Short Fiction: "New York"
By Fawzia Naqvi
The Dawn
April 24th, 2000
Love Marriage Leaves One Dead, Two Injured
Elopement incites sectarian killing at Shia Imambargah
KARACHI- Sections of Karachi city remain under dawn to dusk curfew today in the wake of the motorcycle drive-by shooting at the Jamia Khurrasan which left one woman dead and two others badly injured. All three women are said to be from the Fiqqa’Jaffria Shia sect. The shootings were allegedly related to a revenge killing by the family of a Sunni girl who eloped with a Shia boy one month ago. The deceased whose name has been withheld, died on the way to Jinnah Hospital. She was not related to either family and is said by witnesses to have been mistakenly identified by the assailants as a sister of the eloped boy. Informed sources have told The Dawn that the deceased lived abroad and was visiting family in Karachi. No other details are currently available. The boy’s two sisters were also injured in the shootings and remain in stable condition at Jinnah. The assailants remain at large and are suspected to be the brother and cousin of the eloped girl. Sections of Karachi have been placed under a dawn to dusk curfew to prevent further sectarian bloodshed. Army troops have been dispatched from Malir Cantonment to control the situation in the troubled sections of Karachi. Related violence has already been reported in the areas of New Town, Gulshan and North Nazimabad where gangs of Shia men have allegedly attempted to burn down Sunni madrassas in reprisal for yesterday’s shootings. The Governor of Sindh has pleaded for calm in the wake of this tragedy, saying that this incident should not be turned in to a sectarian issue but rather judged as a heinous inhuman act of violence committed by a few criminal elements…
Midnight Eastern Standard Time in the United States is roughly the time The Dawn newspaper in Karachi updates its daily news website. At midnight the phone begins to ring. Emilio ignores it until he has finished reading Zahra’s email. She writes to him almost every day now keeping him updated on her travels. They seem to have settled in to an old familiar routine, corresponding frequently via email, but almost never speaking on the phone nor meeting.
Zahra does not complain nor asks for more. That suits Emilio just fine, he cannot for the moment commit more of his time, nor does he feel the need to dwell on whether he should. As long as he has known her they have lived in different cities. And though every year he seems to move just a little bit closer he cannot decide whether or not he wants to make New York his home. Their new relationship is uncomplicated, “sin compromiso” as he once told her.
Why couldn’t it have been like this when they were together? He wonders. He shakes his head in amusement thinking that they are more “together” now than when they actually were. They are bound together by something he cannot quite put his finger on. He and Zahra are woven together in a tapestry of sorts, a story which is still being created. He cannot let her go until the final chapter takes shape. He wonders what has changed between them, brought them so effortlessly closer to each other. Perhaps it is the lack of demands, the lack of obligation. There are no “have to write, have to call, have to meet” between them, everything is voluntary, of its own accord and in it’s own time. He feels unencumbered by her presence in his life. It’s the perfect situation yet he feels something missing. He has no real right over her, no say in anything she does.
At times he feels like a mere visitor, a guest, without permanence or a place in her life. He is disturbed by these thoughts; after all, permanence is something he has always shied away from. May be this is how it feels to get older he consoles himself. He wonders if Zahra feels the same way about him. When he does give priority to anything beside himself it is Zahra. He knows he is partial toward her, sometimes almost reverential in the way he handles her. He has already told her that she was part of a defining moment in his life, a period in time that has shaped him. But that was all he was willing to tell her, there was nothing more to say. He couldn’t make sense of it himself.
May be he needs to go back to New York and spend some time with her, figure this out once and for all. But Emilio has simply been too pre-occupied with his work to change the status quo. Besides they have already been through the worst moments.
The face to face meeting after two years. The moment of reckoning. Her time to make him account for all his misdeeds. Torture. She had put him through two straight days of sheer torture. She had even called him “toxic”, spitting the word out at him so unexpectedly. He had winced momentarily as the impact of her insult hit him in the face like a bee sting and had left him stunned. She had then held her head in her hands and said she couldn’t believe she had just called him that, but he should not mistake this for an apology. She would not apologize to him; after all he had never apologized to her for anything he had done. And at that moment he had to control himself, snap out of it, shake the insane images out of his mind. As she sat on the floor holding her head, all he could think of was wrestling her to the ground and climbing on top of her. There was a time she would have let him, but only to a point.
But this time would be different. He knew if he started touching her he wouldn’t stop no matter what she said. So the two days in her apartment had been spent in torture, repentance and desire for her. She had not so much as brushed against him, studiously maintaining a safe distance between them and leaving him isolated inside his overactive imagination.
But he had wanted to go through this, for himself. Jumping at the very first opportunity she presented to him. Some inexplicable need for self-flagellation. But she had also made it so easy on him. A slap across one side of his face a caress on the other. And the manuscript she had flung at him, the story she had been writing all these years. “Read it!” she had commanded between sobs. “Right now? All of it?.” He had asked, somewhat incredulous at her request. “No, just the first paragraph.” She remained firm. He had looked up at her with mournful eyes, and realized there was no option but to do as she said. From the determined look on her tear stained face he could sense that she was on a mission and there would be no stopping her, nor trying to get in her way.
He dreaded confronting what now lay open to page one in front of him on the bed. He slowly covered the rest of the page with his hands and began reading only the first paragraph, while she stood watching his face from a distance as he read, her arms folded across her body, tears continuing to stream down her face.
