Authors: Tanwi Nandini Islam
Ella didn’t answer him. As she neared the Boathouse, she hopped off her bike and dropped it there. There was their pine tree.
Maya wasn’t there.
A splash. Someone was in the lake.
“Maya!” she shouted. She ran toward the sound and jumped in. Maya was at the water’s edge, slurring, “It’s been a real good year, baby girl.”
Ella tried to propel her arms to get closer. She gripped Maya—
she’s really here
, thought Ella. In her fear, Ella pulled Maya down into the water. Maya sputtered and resisted Ella’s arm. Ella tried to forget she didn’t know how to swim.
I can still stand in the water.
Ella hoisted Maya onto her back, and trudged back to the grass.
“Gimme that cigarette, bitch, gimme,” murmured Maya.
“There’s . . . no . . . cigarettes,” Ella said, heaving. She dropped Maya to the ground to catch her breath, and fell beside her. Maya swiped off Ella’s glasses and spun them round and round, like a child. She started sucking on a stem as if it were a cigarette. Maya’s pulse throbbed against Ella’s shoulder. It was erratic, forceful, inhuman.
As daylight broke, the trees started to lose their ominous shadows. Ella yelled for help, and was spotted by another jogger, who raced over and called an ambulance.
* * *
Ella rode in the ambulance with Maya to Brooklyn Hospital. Maya started convulsing in a seizure. The paramedics attempted to stabilize her.
“Is she an epileptic?”
“Not that I know of.”
* * *
At the ER, triage nurses informed Ella that no one was allowed in the room, but she was welcome to wait. Ella called Halim, who picked up on the first ring. He had just gotten dressed for his morning yoga class. Together they waited like soldiers awaiting orders. Five hours later, a young Indian doctor, Dr. Kumar, came to talk to them. She reeked of cigarettes and Ella almost asked her for one. She extended her hand, and Halim clasped her slender fingers.
“What is it, Doctor, tell us? Can we see her?” Halim’s anguish softened Dr. Kumar’s exhausted deadpan. “This young woman—Maya Sharif—ingested datura seeds. We found a bag of jimsonweed seeds in her pocket. Regular, garden-variety seeds. There’s a weird jimsonweed trend among teenagers.” Dr. Kumar squinted in pity, and said, “Don’t know if you all know about it.”
“I know it,” said Ella, her mouth dry
.
“Why on earth would she do that? What does it do?” asked Halim.
“Well. Perhaps she wanted to experience their hallucinogenic effects, or maybe this was an attempt to—” Dr. Kumar paused. “As little as one-half teaspoon, about a milligram of the alkaloid atropine per seed, can cause cardiopulmonary arrest. She’s lucky,
though. We pumped her with activated charcoal. She’ll be okay in a couple of days.”
“I want to see her!” Halim cried.
“She’s resting at the moment. Do you have a number for family?”
“She—she doesn’t have any,” said Halim.
“We’ll wait here. Until she’s ready to see us,” said Ella.
Dr. Kumar looked at them, sensing something amiss. “You sure you don’t have a number for her folks?”
“No, we don’t.”
* * *
Maya was allowed to have visitors after a few days, as Dr. Kumar had promised. Ella and Halim had held vigil in the waiting room, leaving for a quick meal or a shower and change at home. Charu joined them, as soon as Ella told her Maya had landed in the hospital. Ella wasn’t sure if Charu’s look had been accusatory—Maya had learned about the seeds from Ella, after all.
Let me get some stuff together
, Charu had told her, assembling a basket. She included Reese’s peanut butter cups, a floral hijab, black eyeliner, a sketch pad and pencils. There she was, always ready with the right gifts or sentiments, when Ella had stayed up for forty-eight hours waiting. Empty-handed.
“You’re all here,” said Maya. She lay propped up on an array of uncomfortable-looking pillows, an IV connected to her arm. Dark circles rimmed her eyes, and her usual raspy voice sounded even more parched.
“We’re here, baby,” murmured Halim. “Until you get out of here.”
“I brought you some stuff,” said Charu.
“A why-the-fuck-did-you-OD present?” Maya laughed.
“Stuff to keep you occupied.”
“You’re the best,” said Maya. She turned to Ella. “And you. You found me.”
“She saved your life, kid,” said Halim.
“And you can’t swim, Ella. I know that must have been scary.”
