by Ami Rao
‘Peggy’s seeing someone. I’ve suspected it for months, but she finally admitted it last night. He’s an economist at the Bank of New York. One of those cerebral types. The four of us are having dinner next weekend. That new fish place on Mercer and Prince. Okay with you?’
‘Sure,’ David said, and the painting never came up again.
3.20
By the end of the following week, it cooled down, the burning heat giving way to a glorious mix of sunshine and breeze, drawing people out of air-conditioned buildings and into the world, like a kind of exodus.
David decided, on Ameena’s behalf, to join in.
She was still visibly distraught over the events in Manchester, about which they had not received any news. He had asked her several times if she wanted to go back for a few days – at least, he said, that would make her feel like she was there – but every time he suggested it, she only shook her head.
In many ways, David felt helpless. There was very little he could provide by way of answers or reassurance. Instead, he tried to focus on the ordinary things, be present for her in small ways, keep her busy, distract her. He knew it helped when they were out. Back at the apartment, enclosed within those walls, she fretted even more, staring blankly at the TV, barely eating or sleeping, pacing up and down, checking her phone constantly, reading impassioned articles about the breakdown in Middle East peace talks, first on the BBC, then on Fox News, then asking him how an objective thing such as news could in reality be so subjective, then analysing the names of the reporters, scrutinising their photographs, then tiring of that and checking her phone again, her anxiety only deepening with each passing moment of silence. And so, as soon as David ‘revolved’ himself out of the glass doors of the Witz Agency and felt the surprising freshness of the air on his face, he called her at work, asked if she wanted to meet, take advantage of the weather, go for a walk, get something to eat, take the scenic route home.
Thankfully, Ameena had agreed. She was getting more and more unpredictable these days, David felt. One minute she’d act completely normal, another minute something would suddenly set her off. He sighed inwardly. All this stuff was tough on her, it must be, but damn it, it was tough on him too. But even as the thought left his mind, he rebuked himself. It wasn’t a competition. It’s never a competition. But still… it wasn’t easy. He pushed away the thought and tried to think of happy things: this balmy breeze, Central Park at dusk, a tune he’d been working on, her eyes, the way she walked into a room…
It was still light at half past six when they entered the park, hand in hand, enjoying the cool of the evening wash over them. They walked along the path, past the Dairy, then turned into the Mall, lined with rows of towering American elms, their handsome foliage forming a lush cathedral-like canopy above the pathway.
There was beauty in that half-light.
‘Hey,’ Ameena said, as they strolled down the walkway past the imposing figures of Shakespeare, then Walter Scott, then Robert Burns, characters who David knew were very much a part of Ameena’s childhood and education, all protagonists of a certain British canon that she had longed to feel a part of.
‘Hey, so what’s the deal with the path?’
‘The what?’
‘The path. The path that leads from your old house to the beach.’
‘Oh that.’
‘Yeah. I’ve wondered about it ever since Abe… ever since that night, he seemed very affected by it. This path,’ she stopped and twirled around on her toes – rather expertly, David noted, like a spinning ballerina, ‘reminded me of that one.’
He nodded. ‘Ah, okay.’
‘Well?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘Oh, come on, tell me.’
‘Let’s sit down for a bit,’ David said, and they found an empty bench by the side of the lake, the bright blue paint peeling off its wooden arms and rails, lending it a sweet, melancholic beauty. On the bench next to them, a little boy was playing with his dog. David and Ameena sat for a while, side by side, watching the duo.
Nothing followed.
Ameena waited, accepting his silence, but linked her arm in his.
David leaned forward on the bench, his eyes trailing the dog.
A game was being played. The boy threw the ball into the lake and the dog scrambled after it, wading expertly into the water. Once retrieved, he carried it in his mouth back to the boy, dropping it triumphantly at his feet, shaking the droplets off himself, spraying water everywhere. The boy laughed, patted the dog, picked up the ball, threw it into the water again. Back and forth this cycle went, neither boy nor beast tiring of repeating their little game endlessly.
‘What can I tell you?’ David said after a while. ‘There’s nothing to say. It’s just this dumb thing from when Abe and I were kids.’ He looked at Ameena and his face, she thought, displayed no emotion at all. ‘My mother would wake every morning, early, before any of the rest of us, and she’d take the path down from behind the back garden to the beach and she’d go for a walk by herself, along the water. It was a sandy path, just a small, narrow thing, forsythia bushes on either side – they’d bloom bright yellow in the spring – she would walk down that path every morning and she would leave her footprints in the sand. Then later, Abe and I would wake, and Abe would climb up the bunk bed – I slept on the top one – and we could look clear out our window and we’d spot her walking, the waves touching her toes. She was always happiest there, by the sea. Then we’d go get her. We played this game you know, on that path, the sand was always damp that time of the morning, wet from the spray of the waves, and we’d step in her footprints, so our prints were inside her prints, all along the path, and then we’d run to her and she’d open her arms wide and she’d hold us, both of us at the same time, just the three of us on that long stretch of ragged coastline. And then we’d all come back home together, Abe and I on either side of her, all of us holding hands, and get ready for school. “One day,” she would tell us every morning, “one day your footprints will be bigger than mine. One day, I’ll be putting my feet into the shape left by yours.” We did this every day, virtually every single day that I can remember.’
