Hate Is Such a Strong Word...

by Sarah Ayoub

  ‘Our people, they love to talk. It is intrinsic – is that how you say? – to their nature. They can’t help it. We also pride ourselves on the strength of a family, which means the people within that family need to be decent and solid. To us, that means a woman should not have many boyfriends or live outside the home. If she does, she is not going to commit as well as she should to her husband and children. Your generation may think differently, but we can’t escape what our generation thinks.

  ‘One day, you will be all grown-up and you will meet a man and fall in love. He might be from a different village, so his parents won’t know what a great catch you are. How you’re a good girl who respects her parents, goes to church, has housewife skills. All the things we Lebanese people love. His opinion won’t always matter, but theirs will, so we want to make sure that they have nothing bad to say about you or us.’

  ‘People are always going to talk, Dad,’ I say, rolling my eyes. ‘Does that mean I have to stop living my life? It’s not fair that I’m not allowed to enjoy myself just in case others decide to gossip.’

  ‘Life is unfair, Sophie. You think I am a monster dictator because I never let you go anywhere. I also think you know I had a fight with your Aunty Leila and she has not been to our house since. This was something I didn’t want you to know about ever if I could prevent it, but the truth always has a way of coming out from the shadows.

  ‘When your aunty was around your age, we had been in this country about three years. She had adjusted well. She went to a girls’ public high school in Lakemba, had plenty of friends, not all Lebanese, and loved to go shopping with them. My mother was always worried about her reputation, but my father, God rest both their souls, could never say no to his beautiful girl. She could have everything she wanted when she smiled.

  ‘When she was in Year Twelve, she met an Australian boy at a party. He was the neighbour of a classmate, three years older than her, and a mechanic. She was in love with him, but told none of us about it. She was right – we would have never understood. Back in those days, mixed marriages were not an option, but to Leila, growing up in that Australian school, none of her parents’ old rules mattered. After school, she would meet him in parks, at train stations, in the shops. Anywhere to see him. A few months into the relationship, he wanted to take things … how shall I say this … further. To cut a long story short, he forced himself on her.’

  I gasp in horror.

  ‘She fell pregnant, and she never saw him again. He went travelling and we never heard from him after that. The worst part of it was that she trusted him and the friend that introduced them, and because she did, her life was ruined.’

  ‘That’s got nothing to do with where she went to school, Dad,’ I point out. ‘Or who she hung out with, even. Girls at my school are very liberal too. Not everyone sticks to the old ways, you know.’

  ‘No, I guess not,’ he says.

  ‘So is this the mseebi, the drama, that you and she were fighting about?’ I ask. ‘Why bring it back up now, after all these years?’

  ‘Because she has gone looking for the child,’ he says softly. ‘It is not that I don’t want her to find it … him or her, I am just afraid that it might open old wounds for her. It was terrible for her to give up the baby, but that boy ruined her life.’

  ‘So, is that why you don’t like me hanging around with people you don’t know?’

  ‘Partly,’ he says. ‘It makes things more complicated. We are from a very tight-knit community – we know people, we can ask about them. We can ask someone if they know the family or the village. We can uncover with one phone call what a police detective tries to find out in a year.’

  I scoff. ‘Dad, this isn’t about boys. It’s about everything in my life that I feel I don’t have a say in. I need a chance to live – it’s the only way I’m going to learn.’

  But he doesn’t let me finish. ‘I don’t want you to grow up, Sophia. Because when you do, I will stop mattering.’

  My eyes fill with tears. It’s the most honest exchange I’ve ever had with my dad.

  ‘You’ll always matter to me, Bayyi,’ I say. ‘But you don’t want me going through life like an idiot who avoids things because she’s scared.’

  ‘You are right, my darling,’ he says, patting my head as he stands up. ‘If only I had invested more time in disciplining your brother. It will be a nightmare to start now.’

  I smile at him.

  ‘Don’t say anything,’ he warns me with a half-smile. ‘I hope to God you are never right again. For my sake too, you know.’

