Fatima’s POV        

    For a minute, I zoned out while staring at my open palms. I had the habit of daydreaming and zoning out. It was not the best habit. But I was always a very imaginative child. When I sat on the prayer mat, I sometimes got lost in a sacred prayer of my own. My mother told me that she often found me sitting alone at the prayer mat with hours on end. I would fall asleep on it after the prayer and they would carry me to my room at the end. 

Ever since I was a child I had a very instinctive connection with the Divine. Every single morning, I would wake up by myself at the time of the morning prayer. I wasn’t sure how I learnt it. Being born and raised in a practicing Muslim household did mean that I prayed to God five times a day because this was what I was taught to do. But I also did that because it truly brought me peace. 

   When I prayed to God, I often had epiphanies about what the future held for me. 

   I sat there at that moment, hoping for some direction for what to do. I was anticipating the result of the interview I had taken two days ago. A part of me was convinced that I failed. I got so nervous. And I couldn’t help but cringe at the fact that I mispronounced his name. I had practiced it many times before but just the moment he addressed me the first time, I became nervous.

    Even though the interview was entirely online I felt like Arjun was sitting right in front of me. He has a very intense stare. I still remembered the stark arch of his eyebrows and his dark coal eyes that seemed to stare directly into my soul. 

   Perhaps that was one of the reasons I stuttered. Because it felt like he could look right through me. 

   I smiled thinking about the compliment he gave me after I finished the task he gave me.

  ‘Your work is promising. I will get back to you soon.’

 It was a small compliment but I felt deep down that Arjun was not the kind to compliment someone’s work unless he truly appreciated it. And that uplifted my spirits.

  It had been two days however since our interview and he still had not got back to me. I was a patient person but this time around my patience was running thin. I needed work to occupy my mind. Ever since graduation, the entire household had been hinting at the prospects of my marriage. 

   ‘Fatima,’ my mother entered the balcony, ‘How long have you been praying for, girl? A Fajar prayer should not take more than five minutes.’

    ‘You know how I can get lost while praying, Amma,’ I replied.

     I turned to look at her. Amma had a large shawl draped around herself. She got cold very easily even though it was still only the end of September. Sometimes, the mornings were chilly in Gujranwala those days. 

     ‘Did you get a call back from the interview?’ she asked, ‘It is just going to be online work, right?’

     I gulped. I had hinted to Amma before that I wanted to move out. She was  hesitant and told me she couldn’t promise me anything. But would talk to my father. Both of them seemed reluctant to let me move to another city. Arjun indicated that there will be a coworking situation in Lahore where I would be expected to work with some of his team members residing in Lahore.

    I studied four years in Lahore and my parents never hesitated sending me anywhere when it came to education. But now that I was done with it their attitudes towards my mobility began to change. They wanted me to look towards getting married more than any other goal that I had.

   ‘Amma, I still haven’t heard back from the interview. And I am positive that I will,’ I responded, ‘In that case, I will have to go to Lahore as I told you before.’

   Amma pursed her lips but did not utter a word. She was not very expressive when it came to the decisions of mine that she disagreed with. Instead, she would just let my father be the messenger behind her sentiments.

  I knew that she and Father would probably have a discussion about it with me at breakfast. I wanted to be able to convince them but all of that would be futile if I didn’t even get the job.

  As she left, I jumped up to check my laptop.

 Almost as if on a cue, Arjun sent me an offer letter. My face instantly curved into a smile. My prayer was answered almost instantly. 

  At that moment, I was not aware of what the future held. I could only say a prayer of gratitude. And for the first time, I said a prayer of gratitude towards a non-muslim as well. It was because of Arjun that I was able to find an avenue to turn my life around. He had come as an epiphany from God.

 I looked forward to all the change it would bring to my otherwise quite stagnant life.

What I did not know at that time was how the change would topple my whole life over.

                                                         *************

Arjun’s POV

   I sat down with a subway and a drink at exactly 1 p.m. again. As I waited for Fatima to join the call, I could not help but feel a kindredly feeling. This was a very new and strange emotion that I had begun to feel when I talked to Fatima. Fatima mostly worked at night, after midnight as well and I connected with her during my lunch.

I looked forward to talking to her every day.

  It was like I knew her from a past life. 

  I was a believer of Hinduism but I was also a pretty logical and practical guy. Most of the time, I did not think of spirituality as much. But something about my conversations with Fatima made me think more and more about the existence of soul ties and people knowing each other from past lives. I made a mental note to talk to her about it once our work talk ended.

  She finally popped inside the screen.

 Today she was wearing a black top. A sash like dupatta hanging on her shoulders as usual. Her wayward hair was neatly tied in a ponytail but some stray strands still made their way outside and hung on the sides of her head.

  I noticed that she was in a different physical setting than her house.

 ‘Has your move finished?’ I asked her. Whenever I talked to her, my eyes became extremely focused on every aspect and detail of her surroundings and her. I was captivated perhaps due to how different she was from everything I knew.

  Sure, there were here and there some Pakistani-origin people that I employed even at the office. But something was entirely different about Fatima. I could not put a finger on it exactly. Maybe it was the way she could carry a conversation so effortlessly, in a way that would make me want to indulge in myself and share about what I knew. I had known her for a total of three weeks only and it felt like three years already.

 ‘Yes, I was able to do the move. Thank you for all the help you gave me,’ she smiled.

 Whenever Fatima smiled it felt like a very modest but a very sincere smile. It was as if in her smile she was holding back a lot of gratitude. Many words that she wanted to articulate but perhaps culture or etiquette held her back.

