That Thing We Call a Heart
Page 19
“Morning Dew?” he said.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hey. It’s nice to hear your voice.”
He sounded like he meant it. But then he always did. In spite of what I now knew, I could feel a part of myself still drawn to him, still yearning, wishing things had turned out differently.
Dammit.
“How are you?” he asked.
I tried not to look at Farah, who had grabbed Big Muchli and was mock punching him in the face to demonstrate what I ought to do next.
But I didn’t want to punch him. I wanted to cry. Calling him had been a mistake.
“I’m good,” I said. “What about you?”
“I’ve been better,” Jamie said, which wasn’t his usual MO.
“What’s the matter?”
A frustrated Farah threw Big Muchli in the air.
“Aunt Marianne left for Brazil.”
“Oh?” I said. “But I’m sure she’ll have a good time.”
“She has lung cancer.”
“Oh. I didn’t know she smoked.”
“She doesn’t. She never did.”
“Shit. I’m so sorry. She’s really special.”
On the floor below, Farah rolled her eyes and started playing an imaginary violin.
“Hold on a sec, Jamie.” I took it off speaker, covered the mouthpiece. “Jesus, Farah, his aunt has cancer!”
“So what! That doesn’t change what he did!” Farah exclaimed.
I put it back on speaker. “Jamie?”
“Yeah?”
“I wanted to say . . .” What did I want to say? There’d been days when I’d spent hours imagining exactly this moment, and now that it was here, I was without words.
“Goddammit!” Farah cried. “Jamie, it’s Farah.”
“Oh, hey, Farah!” Jamie said. “How are you?”
No hint of fear, or remorse, or even hesitation.
We looked at each other. Unbelievable. I nodded at Farah.
Go.
“You know, it’s funny you called, because Qureshi and I were just talking about you,” she said.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. We were talking about how you’re a two-faced lying scumbag, who thought you almost got away with trying to kiss me. What did you think, that I wouldn’t say anything? Well, maybe you’ve gotten away with this in the past, but both Q and I see you for what you are, which is a lame, duplicitous, manipulative loser.”
“Ouch,” Jamie said.
“Ouch?” I said. “That’s all you have to say?”
“What can I say?”
At least he had the decency not to deny it. “I don’t know, Jamie,” I responded. “That you’re sorry?”
“I never wanted to hurt either of you. You’re both such amazing women.”
Farah seemed like she was about to blow again, and I gave her a warning look. I wanted to hear how he was going to justify his behavior.
“So you think it’s okay that you tried to kiss Farah?” I said.
“Nah, I know that wasn’t cool. I got caught up in the moment.”
“She’s my best friend,” I said, suddenly sounding wretched.
“And I’m still her best friend,” Farah cried. “And I will kill you if I ever see you.”
“Whoa,” Jamie said. “You two make a fearsome pair.”
How could this be? Even after being exposed as a liar, he was trying to be charming.
“Unbelievable,” Farah said.
“Listen, I’m not proud of what I did. But I really did like you, Morning Dew. I think you’re such a beautiful—”
“Stop it!” I said. “It doesn’t matter anymore, what you think. I trusted you with my heart, but you didn’t deserve it. I don’t need you to feel good about myself. I’m sorry about Aunt Marianne, but I don’t want to have anything to do with you. Shame on you, Jamie. Never contact me again.”
I hung up before he could reply. My hands were shaking.
Farah embraced me.
“That was awesome!” she said. “You totally gave it to him. I’m so proud of you. You did it, Qureshi!”
“I know,” I said. “I know!”
I wasn’t sure who yelled first, Farah or me, but soon we were both screaming and stamping our feet and jumping up and down until we collapsed on the bed.
“By the way, this whole time you’ve had underwear on your head,” Farah told me.
As I yanked it from my curls, I was still laughing, but then I realized it was the same pair I’d worn to the Theater of Dreams, and started to cry.
Thirty-Two
THE CONVERSATION WITH JAMIE sent me into a downward spiral, but I recovered more quickly this time. Talking to him had given me some closure, and helped me realize that I could, and would, move on. A lot of things were changing; my parents had gone on two date nights, including a Bollywood film where my father had managed to stay awake past intermission. I’d sent them to our local Italian restaurant for a dinner date with my pie wallah money. I’d even caught my mother coming out of my father’s study twice. Once, when I entered the kitchen, they’d stopped talking, like they’d been sharing a confidence, and it was nice to feel excluded, like they were beginning to have a life without me.
But I was realistic. My father was still self-involved and a terrible conversationalist, but at least he was trying, which was more than he’d ever done before.
Farah left for Harvard and was already sending me emails about the cool people she was meeting, Muslim and otherwise, and how she’d discovered a great music venue called, wait for it, The Middle East. Since I don’t pray, I wrote, would you include Aunt Marianne in your prayers? Sure, she wrote back, I can pray for her when I say du’a, but you should also send her good vibes. So I did.
The day before I left for Penn, two things happened.
I was able to listen to “Let Down” without crying, and my father actually came to my room.
“All ready to go?” he said.