February 13th, 1999
A year from now you will feel anguish remembering every single detail of this weekend Zahra. But I will barely recall your having been there with me. You will mourn this weekend as if commemorating a death anniversary. But I won’t think of you, no, not once. Another woman, another place, another bed. You should have known. It was your responsibility to have understood. Your problem. I told you not to get involved with me. Didn’t I warn you? I was as honest as I could be. You didn’t listen to me did you? But you should have known, you were never more than just another woman in my bed, in some other place.
Emilio had already begun shaking his head from side to side before finishing and finally looked up at her with an expression of alarm and disbelief across his face.
Not my words, these are not my words.
No, they are mine. Do you understand now? For two years these are the words which have been floating round and round in my head. This is what I have lived with day and night. I have imagined your words, your thoughts. No, these are my words, all mine.
I’m sorry, I am so sorry, is all he was able to muster up weakly. I didn’t know. I had no idea.
How could you? You never bothered to find out. You never once asked about me, not once called to see if I was dead or alive. If you really wanted to know, you would have found out no matter what the consequences.
Its not like that…he had pleaded. But decided to let it go. She was not in a forgiving mood and he would come at her from another angle, at some other time, may be tomorrow.
Why doesn’t he do something about Zahra now that the worst is over and the dust has settled between them? She seems to have forgiven his past deeds, may be not forgotten but she certainly seemed to have let the past go. May be deep down inside he is afraid that this time she will be the one to reject him. It’s that trust thing which she kept on throwing in his face. He knows she still cannot fully trust him. Besides, he still does not know for sure if there is someone else in her life, although he knows that she is well aware of the constant parade of other women in his. But he fears that if she were to find someone else he would be devastated.
For now he can barely keep up with her writing, responding occasionally yet loyally reading everyone of her dispatches. Today, she writes, she will go to pray. He never thought her the religious type, but she is attached to this particular ritual. She had even shown him a photo of this place she goes to in Karachi. Some temple, or mosque. A special place for the Shias.
He can’t remember it, but remembers seeing the photograph in an album she had created for him with photographs taken all over Karachi. But that was a while ago. She says she will go and pray for him today, for the success of his business venture. He had finally written to her about how stressful the last couple of weeks had been not knowing if the business would survive without new investors. She had now written back saying that everything would be fine. She would pray for his success. Zahra, he had said to himself, you’re something else. Her email remains on his computer screen as he answers the phone on the third ring.
Hey Mohsin, how are you? No, don’t worry. I’m usually up late doing email. Good to hear from you man. It’s been a while. Yeah, what’s up?
That’s just not possible. I’m reading her email. Right now! No! You don’t understand I just finished reading her email!
Emilio, listen. Listen to me. I know this is difficult. We’re 10 hours behind Pakistan. She must have written this…Emilio…listen to me.
I am listening! Explain this to me man! You explain this to me. It’s your damn country. Go ahead explain this to me. Explain it so that I can understand. She went there to pray. Forme. Do you understand? That’s what she wrote. Oh God ….Zahra…. write….please. Please Zahra……just keep writing to me….please…
Zahra hears the sound of a motorcycle behind her as she walks toward the marble staircase leading up to the main Zari of the Khurrasan. She turns her head slightly back, eyes squinting in the afternoon Karachi sunlight. Two boys are sitting on a motorbike near the main allam. They couldn’t be more than 20 years old. One of them is straddling a long golf club shaped packet which lies flat across his lap. Both are wearing t-shirts and jeans, baseball caps turned backward. They could be from anywhere, in any city she thinks, and smiles remembering the Yankees baseball cap hanging on the side of the full length mirror in her bedroom.
She feels homesickness wash all over her as she thinks about Fernando and her first view of Yankee Stadium as the number 4 train emerged from underground. Thirteen years in New York and last October was the first time she went to a baseball game. Yankees vs. the Boston Redsox. Fernando flanking her protectively on the right, Leily fortifying the left. She sat sandwiched between the two baseball fanatics, chilled to the bone, hating the game and loving every moment with them. Fernando had hoped to entice Zahra’s interest in the game by giving her pictures and articles of the Yankee’s pitcher Andy Pettite, whom Zahra found “positively yummy” and “the only reason on earth to watch that stupid game!”
“I want a tour of Washington Heights,” she had declared to Fernando 7 years ago. “Heck no!” he had responded, shaking his head from side to side. “Nah Zee, with you I would need to be strapped. Cuz you see, you would be a liability. Over there, you won’t be able to walk the walk or talk the talk. Nah, may be one day..but I’ll definitely need to be strapped.”
Years later it had finally dawned on Zahra what an idiot she had been to believe his antics about Upper Manhattan, although she was still trying to figure out whether it was “if you can’t walk the walk don’t talk the talk or if you can’t talk the talk don’t walk the walk.” Fernando had introduced her to this wisdom when her 23 year old cousin Raza had barely survived an assassination attempt by a rival political gang in Karachi. He had been shot at close range around the corner from the Askari apartments, his home. The bullet had pierced through his right shoulder and out his back, missing his lungs and spine by a fraction.
His mother’s prayers they had all said and Zahra believed this to be true more than anything else. She can clearly remember the phone call she had made to the hospital the day she got the news from her own mother. She had maniacally pounded the numbers on the telephone 0119221…0119221…0119221 over and over again she kept hitting the numbers until she finally heard the familiar ring through to Pakistan, her heart racing at the possible news that lay at the other end of the line.
“Zahra? Oh my god Zahra, can you believe this?” It was Raza’s sister. “Can you believe they shot our baby? What kind of country is this? Can you believe it? I can still hear gunshots right outside this hospital. Guns, guns, guns everywhere. We’ve gone mad. Children with guns, they’re just kids. Do they even know what MQM or PPP or whatever even stands for? Here speak to Raza, he wants to talk to you.”
