Eclipse

By Sauleha Kamal

“Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Raheem.”

The khateeb began his sermon, praising God with the opening phrase. People started to populate the room, settling in rows on the straw mats: a colorful display of headscarves, dupattas and crocheted caps. Earl Hall looked the same to Saira even after all these years away in Pakistan. She had been surprised to hear Jummah prayers were still held here, having experienced Columbia’s frequent changes in room allocations and building assignments far too many times during her four short years here as an undergraduate. Set in stone, the Columbia seal overlooked the room from its high position on the wall atop theatre-red curtains. A cluster of anachronistic hanging lights above recalled an older era and provided the only artificial light in the room, supplementing the rays of sun that poured in through the many tall windows. A pedestal fan buzzed and hummed at the back, contributing more sound than air to the room. Fall was late this year and New York continued in sweltering summer heat into the end of September. The air was saturated with moisture, the humidity made her hair curl at the ends while the heat made her shirt stick to her skin. She missed the light lawn Shalwar Kameez suits she had left in her closet at home.

Back in college, Saira had gone to Jummah sporadically because of a combination of a schedule that did not lend itself to free Friday afternoons, an acute introversion that made her shy away from standing shoulder-to-shoulder with others and a habit of praying by herself in her room cultivated in childhood in Pakistan where it was the norm for women to pray at home—no congregation necessary. She liked the sense of community she felt praying in congregation here, though; she liked that the Imam recited each word slowly enough that she could approximate translations in her mind even with her limited knowledge of Arabic and reflect on what each word meant as it echoed through the hall. She felt a stronger connection to the words here than when she prayed on her own reciting a memorized passage from the thirtieth paara to herself, her voice barely above a whisper. But the way everyone would always automatically move in closer to each other when the prayer began until there was no gap between her shoulders and theirs and her upper arms were completely aligned with the women on either side did not come naturally to her. Still, even with her infrequent visits here during those years, on her return to this room, the hot air was redolent with memories.

Saira looked over to where Shahid sat, exactly one row ahead of her. It was clear his hair was thinning in the back; a shiny bit of untanned scalp even visible between tufts of the familiar, unruly ash brown hair that shone golden wherever it caught the sunlight. Shahid never wanted to do much of anything these days but he would always muster the energy for prayer. So, he had agreed to come with her to Jummah even though he had shot down plans to revisit the musty shelves of Butler Library or walk down the stony pavements of Riverside Park. He still tried to pretend everything was all right, a true disciple of the desi school of sweeping all troubles under a fixed smile and a “jee, Allah ka shukar hai sab kuch bilkul theek hai” (“Yes, thank God! Everything is absolutely fine”) but he did not have any energy left to pretend, at least not to Saira.

She hadn’t seen him genuinely excited over anything for too long. She missed the old gleam in his eyes even more now that they were back at the place where she had first seen it. Yesterday, when she had come across a joke about entropy not being “what it used to be” and read it out to Shahid, he had barely even smiled when, once upon a time, that same joke would have made him laugh for a minute straight, the kind of laughter that makes ribs ache. That morning, an email newsletter had informed her that there was going to be a lunar eclipse tonight—she had needed her reading glasses to read it, she had not quite gotten used to them yet. Maybe Shahid would want to go up to the observatory to see the eclipse, like they used to.

Saira looked away from Shahid, shifting her gaze from him to the rest of the room. A toddler trailed behind his mother and father: tight, copper coils adorning his head like an emperor’s crown. As his mother headed towards the women’s rows and his father turned to the men’s, the little boy hesitated for a moment in between, trying to determine where he belonged, his identity not yet a fixed performance. He ultimately chose to sit next to his father but five minutes later—evidently bored soon of a sermon he did not yet understand—leapt up to wind through the labyrinth of worshippers, his toothy smile broadening as he navigated them like a maze. His whole world must have seemed a maze of unexplored possibilities.

“In the Holy Qur’an, Allah subhanallahu ta’ala opens Surah Al-Asr by swearing an oath on the decline of time,” the khatib continued.

