Karma Unleashed: Chapter 1

By the time Karma reached nineteen, she had learned how to suppress her visions.

Friends,

Thank you for reading the prologue of my novel Karama Unleased, the first book of the Tales of Karma series.

So, without further ado, here is Chapter 1

Also, if you have the time to read this, I would be really grateful if you could send me your feedback.

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Chapter 1

By the time Karma reached nineteen, she had learned how to suppress her visions.

Her mom had taught her a trick. Whenever a vision started to formulate, she would close her eyes and try pushing the images out of her brain, replacing them with her own images, her own happy memories. A trip to the beach with her parents, or the summer she spent with her cousin Salam who was visiting from the US. Her happy memories eventually trumped the flashing images.

Happy memories were her weapon. She was done with those silly, scary visions. She wanted to be normal. She ached to be normal.

“See. It’s all in your head,” her mom would tell her. “Whenever these thoughts start to formulate, just push them away.”

When she was in her senior year in college, her mom started sounding the marriage alarm.

“You know you’re not young. I pray every day for you to get married,” her mom told her as they sat at the kitchen table, filling grape leaves with rice and lamb and rolling them to make waraq dawali.

Karma, being an only child, carried the sole responsibility of fulfilling her parents' dreams of becoming grandparents.

“But, Mama, you know my issue! Who would want a wife like me?” she said, her eyes on the grape leaf she was rolling.

Her mom shook her head. “You stupid child! We won’t tell anyone about your crazy dreams. What have I been saying all these years? Just keep that to yourself,” she said as she stacked stuffed grape leaves in the bottom of a deep pan. “Everyone has secrets. Even married couples. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Karma raised her eyebrows as she tilted her head backwards. “Really? What are your secrets, Mama? What did you hide from Baba?”

Her mom smiled. “They would not be called secrets if I told you, would they?”

Karama wondered if her mom’s secret was that she had boyfriends before Baba. She wondered if she was not a virgin on her wedding day and faked her virginity by splattering tomato juice on the bedsheets like all those loose girls everyone warned her about. Was her mom not the perfect wife she pretended to be?

Or maybe her mom had inherited a lot of her money from her dead parents and stashed them away, hiding them from Baba.

Her university years at Bilaq State University in the city of Shifa were uneventful. She took the bus to school, attended all the classes required for her Business Administration degree, and went back home to study. She got an A+ in everything and graduated with an almost perfect GPA. 

“You’ve always been smart,” Baba told her. “I couldn't be more proud of you,” he said and handed her a $50 bill as a gift. She flipped the American currency and gazed at the portrait of the bearded man on the front along with a gigantic, beautiful white building with a dome and wondered if she would get to visit that building one day.

 Karma made some new friends here and there during her college days, but no one became too close. She was always wary about getting close to someone, of being vulnerable, of opening up in a moment of weakness and revealing her secret to those who won't keep it.

At 22, suitors started showing up at the house. Karma obeyed her mom’s commands and mostly stayed quiet as she served them Turkish coffee with a side of barazeq, sesame seed cookies. The suitors came with their mothers. Always with their mothers, who did all the talking. 

As it was customary, Baba kept his distance and let the women handle the matchmaking business. Sometimes, he would sit in a chair by the kitchen table, hoping to catch snippets of the conversations taking place in the nearby living room. Karma knew her baba wanted her to end up with a great man, a strong man, who would treat her like a queen, but he didn't want to mess with his wife’s maneuvering. He would interfere when needed.

Karma was always willing to defer to her mother in the matchmaking process, but if a vision appeared as her fingers touched a prospective suitor while serving him coffee, she wouldn’t suppress it. She needed to know what she was signing up for. She had to protect her future.

When she felt a vision coming, which was usually preceded by tingling in her extremities and a slight headache, Karma would lower her head, fixing her gaze on her shoes. This way she can focus on the image without being distracted. Bowing her head down signaled her timid nature to the watchful eyes of her suitors and their mothers. This made her a better commodity. Pure, virgin. Untouched. As good as new. 

