by Amal Awad
How often have people told me I’m imprisoned in a headscarf? Yet I know the truth: I would be this person in any religion. Even without the heavy clothing and long headscarves, I’ve never felt free. Really, I am in recovery from myself.
Lara enters and I lose hold of the bun. My hair tumbles around my shoulders, and Lara immediately rakes the strands into her hands.
She looks stunning in black leather pants and a sleeveless, sequined black top. Her make-up is smoky, her hair beach-wave casual. I wonder if the boundaries of freedom have ceased to exist for her. She places her arms around me, smiling at the reflections staring back at us. ‘You OK?’ she says.
I lean into her embrace and nod slowly. ‘I think I’m going to be very underdressed if that’s what you’re wearing.’
‘Want to borrow something of mine?’
Lara steps back and takes hold of my hair again. She carefully rolls it into a bun and fixes it in place with an elastic band from the dresser.
In a second, her energy shifts. ‘What’s this?’ she says, her tone grave.
In the mirror, I see what has caught her attention: the knotted scar that runs across my right shoulder blade. About halfway down my back, the skin starts to run clean towards my hip, where another, slightly smaller but still obvious scar maps the top of my right hip.
Every day I paint my skull with the memories.
There’s so much she doesn’t know. How long will I be able to pretend the past doesn’t exist when the physical scars remain?
‘It’s a long story.’
‘You keep saying that. We can make time for a long story,’ she says, her frightened eyes meeting mine in the mirror. I smile, because thankfully, we don’t have time tonight. She looks like she wants to say more, but she shakes it off and gives my shoulder a gentle squeeze. ‘I’ll grab you a top. Should be fine over jeans.’
‘Is Hakeem coming?’
Lara shakes her head. ‘Not tonight. He’s in Melbourne with his son.’
When she leaves, I steady myself, placing my hands against the dresser. I take a few deep breaths, closing my eyes, a ritual that always rebalances me.
I finger the wedding band I still wear, before removing it and throwing it onto the dresser. It clatters against the wood then falls flat. I stare at it, marvelling at the weight of such a tiny thing.
I hook on my necklace: the thin gold chain I always wear with the pendant that says my name in Arabic calligraphy. I pat it against my chest, checking that it’s secure.
Then I turn my focus to my headscarf, holding the thin bright purple fabric in my hands. It hits me with forceful clarity how ridiculous I’m being to wear a scarf that has lost much of its meaning for me. Perhaps that truth still exists somewhere, but not here, in this small room where nothing is familiar.
I am tired of the dishonesty of it all. I am burdened by pretence. I cannot enter into this new life the way I looked and felt in the one that preceded it.
I undo the bun and leave my hair out.
My mother used to talk about temptation like it was a delicious cake. ‘Others will cut into it,’ she told me, ‘eat until they’re sick and regret it later. We don’t do that.’ Her eyes narrowed as she surveyed my response. ‘We’re not fooled by the exterior of things, the beauty that hides evil inside.’
I believed her because I knew: I would eat the cake if left alone. I would eat it until there was nothing but a crumb left.
The bar is an underground speak-easy called Musicale. ‘Password-protected,’ Lara tells me with a wink as she leads me towards the entrance. She knocks, provides the password to a man with a deep voice on the other side of the door, then grabs my hand like she thinks I might try to escape.
We follow a dimly lit hallway and emerge into a cavernous space that looks as if it belongs in another era. Crowding it are small tables for two covered in red-and-white tablecloths and tealights, each one topped with a tiny vase with a red rose in the centre.
‘This is Leo’s most popular venue.’
I don’t know much about Leo, but he seems to have his fingers in everything. ‘Is there anything he doesn’t own?’
Lara chuckles. ‘Are you sure you’re going to be OK on your own? Leo’s reserved a spot for you in the back corner. I figured you’d prefer that.’
‘Perfect.’
