Do Not Look at Girls by Rahad Abir

Do not look at girls, your dad warns you at the beginning of your teenage years. The first accidental glance is okay, he says. The second is sin.

Your dad. A large man. Powerful eyes. Solemn face. When talking to him you never look him in the eye. Never waste a word. Nothing but the most necessary talk is ever shared. He runs a grocery store, works long hours. He has little time for family, or himself either. Sometimes you help him on the weekends.

During the fall of your twelfth birthday your dad becomes tough. This duniyadari, he says, this life is nothing but short-lived drops of water on a taro leaf. We humans are ashraful makhluqat, the best creation of Allah. He created us for a purpose. Life on earth is finite. But, life after death is infinite, eternal.

Initially, he encourages you to go to the mosque every day, for each prayer. You aren’t interested. No namaz, no food, he instructs your mom. On coming home each night, he probes her, asks whether you have performed namaz. He tells you he will also wake you before sunrise for the Fajr prayer.

One day your dad brings a pair of headscarves for your sister.

She’s only eight, says your mom.

You don’t need to pressure her right away, he counters. Just get her used to them before she hits puberty.

Your sister refuses to wear the headscarves. She has art classes at school. Music, dancing and painting are taught. She has taken dancing, and practices at home behind closed doors. She has begged you not to breathe a word. One of her favorite things on earth is ghungoor, the metallic anklet tied to the feet during dancing. They are expensive. Only in school practice does she have the privilege of putting them on. She confides in you that she would die to own a pair herself. The passionate, stormy, thrum of the music intoxicates her. She tells you of wishing to be a classical kathak dancer.

Not in this life, you say, ridiculing the dream that you both know ought to be undreamed.

§

So you begin to perform namaz five times a day. You make it a habit. You pray. Fast. Study. Read the Quran. Listen to your parents. Soon your name floats from neighbors’ mouths as an example to their sons. See how good Sajid is. You love overhearing it. Your parents do too.

§

Natasha. The ‘girl of the town’. So sweet, so smart. So sought-after. Her family lives in a decaying colonial-era bijou house overlooking the playground. When you play cricket with the boys in the afternoon, she watches from her Juliet balcony. A little later her music teacher arrives. Soon her voice, pulsing with pump organ, hovers in the air. She sings Tagore.

The first time you venture inside her house is to seek about a book on English essays. You forget to blink for a long, lingering moment. Never have you been to a home like this. Shelves, tables, side tables, desks, beds, floors, corridors—everything and anything is chock-full of books. Books, books, books. You stand slack-jawed. You imagine you have sneaked into a large, creaking, ancient bookshop. The smell is like that of a treasure-laden museum: bittersweet, tantalizing and transfixing.

Do you like reading? Natasha asks you.

Do I? You repeat the question to yourself. You don’t know, to be honest. You cannot recall if you have ever been told to read anything outside the four walls of the schoolhouse. In your home, books mean a few Islamic titles sitting proudly in the showcase. Four of them—Before and After Death: Heaven and Hell, Women in Islam, How to Pray Salat and Biography of the Prophet. And, of course, the Quran, wrapped in its white cloth.

If you want to read, you can borrow some, Natasha offers.

You borrow two books. Short stories of Kazi Nazrul Islam and Oliver Twist. That night, putting aside your eighth-grade textbooks, you finish half of the collected short stories. Next evening you are caught in the act. You are in the middle of reading the romantic tale “Jiner Badshah.” The Emperor Jinni.

What’re you reading? your mom shrieks.

After this, you find a way to carry on your clandestine reading. Half-burying the book under your school text, you go unnoticed.

On the third day, you return them all. You borrow some more. The freshly discovered world of fiction fascinates you. And, the bonus of an after-reading-discussion with Natasha is magical. A few months later, one hot Friday afternoon, you are devouring The Three Musketeers. There is a knock on the door. You get up to answer.

It is Natasha.

Hey! She flashes a sun-coming-out-of-the-clouds smile. Two dimples drop into the pools of her cheeks.

Hey! You reply under your breath. Dazed and staggering.

She is on her way home after visiting a friend. You’re rude, she says, her sleek nose wrinkling in mock disgust. Won’t you ask me to come in?

