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THEY HAD BEEN on vacation for three days and still the sun gave no hint that it might actually come out. Ever since Naina and Faisal had got to Montego Bay after long airport delays, the port city’s skies had been blanketed by gelatinous, swollen clouds that disintegrated into copious amounts of rainfall by evening. The rain there was not the kind of annoying drip they were used to in New York, but raging showers that lashed out against the soft sand, the hapless palm trees, and the colorful tourist umbrellas. Everything shuddered under the rainfall’s might, and Faisal joked that it was just Mother Nature showing who’s the boss.
They had rented a home with a pool, a jacuzzi, a garden, and a cook, but Naina had to use her imagination to picture how, in the glow of the sun’s rays, the blue water in the pool would have been streaked with gold, the pink of the bougainvillea would have shone in all its vivid glory, the shadows of the jackfruit trees would have been long and dark, and her body would have entered that blissful state that it naturally did in the sun.
It had been Faisal’s idea to go to Jamaica; Naina had wanted to go to Montreal to see the jazz festival. But Faisal, in the typical persuasive manner that he used when he wanted something—a trait of his that Naina thought bordered on selfishness—coaxed her into coming to Montego Bay, speaking of the sunshine, the sunbathing, the warm bathtub-like sea water, and the swaying palm trees.
But the weather had been awful, and Jamaica had become much more touristy since the last time Faisal had last been there. But Naina did not complain—she could tell he felt bad enough already and made an extra effort to be nice to her. One day, he walked a mile to buy her a big bouquet of red roses for no reason in particular; every morning he rose early so she would find her café au lait ready when she got up, and one afternoon he gave her a long, vigorous back massage.
The highlight of their trip was their excursion to Dunn’s River Falls, a six-hundred-foot waterfall where tourists, holding hands and forming one massive human chain, could climb up. Naina, who had never been sporty, excitedly hopped from one slippery rock to another and brawled with the rushing cascades of water heading downstream.
But Faisal, who boasted of being a good tennis and squash player in his younger years, was scared and it was only when Naina threatened to call him a coward did he agree to climb. They held hands and Naina led the way. She pulled him hard if he deliberated too long on a rock and he splashed lots of water on her if she tried to make him go faster than he wanted to.
That afternoon of the Dunn River Falls, their last day in Jamaica, they returned to the house, exhilarated and exhausted, and took long naps under the cloudy skies and only woke up at dinner time. After they finished a delicious Jamaican dinner prepared for them by their cook, they cuddled on the lounge chairs in the porch with glasses of expensive Bordeaux, something Faisal had bought from a liquor store in Jamaica. The rain was coming down ferociously, as it had every other night, and at one point when Naina was listening to the stamping, stomping rain, as if Mother Nature was throwing a tantrum, Faisal pulled out something from his pocket.
It was a small blue velvet jewelry box.
When Naina saw it, her heart filled with fear as she imagined what it might be. Slowly, very slowly, Faisal opened the box. She was relieved to see a small round pendant with a delicately filigreed gold lotus on a chain of small, sparkling rubies. It was the third piece of jewelry he had given her, and easily the most beautiful. She thanked him profusely, gave him a big hug, and he offered to put the necklace on for her.
Right after he helped her with the necklace, he knelt down on one knee on the damp floor and looked up at her with a beseeching look in his eyes.
“Naina, my darling, I’d hoped to do this under the stars or under bright sunshine, but the weather has not been on my side,” Faisal said in a cracking, crackling voice. “So I have to make do with the porch and the rain. Naina, I love you more than anything else in the world and want to make you my wife. I want to wake up next to you every morning, hold you every day, and spend the rest of my life with you.”
Naina was stunned. She did not respond. She did not move. She held her breath without realizing it. He slowly got up from the floor, kissed her right cheek, and sat next to her. The intensity of his gaze was too overwhelming for her. She wanted to hide her face in her hands but resisted the urge.
“I realize that this is not a conventional thing to do for desis our age and that there are many things for you to think about, so I’m not asking you for an answer right away. All I ask is for you to think about it. I really love you, Naina. I know you’ve got kids to think about, but I think they will be fine. They’ve got their own lives and partners at this stage. And I’m already so fond of Amaya and really think that she is warming up to me. And I’m sure, as time passes, Karan will come around too. I promise you that I will treat them like my own children, but I will also keep as much distance as you want me to.”
