Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
November 2001 New York
I decided to carry out the first task on my list when fall was about to lose its hue.
All around me were walls of fog; it was just as well. This year the trees of the mid-Hudson Valley were reluctant to shed their leaves. A few fallen ones — the glowing golds, the bloodlike reds, the brazen browns, and the somber yellows — crackled under my feet, crisp and lifeless but not without a voice. There is an old saying that it will be a bad winter if the trees decide to hold on to their leaves.
I wanted to take this journey myself. Unseen. Unchallenged. The air outside was thick, buttressed by my decision, sparse in joy but swollen with complexities. It comforted me; tingled the soles of my feet. The feeling of heaviness that had been lingering for days was gone. I would have danced had I not been on a mission. I delighted in how clean my insides felt, like they had just been laundered and wrung dry, soapy smell suspended in the air. Invisible molecules tickled my nostrils and I sneezed at the thought.
I stopped by a toy store, its shutters down, occupants fast asleep. As I pressed my nose against the window, I marveled at the simple joys of childhood. My breath came in short waves and misted the window, creating tiny smoky bubbles of all sizes and shapes. I imagined being a toy horse, galloping on bound legs, destination firmly defined, thrilled with providence in my naiveté.
The subway ride was a quiet time for reflection with very few early commuters. I got off as if floating on air, tightening my hijab or veil around the back of my head. It had to be hysteria, this feeling within me of floating on air. A sharp change in the jet stream will channel numerous storm systems into the Atlantic, the meteorologist had predicted. One was raging within me as I walked westward from Canal to West Street. I felt a restless quest to outrun my fate, grind it beneath my feet.
Pier 34 was abandoned when I reached its southern tip. I faced it with a welcoming smile.
It had the lure of a mother's breast for me, the air throbbing in suckling anticipation. I leaned my protruding belly against the barrier that divided me from the deep stillness below. Another step and my body could easily plummet into the murky depths. I was afraid to touch my abdomen; I wanted to leave its resident out of this. He should never feel responsible for what I was about to do. My mind was full of the possibilities of what life would have been if the towers hadn't crashed.
The wounded skyline in the distance had its edges softened by the early morning fog. Even the air approached the buildings carefully, with reverence. So much was lost. A cool breeze was blowing, providing a hint of the approaching winter. For a brief sickening moment, I debated on which should go––the veil or me.
I slid the hijab from around my neck. The wind felt chilly on my bare head. It was a new sensation. You can do anything you set your mind to, Arissa Illahi, a voice from the past whispered to me.
In a few hours, it would be another normal day. Was there such a thing anymore? I appreciated the predawn quietness and looked down at the river with meditated concentration. They said that a new layer of sediment composed of ash and dust had formed a permanent footprint on the river bed after the towers had collapsed. Undisturbed, it had become a constant geological reminder of the tragedy, now etched in history.
The wind tore the veil from my hand, making my task easier. I grasped the cold railing with one hand and swatted at the fleeting piece of my life with the other as the wind picked up speed. It teasingly brought the veil closer to my face. I could have grabbed it. Instead, I let it sail down toward the depths, its grave.
I did not feel a sense of betrayal as I walked away from the pier, letting the wind dance with my hair for the first time. I pulled a few strands out of my eyes and looked back. The sun had just started to peek at the horizon, bleeding its crimson hue. It was a matter of perspective — to an onlooker I had removed my veil, but from where I stood, I had merely shifted it from my head to my heart.
"Khuda Hafiz," I breathed.
Who was I bidding farewell to? I wondered: the age-old tradition or the husband I had kept alive in my heart?
CHAPTER 2
October 2006 Houston
A housekeeper's nightmare.
An artist's haven.
There was no other way to describe my turpentine-reeking workroom.
For the longest time, I thought my life was like the canvas of a barmy artist who knew when to begin a project but not when to stop.
I looked at the tubes of color around me. They spoke volumes about my house management skills. They were all over the floor, squished, twisted, folded back, some oozing paint, others with rainbow-colored thumb imprints. I plastered the colors all over the canvas with no subject matter in mind, and gradually frenzy overpowered me. The brush in my hand took on a life of its own, and I bent to its whim. The frantic slish-slosh on canvas was deafening in the quiet room; the errant brush had its own mood. I looked at the hopeful blues on the canvas that with repeated strokes had turned the brilliant orange to sad murky brown. In the end, the hodgepodge of colors that dripped off the canvas all bled into one: scorching black, the only color I wanted to forget.
