‘But, yes, your jeans look fine. Pity about that T-shirt, though.’ Her nose was scrunched up as if she’d smelled something funny. Even when she did this, she looked pretty. ‘You wear too much black.’

  Billy was a Master’s student in drama and taught at a preschool. They’d both been drawn to architecture, but Billy’s creativity went beyond the rigid parameters of bricks and gravity. She found her happiness in the mix between art and acting, and kids relished her quirkiness.

  With her fine features, thick black hair and overgrown fringe, which sat on her lavender frames of her glasses, Billy looked like a Kokeshi doll. She’d been born in the wrong era; she would’ve fitted in perfectly in the ’70s with her hipster vibe. But having a coloured father and an Indian mother would’ve been illegal then, so Zaina was perfectly content that Billy had arrived when she had, and also that they’d become best friends at the right time.

  Billy called herself Zaina’s honorary sister and they were an integral part of each other’s lives, but it hadn’t started off smoothly. Zaina had thought Billy was too loud and had left her stranded at the bus stop once, after arranging to meet her and then taking an earlier bus, while Billy had thought Zaina needed to loosen up a bit and just be herself. But Billy had grown on Zaina (‘like a fungus!’ Billy always laughed), and Zaina had learned not to take life so seriously.

  The one thing Zaina could count on Billy for was to be blatantly honest, abrasive even – which was why she hadn’t told her yet about the content of Imraan’s latest message. Billy had warned her about Imraan. She’d heard that he was one of those overconfident postgrads who strode around campus making promises to starstruck girls in the Coffee Shot, leaving a trail of heartbreak in his wake.

  ‘Why the red bag, Billy? It doesn’t match anything,’ Zaina said, changing the subject.

  ‘Life doesn’t match,’ she replied flatly, peering at Zaina through her glasses.

  ‘Deep,’ Zaina said, sarcastically feigning an epic glance over the ocean to gather the full effect of the profound words.

  ‘Something’s changed with you. I can tell,’ Billy said, looking straight at Zaina. ‘If you don’t want to tell me, it’s fine. But I’ve heard things about him, and guys don’t change overnight. Plus, you’re lying to your mom. And she’s going to be livid – Li-Vid! – when she finds out.’

  ‘I think he’s falling in love with me, Billy.’

  ‘I’ll believe that when there’s a ring on your finger, Zai. Anyway, I’m here for you, whatever happens. You know that.’

  Silence sat between them awkwardly. Zaina absentmindedly drew a curvy pattern into the sand with her index finger. She hadn’t told Billy about her meeting with Imraan on the beach, when he’d playfully tied a piece of dried kelp around her ring finger, kissed her hand and smiled wordlessly. That meant something. It had to.

  Girls their age were getting married, having babies; some had even done both and got divorced. Sometimes Zaina felt that the protective cage her mother put around her was like a toddler’s playpen. But it wasn’t just her mother. The barriers around her had also been erected by religion and culture and the sin of dating a boy.

  Zaina frowned, trying to find a way to make herself feel better about all of this. She’d flirted with boys before, even venturing half-heartedly into a relationship or two, but once the topic of marriage came up, she’d bluntly told them it was over. Until now. The depth of her need for Imraan scared her. He was different. That gesture with the kelp ring really meant something to her.

  ‘Come, let’s go buy a ridiculously huge milkshake,’ Billy finally said. ‘I’m starving.’

  The girls helped each other up, dusted the sand off their jeans and walked towards Milky Lane. Zaina laughed at Billy’s jokes and listened to her dreams about teaching kids in Japan, but Billy’s doubts had burrowed into her heart, like grains of sand that find their way into the pockets and folds of your jeans.

  Still, it was too late. Zaina had already fallen for Imraan. She now had to keep this from Billy, her best friend, as well as from her mother.

  She was now someone living with a secret.

  And secrets have a dangerous way of unravelling.

  MANGO LASSI

  2–3 large ripe mangoes

  ½ cup full-cream mango yoghurt

  ½ cup milk

  2 tablespoons sugar/honey/condensed milk

  2–3 scoops vanilla ice cream

  elaichi (cardamom) powder and mint leaves to garnish

  • Peel and cube the mangoes.

