Radiant Fugitives

by Nawaaz Ahmed

  “I just meant—he needs a father. It’s not going to be easy.”

  “Are you implying I won’t be able to take care of him? That I won’t be a fit parent?”

  “Seema, don’t twist everything I say.” He wishes he could start over again. “I know you’ll be a great mother. But not even two mothers can protect him as I will. Even if you don’t want me back, let me—”

  “Is that what’s bothering you—two women bringing up a child together?” She struggles to her feet, crying out: “Ammi, what were you thinking? How could you do this to me?”

  She’s assumed that childlike voice again, now childishly shrill.

  “Seema, what I meant was—”

  He’s thankful when Nafeesa hurries into the room. She’s carrying two bowls of cut fruit in her hands.

  Seema turns to her mother. “Do you want to know what happened between us? Do you know what he wanted me to do? He wanted me to have an abortion. He wanted me to kill my baby.”

  “Seema, you know that was a misunderstanding.” He rises, taking a step toward Seema, wondering how to calm her down. She waves a hand as if to ward him off.

  He appeals to Nafeesa. “Mrs. Hussein, please—”

  But in Nafeesa’s face he sees fear now. There’s no missing it: those widened eyes, the frozen lips. Her hands begin trembling, he’s afraid she’s going to drop the glass bowls.

  It takes him many seconds to realize how he must appear, towering over them both.

  “Mrs. Hussein, I—” he says, stepping back, stumbling against the chair, his hands up to show he’s backing away. “I’ve never hurt Seema. I could never hurt her. Tell her, Seema.”

  But even as he speaks, Nafeesa moves to interpose herself between him and her daughter.

  And Seema says nothing.

  He looks at Nafeesa and Seema, one protecting, the other almost cowering behind—as if he were a monster. He is not a terrible person, not a man to be afraid of—

  A strange bitter taste fills his mouth, like the cod liver oil Mame forced him to take every morning.

  He can perhaps understand Nafeesa’s reaction, but how could Seema do this to him? She remains still, not saying anything.

  “You know, Seema—” He wags a finger, keeping his voice as level as he can manage. “I can have the consent form revoked. Any court would void it if it’s not in the child’s best interests.”

  He grabs his jacket, resists the urge to kick the chair aside, and strides out of the apartment.

  12

  The Tenderloin reminds Tahera of Chennai: Fiaz’s car lurches through its jammed streets amid the sound of grating brakes and revving engines, cabs honk, pedestrians surge forward ignoring traffic lights, potholes pockmark the road, dust rises from everything and is everywhere. Pavements are littered with paper, plastic, discarded clothes. The buildings look grimy, their walls rain-stained, their paint peeling.

  Fiaz finds the store Seema had indicated, but there’s little parking. “Shall I drop you off here? I can keep circling the block and pick you up.”

  But Tahera can’t keep discomfort off her face: A group of men in hoodies pulled over their matted hair, clutching garbage bags of possessions to their chest, loiter in front of the store. And the store itself is intimidating—the legend halal meat barely visible on its run-down facade, its dingy storefront crisscrossed with brown tape to hold the glass in place. Why had she agreed to this ill-considered errand?

  Fiaz, after a quick glance at her, announces that he’ll park in a garage a few blocks over and accompany her.

  On the walk from the garage, Tahera feels an urge to edge closer to Fiaz as they approach the men outside the store. She’s thankful for the hijab and jilbab but at the same time rues the attention her attire provokes. She’s used to stares and undisguised curiosity by now, but today the news from home has made her particularly self-conscious.

  The pictures of the desecration of the mosque hadn’t affected her as much. On her phone’s small screen, the busy and hard-to-decipher graffiti seemed almost toothless, the work of some angry attention-seeking malcontent. Though she knew it was their mosque, it might as well have belonged to some other town lately in the news. And it was easily painted over. But this arson at the school—even if unconfirmed—how could she not take it as anything but a direct threat to her children? And who were these people who could set fire to a children’s playground, and what if they were capable of more?

  As she crosses the staring men, she braces herself for some kind of attack, either verbal or physical. The store’s seedy interior, with its chipped white-tiled floor, faded blue walls, and fluorescent lighting, is a relief.

