“There is nothing.”
Layla and I went. The Kaaba was a cube of bricks covered by a black cloth, a simple design, and yet when I looked upon it for the first time, it was bigger than I ever imagined it, and the sea of bodies dressed in white moved around it in a thousand tiny and synchronized motions, and my breath, as they say, was taken from me. We were one with the wave of people that circled and circled the Kaaba. I touched the crack in the corner where they say the Kaaba split open for Imam Ali’s mother to enter, so she could give birth to him inside. I touched the black stone surrounded by people also desperate to touch it. Standing still in that rush was manageable one moment and the next my body was caught in a current of bodies, a dozen crushing in on all sides, all of us moving the inexplicable way a body of water moves, so that when I was spat from it, I emerged gasping. If separated, Layla and I would meet at our designated spot and try again to enter. For the first time, I experienced the power of spotting the face one loves in a crowd, how of all the faces that passed me, hers was the one that was capable of shocking my senses the moment I first found her. I led her to the stone, I held steady my arms around her and stood there like a dam, so she could touch the stone as well. Exhausted and in a dreamlike state, we slept and we woke, wore white, ate bread and a kind of crumbly and sharp cheese we had not tasted in either India or America, almonds and cashews. I shaved my head and we were born again—sinless as when we had begun our lives on Earth.
In the evenings now I take my daily walk, often accompanied by Layla. We are quiet together, she walks with her hands in front of her, and I with mine clasped behind me. She pays attention to the shrubbery and the flowers in people’s gardens. I think of what I could do to best prepare for the next realm. I think of the debts I owe. My will. Who I have wronged. My debts, my will, my need for forgiveness.
* * *
I WAS THERE both nights my grandchildren were born. Layla and Tariq were in the room with Hadia, and I was relieved to pace the hall, never going far, ready to be called in at any moment and do what Hadia had asked me to: deliver the adhaan to my grandchild. I was honored. The first time I practiced the adhaan nervous that I had forgotten it—an absurd fear, as I had recited it multiple times a day for years. Then the nurse came. She is ready for you, she said. That was my first child in the hospital room cradling her first child. It was a miracle if I ever witnessed one. She held the baby and I did not know if the baby was a boy or a girl and nothing mattered but that everyone was alive and here together. Hadia passed her child to me as soon as I approached her. The baby was smaller than I remembered my children being, and so light it took me a moment to realize I was the only one holding on to the child.
“His name is Abbas, Baba,” she said, and I could not even see his face because my eyesight had blurred, the lights of the room caught in big gorgeous circles that shifted as I blinked. I lifted Abbas to my face, his ear was so delicate and red it reminded me of a tiny shell, and I whispered the adhaan, essentially saying: welcome to the world, my little one. Here, we believe in one God. Mohammed is His messenger, Ali is His friend. And I will do my best to tell you all about it.
* * *
IN SEVENTH GRADE you played soccer for your middle school and I often came home to your duffel bag of cleats and crumpled shorts and jersey in the foyer. I would open the door and yell until you came downstairs, yell while you rolled your eyes at me and picked the bag up, yell after you to not slam the doors and you would open the door and slam it again and again and again, your face blank each time you opened it, and I’d have to turn around and walk straight into the street, just to keep from acting in a way I would surely regret.
Did you know that for years, your mother never uttered a word against me unless it was in defense of you? I would return to our bedroom shaking, still angry from having dealt with you, either your batamizi or your usage of bad language or getting suspended after another fight at your school. I would take a seat at the edge of my bed and rest my head in my hands and try to calm myself. I let my anger get too carried away, I told myself, I should have stopped before I did what I did. Anger was my worst attribute. It was as if I left myself when it shot up in me, and by the time I was rid of it I had already done the damage. And even though I could justify why I had reacted the way I had, I always regretted my particular reaction. And Layla would be absolutely silent around me. She would not even be aware that she too had withdrawn from me.
The year that you tried playing soccer, the year that your duffel bag was always in the foyer and you listened to music that sounded as angry as you were, your grandfather had a heart attack. We did not know then that he would only have a few more months to live, and your mother left to visit him in India. That very week, I came home to the sound of the TV blasting through the halls and your duffel bag right where I predicted it would be. I remember I did not even yell. I swung it over my shoulder and walked into the street and shook the bag until its contents tumbled out: your water bottle, your jersey, your cleats, which I kicked until they landed feet away in different directions, your books and notebooks, their pages fluttering in the street, and I stormed back inside, yelling your name. I grabbed you by the ear and dragged you out the front door, and shoved you until you stumbled onto the driveway, and I pointed at your papers torn and flying away and your clothes and contents strewn about, and we watched the passing cars do little to avoid them.
You did not speak to me after that. I couldn’t really blame you. Every time I closed my eyes I saw your belongings scattered on the road, I saw the redness of your ear when I finally released it. Would you believe me if I told you I hated myself more in those moments than I imagined you hated me? My pride bothered me. It was my own self I had to overcome: I could not even go to you, say to you that I was sorry, that I had overreacted. The twin towers fell the next morning. You still did not speak to me. I did not think of how you might be affected. You were a boy. I did not have to worry about you the way I worried about the safety of my daughters, both of them then wearing hijabs. Layla was so far away. I was so alone. I was not sure what the world outside was like, when it would regain a shape I knew, if my family would be safe inside it.
When my phone rang at work that week, I feared the worst. Maybe my father-in-law had passed away. Maybe Layla had been told she could not book her ticket home for even longer. But it was your school nurse, telling me that you had been in a fight, that you were hurt as well as suspended. My desk was decorated the same as always. Your little red boat on the blue waves still there, just the edges of it curled a bit. Each wave was distinguished from the others. I sighed into the phone. You had been in fights before. You had been suspended before. But they had never told me that you were hurt.
“Is he all right?” I asked her.
“He will be,” she said, “but he might need stitches.”
I was quiet for a while. The nurse, bless her, did not hang up. She told me that the scuffle had taken place in the locker room, after PE class, that a few other boys had been involved, and all of them were suspended, and while she talked I wondered how I would ever explain this to your mother, who called me every night worried after watching the news, the same footage looping and the smoke billowing in the air, asking me to reassure her that everything at home was calm. I decided I would just not tell her. I calculated the days that remained until her return and hoped it would be enough for any evidence to heal.