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(excerpt)
NAZO I am sorry. I don’t want her to feel bad. We are all feeling bad. It is quite unfortunate what has happened to this family. We haven’t recovered from our father’s death yet. I am not against her living in America. Or in any other country. All I am trying to say is why live some place feeling alienated... with remorse and guilt while you can live as a perfectly decent human being in your own country? I am your older sister, I am at your mother’s place now. I love you. I love you all. I worry about you. She doesn’t seem very happy in New York. I just want the best for her. She is an educated woman. She doesn’t have to feel this bewildered. Mother always wanted her to come back and live with her. She could get a job here tomorrow. If she had come back, mother would not have felt so left out and Bindia would have been more comfortable. Does she seem happy to you? (Asks ROONA; Does she? (ROONA doesn’t answer.) People who graduated with her have their own private practice, they have houses, gardens, plots, property, cars, jewelry. They live in their own country, visit their parents once in a while like normal people. What is wrong with that? People go abroad to achieve something. What did she achieve? Abandoned a highly respectable profession, left her home, a loving home, made herself isolated for no reason.
BINDIA You are doing a great job... making me feel guilty... you people have done a great job... for the last ten years blaming me for deserting mother and father, for abandoning the family, for not taking care of them in their old age. For not being a practicing doctor in this country, for not practicing medicine in America, for not buying all of you bungalows, and cars, for not sending your children gifts, for not bringing VCRs and diamond rings, for not living here as a spinster... as a good, obedient daughter, a Muslim spinster...
ROONA Victims of traditions like Deedi, our forgotten sister... who is never a part of this loving family anymore. It is a sin to love ourselves in our beloved society but when one destroys oneself by its demands and taboos—they are the first ones to blame you for your own self-destruction—like they have been blaming her for so long that she finally let the exhaustion set in—the willingness to let anything be done to her.
BINDIA I was stronger than Deedi. I... left... but wasn’t strong enough to survive in another jungle. In a massive jungle of loneliness, of poverty, of disillusionment, with the shame... with the shame of leaving my own... with the shame of not—returning, with the shame of abandonment, with the shame of being abandoned... with the shame of being dark... I was not strong enough.
ROONA Our religion, our parents, our Qur’an, our men, had weakened our soul.
BINDIA Even before I left I felt weak. But I left... from one billiant country to another... from one brilliant job to another... from one brilliant nervous breakdown to another... I crossed the ocen... I wanted to cut the cord... the cord... stretched, and stretched across the Atlantic like a strong nylon that never breaks... distance was so long... it stretched... and stretched... soon it will get tangled... soon it will suffocate me.
ROONA Soon it will suffocate Deedi... soon the uncut cord will choke us... suffocation is creeping all over us... over our brains... over our eyes.
BINDIA Over my face, over my chest, in my heart. My heart is being torn... You are killing me, mother’s approaching death is killing me, Deedi’s disintegration is killing me... I want to ignore my history altogether.
But even if I do... where do I go from there? Everything I do takes me right back into the womb, my womb, my mother’s womb... I am on an exiled land.
ROONA I feel like I have always been on an exiled land.
BINDIA I feel as if I have no right to take any space anywhere... (Sobs) (Everyone is shook up. Nobody moves. Complete silence. NAZO gets up, comes slowly to BINDIA, holds her. )
NAZO I am sorry. I did not mean... I did not mean to hurt you. I am terribly sorry. You are exhausted. It is wrong of me to talk about things which... are so sensitive to you... I was only trying to help... believe me... I will run a cool bath for you... you should rest for a while. (Exits)
(ROONA and BINDIA sit very quietly—BINDIA lights a cigarette. Lights fade on them. And lights up on DEEDI—she sings a plaintive lament. After her song, BINDIA starts to speak.)
BINDIA How come Deedi is not here?
ROONA They don’t want her here.
BINDIA Who?
ROONA Sahid...
BINDIA But it is not his house.
ROONA Nazo and Sahid are very tight these days. She will do anything to please him, and you know he never cared for Deedi.
BINDIA But this is entirely different, mother being so ill. They managed to get me here from the United States. Did they never tell her about mother?
ROONA They casually mentioned it a few days ago over the phone that mother is not feeling well.
BINDIA You mean Deedi doesn’t know mother is in the hospital?
ROONA NO.
BINDIA This is awful.
