Honey Dewed Memories

As she stepped into the silence of the room, the bright red polish on her toes looked garish and almost obscene against the pristine white sheets. All the tables and sofas had been removed; the ornaments taken down. Instead, the floor was covered with fresh white sheets, cushions placed haphazardly in consideration for the guests’ aching backs, and for their patience.

A crash came from the kitchen and a raised voice entered the room,

“I should just do everything myself, that’s the only way I can trust it to get done! Clear that mess up, the guests will be here in- ”,

Her mother paused mid sentence as she saw Farah standing in the middle of the room. They both stared at each other. 

“You’re here.”

“I’m here.”

Farah’s leaden feet burned stubbornly on the cold marble floor.  Her mother crossed the room and stood in front of her. The lines around her eyes were heavier, her hair thinner. Farah had forgotten how fragile she had always been, the years that had passed were apparent in her tiny, stooped frame.

Her mother took her hands and looked at them, silently. A tear fell down her wafer thin skin, as she softly stroked the backs, her trembling fingers tracing a line from Farah’s wrist to her fingertips. Farah opened her mouth to say something but before she could, her mother drew her close and hugged her. She buried her face into her mother’s hair. The same shampoo. She was still breathing in the comfort of that familiar honey-dewed scent when the doorbell rang.

It was time to bury her father.

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Lying on her bed, staring up at the fan whirring round, she wondered how it was that respectfully hushed voices could be so very loud. With the guests streaming into the house when they returned from the cemetery, she had managed to escape upstairs by mumbling an excuse about needing to pray.

She turned over onto her stomach, as the sound of the adhaan call to prayer filled her room from the neighbourhood mosque. She hadn’t prayed once in the last ten years, so she was surprised at the warmth and calm that came over her. The melodic sound beautifully drowned out all others, soothing her restlessness. Back in New York, a folded prayer mat was lying in some dusty corner of a wardrobe. Her mother had insisted she added it to her frenzied and angry packing when she was leaving for the airport all those years ago, telling her she shouldn’t be so arrogant as to assume that she may never need it. Her mother, whom she had left alone downstairs with all of this. She sat up at the edge of her bed, and after a few moments, walked down to join her.

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But of course, she wasn’t alone. The house was thronging with family and friends. A canopy had been set up outside, and the men sat with steaming cups of tea, speaking in hushed tones out of character for their usually exuberant natures. As she drew closer, she heard discussions about politics and the latest outrageous behavior of the government. She missed this armchair politics, the animated arguments and the vehement exasperations, which often simply descended into a competition of who could gesticulate most, and always somehow ended in laughs regardless of which side you were on.  In comparison, keeping abreast of politics in the U.S. was so measured, tame, passionless. On that side of the world it was discussion of spin, rhetoric and tactic; here it was a soap opera for the masses.

The real work was being done in the kitchen, where the women were. With precision which was nothing short of a military operation, the room had been transformed into a production line of tea and generous servings of food. Guests at funerals may leave empty hearted, but never empty stomached. Her mother sat at the table, repeatedly trying to get up, but repeatedly being prevented by her many aunts who were surrounding her with firm commands of “sit down, relax”, “sit still, we have it all under control”.  Farah could sense her mother’s irritation.

She walked in and the room and its production line all turned to look at her. Silence. Finally, her aunt spoke,

“Well, at least you had the courtesy to come to his funeral, if nothing else.”

Some voices told her to shush, to think of her mother. Farah noticed that none of the voices disagreed with her.

“You can go in and sit with the guests’, her aunt continued, “the family have everything in hand here.”

The floor scratched as her mother pushed her chair back and stood up.

“My daughter is in her home, where she belongs. Leave her be.”

“All these years, and she decides to turn up now? What kind of daughter-”

“She had her choices to make- ”

“Choices! Choices she only had because of sacrifices he made and this is how she repaid him. He tried for so long to- ”

“I said, leave her be!” Her mother’s voice had risen and her aunt fell silent. “None of you have any right to judge her. I won’t… “ her voice lowered, “allow it.”

She walked over to Farah who, despite having rehearsed these conversations in her head a thousand times during her flight, still hadn’t quite managed to utter a word. Her mother gestured to Farah’s scarf. She loosely placed it over her head, and Farah let her mother lead her out of the room.

In the lounge the resplendent white sheets could no longer be seen under the huddles of mourners; the room was full of women paying their respects with recitations and the respectful stroking of prayer beads. With all eyes on them, they walked across the room and sat down. Her mother walked in front of her and Farah marvelled at how even now, when her mother’s head was held high and her tiny shoulders raised, Farah knew no greater sense of protection or invincibility.