 ‘I am willing to give all the help I can to one of my best employees. I never had a remote worker as efficient as you, you know Fatima?’

 Her smile only widened. Making her round face light up like the moon.

 For a moment, I had to look away. Why did I always feel these strange jitters in my body when she smiled at me? 

 After that, I simply let her update me about the work. She was so good at what she did. When she started talking about work, her voice instantly became confident and clear. Unlike how it was soft and breathy in usual conversations.

 ‘By the next year, the competitive strategy I propose can increase traction by even more investors. We will not land in a slump like we did before,’ she finished, ‘So, yeah this is what I have analyzed so far.’

  I nodded in approval.

 ‘I should have hired you sooner. You know there are fewer and fewer employees these days that one can say for certainty actually care about the work you are doing, But you are so sincere and it shows. It was truly a serendipity when I hired you.’

  As usual, Fatima’s face was glowing after the praise. 

 ‘It makes me very happy to hear that,’ she said in a small tone. I couldn’t help but smirk at how the pitch of her voice instantly changed when it came to talking about her sentiments. It became soft and small. It was endearing.

  I knew there was a little time left before my break ended. I had barely even taken a bite of my subway. I was much more interested in continuing a candid conversation with Fatima.

  ‘So, how did your parents agree to let you move? You shared last time that there might be some troubles with that,’ I asked her.

  Fatima did not open up a lot about her family and personal life. But I gathered from all the time it took her to get a place in Lahore that there was some hesitance at the end of her family to let her change cities.

  From my own personal research, she grew up in a small city and lived there for most of her life. Except for the four years she spent studying in a prestigious business school in Lahore. She got admitted there on scholarship. It was clear that she was a brilliant student and in turn, a brilliant person to work with.

  But she was still reserved about her personality. And that only encouraged me to dig further. People who did not instantly open up made me very curious. I knew that there were a thousand worlds in her mind and she just needed to be discovered just like they all did.

  ‘My parents were just a little hesitant. Also looking for places also took a little bit of time,’ she replied calmly.

   Her answers were short but it never looked like she was not equally enjoying the conversation.

   ‘I imagine your family must want to marry you off soon too. Or are they lenient about how and when you choose to marry,’ I asked her, daring to dig in more. I could not help my curiosity.

   Her smile faltered a little as if it brought up some unpleasant memories in her mind.

   ‘They do,’ she replied after a pause, ‘All parents want to marry off their daughters. I am grateful they paid more attention to making sure I was educated and worked hard to get me everything I have in life at the moment. But yes, just like most parents they want nothing in the world now but to marry me off.’

    Fatima was not meeting my eyes. I could tell that this was a difficult topic of conversation for her so I decided to change it.

    ‘And how are you finding Lahore?’ I asked her, hoping for a change of mood.

   Much to my delight, her face instantly lit up. She looked genuinely happy as she talked about the city.

    ‘Lahore is like a lost dream. Living here is quite fun. I can’t help but smile every time I think about it. It is in many ways a cultural hub of Pakistan. There is a lot of heritage. If you ever visit Pakistan do come to Lahore,’ she gushed.

   ‘Would you take a tour with me of the city?’ I asked her teasingly.

   She nodded earnestly. The smile still played on her lips.

   ‘I would absolutely love to take you to the Walled City, the Lawrence Garden, the Badshahi Mosques. All the Havelis,’ she replied, ‘You would love it. You love cultural relics don’t you? I would love to visit the Taj Mahal someday.’

   ‘It would be hard for a Pakistani to get a visa by the way, ‘ I pointed out objectively, ‘And some would be the case for me’

   Fatima’s face fell a little bit. I found it strange that all these years I had managed to travel a lot and yet this was the first time in all these years that I felt a strange almost spiritual need to visit Pakistan. 

   I remembered the feeling. That strange jittery feeling that made me have Deja vu as if I had witnessed this moment or this feeling before in a dream or a memory I had long forgotten.

    ‘Do you believe in past lives?’ I asked Fatima out of the blue.

  She raised her eyebrows.

  ‘I am a devout Muslim so I don’t believe in reincarnation although the concept is quite interesting for me,’ she replied.

   From our conversations I found that she was very conservative in her faith. But unlike what the prejudice was, a lot of this faith was her own choice. She actively read the Holy Quran and prayed five times a day. She was extremely attached to the idea of religion and God. I respected it. Although I did not agree with organized religion as a whole, I wondered what the conversation would go like if I shared this belief with her.

   ‘Do you sometimes get this feeling that you have met someone before or there is a moment occurring in the present that has also happened before at some time in your life even though you have no recollection of it,’ I asked her, still eager to hear her opinion.

    Fatima contemplated before answering.

   ‘When it comes to a lot of inexplicable phenomena I think of what precedents exist in religion or whether it can be explained in science,’ she began logically, ‘It is possible you saw something in a dream. Although, from some religious scholars I have heard the concept of a place where souls gathered before they were assigned bodies. It is theorized that if a person seems familiar to you in this lifetime almost as if you’ve known then it is possible you actually met their soul before they were given a body.’

  At that moment, I wanted to share with her that I felt like my soul might have known hers. But I did not want it to get weird. It would seem like a strange loaded statement to come from your employer.

   Although I would have liked to think that more than just two people who worked together, we were getting closer and perhaps friends now.

   ‘Interesting, I replied, instead of expressing any of these sentiments.

   Fatima nodded with a knowing smile and I wanted to believe that she understood what I was thinking without me saying anything.