Chapter Nine: What is God like? #

Aliya had just learnt that her parents were leaving her with her uncle. They were going back to Paris the next night. “But we just arrived! Why are they leaving me?” she asked. There was no answer; she was told she was too young to understand. She ran out of the room crying. She was still holding the official French paper she was trying to decipher. In a hurry, she had forgotten her books. Her father wanted to go after her, but other pressing matters were at hand.

It was a rare sunny afternoon in Seattle, and she sat alone on the bench in her uncle’s garden. She saw a big black car arriving in the driveway. She got scared and hid behind the bench. A big guy in a suit came out of the driver’s side. From the passenger side, a boy got out. He was 5" 10"", with blonde hair and a swimmer’s body. He was wearing a beige air force jacket with an open front showing off a similar colored t-shirt. His outfit was completed with a pair of blue jeans and Adidas kicks. He and the giant walked into the house.

“They are leaving early!” she thought. Like a mouse in a house full of cats, she tiptoed on the garden walkway to avoid being seen by the giant standing guard at the entrance to the house. She slid past the backyard and climbed through the kitchen window. To her luck, there was no help that day as they were given the day off, and her cousins were at school. “One step in front of the other,” she thought. And over the window, onto the granite slab, and down to the floor using the hanging hand towel. Now it was time to be sneaky.

Slowly, on the balls of her feet, with one foot at a time, maintaining her balance, she sneaked towards the library door. Each step was in such a perfect rhythm that it might have seemed like a dance to an onlooker. Finally, she was near the side door to the office, which she had left half opened, when she ran out of the room crying. She was peeking through the crack with the hinges, and she could hear them. The boy was sitting on the couch, and her mom and uncle were sitting across from him on the other couch, and she could only see their backs. The two sofas had a coffee table in between and a desk by the windows on the other side. Her father was leaning against the desk with his arms crossed. There was already hot coffee on the table, and it seemed she had missed the pleasantries.

“How old are you?” asked Ethan.

“I am sixteen. The company recruits young boys like me to make the children feel more comfortable. It would be much harder for a twelve-year-old to bond with a forty-year-old than with a sixteen-year-old”. It was her birthday.

He was speaking with such confidence that she was scared. He was sitting on the couch with his right leg perpendicularly placed over the left leg, and his left hand touched his right foot. “A power move,” she remembered from the Chinese delegate in Russia. Chinese men are more petite and sit as wide as possible to seem more prominent and influential. That conversation interested her in the book Art of War and why she was learning French.

She got out of her thoughts and listened again. Her parents were describing Aliya’s interests when the boy shifted himself upwards. The jacket fell back, and she saw a brown bulge with a black gun. She gasped, and his eyes met hers. No one else had seemed to notice her gasp. She stood there scared and locked in the gaze until he moved his eyes and looked across the couch. She ran as she had never run before. She ran quietly out of the lobby, into the kitchen, and across the garden, to the bench behind the willow tree. She struggled for air, and the French paper was still clenched in her hand. At this point, it seemed like the only familiar thing she knew.

She caught her breath, and all her loneliness, anxiety, and fear came out as tears down her cheek. She had no idea what her life would be and how lonely she would be. She must have cried for what felt like an era. The sun was about to set, and sunlight shone on her, tears rolling down her cheek. The boy came and sat next to her on the bench. She was too depressed even to look up.

“I know you are scared and don"t know whom to talk to or trust. Your mom told me you love poems and books. Here is a poem for you. If you like it, meet me here tomorrow.” He slipped a paper across the bench and got up.

The boy went to her parents and told them he would return tomorrow. She heard her cousins returning from their lacrosse practice and was surprised to see Aliya. She took the paper and walked across the garden to meet Arman and Aryan. Arman picked her up and flew her in a circle. She smiled and, through the corner of her eye, saw the boy stepping into the car with her parents seeing him off. He took a last look at her, climbed into the SUV, and left.

There was cake and dinner, and she forgot everything for a while. When dinner was over, she went to the library. She had been in and out of that room all day, and it had never occurred to her to grab a book. “So many books,” she said; no one was around to hear it. She opened the paper that was given to her earlier that day. She was perplexed.

The poem was written in a language she didn"t know. She didn"t even recognize the alphabet, if they were, in fact, alphabets at all. “Is this a test?” she thought. “I will show him.” She remembered that his accent had a foreign touch. “He is blonde, so maybe from Norway. No! No! The alphabet doesn"t resemble Latin/Greek at all; they are…A military jacket. Asian/Middle Eastern? I can"t go to the state library; the computer is locked. This library will have to do. But a book on language alphabets would not be a common choice for a home library. But wait! Uncle was in the military too. So maybe?”

And with this thought, she climbed the library ladder. Her patience was rewarded two shelves over where next to Atlas was a book “Foreign Alphabets and Deciphering.” She went through it, and on page 67 were the alphabets. “Punjabi, a language spoken in the Punjab region of Pakistan and India,” she spoke out loud, and she could feel her victory. Now, the easy part is deciphering.

