American Dervish: A Novel (29 page)

“You’re not finished, are you?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’re not eating anything these days. You’re starting to worry me. You don’t look good…Isn’t that right, Hayat?” Mother asked, turning to me. It was true that Mina looked like she’d been losing weight, and she didn’t have much to lose. The skin on her face was starting to look taut and drawn in a way that looked unnatural. But I didn’t want to say that and hurt her feelings.

“The tea is enough,” Mina replied.

“Hayat, bring her a glass of milk.”

“
Bhaj…
”

“Finish your toast,” Mother said firmly.

“Fine,” Mina muttered, picking up the half-eaten piece of bread to take a bite. I poured a glass of milk and brought it to her. She took a sip.

“You haven’t been this bad since we were kids,” Mother said.

“It’s nothing
.
It’ll pass. There’s a lot on my plate.”

Mother looked down at Mina’s plate. “Not as much as there should be.”

Mina laughed. Mother did, too. Then all at once, Mother wasn’t laughing anymore. She held Mina’s gaze, suddenly grave. “Are we doing the right thing?” she asked.

“The right thing?”

“Do you really want to do this?”

“Muneer. We are doing this.”

Mother nodded, her chin dropping to her chest. There was a long pause.

“So what are we going to do about the Chathas?” Mina asked.

“About what?”

“Two women having a strange man over to their house? With no man of the house here? If Najat hears about this…”

Mother looked puzzled. “What?”

“What do you think?”

Mother scrunched her face. She didn’t know.

Mina turned away from me, lowering her voice. “They’ll say we’re
loose.
”

“Because Naveed isn’t here?” Mother replied, her voice lowered as well.

“Do I really have to explain this to you? This can’t really be news to you,
bhaj?
”

Mother rolled her eyes. “I didn’t think people could still think that way. You’ve been to their house on your own with Imran now, I don’t know, a half a dozen times…”

“But Najat is there…”

“So?”

“So, she’s the one who would be spreading the tale. I would never think of showing up if she wasn’t around. She already has her doubts about me.” Mina paused. “She was asking me how I could live so long under one roof with a man like Naveed.”

“Not a bad question,” Mother joked.

“I’m serious, Muneer. He doesn’t have the best reputation with them…”

“Hmm…”

“So I lied. I told them I wore the veil at home and kept to myself. That he never addressed a word to me unless you were present.”

Mother recoiled with a frown. She held Mina’s gaze for a long, pregnant moment. “What are you getting yourself into?”

For a moment, Mina didn’t seem to know how to respond. And then she said: “He loves Imran,
bhaj
. He’s a humble man. He’s made promises. I can live with the rest. It’s not the end of the world.”

Apparently Sunil didn’t mind that Father wasn’t there. He just didn’t want Mina to mention it to either Ghaleb or Najat. And so it was that I got to meet him for the first time.

I felt bad for thinking it, but to me he looked like a field rodent. He had a narrow face, a small round nose, and wide cheekbones brushed with fine black hairs, like tiny whiskers. And there was his posture, too: As he sat in our living room that afternoon—on the armchair where, four months earlier, Nathan had been laid out with a bleeding cut along his eye when Imran threw a matchbox car at his face—Sunil’s thin wisp of a body slouched and seemed to vanish into the loose beige suit he was wearing; and the suit’s beige pattern blended cleanly enough into the armchair’s beige shade that he looked engulfed by the fabric that surrounded him, a dark brown head peering out from a swollen swath of beige cloth, not unlike a prairie dog surveying the world from its burrow.

“Hayat,” he said to me from across the room. I stood in the living room doorway, no less startled by Sunil’s appearance than by what Mina was wearing: a tightly fitted veil, like the ones we were seeing in Iran on the evening news. I had never seen her in anything like it. Whenever she covered her head, it was with an Indic
dupatta,
which never really concealed all that much and, paradoxically, had the effect of rendering a woman’s femininity, if anything, even
more
palpable than if she wasn’t covered at all. But as for the strict, face-framing navy-blue
hijab
on her head now, there wasn’t much allure in it. To me, she looked like a nun.

