Present Day

Isa has forgotten about being ‘different’ and has returned to his usual self. There’s no trace of any worries as he plays around in the school playground. Inayah comes and stands next to me while I’m gazing at the scene before me. The children are playing stuck in the mud, something I taught them.

“What are you thinking?” Inayah asks

“I was thinking about Isa,” I reply.

“Which one?” I pause before replying and I can feel my heart’s steady beat faltering and becoming irregular. Four years later and his absence still hurt.

“Little Isa,” I say, forcing a smile.

“I’m sorry.” I guess Inayah’s felt my hesitation.

“It’s okay.” For some reason, when I refer to him as Isa’s father, I don’t feel any pain. But calling him Isa makes me feel as if my wounds still haven’t healed.

I check the watch on my wrist and see that it’s time for the children to get to their next lesson. I teach the older children so Isa’s not my student. I watch as he runs to his class and momentarily turns to smile at me. For a second, his smile looks just like his father’s and I have to stop myself from running to him and holding him in my arms. We were in school so I have to remain professional here.

I go inside my own class and get lost in teaching the children and distracting my mind, giving the children little breaks between every time I change the subject. Their last subject is History and it’s the subject I struggle with most. My history lessons in school consisted of the world wars and Britain’s past Kings and Queens. I don’t think that will be very useful for these children so I have to study Pakistan’s history before teaching. I was wrong when I graduated and thought my days of studying are over.

When the class finishes, I dismiss the children and head over to Isa’s class. I ask if he has any homework and Isa’s teacher shakes her head. She always looks as if she’s a little scared of me. Well, maybe that’s because I run the school and make sure the kids are being taught well. But that’s no reason to shake in fear when I’m close by. I smile at her and thank her before taking Isa’s hand and walking away. See, I’m nice. No reason for anyone to be scared.

“Esha!” I hear Hadia call. I turn and see her running towards me.

“What are you doing now?” She asks, a little out of breath.

“I’m going to go home, help Isa with some school work and finish some chores. Then Isa and I can play together.” I look down at Isa and see him grin up at me. I’m a fun mum.

“Honestly, I think you push him too hard.” I was hoping she’d spare me the lecture of ‘over teaching’ Isa. That’s what she calls it. “Could you do me the absolutely biggest favour ever?” She asks instead.

“What’s the reason for babysitting Bilal now?” I’m her number one babysitter for her six year old son Bilal. He’s one of Isa’s best friends.

“How did you…?” She narrows her eyes at me and shakes her head before continuing. “Khalil’s late from work so he can’t take Bilal and I have to go to my mum’s house. I can’t take Bilal with me because they’re arguing again.”

“Again? Is it the same thing?” Hadia nods. “Ya Allah, when’s it going to end?”

“In’sha’allah when my brother gets enough money and moves out. Maybe she’ll improve. For now, I just have to go and calm everything down since everyone else is incapable of doing that.” Hadia sighs warily and I feel a pang of sympathy for her.

“What about Fatima? Is she going with you?” Fatima’s her ten year old daughter.

“Yeah, but Khalil says he’ll take her as soon as he finishes work. And then he’ll come to take Bilal too.”

“I’ll take Fatima, it’s fine.”

“No, it’s okay. She doesn’t get so scared with raised voices like Bilal does. I’ll leave her playing with their goats and she’ll be fine. I left them sitting in the classroom so I’ll just go and get them now.” Hadia turns around and I start feeling suspicious at Isa’s silence. When I look down, I see Isa’s making faces at someone. I look over my shoulder and see a little kid in a tree making faces at Isa and try not to laugh.

“Isa, stop making faces,” I say sternly.

“What about him?”

“Don’t worry about him. You be sensible now.” Isa sighs and folds his arms across his chest. “Is he your friend?” I ask to get a conversation going.

“Yes.”

“How many friends do you have?” He calls every other person his friend.

“There’s Bilal, you, aunty Inayah, aunty Hadia, aunty Eliza, Shayaan, uncle Khalil, Masi,” Masi meant aunty and we call Shayaan’s mother Masi. “Him,” Isa gives a nod in the boy in the tree’s direction, keeping count on his fingers. He proceeds to name every person he knows in the village starting over the count on his fingers each time he finishes naming ten people.

Hadia returns with Bilal and Fatima.

“Asalamu’alaykum,” I say to them both and nudge Isa to say the same. He repeats after me, looking up for a second before looking down at his hands again.

“Wa’alaykumsalaam,” Bilal and Fatima reply.

“Okay Isa, I understand you have lots of friends. You can stop counting now.”

“How many did I count?” He asks, looking up at me.

“Lots and lots. Come on, let’s go.” I take one of his hands and motion for Bilal to stand next to me.

“Jazak’allah khair! May Allah reward you, my friend,” Hadia says. “I owe you.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ll see you tomorrow in’sha’allah,” We say our goodbyes and part ways. I put my hand on Bilal’s back and he doesn’t seem happy coming with me. It’s as if he senses something’s wrong. Isa begins to talk to Bilal about the time he helped uncle Khalil wash their car. Soon, he gets Bilal talking and the boys’ energy levels rise. When we get near home, I see a sight which makes me want to roll my eyes, pull my hair out and scream at the same time.

“Hey Arab princess-“ Begins an odd looking man standing a couple of yards to the right of my gate.

