by Nahid Husain
We are not even supposed to meet. I have not fully reconciled this with God yet. I pretend that I have already thought of her in an illicit way and there is no other choice. She is talking now and I flow with the magic of her chatter, guided by the magic of her eyes. We talk until late at night and she goes into the tent, leaving me to ponder over her chatter.
We meet again, and again, and again. Each time, the stars are dimmer than before, and the moonlight less intense, as if to make me aware that we are drifting away from the path of light. But I have not touched her. This is for you, God, only for you. Because I know you will reward me.
Months pass. Her eyes have lost their innocence. I cannot understand. Does she not see how noble I am? Does she not see how I listen to her every word? Does she not feel the desperation that I feel? No, I have given her everything. And I have not strayed. The next day, I ask for her hand in marriage. I get it. I am overjoyed.
The wedding festivities begin almost immediately. There is camel milk, and meat, and a rich dessert made out of dates. Our families gather in the evening at sunset, when the sky is studded in lavender and gold, and is slowly dissolving into an infinite sheet of velvet with diamonds embedded in it.
She is inside her tent. I can imagine her black eyes. Today they will be mine. It is customary for the bride to stay inside her future husband’s tent during the wedding festivities. We have our dinner, and then Abdallah plays his banjo while the men sit around the fire. We sing and we sing and we sing, until the strains of the banjo finally die away into the darkness. I am bid congratulations once more and we move to our tents.
She is not there.
I look around in the darkness, illuminated by the light of a tiny candle, as if she is hiding somewhere, and will suddenly materialize. But she is not there. I walk over to her parent’s tent. Her mother is standing at the entrance, looking at me. Her eyes are as black as Zahra’s and I can see a hint of wildness in them.
“She has gone.”
“Where?”
“With Mustafa Ibn Walid.”
“Where?”
“With Mustafa Ibn Walid.”
My eyes finally register what she is saying. But she will come back. I know.
I wait, for days and days, out in the empty desert, dark and infinite, under the scorching sun and the starry nights. She does not come.
I pray, for days and days, out in the empty desert, dark and infinite, under the scorching sun and the starry nights. She does not come.
I question, for days and days, out in the empty desert, dark and infinite, under the scorching sun and the starry nights. She does not come.
I cry, for days and days, out in the empty desert, dark and infinite, under the scorching sun and the starry nights. She does not come.
She sits beside me in the darkness, her hair loose all around her, her black eyes brimming with emotion. I touch her face. It is real. The profile in my imagination is as beautiful as was perceived. I trace it with my finger down to her neck, across her chest to her waist, where her black abaya is fastened by two strings. The strings are loose, they come apart easily and I see the outline of her body for the first time.
I look at her eyes: the innocence is still there.
I combine it with the yearning in my soul.
I look at her eyes: they are mine.
Vignettes - 2
Being 29
For some reason that I can neither identify nor specify, the 20s were always the most important years of my life…the most awaited for and the most reluctant to say goodbye to. I was never so elated to be 18 as I was to be 21 – and never so upset at being 19 as I am at being 29.
It’s not even the fact that my biological clock is ticking but a serious myriad of occurrences that took away the most exciting years of my life – pictures, images of unrequited relationships that still haunt me; of diseases that I studied about in my pre-med courses in college that ended up destroying me; of God – who promised me He could do anything if you trust Him…except now I have to believe in supreme justice.
But then the 20s taught me how to live – with schizophrenia. I couldn’t operate the TV, or the computer, or interact well socially, so I wiled away time trying out the best way to commit suicide.
Overdoses of:
Nyquil;
Morphine;
My anti-psychotic Clozaril? I don’t even remember;
Or maybe cups of Lysol, which I had to vomit out immediately because they tasted so bad.
If this is God’s way of telling me that I have to live (since I’ve managed to live through all my suicide stints – trust me, 12 tablets of 100g Morphine each is enough to kill), it’s not funny. Especially after doing neo-Hajj through Fardeen bhai’s Mecca story…
Images
I met Jonathan at my first job as a sacker at a grocery store. I remember his first words to me:
“So do you like it here?”
And I said, “It sucks.”
For some reason, he found that funny.
“How do you pronounce that?” he inquired, squinting at the name tag pinned to my shirt.
“Naa-heed,” I clarified.
“Jonathan,” he said, putting out his hand. “I think we’re going to be friends.”
We had lunch together that day.
“What are you listening to?”
“Nothing in particular.” I pushed the rewind button on my Walkman.
“Want to know what I listen to?”
I shrugged. He reached into the pocket of his khaki pants and pulled out a cassette. I put out my palm to receive it. It was a habit of mine: to expect to be given than to take.
“Marylin Manson?” What the hell is this?
“Heavy Metal.”
“Heavy metal is bad for your ears.”
“I don’t care.” He put the cassette into his own Walkman and pushed the play button.
For some reason, I found that funny.
It was raining heavily when I got to work the next day.
“You need to put your raincoat on.”
