Her Quiet Tears

My story begins in Ireland in a place called Cork City.

I was a student at the University College Cork under a private scholarship. Malaysia had just crashed into a financial brick wall and had stopped sending students to study overseas. When I arrived in UCC, all the seniors had graduated and left for home, and there were only two Malaysians there: myself, and a lovely girl from Kota Tinggi.

But I did not know of the girl’s existence until later.

The first few days when I was in Cork City, wandering around in the main streets, getting lost in the bazaars, looking for decent food --food that did not look like eels boiled in lard-- I truly believed that I was the sole Malaysian for that academic year.

We only met after a few weeks into the semester. She liked to sit in front while I was always late and had to settle for the back rows, even though I lived in the Castlewhite Apartments, which were literally on campus. The lecture would end and I would be the first one out the back door, while she would stay behind to harass the professor.

I never gave her any benefit of the doubt, that perhaps she could also be a Malaysian. She looked like an Indonesian Chinese; her eyes, her accented English. The way she carried herself was never anywhere near how a Malay girl would carry herself. The way she accessorized. The sprinkling of foreign teenage ebonics in her conversation.

One morning, she came up to me and said, “Ahmad Saleem, you from Malaysia ke?”

When I replied that I am from Penang, her face lit up like fireworks. She quickly ran down the hall, collected her notes and textbooks, and she came over to the back rows to sit next to me, and we chatted like long lost cousins throughout the entire lecture.


Mahirah nestled next to me in every lecture until we graduated five years later.



We shared everything. Notes, homework, textbooks, assignments, gossips, hopes, dreams and childhood stories. We had our little own corner at Boole Library. We fell asleep with telephones hanging from our ears as we were watching late-night reruns of Friends on the television. The next morning, we would debate whether Phoebe should have said yes and married that professor and followed him on his romantic adventure. Every other weekend, Mahirah cooked me laksa and I cooked her briyani. We had our Raya photos taken at the steps of the Main Quad (just the two of us, and four times out of six we wore color-coordinated Raya dresses) and we sent these photos every single year to Utusan, for her parents, and to Harakah, for my parents.

Mahirah and I were inseparable. We did everything together. We talked about everything under the sky whenever we could wherever we could. We spent more time with each other in a day than we had time for ourselves. We were beyond the best of friends. We were truly lovers. But neither of us had realized this until the final year.



It was Raya morning. After Eid prayer at the Muslim Students Association Chamber in the Student’s Center, I went over to Mahirah’s apartment, as I normally did every year, to eat what she had prepared for the festivities: rendang, ketupat and kuah kacang. I knocked on the door and her Lebanese housemate greeted me in. Mahirah is in her room, she said. Okay, I’ll wait for her in the living room, I said. The Lebanese blonde then went into the kitchen and heated some of the food Mahirah had prepared.

Mahirah finally emerged from her room and she had a beautiful blue and black baju kurung on that her mother made for her, complete with an embroidered shawl and a matching handbag. She looked like somebody else entirely. Till then, I had never seen her in anything but tight frazzled denims and cute baby tees, covered by soft kitten sweaters and long draping trench coats. But there she was, coming down the stairs looking so feminine and charming and fragile and divine. I had never seen her so beautiful. I was silenced by the image of her grace. She was stunning. She looked like she could stop traffic and end wars. She was surprised I was looking at her wide-eyed.

What’s wrong, she asked. Oh nothing, I, haha, wow. She raised one of her eyebrows, wiggled it, questioning the sudden awkwardness between us. You’re acting very weird this morning, she said with a smirk. That dress looks nice on you, Mahirah, I came out frank. You look lovely. The Lebanese blonde snorted at the remark, and then hid herself in the kitchen. Mahirah winked at her playfully as she scuttled along. Mahirah then proceeded to politely play down my compliments. You should see me waking up from bed after a nasty bout with my period pains, she joked. We laughed.

But the image of her coming down from her room, as lovely as ever, graceful and fine, stayed with me all night long. I became restless. I could not sleep. I flipped through all ninety-nine channels on TV, but there was nothing on. I started asking myself questions that I was not able to answer. I was flooded with unknown feelings.

The next morning, on the city bus to buy groceries, I asked for her hand in marriage.



In a few minutes, it will be exactly 24 hours.

