The Garden of My Imaan (6 page)

After Winnie left, I went upstairs to my room. I kicked off my shoes and lay down in my bed. Zayd was watching TV downstairs and Badi Amma was in her room. Amma had run out to pick a few things from the grocery store. Except for the faint sound of the TV, it was pretty quiet in the house.

I held my body still and closed my eyes for a while. Then I got up and went to my desk. I rummaged in the top drawer for a notebook and pencil, and started to write.

I snapped the notebook shut and went downstairs to watch TV with my brother.

Invitations

H
ey!” I called out when Carly boarded the bus on Monday. “You’re back!” She waved at me and plopped into a seat up front. I didn’t get another chance to talk to her until we were at our lockers.

“You’ve been gone forever,” I said. “Are you feeling better now?”

“Yup.”

“I’m so glad you’re back. I sent you a get-well card.”

“I got it.” She sounded tired. “Thanks.”

“I bet you can’t wait to do something fun now that you’re better, like maybe celebrate somehow?” I was hoping to jog her memory about the party invitation.

But Carly only said, “You’re not kidding!” She coughed in the crook of her arm and headed into homeroom, leaving me to stare at her back.

“Why didn’t she mention her party?” I asked Winnie.

“Just go ahead and ask,” she told me, but I shook my head.

Winnie threw up her arms. “I can’t believe you. All you have to do is
ask
her.”

“You ask,” I pleaded. “Please, please, please? Promise me?”

Winnie let out a dramatic sigh. “You are such a chicken! Okay, cross my heart!” She marched into homeroom and headed straight for Carly’s desk.

“Is Aliya invited?” she asked her, just like that.

“Invited?” Carly sounded confused.

That was a bad sign. I held my breath. Maybe Carly’s illness had made her forgetful?

“To your party, silly,” Winnie prompted.

“Er …” Carly looked uncomfortable. “Um …”

“What?” Winnie pressed on. “Is she invited? Yes or no?”

Carly tugged at her hair, twisting her body nervously.

I pulled at Winnie’s arm. “It’s okay,” I whispered. “Drop it.”

But Winnie didn’t drop it. “You mean Aliya’s not invited?”

“Winnie!” I hissed, getting hot in the face. “I don’t mind, really.”

Carly’s face was red too. “Um … it’s just that … er … my mom said I could only pick six kids because the day spa is expensive and … um … It was hard to include everybody, you know?” she offered weakly. “I’m really, really sorry, Aliya.”

“No worries,” I said. “I couldn’t come anyway. You know … Ramadan and all?”

“Oh yes, Ramadan.” Carly sounded relieved. “So it’s okay with you then?”

“Sure thing,” I said. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

I was in a terrible mood by the end of the day. As I walked out to the bus, Marwa ran up. I didn’t really want to talk to her but it was too late. She was already beside me.

“Hi, Aliya,” she said. “Have you decided?”

“About what?”

“About having iftar with me?”

“I didn’t have a lot of time to think about it,” I said.

“I guess you’re going to Carly’s party then.”

I searched her face, but saw no trace of sarcasm. “I haven’t had time to think about that either.”

“You can still come if you want,” Marwa said. “I asked Maggie and Sarah too. I thought it would be nice for them to see what an iftar is all about.”

I couldn’t believe she said that so easily. Maggie and Sarah were practically strangers and she was inviting them to her home for something as different as an iftar!

“Um … I guess so,” I mumbled. “Here’s my bus. I gotta go. See you later.”

I found an empty seat at the front of the bus and sat by myself.

Partners

T
his stinks!” Juliana hissed when I pulled my chair over next to hers. Mrs. Doyle made us do word problems in math once a week. She assigned us partners so we could discuss the problems. I’d already worked with Winnie, Madison, Nathan, and Stevie, dreading the day I had to work with Juliana. And now here I was facing her, with no way to get out of it.

This week’s problem had several complicated layers— all related to cooking a Thanksgiving turkey, using weight and cooking time per pound
and
elapsed time.

“This is pretty hard,” I mumbled. “I’m much better at social studies.”

“Yeah … whatever!” Juliana pushed the math paper away and folded her arms across her chest.

“Mrs. Doyle said we have to do this together,” I said.

“So what?” Juliana said. “I’m not working with you! What do you care about a turkey problem? You don’t even celebrate Thanksgiving!”

“I do too!” I insisted.

“No, you don’t. You celebrate some other holiday. Rama-something.”

“Ramadan,” I said. “That doesn’t mean that I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.”

“You and that new girl with the funny headgear don’t even know what Thanksgiving is.”

“I do too. Why are you lumping me with her? I am nothing like her,” I said under my breath.

“What’s that?” Juliana cupped her hand around her ear. “You’re mumbling.”

“I am not,” I said more forcefully.

I wondered if Marwa was into American celebrations. She’d lived in Michigan before she moved here, but she might not even be a citizen yet. “We’re inviting a lot of family for Thanksgiving this year,” I said, trying to get off the subject of Marwa.

Juliana snorted. “I bet your turkey is drenched in all those smelly spices!”

“It is not!” I said. “Our turkey is delicious.”

“There’s this Indian restaurant on Main Street and when we drive by, the smell is so gross I have to hold my nose!” Juliana turned her head away and acted like I wasn’t there.

I wished math could end, so I could escape.

The moment the bell rang I gathered up my papers quickly, hoping I could find someone to help me later— someone who knew I celebrated Thanksgiving, liked spicy food, and didn’t look at me like a bug she wanted to stomp.

I underlined the PS and flipped back to my old letters. As I read them, I realized they calmed me down a little bit, like a band-aid on a paper cut. It was the same calm that had swept over me in the Islamic Center when my forehead touched the prayer mat and the woman’s ugly scream began to fade away. My Badi Amma was onto something. I was communicating with Allah and it was helping a little.

