The Centre(13)

“If I were a man,” she’d once said, “if I had the kind of freedom and independence they do, I would never get married. I don’t know why they do it.”

Maybe things like that had planted a seed in me. I didn’t have the restrictions my mother had had. I could, in some ways, “live like a man.” And so, I wondered, did I need to take better advantage of the privilege of my freedom? Would marriage mean, for me, too, the end of something?

In the comfort of the cocoon of my home, I began to wonder about the extent of the compromise I had made. No, I started to think. That fire I longed for. It existed. It must. Fine, maybe not dances in the rain and jumping into someone’s arms while they’re on a moving train, but the emotional equivalent of that stuff—love and respect and mutual admiration, and yes, heart flutters and bedroom sparks. Those are the relationships in which both partners grow. The truth is, even little Billee made my heart melt more than Adam did. I missed him terribly while in Karachi, even though Naima texted me photos of him daily, and I found myself thinking that maybe I’d picked the wrong flatmate to bring home with me. In this way, doubt accumulated on top of doubt, and it started to feel like I had brought this relationship home not for it to solidify, but dissolve.

The Centre, I thought. The Centre could be the stepping stone I needed to reach the life I really wanted. To find a sense of fulfillment and meaning. To become a real translator.

But I forgot, of course, about the Ayatul Kursi.

On one of our last days in Karachi, while eating halwa puri for breakfast at Boat Basin, I told Adam I wanted to go to the Centre.

“To learn German,” I said. “Now that’s a real translator’s language. Can you imagine if I had access to German novels in the original?”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“A hundred percent. It’s probably the biggest market outside of English. And anyway, it’s so complicated, that language. Learning it will probably make me smarter.”

“It’s an intense experience, you know.”

“Come on,” I said. “If you could do it, I can do it.”

He hesitated for a second. “There’s something else.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, it sort of changes you, learning a language that fast.”

“How?”

“Maybe I’ve just done it too many times, but it’s like, sometimes, you forget who you even are.”

“Forget how?”

“It’s hard to say. Maybe that would have happened anyway. I’m in such a different place now from where I started. Career-wise. Financially. Even you. It feels to me, constantly, like I was never meant to be here.”

“I think that’s an Adam thing, not a Centre thing.”

“It’s both,” he said.

“I know what it feels like, by the way, to not feel like you belong.”

“It’s not the same, Anisa. I’ve heard the way your parents talk to you. They’ve told you from the day you were born that you could be anyone you wanted. Me, every day I wonder. Sometimes I feel like I should keep a packed bag by the front door at all times, you know, in case I’m suddenly evicted from my life.”

He looked at me then, and I felt my heart soften. He touched the tip of his nose—our code for “I’m giving you a kiss right now” while we were out in Karachi. Then, when we got home, while the household was taking its afternoon nap, we locked my bedroom door and made love in a way that felt tender and true, but also like a goodbye. And once we got back to London, I asked Adam if we could take a break.

He seemed upset but didn’t protest. This made things worse; he acted as if my rejection were a justification for his own self-loathing.

“I understand,” he said. “I can be a bit intense, I know.”

“It’s not that. It’s just … I want to see where my head and my heart really are. I don’t know, Adam. Maybe I’m just meant to be alone.”

“You’re just trying to let me down easy.”

“It’s really not that.”

And so, Adam moved back into his own flat. He told me he’d given the Centre my details and that they would be in touch if I passed their background check. Completely unaware of the true nature of what I’d signed up for, I waited impatiently for their call.





THREE


After Adam left, I missed him badly and would ask him to come back from time to time, only to vacillate yet again. In the end, it was he who brought things to a close, saying that he’d had enough of this push and pull and that I should only get in touch with him if I really wanted to be together. But I was unable to give him the reassurance he needed. And anyway, I was mostly happy to nestle back into my solitude. Sometimes, though, my snug singledom would tip over into abject despair, and I’d feel entirely alone in the world and want nothing more than a warm body next to mine.

Sometimes, it felt like too much was being asked of me. Mine was the first generation in my family that was expected to find their own partner. My parents’ marriage had been arranged, and their parents’ before them. But now, here I was, being forced into a love marriage. Why did I have to be the one to pave a different path? It would be easier, I thought, if someone would just decide for me. I mean, take Billee. We found Billee at a shelter. We loved him at first sight and brought him home. And now he was this irreplaceable being. I had infused meaning into him because he was the one I’d come home with. It felt taken for granted that he was mine and I was his. The problem was, I thought as I swiped through Tinder, too much choice. I did not want to be accountable for a potentially bad decision. I did not want to be accountable, period. Luckily, about two weeks after my return from Karachi, I was distracted from my loneliness by the phone call I’d been waiting for.