Part II – Atiqah
Dramatis Personae:
Atiqah (a.k.a. Anne Elliot) – Meaning: beautiful, charitable, loving
Aisyah, Atiqah's late mother (a.k.a. Lady Elliot) – Meaning: Life and prosperity
Azlan, Atiqah's younger brother (a.k.a. Mary Elliot) – Meaning: Lion
Farah, Azlan's wife (a.k.a. Charles Musgrove) – Meaning: Joy, happiness
"Ibu. (Mother.)"
It wasn't Friday, nor was it Hari Raya Puasa, the date known in the wider Muslim world as Eid-al-Fitr, which marked the end of the month of Ramadan. In fact, Ramadan was just about to start in a couple of weeks.
There was no holy reason for Atiqah to visit her mother's grave, only the wish to have someone in whom she could confide her jumbled emotions.
Had her mother, Aisyah, been alive, Atiqah wondered what advice she would have given her, both then and now. Though in all honesty, her feelings were so unmentionable that she wondered if she would have shared them with anyone at all – even her mother, who had been her closest confidante in the world.
Placing her hands on the concrete headstone, which felt comfortingly cool in the sweltering heat of the late morning, Atiqah rested her forehead on them. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying valiantly to stave off tears.
She was ridden with guilt.
She had met the person whom she least expected to ever see again in person, and yet to her deep regret – she couldn't even manage the common civility of greeting him and addressing him by name. But of course, the last time that she had uttered the name of Fang Wu was when she banished him from her life for good. There was no way she could ever greet him as a common acquaintance without having flashbacks of that.
In all honesty, she didn't blame Fang Wu for not forgiving her. In fact, she expected him to have completely forgotten about her by now, except that his introduction of her to Lele provided evidence to the contrary. Eight years ago, at nineteen and still a few months away from turning pro, what had she known about marriage?
She had understood enough to appreciate what a tremendous gift he had offered her by asking her to wait for him to fulfil his ambition to represent China in football, at which point he would quit and convert to Islam for her sake. Nineteen wasn't too young for her to fully grasp how gargantuan a sacrifice he was committing himself to in suggesting an early retirement for himself – which would be for her benefit alone, since they couldn't play football for two different countries and have a life together – but he would also make a religious conversion that must feel like a change to the core of his very being.
And how had she received that gift? After less than twenty-four hours, she lied to him that it was all a game and that she didn't love him. That she couldn't love him. The latter might be the more accurate formulation of her feelings, but two things were certain: firstly, she wasn't at liberty to love him, and secondly, she had forfeited his presence in her life forever.
The summer she turned nineteen, her life had pivoted so rapidly that it nearly gave her whiplash to think about it, even now.
She'd started 2025 in a dead heat to the 'A' Levels, and even though the British international school that she had attended while training in Spain wasn't as much of a pressure cooker as Singapore schools were, old habits died hard. The edicts known very well to every teen in Singapore remained deeply ingrained in her: study hard, place her social life on the back burner, pass or die, and don't even think about dating. It was FORBIDDEN in bold, caps and underline.
By that summer, the 'A' Levels had come and gone, and everybody in her year had turned eighteen and started drinking. Her classmates from school scattered to the four winds: gap years, extended backpacking adventures, exotic volunteer postings, and idyllic holidays on resort islands all over Europe.
The only people her age who didn't have the freedom to roam far and wide were her fellow footballers in her Under-19 squad.
Atiqah had studied and trained in Barcelona all alone since she was fourteen, and never had she been so lonely. All around her were people her own age who had embraced their new freedoms. Apparently, even aging into legally drinking alcohol was addictive. It started with that first not-forbidden drink (as if her peers hadn't been clandestinely sneaking sangria and beer for years), and then wine and beer became the highlight at every lunch or dinner gathering they had.
In a group of 18- and 19-year-old youths where she was the only Muslim and therefore the only person who couldn't participate in the local wine culture, she had barely anyone to hang out with, which naturally led to having hardly anybody to love.
Fang Wu had already been a pro, spending the summer on loan with the football club that hosted an Under-16 boys' squad where she spent 50% of her training time. Ever since she had started football at the age of five, she'd been such a strong player that she trained and competed among boys to increase the challenge. Spanish boys at 16 might not yet have filled out to their full physical build, but most of them had gone through their adolescent growth spurts and towered over her. That was something, when at 168 cm (5'6") she already stood one head above many of the Asian ladies of her acquaintance.
She was determined to emphasise that playing football with boys didn't make her a butch (sadly, too many people thought so). So, Atiqah always wore her hair long and sported a T-shirt that said, "Play Like a Girl".
When even boys a few years younger than her already outweighed her, she couldn't hope to beat them through sheer physicality. Instead, she focused on her ball skills and her speed, reminding herself that she was nearly as tall as Messi who had deployed those strengths to such advantage despite being one of the shortest players on the pitch.
