Jasmines in Colorado (final part)

Nadia only has ten more days remaining at the college, and I am helping her pack up whatever is left in her apartment. I still haven’t asked her the question. She doesn’t seem like the marrying type. And I don’t want to put any more pressure on her, in her current situation.

“Nadia, will you marry me?” “Will you marry me, Nadia?” “Marry me. Please don’t say No. Please?” “Do you have any plans for marriage. How about with me?” I run through as many possible proposal lines, in my mind that I can think of, without being able to settle on any.

“Do you like babies.....Oh, only fat ones…..Same here…..Well then how about you and I….”
“Marriage; weird concept. Isn’t it? Oh you don’t think it’s weird.…..Well then how about you and I get…”
“Man! Aren’t everyone and their grandmother getting married, nowadays?”
“You know twenty-four for a girl is almost like fifty-four for a guy……You’re almost over the hill……Haven’t you ever thought of marriage?”

Still no luck. I am unable to think of a single potentially successful line.

“Quit dozing off and get to work,” she shoves a 4 x 4 cardboard box into my chest.
“How come you’re not working?”
“I’m management,” she replies.
“And I am your only employee?”
“Yes.”

“Nadia, sit down,” I pull her down to the wooden floor, where the sofa used to be. “I have to discuss something important with you.”
She sits cross-legged, with her back against the wall.
“What happens to us, after you leave?” I ask.
She remains quiet.
“Where do we go from here?” I repeat.
She has turned into a statue; quietly gazing out of the window.
I start speaking slowly and enunciating clearly, thinking she is having difficulty hearing me, ”You and me. Where do we go from here?”
“I heard you the first time,” she replies slowly, clearly not wanting to discuss the subject.
“Well?”

There is a long silence, and then she starts off, all of a sudden.

“I don’t want to hurt you! I never wanted to hurt you! I don’t know how we ended up like this! I never thought it would get this far! I don’t know what I was thinking!” Her tone is desperate for some reason. She is taking the conversation, in a strange direction.
“Nadia, we will both be back in Pakistan. I don’t know how all this stuff works. But I want to marry you,” I surprise myself with such a straightforward approach.
“I…I…,” she seems to be in two minds. “I can’t! I can’t!”
“Why not?” I am confused. “You can’t or you don’t want to?”
“I can’t…and…and…I…don’t 230;want to.” “I just can’t.” “I don’t want to talk about it.”

We continue packing. There is a strange unfamiliar tension in the air, now. She seems very uncomfortable; unsuccessfully trying to avoid me in the confined spaces of her tiny apartment.

“What about all of this?” I remind her of the past four months.
“I don’t know,” she seems visibly uneasy, again.
“What do you mean you don’t know,” I try, unsuccessfully, to control my anger and confusion.
“I don’t know.”

I try to figure out the reasons behind her uneasiness: “I don’t make a lot of money, but we’ll have enough to support ourselves,” I think to myself. “We won’t be living in Karachi, Lahore or Islamabad, but we’ll have some sort of a place to live.” “You probably won’t be able to do much of your singing and dancing, but you could keep working on your paintings.” Suddenly, like a losing contestant, on a dating show, I start to realize my comparative uneligibility as a marriage prospect.

“I probably wouldn’t marry me!” I conclude. “No wonder she keeps saying, “I don’t know,” I think to myself.
“I could move into a new profession,” I state excitedly, “Though it would be a bit hard to do that, for the next five years,” I add in a deflated voice, realizing the difficulties involved.

“It’s not that,” she finally stops repeating herself.
She walks into the bedroom, brings back her purse and pulls out an envelope that is strikingly similar to the one I had notice in her room a few weeks earlier: white, with purple flowers drawn on its left corner.

I open the envelope, pull out the letter inside, and start reading. Each line of the letter is more unbelievable than the next. I look up at her and then down at the letter, and then back up at her again. She seems completely unwilling to look me in the eyes. Her eyes locked onto the ground.

I finish reading the letter. “When were you planning to tell me about this!” I question her like an overpowering interrogator threatening a scared prisoner.
“I don’t know,” she seems visibly scared now, like a vulnerable wife standing, defencelessly, before an abusive husband.

