by Chaitali Sen
“I help, Mother. I help him with everything.”
“Of course you do,” said Arifah. “What is it about?”
“It’s hard to summarize,” Mariam said, opening the box and showing Arifah the stacks of paper that filled it. “It’s about land and history, and war, and geology . . . I can’t explain it except there’s a feeling I get after reading it—disoriented, like I’ve landed here from a place where time doesn’t have the same function or quality. I notice the minutes ticking away and it feels like an aberration. I feel almost like I’ll live forever and I have lived forever.”
“My goodness, it sounds extraordinary.” Like a hallucinogenic drug, Arifah thought.
“I haven’t explained it well. No, it’s about the value of this study, the study of the earth, and what we can gain from it. Not in the economic sense. More in the spiritual sense.”
“Spiritual?”
“I don’t know what else to call it. Inspirational, maybe. I mean having to do with ideas and aspirations, not God. Not religion. It’s about how the study of the earth is affected by history, by war and politics, and religion. It’s about our country, too, a kind of geological travelogue. I don’t think there’s another book like it. It leaves you wishing all of our self-imposed limitations would just fall away and humanity could be one, as it was meant to be.”
Mariam spoke with a zealous rapture. She did not sound like she was talking about her husband so much as a prophet, and Arifah felt tears in her eyes. All these years she had tried to get Mariam to believe in something, in God, to let go of her doubt and feel the release and joy of knowing you were not alone in the universe, and now it had happened in a way that frightened her. Mariam was giving away this gift, her gift of worship, to her husband.
“You’re very proud of him,” Arifah said.
“It’s something we’ve been involved in together.”
“But it is his book? He will get the credit for it.”
Mariam scowled. “I’m sure I’ll get some credit. But not from you, apparently.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Arifah said.
“Never mind, Mother. I’m sorry I said anything. I’m sorry I ever tell you anything important to me.”
Arifah realized too late she’d said the wrong thing. When Mariam was young her father was often treated in a similar way, having to spend hours either defending himself against her stinging rebuttals or hiding from her, usually for something he’d said carelessly but in complete innocence. Omar learned to ignore her after a while. He seemed to realize these outbursts had nothing to do with immediate injuries but stemmed from long-standing resentments she could only forgive in her own time.
“I didn’t mean to offend you, Mariam. I don’t know anything about things like this. I only want you to be happy.”
“I am happy.”
“You are? You swear it?”
She could see Mariam was getting frustrated. “I swear it.”
“But this place is so remote,” Arifah argued. It wasn’t enough for Mariam to say she was happy. Arifah wanted to understand her happiness. “No one can see you here. It’s like the two of you have retreated from the world.”
“Retreated?” Mariam cried. “The only other choice was for John to leave me and go abroad. Would you have preferred that?”
“No,” Arifah said, chastened. “No, of course not.” Here it was, Arifah thought, Mariam’s secret blame. Perhaps Mariam never believed her after all.
Mariam sighed. “I’m sorry, Mama. I don’t mean to be short with you. I’ve been going through so much lately.”
“Of course you have, my love. I’m sorry. I misspoke. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It know it’s hard to believe, Mama, but this was exactly what we needed, to get away from everything.”
“I understand. If you say you’re happy, I believe you. John seems to be doing well.”
“He is.”
Carefully, Arifah asked her if they’d done anything more about her citizenship status. Mariam used to give her regular updates, about how the lawyer was dragging his feet or John was distracted by his troubles with his department, when they were still back in Alexandria. But she had not spoken to her about it at all in over a year.
Mariam didn’t seem troubled by her question. She explained the situation calmly. “It’s difficult to do anything about it from here. The last time we were back in Alexandria, it was only to see his parents off. There was no time. I know we have to do something but I guess we lost track of what we were supposed to do.”
This explanation made sense to Arifah. “I wonder if your father knew, and lost track, just in the way that you describe. He had no shortage of distractions.”
Mariam frowned. “How could he have known?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he knew, maybe not. I can’t help doubting him, though.”
“But he can’t speak for himself,” Mariam said, “So it’s better not to doubt him. Don’t you think, Mama?”
“It does make it hard for me to care for him sometimes.”
Mariam looked worried. A pain rushed through Arifah’s body, then. Her daughter had brought her the only happiness in her life, and she had failed her in return. Arifah didn’t know what else to offer.
“I want some tea,” Mariam announced. “How about you?”
“Yes. All right.”
Mariam closed the box and they left John’s office. Arifah was glad. She wasn’t comfortable in that tiny room. She sat at the kitchen table and watched Mariam make tea with graceful precision.
When they were both sitting with cups of hot tea in front of them, Arifah said something that had been on her mind. “Mariam, I’m sorry for the way you grew up. I wish your father and I could have hidden our problems from you.”
“That wasn’t your fault, Mama.”