It was at one of those training sessions that she first noticed Fang Wu sitting in the stands watching her. Perhaps it hadn't been the first time he'd done that (and later he would confirm that he'd watched all her training sessions with the U16 boys since his arrival in Spain), but to her, the pros were so rarefied that she hardly dared to look at them, let alone single out any of them to talk to.
And yet this man of twenty-three, already a pro whom she later learned had already achieved a top three domestic league finish, had deigned to speak to her. After a training match where she had scored a hat-trick, she was walking back to her dorm alone (as usual) when she heard his footsteps catching up with hers.
"You shouldn't need to always be alone," he'd said. "Let me walk with you. My name is Fang Wu, by the way."
What could she say? She never socialised with the Under-16 boys whom she trained with. They were simply in a different life stage than her (which was code-speak for saying that their behaviour was immature, let's admit it). It was naturally the case, when they were still in secondary school whereas she'd finished her 'A' Levels. But she could hardly say that out loud. Surely, Fang Wu would think that she was being arrogant and anti-social.
"I'm Atiqah," she finally replied. "And usually I'm more social than this, but now everyone my age is drinking alcohol, and I can't."
"Of course."
From the instant that Atiqah first set eyes on him, she knew that Fang Wu was Chinese. In Singapore where she'd lived until the age of fourteen, she'd been surrounded by Chinese people. They were her neighbours in her public housing estate, her classmates at school, and her teammates on the pitch.
To Atiqah, Chinese people were simply… people, who understood and respected her Muslim faith but weren't part of it. They could be her friends, and many of them were.
"And I already know your name," he added, "your reputation goes far and wide for being the only lady who plays at our club."
"I… I'm not a butch, even if that's what everybody thinks," Atiqah blurted out. "When I go home and turn pro, I'll only be playing women's football."
"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean that." If Fang Wu had been offended by what she'd implied, he'd been very gracious not to show it. "What I meant was that you're doing exactly what I hope to achieve – to play as equals in a great football nation despite a significant physical disadvantage."
It was then that she dared to look at him and notice his height, among his other physical attributes. He was less than 10 cm (4 inches) taller than her, which was downright short in the European football world but above average among Chinese men. His weight would make him undersize in European football as well: he was lean and wiry, all compact sinew and no fat. The crew cut that he wore his hair in made him look even thinner than he was. But there was an air of relentless energy which befitted the spare ascetism of his physique.
"You… you flatter me too much." Atiqah felt embarrassed that a pro, someone who had already established his career, could say that he was aspiring to follow in her footsteps. What had she done to earn that compliment? She was still merely a youth player, running around on the pitch with secondary school students. "I am not yet a pro like you."
"But one day soon you will be. You might get your first international cap before I do, when you'll certainly be on the Singapore national team." He knew, then, that she came from Singapore! But naturally – at a men's club where a girl playing with the U16 boys' squad must be an oddity, her reputation must precede her in all respects.
"And let me guess – are you from the US, Australia, Hong Kong, or Taiwan?" Had he been from Singapore, she would already have known him, and his accent eliminated the possibility that he might be from Malaysia. She would say, in fact, that his accent sounded sort of Western, yet she couldn't place whether it resembled more of an American or a British one. She didn't yet know that people from mainland China spoke like this because they learned English as a second language from Westerners.
Fang Wu laughed. "None of the above, I'm from China. We call ourselves descendants of the dragon, 龙的传人 long de chuan ren."
That was not how any of the Chinese people Atiqah knew described themselves, and for some reason she found it incredibly poetic. Her Chinese friends knew that their yellow skin, black hair, and the fact that they had to learn Mandarin as a second language in school (in Singapore, English was everybody's first language) marked their race. Just as the things which made her Malay were her brown skin, her facial features, her language, and her religion.
What gave them pride was not a mystical sense of ancestral heritage like what Fang Wu alluded to, but that they were Singaporean, and Singapore would be celebrating its 60th birthday this year. All year, the festivities for SG60 had been kicking into high gear.
"Compared to China, Singapore has a very short history," she replied. "I'm so proud to have the same birthday as my country, which will be turning 60 years old on National Day. That's coming up on the 9th of August, not very long from now." Then she realised that she had changed the subject and wanted to redirect the conversation to its original point.
"Is it very hard to get international caps in China?"
Inwardly, Atiqah kicked herself for asking such a stupid question – there were more than a billion people in China, of course it must be! But she wasn't used to thinking of China as a major football nation, when all the greats that the global football community idolised were from Brazil, Argentina, Spain, England, Germany, and Italy. Asia could be football-crazy, Singapore most certainly so, but most Asian footballers knew that they weren't even footnotes in the beautiful game.
"It can be," Fang Wu said. "Last season, my club placed third in China League One. That's the equivalent of the English Football League Championship, you know, the league just under the EPL. This year I transferred to a new club, Yunnan Yukun, which was newly promoted to the Chinese Super League. That's like the EPL of China. And then I have to make my name in the Super League to get on the international team."
"China must be able to support many more leagues than Singapore," Atiqah mused. "But then, playing football isn't the type of career that most Singaporeans dream about. Typically, our parents push us to be doctors, lawyers, or top civil servants."
