Children of Dust_ A Memoir of Pakistan - Ali Eteraz [88]
In the middle of her daily duties Nyla often retreated to her sparsely furnished upstairs bedroom. In it, there was a tiny charpai that was leaned up against the wall during the day to give her more space. There were a few boxes with crocheted covers. There was a sewing machine, usually draped with a new outfit she was putting together. There were a couple of copies of the Quran wrapped in thick cloth to prevent dust from gathering on them.
During the midday breaks to her room, Nyla didn’t go to sleep or, as I initially imagined, write her frustrations into a diary. Instead, as I discovered one day when I peeked in, she wrapped an old white shawl around her body—and prayed on a mat. Her eyes were downcast as her thin lips murmured surah Fatiha. Her face was placid and serene, with a hint of water still visible on the upper lip.
The sparse beauty of her room, along with the quiet serenity of her prayer, filled me with a sense of dignity and decorum. This was a real Muslim woman: pious and patient, dutiful and persevering. If anyone was going to benefit from my American citizenship, it should be her. I felt as if God had brought me to Pakistan to serve as a conduit for Nyla’s ascension to America. I was like the winged horse Buraq, who took the Prophet up to the heavens.
I went to Ammi and let her know my intentions.
“I want to marry Nyla.”
“Our Nyla?”
“Yes. She’s a Siddiqui, like me.”
“But she’s older than you,” Ammi pointed out.
“I know. I don’t mind, though. The Prophet’s first wife was older than he was by fifteen years.”
“Do you know this girl’s story?”
“No,” I admitted. “I’ve barely talked to her.”
“She’s the maid,” Ammi said somewhat derisively.
“No she’s not. She’s my cousin.”
“I mean that she dropped out of college to come live here with your grandparents. Now she’s a glorified maid.”
“Why did she do that?” I asked, genuinely curious.
It turned out that Dada Abu had given Nyla’s father—one of my uncles—a loan, but he came down with lung disease and wasn’t able to pay it back. Instead of financial repayment, he’d told Nyla to drop out of college and had given Dada Abu authority over her.
“This means he has authority over matters of her marriage,” Ammi added.
“Fine. I’ll talk to him myself.”
“Won’t matter,” she said, waving her hand as if to brush the issue away. “You need to understand how these things work around here. A few years ago one of Dada Abu’s more distant relatives passed away and left a bunch of children in your grandfather’s care. He became responsible for raising them and getting them married. Nyla is already promised to one of them.”
“Which one?”
Ammi named a distant cousin I’d met many times.
“Him? He’s illiterate!”
“He’s not illiterate,” Ammi countered. “He’s mentally slow. But he’s gone to school every day of his life. Probably still does just because he likes it.”
“So this college-educated girl is going to marry someone ‘slow’?”
“That’s her kismet,” Ammi said.
“You have to do something to stop that,” I argued. “You keep saying that you’re a feminist. How can you support a marriage like that?”
“I’m an Islamic feminist,” she corrected. “But I can’t do anything anyway. This isn’t my family; it’s your father’s. Just understand that there’s a path that women follow. Girls get married. They get worked to the bone. They produce a baby every year—though God knows what the use of that is. Who’s raising the children? No one. Raising themselves. They’re like weeds. That girl Nyla won’t last. She’s too skinny.”
I was stunned into silence. None of this made any sense to me. This was an Islamic country, and Islam was supposed to be about justice. Perhaps