Maria’s fingers groped along thewall, skimming lightly over the smooth surface of the tiles. They encountered aprotruding object, a light switch. She flipped it, and illumination flooded thebathroom, chasing away obscurity instantaneously. Pushing open the door, Mariastood motionless on the threshold, her expression curiously unreadable. Secondsslowly trickled by; yet movement did not course through her limbs.
Far away, somewhere in the depthsof the expansive, spacious house, a telephone began ringing shrilly. Thecacophonous sound jarred the unbroken silence that had permeated the house, settlingover it like a thick, billowing blanket, both suffocating and placating hersimultaneously. She ached to escape the silence, flee from its clutches; yet apart of her yearned to embrace it, found in the silence an omnipotent,unparalleled source of ultimate salvation.
The telephone pealed again, apersistent commotion. It roused her out of her epiphany. In one fluid motion,she tugged at the strings of her night-dress; let it fall to the ground in apuddle of silk. Naked, her body free of any restrictions, she stepped into thebathroom. Closed the door behind her; letting it fall shut with a gentle, briskclick.
* * *
Tanya’s craving for her native cuisinewas growing unbearably overwhelming. Her stomach grumbled, urgently demandingfood – Pakistani food. Her eyes swept the crowded streets, searching in vainfor any sight of a restaurant or a stall serving eastern dishes.
Her husband turned to face her,raising his tone to be audible over the din and noise of traffic, cars andpassersby. “I’m starving, let’s get a burger!”
Tanya sighed miserably, a frownmarring her forehead. Another meal comprising of fast food, and she might justscream!
“There’s an In-N-Out Burger justa few blocks ahead,” Abdullah prattled on, oblivious to his wife’sfrustrations.
“No. I want some Pakistani food,”stated Tanya decisively.
“But you can have Pakistani foodany day back home!” protested Abdullah. “I thought we decided to vacation hereso we could ‘indulge in a total foreign experience; let ourselves be swept awayby the culture of another country.’” He raised an eyebrow, making quotations marks inthe air with his fingers.
“Yes,” admitted Tanya. “I did saythat, but now I want desi food. It’s been two weeks, and everything I’ve eatenjust tastes so – bland.”
“Fine,” agreed Abdullah,accustomed to giving in to his wife’s impulses. “There’s this thing up ahead.Harold told me.” Harold was the name of the landlord of the rented apartmentwhere the two of them were staying.
“What thing?” she queried.
“Um, this kind of fair, he said.It’s a bunch of different stalls, showcasing items from different countries.And of course, selling them too. We might get some kind of desi food from aPakistani stall.”
“Yeah, that sounds good to me.How far is it?”
“Just a few blocks,” he replied.“You want to walk it?”
“Okay.”
They began striding forwards,lengthening their pace, sometimes jostling against passersby. Abdullah’s cellphone vibrated in his pocket, and he drew it out, squinted at the brightlyglowing screen. Shooting a quick glance at Tanya to indicate it was awork-related call, he flipped the cell phone open. “Abdullah Rehman,” heaffirmed, and then fell quiet, evidently listening to what the person on theother end had to say.
Tanya pursed her lips, struggledto suppress the flow of resentment suffusing her. Though she acknowledged thather husband worked to maintain their luxurious lifestyle, at times she couldn’thelp despising her husband’s work and his buys lifestyle, remembering all thosehours she roamed the house alone; her children busy at school, husbandembroiled in his work. For all her comforts, there was one money couldn’tpurchase: the pleasure of companionship. It eluded her continuously, determinedto avoid her forever. And the more it was denied to her, the harder she desiredit.
Abdullah was speaking now,issuing clipped, proficient instructions, and Tanya found her mind wandering.It left the buzzing streets of San Francisco, floating upwards like a heliumballoon, landing, as it always did, upon her children. Bilal, Fatimah and Maria,the three people her life had revolved around since the past twenty five years,like the earth orbiting the sun. They were her centre, the one permanent thingkeeping her grounded, the anchor embedding her to the existential andpreventing her from being washed away. Bilal was now twenty-five and studiedeconomics at the University of Chicago, Fatimah approaching twenty-three andmajoring in Organic Chemistry at Cornell. Both had aced their O and A Level,winning hundred percent scholarships to pursue higher education. At eighteen, inher final year of A Level, Maria was still the ‘baby’ of the family, poised totake flight from the nest, just teetering on its very edge. Though they had emerged from her womb, theylooked nothing like her, inheriting her husband’s paler skin, his jet blackhair, and his tall, lanky figure.
They were grown up now, each ofthem adults, independent, no longer bound to her. She remembered them squirmingin her arms, suckling on her breasts, so vulnerable and fragile, her name thefirst words escaping through their lips after a nightmare, when they fell down,bruised a knee. Though she cherished their stupendous success – each of themevery parent and teacher’s dream – a part of her longed to unravel it, reversetime and start all over again. Like a string unwinding, unsnapping, falling tothe floor, free and uncontained; the process of being rolled up again yet tohappen then, and therefore holding limitless possibility.
But these were ramblings,pointless musings. The reflective ponderings of a woman growing old, a womanwhose life had been so busy, so full of things to do, to manage, to lookforward to; but despite that, a life that still felt wasted, ultimately endingin a summation of nothing concrete and valuable. She hoped – hoped greatly –that her children would never feel this way. They were content with theirlives, of that she was certain. Lately though, she had sensed a rising restlessnessbudding within her youngest Maria, a sense of dissatisfaction thrumming withinher like a discordant chord. She could feel it within her daughter, gainingmomentum with enough strength to gather Tanya’s attention. But before she couldfocus on it fully, begin to entirely acknowledge its existence, it would disappear,seeping out of her daughter like a plug had been pulled out, the emotionsswirling away like dirty water down a bathtub drain. Then Maria would return toher normal happy self, a smiling child with dreams that knew no boundaries, norestrictions.
