The Time He Desires

by Kyell Gold

  Recovering a little of his composure, Aziz leaned forward. "Are you sure you aren't coaxing me to leave my marriage so you'll feel better about leaving yours?"

  The cougar's smile vanished. He opened his mouth and then closed it again. Aziz went on. "I have experience, too. I have seen divorce, and have a friend who had already made up her mind to leave her husband. This was years ago. For months before the divorce, she asked 'hypothetical' questions of everyone: if you made a promise years ago but the circumstances around the promise change, do you have to keep it? If two people agreed to keep a garden together but one decided that she didn't like gardening anymore, did the other have to do his share as well? You talk divorce very casually, but it is a weighty thing, to throw away this promise."

  "I'm not 'throwing it away.' I'm...I'm not sure it applies anymore."

  "Do you know why we have a strict prohibition against adultery?"

  "Because marriage is God's law, I guess."

  "It is a legal binding. The prohibition against adultery is because it is an 'evil deed,' that's what the Qu'ran says about it. It's breaking a promise, a vow, and in so doing you allow yourself to break other vows. It's not because it will anger your god or anything like that. It's because the promises you make are important, and keeping them is important, and if you choose to end a promise, you should think about it and actually make an end to it, rather than just stopping because you don't feel the same as you did three years ago."

  Gerald's ears lowered. "So I should have to keep this promise even though we've both changed?"

  "You have both changed," Aziz said. "Who's to say you might not change back?"

  "Is that what you hope? That your feelings will go away and you can go back to your business arrangement of a marriage?"

  "I don't know what I hope. I only know that things are changing all around me." Aziz looked up at the glass towers with their bright concrete patios. "And so I can't stay the same. But do I go with my wife or try to find my own way? And if you're right about me, then my dissatisfaction is the result of feelings I can't act on, so why not stay with a wife who is pleased with our 'business arrangement,' as you put it?"

  "Your faith is the problem, not your wife. Why not go ahead and be yourself? Most of my friends who grew up Christian don't go to church anymore. Any god that would make you a certain way and then forbid you to act on the way he made you doesn't deserve your faith anyway."

  Aziz shook his head. "That's nonsensical." He stopped himself. "I'm sorry. My faith is part of my world. That would be like...telling someone to cure their pollen allergy by ceasing to breathe. I can't ignore or give up my beliefs."

  Gerald held up a finger. "But you said your son did. Have you talked to him about your feelings?"

  "No."

  "You should. Maybe he'd have some insight."

  "He's given up his faith completely," Aziz said.

  "But you still talk to him." The cougar raised his eyebrows.

  A breeze swirled through the atrium, ruffling Aziz's fur. "To be honest," he said slowly, "it is my wife who talks to him. I suspect. She has not admitted it."

  "You're the one who cut him off." Gerald did not seem surprised by this information. When Aziz nodded, the cougar smiled very slightly. "And now you're in the same position he was in. You feel now how hard it must have been for him?"

  "No," Aziz snapped. "Because he never took his faith seriously. Here in the States, faith is not so important. Like you and your husband, like 'most everyone you know,' this country values the individual more than the spiritual."

  "It's not that we don't value the spiritual."

  Aziz cut Gerald off. "This focus on the individual means that this is a country of individuals. Nobody feels any duty to anyone else. And I'm holding on to my faith because I am letting go in other areas. Look: I own a store and these people," his paw gestured up at the towers around them, "are coming in to tear down our stores and our neighborhood, and I and all the other store owners are letting them do it. Why? Because they are paying us a lot of money. It is a good business decision, which means it is good for my wife and me. Individual gain. So I'm holding on to my faith, the one part of my life where I do think of others and I do think of my community, and now..." He remembered the fox in the mosque. "Now even that is threatened. Maybe."

  "You haven't told anyone, have you?" Gerald tilted his head. "You barely told me."

  "Someone overheard." Aziz cut himself off. No need to make Gerald feel bad about talking to him in his shop. "Or saw me. At the bar, I mean."

