by S. K. Ali
Zayneb looked over at her mom saying salaam to me and slowly stood up too.
I put my hand to my heart instinctively after greeting them.
And her mom smiled the gentlest smile, and everything in me that had begun to tighten as I’d walked to the table—nerves, fears, worries—just dispersed, and I sat down as my calm self.
• • •
Zayneb didn’t talk much, but as the evening wore on and her face beamed more and more, I knew things were going to be okay.
When dessert was being served—we’d each chosen types of ice kacang, mounds of shaved ice drizzled with various flavors and toppings—her mom asked the dreaded question. “What are your plans for the future, Adam?”
“I’m planning on visiting family and working on a few projects before reassessing what to focus on for my education.” I moved the ice drenched with bean paste in my bowl, not looking up. “I may study industrial design or even carpentry.”
“Like our father,” Zayneb’s mom said. “Back home.”
“He’s good, too, like Daddy. Did you finish the room you’ve been working on, Adam? For Hanna’s birthday?” Ms. Raymond asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, you’re welcome to come by to see it, if you’re up to it.”
“Let’s?” Zayneb put a hand on her mom’s arm. “It’s so amazing!”
“Do you mind if I call a friend to join us?” Ms. Raymond hadn’t finished her dessert, but she stood up, her phone in her hand, awaiting my answer.
I said sure, but I was unsure of why she was so intense all of a sudden. “If Dad would be okay with it.”
“He’s a friend of your father’s, too, actually,” she said before walking away from the table to use the phone.
Zayneb’s mom, Ms. Malik, smiled at me. “I can’t wait to see your work.”
• • •
I took a picture of Zayneb when she saw the room lit up. “OH WOW. There is only one word for this. Enchanting,” she said, coming up to me to look at the picture on my phone as Ms. Raymond went around with Zayneb’s mom, looking at the details. “And you do have a thing for blues, Adam Chen. I know it a hundred percent now.”
“Is that why you’re wearing my favorite blue hijab again today?” I took my phone back from her and looked at the picture I’d taken. Sure enough, it was a mix of blues in the background competing with her scarf—but not her face, not her smile. I favorited the picture. “Because you know it’s my thing?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe. Or maybe it was the only clean scarf I had.”
The door to the room, ajar previously, opened wider, and a man walked in with Dad. He was dressed in traditionally Qatari clothes, a long white thobe and a shemagh.
I went forward to greet him, with my hand out, but he didn’t notice me.
He was looking at the room, his eyes widening.
It was the first time I saw someone looking at something I’d made the way I looked at things I was interested in: like he wanted to take in every single detail.
ZAYNEB
SATURDAY, MARCH 23
MARVEL: THE LONG ARC OF THINGS
ADAM, HIS DAD, AND HANNA came to the airport to see me and Mom off.
I hadn’t wanted Adam to come, because then Mom would see how much we meant to each other.
And she wasn’t ready to see that.
Last night, when we were returning from dinner and his house, Mom had told Auntie Nandy that she thought Adam was a “very mature and responsible young man with a peaceful, kind aura” but that he was still trying to figure out things and that we were young, and so what was there to come but going our own, separate ways.
I hadn’t said anything, because I didn’t want to show my hand.
To reveal the truth: that I wanted to get to know one person more than I’d ever wanted to get to know any other person in the entire world.
That I carried something in me, a little piece wedged inside my heart, that knew for certain he felt the same way about me.
That we were connected beyond what Mom was saying in the front seat beside Auntie Nandy.
I knew for certain that the long arc of things included me and him, Adam and Zayneb.
The long arc went from A to Z, across continents and oceans, across time, and I didn’t need to protest or speak up or get angry at Mom for discounting Adam, for discounting us.
I believed there was more out there, more than this small world, so I stayed quiet and confident in the back of the car and just whispered a prayer out the window into the night.
• • •
But he came to the airport, and he had something in his hand that he held out to me as we stood to the side of Mom and Auntie Nandy saying their good-byes.
He unfurled his fingers, and there was a small carved goose with . . . was that enameled orange eyes?
It was beautiful.
He turned his palm over carefully, and the bird dropped into my hand, just as my tear did too. “I’d begun making it for you, but then Hanna saw it and loved it, and I gave it to her. But she wanted you to have it. Because it was meant for you in the first place. It’s a Canada goose.”
“Oh my God, it’s unbelievable. And the orange eyes.”
“I did that part last night after you left.”
“You remembered. That I liked enameling. And the orange.” I closed my fingers over his gift as I closed my eyes. “I won’t forget anything I know about you, either, Adam.”
“Geese are protective of their communities. Just found that out.” He paused. “Like you.”
“And I won’t stop being protective.”
He responded with “assalamu alaikum.” When I opened my eyes to say salaam back, he’d stepped back as Auntie Nandy came to say good-bye to me.
I got more teary-eyed as I thought of not seeing her again, but she whispered something into my scarfed ear that made me smile. “I’m coming to visit this summer. And Adam is too—his Dad told me, with Hanna, who apparently loves you as well.”
