The manic cleaning is attributable to a special occasion at our house tonight. My father and Miss Sajda will recite the fatiha, the first chapter from the Koran, to formally announce and bless their intentions of marrying. My dad will then present Miss Sajda with jewelry and gifts. Aunt Sowsan and Uncle Ameen are also invited and my dad has planned a feast.
My dad has insisted that none of us, including Aunt Sowsan, cooks. Instead, he has ordered a lamb to roast on a spit and organized salads and various other dishes from a Lebanese caterer. He’s also arranged for trays of Arabic sweets to be delivered from a nearby patisserie. So there will be no pots and pans to wash and that keeps me humming merrily as I attend to my chores.
I still have mixed feelings about the whole thing. A part of me feels that being happy for my dad will somehow betray my mother’s memory. It’s a part of me that refuses to share this house with another woman. I can’t bear to think that there will be somebody else in the kitchen my mother cooked in, the living room she sat in, the hallway she walked in. Her fingerprints are everywhere and it’s as though Miss Sajda’s presence will rub them away forever. It’s not that Miss Sajda is the wrong person. It could be anyone. I would still be dealing with this gnawing uncertainty in the pit of my stomach.
Shereen tells me our mother would understand. “Dad waited seven years, Jamilah,” she says. “There were times he refused to even contemplate remarrying and argued with his friends. But we’ll leave this house one day and he’ll be alone. He deserves a second chance too.”
Aunt Sowsan insists that Miss Sajda would never dream of taking our mother’s place.
Their words are reassuring. They wrap around me like a warm blanket on a cold day. But just as there are moments of warmth, there are moments, underneath that blanket, when I find myself shivering and my teeth chattering. Maybe it will never be one emotion for me. Maybe life was never meant to be constant. I’ll have to deal with this new life and feel love and hate and annoyance and excitement and fear and courage many times over.
Dinner is typically colorful: everybody speaking over the top of one another, raucous laughter, Arabic jokes I don’t understand, Aunt Sowsan force-feeding us seconds and thirds, Shereen and I ganging up on Bilal when it comes time to clear the dishes.
And then there’s Dad and “Aunt” Sajda. The “aunt” is going to take practice. Throughout the night I see my dad take such pains to ensure that she has enough food on her plate, that her glass is never empty, that she is relaxed, that Shereen, Bilal, and I converse with her and make her feel at home.
After dinner, Miss Sajda bumps into me in the hallway, on her way to the bathroom. She smiles self-consciously at me and I smile back. There’s an awkward pause and I look down at the floor.
“I know this must be strange to you,” Miss Sajda says. “Jamilah, I just want to make your father happy. But I want to do that as his second wife, not as a replacement for his first, your mother, Alayirhamha. Please trust me.”
And I do.
Shortly after dessert we all sit down in the living room. During the recitation of the fatiha we ask God to bless my father and Miss Sajda’s commitment to each other. A lot of thoughts float through my mind. Most of them petty. I find myself wondering whether Miss Sajda will understand that I only use triple fluoride toothpaste and that Dad prefers Nescafé Gold Blend over Blend 43. I wonder whether I’ll have to endure a Saturday morning ritual of spring cleaning, whether she will interfere with my television viewing routine, and whether she’ll be able to convince my father to quit smoking.
I find myself wondering about all these tiny, silly things at a time when I probably should be reflecting on the meaning of life, the power of God and love, and the tender way my dad presents Miss Sajda with a gift set of jewelry.
But then, as the night draws on and I see my dad’s wrinkled forehead stretch out in laughter and the creases around his eyes crinkle whenever he catches Miss Sajda’s eyes and smiles affectionately at her, I find myself wondering something else: How could I ever deny him the joy of no longer feeling lonely?
