The Newlyweds (49 page)

Halfway around the world, George was just getting out of bed. It was a new one, a box spring and mattress they’d ordered online just before she left, much cheaper than the fancy bed frame they’d looked at in the store. What had George said that day, about her and her inflexible plans? She’d thought he wasn’t being fair, that he couldn’t understand her, but was it possible he’d been right after all?

She looked at her parents—her mother with a green woolen sweater already draped over her shoulders against the terminal’s mild air-conditioning, and her father in an oversize shirt that tented out around his bandaged chest. When she’d gone alone, she’d been able to adapt, and because she had no one to talk to about the things that were shocking or offensive or odd, they’d slowly grown to seem less so. But with three of them there, it would be different. Her parents would unwittingly begin taking over the house—little touches like the slippers by the doorway, the smell of spices in the
furniture, the language itself—until not only George but even Amina herself would feel like a stranger there. This was the moment she’d imagined: when she was supposed to have fulfilled her obligations as a daughter. She was handing her parents a gift, the magnitude of which dwarfed the modest television she’d once presented. They had watched the safety and security of life abroad on that tiny black-and-white screen for years and believed they had seen the future. Now, just when she should have felt the weight of responsibility lifting, she seemed to have grown even heavier, burdened with three people’s fates, each of which was being irrevocably changed because of her.

It should have been obvious that her parents were waiting for someone, but she realized it only when she saw him coming through the double doors. Nasir was dressed for work in a white shirt and gray slacks, carrying his briefcase under his arm. He’d clipped the bottoms of his trousers in order to ride the motorbike and forgotten to undo them when he dismounted; there was something that touched her about the plastic clips and the strip of black sock revealed under the cuff. He had already spotted them, and gave a brief, familiar wave, as if he were the final member of their party arriving to travel.

“Jams everywhere,” he said. “I couldn’t have gotten here without the bike.” He had been avoiding her eyes, but now he turned to look at her directly. “Do many people ride scooters in America?”

“Not in Rochester,” she said. “It’s too cold.”

Nasir nodded, as if this were vital information he’d been seeking for some time. He took in the crowd at security, less a line than a heaving throng. “What time can you go through?”

Her father glanced at her mother and then maneuvered his arm painfully to reach into his pocket for the watch, which he handed to Nasir. He looked exhausted already, and she couldn’t imagine the toll the long flight would take on him.

“Please keep this,” her father said. “It’s nothing—it was my father’s. He gave it to me before I went off to university, just before I met your father. Your father used to admire it. Back then it was quite fashionable.”

Nasir was shaking his head. “I can’t.”

“Someone will give you a new watch when you marry,” her mother said. “The bride’s family. Take this old thing until then.”

Amina could see that they’d agreed her gifts weren’t sufficient and had settled on this course of action last night before her father slept. She had been next door in Ghaniyah’s room, waiting for her mother to join her, but they’d still been bickering when she’d fallen asleep. Their concerns were always shared; they only differed on how best to address them. She almost envied them their perpetual quarrel—the way it tied them together, more securely than any marriage contract. This morning she’d woken to find that her mother had spent the night in the chair beside her father’s bed.

The two of them went back and forth with Nasir about the watch until he finally accepted it. He was just able to fasten it around his much broader wrist; he would have to make another notch in the leather strap. Both of her parents were beaming, relieved and pleased, and of course Nasir now got out his own gifts, secreted in the briefcase.

“The one I should’ve given you years ago,” he said, handing her father a book of poems. There was attar for her mother, from his sisters. “Less than three ounces—so they won’t think you’re trying to blow up the plane,” Nasir joked. Then he handed Amina a small white box, fastened at the sides with tape.

Her parents were watching her closely, and she was forced to look at Nasir simply to avoid their identical, inquiring expressions. They wanted her to open the box, but she was suddenly afraid of its contents.

“I should apologize,” Amina said. “It was wrong of me to meddle in your affairs.”

Nasir nodded, acknowledging that fact. “I confused you, talking about that other girl.” He was looking at her as if they were alone, and she realized that he was just as comfortable with her parents standing there as he might have been without them. She remembered George’s distaste for “dirty laundry,” and she knew there was no business Nasir could have with her that was secret from her parents. The thought made her fear the white box even more.

The intensity of the conversation was beginning to disturb her parents, who were shifting uncomfortably on their feet, glancing at
the security line. Surely they would be allowed to pass through now. Her father was still worried about the suspicious bulk of the bandages under his shirt and had told them several times that they would have to allow extra time for him to be checked by hand.

