The Submission - Amy Waldman [67]
Often these little dramas, revealing how Mrs. Mahmoud’s feelings, her pride, were so easily hurt, almost as a child’s might be, brought Asma’s affection for her to the surface. In her pushy way, Mrs. Mahmoud had been very kind to Asma, serving along with her husband as surrogate parents. But today Asma wasn’t in the mood, and the boasting, the envy made her feel the prisoner of this petty woman who was as dishonest with herself as she so often was with others. Always at moments like this the little matter of the call-waiting returned to Asma, and the bitterness eddied inside her.
Sometime after Abdul’s birth—two weeks? a month?—Mrs. Mahmoud came to see Asma with a confession. She had told Asma that Inam had not called the morning of the attack. The truth was that she didn’t know. All that morning she had been on the phone, gossiping with her niece. Her call-waiting had clicked repeatedly but—now she looked down at her prematurely arthritic fingers—the truth was that for all her boasting about her call-waiting, she could never remember how to use it. It was entirely possible that it had been Nasruddin, calling to reach Asma. But it was also possible—this had troubled her ever since—that it was Inam. She hadn’t wanted to upset Asma before the baby came. Now she could no longer keep such a torment to herself.
To share a secret, Asma understood then, was to shift a burden. She wished that day, as she often would after, that Mrs. Mahmoud had never told her, so unbearable was the thought of Inam calling and calling but never connecting, perhaps the last sound he heard the ringing of an unanswered phone. For a long time afterward Asma couldn’t hear that sound herself without a sharp chill, as if she were watching his last moments through glass. Asma had pretended, that day, to forgive Mrs. Mahmoud. On days like today, she knew she never really had.
On the pretense of retrieving the remote control from Abdul, but really so she could breathe freer air, she went to him. In her own hands she took his, which were sticky with sugar syrup and softly scented with rose water. Looking into his wondering mischievous eyes, she tried to lose herself in the black dots of his pupils. He shrieked a laugh, threw his head back, nearly knocked her with his chin.
She tuned back in to Mrs. Mahmoud only when she heard Nasruddin’s name. “And he promised to line up a job for my husband’s nephew and he hasn’t done a thing. I think he has forgotten about all the people who helped him become such a big shot”—this term in English—“in Brooklyn.”
“Helped him?” Asma snapped, incredulous, returning to the couch. “He is the one who has helped everyone else. He has no time for himself. You shouldn’t say such things.” Shut up, you fat water buffalo, rolling in the mud of other people’s lives, is what she wanted to say. But she bit her tongue and reminded herself of how Mrs. Mahmoud had held her hand through Abdul’s birth, which made her think that if she had found strength enough to push him out, she could hold her meanest comments in. At this moment it seemed harder.
Even restraining herself, she could tell her vehemence had surprised Mrs. Mahmoud. This, too, would probably get chewed and swallowed and regurgitated in other households. So be it. They sat unspeaking for a moment.
Then Mrs. Mahmoud said, “Well, none of us may be here to help anyone anyway.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Asma, still curt.
“Now they—the English newspapers, the radio—they’re saying Muslims don’t belong here!” Mrs. Mahmoud was back on form, rolling slightly, like she was on casters, as she did when she got excited. “And then who, might I ask, would fix their buildings and drive their taxis? And who would give them halal meat?”
“No one will need halal meat if there are no Muslims,” Asma said severely. Suddenly warm, she took off her cardigan sweater.
“What they say,” Mrs. Mahmoud continued conspiratorially, “is that if we want to show we are loyal, we should tell this Mohammad