“I’m having a traumatic response to intimacy?”
“I think? On some level. Maybe not consciously.”
“You got all that from one podcast?”
“Well, no. After the podcast, I did some reading. Well, more reading.” He averts his gaze, smiles at the floor.
“You did research. Like, full on.” I match his smile.
“It’s how I feel safe.” He blinks and looks away. I consider his words. He’s been feeling unsafe. How did I not know?
“Give me a little time to take all of this in?”
“Of course, Shari.”
“And maybe send me one of the articles you read? But only one? And the most practical of the bunch?” I hold up my finger to make my point. “Something short.”
“No problem. I saved them all.”
A few days later, I allow myself to open the article. He’s also sent the link to the podcast, but I don’t listen to that; his summary is enough for now.
The instructions are just like he said: the survivor (I flinch at the word) must tune into her body and notice the sensations that arise during intimate touch (something about this makes me flinch, too, but I don’t reread the sentence to identify what). The article labels what’s been happening to me as dissociation and is a normal thing experienced by a large percentage of trauma victims (another flinchy word).
Dissociation is the skill of being there, and not there, at the same time.
It helps to block out pain, or difficult emotions.
Children are particularly good at learning this skill.
It may indicate there is repressed memory of trauma.
I pause here. I am amnesic about khatna. Fatema is not. Zainab has patchy memories, ones that interweave with Fatema’s. I know there is nothing easy about remembering. Still, I envy them. My own memories — if they even are memories — are as flimsy as tissue paper.
And now I have this manual on sexual healing. Marvin Gaye croons to me for a minute, and I let him.
I read on.
Many women have never learned to say “no” to sexual partners because instead they learn to use sex to please their partners more than themselves. I flip through mental images of past lovers, considering whether this assertion might be true. I don’t want to linger there, so I continue.
Early trauma increases this inability to say “no,” this lack of control. Instead, they, or we — I’m working hard to locate myself within the text — learn to dissociate.
Once again, my mind drifts back to my previous boyfriends. I’ve never been coerced into anything. I was always an active participant, probably more active, more adventurous that I am now with my husband. But when I squeeze my eyelids shut, I know there was a familiar half-here, half-thereness about sex with them, too.
Sometimes this was helped along by booze. A few times pot. Sometimes I daydreamed, made lists, focused on the wrong things. That’s what I thought, then, anyway, about my straying mind and body. But really, according to this theory, I was, I am, a woman seeking a necessary escape hatch. I am a blinkered horse.
I look up from my reading to see Zee’s eyes on me.
“Okay?” she asks. I’ve missed whatever she’s been explaining to me. I hope it was a brief question, rather than a report or soliloquy. Probably a question; she’s been working on math this morning.
“Sorry, Zee. I was concentrating on something else. Tell me again?”
“I want to put this up on the door now, before Nani comes.” She holds a piece of paper ripped from her spiral-bound book. It says WELCOME NANI! So she wasn’t working on math all this time.
“That’s beautiful. How did you know to spell welcome?” I look more closely. There is a rainbow below the words, a sun shining above.
“That was last week’s spelling, remember?” She rolls her eyes, puts her hands on her hips, the pantomime of a teenager.
I nod, pretending to remember the lesson. I find a roll of tape in the kitchen drawer.
“Which door?”
“Mom! I told you earlier: it has to be on the front door so that it’s the first thing she sees in the apartment!” She waves her arms in wide circles. I have frustrated her.
“Right. That’s a great idea.” I follow her to the foyer, and help her affix the sign so that it hangs straight.
“Perfect.” Zee steps back to assess her work.
“Nani will love it.” I check my watch. She won’t arrive for six hours. Yesterday, I made up the second twin bed in Zee’s room. I still have to begin dinner preparations, and confirm her flight status.
“Come, Zee, let me show you something fun.” I open a new tab over the dissociation article. I show Zee where to type in Mom’s flight number on the airline site and then a map pops up on the screen.
