Bright Lines

by Tanwi Nandini Islam

  El sat up and drew the blinds open, illuminating the room like a stranded car on a highway. Maya kept her room Spartan. Maybe her father hadn’t let her decorate the place. Or he’d torn it up when she ran away. There was a small photo of a sacred black cube, and lots of books piled on the desk. That copy of Ernst Haeckel’s Kunstformen der Natur lay at the bottom of a stack. El thumbed through the pages, reciting Latin names—Thalamophora, Diatomea, Nepenthaceae—and for the first time missed being in school. In between the symmetric biological plates were perfect renderings drawn by Maya, captioned with musings, notes. On a black-and-white sketch of Aspidonia, or trilobites, was a note:

  ELLA.

  I came to your house for many reasons. To save up money for college. To leave the suffocating hold of my mother’s illness. I remember a long time ago, when my parents were happy, the three of us living out by Coney Island. After the twins were born, my mother became very sick, and we moved here. My father couldn’t bear the loss of his vital, beautiful wife. Maryam Sallah, the girl who had once taken his breath away, couldn’t breathe. Her rashes, especially, sickened him. I took care of her, the boys, and my father. You know, cooked, cleaned, and picked clothes for them to wear.

  I listened to my father practice his Friday khutbah. We grew close. So when I got into UC Berkeley, I thought he would be over the moon for me. Turned out, the last thing he felt was happy. I got the silent treatment first. Then some flowers, a gold necklace as an apology. He said that without me, they would all be lost. He would be lost. He cried in my arms. When I refused to back down, he got angry. Not the way a parent gets angry with their child, but a man with his mistress. No daughter wants to bear the burden of her parents’ depression, illness. Not even the burden of their joy. So I left. I’m never going back.

  Thank you for letting me read your books and sleep in your bed. I want to see the wild and twisted and beautiful shit you see. I’ve taken this book for a lot longer than I should have. I guess we’ll just say it’s my birthday present.

  I love you.

  Maya

  P.S. The hour has come near / the moon is split in two / we see a miracle / we turn away and say / this is passing magic/ Surah al-Qamar

  * * *

  Atlantic Avenue seemed smaller from this unfamiliar height. El looked out the window to see if anyone lingered on the street. Nobody. Maybe the upstairs tenant was staring out the window right now wondering the same thing. There’s no way to know. El pulled Maya’s sheet tightly around the shoulders. Being in her room, reading the letter, inhaling this freshly laundered scent was crazy—and arousing.

  Both Anwar and Maya’s letters were intimate discoveries. Her father’s fixation on her had driven Maya as far away as possible. El couldn’t really fathom what that sort of love felt like. Rezwan, Laila, Anwar, and Hashi—gone. Even Maya had chosen to go live in Mexico, alive and well and MIA.

  Dr. Masud hadn’t found anything wrong. But there had been too much unsteadying revelation and ruin these past few months. Just as Anwar’s and Maya’s letters undid confusions, they created new ones. There was no release from seeing this crazy shit. That’s what I fucking need. A release.

  A garbage truck stopped in front of the building. El watched one of the workers hoist Anwar’s unwanted leftovers into the truck. Tied stacks of newspapers and half-empty bottles of cleaning supplies had been the only unsellable things in the shop. Tearing off the bedsheet, El climbed down the fire escape, just as Maya had probably done many times before. The truck that held vestiges of Anwar’s Apothecary drove off, and El chased it down the street.

  It felt good to run.

  * * *

  By ten o’clock in the morning, Charu heard a knock on the door.

  “Come in.”

  Malik popped his head into her room. “Why you always stealing my pants?”

  “Go on and take these.” Charu threw a pair of orange side-button track pants; Malik jumped to catch them.

  “These shits are ugly, girl. C’mon.”

  “You’re too cute to look ugly in anything. Anyway, I don’t have the right needle to run this through the machine.”

  “Come back and lie down with me.”

  “This is my room. We shouldn’t have been fucking in there.”