"I didn't end up playing football because I dreamed of it," said Fang Wu matter-of-factly. "I'm playing because I want to fulfil my country's dream. Even before I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up, I was sent out of my hometown to play football. It's the only thing I know how to do, and it's my duty to try my best to get China into the World Cup."
Everybody in Asia who watched football watched the World Cup. Qualifying for it, though, was a hope that bore reality only for the likes of Japan, South Korea, and Australia. With Singapore's population of only six million, Atiqah knew that the World Cup was not a stage that she would see in her lifetime.
As for Fang Wu's prospects, China was making its mark in so many arenas that nobody would doubt their determination to get into the World Cup. However, currently they were far from being a superpower in football. The only time they'd gotten in was 2002, which she would later learn was coincidentally the year of Fang Wu's birth. And in that outing, they'd bowed out ignominiously at the bottom of their group with 3 losses and a goal difference of 0-9.
"That's a big dream," said Atiqah. "I would be happy just to be on the national team. That's what my mother always wanted for me."
"It might not happen in my lifetime." Fang Wu shrugged. "But that is the nature of Chinese history, we make whatever progress we can and then pass it on to the next generation. The Yellow River has been around many centuries more than any of us have."
That felt like impressively big thinking to Atiqah. She was a 19-year-old living in a 60-year-old country: an independent Singapore (which was the only Singapore she knew) hadn't existed for even three generations yet.
"How long will you be here?" asked Atiqah. "I'm going back after I age out of U-19 in December, because the Singapore season starts and ends in May."
"My next season starts in February," said Fang Wu, "so I hope to be here for the summer, but not much longer. I am already sitting out most of this season because I just changed clubs, and I don't like to waste time."
"Is this your first time in Europe?" Atiqah asked. "Before I came here, I never travelled out of Singapore before. If you're here for only one summer, I can imagine there's a lot of things you want to experience."
"To be honest, I never thought I would ever go to Europe," admitted Fang Wu. "At least, not until I start playing internationally. But since this is your last summer here and my only one, will it be too much for me to ask you to show me Barcelona in your free time?"
They had reached Atiqah's dorm, and she found this conversation interesting enough that she wanted to pick it up again if there was another chance. So, without thinking about how she was agreeing to a whole bunch of one-on-one time with a man several years older than herself, she said, "Yah sure, I think that will be fun."
It wasn't hard for Fang Wu to become Atiqah's favourite person when he treated her like the pro she would become, rather than the youth player she was. Her coaching team back in Singapore ensured that she had her eyes trained on her future pro career already, but her peers in Spain didn't think that way. Most of them were still in student mode because they would be going on to uni.
Only Fang Wu, who had turned pro when he was 18, was aware or even conscious that she wasn't too young for international glory.
And when Fang Wu made the inevitable blunder of saying that her mother must be looking forward to her return, he didn't make it awkward when she explained that her mother had passed away when she was thirteen. Instead, he had simply said, "At least you still have your father."
Neither did he make a big deal out of having lost both his parents when he was between twelve and sixteen. He never looked for sympathy because he was an orphan, focusing instead on his good fortune to have two supportive elder siblings, and trying to live his life to the fullest.
She didn't read any romantic intent into his request for her to show him the sights in Barcelona, either. Part of that was because she knew that he was unattainable – he wasn't Muslim, and she had no reason to believe that he would ever become one. As a pro already, she was certain he must feel the difference in their age and status, and so he couldn't possibly think of her that way.
And it was perfectly natural when neither his family nor hers had the money for overseas leisure travel, that they would both consider this their last chance to enjoy and experience summer in Barcelona and therefore tour the city together.
He lived up to what she would expect of a perfect gentleman, though it never occurred to her that he might behave otherwise. They deeply enjoyed talking to each other and did so often, but never did he try to initiate physical contact of any kind. She liked that; in school she'd had male classmates who told her that she was a prude because all physical contact between opposite genders, even a platonic side-hug, was forbidden in Islam. But Fang Wu never needed to be reminded of her boundaries.
Neither did he ever attempt to bring her to bars or nightclubs (again, unlike said classmates). While she appreciated very much that he respected her abstinence from alcohol, what took him to a different level of special was how he accommodated her preference for halal food to a fault.
At the minimum, she never ate pork (which was difficult enough to accomplish in Spain when Iberico pork was everywhere) but to be truly halal, meat had to be prepared in a certain way. Not even all vegetarian food was necessarily halal, because it might contain something else forbidden, like alcohol. The rules around food were so stringent that she had to relax them to a degree when going out in groups with her school or football friends. No pork, no lard, and no alcohol usually sufficed. There were enough Muslims in Barcelona that halal restaurants existed, but Fang Wu was her first friend here who Googled for them and planned ahead before inviting her out to dinner.
