Farah Ali
Loved Ones
So now here they all were. Here we all are, together again. Like a line from a song, Zara thought. Her palms were not clammy but her mouth was dry. But she was ok. She was ok. She felt the weight of her daughter Sana on her right arm, and, after a moment, decided that she was not uncomfortable with it. And when Leena, who was four, squeezed into the space between her back and the sofa, Zara thought she was ok with that too. She closed her eyes and felt her body thrum with the relief of these realizations. Her children smelled of biscuits dipped in tea, and grass. She took in these scents which she remembered from many weeks ago, and her happiness flew up and stood dangerously on one foot on a cliff edge. It was almost too much to bear. But because she was better now, and had taken her medicine, she returned to feeling mellow.
She wondered at herself, because a few minutes ago, outside the house in Hassan’s car that smelled of car polish, she had told him that she was going to wait right there; she wasn’t going in. It had been a momentary flutter of panic, and she was not going to be hard on herself about it now. About being afraid of seeing her children. She felt kindly toward her cowardly self from thirty minutes ago. And now here were her bare feet on the blue, blue carpet. Mrs. Diwan preferred that people left their shoes at the entrance. Zara’s children looked chubbier, and combed, and shiny. Was it four weeks? Or five? Thinking about that was difficult and she made that thought become as small as a dot, until she couldn’t see it anymore. She chewed on a small piece of loose skin on her thumb and thought about saying something to Mrs. Diwan, who sat straight and smiled stiffly from the other side of the carpet.
“Did you have a nice stay?” Mrs. Diwan spoke.
Zara tried to discreetly pick the piece of thumb skin off her tongue, while nodding vigorously. “Yes, they were very nice there. It was lovely.”
“Lovely,” Mrs. Diwan repeated. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
Was it lovely? Zara wondered. It must have been. She had a residual impression of the Retreat as a place full of women who moved slowly and sat slowly and got up slowly, to the sound of the lapping of water somewhere. Almost like a spa, only with doctors. One of them had told her, on the day she was leaving, “You will be greeted by loved ones.” Though she wasn’t sure if the doctor had really emphasized the word “will.” Zara fixed her teeth onto a new piece of skin from her thumb. Next to her, Hassan and the girls talked about many, many things.
The doors in the other side of the room slid open and a young girl entered. Nazish, Zara remembered. With great caution, Nazish pushed a serving trolley, trying not to jiggle the cups and bowls and spoons as the wheels transitioned from cold floor to soft carpet. A big brown dupatta lay over half of her head and draped over all of her front, the ends falling behind her. Slowly, slowly, the girl and the trolley came closer. Sana and Leena jumped down from the sofa when they saw the plate of cupcakes with yellow frosting. How strange all this is, Zara thought. She saw Hassan fill their plates with whatever they asked for, sandwiches and potato chips and cupcakes. An older habit made her want to tell them they were never going to eat all of that, but she felt shy. One of the girls said something and it made Hassan laugh. He sat on the carpet with them. Crisscross applesauce, she thought. Like in their school. Nazish stood behind the trolley, hands clasped in front. Zara knew the girl was staring at her.
The car ride to Hassan’s mother’s house had been long. Zara had looked out of the window at the old trees under which stood vendors with carts, and when they stopped at a traffic light, she bought a comb from a child who was selling cheap plastic ware. His serious face appeared in the side mirror as the car moved forward.
“Have they been going to school?” she asked, and Hassan answered in the affirmative. “Did they ask about me?” and Hassan told her that they had asked about her every day but they were not worried because they knew she would be coming back soon.
And wasn’t she happy going back? He could not help asking her that.
“I’m happy,” she said, still looking out of her window. She worried that she had bought only one comb for her two children.
Later, after Nazish had wheeled away the trolley with its little treats, they brought the girls home with them. “I’m taking them back today,” is what Hassan had said to his mother. They had stood in a triangle and Zara had pressed her feet upon the softness of the carpet. Mrs. Diwan’s mouth was a thin line, her arms crossed over her chest. Zara looked down and marveled at how clean it looked; maybe the girls’ grandmother had been strict about them eating in this room. Mrs. Diwan opened her mouth and then closed it. Then, as if she had settled an argument in her head, she said, “Fine. But Nazish goes with you.” That’s how they drove home, five instead of four.