I take a seat, grateful that Lara lent me a sparkly black top. I’m still underdressed, but it’s too dark in here for anyone to notice me or care. My hair – long, tousled, slightly unkempt – falls down past my shoulders to the middle of my back. I feel exposed but not naked.
For a vague moment, I sense my mother’s energy bearing down on me. Her words echo gently in my ears: ‘It’s the beginning of the end,’ she would lament when she saw Muslim girls take off their headscarves. She took it personally. Would go out of her way to talk to them, like a concerned school principal. But it wasn’t simply their decency she was protecting, it was their prospects of heaven in the afterlife. She also bemoaned human nature, the truth of who we are and why it was essential to fight it. ‘Don’t ever be complacent, Sahar. Don’t ever think a little thing is not a big one when it comes to your faith. God sees all. If it didn’t mean anything, you wouldn’t be changing it, would you?’
I take her point. It means little to me that I sit here so openly, my hair on display like an unusual statement of shame. This small thing is a big one. It can lead to more. Maybe this is the price of cutting away the old. Constant mental surveillance. But then, it was never my choice to wear a headscarf, not really.
I was once someone who embraced religion and its promises so completely. So how is it that I abandoned all of it when life challenged me? How is it that I, who never went a day without being a good Muslim woman, am now left without it?
Lara steps onto the stage. She sings soulfully. Exudes a knowing, the melody and the music inked onto her physical body. The moment embraces me, her words soft like invisible arms taking hold of me and filling me with warmth. She inhabits the stage with joy.
I close my eyes and think of him with a sense of shame. He wasn’t mine to love, and it is here, in this cavernous, dark place, with the soulful voices and warm spirits, that this reality surfaces.
What we shared could not be defined as an affair, and yet, he was not my husband. So what was it?
When the band breaks midway, Lara arrives at my table, a bit sweaty and flustered, but her face is dewy and peaceful. Beside her is a man I assume is Leo. She had described him as Mickey Rourke, that ‘hot actor but pre-plastic surgery before the really scary changes’. I had to look him up. But I don’t see it. His hair isn’t as long as Lara described, and it’s dark with flecks of grey. He seems a bit younger, late forties perhaps. He’s more an Anthony Bourdain. If he’s related to Maggie, then he must also be Italian.
‘Sahar, I want you to meet Leo,’ Lara says.
I nod and extend a hand. Leo wraps it in both of his and gives me a warm smile. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you.’
‘Same.’
‘I have to take care of something right now, but in case I don’t see you later, I want you to email my business partner, Maggie. She might have something for you.’
Leo hands me two business cards then disappears towards the back.
I study the cards – one for Leo Mora, the other, Maggie Mora.
‘He’s the best,’ Lara says, beaming at me. ‘You need to email her. I’ll have to get back soon, but don’t feel like you have to stay. OK?’
I take her up on this. Twenty minutes later, Lara is onstage, and ten minutes in, I’m ready to leave. I walk towards the exit, grateful for the blast of cool air that hits me as soon as I step outside, the door swinging closed behind me and muting the music.
‘Going already?’
I stop, startled. I turn to find Leo by the stairs, a cigar perched between his fingers on one hand, his phone in the other. He drops the phone into the pocket of his jacket and steps forward. Up close in the natural light of the evenin
g sky, he looks a bit rough around the edges, skin like worn leather and dark brown eyes.
‘I’m really tired. I think I’m still jet-lagged.’
Leo looks amused. ‘I can always tell when someone is a Dorothy.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Far from home.’
‘Well, I grew up here. So, if anything, it’s a return home.’
‘Fair enough. Why don’t you hang around for a bit? You hungry? I’ll get you a plate.’
Half an hour later, I’m sitting outside in the back courtyard, sharing a bowl of potato wedges with Leo. The courtyard is not much to look at – an outdoor table with wrought-iron chairs, a small garden of neglected plants and flowers, untidy vines woven into an ageing lattice divider, all lit up by the light pouring out from the kitchen window. But the air is pleasantly chilly, the night sky bright and full of stars. The quiet hum of the music provides a soundtrack, the occasional soaring note from Lara piercing the night air.
