The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali

by Sabina Khan

  I flipped through the pages to find more mentions of Raju and found one a few pages later.

  Yesterday I went to the market to look for Raju and this time he was there. He caught me looking at him and when I went to check the spinach, he followed me and stood close enough that I could hear him. He told me to meet him by the paanwallah. I walked over there and told him about Arif and how he tortures us every day. Raju became very angry, saying he would kill Arif. I should have told him not to say such things about my husband. But I didn’t say that. Instead I told him how Arif sometimes comes home very late at night from the city and the path he usually takes. Then I left quickly. If Arif finds out I was talking to another man, he will beat me to death.

  The next entry was one brief paragraph.

  It has been a month now since Arif died. The police said that some miscreants tried to rob him as he was coming home late from the city. When he didn’t hand over the money they stabbed him to death. Mother-in-law has been in bed since the day the police came and asked us to identify the body. I was afraid that it wouldn’t be him, but Allah heard my prayers and sent me Raju. I can never see Raju again. But he has saved me and he has saved my Zuby.

  I flipped frantically through the rest of the pages only to find that they were blank. But I had so many questions. What happened to her mother-in-law? How did she end up in the city? How did she survive all alone with two young children? While I wanted to ask Nani, this wasn’t exactly something I could talk about on the phone.

  I snapped the diary shut and put it on my nightstand. I couldn’t believe it. It was an act of a desperate woman, an act of survival for herself and her daughter.

  I lay back against my pillow, picturing Nani. My sweet, gentle grandmother who sang to me and braided jasmine into my hair. That she could have such a dark past was not something I’d ever imagined. I wanted to talk to Mom about it, badly, but if she had buried the pain deep inside her, I couldn’t open that wound. I couldn’t do that to her.

  “I have found a group, Ibrahim Bhai,” Aunty Meena said excitedly as I walked into the foyer the following day. “It is here in Seattle.”

  She dug out a few brochures from her purse and handed one to each of us. It looked like a support group for South Asian parents and families of LGBTQ children, and the brochure promised to provide a safe and inclusive environment for everyone.

  “Aunty Meena, where did you hear about this?”

  She gave me a smug smile and waved dismissively in the air.

  “Oh, I know many people in our community, Rukhsana. Do you remember that girl Seema? You met her at that birthday party last year?”

  I didn’t have a clue but it was easier to just go along, so I nodded.

  “Well, I have found out that she is also a lesbian,” she said triumphantly, as if she had just discovered the last two remaining in our endangered species.

  “I told you, Rukhsana,” said Mom excitedly. “I told you if there are any Bengali lesbians to be found, Aunty Meena will find them. Didn’t I tell her that, Ibrahim?”

  Dad just smiled, but Aunty Meena was practically purring with pleasure.

  I had to admit this was a side to her I hadn’t seen before. She was really looking out for me. It was a strange way of doing it, but her heart seemed to be in the right place. But she was about to be disappointed in a major way. I decided to wait until after Aunty Meena left to talk to Mom about Ariana.

  “So, when shall we go to one of the meetings?” Mom was looking at the brochure again. “It says they have one this Friday evening.”

  “I’m pretty sure I’m busy that day,” I mumbled, but no one was paying attention.

  “Okay, then it’s decided,” said Aunty Meena. “Ibrahim Bhai, can you pick me up on the way?”

  “Do I have a choice?” Dad smiled affectionately at her as she started to leave.

  After dinner, I pulled Mom aside.

  “Mom, we need to talk.” Even to me, that sounded ominous.

  Mom nodded, looking understandably nervous.

  “Is anything wrong? I know your Aunty Meena gets a little bit too excited. If you don’t want to go to the meeting, that is okay. I will talk to her.”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s not that, Mom. I wanted to talk to you about Ariana.”

  “Ariana,” she said slowly. “I thought you two were not together anymore.”

  “She was very hurt and angry with me when I broke up with her. But we’re working on it now.” A smile spread slowly across my face.

  “That’s good, isn’t it? So, you two are back together.” I could tell that Mom was letting the information sink in.

  “Aunty Meena will certainly be disappointed to hear that. She was very excited about finding someone for you. A nice Bengali lesbian girl.”

  “Mom, you really have to stop with this Bengali thing,” I said, pretty annoyed now. “I love Ariana and she loves me. That’s it. No more looking for anyone.”

  Mom nodded quickly.

  “Okay, okay, I will tell her. But you should ask Ariana over for dinner.”

  Was she for real?

  “Mom, do you remember what happened the last time Ariana was here? I doubt if she would even want to come over. And I can’t say I blame her.”

  Mom looked at me in silence for a moment, and I wondered if she was going to try and deny that she had done anything wrong.

  “Rukhsana, you are right. I treated Ariana very badly.”

  I could hardly believe what I was hearing.

  “Please see if you can convince her to come over. I need to apologize to her. And I will make her favorite dish for dinner. Ask her what she likes.”

