My hand flirts with the bedside table as I, groggily, with eyes shut, grope for my phone. Even though on silent it vibrates on the wood like an electric drill working its way through the drywall of my skull. I wonder who it is at so late an hour, muttering French curses under my breath.
“Hello?”
All I hear is heavy breathing at the other end: irregular, unapologetic.
“Hello.”
My head throbs incessantly. Lack of sleep and the several drinks I imbibed a few hours earlier merely aggravate the situation. I massage my temple in an attempt to alleviate the pain and calm my nerves. Just my luck to be on the receiving end of a drunk dial, butt dial, or whatever inane sort of dialling. I decide to hang up, but the person on the other end senses my intent. A voice falters, breaking the silence.
It sounds familiar but my encumbered brain is unable to retain a coherent stream of thought. I attempt to see through the fog of my mind but am unable to see the silhouette that lingers just beyond visibility. I ask who it is.
My sister... I get out of bed and place my feet on the calm, hardwood floor of my bedroom. I strain to make sense of her disjointed sentences through the incessant sobbing. Behind me, Connie is stirring awake. My head continues to pound outwards.
“Could you please calm down for a moment and… just tell me what happened,” I implore.
She collects herself. Somewhat. The throbbing in my head dulls down instead giving way to a sinking feeling in my gut. I walk over to the window.
“Is everything alright?” Connie asks from her distant corner of the bed. I sense that worried gaze piercing the back of my skull, trying to make sense of what was going on. I had nothing to say.
The call ends; the phone hanging loosely between my fingertips, anticipating its plummet to the floor. I gaze out the window: not a soul out on the streets. Somewhere I hear a baby crying, bereft of its mother’s comforting embrace. My eyes dart across the building across the street, from one window to the next, in search of the source of the wailing. It echoes through the narrow street making it hard to ascertain where it is coming from. Many of the lights are already extinguished, the occupants of the apartments either sound asleep or still out celebrating life.
The wailing continues. But no light comes on.
I notice a man, naked, his head poking out from one of the windows, smoking a cigarette with delicate enjoyment. He seems to be staring up at the sky. Moments later a woman joins him, also naked. She takes the cigarette from his offering hand and draws a long drag, exhaling a fine erotic mist around them. Their bodies are poised in a provocative state of grace and serenity: his hand outstretched like a Greek god, pointing up at the sky, while she, her arm wrapped around his waist, follows his gaze with wonder in her eyes. Transfixed by those mythical creatures, I watch as they juggle the cigarette back and forth between them before it disintegrates into nothingness.
The wailing, too, had diminished into the stark night.
“Is everything okay?”
I snap back to my present. Is everything okay?
“My mother died.” The words feel hollow, unlike the stifling, leaden feeling mustering inside me, like an anchor tugging me onto the floor, through the eight storeys below, into the empty chasm that just opened up to receive me.
For a moment Connie doesn’t know what to say. She comes over and hugs me from behind. “I’m so sorry baby.”
“It was Saira. She said she is ill.”
Her hands stop caressing my chest. “Oh. I thought you said… so it’s not too bad then. You made it sound like….”
“I made it sound like it is.”
“Why do you have to be like this!?” she protests, slipping away from me.
“Like what? Typically morbid?!” I snap at her.
Silence. I see her in the reflection of the window, biting her lower lip, mincing her fingers with her nails, hesitating to say something.
“You really think she is…” her voice trails off, her sentence swallowed by the emptiness that is now devouring me, sucking the essence of my soul from within and around me.
I hear my heart thumping against the floor.
I turn to face her.
Her body is cast in a sultry play of light flowing through the blinds; repeated shafts of light and shadow form pinstripes on her that reveal and veil her at the same time. She walks over to me, clasping my head in her warm receiving hands and begins to peck me gently all over my face. Whispering unintelligible words she kisses me. Embracing me tightly she tells me everything will be alright.
I am limp, like a suffocated fish washed ashore by uncaring waves.
“I have to go back.” I push her away.
I long for a cigarette.
All I can think of… I think of nothing. The water trails down my bent back. I raise my face into the stream of skin-searing droplets, hoping it will relieve my throbbing headache. I try to recall memories of her. They elude me as I try to grab hold of her while running through a maze of hedges. The sun oscillates before me as I soar through the air on the swing. I sense her right beside me yet am unable to catch a glimpse of her. A memory refraining to be remembered. Latching onto the shower wall my pain drains away in restrained silence.
