by Amal Awad
I have to squeeze Samira’s hand as he says it; she looks ready to leap out of her seat in protest. But it doesn’t irk me as deeply as it does her. Perhaps it’s simply that I am not surprised. Rather, I can see the effort the sheikh is making to navigate his own murky inheritance about gender issues. Besides, all that matters to me in this moment is the outcome: we leave the office half an hour later with a newly married couple.
That night, Lara sleeps before Samira and I do. We’re sharing my bed, but we’re awake, jittery and excited because tomorrow is about more than Lara and Hakeem. We’re in our pyjamas, a packet of chocolate biscuits between us, and Samira is painting my nails fire-engine red. ‘For courage.’
An unspoken conversation hangs in the air between us, waiting to be expressed, and as Samira has declared, I need courage to say my fears aloud.
‘Why have you never said anything to me about the way I’ve changed?’ I finally say.
Samira doesn’t respond immediately. She carefully brushes on the nail polish then uses her fingers to clean the edges.
‘Well, first of all … if you wanted to talk about it, you would. It didn’t feel appropriate to push you.’ She starts to apply another layer of the polish. ‘Second, I wasn’t surprised. You’ve been changing for a while now. The last couple of times I saw you, you’d already changed how you dress. You didn’t seem as anxious around people. You were a bit more … mature?’ Samira lifts her gaze and bites her lip, wary of insulting me.
I concede the point. ‘I’m a bit delayed.’
‘Your parents were pretty hardcore. I mean, Lara and I had our struggles, but our parents were free spirits compared to yours.’ She pauses. ‘And third, who am I talk?’
‘What?’
‘You obviously see my new and not-so-improved hijab. One day, I just had this realisation that I was doing everything I was supposed to be doing, but it didn’t feel like anything. It was all just action, and no thought. And then I had kids, and I started second-guessing myself about what to teach them. I want them to have God, of course. But I also want them to be outside playing, not worrying about hellfire.’ Samira exhales, her breath trembling. ‘I will never tell my daughter that something is ayb or that she can only do something when she’s married. Never. And I also know that the world won’t end because I’m not the perfect muslima.’
‘Did you ever want to take off your headscarf?’
My mother, when women would abandon the headscarf: It’s the beginning of the end. Samira, in her turban, is playing with the boundaries of faith.
Samira shrugs. ‘Kind of. But then I just changed how I wore it. I think it keeps me on the line. And, honestly, it doesn’t bother me.’ She pauses, inspecting my nails, then she blows on them. ‘But I hate it when people use my headscarf to prop up my work. I think that’s partly what made me change how I wore it. I didn’t want to become a poster girl for diversity, like “I can haz talent as a hijabi”?’ she says in a mocking tone and we chuckle. ‘I don’t want to be special because I look different.’
I feel tears unexpectedly prick at my eyes. ‘Samira, you are so talented. Don’t ever let anyone make you doubt that. You would not get hired because you tick a box.’
But I think about my own wobbly introduction to Maggie’s business, and how I thought I was a diversity hire. And yet, I knew I was capable. I’ve doubted many things in my life, but not my ability in the kitchen. Instead, I was fuelled by my stubborn refusal to accept a junior status.
Samira places my hands carefully down and looks up at me with a misty-eyed smile.
‘These quick nail polishes are amazing. My turn.’
I hold up the bottles and do a little dance with them. ‘Which one?’
She selects a light pink, and I take the bottle and twist open the lid, forcing down the wave of emotion that Samira’s confession has unleashed.
Samira looks deep in thought. ‘Sahar, you know I’m proud of you for being so brave and not staying in a bad marriage. I’m glad you’re living your life more fully now. But make room for love,’ she says, her eyes flickering over me. ‘Don’t worry about the clichés and all that “I am enough” stuff. You are, but you’re allowed to worry about not being enough, too. That’s how we get to know ourselves. Our relationships help us grow and change. It’s kind of beautiful.’
My history of love trails behind me, increasingly distant and obscure.
