Walking with the Beast

I opened my eyes, the warmth of the sheets obvious against my body, I pulled the duvet over my face and tried to ignore the drumming worry in my head which asked me to leave this comfortable bed and get ready for my flight in a few hours. But some other part of my brain, not so rational, told me to stay in bed, forget that I was about to go back to New York, go back to the country I was born in, go back to where I came from. My mother, however, disagreed, she argued, “we barely got out of that place once, don’t go back to that part of your life.” I wanted to retort, what part, mom? But I didn’t, I stayed quiet, not wanting to give my mother more misery than needed. I got out of my bed, taking in the surroundings of my humble bedroom, it was probably my last time looking at this place I had spent the last eight years in. To think about it, I always felt like an outsider, like I didn’t belong with these happy chirpy people, for a few months my mother was there for me, she was there in it with me, or so did she claim, but I was a trusting little girl at that time, clinging on to whatever was left of my family. With my father out of the picture, she was the only person I could lean on except for my friend Haqim who lived next door, but we never bid our goodbyes. I was carried away from New York all the way to New Delhi, one big city to another. In my mother’s opinion that should have helped me, but all it did was further isolate me from the world, “Don’t worry,” my mother had said, “Delhi is just like New York, but a little Indian,” I couldn’t figure out who she was trying to convince, me or herself, two years later, she replaced my father with a man of her own religion, “All these problems, because you married that Muslim man,” my orthodox Hindu grandma had spitted at my mother, “and your Muslimah daughter, just throw her off in an orphanage.” My mother looked at me, took me away from that house and we never spoke to my grandparents after, one thing that she wouldn’t or couldn’t let go from her past was me, maybe it was because I was her flesh and blood or maybe she felt guilty of leaving my father when he needed her, needed us the most. But she didn’t seem like she missed him, she had managed to move on, with her new daughter and her new husband while I was stuck looking for a family which was gone, because of me. I heard the doorknob turn and my gaze fell on a four-year-old girl who ran through the door, “Someone woke up early today,” I said as she climbed up my bed and made herself comfortable on my lap. “I will go with you,” my half-sister said. I smiled, sadly, and put my arms around her, “I can’t do that Aruna, but I promise, when I come back, I’ll bring a lot of gifts for you.” I didn’t know when I was coming back, or if I was coming back, but I promised her anyways, she wanted her sister to come back. Aruna spent a happy ten minutes in my room and then returned to her father. Our mother was at work, burying her anger in a corporate office in South Delhi. I knew she wouldn’t be here to wish me goodbye, she wasn’t happy with my decision to go back to the States. Money wasn’t a problem for my mom, never, she always deposited 15% of the profits she made in my account every year. I was going against her wishes and it wasn’t exactly fair for me to use her money to get what I want, but it was the only way, or that’s what I told myself. She didn’t object to the fact that I lived off of her money, she had a problem with me confronting my past though, however important I thought it was for me, she wanted me far away from that place. She thought this was probably the best way to protect me and I couldn’t imagine what she had gone through. However, she was as oblivious to my misery as I was to hers. It took me half an hour to get ready, my suitcase was all packed, I even called the driver early because Delhi traffic was not going to be the reason I missed my flight today. Everything was in check; My clothes were comfortable enough, a white knee-length dress with a comfortable pair of flats, no accessories for the long flight hours would make it difficult to handle them. I waited for ten minutes for my mother to come back, she didn’t, as predicted. My stepfather was a professor in a private University, he taught business and my mother was a business icon, it was his day off, the middle-aged bald man wearing a loose pink shirt walked into our dressy living room, his pants rolled up a couple of folds, evident that he had been working in the garden, he eyed me, “You’re all ready,” I smiled back. He was a likable man with great stories, where my mother was cautiously professional, he was cunningly friendly, he had what she lacked and vice versa. They probably would have made great business partners had teaching not been his passion, I could imagine him teaching though, he had been a teacher to me, he helped me with school when I used to struggle before, made everything look so easy, so organized. What I appreciated most about him was that he never made me call him Dad, he was and always would be Amit to me, my mother tried at first, but I wouldn’t call him that, he had too tried to be a father to me, but I never managed to see him that way. I overheard them talking once, my sobbing mother crying on his shoulder, the eccentric, bold woman I knew never cried, not when my father had been arrested, not when she had to start a life here in India all over again, but that day, I heard her call out, “Will she ever forget him?” and Amit had patiently answered, “You have found a replacement for your husband, do you