An Infidel in Paradise (20 page)

M
r. Akbar is standing outside the greenhouse as if he’s been waiting for me.

He holds the door open as we walk into the building, and I fall in step behind him as we weave through the maze of greenery to our spot at the back.

“I just put on the water,” he says. “You have arrived at the right time.” He settles contentedly into his chair while I crouch over the brazier and begin adding spices to the water. I settle on the ground next to it and breathe in the comforting smell of cinnamon and cloves.

“My friend left,” I say.

“It’s hard to say good-bye.”

“I’m used to it. I do it a lot.” I hear the hardness in my own voice.

I take the tea from the shelf and shake some into the kettle, replacing the lid.

“I was stupid to make friends with her in the first place. I didn’t even want to be her friend.”

“One who is burned by milk blows even when given buttermilk,” says Mr. Akbar gently.

I think about this for a minute. I wonder how old Mr. Akbar is. He looks way too old to be working. Maybe they don’t have retirement age here.

“Do you have children?” I ask.

“Nine living, three have passed on.”

He doesn’t sound sad.
How can he just accept losing a child?
On the other hand, Dad ditched me without a backward glance.

“Do you miss them?”

“My children?”

“Yeah.”

“Raawiya, my youngest, was fourteen when she died. She was like you. Always asking questions.” He smiles as if the memory pleases him.

“How did she die?”

“The question, I think, is how did she live? And she lived well. She loved and was loved.”

I add the milk and watch it bubble before I take the cups off the shelf and pour tea, first for Mr. Akbar and then myself. I take the chair opposite him, and we sip in companionable silence. How different this is from having tea with Mustapha’s mother. I’d like to talk about Mustapha, but I don’t know what I could say. I don’t want Mr. Akbar to stroke out from the shock that I kissed an engaged Muslim boy in the girls’ bathroom. I don’t want him to think less of me.

“Do you ever wish Raawiya hadn’t been born?” I
regret the question immediately. I think he might mistake my meaning, but he looks sympathetic rather than angry.

“You mean because I lost her?”

“Yes.” I blow on the tea and don’t look at him as I wait for his answer. It’s slow in coming, and I hope he’s not reliving the pain of losing her. I sneak a furtive glance, but he just seems lost in thought.

“If we never move forward, we can never enjoy Allah’s blessings. The world is sorrow but also happiness.”

“I’m not sure I can get through this year without her,” I blurt. I think this confession surprises me more than Mr. Akbar, though I don’t know if I’m more shocked by my own total lameness or the fact that I’ve admitted it.

There’s another long silence as we sip tea, and I look at the flowers around us. The plant nearest Mr. Akbar’s bench wasn’t blooming last week. Now there are so many tiny blue flowers it’s difficult to see the green of the stem and leaves. I wonder that so much can change in a single week.

“It is when we feel ourselves most alone that we discover we are among friends,” says Mr. Akbar.

I look at his wizened hands as they wrap round his small cup, and I wish I could just stay in this greenhouse with him for the rest of the year. I’d happily do an independent study in botany. I could learn a lot from him, about making things grow – but he’s dead wrong about the friend thing. If I could bring myself to tell
him about Mustapha, maybe he’d realize how wrong he was.

“I have to get back to class.”

He looks at me for a long minute. “Wait,” he says. “I have something for you.”

He takes an empty jar from his shelf and heads off into the undergrowth. I follow, curious. We pause at a tap, and he fills the jar half-full before he carries on. Finally, we stop in front of the frilly orange plant.

“You remember its name?” he asks.

“The Red Bird of Paradise.”

His face cracks into an enormous, nearly toothless grin. I grin back.

He takes a small worn jackknife from his pocket and flips it open. I notice how gently he holds the plant as he saws off a small branch that holds a single flower. He pops it in the jar and hands it to me.

“Change the water every few days. When the roots get this long,” he says, showing me with his fingers, “you can take it out of the water and plant it in a pot. Winter is coming soon, so you want to take care of it inside this year. But in the spring, you can plant it in your garden, and when you leave, you can take it with you. Do you remember what I told you about this plant?”

“That it can grow anywhere.”

“That’s right. Its flowers look fragile, but its roots grow deep.”

“But I won’t be able to take it with me. They don’t let you take plants through Customs.”

“All you need is a seed,” he says. “A single seed properly cared for will flourish wherever you plant it.”

I take his offering and head out to my first day at my new school without my new friend. I don’t have theater class and I don’t see Mustapha for the rest of the day, which means he’s avoiding me. It’s a small school, tiny now, and you don’t
not
see someone unless you’re trying. I’m relieved and disappointed at the same time.

I eat lunch with Tahira and Leela, who are so overly kind that I almost cry again, but I manage to hold it together. Tahira reminds me I’m still invited to her brother’s wedding, which sounds like it’s going to be a complicated event stretching over several days. We make plans to go out on the weekend to buy me some “appropriate clothes.” I get the impression I’m going to need at least four different shalwar kameezes, and I try to share their enthusiasm for the outing.

Johan seems to be missing Jazzy and invites me to sit with him in math class. It turns out he, Leela, and Tahira are in most of my classes now because sections have been combined due to lack of students and fewer teachers. Some electives have been canceled entirely, and I have a moment of hope when I think maybe there won’t be any theater class, but those kinds of things never work out when you want them to.

