When Michael Met Mina

  There are decorations on every last inch of the restaurant walls: large stitched fabrics decorated with dangling swords as tassels; a huge Afghan rug depicting some of the sultans from the Ottoman Empire; a wooden cabinet filled with silver or wooden camels, tea and coffee sets, daggers and prayer beads. The centrepiece is a large golden throne with deep crimson upholstery. There is a huge sign behind it, Kabul Kitchen, in shiny gold calligraphy.

  ‘And we are putting a sign to encourage people to take a photo sitting on the throne and then post it on Facebook and Instagram,’ Baba says triumphantly.

  I look at him, gobsmacked.

  ‘The interior designer advised us,’ he hastily explains.

  I grin at him. ‘Will there be a belly dancer? I can handle gold calligraphy but please no belly dancer.’

  ‘That was the one thing we said no to.’

  Who would have thought? A silver lining among all the kitsch gold.

  *

  Within two hours of opening, we’ve got enough customers to keep the kitchen busy. I’m helping behind the counter and Mum is in the kitchen with Baba and Irfan. I’ve just taken a photo for a couple sitting on the throne when Baba approaches me and asks me to check on Mum in the bathroom. He looks worried and I rush to the ladies. I find her bent over a toilet bowl, vomiting.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  I wet some paper towels and help her clean herself up. She washes her face, wets the crown of her head and pulls her beautiful thick hair into a ponytail.

  She stands in front of me, panting slightly.

  ‘I feel old,’ she says wearily.

  ‘Mum,’ I scold. ‘You’re thirty-three, you just threw your guts up and you still look beautiful. Give it up.’

  ‘I’m having a baby.’ She stands there, grinning at me.

  ‘What?’ I lunge at her and give her a massive hug. I’m thrilled and feel like doing cartwheels around the restaurant. I’m surprised too. I’d given up on the idea of a baby a while back. Within the first few years of Mum and Baba marrying, I’d hoped for a brother or sister. Mum and Baba had their hopes high too. As time went on, and they murmured to each other about God’s will, I resigned myself to being an only child. So the news that it’s going to happen, after all this time, brings tears of joy to my eyes.

  Mum hugs me tightly and then gently pushes me away. ‘Sorry. I smell like vomit. I need to go home and shower.’ She giggles. ‘Oh, Mina, I’m sorry I had to tell you here, in a bathroom. I told Baba not to send for you. But he panics. Some nausea because I smelt the meat and he wants to send for an ambulance.’

  I laugh. ‘How many weeks are you?’

  ‘Almost three months.’ She puts her hijab back on, adjusts it around her head. ‘Come on, we can talk about it at home later, in more dignified surroundings.’

  Baba is pacing outside the bathroom door. ‘Are you okay?’ he asks anxiously when we emerge.

  He looks at Mum with such tenderness and concern that my insides go all funny. There was a time when all Mum and I wanted was a safe place to live. We didn’t dare to hope we could find happiness. It had been hard for a long time. Everything was different. Mum used to tell me, Being in a new country is like learning to walk with a prosthetic. It takes time for the body and mind to adjust. I caught her crying alone often enough to wonder how much time it would take. Things got better when she started doing some courses at TAFE outreach and making friends. That’s how she met Baba, through one of the Afghan women doing the same sewing class. I was nine when Baba came into our lives and I wanted so badly to hate him. But it was impossible. He never tried to replace my father. He would sit and watch cartoons with me for hours. He rarely asked me to change the channel, and seemed happy just watching with me, laughing along sometimes too. I didn’t know then what had happened to him back home.

  I can’t believe I’m going to be a big sister again. It seems a lifetime ago when I was in the camp in Pakistan, rocking my three-month-old baby brother, Hasan, to sleep, trying to find him powdered milk and clean bottles because my mother’s milk had dried up. The water was dirty; there was never enough formula. He cried a lot. We all did. Except my mum. She was possessed of something I didn’t understand. A strength that both comforted and terrified me.

