by Nawaaz Ahmed
If it’s revenge, its sweetness is short-lived: a click, and he’s hung up. Tahera stands trembling, the phone clenched in her hand.
Heart! Thou and I are here sad and alone. Say, wherefore did I laugh? O mortal pain! O Darkness! Darkness! The childhood balm of murmured lines from her favorite anguished Keats sonnet. How ironic it is that Abba had used Keats to persuade her to give up her initial college plans of following in Seema’s footsteps in literature, to choose instead a career in medicine, trailing him. Keats had apprenticed to a surgeon, believing it a fit trade for a to-be poet; Keats had nursed his dying mother and brother before himself succumbing to their tuberculosis. She’d allowed herself to be manipulated, believing Abba wanted her by his side. Verse, Fame, and Beauty are intense indeed, but Death intenser—Death is Life’s high meed.
A sudden swift urge: Let—me—die!
Back in the living room, after Seema’s exit, Nafeesa takes hold of Tahera’s hand. “What did Abba say? You looked upset.”
“Just Abba being Abba.” The squeeze of her hand shows that her mother understands. Some sense of their old communion still exists. They’d been a family within a family, depending on each other to withstand the force of Abba’s and Seema’s personalities.
She feels an urge to lay the weight of her world in her mother’s lap again, to seek comfort if not counsel, as she’d done all her childhood, to have Ammi stroke her hair—like when she’d laid her head in Ammi’s lap three mornings ago. After Seema’s exile, she’d begun to reject Ammi’s efforts on her behalf, as if she could no longer risk relying on her. She wants to reach over and touch Ammi’s face, to smooth out the lines etched by disease that has added to the distance between them.
What has bothered her since learning Ammi’s condition: her easy acceptance of Ammi’s impending death. She’s tried to tell herself that as a doctor she’s become accustomed, if not inured, to death. But this can’t be totally true, for she could never, not for a moment, imagine Amina dying without dying a thousand deaths herself.
Over the many years of her medical practice, she has encountered death many times. Patients die—parents, brothers, and sisters, even children. And she’s always been perplexed and ashamed at wanting—no, needing—to be present when the relatives gathered around the body, envious of both the dead and the surviving.
She understands that envy now. She’s always been moved by the portrait of Keats on his deathbed in Rome, ever since she found it in a biography in her father’s library years ago. It was painted by Keats’s friend and caregiver. Eyes closed, head sunk in a pillow, eyelashes resting on his gaunt cheeks, Keats looks peaceful, a tender curve to the line of his lips. The portrait radiates love. Only someone who loved him could have painted such a portrait; only someone who was loved could be its subject. So would she like to be watching, so would she like to be watched over.
For how can one know the extent of one’s love until confronted with its loss? How can one know the extent to which one is loved without witnessing the grief of those who profess it?
This must be why she almost welcomes her mother’s death; this is why she’s vexed by her mother’s stoicism, her steadfast refusal to shed tears. A wordless, nameless sorrow seizes Tahera. Not for anything in the world would she want her relationship with her children, especially Amina, to end up this way.
Her mother still holds her hand, though she’s returned to her previous concern. “So you’ll help me cook for Seema’s friends?”
“Yes, Ammu, of course I’ll help.” Ammu—as she calls Amina at times, as she used to call Ammi at times, something only she did, never Seema. Tahera pats her mother’s hand.
Her mother still seems unconvinced, her smile brittle and uncertain. “Tara, it’s not what you think. I had to come here, to San Francisco—to make amends, before—” Nafeesa’s lips move as though rehearsing what to say next.
Tahera touches her fingers to Nafeesa’s lips, silencing her. “Poor Ammu. Why are we always so hard on ourselves?”
Ammi needs her: surely that’s enough. Why does she need any other sign of her mother’s love?
49
Monday morning, it’s raining in San Francisco, a rain that gives the impression that it has not descended from the sky—one can’t see the sky for the fog—but that the city itself, its buildings, its trees, its very air, is made out of water. Every surface, budded with tiny droplets, catches whatever gleams of light there are—headlights and brake lights, traffic lights, lights in storefronts and offices and apartments—and reflects them back in a ghostly glimmer. San Francisco is a dream city in this rain. The three women in the car, on their way to what could be Seema’s last appointment with her obstetrician before her delivery, are drawn into its lulling embrace.
