“You stood for Taleb Mansoor.”
“Who, as I keep having to point out, died in rather gruesome fashion.”
“You tried,” the Imam reassured me. “What happened was Allah’s will.”
“That’s really more your department than mine.”
“It’s just a few college kids,” he said. “No reason to feel intimidated.”
“Easy for you to say. I practice Islam at a fourth-grade level.”
He patted my shoulder and smiled, obviously mistaking the truth for self-deprecation. “You’ll do fine. I appreciate it. I always have to find new ways to engage them. Every time I believe I am making progress, something happens to distract them from the True Path. Americans like to keep you entertained. It keeps kids from thinking. There is always a big game or a playoff, new music or a new show they just have to watch. Every time I feel like they’re starting to focus on spiritual matters, the material world seduces them again.”
“You must feel like Sisyphus.”
The Imam was not familiar with the Greek myth, so I had to explain it to him before taking my leave, promising to return next week at six for his youth group.
* * *
—
I was a little early for my talk and found myself alone in the mosque.
An empty mosque is a strange place. You can be alone there and yet, somehow, you cannot be alone. There are no icons, no idols or images. There are no visible, tangible signs of any divine presence. This absence, however, is a lingering challenge to the soul, a question as to whether human beings can find nothing where they see nothing.
It was disconcerting, but I was not alone long. Soon the first student, a woman, arrived. She entered the prayer hall wearing a full niqab, a black, flowing garment with a veil that covered everything but her pale green eyes. It was meant to protect her modesty.
Her exposed eyes, however, were not modest. They were bold and alive, yet there was something about them that was either more than human or less than human. It was a light, or perhaps a shadow, that was a little sorcerous, and a little wild.
I stared at her and she stared right back.
For a moment, I forgot where I was and then, within seconds, I think, the spell was broken as a few other students walked in, chatting amiably. None of them approached or spoke to the girl in the niqab, who sat aloof and inscrutable. I introduced myself and we waited for the Imam. Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. It was clear that Imam Sama was not going to attend. “Maybe he’s sick,” someone finally suggested.
“He’s probably just tired,” I said. “He’s got a touch of Sisyphus.”
No laughter followed my joke. Instead, frantic whispering ensued. Ignoring it, I launched into an impromptu talk. I decided not to discuss the experience of being an attorney, despite the Imam’s instructions. His absence meant that I could say anything I wanted and, on that particular subject, I had nothing to say that would inspire my audience.
I told them, instead, about Mikey the goat, because Eid was coming soon and they, having grown up in nice American neighborhoods, had inhabited a world where slaughtering livestock in one’s front yard was generally not a done thing.
I also told them of my paternal uncle who never actually managed to dispatch the animals himself. He was, as he freely admitted, too disturbed by killing and too nauseated by the sight of blood to participate in the ritual Eid sacrifice. This was remarkable because he had served in two wars against India, where he had been charged with operating a tank.
“But you killed people in ’sixty-five and ’seventy-one,” I had said, sensible even as a child to the inconsistent nature of his claimed revulsion for violence.
“Well, all I was required to do was push a button, see?” my uncle had replied, jabbing his index finger at my forehead. “I would push a button, just like so”—this was punctuated with another poke—“when I was ordered to and then, far away, somewhere, there was an explosion. That’s all it was.”
No one seemed particularly impressed or even amused. In fact, some of the students were visibly disappointed. I’m not sure what they’d been expecting but, whatever it was, I hadn’t managed to deliver it. Fortunately, my life had left me uniquely prepared for vague disapproval. I shrugged it off.
When the group dispersed, the woman with the striking eyes came up to me.
“I’m Azza.”
“Anvar.”
“Yes. I’ve heard of you. From a lot of people. Everybody talks about you.”
I gave a self-deprecating shrug. “Not everybody, I’m sure.”
“People say you’re a bad person,” she said in a soft, hoarse voice.
The unexpected nature of the remark threw me off a little. “Well…I didn’t know that. They don’t say it to my face.”
“Word among the young women is that you drink. You’ve had girlfriends. That you don’t pray. That you smoke. That you eat pork.”
“Well, that’s simply not true. I don’t eat pork.”
“You admit the rest then?”
“Do I admit to being a bad person? No. I will, however, admit to being a bad Muslim, which is an entirely different thing.”
Her light eyes narrowed and seemed to get more intense somehow. I ran a hand through my hair, glancing at the door. I nodded at Azza and began to move away.
“Wait,” she said. “We live in the same apartment complex. Trinity Gardens. Tell me which unit you are in.”
“Why?”
“Because I am a bad person and a bad Muslim. I’d like to be worse.”
* * *
—
“This is a calamity, Anvar Faris, Barrister Sahib,” Hafeez Bhatti screamed, his voice shrill, spittle stained with paan juice spraying from his lips as he rushed toward me. “A disaster of the very first order. Is it true? Why would you say it if it isn’t true? However, if it is true, sir, then why would you say it? And say it to such impressionable young minds at that. You must make sense of it for me.”