When she stepped away, I looked at Hanna standing a bit apart with Adam’s dad. She saw my glance and smiled and waved. I opened my arms.
She ran into them. When we broke away, I said, “Wait. I have something for you.”
Right there, I lay my big suitcase down and opened it up. Luckily, it wasn’t a mess inside, and I was able to find what I wanted to give her.
I held out the Blues, the Angry Bird that became three. She took it, her eyes wide with happiness. “It’s from the game we played in the car!”
“Yeah, and look,” I said, taking it back to show her how it launched into three birds. “Three times as powerful. Kind of like you, your dad, and Adam.”
“And you, Zayneb.” She hugged me again.
“And me, always. You can be the big bird and Adam, your dad, and I are your power boosters.” I smoothed her hair and tucked in the stray clumps. “Keep in touch, Hanna Chen. I expect Ariel pictures every so often.”
She nodded and squeezed the Blues to her before hopping back to her dad.
Mom spoke to Adam, who’d straightened from closing and righting my suitcase. “Congratulations. Natasha just told me. What amazing news.”
I looked at Adam, then Mom, puzzled.
“Oh, you didn’t tell her?” Auntie Nandy asked him. “The friend of mine who came over last night to see the room Adam made is actually the director of art exhibits at Katara. He wants Adam to make an installation there. It’s going to be a permanent exhibit, so it’s quite a big contract. Congrats again, Adam, on your season in the sun.” She winked at him.
“Thanks, Ms. Raymond.” He smiled at her and then turned to me, his eyes dancing. “Katara is doing a feature on ancient manuscripts from the Muslim world. And the director wants my installation to focus on the same manuscript I based the room on.”
“The Marvels of Creation and the Oddities of Existence?” I said, unable to contain the joy bubbling in me.
“That’s the one,” Adam said, joining me in laughter.
It was Auntie Nandy’s and Mom’s turn to look puzzled, but between me and Adam, all of it made sense.
The world made complete sense for once.
• • •
Dad wasn’t home yet, and Sadia and Mansoor were returning to Springdale next weekend when Dad did, so Mom and I hung out together, talking and watching things and talking some more.
It was so amazing, just to be home with her. To turn to her as we laughed at something crazy on a show or lean my tired self into her open arms at the end of a movie. It felt like the fortress had cracked in two, and my heart was peeking out.
I also spent a lot of the weekend sleeping.
I wanted to be completely awake for school on Monday.
ZAYNEB
MONDAY, MARCH 25
MARVEL: THE WORLD
I WALKED INTO FENCER’S CLASS on my own, as I’d come straight over from Communication Technology, not from stopping by Kavi’s locker.
She and Ayaan would still be busy. They both had had a prior spare period and had used it wisely. At the principal’s office.
Fencer was writing something on the board and didn’t see Noemi stand up when she saw me enter the class, walk over to the seat I’d just taken, and give me a high five.
“All hail the queen,” she whispered before sitting back down.
Everyone else drifted in, and I studiously avoided their gazes, choosing not to see their curiosity or, worse, their animosity.
Fencer turned around. How does oppression begin? What are the roots? was written on the board behind him.
I turned my eyes down, drawing a goose on my notebook paper.
“Welcome to the beginning of session two.” He cleared his throat. “You people in the back, it shouldn’t take this long to settle down.”
I’d read that Canada geese couple for life. Is that why Adam gave me the present, now in my jean jacket pocket?
“This term we’re looking at the most repressive regimes in modern history. And, when I mean modern history, I mean happening at this moment.”
Last night, Adam and I had texted each other. Our long train of news had ended with a wave emoji from him and an onion pic from me.
“Can anyone give the class examples of repressive governments?” Fencer walked by my desk and then came back again, slowing down as he got near. Then he stopped right beside me. “Places where to speak up freely will get you in trouble. Where to be a woman is to be condemned. Where religious laws, like sharia law, result in stonings and honor killings.”
I drew an eye on my goose, a beautiful, long-lashed one, and raised my hand.
“Welcome back, Zee-naab. Yes? Are you going to give us the name of a repressive regime?”
“Why did you have to refer to sharia law specifically?”
“It’s an example. I like to use real-world examples.”
“Can you give European real-world examples of repressive laws?”
“I don’t remember anyone appointing you as the principal, Zee-naab.”
“I see your use of the word ‘sharia’ as an addition to the long list of ways you try to negatively portray people of my faith.” I stood up. “And I’m not taking it. I exercise my right to speak up freely. And my right to leave a place where I am subjected to discrimination and hatred.”
My voice shook at that last part, but I carried it out with me, with my books and my backpack. And my goose in my pocket.
In the hall I looked to my left, then right, and saw the windows of the library.
I’ll go to the Situation Room.
Ms. Margolis was on our team, according to Kavi.
Where is Kavi anyway?
“Where you go, I follow.” It was Noemi’s voice. Behind me.
I turned to see her, with her books and backpack.
“My speech wasn’t as eloquent as yours. I said something like, Suck it, Fencer. I’m done with your Islamophobia.” She laughed, and I caught her laugh, because it was the most contagious laugh I’d ever heard.
