There were pale buds showing at the tips of some branches on the old peach tree in the garden. Asif could see them quite clearly. For some reason they stood out to him more than anything else; in just a few weeks’ time, spring would arrive and cause the tree to blossom with flowers and fruit. Years ago, Asif and his wife would give the extra fruit to their neighbors, saving the lion’s share for themselves. They would freeze it so that they could use it long after the season for things like homemade jams and pastries, various sharbats to cool them through the summer, and syrups and candies to have for sweets in the fall and winter. But Asif had not bothered to collect the fruit in years. He could vaguely recall picking from the tree the first spring after the divorce and the fruit had tasted so bitter to him that he’d never bothered touching it again.
Every year, the tree blossomed and the air in the garden was sweetened by the smell. Eventually the fruit would fall from the tree into the garden where it would remain on the ground until it rotted away. Asif did not bother interfering in any part of this process. He felt pangs of guilt at the thought of wasted food, something he felt certain he’d have to answer for in the hereafter. “But at least the birds and other little animals get to eat some of it,” he’d say to himself in an attempt to ease the guilt.
He wondered who would collect the fruit now, or if they’d even keep the tree at all. Asif glanced around the garden; it had been Farishta’s favorite part of their home. Decades before, they’d gone to see an American film on their first date. Asif could no longer recall the name of the film, but it had featured a famous Italian actor as the star and there was a scene in the film where the man had been sitting in his garden. His new neighbor, a woman, had looked over the fence to tell him that she liked his garden and he’d responded to the compliment by asking, “You know what they say, don’t you? If you love a man’s garden, you gotta love the man.”
Every spring when the garden bloomed, Farishta would remark on how beautiful it looked and how much she loved it. Asif would always repeat the line to her, and she would always roll her eyes.
He shook his head to snap himself out of these thoughts; he had spent the last couple of weeks thinking about her quite a lot, the early years together. He had even considered reaching out to her but did not act on these impulses. Their final year together had been too strained, and Asif figured that the wounds were and would always be a little too raw for them to ever reconcile. Atiya’s death had turned them against each other and Asif knew that Farishta had spent the final months of their marriage blaming him for it.
He did not fault her for this, he should have been more attentive. After all, he was the father, and Atiya had been his beautiful child. Her light brown eyes used to light up every night when he came home from work and she clambered up into his arms. The gold and black bracelet he’d gotten for her would shimmer against the rolls of baby-fat on her little wrist and she would rest her soft head against his collarbone, remaining there until it was time for bed, when she would finally go back into Farishta’s gentle hands.
For months after her death, and after the divorce, and even now, Asif felt he was going mad from the loss of his daughter. Many nights would pass with him in bed on his back, convinced that he could feel the warmth of his daughter’s weight on his chest, the tiny body resting against him as it had always done in life. If he looked at his own hands, he could sometimes swear that the ten little fingers and ten little toes he’d counted at her birth were still there, they would be twitching sleepily in his palm. In those moments, his fascination and love for this life that he and Farishta had created together had always threatened to capsize and overtake him. He was convinced some nights that he could clearly see Atiya in some other place, she had grown into the woman she would have been, and she was safe. She was waiting now for her mother and her father to catch up to her; they’d fallen behind, and now it was their job to close the gap.
At these thoughts, Asif would feel a tremendous wave of guilt and longing for Farishta. Despite all of his own suffering, he knew he could not imagine how she had felt at Atiya’s passing or even how she felt now, years later. They shared some of the pain, but Farishta had lost something unidentifiable at the passing of their daughter. And in the process of trying to build herself back up, she had walked right into a cloud of anger and something close to hate that was directed entirely towards Asif. The fights in those days had been horrific, often ending with the two of them in tears. Sometimes they’d fall into each other; other times they’d isolate themselves in different parts of the house for days. Asif had not known how to console her, and he hadn’t known what to do with his own grief. Their pain had warped them into strangers.
There had been a time when Asif would know Farishta was nearby without her having to make a sound. One night, after an argument, she had gone to the backyard to try and make amends. Asif had been sitting with his back to the door entirely unaware of the fact that she was there. She stood there for a moment, waiting for him to turn as he always did, but this time there was no movement. And in that moment, Farishta knew that they had lost something between them that they would never be able to find again.
She left the next morning. Asif did not put up a fight. He simply sat at the kitchen table while she packed her things. And when she was finished, he held the door open for her as she walked out. He watched as her brother helped her load her luggage into his car. He remained standing in the doorway as the car turned onto the road going down the hill and drove away. It wasn’t until the cloud of dust and dirt settled back onto the ground that Asif turned away and closed the door.