  This was almost funny. My mom really believed that cooking someone’s favorite dish would be enough for them to forgive her. But I knew she was trying, and I also knew it wasn’t easy for her to admit that she was wrong. So, I put my arms around her and promised I would try.

  When I mentioned to Aamir that Aunty Meena was dragging us to the South Asian LGBTQ support group, he was ecstatic.

  “I’m definitely not missing this,” he said once he finished laughing. “I can’t wait to go.”

  “I’m glad you find this funny,” I said, pushing him off my bed. “You know they’re trying to set me up again, right? If Aunty Meena says ‘Bengali lesbian’ one more time, I’m going to lose it.”

  “Your life is such a struggle,” Aamir said as he got up to leave, closing the door quickly to avoid being hit by the pillow I threw at him.

  An envelope was propped up against the napkin holder when Aamir and I got back from school the next day. It was from Caltech. My fingers shook as I ripped it open and scanned the letter.

  “So?” Aamir said impatiently. “What does it say?”

  “I’m still getting the scholarship.” I beamed as I looked at my brother.

  Aamir pulled me in for a hug.

  “You think Dad had anything to do with it?” he said.

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure. He did say that he would contact them to explain.”

  “I guess you can ask him tonight when we’re all at that meeting,” Aamir said with an impish grin.

  “Hello, you must be Meena,” a woman said to my aunt as we approached the community center where the LGBTQ support group was being held. She had an accent, but it wasn’t Bengali. “I’m Jayanthi. I think I talked to you on the phone a few days ago?”

  My whole family had decided to come to this first meeting with me, but Aunty Meena was the one who had set everything up.

  As we entered the room, Jayanthi offered us some tea and pastries. There were several chairs set up in a large circle. Some were already occupied, but there were still people standing around getting tea.

  When we were all seated, Jayanthi asked everyone to say a little something about themselves to the group. I looked around at everyone else. We were all South Asians in the room, from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and India. From the introductions, it was clear that we also represented
the majority religions of the region. There were other Muslims, but also Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists. There was Jayanthi, who was from Sri Lanka. Her son was gay, and she was here with him. She was a group leader and had been with the group for six years. Then there was twenty-year-old Laila, a Muslim from Pakistan, who was there with her parents. After a while it became difficult to keep track of everyone’s names, so I paid attention to their stories instead of trying to remember them all.

  It was exhilarating to be surrounded by people who were in the same situation as I was. I didn’t really know any other LGBTQ South Asians, not because they didn’t exist but because we couldn’t exactly advertise it. As a culture, we were a long way from being openly accepted, so this was as good as it would get.

  When I thought about what happened to Sohail, I had to think that this was a big step in the right direction. And as much as I’d hated my parents for what they had done, I had to give them credit for turning things around and making an effort. Because looking at them now, I could see they deeply regretted how they had treated me.

  After the meeting, Dad chatted up some of the other fathers in the group while Mom and Aunty Meena cornered some poor unsuspecting girl and her parents. Mom waved at me and I walked over to them.

  “Rukhsana, come and meet Shilpi. She is also from Bangladesh. Her mother is just telling us how they found out that she’s a lesbian.”

  I felt the blood rush to my face as I avoided eye contact with poor Shilpi. I couldn’t believe my mom was being so embarrassing. Shilpi looked completely mortified, but I realized that was because of her own mother.

  “One day, my son told me that he saw his sister kissing another girl at school,” Shilpi’s mother said.

  “How did you manage after that?” Mom asked.

  “At first, we were very upset,” she said, patting Shilpi on the back. “We told her to get out of our house. But then she stopped eating and going to school. Then it hit us. We thought, why are we doing this? She is our child; we must love her no matter what. Then someone told us about this group, and so we started coming here. It’s helped us understand a lot about our Shilpi.”

  She turned and kissed the top of her daughter’s head.

  Mom looked around the room pensively. Was she thinking about her own reaction? These days I tried not to dwell on that, but every now and then the memories came back unwittingly. No matter how good things were at home right now, I couldn’t keep the bitterness from filling my heart. If my parents hadn’t taken me to Bangladesh, maybe Ariana and I wouldn’t have hurt each other so badly. And Sohail might have still been alive.

  Dad came over and put an arm around my shoulders.

  “Rukhsana, ammu, what do you think? Aunty Meena actually did something good this time.” He smiled affectionately at me before turning to my mom.

  “Zubaida, I was just talking to this nice family from Sri Lanka. They wanted to meet you too. Come, I’ll take you to them.”

  They shuffled off to a group at the far end of the room, leaving me alone with Aunty Meena. I decided it was time to start being nicer to her. If she could do it, so could I.

  “Aunty, it was really kind of you to bring us here. I’m glad we came.”

  She smiled, surveying the room for her next quarry.

  “Irfan has been talking to me a lot these days. He was telling me that it’s not right. How we treat people when they are different. He told me about that boy Sohail. Your mother said you two had become quite close. And then he was killed. Just like that?” She looked at me, and to my surprise, her eyes were misty. Could it be that underneath the caustic exterior she was human?

  I couldn’t bring myself to talk about Sohail with her. The wound was still too fresh. So, I just smiled and let her do the talking.

