Sirens of Memory

by Puja Guha

  After two more sips he felt rejuvenated, so he grabbed the tray and made his way down the outdoor hall, moving speedily to make it out of the heat as quickly as possible. Even in late September, the Kuwaiti heat was still going strong. He walked into the sitting room, set the tray down at the table and wiped his brow before making a short announcement about the tea. He was about to retreat to his room—the level of interaction required for his job as a supervisor required a substantial amount of alone time for him to feel functional—when he noticed Mariam enter through the side door.

  Raj greeted her with a small smile and stopped himself from frowning as she drew closer, her eyes were puffy, and her nose was red as if she’d been crying. “Would you like some tea?” he asked, wishing that there was more he could do.

  “Sure, thank you,” Mariam answered. “I’m actually looking for Dinah, I was supposed to help her with the laundry, but I can’t find her anywhere. Have you seen her?”

  Raj handed her a cup and shook his head. He was about to offer to help her look for Dinah when her face contorted at the first sip. “Are you all right?”

  Without a word, she set the cup on the table and fled, leaving him looking after her.

  Could she really have food poisoning again?

  RAJ WAITED FOR Mariam to emerge from the bathroom, battling a sense of déjà vu. How many times has this happened? He’d noticed it twice in the last couple of weeks, and he couldn’t help but recall Janhvi specifically asking him to keep the soldiers away from their quarters, although he had no idea how the two things could be related. He mulled over the possibility but didn’t have much of a chance to reflect on it before she reappeared.

  “I’m all right,” she said without waiting for him to ask how she was doing. “I get a little queasy sometimes, I don’t know why.”

  “Are you sure?” Raj’s thoughts started to run away from him as he recalled a segment he had seen on the news a few months earlier about eating disorders. Could she be bulimic? He racked his brain, trying to recall the signs the program had described, but nothing more than throwing up after eating came to mind.

  “I’m fine.” Mariam brushed past him in the direction of her quarters.

  For a moment, Raj debated following her, then caught up to her in a few steps. “Look, I’m only asking because I’m concerned. Are you quite sure everything’s fine? You’ve had food poisoning a few times now, are you sure it isn’t something more? Are you sick? There’s a doctor coming by in a couple of days…” She met his gaze in silence, and he blurted out his worry before he could stop himself. “I saw this program a few months ago on something called bulimia, an eating disorder, it makes someone throw up everything they eat—”

  “I don’t have an eating disorder,” she interrupted curtly.

  “I’m sorry, I was just asking,” Raj said, taken aback by her tone. “I’ll see you later,” he turned to walk away.

  Mariam sighed and spoke in a gentler tone, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, but I don’t have an eating disorder, and I’m not sick. The nausea is related to…something else.”

  “As long as you’re okay,” Raj raised his eyebrows, wondering if she was going to tell him what the something else was.

  “I’m not sick.” She swallowed before she continued. “I’m pregnant.”

  Raj recoiled in surprise. She’s married? She looked so young he had never imagined that she could be pregnant. He gathered himself. “I feel so stupid. I don’t know why I thought—I guess I just didn’t realize you were married…” his voice trailed off and he kicked himself for behaving like an idiot. You should be thinking about Ritika, he censured himself and tried to remember what she looked like, but he couldn’t recall a single feature of her face.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Let me know if there’s anything you need,” he said before he excused himself in a hurry.

  That evening he drove toward Farwaniya Hospital and stared at the boundary wall for several minutes unable to move. He had already searched for Ritika there, and there was no reason to think that she would appear now, but he had to try.

  She’s your wife, he slammed the car door shut. This is what you’re supposed to be doing.

  Salmiya, Kuwait – September, 1990

  Raj knocked on the door softly and waited for someone to answer. He sighed and looked down at the bottle of prenatal vitamins in his hand, the only thing that his visit to the hospital had yielded. Farwaniya Hospital was still somewhat active, with a few staff working, coaxed on by the soldiers who patrolled at all hours. The remaining staff had continued to care for patients on long-term care, along with the few injured soldiers that they were forced to treat at gunpoint. Raj had managed to get inside to speak to one of the pharmacists who he had recognized from a party some months earlier. They didn’t know each other well, but the recognition helped to initiate the conversation. For a second, Raj had entertained a glimmer of hope—maybe he could get some information about Ritika, but he’d still come up short. Yusuf had said that the soldiers had dragged out some of the Kuwaiti staff, but the remainder had been instructed to keep on working. Many of them were staying at the hospital, sleeping in the on-call rooms.

  Raj had walked the halls one more time, searching the radiology ward where Ritika had worked, and asking anyone he ran into for information. On his way out, he stopped to thank Yusuf again. After a short exchange, he was about to leave when he’d thought of Mariam’s pregnancy and asked about prenatal vitamins.

  Raj glanced at his right hand, holding the bottle that he’d picked up. What made him so compelled to care for Mariam? He wasn’t sure what it was, something about her demeanor, the twinkle in her eyes when she smiled. They hadn’t had many interactions at the camp, she had certainly kept her distance—which made all the more sense now that he knew that she was married—but there was still a connection there. There’s something—I’m not crazy. He rejected the sentiment, reminding himself that he had picked up the vitamins while he was out searching for Ritika.

