Sirens of Memory

by Puja Guha

  “So, what do you want? You want me to change my name back to Mariam Qatami? That will go over really well with the U.S. government—it won’t cause any confusion at all.”

  Raj touched her face with his right hand, “No, of course not,” he said with a smile. “Especially in this political environment. I just want you to talk to me—tell me why. Why did you want to live as Ritika?”

  “I’m sorry I’m not as wonderful as she was,” Mariam looked away and stared at the wall.

  “That’s not fair,” Raj leaned back in his chair, the weight of her words sinking in. “You know that’s not true, I barely knew her, never had the chance to develop real feelings for her. I have always been honest with you about her, about my past, but I don’t know anything about yours. I bet Dinah does, and I don’t begrudge you that for a second, I want you to be close to her. That’s why Aliya and I have been trying so hard to convince to visit her and go to the event at the embassy.” He tried to meet her eyes, to catch her gaze, but she kept it fixated on the wall, “I don’t know what it is, Mariam, but there’s something deeply wrong, something that you’re not telling me. What is it about your past that you can’t share? What is it that you can’t face?”

  Raj waited several seconds, hoping that she would answer, that she would say something, but she remained silent, a few tears trickling down her cheeks. He could tell how much what he had said had hurt her, and he wished that he had done it differently, especially after speaking to his therapist about it. He sighed. What’s done is done. Standing up, he reached out and squeezed her hand, “I love you and I always will, but I need you to talk to me. At some point, you need to answer my questions.”

  She looked up and finally made eye contact, “I’ll go to the event in D.C.”

  That’s it? “I’m glad, but that’s not enough, and you know that. I still need to know why.” Raj turned around to walk away, then glanced back, “I’ll sleep in Aliya’s room tonight.”

  Austin, USA – January, 2016

  How are you doing, Mariam?”

  Mariam gave her therapist a short rundown of what had been going on that week, skirting the subject that they most needed to discuss. She mentioned that while she and Raj had had their fair share of disagreements, the extra hours at BookPeople had become a welcome distraction, and in general she was doing well.

  Teresa nodded, then did a run through of her notes from their previous session and asked, “Have you spoken with Dinah this week?”

  “We played phone tag but haven’t managed to talk properly yet,” Mariam shook her head, at the same time amazed that Teresa was able to identify the most important issue so immediately.

  “Are you still on the fence about attending that event in Washington?”

  “I told Raj I would go, last night after we had this huge fight, but I don’t think I want to.” Although she had avoided the subject earlier, Mariam reluctantly spent a few minutes explaining the fight, how she still couldn’t bring herself to tell him her whole story.

  “We’ll come back to the fight, but first, can you tell me why you still don’t want to go to the embassy party?”

  Mariam shrugged, wishing that she could string together a more believable answer, If I couldn’t convince Aliya, then how on earth am I going to convince a trained therapist? She sighed, “I left that part of my life behind—Kuwait, the Gulf War, Tareq…all of it.”

  “You did leave Tareq—but why do you feel like you need to separate yourself from the rest of it?”

  “I don’t know.” Mariam examined the curtains, looking carefully at how the sky-blue pattern framed the picture window which looked out onto Town Lake. I could be out there, walking the trail, but instead, I’m in here, in therapy. She ran her fingers through her hair, Teresa was still waiting for an answer, and from experience, she knew that she wouldn’t be able to avoid responding to the question. “I feel guilty,” Mariam finally said, a broad headline that covered some of what they had discussed in their prior sessions.

  “You’ve mentioned that before. Can you tell me more about why?”

  “I feel guilty about his death, I feel guilty for being glad he’s gone.” Mariam rubbed her right eye, “I know he was a monster, but I hate to think of myself as someone who would want to kill another person—so it’s even worse that I’m responsible for his death.”

  “Is that why you don’t want to go to the event? You feel like you’ll be held responsible for that?”

  Mariam tilted her head to the side, considering the possibility, “Maybe.”

  “But what happened wasn’t your fault.”