  Hasan died quietly. Just slipped away in his sleep one afternoon, a couple of months before we found the boat that brought us to Australia. It’s hard to admit even to myself, but I can’t remember what his face looked like. The realisation of that cuts me to the bone. Sometimes if I concentrate hard enough I can just make out a nose or mouth, but the image is always blurred.

  Michael

  Nathan’s sprawled on my bed, playing on his iPad and telling me about his latest Minecraft creation while I do my homework. After an hour, Dad knocks on my door.

  ‘Hey, Michael, are you busy?’ He hovers in my doorway.

  ‘You’re home early.’

  ‘I have the AGM tonight. Any chance you can come along? Take the minutes?’

  ‘What’s in it for me?’

  He cocks his head to the side. ‘Thai food and doughnuts?’

  ‘Sold!’

  ‘You come cheap,’ he says with a laugh.

  ‘I want jam doughnuts,’ Nathan calls out.

  ‘Already ordered them,’ Dad says.

  ‘Hey, did you dye your hair?’ I take a closer look at him.

  ‘Yes. I’ve got a public persona now. Media can be brutal. Everything counts.’ He raises his hand to his head, self-conscious. ‘Too dark?’

  I try not to laugh at him but he’s grinning at me anyway.

  *

  The AGM is at the local RSL. I recognise some familiar faces, people my parents are particularly close to.

  There’s Li Chee, born in China, migrated to Australia in the late sixties. Totally against increased migration and boat people. Dad tells me that Li has been useful for spreading the organisation’s message in the local Chinese newspapers. Margaret and Jeremy Thompson live on the Central Coast, and knew my grandfather there. Jeremy’s retired now, and they spend a lot of their time volunteering in community clubs. There’s Kahn Chatha, born in India. He worked in Saudi Arabia for two years before immigrating to Australia and therefore has street cred and assumes the role of resident expert on all things Islam. Carolina and Andrew Jameson have known Dad the longest. Andrew and Dad went to uni together and boarded in the same college. Carolina is a librarian at one of the top boys’ private schools in North Sydney. Andrew works as the manager of the IT support team at a big city marketing firm. He’s big on conspiracy theories, and probably the most hardcore of Dad’s friends. He also has a disturbingly enormous black birthmark on his right cheek, with one protruding long hair. Encounters are fraught with where-do-I-look anxiety.

  ‘So, you’re Alan’s son?’ a guy called Laurie asks me as I sit at a desk waiting for the meeting to start.

  ‘Yep. That would be me. The firstborn.’

  ‘Pleasure to meet you.’ He shakes my hand enthusiastically. ‘Here, let me give you my card. It’s got the website for my blog on it. Read my latest post. It’s all about how Obama’s a Muslim and really the love child of Malcolm X.’

  ‘Um. Okay.’

  ‘I’m currently working on a piece on the Muslim boy in One Direction. He was sending subliminal conversion messages to young girls whenever he tweeted. Had to quit before he got caught out.’

  I stare at him, wondering if he’s pulling my leg. The look on his face tells me he’s dead serious. I make up a story, excuse myself, and track down Mum.

  ‘Who is that Laurie guy? He’s nuts!’

  Mum half-smiles. ‘He’s more on the fringe. You’ll come across people like that. But we don’t want to turn anybody away. It’s a free country.’

  ‘One Direction as a sharia plot? That’s pretty funny.’

  She smiles. ‘He’s not id
eal, I know. But, well, it takes all sorts to spread our message.’

  We’re interrupted with an announcement that the meeting is about to start. There are about sixty people here. Dad’s fan base has increased.

  Dad’s on fire tonight. The audience cheers him on when he speaks about potential terrorists hiding among boat people. They clap when he warns about the Islamisation of Australia with halal food labels on jars of Vegemite. He talks about how the economy can’t sustain further immigration. He demands that moderate Muslims stop their silence over radicals.

  A round of applause, enthusiastic nodding of heads. I’m recording the minutes, ‘One Thing’ playing on repeat in my head thanks to blog-man.

