“That’s only three months of the year,” he says. “The rest are actually fairly pleasant. Most families have enough money that they won’t let their women walk on the street. They get driven.”
“Even for exercise?”
Abdulla nods, rubbing his neck. Driving, women, Qatar, talking. The act of connecting with someone, anyone, over anything that doesn’t have to do with itineraries for visiting dignitaries should be exhausting but here, in the middle of this London street, it feels easy somehow, normal even.
“Careful!” He feels her arm shoot across his chest to pull him back from the curb as a red double-decker bus roars by, filled with tourists craning their necks out of the open top. The bus driver honks once and most of the people on the sidewalk don’t flinch but carry on as though nothing happened.
“I hate this about the British,” Sangita says, seething. “They never involve themselves in anything.”
“Yes,” Abdulla says. “But you admire it, too. Don’t you?”
Sangita waits for her heartbeat to slow. “I suppose –”
“Stupid Paki! Look where you’re going!”
Her head swivels around as she tries to figure out which direction the snarled statement came from. On her left is a blonde teenage girl chatting on her iPhone, on their right, a boy in a hoodie, despite the warm weather, with the signature cord of an MP3 player trailing into his pocket. She swivels around to see who is behind them, but Abdulla takes her elbow and guides her across the rumble strips. The pedestrian light is green and they are enmeshed in the swell of humanity.
“Doesn’t matter,” he says, as they come to the other side of the street. “I’m Arab, not Asian.”
She halts in mid-stride and looks over at him to see if he is serious. Seeing her disbelief, a wolfish smile spreads across his face.
“You can’t get upset about everything some ignorant bastard says.”
"I know, I know."
“This is our story with the West. We know it.”
Sangita rubs her hands over her face.
“They can’t get away with that,” she says finally.
He shrugs. “They do.”
“They colonize the world and don’t even bother to notice that we’re different?”
He chuckles and resumes walking, which only fuels her irritation. She has to step double to catch up.
“Brown is brown. Sometimes brown is even black,” he says.
Words are eluding her. The lack of a rejoinder is something new for her, and only seems to happen with Abdulla, because often he is right. How many people surprised her by telling her how much they loved Indian food in the first few weeks she moved to London? None.
Unlike in America, here in England people know all about India. They think of it as part of their heritage. A heritage they can pick and choose from on a whim. She starts walking again, ahead of him, into Soho Square. He increases his stride and now they walk side by side across the green lawn of the small park, keeping to the brick path and avoiding the squatters on the bench who are settling in for the night.
“That’s Paul McCartney’s office,” she says, by way of a distraction, pointing at the glass front of a building.
He nods non-committally.
They amble up a side street and she pushes the buzzer.
“Condos,” she says, “from offices.”
The only person in the department with more money than Hind is Alice, the daughter of an entrepreneurial British family who was the first to buy in the renovated building. As they are buzzed in, Sangita has a fleeting thought that Alice will likely wonder why she has been hiding someone as good-looking as Abdulla. As they approach the open door of the apartment she realizes, too late, that they should have organized a cover story.
“We’re cousins,” she hisses as the door opens. “You’re visiting.”
He cocks the now familiar eyebrow but doesn’t otherwise disagree.
They slip into a party that’s shifting into high gear now, as drums beat out a rhythm for a long-haired girl and skinny boy dancing in the middle of the room. About thirty other people are hanging around, some smoking cigars, others drinking, a few men trying to negotiate both activities simultaneously.
“Sangita!” A thin blonde shrieks from across the room and runs to embrace her. “We’re done. We’re done.”
Sangita lets herself be embraced, closing her eyes for a second. If only everything could go back to a few days ago and start over. They’d be here at Alice’s party dreaming up the next step – the UN or embassy life for Alice, fieldwork in Mauritania for Sangita, starting a designer boutique for –
“Where’s Hind?” Alice asks. A sheen of sweat glistens on her otherwise flawless face. Her inquisitive eyes drink in Abdulla and then swing back to Sangita.
