“And I wish you were a little more like us.”
She cups her hand over her mouth immediately. The look she sees on his face makes her cry. He bites on his cheek until it hurts.
“I didn’t mean it,” she says, the tone in her voice suddenly deeper, and she steps forward. “I’m so sorry. Will you look at me?”
The rumble of another car passing. She sways from one foot to another and her dress sways with her.
“I can’t put them through any more pain,” she says at last. “Not after Abbas. I thought I could, or that you would have become who you said you would be before they found out, and we would do this the right way. You’re lucky, you know. Mumma is so upset with me, she has not looked at me in days. Everyone can find out about us and you will walk away unscathed. But it will be my parents who can no longer walk with their faces raised. For having a daughter like me.”
She is so beautiful still. Even after all her crying, with her face he has known all his life. He is afraid to speak for fear his voice will betray him.
“You can hate me,” she says at last.
“I could never.”
She sighs. A minute passes. He is a different person by the end of it.
“Your shoes,” he says, pointing. “They will give you away.”
She looks at the muddied soles. Her face pinches. She steps out from the tunnel. The light outside is bright and little spots of rain darken the blue cloth of her dress. There is something familiar about her logic. Something that reminds him of Hadia, how she thinks, and it is this thought that allows him to believe that she is being sincere. To forgive her as she takes careful steps around the puddles, turns a corner, and leaves his sight.
* * *
HADIA WIPES AWAY all trace of eyeliner, gets dressed in all black—it is the eighth of Moharram, and a break between rotations has allowed her to come home and attend the majlises. In the bathroom mirror, she regards her reflection. Since she removed her scarf she has only worn it when going to mosque, out of a deep respect for the place and its dress code, more important to her than her personal preference. Her hands and their memory—the square cloth folded until the edges were even, placed on her head just before her forehead, a safety pin poked through and clasped shut beneath her chin, and then one ear of the cloth thrown over her shoulder, her personal touch. When she looks at her reflection, tenderness for a younger Hadia overwhelms her. This was her face of years ago. It is as though she can take a pilgrimage to her younger self as easily as folding a cloth and clasping it to her neck again. There is a knock on the bathroom door and she opens it to Huda, dressed exactly like she is: all black, in a plain cotton shalwar kameez that they will put a black abaya over, the flowing uniform of Moharram, of mourning. Huda’s face softens when she sees her.
“Mumma wants you to convince Amar to come,” Huda says.
“He needs convincing?”
Amar could offer an excuse on any other day, but these days of Moharram were for commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hussain, and one would not even want to shirk attendance. Even Amar would not think to upset Mumma and Baba in such a way. Huda gives her the look she gives when both realize that Hadia has not lived with them since she was eighteen—almost six years ago now. It occurs to Hadia that unless she is specifically informed, she will not know what it has been like at home. But things are more or less always the same: only Amar fluctuates.
“Try and talk to him. God knows he doesn’t listen to us.”
She opens his door when he does not answer her knocking. He is still asleep. His room is an absolute mess. A strange stuffy smell. She shakes his shoulder, gently at first, then roughly until he opens his eyes to her.
“Hadia. You’re home.”
His eyes are groggy.
“Get ready quick—we’re leaving.”
“Where?”
“What cave have you been living in? It’s eighth Moharram.”
“I’m not coming.” He covers his head with the blanket.
“But it’s your favorite day,” she tries.
Each night leading up to the tenth of Moharram was dedicated to a family member or companion whose life was lost fighting alongside Imam Hussain in the Battle of Karbala. Eighth of Moharram was dedicated to Hazrat Abbas. His story was one of loyalty. Of the love between brothers.
“Leave, Hadia—I won’t change my mind.”
Mumma, Baba, and Huda are standing by the front door, each of them wearing the same look on their faces, the one that tells her that they have been waiting for her for days, hoping that she would be the one to reach him. She shakes her head to answer the question no one manages to ask.
* * *
THE LAST TIME she had properly spoken to Amar was months ago, near the end of summer. He had come home early from his summer class and suggested they go out, just the two of them. They drove with the music blasting, windows down, singing loudly, until they pulled into a café with patio seating. The sun shone bright in the bluest sky the way it does some California days and one marvels at the luck of living in such a place.
It was not often the two of them were alone outside of home. Here, beneath the sky, they were like old friends who had not seen each other for a long time. Hadia bought the drinks, Amar waited for them at the counter and carried them out. She smiled because Amar remembered she drank even her cold drinks with a sleeve. She was squinting, and Amar asked if she wanted to switch seats, but she liked the rays warming her cheeks and liked the way, when she did look at Amar, he was backlit, just a moving outline.
“Mumma and Baba love you a lot. You should be kinder to them,” she said.
He looked to the cars that passed. The people waiting at the corner for the light to change.
“I know Mumma does.”
She shook her head. “Baba loves you more than any of us, even more than Mumma.”
“All he does is yell.”
“If he didn’t love you, you wouldn’t be able to upset him so easily.”
They were silent then. He leaned forward and she could see all the features of his face and she felt strange for speaking so candidly.
“But you have calmed yourself recently,” she offered in Urdu, and in Urdu it sounded like a light joke, one made with good intention.
He raised an eyebrow as if to say you’ve noticed.
“You have. You fight with them less. You smell a bit better.”
She smiled then and he did too. Hadia would comment on how terrible he smelled when it was clear he had been smoking. It was the closest she came to addressing it. For a moment she wondered if he was in love. He was smiling the way people did when a change in them was noticed, satisfied that what was felt internally could be witnessed by the world.
“I know what I want to do now,” he said to her. “Transfer quick, premed, medical track.”
Hadia shifted her watch a bit. It was loose and moving it around comforted her.
“But you hate the sciences.”
“You don’t think I can do it.”
“I’m only saying that you like writing, that’s what you’ve liked for years now.”
“It wouldn’t be as respectable.”
She laughed. He looked hurt, having misunderstood her laughter.
“And when did that start mattering to you?” Again she spoke in Urdu, her tone intending lightness.
“So you get to be the golden child, the studious one, and I should be the one who does what I care about.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Why are you trying to dissuade me?”