Love Comes Later

by Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar

  “I should ask you that question,” he said, “Where is Hind?”

  His spine stiffens to his full height, at least a foot above her.

  She curses the gods under her breath as his eyebrows rise even higher, disappearing into his hairline. From the stories she’s heard of Abdulla’s well-connected family, Sangita is pretty sure this man, whoever he is, could have her extradited and jailed if he wanted. Even in London.

  Relaxing her militant stance and death grip on the doorknob, Sangita moves aside in a universal sign of grudging welcome. Which he is either unaware of or ignoring, since he makes no move to enter.

  As the awkward silence widens, Sangita shrinks further back from the door, caving her shoulders inward in hopes of hiding what little of her is exposed. Without looking directly at him, she covertly assesses the man who she has realized can only be Abdulla. Although his precise haircut is shorter than the curls in Hind’s engagement photos, there is no mistaking that slant of jaw or those smoky eyes. His handsome features are ethnic but indeterminate. Out of his traditional starched white thobe and ghutra flipped over a coiled black agal, he could be South Asian, Latino or Arab, with a tan many men in Chelsea would pay good money for.

  He peruses her only briefly. His eyes stay trained on her face, avoiding the pile of hair at the nape of her neck, or indeed any other part of her, though there is a lot to look at. She feels every inch of her exposed flesh.

  “Where is Hind?” he repeats.

  Abdulla keeps his eyes on the myriad emotions scrolling across the girl’s face instead of roving to the inviting neckline and making use of the advantage his height gives him. He waits as she clears her throat.

  Sangita struggles with the question of what to say. How much, and how? Is she really going to tell him, now that he is here in the flesh, that his fiancée has run off to the tsunami-ravaged villages of South India – with a man, unchaperoned. And not just any man but Ravi, her brother. Why? To find herself, of course. And is she going to tell him this? Oh god, she thinks, I am dead.

  “She has... gone to visit her cousin Nejude in Essex,” she offers, proud of herself for getting out their planned alibi without her voice or knees shaking. “But of course you know that, since she’s your cousin too,” she fumbles on, thrown by his blank look. He remains in the landing, standing motionless, as though he were a vampire waiting to be invited in to a human domicile.

  “I didn’t know we had a cousin named Nejude,” he says.

  Sangita could have stabbed her own eyes out. First principle in lying, Alice in their cohort always said, don’t bother with too many details.

  “Please come in,” she says. “Would you like to have some tea while we wait?”

  That line is sure to work on anyone, British, Asian, or Arab, she thinks. It will have to do. Not waiting for an answer, she turns and makes a beeline for her bedroom, leaving Abdulla standing in the doorway, teetering as though his top half wants to enter but the bottom half of his body won’t cooperate.

  Chapter Fifteen

  In the safety of her bedroom, despite the increasing heat from the rising sun, Sangita shuts the door and takes a breath, her mind whirling. She scans the closet for something suitable. Cellphone in hand, she sheds the silk robe and pulls on a turtleneck tunic dress that falls to her knees, covering up her pajamas, all the while frantically holding down the number three on her speed dial. Hind’s number goes straight to voicemail. She waits for the beep.

  “He’s here,” she hisses, looking over her shoulder as though she were in some version of Poltergeist. “You’d better get back as soon as possible.”

  She slides up the top half of the BlackBerry and types in the message as a BBM and then an SMS, then copies and pastes it as a Facebook message and a direct Tweet. All her communication options exhausted, Sangita snaps the phone closed before tossing it onto her bed. She takes a breath and spends a moment checking herself in the mirror.

  Her legs are still exposed, but the most important bits – arms, chest and neck – are now properly hidden under a layer of grey wool.

  She spins back into the living room.

  He has taken two steps in through the door and is staring in bemusement at the framed theater-size poster of Robert Pattinson that hangs over the red, wide-armed sofa.

  “Does the sheikh take sugar?”