“What are you talking about? I just got back from the mosque.”
“I am knowing that, Faris. Sirji, my nephew, was there at the talk you gave. Why would you say to him—” Hafeez dropped his voice to a small, barely audible whisper. “Why would you say that Imam Sama is infected with the gonorrhea?”
“I never said anything about gonorrhea.”
“My nephew was there.”
“I was there too. I was the one speaking, remember?”
Confronted with my indignation, Bhatti hesitated, then tried to snap his fingers but produced no sound. “Absolutely right you are. Not gonorrhea. Syphilis.”
“I never said anything about…Oh. Come on. Really? I didn’t say he had syphilis. I said he was Sisyphus. The Greek guy who pushes the boulder up the mountain.”
“You think Imam Sama is Greek?”
“No. Jesus Christ…”
It went downhill from there.
Two hours later, I was on the phone with my mother, still trying to explain myself.
“Would you like to tell me how you ended up giving the Imam syphilis?”
“I was talking about Sisyphus. It isn’t a disease. It is a myth. You can’t catch Sisyphus, Mom.”
She gave one of her patented Bariah Faris sniffs of disdain. “You can if you’re not careful.”
“I honestly can’t even tell if you’re joking right now.”
“Just stay away from the mosque. Muslims have enough problems without you adding to them. The Board of Directors will probably have to start an inquiry just to clear all this up. Poor Ahmed Sama will be humiliated. How many times have I told you to stop being so clever?”
“Too many times.”
“You never listen, that’s your problem, Anvar. I wish you were more like your brother. He is such a good boy. When I told him who I had picked for him to marry, he didn�
��t object at all. Didn’t have any problems with it. I don’t really know where we went wrong with you. You should come over this weekend. We’re going to the girl’s house…”
“What girl?”
“The girl I picked for Aamir to marry, of course. She’s so sweet. I’ve always liked her. And what a fantastic family. You remember…”
Someone knocked on my door.
“I have to go, Mom.”
“What is this ‘Mom’ nonsense you’ve started like we’re some white family?”
“Fine, Ma. I have to go. There’s someone here.”
“Who is it? If it’s Imam Sama, tell him you’re—”
“Sure. Bye, Mom.” I hung up on my mother and opened the door to my apartment.
It was the niqabi woman from the mosque.
I moved aside, and she started to walk in. Then she paused, hesitating at my threshold.
“Azza?” I asked.
She frowned, as if confused or disoriented for a moment, like I’d called her by someone else’s name. “Sorry. I just haven’t…” She shook her head, stopped speaking for a moment, took a deep, bracing breath, then looked at me with those haunting and haunted green eyes of hers. “I shouldn’t be here.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just told her the obvious truth. “You don’t have to come in. You’re free to do what you want.”
“Exactly.”
Before I could ask her what she meant by that, she made her decision, and stepped inside.
* * *
—
She came the next day, and the day after that, and then after two days when I didn’t hear from her, she came again.
“I feel like we don’t talk anymore.”
Azza, who’d been coming back to bed, paused in the bathroom doorway. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“What do you mean ‘anymore’? We’ve never talked.”
“We should. I’m an extremely accomplished conversationalist.”
“That’s not why I come here.”
I placed a hand over my heart. “Ouch.”
She pulled open the loose ponytail her hair was tied in, and though it had looked perfectly fine, started to redo it, her eyes never leaving me. When she was done, instead of coming closer, she chose to lean against the doorframe. “What do you want to talk about?”
“The weather? I could tell you what Mark Twain said about San Francisco. Or maybe something more interesting. Like why Hafeez Bhatti sent you to the mosque to talk to me, maybe.”
She let out a sharp breath.
“He didn’t tell me anything,” I assured her. “He just asked me if I’d been able to help you.”
“He should mind his own business.”
“He’s from Pakistan. We’re incapable of doing that. Are you in some kind of trouble?”
She shook her head. “I said I don’t want to talk about it.”
I held up my hands in the universal gesture of surrender. “Fine.”
Azza stalked over to the chair on which the rest of her clothes, and her niqab, were draped. She began to dress.
“You don’t have to leave.”
“Don’t tell me what I have to do,” she snapped.
I didn’t respond. You can really surrender only so often. Do it too much, and it loses all meaning.
“This”—she pointed a finger at me and then to herself—“isn’t a relationship. I don’t need anything from you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“And don’t talk to other people about me.”
“I wasn’t like—”
It was no use. She was already walking out of the room.
* * *
—
It was a while before she returned, and when she did, things went back to the way they had started, as if nothing had happened. It went on that way for weeks. I never knew when she’d knock on my door, or why she suddenly wouldn’t for days. I asked for no explanations. I’d been taught in school the story of Moses and Khidr and the futility of asking questions when you’re not supposed to. Also, I’d been raised by Bariah Faris, and in her house curiosity was generally frowned upon.