“I told you how dangerous it was,” said Ella, her voice cracking.
“That made her want to do it,” Charu snapped. “Anyway, Baba said he’s going to do a thorough inventory check of all the seeds in the bank. He’s throwing out anything poisonous.”
“You told Anwar?” asked Ella.
“Yeah. We shouldn’t have shit that can kill people around the house.” Charu seemed defiant, but Ella could tell she was troubled by the worry in Maya’s face. “Don’t worry.”
“I’m not,” said Maya. “I’m just tired.”
“We should let her rest,” said Halim.
Just as soon as he said it, Maya let out a gasp. They all turned to see what distracted her. Through the window, Anwar stood with Maya’s father and a woman with a cane who looked old enough to be Maya’s grandmother, but Ella realized that she must be her mother.
* * *
After speaking with Charu, Anwar checked the seed bank to see if his
Datura inoxia
was missing. It was gone. Thorn apple was a common weapon of choice for thieves and Kali-worshipping thuggees, assassins who murdered in the goddess’s name. One of the forbidden flowers that Anwar would not have suggested planting. He hadn’t, in fact, because he had young children. Poisonings were the stuff of Socrates or Turing’s cyanide apple, not his garden in Brooklyn.
Heavyhearted, Anwar waited until after lunch to inform Sallah S. about his daughter’s whereabouts. Lunch made a man sluggish and less hot-tempered, or so he hoped. For the first time in years, Anwar set foot in A Holy Bookstore. The sole impression he’d made on the place in all this time was his rosewater and sandalwood oil diffuser, which, mixed with the scent of books old and new, was tantalizing. He inhaled the ancient blend, hoping to imbue himself with courage.
“Looking for anything in particular?” asked Sallah S.
Anwar hesitated. Sallah S. was delightful at times—and this could be the last time Anwar felt his charm.
“It’s Maya,” said Anwar. “She is in the hospital.”
“What did you do?” Sallah S. grabbed Anwar by the collar, and pulled him close.
“Nothing—nothing—I’ve been informed of this matter by my daughter. It seems that Maya got ahold of some seeds, and swallowed them. I’m sure it was an accident, but they . . . they are poisonous. Naturally, of course. See, I’ve got a seed bank to ward off any apocalyptic—”
“Shut. Up. Where is my daughter?” Sallah S. remained as level and unflappable as ever.
Murderous glint in his eyes, yet such charisma
. Anwar felt his heartbeat collapse into his stomach.
“I warned her against false love and godless idiots. She believed your house was salvation. Full of life and learning. Now I hope she’s learned the consequence of plucking fruit from an ill-borne tree.” Anwar saw the man’s chest heaving, as if every breath kept Sallah S. from punching him in the face.
But he couldn’t understand such didactics in this moment of distress. If Anwar knew Charu had tried taking her own life, he would most certainly not blame
her.
* * *
They took a very silent cab ride, along with Maya’s mother, Maryam, to the hospital. Anwar’s daughters and a young fellow stood around Maya’s bedside.
“My wife and I want time with my girl,” said Sallah S, raising his voice. He rushed to Maya’s side and took her hands into his. He kissed her fingers gently, and she yanked them away. Anwar noticed that even he felt discomfort at the tender gesture, as the girl seemed so put out by her parents’ arrival.
The young man glared at Sallah S. and gave Maryam a welcoming kiss on the cheek. He helped Maryam sit down, setting her cane against Maya’s bed.
“Mema,” whispered Maya, her voice cracked lower than usual.
“I’m sorry,” said Mema. She buried her face in Maya’s underarm.
“I said, leave,” said Sallah S. There was no mistaking that he would lose his wits if they didn’t go.
Mema said something softly in Arabic, but Sallah shook his head and responded angrily back.
Anwar had never really had the patience with the language to learn all of the nuances. But there was no need to understand anything complicated—Sallah wanted them out. He beckoned the kids to follow him.
Ella did not move.
“Come along, Ella,” said Anwar, and together they left the room.
The door slammed behind them.
E
lla rode her bike back to the hospital the next day at noon. She ran into Dr. Kumar smoking at the entrance.
“You’re a good friend, kid,” Dr. Kumar said as she took another pull before flicking the butt into the overflowing cigarette dispenser. Ella wondered if it was customary for doctors to do the opposite of what they told their patients.