Not that Atiqah usually had many occasions to eat at restaurants – back in Singapore, all the mainstream fast-food chains, namely McDonald's, Burger King, and KFC, were halal-certified, and every food court and hawker centre had at least one halal stall. Sit-down full-service restaurants were beyond her family's budget, and when delicious Malay food was easily available at hawker centres, that constraint didn't matter one whit. In contrast, the halal establishments in Spain were much more upscale because they were patronised by well-heeled Arabs who lived in or frequented Europe.
Atiqah felt uneasy going out to nice places for dinner when the dressiest outfits she owned were knee-length skirts, short sleeve blouses, and flat leatherette sandals, and she owned no makeup. Remembering it now made her shake her head at her innocence then, but her 19-year-old self didn't have any reservations in telling Fang Wu that they should eat at fast food places and not restaurants because she had no money to buy nice clothes to wear and didn't wear makeup. Any man, her 27-year-old self now realised, would consider this as an attempt to fish for compliments, if not a direct hint to take her out shopping on his dime.
But Fang Wu had taken it very literally. In a matter-of-fact way, he'd told her that she looked nice enough in what she had, and that when he was in China, he never ate at restaurants either. Here it was different – it was like the word "carpe diem" that they used in Dead Poets Society, and so he didn't mind spending more to do things that were special which they'd never have a chance to do again back home. And after that, he'd stuck to casual falafel joints, anywhere that made her feel comfortable.
How had she not realised that they had been, in effect, dating, even if they hadn't called it that or thought of it that way? In the present day, Atiqah facepalmed and rolled her eyes at her former obliviousness, but at 19, she had been so perfectly conditioned to compartmentalise all thoughts about romantic relationships that she had never faltered in the belief that she and Fang Wu would never be anything more than merely friends. Nor, unprovoked, would she ever have wished for more.
Halal dating was done within the auspices of the Muslim community, often chaperoned, and carried the intention of marriage. Atiqah was too young to marry anytime soon, and Fang Wu wasn't Muslim. Besides, they would soon part ways to (hopefully) represent different countries in football. So, all the time they spent together that summer could not be dating.
Besides, Atiqah had been, and still was, sure that if there had been any fellow Malay or Chinese people in their immediate circle, she and Fang Wu would have included them in these outings. She believed that the only reason why they were one-on-one all the time was because they were the only two individuals in this place who weren't as free about wining, dining, partying, and – in all honesty, sex – as people living in Spain might be generally wont to do.
This paradigm skewed Atiqah's perception of all the things they did together, including everything that, if considered in a different light, might be deemed romantic.
For example: Barcelona was full of art, and as with any place where art was plentiful, much of it was highly suggestive. One of the major attractions of the city was a mural made of 4,000 photos, formed in a mosaic called "The World Begins with Every Kiss". Each of the photos were collected from a local family in Barcelona and meant to depict the concept of freedom, but when put together, they formed a picture of two giant lips beginning a romantic kiss.
Of course, Atiqah had seen films where people, mostly Westerners, kissed with their lips. When she couldn't possibly have gone through adolescence without a steady diet of Hollywood movies, she certainly was aware that there were couples who did even more than only kissing, and without necessarily being married.
Yet when she stood in front of that mural with Fang Wu and took a wefie with him and it, the only thought that passed through her head was, "What a pretty picture – and of course, these things are for them and not for us."
Looking back, the 27-year-old Atiqah might wonder whether Fang Wu had indeed thought about kissing her in that way and held back. But her 19-year-old self never considered that Fang Wu might see the mural differently than she had – that the Spanish could do what they liked, but these things weren't for them.
The most insane thing about that summer, Atiqah realised, was that they had gone swimming so many times at the beach, yet she never let herself think of any physical temptation regarding Fang Wu, not even once. Of course she found him handsome – a remarkably fine young man, with a great deal of intelligence, spirit, and brilliancy – and when he wore board shorts with no T-shirt on, of course she thought he was attractive, in the way she might say a film star was. But her belief in his unattainability made it unthinkable for her to consider any course of action. And perhaps it was her conviction that he found her equally out of the question romantically that drove her unwavering certainty that he would never make a move on her.
On her birthday, Fang Wu had orchestrated the most magical 24 hours for her.
The night before, August 8th, he had stayed overnight at her dorm, sleeping on the floor. There, they watched delayed broadcasts of the National Day Message and all the pre-parade programming. The next morning, they both skipped training to tune into the Channel News Asia livestream of the National Day Parade, which aired from 5:30 to about 9 PM Singapore time, which was between 10:30 AM to 2 PM in Barcelona. After that, he went out during siesta hours and came back in the evening with halal meat from the butcher shop to make her dinner.
"Have you ever tried Chinese food?" he asked.
"Maybe a few times, but not very often." Atiqah wasn't prejudiced against trying non-Malay cuisines, but Chinese food was very tricky. Even if she avoided pork dishes, she couldn't always tell when the food might contain the invisible pork, i.e. lard. It was only at catered group functions in Singapore where a halal international buffet was served that she sampled a few Chinese dishes.
"I hope you will like it," said Fang Wu, "because this is the only thing I know how to cook. One thing I can assure you is that all the meat and all the sauces are halal." He had made a point to use her pots too, so that she could be certain that no non-halal food had touched what he was cooking.