In all fairness, colors define me. Red reminds me of my marriage, the color of the heady, fragrant mehndi or henna, intricately tattooed on my palms in the ways of tradition; the crimson shimmering wedding dress called sharara I wore the day I married Faizan; yellow, the color of ubtan, a paste I applied religiously to my face twenty days before my wedding in the hopes of getting the coveted bridal glow; and orange, the color of saffron, dusty powder that with the right touch added flair to any dish. It was also the color that Faizan dreamed of having on the cover of his unfinished book, a project he thought would make him a famous writer one day.
But black reminds me of all that is sad and wrong in my life. Ironically, in this country, it validates my state of being a widow. It is also the color of my hijab — the dividing line between my life with Faizan and the one without him. How different lives are from continent to continent. White, the bridal color in the West, is the color a widow is expected to wear in the East, the color the body is shrouded in before being buried in the earth.
The brush fell from my guilty hands, landing on the floor with a tired thud. I stepped back as if struck and looked at the picture in mad fixation. Staring back at me from the canvas, behind the dull last strokes that failed to hide the subject, were entwined towers engulfed in reddish blue smoke. And in the midst of the smoldering slivers was the face of a forlorn and lost child.
My journey spans half a decade, from the biggest loss of my life to where I am now. It is a tale of grief and happiness, of control and losing control, of barriers and openings, of prejudices and acceptance, of holding on and letting go. It is about turning my heart inside out, mending it, and putting it right back in as it is about looking at life from the perspective of someone trapped in time. Finally, it's about filling shoes bigger than mine — and filling two with only one leg to stand on. This is the leg that over and over again will weaken with the weight it's expected to carry, falter, but eventually mend and march over the terrains of time.
I got home and put the groceries on the counter. I always have a list of tasks mapped out in perfect order for the evening. Start a Soup. I put a pot of water on the stove to start a vegetable soup for Raian. Change. I rescued a turnip that had rolled off the counter, and then slipped off my shoes, not bothering to untie them. The wide boots had grown used to being put on and taken off that way, their contours neatly shaped for a comfortable fit. I decided to change later. Fix Tea. I threw a teabag in a cup and put it in the microwave. Raian disappeared into the living room, and the different-colored lights emitting from the room confirmed that he had turned on the TV. He didn't turn up the volume; sound was useless to him. He coughed, and with an easy maternal instinct, I made a mental note to give him some medicine before bed.
There were three messages on the answering machine and I intuitively knew who they were from. I deleted all three in quick succession without hearing them — Ami, Zaki, Ami.
The kitchen felt a little cold as I walked back in to dice some shallots, turnips, and zucchini. I scooped them up and added them to the boiling pot. A crushed clove of garlic went in next, and I took slow sips of my tea as I studied the vegetables squirming inside the pot. Start your dinner. That one didn't matter much. Since Ma and Baba — my parents-in-law — had left, even Rice-A-Roni worked. I decided on some Chicken Helper. The freezer door pulled open with a sigh, and in the humming of the interior, I forgot why I had opened it in the first place. The rumbling in my stomach alerted me to the basic needs of survival as a small Ziploc bag at the far end of the shelf caught my eye. It contained shish kabobs that Ma had frozen before leaving. Would they still be edible after six months? I decided to take my chances. I tossed the kabobs in the microwave, watching the turntable swirl the plate. I missed my mother-in-law's elaborate home-cooked meals. In the five years that she and Baba had lived with us, there was a soothing discipline to dinner. Plenty of thought and planning went into what was presented on the table. A full meal consisted of a curry or stew, rice, and piping hot flour chappatis. Sometimes Ma had the fresh yogurt drink, lassi, on the side, or round fritters dipped in a yogurt and chili dip that transported me back home. Onion and cucumber salad garnished with cilantro was a must. Ma's pickled mangoes were a feast for the senses, and although her stuffed flour chilies with cumin powder burned your mouth, they were a great combination with the lentil curry. And her saffron-flavored rice pudding could shame even the old cook back home.
Saffron. It reminded me of an unfinished project that was much closer to completion than it was a year ago. I left my culinary project bubbling and walked into the den to turn on the computer. I lost the minutes and then the hours as I swam in a sea of words, oblivious to the world around me. The squeal of the smoke detector jolted me into action. I raced past my son, who had neither the sensory cues of smell nor sound to be alarmed by the commotion. He had missed his dinnertime but had not felt the pangs of hunger.
In that moment, I felt terrified for him and for the rest of his life.
The water in the soup had disappeared and the pot was burning with the shriveled turnips and zucchini stuck to its bottom. The shish kabobs in the microwave were hard as rocks. I poured the contents of the pot into the sink and slid the kabobs in the trash can. When I put a fresh pot of water on the stove, I decided to set an egg timer. It was time to check on Raian.
