Footsteps

by Umm Zakiyyah

  At the sound of her last words, an eerie feeling came over Sulayman as he realized the synchronization of the hadith to his mother’s words.

  “Let’s try it,” she said, and it was as if his heart leaped from his chest in trepidation.

  He gathered his eyebrows. “Try what?”

  “The test.” Her forehead creased, and a grin was on her face as she searched her son’s, as if he should have known what she was talking about.

  “The test I just told you about.” She sighed, but it was playful, joking. “In here.” She motioned to the magazine.

  “What’s the test about?” he asked, feigning interest just then.

  “To see how good you are,” she said with a laugh, shaking her head at him for not paying attention. “Let’s see. I’ll go first.”

  He tried to summon up the will to participate. But he could not. He could only watch, thinking of her last words. Yes, he thought as his heart ached with love for his mother, you already did go first. He could only pray his father had the strength, courage, and wisdom to be the one to bring her back. Sulayman feared, had the uncanny sense, that his mother wasn’t coming back. Ever.

  And he could almost hear Iblees, a whisper in his mind, saying to his companion, “How good you are. How good you are.”

  Dear Diary,

  The strangest thing happened to me this morning. I was dead tired, so when I heard Aminah’s alarm clock blaring, I groaned and put the pillow over my head, and literally counted the seconds until she turned it off. I heard her move in her bed after I got to 48. I stopped counting, thinking the alarm would be off any second. But the sound kept coming, that noisy patterned sound that is somewhere between a baby’s cry and a bullhorn. Why couldn’t she buy a normal clock with a beep like everyone else? Finally, and it had to be a minute later, she turned it off, or at least I thought she did. I had just dozed off again when the annoying sound was at it again. It was almost six o’clock in the morning, and I had an eight o’clock class, so I was really irritated by now. I figured Aminah should have prayed and gone back to sleep by now, so I sat up, almost seething in my aggravation and got out of bed and fumbled for the off button. But to my disappointment, the radio came on instead and a country song mixed with the fuzzy whispery static of “between stations” filled the room. Startled, I tried to turn down the volume, giving up my search for the off button. The station changed almost immediately, and Bette Midler’s soft voice penetrated the darkness. I stilled and listened to the familiar song that for the first time held a deeper meaning for me.

  …God is watching us. God is watching us.

  From a distance.

  By the time the song finished, I was fighting the tears gathering in my eyes. It was the voice of the radio host and Aminah’s groan that brought me back.

  I sat in the dark room, my eyes adjusting, barely registering that another song had begun to play. My thoughts were on Aminah in the bed, the sight irritating me somehow. “Welcome to the Hotel California, such a lovely place, such a lovely place… You can check in anytime you like. But you can never leave.” The eerie words haunted me, and I hurriedly reached to silence the radio, miraculously finding the off button right then.

  I should pray, I thought, the guilty feeling engulfing me. So I stood and started for the bathroom, my body feeling as heavy as lead. For a second, I considered waking Aminah, in case she hadn’t prayed. But then I remembered the night before when she had reminded me to pray, and I had lashed back, saying she should pray herself. Then she told me, “I’m not praying.” It would be a week before she could pray the formal prayers. Being the stubborn person I am, I left the room and resumed studying, hoping she’d think I’d prayed and just leave me alone, imagining that I was somehow punishing her by being ornery.

  It wasn’t until this morning after I started to pray that I realized that I was the one who was suffering. In the last month, I hadn’t prayed unless Aminah was leading. As soon as I raised my hands to start the prayer, I felt so lonely standing there in the living room without her next to me. It felt so unnatural, as if I didn’t belong. My voice even sounded strange to my ears. But the sound of the Qur’an coming from my throat was hypnotizing. I had forgotten how much I loved to hear myself reciting. I was beginning to feel the numbness of guilt in my limbs as I recited Al-Faatihah.

