The Things He Would Say – [Part 4]: The Birthday Party

A father with a severely autistic son dreams of going to Hajj, but will it ever happen?

Previous Chapters: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Author’s Note: The last part of this chapter, in which the family sees a meteor shower, was mistakenly published previously as part of Part 1. It belongs here. And I added a bit to it.

Give Your Auntie a Kiss

The next day they went to Murid’s parents’ house for Junaid’s birthday party. There were twenty people at the party, which was too many. It was too much stimulation for Junaid, and would not end well. Mina was opening the presents one by one, and thanking the guests.

Murid had cautioned her beforehand to keep her normally sharp tongue in check, and she was doing a wonderful job, mashaAllah. Each time she opened a gift, Junaid would come and pick it up, then take it to the floor where he had lined up the gifts in a line. Sometimes he shuffled the items around in the line. He paid no attention to anyone else, in spite of Murid’s parents entreaties to him to, “Give your auntie a kiss,” or, “How about a little smile for your uncle?”

Murid watched the boy playing his game. Junaid would not appreciate anyone trying to join him, Murid knew. In fact it would upset him. He was a handsome boy, average sized for fourteen, with glowing mahogany skin and straight black hair that came to just below his ears. His eyes were wide, his nose straight and prominent. He would grow into a good looking man.

It was hard to pinpoint his mental age, however. Severely autistic kids had a disconnect between the external world and their internal reality. It was possible that he was in fact quite intelligent, but unable to bring his intelligence to bear upon the world around him. In general, other people did not interest him. He could spend long periods of time patrolling the internal perimeter of a house, as if mapping it out or calculating the square meters. He might lie down and rock from side to side while humming, or even just flap his hands.

On the other hand, he had an extraordinary memory. Murid had once tried to teach Junaid to play memory – the card game where all the cards would be placed in a grid face up. The player would study the cards for a moment, then turn them all face down. Turning one up, the player would try to remember where the matching cards were located. Murid had given up after a week of trying, because Junaid kept taking the cards and lining them up in a chain.

A few days later, he’d watched as Junaid, on his own, set the game up, began to play, and proceeded to match every card perfectly from beginning to end.

One of Murid’s deepest wishes was that he could have a conversation with the boy. If, just for ten minutes, Junaid could be granted the ability to speak – no matter what he said – it would be the happiest moment of Murid’s life.

Going to Hajj

At some point Murid noticed that his mother had disappeared. She tended to do this. Knowing that she was prone to depression, and knowing what he would find, Murid went looking for her, though not before leaning over Mina and whispering, “Keep on being nice.”

He found her sitting in the sunroom, weeping silently with a box of tissues in her lap and used tissues scattered about her feet like little goslings waiting to be fed. The room was clean but smelled musty. His mother waved him off, but he sat beside her on the floral-patterned sofa and put an arm around her shoulders.

“It’s okay Mama,” he said. “Everything is fine.”

“I just want more for him, that’s all,” she replied through her sniffles.

Murid wanted to say, “Don’t you think it makes me sad too? I need you to reassure me. I need for someone to say to me, ‘Don’t worry, this is all part of Allah’s plan. Junaid is happy and physically healthy. Be grateful for what you have.’”

But Murid did not say these things to his mother. He should have simply given her shoulders a squeeze and returned to the party, but instead he blurted out, “I’m going to Hajj.”

His mother’s weeping stopped as suddenly as a summer rainshower. “What about the kids? You’re going to leave them with us? You know I haven’t been well, and your father has a temper. We can’t take care of two kids. You could have at least -”

“I’m not leaving them with you. Juliana will stay with them. I’ll only be gone for ten days.”

His mother’s eyes widened in outrage. “You’d leave them with a stranger instead of us?”

He smiled. “She’s not a stranger. She knows Junaid’s needs very well, and she’s patient with Mina.”

Mother’s eyes narrowed. “You cannot marry that woman.”

Murid patted her shoulder. “I’m not going to marry her.” He definitely was not about to tell her about the proposal from Abu Ali to marry Hiba. One shock at a time.

The Hair

Murid’s aunt Ganya was studying the children with that mean look she sometimes got, like a bird might watch a fox that had just stolen its food.

Time to go, Murid thought. We managed to get through most of the party, it’s a miracle. He was just about to thank everyone for coming and for the gifts, and tell them that he had to get the children home to rest, when Aunt Ganya’s glinty bird gaze turned into speech:

“Murid, you need to control your son. At least get him to give us a kiss. And what is going on with Mina’s hair? It’s a mess, it looks like a bird’s nest.”

