The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 3 by Fatimah Asghar;Safia Elhillo;

Author:Fatimah Asghar;Safia Elhillo;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 3)
Published: 2019-02-25T16:00:00+00:00

V.

ZAKAT

Beenish Ahmed

Eid in Red and White

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A heady poppy in the Northwest Frontier of Pakistan, I am a girl in a white frock, ruffled and crumpled all over, red silk ribbons dangling around from the lace collar of it, the puffed sleeves. The fibers in the stiff lattice pattern of a flowery iron fence clench the circumference of my upper arms, synthetic silk pretty and asphyxiating around a torso too young for such tightness, still made only of skin and ribs.

What little air rests in my little lungs seeps out in one punch like popping a balloon when I look up from the preoccupation of youthful unknowing, look up from collecting flowers in a fist, look up from humming songs about bumblebees and twirling until the world blurs, look up and the scene steadies itself as I see it—a lamb all white and wounded, dangling headless from a tree and gushing red blood in steady silken streams that collect into a hot pool. The crimson cruelty of what the supple earth refuses to absorb grabs at my feet in worthless desperation, and I am startled but not at once sickened.

I want to cry, but I don’t. I want to run, but I don’t. A small drop of red blood falls from the white lamb and lands on the red ribbon of my white dress— remains there, too small and scared to scream murder.

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“I saw an animal slaughtered only once, I was little and in Pakistan. I think it was a lamb, but it might have been a goat, I can’t really remember now.” I wish there were something more to say, but can’t come up with anything.

I think of the tree the animal was lassoed from, the one from which the jamaan fall, the little purple plum things that pucker up your mouth when you eat them. The tree fills with parrots in the day and bats in the night—they circle it like vultures, in turn. I want to tell him about this, about how the jamaan fall and stain the ground a deep violet—the color of passion as it rises up in the chest, but I don’t think he knows what jamaan are. I don’t know if there’s even a word for them in English. I can’t be certain that they exist anywhere but in that strip of land outside my grandfather’s house, in my memory of that garden bordered with rose bushes, trimmed with brick along an iron gate that reaches up in spirals, teal and gold, oiled at the hinges and always cool to the guard’s rough palms—this much I know.

“Did you think it was disgusting? Did you stop eating meat?” And then I am reminded of just how strange such slaughter is to someone who knows nothing of Eid or the hunger that precedes it. Those who share my memories of the holiday know nothing of him, although I’ve mentioned to them the things he’s told me, described the places we’ve been together, editing his presence out of the recounting so he’s not even a shadow beneath my feet.

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