  ‘Most of us here are old enough to remember a different Australia,’ my dad says when the crowd has quietened down. ‘An Australia where it was safe for kids to play on the streets, where neighbours looked out for each other, said g’day and Merry Christmas without fear of offending. An Australia where Judeo-Christian values were the norm. When there was no threat of a clash of civilisations.’

  He ends with a call for people who come to this country to ‘assimilate’, and there’s thunderous applause. Mum grins at him with adoration. Nathan’s in his own world, engrossed in a Tom Clancy thriller. I’m typing furiously.

  When it’s time to mingle, Dad pulls me aside and introduces me to Kyle Hudson, director of a boutique architecture firm in the city.

  ‘Kyle’s pretty much promised me that once you start uni you can work part-time at his firm.’

  I do everything in my power to muster a grateful smile.

  ‘Most of the big law firms hire me in hearings as an expert witness in their property insurance cases,’ Kyle says. ‘So we do a lot of expert reports. Big money in that. It’s a good, solid career, and from what your dad has told me, you’re more than up to the challenge.’

  I thank them.

  Profusely.

  Exaggerate my enthusiasm.

  Pretend to be excited by the bright future they see ahead of me.

  Ignore the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  Mina

  Paula texts me as I arrive at school.

  Public service announcement from Route 419 Bus:

  Student: ‘Man, I can’t believe it’s 2015. 2010 was six years ago!’

  PS Round the corner now. Meet me in the café?

  *

  Today Ms Parkinson instructs us to get into groups for a shared task. I’m with Jane, Leica, Paula, Cameron and Adrian. We’re supposed to be discussing a passage from Emma but Jane’s distracted. Apparently at recess she was at the counter at the café buying a juice but was short on money. Terrence was standing behind her in the queue and gave her the shortfall. Then, on the way to class now, he passed her in the hallway and made a point to smile at her.

  ‘He smiled with his eyes,’ she whispers. ‘It wasn’t just, like, some facial twitch. He meant it.’

  Adrian is chewing on the end of his pen, a bewildered expression on his face. ‘I don’t get it.’

  Cameron, who’s busy looking through the book trying to find quotes to answer the questions, says in a deadpan tone: ‘Jane’s doing that let’s-overanalyse-things that girls do.’

  Leica pulls a face at Cameron. ‘Don’t be mean.’

  ‘You know it’s true,’ he says, not looking up from the book.

  ‘One day he smiles at me, the next day he ignores me,’ Jane says softly, in case anyone overhears. ‘Can I help it if I’m trying to read into it?’

  Adrian shakes his head. ‘It must be exhausting being a girl.’

  ‘Yeah, using your brain can be a workout,’ Leica jokes.

  ‘Guys use their brains,’ Adrian says. ‘We just don’t have deep and meaningfuls about whether giving somebody fifty cents so they don’t miss out on buying a juice is a love declaration.’

  ‘Can we get back to Emma and Mr Knightley?’ Cameron says. Cameron’s got absolutely no problem embracing his inner nerd.

  We’re discussing whether Emma was right to interfere in Robert Martin’s marriage proposal to Harriet when Terrence gets up to throw something in the bin (well, actually, he threw it from across the room and missed and Ms Parkinson yelled at him). He winks at Jane on his way back.

  Jane tries to play it cool but I’m guessing there’s some serious cardiac activity going on at this moment.

  ‘See,’ she says to us through clenched teeth. ‘Still think I’m making it up?’

  Adrian shrugs. ‘Isn’t it just easier to not think about it until he actually asks you out? What’s the point?’

  Cameron lets out a laugh. ‘Yeah right.’

  ‘Or how about you just forget about him altogether?’ Paula tells Jane when the bell rings and we’re packing away our books.

  ‘Why would I do that?’ Jane says. ‘I like him.’

  I can’t help myself. ‘For his personality?’ I say incredulously.

  Jane rolls her eyes. ‘I know he picks on you both sometimes. And he’s been totally out of line with you, Mina.’

  ‘Wow. But not with me?’ Paula says, eyes flashing.

