American Dervish: A Novel

by Ayad Akhtar

  I stepped out of the kitchen and into the hall with the receiver to my ear.

  “Hello? Excuse me, son…are you still there?”

  “What’s going on?” Mother said, looking over at me. I was standing at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Is that her there? I’d love to have a word with her about your homeowner’s insurance…”

  Just then, Mina’s bedroom door flew open, slamming against the wall. Imran’s fulsome wailing burst forth from within, seeming to hurl Mina from the room. She looked large, so much larger than usual. She turned to look at me. Her electric gaze was terrifying.

  The next thing I knew, she seemed to be flying down the steps, the scarlet shawl around her neck like a cape billowing behind her. “You evil child!” she screeched, headed right for me. My left leg was already wet with my own urine as she tore the phone from my hand. My face exploded with pain. “How could you say those things?! How could you?!” she screamed, hitting me with the receiver. I retreated, my hands raised to protect my face. She hit me again, hard enough to crack the phone’s plastic casing.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” Mother screamed, trying to pull Mina away.

  Mina had beaten me back to the steps leading down to the family room.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” Mother kept screaming.

  She grabbed Mina by the hair and pulled. Mina’s head flew back and her mouth flew open with a rending shriek: “Aaahhiiiyyyaaa!” As she fell back, her elbow flew out and swiped me across the face. All at once my feet were lost and there was no ground. I didn’t realize I was falling until my shoulder slammed into something hard. Tumbling sidewise, I rolled end over end. I reached out to stop myself, and something cracked.

  From above, Mother raced down the steps and fell to her knees. Her hands were all over my face; her fingers were covered with my blood. “Hayat! Are you okay?!” she screamed. “Are you okay?”

  I was dazed. My head hurt a little, but other than that, I felt fine. “I’m okay,” I said.

  Up above, Mina was standing at the top of the stairs, Imran at her side. She wore a look of horror.

  Mother turned to her: “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” she screamed.

  Mina shook her head, backing away from the landing as Mother stormed up the steps.

  “Bhaj…”

  Mother cut her off viciously. “If you EVER touch him again!” Her voice bellowed: “If you EVER so much as RAISE YOUR VOICE at my son…I will KILL YOU!” Mina backed away, stumbling as her son tried to hide behind her thigh.

  “Bhaj…I’m sorry!” Mina squawked. “He was saying things to Imran…horrible things …”

  Mother wasn’t listening. She grabbed Mina’s collar and slapped her across the face with an open palm. “Don’t you ever touch”—and again, now with the back of her hand—“my son!”

  She hit Mina again and again.

  I looked down at my right arm. It looked strange. Bent at the wrist, my hand canted away, like a leaf dangling from a broken stem. Without thinking, I reached out with my other hand and snapped it back into place.

  Then there was pain. Only pain. Everywhere. I had never experienced anything like it.

  I screamed. I kept screaming.

  Upstairs, Mother froze and turned.

  Behind her, Mina crumpled to a heap on the kitchen floor, covered in her scarlet shawl.

  I could tell now that the pain was in my arm, not in the rest of my body, which was recoiling from the onslaught. My mind reeled, stunned at the agony, the inscrutable injustice of what I was feeling. I screamed again, but it didn’t do any good. It seemed incomprehensible to me that I should feel such pain. My mind flashed to Souhef, and I heard his voice inside me:

  Who are you not to deserve this pain?

  “Haaayyyaaaat!!!” Mother cried out as she appeared at the top of the steps.

  That was the last thing I remembered before I blacked out.

  12

  Fever Dreams

  The fracture was bad. The chips of my shattered wrist had to be surgically aligned, and since the orthopedist had an immediate window, Father and Nathan—who Father had called when we got to the hospital—decided it was best to do it right away.