They took the elevator up to the third floor. As they were getting off, Ella noticed Ramona Espinal getting on. “Hey, Ramona, sorry to bother you—but have you had a chance to check on the patient in 303?” asked Dr. Kumar.
“Hi, Ramona,” said Ella.
“Ella, hey,” said Ramona, looking flushed. The elevator started to close and she stepped in front of it to bounce it back open. “Last I checked was around five a.m. She was asleep. I’ve been helping Dr. Bixby with a birth all morning.”
“I thought today was your last day. Aren’t you moving to Mexico?”
“It is. But Dr. Bixby doesn’t like change,” said Ramona.
“I didn’t realized you’d moved,” said Ella.
“What? Oh, yeah. My—my husband and I found a place together. Sorry, but I gotta run!”
“You two know each other? This neighborhood is way too small. Anyway, get out of here! Get some sleep,” said Dr. Kumar, shooing Ramona into the elevator.
“Bye,” said Ella, waving, but the elevator was already on its way down. “Ramona used to be my aunt and uncle’s tenant.”
“We’ll miss her loads. But when something good comes up, you just gotta go for it,” said Dr. Kumar.
Dr. Kumar and Ella walked over to Maya’s room. Everything was dark, with narrow shafts of light peeking through the blinds.
The bed was empty.
“Strange,” muttered Dr. Kumar. “She’s not here. Not in the bathroom, either. Hold on a second.” The doctor stepped out to speak to a nurse at the front desk. The nurse shook her head, confused, and seemed to be irritated at whatever the doctor was saying.
Ella’s chest pounded. Halim’s bouquet and Charu’s gifts weren’t here. Had her parents taken her out of the hospital? Ramona had just said that she’d last seen Maya asleep. Did Sallah S. somehow kidnap her in the middle of the night—?
“She’s gone,” said Dr. Kumar. “We just tried calling the number she gave—apparently her folks don’t know where she is, either. They’re threatening to sue the hospital. Fuck.”
* * *
Surveillance camera footage showed Maya leaving her room—wearing Charu’s hijab and a change of clothes. She held the bouquet of roses, as if she were going to visit someone. No nurses were at the station while Maya escaped. Ella realized that the nurses’ station was visible from the window in Maya’s room. She’d waited until the nurse had gone to the bathroom. The elevator camera showed Maya get off on the second floor, greeted by Ramona Espinal, who led her down the hallway, then into a room. No camera footage of them together. Minutes later, Maya reentered the elevator, the flower bouquet gone. The last shot of Maya showed her walking out of the hospital lobby, until she broke into a run.
* * *
As Ella rode back to 111 Cambridge Place, she understood that Maya didn’t want to be found. She’d found her avenue of escape—Ramona. No telling where they’d be now. After seeing Sallah S. at the hospital, Ella didn’t blame her.
She entered the house through the front door, something she rarely did.
Where the fuck is Charu?
The drone of her sewing machine led Ella upstairs. Her door was open. Charu was hunched over, tapping her foot to an odd rhythm. Sensing a foreign presence, she turned around. Her face was puffy and smeared with mascara, tears, lipstick.
“It’s over between me and Malik. Like, for real.”
“When are you going to get over that shit? He’s not into you.”
Charu flinched and wiped her face with a scrap of cloth. “He thinks we should break up, like, not see each other this first semester.”
Each tap of her foot on the machine sent a surge of resentment through Ella. “You know what you did?”
“What?” Charu asked.
“You fucking told Anwar, you fucking idiot. Then Maya’s parents got involved because he doesn’t know enough shit about how crazy her father is. Maya’s gone.”
“What do you mean she’s gone?”
“She left the hospital without a word. Slipped right under the night nurse’s nose. When it’s time to keep a secret for someone else, you’re a fucking snitch!” Ella shouted, her face an inch away from Charu’s.
Charu pushed Ella back with both hands, using the momentum to stand up. “What do you want me to say? That I’m stupid, I shouldn’t have said anything?”
“You are an immature, stupid, fat little girl.” Ella twisted Charu’s wrist.
“Ow, stop. You’re hurting me!”
“Shut up.”
“Get off me. If you loved her so much then why did she leave?”