A few hours ago, I had dinner alone for the first time since my student days. I bought food from outside and I brought them home. I cooked half a pot of rice and took out the food from their plastic bags and I served them onto their proper container --soups into bowls, stir-fried vegetables into oval saucers, and chicken into dinner plates. I boiled water to make instant coffee with. I also reheated some of the bubur kacang Mom sent to me last night, as some kind of comfort, and I set the dining table for one.

I took a big bite out of the chicken. Hm, no. Mahirah’s cooking has no comparison.

I changed my mind. I moved everything to the living room coffee table and I set that table for one. I set my seat so that I would face the television straight and that there would not be any glare from the fluorescent lights so that I would be able to catch the 8 o’clock news. The last time I ate dinner in front of the TV, Pop threw a large chunk of potato at me and it bounced off my face. Enough cartoons, he scolded. It’s dinner time, sit here. I threw the potato back at him and I ran outside, calling him names. He got up and locked the door. After Isyaa, Mom unlocked the door and she let me in.

The rice cooker made a clicking sound. The half-a-pot of rice came out soft and wet.

My lovely sweetheart Mahirah and I, we are no longer together. This afternoon, we went to the courts and we did it proper. We filed for a divorce. Now we can start over.

Separately.



Our marriage was done in haste. From the moment I proposed to her on the bus to the moment we consummated our marriage in a 3-star hotel in a lakeside resort, it took us about five weeks. Four days into the honeymoon, we returned to our studies.



We informed our parents via telephone, a late night collect-call. Her parents agreed immediately. It is better this way, they said, as long as it does not bother your studies. My parents however had their doubts, saying that it is too soon. Have you thought it through, they asked. I love her, Mom, I countered. I really do. And we have known each other like the back of our hands. Mahirah’s parents helped my case when they visited my parents in Penang and made to effort to convince them. Both sides finally agreed, and soon enough they wired us their blessing and the money for our wedding.

We had it done in the local mosque, a simple ceremony with less than 30 people invited. The Arab and Muslim communities on campus helped us with a modest feast. Some Malaysian students from nearby colleges and a few embassy officials also came with their best wishes. We rented colorful kameez gowns and decent sherwani jackets from a Pakistani bridal store. I remember Mahirah’s Lebanese housemate and her classmates bursting into tears when they saw her coming out of the back room with her silk veil on, fully revealed to all those who were there as the most beautiful bride.

When the aqad was fulfilled, Mahirah began sobbing. The tears ruined her makeup.



Our true first year of marriage only began after we have returned home to Malaysia and we had decided to settle down in Shah Alam. With the help of our parents and close family members, we bought a mid-priced sedan car and a modest-sized home and we began building up an environment fit for a family of our own. We worked very hard. We charted our career path. We put realistic goals on the table. We started saving. We cut back on unnecessary spending. We learned to budget, plan and strategize. We talked the talk of good parents. We decided over the number of children to have, how far apart, when to begin and when to end. We discussed about good neighborhoods and good schools. We argued over buying land and property and diversifying our investment. We were really looking forward to our future together.

But somehow, we failed to look at where we were and where we had come from as a couple. We failed to see that we were moving too fast. From two college sweethearts, who found each other in the loneliness of a foreign land, into this perfect union of middle-class warriors, eager and devoted to the cause of their predetermined gender roles. We had forgotten to stop and be intimate, to first enjoy ourselves as lovers. We had never given ourselves the time and space to get to know each other as lovers. We immediately threw ourselves into the business of family-building and a life full of responsibilities. We left behind the most basic and important component of marriage.

Mahirah was the first to realize this. She suffered from it the most, and very silently.




The signs were there long before we noticed them. Mahirah and I were close, but we were never intimate. After the honeymoon, the weight of our final year immediately began to let in. We sat together in class everyday, but we knew that we must concentrate. It was time to get serious, but not as a couple. We were too busy and too tired to do anything else but to survive college. We still did everything together, we still talked about everything all the time, but our minds were always someplace else.