  ‘Sure, Dad,’ I say, laughing and hitting him playfully on the arm.

  When he opens the door to walk out of my room, I see Mum standing in the hallway dusting the picture frames on the wall. No wonder these old Lebs know everything. They are so bloody nosey!

  26

  I hate that sometimes other people’s experiences make me understand Dad’s reasons for wanting to censor my own

  After six years of hearing about how it’s the pinnacle of our high school education, the HSC creeps up on us faster than we expect, and before long we’re all stressing about it. Despite older friends and family telling us that it isn’t the ‘be all and end all’, there are tears, freak-outs, drama-filled study sessions and phone calls at all hours of the night.

  I spend a lot of time in the local library, which offers a break from my loud home and its constant stream of visitors. Occasionally Nicole, Thomas and even Shehadie join me so we can test one another on our study material.

  I appreciate Shehadie’s efforts to help me, but he’s so distracting.

  ‘I’m not joking, Shehadie,’ I say, as he throws another paper plane at me. ‘You might ace exams without having to study, but unfortunately I’m not as smart as you. I actually have to study if I want to pass.’

  ‘You’ll pass,’ he says. ‘You’ve got the hottest tutor around.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s great,’ I reply, laughing. ‘But if this mock essay question were in the actual exam, I wouldn’t have the vaguest idea how to even start answering it … and my hot tutor won’t be around for long either. He’s going all over the world, remember?’

  ‘So if I wasn’t going to travel you’d go out with me?’

  ‘Maybe. Yes. Oh, I dunno,’ I say, exasperated. ‘I really need to focus on my notes right now.’

  ‘You’re worried I might cheat on you while I’m away?’

  I sigh and bite my lip. ‘I’m worried I don’t stand a chance next to the girls you’ll inevitably meet.’

  ‘You’re an idiot,’ he says, eyeing me intently.

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘You know how I feel about you. How many more ways can I show you? When are you going to be confident enough to accept that someone might choose you over all the other girls in the world?’

  I don’t know what to say. This is too big a conversation to be having when I’m trying to study for a subject I’m convinced I’m going to fail. But my silence just gives him more room to work on me.

  ‘You’re the game-changer, Sophie,’ he says, grabbing my hand. ‘I can’t promise you the rest of my life, because I’m eighteen years old and the rest of my life seems like an eternity away. But I can promise you my youth. To most people I know, that’s the most important and exciting thing.’

  ‘We’d never work out,’ I argue.

  ‘You’re thinking like your dad,’ he says after a moment. ‘You’ve bitched constantly about him not giving you a chance to be yourself because he’s worried about the consequences, and now you’re doing the same thing.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I sigh, ‘but you’re going away.’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ he asks testily. ‘That I won’t go? That I’ll give up a chance to fix my broken relationship with Dad so you can be sure that I’m worth fighting for? Because at the moment it seems like you’re the one who doesn’t want it to work.’

  I start to say something, but he keeps going.

 
‘I’m trying to tell you that you matter more to me than any potential holiday fling; that you matter to me more than my pride, which, by the way, is already bruised by your rejection. Think about it from my perspective – I’m pursuing a girl who’s like a brick wall, and while I’m away she’s probably going to meet some cocky Bruce Wayne type at uni and forget all about Clark Kent halfway across the world.’

  And then my walls come down.

  ‘I couldn’t find anyone better than Clark Kent,’ I admit. ‘But you know, Shehadie, you can’t blame me for wanting you to fight for me. It’s good for my self-esteem to hear all those things. All you’ve done so far is pash me at a party and pay me some attention, but we’ve never actually discussed a relationship.’

  ‘So you did this on purpose?’ he asks, poking me. ‘You women are all the same.’

  And then he smiles at me and I smile back, and just like that it feels like everything’s going to be okay.

  As soon as Leila opens the door, she knows why I’m there.

  ‘He told you,’ she says.

  ‘Yes, but whatever came out of Dictator Dad’s mouth might have been censored,’ I say, rolling my eyes.