Yeah…yeah… you stammer. You unblock the doorway. Though you know your dad, asleep in the next room, will strongly disapprove of this show of hospitality. Natasha steps in. She sits on the edge of the bed. Her head, aflame with luxuriant hair, swivels right and left, scanning the room.

You begin to sweat. What if your dad emerges and asks her to leave?

Your house seems perfectly bookless, she says, raising her winged brows.

You nod ashamedly.

Where’s your sis?

Before you answer your sister comes in and whispers into your ear. Dad wants to see you. At once.

You blanch, trudge towards the other room. Your dad is sat up in bed, his face ferocious in mercurial temper.

Who’s that girl?

She lives by the playground, you say, looking down.

Isn’t she the daughter of that malaun?

You dart your eyes up to his face for a split second. Glue them back to the floor. By malaun he refers to Hindus. Natasha’s Papa is Hindu, her Ma Muslim. Despite their advanced education and good jobs, some neighbors frown them upon. The recent demolition of the Babri Mosque in India has reignited this age-old bitterness.

Your closest friend in the neighborhood, Badal, is also Hindu. As such, he faces animosity daily. The other boys, apart from teasing him that he’s aakata, the uncircumcised, now increase the power of their taunts by dubbing him a malaun.

Let me remind you again, erupts your dad. You go to the mosque, you go to school, and you study—that’s it. No mixing with girls. Your dad threatens that if you fail to comply, he will take you out of school, and employ you in his store full time.

Is that understood? he concludes.

Heavy with humiliation, you melt into the ground.

By the time you walk back into the front room, Natasha has left. Did she overhear dad? Your sister is unsure.

The following day you don’t go to play. The day after you do. You avert your eyes when walking past Natasha’s balcony. But Natasha is Natasha. She waves at you, calling your name. You are left with no choice but to wave back to her. A gang of boys surround you after the game.  Dube dube jol khacchish? You rebut their accusation—there are no secret goings-on between you and Natasha. Everyone knows, you add, that Natasha dates your landlord’s son. The guy with the motorbike. Honda XL.

On Thursday afternoon you head to Natasha’s. You have to return her books and are hungry for fresh volumes. She greets you with her inviting grin and sits you down in their book-besieged sitting room. Her papa is there, caught up in a book entitled A History of the Jews. He hardly notices you, not seeming the least bothered by your unannounced landing. When he lifts his gaze off the book, he speaks.

How’s it going, Sajid?

You smile in reply. You find yourself asking him a question about his library. Have you read all your books?

He laughs, closes his hardback, takes his glasses off. No, son. You can’t read all the books you buy in your lifetime.

You look at him in amazement. Whenever you see him at home his nose is always in a book, a magazine or a newspaper.

Nat! Bring us some tea. For your guest and me.

Sajid’s not a guest! Natasha shrugs. I can’t make tea now.

Please honey.

Natasha stomps to the kitchen with her gamine exuberance. Her prominent breasts ripple under her mustard T-shirt, causing you, a fourteen-year-old, to wonder if you can suffer a cardiac arrest yet. You listen to the clinking sounds cascading from the kitchen. You hear her humming, crooning. Bhalobasi bhalobasi… I love, I love…

You flush to your bones. Such a romantic song to sing in the presence of her father and a male neighbor! It amuses you. You feel blue simultaneously. Never have you witnessed a relationship like this between parent and child.

§

At school, you have taken Arabic as an elective subject. Before the half-yearly exam, it seems unlikely that you will pass. One day, after the Asr prayer, you approach the Imam of the mosque. Learning about your dawning concern, he lands his long hand on your shoulder, giving an affectionate squeeze. No problem, good man, he gushes. You come tomorrow with your book.

You sit down with him the next day. You show him a number of parables that need to be translated from Arabic to Bengali. He dictates. You write. The first is done in less than an hour. On your third meeting he asks you for a favor. Could you go to his house and give him a massage? His wife and children are away on vacation in their hometown. He has no one else to ask.

Sure, you say. You see it as reciprocation.

