The Black-Marketer's Daughter (an excerpt)
BY SUMAN MALLICK
From The Black-Marketer’s Daughter by Suman Mallick, available October 13, 2020.
WASIM LETS GO of her hand just before they reach the children’s playroom at the shelter, and it irks Zuleikha. She remembers how shy her son used to be when she first started taking him to his daycare. Wasim would cling to her, hesitant to break the chain link between his little fist and hers, and seek the comfort of her voice and the reassurance of her answer by asking repeatedly when she was coming back to pick him up. Now he carries on with the air of someone who is not only more familiar with their new dwelling than she is (which is true, since he has, indeed, been there several days longer), but also a boy who has acquired a heaping helping of animal nous and aged a lot more than the week—a year, perhaps—he has had to live alone without his parents.
She reaches for his shoulder and gently holds him back, leans in front of him and says, “You don’t want to say bye to your Mamajaan?”
Wasim steals a calculating glance in the direction of the other kids in the playroom, and Zuleikha’s eyes follow his. The room is painted a festive yellow, a rainbow arching across the long side wall. Near the front, a young attendant sits on a wooden armchair, rocking a baby with a bottle, while a toddler crawls around nearby. Past them, a mite of boys and girls grouped by gender play boisterously, while further back, a smaller boy sits quietly on a chair, ignoring the play, reading, utterly self-possessed and unfathomably inscrutable. Next to him sits another attendant, an older woman in a burkha wearing an expression of primness, keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings.
“Mamajaan!” Wasim mutters in protest, and Zuleikha flushes, conscious only of the urge to throw her arms around him again. She has smothered him since being reunited with him the previous evening. Wasim’s face assumes an expression of consternation, as if he can see right through her, and she realizes that if she does what her heart desires she stands only to embarrass her son, and gain further distance from him in return.
“I’ll see you at lunch, okay?” she says, ignoring the pang of anguish that pricks her heart. She gives him a gentle pat on the shoulder, urging him on. Relief washes across Wasim’s face. He turns around, takes off his shoes and places them in the bin by the door, and makes his way to the pack in the back.
From the children’s playroom, Zuleikha walks across the narrow corridor with dark carpet and whitewashed walls, past the reception desk and the row of administrative offices—including Reza’s—none yet open. Upon reaching the family room at the other end of the corridor, she hears someone weeping.
A woman sits crumpled on a chair, surrounded by several others—standing, hovering over her. A pair of women kneel by her, one of them rubbing her knee affectionately, while a middle-aged, corpulent woman in a bright red t-shirt and ash-colored sweatpants sits in the chair next to her, an arm around the crying woman’s shoulder.
The woman in the red t-shirt says, “You miss him. We all do. But it go away. Listen to me: it go away.”
“You not understand, Yusra,” the other woman says discomposedly. “I was sad after the lawyer. I tell jihal we take vote. Massii and Mohamed say yes. Me and Sofia? We say no. We not want to go back home. Then Massii say, ‘What about Abbi’s vote? If Abbi here, Abbi vote yes, I know. Then it’s three-two. We win.’ Like football. Sofia say, ‘No. I like it here. Ommee’s happy here.’ Then Massii hit Sofia. Hit her neck, just like his Abbi hit me. Make Sofia cry. Now I not know what to do.”
Zuleikha feels, as one does when accidentally stumbling upon the climactic scene of an unfamiliar soap opera episode, guiltily voyeuristic, unable to look away. Hardback plastic chairs are strewn haphazardly across the room, and she finds one a little farther away from the group and sits down. Her slight movements and noise cause the other women to turn. She forms what she hopes is a sympathetic, solemn hint of a smile on her face, but they pay no mind to her and turn their attention back to the crying woman. An older woman starts to speak in Farsi, but Yusra’s voice carries over hers.
“And you want to go back to that, Atifah?” she says, patting the young woman on the shoulder. “You say he beat. He show knife. You say you scared for him, you scared for all family. He give you no money, not let you call home. You cook, he eat. The jihal eat. You not eat. He not even tell you nine-one-one what is. Now your jihal hit like he, just like my jihal. If you go back, you learn to hit. How I learn to hit, I not take any more hit so I hit back. Then you come back here again, you and I fight. If you live, and come back here, we fight. Fight is all we do with our lives.”
The other women nod in agreement, make short exclamations of assent. One shivers exaggeratedly as if struck by a sudden chill. Zuleikha tries to guess Atifah’s age, but can’t. The woman wears a bright blue Sana’ani curtain-style dress, and her face—except for her tear-stained eyes—are covered by a black Al-Momq face-cover, with Arabic inscriptions colored red and white. Now she pulls the Al-Momq over those eyes, and her body is racked by a torrent of tears.