Zahra had been shocked that Raza was able to talk to her. “Zahra baji,” he had moaned. “Thank your stars I’m alive, or else a year from now you would have been eating biryani, commemorating my death anniversary every November 26th” Zahra had laughed and cried, and then felt nauseas as someone placed a fax in front of her while she continued talking to Raza who now lay in terrible pain at the Jinnah Hospital in Karachi. “Tell your sister I just received the fax.” She hears him convey the message haltingly as she quickly runs her eyes over the words in front of her.
E.R Attending: Dr. Sohail Jaffer
Date: November 27th, 1993
Name of Patient: Syed Raza Kazmi.
Age: 23.
Profession: First year Medical Student at Jinnah.
Cause of Injury: Bullet wound to the right shoulder.
Initial Assessment: Total paralysis of right arm and hand C1 to C3. Complete loss of motor function. He is not expected to regain use of his right arm. It is recommended that he be taken to the United States as soon as he is able to travel for treatment and physical therapy.
“Zahra Baji, I’m in so much pain yaar. So much pain” Raza continued as Zahra reached the end of the fax, crying and rocking back and forth as she clamped her hand across her mouth to stop herself from sobbing out loud. Raza’s voice sounded distant, coming toward her from another time and place. “My arm. They are saying it will be all right, but I know. Tell them I know. I’m a medical student yaar. I know. How will I become a surgeon? Tell them to stop pretending. I know.”
Years later she and Raza would sit outdoors on the steps near the canteen of Jinnah Hospital. While they both drank sweetened milky tea he began telling her what had happened that night. “I knew them all, Zahra Baji. The one who shot me. I knew him. He’s dead now. Got shot himself. He was about five feet away when he pulled the trigger, we were face to face. I swear I saw the bullet coming at me. I swear. And that’s when I knew that I was dead.
This is where they brought me. I can still hear the doctors saying I may not survive. Too much blood loss. If I survived the night I had a chance. And then I heard one of them say, he might live but he’ll lose his arm. I also remember him saying. I know this boy. He is one of my students. But kasam se Zahra Baji, the girls have more respect for me now. Yaar… they look at me differently!”
And now Fernando was still insisting that he wanted to be a cop, assuring Zahra that he would not be asked to work in his own neighborhood. “No!” she had been vehement. “I won’t let you become one. We’re going to find you a job where you won’t get killed. I refuse to lose you to the streets of New York!” She had declared somewhat dramatically. “But the benefits are great and I can continue my education.” He had tried to sound convincing. “Fat lot of good benefits will do you when you’re dead!” Zahra had retorted. “No, no NYPD for you.” And that is when she had talked to him about Raza, telling him how much he reminded her of her cousin. Fernando had said that this would be different, he could walk the walk and talk the talk. Something Zahra’s cousin couldn’t do and those who shot him knew that. “No Fernando, you don’t understand. He got shot because he did walk the walk, talk the talk, or whatever combination thereof. He got shot for who he unmistakably was when he walked and especially when he talked. They wanted him to do their bidding, join this political party, no, this mafia of young boys from immigrant families. It’s hard to explain. They wanted him to be strapped. All the time. How do I explain this to you? It’s about being marked as an immigrant.
For Raza, there was no escape, especially when he talked.” Fernando looked down solemnly, something had struck a nerve. And then he had told her that he too had narrowly escaped a drug related shooting incident, a drive by. They had been gunning for his uncle and he, only a child then had been walking beside his uncle on a sunny summer afternoon. Both had survived, a bullet grazing Fernando’s leg. Fernando had promised Zahra he would think twice about his career choice and when he failed the NYPD Psychological exam, Zahra had celebrated silently and had quickly mobilized to find Fernando another occupation.
But that was seven years ago a couple of months after she had first spoken to Fernando who had fallen asleep next to her on the number 3 train, heading downtown to Wall Street. He was a kid she would end up standing next to on the 96th street subway platform every morning. Both of them would get on to the train at the same spot, the middle car where the conductor is.
She would see Fernando dashing out of the number 1 train across the platform or already be waiting there with a gang of friends whose appearances scared her enough to move in closer to Fernando, the least scary of them all. Bandanas, earrings in both ears, braided hair, thick silver or gold chains around their necks, Zahra had stereotyped them to the hilt and had decided that Fernando was the “safest” because morning after morning he was bandana less, chain less and the quietest of the lot. Hands tucked inside the pockets of his tan leather jacket, he usually contributed silence to the raucous conversation around him. A nod here, a laugh there. A slap on the hand with a “later bro..”as the scarier ones exited at 42nd street.
And as he slept that morning nodding his head dangerously close to her shoulder, Zahra thought of how much he reminded her of Raza, her favorite amongst all her cousins. They must be the same age she mused as Wall Street approached and the kid continued to sleep. This could have been Raza, she thought, if he had lived in New York, this would be Raza. Unsure whether to nudge him awake, Zahra took a chance and gently tapped him on the shoulder. “Wall Street,” she said smiling and standing up. They exited the train together and as Zahra buttoned up her winter coat she turned to see if he was still behind her. He was. She stopped to let him catch up with her, “aren’t you cold in that thin jacket?” “Nah,” he muttered turning a little red. “I don’t get cold.”
