“Modern Love is one of the most widely read column of the New York Times,” a friend once told me. I believe that. It’s the Sunday Styles section I save for reading in my leisure time. The love stories are beautiful and moving. Always, except this Sunday.
‘Humility Is What Drew Me to Him.’ An ordinary title by a not-so-ordinary writer. That got my attention: ‘By Ayad Akhtar.’ Not the title, not the orange sun-burst photo of a woman in a burnt-orange gown, walking knee-deep in a sea of orange, her black hair flowing down her shoulders, the sun a pale yellow; but the author. I leaned into the paper and excited, called out to my husband, “Khalid, Ayad Akhtar has written in Modern Love.” Ayad Akhtar is a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright for his acclaimed play Disgraced. His play Junk was nominated for a Tony award. And he is a novelist. My husband and I have seen all his plays, read his novel American Dervish and was now looking forward to reading his new book Homeland Elegies.
The caption on the very top, threw me off: “I thought only my father had secret desires. Then my mother asked me to go for a walk.”
What’s he talking about?
I start reading. His parents were doctors, father had a wandering eye, and as a boy of 4, he heard his mom refer to his father’s “other women.” That toxic relationship of his parents–he says— defined his childhood. Then one day (he is in his teens now), his mother takes him for a walk along the beach and tells all. Not about his father; about her relationship with another doctor. “And he wasn’t the only one,” she says. She tells him more as they keep walking along the shore. “I thought you should know.”
It blew my mind. Not because his mom was unfaithful to her husband—a huge no-no in Pakistani culture; not because a mother confessed to her son—that too—but because I knew her.
Google Ayad Akhtar and you will see that he was born in Staten Island, NY. That was our hometown for over 30 years. We socialized with his parents. We visited them in their home. She was a woman I looked up to. Outgoing, outspoken, sociable, a Pakistani patriot at heart, and a passion for community building. Then the family moved to Wisconsin and we lost touch. Decades later, I am in the Lincoln Center, watching Disgraced in shock and awe. As I talked more about it, a Pakistani friend told me that the playwright is none other than our once-upon-a-time friend’s son. Wow! Feeling immensely proud of him, we patronized all his plays and beamed in his success. Then I heard that his mother had passed away. Feeling an affinity, we went to his book reading at the 92nd St. Y and I told him that I knew him when he was a little boy, expressed my condolences and gave him a signed copy of my book. Last year, we happened to be in Wisconsin for a talk on Islam, and Khalid tried to connect with his father. A few months later, we heard that he passed away.
How could he!
How could he betray his mother! She told him her secret in confidence, and what does he do: broadcast it to the world. Of course, they are dead and buried, but so what! It was a mom-and-son secret to honor and protect. I knew this woman. Had she known that her son would expose her private moments in the New York Times, would she have confided in him! What about her family and close friends’ reaction to this revelation—siblings, cousins, nieces, nephews, friends who thought they knew her! If there is life after death, if one believes that the soul lives on . . . I cannot even grasp what is beyond the realm of human comprehension.
A woman in my writers’ group told me that she found the piece poignant and touching. It is. It is for readers who don’t know Ayad’s mother–which is almost all readers. I would have too, if I was reading the story of a stranger, written by a stranger.
The author’s bio says: …author of the recently published novel “Homeland Elegies”…
Ayad, I do wish you luck with your new book. But, did you have to write this piece? Homeland Elegies is getting all the attention your celebrity commands: New York Times Book Review, NPR, Poets & Writers, on-line panel discussions, the whole gamut. Your notoriety would drive fans to bookstores in on-line droves, Modern Love or not.
I wish you hadn’t.
I think of your mom in prayer. May her soul rest in peace.
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