  Jane thinks for a moment, searching for the right words. ‘Maybe if you just, you know, tone it down a little.’

  ‘Sure. I can do that,’ Paula says. ‘I’ll stop being myself to make it easier for Terrence to resist acting like an arsehole.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it that way.’

  ‘Why do people always say that?’ I murmur.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Paula says. ‘Really. Congratulations on your taste in guys.’

  Jane, wounded, walks off slowly by herself.

  *

  It comes as a complete shock when Mr Morello pairs Michael and me for an assignment. We have to vox pop five strangers about how they define Australian culture.

  ‘At least he’s cute,’ Paula whispers to me.

  ‘Dark brooding eyes and a dimple can only get a person so far.’

  ‘What? You’ve been keeping an inventory of his looks? That doesn’t sound like indifference to me.’

  I hit her playfully on the shoulder. ‘Morello’s leaning against his chair again. There’s muscle flexing. Lap it up.’

  Michael walks up to me after class. ‘So. Morello can do irony, hey?’

  ‘Looks like it. So when do you want to do it?’

  ‘Hey, Mina, steady now. You move fast!’ Terrence bursts out laughing.

  My face reddens.

  Michael growls at Terrence to shut up.

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ Terrence says, not maliciously, but insincerely. I’m still trying to figure him out. He’s part malevolent douchebag, part class clown.

  He walks off with Fred, still laughing.

  I’m too embarrassed and angry to hang around to talk to Michael about the assignment. I turn on my heels and walk out of the classroom.

  Michael

  I find myself stealing glances Mina’s way in English, watching her laugh and chat with Paula or Cameron. I try to concentrate but my feelings are clumsy, like untied shoelaces I keep tripping over.

  I walk into the library and find her sitting near the window reading, her legs propped up on a chair in front of her. I approach her, nervous for some stupid reason. But not for a second am I going to show it.

  I slide into the seat across from her and put my bag down on the desk.

  ‘Hey.’

  She eyes me warily.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say.

  ‘For what?’ she snaps.

  I don’t get her. I feel like giving her a Dummies’ Guide to Teenage Boys and informing her that:

  a. Boys don’t apologise easily.

  b. Girls are usually impressed when a boy apologises.

  c. Ergo be impressed with
me.

  She’s staring at me, waiting for me to respond.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry for what I said in our first class, but you’ve already rejected that apology. And I guess I’m sorry for the fight . . . but I’m not sure why really, seeing as you had nothing to do with it. But still you’re making me feel guilty for some strange reason, so that’s another apology you can reject. And I’m sorry for Terrence, which you have also managed to throw back in my face.’

  ‘I don’t get you,’ is her response.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘One minute you’re reject the refugees! The next minute you’re oh but I still feel sorry for them. Then you’re defending a guy who refers to Indigenous Australians as Abos and in quote marks. Terrence may be a smug idiot, but at least he knows it and owns it.’

  I’m slightly annoyed now. ‘Look, can we not do the personality analysis thing?’

  She raises her eyebrows at me but doesn’t respond.

  I take it as a cue to change the subject. ‘So how about we do the vox pop in the Village? That’s the main hub.’

  ‘Fine, fine. So what day are you free to meet?’

  ‘How about Sunday morning?’

  ‘Yeah, I can do that.’

  ‘Do you know the area well? You’re new here, aren’t you? You’ve moved here from Auburn, right?’

  ‘Yep.’ I pick up a hint of defiance in her tone. It’s as though she’s challenging me to say something. ‘Been there before? Or are you a strictly North Shore kind of guy?’

  ‘I’ve been to Parramatta.’

  ‘You brave boy, you. Did you wear a bulletproof vest?’

  I can’t help but laugh. ‘You know, you have a deceptively laidback vibe about you until you open your mouth.’

  ‘So I’m completely out of line in making that assumption?’

  ‘Totally,’ I lie.

  God help me if she knows what my parents and their mates say about south Western Sydney. Ethnic ghettos. No-go lands. People stick to their own kind.

  The bell rings.