Beneath the Same Heaven by Anne Marie Ruff

Author:Anne Marie Ruff [Ruff, Anne Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781948598019
Publisher: Open Books
Published: 2018-04-10T11:41:39+00:00

I spend the next few days evading Kathryn’s questions. She asks me about my mother and the funeral and our rituals. I answer with generalities, which, thankfully, she accepts. I can see from the way she makes me tea, from the extra effort she takes to boil the dried black leaves with ginger and cardamom that she will be patient with me. She thinks that with enough care, I will eventually open up and explain everything to her. Instead, I retreat to a place where people understand without the need for explanations.

In the early morning light I can see the mosque is small, not really a mosque, but a converted storefront. The windows have been covered with heavy white curtains, so we may pray in private. I leave my shoes just inside the door, next to a handful of others. I feel awkward with my old prayer rug rolled up under my arm, the polyester fringes brushing against my ribs. I have not once bothered to pray since I came to America. I wonder for a moment if the others will judge me for my lapsed practice of the faith. But on another rug on the floor, I recognize the same image of a dome and minaret on a pale green background—the kind of rug available in any grocery store in the Persian Gulf. I roll out mine an acceptable distance away and wait. In a moment a man walks to the front of the mosque, and leads those of us who have gathered, through the familiar ritual of prayer. I have always touched my head lightly to the ground, my symbolic submission to God. In Dubai very devout men showed off a persistent bruise on their forehead as proof of their ardent belief.

I sit, my feet tucked under me, lift my hands in supplication, touch my head to the floor in the direction of Mecca, look over each shoulder. My muscles remember every movement. These simple actions arouse images of my father, who must have taught me how to pray before I could even remember learning.

When we finish, we all stand, roll up our rugs and return to our shoes. Most men leave quickly, the metal frame of the glass door clanging behind them. But a few linger. An old man sits with his back against the wall, lost in thought. A young man stands near the door waiting for a middle aged man to finish with his shoes and then they walk out together. I feel an emptiness. I know no one here. I tie my shoes and walk back to my car.

I sit outside the public library for nearly an hour waiting for the doors to open. I’m not yet ready to go home. I want to find something, something that connects me to Pakistan, something that documents what happened to my father—something that might help me understand what has been written for me.

At the appointed hour, the library opens and I enter after a small tribe of homeless people who have gathered clutching their battered bags.

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