The weather is surprisingly mild for March and although there’s definitely a chill in the air, the temperature has improved a lot from last week’s iciness. I’ve put away my winter coat and I’m happy to see the back of it. While I love winter with its dark, romantic nights, luxurious hot drinks and magical Christmas spirit, I love spring more. I love the yellow daffodils that have already started to pop up, I love the cherry blossoms on our road creating a pretty canopy for us to walk under, and I love the little bursts of sunshine that provide the right amount of warmth in the otherwise cold air.
Yasmin and I start walking towards the café and I have to grab her arm to force her to slow down as nerves start taking hold of me.
‘Stop!’ I squeak as we’re about to round the corner that is between me and my fate. Yasmin stops and looks at me, concerned.
‘Are you OK?’ she asks, taking in my pale face and the way I keep fidgeting.
‘No,’ I whisper, my heart pounding. ‘I can’t do this. I want to go home.’
‘We can’t go home, Z, there’s someone waiting for us,’ she says patiently, taking my hand in hers. I snatch it away because it’s clammy and she laughs and reaches out to hug me.
‘This isn’t Tariq,’ she whispers into my ear as she holds me. ‘I know you had a horrendous experience before, but it doesn’t mean that it will happen again. Maybe Dr Farook is the one, maybe he isn’t. But whatever is going to happen is going to happen. God’s already written it. You won’t know unless you walk in there with your head held high and find out. It’s time to face your fears, Z.’
‘I said I would never let Mum set me up again. I swore that I would find someone myself,’ I say in a small voice, my face burrowed into her shoulder.
‘So what? No one’s judging you. Mum might have set you up with Tariq, but what happened wasn’t her fault. She couldn’t have known what he was going to do. And this dentist has nothing to do with Mum. The biodata came from someone else, and it was sent to Abbu, not her. If you don’t give it a go, you’ll always wonder.’
I know she’s right, so I give myself another moment to compose myself and then pull away. For a second, I had forgotten what she was wearing and looking at her barren face with the tight hijab amplifying all her features makes me smile.
‘All right. Let’s do this,’ I say and with a deep breath, venture around the corner.
We enter Ladurée and make our way up the narrow, rickety stairs. When we get to the top, we stop and scan the room, trying to see if we can spot a tall Asian guy with a dodgy haircut.
‘Is that him?’ Yasmin whispers, nodding towards the back of a man sitting alone in the corner. He is hunched over his phone and I stare at his narrow back, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
‘I don’t know,’ I whisper back, swallowing nervously. ‘This dude’s bald. Dr F has a weird haircut remember? And this one looks like he’s on the skinny side, too.’
‘He could have shaved it,’ Yasmin replies. ‘He’s brown, it must be him. There are no other brown people here.’
We walk over to the table and stand next to it, unsure how to announce our arrival.
‘Er, Assalaamu Alaikum,’ Yasmin says and I hide behind her, my gaze firmly on the floor. My palms are still sweating and I can feel my hands trembling so I clench my fists, hoping they will stop. We sit down and I continue to avoid looking at him.
‘Wa Alaikum Salaam,’ he replies in a low, gravelly voice. My spine shudders as if I’ve heard a fingernail scratching a blackboard.
‘So!’ Yasmin begins brightly, smiling a wide, fake smile, before launching into mindless small talk in the poshest accent that I’ve heard. I don’t know where she musters up so much confidence from. I guess it’s because it’s my future on the line, not hers. Dr Farook Chowdhury hesitantly starts talking to her, darting looks at me every so often. I can tell he’s taking in Yas’s severe look compared to my own, less religious attire and wondering how it is that two sisters are so different. I try my best not to look back at him and spend my time pretending to study the menu instead.
This is excruciating. More than I imagined it would be, and it’s not because of what happened with Tariq. It’s uncomfortable and contrived and completely unfit for purpose. We’re supposed to be figuring out if we can be life partners; but the whole meeting is like one big act, from my pearls to Yasmin’s hijab and even the conversation. I’m sure not all marriage meetings are as off-putting as this. If they were, the world would be full of unmarried Bengalis and our entire race would die out.
Yasmin and Dr Farook talk about the weather, travelling and dentistry without me having to do more than ‘hmm’ or nod in the right places. I’m using the word ‘conversation’ very liberally here; it’s more of a monologue with him talking and Yasmin barely getting a word in. He doesn’t seem to care that I’m hardly speaking, either. From what he tells us, it sounds like he’s got a full and varied life with all the places he’s been to, but he manages to make it sound boring. There’s no passion in his voice, no excitement, no life.
With the spotlight away from me, I take the plunge and discreetly study Dr Farook Chowdhury’s unfortunate looks. He’s so different from his picture that I feel slightly catfished. The whole purpose of the picture element of a biodata is to avoid these situations. In his photo, he wasn’t good looking, but he wasn’t bad looking either and had a full head of hair. But I think his dodgy haircut in the biodata picture was actually a wig to hide his alopecia. He can’t help it if he has no hair, and I almost feel bad for noticing.
Anyway. It is what it is, and I’m not going to hold that against him. But what is entirely his choice is how he has decided to dress; completely unbuttoning the top half of his shirt. Peeking from beneath the folds of the creased linen are tufts of thick, wavy chest hair. Having that on display is something he has chosen to do, and I know some women dig that look, but it’s just not my thing. Then, if that’s not bad enough, he keeps reaching for a tuft of chest hair and twiddling it while he talks.
You know how you can’t help but stare at an accident as you drive past? Even though it’s horrible, scary and messed-up? Now that I’ve noticed the foliage on his chest, that’s it, I can’t tear my eyes away. I try – I really, really try – but when I think I’ve got over it, I find myself drawn back to the jungle that is Dr Farook’s chest.