by Puja Guha
Farwaniya Hospital, Kuwait – July, 1990
Mariam walked into her bedroom and rocked the bassinet where her baby daughter was just dozing off. Her beautiful big eyes opened and closed a few times before she finally fell asleep to the melody as Mariam sung an old Kuwaiti folk song.
With the baby asleep, Mariam took a few minutes to take a quick shower and change her clothes, tossing the shirt that she’d been wearing into the laundry pile. It, like many of her other clothes, now smelled like milk and it seemed impossible to get her laundry done fast enough to keep up with the burps and spills associated with new motherhood. Every fiber of her being was exhausted, but she couldn’t imagine anything more wonderful. There was nothing like the joy of watching her sweet little Aliya smile, sleep, or even suck on her breastmilk.
She heard a car pull into the driveway outside and froze, then took a deep breath. Tareq had been in a better mood for the last couple of days, there was no reason to believe it wouldn’t continue. Mariam had temporarily moved her stash of books to Dinah’s, eliminating his most likely trigger—she didn’t want to risk anything that might set him off, and so far, it had been working. They had had a few altercations, but nothing compared to almost a year ago when he’d thrown her through the coffee table. She glanced down at her left arm and rotated her hand, noticing the faint scar along her elbow. It was hardly visible unless you were looking for it, but that wrist still got sore more easily than the other one.
Mariam heard the door slam downstairs, and her heart skipped a beat. He must be in a bad mood today. She looked around frantically, wishing there was something she could do to appease him, to cheer him up. He had shown little interest in Aliya, simply commenting that she didn’t “do much” as a newborn, but secretly Mariam was just grateful that he hadn’t been violent.
For a second, she contemplated locking her door and not letting Tareq in, but she didn’t dare do anything to provoke him. Instead, she checked her reflection to make sure that she looked reasonably put together and decided to head him off at the stairs.
She greeted him, and he replied tersely, then disappeared into his room. Mariam relaxed, relieved that the worst was probably behind her, at least for that day, and settled down on the rocking chair next to the bassinet with a fairy tale. She would have preferred one of her old books, but she was thankful that Tareq had at least allowed her to buy a few old fairy tales to read out loud to Aliya. Mariam had already read them so many times, but without any other options, she picked up Sleeping Beauty yet again and proceeded to read about Princess Aurora being smuggled away to hide in the forest as a newborn.
Her door opened, jarring her from the story, and she looked up to see Tareq in the doorway. One glance at his face told her she was in trouble; her earlier relief had been nothing but a mirage. She attempted to greet him again, but the next thing that she knew he had wrenched her up from the rocking chair and thrown her to the floor. He was yelling at her, but she couldn’t understand what he was saying. Aliya awoke and started to cry, and Mariam struggled to her feet to go comfort her, but before she could reach the bassinet, Tareq had her on the ground again. He smacked her twice across the face, and Aliya cried even louder.
“Why won’t she stop crying?” he yelled out.
“Tareq, stop, please,” Mariam whimpered, trying to get to her feet when he stood and moved toward the bassinet, a thunderous expression on his face.
“TAREQ, NO!” MARIAM screamed as she woke up in a cold sweat. She thrashed out with her hands and her torso convulsed with sobs. My baby…
“Mariam? Mariam, are you okay?” Dinah’s voice came from her right.
Mariam opened her eyes, and her chest heaved—the hospital room felt like it was closing in on her, the stark white descending upon her like a cage she’d never escape. She put her hands on her belly and realized it had been a nightmare. She hadn’t given birth yet…
“Mariam, it was just a dream,” Dinah said, grabbing her hand again. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been so hard on you.”
“No, you were right.” She stared at the white ceiling, finally accepting what she had realized as soon as she had woken up in the hospital but had been unable to admit to herself.
I have to get out.
