The Lost Pearl (2012) (3 page)

When Ammi was composed enough to speak again, a few hours after having regained consciousness, she said, “We don’t need Sahir to know how it happened, dear. He is too young to understand. We just need to tell him your father is in
jannat
,” referring to the Urdu word for Heaven. “God loved him so much that he chose him to be with him in a better place.”

Yes, Sahir was too young for all this. But what about me? How was I expected to comprehend that my father had been killed in cold blood? How was I to bear all this pain and not even be able to share it with my only sibling? I almost told Ammi that I had seen the killer but did not want to upset her more, so I let it be. I buried it inside me along with all the other sad realities that were signing up to become my lifelong companions.

Ammi suddenly looked like she had aged. She was sad and unsure, like a child who had forgotten the way home. She had lost her husband, and with him, she had lost the only life she had ever known. She tried her best to comfort me, but I soon realized that I had to grow up quickly so I could take care of her and protect her.

I cannot remember when I went to sleep, but that marked the beginning of my nightmares. Sometimes I dreamt of my father lying before me in a pool of blood and I would wake up screaming. On other occasions I only saw his killer, with his green, evil eyes staring at me and threatening to kill me as well. Frequently I was also covered in blood, unable to wipe it off me. I would try to scream, but my voice could not be heard. Then I would wake up, my hands clammy with cold sweat, my heart pounding with fear. The dreams were always gruesome and vivid, and they were so disturbing that I was afraid to fall asleep. I had heard of people sleeping for days after tragedies like this one so they could dull the pain and pretend temporarily that none of it was real, but I had no way to escape it. I slept next to my mother for several days, and she would wake up, gently put her hand on my forehead, and give me a glass of water to drink. But she herself was so distraught that she could not find words effective enough to comfort me. In the mornings, I would find her pillow wet from all the tears that had trickled down her cheeks the night before. After a few weeks, the dreams became less frequent, but whenever they came, they came with a vengeance.

Zareen helped for several days while Sakina tended to all the other housekeeping responsibilities. One day, she saw me crying in my room, and brought me a glass of lemon juice. Referring to her own father, she said, “Abba died when I was four. I was as old as Sahir is now. I remember him a little bit, but not a lot. I am very sad about your papa. He was a very kind man.”

She had said what others had shied away from. Her words gave me comfort and let me know that someone shared my pain and cared enough to express it.

One morning when the house was eerily quiet and many of the relatives who had travelled long distances to offer condolences were gone, I was lying with my head in my mother’s lap when she said, “I want you and Sahir to go with Phuppo to California for a few months to get away from all this. It’s been so tough for
you; you need a change.” Phuppo was what we called our Aunt Asma, my father’s only sister.

“What about you, Ammi?” I asked. “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“I cannot go because I have to remain in the house for another three and a half months, as our religion and culture dictate,” she replied, “but you and Sahir must go.”

Sensing my worry and hesitation, she held my hand and said, “Besides, I won’t be alone, your Nana will stay here.”

I was comforted by the thought that my grandfather would be there with my mother. Before we knew it, our bags were packed and we were on the twenty-two-hour flight to California with my aunt. Initially I had not welcomed this idea. I believed that after suffering such an unthinkable loss, the family should stay together. I needed my mother, and she needed me. She had been right, however, in saying that she could not leave for the period of
‘Iddat’
of four months and ten days, and she did not want us to become homebound because of her, especially in a house full of Papa. Everywhere, there were memories of him: his voice, his humming of old Lata songs, his casual flipping of the pages of the morning newspaper. I looked at the new metallic glasses that had arrived in the mail after his death, the ones he had ordered at my insistence. I could not bear it. The carpet stain remained, a brutal reminder of what had taken place, despite countless attempts to remove it. The portrait frame had been rubbed clean by Sakina. What about the blood oozing from my heart? When would that stop? The glass on the picture could be replaced, but what about all the cracks inside my being? The laceration in my heart was deep and wide, and it was bleeding. Healing this wound would take a long time and would be sure to leave a permanent scar—a scar that would always hurt and would be there for all to see. I soon welcomed the idea of escaping, of going to a place where I did not see pity in people’s eyes, pity for a little princess who had lost her king.

Within a week of our departure, Ammi called me to inform me that the murderer had been arrested. I thought to myself that the killer being caught would not bring back my father, but despite that, this knowledge gave me some sense of justice, a hint of peace amid all the restlessness inside me. Whatever punishment was granted to him would never be equivalent to the unthinkable crime he had committed. Even if he were shot in the chest a hundred times, it would not take my pain away.

“Why did he do it?” I asked matter-of-factly.

“For money,” she replied. “He took your father’s money and his watch. He had to run away quickly because everyone heard the gunshot.”

I could not help but think of what my father used to say: “These are things. Never cry over them, never fight with others for them. The happiness things bring does not last, and people think that when the happiness fades, they need more things, not realizing that it’s not going to last either, because this kind of happiness doesn’t touch the soul.”

Papa had lost his life to someone’s greed, someone’s love for these material things. Did this killer have no one to tell him that things can be bought, that they can be replaced, but that no price could be put on human life?

In California, I felt somewhat alone in my pain and suffering because I was separated by oceans from my mother and my brother was too young for any discussions about what had transpired that winter. I was envious of him because he had not witnessed what I had, and he was unaware of the horrendous way in which Papa had died. He missed him but simply believed that he had gone to a faraway land called
jannat
. He could not, at that age, comprehend the permanence of this separation, the finality of death.