  ‘That’s true,’ she says, smiling. ‘I was wondering when you’d come.’

  ‘Well, this isn’t exactly a phone-worthy conversation, is it?’

  ‘No, I guess not,’ she says, leading me to the kitchen. ‘Tea?’

  ‘Milo, thanks.’

  ‘Ah yes, how could I forget? Although isn’t Milo a bit childish for someone who’s dying to be a grown-up?’

  ‘I’m still legally a child,’ I point out.

  ‘For a few more weeks yet, missy.’

  ‘Are you going to start acting like a parent now that you are one?’

  She shoots me a look and whacks me across the back of the head.

  ‘Sorry, crossed the line,’ I say.

  She laughs. ‘And I’ll do that again if I need to.’

  We take our drinks out to her back veranda.

  ‘So,’ I say, almost shyly, ‘you have a child.’

  ‘A daughter,’ she replies, nodding. ‘Her name’s Dani. Wouldn’t have been my choice of name, but she sounds nice on the phone, and her name’s not her fault. It’s not even short for Danielle, it’s just Dani. I can’t believe she’s your age, just a little bit older. Doesn’t seem that long ago that she was born.’

  ‘Isn’t it confronting?’ I ask. ‘Making plans to meet a child who was the result of rape?’

  ‘It’s more confronting living a lie, Sophie.’

  I look at her quizzically, and she sighs and leans forward in her chair.

  ‘I wasn’t raped,’ she says. ‘There was nothing violent about it. It was … just love, really. Young, silly, thoughtless love, but love nonetheless.’

  ‘Are you for real?’ I ask, incredulous.

  She nods. ‘His name was Callum. I liked him, he liked me. I loved that he was musical, that he had a hot car, that he had long, grungy hair –’

  ‘Ewww.’

  ‘It was the early nineties,’ she says. ‘He was in a band.’

  I make a face at her but she keeps going.

  ‘I spent every chance I could with him. And one day, I wanted more. I just wasn’t smart enough to think it through.’

  ‘So you’re telling me that my dad’s been harbouring a grudge against a guy you willingly slept with? Isn’t that a little unfair?’

  ‘Don’t look at me like that, Sophie. My mother made up that lie to prevent your dad breaking Callum’s kneecaps.’

  ‘He’s not that kind of Leb, Leila,’ I say, sighing.

  ‘Are you taking his side now?’

  ‘It’s not about taking sides. It’s about the truth and what’s right, don’t you think?’

  She’s silent for a moment.

  ‘Look, I stuffed up, and I did what I could to save myself,’ she says finally. ‘The funny thing is, it felt wrong to me even then, but I think I would have done anything to keep him. I knew that when he went overseas, it would be the end. In hindsight, it did a lot of damage to me mentally – getting engaged to someone else so I’d have an excuse to have the baby, giving her up, breaking off the engagement, running away …’

  ‘So you made one regrettable decision and screwed up your life in the process?’ I say cynically. This is all starting to sound way too familiar.

  ‘It sounds stupid, but in hindsight, I think that’s what it was,’ Leila says. ‘I just wasn’t ready like I thought I was, and I spent years trying to fill a void of my own making.’

  ‘Wow,’ I say, looking at her. ‘Is that why you’ve been distant lately?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s been a long journey for me to get to this point. And to convince your dad that it’s the right thing for me – which of course I didn’t manage. But I can’t go on not knowing her …’

  ‘How do you think she feels about it?’

  She shrugs. ‘She seems pretty open to it. There are processes, you know. She waited till she was old enough … And her adoptive parents told her when she was young, so it’s not like it was a massive shock for her. She didn’t come looking for me as an act of rebellion.’

  ‘You’re the rebel,’ I say, laughing. ‘The rebel aunty.’

  ‘The experience made me a rebel, Soph,’ she says. ‘I was just a kid like you when it happened. I didn’t think about what I was doing, I just thought of the boy and made a rash decision. And then afterwards, I had to think about finding a solution that wouldn’t shame me, because that’s how we lived.’

