The Last Bath

Footsteps, guilty of shattering my reverie kept coming closer and
getting louder. I didn't want to turn around, so I did. I didn't want
to look up and I did. Neither wanted to ripple the affect of silence,
therefore nobody spoke. He simply nodded, turned around and I lifted
my stoned step to follow him downstairs.

He was ready. He must be. How could he do this to me, to us, and
remain so calm. The kitchen was full of steam from all the pots of
water that were being heated. "He never liked a hot bath, even in
winter," I reminded my brother. "He always insisted on his preference
for cold showers," I continued. I entered the only room without a
carpet in the entire house and there he was. Lying on a board, his
almost naked body was covered with surgical cuts made on several
different places for the purpose of performing Dialysis on him just a
couple of days before his death. "Do you really want to do this?"
somebody asked. I said something, which apparently repulsed the
inquirer as he seemed to move away in disgust.

The reality hadn't checked in.

Somebody was carrying the pots full of water into the room. I turned
around and walked out. I staggered towards my mother who was standing
close to the telephone set, as if, waiting for the call. "Yes, I 'll
be up in the next fifteen minutes. Send Shahab... I know. Did Shamim
call? I am not feeling so well." She was murmuring replies
contributing to a conversation that would never occur again. I placed
my fingers on her lips as she proceeded to hang her head on my
shoulder. "Shamim called. He will see you tommorrow morning. Shahab
has his first exam tommorrow also. He was just here."

I was looking for something. A jolt, a strike, some jostling of any
kind that could help me to the level of realization.

This didn't do it.

"I am tired," she said, "it is so late."

I let go of her and she settled back onto the sofa. I looked back
towards the uncarpeted room and it was pitch dark in there. Who had
turned off the lights? He used to sleep with the lights on. After
Maghrib, the rule said, lights are always on until Fajar. There might
be several terrible things about darkness but I discovered something
different that night. One could focus on a point in darkness and that
one point can become the entrance to a wormhole and that, in turn, can
certainly take you places. I focused more closely on a point inside
the dark room. Somebody walked in and turned the lights back on and I
realized that my focal point was the black spot on his forehead, which
was the resultant of the fact that he had not missed a single prayer
in his entire life since he was six years old. It used to be the
center of my attention when I would press his forehead after a long
tiring day. I kissed that spot almost everyday.

"He has to go to court. Shahab, will you wake him up, please. He has
to go to court," my mother said.

I could hear them talk, "Does he really want to do this?" "Come on,
he is only thirteen." "Well, I told him..." "Poor boy"

My brother guided me back into the room. I was handed a small jug like
pot and I proceeded to immerse it into the water containg drenched
leaves.

I started pouring it onto his body. I spent the rest of eternity that
night kneading, rubbing, scrubbing and whiping his body freeing it
from all the medicinal odors. As I poured directly onto the black spot
on his forehead, the Muazzin began the call for morning prayers. I
knelt down and tried to kiss that same spot, I couldn't. I lifted his
head and placed it on my lap and recited the adhan with the Muazzin as
he liked to do. We clothed him in all white sheets. Prayed. He was
buried in a graveyard away from the city, well into Baluchistan.

I turned to my teary-eyed brother and asked him bluntly,"Why can't I
cry?" He gave me the strangest look and whispered back, "What are you
talking about? You practically bathed him with your tears." I stood
frozen. The reality had checked in a long time ago. It was kneading,
rubbing, scrubbing and whiping all along.