The Scope of Permissibility, page 23
Sara nodded, her thoughts now elsewhere.
When they arrived back at her house, Abida squeezed Sara’s hand again and waved her off. It was evident that Sara was still very much with Naeem in a place where Abida could not reach her. It was this retreat that Abida had resented, this sense of things guarded and set aside that had so galled her.
Abida knew then that she would have to withdraw from consideration for the MSA presidency. Her wide sweeps of judgement would be her undoing; she still had too much to grow into, too many mistakes to make. She would fight, she would always fight, but in doing so she would always strive to acknowledge the truth. In this instance, the truth was apparent: she had sought dominance, had been jealous that her best friend had kept secrets from her and had been chosen by a boy who would not have chosen her. She had not wanted to share Sara with anyone, especially not with a boy like Naeem who had likely never had to share a single thing in his life.
Although it was past midnight, she sent Wahid a message and asked if they could speak soon. He replied immediately, saying that he was free tomorrow afternoon if Abida wanted to catch up at university. Abida confirmed with a thumbs up and tried to lull herself into sleep, but her sleep was fitful and interrupted by the glow of Farah’s phone in the dark. She pulled the blanket over her head and willed her eyes shut, wishing, not for the first time, that she had a room of her own.
The vote was due to close today. Abida had no reason to go to university now that her classes had ended, but she got dressed and travelled there anyway, venturing directly to the musallah. She had asked Sara to come too but she hadn’t yet heard back from her.
After praying dhuhr, Abida felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned and hugged Sara. Sara’s face was pale inside her hoodie, but she was not crying. Abida hugged her again.
‘Let’s go study in the library together? I just have to talk to Wahid about something first.’
‘Sure, just let me pray dhuhr first.’
Sara raised her hands and began to pray. Abida’s phone buzzed. Wahid was waiting for her; she had to go speak to him. She stood up and watched as Sara pressed her head to the floor, lingering there for many seconds.
Wahid was waiting outside the entrance, his hair now shorn in a buzz cut which revealed the irregularities of his head, the peculiar roundness of its shape. She noticed he was smiling and although she didn’t smile in return, she felt the corners of her mouth relax from its former tightness.
‘Assalamu alaykum, sis. Everything okay with you?’
‘Alhamdulillah. How about you?’
Wahid seemed pleased at being asked, pausing before answering.
‘All good, alhamdulillah. Busy studying for final exams so I’ll be glad when it’s all over. What did you want to talk to me about?’
‘Firstly, I wanted to say that I was completely out of line at the meeting and I’m sorry. I’m not going to go into the details, but a few things were boiling over and I just lost control.’
‘You don’t need to apologise to me of all people,’ Wahid said, his mouth twisting.
‘I know. But that’s not why I wanted to speak to you today. I’m going to pull out of the vote. You’ll have no opposition so that means you’ll be the new president.’
‘You can’t do that. You really shouldn’t. You were right in what you said, even if it did come out in a weird way. There is a lot of shit going on behind the scenes here, but you’re above all of that. You actually care about things, and you’re a whole lot more intelligent than I am, that’s for sure.’
The swearword again, this time coming from someone else’s mouth. For someone who thought crying the most irritating reflex action of the human body, Abida felt close to it again. She opened and closed her mouth, thinking of how openness invited openness in turn, how there was something to be said for the rapport to be built from losing all your inhibitions and embarrassing yourself in front of others.
‘Thanks,’ she said, finally.
‘Don’t thank me. Now don’t say another word to anyone about this pulling out stuff. Just see what happens, and in the end it’s all with Allah.’
He placed his hand over his heart and said salams before entering the boys’ side of the musallah. As he stood at the door, he turned around and nodded at her. He was still smiling and in spite of herself Abida found herself smiling too.
She had not noticed but Sara was now standing behind her. Sara was wearing the same smile as Wahid and Abida was comforted by this until she realised that Sara was mimicking Wahid, not smiling of her own accord.
‘What was that all about?’ Sara continued to smile even though her eyes were sad and red-rimmed.
‘What was what all about –’
‘Oh, don’t play dumb with me. I saw the way Wahid was smiling at you. Now that I think about it, he’s always seemed to have a bit of a thing with you, all that combative energy, that tension brimming over –’
‘You aren’t seriously trying to suggest what I think you are, girl. But it’s okay. I know you’re not yourself at the moment, so I’ll let it slide,’ she said. She laughed, although she was conscious that the volume of her laughter was higher than usual. Sara’s brain was addled by heartbreak. She began to walk, and to her relief Sara said nothing further about it. Wahid’s smile flashed before her eyes before she walked faster to erase it.
As they exited the corridor they saw Mustafa walking in the opposite direction. Abida was unsure whether Sara could handle conversation and hoped Mustafa would pass them with a wave, but the purposefulness of his stride suggested otherwise.
‘Assalamu alaykum, sisters. How are you both?’
