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The Royal Abduls




  ADVANCE PRAISE

  “Ramiza Shamoun Koya’s The Royal Abduls is filled with wonderfully flawed, yet deeply sympathetic characters who occupy utterly convincing and beautifully drawn narrative and emotional situations. Is independence freedom or isolation? How can we balance our own needs with those of our loved ones? How can we both protect ourselves and connect with others? Koya’s novel reminds us that the answers to these questions are, of course, both deeply personal and deeply political, and in answering them, Koya performs the marvelous alchemy of dropping us into a story world that dismantles then reassembles our sense of who we are.”

  —Karen Shepard, author of The Celestials

  “The Royal Abduls is a novel for our times. It is a novel of struggle and a reminder of the hope that we once felt and that, hopefully, we will feel again soon.”

  —Carol Zoref, author of Barren Island

  “After reading Ramiza Shamoun Koya’s warm and wise debut novel, you will not soon forget the Abdul family, especially the tenderness between Amina and her young nephew, Omar, as both struggle to find happiness amid family turmoil and hostility towards Muslims in post-9/11 America. Koya imbues each page of The Royal Abduls with lessons of the heart and what it means to save yourself while protecting the ones you love.”

  —Mo Daviau, author of Every Anxious Wave

  “Koya has crafted a tender-hearted story with a sharp knife edge. She’s cut to the heart of the devastating effects of colonialism and white supremacy on multi-generational American immigrant families.”

  —Jenny Forrester, author of Narrow River, Wide Sky

  “A beautiful and messy family story set in the tumultuous post-9/11 world of Washington, DC, The Royal Abduls digs deep into the hearts of a small boy and his academic auntie as they struggle to define themselves and stay connected to the ones they love. It’s a story of an immigrant experience of our times, full of hope and tender human wisdom.”

  —Joanna Rose, author of A Small Crowd of Strangers

  “The Royal Abduls is a propulsive and absorbing story of the tensions that reside between career and love, personal desires and family expectations. Upping the power of this book, Ramiza Shamoun Koya deftly reveals how these tensions are made more complicated by political, cultural and social forces. Especially unique in this story is the complex and beautifully drawn relationship between the two point of view characters: a childless aunt and her adolescent nephew. We need more stories like this.”

  —Jackie Shannon Hollis, author of This Particular Happiness: A Childless Love Story

  CONTENTS

  Advance Praise

  I. THE ROYAL ABDULS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  II. CITY OF PEARLS

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  III. INCIDENTS WITH KNIVES

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  IV. THE HORSEHEAD NEBULA

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  V. WHERE THE MIND IS WITHOUT FEAR

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  VI. NO MATTER WHAT OCCURS, I WILL FIND YOU

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  VII. THE HYBRID ZONE

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Readers’ Guide

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance these characters have to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  © 2020 Ramiza Shamoun Koya

  All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any form, with the exception of reviewers quoting short passages, without the written permission of the publisher.

  The author wishes to thank MacDowell Colony and the Blue Mountain Center for the space and time to work.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020930040

  ISBN: 9781942436416 (paper), 9781942436423 (ebook)

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  Published in the United States of America

  by Forest Avenue Press LLC

  Portland, Oregon

  Forest Avenue Press LLC

  P.O. Box 80134

  Portland, OR 97280

  forestavenuepress.com

  In memory of my father,

  AbuBakr Sadiq Koya,

  and

  for my daughter, O,

  the light of my life

  I. THE ROYAL ABDULS

  1.

  Amina Abdul’s nephew had begun to speak with an Indian accent. She’d learned this when she went to dinner at her brother and sister-in-law’s row house in Georgetown, a few weeks after she and her belongings had arrived from across the country. Though it was fall, the day was hazy and hot. Amina was unused to the humidity; she felt swollen, pregnant with moisture.

  She drove to their house while pushing her hair up off her neck with one hand and steering with the other. Since arriving she had cut her hair—previously worn in a long braid of indifference—into a sharp bob. She was also trying to sever her smoking habit, which was difficult to do while attempting to forget her boyfriend of six years, whom she had left behind in California. He wanted kids and she didn’t; when he’d pushed her to make a choice, she had taken the postdoc in DC, leaving the dry air of the Sierra Nevada for this fetid republic.

  Now, driving through a thicket of endless traffic, she doubted herself. What was she, a woman known for her lack of social graces, doing in the city of politicians? It was Matt who had been the networker, Matt who could charm grantmakers and lab managers and department chairs.

  What was she doing in a city at all when what she loved most was the isolation of fieldwork? Even the vegetation felt claustrophobic here, dense layers of scrub and weed and bushy deciduous trees. She was used to occupying the arid space beneath evergreens that sat like giants, sucking at the sky like candy. She closed her eyes for half a second and imagined herself back in the Sierras, between dry pine needle paths and branches that spread like roofs; at a honk she opened her eyes to find herself veering out of her lane. She was almost at her brother’s house.

