Internment

by Samira Ahmed

  “Sure. Right. As if your parents haven’t forbidden you to see me.”

  “It’s my dad. He’s being a total asshole. And my mom, she’s going along with him. I think she’s too terrified to speak up.”

  Part of me thinks I should say something, tell David that his parents aren’t so terrible. But I can’t. I won’t. They stay quiet, using their silence and privilege as a shield to protect themselves.

  “We’ll fight this. People will fight this—are fighting,” David says, trying to reassure me. I know he thinks he needs to be strong, to make it seem like he believes his own words, but I don’t think he buys it; I can tell from the way his smile curves down at the edges. I can tell because his left hand is balled into a fist even as his right arm envelops me. I nod and give him a grin that doesn’t reach my eyes. We accept the lies we tell each other and ourselves, I suppose. It’s one of the ways we are surviving the day-to-day without going mad.

  At least this isn’t pretend. I nestle into David’s chest, and he kisses the top of my head.

  When we first got together, I thought it might be weird to date a friend, someone who’d known me so long. The first time we walked through the school doors and down the hall holding hands, my palm was so sweaty it kept slipping away from David’s. He held on tighter, knitting his fingers through mine. Kissing my forehead when he dropped me off at my locker. Easy. Natural. Kind. Like we were something he always knew we would be.

  There’s rustling outside the window. Our heads snap up. A bright LED beam dips back and forth across the lawn. David raises a finger to his lips. I don’t move. I can’t move. My heart pounds in my chest.

  After an eternity, the light goes out.

  “You’ve got to get home,” David whispers to me. “I’ll walk you.”

  “No. It’s too dangerous.”

  “It’s more dangerous for you.”

  I look at my watch. Seventeen minutes past curfew. What was I thinking?

  We clasp hands and tiptoe to the door, slowly opening it. David sticks his head out first, then whispers back, “It’s okay. No one’s out here.”

  I take a deep breath and step out. That was close. Too close. This was foolish. Perfect, but stupid.

  We race across the lawn, an acrid burning smell heavy in the night air. Over the tops of the roofs a column of smoke still rises, higher now than before. Blackish-gray wisps of words and ideas and spirits, a burnt qurbani ascending to heaven for acceptance. I can’t tell if the tears in my eyes are on account of smoke or grief.

  “Stop!” a voice like sandpaper yells from behind us, flooding the darkness with a cruel light. We keep running, faster now.

  “Go!” David shouts to me as he slows to swivel around, pulling his hand away from mine.

  I stop, almost stumbling over myself. “I can’t leave you.”

  David pushes me into the darkness. “It’s not me they want. Run!”

  Tears blind me while I race home. As I approach my yard, it dawns on me that I might be able to outrun the person who was chasing us, but no matter how fast I sprint, I can’t escape this new reality of curfews and clandestine meetings and cinders rising in the air.

  I push through the front door and slip inside, quickly shutting it behind me. I’m panting, my heart racing, wiping the tears from my face with my sleeve, terrified out of my mind that David might’ve been caught by whoever was waving around that flashlight in the darkness. I’m smacked with the smell of frying onions and adrak lehsan. The smell of home juxtaposed with the sweaty, breathless odor of desperation and the taste of rust in my mouth.

  My parents rush out of the kitchen. My mom’s mouth falls open. The blood drains from her face, and she rubs her eyes with her hands, clearly wanting to erase this moment. She steadies herself against the whorled bird’s-eye maple console table in our foyer, my parents’ first flea market find as a couple, years before they had me.

  My dad is every inch the professor. Thin but not muscular, with wavy hair that always looks a bit messy, grays sprouting up here and there among the dark chestnut brown, and black-plastic-framed glasses that he prefers to contacts. He takes his glasses off and rubs the little reddish indentations along the sides of his nose. He always does this when he’s contemplating something deep or worrying.

  “Layla,” he says, “explain yourself. Were you outside? Now? At night?” His voice is firm, but he doesn’t yell. My dad is not a yeller. He barely raises his voice at me, even when I deserve it. This is clearly one of those moments.