  • Put the mango, yoghurt, milk and sweetener in a blender, and blend on low until they’re combined.

  • Add the ice cream and blend on high for 30 seconds until smooth.

  • Pour in glasses and top with a sprinkle of elaichi and a sprig of mint.

  Serves 4

  9

  FOR MONTHS, ZAINA HAD BATTLED to find a topic for her Master’s that inspired her. Finally, in a moment of clarity, she decided to merge her love for her favourite authors with her penchant for design: her thesis would centre on designing retreats for writers based on themes from their books.

  For her favourite author, Vikram Seth, she took inspiration from old bookstores, the gentle bend of a river, Indian wedding traditions and an uncertain political landscape. She designed a retreat perched above water. Within the home, a cosy labyrinth enticed the writer. Outside, a pergola over which creepers could grow would inspire new stories.

  For Elif Shafak, an author who seemed to know Zaina better than she knew herself, she blended modern and traditional Turkish designs with skylights that seemed to speak to God. The retreat would centre on a courtyard filled with trees and flowing water, so as never to forget Rumi’s Sufi parallels between the beauty of earth and the character of The Beloved.

  For Preethi Nair, the author of One Hundred Shades of White, soft cladding on the walls would paint shadows. This would be juxtaposed with large glass doors and exposed beams, to speak to the intricacies of sharing and secrets between mothers and daughters.

  In this poetry of bricks and books, Zaina finally felt the sparks of creativity in her hands. And beneath it all, she believed Imraan was her ultimate inspiration, her muse.

  Between classes, Zaina and Imraan found any excuse to meet. A year ago, a cynical Zaina would have scoffed at the scene: the sprawling university campus, set atop a hill, overlooking the city; high-rise buildings in the distance to the left, the still harbour to the right; two lovers imagining the entire world was theirs, as if in some kind of Bollywood bubble.

  The library, a four-storey glass shard, seemed their own palace. Often, after meandering through the aisles of dusty books, catching glimpses of each other through the gaps in the Dewey Decimal System like Romeo and Juliet smiling shyly at each other through the fish tank, Zaina and Imraan would laze outside together in the shade of the shocking-pink magnolia trees.

  Sometimes, when the cool wind blew in from the harbour, petals would float gently down over them like confetti. Imraan would gently brush them off her cheek or the folds of her scarf. She didn’t care who saw them. While Muslims around the world were fighting each other, the one thing young Muslim students on campus had was unity when it came to dating. What happened on campus stayed on campus; who was dating who rarely reached a parent’s ears because of the sin and shame it would bring their families.

  While Zaina knew dating a boy was wrong, she knew her Almighty was forgiving. Besides, she felt Imraan was her destiny; that she would marry him.

  These embers in Zaina were further lit by the enticing excitement of the wedding festivities scheduled for the end of the month. There was nothing like a wedding – or a funeral – to bring people together. Even the tensions between Shirin and Aunty Banu had settled down to a simmer and become work-around-able. Besides, in the years since the maid-poaching incident, it seemed each had been served her dose of karma. Shirin had justified acquiring Violet as a good deed – the new madam was the maid’s saviour. What she hadn’t bargained for was Violet’s fiery personality and the abrasiveness of her actions. Violet had made it clear she wasn’t going to be any madam’s friend, or pretend to be grateful for having been ‘rescued’. So Shirin had never found an ally in Violet. And Aunty Banu’s subsequent maids had never lasted more than a month, due to her increasing neuroticism.

  In the run-up to the wedding, Zaina’s creativity blossomed. She designed houses and built balsawood models of them into the small hours, until nights and mornings merged into each other in a blur. And she sketched henna patterns, her hands stained as she tested the strengths of the dye and the designs she would paint intricately onto the hands of the bride and the other women who attended the mehndi party.

  Zaina allowed herself to be swept away into a dream world of romance and possibility. It wasn’t hard. Imraan had become all her tomorrows, and each time a confetti of flowers drifted down towards them, she imagined him lifting her veil on their wedding day.