“You delusional bitch!” Ella pushed Charu down to the floor. Charu’s head hit the corner of the headboard, and she howled in pain. Ella tore the machine off Charu’s sewing table and threw it against the floor, breaking off levers and the needle plate, but Hashi’s old Singer was sturdy enough to handle the attack.
“Ella, stop! You’re fucking crazy!” Charu charged at Ella headfirst, but Ella knocked her back onto the bed. She ripped two months of Charu’s labor, the stacks of folded, finished hijabs—the lone neat pile in the room—in a matter of minutes.
“Stop it, Ella! Stop it!”
The door swung open. It was Hashi. “What in hell are you girls doing? Like animals!”
“What is the problem, girls?” said Anwar, from behind her. “What is the commotion?”
Charu rushed up at Ella and slapped her across the face.
“Stop this, Charu, this instant!” Anwar yelled. He held an arm to divide the girls from each other.
“I want to know what this is about,” Hashi demanded.
“Ask her,” they both replied.
* * *
Neither Ella nor Charu would say anything. Ella marched out of the room, just as Charu began screaming, “
Get the fuck out of my room, all of you!
” Anwar and Hashi looked at each other, dumbfounded.
* * *
Wailing women are unbearable unless there is good cause
, thought Anwar, watching Hashi bang on Charu’s door.
“She’s ruining everything before she leaves,” whispered Hashi. Her voice was quiet, rounded out by a deep exhale.
“It’s futile to keep trying.” Anwar shrugged, but as soon as he said the words, Hashi’s eyes narrowed. She swept her shawl around her and left him in front of Charu’s door. A second later, he heard their bedroom door slam.
Anwar sighed. The last thing he wanted to do was follow her, sure of some retribution or angst that he wanted nothing to do with. Yet guilt trumped self-preservation every time. He knew that even greater than his want for escape was the feeling that he deserved Hashi’s rage. She never gave it to him.
He stepped into their bedroom and saw her curled into herself on the veranda, her face buried in her knees. She made no sound, but he saw her shudder, as if it were thirty degrees out instead of ninety.
“Darling, are you all right?” Anwar squatted next to her, ignoring the sensation that his knees might snap.
“Why are you here? Why aren’t you at the store?”
“Honestly, I don’t want to risk running into Sallah S. I can’t
blame him if he blames me for this mess; though that would be unfair, I still—never mind. Please. Talk to me.”
She held herself tight and would not unfurl herself. He gently took her in his arms, as if she were an overgrown child. He made a meager attempt to lift himself up, but those days of valor were long gone. So, they sat.
“I cannot do this, Anwar,” said Hashi. She lifted her head up to speak, but stared at a point on the ground in front of her. “I’ve given you my girlhood, my womanhood. What do I get? Two daughters who won’t talk to me. A husband who doesn’t have the decency to conduct affairs in hotels. You didn’t spare me the humiliation—you didn’t even think of me. I made the fool’s mistake of shitting where I eat. My business, my passions—all stuck in this house. This old house I built with a liar. A bad liar, at that.”
“You cannot do what?” asked Anwar, stuck on her first sentence. He listened but didn’t truly hear what she was saying.
“I don’t know if we can work. I’ve been thinking a lot about Baba—he’s so old and I haven’t seen him in years. Maybe I’ll go live in Bangladesh for a while. Take care of him. Charu and Ella will be in college. You’ll find a new—tenant . . . in no time.”
She let out the sob that had been lodged in her throat. “And now this mess with Sallah S. Even at the masjid I felt that devil’s face burning mine. I went to the masjid last night. You know, it’s been a while. Sallah S. spat nonsense about evil straight from Eden’s belly and sisters guarding the company they keep. He looked at me the whole time. Chilling, I tell you. I can’t even find peace where I pray. Why on earth would I live out my days here?”
“I’ve always loved your dramatic flair, my dear,” murmured Anwar, stroking a wayward tendril from Hashi’s forehead. “But I can’t be without you. And Sallah S. will cool down, eventually. His daughter is eighteen, an age when any young person must venture out into the world on her own. Look at us—we left the family fort at sixteen; it is the proper order of things. A child must chart her own path, no creed or paternalism to obstruct the way. His delusions should have no bearing on our lives.” Anwar felt himself growing loquacious, impassioned—but he’d experienced the same evil eye from the man yesterday evening at the pharmacy. Sallah S. had convened a small group of talibes at A Holy Bookstore for a
study group to discuss deterring temptation. Anwar had felt a rattle against the wall of tinctures, until a few bottles of rosewater crashed to the ground. When he rushed outside to see if anyone else had felt this earthquake, he saw the group of Sallah’s students banging fists against the wall between them and the apothecary. Was it some religious method acting? Were they trying to intimidate Anwar? No one besides Sallah S. heard him rapping at the window. Sallah had just stared and shook his head. It had chilled Anwar. Sallah might as well have gestured slashing his neck.