  I spent the hours before the surgery in a haze. What I mostly remember is pain: an explosive, electric suffering that steadied—once the painkillers kicked in—into a throbbing, burning ache along the bone. But even with the sedatives, the pain was unbearable. Its pulsing, pendulumlike rhythm waxed and waned and waxed again. I’d never felt time’s passing so palpably, the flux and flow of my anguish defining each moment as distinct from the next, now as pain, now as relief. And through it all, the temptation to feel that I was being treated unjustly persisted, like a foul odor I fought to ignore. I thought, instead, of Souhef.

  Who are you to think you deserve anything better? I heard him say. This pain is Allah’s will for you.

  The words gave me comfort and strength. As I watched Nathan hover about—he’d shown up right after Father’s call, consulting with the doctors, comforting Mother—I told myself: I can accept my pain. I’m not like you.

  I woke up in a dark hospital room, the walls flickering blue and white with the changing images on the TV quietly humming in the corner. Mother was sitting beside me in an armchair. It took me a moment to realize where I was. Then I remembered:

  The fall. My wrist. The emergency room.

  I looked down at my arm, covered now to the elbow in a plaster cast. It didn’t seem like it was a part of me. I tried to move it. The pain was swift and searing.

  Hearing me moan, Mother got up and pressed in, holding me tightly. It only made the pain worse.

  “Don’t, Mom. It hurts…”

  “Okay, kurban,” Mother said, starting to cry.

  I closed my eyes. The sharp pain faded, giving way to a dull ache. I felt wearied. By the flickering walls. By my aching arm. By Mother’s face, slick with tears.

  “I’m tired,” I moaned.

  “Go back to sleep. Get your rest,” she said. “I love you, Hayat. I love you more than life itself.”

  I shut my eyes and felt her lips on my forehead. When she pulled away, I turned and waited for sleep to take me.

  When I awoke again, the room was dissolving into light. Before me was a tray of food. Mother and Father stood to my right. At the foot of the bed was a large, bald, potbellied man with a stethoscope around his neck. I had the odd impression that he was surrounded in a soft white glow.

  “How’s the patient feeling?” the man asked in a chipper tone.

  “Fine.”

  “Hayat, you remember Dr. Gold?” Father asked, sharply. I remembered the man from the previous day, but I wasn’t sure who he was exactly. My hesitation irritated Father. “He’s your surgeon. He’s fixed your wrist.”

  “You’re a brave young man,” Dr. Gold said. “A model patient. I’m sure your parents are very proud of you.”

  “Oh, we are,” Mother quickly added.

  “So how’s the old bod feeling?” Gold asked.

  I was confused.

  “The arm?” he prompted. “How’s it treating you?”

  I looked down at the cast. My arm was aching, but I was getting used to the pain. What was new was a coarse, irritating itch along the skin beneath the cast.

  “It itches,” I said, scratching at the cast’s edges.

  “Well, you’ll have to get used to that, son,” Gold said. “It can itch like hell under there. Especially with the new stuff we’ve got on you…But you’re a tough kid. I could tell that from the way you handled everybody moving that arm around last night. Won’t be the end of the world…Now, tell me: You still feeling pain?”

  “Little bit.”

  Gold nodded, assessing my response. Then he looked down and made a note on the chart he was holding. “We’ll up the dosage on the painkillers just a touch. No need for him to be in any pain at all…”

  “How much longer do you want to keep him here?” Mother asked.
<
br />   “No more than another couple of days. Maybe even just ’til tomorrow. Let’s see what the X-rays show.”

  I looked over at the side table, on which a large bouquet of yellow roses stood. They were giving off the same soft light as the doctor. I stared, intrigued. And the longer I did, the more deeply the roses seemed to recede, disappearing into this diaphanous glow.

  “Those are from your auntie. She’s so worried for you…,” Mother said, trailing off. She stole an almost fearful glance at Father, then stepped between us, reaching her hand out to check my forehead. “He’s still a little hot,” she said.

  “We’re on top of it,” Gold said. “Fever’s down. This is normal post-op stuff.”

  “So he’s fine?”

  “Couldn’t be better—all things considered, of course.” Gold laughed, then turned to me. “So listen, son. We’re going to do another X-ray—maybe later today. We’ll be sure to go gently, but I just want you to know, okay?”