In one vision, she saw a suitor in a prison cell, head shaven, armed crossed, pacing back and forth as other cellmates yelled at him, “Sit down, you crazy man!”

What kind of crime will he commit? What if he becomes a murderer? A wife butcher?

She turned him down.

In another vision, she saw a suitor nursing a whiskey bottle while sitting alone on a bed in a dark room. He was sobbing like a child. She turned him down, too.

I need a strong man.

She saw another suitor in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of his mouth. Two young men were standing by his bed. “He has suffered a lot,” said one of the men as he looked down at the suitor in the bed. He sighed and then wiped a tear from the side of his face.

She felt bad for turning him down, but she didn’t want to be the caregiver all her life.

When Jamal showed up with his mom at her parents’ house, Karma was intrigued mainly because no visions came when she touched him as she served him coffee. He’s mysterious. I like that.

His mom, though, was another story. She was a heavyset, loud woman decorated with a stack of gold bracelets, heavy gold earrings, layered gold necklaces, and loads of makeup.

When Karma kissed her on both cheeks, as was customary, a powerful vision so quickly flashed in front of her that Karma didn't have time to prepare herself to obscure it. She flinched and took a step back. A sniff of jasmine filled her nostrils as she saw Jamal’s mom dancing happily at what looked like a wedding reception. She was wearing a long dark blue dress and waving her arms, tapping her feet as she swayed to Arabic pop music while her golden bracelets clicked together, making a chiming noise that still could be heard amid the loud music. She looked ecstatic. Whose wedding was this? Her son’s wedding? Was it Karma and Jamal’s wedding?

Karma’s mom quickly recognized the look on her daughter’s face and subtly shook her head, a signal to Karma to control her vision before she made a scene in front of her suitors.

Karma’s mom had already gathered all the info she could gather about Jamal, from friends of friends, cousins of cousins, and briefed Karma on them. Jamal, who was born in the city of Shifa in Bilaq but had moved to the United States when he was ten, had come to the country looking for a wife from his hometown. Acquaintances had told his mom about Karma, describing her as a decent girl from a good family, pretty and studious, an excellent homemaker who mostly kept to herself. They said that Karma had never strayed and told of her stellar reputation. A virgin, for sure. Never been touched. No question about that.

Karma wondered if Jamal’s mom had ever asked her elementary school classmates about her. What would they have said? That she claimed she had visions of the future and was sick in the head? Would Jamal’s mom have brushed it off as a child’s fantasy?

Jamal was tall with broad shoulders and had slicked-back, pitch-black hair and light brown eyes. He was clean-shaven with a baby face. When they visited, his mom did all the talking while he stayed quiet. Occasionally, he would look at Karma and smile. When Karma first laid her eyes on him, she thought he was handsome and felt butterflies in her stomach, a fuzzy feeling she had never experienced.

Jamal’s mom boasted to Karma’s parents about Jamal’s brilliance. “He was always an A+ student and got so many scholarships,” she said. “He was accepted into a top medical school, one of the best in the US, and now he’s a heart surgeon.”

Jamal’s Arabic was not perfect by any means, but he would occasionally use Arabic words here and there, and Karma would just smile when she would hear his Americanized pronunciation of Arabic words like “kawa” for coffee instead of gahwa. Karma’s English was decent, thanks to the private school her parents had enrolled her in - she was their only child, after all.

Karma’s mom talked about Karma like she wasn’t sitting right there. She told them of her accomplishments, like how she spoke excellent English because they had spent a lot of money on her schooling, and she had just graduated from business school. She also told them that Karma had always dreamt of having a family, excelled at making food, and wanted to start her restaurant someday.

“You should just try her magloubeh,” Karma’s mom said. “I can’t even match it. When she makes it, all our neighbors ask for a serving.”

“Mashallah!” responded Jamal’s mom.

“She has a secret mix of spices that she refuses to share with anyone, not even me!” said Karma’s mom.

Jamal’s mom smiled. “You must share it with your mother-in-law.” Karma blushed. Mother-in-law? Is this really happening?

