Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Leap of Faith
Aisha C. Saeed
"You're getting married?" my friend Amy exclaimed upon hearing the reason for my call. "Just so I'm clear, you've known him six weeks and — you're getting married?"
I launched into my rehearsed response. "When it's the right person, you just know. Some people live together for years and get married only to realize they hardly knew each other. You can know someone for five minutes or five years, but when it comes to how much time is enough to be sure, it varies from person to person."
"So when, exactly, in these six weeks did you fall in love with him?"
"Well ..." I said, thrown off. I expected her skepticism, but I had not anticipated this question.
"Aisha, you do love him, don't you?" she asked, caution creeping into her voice.
"I'm not going to lie to you," I finally said. "I know I want to spend my life with him, so obviously I like him very much ... and, well, I don't know if I love him the way you might be asking me ... but I know I will over time."
I heard nothing but static on the other line as Amy digested this information. "Let me get this straight," she finally said. "You don't love him. But you are marrying him."
"Well, yes," I said, understanding exactly how this might sound to her. "We met once and we've talked a lot — we've found so much we have in common and ..."
"Once!" she squealed. "You met him once?!" Suddenly, her voice lowered to a near whisper. "Aisha, I've known you since tenth grade. I'm one of your best friends, and you know you can count on me. If you're being forced into this, you can tell me. I can help you."
I understood Amy's concerns. Had I not been raised in the Pakistani culture, in which brief courtships were perfectly appropriate — in fact, the rule rather than the exception — perhaps I, too, would be offering assistance to someone like me and helping her plot an escape. But this was not the case. Even though I was entering a semiarranged marriage, the prospect felt neither constricting nor stifling. Instead, I was happy, and excited for the future to come. But I had not always felt this way.
Reading Pride and Prejudice and discussing it with my fellow students in high school English class, I was struck by their reflections on what they clearly perceived to be a bygone era. For me, whispers of available suitors, and lavish wedding parties where girls of marriageable age with carefully applied makeup and gold jewelry hoped to catch the eye of a potential suitor or his mother, were not a thing of the past, but the present I lived and breathed. It was how my parents expected I would find my future husband; it's simply how it was done, though my own thoughts about the process were not quite as simple.
I disliked the whole arranged-marriage business. I minded the twenty questions about my education and cooking abilities. I was not interviewing for a corporate job; I was looking for a loving partner in an intimate relationship. An arranged marriage seemed an unlikely avenue to get me there.
My mother listened to my expressed disdain for the process, nodded as I told her I did not know if I wanted any part of it, and then promptly told all her closest friends to keep an eye out for a suitable husband for me. One June afternoon, months after graduating college, I walked downstairs to hear my mother in deep discussion on the telephone.
"She's twenty-one years old. A teacher." A proposal, I realized. Not again! I thought with dismay, as I remembered a handful of awkward encounters at weddings and dinner parties with completely inappropriate suitors over the years. None had ever made it very far, but I did not want to relive any of that again.
"Do I have to?" I grumbled that evening, as my mother coerced me into lipstick and shalwar kamiz and handed my brother a camera.
"They asked for a picture," my mother said. "He'll send one, too, I'm sure."
I fumed as I slouched against the wall, wearing a beige and maroon shalwar kamiz, and glared at my brother, who was giggling. My enthusiasm ranked a notch below that of an inmate posing for a mug shot.
"Beta," my mother said, trying to elicit a smile, "Auntie Zaida met a nice boy on her visit to South Carolina. I talked to his mother. They seem very nice. There is no harm in sending a picture."
I had agreed to meet possible suitors, but now that the moment was at hand, I felt uneasy about having my picture sent to total strangers for inspection and approval. I envisioned a family circled around the photograph, pointing out blemishes or flaws, deciding if I was good enough to join their fold.
My apprehension showed in the photo. Instead of the traditional ristha picture of a shyly smiling girl, I stood with my arms crossed and my eyes fixed on the camera with a very clear expression of annoyance. As I watched the mailman drive away with my picture the next morning, I felt apprehensive. A rejection based on a photograph would hurt, but perhaps it would prove to my mother that this sort of arrangement was not for me.
Two weeks later, he called.
I took the phone to the study and shut the door tightly to grant myself privacy from curious cousins, aunts, and parents just outside the door. I felt my stomach turn over as I sat down and pressed the phone to my ear. I already knew what this conversation would be like before it began: awkward pauses, cleared throats, and a hasty hang-up. I wanted it done as soon as possible.
How wrong I was.