She never did believe him, winter after winter seeing him in that thin tan leather jacket. Well, she finally mused, Raza was now working in New York and married to a Dominican girl, never fully having gained the use of his right arm. And Fernando was a banker, a husband a father and a proud owner of a new BMW and a new Hugo Boss winter coat which he had proudly modeled for her.
Why had Fernando told her he couldn’t speak in Spanish when they had first met? That memory is bothering her now. She must ask him when she gets back to New York and she must introduce Raza to Fernando really soon she thinks as she begins to climb up the marble steps.
The collage of New York thoughts still linger inside my head as I hear a motorbike approaching slowly. How strange, I thought they had cordoned this area off to all vehicles. I turn my head again looking over my shoulder as the sound of the motorbike engine gets louder behind me. The boy in the back is lifting the packet off of his lap. I turn away as my dupaata slips off my head and I reach to pull it back up once again.
And then that’s when it happened. An explosion of white light. Such a terrible sound. Where have I heard this sound before? Oh yes, in Kabul. And on CNN, the sounds of the Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo. A freight train, the number 3 rumbling in to 96th street, samba drums. But it won’t go away. Won’t stop. Keeps echoing inside my head, ricocheting through my body.
What is this? Another dizzy spell? Oh my god. I am falling. I can see myself falling. Everything is happening in slow motion now. And Reshma is singing inside my head, “Haye o Rabba nahain lag da dil meyra…sajna baaj hal meyra..,” now the funky version now the classical, how funny. Why is that woman screaming? Why is everyone screaming? Why is everyone staring at me and screaming?
Oh God! Such unbearable pain. Where does it hurt? Oh God everywhere. Please God, not here. Not here. I want to go home. No! Not here. Not now. No. Emilio, Emilio, Emilio…Shhhh. He has told me not to be scared; he has told me everything will be well. See there he is, blowing me a kiss from inside the cab, or was it me blowing him the kiss?
He is holding me, finally, after two long years, he is finally holding me. See him holding me? He told me I looked beautiful, he liked the dress I wore last night. Did I dance meringue with him last night? Was it last night? Did I tell him I still loved him? But the light will turn green soon and his cab will pull away once again. I must tell him. But this is where the story ends.
Emilio this is how the story ends. Zahra don’t worry. I will read the story. I will write to you. I will call you. I will see you again. I’m scared Emilio. Don’t be Zahra…I am with you in your travels.
You killed Zahra?!
Yes, she is mine to kill. After all it is my story.
Our story. Don’t I get a say in the matter?
What would you rather do with her? Leave her in this state of limbo forever because you simply have no idea what the hell you do want to do with her?
What do you mean? Can’t there possibly be another outcome than violent death?! And look at you, now you’re even blaming him for her death! Saint Zahra, dies praying for evil Emilio!
Look, I got stuck. It was clear after a while that she couldn’t be without him and she couldn’t be with him. There was no way out but death. I have always known that I would have to do this. I would have to kill her, kill that person who goes on and on loving you! It was but inevitable. There is no other way out. I don’t see another solution.
Why didn’t you tell me?
Tell you what?
It is my story too.
Fine. Then you find another way. I have found my solution.
Must everything with you be so extreme? So dramatic? Is there never a middle ground with you?
She spilled her bag when she fell you know.
What?
Her bag. She spilled its contents on the floor outside the Khurrasan. Shall I tell you what was in there? A novel, Bodega Dreams, her work ID and a Metrocard, her passport and Green Card, she had just had her tickets re-confirmed and an album of photos.
Photos of her and Emilio. Not together, always separate. Remember she had never wanted any photos of them together. But in those photos she’s wearing that short short blue dress. And as she’s falling and the purse is spilling she’s thinking, oh god no. No one here should see these photos. She is so horribly uncovered in them, so terribly exposed. And with so many men all around her in those photos, foreign men at that. “Goras!”
I am not a gora! Nor are half the guys in those photos.
Yes, yes. But this is Pakistan and there you are gora. You’re not Pakistani. You’re American. Over there, we, I mean they, don’t do this census like differentiation between Americans. Ironic, crazy. But true.
Anyway, it’s a New York purse, not to be spilled in Karachi and certainly not at the threshold of the Khurrasan. You have to worry about these things in Pakistan, even if you’re dropping dead. Literally.
I see. And how exactly do you plan to handle that?
I’m going to let them spill out. The contents in her bag, photos and all. They are her. They define her.
Nothing shall be altered or covered up. Nothing
May, 2000
* * * * * *
Glossary of Urdu terms:
Shia Imambargah- Place of worship for Shia Muslims. Usually contains replicas of shrines in Iraq where the Prophet Mohammed’s family is buried.
Zari- An open room containing the replicas of shrines.
Khurrasan- Name of one of the main places of worship for Shias in Karachi. A place I go to each time I visit Pakistan. Lately they have cordoned it off to traffic due to fear of shootings, bombings and other means of violence against the shia community.
Allam- Usually a long black pole with a black flag and a silver palm, symbol of Shias.
Baji- A term of respect for older sister. A way to address an older sister or cousin.
Biryani- A rice and meat dish served at weddings and other major events such as anniversaries.
Yaar- Literally means friend. In poetry and song it is used interchangeably for lover. Informal and usually more initimate friends are referred to as yaar. Indicates comfort level.
Kasam se- Means “I swear, or I promise.”
Gora- Literally means white. Also used to mean white male.
Desi- People of the sub-continent refer to themselves and each other as desis. Means of the homeland. Desh is homeland.
