The Writing on My Forehead: A Novel

by Nafisa Haji

  Sakina was looking over her shoulder as her mother tugged her out of the room, eyes twinkling and lips twitching with a mischievous humor that left me breathless.

  A short while later, I came into the kitchen, in desperate need of coffee in a house where only tea was available. Shuja was there.

  He embraced me, saying, gently, “It’s good to have you home.”

  “It’s good to be home. Why aren’t you at work?”

  “The same reason Sakina was able to wake you up this morning. It’s Saturday.”

  I was going through the kitchen cupboards in a vain search for instant coffee. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a little forehead peek out from behind the dining-room doorway. Eyes, on me, followed.

  Unaided by the needed boost of caffeine, I had to manufacture the heartiness in my cheerful greeting, “Well, hello there!”

  I heard a giggle as the forehead and eyes were retracted. A moment later, a conversation began, two sides of it conducted by the same voice. “Is she really your aunt?—Yes, her name is Sairakhala.—And you’ve never met her before?—No, never.—Why not?—Because she lives all over the world.—Do you like her?—Of course I like her. I love her. She’s my Sairakhala.—Then why don’t you talk to her?—Because I’m shy.—But she doesn’t know that. She’ll think you’re rude.—No she won’t. She knows. She’s Sairakhala.—Do you think she’s gotten you a present?—Of course! She’s my Sairakhala.”

  Shuja’s eyes met mine, his lips twitching, the rest of his face contorted into a bizarre blend of emotion and query that I could not answer.

  I opened my mouth to reassure the voices that their expectation was not in vain. Ignoring Shuja, I said, to myself, “Who is that little girl who keeps popping in and out of sight?—Don’t you know? That’s Sakina!—Oh! Sakina! Well, why doesn’t she just come and introduce herself?—I don’t know. Maybe she’s shy.—But if she stays far away, how will you give her the presents you have for her?—I don’t know. I guess I will just have to wait for her to want to be friends.—But how long will you have to wait?—I don’t know. Not long, I hope.”

  A hand gripped the frame of the door, closely followed by feet, legs, and the rest of my alarm clock. The quest for coffee forgotten, I squatted down to Sakina’s eye level and regarded her as soberly, as curiously, as she had regarded me earlier. We stared at each other for some long, torturous moments. Finally, a giggle burst through the solemnity of her assumed expression and my eyes were relieved from the torment of remaining open and neutral in response to hers, which were intense and inquisitive. I looked up to gauge Shuja’s reaction to my ice-breaking techniques. He was smiling and nodding.

  I crooked a finger to invite Sakina to follow me back to my room. There, she watched me rummage around in my bag, looking for the dolls I had brought for her, from all over Asia and Africa and parts of Europe. She took them wordlessly, running her fingers over their dresses to explore their textures. A movement in the doorway caught my attention. I looked up and smiled when I saw Ameena.

  She smiled back at me with moist eyes and said to Sakina, “Have you thanked Saira Khala?”

  Sakina came close to me, put a thin arm around my neck, and whispered, in my ear, “Thank you, Sairakhala.”

  “You’re welcome, Sakina.”

  “Come, Sakina, Nanima is asking for you. You can show her your new dolls.”

  After a while, Ameena and my father helped Mummy into the living room, Shuja bringing up the rear, carrying the IV stand within range. I watched them arrange her on the couch and surveyed the evidence of my mother’s weakness, Sakina’s restless feet carrying her in and out of the room in a patter of steps and a chatter of song that played on in the background. We all sat together until Mummy fell asleep. Then Ameena and her family left, promising to return later in the afternoon. I must have fallen asleep soon after.

  When my eyes opened, Mummy was still asleep and Daddy was still in his armchair, his face veiled from my mother’s potential sight behind a newspaper—but not from mine. From my angle in the room, I saw his face clearly, saw his hand reaching up, from time to time, to wipe his eyes. I had never before seen my father cry. Every once in a while, he would lift his eyes from the newsprint he was pretending to read, and gaze at my mother, unable to stem the flow of tears that he was trying so hard to hide.

