StanleyP
The world is full of unicorns and rainbows. Have you heard of a writer named Jane Austen?
AnaBGR
Tell me you’re joking.
StanleyP
Don’t be embarrassed if you haven’t. My girl is well-read.
AnaBGR
Maybe he’s not ghosting me. Maybe he’s dead.
StanleyP
That’s my positive Anony-Ana, always looking on the bright side. Back to Persuasion. This Captain Wentworth needs to get over himself.
StanleyP logged off before I could reply. I stared at the screen, puzzling over our conversation.Persuasion?
Chapter Forty-Four
The next morning the kitchen was empty except for my cousin, who was sipping his morning chai and scrolling gleefully through his phone. “The online trolls are still threatening to show up and cause trouble, but now they will have company.”
Rashid showed me his phone, the browser open to the Facebook page he had set up. Someone had called for a counter-protest against the anti-halal protestors.
“There’s going to be a ‘No Halal Food’ protest and a ‘Support Halal Food’ protest, all at a festival that isn’t about halal food at all?” I asked skeptically.
Rashid smiled widely. “Now you are getting it! In Hyderabad there is an enormous annual festival called Numaish. My family attends every year. It attracts millions of people, and everyone comes out—the aunty and uncle-jis, the nanas and nanis, the hoodlums, pickpockets, and con artists, young married couples, old married couples, teenagers pretending not to be couples, misbehaving children—all are welcome. The same thing will happen at our festival. Everyone will argue with each other and then they will become hungry and buy our tasty food. It will all work out. Believe me.”
I must still have looked dubious, because my cousin patted me on the arm. “It will be fine. And if it is not, it will soon all be over. What was it that famous man said? ‘What’s past is prologue’?”
“Shakespeare.”
Rashid frowned. “I thought it was Shah Rukh Khan.”
“Maybe SRK said it better, but not first. What else is left to do before the festival?”
Rashid shrugged. “Continue to advertise. And, of course, pray.”
I THOUGHT OF NALLA WHENI entered the mosque. I wondered if the Imam had resumed his duties or if he was still in mourning.
I could pray just as easily at home, but somehow sitting inside the Toronto Muslim Assembly’s hall made me feel closer to God, or at least to the God I remembered from my childhood—a warm, fuzzy being who would grant me a new pair of running shoes or an extension on my essay if only I prayed hard enough. As an adult, my prayers had become more complicated, my wishes more vague, but I had never stopped asking for help.
The women’s section was empty except for an older woman: Afsana Aunty. Aydin’s mother sat cross-legged on the beige and olive striped carpet, head bent low. She heldtasbihprayer beads in her hands and was worrying them quickly, eyes tightly closed. I nearly turned around and left at the sight of her, but I had come there seeking peace and a chance to think. I couldn’t deny Afsana Aunty the same thing.
I prayed zuhr quickly, then two extranafilprayers. I sat down cross-legged on the floor a few spaces over from Afsana and raised my hands indu’a. I prayed for my parents, for Fazee and Fahim and the bowlingball, for Three Sisters and Kawkab Khala and Rashid, and finally for Aydin and his mother.
When I opened my eyes, Afsana Aunty was observing me, and I returned her perusal. Aydin looked so much like her; he had her clear brown eyes and full mouth. Kawkab Khala had been right. I too wondered how Junaid Uncle could look at his son and not think of Afsana, and of the trauma he had unleashed upon his family.
“Assalamu alaikum, Aunty. I hope you’ve been well,” I said, and she smiled shyly. She looked more at peace than any other time we had met. I felt awkward; I knew this woman’s intimate secrets, yet we were strangers. I felt as if I should acknowledge that somehow, or apologize for knowing information I wished I wasn’t privy to.
I opened my mouth to say something, but she reached out and took my hand, pressing it tightly. “Your khala is my good friend,” she said in her heavily accented English. “I am happy my—Aydin has you as his friend too.” She said her son’s name slowly, enunciating every syllable; it was clearly a word she didn’t say out loud very often.
I remembered how Aydin had saidmomin the same tentative way when we first met. I had wondered then how a single word could hold so much loss. He deserved to know the truth. I had to get through to him somehow.
BIG J TEXTED ME ONmy way back to Three Sisters.
