Radiant Fugitives

by Nawaaz Ahmed

  “I don’t want to get back together either.”

  He sees it clearly then, her stratagem. He leaps up, enraged. “This is what you planned, you and Divya? First you screw me, then you screw me over, so you and Divya can play mommies together? Don’t give me that face—I know about you two. Fuck you, Seema. You won’t get one cent out of me for this.”

  They haven’t ordered yet. He flicks his menu toward her and, ignoring her cries, strides out of the restaurant. “Fucking lesbians.” The dazzle of the day outside blinds him.

  Seema leaves messages, which he deletes without listening. She emails him insisting he’s wrong, she means to bring up the baby alone if he doesn’t want to be involved. She doesn’t mean to impose the baby on him, she doesn’t need his money. But meanwhile he has found out he has very little power in the matter: by California law, he will be held responsible for child support, no matter what. He is the sucker chosen to subsidize Seema and Divya playing house. Abort the baby, he replies, tersely.

  When he finally agrees to meet again, he demands they draw up papers to absolve him of any commitment to me; the marriage dissolution can proceed then. This is really a symbolic gesture, since no court of law in California will recognize the document if it’s against the child’s best interests. But this is the best he can hope for. In return, Seema requires him to sign away his parental rights. That he can do: sign away his rights but not his responsibilities. He draws up an affidavit, and they both sign.

  But later, he finds that a legal document has not obliterated those instincts of fathers-to-be that well up in the cracks in his mind and heart as the day of my birth approaches. The idea of me begins to tug at him.

  He has no clear picture of me—my mother has let slip my gender, and he’d wanted a daughter earlier. His conception of me is fed by photos of his own infancy, by movies and television, advertisements. But for all the borrowed imagery with which he gives me skin and flesh, for all the similarly counterfeit visions he creates of our shared future—playing catch, fishing, watching football, grilling (counterfeit because he’s never experienced these with his own father)—there is a core that cannot be denied: he is moved by some instinct that does not owe its existence to his received ideas of fatherhood. A son with part of his genetic code is being brought into the world, and this knowledge is sufficient to trigger an inborn desire to protect me, to ensure my passage to manhood. He can’t be one of the fathers Obama decries—the ones MIA or AWOL, having abandoned their responsibilities.

  He wants, then, to reassume the title of father he so cavalierly renounced and become the father he never had. But Seema’s number comes up disconnected, and his emails go unanswered. He calls her office, but she always manages to elude him. Her friends refuse to give away her address. He finds out, too, that Seema was right in one regard—she and Divya are not together. He considers revoking the summary dissolution himself, but he dithers too long—it’s September by then—and the divorce goes into effect.

  Earlier this month, October, he unexpectedly catches sight of my very pregnant mother near Dolores Park, walking beside a tall youth in a hat. He runs after them, wondering who the youth is. He checks himself when he realizes that it’s a girl, and by the way she looks at Seema, she’s clearly in love with his now ex-wife. He watches through the glass from outside the café, taking in the softer, more rounded figure Seema now presents, full with his child, smiling at the girl—how many times had that same smile been bestowed on him. It’s inviting and enveloping, reveling in its own power, with just a hint of affectionate detachment. He’d forgotten how hard it was to resist it, how weak and worshipping it made him feel.

  As he jogs away from my mother’s apartment this morning, after asking my grandmother to intercede on his behalf, he vows: he’ll fight to keep his family, the way his incarcerated father was unable to.

  39

  As Seema and Tahera set out, the late October sky is a washed-out blue. A bleary-eyed sun shines down on the empty streets of the Sunday morning. Seema has made this trip to the park many times before with Leigh, the two of them ambling through the Mission holding hands. Today she walks faster, knowing Divya will be waiting at the café at the base of the park. She’s decided to pretend to encounter Divya by accident. But Tahera, in a maddeningly expansive mood, is refusing to be rushed. She smiles at passersby, oblivious to the hem of her black jilbab sweeping the ground—crying to be stepped on!—or their curious glances in her direction, and stops to examine storefront displays and murals scattered throughout the Mission.