“That’s her airplane?” Zee’s mouth gapes and her eyes widen. She is seven again.
“Well, kind of. An image of where her plane is now. Looks like it’s over Lebanon.”
“Over Lebanon,” she repeats the words three times, in slow motion, as though in a trance. I point out other countries near the flight path: Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, countries the school curriculum hasn’t touched. She’s mesmerized by the live map, the blinking light that represents Mom’s plane.
“Look! It moved!” She leans forward, makes a smudge on the screen with her finger. Just then, Murtuza gets in, joins us in front of the laptop.
“What are you two doing?” he asks.
“Watching Nani’s plane!” Zee squeals.
“Geography,” I whisper. The sexual healing article is open behind the airline site, and Murtuza runs his finger over its tab, the corners of his mouth crinkling into a smile. I nod, a sensation of melancholy covering me like a crocheted blanket.
“It moved again,” Zee squeals, confusing my sadness, shoving it away. I refocus on the flashing light.
FIFTY
When I get up to pee, the living room light is on.
“Ah, you are awake, too?” Mom asks. It feels normal to have her with us, even after all this time apart.
She is on the overstimulated side of jet lag, and me, well, I’m experiencing my normal insomniac edge. I check the clock; it’s 1:00 a.m. I assess whether my bladder will hold a cup of herbal tea through the night. I put on the kettle and make us both a cup of chamomile.
“I had a plan to pay back my sleep debt, but it hasn’t worked out so well,” I say, wanly.
“For as long I can remember you were like this. Up and down, up and down all night long.” She shakes her head.
“Yeah, I know. I’m so glad Zee doesn’t have this problem.”
“Early on, you were just like Zee. I think the sleep problems commenced after you started school. Your teacher noticed, that pregnant one?”
“Mrs. Fields.” Second grade, the teacher whose belly grew all year until she left us in March.
“You still remember her name! Yes, her. We were all concerned that your school performance had dropped that year.”
I sip my tea, stay quiet, waiting to see what else she’ll share. She reminds me that my B average became a full-on emergency to them. They hired a tutor. And somehow, I caught up even though I still wasn’t sleeping normally.
“Yes, it was right after you came back from India, come to think of it. At first we thought it was jet lag. And then you sleepwalked. Thank god that stopped. We’d find you standing up, asleep, in the middle of the hallway.” I don’t reply; I’ve heard the story many times. My nightly wanderings perplexed and alarmed my parents, who worried I’d disappear out the front door and deep into the suburbs. As a precaution, they affixed bells to all the doorknobs.
“Do you remember when the sleepwalking would get worse?” I ask, knowing the answer.
“Every couple of years, I think,” she says, her eyes squeezed shut in concentration. “It was always connected to time changes. Jet lag.”
“Coming home from India.”
Great, another khatna conseq
uence.
“Yes, that’s right, come to think of it. You always had trouble adjusting. It’s odd, though, that it would trigger sleepwalking.” She yawns. “Do you think it might happen when you go back?”
“Maybe.” Tomorrow, I think. Tomorrow I’ll tell her why India makes sleep impossible.
The chamomile did its work and I am somewhat rested for a change. It’s eight-thirty and I’m supervising Zee’s toast-making. The toaster pops and she stands on tippy toes to retrieve four slices, which she places, one by one, on a plate. Murtuza and I compliment her on her butter- and jam-spreading skills, which are so meticulous that by the time we each get our slices, the bread has long cooled.
“When we go home, I’ll teach you how to pack your own lunchbox,” Murtuza tells her.
“Maybe next year. One thing at a time,” she says sagely, accumulating crumbs on her chin.
Mom is asleep, so I suggest that we do the morning math lesson in our pajamas to avoid waking her.
After half an hour, there is stirring, and then Mom emerges into the hallway.
“Nani! Do you want toast? I can make it for you. I learned how. I’ve been making my own breakfast for a long time now!”
