Does My Head Look Big in This?

  “Hey?” Eileen says forcefully, interrupting my panic attack and grabbing my arm in support. “Relax.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I say with a nervous laugh.

  “Shit,” Simone says. “Everyone’s so skinny. Look at those three girls standing over there. They look like they’ve had a good binge today. Three peas and half a capsicum.” She fiddles self-consciously with her top, pulling it down and adjusting her trousers.

  “They look like they need World Vision support. One dollar a day. Let’s sponsor them.” But I’m also fiddling self-consciously with my top, wondering if I look OK, if I can get away with a veil among all these cool people.

  “You both look like you’re about to jump out of a plane without a parachute,” Eileen says, standing in front of us. “Both of you relax. These people are nothing in the scale of your lives. You’re both gorgeous and look hot and I’m dying for a slice of mud cake so quit the panic attacks and let’s get a table.”

  “Ooh yum, mud cake.” Simone instantly brightens up.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” I say. “I’m just imagining them all naked.”

  “Isn’t that a sin?” Eileen says as we make our way to the entrance.

  “I’m sure God will consider this an exception.” I look around the café as we wait to be ushered to a table. Maybe it was stupid of me to come. I look so out of place. I mean, I’ve worked on the whole trendy clothes and accessories thing, but you add a hijab and you might as well be wearing a kilt. I can see some people narrowing their eyes as they look up from their conversations and take notice of me.

  Imagine them naked. Imagine them naked.

  Ray is suddenly before us, looking me directly in the eye. Somehow I don’t think God will consider him an exception.

  “Amal?” he ventures.

  You’d think I’d grown a toe on my nose. I’ve got two options. Weak, spineless, passive twit. Or over-the-top, confident, Priscilla Queen-style hello.

  “Hi, Ray!” I squeal with exaggerated warmth. “How are you?”

  He looks confused. He should too. My voice is so high-pitched I’m in danger of breaking the windows.

  “Can’t complain.”

  “That’s great! So what’s new?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Me either! Same old.”

  Eileen and Simone put him out of his misery and ask for a lounge table.

  “I’ll check if there’s one available,” he says with relief. “Follow me.”

  We follow him, and I keep my head high, avoiding eye contact with the people staring at me as we walk across the floor. We sit at a lounge table and Ray takes our order. He seems very formal, no joking around, no conversation, just “Would you like syrup with that?” and then he abruptly leaves to place our order.

  “Amal!” Eileen says, doubling over with laughter. “You spun him out. He’s probably wondering what cult you joined!”

  “Better than the one he did. What’s he gone and done to his goatee? He looks like he shaved in the dark.”

  “Strawberry tarts and skinny hot chocolates,” Simone interrupts, snorting. “Really cancels out our calorie intake.”

  We talk for ages. About everything: school, guys, politics, our parents, what we want to do when we finish, whether Catherine Zeta-Jones has had surgery.

  When I’m home in bed later that night, it occurs to me that all it’s taken is a couple of good friends and a lot of chocolate to make me forget I’m the “girl who wears hijab”. So I take Craig David’s album out of my CD player and go to bed listening to Destiny’s Child “I’m a Survivor” instead.

  “I need new clothes,” I wail to Yasmeen on the phone. I can almost sense her eyes lighting up on the other end.

  “Done,” she says, in her let’s-get-down-to-business-and-talk-shopping tone. “Bridge Road, Chapel Street and the city. Tomorrow. Meet at Bridge at ten. Work our way from there. Wear comfy shoes. Work out what colour scarves you’ve got so we can mix and match. Also, bags. Have to match your bags to your veil. Tell you what, write a list of all your scarf and bag colours. Shoes if you want as well, but I recommend a triple S be conducted separately, to give it the full attention it deserves.”

  “What on earth’s a triple S?”

  “Duh. Shoe shopping spree.”

  “You need help.”

  “No, my dear, you do. And we’re going to help you transform your look. I’ll tell Leila. Get plenty of rest tonight. See you tomorrow.”

  Our shopping spree is cancelled because Leila’s mum woke up this morning and decided to lose all her brain cells and get by purely on liquid membrane.

  Leila’s been crying on speaker phone to my mum and me all morning. Her mum is refusing to let her go out with us because: a) there’s housework to do; b) they have visitors this evening, one of whom is apparently single and “eligible”; and c) she’s a “disgrace”, wanting to go out and about in the streets with her scarf on.

  My mum is furious but is doing her best to calm Leila down. I’m just about ready to report Leila’s mum to immigration.

  Grounds for deportation: stupidity.

  Alternative country: none. No nationality deserves her. Send her to Mars.

  “I don’t get it!” I wail after we hang up the phone.

  “Neither do I, darling,” she says with a heavy sigh.

  “How can someone so idiotic produce somebody like Leila?”

  “Don’t be rude, Amal. Gulchin is older than you and you should talk with respect.”

  “Get serious! She doesn’t deserve it.” I pace around the living room in a rage. “A disgrace,” I mimic. “Oh how scandalous. Leila goes shopping. Ooh, she’s got a first-class ticket to hell now.”

