Whoever said opposites attract was lying.
Even as a six-year-old girl, I noticed how different my parents were. Where Papa’s laughter filled the house, Mama was seething and silent. Papa was a paintbrush: tall and thin, with thick brown hair that had begun to grey. Mama was round and compact, an old teapot. Papa’s face seemed to shine when he smiled, even when the Sky Sickness had left him starched and almost diaphanous, a forgotten shirt on a washing line. Mama never smiled. She smirked. A lot. That smirk came paired with a watching-you-down-the-length-of-her-nose stare that followed me, even after the last time I saw her.
Where Papa died young, Mama continued living and living — and for all I know, is still living.
It is strange how little I saw them together. My earliest memory is of Papa encouraging me to draw on blank squares of paper. Of Papa’s starry blue eyes as his delicate hands guided the crayons in my fingers in abstract shapes that I thought were cats. Past his shoulder, I remember Mama sitting in her favourite green chair, her blue shalwar-kameez eternally pressed and immaculate, her dupatta coiled tightly around her head. I remember Mama sitting motionless as she smirked at me, her black eyes like a moonless, starless night.
“Say the words again,” Mama said, her teeth clenched. “Slowly this time. What will people say when they hear you talk? That your mother raised a girl who clucks like a chicken?”
If I ever joined words together, she would tell me to repeat the same sentence ten times.
“Mama, please —”
“Do not Mama me. Who is running after you?”
“No one.”
“Then? Why are you in such a hurry to get through the sentence? Are you a woman or a chicken?”
“Let her be, Sudduf,” Papa said, his slender hands on my shoulders. As the years went by, Papa’s protests grew softer and softer. But they were always there. Papa squeezed my shoulders gently as I stared at the floor. “She’s just seven.”
Mama turned her gaze to Papa, and his hands gripped my shoulders a little tighter.
“She needs to learn. I will not raise a girl who cannot speak like a woman.”
“She’s just a child.”
Mama tightened the dupatta around her scalp. “She will not be a little girl forever. Mrs. Mirza’s daughter is a year older than her, and she can recite Iqbal’s poetry by heart.”
“This isn’t about Mrs. Mirza.”
“If you keep spoiling her, she is going to stay a little girl. What will people say? Do you think I want that for her? I am her mother. She should know how much we sacrifice for her. Other people beat their children, and here I am who —”
“Enough, Sudduf.”
“Fine.” The smirk appeared on her lips. “We shall talk later.”
Papa did not say anything.
When I was eight, I met a sad ghost near the river. He was singing because he thought he was alone. It was a song that was incomplete but beautiful. I memorized the words even though I heard them only once. I memorized the song because I wanted to sing it for the man I loved.
Some days, I feel our stories remain half-told for a reason. Society or death or the passage of time stops us from saying all the things we want to say. Like the sad ghost’s song, beautiful things must remain incomplete.
Papa was gone, and there was so much I still wanted to say to him.
“Read it again. Carefully. And loudly this time.”
“Mama —”
“Do not make me repeat myself, Doua. Your papa is not here anymore.”
“I cannot.”
“You are eleven now, but you still struggle with simple words like an idiot. What will people say?”
“Mama —”
“Is this what I have taught you? Is this why I work at the restaurant? So I can raise a girl no man will want?”
“No, Mama.”
“Then read the passage again.”
I was sitting at the table, my head clutched in my hands, the letters crawling and twisting on the page like frenzied ants.
“I cannot hear you, Doua.”
Mama was cooking roti on the stove but had asked me to read aloud to her. It was a passage from Moby Dick. I was eleven years old — and even now, more than twenty years later, I know that one passage by heart.
Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a colour as the visible absence of colour, and at the same time the concrete of all colours; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows — a colourless, all-colour of atheism from which we shrink?
“You stumbled again, Doua.”
“I’m sorry, Mama.”
“I am sorry.”
“I am sorry, Mama.”
“Better.” There was a glimpse of silent heaven. It lasted a few seconds. “Start again.”
I bit my lip, the words blurring into clouded black streaks. “‘Or is it, that as in essence whiteness —’”
“Louder.”
“‘Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a colour as the visible apsence of colour —’”
“Absence.”
