“My fault,” his father said. Eamonn sat up, rubbed his hands across his eyes, tried to understand what that meant.
“My fault,” his father repeated sadly. “I say it’s your mother’s doing, but I’m the one who never wanted you to know what it feels like to have doors closed in your face. To have to fight your way in. I didn’t think it would make you so sure of yourself, so entitled, that you wouldn’t stop to ask why a girl like that would have time for a public-school boy who lives off his mother because he can and has no ambition beyond beating his own high score in computer games.”
“What have you done?”
“I haven’t done anything. The officers who were called in when her brother left were concerned about her. They said she was clearly shocked by what he had done, but seemed more upset about being kept in the dark than the fact of his going. They thought she might be at risk of trying to join him. So there’ve been some people keeping an eye on her, for her own safety. But apparently there’ve been no phone calls, no texts, no communication of any kind that could be intercepted to suggest she was in touch with my son. Nothing to set off alarm bells. Which sets off alarm bells. And now, this.” He placed Eamonn’s phone on the desk. “Twenty-three missed calls from Aneeka Pasha.”
Eamonn stood up. “Something’s wrong.”
“On that, at least, we agree.”
Parvaiz
5
THE TWO MEN WALKED into the electronics store in Istanbul with near-identical attitudes of ownership, though their South Asian features marked them as foreign. Their white robes, shoulder-length hair, and long beards further distinguished them as men whose attitude of ownership you don’t contest. The younger of the two walked over to the wall of mics and scanned the empty display boxes. His companion leaned against the counter behind which the shopkeeper was standing and flipped his phone from hand to hand while looking at the other customers. They filed out quickly in response, leaving the two men and the shopkeeper alone in the cavernous store.
“Look at all this!” the younger man said. “The R?DE SVMX. The Sennheiser MKH 8040. The Neumann U 87.”
“Uh-huh. Just get what Abu Raees asked for, and let’s go. I’m starving.”
The shopkeeper reached beneath the counter and pulled out a box. “The Sound Devices 788T. Didn’t Abu Raees receive my message? I’ve had it for over two weeks.”
“Should I tell Abu Raees he needs to dance in Raqqa when you snap your fingers in Istanbul?” The older man turned his muscular bulk toward the shopkeeper, who paled and started to stammer an apology that was cut short by the younger man’s whoop of delight as he took the box containing the 788T into his hands, testing the weight of it.
“Sorry, Farooq. This will be a while. Abu Raees said I should try out some different mic combos with this to see which works best.” He walked back to the wall of mics and started to pull empty boxes off the shelves, tossing them back toward the shopkeeper, who cried out, “Just tell me which ones you want! You’re ruining my display.”
Farooq made a noise of disgust. “I’m going to that café on the corner. You have half an hour before we go to the airport.”
“Okay. Pick up some takeaway for the new recruits. You didn’t give me anything to eat for hours after I arrived.”
Farooq grinned. “What a baby you were, Parvaiz—afraid to ask for a slice of bread.”
“I’m not Parvaiz anymore.”
“Ma’ashallah,” said the older man, his voice tinged with irony.
“Ma’ashallah,” said the younger one, placing his hand on his heart.
||||||||||||||||||
His journey to the electronics store in Istanbul had started the night last autumn when Isma walked into the kitchen and said she was going to America and so it was time for all three of them to leave their home.
Nothing in the early part of that evening had suggested what it would become. It was just a few weeks after Aneeka had started university, and Parvaiz hadn’t, but already the old routines of their lives had become a thing of the past, so there was a feeling of celebration about Aneeka being home to cook dinner for the first time that week, consulting the grease-stained recipe book with her usual intensity of concentration, as though a recipe might have changed between the forty-ninth time she followed it and the fiftieth. Parvaiz was sous-chef, cutting onions with his swimming goggles on to prevent tears. The playlist compiled by their guitarist cousin in Karachi streamed through the speakers—chimta and bass guitar, dholak and drums; overlaid onto it, the sound of Parvaiz’s knife cutting through the yielding onions, hitting the hardness of the board beneath; two slim bracelets on Aneeka’s wrist clinking together as she measured out ingredients; low hum from the refrigerator; a train pulling into Preston Road station almost precisely at the same moment another train pulled out; the banter of twins. Tonight’s version centered around Aneeka pretending to craft Parvaiz’s profile for an Asian marriage site: Handsome Londoner who loves his sister that sounds incestuous ugly Londoner who loves his sister that sounds desperate handsome Londoner with strong family ties why do you have to be in the first sentence how about broodingly handsome Londoner with no, broodingly handsome is a euphemism for dark-skinned how is it that Heathcliff he was also violent and a bit mad yes but know your audience, dark-skinned is the real problem.
Isma walked into all this, preceded by the smell of dry-cleaning solvent, and said, “A total lack of career prospects is the real problem.” Parvaiz pushed the chopping board to a side, took off the goggles, and picked up his phone, its screen without message notifications from Preston Road friends, now scattered emotionally and geographically by the demands of post-school life. “Turn the volume down and listen to me,” Isma said. She had a serious look about her that made him do as she asked even though ordinarily he would have turned the volume up in response. Aneeka saw it too, and reached out to put a hand on their sister’s wrist: “Tell us,” she said.
Isma had been issued her visa for America. She would leave for Massachusetts in mid-January. She announced all this in the way another woman would have announced an engagement—proud, shy, worried about her family’s reaction to news no one had anticipated.
Aneeka stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her. “We’ll miss you, but we’re so pleased for you. And proud of you. Isn’t that right, P?”
“America,” Parvaiz said. The word felt strange in his mouth. “They really gave you the visa?”