Does My Head Look Big in This? (26 page)

If that’s not bad enough, my mum consoles me by promising me I’m going through a teenage crush, a phase I’ll “grow out of”. Like I want to hear adult clichés when Adam is flirting with someone else in Biology right in front of my eyes.

Lara approaches me during the week and asks me, in her “I’m such a dynamic school captain” tone of voice, whether I’d be willing to give a speech in our next Forum meeting on the topic of Islam and terrorism.

“It’ll be really valuable, Amal. I mean, what those Muslims did in Bali was so horrible, so if you could explain to everybody why they did it and how Islam justifies it, we could all try to understand. What do you think?”

“I think
no
.”

“No? Oh, come on, Amal!
Please.
It’ll really spice up our next Forum meeting. Everybody’s got loads of questions and you’re the perfect one to answer them.”

“Why? Because I’m Muslim?”

“Yeah, obviously.” She gives me a “well, duh” expression. Why do I have to deal with this? I feel like my head is permanently stuck inside an oven. Every time something happens in the world, and the politicians start barking out about Islamic terrorists and the journalists start their flashing headlines, it’s as though they’re turning up the oven heat dial. My head starts to roast and burn and I need air, coolness, somebody to keep me from exploding.

“You’re Christian, right?”

“. . .Yeah . . . what’s that got to do with anything?”

“OK, well I’ll give the speech if you give a speech about the Ku Klux Klan.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, why not? They were really religious, so obviously what they did was textbook Christianity, right? And how about those Israeli soldiers bombing Palestinian homes or shooting kids?”

“Hey, you don’t have to—”

“And while we’re at it, maybe somebody else could talk about the IRA. Remember we covered a bit of it in Legal Studies last term? I’m just
dying
to understand how the Bible could allow people to throw bombs and still go to church.” I can feel a red flush staining my face as I take heavier, angrier breaths. I fold my arms across my chest and stare at Lara’s face.

She looks taken aback and coughs self-consciously. “Look, I didn’t mean to offend you, OK? I just thought . . . well they’re Muslim and stuff and the news is going on about it, so I thought because you’re Muslim you could. . .”

I sigh and my anger suddenly evaporates as I sense the sincerity in her voice. “Yeah, but Lara, Muslim is just a label for them. In the end, they’re nutcases who exploded bombs and killed people. It’s politics. How can any religion preach something so horrific?”

“I guess. . .”

“And if you want me to talk on their behalf and act as though they’re a part of me, what are you telling me you think about
me
?”

“I . . . I. . .”

“Look, just . . . never mind . . . sorry . . . I can’t do it.”

She shrugs and seems to be struggling to understand. “OK, Amal. . . Hey, again, sorry if I upset you or anything. . . I really didn’t mean to.” She goes to touch my shoulder and smiles reassuringly at me. I don’t know why, but the tenderness and warmth of her smile affects me. It gets right down into my throat, my veins, my capillaries. I smile back at her. In her own way, I feel as though she’s turning the oven dial down.

31

I
t’s Leila’s seventeenth birthday on Saturday and Yasmeen and I are organizing a surprise dinner at a restaurant on Chapel Street in Toorak. The only problem is convincing Leila’s mum. Yasmeen wants me to make the call. Given Yasmeen is on her Heretics to Convert List, it probably makes sense.

Before I call, Yasmeen’s on the phone to me, offering last-minute tips.

“Make sure you emphasize it’s a
surprise
party,” she warns me. “Otherwise, she’ll blame Leila for the idea and go mental at her.”

“OK.”

“Actually, don’t call it a party,” she adds. “Say it’s a . . . get-together . . . or a gathering.”

“This is painful,” I groan.

“We have got to do this. For Leila’s sake. If she’s cooped up at home with her mother on her birthday I reckon there’ll be a manslaughter.”

“OK, I know, I know. I’ll ring now.”

When I telephone Leila’s house her dad answers.

“Allo?” he says in his thick accent.

“Er . . . hi, Uncle . . . er . . . is Aunty there?”

“Who is it?”

“It’s Amal.”

“Allo, Amal. How are you?”

“I’m good, thanks. How are you?”

“Good. I get Aunty for you.”

After a minute or two she comes to the phone.

“Amal?”

“Hi, Aunty.”

“Ahh! Amal! How you are?”

“I’m fine, thanks, Aunty. How are you?”

“Oh, no good. No good, Amal. All I do is clean, clean, clean. And my children? They so messy. Ah! My migraine from these children. They no care about their mum. Leila no help me. Every day in her room, study those books. Every day, books, books, books! Oof. She no help me like I help my mum when I was girl. How she be housewife one day, I no know. I no know. Oof. Make me very angry.”

I dig my nails into my palms.

“She reject good man for marriage last month. Can you believe? She think good man come all time? I no understand what these books do to her mind. Ya Allah! If only God show her right path, she stop—”

I interrupt her because if I hear one more word I’m going to vomit my lunch. So I sink my nails deeper into my palms and start to kiss butt.

“Er, Aunty. It’s Leila’s birthday next Saturday.”

“Yes. I know.
Seventeen
. She no get any younger. She getting old and look at her rejecting—”

“The
girls
and I want to organize a
dinner.
A
sit-down
dinner where we
eat
and
talk
.
We want to give her presents and buy her dinner so she can sit in a nice place with us and
eat
and
talk
. You’d like that for Leila, wouldn’t you?”

I hold my breath, squeezing my eyes closed, desperate for her to agree. This is some major butt-kissing.