“We can help her start her restaurant,” said Jamal’s mom. “But maybe after the children come and after they’re grown up a bit.”

“Of course! Karma loves children,” said her mom. “She’s healthy and has hardly been to a doctor. Her periods come right on time. She’ll be pregnant in no time, inshallah.”

Karma looked at Jamal, who stared at the floor. Was he embarrassed by this discussion as much as she was? From the slight blush on his face, she gathered all that talk about periods and pregnancies made him uncomfortable.

She liked him.

***

Karma and Jamal got engaged a week after the visit. Their courtship included going out to eat on three separate occasions.

Jamal opened up when they were alone. He asked her about her childhood. He asked her about her hobbies and her friends.

“I can’t wait to taste your food,” he said as he took a bite from the steak he had ordered for dinner.

She blushed and took a bite of her spaghetti. 

It was Karma’s first time at that restaurant, known for its high-quality food and expensive Western dishes.

“So, how did you learn how to cook that well?” he asked.

“The internet,” she said.

He took a sip of water. “Really? “Tell me more.”

“I watch YouTube and Instagram videos all the time,” she said slowly, hoping that her accent was not too thick for him to understand. “There is everything out there. All the Arabic food I like. Magloubeh, Mansaf, Mujaddara. All of it. They show you everything step by step.”

"Wow, maybe you can start your own YouTube channel one day. I can help set it up for you."

She smiled. “Inshallah,” she said as she felt her heart expanding from happiness. 

He’s so supportive, she thought. A Bilaqi-born husband would have made fun of her.

 Another dinner was followed by a movie where he held her hand in the dark, and she felt she couldn’t breathe from both excitement and embarrassment. Everything about him exhilarated her. She even loved that they looked alike. Same dark brown hair, same hazel eyes, same olive complexion. 

They got married a year later after her “fiancée visa” arrived. The church service was held at a Greek Orthodox church and attended by close family members. Karma’s mom was agitated the whole time, making Karma wonder if her mom was really having heart palpitations or if she hated going to church for some unknown reason.

Karma’s wedding ceremony was elaborate, attended by first, second, and third cousins, friends, and neighbors. Everyone danced to loud Arabic music well past midnight at a banquet hall at a five-star hotel in Bilaq. Jamal gave her diamond earrings, a diamond bracelet, and a diamond necklace as a wedding gift, and Karma couldn’t believe her luck, her fortune. He is handsome, kind and rich. What more could she ask for?

“Don’t ever wear them,” her mom told her. “You would lose them. Put them in a safe. You might need them when things get tough. In life, you can’t guarantee things.”

What would happen? Thought Karma.

Would we ever get divorced? No, I would have known by now if there were red flags. My mom is just being a paranoid, overprotective mom. But would Jamal leave me if he discovered my secret? 

They spent their wedding night at a hotel by the sea south of Bilaq. In their hotel room, she nervously slipped into the special, white satin lingerie her mom had packed for her. She’d heard horror stories of pain and blood during a woman’s first time. She’d even heard of women who had to spend their wedding night in the hospital because their husbands were too eager, too rough. But Jamal was kind and gentle, and he made sure she enjoyed every minute of the act until the moment of the ultimate submission when she became a woman. There was pain and blood, as expected, but the experience was far more enjoyable than she had imagined. And the best part: no visions came to her, despite all that touching and more.

Six months after the wedding, Karma was more than ready to move to the United States to be away from her mom, from her life in Bilaq. She needed a change. She was eager to be a wife and a mom. She was prepared to embrace the American life she admired, thanks to the countless hours she’d spent watching American entertainment. She wanted a single-family home instead of that dingy apartment she had lived in her entire life. She wanted the greenery in a beautiful, quiet suburban neighborhood. She wanted to stroll inside big malls and have big food portions. She wanted the big SUV and the long highways. She wanted to wear whatever she wanted; shorts, and sleeveless tops with flip-flops like the suburban women she had seen online. She wanted to show her skin without being given weird looks, or getting catcalled or, in some instances, pinched. 