‘I don’t know, Samira. I don’t think I’m built for intimate relationships. I don’t even understand myself sometimes.’
Samira is watching me paint her nails. ‘You know how I knew Menem was good for me?’ She looks up and I stop. ‘It’s how easy it was to be with him. I could just be myself. I didn’t have to modify my behaviour or worry that I offended him. If he didn’t message me back straight away, I never worried that he was playing games.’
I apply the finishing touches to the first coat as we contemplate. Then I blow on Samira’s nails, and kiss her hands. She laughs.
‘It’s the same with God,’ she says, withdrawing her hands. ‘If your whole relationship is spent thinking you’ve screwed up, it’s never going to feel good.’
The simplicity of this truth hits me hard.
‘Just talk to Him,’ Samira continues. ‘Say things out loud. Find out what you want to know. I still pray, but I don’t beat myself up if I miss one. And I don’t feel like I have to make wudu just to connect.’
‘Sometimes I forget how complicated religion can get,’ I say. ‘Everyone tells you how simple it is, before throwing a hundred rules at you. It’s exhausting.’
‘That’s why I loved Hajjeh Noura. She kept it simple.’
Our favourite Islamic teacher. That sweet, young woman who wore a hijab but not elaborately, who played basketball with us in an abaya and headscarf. She was accessible and exuded a warmth that wrapped around you like a warm blanket.
Hajjeh Noura wasn’t married. I remember how the girls felt sorry for her, wondered if her beauty was not enough. But I saw it clearly: she didn’t care. ‘One day, you will understand love,’ she told us.
‘I should pay her a visit,’ I say. ‘How is she?’
Samira’s face falls. She hesitates. ‘I thought you knew.’
‘Knew what?’
‘She passed away. Allah yirhama.’
‘What?’
‘A few years ago. Cancer. I think it was stomach; it was really sudden and brutal. She got treatment, but it was incurable.’
I abandon the nail polish in shock. I try to make sense of it, but it feels like I’ve been hit in the head. Hajjeh Noura, a woman who spent her life trying to make sense of her spiritual inheritance, who was never offended when her more pious and religiously strict students judged her mystical habits.
My nose tingles and tears drop out of my eyes. When I look up, Samira is wiping away tears, too.
‘She was so young,’ I say.
Samira nods. ‘And so beautiful. Inside and out.’ She takes my hands in hers. ‘She died well. She was loved and she was not afraid. There’s truth under the layers, Sahar. That’s what you need to find. The things you still hold to be true.’
I remember the last time I saw Hajjeh Noura. I wonder now if she knew of her diagnosis then. She was pallid, a little tired, but she was focused entirely on me. It was my second or third visit back to Sydney after my marriage. I had met Naeem, who was gaining influence as my faith weakened.
‘God doesn’t stop existing just because you don’t know what to believe,’ Hajjeh Noura told me, her voice and eyes soft as she held me in her gaze. There was no judgement, just compassion.
‘What if I don’t want to be how I was before?’ I told her in response.
‘I don’t think you’re meant to be, habibti. Find the way you want to be. Find the in-between parts hidden in life and hold them up to the light. But don’t punish yourself. Find peace – however that comes, find peace. That is true liberation.’
The next morning, I am the first to wake up. I
rouse Samira then head to Lara’s bedroom. Kat and Inez are due to arrive any minute to do hair and make-up.
‘Five more minutes,’ Lara drawls.
‘You’re getting married, get up!’
I drag her out of bed, but she flops back onto the mattress. I get a shower going and return to find her asleep again.
‘Lara! I’ll make you a coffee, come on.’
Lara grumbles her way to the shower and I set about making an Arab breakfast.
Inez arrives ten minutes later looking like she stepped out of a 1960s fashion catalogue. ‘How’s the bride?’ she says.
‘Still waking up.’
Kat soon follows, her eyes red, but she has coffees for everyone. ‘Now, where’s the one who’s chucking her life away?’
