The Tongue

by Mina Omer Hassan

Fatima Gora has been a vegetarian for exactly eight years now. The appetite for meat fell out of her stomach in 2009 at her first Bakra Eid celebration. Bakra Eid, the feast of the sacrifice, celebrates the Quranic story of Ibrahim’s test of faith with the slaughter of the beast that took Ismail’s place; it is, in a phrase, a big bloody affair.

Fatima’s father walked into the living room one evening, declaring it was time for her to “learn about her culture,” and just like that the sentence became the official reason for her family’s move back to Karachi. Whenever asked why over a cup of chai⁠—usually by a nosy relative, bulging out of her sari at the sides, and who Fatima had to call aunty, whether or not she was her aunt⁠—he would recite this magic phrase that put an end to such questions for the night. 

On nights like these Fatima could smell more than cinnamon and tea on her father’s breath, something heavy and forbidden. She smelt it despite the peppermint Mentos gum he chewed incessantly. She could see through the mask of her father’s favourite phrase too. It reminded her of the shers he recited from memory at social gatherings. Those chameleon couplets that were so multipurpose they could function as a moral to end a dizzying anecdote, a flyaway piece of wisdom, the response to a riddle, and even a remedy to a persistent (sometimes grave) illness of the heart. Although her father pronounced the phrase with the same teeth-sucking satisfaction reserved for a sher, Fatima was granted understanding by the mere fact that it was not in Persian-infused Urdu. 

Her parents could rail about the importance of culture all they liked but Fatima’s arctic eyes—light enough to get her stares on the street—had noticed the way their lifestyle had started to change during their last few days in suburban Perth. The internet speed dropped, her mother started stocking the pantry with storebrand snacks, she couldn’t get new Nikes till the end of the month, and no one suggested Saturday night dinners at the Wild Swan anymore. Whatever the reason, Fatima, her mother Ayesha, and her father Ahsan packed their pieces of Perth and headed to the pulsating darling of the Arabian Sea: Karachi.

The Gora family arrived in November, two days before Bakra Eid.When they entered their new home, Fatima’s grandfather’s estate, the stench of goat waste was overwhelming. Fatima’s eyes scanned the front of the house. There were seven goats tied around a post of the veranda, trailing listlessly in circles, one occasionally drinking water or nibbling leaves. The place was awash with magenta bougainvillea and white champa flowers. The grass was neatly cut and lined with a border of faded terracotta bricks. A variety of trees—Neem, Amlatas, Sukh Chain—swayed silently in the space between the grass and the sandy wall, almost in admiration of the still garden. As Fatima looked up at the veranda she noticed one of the goats looking in her direction. Their eyes met for a moment. She shuddered and looked away. The child couldn’t stand looking into those helpless eyes. Her mother had recently told her about Bakra Eid and the sacrifice that Ibrahim had made. She assured Fatima that the animals would go painlessly and that the cause was worth it. “It’s to please Allah, my jaan,” she said. “We must understand the importance of parting with what we love. And besides, we give most of the meat to charity.” It made sense, but still. The poor goats.

Eid day was heralded by a rush of preparations. Mahogany tables had been dragged into the drawing room, bright embroidered joras had been ironed and laid out in bedrooms. The men set alarms for morning prayers at the local mosque and admired the goats more frequently for their anticipated succulence. 

Fatima woke up later than everyone in the house. By the time she was awake, it was already time for lunch. Her cousin Ahmed ran into her room moments after she had changed into her Eid clothes. He rolled his eyes at her.

“You’re such a westerner, Fatima.”

“What’s your problem, Ahmed?”

They hadn’t seen each other for a few summers, but the tension from their last meeting remained. They could never really get along. Ahmed spoke English with a slight accent, not usually pronounced enough to notice but compared to Fatima’s it was almost a different language.

“You wake up once everything’s over. Do you even care about Eid?  You should’ve stayed in Australia, princess. I actually know what Eid is about, like a real Pakistani. I was there for the sacrifice today, saw the whole thing.”

“Ahmed, you’re an idiot. Keep your stupid opinions to yourself. You saw the sacrifice? I wanted to too. Is it over?”

“Yeah it’s over, but I can show you where it happened.”

“Yes, yes, please. Let’s go.”

The children stood in front of the raised platform where the goats had been slaughtered. All the evidence of the event Fatima had missed was there: a thin film of blood lay stagnant on the surface, speckled with feasting flies. She didn’t notice it immediately, but in the corner was a mound under a dirty rag. Inquisitively, she lifted it. She was rarely squeamish, but the sight made her retch. Under the rag were leftovers, the neglected pieces: the intestines, eyeballs, fuzzy hooves, horns, the head, and the tongue. 

“The tongue! Why was the tongue removed from the head?” Fatima squealed to herself. “How could someone be so sadistic to take out its tongue?” She did not eat any of the food prepared at home that Eid, most of which was meat from the goats that had just been killed. 

The tongue stayed with Fatima long into the night and long into her childhood.

