Refuge (41 page)

And then you came along, and I felt something instantly. I despised you. In fact I don’t think I’ve despised anyone more.

And yet somewhere along the way my feelings changed. I, of course, refused to admit it. Over the years I have assiduously cultivated this image of myself as an independent soul, someone who has no need of love, no need of even the slightest joy in their life. To admit that you made me happy, that I yearned to be with you, would mean that that artifice I had so carefully constructed would crumble to the ground.

So like a dictator whose people have turned against him, I retreated behind my walls, hoping to drown out their shouts. However a dictator can only do that for so long before the walls come crashing down, and in my case it was your letter that finally brought down mine.

From today on I am going to live by my mother’s words.

I love you, Charlie. I love you like no man I’ve ever met. I’m not scared to admit it anymore, for now I understand I could only love a man who’d never want to constrain me and who’d provide me with the support to pursue my dreams.

Where we go from here I don’t know, but as you said we’ll work it out. There’s my potential scholarship to the University of Amsterdam, your work here in Peshawar, the complications that are bound to emerge given our different backgrounds. We may even be apart for a while. However my instinct is that we’ll sort all these things out.

Stay safe, my love, get word to me on your return, and soon enough, inshallah, we’ll be together again.

I love you.

Forever.

Noor.

Charlie stares at the letter.

She loves me. She loves me. She loves me. She loves me.

He continues to say it over and over as if only by doing so will it truly sink in.

He hears someone coming down the stairs and looks up. It’s Aamir Khan holding one of Wali’s artificial limbs.

“Oh my word, is that you, Charlie?” Aamir Khan says.

It occurs to Charlie that he should probably get Aamir Khan’s permission. After all when he sees Noor next he’s determined to propose to her.

“I’d love to tell you all about my trip,” Charlie says.

“And I’m eager to hear all about it, but unfortunately the workshop closes in half an hour.”

“I’ll take you.”

“I do not want to put you out.”

“No, I’d like to, that is if you don’t mind sitting on the back of my bike.”

“On the contrary, it sounds like fun.”

They ride over to the hospital, Aamir Khan clutching the artificial leg with one arm while clinging tightly to Charlie with his other. Charlie pulls up outside the workshop. Aamir Khan climbs off.

“I should not be long,” he says.

Charlie smokes a cigarette. And then a second. And the longer he waits the more jittery he gets. Finally Aamir Khan returns.

“They said it will take a couple of days to fix,” he says.

“What’s the problem?”

“The end is grating against Wali’s leg.”

An ambulance, its siren blaring, screeches up. Orderlies rush out to carry a groaning man inside.

This is ridiculous. I can’t ask him outside a hospital.

“What you say we go for a walk?” he says.

Aamir Khan gives Charlie a curious look.

“You know that pink building off Jamrud Road, the one with all the domes?”

“You mean Islamia College?” Aamir Khan says.

“Hear it has really beautiful gardens.”

“Why not? A walk would do me good.”

Aamir Khan climbs back on, and Charlie takes off. All the way there Charlie rehearses what he’s going to say. Nothing feels right. His attempts either sound stilted, self-serving, or facetious; in some cases all three.

He pulls up outside the college’s main gates, and they walk up the driveway in silence. Islamia College looks like a palace from Mughal times, the gardens out front a maze of hedgerows, gurgling fountains and rose bushes. They pass under an archway and come upon a sports field where some students are playing cricket in the fading light. A couple of deck chairs sit unused at the edge of the field.

“Want to watch?” Charlie says.

“That sounds very pleasant.”

They sit down and watch the game; the crack of bat on ball, the shouts of encouragement amongst the players, the cries of “how’s that” whenever the fielding team appeals for an out.

“So, should we confer on the matter at hand?” Aamir Khan says.

Charlie snaps his head in Aamir Khan’s direction. Aamir Khan smiles.

“A young man does not ask an elder one on a walk unless he wants something.”

Charlie sits up as best he can.

“I’d like your permission to marry Noor.”

Aamir Khan nods. Nothing more. Out on the field, a ball flies past the batsman and demolishes his stumps.

“Your permission’s important to me,” Charlie says.

“I am honored you would consider it so; however I cannot give it.”

Charlie is stunned.

“What did I do?” he says.

“Nothing. I just find the whole custom to be an antiquated one. If there is one thing I have always strived for it is that my daughters be able to make their own decisions without interference from anyone, myself included. That said I am happy to bring your proposal to Noor like I have all the others.”

Charlie can’t help but laugh.

“Thank God, for a moment there, I thought you were going to stop us from getting married.”

For the first time that day, Aamir Khan’s unflustered manner falters.

“Do you mean to say she has already agreed?” he says.

“No, but I think she will.”

“On what evidence?”

“We’ve been writing to each other.”

“And she loves you?”

“That’s what she says.”

“Unbelievable,” Aamir Khan says, shaking his head.

“You disapprove?” Charlie says.

“No, I am just astonished. When Noor makes a decision nothing can be done to change her mind. If what you say is true, it is a first, a miraculous first. It speaks to how deep her feelings are for you.”

“And how do you feel about it all?”

“As I said my feelings are of no account.”

“But still I’d like to know.”

Aamir Khan looks off beyond the cricket field.

“When we first arrived in this city I was devastated, I was as much in love with Noor’s mother as you profess to be with Noor, and to lose her the way we did, well it tore apart my heart, so much so that to this day it is still not mended. Of all of us it was Noor who stayed strong. She kept on smiling and telling jokes as if we were still in Kabul. I think she saw it as her vocation to lighten our spirits. Yet as the years passed, I could tell her smiles were increasingly forced, and about six months back I realized if I didn’t do something drastic they would be gone forever. Trust me, under normal circumstances I would never have met you at the Pearl Continental. I am a coward by nature. But I did, and I thank Allah every day for giving me the courage to do so. You woke up her soul, Charlie. How could a father not be gladdened by that?”

