A Place for Us Read online

  “How is it down there?” she asked.

  “I might have told Samir Uncle I’m trying to paint professionally.” He twisted his mouth and pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek, the way he so often did when he was lying or was nervous, completely unaware of his habit, and this instantly endeared him to Hadia. It was him. Her brother. The expression was an exaggerated version of itself—his jaw had become defined, cheeks hollow, but it was his unmistakable, signature look.

  She tried to say his name in a scolding tone but began laughing at the thought of Samir Uncle, the most gullible friend of their father’s. The old Hadia would have told him to be careful—that everyone either would know he was lying right away or would soon find out. But she was not sure anymore what she could tease him about without causing offense. Again she tapped at the spot beside her.

  “You look really beautiful,” he said.

  “Not too much?” She lifted her decorated arms that looked like they belonged to someone else, gestured to her jewelry. He shook his head.

  “Mumma must be so happy. You finally accepted one,” he said.

  “It wasn’t arranged.”

  He looked surprised for a moment. Then he smiled. “Now I’m not the only one who has disappointed them.”

  “No. But you did make it a little easier for me to.”

  Was their laughter born of ease or discomfort? Amar took a seat by her. A boyishness still lingered in the way he carried himself. You won’t tell Baba, will you, he would ask her, each time he snuck out telling her to leave his window open, or anytime she caught him smoking. Always the same look on his face. Always the big brown eyes. All those nights she had spent waiting at the window for him, tracing the little etching he had carved on his windowsill, tensing each time there was a creak in the house that could be their parents waking to discover them. As the years passed he stopped waiting for her answer—he did not doubt her, he already knew, had always known, that she would never tell.

  “I wanted to ask if you would do something for me,” she said now.

  “Anything.”

  He hadn’t hesitated. His tone so sincere she felt sure she had been right to invite him. She explained to him that she would soon walk downstairs with her eyes downcast, with only Huda to guide her. Her closest friends would be holding a red net cloth above her as she walked through the crowd to the edge of the stage, where Baba would be waiting to lead her up the stairs to Tariq.

  “Will you walk on the other side of me?” she asked.

  Amar nodded.

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I know. I want to.”

  She reached over to put her hand over his. It did not matter if the old way between them was gone and a new way would have to be found; it was a comfort to sit next to him, the kind of comfort only possible between two people who had been in each other’s earliest memories.

  “I have something for you,” Amar said, reaching into his suit pocket and pulling out a small, messily taped package. “But don’t open it yet.”

  He placed it in her hand. She shook it a little, tried to guess what it could be. She tucked it in her purse and told him it would be the first gift she opened. He was solemn, looking down at his own lap. Then came the knock at the door. Amar helped her stand. When they opened the door, Mumma’s eyes filled at the sight of her. Huda too had to touch beneath her eyes with her knuckle, and this surprised her, Huda being the one among them who was never emotional, and Hadia nudged her as if to say not you too.

  “Are you ready?” Huda asked.

  And everything Hadia had not been thinking of all day rushed toward her, and she told herself: Huda is asking you if you are ready to go downstairs and walk through the hall, and if you nod yes to this, then it means you want to be with Tariq, you are ready to be. To him and to that life, she nodded yes.

  The photographer lifted his camera. Her mother touched Hadia’s forehead with her index finger and traced Ya Ali in Arabic, the gesture done for her protection and luck before every first day of school, every big exam, any flight she had to catch. Something about the movement of her mother’s finger on her forehead, the look of concentration on her face as she prayed, calmed and comforted Hadia. Even if she could not bring herself to pray for grand things, she could trust her mother’s faith, depend on her mother’s belief. Mumma fixed her ghoongat so that half of Hadia’s face was hidden for the entrance. Huda took the crook of her arm. Before taking a step Hadia turned to Amar and held her other arm out until he took it.

  Her wedding was both a celebration of the life she was about to embark upon and a night to mark the departure from her old life at home. Her friends waited by the elevator and stretched their arms high to hold the red cloth like a canopy above her. The cloth filtered the light red and had little mirrors sewn into it that threw sparkles on the carpet. The drummer began to drum for her arrival and she felt the beating in her whole body. She stepped forward.

  They entered the hall and on the periphery she could see the rows of tables, people seated in chairs whispering, taking photos that flashed. They stopped walking and her friends removed the red cloth and the light was suddenly golden and warm. Huda whispered in her ear, “You can look up now.”

  Baba was holding his hand out for her, a look of tenderness on his face she swore she had never seen before. Baba kissed her forehead softly so that the jewels of the teekah did not dig into her skin and Hadia was surprised by how deeply cared for it made her feel. He led her up the stairs to the stage. And there was Tariq, and the drummer stilled his beat, and she was struck by how handsome Tariq looked in the light, handsome in the cream-colored sherwani he wore, and she prayed, Please God, let me remember this. When their eyes met he grinned and she knew: I chose this. I chose him. This is my life. I did not think it would be possible for me. But it is. It will be.

