Does My Head Look Big in This? (16 page)

“So your family’s traditional too?” Leila asks.

“We all speak Japanese at home and my parents made me learn Japanese dance when I was in primary school when all my friends were doing ballet or playing basketball. And my mum wears the
kimono
on special occasions.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“It’s Japanese traditional dress. What was weird was that when we went for a holiday over there a couple of years ago my aunts, who are older than my mum, were wearing more fashionable
kimonos
than her! They were really into the latest fashion and styles and there’s my mum with her taste from twenty years ago.”

“I can so identify with that,” Leila says. “My mum insists on wearing floral-print scarves with lace trimmings. My cousins gave her so much grief about them over in Turkey. They’re all wearing these gorgeous silk and satin materials with funky patterns and there’s my mum wearing what can pass off as a doily.”

“That’s slack,” Simone says, giggling.

“Seriously, my mum is in desperate need of a Fab Five rescue.”

“My mum wears pantyhose with open-toe shoes and draws in her eyebrows,” Eileen says. “They’re always smudged and crooked by the end of the day. Beat that.”

“Is it because your mum is religious?” Simone asks Leila. “Amal drums it into our head that all those Taliban-type traditions aren’t Islamic but it gets confusing sometimes.”

“It depends on what you mean by religious,” Leila answers. “Mum’s following her own customs more than Islam. She doesn’t really have an in-depth understanding about the religion, you know? Whereas my relatives in Turkey are all educated about Islam. The girls pray and some of them wear the veil and they go to university and work, because they know that it’s their right to do that in Islam. Mum’s more into following social customs.”

“Is that why she wants you to settle down and get married?” Simone asks.

“I suppose. I know she’s doing it because she loves me and in her own head what she wants for me is the right thing. But it’s just so frustrating! Especially her pep talks before a guy comes over!” She stands up and starts to impersonate her mum. “Leila, you are beautifuls and smarts. You can cook the vine leave and pide breads. Don’t let the man inside the lounge room make you feels you don’t deserves the best. But Leila, oh my daughter, please don’t talk smarts like you did the last times so he gets scared. Last times you told the man you believes all men are lazy and can irons the shirt if they try. Oh! No good, Leila!”

We all burst out laughing and Leila laughs along with us.

“So there you have it,” she says, plonking herself back on to the beanbag. “My mum, the matchmaker.”

“I’ll never have that problem,” Simone says matter-of-factly.

“What? Getting set up?” Leila asks, taking a bite of her slice of pizza. “Wannapieshe?”

“No, I’ve got this salad Amal’s mum made. The lettuce is especially appetizing.” Simone ordered pizza with us and then backed out when she looked up her pocket calorie counter. My mum made herself and Simone a big crispy salad with fetta cheese and savoy crackers instead.

“So what’s the deal with your parents?” Eileen asks Simone.

“Well, there’s no danger of my parents inviting people over and trying to get me to go out with their perfectly eligible sons. They’re always telling me I’ll never find a boyfriend until I lose weight.”

“Oh come off it, Simone!” Eileen cries. “No way!”

“Mum has her figure even after having my sister, Liz, and me. She is constantly complaining about how I’ll end up lonely and single if I’m not thinner and find myself a boyfriend. She seems to be embarrassed by me.”

We all stare back at Simone, horrified.

“When my sister and her boyfriend are over from Adelaide, I get this huge debriefing session from my mum. See, Liz’s boyfriend is really popular and apparently he’s got a lot of friends. So Mum always sits me down weeks before we know they’re coming and tries to persuade me to diet so I lose weight and impress him enough for him to set me up with one of his friends.”

We cry out reassuring words and compliments but it’s obvious that they don’t mean much in the end. She shrugs us off and continues picking at her salad. So we throw the pizza to the side, put on the radio and pull Simone off the bed.

“Come on!” I cry. “Let’s practise Tai Box moves. The ones we learnt in aerobics last year!”

Once the music gets started we spill over each other laughing as we perform our uncoordinated jabs and hook turns. Simone is yelling out names of people we should picture in our minds as we perform our uppercuts. Except she doesn’t really move on from Tia, Claire and Rita. And then Aretha Franklin’s song “Respect” starts playing and we’re dancing like we’re at a Grade Six slumber party, singing like we’re the final act at the ARIAs.

Simone starts singing at the top of her lungs.

“RESPECT! Tia needs to find out what it means to me! That snob! I hope she becomes a FAT
TY
. Ow! Yeah! A little respect!”

I’m sitting in home room on Monday morning fuming over a newspaper article about crime and “people of Middle Eastern appearance” when Tia walks up to my desk.

“Hey Amal, did you watch that interview with those girls who were raped by those Lebo Muslims? You must feel
so
ashamed.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you have any
feelings
?”

“The only thing I’m feeling right now is that artificial intelligence beats real stupidity.”

“
Funny
,” she says sarcastically and walks away.

Tuesday morning. I’m at my desk in home room, fuming over an article about terror suspects and “people of Middle Eastern appearance” when Tia walks up to my desk again.

“Hey Amal, how’s it going?” she asks in a sickly sweet voice. “Did you catch that doco on those Muslim fundamentalists last night? You’re Arab aren’t you? It must feel awful knowing you come from such a violent culture.”

“You know, Tia, I came across a book the other day. The shortest book in world history. It was called
My Thoughts
by Tia Tamos.”

For a moment she looks at me in mock-stunned silence, then she flips her hair and walks away.

Wednesday morning. I’m at my desk in home room, reading an article about Jennifer Lopez’s exercise regime, when Adam is suddenly in front of my desk, smiling down cheerfully at me.