  Mo and Marcy lived in a narrow, three-story, white rowhouse, squeezed between larger houses, with a small, fenced-in backyard. Marcy greeted Amina at the door with a hug. Her auburn hair sprawled wild around her head, and her trim figure rested easily in a pair of crisp khakis, a silver cell phone held to her ear. She waved Amina in, pointing apologetically to the phone and holding up one finger to say she’d be off in a min
ute. As always, Amina felt the contrast between them, she in her loose jeans and Old Navy T-shirt, Marcy the picture of urban chic.

  Amina hovered around the living room for a few minutes, eyeing the taupe furniture and striped walls that gave off a vague heritage air. She considered sitting down but instead decided to go upstairs to say hello to her nephew, Omar. For eleven years she had seen him only at occasional holidays and through the annual mailing of school photos. When she saw the posting for the postdoc in DC, she thought about being closer to Mo, with all that was continuing to happen in the country, four years after 9/11. Getting to know his son, though, wasn’t something she had given much thought to until she arrived.

  The stairway was lined with photos detailing the inevitable progression of Omar’s life from infant to sixth grader. She paused to study them as she went up, still hearing Marcy’s voice down below. The actual Omar was in his room with the door open, lying on his stomach on his bed, but he sat up straight when she walked in. He had nut-brown skin and black hair that was longer on top, and he was just a little bit chubby still, which gave him additional appeal. He was Mo’s child, no doubt, but the shape of his face and eyebrows hinted at Marcy.

  “Hi. What are you playing?” Amina asked, unsure what to say.

  “I’m not playing anything. I’m doing research for my history project on Indian dynasties.” He was very earnest, and there was something formal about his voice. He almost sounded like her father, that South Asian colonial accent.

  Amina looked around his room, which was boy-messy, with dirty laundry strewn about and lots and lots of action figures. On the windowsill she caught sight of something unexpected: an intricately carved silver knife, with a sheath over its sharp edge and a handle in the shape of a lion. She had brought it back from India after a brief visit many years before and given it to her brother for his birthday.

  “Did your dad give you this?” she asked Omar, holding it up.

  He nodded with huge eyes. “He said it came from India.”

  “Yes. I bought it there.”

  “You went to India?” He looked awed, like she had said she’d been to outer space.

  “Just once,” she said.

  “Aunt Amina?” He paused and looked down at his hands. “Will you come to my school?”

  “To your school?” she repeated, confused.

  He nodded his head like a large puppy. “My teacher says we should invite somebody we know who has an interesting job. I told her you were a scientist.”

  “You did?” Amina cast about for a better response, something to get her out of going.

  The stairs squeaked and then Marcy poked her head in. “Want a drink, Amina? Omar, this mess! Clean it up before dinner, okay?”

  “Okay,” Amina said, unable to look at Omar’s eager face. Why not? She put the knife down and followed Marcy out. Among the things she disliked: school, children, and talking about herself. She asked Marcy to pour her whiskey over ice.

  Marcy’s family was originally from North Carolina, and she had first met and loved Amina’s brother when her family moved to Ohio in the ninth grade. Marcy and Amina had always been friends, too, though it had been a long time since they lived near each other. Now Marcy was the co-manager of the day-care center near the Capitol, which meant that while technically she had reasonable hours, for the most part she was never off duty for even one second, because when the kid of some representative’s aide didn’t have a place to go, it was up to her to make sure they were taken care of. So thus far, Amina had seen a lot less of her brother’s picture-perfect family than she had expected.

  Marcy had made a real southern meal for dinner: pork spareribs with greens and sticky sweet potatoes. Amina’s brother finally arrived at half past seven, and after he kissed Amina on the cheek and Marcy on the mouth, they all sat down to the dinner table.

  Mohammed—Mo to his friends and colleagues—worked at the Smithsonian, where he was an accountant. From what Amina could gather so far, he spent most of every day at work and most of every weekend in his study. He had been exactly the same as a brother when they were growing up: vague, presumably sweet, absent at crucial moments. As a young girl, she had worshipped him. Everything came easy to Mo, whereas for her, childhood was series of awkward events and unsuitable feelings. She had hidden behind Marcy and Mo when she was a teenager, taking on a bit of their fun and popularity by osmosis, which had helped her to survive.

  Marcy tucked a napkin into Mo’s collar and poured Diet Coke for everyone with plenty of ice piled in acrylic tumblers, and they commenced eating. There was a long silence, until Marcy cleared her throat and, Amina suspected, kicked Mo under the table.

  “Omar,” Mo said, in an overt effort to keep abreast of his family, “how is school?”

