The Lost Pearl (2012) (16 page)

“Please, Sara,” I said, trying not to be angry with her. “Why are you calling him Zain Bhai? He is not your relative.”

“Not yet, not yet,” she replied, still laughing.

I could not comprehend why my mother had decided that I was going to say yes and had felt confident enough to involve Sara in this conspiracy. Ammi came into my room that afternoon with a thoroughly pressed green
shalwar kameez
. “Blow-dry your hair so it looks proper,” she said. “She will be here by five o’clock.”

“Ammi, I really can’t. I need to talk to you about—”

“Please. Do this much for me. It’s not like we are fixing a wedding date or anything. Just meet her. She has been waiting for a long time to see you and talk to you. You kept putting off your visit, but she was still patient and didn’t go around looking for other matches. We owe her this much courtesy at least. She is just coming by herself. We will have tea, that’s all.”

Before I knew it, I found myself in the midst of a not-so-uncommon scenario. The mother coming by herself for the screening, enjoying an assortment of mouthwatering
samosas
and other snacks, so if she felt the girl was not good enough, her dear son’s time would not have to be wasted. The mothers and sometimes their sons rejected countless girls. How terrible they must feel, to be rejected, I thought, but my fear was different; I was scared to death of being accepted.

I grudgingly dressed up enough to look civil and decent without appearing desperate. I had only agreed to sit for a short while, because Sahir was returning from his dorm and I wanted to chat with him. I wondered what he had to say about this whole situation. Lubna Aunty was a nice lady and thankfully did not bombard me with a list of superficial questions. I was polite and reserved. Before leaving, she asked my mother when she could come over again with her husband and Zain. Unfortunately I had passed the screening.

My mother seemed delighted that I had not said anything offensive or bold and that I had not behaved overly modern or Americanized. She invited them over for dinner the following weekend, but she said Zain would be out of town, and right after,
we were moving, so a pact was made to finalize the dinner over the phone. Thankfully that would be well after Ahmer’s arrival. I had to sort everything out before then. Whatever Ahmer had to tell me, I was sure it would not change my answer. But I still had to gather the courage to tell Ammi about it and deal with the reaction of my stepfather, who was bound to create difficulties. I had to have a backup plan in case things did not work out in the predicted fashion. My plan, inspired by what I had seen in movies, was to take Zain into confidence and beg him to reject me. I would tell him that I was interested in someone else and hope that he would not feel the obligation to share this information with his mother, who would undoubtedly feel the obligation to share it with the rest of town.

Before I knew it, Ahmer had arrived in Karachi. I informed him about the meeting with Lubna Aunty. I told him she was wonderful and that Sara had told me that “Zain Bhai” was extremely good-looking. He laughed for several minutes. I was trying to make him jealous, and he was enjoying the humor in all of this. But in my heart I was thinking, my life is on the line. It’s all funny right now, but it won’t be if my mother says yes and I end up in the difficult situation of having to rebel against her once again. I did not want to waste any time, and the uncertainty was creating ulcers in the pit of my stomach. The following day he picked me up, taking me to an unknown destination to meet the person he had promised to introduce me to. I was afraid someone would see us.

“Imagine if Zain’s mother saw us together,” I said, frantic with worry. “Or my stepfather.”

“Don’t worry,” Ahmer replied. “We will be back soon.” He looked serious, and the jovial smile on his face had evaporated.

I could not take the suspense any longer and suddenly asked, “Are you married, Ahmer? Please tell me you are not married and you don’t have a child. I have thought about these possibilities, but please tell me now. I need to know.”

He appeared flabbergasted. “What? Married? Children? What are you saying, Sana? If you thought that was my secret, you don’t know me at all, and I am utterly disappointed. I would never have loved you or proposed to you if I was married. You have known me for so long. What are you saying?”

“I’m sorry. I knew I shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but I was just so worried about losing you, that’s all. I am relieved. What is your secret then? What could it possibly be?”

He paused for a minute, and I saw the faraway look in his eyes once again. It was a look of agony and of having endured; the look of a troubled past and an uncertain future. “What I have hidden from you is not anything to do with us. It’s only to do with me and who I am.”

My mind started racing from one unbelievable thought to another. Was he a spy? A terrorist? He had changed his 9/11 travel plans, had he not? Had he known something about them? He had given me a lot of information about the hijackers while critiquing my writing. As these questions arose, I knew I was being ridiculous. Working on my thesis had made me such a suspicious person. The jetlag and Zain’s mother showing up had added to my paranoia. I was doubting the veracity and sincerity of the one I trusted and cared for the most. The thought of losing Ahmer was so unbearable to me that I was losing my mind. I inhaled deeply and said a prayer in my heart, waiting to hear the truth.

“My father is not dead, Sana.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. This was shocking, but it was certainly a shock far more welcome than what my delusional mind had begun to fear. “What? That was your secret? That is wonderful to know. I cannot believe you didn’t tell me. We’ve known each other for years, and all this time I thought you were an orphan. Why did you hide that from me? To gain my sympathy?”

“No. It’s not that at all. I’m sorry. He is alive but not really. He has been separated from me just as much as your father has been separated from you. He is in prison, serving a life sentence. I want you to meet him. You always asked me why I became a lawyer. It was so that I could reopen his case and appeal to the Supreme Court.”

“What is he in prison for?”

“First-degree murder.”

