Chapter 12: Salma (2007) - The Daughters of Rosebud

Mamoo calls me one night to remind me that the second anniversary of Aunty’s death is coming up. He wants to go to the cemetery. He does not need to ask it, but I know. I do not need to say it, because he knows. I am still not ready. Eighteen years have passed, and it is still too soon.

It is yet another way in which I have failed those I love most.

Poppy has signed up to give her presentation on family units to the class. Because she has waited for the last possible slot, I’m worried that she’ll psych herself out. She listens to the presentations done by other students. She is keen-eyed and focused on each presenter but gives little indication of what she’s feeling.

Each student has been given four minutes to give their presentation and wide latitude on form and structure. My sole goal is to give them some experience with public speaking. Most students stand lock-kneed, reading their prepared notes in a monotone, never looking up. A few, who I thought would like the attention, like Kirsten V., have frozen in the limelight and just umm-ed and err-ed their way through their allotted time. In morning meetings, we have discussed respectful ways of listening and how to fill out the feedback survey, which each student will complete for their peers. The survey is limited to two questions. One thing I learned. One thing I liked. I collect them to ensure nothing unkind has been written and then distribute to the presenter.

When it is Poppy’s turn, she stands up from the red rug, smooths her hands over her shirt, and picks her way over her classmates. Her ponytails shake ever so slightly, and her chin trembles. She pushes the power button on the overhead projector until her presentation appears on-screen. I helped her load the file into the computer but did not review it in advance. My stomach is in knots.

She looks down at her feet for a full five seconds. Her shoulders rise as she inhales deeply. My hands are sweaty. And then she looks up at the rest of the room with an unexpected smile and launches into her presentation. All of her reserve and reticence fall away, and what is left is an engaging, confident, poised little girl. She points at pictures and facts on the screen like she’s a TV weather announcer. The easy smile never leaves her face. She is relaxed, and her voice is steady and bordering on loud. Something turns on in her eyes once she has everyone’s attention. Poppy is a performer.

I look around the room and can tell by the expressions on the faces of the students sitting on the red rug that they are noticing Poppy for the first time. After she finishes, she asks if there are any questions. There are, and she answers them without missing a beat.

The class claps for a long time after Poppy’s presentation. I am reminded of Asma, who would say that when she was on stage, all the insecurity and fear and worry she carried around every day fell away, and she was sure of this one thing. My heart beats time to the claps and the memory.

After school, I can’t wait for Marlene to pick Poppy up so that I can brag about her. Surprisingly, she is there on time. She is appropriately enthusiastic and delighted when I tell her how wildly impressive Poppy was.

“You’re a real natural, Poppy,” I say.

“Just like Mamby,” she says and then runs off to the playground.

My stomach drops. Of course. Ruby probably coached her. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

Marlene is watching me. “She needed a win.”

I say, “Yes. And she’ll get more opportunities to perform at Rainforest Night.”

“About that,” Marlene says and stops.

I feel my shoulders tighten.

“Ruby’s surprising Poppy by coming to Rainforest Night and staying through Halloween,” she says timidly.

Marlene’s gaze is watchful. Thankfully, a parent from many years ago waves at me, and I am forced to smile.

“Is that okay?” she asks.

What a question. “Marlene, I’m a teacher, and your child is my student. Engaging with parents is literally my job. I’m glad she’s coming. For Poppy.”

Sometimes I’m able to forget that Marlene knows my family’s history. What should be a normal statement in a normal situation is not. It is loaded. Loaded with my history. Is it better that she knows so I don’t have to pretend or worse that she knows and looks at me with such pity?

“There’s one more thing,” Marlene says.

I don’t know if I want to hear what’s coming next.

“I’m going to see a divorce attorney.”

“Oh no. Marlene. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. When she told me she was coming for two weeks, my stomach just fell. As hard as it is to be single parenting, with my parents’ help and yours . . . the thought of having to incorporate her into our lives with all her issues. God. I have one job, and that’s to raise these kids properly. I can’t risk that by trying to save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.”

I feel like a heel, but I can’t help it. “What about the diaries? And the video?”

“I’m going to try, Sal. I promise.”

And with that utterance, with Asma’s echo, I decide to trust this woman.