  “Doesn’t that woman remind you of Halima Aunty?” Tahera says, in front of a psychedelic mural on one wall of an open parking lot, three stories tall. A plump large-breasted brown woman is seated, in a purple dress and green sash, her knees up, her legs apart. In her hands she holds a naked brown baby, who in turn holds a glowing globe, a bright yellow sun. The woman laughs at the baby, who smirks down at the passersby. Bees hover in the blue air above the overflowing platter of multihued fruits by her feet.

  Seema has never noticed the resemblance to their Halima Aunty before, though the moment Tahera mentions it, the likeness leaps at her—the laugh lines around the eyes and the mouth, the double chins, the mole on the cheek, where a bee rests. How had she missed this until now? “I saw her last year,” she says. “She was as jolly as ever.”

  Halima is their mother’s sister, so unlike their mother in every way. Where Nafeesa is small and compact, Halima bulges good-naturedly in all directions. Where Nafeesa’s voice is soft, Halima can be heard across a boisterous wedding hall, her generous laughter immediately recognizable. When your Halima Aunty laughs, their father would joke to her face, even Allah has to cover His ears.

  “Wait, you saw her so recently?” Tahera asks.

  What no one has shared with Tahera is that Seema and Bill were in Chennai a year and a half ago. Seema had joined Bill on a work trip to Singapore, and they flew to Chennai for the weekend. They met her mother at her aunt’s place one evening, Seema forbidden to enter her old home. Only after I’m dead, her father had said, a commandment neither daughter nor mother could bring herself to violate. Halima talked about compelling Naeemullah to receive the couple, but that didn’t happen. Halima has always been Seema’s most vocal supporter, least cowed by Naeemullah and most willing to stand up to him, but none of her entreaties over the years have had any effect. Tahera was kept in the dark about the trip in case word got back to Naeemullah.

  “A laddoo for each cheek,” Seema says, deflecting Tahera’s query, pointing to the stippled oranges in the platter of fruits in the mural, which resemble sweet golden laddoos. Their aunt had a habit of thrusting sweets into their mouths whenever they visited her—besieged by her overflowing body, squished to her ample belly and breasts, soaked by the wet kisses she showered on their cheeks and foreheads, and always with the box of sweets she rushed toward them, forcing them to open their mouths, refusing to take no for an answer. Their mother is never as demonstrative. “It’s sad. She spoiled us as if—”

  Seema breaks off, her eyes fixed on the baby’s smug face and the burning sun clasped in his hands. A memory from her visit: Halima Aunty greeting them both with laddoos, stuffing one into Bill’s mouth as well, ignoring his protests. Her mother had mostly been quiet that evening, smiling frequently, but not saying much, as if her tongue were even here controlled by the absent husband and master. What a difference it would have made to have had Halima Aunty as mother instead.

  Another difference: their aunt is childless. She couldn’t conceive due to some hormonal imbalance, which accounted for her constantly expanding girth. Their aunt had undertaken many pilgrimages to various durgahs around India—Nagore, Haji Ali, Ajmer, Nizamuddin—as well as umrah to Medina a few times, with the sole purpose of praying for a child, prayers that had gone unheeded.

  Looking at the laughing woman holding the baby, Seema recalls with remorse that she hadn’t informed her aunt about her pregnancy, or the divorce. Instead her aun
t learned of them from her mother and called in support: “Don’t worry, Seema, you’ll be a good mother. I’m very proud of you, what a brave step you’ve taken.”

  “Yes, it’s a pity she never had children,” Tahera says. “But everything is by Allah’s plan. Shall we turn back? Ammi’s alone at home.”

  “Everything?” A swift anger seizes Seema. “Halima Aunty’s condition? Ammi’s illness? Everything?” What she wants to add but doesn’t: My entire life? Another memory of her aunt consoling her, years earlier, when she’d forsaken her father’s house: “I’m not sure I understand, Seema, but I know you wouldn’t do something simply to cause your family pain.”

  Tahera purses her lips, and Seema turns away before she says something she cannot unsay. “Once around the park, and we’ll go home.”

  They continue in silence, Tahera’s earlier affability torched, Seema wishing she’d held her tongue. Thankfully, Divya is waiting outside the café, and Seema doesn’t have to find a pretense to linger till Divya gets there. But just as she’d feared, Divya is dressed as if on a date: a ruffled midi in mauve and dull-gold peep-toe flats. “I see a friend, I’ll have to say hello.”