“No, I don’t… I love the rain.” He looked at me strangely.
“What’s wrong with that? A few drops of water never hurt anybody! You should try going out without a raincoat yourself.”
“Well, whatever.” He walked away.
I looked in delight at the rocky gray thunderclouds above me, as I pushed a cart back to the grocery store. Jagged flashes of lightening subsequently illuminated the sky and let it sink back into pitch again. The heavy patter of rain and the wind tingling my cheek seemed to put me into some kind of a delirium. I put out both my palms, relishing the feel of droplets of rain. A song broke out from my lips in spite of myself.
“Always I wanna be with you and make-believe with you…”
“And live in harmony, harmony, harmony…” sang a voice from behind.
I jumped, embarrassed.
“Y’know what – you were right. This is great,” he said, putting his palms out. Rivulets of water ran down his plastered hair. He didn’t have his raincoat on.
I had to work the 4 pm–8 pm shift the day after that, which meant my shift ended at sunset. My favorite time of the day.
I thought I would never get tired of seeing it, as I watched the deep orange sun lace all the cotton clouds with a beautiful rouge hue as it descended into the horizon, changing the sky from its myriad of red, pink, lilac, and gold to jewel-studded purple.
“God isn’t dead, is he?”
Yet again, he had caught me at a very private moment.
“Thank you for the commentary, but I think I can do without it.”
“You’re cute when you’re mad.” He sauntered off in his annoying way, his T-shirt half out, begging to be tucked in.
I was off for two days after that. But surprisingly, when I got back to work on Friday, Jonathan didn’t come near me. I sensed that I had somehow hurt him at our last meeting, and for some reason, I was glad that I did. At least until the green-eyed monster decided to
pay me a visit when I saw him laughing at something with Jenni. Tonight was a weekend night. There were lots of sackers. Denying my existence was not a difficult task. I tried to tell myself that it was just as well; that I didn’t need to talk to him anyway, but I knew that it wasn’t true.
But whatever it was, he seemed to have forgotten it all by the next day. My first payday ever. I felt a certain thrill pass through me as I was handed my first paycheck.
“Would you like to cash it, ma’am?”
“Yes, please,” I replied, eyeing the bundle of notes on the register.
The crisp green bills in my hands made me feel euphoric. I had to treat Jonathan. He was my first friend here. As if on cue, he appeared from the large glass entrance doors, stopping short on seeing me with so much money.
“Whoa! What’re we going to do with all that?”
“For starters, treat you to coffee. But only since you were the very first friend I made here.”
“I’m honored.” He displayed a mock bow.
“When and where?”
Coffee paradise was a little coffee haven just beside the grocery store. Most of us preferred to sit outside it on the pavement and sip our coffee.
“It’s hot,” I told Jonathan as he put out his palm to receive his coffee. He had been very amused by this habit of mine and never missed an opportunity to tease me about it.
“You might want to consider holding it from the top.”
“No, this is fine. I need to be punished anyway.”
He looked at me, straight into my eyes, not flinching an inch as I put the hot cup on his outstretched palm.
It rained again the next day. Jonathan and I were off of work at the same time. We sat on the pavement outside the coffee shop again, this time looking at the rainbows swirling in the puddles on the road. The sun had now come out and the whole world seemed completely new. I looked up at the sunbeams emerging like golden spotlights from the midst of a snowy cloud.
“Do you think that’s where heaven is?”
I turned to look at his handsome profile. But he seemed far away, lost in a world of his own. I left him there.
The one kind of weather that I hated was sunny weather. Carrying out groceries in the scorching sun for fat old ladies who were too lazy to do it themselves was just not my cup of tea. I hated this job. Hated summers away from home. Images of my family flashed before my mind. My parents and I, sitting at the dinner table and laughing at something that had happened to me in school. My cousin and I at the movies, oohing and aahing at the cute guy. My sis and I, huddled up in bed, telling each other the latest gossip.
Art camp a thousand miles away from the fuddy-duddies may have seemed like heaven at one time but now, after three weeks, and especially after this…this miserable excuse for a job, could be quite testing.
“Hey, who died?” a passing voice inquired. I didn’t even need to look up from the grocery cart I was pushing to know who it was.
“Nobody yet but I must be first in line.”
“Come on. What’s wrong?”
“This bloody job sucks.”
“I know. But we’re not going to be doing it forever. It’s only a matter of a month for you. It’s not that bad.”
I felt annoyed with him for saying that. What did he know how much I was suffering? Going to class in the morning and working to pay for the class in the evening. This was probably just a holiday job for him to buy him another car or something.
I think night is always a good time to let go of whatever’s on your mind, in whichever way is best: talking to someone about it, writing it up in your journal or just vowing to forget about it. That’s because you probably express yourself the best then. Especially when there is a full moon and everything glimmers under the silvery slivers of moonlight. Especially when the millions of stars in the sky seem to go on and on and on. Especially when the cool night air seems to playfully touch you and say ‘Touch me if you can!’