Reshma- A folk singer from Pakistan whose songs have also been remixed in to Bhangra. The line used translates in to, Dear god my heart feels unsettled. Without my love, the state I am in…
The Dawn
April 24th, 2000
Love Marriage Leaves One Dead, Two Injured
Elopement incites sectarian killing at Shia Imambargah
KARACHI- Sections of Karachi city remain under dawn to dusk curfew today in the wake of the motorcycle drive-by shooting at the Jamia Khurrasan which left one woman dead and two others badly injured. All three women are said to be from the Fiqqa’Jaffria Shia sect. The shootings were allegedly related to a revenge killing by the family of a Sunni girl who eloped with a Shia boy one month ago. The deceased whose name has been withheld, died on the way to Jinnah Hospital. She was not related to either family and is said by witnesses to have been mistakenly identified by the assailants as a sister of the eloped boy. Informed sources have told The Dawn that the deceased lived abroad and was visiting family in Karachi. No other details are currently available. The boy’s two sisters were also injured in the shootings and remain in stable condition at Jinnah. The assailants remain at large and are suspected to be the brother and cousin of the eloped girl. Sections of Karachi have been placed under a dawn to dusk curfew to prevent further sectarian bloodshed. Army troops have been dispatched from Malir Cantonment to control the situation in the troubled sections of Karachi. Related violence has already been reported in the areas of New Town, Gulshan and North Nazimabad where gangs of Shia men have allegedly attempted to burn down Sunni madrassas in reprisal for yesterday’s shootings. The Governor of Sindh has pleaded for calm in the wake of this tragedy, saying that this incident should not be turned in to a sectarian issue but rather judged as a heinous inhuman act of violence committed by a few criminal elements…
Midnight Eastern Standard Time in the United States is roughly the time The Dawn newspaper in Karachi updates its daily news website. At midnight the phone begins to ring. Emilio ignores it until he has finished reading Zahra’s email. She writes to him almost every day now keeping him updated on her travels. They seem to have settled in to an old familiar routine, corresponding frequently via email, but almost never speaking on the phone nor meeting.
Zahra does not complain nor asks for more. That suits Emilio just fine, he cannot for the moment commit more of his time, nor does he feel the need to dwell on whether he should. As long as he has known her they have lived in different cities. And though every year he seems to move just a little bit closer he cannot decide whether or not he wants to make New York his home. Their new relationship is uncomplicated, “sin compromiso” as he once told her.
Why couldn’t it have been like this when they were together? He wonders. He shakes his head in amusement thinking that they are more “together” now than when they actually were. They are bound together by something he cannot quite put his finger on. He and Zahra are woven together in a tapestry of sorts, a story which is still being created. He cannot let her go until the final chapter takes shape. He wonders what has changed between them, brought them so effortlessly closer to each other. Perhaps it is the lack of demands, the lack of obligation. There are no “have to write, have to call, have to meet” between them, everything is voluntary, of its own accord and in it’s own time. He feels unencumbered by her presence in his life. It’s the perfect situation yet he feels something missing. He has no real right over her, no say in anything she does.
At times he feels like a mere visitor, a guest, without permanence or a place in her life. He is disturbed by these thoughts; after all, permanence is something he has always shied away from. May be this is how it feels to get older he consoles himself. He wonders if Zahra feels the same way about him. When he does give priority to anything beside himself it is Zahra. He knows he is partial toward her, sometimes almost reverential in the way he handles her. He has already told her that she was part of a defining moment in his life, a period in time that has shaped him. But that was all he was willing to tell her, there was nothing more to say. He couldn’t make sense of it himself.
May be he needs to go back to New York and spend some time with her, figure this out once and for all. But Emilio has simply been too pre-occupied with his work to change the status quo. Besides they have already been through the worst moments.
The face to face meeting after two years. The moment of reckoning. Her time to make him account for all his misdeeds. Torture. She had put him through two straight days of sheer torture. She had even called him “toxic”, spitting the word out at him so unexpectedly. He had winced momentarily as the impact of her insult hit him in the face like a bee sting and had left him stunned. She had then held her head in her hands and said she couldn’t believe she had just called him that, but he should not mistake this for an apology. She would not apologize to him; after all he had never apologized to her for anything he had done. And at that moment he had to control himself, snap out of it, shake the insane images out of his mind. As she sat on the floor holding her head, all he could think of was wrestling her to the ground and climbing on top of her. There was a time she would have let him, but only to a point.
But this time would be different. He knew if he started touching her he wouldn’t stop no matter what she said. So the two days in her apartment had been spent in torture, repentance and desire for her. She had not so much as brushed against him, studiously maintaining a safe distance between them and leaving him isolated inside his overactive imagination.
But he had wanted to go through this, for himself. Jumping at the very first opportunity she presented to him. Some inexplicable need for self-flagellation. But she had also made it so easy on him. A slap across one side of his face a caress on the other. And the manuscript she had flung at him, the story she had been writing all these years. “Read it!” she had commanded between sobs. “Right now? All of it?.” He had asked, somewhat incredulous at her request. “No, just the first paragraph.” She remained firm. He had looked up at her with mournful eyes, and realized there was no option but to do as she said. From the determined look on her tear stained face he could sense that she was on a mission and there would be no stopping her, nor trying to get in her way.
He dreaded confronting what now lay open to page one in front of him on the bed. He slowly covered the rest of the page with his hands and began reading only the first paragraph, while she stood watching his face from a distance as he read, her arms folded across her body, tears continuing to stream down her face.