The door opened behind her, and two others came out. One was Darren, from the school newspaper, and the other was a girl named Violet.
“We’d been whispering in the back, and Fencer lost it on us, so we walked out too,” Violet said. “We’re sick of his dumb-ass comments.”
A few more people spilled out. Noemi high-fived them. “These are my girls from lacrosse.”
“He was about to call the office when the phone rang. He’s talking now,” one of the lacrosse girls said. She glanced around. “Maybe the office can see all of us in the hall from the cameras. So they’re checking what’s going on.”
I leaned against the wall across from Fencer’s classroom and looked at everyone.
The door opened, and Mike stood in the doorway with his iPad. “Are you guys doing a protest?”
“We’re simulating the effects of a repressive regime in the classroom,” Noemi said. “It’s part of the lesson.”
Through the doorway, I could see Fencer on the phone.
The reddening of his face told me something amazing: Kavi and Ayaan must have advanced on the battlefield.
• • •
Just as Ms. Margolis came over to us assembled in the hall, Fencer stormed out of the classroom.
He was headed to the office.
“Okay, let’s gather everyone up, and we’ll go to the library,” Ms. Margolis said, giving me a gentle glance.
I waited until everyone went ahead, and then I fell back with Noemi. “Thank you.”
“Please! Without you, this would not be. This exodus to freedom. So thank you.” She put her arm around me, and I let her.
• • •
Kavi and Ayaan joined us in the library, and all four of us—Kavi, Ayaan, Noemi, and me—went to the Situation Room, where they told us that Fencer was under investigation by the school for his online activities.
That the school board was involved.
That he most likely would be fired.
Noemi gave a hoot so loud that Ms. Margolis knocked on the Situation Room door.
I let her in.
Because, now, this was what it was all about.
I was ready to let people in.
I’d still keep some people out.
But I saw—in this room, out through the window into the library, even in my pocket, with the small goose—that there were so many more that wanted in than out.
And that was one of the most marvelous things in the world.
EPILOGUE
THE WORLD IS A MYSTERIOUS place. On the one hand, its size can be measured and recorded and verified. Its marvels and oddities captured in complex, empirical detail.
On the other hand, its size is relative to our mind’s perception of it. Its marvels and oddities only extending to how far our vision goes.
For some of us, this means the world is small, including only those we see as belonging to it. People related to us, people who look like us, dress like us, think like us.
For others, it’s medium-size and includes those we connect to through some similarity, some trait that pings familiarity within, which then allows us to overlook the differences between us and them.
And then there are those who see the world as huge, as the actual size it measurably is.
Huge enough to include vast differences, people with nothing in common with one another except a beating heart and a feeling soul, these two—heart, soul—being the strongest connection between us all.
• • •
Adam and Zayneb were on a course to becoming the third type of people.
And they were doing it together. Four years of faraway togetherness, with brief, exhilarating glimpses in between getting a political science degree at Northwestern (Zayneb) and working on six art installation projects around the Middle East (Adam) and through visits to MS support groups (Adam and Zayneb).
• • •
Then they met for real—heart, soul, and body—the summer of their katb el kitab, the summer they exchanged their vows, af
ter a short engagement.
They met up in Istanbul, only emerging from their hotel room for bites to eat and breaths of fresh air and breathtaking views.
After four days, they traveled seven hours to visit the grave of the girl killed by her father and grandfather.
Their world had become so large that it was necessary.
To end our story, they will tell you why themselves.
ADAM
MARVEL AND ODDITY: KISSING ZAYNEB
Who knew kissing Zayneb would be such a problem while being necessary to my living healthily on this planet? As necessary as how I’ve learned to keep my MS attacks at bay?
Kissing her took skill.
You had to know when to move in. And that was hard.
Like right now: We were paused by our hotel room door as Zayneb stood in front of the long mirror outside the bathroom, stuffing her hair into a scarf—the hair I’d woken up with my face buried in.
I wanted to kiss her one more time before we left the room, so I waited with my back against the door.
But I wasn’t waiting for her to finish hijabing.
She’d also been talking nonstop since we woke up, sharing her eagerness to start our excursion today.
“The only way to make this scarf work is by wearing it with plain clothes and tucking it in neat and trim, like so.” She turned to me, her face framed in the print of vivid blues I’d bought for her at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. “Thanks again for the BLUIEST scarf in the world, Squish.”
“Are you done talking?” I took my patient hands out of my pockets and reached forward and brought her close to me, until the only space between us was for our words. Well, my words. “Are your lips done? So I can kiss them peacefully?”
She nodded and tilted her head up, closed her eyes.
As our lips met, a curl of hair fell from her scarf. Her hands rose to the back of my head, pulling me in hard.
• • •
Zayneb, interrupting Adam’s journal here: Fade to black.
Adam, taking my journal back: We delayed our excursion, the one I wanted to come to this part of Turkey for, because Zayneb tore off her hijab in a fit of passion and, yeah, fade to black.