Arifah kept going. There was so much she had wanted to say, ever since Mariam got married and left home. “I wish you didn’t have to see him in love with another woman. It’s true he loved her more,” Arifah said, pausing there as the words caught in her throat. It wasn’t her first time admitting it, but she never thought she would have to say it out loud, and it caused more heartache than she expected. “He loved her with a passion he never had for me, but I don’t regret my life with him.”
Mariam touched her hand. “It would be all right if you did, Mama.”
Suddenly Arifah began to cry, losing control of her emotions. Mariam got up and brought her a napkin and sat back down with her hand on Arifah’s shoulder.
“Oh, God, look at me. I’m supposed to be comforting you, and here I am feeling sorry for myself.”
“This is a comfort to me,” Mariam said. “We should be able to confide in each other.”
Arifah nodded. They drank their tea, but Arifah’s spirit continued to wither. She said she wanted to lie down and Mariam said, “Yes, go and have a rest, Mama.” Arifah went to her bed and closed her eyes, and in a moment she was overcome with exhaustion.
When she woke up, she heard quiet voices in the bedroom. John was home. After a while, their bedroom door opened and there was a knock at her door. Mariam stepped inside to check on her.
“I’m awake,” Arifah said. She sat up.
“John’s home.”
“Are the others here as well?”
“No, just John.” Mariam looked very pleased. “He’s had enough of camping. He said everyone is well-situated now.”
Arifah smiled. “Let me freshen up. I’ll come and help with dinner.”
That night the three of them sat down and had a lovely meal. Mariam kept them entertained with her girlish chatter. John seemed to find everything she talked about amusing, from blueberry vine wreaths to German radio programs. Arifah felt he would want all of Mariam’s attention now. Perhaps they needed to get working again on his book. And Arifah sudden
ly felt like she had not been of much use to Mariam. Seeing her behavior now, clearly it was John she wanted at home with her. How silly it would be for them both to be here, competing for Mariam’s affection.
That night Arifah couldn’t sleep at all. First she could hear John and Mariam talking without pause. Then they were quiet, but she heard the end of their lovemaking before everything in the house settled. Even after that Arifah remained maddeningly awake.
In the morning, at breakfast, they were all silent. Arifah’s silence came from her night without sleep, but between Mariam and John there was an intimacy too sacred for words, an unspoken and unfinished desire that Arifah, in her own marriage, could never quite achieve. Mariam poured him some coffee, standing so close to him she was practically in his lap, and he looked up at his wife with his hand on her thigh, thanking her.
“I spoke to the nurse this morning,” Arifah exclaimed. “Your father’s becoming rather difficult. I think I ought to go home. There’s a bus depot in town, am I right?”
Mariam frowned. “The bus isn’t safe, Mama.”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Arifah insisted.
“Malick can take you,” John said. “He was talking about going home for a few days.”
“You can’t go yet,” Mariam cried. “It’s too soon.”
“You’ll be all right, darling.” Arifah leaned forward and touched her arm. “Everything will be all right.”
John looked too sheepish to bring up Malick’s ride again. “Will you see Malick today?” Arifah asked him.
“I’m driving over there after breakfast.”
“There. Fate has spoken,” Arifah said. Mariam did not protest again, but she looked forlorn and Arifah already began to miss her. Mariam couldn’t know how much Arifah missed her, always. The pain of her leaving had never eased.
She departed with Malick later that day and this time the drive didn’t bother her at all. They made it back to English Canal by sundown. She gave her husband a firm kiss on his lips and slept close to him that night, with her hand resting on his bony chest.
In the morning Omar asked about their daughter.
“She’s all grown up,” Arifah said. She told him about the house and garden and this book John was writing. She told him how loved she was, their Mariam.
ELEVEN
Summer was wind and dust, all her summer memories dredged in beige. One morning after a new summer began, Mariam’s whole body ached, as if the dust had seeped through her skin and found its way into her blood. John was on an international call, the volume of the conversation rising and falling with the howl of the wind. She couldn’t keep her head up to listen. She went back to bed and shut her eyes and even her eyelids ached. Soon she would be out of this dust but it didn’t matter. Knowing they were leaving made the dust less tolerable, not more. She wished they could move in October, when she could savor her final days in Luling more pleasurably. Here, autumn was her favorite season, but they had to leave in summer, and soon. At the end of August, John and Malick were going to the World Geological Congress in Washington. They had earned their place there and this time Mariam would not let him stay behind. After the conference, Malick wanted to retire to France, to be near his daughter and grandchildren. He offered his faculty position at the College of Sulat Province to John, and there was no question about his taking it. Without Malick, John would lack the funds and institutional affiliation to continue in Luling, and anyway, they had gleaned everything they could from their outcrop.
John finished his call and came into the room. A little rest had not revived Mariam much. He looked concerned as he helped her sit up, propping a few pillows up behind her. “Are you sick?” he asked.
“I think my time of the month is coming,” she said. Her torso felt tight and her breasts were sore. For a while, whenever her breasts were full and tender like this she would become convinced she was pregnant, until the first shock of blood made her feel foolish. “It’s the dust,” she added. “I’m sick of the dust.”
“We’ll be out of it soon enough,” he said.