Fiaz offered to drive when Seema called to ask if he was free for dinner—Wednesday, it was decided. Seema gladly accepted, for though she’s only introducing Leigh to her family as a friend, she’s still beset with fears about the meeting, and Fiaz would be a welcome buffer. She can count on him to avert any awkward or unpleasant incidents. Besides, it was Fiaz who accompanied her on her earlier visits, until Leigh took over, and there’s satisfaction in his attending the last, a reassuring presence in her life. Cocooned in a car whose small windows have misted from the warm breath of the four people inside, Seema sits heavy in a cloud of regret and fantasy, deploring the choice forced on her between family and lover, dreaming about breaking free by greeting Leigh with a kiss on the lips—but only if it wouldn’t send Leigh the wrong signal.
Nafeesa, peering out from the back seat, cannot help comparing the rain to the downpours in Chennai during the monsoon. Here it is muted, apologetic, even refined, like everything else, and leaves no trace, drained instantaneously by some hidden system of sewers. In Chennai, it pellets the city, aggressive and unrelenting, intent on scarring; it puddles the surface within minutes and swamps the streets, churned to a muddy froth by pedestrians and charging scooters and automobiles. The rain here is soothing—even the numbing pain Nafeesa woke up to this morning eased a little as she waited for the car. She did not mention the pain to her daughters, fearing they might insist she stay home and rest. Now in the car, the world securely blurred into a restful loveliness by the scrim of water, the pain seems almost bearable, something she could learn to live with.
Tahera, too, finds the drive comforting. The city with its half-visible hills and vistas is so different from Irvine, and even from the San Francisco she’s seen so far, that she feels transported to some other world, different from the one she went to bed in yesterday. The photos Ismail sent her last night, documenting the desecration of the mosque, seem too ugly to belong to the place revealing itself to her now through the speckled window and the wavering mist: the gorse-strewn crest of a hill, studded with crags and capped by a clump of trees, their leaves turning gold, silhouetted against the pearl-gray sky. It’s an elusive and elegiac landscape, one she can picture Keats wandering in. It reminds her of the painting of Keats seated in the heath, listening to a nightingale, before he’d been forced to leave for Rome in a desperate pursuit of recovery from his tuberculosis. She’d clandestinely cut the two pictures out—that painting and the portrait of Keats on his deathbed—from her father’s book and pasted them in a diary she carried with her. She wonders if the diary still lies somewhere safe in her old room in Chennai.
50
Leigh waits at the doctor’s office, unsure what to expect. For Seema, she’s brought three long-stemmed calla lilies, the classic creamy white spiked with golden yellow, their flower. For Seema’s family, she has dressed carefully, her trimmed jacket instead of her usual geometric waistcoats, her Wellingtons instead of her combat boots, and no hat, her hair brushed rather than tousled.
Fiaz peeps into the reception. “Look at you, all suited and booted!” he announces loudly, as if alerting someone.
“I didn’t expect you, Fiaz.” She’s a little aggrieved at his inclusion. Did Seema ask him along to counterbalance he
r? She’s miffed, too, at his description of her outfit, after all the trouble she’d taken to appear less androgynous.
He holds the door open for the women following. Her first sight of the sister shocks Leigh. She has Muslim friends, some who wear the hijab, but she’s never met a Muslim this severely attired. A gray hijab wound tight around the face barely exposes the cheeks and chin and forehead, and loose lines of a black full-sleeved gown conceal the rest, only hands visible. A nun, in cloak and habit, would appear fashion-conscious next to her. And Seema’s mother, so different—small and unthreatening, like a kohl-eyed doll in the pink sweater and blue shawl that envelop her. Then Leigh notices the grave lines of her face, and its features, very like the sister’s. No one would mistake them for anything but mother and daughter.