She would never be able to trust Tareq not to hurt her again, and she certainly couldn’t risk that around her child. Perhaps she could have stomached it before, out of some sense of duty or inability to break free, but everything was different now. Whatever else she might have wanted from her life, there was nothing more important now. My little Aliya. Mariam allowed herself the tiniest of smiles at the name, her mother’s name. I have to protect her.
“Help me, Dinah. You’re right. I have to get away from him.”
Washington D.C., USA – December, 2015
Nadia pretended to smile, This should be a good thing. “Thank you so much,” she managed to say.
“Of course, it’s my pleasure,” her boss said. “I know how much you wanted to be able to bring your family along to the party. New employees don’t usually get a plus-one, certainly not a plus two, so I had to pull some strings but luckily it worked out. It will be great to meet them—especially your uncle, you said he was a P.O.W.?”
Nadia feigned enthusiasm, “Yes. Taken in Kuwait after the invasion, then held in Baghdad for three years before he was released.”
“Wow, what a story. I can’t wait to hear more.”
When her boss walked away, Nadia shrank down into her armchair and let out a long sigh. At her mother’s urging, she had requested tickets to the twenty-fifth anniversary celebration for her family shortly after accepting the job. She had regretted it immediately—introducing Uncle Tareq to the people that she worked with only seemed like a good idea if you had never met him. Nadia had been relieved when her boss said he wouldn’t be able to acquire extra tickets, but now that he had walked that back, she had no clue what to do.
He’s such an ass, everyone thinks he’s a hero because he was held prisoner, but he’s awful. She shivered, he had been so mean to her when she’d last seen him. After her parents’ friends had arrived with their twenty-nine-year-old son Bassam in tow, of course, Nadia had suffered through the interaction. While his parents were actually quite interesting— they told funny stories and were clearly well-read—Bassam couldn’t string two sentences together.
By the time they left, even Nadia’s mother was in agreement that she shouldn’t give him the time of day. That, however, had sparked a full-on argument about how Nadia wanted her parents to have nothing to do with her love life, and had to stop meddling. The discussion—not that it could really be called that given how much shouting had been involved—had dissolved into a highly emotional rant that had severely hurt her mother’s feelings. While they had spoken over the phone since, the hurt and scars remained, although Nadia refused to capitulate to her mother’s wishes. There would be no more set-ups, that much she was sure of.
Her uncle’s involvement, though, had been the most painful. After the argument had erupted, Nadia had retreated to her old bedroom to stew, while her parents attempted to take their normal afternoon siesta—one of the benefits of being retired. Once her emotions had cooled, Nadia returned to the living room to watch a show on Netflix until her parents woke, which is when her uncle had cornered her. The conversation started with him castigating her: “Respect for your elders is of paramount importance,” “What worth do women have without a man,” etc. Her blood was boiling by the time he was done, but somehow, she had kept her mouth shut—she couldn’t imagine how her mother would react if she raised her voice to him, especially after how poorly the afternoon had gone. When he was done, he asked, “Do you agree with everything I said? I want you to tell me you understand.”
His voice, the eeriness of the look on his face alarmed her enough to stifle her anger, but apparently, it was visible anyway. Nadia shuddered, wishing she could forget how he had come toward her and shaken her by the shoulders; he’d seemed ab
out to scream, but instead, he had whispered, “You will show me the respect I deserve, little girl. Do you think you can challenge me? That you can stand up to me? You are nothing without men like me. You deserve nothing and will never have anything unless another man supports you.”
Nadia shut her eyes tight, the memory was still incredibly painful. She had always thought she would be able to stand up to someone if they came at her like that—not that she’d ever had occasion to test it before. I should have said something, she thought, still unsure why her mouth had been sealed shut, all of her inner strength gone in the moment that she needed it the most. Prior to that encounter, her uncle had made her uncomfortable many times, but she had never experienced anything like that: the complete powerlessness and loss of her own agency.