  * * *

  SOMEONE HAD SPILLED water on the front of her sari and it bloomed into a dark, embarrassing splotch. Layla excused herself to try and dry it as best as she could. She hoped this fabric was not the kind that stained after it got wet. There were pictures they needed to take. She wanted one good family photo to replace the one that hung in their living room. It was about time she took it down. She had not changed a single photo since Amar left. She glanced once more at her daughter seated on the stage next to Tariq, a modest gap between them until the nikkah was complete. The two of them were smiling and speaking discreetly. They looked like a king and queen of an ancient, magnificent time. She walked quickly with her head down and burned with pride when she overheard a table of women saying how luminous the bride looked.

  Never had she looked at her daughter with as much awe as when Hadia stepped from the hotel room, looking both mature and ready for this step and also like that hesitant, wide-eyed girl she had dropped off on the first day of kindergarten. How long she and Rafiq had waited for this moment. It had come later than she might have wanted—her daughter would soon be twenty-seven, and with every year that passed her worry had grown, especially when attending the weddings of younger and younger girls, while Hadia insisted her priority was finishing her studies. But there was much to be thankful for. Tariq was respectful, an educated young man. Layla reminded herself that he was the kind of man they had wanted for her. Rafiq too had taken to him more than he liked to admit.

  The air was cool in the bathroom, the light dim, and for the first time in hours Layla was alone. Her face relaxed. Her cheeks hurt from smiling. She dabbed at her sari with tissues but the stain remained. She would have to wait. She massaged her face in the mirror, starting with her cheeks, then moving to the back of her neck, where she always suffered a dull pain. She wanted to find Rafiq and see if he was happy, wanted to say, Look what we have done together.

  Rafiq had been so quiet when he came home from the hall earlier, Layla could not read him. And the small progress she had made with Amar, walki
ng in the garden together, showing him the suit he would wear—it was all undone when Rafiq came home and Amar fell silent. The only men she had left in this world to love and neither of them knew how to be with one another. Just before they left for the wedding hall, Layla laid out her prayer rug upstairs, then Rafiq’s just a few steps in front of hers. It was the time of day she looked forward to most, and even though nothing passed between them there was still a sense of peace, a feeling of unity. She had been the one to teach her children how to pray. The girls had been easy, but Amar was different. He had copied her every movement, looked up at the way she cupped her hands to the sky and did the same, made whispering noises even though he had not memorized the surahs, and at the end she told him it was time to speak his wishes directly to God, and he asked for the lollipops that were green apple and dipped in caramel.

  “That is all you want?” she asked him, and he nodded.

  “But you can ask for anything,” she said, half hoping he would. She disliked those lollipops the most because the caramel got stuck in his teeth.

  “If I ask for only one thing, then it is more likely to come true,” he said.

  “God doesn’t work like that.”

  “How do you know?”

  She was amazed. She did not know. He was six or seven years old then and asking her a question she had not thought to ask all her life. Nor had Hadia or Huda ever questioned her. And Amar had been right without knowing it: the next day she went to the grocery store and bought the smallest bag she could find of those terrible lollipops, tucked them beneath his pillow. He had asked for something so easily granted, and she thought that maybe if she gave it to him at that impressionable age he would pray wholeheartedly. They were told not to question the way God worked, not to think too much into it. That it was a mystery. And she was happy to think of it as such. She pictured a dark sky with the fog in front of it, how her mother had once explained it to her: we don’t have to see past the fog to know there are stars.

  She studied her reflection now. Her sari had dried as best as it would. She adjusted her hijab to hide the remaining stain, and reapplied some lipstick. When she returned to the hall, the hadith-e-kisa was being recited and soon it would be her favorite verse: that God had created the blue sky, and the changing landscapes, the bright moon and the burning sun, the rotating planets and flowing seas and the ships on them sailing—all out of love for the five beneath the blanket, the Prophet, his son-in-law Imam Ali, his daughter Bibi Fatima, and his grandsons, Hassan and Hussain.

  She searched the crowd for Rafiq and found him at the other end of the hall, seated at a table, his head bowed in respect. He looked content. She would go to him once the recitation was complete. She would say: We did this. We created this. These children who are adults now. What is the use of all this living if we don’t stop once in a while to notice what is actually happening—our daughter on-stage, our son safe, and all our friends and family, who have traveled miles to gather in this hall, just to celebrate with us?

  * * *

  HE NEEDED TO feel the cool breeze on his face. To be away from anyone who might try to speak to him. Maybe a nice sky to look up at, if the haze of the streetlights didn’t dim the stars too much. Amira Ali was there. They had not made eye contact but he was certain she had seen him. How could she not have? All around him, the people were indistinguishable from one another—shades of blue, green, yellow—and then that jolt at the sight of her. But while everyone else’s face was turned to watch the bride enter, Amira had been facing the stage, looking, if he were to guess, at either his father or Tariq.

  He had known there was a chance she would come, had told himself that he would get through the night with or without her possible presence. He drew a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. It had been the line of her neck, the curve of her cheek, her chin, the shock of her dark, dark hair. He had to remind himself to keep walking until they reached the stage, and then he had forced himself not to look back. Just waited until Hadia had taken her seat beside Tariq before slipping from the hall, looking only at the shine of his shoes.