  And there behind the counter—her heart leaps up: a Muslim! Gray-haired and bearded, clearly Middle Eastern, in a fraying prayer cap. Behind him a sticker with an ayat from the Quran, and beside the cash register a photo of the Ka’ba. She’d forgone namaz, had been unable to even touch the Quran today, and must have been craving these visible signs of practiced faith, totally absent from Seema’s apartment.

  “Assalamu Alaikum!” She flashes a wide grateful smile. She wishes she knew more Arabic.

  His acknowledgment is reserved. “Salaam. What can I do for you, sister?”

  It’s an odd transaction—she is effervescent, he formal: Sure, he has goat meat. What would she like? Big pieces, not too much fat. Is the meat fresh, tender? Yes, it comes from Sacramento every week. How much does she want? Three pounds, not too many bones. Her mother’s going to cook goat biryani. She’s not had her mother’s biryani in so many years!

  He reaches into the refrigerated glass case stacked with meat, picks up a pink-red, fat-marbled slab. Does she want it cut up? He feeds the slab through an industrial-strength electric meat saw and gathers the cubes in a plastic bag. He shows her the reading on the scale, slaps tape around the bag, and hands it over. The meat looks very good, shukran! Does he have chicken thighs too? Bone-in is fine, it adds rich flavor to curries!

  The chicken is packaged as well, and he calculates the total.

  Fiaz reaches for his wallet.

  “No, you’re our guest.” She taps Fiaz’s hand away. “Seema warned me you’d try to pay.”

  She’s more relaxed on the way back to the garage. Allah keep you safe, the storekeeper said as she left, and though the phrase is customary, she needed to hear it. Somehow it’s easier to ignore the men outside—she barely even notices them.

  Conversing with Fiaz is easier too. She describes the biryani at family weddings in Chennai. But her mother’s biryani, she asserts loyally, would rival any she’d eaten at any wedding.

  “I’m glad we found the meat, then,” Fiaz says. “I can’t wait to taste it.”

  Tahera hesitates: Should she tell him the real reason for her state of anxiety? Fiaz is a Muslim, but he’s a friend of Seema’s, and like Seema, he has probably lapsed in his faith. But, he’d mentioned a mother who prayed at the mosque he took Tahera to on Saturday, and brought up in the United States, he may understand better than Seema and her mother.

  “I’m tense about what’s happening in Irvine—” She gives him a brief account of the events: the fundraising for the community center, the desecration of the mosque, the suspected arson at the schoolyard.

  The vigor of Fiaz’s anger is both surprising and satisfying. A mosque anywhere has a right to exist, and Muslims everywhere have a right to their faith.

  Tahera asks: Does he pray namaz regularly?

  No, but he accompanies his mother to the mosque during her visits.

  She shouldn’t have expected more from a friend of Seema’s, so she drops the matter, asking instead about his mother. It turns out she is a retired nurse, living by herself in Sacramento after his father’s death. She visits him frequently but refuses to move. At some point, when she needs more care, he’ll have to persuade her more forcefully to move in with him.

  “It’s nice to have your mother close by,” Tahera says. A flash of guilt: for a panic-stricken spell that a
fternoon she’d argued with Ismail about catching a flight to Irvine that very night. Ismail reminded her why she was in San Francisco in the first place, dismissing her return as unnecessary, her fears as overblown. “I wish I could care for my mother better.”

  “I’m sorry to hear about her illness. Seema told me,” Fiaz says. “This is a tough time—I hope Allah gives you all strength.”

  Their next stop is the Pakistani grocery store. The store is quite small—two aisles, dimly lit, with a musty, unaired smell, stacked high with spices and grains—compared to the ones she’s used to in Irvine. But the store does have the baby eggplants and the green chilies in its refrigerated section, as well as the aged basmati rice and all the nuts and spices on her list. She needs Fiaz’s help to reach some of the upper shelves.

  At the checkout, Fiaz browses through the compact discs on the counter. “Cheap—five bucks each. And they have Urdu ghazals. Do you remember which singers your mother likes?”

