I’m waiting outside in the chilly air for a whole twenty minutes before Abba finally comes traipsing out. He’s deep in conversation with a man wearing a cream-colored panjabi and a white-patterned tupi on his head. After a few moments, Abba shakes his hand and heads over toward me.
“Sorry I’m a little late,” he says, though he doesn’t look sorry at all. In fact, he’s wearing the brightest smile on his lips.
“Who was that?” I ask. If he’s a Bengali Uncle, I’ve definitely never seen him before.
Abba leads us over to the car, still smiling. “He might be my ticket to winning this election.”
“So … someone important?” I ask.” Is he Bengali?”
“He’s an Uncle. He’s been here in Ireland for a long time … longer than a lot of people.”
“So, he has connections,” I say.
We pile into the car and Abba starts the ignition, pulling out of the mosque’s car park. It’s almost completely deserted. It’s still a while until Isha prayer.
“If he puts in a good word for me, then I’m sure to have a lot of people in my corner,” Abba tells me. “He’s influential. That’s why it’s important to make the right connections, Hani. Remember that.” He says it as if I aspire to be a politician. Even Abba wasn’t really interested in entering politics until recently—until he retired early from the company he’d been working at for pretty much his whole career.
“So, do you think he’s going to help you?” I can’t help but ask.
Abba “hmms” contemplatively. “I think he’ll probably need a little bit more convincing. We’ll have to talk a little bit more. He’s a very devout person and has a lot of aspirations for Muslims in our community, so I have to convince him that I have our best interests at heart.”
I’m not sure how exactly Abba is going to convince him of that, but I have no doubt that I’ll be seeing a lot more of this Uncle soon enough.
I only check my phone again when I’m crawling into bed later that night. Other than the dozens of messages in our group chat, I have a private message from Aisling.
Where have you been all day?
I sigh, not sure how to answer that. It should obviously be easiest to just tell her the truth, that I decided to tag along to the mosque with Abba—because I like going to the mosque whenever I can. But I’m not sure how Aisling will react to the truth.
I was helping my dad with election stuff.
The three dots to suggest that Aisling is typing appear immediately. As if she’s been waiting by her phone for me to reply to her messages.
Aisling: All this time????
Me: Yep
Aisling: you’re still coming to the party tomorrow, right?
Me: definitely
Aisling must be satisfied with that answer, because her messages stop there. No questions about Dad’s elections. No questions about what exactly I was doing that took up all my time.
It’s good, of course. I don’t have any answers to those questions. But I can’t shake the discomfort itching its way through me as I pull my duvet over my head.
On Saturday morning, Amma slips into my room with a jar of coconut oil. It’s our weekly tradition.
First, she brushes my hair and applies oil to it. Then I do the same to her hair. All the while, we catch up on the week’s goings-on.
Now, Amma sits behind me on the bed, brushing back my hair slowly and gently. I close my eyes, reveling in this. It’s my favorite time of the whole week.
“How was your week?” Amma asks, like she does every week.
“It was … complicated?” I bite my lip, not sure how much I want to share.
“Yeah?” Amma asks. “How was it complicated?”
“Ishu is complicated. I … met her sister. And Ishu was really weird about it.”
“Weird how?”
I chew on my lips, half regretting bringing this up when I don’t know how to share it with Amma. I guess she must sense my reluctance, because she puts down the hairbrush and shifts so that she’s sitting in front of me. Her eyebrows are furrowed as she takes me in.
“Okay … what’s wrong? What happened?”
I sigh. “Well … Ishu and I went out the other day …”
“And?”
“It was good until we ran into her sister.”
“Nikhita.” I don’t know how Amma dredges up the name from memory. “Because Ishita is hiding your relationship from her family?”
“No … because… . Ishu said that her sister would use that to blackmail her. It was the first thing she thought her sister would do. Doesn’t that seem strange to you? They’re family!”