The Sweetness of Tears (5 page)

“But— they lost,” I said one Muharram afternoon when I was old enough to begin to understand the story. “Imam Husain and his friends. They lost the battle.”

My mother shook her head. “No. They stood up against tyranny. Their story is alive. And as long as it is, as long as we remember their sacrifices, they have won. We remember their bravery for the first ten days of Muharram—we recognize that Imam Husain’s sacrifice was offered for us, we who are unworthy. And then for the rest of Muharram and for the next month of Safar, we remember those left behind—the captive widows and orphans who were marched through the streets of Muslim cities, in chains, to Yazid’s court at Damascus, where Imam Husain’s sister, Bibi Zainab, bravely challenged the tyrant, and bore witness to his oppression. We carry the story of what happened at Karbala with us in our hearts. Always. Do you know, Sadee, that my grandmother is buried there? All her life, she wanted to go to Karbala, on pilgrimage. Because she never went there, it was her dying wish to be buried there. So, her son, my father, made all the arrangements and took her to Karbala to lie at rest near the Imam. Her life had not been an easy one. She was a widow at an early age. And her stepson, my father’s older brother, didn’t treat her as well as he should have.”

After a little silence, I asked, “What is a widow?”

“A widow is someone whose husband has died.”

“That’s what you are.”

My mother was silent again, for a moment. “Yes.”

“How did
my
father die?”

“He—he was not well. And then he died.”

I waited for more, but let it go when I found that my mother had no more to say on the subject.

On the tenth day of Muharram, on Ashura, glued to my mother’s side, I felt the story of Karbala in my heart, offering the special prayers of the day, walking forward and backward seven times, reenacting and honoring Imam Husain’s moment of indecision, the grief and tragedy of the thirsty orphans, Sakina among them, and her baby brother killed in his father’s arms.

H
e has begun school now. He is old enough and can stand to be away from you, whether you like it or not,” I heard my paternal grandmother, Dadi, say to my mother in the Muharram when I was five years old. “Send him with his grandfather for the
juloos
on Ashura.”

Dada, my grandfather, turned to me and asked, “What do you think, Sadiq? Are you ready to be a man now? To join the men’s Ashura procession through the streets of Karachi? All of your cousins will be there.”

“Jaffer, too?”

“Of course. None of the other boys would miss it for anything.”

I nodded nervously, unaware that what he proposed would expose me to the masculine side of Muharram rituals—the side that was gruesome and violent, where
matham
was painful and bloody.

I went with him on Ashura that year and heard
noha
s that sounded like battle cries, the beat of hands on chests like the blows of a choreographed kind of combat. Carpets of hot coals were raked over in preparation for bare feet to run across them. Carefully sharpened swords were struck in self-inflicted frenzy on bare heads and blood flowed freely from split scalps to drip down faces twisted in grief and pain. And small, curved blades hanging from chains were swung in lateral rhythm, whipping the air with a metal twang to beat upon bare backs from which horizontal rivulets of blood sprung and trailed stains onto hot pavements, shimmering in the heat of the sun.

There were other boys there, Jaffer among them, along with other cousins that I was a little less wary of than before, and they were excited. They had seen it all before. All of them, many of them younger than me, had been initiated in the practice of
zanjeer ka matham
with their fathers, using mini-size blades that were dull and relatively harmless and hung from smaller chains designed for use on smaller bodies.

My stomach clenched at the sight of blood dripping everywhere. The scenes of bloodshed struck me as all the more grotesque because the wounds were self-inflicted. Jaffer’s father—my uncle, who was with us, too—thrust me into the circle of young boys, where Jaffer and the others had already claimed their spots, shed their shirts, and commenced an awful imitation of the swaying, chain-swinging motion that older men in bigger circles, which I could still see, only yards away from us, performed with far greater effect. In my hand, my uncle placed a new set of chains, the dull blades winking at me with the reflected light of the sun. My stomach unclenched suddenly, and though I had observed the half-day fast, the
faqa,
which is customary for the day of Ashura, a stream of bilious liquid stained my shirt before my head lightened and I fell, faint, to the ground.