Oh shoot, Murid thought. He began to turn to Mina with a restraining hand, but it was too late.

“At least,” Mina retorted, “I don’t smell like stale cucumbers dipped in menthol. And I’m not a mean old biddy who got engaged four times but never married. As for my hair, it’s naturally curly and I’m not driven by a sense of cultural inferiority to iron it out, like most of the women in this family. I’m down with being brown.”

Aunt Ganya sputtered, then attempted to snatch up her walker but instead knocked it over. She began to shout, “I need my walker! I need to get away from this horrible child!”

Murid’s father shouted at Mina, one of the other aunts yelled at Junaid himself, and a dish of mixed nuts on a side table was knocked over. The dish shattered, and a mixture of nuts and ceramic slivers scattered across the floor. Other family members took one side or another, and finally – of course – Junaid put his fingers in his ears and began to cry.

Murid weighed his options. Take Junaid upstairs to the bedroom and spend three hours holding him until he calmed down? While leaving Mina to contend for herself amid this crowd of emotional terrorists? Or take him home, crying all the way, and try to calm him there?

He opted to take the kids home. Lifting Junaid up – something he could barely do at this point – he dragged Mina by the hand, leaving all the presents behind.

Shooting Star

Junaid keened in the backseat, hands over his ears and tears streaming down his cheeks. Murid wanted to drive like he was racing the last lap at the Indy 500, in order to get Junaid home and soothe him, but they were on Mission Gorge Road where it topped the hills on the way south to San Carlos. It was windy, and Junaid gripped the steering wheel as the gusts shoved the car back and forth on the road. As they crested a low mountain pass, Junaid fell silent.

“Baba, look!” Mina was pointing out of the rear window. Murid glanced at his side mirror and saw something orange streak across the night sky, then another. He pulled off the road into a truck weighing stop, shut off the engine, and all three exited the car.

Murid stood on the cold asphalt, holding his children’s hands. The cold wind snatched at Murid’s clothing. A white streak flashed across the sky, turning orange as it passed by, startlingly low and close. Then another came and another.

“It’s a meteor shower,” Mina said. “I’ve never seen one before.”

Murid looked at Junaid. He was entranced, his liquid eyes wide. Tears stood on his cheeks, and as a meteor shot by, the fire of its passage was reflected in Junaid’s eyes and in the tears themselves, as if his face were a mirror to the glory of the heavens. His hair whipped in the wind, but he paid it no mind. What was the boy thinking, Murid wondered? Did he know what he was seeing? Or did he think it was some kind of show put on just for him? Perhaps a group of teenage angels were messing about in the sky, shooting off Chinese fireworks for fun?

Knowing Smile

Sensing his father’s eyes upon him, Junaid turned and met Murid’s gaze. A slight smile came to Junaid’s eyes. He often looked at Murid this way, and it was haunting, because it was as if he were smiling in a knowing way, like one magician regarding another and saying, “I know it’s all an act, but the show must go on.” It made Murid feel like Junaid was about to pick up a cane, don a top hat, and begin a slow dance, ending in the release of a pair of doves from his sleeves. Then he’d speak and say, “I love you, Baba. I was just waiting for the right moment to tell you.”

But of course that wasn’t going to happen. It was an illusion, just like Junaid’s knowing smile, his secret air of knowledge shared, was an illusion. This reality, at times, nearly wrecked Murid.

Then Junaid turned his eyes back to the actual magic show going on – the cosmic show in the night sky – and the moment was lost.

The meteor shower lasted a full five minutes and was the most incredible thing Murid had ever seen. The last one was the brightest, so low in the sky that Murid imagined he could feel its heat, the way one could close his eyes and feel the heat of a hand passing in front of his face.

Mina squeezed his hand. “I’m cold. And we’re standing on the side of the highway in the dark. This is spectacularly bad parenting.”

This made Murid laugh for some reason. They returned to the car and drove off, Murid still chuckling.

“Allah sent that for Junaid,” Mina said. “To calm him down.”

“And for you too.”

“No, Junaid is the star. We’re the understudies.”

“Why do you say that?” But no answer came, and when Murid looked in the rear view mirror, both children were asleep.

Did she mean that Junaid was the star of their family because their activities revolved around his needs? Or did she mean that he was in his nature a shooting star, and that the ones they’d seen were his cosmic cousins? Murid never got an answer to that question.

Next: The Things He Would Say, Part 5: Pray for Dana

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See the Story Index for Wael Abdelgawad’s other stories on this website.

Wael Abdelgawad’s novels – including Pieces of a Dream, The Repeaters and Zaid Karim Private Investigator – are available in ebook and print form on his author page at Amazon.com.

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