My aunt was a maternal figure who had my father’s generosity and integrity. She also bore a striking resemblance to him, the identical chiseled nose and the same wide, generous smile.
She had lived in the States ever since her marriage to my uncle, whom we called Phuppa. He was an accountant by profession, and had a quiet and polite demeanor. As my father had said, “There are two kinds of people in this world, those who give and those who take. Always be a giver, my dear.” I believed I could clearly classify my uncle as a giver. Time taught me that my father’s black and white description was an oversimplification for the purposes of my understanding, of the many shades of gray that people really were. Time also taught me that my early impression of Phuppa was an accurate one.

Phuppo was an enormous support during those dark days when I first arrived. She would hold me, imparting all the love she had perhaps saved up for years for children of her own, which sadly she had not been able to have. She once advised me to talk about my father, rather than pretending that everything was normal and that there had been no loss. It would help the healing process, she explained. It was good advice, and I took it; I started asking her about my father’s childhood, as I had always loved to hear him narrate those tales himself. She told me about my paternal grandparents who had died many years ago. She described how my grandmother loved to sew and how she also loved to sing when no one was listening. She told me how my grandfather had been involved in the freedom movement in his early days. She talked about the home of their childhood, the garden filled with mango trees, and how she and Papa would climb up the branches and try to get as many mangoes as they could. Soon my aunt and I became very close.

One night she heard me screaming in my sleep and came running to my bedroom. She held me tight and asked me if I had had a bad dream. I told her about it and how it had become a recurrent nightmare, censoring the part about the killer. She hugged me, and it felt reassuring to be hugged again.

On Memorial Day weekend, my uncle announced that we were going to San Francisco. April had been a crazy time owing
to tax return season, and until then none of us had felt emotionally ready for sightseeing. Before we knew it, we were at the Golden Gate Bridge, walking alongside the youngsters on their bicycles, the cool wind blowing our hair away, the soft drizzle wetting our faces. We took pictures from every angle, trying to capture the intricate details. It looked stunningly beautiful, bursting with life. I was later shocked to learn that many had committed suicide by jumping off this breathtaking bridge.

We visited Crooked Street, where I had to hold Sahir’s hand tight so he would not go down the innumerable stairs too fast. We spent some time at Pier 39, and Sahir was delighted by the way he could mimic the sounds of the sea lions who lay motionless on the boards that floated above the water. We sat on the Merry-go-round, and it was difficult to convince Sahir to dismount the carousel, with its dragons, dolphins, and countless horses. The evening concluded with a sumptuous clam chowder soup served in a sourdough bread bowl. I had heard of all these places from my father, who had travelled the world. Everywhere I went, I thought of him and how his feet had touched the same ground. I would start to smile, but every time I let joy near, I felt guilty, as if happiness was disrespectful to my father’s memory. I was unable to get two images out of my mind: one of my father and the other of his ruthless killer. My hatred for the killer was so intense, that it almost seemed to overpower my love for my father. The image of Papa lying there like a helpless child had cast a shadow on all the good memories of our happy past. The horrific moment that played in my mind like a video set on replay. One moment had become more powerful than nine and a half years.

Our spring visit was extended to the summer. I was missing a lot of school, but Phuppo assured me that I would catch up. But before the school year began, I returned to my parents’ home, where my widowed mother needed me. Sahir asked me on the long flight if Papa was back from his trip to
Jannat
. I had
to swallow tears as I told him that it was a really long trip and it was the best place to be in. He asked me if we could go there to visit him, and I said I did not think so. I always wondered when it was that Sahir understood that Papa was never coming back. It was a question that he never asked, and one I never answered.

My brother and I came back to a home that bore little resemblance to the one we had left behind. The lights that had illuminated the exterior of the house had all been turned off. The decorations, pictures, and even our family portrait in the office were gone. The furniture was sparse, the plants and flowers were mostly dead, and those that were still alive had lost their freshness. There were countless brown cardboard boxes of various sizes stacked on top of one another in a disorganized fashion, some sealed with tape and all labeled in thick, black permanent ink. The stifling smell of emptiness permeated the air. Sahir was excited to see all the cartons, and immediately started jumping from one to another like an acrobat who had found props, while I felt dizzy and struggled to overcome the nausea I was starting to feel.

The gardener and the cook were gone. Sakina was still there and greeted me warmly, but her expression was peculiar. She started talking fast about the heavy rains, our long flight, the worsening power outages, and Zareen’s recent encounter with malaria. It seemed as though she were trying to establish a false sense of normalcy.

Amid the piles of cardboard boxes stood my mother, who appeared to be a different woman. She looked nothing like herself, instead resembled the wilted flowers in her garden. The color from her face had vanished, and dark circles underlined her morose eyes. Her hair was tied into a braid, and a premature hint of gray was visible on her scalp. She wore no makeup or jewelry. The woman who had been so conscious of the cut of her dress and the style of her shoes stood before me in a plain brown cotton suit with slippers on her feet, which I had never before seen
without nail polish. She had always had her wrist decorated with a bracelet and each finger bejeweled with a ring, but her hands were now bare. She appeared thin, and her clothes hung loose on her shoulders. Her face was gaunt, robbed of the rosy cheeks that once were and devoid of the smile that had been capable of taking all my sorrow away. Was this really my mother? It seemed like my father had taken her with him. She was a body without a person inside. That was the powerful instant when I realized that my father was not the only one I had lost on that dreaded night.

The morning after we returned, Ammi said we had to go for a walk in the garden. The last time we had gone for a walk in the garden was when my mother had informed me of my grandmother’s death. Suddenly I felt fearful; she could not possibly have any more bad news to give me. She had lost so much weight. Was she ill? Could she be dying too?

“We have to discuss something important,” she said, grown-up stuff that I, the now ten-year-old big girl, would understand.

“Are you all right? You aren’t ill, are you? Do you have cancer or something?” I asked, my whole body trembling.

“No, Sana. I am fine.”

I was so relieved that I took a deep breath and felt grateful that there was nothing she could say that could possibly upset me.