Chapter 19 Asma
Asma
Asma hated Christmas Day. If ever there was a day that made her feel like an outsider, Christmas was it.
She didn’t mind the manger scenes set up in front yards or even all the “Jesus is our Savior” talk in Christmas songs.
In that way, she was more tolerant of Christianity than Islam.
It was just the day itself. Even though she felt aflush with expectation the month of December—the drumbeat of music on the radio, commercials depicting myths, and lights everywhere you looked—there was no avoiding the sad and bitter fact of Christmas morning.
While the rest of the world opened presents and had a festive breakfast or brunch with cousins and grandparents, their house was as cold as every other day.
There were no special meals or special people or the possibility of receiving that one magical thing you’d always wanted. It was just a day.
Ruby was with her family in Chicago. Judging by the soft snoring coming through her closet, Salma was still sleeping.
Mamoo and Aunty were with Aunty’s family.
After the debacle at Thanksgiving, Mamoo had offered for Asma to come with them to Wisconsin, and she had seriously considered it.
But even though she was angry with her, she couldn’t bring herself to leave Salma, alone, at home with her parents for two weeks. It simply wasn’t fair.
It had been a week since she had swum, and she felt like she might explode. She had snuck her swimming suit home hoping that there was somewhere she could swim in Rosebud and knowing that there wasn’t.
She had tiptoed upstairs early in the morning to make herself a glass of chocolate milk.
The snow was still coming down. Through the back window, she could make out the dim, small shape of the Kohlmanns’ house.
The light emanating from it looked warm and welcoming and as though it was a thousand miles away.
Her family was stranded and isolated. Whatever happened within the walls of their house felt like it was the only thing happening in the world.
Everything else felt like it had never existed.
She counted the days until break was over.
Her parents’ door was open. Her father, half asleep, lying on top of the covers.
Her mother, sitting on the floor, forearm resting on a propped-up knee and leg folded beneath her.
In one palm, she held a string of small wooden beads.
Eyes closed, lips softly moving, she rocked back and forth and rubbed a thumb gently on a bead, rolling it down one incremental notch.
Her face was unlined. In that moment, Asma could almost see what her mother must have looked like when she was her age.
Asma had never seen her mother doing whatever it was that she was doing. But as was so often the case, her body understood before her brain did. Her mother was praying. With beads. What was that called? If it couldn’t be named, it didn’t exist, did it?
Her mother opened her eyes and smiled. “Asalam aleikum, baitay. Kya hall hai?”
Asma turned to see if someone was behind her.
Her mother never spoke to them in Urdu unless they were in the company of other people.
If Americans were present, to say something private like a reprimand or make a catty comment.
If they were in the rare company of another Pakistani family, it was a kind of showing off, a “Look how authentic we are that our children understand Urdu.” But never did her mother speak it to Asma at home with no one around.
“Uh. Fine?” Asma turned away before her mother could say anything else and went back to bed without her chocolate milk.
She knew she’d have to face them eventually.
The conversation from the dinner table the night before played again in her mind.
Did the car really need maintenance, or was her father just finding ways to keep her at heel?
She had no leverage. She had no power. And once her grades arrived, she knew things would get worse.
Asma had finally broken down and told Ruby everything the week after Thanksgiving.
Almost everything. For weeks, she had been scared of disclosing anything too personal for fear she might scare Ruby away.
But when it became clear that Ruby felt the same way about her as she did about Ruby—this was no casual dating affair—she stopped trying to be mysterious.
She told her about her difficult relationship with her father in general terms, but nothing about the night of the play.
She told her about her family and how they would never, ever understand their relationship.
She told her about how important Salma was to her.
She had also told Ruby about how far behind she was in her classes, especially in chemistry.
Ruby, it turned out, had been a chemistry minor and took it as a challenge to teach Asma a semester’s worth of chemistry in two weeks.
She insisted that they couldn’t see each other until Asma had studied for several hours and then only if they first reviewed chemistry materials together for thirty minutes.