  In the kitchen, Zaina experimented with the foods Imraan had told her he loved, sometimes allowing herself to float in the fantasy that she would cook for him as his wife some day. Steak, saucy pasta, crème caramel – all the things Rabia’s conservative palate detested. She didn’t notice the looks of concern crossing Rabia’s face, or the way Joyce still regarded her disapprovingly.

  And when she rendered the high walls and concrete slabs of the Nair house on paper, unease flowed out of her fingertips at the thought of her mother’s rigid plans for her. She wished Rabia wasn’t so inflexible; that she would allow herself to be malleable, like henna, now and then.

  Zaina loved designing curved staircases, pergolas adorned with ivy, and glass perches above the trees, as she had for Seth’s and Shafak’s houses. These things reminded her of Imraan. He was strong and fragile at the same time. Slowly, she was beginning to understand his sharp edges. It was a pity that that’s what people mostly saw – his brashness.

  Zaina decided that beauty depended on which angle you looked at a design from. You needed to accept its flaws, shadows and function. But you also needed to see it in different lights, the way the sunsets softened its corners and parts of it almost disappeared at nightfall. Yes, Imraan was indeed a thing of beauty: he seemed to reveal a more delicate side of himself to her, a side of him that seemed to turn towards Zaina like a sunflower basking in her light.

  Like a trapeze artist who doesn’t look down, Zaina managed to balance on the emotional tightrope between her mother and Imraan so delicately that lying became a routine that rolled off her tongue. The cracks in the relationship between Zaina and her mother were almost invisible.

  Almost.

  Sometimes Zaina enjoyed being seen with Imraan – an ordinary girl like her, with Imraan, the political trailblazer. He’d told her how real she was, not like other girls with their daddy’s cars and trust funds. He despised people like Naaz Paruk, a ‘sparkly’ girl – a term Billy had coined one day when they’d been people-watching on campus – who she and Imraan often made fun of. Naaz adorned her hair with golden highlights and headbands, wore the latest fashion craze no matter how ridiculous, and posted Rumi quotes about life’s hardships on her Instagram page.

  Zaina wondered if perhaps one day he’d realise that she was just ordinary and get bored of her, but Imraan assured her that it was her realness, her insecurity that came to the surface now and then, as well as the way she approached challenges, be it from family or design, that made him love her.

  Zaina willed herself not to think of marrying him. She didn’t want to jinx it. Still, as strong as her will was, she realised she’d already fallen – hard. She couldn’t imagine her life without him in it, or seeing him with someone else. Just the thought of him with another caused a sharp pain in her chest that made her catch her breath. It didn’t escape her that other girls looked at him like he was the last slice of white bread before their carb detox.

  Her longing for him existed even when he was with her, for she knew he would leave soon, off to take over the world.

  ‘I miss you,’ she would say to him, as he locked his arms around her.

  ‘But I’m still here,’ he would grin, looking at her quizzically.

  ‘I know.’

  Later, she would watch him leave, with that carefree stride as if he belonged to nobody. His gait worried her. He always seemed too nonchalant, too self-assured. In his aversion for serious topics and vulnerability, he had a way of mocking her that she didn’t like. She didn’t want to anger him. Yes, she was scared to upset him. But she was afraid of him in the way you’re afraid to move when a beautiful butterfly lands on your shoulder.

  All she hoped was that he was telling her the truth. She’d learned from her father that it was natural for men to lie. They didn’t care who they hurt.

  She didn’t want to seem too taken by him, too needy, but she’d asked him about the kelp ring and whether it had meant anything to him. ‘One day,’ he’d said in apparent seriousness, then his lips had broadened into a laugh. ‘It just occurred to me, who do henna artists call when they need to get their own wedding henna done?’

  She wished he’d give her a concrete answer – but he did give her hope and she decided to thrive on it. She resolved to prove to him that she was indeed the one for him. His wife. She would ensure that he loved her as much as she loved him.

  With Imraan, Zaina always had a feeling of waiting, that something was going to happen; whether it was a good or bad thing, she was never really sure. When she mentioned it to him, he said, ‘My jaan, our words are spells. Negativity often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think something bad will happen, it will.’ She couldn’t argue with his Rumi logic.