Malay food was spicy, but this kind of food was a different kind of spicy, sour-hot rather than spice-hot was perhaps the best way she could describe it. Fang Wu's stir-frying sent the aroma of the garlic and the sauce wafting through her dorm kitchen, and Atiqah realised now that the source of the cooking smell that had emanated from Lele's flat the past few weeks must have been Fang Wu cooking for her.
(It was highly ironic that Lele conducted a home-based French baking business out of her kitchen but had no interest whatsoever in day-to-day home cooking.)
Well, what was it to her if Fang Wu was only in the flat next door, making himself agreeable to others? The sour grapes she felt about Fang Wu cooking the same dish that he had made for her as a special birthday treat, only now it was for her next-door neighbour, made Atiqah appalled at her own selfishness.
Yes, once upon a time he had promised to come and look for her, and to try converting to Islam for her. There was no reason for him to do so now, but seeing him show up almost at her doorstep, unconverted and most decidedly not there for her, felt outright painful.
And yet what could she expect? He was Chinese, and if he found a Chinese woman to marry, that could only be the most natural course of things. She just wished she didn't have to witness it.
How could she have been so blind? If she still felt so possessive about Fang Wu cooking a dinner especially for her on her birthday, eight years after the event, it could only mean one thing. Even then, she had already fallen rapidly and deeply in love, only she hadn't been allowed to admit it, not even to herself.
She might never have needed to admit it, if he hadn't done so first.
After her birthday, they had had one more month of carpe diem, of beautiful sunny afternoons at the beach, visits to La Sagrada Familia and the cat sculpture by Botero at the end of the Rambla del Raval, even a La Liga game watched live at the newly renovated Camp Nou stadium, home of the revered Barcelona F.C.
True to the spirit of treasuring every day in Barcelona which they wouldn't have again, Fang Wu hadn't hesitated to splurge on things like wakeboarding, which he said was a rare treat that he seldom got to enjoy except during his infrequent visits to his sister in Sanya. But beaches in China were overcrowded, and even though Spain overflowed with tourists in the summer, he still felt as if he had more breathing space here. Coming from an island that barely made a dot on the globe but still packed six million people, Atiqah agreed.
The urgency of packing everything they could into that single summer, soaking in the city that appeared to burst into a thousand colours for just those few months, made them feel as if they'd known each other for years. And finally, the penultimate day arrived before Fang Wu's inevitable return to China.
His going back was a good thing, Atiqah had reminded herself. It meant that he didn't have to waste an entire season, and the more time he got on the pitch now, the greater his chances would be to get noticed in the Super League. Salvaging this season would set him up for greater glory in next year's season, which would then give him a chance to make an impact in the qualifiers for the 2030 World Cup. 2026 was a lost cause already, so it would be a long haul to his dream.
Nonetheless, she had known that she would miss him bitterly, certainly the most in the remaining months of her stay in Barcelona. After she went home, she would have her family around her, and when she turned pro there would be plenty to occupy her time and her mind. But for now, she was losing the one person in her world who cherished and understood her best, second only to her late mother.
And even if they both achieved their goals to play internationally, they might still not get to meet again in person, not when men's and women's football tournaments were rarely held together.
Back then, she scarcely allowed herself to wonder what Fang Wu might be thinking, too. He was a pro, and he had his career in China. Surely, she could be forgiven for believing that the summer must have meant less to him than it had to her, all the way up to their last day out in town, the day when they went to Park Guell.
If Barcelona was a city of a thousand colours, Park Guell was the place where they all came together in a riotous celebration. It was the ultimate canvas for the ineffable imagination of Antoni Gaudi, the man whose architecture painted the entire city with its unique flair of expressiveness.
A teal blue-green mosaic dragon, flecked with blue and brown and yellow, guarded the principal staircase at the entrance of the park. More salamander than dragon, it showed its friendly face to all and sundry, the streaks and dots of colour on its body glinting in the sunlight. Hadn't Fang Wu called himself a descendant of the dragon? Atiqah had seen enough pictures of dragons (and dragon dances) in Singapore to know that Chinese dragons did not look like this, but nonetheless, she was overtaken by sentiment anyway.
He had apparently been so too, because he remained silent as well. For several minutes, the two of them stood transfixed and speechless, each buried in their own thoughts and reflections. Then Fang Wu broke the silence.
"我是龙的传人，我的目标就是龙之队, (I am a descendant of the dragon, and my goal is the Dragon Team,)" he declared. To translate for her, he continued, "I need this, I need to chase my dream. There are those who sent China into space, the men who bravely fought the Japanese, and before them our ancestors who built the Great Wall. I might be just a poor country boy, but I want to send China to the World Cup."
Only an Asian would know the audaciousness of that ambition. Just getting to the group games (not even talking about the knockout rounds) would be a modest goal for the Europeans who played the game to lift the trophy, but it would be a massive achievement for China, never mind that it was the country with one of the deepest talent pools in the world for just about everything. It was the most ambitious goal that remained anywhere within the realm of reality.