  My mom’s voice, however, is less restrained than my dad’s, as always. She doesn’t wait for me to answer him. “You were supposed to be in your room. It’s after curfew. What were you thinking? I can’t believe you would do something this foolish. Do you know what could’ve happened?”

  She shakes her head, clenching her jaw, fury and fear flashing in her eyes. They’re lighter brown than mine, with specks of hazel and green, what she claims is the assertion of her distant Pashtun blood.

  My mom’s voice trails off because we all know what could’ve happened. There are whispers of Muslims who have disappeared. Muslims like us, who answered the census truthfully when asked about our religion. Muslims who refused to hide.

  I stare at my worn gray Converse All-Stars and try to scrape off the dirt from one scuffed toe with the other.

  “Layla. Answer your mother,” my dad says. Mother. He might not yell, but he uses formal titles when he’s really mad.

  I answer, my voice barely a whisper, “I was with David.”

  “David? You broke curfew to see David? Are you crazy?” My mom turns her back to me, pauses, then walks into the large main room of our house, a living room that flows into a sunroom in the back. She falls into a cream love seat tufted with multicolored cloth buttons and stares into the fireplace. She’s like me; I know that her synapses must be on rapid fire, but my mom’s practiced meditation for years. She says it’s the only way she’s found to calm her mind. Wordlessly, she reaches up to the nape of her neck and undoes the loose bun she wears when cooking. Her dark hair, accented with the occasional gray strand, falls around her face, shielding it from me. I see her fingering her rosewood tasbih bracelet. I don’t need to see her mouth to know she’s uttering a prayer.

  “Beta,” my dad says, using the Urdu word for “child.” If “mother” and “father” are signals of his anger, “beta” is the clearest sign of his love. “I know this is hard for you, but understand that David won’t face the consequences you will. You can’t take these risks. Your mom and I, we’re afraid for you.”

  “I know. I’m afraid, too. But David is the only bit of normal I have left. Please don’t make me give that up.”

  My dad winces a little, like my words have struck him. He glances down at the tan leather Indian khussa slippers he wears inside the house, like he’s measuring them up, as if he’s wearing them for the first, and not the millionth, time. Even though he’s not going to work anymore, he’s still in his teaching uniform: navy V-neck sweater and jeans.

  “Beta, you can’t leave again so close to curfew. It’s too dangerous. We know it feels like prison. But it’s for your safety. It’s not up for discussion.” Dad prides himself on being even-keeled, even when he’s angry. Now, as he stares at me, it’s like looking into my own wide, dark brown eyes.

  I nod like I agree, which I don’t, but I need this conversation to end because I’m desperate to text David to find out if he’s okay. I’m not sure Dad believes me, but he accepts my nod as acquiescence. More pretending. More lies we tell ourselves because reality is too much to hold all at once. He gives me a mirthless smile and walks toward my mom.

  I make my way to the foot of the stairs and take a seat. I dig my phone out of my pocket. I need to tell David that I’m home, I’m safe. He’s probably out-of-his-mind worried, too, like I am about him.

  One thing that isn’t pretend? Surveillance. I may do stupid things, I may risk getting busted after curfew to see my boyfriend, but I’m not d
umb enough to send a regular text. We use the Signal app so our texts are encrypted.

  ME: I’m home. Are you okay?

  DAVID: Yeah. It was Jim.

  ME: From down the street? What the hell?

  DAVID: He’s Patriot’s Alliance.

  ME: WTF is that?

  DAVID: I guess some new initiative to keep us “safe.”

  ME: Right. “Safe” from people like me. Wait. They’re the ones using PatriotAPP to snitch on their neighbors, right? Assholes.

  DAVID: He didn’t see that it was you. I told him it was Ashley. That we ran because the flashlight freaked us out, we thought he was a serial killer or something. I think he believed me. He gave me this bro pat on the back. It was gross.

  ME: Will she back you up?

  DAVID: She better. She’s my lab partner now, so I’ll sabotage every damn experiment if she doesn’t.

  A fireball grows inside my chest. Of course he was going to get a new lab partner when I left school. Of course his life was going to continue. I’m so filled with jealousy that Ashley—mild-mannered, sweet-since-forever Ashley—gets to sit next to David for an entire hour at school without having to risk anything. I want to throw my phone to the ground, stomp on it, and crush it into tiny bits of glass and metal. But what’s the use in complaining about how unfair life is? It’s always been unfair to someone, somewhere. Now, I guess, it’s my turn.