  Sangita whips the kettle onto the stove and begins gathering the elements of a tea service. She and Hind are opposites in their drink tastes: Hind’s preference is for tea or water while Sangita has an American immigrant’s love of Coca-Cola. But she’s seen Hind and her mother do this a million times when ecstatic, gloomy or mellow, and hopes she can replicate the movements.

  “No tea,” Abdulla says. He’s all the way in now, and his hands are flat on the marble countertop of the bar that serves as the apartment’s dining table. With no task to occupy them, Sangita’s hands drift to her hips, and her elbows bow out as if to give her more bulk and thereby more gravitas.

  “You live here?” Abdulla says, still incredulous.

  Sangita records all the ways she is going to maim first Ravi, her own blood – more or less – and then Hind for putting her in this predicament. She told them again and again during the hatching of their simple plan that discovery was likely. But they laughed off her cautions like those of a worried grandmother.

  “I’m a good friend,” she says. “I stop in often.”

  She has reminded Hind a number of times to tell her family the two of them are now living together. It isn’t a secret to Hind’s cousins and friends, spread across England studying for various degrees. They are already cousins. So why should it amaze or scandalize the older members of the family? She should have realized this would be one last secret her roommate could keep from her family in her bid for one last year of independence before they throw her into “the dungeon of marriage”, as she calls it.

  Now the man who is to be her keeper, Abdulla, is standing right in the apartment, flicking a non-existent piece of lint off what she is sure are Hermes cuff links, and demanding explanations from Sangita.

  “I, ah, I’m her best friend,” she tries again, knowing it’s a pathetic way to explain her presence in the apartment before dawn – and with her friend nowhere in sight.

  Abdulla slams his hands on the countertop, letting out a sound of frustration. Sangita winces, having hit her funny bone there many times. Yet his face remains impassive.

  “We’re not lesbians!”

  “The thought hadn’t occurred to me. But since you mention it…”

  From his look, eyes narrowed as though he were a hawk sighting its prey, Sangita knows he is in dead earnest and not joking. Whether from hysteria at the thought of being deported, the sleep deprivation of exams, or being a truly awful liar, Sangita can’t catch her breath. She bursts into laughter, and the giggles keep coming until she doubles over, clutching her stomach, unable to care that her dress is riding up the backs of her legs. Helpless, she slides down the length of the island until she is sitting on the floor.

  He leans forward on his forearms, over the countertop, watching as if she were a stray animal.

  “Sorry,” she manages to gasp before she begins to hiccup. “I’m her roommate.”

  He leans away, drumming fingers on the counter so fast that, with her eyes closed, it conjures the sound of raindrops.

  “When will Hind be back?” Abdulla says.

  The threat of having to explain bad news, like the idea of going home in Mary Poppins, erases her mirth in a single moment. Instead of floating down from the ceiling to the ground, she pulls herself up by the lip of the island to her feet.

  “The sheikh must believe I don’t know,” she says.

  Abdulla sighs, and for the first time the guarded expression slips; she sees lines around his mouth and under his eyes.

  “Tea,” she says. “The sheikh needs some tea.”

  She turns back to the stove.

  “You’re not Muslim,” he says, a seco
nd non-question. “And you’re not from the Gulf, so stop calling me ‘sheikh’.”

  Sangita considers this progress.

  They regard each other as the kettle boils.

  “Let’s look at your process of elimination,” she says, as if evaluating an exam question. “If I were Muslim, I would have come to the door with more clothing on and likely something on my head as well.”

  She rushes on, taking her cue from his pointed gaze and curt nod. “In particular, if I were Qatari, I wouldn’t have answered the door without looking through the peephole, and finding a strange man there, maybe not at all. But since I did, and since I was wearing so little, I’m not a Muslim, nor a Qatari.”

  He says nothing. It is her turn to drum her fingers on the countertop.