  “Aw, Charu. I knew we should’ve stopped.”

  “Stopped what?”

  “You know.”

  “Stop what?”

  “This. Stop this. Y-you’re ruining—”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way. This is what I’m doing. Want your pants? They’re right here.” Charu pointed to a long strip, cut from his jeans. She returned to the machine and pressed her foot on the pedal, to avoid hearing what he was saying. Malik lifted her foot off the pedal, and brought her hands to his chest. She felt his heart pounding, strong and healthy.

  He knelt beside her. “I’m here with you. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No, I’m not. Not right now.”

  “I—I just need to get rid of this stuff. I can’t look at it anymore.”

  “I understand. Come on, let’s enjoy Sunday morning.” He pressed his fingertips on the nape of her neck, raking down to her tailbone.

  “Fuck,” moaned Charu.

  “You say it like it’s sacred.”

  * * *

  A couple of hours later, Charu and Malik ordered two coffees, scrambled eggs and bacon on rye at Mike’s Diner, the neighborhood greasy spoon. Sundays were packed with churchgoers, regulars, art students, and unemployed graduates.

  “What are you going to do with the quilt?” asked Malik.

  “Send it to my grandfather.”

  They walked hand in hand to the stoop of 111 Cambridge Place. They kissed, in open air, something Charu thought she would never do.

  “I’ll call you when I’m back from tour at the end of the summer.”

  “Sounds good,” whispered Charu.

  Malik enveloped her in a hug. They kissed for a while, until he whispered, “Soon.”

  He skated off on his long board. She listened for the scraping asphalt until he had disappeared down Greene Avenue. Her first lover. Not her best, nor her last. It didn’t matter. He was the only man who would know who her parents had been.

  * * *

  Charu found El sitting on a lawn chair, rolling strange soil balls in front of the resurrected garden. She sat down next to El.

  “Whatcha doing?”

  “Making bombs.”

  “They look terrifying,” said Charu, rolling her eyes. “Where were you? I didn’t hear you come back last night.”

  “I was at Maya’s house.”

  “What? After we packed up? Did you see her?”

  “No, apparently she’s in Mexico.”

  “This whole time?”

  “Yeah. Ramona Espinal helped her out. She’ll be back in June. Maybe.”

  “Wait—this is crazy.”

  “I know. I hallucinated at her fucking house.”

  “You’re still upset she left,” said Charu. “I would freak out, too.”

  “She didn’t say anything to us. After everything we did for her.”

  “Exactly. We gave her what she needed: a fucking escape. That’s why I let her stay in the first place. So she could figure her shit out. If she told us, wouldn’t you have tried to convince her to come back? I know I would have, if I was in love with her.” Charu waited for a response that she knew El would not give. “It is what it is. You think she’s an enigma? Look in the mirror, E.” Charu left El in the garden, to keep on packing the weird little bombs.

  * * *

  That evening, El asked Charu to read Anwar’s story of the Black Forest, before it went in the mail to Rana. She took one look at the long letter and begged El to summarize.

  “So you have a real brother, not ju
st a fake sister!” Charu cried.

  “No,” El protested. “I love the dude, but he definitely feels like a fake brother.”

  “I wonder if Baba would ever have told us if he’d lived. Did Ma know?”

  “I don’t think anyone knew. Definitely not Hashi. She was just a teenager back then, in love with Anwar. Maybe Rana has always known, though. I remember when I went to visit my parents’ graves he said that Rezwan’s first love had died. I’m not sure how he would know that. But maybe he always suspected it.”

  “I can’t believe they’re missing out on everything. I mean, Malik and I finally just—connected. I spent the last few years hiding; now I’m wishing they could see everything, you know?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t have to hide, either,” Charu took a toke of a one-hitter shaped like a tube of lipstick. “Have some.”

  El laughed. “How do I look?”

  “Beautiful.”

  “I look stupid.”