think she can replace her father?” I didn’t listen more, I went back to my room and promised to be welcoming to Amit, to not let my mother go. When Aruna came along after two years of their marriage, it was the happiest I had ever seen him, she too like me called her father by his name, which disappointed my mother, but Amit was quiet proud of it, he claimed he was a friend to her more than a father and it was true, she needed someone to spoil her when I would be away. “I put Aruna to sleep, she does not want to let you go,” he sighed. “I know, no amount of bribe will let her make me go,” I replied. “Here,” he said, picking up a black leather folder from the cabinet, “some cash, in case you need it on the way and a debit card which you could use while you’re there, there’s also phone numbers of all the people you could call in case of emergency, your mother has contacts, and she couldn’t…” “Come because she has an important meeting,” I finished. He chuckled, avoiding this awkward turn in the conversation. In spite of the fact that my mother and I were on a disagreement regarding my little trip to the free world, she made sure that everything was in check, she booked my flight herself, business class nothing less, had Amit hand me this leather pouch with anything I could need on my way, got me an international sim card for me to call her if I ever change my mind, even offered to have me pick up from JFK Airport, but I mentioned that our neighbors from New York would cover that, I was sure that she had called them up and filled them in on any necessary information, she was my mother after all. We lived in a very comfortable home back in New York, an apartment in Greenwich Village; it was a long building with eye wrenching views, our home was specious and classy, a long hall as you enter through the door led to a voluminous living room, a cozy fireplace was adjusted at the end of the hall and a shelf of books all around it. On the other side of the hall was the dining area accommodating an antique twelve-seater wooden dining set. Right next to the entrance of the house was a small staircase that led up to our five bedrooms on the upper floor. Outside of the glass frame on the upper floor was a gigantic garden area with a small swimming pool where. I often spent time with my then neighbour Haqim, we were the only families of Muslim decent that made it to the elite of Manhattan. My mother was a business executive in the firm my father was a lawyer in, our neighbours next door were both doctors, private practitioners. I and Haqim were born two months apart, our mothers had gone through their pregnancy together, which made them quite close at a time, Haqim’s mother went into labour first, making him two months my senior and after a little while, I popped out, my father ecstatic, both men comparing their babies, or so did they used to tell me. We went to school together, had sleepovers all the time, because sometimes the monsters under my bed were only scared of Haqim, the corridor between our hearths was merely a hall which joined a home, we never locked our doors because we were always hopping from one place to another, seeking each other in every little thing we did. When we were nine years old, Haqim’s little brother came along. I remember how jealous I was because of the attention that the baby stole from me. Haqim noticed that. He always was sensitive to my feelings, so one day, he took me to the nearest ice cream shop and spent a day with me, as an apology. I remember feeling ecstatic, holding his hand, smiling so much that my cheeks hurt and going back to my father and sleeping in his arms. How short lived was that happiness. A few days later, his uncle came to live by their place. It wasn’t Haqim, he never ignored me. After a month I stopped going to his place entirely, urged my mother to lock the doors, asked not to see Haqim, in case his uncle came looking for him and found me instead. My father noticed my resistance, my fear and asked me what was wrong. I didn’t tell him, I didn’t know how to put it into words, I was so afraid of that man next door that I shut everyone away. The little world that I lived in was shattered. One day, my parents invited Haqim’s family and his uncle over for dinner at our place. Haqim entered my room and watchfully approached me, “Why are you mad at me?” he asked, I didn’t have an answer to that, all I could do was shrug and I started sobbing. He sat by my side and hugged me, his hands around my shoulders, “I hate my uncle too,” he murmured. I wiped my tears with my sleeve and looked up to him, in that moment I knew that I wasn’t alone who had endured those horrible traumatic nightmares. I had managed to avoid them, managed to escape from the monster who lived next door but I never thought at what cost, my best friend who always knew what I needed and wanted replaced me and that monstrosity troubled him, probably more than it did me. “Don’t tell my dad I was crying, he’ll be worried,” I sobbed, he promised he wouldn’t. I went to the bathroom to clean my face and found his uncle in the passageway; not remembering what happened next, I remember being in the bathroom, I remember his hand covering my mouth, I remember his whispers, “Good girl,” I remember his lips on my cheek, I remember his hands on my thighs gripping them, I also remember the sound of the doorknob turning, I remember feeling his panic, I remember feeling ashamed because my father had seen me that way, I remember blood dripping from that man’s face, I remember my father hovering over him, rage evident, his eyes watery.