The wedding is a simple affair. Lara has invited her bandmates and some of Hakeem’s friends. I think they are mainly co-workers, but Lara mentioned something about sparring partners at the gym he frequents. Inez and Kat are last-minute additions, clearly having bonded with my childhood friends while I untangled myself from Khaled.
How they all banded together to catch me.
We’re the adults today. Samira’s parents are absent, as is Lara’s cousin Zahra, and her family. ‘I’m tired of the wajib bullshit,’ Lara said, when Samira told her that people would get offended. ‘Hakeem doesn’t have anyone here, and my parents are overseas. Who would your parents sit with? Just don’t tell them it’s a wedding. It’s a lunch, which is true.’
I admired her for taking the stance. At forty, we’re finally learning to make choices that feel right rather than being tied down by obligation.
The luncheon is at a bistro that overlooks the harbour. Hakeem and Lara have rented out a private space, and it’s perfectly intimate. The long table has small place cards with our names on them, the bonbonnières I made resting beside each one with a sticker documenting the event and date.
Kat and Inez delivered the cake in the morning, and Lara starts to cry when she sees it. It has thick off-white buttercream icing and a trail of red roses cascading from top to bottom. Surrounding the roses on top are two different types of keyboard – musical and computer. The musician and the geek.
‘You’ve always understood me,’ Lara says, pulling me in for a hug.
She is radiant and predictably beautiful. Lara will always be that to me: the beauty with a heart and a sharp tongue – authentic and loyal. I struggled with what to buy her as a gift. The cake would not be enough. Eventually, I settled on money, like a true Arab. I don’t want to decide for her what she and Hakeem need the most.
As Arabic music starts to pound through the speakers, I am reminded of Samira’s wedding years ago and the person I was back then: a quiet, anxious observer who had to be seated near the exit and refused to dance because it was a mixed event.
Lara wastes no time taking to the centre of the small crowd, joining hands with Samira while their husbands look on. Then suddenly, she is in front of me, taking my hands and pulling me out of the seat.
And I don’t resist. This time, I am going to dance.
Chapter 31
I want to find the in-between parts hidden in life and hold them up to the light.
I got lucky with my apartment search, finding a one-bedder two floors down in the same building as Lara’s apartment. I had considered moving to my parents’ home, but it made no practical sense. Here, I am walking distance from work. Here, I can carve out a space free of lifelong anchors and memories. Besides, I have come to know Newtown, its backstreets and regular haunts. I have friends here. Workmates.
Lara and Hakeem come by at midday to finish the move out of her apartment. Lara gifts me everything in her kitchen and gives me free rein on anything else I need.
After lunch, Lara hands me her deck of tarot cards and the thick book of interpretations. ‘I could never get the hang of it,’ she says. ‘But I know they speak to you. So why don’t you have these and you can be my reader going forward?’ She laughs as she bundles them into my arms. ‘Besides, my friend Angela tells me your first deck should always be gifted to you.’
When we’re done, we stand in the empty apartment. I swallow my emotion. This is where new life was breathed into me when I first returned to Sydney.
The realisation feels like too much. I know Lara is negotiating similar thoughts, because she won’t look at me and is pressing her lips together in that way you do when you’re trying not to cry.
‘I’ll take that last one,’ she says, pointing to a small cardboard box resting by the door.
I watch her leave, then the tears settle in my eyes. I have obviously become a crier, and I am not happy about it.
‘Thank you,’ I say to Hakeem.
We begin moving towards the door. ‘It’s nothing,’ he says. ‘You did very well to get the place downstairs. Are you happy with it?’
‘It’s perfect.’
‘You’re welcome anytime at ours. You know that, right?’
‘I know.’
As we enter the hallway, I take one last sweeping look around and hold the view in a mental embrace. This apartment is filled with so many histories, and so many to come. I wonder how many love stories it will see, how much despair, how many new beginnings and small joys. I have never lived in a home the same way as I did in Lara’s little Newtown apartment.
Later that night, Inez and Kat come by with dinner – proper, old-school calzone stuffed with cheese and beef for me, salami for Kat, and vegetarian for Inez.