After graduating and returning to Malaysia, Mahirah and I were kept busy by our obligations to our career and marriage. We did what we did as a student couple. Instead of rushing to meet thesis datelines and to catch the bus to Brookfield Hall, we were then rushing off to leave home as early as dawn to stay ahead of the morning traffic. Instead of staying up late together at Boole Library to cram for final exams, we were then eating packed mee goreng in our respective cars, waiting for the after-hours traffic to unwind. We would reach home late at night and spend the weekend trying to salvage whatever pieces of normalcy were left to continue the façade of a happy marriage, mowing the lawn, buying a sofa, fixing the roof, sewing the table cloth and drapes, unclogging the plumbing, paying the bills, cooking a nice meal. We would talk about our work during dinner, about emerging career opportunities and office politics, just as we had talked about homework and case studies during our dates. We had essentially de-prioritized “us” – because “us’ can wait. It will still be there later. There were more important things, bigger things, things more immediate.

We assumed that there would be time for us later.

But as God had willed it this afternoon, time was not on our side.

One Maghrib, Mahirah began to sob quietly when I was reciting a prayer asking God for the most blessed happiness in our marriage. Hearing her sobbing, I cut the prayer short. When I turned around, her face was buried deep inside the palm of her hands.

What is wrong Mahirah, I asked her. She did not reply. Mahirah. She kept on sobbing. And her sobbing gradually turned desperate. Her body shook, her breaths halted. When her hands had become totally wet, she pulled her telekung and she cried onto the fabric. Her tears soaked straight through. What is it, Mahirah, I asked her again. She kept on sobbing. I waited for her to calm down. Mahirah, what is it, and I reached to caress the back of her head. She felt my fingers moving across her neck and she slowly gathered herself, wiped her nose, face and eyes, and she braved herself to look at me in the eyes and after a few seconds, she spoke in a trembling whisper, I’m sorry, abang. I was just. I was just touched by your prayer. She reached for my right hand, kissed it quickly, and immediately got up to prepare and serve dinner. All throughout the dinner, her eyes, red from tears and kept downcast, kept me from asking her why.

We ate, but only very little. We spoke, but only a few words.




She had become very withdrawn after that. Sometimes I would call her on the phone from my workplace, just to hear her voice if I had missed her in the morning rush or to check on how she was doing at work – and she would say very little in reply. She used to talk to me in her mocking squeaky childlike voice about her demanding clients or how her business luncheons started with a sour note or how her bumbling idiotic coworkers screwed up a project. But ever since she cried on the prayer mat, her suppressed feelings erupted in the palm of her hands, she had become less talkative.

Let’s have lunch together today, I would suggest to her sometimes. No, abang, I can’t. I am sorry, not today. I have to rush and catch Hannah in Finance, something about a new contract. I will cook you something nice for tonight. Is that okay? Okay, bye bye.




On our second anniversary, we had dinner at a classy restaurant. Then we spent the rest of the beautiful evening at a cinema watching a chick-flick, a film genre I despise, but she had insisted upon -- because it had a “good storyline” and a hyped male lead.

After watching the film, Mahirah began talking again. My lovely sweetheart had become the nonstop chatterbox from UCC whom I fell in love with. On the drive back home, Mahirah was laughing cheerily and telling silly jokes. She pulled off childish pranks and was moving her body to the car stereo, and we were simply having a blast.

Mahirah was so in high spirits that we ended up in bed and we made beautiful love for the first time since her becoming less talkative. But something struck me as very odd. All throughout the lovemaking, Mahirah did not lay her lips on mine, not even once.

As we were cuddling, her head on my arm and my fingers running through her hair, Mahirah spoke of our good old days at the UCC. She spoke of my horrible class notes. She spoke of us sleeping on the study bench at the Boole Library every night during exam week, blanketed by textbooks and research folders. She spoke of how calm and cool I was when I asked for her hand in marriage on the bus going to the English Market, and how she was not able to sleep or eat or think straight for many days afterwards. She spoke of the shabby 3-star hotel and the lakeside resort, and how our honeymoon was cut short because the final papers were due in less than a week.

Warm tears began rolling from her eyes. She nestled closer to me, snuggling deeply, burrowing her face in my neck, and gently but clearly whispered. Her voice trembled.

Saleem, I want a divorce.

The next morning, I helped her pack a few things and we drove to her parent’s house. We told them that the marriage had failed, its course had run a-ground, and that it was an amicable split. We would remain best of friends and the relationship between my family and hers would still remain honored. We told them that this is the best way out for the both of us, and that we have agreed on this path wholeheartedly and of our own humble accord. We asked them for their blessing, understanding and forgiveness.

Mahirah’s quiet tears, as she lay in her sister’s arms, persuaded them of our fate.