Ayesha At Last(89)

Khalid was aghast. “They can’t do that!”

“I’m afraid they already have,” the imam said. “May Allah forgive us all.”





Chapter Thirty-Nine

Ayesha returned to the Taj Mahal after school to sit with Samira Aunty. She didn’t know what else to do. Her uncle had been gone all day, driving to the different mosques in the city looking for anyone who might know something. When he returned that evening, he looked pale and ten years older. He walked straight to his office and shut the door firmly behind him. Ayesha followed and knocked tentatively. When he didn’t answer, she entered.

Sulaiman Mamu had his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs. Ayesha hurried to his side.

“It will be all right,” she said. “Hafsa is fine.”

Sulaiman Mamu looked up at his niece with haunted eyes. “How can she be all right when she’s with that man?” he asked. “I’ve been making inquiries. Everyone I talk to has nothing good to say about Tarek. He has run up debts. He hasn’t paid his vendors what they are owed. There are rumours about other young women.”

“Has he gotten in touch with you?”

Sulaiman Mamu looked bleak. “For hush money? He seduced the wrong girl.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ayesha beti, there is no more money.” Sulaiman Mamu’s eyes were red and bloodshot. “My business has not been doing well. I put off selling the house until after the wedding. Now I’m only sorry I didn’t set aside money to pay off rascals who set out to ruin my daughter.”

“Hafsa is not ruined,” Ayesha said.

“Her reputation is in tatters and the vultures are circling.”

“Let them circle!” Ayesha said loudly. She lowered her voice. “There must be something we can do.”

Sulaiman Mamu slumped in his chair. “I have called everyone I know. The police refuse to take this seriously, and perhaps they are right. There is no criminal activity here. Hafsa has only turned her backs on us and everything we hold dear. She has shredded our hearts, that is all.”

Ayesha felt helpless. “Tell me what to do. How can I help?”

Sulaiman Mamu shook his head. “All we can do now is pray.”

THERE would be plans to make and more people to call tomorrow. Tonight, Ayesha set her alarm for three o’clock. She remembered from Sunday school that the early morning hours were a particularly good time to ask Allah for a favour.

When her alarm went off, Ayesha made wudu and headed downstairs to the family room, the warmest room in the house.

She arranged her prayer mat in the darkened space and began to pray. The familiar rhythm calmed her racing mind. When she finished, she sat cross-legged on the prayer mat, her hands upturned in supplication. Please, God. Please.

The sound of a key in the lock broke her concentration, and she looked up to see her mother home after a double shift at the hospital. Saleha took off her rubber-soled hospital shoes and came to sit on the couch near her kneeling daughter, sighing a little as she sank into the worn cushions.

“Did you know Mamu was having money trouble?” Ayesha asked.

Saleha stretched her arms up. “I had my suspicions, but he is a proud man. He will bounce back.”

Ayesha felt a prickle of irritation. “You haven’t gone to see him since Hafsa took off.”

Saleha looked at her daughter, who was full of indignation. “I call every day, several times,” she said mildly. “This is a waiting game.”

Ayesha folded up her prayer mat, her movements jerky, not looking at her mother. Saleha watched silently.

“I know this must be hard for you,” Saleha began.

“You have no idea what this is like!” Ayesha shouted. “You have no idea what it’s like to wait for someone you love to come home, not knowing if they’re safe or all right or—” She bit off the rest of the sentence, catching sight of her mother’s bemused face.

“I do know what it’s like,” Saleha said quietly. “I remember very well. Your father was missing for more than a week before they found his body, but I knew on the first night that he was dead. I felt it, here.” Saleha pointed to her stomach. “When you love someone the way I loved him, you just know.”

Ayesha looked down at her lap. She had never heard her mother say she’d loved Syed. Most of the time, Saleha sounded bitter and angry when she spoke of her husband, if she spoke of him at all. Ayesha remembered Nana’s words so long ago: Your mother’s anger conceals a very great love.

“How did he die?” Ayesha asked. She expected to be rebuffed as usual. She expected Saleha to walk away, as she had so many times before. But her mother didn’t move.

“Syed was a journalist. He covered local politics and he was ambitious; he wanted to cover the big stories. Sometimes he travelled to other cities, mostly Mumbai. This was before cell phones and the internet, so when he was gone, I had no way to get in touch with him. He wanted to be on the scene, to write about the way regular people’s lives were affected by poverty and crime. He thought of himself as a crusader for justice.” Saleha smiled faintly. “I worried about him every time he left the house.”

Ayesha watched her mother, afraid to speak, afraid to break the spell.

“In December 1992, the Babri mosque was destroyed by Hindu extremists in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. It was built in the sixteenth century, and a mob ripped it apart in a few hours.”