He put his hand over hers, which was clasping the arm of the lounge chair. “Promise me you’ll think about this.”
Naina still said nothing. She was astounded by his declaration and she was trying hard to not let it show. She hadn’t seen this coming; she hadn’t suspected it; she hadn’t even imagined it except during her fleeting nighttime reveries. She never expected it to turn into a reality. She heard herself muttering a vague yes, of course I will, darling. The surprise continued to sink deeper into her as did the exceptional weight of having to make such a difficult decision.
She saw herself slipping into her own world, absorbing the import of Faisal’s words, beginning to contemplate the quandary facing her, and preparing for myriad thoughts and feelings to present themselves. But she stopped herself. Faisal, who was silently slumping, looked fragile and vulnerable. His gray hair appeared pronounced; the shadows under his eyes stood out under the harsh light of the porch; his mouth looked like it was sagging; and his body looked heavy, as if it contained more than the weight of its fifty-seven years. Naina stroked his hair, telling him that she loved him, telling him that she was lucky to have him in her life, telling him that she couldn’t imagine her life without him, telling him that she would seriously consider his proposal.
That night, Naina lay tossing and turning as Faisal slept, glad that it was their last night together and, that, tomorrow night, she would be ensconced in her quandary in her own nest. She was vexed and confused, surprised by the size and intensity of her own reaction. She didn’t want to get married. Not now. Not ever. Not to Faisal, not to anyone. The thought of living with anyone made her cringe, made her frightened, made her fiercely protective of everything that was hers. All the things in her own little life, small or big, now glowed in her imagination, like fragile, twinkling pleasures in danger of being snuffed out.
She liked sprawling on her bed, her big queen-sized bed, diagonally, with her legs on the right side and her head on the left side, for the three or four nights she slept alone. She liked reading alone, late into the night with her bright bedside lamp on. She liked being the sole owner of her own apartment. She liked her mailbox containing no one else’s mail except hers. She liked watching the Travel Channel by herself without arguing about it with anyone. She liked ordering in Chinese food without being told which dishes could be prepared—in the same amount of time it took for delivery— that were much healthier and tastier. She liked spreading her bath and body products all around her tub without being questioned about why she needed so many products. She liked eating achaar from the jar with a spoon and then using the same spoon to put achaar on her plate. She liked coming home to utter silence. She liked not having to always see someone every time she came home, to always feel the weight of their presence fill up the empty space in the apartment. She liked evenings where she didn’t have to figure out why the other person was silent or sullen. She liked sometimes retreating into herself without having to explain or defend herself. But, most of all, she liked being in a space where the tentacles of no one else’s needs could reach and prey upon her.
The way Naina saw it, marriage or even living together at this point in her or Faisal’s life made no sense at all. They had both been married before; they had both shared a home with someone else; they had both woken up to the same person for ages; they had both endured another person’s presence when they wanted to be alone; they had both practiced keeping silent and going to the kitchen when they wanted to scream; they had both eaten food they could barely swallow while their spouse, eating the same food, smacked his or her lips with delight.
And, obviously, at their age, there was no question of that business of procreation and raising a family. Also, for her, marriage would bring unnecessary complications. Amaya had begun taking to Faisal and her and Mukul occasionally met up with the two of them, but marriage, the marriage of her mother—how would Amaya feel about that? As for Karan, he still had not met Faisal, refusing to even acknowledge him when they spoke, which was not often. And when they did, Karan’s voice was all hard and metallic, ready to shear.
Marriage had conferred respectability when Naina was in her twenties, but now, at least in the eyes of many Indians, it would be seen as anachronistic, as a silly way to mimic the crazy ways of American society. Why take on the added hassle? Once again, she thought of García Márquez’s Love in The Time of Cholera, remembering what Fermina Daza’s daughter, Ofelia, said about her seventy-plus-year-old mother having an affair with sweet, pathetic Florentino Ariza. “Love is ridiculous at our age,” Ofelia had said. “But at theirs it is revolting.” Why did she want to open herself to being mocked when she could easily continue having a clandestine affair? Not that her affair was or could exactly remain clandestine, but still.
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IN THE DAYS that followed Naina’s return from Jamaica, reservations about marriage would make her head would spin for hours. But whenever there was a lull, she went to an inner cavern where she tasted nothing but a dense, creamy love for Faisal—love like a chicken soup, a cure for all ills, nourishing her until she was in the pinkest of pinks of health. During those moments, all doubts would crumble, and she would be ashamed for having questioned herself. Life seemed short and she wanted nothing more than to be in Faisal’s arms forever. But then those moments would pass.