  “I’ve lived with one who is both for almost a year,” Sangita says into the silence, realizing she has released valuable information. There: it’s out. She winces slightly – she hadn’t intended to give him that much detail. They have been roommates, not lovers, although Hind has told her stories of it being hard, in gender-segregated Qatar, to tell the difference. Sangita makes a note to file this one away and laugh about it later with Hind – if, that is, they ever make it out of this.

  “Did you know the world’s largest minority population of Muslims lives in India?” she throws out. She turns to the whistling kettle.

  The invisible steel string holding up Abdulla’s perfect posture gives a little and he shrugs, his shoulders slightly sagging.

  “Fine. Tea.”

  She hopes she can get this right, never drinking the stuff herself despite being Indian.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Abdulla lifts the flounced rim of the teacup to his lips, lips (Sangita knows) that many women in Hollywood would die for. Sangita holds her breath, crossing her fingers behind her back as she’s always done after telling her parents a lie. Well defined, the stunning lips pull back, after the briefest sip, into a grimace, and her fingers uncross.

  “Have you ever made tea before?” he asks, covering a cough by patting his lips with a red kitchen towel.

  She shakes her head.

  “And you’re Indian.”

  “I grew up in America so I don’t drink hot drinks,” she says by way of apology. “More sugar?”

  Abdulla pushes the embossed teacup away and shakes his head.

  “No amount of sugar is going to save that,” he says.

  At the look of dismay on his face, she rubs one hand over the knuckles of the other and tries not to feel wounded.

  “Well, it’s not like we knew you were coming.”

  He lets out what sounds like a mangled cough.

  “I’ve watched Hind do it a thousand times,” she says.

  Almost immediately, she regrets saying her roommate’s name, seeing Abdulla’s face – which isn’t exactly ugly when relaxed – grow taut.

  “How long do you expect her to be gone?” he asks.

  Sangita clears away his teacup and saucer, putting the kettle in the sink and running water over everything.

  “She didn’t say,” she answers carefully. “They were going to do some shopping.”

  “They usually like to shop here,” he says, rubbing his chin.

  With her back to him she clenches her jaw for being so stupid. Of course, London and Paris are the two important summer destinations for Qatari women. Well, and men too, for that matter, from what Hind has said of her family’s shopping sprees.

  “I’m booking a room down the street until she comes back. On Park Lane. Tell her to call me when she gets here.”

  She hears a roar in her ears like after jumping into a pool and adjusting for the air pressure.

  “What?” she says, turning around as he rises from the stool toward the door. “You’re staying?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business,” he says pointedly, “but I have some important things to discuss with Hind and it must be done in person.”

  Sangita grips the countertop for strength.

  “You’ll have to wait until after the marriage,” she blurts before thinking.

  This brings him up short in the doorway. He turns slowly, his eyes narrowing, as though seeing Sangita for the first time. “I see Hind has not been as discreet as she should have been,” he says, pausing as if not sure whether to say anything more. “Again, it’s outside the scope of your need to know, but I did not come all this way to consummate in secrecy.”

  Sangita ducks her head, thankful for not being white; otherwise the slow burn of embarrassment flushing across her face would show as bright red. He is right: it’s absolutely no business of hers if he is here to have sex with his future wife.

  “I would appreciate your discretion,” Abdulla continues, almost in a monotone, as though it pains him to ask Sangita for a favor. “Say nothing to her if she calls and is anywhere near her sister. No one knows I’m in London.”

  Sangita nods her agreement, although the door has already shut behind him. Great. Now she is involved in two conspiracies. Abdulla is here to talk to Hind about something so secret he doesn’t want anyone else in either family to know.

  Her mind whirs through what she knows of Qatari culture and Qataris, but the only ones she is acquainted with are women. Aside from incognito sex, or shopping, she can’t come up with a sensible reason for his impromptu visit. And even sex doesn’t fit, since the wedding is planned for later in the summer, just a few months away. Anyone who has waited as long as they have during a one-year engagement could surely wait a few more weeks? Sangita shakes her head and puts away the signs of her failed tea. She only hopes she can keep track of what she is not supposed to say, as well as to whom she shouldn’t say it. A tall order.