“This is Sunil, sweetie.”

“Behtaaa?”
Sunil cooed. I stared back at him, blank. I remembered the brief conversation we’d had on the phone. His lilting intonation and elongation of syllables made no more sense now than when I couldn’t see his face. He blinked at me insistently as he gazed, like there was something irritating his eyes. “Hoow are youuu?”

“Fine.”

“Meen has been telling me all about your studiees? I’m so prouud to know a young
hafiz
-to-be…”

“Thank you, Uncle.”

“How faaar have you gotten,
behta?
”

“Ten
juz
.”

“Ten?!” Mina exclaimed.

“A third of the waaay?” Sunil said, still blinking. He looked over at Mina, impressed.

“How did you already get through ten?” Mina asked, shaking her head.

“At school. I work at it during recess.”

“Recess?” Mina looked at Sunil, then back at me. “Your dedication is inspiring,
behta.
” She turned again to Sunil. “You remember what I told you about Naveed?”

Sunil nodded, his head bobbing side to side in traditional Indo-Pak style, blinking away as he did. “How impressive. Not only self-motivated? But under such
diiif
-icult conditions.” Sunil leaned forward and reached out his hands to me. “Come to Uncle…” I approached, but I could only step so far; Imran and his toys were laid out all around Sunil’s feet. Sunil reached both his hands out farther, over Imran’s head. I couldn’t tell what he wanted me to do.

“Give me your haaands,” he said.

I did.

Taking hold, he pressed into my palms with his fingers. It was weird.

“You remind meee of my nephew,” he said, still kneading my palms. “Only
fifteeeen
years old and already a complete
hafiz.
”

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Farhaz…Maybe you will meet him soon,” he said, turning to Mina with a smile.

I looked over at her. She brought her hand to her forehead to push a strand of hair peeking out back beneath the veil. That was when I saw the enormous, glimmering white diamond she was wearing on her left hand’s ring finger. She noticed me notice the ring. “Oh… Sunil-Uncle just gave this to me.” She held out her hand for me to see. “An engagement ring.”

“It’s big,” I said.

Sunil pressed into my palms again. “So maybe you’ll get to meet Farhaz sooner than you think…”

Imran moaned, feeling left out. Sunil dropped my hands and leaned down for the boy, lifting him into his lap. Parted from his toys, Imran now squealed, even though he’d been the one seeking the attention. Sunil ruffled his hair affectionately and kissed him on the cheek, and all at once, Imran softened into Sunil’s embrace like there was nowhere else in the world he wished to be.

“I love you, Dad,” Imran said quietly.

“I looove you, too,
behta,
” Sunil said, gently caressing him.

Mina was clearly moved.

Sunil turned to me. “This means I will be your real uncle. And I waaant you to think of us as your second parents. If you ever neeeed anything?”

I held his blinking gaze, not sure how to respond. Mother appeared at the entryway with a clap of her hands. “Okay, kids. Time for the adults to have a discussion. Get your coats and go out to play.”

Imran squealed and whined some more, but Mother knew exactly what to say: “You love the tree house, don’t you?” Imran bit his lip, nodding. Mother smiled, then turned to me with a command: “Hayat. Take him to the tree house.” Imran hopped out of Sunil’s lap and went bounding off for his coat.

As I walked out into the hall after him, Mother grabbed me by the elbow of my still-plastered arm. “Don’t go running your mouth with the boy,” she muttered. “We don’t need any more trouble.”

Outside, it was a wet, gray day. The sky was in turmoil. I was, too. I knew I should have been happy everything was turning out all right, but I wasn’t. What Mother said to me in front of the others stung, and there was the pang of envy I’d felt on hearing Sunil talking about his nephew, Farhaz, the
complete
hafiz,
as he’d called him. And there was something else as well, something rough and empty, something elusive rattling around inside me.

I followed Imran, trudging through yards of soggy leaves, my head lowered, my fists pushed deep into my pockets. He was taking the usual route, singing to himself as he went. We made our way up the hill toward the Gartners’, their single-story box-shaped house appearing from behind the hedges. Imran raced ahead, bolting up the empty driveway, past the tall willows that lined the yard, their weeping branches shuddering with the cold wind.