“I…I owe…I owe you an explanation,” she stutters her way, through a very difficult sentence.
“You owe me a lot more than that, Nadia,” I start to walk out her apartment door.
“Wait….Please wait,” she replies in a tearful voice, as I slam the screen door shut, on my way out.
I get on my motorbike, look back at her apartment, and see her standing at the door, with her face in her hands, crying.

xxxxxxx

The next nine days are the worst days of my life.

I sleep. I wake. I eat. I go to work. I come back to my room and quickly try to sleep again. My only companion, during this whole time, is my trusty VCR.

It has slowly dawned upon me how ill-prepared I am for handling the complexities of close personal relationships. I am completely out of my league. Nothing in life had prepared me for the past four months. The highs and the lows; the excitement and the pains; and most of all, the truths and the lies. I feel like an amateur caught in a world made for professionals.

“All of this is too much for the emotionally stale and, otherwise, boring and humdrum life of mine,” I conclude. “It’s not worth it,” I try to convince myself.

“How does one learn to hate a person one loves,” I ask myself again and again. It is a process I am going through, with great difficulty, and without much success. The only thing I have done, over the past four months, is spend time with Nadia. “I have not even taken the time to see downtown Denver,” I scold myself.

A small red light, blinking once every second, indicates a message, awaiting my response. I haven’t checked my answering machine since yesterday.

The voice, at the other end, is familiar, though I have never heard it on the phone before:
“I don’t know if you will get this message. I can barely hear the beeps on your phone,” there is extreme desperation in her voice. “You know my hearing is not what it used to be,” the voice breaks down into tears. “I hope you get this message. I really hope you get it,” “I am leaving tomorrow evening for Pakistan.” “Please come and see me…Please…. Please….I can’t even hear myself speak,” I hear her sobbing. She continues to cry until the tape on the answering machine ends.

There is something very strange about the message. This is the first time I have heard Nadia show any kind of desperate sadness for her disability. Until now, she has always laughed and smiled away any difficulties, she has encountered due to her hearing loss, with a stubborn courage that I cannot help but admire. I have seen her on so many occasions, handle the most difficult hearing-related faux paus and otherwise embarrassing situations with the utmost grace and self-confidence.

Her uncharacteristic mention of her hearing loss is a final attempt to get me over to her apartment, to hear her side of the story. Suddenly, I find feelings of sympathy overtaking my feelings of anger. Perhaps, unconsciously, I have been looking for such an opening, myself, also.

I get on my motorbike to make my last trip to Colorado College. More importantly, I make my last visit to meet a girl, with whom, just two weeks ago, I was dying to spend the rest of my life.

As I knock on her empty apartment’s door, I see her reflection in the adjacent window, walking up behind me, with two cups of coffee in her hand. She is wearing a dark blue shalwar qameez – matching the color of her beautiful eyes - with a light blue dupatta. Her dark black hair, combed back and tied into a long ponytail. It is the first time I have seen her in such a traditional dress.

I turn around and see her standing at the bottom of the patio steps.
“You look nice.” “You should dress like this, more often,” I blurt out, like an over controlling husband, subtly, trying to influence his wife’s choice of clothes. For a moment, it feels like old times again; with me, instinctively, expecting a witty reply.

She remains quite and walks up the steps to the small patio, turns around, and sits on the top step. She places the second coffee cup down, and points me to the spot next to her. The look of nervousness, fear and anxiety, that was so apparent on her face the last time we met, has been replaced by a quite, but sad confidence. She has obviously been thinking over the whole situation, and knows exactly what she wants to say to me.

I walk across the patio, pick up the coffee cup, and sit down next to her. Unlike the physical closeness of the past four months, there is a two-foot wide invisible wall of formality between us, now.
“Is the second coffee cup for me?” I ask.
“Yes,” she replies in a serious voice, which indicates she is not in the mood for small talk.
“How did you know I would come?” I continue with the small talk, not wanting to get into a difficult and complex conversation.
“One gets to know a person, after a while,” she replies.

“His name is Nadir,” she starts the conversation at a point where I had expected it to end.
“Is that what the Love, N., at the end of the letter, stands for?” I ask.
“Yes,” she answers, surprised at my strange question.