  Shameful scenes from my life passed thru my mind like clips from a movie, and I cried so hard that my breathing was affected. The scenes switched to happier moments, moments when I had gotten the gift I wanted, felt better after being sick for so long, got another A in school, so many clips that I couldn’t even process them all. Except that they all pointed to one thing, Allah’s Mercy. Never once had I been denied His generosity. And at moments when I thought I was being denied, it was really silver lining on a cloud that would bring me better than I had hoped for in the first place.

  When I recited, Maaliki-yawmid-deen, my cries were so terrible as I thought of Allah’s reign over the Day of Judgment, the day no one could escape from, not even me. I whimpered so much that I couldn’t quiet myself.

  At that moment, I didn’t care about modeling. I didn’t care about singing. I didn’t even care about Kevin. I just wanted to get my life back, my soul back. Oh, these things were so stupid, so stupid! Even if I did them, couldn’t I at least hold on to my religion? Couldn’t I at least pray?

  I wanted to stand there all morning reciting, and I opened my mouth to recite the next verse, and that’s when the strangest thing happened.

  My mind went blank. This by itself wasn’t all that strange. It happens to every Muslim. Even a hafiz can’t escape such moments. But this wasn’t the normal forgetfulness. I drew a complete blank, as if I had never known what verse came next.

  My heart slowed to its normal beat, and although my cheeks were still wet with tears and my nose still stuffy, my eyes dried. And, frankly, I felt stupid. What was I doing standing here? I had a test in Organic Chemistry, and there were a few things I needed to look over before class. I remembered Kevin. I was supposed to meet him after my classes to practice a few songs, and I wasn’t even prepared. There was also this Bio student who I promised to tutor some time today, but I couldn’t think of any way I could fit her into my schedule.

  My head started to hurt, and I tried to regain my concentration. But I felt nothing. It was as if all my previous feelings had suddenly left me. I tried to think about my soul, but strangely, at that moment, I thought, What’s the point? Was I really going to stay on top of my prayers? Was I going to bring a change of clothes to all my singing engagements so I was ready whenever prayer came in? And was I really going to go to the restroom and ruin my makeup by rubbing water on my face? And what if I hadn’t made wudhoo’ that morning? Then I wouldn’t be able to simply wipe over my feet. I’d have to literally take off my pantyhose to rinse them.

  Pushing the doubts from my mind, I started over, starting from the first verse of Al-Faatihah. The sound was routine and dry this time, despite my best efforts to beautify my voice using the tajweed I’d learned years ago. I was to the third verse again, where I had stopped before, and I still couldn’t remember what to say next.

  My heart started to pound again, but this time it wasn’t from the beauty of Allah’s Words. It was out of fear. Not even fear of Allah. Just fear. I was scared.

  Was it really a case of just ‘drawing a blank,’ or had I truly forgotten the rest of the most oft-repeated verses in the Qur’an? Had Allah taken the knowledge away from me? Was it earned by my own hands for my thoughtless actions over the past few years? Or because I refused to pray except on the rare occasions Aminah was able to convince me?

  I stood there fighting myself, refusing to believe what I was thinking. I must have started reciting from the beginning three more times before I finally gave up. Frustrated, I just stopped praying. I pulled the khimaar from my head, and I was about to get back in bed when I saw Aminah’s Qur’an sitting on its stand next to the couch. Part of me didn’t want to pic
k it up for fear of what the Words would evoke. Or maybe it was just the fear that even after I read the verses to remind myself what I’d forgotten in prayer, I wouldn’t resume praying even then.

  So I guess it was just curiosity that made me open the Qur’an to Surah Al-Faatihah. Well, call me crazy, but I was at least grateful that I hadn’t forgotten where to find it. But, then again, how can you forget where to find the first surah in the Qur’an, a surah that itself meant ‘The Opening’?

  Aminah’s Qur’an was the Arabic-English one with the Arabic on the right and the English translation opposite it. The Arabic script was small, but I could make out the letters, so I skimmed down to verse four. I was looking at the words so carelessly, so routinely, that it took me a minute before I realized that I couldn’t make out what it said. Yes, I could still recognize the Arabic letters, but I couldn’t remember the sounds of them all. I saw the yaa and knew it was a long e sound, but I couldn’t remember how to pronounce the letter before it, or after it.

