Asfi-Zubi - Love will find a way!

Learning to live without him- Zubi's story-(part2)

In the coffee shop at the corner of 24th Ste and Parnassus, the resident doctors' favorite breakfast joint, they both grabbed their plates from the counter and sat outside, watching the sparse traffic and early joggers. The N Muni went trundling past and the blue-green sea was visible at a distance from the top of the hill where the medical school hospital was located.

Xander unwrapped his muffin and considered the raisins scattered on it for his daily sugar fix and then leaned back enjoying it. Zubiya, he noted had not yet taken a bite and was still making a show of unwrapping it. He considered his friend and office mate affectionately and wondered why she looked unhappy again.

X: " So Zee, how is Baby Ryan doing, you haven't told me yet."

Z:  " He is doing better. Listen Xander, can I ask your professional opinion about something?"

X:  " Sure, anytime, buddy"

Z: hesitating and feeling reluctant..." Mmm, ..... sometimes I have a dream where I walk towards a door at the end of a corridor. It happened to me today as well, but not in a dream. I was in the hospital and it just so happened I saw that door. I was disoriented and a little scared that I should see my nightmare while awake. So is it something I should get myself examined for?"

X: " And so Zee, do you ever enter that door? In your dream?"

Z: frowning, " No... I don't ever have the courage to enter that door. In any case I always wake up when I see the door. Xander please don't look for meanings in the dream. There is no meaning to this dream, I am sure. Just tell me if I should take this kind of break with reality, seriously?"

Xander: ( laughing) "Okay okay I wont be Dr Freud to you. Umm... I don't think you need to be concerned yet. If it happens again let me know. Maybe all the long hours and excess caffeine is the culprit. Just switch to decaf. And try and sleep properly. No lights, no laptop to bed...(seriously, after a moment of silence)..Zee, does this dream remind you of your home? Of Pakistan?"

Z: sighing.... "Yes it does Xander. It reminds me of the only place I consider home."

X: ( noting the way Zee has just constructed her thought.. the place <strong>she considers as home </strong>and not the place which is her home. So definitely a place, which she loves but has no real right to.  He looks at his melancholy friend and as always wants to reach and hug her, but he knows that there is a long way before she even starts accepting being hugged by him. His natural Russian bonhomie and spontaneity demanded that he let her know that he liked her in more ways than she thought possible, but culturally she is so different and there is something tragic in her past she still hasn't come to terms with... Xander sighed inwardly and decided he could wait.) " Well Zee, don't you think you might visit your home once. We are almost at the end of our graduate program. We still have those 24 months of work left before you decide whether you want to work towards a H1B visa. Surely, you don't mean to visit Pakistan after 5 years since you left it? I know you don't have much family at home, but its not just family, its general life, language, food, culture,  every human experience, actually, which you start missing. I know, I couldn't stay away from my family for that long and I have been in the States for ten years. I think all that you are experiencing is easily solved by going back for a few weeks and renewing your bond with your country. I think it is so worth it. Think about it?"

Z: " No I don't think that will work Xander. I just have an estranged brother and I don't think I could stay with him for a couple of weeks. There is no one really who cares that much for me that I should go back to meet them." ( all the while her mind chanted taunting her in a spoilt child tone...'lie, lie, lie....there was someone who did care... there were others too who cared...but you betrayed them, left them behind, ran away, away, as far as you could, as fast as you could...)

X: " Well Zee, then stay here with me.... I care a lot about you....I mean I ....ummm...I.... and Jessie and Avi and Laura and your patients... we all love you. Don't think of going back, make this home."

Z: " Thanks Xander, you are a good friend. I am sure I will be fine. Havent slept much so maybe I should sleep today. Let's go." She stood up and glanced at her barely touched roll. Food, she didn't need food, just oblivion.

X: (Understanding that she hadn't paid attention to his faux pa and slightly relieved), "Yeah homeward bound Ma'am!"

Back home, Zubiya, wondered why she felt so ill at ease today. She straightened a few cushions in her tiny apartment which she shared with Jessie, her flatmate, who was still at the hospital. She took a bath in the shower booth, but even the warm water cascading down before her eyes reminded her of rainy days in the Neelum Valley. She put her hands on her ears trying to shut out the taunting voice..."you lie, lie, lie....").

" Why am I feeling so forlorn after so many months (...31 months, 6 days, her mind taunted again)?

I have put it behind me haven't I? I am so busy, so many assignments, my patients and duty-charts, I have done it all. I have managed to forget everything (have you? Really? How well you know me!... taunted her mind).

Why does it all come back at times with so much force?( Because it never went away, you fool... said her mind)".

She put on her pyjamas and untangled her hair, preparing for bed. And gulped down a glass of hot milk, hoping this Eastern remedy for sleeplessness shows some magic today.

As usual, she was standing at the end of a corridor, watching someone walk away. His easy loping stride, never once looking behind. And then she was walking down that very corridor, where there was a nursing station, the wooden panelling as she remembered, and then that door just behind it. Always closed but always whispering to her....come....come...come to me. She saw herself standing in front of that door, nobody visible through the glass panel, she turned the door knob, and the door swung open. She went inside. the chair behind the desk was turned away. Trembling with fear and dread, she found herself compelled to see who was sitting in it, turned away from her. Her heart stopped beating for a long infinitesimal minute, as she finally looked at Asfandyar, looking at her with his shocked eyes, looking accusingly with pain and sorrow writ large in his expressive eyes.

She got up with a scream, echoing in her ears. It was her own scream. This was how she had seen him last when she had told him she didn't want to marry him, wasn't in love with him and had submitted her resignation and left by the afternoon bus.