Ice

It was cold the night Faruq let Narmina go. The draft climbed over his bare legs, sank into his pores and frosted through his insides. He shivered as he sat at the edge of the bed. He bound his knees in his arms, tried to tie up his naked body so that it would disappear into itself and rid the world of its ugliness.

“I don’t understand you, Faruq.” Even now, Narmina’s voice smoldered with an unbearable warmth. Fire to his ice. “What do you mean you can’t?”

“I can’t.” His throat seized up. “I just—I can’t.”

He could feel her hands running over his back. Confused hands, hands that had been at a loss for the past nine years. He wished he could apologize to those hands, prostrate before them and beg for forgiveness. He wished he could open himself up before them, that he could let them search him, find him. He wished he could tell them the truth, in all of its messy complexity, however hard it was to explain. But it was easier to lie.

“I don’t love you.”

“You don’t…” Narmina winced. Her eyes grew moist and red, and Faruq had no choice but to look down at his feet. He hated this. He hated lying. He squeezed his eyelids shut and clenched his teeth.

“I don’t love you,” he said again, a little bit louder.

Narmina withdrew from him, retreated towards the head of the bed. “After all these years…” There was a breathless gasp, and the sounds that came afterwards were soft and muffled.

She had never been a loud crier.

Nothing has changed, he wanted to say. I still love you. I have always loved you. I have never stopped loving you. He wanted to tell her how much he enjoyed being with her. How much he enjoyed their conversation; her mirth and her compassion, her dry, subtle wit that kept him calm and close to the earth. How his heart still jumped a little whenever she smiled at him. How he still spent lifetimes lost in her eyes. How his inability to be bare with her had never been her fault—no, not at all. It’s me. It’s always been me. Something’s wrong with me. I’m in love with you and I want to love you but my body is coiled up and I can’t unwind it because I’m STUPID STUPID STUPID.

But he didn’t say anything. He let the silence consume them both.

I just wish I could love you in the way you deserve to be loved.

***

Being alone was easier, at first. There was no need to make excuses to avoid sex, no need to explain why he was holding her too loose, no need to apologize for being too soft or too rough or too mechanical. He buried all of his porn videos (along with the extensive notes he had taken while watching them) somewhere deep in his basement where he would never have to think of them again.

And he existed.

He made quick breakfasts—bowls of cereal and fruit milkshakes, toast on occasion and fried eggs when he was feeling it. Nothing too elaborate or ornamental. He threw himself into his work, which was simple enough because he was good at it. Though he never really became a practicing Muslim, he started praying five times a day because it gave him a routine to live by. He ended up going to mosque a couple times, but stopped when he realized that the imam was a friend of his ex-brother-in-law and might recognize him.

Narmina didn’t get into another relationship for nearly a year after the divorce. During this period, Faruq ate very little and scarcely ever slept more than four hours a night. Some nights, he would scour dating websites for hours, constantly refreshing the search engine feed to see if her name appeared. It never did. At last, when Faruq learned through a family friend that Narmina was dating an Egyptian pediatrician ten years her younger, he relaxed. Every morning, after reciting the Shahadah, he prayed for her happiness. He kept in touch with his ex-in-laws, made sure to send them postcards every Eid-al-Fitr and Eid-al-Adha. Sometimes, when he was feeling especially brave, he would send a card to Narmina on her birthday. He always kept his birthday messages brief and polite, no matter how much it pained him to do so. It was better this way, to match the physical distance with an emotional one.

Before he went to bed, Faruq would take an Alka-Seltzer and a B-complex pill with a glass of water. Narmina used to give him Omega-3 and Vitamin C in a small katori—to improve skin health and prevent sickness, respectively—but he had since fallen out of the habit. He knew that the health benefits were minimal anyway; he already ate plenty of fish and citrus fruit, which were the natural sources for those vitamins in the first place. After the vitamins, he would spread himself back-first onto the sheets and stare up at the ceiling fan for a few minutes, before turning onto his stomach and stuffing his face into his pillow.

Allah, give me strength, he would sigh to the mashed-up memory foam. The prayer never came out smoothly—always in clumps and fragments, like crumbly, half-digested pills that had been dislodged from the back of his throat. But Faruq liked to imagine it as a detoxification. A cleansing. Dimly, he would wonder if he could spill himself this way.

***

Seven months after the pediatrician, over a year and a half after the divorce, Faruq did something he ought to have regretted—he paid Narmina a visit.

