“Okay, well, thanks.” I wish he would leave so I can duck around the corner and cry in private. I cross my arms tightly over my chest, as if the emotion struggling to erupt is a physical thing I can mash down. But he continues to stand there, so I have no choice but to enter the theater. I don’t even care anymore how late I am. I just want to get through the next hour without falling apart.
The theater, which must have nearly a thousand seats, is in almost total darkness, with only a few stage lights on at the front. I can see a bunch of kids milling around, engaged in some kind of activity that involves a lot of laughter. I make my way down the aisle toward them and only at the last minute – like opening a drawer and discovering a huge hairy spider – do I see Mustapha Khan is among them. If this is Allah’s idea of showing me the way, he certainly has a sense of humor.
CHAPTER 5
“You must be Emma,” says a man almost as round as he is tall. He strides toward me with his hand extended. I think he’s going to shake my hand, but instead he grabs my arm, drawing me in like I might try to escape. “You’ve missed the introductions, but don’t worry. Had some trouble finding us, did you?”
I mumble something that must sound like assent because he rambles on for several minutes about how confusing the campus is. I don’t hear a word and I can’t take my eyes off Mustapha, even though I know I need to stop staring. Finally, the cheerful cherub pauses and looks at me curiously. “I hear you and Mustapha already know each other. Why don’t you join his group?”
Now that gets my attention. I tear my eyes away from Mustapha to look at the teacher. Inconveniently, I’m struck speechless, allowing just enough time for the voice that has been ringing in my head all day to call over, “Yes, Emma. Why don’t you come join us?” Can anyone else hear the challenge in his voice?
I look at the teacher for support, but he’s smiling happily and gives me a small shove in Mustapha’s direction. “There you go, then. He’ll take good care of you.” Is he kidding?
Mustapha certainly isn’t. He’s grinning with all the warmth of a tiger that’s just caught sight of a gazelle. I try to remember what Mr. Akbar said about making things right, but it no longer seems relevant. My goal here is pure survival. Mustapha walks toward me because I’ve stalled somewhere beyond the shove but still a safe distance from him. I have no intention of going closer. Wordlessly, he takes my arm and leads me over to two other guys.
“This is Ali and Faarooq.” He doesn’t bother to introduce me. No doubt he’s told them everything. Is it my imagination, or is it two hundred degrees in here?
“How’s it going?” Ali smiles warmly, and I wonder for a minute if I’m mistaken, but Faarooq cuts in.
“Mustapha’s told us all about you.” Well, that’s blunt. I look at him for some hint of warmth, but his eyes are as cold as his voice.
“So, what are we meant to be doing?” I croak, cursing myself for letting my nerves show.
“We have a week to prepare a five-minute skit,” Mustapha answers.
I’ve got to work with them all week? It must be some kind of cosmic retribution, and I’m sure I deserve it, but I’m still hoping it won’t be as bad as I fear.
“Any theme?” I ask shakily, still not doing a good job of keeping my emotions in check. No one answers. Faarooq and Mustapha exchange glances. I get a queasy feeling and wonder if it’s too late to retract my question.
“Something to do with colliding cultures,” says Mustapha, his lips twitching.
“Mustapha suggested it,” Ali interjects. As if I needed to be told that.
“Well, that’s just great,” I snap, anxiety finally giving way to anger. “Have you come up with any ideas yet?”
“As a matter of fact, I do have one,” Mustapha exclaims.
“Really. Well, I can’t wait to hear it,” I say coolly.
“Maybe we could do something about a foreigner who comes to a new country and goes around telling the people who live there how awful their country is.”
“I don’t know,” says Faarooq, and for a second I think maybe he’s on my side. “Would anyone really behave so rudely? I’m just not sure it’s believable. What do you think, Emma?” I could get radiation poisoning from his smile.
Now would be the moment to apologize, but for me, the moment’s long passed. The anger courses through my bloodstream like a drug, and I’m grateful for it.
“Maybe we should do something about male-female relationships,” suggests Ali enthusiastically, oblivious to the tension.
“Well, that could certainly be part of it,” says Mustapha, not taking his eyes off me. “What do you think, Emma? Can you think of any possible cultural misunderstandings a guy and a girl could have?”
“I don’t know, Mustapha,” I say. It occurs to me it’s the first time I’ve said his name out loud, and I find it curiously appealing. Can you hate someone and be hot for them at the same time? “I think you need to be more specific. Do you have a situation in mind?”
“I do have one, yes. But perhaps you also have an idea you’d like to share.”
“Not at all. I can’t think of a single thing.”
“You surprise me. You seemed so quick with your opinions this morning.”
We stare at each other for a long moment. My breath is coming in short bursts. I can hear his breathing as well and feel the heat coming off him in waves.
“How about arranged marriage?” Ali suggests. We all whip round to look at him, but he smiles back cheerfully. Don’t they do basic IQ tests to get into this school? He continues, obviously proud of his brain wave. “We could do a play about this Pakistani guy who falls in love with this American girl, only his parents don’t approve, and she has to go through this meeting with his father and his brother so they can vet her.”