“Bilal and Isa. let’s have race. Who can get home first?” I say loudly and I continue saying things loudly to drown out the weirdo’s voice even though Bilal and Isa are probably paying no attention to him. They shout and laugh while racing each other. “I think I can beat you! Oh no, Bilal’s getting ahead of me! Isa catch up!” When both boys get to the gate, I rush to open it all the while talking loudly for I can still hear the man saying some strange things.

“Oh come on, at least look at me,” I hear him say. He hasn’t even seen my face, how can he be saying things in such a perverted manner? My blood boils in anger.

“Bilal, you’re so fast. I’m out of breath trying to run as fast as you.” I open the lock and push the gate open. “Now who can get to the veranda first?” The boys continue their race and I slam the gate shut, sliding the locks before letting out a relieved breath. Stepping away from the gate, anger continues to consume me to the point that I feel dizzy for a moment.

I’ve seen this man a few times before. He’s always saying ridiculous things which make me cringe. I’ve seen men like him in school, college and university. I always stood up for myself back then and let my anger out by ridiculing them calmly but sternly. Most of the time, I scared them off, exactly as intended. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that in front of my little Isa. I didn’t want him to see such people yet. I wanted to protect him and put him in a little bubble, away from everyone and everything bad. He shouldn’t have to see his mum arguing with some strange man.

I think about opening the gate and giving the man a piece of my mind while Isa and Bilal sit inside but Isa comes running out to me.

“Bilal cheated in the race. He started running before me and now he’s calling me a loser.”

“Bilal, that’s not good,” I say taking Isa inside. “But Isa, I was watching the race and I know Bilal didn’t cheat. Remember what I said about lying?”

“Sorry. Astaghfirullah,” Isa said, looking down in shame.

“Now then, what do you boys want to eat?”

“Samosas!” Isa shouts.

“Anything’s fine for me,” Bilal says.

“We haven’t got any samosas, Isa. I’ll take a look in the kitchen to see what we do have.” The result will probably be either chapattis or rice, maybe.

After a lot of pointless searching, I ask Isa and Bilal and we agree on having chapattis with chicken curry which I had made this morning. I find it the easiest option. I only cooked different foods like I used to in England every month or so.

After eating, I set Isa and Bilal some work. Isa’s used to it and I can see Bilal’s not so fond with the idea of extra homework but out of respect for me, he silently obliges and does some homework too.

I leave Isa and Bilal with helping each other with Urdu and begin to wash the dishes. It doesn’t take long before I finish and I head to the bathroom to do my wudhu to pray. When I come out, I give the boys strict instructions.

“Stay inside and if anyone knocks on the gate, do not open it. I’m just going to pray.” I’m still worried about that creep we saw earlier on.

I finish praying and join Isa and Bilal. I switch from Urdu to Maths for a little while, helping them with their adding which I find so fun. Maths is enjoyable until letters get added to it. Luckily, the school I teach in only has students up to the ages of eleven and more complicated Maths is taught later.

After having punished them enough, I ask Isa which game he wants to play.

“I want to play… Hmm…” He taps his chin thoughtfully. “Connect Four.”

“What’s that?” Bilal asks.

“I’ll get it and show you.” I go into the bedroom and take a right, into the storage room. Amongst several board games, I find Connect Four and bring it out. I sit between Isa and Bilal, taking the game out of its box.

“You have counters with two colours. We have red and blue.”

“I want to separate them!” Isa says and I give the mixed counters to him. He places the blue counters in front of Bilal and the red counters in front of himself.

“You have to drop the counters into this… Board thing.” I explain it and demonstrate how to play. Bilal catches on and he begins playing the game with Isa. Isa wins the first game and Bilal wins the second. During the third game, there’s a knock on the gate. I put my niqaab on and go to open it.

“Asalamu’alaykum. Is Bilal here?” Brother Khalil asks, staring at the ground.

“Wa’alaykumsalaam. I’ll go and get him.” I go inside to see Isa and Bilal arguing. I ignore their argument and say, “Bilal, your father’s outside.”

“Uncle Khalil!” Isa says running outside. Bilal follows him less enthusiastically. I stay inside but I can hear Isa and brother Khalil chatting away. Isa’s asked about school in a way which I always dreamt his father would. Before my thoughts can go any further, I block them like I always do.

“Isa!” I call out.

“Coming, mama!” He says goodbye and comes inside. Before I shut the gate, I hear brother Khalil saying,

“Is there anything I can help you with?” I raise an eyebrow in confusion and wonder if he’s talking to me. I peek out and see that the weirdo creep is still standing there! He walks away and brother Khalil glares at his back. “If there’s ever any trouble, let me know,” He says. He takes Bilal’s hand and walks off towards his car before I get a chance to say thank you.

“Who was that?” Isa asks. For some reason, I’m taken aback by his question. I shut the gate and face him.

“No one. Now let’s go and play Connect Four.” Again I’m left with an uneasy feeling but I have to pretend everything’s fine for Isa’s sake.

He’s never noticed the odd looks and weird strangers before. But he’s noticing now and I don’t know how to deal with it. But I can feel a little crack in the wall I’ve built to stop myself from feeling the pain of the absence of Isa’s father. If he was here, this wouldn’t be a problem. A voice says in my head.

I push all the feelings and thoughts aside deciding to deal with them another day.