  Charu fumbled while threading the bobbin, and El marveled at how handy she was, in a completely complicated and different way. Charu held up the finished section of her quilt. “How do you think it looks?”

  “Great, as far as I can tell. Who is it for?”

  “Azim Nana. He’ll need it because he’s old and cold all the time.

  “Not Stalin?”

  “Oh, that. You know, I was all sorts of confused. On some horny undergrad-type shit. I mean, sure, he’s our cool long-lost uncle or whatever, but I just felt excited by a world I’d never seen. Drinking tea or riding in a boat was a fucking adventure. I needed to feel that. Another case of misdirected love.” Charu ran the quilt through the machine. The steady whirring comforted them, although it reminded El of the terrible fight they’d had after Maya ran away. Charu shook her head. “How stupid is that? I needed to feel something. Fuck me. And now, I’ve never been this fucking sad, ever. I can’t stop feeling, everything.” She gasped for air, sobbing into a corner of the quilt. “Fuck. I’m not sure I’ll ever be anything but half-happy,” she whispered.

  “I think I’ve spent my entire life a third happy.”

  “I love you, El.” She stepped on the pedal again, letting the machine fill the quiet.

  “You were right.”

  “About?”

  “Maya. I guess I learned how to stop hiding when I was with her. Even if only for a few months. She’s the first person I ever . . .”

  “Loved?”

  El said nothing. “I love you, too.”

  It didn’t sound crazy. It was just a case of misdirected love. Leave it to Charu to pinpoint the truth, no matter how shameful it might have been. Once confessed, it was gone.

  EPILOGUE

  On the second Saturday morning of June, El and Charu held their first stoop sale of Anwar’s Apothecary products. They’d plastered the neighborhood with signs, the sidewalks with chalk arrows: !!!TINCTURES ($2), BEAUTY ($4), AND THE BIKE AND BOOM BOX (NEGOTIABLE)!!!

  They lined the stoop stairs with Anwar’s goods, and a few dresses Charu had sewn in her new atelier—Hashi’s. Charu joked that Baba was somewhere pissed at them for the slashed prices, but, like anyone, he appreciated a bargain. People they had seen throughout their lives—at the apothecary, the salon, neighborhood block parties—former patrons commented on their friends’ untimely departure, reminding Charu that despite not having held a ceremony, this was becoming one.

  Bic came by for a whole box of Sandalwood Barber Salve, which had become something of a trade secret for him.

  “When we leave for school next semester, will it be a drag to keep checking up on this place?” asked Charu.

  “This old house always has a way of coming back to life,” said Bic. “And I’ve never grown tired of seeing that happen.” He balanced the cardboard box on his head, and walked Anwar’s last batch back to his barbershop.

  * * *

  By late afternoon, their stoop sale had turned into a block party. Neighbors fired up their grills, the hydrant that had once saved 111 Cambridge Place was broken open, and Maze & Frankie Beverly thumped out of a Caprice Classic. They had sold almost all their beauty products, except for the Magic Mustard Face Oil, too strange-colored and pungent for most. After making about a thousand dollars, Charu and El decided to pack up for the day. Charu went into the house to put away the money they’d earned and to change out of her clothes.

  El wheeled Anwar’s spare bicycle to the backyard.

  “How much are you selling the bike for, Ella?”

  Maya.

  Her hair, uncovered, chin length, and curly. She wore a plain white tank top—a marcel—and fitted jeans. Her skin was tanned. She seemed at ease, waiting for El to answer her question.

  “These days I’m called El.” El continued wheeling the bike to the backyard. Maya followed.

  “El,” she said. “It suits you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’ve changed things up here. Everything looks like it blooms in the day.”

  “I’m not out here much at night.”

  “El. I’m so sorry about your—Anwar and Hashi. Mema told me. I wanted to write to you, but you were still in Bangladesh.”

  You could’ve written anyway, thought El, surprised at how bitter this reunion felt. “It doesn’t matter. You’d already been gone for a while.”

