by Nafisa Haji
“She’s worried that her son will do something impulsive. You know him?”
I didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “I used to. When we were children. I don’t anymore.”
Abbas Uncle’s eyes were slit-sharp in their study of my face. I had nothing to hide, meeting them with my own.
“She says that he’s in love with you. That he always has been. Did you know this?”
“He—?” Suddenly, I found it difficult to find enough air to fill my lungs. “She—but—that’s nonsense! I haven’t even spoken to him. And what reason did she have to come and see you?”
“She seemed to think that I could stop her son. From making a mistake. That he was at risk of doing something about how he feels. She wants me to keep you away from him. And assumes that I will agree with her. That a marriage between my son’s widow and her son, a Shia and a Sunni, is something I would wish to avoid at all costs.”
“You should have told her, Abbas Uncle. That there’s no risk of such a thing happening.”
“Why not? Maybe she’s right, Deena. How do you know that she’s not right? That the boy loves you and wishes to marry you. And this Sunni-Shia thing.” Abbas Uncle waved his hand dismissively. “I knew your father well enough to know that it would not have mattered to him. Especially now. When your options are—more limited than— before. How do you know what the boy’s intentions are?”
“It doesn’t matter what I know. That is not going to happen, Abbas Uncle. I told you, I don’t even know him. Not anymore.”
There was a long silence. Then Abbas Uncle said, “Nevertheless.” Another long silence. “What she said is worth considering.”
I let the confusion I felt make its way to my face.
“If not this boy. Then another. Don’t you think, Deena, that it’s time for you to think of yourself? That you’ve given up enough of your life already? For the mistakes of others?”
I remained quiet. Something about Abbas Uncle’s tone made me wary.
“It’s time for you to be married again, Deena. It’s time to move on. For all of us to get out of this state of limbo and get on with life as it should be.”
“As it should be?”
“Yes. Marry this man. If he wants you. If not, I’ll find you another.”
“You want me to marry? I don’t see how this is any concern of yours.”
“Everything you do is my concern, Deena. You’re the mother of my grandson.”
“If you’re worried, Abbas Uncle, then you shouldn’t be. My life is centered on Sadiq. I would never do anything against his interests. His life is mine.”
“No, Deena. His life is not yours. What happened with you was not right. I made a promise to your mother. Before you agreed to marry my son. That for as long as you lived under my roof, I would protect you as if you were my own daughter. As it happened, the time you spent in my home was insignificant in amount. Regardless, I broke my promise—had already broken it, in fact, when I made it. What happened with you is not something I would have wished for Asma. And now, if she were in your place, I would want Asma to move on. Not to live in this prison of your past—unable to escape it and powerless to take the steps forward to be free. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you, Deena, with regret. Regret and shame for the position I placed you in. Regret and remorse for how you live now. In seclusion. The life of an old woman. Instead of the young, vibrant one I knew when your father was alive, the young, laughing woman who came into my home as a bride—blooming and brimming with the joy of a future that I cheated you out of before it even began. You’re still young, Deena.”
I shook my head, rejecting this assertion of youth, feeling far, far older than the number of years in my age. Do you know how old I was? I was twenty-four.
“Yes, Deena. You are still young. Your father, who was my friend, would not have wanted to see you throw your life away, burdened with responsibilities that should be shouldered by others.”
“Abbas Uncle. I don’t understand what you’re saying. Are you urging me to marry a man who lives in America? To leave Pakistan? This is something you would allow?”
“Of course, Deena. What do you take me for? Your well-being is everything to me. Your happiness.”
I shook my head. “This is neither here nor there, Abbas Uncle. I have no intention of marrying Umar.” Abbas Uncle raised his eyebrows, a question. “The neighbor’s son,” I clarified, feeling myself blush for no reason at all. “Nor is there any reason to suppose that he would wish it.”
“If not him, as I said before, then someone else. I’ll find you a husband, Deena. Just as your father would have done for you.”
