Nightingale

by Andrea Bramhall

  “I know, I know.” He pulled her into his arms and held her tight. She couldn’t remember the last time he had pulled her into such an embrace. He took a deep breath, and whispered against her hair, “But I cannot give you this life you wanted.”

  Hazaar pulled away from him and sat back on her heels. “What are you saying?”

  He took hold of her hand. “Things aren’t going well in the business. Hatim has caused many issues. I wish it weren’t so, but the boy has no head for business and an attitude that is insulting. I’ve put measures in place to minimize any future problems, but damage—a great deal of damage—has already occurred. Without help, the business will be bankrupt.”

  “Baba, why are you telling me this? Surely this is between you and Hatim?”

  “It should be. But because of this I have to make you give up your dreams. I think you deserve to understand why I ask this of you.”

  “You want me to marry. For business.” Hazaar’s stomach rolled and chills chased up and down her spine. She thought she might vomit. “You know what that means to me, Baba, and you still want me to marry? I can’t.”

  “Beti, I don’t want you to. I need you to.”

  Hazaar pulled her hand from his and got up. She wasn’t sure how her legs supported her across the room, but she had to put some distance between them. Her head was spinning. Fear had morphed into dread, into elation, and back again in the space of two heartbeats. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been to the bank. They won’t loan me the money required to keep the business going. Hatim has made some very unwise investments and they have, well, it doesn’t matter now.”

  Fuck, he’s selling me because Hatim’s an idiot. She looked at him and saw beyond the tired slump of his shoulders and the defeated look in his eyes, and saw fear. Fear of what, she didn’t know, and she truly didn’t care right now. For one brief, beautiful moment she had believed she could have it all. Her family, Charlie, her music, all of it. But that was just a lie, and her father’s words burned holes in every dream she had. She would not—could not—debase herself so that the community wouldn’t find out her brother was a wife-beating, idiotic bully and that her father was broke. She had more self-esteem than that. She had more self-respect than to let the petty concerns of a community who wouldn’t tolerate her dictate the future she would live. She started to shake her head even as her father started to speak.

  “There is a man in Pakistan, Mr. Siddiqi. He has a business similar to ours.” He laughed bitterly. “On paper, anyway.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “Anyway, he is looking to break into the British market. Hatim thought it would be good to get involved with him to increase our business. Now it’s all such a mess.”

  “I don’t understand. If you have this increase in business, then why are you in danger of losing everything?” She held up her hand. “Forget that. I don’t care. I won’t marry a man because Hatim’s an idiot. I can’t do it.”

  He carried on as though she hadn’t spoken, as though he had to get out the words before he lost them. “Because I would have never, ever gotten involved with the evil business these people are peddling.” His anger bubbled over as he spat out the word business.

  What? His tone brought her up short. “You said their business was similar to yours.”

  “On paper, it would appear so.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now. It is too late to go back to the way things were. And even if I tried, it couldn’t work. Hatim…”

  He looked up at the ceiling and Hazaar knew he was holding back. The way he held his head, chin resting on his chest, and the way his hands shook, convinced her how bad the situation was that they was facing, and she didn’t want any part in it. “We have a deal that can be agreed upon, but he doesn’t like the idea of dealing with people who aren’t family. He has two sons. The older is already married. They have a strong business, strong connections. Strong enough to get us out of the mess we’re in. But we must be family for him to work with us.”

  Hazaar stared at her hands. She wanted to walk out, or tell him to get out, but she knew she’d regret it if she did. There was more she needed to know. The fact that her father was being so open about the situation told her there was so much more at stake, and she couldn’t in good conscience leave the conversation without knowing all of the facts. “What will happen if I, if you, don’t agree to the wedding?”

  “No other family is in a position to enter into a partnership with us. And If I alienate Siddiqi, the families in Pakistan will stop dealing with me. Business will dry up altogether. I will be bankrupt within a few weeks. We will lose the house.” He looked around. “This apartment. Cars. Everything. It is all on the line, Beti. I will have nothing. Your mother and I will lose our home and have nowhere to go, nothing to fall back on. And there is no other solution. You have my word, I have tried. I only wanted to do my best for you.”

  She didn’t believe him. There were too many indications that there was more to this than money. She knew Hatim’s material need, but her father wasn’t a greedy man. “Is that all?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  She shrugged. “I guess it is. It just sounded like there was more to it.”

  He stared at her and his eyes watered again. “You are such a good girl, Beti. There are many things in this situation that I wish were different.”

  “Baba, you always taught us that there were more important things than money.”

  “Oh, child. I wish your brother had learned that lesson too.”

  She’d thought about this moment for so long it seemed unreal, like she was watching it happen on TV, and instead of the anger she expected to feel, she felt numb. She rubbed her hands up her arms, then stared at them, shocked by how cold her fingers felt.

  “I came from Pakistan with nothing, Jugnu. I worked so hard to create a good life for you all. To give you a father, a heritage, you could all be proud of and a legacy to pass on that would help you all.” He dropped his head into his hands and she knew he was weeping. “I have failed you.”