But I didn’t feel any different. Not really. I was the same old Aliya. I played with my pencil, thinking. After a while I took my notebook downstairs to show Mom the letters. She read them quickly.

“You turned down Marwa’s iftar invitation?” was the first thing she said. “Why?”

“Mom, there are other letters too. Did you read all of them?”

“You’re still having trouble with Juliana?” she asked. “Is it getting worse? Why didn’t you tell me?”

I squirmed in my chair. “I’m just writing about my life at school,” I explained. “It’s called communicating and that’s what I am supposed to do.”

“Hmm.”

“Well?”

“I don’t know … I don’t see how your letters fit the assignment.” She flipped through the pages again.

“What do you mean?”

“These are just complaints. Where’s the action?”

“The action is that I am
writing
them, Mom,” I said.

“Yes, but what are you gaining by writing them? Isn’t it just an idle exercise?”

“Kya?”
Badi Amma cocked her ear.

“Mom thinks these are no good, Badi Amma!” I shouted.

“What’s no good?”

“The letters you told me to write for the project.”

“She’s supposed to be getting something out of it,” Mom explained. “I don’t see what she’s learning by writing down a bunch of words. It’s like she’s sitting in a hole, writing about sitting in a hole, without trying to climb out. I don’t see evidence of effort.”

“Huh?” I asked. “What hole?”

“It’s just a figure of speech, Aliya,” Mom said. “I don’t think Sister Khan wanted a laundry list of complaints.”

“Come on, Mom!” I cried. “I’m not complaining. I’m communicating and there’s a lot going on, as you can see for yourself!”

“So you are saying that Sister Khan wants you to write a diary?”

“Yes … No! I guess I don’t know what she wants. Why don’t you just help me a little, huh?”

My grandmother, who had been listening quietly, dried her hands on a kitchen towel. “Let me see those letters,
Meri Jaan.”

Meri Jaan. My life. That’s what Amma called me. I was as dear to her as her own life. She’d surely approve of my letters. I handed them to her. “Read them,” I urged. “Tell me they’re fine.”

“Yes, yes. Come, come,” Badi Amma commanded. “Read those letters out to me.”

Amma got her reading glasses out of her drawer in the little alcove just off the kitchen and put them on her nose. She read the letters, first to herself and then aloud to Badi Amma.

I drummed my fingers and jiggled my leg a little. Badi Amma had better not be as hard on me as Mom was. It was her idea in the first place.

My great-grandmother listened with finger on chin, nodding her head from time to time. “Read one more time,”
she said, and Amma read the letters over, slowly and loudly.

“Hmm,” Badi Amma mused. “Putting thoughts down is first step. Action follows soon after.”

“See?” I turned to Mom, although I didn’t fully understand what Badi Amma had just said.

When Amma got to the part I had underlined, Badi Amma’s head bobbed faster. “There! Not all talk, action too!” she exclaimed. She turned to Mom. “Read again. Look carefully!”

Mom re-read the letters. “So there is. I missed those the first time,” she admitted with a sheepish smile.

“Where?” I said, snatching the letters from Mom’s hand. “What are you talking about?”

“The Little Veenee part,” Badi Amma said. “It will be very good she comes for iftar, see? She will learn more about you.”

“That’s action?” I asked.

“Hanh, hanh.”
Badi Amma smiled. “Big, big action hiding in a little line!”

“There!” I told Mom triumphantly. “Satisfied now?”

We finished our dinner and afterwards Mom helped Amma put away the dishes.

After the kitchen chores were done, we came together in the family room. Mom sank down beside me on the sofa and
we looked through a magazine together. After a while she tossed it aside and turned to me. I knew she wanted to hear about school.

“So … Marwa invited you to iftar?” she began.

I winced. Why did she have to make such a big deal about it?

Zayd lay on the rug watching his favorite cartoons, but I knew he had one ear tuned to our conversation. “And you said no,” he piped up. “That was rude. Right, Mom?”

“Says who?” I growled at him. “Just butt out of my business.”

“I’d like to meet her,” Mom said. “How’s she getting on at school? Is she making friends?”

“I guess. Kids talk about her food, though, and they make fun of her hijab. Actually, I don’t blame them. It’s pretty embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing for whom?” Mom asked. “Her, or you?”

“Why doesn’t she just bring something else?” I said. “Like tuna fish, for instance.”

“Tuna is smelly,” Zayd said.

“Shut up!” I cried. “This conversation has nothing to do with you!”

“You should invite her over,” Mom said. “I’m sure she’d appreciate that.”

“And invite little Veenee too,” Badi Amma added. “Come, come. Time for lessons.” My great-grandmother heaved herself out of her armchair and scuffed toward the door. She wore fancy hotel slippers that Baba had brought
her from one of his business trips. They were one size too large, but she loved them because they were a gift from her favorite grandchild.

“Couldn’t we please skip Urdu today?” I asked.

My great-grandmother turned and scowled at me. “Come quickly!” she commanded. “Juldi!”

Last year Badi Amma had insisted that Zayd and I study Urdu with her every day for an hour. We had protested loudly. It had taken a lot of haggling but we’d finally got her to agree to forty minutes three days a week. We tried to get her to cut it down further but she didn’t budge an inch even when I reminded her about after-school math and all the homework I had to do.

“Do I have to, Mom?” Zayd asked. “Urdu’s hard and it’s too squiggly to write!”

“When Badi Amma calls, you say, ‘Here I come, Badi Amma!’“ Mom told him. “And you better run, mister!” She glared at me. “That goes for you too!”

“Here I come, Badi Amma!” Zayd shouted. I followed him into our great-grandmother’s room for another lesson on the thirty-two letters in the Urdu alphabet and how to write from right to left without leaving any gaps.