‘Doing good, alhamdulillah. Getting some last study in before exams start,’ she said, hoping he would not address Sara directly. Sara’s eyes were already brimming with tears. In Mustafa’s face Abida guessed Sara was reminded of Naeem, and the MSA, and Abida watched as she crouched down on the floor and reached for something in her backpack.
‘Well, I won’t keep you too long. I only wanted to tell you that although the votes are just about to close, there can be no doubt about what the final result will be. I’m thrilled for you, Abida. You’re a shining star of this MSA. But this is all off the record, of course. You’ll be hearing from me very soon officially, inshaAllah,’ he said, waving as he walked on.
Sara was still on the floor, but she stood up now. In her hand were two tissues she had retrieved from her backpack. For a moment they were silent. Abida heard Sara sniffle and before she could say anything about the tears now flowing down Sara’s face, Sara handed her a tissue.
‘Thought you might need one of these, miss MSA president,’ Sara said.
It was only now that Abida had realised that she too was crying. The two of them were alone in the centre of the courtyard, the soft grass under them, the sky open and clear above them. She had done it, she had done it! She was the new MSA president. The realisation was overwhelming, and she would need time to process it. She pressed the tissue to her face, dabbing at her cheek, her eyes trained to the sky as she and Sara cried together.
27
Naeem
When Sara had driven away, Naeem had hoped and hoped she would return. He had stood on the street and dialled her number again and again. But she had not responded, and eventually he got into his car and drove aimlessly for hours until he stopped somewhere up on the northern beaches. He entered a mosque near Dee Why, begging Allah for release from the yoke of his own failings. He would start praying all of his prayers again, he would ask for repentance and not be governed by fear. If the ummah was destined to be incarcerated or killed, he would die along with them. Not only had he sinned with his body, but he had been grossly unjust to Sara, and he would reap injustice in this life and the next. Surely Allah does not do any injustice to men, but men are unjust to themselves.
He had returned home late into the night and found an assembled plate of food had been left on the counter for him, as though his mother had anticipated that he would be out late. If Meherin had sworn at Sara or abused her, Naeem would have been justified in blaming her, but he knew with heavy certainty that his mother was not to blame. He could not hold her accountable for the way he had abandoned Sara to her charge, the way he had been relieved when he had been sent outside and away from them. He had longed to sink into the pool and travel even further away from them, as deep under as he was able to go. His mother, and the girl he loved, not adversaries, but conspirators against him.
The melodramatic sway of his thoughts distracted him even from Sara, from what she must be feeling or thinking. He could think only of his own wretchedness. Over the next few days, Naeem turned off all the notifications from the MSA group chat, attempting instead to study for the six exams he was due to sit. Sadia had messaged him and said the meeting with the suitor, a doctor, had gone well and that there was talk of a second meeting with both families present. He had ignored her message, just as he ignored his mother, and beyond the civilities necessitated by daily life, his mother ignored him too. He knew she would speak to him soon, but it seemed that she was content to allow him to study without disturbances, now that she deemed the immediate threat to be extinguished.
The written examinations were inoffensive enough. Regurgitate, scribble, scrawl. But it was in the practical examinations that he unravelled. In each of the five stations, he had blundered, interpreting an ECG incorrectly, failing to ask about a patient’s family history of diabetes in the history-taking exercise, and in the neurological examination component he had forgotten to test wrist flexion and extension. The examiners had provided no feedback, stating that he would be notified of his results in the coming month. When he exited that brightly lit room, Naeem realised that he had not spoken to Sara in almost a fortnight. In all this time, he had not allowed himself to picture her face or her voice. His capacity to shut out external noise had served him well throughout his studies and his memorisation of the Quran, and it had now served him well in silencing thoughts of her. But it could only offer a temporary reprieve, and when the pain did strike him, approximately ninety minutes after his exam was over, the awareness of his loss was so terrible that for the first time in Naeem’s twenty years, he had contemplated the option of bringing about his meeting with his Lord, who was both Al Muhyi, the Giver of Life, and Al Mumit, the Bringer of Death.
The idea of ending his own existence had been appealing but fleeting. He knew he did not possess the singularity of purpose to take his own life, nor the conviction that the judgement that awaited him would be in any way kinder than his present challenges.
He would have to contact Sara, but he could not think of what to say to her. All the words he conjured seemed inadequate. The magnitude of what had happened was far beyond what could be distilled into a text message. But words on a screen were his only option. They were back to where they had begun, with typed words and nothing else to bolster their contact. After several hours of deliberation, he decided eventually to message and simply ask how she was.
There was no response from her, and his mother was calling him downstairs for dinner. Professor Kazi was departing in three days for the conference in Johannesburg and their dinners lately had been jumbles of takeaway grilled chicken and leftovers. Naeem smelled the fried rice before he saw it, the tang of Thai basil and fried egg filling his nostrils.
‘We haven’t had a proper meal in weeks. Would it kill Ammu to actually cook us something?’ Tasnia stage-whispered to Naeem. ‘Najwa could cook for us, but instead she’s stuck mopping the floors all the time.’