But marriage, why did it have to be marriage? Of course, the answer wasn’t that elusive. She knew Faisal only truly enjoyed cooking if there was always someone else to share the meal with and compliment him on how his spices were perfectly blended, how his kebabs were so juicy, and how his lamb tagine was even better than that of Casablanca Café. She surmised he would find the gleaming azure of the Mediterranean Sea an indifferent blue without someone to hold hands with, feel unmoved by the glorious sun streaming into his bedroom unless someone was lying next to him, and find a picturesque car ride from Rome to Malaga (Naina had recently been reading up on European travel) tedious unless he could turn around to someone every ten minutes and comment on the rolling hills of Tuscany, the earthy appeal of Marseilles, and the intricate resplendence of the Alhambra. She also knew he was someone who did not like silence and often rushed to fill up its sweet emptiness with long strings of words, various musical recordings, voices from the television, or by opening windows to let in the sounds of the city. Like Florentino Ariza, Faisal too had a cavernous need for love. And that cavern would only be full if she became totally his, literally his wife.
Also, Faisal gave little thought to age unlike her, for whom it was like a twenty-four-hour nightlight, always dimly shining in the background. For him, she guessed, getting married at fifty-seven was the same as getting married at twenty-seven—one wore a smart suit, exchanged vows, went on a honeymoon, and started to build a home together. Perhaps, she wondered, if that sort of attitude came with being a man.
Yet she couldn’t cater only to her own needs. As she lay in her bed in her apartment, watching the sunlight-flecked tree careen from her window, she remembered what she had gleaned after her visit to the Oyster House. That she was someone who had dug into her own seed and released many concealed branches, but also that those same branches had ensnared her. They had impelled her to satisfy her own desires, a yearning that kept her mostly restricted in the towering and leafy but ultimately narrow tree of the self.
But how did that apply to the predicament with Faisal? Should she widen the tree to accommodate his needs and not simply hew to her own desires? But how much was too much and how much was too little? What if the tree became so wide and filled with so many branches from a different tree that it no longer resembled the original?
Naina looked out and there was no more sunlight. Even the wind had stopped, and the sparse tree was still. Her head hurt from all that thinking. She lay down, burrowing into her new body pillow. It was so comfortable—she could have stayed like that forever. She thought of Faisal’s belly laugh emitting sparkles of delight, and her body turned into a gooey ball of melted caramel.
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IT HAD BEEN two weeks since Faisal had asked Naina to consider marrying him, and she still had not been able to come to a decision. Both their stances were valid, and she had no idea how to reconcile them short of coming up with some sort of unconventional arrangement, the kind that the rich, the famous, or the creative had, the kind that got discussed in O, Oprah’s magazine, or on talk shows like The View. But even they did not present her with a satisfactory solution. Maybe they could get married, keep their separate apartments, and spend four or five nights a week together? But wasn’t a married couple maintaining two separate places in an expensive city like New York a mad indulgence? Wasn’t running two fridges, two toaster ovens, and two televisions bad for the environment? And once she became his wife, would four or five nights a week suffice for him? And would it be too much for her? Maybe they could get a two-bedroom apartment where they could both have their separate bedrooms and bathrooms? But wouldn’t that mean that they would argue every night about whether they were going to sleep together or alone? And Faisal being Faisal, wouldn’t he just constantly want to be in her room or have her in his? Maybe they could get married, live together but take separate vacations? But wouldn’t that mean she would never have her home to herself? And would Faisal want to travel alone?
Both Soma and Alannah sided with Faisal, accusing her of selfishness.
“Selfishness?” Naina said. “Isn’t his desire to get married as much about fulfilling his own needs as mine not to get married?”
And then Karan had thrown down the gauntlet. He categorically told Naina that he would never speak to her again if she married Faisal. No ifs, ands, or buts. The thought of losing her son was gut-wrenching, the sort of pain she imagined childless Faisal could not relate to. To carry a child for nine months in her body, nourish them with her milk, see parts of herself grow in them—to cut off ties with that person was beyond painful. But in less emotional moments, she reminded herself that she had dedicated years of her life to being a good mother. There had to be a time to let go. If he, at twenty-nine years of age, could not accept his mother and want her to be happy, then she was not to blame. By now, he was the architect of his own emotional map.
