Short Story
The Full Moon
artwork by wasim helal
Adib checks the time again on his wrist watch. It's 5:30 in the morning. Lying in his bed, he looks out the window to see if he can catch a glimpse of the morning light. There's only darkness outside. He reasons--maybe in a few minutes the blackness will start to fade away from the eastern sky, and reveal the beautiful first glow of day break-- subeh sadiq, as his mother used to call the moment. Adib thinks about his mother often these days. He has not seen her for almost ten years. He talks to her sometimes on the phone. But not as much as he'd like to do. It's hard to get a connection to Dhaka on the calling card he buys. She also calls him every now and then when a family friend or relative drops off a calling card for her. At the beginning he would be concerned. Why are these people buying phone cards for her? Does she ask them to? Adib reasons she ought to have money to buy phone cards--he sends her five hundred dollars a month, enough to leave her with extra for entertainment and any non-essential expenses such as phone cards and the like. He doesn't want her to ask relatives for any financial help. Once Adib asked her, "Amma, how come all these people bring phone cards for you?" "Oh babu, it's nothing. They do so only because they know I don't go out any more to shop." Later, when Adib asked the same question to Anu, his younger sister, she told him a secret. When his cousins or his uncles visit their house in Mohammedpur, they know that nothing pleases his mother more than a phone card. A phone card is her lifeline to her son living in the USA. Anu also once in a while picks up one on her way back from the university. Adib misses Anu a lot. She was only ten years old when he left Bangladesh to study in the USA. He had promised her that he'll be back the following summer. But that's another story. He wonders how tall she is now. Does she like North South University? Soon, Adib realizes that he has idled away almost an hour in that state of inertia. He needs to get moving, get to work. He does not want to be late. He has a nice boss, who does not mind if he is late or takes other liberties. But still, he does not want to take advantage of him. When Adib started working for him, immigration laws were not enforced as strictly as they are nowadays. When he was hired, all he had to show was his driver's license for the I-9 clearance. It's been almost six years since then, and he and Tim, his boss, get along very well. But he feels that he is being underpaid. Other programmers who do the same job make at least twice as much as Adib does. But he does not want to complain. If the boss fires him or wants to be vindictive, he's afraid he might run into immigration problems. Adib once thought about leaving, but now he wants to lie low. Maybe after a couple of years, once the current brouhaha over immigrations reforms dies down, he might look around and look for greener pastures. At work, he goes straight to his desk, but does not feel like doing much this morning. He checks his email; nothing new. Jim, whose cubicle is across from Adib's, stops by: "You look lost. Still dreaming of that blonde." Adib wonders who he is referring to. Then he remembers and smiles back. He is sure Jim is thinking of the girl they met last Friday. They had gone to a nearby club after work. They were at the bar when Jim noticed her as she walked in. Jim was the one who made the first move and approached her. Soon all three were sharing jokes with one another. They had a couple of drinks together, and then Adib asked her for a dance. They clicked right away and were on the dance floor for the rest of the time they were at the club. He had a pretty good time. What was her name? Chris or Kristina, he can't remember now! He liked her. She probably is a few years younger than him. Just graduated from college and working as a research assistant in a big consulting firm. After they got off the floor they talked for a little while slowly taking sips of their drink. They both ordered margaritas. And then he downed another one. Then they got back on the floor. She told him about her family. Her parents were divorced, he found out and she stayed with her mother in Roslindale, a Boston suburb. She wanted to travel overseas before going to graduate school. When she heard that Adib was from Bangladesh, she rolled her eyes and said, "I always wanted to visit India to see the Taj." Adib did not want to spoil the mood by correcting her: that he wasn't from India and that he had never seen the Taj himself. Well, can't blame this girl for not knowing that Bangladesh was different from India. Well, who knows, maybe she knew that too, but just wanted to let him know that she was interested in the Orient--that might be another way of signaling that she was interested in carrying on the conversation a little farther. Or maybe, like many other people in the USA, she did think Bangladesh was a part of India. Adib comes back to reality and looks at Jim in the eye. "Look who's talking! You're the one who took a fancy for the hot blonde…Chris, isn't that her name?" Jim nodded. Adib has guessed the name correctly. Jim goes back to his cubicle. "Jim is right," Adib thinks. He is feeling a little unmindful of late. He needs to go and visit his mother, but without a Green Card he cannot travel outside the country. He hasn't even applied for one. He regrets now not applying for one right after he got out of college. During those "dot com" boom years, IT professionals were in great demand, and he probably could have negotiated with his