The Writing on My Forehead (23 page)

I
DON’T KNOW WHAT
kind of string-pulling my uncle had to engage in to get me on a flight home within hours of Shuja’s phone call—bribery and name-dropping had something to do with it, I’m sure. The airport terminal in Karachi was pandemonium—crowded with rich and angry young men and women eager to get back to the United States for the start of their Ivy League semesters, frustrated by the backlog and delay that three days of grounded U.S.-bound flights had caused. Classes would begin without them.

Before I left, I called Daddy in Bombay, though he was unable to respond to anything I told him, a string of words that meant nothing, because neither he nor I had witnessed the truth of them the way we—the whole world—had witnessed the truth of towers burning and crashing, of mothers and fathers and sons and daughters eviscerated by a hatred that had massive implications. What Shuja had called to tell me was about hatred on a smaller scale—hatred that only a few would mourn, hatred that only Sakina had witnessed.

No, we could not yet absorb this truth. There were only words and phrases that reverberated in my mind for the duration of my journey—backlash, hate crime, gunshot, surgery, coma, a prognosis that was not good, and Sakina. Sakina was there. Seated and belted into the car when Ameena went round the back to load groceries into the trunk and was accosted by a man spewing epithets—raghead! towelhead!—raging on about revenge. A random spree—the man had been out hunting, shooting people at gas stations and mini markets. A Hindu. A Sikh. At least with Ameena, his aim had been a little less misdirected. The others had survived.

And Ameena will too,
I told myself, over and over again, in the charged atmosphere of my journey through three airports and thousands of miles around the Earth. Over the sound of the cargo doors slamming shut underneath us, the rattling wheels of beverage carts rolling down the aisle, the crackle and pop of the pilot’s announcements, the whispered exchanges among the passengers. Over the smell of the canned, recirculated air of the cabin, the aroma of the mini meals served to those of us in economy, and the scent of too much eau de cologne that some passengers availed themselves of in the lavatories. Over the feel of rough, fire-retardant seat upholstery, static-sticky blankets, paper-covered pillows, and the cold, metal touch of the button that reclined the seat. These sensual details might otherwise have been tinged with the awareness of what it must have been like for the passengers of those other doomed flights, if my own focus was not wholly consumed by thoughts—some random and some very painfully specific—of my sister.

I thought of my last conversation with her—on the phone, three days earlier. Of the call I had planned to make at Big Nanima’s suggestion. And I remembered the last time I had seen Ameena—the awkwardness of that parting. The relief of it. The guilt. Mine and hers. And the cause of both, standing, oblivious, at her side.

When I landed, I took a cab straight to the hospital. I found Shuja sitting alone in a waiting room. He didn’t stand when he saw me and said nothing when I took the seat next to him, waiting—hoping—for him to tell me what I had tried to convince myself. That Ameena was all right. That she and Sakina were both all right.

After a stretch of silence that I was too afraid to violate, Shuja spoke, in a tone that I both recognized and denied—a tone that sounded the same in all the languages I had heard it in before. One that signaled shock. Trauma. Pain and loss yet unassimilated.

“No one saw anything. Sakina was there. But she didn’t see it happen. She heard a man’s voice. And a gunshot. By the time she got out of the car, he was gone—thank God! Ameena was on the ground. Bleeding out. She was covered in blood. So was Sakina.”

I couldn’t bear it any longer—that my next words had to be questions. “Shuja? She’ll be all right? Tell me, Shuja. Please. She’s okay?”

He looked at me then. Really looked at me for the first time since I’d arrived. “No. She’s gone, Saira. Ameena’s gone.”

A
MEENA WAS DEAD.
I had not reached her in time. Hours later, after Shuja and I collected Sakina from his aunt’s house—Nilofer Auntie’s home, where Sakina had stayed since the shooting, where Shuja had stayed years before, during those months of courting Ameena—we let ourselves into my parents’ house, the three of us, because Shuja could not yet face going home.

I was scooping tea leaves into the kettle when he entered the kitchen. “She’s asleep?”

Shuja nodded. “I put her down in Ameena’s old room.” He sat down at the kitchen table and put his head in his hands. “I should have told her. I should have told Ameena to take off her
hijab
.” His voice was flat and distant.

I shook my head. “You can’t blame yourself,” I heard myself say. “I—Big Nanima told me to tell her the same thing. But—it was too late—” My voice trailed off at the sight of Shuja’s face caving inward. I put my arm around him and squeezed his shoulders.

After a while, he pulled away and began to speak again: “I didn’t like the idea at first. When she began wearing
hijab
. All I thought of was what people must be thinking of me. That I was some kind of chauvinistic, Muslim oppressor. It took me a while to admit that to myself. But—after Sakina—she wanted to be the best person she could be. To deserve the gift that we had been given. I knew how she felt. I was the same way. I started working out and eating right. I read everything I could on parenting. We both did. We felt—both of us—that we had to earn the right to be parents. Does that make sense?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “She was always so good. After Sakina, she became even better. A better wife. A better human being. A better Muslim. When I realized—what my own objections were—that people would think less of
me
—I laughed at myself. She had the right to decide. What she would wear. But I should have said something—after what happened. Done something. To protect her. It’s my fault that she’s dead.”

