“Tabi shai? Gahwa?”
Abdulla declines both but is served them anyway by the man who showed him into the office.
They chat for a few minutes about his family and Saoud asks about work.
“I’m here to apply to marry an ajnabiya,” Abdulla bursts out, exhausted by the pretense.
They eye each other.
Saoud, Hind’s father, who has been flipping a Montblanc pen idly through his fingers, is suddenly still.
“There’s no one in your family?” he asks. This is the standard question; they both know that. It gives no indication of how the rest of the conversation will go.
“I was engaged,” Abdulla says, “to someone in the family.”
Uncle Saoud puts the pen down and splays his fingers across the heavy teak table. The carved legs give away its origin as Indian.
“And what happened?”
This is the moment Abdulla has dreaded: no one else in the family has bothered asking him because they know him to be bullheaded and private. He hasn’t even told Luluwa.
“We aren’t suited,” he says carefully.
“Because she’s a woman?”
Abdulla gives his uncle a blank stare.
“My daughter tells me that you –”
Abdulla stands up. That bitch has destroyed his name in order to save her own, and now he’s hearing it from her father. His pulse thuds in his ears. He knows he could ruin the rest of Hind’s life and reputation by simply stating the truth of her Indian escapade. No more study abroad, or even going out of the house without a chaperone. Her father would have no choice.
“I’m trying to avert a divorce like so many of my friends. I’m doing us all a favor.”
They size each other up; silence reigns.
“You have hurt her,” Saoud says finally, uncapping his pen and pulling a government form towards him. “Any damage you are trying to avoid has already been done.”
They stand silently as he signs the piece of paper that will start Abdulla on his journey to being Sangita’s husband.
The assistant who served the tea comes back into the room. Ceremoniously he receives the completed form from Saoud and hands it to Abdulla.
“Go with Rajesh,” his uncle says, rubbing his forehead. “He’ll show you where the typist is.”
Abdulla waits, finding his throat full of feeling but empty of words.
“Go,” his uncle says, shooing him as he would a stray cat. “It is God’s will.”
“Mashkoor,” Abdulla says, and follows the worker to initiate the first in a series of Byzantine documents.
*
Hind is watching Toy Story 3 for the umpteenth time with Khalid when they hear the sound of their father’s truck in the courtyard.
“Baba’s home,” Khalid yells to no one in particular.
“Al salaam alaikum,” Saoud says to the room at large.
“Alaikum al salaam,” Hind and Khalid answer.
Saoud sits next to Hind. She pauses the movie, surprised by this familiarity.
“You need anything, Yuba?” she asks, wondering what favor she needs to do for Noor at school this time. Since her return, even with her master’s degree, this trivia is all the family seems to think she’s useful for.
“Khalid, let me and your sister talk.”
Khalid spins off in a huff, muttering how no one in the house ever wants to treat him like an adult. The maid, Dina, brings red tea and juice on a tray, setting it on the low table before them.
“Hind,” he says, and pauses, as though searching for words. “You don’t love your father?”
Hind spits out her tea and stares at him in disbelief.
“Why, Baba? What are you saying?”
“Isn’t it my responsibility to find you a good man and get you settled?”
Without replying, Hind focuses on placing the teacup on its saucer.
“I know everything,” Saoud says with a heavy sigh.
Hind’s mind races. The gay story had been a risk, but she had counted on… what exactly, she can’t name. Abdulla’s goodness? Sangita’s influence? She can’t think of her friend without a grimace.
Can he have found out about India?
“I’m your father, Hind. If there was a problem with the boy, you should have come and told me. I would have done something.”
Hind chews her lip. Of course her father knows everything, even that Abdulla is marrying again, and to a foreigner. She has been away too long, forgetting how all roads are connected in Qatar.
“He’s obviously not gay,” her father is saying.
Hind contemplates her options in the growing silence.
“I know everything,” he repeats. “You might as well tell me why. I didn’t force you into this marriage.”
“No one ever really said there were other options.”
“What?”
“He just seemed the best. The best of the worst.”
“So the family’s reputation pays the price?”
He is now standing directly over her, looking for the first time in her life as though he might lay hands on her.
“I wasn’t sure I wanted to marry him,” she whispers. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. Just take a chance at my own life.”
Her father has produced a set of yellow prayer beads that click as they pass through his fingers. It is the only sound between them.
“Well, he’s marrying someone else. So you won’t have to worry about him anymore.”
Hind doesn’t know whether to laugh or to scream. Her throat closes at the look in her father’s eyes, as if she is a stranger who has wandered into his house.
“I want to be happy,” she manages, sobs rolling through her. She starts to shake convulsively, part in horror, part in relief that her secret is out.
“This is not how we solve our problems, habibti.”
She makes to leave the room, but his bulk blocks her in the arched entry. As she tries to pass, tears stream unchecked down her face.
Her father reaches an arm out, not to slap or pull her by her hair, as is his right, but to fold her into his side. With one hand, he brushes first one, then another tear from her cheek. The other grips her wrist. They are eye to eye, she in her heels, he meeting her gaze unflinching.
