The Geometry of God, page 17
Fixes: mustache instead of bi drip. It is not the people but the people. Religious instead of religious. It is written desire and robust and not of seo and ro bust. Zara taught me that. He also told me that he is adulterated and not adulterous or adulterous.
Corrections: Amal hit me the day I touched Omar at the cricket match. He hit me when we got home. He said I was doing more than just touching his face. What he wanted to say? Then he said I'm sorry and started crying. She said things that I didn't understand, for example that Omar was so relaxed and why wasn't he like that with her? Everyone trusts me because I am a girl and I am blind and I can do whatever I want because everything seems innocent but since Amal is already very grown up they do not trust her and above all she does not trust them and will Omar love her? for real? Amal cried so hard and gave me such wet kisses that I had to cover my head with the pillow.
I like to get up with the sun when the muezzin who calls to prayer is the one who sings. He's like Omar with his big toothbrush-like mustache and thin nose and bag of potato chips. But if the one calling to prayer is the other man angry at having to get up for God, then I feel like covering my head with the pillow.
Today it is the turn of the one who looks like Omar. I lie in bed listening. His vocal cords are long and relaxed. When he says Allah or Akbar it is that sound that makes me happy. He holds the note for four seconds and every second it rises higher into the sky like a kite enjoying the breeze and no other kite can reach it and cut off its flight. Then finish the word and say bar. Represents a cut. It means stop playing and climbing and flying. Bar is like Miss Fauzia. Four more bars and all is silent. Then she becomes zero and the kite is free. Resume the flight.
The muezzin ends with a note that holds for a long time and much longer than four bars.
Once Amal told me what that silent note contained. It contained "nostalgia" which means that you are tirelessly searching for something that you know you will never find. Like Pascal in Nana's story. Pascal cried when he saw the flea because it was tiny like him. Note a is the flea and I am inside. And also Miss Amna Amal Nana and Aba are inside. But the final silent note is when the flea falls. It doesn't just fall off. It is when the flea is lost. It has mixed with great things in a great field and it does not have enough gravity and is left alone.
The silent note is not gone yet. I want to chase her with another song perhaps one by Hari Prasad on the flute or the tape that Nana likes from Pathanay Khan who is a Sufi with more mute nostalgia than a million muezzins put together. I especially like Bum Chaka Bum. Turn, turn, wheel, turn. When I hear that part I want to spin. I know where the tape is but if I don't put it on it's not because of the music but because of how I feel afterwards when the music ends.
Miss Fauzia says that for the real eyes my drawings and my questions are useless and have no purpose. To understand the word "purpose" I have to realize the difference between "call" and "song." She says that the muezzin calls for prayer and does not sing. That it is there for us to obey and not for us to enjoy. There is no point in imagining who he is or what he eats because he only exists to serve the Truth. And I also exist for that. However, I dedicate myself to enjoying "the pleasures of the senses" and that is very wrong and does not allow me to feel the pain of the world. The muezzin only exists to make the call the doctor only exists to heal the teacher exists only to correct us all and it has to be the Voice that puts Re in the middle. Can I get this by tuning in to Radio Pakistan? No.
Today I woke up in time for the sehri I hear Ama in the kitchen. But I don't hear from Nana who has come to stay with us for Eid which is tomorrow or the next day, nobody knows.
Amal is asleep. I want to touch the skin under his eyes that used to swell from watching me so much but he would wake up and get angry. She knocked on my window in the middle of the night, tapping. If I don't hear the tapping and I don't open the door for her she would have had problems just as I would have had if she hadn't watched over me for so long from falling into ditches and gutters. When I opened the door for him, he told me:
"If you say a word or do a shor I'll kill you!"
"You're the one who has to be sure not to do any shor" I told her but she didn't laugh. I said it because sure in English means safe and shor in Urdu means noise. Before, Amal was amused by words that sounded the same and meant different things, but now she's too busy tapping windows and running around.
