Does My Head Look Big in This?

  Maybe he feels betrayed by me. I just thought we were becoming closer friends. But if he did sense that I had the hots for him and that I was sending out signals that I wanted to be with him then I feel like a hypocrite. I would have been playing with his mind. I would have been betraying my own faith too, because belief means nothing without action.

  It’s all very confusing and if it was the movies we’d probably kiss and make up and things would go back to normal. Except in our case it’s the kissing part that’s holding up the making up.

  Mr Pearse insists on taking photos of the teams and so we pose before him with sheepish smiles or I’m-too-cool-to-smile scowls. I survey the hall for my parents but don’t see them.

  Our adjudicator unlocks the hall and we file in. His face is a work of art: bright hazel eyes in a tanned canvas chiselled to perfection. He has dreadlocks down to his waist, an earring in his eyebrow and a stud earring in the cleft of his chin. Not really my look but he’s making Tia drool.

  Adam, Josh and I take a seat at the front of the room. The other side walks in. Three girls. Two of them look like they want to get intimate with a toilet bowl. The other looks so damn self-confident that I start to panic. Her lips are curled up in a smug half-smile, her head is up like she’s got a Granny Smith wedged between her chin and neck, and her chest is sticking out like overcooked puff pastry.

  The adjudicator raps his pen on the table and Mr Pearse and the teacher for the other side start their shooshing frenzy. At that moment my parents walk in and start waving to me like I’m on a boat departing to Tahiti instead of three metres away. I do a grimace mixed up with a grin and they get the message, stop waving and get the video camera out instead. I try not to self-combust from embarrassment until I notice two other parents with their cameras out too.

  The adjudicator starts to introduce himself. “Hi. My name is Timothy. I’ll skip a long intro. I study law. I’m in my second last year. Tonight’s topic is ‘Should Australia become a republic?’ On the affirmative is McCleans Grammar School and arguing in the negative is Barnia Girls. Good luck. First speaker start.” He flashes an utterly captivating grin at us.

  The first speaker, Emily, is pretty good. Adam and I write furiously, passing on rebuttal points to Josh, who’s flicking through our notes trying to decode our illegible hand-writing. Rebuttal is definitely the most challenging part about debating. The adjudicator is testing your ability to respond to the points raised by the speaker before you. You have to think on the spot and come up with an intelligent comeback line that conveys an argument beyond “I disagree with that point because it’s crap”.

  Emily gets a round of applause and I lock gazes with Simone and Eileen, who give me the thumbs-up. Josh is next, and after a few seconds of fumbling nerves during rebuttal, gets into the argument which he’s practised before, with a solid, aggressive voice and overly excited use of hand gestures, especially when he’s pointing to the other side like they’re vermin. He’s getting stuck in to it and Adam and I are getting conceited, thinking we’ve won. I glance sidelong at the other team and the puff pastry girl is hunched over her desk writing out her rebuttal. She looks up for a moment and our eyes connect. She gives me a scowl. I pull an arrogant face. She smirks and I narrow my eyes as I prepare to go for the rebuttal kill.

  I listen to the other side’s second speaker, Natalie, who rips through Josh’s speech but then delivers a performance two minutes under time. We’re about to break out in a hymn. She plonks herself down in her chair and scrunches her cards in her hands. Emily smiles reassuringly at her but the third speaker gives her a frustrated look. For a moment I feel sorry for her. But Mother Teresa departs from me within a second when I remember what I’m here for. To win over the adjudicator hunk and return victorious to Tia, I mean Ms Walsh, I mean my parents, I mean Mr Pearse, I mean my school. OK, to win, period.

  It’s Adam’s turn now and Josh slaps him encouragingly on the back. He gives me a nervous look and I cross my eyes at him and grin. His face relaxes. He stands up, takes a deep breath, and then proceeds to detonate the other side. He knows his palm cards by heart and doesn’t even have to so much as glance at them. He’s demanding backup to their claims, contradicting their arguments, trying to show them up as clueless wannabes more suited to a career in face painting than debating. We keep looking at the other side, taunting them with our smug nodding until I realize my turn is up soon and the butterflies start playing basketball in my stomach.

