by Nafisa Haji
I took a cab home from the airport in San Diego, because I hadn’t called to give Mom and Dad the details of my flight. Mom had been unhappy when I’d called her from Pakistan, before Iraq, telling her I’d be home three weeks later than I’d planned, gone for six weeks instead of three. I’d said good-bye to Deena at the airport in Los Angeles before catching the flight to San Diego, promising, again, to stay in touch. The same way I’d promised Sadiq.
When I got home, Mom shouted with joy. She was glad to have me back. Relieved that I was safe. Dad hugged me. And kept tugging at my ponytail every time he was in reach. When I looked at Chris, I saw something in his face that made me worry.
He let two days pass before saying anything, waiting for Mom and Dad to go to sleep first, knocking on the door of my room, where I was folding laundry.
“Jo?”
“Yes, Chris?”
“I was—am—a Marine.”
I sat down on the bed. “Yes. Are you remembering?”
“No. Yes. Someone said something. At church. And that made me start to remember.”
“Does Mom know?”
“No. Not Dad either. I’ve been waiting for you to come home. You won’t lie to me, will you, Jo?”
“No. I won’t lie. Not anymore.”
“The accident. It wasn’t an accident, was it?”
“No.”
“That’s why Mom and Dad don’t want me to remember.”
“They’re worried. They don’t want to lose you. Neither do I.”
“It would be easier, I think. Not to remember. When I first started to—a month ago, after you left—I’d have these flashes of scenes in my mind. I think— I think I tried to block them out. Like there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to know. A part of me that wants to play along with Mom and Dad.”
“What—what exactly do you remember?”
“Bits and pieces. Do you know, Jo? Do you know all of it?”
“I know why you— I know most of it, yes.”
He sat down on the bed next to me. “You must be tired. Still jet-lagged.”
“A little.”
“Will you tell me, Jo? Will you tell me everything? So I can separate the truth out from all the stuff that’s floating around in my head. It’s scaring me, Jo. The stuff I’ve forgotten. And the scenes I remember.”
“What if—what if you don’t like the truth?”
“It’s still the truth, isn’t it? And the way things are—not knowing all of it, only flashes, like scenes in a movie I watched—I feel like I don’t know who I am.”
“I can relate to that, Chris. I’ve felt that way before in the face of truth. And I—I tried to run away from it. It doesn’t work. You— you tried to escape it before, too. That’s what Mom and Dad are afraid of. You have to promise, Chris. That you won’t—that you won’t try and escape it again.”
“How can I promise that, Jo? When I’m not sure what I’m promising?”
I put my hands on his shoulders and squeezed. “Because you have to, Chris. You have to promise me. What’s done is done. You can’t go back and undo it. I’ll tell you everything, Chris. But you have to promise me. That you’ll stay with it. That you’ll let yourself feel the pain. Feel it. Give into the grief. I’ve been learning to do that myself. But you have to promise. I can’t lose you, Chris. Not again.”
Chris closed his eyes. “I promise, Jo.”
I took Chris’s hand in mine. “Okay. But you started at the wrong end, Chris. I’m taking you back. When’s the last time you remember going to camp?”
“We were there—uh—summer before senior year. After that—did you not go? After graduating high school?”
He was remembering. “That’s right. We went to Africa. With Grandma Faith. I stayed behind and missed camp.”
“Africa? Yes. To Kenya. We—washed those kids’ feet. And gave them shoes. And Grandma Faith was mad. At Uncle Ron’s people.”
I laughed. “Yeah. You remember camp the summer after tenth grade? The year we had the Wall of Doubt?”
“Yeah. You had a hard time with it. And it bothered you. A lot.” He grinned. “But you made it over in the end.”
“It wasn’t the wall that bothered me, Chris. It was the color of my eyes. Mine and yours.”
Faith
They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
Psalm 126, v. 5
Jo fluttered around the table, adjusting a fork here and a knife there. It had taken a lot for her to put this show together. Months of planning. Now, I saw, she was having a hard time doing the only thing left to do. Which was wait.