  DAVID: Layla?

  ME: Here.

  DAVID: I love you.

  ME: I know.

  DAVID: I’ll come by after school tomorrow if I can. Okay? Sweet dreams.

  ME:

  What I want to text:

  When I look up from my phone, I see that my parents have slipped into the kitchen. I can hear them pulling dishes out of the cupboard and setting the table. I run upstairs to put my phone away. No phones at the dinner table in the Amin household.

  I hurry back down and find my parents already seated in the dining room. I take my usual chair, the gray tweed perfectly molded to the shape of my body. No one says a word. My dad catches my eye for a moment, but my mom doesn’t look up. She has the shorter fuse, and the flames of her anger take longer to put out than my dad’s. They have their differences, but they almost always present a united front. I learned that when I was a kid and would try to play one off the other to get my way. Never worked.

  “Spinach?” my mom asks me. I can still hear a little edge in her voice, but I can also tell she’s trying to soften it.

  “No, thanks,” I say.

  She offers some to my dad.

  “As long as it’s not too garlicky,” he replies.

  “After twenty years of marriage, I think I know how you like your spinach.” My mom smiles at him and hands him a steaming bowl of palak gosht.

  I look at them, across the table from me. I grab the edges of my hoodie and twist the fabric in my hands. Minutes ago I raced in the front door, scared I was being chased by some government agent who turned out to be the middle-aged dentist who lives down the street from David, and my parents greeted me with looks of horror on their faces, and now they’re married-flirting about spinach.

  “I don’t understand how you guys are acting all normal,” I say. “A little bit ago you were freaking out at me for being late for curfew, and now we’re talking about garlic? They’re burning books—Dad’s books.”

  “What do you expect us to do, Layla?” my father asks in a soft voice. “How do you propose I stop a mob?” My dad has this calm-down-Layla voice that he turns on when he wants to reassure me, make me feel safe. But hearing it in my ears right now, it feels weak.

  “I know you’ve both been too afraid to say anything, to do anything, but your silence isn’t shielding us from hatred.”

  My mom walks over to me and puts her arm around my shoulders. Part of me feels like leaning into her embrace, but there’s a part of me that’s angry, too, so I stiffen at her touch. She pulls away and takes a deep breath. “Of course we want to say something, do something. But if we speak out, we’ll be jailed. Then who will take care of you?”

  For a moment, I feel ashamed for guilt-tripping them. But I push that feeling away because the more I think, the more anger rushes through my veins.

  “We can’t ignore what the government is doing—what they’re making everyone do. Dad got fired. We have curfews.” I shake my head. “You’re too busy talking about spinach and garlic to say something. Do something. Anything.”

  “Beta,” my dad says, “we’re not ignoring the reality of our lives. We’re not hiding. We didn’t deny who we are when we had the chance, did we? If I recall, when I wavered, when I questioned if maybe we should lie, you and your mother held steadfast. And you were right. We answered the census truthfully. We are Muslims. We are Americans. And we will continue to live our lives knowing that those two identities aren’t mutually exclusive.”

  “Well, maybe we should’ve lied on that stupid census. Maybe it’s dumb to hold on to principles when your beliefs can get you in trouble,” I tell them. “Other people lied. Sara and Aidan? They’re in London now, avoiding this whole mess because they checked ‘no religion’ instead of ‘Muslim.’ Easy.”

  My parents look at each other. My mom puts her hand on mine. “I know we argued about it before, but your father and I believe this now more than ever. We will not deny who we are. We won’t lie about being Muslim. Muslims have been in America since the first slaves were brought here. Can you even imagine what they went through to hold on to Islam? What they endured?” Tears come to my mom’s eyes.

  I turn to my dad. “Remember what you said before? About taqiyya? What about living to worship another day? Maybe you were right.”