“No, Shuja. It’s not your fault.”

“I’ve lost her, Saira. I’ve lost Ameena. And with her, I’ve lost everything.”

That was when I should have said something, anything, to reassure him. That all was not lost. That he had Sakina. But I didn’t. Because I couldn’t. Ameena was gone—leaving behind no script for me to follow.

When I looked up, Shuja’s eyes were on me, but I looked away, unnerved by my own silence.

He stood up. “I should go.”

“You won’t stay here?”

“No. I—I have to go home.”

“Sakina?”

His eyes were on me again, asking a question I couldn’t answer. After a barely perceptible pause, he said, “Let her sleep. It’s better for her to be here.”

AHMED CHACHA, GRAVE-FACED
and smirkless, standing in for my father, who wrestled with a grief that rendered him incapable of travel, was the first among a steady trickle of relatives who came. They staggered their visits in well-coordinated shifts—those who could, the British nationals among them, who needed no visas. He stayed for a week, just long enough for Ameena’s body to be released and buried. Ameena’s body. The subject of a murder investigation that had yielded no arrests.

Ahmed Chacha left and Zehra arrived as Shuja went back to work and Sakina resumed school. Then, Mehnaz was dispatched. After the uncle and the cousins, it was the aunties’ turn. First, Ruksana came with her baby, Kasim—an auntie by definition only, representing the branch of Mummy’s family that had only recently been reconciled. When Ruksana left, more than a month after Ameena’s death, Jamila Khala and Nasreen Chachi came together—the last scheduled visitors. They cooked and cleaned, preparing two weeks’ worth of food, which they packed and labeled and stored in Mummy’s freezer in a spectacular grand finale of support.

Shuja came every night, establishing the routine that we would cling to when all had gone. On the aunties’ last day in Los Angeles, they gathered—Jamila Khala, Nasreen Chachi, and Shuja’s aunt, Nilofer Auntie—conferencing together in hushed tones that were silenced whenever I entered the room. When Shuja came that night, they cornered him while I made tea in the kitchen.

Carrying the tray in from the dining room, I stopped when I saw them and stood immobile and unnoticed. They were all on the sofa—Shuja, his face in his hands, Nilofer Auntie on one side of him, her hand on his shoulder, Jamila Khala on the other, a hand on his knee, Nasreen Chachi perched on the arm of the sofa next to her—all of them with their backs to me.

Jamila Khala said, “
Beta
. I know that your grief is still fresh. We are leaving tomorrow. Otherwise, we would have waited to tell you what we have to say. But we must tell you this—even if you are not ready—for Sakina’s sake. She needs a mother. You must marry again. It’s what Ameena would have wanted.” One of them handed Shuja a tissue from the box on the table in front of them.

Shuja said nothing, his shoulders shaking.

From behind, I saw Jamila Khala’s eyes turn to Nilofer Auntie. A visual nudge made Nilofer Auntie clear her throat and say, “Jamila is right, Shuja. You know that. Better than anyone else. You lost your parents when you were so young. You know what it is to grow up without a mother.”

It was Nasreen Chachi’s turn. “We tell you what Ameena’s mother would have told you if she were still alive.
Beta,
Saira is here. She is not married. It is the best solution. Who else can love Sakina as much as her mother did? Who else but Saira? My husband—Ahmed Chacha—he lost his mother, too. When he was only a baby. You know about this?”

Shuja shook his head, blowing his nose into the tissue.

“His mother died when he was only six months old. And then his father married his wife’s sister. Ahmed’s
khala
. He never knew his own mother. But he never felt her loss, either. Because my mother-in-law—Nadeem’s mother—raised him as her own. He was her sister’s son. As Sakina is the child of Saira’s sister.”

Shuja raised his head and stared straight in front of him. His back was to me, so I couldn’t see his expression.

The tray was getting heavy. And the tea cold. I came fully into the room, set the tray down on the table with only a slight rattle of china, my face heated from the feel of my aunts’ probing eyes, actively gauging what I might have heard.

“I’m really tired. I’m going to bed.” I didn’t look at Shuja. “Good night.”

He stood up, too. “I should get going. I have work in the morning. Nasreen Chachi. Jamila Khala. Thank you so much for everything—for being here when Sakina and Saira and I needed you most.”

I
AM BACK IN
bed, having tried and failed to get back to sleep. I have survived the night, the memories of what has led me to now. But the past is catching up with the present, both of them only partially deposed. There are left-out details to reckon with yet—facts in the forest that I have chosen not to hear.