44
I DON’T WANT TO sound like a whiner. Maybe you think the whole “Who Am I?” identity question is about as interesting as a biology assignment on the mating habits of blue-tongued lizards. But listen up. It’s the type of question that can keep me awake at night as I stare at moving shadows on my wall and pretend that they’re ghosts dancing at a nightclub. It’s the kind of question that makes me feel like a berry in a jar of Fruits of the Forest jam who wonders what burst of goodness and flavor she’ll bring to the whole jam-and-toast experience.
All I want to know is what place I have in this country I call home. It all comes down to emotional real estate. Finding your place, renovating it as you go along (a haircut here, a university degree there), and having neighborly relations with other property owners.
So far, I’ve figured that dyeing my hair blonde, poking my eyes with contact lenses, and living a lie at school all guarantee me a share in the Australian property market. But I’m starting to realize how empty my bit of “place” is. It’s got no soul. The cosmetics are fantastic and would look great on domain.com. But you can’t smell life. It tastes like stale cookies and sounds like socks on carpet.
So I think I’m going to do something about it. I’m going to fix things with Amy. I’m going to forgive Timothy. And I’m going to risk it all and play in the band.
I call Amy on Sunday morning and invite her over.
She rings the doorbell three hours later. Bilal, who is washing his car in the driveway and admiring his chest in his side mirrors, yells out at me through the window to answer the door. I open the door and Amy is standing on the porch.
“Your brother?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Hot,” she whispers, grinning at me.
“Shh! He might hear you and then I’ll be forced to hire a crane to help his neck support his big head.”
She steps in and I take a deep breath. My identity colors every wall, decorates every corner. But I’m ready for this. I’m ready to trust.
I lead her to my bedroom. We pass the Koranic inscriptions hanging on the walls. The argeela sitting in the hallway corner. My dad has the radio playing loudly in the background, sounding out Arabic folk songs.
She throws her shoes off, sits down on my bed, and crosses her legs underneath her. We go through my CD collection and my father knocks on my bedroom door.
He’s been working in his veggie garden in the backyard and his tartan shirt and faded gray tracksuit pants with the tight ankle elastic and his masseur slippers are flecked with soil. As he steps into my room I get a whiff of mint—he has mint leaves lodged in his hair.
“This is Amy. From school.”
“Hi,” she says.
My father smiles warmly at her and says, in his thick accent: “It so lovely to having one of Jamilah’s friends here in our house! Jamilah never bringing her friend here. Welcome!”
He says my name and I look uneasily at Amy, wondering if she’s noticed.
“Thanks,” she says, looking up and smiling brightly at my father. “Have you been gardening?”
“Yes, I looking very, how to say…?” He looks down at his clothes and looks up at us, a grin on his face. “Armano Versaco…?”
“Oh boy,” I moan, throwing my face in my hands.
“Anyway, I leave you both. Jamilah looking like she swallowing a cockroach. I knowing when adult no welcome.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“I go back to my vegetables. They no talk back to me or rolling their eyes.”
“Dad!”
He chuckles, clearly enjoying my reddening face. “Amy, you stay for dinner? We order pizza, OK?”
“Thanks. That would be nice.”
“You are the first friend I meet of Jamilah, would you believe?”
“Dad,” I mutter. “Can we have some privacy now please?”
“Yes, yes, OK.”
?
??He can be a bit of a dork at times,” I say, when he leaves the room.
“He seems nice…So do you want to watch a DVD? Or watch your brother wash his car?”
I throw a cushion at her. “Yuck! Get over him, please! I’ll help you out. He leaves the toilet seat up, never picks his wet towels off the floor, and burps at the table. Anyway…that’s not why I invited you over.”
“I guess mooning over your brother wouldn’t be a motivation for you.”
“I invited you over because…” I pause and take a deep breath. “You’re going to hate me…” I look down at my lap and wring my hands nervously.
“What is it?”
“I’ve been…lying to you. I’ve never been up-front with you, Amy. All this time I’ve tried to hide my identity because I’ve been so worried about how people would judge me.”
