Happy Anniversary. May our next one be like your grandfather’s fairy tales.
MY EYES BURNED with lack of sleep. It was one in the morning and I’d had a long day at the university. Also, the hour-long apology to Sara had drained me. She had shaken her head and tried to laugh it off, but I took my time, deeming it a wise investment for the future.
I went to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of ice water. Kicked off my slippers, returned to the desk, and continued reading.
I hadn’t lied to Sara. The implications of this new jinn mythology were tremendous. A new origin myth, a bastardized version of the Abrahamic creationist lore. Trouble was these conclusions were tenuous. Gramps had speculated more than logically derived them. Arabi himself had touched on these themes in an abstract manner. To produce a viable theory of this alternate history of the universe, I needed more details, more sources.
Suppose there were other papers, hidden manuscripts. Was it possible that the treasure Gramps had found under the eucalyptus stump was truly ‘the map to the memory of heaven’? Ancient papers of cosmological importance never discovered?
“Shit, Gramps. Where’d you hide them?” I murmured.
His journal said he’d spent quite a bit of time in different places: Mansehra, Iran. Turkey, where he spent four years in a rug shop. The papers could really be anywhere.
My eyes were drawn to the phrase again: the Courtesan of the Mughals. I admired how beautiful the form and composition of the calligraphy was. Gramps had shaped the Urdu alphabet carefully into a flat design so that the conjoined words Mughal and Courtesan turned into an ornate rug. A calligram. The curves of the meem and ghain letters became the tassels and borders of the rug, the laam’s seductive curvature its rippling belly.
Such artistry. One shape discloses another. A secret, symbolic relationship.
There, I thought. The secret hides in the city. The clues to the riddle of the eucalyptus treasure are in Lahore.
I spent the next few days sorting out my finances. Once I was satisfied that the trip was feasible, I began to make arrangements.
Sara stared at me when I told her. “Lahore? You’re going to Lahore?”
“Yes.”
“To look for something your grandpa may or may not have left there fiftysome years ago?”
“Yes.”
“You’re crazy. I mean it’s one thing to talk about a journal.”
“I know. I still need to go.”
“So you’re telling me, not asking. Why? Why are you so fixed on this? You know that country isn’t safe these days. What if something happens?” She crossed her arms, lifted her feet off the floor, and tucked them under her on the couch. She was shivering a little.
“Nothing’s gonna happen. Look, whatever he left in Lahore, he wanted me to see it. Why else write about it and leave it in his journal which he knew would be found one day? Don’t you see? He was really writing to me.”
“Well, that sounds self-important. Why not your dad? Also, why drop hints then? Why not just tell you straight up what it is?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t want other people to find out.”
“Or maybe he was senile. Look, I’m sorry, but this is crazy. You can’t just fly off to the end of the world on a whim to look for a relic.” She rubbed her legs. “It could take you weeks. Months. How much vacation time do you have left?”
“I’ll take unpaid leave if I have to. Don’t you see? I need to do this.”
She opened her mouth, closed it. “Is this something you plan to keep doing?” she said quietly. “Run off each time anything bothers you.”
“What?” I quirked my eyebrows. “Nothing’s bothering me.”
“No?” She jumped up from the couch and glared at me. “You’ve met my mother and Fanny, but I’ve never met your parents. You didn’t take me to your grandfather’s funeral. And since your return you don’t seem interested in what we have, or once had. Are you trying to avoid talking about us? Are we still in love, Sal, or are we just getting by? Are we really together?”
“Of course we’re together. Don’t be ridiculous,” I mumbled, but there was a constriction in my stomach. It wouldn’t let me meet her eyes.
“Don’t patronize me. You’re obsessed with your own little world. Look, I have no problem with you giving time to your folks. Or your gramps’s work. But we’ve been together for three years and you still find excuses to steer me away from your family. This cultural thing that you claim to resent, you seem almost proud of it. Do you see what I mean?”
“No.” I was beginning to get a bit angry. “And I’m not sure you do either.”
“You’re lying. You know what I’m talking about.”
“Do I? Okay, lemme try to explain what my problem is. Look at me, Sara. What do you see?”
She stared at me, shook her head. “I see a man who doesn’t know he’s lost.”
“Wrong. You see a twenty-eight-year-old brown man living in a shitty apartment, doing a shitty job that doesn’t pay much and has no hope of tenure. You see a man who can’t fend for himself, let alone a wife and kids –”
“No one’s asking you to –”
“– if he doesn’t do something better with his life. But you go on believing all will be well if we trade families? Open your damn eyes.” I leaned against the TV cabinet, suddenly tired. “All my life I was prudent. I planned and planned and gave up one thing for another. Moved here. Never looked back. Did whatever I could to be what I thought I needed to be. The archetypal fucking immigrant in the land of opportunities. But after Gramps died...” I closed my eyes, breathed, opened them. “I realize some things are worth more than that. Some things are worth going after.”
“Some things, huh?” Sara half smiled, a trembling flicker that took me aback more than her words did. “Didn’t your grandfather give up everything – his life, his family, his country – for love? And you’re giving up... love for... what exactly? Shame? Guilt? Identity? A fucking manventure in a foreign land?”
“You’re wrong,” I said. “I’m not –”
But she wasn’t listening. Her chest hitched. Sara turned, walked into the bedroom, and gently closed the door, leaving me standing alone.
I STOMPED DOWN Highland Avenue. It was mid-October and the oaks and silver maples were burning with fall. They blazed yellow and crimson. They made me feel sadder and angrier and more confused.
Had our life together always been this fragile? I wondered if I had missed clues that Sara felt this way. She always was more aware of bumps in our relationship. I recalled watching her seated at the desk marking student papers once, her beautiful, freckled face scrunched in a frown, and thinking she would never really be welcome in my parents’ house. Mama would smile nervously if I brought her home and retreat into the kitchen. Baba wouldn’t say a word and somehow that would be worse than an outraged rejection. And what would Gramps have done? I didn’t know. My head was messed up. It had been since his death.
It was dusk when I returned home, the lights in our neighborhood floating dreamily like gold sequins in black velvet.
Sara wasn’t there.
The bed was made, the empty hangers in the closet pushed neatly together. On the coffee table in the living room under a Valentine mug was yet another note. She had become adept at writing me love letters.
I made myself a sandwich, sat in the dark, and picked at the bread. When I had mustered enough courage, I retrieved the note and began to read:
Salman,
I wrote tried to write this several times and each time my hand shook and made me write things I didn’t want to. It sucks that we’re such damn weaklings, the both of us. I’m stuck in love with you and you are with me. At least I hope so. At least that’s the way I feel read you. But then I think about my mother and my heart begins racing.