Sirens of Memory

by Puja Guha

  Mariam heard Janhvi’s voice from downstairs. At first, she was scared, but then realized the conversation was one-sided and walked toward it, wondering who she could be talking to. When she reached the kitchen, she saw that Janhvi was on the phone speaking in what she vaguely recognized as Hindi—she had learned a few words from her childhood housekeeper. Janhvi sounded concerned, and Mariam waited a minute or so for her to hang up.

  “Mada—Mariam, I know where we can go.”

  MARIAM SAT DOWN on the couch and looked at Dinah, who said, “She’s right.”

  “I never really wanted to go to Reema’s anyway, so yes, that’s what we’ll do,” Mariam agreed. She felt conflicted about Janhvi’s plan: there was a group of Indians gathering at an office nearby where they could seek shelter. The Iraqi soldiers weren’t hunting Indians, so they would be much safer there than at Reema’s—but they would have to pretend to be Indian and she wasn’t sure if they could pull it off. Janhvi pulled a few pieces of clothing out of her bag—two salwar kamese, each with a long loose tunic and a pair of balloon style pants.

  It’s not like we have much choice, she grabbed one of the garments and went to get changed. Mariam pulled the tunic over her head, but couldn’t silence her internal voice that clothes wouldn’t be the issue.

  I barely remember any Hindi and Dinah doesn’t speak a word of it.

  Several minutes later she and Dinah had discarded their clothes in favor of the salwar kamese. Mariam looked her cousin up and down and asked, “What do you think?”

  “It’s a little short on me, but I guess it’ll do,” Dinah said, gesturing toward her salwar which stopped an inch above her knees. Since Mariam and Janhvi were about the same height, the outfit fell lower on them.

  “It’s okay, Madam—the shorter ones will be fashionable in a few years, I’m sure,” Janhvi reassured them. “You look like you could be Kashmiris, you’re both so fair.”

  Dinah shrugged, “I’m just glad India has so many different languages—it won’t be that unusual that I can’t speak Hindi so long as we keep to ourselves and don’t speak in Arabic.” She turned to Mariam, “Do you remember any?”

  “A couple words maybe, but not much.” Mariam gathered her resolve and grabbed the handle of her suitcase, “Let’s go.”

  MARIAM WAS WAITING for Janhvi and Dinah to drag their suitcases into the backyard when she heard a car at the front of the house. She froze.

  They’re back.

  The noise ceased, and she rejected it offhand—there was no chanting from the street, so it had to be her mind playing tricks on her.

  A second later, she knew she hadn’t been wrong. The doorbell sounded several times—a shrill ring, followed by a loud knocking. They could leave and try to get away before they were seen, but they didn’t have much of a chance with the bags in tow. Dinah and Janhvi were already in the yard, along with all but Mariam’s suitcase, but if they left hers by the door, the soldiers would know the house had only just been abandoned and search for them. She motioned toward them.

  “Hide the bags in the garden. Run, let’s go.” She tugged on her suitcase, just getting it through the doorway, then reached to shut the door behind her.

  She had a grip on the handle and was pulling it toward her when a voice calling her name stopped her in her tracks.

  No, no, please. It can’t be.

  “Mariam!”

  Mariam let go of the handle and the suitcase tipped over and crashed into the doorframe, the glass door clattering as it collided with the suitcase. With all of the chaos she had hardly thought about Tareq since they had received the phone call about the invasion the night before, but now he was here.

  I will never be rid of him.

  She looked down at her hands, down at her feet, she should move—she still had a chance to get away—but she couldn’t. She was paralyzed.

  Dinah hissed at her from behind, “Mariam, come on, run,” then shoved the suitcase from the side, and as soon as it budged, yanked her out of the doorway into the yard. Mariam stumbled, and her suitcase fell onto its side with a soft thud, followed by the loud slam of the back door to the house. “Get up,” Dinah cried out, trying to help her.

  Mariam was scarcely on her feet when the back door opened.

  Austin, USA – March, 2016

  When Mariam got off the plane in the late afternoon, sunlight streamed in through the windows on the jet bridge. She was tempted to stop then and there and bask in the sun’s rays—the contrast with D.C. underscored by the heavy overcoat she had draped over her arm—but the line of people moving behind her kept her moving until she reached the terminal.

  Her phone buzzed. Raj was on his way to pick her up, she would just have enough time to grab her suitcase at baggage claim. A few minutes later, Mariam headed for the exit as her stomach did several flips in nervous anticipation. I’ll tell him everything today, she decided with a smile. The time with Dinah had done wonders, and she had to admit that he and Aliya and her therapist—all of them—had been right about attending the event. She’d had a great time.

  When Raj drove up, he got out of the car to greet her and pulled her into a long hug. Mariam rested her head on his chest and inhaled his scent—her decision to go had been right, but being back in his arms had never felt better.

  “I’m sorry I pushed you so hard,” he said in a quiet voice, planting a kiss on her forehead.

  She gave him a peck on the lips. “You were right. Let’s go home.”

