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| Vol. 4, Issue 5 May 2012 |
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Fiction & Poetry |
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Fiction |
Raisins Not Virgins
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This month’s short story was originally a play, written and produced in 2003. The author starred
in The Workshop Theater Company production of Raisins Not Virgins in 2005 before it was made
into a screenplay selected for the prestigious Tribeca All Access program at the Tribeca Film
Festival in 2008.
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PRIL 2000: RIZWAN
When Sahar Salam’s mother called her early one morning to tell her about a prospective suitor, she steeled herself for the bad news. She stared out the window at the rows of tenement buildings behind her studio apartment and refused, |
for the most part, to listen. If she had, this is what she would have heard:
Fordham Law School..
From a good family.
Tall.
Fair skinned.
Born in Maryland.
Family owned business.
Older sister just married (sigh) to gorah but got him to convert, which is, of course, a great boon.
Youngest of five.
Strayed once (also in general gorah direction) but caught himself just in time.
“Oh, and you will like this, Sahar, he’s very liberal. He encouraged his sisters to work and study.”
Sahar heard the last bit, rolled her eyes, and said, “Does he have all his own teeth? Because that would be the determining factor for me.”
There was silence, and Sahar heard the phone go dead. But she knew that wasn’t the last of it. Her mother, the battle-ax, would never admit defeat that easily. She was gathering strength, amassing size like Godzilla under the ocean, for when the real war began. Sahar would have to see him. She would be manipulated into it, and she always gave herself over to her mother’s guilt trips.
Her mother had pointed out, much to Sahar’s chagrin, that she wanted to be loved, and there was no use trying to be all modern about it.
“There are only two things all human beings crave, Sahar,” she said one day, “no matter how big their time share in the Hamptons is or how many of those fancy Jewish shoes, which you cannot afford, you have in your closet: love and recognition. If you marry well, you will attain both.”
“I don’t think Manolo Blahnik is Jewish, mom,” Sahar replied. “I mean he may be. What does that have to do with anything?” Her mother, however, had already moved on to another subject.
Sahar knew when her mother talked about “marrying well” she meant marrying a Muslim, preferably of Bangladeshi extraction, with a useful degree from an accredited college. Ever since Sahar was a girl she had mentally kept her fingers crossed behind her back when it came to religion. She had done the ablutions, prayed, fasted, even toyed with the idea of covering her hair when she was outside, just so her parents would be distracted from her prolific pot use and energetic sex life. If her mother had ever found her stash, which was hidden under (strategically so, so as to distract) a selection of halter-tops of varying degrees of immodesty, she would have been grounded for an indefi- nite period of time. She had lived a secret life for as long as she could remember, but now she was twenty-eight and all the scrutiny was upon her. It was time to be married. It was as simple as that, and the weird thing was, Sahar, in her heart, agreed. It was just that she and her parents could not agree upon the type of wedding she should have, or more importantly, the kind of husband. Sahar was lonely and her mother had caught on to it, probably because Sahar was always so busy, clutching her cell phone to her ear and avoiding stillness at all costs.
“You are moving so fast, you must be afraid to be alone,” her mother declared one Eid. Sahar had been too weak from fasting to respond to that appallingly accurate analysis. It was all she could do to scowl at her mother, who unconcernedly kept rolling out chapatti dough on a marble slab and checking the kitchen clock every so often. Eid revelers would be descending upon the Salam household at any moment and naturally, they would all be ravenous, a fact Sahar’s mother resented.
“Mutton doesn’t grow on trees, you know,” her mother whispered under her breath as the guests fell on the food, piling it on to their plates as if it was the last supper they would ever receive. Her mother was too preoccupied then to have the conversation Sahar wanted to have. Sahar was bursting to talk about her loneliness with someone and most of her gorah friends had pointedly recommended she keep certain things to herself, i.e. not tell her mother anything about the ache of an empty space that probably originated in her womb, news that would surely send a concerned mother into a matchmaking flurry. But her mother was the most logical choice. Who knew Sahar better than she knew herself? Certainly no one from the string of breathless and dissipating Western-style romances she had had since she was fifteen years old.
“Amma?” Sahar said while her mother swatted away a thirsty child who had come in search of Pepsi for the eighth time and appeared to be jonesing for some more, “Do you think it’s time I was married?”
Sahar had always known she was a masochist but had never so forcibly put this trait to the test. It was as if she was saying, “How much pain can I possibly take?”