“Not feeling so well,” Sangita improvises. “We can’t stay long.” Inwardly Sangita groans, realizing they haven’t thought of a fake name for him. If Hind has invited them all to the wedding this is going to be hard to explain.
“Abdulla,” he offers helpfully.
“My cousin. He’s visiting,” she rushes to add. “Alice, do you have anything to drink?”
Alice leads them toward a towering cabinet on the far wall, her eyes never leaving Abdulla, taking in his smile, his broad shoulders, the tucked-in shirt and the tan canvas shoes. Across the room Jennifer, the department’s longest-enrolled and most self-absorbed student, is holding forth. Catching her eye, Sangita waves her over. Join us, she mouths, glancing toward Abdulla. This, she knows, will bring her over, and the more Jennifer talks, the less airtime they will have to deal with Alice and the inevitable questions mounting in her eyes.
Sure enough, within a minute Jennifer materializes at their side, her bright pink lipstick at odds with the purple shirt and coordinating pants.
“Can you believe I lost my latest draft?” Danny, the department’s oldest student, is saying as Sangita pours orange juice for herself and Abdulla.
“You didn’t have it on a flash drive, did you?” Sangita asks, trying to stay in the conversation while she figures out how Abdulla has gotten into an intense conversation with Alice over in the corner.
Jennifer stifles a giggle at the blank look on Danny’s face.
“Didn’t even save it as an email attachment?”
Sangita swats Jennifer lightly on the arm. For once she is happy to let Danny’s monologue of academic woes wash over her. More people crowd the dance floor now: students and some of the staff from the department as well. She sneaks another glance out of the corner of her eye at Abdulla, who gives her a small wave back as Alice leans up to shout something in his ear over the music.
“Doing a little bit of homework at the end of term?”
She whips back around, giving Jennifer a startled look.
“Oh, come on, that’s not really your cousin.”
Sangita chokes on her soda and Jennifer pounds her on the back.
“At least, I never looked at any of my cousins that way.”
Sangita tries to deny the implicit accusation, but in the place of intelligible sentences only garbled sound comes out.
“Arab?”
Sangita sighs. There is no way to keep Jennifer in the dark except by making a speedy exit. Which Abdulla is not ready to do, judging by the way he was leaning towards Alice.
“Qatari,” Sangita admits.
Jennifer whistles softly. “Great research potential. The mind of the modern Arab man.”
“Yeah,” Sangita admits. They drain their drinks. This has been her unspoken thought whenever she has mulled the possibility of a doctoral program in cultural studies. She hasn’t told her friend, but there are so few studies published on Qatar that Sangita can’t help thinking she’s found the perfect place to contribute to the field.
“Go for it,” Jennifer says, giving Sangita a fist bump as they stand there, the rest of the party swirling around them.
A blonde guy in the center of the dance floor does the moonwalk and then pretends to swing
a robotic arm.
“The landlord’s son,” Jennifer shouts into Sangita’s ear as the music goes up a notch. She points out a man with red hair talking to Abdulla in the corner.
Alice collects people like most people do stamps or dolls; this results in the oddest combinations at her gatherings. Sangita normally feels them to be tiresome, hating the compulsion to make repetitive insipid conversation. She misses Hind even more keenly, thinking how they would be dissecting outfits and mannerisms, determining who wanted in whose pants or who had likely already slept with whom and was now avoiding them.
“Ai! Shakira!”
Sangita tries to shake her head to say no, she’d rather not, but this is not a concept Jennifer understands. No point in resisting, she thinks, letting Jennifer drag her toward the dance floor.
“Let’s do our routine from the belly dance exercise class,” Alice squeals, leading them into the middle of the dance circle as the slightly whiny melody of the song takes over.
“Hips Don’t Lie,” she says, and smacks Sangita on her right leg as though there was a start button there. Unable to break out of the circle, Sangita surrenders to the beat of an old but familiar song.
