But I couldn’t believe she was dead. And I didn’t know how to process the fact that we had become so close only after she had died. I was unable to grieve for Anna in the way I would have had our relationship grown while she was still living. It sometimes felt like it was precisely the fact that she had crossed over that had made our connection so deep and meaningful. The Anna that I’d forged this bond with was not of this earth, she had been eternal, and still was, and always would be. I know that’s what eternal means, but you know what I mean. The questions surrounding her death haunted me, and it was becoming increasingly apparent that I could no longer put off confronting what I had seen. And so, finally, I decided that the next time Naima and I made plans to meet, I would tell her everything.
I hadn’t seen Naima for a while. It’s possible that this was because I had pushed her away preemptively, afraid of her doing the same to me because of Azeem. But we’d also not been meeting much because she often brought Azeem along, and I found hanging out with the both of them a little tedious. And so when I asked her to come over for dinner, I tried to hint that I wasn’t interested in Azeem joining us. It had been so long, I told her, since we’d properly caught up. She understood.
“Finally,” Naima said when she came in. She embraced me, then took off her large parrot-blue headphones and hung them over the back of the kitchen chair. “Where have you disappeared to, babe?”
“Yeah … sorry. You know how it is.”
“Poor excuse,” Naima said and rolled her eyes. She took off her feathery maroon coat and draped it over the same chair, then offered her hand to Billee to sniff. “Hi little meowster.”
“Chai?” I asked. I’d decided that this was an occasion for proper chai, so that we could sit aram se, for as long as it took, to deconstruct what had happened and figure out what it meant.
“Mm, yes please,” she said. I put the milk on the stove and grated in some ginger. Naima cleared the table, picking up a proof of Work in Progress. “I still can’t believe you speak Russian now.”
“It’s strange, isn’t it?” I replied.
“So strange! Maybe I should go. Do they teach Pahari there? Doubt it.”
“Yeah, probably not.”
“It’s very unfair that you’ve sworn me to secrecy, by the way. This should be in the papers you know.”
“That’s just the way it is there,” I said. “Secrecy above all.”
“That’s some Illuminati-type shit,” she said.
“You know, it kind of is.”
“Except without the orgies. Or have you just not told me about that part?” she teased, but my face turned troubled. “Anisa, what’s wrong?”
“No, nothing. It’s just … the whole thing feels odd. I don’t think I’ll go back.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. It feels exploitative, or something.”
“I mean two grand is a lot for ten days, but for a whole new language—”
“No, not exploitative of me. Just … exploitative.”
“Of who, then? The workers?”
“Just … as a system.”
I’d forgotten the tea, and it bubbled over. Naima jumped to the rescue and poured it out into two mugs.
“It makes you wonder,” I continued. “Like, is it legit?”
“Legit meaning …？” she asked.
“I dunno. Like, what really goes on there? Surely, they owe it to us to explain.”
“Oh, I know what this is. You’re self-sabotaging.”
“No, it’s not that. I mean, okay, I’ve been meaning to tell you … I thought I’d wait till I got you alone. I’m not even sure what … and it sounds so … I don’t know. But—”
“No, hun, seriously,” Naima said, rifling through the bottom cabinet for biscuits. “You’re just looking for things to find wrong. Just accept the blessings. Actually, you know who I think should go there? Azeem.”
I felt a familiar seething. How quickly she’d turned the topic to Azeem. Even when he wasn’t around, she’d just been waiting for the opportunity to talk about him.
“You haven’t told him, have you?”
“Of course not. I’m not stupid. Anyway, you know what he’s like. He zones out the minute I start talking about my friends. But seriously, that place could really help him. I’ve been encouraging him to expand his work. That man has so much more potential than he realizes. I should show you these photos he took.”
She had found a pack of chocolate digestives by then and, holding one in her mouth, reached for her bag and pulled out her phone to show me Azeem’s photos. Now, I don’t know much about the field, but the shots seemed entirely basic to me, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. It was clear that Naima was still, more and more, pouring her enthusiasm into Azeem’s future instead of her own. Why had it been so easy for her to shift her focus onto him? What did that say about her as a person? Forget it, I thought. I wasn’t going to tell Naima about the Centre. If she was going to put some rubbish man ahead of me and, more importantly, ahead of herself, she didn’t deserve to know what was going on.
“You guys should just tie the knot.”
I can’t remember whether I’d said this to be sarcastic or to cover up my hostility by appearing excessively supportive. Either way, I wasn’t expecting her response.
“As a matter of fact—”
“Shut up.”
“We’re only talking about it.”
“About marriage?”
“Only talking.”
“Naima, please. You’ve only been together a couple of months.”
“I know, but when you know, you know, you know?”
She offered me a biscuit, which I ignored.
“This is what you want? Are you sure?”
“You can never be sure, can you? Sometimes you just have to do things and see what happens. You can’t live forever with an armor around you, right?”
I felt that Naima was making a jibe at my own life there, and it was unfair. Naima often made decisions this way, diving in headfirst, but she wasn’t recognizing that her impulsiveness was a privilege. She was only able to live like this because she’d always had someone to catch her on the other side. She’d grown up with a loving mother and a doting older sister and, let’s be frank, had been the honorary son of her family. Her family was always available and they thought she was the shit. It was this security that allowed her to do what she liked, but nonetheless, she assumed that more cautious people lacked some kind of innate courage.
“Some of us live with an armor around us for a reason, Naima.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just give it some time. Like, another year.”
“Why though? We’re ready. We feel ready.”
“Are you scared of giving it more time because you think it’ll fall apart if you wait?”
I saw a wave of irritation flash over her face.
“No, but Anisa, there is something about that kind of commitment that makes things stronger,” she spoke slowly, enunciating her words as if she were explaining this to a child. “When you take something seriously, that makes it more precious, more resilient. Anyway, you know I want to start a family.”