  “Come here,” my mum says gently, opening her arms to me. I sigh, dropping myself down on the couch and nuzzling my head in her chest. She draws me closer and gives me a hug.

  “Amal, it’s naïve to think that because somebody is ignorant they are a bad person. I feel so much for Leila because I know that she understands that she can be all she wants to be, not in spite of Islam, but because of it.”

  “It’s her mum’s stupid fault.”

  “Amal, Gulchin’s just trying to bring up Leila in the only way she knows how. She married young. She never had the opportunity to gain an education. She can’t read. She can’t write. Her world has always been about raising her children and looking after her home. There’s nothing wrong with that, if that’s what she chooses.”

  “Yeah, but she’s forcing it on Leila!”

  “Which is wrong. But try to expand your mind and think about things from other people’s perspectives. Everything is relative. If you want to understand a problem you look at its cause. You don’t look at its manifestation.”

  “How is that supposed to make Leila feel better?”

  She sighs, playing with my hair. “God knows. . . Sometimes, Amal, people are paralysed by their traditions and customs. It’s all they know, so you can’t judge them for following and believing what they know.”

  “Come off it, Mum! Any moron would realize that she’s following her village’s culture, not Islam. So for her to go around and tell the world it’s Islam when it’s the exact opposite is so dumb!”

  “Yes, I know that. But from her point of view I believe she thinks she is simply trying to protect Leila.”

  “Protect her from what? It’s a crappy shopping spree!”

  “Everybody’s scared of what they don’t know, Amal.”

  I tilt my head back and roll my eyes at my mum. She gives me an exasperated look in return.

  “You still have a lot to learn, darling,” she says.

  “Oh puh-lease don’t give me that line, Mum!” She smiles and hugs me even tighter.

  I don’t care about understanding Leila’s mum. I’m not interested in all that psychology crap. As fa
r as I’m concerned, if you want to think you’re going to heaven because you reckon guys should go to school and get to do what they want but girls have to stay home till they’re ready to be married, then piss off. I don’t care why you don’t know any better. When you have a kid who knows more about your religion than you do and is smart enough to be anything she wants, then in my book you lose your right to excuses.

  “So what happened with the man of your mum’s dreams?” I ask Leila.

  She’s at my place for dinner tonight. On her mum’s condition that we don’t leave the house or ring boys.

  “He was actually really cute.”

  “You serious?”

  “Yeah. Cute, funny, perfect English, just finished Medicine at the American University of Beirut.”

  “Oh, so he qualifies for ‘Suitable Marriage Prospects’.”

  “Pretty much.” We roll our eyes.

  “She just doesn’t get it,” Leila says softly.

  “I know, Leila,” I reassure her, squeezing her hand.

  “I’m sixteen for God’s sake! I’m not in some village in the mountains where there’s nothing else to do but get married. She thinks that because I want to be a lawyer, I’m never going to get married. Hey, remember that time she wanted to pull me out of Hidaya? At the end of Year Ten?”

  “How could I forget? Mr Aziz spoke with your parents, didn’t he?”

  “He came over to my house and spent the whole night banging his head against the wall trying to change her mind. It worked though. He was such a cool principal.”

  “Why do you think she’s like this? I don’t get it.”

  “Who knows?”

  “Well . . . what were your grandparents like?”

  “Poor. They could only afford to send one of the kids to school. My eldest uncle got to go and the rest of my uncles and aunts missed out.”

  “When did your mum get married?”

  “I think she was about sixteen. They came here after she had Hakan. Why the hell should I live out her pathetic life?”

  “It’s so crap.”

  “I mean, which way do you turn? According to my mum, the normal thing is to get married; according to everybody else out there, the normal thing is to get drunk, lose your virginity to somebody you speak to once at a party, and become ‘liberated’ or, like, whatever.”

  I shrug my shoulders.

  “And what makes me freak out the most is that everything I do which she goes crazy about, she brings back to her backward interpretation of Islam. You want career – you bad Muslim girl! You no want to marry – how you be good wife? You wear hijab, but you talk to boys at school. She thinks being a lawyer is an evil, twisted ambition. Thinks I want to make money from lying.” We roll our eyes and groan.

  “Do I look like a bimbo to you?” she continues. “I didn’t wear the hijab because she wanted me to. I’m going by what I feel is right and what I know about my faith. Like I’d really follow something that locked me in the house to cook and clean.

  “Do you know my mum hasn’t even read the Koran? She goes on what her mum told her and what her mum’s mum told her. That’s her scripture.” She gives me a grim smile. “It’s like talking to somebody from another planet. She’s the one offending Islam,” she whispers. “Not me.”

  9

  My dad’s discovered Internet jokes and email forwards. He’s become obsessed.

  I’m shovelling down my cereal, trying to finish breakfast before my bus arrives. He walks in, gives me a kiss good morning, and starts making himself some toast. My mum has already left for work.

  “Ask me if I’m going to work this morning.” He grins at me.