“Eh? Where this dinner? Your house?”

I cough and take a deep breath in. “Um, it’s at a restaurant. The food is beautiful there. Very nice place. Families and married people go there to eat dinner.”

I shudder as I hear myself. I don’t think I’ve ever sounded so thoroughly idiotic.

“Restaurant? You go in day?”

“Er . . . no, it’s for dinner.”

“Dinner? No, no, NO. Leila no go at night.”

“Please, Aunty?” I beg. I’ve gone straight into third gear The grovelling state. “It’s something she’ll love. It’s a very respectable restaurant and we won’t be back late. We promise. She’ll be home by ten thirty. Please, Aunty? It’s her
birthday
.”

“No. Leila no go out at night. I no want my daughter bring shame on family. Walking streets at night. Like disgrace. You have dinner in house OK. But outside? Impossible. If people saw her! They talk! What shame.”

My heart is squashed up in my socks as I agree to change our plans to dinner at my place.

Leila rings me that night.

“We’re going to Chapel.”

“What? How do you know about it?!”

“Mum spilled it. I can’t take this crap any more. I know I’m not doing anything wrong.”

“But . . . what if . . . Leila, what if she finds out? She’ll go ballistic!”

“Completely ballistic.”

“It’s too risky.”

“I’m going insane. She’s twisting it all around. Driving me crazy. And Dad spends twenty-four/seven at the factory or he’s at home on the couch, smoking his Marlboro and watching the Turkish version of
Candid Camera
on satellite. We don’t mix with other people. Everybody is a ‘bad’ influence. I met this woman at the mosque on the weekend. She’s a med student. I told her she should come over for a coffee. Mum flipped it. Said it was shameful that a Muslim girl would study medicine and look at male bodies! Can you believe it?

“And my brother, Hakan? He gets to do whatever he likes. He’s changed his name to Sam and I’m the one with cultural denial! He got home at four in the morning yesterday and she had food wrapped in foil for him in case he was hungry. Yeah, I’m guessing he would have worked up an appetite considering he’d probably drunk the bar dry. Oh, but mention to her that her son drinks like an alcoholic and she conveniently forgets that’s one of the biggest sins. And what about his bimbo girlfriend? He picked her up at some bar and she comes over with half her tits hanging out for the world to see, and my mum lets him get away with it! He doesn’t even have enough respect for his family to ask her to put a cardigan on in front of my mum and dad. It’s sick. Her idea of telling him off is,
Oh Hakan, find good girl and settle down
.
But then she’ll laugh when he brags about how his girlfriend’s crazy about him. I don’t know what that bimbo sees in him. And I know he smokes pot because he comes home high sometimes and my mum thinks he’s just had a hard day at work. They all make me sick! I don’t understand how I have a genetic connection with them.”

“What if she calls my parents?” I ask anxiously.

“I’ll tell her to call my mobile because we’ll be on the net and using the phone line. I’ll tell her we’re on an online Turkish match-making chat room trying to find me a potential husband. That’ll make her happy.”

The next day at school I’m walking through the hallway when I see Adam bouncing a basketball on his way out of the building. He looks at me awkwardly, I look back at him awkwardly and then we both look away awkwardly. Then something really embarrassing happens. He goes to walk to my right, but I think he’s going to walk to my left. We do the right/left thing two more times and I’m so mortified I want to melt to the floor quicker than a biscuit dunked in Milo. Then, as he’s about to walk out of the door, something comes over me and I yell out for him to wait a minute.

“
What?
”
he asks impatiently.

“What is it with you lately?”

“What are you on about?”

“Oh, so it’s all in my head, is it? Some
chick
thing, hey?”

“Give me a break, Amal. I don’t know what you’re on about.”

“How about you cut
me
some slack, hey? You’ve been acting so up yourself lately. I didn’t mean to . . . I mean it wasn’t about me rejecting you. This is who I am. This is what I believe in. Does that give you the right to ignore me? Why have you been acting like I’m some stranger?”

“I haven’t.”

“Yes you have.”

“Have not.”

“Have
so
.”

“Amal, do you think I’m going to walk around like a wuss just because you didn’t – because of what happened at my party? So I tried to kiss you and you didn’t want to because your religion says you can’t have a normal relationship with a guy before you find
the one
.
That’s fine and good luck to you. It’s your life. I mean, it was something that just happened in the moment so don’t stress, I’m really
very
over it.”

“Oh. . .”

This is the wrong moment to be speechless. Where is my comeback line?
Come on brain
.

“Anyway,” he says, shuffling his feet impatiently, “the guys are waiting for me out on the court.”

“Mmm. . .”

This is just treacherous. My brain has totally betrayed me
.

After he leaves I rush to the toilets and lock myself in a cubicle and fight back stupid, pathetic tears. It seems my body is in total traitor mode. My chin realizes I need to stay composed and it does the wobbling thing. My tear ducts know that I can’t return to class with red puffy eyes and they insist on going Niagara Falls on me.

As I’m washing my face, Tia and Rita walk in. They see me and their conversation immediately comes to a halt.

“What’s wrong?” Rita asks with concern.

Not.

“Yeah.” Tia says. “What’s up with you?”

I take a deep breath and turn the taps off. “Why don’t you both go back to doing what you’re good at? Go give somebody an eating disorder, spin some rumours, sacrifice an animal to the devil, but just piss off.”

“You know, Amal,” Tia says, “you’ve got the worst temper.”