  “You know, I have been talking to some of my friends back in Bangladesh. I have one friend who has been unhappily married to a gay man for thirty years. She could never tell anyone. Not even her closest friends.” She shook her head slowly. “Not everybody is lucky like me or your mother.”

  I agreed with that much. As far as I knew, Mom and Dad had their share of fights, but it was usually about something trivial. And there was definitely no violence. Knowing what I did about my mother’s childhood, I was sure she wouldn’t have survived an unhappy marriage. And Uncle Maruf was a sweet man. In fact, in my eyes he was a saint since he had to put up with Aunty Meena.

  “Rukhsana,” Mom said a few evenings later as she began loading the dishwasher. “I was thinking … What about children?”

  “What about them?”

  “Well, how are you going to have any?”

  She’d really been thinking about this.

  “I’m not sure. There are a few ways, I think.”

  I hadn’t really thought that much about it. I was going to turn eighteen in a week. Having children was not a priority at the moment.

  “I asked Jayanthi. She said you could do virtuous fertilization.”

  Virtuous? Did she mean immaculate conception? It took me a minute to connect the dots.

  “You mean in vitro, Mom. It’s when they fertilize the egg in a petri dish and then put it into the mom’s uterus.”

  This is why I’d taken biology. To explain the ins and outs of getting pregnant while lesbian.

  “You’re going to get pregnant in a dish?”

  This was going to be a long conversation.

  “No, Mom, no one is getting pregnant in a dish. They just take the eggs and the sperm and let them combine in a dish. Then they put the fertilized egg back into the womb.”

  She nodded thoughtfully, processing this information.

  “Where is the sperm coming from? Do you have to have sex with a man? You can’t have sex until you are married. That is against our religion.”

  There were so many things wrong with this talk, I didn’t even know where to begin.

  “No, Mom, I will not be having sex with a man, so don’t worry.” She relaxed visibly.

  “Then where are they getting the sperm?”

  “I don’t know. From a sperm bank, I guess?”

  “A sperm bank? Chhee. How will you know what you’re getting?” She curled her lip in disgust.

  “Mom, there are profiles of the donors. You can choose the characteristics you like and pick one. It’s all anonymous.”

  She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “How do you know so much about this?”

  Because I don’t live under a rock?

  “I don’t know … I watched a documentary on TV.”

  “How will you decide which one of you will get pregnant?”

  Will the questions ever stop?

  “Mom! Why are we even talking about this? No one is getting pregnant. Not for a long time.”

  I picked up a bulging garbage bag and walked out of the room.

  “I just want to have my own grandchildren, that’s all,” she shouted after me.

  Mom paced back and forth between the dishwasher and the cabinet, carrying the same set of bowls but not putting them away. “That Suraiya thinks she knows everything about everything. If you hadn’t stopped me I would have said something to her face.”

  She and Dad had just gotten home from the mosque, and they looked furious.

  “Mom, what happened?” I said, gently taking the bowls from her and placing them on their shelf.

  “You know Suraiya, that gossipy lady who knows about everyone else’s business?”

  I shook my head. I had stopped keeping track of them a long time ago.

  “You know, the one who dyes her hair with mehndi. She walks around looking like a clown with her orange hair.”

  “Yes, yes. I think I know which one you mean.”

  I lied. I had no idea who she was talking about.

  “She started saying nasty things about gays and lesbians very casually, as if I wouldn’t know what she was up to. She thinks she’s so clever.”

  “Was she saying stuff about me?”

  “What? No, she’d never
say anything to my face. No, no, she was just talking about it and looking at me. I understood very well what she was trying to do.”

  So, an orange-haired clown lady at the mosque was giving Mom some side-eye and she was all worked up about that? Or was it because she was talking about lesbians inside a mosque?

  I was surprised it was still standing.

  “Mom, it’s okay. Who cares what she says? Let her talk. Sit down. I’ll make you some chai.”

  “Thank you, Rukhsana,” she said, pulling out a chair. “Next time she says something I’ll tell her that everyone knows her daughter is running around with some white hooligan.”

  “Zubaida, I really don’t think that we need to sink to that level,” Dad said as he took a cup of chai from my hands. “People will say what they want.”

  “Yes, Ibrahim, I know we decided that from now on we will not care so much about other people’s opinions, but that is only easy to say. Not so easy to do when they are talking about your own daughter.”

  “I know, Zuby. It makes me angry also. But I will not let them control how I live my life or how our daughter lives her life.”

  I hugged him from behind. There was no need for words.

  Movie night finally came, and I was ready to get out of my head and have a good old-fashioned girls’ night. We parked ourselves in Jen’s basement and argued over which movie to watch while we waited for Ariana to show up.

  I’d been avoiding them since our sushi lunch, and I knew it was time to clear the air.

  “I need to tell you guys something,” I started, not really knowing how much I wanted to tell them. “I just wanted to explain why I’ve been so distant lately.”

  “You don’t have to explain,” Rachel said. “It’s us, remember?”