  She’s already warned Divya that Tahera is accompanying her. “Oh my God, Divya, three days in a row! What are you doing here?”

  “What can I say, it’s my good karma.” Divya’s eyes flick toward Tahera before she smiles, and Seema hopes Tahera didn’t notice the quick pout or the sulk in the voice.

  “We were out for a walk around the park. You can join us if you’re free.”

  “You won’t mind?” Divya trains her dazzling smile on Tahera.

  To Seema’s surprise, Tahera is far more welcoming than she’d been with Fiaz. “I’m Tahera. Please join us. And”—she holds out a hand in greeting—“you can tell me all about Seema’s life in San Francisco.”

  “And I’ve always wanted to know how Seema turned out the way she is.” Divya smirks at Seema. “Isn’t this your worst nightmare? Your best friend and your sister exchanging stories about you?”

  Divya’s sly emphasis is unsettling. “Hey, no tattling!” Seema warns, as Divya falls in with them, but on Tahera’s side.

  Divya directs the conversation, her first questions innocuous enough—about home and school—but Tahera’s replies grow involved in response to Divya’s show of interest. They pull ahead, heads bent toward each other, as though intimate confidants. Any other time Seema would have found the odd picture they present hilarious, the sexy and the dowdy, the worldly and the unworldly, poster children for acceptance and diversity in mauve and black. “You’re walking too fast,” she cries, annoyed.

  But they don’t heed her, glancing back only occasionally as they make their way up the hill on the western side of the park. They’re punishing her, clearly. Divya must have assumed she invited Tahera along to act as a safeguard, to thwart the talk Divya wanted. Seema grits her teeth and strains after them, afraid now what Divya may choose to disclose.

  They stop at the top of the hill to wait for her at the spot Leigh calls theirs. She struggles up the steep climb, maneuvering her way past strollers, and dogs on leashes, and couples carrying picnic hampers and blankets, all moving in the opposite direction. There’s some event happening: a stage has been set up in the natural amphitheater formed by the bowl of the park, the lawn in front of it already dotted with groups of people.

  When she finally reaches them, Tahera exclaims, all innocence, “The view from here is beautiful, isn’t it? Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness—”

  Seema strains to regain her breath. The city glimmers, unreal and unfocused, its colors and lines blurred by the thin scrim of mist still hovering over it. Or are tears—of frustration—clouding her eyes? She’d given up a tryst with Leigh for this.

  “I’m sorry we left you behind,” Divya says. “We were so engrossed.”

  “I hope you both learned what you wanted to know.” Seema swallows her anger. Serves her right for even agreeing to this assignation, knowing how volatile Divya could be. But Divya couldn’t have revealed anything disastrous: Tahera seems fine.

  “I learned how sneaky you were, even as a child.” Divya smiles vaguely. “But what I want to know is—” She bends down to inspect the ground, and picking up a pebble, tosses it toward a group of unkempt young men reclining on the dewy grass some distance down the slope, passing around a joint. The pebble hits a man with shaggy blond hair. “Hey, what’s going on down there?” Divya calls out, when he turns.

  “Dunno. I think candidates for something, the board of supervisors maybe. There’ll be lots of yapping.”

  “But picnic baskets?” Divya turns to Seema and Tahera. “I need to find out what’s going on. Tahera, it was lovely talking to you, I hope to meet you again. Seema, we’ll catch up soon.”

  She blows kisses at them, slips off her shoes, and skips lightly down the green slope, her mauve dress fluttering like an overblown flower.

  40

  Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun—Tahera finds the pleasure of Keats’s odes distinct and transporting, like biting into one of the crisp golden apples a Kashmiri patient used to gift her father every year. There is of course no autumn in Chennai, only the onset of the northeast monsoons; nevertheless, she always claimed it as her favorite season, based on the ode and postcards her father used to receive from his friends in England, of trees with leaves the red-gold of the gulmohar reflected in the drowsy waters of brooks. Autumn! Living all these years in Irvine, she’d even forgotten how the word sounded, like an incantation, having come to think of this time of the year as fall.