I woke up in my grandfather’s arms, crying for my mother. The other boys would have laughed at me, but it was Ashura, too somber a day for laughing. For hours, I walked on the sidelines of the procession, unable to participate, impatient and crying to be with my mother, back among the women.

O
ne day, when my mother and I were on the terrace, the quiet of our street was disturbed by a small commotion outside of the house next door, the house with the
jamun
tree in its garden. A car had pulled up and the residents of the house spilled out onto the street with exclamations of joy that drew me close to the wall. My mother stood up to reel me back, but her eyes, too, were caught by the scene below. A man in a white shirt and black tie had emerged from the car, greeting the old lady next door, suit jacket slung over one shoulder. Servants were emptying the trunk, pulling out suitcases. I heard my mother gasp beside me. As if he heard it, too, the man looked up toward us, causing my mother to step backward, too late. The man had seen her. I saw him frown, his eyes on the space she had occupied. His gaze shifted to me, his eyes locked with mine. Then he walked into the house next door.

Something about the scene stayed with me. I found myself suddenly fascinated by that man—curious about who he was and where he’d come from. That side of the terrace, under the shade of the
jamun
tree, became my favorite. My curiosity made me less timid. Now I would steal away to the terrace without my mother, something I had been expressly forbidden to do. Until the day I saw the man sitting in the garden, drinking tea and reading the newspaper. I wanted him to see me. The
jamun
tree was in season, the ripe, nearly black, ovoid fruit on its upper branches within reach. I picked some and began to throw them down into the garden where the man sat. The third
jamun
hit closest to its mark, landing at his feet, catching his attention. But when he looked up, I lost my newfound courage and ducked. After long moments of listening to the thud of my own heart, I chanced a look over the top of the wall and caught his eye, briefly, before ducking down again.

“Is that a monkey up there? Trying to catch the attention of this poor, weary crocodile?”

This irresistible invitation, one I had sought, made me laugh and say, still crouched at the base of the wall, “Yes. A monkey.”

“A lonely monkey, it would seem. Who doesn’t know that tempting a crocodile with fruit is not a good idea.”

“Why? Will you want to eat my heart?”

“Not today. Today, I have had a big lunch.”

I laughed again. And then heard my mother calling from below. He heard her voice, too.

“Is that the monkey’s mother’s voice?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you’d better go to her. She’s calling.”

O
ne day, before I turned six, the car from my grandparents’ fortress came for me alone. When the driver honked the horn, my mother kissed me and held me close for a moment. Then she walked me out of the house to the car. Over her shoulder, I saw Macee purse her lips. She looked at the driver, her brother, Sharif Muhammad, who had not come in the house for a visit this time, and shook her head at him angrily. Sharif Muhammad Chacha looked down at his hands, muttering something under his breath.

My mother, her hands on my shoulders, said, “Sadee, this is not the way I want things to be.”

“Why are you crying, Amee?” I asked.

“Because, Sadee, now life will be backward for you and me. They are taking you away from me, my darling. Macee will take you to your
dada
’s house today instead of me. When you get there, Macee will come home. But you will stay there. With them.”

“No!” I started to cry, louder than she, blocking out the words she offered to explain the unexplainable.

“From now on, the car will bring you to visit me for a few hours. Every week, the way we used to go and visit them. But at the end of your visit, you will return to your
dada
and
dadi
. Their home will be yours, too. It always has been, I suppose. But now, I have been told, our time is up. I have tried and tried to avoid this moment. To delay it at least. Never doubt that. But I have failed, Sadee.” She tried to wipe the tears from my face, using her
dupatta,
but she couldn’t keep up with the fountain that flowed. “This isn’t my wish, Sadee. It is the way things will be. Not the way I want them to be. If I could, I would do anything to change it. But it’s not in my power.” Her voice was hard now, her hands on my shoulders tightening. She pulled me to her again and then pushed me away from her, toward the driver who handed me over to Macee, already seated in the car. Sharif Muhammad Chacha, avoiding his sister’s angry glare, took the bag I had not noticed from my mother’s hand.

I tried to get back out of the car, now howling, but Macee held me back, her face wet, too, her voice trying to soothe. Through the grip of her arms, I barely heard her brother, Sharif Muhammad Chacha, say to my mother, “Deena Bibi, forgive me.”