  My instinct, learned from him, was to flee the room. Daddy had always melted away into the background, remote and absent through all the controversies and trauma of the past. It occurred to me suddenly that my father’s relationship to me and Ameena could only be traced through Mummy. He had opened the door to welcome me to my mother’s deathbed, without one reference to my having been away for so long. All of our lives, it had been her job to interact and intercede, his only to pay the bills and provide. When she was gone—where would that leave us? Where would it leave him?

  I fought against instinct and approached him, putting my hand on his arm. He didn’t look at me, his eyes still on the paper that rustled a bit in his hands. After a few seconds, he let half fall into his lap as he loosened his grip and moved one hand to rest on mine. A squeeze, a sniff. That was all.

  “DADDY KNOWS?”

  “Of course he knows.”

  I took a moment to absorb what Mummy told me. I was lying next to her on her bed about a week after I had returned from exile. Such a long time passed in silence that I was surprised to turn and see her still awake, her eyes on my face.

  I said one of the things that had been on my mind since I came home, “It’s strange to see Ameena in hijab.”

  “Hmmm,” Mummy said, her lips pursed in the way they so frequently had because of something I said or did.

  “You don’t like it?”

  “I don’t agree with it. The idea that a woman has to cover her hair. Modesty, yes. But not hijab. There was no such thing when I was growing up. Some women wore their dupattas on their head when they went out—conservative women. From conservative, old-fashioned families. I don’t understand what this new fashion is about. It’s like a uniform. A declaration of one’s piety.”

  I laughed. “Like a bumper sticker.”

  “That is what I told her.”

  “And?”

  “She said it was something she had to do. She has become very religious. Since you went away. She feels guilty, I think.”

  I sat up in bed. This had not occurred to me. “She has no reason to.”

  “Doesn’t she? Whatever you say, you are not at peace. Anyone can see that, Saira. You avoid her.”

  “No I don’t. I don’t.”

  “Yes. You look through her. You don’t see her. And the whole thing is festering.”

  “It’s—been hard. Coming home. That’s all. I knew it would be.”

  “That’s why you kept away for so long.” Mummy’s hand was on my forehead. Smoothing, caressing.

  “You remember when you used to write on my forehead?”

  Mummy nodded.

  “What was it you used to write?”

  “An ayat from the Quran. Ayatul Kursi. A prayer for protection. Ameena does the same thing for Sakina.”

  “Does she?” I could feel Mummy’s fingers begin to trace the script, right to left. “I’m glad.”

  THAT HAD BEEN one of Mummy’s good days.

  There were bad ones, too. Days when her pain was so bad that nothing seemed to help. On those days, I did as she requested—what she had asked me to do on the afternoon of my return. I told her stories—stories of what I’d seen and written about over the course of my exile. War, hunger, poverty, death, destruction. Mummy hung on every word, meditating on the suffering of others in a vain attempt to distract herself from her own. Hours would pass before she could finally manage to close her eyes and sleep.

  One day, as the tension on her forehead eased and I saw that finally she would be able to rest, Mummy’s eyes turned to Ameena sitting in the chair by the window, and she asked, “Where’s Sakina?”

  “She’s at home.”
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  “You’ve been here all day, Ameena. Go home. Take care of Sakina. Don’t neglect her because of me. Saira is here to take care of me.”

  “She’s all right. Shuja is with her.”

  Mummy smiled. She closed her eyes and said, “Shuja. He dotes on that child. I think he loves her even more than he loves you, Ameena. And that hardly seems possible.” I tried not to see the wringing of my sister’s hands.

  We waited, Ameena and I, for a few minutes before quietly leaving the room, leaving Sakina’s old baby monitor on so we could hear if Mummy called out. Ameena followed me into the kitchen and watched me put the water on for the tea that I had resigned myself to drinking. The silence was dangerously awkward, carefully cultivated by me and reluctantly respected by Ameena.

