But as Chumbawamba sings, I get knocked down, but I get up again. You're never gonna keep me down.
***
Eli and Alice is a work in progress. It began on a blog. I decided to terminate the blog, and put the novel on hold while working on another project. Then went back to it, and have been working on it with other interruptions
.
I began listing various dates as deadlines. Now, it will be done (whatever that means) when it will be done (I won't say the ooparwaala's will be done). It is the baby not quite ready to exit the womb just yet.
Khair without further ado, an excerpt:
Mera chopaan – Yasmeen
Elisheba was glad that she had opted out of teaching this summer. She had thought of writing another collection of stories but she had not been able to concentrate much since the assault. The bandages were finally removed and she joked about how she always had wanted to wear a turban.
At night, she still saw masked men in her dreams and the last thing she remembered from those ghastly visions was darkness. Alice offered to stay in her room at night but what could she do? How could she stop the fear that Elisheba could not shake every time she opened her eyes to black silhouettes? In those moments, she would remember the twenty-third Psalm. Her mother recited Khudavand mera chopaan hai during her moments of terror and all Elisheba could recall besides The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want was Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. She repeated those words until sleep returned.
As she ate half a pita with feta for breakfast, she thought it was strange that prayer had reentered her life after so many years; years where she knew it took a little more than good friends and good luck to get her through the troubles that had gripped her throughout her adult life. Even an excellent friend like Alice could not keep her from the depression that began in early childhood and resurfaced several times, some worse than others.
There were moments when she was pushed to the brink, when she felt this force like a magnet, or the bottom of a vacuum cleaner, pull her in the middle of the street with a semi headed straight for her, or towards a window on the seventh floor. When that happened, when she really thought she would act on her suicidal tendencies, there was another force that kept her from doing that. Different names could be given this, God, conscience, Alice, her mother. Elisheba decided one day that she did not want to die before her mother. Not by her own doing, at least. How many times had she heard anguished mothers say, “the hardest thing in the world is to lose a child.”? This was something she did not want to put her mother through. These self-destructive moments were her Goliath to fight (perhaps Voldemort was a better moniker).
She came across people at college who told her that faith would save her in her difficult times. Elisheba wanted to believe that, but she did not want it thrust upon her. She did not want the born-agains to tell her how fucked up her life was. As if their triumphalist, judgmental attitude was any better. She was not a person completely devoid of faith. She simply was not impressed with what certain people said and did in the name of God, and deen which they superimposed upon country.
Her thoughts went back to prayer. As a teenager, she sometimes negotiated bargains with God. If the Omnipotent kept her mother from being hurt, she would go to church. She would pray more than once a day and before all meals. She would be good. How utterly preposterous that seemed now, decades later. Elisheba had tried to be good though in order to spare her mother pain. Ultimately she would learn that it did not matter if she did everything her parents expected to or not. Whether she was good, or not, it had no effect on those who caused pain for they would continue to do so, irregardless.
She stared at the photo of Yasmeen that was the wallpaper on her laptop screen. Before Yasmeen was born, it was not just the possibility of spina bifida that frightened her. She wondered if she was truly parent material. What if she was more of an authoritarian than authoritative? And she certainly did not want to make up for parts of her own childhood by being permissive. Was reading book after book about parenthood really going to help once this flesh and bone image was before her? “It couldn't do any harm.” Alice told her. “Then you read them!” Elisheba pushed various texts towards her.
Yasmeen was born in the first month of the 21st century. And within days of her birth, Nick, who was now married to Anna, and his parents were by her side, coaxing her into letting them make preparations for baptism. Elisheba adamantly refused. Alice jumped into this circus as well by confronting Nick, “Is this really what you wanted? What's next? Are you going to bring in the priest and lawyers as well?”
Her fury stung him. He never had seen her this angry with him. Not even after the break-up with Elisheba. “Yasmeen is my daughter too, Alice. I should have a say in how she is raised.”
“I get it.” Alice kept her gaze locked on him. “You couldn't mold Eli into what you wanted, so now you want to do this. You left Elisheba long before she ended your relationship because you could not accept how she felt, what she wanted, and vice-versa. So now you want to fight with her about this?”
“Alice, really, this is none of your business.” He spoke through gritted teeth. Alice looked to see if anyone was watching them, then quickly pushed Nick against a wall. “If you ever loved Elisheba at all, you will think about what it is you're doing.” She saw the pain in his eyes, released him, and walked away. She did not speak to him for a long while after that.
She did tell Elisheba about that exchange of words, and for a brief time, Elisheba wavered. Perhaps she should let him do what he wished, and let his parents and Anna be responsible for the spiritual upbringing (and the worldly one) of their child. On the other hand, Elisheba did not want Anna involved. Yasmeen was her daughter. She had just as much right to raise her in the way she saw fit.
Maybe she should have read a book that prepared her for this struggle. Even if she had, it could not have helped much in the emotional attachment that Elisheba still had where Nick was concerned.
Yasmeen was baptized in the Greek Orthodox church. The priest's wife, Presvytera Irini, would be her nouna, her godmother. Every Sunday, for the first five years of her life, she received communion, and spent the entire day with Nick's family, which now included Demetri, a year younger than her. Yasmeen and Demetri never achieved that bond that Nick hoped they would. As much love as Yasmeen wanted to shower upon someone she saw as her brother, Demetri rejected it. It was troubling to everyone, particularly Anna who feared that this would create a huge rift between father and son. No one, not his papou and yiayia, or his parents could convince him what a good person Yasmeen could be in his life.