He proceeded to recite and then translate the verses of the surah,

““Wa-l-ʿaṣr”—“By Time!”—“ʾinna l-ʾinsāna la-fī khusr”—“Surely mankind is in loss”—“ʾillā lladhīna ʾāmanū wa-ʿamilū ṣ-ṣāliḥāti wa-tawāṣaw bi-l-ḥaqqi wa-tawāṣaw bi-ṣ-ṣabr”—“Except those who believe and do righteous good deeds, and recommend one another to the truth, and recommend one another to patience.”” He paused; the room was completely quiet but for the buzz of the fan.

“Brothers and sisters, we are powerless over time. Allah alone is its master. He swears by it to make us aware of its importance; to remind us to use it wisely! Everything occurs in time, all our happiness and all our pain, good and evil, hardships and blessings. We must not let these things govern our lives, all our actions must instead be guided by patience and belief,” his voice echoed through the hall.

Saira had been back in New York many times since she tossed her graduation cap at the Columbia blue sky in May 2015 but it had always been for short business trips. The conference schedules never gave her enough time or cause to trek back up to 116^th and Broadway where she had spent so much of her youth, where she suspected she would feel its loss most deeply. A bit of a reverse immigrant (if that were a category), she had left America with her family for Pakistan while she was still too young to have formed any memories. When she had returned as a college freshman eighteen years later, the country—technically, her country—had felt simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar. The media had ensured American culture was prominent all over the world and, after years spent with Hollywood movies and the Billboard top 100, the United States was already familiar to her in many ways and returning here had felt like how she imagined it would feel to finally meet a close online friend and realize how different they were in person. What had surprised her about America most was how foreign Pakistan was to most of her peers, how far away it seemed to them, as if it were another world. It shouldn’t have surprised her, not really, because cultural exchange had never purported to be balanced. Yet it still did.

“Welcome home,” the customs officer had said with a smile at JFK as he handed her back her stamped blue passport that first time. A part of her had wanted to correct him, say she wasn’t home at all; that this country was foreign to her beyond what she had seen on television and in old photographs of infant memories she could not recollect. Home was like nothing else: home was where the monsoon rains filled the air with the sweet smell of damp earth every summer, where Saira’s conversations would meander in and out of English and Urdu and where she had repeated the words of “Pak Sar Zameen” in the cold morning air with the rest of the school every day of elementary and middle school. The sudden emergence of feelings that could only be described as patriotic took Saira by surprise. Ideologically, she was opposed to nationalism but here—away from home—she realized that her opposition had over-simplified truths that cannot be condensed. Land was not just land, after all. For the first time, Saira actually understood the idea of hub-ul-watani—love of country—and what Iqbal had meant when he wrote “G̱ẖurbat meiṉ hoṉ agar ham, rahtā hai dil wat̤an meiṉ” (“Even when we are in a foreign land, the heart remains in the homeland”).

How odd it was to look at the horizon those first few months and not see blue hills, to see the sky claimed by steel and cement, and the stars displaced by bright lights that lit the sky with an ever-present glow that made it impossible to discern the disappearance of the shafaq at night. The city was never quiet, it roared with the sounds of conversation and traffic and police sirens but it never sounded right. Saira missed the sound of the adhan that rang through the streets of Islamabad every few hours.

That initial culture shock would only be the first in a series of annual culture shocks she would experience every summer both when she returned to Islamabad in May and to New York in August, at least for those first two years. Junior year, New York finally began to feel like home and when she landed in JFK for senior year, she had felt she was back where she belonged. It surprised her now, though, that even after having lived in Islamabad for so many years once again, Columbia did not feel different, the culture shock of that first few years had not returned. There was no unease to be felt here in the place where she had spent her most formative years, where she had learned how to sift through primary and secondary sources, engaged in many conversations about Foucault, Said, Austen and Wollstonecraft and where she had met her husband of eighteen years.