Talking to him felt anything but awkward; instead, I felt as if I were speaking to a long-lost friend who had suddenly ventured back into my life. We spoke for what felt like hours, our conversation moving seamlessly from one topic to the next. At the end of the conversation, he said, "Wow. I really liked talking to you." I could hear the surprise in his voice, and smiled; I had not expected this either. "Me too," I told him.
But then a month went by, and Kashif did not call. I tried suppressing my disappointment. It was only one phone call, but I thought we had had a connection.
I tried to forget about our conversation, until one day when my mother greeted me at the door with a smile as I came home from work. "Kashif's mother called," she said. "They were moving, so he hasn't had a chance to call again. But they want to come over this weekend to meet you."
The preparations for the visit began. That Saturday, I chopped the salad and helped set the table. A lunch of biryani, chicken korma, and shami kebobs sat on warmers. The curtains dusted, the crystal polished, we stared at the front entrance, waiting for the doorbell to ring.
Finally, the chime echoed through the house. I watched my parents walk to the foyer and open the door, greeting our guests. A friend who was an expert at this process had advised me to make a grand entrance, but my curiosity got the better of me. Though I had sent my picture, I had never received one in return, and now I was seized by fear: Why hadn't he sent a picture? What did he look like? As I heard them settle in the living room, I smoothed my beige shalwar kamiz and ran a hand over my braided hair before walking out to join everyone.
It felt surreal to walk into a group of strangers who might one day become my family. I greeted his mother and sister, and then for the first time I met Kashif: tall and lean, crisp white shirt, black pants, brown eyes, black hair, and a nervous smile that he flashed my way.
After a few minutes of polite conversation about the weather and the drive from South Carolina to our home in Florida, my father cleared his throat and stood up.
"We have orange, grapefruit, and guava trees outside. Why don't we take you on a tour?" he asked with a smile and an unusually loud voice.
We all stood up to follow him.
"No," my father said, shaking his head. He smiled at Kashif and me. "You two sit and talk."
Blushing furiously at my father, I watched as he led the others outside. We sat quietly in the living room and looked at each other. Kashif looked as uncomfortable as I felt. Was our earlier conversation a fluke? I wondered.
Finally we began speaking, making small talk at first but falling quickly back into the easy rapport that had captured my interest four weeks earlier. Later, over lunch, I listened to the sound of laughter and saw the smiles on my parents' faces. Our two families seemed to blend together seamlessly; I could see myself considering Kashif's parents family someday.
Over the next few weeks, Kashif and I continued to talk on the telephone. Like any newly dating couple, our conversations ranged from light topics to serious ones. One minute we were talking about our favorite movies, and the next about how many children we wanted. I was amazed by my own comfort level and how naturally I found myself sharing personal information with him. All my life I had thought I would detest this process, yet I found myself waiting eagerly for his phone calls and the hours we spent discussing life.
A few weeks into our weekly conversations, I had just taken my earrings off and placed them on the dresser, when the phone rang. It was Kashif, calling at our usual time. I smiled as I answered the phone. I had had an interesting day at work and hoped to get his take on it. But as soon as I heard his voice, I knew something was up. He sounded different.
He began our conversation by mentioning the first photo he had received of me and laughing. "I saw your expression, and I knew you were being forced to stand there and pose," he said. "You seemed so uninterested that you interested me!" I laughed, too, as I shared the story behind the photo. Then he grew quiet. His silence unsettled me. What was going on?
Finally, he cleared his throat. "I wanted to talk to you about something," he said finally. "These past few weeks, I have really loved talking to you. I feel like we have a connection. I know we met just that one time at your parents' house, and I could say that we should meet again and talk for months or years before I say this. But the truth is, I don't need to meet you again to know I want to marry you. I wanted to ask you — will you marry me?" I sat down on the bed, letting his words settle over me. I had met him once. Spoken to him a handful of times. And now here he was, proposing we take the ultimate leap of faith, defy the logic and the norms of the world we lived in, and commit to spending our lives together. I should have been feeling trepidation, anxiety, or doubt. Before meeting him, I had thought with certainty that I would be unable to answer this question from someone I barely knew. But the truth was, I did know him.
I knew all I needed to. I knew he was kind, that he promised to support me and my dreams, and that we shared common goals and interests in life. Yet what I knew above all these things, a knowledge I could not then articulate, was that somewhere deep inside me, I knew I wanted very much to know him — and grow with him — for the rest of my life.
"Yes," I said into the phone, tears welling up in my eyes.
I had never been more certain of anything in my life.
We have been married nine years now, and I feel even more certain today than I did then that I made the right choice. What I did not expect, however, what I completely underestimated, was that I would continue to fall more deeply in love with him as time went on. Alhamdullilah.
