A Place for Us

by Fatima Farheen Mirza

  He tells his father he will be right back. His father nods and continues on without him. The Ali house is grand and beautiful, and Amar knows every corridor. All that playing hide-and-seek in the dark, even now he could close his eyes and find his way. The corridor to his right has a staircase that leads upstairs, one used only by the Ali family. He stands at the foot of the staircase. Behind him, he hears murmurs, no one wanting to speak loudly in a house of mourning. It is a risk to walk upstairs, an even greater risk to walk straight down the hall to her bedroom and knock on her door, and perhaps there would be nothing more shameful for the two of them than if they were caught, speaking alone in an empty bedroom.

  But this is his life. This is exactly what he wants to do with it. He walks straight to the door he’s known for years was hers and feels his knuckles touch it for the first time. An entire minute passes. He turns twice to look at the empty hallway behind him, afraid to hear any approaching footsteps. Then the door opens. Just enough to reveal her face, then a little more. This—that she opened the door wider upon seeing his face—feels like an accomplishment. His chest pinches when he sees the way crying has exhausted her features. He feels guilty for his quickening heartbeat, guilty for how aware he is that they are alone. She steps back from the door, giving him a space to enter, and he does.

  “I couldn’t be downstairs,” she confesses, as though they were already friends. She speaks in a voice unlike the one he remembers. “Too many people. No one who really knew him.”

  He wondered, on the drive, how they would address what had happened. And now he sees it is as easy as saying “knew” instead of “know.” Her eyes rimmed red are a shocking green. He takes in the little details of her bedroom—a wide bed by the window, the curtains open, the vicious downpour of rain outside. Her walls have been painted a robin’s-egg blue. There is a white desk beside him and on it a framed photograph that looks like it has been set down where it does not belong. He lifts it. It is a picture of the four of them—Abbas, Saif, Kumail, and her. Abbas’s smiling face is young, and Amar remembers that was the year they had all gone camping with the mosque group, and he and Abbas had taken a walk without turning on their flashlights. They thought that was courage. They stood in the center of a dark trail and listened to the sounds of the night. The pattern of the spaces between leaves that moonlight made on the path. The force of the wind through all those trees. He feels sick, almost dizzy, but tries to compose himself; he has not come to be comforted.

  “It’s from Kumail’s birthday,” she says, and he realizes he has not looked up from the photograph. Her voice is soft. She continues, “That night we all went out to dinner. Just the four of us. Abbas Bhai had just gotten his first job, and he was eager to pay.”

  “That sandwich shop,” he says.

  Abbas had only worked there for seven months, but he bragged about his skills for years to come, made them sandwiches when they were hanging out.

  “It was exciting because our parents weren’t there, because we were doing something sort of grown up for once. At least that is why I was excited. I don’t think they would have included me if it hadn’t been Kumail’s birthday.”

  She does not look away from his face when she speaks to him.

  “That’s not true,” he tries.

  She smiles, very slightly, as though she had not wanted to. It falls from her face quickly. She bites her lip then releases it. The door behind him is all but closed. They are so alone. Even if they spoke in hushed voices, anyone standing outside would be able to hear them. And if he knows it, so must she, but still she does not ask him to step away.

  “This was the year we—”

  “Broke the kitchen window?” She half smiles again.

  “I was going to say all went to the camp.”

  She was right. That year he kicked the soccer ball so hard the kitchen window shattered. The four of them—Kumail, Abbas, Saif, Amar—stared at the space where the glass had been for a good minute, until Seema Aunty’s shocked face appeared there, and even when she began yelling none of them blamed him.

  “You didn’t come back for weeks after that,” she says.

  Amar feels so shy that she remembers he cannot think of anything to say.

  “I got your note,” he finally speaks.

  She frowns slightly and he wonders if it was a mistake to bring it up.

  “Out of everyone, I was hoping you would come,” she says.

  She might be the bravest person he has ever met, saying what she thinks and feels without fear or hesitation.

  She adds, “You were one of his closest friends. He would have wanted you here.”

  Abbas gone and never coming back. Her voice is so sad it makes him want to touch her, it seems wholly unbelievable that they are not allowed to touch one another, that he cannot even offer an embrace to comfort her. How could something so simple, for the sake of solace in a time like this, be a sin?

  Her hair falls in her face and covers a corner of her eye. It suits her. What doesn’t suit her? But her eyes are so beautiful he wants to move her hair just to look upon their full effect. He looks to the ceiling, clenches his hand into fists.

  “He loved you a lot,” he says, his words sounding foolish, so predictable as soon as they are spoken. But it was true. One of the reasons Amar loved and respected Abbas was because of the way he spoke about the people he loved.

  “And he spoke of you often,” he tries again. “More than the rest of them.”

  That seems to make her smile, and this time she lets it stay.

  4.