  “How have you failed, Baba, if this is because of Hatim’s mistakes?”

  “I knew I couldn’t trust him. That he wasn’t ready yet. I knew but I still allowed him to take too much on and gave him too much freedom. Now we all must pay the price for his stupidity and greed. Without the Siddiqis’ backing, financially, and in other ways, your brother and I will end up in prison.” He wiped his eyes.

  I knew it. “Why?”

  “Their business. It is drugs, Jugnu. Drugs. For money and status, Hatim has gambled the business, his freedom, his reputation.” He closed his eyes again. “And mine.”

  She fought back the urge to throw up and rubbed her chest, where the ache was becoming unbearable. The tightness made it difficult to breathe, and her vision narrowed. The room faded away, and all she could see was the music at her piano, the piece she had played with Charlie lying neatly on the music stand. The clock on the wall was shaped like a metronome, a gift from Beth last Christmas, and the second hand seemed to slow down. Between the passing of one second and the next, she relived every moment of her life with Charlie. Their three years together, loving each other, passed in the blink of an eye. Over and over, she saw the way Charlie looked at her when she said the three simple words that meant everything to her. And the way her heart ached with the pure beauty of it when she told her in return, I love you too.

  The memories of Charlie bringing her tea in bed on a Sunday morning, how she would run her a bubble bath after gigs on a Friday night, the heat of which made her skin tingle. She replayed every moment they had touched, kissed, and held each other before the first tear slipped down her cheek. The afternoons out shopping, walking along the canal hand in hand and stealing kisses along the empty towpath. It wasn’t enough. It could never be enough. She mourned each new memory they had yet to create, all of them forming in her mind’s eye. Graduation, performances, arguments, making up, moving into a house, getting married, having children, w
atching them grow, their first steps, first tooth, first day at school, and every single day between now and growing old together. Everything life had to offer, she saw, she lived, in that single moment.

  “You are our only chance, Beti. If we go to prison, they will make sure we cannot talk. They will kill us there behind bars.” He looked at her and she felt her future washed away in the tears that fell down his cheeks.

  This is the family you want me to marry into? Men who would have my father and brother murdered. Men who peddle drugs across borders. Fuck! The realization of where those drugs were coming from and exactly what they were supposedly a part of dawned on her. Oh, Hatim, what have you done?

  She wanted to ask, but the words died in the back of her throat. She wanted to know, but the mere possibility terrified her. Horror stories that had formed part of her nightmares were coming true. She didn’t want to think about the word that instilled such terror into her, and prayed she was wrong, that her fears were an overreaction to finally facing the future she had dreamed of escaping. But the look in her father’s eyes told her she wasn’t, and the terror blossomed in her chest like a mushroom cloud. Taliban.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Hazaar.”

  “It’ll be okay, Baba. I won’t let you go to jail for Hatim’s stupidity.”

  Her breath was shallow as he pulled her into his arms and held her tight. “You are such a good girl, Beti. You make me so proud. His father wants him to learn English here and to know the business from this side. You will be staying here.”

  The promise didn’t give her any hope. She felt stuck, like a song track that was jumping and kept on repeating the same few seconds over and over again.

  She didn’t have the strength to lift her arms and return the hug. She wanted to lie down. She wanted to put her head on Charlie’s pillow and smell her shampoo, the face cream she put on each night, and finally the smell underneath it all that was her Charlie. She wanted to feel her in her arms again and never let go.

  “It will be a good marriage, Jugnu. You will see.” He pulled back and kissed her head.

  She stared at him with unseeing eyes. How could he even think that? After everything he had just told her, after everything they both knew, how could he possibly believe that it could be a good marriage, a good life for her? She tried to focus on his face, and she saw that it wasn’t her that he was trying to convince. It was himself. His body trembled as he held her and he repeated his lines over and over, the new mantra that he would use to persuade himself into believing, a prayer he cast to the heavens in the hope it would become reality. For them both.

  “It’ll be okay, Baba.” After lying to him for so long, why does that feel like the biggest lie I’ve ever told him?

  Chapter Nineteen

  The North of England, then

  Hazaar lay on her bed and pulled Charlie’s pillow to her face. Her cheek stung from Hatim’s blow where the cotton scratched the sensitive skin. She’d forgotten about it when her father had started to talk. Had it only been a couple of hours since she had cradled Charlie in her arms and felt the warmth of her skin under her fingertips? It felt like a lifetime ago. She didn’t feel like she was even the same person. She had expected this day her whole life, and she had fully anticipated that this would be the end of her relationship with her family, that her refusal to agree would put them in such a position that their only option would be to disown her. She knew there were other more drastic courses of action out there, but her father loved her, and she knew he could never hurt her like that.

  It was something she had thought about many times. Would her family kill her to restore their honour if she disgraced them? It had plagued her until she had watched the news reports of a seventeen-year-old girl, Shafilea Ahmed, being murdered by her parents for refusing an arranged marriage. Her father had been part of the council group who had pledged their aid in bringing the murderers to justice, and his reaction had instilled in her the confidence that her life would never be forfeit for her choices. Just the life she knew, the one she would choose for herself. If not for Hatim, I wouldn’t even have to give up that. Fucking idiot!