Dr. Reza Yousef appears at the door. She lingers for a long moment on the threshold, a benevolent smile upon her lips. Her eyes hover over each face, including Zuleikha’s, in unembarrassed looks of appraisal, and once again it occurs to Zuleikha that Reza might be one of those rare souls that never feels the need to resort to subterfuge, or search for a lost temper. The director of the shelter motions the other women to sit down. The women surrounding Atifah disperse and take chairs, while Reza takes Yusra’s vacated spot next to the aqueous mess that is Atifah, who immediately places her head on Reza’s lap like a distraught child.
“Is Allah’s destiny for me, Reza,” Atifah says, her voice a hoarse whisper. “Lawyer say criminal court hard to prove if jihal not testify. Mohamed not know what happen, Sofia not know what happen, not see anything. She five year, Reza. Five! Mohamed—three. Now Massii, he know what happen. But he love his Abbi. He not say any bad thing about Abbi. So is his Abbi’s word and my word. Who judge believe? But in family court their Abbi get visit…ation. He even get jihal, because he make money, I not make any money. That’s what lawyer say. One way or another, I face him. Have to. Not today, not tomorrow, but someday. I not escape. So I think. I think I go back to Iraq, ask judge. But lawyer say the judge not say yes. And if jihal go to Iraq, what they see then? No. It better go back to him, the most thing is make jihal happy.”
“Let me recite you a poem,” Reza says, stroking Atifah’s hair.
A collective groan escapes from the group of other women.
“Reza, this real problem, Atifah’s!” Yusra says in a warning tone. “Last night Huda see her in lobby, two at night. She on the phone with he.”
“That is a real problem, and now you know why we don’t have phones in the rooms. It’s why, if you have cell phones, I ask you to never answer when he calls or texts you. Once you start the conversation, he’ll say sorry, act nice, and it will become that much harder to get back on your own feet. But you know what? We have a lot of real problems. And we’ll get to them in a minute, but before that—just listen! This is a short one, and it applies to all of us here, even though it’s a thousand years old.”
Reza recites a verse in Farsi, and only the older woman in the group nods as if she understands, while the rest look on as if in a trance. Zuleikha can only make out a word or two, yet she is struck by the melody of Reza’s voice.
“Our treasure. The world’s treasure. Which is why an Englishman wanted to translate it, so the rest of the world could also read our Omar Khayyám,” Reza continues.
“‘There was a Door to which I found no Key
There was a Veil past which I could not see
Some little Talk awhile of Me and Thee
There seemed—and then no more of Thee and Me.’
“We made it through the stone ages,” Reza says, “and we are still going to make it through this age too, because they can’t live without us. If we’re gone, they’re gone. Now that might make you feel as if you’re nothing but a womb, but you—all of you—helped write Tanweer’s college application last week, and I know you all know about Fatima’s custody extension. Look at all that and tell me whether you think there’s hope.”
Zuleikha feels a lump in her throat. She looks around, sees another woman in a burnt orange kaftan dabbing her eyes, but Atifah has now stopped crying. In the hush stillness of the room, Reza’s voice sounds like that of an enchantress come to cast a spell.
“So yes, we’ll talk about Atifah’s meeting with the lawyer. There are options to think about. Intessar has an immigration hearing coming up—that’s exciting, and I want someone to be the menu coordinator for the big al Mi’raj dinner in May. It’s on a Saturday this year and all of our trustees, board members and major donors will be here, so it’s a big deal. But before we do all that, let’s meet our new neighbor, Zuleikha.”
The room falls silent for a long moment.
Then Yusra says, pointing to the television mounted at a corner of the room, “We know who is she. We know what she done.”
None of the women turn around and greet Zuleikha.
“I HOPE YOU’LL not make too big a deal of their behavior today,” Reza says to Zuleikha after all the other women have left the room. “They’ll warm up to you, and when that happens, they’ll become very protective, especially that Yusra, mark my words. It’s just that they’re not used to seeing one of their own leading off the local news two nights in a row. In any case, I’ll have a word with them.”
“Please don’t. It’ll only make it worse. I think I get it. They don’t think I’m a victim.”
A hint of a smile appears on the corners of Reza’s lips.
“I always wanted to play an instrument. How did you get interested in the piano?”
Zuleikha tells Reza about her Papajaan’s bootleg collection of Ahmad Jamal records and his perpetual fascination with a man born Baptist in Pennsylvania turning to Allah for the eternal salvation of his soul. They continue to talk awhile of commonplace matters, and Zuleikha is grateful for the distraction of chit chat. Reza gets up and opens the window blinds, flooding the family room with sunlight, before walking across and straightening the arras hanging from the wall, tenderly running her fingers along the tapestry’s resplendent brown stallions with their intricately sewn milky-white stockings.
“A gift—someone who wishes to remain anonymous donated this from his private collection when we opened the shelter,” she tells Zuleikha. “Hand stitched by Yoruk bride-girls in some Karaviran village at the nook of the mountain of Hassan. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wondered if I can find another rich collector to buy it from us at a fair price. But then, I think, all these rich people know each other, right? How would it look if the buyer invited the donor to a party and, well, you know! That just wouldn’t look right.”