She had been saved by her father coming into the living room. Nadia had considered telling him about what had happened or speaking to her mom, but she couldn’t bear the thought that she would be told to live with it, or that her feelings would be dismissed. Did I imagine it? Would he really have hurt me? She wiped her eyes and deliberated what to do, she couldn’t imagine bringing her uncle to the event, although her mother would be there to run interference. It would make Mom so happy, and maybe it would show him the respect he deserves, she rationalized. Before she could second guess her decision, Nadia sent her mom a text message to tell her the good news.
Once the message was gone, she took a deep breath. It’s going to be okay. Taking her uncle would show him that she didn’t disrespect him, that she was trying to honor him, and hopefully, he would never have occasion to speak to her like that again. Thank God he said he doesn’t want to move in. She couldn’t imagine having to interact with him every time she made a visit home.
Nadia’s phone buzzed with her mother’s reply, “That’s wonderful! Tareq will be so happy. I’m so glad we can go as a family.”
With another shudder, Nadia locked her phone screen and stepped away from her desk to make herself a cup of coffee, hoping that it would squash the trepidation in the pit of her stomach.
Austin, USA – December, 2015
Raj looked at Mariam and did his best to control his pent-up frustration—she had been going to therapy for weeks now, yet he still felt as if they were spinning their wheels. He had originally pushed her toward therapy for her, as a route to get past her nightmares, and to accept her past. Her initial reluctance had exposed a key vulnerability in his own logic on the subject: if he thought that she needed therapy to deal with the trauma of the Gulf War, then why didn’t he? Until recently, neither of them had ever spoken to a therapist about their experiences, about the sudden invasion and their time at the refugee camp. Most importantly for him, he had never addressed his emotions around the death of his first wife Ritika, whose identity Mariam had assumed upon their evacuation from Kuwait. The logic that had compelled him to take Mariam to therapy had, in turn, pushed him toward doing the same, especially combined with the persuasive capabilities of his daughter Aliya. Raj sighed, Aliya didn’t even know that she wasn’t his biological child. She is one hundred percent my daughter, but she deserves to know that Mariam was married before. It seemed like such a half-truth that Aliya knew about his first wife yet nothing about Mariam’s first husband.
In his therapy sessions over the last month, Raj finally opened up on the subject. He had so many questions, most of which had never been answered. When he had tried to address them in the past, Mariam had tactfully dodged them, and after that had happened enough times, he’d stopped asking. Despite that, the questions had remained, in fact, they had grown, doubled in size because of their suppression over the years. Why wasn’t Mariam willing to tell Aliya about her first husband? Why had she decided to live her entire life under someone else’s identity? He had never loved Ritika, had never had the opportunity to develop that intensity of emotion for her in the short time that he had known her, but a sense of responsibility remained. She died during the Gulf War. Ritika had died and he had moved on, and everything had happened so fast. He understood exactly why Mariam had used that identity to leave Kuwait, how that had been the start of a new life together for the two of them. But why continue it? Why not use her real name once the evacuation was over? Once the invasion had ended?
At the heart of all his questions was guilt, as he had discovered somewhere between the extra reflection he’d been doing and his therapy sessions. I feel guilty…I am guilty. How could he give someone else Ritika’s identity, to compromise her memory, even if it was the person closest to him in the world? And why on earth did she want to do that? There has to be something she’s not telling me. Whenever he thought about it, he came to the same conclusion: it was too late for it to stop, too late to change the paperwork that said she was Ritika M. Ghosh, but he needed to hear the whole story. Whatever it is, she has to tell me. He could feel the secret, palpable in the air between them—from his side, the fact that he hadn’t shared any of these bubbling emotions, and from hers, the answers that she continued to hide. A few weeks ago, he was hopeful, when he first confronted his feelings—she was in therapy already, it was only a matter of time until she opened up, but that day had never come.
Raj resisted the urge to slam his fist on the dinner table and zeroed in on his plate, applying tremendous focus to cut his slice of lamb roast into tiny bite-size pieces without saying a word. He didn’t trust himself to start the conversation—at least not today—he was far too likely to lose his cool. Friday night at the end of a long work week was hard enough under normal circumstances, but this week had extended far beyond tough—his crew’d had two near disasters in as many days, and their client was threatening to pull the entire project if they billed for any of the extra hours.