I was both surprised and deeply hurt that Ahmer had kept such a big secret from me. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Because the moment I met you, I knew you were the one for me, Sana. I knew from the first day, the first moment, when you were holding Pride and Prejudice that I wanted to marry you. I had never met anyone like you before. If I told you I was the son of a convicted killer, it would have driven you away from me. You are a person of high morals. This revelation is disturbing you a lot even now, after you in your heart have decided to marry me, isn’t it?”

“I cannot say it isn’t. It is bothering me a lot but not enough to change my decision.”

“I wanted you to know before you said yes.”

“How long has he been in prison?”

“Sixteen years.”

“Oh my God, that must have been so hard for you.”

“Yes. That night of February 11, 1987 changed my life.”

I felt a chill go through my spine. I felt an earthquake of a high magnitude shaking my core from within. “Whose murder is he charged with?” I asked, not sure if I could brace myself to hear the answer.

“That doesn’t matter. What matters is—”

“Believe me, it matters a lot. It’s night and day. It’s life or death. It’s yes or no to your marriage proposal.”

“Asad Shah.”

I wished for the ground to open and swallow me up. I could not believe that he had uttered my father’s name. A blend of shock, disbelief, and sorrow overcame me. I could not comprehend how this could be happening, that my fairy tale was crumbling before it had concluded. Did I not deserve to be happy? Now I understood what Jennifer had often said: If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

I loved Ahmer. I cared for him like I had cared for no one before. I understood him. He had taught me to smile again. But now it was all gone. How could I have fallen in love with the son of my father’s killer? Was he the only man in the world I could find? How coincidental it all was. We had met on February 11, when I had been mourning my father’s death and Ahmer had likely been mourning what had led to his father’s imprisonment. I found myself in a predicament that I never could have foreseen. Certainly, no matter how much I loved him, I could not marry him. How could I wake up next to him every morning, look into his eyes, and not see his father’s evil? How could I take up the name of those who had destroyed my family? How could I bear my children’s grandfather being my sworn lifelong enemy? I could not. I would not.

Had I not removed the picture from my wallet to give to Sara, I would have shown it to Ahmer. Had I not moved all the photographs on the wall in the sitting room in my apartment, he might have seen the picture. Maybe if I had met the killer in person, I would have known about Ahmer being his son. Ahmer’s last name, Khan, was the most common last name in the country, so it had not seemed conspicuous to me at all. Maybe if I had told Ahmer about myself and who my father was, neither of us would have invested our emotions to this extent. I had loved deeply and honestly. I had loved with every chamber of my heart. I had given my soul and devoted my life to the wrong man.

By then my face was buried in my hands and I was crying inconsolably. “I have to go,” I said, my voice shaking. “I have to get out of the car now.”

“What’s wrong?” Ahmer said, his voice filled with concern and surprise.

“What’s wrong is that your secret and my secret are the same. What I didn’t tell you was who my father was and how he died. He was killed the night of February 11, 1987. He was Asad Shah.”

“How can that be? Your last name is Rehman.”

“That’s a gift from my stepfather. He adopted us officially, remember?”

“Sana, listen to me.”

“Ahmer, your father has ruined my life. I thought I had found a new life because of you, but you are his son. You cannot change your name; you cannot change your DNA. I don’t want to ever see you again. I have spent my whole life hating your father, wishing the worst for him and his family. I cannot marry you.”

He refused to leave me in the middle of the road, and insisted on dropping me home. We rode in silence, our minds speaking a thousand words. This was after I had spent the last few weeks planning how I would say yes, and envisioning every color of the rainbow that my life would become. I had gone far to escape my dark past and fate had brought me back to where my misery had been born. I had been feeling like a peak of a mountain, a star in the sky. The mountain had caved and the star had fallen. My fairytale had disintegrated, bringing my beautiful dream to an abrupt end. In a moment, my whole life was turned upside down—all over again.

A week went by, and I isolated myself completely, spending my time silently brooding over my ruined future within the confines of my bedroom. I gazed at the ceiling fan as it continued to obediently stir the air above my head. I stared at the wall, eyeing the clock that seemed to be looking back at me, mocking me. The seconds hand seemed to be dancing as it moved, as though it were relishing in the joke that time had played on me. Solitude became my new friend. I listened to
ghazals
constantly to try to ward off the silence that was engulfing me. I did not feel the usual compulsion to sing along. I merely listened, allowing the poetic words to become verbose companions to my silent sorrow. I listened to Abida Parveen’s
ghazals
by Faiz, poetry that Ahmer had himself explained to me so diligently, not knowing then how well I would understand the essence of those words years later:

Ask not about the eve of separation

It came and passed by
,

The heart once again cheered up
,

Life once again steadied itself
.

Ahmer had explained that even though Faiz was trivializing the experience of being separated from his beloved, the reader could feel his deep sense of loss.

When I remembered you

The morning became fragrant

When I awoke my sorrow for you

The night grew restless
.

I retrieved Faiz’s book, which I had taken with me, and read the lines while I listened intently. I placed my finger on the rose petals that this book of poetry had preserved for me so beautifully. An unchecked tear rolled down my cheek onto the book, touching the verse I was reading, soaking the shriveled petal that had separated itself from the rest of the flower. I adjusted the volume to the highest setting so I could shut out the sound of the crows at my window. But there was no volume loud enough to overpower the voice of Ahmer, which continued to ring in my ears. He was everywhere—in the books I read, in the words I wrote, in the music I listened to.

I needed to get accustomed to this new and tragic chapter of my life without Ahmer. But how was I to forget him? He was not a dream that could disappear before the beginning of the next day, he was a six year long reality. He was not a word that could be erased or a phrase that could be edited; he was my whole story.