“I was twenty-one when my parents decided my engagement. I was…”
“Your parents decided your engagement?” I cut her off, before she can start her story. “You don’t seem like…”
She starts getting a bit agitated at my repeated unnecessary questions. “This is what I am normally like,” she points to her get-up. “I hope you don’t really think I go around Pakistan, in leather pants and cut-off shirts.”
“Actually, I wasn’t quite sure, one way or the other,” I reply.
“And girls like me, also, do get engaged to boys of their parents’ choice.” “I met him once, and he seemed nice,” she starts her well-rehearsed story again. “As nice as any other boy I could end up marrying,” she looks at me, hoping she hasn’t offended me.
She continues through the details of her story, looking at me, every now and then, to check my reaction.

“Two months after my engagement, before we had even had a chance to get to know each other, I found out I was going to lose my hearing.”

“Then a strange thing happened…..Nadir didn’t break off the engagement, like everyone thought he would.” “Even though he knew I was going to lose all my hearing, in a few years.” “Instead, he started calling me every week.” “But I ignored him…every week.”
“Why?” I interject curiously.
“I was in an extreme state of depression. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t get out bed. My whole life was shattering, right in front of me. My engagement was the last thing on mind.” “But he kept calling and kept sending me all kinds of gifts.”
“My parents fell in love with him.”

“What about you?” I ask.
“I barely knew him,” she replies.
“Do you love him?”
“No…. I still….I still don’t know him.” “But….,” “But…,” she looks at me again, trying hard not to offend me. “But, I respect him,” she replies, with an extra emphasis on the word, “respect.”

“When my parents decided to send me to the US, they were extremely nervous - certain, this time, his family would break off the engagement.” “There was no way Nadir was going to wait another three years to get married, we thought.”
“Once again he surprised me.”
“He didn’t break it off,” I find myself developing a strange sense of respect for this man - whom I have never met and who, in the present situation, is my competitor in this bizarre game of love.
“No. He didn’t.” “And I didn’t know what to do.” “Ever since we were engaged, I haven’t written back to him once. But he still writes to me to me twice a month.”

“Why haven’t you written back to him?” I ask, trying to sound as sympathetic as I can.
“The last three years have been very hard, for me. I was trying to get my life back together. My engagement and marriage were the last things on my mind,” she repeats the same words, as if pleading a case before a jury.
“But you know what?”
“What?” I ask.
“After a while, I realized it was only his letters that were keeping me going. He was so supportive. Precious words of encouragement, once every two weeks, from an almost unknown stranger.”
“And then, nine months ago, I received a letter from my parents telling me that I was going to get married.”
“Married?” I reply. “But you don’t seem like the type of girl who would let her parents…”
“There is a lot you don’t know about girls. Especially Pakistani girls,” she cuts me off mid-sentence. “I flew back to Pakistan, for a simple nikaah ceremony. I met him again, for the second time, and then immediately flew back.”
“You’re married!” I scream out.
“Yes,” she starts to lose her composure. “Yes….,” she takes a long pause. “Technically… speaking….Yes,” once again she seems vulnerable.

“But, do you love him?” I find myself getting angry again.
“No. I don’t even know him,” she is visibly shaken, now.
“Have you two…have you two,” I feel uneasy asking the question. “Have you two sl…”
“No!” she answers quickly, as if reading my mind.
“So you are still a…” I feel strange asking her such private questions.
“Yes. Of course!” she replies loudly, as if trying to justify her virtues.
“Can you leave him?” I surprise myself with my bluntness.
“No,” she replies. “I……I can’t.”
“Is it your parents?”
”No.”
“Then what?”
“I’m married. I can’t break my marriage,” she looks at me, hoping for some sympathy.
“You don’t love him! You barely know him!” we are back to square one and she can tell from the exaggerated gestures of my face that I am screaming again. “Your parents got you married to him. And you can’t leave him!” “What kind of nonsense is that?”
“Stop yelling at me!” she finally gets defensive. “You have no right to yell at me!”

Once again, I am faced with a sight I am not used to. Her confidence has proven short-lived. The steely exterior has broken down and she has started to cry again.

We sit silently for the next five minutes. Not knowing what to say to each other. Then she finally develops the courage to continue the conversation, from where she had left off. “He……He wanted me…He wanted me….when no one else did,” she does her best to justify her decision. “You don’t know what it was like.” Her explanations get more and more detailed as she tries, desperately, to describe a condition to me that I can never comprehend.