Mariam shot him a look from across the table, “No conversation over dinner today?”
Her voice sounded testy, much like he felt, so Raj set down his knife and fork and took a deep breath, “Sorry, darling, it’s been a hell of a week. How are you? How was your day?” Don’t lose it, not right now, he reminded himself. He had only just reached his boiling point after realizing that she seemed less and less likely to bring it up, and he wanted a chance to talk about how he would broach the subject before he blew the lid off the whole thing. Stay on target, the quote from Star Wars echoed through his head.
“The day was okay,” Mariam shrugged. “This season is crazy, but nothing unusual. Everyone just wants to buy gifts for Christmas, so we’re all working extra hours restocking books, talking to customers, stuff like that. I’m pretty tired too, from being on my feet all week, and I wish I didn’t have to go in tomorrow.”
“That’s too bad, I forgot you have to work Saturdays now,” Raj felt his shoulders relax, he wanted some alone time in the morning. This would be his first day off in a while, and he had scheduled a therapy session for midday—having the morning to himself beforehand would be perfect, even though he would never have wanted to hurt Mariam’s feelings by asking for that, had she been at home.
“It’s okay, I love the job. Do you want to talk about what happened this week? Did anything else happen today?”
“Not really, I’m exhausted.”
They sat quietly for a few minutes, Raj forking the meat into his mouth and chewing slowly. He only broke the silence to comment on how delicious the lamb was, roasted in the oven with a ton of flavorful spices—he couldn’t distinguish all of them, but he could detect the cumin, cardamom, and cinnamon melding together with the onions and garlic to bring the best out of the meat. Helping himself to another bite, Raj couldn’t help but sigh—Mariam seldom cooked Arab dishes, even though she could clearly prepare them to perfection. Is that another sign of her forcing herself to be Ritika? She cooked Indian food far more than Arab, but in the last couple of weeks she had made more Arab dishes—was that a sign of change? Was he expecting too much too fast to know all the details of her secrets right now? He meditated on that, wondering if he should bring up his discomfort with her use of Ritika’s n
ame and identity. I just want her to tell me why, is that really too much to ask?
He was lost in thought when Mariam thumped her water glass down on the table, an obvious attempt to get his attention. “Raj, what is going on with you? You’ve barely said two words to me this evening.” She gave him another one of her looks, usually only reserved for Aliya during her rebellious teenage years, “Talk to me. There’s clearly something going on, and I don’t think it’s just about work.”
“Can we talk about this tomorrow? I’m so tired,” Raj stood and picked up his mostly empty plate, glad that he had wolfed it down.
Mariam’s eyes narrowed, and she looked both angry and hurt, “Sure. Do whatever you want.”
Something in her tone struck a nerve with him, “Whatever I want? Do whatever I want? We’ve been doing what you want for the last twenty-five years.”
Her eyes started to tear up, “What are you getting at?”
“You make all the decisions—you wanted to immigrate to the U.S., so we left India. You wanted to live in Boulder, so we did, then you decided that you liked Austin, so we moved here. You wanted to keep living as Ritika and Raj, so we did!” The last phrase burst from his mouth before he could stop it and he felt a pang of immediate regret as her face contracted.
“If you had such a problem with it, you didn’t have to marry me!”
Raj pulled his chair closer to hers, sat down, and grabbed both of her hands, his anger already starting to dissipate. He didn’t want to hurt her, and he did love her, he just wanted her to talk to him. I need to understand. “Mariam, you and I never got married. We never got to do that—because you were living under Ritika’s name. We have all these secrets, you don’t see anyone in your family, and Dinah is the only one who even knows that you’re a whole different person now. My parents still don’t understand what’s going on, I tried to explain it to them, but—how could I? I don’t understand myself.”