“Forgive
you
? Sharif Muhammad Chacha, you, of all people, have nothing to ask forgiveness for. This is all the result of my own hastiness. If I had listened to you—” Her voice, muffled by the tears she was trying to contain, broke off. Then she shook her head vigorously. “No. That won’t do. If I had listened to you, Sharif Muhammad Chacha, then there would be no reason for these tears, which I would not trade for anything. Whatever bitterness is in them is outweighed by their sweetness.” She kneeled down and reached into the car to take my hand. With it, she stroked her own face, letting me feel the wetness of her tears. “These tears that we are shedding, Sadee, let them fall. Can you taste them, Sadee, these tears of love?” I frowned, my howls subsiding into sobs, not understanding what she meant, opening my mouth to test the salty wetness with my tongue. “No, Sadee, not with your tongue. Close your eyes, my son, close them as I close mine, so that you can taste the tears with your heart.” I watched her close her eyes and then felt my own fall shut. “Go beyond the bitterness and the pain of this moment, Sadee.” Her hand was on my chest, rubbing it and patting. “Shh— stay still as you shed these tears.” There was a long moment of silence. Even my sobbing had stopped. “Do you feel it, Sadee? Do you feel what I feel? The sweetness? Hiding under the bitter? That’s the sweetness of my love for you—of your love for me. Can you taste it? In the fullness of your heart?”

I understood what she said without understanding the words. My heart full, tears streaming down my own face, I nodded.

“These tears are the proof, Sadee, that there is love in the world. Tears are only bitter when we cry selfishly for ourselves. When we deny and forget the sweet love that tears are made of. When we let our sorrow turn to anger. When people cry for each other, it is a good thing. Always remember that and never try to suppress the tears that flow from the love in your heart. Let them fall, these sweet tears, and remember that you are a human being, connected to all other human beings. When you cry for others—remember how we cry in Muharram?—you are opening your heart to God, who must see what we do and weep for us, too, for the suffering we cause to one another and to ourselves. Do you understand, Sadee?”

I nodded.

“Whether or not you do now, you will someday. That is the secret we are born to learn. The secret of the sweetness of tears.” My mother let go of my hand and stepped back to shut the door of the car.

Sharif Muhammad Chacha took his place at the wheel. I felt the driver’s door slam shut, the engine coming to life at the turn of his key, and then we pulled away, my face turned backward, eyes fixed on my mother, already turning to go into the house, the corner of her
dupatta
raised to blot her cheeks.

O
n the day I became a part of his household, I remember my grandfather saying, “You are where you belong, Sadiq. You are a big boy, now. A man. You don’t need your mother anymore. There is nothing to cry about.”

That day, my grandparents initiated a strategy of distraction—calling on a servant to go out and buy me ice cream—that would form the foundation of my new identity, a rich little boy surrounded by a rich little boy’s toys and indulgences. This was who I learned to be, which was different from who I had been before. My weekly visits to my mother were a source of agony for me and for her—a repetition of that first wrenching away. So, I became complicit in my grandparents’ efforts to distract me, allowing them to devise excuses—special treats and outings carefully timed to interfere with those appointments with my mother—which made the time between those visits stretch until I hardly saw her at all.

Until, one day, my mother came to see me. I was struck by the difference in the way we sat, she on one of the giant sofas in the living room and I on another. She was still a visitor to this mansion, while I had grown to be one of its most important residents. She’d come to say that she was getting married. To the crocodile next door. She told me that she was leaving Pakistan to go with him to America. There were a few more tears then. Bitter, not sweet, shed only in passing. Luckily, my grandparents had many diversions planned to distract me from the pain of that final parting.

Instead of the old school close to the house that I had lived in with my mother, I began to attend the best school in Karachi. And realized that my family name—a name that could be found on billboards for various businesses and products around the city—was like what Kennedy might mean here. Or Rockefeller. The kind of name that evokes admiration, envy, respect, and resentment. I began to understand who my grandfather was—a man of humble beginnings, who had arrived in Pakistan after Partition, with his wife and son and daughter, with barely the clothes on their backs. Within a few years, he had created an empire of wealth.