“That would never happen,” cuts in Faarooq angrily. “It would be the boy’s mother who checks out the girl.”
“That’s a great idea,” Ali says excitedly. “I could dress up as the mother, and you could dress up as an aunt. It would be funny.” I like this guy. He’s dorky-looking, with a round face that matches his body, but it works for him. He’s cute and not in a scary-Mustapha sort of way either.
“It’s a stupid idea,” says Faarooq sulkily.
Just then, the teacher announces the end of the class, and we agree that we’ll work on a script next time, which is actually two days away because of block scheduling. I hope it’ll give me time to come up with a way to make things right.
As we leave the class, someone comes up behind me, lightly tapping my shoulder. A charge rifles through me because I assume it’s Mustapha, but it’s not. Faarooq looms over me in the gloom at the back of the theater.
“Stay away from my sister,” he says. Not waiting for a reply, he pushes past me and storms out. At this moment, I can’t imagine any request I would be happier to oblige. I wouldn’t go near his third cousin if she was handing out hundred dollar bills and Snickers bars. The only problem is, I have no idea who his sister is.
CHAPTER 6
I sit at my desk after school, staring at my laptop screen. Fifty-two unanswered e-mails. That’s got to be some kind of record. I reread the most recent from Cassie, my best friend in Manila, and wonder how long my friends will keep writing before they catch on that I’m not writing back. Cassie’s worried about me. I want to reassure her, but just thinking of the extravagant lies I would have to weave to convince her I’m okay exhausts me before I even begin. She’s managed to call here twice, which is impressive because I didn’t give her our new numbers. I made Vince lie and say I wasn’t home. She’ll figure it out eventually, but that won’t necessarily stop her. Cassie’s loyal to a fault. She’ll keep trying to rescue me as long as there’s breath left in her body. I used to think I’d do the same for her.
Now I’m not sure I even have what it takes to be her friend. She wants me to tell her whether she should go after a new boy at school. Marc, her current boyfriend, cheated on her over the summer. No shocker t
here. I always said he wasn’t worthy of her. She says he’s history, but I can tell she’s still into him. I don’t know what to tell her. Should she give Marc a second chance because all guys are faithless dogs, or should she recognize Marc for the worm he is and cut him out of her life, like I did Dad? I want to help her, but I’m not the one she should be asking. What do I know about relationships?
Her e-mail goes on about a Dolce & Gabbana dress she picked up on sale. Manila is the best place in the world for designer shopping. I close my eyes and imagine Cassie and me trolling through Power Plant, our favorite mall. We take a break at the French café that opened just before I left. I order an iced cappuccino, and Cassie gets amaretto cheesecake and milk. She doesn’t care about calories or being cool, which is only a small part of what made us inseparable. I cared way too much about both, but when I was with Cassie, I always felt like I could be totally myself.
I return to reality with a jolt when I read on to discover that all of my Manila friends, plus Marc and the new boy, are going clubbing next weekend. This is a first for our group. We drank a bit at parties last year, but none of us looked old enough to get into clubs. I can’t believe that the first time my friends go clubbing, I won’t be there; even worse, they’ll do it while I live in a country where alcohol is illegal and clubs are nonexistent.
Cassie’s going to wear the new dress. Her big question is whether to wear it braless. I try to picture it, spaghetti-strapped and shimmery, draped over Cassie’s flat chest and wide hips. My most recent clothing dilemma was whether I could get away with wearing a sleeveless shirt outside the house. I learned it was against both local and school dress codes, but I don’t think that tidbit of fashion wisdom is going to help with Cassie’s decision.
For three paragraphs, she complains about our friend Livi giggling during the sex scene of a recent chick flick. Instead of commiserating, I get distracted trying to remember the last time I saw a chick flick, or any movie, for that matter. Mom whisked us out of Manila so fast I hardly had time to say good-bye to friends, much less see a movie or shop or eat a burger for the last time. Would Cassie commiserate if I told her I’m living in a city that doesn’t even have a movie theater and where public kissing is a criminal offense?
I’m used to losing friends. I’ve moved enough times to know that long-distance relationships are hard to hang on to; the calls and e-mails dwindle over time; and people change and get closer to the friends they see every day. That’s normal.
But this is different. It’s not just that these e-mails are time capsules, talking about people and places I’ve left behind, it’s as if they’re talking about a completely different reality, one I can barely remember. I sift through the words, trying to find some common ground, some experience I can share that would shore up my connection to that world, but I come up empty.
Finally, I highlight the page full of messages from people who used to be my closest friends, and I hit “delete.” I get a prompt asking if I really want to delete everything. Even the computer can’t believe it. I confirm the command and shut it down before I can change my mind.
CHAPTER 7
“He’s in your theater class?”
“Yeah, that’s what I just said.” It’s Monday evening, and, as promised, Angie has come over to my compound to talk strategy about Mustapha. I swat a mosquito. Do the evening ones carry malaria or dengue fever? I always forget.
“And you’re in his group.”
“Yes.”
“For the entire week.”