  The third speaker is Carmen, the smirking one. She is brilliant. Pulverizes Adam into dust. Makes Josh look like one of the Wiggles delivering a speech in Pig Latin. The audience stares back, open-mouthed. Mr Pearse looks on edge. His encouraging winks don’t fool us for a moment. My hand is cramping up as I go into a whirl writing out rebuttal points. I glance at the audience again and my eyes connect with Tia and for one second, one minuscule nanosecond, I detect we’re on the same wavelength: she’s also worried we’ll lose. It’s the only time we’re connected together against another object – not each other.

  Carmen doesn’t walk back to her chair. She glides as if on a red carpet. She’s just about to start doing a royal wave. Our eyes lock and then and there I decide that I want to do a combined Science and Law degree because one day I want to be wearing a wig in court, pulverizing my opponent too.

  I do the fastest internal recitation of some Koranic prayers, smooth my trousers and shirt out, stand up, position myself in front of the room, look out at everybody and debate.

  I’ve been injected with the formula for confidence and butt kicking. Not in spite of my hijab but because of it. Because I want to prove to everybody that it’s just a piece of material and that I’m here, representing my school, supporting my team, kicking some serious rear ends. Carmen had better scuttle herself off to the maid’s quarters because there isn’t going to be any royalty around here except our team. With every card I start believing that my team line symbolizes the holiest of truths. I go Chosen People on the other team. Mr Pearse is beaming with pride. My mum is trying to save her mascara. My dad is zooming in the lens, grinning wildly at me. Simone and Eileen are dangling off the edge of their seats, stuck in a permanent thumbs-up. Tia is covering her mouth with her hand, trying to stifle a smile. The dreadlocked hunk is writing out notes furiously and I finish my speech wishing that Leila had been here so that she could have seen that I tried to make her proud.

  We win the debate by one point and Carmen and I are tied best speakers. Unorthodox decision, but Timothy talked for fifteen minutes analysing our strengths and couldn’t make up his mind in the end.

  It’s quite possibly the best moment of my year. I am floating and Adam and Josh are grinning wildly. My parents are flashing their cameras and holding back woo hoos. Simone and Eileen are clapping after everybody else has stopped. I’m pretty sure Mr Pearse is having a this-is-why-I-became-a-teacher moment, because he’s gazing at us like we’ve sewn up the hole in the ozone layer. We all spend twenty minutes outside the classroom reliving moments, sharing our euphoria. It’s fantastic.

  My parents take me out for gelato in Lygon Street and make me feel even better, if that’s possible. So articulate, ya Amal. So persuasive. So confident. So needing a bigger scarf now that my head has expanded and is blocking the car’s rear window.

  I tell them I’ve finally worked out what I want to do at uni and that I’m thinking about whether I want to be a scientist with a law degree or a lawyer with a science degree. They hear law and go absolutely ga-ga on me. Just like your uncle! Another lawyer in the family! Oh how you will make us proud! What is it with parents and law degrees? It seems like a group of barristers and doctors patrol the maternity wards telling expectant parents that eternal bliss, the answers to all life’s mysteries, and honour and prestige will be granted to their children if they study law or medicine. Like society would really function if everybody were qualified to either cure the sick or sue the doctor.

/>   I call Leila’s mobile, but it’s still switched off. I ring her house but nobody answers. So I send her a text message anyway: HEY SWEET, MISS U 2 MUCH. GUESS WHAT? AM PUTTING LAW DOWN ON MY UNI PREFERENCES. MAYBE WE’LL BE IN CLASS 2GETHER AGAIN! WOULD BE GR8. I MISS U. SALAMS.

  I go to bed on a bit of a high. In the scheme of my life, it’s only a debate, right? But I feel like I’ve turned a corner tonight. Call it what you want. Proving myself. Competing as an equal. Living up to my potential. Whatever way you want to analyse it, I go to bed feeling like nothing can stop me.