Despite the loftiness of that goal, such confidence, powerful in its own warmth, and bewitching in the wit which often expressed it, was enough for Atiqah.
Perhaps it was crazy to think about the World Cup when he had just got out of China League One and hadn't even yet seen any action in the Super League. But somehow, Atiqah felt certain that even by sheer force of determination (backed by skill, of course, and she had watched him play and knew that he had skill in spades), he would achieve that dream.
And impossibly, irrationally, she wanted to be there with him when he did it.
Never in her wildest dreams had Atiqah imagined that he might wish that too.
"I don't want this to end," he had said, breaking the silence. All that summer, the city of Barcelona had burst out in a thousand colours, teasing, tantalising them to drop the veneer of restraint that they had desperately clung to. At least, this was how Atiqah saw it now, that all along she did not know what might truly have been in his mind, so fixed she had been in the notion that he saw things exactly as she had.
"Me too," she had replied. "I'll miss you, but it's all for the best. 加油 Jia you (i.e. Chinese slang similar to 'Break a leg'), OK?" The meagre scraps of Mandarin (and Hokkien) that she had picked up just by virtue of living in Singapore had never been more useful than now, when she could at least say something to him in his language.
"I'll try my best."
Clearly, from the restless look in his eyes, he didn't think this was enough. Neither did Atiqah, but she didn't dare to suggest that they could keep in touch via emails and texts.
It was different when they were both here, when their common status as voyagers away from home kept them together. Corresponding, by contrast, sounded too much as if they were seeking each other out by design.
Specifically – though 19-year-old Atiqah had scarcely dared to think the word – it would seem too much like dating, which was impossible.
Forbidden.
Unmentionable.
Taking a deep breath, he reached out and grabbed both her hands. "You'll wait for me, right? I love you." Love was a word that Atiqah could barely contemplate. Love meant marriage, and marriage was the remotest thing from her mind when it would be years before she could save up the hundreds of thousands of dollars it took to buy a public housing flat.
And yet, was this love? The feeling that all your world was wrapped up in one person to whom you hoped and wished you'd never have to say goodbye?
"Wait… for…?" She hardly dared to say what was next, not when all this was alien territory. Furthermore, there was one more problem – "But you aren't Muslim, and you won't -" she blurted out. "It's not possible."
"Not in China," Fang Wu acknowledged, giving Atiqah at least the cold comfort of knowing that he'd thought this through to some extent. "In China, the Muslims mostly come from the minority ethnic groups, so it would be very strange for me to become a Muslim there. But there's always Singapore, or even Malaysia. I have my goal for the World Cup 2030, and just one chance – either I get it, or I pass it on to the next generation. Five years, and I can come to wherever you are."
"You're saying…?"
It was too much to be believed, if that was indeed what Fang Wu was implying. That he wasn't only thinking of marrying her, but that he would be willing to convert to Islam to do so.
"I know it will be a big change. I'm not going to lie to you, it won't be easy for me. But I also know it's the only way to keep you in my life, and I don't want this to be the last day of you and me.
"You're still so young, and I'm sorry to do this to you now. Honestly, I was going to be the one to wait, instead of making you wait. But if you go home without me saying anything, you might marry someone else, and I'll lose you forever. That's why I can't afford to remain in silence."
Such a speech was not to be soon recovered from. It was a lot of information, a deluge of feelings for Atiqah to process. He loved her, and it dawned on her that she had no idea what love was really like. To think that he was willing to convert to Islam, if that was what it took to clear the way for their marriage!
That was a concrete demonstration of what she meant to him, and it was too precious to throw away.
"Yes, I will," she choked out. "I'll wait."
If love was desperation, then perhaps she felt it too. Her mother, the only person who might have talked to her about dating and love, was long gone. Speaking of love without marriage was forbidden, and marriage was a distant, future idea to her.
But five years – that felt reasonable, when she would be 24 and he would be 28. If he came back and converted for her, it was a thing that she could do. Especially when the alternative would be losing him from her life.
"Really?" Stoic as he usually was, the delight on Fang Wu's face was almost painful to see. Could it be possible that he had thought her just as unattainable as she found him?
"Yes," Atiqah replied with the conviction that only desperation could bring. "I don't want anything else." Mustering up her courage to say what she really felt, even though she was skirting on dangerous forbidden territory, she added, "I don't want to lose you."
Their lips had barely brushed, not even the hint of a kiss if one were to ask any of the Spaniards around them, but as the Kiss Wall knew, sometimes the suggestion of something could convey a million feelings. In that brief period of exquisite felicity stood an ironclad promise of forever, a key into each other's future even if for now, they had to part.
Those few hours where they roamed the city of Barcelona for the last time were the happiest memory in Atiqah's life, not just for the 19 years that had come before, but also for the eight years that followed.
But when she went back to her dorm that night and closed the door behind her, she could feel the reality literally crashing around her.
What had she done?