  “None of it would have happened if it hadn’t been for me—if I’d left Tareq months earlier, or if I’d reported him to the police—maybe he wouldn’t have been there that night. Maybe he wouldn’t be dead.”

  “It’s understandable you feel that way,” Teresa offered. “But the maybe game is endless—you aren’t responsible for everything that happened. You’re right when you said he was a monster, at least to you, and he put you and your daughter in danger. It is okay for you to be glad that he isn’t here to terrorize your life anymore, the same way that it’s okay for you to feel a little bit guilty about what happened to him. What you can’t do though is let that stop you from experiencing your life. You talked about Dinah before, how she never stopped being herself. She left Kuwait the same way you did—but went on to London where she and John got married. Could you tell me how you feel about that, how you feel about her?”

  Mariam frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean. Dinah is the only family I have—I love her, and she’s like my sister,” she hesitated, “certainly more of a sister than my actual sister, not that I’ve spoken to her in years.”

  “Dinah’s the only one in your family that knows you’ve been living as Ritika Ghosh, correct? You mentioned last session that she even checked the event guest list to make sure that there wasn’t anyone who’d recognize you.”

  “That’s right on both,” Mariam clarified.

  Teresa crossed her arms, “Have you ever thought that you might be jealous of her?”

  “Jealous of her? Of Dinah?” Why on earth would I be jealous?

  “She has this life now, with John, but she still gets to be the same person that she always was.”

  “But I’m happy with my life—I have Raj and Aliya, I have my job at BookPeople which means I get to spend my whole day managing books that I love…” Mariam let her voice trail off, what could Teresa be getting at?

  “Do you think you had to give up being Mariam Qatami to have this life?”

  Mariam’s shoulders sank as what Teresa was saying finally hit home. Could she be right? Am I jealous of Dinah for still having the same identity? “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Well for starters, don’t you think Raj would love you anyway—if you were Mariam? He and your daughter love you for who you are, which is a combination of Mariam Qatami and Ritika Ghosh. Even if you’re not ready to admit it to other people, you have to at least acknowledge that who you were helped get you to who you are now. Once you let yourself believe it, you might even be able to share it with those closest to you.”

  “But Mariam Qatami was a victim, a girl who couldn’t fight for herself… a woman who let her family and husband bulldoze her into every decision they ever made for her. She never stood up to them, just let them run the show.” That’s not who I am, she felt like shouting to the world.

  “You were nineteen, your family should have protected you instead of marrying you off to a dangerous man. They should have stood by you when you tried to walk away from him; when you told your sister about what he had done to you. It’s not your fault they didn’t do that, and you still managed to find the support you needed to walk away. We’ve been going over this for a few weeks—you made the decision to leave Tareq.”

  Teresa took a sip from her water bottle before she continued, “Sure, it was influenced by Dinah and your pregnancy, but it was also because of you. It was your
decision, and you took it, so give yourself credit and acknowledge that doing that took strength and courage. You talk about Mariam Qatami as if she’s a weak woman, and Ritika Ghosh as if she’s strong and powerful, exactly who you want to be. Those two women are the same person—they’re you, and you are strong and powerful and vulnerable and emotional. You feel guilt and fear, and none of that is anything to be ashamed of. You owe it to yourself to confront all of that reality—you can’t keep disassociating from half of who you are. Keeping that part of your life a secret will always follow you, and suppressing that identity is only going to hurt you and the people that you care about—”

  “But I can’t go back to being Mariam Qatami … that’s not even an option—all of my documents, everything here is in the name of Ritika Ghosh. That’s my life now.”

  “I’m not saying you need to file a name change with the government, this is about internal acceptance and acknowledgment, not external. Mariam Qatami is still part of who you are now, not some forgotten identity that doesn’t matter. You are the whole sum of who you were, and that includes growing up in Kuwait, the Gulf War, your time as Ritika, and even your time with Tareq. Pretending that that past doesn’t exist doesn’t serve anyone, and you can already see the pressure it’s putting on your marriage.”

