The Other Man

artwork by amina

The day we first met Shaheen was not remarkable on its own. After having been there over a week, it became almost routine. Every morning we would take the subway from the North End of London into town, passing through many stations. Edgeware. Burnt Oak.

Colindale. Brent Cross. Golder's Green. Hampstead. Belsize Park. Mornington Crescent. Leceister Square. King's Cross. A short walk to switch lines at King's Cross. Then to Kensington.

"I love those names," my Mom would say. Brent Cross was my favorite. You could take a bus from there that dropped you off at Toys R Us. But that was before I got a taste of the grand toy store of Hamleys downtown.

Cromwell Hospital, though, sapped out all pleasant thoughts from my mind. I looked forward to spending the couple of hours with Papa before they wheeled him away to get EKGs, blood tests, EKGS and more EKGs. EKG was easy enough to say for me. But I was also afraid to see him every morning. I could not look at his face and see the loving yet sunken eyes. A knot would form in my throat as the nurse would come in to take my Papa away. And then, the clock tower struck the hour again. Gong. Gong. Gong.
What if I never saw him again?

So that morning, once again I settled with a heavy heart next to my Mom in the waiting lounge. My Mom usually packed her sweater-knitting rolls. I flipped through my ladybird books. More often than not, my eyes were transfixed on her long, dexterous fingers weaving in and out as she created the perfect puppy on the sweater. My eyes flitted back to my book. Then over the edge of my book, I caught a pair of piercing dark eyes looking at me. It was a thin, lean man in a cream half sleeve shirt with a hawk-like face. He had a sallow olive-skin tone and dark wispy hair swept backwards. Like the rest of the hospital, he made me shiver. My eyes would not move from him and neither would his. But it was not an uncomfortable eye-lock that you might be imagining.

He was most intently looking at my mother. I did not know how I could possibly get any closer to my mother without sitting on her lap. I started fidgeting, holding my book up to cover my eyes. I desperately wished for something to break the spell of this man's evil stare. And then, my mother stood up and stretched. At 5 ft 6, in a simple sari draped around her slender body, she was a breath of fresh air in that stagnant hospital atmosphere. I have always been proud of how beautiful she was. But at that moment I dearly wished she was not pretty at all. I wished she did not stand out so. But she did and caught his eye. He stared at her shamelessly. By then, I had stopped fidgeting and mine were fixed on him again. He must have noticed for he turned his beady eyes on me.

"Sweetheart, here you go. We wouldn't want to lose him now, would we?"

In my agitation, poor Baby Monkey had fallen unnoticed from my lap. I squirmed as the devil who spoke handed Baby Monkey back to me.

"Thank you! Say thank you! Wasn't that nice of this gentleman?"

My mom was standing next to me, and the man had crept up on my other side when he came to rescue Baby Monkey. So now I was wedged between the two.

"She's really shy at first, but once she gets going she's quite talkative," continued my Mom.

His face lit up. " Oh no, M'am! It is quite alright, she is so adorable! I love children."

Sure. Sure. Sigh. The angel on his left shoulder surely noted that lie. He will surely go to hell.

As I was calling upon this man's personal angel on duty he extended his wiry hand to my mother:

"I am Shaheen. Pleasure to meet you."

"Oh, nice to meet you, Mr. Shaheen. This is my daughter."

"How cute is she now!" The wiry fingers patted the curls in my ponytail.

"Mmm...my poor baby, it's been so hard for her. For all of us...my husband has been here for over a week and I can't wait to take him back home."

At the sound of my dad's name, color had started coming back to my expressionless face and for the first time since we came across this other man, I felt warm. Instinctively I looked to see how this affected Shaheen. His nostrils had flared for a quick second; he must have been sucking in his breath. After a long pause, he resumed patting my curls: "Oh I am sure...but have patience, all will be well."

The truth is, he became a part of my daily nightmares. The days were long. Shaheen was in every one of them, threatening to come between my vulnerable mother and helpless father. Waiting, waiting like a hawk, for the smallest lapse on my part to guard my lovely mother. But the sweetheart of a little girl proved to be a tough cookie. She latched on the object of his affections like a moth on a terrace lamp. He followed my mom begging her to let him buy us lunch as we walked towards the hospital café. I was always there by her side, literally hopping from one side of her to another in case Shaheen turned up at her unguarded side. In my mind, I brandished a sword and stabbed him with daggers from my eyes. He wooed her with words.

"What brings you here, Mr. Shaheen?" My mom asks politely.