“Hey Amal, what’s up?”

“Nothing much,” I answer.

“There was a mad doco last night on September 11. Man, they were showing how these guys were all religious and holy and shit. Spin out! Did you see it?”

I’ve had it. I try to think of daffodil meadows. The moment the ugly stepsisters realize Cinderella’s got the prince. Sunsets at the beach, the instant you take a bite of food after a day of fasting in Ramadan, and why people just won’t give me a break. Do they think I’m a walking ambassador, that because I’m wearing hijab I’m watching every single documentary about Islam?

I take a deep breath. “Look, Adam, sorry to disappoint you but just because I’m Muslim doesn’t mean I’m a walking TV guide for every ‘let’s deal with the Muslim dilemma’ documentary churned out.”

“Huh?”

“And why can’t you and other people get that you can’t be very holy if you’re going around blowing people to smithereens?”

“Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I just thought you might have seen it. I’ll let you chill.” He walks off and I bite my lip, feeling instantly guilty for lashing out at him. I jump up and run after him into the locker area.

“Hey,” I say.

He turns around and stares at me. “Yeah?”

“Look, Adam,” I say, “I’m sorry for losing my temper at you but try to see it from my perspective.”

“Which is?”

“It’s just . . . overwhelming. Do you have any idea how it feels to be me, a
Muslim
, today? I mean, just turn on the television, open a newspaper. There will be some feature article analysing, deconstructing, whipping up some theory about Islam and Muslims. Another chance to make
sense
of this
phenomenon
called ‘the Muslim’. It feels like you’re drowning in it all. And Tia has been having a go at me all week about it, so when you asked it was just wrong timing, you know? That’s why I lashed out.”

He runs his fingers through his hair. “OK, fine. I understand where you’re coming from. But you have to stop assuming I’m judging you. Look, maybe at first when you put your scarf on I went through all these different theories, but that’s all changed. Right now I’m judging you by whether you make me laugh and how smart you are and how annoying you can be when you have your smart-arse lines and go through your feminism moods and the way you’re so gutsy and stand up for yourself. All the other stuff means jack-all to me. So get it straight, OK? I like you because you’re a good friend. Not because you’re some interesting horticultural specimen.”

I give him a funny look. “You mean
anthropological
?”

We stare at each other and then break out into sheepish grins.

17

I
t’s the first anniversary of September 11. I wake up this morning to the screeching buzz of my alarm clock and want to throw it across my room. I’m so tired. I listen to tributes all morning as I get ready for school. Another bad hijab day means a long session in front of the mirror.

I remember when it happened. My whole family stayed up all night watching the scenes on television. It was horrific. All I could think about was how a powerful country like America, with people just like those who work down Bourke or Collins Street could be hit like that. I kept thinking about those people. Mucking around at work. Probably reading a funny email. Having a whinge about their boss around the coffee machine. Telling their partners when they’d be home for dinner. I know it sounds awful, but I felt confused. Because for some reason their deaths were more shocking and disgusting and numbing than all the deaths you normally read about and see on the news. You know how it is, you turn on the six o’clock news and there are people starving and countries bleeding and people dying for the right to freedom from occupation and dictatorship and what do you do? You tut-tut and sigh. Most times I flip over to
The Simpsons
. That’s what got me all confused and upset. Because I couldn’t stop bawling, watching the towers come down. It was a terrible thing to happen. And a terrible thing to realize that I don’t sit through the night crying when such horrors happen all the time.

I’m running late and miss my usual bus. When the next bus arrives I buy my ticket from a grumpy-looking driver who gives me a morning scowl as he hands me my change. The bus is full so I take a seat in the front row, diagonal to the driver, next to an elderly lady clutching an oversized canvas bag in one hand and a walking stick in the other. She’s drawn over her eyebrows in a line of thick black eyeliner. She’s wearing bright-pink lipstick. She’s got beautiful, high cheekbones that turn into small apricots when she smiles at me as I squeeze myself on to the seat, careful not to hit her feet with my bulky school backpack.

“Morning, dear,” she says in a cheerful, grandmotherly tone of voice.

“Good morning,” I say, smiling back at her.

“That’s a lovely shawl, dear.”

“Thank you,” I say, touched by the compliment.

“I was a young girl once too you know,” she says. “And I used to work in a lovely clothes factory. Some covered girls worked there too. And some of them used to wear shawls just as you do. Oh my, the different patterns and colours and styles . . . and of course we girls would be green with envy at lunch time because they used to bring such delicious, exotic lunches with them.” She chuckles as she remembers.

“We’d bring our boring ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches and, my goodness, they’d bring vine leaves stuffed with meat and rice or little fried
koftas
,
they called them. Mmm. And always so sharing!” she exclaims.

As we talk, I suddenly become aware that the volume of the radio has been raised so that it blares out through the bus. A voice on the early-morning talkback shouts words of outrage about “Muslims being violent”, and how “they’re all trouble”, and how “Australians are under threat of being attacked by these Koran-wielding people who want to sabotage our way of life and our values”. My face goes bright red, and my stomach turns as the bus driver eyeballs me through the reflection of the mirror, looking at me as though I am a living proof of everything being said. I feel almost faint with embarrassment as the angry voice blasts through the bus for everyone to hear.

The bus driver keeps watching me, and my face burns with shame. Shame that I have let him get to me.

I thought I was prepared for this. But here I am now, fighting back tears. The old lady beside me glances at me and I look away, focusing on a speck on the bus floor. When we stop at a traffic light she suddenly stands halfway up out of her seat.