He paused. ‘Even when she was very sick, Abe and I would support her out, down that path, to the beach and she’d just sit there and stare out at the ocean.’
Ameena blinked away the tears that she realised had pooled in her eyes. David looked away.
The last of the light began to fade; shadows came out to play.
The boy threw the ball. Too far out this time. The dog stared at the lake, then at the boy, and again at the lake, wagging his tail, unsure of what he was meant to do. ‘Come on Chewbacca,’ the boy called, ‘let’s go home.’
But Chewbacca didn’t want to go home. He looked up at his little master longingly, tongue hanging out. More, he was saying, come on, more. ‘The ball’s gone, buddy,’ the boy said, opening out his hands, palms facing upwards, ‘it’s lost.’ Chewbacca howled. ‘Don’t be sad, Chewy,’ the boy said, ‘it’s only a ball! Come on, let’s go!’
The boy walked past them. Chewy reluctantly followed. David petted the dog as it crossed the bench and was rewarded with a very wet lick on his nose. Ameena laughed.
‘There you go, he’s forgotten all about the ball now,’ she said.
David smiled, but his smile was sad. ‘Tricky, huh, the concept of loss,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Even for a dog.’
After that, there was a silence between them, total and tender. The lovers’ covenant, inviolable like an old-fashioned wedding vow. Ameena touched his face, tracing the outline of his jaw with her finger.
It was completely dark now, the sky above them midnight-blue and sprinkled with stars. This is one of the few places in the city where, if you look at the sky, you can still see the stars.
‘She died in the summer,’ David continued in the same, exp
ressionless voice, ‘and the following spring, the forsythia bloomed, it seemed to me at the time, with even greater vigour than usual, as if they were turning their yellow heads towards the ocean and screaming at the waves in a kind of beautiful, indignant horror. But the path, her path, looked more beautiful than ever, blanketed in yellow like that.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?’ she said gently.
He looked at her then. ‘It’s silly. Kids’ stuff. But that’s why that silly little path meant so much to Abe.’
‘It’s a beautiful story.’
‘I know, baby,’ he said dully, ‘but with a terrible ending.’
3.21
Precisely five days later, her phone rang.
Nearly three weeks now, since it had all started. Ameena’s mother called to say that they had found Kareem, that he and Faisal had been found living in a friend’s place in Bordesley Green.
Ameena felt, on hearing this news, a surge of relief, more than anything else, but she also felt a vague sliver of fear, and also anger, unbridled anger directed at her brother, for what he had made them all go through. Come to think of it, she felt both in equal proportions, gratitude and outrage, a desire to hug him as well as slap him across his face, all at once.
‘Oh Mum, thank goodness!’ Ameena exclaimed. ‘What in the world was he thinking?’
‘No, no, there is no goodness in this Ameena, no goodness at all.’ She hesitated. ‘Kareem is in jail.’
Ameena felt her body stiffen. The fear. She now understood the fear. It was no longer a sliver.
‘In jail? For what?’
‘He took someone’s car – that Jim Jones. Faisal and him and God-only-knows who else. They took – stole’ – Zoya whispered the word – ‘his car. Then they smashed it. They broke all the windows, they used a rod or something, who knows what they used but whatever they used they used it very well because they destroyed the whole bloody car. Your brother has been arrested. For theft and destruction of property.’
‘What? But why? Why would he do that? Who is Jim Jones?’
‘Jim, Jim, that Jim Jones. You know! Jumbo or Jimbo or something they call him, with the yellow hair and pimples everywhere. You know, Jim Jones! Lives at the end of the road in ugly house, just opposite to the bus stop. He threw pig’s head into our house. It was him. Butcher told police, then they questioned him, and he made confession. Kareem…’ she sighed, ‘Kareem must have found out earlier somehow.’
Ameena groaned. ‘Oh my God, this is just crazy. I don’t even know where to start to make sense of it.’
‘But the Jimbo dropped the charges. Some deal he made with police people. Your Abba and I are going now to bring your brother home.’
‘Can I speak to Kareem when he’s home, please Mum? Can you have him ring me – I need to speak to him.’
Her mother hesitated.
‘Ameena, also…’
‘There’s an also?’
‘The boy. The friend’s house they were staying in, the Birmingham one, they’re saying… they’re saying that the boy has got links to some groups.’
‘Links? What kind of links? What do you mean, links? What do you mean, groups? What groups? What are you saying?’
‘I am not saying. They are saying.’
‘Mum, this is all too much for me,’ Ameena said, feeling a pressure building in her head that emanated from somewhere behind her eyes and made her want to scream. Or sob. Loudly and noisily. She didn’t do either. Instead she said, very calmly: ‘Please just call me when I can speak to Kareem.’ She hung up then, as quickly as she could. After that, she sat on the edge of the bed, arms crossed, clutching her body, and waited. Waited until she stopped shaking, waited for the panic to wear off, waited for the fear to collapse back into the sliver she knew she could handle.