  ‘And continue to live,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says, smiling. ‘When I was pregnant and alone, I went through a phase where I understood it – why they want you to wait until marriage. But then afterwards, I went completely the other way. I hated how everyone knew everyone else’s business. It was because of other people’s opinions that I couldn’t keep my baby.’

  After a moment, I say, ‘It’s because of other people’s opinions that I avoided an amazing guy for a long time. And now he’s about to go overseas and I won’t get to spend any more time with him.’

  ‘The half-Anglo kid? I knew you liked him.’

  I make a face. ‘I think a lot of people knew before I did.’

  ‘So he’s going overseas, huh?’

  ‘Yep … where he’ll no doubt meet countless girls who come with a lot less emotional and cultural baggage.’

  ‘Pfft,’ she says. ‘Beautiful, but boring. So what?’

  I give her a sad little smile.

  ‘If it’s meant to be, kiddo, it will be,’ she says, patting my hair. ‘If you let yourself pine, it’ll eat away at you. Take it from me. Now’s the time to work on yourself.’

  I look at her curiously.

  ‘Sophie, you’re about to taste social freedom for the first time in seventeen years. Soak it up. Work on your goals. Take the time to build the life you want for yourself based on your interests, your passions, what you read and think and believe. Not the life that your parents or teachers or friends want for you. And when he comes back, if you still want each other, it’ll happen.’

  ‘Is this another lesson from your past?’ I ask cheekily.

  ‘Kind of,’ she says, smirking. ‘I’ve learnt so many lessons, I could go on forever.’

  27

  I hate banking my entire future on the smallest thing

  The smallest thing is a nightmare to write: an entrance essay that’s part of my application to study arts and social sciences at the University of Notre Dame. I try to focus on the writing, not on how Dad will react when I tell him what I’ve done; not on whether personal applications are actually worth anything (the University of Notre Dame doesn’t process applications through UAC); and certainly not on the distracting mess in my post-HSC bedroom. I really ought to burn all my study notes, at least for ceremonial purposes.

  I stare at the question before me.

  Write a personal essay between 1000 and 1500 words that discusses somethin
g from your everyday life: e.g. food, school, work, family. Relate your selected topic to a broader social topic that you think is relevant in society, culture or education today.

  Thinking about what to write is driving me crazy.

  I text Sue: Can’t do this. Brain refuses 2 cooperate.

  She replies: Then work with your heart ;P

  Smart-arse, I scoff, clambering off my bed and back into the chair facing my computer screen. It’s no use fighting it, I tell myself. And so I start writing.

  Food for Thought

  My life can best be described as one big barbecue, the kind that’s busy and bubbling with excitement, starring an array of family and friends who filter in and out to enjoy the buffet and move on, or maybe stay for dessert. Like every meal, it represents a delicate fusion of tastes, ideals and characters that make it genuinely exciting. There’s always an issue or dilemma to deal with, a little bit of drama and gossip, and generally a great party.

  My barbecue fuses together location and background. Location, because the barbecue is quintessentially Australian, and background, because there’s nothing more important to the Lebanese than a family meal. Our family barbecue features sausages and steaks next to kafta and marinated meats, tabouli next to garden salad. Our garlic bread isn’t the watered-down version with garlic butter smeared on a French baguette. Instead it’s pure garlic sandwiched between two large pieces of Lebanese bread, which kind of explains why you can’t kiss a Lebanese person after dinner.

  Like the food on my table, I’m a cultural dichotomy. I don’t know who I am. My father drinks VB and calls his friends ‘mate’, but encourages me to learn Arabic and read up on the country that he reluctantly left behind. My mother teaches me the secrets and rules of a young girl living in the ‘old country’, in the hope I will grow up protected from the Western practices that captivate my friends. I’m growing up in a time when men and women have equal opportunities, but my home life doesn’t reflect this. There are gender imbalances that are made even more confusing by the fact that my parents have invested so much time and energy in helping me recognise the value of my education.