Her mother turned to her slowly, the way Sahar had seen a samurai in a Kurosawa movie turn to meet his ultimate foe, a hand on the hilt of the sword, tensed to spring into action, suspiciously yet subtly searching to see what their next move is. Sahar stepped back and waited for the flash of the blade. She now realized what she had done, and it was far too late. But her mother merely nodded—it was almost imperceptible—and her eyes, misty from the early stages of glaucoma, filled with tears.
“Yes, my darling,” she said gently, clasping her hands together. “It is time you were married.”
“And so that is what led Sahar to the Fordham University Law Student with the tall stature and fair skin and gorah brother-in-law, who everybody called Mohammed Chip.
Sahar’s sarcastic reference to the suitor’s teeth had been ignored and her mother forged ahead as planned, calling to tell Sahar that he, Rizwan, wanted to meet with her first, alone (“Isn’t that so modern?”) whenever she deemed convenient at a location of her choice.
“How about never and in hell?” Sahar replied.
Her mother sighed and hung up the phone for the third time that week, leaving Sahar to feel that she was a very bad daughter indeed.
When the day arrived to meet Rizwan, Sahar, to her private mortification, took pains with her appearance. She had been going back and forth on the subject of her dress since the day before. Since the fateful day she had sought her mother’s counsel on the subject of marriage, Sahar resorted to sophomoric subterfuge. The several times Rizwan had attempted to contact her directly she had conveniently been out of town, or her answering machine had accidentally erased his messages. Her mother, as usual, was undeterred and, unbeknownst to Sahar, encouraged Rizwan to take the same attitude. She wore Sahar down slowly, passively, like water would do to a rock, but in much less time. Rizwan’s voice on the answering machine, disconcertingly deep as it was, revealed nothing to help Sahar’s imagination along.
Two days later in a restaurant, Sahar glanced in an accent mirror next to the maitre’d’s station before walking to the table where Rizwan sat waiting for her. She had worn a snug wrap around top that accentuated her cleavage, and painted her lips MAC vixen maroon with nails to match. She had gotten auburn highlights the day before, blazing, the faggy hairdresser had called it, a new technique, very bold.
The last bit of sabotage. She could have gone either way. She could have scared him off by appearing dreadfully homely or she could play a vampiress and let the chips fall where they may. She was too vain (and paradoxically hopeful) to attempt the former.
He looked anxious and impatient, tapping the tip of his fork against the edge of the table and taking small quick sips of water from a tumbler. He was dressed casually and stylishly and had a thick head of hair that waved back from his face. His lanky legs jutted out from beneath the tablecloth. He was indeed fair skinned as promised, fairer than her actually, she noticed to her dismay and then became more dismayed that she was thinking about such things. If a person she had never met threw her into such confusion, then this couldn’t be good.
“This is ridiculous,” Sahar said under her breath and turned to leave. She would make up some excuse to her mother, who would then have to face Rizwan. “It is not my problem,” Sahar thought, not at all sure it wasn’t.
The maitre’d, who had been silently observing Sahar observing Rizwan asked if she was ready to be led to her table. She shook her head and walked out of the restaurant. Once outside, she felt suddenly free and took a deep breath. She began walking east towards the park. She was going to sit on a bench and watch ratty New York pigeons fight over bread and scantily clad roller bladders glide by. That was her new plan for Saturday night. And when she was done doing that for however many hours she deemed fit, she was going to go back to her tiny apartment in Chelsea and finish off the bottle of Grey Goose her friend Wanda had left when she was by last week. Her answering machine would be turned off, her shades pulled down, her body cozily encased in pima cotton drawstring pants and tank top with shaggy slippers to match, her blazed hair pulled back into a jaunty pony tail, and her anti-blemish, anti-aging crème would be smeared into place.
“Sounds like a plan,” Sahar thought. But she just couldn’t face the emptiness of the apartment yet, so she was going to sit in the park and take some air.
