Belief

Hands with fingers wide opened moving away from each other: a Chinese hand fan. Foot making a semi-circle around the other one, she turned around, twisted, and curled her arms as if pushing her burdens away, antagonistically at the same time persuading someone through her Mascara-lined dark eyes, and a smile she tried hard to put on. She tilted herself back, rearranging herself by her extraordinarily mastered trance, she walked and walked on the imaginary stairs, aiming at the subsequent level but getting down every time. Her earrings and ponytail synchronized their movements just like her and the leading dancer’s. The audience could not detect any difference of movement between the leading dancer and all the backup dancers.

Classical dance was her favourite, and one of the hardest forms she had ever tried.

Divya Jones is an acclaimed backup dancer. She has worked for many International companies but found Aurora Dance Company more reliable and profitable. The company maintains vast networks across the globe and conveys many backup dancers to diverse parts of the world for International functions. Her parents separated when she was 10: her mother was an addict and could only suffice for Divya until she was 14. She used to drink and abuse Divya’s father who left them for a beautiful blonde, Alizay, and fled for a country no one knows, especially Divya and her mother.

When Divya was 14 her mother started coughing badly and one day she saw blood in her cough. She knew what the problem was, but she kept her illness hidden until all her savings depleted. She had no job and was unable to do one. One day, when she saw Divya crying in the kitchen after opening empty cans of nuts, her motherhood warmed up for some time. She hugged her, sitting on the kitchen floor and embraced her for a long time. When at last Divya slept, she dialled a number.

“Hello Brother!”, she said quietly.

“Victoria, is that you?”, he stopped, “Where have you been all this time?”, a heavy voice replied.

“I am dying.”, she said, trying to control her tears after looking at sleeping Divya.

“What?”

“I need some money for Divya.”

Victoria told her brother about her husband's departure, and the forlorn condition of Divya. She did not speak a word for herself, because she knew the battle-axe her sister-in-law was. She was sure her brother will not send any money fearing the pressure of his wife, but she tried anyway. A week after, she received a cheque for about 10$. 10$ was nothing, but she considered it a blessing out of surprise and out of her needs.

Divya remembered vividly, coughing throughout her mother baked a cake that day.

But Divya gained maturity at a young age. That is what it is with people going through traumas, they mature at the most unexpected time into an unnatural figure.

She knew this was not enough, she had to pay bills, get new dresses like the girls of her class, she wanted a car, a laptop, and everything children of her age desire. That is when Mariam told her about the Dance Companies. She was not sure she could do this or not but her needs forced her to enter the dance world. She remembered how fond of dancing she was and how her father used to dance in front of her when she was upset.

But that was all in the past, she had school and sports, she had to be with her mother: that left no time for extra stuff. She denied.

One day at school, she learned about what she thought was the most difficult word in her Science book, the word which had the power to change her life – “Tuberculosis.”

When she returned home her eyes were overflowing. In the dark orange lights of her living room, all she could see were clothes; dirty clothes lying on the sofa which her mother used as a bed; dirty clothes on the floor, on the washing machine, and in the basket. She picked up one with shivering hands, looked carefully at the blood painted on the surface. 

Mummy used to say that it is all her nose muscles that leak now and then, but whenever Victoria accidentally spitted blood in front of her, she could easily see the despair in her mother’s eyes, but she ignored it.

Now when she realized what that difficult word meant, she was continuously trembling in fear and misery. After two hours of shedding tears, she called Mariam and asked for more details about the Dance Company.

She was auditioned and selected because of her unnatural movement of hands and her body, and her complete absorbance in the music during her performance. Soon she gained popularity among the audience which increased the amount written in her pay checks. But this took a toll on her. At a very young age, she developed a migraine and post-traumatic stress disorder. The doctor advised her to stop multitasking and focus on her studies. But she did not stop.

Shedding tears throughout her practice to staring blankly at the walls to tightening her head with a cloth after medicating herself, she passed a good part of her life. She lost all hope, she knew she was going to die, or to be precise, she was waiting for death to swallow even the last part of her. Belief had nothing to do with her. “How can people be stupid enough to believe in something that is never going to happen?” she thought.

Although her mother was doing fine after coming out of the Tuberculosis, nature had something else in store for her.

When she came back one day at midnight after the University performance led by the Aurora Company, she saw something heavy lying on the floor near her mother’s sofa. She turned the lights on and found her mother unconscious with a cloudy liquid flowing out of her mouth. She hurried to the hospital. No sooner than three hours, her mother was diagnosed with a stroke.

Her mother was lying unconscious on the hospital bed when she came nearer and stared at her for a while.

“Mother, what was my fault? What did I do to deserve this?”, to answer her question she said, “My only fault was to get fed inside you for nine months.” She tried stopping her tears but failed.

“I promise you; I promise you with all my heart, if someone had ever asked me to choose a mother for myself, I would have chosen anyone but you.” She cleaned her face and left.

Going to Pakistan for an award show was the best solution to get away from her mother and to earn a hefty sum of money to spend on herself. She also found it nature’s way of bestowing her with a tour to calm herself for a while.  She had never gone to another country before, but this time she was unloaded enough to prevent any shackles which could have hindered her.

Now here she was, dancing behind the Pakistani Superstar in front of thousands of people. Classical has always been her favourite and that was what she was doing: flinging and yearning. The light from above highlighted her energy and soon the hall was filled with mesmerizing trance, which everyone was enjoying.

After a successful show, she went to the restroom and wanted to lay down for a while. She did not know when she fell asleep. After three hours when she woke up, it was all dark and quiet outside. The bus had left for the Islamabad Hotel and she was all alone inside the Centre.