  My heart beat faster as the realization began to sink in: If you abandon the Qur’an, it abandons you.

  I shut the Qur’an, but I was too weak to stand. I sat there, and the only thing I could think was, O Hell, is this it for me?

  “But why, Sulayman?” Tamika sat with her back against the headboard of the bed and Sulayman on its edge, still dressed in the clothes he’d worn this morning. It was almost midnight, and he had just gotten home twenty minutes before. The purple journal sat on her lap, and she loosely gripped it with one hand.

  “I didn’t want Aminah to have it.” His voice sounded so tired that Tamika regretted confronting him about this now. But she couldn’t sleep without knowing. She had spent the whole day reading the diary, and she wanted answers.

  “But why not?” None of it made sense to Tamika, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that Sulayman was hiding something.

  He exhaled, as if too exhausted from today to care what happened tonight. “To cover a Muslim’s faults.”

  Tamika narrowed her eyes in confusion. “What?”

  “To cover a Muslim’s faults,” he said louder. But it wasn’t that Tamika hadn’t heard him. She just didn’t understand the relevance of it.

  “Cover a Muslim’s faults?” She shook her head, and started to laugh but withheld. “Aminah knew about Dee.”

  “I know that.”

  “Then what would you be keeping from her by taking the diary?”

  Sulayman rubbed his eyes and sighed. “I didn’t know what Durrah would’ve said in there.”

  Suddenly, Tamika understood, and she felt bad. She should not have read the diary herself. Sulayman was right. Dee’s diary would likely say more about her sins than Aminah, or even Tamika, had known. Although after reading it, Dee was more mysterious to Tamika than she had been as a roommate. Dee didn’t even mention any of her sins, except the obvious ones, which someone could learn from opening a local newspaper. Still, Tamika should have respected her Muslim sister’s privacy—well, her friend’s privacy. The diary was more a chronicling of Dee’s soul searching and reflections on the torment of allowing singing and modeling to keep her from her prayers, her religion.

  “I thought about that,” Tamika said regretfully. “I was curious and didn’t think about Dee’s right to privacy.”

  Sulayman turned to Tamika with his brows furrowed. He looked as if he wanted to say something then shook his head before he turned back toward the wall, his gaze distant. He was silent for several minutes, and Tamika imagined his mind had drifted to the trip with his mother earlier today. Tamika had no idea what was going on, but she knew something was happening in Sulayman’s family, something painful. She didn’t want to think about it, and she couldn’t bear the thought of something hurting Sulayman.

  “I wasn’t talking about Durrah’s privacy.”

  Tamika’s forehead creased in confusion. He met her gaze a second later, turning so that a bent leg rested on the bed as he faced her.

  “I was talking about me.”

  Eyes narrowed, she shook her head, confused. What was he talking about?

  Then it came to her, suddenly. The conversation on the night of their marriage when he had asked Tamika what she had been afraid of.

  “You,” she had said. When she couldn’t confess her pre-Islam sin outright, she said, “I wasn’t always Muslim, Sulayman.”

  “I’m no angel, Tamika,” he had replied, “and I didn’t expect you to be one.” He then said what would transform him from a Muslim saint to a human being. “I was always Muslim, so I have no excuse.”

  Dee.

  SubhaanAllaah. She would have never guessed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Wearing a long sleeved white blouse that hung to her knees and a pair of loose bell-bottom black pants that looked like a skirt from a distance, Sarah struggled to keep up with her sister’s quick stride along the park’s path Sunday morning. It was a few minutes past eight, and they had been walking for twenty minutes. The sun was a glowing bulb in the cloudless sky, but its heat was already making Sarah sticky with sweat. She could hardly keep up with Kate, who talked and walked with such ease that Sarah felt a tinge of jealousy as she herself struggled to keep her breathing under control.