“Yes, Mama.” I started reading again. “’Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a colour as the visible absence of colour, and at the same time the concentrate of all colours —’”
“Are you an idiot? Tell me now that you are an idiot, so I stop working so hard. You can grow up like those paleet children, cleaning houses and begging. Do you want that? Do you belong in the Badlands? Tell me now.”
“No, Mama.”
“Then read it again. Focus. Stop dilly-dallying like your papa who kept forgetting to wear his mask.”
The pages clouded up, growing smaller and murkier. “‘Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a colour as the visible absence of colour, and at the same time the’” — I paused for the smallest of moments — “‘concrete of all colours; is it for these reasons that there is such a dump blackness —’”
Something metallic clanged against the floor, spinning and spinning.
I heard Mama open a drawer, the sparse cutlery jangling. A breathy huff of flames came alive on the stove.
“Mama?”
For several minutes, I heard nothing but a sporadic popping sound.
She switched off the stove.
“Mama?”
Watching me down the length of her nose, she held a knife in her hand and approached me slowly, deliberately. The tip of the knife was red and smoking black.
“Doua,” she whispered. Mama never whispered. “Read the passage again. And for your sake, I hope you make no mistake.”
On my nineteenth birthday, I tried selling my paintings in New Market. My pieces. The covers had barely come off my art when the shocked disapproval scalded me like boiled milk.
“This is pornographic!” a man shouted at me. He pointed his finger at the image of a nude woman’s back as she stood by a window watching the snow fall. “You should cover these. My children are here.”
The female body. Nothing offends people of faith like a woman’s body.
“They seem to like her,” I said, nodding at his two little boys, who were giggling at another piece I had made of a nude woman floating in the sky, the clouds coiled over her breasts and between her legs.
Within an hour, a small crowd had gathered at my stall. Mullahs and proprietors, kafirs too. They all pointed, shook their heads, and glared at me.
“This is scandalous.”
“This is indecent.”
“This is not in our culture.”
But they stood around, and they continued to stare. Women and men, girls and boys — they all crowded around my stall and kept ogling the bare skin, the curves, the breasts and vaginas. They crinkled their mouths, they shook their heads, but every one of them stared. Like the tall old man with long hair who stood before my piece of the woman staring out the window. He did not partake in the moral indignation. After what felt like forever, he turned around and walked away.
The only one who showed interest in my art was an eleven-year-old boy with curly red hair. He had been transfixed before my piece of a near-transparent naked woman standing by a bus stop. She was flaking away, pieces of her breaking off, pieces she held in her hands.
“What’s this one called?” he asked.
“I do not name my art,” I replied, standing next to it even as all the other people glowered at me. “But if you buy it, you can call it whatever you like.”
He handed me a small stack of pink rupees. “The Glass Woman.”
“The Glass Woman.” I smiled and handed him the only art piece I have ever sold.
“Mama, I do not want to marry anyone. Not right now.”
I had begun to sit as far away from Mama as I could at the table. I would fidget with the food even if I wanted to eat more because Mama would complain that I was becoming fat.
“Nonsense. You will marry Mrs. Mirza’s son. You are getting older, and I have given your hand in marriage to Mohsin Mirza.”
“Without asking me. I am nineteen, Mama.”
Mama did not respond immediately. She stopped eating, placed her hands on the table, and smiled at me the way she would smile at Mrs. Mirza. “I am your mother, Doua. I know what is best for you. Everything I do, everything I have done, is for you.”
“I do not want to marry anyone.”
Her face turned pink and white like a closed fist. She was no longer smiling. “Do you want children when you are thirty?”
“I do not want children.”
“Nonsense. You will marry and you will have many children because —”
“Because I am a woman?” I pushed my plate forward. “I do not want marriage or children. I want to paint.”
“Ya Allah.” She inhaled sharply. “You would be lucky if you sell even one more painting.”
“I will take my chances.”
“With your dark skin?” Mama’s black eyes slithered over my face and body like a serpent measuring its prey. “With those acne scars?”
“Mama, stop.”
“Why do you insist on tormenting your mother who has done so much for you? Do I not deserve to be happy? After everything I have gone through?”
“Mama. Stop.”
“Why must you insist on wasting His gifts?” She pressed her dupatta to her mouth, and tears began to stream down her cheeks. “Why must you insist on painting those naked whores?”