His flat is small and colorless. The Saturday sun pours through the eastward window onto the rumpled bed sheet. He slips out of his dove-white panjabi, that carries the aroma of roses. A halal attar perfume. He climbs onto the bed and lies down. You notice discernible prayer bumps on his forehead and left ankle.

Do you want me to massage your legs first? You ask, shifting your eyes off the image of the holy Kaaba hung on the wall.

Oh, no, good man, says he. Not that way. Lie down, here beside me. He pats the mattress.

You don’t understand. Your granny has arthritis. You are used to kneading her arms and legs when you visit her in the village.

My waist hurts, he explains. You’ll have to do it a different way.

You get onto the bed, sitting by his waist. He makes you lie down, places one of your arm around his back, and tells you to embrace him hard. It is no easy feat. He is a broad, tall man. You struggle to maintain a good grip.

Nah, he whines. It’s not working. He rolls onto you; mounts you. Is this okay? He asks. Am I too heavy?

You are no longer a mamma’s boy. It’s okay, you say.

Press me hard then. Over my waist. That’s where the pain is.

Abashed, you oblige him, and you feel his groin against yours.

He starts to moan in unbroken beats. Mmm…yesss…goood…

You develop a tiny trouble below the waist. Your member is getting firmer. You wonder if his is too?

You are to keep doing and undoing this hugging massage until there is a call for the noon prayer.

Aahhhh. He releases a long, low sigh of pleasure. He pushes himself up, disappears into the bathroom. He comes out clean, with wet face, arms and feet—ablutions performed.

You lock yourself in the bathroom. You check your underwear. There are two tiny spots. Damp. Smelly. Discharge? What should you do now? When a mere fart can undo your ablutions, how much more unclean would this furtive emission make you in the eyes of God? You agonize.

You head off to the mosque together with the Imam. He leads the prayer as usual. His sweetened voice in Arabic enchants the worshipers. But somehow you cannot take your mind off that hugging massage. No matter how fiercely you maneuver your soul, you cannot focus on the words of the prayer. In your mind’s eye you see a heavy, healthy figure towering over you, saying Hard, hard, harder…

That night you are like a small sparrow in bed. You bury your head beneath pillows. A memory comes to you. Many years ago, when you were little, one night you saw your dad on top of your mom. He was moving awkwardly. You thought he was hurting her. But they spoke in hushed tones and the bed squeaked for some time.

You try to sleep under the undiluted darkness of pillows. Soon you have an eerie dream; a giant is atop of you, pressing you down. Under his humongous fleshy heft, you become smaller and smaller, and you feel like an ant on its back, flinging your itsy-bitsy hands to get him off your chest. The night after, you are in a different dreamscape, in familiar surroundings. You find yourself pressing into someone. A girl. Natasha. The unmistakable Natasha. She is giggling, arms wrapped around you; though her papa is in the same chamber, head stuck in a book.

A pool of heat floods your groin.

§

Something discomforts you whenever you come across the Imam. Something doesn’t feel right.  You change mosques. Ten minutes from home, the newer mosque is bigger, with a religious school attached to it. Concrete walls separate off half of the second and third floors of the mosque, in which students live and study. Some of the boys your age astonish you when you learn they have memorized the whole Quran. The whole holy book! Over six thousand verses!

You are now fifteen. It is on a Shab-e-barat night—the night of fortune and forgiveness—you meet a budding madrassa teacher there. Hafez Habeeb. He is lanky and husky-voiced. His chaotic facial hair resembles that of a first-time beard grower. He is twenty-four.

Let’s have some fun, guys! Hafez Habeeb announces.

Leading a couple of playful junior students, he rolls the corner of a piece of paper into a cone. He tiptoes over to a man lost in sleep on a prayer rug. He inserts the pointed corner into the nose of the sleeping devotee and wiggles it a little. Before he dashes back to a safe distance, the sleeping man bursts out, Achoo! For some time, the second floor is abuzz with sneezing. Achoo! Achoo! Achoo!

One Friday Hafez Habeeb swings by your home. I was passing your street, he says, thought I should come to say hello. You proudly introduce him to your dad. A blazing proof that you are bapka beta. Your dad’s ideal kid. He has instructed you over and over to mix with good boys who pray regularly.

