He glances around the room. How is it possible that it appears exactly the same as yesterday? It should look as though a storm has been through. There should be broken vases, torn blinds, upturned furniture. Something to mirror this feeling of turmoil, of everything having changed. He stands in front of the mirror, touches the scratch on his shoulder as though it’s a holy relic. At least there’s this. Cups his hands and lifts them to his face, breathing in. His personal act of prayer.
To start with she’d been hesitant, tentative. During their first kiss, she’d broken away and started to put her hijab back on, before his entreaties convinced her to stay. Then things swung the other way, and she seemed to think she had to prove to him that she really wanted to stay, in the way of a certain kind of adolescent girl who had always made him uncomfortable in his teenage years—the ones who thought they were required to give to the older boys without anything in return. So he stopped her, showed that wasn’t how this would work, and she said, “You’re nice,” as if that was a surprise, and they set about discovering each other in that slow-quick way of new lovers—testing, exploring, building on what each was learning about the other.
At daybreak he woke to discover she’d risen from the bed, to which they’d finally made their way. Hearing the sound of the shower, so early, he thought she was planning to leave without saying good-bye. But when she left the bathroom her footsteps didn’t move in the direction of the door. Eventually he swung himself out of bed and walked into the living room to find her praying, a towel as her prayer mat, the hijab nothing more alien than a scarf loosely covering her head without the elaborate pinning or the tightly fitted cap beneath. She made no sign of being aware of him except a slight adjustment of her shoulders, angling away from his naked form. He should have left immediately, but he couldn’t help watching this woman, this stranger, prostrating herself to God in the room where she’d been down on her knees for a very different purpose just hours earlier. Finally, the depth of her immersion in a world other than that of bodies and senses made him go back to the bed, wondering if she’d return.
“What were you praying for?” he asked when she came back in and started to unbutton her long-sleeved shirt, starting at the base of her neck.
“Prayer isn’t about transaction, Mr. Capitalist. It’s about starting the day right.”
“You had to put on a bra for God?” he said, as she unbuttoned further, needing her to laugh with him about it. “Did you think He might get distracted by your . . . distractions?”
“You do other things better than you do talk.”
That burned in ways both good and bad. He held back from mentioning that he could say the same for her. When openings for conversation had arisen she preferred to pillow her head in her arms and look up at the ceiling, or doze with her back to him, the soles of her feet pressed against his legs, combining rejection and intimacy. He watched as she continued to undress until there was nothing left but the white scarf covering her head, one end of the soft fabric falling just below her breast, the other thrown over her shoulder.
“Leave this on?” she said. He had learned already that everything new she offered was posed as a question. It was not because she doubted his desire, as he’d thought the first time, but because it seemed important to her to hear the “yes,” its tones of want and need. Now he hesitated, though his body’s reactions were answer enough as she touched her nipple through the white cotton, colors contrasting. He reached a hand out to her, but she stepped back and repeated the question. “Yes,” he said, “please.”
Now he picks the white fabric off the sofa, wraps it around himself like a loincloth, beats his chest, and makes gorilla sounds. Just before leaving she had put on that tight-fitting object she referred to as a “bonnet cap,” ignoring his comment that this was as superfluous a name as “chai tea” or “na’an bread,” and taken a blue scarf from his hall closet, which she started to wrap around her head. “Why’d you have to do that?” he said, and she brushed the end of the scarf against his throat and said, “I get to choose which parts of me I want strangers to look at, and which are for you.” He had liked that. Against his will, against his own self, he had liked it. Dumb ape.
After breakfast they lay together on the sofa in a square of sunlight, and either the dimensions of the cushions, or the thought that she soon had to leave, made her finally curl up against him, her head on his chest.
“So, Isma,” he said tentatively. “She speaks about you as if you’re close.”
There was silence for a while, and he wondered if mentioning Isma had been a bad idea. He felt strangely guilty about her; straitlaced, pious Isma. She wouldn’t approve of what they had done here. If he was thinking that, surely Aneeka was too. He threaded his fingers through her hair, wondered if her sister’s disapproval would be a reason for her never to come to him again, held her tighter.
“We used to be close,” she said. “But now I don’t want her anywhere near my life. Are you in touch with her?”
“Not since I left. But I thought I’d drop her a line to say I’d been to Aunty Naseem’s. Why, would you rather I wasn’t in touch with her?”
“Would you do that for me if I asked?”
“I think I would do any number of outrageous things for you if you asked,” he said, tracing a beauty mark on the back of her hand. “But don’t give me too much credit for this one—it’s not as if she’s written to me. I think we both recognize it was just one of those holiday friendships which there’s no point trying to carry into the rest of your life.” The complication of fathers was not an issue he felt any need to bring up while they were lying naked together.
There was another stretch of silence, then she said, “When I leave, will you want to see me again?”
“That can’t possibly be a serious question.”
“If this is something that’s continuing, then I do want you to do something outrageous for me. Let me be your secret.”
“How do you mean?”
She placed her open palm against his face and dragged it slowly down. “I won’t tell anyone about you, you don’t tell anyone about me. We’ll be each other’s secret.”
“Why?”
“I don’t ask ‘why’ about your fantasies, do I?” she said, sliding a bare thigh between his legs.
“Oh, this is a fantasy, is it?” Distracted by the beginnings of a rocking motion she was making, the friction of her skin against his.
“I don’t want my friends wanting to know when they can meet you. I don’t want Aunty Naseem inviting you round for a meal. I don’t want Isma thinking she can use you as a conduit to me. I don’t want other people interpreting us. I don’t want you wanting any of those things either. Just want me, here, with you. Say yes.”
“Yes.” Yes, yes, yes.