Touching between a man and a woman who were not married and not related, with perhaps the exception of a business handshake, was strictly prohibited by Sharia law. And yet, she had allowed a boy – in fact, a man (how scary that word was) – to hold her hands and practically kiss her. That their pact contained a de facto engagement did not change the fact that she had committed the Islamic crime of khalwat.
In fact, she had been committing it for the entire summer, because merely being an unmarried and unrelated man and woman alone together was already enough. Sex – or any form of sexually suggestive contact – was not required. Just last year, the papers had reported about a man in the eastern Malaysian state of Terengganu getting publicly caned for it.
Upon later reflection, Atiqah realised that this could perhaps be why the law was made that way. Her younger self had been too inexperienced to see the signs that an attraction could develop between herself and Fang Wu, too confident that their mutual unavailability would guarantee their innocence. But surely, in a city as romantic as Barcelona, half the sum of attraction, on either side, might have been enough. There was no guarantee that they would not fall for each other, quite the opposite in fact.
Traumatic as it had been for the 19-year-old Atiqah to realise that she had committed an Islamic crime, she had still felt (the bravado of youth!) that she could make it right if she stopped doing anything untoward with Fang Wu and waited out the five years patiently. He would get China into the World Cup – or not – and he would come to Singapore, and if he converted, they could marry in Islam. She would not have breached anything.
But then, could she bear to see the suffering that the conversion would bring him? Even 19-year-old Atiqah had known that pork and lard were practically staples of the Chinese diet, and that making any Chinese person go cold turkey on those two things would be brutal. She had even thought of how never being able to drink alcohol again – not just to abstain for a summer, but for life – would have to be hard on Fang Wu.
And 27-year-old Atiqah could add one more layer to that argument: that for Fang Wu, turning Muslim would mean replacing Confucius with Allah. What sort of a life was that?
Flipping the argument – if she were to see that converting was so painful that she wanted to spare Fang Wu from that, could she see herself leaving Islam? It would feel like an immense betrayal of the heritage that she had been born into. She didn't choose Islam, but she had come into it by default just like all the Malay people she knew among her family and friends. There must be Malays who gave up Islam among those who moved to the West and married foreigners, but 19-year-old Atiqah had never met any. That hadn't changed in the eight years since.
At 27, Atiqah could now see the asymmetry of Sharia law where 19-year-old Atiqah couldn't. A Muslim man could have a non-Muslim wife and still have his marriage recognised in Islam, but a Muslim woman could not have an Islamic marriage with a non-Muslim man. With the insight that came with age, she saw that this was a necessary corollary to the fact that a Muslim father would beget Muslim children, so to marry a non-Muslim man would effectively mean terminating the line of Islam in the family.
In any case, had she not imagined herself consulting his good, even more than her own, she could hardly have given him up. Singapore would not flog her for committing khalwat, and nobody would need to know when they could hold this secret between them until they married. He had always been so upright and considerate, so she had no doubts that his intention to convert was utterly sincere.
What he had offered her was essentially an engagement. But what persuaded her to believe the engagement a wrong thing was her doubt in her own ability to reciprocate the immense gift that he had offered her. If for any reason he were to find it difficult for himself to convert when the time came, she could not bring herself to leave Islam for him.
How could she tell him this? If she said that he meant as much to her as she might mean to him – and if that was called love – it meant that she had fallen in love with a non-Muslim man. That was such a flagrant breach of her religion that it was inadmissible, even if it wasn't impossible.
The next closest thing to the truth that she might say was that she appreciated him as a friend and wanted to keep in touch. But that would end up with them corresponding, with her knowledge that he was in love with her. That was still dating, which was haram (forbidden by Islamic law).
What alternatives did she have? Her only way out was to convince him that she had never loved him. She knew that it was cruel and that it would cost her any chance of friendship with him. However, she reasoned, this was better than committing them to a path of wrongdoing which they both might regret.
The next day, she had still gone to Barcelona El Prat Airport to see him off. Yes, there would be the misery of a parting, a final parting, to deal with, but it was the right thing to give him closure and to not mislead him into having hopes that she might not be able to fulfil.
"Fang Wu, I'm sorry," she had told him, clasping her hands behind her back so that he wouldn't try to take them. "Yesterday, I lied to you. I only wanted to know what it was like to date a boy, but I don't – I can't – love you." That had only been half a lie; at that time, she still wasn't sure if what she felt was love. (It was only in the eight years that ensued that she became certain it was.)
"不仁不义 Bu ren bu yi ([You] have no morals and no integrity)," Fang Wu had spat. She hadn't understood the words, only that he was extremely angry. Whipping around and walking through immigration without a backward glance, he had left the country in consequence.
Atiqah knew that she didn't deserve to be forgiven. Sometimes, she even blamed herself for agreeing to spend so much time with him. He understood enough of Islam to know that halal food, abstinence from alcohol and absolute chastity were important to her. But he couldn't possibly have known the rules around khalwat and why they existed.
She did not blame the Sharia law, nor did she blame herself for being guided by it. But late at night, far too often, she wondered what advice she might have received from her mother, or even what she might have told her younger self if she could go back in time.
