He paused a moment and scratched roughly at his head with both hands. The lines were thick across his forehead. “Baby, it wouldn’t be good if I stayed. As I said, I’m barely keeping control of myself.”
He went over to the table and found the packet of cigarettes empty. He crumpled it before casting it on the floor. “I’ll be back before too long.”
DAWN, THE HOUR at which I’d grown accustomed to rising. My favorite time in India, when the roads were empty and quiet, and the sky filled with blessings. A lazy breeze was stirring the heavy curtain, the clouds cleared up, the early morning wrapped in gray-blue shadows. In the distance, wooden temple bells, then, farther away, metal ones, the sound as comforting to hear as the azan in Hyderabad, stirring the faithful awake. Sameer had still not returned.
During the night, another visit from the demon, his touches accentuating
the rift between my husband and me. Though he continued to hide his face, this time he had actually spoken.
He’ll never touch you
, he’d told me, laughing,
that boy will never touch you.
That boy
, he had said it as though he himself were some older man, my ancient lover, an intimacy in his tone laying claim to me in a way no one had before, not Nate, not my husband. And I was reminded of what Amme had said to the blind
alim
when describing my dreams: once a demon takes a liking to a woman, he won’t let any man, not even her own husband, inhabit her.
THERE WERE THREE boys playing in the surf, all slender and curly haired, shirtless. Two were still wearing dark trousers, wet and clinging to their thin legs, one pair having dropped so low as to expose the bones of the boy’s pelvis, a black string knotted around his slim waist with a silver amulet to ward off demonic possession, the very protection I needed. Off in the distance, beyond the third boy in his white briefs, were two smudges against the horizon, ships moving in and out of the bay. The sky was a hue darker than the blue water.
Sameer had returned not much earlier and had raced straight to the shower without a word to me. Again, the metallic click of the bolt. When he came out, he had a dingy white towel wrapped about his waist, hair flat across his crown and forehead. His damp feet left prints on the carpet. He crouched before the suitcase and dug around. When I saw he was trying to put on my jeans, I took them from him and slipped them on myself. I told him I wanted him to take me to Marina Beach.
It was close enough to walk to, and leading from the main road down to the water were makeshift stalls selling seashells constructed in every design I could think of: strung together with silver wire to make earrings and gaudy necklaces, bracelets; large conch shells turned over to form ash trays and pen holders, paper weights with Allah or Ganesh or Shiva inked in; boxes adorned with penny-colored shells. The air stank of fish, though when we came upon the beach, the only boats I
saw were no larger than canoes, the wood warped and cracked, dilapidated, so I knew they hadn’t been used in some time. The real fishing boats had probably gone out at dawn, when I had been just rising from sleep.
I took up a piece of driftwood and scrawled Sameer’s name in the sand, remembering, against my will, how Raga-be had written in the dirt before bringing me up to the roof. He hadn’t said a word to me since he’d returned. He kept his hands dug inside his pockets, head bowed, eyes averted. I could have been walking alone.
“Do you know someone in Madras?” I asked, crossing out his name.
He finally turned to me, surprised. “What are you talking about?”
“You were gone all night. In Hyderabad, it’s one thing, you’ve got relatives and friends all over. Here, where did you go?”
“There is no other woman, Layla, I assure you of that. You needn’t fear any such digressions, I swear.”
“Yes, you told me that before—” and Roshan had confirmed it, park, school, home, such was his trajectory, “—but I can’t help but wonder …”
“Listen to me,” he said, then shielded himself behind me to light another cigarette. He’d been smoking one after another since we’d left the hotel, right through breakfast, his
dosa
left untouched. “When I left the room last night, I was just intending to go get more cigarettes, maybe take a walk or something. But I ran into a friend of mine … I didn’t know he was here. I was just trying to figure out what he was doing here … It got late, I hardly slept on the train, and I was tired. We’d been fighting so much! I fell asleep there, at his place, with him.” After a moment, he said, “See, baby, you have no reason to worry,” and kissed my forehead. He walked off before I could ask any questions, his black boots splashing through the waves, the thick soles caked with sand. Overhead, gulls called each other as they followed him, then swooped down to peck at the cigarette butt he cast in the water.
I was carrying my sandals in one hand, jeans rolled up to my knees, the freest I’d been in India. I was growing tired of being confined
to limits, especially those involving my husband. I threw the driftwood into the waves and watched it plummet out of sight, then resurface. The gulls squawked and blew off. A jumbo jet was leaving a white streak across the pale sky, and I thought how, eighteen years before, my parents had been here with me, getting their visas, planning their future, together. If they had remained in India, my father might have still taken on another wife, but he would never have thought to divorce my mother. Standing now where the two must have strolled, the water licking my feet, though at that time I must have been cradled in my parents’ arms, I saw the long stretch of time compressed into the straight line of the horizon before me and felt the heavy weight of abandoned hopes, of lives lived in ways we never imagined for ourselves.
I felt his gaze on me before he reached my side. The cigarette smoke mingled with the scent of salt and fish.
I said, “My mother returned to the U.S. with my father. They went back the same day we came here. She denies to me that she wants him back as her husband, but he’s the only thing she craves. Now she’s going to watch his sons. The surrogate mother, the surrogate wife, without Sabana there—without
me
there—she’s going to finally live out the fantasy of how her family should have been.” I smirked, adding, “I can’t believe she still loves him.”
He was standing very close, facing me as I faced the bay, his chest against my arm. “How did you know you didn’t love him? You left, even after your … night together. He’s right, why didn’t you stay with him, you gave him your virginity for God’s sake, that’s not a small thing, not for a Muslim woman!” His voice was agitated and rising and he stopped himself and blew smoke over my head. He pressed his forehead against my head so that his lips brushed the top of my ear. “Did you leave him only because he was forbidden to you, being an American man, or did you know—
how
did you know you didn’t love him?”
