Sirens of Memory

by Puja Guha

  Talia squeezed the boy’s hand, “Thank you, Suhail. I’ll bring you some chocolate pudding later. It’ll be our secret, that way tonight you can have Jell-O and pudding after dinner.”

  Suhail’s eyes lit up as they walked away. Once they were back in the hall, Raj turned to Talia, fighting to keep his voice steady. “I guess that’s all there is… I just wish things were different.”

  She reached out and touched his arm, “So do I, but there’s actually one more person we can ask. There’s a pharmacy in this building that’s separate from the other one—he might know something.”

  “Absolutely, lead the way.” He wondered if he should let himself hope that he might find out what had happened. If Ritika had indeed been taken by the soldiers, she could still be alive.

  Or she could be dead.

  They walked to the end of the corridor and turned left, then reached a booth at the end of that hall. No one was behind the desk, so Talia reached in and rang the desk bell four times in a row. “Hopefully there’s someone in the back,” she said.

  A disheveled looking man appeared a moment later with a frown on his face. “Yes?” he directed an irritated gaze at Talia.

  Raj waited for her to introduce him, then explained that he was looking for Nurse Ritika, the nurse who had been taking care of Suhail. The pharmacist examined the photo. “Yes, I met her a few times.”

  “Do you know what happened to her?” Raj asked. “Suhail said that a soldier took her away.”

  The pharmacist’s expression turned dark, “That would explain why she hasn’t been back. If they took her to prison, I don’t know what happened, but there is somewhere you could look…”

  Raj leaned forward, “Where?”

  “The construction lot down the street… I know the soldiers dumped bodies there.”

  Outside Farwaniya Hospital grounds, Kuwait – October, 1990

  Raj leaned over and heaved onto the ground for the third time that evening. After the conversation with the pharmacist he had forced himself to visit the old construction site—if there was a chance that Ritika was there, he had to know. As soon as he had parked, he had regretted that decision, the smell coming from the pit had caused him to vomit for the first time that evening. There were only five bodies, but from the stench, he would have thought there were hundreds. He finally made it down the slope, pulse racing. Of the five, only two were female, lying next to each other face down. He steeled his nerves.

  I have to know.

  Tears coursed down his cheeks with every step, the flashlight in his hands quaking, and the minute-long walk felt more like a day in which he was heading to his execution.

  He was hyperventilating as he wrapped his hand in an old hand towel from his car and reached down to flip over the first body, overwhelmed by the smell and the flies that had congregated on top. The body was heavy, and it took far more effort than he could have anticipated. Once it was right side up the sobs grew heavier, it wasn’t Ritika, but he wasn’t sure how he felt. If he didn’t find her now, would he ever be able to? If she wasn’t here, then did that mean that she was still alive?

  Using the back of his other hand, he brushed away the tears and moved toward the other body, his head spinning from the sound of both his heartbeat and uncontrolled breathing. He gathered his energy this time and flipped the body more quickly, then fell back onto the sand, emotion racking his torso. His mind overflowed with the few memories that he had, Ritika’s shy smile when he first met her at her parents’ home, the brilliant azure garb she had worn to their sangeet the night before the wedding, the first time he’d brought her into his apartment in Kuwait.

  The memories had been fleeting since the invasion, and many of them had eluded him when he’d tried to bring them to the forefront of his mind, but now they were there in full force. Each one felt like a knife slicing across his chest, one by one leading him to death by a million cuts.

  Her face was unrecognizable, a shadow of the past they might have had together, but around her neck was the Mangalsutra he had placed there at their wedding. Even with the sand that coated the gold and black beads, there was no mistaking it—the body lying in front of him was hers. He had searched for her for months, and she had been at the hospital, right there, easily within his reach, until just a few days before. Now she was gone forever, food for the flies and the crows who dared brave the desert sun and heat.