  She let the tears fall. She couldn’t make that choice now. It was no longer about a decision to stay with Charlie and live a happy life with her, at the cost of her family connections and the faith and culture she had grown up in. Now it was about keeping her father and brother out of prison—keeping them alive. Could she trade their lives for her own happiness?

  She knew, and had always known, that living the life of wife and mother to a man she had never even met would kill her a little every day, slowly bleeding her soul dry until there was nothing left of her. Everything that made her unique would be swallowed up by tradition, propriety, and duty.

  She reached into the drawer beside her bed and pulled out a picture. She and Charlie faced each other with huge smiles on their faces, Charlie’s dimples prominent, and she traced the line of Charlie’s cheek. Beth had taken the picture at Charlie’s birthday last year. They had all gone out to a restaurant, and Beth had even brought her new boyfriend.

  Hazaar cried harder, great, body-wracking sobs. Fuck, it’s not supposed to be this way. She hugged the picture to her chest. Charlie was meant to be her future. This was what she’d prepared herself for. Charlie’s family were the family she expected to move forward with. It was their laughter she expected to get her through when she missed her father. Beth was the sister she would be closer to than she had ever been with her own, Sarah the mother who loved her children exactly as they were, without condition or expectation. But with one action, her father had taken all of that away from her.

  “Happy ever after.” She laughed through her tears. “Load of fucking shit.”

  She wanted to wrap her hands around Hatim’s throat and squeeze. She wanted to see him grovel. The little bastard knew exactly what was going on and he had the gall to hit me. He should have been crawling on his fucking belly begging me to save his worthless fucking life.

  She threw the picture across the bed, but it wasn’t enough. She punched the pillow, flailed at the mattress, and then punched again, and again, and again. Over and over until the bed covers twisted around her body and trapped her legs. Her anger morphed, and fear took hold of her.

  There was nothing she could do. Nothing. Hatim had condemned them all. Drugs. Taliban. Money. Prison. Death. Hers or theirs. That was her only choice. Hers or theirs.

  She saw her hand touching the picture again, but she didn’t remember picking it up. She couldn’t feel it beneath her fingertips. She held Charlie’s pillow to her face; she couldn’t smell her anymore.

  How can I tell her? How the fuck do I tell the woman I love that I’m going to marry someone else?

  Hazaar tried to picture Charlie’s face when she said the words, and the look of betrayal she saw in Charlie’s eyes made her blood run cold. Her fingers felt like ice and she thought she’d never feel warm again.

  She won’t stay. As soon as I tell her, she’ll leave me.

  Hazaar knew the wedding would be several months away, and the thought of losing time with Charlie, any single moment that they could have together, hurt more than she thought possible. She didn’t want to miss out on an hour of holding her, or one more night to kiss her, touch her, and make love to her. There was more than enough time for good-byes in the future. They had just six weeks left to the end of the academic year. Charlie’s final assessments were coming up; she had to defend her doctorate thesis in two weeks. Her own future no longer mattered, but Charlie’s did. Charlie was all that mattered.

  For fuck’s sake, hasn’t she been through enough?

  Hazaar cried for the pain Charlie had yet to suffer at her hands and wished she could spare her the tears she was sure to cry, the heartache she would endure. But for herself, Hazaar wouldn’t have changed a thing. She would do it all again, suffer every pain, for the time they’d spent together.

  She trailed a fingertip down the photograph again, decis
ion made. She felt like she’d been told she only had a few months left to live, and she planned to enjoy every second. Just until after graduation. That was all she wanted, just a few more weeks. Was it too much to ask? With everything else she knew she’d have to face, was a little more time too much to ask for?

  She looked at the ceiling. Is this a good time to start praying?

  *

  “Hey, baby, I’m heading home. I’ll be there shortly. Do you want me to bring anything with me?” Charlie held the phone to her ear and pressed her finger to the other to drown out the street noises.

  “No, baby, I just need you.”

  “Hazaar, are you all right? You sound really quiet.”

  “My dad and Hatim came for a visit.”

  “You okay?”

  Hazaar laughed, but it sounded a little sad to Charlie. “I will be when I get to hold you again.”

  “Smooth talker. I’m on my way.” She hung up and headed for the bus stop, dodging people coming up the steps at the university library.

  She was home within twenty minutes and found the front room empty, so she headed for the kitchen, before finally finding Hazaar in the bedroom. She was curled on the bed with a pillow pressed to her face.

  “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Charlie climbed on the bed behind her, spooned herself against her back, and wrapped an arm around her waist. “What happened?”

  “Hatim can’t take a joke, it seems.” She pulled the pillow away from her face to show Charlie the bruise across her cheek and the puffy eye already a deep blue. “My dad told him to leave. Dad told me that the business is in trouble and that they’re both stressed.”