  "Oh." Gerald rubbed his whiskers. "Sorry about that, again."

  Aziz shook his head. "Think nothing of it. I lied to you...several times. I'm not proud of that."

  "It's scary." Gerald slumped back in his chair.

  The cheetah nodded. "So is ending a marriage."

  "Well, not as scary as the truck at the front of your convoy getting blown up." Gerald stared down at the table. "I guess, not as immediately life-threatening."

  "But you're creating the fear," Aziz said. "Not reacting to it. Reacting is easier because you don't have to make decisions."

  "True." Gerald smiled. "Hey, you still need to eat. Want to go somewhere that isn't here? I hadn't realized how you felt about this place taking over the neighborhood."

  Aziz shook his head. "We have food at home. I will probably eat there. And I should talk to my wife--about our son, if nothing else."

  "All right. Hey, let me give you my number. If you want to talk again, just text me. I'm usually free in the evenings."

  "Of course." Aziz took out his phone and they exchanged numbers.

  While Gerald took his trash to the bin, Aziz stood and examined the towers and the shopping plaza around him. Most of the stores and kiosks were closed now, and few people roamed the intricate stairs and walkways of the mall. But above them more people sat out on their patios, enjoying the cool spring night, and if he tuned out the piped-in music of the shopping center, he could catch murmurs of conversation drifting down to him. He put a paw to his back, but the ache there had diminished and was barely noticeable now.

  "Heading out?" Gerald followed his gaze up to the apartments. "Yeah, those are really something, eh? I thought they looked weird in this neighborhood. Really didn't like them at first, but I'm getting used to them."

  "You know about Port City belonging to the squirrel tribe, I think it was?" Aziz fell into step with the cougar toward one of the stairs.

  "Yeah, the main island." Gerald gestured in the general direction of the cluster of skyscrapers that marked Port Island at the center of the metropolis, hidden now behind blue glass and concrete.

  "It seems to me that this is somewhat the same thing that is going on now. The Vorvarts people are buying the land from those who hold title to it to move in their own settlers." He looked up again at the apartments. Here inside the structure, they only reflected each other. "It's not fair to the people who are moving out, but the people moving in are people, too. We all have to live somewhere."

  Gerald nodded. "I've only lived here less than a year, but all the old people talking about how this is ruining the neighborhood--I don't see it. I guess the argument is, these people can afford to live anywhere, so why do they have to take the homes of people who've lived here for decades? But nothing lasts forever, does it?" He snorted. "There's people talking about Times Square and how much better it was when it smelled like piss and was full of X-rated bookstores. But you know what? I like being able to go there at night without a big knife to defend myself."

  "We moved here after it was full of junkies, but we don't go now that it's full of tourists." Aziz looked around as they passed chain store after chain store. "I don't have any particular dislike for these stores, but I'd never shop here."

  "I would, when we have money." Gerald waved a paw toward one of them. "J. Kewn has pretty good clothes. But there's a nicer one over in Cottage Hill."

  "I'm sure." Aziz glanced at Gerald's t-shirt and camo pants.
>
  "When we have money, I said." The cougar scowled, then the scowl melted into a smile. "Do you just get your clothes from what people don't buy at your store?"

  "No. But we don't shop often." Aziz paused at the cougar's expression. "Was that supposed to be an insult?"

  "No. Well, I mean." Gerald gestured. "A friendly jab. Like your look at my clothes."

  Aziz allowed himself a smile. "I was wondering whether you considered those clothes 'pretty good.'"

  "There you go," Gerald said. "All right, now we're going back and forth, we're both kinda shitty dressers. Does your wife nag you about your clothes?"

  "Not usually." Aziz's mind turned to Halifa, and what he would say to her tonight. They hadn't properly talked since the meeting, and now he thought they would have to, soon.

  "Ben gave up a couple months ago. He used to try to get me to some of those fancier stores, but that one," the cougar jerked his thumb back toward the J. Kewn store, "is about as fancy as I can stomach. Just different tastes."

