A Deconstructed Heart (13 page)

“It was just a fantasy, a complete fantasy.”

“Ah.” He sighed. “That worries me the most. Fantasies present the most stubborn kind of injury.”

“Well,” said Amal sighing, as they got into the car Mirza had parked down a side street. “I suppose it’s a good thing for Mehnaz Aunty, she’s found her son again, with a wife and soon-to-be grandchild as well. I’d better take
her number again,” she said, holding out her hand for the piece of paper Rehan had given her uncle, “and give her a call.”

“No, beti, this is finished for you, I must do it.”

As he drove them back to Vanessa’s house, he checked her reflection worriedly in the rearview mirror and saw her wiping her eyes. When they finally pulled up at the kerb, they could see Vanessa rising from her couch, the instant their car approached, through the front room bay window. She hurried down the path as they opened the car doors, and the taller girl folded Amal into her body, her arms wrapped around his niece like the bars of a cage holding a wild bird.

Chapter 19

They made a plan to plant flowers in the garden and install a fountain. Mirza found himself looking at garden center catalogues when he got tired of marking essays, flicking through to find alternate visions of greenery. He read the Latin names of plant varieties in a whisper to himself, which always made Amal smile.

“We should have a fountain,” he said to her one day, looking out at the back with his thumb and forefinger forming a square, like a mime of an artist at his canvas. “Right there, in the center.”

Frank and Ella had plenty of suggestions of their own. “You have to have a bench, over there in the corner of the garden. Plant some nice flowering bushes, rhododendrons or something like that. It will be your own little retreat. Put up a trellis along that fence, and you’ll soon have some beautiful passion flowers on that side.”

He dragged bags of soil out of his car, like dead bodies, sweating and straining to heave them out of the boot of the car, kicking them when they fell at his feet. She found a rusty wheelbarrow in the shed and helped him haul the bags to the back, where he slit them open with a knife as if he were
 gutting a fish, the rich brown loamy soil pouring out onto the grass. She found she liked getting her fingers dirty, the grit and discoloration of muck making her fingerprints stand out, the skin on her palm stiffening with drying mud.

She invited Vanessa, Sven and Kiran to help them sink the fountain into the middle of the lawn, the pipes running underground like their shared secret. When Mirza
flipped the switch for the fountain inside the house, they clapped with delight.

He planted a few fruit trees, some peach and apple
trees and a cherry tree in the corner.

“Next year, we should start seeing something.” The newly planted shrubs and trees looked self-conscious, like adolescent boys at a dance.

Amal reminded her uncle to call Rehan’s mother. She overheard some gallantries in Urdu and raised her eyebrow, but her uncle did not look at her. She heard Rehan’s name once, and then her uncle glanced quickly at her as he said ‘Mubarak’. She nodded. She walked to the kitchen to make herself some toast and marmite, and when she returned, he was still talking to Mehnaz Aunty. She pushed open the patio door and took her plate to the bench at the shrubs. The grass where Mirza’s tent had been was almost back to its full strength. They had re-seeded a patch of lawn there, and watered it painstakingly, and blades were springing up, only a slightly lighter shade of green than the rest of the lawn to betray their newness.

They had re-seeded just in time. It was getting colder, and the October crispness would soon give way to the first winter chill. The garden was still just an idea, she thought. She wondered if Rehan had had a boy or baby girl, but she did not
want to ask, and she knew her uncle would not mention it.

A few days later, Mehnaz Aunty called again, and this time, Mirza looked a little abashed in front of his niece. She smiled at him and stepped out of the room, to his obvious relief. She could hear his laughter from the kitchen stool where he sat, and the happy tones of his conversation. Afterwards, he walked briskly, tidying the house with purpose. When pressed, he only said, “We have so much in common, beti, we know what loss is. I have a lot of respect for her. I know it must be difficult with you, with Rehan…”

She interrupted him quickly. “Of course not, Uncle. She is quite a lovely person, I’m happy for you. Will you be…?”

“We are not children, beti,” he remonstrated gently. “When you are young, ironically, you rush into everything, make pledges right and left, and you throw away your future with reckless abandon. But when you have little time left, you understand how to sift every action, every word, weighing it against that little store of time. Not one grain is wasted.”

Chapter 20

Mirza lay on his bed. It was just before six, and Amal’s parents would be returning from their trip to the house in Darlington any minute now. Outside, there was a light snow that drifted absentmindedly from the sky, dirty-
gray against the overwhelming brightness of the clouds, floating down whiter and whiter against the buildings and pavement.

Amal’s parents had been visiting for five days. At the airport, Mirza was surprised to see that his brother was a little fatter, hi
s hair thinner.  His sister-in-law was all smiles and had brought presents for everyone, opening her suitcase in their living room and disemboweling the contents joyfully to extract bangles and reams of colored cloth.

They had their most difficult conversations, about Amal staying on in England to look for work, over the next few days. Amal’s mother had cried, only emerging, laughing and with a tear-stained face, when her husband stood outside her room singing romantic ghazals. Then she had hugged Amal, her forehead to her daughter’s, her lips moving in prayer.

They had left this morning to inspect the house and meet with a solicitor and a real estate agent, Amal sitting in the backseat of the car, and as she waved goodbye to him, Mirza had felt strangely jealous of their parenthood. They would be back for dinner, his brother having called from the road, and he had stood at the stove all morning, crushing cloves of garlic and slicing paper thin rings of onion, stopping to read instructions from the online recipe he had found on the internet earlier that day. Vanessa and Sven were coming with dessert and the Mintons had promised appetizers. Mehnaz had confirmed that she was coming on the train that got into the station at 6:37 p.m. and Mirza had set the alarm for 6:15 and promised himself not to look at the clock again until it rang.

He put the dishes in the oven to keep them warm and cleaned up the kitchen, laying out the serving dishes and spoons. He took a long, hot shower, the smell of mustard seeds and fried chilli
es lifting off him in the steam, cut through by the sharp scent of soap. He was tired now, from all the shopping and standing, and lay down on top of the bed in his bathrobe, allowing himself to drift into a light sleep.

She came to his dreams again, sitting on the edge of his bed and raking gentle fingers through his hair. She was not the slim and young vision of his adolescent dreams, but soft everywhere and, in his dream, he turned his face into her chest, pressing himself into the dark
velvet of her kurta. Khan Sahib was standing at the doorway watching him sleep, before leaving again, and Amal and Rehan were there, as very small children, holding hands. And then there was only her, his queen, holding his ruined head in her hands and kissing it.

About the Author

Shaheen Ashraf-Ahmed is the author of The Purana Qila Stories for the Kindle, which includes her titles, A Change in the Weather and The Dust Beneath Her Feet.

Shaheen won a national essay competition about life in India held by the Indian High Commission in England and has had her poetry published in the Cadbury's Book of Children's Poetry and Tomorrow magazine. Shaheen lives in Chicago with her family.

To follow her blog, please visit: http://coinsinthewell.wordpress.com/