“Relax, honey,” I said with a smile. “It’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
Angie came out of the kitchen, her face even more scrunched up with stress than Jo’s. Some of the creases on their faces—my daughter’s and granddaughter’s—lined up with each other. Some of them didn’t. A miraculous blend of inheritance. I touched my own face, wondering which of the permanent lines there matched theirs, which didn’t, and considered the role of experience in that blend. Tears, laughter, anger—how they leave their mark on the most visible part of us.
The doorbell rang. Jo stood at attention, smoothing down her skirt with a nervous smile my way, before heading for the door, having assigned herself the delicate job of making introductions for those who hadn’t met each other yet.
Sadiq and his family were the first to arrive.
The most important introduction Jo had made already, in private, which was as it should be. So, when Sadiq arrived, with his wife and stepdaughters, Chris greeted him with a smile that was easy and comfortable enough. When Jake stepped up, I leaned forward, not wanting to miss a wink, like the worst kind of busybody.
Jo handled it beautifully, taking Jake’s hand in hers, placing her other hand on Sadiq’s shoulder, saying, “Daddy. This is Sadiq.” With no hesitation that I could see, my son-in-law—who I hadn’t much cared for when Angie first brought him home—pulled his hand free from Jo’s, used it to give her hair a quick tug, that way that he always did, and offered it to Sadiq with a warm smile and no sign of the wariness I’d held my breath to see. Then, I held my breath some more and turned to look at Angie.
She said, “Sadiq. Welcome,” putting her hand out.
“Angela. Thank you,” he said, wrapping her hand in both of his and pausing for a moment, leaving me wondering what he was thanking her for, until he added, “They are beautiful.” His eyes took Jake in, too. “Inside and out.”
Angie’s eyes filled and Jake nodded proudly.
Then, Sadiq turned to introduce his wife, Akeela, and her daughters, Samira and Tasneem.
After that, the doorbell rang a few more times. Jo spent the next half hour or so catching it.
When Deena arrived with her husband, Umar, their daughter, Sabah, and son-in-law, Habib—all names I’d brushed up on and memorized with Jo’s help earlier in the day—she greeted Jo and Chris, and then turned to Angie, her arms wide open. “Angela! It’s so lovely to see you again after all these years!”
Angie hesitated for less than a second, then some of the lines in her face smoothed out as she stepped in to hug Deena—finally surrendering, with that embrace, to the messy, complicated nature of truth.
The best arrival of all, for me, was my son’s. Jo had put me in charge of getting Ron up to date. That had been fun.
I’d called him on the phone about a week earlier and said, “Ron, Thanksgiving at your sister’s is going to be a little bit different this year.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well—” I began, and then gleefully launched into the story of Angie having had a lover, of that lover being the twins’ father, of her having kept it all a secret from the twins and their biological father, and of how Jo had gone and found him and the rest of his family and now everyone was getting together at Angie’s house for Thanksgiving. At some point, I let myself savor how quiet it’d gotten on the other end of the line. “Ron? Ron? You still there?”
“Uh, yes, Mom.”
“Oh, good!” I exclaimed, because I’d saved the best for last. That the father was Muslim. That he was from Pakistan. That Jo had been there to visit. That she’d been to Iraq, too, on some kind of religious pilgrimage. Oh, I felt wicked for taking as much pleasure in his shock as I did. Of course, poor Ron hadn’t wanted to come. And I’d thoroughly enjoyed delivering the lectures that had changed his mind. So, he came alright, bringing his wife, Lisa, and kids—Annie and Jack—with him. On the surface, he looked like he always did—skin glowing, not a hair out of place, as if he’d stopped by in the hair and makeup room of his studio before the drive down to San Diego. But the look on his face was priceless, like someone had smacked the smugness out of him—the open-mouthed uncertainty that seemed to have struck him dumb something I’d been waiting years to see.