Younger me would have begun to weep. I would have wrapped my arms around her and kissed her damp cheeks. I would have promised that I would do whatever she wanted and that what made her happy would make me happy. Except now I could see her watching me, studying me, even as she cried. It was how she had cried at Papa’s funeral.
Some days, I wish I could say that Mohsin was a bad man. That he ruined me, that he failed me. Some days, I wish I could say that Mohsin was a good man. That he loved me, that he tried to understand me.
Mama invited Mohsin and his family over to our home. He arrived with his mother and three sisters. I stayed in the kitchen as Mama had ordered. I wanted to hear his voice, but like me, he was invisible and without sound. Some days, I feel marriage is an agreement to lose your voice.
Mama called my name, and I came out of the kitchen with tea and sweets. I felt their stares on me — my face caked with makeup to make me as fair as possible, my steps smaller and slower, my eyes lined with kajal, my head covered because I was chaste, my gaze lowered because I was shy and docile. I served tea to Mohsin’s mother, who smiled at Mama, not me. I served Mohsin his tea, and neither of us smiled. Some days, I feel smiles in Old Pakistan are only a sheath for fangs and forked tongues.
Our mothers did all the talking that day, and all days until the wedding. They laughed a lot, at times before the other even completed her story. Those same customs meant that I did not see Mohsin again until the wedding day. During the ceremony, I glanced at him, he glanced at me, and we stared back at the floor as stranger after stranger gave us their blessings. The only happy people at weddings are the guests.
That night, his mother gave him a necklace to place around my neck. He did, fidgeting with the clasp so much that I had to help him. I undressed and lay stiff on the mattress. We did not say a word. He kissed me but did not smile. I kissed him but did not smile.
The next morning, he had to help me out of bed because I was so sore. He apologized repeatedly. I wept all day. Mama took me aside and said new brides smile for the guests. I smiled and greeted the guests, who were strangers and gave the same blessings they had the night before. Mohsin apologized again as he held my hand. He swore that he would only touch me again when I asked him to. Some days, I feel I was raped that night. Some days, I feel there is no fair word to describe what happened that night.
Mohsin bought bags of coffee, though I liked tea. I cooked him qeema, though it gave him heartburn. Mohsin liked to nap in the afternoon and did not understand my art pieces. He told me they were a sin. I liked to listen to music in the afternoon and did not understand why a painting would offend Allah. Mohsin laughed when I was quiet and stayed quiet when I laughed. Mohsin wanted children, lots of children. I did not. I wanted to sing the sad ghost’s song for him but could never bring myself to do it. I wanted so badly for him to touch me but could never bring myself to ask. I wept every day. Mohsin faded into the background. After six months, my marriage ended in the same silence that it had begun.
Some days, I hate Mohsin for agreeing to our marriage, for not standing up to his mother when he should have. Some days, I hate myself for agreeing to our marriage, for not standing up to Mama when I should have.
In the end, I could forgive neither of us.
Some days, rare as they are, I imagine a different life where I meet Mohsin by chance in a shop or by the river and we start talking. He is sensitive and sweet and thoughtful. He asks me about my art, of the story I am trying to tell, the names I would give the pieces if I could, and we talk about what they mean. Some days, I imagine that he kisses me, touches me, and does not need to ask for permission.
I wonder if my whole life has been a revolt against my mother. That for all my rebellion, I am fulfilling that bitter woman’s predictions without realizing it. That no matter how far I have walked away from my home, no matter how much I steel my heart so as to never forgive her, my mother’s black eyes still spear through me.
The library-shelter was my monument to motherhood. Not because I knew anything about being a mother or looking after children, but because in that cozy two-storey building, I did the opposite of everything Mama had done to me.
Children painted there. They laughed and played. Children read whatever books I could find for them. They cried and fought there, but by the end of the day, nothing bad lasted. Nothing bad lasted because the library-shelter was a place of you and me.
The library-shelter was also my monument to home. Not because I knew anything about housekeeping or family, but because it recreated a piece of my childhood home when Papa was alive. I lived with a man who was not my husband but to whom I sang. Though we maintained our distance in front of the others, our nights were full of kisses and whispered stories. The children watched me sing, they heard me read awkwardly to them, they learned to read and write, and our library-shelter swelled with stories. There were no PFM flags in this home.