Because he couldn’t provide me what I needed, a life. And now, even the little he had provided me that night seemed to be ending the one I had tried so desperately to make with my husband.
“The more you stay away, Sameer, the more I think about that night. It’s beginning to take on a significance it hadn’t …
he’s
the only one who’s ever touched me.”
Sameer threw his cigarette aside, then his thumb dove into the waist of my jeans as he pulled me close. “Let’s go back to the hotel room right now I want to … I
need
to make love to you, Layla … right away.”
HE WAS LYING on top of me, crying.
The curtains were half drawn, not against the rain today, but the bitter sun. He had tried to force his body to perform, much like Naveed had tried to perform to the music of the brass band that was not meant for dancing. Cold, mechanical touches that made me think of those pornographic articles he’d sent me, written in his own hand. The body’s functions, not the heart’s, though his lips kept insisting he loved me, that he would do anything to keep me. In the end, he could not do the one thing I wanted.
He rolled off me and sat on the side of the bed, hands raking his scalp. He was bent over, the knobby ridges of his spine like a snake trapped inside his flesh. “You must know this isn’t about you,” he said, his voice barely over a whisper. “This is … I cannot tell you how much I needed to make love to you today, for me. Bloody hell, for
me
! You should not feel ashamed, you should not feel there is anything … lacking in you. There is something severely lacking in me, or so I am beginning to think.” He threw his head up to the ceiling and his cheek glistened with tears. “I am afraid that maybe I cannot go on being your husband.”
I sat up and stared at the back of him. When I said I loved him, it was to say that I believed the clay that had been used to mold him had been split down the center to shape me, his wife. “What are you talking about, Sameer? You promised you would never abandon me.”
He sat as he was, back hunched, head turned up, letting the tears run down his face as freely as his mother did. “I tried to make love to
you, I sincerely did. But when I touch you,” he raised his hands before him and stared at them as though they were alien to his body, “there is something holding me back, something I cannot push past, some sort of invisible wall between us. I wish I could explain to you … or even to myself.” He bowed his head in defeat. “I want nothing more than to be able to make love to you, Layla … even now. Please understand I am not a man given to faith, but I did have faith in this marriage. I did have faith that I would be able to make you happy.”
I wrapped my arms about his waist and pressed myself to him. “This is my fault, Sameer. I shouldn’t have pushed you, not right after telling you about the pregnancy. I thought that maybe if you made love to me then it would be your way of forgiving me. I didn’t think you .. I just didn’t think. I’m sorry. Please …”
He jerked away and stood before me naked. His nails scratched at his head again. “No, Layla, you are not listening. I’m telling you, this has nothing to do with you. There is a wall that you cannot see—that I did not see till now—that is between us. You are so beautiful, Layla. You are … you read yourself what Nate had to say. Men are attracted to you, but I … I am afraid of what’s happening here. I still don’t believe … but how else can I explain …” He dropped on his knees before me and gripped my face, the muscles of his arms and chest flexing. His eyes were wild in a way I’d not seen before, unhinged. The loss of control he so feared. Spit flew from his mouth as he spoke. “Look at me, Layla, look at me. Do I not look like a man to you? Do I not look like I can satisfy …
whomever
I please? So tell me why I can’t touch you—what is keeping me from touching you, Layla! Tell me!”
ONCE more THOSE back alleys, this time rushing through them with my husband.
Nothing had changed. Not the road, so narrow the taxi had to drop us off at the head, and not me, hidden in a black veil, and not those darting eyes. His now, not Amme’s.
I was surprised he had agreed to come along on this journey, but
perhaps my husband felt there was nothing left to lose. He was, after all, the same man who had no patience for Allah and his scriptures, his expectations of us. And without Allah there is no demon, just as there is no darkness without light.
Alim
, the Arabic word for all-knowing, and one of the ninety-nine names of Allah. Seeking one out now, on our honeymoon, was like seeking out a marriage therapist. Counsel and insight, healing, not exorcism, was what we wanted. Desperation that leads one to count on a stranger, come what may.
Sameer stopped at a slim door and compared the house numbers to those scribbled in blue ink across the fine lines of his palm. A
mol’lana
from Thousand Lights Mosque had told us where to find him. Zakir was his name, the
alim
’s, and I realized the moment the
mol’lana
had said it that I had never known the name of any other
alim
.
Sameer gripped my arms and stared into my face with those piercing eyes. “Are you sure about those dreams? Are you sure he said he’d never let me touch you?”
I reached up and caressed his handsome face. “I want nothing more than for us to be happy, don’t you understand?”
He sighed before rapping on the door. Immediately, it opened and a frail child stood before us. She was wearing a Western-style dress, the hem of which came down to her knees, exposing ankles as thin as her wrists.
Sameer stared beyond her a moment, but there was no one else in the small stone foyer, so he crouched before her and gently said, “We have come in search of the
alim
.”
But she didn’t seem to hear him. She was gazing up at me with frightened eyes, as though I were some sort of demon, and I released the fabric of the chador from around my face and smiled at her.
A woman’s voice called from one of the inside rooms. “Haven’t I told you not to keep opening the door, Sadia? You know I can see what you’re doing from here. I can see you no matter where you are.”
The child did not move from the door. “A woman has come, looking for Bhabha.”
“Another woman? See, I told you not to keep opening the door.
Aie
, since you’ve been born, you’ve given me no peace. Ill-fated girl.”