"Ahh...I came here to take care of my dear friend. It is a long way off from home, he did not have the strength to make the journey alone. And we in Baghdad never let a friend down. And what have I to lose anyway?"

"Your family lives in Baghdad with you?"

"I have no family, Mrs Hasan. I am a simple schoolteacher. The kids are my family. And I give myself, my time and love to my friends when they need it, like Hafiz does now."

"A friend like that is hard to find these days. I'm sure it means so much to him."

"Yes, it does. What else can we do, Mrs Hasan? Look at you...here day and night with your dear child hoping and praying for your husband. That's what gives him the strength to believe that he will get well. That's all you can do, really...isn't it?"

My mom shrugged and a cloud passed her eyes for a brief second. Maybe she needed to convince herself all over again that coming to Cromwell had been a wise choice. Shaheen was not too convinced. He expressed his disappointment in how his friend was only receiving treatment, not care. They were only after money, he said. He continued to spout on the topic of our loved ones lying helpless and us desperately trying to save them. He started talking about my father. I could not take it anymore.

"But my Papa's fine!" I hissed at him like a cornered snake, tears rolling down my cheeks.

And that wasn't even the first or last time that Shaheen had made me cry. I cried and hiccupped "I hate him" the whole way back on the train one day. Shaheen seemed to have got bolder. That particular day, my Mom had caught a quick nap on the couch in the waiting area and when she woke up, rubbing her eyes sleepily, she asked me to gather up my stuff. There came Shaheen acting surprised to run into us again for the third time that day and dared to make the most outrageous proposition! Like I wasn't even there! He asked my mom what if we spent the night at his place, which is much closer than where we lived. I threw the loudest tantrum, complete with thrashing myself on the ground. So violent was my fit that it forced my mom to almost rudely cut off Shaheen and ask him to step aside while she comforted me. Battle was won again. I was in my shining Knight's armor; so resilient was I in guarding the Queen's honor while the King was fighting his battle.

Thankfully, the dignity of the Knight was to be salvaged slowly since that incident. The Knight's tantrum days were over. The Queen had become smarter and less naïve. My mom was clearly irritated by the man's scandalous offer and actively started avoiding him. I wish she had shared her thoughts with me but of course she couldn't risk making me even more hostile than I already was to him. I was perfectly happy. The enemy had retreated. I could finally enjoy my new illustrated book on Egyptian history. I could daydream about the beautiful Nefertiti. The majestic pyramids. The Pharaoh's riches. I started planning my school half-yearly history project six months in advance. But they always say there is a lull before a storm. And during battle, a lull from the enemy could very well mean an unexpected sneak attack.

I fell asleep dreaming of golden desert sands leading to gleaming chambers of the pyramid. I woke up to a mummy unwrapping itself revealing its age-old degenerated form! What a sight that was! There was Shaheen standing behind my mom, who was seated on a chair. His hands were almost touching her shoulder. When my eyes adjusted, I saw a lot of white. The white of the hospital bed. Then I saw Papa's face, weak and fallen, but smiling as my eyes opened up. My mom must have carried me and put me on his bed.

I was laying curled up near his feet. Now I crawled up to my father and gently laid my head near his chest. I forgot all about my nightmare. Shaheen exited shortly. It was just my Papa, Mom and I. Again.

My Mom told me later that day what I had missed. My Mom had turned frantic when Papa complained of feeling faint in the room. She ran out to find his nurse without luck. It was Shaheen who had done the running around demanding that someone attend to my father right away. His blood pressure had dropped considerably.

Human service can only be bought for a price now, as he would say.

I don't remember much of Shaheen after that day. Papa was discharged in the next couple of days and we were all going home. Papa recovered fully, our family was reunited. And, alas, there was no place to go to like home. I never said a formal farewell to Shaheen. I saw him last in one of Cromwell's elevators. I ran out shrugging off his hand from my arm. As I looked back, I saw his face disappear behind the closing doors. His arm was stretched out, he called out my name. But that too drowned like a voice in a forgotten dream.

It took me 25 more years to wake up from this nightmare of the other man. 25 years of learning to feel secure that nothing could come between my Mom and Papa--not even death. And 25 years later, I entered an elevator at a shopping mall with my four-year-old. It was here that I made my daughter say hello to a complete stranger. A lean, wiry man was smiling at her with warm eyes. I turned to my daughter who was peeping from behind me, "Say hello, please."

Sayeema Tori Hasan-Sadeghi is a Bangladeshi writer who has published two collections of short stories, Ava and The Stage Is Yours.