February 13th, 1999
A year from now you will feel anguish remembering every single detail of this weekend Zahra. But I will barely recall your having been there with me. You will mourn this weekend as if commemorating a death anniversary. But I won’t think of you, no, not once. Another woman, another place, another bed. You should have known. It was your responsibility to have understood. Your problem. I told you not to get involved with me. Didn’t I warn you? I was as honest as I could be. You didn’t listen to me did you? But you should have known, you were never more than just another woman in my bed, in some other place.
Emilio had already begun shaking his head from side to side before finishing and finally looked up at her with an expression of alarm and disbelief across his face.
Not my words, these are not my words.
No, they are mine. Do you understand now? For two years these are the words which have been floating round and round in my head. This is what I have lived with day and night. I have imagined your words, your thoughts. No, these are my words, all mine.
I’m sorry, I am so sorry, is all he was able to muster up weakly. I didn’t know. I had no idea.
How could you? You never bothered to find out. You never once asked about me, not once called to see if I was dead or alive. If you really wanted to know, you would have found out no matter what the consequences.
Its not like that…he had pleaded. But decided to let it go. She was not in a forgiving mood and he would come at her from another angle, at some other time, may be tomorrow.
Why doesn’t he do something about Zahra now that the worst is over and the dust has settled between them? She seems to have forgiven his past deeds, may be not forgotten but she certainly seemed to have let the past go. May be deep down inside he is afraid that this time she will be the one to reject him. It’s that trust thing which she kept on throwing in his face. He knows she still cannot fully trust him. Besides, he still does not know for sure if there is someone else in her life, although he knows that she is well aware of the constant parade of other women in his. But he fears that if she were to find someone else he would be devastated.
For now he can barely keep up with her writing, responding occasionally yet loyally reading everyone of her dispatches. Today, she writes, she will go to pray. He never thought her the religious type, but she is attached to this particular ritual. She had even shown him a photo of this place she goes to in Karachi. Some temple, or mosque. A special place for the Shias.
He can’t remember it, but remembers seeing the photograph in an album she had created for him with photographs taken all over Karachi. But that was a while ago. She says she will go and pray for him today, for the success of his business venture. He had finally written to her about how stressful the last couple of weeks had been not knowing if the business would survive without new investors. She had now written back saying that everything would be fine. She would pray for his success. Zahra, he had said to himself, you’re something else. Her email remains on his computer screen as he answers the phone on the third ring.
Hey Mohsin, how are you? No, don’t worry. I’m usually up late doing email. Good to hear from you man. It’s been a while. Yeah, what’s up?
That’s just not possible. I’m reading her email. Right now! No! You don’t understand I just finished reading her email!
Emilio, listen. Listen to me. I know this is difficult. We’re 10 hours behind Pakistan. She must have written this…Emilio…listen to me.
I am listening! Explain this to me man! You explain this to me. It’s your damn country. Go ahead explain this to me. Explain it so that I can understand. She went there to pray. Forme. Do you understand? That’s what she wrote. Oh God ….Zahra…. write….please. Please Zahra……just keep writing to me….please…
Zahra hears the sound of a motorcycle behind her as she walks toward the marble staircase leading up to the main Zari of the Khurrasan. She turns her head slightly back, eyes squinting in the afternoon Karachi sunlight. Two boys are sitting on a motorbike near the main allam. They couldn’t be more than 20 years old. One of them is straddling a long golf club shaped packet which lies flat across his lap. Both are wearing t-shirts and jeans, baseball caps turned backward. They could be from anywhere, in any city she thinks, and smiles remembering the Yankees baseball cap hanging on the side of the full length mirror in her bedroom.
She feels homesickness wash all over her as she thinks about Fernando and her first view of Yankee Stadium as the number 4 train emerged from underground. Thirteen years in New York and last October was the first time she went to a baseball game. Yankees vs. the Boston Redsox. Fernando flanking her protectively on the right, Leily fortifying the left. She sat sandwiched between the two baseball fanatics, chilled to the bone, hating the game and loving every moment with them. Fernando had hoped to entice Zahra’s interest in the game by giving her pictures and articles of the Yankee’s pitcher Andy Pettite, whom Zahra found “positively yummy” and “the only reason on earth to watch that stupid game!”
“I want a tour of Washington Heights,” she had declared to Fernando 7 years ago. “Heck no!” he had responded, shaking his head from side to side. “Nah Zee, with you I would need to be strapped. Cuz you see, you would be a liability. Over there, you won’t be able to walk the walk or talk the talk. Nah, may be one day..but I’ll definitely need to be strapped.”
Years later it had finally dawned on Zahra what an idiot she had been to believe his antics about Upper Manhattan, although she was still trying to figure out whether it was “if you can’t walk the walk don’t talk the talk or if you can’t talk the talk don’t walk the walk.” Fernando had introduced her to this wisdom when her 23 year old cousin Raza had barely survived an assassination attempt by a rival political gang in Karachi. He had been shot at close range around the corner from the Askari apartments, his home. The bullet had pierced through his right shoulder and out his back, missing his lungs and spine by a fraction.
His mother’s prayers they had all said and Zahra believed this to be true more than anything else. She can clearly remember the phone call she had made to the hospital the day she got the news from her own mother. She had maniacally pounded the numbers on the telephone 0119221…0119221…0119221 over and over again she kept hitting the numbers until she finally heard the familiar ring through to Pakistan, her heart racing at the possible news that lay at the other end of the line.
“Zahra? Oh my god Zahra, can you believe this?” It was Raza’s sister. “Can you believe they shot our baby? What kind of country is this? Can you believe it? I can still hear gunshots right outside this hospital. Guns, guns, guns everywhere. We’ve gone mad. Children with guns, they’re just kids. Do they even know what MQM or PPP or whatever even stands for? Here speak to Raza, he wants to talk to you.”