“Ammi, Tahera—my friend Leigh,” Seema says. “She’s been coming with me to all my checkups. Leigh, this is my mother, Nafeesa, and my sister, Tahera.” She accepts the lilies Leigh holds out at arm’s length. “Are these for me?”
Leigh places a friend-like kiss on Seema’s proffered cheek and exchanges awkward handshakes with Nafeesa and Tahera. They look at her with unguarded curiosity, while she tries hard not to stare at them resentfully. Leigh has never had to worry about her family’s acceptance. Her Irish father is a very lapsed Catholic and her Chinese mother an indifferent Presbyterian, both professors at Berkeley and both supportive of her decision to come out in high school. Seema has always maintained she’s not bothered by Islam’s strictures against their relationship: Those crazy mullahs, they’ve nothing better to do. But these two women still seem to control Seema after all these years out.
“Oh my!” The plump gray-haired receptionist exclaims, opening her eyes wide at the odd foursome accompanying Seema. “So many new faces today. Isn’t that nice, having so many people to take care of you?”
Fiaz says, “I’m just here for the candy. They’ll do all the work.” He banters with the receptionist, making an elaborate act out of choosing from the bowl she offers—Nafeesa must have strawberry, while Tahera gets mango—and Leigh uses the diversion to sidle over to Seema.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Seema whispers. She strokes Leigh’s arm with the lilies, keeping one eye on her mother and sister.
“What shall I say when they ask how I know you?” Leigh whispers back. “Do I look okay?”
“You still look like a schoolboy. They’ll wonder what I’m doing hanging out with you.”
“But you love me.”
“Shh—go chat with my mother and sister.”
“Your sister frightens me.” Tahera seems so closed off. Her reaction to Tahera suggests some deep-rooted ambivalence she’s never acknowledged to herself before. She feels unsafe, threatened.
The receptionist hands Seema a urine container, and Seema leaves for the bathroom, handing the lilies back to Leigh. Nafeesa has sat down with Fiaz, and they’re both engaged in a conversation—in Urdu, Leigh assumes, envying the intimacy that seems to have developed between them. She wishes she hadn’t looked in Tahera’s direction, because now Tahera makes her way toward her.
“You’re Seema’s friend.” Tahera flashes a smile that surprises Leigh with its welcome. “I met another of Seema’s friends yesterday. Divya—do you know her?”
“I do.” Leigh is chagrined: even Divya has met Seema’s family before her. “Where did you meet?”
“Near the park, with that panoramic view. When Seema and I went walking. Divya is very nice.”
“She can be.” Leigh struggles to keep her voice even. “I’m sorry, but—when? I mean, what time?”
“Around noon. Why do you ask?”
Leigh shouldn’t have asked, but she did, and now the day loses it bright edge, flattens to match the gray outside. Not only did Seema turn her down yesterday, but she took her sister and Divya to their spot. And as the park is not Divya’s scene, her presence couldn’t merely be a coincidence.
The lilies in Leigh’s arms become a mocking reminder of the day she first whispered her love. Seema hadn’t responded but had arrived the next time with these lilies and an apology that she wasn’t ready yet to make such a declaration. And Leigh, who’d been expecting it to be their last time together, was relieved. Calla lilies would be their flower, she’d declared, the first flowers either had given the other. But if Divya is back in the picture, she wishes she hadn’t brought them today.
She would be foolish to confront Seema here, so she opts to engage with Tahera, discussing her journalism and Tahera’s practice in a pleasant exchange. Her initial response to Tahera now seems absurd: it’s not Tahera who’s the threat. When Seema returns, she’s immediately called in. Seema’s obstetrician, Dr. Jennifer Connelly, doesn’t object to having a partner or a friend present while examining her pregnant patients, and having accompanied Seema on previous visits, Leigh has been looking forward to this—until now.
She straightens to go with Seema. But so does Tahera. They both stop short, confused, looking to Seema for direction.
“Would you rather have your sister with you today, Seema?” Leigh asks, her voice small, both wanting to be the one chosen and fearing the moment when they’re alone together in the examining room, waiting for the doctor.
“You two decide,” Seema says, as she follows the nurse out. “Or maybe you could both come.”