When everyone had arrived, the house bursting at the seams, I popped my head into the kitchen and made my usual, perfunctory offer to help, but Angie knows her way around a kitchen well enough to know that I don’t. She waved me out, and I obeyed—to my relief and hers. Jo helped her mother get the food out to the table. Sabah offered to help, too, but Jo shooed her away.
I could see how Jo had one ear tuned in to the family room. The game was on TV. Sadiq, Jake, and Umar sat and watched television with Chris—the picture of a happy, if unusual, family on Thanksgiving, all of them as relaxed as could be. Ron was with them, quiet as a mouse, still a little disoriented. So was his son, Jack, cheering a touchdown, taking it all in stride. Jo’s other ear was tuned in to the dining room, where Deena and I and the rest stood around the table, exchanging opening pleasantries.
When Jo and Angie were done laying out the food and the fixings, buffet-style, they called everyone to the table. We stood in a circle and Angie asked me to say grace, instead of Ron. I did, thanking God for all the friends that had gathered, the new and the old, those with us and those who weren’t. I took inventory of the former, calling names out loud. Angie, Jake, Chris, Ron, Lisa, Annie, Jack, Deena, Umar, Sadiq, Akeela, Samira, Tasneem, Sabah, and Habib, proud of myself for remembering all the new ones. Then I said, “Thank you, Lord, for revealing the power and love of the ties that connect us—these ties that we were unaware of and which you opened our eyes to—ties of blood and kinship, which we gratefully cherish and grasp with open hearts.”
Jake carved the turkey. Ron, still having a hard time, spread his silence over the rest of us for a few moments.
Until Chris broke the quiet, loading his plate with stuffing and mashed potatoes, saying, “Oh, Mom, I forgot to tell you. I got an e-mail from Sana today. She said to thank everyone at church. They got the delivery of meds at the hospital. Started unpacking and using them right away.”
Angie nodded with a smile. “I’m glad.”
Jo loaded her plate and wandered around. She stopped next to Sadiq, where I heard her say, “Did I tell you? I’m going to Gitmo again next week. My fifth trip down there.”
Sadiq gave Jo’s cheek a touch and said, “I’m very proud.”
My own plate full, I settled down in a chair next to Deena’s. She said, “Faith. We have the same name. My maiden name is Iman, which means ‘faith.’ ”
“Really?”
That got us talking about languages. A few minutes into the conversation, I knew that Jo was right. This was a woman worth getting to know. I hoped Ron would see that, too—someday anyway. I looked around and saw bad manners all around, everyone chewing with their mouths open because they were all busy chatting away, casually, like this was no big deal. Even Ron had been drawn reluctantly into a conversation with Sabah’s husband, Habib.
Later, my eyes followed Jo, a plate of pie in her hand, as she went from dining room to living room to family room, taking stock, making sure no one was left out. Sadiq, pouring himself some coffee, said something that made Jake nod and smile and which lit up Chris’s face with a laugh. Angie was right behind Jo, making slow rounds of her own, having stopped, now, to talk with Akeela and Sabah. Jo came over and stood in front of Deena and me, comfortably huddled together in the corner of the room we’d claimed, talking up a storm. Angie joined us a few minutes later, parking herself next to her daughter. She put her arm around Jo, gave a squeeze, and said, “Well, Jo. You did it. You pulled all these pieces together, from all over the world, and made it all fit.” She looked from me to Deena, and back to Jo, and said, “Same time next year?”
I saw the plop of a tear fall on Jo’s slice of pecan pie and said, “Jo! You’re crying!”
Deena said, “That’s okay. She’s just sweetening her pie.”
Acknowledgments
I could not have embarked on or completed this journey alone. First and always, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Nahid Angha and Dr. Ali Kianfar, my teachers, for the guiding light that illuminates the path.
