Where do you go to pick up pieces of yourself, where do you run to become someone else? Whatever that place was, whatever the answer was, there certainly wasn’t a shortcut to healing. Raza Waheed was talking at an incredibly fast pace and she was doodling in her notebook. Goddamn interns. Always talking too much to impress the bosses. Her job was permanent, therefore free of the additional sucking up that made the corporate world spin on its axis. They were talking about some movie about some girl who runs away from home to escape an abusive father. They were talking about how impossible it is to run away from something that is so huge it leaves an impact on your soul forever.
Like Harry Potter’s scar, they said.
Fucking idiots.
She twirled the bits and pieces of tissue paper. Coffee break was now over and Raza was still sauntering in the kitchen acting like he was being noticed by her. So she glanced up and looked straight at him.
“Want something? Doesn’t your meeting start in two minutes?” she said motioning towards the clock.
“Sure, but I wanted to ask you something first.”
“Go ahead.”
“Do they pay you to look sour too?”
“I – excuse me?”
“No, I mean, I know they pay you well. A fancy schmancy diploma and a masters from England. Taught there too. Now working for a small research facility like ours. I mean, the company is so grateful, they’re paying you twice my salary – overtime included – and you always look – like that.”
“We can’t all be Harry Potters and wear scars over our foreheads, Raza.” She got up and gave him the blankest look that had ever come across her face. That expression seemed to hurt Raza more than her remark. Good. Fucking idiot.
She got back to her desk and started punching numbers again. The work was mundane, numbers were her friends, she forgot about Raza easily. There was nothing to remember. He was a boy who didn’t like being ignored and she ignored him all the time. Spoilt brat.
And there he was again. “You forgot your coffee.”
“What the hell is your problem?” she gave up the subterfuge.
“Do you like sushi?”
“I hate it.”
“Good, me too. Biryani?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m single and I can’t get a single girl to talk to me like you can.”
“You mean, be your mother?”
“Yes, Miss Freud.”
“Will you leave me alone if I decide to spend a boring lunch with you?”
“Promise. It never works out that way, though.”
“What way?”
“Women find me irresistible. No such thing as a boring lunch with me.”
“Does your mother know you’re flirting with older women at the office?”
“My mother is probably doing the same somewhere in another office.”
“Flirting with women?”
“Flirting. Probably. I don’t know.”
“Good to know you don’t keep tabs on your mom.” This guy’s stomach was surprising her.
“I don’t. Abu probably does. They’re divorced. See you at lunch. I’ll meet you outside the building at 2.”
When he left, she found herself smiling.
When they met at the building gates, she felt only a percentage more comfortable than she did with most men around her. He was smoking and the small smile she had felt earlier seemed to fade quickly from inside of her.
He read her expression quicker than anyone she had known. That showed her he was quick to impress her. It made her feel sorry for him. Like you would for a dead cat on the road.
“I’ll quit. I promise.”
“I don’t care.”
“You sure? Because if you had a gun right now, the bullet would be lodged somewhere in my nicotine-ridden lungs.”
“How long have you been doing this stupid thing?”
“About eight years. Give or take.”
“Give it eight more and meet your Maker.”
“If you ask me to quit, I will.”
He was staring at her with a look that made her tired and angry. She slipped into the passenger seat and they were on the road.
“Look, Raza, I understand your advances. Wasn’t born yesterday as you, and the rest of the office is, quick to mention and acknowledge – so you can give it a rest okay? This is how it’s gonna go down. If you seem slightly interesting enough, we might have a few good laughs over biryani today or maybe some other random day but if you’ve got that late-twenties hormonal thing going on that usually makes men do some seriously stupid things … then let me just stop you there and give you some advice that will go a long way for you, if you let it. Get real.”
By her last sentence he was chortling. By her last word, he was actually laughing out loud. “Wow, I’ve never seen such a straight-shooter since – well, never, really. What makes you such a brilliant reader of men?”
I was raped by the man who would be my husband and the father of my child.
Was what she wanted to say.
“I read a lot,” was what she actually grunted.
There were many lunches like that, many biryanis. Sometimes, understanding how she wanted to keep it all neutral, Raza invited over some other friends of his. Some from work, some from other places to join them. By the next three or four months, she knew everything about him and his friends and his family. The office was abuzz with gossip and she indulged it casually knowing that nothing would ever come out of Raza’s puppy love. She never said anything to him or to anyone in the office because she didn’t want to embarrass the poor guy any more than he already was everytime someone mentioned her name to him – but went about her work as it were. Raza’s only functional purpose in her life was to not make lunch hours seem long and boring.
When he proposed, she felt calm and collected. He was all hot and bothered but it was a little heart-warming to see someone care about her like that. She told him ‘no’ politely and told him to find a girl his age, someone that would give him a lot more than she could. He grew irritated and left. Left the office and didn’t reappear for days. Until one day when he asked her to have lunch. She agreed but didn’t understand his need to see her.
He sat in a corner chair of a small restaurant near their workplace, in what seemed like a cloud of smoke. She noticed the ashtrays full of cigarette butts. Something about those unfinished cigarettes made her angry and disturbed.
“Will you fucking quit that?” she took it out of his hands and snubbed it. Motioned for the waiter to empty the tray. “We will be now sitting in the non-smoking section.”
He moved seats wordlessly. It seemed he hadn’t shaved. His eyes looked red and he almost had a beard.
“Look at you. Ashiq awara, hain?”
He laughed. “I missed you.”
“Please, none of that.” She waved her hands dismissively. “Coffee? Or straight to lunch.”
“Appetizers. I’m suddenly starving.”