  "Indeed." They walked between the two large stores, and the cool, clean air of the Homeporium fell away from them.

  "Well...good luck." Gerald extended a paw, and Aziz clasped it.

  "You too," the cheetah said. "And thank you for taking the time to talk."

  "Ah." Gerald waved his paw. "I don't have many people to talk to about this stuff. Most of my friends are all like, 'save the marriage,' and nobody actually listens to what's going on."

  "It's hard to find people to listen sometimes," Aziz agreed. "Let me know how it goes."

  "Sure." Gerald started to walk away, then half-turned and said, "After all, you've seen our tape. You're practically family."

  Aziz's ears flattened. "Is that another 'friendly jab'?"

  "More or less." Gerald grinned and made to turn away.

  "I told you, I didn't watch all of the tape," Aziz said abruptly.

  Gerald's hazel eyes, dark in the evening, measured him. "The kiss was still pretty intimate. I mean, it's not as racy as what came after, but you're still one of only three people who's seen that."

  Aziz again imagined what might've come after the kiss on the tape. Gerald's paw waving in front of his eyes broke the reverie. "Hey," the cougar said. "If we get close, someday I might tell you what we did."

  "It's all right," the cheetah said hastily, ears flattening. "I should not have watched any of it."

  "I'm teasing you," Gerald said. He laid a paw on Aziz's shoulder, as warm as his smile. "See you 'round." And then he waved and disappeared into the crowd.

  13

  A Door Opens

  His path home took him past the shop, and he stopped there, putting a paw up on the cracked wood of the door frame. "Character," his customers called it, but to Aziz it looked worn and old. Twenty years ago, it had still been old, but he and Halifa had worked to sand the wood and paint it themselves, to save a little of the money that was going to the contractors who replaced the warped floorboards and the stained walls inside the shop. And now, over the years, the wood had been warped again by age, the walls stained by use.

  They'd talked a few years ago about renovating the store if the Homeporium did poorly. But that talk had faded right around the time Marquize had left for good, and now there was no more point to it. His claw dug into one of the cracks, pulled the wood apart. It would have been nice to renovate, or even to allow some young entrepreneur to buy the property, to sand down Aziz and Halifa's old paint job with his wife and repaint it, to turn it into a cupcake shop or a dress boutique or something.

  Or even, Aziz thought, for an entrepreneur and his husband. Or an entrepreneur and her wife. The world was so different now from when he and Halifa had come here and started their lives, and yet in many ways it was the same. People feared change; people clung to each other; people forged ahead and changed the world.

  He looked through the glass at the interior of the shop, at all the items people had shed from their past lives. Then he walked on down the block.

  At the corner, workers were beginning to cover the Space Wolf billboard over the café Casablanca. The café was closed; the patio was empty. Aziz touched the metal railing and then walked with the sparser crowd of people back toward his home.

  Halifa sat in the living room. The TV was on to the evening news, but she was looking at her phone, ignoring the screen. "Good evening," she said as Aziz entered the house.

  He closed the front door behind him and walked down the short hall to the living room. They had found a Madiyan rug a decade or more ago, with a simple pattern of blue, orange, and green stripes. The comfortable loveseat on which Halifa sat was States-made, brown velvet, and the matching armchair was empty, but Aziz chose to sit cross-legged on the rug. "Evening," he said.

  "It seemed as though we should talk." She put down her phone.

  "I think so, too."

  Their eyes met, and then she slid down off the couch to sit on the floor a few feet from him. She pulled the scarf from her head to rest around her neck. "Are you going to try to talk me out of selling?"

  Aziz shook his head. "There's no reason not to sell. No real one."

  "Mm." She tilted her head. "Tanska is okay with this?"

  "Tanska doesn't own our store."

  "Fair enough." Halifa spread her paws. "And then?"

  "After the sale?" She nodded. Aziz rubbed at his whiskers. "Doug is moving to Coronado. He invited us along."