At first, Asma’s time, intended for studying, was spent daydreaming about Ruby and the night before because, by that point, they were spending almost every night together.
But eventually, in that way that fear can focus the brain, she started making up ground in all her classes, turning in missing papers and assignments.
By the time finals week came around, she was feeling generally good.
She knew she would get by with A’s and B’s, except in chemistry, where she was simply hoping for a C.
She had until the second week of January before grades would be mailed home, and with any luck, they would arrive after she was back at school.
For dinner that night, their mother made dal and yellow rice with potatoes.
Nothing complicated or extravagant to mark Christmas, just a simple, cozy, hunkered-indoors kind of meal for people who weren’t cozy.
Like expecting to hear a certain note in a song, Asma waited for her father to make some biting comment about not having meat for dinner, but there was nothing.
No one ate together. Everyone served themselves from the pot on the stove when they were hungry.
Salma had told Asma that The Year Without a Santa Claus was on that night and asked if she wanted to watch it together.
Asma had said yes. She knew how much Salma loved watching Christmas specials and felt guilty that she hadn’t watched Charlie Brown the night before.
There was something about seeing TV shows that were only on once a year.
The heightened sense of anticipation, the not wanting to miss a single word or song, the feeling of magic-releasing nostalgia before the opening credits even rolled so the entire experience of watching was rinsed with a kind of high, part expectation and part its fulfillment.
They were still in their pajamas from that morning and served themselves a bowl to eat before the show started. Her mother stood in a darkened kitchen, eating a small bowl of rice with plain yogurt. Salma ate hurriedly at the kitchen table; the show was going to start in just a little while.
The phone rang half a ring. Asma’s head jerked up like she was hearing a sound on a different frequency.
She practically ran downstairs. Five minutes later she returned and put on the kitchen light to see her mother animatedly whispering.
They were each caught off guard by the other, and in reaction, her mother stopped abruptly, and Asma hurriedly said, “I’m ready to talk about whatever you want to talk about. ”
“Oh. Oh. Did you hear that? Acha. Good. Okay. She said she’s ready. Sit, sit. Musharraf! Come!”
Out of the corner of her eye, Asma could see Salma take her bowl of rice and glass of chocolate milk and start to slink downstairs. She didn’t blame her; she would have liked to do the same.
Their father appeared, looking rumpled and confused.
“Salma?” their mother called with faux cheer. “Why don’t you join us? Look! The girls want to talk about their prospects.”
Asma cringed. Salma had been right. After they made Asma a rishtha, Salma would be next.
“I have a show that starts in a few minutes. I don’t want to miss it,” Salma said and continued down the stairs.
“No, we should all do this together,” their mother said.
“But I’ve been waiting all day for this.”
“You don’t need to watch all this Christ stuff.”
“They’re not religious or about Jesus. I watch them every year!”
“Salma,” Abu said almost like he was pleading.
Begrudgingly, Salma stomped back up the stairs, tripping on the final step.
Asma felt terrible that she was making Salma miss something she’d been looking forward to. How angry she would be at Asma for sacrificing her plans for Asma’s convenience. And Salma wouldn’t be wrong about any of it.
Salma slammed her bowl on the table and stood at attention next to Asma.
“Sit. Sit.”
Asma sat on the edge of her seat while her father pulled out his chair, looking skeptical.
Her mother grinned. Sometimes, it was impossible to tell what she was thinking. “We knew we were going to do this while you were home, but still I’m not organized.” She laughed while moving papers and digging under others. “That’s okay. We’ll sort through it together. Okay?”
She looked at everyone gathered around the table with a hopeful smile.
Asma was reminded of how Mamoo had demonstrated the way to look just above people’s heads when publicly speaking.
Ami opened a large, reused manila envelope and shook it out on the table.
Smaller envelopes spilled out along with paper-clipped notes to various photos ranging in size from the kind that come in school packages to one large portrait.