“We’ll have to tell Nazish,” Zara said to Hassan that night, a familiar anxiety filling her stomach. She wished she had spoken up and told her mother-in-law that she did not need her maid, but she was so deep under the mound of debt of Hassan’s Tolerance of Zara, that acquiescing to his mother allowed her to repay him a little.
“She probably already knows,” he said with a sigh, looking at his wife staring at the ceiling, nibbling at her finger. He was tired; he had had to drive all over the city and now finally the pieces of his family were back where they belonged. “Goodnight,” he said, turning his back to her. Zara tried to remember if it was five weeks or six, things looked a little unfamiliar in her house.
But in the morning, she woke up early and happy. The house was quiet, but outside there were crows. Zara stepped onto the grass, dew-covered blades touching her feet through the open spaces in her sandals. In the breeze, Zara breathed in and out and smelled the grass and the warmth of the summer and glanced at the Gulmohar trees that had grown up around the perimeter of the lawn. There was no subtlety in their red-orange blooms and they caused a part of her mind some disquiet: small windows opened into tunnels leading to other similar trees and yellow afternoons from long ago.
Zara went inside to the kitchen and opened all the cupboards and the fridge and nothing had changed. She was going to make breakfast, a big one. Pancakes for Sana and Leena, and an omelet for Hassan, with tomatoes and onions in it, the way he liked. When Nazish came in to help, Zara told her that she was managing fine on her own. The girl was reluctant to leave and stood by the door. Zara opened and shut drawers.
“Where are the knives?” she asked.
Nazish shrugged. She’d never worked in this house before. “Baji, ab aap theek ho gaee ho?” she asked. Baji, are you cured now?
Zara frowned and told her to get out of the kitchen and go back to her room, but she said this in a low voice. Unhurriedly, Nazish went away, playing with the ends of her dupatta. After breakfast, Zara took a glass of water to her room and shook out two pink pills from a jar. It was easy to swallow them, each was only as big as the nail on her little finger.
“Today was a good day,” she told Hassan later. She had not wanted to hurry away from her children’s bedsides; she had stayed, reading them story after story until her voice became hoarse. Then Leena had wanted her mother to not leave the room, so Zara had lain next to her on the narrow bed, half of her body on its wooden frame, but that had not bothered her.
Hassan closed his laptop and turned to his wife. He had been told by her doctor to do that when she spoke to him, it would help them talk and listen better. He was startled to realize how unattractive she appeared to him just then. How unfortunate, he thought sadly.
“We played games and colored, and Leena sat on my lap and ate her lunch,” Zara went on. Then she remembered about the knives and asked Hassan if he knew where they were. She suddenly felt embarrassed and said, “I need them for making food.” She did not look at him.
Hassan thought that he had to try, at least once. “Can’t Nazish do the cooking? She can do a good job, ammi said.”
When Zara said nothing, Hassan made a decision. He knew she was punctual with her medication. Each morning, before she woke up, he tipped the little pills out into his palm and counted them. He would have to talk to Nazish, though, just to make sure. “Let’s go,” he said, putting on a smile when Zara looked at him. They walked to the kitchen. She looked away when he reached over the top of a cabinet and pulled towards him, slowly, for there were knives and scissors in it, a heavy shoebox. It made a rasping sound against the dust and increased Zara’s discomfort.
“I could’ve climbed up onto the counter and gotten them, you know,” she said, trying to make light of the moment.
Changing his grip on the edge of the box, Hassan started to lift it down. The edge slid out from between his fingers and tipped forward, the knives and scissors freefalling. Zara screamed and Hassan swore and pushed her out of the way. But it was already over. The instruments lay on the counter and the floor, inert once more. Hassan picked them up and threw them into the box.
“You’re bleeding,” Zara said. There was a thin line of blood from a cut on the back of his right hand. “Don’t get it on the counter.”
When they woke up the next day, Sana and Leena made a big fuss over their father’s band aid. They put their arms around his neck and hugged him. They told him that they did not want to go to school. Zara watched him give them piggyback rides up to their room. She stood at the bottom of the stairs, listening to their shrieks of laughter. Then Leena appeared at the top, in her school uniform, asking her mother to play with them, and Zara felt relief massage away the worry from her brain. She asked, “Do you like my shirt?” smoothing down the yellow fabric of her qameez. Leena said that yellow was her favorite color and Zara trembled with joy. She thought about tomorrow and all the days to come, saw herself poised on the very edge of the silk ribbon of a new beginning, shiny with promise. Things were different now.