Aunty used to say that every marriage is based on a deal that only the parties involved can understand. As an outsider to that marriage, you may think you know the deal, but you don’t. What is Marlene and Ruby’s deal? What is the silent agreement or tacit understanding that their marriage is based on? I look at my parents’ marriage and think there was nothing other than duty and culture norms that held them together. And then I question myself.

* * *

On my last night at Mamoo and Aunty’s, Mamoo came into the dining room, where I was working frantically to complete the homework I had managed to avoid over the prior two weeks. He stood at the opposite end of the long wooden table and asked if he could help. I made some stupid joke about how he was welcome to write one of my papers.

“Listen, Salamander. I think I know what you really want to know.”

I wondered what I really wanted to know.

“You want to know your family history,” he said.

“Yeah, I think I just want to understand Ami and Abu better.”

“You presume that I understand myself,” he said under his breath. Then he walked slowly down to me and pulled out a chair. “You want to know how your parents’ marriage was made.”

I started to object and say that I had no interest in knowing how their life together started, but the second he gave voice to it, I found I did want to know. Suddenly, I had a burning need to know. I had friends who talked about how their parents met, as though it was family lore. But in our family, it was not something we talked about. I knew it had been arranged, but I’d never really thought any more about it. It just was. If I had thought about it at all, I would have been struck by the fact that from my parents’ perspective, I was going to follow in their footsteps, and from my perspective, I thought I was going to follow in Mamoo’s.

“As you know, I was in England, alone. My focus was on studying and becoming a doctor. That was all. After that I was going home.”

“And then your parents died.”

He nodded.

“How?”

He closed his eyes. “In a lorry accident. They got hit head-on and died immediately. I don’t know what street they were on, where they were going, where they were coming back from, what time of day it was. Nothing. All I know is what was said in that telegram. ‘Parents dead. Stop. Lorry accident. Stop.’ That’s it. I was eighteen years old. A stranger in a still strange country with nothing to my name and a younger sister for whom I was suddenly responsible six thousand miles away.”

His hands shook, and he clasped the end of the polished table like a lifeline. These were the memories he didn’t want to revisit.

“The second time I used the phone to call home was after the telegram. Someone answered the phone. There was the most terrible noise in the background. Yelling, banging, I thought maybe I’d gotten the wrong number. Then I heard my uncle, and he said, ‘Don’t worry. I have a good rishta for your sister.’ I was stunned. If I felt like a kid in some ways, she was even more so. He said, ‘It’s best for her to be married quickly. She’s young, and we don’t want her reputation to be harmed.’ And then he said, ‘You should be grateful that we’re doing your job for you.’”

Mamoo’s helplessness and guilt and loss felt like they were my own.

“Sadia finally got on the line. Remember, international calls just weren’t done then. The lines were terrible, with loud static and pauses that you had to speak over. By the time she got to the phone, in addition to everything else, I was panicked at how expensive it was.” He stopped abruptly.

“What did she say?” I whispered.

“I will never forget the sound of her voice. Not ever. If I was uncertain and afraid, imagine her. An underage girl in Pakistan in the 1960s with no guardians, no prospects, no one to fall back on.” He slouched in his seat. When he spoke again, he sounded croaky, the emotion thick in his voice. “I told her, ‘You don’t have to do what they’re telling you.’” He put his head back and looked up at the ceiling as though he was looking for strength to go on. “She just laughed this horrible laugh, like she was crazy. And then, in that weird phone pause, before I responded, because I wasn’t sure she was done, she said in a whisper that I almost couldn’t hear, ‘They want the house.’ And then all of the chaos in the background made sense. It was literally like I remembered a language I’d forgotten.”

“I don’t get it.”

Mamoo reverted to his regular voice, explainer and teacher of all things. “The house and belongings by rights of succession were supposed to go to the next male family member. I was half a world away with at least three more years of study before I could even consider returning to Pakistan. I had no money to my name. The next male relatives in line were my father’s brothers. One brother lived in Lahore and the other in their ancestral village. My uncle who lived in Lahore wanted our house before my other uncle showed up to make a claim for it. What I heard in the background—the mayhem—was them moving in.