‘Love what you’ve done with the place,’ Kat says, stepping around boxes. There aren’t many of them; the benefit of a busy life is that I haven’t accumulated unnecessary stuff. But I need a couch. The bed I slept in at Lara’s will do for now, but I need to look at creating a bedroom, too. The thought excites me, even with the nerves about having to make design decisions. I’ve always just fitted myself into the space I was in – from my parents’ home to a husband’s, then to Lara’s apartment. I’ve never had to think about what I like.
I make space for us on the living room floor, pushing boxes aside, then spread out the ‘wog mat’ Lara let me take during the move.
We eat and murmur conversation. Kat tells us about the trip she’s planning to the Greek Islands at the edge of the European summer with some friends. ‘Three months and I’m outta here. I’m counting it down.’
Then Inez carefully extracts some pamphlets out of her bag. She extends them towards us, beaming. ‘My burlesque show. You have to come.’
We grab the pamphlets. I’m in awe and Kat looks like a proud mother.
‘It’s at Musicale?’ I give her a sly look. ‘I think Leo will be there.’
Kat stares at Inez. ‘Fucken hell. You don’t shit where you eat. Didn’t this one just learn that?’ She indicates towards me.
‘I have no regrets,’ I say – a revelation that even I find a bit startling.
‘I didn’t pick the venue,’ Inez says, although her cheeks have gone pink. ‘I’m actually kind of hoping he won’t be there. It’s not like I’m not already freaking out.’
‘You don’t have to take your tits out, do you?’ says Kat, ever the diplomat.
This kicks Inez into life. ‘You are the worst.’ She chuckles. ‘I don’t have to, no, but I might.’ She kisses Kat on the head, then looks at me. ‘The more important question is, do I invite Luke? I feel bad leaving him out.’
‘Of course. Invite him,’ I say quickly.
‘I doubt he’ll go now he’s hooked up with Cruella,’ Kat says. ‘She probably keeps tabs on his every movement.’
My stomach sinks at this reminder, but I try to hide my disappointment. Inez gives Kat a forbidding look and shakes her head.
I stay focused on my food, but then Kat lets out a sigh and I wince.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ she says.
‘Not really.’
‘You should talk to him,’ Inez says.
‘I don’t know what to say. Luke has moved on. And I
should now, too.’
There’s an awkward silence that Kat splinters a few seconds later.
‘It’s not like being a lesbian is much easier.’
‘But the sex is better,’ Inez and I chorus, and we all laugh.
Then Inez clears her throat and locks eyes with me, a question in her expression. I know what she’s asking and I nod. It’s time.
‘So, Kat,’ Inez begins, ‘there’s something else Sahar and I have to tell you.’
Kat is immediately alarmed. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I did the list you drew up for me,’ I say. ‘Inez is going to perform burlesque. Now it’s your turn to do something.’
Kat shakes her head. ‘I told you. There’s nothing I haven’t tried.’
Inez is starting to look genuinely nervous. ‘Maggie and I called the producer from the food channel and they’re interested in doing a story on the cafe and its social media popularity,’ she says in a rush.
‘Right,’ says Kat. ‘Well, good for you. You’ll be great.’
‘No. They want you. And they’ve agreed to go no frills.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning no make-up, just the basic TV foundation and touch-ups so that you don’t look sweaty; that sort of thing.’
Kat’s response surprises me. I can detect some resistance, but she isn’t swearing at us or batting the idea down.
‘What if I fuck it up?’
‘It’s not possible,’ I say, and I mean it.
‘Fucken hell, I can’t leave you two alone,’ Kat says, and we smile like idiots.
Kat is still processing the trickery. ‘If I’m being dragged into this, we’ve also got to get Luke, the little fucker.’
Chapter 32
Chocolate is not just a flavour. It’s a feeling.
The next morning at work, it’s just Inez, Kat and me. No juniors, no Luke. We’re puzzled, but Maggie comes in a few minutes past six to announce that Luke has called in sick.