#Title
Ameena goes to America
RAHAD ABIR
A young white officer asks her in heavily accented Bangla, “What’s the purpose of your visit?”
“Cancer,” Ameena replies in English, standing in front of a glass window. “My husband cancer.”
The officer at the American embassy, Dhaka, gives her a sharp look, checks her papers, then abruptly disappears through the side door. When he returns, he types on his computer, and says her visa application has been approved.
Ameena thanks Allah that the man didn’t ask her any complicated questions about her husband. 20 years ago, when Selim left for America, she was 31, her son was five, and her daughter three.
Selim never returned.
The first few years he called every week and sent enough money that she was contemplating buying a small apartment. Then came the attack on the Twin Towers, and he lost his job at the store in Manhattan. That was when all the trouble began.
Outside the embassy, Ameena catches her son smoking on the street. He drops the cigarette and crushes it underfoot. “Did you get the visa?” he asks.
Ameena nods.
Beside her son in an autorickshaw, her mind wanders back to the early days of her marriage. Selim smoked a pack of Benson & Hedges every day. He loved spending time with friends and talking politics in the neighbourhood cafés. For work, he bought stock from garment factories and sold them to local clothing stores.
She thinks of the day Selim took her to a char island. He had heard about this newly deposited expanse of land in the River Meghna. One Friday, they had an early breakfast and took a bus to Narayanganj. From there they had a long but refreshing rickshaw ride on dirt roads through farmlands—mile after mile of mustard fields. The scent of mustard flowers in the spring breeze was intense, intoxicating.
It was a beautiful day. After the boat dropped them off on the island, they wandered about for a few minutes and spotted no sign of human presence anywhere—only a vast, sandy land surrounded by water. Selim pulled her hand and they ran like children. He stopped and gave a Tarzan’s jungle call, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Ameena,” he shouted, “how about we never go back, and just live here? We’ll be the king and queen of this island.”
“Yeah, that’d be fantastic!”
They walked side by side, his arm draped over her shoulder. They dipped their feet into the water of the Meghna. Then without warning he picked her up in his arms. She found herself dangling above the water. He rocked her body, saying, “I’m dropping you.”
“No!” she screamed.
He laughed and kissed her.
**
After Selim lost his job in Manhattan, Ameena heard from him less and less. Whenever he phoned, he talked about uncertainties. Illegal immigrants were being detained. He didn’t go out much fearing deportation. The other day, he said, a fat white man spat on him in the street, calling him a terrorist, telling him to go back where he came from. That same day, after getting home, Selim shaved off his short black beard.
When he had said this, Ameena had trembled and tears raced down her cheeks. She didn’t mention she was having bad dreams about him. Just the night before, she had screamed for help as Selim was dragged into the street and beaten. She woke up panting, soaked in perspiration. When she came to her senses, she clasped her shaking hands together hard and asked Allah to keep her husband safe. Later, in her dawn prayer, she also prayed for the recovery of the Bangladeshi man she’d heard on the news had been shot in the face at a Dallas gas station.
“Please, come back home”, she implored Selim. “We don’t need American dollars. We will be happy here together.”
Selim said he was moving to another state soon. “You know, Ameena, it’s a great country to live in, but you need the ‘legal’ status.”
Months after he settled in New Jersey, his friend in New York called to tell her that Selim was living with a Mexican woman.
In April, when Ameena finally received a call from Selim, she exploded. He tried to explain that he had just rented a room in her apartment in preparation for entering into a contract marriage. “Ameena, don’t be mad. Some people do it here to get papers. It’s not real.”
She cried and begged him to return home immediately. “You have to choose either me or your America.”
“Ameena, listen—”
She wouldn’t listen. She yelled and cursed him. She asked him not to contact her anymore. “Many wives become widows at a young age”, she said. “I’ll consider my husband dead.”
Ameena moved in with her mother. She loved to sew. She became a seamstress for neighbours, friends, and relatives. They paid her well, but she could only cover half of her expenses. Her twin brother, who had a thriving import business, started giving her a monthly allowance.
When anyone asked Ameena about her husband, she faked a smile and said, “He lives in America.” Selim phoned occasionally to speak with the children and wired money prior to festivals. Then news reached Ameena that her husband had moved out of the home of the Mexican woman; his plan didn’t work out, and now he was sleeping with a white woman. Five years later, she heard from someone that his asylum application had been granted. But his new status wouldn’t allow him to travel back to Bangladesh. She didn’t understand.
Not long after, her son made her tea in the evening and said, “Daddy wants me to study in the US.”
