I picked up an empty vase and threw it in his general direction.
“Stop judging me!” I screamed. “More than anyone else in my life, you should be the one to understand! You are the one that walked away from me that night in Mumbai, leaving me sitting alone by an empty pool in the middle of the night! Where was I supposed to go? What was I supposed to do? How dare you lecture me! You are not my grandfather! And now you’re telling me that you flew across the country so you could tell me about what to do with my life? What gives you the right? Who are you to me? Nobody! Not anymore! Not the day you decided to listen to your grandfather and pay more attention to what an old man has to say than to how it would make me feel! Now please, just get out!”
The look of alarm that had appeared on Tariq’s face at the start of my rant was still there when I was done. Even I was taken aback by the depth of my anguish, the realization that Tariq, standing before me in his slim black suit, represented my nana, and my mother, and the father I had never known.
He said nothing. Instead, he picked up his laptop, turned around, and walked out the door.
It was five p.m. when he left.
I figured I would never hear from him again. I figured that he was the last remnant of an old life that I had to let go of, following my grandfather and my mother down a sinkhole of people who would never even try to understand me.
But at six the next morning, after a night of fitful sleep, I picked up the phone when it rang. His voice was immediately contrite, lacking the bravado he had always displayed, the superiority with which he had spoken to me.
“I’m supposed to be leaving later today,” he said, sounding as if he, like me, had had a bad night’s sleep. “Please, just give me five minutes. Please.”
Central Park was busy, joggers checking their watches, mothers calming fussy babies as they walked, looking desperately as if they, like me, needed to go back to bed. The reservoir sparkled under the early morning August sun, pigeons coming to rest on its edges, foraging for food in the dewy grass.
Tariq was in sweatpants and a T-shirt, his eyes slightly red, his hair uncombed. We walked in silence for a while, then sat down on a bench, pushing aside a brown paper bag that had been left there by its previous occupant.
“I’ve been an asshole, haven’t I?” he said, looking at me. “I don’t know what it is. I think that I’m this man of the world, and then I go back home and all that goes out the window. It’s like I become my grandfather, seeing the world through his eyes. It’s pretty pathetic.”
“It is,” I said.
“But you’ve got to admit, you don’t exactly make it easy on me. Or on yourself. I mean, look at what you’ve chosen to do. It’s unconventional, even for the most liberal of Western families. And here you are, from one of the oldest and most reverential religions of all time, where women are shielded and protected, and you’re letting it all hang out. I mean, you have to admit, it would be a stretch for anyone to accept.”
“I thought all I wanted to do was to see Paris,” I said, looking down at my hands. “I think I knew I was running away from something, but at the time, I wasn’t sure what it was. That life, the one that Nana had in his mind for me, it wasn’t what I wanted. Not at nineteen. And then everything happened, and I went along with it, loving it as I went, making these choices that would once have been incomprehensible. There have been struggles, but so much of it has made me, well, happy. My heart is ready now, for whatever might come next. It wasn’t before, you know.”
I looked up at him.
“But that’s how it started. I just wanted to see Paris.”
“And you did. And you will again, I’m hoping.” Tariq smiled. He leaned over and kissed me on the forehead, wiping away a tear that had escaped from my eye.
“What are we going to do?” I asked.
“Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out,” he said, putting his arms around me, both of us turning to gaze at the gleaming reservoir.
Chapter Thirty-four
We don’t celebrate Christmas in our religion. But in Paris, you couldn’t not. So there was a big tree in our living room, more for decoration than anything else, reaching almost to the ceiling, with that fresh pine smell that I had only ever read about. Tiny red lights sparkled on the lush green branches, a stack of presents beautifully wrapped and beribboned piled underneath.
The sun had set already. But I loved the evenings, when we would light a fire and cuddle up in thick knitted sweaters and drink from a large pot of herbal tea.
I glanced around the room, which glowed from the lights on the tree and the fire in the hearth and the warmth in Tariq’s eyes. He was looking through his CD collection, his back toward me. Next to him, on a long wooden console, was our wedding picture from three weeks earlier at Tariq’s home, just he and I with a mullah and a smattering of friends. Shazia was there, my only link with my old life, the one who had started all this. She had hugged me as the mullah recited prayers, reminding me that she had, long ago, tried to convince me that everything would turn out OK. Next to the picture was a folder containing flyers announcing a charity I had set up, a group for Muslim youth living in Paris who were confused about their cultural identity. Through it I had already met girls like the one I once was, girls who didn’t know where they belonged, who felt alone, clashing with a culture they didn’t know how, or whether, to embrace.
Tariq found the CD he was looking for. It was Edith Piaf, and her classic rendition of “ La Vie En Rose.” He slipped it into the player. I smiled at him across the room and moved toward a mahogany desk that nestled close to the window. A tasseled lamp shone brightly onto it. The windows were closed, but beyond I could see the dark surface of the Seine running its course through the city, the lights in other households shining in the distance.
I sat down at the table. I closed my eyes for a second and imagined Audrey Hepburn when she was Sabrina, in her white nightgown, sitting down at her table, in that scene that would never leave my memory.
I pulled out a letter pad, picked up a fountain pen from Tariq’s collection, and began: “My dearest Nana.”
And I wrote until the sun came up.
Kavita Daswani
Kavita Daswani is an American author, who started her career as a journalist for South China Morning Post when she only 17 years old. She lived in Hong Kong, before moving to Los Angeles in 2000.
Now 36 years old, she has written several books that represent her passion and love for the Indian culture. In her books, we see how young Indian girls are trying to break away from their tradition in pursuit of their dreams. She also brings some of her own life's experiences into her books.
A unique feature in Kavita's books is the combination of humor and culture tension that make them a good read.
She has been a fashion correspondent for CNN, CNBC Asia, and Women's Wear Daily, has written for the Los Angeles Times and the International Herald Tribune, among many other publications, and has been the fashion editor for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong.