  41

  I walk in our front door and the trampoline starts going in my chest again. Leila’s mum is sitting on the couch next to my mum. I stare at her. She stares back. My mum is throwing furious looks at me but I ignore her.

  “My daughter talking to you?”

  “No.” My mum tenses up and then hurls an ultimatum at me in Arabic to stop being so cruel and rude. I plonk myself down on a chair.

  “She hasn’t called,” I force out in as civil a voice as possible. She nods and I’m taken aback. I was expecting a long list of accusations. I notice her face. It’s so thin and drawn. It’s not just that she’s lost weight. There’s something else. It’s like the anger and tension have fallen away. There’s something so quiet about her face now.

  “I . . . no cope,” she says softly, looking at my mum.

  “I scared . . . I. . .” She coughs and my mum squeezes her hand.

  “Just tell me this, Aunty. You grew up without any freedom. So why do you want Leila to go through the same?”

  “Amal,” my mum whispers.

  Leila’s mum looks at me wearily and heaves a huge sigh. I’m dumbfounded. She should have at least cursed me to purgatory by now.

  “You think I no have freedom? I feel free. I have my own house and my own life and I happy. Why you always say bad thing about this? Why you judge me?”

  “Because you didn’t have choices, and now you want to take Leila’s choices away too. And that’s not what Islam is about.”

  “You think my culture I just throw away? It is my culture. It is me. All I know is how I grow up and what my mum taught me. It is my village culture and my family culture and my home culture. If you losing your culture you becoming nothing. Are you wanting have no culture?”

  “I’m picking and choosing what I like and what I don’t like. But Islam is where my rights come from, so if some crappy cultural rule says I have to chuck out my education or sit at home for life, then stuff it.” I’m expecting her to well and truly lose it now. But she simply sighs again and stands up.

  “I tired now,” she says to my mum. “I go home and sleep. My husband he try cook dinner tonight. He upset for me you know? So he say you rest, I cook.” She chuckles softly. “He no even know how boil the egg.”

  My mum smiles and hugs her and they walk across the room to the front hall. I look at her as I stand awkwardly in front of my chair. She turns back to look at me.

  “If Leila calling . . . just tell her I want her home. I . . . let her go school and we no talk marry now . . . just. . .” She stops and shrugs her shoulders, biting on her lip to distract attention away from her quivering chin.

  I don’t know what to say or do. She nods at me and turns back to my mum, kissing and hugging her goodbye.

  I sit down on the couch confused. I’ve never understood Leila’s mum and I’ve never wanted to. I always thought she resented Leila. All she did was yell and scream and criticize her. But tonight she didn’t even challenge me when I insulted her. And what’s even more staggering is that she’s actually compromising. Never in a million years could I have imagined her backing down.

  There’s something so different in her eyes now. Something maternal, and it’s a shock because I’ve never associated the word maternal with Leila’s mum. I’ve always understood her in terms of conflict and stress. Arguing with Leila, complaining about Hakan, fighting with Leila’s father, pressuring Yasmeen. All I saw was a bitter, backward woman who only cared about clean dishes, ironed tea towels and marrying her daughter off.

  But I think I was wrong. Somehow her love for Leila seems no less than my own mum’s love for me.

  I feel guilty. I never tried to bring Leila and her mum together. I never gave myself the chance to see things from Leila’s mum’s perspective and to understand her fears. It was easier to dismiss her as an ignorant villager. All those times I laughed behind her back with Yasmeen, ridiculed her paranoia about us being harassed on public transport or her obvious denial about Hakan.

  It’s not that I was arrogant. It’s the fact that I felt that somehow, because I’m being educated and brought up in an open-minded environment, I had the right to be arrogant and superior.

  All this time I’ve been walking around thinking I’ve become pious because I’ve made the difficult decision to wear the hijab. I’ve been assuming that now that I’m wearing it full-time, I’ve earned all my brownie points.

  But what’s the good of being true to your religion on the outside, if you don’t change what’s on the inside, where it really counts?

  I’ve been kidding myself. Putting on the hijab isn’t the end of the journey. It’s just the beginning of it.