***

Saira and Shahid walked down the steps of Earl Hall, past the serious dome-and-columns of Low library, the Alma Mater statue whose stony robes had graced many a glossy Columbia brochure throughout the years and under roofs colored a whimsical mint green that had always reminded Saira of fashion from the 80s (though she had not actually seen that decade herself) and Parisian macarons. In some ways, Columbia felt frozen in time. Saira and Shahid were tourists in an old photograph, time-travellers stepping through a portal.

The university was the stalwart fort that guarded academia against the wear and tear that dominated the narrative of the outside world. Outside the gates, stock market crashes like the one that had hit New York—and, so, the global economy—in early 2015 mere months from graduation happened, but inside these walls, there would always be time enough to debate Marxism and defend poetry against Plato, to sit on the grand colonial steps on cool days and toss Frisbees on the bright green lawns in the summer. Columbia kept its own calendar of midterms and finals, even spoke its own over-educated—some would say “pretentious” — language. If anything were a construct, this was it, she thought wryly.

When the university invited her back to lecture about her experiences as an academic researcher in Pakistan, she said yes. She was here to try to explain the political economy of her country to curious undergraduates, to try to explain how Pakistan remained a remarkably functional, dysfunctional state, how it persevered through a horrendous onslaught of crises that had compelled many an armchair analyst to prematurely label it a failed state decades ago. She wanted to show her students what development actually meant beyond economic models and regression analyses, what it meant to realize that the world was not as harmonious as textbooks would have you believe, to know that everyone in it does not desire good and that war is often engineered and, almost always, inevitable.

She had jumped at the opportunity for reasons that were not academic as well. Part of her—a small, childish part of her—hoped that, in the seclusion of Morningside Heights, she could recover some part of her old self and pretend the years had not taken their toll, pretend that life was still exciting, that she had a future sparkling with opportunity before her instead of a past riddled with flukes, faults and monotony behind her. Most of all, though, she hoped Shahid would recover some part of his former self here, that the lines etched deep into his face would smooth out, that his deep brown eyes would recover their sparkle and he would remember how to smile again. She knew Morningside Heights was not the fountain of youth yet she clung to the childish fantasy that returning to the place would return Shahid to the person he was when they were last here. The doctor had agreed that a change of scenery would do him good—the Fluoxetine alone had not had the lasting effect he had hoped for.

Saira had met Shahid in the fall of 2014, during an autumn much like this one. She had been a senior Political Science major at Barnard, he a graduate student at SIPA. SIPA, the School of International and Public Affairs, seemed to have more South Asian students than any of the other schools. The first time she had stepped into the building for a TA’s office hours freshman year, she had inadvertently timed her appointment to coincide with a graduate student chai social. Dressed in Shalwar Kameez, men and women conversed in unaccented Urdu-Hindi over cups of chai (not the redundant “chai tea” or the odd “chai latte,” just “chai”)—she had felt as if she were back home. Three years had raced past and yet also dragged on until senior year arrived in 2014 and everything began to feel urgent to Saira, standing as she was on the precipice of graduation, afraid of failing but even more afraid of not moving forward, suspended in Barzakh, the place between the physical and spiritual worlds where the soul waits after death and before resurrection on the Day of Judgment. The finality and looming certainty of graduation unnerved her and she kept thinking of the day her diploma and transcript would be handed to her, perfect records of her deeds at college, perfect proof of the end of college. She still remembered that nervous fear that she would not figure out the next step in time; that college would be over before she had the chance to plan what would come after.

Senior year emerged at the heels of a summer tainted with too much bloodshed: war, death and destruction having rained down across the world in those three short months. Every day would bring news of rising death tolls. Implicit in the headlines—in the hate scattered across the news channels like discarded limbs and spilled across papers like cheap, foreign blood—was the utter failure and futility of foreign policy, the career she had meant to pursue. People always said they wanted peace and coexistence but it was all rhetoric. “Ah but we need war to get to peace, don’t you see?” or “You’re too simplistic!” or “Pacifism is the most impractical ivory-tower solution there ever was.” She had heard it one too many times to not cringe at the words “collateral damage”. At the end of the monochrome rainbow of red blood lay the pot of peace. Buried beneath rotting corpses, you would find the Magna Carta.