Then one night she came by and said, “We can’t tonight. It’s my time of the month.”
“Okay.”
Azza looked at me like she expected me to say something else. When I didn’t, she went on. “I wanted some tea. You said you made good tea.”
I’d never said anything of the sort, and I made horrible tea, but I nodded. “Absolutely.”
“What kind of tea do you have?”
“There’s more than one kind?”
She paused taking off her niqab.
“That was a joke.”
“Was it?”
I went over to the kitchen and opened the coffee cabinet. “I have some Moroccan mint.”
“What makes it Moroccan?”
“I don’t know. It’s green.”
“Fine,” Azza said, and headed to sit down in the living room for the first time.
My phone buzzed. It was Ma.
“You aren’t going to answer it?”
I shook my head. “Just my mother. It’s either still about Imam Sama or it is about the talk she wants to give at the mosque about mosque crawlers. She’s been trying to get me to help with the research. She emails me something new every day.”
“I’ve heard about those. Mosque crawlers, I mean.”
“Yeah. Anyway, Ma had these friends, the ‘chickpeas of steel’ people—”
“What?”
“She lost some friends because a family here, the Rajas, allegedly, falsely reported them for terrorism. The FBI came and interrogated Ma’s friends, and they got so freaked out, they moved back to Pakistan. Anyway, it’s been a thing for Ma ever since.”
“But your mother’s friends never really got in any trouble?”
I shrugged. “There must’ve been no evidence against them. Anyway, Ma thinks that it’s a way of making people you don’t like disappear. I think she’s just worried Dad is going to report her one day.”
The joke didn’t land with Azza because she didn’t know them. Without replying, she picked up the remote and turned the TV on. The news was about the election.
It should have been boring, like a race between a tortoise and a hare, the outcome evident. There should have been a lack of suspense, with the victory of the Democratic Party candidate and former Secretary of State obvious. However, Nero was in town and he was putting on a show you couldn’t look away from. An anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, far-right fervor had gripped the Republican Party, and their candidate was leading a nationalist movement that promised to “Make America Great Again.”
After a few seconds Azza made an irritated sound and turned the screen off. I smiled. “I wouldn’t worry. He isn’t going to win.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
I looked at her. “Of course it matters.”
“They’re all the same.”
“They’re really not.”
“No?” Azza asked. “Abu told me that when that Secretary of State woman came to Afghanistan, and the bunch of cars that went to pick her up—”
“A motorcade?”
“Okay.” Azza swatted at the air, as if my vocabulary was an irritating fly, getting in her face. “Anyway, as Americans were going to pick her up, they ran over a woman crossing the street. They didn’t stop. They hit her and left her in the middle of the road.”
“That’s horrible.”
“They come to our countries and they pretend to care, and they run us over and they don’t stop to see how bad they’ve hurt us. They never stop, which is what they’re supposed to do. It’s American policy, according to the rules someone wrote down and all of them agreed to follow.” Azza tossed the r
emote aside. “It doesn’t matter who wins. They’ll still be running us over. So who cares?”
That was the most I’d ever heard Azza say, and I liked hearing her voice, so I let it stand for a while. When the tea was done brewing, I carried it to her. “I understand what you’re saying but—”
“Do you think they wonder if the woman they ran over survived? If she had children? Do they wonder what might have happened to those children if they didn’t have anyone else?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I hope they do,” Azza said, her voice quiet. “I hope they can’t ever sleep at night.”
I put the tea she still hadn’t taken from me on a table beside her and sat down across from her. We were quiet for a long time. I held my cup in both hands for warmth and watched steam rise from it.
“Go ahead,” she finally said. “Ask me. Ask me what you’re thinking.”
I glanced up at her, at the pain on her face, and said, “What happened to you?”
She looked away and didn’t answer.
I cleared my throat. “Let’s not talk about politics. Let’s talk about something light and fun like—”
“I’m engaged,” she said.
“Or we could talk about that…”
* * *
—
Azza was engaged to Qais Badami. I’d met him at the mosque a couple of times. He tried hard to be pleasant, but came off as so intensely friendly that it was a little uncomfortable.
“You’re not going to ask me why, if he thinks he has spoken for me, I come here?”
“Do you want to tell me?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“Then I’m not going to ask you.”
It was the right thing to say, I think, because we started talking a little more after that. I learned that her father was a man called Abu Fahd, a security guard who worked nights, which was why she had to return home by dawn, before his shift ended.
I told her about Dad and Ma and Aamir.
We played checkers, and I didn’t let her win once. She came close to beating me a couple of times though. She played with a recklessness that would have impressed Naani Jaan, I think.
The Bad Muslim Discount Page 18