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ONE SATURDAY AFTERNOON when it was more cloudy than sunny and the temperature was a pleasant 82 degrees, Naina decided she wasn’t going to think about the situation with Faisal for the rest of that day. She got out of work early, happy to have ended the week with sixteen more people buying tickets to attend the gallery’s big gala at a rooftop restaurant called The Sky’s Balcony with its breathtaking views of Manhattan. There was going to be a fancy three-course Brazilian dinner with Chilean and Argentine wine pairings and a Brazilian jazz band that regularly played in the West Village. She hoped at least another twenty people would buy tickets in the next couple of weeks so they could raise a decent amount of money. After all, the economy was still weak.
As Naina walked crosstown toward her apartment, she found the city unusually hushed—few cars cluttered the streets, even fewer people strolled on them, and those who did were silently going about their business and not screaming the details about their last bad date or the terrible meal they just had, or how they didn’t have any money to travel that summer. Even when she entered the Starbucks on 23rd and 8th, typically a crowded place where they played loud blues music, there were only four or five scholarly-looking people poring over newspapers or magazines, and smooth jazz was playing at a comfortable volume. One of the serious-looking women at the Starbucks had her silver hair tied in a knot at the base of her neck, reminding her of a younger version of Edith, the lady at Oyster House, who only ate eat semi-solid food and always appeared like she was pondering a matter of gravitas.
Over the last few months, she and Edith had developed a relationship of sorts. Whenever Naina went to Oyster House, she hugged Edith several times and then held her hand and talked to her about something she had read, seen, or watched on television, making sure her voice, facial expressions, and hand gestures conveyed the idea that she was talking about something serious even if what she was actually saying was neither well-thought out nor well-said. Edith always appeared to be listening intently and always gave her a faint smile in response.
Naina spotted some new dark chocolates at Starbucks when she ordered her coffee and decided to buy ten for her upcoming Oyster House visit. For Edith, she would microwave the chocolates so they melted enough for her to eat.
She continued walking, enjoying the quiet of the city, until she approached Third Avenue. There she heard a jumble of sentimental French songs, hip hop tunes, old Bollywood ballads, and Spanish boleros. Curious, she walked faster, the sounds got louder, and she saw that a big street fair had taken over the avenue.
There were crepes, ready to be filled with Nutella, chocolate, banana, strawberry, and papaya; big chunks of gyro, shwarma, and chicken kebab cooking on long metal skewers; jerk chicken, curried chicken, and Jamaican patties sold by big-breasted women wearing Bob Marley T-shirts and long skirts; biryani, pav bhaji, samosas, and pakoras being sold by teenage South Asian boys; fancy funnel cakes, ice-creams, and fresh fruit in front of which children were protesting the long lines by screaming or throwing tantrums. There were rows of cheap earrings, boxes of fake silver bracelets, necklaces with colorful beads, heaps of underwear and towels, lines of Made in India dresses with colorful floral or tropical prints, piles of Made in China fake designer handbags and wallets, and mounds of musty dog-eared American classics like Huckleberry Finn and The Scarlet Letter.
As Naina walked around the fair, eating a Jamaican chicken patty, taking in the visual feast all around her, she felt excited, just like she did every time she was at a street fair. Everything about a street fair reminded her of an Indian bazaar—its makeshift quality, the medley of disparate objects spilling into one another, the teeming, chaotic crowds, the obligatory bargaining, the vendors yelling out lower prices when customers pretended to walk away, and the unapologetic obstruction of traffic. Her longing to go to India, which had been burgeoning within her for some time, assumed an even greater urgency. She thought of her sister-in-law’s pictures of their family vacation somewhere in Rajasthan, images of some old palace in the middle of nowhere that had been converted into a hotel—apparently that kind of renovation was all the rage in India these days.
Naina wiped the dust off of the copy of Edith Wharton’s Twilight Sleep she had just bought and caught a whiff of the unmistakable, piquant odor of henna. She looked around and could not see a stall selling anything that looked like henna. She walked further downtown and saw something that resembled a scene from a henna ceremony at an Indian wedding. Two South Asian women, dressed in saris and sitting on low stools, were painting intricate designs with henna-filled cones on the hands of young women sitting on rugs on the street. Meanwhile, two other South Asian women stood behind a table overflowing with glittering colored glass bangles. They were repeatedly making the case that a woman’s hand looked empty unless she wore at least a dozen bangles on each wrist.
