An Austere Party for the Passionately Ascetic

Christine invited us to a party at her house. It turned out to be a disappointment, because Christine—the unbending vegan—did not allow any animal products, no milk, no eggs, into her home. And so there was nothing to eat but potato chips, and a strange kind of cake that didn’t contain any milk or egg. Some of the guests—we were all students—perched on high metal stools without cushions or backs in the crowded kitchen and began talking to one another about their studies and what they had to read next and their professors. More guests were standing in the hall or the sitting room, exchanging similar conversations, the endlessly repeated chatter of students. I said to Suroor, “We are going to die of boredom even before we die of hunger.”

There was nothing really to look at in Christine’s simple apartment; her home seemed a reflection of Christine’s own unadorned self. She was constantly on the move. Today she wore a green T-shirt on which was printed FRIENDS OF THE EARTH, and jeans and running shoes. She was unusually tall, so tall that people had to tip their faces upward to address her. Her hands always seemed to be darting about, her fingers going up unconsciously to toy with the tiny silver ring in her nose. It was impossible to avoid noticing the tattooed cross on her wrist that she had gotten when she was sixteen years old. Her very pale blond hair was always gathered in a ponytail, and if she wasn’t wearing the green T-shirt, then she would certainly be wearing a blue one that was otherwise identical. Her cup of decaf coffee with soy milk was tall and skinny: it looked just like her. Here at this party, she was an exact scan of the figure I always saw at the university: T-shirt jeans running shoes ponytail nose ring tattoo long skinny cup. The only difference was that, at home, she didn’t have her gray Adidas backpack over her shoulders.

My Arab colleagues were applying themselves energetically to the whiskey bottles that these young men had brought with them. Kuhl had gone into the apartment’s one bedroom to be by herself with her phone. Christine shared this apartment with a classmate from China. In the narrow corridor stood Suroor, her slender fingers clutching a glass of juice, the perfectly manicured nails visible. She was having an intense discussion with two male students, one Norwegian and the other Korean, about hijab. Standing around like this didn’t appeal to me, and I was beginning to feel tired as well as bored. I swooped down on Kuhl in the bedroom. My timing was lucky: she was no longer on her phone.

She was wiping her eyes on a tissue. I felt embarrassed, and I am sure it showed. But she made room for me on the bed where she was already sitting.

“Suroor has told you everything, right?” she asked me after a moment.

I was hesitant; I didn’t know what to say. She went on. “Suroor doesn’t understand anything. She thinks she does, but in fact she doesn’t understand anything at all.”

I couldn’t find any words. So I occupied myself by staring at each wall in turn. There was nothing to look at except a photograph of Christine’s father, who was a professor of mathematics at Columbia University, and a small map of New York. “Christine’s from New York,” I said. My voice came out flat and dull.

“That’s what she always says,” replied Kuhl. Something in the tone of her voice made me instantly aware that she was older than Suroor. Maybe more mature, as well. Her eyes were close to my face. They weren’t focusing on anything around her, and I felt her nearness, as I noticed the determination those eyes seemed to hold. She began scraping her fingers across the pillow; her nails were a rose color. She was definitely a bit fuller than Suroor, her features less well defined. Suddenly I had an inkling: her family must have always been fixated on this difference in appearance—in attractiveness—between the two sisters, and this preoccupation must have conveyed to Kuhl unconsciously that she did not deserve the best. It was a disturbing thought. I began staring at the walls again. There was nothing up there to suggest the presence of Christine’s Chinese flatmate.

Kuhl spoke suddenly. “I cherish my parents,” she said. “I really do hold them in very high esteem, believe me. I respect the family name, I respect— Suroor doesn’t understand. She thinks that by marrying Imran I am betraying my family. But she doesn’t underst—”

“Don’t apologize, Kuhl.”

“Was I apologizing?” She sounded startled. “Yes, all right, you have a point, I’m always apologizing. Suroor—”

I interrupted her again. “This attachment you have, this kind of feeling—what greater justification could there be, anyway?”

The tears glistened in her eyes. “It isn’t just that Imran is right for me. And suitable. He completes me. I was only half a person before I found him. Our comfort together, how good we feel, the strength of our love—it can’t be put into words.”

Suddenly she started crying, her whole body trembling. I put my arm around her shoulder. “Don’t cry, Kuhl. It’s your choice, and you are perfectly capable of making good choices.”

Her voice came unevenly, broken up by her sobs. “But I didn’t choose anything. This was not about making a choice. Suroor simply does not understand. I don’t want to wrong anyone, and I don’t want to reduce Suroor’s chances of finding an appropriate husband from a distinguished family, but. . . but, Imran . . .”

She wiped her tears dry on a tissue and suddenly her face was radiant and her voice was sure. “Imran—when I wake up early in the morning and find that I’m not in his arms, I feel like my existence has no meaning at all.”

Suddenly, Christine appeared in the doorway. Seeing us, she raised her thin eyebrows. “Were you investigating my clothes closet?” she asked lightly.

Kuhl laughed. “And what would we find there, besides blue and green Friends of the Earth T-shirts?”

I heard Christine’s loud laughter. I could never understand how a body that thin could emit such a powerful laugh. It was late, and I made my excuses and said my goodbyes.

In the following months I saw a lot of Kuhl, when she wasn’t busy with her studies or with Imran. We went for long walks in the public gardens. She talked incessantly, as if she had just discovered language. I loved listening to her—to that impeccable upper-class British accent, which she had acquired from her British teachers in primary school, and her unexpected little intakes of breath between sentences. For me, Kuhl crafted a world of words, and she wanted to bring me inside it. For a moment, I imagined myself a part of it. But in reality, I wasn’t a part of anything at all.