Sahar found an unoccupied bench underneath a thick oak tree and plopped down. She closed her eyes and listened for a while to the soft rustling of the leaves. The sun threw long shadows on the asphalt at her feet. It gradually grew darker and Sahar opened her eyes, straining to read the hands on her watch. Seven o’clock and the sun hadn’t completely set. Summer was fast approaching. Summer, minus the heat that released the stench of old urine from winter hibernation in the subway and wilted her hair and the flowers at Chelsea market, was her favorite season. It was happy-golucky carnality and inevitably led to string-free sexual liaisons. Twenty-eight was too young to relinquish all that, Sahar decided sitting on the bench. A couple frolicked in the dying light with their Jack Russell Terrier and a glow in the dark Frisbee. Sahar watched the ghostly green disk fly through the air and land at the foot of one of the men and he flicked it to his partner, who snatched it out of the air and then ran to embrace him. The dog jumped excitedly between their knees as they folded into a prolonged hug. When they finally let go of one another, the dog was panting and Sahar was crying. She didn’t realize it at first. She felt something wet roll down her cheeks, but she didn’t immediately register it as tears.
| ECHOSTREAM |
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She sniffed and stood to leave, glancing back at the couple who were laughing at their dog’s antics. She could tell they all loved each other. They were a family; a pair of queens and their stunted dog and she, a pretty, smart, funny, passable cook, couldn’t make a family of her own. She had to resort to standing up unknown men chosen by her mother in chic eateries.
When Sahar emerged from the 23rd street station, it was raining, a sudden spring deluge that threatened to drown everything. She ran the seven blocks to her apartment, holding her clutch over her head as an inadequate shield. Since it was made of cloth most of the contents of her bag were soaked, including the piece of paper that had Rizwan’s cell, home, and work numbers printed on it. The ink had bled, making the numbers illegible.
“Just as well,” Sahar thought. It occurred to her that she could use this as a viable excuse. Something had come up, so she couldn’t make the date, and the sudden violent rain shower had destroyed his contact numbers. Allah’s will.
Her hands were slippery. She struggled with the key to get the door open and even when she had unlocked the door the wood had swollen around it so that she had to push to make it budge. She leaned on the recalcitrant door with her shoulder and it finally gave way, with more force than she had applied to it. She looked behind her to see Rizwan, soaked and smiling sheepishly down at her. He said, “You’re a fast runner. Are you still crying or is that the rain?”
Sahar felt the heat rise to her face as she attempted to gather her thoughts.
“It’s rude to stalk people,” she said finally, after trying hard to find some witty retort.
“Well, that’s an understatement if I ever heard one,” Rizwan replied. “I wasn’t stalking you. The waiter at the restaurant came to get me when you ran out and I ran after you, but I had to cancel the order first because I had ordered a drink. I couldn’t catch up to you immediately and when I found you, you were asleep on a park bench.”
“I wasn’t asleep,” Sahar said.
“I didn’t want to disturb you, so I waited for you to open your eyes,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “Then, when you did, you started staring at the gay couple with the dog and the next thing I knew, you were bawling.”
Sahar scowled. “I wasn’t bawling,” she said. This guy likes to sum things up, she thought. He is summing me up. I don’t like to be summed up. I can’t be summed up. I defy definition, dammit!
“Are you alright?” Rizwan said. “Your face is all scrunched up.”
“I am perfectly alright, and I don’t bawl,” she said.
“Well, whatever it was. Do you mind if I come in?” He ran his fingers through his thick hair, which was dripping, and smiled at her. “I need to dry off and then I’ll be out of your hair. I wanted to see if you were okay.”
Sahar walked in first and held the door open for him. With his height and broad shoulders, he all but swallowed up the narrow foyer.
She pointed up the stairs. “Third floor, apt G,” she said.
“Lead the way,” he said and smiled at her again. His eyes, against all odds, were blue. Her mother had failed to mention that small detail. Sahar squinted to see if they were fake. Fake eyes would end the entire matter right then and there. Rizwan playfully squinted back.
“Let me guess, you didn’t wear your glasses,” he said.
Sahar, taken aback by his audacity, said, “You have balls, I’ll give you that.”
“You didn’t expect that from a nice Muslim boy, huh?” He looked at her and frowned, mock serious. “I guess you didn’t want to get your veil all wet?” When Sahar stared at him slack jawed, he said, “You do normally wear hijab don’t you?”
“Eh?” Sahar swallowed and brushed away a strand of wet hair. Rizwan smiled pleasantly back at her even though her gaze was now decidedly hostile. She wanted to flee until she remembered that it was her foyer that he was clogging up.
Finally, she said, “Oh yeah, I’ve got a ton of them upstairs, all colors and patterns. But I decided to go bare today.”
“Good. I wouldn’t want anything to distract from your cleavage,” he said, his grin widening.