  “And so he talks to her,” Kate said, bent arms moving at her sides, pony tail swinging behind her head, her breaths audible between her quickened words that matched her stride. Kate wore a fitting sleeveless white T-shirt and shorts that reminded Sarah of volleyball players. Kate’s thin gold necklace stuck to the skin under her neck. Next to her sister, Sarah grew acutely aware of her black pull-on khimaar that made her feel like a student at a private Muslim school. She noticed other joggers and walkers staring at them, and she wondered if they were accustomed to seeing Muslims. “And she says no.” Kate laughed. “That was a no-brainer, but I guess I had my hopes up.”

  “Then it’s over?” Sarah’s words sounded closer to panting, and she wondered how long she’d last holding a conversation on this trail.

  “Looks like it.”

  Sarah couldn’t help feeling relieved. She was uncomfortable with Kate’s interest in the Syrian man in the first place. And right then, the whole idea of polygamy made her stomach churn. At least the brother had enough sense to ask his first wife’s permission. “Well, at least that’s behind you.”

  “Yeah, but it was going so well.”

  “Kate, he’s married. How could you even consider it?”

  “We were talking about marriage, that’s how.”

  “But you still haven’t admitted to having a Creator,” Sarah joked. “How are you supposed to marry a Muslim?”

  “Hey,” Kate said, glancing to her sister with a grin, “not so fast. Who said I haven’t changed my mind?”

  “Changed your mind?” Sarah laughed. “You talk about it like it’s a decision.”

  “It is, isn’t it?”

  “No. You have a Creator. That’s already been decided.”

  “I mean believing in Him.”

  Sarah shrugged, feeling the aching turn into sharp pains in her legs. “I guess that is a decision, at least for now.”

  “But I was really close to converting.”

  Sarah laughed out loud, momentarily forgetting how easily a voice carried outside. “I believe that.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Then I’m proud of you.” There was a hint of mocking in her voice.

  “What’s so funny about me believing in the obvious?”

  Sarah considered it. “Nothing, except it’s strange timing.”

  “You found God through your husband.”

  She couldn’t argue with that. “But that’s different.”

  They were quiet for a few minutes, and Sarah could hear her breaths.

  “I think it’s strange though,” Kate said.

  “What?”

  “That she said no.”

  Sarah creased her forehead and looked at Kate, but Kate narrowed her eyes in thought as she walk
ed, never losing her stride. “Why?”

  “I guess I thought it was like a religious commandment or something.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes and laughed. “You wish.”

  “No, I’m serious.”

  She was silent as she walked and panted. “You couldn’t be farther off the mark.”

  “But I read it,” Kate said, glancing at Sarah. “It commands men to do it.”

  Sarah was beginning to grow irritated. “It may sound like a command, but it’s not one.”

  Her sister shrugged. “I’m just saying that’s how I took it.”

  “Did you read the whole verse?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you still think it’s a command?”

  “Not a command like he has to do it.”

  Sarah chuckled. “That’s what a command is.”

  Kate shook her head and walked without speaking for a while.

  Sarah was relieved when her sister stopped to shake out her legs and stretch. Sarah placed her hands on her hips and breathed audibly with her mouth open. She didn’t even have the energy to stretch her muscles.

  “So how long are you here?” Kate asked on their way back to the car. She had removed her belt pouch and placed the strap over her shoulder like a purse after removing her car keys.

  Sarah lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t know.”

  Kate was silent until she unlocked the car. “Is everything okay with you and Ismael?”

  Sarah gathered her eyebrows as she opened her door. “What makes you ask that?”

  Kate climbed inside and leaned forward to insert the key into the ignition before shutting her door. “You usually have a pretty tight schedule.”

  “I miss you,” Sarah said, closing her own door.

  Kate laughed. “Now, that’s more comical than me believing in God.”

  “Why do you find that funny?”

  She grinned at Sarah as she turned her head and placed her hand on the back of Sarah’s seat as she backed out of her parking space. “Because for two decades, we’ve been pretty much strangers, and all of a sudden you call and want an open-ended visit. And a week later you’re on my doorstep with more luggage than I’d take on summer vacation.”