Also, my thanks to all the friends and family whose support sustained the effort—to Nuzha, Roya, Khaled, Michelle, Gillian, Fazila, Batool, Farah, and Sandy; to my friends at the Marin Interfaith Council; to the circle of wise women led by Sheikha Halima Haymaker, which meets and meditates regularly at the Institute for Sufi Studies; and, with love, to my Sufi family.
For the memories that informed this book, thanks to Mummy and Daddy, who helped me to imagine a Karachi before my time; to my cousins, Zohair, Imran, Soosan, Ali, Suroor, Mehjabeen, Zafar, Khadija, Azhar, Riffat, Abbas, and Rukkaya Apa, for the shared childhood moments that pop up, in modified form, here and there. Thanks to Sajjad Premjee, who generously gave me time and answers about a story that ultimately did not make it into this book—perhaps reserved for another one in the future. Thanks to Nusrat Auntie, Batool Mami, and Farah for sharing their detailed impressions of visits to Karbala and Najaf; to Azim Mamu and Mummy (Haji) for taking me on a tour of Karachi by night during the Muharram-Safar season; to Papa for taking me to Nishtar Park on Chehlum; to Alina for taking me to church in Karachi. And thanks to my grandfather, the author of a book, in English, which he wrote as a tribute in tears to the tragedy of Karbala.
Thanks to the truth seekers and tellers—all of the journalists, writers, soldiers, Marines, and civilians—who have the courage to share what they see, do, and suffer, among them: Clive Stafford Smith, Philippe Sands, Ron Suskind, Andy Worthington, Moazzam Begg, James Yee, Eric Saar, Chris Hedges, Laila Al-Arian, Aaron Glantz, Peggy Faw Gish, Mahvish Rukhsana Khan, Ashley Gil-bertson, Farnaz Fassihi, Nir Rosen, Greg Mitchell, Tara McKelvey, W. Frederick Zimmerman, Ariel Dorfman, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Dahr Jamail, Camilo Mejia, the Winter Soldiers, and so many, many others. Thanks to the works of Frank Schaeffer that reveal complexity and nuance on topics which others tend to reduce.
Thanks to BJ Robbins, my agent, for solid and steady confidence; to Laurie Chittenden, my editor, for wit and grace through the weeding and pruning process; to Trish Daly, Mac Mackie, Ben Bruton, Juliette Shapland, Brenda Segel, Tavia Kowalchuk, and all the hands at HarperCollins who gently shepherded the book on its way out to the world.
Finally, last but definitely not least, thanks to my brother, Hani, for the conversation that got me thinking; to my sister, Maryam, for listening and telling me, over and over, that this was a story that needed to be known; to my mother who, again, listened to every word along the way; to Khalil for rejecting every title until I found the one that fit best. And to Ali—my lover, my partner, my best friend—who is the reason.
Author’s Note
The story “The Monkey and the Crocodile” is a tale still told, in many variations and versions, throughout Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, and can be traced back to the Panchatantra, an ancient Indian collection of fables written to instruct young princes on the subject of leadership. Scholars have also noted similarities with older stories, such as the Buddhist Jakata tales, as well as prior oral traditions.
Child custody laws vary widely in Muslim-majority countries. How they are interpreted and applied depends on the legal system of each state, whether secular or re
ligious. In Pakistan, custody is determined by laws still on the books from the British Raj era and sectarian laws based on the faith of the individuals involved. While there are differences in the interpretation of custody rights among the major schools of Islamic jurisprudence, both within and between Sunni traditions and Shia, in general, maternal custody is favored for the period of early childhood—the definition of which ranges from age two to puberty—while financial responsibility remains a paternal obligation. Common to all the traditional schools of Islamic jurisprudence, preference shifts in favor of paternal custody in cases where the mother remarries. While the events of this novel are fictional and cannot be construed as a definitive representation of the laws of any one country, community, or sect, certain characters express views that are based on an interpretation of Shia (Jafari) jurisprudence, whereby custody may be granted to the paternal grandfather in cases where the father is deceased.