On weekday mornings, Hassan left with the girls to take them to school before going to work, and Zara walked from room to room, putting away toys and books and crayons. Nazish stayed in the kitchen, sitting on the floor. She hadn’t yet been asked to do anything in the house. She did not clean the tiles or make meals or wipe the counters, and she wasn’t worried about the lack of things to do. Sometimes Zara heard her humming quietly. After some time, she found it easier to give the maid small tasks, found herself feeling better for it because when Nazish was scrubbing a floor, it did not matter so much what she knew about Zara. And soon Nazish didn’t have time to sit on the floor and daydream anymore. Zara started taking her medicine in the morning after which she went to bed and slept until noon. She always woke up covered in sweat, so she showered and wore bright colors before leaving with the driver to pick up Sana and Leena from school. The entrance of the school building was always crowded and Zara stayed in her car.
Most nights she was able to fall asleep and stay asleep, but one night she woke up and was disappointed to see that it was only three in the morning. Her face and back and armpits were sticky with sweat, and there was a gnawing hunger in her stomach. For just a moment, she thought that she was still in her Retreat, where the doors were made of deodar wood and the floors made of marble. There was a manmade pond but she could never exactly where it was. She breathed in deeply, and remembered that she was on her bed in her house. But a part of her memory had snagged onto a face in a room. On a soft, beige leather sofa, sat a woman whose name Zara couldn’t remember. She had a smile that invited confidences.
“Have you been here a long time?” the woman began.
“Maybe three or four weeks,” Zara said, willing her voice to sound more certain.
“Have you found what you were looking for?” the woman asked. She tapped a pen against an open notebook on her lap.
Zara shook her head. “I wasn’t looking for anything.”
The woman said, “Your husband didn’t take care of you.”
“No! He was wonderful!”
“You hated your children?” the woman went on.
Zara felt guilty but she knew this woman was wrong. “They are all wonderful. It was only me, always.”
The woman giggled. She put the notebook and pen on a table and said, “Let’s go walk in the garden before Dr. Hena finds us here.” They walked to the door and she turned to Zara and said with a grin, “You did well. We must play this again.”
Zara looked at the clock and saw that it was almost four. She was relieved to find herself sleepy again.
When the heat turned stickier and the sun yellower, staying out for longer, Zara wondered if she should stop taking the pink pills entirely. They were making it hard for her to fit into her clothes, and the coldest setting on the air-conditioner was not enough to stop the sweat from covering her face. And they were happy now, weren’t they? So she opened the jars one by one, and flushed away their contents.
One afternoon, during her daughters’ summer holidays, they went to the park, Nazish and the girls and Zara. The maid played with Leena and Sana while she watched from a bench. Papery blossoms from trees lay on the grass. Down there, underneath her feet, they were harmless. Sweat gathered quickly on her upper lip and she wiped it off with her sleeve. There was no breeze and she wondered how all the other women were able to walk on the three hundred and fifty-meter long jogging track, in their shalwar qameez. She thought their sneakers looked comical. A younger woman came running up the track, effortlessly flying past the more heavyset walkers in her pink and black running shoes. Two little boys called out “mama” to her from the swings and she waved to them, and Zara felt conscious about the bulges under her shirt. The heat pressed up her nostrils, went down into her lungs. She watched Nazish’s eyes widen in admiration at the runner. A second later, Sana and Leena started arguing and their high-pitched voices fell loudly on her eardrums. Nazish went to mediate and soon the little girls were laughing again. Zara thought that the dupatta on Nazish’s head looked extremely slovenly, sitting on her frizzy hair, so far away from her forehead.
At home, in the kitchen, Nazish got busy making sandwiches, noisily setting out plates and cups on the table. She was in a mood to have a friendly chat, seeing that Zara was sitting at the kitchen table.
“You used to be smart like that running woman, baji, before you had babies,” she said. “My sister was always fat, even before she had her baby. After the baby, she used to cry all day and not feed it.” She twisted open a packet of bread, the red plastic crackling. “Her husband gave the baby to his mother and kicked my sister out of the house. Your husband is a good man.”
Zara looked away from Nazish. Leena and Sana whined that they did not want to eat; their voices were too thin. Zara picked up a glass and threw it onto the floor, and the room was finally quiet. She locked herself in her bathroom and climbed into the empty bathtub. Hours later, Hassan knocked on the door, but she came out only when she heard him walk away. She went quietly to the children’s room and found them asleep. She lay down next to Sana and whispered to her that she was sorry. Then she went to Leena and kissed her forehead and said sorry to her as well. She was going to give them a perfect day tomorrow. She stayed in their room and fell asleep there.