In English window rainbow and yellow end in w, however there are other words that end with the same sound like toe ago and buffalo but they do not have w. Amal and Miss Amna think that it is very useful to know that.
When Amal is not tapping on my window it is because she is working in a laboratory with guys cleaning stones that they have found even that she found the best of all when she was younger than me the same day I went blind. I don't remember that day but she does. I have heard her say to Zara: "I can't do anything because I am taking care of Mehwish all day!"
I feel his breath on the back of my neck. Suck, one and two. Spiral, one two and three. I tiptoe out of the room.
I can move around the house by myself without shor. I would do much better if I had to come home late at night and knock on my own window only I would hear it.
Mistress is setting the table if she sees me she will tell me to wake up Amal. I sneak out and go outside. Drawing on the car wet with dew. It tastes dirty but it is my first taste of the day. A. I like the smell of wet grass and I know that the song of a bulbul is a soap bubble. A seamstress warbler never sits on the same branch for more than a second. It will always announce when it lands but never when it leaves because it will be back soon. It's like calling for prayer and singing at the same time. A hummingbird may screech but usually just flutters like a butterfly. Amal says that her wings are like a rainbow. There are some birds that hardly speak such as hoopoes. They like to walk on the grass when it is freshly cut.
Inside the house Aba has sat at the table. I caress his hair with my dewy hands and he squeezes me like a pillow.
"What a fresh smell!"
"I want to respect the ramzan."
"Maybe next year." You're too young to fast. ”He gives me a big kiss. A spoon taps an egg shell.
"When Amal was my age, you told her she should fast and she didn't want to."
"But you are my little one." She was always an adult. He spent all the time with Na ...
-Where is your sister? Mistress puts a glass in my hand. Drink the milk and then you're going to wake her up.
"Where is Nana?" "That's a trick I learned from Ama." When you don't want to answer a question, you have to ask another.
"What have we done wrong?" Ama asks. Apa Farzana was right years ago when he said that we were too permissive with Amal. He does what he wants like he's a boy. "Mistress eats roti with fruit jelly.
"Bulbul is a word not two," I say and drink my milk very slowly.
"She's like that because of your father." Abba puts sugar in the tea. Sometimes there is halwa puri but not today. Do you know what the last thing he's done is? The father of a boy who goes to that school where luckily he has been hired has told me. Do you want to spread my toast?
"Yeah." I love to slide the knife over the toast. Her milk tea must be too milky because I can hear Ama pour more tea to make it darker.
—He goes around teaching the boys that "Pay attention, we're all monkeys." A little boy began to cry. Then your father told them that you had to visit the logical zoo and be amazed at what you see there. One girl said that she had visited the logical zoo in Lahore and that she had vomited from how bad it smelled. Your father praised her for participating with a comment and told the boy that he was a fool for scaring the rest of his classmates and the other parents are rightly furious. Thanks Mehwish that's fine. They say your father is a Hindu who worships the monkey god. Others suspect once again that it is a shaft erector. Rightly so.
"It's not a shaft erector." He is my father.
"I've learned more." He gave a talk to one of the older classes. You know which one, well we've heard it from him many times. We accept any theory blindly and why don't we see how the Creation Party rewrites our creation and it turns out that one day Jinnah is an infidel and the next she turns out to be a savior. So what does he do? "Abba starts eating porridge." I think he's gotten involved with the whole Nana thing because she always eats the warm porridge before the egg and the toast. They are cold now. He gives his students an exam in which they have to choose between several answers, and among all the questions there is a cap cious one — a small piece of porridge flies out of his mouth and falls on my cheek. Ama has stopped chewing. Do you want to know what the question is? I'll tell you. It is so shocking that it is impossible to forget. It is this: If God is perfect, why did He make us? The answer options are: a) God does not exist, b) He is also imperfect, c) We are also perfect.
"Maybe we should talk about this later."