“You may not find what you are looking for,” he says softly. “I don’t know what is on this path you are on.”
He releases her then, and opens his meaty arms to her like so many days in her childhood when he willed her to tell him of how she came to have scraped knees or rips in her clothing. Sobbing, she clambers into his embrace, knowing that unlike then, now there are many things she can never tell him.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sangita presses against her window, forehead on glass, looking down at the manmade ring of islands that unfurl around her seventeen stories below. Cranes jut into the air and men in blue overalls clamber over the high-rise scaffolds of The Pearl, the perennially unfinished luxury compound where Abdulla has ensconced her like a secret concubine. Since coming to Qatar nearly a month ago, she has seen Abdulla only in snatches, or talked on the phone late into the evening. They spend time together, but always in the presence of someone else, Luluwa, or strangers when in public. She can hear the fatigue in his voice when he comes back after his tenth trip to the Ministry of Interior to submit her papers.
“You look amazing, masha’Allah.”
Sangita turns from the window to see Luluwa in the apartment’s entryway. She had forgotten that the girl has her own key and is used to coming and going from this place, as it used to be her sister’s apartment.
She smiles faintly. This is not how she had pictured getting married – alone, in a foreign country, waiting for her in-laws to come and get her. Is it worth it? she wonders. The fluttering in her stomach when she thinks of him, the urge to wish the day gone so that he will come to her with news, with comfort?
Two days ago, on the phone with her parents, she had tried to tune out the predictable semi-hyster
ia in her mother’s voice.
“What do you know about these people?”
“Ma,” she sighed.
The irony wasn’t lost on her that Abdulla’s mother had asked virtually the same thing.
“Your mother asks a very good question,” her father had intoned from the line in the kitchen. She pictured them facing each other, one on the cordless, one on the wall phone, gaping at each other in confusion. It was Ravi these phone conferences had previously focused on. Ravi was the one that everyone wanted to restrain from his wild adventures to climb Everest or spend a year doing yoga at the foot of the Hindu Kush Mountains.
“They’re tied to one of biggest real estate companies in Qatar,” Sangita said, just as she had practiced it with Abdulla. “Qatari Diar. They have projects all over the world.”
“Qatari Diar?” Her father. “We’ve got one of their contracts in Mauritania. It’s backed by the government.”
Sangita crossed both her fingers. If her father weighed in on her side, her mother was sure to follow.
“So they have money,” her father said.
“Yes. Yes.”
“But,” her mother hesitated, “but they... ”
“They’re Muslim,” Sangita said, finishing her sentence. “But so what?” she ventured, hoping to strike home quickly at the issue. “You’re not even religious. Who cares that he’s a Muslim, I was raised a Hindu. Do you really care?”
“I’m coming there,” her mother wailed. “I’m coming out on the first flight I can get.”
“Ma, I’m almost twenty-five years old,” Sangita shot back, playing her wild card. “I thought you’d be glad that I’m getting married to anyone.”
“How can you say that!” her mother burst into tears.
“It’s our responsibility to find you a good husband,” her father said, and Sangita could tell from the diminished sound of the sobbing that he had grabbed the phone away from her mother. “We have failed you.”
“But Dad, it’s the same principle you raised me with,” she pleaded, trying to soothe them. “Abdulla’s a good man, from a good family. We’re committed to each other.”
“I’ve got an exploratory meeting about a new hotel for the World Cup,” her father said. “It was to be a video conference, but I’m going to insist they bring me out there. Don’t sign anything until I get there.”
“I’m going to convert and marry him.”
After that Sangita had clicked off the phone and flopped back onto the bed.
Since then she has been snatched up in a whirlwind of preparations: first a quick tour of the city that is to be her home, then endless beauty treatments to get ready for the engagement.
She won’t have to worry about the party – that’s his family’s responsibility, so he’ll basically do the entire thing. Occasionally there are snatches of progress. The flowers will be red, because Abdulla knows that it’s not only her favorite color but also important to Indian brides. The tablecloth will be gold, a proper contrasting color and worthy of Bollywood.
Luluwa supervises all her personal preparations, which necessitate a trip through all six of the country’s malls to find the perfect dress. From sequins to satin, Sangita is thrown back to her high school prom and the search for the gown. Finally they decide on a red sari that Abdulla’s aunt, who owns a tailor shop, will have altered into a strapless dress.
She wishes she had someone a little older to ask advice of, but having run off to England she missed all her close friends’ weddings. She stands now, facing Luluwa, her hands at her sides.
“You are radiant,” Luluwa says, clasping her hands to her chest. Her abaya hangs open and Sangita can see the low-cut black dress her future in-law is sporting.
Suddenly, from the half-open apartment door: “Yes, you are, masha’Allah.” Both women whirl around at the sound of Hind’s voice. Sangita’s instinctive reaction is a squeal of delight, which she instantly stifles, reminding herself that this is the very same woman who spread deadly rumors about her soon-to-be fiancé.
“Hind?” Luluwa says, as though she can’t believe her eyes.
Hind crosses into the room.
“Can you give us a minute?”