She thought to giving it morenotice sometimes, probing and delving in deeper, investigating more. But shebanished that thought almost immediately when it occurred, dismissing itconfidently. She knew her children, did she not? She had spent years, endlesshours, making them the only point where her life converged. No one knew thembetter than her. No one was closer to them than her. I know my children, she would think to herself. I know my children inside and out, and Iknow they are happy. They had no reason not to be. She would not pickfaults, or find flaws where there were none. Perfection, many said, wasunattainable, but her life proved them wrong. She had perfection – had it inthe one aspect every parent wants – in her children.
* * *
The mirror showed a girl with apale, heart-shaped face, raven locks tumbling down to her shoulders in gentle,tousled waves. Green, almond-shaped eyes framed by long lashes stared out fromthe mirror. The nose was small and upturned; the lips pink and small, full tothe extent of being swollen – as though stung by a bee. “A rosebud mouth,” Omarhad often murmured in the whorls of the ear, before leaning down to kiss it.The girl had a slender neck, a voluptuous body. She would have been considereda vision, an epitome of pure, unadulterated beauty, had it not been for the redcuts slashing across the skin of her arms, her thighs. They were grotesque,cutting this way and that, marring the beauty of her image, crushing itentirely. They stood out, vivid scarlet stripes patterned into her ivory skin,the red harsh against the white.
Maria gazed back at herreflection intently, unblinking, as though committing it to memory. A heavy,substantial weight had been settling down on her chest throughout the course ofthe day, stealing her breath, robbing her of energy. It was like a rock, toobig for her to push against. She needed to get rid of it, needed to get it offher chest before it killed her.
She reached for the button and flickedoff the light.
The silvery light of the moon filtereddistinctly through the windowsill, illuminating Maria dimly as she dropped downto her knees, eased gently onto the bathroom tiles. Her movements were carefuland wary, for contact of any surface with the cuts inevitably brought pain. Asthe floor met her mutilated skin, her wounds screamed in protest. She gaspedinvoluntarily at the agony, an agony that was as blessed as it was cursed. Shelay on her side, her face upturned towards the glow of the moon, likesunflowers embracing the sun’s glittering radiance. Maria curled up into afetus-like position, her knees digging into her stomach.
The memories came to her then,enveloping her as they always did. They overpowered her, consuming her peace ofmind mercilessly, like a hunter devouring the helpless prey. A picture of Omarswam in her mind. He was the most beautiful boy in the entire school,carelessly handsome, brilliant in academics, sports, everything. She couldhardly believe that he had wanted her – her, Maria! At times it had felt like ahallucination, a mirage just waiting to vanish, dissolve into thin air. Butthree years had passed, and he was still there, and her friends were stillchanting to her about how lucky she was.
And then, he graduated. Obviouslyhe was a year older than her so he was bound to graduate ahead of her. She hadknown he would go abroad, study in the US, but what she hadn’t anticipated wasthat he would want to end things then. In her mind, their future life togetherwas mapped out clearly, just waiting to be lived. Clearly though, that was notthe case with him.
“It’s not you, it’s me.” Thatclichéd line he had uttered, and then she knew, knew with undeniable certaintythat he was determined to leave her, that he had possibly never even intendedto stay. Before, she had been holding onto the belief that this was just aphase – a case of ‘cold feet’, so to speak – but with that line, that beliefwas demolished. She gave up after that.
Four months later, and his facestill floated before her, shocking in its vividness. She closed her eyes,swallowed. It was time to lessen the pain. It was time to decrease misery, toend suffering and gain control again, in the most effective solution discoveredby her.
The knife glittered in the lightof the moon as she raised it in the air, brought it down. In the distance, thetelephone began ringing again, the sound echoing over, reverberating throughoutthe house.
* * *
In San Francisco, thousands ofmiles away, Tanya licked her fingers, sucked on them in delight. “Oh my, wasn’tthat amazing!” she exclaimed, sighing with fulfilled satisfaction. The showarma she had just consumed from thePakistani food stall had been absolutely heavenly.
“I know,” moaned Abdullah, who’deaten three. “I’m so full I can barely move.”
“You shouldn’t have eaten thatmuch,” admonished Tanya, leveling a severe gaze at him. But even she herselffelt uncomfortably full, lethargy creeping over her. “Here, let’s sit for amoment.” She pointed to benches clustered together under the shade of a bunchof trees growing in the periphery, where the stalls ended.
Abdullah obliged, shufflingforwards and throwing himself onto the bench with abandon. Tanya perched on thenext one, opposite him. She rummaged through her handbag, drew out her cell phone. Abdullah, who had been observing her, raisedan inquisitive eyebrow.
“I’m calling Maria,” she explained.“I rang the landline earlier, around thirty minutes ago, but nobody answered. SoI’m trying her cell phone now.”
She pressed the phone to her ear,listened to it ring. Nobody answered. A recorded voice announced clearly: “Hi,you’ve reached Maria! I’m not home right now, but leave your name and numberand I’ll get back as soon –” She hit the End Call button.
“She’s probably out with herfriends,” Tanya watched Abdullah yawn, one hand covering his mouth. He noddedin reply, and she put her cell phone back in her bag again.
She knew her daughter was toovivacious to ever be expected to sit home alone, when she could be out with herfriends. No, her daughter was too outgoing, too happy for that. She smiled,thinking of how engaging her daughter was, how bold and bright and colourful.Tanya closed her eyes and leaned back on the bench, letting the sunlight washover her.
Syndicated from: Random Ruminations