Excerpt from Inside the Shawl of Midnight, novel-in-progress:
What must it be like to have a sister, to be close to a sister, to share everything, then to lose her, to not want to believe that she is dead, to be separated so long that you might pass each other on the street and never notice? To lose her so long ago you only wonder occasionally if she is in good health, if she still lives. You forget what her voice sounds like, or believe you have forgotten because you cannot bring it to mind. What did she sound like? But then a miracle happens and years later when you are no longer young, no longer full of the possibilities of youth, but instead you are coasting on the remains of a lifetime of experience, and you hear a stranger’s voice ask, “May I help you?” and you know at once whose voice it is. You know the shape of the face, the dimple, the particular smile of those particular lips. And you recognize the light in the eyes of your sister.
All of these things Nafeesa, who has no sister herself, feels in the power of that moment as the sisters wrap themselves in each other’s arms. The moment changes, Faisah lets go, but Baji continues to hold on for a moment longer. Then she raises her head from the place where it rested on Faisah’s neck, turns and smiles.
“You must be Nafeesa. I would recognize you anywhere.” Nafeesa sees an aged, ghostly reflection of herself—the small gap between her teeth, and a simple mannerism, the way Baji shakes her dark brown and gray hair loose from the scarf. She is a smaller woman than Nafeesa expected her to be. They are exactly the same height. “You are the image of your mother, Nafeesa. And of ours,” she says, glancing again at Faisah whose good eye still brims with tears. Faisah pats her eye, folds her handkerchief and watches Baji as she speaks to their niece “It is strange to use my mother’s name in addressing you, Nafeesa, and to hear her name spoken by me, as if I were hearing my father’s voice calling to her from the bottom of the staircase of our childhood.” She looks down the path. “Come inside,” she says urgently.