  LAYLA HAD THOUGHT THE SEPARATION FROM HER FAMILY would be harder to bear, but when she steps from the plane into the airport for her layover, she only worries for her father, waiting for her in a hospital in Hyderabad. In this airport she is someone without anyone—without Rafiq, without her children—and it is refreshing, lonely in a way that being alone in her room is not. I am Layla, she thinks, as she drags her carry-on through the airport, studies the screen that displays the Departures and Arrivals, stops to purchase gum, and finds her gate without asking anyone. And as she watches the slowly moving planes make their way across the tarmac, she feels a strengthening in her aloneness, a comfort in knowing she can rely on herself.

  It is also comforting to realize her self un-witnessed is in harmony with her self seen. That she discreetly does the minimal wudhu in the bathroom, seeks out a room in the airport where she can pray. That despite the fact that no one would know if she skipped her prayers and slept as she wanted to, she unfolds a napkin on the floor, sets down a small sajdagah, and prays. And as she lifts her cupped hands in prayer, she recalls Amar’s question from months ago, do you pray for yourself and God or do you pray because you’re told to? And before she dismisses the thought, she thinks now she could answer Amar with honesty: I pray for myself, and for God, who is my witness.

  Three days ago, her father had a heart attack while Layla was dropping her kids off at school. She came home to an empty house and the answering machine light flashing red, a message from Sara at a moment when their father’s recovery was unpredictable.

  “You should go,” Rafiq said on the phone, before she even finished explaining what had happened.

  “The tickets,” she said, thinking of how expensive they were, the reason she had not made many trips back in the past, and never on a whim. Always it was her parents who would come and stay with them for months. They gave Layla company in the daytime, and on the weekends the whole family would take trips to see the Golden Gate Bridge, or the Mystery Spot. They were planning on coming for Hadia’s high school graduation at the end of this school year, and Layla called them every week to remind them to book their tickets, that Americans took graduations very seriously, and that it would mean a lot to Hadia if they came.

  “It does not matter,” Rafiq said, dismissing her concern. “He is your father.”

&
nbsp; She was grateful his first response was to suggest exactly what she needed and wanted to do. But who would drop off and pick up the children? School had begun just a week earlier. It was still early in September. Amar was in seventh grade now and had joined the soccer team, wanting a break from basketball, Huda was a junior, and Hadia was eighteen and in her senior year. Layla had never left the three of them in the house alone for more than a few hours, her girls never cooked the meals she made but experiments they pulled from cookbooks, and Amar fought with them often, which always angered Rafiq—and perhaps her biggest worry of all was that she could not trust Amar and Rafiq to be left in the same room alone for too long.

  “Layla. We will take care of it. I will cancel my work trip next week,” Rafiq said, when she asked him how they would manage.

  Her tickets were booked before Rafiq returned home from work. And Layla swelled with love for him, her love born from gratitude.

  When it is time to board the plane to Hyderabad she steps inside with her right foot first. As she walks down the aisle she looks at each seat number to make sure it is not her own, clutching her purse and passport in her hands, and it is Oliver Hansen she thinks she sees, Amar’s teacher from years ago, tucking his bag beneath the seat before him and sitting up to buckle his belt, but of course it is not him. It surprises her: who returns in thought when one is so far from familiar life. She finds her place, recites her prayers, and soon feels the mighty force of the plane take off from the runway, pushing her back into her seat.

  * * *

  FOUR YEARS AGO, Amar was in the third grade for the second time, and finally flourishing. Layla was grateful for two things that year. The first was that Mark had continued to be his friend, despite the new grade gap between them. She felt for her son, who watched his classmates move on to another classroom, eat during a different lunch time, open a new set of textbooks. Still, Mark remained loyal, and Layla loved him for it. Layla became friends with Mark’s mother, Michelle, an articulate woman with a closet full of bright dresses and matching shoes, and a soft-spoken demeanor that was so different from her rambunctious son’s. At Christmas, Layla would gift Michelle a box of chocolates, a video game for Mark, and write their family a small card that Hadia checked over for her. Michelle waited in the kitchen when she came to pick up Mark, and while the boys finished up their games or begged for five minutes more, Layla made her tea the way she liked it, without Carnation milk and without any sugar, and the two of them spoke of the boys’ antics; or Michelle, who had no daughters, asked about Hadia and Huda, and complimented Layla on having raised daughters who were sweet and polite. Even Rafiq, who was hesitant when it came to school friends, suggested inviting Mark if they were going to get pizza, or going to the movies, knowing how excited Amar would be to call and ask.

  The second thing she was grateful for that year was Amar’s third-grade teacher, Mr. Hansen, a young man who had just left graduate school. Amar spoke endlessly at dinner about Mr. Hansen. He recounted what Mr. Hansen had taught him, or what joke he had made even if it was not funny when repeated, or would announce to everyone if a movie came on television and Amar happened to know it was Mr. Hansen’s favorite.

  “Can we hear about something else, Amar?” Rafiq half joked one night.

  But later, when the children got up to clear the table, Layla gently reminded him, “He’s excited about school for once. Let’s be grateful.”

  Excited about school, and responsible too; for the first time he had been the one to remind them of the parent–teacher meeting. Rafiq sighed. They always went together. They listened to the complaints in silence. Layla would nod, look around the room, and try to picture her son there, scan the little desks and wonder which one was Amar’s.