  When he was sitting with Hadia in her hotel room, it had occurred to him he knew nothing of the man she was about to marry. It felt too late to be concerned, or worse, like he had lost the right to feel concerned. But Hadia had not only invited him, she had also asked him to participate, to stand by her and Huda. He knew she didn’t have to do that. He had been so nervous when he went to her room, afraid she would ask a question he did not want to answer, but she had spared him any discomfort. The least he could do now was compose himself. He crushed the cigarette with his shoe and then lit another.

  Earlier that morning, alone in his old room, he had locked the door behind him. He had opened his closet and parted his clothes—from what he could tell, all of them still there—and stepped into the recess. And there it was, behind extra comforters and unused suitcases, his black keepsake box, exactly as he had left it. For a moment he just touched the soft leather surface. He had always known he would come back one day, if only to reclaim it. He knew the combination of the lock by heart. The click of the lock unlatching. He sat and reacquainted himself with the mementos of his old life: journals, foolish poems he had written, poems he saved by others, photographs he stole from family albums, until he found in an envelope taped for extra security, the letters written in Amira’s delicate handwriting and the photographs of her looking back at him, or lifting her hand to hide her face. He could tell he had taken them, not only because he remembered every movement toward her and every movement away, but because it would be apparent to anyone who saw them that they were taken by someone who looked at her with love. He knew if he read the letters, his determination to attend would leave him, and so he had put them back still folded, carefully closed the lid, and snapped the lock shut.

  His head throbbed. He had not come this far for nothing. The dua that had been about to start when he left the hall would end soon. He closed his eyes and saw redness, the swarming insides of his eyelids when he pressed his eyes with his thumb and index finger, the color of his sister’s kharra dupatta, the color that had risen to Amira’s cheeks when he had opened the door to her, long before they had begun talking, and he had complimented her for the first time, something small like I like your shoes and, as he would later learn, because she was unable to conceal anything, her face had burned.

  * * *

  AT THE APPETIZER table he busied himself by filling his plate with samosas and small chunks of tandoori chicken. He wanted to mask the smell of alcohol on his breath, wanted to make sure he had something in his system to dull its effect. He felt calmer. But he should not have gone back to the bar. Less than one hour here and he had already made a mistake. The rest of the night he would abide by their rules. For his mother, for his sister. Her hello caught him by surprise. A jolt like the one before. He looked up to see Amira standing only a few feet away. She picked up a plate, slowly, as if still deliberating, and offered him a smile. He replied to her hello. He was afraid to meet her eyes for too long and focused instead on her wrists lined with red and golden bangles, how they slid on her arms as she moved her plate around. He felt far from his legs, so he tried to stand very still. He looked up at the chandelier, then at the colors that shifted around him. How deliberately and desperately he did not want to look at her. The trick was to appear as though he felt nothing.

  Soon they were standing side by side. She set a single samosa at the center of her plate. When she opted for the mint sauce, he felt an unexpected sadness at having predicted it. She turned to face him. Her hair fell across her face and formed a curtain over her eye. He wanted to reach out and tuck it back into place behind her ear. But he could not touch her anymore. He signaled to his own forehead, and she, perhaps also remembering how often he would move her hair from her face, immediately mirrored him and swept it away. A light color rose to her cheeks. He had missed this. A heavier silence ensued, b
oth now painfully aware they still shared a language they should have long since forgotten.

  PART TWO

  1.

  THEY ARE ALL WAITING ON THE DAMP LAWN FOR THE SKY TO light up, at a park near their home on the Fourth of July. How they got there is a miracle. It is the first Fourth of July Hadia remembers coming even close to celebrating, and this—sitting and blinking at the empty sky—feels like a feat. Just an hour earlier, when the sun slipped away, they began begging Baba to take them to watch the fireworks, and he was reluctant, telling them that people would be out drinking and they could watch just fine on their television screen. But even Amar, too young to fully understand what he was asking for, repeated please, please, please like it was one long word until Baba said fine, let’s go.

  Hadia and Huda are holding hands and sitting cross-legged. Indian-style, her friends call it, and she does not know what this means or why it makes her feel a tiny bit strange. Just a tiny bit. They have laid their jackets down like blankets, spread their sleeves out like the points of stars. Baba is beside her. He scans the park, his gaze rests on other families who have brought collapsible chairs and thick, checkered blankets. Families that smell like popcorn and hold red cups that look purple in the dark. Mumma is next to Huda and Amar is next to Mumma, leaning on her with his thumb in his mouth. Then there is a bang and a streak of light hisses up, and when it is far past the tops of trees it explodes with a pop—and it is a firework, the exact kind she has seen frozen in pictures. Huda lets go of her hand and claps and shrieks. One after another they pop. Hisses and booms and all the while it feels like each sound is in her own body. That is how loud it is. Amar holds on to his ears but his eyes are wide with wonder, and not terror. Hadia notices that she can follow the tiny flare of light as it shoots into the sky before it explodes into a firework. She tries to watch with her mouth closed, because she is seven years old and not a baby anymore, but she can’t, she keeps smiling until her cheeks hurt and sometimes she says “oh wow” without meaning to.