I look at the clock. Four minutes have passed since the last time I did. In two minutes, the alarm will ring its unnecessary call to wake. Before it does, Ameena’s daughter emerges from her room, which is opposite mine. I hear her pause wordlessly in the hallway, on her way to the bathroom next door. I sit up in bed to let Sakina know I am awake, willing her to enter, hoping desperately that she will not. I feel the shrug of her shoulders, hear her move on.

I pull myself up and replace my pajamas with sweats before following her and beginning my morning monologue of false cheer. Every morning, it’s like this. Like I’m on a job interview, unsure of what to say—trying to be what I think she needs with no idea of what that is.

I help her pick out her clothes before going into the kitchen. There is breakfast to prepare, a lunchbox to pack. She comes in fully dressed and takes a seat at the table. She sits in silence, shoveling oatmeal into her mouth while I cradle my mug of coffee and talk, talk, talk. I feel guilty for talking. I know she would prefer I didn’t. I smile at her. She doesn’t smile back. I shudder, just a little, at the burden of her reticence. We are strangers, forced together. Circumstance is the culprit in her case. Duty and obligation in mine.

It’s time for the bus. I carry on my chatter all the way to the stop. The bus comes. She boards. I wave her good-bye. Wordlessly, she waves back.

I let myself back into my parents’ house and pause in the foyer, listening to the silence. My feet remember that there is a morning ritual, lately established, yet to be performed. They take the necessary steps out of the room, down the hallway, and into the living room to a console table overflowing with vivid Kodak moments. My eyes brush over the pictures of my childhood and Ameena’s. There are some of Sakina, which my eyes overlook, a trick I have mastered through years of practice, stopping, instead, to focus on the large frame in the center. Here is the Ameena of my dream—draped in a brilliant red chiffon fabric embroidered with gold thread that matches the jewelry that drips from her ears, neck, wrists, fingers. Her hair is swept up and away from her face, accentuating high, heavily rouged cheekbones, which would be garish if they were not matched by an equally heavy application of makeup on the rest of her face. Bridal makeup.
Desi
bridal makeup, which is a category all of its own.

Her expression is obediently forlorn, belying the sparkle of happiness that shines out of her eyes. “Don’t smile or laugh, Ameena, on your wedding day. It would be immodest. A bride must appear to be shy. Even sad. To be leaving your father’s home is not something to celebrate” had been Mummy’s words to Ameena on the morning of her wedding. Strange, old ideas relevant to a strange, old world. Beside her, Shuja, the groom, is under no such constraint. His dazzling display of teeth is unseemly in light of Ameena’s feigned distress.

The phone rings. I answer and am unsurprised by Shuja’s greeting, his concerned interrogation on how Sakina’s night had passed, how her day began.

“Did she finish her breakfast?”

“Yes. The whole bowl of oatmeal.”

“She got on the bus all right?”

“Yes.” I have nothing more to say and he has nothing more to ask. He will be with us in the evening, like every evening, soon enough to ensure Sakina’s health and welfare firsthand.

“Don’t forget the parent-teacher conference. Today. At four o’clock.”

I slap my head and walk to the kitchen, where Shuja has kept Ameena’s calendar. I find it there, the appointment we marked together. “You’ll be there?”

“Of course. Mrs. Walker said she’d watch Sakina, so make sure you get her there in time to make it to school. Please.”

“I will.”

“I’ll meet you at school at four.”

The connection is severed.

I gather up Sakina’s breakfast bowl and stack it in the dishwasher. As I refill my mug with coffee, the phone rings again. I reach for it eagerly.

I pick up and hear Lubna Khala’s voice from Karachi. “
Beti,
how are you and Sakina?”

“We’re fine. How is Big Nanima?”

I hear the crackle of long-distance as Lubna Khala hesitates before saying, “She’s—she is worse, Saira. Confined to bed. She has not woken up for days. The doctor says she is not suffering. That it’s only a matter of time.”

I close my eyes and rejoice—this death will be gentle, cradled by sleep. Not torturous or violent, like the others I am still grieving.

“Is Daddy still in India?”

“Yes. He called today and asked me to call you. He wanted me to tell you, Saira—he and Asma were married this morning. In Bombay.”

“But—I thought—after what’s happened—I’ve been waiting for him. To come home.”

“I know,
beti
. He says he cannot come. Not now.”

“Not now? Then when?”

“He will come. Next year, perhaps. In the meantime—if there’s anything you need—he said to tell you—that you must let him know. Money. Anything. He will not sell the house. Not yet. It is yours to live in as long as you like.”

I say nothing. What can I say? Lubna Khala fills in my silence with words of consolation. “You have to understand, Saira. He—he has suffered a lot. His mind was made up already, Saira, you knew that.”

“Yes. I knew.”

“Your mother—she would have understood, Saira. She would have given him her blessing.”

Mummy. “She’s been dead less than a year.” I say the words and cannot believe them myself.

“
Beti
—what can I say?” The impotence of Lubna Khala’s sympathy is one I can relate to—how to console the daughter of a dead sister? But her task is less complicated than mine.