  Before he could go further down the rabbit hole, Dinah answered the door. He gave her the vitamins along with a short explanation of what they were. Her eyes widened as he spoke, and he felt himself shrinking away involuntarily to shield himself from her disapproval. Dinah thanked him and shut the door, leaving Raj outside, unsure of what was so wrong about what he had done. Shouldn’t the vitamins be helpful? Even if she disapproved of his interaction with Mariam, a little gratitude didn’t seem out of line.

  Raj was about to step away from the room when he heard raised voices inside, and he straightened up abruptly. The voices weren’t speaking in Hindi, or in English, or any other Indian language. Dinah and Mariam were arguing in Arabic. And not just any Arabic—a dialect that he distinctly recognized, one that couldn’t be confused with any other region—Kuwaiti Arabic.

  Washington D.C., USA – May, 2016

  Nadia tossed and turned in bed in a feeble attempt to take a nap two hours after arriving at her parents’ house. Earlier in the week, her mother had told her that Uncle Tareq was out of town and she’d jumped at the chance for a visit. As soon as she got there, she was about to explain what had happened, when her mother preempted her by gushing about how glad she was that he had decided to move in.

  Since then, Nadia had struggled to work up the courage to broach what had happened, how Uncle Tareq had accosted her to find out about Mariam. What he had threatened to do to her, and to them, if she ever told anyone. Every time she opened her mouth to begin her throat turned dry, the words escaped her and remained just out of reach.

  I have to say something.

  She flipped onto her other side once again in frustration, her pillow damp from tears. She had never felt so powerless, his threats had rendered her immobile. When his fingers had closed around her throat, she had even tried to fight back—she had lashed out, almost hit him, but he was almost a foot taller and probably fifty pounds heavier.

  What is he planning to do to Mariam
?

  In the two weeks since her encounter with Uncle Tareq, Nadia had hardly been able to sleep. Anytime the lights dimmed, she returned her to that moment, when his hands had gripped her throat. Her attempts to scream failed. His hold on her only eased when she answered him with Ritika, the first name from Mariam’s credit card. Nadia had been about to submit and blurt out the last name as well, but instead of pushing for more information, he was more interested in doling out a series of four slaps.

  I have to do something. This is not who I am, she kept saying to herself to no avail. At least I didn’t tell him her full name, that has to be worth something. Please be worth something.

  She turned onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, she had never hoped so much for God to stand with her, to save her, her family, and her friend. Nadia tried for the umpteenth time to convince herself that there was nothing to worry about. After all, Mariam was no longer in D.C., she had returned home to Austin where she was safe. Since Uncle Tareq didn’t know her full name, she would remain that way—all Nadia had to worry about was her own safety. That argument, which continued to rage on in the back of her mind, seemed to hold less water with each passing minute.

  I could warn her… I should warn her. She felt his hands on her again.

  What if he tries to kill us? She thought of her parents, of herself, and the vicious circle protracted.

  Nadia wrestled with those thoughts for the next half hour, her head spinning from the internal debate along with the lack of sleep. She had read articles about it in one of her classes at university, how prolonged insomnia could literally make someone go crazy, but she had never considered that it might happen to her. Indeed, she’d never had trouble sleeping, her mother had always claimed that she’d been a great sleeper, even when she was an infant and a toddler. I never cried then, yet now I can’t stop. Nadia bit her lip and gave up, sitting up with her head in her hands.

  There has to be a way out.

  She had always believed that, even in the most difficult of situations. Now, the mere notion of an escape seemed ludicrous, like a fallacy that she’d created from a life without difficulty, a life filled with privilege. The flow of tears increased, tracing her cheekbones to her chin—she had been entirely at his mercy and she was lucky that all he’d wanted to do was slap her, nothing more. Uncle Tareq was far too terrifying, she didn’t dare defy him. There was no point in even trying, she couldn’t risk it, she wasn’t strong enough. She sank back into bed and pulled the covers up to her nose.

  There is no way out.

  Austin, USA – May, 2016

  Mariam walked out of her therapy session and looked around frantically as she reached her Honda CR-V. She pulled the door shut and hit the lock button, then leaned over the steering wheel to catch her breath.

  This has to stop.

  She bit her lip, wishing that therapy could have an instantaneous result. Instead, it made her feel tremendously raw, and she had never been so glad to not have to return to her office.

  Traffic moved at a snail’s pace, but the lack of focus needed to navigate her way home meant she could remain absorbed in her therapy session.

  “Why do you think you keep seeing people that look like Tareq?” Teresa had asked.

  Mariam had found herself stumped. “Maybe I’m still reliving everything that happened? I guess I’m still paranoid about people finding out about him, about holding me responsible for his death?” She shrugged, “I really thought that the worst was behind me, but I keep feeling as if he’s coming for me. This last week—I can’t stand it. Why can’t I get him out of my head?”