  “I don’t think that I consider myself separate from who I was—I think of myself as Mariam, and it’s not as if I don’t remember that time,” she protested. This is going nowhere, she thought, recalling the number of times that she had considered walking away from therapy. It’s not easy confronting some parts of yourself, Aliya had said once as one of the takeaways from a psychology class that she’d taken during undergrad. Dammit, Mariam realized how much truth there was to that statement. “So, what do you want me to do?” she asked with obvious frustration.

  “If you still consider yourself Mariam, and you can accept who you are, then why not share that with Raj? Why not visit Dinah and go to the embassy party? You should celebrate the end of the Gulf War, that’s when your life turned around. You went from being an abused, pregnant woman, struggling to escape a terrifying husband, to a woman in a refugee camp in search of a new direction, and look who you are now. Why not revel in that? This goes back to so much of what we’ve been talking about, you aren’t willing to affirm yourself for getting past that life. Giving yourself credit doesn’t mean that you did it on your own, but it does mean that you succeeded, on your own merit and with the help of others, and I think you know that. You have a good life now. Don’t you think you deserve to celebrate it?”

  Farwaniya Hospital, Kuwait – July, 1990

  Mariam awoke after her second night at the hospital—the pain made it hard to relax, even with the painkillers she was taking, but more importantly, Tareq had said that he would return this morning. She allowed herself a moment of relief when she opened her eyes to an empty room—Maybe he can’t make it today? Immediately, she let go of the idea, not wanting to hold onto something that would only disappoint her. He’s probably just running late, she noted the clock on the wall in front of her, which read just after seven fifteen. Tareq normally liked to be at work at exactly eight—another manifestation of his OCD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. That’s what Dinah had called it anyway, she had read a book at the British Council library on different mental health problems a couple of months earlier. At first, Mariam had dismissed it as some weird psychological mumbo jumbo that couldn’t be real, but when she’d started to observe Tareq’s behavior in the context of what Dinah had said, the picture became clearer. She’d never told Dinah about her suspicions, only asked questions about what she had read. Enough questions that eventually she had started to believe it might actually be part of his diagnosis.

  Her doctor walked into the room and snapped her out of those thoughts. “Good morning, Mariam. How are you feeling?”

  “Like a herd of elephants ran over me, but better than yesterday.”

  “I’m glad.” He picked up a clipboard at the base of her bed and flipped through the pages to review her chart. “Everything looks good. You should be all set for discharge this afternoon. And you spoke with our gynecologist Dr. Sharma yesterday? Did she answer all of your questions?”

  “Yes, doctor,” If only she could tell me how to get away from the baby’s father.

  “Great.”

  He stepped out moments before Dinah appeared. She locked the door behind her, then greeted Mariam with a kiss on the cheek. “It’s all set,” Dinah said in a voice that sounded out of breath. “I have our guest room ready for you. I called Tareq and told him that Reema and I were both here and that the doctors want you to stay another night at the hospital. You know how he hates being around too many women… He was already running late so he said that he’d try to visit you in the evening after work, but before that, we’re going to get you out of here. They said you’re ready for discharge, right?”

  Mariam opened her mouth to respond but was unable to process what Dinah was saying.

  Dinah waved her hand in front of her face, an inch from her nose, “Earth to Mariam, we have to go. Now. You’re ready for discharge but they haven’t done the paperwork yet—that will at least create some confusion and give us a window to get you out of here before they call Tareq. But we have to leave now.” She placed a plastic bag on the bed, “I brought you some clothes and a new abaya. Get dressed.”

  Mariam took a deep breath, a thousand thoughts running through her head. She had decided to leave Tareq, but she hadn’t expected the moment to be upon her so quickly. Now that it was here, she couldn’t help but hesitate before she leapt off the cliff. She bolstered her resolve and nodded. It’s now or never.