For once, Sahar’s apartment was tidy. She had cleaned up in anticipation of just what was happening, Rizwan dropping in. Everything was in its proper place; books on shelves (and neatly stacked on never used stove), green chenille throw draped with careless elegance behind recently vacuumed, only slightly stained couch. There was bottled water in the fridge and a fruit platter—her mother had dropped it by that morning, much to Sahar’s irritation. She’d even borrowed a plant from her neighbor, who had a green thumb. Sahar was known to kill even cacti if they were left in her care but believed that a thriving plant indicated somehow her ability to raise a child to adulthood. She was in advertising after all. It was all about perception.
Sahar quickly walked in ahead of Rizwan, forgetting that she had tidied up. She stopped and said, “Oh,” surprised by how airy and organized the normally messy room looked.
“What is it?” Rizwan asked. He looked over her head and peered into the tiny living room. “It looks nice.”
He walked around her into the room.
“May I”? he said, and indicated the couch.
“Go ahead,” she said.
There was an awkward silence, but it was mainly only awkward for Sahar. Rizwan was looking around, summing things up, Sahar thought resentfully. She watched him for a while, and then remembered her manners and was about to offer him a drink when Rizwan said, “Ever been on a blind date?
“Unfortunately, yes.” “What’s the difference between this and that?” “My mother wasn’t involved.” “Fair enough. My mother had nothing to do with this. She doesn’t even know.”
“How did you find out about me?”
“The Auntie net. My aunt knows your mother or something. I don’t know.”
“You’re looking for romance?”
“Aren’t you?
“No!”
“Sex then?” Rizwan gave her a pleasant smile.
Sahar adjusted her shirt so it covered a bit more skin, and frowned at him slightly.
“That I don’t need my mother or your aunt to arrange,” she replied.
“Why did you bolt?”
“Maybe I didn’t like the look of you.”
“Me? Impossible. I took one of those tests in Cosmo and I am perfect boyfriend material.”
Sahar watched him as he got up and walked to her bookshelf and started browsing. His audacity and self-confidence were at once breathtakingly masculine and off-putting. If someone else had been recounting this story to her she would have chastised them for buying into archaic notions of masculine and feminine because that is what Wellesley taught her to do. At that moment, however, Sahar was immersed in the roller coaster ride that this guy had somehow ushered her on to. She cleared her throat to indicate she wanted him to look at her so they could continue the conversation. He didn’t turn around. So she cleared it again. He looked at her.
“Oh really, a Cosmo test said you were perfect?” she said, as casually as she could.
She walked up to him and took the book out of his hands and replaced it on the shelf. Rizwan chuckled.
“I’m probably asking for trouble but I think we should have a do-over,” he said.
“Why?”
“I’m a closer. I like to see things through.”
“You just can’t believe someone wouldn’t want you.”
“That too. You’re not on any medication are you?”
“Not yet but give me time.”
“So do you have any hobbies?”
“Did Cosmo tell you to open with that line?”
“For instance, I played basketball all through high school and college. I should keep it up. I just haven’t had the time.”
Sahar blinked at him and walked into the kitchen, opened the cabinet above the sink and took out a bottle of Grey Goose Vodka. She held it up to Rizwan and raised her eyebrows. He shook his head, “No thanks,” he said.
“Suit yourself,” she replied. She poured herself a finger’s worth of vodka and held up the glass. “To the ubiquitous auntie net!” and then downed it in one shot. If he knew she was trying to make a point, he did not show it. Instead, he kept talking, undeterred. If he found this display rather sophomoric he did not show it.
“Basketball is a game of stealth, speed, and strategy. Have you ever seen Michael Jordon play? He’s what I would call an artist.”
“Uh huh,” Sahar said and poured herself another shot.
“Now I get why your mother was so anxious about our meeting.”
“Excuse me?”
“You have what they call a complex.”
“You have no right to come to my house and insult me.”
“Then refute me.”
“I don’t need help finding a boyfriend. I can do that on my own. You seem healthy and reasonably sane, why do you need your aunt to set you up?”
“How did your parents meet?”Sahar groaned and drank the vodka. “Please, they are not a good example.”
“Mine too. Total mismatch!”
“Really? Then why would you want to do this?”
“Do what? It’s dinner, maybe coffee. No one’s picking out china patterns.”