Zahra had been shocked that Raza was able to talk to her. “Zahra baji,” he had moaned. “Thank your stars I’m alive, or else a year from now you would have been eating biryani, commemorating my death anniversary every November 26th” Zahra had laughed and cried, and then felt nauseas as someone placed a fax in front of her while she continued talking to Raza who now lay in terrible pain at the Jinnah Hospital in Karachi. “Tell your sister I just received the fax.” She hears him convey the message haltingly as she quickly runs her eyes over the words in front of her.
E.R Attending: Dr. Sohail Jaffer
Date: November 27th, 1993
Name of Patient: Syed Raza Kazmi.
Age: 23.
Profession: First year Medical Student at Jinnah.
Cause of Injury: Bullet wound to the right shoulder.
Initial Assessment: Total paralysis of right arm and hand C1 to C3. Complete loss of motor function. He is not expected to regain use of his right arm. It is recommended that he be taken to the United States as soon as he is able to travel for treatment and physical therapy.
“Zahra Baji, I’m in so much pain yaar. So much pain” Raza continued as Zahra reached the end of the fax, crying and rocking back and forth as she clamped her hand across her mouth to stop herself from sobbing out loud. Raza’s voice sounded distant, coming toward her from another time and place. “My arm. They are saying it will be all right, but I know. Tell them I know. I’m a medical student yaar. I know. How will I become a surgeon? Tell them to stop pretending. I know.”
Years later she and Raza would sit outdoors on the steps near the canteen of Jinnah Hospital. While they both drank sweetened milky tea he began telling her what had happened that night. “I knew them all, Zahra Baji. The one who shot me. I knew him. He’s dead now. Got shot himself. He was about five feet away when he pulled the trigger, we were face to face. I swear I saw the bullet coming at me. I swear. And that’s when I knew that I was dead.
This is where they brought me. I can still hear the doctors saying I may not survive. Too much blood loss. If I survived the night I had a chance. And then I heard one of them say, he might live but he’ll lose his arm. I also remember him saying. I know this boy. He is one of my students. But kasam se Zahra Baji, the girls have more respect for me now. Yaar… they look at me differently!”
And now Fernando was still insisting that he wanted to be a cop, assuring Zahra that he would not be asked to work in his own neighborhood. “No!” she had been vehement. “I won’t let you become one. We’re going to find you a job where you won’t get killed. I refuse to lose you to the streets of New York!” She had declared somewhat dramatically. “But the benefits are great and I can continue my education.” He had tried to sound convincing. “Fat lot of good benefits will do you when you’re dead!” Zahra had retorted. “No, no NYPD for you.” And that is when she had talked to him about Raza, telling him how much he reminded her of her cousin. Fernando had said that this would be different, he could walk the walk and talk the talk. Something Zahra’s cousin couldn’t do and those who shot him knew that. “No Fernando, you don’t understand. He got shot because he did walk the walk, talk the talk, or whatever combination thereof. He got shot for who he unmistakably was when he walked and especially when he talked. They wanted him to do their bidding, join this political party, no, this mafia of young boys from immigrant families. It’s hard to explain. They wanted him to be strapped. All the time. How do I explain this to you? It’s about being marked as an immigrant.
For Raza, there was no escape, especially when he talked.” Fernando looked down solemnly, something had struck a nerve. And then he had told her that he too had narrowly escaped a drug related shooting incident, a drive by. They had been gunning for his uncle and he, only a child then had been walking beside his uncle on a sunny summer afternoon. Both had survived, a bullet grazing Fernando’s leg. Fernando had promised Zahra he would think twice about his career choice and when he failed the NYPD Psychological exam, Zahra had celebrated silently and had quickly mobilized to find Fernando another occupation.
But that was seven years ago a couple of months after she had first spoken to Fernando who had fallen asleep next to her on the number 3 train, heading downtown to Wall Street. He was a kid she would end up standing next to on the 96th street subway platform every morning. Both of them would get on to the train at the same spot, the middle car where the conductor is.
She would see Fernando dashing out of the number 1 train across the platform or already be waiting there with a gang of friends whose appearances scared her enough to move in closer to Fernando, the least scary of them all. Bandanas, earrings in both ears, braided hair, thick silver or gold chains around their necks, Zahra had stereotyped them to the hilt and had decided that Fernando was the “safest” because morning after morning he was bandana less, chain less and the quietest of the lot. Hands tucked inside the pockets of his tan leather jacket, he usually contributed silence to the raucous conversation around him. A nod here, a laugh there. A slap on the hand with a “later bro..”as the scarier ones exited at 42nd street.
And as he slept that morning nodding his head dangerously close to her shoulder, Zahra thought of how much he reminded her of Raza, her favorite amongst all her cousins. They must be the same age she mused as Wall Street approached and the kid continued to sleep. This could have been Raza, she thought, if he had lived in New York, this would be Raza. Unsure whether to nudge him awake, Zahra took a chance and gently tapped him on the shoulder. “Wall Street,” she said smiling and standing up. They exited the train together and as Zahra buttoned up her winter coat she turned to see if he was still behind her. He was. She stopped to let him catch up with her, “aren’t you cold in that thin jacket?” “Nah,” he muttered turning a little red. “I don’t get cold.”
She never did believe him, winter after winter seeing him in that thin tan leather jacket. Well, she finally mused, Raza was now working in New York and married to a Dominican girl, never fully having gained the use of his right arm. And Fernando was a banker, a husband a father and a proud owner of a new BMW and a new Hugo Boss winter coat which he had proudly modeled for her.