They joined the guests on the floor. Keeping her eyes lowered, Farah noticed a disjoint between the sheets; the marble floor in the gap was glinting at her in the sunlight.

Two hours later she was still staring at that same spot, with some prayer beads in her hand, and only the two of them left in the room.

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“Is that what they all think? That I’m a selfish brat who left you all?”

“Don’t concern yourself with what she thinks, you know how over emotional she gets about everything.”

“She was trying to protect you….”

“Don’t be ridiculous! What kind of mother needs protection from her daughter? She’s grieving for her brother, she’s lashing out. There’s nothing more to it, Farah. ”

Her mother leaned back against the wall; Farah placed a cushion behind her.  Her mother sighed, and closed her eyes.

“How was he… towards the end?”

Her mother opened her eyes and looked ahead.

“Tired, mainly. We both were. He was in pain and he wasn’t mobile for the last few months so he used to get frustrated; irritated. But for the most part, just so very, very, tired.”

Not able to make eye contact with her mother, Farah quietly said, “I would have come earlier if I had known.”

Her mother smiled and turned towards her.

“No you wouldn’t have. I know how hard it was for you to leave, and I knew that meant you couldn’t possibly come back. Perhaps I should have brought him to you.”

“He wouldn’t have wanted to see me! You saw what happened when I left; you saw how he was.”

“And what if I wanted to see you?”

Farah remained quiet.

“Anyway, it’s of no matter now. You had to do what you did, and we had to let you go. Despite everything that happened, I really was happy for you. I always was, even when I used to wake up every day feeling broken. Like I had lost a limb.  You know, for the first few months”, she lowered her voice conspiratorially, “I didn’t tell your father, but I used to have breakfast in your room, by the balcony.  Every day before the house awoke. At first I did it because I missed your not being here; eventually it became the only way I could start my day. I used to sit there, watching the sunrise… it was the only part of the house where I felt at peace. It still is. I used to sit there, and think about where I had gone wrong.”

“Wrong! No- you hadn’t done anything wrong!” Farah cried out, “Why would you even think that?”

“If there was one thing I wanted to teach you, that was to be strong. And I think I succeeded.” She smiled, leaning over and touching Farah’s hand.

“But I realized, eventually, that I was so busy teaching you how to be strong, that I forgot to teach you how to forgive. I taught you how to be independent, so you would never need to rely on anyone; so that you could pave your way without needing the approval or permission of anyone else- of any man. But I hardened you, and you always saw forgiveness as weakness, as an imperfection. It takes courage to forgive, Farah.”

That morning, Farah hadn’t cried when her eyes fell on her mother for the first time in ten years. That afternoon, she hadn’t cried when they laid her father to rest, beneath layers of earth, and mud, and unspoken words. She hadn’t cried when people had hugged her, one after the other, so delicately as if she were one fragile emotion just waiting to shatter if too much pressure were applied. They had whispered soothing words of condolences, and softly patted her back.  She had remained calm, composed; breathing in all of it, not sure of when she would exhale. But now her face was moist with tears, her fingers pulling at a curled corner of the white sheet at her feet.

“He tried to call you, so many times. At first, it was for your birthday, or Eid. After a while, he stopped using that as an excuse and I knew as soon as he reached for his phone that he was thinking of trying one more time….‘just in case’, he used to say. He used to make the call late at night; he said it was because of the time difference- which of course was right, but it was for his benefit too- he couldn’t sleep knowing he hadn’t tried, he couldn’t rest without leaving you another message.”

Farah leaned over and curled herself into a ball, her head resting in her mother’s lap, her knees drawn close.  Her mother stroked her hair softly, and continued,

“Sometimes he crept out of bed in the early hours, and made the call. You should have seen him Farah! Tip toeing out of the room, thinking I wasn’t awake. He always used to bang into something, the clumsy so and so… ” Farah could sense a smile on her mothers’ lips. “What a pair we were! Him, with his hushed phone messages, and me with my secret sunrise breakfasts.”

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Farah held tightly onto the banister as she made her way upstairs. Her legs felt heavy, her eyes barely open, as she shuffled along.. She liked to think it was the jet lag catching up with her.

The staircase wall was lined with family photographs- birthdays, university graduations, her beaming face as she stood in front of her first car. Her father was behind the camera every time.

She slowly opened the door to her bedroom. Grabbing her phone from the bedside table, she sunk into her bed and pulled the sheets tightly around her. She could barely breathe, but she enveloped herself further and further into her cocoon. Then, she switched on her phone and listened to the recently saved voicemail messages for the first time.  

Her pillow was soaked with tears, and she was still wide awake hours later, when the sun rose and her mother arrived for breakfast.