  The boy put down his soda and stared at his plate thoughtfully.

  “I would like,” he said, “to watch a cricket match.”

  The accent was gone—perhaps she had imagined it?—but his speech had a formal quality that seemed surprising for an eleven-year-old.

  Mo lifted a rib to his lips and then stopped and looked at his son.

  “Oh,” he said. “Sure, we can do that.”

  “Really?” Marcy and Omar said this at the same time.

  “Um.” Mo looked at Amina. “Don’t you have some British people in your lab? Wouldn’t they know something about where to see cricket?”

  “I guess they might,” Amina said, hedging. “Omar, where did you get the idea that you wanted to see a cricket match?”

  He hadn’t started eating again, as if he had been waiting to be asked.

  “I am wishing to see the game that my people in India play,” he said.

  This time Marcy looked worried, her forehead crinkled, hands twisted together.

  “Honey,” she said, “have you been talking to your grandfather on the phone?”

  He nodded. “Grandpa says it is the highest quality game in the world.”

  Mo looked at Marcy with a relieved smile.

  “Of course,” he said. “He has an interest in world affairs. Amina, why don’t you see what you can do?”

  Amina nodded and tried to resume eating. This, she supposed, was what it meant to be part of a family: the unexpected onset of vaguely distasteful responsibility interspersed with very nice home cooking. She felt pleased and disgruntled at the same time.

  “We were wondering, Amina,” Marcy said after a pause, “if you might do us another favor?”

  “Of course.” Amina paused with a forkful of greens halfway to her mouth.

  “Would you watch Omar for a few days, while we go to the Keys for a weekend? Our time-share’s coming up soon. Maybe it could be the same week you visit Omar’s school?”

  “Sure.” Amina swallowed hard and tried to smile. It was a triple hit: school visit, cricket match, and babysitting. “I guess I could do that.”

  “I’ll arrange with a friend to take Omar during the days, on the weekend, if you could just pick him up and drop him off; you could stay here or at your place, whatever you want.”

  “It’s fine, Marcy,” Amina said. “Really. It’ll be fun.” She looked at Omar, who gave back enormous Bambi eyes and not even a hint of a smile.

  Driving home in her decade-old Honda, Amina blamed her father. He was an English professor—not of post-colonialism or world literature or even any kind of Asian literature, but a real, old-fashioned scholar of eighteenth-century English poetry. For as long as Amina could remember, it had only been their accents and their color that gave away her parents as Indians. Her mother was a hostess, a kind of suburban social genius at the locus of endless card parties and lunches and cocktail nights with other university wives. That was her work, and it was the exact kind of work that Amina hoped to forever avoid.

  Her father occupied another world the vast majority of the time, only emerging for the occasional family outing or dinner party. But now he was growing old, and he was changing. As Amina understood, people were supposed to
harden into their own habits as they aged. But her father, ever contrary, had developed a new interest: India, the homeland he had discussed only on rare occasions during her childhood. He spoke in Hindi to her mother sometimes, a language that Amina could only remember hearing when she was very young, and then only when her parents thought they were alone. Now he spoke it at the dinner table, which was more often than not laden with Indian food, a rarity when Amina and Mo were kids, and he subscribed to an Indian newspaper. Amina’s mother told her that he had been interviewed by a colleague who was studying Indian independence, and that this had gotten him started.

  He was nostalgic for his pre-immigration past, reaching toward rather than away from the Abdul family name. And it was this nostalgia that he was passing on to his only grandchild, to Omar.

  2.

  Amina had a decent apartment in Adams Morgan, and the lab she had joined was a preeminent one in her field. But so far life in the capital had been frustrating, especially work, where she was a new postdoc and the only woman on staff at a level higher than technician. Just like in California, she found herself feeling second fiddle to her male colleagues, and the more she felt that, the more she kept to herself.

  She was willing to carry out her cricket assignment, as a favor to Omar and her brother, but it was not a task she liked. The thing was, the English person in her lab was her boss, Christopher Tallin, and they still had yet to forge any kind of comfortable relationship. She occasionally wished to say things like, Do you know what happened to those gels I put in two hours ago? or Why have you taken my samples out of the main freezer and put them in the grad student project fridge? or Why isn’t my name going to appear at the top of the paper we were supposed to work on together but which I am actually writing while you play chess on your computer? He hadn’t made any effort to get to know her, and she’d followed his lead.

  It was apparent to her that he was sleeping with his new TA—or, in grad school parlance, T&A—who was not British and whose name was Anjali. She too was Indian. Amina had overheard gossip to the effect that this new assignation was to fill the void after Chris’s last lover had graduated and gone on to enter a PhD program in Finland. Still, she decided that for once she would not hold this against him. For Omar’s sake.