Chapter 19 Asma #3
On the far side of the park, there was a wide hill that ran from the base of the basketball courts into what would be a meadow in the summer.
On one side, it was a sharp incline and on the other it was scarcely more than a bump.
They waved to a few adults who were pushing little kids down the gentle descent and walked over to the steepest part of the hill where the snow was still fresh.
Asma sat down on the old sled Uncle Cleo and Aunty Marianne, their childhood neighbors, had given them years before, really too small for the two of them together, but doable if Asma scooched up and Salma squeezed in behind.
And they were off! Almost airborne. The cold wind felt like it was ripping the skin from Asma’s cheeks; her eyes and nose watered freely.
Salma hung on and laugh-screamed into Asma’s back.
For a little while, it didn’t matter that her parents were trying to push her into a relationship with strangers when they would never be able to accept a relationship with the person she actually loved.
It didn’t matter that Salma hadn’t told her that her parents were shopping for rishthas or had told Mamoo about the punch.
Now there were no more secrets between them, except for the one. But there was plenty of time for that.
With her father back at work, Asma spent increasingly long hours on the phone.
She utilized the callback code, and within seconds the phone would ring and she would disappear, green phone cord snaked under her closed bedroom door.
There were some calls from friends at school, but mostly the calls were with Ruby.
Asma was aware that the tone of her voice changed when Ruby called, husky and breathless like she was waiting for some big news.
Once, while she was on the phone, her mother picked up the other receiver upstairs. “I’m on the phone,” she said loudly. Afterward, she called sweetly up the stairs, “I’m off if you need it.”
Late at night, when she saw her father’s car lights flash through her window pulling into the driveway, she hung up quickly.
When she wasn’t on the phone in her room, Asma was silent.
Not morose, just quiet like she was all talked out.
Asma and Salma watched television on the couch, under the blanket, legs asunder like they used to, taking turns to fetch snacks.
Asma brought popcorn, and Salma brought Twizzlers.
She let Salma brush her hair and practice making funny hairstyles, decidedly harder now with her short hair.
She told Salma of her longing to be in the water, putting the full weight of her emotion for Ruby into the description of swimming.
They started a game of Monopoly that sat on the coffee table, and played a few turns every few hours out of boredom.
Once, while choosing her next move, Asma asked, “Have you noticed anything weird about Ami?”
“You mean the constant prayers and how they are with each other now?”
“Yeah. It’s so weird.”
“You don’t know the half of it. She makes me wear a dupatta to school.”
Asma’s head jutted forward, and her eyes bulged in disbelief. “What?”
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m sorry.” And then she said, slowly, “I saw something, by the way.”
“What?”
Asma hesitated. “I don’t know what to make of it.”
“What is it?”
“I was looking at the stack of letters and pictures, you know?”
“Yeah, I know. The other day.”
“No, no,” Asma said, her reticent plain. “Last night, late, after everyone went to bed.”
Salma’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I thought it might make it less scary.”
“And?”
“And . . . I saw Ami’s ‘notes’ buried in the middle of the pictures and the letters. Which she acts like she has everything in some kind of great order or something, but it’s all just mashed together. Like, upside down and backward, and Urdu letters and English letters all mixed up.”
“That’s what’s confusing?”
Asma shook her head with exasperation. “No, no. Her writing. Her notes. They weren’t notes at all. They were gibberish.”
“What? Like, she used abbreviations?”
“No . . . just random swirls and gibberish.”
“You think she knows shorthand? Remember Heather took secretarial shorthand in school, and it was like all symbols and weird writing.”
“Maybe . . .”
“Maybe an Urdu shorthand . . . ?”
They looked at each other long and quizzically, as though staring into each other’s eyes could provide clarity or an explanation.
“I don’t know. It looked more like a little kid’s pretend writing.”
On the twenty-ninth, a gloomy morning, Asma woke up late, made a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich for brunch, and flipped through the free TV guide in the newspaper to see if there was anything good playing.
She sat her sandwich and chocolate milk down on the side table and went to the bathroom.
When she came out, her father was crouching under a table, pulling the phone line out of the jack in the wall.
“What are you doing?” Asma asked.
He jumped. “Uh, our phone . . . the phone . . . upstairs is broken.” His muffled voice came out from under the table.
“We need a phone downstairs.”
He leaned heavily on the table as he pulled himself up. “I’m taking this one upstairs until we can afford a new one.” He wrapped the green cord around the phone.
“Ami was on it yesterday. It didn’t sound broken.”
It looked for a moment like he might answer her challenge, but instead he started for the stairs.
Asma moved quickly and stood in front of him. “Abu, I need the phone. I need to talk to people.” Her voice went from beseeching to whining.
There were so many things he could have said.
He could have told her that they thought she was on the phone too many hours a day and they didn’t approve.
He could have asked whom she was talking to.
He could have said that he was suspicious.
He could have said that he was concerned with long-distance charges.
He could have told her to just move. Instead, what he chose to say was, “You’re not going to Chicago.
We’ll decide if you’re going back to school in January. ”
Asma looked like he’d physically struck her again. She grasped the wall and keeled over at the waist.
Her father stepped neatly around her. As he started up the stairs, he said over his shoulder, “It’s not your phone. It’s mine.”
Asma ran up the stairs after him, yelling, “What does that mean? What are you talking about? If I go back to school? I have a scholarship. I’m going back.”
Maybe if Asma hadn’t called him out, hadn’t drawn attention to his words and made him answer for them, the whole thing could have ended right then.
Later, he could have said that he misspoke or feigned ignorance to what he’d said.
But now, he had to answer for it because Asma was going to force him to.
“You go to college because we let you. If you want to . . . throw away your time on your . . . child things, or if you don’t learn the things you should learn, you can stay home.”
Asma stood, feet anchored, hands clenched by her sides and a bulging neck. Voice staccato, punching, she said, “What do you want of me? What do you want? I’m studying premed. My grades are good. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I’m looking at rishthas. What else can I do?”
There was no answer. Because, short of being a puppet, short of being a docile little girl with no interests of her own, there was nothing she could ever do to satisfy them.
She’d already shown them who she was. Someone who had her own mind, someone capable of making her own decisions and willing to do whatever she needed to become the person she was meant to be.
Her mother stood in the doorway of her bedroom watching with her arms crossed and an almost confident look. Something was off. He handed her the phone, brushed past Asma, and walked out the door for his shift.
“Ami, I need the phone. I have people I need to talk to about school. Please.” Without her father there to push against with her rage and edge, she had started crying.
Her mother looked at Asma, crouched on the ground, with deep empathy.
She stroked the top of Asma’s head, as though she was still a small child, and said, “Oh, baitay, don’t you understand?
We have to do this. The sooner you understand your place, the easier it will be for all of us.
” She bent down, kissing Asma’s forehead, and walked into her room, shutting the door.
That night, Asma went to Salma’s room and slipped in next to her. They were so much bigger now than when they last lay in the same bed.
“I need to tell you something,” Asma whispered. She knew she could tell Salma anything, but she was terrified. What if Salma thought it was gross or weird or said something to diminish what she was feeling?
“Okay . . . ” Salma said, scooching over to give Asma more room.
“Ruby.” Asma exhaled in a long, shaky breath.
Asma felt Salma hold her breath.
“You remember who Ruby is, right?”
“Yeah, of course. She’s the director.”
“Yeah.” Asma was glad for the dark. She smiled like a fool. “When we talk, it’s an entire world. Do you understand?”