Hina Ahmed
I stood against the front door, staring up at her, bags in her hand. As my mother’s voice strengthened, my body weakened. I shrank to the ground, hugging my knees to my chest, wanting to scream: shut the fuck up. I remained silent.
Isabell entered the house. “Asalaamlakum,” she said. I ran downstairs to greet her, where she stood in the kitchen beside my mother. We all gathered in the dining room: me, my mother, my brother Abdulla, my sister Zoya, and her husband, Khaled. My father pacing between us. They all stuffed envelopes with invitations, while I sat at the head of the table looking on. It was understood that they would stay for dinner. Afterwards, we congregated in the kitchen. My mother filled their plates with yellow rice and chicken, and fresh salad and homemade yoghurt. Zoya and Isabell passed the plates to their significant others, before taking their own.
I filled my own plate. Never with the food they were all eating. I piled my plate with carrots, cucumbers, and lettuce. My father took a seat at the head of the kitchen table. Isabell sat on one side of him, my sister on the other, their significant others sitting beside each of them. My mother was the last one to be seated, sitting across from my father.
There were no more seats left at the table. I sat at the island and watched the kitchen light illuminate their faces.
Three weeks before the wedding, our phones rang off the hook during all hours of the night, from relatives in Pakistan; relatives who only called to tell us when someone had died, or on the rare, happy occasion, like this one, where they called to say, Mubarak.
“Yes, yes, we are happy that our children are grown up now and able to manage their own lives. Who knows how long Omar and I have to live? It’s a relief to know that my children won’t be alone.”
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One swipe right is all it took to change my lonely world, suddenly transporting me to a realm of desire, where I was wanted, where I was needed, where my body was at the very least worthy of another man’s touch. But, with each touch, my body shrank.
The room was pitch black. His dark silhouette emerged from the corridor. He picked me up and threw me down, undressing me with his claws. As he devoured me, the voices in my head rang: “Don’t you see? He wants you because you have obeyed my rules. Good job, little girl, good job.”
But my mother always said, “foolish girl, don’t you know? You can’t trust the voices in your head.”
Feeling stung by a thousand suns, I ran into the bathroom. Something wasn’t right. I needed a mirror, a bright light, a way to see the hidden pain of my suffering. Raw and open, I gasped in horror. ________________________________________________________________________
“Why Zareena, why do you feel you are deserving of punishing?” My mother begged to know in our family therapy session over the phone.
“Because, because, I’m a bad person, I’m a bad person!” I cried.
You don’t want to feel this pain lonely girl. I will free you. Just listen to my rules.
10:00 a.m. Drink three cups of coffee filled to the brim. Drink it black. 12:00 p.m. stuff your face with a handful of carrots, tomatoes if you are still hungry, nothing more than that. Think about me, about going through the remainder of the day pleasing me. When fatigue strikes, drink more coffee. When the family is home for dinner, come downstairs, fill your plate with the goodness I have promised you, with the foods from the Earth. They won’t hurt you. Play around with it if you choose, take it one bite at a time, chew until you can’t chew anymore.
The voice whispered to Omar, like it always did when he was alone. Pushing him, tempting him. Just this once, just give in this once, nothing bad will happen to you, no one will ever know, just trust me.
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Omar collapsed from the news, the news of his sin, a sin he could never hide from, a sin that would never disappear, a sin that wore his face.
You are half of me, half.
My chocolate covered skin
My sloping forehead
My hidden eyes of defeat
Blue with sadness
Blue with you.
In your weak smile, lies the strength of my shame
A shameful shame
To see you, to hold you, to love you,
Is to love the part of me
Most unworthy of loving.
Omar arrived at the wooden front doors. “This way,” a man escorted him to the bathroom where he was expected to make the wudu, washing each area of his body, three times starting from his head, down to his feet. The rules of the masala were plastered on the door outside.
1. You must arrive a few minutes before salat starts. Once it begins, the doors will be locked.
2. Enter with your right foot first, reciting Surah Fatiha
3. Walk to the front of the room, fill in all the gaps, stand right on the line
4. Recite 2 nafl before salat.
5. Once the salat has begun, clear your mind of all other thoughts, focus on Allah and Allah alone.
6. Be prepared to enter the masala five times each day. The prayers must be read on time, not a minute too late, not a minute too early.
It’s funny how all of us desire a God to worship. “It seems to be a human need, this need to worship,” my brother had once said. “We all worship so many different things based on what we desire most. But the best, the safest, the most fulfilling form of worship is in God, sister. It’s the only kind of worship, which won’t destroy you.”
“But, baby brother, don’t you know, anything in its extreme form, will destroy you.”
The next morning, I woke up to a beeping machine beside me, my arm attached to an ivy drip. “What happened?” I asked my father. His eyes hollowed into his eye sockets, my mother beside him, weeping.
Neither of them said a word.
My father entered my bedroom, the tops of his white collared shirt, unbuttoned, his glasses falling off the bridge of his nose, his eyes filled with sorrow.
“How was your day?”
“It was alright.”
“Did you have dinner?”
“Yes.”
“What did you have?”
“Food.”
“Are you happy being back?”
“Yes.”
“Well, your mother and I are worried about you, we just want you to get better.”
“You want to get better, right Zareena?”
His eyes swelled, his voice shook. Placing his hands on my shoulders, he said, “Tell me Zareena, tell me you want to get better.”
I lowered my gaze.
“Zareena?”
“I can’t.”
“Why can’t you, Zareena, why?”
“Because.”
“Because why, Zareena?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“Are you saying you don’t want to live?”
Tears began to roll down my face.
“Zareena tell me, tell me you want to live!” He said, placing both hands on my shoulders.
“I can’t! I can’t!” I finally blurted, looking him in the eye.
“You are me Zareena, you are me!” He exclaimed, pulling me in.
“Live for me Zareena, live for me,” he wept in my arms, his tears dripping down the backs of my neck. “I can’t live without you, I can’t live without you,” he sobbed on my shoulder, as I held the weight of his body in my arms.
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My eyes swell with the pain I hid behind Holy Books
Minarets and shrines
But in your arms I open,
Like the flooding gates of heaven
And finally, cry all the tears I’ve been
too afraid to cry.
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