“My immediate reaction was that I had to go back and stop my uncles. If I was there, the house would be mine, and my sister’s fate would be my responsibility. But then what? I would have had to stop my studies. How would I make a living? I was good for nothing other than my brain. I had no skills to speak of. I didn’t have any land or means by which to support us until I finished school. And for how long would it be acceptable for a brother and sister to live by themselves? Eventually, marriages would have to be made, and I would have to find Sadia a husband. How was I supposed to do that? As a man, I could delay the inevitable for as long as I wanted. But I couldn’t delay it for her.”

I had always felt protective of Ami, long ingrained in me and laced through my earliest memories. She was one of us, the three girls holding each other up and supporting each other in whatever ways we could. She cooked for us and was the marginal adult, and we translated the world for her, filtering out the scariest and most threatening things. Suddenly, I could feel my mother’s fear course through me, terrified for the girl she had once been.

“Her future had been limited before, especially relative to mine. But it was positively bleak afterward, and there was nothing—nothing—I could do about it. Our parents’ death was our joint loss, but it was only my sister’s life that was going to change as a result. Mine would go on as before. Educational opportunities, career choices, whom I married—these would be at my choosing. But she was helpless in the face of our culture and its expectations.”

“So what happened?”

“She married your father. He was old enough to be her father and, maybe in some ways, probably exactly what she needed. Someone to take care of her. Why he was unmarried at that age and agreed to marry such a young girl . . .” Mamoo caught himself and stopped. He was still my father.

Can we ever escape the pain, the injustices of the past? I am living proof that humans can’t. Here I am, a generation later, still licking my wounds. I am still shocked that this was how my parents met—through a forced, shotgun, arranged marriage. She was younger than I was at that point in my life and had been married off to a man almost double my age. There are moments that I think perhaps I can understand parts of her. Perhaps the traumatic events of her young adult life had stopped her development, forever stuck at the emotional level she had reached when her parents died. It shouldn’t affect me, I know. There are still young girls, much younger than even my mother was, that are married off as children. But my mother was not a statistic. She was my mother. Most of the time, she generated a complicated set of emotions in me, like oil and water that never really mixed. Even when I was mad at her, I was still feeling sorry for her.

“It was really difficult knowing that I’d never see my parents again. But in some ways, it was a theoretical loss. I’d gotten used to living without them and had to remind myself in my daily life of lectures and studying that they were gone. Sometimes that knowledge seemed overwhelming. And, at other times, removed as though it had happened a long time ago. The life I had remembered in Pakistan, the memory capsule to which I came back in my mind at the end of the day—those moments in the courtyard, the jasmine, the love and pride of my parents—was gone. It was the permanent end of something. And unlike most experiences where one doesn’t know it’s ended until long after it’s over, I knew then, in that moment, that my old life had ended.”

I wanted to cry. For Mamoo. For Ami. But it wasn’t my story, and I didn’t have the right to make it mine.

I asked, “Did Ami send you any pictures of their wedding or anything?”

Mamoo cleared his throat and straightened up.

“No. It was a pretty quick wedding, I think. I don’t even know what the actual day of their marriage was or how long they waited after my parents’ accident. My feelings of guilt and helplessness around your mother . . . they kind of replaced the way I had thought about her up until then. She was no longer just my sister, my childhood best friend, the person who was desperate for new books and to grow up to be like me. She was this person whom I had failed to protect. She was on a boat in an ocean a world away. I didn’t know where her boat was heading or whether it would be able to withstand the waves that life brings. But I had no power to bring her back to shore or build her a stronger boat. All I could do was listen to her crying until the phone disconnected.”

* * *

It is Rainforest Night. I believe I’m prepared this time. I told Mamoo not to come. I have no idea what to expect, and there are too many variables I can’t control. I plan on telling Ruby that we can meet and that I’ll talk about whatever she wants to talk about.

The event is scheduled from 6:00 to 7:00 and is structured as an open house. I greet children and parents, some of whom come straight from work, still in their business suits and scrubs. The room fills up quickly, and children stand next to their stations, which have been set up around the room and extend into the hallway.

At ten minutes past the hour, I clear my throat. All eyes turn to me, and I make a few comments welcoming everyone and applauding the effort by the students. I give a one-sentence shout-out to each child’s area of inquiry. “If you want to know the number of unique species of animals in the Amazon and why that is their only habitat, you should check out Winifred’s presentation.”