 She even wanted to go to Walmart and Costco, places she’d only heard of in American sitcoms.

She wanted it all. The entire American dream.

At least, her version of the American dream.

As she said goodbye at the airport, she promised her mother one more time, “I’ll never tell Jamal about my visions. Never in a million years.”

“You’re a married woman now. You need to act like it,” said her mom in between her tears.

A middle-aged, Western-looking woman dragging a heavy carry-on bag passed by them, brushing Karma’s shoulder. Karma saw her at a bar drinking an alcoholic drink beside a man who had his hand on her thigh. She could see the lust emanating from both of their eyes.

Yes, she still got visions. But she was on the cusp of the American dream, a life with a successful, handsome husband. She wouldn’t risk any of that for the world. Jamal would never find out.

Karma’s married life was what she hoped for and more. Jamal was kind and hard-working. He worked long shifts at the hospital while she occupied herself with decorating the house and prepping meals. When Jamal was home, he was attentive and caring. He helped her with the housework, something she never saw her own father do, and on weekends they took long walks in the woods nearby, where they exchanged stories about their childhood.

“I never fit in,” he confided early in their marriage, squeezing her hand. “My looks. My parents with their accented English. The spicy food I brought to school lunch. I always felt like an outsider.”

Karma squeezed his hand back, reassuring him but also reassuring herself that it was safe to touch him without incident. “Really? That’s surprising. You’re just so American to me.”

He chuckled. “I’m glad I fooled you. Looks can be deceiving, but I’m different—no point pretending otherwise. My name, for one. I always dreaded the roll call on the first day of school.”

“But Jamal is such a normal name!” Karma exclaimed.

“You’d think so, but it’s not James or Nick or Sam or any of the easy names I wished I had when I was a kid. Then there’s the fact that I lived with my parents until I got married and that I kiss my mom’s hand every time I see her.” He brought Karma’s hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss into her knuckles.

How did she get so lucky?s

She felt a wave of joy travel across her body. “Honestly, babe. It’s only with you that I feel like myself. I can’t wait for us to have a family of our own soon. When that happens, this country will finally feel like home to me.”

“We’ll have a big family, inshallah,” said Karma, her cheeks hurting from smiling. “I’ll be happy with five children.”

He jerked back playfully. “Five! I’m not paying college tuition for five children,” said Jamal, laughing. “University is expensive here.”

She touched his face tenderly, her fingers tracing the familiar contour, and smiled. “Don’t worry. They will be very smart, and they’ll all get scholarships.”

Two deer jumped in front of them, startling them and ran to the creek nearby.

She shivered. Jamal wrapped his arms around her to warm her up. She relaxed against him and reveled in her new life.

Also unexpected, Jamal showered her with gifts. Flowers, perfumes, jewelry, chocolate. Like in a romantic movie, at least once a week, there was a surprise waiting for her. He would leave her presents around the house with a sweet note. KitKat, her favorite treat, on the pillow. Fresh flowers delivered to her door. A velvet box with a pair of delicate silver earrings in the car’s passenger seat. (She was relieved he didn’t share his mother’s taste for bold gold jewelry.)

“You look so beautiful today,” one of the notes said.

“Can’t wait to make love to you tonight,” another one said.

Such pampering was foreign to Karma, something she’d only seen in American movies. Her dad was kind to her mom, and Karma had very few memories of them fighting, but showering her with gifts was something that he didn’t do. Maybe because they never had much money, or maybe because, if he had done so, it would make him look as if he was controlled by his wife. He would be mocked by neighbors and family members as unmanly, lacking testicles. Men in Bilaq are supposed to be tough, distant and not slaves to their wife.

“How did you learn to be so romantic?” she asked when he handed her a dozen red flowers one evening when he returned home from work.

“I’ve been around,” he said, coming behind her to kiss her neck.

“Tell me,” she insisted.

“You don’t want to know.” She felt a sharp pang of jealousy twist in her gut, a cold, gnawing fear.. Would he ever leave me if I don’t satisfy him?

Their lovemaking was mostly silent but passionate. He always checked on her during the act and made sure she was comfortable.

