One of Us

By Evelia Cobos

ONE OF US BY Evelia Cobos, a New Mexico Award Winning Author, is her first work of fiction.
ONE OF US is a novel of romance and suspense. Set in San Francisco, CA and Hawaii, Evelia Cobos speeds us aloft in an exciting journey. As in virtual reality, the story reveals the wedded lovers, Salim and Ana, who, like Romeo and Juliet, are fated lovers. Ana, an American educator, will never be accepted by Salims traditional East Indian family.
We learn in this fascinating mystery that Salim married Ana exactly for that reason. He did not wish for her acceptance. A THRILLER, WE ARE GLUED TO THE STORY AS WE WONDER IF THE QUEST Salim demands of Ana will result in the ECSTASY of consummated love; or whether, as in Romeo and Juliet, the lovers are doomed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469195773

Book preview

Contents

Preface

Part 1

Part 11

Part 111

ALSO BY EVELIA COBOS

They That Laugh Win—To Dr. Ruben Cobos With Love—A Memoir

Chicken Pox, Published in WRITERS FORUM

Ulibarri, Louise Sanchez: an entry in LATINAS IN THE UNITED STATES,

AN HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA EDITED BY VICKI L. RUIZ AND VIRGINIA SANCHEZ KRROL

Life is a precious flower of which love is the sweet nectar.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shaheeda Ali

This novel is dedicated to Lisa Maria Salaz, Tatyana Salaz, and Shaheeda Ali; with gratitude to Chris Nolan, Moriah Wiegel, and Judith Florence for their astute critiques which enabled me to successfully revise it.

CHARACTERS:

Ana—an American Christian girl

Salim—her East Indian Moslem husband

Farouk—Salim’s nephew—son of Salim’s younger brother and his wife

The brother—Salim’s younger brother

The sister-in-law—the wife of Salim’s younger brother—

Farouk’s mother

The Grandfather—Farouk’s grandfather—Salim and his brother’s father—Ana’s father-in-law and the father-in-law of the sister-in-law

The Grandmother—Farouk’s grandmother—mother of Salim and his younger brother—mother-in-law of Ana and the sister-in-law

Yasmin—Salim’s niece

Preface

Many novels have been written about the adaptation of immigrants to America. This romance novel is about an American girl, Ana, who marries into a family of immigrants from the Fiji Islands. Her story is about her adaptation into the culture of her husband. Her husband not only demands that she learn the rituals of his culture; he also leads her in a quest, the goal of which is her task to discover.

Part 1

Ana sat on a 1950s couch, a stiff uncomfortable sofa made of wood barely covered with blue fabric so that one felt as though he or she were sitting on a deacon’s bench. As she sat surveying her new world, left-over tears of grief from having to sell her home in San Jose and having to put all her belongings in storage, clouded her vision as she looked around for the first time. There was indoor-outdoor threadbare carpet, whose colors could barely be detected under her feet. An exquisite tapestry hung on the wall facing her which depicted a mosque, as incongruous in this room as a patch of blooming Sunflowers in the middle of a plot of weeds in New Mexico.

There was a window facing north with a view of more expensive whitewashed Victorian houses, and Leland Avenue in San Francisco, near the Cow Palace humming with endless traffic. Green spider plants trailed from hanging pots near the window, and in the corner, tiny twin cushions sat that could be unrolled at night into a futon-like bed that her new husband, Salim, had bought for them. Joy shone in Ana’s heart as she looked at the twin cushions. The cushions summarized, for Ana, the thoughtfulness and love for her from her new husband, Salim.

She could hear the voices in a dialect of Urdu in the kitchen-family room down the hall from her front room which she could not understand. When she was dating Salim, she had bought a dictionary, tapes, and language lessons from Pakistan with which to learn Urdu; but now she found that her lessons were useless, for her new family did not speak pure Urdu; instead, they spoke a dialect which was a combination of English and the Fijian dialect of Urdu; and to make matters worse, they spoke in a sort of shorthand that only they could follow.

Her surveying was interrupted by the family’s three-year-old who whizzed into the room on his tricycle. Red light, she said raising her palms so that they faced him. Red means stop. He was barely learning his own language; he had never heard English. But he stopped.

She reached over to the tricycle saying, Look at that man; he hasn’t seen that the light has turned green. Honk at him. She pounded on the handles of his tricycle. Laughing as though he understood this game, he began to pound on his handles; then he turned and cycloned out of the living room back into the room where his family was.

Farouk, the three-year-old, pedaled back and forth, he willing his legs to move up and down on the tricycle, Ana inventing little experiences she had had while driving, games he laughed at and imitated.

Nature called. Ana, trembling, moved hesitantly from the couch to the doorway. Salim had brought her a peanut butter sandwich and a cup of chai (East Indian tea made with milk and spices) before he went to work in a paint store. Now, she walked fearfully through the doorway, down the tiny hall into the kitchen-family room. The odor of daal spiced with onions and steaming rice caused her stomach to rumble. In the kitchen were a tiny sink and counter area and nearby, a stove where the daal (lentils made with sautéed onions and garlic) simmered. A rice cooker on the counter automatically steamed the rice. All chatter ceased with her appearance except for Farouk who called out to her, Auntie! Auntie querida (black auntie), scolded Farouk’s mother. Bohot karab, (awful) spat the grandfather, a walnut-colored rotund man in a topi (cap) which he always wore. Ana bowed her head and marched steadfastly on, staring only at her feet. The grandmother, sitting on the cot in the corner on which she slept, Salim’s sister-in-law, presiding over the cooking, and the grandfather, half sitting, half reclining on a battered blue loveseat, seemed to Ana to be surveillance cameras, frozen figures staring at her every move as though she were a night stalker. Ana continued walking to the bathroom, a small room off the kitchen. Her only other option was to pee in her pants.

Salim was the eldest son, known affectionately as Lalla (beloved son). The grandfather and grandmother had arranged a marriage for their younger son, who accepted the girl. The grandparents had grand dreams for their precious elder son, Salim. They had tried to arrange marriages for him with cousins as was their Indian custom; but he refused all offers. When he married a Mexican (she wasn’t even white) their disappointment was palpable. Ana perceived their plot was to make her life here so unbearable