  The twenty-minute drive passed quickly as they sped along the highway, Mariam taking in even more of the warmth with her window down. She spoke a little about the event and told Raj how wonderful it had been to see Dinah—all things she wanted to talk about, but distractions before the main event. When they pulled into her driveway, Raj wheeled her suitcase into the house, and she took his hand, leading him out to their back patio. She would need the late afternoon sun to keep rejuvenating her to get through this conversation.

  I should have told him years ago.

  Mariam grabbed one of the deck chairs and turned it to face him instead of looking out at their beautiful live oak tree as she usually did.

  “You’ve asked me a question several times over the last couple of months, and I couldn’t answer you…. There’s something I need to tell you—really, a lot I need to tell you.”

  Austin, USA – March, 2016

  Mariam blew her nose and tossed the tissue into the wastebasket under the patio table and looked up at Raj, her heart beating at a mile a minute. She had never felt so raw and emotional, not even in therapy, but at the same time, she couldn’t be more relieved. Telling Raj her secret, letting him in on what Tareq had done to her, made her feel as if a tremendous weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She let out a long exhale. She had stopped him from interrupting while she was speaking, but when she started to sob, he had put his arm around her until she was ready to continue. Now that she was done, she was apprehensive about his reaction.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”

  Reaching out to grasp both of her hands, Raj met her gaze, “I—I’m so sorry, Mariam. I’m so sorry for what that monster did to you.” He sighed, “I only wish you had told me earlier, that you’d felt you could tell me. I can’t imagine how hard this must have been for you.” He raised his hand to his mouth as he looked over at the garden. “That’s Aliya’s father, that monster.”

  “No,” Mariam shook her head, “you’re Aliya’s father.”

  “That’s why you never wanted to tell her…that she’s not mine?”

  “It was always to protect me. I didn’t want her—either of you, really—to see me differently. That’s how I justified it, at least. All these years, I didn’t want you to think of me as a victim.”

  “Are you worried I’m not going to let you run the house anymore?” Raj gave her a small smile.

  Mariam chuckled in between her sniffles—they both knew that she ran the household, that had never been a question, no
t in all the years that they had been together. When the laughter subsided, she spoke again, recalling what he had said about her continuing to use Ritika’s name. “There’s more to it though, I didn’t realize it until I talked about it in therapy. I feel guilty, that’s why I kept using Ritika’s name.”

  “Guilty?”

  “Guilty that he’s dead. That I might be held responsible. That’s why I was so reluctant to go to an embassy event, why I never wanted to be Mariam again.” She hesitated, “I needed other people to help me to get away, I couldn’t do it on my own. I didn’t want to be that person anymore.”

  “Mariam, we’ve been together for twenty-five years, and you’re the strongest person I know. You have nothing to feel guilty about, and I think you know that.” He cupped her face in his hands, then leaned forward to kiss her. “Tareq is gone now, and he can’t hurt you anymore, he’s just part of your past. Now that that’s not a secret anymore, he can never hurt you again.”

  Washington D.C., USA – March, 2016

  Nadia set her wine glass down on the table, chuckling.

  “All right, I give up, I’ll show them to you.” She made a face, pretending to be bothered by her mother’s repeated requests for pictures from the Liberation Day party. Her father rolled his eyes, and she ignored him; unlike her mother, he could see right through any of her attempts at drama—he always had, even when she was a teenager. He had an uncanny ability to get to the core of an issue, even before she knew what it was. She had once had a huge fight with her mom about a gift that she had sent her in college, some kind of specialty cheese grater even though she had asked for a cheese knife. Nadia’s mother had been taken aback by the argument, but her father had seen right through it—the fight was actually about her mother not listening to her—it had come shortly after her first attempt to set Nadia up on a date.

  You’d think she would learn, Nadia thought as she recalled that moment. She wasn’t clear where her father stood on the whole thing, he was far too content to accommodate her mother’s desires on the subject. She shrugged off the memory, they would probably have another fight about that same issue again sooner or later, but there was no point wasting any time on it beforehand. For now, she was content to tease her mom a little bit, especially after her second glass of wine. Uncle Tareq was once again over for the weekend. He never seemed to be at his own house. Fortunately, he’d already gone to bed so she could enjoy time with just her parents.

  She connected her phone to their Chromecast so that her pictures would show up on the TV. “The first few are the ones we took together,” she paused on one of her and her mother. “Mom, that dress looked amazing on you,” Nadia shot a glance at her father out of the corner of her eye. “I bet Dad thinks so too.”

  Her father grunted, opening a newspaper in front of him, but Nadia could tell that he was actually looking at the picture. Her smile widened, and she continued, going through two pictures of her mom and uncle, followed by three different shots of the Gulf War exhibit. “This is the main hall,” she said as she moved on, “where most of the party was. I’m so sorry you missed it.”

  Her mom looked captivated by the photo, “Me too, but maybe we can go with you next year.”

  “I hope so,” Nadia agreed, keeping how difficult it had been to get the extra tickets to herself.

  She continued with the pictures, showing off the decorations in the main hall, but moving through them quickly. “This is me with my friends Dinah and Mariam,” she stopped on the first picture of the three of them. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to meet them when you came by the office the other day. Mariam was running late for her flight home, so they were in a bit of a rush.” Nadia swiped to the next one, “That’s my boss Faisal, who you met when you came in—”

  “Go back to the last picture,” a raspy voice said from behind her.