All good homes have a story. All good mothers give their children a story. That story can be about loss and suffering, it can be about heartache and longing. But in the end, no matter how heartbreaking that story gets, it always has a happy ending, because the story is about love and family. It is a story of you and me.
“Do you have a husband?” he inquired in a voice that was softer than expected, but raspier toward the end. A voice that lost some of itself deep inside his chest.
“No, I do not, Avaan. Why do you ask?”
He was sitting on the windowsill, reclusive in his demeanour. He had been ever since that time a couple of months back when, out of nowhere, he had held my hand in his. When I’d slipped out of his grasp, he’d looked at me with apologetic, wounded eyes.
“Just curious.” He dug his face back into the book he was reading. The Plague. Except he was holding it upside down. “But there was someone, right?”
His conviction startled me. I looked outside for a brief second and felt his big golden eyes on me.
“What makes you so sure?” I asked.
“I was reading this.” He realized that the book was upside down. I pretended to look outside again as he flipped the book and pointed at a line that I had underlined a long time ago. “‘A time came when I should have found the words to keep her with me, only I couldn’t.’”
“Great line.” I smiled.
“Yup.”
“So? What about it?”
“Well, I read that and realized that sometimes words don’t mean what I want them to mean. It’s like the words aren’t enough to explain what I feel, you know?”
“I know. If words were enough, there would be no art or music.”
“Why?”
“Because I feel that the reason art exists at all is that someone looked at something, felt something, and did not have the words to explain what they truly felt. To draw it, to sing about it, to write about it — that is their way of filling the gaps left behind by words.”
“So, why does anyone expect words at all?”
“I do not know,” I said, smiling. “I suppose they are giving us a chance.”
He pointed at the line again. “See, I kept thinking that this book is full of great lines. But you’ve only underlined this one part.”
“Look at you, Mr. Detective.”
He beamed. “So I thought that at some point, someone must’ve needed to find the right words to keep you? Or maybe the other way around, right? Which means that there’s someone.”
“Yes.” I tried to smile — after all, that had been years ago — but I doubt I succeeded. “There was someone.”
He grinned proudly, but his smile faded quickly. It must have been the look on my face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize …”
I folded my arms and shook my head. I looked up. The stupid tears began to roll down my cheeks, and I had no choice but to remember that I had married Mohsin. Just as Mama had said I would.
“You awake, Doua?”
“What are you doing here, Avaan?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Again?”
“It happens from time to time. Are you painting again?”
“I am not sure what I am doing, honestly.”
“It’s — wow. I love how you’ve mixed blue with pink and purple. It makes me think of dawn. Not that I’ve ever seen one. But I imagine it’d be like this.”
“Thank you.”
“This is the most beautiful painting I’ve ever seen.”
“Oh? How many paintings have you seen in Old Pakistan?”
“You’re doing that thing again.”
“What thing?”
“Can I sit with you?”
“Sure. What thing?”
“You paint these images, but you still hide this part of you from people.”
“I —”
“Have you ever shown your pieces to anyone?”
“Of course.”
“You had a stall? For like a day?”
“Ouch.”
“How come you never show your pieces to anyone? The others don’t know you still paint.”
“You know.”
“Yeah. Only because I barely sleep and noticed your lamp was on. It’s like you’re ashamed.”
“I am not ashamed.”
“Tell me about this piece, then. What’s it called?”
“I do not name my pieces.”
“Why?”
“I feel they should be unnamed. Because they are alone.”
“Like you, you mean?”
“What?”
“Is that why you don’t talk about your pieces? Because then they’d be apart from you?”
“Maybe.”
“Except you’re not alone, Doua. Not anymore.”
“Thank you.”
“Tell me about this piece. What would you call it?”
“This one? Hmm. The End.”
“Why?”
“Because of the colours of the sky. To you it is dawn, but for me, it is the approaching night. What else do you like about this piece?”
“Don’t flip it on me.”
“No, Avaan. I mean it. What do you think this piece is about? Because if I knew, I would not be painting. I would just know, and that would be enough.”
“Okay.”
“So, tell me. You find it beautiful. Why?”
“It’s this part here, in the bottom half. These white lines — some long, some short, some thick, some thin. It makes me think of all the people in the streets when it’s really busy. Like it’s Eid and everyone is out in the streets, and it’s been snowing. That’s what I can’t stop looking at. It’s what makes this piece so — I don’t know, I can’t stop staring at it.”