Shahid had believed in change though, despite all the reasons not to. He was somehow able to conceive a better world and, in his optimism, Saira found an antidote for the cynicism that haunted her thoughts. Lately, she had wondered if she would have stayed in Political Science had he not reawakened hope in her. She might have very well found a comfortable corporate job and eased her conscience with academic jargon that assured her that the pursuit of self-interest would automatically promote the good of society.

“Saira,” he would say, “Hope is our only recourse! If even we refuse to hope for change, then, who will?”

But just two days ago when a journalist had expressed similar views on PTV News, Shahid had called him naïve, trying to conceal his own broken faith under derisive confidence.

Saira wondered now if she should suggest they go up to the observatory for the lunar eclipse tonight. Back in the spring of her senior year, they had spent many hours either at observatories around the city or in and around the United Nations building near FDR Drive because of his endless fascination with astronomy and their passion for international relations. He had majored in astrophysics during his own undergrad before he came to Columbia. In the end, his desire to try to develop his country had won out and he had enrolled at SIPA, choosing International Relations over the graduate programs in astrophysics towards which his academic adviser had tried to steer him. Many people talked about changing the world in vaguely noble application essays, a lot of them also talked about economic development in their interviews, but Shahid? Shahid actually believed in those things with everything he had in him, so much that he concentrated all his energies into his efforts.

He would always take extensive notes in his lectures, recap the best discussions from his Political Economy of Pakistan seminar for Saira—punctuating his words with excited gesticulation—and he would write each paper with renewed zeal. After graduation, he secured a job at The Center for Economic and Social Development in Islamabad. He spent long days and nights shaping policy and advising decision makers while she completed her Master’s degree. A few years after they got married, he redirected his efforts to the public sector, having realized that it might be more productive to try to improve the system from within, to be a policy maker instead of just an advisor. As the days, months and years slid off the calendar though, it became increasingly clear to him that he was not achieving his goals at the Ministry of Planning. The system that seemed impenetrable from the outside was immutable on the inside—no amount of meetings and paperwork would change structures that benefited those in power. The cruel unpredictability of reality impeded idealism too often. Retired military personnel displaced experts to become figurehead ministers during times of military rule and ministers got shuffled around based on an iffy algorithm of nepotism and party loyalty during civilian rule.

On the eve of his fortieth birthday, a few years ago, Shahid had shot down any celebratory plans she tried to make for the next day. When she asked why, he had waited a few minutes before answering, as if saying the words would make his phantoms real, validate a perceived failure. He confessed that he was losing hope in the possibility of realizing the ideals to which he had clutched so tightly.

“And without that, what’s the point to anything?” he had asked.

She had not known how to respond.

Here, on the cold, metal chairs in the quadrangle outside the International Affairs Building, it felt as if life was giving them a do-over. She looked at the short, skinny trees housed in comically large plastic pots in the space between the Law School and SIPA much like the ones that had grown here all those years ago. Across from where Saira and Shahid sat, the Law library looked exactly as Saira remembered it: shelves full of maroon-and-gold volumes and hunched-over students who were permanent fixtures, as much part of the architecture as the angular columns that cut across Jerome L. Greene Hall’s façade. Bright green leaves trembled in the slight breeze, alternating between light and dark as they turned from side to side. The stone tiles on the ground were stained with coffee and mud and littered with everything from round bits of punch-hole paper to Marlboro stubs.

In the waning sunlight, Shahid almost looked like he was twenty-four again, twenty-four and full of boundless energy—if only the deep gray shadows under his eyes did not give him away. The silence seemed to grow louder somehow. The air grew colder. Had they actually managed to reverse time, he would have tried to make her laugh, done anything to break the painful emptiness of quiet between two people who had too much history and love between them to not have anything to say to each other. Still, the temptation of the past was too strong here.