  With relief, I saw her reach for her bag and scarf. Watched her put it on, tucking her hair under it carefully. She was getting ready to go home. Back to her life.

  I took a deep breath and said what I had been planning to say: “You have nothing to feel guilty about, Ameena. That’s why you wear hijab, isn’t it? Why you’ve become so religious?”

  Ameena smiled gently and said, “You’ve been talking to Mummy.”

  “She’s wrong?”

  Ameena cocked her head to one side. “Maybe not.”

  “Please don’t feel guilty, Ameena. It’s such a useless emotion.”

  “How could I not? I drove you away from us.”

  “You didn’t do that.”

  “Yes I did, Saira. If I—”

  “There’s no if, Ameena. Only what was. What is. You have nothing to feel guilty about.”

  Ameena took a step closer to me. She put her hand on my arm. “What I feel guilty about is that I have no regrets. I’m not sorry, Saira. If it all happened again, I would do the same thing.” She put her face in her hands. “What kind of sister am I—that I would do it again? Put you through it all over again? Even though I know you regret it.”

  “No. I have no regrets.”

  I met her eyes, saw the struggle in them, the doubt, the fear.

  The last took me by surprise. “You’re not—afraid of me, Ameena?”

  The quick intake of breath was my answer.

  I shook my head, put my mug down, and took her shoulders to give her a shake. “You have no reason to be afraid. I promise. I have no regrets.”

  Out came the breath and the tension in her shoulders eased as she nodded, wiping at the corners of her eyes.

  I put my hand on Ameena’s cheek, tucked a lock of stray hair back under her scarf. Without thinking, I asked, “Will Sakina have to wear one of these when she gets older?”

  Ameena took a step backward and paused for long enough to make me realize what I had done.

  “I’m sorry, Ameena. It’s none of my business. How you choose to raise your daughter.”

  “Whether Sakina chooses to cover or not will be up to her.”

  I held my hand up. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.” I picked up Ameena’s car keys from the hook where they hung in our mother’s kitchen. “Here. Mummy’s right. Go home. Be with Sakina. Give my love to Shuja.”

  “Saira—”

  “I’m sorry, Ameena. It was a difficult day. With Mummy. And, I suppose, it’s only going to get worse.”

  Ameena opened her mouth again, saw the look in my eye, and then reached forward to give my arm a rub. “Get some sleep.”

  “I will.”

  FIFTEEN

  SOME LONG MONTHS after my return home, months when Mummy struggled without complaint through the last race between morphine and pain that is the final stage of cancer, she died.

  In the first days and weeks after, every morning was the same. I woke to the sound of my father’s sobs, loud and inconsolable. Barely breathing, I waited for the storm to pass, postponing movement and motion until after it subsided, trying to avoid violation of the carefully constructed privacy of his grief. An hour later, at breakfast, there was never any sign of it on his face or in his demeanor. He resumed the façade of his life the very day after the funeral—going to work and coming home, watching television, and reading the paper. Our interaction fell under this category, limited to formal greetings and good-nights, no references to my mother or the grief that we should have been able to share. The only contradiction to his outward composure was the fear I saw in his eyes whenever I talked of leaving. Then, the assumed calm of his routine would give way to an anxiety he tried to hide. And I knew—instinctively, not from anything he said—that my departure was something he dreaded.

  More than a month had passed when Mohsin called to ask when I was going to rejoin him—rubbing salt in the wound of my awkward captivity with news of an exciting story he thought we should tackle.

  I was working on my laptop, at the dining table, when Daddy came home. He looked for me when he did, calling my name the moment he walked in the door.

  “I’m here, Daddy! In the dining room.”

  He came and stood in the doorway, which opened from the kitchen. “Oh. Are you working?”

  I shrugged. “Sort of.”

  He entered the room and sat down at the table across from me. “Writing?”

  “Not really. Sketching out some questions to ask for something Mohsin’s working on. He wants me to join him soon.”