Professor Kazi was on his laptop and speaking to Meherin about changing his hotel booking from a single room to a double as Meherin ladled rice onto their plates. But when Naeem sat down, squeezing his lemon wedge onto his rice, his mother broke off their conversation and addressed him.
‘Kabir’s parents came from Perth yesterday to meet Sadia and Chachi and Chacha. It’s all looking very good, and we really think we might have a match this time.’
Naeem continued to chew his rice until it turned to sludge in his mouth. He slurped and cleared his throat before answering.
‘Did they have to pay his girlfriend to disappear before he could meet Sadia?’
Naeem wanted his insolence to be noted and dealt with as a pretext to begin an argument. But his mother’s response indicated that she understood what he was doing and that she was not inclined to indulge him.
‘Sadia wasn’t very happy about taking off her hijab when they met, but I told her that it was okay, that they just wanted to see what she looked like without it once. And look how nicely it’s turned out for everybody.’
Professor Kazi had left the table and taken his plate to the kitchen. Tasnia nudged Naeem under the table and rolled her eyes, bored by their mother’s talk of marriage and her part in it. Meherin did not wait for Naeem to reply, dishing Tasnia more rice before joining Professor Kazi in the kitchen. There were deep shadows under her eyes; she had been working long hours to try to finalise Professor Kazi’s trip and reschedule appointments at the practice for when he would return.
‘I can’t wait until Dad goes. Mum’s always more relaxed when he’s gone,’ Tasnia said.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ he snapped. ‘It’s because Dad’s going that Mum’s so stressed out.’
‘Geez, you’re just as bad as them, bhaiya.’ Tasnia abandoned the pretence of their unspoken alliance against their parents, pushing her chair hard against the floor and running upstairs, leaving her plate still full of rice and sauce. Naeem sat alone at the table, the murmur of his parents’ voices from the kitchen low and indecipherable. He pressed his forehead against the cheap plastic tablecloth they used when there were no guests about, swooshing his feet back and forth against the floor.
‘Sorry, bhaiya, I’ll put it away,’ Tasnia said, the thinness of her voice hovering about Naeem’s ear. Naeem could feel the soft brush of her fingers against his plate as both plates were stacked and removed, but it was a long while before he could get up and move his legs well enough to reach his bedroom. He had not opened any windows in several days and he inhaled, hoping to catch a trace of Sara, but all he could detect was his own unwashed smell. He could not recall when he had last showered. He had been performing wudu, but that did not require washing his armpits or his groin, and a quick sniff confirmed that these were the two parts of his body producing the odour.
In the shower, Naeem turned the temperature up as high as he could stand, the heat reddening his skin and scalding his scalp as he dug his fingers into his hair and combed it with them. Sara had said his hair was silky, but Naeem knew it was just oily. Her gaze had rendered him beautiful. Naeem did not think anyone would marry him for his personal charm; he did not possess much of it. He would be married for his title, his family and his background, and if he was fortunate, his marriage would be uneventful and easy.
His body tingled and burned. In giving up Sara, he would not be touched now until he was married. He could do otherwise, of course: go on dating apps, or select another girl from the MSA who would stray. He could find himself a girlfriend at hospital or at university, tell her that he loved her and always would. But what he had done with Sara did not alter the essential fact that he did not believe in physical intimacy outside of marriage, and that to continue along the path he had forged would be a far more deliberate sin than that which he had done with Sara. He did not want anyone else to touch him. Perhaps if he and Sara had not touched, they would still be together now.
His phone remained silent and uncooperative. When it finally rang Naeem answered it on the first ring, his voice hushed.
‘Salam, Naeem. Finally! I was starting to think you were ignoring me.’
Sadia sounded cheerful, brisk, jarring against his ears.
‘I’ve just been busy studying for my exams, that’s all. How are you?’
‘I’m good, alhamdulillah. Did your mum tell you the news? She said she did, but I wanted to check with you?’
‘What news?’ He was repulsed by the upward inflection with which she spoke.
‘We met with Kabir’s parents and everyone seemed to get along well. We’re meeting tomorrow, inshaAllah, and if everything continues to go well, we’re going to go ahead with an engagement,’ Sadia said, more definite this time.
‘Did you really take your hijab off when you met that first time?’
Sadia laughed, unbothered by the crassness of his approach.
‘I thought it was a bit silly that they asked, but I did it and it was fine. They’re a really nice family.’
Her persistent pleasantness, the hopefulness with which she imparted her news disarmed Naeem. He directed his rage inwards once again, at his own conduct.
‘I’m really happy for you, apu. When do I get to meet him?’
‘Soon, inshaAllah. You’ve seemed a bit down recently, Naeem. Are things okay with you and Sara?’
There would be little use in imparting the news to Sadia, or anyone else. The omissions Naeem would have to make would render real confidences impossible. The truth of his relationship with Sara could not be spoken to his family and friends, and he could not bear to sanitise what he and Sara had shared, to sell it as a tale of epic thwarted love. People would certainly buy it, but Naeem’s conscience would not permit him to capitalise on their good opinions. There was nothing to be done but wear his failings and wear them in silence.