  “I can’t skip work that day,” Rafiq said.

  “He’s doing well this year,” Layla said. “I can go alone.”

  The lights in the classroom were off, a purple tint, some of the curtains drawn. It was late afternoon. Amar was to wait for her on the picnic table outside and she made him promise three times he would not budge from it. He asked her to take him to get ice cream if he kept his promise, regardless of the news she received in the meeting, and because she was three minutes away from being late, she agreed. It had been years since he and Hadia and Huda had been in the same school, and still she felt the loss of that change, how comforted she would be when she said good-bye to them in the morning and watched the three of them trudge off, knowing that at least when they left her sight they would be near one another. How would she present herself, what would she say? Sometimes when in public she was so shy others assumed she did not speak English, and they would ask Rafiq or Hadia to ask her something, and she would feel deeply embarrassed, too embarrassed to respond fluently in English as she knew how to. Mr. Hansen was sitting at his desk, his head bent, hands busy shuffling papers, and she could see his light brown hair had been neatly combed, and that he had worn a tie. She knocked beneath the light switches and his head jerked up, and she asked, “Mr. Hansen?” and felt the questions she had prepared during the drive over leave her. He was so very young. Why had she come without Rafiq, who always knew what to say?

  “Please, call me Oliver,” he said, and he stood with his hand resting at the center of his tie. It was red with three navy blue stripes at the bottom. He didn’t offer a hand to shake and she was grateful. He gestured at the open seat across from him and waited to sit until she took her place.

  “So you’re Amar’s mother,” he said, smiling, and Layla felt relief, a smile there instead of a concerned look, which she was so used to from Amar’s teachers who were careful with their words, perhaps out of fear of hurting her. His jittery excitement allowed Layla’s own nerves to relax.

  “Layla,” she said, touching her own chest, and realizing for the first time that giving a name was its own kind of intimacy.

  “Your son might be my favorite of them. I know that isn’t something I should say. He’s in here at lunch sometimes, I give him books to read, we discuss.”

  “Very kind of you. He has a hard time—he, he doesn’t like school very much.”

  Oliver nodded. Then said, “Certain kids you have to learn how to teach. Amar is like that. You have to know how to approach him. What to say that will ignite his curiosity, his wonderment. He doesn’t really respond to criticism. And he doesn’t try at all if he doesn’t want to. But if he thinks he can do something well, or if he wants to, he does. You just have to be patient, a little delicate.”

  Layla wished she had brought a notebook that she could write in to help her remember what he was saying, to show Rafiq later. She glanced around the room, at the whiteboard with a chore chart corner, at Amar’s name written in uppercase, beside “Paper passer,” and the wall covered with sloppy paintings of faces under SELF-PORTRAITS, the rows of empty desks.

  “That one is his,” Oliver said, pointing to the desk in the second row. It was not as messy as some of the ones around it, with bent papers sticking out of the built-in shelves.

  To be patient with him, to be delicate, to know how to approach him. To be patient, to know how to make him curious, to criticize less, to be delicate.

  She asked Oliver if Amar was caught up with the other children in math, history, sciences.

  “He is very good at writing. Look. Here is an assignment we did on heroes.”

  He passed her a sheet of paper with a photograph attached with a paper clip. She was startled to see the photograph was of her, holding an open envelope, young. She was not wearing a scarf. Rafiq had taken it when they were first married. She stared at a version of herself with dark eyeliner rimming her eyes, and dangling, golden earrings, and her ink-black wavy hair, and her fitted pink shalwar kameez. She remembered how she did not know Rafiq was standing in the doorway with his camera until he called her name, and when she looked up he had clicked. There was an expression of surprise on her face, her m
outh a little open, barely a smile but the hint of one. That was the year his camera was always pointed at her if he brought it down from the high shelf where he kept it, a year before Hadia was born and the only photographs of her became ones where she was holding their children. She did not know what album this photo was in, or how Amar had found it, or what had possessed him to bring it to class without asking her first.

  “I didn’t know he had taken it,” was all she could think to say, and she looked up at Oliver, watching her, his face full of pride that confused her, as though he were the one proud of Amar and not she. She was suddenly embarrassed he had seen her without her scarf, or a younger version of herself, and then wondered if the woman who entered his classroom with her face aged and hair covered disappointed him somehow.

  “You can take the project with you, it may not seem like much,” he said. “But if you read all of the other kids’ work, you would know a lot of them wrote about imaginary superheroes, and you would see how good his writing is. The details he chooses. I told him it was excellent. I gave him an A.”

  Layla thanked him and held the paper and photograph in her lap.

  “You’re the last one,” he told her. “You can stay as long as you’d like.”

  So she asked some questions she remembered she wanted to, like what they were learning next, and if he could sense Amar’s progress, if he was disruptive in class, and what Oliver meant exactly about being patient with him, if that meant that he was slower to understand or just that he needed kindness when being asked to understand something. Then she asked about Oliver. It was his first and perhaps only year teaching, this was a one-year assignment. And she told him that was too bad, that he seemed like the kind of teacher more students needed.