You think of a dropout boy from your school who used to visit you. He now works in his father’s motor workshop in Dholaikhal. Your dad ruled that he didn’t want to see you with that idler again. Your tongue got stuck inside your mouth, failing to explain that the boy isn’t a bad guy; his brain just isn’t made for studies. Imran, another boy from school, comes around when he needs something from you. He greets your parents with a seductive salaam and speaks with impeccable manners. They are impressed. Yes, suggests your dad, mix with boys like Imran.

But you know what is inside Imran. A little Don Juan. A clever jackal. He is the hub of pornography booklets. By night he gratifies himself imagining friends’ sisters, even their moms. His favorite topic of conversation is female anatomy. Walking down the streets with him, just for half an hour, is a repulsive experience. His shifty eyeballs, bigger even than his shame, never miss a chance to eye-fuck a passing girl.

§

Now and then you bump into Hafez Habeeb. Some aspects of his character seem outlandish. The way he talks with his husky voice. The way he laughs. The way he touches and squeezes your hand. He is different, but you can’t pinpoint how. He has long been asking you to stop in at his flat. One noon in June, you go along. His other housemates are at work.

What do you do for a living? You ask.

I teach Arabic. Lead Friday prayers in a mosque.

He sits close to you, holding you warmly. You suddenly fathom that he is attracted to you physically. His hand paws your thigh, crawls between your legs. Cups you there. In a minute he pulls you out of your virginal cocoon. His mouth takes your nunu, hungry as a hunter. Feet touching on the floor, your body is lying on the bed. His head bobs up and down over your waist. Minutes run. Your breathing quickens. One, two, three… you jizz and jolt. He swallows it all.

§

You feel possessed for days. You stare vacantly at the girls walking in the streets. Their swaying hips hypnotize you. You imagine them naked. Off and on, in your head, you hear a lascivious sound—the waves of Natasha’s laughter. Their splashing gives you butterflies. Her enigmatic smile ignites your senses. You think of slipping into her bedroom at night. But you find yourself curled up in your own bed like a coiled earthworm. And, in your sleep, you groan like a gorilla. You feel the feel of Natasha, her face bobbing down at your waist, dousing your inferno.

In the morning you chant the mantra: Do not look at girls, do not look at girls… And you add a caveat: Do not even think about girls. You pray to God for help. God doesn’t respond. Rather, in the daylight you spot a neighbor’s cock chasing your pet hen. Two stray dogs mating in the street. And a pair of copulating house lizards on the wall of your room. They all drive you nuts.

The week after you visit Hafez Habeeb again. This time you are led into another adventure. He lets you do it, and you let him do it. Like dogs, from behind. Yet the whole thing frustrates you. Pleases you. Repels you.

Isn’t it sin? What we’ve just done?

It’s OK, he purrs.

You try to think he might be right. Maybe it’s OK, like that first accidental glance at passing girls.

Your frustration balloons. Starts to kill you. Your attendance at the mosque becomes irregular. Still, Hafez Habeeb has set you on fire.

One clammy evening, you bound for the park where you’ve heard hustlers and prostitutes take over after dark. To do it or not to do it. You are unsure whether to go through with your plan. You sit brooding on a park bench with your lust-heavy head drooping.

A voice jolts you. Do you want it? A woman creeps up on you. Lips reddened. Face powdered. Hair oiled.

You gather your voice. How much?

Twenty.

Okay.

Money first.

You hand it over. She smuggles it inside her bodice, then guides you to the clustered darkness beneath a mahogany tree. Legs apart, she stands against the trunk. Rolls her pajamas up to her privates. Touches your thing to draw you forward to the right spot. You tremble on the verge of collapse. Your heart pounds. You catch some figures not far away. They whisper, peering at the live show. A great unease engulfs you, numbing your pelvis. You are bathed in cold sweat. In less than thirty seconds, the woman cries out, Police! Police!

You spin around. Bolt toward the park exit. She lied, you realize. There are no police to be seen.