  I nodded. Dr. Gold turned to my parents. “Nothing to worry about. I’ll check back in on him later today.”

  “Hayat. Thank Dr. Gold,” Mother said.

  “Thank you, Dr. Gold.”

  “No problem, young man. Get some rest,” he said, patting me on the leg. Then he shook hands with Father and walked out.

  Everywhere I looked, things were fading into a transparent haze. Even Mother and Father both seemed to be vanishing behind the peculiar and pleasing light.

  Father cleared his throat: “So, Hayat…”

  “Naveed, please,” Mother interrupted.

  “What is it?” he snapped. “You don’t have any idea what I’m going to say…”

  “Don’t I?” Mother snapped back. “Not like you haven’t been pestering me day and night about it? You’re itching to get at him. And I’m saying: Now is not the time.”

  Father ignored her. “That man who just operated on you, Hayat…Dr. Gold? You know that he’s Jewish?” Father pointed at me as he spoke. “Hmm? So next time you want to go around bad-mouthing Jews, make sure you tell those same people that a Jew fixed your arm. And if he hadn’t, you’d never throw another ball with that hand. Or write with it!”

  “What’s wrong with you, Naveed?” Mother asked. “Are you drunk?”

  Father glared at her, disgusted. He looked back at me. “One more thing for you and your mother to think about…,” he said, his voice trembling. “If I ever see you with that book again, I will fix you. You can trust me on that.”

  I wanted to ask him what book, but before I could, Mother started shoving him toward the door. “Get back!” she shouted. “Get out! Will you?!” Finally, she pushed him out of the room.

  I turned away from the door, my gaze settling on the armchair to my left, where Mother had been sitting the previous night. It was brown and beige, its upholstery worn on the headrest. It, too, was gently held in the same translucence. No matter where I looked, things appeared to be disappearing into this gossamer-thin light, a luminosity nothing at all like the hard, brisk brightness of the morning sun bleeding through the mostly drawn curtains, and nothing like the fainter whitish-blue overlay of the fluorescent ceiling beams. It did not even seem like a light that illuminated, but rather was like a thing itself. I kept gazing around me: at the sheets on my bed; at the blank, gray-white cinder-block walls; at the flowers and the dark brown surface of the table on which they stood. The effect was not only visual, for there was silence in this light, too. And in this glowing, illuminated silence each thing appeared distinctly for what it was. A chair. A table. A flower. A sheet. And each thing held my attention simply, completely. I remembered something Mina had once told me: That God’s light was everywhere; one simply had to learn to see it. And she’d shown me a verse in the Quran to explain what she meant:

  God is the Light of the heavens and the earth.

  His Light like a lamp within a niche, of glass like a brilliant star,

  Lit from a blessed tree, an olive tree, not from the east nor from the west,

  Whose oil would burn and glow even without fire.

  Light upon Light!

  God guides to His Light whom He wills…

  This is Allah’s Light, I thought, looking around. And He is guiding me to see It.

  That night I had a dream. I was running from a woman in a torn burqa. She wailed and howled as she chased me. And then I heard a deep voice: “Come with me,” it said. I turned and saw the Prophet. He was just as Mina described him: warm, wide eyes rimmed with thick eyelashes, a full beard, and a gap between his front two teeth as he smiled at me.

  “Come,” he said again as he took my hand.

  Muhammad led me to a white mosque in the mountains. Inside, the mosque was filled with figures. I couldn’t tell if they were statues, or people magically frozen in place. The Prophet led me to the front of the prayer room and told me I would be leading the prayer. I sang out the call to prayer, and all the figures started to move. Amazed, I turned to the Prophet and asked: “How did they come to life?”

  “Who?” he asked. I pointed at the figures now taking their place, shoulder to shoulder, for the prayer. There were only men.

  “This is your ummah,” he said. I knew from the Quran that the word meant “my fellow Muslims,” but it wasn’t an answer to my question. The Prophet turned away from me now, closing his eyes as he prepared for the prayer.