-Why? Mehwish is a sen sata girl, right? I think he's looking at me so I nod. I am a free man who does not need to go around making speeches about how free I am. I am and that's it! I am not arranging a marriage of convenience for my daughter! I let you study useless things if you want! I don't force her to fast. I let her sleep if she feels like it! Is Amal believed to be like the Dubai airport, which is duty free and duty free, or what? We let her sleep all day!
"Mehwish go wake your sister."
"Amal doesn't know how lucky she is to have me as a father!"
"I haven't finished my milk."
"And not him!" In the end he suspended everyone. He said that those who had marked the options a and b were just doing the usual thing: guessing. And those who scored c thought, but not enough! How about? If the man is kind enough to let boys express themselves freely, why does he punish them when they do? There is only one correct answer that is yours. Let me tell you something even that I suppose you can already imagine.
"I can imagine it."
"Poor little one." Abba hugs me. You are angry.
"But it's true, I can imagine it."
"Hurry up, drink your milk and go wake Amal up."
"The correct answer since it is yours is that they should have objected to the question!" That would have shown that they had thinking minds! But instead they went home and told their parents. Well, I've said it before. It is a shaft ere.
"Is an erect axis similar to an erect axis?"
"You haven't finished your milk yet?"
"Was Pascal an erect axis or an erect axis?"
"Where do my daughters get these things from?" Who is this Pascal?
"Why are you taking so long?"
"Do you like the milk of this kind of buffalo?"
"There is only one kind of buffalo."
"I like the other class."
"Mehwish must have met this Pascal at Zara's house."
"This kind of milk is too thick."
"Your father should be more careful." Have you never heard of article seven eight nine?
"What is article seven eight nine?" I hear something. Maybe it's a lizard that has crossed the carpet. Or a butterfly in a corner.
"My father has never said anything to ask that." He does it like a game.
-A game? But, woman, can you tell what's wrong with you? I don't like that Apa Farzana very much but maybe you should see it again a little more! You only need to say that it is not to put together so much shor!
"This is not the time."
"Did you say sure in English or shor in Urdu?" We are already doing shor!
"My poor little one." Abba kisses me again. Are we making too much noise? These are adult things. But a Muslim state needs Muslim laws. The Sharia. Just one word. ”He spells it out and puts the spoon on the plate. I have to go brush my teeth before the siren sounds.
The front door of the house opens and I hear Nana's slippers.
"What a nice morning for a walk," she says.
I don't know why but I feel guilty. I think Aba and Ama do too and they don't speak or move.
"I've been to Jamia Hajveri," Nana says, coming closer to us. It had been a long time since he went. Well, the Maulvis will hate the Sufis but their temples give people jobs. Hello, Mehwish. You got up early.
I run up to him and hug his long legs clad in very fine trousers that smell of leather and leaves.
"Sufi is spelled with a capital S and I also know how to spell temple and Sharia!"
Nana laughs and leads me back to the table. Ama offers him tea.
-Later. I don't want to sit here drinking it now that your fast begins. ”He sits down to rest in a chair. I squeeze next to him in his chair. Look at Aba. How is your job going? -The question. Sometimes they start talking politely.
-Well. Well. We have located a quarry in which there is a lot of limestone.
"Wealth abounds in our mountains."
-That's true.
Everyone is waiting and I know what. They expect Nana to say that the army is stealing our land. Let Aba answer that he protects her. Amal would say that both Nana and Aba can do their digs for different reasons but they don't let her for safety reasons. Amal is mad at both of them but mostly she's mad at me.
I realize that I have finished the milk and I hope Ama doesn't notice.
"And how are you doing at… school?" Aba asks Nana.
-Well. Well. I have located a quarry where there is a lot of young mind.
I start to laugh.
"Wealth abounds in our youth."
-That's true.
They are silent and I laugh.