Partly as a result of this tension, Yasmeen began to spend less time around her father and his family. She also was becoming aware of the differences between her mother's life and Alice's, and her father's. She did not like the things Anna said about Alice (“that lesbian cannot be a good influence on your daughter.”), or what she overheard her grandparents say about her mother. She had not heard the word lesbian before. It was never used at home.
One afternoon when the three of them were having lunch together, Yasmeen blurted out, “What's a lesbian?” She noticed that Alice almost spat out the water she had just sipped.
Elisheba was thoughtful for a few moments before she answered, “Meeni, a lesbian is a woman who loves other women. A woman who is with another woman not just as a friend but in the way your father is with Anna.”
“Anna said that Alice is a lesbian.” Elisheba and Alice exchanged looks. They could imagine what else Anna said about her. Alice cleared her throat.
“I am, jaanu.” She said quietly.
“Is it bad to be one, Alice?”
“Well I don't believe it is. But certain people do. Like Anna.” Elisheba gave her a warning nudge. They had agreed not to influence Yasmeen in any way with whatever bothered them about the Nikopoulos family.
“Well I don't believe it is. But certain people do. Like Anna.” Elisheba gave her a warning nudge. They had agreed not to influence Yasmeen in any way with whatever bothered them about the Nikopoulos family.
The five year old Yasmeen's curiosity grew, “Why does Anna think it is bad?”
There were hesitations before answering these questions. They knew that they would come up, but Alice had wanted to tell Yasmeen herself. Damn that Anna or whoever it was!
Elisheba volunteered to tackle this one. “In the eyes of many people, from the beginning of when the holy books like the bible tell us the world was created, man was made, and woman was made to be with man. For a man to be with a man, or a woman to be with a woman is looked upon as a sin, something that is very wrong and hurtful not only to that person, but to the community in which we live.”
Yasmeen slowly drank in this information. Alice watched her before she continued, “And because of this idea that for a woman to be with a woman is hurtful, even dangerous, men and women either have had to hide the fact that they love men and women, or they have been open about it and punished for it.”
Yasmeen became panic-stricken. Visions of various punishments entered her head, “Mommy, are you a lesbian too?”
Elisheba laughed, “No, baby, I am not. But I don't think there's anything bad or evil about being one. Love, true love that exists between two people, be it a woman and a woman, or a woman and a man, can never be wrong or evil.”
They sat quietly for a while. Yasmeen ran her fork through the rice, scattering the grains all over her plate.
“I don't want to go to baba's house anymore.” Her face was lowered, almost touching the table. Elisheba and Alice both moved their chairs closer to her. They could hear the sniffling, see the giant teardrop that plopped on her food.
Alice put her arms around her, “Meeni, your baba gets to see so little of you as it is. This will hurt him. And your baba loves me. He has ever since I was a kid. So don't think badly of him, eh?”
“But Demetri is still so mean. And everyone else . . . .”
“Everyone else is going to think what they think. You cannot change that jaanu, not always.” Elisheba put a napkin to her daughter's nose. “All you can do when someone says something bad about Alice, or me, or anyone for that matter or something you do not like, is to point out more than one good thing about them. And then walk away. And let me tell you something, little one. Walking away is the hardest thing to do. But the earlier you learn how to do it, the better.”
Alice caressed her hair, “Do you think I am bad, Meeni?”
Yasmeen put her little fingers under her chin, “When you don't give me what I want, yes.”
“Uff, pagli!” She hugged her even tighter. Everyone laughed.
Elisheba stared at her daughter's photograph. The image of her eleven year old was the only thing she saw from the moment the masked men (were they all men?) assaulted her to the time she collapsed in the emergency room after having been semi-conscious in the siren roaring van. Her hand reached to touch the back of her head. It was not only the head for which she was taking painkillers, but also her legs. She tried to close the memory of having her legs kicked and pulled. Her lower back, one of the most sensitive parts of her body was spared but that mattered little considering the battering she received elsewhere.
Alice and Yasmeen had been with her in the hospital every day. So had her mother. Nirmala wanted to stay longer to take care of her but Elisheba insisted if anyone needed help and care, it was Nirmala. Javed was there at the beginning, for a couple of days, then returned later to collect their mother.
Brother and sister had not been very close since their childhood years. He would not voice it to anyone but Nirmala and Elisheba; he thought Alice shared responsibility in what happened to his sister. What if Yasmeen had been in the apartment? He tried to relate this in a manner that did not involve Elisheba putting up the wall she did during most of their conversations.
“It is not Alice's fault that there are people in the world who do not know how to deal with situations they do not like without coercion or violence.” Elisheba countered weakly. Javed flung his arms in the air and part of his response to her was the usual line he used to remind her of her thoughtlessness in matters. “Think of what this is doing to our mother.”
Nirmala Gill, who loved Alice like a daughter, did not attach any blame to her. She struggled with the idea of Alice being a lesbian as had her own parents but she had seen what her husband did to their children and she did not want to do the same with Elisheba or Alice. Unlike her husband, or her son, she did not think Elisheba was a lost cause. They had spoken on the phone earlier in the day. Daughter reassuring mother that everything was fine. Everything was going to be alright. She did not know how that was going to be, but she had to hold on to that hope. As long as Yasmeen was in her life, hope was a must.