  As she drove home, continuing to replay the conversation, Mariam wiped her eyes and turned off of South Congress Avenue onto Drake before steering into her driveway. She switched the engine off and banged her head against her hands, her knuckles white from their grip on the steering wheel.

  Why can’t I let this go? Why can’t I leave him behind? She sobbed for a couple of minutes before composing herself and heading into the house.

  Mariam stepped inside and shivered—the usually warm and toasty house was a mere fifty degrees Fahrenheit. She frowned and checked the living room windows, then noticed that the door to their back porch had been left open. Confused, she shut the door and latched it, thankful that the neighborhood was safe enough for break-ins to be few and far between.

  Raj never leaves the door open. She sunk into a chair at the dining table and pulled off her black cowboy boots. Aliya had bought them for her as a gift a few months earlier, claiming that her mother needed to finally get with the Austin style. Looking at them made Mariam smile, she had so much in her life to be grateful for, so much to help her to deal with and get past all of this insanity with Tareq.

  I can get through this.

  She munched on an apple and decided that she might as well start dinner; Raj would be home in less than an hour and she was already hungry so there was no point in waiting. After checking the contents of the fridge, she pulled out some chicken which she put to marinate in Greek yogurt, based on a new favorite recipe that Dinah had recommended. To add the spice mix, she opened her cabinet and backed away. The spices weren’t in their usual spots. Mariam leaned forward to look for the Kashmiri chili powder only to find the bottle in the second row of her horizontal spice rack. Setting it on the kitchen counter, she rummaged through the cabinet, unable to see the bottle of garam masala anywhere. She looked one more time, this time noticing it two bottles to the left of where the Kashmiri chili powder had been.

  Did Raj reorganize my spices? He’d been complaining about her non-existent organizational system for years—basically her spices were just thrown into the rack in whatever order she felt like on a particular day—but he had never done anything about it despite numerous declarations to the contrary. Mariam started at the top of the rack, pausing on each bottle, looking from the top left to the bottom right. They’re in alphabetical order, she realized with a perplexed smile. I guess he finally fixed it, but why didn’t he tell me? She rubbed her chin, normally a victory like that would have been something he crowed about for days.

  Mariam added the spices to her marinade and decided to let Raj surprise her—after all, he had gone through such an effort. Her spice cabinet was something of a labyrinth and reorganizing it must have been quite the undertaking. She chuckled and practiced feigning disbelief when he told her about the effort that he’d put in.

  She set a pot on the stove to make a sauce for the chicken when she noticed the Bialetti coffee maker on her counter.

  It’s Tareq.

  She froze, and the empty pot clattered as it dropped onto the stove grill and fell to the ground.

  You’re being an idiot, this is insane. Tareq is dead. Her hands wobbled as she placed the pot back on the stovetop and reassured herself in vain. Raj must have taken it out of the cabinet when he reorganized the spices. That’s all, everything is fine.

  Supporting herself against the counter, Mariam looked through the rest of the kitchen cabinets, and let out a sigh of relief that everything else seemed as she had left it. After several deep breaths, she felt calmer.

  Everything is fine.

  Tareq always liked coffee from the Bialetti, a voice in the back of her mind piped up.

  While she and Raj both enjoyed the depth of the slow brewed coffee, most of the time their impatience won out and they elected to use the standard filter coffee machine instead—the Bialetti required at least ten minutes to heat up along with supervision to make sure the coffee didn’t burn. Mariam examined the old Italian percolator before setting it back on the counter, perhaps having it in sight would make them use it. That must be why Raj had left it out, she decided, still unable to assuage her fears. Her eyes ventured to her bedroom door—there was one way to know for sure. Mariam headed for the walk-in closet off of her bedroom, her heart racing as she reached for the light switch.

  “Oh, thank God,” she said aloud when the light turned on, her closet was in the exa
ct state of disarray that she’d left it in that morning. Mariam shook her head, Teresa had said that the paranoia could remain with her until she dealt with all of her emotions, everything had come to the surface following her visit to D.C.

  “Your conversations with Aliya, with Raj, along with the trip, opened up a whole host of memories and emotions that you’ve been suppressing for years. It’s only natural that there would be consequences, although the paranoia is more extreme than I would have expected. Try not to beat yourself up over it though, you’ve been holding in a ton of emotion, this is just your mind’s way of addressing and coping with all of it,” Teresa had said. “Just remember to validate that and you’ll get past this. Tareq is dead, and that part of your life is behind you.”

  Mariam looked up and down her closet again, once again relieved at the disarray of her clothes—her laundry hamper in the corner was overflowing, and her shirts and dresses were hung without any semblance of an organizational system. When she was still with Tareq, keeping her closet in this condition would have earned her a sound beating. She’d never told Raj that was why she relished keeping her clothes in such disorder, but the entropy of her closet comforted her and reminded her that Tareq no longer had control over her. Being messy was an aspect of Mariam Qatami that he had repressed, something that she had allowed to flourish since the first day that she’d escaped him.

  She heard the front door unlock, followed by Raj’s voice.