  Halifa's ears perked. "Both of us? Hm. I don't know that I wish to move across the country."

  "I didn't think you would."

  "I have my work here, and my friends."

  Aziz nodded. They looked at each other and then away, and he curled his tail around his legs. "What if I were to move there?"

  "Without me?" She didn't seem at all bothered by the idea, but considered it carefully, as though he'd suggested purchasing a new property for the business. "Do you think you'd like it in Coronado?"

  "There are mosques there, but not as many as here. There's beaches and sun, and Doug would be out there. He's the only friend I have left here." Although Gerald had engaged in "friendly jabs"; did that mean they were friends?

  "You've never complained about the weather."

  "No. I don't mind it." He rested his paws on his ankles and thought about Coronado, the pictures he'd seen and the idea of living far away from everyone. Just him and Doug for another twenty or thirty years. "What would I do if I stayed here?"

  "You're not interested in my charities. You're not interested in Tanska's neighborhood. What would you like to do?"

  She gestured to him, her paw open. Aziz reached out and touched his fingertips to hers. He looked at the black pads at the end of his golden-furred fingertips, her black pads and golden-furred fingers like a mirror image. "I don't know. Maybe that's the problem. My old life is coming apart piece by piece and I have nothing to put in its place."

  "Aziz." At his name, he looked up and into her eyes. "We left behind one old life. We can leave behind another. You can continue to manage the stores, move to a different neighborhood perhaps."

  Managing the other stores felt to him like the Space Wolf movie: trying to recapture a feeling from his youth. He wasn't sure that would satisfy him anymore. Halifa saw that in his eyes and went on. "Or you find something to do in Coronado. Work with the mosques there. They're always happy to have more people involved." She paused. "You could visit your son."

  Aziz's brow lowered and he took his paw back from hers. "You have been talking to him."

  "Yes. I know you asked me not to, but I don't think that's for the best. He's living on the West Coast, not in Coronado but a few hours north of there, I believe." She paused. "He's doing well."

  Aziz drew his knees up. "I have no interest in his life."

  "That notwithstanding, he has a life. He has a boyfriend. He has a job teaching tennis to young people at an athletic club." She steepled her fingers together when Aziz did not reply. "If you do nothing else in your life, you have to re
pair the breach between you."

  "It's not a breach," Aziz said. "It's a chasm. He stood in this house and said that our faith was worthless, that his feelings were stronger than the teachings we live by."

  "They need not be mutually exclusive." Halifa looked over her fingertips at him.

  Did she know? Aziz felt a guilty pang in his stomach, thinking back to the conversation he'd come from. But even if he did feel those same feelings, he kept them in check because they were not part of his world. "There are Muslims who drink, too," he said. "That is not how I practice."

  "Have you in fact examined the Qu'ran, the hadiths, the teachings of the rightly-guided caliphs?"

  "Of course I've read them." Aziz tilted his head. He and Halifa had talked little about their religion in the early years of their marriage, more when they had arrived in the States and were trying to teach their son.

  "Recently?" He said nothing. Halifa nodded. "I have gone back to them to try to understand our son."

  "Our son wants nothing to do with our faith, our teachings, our beliefs." Aziz's tail tip flicked.

  "No. But if we wish to include him in our world, then we must understand what our faith truly says about him."

  "Include him in our world?" Aziz rose to his feet in a fluid motion, his tail lashing now. "Why should we? Has he expressed any wish to be included in it?"

  "Because we are his parents and he is our son."

  "A relationship which he disavowed right here!" Aziz pointed to the carpet and then the door. "Have you gone back to that conversation as well, to understand him?"

  Halifa remained seated. "You and he were both angry. You both said things you did not mean."

  "I meant every word. And so, I believe, did he." He stalked back and forth across the floor.

  His wife looked up at him with a tolerant smile. "We're cheetahs, all of us. We move quickly and speak quickly, and often we say things that would be better held back and considered. 'When you become angry, keep silent.'"