  Silence fell through the mosque as we prayed. I moved; the Prophet moved; the figures moved in unison behind us. The prayer went on and on. At some point, I realized it would never end.

  I walked out of the mosque and left them praying.

  Outside, the sun was shining, bright and strong. I looked down and noticed my arm was covered with a golden cast. There was a name signed across it: Yitzhak.

  I woke up.

  My room was dark. Cold air soughed through the ceiling vents. I felt something inside me, a gnawing, an itch—but nothing like the itching on my arm—that my mind tried to reach. Mina had said it was a great blessing to see the Prophet in a dream, but there didn’t seem to be any blessing in mine. Instead of staying and praying with him, I’d left.

  Something about the figures bothered me as well. I kept thinking of Nathan’s story of Ibrahim and the idols that couldn’t talk or move. I turned in place, trying to doze off again. I remembered Dr. Gold. And then the golden cast from my dream signed “Yitzhak.” I remembered that was Jason Blum’s name.

  Why does Allah hate them so much? I wondered. It didn’t make sense to me.

  I lay there, troubled, for what could have been minutes, or could have been hours. At some point, still only half-asleep, I heard the door hinges creak. I cracked open my eyes. A woman in white stood in the doorway. I didn’t realize she was a nurse until she’d stepped inside. I shut my eyes. She approached quietly, a sweet lilac scent floating in behind her soft-soled steps. She stood beside me for a long moment, and then the door hinges yawned open again.

  “What are you doing in here?” a man whispered. I stole a peek. It was Father.

  “I just wanted to see him,” the nurse whispered back. “He’s beautiful.”

  “Julie,” Father said.

  “I just want to see what he looks like. Is that too much to ask?”

  “Fine,” he said after a short pause. “Just don’t wake him.”

  “I won’t.”

  The door closed. Julie sat down in the bedside armchair. I pretended to rouse, as if awakened by the sound of the armchair cushions taking her weight. Squinting, I feigned surprise. “Who are you?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer. She just kept looking at me with her long, wide-set, yellow-brown eyes. Her hair was blond beneath her nurse’s cap, and her lips were thin and bright red. She looked somehow familiar to me, though I didn’t know why.

  She lifted her hand and ran her finger across her eyebrow. Her nails were tipped with the same bright shade as her lips.

  “You have beautiful eyelashes,” she finally said.

  “Thanks.”


  “I’m Julie,” she said. She got up from her chair and stood above me. She raised her hand. I closed my eyes. And I felt her finger along my forehead.

  “Your father loves you, you know that?” she said. “You know how much he loves you, right, Hayat?”

  I opened my eyes and shook my head.

  “He loves you more than anything else in the world,” she added quietly. She pressed in and kissed me on the forehead.

  “Don’t tell your dad you met me. Okay?”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  She looked away, considering. “I’m not the nurse on duty. I don’t want to get in any trouble.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Look at him,” Mother said, pointing as we pulled up the driveway. Imran was hopping about with joy on the front lawn; Mina stood by the walkway farther on. “He looks so happy to see his bhai-jaan.” As the car came to a stop, Imran pulled open the back door and tried to hug me. “Be careful, sweetie,” Mother told him. “His arm is still broken.”

  “Broken,” he repeated with a troubled frown.

  “But he’s going to be all better,” Mother said. “That’s why he was in the hospital.” Imran nodded, trying to smile. I climbed out of the car and put my free arm around him.

  “I love you, bhai-jaan,” he said, holding me tightly.

  “He missed you, behta,” Mina said. “So much. He asked about you all the time.” Mina looked odd to me. Her face was covered with a layer of skin-colored paste. It looked like she was wearing a mask.

  “How are you feeling, behta?” she asked.

  “I’m okay,” I said.

  “I cooked your favorite for lunch.”

  “Parathas?”

  She looked at me deeply, and all at once, she started to cry. I suddenly felt like crying, too. “Parathas were the least I could do,” she said as she took me into her arms. “I’m sorry, behta. I never meant to hurt you.”

  “Auntie,” I said into her ear. “I had a dream with the Prophet, peace be upon him.”