  Some names seem familiar. Tahera points to Begum Akhtar and Noor Jehan, faded women on faded disc jackets, from the 1940s and ’50s. She remembers tapes playing softly some afternoons when she and Seema returned from school to find Ammi in bed, eyes closed, listening to songs they’d make fun of as nasal and old-fashioned—Ammi would shut the music off to prepare the girls’ tiffin. And Ghulam Ali, from Tahera’s youth, whom she also liked.

  Fiaz says he’ll buy all three, and Tahera is touched. She hadn’t gotten her mother anything from Irvine. Why hadn’t the thought occurred to her?

  One last stop is required, for mint, cilantro, yogurt, lemon, onions, tomatoes, milk, cream, oil. Fiaz says he’ll take her to the Safeway on their way back. It’s dark already, everything taking longer than she’d expected because of the traffic and parking. There’s no maghrib namaz—because of her period—but she’d like to talk to her children before they go to bed.

  Compared to the previous stores, the Safeway is large and brightly lit, aglow against the hills of San Francisco. They’re back in the America she knows. The bulb-ringed marquee perched atop a tall column, like a torch, overpowers the lusterless orange moon in the city-lit sky, though the moon is almost as full as it was the night before, only a tiny sliver missing. Glimmering shopping carts and shiny cars litter the busy parking lot.

  Inside, Tahera is back among the labeled aisles and preoccupied customers pushing overloaded carts, familiar to her from every other chain store she’s visited. This is America going about its business.

  Her earlier uneasiness floods back. She is small in this huge hall, hemmed in by strangers—mostly White, no Muslims—crowding the aisles. She is a black blot, in her jilbab and hijab, against the cheerful color of the rows of merchandise. Alert once again to glances cast her way, she suspects shoppers of avoiding her, or plowing ahead, ignoring her, as though to claim the space for themselves.

  She’s ashamed of her earlier reaction to the men outside the halal market—it’s not those harmless men but “decent” people like the ones here she needs to beware. It’s decent Americans like these behind the warnings and threats, the profanities and blasphemies: Go back to your savage lands, with your bombs and your burqas, your sharia and your polygamy. You’re not wanted in America. She’d only read about it on the news and on blogs before, but now it’s here at her doorstep.

  Arshad’s question echoes in her mind: Why do they hate us so much?

  At times, she finds herself instinctively scuttling out of the way when a White shopper approaches. And then, in retaliation, she lingers over her selection, to hamper an overeager shopper, taking her time to make her choice, determined not to be cowed. What were they thinking? If only they said it out aloud, so she could challenge them.

  An image of the burning playground persists. She imagines Amina caught in the flames, on her favorite swing, shouting to her mother to save her. The thought of being unable to reach her daughter in time sets her heart racing, her feet tripping in panic. The anonymous voices around her blend into an ominous soundtrack to the flickering flames. She wishes Ismail were here; she needs his comforting presence.

  Fiaz’s playful patter helps take her mind off of Irvine. He has lively opinions about everything, including which brand of vegetable oil to use. She searches for the one he suggests, but when she turns around to place it in the cart he’s pushing behind her, he isn’t there anymore.

  For one long moment she freezes: she’s been abandoned here. Then, still clutching the bottle in her hand, she rushes to the end of the aisle, scanning the store for him.

  A relief: he’s standing by an adjacent checkout counter. She’s about to call out, when she observes that he’s conversing with two men: one White, one Black, both in very tight V-neck T-shirts and indecently short shorts, their limbs and chests muscular, smooth and hairless. The three men are laughing and talking, completely at ease with each other. The clerk rings the men up and they collect their bags and take leave of Fiaz, who kisses them both on the lips.

  Tahera knows the men are a homosexual couple, one of the many San Francisco is notorious for. And the fleeting look—guilt? shame?—on Fiaz’s face as he turns around and catches sight of her is enough to confirm another suspicion: Fiaz is gay too.

  It’s obvious now—how could she have been so blind? How Seema and Fiaz must have laughed at her naiveté, scorned her “narrow-mindedness.” A deep flush reddens Tahera’s cheeks.

  “Were you looking for me?” Fiaz has regained his composure. He takes the oil from her and heads back to the cart. “Do you know why the frying pan liked the oil? Because it was so refined!”