“I’m ready to leave,” Mariam said, but she must have looked melancholy. John ran his calloused thumb along her eyebrow, something he did whenever he thought she needed consoling. He said, “It will be hard to leave. We’ve been happy here.” She turned her head toward the smooth underside of his wrist, and set her lips there, thinking this was all there was, cycles of things ending and beginning. Even Vic was in English Canal now and eager for John and Mariam to join him.
They couldn’t believe it when he appeared at their door in Luling three years earlier. He said he had come to give John a watch. The watch was expensive, not anything like his grandfather’s watch but a very lovely watch all the same. John tried to refuse it. “I’m happier without a watch, really,” he said, and Mariam said, “Yes, you were right, Vic. That watch was ruining his life.” He stayed several days but didn’t tell them until he was leaving that he was on his way to English Canal, that he had written to Malick asking if there was anything he could do to start teaching again. Malick offered him a chance to teach prerequisite classes and continue his doctorate. He had been embarrassed about telling John, thinking somehow he should have asked for his permission, but John was happy. He knew Malick would take care of Vic.
So it was that all roads converged on English Canal. They had been happy in Luling for four years, and could leave now knowing John’s courage and instincts had not failed him back when his life in Alexandria fell apart and all he had was Mariam. Now, he was going to see some of this world that had spun on without him, and now she was going home to English Canal. She was going home with no passport, and no children, but she told herself she would again try to earn her rightful citizenship, once she was home, and she would have children, still young enough at thirty-three to have many children. She tried not to fall into despair, but once, John came home and found her soaking in the bathtub where she had stayed so long her fingertips formed ridges and valleys. He had asked her if she was all right. She said she was fine. She didn’t tell him she had slipped under the water, imagining herself drowned, imagining his grief, but she couldn’t get it right and came back up.
As much as they had loved their home in Luling, when it was time to go they drove away from their cottage without sentiment. They moved their few possessions into Mariam’s parents’ house and slept in the old master bedroom upstairs. The room was barren but comfortable, and John was given a little workspace in Mariam’s old bedroom, which only had a desk now and functioned as an office for her mother to handle bills and other paperwork. Her mother was energetic and talkative and Mariam was happy to be with her again and have her meals cooked for her, and her father was also doing remarkably well. Every day he came up the stairs and limped up and down the hallway as part of his therapy. He could do it now without the aid of a walker or cane. The turning seemed to be the most difficult part, getting his feet and his torso and his head to work in unison. But he did it with more ease each time. Mariam could hardly remember what he was like before the stroke, and after three years since the last time she saw him he had become smaller and more lovable. His ears and nose looked massive next to his sunken cheeks, and he had little hair left on his head, yet he looked younger, freer and happier than he ever had when he was well.
Vic came over. He enjoyed an easy rapport with her parents and Mariam felt a rush of affection for him every time he came by. He wanted John and Mariam to move into his building, a townhouse owned by the college. They put him off the first few times he mentioned it. To save money, it was most practical for them to stay with her parents until John’s trip, and for her to remain there for the two weeks he would be gone, but Vic was persistent, saying the rent was subsidized and it was close to campus. He invited them over for coffee one afternoon and they decided to take a leisurely walk there, along the canal. The canal was lower but there were ducks and geese on the water, and the s
ky was thick with storm clouds. The air was clean and moist and Mariam’s body no longer felt like it was clogged with dust.
It took them about twenty minutes to reach Vic’s townhouse. From the outside it was starkly pleasing, orderly, made of light red brick accented with black shutters, its windows glowing with yellow incandescence, but the inside disappointed Mariam. It was dark in the vestibule and the lobby, and there was a smell that offended her, the smell of wet carpet, of pets and children, of cooking oil, the smell of everything caught inside that couldn’t be aired out. She gripped the banister and John touched the small of her back, giving her a gentle nudge up the stairs. Vic was waiting for them on the landing. He said he wanted to show them the vacant apartment first, and went to the third floor to retrieve the keys from the building supervisor’s wife. “I don’t know about this,” John said to Mariam, and she agreed, though she wanted to keep an open mind.
Vic came back, charging down the stairs. When he reached them he practically ran into the door as if he were going to break it down with sheer force. Hastily he put the key in the lock and rattled the doorknob. Eventually the lock yielded and the door opened, and Mariam was surprised by a flurry of cool air. The apartment was suffused with light and already furnished, and straight ahead a wall of mullioned windows framed a view of green trees and red rooftops. Some of the panels had been cranked open, which made Mariam think that they had already shown the apartment to someone that day. Vic showed them the two bedrooms, a master bedroom with a large window and a smaller bedroom with a smaller window, a nursery. The bedrooms were unfurnished, but the walls were freshly painted white. They looked at the kitchen, clean and functional. There was a dining room attached to it with a long table that looked valuable but difficult to move.
“What do you think?” Vic asked.
“It’s not bad,” John said.
“I want it,” Mariam said. She wanted it as soon as possible. It would give her something to focus on while John was away.