Finally, overwhelmed by the situation, and by my lack of understanding, as if a dam has broken, she lets out three years of frustration, in one scream. It is a scream filled with pain and sorrow - a stubbornly frustrating acceptance of her physical limitations. Like a proud warrior, who has gallantly fought against overwhelming odds, but is eventually forced to, unwillingly, accept defeat, in a stream of tears, she yells out,

“Who will marry a deaf girl in Pakistan!”

“I will……..I will,” I desperately want to say to her.

Everything starts to fall into place and make sense. I put my hand on her shoulder. It’s the first time we have touched each other, all day. “I understand,” I reply; successfully controlling my desire to say, “I will.”

“Why didn’t you tell me when we first met?” I ask her. “I would have understood.”
“I don’t know,” she replies. “I didn’t expect it to go so far. I never thought you would ask me to marry you!” she replies, as if she is still surprised at my proposal.
“You swept me off my feet and I didn’t want to think about anything else. For four months, I forgot all my problems. Life became simple again. It became fun, again.” “I didn’t want to think about anything else….I stopped opening Nadir’s letters….I even forgot….even forgot….that I am married.”
I look over my shoulder to ensure she is talking to me. “Me!…,” I point to myself. “I swept you off your feet!” “I couldn’t sweep a professional call-girl off her feet, if I offered her five thousand dollars,” I try to put her at ease.
She laughs for the first time in the day. “Well, you did.” “I forgot about my problems, my pressures, my parents. I guess….I guess….I even forgot about my husband.”

“aashiq huun per maashuuq_farebii hai mera kaam
majnu ko bura kahtee hai, Laila maray aagay,”
I try my best to keep her smiling.

“You’re a good teacher, Nadia. I am getting pretty good at this poetry stuff,” I add.
“Yeah,” she smiles, as she wipes off her tears.
“That’s much better. I don’t like seeing you cry.”
She has gotten everything out of her system. And seems more relaxed. “I have hurt you. Haven’t I?”
“No,” I reply.
“No?” she seems almost offended.
“I was never attracted to you, Nadia.” “You talk way too much. And you are far too high-maintenance, for my taste.” “And I don’t agree with your choice of clothes. I am far more conservative.”
“Oh really!”
“Yes.” “I was just using you for four months. Then I was going to throw you away like a used piece of lingerie.” “That’s what I do to all my girls.”
“How many other girls do you have?” she asks, emphasising the word, “other.”
“Eight, ten….maybe twelve….I try to keep them in even numbers. It’s easier to keep track of them, that way,” I reply.
“Hmmm….and you wear lingerie? I didn’t know that,” she tries to act surprised.
“You’re not the only one, who has secrets in life, Nadia.” “We all have a past,” I try to sound as serious as I can. “You’re married. And I wear lingerie. I was going to tell you earlier, but the situation was so diffi..”
“OK. Stop it,” she gently kicks me on my ankle. She is smiling from ear to ear.
“I am like a wild stallion,” I add. “No single girl can ever tie me down.” “I can’t afford to lose my bad-boy image.”
“Bad-boy image and you!....hmm.”

She puts her hand on my knee, “Thanks for understanding.” She seems very relieved - emotionally exhausted and relaxed, at the same time.

For the next three hours, we sit on the patio, at a careful distance from each other, and talk. The sun will start setting soon. It’s getting to the time for her to leave.

“I wonder what Ghalib would have said, in a situation like this?” she asks.
“He probably would have said, “Mujh say pehli see mohabbat mairay mehboob na maang,” I answer.
“That’s Faiz. Stupid!”

The Yellow Cab arrives, exactly as ordered. 7:00 pm. It’s time for her to leave. We are both trying to act as casual as possible; knowing fully well that in a few minutes, our lives are about to take two completely divergent paths.

I help her load her suitcases into the cab.

The past four months have taken too much out of both of us. We do not have any more emotions left to express. She turns towards me – a model of grace, beauty, wit and courage. I can tell she is trying hard to hold back her tears, again.