§

You cease to pray. Your mom scolds you as she doesn’t see you performing namaz. Your dad threatens beatings. Then early one night you are forced awake. A fiery hand pulls your body into a sitting position. Your first thought is that thugs must have broken into the house. It takes a moment for your slumberous eyes to make out the familiar figure, the mouth that is quacking with questions: Did you pray before sleeping? Did you pray? Did you?

You are silent.

Go perform your night prayer, your dad commands.

You do not move.

Can’t you hear me? He explodes. What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you pray? Tell me. Speak.

You don’t say a word. You remain as a live statue, your gaze cast downward.

Irritation seizes him. He leaves, comes back clutching a dal ghotni from the kitchen. The wooden hand blender whistles with every blow that rains down upon your body. You pant in pain.

Please leave him, your mom implores, breaking down in tears.

You want to go to hell for him? your dad screams at her. I don’t need a son who spits on our beliefs.

It’s that malaun, he blurts out. The uncircumcised. How many times have I told you not to mix with that Hindu boy?

He is getting at your schoolmate, Badal.

The dal ghotni snaps in two. Your dad grabs you by the hair. He hurls his final warning in your face. Starting tomorrow you pray five times a day, or I’ll send you to a madrassa.

He stalks off.

You remain seated, unmoved. Your mom sponges your arms and back. The welts feel spicy on your skin. They are feverishly warm, florid with inflammation.

The rest of the night you lie motionless in bed, barely breathing. Your eyelids will not shut. You look into the dark of the ceiling, into the hushed void. You are nothing, nothing. You are nowhere, nowhere. You hear a loud lizard tongue. Tik tik tik. You discern the movements of the gecko over the ceiling, across the walls. It runs, stops, prowls on.

Over two days at home, you sink into your thoughts. You think of running away. But where will you go? Surely you will end up living on the street, homeless. You need to get to your feet in order to have your say. To have your own life and to grow, you have to study. You know this much is true.

You decide to live a double life. You start praying again, just to appease your parents. Often, on your way to the mosque, you wind up wandering the streets. Occasionally, you pop into Natasha’s to finish a book. It is terrible, this pretending. You wonder how long you can bear it.

Another flame reignites after your final exams are over. It burns within you day and night. Girls, girls, girls. You want a girlfriend. A lover. You think of Natasha. But Natasha only dates older boys. She loves you as a friend. You wish you had a Honda XL so you could take her on the pillion and feel the rhythm of her body against your back.

§

On the day of Eid-ul-Adha, the festival of sacrifice, you see Hafez Habeeb hurrying about the neighborhood with a bloody machete in hand, sacrificing the animals. His kans grass-white panjabi blazes with oxblood-red blotches across his waist.

You visit him the following Monday. You want a word with him.

Sajid, my love! Hafez Habeeb pipes out. Where have you been? I’ve missed you.

Go to hell.

He convulses in amusement. His laugh and damned husky voice sicken you.

Let me ask you something straight. Do you think you’re sinning?

Sinning?

Religion doesn’t allow it. The acts you and I have performed on each other. You know this.

Forget it, my love. He squeezes the inside of your thigh.

Don’t touch me.

He cackles out loud. Why? Didn’t you like blasting in my mouth?

Stop it! You know what? You’re a phony, a hypocrite!

Hypocrite? How?

You’re nothing but a nunu sucker. A cock adorer. You should change your profession.

It’s too late. All I’ve learned my whole life is memorizing the holy book. What do you want me to do now? Become a day laborer?

I don’t know. Anything but this.

He sits mute, stroking his beard.

Will you give me an honest answer?

He looks you in the eye.

Do you really believe in God?

Of course, I do. He blinks. But I am what I am. I can’t help it.

You think, breathe in hard. After a while you step out into the silent street. It is drizzling. The air is wet and cool. When you plod past the old mosque, you hear your name called. You halt and look. It is the Imam. He smiles. You do not. You hold his gaze for a moment, then you turn your head, as if you’d seen nothing. You continue down the street. You hear your name again, but you do not stop.

Rahad Abir’s work has appeared in The Wire, Courrier International, Himal Southasian and BRICK LANE TALES anthology, among other places. He is an MFA candidate in fiction at Boston University. He received the 2017-18 Charles Pick Fellowship at the University of East Anglia. Currently he is working on his first novel.