  Earlier that morning she was tempted to see how much of the poem she recalled, and whether she could memorize the lines again. Surely there was no harm in this: after all, the ode is a celebration of Allah’s creation and His munificence. She found it surprisingly easy—as if it were meant to be. In less than half an hour, while her mother showered, she relearned the entire poem. On the walk to the park, its lines and phrases keep her company. How mellow San Francisco is this autumn Sunday morning! How sweet seem the stores of apples and peaches and pears, filled with ripeness to the core. The swollen pumpkins, lying plump by the door. The clumps of chrysanthemum, and sunflower, and marigold. And surely in the mural, it must be Autumn herself seated on the granary floor, her harvest spread carelessly at her feet, while bees buzz ceaselessly about!

  Seema’s secrecy regarding meeting Halima Aunty pricks this Keats-induced bubble, and Seema’s question—everything is by Allah’s plan?—bursts Tahera out of it. Inclined now to resentment, Tahera recognizes Seema’s subterfuge: the walk is an excuse, Seema as usual camouflaging her true intentions. No doubt Seema planned to meet Divya at the park, which explains her initial reluctance to bring Tahera along, expecting to draw comfort from her friend, perhaps even complain about her sister and mother. The attention Divya pays Tahera must have been unwelcome to Seema, and this disposes Tahera to like Divya, despite her modern leanings and attire. Divya, it also turns out, is an excellent conversationalist, interesting, and interested, not only in their childhood in Chennai but also in Tahera’s life in Irvine.

  The pleasure of Divya’s company soon overshadows the irritation at Seema’s deviousness. The day regains its benevolent autumn haze. Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too—

  Passing the mural on their way back home reminds Tahera of her aunt again. A regular occurrence at their kitchen table in Chennai: Ammi and Halima Aunty whispering to each other as they dip biscuits in chai, their private conversation stalling whenever the girls draw near. Tahera can picture them at the same table, their gray heads even now bent in confidences. And it will be Halima Aunty tending to Ammi during her last days. Growing up, Tahera had always thought she and Seema were each other’s best friends, just like that older pair of sisters, had thrilled whenever someone commented, seeing them walking hand in hand: See how close they are! T
hey were the Hussein sisters. But that was before she’d discovered the extent of the secrets kept from her.

  Tahera slows down. “Do you want to know what your friend Divya told me?”

  But Seema doesn’t hear her and continues walking. A cloud moves over the sun. Seema turns to look back only after some length. “Why have you stopped? I thought you wanted to get back home quickly because Ammi’s alone.”

  “Now you’re worried about Ammi.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing. It means nothing. We mean nothing to you, Seema.”

  “What?” Seema finally stops to face Tahera, hands up in confused exasperation. “What did I do?”

  Tahera cuffs herself on her forehead, a spontaneous revival of a girlhood gesture. “How stupid of me to think you’d remember the way you left. Why would you? You’ve not spent years trying to forget that time like I have.”

  The sun masked, the street dimmed, Tahera is back in their home in Chennai, just returned from her daylong clinical rotation, and the house is dark. Her mother usually leaves a lamp on after dusk, even if she’s not at home. But it’s not a power cut or a blown fuse, for there’s a streak of light under the closed door to her father’s study. Tahera calls out to him. When he opens his door, the light from the study reveals an apparition—Ammi!—sitting statue-like at the other end of the living room.

  Tahera recoils. “Why are you sitting in the dark, Ammi? You gave me such a scare. Where’s Seema?”

  Her mother makes no reply, but Abba says, “She’s dead to us. I don’t want to hear her name spoken in this house ever again.” He turns back to his study, plunging the living room into darkness again.

  The sun peeps out briefly, the sidewalks blaze, and Seema flickers in what seems a distance away. “You know what hurt me most? That I had no idea at all,” Tahera says. “Remember the evening before you left? You took me to our favorite chaat stall, the one in Fountain Plaza. Your treat, you said. You ordered everything—samosa chole, bhel puri, pav bhaji, Thums Up, Limca, masala chai—even though we couldn’t possibly finish it all. But you insisted we stay till we did. We sat there for two hours while we stuffed ourselves silly. You said you couldn’t eat enough, because you’d get nothing like this at Oxford. You must have known then what you were planning to do. But you didn’t say a word to me. I was the last to find out. I didn’t even learn the real reason until a year later.”