Another hour and she was done. She looked at the time, and it was one. She had spent three hours on this. It was time to sleep, but her jet lag and curiosity to read it made her wide awake. “Well, it’s obviously a poem, but nothing will rhyme in English.”

She had the words, but they were jumbled. Some were lost in translation, and others made no sense. It was already 2, and she had tried her best. It was not to be, but it was time to be in bed. She woke up at eight in the morning and walked out on the balcony of her room on the second floor. She could see the willow tree and someone sitting on the bench. Once her eyes focused, it was him. She grabbed the original paper and notes and ran downstairs to the bench.

“Good morning.” She said, sitting next to him.

“Good Morning. Did you sleep ok? I heard you were up very late.”

“Who told you that?” She asked, startled like she was being accused of something.

He laughed. “I have eyes everywhere. So, I guess you liked what I wrote.”

Aliya was excited. “Did you write that? It is a poem, right? In Punjabi. I got the words, but they are jumbled, and I am not sure if it’s the correct meaning because poems always have hidden meaning. “Read between the lines,” my English teacher says. She’s not my English teacher anymore, is she?”

She suddenly realized that she was in Seattle and her life had changed. The poem had distracted her for a while, but the distraction was over. Her eyes had gotten sad, and she looked at the empty sky.

“Should I translate it for you?” he said, trying to distract her. She gave him the paper with the poem, and he started reading the poem. It was so beautiful that, once again, Aliya was distracted.

Ohne puchiya “Rabb kiddan da hunda hai?

Ki eh manas warga hunda hai,

Jan aahat warga hunda hai?”

Main keha “Horan layin tan pata nahin

Par mere layi oh mere yaar warga hunda hai.”

Pher ohne puchiya, “Tera yaar kiddan da hunda hai?

Oh Sohni warga hunda hai

Jan Heer warga hunda hai?”

Main keha “Horan layin tan pata nahin

Par mere layi oh uche darbari warga hunda hai.”

Pher ohne puchiya, “Tun yaar nu ki kehnda hain?

Ki Galib de sher kehnda hain,

Jan hath di lakeer kehnda hain”.

Main keha, “Horan dan tan pata nahin,

Par main ohnu apni takdeer kehnda haan.”

Pher ohne puchiya, “Je yaar rusiya hunda hai,

Jan saath chuteya hunda hai,

Pher yaar nu ki kehnda hain?”

Main keha, “Je yaar rusiya hunda hai,

Te uhnu dil te jaan kehnda haan.

Mere saare saah

Te mere saare armaan kehnda haan.

Je saath chuteya hunda hain,

Te main ohnu kehnda haan,

Mera naan le ke bula, dil te hath rakhke bula,

Te banda hazar hunda hai.”

The poem is between two friends. They are soldiers, and they are lookouts on the war front. They have been looking out day and night and day and night. The soldier knows there could be an attack any minute, and he might not live to see another day. So he wonders what it would be like when he dies. Will he see God? What did he miss in his life? What is love? How does love feel?

He asks his friend, “What is God like?”

Is he like a human, or is he like a feeling like a sound?

The friend replied, “I do not know about other people

But for me, my lover is my God.”

Then his friend asks, “What is your lover like?

Is she like Sohni

Or is she like Heer?”

Heer, Ranjha, Sohni, and Mahiwal are like Romeo and Juliet in Punjab.

The friend replied, “I do not know about others

But for me, she is like a person of the high court.”

Darbar is the word for where the king and all his ministers would sit, like a court. Do you know what your name means?

“No”. She answered in a trance.

He continued, “Aliya means high, exalted, a person of high position. So, for me, my lover is like Aliya.

Then the friend asks, “What do you say to your lover?

Do you tell her short poems of Galib,

Or do you talk about the lines in your hands?”

They believe the lines in your hand hold your future. So young lovers try to read the lines on each other palms to see how their future will be.” He said, picking up her hand and tracing a line on her palm.

"The friend replied, "I do not know about others,

But I talk to her about my fate."

Then his friend asks, "If your lover is mad at you,

Or she is away from you,

Then what do you say to her?"

The friend replied, “If she is mad at me,

Then I tell her she is my heart and my life.

She is my every breath

And my every dream.

If she is not with me,

Then I tell her,

Call me by name; call me after placing your hand on your heart

And I will be there.”

Aliya was mesmerized. That poem was so beautiful and about her, written by him.

“Will you always come if I call your name?” she asked.

“Always!”

“But I don"t know your name. What name should I call?”

“You can name me anything you want.”

“You can find me anywhere, so you must be Magellan.”

He burst into laughter and clapped his hands. He regained his power posture and gave her a phone. The phone had a ruby button on the side. He said, “Whenever you need me, push this button with your thumb for five seconds. It will check your thumbprint and tell me that you are calling me, and within minutes, I will be there.”