prospective employers for a Green Card, or at least for an H-visa. However, he had just graduated, and his money had run out. He was in a hurry to take the job, and just got the "practical training" visa, and never bothered about the Green Card. When he switched jobs two years later, his current employer did not ask about his immigration status. His programming skill in Java was a hot ticket, and he moved to the Boston area. As he looks back, Adib regrets some of his decisions, and wonders how many people like him fell into the trap of "don't ask, don't tell" policy on immigration. He now worries that he might be stuck in this limbo for a little while. In recent months, Immigration and Homeland Security folks have been making some noises in all the towns and cities which have a big immigration community. They raided a factory in the city of New Bedford south of Boston and took away more than three hundred workers. All the newspapers were full of stories on how badly these undocumented workers were treated by the officials. Those bastards! Adib wonders if the cops are one day going to raid his office. He has been thinking seriously about his options. He was hoping that the US Congress would pass the new immigration bill and give him an opportunity to apply for amnesty and be on a path to citizenship. He has been saving up to pay for the penalty fees that might be required. But it looks like immigration reform is dead for now. Damn the politicians, he thinks, they can never agree on anything. He now is seriously considering some of his fallback options. He has tried to meet or find some "deshi" girls but that didn't work out. His tastes and theirs are so different--he likes western music, American football and beer, goes out to clubs, and is not too enchanted about the rice-and-curry culture. He is not sure an arranged marriage will work either. He liked Anita who was with him in college, a Bangladeshi but with tastes similar to his. But in college he had been much too focused on his studies and in hanging out with his buddies to give her any attention. He wonders where she is now. Anyway, he has for now ruled out the possibility of finding a Bengali girl whom he can marry, although that would have made his mother very happy. He likes the American and Latino girls who work with him. He likes to argue with them about politics and sports, and talk about his passion for old rock-and-rollers like the Rolling Stones and the Eagles. He can think of three of his co-workers he could start going out with, although intra-office romance is frowned upon here. Plus, he does not know how he'd broach the idea of his immigration status with them. He feels he has to be up-front with whoever he is dating. That is the right thing to do. Otherwise, it's like hiding a disease, and not telling your partner about it. He remembers the TV commercial in which the man tells his girlfriend, "By the way, I am HIV positive. I thought you should know". Well, he figures that should not be a problem. Plus, he feels confident that whoever he is dating will be sympathetic to his immigration situation and not report him to his boss. Adib has been thinking seriously about another option that his Indian friend Suhash mentioned to him jokingly a few months ago. Suhash and he went to school together, but Suhash started dating an Indian girl right after college and they were recently married. "Arey yaar, ek amrican larki se pucho, shaadi ki liey kitna chaiye?" Sushash knows a few people in New York City who can, for fifteen to twenty thousand dollars, arrange for a contract marriage. No long-term commitment and you get the Green Card within two years. He himself knows of some of his distant relatives living in New York who have explored and taken that path in the past. He is not sure how his mother is going to like this idea. She is old school and considers that the marriage vow is sacred, and should be undertaken only once. "Till death do we part", she once told him. She was very dedicated to his late father. He feels bad that he could not go back when his father died two years ago. He explained his situation to his mother and she understood. So, he wonders whether she will have a fit when she finds out about a contract marriage, if there were to be any in his fate. But then again, he does not have to tell her anything. All he might say to her, "Amma, the Green Card is in the process", and never have to tell her the real story. Poor Amma, his mind wanders again. Last time he spoke with her she asked him to go on line and post his resume on Shaadi.com, an online matchmaking service. "Even my poor mother knows about it" he jokingly told Suhash. But he is glad that she is willing to consider a shotgun marriage like the one on Shaadi.com. At least anything he does will not shock her any more, a comforting thought. His reverie is interrupted by another visitor. "Hey, Adib. Are you daydreaming or what?" Adib looks up puzzled. It is the cute girl who recently started in Human Resources. What's her name? He runs down the list in his mind quickly. Ana? Yes, Ana Rosario. He perks up a little. "No, Ana, just thinking what to do for lunch." "Oh, really, want to join me? I'm going for the sub shop at the Square." "Sure," says Adib, happy to leave all his worries behind him--at least for now. Also, the prospect of having lunch with Ana has revved him up. After all, if there is any romance in his fate, this lunch may be a small step in that direction, he tells himself. Abdullah Shibli is a former journalist who is now based in Boston, USA
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