There was laughter that night. After so, so long. She had agreed to go with Maria one impulsive weekend. Maria was shocked that she didn’t need an hour of coaxing. Fouzia just got up and said she was going to get ready in about twenty minutes. She offered no explanation. Wore a breathtaking black dress and rimmed her eyes with dark, abundant kohl. She left her lips and shoulders bare and noticed how much better she looked now that she didn’t have the fear of judgment in her eyes.
Maria’s friends were wonderful. They were funny, engaging, well-read, well-spoken. She came back home exhilarated. Happy and satisfied. She felt like this was the first time she had had a decent meal – after months of feeling starved. It had been months, come to think of it, since she had come to England. She had dyed her hair, began wearing contacts. She chose to live with Maria because their arrangement was working out pretty well. Maria was estranged from her family back in Pakistan too and they both shared their abhorrence for desi crowds and gatherings. Maria didn’t pry, Fouzia never cared.
She went out with her another weekend. And another after that. Laughter grew and there was a small voice in her head that made her fear it. Fear her own voice laughing too hard, her own giddiness. But she ignored the premonitions of doom and continued stirring her drink.
She checked her phone and saw a message blinking. Flipping it open she read the words that changed everything. Again.
“Amma in hospital. Heart attack. Come back.”
Her clothes were packed again and her eyes were colored red. She began throwing things inside a small bag and opened her drawer to retrieve her cell phone charger. She saw Hina’s picture. A picture she kissed every night.
A picture that reminded her that she never wanted to go back to a world that took away everything that mattered to her. A world where she could not have fought against herself, against her perpetrator, against her society. A picture that told her she would have to come back to become sane again. She would have to escape to win happiness.
She turned away from the drawer. Empty-handed.
When she reached her house, it seemed as if she had never been away. Her brother came to hug her without resentment; his wife immediately began asking her if she was tired, as if she’d just returned from a vacation. Not the rude dissociative escape Fouzia had actually produced and extended for the past year.
Amma had had double heart attacks within the space of four days. The doctors were not happy with her condition and she was sent home to recuperate. She was old. Almost eighty. Another hiccup would finish her life and Adil began telling all this to Fouzia very fast. She saw her mother sleeping. Her skin drooping to her bones, her lids almost invisible after layers of wrinkles spread generously across her forehead.
She kissed her mother’s cheek. Her eyes fluttered. “Fouzia, beti. You’re home.” She kissed Fouzia’s hand, mumbled something else and went back to sleep.
That was all. She didn’t wake up. They found her unable to move the next morning. She let out a sigh and was gone. A sigh that Fouzia heard – a sigh that Fouzia always resented. A sigh that Fouzia hoped she would never hear – and she never would. She went into hysterics. Hysterics that had been suppressed since she was pinned against the floor tiles, being a permanent victim of a taboo. Hysterics that came up her throat every time she thought of Hina. Hysterics that made her want to kill herself on nights she often wished she could slip in more sedatives without anyone watching. Hysterics that she tried to kill because she found herself missing Raza at times. Hysterics which, if had arrived at the right time, could have saved her years of wallowing in sadness.
Raza was in the room when she was crying herself hoarse. He was in the room, along with fifty other people who saw her bleating like an old sheep. She was rambling, screaming, coughing up spit, constantly saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Amma, I’m sorry, I won’t leave you, I’m sorry” and then talking about her mother’s favorite things and then going back to crying and wishing and talking about her daughter. After they took away her dead mother, she collapsed in Nadia’s arms and kept hiccupping. Nadia, along with three other women of her family, took her inside a room and she fell on the bed. She sprang back up with surprising agility and insisted she wanted to sleep on her mother’s bed, so they took her there to calm her down. But looking at her mother’s half-empty glass of water just made her sob harder and all the women had to hold her to stop from shaking. She held her mother’s glasses and an old picture of her parents’ wedding, a photograph that had been on her mother’s mantle since she was old enough to remember. She clutched it close to her heard and began saying a sentence no one could understand:
“Amma, Abba, you didn’t even know … you could never have known … And I never could have told you … ”
(end of part twelve)
This made me cry today.