  “I left so that I could come back. I had no idea that my dad would get himself locked up. As much as I know he deserves it, I didn’t want that for him.”

  “You don’t?”

  “He’s a loveless man. Prison won’t change him. Although I hear he’s popular among the inmates. For his faith, that is.” Maya shook her head, as if it were better to abandon the thought. “I heard you slept over.”

  “I had to get my book back,” said El.

  “Mema liked you.”

  “I read your letter. And—I liked her, too.”

  “Somehow I knew you would. I wanted you to, anyway. Mema’s doing much better, I think. Now that I’m back, she doesn’t want me to go to Cali.”

  “But you have to.”

  “I do.”

  “You can have it.”

  “What?”

  “The bike.”

  Maya took a step closer to El. “Do you want to hold each other?” She didn’t wait for a response, and took El into her arms.

  * * *

  Sunset turned the white walls in El’s room golden, while the verdigris wall shimmered like the imminent gloaming. El fumbled to lock the door. Maya pulled El onto her, and they both fell into the bed, kissing. El felt like devouring her mouth, which tasted like salt and cinnamon gum. El swept up Maya’s tank top, and unhooked her simple white bra, with ease.

  “Have you been practicing?”

  “I’ve been hallucinating, if that counts.”

  Maya took El’s glasses off and put them aside on the table. She brought El’s lips toward her nipple. “Anything. Do anything.” Her husky voice sounded the same. Her breasts were sloped and heavy. El obliged and sucked Maya’s nipple, feeling it harden. Teeth and tongue back and forth between her breasts made El dizzy.

  Without a word, El stripped each leg of Maya’s jeans and brought fingers down to Maya’s pussy, swirling her wetness around. El kissed her down the trail of hair on her belly, until Maya’s thighs rocked El’s head in a pulsating grip. As her thighs tightened around El’s ears, everything became soundless, like falling into the ocean. Maya quaked and released herself on El’s fingertips.

  “Can I take yours off?” asked Maya, unlocking her thighs from El’s shoulders. El took Maya’s hand, guiding it around to feel the binding. Maya unpeeled the gauze, one layer at a time, undoing the pants afterward. Cupping El’s breasts in her hands, she rubbed her hands across the sternum, as if trying to draw out El’s heart. She pressed her index and middle finger
together, rubbing El slow, then fast and faster—

  As he came, he understood. Everything in this past year, maybe everything his entire life, seemed to have brought him to this moment, this moment of swadhin. He hadn’t been ready for her, not until now.

  * * *

  The scar on El’s thigh will become the port of entry. Over the months, and eventually years, El will see more of Rezwan, Rana, and Anwar in himself. Swadhin, or salvation, comes from changing course altogether. He will speak in the tenor of a pubescent boy, until a resonant bass settles. He will sprout a mustache and beard that would have made Anwar proud. Each time, there will be a rubbing alcohol stream, a prick of the syringe, fluid in his vein. He will become a cartographer, inking a border town beside a river on a map. Each time, closer to completing his atlas.

  * * *

  They held each other until the amber light faded into silver. Maya’s head rested on El’s chest. “Did you ever feel scared?”

  “Of what?”

  “This?”

  “Only because I thought I should feel scared of it. But I don’t anymore.”

  “When I took the datura—I suggest sticking to mushrooms, by the way—I knew I wanted to escape. But I didn’t want to die. I just didn’t want to feel contained by anyone ever again. The thought of having to carry someone’s happiness or bear someone else’s pain scared me, like I did with my father and Mema. With you, I thought I’d have to do both.”

  “You were wrong about that.”

  “I know.”

  * * *

  No stranger to the sounds of pleasure, Charu noticed El’s door was locked. Was she by herself? Why was the bike parked right in front of her door?

  Charu busied herself with making a tray of watermelon, potato chips, root beers, and weed. She’d just sit in the garden, and if El wanted to join her after she finished, she could.

  It was cool for a June night—it looked as if it might rain—so Charu started a small fire in the pit.