I hear the azzan, even before the sun rises. A dream still hangs in my head, so clearly I felt them around me, Kathryn and the boys. They slept with me in Pakistan, in my father’s house in Lahore. But I knew I could not leave that dream bed, that outside the door men were waiting for me. Interpol, ISI, Al Qaeda—I didn’t know who, but they all wanted me and I knew none would let me rest.
Awake, I can feel the tropical, humid heat of the day already seeping in through the window, but a chill lingers around me. I ache to feel warmth, skin, softness next to me. After a long absence, my morning erection has returned. I observe this as some kind of affirmation of life, a shift from the process of flight. But I cannot think of satisfying this need. I step into the bathroom. I give a wry smile to the man in the mirror, “Srabjeet, I think I’ll say goodbye to you today.” I wash my face with cold water, slap my cheeks, and tug at my beard. My erection retreats, ignored.
I step into my clothes, though today I do not tie the turban around my head. I step into a no-man’s land of namelessness. I will float in this place between passports, between identities and lives. I step out of the room, today a different room, a different hotel, a different neighborhood, and I follow the few men on the street with prayer rugs rolled under their arms. A little masjid, tucked behind a faded brick building, already accepts a handful of old men, still clearing their eyes of sleep. I leave my shoes with the others; cracked sandals, dusty flip flops, a pair of Punjabi juttis already worn and soft.
In the dawning light, I can see the colors of tinsel garlands hanging from the ceiling. The breeze sends them fluttering. I raise my hands, bow at the waist, feel the old men on both sides of me. They move in unison with a certain grace, though with none of the Sheik’s Islamist precision. As I recite the prayers, I attempt to let them fill me, to push out all other thoughts. Let me focus on this ritual, let me perhaps wrest from it a measure of peace. With each line, though, some piece of my past remains attached.
Oh Allah, is greater. Glory be to you the most high. I remember a man in London who insisted that I join him for the first prayer, urging me to spend my mornings with God, not with a hangover from the disco. Was he Kuwaiti or Qatari? I only remember the way his Arabic words settled in the back of his throat, in the authentic accent the Pakistani scholars attempt to imitate.
O Show us the straight way, the way of those whom you have blessed, who have not deserved your anger, nor gone astray. I remember my Babu, my father’s father, had held me in his strong arms and said Beta, whatever path you follow, try to do right, take care of your brothers around you, for most others in the world will try to do wrong.
Oh Allah, forgive me and have mercy on me. Touching my forehead and then my nose into the floor I remember the smell of the mosque in Dubai, the carpet still new, the wall paint still fresh. Curiously, in the Gulf, in that place closer to the birthplace of Islam, on the same bit of land as Mecca and the Kabba, I spent the least time in the mosque, preferring the dance floor with almost religious regularity. I disdained the small Pakistani men working for my company who lost their dicks in the billows of their clothes, while I pressed through my jeans against the willing hips of women from a dozen different countries. I touch my head and nose again to the floor, I remember the sound of my mother’s voice over the phone telling me she had selected a few girls from good families that I could meet when I returned for Eid holidays. How had I managed to refuse her wishes, drunk on my own youthful confidence? Should I have allowed her to choose my wife then? Should I have refused her later decision that I would be the one to act for the family?
Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah. I stand and bow again, my back parallel to the floor. My knees ache, my lower back creaks with the effort. How do these old men move so easily?