“You would make a fine piano player with those long fingers,” Zuleikha says.
“Thank you, dear.” Reza pulls up a chair and sits across Zuleikha, their knees grazing. “But do you want to know why I’ve thought of selling it? People like Atifah have been treated their entire lives like those bride-girls. They come from places where even if they find a way to go to the police, the police will turn around and bring them right back home. You know places like that, don’t you? Then they arrive at this country by marriage, they think they’ll be free from the lives of their mothers and grandmothers, and instead, they are told, ‘You’re mine, I can do with you whatever I want.’ Do you know what I am talking about?”
For the first time Zuleikha feels uncomfortable in Reza’s presence. Her mind boggles a bit as she silently observes the pleasant lady who amiably asks her these questions. Reza is nowhere near as old as her mother, maybe not even fifty, she thinks—an observation that makes her shudder at the thought of how drugged up and disoriented she must have been at the hospital to have confused one with the other. The few wrinkles on Reza’s face, if anything, add a layer of bearing and assurance, lest anyone confuses her candor and mischievous demeanor with youth.
“Until that girl Aasiya got beheaded by her estranged husband up in Buffalo, New York, nobody even acknowledged that this was a problem for Muslim women in this country. I went to mosques, parties, restaurants and businesses asking for help, and all I heard were two things: ‘No,’ and, ‘You got a Ph.D. for that?’ I showed them pictures of shards of glass stuck in the back of one woman after her husband pushed her through a table. They didn’t want to see them. So if one of our girls somehow got past the myth that men are superior and violence is permitted, somehow decided to risk being tarred a prostitute for standing up to her husband, was somehow intrepid enough to call the police, what do you think happened? She ended up in a shelter that served pork and had no prayer room. That’s like trying to save the skin on your back by agreeing to let someone break your backbone instead.
“The reason I’m telling you this, Zuleikha, is that I think you’ll agree your situation is different from the other women’s. And they have heard the statements made by your husband’s lawyer on the evening news; they’ve seen the newspaper stories. They may not have understood everything, but they understood just enough to form their own opinions. You were everywhere for a few days last week. So you’ll forgive them for being resentful and acting a little boorish, won’t you?”
“Of course,” Zuleikha says, caught unaware and feeling embarrassed. “A nurse at the hospital mentioned the news once, but I had no idea all of this was going on.”
“Not your fault, dear, and I know you will. Which brings me to the other thing I want to talk about,” Reza replies.
Zuleikha is vaguely aware of another quality hidden beneath the layers of compassion and grace, mischief and friendship in Reza’s personality, but she cannot quite put her finger on what it is.
Reza leans in close, pats Zuleikha on the knee and says, “Some of our money comes from various foundations, but we also have these individual donors, Zuleikha, that have standing in the community. They want to help women and children in need, but they are all also concerned about protecting the image of Muslims in general; surely you can understand why, can’t you?” She waits for Zuleikha to nod in agreement before continuing. “They have other vested interests. Some, for example, are involved with setting up an Islamic Tribunal right here in North Texas, so that we Muslims can settle our disputes cheaply, according to our customs and laws. And so I’ve been asked to set up a meeting between you and a couple of the gentlemen involved with this tribunal. They think they can help with your situation. I’ll go with you; they can’t come here. They’re not supposed to know the exact location of our shelter, even though I suspect that they do. Just like the media, who have been calling me every day to see if they can get five minutes with you. I’ve said no to them, of course! But I can’t say no to this meeting, dear.”
“I see. When is this meeting supposed to take place?”
“Only when you’re feeling strong enough. But the sooner the better; isn’t that how it always is with these things? Same with the police investigators, and let me tell you: they’re really anxious to get hold of you. So if you’re up for it, why don’t we get this informal tribunal get-together out of the way? Tomorrow? Your husband is out on bail and already lawyered-up, as they say. There’s an automatic sixty-one-day protective order—what’s called an ex-parte—prohibiting him from contacting you, but here we are already a week into it. You have many decisions to make, but don’t worry. You’ll not have to do anything you don’t want to do. Remember, I’ll always have your back. But today…why don’t you just spend time with your son and rest?”
Suman Mallick’s debut novel The Black-Marketer’s Daughter was shortlisted for the Disquiet Open Borders Book Prize, and praised by the jury as a “complicated and compelling story” of our times. It will be released October 13, 2020, by Atmosphere Press. He is also the new Assistant Managing Editor of the literary magazine Under the Gum Tree, now entering its 10th year. He received his Master of Fine Arts from Portland State University, where he taught in the English and Creative Writing departments. He makes his home in Texas with his beloved daughter and dog. His homes away from home are Calcutta, India, and Portland, Oregon. Follow Suman on Twitter or Instagram.