“No. This talk is ridiculous. I will not marry again. Sadiq is all I need.”
“But Sadiq doesn’t belong to you, Deena.”
“I don’t understand, Abbas Uncle. What you mean.”
“I will not allow you to use Sadiq as an excuse for living your life as if you were already dead. I have decided. For your sake. Sadiq belongs in his father’s home. And you will be free to move on. To make a new life for yourself.”
That is when it hit me—the full force of what Abbas Uncle had really come to say—like a blow to my belly, making me wince in pain, wringing tears from my eyes, bitter tears of pure rage. “For my sake?! Please—be clear, Abbas Uncle. I want to understand you fully. Before I react. Your words—all of this contrition and concern—are you saying what I think you are? That you intend to take Sadiq away from me? From his mother?!”
“It’s the only way, Deena. As harsh as it may seem. The only solution. There is wisdom in the laws of God. The laws that say he belongs in my house—in the home of his father. I tried to resist that wisdom, thinking that to take him from you would be too cruel. By rights, the boy should have come home when he was weaned. I realize now that this was the right thing. For everyone concerned. And I intend to fix it now. If I don’t do this, you will never move on, forfeiting your future. I cannot have that on my head, Deena. That, on top of the pain of your past, which I am responsible for. Don’t think I’m not aware of that.”
“The laws of God? That’s what you call it? You want to take my son away from me—to tear my heart, beating and alive, out of my chest—and then justify your brutal intentions in the name of God?”
Abbas Uncle bowed his head.
“Please, Abbas Uncle! Don’t do this! If it’s— if you want me to come and live under your roof, I will do it. Sadiq and I will move. I will give up this place. But don’t take my son away from me.”
“Deena. That will not solve the problem. If you think I do this for my own sake, then you’ll see that I would have no problem with what you suggest. But that will not solve the problem of your future, Deena. Sadiq is a part of your past. I will not allow you to come and live with him under my roof—a sacrifice at the altar of my son’s tragedy. That isn’t fair to you. What I propose—it’s for your own good. You’ll see that. In time. I am sure that this is the right thing to do.”
“The right thing? To separate me from my own soul? The reason I live and breathe? I—I’ll do what you say, Abbas Uncle. I’ll marry whoever you wish. Or not. Whatever you wish! But don’t take Sadiq away from me! I am begging!”
“It is the best way, Deena. I cannot allow my grandson to be raised as the son of another. He belongs under my roof. And you must move on.”
“But— I—I will fight you, Abbas Uncle. Surely I have some rights—?”
“You are free to do what you will, Deena. But I warn you, fighting me would be pointless. The law is on my side. And this is a fight I will not allow you to win. I will bring everything to bear in fighting and winning. Because I am right. I know I am.”
I closed my eyes, letting myself imagine what such a fight would entail. Me—a mother, alone, widowed—fighting against the likes of Abbas Ali Mubarak. I felt faint at the thought of all his power and influence, at the knowledge of how justice in Pakistan worked—at the whim of a legal system enthralled with power, riddl
ed with corruption. I remembered his talk of bribes with my father. This man—who threw God in my face, with no shame—he would buy judges and lawyers and clerks to do his bidding. What he said was true. The outcome of any fight between the likes of me and this man was already a foregone conclusion. Out loud, I whimpered.
Abbas Uncle stood up. “I will go now. And give you a chance to calm yourself. I will be back in a few days.” He was at the door, about to see himself out. There, he paused for a moment, then said, “This is not the direction I wanted this discussion to take. I don’t want there to be a battle between us, Deena. I only want to make things right in a situation where there are no good options for any of us. To make things right for you, my child, and to clear the way for you to have the future you deserve.”
“I don’t deserve this, Abbas Uncle. I don’t deserve to have my son taken away from me,” I whispered hoarsely, to myself, because Abbas Uncle was already gone.
I went to a lawyer. He told me that though it would be difficult and could take time, I had a case to be made. Then he asked me about the size of my bank balance. And laughed in my face when I told him who my father-in-law was.