As we share the plate, Leo tells me about his time with Lara. That’s how he terms it: ‘I did my time with her.’ I don’t need him to explain. Lara is like that. A hurricane that sweeps through. Like nature, she is just being herself, intending no harm, but no one is left the same.
‘She worked with me for a few months, but I think she liked the idea of eating cakes more than helping me make them,’ I tell Leo.
‘Ah.’
‘She used to challenge me a lot.’
‘Oh?’
‘I was pretty religious. She’d roll her eyes at me whenever I tried to lecture her. But then, she put up with it and never made me feel bad about it.’
Leo inspects me like he’s seeing me for the first time. ‘You were religious?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘And now you’re not.’
‘No. I mean, I still believe, but … I’m a lot of other things.’
Leo chuckles, but it’s not mean-spirited. He leans in. ‘You’re a dark horse, aren’t you?’ Then he laughs warmly.
When we’re done eating, Leo brings out a small box of cigars and a bottle of scotch. He pours the caramel-coloured liquid into two glasses then offers me one.
‘No, thank you.’
‘You don’t drink?’
I shake my head.
‘I’ve cut down.’ Leo inspects the cigar, clipping off the end with the cutter. ‘But Cohibas, I couldn’t resist. With a scotch, I get a bit stupid with the happiness.’ He lights up the cigar. ‘Hope you don’t mind the smell.’
‘No, it’s fine.’
‘You ever had one?’
‘No. But I’ve tried cigarettes. My ex-sister-in-law would get me to have shisha with her sometimes.’
‘Hubbly bubbly?’
‘Yes.’
Leo holds up his glass of scotch. ‘Well, keep away from this so you can stay looking young and fresh, and avoid having skin like mine.’
‘Like I said, I’m pretty vanilla.’
Leo puffs on the cigar a few times as though he’s warming it up. ‘Vanilla is a flavour. Don’t know why people think it’s not special.’
‘We can’t all be special.’
‘Fair enough,’ he says with a smile.
We make small talk for a while longer until it gets too cold to stay outside. Leo leads me to the footpath. ‘You’re welcome here anytime, by the way,’ he says, then gives me a peck on the cheek. ‘I’ll order you an Uber.’
When I reach the apartment, my body feels lighter after an unexpected evening of connection. Then my phone signals a message. It’s from Khaled. My stomach sinks.
Allah ye’samhik.
May God forgive you.
And he’s not even religious.
Later, alone in my freshly furnished bed in Lara’s apartment, thoughts of Khaled are replaced by him. He is ever present, a flimsy but eternal layer of my existence, even in dreams. That’s where he visits me.
When he appears, I don’t search for meaning or relevance. I know why he comes; we are linked by an invisible thread in some mysterious way, in a parallel place.
I didn’t imagine our connection. The way he would look at me, like he was staring into my soul and finding a missing part in it. How easily I found myself reciprocating. Always with a look and a feeling. Always energetic, rarely physical.
It starts to hurt, the pain beginning as a small burn in the centre of my stomach, thinning out so that I can feel it from head to toe.
I slip into a fitful, dream-drenched night of sleep. A patchwork quilt of memories filters through, amplified and abstract. I am in a headscarf in my parents’ home, but then wearing shorts and a bra on the street. I cover myself, but then I’m in the desert and it’s not what I’m wearing that matters, but what I see. Him, watching me from a distance. Him, unconscious on the ground, bleeding out. Me, unable to scream or run.
Jordan
The second year
I’m growing accustomed to living in Jordan, but I still struggle with the loneliness – the distance from my friends and family; the unfamiliar. I often find myself alone in the villa; Khaled frequently travels, and his sisters are left to entertain me.
They don’t seem to mind. Zainab sends me out shopping with Dina. ‘We can be modest and modern,’ she tells me over the phone. ‘You are Khaled’s wife now and we get to spoil you!’