  “Huh?” I manage through a mouthful of cornflakes.

  “Ask me if I’m going to work.”

  “Is this a trick question?”

  “No! Just ask me.”

  “OK. . . Dad, are you going to work today?”

  He stands up, excited. “I might as well work. I’m in a bad mood anyway.”

  He’s about to collapse with laughter, then sees me looking at him like he’s grown a third ear.

  “Don’t you get it?”

  “You got Uncle Tariq’s Garfield forward, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah I did! It’s brilliant. Did you ever have one of those days where you only had one nerve left . . . and someone got on it?”

  “Yeah,” I say, putting my bowl in the sink. “But it was a morning.” He grins at me and goes to ruffle my hair.

  “Dad! You wrecked my scarf!” I run to the hallway mirror in a panic and am on a rescue mission of the front curve.

  “Looks like you had two nerves.” He laughs, taking a bite out of his toast.

  Every month we have Forum, when the SRC (the Student Representative Council) reps chair a Year Eleven meeting and we all have a whinge and discuss important stuff that’s going on at school.

  Our school captain is a Year Twelve girl called Lara. Paul, who’s in Year Eleven, is vice. Paul’s pretty popular and good-natured. He’s into his sports, gets good marks, generally gets along with everybody. Lara, on the other hand, is unbelievably pompous and seems to think that her SRC captaincy equates to a position in the House of Representatives. She also has a habit of singling people out to “share their views” with the rest of the group whenever a topic comes up for discussion, which doesn’t sit well with the shy, quiet types who sit as far back as possible to avoid her asking them what they think about putting Ambi-pur plugs in the gym locker rooms.

  At Forum today she announces that the DAV (Debaters’ Association of Victoria) interschool debating competition starts up in two months and they’re beginning to work out which teams will represent Year Eleven.

  The DAV is a State-based debating competition where schools registered with the association debate against each other. There are five debates all up and the competition is open from Year Seven to Year Twelve and held once a month at selected school campuses across Melbourne. The topics are set by the association and they can range from whether chewing gum should be banned from school to whether fish have memories to whether America should have invaded Iraq. A notice has been posted on the board in our home room for anybody interested in putting their name down.

  In my PHE (Pre Hijab Era) I would have raced to put my name down on the list. But now I’m not so sure.

  Afterwards Adam approaches me as I’m gathering my books.

  “Do you debate?” he asks.

  “A little. I was on the Year Nine team at my other school. How about you?”

  “Yeah. So are you putting your name down?”

  “Maybe. I have to think about it.”

  “Why?”

  “Just . . . because.”

  “Because why?”

  “It’s a bit more complicated for me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because . . . well, you know. . .” I feel a blush creeping from my neck to my cheeks and I beg it to stop, to drain away.

  He looks confused. “Nah. What are you on about?”

  I cough and try to explain. “My . . . hijab.”

  He scratches his head. “Nope. Sorry. You’ve lost me. Is it a sin to debate or something?”

  I burst out laughing. “No! Of course not!”

  “What then?”

  “Well, I’m kind of . . . nervous.”

  “You? Nervous? Man, you’ve got more bloody balls than any girl I’ve ever known!”

  “You’ve known some weird girls then,” I say, raising an eyebrow at him.

  “OK, guts. You’ve got more guts than any girl I’ve ever known. What the hell are you scared about?”

  He thinks I’m gutsy! Woo hoo!

  “You know what those debates are like. I don’t know if I’m ready to get up in front of an audience made up of other rich private schools. They?
??ll just stare at me and not listen to a word I say as they try to get over their shock that I know English.”

  “So?”

  “What do you mean, so?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Because I just do.”

  “OK, then prove them wrong. If anybody can, it’s you.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “No. It’s what I know.”

  Somebody get me an asthma pump. And I don’t even have asthma.

  “Do you know what you want to do at uni?” Eileen asks me later that night when I’m over at her house for a study session.

  “Not really. Maybe something to do with science; maybe become a lollipop lady. Who knows? I can’t work it out yet. It’s too stressful. What about you?”

  “My parents want me to do economics and commerce.”

  “Do you want to?”

  “Yuk. I want to do something creative. Like graphics, or art, or fashion design.”

  “They’d have a fit, right?”

  “Oh yes, they will be so disappointed if I don’t pursue a more ‘respectable profession’, as they put it, such as medicine or pharmacy or optometry. My ambitions are just an arty-farty waste of time and money. Amal, some people, like you, will probably have to fight the world to get where they want. Other people, like me, will have to fight their families. Sheez, I don’t know which is worse.”

  “You’ll persuade them,” I say. “You’re so strong and . . . stable.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sometimes the thought of taking off my hijab crosses my mind. I guess because it’s still new to me. How inconsistent is that?”

  “Don’t be silly. There are times I freak out about exams and uni and all that stuff. And there are times I’m ready to take on my parents, the vegetable and animal kingdom, the solar system, the entire universe. No one can be gutsy all the time. Imagine how obnoxious and snotty they’d be.”