For half a minute, without a word, Ameena observed her 19-year-old son. Her face slowly tightened. “Never,” she said. “You want to be like your father?” She pushed the cup away, spilling tea on the table.
**
In September 2016, Ameena learned from Selim’s sister that he had lung cancer. At the end of the year his health deteriorated, and he had surgery. Could she fly to America to take care of her husband, his sister had asked. Ameena said no, and again she was asked in December. Then, in January, Selim called. She heard a forgotten yet familiar voice, now scratchy and strained. She pursed her lips but couldn’t form any words. After a moment she managed to speak. Her words and his words were punctuated by long pauses. He told her that he would send the necessary papers. She would need to get a passport.
Her interview at the embassy was scheduled in early April.
**
Ameena has never felt so distinguished in her life. For the last three months, no matter who she meets, she has heard the same question: When are you going to America?
Her flight is at one in the morning. A day’s journey from Dhaka to New York, with a four-hour layover in Dubai. A bus is hired to carry her relatives, who insisted on coming to the airport to give her a send-off. They all hug her, and some cry at the immigration checkpoint.
She starts sweating when boarding begins. It’s her first time flying. She is given a window seat, and a flight attendant helps her fasten the seatbelt. She stiffens and holds her breath as the plane takes off. She says a prayer, and for a moment thinks she will never see her husband or her children again. But before long she realises that the aircraft is in midair, and she gazes in wonder at the glittering skyline of Dhaka.
**
In the arrivals lounge at JFK, Ameena catches a stranger waving his hand at her. She does not recognise him until she hears her name. Selim is shockingly thin, his face so red, Adam’s apple sticking out. His head is shaved. Back home on her bedroom wall there is a family picture in which their children are standing on either side of Selim and her. 20 years later, he matches so little of his earlier self, scarcely resembling that image of him anchored deep in her memory. It must be the cancer, she decides.
“You haven’t changed much”, Selim says in the car. He peppers her with questions. How was the flight? Did she face any problems anywhere? In Dubai? At immigration? He breathes heavily between sentences.
From the driver’s seat his friend, Rafiq Bhai, glances at her in the rearview mirror. He says it was his idea to get her assistance at Dubai Airport, so she wouldn’t have to struggle with her limited English.
“You’ve come at the right time”, he says to her, stopping the car before a condo. “It’s almost summer here.”
When Selim reaches for the luggage, Rafiq Bhai says, “You’re not supposed to lift anything heavy.”
In the elevator, Selim stands close to Ameena, his body brushing against hers. His breathing is laboured and rapid.
Selim opens an apartment door numbered 17 and guides her into a sizable living room. His friend leaves, saying to call him whenever they need him.
“You can freshen up”, Selim says, pointing to another room. “I’ll warm up some food.”
Ameena takes one of her suitcases into the bedroom and shuts the door. She hears laughing and loud conversation emanating from outside. Through the window she peers down at the balcony of the apartment opposite. Wine glasses in hand, a couple of men with women in skimpy outfits are sitting in the late afternoon sun. She checks the window, but it has no curtains like back home. She moves into the corner of the room and changes into a salwar kameez.
At the kitchen table, there is rice, mashed eggplant, chicken curry and dal.
“Eggplant?” She eyes him. “You don’t eat eggplant.”
“But you like it”, he says, serving her rice.
“You cooked these yourself?”
He nods, asks how the kids are doing.
“Oh, I need to call them!” she says.
“I messaged them already.”
She looks at his plate. He has taken a small portion of rice. He meets her eyes and says, “I can’t eat much.”
A small sigh escapes her lips.
He coughs. “It’s the chemo. It kills the appetite.”
She eats in silence. He eats in small bites.
“You’re a good cook”, she says.
After dinner, while Ameena does the dishes, Selim makes her milk tea.
“Do you still take two spoons in your tea?” he asks.
She smiles. “No, one spoon now.”
He hands her the tea mug. Her fingers touch his for a second.
An hour later, as she yawns, Selim tells her to get some sleep. Ameena goes to the bedroom. When she wakes up, everything is quiet and dark. She peers out the half-open window; the night sky is clear, with a crescent moon. She slips out of the bedroom to use the bathroom and finds Selim asleep on the living room sofa.
This is an excerpt from the short story, “Ameena goes to America”. It originally appeared in the Marguerite McGlinn Prize awarders’ website. Read the rest on The Daily Star and Star Literature’s websites.
Rahad Abir is the author of the forthcoming novel Bengal Hound. He has an MFA in fiction from Boston University. “Ameena Goes to America” was the second place winner of the Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction in 2021.