Why had Fernando told her he couldn’t speak in Spanish when they had first met? That memory is bothering her now. She must ask him when she gets back to New York and she must introduce Raza to Fernando really soon she thinks as she begins to climb up the marble steps.
The collage of New York thoughts still linger inside my head as I hear a motorbike approaching slowly. How strange, I thought they had cordoned this area off to all vehicles. I turn my head again looking over my shoulder as the sound of the motorbike engine gets louder behind me. The boy in the back is lifting the packet off of his lap. I turn away as my dupaata slips off my head and I reach to pull it back up once again.
And then that’s when it happened. An explosion of white light. Such a terrible sound. Where have I heard this sound before? Oh yes, in Kabul. And on CNN, the sounds of the Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo. A freight train, the number 3 rumbling in to 96th street, samba drums. But it won’t go away. Won’t stop. Keeps echoing inside my head, ricocheting through my body.
What is this? Another dizzy spell? Oh my god. I am falling. I can see myself falling. Everything is happening in slow motion now. And Reshma is singing inside my head, “Haye o Rabba nahain lag da dil meyra…sajna baaj hal meyra..,” now the funky version now the classical, how funny. Why is that woman screaming? Why is everyone screaming? Why is everyone staring at me and screaming?
Oh God! Such unbearable pain. Where does it hurt? Oh God everywhere. Please God, not here. Not here. I want to go home. No! Not here. Not now. No. Emilio, Emilio, Emilio…Shhhh. He has told me not to be scared; he has told me everything will be well. See there he is, blowing me a kiss from inside the cab, or was it me blowing him the kiss?
He is holding me, finally, after two long years, he is finally holding me. See him holding me? He told me I looked beautiful, he liked the dress I wore last night. Did I dance meringue with him last night? Was it last night? Did I tell him I still loved him? But the light will turn green soon and his cab will pull away once again. I must tell him. But this is where the story ends.
Emilio this is how the story ends. Zahra don’t worry. I will read the story. I will write to you. I will call you. I will see you again. I’m scared Emilio. Don’t be Zahra…I am with you in your travels.
You killed Zahra?!
Yes, she is mine to kill. After all it is my story.
Our story. Don’t I get a say in the matter?
What would you rather do with her? Leave her in this state of limbo forever because you simply have no idea what the hell you do want to do with her?
What do you mean? Can’t there possibly be another outcome than violent death?! And look at you, now you’re even blaming him for her death! Saint Zahra, dies praying for evil Emilio!
Look, I got stuck. It was clear after a while that she couldn’t be without him and she couldn’t be with him. There was no way out but death. I have always known that I would have to do this. I would have to kill her, kill that person who goes on and on loving you! It was but inevitable. There is no other way out. I don’t see another solution.
Why didn’t you tell me?
Tell you what?
It is my story too.
Fine. Then you find another way. I have found my solution.
Must everything with you be so extreme? So dramatic? Is there never a middle ground with you?
She spilled her bag when she fell you know.
What?
Her bag. She spilled its contents on the floor outside the Khurrasan. Shall I tell you what was in there? A novel, Bodega Dreams, her work ID and a Metrocard, her passport and Green Card, she had just had her tickets re-confirmed and an album of photos.
Photos of her and Emilio. Not together, always separate. Remember she had never wanted any photos of them together. But in those photos she’s wearing that short short blue dress. And as she’s falling and the purse is spilling she’s thinking, oh god no. No one here should see these photos. She is so horribly uncovered in them, so terribly exposed. And with so many men all around her in those photos, foreign men at that. “Goras!”
I am not a gora! Nor are half the guys in those photos.
Yes, yes. But this is Pakistan and there you are gora. You’re not Pakistani. You’re American. Over there, we, I mean they, don’t do this census like differentiation between Americans. Ironic, crazy. But true.
Anyway, it’s a New York purse, not to be spilled in Karachi and certainly not at the threshold of the Khurrasan. You have to worry about these things in Pakistan, even if you’re dropping dead. Literally.
I see. And how exactly do you plan to handle that?
I’m going to let them spill out. The contents in her bag, photos and all. They are her. They define her.
Nothing shall be altered or covered up. Nothing
May, 2000
* * * * * *
Glossary of Urdu terms:
Shia Imambargah- Place of worship for Shia Muslims. Usually contains replicas of shrines in Iraq where the Prophet Mohammed’s family is buried.
Zari- An open room containing the replicas of shrines.
Khurrasan- Name of one of the main places of worship for Shias in Karachi. A place I go to each time I visit Pakistan. Lately they have cordoned it off to traffic due to fear of shootings, bombings and other means of violence against the shia community.
Allam- Usually a long black pole with a black flag and a silver palm, symbol of Shias.
Baji- A term of respect for older sister. A way to address an older sister or cousin.
Biryani- A rice and meat dish served at weddings and other major events such as anniversaries.
Yaar- Literally means friend. In poetry and song it is used interchangeably for lover. Informal and usually more initimate friends are referred to as yaar. Indicates comfort level.
Kasam se- Means “I swear, or I promise.”
Gora- Literally means white. Also used to mean white male.
Desi- People of the sub-continent refer to themselves and each other as desis. Means of the homeland. Desh is homeland.
Reshma- A folk singer from Pakistan whose songs have also been remixed in to Bhangra. The line used translates in to, Dear god my heart feels unsettled. Without my love, the state I am in…
posted by Unknown | 8:49 AM
9 Comments:
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