“This is so difficult.”
“Pakistani men aren’t as bad as they are made out to be. Are they?” I ask her.
“No,” she replies softly, as if talking to herself ……”Not the two in my life.”
“Your husband is a very lucky man. Make sure you look after him.”
She looks straight into my eyes, “I am so sorr…..”
“Shhhh….,” I put my index fingers on her lips. “Ishq pay koee zour naheen, hai yeh woh aatish Ghalib,” I struggle through, what will probably be our last ever exchange of poetry.
“Jo lagaaee na lagay,” she stops in between, and then quietly completes the verse. “Bhujayee na bhujay.”

We stand, face to face, possibly, for the last time in our lives. Ready to say our final goodbyes. Both of us, doing our best to maintain the formalities of our new relationship; on the edge of our toes, trying hard to resist the temptation of giving each other a long parting hug. I walk to my motorbike, reach into my helmet, and pull out my final gift for her. The flowers are still fresh and a little wet, even though I purchased them five hours ago. I gently grab her left hand in mine, and roll the gajra onto her wrist.

“You finally found jasmines in Colorado!” she looks amazed.

I try to keep my eyes on her fading silhouette, in the back seat – her face lowered and covered with both her hands - as the cab, slowly, drives away out of sight.

“Khudaa……..hafiz, Nadia” I whisper, silently, to the girl who has shown me parts of my personality that I didn’t even know existed. “Thanks for everything, Nadia….I will never forget you…Thanks for….Thanks for being you.”

And just like that, it’s all over.

I decide to take a quiet lonely walk, through the small oak forest, to the lake. Summer is changing into autumn. The weather is getting colder. A blue jay, flutters its wings, and flies off the top branch of an oak tree, causing a few dry leaves to slowly drift downwards, in front of me. I notice a small group of professors, laughing and talking as they casually jog around the track, next to the lake. Some students are throwing a frisbee, back and forth, on the open grassy fields. A few couples, walking, hand in hand, at a distance. The sun is just about to set. There is a small amount of snow, visible, on the peaks of the Rocky Mountains, in the background.

The scenery is still as beautiful, as ever; totally unaffected by the events of the past four months.

I sit there for the next two hours, contemplating my future, as night starts to set in. I am all alone; staring aimlessly into the depths of the lake in a quiet nostalgic silence. It occurs to me that this will be the last time in my life that I will sit on, “our brown marble park bench.”

I find myself exiting out of these four months, with the same speed as I entered into them.

xxxxxxx

“My Dearest Umair,

I had promised I would write; so here I am. The last four months have been so hectic. Have you finished your training? Is it snowing yet? Do you still take the daily walk to our bench on the lake? Is it still, “our” bench?

I am married. I don’t mean married, like before. Baraat, rukhsati; the whole nine yards. Everyone says Nadir and I make a lovely couple! Nadir and Nadia - they seem to like the similarity in names. I wish you could have been at my wedding. Actually, no I don’t. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it. How would you have handled it?

There hasn’t been a day, when I haven’t thought about you. I tried writing to you every afternoon, but couldn’t gather enough energy to do so. I cried myself to sleep, every night, till my wedding day, thinking of you.

It’s fate, Umair.

Had our paths crossed a year earlier, things would have been different. Perhaps, God meant it to be this way. Nadir is a good man. Don’t worry. He will look after me. I can see it in his eyes. In the way he looks at me. He loves me. And over time, I will learn to love him, as well.

A small house, a small child, a loving husband and a pet goldfish; what more could a Pakistani girl want? Isn’t that what you always told me?

Do you still think of me, when you read Ghalib? Do you miss me? Do you cry? Promise me you will always think of us, when you read poetry. Promise me you will write your book someday. Promise me you will learn to sing. Learn to dance. And no, it’s not gay. Men do dance.

Promise me, you will fall in love again. Promise me, you will get married. You will make a wonderful husband, Umair. I know it. Promise me you will love your wife and look after her. Promise me, someday, you will take her to our brown marble park bench, by the lake, and kiss her on her forehead. Like you used to kiss me, every evening. Promise me, you will have children. Will you name your first daughter after me? Will there be a little Umair running around in my house, and a little Nadia in yours?

I am so sorry about not telling you everything, the first day we met. I am sorry for hiding my hearing loss. I am sorry for not telling you about my nikaah. I will never forgive myself for that. I know I have hurt you, greatly. Will you ever forgive me? Will Nadir ever forgive me, if I tell him about us?

