By Rabab Ahmed

A gathering dusk cooled down the day's heat, bringing with it an evening sky full of haze and shadows. An afterthought of a breeze blew by, carrying with it the nauseating smells of turmeric and onions. Several glasses of juice stood ready, ice cubes rapidly watering them down. The group sitting in a half circle breathed a collective sigh of relief; a general sense of accomplishment settling around them at the day's end.

She continued to watch the distant birds, stark blots of black against a pale lavender sky. The pages of her memory turned gently, moving her into the unpleasant past.

She had always been slight for her age; at nine years old she was the shortest and thinnest in her class, always subject to ridicule. Puberty was scarcely a speck in the distant future. The small mounds that were the precursors to breasts were barely visible under her loose dresses. She ran and played with boys on the dusty streets, equally comfortable as a tomboy as she was in puffy party dresses. Like all girls her age, she wore a scarf for her Qur'an classes.

As dutiful Muslim children, both she and her brother had to take Islamic Studies classes that involved memorising parts of the Qur'an and learning about the lives of the prophets. The maulavi, a religious teacher who they called Kaku, would come to the house to deliver his lessons. He had known them since they were toddlers; he was more a family friend than just a teacher.

The kids learned about virtues in these religious classes. All the prophets led their lives by example: they were respectful to elders and even to children, and they were always kind to humans and animals alike. They also learned about the role of women as leaders in society and in the home. They learned, most importantly, that children should always obey their parents and elders, particularly the religious ones.

One blistering afternoon while the parents were out, the siblings battled their schoolbooks waiting for numbers and words to magically seep into their brains. When the doorbell rang they jumped up eagerly, excited at the unexpected break. Maulavi Kaku had stopped by to pay his respects to the parents. They chatted with him, proudly displaying the new family of birds they found up in the corner of their balcony roof.

He couldn't stay long, but asked to see what they were studying. While she was showing him some particularly gruesome math exercises, he asked her brother to get him a glass of water. As she turned the coarse pages, pointing to her mistakes, she felt a cold hand suddenly being shoved into the neck of her dress. Shocked into speechlessness, she couldn't look up. She felt a fingernail scratch her nipples, then cold fingers grasping something that wasn't even there.

"Hmm, and what is the answer you have here?" he asked, his hands cupping her invisible breasts.

She stammered a reply but didn't know what she said, her body taut with bewilderment and fear. One of his hands remained at her back, just below her neck. The clammy palm pressed against her spine as the other trespassed across one breast to the other. A fat thumb and forefinger pressed one little nipple, then the next.

At her brother's returning footsteps, the hand dashed out of the dress and rested on the table next to the math book.

"Ahh, thank you," he murmured. "Nothing like a cold glass of water in this heat."

She remained motionless, staring at the crisscrossing fibers in the pages. There were little golden and black threads that looked like embedded cat hair. The paper was yellowed white; the colour of milk that's been left out too long.

He drank the water noisily. Gluck. Gluck. Gluck. He smacked his lips in satisfaction and replaced the glass.

"Alhamdulillah… Remember, kids: always say Alhamdulillah after you do anything. It shows appreciation of what we have been given by Allah."

She remained motionless and mute. She felt confused, afraid, and unclean. She didn't know what to do. She couldn't formulate what had happened into words. Even if she had the right words, she didn't know whom she could tell — her parents were out of the question. It was embarrassing and unfathomable. It felt just as unpleasant to tell anyone as it felt to have those rough fingers mauling her chest.

She braced herself and raised her head. She smiled at no one in particular and relaxed her tiny little fists. There were half-moon marks on her palms, right below the life-line.

"Well, I should go. I have some classes left today still. Give your parents my salaam, okay?"

She finally looked up at him, expecting to see some expression of acknowledgment of what he had done, some remorse, some feeling that she knew he must have had. His dark brown eyes stared back at her unabashedly, his expression a blank. Nothing unusual has happened, it said.

The kids walked Maulavi Kaku to the front door and said their goodbyes. Her brother skipped off, tunelessly singing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles song. The afternoon sun continued to bake the cement floor of the veranda. She watched a mirage of waves rising from the ground, the tune insensibly whirring faster and faster in her mind. She could hear distant sounds of construction and crows cawing. She walked to the bathroom and checked herself in the mirror. She looked the same.

Those cold fingers slid under the neck of her dresses a few more times. Each time she remained frozen, confusion and hatred spinning circles inside her head. It always lasted several seconds, until the meaningless errand ended. But it always felt like too many minutes.

The last time it happened, the rough hands with the purple veins decided to go under her clothes from a different direction. She had been home alone, looking after her baby sister as her mother ran errands with her brother. She was wearing her favourite skirt; a multicoloured striped skirt made by her mother. The border of the skirt had a yellow ruffle that rose and fell with her legs when she raced her brother.