“Why?”
“Because even though all these lines are different shapes and sizes, they’re all the same colour. The whole world is white, and everything is beautiful. Finally.”
Ujala and Uzma had curly, stubborn hair that could never be tamed. The other children called them “negro” behind my back because of their dark skin and frizzy hair. They would cry to me when the kids were too mean. I would put oil on their hair to make it soft. Until the very end, I was the only person allowed to touch their hair. Ujala would have been twenty-three today. Uzma would have been twenty.
Sahil was the first child I decided to look after, the first who called me didi because I was a big sister to him and all the other children after him. Sahil was quiet and patient, and he remained quiet and patient when the Sky Sickness took him away just as it had taken Papa. He was also the first child we cremated by the river and set free in colourful paper boats. He would have been twenty-eight today, just like Salaba.
Ahmed and Ali were two brothers with the same birth defect. Their sight was disappearing, and they cried openly because, even in the Badlands, they wanted to see what the world was like. Back then, I was glad that they were spared all the ugliness. Ahmed and Ali’s parents were first cousins. Ahmed would have been twenty-three today. Ali would have been twenty-one.
There was Nargis, whose long brown hair reached down to her waist. She was pretty, and all my boys loved her. Except Salaba. In the evenings, she would put flowers in her hair and stand at the second-floor window, where boys from the streets would whistle and hoot and promise to marry her. Sometimes, grown men would hoot at her and make the same promises, but she would look away and wave a middle finger. When I asked her why she did this to herself every evening, Nargis said that one day a man would come to make good on his promise, and on that day, she would leave the Badlands behind forever. She would have been twenty-six today, if the army had not destroyed my shelter.
Mary was the oldest. She was tall and big-boned. She wore sarees as I did, and in those sarees, Mary would play cricket with the boys outside. She was the best batsman of them all — even if she never said it out loud. Whenever Nargis was standing by the window and the boys and men became vulgar, Mary would march outside with a bat and chase them off, alongside Baadal. She would have been twenty-nine today.
There was Hameed who spoke so little and so softly, it took days for me to get a full sentence out of him. He was a scarred animal who sat in the corner away from everyone, watching. If he played cricket — and then only because the boys forced him — his hands shook when he batted. As a fielder, he would stand far away from everyone and refuse to join them as they celebrated. I never asked him how he’d gotten the scars on his arms and back. I doubt he would have told me. I never figured out how old he was.
Eksha was the sweet one, always smiling. She was gentle and curious. Her grey eyes had ripples of lighter greys in them, like the stones by the river. Asha was the fierce one. Her grey eyes were round and uniform and hard, like old Pakistani coins. Of all my children, I knew Asha would thrive in Old Pakistan because she was observant and defiant. She knew it too. When Asha-Eksha first showed up at the library, it was Asha who stormed inside and demanded that I let them stay. She was bruised and bloodied, but she looked me in the eye, and it would not have mattered if I had said no. Some days, I wonder if Asha knew that Eksha could not survive alone in Old Pakistan. Eksha would have been seventeen today.
There were two half-brothers; Baadal was the younger one. He was polite but hardened, charming but sharp. He was the one the others flocked to because he was impetuous and loud when he wanted to be. He was the older brother to all my children, though he was not the eldest. If they were playing cricket, he was the team captain. If anyone was out of line, he was the one they answered to. For all his good nature and best of intentions, he was the one who started the carnage. He would have been twenty-four today.
And there is his older half-brother. The one who fought Evergreen and died. Or so I believed. The one who loved me as no one before and no one since. The one who is alive now when all my children are dead. The one who killed Maseeh and Rosa. The one who razed my library-shelter to the ground.
Salaba, because I refuse to say his real name. The monster.
Yet, some days, no matter what they tell me he has become now, no matter how many times I remind myself of the people he has killed, in my heart he is not a monster. Some days, he is still the fragile boy who sat on the windowsill and read all the books I could find for him. The quiet one. The one who spent his first nights at my shelter blocking the door, as if ensuring that I would not abandon him or his brother. The fragile young man who stared at me with delicate eyes, who broke into pieces when I first kissed him.
Salaba.
Some days, he is still that half-erased sketch of a man, faded at the edges, blurred, with no colour to him as if it had all seeped away. Just a few desperate scratches separate him from the white world around.