He was sprawled across the floor, the eye patch covering his left eye making him look like a pirate, one of the many gifts of his syndrome. Every day for a few hours, we put a patch over his good eye to exercise his lazy eye. Oblivious to the TV running in the background, he was studying an arc of rainbow colors draped across his arm — a direct result of sunlight filtering through the window. He swatted at it with his other hand and then crawled around in a circle trying to escape from it. I watched his captivating dance in fascination; he immersed himself in the light one instant and tore away from it the next — the dance that life played with him on a daily basis that he had by now orchestrated to perfection. The light was his to tango, not his to hold; illumination, he had learned, wasn't the victory.
I looked at him with love-stricken eyes. How flawed he was to the rest of the world, but how very perfect to me.
Saffron, crocus veil, the flower with the three red stigmas.
It was 1 a.m., and I had been unsuccessful in shutting my brain off to get some sleep. Some images refused to let me be. They wanted to be released and live on paper. I approached the canvas in that state of mind.
I folded back the sleeve of my olive shirt kameez and laid some strands of saffron on the back of my left hand. Like eager devotees, they molded to its contour. For three thousand years, the purple saffron or zafaran flower, had sprouted in the dry summer across the Himalayan valley, the monsoons nourishing the crop. The plant is said to be named after the mythological Crocus, who after being rebuffed by his beloved was transformed into this flower, weeping blood red tears for ages to come. It was said that Cleopatra used saffron in her baths so that lovemaking would be more pleasurable. I imagined the strands to be a lover's fingers, and my hand shook a little. I dipped a long brush in some water and sprinkled it on the unruly strands with my free hand. Slowly they started to bleed orange tears that dripped off both sides of my hand. They say if rain arrives after it has flowered, the saffron flower dies suddenly. I watched the colors on my hand and with renewed determination turned to the canvas and started painting. I mixed a few tubes — red, yellow, and a touch of black — and referenced the orange on the back of my hand a few times as I tried to match the color. I painted in layers following the traditional rule of oil painting. Starting lean, I applied fatter coats by adding more medium as I went. The paint is less likely to crack as it dries with that method. I couldn't let a dream crack, not an important one anyway. I worked diligently and furiously as the hours ticked away. Around four in the morning, I stepped back in satisfaction and studied the orange sky on the canvas — the color of saffron, just how Faizan had wanted it.
I went to the bureau and kissed a folded veil that lay on top, a reminder of my past and a symbol of what I had given up. Faizan had harbored a reverence for the veil — to him it defined a woman. I always felt a twinge of guilt when I looked at that piece of cloth. Shaking that thought, I crashed on the bed, surprisingly exhausted from the night's work. Dreams are never easy to create; they take a lot out of you. Tomorrow I will paint in the two boys, the stigmas of saffron, I decided. That would be the cover of Soul Searcher.
I felt lightheaded in a fulfilled kind of way, tracing a shape on the other side of the bed. I still slept on one side of it, a curious habit that never left me, considering that I had been the only occupant for the past five years.
Sweet dreams, I whispered to the night air.
The curtains on the window rustled in response. I rolled over onto my side and hugged my pillow. The gentle hands of predawn passed over me, pressing my eyelids shut. I obeyed and let myself be led into the world of dreams.
CHAPTER 3
May 1989 Karachi
Early evening cast its long shadows as I came out of my room, almost tumbling over Mai Jan. She was mopping the floor on her haunches with an agitated expression, her sari pallu tucked in her waist.
"Choti Bibi, watch where you are going!" Mai Jan's voice was a little harsh for her stature, and I glared at her without answering. At fourteen, I didn't think I needed instruction on how to go about my own house.
For years, I had seen Mai Jan come to our house daily at the first light of dawn to do what we deemed beneath our stature to do — clean up after us, launder our soiled clothes, wash our dirty dishes, and cook for us. The days she didn't show up, the dishes piled high, and we ran around dirty, unwashed, with stinky knickers, sweaty undershirts, food stains and the day's grime coloring our shirtfronts, hair unruly and uncombed. Ami pretended not to notice. On such mornings, she sat in her room, painting her toenails, Lata Mangeshkar blaring out of the radio, curtains drawn. Us Basti Ko Jaane Waale, Leta Ja Paigaam Mera. O Traveler, take my message to the village.
We were chased away when we tried to peek in Ami's room. She almost always had a headache that she was nursing and didn't want to be bothered. Usually when Azad Baba, our old driver, came back after dropping Abu off to the office, he came inside the kitchen to fix us parathas for breakfast — square, fat pieces of dough powdered heavily with flour so they wouldn't stick to the pan. He deep-fried them in canola to mouth-watering perfection and then slid the oily, slithering masses straight from the pan onto our plates, the steam partially hiding us from each other's view. The first mouthful would always burn and numb our tongues. Azad Baba always cautioned us. We never listened.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Saffron Dreams"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Shaila Abdullah.
Excerpted by permission of Loving Healing Press, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
