Remembering Shauqina

Chapter 21: Please stay

CHAPTER 21: Please stay

The journey to the National University Hospital seemed long and endless. Zafirah, bless her

parents' kind soul, was with me. We did not talk at all - she seemed to sense my mood.

When the door of the ward slid opened, I expected the worst. I expected to see Zak amidst tubes and respirators and what haves you. Thankfully, he was propped up on the bed, being fed by his mother. Ohl What a sight that was! He was not as pale as that day, there were signs of colour on his cheeks. He looked really odd in the hospital uniform and I actually wanted to make a wisecrack but managed to stop myself on time. He glanced at us as we entered, and there was a tinge of redness on his cheekse as he saw me. His mother put down the spoon, turned and gave me her winsome smile. We approached the bed, Zafirah rather curiously and I rather shyly. We kissed Zak's mother's right hand as a show of respect. When it was my turn, she patted my head slightly.

"How you have grown, Eza..right? No wonder Zakaria could not eat or drink thinking of you...."

Zak looked pleadingly at his mum and she looked at him squarely in the face, brushing aside a lock of hair that had covered his forehead.

"Ummi..."

"Ok, ok...Zak wants o be seen as a young man, not a boy anymore, right?"

Both mother and son gave their winsome smiles and I spontaneously wished I had brought my camera. But that was really super inappropriate at this moment. There was an awkward silence, and Zak spoke first.

"Am glad you, both of you came. Thank you Zafirah.”

Zafirah shrugged pleasantly and smiled. Without knowing it, I was actually studying Zak's face and being fascinated by the waves in his hair. I think his mother noticed my gaze and she smilingly joked:

"Zak had such curly locks when his hair grows longer; we used to call him 'Maggie mee'!"

I know I went really, really red in the face.

“What did the doctor said, Zak?" I questioned, wanting to divert attention away from my inappropriate gaze.

Zak looked down, his gaze faraway.

"I have a blood clot in my brain - right side. It has grown to be pretty big - kind of the size of a ping-pong ball. They had to operate…”

"But, but how....."

It was Zak's mother who answered

"His falher......."

His father....now it all came back to me. That sweet day, in the canteen, when we were only twelve, his mother had confided her heart to me. Zainal’s sharing after the Library visit. Now it all makes sense. The Panadol pills he constantly took for the pain he always dismissed as heatiness or migraine or wind. I chided mysell for not pressing him to see a doctor for those constant headaches. He looked up and smiled rather weakly.

"How's everything in school? I miss..Mdm Bedah!"

Oh! That idiotic Zak! Even in his state, he was joking because all of us there burst into spontaneous laughter, his mother included. We all know what Mdm Bedah meant to him or to us rather.

"Have you finished with ldries Shah?"

"Yes, I have. You should read it too."

"Ya, right...I don't much understand this Sufi thing… What was the best part?"

So I told him about the virtuous woman who died, leaving behind three grieving suitors. The first decided to be by her graveside, always praying for her and talking to her from the graveside. The second became a Wiseman and found a way to bring the dead to life. The third was like a son to her father and lived with him. When the woman was brought back to life by the Wiseman, she said the Wiseman would find use of his knowledge to help mankind and was therefore,  a humanitarian, the third man was a true son to her father, and will always be a son to her father, but the first, acted like true lover, always being by her side, braving loneliness and segregation from normal living just to be with her. So the lady chose to be with the first man…Zak was all ears when he listened to my narration, smiling softly at the end of the story.

"Nice... so, which one is me?"

His tone was far from teasing; in fact, it was so serious that the cat really took my tongue away. Zafirah giggled and his mother added, smilingly,

"The good son, of course!"

Zak smiled at his mother.

"Always, Ummi. Now and forever... And your answer?"

He was earnest now, almost persistent. Of course the lover, you moron! I hissed under my breath. I thought he did not hear what I said and that thought crashed when he suddenly started laughing and almost choked on the porridge. I smiled hesitantly, still not fully comprehending his laughter, and then he winked at me and I was like going very, very red in the face when the nurses and doctors came for Zak's routine checkup. He looked at me imploringly.

"Stay...Please…"

Oh! If only he knew I wanted to be there forever but the doctor gave me quite a stern look and tactfully told me that Zak needed to rest. Zak looked at me, a bit too long and hard and I suddenly felt something welling inside me. He did not bring down his gaze until I walked out of the ward with heaviness inside my heart.