  42

  Ramadan begins. We wake up at 3.45 a.m. to eat our suhoor, our pre-dawn meal. I can’t really stomach more than a slice of toast and a hot drink. My dad insists that I drink tea as it quenches the thirst. I’m up for any piece of advice, given I won’t be touching any food or drink, including water, from dawn until dusk.

  I remember my first Ramadan fast. I’d begged my mum to let me fast from dawn until dusk “like the grown-ups”. I was in Grade Four. She let me fast until recess. Ramadans passed and recess became lunch time, lunch time became an afternoon snack. Pretty soon I was fasting for the full haul.

  It took me some time to realize that Ramadan is not just about hunger and thirst. I guess that when we’re a McValue meal away from relieving a hunger pain in a world where millions of people are dying of starvation, empathy does more to your conscience than a news report.

  But there are pig-outs.

  Boy are there pig-outs. After-dusk gorges. I know it defeats the purpose, but after sixteen hours I’ve got meat and salad and bread and Tim Tams and cheese and tomato melted on Turkish toast and maklobe and tortellini and carrot cake and pizzas with the lot minus the lot and souvlaki and sitting under an ice cream tap with my mouth wide open. . . Pretty terrible, actually.

  I remember understanding what Ramadan was all about when I was in Grade Six, at a birthday party. It was the usual primary school scene: cake, fairy bread, chocolate, lollies, chips and not a single Muslim friend connected to my family who could lag on me if I cheated. It took half an hour and I caved. Big time. I wiped out the Mars bars, squashed CCs on top of my party pies and ravaged through the jelly beans. And then, when we were playing musical chairs and I was burping and hiccuping proof that I’d been a fat guts, I was overwhelmed with guilt. I broke down in tears, got disqualified from the game (I sat down to cry, which was considered hogging a chair) and went home early.

  But it kind of dawned on me then that at the end of the day nobody knows what I do behind closed doors. Except God. One of my all-time favourite verses in the Koran is when God says, “We have created man and know what his soul is whispering within him. We are closer to him than his jugular vein”.

  Boy does that verse give me the shivers. I think about my jugular vein, how it collects the blood from my head, runs it down my neck to unite with my other major veins, and I suddenly grasp how certain I am that God is watching over me. Sometimes I get this temptation to sneak into the kitchen and eat a biscuit, or to take a sip of water when I’m gargling my mouth. My parents won’t know. My friends wouldn’t have a clue. But I guess that’s just not the way it works.

  Despite Mrs Vaselli disapproving of my fasti
ng (she thinks it’s a waste of time given that I don’t have salvation) she’s insisted I visit her whenever I can after dinner to eat dessert with her. She always seems to be baking cakes now. When we’re polishing off a batch of scones I try to dig for news about how she’s going with her son.

  “Tings be good. It take time. But zey be good.”

  Naturally, I think this is an invitation for me to ask her a zillion questions. “What did he say when you called? Did you talk to his wife? When will he be visiting you?”

  She smiles quietly and tells me to help myself to more tea. “We starting new, Amal. It take time. . . Now you drinking more tea or you fainting at school tomorrow. Next year you trying Lent wiz me. Better for you.”

  “No problem, Mrs Vaselli,” I say and she grins at me.

  43

  “I think I’m going mental,” Simone says when she picks me up from my house for a walk in our local park after school. “Want to know why?”

  “Spill it.”

  “I think. . . I’m not sure. . . I mean, I could be wrong. . . I know I’m wrong . . . it’s just a guess—”

  “Simone.”

  “OK . . . do you think Josh might like . . . me?”

  “Well DOH!”

  Her eyes widen in surprise. “Really?”

  “Simone, stop being a Neanderthal, will you? It’s bloody obvious he’s interested in you!”

  “Well, OK, little things keep happening and I don’t know if they mean anything because I just can’t imagine that he’d like me.”

  “Stop! Have you got a pen and paper?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Just check your bag and I’ll check mine. Come on, let’s sit down over there at that bench.”