Party yapping is one thing, but any excuse to dance is another. They rotate through the various moves of their cardio-belly dancing class, Sangita fully aware that when the time comes to shake, she will have much more to go around than Alice. Hoots from the onlookers confirm this, breaking into her dance haze. She pulls away from the circle as Wyclef wraps up the last notes of the song to head for the bathroom.
“Better than a Bollywood movie,” Abdulla says, appearing at her side, eyes no longer piercing but hooded and withdrawn. His teeth flash white in the semi-darkness.
Sweaty, Sangita flips hair out of her eyes and squints up, laughing.
Alice commandeers her and Jennifer into impromptu belly dancing classes for the whole party. Men and women are dissolving into giggles as they show them various techniques for isolating parts of their bodies: shoulders, hips and butts. Abdulla stays on the fringes but she feels his eyes as she moves around the room adjusting this one’s posture and that one’s rhythm.
“You could charge money,” he says, “for your lessons. Women would die to show this off at Qatari weddings.”
“I thought your weddings were segregated.”
“Are you always so literal?” He flicks her in the arm. “Okay, so I don’t know, but I assume from what Luluwa says.”
The force of his admiring gaze is too much. Sangita holds up a finger, indicating she’ll be right back, and slips into the bathroom without a word, jumping in front of Alice who is talking on her mobile. Inside the smallest room in the apartment Sangita runs water over her hands and presses them to her flushed cheeks.
Is it her imagination, or did her heart pause then speed up at the sound of Abdulla’s voice? It has been a long time since she’s had a crush on someone, granted, so she searches back for the telltale signs. Another thing she wishes she could whisper to Hind if she were here right now. Remind me again, when do you know he’s interested?
“Get a hold of yourself,” she says out loud, staring her reflection down. “She wouldn’t want you lusting after her fiancé.”
Once the words are out, she sits down on the toilet lid. Maybe it is proximity or maybe she’s been working too hard finishing her thesis. Maybe her mother is right that several days in a row spent alone with a man can never be a good thing, but Sangita realizes she is in trouble.
When she comes out of the bathroom, however, Abdulla is nowhere in sight. She hasn’t seen any cigarettes to date, but maybe he is outside for a break. The party has clearly hit that moment in the evening. The music is now even louder and nearly everyone is out on the dance floor. Even Danny is letting Jennifer move his hands to the beat of a Lady Gaga song. Sangita returns to the snack table, hoping to find some soda, settling for bottled water instead. She munches on a carrot stick, the only thing left on the platter that was once full of chicken wings, and regards the dance floor. She nearly chokes when Alice leads Abdulla out onto the dance floor, his hands on her narrow waist, head bent to hear whatever she is prattling out of her mouth despite the volume of the music.
“Looks like your cousin made a friend,” Jennifer says, elbowing Sangita in the ribs. “Better act fast or Alice may get the jump on you.”
Sangita takes a large swallow of water and doesn’t answer.
“My uncles are always pushing women on me,” Abdulla says in between dance numbers, coming over to where she stands frozen at the snack table. “But I think blondes may be my weakness.”
Before she can reply, he is gone again, back at Alice’s side, in the middle of the dance floor. Next to her, Jennifer laughs.
“Chapter one – opposites attract,” she chortles into her drink. “Are you taking notes yet?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The first light of dawn pries its way through the murky gray London cloud cover as Sangita pushes open the apartment door. She zigzags her way across the living room, shedding her light sweater onto an armchair. She kicks off a shoe in either direction, teetering slightly from fatigue or anger, she can’t honestly say which. Returning to the apartment alone isn’t her only problem. What bothers her more is that she isn’t sure if she is offended for Hind’s sake or her own.
So it was okay when he was flirting with you, she tries to reason, collapsing face forward onto the sofa, but not with someone else?
She turns on the TV, hoping to replace the image of Alice and Abdulla on the dance floor only to find Dirty Dancing on the movie channel. Perfect, she thinks, turning it off and throwing the remote across the room.