Maulavi Kaku came in, expressing his desire to see the newborn. She felt uneasy, but she knew she couldn't refuse him entry because he was, after all, like family. The kids had been taught that one must always respect elders, no matter what. She also knew that she couldn't answer to her parents even if she had had the courage to ask him to leave. She didn't have the vocabulary for what he had done to her before. Discussing shameful things just was not done.

This time, she hoped it would be different. She hoped he would forget she was alone and that he truly just wanted to see the baby. They had barely moved across the living room when she found herself shoved backwards onto the worn velvet couch. He pushed up her skirt. She felt the bald spots on the couch scratching at her back. The vertical stripes of her skirt bunched up near her throat, the lines looking crisscrossed and horizontal. His moist, lumpy pink lips assaulted her nipples. For a few seconds she could not move although she wasn't being held down. As the numbness subsided, she felt a wave of nausea overcome her; the sensation of the wet tongue was repulsive.

Suddenly, sharp adult teeth cut into her skin.

"OW!" she yelled, coming out of her paralysis of fear. Outraged, her legs reacted immediately and automatically; a sturdy push had the maulavi thrown back on his heels. He was nearly as wide-eyed in astonishment as she. Scowling, she scrambled off the couch smoothing her dress and stepped away from him.

He got up quickly letting out a small, embarrassed laugh. He didn't speak or look at her.

What happened next remained a mystery to her for many years. Her mind built a fortress against these memories immediately following the events. All she remembered for days afterward were the little blue-black bruises circling her aching nipples. There were no tears, there were no secrets shared. She locked it all away, hiding everything as successfully as she hid the bruises.

The family hadn't returned to their home country since having immigrated to a land of alleged prosperity and hope. She was 17 years old when she was told they would be seeing Maulavi Kaku upon their return, as he wanted to pay his respects to her parents. In stony silence, she heard the words, feeling a disquiet of birds somewhere deep below her navel.

The images resurfaced. She recalled seeing herself staring at the mirror, at the strange bruises on her chest. They had remained sensitive for days. They were perfect little moons, purple and painful.

Whether he had left of his own accord, or whether her mother had come home that day was still a blur. It had never happened again, that much was clear. She had wondered how he could do this to her when he had children – daughters! – of his own. She recalled feeling baffled, and mortified.

She had been terrified of him, she remembered.

As the layers of her memory began to unravel, one naked realisation lay bare: blocks of remembrances still remained unlocked, but a transformation had taken place. Over the years, a wall had solidified over her anger and fear. Like slow-moving concrete, acceptance had sealed the crevices, leaving her unbreakable.

He could no longer terrify her.

Several uncomfortable plastic chairs had been set out for them on a patio. The family sat around discussing how the population had grown, how the infrastructure had changed, how everything seemed different. The city's dusty skyline which had once been open fields were now dotted with countless apartment buildings like a forgotten cemetery. The rich and the poor, the haves and have-nots, all vied for space to breathe, just as they always had.

"But some things remain the same! You're still as skinny as ever," one of her cousins teased.

She merely smiled politely and looked away. Heavy footsteps behind her signaled the arrival of their awaited guest. Her thoughts took flight with the evening birds. Everything changes, even if it looks the same.

Maulavi Kaku sat down next to her parents. With mechanical respect, she said her salaams to him. She did not partake in the conversation, nor listen to what was being said. For a while she sat nearly motionless, looking anywhere but at this man who was not a man. The hum of conversation lulled.

"And how is school coming along? Graduating high school, aren't you? You've grown so much!"

The words remained suspended in air for a few moments before she realised they were being addressed to her. She finally looked at him fully in the face.

So much had been erased but she had never forgotten what he looked like. His salt-and-pepper beard had turned mostly white. The dark spot in the middle of his forehead had become darker over the years. Those who prostrated often before Allah had the mark on the forehead; it was the mark of a humble and pious man whose head touched the ground habitually.

An imperceptible shiver went through her body as her glance flitted over the lower portion of his face. He had put down the glass of cold juice and licked his lips, awaiting her response.

Alhamdullilah... the words floated alongside the pungent smell of fried food.

Those words which had distressed her for so many years no longer had that effect. The recollection was rattled, but she remained unperturbed. She contemplated each memory, holding it by its invisible threads. Sitting under the oncoming dusk, she picked up each one, and then discarded it gently. There were no questions to be asked, no answers to be offered.

"Yes, we have all grown," she responded with a slight upturn of her lips.

Distraction arrived in the form of a tea tray with cookies, sweets, and spicy things. Little streams of water ran down the glasses making a dark pool on the table. A sudden cool wind came in from somewhere, and she let out a final sigh.

Rising from her chair, she said quietly but firmly, "I'm going inside now," and walked away. There was no more any need for politeness or consideration. For all she believed, this man deserved nothing but to remain in the darkness of her unremembered memory. When they returned home, she would finally tell her parents.

Stepping away, she looked up towards the clouds once more. The sky was the colour of a bruise.

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