Eighty-three minutes and five pain relievers later I am standing in the security queue. Connie offers to accompany me to the gate.
“I would rather be by myself,” I tell her. Perhaps I added “I hope you don’t mind”. I’m not sure.
Words are left unsaid as we part: the lingering embrace, the passionate kiss, hesitance in her big, blue eyes. I feel her as we hold each other, as we had many years ago; the last time we had ever done so.
I walk away, Connie now a receding figure in the crowd. I dare not look back at those mascara blotted eyes.
In the boarding queue I find myself surrounded by a boisterous energy which is painfully agitating. Their cackle and laughter prickles like tiny acupuncture needles sticking into me, stirring up the pain. And anger. I hate their faces. And their joyfulness. It’s blatantly banal. The woman standing in front of me asks where I am headed. I put on my headphones to silence the world around me and quell the resentment that ravages the shores of my consciousness. But the serenade ringing in my ears only highlights in vivid and jarring clarity the things that wrest my heart: their perfect smiles, their perfectly pressed vacation clothes, their perfect lives – all one perfect holiday, everyone happy. I wish I were on holiday.
I wish…
I settle into my seat. The flight attendant strolls by beaming me with a blinding smile. She asks if I would like anything. I want to change my seat and get away from all these annoying happy people, I implore her. I want my mother back. She brings me scotch instead.
Thankfully I have my own seat where I can wallow in my own personal space of misery. Perks of first class.
Seat upright. Buckled in. The only baggage I have stowed away neatly in the overhead bin. I drown the scotch in one swig – sorrow sinking down my throat with a burning sensation.
I close my eyes as I am pushed back into my seat, the shuddering and jostling begins, eventually sedating into a tug in my core, drawing me back to the ground. I already want this to be over.
What could have happened? Why couldn’t they have called me sooner? Perhaps she is simply ill. Maybe it isn’t as bad as I am making it to be, like Connie said. Will she be happy to see me?
Or am I to blame?
Being idle for almost an entire day with nothing better to do than watch movies, potentially read, and drink are the only forms of solace that are offered to me. Scratch everything else. Alcohol is my only friend here. I ask for another scotch. I sense the flight attendant’s hesitance.
Hunger doesn’t pang me. Inattentively I watch the screen before me, the headphones neatly tucked away in their sealed plastic bag. Over the music I hear only the muffled high-pitched whir of the engines churning away the icy, winter air outside.
I lay awake dreaming of a time that once was, a time that will never be: a time that will now remain a faint ghost of its reality, before, it too, is lost to the nether regions of forgottenness. A white steel-framed lawn chair. Slopes of fir trees tumbling down into the valley far below. The viscous, tenacious smell of pine. I breathe in the fresh, succulent air to embrace the serenity around me. That warm, gentle hand on my tender shoulder…
“Would you like a warm towel, Mr. Ijaz?” I start. Another warm smile. A rush of memories that unravel and blossom before me. I extend my gratitude and feel a warmth course through my hands. My face sinks in, devouring the stark fluorescence into a dark comforting warmth that smells of jasmine.
I hear a soft reprimanding voice from the patio as I pluck the sweet fragrant flowers off the bush. “You shouldn’t do that. It hurts them just as well.” I see that familiar smile which becomes a brilliant dazzling sun. Where is the face that was the center of my universe? Where has it vanished to? Only an amorphous visage remains of the bearer of my being. My mind is fuzzy with all the intoxicants streaming in my blood. Or is this how I coped?
I wonder how she died.
The person on the screen before me flips their apartment over in search of something. Anxiety nestled within the furrows on his brow and the furtive movements of his head I wonder what is amiss that has him so flustered and agitated.
Life is an endless, toilsome search. Searching for love. For happiness. For wealth. For meaning. We all end up in search of something that we do not have. Something elusive.
Contentment. Peace.
The monk assumes Enlightenment and drifts towards Nirvana. In unity lies peace.
That is Connie for me. The calm of my storm. The anchor to my driftwood.