“How can we blame the man, though?” asked Hashi. She flinched as Anwar tried to wipe her tears. She held his hand to stop him, but didn’t let it go. “I’ve been too wrapped up in my work. Even though I’m home all day—a choice I made to keep an eye on you, the girls—I’ve missed everything. I’ve been too consumed with how things appear, and not how things actually are. And now I’m stuck. Stuck with you.”
They felt a violent slam of the sliding door downstairs. They peered over the edge of the balcony. Ella was cursing them for raising a brat.
* * *
Every corpuscle pulsed, furiously. Ella spent several minutes ripping up the garden. Soon, the ground at her feet was littered with severed blossoms and headless stems.
“
Just sit, child. Don’t let her get to you,” she heard. She spun around. It was Hashi, sitting in one of the lawn chairs. Ella realized she’d never seen Hashi sitting in one of those chairs, let alone lounging outside.
Has she been sitting there creepily watching me lose my shit?
Her aunt cut slices of cucumber, letting them fall onto her apron. “Have some?” Hashi offered. “Do you want to tell me what is going on?”
Ella shook her head. “I don’t want any—it’s—it’s nothing.”
“Well, from what I gather, it’s Maya, isn’t it? He doesn’t tell me much, but Anwar mentioned she had taken something from our garden, something
bishakto
.”
Poisonous. Ella nodded. “Yes, but she’s alive.”
“I never took the girl to be into such—risky business. But, I also know that her father’s a very strict man.”
“Sorry, I’ve made a mess.”
“It’s all right, Ella. They don’t live very long anyway, these big showy flowers,” Hashi said, chewing a cucumber slice. “I’ve always liked wildflowers better, anyway. They’re small and can grow anywhere. And they dry beautifully. Not like peonies-teonies that last for a day or two and make a huge mess.”
Ella started to collect the debris in her hands, but realized she’d probably need a broom.
“Don’t worry. It will just help the next batch grow,
na
?”
Anwar knocked on the sliding glass door, as if asking permission to come outside. Hashi seemed perturbed but beckoned him to come. “Fool,” she muttered.
“When do you go back to school?” asked Anwar. He snatched a handful of slices from Hashi’s cucumber, and she smacked his hand away.
“Get your own,
na
?” snapped Hashi.
“Next week,” replied Ella.
“Can I give you a ride?”
“I’m good with the bus.”
“Anwar, we were having a good time out here—” started Hashi.
Anwar held up a hand. “I have rights to my kid, too,
ya
?”
“Fine!” Hashi leapt up, spilling the cucumber and knife to the ground.
“I can’t deal with any more dramas,” snapped Anwar. “You’ve wasted the cucumber I would’ve eaten.”
“Take the shit cucumber!” Hashi flung it into the pile of dead flowers, before going into the house.
“You left your weapons, woman,” Anwar said, pointing to the knife Hashi had left on the ground. He dug into his pocket and found half of a joint. He tried and failed thrice to spark it. “Sorry, my hands are sweating. Could you please help?”
Ella lit and inhaled the joint to get it going. “What’s her problem?”
“I couldn’t tell you.”
“What are you doing with that thing?”
“I am smoking ganja. Would you like to puff?”
“You don’t care if she smells it?” Ella gestured to the house.
“This is the least bad of bad things I have done. You want?”
“Yes, sure.” Ella took three long drags.
“This is my dilemma.”
“Pardon?”
“I smoke ganja. I am planning to grow my own, but it is very stinky business. I also steal.”
“You steal?”
“I am naughty in many ways.”
“I guess I see your point,” said Ella, suddenly feeling the urge to giggle.
“Please, always take care of Charu.”
“She’s a grown woman.”
“Oof, this is even more reason.” He laughed and punched Ella on the back. She snorted, making them laugh harder.