The Indigo Tulips

Someone’s grandma’s favorite cup sits in the sink, now overflowing with dusty water. A dirty flood of poetry and idioms and ancestral stories told in a circle around an ancient Persian rug. Generations of wisdom buried under piles of dishes. When I was seven, I used to think chai brewed on the stove looked like wrinkled skin when it settled. Maybe that’s what happens when you hold hands with age old wisdom. When you research ancient civilizations instead of riding bikes like all the other kids in your neighborhood.

Today was dark. The kind of darkness that you shut your eyes against, only to realize it has been inside of you all along, pressing into your eyelids.

I pick up the cup and admire it in my hands. The antique gold edging the rim is fading, but the indigo tulips seem to glow like the cup is lit from within. I prepare the cloth dangling from the rack. “No that won’t do.” I mutter, and before I have the time to even think, I am using my bare fingers. working quickly from the surface to the core. I scrub and scrub as though the darkness will wash away with every stroke.

And it does. I feel it in my stomach first, the way a messy knot unfolds. Then, in the way my limbs feel loose, warmer. I feel the sun seep into my skin from the drawn curtains. Relief. I’ve felt cold for so long. But today, I feel brilliant. Weightless on my feet. I close my eyes, pausing in the moment. I reach for a dish towel, waiting for the rough edges to pulse into my palm. But instead, I find myself touching the smooth skin of paper. Silence gives way to the gentle whirring of a kitchen fan, the quick banter, rolling pins slapping on dough. The air is warm and spiced.

“That Leela always has her nose stuck in a book. How is she ever going to find a husband?”

I look up from my book, flushing. My heart skips a beat. Mama had only started talking about marriage a couple months ago. On my 16th birthday, she told me for the first time, “You’re getting older now. You must take care of your responsibilities. No man will want to be with a woman who can’t even make a round roti.

But I hate housework. I want to study biology. I want to learn how to read the stars and learn about theories. I want to have debates, and dissect how governments had failed. I don’t want to gossip while laboring over vegetables and getting splatters of oil on my journal.

Yet I love when windows opened on a fresh afternoon, and someone would say “where’s the chai?” and everyone would gather around the stove, and my grandfather’s sister would start a story with “back in our day,” and end with “and what have we learned from this?” and everyone would say shukr alhumdulillah, and take a sip of chai like a deep, collective sigh.

“Safiya, anything to say? Or are we too boring for your tastes now, huh? I swear, one day these books, they will eat up your head.”

I hang my head, unsure of what to say. Mama wins. Every time. I can barely breathe, until the scent of cardamom fills the air between my frustration and mama’s. And then I feel his touch. His hand on my shoulder. I look up and see his smile. When he smiles, it’s like everything is right again. For him, every breath is beautiful. Every sip of chai is the best chai he has ever had. When someone speaks, every word is as significant, just as unique to him as each star in the sky.

“My daughter is going to save the world with that brain of hers, husband kohn? Isn’t that right, beta?”

I nod, clutching my journal to my chest. “Yes, Dr. Abba. I’ll save the world. Just like you. I promise.

“That’s my girl.” He says, still smiling.

My eyes blur.

Abba’s smile starts to fade.

His voice is like a message from the moon, so far away, but so important. I don’t see his face anymore, but I see something bright in the distance. Light. Indigo. His hands, his stories, wisdom, his Chai. That beautiful porcelain cup.

I’m running now, tripping over myself.

The tea cup slips from my grasp.

I fall. Abba is still here. My daughter, my daughter, my daughter.

Alarms blare. Lights blink. Flashing, flashing flashing.

“No, no, no, no, no. Don’t go. Please. Don’t go. No, no, no, noooo. Abbaaaaaaaaaaa.” Wails pierce the air. My wails. The cup breaks. It shatters. Wrinkled milk skin sinks into the Earth. The darkness returns, pulling at the inside of my eyes, like leeches.

“Dadi! Dadi! Wake up! Wake up! Shh. you’re okay, you’re okay.”

“The teacup?” I whisper, shaking.

It’s here, Dadi. Shh. Shh. It’s right here. See, on this shelf? Right next to you. It has not gone anywhere. You had a bad dream. You’re alright now, Dadi, you’re alright.”

“I didn’t have a marriage? I Saved the world, didn’t I, my darlings?”

The girls exchange glances. They’re silent for a moment. “Yes, Dadi. You saved the world.” The older one, Zahra says quietly. She holds a tattered paperback journal in her hands, gripping on as though it were a precious jewel. She glimmers in all her quiet intelligence. And Maryam, the little one, looks up at me with hopeful eyes, the curiosity of a million astronomers bouncing in her reflection. Maryam, my little scholar. Even now, bouncing on the balls of her feet, a question on her lips.

“Good. And you. You follow your dreams first, acha?”

“Yes, Dadi. They say unison. “No goals, then no man. They giggle, little curls bobbing with their heads. My sweet, sweet granddaughters.

“That’s my girl. And that’s my girl.” I say to each of them.

I look at the shelf by my bedside. The indigo flower burns brightly, no longer buried under piles of dishes.

“I didn’t get married.” I test out the words on my tongue. “I didn’t get married.” I laugh- barely a flutter at first, then louder, until I’m rolling on my bed in fits.