Marlene and Poppy, followed by Ruby, walk in. Ruby does not appear to be under the influence. She follows Marlene with her shoulders bunched up around her neck and her gaze locked down. I wonder if Marlene has told her about the divorce yet.

I avoid looking at the corner of the room where they stand. I am standing up straight and breathing, notwithstanding Ruby being in the same room. I will be all right. “If you are interested in scientific breakthroughs that have emerged from materials found in the rainforest, you will definitely want to visit Sophie, who has taught me a thing or two.”

I keep my radar on Marlene and Ruby. Where they are in the room and what is happening around them. There are so many reasons for this family to be nervous. Mixed race. Same sex. Outsiders in this tightly knit community, where most families have been together since preschool. Drunken scene causing great embarrassment less than a month ago. My instinct to protect the vulnerable, especially this family, is on high alert, but if there is any stigmatization or quiet exclusion, I do not notice it. Parents are caught up in the pleasure of seeing their children presenting what they have learned.

At five minutes to the hour, families start peeling out. They have other children, dinner to prepare, and bedtime. Poppy runs up to me and hugs me.

I say, “You did a great job! You should be proud of yourself.” No matter what is happening between the adults, I never want her to absorb it. I don’t look up from Poppy’s face until I have to. Ruby is looking to the side as though engrossed in the GDP of the rainforest relative to stand-alone countries. Marlene is looking back and forth between Ruby and me. My anxiety feeds on hers.

“Hi, Ruby.” My hesitation weighs down my words, and they come out, scarcely a whisper.

Ruby turns in my direction but does not meet my eyes. She does not acknowledge me. She simply puts her arm around Poppy’s shoulders and steers her toward the table where her poster board about family units is set up.

“Wait. Ruby.”

Ruby turns to me while Poppy catches up with Marlene, a few feet away, who is busy folding up Poppy’s trifold presentation. Ruby waits until Poppy is out of hearing range and then says gutturally, “Stay away from my family.”

I flush. I am mortified. Why did I think Ruby wanted to talk to me? Because of the letters she sent to me all those years ago? Because she landed on my desk in a drunken haze? I feel like such an idiot. I’ve been so busy running from my history, I managed to string together a few disconnected and disparate facts into a story, a rationale.

After everyone has left the room, I walk around the room slowly, cleaning up.

Marlene walks in and says, “I wanted to check on you. You okay?” She sees my face and quickly adds, “Ruby’s walking home with Poppy, and I’m driving with her poster board.”

“Sure. Other than what an idiot I just made of myself.”

“What happened? I saw you two talk.”

“Not sure I’d call that a talk.” And then I tell her.

“Oh, Sal, I’m so sorry.”

She looks like she’s going to hug me, and I put my hands up. It is bad enough that, somehow, my closest confidant has become Ruby’s wife. But now I have to figure out why Ruby hates me.

“Have you told her yet? About the divorce?”

She looks behind her to the door. “Not yet. I don’t know . . . I know she’s only been here for a day, but she’s not had a single drink, and the kids are so happy to see her. Bear literally climbs her like a tree, and she’ll wrestle with him till he tires out, which I simply can’t do, and . . .” She looks at me helplessly. “I want an intact family.”

What can I say? Of course she does. And I want her and Poppy and Bear to be part of an intact family. I’m not so far gone that I want others to be as miserable as me. I nod and give an attempt at a smile.

“Sal?”

I’m going to have to tell her to call me Salma or MissCh because I can’t handle her calling me Asma’s nickname for me. I look at her with forced patience.

“I asked Ruby,” she says.

My entire body locks up. Is that why Ruby was so hostile?

“We’ve fought about that diary for such a long time, and I don’t know, I was trying to figure out if I tell her about the divorce first or ask about the diaries first. And honestly, the diaries felt easier. I hate that your sister still has such a hold on her. Sorry. No offense. I said that now she knows you exist and you’re Asma’s family that she should give them to you.”

I put my hands to my mouth.

“Don’t,” Marlene says, a warning in her voice. “Don’t get your hopes up. Ruby told me she threw them all away. In some garbage can at an Amoco station between here and Chicago.”

After she leaves, I fold in on myself in the middle of the red rug. I am alone. In a school. At night. No Mamoo. No family. A sad spinster, waiting for something, hoping a remnant from the past might complete me.

My despair knows no bounds. Once again, Asma does not speak to me.