* * *
Mrs. Diwan called Hassan as he drove home from work. He listened to the sound of his mother, her topics varying from the trouble with her cook to a lunch she had gone to. Traffic was slow but he didn’t mind. He liked how Karachi felt after the sun went down and the lights turned on. The city seemed to enter a more reckless post-work mood. The cadence of Mrs. Diwan’s words did not change and the words blurred pleasantly in Hassan’s ear. He saw the red rear lights of cars and vans and motorcycles, moving too close to each other and always forward, miraculously never even grazing another. Is that how Zara and I are? he wondered. Jagged-edged but keeping just far enough apart to avoid skin and flesh being ripped into. But he was torn, and she was torn, and they both knew it. How long ago had he counted her pills? He wasn’t sure.
“Hassan, I want to come over for a visit,” his mother repeated. “I miss my grandchildren. And I’m bringing a doctor friend over. For Zara. I think she needs my help.”
Mrs. Diwan came over with a woman called Nilofer on a Monday afternoon. Nazish carried in samosas, cake and tea on a tray. Zara smiled at her mother-in-law’s friend and wondered who she was. Mrs. Diwan talked about a charity dinner she had attended last week, and when Leena came into the room, she allowed herself to be led away by her. Zara and Nilofer were left alone in the drawing room.
“Would you like to see a baby turtle?” Zara asked.
Nilofer smiled and set her plate down on the coffee table. She delicately wiped her fingers clean with a tissue. “I would love to.”
Upstairs in the girls’ room was a tank, filled with water which appeared slightly green. Zara and Nilofer peered into it. A little turtle, no longer than half a forefinger, sat on a rock.
“Do you know anything about turtles?” Zara asked. The stillness of the water in the tank made her speak almost in a whisper.
“I’ve never had pets,” Nilofer replied. She thought the creature’s little face was repulsive.
“I bought him last week as a surprise for my children.” Zara tapped the glass softly.
“He’s not looking so well.” Nilofer cleared her throat. “Try giving it some vitamins, maybe?”
Zara wondered if the turtle was going to move into the water soon. “Who the hell are you?” she asked quietly.
Nilofer saw the turtle’s wrinkled eyelid move down then up. A slow blink. She had never seen a real turtle before. “I help people,” she said.
Zara wanted to rub the turtle’s shell but he looked like he was almost asleep. Maybe there was more grime on its rock than usual.
“When we count our blessings, every day, we start healing our hearts,” said Nilofer, breathing out each word. “I keep a Gratitude Journal.”
* * *
It was Saturday morning. Zara was going to the house of an old friend who was collecting donations to send to earthquake victims in northern Pakistan. Winter was coming and warm clothes were scarce. When Zara had received the text message the day before, she had wanted to reply but she had fallen out of the habit of staying in touch with the few people she spoke to. By nighttime, she had almost emptied her part of the big cupboard that she shared with Hassan. She had four big plastic bags’ worth of clothes and shoes to give. She felt buoyed by selflessness, happy even, and wrote back to her friend that she would like to help. And when, in return, she was told that they had all missed her, Zara felt flooded with the feeling of being wanted and she chastised herself for not telling her close friend that she had needed to go to a special place that she called the Retreat. Her fingers typed, forming sentences for confidential sharing, feeling cheerful about the sadness in her mind. Still, she did not say that she’d had to go away for a while. She did say that she was good now, better.
Now Zara was on her way, she had not wanted to go with the driver. While she had been saying goodbye to her children and telling them that she was going to be back soon, Hassan had tried to find her small jars of medicines but he couldn’t see them anywhere. At a red light, she stopped and carefully examined the hopeful feeling inside her. The pavements looked as if they needed to sleep for a few hours more, but the trees standing tall behind the walls of houses were more awake. Zara turned off the air-conditioning and rolled down the window. She waited for the light to change. There drifted in the smell of grass and, from the branches of a tree, the sound of a koel. Its coos marked the air with thin curves, and an unbearable sadness spread through Zara. Dew and grass and koels—the vignettes arranged themselves rapidly in a spiral, spinning dizzyingly to an unseen center. Her mouth felt dry and she wondered if there was something to eat or drink in the car. She found a box of apple juice with a chewed-up straw. The juice tasted warm and sharp, zinging over her tongue, but she finished it. Somebody behind her honked a horn, it was time to move on. She glanced in the rearview mirror and the car behind her was too close. The man driving it was wearing sunglasses and for ten seconds she wondered if he wanted her dead, but then he changed lanes and sped away.