  Chapter Seventeen

  While Abdulla is out of the apartment, Sangita showers, dresses again, then begins trying both Ravi’s and Hind’s phones. After a dozen times she tries the satellite phone they are supposed to leave on for emergencies. No answer. She leaves the same message for them on BBM, Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp: EMERGENCY. Call me ASAP. But no response. There’s no answer from the NGO village contact. The way it seems, the way it will appear, is that Hind has run off with Ravi and vanished into the villages of South India where people still do not have television or indoor plumbing.

  “Did you find a hotel?”

  She isn’t sure what kind of conversation one makes with a fiancé confronted by his beloved’s disappearance.

  “These bloody summer Olympics,” he says, shaking his head and pouring tea into a purple coffee mug that says BITCH in large black letters around its circumference. “The whole city is full. People are even camping out across the West End and in front of the stadium for the opening ceremonies.”

  Sangita sits in the red armchair, both feet firmly on the ground, watching Abdulla brew tea in the kitchen. In her linen tunic and leggings, her braided hair still wet, she’s actually relaxing as he issues instructions in Arabic on his phone. From the bits that she can catch, Sangita realizes he really hasn’t told anyone in Qatar that he’s in London. He is running his office long distance, as though he were only a few doors away or taking a personal day at home. He’s talking so fast, and mostly in slang, that it’s impossible for her to keep up, despite her many months of lessons at university. This vast difference between written and spoken Arabic was a constant challenge, one that Hind has been helping her with by teaching her the Gulf dialect.

  “It’s a magazine,” she says, when Abdulla pauses to peer at the mug’s provocative slogan. “Bitch. We subscribe and sometimes write for it. Not that we’ve ever had anything accepted,” she adds hastily, in case the look of puzzlement on his face means dislike.

  Whatever Hind decides to do, Sangita does not want to be responsible for ruining her friend’s marriage and future. She tries to sit up straight and not fidget as she mentally reviews the many discussions she and Hind have had about Qatari marriages. Discussions held in the very room where Sangita is now studiously avoiding ey
e contact with the other woman’s fiancé.

  Taking in his tense shoulders, Sangita is beginning to wonder if Abdulla hasn’t also benefited from some of the non-communication over the past year.

  His machinegun Arabic instructions have been going on for quite a while; from the time she let him back into the apartment, the onyx phone case has sat on the counter while he has moved freely around the kitchen with the Bluetooth perched on his ear.

  “Tabeen shai?” He is now talking to Sangita, asking her what she wants to drink, but hasn’t switched out of Arabic.

  “La oreed shai’an,” she says hastily, jumping up and heading into the kitchen. Sangita’s mother would be horrified if she knew her daughter had failed in her hospitable duties. Then again, her mother would be slightly puzzled that any Asian man – she lumps “Asian” in with “Middle Eastern” – would offer a woman something to drink.

  “You speak Arabic?”

  She pauses in front of the aluminum fridge, and then uselessly adds “na’am”, “yes” in Arabic. Formal Arabic.

  He laughs again, but this time without restraint, so that her ears grew hot. Hind and her Arab visitors have similar reactions to Sangita’s use of fus-ha, the classical and most formal type of Arabic.

  “This makes it difficult for me to throw you out,” he says, a tiny smile playing at the corner of his lips.

  She laughs in return, shakily. He hasn’t divulged the purpose of his visit, but it must bear some relationship to the rising anxiety Hind has been feeling as the date for her return to Qatar draws closer. For the most part he seems friendly, not like an irate bridegroom. But of course he doesn’t know where Hind really is.

  “Shukran,” she thanks him and opens the heavy door, taking out a bottled Coke, the glass frosted. Pulling down the bottle opener – tiny red English phone booth – she pops off the top, guzzling down the first thing she’s had all morning.

  “You could say mashkoor,” he says. “Dialect is a lot easier to learn.”