Again Shauqina

Chapter 14 In the Lair of lies

Zafirah wasn't too pleased that I had to cancel our weekly meet-up. Again. Last week when I had to cancel, she was sighing, but this week, she was seething mad.

Of course there were the countless messages exchanges between us but nothing beat talking to your best-friend-since-secondary-school face to face. I really miss her infectious laughter and insightful remarks of people and things around her. She being in a pre-university madrasah and me being in a secular junior college has somewhat taken its toll on the time we could spend together. That was why we had insisted on our weekly meet-up—until now, that is.

[Eza, are you in some kind of trouble?] Her message read accusingly at me.

[No.] I answered, with a smiley emoticon.

[Isaac is right?] She had an angry face for this.

Masha Allah! How could Zafirah always sniff trouble a thousand miles away?

[Erm...sort of]

[I knew it! I call you!]

Typical of Zafirah to switch to calls when messaging was unbearably slow for her mind and mouth to catch up to.

'Dear, tak kenal maka tak cinta—the more you got involved with Isaac, the more you will eventually fall for him!'

'Says who? Since when did you become a pundit of love my dear Zafirah?'

We both laughed.

'Macamlah you ni perempuan Melayu terakhir... you're not the last Malay woman on this beautiful earth. Why is it always you Eza?'

'He said he trust me.'

'Ah! Sign number one. Trust!'

I giggled for the sheer audacity of her conclusion. I remembered the time when I told her Isaac was my tutee for Malay Language, she promptly declared, 'Why have your enemy under one roof?'

'Humph!' she had retaliated in a huff.

The problem is, which I dare not broach to Zafirah—was Isaac an enemy?

'Yalah...now Sun Tzulah, Donnelah, Don Juan lah! Bah!!!'

Then we would laugh.

'I do miss the Arabic Language you know, Zafir...'

'Is he Jewish? Isaac?'

I laughed again. Talking to Zafirah was always a pleasure.

'Erm...I don't think so. A Christian maybe. Come to think of it, I never asked! But really Zafir, he is after all Isaac—not Yaakub, or Ishak or Sulaiman.'

'Or Zak...'

I froze. 'No...definitely not Zak.'

And that was how our conversation would end. We would always stray back to Zak. Like a homing device, like a trained dove, a circling boomerang—we would always come home back to Zak. Always.

'You going in his car again?'

I wasn't laughing this time.

'No, dear Zafir...no need to and no reason to...'

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Thanks to Mr. John Martin, our General Paper tutor, we found out where Ms J lived. Mr. Pope was a British expat and Kumar would try to emulate his accent much to the merriment of my study group. However, Isaac always had a disdainful look on his face whenever he heard Kumar speaking that way. We always forgot that his father was a British himself for Isaac certainly did not have an iota of a British accent in him. None. Actually, it was an open secret that Mr. Pope had a huge crush on Ms J so I guessed he was more than happy to divulge us her address with the hope of this thing to settle quickly. Anyway, he must have missed Ms J terribly because she had not come back to school since that fateful day at Isaac's house.