Love in the Time of Biohazards
Melody Moezzi
There are few things less sexy than having the word "biohazard" plastered across your arm.
It's a predicament I've found myself in on more than one occasion, thanks to an annoyingly recalcitrant pancreas. Last time I was in the hospital, I spent three less-than-fun-filled weeks there, and "sexy" was the least of my concerns. There's nothing romantic about needing help stumbling to the bathroom, nor is there anything attractive about catheters, bedpans, or central lines. It's a pretty foul state of affairs for me, and it's a terrible time for witnesses.
Matthew and I were married in 2002, and in the decade since, he has always been my primary witness and assistant in such scenarios. He's learned from prior experience that it isn't always best to heed my directives. Leave me alone; I don't want to shower; I don't want to go for a walk; I don't want to get up to pee; I don't want to move.
I'm extraordinarily sedentary by nature, so it's hard enough getting me to move on an average day. Leave me in a hospital alone, and my indolence can reach lethal levels.
The first stint Matthew spent with me in the hospital was in the summer of 2004, and it lasted a little over a week. In his compassion, he respected my refusal to shower. Showering was torture for me, and required more energy than I could muster. After several days of Matthew's empathy, however, a strange smell began to permeate the room, and it didn't take long to notice that the stench was emanating from me. I have never before nor since stunk that badly. I knew I was wrong to ignore it, but, since I was frequently unconscious, it didn't affect me much. For those around me, however, it was all but intolerable.
Thank God one of the nurses was finally kind enough to give Matthew some advice without insulting me to my face. "You can't listen to her," she told him. "If you don't do something, we'll have to. And you don't want that." Water had to be involved, as fumigation was apparently not an option. So Matthew at last familiarized himself with one of the many uses for a biohazard bag.
After procuring one such bag from the nurses' station, Matthew cuts the bottom out and slides it over my arm, taping it around whatever mess of tubing happens to be there. He tapes it so tightly that I temporarily lose circulation, as even the slightest moisture can lead to infection. Matthew then helps me undress, undresses himself, and prepares for my torture chamber. Not exactly the stuff of romance novels. There's nothing like the smell of bleach and a surplus of handrails to kill the mood. He proceeds to do whatever my hands would do themselves in normal circumstances, and I follow his instructions (arms up ... back to me ... lean back, etc.). By the end of the hour-long ordeal, he generally has the added honor of having to support my body weight as well, since by that time I may have lost my balance and ability to stand. He helps my limp, exhausted body out of the shower and dries me off.
Back in the room, he pulls my hair back into a bun or a ponytail, holds up a fresh hospital gown for me to walk into, and finally reattaches all of my tubes to the IV. Then I generally ask for my next dose of Dilaudid and pass out in the bed.
I met Matthew in the fall of 1997, less than a year after I first got sick. I was seventeen and he was eighteen. It was my first semester at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Going there was the smartest decision I've ever made — not just because of the stellar education that I received, but because it brought me to him.
I was walking home from the library one early autumn afternoon and had nearly made it back to my dorm, when Matthew popped up out of nowhere. Trying to look nonchalant, though he had clearly been running to catch up with me, he immediately pled his case. He said he had noticed me and "noticed me noticing him," which was a total crock of shit, as I'd never seen him before in my life. Then he asked me out. His stealth tactics and physical resemblance to Harry Connick Jr.'s serial-killing character in the film Copycat, which I had just seen the night before, freaked me out somewhat. Still, his audacity was impressive. I gave him my number, and though I must have had fifteen pens in my bag, I told him I didn't have any, so he would just have to memorize it. This was the first of many tests I put the poor boy through.
He said he wanted to cook for me on our first date, and I told him that would be fine, but that he would have to cook something fat-free because I had a bum pancreas that was unable to digest too much fat. I told him how overindulging could easily destroy my pancreas, which could result in organ failure, which could then kill me. Talk about high maintenance! All of this was a true possibility, though admittedly unlikely and melodramatic. But if it scared him, he didn't show it, and either way, I didn't care. It was just another test.
He cooked some sort of chicken, and later that night when he tried to play with my hair, I told him that there was no way I would ever date him. I told him that if I did date him, it would last maybe two weeks, and then I would lose interest. I also told him that as a good Iranian American Muslim girl, I planned on staying a virgin until I got married — always a shock to white American boys. It didn't seem to bother him, though. I said we could be friends, fully expecting this to end as every other such encounter had ended for me, and believing that I would never hear from him again.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Love, InshAllah"
by .
Copyright © 2012 Ayesha Mattu, Nura Maznavi.
Excerpted by permission of Counterpoint.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