I think he wanted to say something that night too, while we were pushing carts back to the store together. But he didn’t say anything, nothing at all.
I saw him driving home in his black convertible, though. I could barely make him out, I hesitantly raised my hand halfway to wave. He stood up in his car and raised his hand, which formed the ‘V’ peace sign, high up, his car nearly banging into a nearby cart. I laughed at that.
“See ya!” he shouted and drove off.
I had the next three days after that off. Saturday – payday again. I wondered when he was scheduled for lunch. Maybe we’d have coffee again. But he didn’t come that day. Nor any other day after that. My reaction, at first, was of disbelief, then anger and then, just disappointment. Why didn’t he tell me? We were together enough times for him to at least tell me his future plans. It was a long time before I realized that I had never asked.
Obscurities
Dedicated to AJ. T, J.M B, S.M.A.K
“And this is Michael.” I looked at my future dance partner. Yeah, he was cute. Why the hell were they sticking him with me? His eyes crinkled up in a smile as he put out his hand, “Hello!”
Too nice, I thought, reciprocating. My mind wandered. I had piles of organic homework still left. Maybe this transgression from my GPA would cost me more than I thought.
It’s only once, though, I reasoned with myself. Two two-hour rehearsals a week…yes, I could manage it. Yeah. With co-op duties, work, and my 4.0 to maintain, it would be real easy.
“Stop being sarcastic,” I told myself. “If you don’t want to do it, leave. This thing hasn’t even started yet, so don’t start making a big deal about nothing. What the hell, Shayana, give yourself a break. This is going to be great.” But I had never danced before in my life. And I was anal about moving my body. It was a great combination for someone who was going to be in a dance show a couple of months later. I looked at the people step-dancing around me.
“Got that?” the guy next to me inquired.
“No,” I answered plainly.
It was midnight when I got done with rehearsal. As I trudged home from the student union where the rehearsals were held, the star-studded velvet sky above seemed to envelop me like a cocoon. There was a lively silence around me, interspersed with the punctuated crooning of crickets, the sound of a distant passing car and the footsteps of an occasional study rat making his way to the library.
I felt strangely content during moments like these. The events of the day, the vast expanse of the campus, and all my energy had culminated into an inexplicable feeling of time being frozen and of me melting my way through an obscure mistiness. I had ceased to think, feel or even hear consciously. It seemed as if all earthly senses had given way to complete muteness, and the tiredness seeping through my body was the only force that was driving me home.
The fog of thoughts vanished as my two-story co-op house appeared with the usual white light shining in the balcony. The sounds of laughter were louder than the voice that wanted to surrender to tiredness. My dark blue organic text appeared before my eyes as I made a mental list of what I had to get done before my lab tomorrow. It was going to be a long night.
“Trrrrrrrrrrrrring!” Somewhere in the middle of blurred dreams, I heard a single trill from the telephone handset next to my bed. Managing a sleepy hello, I sat up straight. Only a couple of people would call me at this ungodly hour.
“What? You’re getting married? Are you serious? How… When… Who?”
I had known Reena for fourteen years now. We had played in the sand together, had our share of catfights, had discussed, with the greatest gravity and seriousness, the future, and had finally graduated. Graduated in the green and white uniforms that we wore for all our school lives, approximately nine thousand miles away from here the United States of America. It had been a long time ago, but the memories were still vivid.
I could still hear the birds twittering outside my window and still see the sunlight filtering through my rose curtains, toning them down to a sunrise blush as I woke
up to the quiet hum of my brown air-conditioning unit.
I could still remember the ugly blue telephone on my desk at home ring as Rin’s excited voice poured into the telephone here.
“Nans, are you still there?”
The textured pink walls of my bedroom dissolved into the cream ones of my co-op.
“Yeah, I’m here. I’m just a little shocked. So soon?”
“Yes. Farah Aunty proposed for her son and since my parents are shifting to India soon to live with my brother, they decided why not.”
“You’re still going to finish college though, right?”
“Yeah, yeah. So you’re coming home?”
“You know I can’t. It’s in the middle of the semester. You’re just getting married in the middle of October so I can’t come.”
“No yaar, don’t say that. You know that Diwali holidays are in October and the whole clan from India can come!”
“I’m just joking… You know me! Anyway, your call is becoming way long and it’ll be peak time soon over there, so I’d better let you go. I’II call you next time, OK?”
“OK, Bye!”
“Bye.”
I looked up from the phone to my sleeping roommate to the pending laundry spilling onto the floor from the basket in the corner of my open closet. The fan whirred an onerous monotone above me, but it was still hot in my AC-less room. My blue Brown and Foote organic text lay open on my table, amidst mounds of lab papers and colored pens. My eyes drifted over to the pastel paintings carefully stuck to the wall, between a sparkling Manhattan bridge and honeyed Venice at sunset; places that meant nothing to me. They moved onto the single photo frame on my dresser, which held three girls in their green and white uniform, twelve million miles away. And suddenly the hint of a tear shot into my eye.