On the bus ride home, I listen to Mandy chattering happily with the remaining kids about the new structure they’re going to add that day to Secret City. She asks me to join in the construction work, but I decline the offer.
Vince is in the back, talking quietly with Michelle. He invites me to go swimming with them after school. It’s a pity-invite, but well-intentioned. I turn down their invitation too, though I don’t have other plans.

I hold Mr. Akbar’s gift in my lap and gently finger the scalloped edge of the petals. It’s hard to imagine something so fragile and dainty could have such a determined will to survive. It reminds me of two other lives that have that same determination. I remember how the reality of their burden lightened my own, and I selfishly wonder if it can happen again. Maybe they feel as much like outsiders as I do. Maybe they can teach me how to keep living from one day to the next. Suddenly, I know what I’m going to do when I get home.

I
’ve been sitting in the underbrush just beyond the garbage dump for over two hours. I’m starting to feel this is a very bad idea. They may be the only people in my neighborhood more sad and desperate than I am, but that’s hardly the basis for a meaningful friendship. I don’t even know if they’ll show up. I rock up on my heels trying to ease myself into a more comfortable position. This is a waste of time. My butt is sore, the smell of the trash is giving me a headache, and I just noticed a freaking-huge spider on a nearby bush. I shift away from the spider, keeping an eye on it in case it should suddenly pounce.

I hear the rattle of their bike over the gravel road a good five minutes before I see them. The girl hops off the handlebars before the bike has fully stopped and clambers up the heaping mound of refuse while her brother props the bike against a tree and unties an already half-filled bag from the back. I move out from the bush slowly so as not to startle them. I try to look
casual, but I’m stiff from sitting on the ground, so I stagger the first few steps, which is either a dead giveaway I’ve been lying in wait or suggests I’m stoned. I’m not sure which they would find more alarming. I give them a toothy smile, but like last time, they respond with unblinking stares.

“
Dost
,” I say, pointing to myself like Jane in a
Tarzan
movie. According to my Urdu dictionary, this is the word for
friend
, though from the reaction I’m getting, it would appear I said, “Clear out or I’ll call the cops.” The boy stands immobilized at the foot of the trash, watching me with the same wary attention I gave the spider. His sister is descending as quickly as safety will allow, given that she could bring the whole foul mountain crashing down on her brother.

“Emma,” I say, thumping my chest again.

Still watching me, the boy directs a curt comment to his sister. She looks at me anxiously but stops moving.

“Esfandyar,” he says, thumping his own chest. He points at his sister. “Mehri.”

I feel like he’s handed me a gift, and I get misty-eyed until it occurs to me I hadn’t imagined our encounter past this point. I don’t know what to do next.
What am I doing here?
It’s not as if we’re kindred spirits just because I am a friendless loser and they survive on other people’s garbage.

But I can’t leave.

Slowly, so as not to startle them, I walk over to the garbage dump. I’m gratified to see they don’t scuttle away
at my approach. Leaning into the trash, I dig out an empty pop bottle. I carry it to their plastic bag and pop it in. I look at them out of the corner of my eye to see if they’ll stop me, but they’re both still staring at me, transfixed.

“Don’t worry,” I tell them, even though I know they can’t understand. “You’re not going to suddenly have a bunch of foreigners competing with you for the best trash.” I lean in again and dig out a couple more bottles.

Esfandyar says something to me, which might be “Go away” but could just as easily be “Rock on,” so I just smile at him and keep digging. He says something else, which I ignore, but when he grabs my wrist, I have to stop and look at him. He takes the plastic bottle I’m holding and throws it back on the pile. He says something and dramatically shakes his head. Then he picks up a glass bottle and nods.

I grin. I think I may have just failed trash picking 101, but he’s taking the time to teach me, so he hasn’t totally given up. Mehri has gone back to work at the top of the pile, and with my newfound expertise, Esfandyar and I continue picking away at the bottom. Ten minutes later, their bag is full. I hold the bike steady while Esfandyar ties the bag on the back. Then he holds the bike as Mehri climbs on the handlebars.

“
Shukria
,” says Mehri before they ride off. I know this is the word for
thanks
. I also know I should be thanking them, because at this moment, the knot that has twisted my stomach since I arrived in this country feels like it’s starting to unravel.

M
y heart is thumping as I approach the theater. I haven’t caught a single glance of Mustapha since The Kiss. I’m actually very impressed with his disappearing act. I was never so invisible when I was trying. I wonder if he’s even still here. Maybe he transferred to an all-boys school, somewhere high in the Himalayas where the only eligible females are yaks and mountain goats.

I’ve rehearsed what I’m going to say to him a hundred times. I really wish Angie were around to run through it with me, though. There’s no one left I can talk to. Leela and Tahira are still being especially nice, but they’d write me off as a skank if I told them what I’d done. Kissing is a much bigger deal here, like having sex would be back home.

But maybe I can just put this whole episode behind me. When I see Mustapha, I’m going to be totally cool and nonchalant, like I kiss boys in bathrooms all the time. I take a deep breath before I push open the theater doors, and there he is. I don’t mean “there he is down
at the front with the class where he’s supposed to be.” I mean “there he is lurking in the gloom at the back of the theater, inches from my face.”