“Almost.”
He appraised my luggage. “Can you fit one more thing?”
“Depends on how big it is.”
“Not big. A gift for your birthday.”
My birthday wasn’t until tomorrow, but I was impressed he’d gotten it almost right. “A birthday gift? For me?”
“For you.” He revealed what he’d been concealing behind his back: a red hardcover book, with one word on the front—Poetry.
I opened it. On the first page was an inscription.
To Shabnam,
May You Always Find Solace in Poetry
Love, Dad
“Did you make this?” I asked.
“Yes,” my father said. “It is a selection of my favorite poems—on the left is the Urdu, transliterated into English, on the right my translation. Almost all of the poems that have meant the most to me are contained inside. Your mother put the book together using a website.”
So that was why they’d been acting conspiratorial.
“This is so awesome.” I hugged him. “Thanks, Dad. If you don’t mind, I’ll ask Mom to order another copy and send it to Chotay Dada in Pakistan.”
“Is Chotay Dada interested in poetry?” my father asked.
“I don’t know. But maybe it will give him solace, too.”
“Poetry can give everyone solace,” my father agreed, “if they are open to it.”
“So you know they teach Urdu at Penn,” I said. “I was thinking I’d study it, and maybe one day I’d be good enough to read Faiz in the original. Maybe even Ghalib, too.”
You know the look fathers have when they’re walking their daughters down the aisle to get married? That was what my father looked like when I told him this, all sentimental, and proud.
My father nodded. “I’d like that. I wish you all the best, beta. I wish you all the happiness in the world.”
“I love you,” I said. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d told him this, or if I’d ever told him this.
“Yes,” my father said.
“Yes,” he replied. “That is what I mean.”
I stayed up late that night, reading my father’s favorite poems.
And if you want to know what happened next, it goes something like this:
The nightingale, she said farewell to the rose. She nursed her wounded heart, she brought her loved ones close. She spread her wings. She left the garden.
She flew.
A NOTE ON PARTITION
As Mr. Blake tells his class, the Partition of India in 1947 was the largest mass migration in human history, with an estimated fourteen million people displaced and hundreds of thousands killed. It was a violent, traumatic event, a disastrous culmination of centuries of colonial oppression, a deep, dark wound in the psyche of the subcontinent to which there are no public memorials, and, until recently, no museums. It is an event many have tried to forget, even as its aftereffects continue to this day.
People who were teenagers during Partition are now in their eighties, and many of their stories remain untold. The 1947 Partition Archive is a nonprofit organization dedicated to recording and preserving eyewitness accounts of Partition from the remaining survivors, so that their stories are remembered and known. You can find out more, including how to become a citizen historian, on their website, www.1947partitionarchive.org.
In October 2016, the world’s first Partition Museum opened in Amritsar, India, dedicated to the victims, survivors, and legacy of Partition. Learn more at www.partitionmuseum.org.
A NOTE ON FAIZ AHMED FAIZ
Faiz Ahmed Faiz was one of the great modern Urdu poets. Since his death in 1984, his work has continued to move and inspire readers throughout the world. His poems have been widely translated into English. If you’d like to read more by him, one book I highly recommend is The Rebel’s Silhouette: Selected Poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, translated by the poet Agha Shahid Ali.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My deep gratitude to the following for making this book possible:
To my agent, Ayesha Pande, for her years of guidance and support, and for being a champion of diversity in publishing.
To my editor, Rosemary Brosnan, and the fantastic team at HarperTeen, for seeing the heart of this book and helping make it come alive.
To Venk Kandadai, for sharing his passion for Radiohead’s music.
To the Faiz Foundation Trust for permission to publish Faiz’s work, and to Nicky Dodd for being my woman on the ground.
To the Vanderbilt University MSA crew: Merna El-Rifai, Sumaiya Delane, Safiah Hassan, Dini Muniro, Bushra Rahman and Hamzah Raza, for sharing their thoughts and stories with me.
And to my beloveds, Anand and Lillah, in whom my heart has found a home.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Christine Rogers
SHEBA KARIM is also the author of Skunk Girl. Her fiction has appeared in Asia Literary Review, Barn Owl Review, Femina, Shenandoah, Time Out Delhi, and in several anthologies in the United States and India. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the NYU School of Law and currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee. You can visit her online at www.shebakarim.com.
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BOOKS BY SHEBA KARIM
That Thing We Call a Heart
The Road Trip Effect
CREDITS
Cover art © 2017 by Jessica Lia / Arcangel
Cover design by Anna Morrison and Laura Eckes
COPYRIGHT
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
THAT THING WE CALL A HEART. Text copyright © 2017 by Sheba Karim. “Kya Karen,” here, and “Yaad,” here: Poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz—Courtesy Faiz Foundation Trust. English translations of “Kya Karen” and “Yaad” by Faiz Ahmed Faiz—Courtesy Anand Vivek Taneja. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016949962
ISBN 978-0-06-244570-4
EPub Edition © April 2017 ISBN 9780062445728
17 18 19 20 21 PC/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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