  Austin, USA – May, 2016

  Tareq was halfway out the door when he saw his host, a middle-aged man who lived in the main house across the lawn waving to him from the garden where he was crouched over a bed of fresh soil with a set of gardening tools.

  “Hello,” the host called out. “I was wondering if I’d get to see you, sometimes the people who rent this little loft just come and go. I really like it when I get to say hi, though. I’m Greg, it’s so good to meet you. You know, I’ve been renting out this loft for the last six months, and I don’t think I’ve met more than two or three people who were staying here.”

  He held out his hand and Tareq shook it reluctantly, squelching the desire to shove him to the ground and make for the fence as Greg droned on about his experience with renting on Airbnb.

  Tareq bit his lip and tolerated the discussion—Mariam was waiting for him, but it wouldn’t do either of them any good if he got himself arrested for assault. The host shot off a spree of small talk, asking Tareq where he was from and if he had been to Austin before, what he had been up to since he arrived, and what he should make sure to go and see. “Most importantly you must go out for breakfast tacos, my personal favorite is Marcelino’s, they have this elgin sausage that’s to die for. Tourists usually go to Torchy’s, which is great, but you can find it all over now. The other place you have to make it to is the Veracruz food truck, go to the original one on Cesar Chavez Street…”

  Tareq kept his answers to a minimum, not wanting to spur any further conversation, but it still took several minutes to extract himself.

  Much to his chagrin, when Greg was finally out of small talk, he turned around and went back to gardening in the same spot. Tareq hesitated, he could go for the fence now, but he risked being seen—he was lucky Greg hadn’t spotted him returning from Mariam’s earlier. He took a deep breath and forced himself to relax as he returned to the house.

  Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

  Austin, USA – May, 2016

  “Mariam! Are you okay? Please, Mariam.” Raj had found her cowering behind the laundry hamper in the corner of their spare room closet.

  She opened her eyes and stared at him blankly, from the look in her eyes and her tear-stained face he could tell that he didn’t have to explain.

  She already knows.

  He put one arm around her shoulders and scooped the other one under her knees. “Come on, babe, we have to go,” he said softly. “We have to run now, before he finds us.”

  For a second, he thought that she was going to protest, but then she leaned her head into his chest. Raj’s jaw clenched as the dampness of her tears soaked through his shirt.

  I am going to make him pay.

  He shut his eyes for a second and then grimaced as he lifted Mariam. Ten years earlier it would have been easy, but although he had maintained a well-built physique, he wasn’t as strong as he used to be.

  Somehow, he managed to get her to the car, he had to stop a few times, once in the living room and once on the driveway, but Mariam wasn’t stable enough to stand. He tried to put her down, to get her to walk, but she looked like she was about to faint. When he finally lowered her into the passenger seat, he slammed the door shut and sprinted to the driver seat.

  Raj hit the gas pedal and they were a few blocks away before he glanced at her again. “When we get home, I better spend some more time at the gym,” he said, still panting, but hoping to cheer her up.

  She gripped the armrest, her face ashen and pale, “It’s too late, we can never go home again.”

  “No, you’re safe now. We’
re going to be okay, I promise.”

  Mariam looked straight ahead, refusing to meet his gaze, “I’m so sorry, Raj. Our lives are over.”

  Austin, USA – May, 2016

  Tareq’s breathing sped up as he watched Raj appear inside the house, move through the living room at a frantic pace, and disappear into the back bedroom. Tareq could barely stop himself from pointing the gun at the window and ending it then and there. He tightened his grip on the binoculars. When he saw Raj find her and carry her through the open kitchen toward the front door, Tareq flung the binoculars across the room. The plastic frame hit the wall with a thud and fell to the ground, the glass lenses shattered and spilled out over the floor. Tareq let off a spree of Arabic curse words before he knelt next to the broken glass, the binoculars had been one of the few purchases from Kuwait that he’d kept when he had moved to Baltimore twelve years earlier. It had seemed fitting that they would be what reunited him with Mariam, but that scheme had now been foiled. He swept up the broken glass into a dustpan and dumped it into the trash bin in the kitchen.