Back in 2014, right after they had first met, she would often find herself hoping to run into Shahid on campus. She would construct imaginary conversations in her head, wondering what they would talk about when they next saw each other. Now, they sat across from one other on the same campus, a married couple trapped in complete silence.

Saira remembered feeling annoyed when she had first realized that she liked him. She had never even considered the possibility of feeling that way about someone. She kept picturing Ariel in “The Little Mermaid” floating around the ocean right after she had seen Prince Eric. Ariel had been the perfect picture of elation, humming various tunes and plucking flower petals. A creature of order and certainty, Saira did not react like Ariel. Saira found the lack of control maddening. Whenever she had seen Shahid in those first few months, she had simultaneously wanted to stay in that moment indefinitely and run in the other direction as fast as her feet would carry her. Her lips would automatically flex into a smile every time she thought of him or one of their mutual friends mentioned him. She had not known how to deal with Shahid because she had never felt that way about anyone before. The idea of navigating this new social situation was as absurd to her as a six-month old consciously planning his first steps. She didn’t even know where to begin. Now, all these years later, she didn’t know how to deal with him once again.

What do you say to someone who has witnessed every painful moment in the slow death of his ideals? Someone whose fiery conviction you have seen gradually dim to a flickering flame, starved of oxygen?

She glanced over at Shahid. The years had methodically chipped at the self-consciousness she had felt so strongly at first until none of it was left. College seemed entire universes away when she thought back to those first few days of senior year. At the Muslim Student Association’s Eid celebration back when they had just started to get to know each other, she had been painfully aware of Shahid’s presence in the room even though she had been talking to a friend when he walked in. All through the night she kept sneaking glances at him out of the corner of her eye, noting every little movement: the way he toyed with his phone while making conversation or how he never quite sat in one place for too long, always greeting more people. She made no move to approach him or say hi because they were still acquaintances and she did not want to be too obvious. Finally, when she had talked to almost everyone else she knew there and Shahid was standing so close that it would have officially been more awkward to pretend she had not seen him than to acknowledge his presence, Saira had waved at Shahid and walked over.

“Assalamoalaikum,” he had said with a small smile and she had answered “Waalaikumusalam”.

Five seconds of silence. Then, one of them had asked, “How are you?” and that had turned into a fragmented conversation about how they had spent the day. They had continued this for a few minutes until it seemed natural to say goodbye and part ways. On the walk back to her dorm, Saira had thought about all the topics she could have brought up, all the ways she could have extended their conversation. But even if it had been awkward, she had felt something tonight. Unsaid in the spaces between awkward pleasantries: he had been aware of her too.

She took a deep breath. The air had a slight chill to it now.

“Shahid, there’s a lunar eclipse viewing at Pupin tonight. We should go.”

Even as she spoke the words now she knew what his response was going to be but sitting here, in memory itself, she let herself hope. Twenty years ago, he would have been the one to tell her about the eclipse, his brown eyes large with childlike excitement. Twenty years ago, he would have texted their closest friends too and made sure they all went together, not wanting any of them would miss out on this celestial miracle no matter how small it was.

He didn’t answer her question immediately now. The silence stretched on for a few moments. Then, he smiled at her, a small smile that did not reach his eyes. This smile had nothing of Shahid in it. It was as if he was only smiling for her benefit, performing a part he thought he was expected to play, trying not let her down as he often said he had done.

“I don’t feel so good, I think I need to go lie down, get some rest tonight, you know? But you should go, Saira! It’ll be fun!” There was too much false enthusiasm injected into that last sentence.

Sauleha Kamal is a security analyst and writer, currently living in Islamabad. A recent graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University in New York, her work has previously appeared in the Oxford University Press anthology “I’ll Find My Way”, The Columbia Spectator, The Missing Slate, Muftah and AltMuslimah. She is a recipient of the prestigious Axinn Foundation/Anna Quindlen Prize for Writing which provides support to one promising writer every year, among other awards and was shortlisted for the Charles Pick South Asia fellowship at the University of East Anglia in 2015.