“Where did you go?”
Sangita tries to sit up but only succeeds in cracking her head on the arm of the sofa. She is somewhere between retorting and crying, rubbing the back of her head, but Abdulla bats away her hands.
“Does this hurt?” he asks. His thumb and forefinger move up and down her scalp.
“No, no,” she says. “I’m fine.”
Sangita tries to rise up onto her elbows and off the couch.
“I didn’t know you’d left.”
“Doesn’t really look like it mattered.”
“Alice is an interesting person. Did you know she was born in Saudi Arabia?”
Sangita snorts, pressing her weight against him, trying to get up, but he isn’t expecting it and they tumble onto the floor. He sits cross-legged on the floor as if ready for a long chat.
“You’re angry with me?”
“You’re not mine to be angry with,” Sangita says.
The words hang between them, stretching into silence. She rubs her elbow, scooting back towards the couch.
“I’m going to bed,” she says, getting up.
He gets up with her.
“I’m not really good at fighting, you know. Not much practice.”
She whirls around.
“You can drop the inexperienced routine,” she hisses, “We know differently now.”
Abdulla spreads his hands out, palms up. “Hold on, what are we really discussing here?”
Sangita glances up in mock disbelief. “What you do with Alice or anyone else is your business,” she says. “But I will have to tell Hind.”
She continues to her room but he beats her to it, arms spread out in the doorway, chuckling.
“We were chatting and yes, I lost track of time. I thought you were dancing too somewhere.”
Sangita tries to go around him but can’t move his big frame. Without a choice, she listens.
“But then they told me you’d left, so as soon as I realized –”
She shrugs.
“None of my business,” she repeats, and tries to duck under his arms into her room. But they snake around her, halting her exit.
His red-rimmed eyes remind her that it’s late, far later than good judgment warrants. Nothing good happens after midnight. Sangita can hear her mother’s remonstration through her
teenage years. For a second everything is suspended in Abdulla’s black irises. She feels his lips meet hers with force enough to clang their teeth together. Neither of them pauses.
For Abdulla, it is almost new. It’s been so long since he kissed Fatima, held her, he hardly remembers. There isn’t music or fireworks, just the thrum of blood in his ears and a tingle in all his extremities. This time is different from the last, with Fatima in the darkness of their bedroom. Light spills across Sangita’s face and hair. He can see the vein in her neck, trace it with his tongue, all the way down into the top of her dress.
Sangita’s heart is beating so powerfully she has to close her eyes to contain it. Seconds go by before she realizes Abdulla has moved away and is leaning against the edge of the couch.
“Did I do something wrong?” Sangita asks, running her fingers through her hair and twisting it back into a bun.
He shakes his head, resting it on his forearms, which are draped around his knees.
“Abdulla?”
There is a low, keening sound coming from him.
She hovers, not sure what the protocol is after you kiss your best friend’s fiancé and he retreats into a near-fetal crouch.
Sangita lays her hand on his shoulder and feels it trembling with the force of his sobs. He raises his head, revealing a tear-stained face.
“She was pregnant,” he says. “I killed them both.”
Sangita sits back on her heels. Abdulla drags his fists under his eyes like a young boy. She takes a deep breath, releasing her hands from around her mouth. His breathing catches once or twice, and then slows.
She reaches out slowly and places a hand on one knee, then the other. Here on the floor they are able to see eye to eye.
“You didn’t know,” she says.
He bangs his head on their joined hands.
“It’s the number one cause of death in Doha,” he says. “I should have picked her up myself. I should have died with them.”
The floodgate is open. Sangita does the only thing she can under the circumstances. She sinks down next to him and draws his head onto her shoulder. Shudders shake the length of his body. Trembling, she entwines one arm with his. Holding his hand, she feels a raised scar just above his watch. Sometime in the next hour or four his breathing slows again, and she realizes he is asleep.
Love Comes Later Page 16