I had intended to tell my parents about Connie and I being together. That we loved each other. And wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. They had met several times before whenever my parents came to visit me. They had liked her… as my friend. I assumed that fondness would also be for her being my partner. I hoped they would see the wonderful person she is and look past the cultural biases they grew up with. I just wanted everyone to be happy. To be in harmony.
Peace. Contentment.
Connie was there when it happened. My family tearing apart before my eyes. Moments earlier we all had been having a hearty home cooked meal at my place. It had been a fine summer day. But the air quickly turned cold; the conversation, sour. I saw the tears well up in Connie’s eyes.
“This is unacceptable.”
“They are not like us.”
“We did not send you abroad to have an affair with some white girl. You have forgotten your culture!”
“This is not what we taught you…”
I reasoned. I begged.
“I am disappointed,” she muttered, casting a look towards me while walking past Connie, acknowledging her presence as much as the floor lamp that stood beside her.
Storming through the door, a river of tears in her wake. Me: torn between two worlds, two timelines – the past behind me, standing resolute, and my future ahead, fading away. They seem such irreconcilable concepts. But it is only our mind that creates that distinction, just as the distinctions we create of race, gender or creed. To make the world simple we conjure up these concepts yet in the process all we do is aid biases and veil ourselves from seeing what truly is. It had been a while since I had come to that realization. My parents, however, had not. They who had raised me, nurtured me into who I was, were unable to see the one who stood before them was the same child who had left home years earlier to make a better life for himself.
There was no happy ending. No compromises. Just a cold, bitter choice.
I followed after my future. Letting go of my past.
Can one really though?I bore the blame. For wanting to live my own life. To define my own happiness, my own peace. A family torn apart due to my indiscretion. And now, forever unable to say a proper goodbye.
A sudden jolt brings us all out of our suspended reveries. I notice the sign is already turned on. The flight attendant ambles over to the person before me. In his groggy state he has difficulty hearing her or understanding her mime to fasten his seatbelt. I tighten mine till it bites into my pelvis. A man sitting across from me scarfs down the remnants of food on his tray. It is difficult to determine whether the panic in his eyes is due to the gradually worsening turbulence or the thought that he might not be able to finish his food before it is whisked away.
Another strong lurch and I fasten myself tightly to my seat, bracing the arms of my chair in a vice-like grip to ensure it not slip away from under me in the off-chance that it does. Being up in the air makes me paranoid and brazenly illogical. Getting onto every flight I prepare for it to be my last. And whenever I touch ground after, I feel I have just been pulled away from the throes of death.
Take-off – death; midair – limbo; landing – resurrection.
We live a major part of our life unsympathetic to the varying tunes of death and only in moments such as this we are face to face with it, made aware of its ever-lingering presence.
“Where are they taking daadi?” I asked her, pulling on her hand earnestly.
She looked down at me tenderly with her caring eyes, full of warm tears. “Daadi is going away, beta. She… she has lived long. But now… she is going to rest.” She smiled the best she could; I see her as vividly as the attendant hurrying to her jump seat. And yet, her eyes were unable to hide the remorse she attempted to veil.
I was nine. But I understood: I was not going to see my grandmother again. I watched on in silent curiosity at the procession walking past. I noticed my father, a solemn air about him, leading the procession, holding one end of the casket over his shoulder. His glasses fogged up with bitter sorrow. And then, suddenly, my tears began to flow profusely. My mother consoled me, hugging me tightly. I clutched on to her with a vice grip, vowing to never let go.
It was not for my grandmother that I cried. I witnessed a son walking towards the hollow in the earth where he would commit his mother to, never to see her again. In that moment I realized that one day, someday, I would be in his stead, having to say my last ever goodbye to the first woman I fell in love with.
I never got a chance to say goodbye, amma. I never really said goodbye.
I am becoming salt, looking back at the mountains of my past. Salt flows down my cheeks. Salt on my hands. I want to get up and hide away in the restroom in case my sin becomes apparent to the flight attendant and the rest. But the seatbelt sign is adamantly ablaze and the cabin jostles unrelentingly. I look out the window and through the haze of salt and water I am able to see nothing but the faint blinking of a beacon on the wingtip. An occasional brilliant flash lights the scene revealing, for a fleeting moment, the plumes of ominous clouds and the deluge of rain outside. I am in the heart of the storm; Jude, Jackie or whatever it has been named. A storm yet to make landfall but I set out to meet head on, ill-prepared and already been bruised and battered by.