“All right, sounds good.” Her voice is gravelly. “I need a cup of tea first.”
I plug in the kettle and think about the conversation we will have later. Maybe we’ll go out to lunch. Or perhaps we’ll stay here. Would a public place be better?
“How did you sleep, Mom?” Murtuza asks.
“Like a log. But I’m foggy. It’s bedtime in New York right now.”
“It took me a week to adjust,” he tells her, taking the dirty plates to the dishwasher. As he passes, his arm brushes mine and I startle.
“You all right?” He knows I’m in knots about talking to Mom.
“Can you mind Zee for a couple of hours around lunchtime?” My heart is pounding, my body leaping ahead in time. It’s already told my mother everything, is frightened of the words I’ve already uttered, the terrible reaction she’s already had.
“Of course. Or I can drop her at Zainab’s, and come back and be with you, or a mix of both, if you want.” I am overwhelmed by the options.
“I don’t know, Murti, I don’t know.” I busy myself with pouring hot water over a teabag, then mixing in a teaspoon and a quarter of sugar. I squeeze out the bag.
“Okay, tell me when you know.” He passes me the full fat milk, purchased for Mom’s arrival.
Three hours later, Mom is showered, dressed, and more alert than I’d expect on her first day in India. Murtuza and Zee have cleared out, the pretext a burning research need for a paper he wants to complete. He will give us some time alone, then drop Zee off to see Nafeesa, and check in with me.
“What would you like to eat?” I ask Mom.
“I’m craving pani puri. I haven’t had it in so long!”
“Street food on your first day? I dunno, Mom, you don’t worry you’ll get sick?”
“No, no. Last time we came, we went to a restaurant, very clean, that has good pani puri. Your dad said it tasted better than the street, even.” Her wide smile pinches at the mention of my father.
“Okay. Let’s go.” We gather our purses, rush out the door, attempt to outrun our memories of him.
Mom insists on a rickshaw, and directs the driver in Hindi, her jet-lagged brain and tongue reaching for language she hasn’t used since her last visit. He nods and hits the accelerator and we are off. I worry that I will lose my nerve, so I yell over the rick’s motor and into her ear, “Mom, there’s something important I want to talk about at the restaurant.” There, I think, I can’t avoid it now.
“Something important? What?”
“Not here, it’s too noisy. At the restaurant.”
“Okay,” she shouts back. If she’s disconcerted, I can’t tell; she’s occupied with scanning the street. “Not much has changed since we were here last. I’m surprised. It always seems like a new country each time we return. Oh, look, there’s your father’s tailor. He’s got a new sign.”
Back home, she had gradually stopped talking about herself in the first-person plural, emerging into her singular experience. Her talk of her New York life is completely devoid of Dad. But now, he is with us, a passenger on our ride.
At the restaurant, I point to a corner booth, far from the other patrons. We look over the laminated menus.
“Oh, yes, here they are! One order pani puri, one order bhel puri, one order dhai puri?” she asks excitedly, and I nod. She is a kid in an adult version of a Bandra candy shop.
“So you have some news?” she asks, after the waiter takes our order and returns with two bottles of water.
“Maybe we should eat first?” I don’t want to ruin her much-anticipated meal.
“Tell me.” She purses her lips, unconsciously mimicking my expression. “Is something wrong? What’s happened?”
“No, everything’s okay. But … remember when we had that conversation about khatna a while back?” I’d felt an off-kilter relief after that talk. Khatna was something that might have been my cousins’ experience, but not mine. I was still the American child, the protected child.
“Yes, I recall. I’ve been hearing so much about it these days. The activists here are doing good work.”
“You know Fatema is very involved in that group?”
“I’m not surprised. She has always been so strong. Maybe in your lifetimes things will change for the better in our community.”