Aamir Khan chuckles.

“I tell you,” he says, “this truly has been a momentous day.”

“What do you mean?”

“Of course, you’re not aware. This morning Noor learnt that she had been awarded a scholarship to the University of Amsterdam.”

“No way, that’s awesome.”

“They want her there by next week.”

Charlie stares at Aamir Khan. It feels like a cruel joke.

“Is that an issue for you?” Aamir Khan says.

“It’s soon, but no, it’s fine.”

“You do not sound fine.”

“I love her, I want to be with her, but I’m happy, I promise.”

“Are you still intent on seeing out your contract?”

“I’d like to. I think Noor would want me to.”

“And after that?”

“I’ll join her. Who knows maybe I can enroll in her college.”

A spin bowler comes to the wicket and proceeds to bowl slow but confounding balls. Despite his assertions to Aamir Khan, Charlie feels as discombobulated as the batsman.

“I have always thought cricket and life have much in common,” Aamir Khan says. “Both require enormous amounts of perseverance and patience.”

“From the looks of that poor guy it seems like life just ties you up in knots.”

Out on the field the batsman finally gets a read on the spin bowler’s ball and smashes it in the air. Charlie and Aamir Khan lean back and watch it fly high over their heads.

“But then there are those glorious moments where everything goes right,” Aamir Khan says. “And though they may be few and far between, let me tell you they are always worth the wait.”

***

NOOR SITS ON
the bough of the oak tree enshrouded in darkness. She desires nothing more than to stay where she is forever, like the tree, a mute witness to the world.

She hears voices and senses the lights in Charlie’s room turn on and off. For some time her father and Charlie call out her name, and then someone walks along the verandah and across the lawn. They arrive at the tree and grapple their way up before making their way down the bough.

“Hi,” she hears Charlie say.

She says nothing. He sits down beside her.

“Noor.”

“Please go.”

“Not until you tell me what’s up.”

Noor blinks back tears.

“Elma found out about us. She said I had to choose between you and the scholarship. I chose you.”

“I’ll go talk to her. She can’t do that—”

“No, it’s done.”

“Nothing’s ever done.”

“You weren’t there, Charlie, you didn’t see the look in her eyes. It’s over. Everything’s over.”

“What do you mean?”

“My family’s cursed. I don’t know what caused it, but the curse is real. We can’t be together, Charlie, I’ll just pass it on to you, and I love you too much to do that.”

Charlie says nothing, and the longer he’s silent the greater the tension. Noor fears what he’s going to say yet yearns for him to say something. She starts to cry. He turns her face towards him.

“Your love,” he says, “how can it be a curse? It’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“But it’s built on a lie. When we first came here it wasn’t because I changed my mind, it was because my brother was after me.”

“Tariq?”

“He’s determined to marry me to his prince. He has men all across the city looking for me.”

Noor can’t make out, through her tears, whether Charlie’s expression is one of worry or anger. She assumes it has to be the latter.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he says.

“There was nothing you could do.”

“I could have gotten you out of here.”

“How?”

“By marrying you. I still can.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“The last thing I ever want is to force a proposal out of you.”

“Are you crazy? I was going to propose to you tonight.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Then why would I have this on me.”

Charlie pulls out a simple, diamond ring.

“My mother left it to me, and ever since I’ve kept it close, never believing that another woman could be worthy of it. That is until now.”

Noor sits there paralyzed. Unlike most women she’s never dreamed of this moment but now it’s upon her she acts no different than any other.

Charlie rises until he’s on one knee.

“Noor Jehan Khan would you do me the greatest honor I could imagine and be my wife?”

Charlie wobbles. Noor flings out a hand to steady him.

“Please get back down,” she says.

“Only when you answer the question.”

Noor looks up at him, at the hint of a smile on his lips, and knows that life without this man would be no life at all.

“Yes,” she says.

He drops back down and she throws her arms around him. He holds her tight, and for the first time in her life she understands the words from the seventh surah:

‘It is He who created you from a single soul, and made its mate of like nature in order that you might dwell with her in love.’

He takes her face in his hands, and their lips meet. This time his kiss is slow and tender, a reassurance of both his love and his respect.

“I love you,” she says.

Nothing has ever sounded more true.

He pulls away and holds the ring out.

“You are aware that in Muslim culture there’s no such thing as an engagement ring,” she says.

He grins.

“That’s what’s so great about us, we’re going to have the best of both worlds.”

He slides the ring onto her finger. It fits so perfectly it’s as if it was always meant to be there.

“Do you want to go in and tell the others?” he says.

“Baba’s going to be shocked.”

“He already knows.”

Noor feels her old, indignant self return. It comforts her enormously.

“Well he doesn’t know what my answer was,” she says.

“I told him I was pretty sure it’d be a ‘yes’.”

“Oh you did, did you?”

Noor attempts to look peeved, but she can’t keep the act up long. He makes a face at her and she laughs.

“Let’s go,” she says.

She takes his hand in hers, and together they make their way along the bough and down the tree. From inside the house, exclamations of joy can be heard, voices filled with hope and the possibility of better tomorrows.

Outside the tree stands a mute witness to it all.

PART IV

exit

FIFTY-ONE

CHARLIE ARRIVES AT
the end of the line. The last of the new recruits is a serious, young man with a neat beard.

“A-salaam Alaykum, I’m Charlie, what’s your name?”