“Is this good for you?” he’d ask, looking into her eyes. She wanted to turn away from his gaze, embarrassed but excited, stunned that he cared so much. He never broke eye contact with her during their lovemaking and even made sure the light was on, something she hadn’t been prepared for. “You’re so beautiful. I want to watch you feeling pleasure.”

Karma found herself slowly falling in love with him. Mama was right yet again. Jamal is wonderful.

True to her word, she’d never shared her secret with him—no matter how close they got or how many gifts he left her. She didn’t want to scare him away, to risk losing all she had with Jamal.

Strangely, she didn’t have any visions when she was around him. All the touching and lovemaking and . . . nothing. He was just one of those people who never gave her visions. All those years, and she still hadn’t figured out what triggered the visions in some and not others. Was it their blood type? The color of their hair? The color of their eyes?

Maybe she’d never know.

Settling into her new split-level house on Jasmine Drive with her new husband was exciting. She had a whole place to take care of and needed to learn so much about running an  American household. She’d lived her entire life in a tiny apartment in the city of Shifa in Bilaq. Now that she had so much space, she spent her days decorating, gardening, and learning. She added new words to her vocabulary like “perennials,” “compost,” “gutters,” “attic,” and “crawl space.”

When she wanted a break from decorating and gardening, she would FaceTime her mom (thanks to the iPhones Jamal gifted her whole family), and they would chat for hours about her new life in the US and how happy she was.

“Jamal is a great husband,” Karma bragged over the phone. She could see her mom in the living room, sitting in their worn out brown fabric sofa. Part of her wanted to be back in that apartment, sitting next to her mom, but the other part felt completely content where she was.

“I told you,” her mom said smiling. “I knew that from the first time I saw him.”

At five o’clock every afternoon, she would start dinner and wait for Jamal to come home. She made him all the dishes of her childhood: magloubeh (an upside-down rice dish), mujaddara (lentil and rice), musakhan (chicken with caramelized onions and sumac), and many, many more.

He always praised her. “Your food is even better than my mom’s. Please don’t tell her. She would disown me.” 

They laughed as he scooped a dollop of plain yogurt and put it atop of both their rice dishes.

Some nights he would stay late if there was an emergency at the hospital, so she would eat alone, then watch Netflix shows. She loved crime shows, especially those that happened in wealthy suburbs.

How do these well-to-do people who had everything they wanted end up messing up their life so badly? She couldn’t stop watching. One murder after the other. One tragedy after the other. What’s wrong with these people? 

She was blown away by the fact that these murders  were discussed so openly on TV. That the victims and sometimes the murderer were given the chance to tell their side of the story. She was also stunned by how the American judicial system functioned and how 12 ordinary citizens determined the fate of the defendant. 

Sometimes, she would stay up late reading eBooks on her Kindle (another gift from Jamal). She had recently discovered erotic novels and read them secretly when Jamal was not around or when he was beside her, sleeping. When Jamal would ask her what she was reading, she would say romance novels, and he never asked her more. The scenes in those books thrilled her, and she surprised herself by waking Jamal up in the middle of the night because she felt an irresistible need to have him inside of her. He happily obliged.

She had questions like, How could authors write these novels? Did they try all these sex moves in real life? Didn’t they have any shame? Had their mothers ever read their books? Nevertheless, she enjoyed them and wanted to read more. It was her dirty little secret.

The retired couple next door had brought her casseroles and flowers when she and Jamal first moved in, and occasionally, they gave her tomatoes from their gardens. They asked her to watch their house and water their plants while traveling. They exchanged house keys and put their names as emergency contacts in forms.

But despite the neighborly waves, they stopped short of being true friends.

She didn’t know where or how to make friends in the suburbs. Maybe that was okay. She had enough to do around the house, in addition to keeping up with all her favorite Netflix shows.

But he seemed to feel otherwise. He was reading the news on his phone while she browsed Netflix on the TV mounted on the wall across from their bed.