“Of course you are. As hard as it may be to believe but smoke is not a meal.”
They ate their food in silence. Suddenly he looked up and said, “Did you know I’m Ahmedi?”
“No, I didn’t know. Wow, how come you never told us?”
“Because people start acting differently around you.” His laugh had a hollowness she didn’t like. Maybe it was the hollowness that was permanently painted on her face. It was not pretty.
“Did you know why my mom left my dad?”
“No.”
“Because he is an Ahmedi too. It didn’t matter to her when they ran away and got married. It suddenly became of utmost importance when she started hanging around with that crazy family of hers.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Being Ahmedi is not a crime.”
“Apparently it is.”
She felt embarrassed.
“I’m not ashamed of who I am and who my father is. I’m ashamed that I can’t stand up for myself. But with you – I feel stronger. I feel like I can rely on someone to have my back.” He leaned forward. “Does this matter to you? The fact that I am not – well, like the guy your family would pick out for you out of a lineup?”
She was hooked in for a moment there. In his gaze, in his expression. She shook it off when the waiter came and asked if they liked dessert.
“Raza, I’m trying to be the sane person here. I’m wrong for you on all levels and being or not being Ahmedi has nothing to do with that. I don’t care if you’re Angel Gabriel. I just can’t – I can’t get married, I don’t want to.”
“Even if I told you I don’t care about Adeel or what he did to you?”
She felt shell-shocked. “What – what did you say?”
He ruffled his hair and his beard. As a reflex, he seemed to reach for his pocket to get a cigarette. “Oh, right, non-smoking.” He took one long swig of his drink and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
“How – how do you know about Adeel?”
“When you told me to back off, when you said no, I got hurt. Any self-respecting man would. My ego got a massive stroke and I had to get out of there. I won’t say I wasn’t mad at you. Who wouldn’t have been, at being turned down? Three days ago I met someone who happened to know Adeel. I know it hurts to hear it all over again but – hear me out. I didn’t know he was married to … to Three days ago I met someone who happened to know Adeel. I know it hurts to hear it all over again but – hear me out. I didn’t know he was married to … to you. The grapevine is a fascinating, fascinating thing. Adeel’s university friend is one of my old friend’s cousin. His story reached me and I had heard of it before but that story had no meaning for me. But I met that guy again, the guy who knew Adeel. And suddenly he was talking about him again and took your name – and I asked more details and I found out it was you. The way he told the story was all from Adeel’s point of view and I could tell there were loopholes in it. I did some more digging – sorry, I had to – and Adeel is living in America with a woman. Some woman who isn’t even taking care of the – daughter. Your daughter. It’s common sense to put two and two together, and I just – I had to meet you to let you know that I know what you’ve been through and I’m sorry about that, I really am. But you can’t shut everyone out because of one fucking douche, you can’t.”
She listened. Her hands were folded on the table. Her eyes were fixed on Raza. Her throat was suddenly parched, her lips dry. “So now you know.” She was barely audible.
“Yes, I do. And I don’t care about what happened. Here. Have some cake. God, I haven’t eaten in ages.”
Just like that he dropped the conversation like a hot rock. It was one of those things about him that amazed her. He could move on just that quickly. Without a hint of looking back and asking questions and whys and why nots. Could it be – that this man could change the future?
No. He was a school boy with a crush on his teacher. He admired her, he probably lusted after her, but she didn’t think it went any deeper than that. It was good of him to not care about the past, good of him to come to her after finding out about Adeel but who was to say it would last? Who was to say it would be forever? People change all the time. Things change after that. And before you know it you’re unhappy again. And she didn’t see herself being strong enough to fight it. She couldn’t see any way out of her negative feelings, her depression, her seemingly normal day and her devastatingly difficult nights. Nights where she missed her child and often cried thinking of her beautiful little Hina. Days she spent looking at babies her age. Would she be doing what these babies were doing? Who would be taking care of her? Afternoons when everyone would be asleep, she would be sitting alone in her room hugging herself to stop herself from shaking from the sheer madness of her life. There wasn’t anything in her that she could be proud of. That she could stand behind. She wasn’t strong enough to fight her attacker. She wasn’t strong enough to bring herself to justice. She wasn’t strong enough to fight for her daughter. And she was not strong enough to fight her terrible unhappiness. She relied on her society, her circumstance to save her from Adeel. And it didn’t. She relied on her family to save her from marriage. And they didn’t. She relied on Hina to save her from Adeel. And that baby couldn’t. She relied on her brother to save Hina from Adeel. And he couldn’t. She relied on herself to come out of the misery and she couldn’t. Everything in her life had been a miserable, terrible failure and she didn’t want to give it another chance by being the unhappy part of a relatively normal, happy-go-lucky person like Raza.
He was still eating and she was still in her reverie.
“You don’t like the cake?” he asked during a mouthful.
“What? No, I didn’t taste it.”
Before she could say anything else, there was a chunk of cake inside her face. “If’s gug.”
“What?”
She swallowed. “It’s good.”
He laughed. “It’s great! You’re such a critic.”
And to that, she gave him a small smile. And ate the rest of her cake in a silence that was filled with Raza’s chatter. For a heart-stopping moment she thought she could get used to this. Fretting over cake. Making him quit smoking. Having lunch without being afraid of what would go wrong next. When would the next round of shaking and prodding and poking arrive.
“I’m going to ask Abu to call your mom in a day or two.”
“But – I haven’t said yes.”
“I know.” He smiled. “But your mom will.”
She opened her mouth to say something and Raza just fed her some more cake.
(end of part seven)
Looking forward to next parts…