Children of Dust_ A Memoir of Pakistan - Ali Eteraz [97]
It would have been nice to get a wife, but the more important thing had been to find out my family history and get the genealogical tree that linked me back to Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq. I never even got an opportunity to sit down with Tau and have him go through his files. Nor did I get to go to the madrassa and impress all my former instructors with my newfound intellectual understanding of Islam. I had dearly wanted to corner Qari Jamil and impress him with the finer points of Islamic law.
I thought about my aged grand-uncles, the pillars of permanence from my childhood. Living just down the street, they had been spared all the commotion of last night. In fact, I’d hardly seen them since we got to Sehra Kush. Now we were leaving, and they would stay here with all the secrets of my family history—the stuff about the Partition, the difficult journey across Pakistan since then, the entirety of the 1990s, all of it still lodged in their big hearts. I felt overcome with a desire to go and say goodbye to them. It was the respectful thing to do, especially since they would probably pass away before I ever returned.
Ignoring Ammi’s calls to hurry, I ran over to their room. When I entered the tiny space the three brothers shared, they were unwrapping their turbans and making preparation to lie back down after prayer. Their white beards seemed richer and cleaner in the morning light.
“Circumstances require that I leave,” I said loudly, knowing that they were hard of hearing.
All of them turned to me.
“You just got here!” my oldest grand-uncle said sadly.
“We didn’t even get to talk,” said another.
“Trip is over,” I said. “Maybe I’ll come back one day.”
Then I went back into the street and walked to the Humvee. On the way I said hasty goodbyes to various aunts and to the little kids, and I hugged Dadi Ma. Then, full of shame and apology, I approached Dada Abu and excused myself.
“You have to go,” he said stoically, “so don’t make explanations. Just go.”
There was both accusation and resignation in his voice. On one hand, I could tell that he thought I was running away. That was the loving part of him, the part that wanted to sit and talk with a grandson whom he hadn’t seen for a decade. On the other hand, he knew that my departure was the right thing. That was the protective part of him, the part that wanted to keep me safe. As we hugged chest to chest, I realized that he wasn’t as sturdy or as powerful as he used to be. I could feel Time hovering over him in that moment, weakening him with its invisible fingers.
I got into the Humvee and the Rangers locked up. Looking out the window, I waved at the assembled relatives. I felt like I was leaving a part of me with Dada Abu and my grand-uncles. These were the people through whom I was supposed to weave myself into the tapestry of Islam.
As the Humvee whirred into the desert, hurtling past the sand dunes, over the cracked bridges, and past the caravans of Gypsies in blue and purple, I felt as if I needed to blame someone for destroying my opportunity to connect with my history. Again, though, rather than blaming Ittefaq and his angry Islamic cohorts, I blamed myself. It was because I was an inadequate Muslim that they had consigned me to being an American and made me feel that I had nothing to contribute to the ummat-e-islami.
This was all my fault.
Not theirs.
13
We cut our trip short by four weeks and went to Uncle Saad’s house in Karachi to wait for the next available flight to America. We ended up with a few days to kill before the flight, and we spent them slumming around his living room, too discouraged to do any sightseeing. Ruing my lost chance to get hold of the special family tree that would have showed the link back to the first Caliph, I raised the issue of our heritage with Uncle Saad over lunch our first day back.
“You know I came here to try and find out more about my history,” I began.
“I thought you came for a wife.”
“That too, but I really wanted to connect with Islam.”
“Were you able to?” he asked. “Did that happen in Sehra Kush?