  Nadia turned and saw her uncle standing in the doorway to the living room, “Sure.”

  How long had he been lurking back there?

  “Tareq, I didn’t realize you were up. Did we wake you?” her mother looked over at him.

  “I’m fine.” He took a seat at the other end of the couch from Nadia and leaned forward, focusing on the television, “Go back to that picture.”

  Nadia went back to the picture of Dinah, Mariam, and her, and waited for a response, but he said nothing. Rather, he walked in front of the TV and examined the screen even closer. After what felt like a long second of silence with him staring at the television wide-eyed, she asked, “Are you all right? Do you know them, Uncle?”

  “I thought I did,” he shook his head, “but they can’t be who I thought.”

  Nadia frowned, there was something cunning and deceptive in his tone. What is with you? she wanted to ask but held her tongue and thumbed through the rest of the pictures quickly. When she got to the last one, she stood and stretched, “I’m exhausted. Good night.”

  She left the room quickly before her parents could raise any objections and turned out the light in her room. Something about the interaction with her uncle felt off—well most of them did—but he had clearly recognized either Dinah or Mariam. Or both. The real question was, why would he lie? She wondered if her mother had noticed, but was skeptical about bringing it up without telling her about how he had behaved a few weeks earlier.

  She was in the midst of pondering that when the door to her room flew open.

  “Who are the women in that photo?” Uncle Tareq’s voice pierced the darkness, his silhouette in her doorway.

  Nadia swallowed. She opened her mouth, and a voice in the back of her mind told her not to give him their names. Something is wrong with this picture; her heart skipped a beat. “They’re friends, one of them works on my floor,” she answered, trying to keep her voice as nonchalant as possible.

  “What are their names?”

  Nadia’s torso went rigid, she didn’t want to tell him anything, but she also didn’t want to fuel his curiosity. Maybe if I tell him something basic, he’ll go away.

  “The one in the middle is Dinah, she’s the one I work with.”

  “What about the other one?”

  Uncle Tareq’s question confirmed her suspicions, he did indeed know Mariam. Nadia’s mind raced, she shouldn’t tell him anything about her—he was far too dangerous. If I don’t say anything though, he’s going to hurt me. “She’s one of Dinah’s friends, I don’t know her,” she made her tone as convincing as possible. Ritika M. Ghosh, Nadia remembered the name on Mariam’s credit card.

  Don’t tell him that. She had no idea why, but she knew it deep in her gut.

  The silhouette moved toward her and Nadia lay there in bed, frozen.

  I should move, I have to do something. She opened her mouth to scream, but less than a second later his hand was at her throat, squeezing her airway.

  “Tell me her name! Now.”

  Salmiya, Kuwait – August, 1990

  Mariam stared at the hunting rifle in Tareq’s hand.

  How can this be real? She wanted to pinch herself, to wake up from this nightmare so badly. She looked over at Dinah, also on her knees next to her against the wall of the living room.

  This can’t be happening.

  “You thought you could get away from me?” Tareq yelled, turning quickly from side to side and brandishing the rifle as if it weren’t dangerous at all. “Now you’re going to pay, bitch.”

  It took several seconds for Mariam to be able to speak.

  “Tareq, I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’ll go with you, I will. Just put the gun down and let them go. They didn’t do anything.”

  Dinah shot her a look that clearly told her to shut up, and her gaze darted toward the door to the backyard. Janhvi’d had the presence of mind to hide before Tareq had ushered Mariam and Dinah inside, so perhaps they still stood a chance. Mariam had no idea how though. It’s not as if Janhvi’s a vigilante with a gun of her own to defend us with.

  “Please, Tareq,” Mariam implored. “I’ll go with you,
I’ll do whatever you want. Just let Dinah go.”

  His eyes narrowed, and she felt as if he was boring into her soul. He had taken so much from her already, she could never fight him, she would never be free.

  How is this my life? The thought ran through her brain resonating in the corners of her mind, the hopelessness of her situation stretched out in front of her like a desert wasteland.

  But my baby. That recollection jolted her out of the despair, she had to find a way out.

  “Tareq, let’s leave,” she said softly. She unclasped her hands and lowered them to the ground, using them to help her stand up, “We can leave now, just you and me. I’ve missed you.”

  He scrutinized her and wavered for a moment before he took a step back. “Mariam, I would never hurt you. Why did you run away? You belong with me, you belong to me. I do everything for you, I take care of you.”

  Mariam tasted bile in her throat and coerced a swallow, then took a step toward Tareq. She could see Janhvi at the back door, now open just a crack. The only chance they had was to distract Tareq long enough for her to get the jump on him. Reaching out with her right hand, she touched his forearm. “I shouldn’t have run, but I panicked. I know you didn’t mean to last time, but you really hurt me. I was so scared.” She focused on the last phrase, the only part of what she was saying that was true. Somehow, she had to make him believe it. She raised her other arm so that she was grasping both of his forearms, “Tareq, please, put the gun down.” At the same time, she pushed down, leading him to lower the gun and set it down on the coffee table.