“Judge you? Why?”
“This is going to sound so dumb…”
“Go on.”
“I’m Lebanese-Muslim. My name’s Jamilah, not Jamie.” I slump down into my chair and groan, my face hidden by my hands. “I’ve been hiding myself for a long time.”
I can’t believe I’ve admitted it out loud. The relief floods through me but is instantly swept away by panic. Panic that Amy will no longer want to be my friend. I look over at her, shamefaced, hoping she won’t despise me for it.
“So what?”
I’ve spent so long predicting her reaction that her rejection of me is permanently imprinted in my mind, like a hand print in wet concrete. I stare at her, openmouthed, not daring to think I might have been wrong. “Huh?”
“I don’t get it. Why would you hide that from me when it’s no big deal?”
So I explain it to her. Paint her a picture of my world. A world of headlines and documentaries and summits and bad press. A world of stereotypes and generalizations. A world in which I’m a perfect target for Peter’s racist game of archery. And she looks at me calmly and asks what any of that has to do with her.
I fumble around for the right words. How do you tell somebody that you were foolish enough to think them shallow? It doesn’t go down too well. In fact, she’s outraged.
“Do you really think I’m that superficial?”
“I’m sorry, OK? I was afraid and it was easier to think everybody would respond in the same way.”
As soon as I say it I realize how misguided I’ve been. I’ve been so afraid of people’s generalizations. But I’ve been just as guilty of making my own.
“If you knew me well enough, you’d know I’d never be that unfair.”
“It’s not like we’ve ever been close,” I say defensively. “Until Liz became glued to Sam, I always felt like the third wheel with you both.”
“That’s because you were constantly blowing us off every time we made plans to go out.”
“I didn’t want you to know that I’m not allowed to go out. My dad’s really strict. I felt embarrassed to admit it.”
“So all those times you canceled and backed out, it was because you weren’t allowed?”
“…Yes.”
“And you couldn’t tell me that?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I didn’t want you and Liz to assume it was because I was some poor, oppressed Lebanese-Muslim girl. I’m so over that stereotype.”
Her face tenses up and she takes in a deep breath. “Is that the type of person you think I am?”
“I’m sorry…”
“Well, I’m not that shallow.”
“It took a while for me to wake up to myself and realize that.”
“Why didn’t you invite Liz?”
“Because it didn’t take a long time for me to realize that she is.”
She sighs heavily, absentmindedly opening and closing a CD case lying on my bed. “Forget her. She’s changed. And why? To be with a guy who goes into hysterics over Peter farting in somebody’s face.”
“I could have been like that.”
“What? You’d fart in somebody’s face?”
She grins at me and her magnanimity in the face of my unfair assumptions overwhelms me.
“I could have been like Liz. How many times did Peter make fun of Ahmed and the others? I didn’t say anything.”
“You shouldn’t be ashamed of who you are,” she says. “And forget Peter. He has the intelligence of cardboard. Look at Ahmed, Danielle, Paul. They don’t let anybody make them feel inferior.”
Honesty is liberating. And tough. And worth it. It’s weights and bricks and cement blocks off your shoulders. It’s an orthopedic remedy. You can suddenly stand straight and tall again. I tell Amy everything because I’m learning to trust again. I tell her my complete family history. My mother dying. My father changing. The good times with him. And the bad. Miss Sajda and new beginnings. I tell her that Shereen has a heart and conscience larger than she can sometimes bear. That Bilal’s full of double negatives and bad grammar but nobody can fix an engine the way he can or stand by his sisters in the way he does. I tell her about not being allowed to go to the formal. And about the band.
“You should still play!”
“I’m going to…but please don’t tell anybody at school. About anything…”
“When will you be yourself?”
“When I’m ready. Swear you won’t tell anyone? I need time.”
She shakes her head, clearly disappointed. “Time for what?”
“I trust you. I need to learn how to trust in myself. Swear? Please?”