  My dad sighs and shakes his head. “Beta, I spoke out of fear, out of an instinct to protect you and your mom. And I do want to protect you, but I’m ashamed that I allowed myself to think, even for a minute, that hiding who we are would have been the right answer. Taqiyya, concealing our religion, is forgivable, but only under extreme duress—only to save lives. And the census was hardly a life-threatening situation. Look at Hazrat Summayah. If she didn’t conceal her faith, it hardly seems acceptable for us to do so.”

  “She was tortured and impaled! That’s kind of a high bar for duress, don’t you think?” I pause, waiting for my parents to disagree with me, but they only exchange sad glances. I sigh and continue. “I understand what you’re saying. We can’t erase ourselves. But look at what happened to Nabra, and those Muslim students at Chapel Hill, and that seventy-year-old New Yorker who was almost beaten to death after two guys asked if he was Muslim. And those mosques that were burned down in Texas and Seattle? Remember those ‘Punish a Muslim Day’ flyers that mysteriously started showing up around Chicago and Detroit? Don’t you think we should’ve protected ourselves then? Now look at us. I feel like we can’t even breathe.”

  I can see my words like knives, wounding my parents. My dad’s face falls. My mom walks back to her chair, her hands clenched in fists at her sides. “Layla. We made a choice. And it was the right one. What do you think you’re going to accomplish by rehashing it now? The past is the past.”

  “Beta, we will do everything in our power to protect you,” my dad says, gently taking my mom’s hand in his. She unclenches her fist to accept his gesture. “But we can’t live a lie. It’s not only that every person in this town and campus knows who we are—we host the interfaith iftar every year, after all—”

  “Hosted,” I say, cutting my dad off. “As in past tense. That all ended after the election, didn’t it?”

  He continues, not missing a beat. “We have a moral and ethical obligation to tell the truth.”

  So much of my dad’s poetry is about finding truth in small things. Of course he believes this. And my mom—her whole chiropractic practice is based on a holistic health approach to life. Sure, my dad calls her a spitfire, and she is tough. But her love is fierce, too, and lies and deception don’t enter her worldview. They both, in their own ways,
so desperately want to see the good in people and the world.

  During the election, with paranoia and Islamophobia and isolationism as the prevailing themes, my parents held on to this hope. During the primary debates, when the now-president said on national television that there was justification and precedent for a Muslim registry, my parents, along with so many others, dismissed it as fearmongering, red meat to rile up the base. They clung to their belief in the American ideals of equality and freedom of religion even when they heard our leaders say that men gathering around Confederate statues with hands raised in Nazi salute were “very fine people.” When politicians seized on an attack at a French nightclub to warn about creeping Sharia and sleeper cells on US soil and polls began to favor the Muslim ban and the registry, so many of us said, “It can’t happen here.”

  The thing is, it’s not like half this country suddenly became Islamophobes because of any single event. But the lies, the rhetoric calling refugees rapists and criminals, the fake news, the false statistics, all gave those well-meaning people who say they’re not bigots cover to vote for a man who openly tweeted his hatred of us on a nearly daily basis. Through the political dog whistles and hijabis having their headscarves ripped off and mosques vandalized with swastikas and the Muslims who went missing—through all of it, my parents prayed and believed that things would get better. They seem to have this eternal flame of hope.

  But that’s not me.

  I stand up and take my plate to the kitchen. I’m not hungry anymore. I leave my parents to their hopes and prayers.

  The president’s grating tone wafts up to my room. It’s not loud enough for me to hear, but every National Security Address hits the same notes. America First. Lots of euphemisms and misplaced superlatives. And fearmongering and the need to close borders and chain migration and illegals. And how he will make it all great again.

  My parents keep the television on in the living room even though they’re in the basement, watching Pretty in Pink on an ancient portable DVD player. It’s one of my mom’s nostalgic high school faves. I’ve seen it dozens of times. I honestly can’t believe the disc hasn’t cracked in half yet. If I were a little bummed out, I’d probably welcome the distraction that is Ducky’s charm and the ridiculousness of Steff as a high school senior in an oxford unbuttoned to his midriff. But I’m not merely bummed out. I’m sick to my stomach. I feel like my skin doesn’t fit right. Saccharine sentimentality isn’t going to stop me from feeling helpless and terrified.