  But now that she’s wise to him, she is no longer susceptible to his banter. She maintains a studied silence for the rest of the trip.

  13

  Tuesday night is soccer night at the mosque. Imam Zia had wanted to cancel the session, but the boys wouldn’t have it, and he has roped in Ismail to better control them—many have only learned of the recent incidents at tonight’s isha namaz. Ismail has brought Arshad and Amina along, giving in to Arshad’s wheedling.

  This is Arshad’s first time here, since only those in high school and older are allowed to participate. Imam Zia says Arshad can take part in the training at least, like his friend Jemaal, who usually accompanies his much older brother to isha namaz on soccer nights. Amina is content with her coloring book, but Arshad is glad to be among the men, on the alert for anything more he can learn about the fire in the schoolyard.

  Little had been shared at school, and Arshad and Jemaal have already discussed their meager store of information to exhaustion. Only the swing and the slide had been affected, their charred frames standing out starkly in the cordoned-off play area. The police had made a brief visit that morning.

  Before starting, Imam Zia warns: No more discussions and speculations, no venting their anger in aggression on the field. He has heard outbursts, cuss words, proposals of retaliation. Any such displays, either in word or action, and he’ll end the practice immediately.

  Even so, furious whispers buzz around Arshad as they warm up, first jogging laps, then stretching. His ears are on fire: he hears gasoline, fire bombs.

  Their anger seeps through the dribbling and passing exercises, bubbling open as they practice shooting goals. Jemaal’s brother Emir comes closest to defying Imam Zia. “Burn in hell,” he muffles his scream as he sails the ball into the net. The twins, Rizwan and Sohail, are quiet, as usual, but even they appear on edge, with a grim determination that Arshad can copy without arousing his father’s ire.

  His father had insisted it was nothing, a small fire, probably started accidentally, maybe by a discarded cigarette. An accident! Imam Zia, too, would do nothing, other than once again admonish his jamaat to have patience while the police investigated, like after the defiling of the mosque and the besmirching of the Prophet. As if the police cared enough to catch the cowards who had set fire to his little sister’s swing just because they couldn’t accept the supremacy of Islam over their supplanted religions
.

  The scrimmage is to be seven a side, with Arshad and Jemaal sitting it out. Imam Zia whispers to Arshad’s father: Better that they have the troublemaker Emir on Imam Zia’s team to keep him under control. Ismail can take the twins, who usually respond well to him.

  Amina has put aside her coloring to come cheer for their father. Arshad is torn between loyalty and blossoming admiration: Emir is small but quick and ferocious, and he’s everywhere on the field in the wink of an eye, fearless in tackling larger opponents, unconcerned with hurting himself. He slides to kick the ball away, misses, goes slithering down the synthetic turf, but bounds up again instantly to limp back into play, rolling up the ripped hems of his tracksuit.

  Imam Zia admonishes Emir twice. When it happens a third time, Imam Zia sends him to the back of the field, to the relative passivity of goalkeeping.

  Imam Zia then takes charge of the game. A sorcerer with the ball, he now feints, now swerves, now chops and cuts, steps over and turns, the ball magically tethered to his feet throughout. Stumped at first, unable to even get close to the ball, the other team regroups, energized to wrest it from him amid roars of appreciation and competition. Jemaal runs up and down the side of the field as if drawn along by the ball, hoarse with breathless commentary.

  Arshad watches with mixed feelings his displaced hero’s artistry on the field, while Emir languishes by the goalposts. But when Emir is finally allowed to return to his former position, now chastised and deferential, he joins his teammates urging to be passed the ball when Imam Zia is surrounded and immobilized by determined opponents. Obeying Imam Zia’s instructions, he and the team then press the ball forward toward the goal in well-placed passes.

  They should have dominated the game, scoring goal after goal, were it not for Sohail and Rizwan—Arshad has switched his support back to his father’s team, after the surrender of his latest hero—two pairs of eyes on the ball, two trunks and four pairs of limbs reacting like some coordinated whole, an equally magical defense that even Imam Zia can break through only rarely. But Imam Zia manages to get the ball past them, scooping it over to Emir, who springs into a header. The ball soars past his father’s inadequate arms into the net, while Emir runs screaming back to Imam Zia for a high five.