Chapter 9 Asma
Asma
Asma walked to the front of Mamoo and Aunty’s house and called hello. She had come to expect a candle burning, flowers on the counter, cookies warm from the oven. But tonight, the house was completely dark, except for one lone light shining from an upstairs window.
“Hi, darling. We’re upstairs,” Mamoo called.
The chandelier in the entry hall flipped on, temporarily blinding Asma.
“It’s getting dark so early. We totally lost track of time,” Aunty said from the upstairs landing.
Asma squinted while the white-marble floor and white carpet on the curved staircase came into focus.
Asma caught sight of herself in the hallway mirror.
Her hair lay flat on her head, her flannel shirt was misbuttoned, and the shirt underneath had a visible stain at the neckline.
Salma stood next to Aunty, her expression undecipherable.
“We were going to order pizza, but I wanted to wait for you to see what toppings you wanted.”
Asma rebuttoned her shirt and hugged Mamoo as he descended the stairs and then Aunty, as though she was a receiving line. “I only like cheese. Salma knows that,” Asma said.
Salma stood in front of Asma. Neither reached out to the other.
“I wasn’t sure what you like anymore,” Salma said.
“What were you doing upstairs?”
At this point, Mamoo and Aunty’s house felt like her own, even more than Rosebud, and Salma was in her space. She had become accustomed to being the sole focus of Mamoo and Aunty’s attention, and this weekend, more than ever, she didn’t want to share them. She wanted blind empathy.
Also, she knew that Salma would want to pick at the wound that was the night of the play, and she just wanted to forget the entire thing.
As irrational as it sounded, Asma was convinced that Salma would be able to pick up on her messy feelings for Ruby.
The crack that had first opened between her and Salma on the steps of the dorm was now a chasm.
Asma felt small and immature for withholding, but who else could she shut out and know, with absolute certainty, would still love her?
“I was helping Mamoo build a cat tower for Mippy. It’s got a cute little house at the top.”
As if on cue, the cat appeared, throwing her personality around the room. Asma and Salma both leaned down to pet her, but she settled in between Salma’s legs, just out of Asma’s reach.
They crowded around the small breakfast table. Asma picked the few olives that had made it onto her slice of pizza and piled them in a little mound. Knowing how much Salma loved their brininess, she would have normally put them on her sister’s plate. Not today.
“I’m on call all weekend, but we should definitely plan our time,” Mamoo said. He sounded like an excited child.
“I’m up for anything. I just need to get my take-home assignments done,” Salma said, practically dancing in her seat.
Mamoo threw out a range of ideas, movies he wanted to see, restaurants he wanted to try, maybe a dance performance or a road trip.
Asma remained quiet; their enthusiasm was so annoying.
The phone rang, and Mamoo rushed to answer it.
The clicks and clacks, loud enough to be easily heard at the kitchen table, told them it was a call from Pakistan and not the hospital.
Mamoo returned to the table, clearly distracted.
“That was your mother. They’re there. They’re staying at your aunt’s house.
Your grandfather is surrounded by his children.
It won’t be long now.” He stared out the family room window.
He turned to Asma and asked, “Did you talk to your parents before they left?”
Asma pulled a string along the floor while Mippy lunged at it. “About what?”
Salma started to say something, but Asma cut her off. “Let’s build a fire and make some brownies.”
Mamoo stood up straighter and pulled his cardigan down. “Right then. You know what we would do in England on days like this? We’d play games.”
Salma groaned. Asma skipped down the basement steps to get a game. The fact that Salma didn’t like games pleased her. Maybe Salma would opt out, and she and Mamoo could play a game of chess instead.
The family room was warm and cozy. On one side it opened into the kitchen, and on the other side it was banked with glass windows that looked out on a large lawn.
There was a long sofa in front of a stone fireplace with a big square coffee table in front of it and chairs on each side.
Built-in bookshelves flanked the fireplace, and all around the room there were side tables with lamps casting their warm little glow in pockets.
They set up the game board on the coffee table.
Their reflections, disjointed and garbled, bounced back from the darkened windows.
“Mamoo, tell us about England,” Salma said.
“There’s not really much to tell, I’m afraid. It was cold, dark, and I studied a lot. Oh, and the food was not good.”