My heart is throbbing fast, my mind racing through the countless possibilities that lie in store for my fate. My tears dry up. My pain is replaced by an anxiety, equally distressing, equally painful. Hyperventilation takes over. I constantly stare at the only steady rhythm around me – the beacon – to calm myself. It pulsates in the tempest with resolute reassurance, a silent attempt to communicate to me that it, just as I, will pull through unscathed.
In the wake of one’s own mortality the rest becomes insignificant. As one’s life hangs by the thread of probability, be it a highly unlikely probability, one would rather be subsumed by the thought of anything other than that of their fragile existence. I am unable to shrug away what has now become the sole focus of my consciousness. My heart sinks each time the plane lurches. I try to focus on the pulse, anything that would form a union with me and strip my consciousness away. Nirvana sounds like an appealing option to drown out the noise around me.
Find a core. Find your anchor.
Whenever I felt anxious or doubtful a single gesture of her hand would quell all my fears: brushing away the hair from my forehead and eyes so that I could look into hers.
“Look at me my dear, it’s okay… There we go! You have nothing to be afraid of. God is there for you. Never forget that, beta. He is looking out for you.”
“But why? Why would he look out for me… out of everybody else? What makes me so special?!”
She hesitated for a moment, looking at me with searching eyes. There was that melancholic disposition, revealing itself whenever I was distressed. It glimmered in her hazel eyes, her expression genial.
“Because I ask him every day.”
Even for the most trivial of situations she would tenderly support me to face up to life’s neutrality towards me. For her, the answer had always been God. The appeal to that calling for me waned over the passing years, but it once used to be a source of strength. Many a fear, throughout my adolescence, was quelled by that: the thought of the protective overseer.
I rubbed my eyes – out of habit whenever I was nervous – and turned around to face my apprehension. Raucous children all around me cheering and shouting; the race track stretching before me, into the distance, the finish line just beyond reach. Everyone was getting ready, some twitching excitedly in anticipation. I readied myself. But, just before the whistle blew I glanced back over my shoulder, one last time, to look at her before it were too late. She smiled at me, her reassurance assuaging. The sun beat down on us. Sweat trickled down my forehead. I set my eyes to the distance. It was within reach. The whistle blared.
*
A jostle awakens me again from my fleeting sleep. Time has barely moved its hands, as if, while asleep, its passage had arrested, and seeming to flow, ever so slowly, during my waking life. What a cruel trick Khronos plays upon me, leaving me bereft of a quick deliverance from the meanderings of my labyrinth. Transoceanic flights are never-ending! And seemingly, too, is the supply of food the man across from me has. He is shovelling it with no apparent glee but rather as an automaton. I am afraid he would explode from all the eating. The thought makes me chuckle. I almost make the joke with the flight attendant but decide against it. It is the last thing a brown, dishevelled looking man should be saying on an airplane.
The sense of relief, however, is short lived. A wild bump and a brief dive elicits a few screams. One of the overhead bins ahead pops open, showering the aisle with coats, bags. My fingertips have turned white. My heart stuck in my throat. A prayer leaves my lips, a habit I have yet to completely grow out of. I need to relax. I need another drink. Badly. The attendant is somewhere. Nowhere. Buckled in herself, most likely. These could be my last moments but all I can think about is a drink.
What must it have been for her? Had she been ill for a while? Or was it some accident? Had it hurt? What was the last thing on her mind? Did she ask for me? Was I on her mind? Did I even matter?
Too many questions. No real answers. Perhaps I will never really know. Death snatches away the chance for closure that we, the living, so desire.
*
While I had been occupied with circumnavigating the oceans of my past, the plane had finally escaped its turbulent surroundings. A sigh of relief breezes through the aisles. Some nervous laughter comes up. I smile to myself, relaxing into my chair, exhausted by the will I enacted to guide the plane to safety. The man continues eating. I conjecture his carry-on contains nothing but food.