  She’ll be back.

  Once the floor was clear, Tareq peeked out of the front window, which gave him a view of the garden patch where his host Greg had been working. The garden was empty now, and he cursed again, this time under his breath—his host had delayed him and ruined everything. Part of him was tempted to seek him out, someone should pay for scuttling his plans, but his better judgment prevailed. He couldn’t risk anything compromising his reunion with Mariam. He longed to feel her breath, to see the make-believe fear in her eyes from up close. His skin was on fire, he ached to hold her in his arms. He yearned to touch her, to have her the way that he used to, to control her the way she adored so much. Tareq’s breath grew shallower, thirsting for that moment for the thousandth time since he’d seen her in Nadia’s photograph. He pressed his face against the glass pane looking out toward her backyard. Without the binoculars he could see the outline of her patio behind the low wooden fence but not much else.

  Tareq picked up his wallet and keys from the side table next to the couch—he’d have to procure a new pair of binoculars. He needed to be ready for when she returned. A resounding calm fell over him as he made his way to his car parked outside on the driveway, the extra time would only heighten their first encounter. Nothing would stop him from getting to her.

  Don’t worry, Mariam. We’ll be together soon.

  Salmiya, Kuwait – October, 1990

  Raj wasn’t sure how he made it back to the camp, somehow, he’d managed the drive on autopilot and stumbled from the parking lot into the school grounds. He was planning to head straight for his room, but his legs carried him toward the playground on the other side of the campus—the one spot that had always felt simple and safe despite the chaos. When he got there, he collapsed onto a bench facing the basketball hoop and buried his face in hands.

  She was there, right there, the whole time. How could I not get to her?

  He replayed the eight separate visits he had made to the hospital, the people that he had asked about Ritika, how he had searched the radiology ward from end to end each time. Another wave of sobs contorted his chest, and he slammed his fist into the wooden bench once, then again. Pain radiated through his fingers, but he welcomed it.

  You deserve this. You failed her. She was your wife, and you failed her.

  Raj slid off the bench onto his knees and braced himself against the ground. The cuts on his hand filled with sand and he dragged it across his face, the grains spilling into his mouth. He spat several times and had to rely on the bench for support as he attempted to stand.

  The effort of standing was too much to bear, and he almost fell forward again—he didn’t want to face the real world, he couldn’t endure returning to the camp and pretending everything was normal. At least as normal as their lives could be as they prepared for the evacuation.

  Instead, Raj made his way toward the bathroom to wash up, continuing on autopilot was his best option rather than engaging with the onslaught of questions that lay ahead. Preparing for the evacuation would, in a way, offer a welcome distraction. He pictured the scene, the Iraqi soldier dragging her out into the hallway and then off to be shot. He bit his lip, Suhail had said the soldier came into his room to speak to her more than once. The image overpowered him, not wanting to imagine what the soldier had done to her before she upset him enough to shoot her. The tears returned, and he stopped to catch his breath, using a column for support. He lumbered along and finally made it to the bathroom where he made a feeble attempt to be presentable, rinsing the sand off of his face and hands.

  Raj stared at his reflection, uncertain whether he could face the camp residents; he was still on the far side of campus, so he hadn’t run into anyone yet. He would need to help Sanjay with planning for the bus rides, maybe even go out again to procure extra gas, but he wondered if he would be able to function.

  Outside the bathroom, Raj came to a halt when he saw Mariam in the hallway. She was sitting on the ground, her back against the lockers gazing out into space. She hadn’t seen him yet, and for a moment he contemplated making himself scarce, but the sand under his feet made a crunching noise as he stepped forward.

  “Raj? I thought I was the only one who came to this end of campus at night.”

  He approached her even though part of him felt that he should run in the opposite direction, away from his feelings.