“Open your gift, Munni,” her father said. “Then we have to go.”

Amina fiddled with the tape on the side of the box. Such a small box could only contain jewelry, but she couldn’t imagine what Nasir would think appropriate to give her. Because she didn’t know what else to do, she slid her nail under the tape on the side of the box and lifted the lid. Inside, nestled on a white cotton square, was a pair of enameled yellow hair barrettes, with a pattern of intertwining white leaves and branches—the kind of trinket you might buy at a stall in the bazaar for twenty taka.

“I made up that girl,” he said suddenly. “I was embarrassed—you bringing up my marriage directly like that. That’s because you’ve been abroad so long.”

She stared at him. One of the broken lights above their heads buzzed suddenly and went on.

“Only two hours until the flight,” her father said. “Imagine if we missed it.”

“You never saw Mokta?”

Nasir shook his head as if he were disgusted. “I didn’t even know there was a girl living there.” He was looking at his gift as if he regretted it. “When you were young, you used to wear clips something like that. At least, I believe you did.”

“She did,” her mother confirmed. “Exactly.”

“It was so long ago—but I thought these might remind you of home.”

That was another thing about the kind of proposal she’d dreamed of receiving. It happened unexpectedly, and you didn’t hesitate for a moment in your answer. Nasir was looking down, and his lashes were so long that they touched the darker skin underneath his eyes. He wouldn’t ask; she couldn’t accept. The seconds were grinding down to nothing right in front of them.

“Yes,” she said, too loud. “Yes—I’ll remember every time I look at them.”

“It can take an hour and a half just to get through the line,” her father was saying. “I’ve heard that. And then we have to find the gate.”

“I have something,” Amina said. “Hold on.” It wasn’t in the first suitcase, and so she had to open the second. Down at the other end of the row of chairs she noticed another woman opening another suitcase, unburdening herself to her relatives, as if she’d only now realized the difficulty of future exchanges. The cardboard box was at the top of the suitcase, where her mother had carefully surrounded it with a nest of clothing, and when she opened the lid she found all three of the birds intact. She removed the red cardinal, along with one of the metal fasteners, which you were supposed to use to bind the feet to the branch of an evergreen tree.

“One came to the yard—” she began, and couldn’t continue; instead she held it out to him. Was this brush of the palm when he took it the last time they would touch? Did that occur to him, too? There was no clue in his expression.

Nasir frowned. “Is it really this red?”

“Redder,” Amina managed. “It doesn’t look like something you would find in Rochester. But you do.”

“Your wife will like that someday,” her mother said happily. Now Amina could see that she felt the gift exchange had been equitable. “Be sure to tell her it comes from abroad.”

She and her mother each took the strap of one rolling suitcase. Across the departures hall, the line had begun to move.

“Let me take those,” Nasir said. He had wrapped the cardinal carefully in the same paper he’d used for her mother’s perfume and put it in his bag. It would ride back downtown with him to his office, bumping against his side. In the evening he might rediscover it, unwrapping and setting it on the folding table (would Sakina or Shilpa have taken away the cloth with the red-cheeked Dutchman?). The bird would stay there, observing him each morning and evening as he took his meals, prepared on alternating days by his sisters up and down the stairs. One day soon he would get married, perhaps even to the girl in Comilla. But it wouldn’t be like him to lose or throw away her gift. It would live with him forever in this city, which she was very
likely never to see again. At once she felt a yearning for this object so strong that she might have reached into his bag herself to touch it if they hadn’t already been moving toward the security barrier. She hadn’t known it was possible to envy a molded piece of tin.

“We’ll send you an e-mail,” her father said. “Let you know that we’ve arrived.”

“It would still be good to send something more later,” her mother whispered as they joined the line. “If we can find someone who goes back and forth.”

“Which of you is traveling?” demanded a guard in green, and Nasir had to return the suitcases. Her mother offered their documents while her father watched helplessly, looking at this airport functionary as if he expected him to reject them on a whim. Instead the guard grunted and returned them, then blocked Nasir with an outstretched palm.

“Step back, step back,” he said. Nasir glanced at the box she still held in her hand—and then turned away so quickly that it was difficult even to fix a final image of his face. Instead she watched his broad back passing through the tinted glass and into the parking lot, where he was abruptly drained of color, taking on the antique distance of a figure in a black-and-white film.

“Keep moving,” said the guard, and they did.

Reach for the Stars