ROONA They are afraid she will come with her husband and they hate his guts.
BINDIA I hate his guts, too. He has ruined Deedi’s life... if this kind of situation happened in America... to an American woman, man she would kick his ass in one minute. Deedi should have left him a long time ago. That devil skunk of a husband. What does he do for a living?
ROONA Nothing... he has no job.
BINDIA He hasn’t worked for a long time, has he?
ROONA As long as I can remember.
BINDIA How does he feed the kids?
ROONA Sells Deedi’s gold.
BINDIA Oh, what a mess we have been in all our lives.
ROONA I hate the sight of that man but believe it or not Nazo’s husband is more dangerous and manipulative than any man I have ever known. They have exploited mother against everyone—you, me, Deedi. You know, right after father’s death, I became pregnant. Throughout my pregnancy I had rough times. Ashoo was still very young I was working. It was hard for me to drive twelve hours to go visit mother. My husband had a pretty bad relationship with his boss. He could never get leave for an extended period of time, and Nazo... who claims to be such a loving, compassionate elder sister never sat down with me and asked me, if... I needed something... She made mother her exclusive property... you know why? They wanted her house. They know two of the brothers live in foreign countries, you live away... Deedi... doesn’t know what’s going on. She, poor thing, is so completely lost and she is sick a lot... I worry about her... I worry about her children... I worry about you... Nazo and Sahid are more worried about mother’s house than her illness... I am only very close to you and Deedi... and... you left, and Deedi... she is here... but her mind is so shattered... I wish I could do something for her.
BINDIA I wish I could do something too. I miss Deedi a lot. And I missed you in America, I miss all the children, I pass in front of a toy store in New York, one of the big ones on Fifth Avenue, and I never go in... It breaks my heart... I would love to send so many toys and gifts to them. They are so fond of me, and I am so fond of them... they imagine me as their wonderful Aunt living in America. I am so totally unhappy there... Roona, I am not a doctor. I never could pass that exam. Those medical books I can’t go through them anymore. They remind me of Deedi’s enlarged heart, which flickers a million beats per minute. They remind me of the ultimate impotence of doctors in the face of death. Death has frightened me from such an early age that I cannot deal with sick people. I cannot face death. Every time I saw a person dying it reminded me of the uselessness of life, the absurdity of life... and the truth of being no more. I know the unbearable story of watching people’s last breath stuck in their throats. I know the story of watching that last breath vanishing forever. I became too old and too sad when I was too young. I could not go back to the medical books. Sometimes I even forced myself but I thought I would lose my sanity. But I never established myself in America. And all the pressure from back home... the pull... “come home”... “come back.” The more I suffered there, the less I wanted to come back... I felt exactly like Deedi, My dilemma was exactly like Deedi’s... the difference was only the obvious distance. I left, she didn’t. I had no one to turn to in a foreign country. I have been so frightened. I felt like a lost child—looking for other lost children. I ran in circles... hoped... maybe one day... something will happen... something good will happen... I will be able to get Deedi in America... Away from that husband of hers. Maybe one day I will be able to get everybody in America and we will all be together like the old days. The good days. Remember our jasmine-filled courtyard... father with his hookah pipe... the tea... us laughing all night... father getting upset at us... “Turn off those lights, the electricity costs too much.” But we would just giggle and giggle and talk all night and tell each other stories.
ROONA Remember we used to sit by the fire and tell each other about our princes. I would say to you, who are you going to marry? And you would say...
BINDIA Who are you going to marry?
ROONA And I would say, my prince will be taller than your prince.
BINDIA And my prince will be as tall as father. We had hopes and dreams, we had no sorrow, we had no pain, we had no... shame... and then father died without me ever being able to take him there, to New York, to the Plaza Hotel... the afternoon tea... I always fantasized... father... with me and you and all of us. We taking him to this elegant hotel, him being dressed in his white, starched native clothes... with his turban. Everyone... everyone will look at him... so tall, and so handsome, and then we will all have tea. And then the bill will come and of course I will pay and father will ask me, “How much?” and I will smile and say, “Not much.” And he will say, “How much?” And I will say, “This much!” And he will say, “That much, for tea only?” But that was just a fantasy, and the desire to get Deedi to America and have her go through heart surgery, another fantasy... If I were only a practicing doctor in America. Just for Deedi’s sake.