs.”

  Nasreen snorted her tea for the second time. She clasped a hand over her mouth to keep the liquid from spewing forth. She swallowed hard, shutting her eyes in brief agony, then opened her mouth and laughed loudly.

  “I’m done with my tea. It’s dangerous to drink around you guys.”

  The waiter finished clearing tables and approached them.

  “Glad you are enjoying yourselves, ladies,” he said. “May I get you anything else?”

  “Yes. A baby, a PhD, and an MD, please. And hold the eggs,” Kate deadpanned.

  “Hold the eggs at Café Trois Oeufs!” Nasreen bent over in a bout of laughter. “See, good thing I wasn’t drinking tea. I would choke to death.”

  Krishna scowled. “Okay. Okay. Forget I said anything.”

  Kate breathed deeply and watched the old couple as they prepared to leave. The man helped his wife with her coat, wrapped his scarf around his neck, and tucked it into his long coat, then neatly pushed the French chairs toward the table. He looped his wife’s arm in his. They nodded to the waiter on his way to the kitchen, his arms full of the dirty dishes, then smiled at Kate, Nasreen, and Krishna, admiring their youth as they strolled to the door arm in arm. The door chimed as they exited.

  Chapter 3

  Rockfield to Bombay

  1987

  Nasreen lay in fetal position on the white and pink comforter, her arms wrapped around her abdomen. Her cropped hair stuck against her cheeks. She moaned in response to a searing cramp. She had gotten her period a week late and with it came the excruciating pains.

  “India would be amazing,” Kate said sitting next to Nasreen on the bed. “I am going to swim camp this summer and working as a lifeguard at the Y. But you are going to Asia!”

  “I’m being punished,” Nasreen said, bracing against another cramp.

  “You should see a doctor. I get some cramps every month, but, jeez, you can barely get out of bed for days. It’s not normal.”

  “I can’t see a doctor for obvious reasons,” Nasreen snapped. “I will have to tell my mother everything.”

  “Maybe you should tell her,” Kate advised, still concerned for her friend.

  “No!” Nasreen braced again then took a deep breath. “It will shame my parents. I can’t do that. Not to mention what will happen to Anees!”

  Kate contemplated Nasreen’s rationalization, but the thoughts weighed too heavy on her mind. At least Nasreen wasn’t pregnant. She wasn’t going to India with a swelling belly. No one would know.

  IN MAY, NASREEN prepared for the family trip to South Asia. Her parents visited India every year as newlyweds and after the birth of Sameer and Nasreen to stay connected to their family, and to ease the loneliness of being transplanted in America away from their culture and traditions. But after three children, the family visits to India grew less frequent. Nasreen was ten years old the last time she visited relatives halfway across the world, a child then, a woman coming-of-age returning.

  Nasreen’s maternal grandmother, Nanima, owned a homestead in the neighborhood of Banjara Hills in Southern India where she had raised Nasreen’s mother, Laila, her two aunts, Zehba and Samina, and three uncles. Nasreen spoke of Nanima often, so often that Kate pictured her as a petite woman with horn-rimmed glasses and weathered by years. Between her aunts and uncles, Nasreen had so many cousins Kate could not remember all of their names except for Aunty Zehba’s eldest sons, Rahim and Anees, who attended the University of Chicago on student visas and shared an apartment close to campus. Rahim was getting his MBA and Anees was finishing a degree in engineering. The only other co
usin Nasreen ever mentioned was Yasmine, Aunty Samina’s daughter.

  “Here is my mother and Aunty Samina together,” Nasreen said, showing Kate a photo from an album covered in paisley pink material she had dragged from underneath her bed. “They are very close. My mother must write to her in India every week. Aunty Samina keeps her up to date about Nanima.”

  “Here is Yasmine and I together!” Nasreen exclaimed.

  “Look at you!” Kate remarked, studying the young Nasreen with two overly large front teeth and her hair tied back in a bushy ponytail. “I like the polka-dotted salwar.”

  “Be quiet. It was the beginning of the eighties! This is Maqsood and Haroon.” Nasreen pointed to two boys, maybe thirteen and fifteen years old, with their arms wrapped around each other, smiling broadly at the camera. “Yasmine’s brothers.”

  “You didn’t mention Yasmine had brothers.”

  Nasreen shrugged. “I was ten. I didn’t pay too much attention to the boys.” She smiled.

  “I hope you do not expect me to remember their names,” Kate remarked.

  “Maqsood goes by Max and Haroon by Hari.”

  “That’s better.”

  “Yasmine has a little sister too, Sana’s age. Her name is Azra. She was a toddler the last time I was there, an ‘oops’ baby.”

  Nasreen flipped the pages of the photo album. A few photos had come unglued and slipped off the page. She shoved them in the crease of the binder.

  “These are my three uncles.” Nasreen pointed to an old family photo. “They all live in Karachi. All us cousins refer to the eldest uncle as Mamujan and his wife Mumanijan,” Nasreen said. “Mumanijan is the matriarch. She is always entertaining and never seems to tire. She never had children. I don’t know why. Maybe that is why she fills the house with people, so many people. I miss her the most.”

  Kate smiled. “She is very pretty. What about Aunty Zehba?”

  “I don’t think I have a picture of her. She never liked her photo taken,” Nasreen said.

  “Her sons are Rahim and Anees. I got that right!”

  “Aunty Zehba has three sons, and she acts like a queen for having three sons!” Nasreen rolled her eyes. “The youngest is Tariq.” She pointed to the smallest of the three boys in the photo. “He is eighteen now.”