“Come, madam, come,” one of the henna painters hollered, a plump, sari-clad woman whose partially exposed midriff showed conspicuous stretch marks. Naina walked closer, and the woman smiled brightly and switched to Hindi. “Come, I’ll make a special design for you. You are desi—you can appreciate it. Not like these foreigners who come and can’t tell the difference between a good and bad design. They just see green on their hands and get excited.”
“I don’t know if I should get henna,” Naina said in Hindi. “I have no special event, so what’s the point?”
“No special event? You are desi, madam. In our culture, there’s always a special event. Especially marriages. I’m sure someone you know is getting married soon, even if you don’t know about it or remember it right now. You know last week, I bought a nice sari in Jackson Heights and my husband asked me where I would wear it. Two days later, we found out that his cousin’s daughter-in-law’s brother is getting married in three months on Long Island.”
Naina smiled and shook her head. “I don’t think any special event is going to come up in the next ten days after which point the henna will wear off.”
“Then, madam, if you put on the henna, it will attract auspicious events. Is your daughter married yet?”
“No.” The question amused Naina. Ah, the daughter’s wedding. The event the archetypal Indian mother longs for. Unless her daughter is married, an Indian woman has not fulfilled her motherly duties. But in truth she did want Amaya to get married soon, mostly because her daughter seemed to crave it so badly now.
“Then you must apply henna, madam,” the henna painter insisted. “Just see how soon your daughter gets married after that. It’s good luck, you know. Why do you think people apply henna before marriage in our culture? C’mon do it, if for nothing else, for your daughter’s sake. Arre, you don’t want your daughter to end up a spinster because you weren’t willing to apply henna to give her good luck. Trust me. See how quickly she becomes a bride after that. And then I’m going to come and apply henna at her wedding and then dance after that. And, madam, don’t worry about price, you are the first Indian to come to us today, so I’ll do it for fifteen dollars a hand . . . the American rate is twenty dollars a hand, but don’t tell anyone. If you want to get just one hand done, that’s all right too. Same rate. C’mon sit down. I’ll be done with this gori (white woman) in one minute.”
Naina left the street fair one hour later with henna on both her palms, the back of her hands, and her wrists. Both her arms were jingling with gold-flecked red bangles. She was colored and painted like a bride, a million miles away from an archetypal Hindu widow in all white, devoid of any color. Except for the few times over the years when she had had just a tiny bit of henna applied to her left hand for weddings, the last time she had such an extensive henna painting and worn so many red-and-gold bangles on each wrist was almost thirty-five years earlier for her own wedding. However, at that time, she had been so preoccupied that she had barely paid any attention to it.
But now, as she stood in front of her apartment building, waiting for someone to open the door so she wouldn’t ruin her henna, she slowly sniffed its distinct, bold aroma, leisurely admired the intricate pattern of paisleys and arabesques, enjoyed its cool sensation, and listened to the tinkling of bangles every time she moved her hands. She imagined showing off her new adornments to Faisal when she saw him later that night, but after giving it some thought, decided it might be wiser to take off the bangles before she saw him so he wouldn’t misinterpret the numerous red-and-gold bangles and the henna—key ornaments in South Asian weddings—as a sign of her willingness to get married.
The henna started to dry when Naina entered her apartment and she carefully applied some lemon and sugar on it, a concoction her grandmother had told her deepened the natural dye’s color. An hour later, the henna started cracking, revealing a rich maroon color, and she scraped it off with a knife. The smell was still pungent, and it pervaded her entire apartment, making it smell like an Indian henna party, an important pre-wedding festivity. She went to her computer to send an email to her sister-in-law to tell her about her henna extravaganza and to ask her if the Bollywood movie Jab We Met was any good. When she opened her inbox, she found a two-hour old email from Amaya.
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Dear Mom,
I’m sorry it took me so long to write. We’ve been traveling so much and functioning Internet cafes are not so easy to find. Peru is an amazing country, quite rugged (at least the parts we’ve been to), and we’ve been having a good time. Hiking and camping around here is quite an adventure, and I think I’m becoming quite good at it. I think you would like Machu Picchu even though it’s quite touristy. It does feel quite sacred with all the ruins, the altitude, and the fog. Your kind of place. But it rained the whole time we were there, and I didn’t mind it so much but Mukul, like you, is a sun-worshipper, and I had to hear him complain and that wasn’t so much fun.