I went to visit Abbas Uncle. At his office. In his home. I spoke with Sajida Auntie, appealing to her as one mother to another. To Asma, too. No one listened. No one cared.
Two weeks later, Abbas Uncle sent the car to take Sadiq from me. He had threatened to send the police, with a court order, warning me, “Don’t do this, Deena. Don’t make me bring strangers into this private matter. Making it into a spectacle.”
What could I do? I couldn’t let my son be dragged away from me in that way. For his sake, I let Sharif Muhammad Chacha take him, all the while racking my brains for a way to get Sadiq back. I couldn’t find any.
I died that day. And waited, in death, for the day they would send him to visit. When he came, I came to life. For an hour, no more. The weeks passed. And there were days—so many days—when I waited in vain. This, too, I suppose, had been part of the plan. To wrench my son away, to keep him from me. I went to see Abbas Uncle again, to remind him of his promise. That Sadiq would visit me every week, the way I had let him visit them.
“It’s better this way, Deena. You think I don’t know? What I am inflicting on you?”
“If you knew, you wouldn’t be able to do it.”
“You have to move on. You must see this, Deena. It’s for your sake. For you.”
There was no one I could turn to. The few relatives I had would not help—no one wanted to become involved in helping to thwart the will of a man like Abbas Ali Mubarak.
In desperation, I searched through my English translation of the Quran, looking to see what it had to say about the custody of children. Nothing. Then I went to the mullah who had represented me at my wedding. He shook his head. “Beti, this is Sharia, the law of God, not to be trifled with.”
“But there’s nothing in the Quran that says so!”
“No matter. The interpretation of the learned ones is sound.”
“The learned ones! They must all have been men!”
“Of course they were!” he said, shocked. “You think it’s a woman’s job to determine what the law of God is? The boy belongs in the house of his father. That is clear. It is God’s will.”
That day, I came home and knew the truth. I had lost Sadiq. Now, I was alone. Even God was gone. I took out my shears and hacked my prayer rug into slivers and slices, angry at the God I could see no sign of, railing at Him for His injustice, like a madwoman. I was mad—as mad as my husband had been. I stopped eating. I stopped sleeping.
How to explain? What happened next. How the boy next door, who had rescued me from a fall when I was a child, saw the shell of what I had become—a brittle shell, about to shatter. He came to visit, prompted by Macee, who, in desperation, recoiling in horror when she saw the ragged ribbons of my prayer rug strewn about the floor of my room, sent him a summons through the washerwoman next door.
I don’t even remember that visit. He came and sat with me in silence. Creating a space for me to just be, a space that was separate from the madness I had given in to. He began to visit every day. Bringing books with him, reading out loud. I drank in the sound of his voice. I savored the essence of his presence, remembering a time before this descent.
He made inquiries, confirming what I already knew. There was nothing to be done, any merits of my case outweighed by the power and wealth on Abbas Uncle’s side. So, I yielded. Not to the injustice. But to the suffering it caused. I had no other choice.
In that moment of surrender, I also yielded to Umar. I agreed to marry him. To go with him to America, leaving behind what life had dealt me so far. In this new life that I began, there was a hole, too deep to ever fill. But it was right there in the open. Not hidden, or secret, waiting to trip me up in surprise. I learned to plant the garden of my life around it. To stop and look at it from time to time, standing at its edge. Even to descend, frequently in the beginning, into the hole—to lie down in it and let myself feel the pain of separation from my son, which was not by my choice. Though some may not see it that way. I could have stayed in Pakistan. Maybe I should have. But I don’t regret leaving. Whatever regret there was, was not mine to feel. That belonged to someone else.
That regret was what eventually gave Sadiq back to me. But when he came, he was not the boy I had left behind. Nor was I the woman from whom he had been taken. We were strangers to each other—my baby boy, swallowed up by the sullen silence of manhood—the life I had built without him alien to his faded memories of a mother he had never had to share with anyone else.