They set up the board, taking out the pieces and the money. The smell of smoke and the crackle of fire made Asma sleepy and relaxed. She stroked the smooth pewter pieces and put them in the middle of the board.
“Didn’t your parents die while you were there?”
Mamoo’s face flushed, and his eyes stayed glued on the board. “Mmmm.”
Mippy moved restlessly from the floor to the couch and back again.
Salma counted out the money slowly, doubling back and recounting, a divot between her brows.
Asma reached for the top hat at the same time Mamoo did.
“How?” Salma asked.
“I’ll thumb wrestle you for it,” Mamoo said.
Asma won best out of three. Mamoo touched each game piece, trying to figure out which one he wanted, until Asma pushed the dog into his hand.
“I’m just going to run to the loo,” Mamoo said.
Aunty brought a bowl of popcorn and a plate of brownies and set them down on the end table and kissed Mamoo as he returned to the room and sat back down.
Asma asked, “Do you want to play, Aunty? We just started.”
“Thank you, darling, but no. I’m going to catch up on my magazines and then go call my mom.” She curled into the corner of the couch and pulled out a Cosmopolitan. Cindy Crawford, airbrushed to perfection, gazed out at them. Mippy sat on Aunty’s feet.
Salma took a turn. “So Mamoo?”
Mamoo’s jaw worked. “You should have been a lawyer,” he said dryly.
“Do you still want to play, Mamoo? I can see why you wouldn’t want to.” Asma shot Salma a dirty look.
Mamoo patted the air between them, trying to appease both. He rolled the dog between his fingers. “Has your mother not told you about this?”
“No,” they both said in unison.
They each took a turn, and for a few minutes, it sounded like Mamoo wasn’t going to answer the question and Salma would permit him his silence without further badgering him.
“We were best friends growing up. Always. I loved her completely. I mean, I still do love her. But I wish you’d known her when she was your age. She was curious, funny, and really smart.”
“Who are you talking about?” Asma asked.
“Your mother.”
Salma rolled her eyes. Asma snickered and let herself feel a moment of camaraderie with Salma.
“Your mother was not always . . .” He stopped.
“I don’t know where to start.” He paused for a long time and finally said, “My father was the fifth son of a prominent landowner from a village in Rawalpindi. My mother was the only child of a poor tailor from a nearby village. They moved to Lahore after they were married for our father’s job.
They used to say that they were lucky in their marriage.
In part, because they had an easy relationship based on genuine affection and because they were alive at a moment in history when anything seemed possible.
Most people were part of extended family units that lived in insular family compounds, full of petty arguments and infighting.
But because my mother had no siblings and my father’s family remained in the village, they really got to create an independent life for themselves.
Not all of those marriages found love, you know? ”
They had stopped playing the game. Salma’s face flushed bright. Asma sat cross-legged on the floor, the fire breathing hot against her back.
“Your mother was a voracious reader. Don’t scoff.
She was. She was every bit as good at school as I was.
We’d have these great conversations at the dinner table with our father about Arabic mathematics and the inventions that came out of the Song Dynasty or the Enlightenment.
He was an amazing man. He came from nothing, and yet the more he learned, the more he wanted to know.
” Mamoo’s face was slack, and his eyes, even though he was looking at the board, were far away.
There were stories that had been polished into smooth rocks through their telling and retelling, effortless, familiar, rote.
This was not one of them. “We spent all our time together because our cousins were back in the village. Once—this is when we were older—a great-aunt in the village told my mother that she thought I needed to get married because it wasn’t natural how much time I spent with my sister. ”
“Gross!” Asma said.
Mamoo shook his head. “Because a brother and sister were close, it was assumed that they were ready for marriage. Can you imagine that time?” Even though he framed it as a question, it was clear he wasn’t looking for an answer.
“Our father was the local administrator for the boys’ school, and every morning we all took the bus together.
It was coed at the primary school level and then split into a boys’ and a girls’ school at the secondary level.
We were different than the other kids who were either English or children of important government leaders.
While Abu, Sadia, and I stood at the bus stop, gathering dust from every passing bus and tonga, they were dropped off in cars with drivers.
That time, together at Cathedral, made us close. ”
“Cathedral?” Asma asked.
“That was the name of our school.”
“It sounds like a church,” Salma said.