  You just found out Ritika is dead.

  He blinked hard to stave off tears—he was convinced they would hit him once again—and sat on the floor facing her. “I guess not. It’s quieter out here, that’s why I come here once in a while,” he was amazed he was able to speak at all. Even though Ritika was his wife, there was one person that he wanted to go to in his grief, and she was sitting right in front of him.

  Her eyes noted the cuts on his hands, difficult as they were to see in the dim courtyard lighting. “Are you okay? What happened to your hands?”

  “No big deal, I scraped them on the bench by the playground.”

  Mariam’s frown deepened, “You scraped them on the bench?” She leaned forward and took his right hand, examining it. “That’s a pretty bad scrape.”

  Raj wasn’t sure how to react, they had crossed the touch barrier a few weeks ago, but shouldn’t he pull away? He was tempted to grab his hand back, to retreat and flee, yet he couldn’t seem to move. He shifted, moving his hand out of her reach, then said, “It’s nothing, really.” He got the last words out and thought he was home free, but the look she gave him shattered his composure. His face crumpled, and the tears returned, pouring down his cheeks as he directed his gaze to the ground, to the lockers, to anything except her.

  She waited several seconds before she touched the side of his face, turning his head so that he had to make eye contact. “I’m here if you want to talk,” she whispered.

  “When we talked before, I told you about Ritika…”

  “Your wife? Yes.” Mariam’s expression changed, and she inched forward, moving even closer to him, “What happened?”

  “I found her.”

  “Was she—”

  “Yes.”

  She wrapped her arms around him, and he leaned his forehead against her collar bone. The tears had slowed now, but he still couldn’t look at her again.

  “I’m so sorry, Raj.”

  He stayed like that, with his head on her shoulder a long while, savoring the comfort of her embrace. Once they got to Jordan, he would probably never see her again. He had no right to feel this way, but he couldn’t help himself. When he finally worked up the strength, he looked up and faced her.

  “Thank you,” he said softly. He remained in her arms, considering what to say, but the inappropriateness of the contact already felt like too much. Ritika’s memory was far too fresh and so much of him wanted to surrender to Mariam.

  This has to stop.

  Following several deep breaths, he extricated himself and sped toward the main part
of campus, moving away from her as fast as possible.

  Salmiya, Kuwait – October, 1990

  Mariam sat down on the stained fabric seat, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The bus was packed to the brim and the engine purred as they got onto Fifth Ring Road heading west.

  Any minute now they’ll decide to kick us off.

  She had heard the whispers from the other side of their bedroom enclosure, Ashok arguing with his wife about whether they should risk being on the bus with a Kuwaiti. Mariam wasn’t sure when or how he had found out, but she’d never been so grateful to Sanjay and Daniels. Apparently, they had insisted that she and Dinah be allowed to travel with them, regardless of where they were from. “We don’t even know for sure, that’s what Sanjay said,” Ashok had told his wife.

  Her stomach churned as they exited onto Jahra Road heading north toward the Iraqi border. She wouldn’t be able to breathe again until they crossed into Jordan. She hadn’t even told Dinah what she’d overheard, it was all too scary. If she repeated it, that would validate her fears, making them all the more real. Besides, Mariam didn’t have the heart to snuff out her cousin’s hopes—she had already spoken to John and couldn’t wait to join him in London.

  Mariam peered out of the window although she couldn’t see much other than the occasional sign with the limited street lighting. They were, of course, taking advantage of that to drive out at night, but she was filled with an overwhelming sense of dread. She and Dinah had spent much of the night debating what they would do when they reached Jordan—Dinah could use her British passport, which her husband had sacrificed everything to save, but Mariam had no papers. Tareq had made sure that her passport was tied to his, so if she admitted to her real name, she would have to get in touch with the Kuwaiti government currently in exile. As part of establishing her identity, she would have no choice but to address what had happened to him—a thought that magnified the pressure on her chest even more.