She hurried towards the main gate, all exhausted and shivering with cold. She asked them to open the gate. There was no one outside.

After some time, she saw a car coming towards her, in which she could see an old couple sitting. The cold was becoming intense. The car stopped in front of her. From the yellow light spread inside, emerged the face of the woman.

“Are you all right girl?”, the old woman said.

She nodded and talked about her missing the bus.

“Umm, this is quite frustrating, we don’t know where the hotel is, or we would have dropped you. We live in Murree which is just a half an hour drive from here. If you like, you can stay with us for a night.”

After thinking for a moment, she reluctantly opened the door and sat inside.

In those thirty-five minutes, all she could see was the Dark green mountains on which they were driving. Everything was covered in dark and fog. The old man had to open the window now and then to remove the fog spread on the main screen. She could feel the clouds entering the window. The more they were moving towards Murree, the more luminous passing Islamabad was becoming. She turned her head around to see the glistening electric stars, haphazardly sprinkled in the dark of an intensely thick cold night. Except for the majesty of the mountains, she saw the old man has held the woman’s hand from the beginning of their journey.

When they stepped out of the car, she saw a wooden house, with a chimney emanating from a gable roof. The interior of the house was warm, and cosy lined with dark brown wood. Her shivering legs were now finally at rest in front of the fire coming out of the logs. They sat in the lounge, talked for a while and then the old woman went to the kitchen to make some soup. The old man turned the TV on and started watching the news.

She was sitting on the sofa in front of the television where she hid her head between her knees. It was her first time without her mother, and she missed her so much. She remembered what she had said to her mother before mounting the flight, which made her even more gloomy. She started crying silent tears which started swelling her eyes, like the swollen clouds hitting the closed window of the house.

She cleaned her eyes when the soup came and started eating.

With the blurry view from her teary eyes, she could see the old man holding her wife’s hand and talking and smiling throughout. His eyes showed the love he has for the woman.

“Do all love stories fail? Are all the promises of forever, a lie? Is having an attractive face superior to everything else?”, she remembered the flood of questions she had asked herself whenever her mother used to abuse her father. 

But what she was seeing in front of her – the woman blushing after giving her hand to someone she trusted, to allow him to spend the rest of his life with her.

What she was seeing in front of her was magic, an illusion to her, nothing else. She felt as if she's watching a happy ending. She looked around at the window. The snow had scarcely started falling like the softest voice she had ever heard, tempting her to sleep in the warm and cozy bed which the old woman had arranged for her in the upper portion of the house.

The next morning, she woke up to the sound of cries and wails coming from the house. Before she came into her senses, she saw a group of women at the door of the house. They were surprised to see her when she came down the stairs. “The old woman is at her last stage.” That was all she could hear from the chatter outside the couple’s room. Divya hurried and called the ambulance by asking the number from a 10-year-old kid. 

Divya, the old man, and the woman at her “last stage” were on their way to the hospital. She could sense the satisfaction which radiated out of the old man’s figure. It was strange in a way, surprising.

It had been three hours since she was inside the operation theatre.

“She is going to be alright.” Divya sat beside the old man and gave him a cup of coffee.

“I know.” Divya was surprised at his straightforward reply.

“I do not like to, but I want to ask a question.”

“Yeah, go on.”, the man replied.

“I know everyone in this emergency will be sad but…”, she stopped “you look quite satisfied; I have not seen a single tear running down your eye. I know this is quite lame to ask but what is the reason behind it?”

“Hmmm”, he murmured.

“Don’t you love her?”

“I love her.

The only thing which keeps me satisfied with my reality is “belief”. I know she is going to be all right. We will hold hands once again and talk and walk. I believe that God will send her back to me.

Belief and hope are the two necessities of human life. Discounting belief from one’s life only makes life bitter. All our life we believed in each other. More than believing in each other we believed in our togetherness, our love for each other. There were times when things were impossible, and everything failed but hope was our only beacon in the dark tunnels of our lives.

She is going to be okay.” Divya couldn’t understand.

The man looked up and saw a doctor coming towards him. The doctor stopped and looked at the old man. He grabbed his arm and told him that the woman is being shifted to the other room. And that, she is all right.

When she landed at the L.A. airport, she received a call from Mariam who had been calling her for a long time. She redialled the number and heard Mariam saying, “Aunt Victoria is at her last.” Everything around her sounded like an echo in a far distant galaxy. She could not differentiate between people. She didn’t know how she reached the hospital. Mariam detailed everything.

Outside the operation theatre, she sat wondering if she could ever see her mother again. She saw a coffee mug at the side bench which ignited the end of her mind.

She closed her eyes and believed.

“Oh God, I know I haven’t been a good daughter. I know this because I left her when she needed me the most. But that woman inside tormented me by bringing me into this world. I don’t love her like all those mommy’s princesses, but she is my mother. My world will be dark without her. Her presence was enough for me to live a life. I earned for her, cried for her. And most importantly, I lived for her.’

“I believe, she stressed out, I believe I believe that she is going to be all right.”

The doctor came. She looked up but she could not feel the power of belief lingering inside her. The doctor held his arm and told that she has departed.

“I love you my daughter, despite drinking and tuberculosis I lived a life this long, because of you. I know you will never want me to leave and you believe that I have a superpower which gets me out of every calamity. You believe that I will not die but I believe that your life will be better off without me. And sometimes the belief, which is strong, wins. That’s the criterion.” She read a letter she found while packing to move to New York.