Mom, we’ve been traveling together for nearly two weeks and it is our longest trip together. We’re getting along really well, but there’s something that’s really bothering me. He’s mentioned a couple of times that he thinks marriage has a greater chance of failure than success. He said he thinks couples are better off when they are independent though I don’t know exactly what he meant by that and didn’t ask. Of course, he’s only talked about this stuff in abstract, hypothetical terms, and he says this stuff quite casually so I don’t know if he’s really serious or what he really thinks. And, right now, we’re on a vacation and frankly I’m too nervous to ask him more. I love him a lot and know he loves me too but I also want to be married, wake up next to the same person every day, share a home, share a mailbox, share a coffee table, share a couch, have children. He does say he loves children though! I’m almost 32 now. Gosh, Mom, what a mess! What am I going to do about this? But don’t worry, Mom, I’m fine. I know he loves me. But is that enough for things to work out?? I hope so.
I’m trying my best not to think about it on the trip and I know it will all somehow work itself out for the best. At least that’s what I tell myself. Anyway, I better go now because many people are waiting to use the computer. I hope you and Faisal had a good trip to Jamaica. As you know, I’ll be back Thursday evening on American Airlines from Lima. I’ll send you the flight number soon.
Love,
Amaya
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Naina shut her laptop and sat shaking in her chair. She stared briefly at her white ceiling before sobbing in soft bursts. Her poor baby. She wanted to take Amaya in her arms and rock her just like she did when she was a child and woke up crying.
Naina started to become conscious of the irony of the situation. Their circumstances were similar except that, in her own case, she was the Mukul and Faisal was the Amaya. She was resisting marriage, and Amaya was craving it. It was all too bizarre to digest.
Click-click, clack-clack again went the stiletto heels of the Russian woman who lived above her, continuing her jarring walk for the next ten or fifteen minutes. Naina wanted to scream. Instead, she flung a magazine onto the floor.
Her darling daughter deserved to get married, put henna all over her hands and feet and wear a red-and-gold lehenga. She deserved to wake up next to someone every day, cuddle with someone on the couch every night, and eat dinner with someone every evening. She wanted it so badly. Waves of anger toward Mukul lurched through her, but somewhere in the back of her brain, she also realized that she, of all people, didn’t have a right to be mad.
Naina sat in her apartment for hours, staring at the ceiling, meditating, and drinking peppermint tea. She kept imagining holding Amaya, rocking her to sleep, and massaging away the creases on her brow.
Why wouldn’t a boy like Mukul want marriage? At his age, it seemed like the appropriate thing to do. And then she quickly corrected herself. She should know better than to assume anything about people because of their age.
As for herself, she still had not made up her mind. She still did not want marriage, planned to try her best, in the most delicate yet persuasive manner, to make her case against it. But she knew how stubborn Faisal could be. So if it had to be marriage, she might, just might be willing to give in. But there were certain things she knew, with complete certainty, she would not compromise on. She needed to have a place for long lengths of time where she thought, if she thought about anything at all, about herself, and only herself. A place where she could be as solitary as those wonderful ruby-throated hummingbirds, drinking, hovering, floating forward, backward, and moving in any direction she liked. A place where nobody else’s thoughts traversed hers. Regardless of what solution they came up with (and she hoped they came up with a solution), she needed to have this. It was almost as important as her love for Faisal.
She looked at her watch and realized it was almost eight o’ clock. She had to meet Faisal at nine. She couldn’t wait. After so much silence, she wanted to hear Faisal’s long, fragrant garlands of words, his laugh that seemed larger than him, and feel his love that just overflowed like honey without viscosity. She went to the corner of her bedroom wall and picked up a painting of dynamic concentric circles, bluish-green like the color of the ocean lashing against the rocks in Tulum in the afternoon, the color of the Statue of Liberty, the color she most associated with mystery. It was made by a contemporary artist she had recently seen and it made her think of Sufi whirling dervishes, spinning and spinning until their souls were so drunk with ecstasy and their minds were still, so still, that there were no questions, no answers, no past and no future.
Naina had bought the painting as a present for Faisal to add some color and warmth to his sparse walls. She meticulously wrapped it with bubble wrap and acid-free paper, quickly got dressed and ran out the door to meet him, carefully holding on to the painting.