“OK, I swear…Jamilah.”
I smile. “I don’t look like a Jamie, do I?”
She gives me a cheeky grin. “Come to think of it, no, you don’t.”
“Bleach and blue contacts. Not exactly Jamilah material, huh?”
“Well, you always forgot the eyebrows. Crucial mistake.”
We laugh. Big fat belly laughs. Ones that sing inside of you like sopranos on a sugar high.
“Can I ask you something?” I say when we’ve regained our breath.
“Shoot.”
“Why have you been so sad lately?”
Give and take. I’m down on my knees, working hard to try to move those parallel train tracks. Twisting and shifting the metal to make them intersect. Meet halfway.
She looks at me in surprise and shrugs. “Just…stuff.”
I won’t have it. I won’t have us running in the same direction on different tracks any more. “What kind of stuff?” I press. “Is it family?”
She nods slowly.
“Why couldn’t you open up to me?”
“We’ve never discussed family before. Actually, we’ve never really discussed anything meaningful.”
“I hate that.”
“Me too.”
“I need some meaning.”
“Me too.”
“So what’s going on?”
She sighs deeply and cups her chin in her hands, leaning her elbows against her thighs.
“You’re not the only one with image pressures. I’ve been worried about how people will react when they know that I now come from a broken home.”
“Broken?”
“My parents have separated,” she says softly. “My dad moved out to an apartment in Granville. I’m still at home with Mom but I’ll have to decide who I want to live with permanently…My family has collapsed…”
Her chin starts to quiver and I jump up and hug her tightly, feeling thoroughly ashamed of myself. I hold her for ages, letting her cry against my shoulder. I let her tell me about slammed doors and TV dinners. Sleeping pills and silence so loud it deafens. How her father and mother fell out of love and into hate. That there were days she stared at the shadows on her walls, feeling utterly alone. That there were times she resented me for not forcing her to talk, for not being there. And suddenly I realize that true friends are those who love you not in spite of your faults and imperfections, but because of them.
45
“SO HAVE YOU got a date?” Peter asks Paul loudly as we wait for the teacher to arrive. “Or coul
dn’t you find anybody who’d accept payment?”
“Shut it, Peter,” Paul says. “You think you’re funny but you put me to sleep.”
The rest of the class gets caught up in the excitement of a confrontation and turns to watch Peter in action.
“Oooh, is that the best you’ve got?” Peter taunts. “Why don’t you ask Tina from Applied Math? Fat chicks will take anybody.”
He high-fives Sam and they collapse over their egos. Timothy walks into class and their radar shifts.
“Who are you taking, Goldfish?” Peter asks. “I don’t think even a fat chick would lower her standards for you.”
“Really?” he says. “Then why did your mom say yes?” The class erupts into laughter and Peter looks furious.
“You piece of crap. Don’t even go there.”
“I don’t like going to a lot of places, Peter, but you’re the one handing out the invitations.”
Some of us stare in awe at Timothy. Hardly anybody has the ability to rile Peter the way Timothy does.
“Come up close and say it to my face,” Peter says.
“Your butt cheeks aren’t the ideal exposure for my complexion.”
I stare at Timothy and I feel proud. Proud to know him. Lucky to have befriended him. Ashamed to have doubted him. This is a guy with spunk. His confidence doesn’t come at the expense of others in the way it does with Peter. It lights up from within. He’s taught me to only care about people that matter.
He’s one of those people. He’s one of my best friends. And I’m going to get him back.
Miss Sajda is at our house for coffee tonight. We spend time discussing how we can get Dad out of the musk habit and to a department store aftershave counter. My dad is refusing to budge and changes the topic to their wed ding plans.
It’s going to be a low-key affair in a couple of months’ time. They’re renting a tent in our backyard and inviting about fifty or so family friends. As we’re discussing the flower arrangements, Bilal walks into the living room, the tele phone in his hand.