The waiter arrives with our first plate of puffed, deep-fried puris filled with potatoes, onions, coriander, and chili-infused liquid. Mom picks one up, passes it to me. I stuff it into my mouth in one bite, the volcano of spices erupting on my tongue.
“Oh god, this is good.” She wipes her lips with her napkin.
“Really good,” I agree, allowing the food to be a satisfying diversion.
The waiter drops off two iterations of the same dish, one yogurt-filled and the last a sweet and crushed-up version we eat with a spoon. For now, I’m happy to feast, and not talk. We crunch our way through the three plates.
“So what about khatna do you need to talk with me about?” She’s skilled at picking up dangling threads.
“There is something you don’t know, something no one ever told you.” I cover my mouth and burp up the puris, my stomach reacting to my words.
“Go on.” She cocks a perfectly shaped left eyebrow.
“After you and Dad left, Maasi and Nani … they took Zainab and Fatema and … me … to the khatna lady.” I look up at her, register the shock in her eyes.
“No. I told Tasnim I didn’t want that for you.”
“She did it anyway.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“I don’t know why I didn’t say anything right after … I think they told us not to? But then with time, I guess I forgot.” As I try to explain, I am confused.
“Forgot?” She looks skeptical, and I tell her Zainab remembers little, that it was Fatema who told us the story.
“Then maybe it isn’t true. Fatema was just a little girl. Perhaps she doesn’t remember correctly. It was a long time ago. Maybe you weren’t there, but she imagined you were there.” She is shaking her head and waving her hands. I breathe deeply, will her to stay still.
“She remembers it vividly. She told me I was there.” I try to keep my voice slow and quiet. I need to be calm, but I am anything but. The pani puri rumbles in my stomach, and I again burp its reflux.
“Then maybe you were there, but it didn’t actually happen to you. Maybe they just took you along. You wouldn’t forget such a thing.” Her eyes are narrowed, her brows furrowed, the picture of someone grasping for something slipping away from her. For a split second I think, Maybe. Maybe this makes sense. Maybe I was only there, but it didn’t happen to me. My stomach lurches.
“No, people do forget. Apparently, it’s a common thing t
o forget.” I strain to recall the words in the article Murtuza sent me. Now I wish he were here. He could parrot it all back, authoritatively, and Mom would listen, believe him.
“I don’t know what to think.” She piles the three plates, one on top of the other, a small wobbly tower.
“It happened,” I whisper, massaging my belly. My brain is full of all the arguments and counterarguments that have been forming in my head since I found out, all the details and clues that I’ve been collecting for the last twenty years: the sexual issues, insomnia, the gynecologist experience, the online affair (can I blame the affair on khatna, too?).
I want to lay all of this out for her, convince her to believe me, convince myself to believe myself. I hold my belly, hoping to control the spasms moving in unpredictable upward waves. Mom doesn’t seem to notice.
“No. My sister promised me. I told her she couldn’t take you and she promised not to take you. She promised.” Her eyes are focused somewhere behind me.
I rush out of the booth, look left and right in search of the bathroom, and scurry to the back of the restaurant. I make it to a Dettol-smelling toilet, just in time. I expel everything, the lunch and all the details and clues, all the arguments and counterarguments, everything. I am emptied out, relief rippling through my body. When I flush and turn around, Mom is there, waiting for me. She presses a wet paper towel to my flushed face.
I close my eyes and let her dab my forehead and cheeks. Then she clutches at me, holds me while I whimper and sob into her shoulder.
“It happened. It really happened.”
“Okay, okay.” Her neck smells of Oil of Olay, the moisturizer she’s worn since I was born. I inhale and think little-girl thoughts: Don’t tell. It was nothing. I want my mom.
FIFTY-ONE
Bombay, 1915
Abdoolally stood outside of the Cathedral and John Connon School. He gazed up at the impressive four-storey structure with its arching windows and spacious balconies. He imagined what it would be like to be a young man taking classes in such a grand institution. Yes, he thought, this is the place for my grandson.
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