Luluwa looks uncertainly between the two until Sangita smiles to reassure her. Reluctantly, she walks out, but not before looking back at them twice. Sangita knows she will be on the cellphone to Abdulla even before her feet touch the hallway carpet.
“Hello.” Sangita moves to her as if it were the most natural thing in the world that they are meeting in this apartment, in Hind’s country, even though they haven’t spoken in weeks.
“Sangita,” Hind says, and they embrace in the way of Qatari women, kissing several times on the right cheek only.
After this formal intimacy they stand staring at each other without anything to say.
“You’re really going through with this?” Hind says after a moment.
Sangita nods. “I’ve never known anyone like him,” she says, knowing she’s speaking of her friend’s former fiancé. “And we have as a good a chance as anyone.”
Hind wanders over to the window; now taking in the view that a moment ago was Sangita’s.
“I was angry,” she admits. “But I don’t envy you this life. It will be hard. Harder than mine, even as a reluctant wife.”
Sangita sinks into the sofa. “What is it you want, Hind?” she asks, watching her friend, who is now so different.
Yes, there’s something different about her, Sangita thinks. She seems transformed by the darkness of her abaya, contained and shaped, far removed from the free spirit who ran off to India a month ago and set their lives on this mad course. Her face seems older, although there are no lines showing. There is a stillness about her, and Sangita realizes it is because the smile, Hind’s ever-present smile, is nowhere in sight.
“I want what you want,” Hind says.
“No. If you wanted him, you had him,” Sangita says.
As Hind turns from the window, Sangita thinks she almost sees a spark of the old Hind: loud, feisty, full-volume if angry. She braces for whatever might come next – cold fury, hot rage – but instead of turning on her, Hind sinks down onto the sofa next to her.
“No,” Hind replies. “I want to be happy,” she says softly, tracing designs on the suede surface.
Sangita takes in her friend’s downcast eyes; this close she can see the veins underneath her eyes and the bent corners of her mouth.
“And what is that?” Sangita asks, leaning her head against Hind’s arm. They are talking again, just like before in their tiny London flat.
Hind sighs, and Sangita can feel the weight of her friend’s sadness so keenly that tears come to her own eyes. She reaches out and takes Hind’s hand. It feels cold and brittle in her own.
“I’m a woman,” Hind says, looking past her onto the view of The Pearl. “So they won’t give me an overseas posting.”
The two women regard each other, the months of conversations in London, speculation-filled chats about what their lives would be like after graduation filling the air.
“And I won’t get married,” she says.
The irony of the reversal of their situations means they allow each other a tiny smile.
“I’ll do what I can,” Sangita says, squeezing her friend’s hand.
Even as she says it, she has no idea what she can do, outsider that she is in a society so similar to her own and yet so different. But all her instincts tell her now that if she is to have any chance at all at happiness with Abdulla, she must make sure her friend has her chance at happiness too. Hind leaves her alone with her thoughts, and Sangita hopes they will eventually return to the closeness they once shared. She tries to think of the most persuasive strategy, aware of how little she knows about her soon-to-be husband. Make him think it’s his idea, her mother used to tell her when Sangita was a teenager and wanted her father’s permission for an overnight school field trip. There is very little chance of that happening in this ca
se, Sangita knows.
“Sangita, it’s time to go.”
Luluwa is back, with Abdulla behind her. If she was surprised at seeing Hind in the apartment she gives no indication, nor does she mention their unexpected visitor. Sangita shakes her head slightly so that Luluwa will keep her distance.
“I need to talk to Abdulla alone.”
He pauses from adjusting his ghutra in the entryway mirror.
“It’s good to see you,” he says softly, caressing her with his eyes instead of his hands.
Her breath catches at this hard-won praise, and suddenly all the hours at the salon, weeks of examining fashion magazines and deliberations at the tailors are made worthwhile.
“I’m sorry, the traffic was terrible,” Abdulla says, striding into the room. He straightens his cuff links. “I got here as soon as I could.”
To have him here in front of her, resplendent in white, smelling of Hermes and talking about something as mundane as the traffic, makes the room right itself again.
“You should never rush,” she replies. The knowledge of Fatima hangs between them. Just to hear his voice, her pulse steadies. She smiles, knowing her smile is trembling at the edges, showing all her teeth, despite Luluwa’s admonishments that she shouldn’t appear too happy and court the evil eye.
“We need to hurry, habibti,” he says. “They are waiting for us.”
From his casual manner, Sangita can’t help but be painfully aware that this is in fact the second time he has done all of this. He takes his hand in hers, and a current runs from the tips of her fingers to warm her sternum. But for the bobbing of his Adam’s apple, she would have thought he was entirely calm as he tilts his head towards her. She clasps her hands together to steady the trembling in her arms.
“One final thing we should discuss,” she says.
“We can look for another apartment if you want,” Abdulla says. “This place depresses me too,”
“It’s not that at all,” Sangita replies with a shaky laugh. “What I want doesn’t cost anything.”
He arches an eyebrow.
“This should be good,” he says. “You’re definitely not like other women.”
Love Comes Later Page 22