If, only, there were two of me.

What could I do? Love is blind; isn’t it? “Ishq pay koee zour naheen…” Right. One cannot plan love. One, “falls” into it, completely unexpectedly, and keeps falling, until it’s too late to get out. Doesn’t one? The four months we spent together, were the best four months of my life. I will cherish them, forever. What we had was special. How many people ever get to experience that? How many people have the good fortune of sharing their love with the one soul mate of their lives; even if only for four months?

Did I tell you I am thinking of opening a classical dance school, for girls, in Karachi. The doctors have told me my deafness is not going to improve. Don’t worry, Umair. I am getting used to it, now. God doesn’t give everything to one person. Does He? He has already given me more than my shares of joy, in life. As have you. Nadir is learning sign language. We are attending lip reading classes together. He has been so supportive.

And I am pregnant! I guess I won’t be riding any motorbikes for a while, now. Yes, me; the girl who always insisted women shouldn’t have kids till they have their careers established, is pregnant at twenty-four! Marriage changes a girl’s outlook on life. Specially a Pakistani girl’s. I want Nadir to have someone to talk to, with ease, on a regular basis. And I want to feel motherhood. It’s a wonderfully exciting feeling, Umair. As exciting as riding a motorbike up Pikes Peak, on a cool Colorado afternoon.

I will always sing. Isn’t that what you wanted me to do? It’s more difficult now, since I can barely hear anything. But I will sing. Singing is who I am. It’s my identity. I will sing for my husband. I will sing for my child-to-be. I will sing for all the music lovers. For the birds in the trees. But most of all, I will sing for you. And for all the wonderful memories, we shared.

I want to ask you to try to forget me. But I know you will not be able to. Believe me; I have tried everything to forget you. I cannot. I will never be able to. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. Somehow. And I know you will be, as well.

Now, it’s time for both of us to move on.

I am crying. I can’t write anymore. I must end this letter.

dil hee to hae, na sung-o-khisht; dard sae bhar na aayee kiyoon
ro-aien gae hum hazaar baar, koee hum-aien sa-tae kiyoon

I will always love you Umair…………………for the rest of my life……

Nadia”

I gently fold the letter, along its old creases. I slowly run my fingers across the text I had written, twelve years ago, on the back of the paper: “’’Tis better to have loved and lost, then never to have loved at all….” The ink seems as fresh as the day I wrote it.

“Two soul mates?” she asks, trying hard to hold back the tears swelling in her eyes.

“Yes,” I reply softly, as I slowly turn my head, towards my wife, to answer her question. The sun is setting, over the lake, behind her right shoulder. The autumn leaves have completely covered the grass, forming a golden-brown carpet that merges nicely with the light orange horizon in the distance. The cold evening breeze has started to blow across the lake, and through her hair. She pulls her sweater sleeves over her fingers, and hugs her large hot coffee cup, with both hands, for warmth.

It’s our ten-year wedding anniversary – an arranged marriage, which has successfully survived the various ups and downs that life has thrown our way. I have put on a bit of weight. I have lost some hair, and the rest will start greying soon. Preparing to cross the inevitable bridge into the midlife of my late thirties – from where age will finally start to show.

“I can’t even understand Ghalib.” A tear finally rolls out of her eye, down her cheek, and splashes, soundlessly, on the brown marble park bench. As if in slow motion.
“Did you ever get a chance to see her again?”
“No,” I reply slowly, pointing to the letter. “This was the last time we ever communicated.”
“Do you still love her?” she asks, without a hint of jealousy in her voice.
“Yes, I do,” I answer quietly, gazing deep into the surreal quietness of the lake. Surprising even myself with the spontaneity of my reply.
“More…,” she hesitates. “…More than…more than you love me?” she finally completes her question, as she turns to face me; wanting and not wanting an answer.

I smile gently. I raise my head and stare into her eyes. She is still as beautiful as the day I married her. “No,” I reply softly.

I put my left arm around her shoulder, bringing her close to me. I run my right hand through her hair, and, gently, kiss her on her forehead.

Suddenly, I sense the fragrance of jasmines in the air. Or is it just my imagination?