He paused, and looked thoughtful. “I should go. Good luck to you. It’s late. I can’t keep up hostile repartee all night. I have to work tomorrow.”
He stood up to leave.
“You’re a lawyer right?” Sahar said.
“Yes.”
“That’s great.”
“It is?”
“It sounds impressive.”
“There are too many lawyers on the planet.”
“Then why did you become one?”
“Would you believe me if I said: to do good.”
“To do good what?”
“Not all lawyers are snakes. Some of us are idealists.”
“It’s easy to be an idealist when you’re making money. Then again I don’t know what kind of a lawyer you are. You could be a human rights lawyer or something. Are you?”
“No. Corporate. But when I am overseeing a hostile takeover, I try to make it less hostile.”
“Well that’s something.”
“Every little bit helps. Actually, I am transitioning out of corporate law.”
“Oh,” she said, “What does that mean?”
Rizwan shrugged. “Not sure yet. I will let you know.”
“Maybe we could get together sometime. You don’t seem that dysfunctional,” she said.
“You seem like a gigantic pain in the ass.”
“Thanks,” she shook her head and chuckled.
“No, really. It took guts for me to come up here after you ran like that. You agreed to meet with me, no one held a gun to your head and then you act like I’m a perv or something for wanting to meet you.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m just wary of someone my mother would recommend.”
“That’s pretty adolescent.”
“I was a very pretty adolescent. Ha! That’s a joke.”
Sahar gave a short laugh and stopped herself. She always made jokes when she was uncomfortable or suddenly nervous and this man, this set up was making her decidedly nervous. He really was attractive, she thought suddenly, and peered at him, as if seeing him for the first time.
“Yeah, I got it,” he said. “Okay, do over. I’ll call you.”
“No, I’ll call you,” she said brusquely, more so than she intended. She had the vague notion that she might have lost control of the situation.
“Fine,” Rizwan said. “I’ll go now.”
She walked him to the door and opened it for him. They smiled at one another for a moment. Sahar searched for something appropriate and pithy to say but nothing came to mind. Rizwan surprised her by suddenly leaning in and kissing her on the cheek. She was taken aback and so stood frozen. Later, she would wonder why she had reacted that way and would determine that it was Rizwan’s ease with himself that she found so disconcerting and attractive.
“See you soon,” he said quietly, and walked down the stairs. She closed the door after him, not sure what had happened, but fully confident that he would not easily forget her. | | | |
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Readers' Comments |
Total Comments
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Iffat Nawaz
11 June 2010
08:01 AM
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The marriage of language, wit, depth and reality sums up Raisins not Virgins. It's amazing how in such a short piece so much was covered, the transformations from the beginning the end of the two main characters was particularly well portrayed. I hope there is a longer version of this story, and I can't wait to see this on the stage!
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Farah
3 June 2010
02:13 PM
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A well-written and deeply disturbing story. The characters are beautifully drawn, leaping off the page, and I enjoyed the snappy dialogue between Sahara and Rizwan in the first part of the story, deeply misleading as it was with regard to his character. The supporting cast, including her mother and Mohammed Chip also provide a great deal of entertainment. Some small touches were bordering on genius, such as Gandhi But Sexy and the park scene, as well as the insights into Sahar's concerns about fairness and her "vain and paradoxically hopeful" personality. The second half of the story is dark and successfully makes a point of how tragic it is not really know someone with whom you supposedly have such a close relationship. Finally, the use of the "reasons, not virgins" of the title is used cleverly by revisiting it in the final line of the story. A thought-provoking and intelligent read.
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Awrup Sanyal
1 June 2010
02:00 AM
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A story of love and a story faith. How similar they can be, how misunderstood. But isn't it love's demand that we show faith in it? Accept it unconditionally? Believe in it? Believe in the happily ever after? How different is it from faith's demand then? Isn't it faith's demand to love it unconditionally? Believe in it? Believe in the hereafter? Can't we then break up from faith as from love? Can't it be dumped?
An amazing story. Initially, scarily mundane, stereotypical, predictable till the car ride. And then it drives into the other lane. The other story, that of faith. Once again expected but defies prediction. The tussle between the two. Between the similar demands that have different asks.
The author handles the two streams deftly. Let's them flow on it's own and then
merge. Blue water, love's water and then red water, martyr's blood. Which will swallow which?
Simple. Powerful. Raises more questions than it answers, as it should have. What is it then? Virgins or raisins?
Great stuff.
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