The Good Muslim Read Free Page A

continued his sermon. Now the women were moving back and forth to the rhythm of his words. It occurred to Maya that when her father died there would have been a similar scene, men in white caps, the air scented with rosewater. She stole a glance at her mother. Ammoo was wiping tears with the back of her hand. She looked the same, exactly the same.
    The Huzoor began to talk about Silvi. How pious she was, how good. How devoted to her faith. Sitting among these mourners, none of whom were crying because as Muslims they were instructed to mourn with modesty, Maya wondered how she could have kept away for so long – from this house, and this city, and this mother and this brother. Even though she had been the one to choose her exile, it was as though a thick skin had formed over it, and it appeared to her now as a mystery. On the other side of this curtain was her brother, newly widowed, and his son, Zaid. She thought of meeting him, of the beard that must be thick on his chin, and she remembered how much she had loved him, how fiercely she had needed him to be like her, how she had turned away when he had leaned towards God, taken it personally, as though he had done it to offend her.
    When Ammoo closed her eyes and began to recite the final prayer, Maya looked closer at her. Maybe she looked a little older. Dark bruise shapes under her eyes, a line on her forehead. But it was only when her mother turned around after everyone had said Ameen, when she turned around with wet cheeks and smiled again, that Maya noticed one of her teeth missing at the back of her mouth. Then the years opened up and took shape – the shape of that molar, craggy and smooth, big and small, a chasm.
    Maya had told Nazia about the mud, about the laugh. Nazia was indignant. ‘Those thugs,’ she said, fanning herself. ‘If this one turns out to be a boy I’m going to lock him up and only let him out for school.’
    It had never been hotter. No one could remember a sari drying so fast on the washing line, the chillies thinning to husks in the field. The pond had begun to shrink back, and there was talk of a threat to the mangoes. ‘I know,’ Maya said. ‘Let’s go swimming. It’s hot enough to drive anyone mad.’
    ‘Really? We can do that?’
    A beat. There were rules about pregnant women, about where they could bathe, but Maya brushed them aside; no one believed those things any more. She had been lecturing them for years now, about science and superstition and their rights. ‘Why not?’ she said to Nazia. She would remember it later, the moment of pause before she said yes, but on that day all she could think about was the water, its green coolness easing the lash of that summer.
    They sat on the steps leading down to the pond, their feet submerged. Nazia lowered herself in and dipped her head under water. ‘Subhan Allah,’ she cried, ‘thanks be to God for such a thing!’
    ‘If my wife wants to cool her feet,’ Masud declared, ‘no one can stop her.’
    The men of the village had appeared in front of his house, shaking their heads. A pregnant woman in the pond? It was too much.
    They huddled around the cooking fire that night, Maya and Nazia, fanning the bits of wood until they flared high over the pot.
    ‘What a fuss,’ Nazia said. ‘I hear they’re having a meeting.’
    ‘Ignore them,’ Maya said. ‘Main thing is Masud is a good man. They’ll tire themselves out eventually.’ She didn’t tell her friend that she had heard the boys at her window again, that she had slept the night before with the windows shut, the heat-clotted air stopping her breath.
    After the Milaad the women passed around dishes of food and Ammoo began playing the hostess, encouraging everyone to eat. Someone offered Maya a plate but she refused, her tongue heavy in her mouth. She was suddenly overcome with weariness, and she considered slipping into Sohail’s old room and putting her head down for a few minutes. No one would notice. She closed her