Outside I see faint outlines of black against darker black. Stars shine resolutely in the clearing night; beacons d the dark skies providing direction to those seeking shelter from the bitter ravages of the callous twilight. There is Orion, and there the Pleiades, and there, the Pole Star, their scintillation rivets my faculties and provides me that ever rising glimmer of hope that I shall be delivered to my destination safely: my guides looking out for me.
She, too, had been my guide. Teaching me to walk. Imparting upon me the fervor to ask questions. To seek knowledge. To strive harder. To never give up. Despite our differences, it was her nurture that has made me who I am today.
Despite our differences.
I finally succumb to sleep after having a few more scotches by cajoling the flight attendant by playing the sympathy card.
*
As we taxi in to the terminal everyone gets up to pull out their things from the overhead bins, not heeding the flight attendants’ repeated requests to remain seated. I had forgotten there is no gate at the airport as we wait for the stairs to be attached. I fall into prostration as we finally step onto the tarmac. It feels like the right response after a harrowing journey. The land deserves my gratitude after a long absence from its safety. A few men behind me, upon seeing what I was doing, also place their foreheads to the ground assuming it to be an invocation of thanks to God. One of them taps me on my shoulder and loudly informs me with a self-righteous air that I am praying in the wrong direction. The rest, upon overhearing this, scramble to their feet, grumbling amongst themselves while casting hostile looks towards me. Nothing has changed since the last time I was here.
*
It is quite late, or pretty early for that matter, as the taxi turns onto my lane of memories. Of childhood games. Of laughter. Of bicycling up and down the street. Of running between the wickets. Of my first kiss behind the neighbor’s bushes. I pay my fare and watch the taxi drive off towards the boundary line, the ball I hit trailing close behind the tailpipe, into the pitch blackness of reminiscence. A few lights are lit indoors. Cars solemnly parked outside – my house of memories: my home.
The gate creaks on its rusty hinges as I try to silently sneak back in. While shutting the door behind me, slowly twisting the key in the lock, the light in the foyer turns on. She was waiting for me. I stop in mid-motion, key still half-turned, dreading to turn around and face her.
“Do you know what time it is?”
I try not to meet her eyes, less because I was embarrassed and more so since they are bloodshot. I solemnly shook my head, hanging it low.
“You’ve been drinking.”
I act flabbergasted, my denial coming out all slurry.
That look of consternation. “Adnan, don’t take me for a fool. I found your stash up on the roof. Don’t pretend. For once just be honest with me.”
I wanted to stand up to her and tell her that it was my life. I wanted to say something. But I just stood there, my face flushed, tongue tied.
“What you do in your own time is up to you. I am not responsible for the choices you make. But, at least when you are under this roof, you should be sober! It would break your father’s heart if he found out.”
“Does it not break yours?”
We stand under the foyer light, in silence. Nothing but crickets and frogs permeate the silence with a nighttime symphony.
“If that were the case,” she finally broke the night melody, “then my heart has been broken a thousand times over. You may be a part of me, but you are not me. I accepted that the day you were born. I can give you my advice but you must make your own decisions. It would be unfair for me to impose anything on you. I’ll be there for you… always.”
It feels like yesterday.
The foyer light is off. I stand before the entrance, in the dark. I drink down the last drops of the to-go coffee which is pretty much just water. I already miss my French press. Despite the chill in the air my hands are clammy as I reach for the door knocker. I wonder what awaits on the other side. I look back towards the dark street; I can still turn around and leave.
My hand lingers on the knocker. I try lifting it but it is unwilling to move, its weight countering my effort. My heart is thumping wildly. I am surprised the sound hasn’t awoken the entire house. I feel I have run a marathon.
Quickly I hit the buzzer instead, not allowing myself the chance to rethink anything. The doorbell chirps like a birdling calling out to its mother, seeking her undivided attention and affection. And I wait. The nighttime symphony of crickets and frogs continues unabated. The smell of jasmine wafts over with the chilly breeze. I shudder and wrap my jacket around me tighter to save some of the warmth from spilling away.
The light in the foyer turns on. The symphony silences. My heart leaps away into the garden. I hear the keys jingle, the latch unbolting. I stand with bated breath. The door shudders open, the trapped light inside escaping onto the steps of the front porch, illuminating where I am, gracing me with its warmth.
“Sorry it took me forever to come.”