Tahera shrugs, and leads, and Leigh trails behind, stopping to hand over the lilies to Nafeesa.
“Come get us when you’re doing the scan,” Fiaz says, “so we can get a peek at little Ishraaq.”
In the examining room, Seema turns to Tahera to help her undress, while Leigh looks on, her role usurped. She knows why, of course, but she has to fight a rebellious urge to take Seema in her arms, to kiss the engorged curves of Seema’s body, to stroke her thickened aureoles and massage the swell of her labia until Seema cries for mercy, for forgiveness. She averts her gaze and has to be content with their fingers brushing when Seema hands Leigh her undergarments, as Tahera knots the back of her gown.
51
Seema arranges herself on the table, exposing her belly, while Dr. Connelly and Tahera discuss Tahera’s background. If Tahera’s hijab and jilbab make Dr. Connelly uneasy, she doesn’t show it. Besides, speaking about her practice, Tahera is transformed into a professional, her manner assuming authority.
Dr. Connelly begins by palpating Seema’s belly, her pressure firm and insistent. My mother feels me kick as the prodding fingers awaken me. Usually Dr. Connelly conducts her examination in silence. But today she repeats aloud to Tahera the notes she’s jotting down, and Tahera explains to Seema the more technical observations. Her explanations are lucid, and her professional voice is reassuring. Dr. Connelly remarks that Tahera’s patients in Irvine are very lucky, and Seema is absurdly gratified, proud of the doctor her sister has become. Even Leigh, initially resentful, seems mollified, her questions answered comprehensively between the two doctors.
Though declaring everything normal, today Dr. Connelly wishes to also conduct a pelvic exam, wanting to take no risks this close to term, given Seema’s advanced age and risk profile, which includes a history of irregular and heavy menstrual bleeding. Seema dreads these. With her legs thrust open, and fingers and speculum intruding into her body, she feels defenseless and exposed. But Tahera concurs with Dr. Connelly, so she reluctantly agrees.
She steels herself, biting her lips and holding her breath against the waves of discomfort, even pain, as Dr. Connelly probes inside her. The reminder that what she’ll actually have to go through will be a thousand times more harrowing sets her heart palpitating, and I react to her panic, twisting and squirming as I never have before. Sensing my distress, my mother forces herself to relax, glad for Leigh’s hand to grip, grateful for the security Leigh’s hand returns. And with Tahera here, she doesn’t need to try to make sense of the terms, even those new and unfamiliar—consistency, effacement, softness, station—that Dr. Connelly calls out in her crisp clinical way along with measureme
nts.
Seema closes her eyes and lets Leigh’s clasp and Tahera’s voice—still continuing her reassuring commentary—carry her away from the room, beyond the rain pattering against the windowpanes.
Unexpectedly, she is recalled to the room by another voice that once had a similar calming effect on her. He’d spoken just one word to her last night, after more than fifteen years of silence, and yet he sounds so clearly in her mind. Momentarily, it’s her father’s voice in the room lulling her with explanations and assurances, his grasp carrying her to safety.
52
Finally, here I am, a glow on the monitor. The sonologist is using the latest imaging technology to peer into the darkness of my mother’s womb. Various parts of me flicker on the screen as he moves the probe, sepia-toned close-ups that you, Grandmother, never thought possible.
Here is the umbilical cord snaking across the screen. And those are my fingers, and the curve of my bottom, and my distended belly. The protuberance there is my penis and the empty bag of my scrotum—Dr. Connelly clarifies that my testicles could take up to a year after birth to descend. And here’s my foot with my tiny flexed toes.
Even though you cannot see my face—my head has already descended into my mother’s cervix—you’re enchanted, your visions already excited by these odds and ends of me. You clutch Fiaz’s hand, for he’s closest to you, and lean against him, for the moment portals to some future that is haloed and more lovely, your faith in the persistent regeneration of life reinforced.
But at the very moment when you’re gazing with tenderness at me, you become aware of everyone gathered around, and rue: there are two people missing, two fathers. Your husband and Bill should have been here. What kind of world would deprive two children of their fathers while they are still alive?