"I had a very interesting talk with a young man yesterday," says Nana. It's called Noman. His father is my JP minister. He told me that Zia has forbidden the teaching of evolutionary theories and yet allows digging for fossils to continue… ”He stretches out his legs and accidentally pulls me off the chair, helping me to sit down next to him again,“ as if the two things were not related. People are so picky about the first and so indifferent about the second. The abstract is more real than the concrete. It is not interesting? Could it be because our religion is so abstract? In any case, now that the religious parties are in government, their influence has been greatly extended. Not only do they hate ideas but they also hate stones ... the very stones that they don't mind buying and selling.
Ama begins to clear the table. I hide my empty glass under the table.
"You always speak as if you are above us!" Aba's voice trembles. We love and respect our religion, which says nothing about extinction. It only talks about the Last Judgment. We are here in preparation for the next life!
"And to buy and sell."
"That's a day-to-day business!"
"Then why do we need religious laws?" I straighten in my chair. The butterfly in the corner. It was Nana. If paradise is not on earth, then we should keep one thing separate from the other.
"You… you purposely made me fall!" Abba stands up. You are very clever with words. I am a simple man. Well, if you'll excuse me, the siren is about to sound.
"It rang ten minutes ago."
Finally Amal wakes up and goes off to college with Aba. I usually go with them too and Aba drops me off at school on the way to work, but today Ama lets me stay home to play with Nana. I hope that now that Aba is gone Nana is more happy than angry. I show him my periodic table. He gives some happy grunts, I think because he's number one. Aba is number two.
"Why red?"
"Your slippers are red."
"Did Amal tell you?"
-Can be.
"She always said she loved seeing how clean they were even after walking through the mud." You haven't noticed they're brown now. ' Why isn't he here now?
"I put it in box number five ...
"No, I ask where he is."
"He just went to college."
"He hasn't said goodbye to me."
"You were in the bathroom and Aba was waiting for her in the car."
He gives some grunts that are not of happiness, it seems to me that he has finished with the subject.
"I'm making a locker for Noman, what color…?"
"How is Amal?"
Nana always inter breaks.
I want to tell her that she is angry but then Amal would be angry with me. I would also like to tell her that she is sleepy but then I would have to tell her that she was with Omar and she would be more angry with me. Zara would like to say that Amal is En Amorada. I don't say anything.
-Very well. Tell me why isn't Amal here? Nana asks but this time waving the page of paper in front of me.
"I put it at number five and then I made it number one like yours and then I put it at number four and also at eight and ..." He was about to say that he was going to put it in the locker too. number nine with Omar but I know she would be mad so I just look down.
-Yes?
"Amal is in all the lockers."
-I see. And where is your mother?
I don't know how to answer that question either.
Nana is also quiet for a while.
"Who is zero?"
-Somebody.
"Someone like the atoms of a demon?" -Serie-. Have you heard Noman and me talk about it? -I nod-. You hear everything — should I tell him I heard him come in earlier while Aba was talking to Ama? No. I keep quiet out of respect. Nana says something to me in a whisper. They are after me.
I do not understand. Who is after him? I only want your happiness. I touch the sheet in the hope that it will say something about the other lockers. But what do I do if he asks me who Omar is? I withdraw my hand quickly.
He always brings something to teach me before he also did it with Amal. Before she found the ear of the whale that had the hidden S Nana showed her a stone that she read with her hand. Now he must be in his lab reading other stones. She told me how she does it. Compare a bone with another bone from a different era. This is called a co-relationship. Amal says that co-relationship is only possible because people not only see with their eyes, ears and hands, but also with memories.
I understand why she is angry at Nana and the others for interfering with what she wants to read. It seems to me that she thinks that the rest want me to be "blind." It is for the same reason that I am angry with Miss Fauzia. But Amal thinks that I cannot understand what is happening to her because I am blind. I have not told you that Miss Fauzia got very angry when I told the class the story of the hidden S, she said that it was a lie and that there is only one story that is not a lie and that is called stories of divine allegories. The stories of divine allegories are ones in which there are real animals like birds instead of imaginary animals like whales and they say useful words to express a mean for something. When Miss Fauzia quotes the Qur'an, she expresses things that no one understands.