“Maybe you can take a class or join a gym,” suggested Jamal one night as they lay in bed. “Not like you need it. You’re gorgeous. Just to meet new people. Make friends.” “The gym is not really my thing,” she said while staring at the TV. “Paying money to move my body? No thanks. I’d rather walk for free.”

Jamal smiled and looked at her. “It’s okay, babe. We can afford it.”

She felt a point of pride that they didn’t have to worry about money. But she still didn’t like the idea. “Not for me.”

He put his phone down on the bedside table and then turned his head towards her. “How about you volunteer? Maybe at our local shelter?” he said, placing his hand on her thigh.

Turning off the TV, she looked at him. “Volunteering? You mean…work for free? Really, Jamal?”

He rolled his eyes. “You know, there is nothing wrong with that, but I give up.”

“Maybe I can get a job,” she suggested. “I can work at a bookstore. I love books.”

“Do you need to get a job?” said Jamal. “I work day and night so I can provide for you, so you won’t need anything.”

“I know, habibi. I thought maybe I could help with some of the bills.”

“No, babe. It’s not worth it,” he said, shaking his head.

Karma felt herself getting angry. What is he saying? Is he turning like one of those Bilaqi-raised men who preferred their wives to stay home to take care of the house and the kids. “You know, I’ve never had a job before. I married you right after college. I guess part of me wants to get that experience.”

Jamal tsked. “What experience? Work is overrated. Do you want to have a nasty, smelly boss, long shifts, and cranky customers? Why? Let me deal with this. You just be happy and pretty for me. That’s all I need,” he said, then took a lock of her wavy brown hair between his fingers and twirled it.

“You’re right,” she said, then covered herself with the down comforter and closed her eyes. Maybe he is really not that different from Bilaqi men. She sighed silently.

He scooched next to her, his thigh touching her thigh, then kissed her on the cheek. “You smell nice,” he said, slipping his hand between her legs.

Not now. She felt sore. They had already had sex that morning. An image of her mom wagging her index finger and saying, “Never deprive your husband,” flashed before her eyes. By the time that image was gone, Jamal was already on top of her, his manhood finding its way in while his right hand twisting one of her nipples. She could smell his minty toothpaste as he moaned in her ear, thrusting in and out of her. “Please don’t go to work and ruin that gorgeous body of yours.”

“How would work ruin my body?” she asked, almost out of breath.

“You will get varicose veins from standing up all the time, and your beautiful skin will suffer from all the stress,” he said between his moans.

She placed her arms around his neck, pushing him further inside her, and said, “I won’t, habibi, I won’t.” She thought about her mom when she unexpectedly felt her body convulse with pleasure as the first wave engulfed her, the second, and the third. She’s right. Never deprive a man.

Jamal was insistent that she find friends, but Karma’s isolation didn’t bother her that much. After all, she was used to being alone. She was an only child, and she avoided making friends growing up. Getting close to people was risky. They could learn about her visions and run away, the way Rula had rudely done all those years ago.

She had her books, shows, and housework. Soon enough, she would have kids to raise, and her life would have a higher purpose.

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

One day, almost half a year since she moved to the US, an older woman bumped into her at the library. Karma tried to stop the impending vision, but it forced its way in.

She saw the woman on the deck of a big ship, sipping drinks and chatting with three other women who all seemed to be enjoying their time as they looked at the ocean before them. Seagulls flew above their heads.

Looks like this woman will get to go on a lovely cruise soon. Lucky her! I guess there is happiness after seventy.

She thought of her mother’s aunt, Abla, who, at seventy, locked herself at home, refusing to leave the house because, as she told them, she was “waiting for death.” She was in perfect health but quickly deteriorated when she gave up on life. When she decided it was time to go simply because she was old. Going on a cruise at seventy was not in the books for Aunt Abla.

At least her first vision in ages wasn’t one of nightmares.

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P.S: If you enjoyed this chapter, I think you'll love my novel They Called Me Wyatt—a speculative murder mystery set in Jordan and the U.S. You can grab your copy here. Thank you so much for your support!

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This is a serialized novel. Please follow along:

• Prologue