Sadiq stayed with us for only a year, unable to adjust. Then he went away, no less a stranger than he’d been when he arrived. You, Jo, are the proof of that.
I let silence fall over the echoes of my story. While I’d been speaking, I’d heard Umar return from the supermarket. He’d quietly put away the groceries. Then, without intruding, he’d come into the room with his briefcase in hand, gesturing, telling me that he would be in his study, grading papers, if I needed him. A little while ago, I’d heard the movements upstairs that indicated he’d gone to bed. It was past my bedtime, too. Strangely, I was not tired.
After a moment, Jo asked, “And the reason that Sadiq was sent to you? The accident? You know about that?”
I nodded, a little surprised. “I know about it. I’m surprised that you do.” I let another moment of silence pass.
Jo thought about that for a moment. “He’s in Pakistan?”
“As far as I know.” We had arrived, then, at the reason she had come—a reason that went beyond merely listening to the long story I had shared. “Why do you want to see him?”
“I—it’s—it’s complicated.” She hesitated. “But—some of what Sadiq told me—when he did, I—I ran away from it. From the connection. It was hard. To acknowledge. But I realize, now, that there’s a reason for it. And—I have some things I want to ask him. And some things I need to tell him about.”
I nodded. Whatever it was, she didn’t want to share it with me. I understood. We were strangers, after all.
Gently, I said, “I’ll give you Sadiq’s number.”
“Thank you. You’re in touch, then? Regularly? Things are okay between you?”
“That depends on what the definition of okay is. What was lost between us—that, we were never able to find again. But he is very dutiful. With his monthly calls. Letting me know where he is. I haven’t seen him in many years.” I sighed. “You can call from here, if you like.”
“What I have to say, and what I want to ask him about— I have to do it in person. Over there. In Karachi, I hope.”
I frowned. “You’ll go to Pakistan?”
“Yes.”
I felt my eyebrows rise. Then fall. I looked at my watch. “It’s late. Do you live here? In Los Angeles?”
“No. I live in Washington, D.C.”
“Where are you staying?”
“I was going to dri
ve down to my parents’ house. In San Diego.”
“It’s too late for that now. Stay here for the night. In the guest room. It was Sadiq’s room while he was here.”
After a while, Jo said, “Yes. I’ll stay. Thank you.”
“And, Jo. When you go—to Pakistan—to see Sadiq— I’ll go with you.”
Part Three
Angela
Onward Christian soldiers,
Marching as to war . . .
Sabine Baring-Gould (1864 Hymn)
In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, I watched Chris carefully. And saw the effort it took for him to pull himself up and get ready for Jo to arrive. She’d come home for a short visit after he came back from Iraq, months ago. Was there when his bus pulled in at the base, with flowers and balloons and a great big hug and kiss, as big as the ones Jake and I gave him.
But Jo stayed only for a few days, not enough time to notice that anything was wrong, rushing back to D.C. to go on another one of her assignments. She said she wasn’t allowed to talk about her job. But that didn’t really explain how reserved she’d become, something that had started even before she took that job. The changes in Jo, since before she went away to college, were something Jake and Chris hadn’t understood. I’d known the truth, of course. That she had less to say because of the answers I’d given her before she left home. But now, after coming back from Iraq, the changes in Chris were more drastic than the ones in Jo.
I didn’t worry too much at first, giving him space, like the papers we’d gotten from the military said to do, assuming that some of what I noticed was just part of the process of readjusting back to life at home. At first, it was just that he kept to himself, in his room. I worried, but not nearly as much as I had when he was away. I was so relieved to have him home. So was Jake, even more relieved than me.
When Chris signed up for the Marines, right after 9/11, I saw how worried Jake was. For his son. He knew the danger. I’d thought of my dad and I’d worried, too. About what war does to a man—a word I couldn’t even use for Chris. He was just a boy. He always would be to me.