  “You’re not leaving already?” There was that note again, of panic, which he couldn’t quite seem to contain.

  “Not yet. But I’ll have to. Eventually.”

  Looking out the window, he said, as if in reference to the weather, “I—I can’t bear the thought, Saira. Of being alone.”

  I came around the table and took a seat beside him. “You won’t be. Ameena’s here. So close. And I promise I’ll come and visit. Not like before.”

  He was shaking his head. “That’s not the same. I’ve never lived alone. I don’t know how to do it.” He was tracing the grains of wood on the table where we sat. “I don’t know how he did it. My father. I’ve been thinking of him a lot lately. He had no one at the end.”

  “He had his work.”

  Daddy shook his head. “I have work. That’s all I have. It’s not enough. It couldn’t have been enough for him.” My father’s eyes met mine. “I promised him I’d go back. You know that. You wrote about it in your story—‘Bearing Witness.’ But I didn’t keep my promise. He died alone.” The breath Daddy exhaled was ragged.

  “But you’re not alone, Daddy. You have me and Ameena. Sakina and Shuja.”

  “I have been a cold and distant father.”

  “No!”

  “Don’t deny it. It’s true. I know it. Your mother—she always complained. That I wasn’t involved enough. And now—you and Ameena will go on as before. I will see her often, with her family. You, less often, when you visit me now and then. But you are both as distant from me as I was from him. I feel bad, now. About coming to America. Staying here, when I said I would go back. But it was easier to stay. I didn’t think about him and what he might have needed.”

  “Daddy—”

  He held up his hand to stop me from speaking. “It’s all right. I’m not complaining. I know you have to go.” He stood and shuffled out of the room.

  I followed him into the living room and surprised myself with my next words—an idea I had toyed with and discarded as unfeasible. “Daddy—why don’t you come with me?”

  “What? Where?”

  “To India. We’ll meet up with Mohsin. Then, we’re going to Pakistan.” I didn’t tell him about Afghanistan after that.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Go with you? To India?” He frowned down at the remote control in his hand. And then put it aside, very deliberately, without flicking on the television as he had planned to do. He turned his face up to look at me as he said, sounding surprised himself, “Yes. I think—I’d like that.”

  WE WENT TO India first, to Bombay—which is what Daddy and Mummy had continued to call the city of Mumbai, even after its name was officially changed—where Mohsin was wait
ing. At first, Daddy was our guide, showing us the house where he was raised, the schools he and Mohsin’s father attended. Later, he tagged along with us as we worked, interviewing patients and doctors at women’s clinics all over the city for a story on selective female abortions.

  At one of these clinics, Mohsin and I introduced him to Dr. Asma Mohammed.

  “It’s an honor to meet you, Dr. Qader. At long last.”

  My father looked from Dr. Mohammed’s face to mine, not understanding.

  I let her explain: “I met your daughter—and your nephew—three years back. They found me here, in this clinic which your father founded.”

  “My father?”

  “He was our neighbor.”

  Daddy frowned.

  “In the flat that he lived in at the end. I was just starting college when he shifted to our building. He was a great man. A mentor to me. The reason I became a doctor. He spoke of you often.”

  “Did he?”

  “Indeed.” She waited for some response from my father. When none came, she said, “Would you like a tour?”

  My father nodded. And we followed. I watched him assess the facility, taking stock, perhaps, of what his professional life might have been like if he had fulfilled his father’s wishes. He paid close attention to Dr. Mohammed, asking questions about the kinds of services offered at the women’s clinic.

  At dinner that night, in the restaurant of our hotel, he was unusually quiet. Daddy didn’t come out with us the next day, claiming to be tired. When Mohsin and I trudged back to the hotel in the evening, Daddy was excited. He’d taken a cab back to the clinic, had spent the day there with Dr. Mohammed—Asma, he called her.

  “She’s incredible—that woman. She told me how you two helped her create their fund-raising brochure. It’s beautiful—the pictures, the personal stories. Tell me—what do you know of her? Is she married? Does she have children?”