He had heard a number of years ago that Farishta had remarried. The person telling him had been an old mutual friend who had been kind enough to ask if Asif wanted to know more. He had considered a great number of questions but settled on just one: “How does she seem?”
“Happier,” the friend had said with a sad smile.
That was all Asif had needed to know, all that he cared about. He was glad Farishta had found something to hold close again, and he did not dare to ever intrude on that.
But still, the desire to speak to her one last time had come to him recently, and he had to do everything he could not to give into it. Over the years, he had become the kind but reclusive old man in the neighborhood. People left him alone for the most part. A boy from up the street sometimes ran little errands for him in the harsher winter and summer days when he couldn’t handle going outdoors; he paid the boy a hundred rupees for every task. All of his friends had either passed away by now, or he had fallen out of touch with them on purpose. Asif knew that this would work to both his advantage and his detriment now. It would be a while before anyone found him.
He had only ever been around two dead bodies before. The first had been when Asif was only sixteen years old—he had taken part in the ghusl of a neighborhood man killed in a car accident. He remembered clearly that the body had still been warm when they’d washed it and he had felt a bit of embarrassment at the realization that the man had soiled himself when he’d died. Nobody said a word about this, in fact nobody made any noise whatsoever. They simply cleaned the man, cleaned every part of him before wrapping him in clean white cloth, placing him inside a wooden box, and lowering him into the ground. Parting prayers and wishes were recited and dirt was tossed in handfuls over the body, and that had been the end of it.
Asif could not remember Atiya’s funeral very well; it had passed by in a blur for him. He could vaguely recall holding the little shroud that contained her body. His hands had trembled, and for a moment he’d had the wild thought that his trembling hands would jolt his baby back to life. But she remained still and lifeless even as a neighbor gently took his hands to help him lower her into the box. Farishta’s prayers had mingled with her sobs as they threw dirt into the grave; he knew only that at some point he had taken her into his arms and helped her back to their home.
He had taken great care not to eat for the past three days and not to drink for the past twenty-four hours – this was how scared he was at the thought of humiliating himself and losing control of his bowels or his bladder as he left his own body. Asif dressed that morning in a plain cotton kurta and trousers. They were a crisp white, and he trimmed his white beard and hair close to his face and scalp. He took a knife from the kitchen, a broad blade that Farishta had favored when cutting large amounts of meat for Eid preparations. It had not been used in years, but the steel was still flawless and the blade still balanced.
A breeze passed through the garden, lifting the corners of his sleeves and knocking a few loose buds out from the tree. They cascaded around him; a few landed near his hands. Asif tapped the tip of the knife lightly against one and he was nearly choked by a wave of sadness at the thought that he would never get to touch these buds again. How strange it was now, to say a silent goodbye to these things he had never thought about before. But there was nothing else he could say goodbye to, nothing else that he could hang on to for very long.
Asif turned the knife towards his own belly, clutching the handle tightly and steadying himself. He muttered a quick prayer and stared past the knife to a spot in the barren flower bed across from him. He blinked once and then pulled the knife towards himself. A gasp of pain escaped his lips as the blade pierced his stomach. “Ah!” The pain came in a sudden burst. Asif halted. The knife was halfway in his belly. He took a breath and pushed it in until the hilt.
His head fell forward onto the table and he let out a groan, his blood bright red and spilling out over his hands, slowly. Asif knew he couldn’t stay like this; he had to be done with it. He drew in a pained breath and used all his strength to pull the knife from his body. Another gasp of pain escaped him and now the blood rushed out of his stomach, spilling out of him and forming a sticky veil over his legs and lap and then coming out so dark it was nearly black. He watched as the deepest drops of life fell out of him, touching the light of day and oxygen for the first and last time.
The pain dulled. Suddenly he felt exhausted. Asif wanted to lift his head up to look around the garden one last time, but his head felt so heavy. Someone was running their fingers through his hair; he could feel their touch on his head. Everything around him felt so soft it made him want to cry, but his body was so focused on pushing out his blood that he couldn’t muster up the strength it would take for tears.
But that was fine with him. He was headed somewhere where he would have enough strength for anything. Perhaps he could find someone who would direct him to where his daughter was.
At this thought, Atiya’s face swam in front of him, bright and clear and beautiful, as new and full of life as it had been on the day she was born. Asif did not want to close his eyes now. He wanted to keep looking at her.
But he had to. It would only be for a moment, she would understand.
Asif let out a contented sigh. His eyes flickered once.
Twice.
Three times.
Finally, they closed.
Photo by Dmitry Schemelev on Unsplash