  AN HOUR LATER, Mariam flopped down on the bed in Dinah’s spare room, finally allowing herself to relax. She stared at the ceiling until at her cousin came into the room carrying a tray with two cups of piping hot tea and a plate of biscuits. Mariam placed her hands on her belly and the realization struck her in full technicolor, I left Tareq. Whatever happened next, she had taken the first step to protect her baby…and herself.

  Dinah set up a foldable table in front of the bed and picked up one of the teacups, after pulling up an armchair for herself. “I made hibiscus for you, with honey.”

  Mariam picked up the cup, searching for the words to thank her cousin, but nothing she could think of would do her feelings justice. Gingerly, she took a sip of the tea and set the cup back down.

  “Dinah, I don’t even know what to say. I can’t thank you enough. I’m sorry I was so stubborn—you were right about Tareq—to tell me to leave him, you were right about everything.” A lump formed in her throat, “Thank you for helping me. If it weren’t for you…” I’d be back with him now, probably about to get slapped again. She couldn’t bring herself to say those words aloud—at least not yet.

  “I love you so much, I couldn’t bear to see you suffering.” Dinah stood and wrapped her arms around Mariam, squeezing her tight, as if she would never let go. When she stepped back a moment later, she rubbed her eyes before she sat down again. “Now, all we have to do is figure out what’s next,” she said, her eyes still wet. “What do you want to do? If you let me tell Fahad what happened, he might help us if you want to report him.”

  Mariam gulped a mouthful of tea, the floral sweetness offering a welcome distraction from the conversation. She knew that Dinah was right, that they couldn’t afford to wait to figure out what to do. Time was on their side right now since Tareq didn’t know where she was, but it wouldn’t take long for him to figure it out once he realized that she had left the hospital. There were only a couple of places for her to go. She had thought about asking Dinah to take her to a hotel, but she didn’t dare spend any of her money on something like that. She had kept a bank account of her own, with money that her mother had given her over the years. Tareq didn’t know about it, and she hadn’t touched it, so while it wasn’t a lot of money, she at least had some. She looked over at Dinah, “You should tell Fah
ad, but I don’t want to report him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I just want to get out. If I can leave the country before Tareq finds out I’m pregnant…then I have a chance, a chance to be free of him. If he ever finds out though—” He’ll be after me forever. “But you have to tell Fahad. Tareq will come here once he realizes I’m not at the hospital.” She hesitated, “Do you think Fahad will help us? Help me?”

  “We don’t have much of a marriage anymore, but he’s not a monster,” Dinah answered in a quiet voice. “If I tell him what Tareq did to you, he’ll help us.”

  “Thank you, thank you both.”

  Dinah gave her a quick nod before changing the subject, “Now where’s your passport?”

  Salmiya, Kuwait – July, 1990

  Mariam stretched her arms overhead and winced at the pain. Still, that was nothing in comparison to the last few days, she could feel her blood pressure shoot up just thinking about it. As they’d expected, Tareq had indeed come to find her. The first time, Fahad had sent him away, stating clearly that she wasn’t there. He’d accepted it, but the next day he had returned.

  “I checked everywhere else she could be—at Reema’s and her brothers’. She has to be here.”

  When Fahad denied it again, Tareq had demanded to speak to Dinah and started to get violent. Fahad had held his own, barring him from entering the house, “I’ll have Dinah call you.” Fahad was several inches taller than Tareq and an intimidating figure, so, eventually, Tareq had shrunk away, only to return two days later. This time he wasn’t going to take no for an answer, and he and Fahad almost came to blows until Dinah threatened to call the police.

  Mariam had stayed hidden upstairs although part of her wanted to give up. Tareq had her passport locked in his safe, and without it, they kept moving in circles. She had to get out of the country, but she had no way to do that. She could try to get a new passport, but Tareq was listed as her emergency contact and she didn’t want to risk the passport office informing him of the proceedings. That was still probably the only way, but Mariam was hesitant to start down that path—besides she couldn’t travel until her stitches were removed. She had already used that excuse a few times, but her time would be up that afternoon. Fahad had arranged for a doctor from the hospital to come to the house to remove them, off the books.