  His unpredictable nature was enticing but excruciating. He never made any attempt to reassure her; he never told her, ‘I won’t leave you.’ Zaina had never known such a love.

  But what Zaina didn’t realise was that this was more than love. It had become an attachment. Her soul had become his. And that’s far more dangerous than those three words people like to throw around.

  Some days, under the tree outside the library, Zaina would open her sketchpad and design a home for a writer while Imraan read to her. It didn’t matter what he read. She’d read The Forty Rules of Love more than once, but told in his velvety voice, it was as if she was hearing it for the first time.

  On Fridays, like today, she’d hear his voice echoing through the quaint campus musjid when he, as one of the well-known huffaaz on campus, called the Jumma azaan. The words, reverberating through the ladies’ section on the first floor, lifted Zaina’s heart. For the first time, she prayed he would be her husband. Perhaps their nikkah would be in this very mosque on a blessed Friday.

  She sat against the wall at the back of the jamaat khana, her toes pushed into the familiar plush carpet, and prayed with tears in her eyes. As she cupped her hands, her eyes rested on the bracelet he’d given her. It wasn’t expensive, but the giver meant more than the gift. The silver chain sat delicately across her wrist, a charm dangling from it: a white rose with a diamanté in the centre. White roses were her favourite.

  A pit in her stomach opened up as she imagined losing him to someone else. She couldn’t bear it. Please, Allah SWT, if you grant me one thing in this world, grant me him. Please don’t break my heart. Please. The desperation in her soul made it seem worth it: to pray and sin at the same time.

  Zaina reasoned that Imraan had come into her life for a reason – why else had their paths crossed? Why else had her heart become so attached? When Imraan felt sadness, she felt it too, even if they were kilometres apart. Their connection transcended the boundaries of time and space. Their 2 a.m. texts were evidence of it.

  Imraan: Thinking of u.

  Zaina: Same here. Had dream about u. U ok?

  Imraan: Had a fight with my dad. Not feeling great.

  Zaina: I knew something wasn’t right.

  Imraan: I’ll be ok. Just be with me.

  They would text until 4 a.m. It felt like the world was theirs.

  Zaina realised she finally knew what ‘attuned’ meant. Mrs Essack, her Grade 11 English teacher, after reading a scene from Romeo and Juliet, had once said the lovers were attuned to each other. ‘Ah-tewned,’ she’d enunciated loudly. Tall and imposing, she’d towered over them like a tyrant.

  The class was silent, waiting expectantly.

  ‘What does attuned mean?’

  Silence.

  ‘Anyone?’ Mrs Essack raised her voice, on the precipice of a rant about their indifference to reading.

  Finally, a mischievous voice at the back piped up. It was Mikaeel, the class clown. ‘Well, ma’am, you see, they smaaked each other so they chuned each other. They were achuned to each other.’ He grinned widely as the class erupted in a roar of laughter, and Mikaeel was promptly dragged by his ear to the principal’s office.

  Zaina smiled at the faint memory. Her only problems back then had been homework and her inconvenient periods. At her private Islamic school, Zaina had excelled. She hadn’t been popular, but she was pretty enough to get the attention of a few boys. She’d strictly adhered to the ‘no intermingling’ rule in high school, though. Besides, she wasn’t rich or fair like the majority of the students, who spent their weekends and pocket money making out or ordering milkshakes at the Shake Shack on the beachfront. It was easy to stick to the rules when you had hardly any money and your father refused to take you anywhere.

  Zaina always stood at the front of her class’s line at assemblies. She was the shortest. Her few friends used to teasingly call her ‘half loaf’. She didn’t mind. She’d loved school for the most part. Even wearing the dark-blue cloaks and cream scarves hadn’t bothered her.

  In a school that valued its competitive edge, students were always pushed hard academically. And, apart from the academic competition, there was perennially a fight between the boys for the girls’ attention. While intermingling was strictly forbidden, there were those few love-struck teenagers who managed to meet in the cracks of walls or behind them. Even a pair of young teachers wasn’t immune. And while girls and boys were kept separated by walls or subjects, there was always a magnetic tension between them within the school’s perimeters.