It has been eight years since the incident; now, Fatima works at an archive library during the summer before college starts. She enjoys her job so much she’s contemplating coming back with a degree and making it permanent. Today is another day of speaking to elderly witnesses of the Partition. She interviews each of them with the utmost reverence, starting each question with aap—the polite form of ‘you’—and saying shukria—thank you—after each response. She’s always been an empathetic person, with the ability to elicit honest, heartfelt revelations from the people she speaks to; there’s something about her eyes. That being said, her time at the Citizen’s Archive has not been easy. Many interviewees refuse to take her seriously; they can’t see past the accent that her Urdu dons. They deem her unfit for the task. A few weeks ago, a participant turned down an interview from her because he said she was “too ignorant in these national matters.” Even her supervisor looks irritated from over his glasses when Fatima presents to him her weekly reports, scrawled in an almost juvenile Nastaliq script—nevertheless, the grammar is impeccable. 

It seems to Fatima that the years spent in her beloved city have done nothing for her ‘Pakistani-ness.’ She is still as un-Pakistani now as she was when she stepped off the Australian Airlines flight. Perhaps it’s the international school education she got, or the fact that she lives in the elite Defence/Clifton area—or maybe it’s the fact that her accent always betrays her when she buys fruit from the vendors on the street, earning her twice the regular price of jamuns in May and those fat oranges in December. That’s it, it must be the fruit vendors. They probably bad-mouth her around town. Fatima knows that even if it is in her upper-class, far-removed, romantic way, she is Pakistani. She is from Karachi. She feels the traffic and the rush of people’s lives in her blood.

Fatima Gora is driving home from her last day of work. There are two weeks till she leaves for London. Her favorite road trip song is blaring on the radio: ‘Don’t Stop,’ by the Rolling Stones. Her right hand slices through the humid air outside the window, the other is on the wheel. She’s aware of her hair right now, and how it is streaming in all directions. This is the best part of her night.

The first thing Fatima does when she gets home is plant two kisses. One on her father’s forehead and the other on her mother’s cheek. She sits down with them for a cup of chai—this is a routine occurrence. Her parents have been talking about a relative whose wedding is just around the corner. The conversation is full and effortless and the topic changes frequently and unconsciously like a swollen plank of wood changes direction with the tide. Ayesha suddenly remembers something, and with an ecstatic “oho”—chiding herself for forgetting—she tells the other two that Ahmed, Fatima’s cousin, is in veterinary school. Eyebrows arched, Fatima laughs:

“Amma, you know Ahmed was such a sadistic child. He loved watching the sacrifice. I can’t imagine what sort of vet he’ll become.”

Her parents find this extremely amusing. They tend to find the lives of the young adults who were once small children running about them comical. Ahsan has a counter-argument:

“Fatima beta, maybe that’s exactly why he’ll make a great vet. He’s got a strong stomach.”

“Very true. I’ve got such a weak stomach. Do you remember Abba, when I found that goat’s tongue on Bakra Eid? I think that was the most traumatic thing that has ever happened to me.”

“Why just the tongue, jaan? You always speak of it as if that were all you saw.”

“Yeah… you’re right. Um. well, maybe it’s because... I’m not exactly sure why.” Fatima’s voice trails off. 

It’s been a long night. With two kisses, repeating the ritual she came in with, Fatima goes to bed.

“Ghadar!” a voice rings out.

“Ghadar, Ghadar, Ghadar,” insinuating treachery. 

It’s extremely dark except for the slim pink blur in the distance; a leaf-shaped object, becoming increasingly large as it moves towards you, comes into view. Upon closer examination you can see its glistening mottled body⁠—thick, pneumatic, like a consumptive pink slug. The slug is thrashing, inflamed, enraged—you’ll do anything to calm it down before it wrecks everything. The word ‘ghadar,’ traitor, reverberates off the walls of this dark place and you ask yourself who could be speaking. It becomes clear. It’s the slug. The fleshy slug has reason to believe you have betrayed it. 

Ask it. 

It replies.

You have stolen from it. 

You have left it

incomplete. 

“Fatima,” calls the slug.

“Tell me why you refuse to complete me. You. You. You. You are worse than the butcher. He cut me out, but that’s only a moment’s pain. You make me suffer everyday. I quiver for my other half, trying to form her words. Where is your Urdu, Fatima? Why do you hate her? Why do you let her catch in your throat and fall off your fingers? Why are you so ashamed of her?” 

The tongue lurches in pain. It jerks. It begins to change shape. The centre of its body furrows. It  tears itself from the middle, split in two like a snake’s.

“I am your tongue. You reject me. You leave me incomplete, you tongueless goat, goat with no speech—a butcher’s victim. You love the butcher. You are the butcher. Go ahead, cut me up. You goat.”

Fatima woke up with a bleat. Where was her Urdu?

Mina is an undergraduate student at Sarah Lawrence College, studying Literature and Politics. She writes poetry, short fiction and the occasional essay. She wouldn’t like to rip Haruki Murakami off but she tends to be running or writing in moments of inspiration and spends a lot of time discussing the places she loves, Karachi, New York, and others. Currently, she is undertaking an ethnographic research project on khwaja sira politics.

visual by mariam hasan.