The door to the old apartment still looked the same, which surprised Faruq, even though it really shouldn’t have. The same weathered jute “WELCOME” mat sat on the floor, and the same jade rhinestones were perched above the threshold, to ward off bad ‘feng shui.’ Mrs. Bartlett from two doors down was sitting on a stool in the hallway and folding laundry, like she usually did on Sunday evenings. She instinctively flashed Faruq a warm smile, before quickly retracting it and hanging her head down as if she had done something shameful. Faruq briefly considered telling Mrs. Bartlett that it was alright—that the separation between him and Narmina was mutual, and that she wasn’t betraying Narmina with this display of kindness—but he ultimately decided that explaining the situation in its entirety would be too awkward. He cleared his throat and rang the doorbell.

For several minutes, there was no response. Faruq tugged off his grey newsboy cap and drummed his fingers along the brim.

He rang again.

“One minute!”

The voice that answered was distinctly masculine—but young, almost boyish. It reminded Faruq of a late 90’s Michael Jackson, but thicker, and with the faintest flairs of a Middle Eastern accent around the edges.

When the man finally appeared at the door, he was tall, much taller than Faruq had anticipated. His beard was closely cropped and his mustache was curled, and he dressed himself in nothing but a pair of black compression shorts and a white tank top, which bled with sweat and clung tightly to his skin. He stared curiously at Faruq through horn-rimmed glasses before reaching out to shake Faruq’s hand.

“Faruq, right?” the man said in his atrociously smooth, boy-like timbre.

Faruq nodded, and hesitantly took the man’s hand. “Abdul?”

“Yeah.” Abdul grinned to reveal a set of perfectly white teeth. He looked down at his sweaty tank top and suddenly became self-conscious. “Sorry, you caught us at a bit of an odd time—but please, come in—”

“No, no, that’s fine,” Faruq interjected quickly, “I have to be on my way in a few minutes, but I was just passing through and I thought—well, I thought I might stop by and say hi.”

“Oh. Oh, of course.”

The stupefied expression on Abdul’s face made Faruq feel like punching him, or maybe pitying him; he couldn’t decide which. Faruq cleared his throat. Several silent seconds passed before Abdul got the hint.

“Do you want me to—should I go get—?” Abdul jerked his thumb towards the living room.

Faruq nodded.

Abdul yelled something unintelligible over his shoulder, then vanished off into the apartment. He didn’t return, but a few minutes later, a familiar face appeared at the threshold.

“Narmina.”

She looked beautiful. Stunning, in fact. Even now, in her chipped evening curlers and dal-stained camisole, she enraptured Faruq. As always, it were her eyes that captivated him most—teal oceans of life and light, tropical seas that swallowed him up and bathed him in their warmth. Faruq opened his mouth to speak.

“Narmina, I—I—”

The words stumbled in his throat. Trapped. Luckily, Narmina filled in for him.

“Faruq. It’s nice to see you.”

Faruq forced a smile and bit his lip. “Yes. Yes, the same, it is very nice to see you.” And then, as his mind caught up with him: “How have you been?”

“Well. I’ve been… well. You know, with the reopening of the boutique, and Abdul, and all of it, it has been very busy, but… good.”

Her gaze washed over him—hot, intense, and penetrating. He could feel the anger in it, the intermittent rage and hurt burning in the outer spheres, but beyond that, deeper, in the blues of her eyes, in her soul—

No, he must have been imagining it. She couldn’t still feel for him, not after all he had done, and all he had not.

“How about you?” she asked. “I heard you’ve been going to mosque?”

Ya Allah. The imam had ratted him out after all.

“Only once or twice,” he said. “I don’t think I’m cut out for it, though. You know me. I always ask too many questions.”

She chuckled, and for a fraction of a moment, the ire in her eyes waned. And slowly—suddenly—the most ridiculous notions began to possess Faruq’s heart—

Maybe I could change.

Maybe I could do better.

Maybe this isn’t over.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come in?” she asked, gesturing towards the living room. “The place is a bit of a mess, but I made baingan sabzi and—

“No.” He shook his head. “No, it’s getting late, and I shouldn’t impose. Besides, I really do have to go.” He smoothed back his hair and put on his cap. “It was nice seeing you again, though, really. I mean that. We should—we should plan something. You, me—Abdul. It would be nice.”

“Yes, it would be.”

He held her eyes for as long as he could, struggling to latch onto some of that warmth—resisting the urge to fall into them, to be one with them again. He came close to failing, far too close for comfort. But in the end his coldness prevailed. He gave her a parting tip of his hat, turned on his feet, and began walking back down the hallway.

“Faruq?”

He immediately wheeled around. His heart felt like leaping out through his mouth, like killing itself on the nylon carpet. And finally, he knew that he was going to come clean, that he was going to tell her the truth, that no matter how much it took out of him he would be open, truly bare with her for the first time—

“I got your card,” she said. “Thank you. It was… sweet.”

“Oh.” He smiled. “You’re welcome.” Then he nodded, clasped his hands behind his back, and resumed his course to the exit.