It wasn’t until two days later, when she could no longer bear to look David in the eye and keep lying, when she told him that yes, she had heard from home.
‘They found him,’ she said. ‘He was in Birmingham. They put him in jail, he vandalised the neighbour’s car for the pig thing, the guy confessed to doing it.’
‘Oh Ameena…’
‘Yup.’
‘How long are they keeping him?’
‘No, he’s out. The guy’s not pressing charges if we don’t. My dad said the police don’t really seem to care if no one else does.’
‘Well, that’s good.’
She shrugged. ‘I guess. I spoke to Kareem. He seemed really shaken up.’ She shook her head. ‘I guess jail will do that to you, he said he’s never been more scared in all his life.’
‘This is all so awful, but hopefully it’s taught him not to do it again.’
‘Taught whom?’
David looked surprised. ‘Your brother, of course.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘It’s a tough lesson for a kid, but at least he won’t do it again.’
Ameena raised her eyebrows. His eyebrows, she noticed, were unraised. His face betrayed no emotion. It was relaxed and handsome. For some reason, the fact of this made her suddenly angry; that he could look handsome even as he was saying what he had just said seemed unnatural, indecent.
She took a breath.
‘David, he didn’t start this. Of course, it’s not the right way to respond, but he was reacting to something horrific that someone did to us.’
‘It doesn’t work that way.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, these things are hugely complex, Ameena. As you know.’
‘As I know? I’m sorry, but I don’t think I know.’
‘Well, if you’re going to look at who started what, your neighbour didn’t start it either, this whole mess started with 9/11.’
‘What does 9/11 have to do with my family?’
‘What did those families have to do with your people?’
Ameena gasped – a sharp, strangled gasp. Horror. Hurt. Betrayal. Big things crammed into a little sound.
But David looked even more horrified.
‘Sorry, I’m sorry Ameena, I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean to say it… like that… I’m so sorry, my sweet.’
He took one step towards her.
But she stepped back from him, and her eyes were down, and her hand was up, palm facing him, fingers together, and like that, she stood before him, her body itself a symbol – a punctuation mark – its meaning so clear and unambiguous that David could not dare exonerate himself by pleading any transatlantic ignorance of language.
3.22
‘I’m going to the gallery this evening,’ she announced tersely the next day. ‘And then I’m going to Manchester. I’m booked out of Kennedy tomorrow.’
He nodded.
‘Do you want me to come with you?’ he asked after a pause.
‘No,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘They don’t know, do they? About me.’
She turned to him in surprise. ‘David, are you really making this about you?’
‘It’s about us, Ameena. It was always about us.’
She laughed scornfully.
‘Oh, they know about you, David. I told them a long time ago. I told them even though I knew it would cause them sadness. I wonder if you would have told your parents about me if they were alive, if you’d ever have had the courage to tell them that their devoted little Jewish son was dating some Muslim girl.’
‘Ameena…’
‘No, you don’t have to answer that. It doesn’t matter. I’m going home.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘That’s probably a wise decision. You should.’
‘I should what?’ she said, shocked.
‘Go home,’ he said quietly.
And just like that, with the unthinking utterance of those two words, David and Ameena came full circle.
&nbs
p; 3.23
In Lahore, where people still got their clothes made by a tailor, Ameena remembers going to the textile shop with her mother and her aunties.
Ameena had never seen a shop like that before; Manchester didn’t have them, these brightly lit, cavernous spaces with floor-to-ceiling vertical shelves, on which they stacked, side by side, thick towering slabs of a dizzying array of fabrics of all colours and textures and weight. There must have been hundreds, thousands, of those rolls of fabric inside a single shop.
‘Aunty Sadia wants to buy some silk,’ Zoya explained to Ameena, ‘for Zeenat’s engagement, you see.’
The system was simple. You’d point to whatever fabric you wanted to see up close, however many samples you wanted to see, and the man would pull out the rolls and unfurl them on the counter in front of you, reams and reams of silk, one on top of the other, each one a different colour, and as they unravelled and swam on the flat surface, they would catch the light, and shimmer and shine.
Ameena remembered this when she looked out of her window on the day she left for Manchester, at the river shimmering in the early evening light.
It is the last thing she remembers before she picks up her small suitcase and heads downstairs to find a taxi.
She wonders if things will ever be the same again.
Not because of the sorrow she feels when she thinks about her little brother, how in the eyes of the world, he had been marked – they had all been marked. Or how even in her own mind, he could no longer be a boy, how with a single swift action, the threshold into manhood had been crossed.
But it wasn’t that. That was distressing, but it wasn’t the cause of her anxiety.
Nor also, the painful ache inside her when she wonders how her mother must feel, or worse her father, a man who had lived his own life by his principles, who had tried to instil that same ethic in his children – ‘Your birth does not automatically make you a person,’ he would tell them repeatedly, ‘you need to teach yourself how to become one.’ Ameena feels it acutely, a helplessness, when she thinks of her parents, the sense of loss they must feel, the disillusionment, the shame. (But in whom? In Kareem? In her? In themselves? In the community? In the country they called home? Or in the one they had left behind? Or in both? In everything.)