Kneeling in front of her mother's grave, Atiqah imagined what she might say if she had a daughter in that situation. Such a thought exercise could only be painful when it dredged up regrets that she might already have a son or daughter if she had married Fang Wu.
Firstly, she would be shocked. She knew that such a reaction was prejudicial, but she would wonder why her daughter didn't consider other Muslim men before falling for a non-Muslim one.
Secondly, she would need to get involved immediately. Her 19-year-old self hadn't known about sexts but now she did, even though she'd never seen one. She would have to ensure that all correspondence between the pair went through her, so that she could vet the content. That was such an invasion of privacy that she found it shocking. And yet chaperoning was an integral part of Muslim dating. It ensured that no physical or sexual intimacy happened before marriage.
Thirdly, she now recognised the uncertainty in the arrangement that Fang Wu had proposed. Many things could happen in five years. While back in China, he might meet a Chinese woman more suitable for him than she was, and would he have a change of feelings? If he got injured and couldn't play football anymore, how else could he earn a living? He had left school at 18, so neither desk jobs nor manual ones would be possible for him in that scenario. Only with 20/20 hindsight could she know that all that he had told her would follow in his career had indeed taken place.
Lastly, she would have told her daughter not to blame herself, no matter what the outcome turned out to be. At twenty-seven, Atiqah thought very differently about the matter from what she had been made to think at nineteen. She had seen her friends dating and getting married. Furthermore, her younger brother, Azlan, had a Muslim girlfriend while still in secondary school and married her when they were eighteen.
She now felt that were any young person, in similar circumstances, to apply to her for counsel, they would never receive of such certain immediate wretchedness, such uncertain future good. She was now persuaded that despite the possible disapprobation at home, all their probable fears, delays and disappointments, she should yet have been a happier woman in maintaining the engagement than she had been in the sacrifice of it.
Instead, she was now stuck in a situation even more irreparable than she had believed it to be at the age of nineteen. There had been a time, when there could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved. Now they were as strangers, no, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement.
The midday sun reminded Atiqah that it was lunch time, and she was almost clear across the island from where she needed to be. Her father would be needing lunch, and she would still need to take a Grab (the equivalent of Uber in Singapore) from the graveyard in Choa Chu Kang to the nearest MRT station, then ride almost the entire length of the East-West line to get home. Drying her tears with a tissue, Atiqah squared her shoulders and prepared herself to face the reality that she would have no choice but to be a witness to.
Notes
Here's the thinking behind the names of Atiqah and her family members:
- Atiqah (a.k.a. Anne Elliot) – Meaning: beautiful, charitable, loving - i.e. the very nature of Anne herself
- Eusoff (a.k.a. Sir Walter Elliot) - Meaning: God increases - The name "Walter" means "commander of the army". Since Muslims don't have surnames, but have the names of their fathers after their given names, Atiqah's initials resolve to A.E. while her father's name is as grandiose as Sir Walter's in meaning.
- Aisyah, Atiqah's late mother (a.k.a. Lady Elliot) – Meaning: Life and prosperity - because these are the two things Lady Elliot gave to Sir Walter in her lifetime.
- Aizah, Atiqah's elder sister (a.k.a. Elizabeth Elliot) – Meaning: Noble - Elizabeth is a royal name, also Aizah and Aisyah are different names but so similar in spelling to mimic how the mother and eldest daughter had the same name in canon.
- Azlan, Atiqah's younger brother (a.k.a. Mary Elliot) – Meaning: Lion - Mary is named after the Virgin Mary, the lion is also a religious symbol.
- Farah, Azlan's wife (a.k.a. Charles Musgrove) – Meaning: Joy, happiness - Because Charles is a happy character
- Aziz, Azlan's elder son (a.k.a. Charles Musgrove III) - Meaning: Powerful, respected, beloved - The over-indulged child of Charles & Mary
- Yusuf, Azlan's younger son (a.k.a. Walter Musgrove) - Meaning: God Increases - A variant of "Eusoff", so he's named after his grandfather.
You'll get to meet all of them in the next chapter.
Meanwhile, Wentworth's career carries on in parallel to canon:
- FW didn't choose his career, it was chosen for him at a young age.
- FW turned pro at 18, the same age that Captain Wentworth would have become a Lieutenant (with his ability, he would have passed the exam as soon as he was allowed to take it)
- FW's past track record, while promising, still needs a long way to get to his goal, which is highly ambitious but still within the realm of attainability.
- FW was spending freely what he has earned freely in Barcelona.
- Pro football, like the Navy, is a risky and uncertain profession.
- FW has to leave in order to advance his career.
And here are the parallels between Atiqah and Anne:
- Anne in canon had not yet reached the age of majority (age 21), but she was still within a socially acceptable age to get married. Similarly, Atiqah has finished her education and will turn pro in less than 6 months, so she's closer to being a young adult than a child at age 19.
- The Baronetage states that Anne Elliot's birthday is the 9th of August (coincidentally, Singapore's National Day).