“I can’t stay long, Amber,” Zara said to her friend.
They were in Amber’s garage, a third of which was full of boxes and bags, some labeled neatly, others hastily closed. Amber crouched in front of the boxes, peering into them and then writing “clothes,” “toys,” or “misc” on their sides.
“I asked people to sort out what they were giving but you know how they can get, right, they think donating is a chance to do a little decluttering.” Amber shook her head. “Anyway, what have you been up to? I haven’t seen you at all these past few months.” She lifted a plastic carrier bag and relocated it, setting it down before Zara could move to help.
Zara wanted to leave. “I’ve just been busy with some things in the family,” she said.
Maybe Amber had not read her message last night. She felt exceedingly foolish for having sent out such quantities of her inner self.
“I read what you wrote,” Amber said, putting the lid on her marker. “I wish you’d told me sooner. You shouldn’t keep things like that bottled up inside. You know, when I see these piles and piles of clothes, I feel that I can’t even understand what being blessed means. I mean, these are our extras and there are cold and hungry people out there for whom these would be essentials. We are so lucky, Zara. We have no room for sadness.”
“I am not good for the children, I shouldn’t be here,” Zara said to Hassan that night. She was crying but not noisily. She nibbled at a piece of skin until it broke away, leaving all of her finger smooth. “What shall I do?”
“I don’t know,” Hassan said, sitting up on his side of the bed. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know!” He knew his voice was rising but she just wouldn’t stop crying. Silently, he counted ten deep breaths. “You’re not taking your medication any more, are you?”
“It was making me feel ill.” Her voice was thick with tears and it made him want to break a lamp, so he walked out of the room. Downstairs in the kitchen, he climbed onto the counter and put the knives in a box on top of a cabinet. He went to sleep on the sofa. After a while, Zara got up from the bed and went to lie down on the carpet in Leena and Sana’s room.
* * *
“Look at that,” she said.
“That what?” he asked.
“That building over there, with the pink shirt in the balcony.”
He saw the pink shirt at the end of her fingertip. “You like that building?” he asked, his voice even.
“It’s beautiful. It doesn’t belong here,” she said.
“Well. It’s housing for people…”
She thought his sentence was foolish, and perhaps he thought the same because when the light turned green he pressed hard on the accelerator and she moved back with a jerk. When they reached home, she waited to see if he would stride ahead without her. She felt waves of gratitude when he opened her car door, and she asked him if he wanted some coffee, worried that he will say no, that he will tell her he hated her because they had taken their daughters back to his mother’s house today. But he said coffee would be great, so she made it in his favorite cup and put three cookies next to it. She saw that he had gone to the bathroom so she put the cup down on the table and sat on a chair. She could hear the shower and she wondered if he was really just reading on the edge of the bathtub. She rapped sharply on the door and asked him if he was ok, and heard him yell back cheerfully that he was going to be out in a minute. When he came out, she took the towel from him, her fingers checking for genuine dampness. It even smelled of soap, and that made her think of her children. Her mouth turned down at the corners.
She said, “Let’s get Sana and Leena back from your mother’s. I’ll start my medication again. I’ll start a whole new bottle of chances. But not Nazish; I don’t want her. I only want my children.”
Hassan stood and sipped his now-cold coffee and said politely, “They need to grow up in a normal environment. Maybe after you are back from the Retreat.”
Zara swallowed and nodded and frowned in a grown-up, understanding sort of way, to show her husband that they were making a decision together for their children’s betterment, the way regular couples decide about schools and constructive extracurricular activities. She understood that she had failed to give her family perfect days, and that it was highly indelicate to tell a person with her condition that she had failed. So she made a great show of packing her best clothes and not forgetting her makeup, and after her husband turned his back and went to sleep, she sat on her side of the bed all night, waiting for the morning.
Farah Ali is from Karachi, Pakistan. Her more recent work can be found in Kenyon Review Online, Ecotone, The Southern Review and others. She received a special mention in the 2018 Pushcart Prizes for a story published in the J Journal, and was the winner of the Colorado Review’s 2016 Nelligan Prize.