I believe Khaled has put her up to this, but I like spending time with Dina, and her life is more interesting than mine. We go to Abdoun and sit in cafes smoking shisha while she regales me with stories of her social life. Sometimes, Dina, who is in the throes of her late twenties, is spying on a man she seems genuinely drawn to, who seems to reappear between crushes.
Dina sets me up at a local women’s gym, while Zainab ensures I visit her house at least once a week for dinner. The semblance of a social life is being constructed for me, but the connections are still in development. The familiarity of childhood friends is missing and it often leaves me feeling sore.
It feels at times like I’m waiting for something, but I’m unsure what it is. Why am I here when it seems as if I have nothing to do?
Sometimes Khaled and I appear like two explorers lost in the wilderness, more weighed down by mutual disappointment than our individual baggage. We have little in common, and we have not bonded. He is my husband but he is a stranger. The big bed feels small even though we share intimacy in it. This is when he softens towards me. When, somehow, our differences melt away and we find each other through physical contact.
Khaled likes me on top. Likes my long hair to spill down my back and around my shoulders.
‘Don’t ever cut it,’ he tells me one night, raking his fingers through my hair.
I start to enjoy physical intimacy, the rush I get when I see the desire in Khaled’s eyes. Perhaps this is love, I tell myself.
Khaled returns from a business trip in the Gulf with some gifts – a bottle of perfume, some chocolates and a series of bright, small headscarves, shorter than the kind I usually wear.
‘I don’t know what you like with perfume,’ he says as he shrugs out of his clothing.
I smile because I never wear perfume. ‘It’s very nice, thank you.’
He manages a stiff smile in return then excuses himself to take a shower.
I wait on the bed, wondering if he wants to be with me. But when he emerges, he is already dressed in casual clothing.
‘I’m starving,’ he says.
‘I’ll make you something.’
I feel disappointed but not surprised. The exchange flattens me a little, but later that night, he makes it clear that he wants to try for a pregnancy again. I never say no to Khaled.
Afterwards, I can’t fall asleep. Khaled’s one request is that we go to bed together. He does not love me – I’m not even sure he’s attracted to me – but his pride kicks in at bedtime. ‘A husband and wife should go to bed at the same time.’
But as I try to steady my breathing, he pulls me close.
‘Repeat after m
e,’ he says in Arabic, surprising me with his gentle tone, but also subduing my fears.
Allahuma gharit-in-nujoomu …
Oh Allah the stars have gone far away …
Wa hada’itil-’uyoonu …
And the eyes are rested …
For the first time, I feel that he could actually love me. The moment hints at some strain of belonging to each other.
I repeat the words after him, and eventually my voice crosses over into his. Khaled, the pick-and-mix Muslim, whose deep, melodious voice for so long seemed wasted to his religious wife.
Allahuma gharit-in-nujoomu wa hada’itil-’uyoonu …
Oh Allah the stars have gone far away and the eyes are rested …
Wa anta hayyun qayumon …
You are Alive and Infinite …
… laa ta’khuthuka sinaton wa la nawmon …
You do not slumber nor does sleep overtake You.
Ya hayyu ya qayoomu, ’ahdi’ layli wa anim ’ayni …’
Oh Alive and the Everlasting One, grant me rest tonight and let my eyes close.
Chapter 5
I never do anything by half.
The next day I email Maggie, attaching a bare-bones CV that outlines my business history. I try to amplify my efforts in Jordan, but I’m not sure how to explain four years of odd jobs in refugee camps.
When Lara finally emerges at eleven thirty, I make us another Arab breakfast, but a proper one this time: scrambled eggs, fried haloumi, olive oil, zaatar, olives, cucumber and stove-heated Lebanese bread. I forgot to buy sausages. Next time.
I tell her about my conversation with Leo.
She shrugs. ‘That’s Leo. He’s someone you’ll always feel safe with. He’s a bit protective.’ She pauses. ‘Did he call you “bella” or “kid”?’
‘No.’
‘Then he’s not making a move on you.’
‘I didn’t think he was.’