I stopped and gazed at the trees.
Where was their comfort?
I wondered.

I made my way to the front door. Imran pushed at the doorbell. The curtains were drawn at the front bay windows, and there were no lights on inside. Around back, we peered in at the kitchen window. It was dark there, too. The Gartners’ cat—a Persian with marbled lapis lazuli eyes—was poised on the counter, staring back at us, placid, inscrutable.

We went around back to the set of trees whose massive trunks were capped and bridged by the interlocking boxes of the elaborate tree house some twenty feet above us. Imran turned to me for permission. I nodded. He darted forward, taking hold of the ladder with his small hands, and started to climb. I didn’t move. I watched him. His small shoes squeaked on the ladder’s wet rungs as he rose.

Why had they built a tree house?
I wondered.
What did they need it for?

Imran disappeared into the entrance cut into the tree house’s floor, his head then appearing through one of the window openings.

“Come on, Hayat,” he said, waving me up.

I lifted my arm, showing him my cast.

“When do you take it off?” he asked with a grimace.

“Day after tomorrow,” I said.

He shrugged and disappeared inside.

I looked about. Trees on the surrounding lawns didn’t look like trees at all. Mostly bare, trunks wet and black in the slate-gray light, they looked like they were made of stone. Even the houses seemed hardened in the chilly drizzle. It was a cold, callous, slippery world, and I was losing the only thing I’d ever loved to it.

15

The Farewell Begins

T
he wedding was set for the day after Thanksgiving. Mina had been insistent that she wanted a small, discreet ceremony, but Chatha was sparing no expense in marrying his cousin: He and Najat invited more than two hundred and fifty people; he’d booked the opulent chandelier ballroom at the posh Atwater Hotel downtown for the reception; he even flew in a cook from their local village in Pakistan to prepare the meal. When Mina found out about the cook, she and Sunil had their first argument.

She complained to Mother over dinner one night about all the money Ghaleb was spending, and was visibly surprised by Mother’s response.

“Ghaleb and Najat know what he’s been through…You’re a catch. Look at you. They want to show you off. Heal his wounded pride after what that last wife of his did to him… Maybe there’s more wisdom in it than you realize. If it makes him feel stronger to have a big wedding, what’s the problem? They’re footing the bill! Live it up!”

“I don’t want them to think I’m after his money.”

“But you are.” Mother laughed.

“
Bhaj.
Please. It’s not even
his
money…”

Mother scrunched up her face. “Have you
completely
lost your sense of humor?”

Mina shrugged. “You
know
why I’m doing this. For Imran.”

“Then
bite the bullet.
It’s not the end of the world.” After a pause, Mother added: “Could be worse. You could be one of
four.
”

Mina chuckled. “You don’t realize how unbearable Najat really is…”

“The in-laws are always unbearable.”

“But they’re even terrible with Sunil. He’s always complaining about how Ghaleb bosses him around.”

“Ghaleb is paying the bills.”

“Which is nothing to say about what they think of Naveed and you.”

“What do they say about me?”

“That you’re harebrained.”

“Harebrained?” Mother repeated. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t mean a thing.”

“Hare as in
rabbit?
”

“I think.”

“Najat’s the rabbit. Not me.”

“She won’t leave me alone about my skin.”

“Well, there
is
something wrong with your skin. You’re not eating properly.”

Mina sighed. “I just want to get this all over with and behind me.”

“Harebrained?” Mother repeated again.

“It’s nonsense,
bhaj.
They can’t understand a woman like you.”

“Like
us.
You’re the same as me. Probably worse.”

There was a long pause. “You’re right,” Mina finally replied.

I stopped by Mina’s room that night, hoping for a story. I found her sitting in her bed, a book open in her lap, her eyes red and swollen.

“Are you okay, Auntie?”

“Fine,
behta,
” she replied with a weary shake of the head. “Can you get your auntie some water, please?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

I went down into the kitchen, filled a glass with tap water, then brought it back to her room. She blew her nose into a tissue, tossing it to the floor. I handed her the glass.