“Would you please stop repeating everything? I don’t need an instant replay. I lived it. Remember?”
“Sorry. It’s just that it’s such incredibly bad luck.”
“You think?”
Angie walks back on her swing and lets go, whizzing up, rocking the whole swing set dangerously. I’m sitting on the swing beside her, but I keep my feet sensibly anchored to the ground. We’re alone in the little kid playground between the Canadian staff housing and the servants’ quarters. It’s a perfect vantage point for babysitting, which is what I’ve been doing since our bearer, Guul (a.k.a. The Ghoul), our cook-nanny-roach-killer, went home an hour ago. Mandy and the other compound kids are playing a raucous game of hide-and-seek. The servants’ quarters are out of bounds, but I’m sick of mediating their boundary disputes, so when Mandy races past us, obviously headed in that direction, I don’t say anything.
Angie continues rocking us both with the power of her swinging. This equipment has got to be older than I am. I’m sure it would be illegal in Canada, but here, the parents are just grateful to have somewhere they can send their kids to get them out of the house. It’s not a bad setup. There aren’t many places in the world where you can let your kids play unsupervised, knowing that they’re never more than a few feet from armed guards – not to mention dozens of servants and groundskeepers.
“Maybe we should look at this as a good thing,” says Angie.
“What?”
“Well, you need to smooth things out with Mustapha, and now you have the perfect opportunity.”
“Would that be before or after Faarooq lynches me?”
“You’re having problems with Faarooq? Tahira’s brother?”
“Is that who he is? He told me to stay away from his sister but forgot the small detail of telling me who she is.”
“Don’t mind him. Tahira’s brothers don’t approve of many people. They hate Leela.”
The pretty girl at lunch with the bangle mania? She seemed nice enough. “Why do they hate Leela?”
“I don’t know. It may be the whole India and Pakistan thing, the war and everything. And they probably think Leela has too much freedom for a girl who is sort of from their culture, if you know what I mean. I don’t think they approve of any of us, but Leela’s the only one I’ve seen them actually be rude to.”
“How many brothers does Tahira have?”
“Three.”
“No sisters?”
“No. That’s part of the problem. They think the entire honor of their family rests on Tahira. She has to stay a virgin for, like, forever, and she can’t do anything fun. If she even looks at a guy, it’s a capital offense. They’re always watching her.”
“Huh.” I don’t know what to say. Obviously, I’m not the only one with problems.
One of the little kids runs up to us. “Have you seen Mandy?” he asks as he wipes the snot dripping from his nose with the back of his hand and scans the area.
“Haven’t seen her,” I lie.
“She didn’t go in the servants’ part again, did she?”
“Don’t think so,” I say.
He looks at me for a minute, but I continue to smile pleasantly. Finally, he heads back up to the Canadian housing.
“I think we should practice what you’re going to say to Mustapha the next time you see him,” says Angie.
“I think you should stop swinging before I hurl.”
“Sorry. You sure have some lame-ass equipment here. You should come to the American compound. It’s like state of the art. We even have three baseball diamonds.”
I sigh.
“So I’ll be Mustapha.” She stands up and faces me. “You be you.”
“Great casting. Now, what are my lines?”
“Just say it was your first day and you were nervous and you said some things you didn’t mean and you’re sorry.”
“I don’t know how I’d say that to him. Maybe you should be me,” I say. “I’ll play Mustapha.”
“But you need to practice your part.”
“That’s why you should demonstrate it. So I get it right.”
“Fine,” she sighs. “Stand up.”
We square off in front of the swings.
“Mustapha,” Angie begins, giving me an earnest look. “I’m really sorry if I offended you the other day when I made those comments about your country. I was really nervous, it being my first day and all, and I really didn’t mean what I said. I hope you can forgive me.”
She gives me this fake smile that is shockingly convincing.
“Okay, now you go,” she says.
“I’m Mustapha?”
“Right.”
“Okay,” I drop my voice to a low snarl. “You’re dead, bitch.”
“Emma! Mustapha would not say that.”
“I just did.”
“Emma.”
“I’m not Emma, I’m Mustapha.”
“Okay, I think you should play yourself now. I’ll be Mustapha.”
“But I’m just getting into it.” I smile innocently.
“I can see that.” She gives me a reproving look. “Which is why now it’s my turn.”
“You’re too short to play him.” I plop back down on my swing and begin rocking, not taking my feet off the ground.
Angie walks over to the rusted metal monkey bars – another throwback to the last decade – climbs up a couple of rungs, and swivels round to face me, wrapping her arms around the ladder for support.
“Okay, now I’m taller. Go for it,” she says.
I give her a look, but she waits patiently.
Finally, I clump over to the monkey bars. Even halfway up, she’s only inches above my head. “Mustapha,” I say a little more forcefully than I intended. “Do you remember the other day when we were by the fishpond, and I was feeding the fish, and it was my first day of school, and you were on the other side of the compound, and the fish were really hungry, and it was crazy hot and –”
“Emma,” Angie interrupts, “are you planning to get to the apology before the class ends?”
I glare at her.
She smiles back.
I heave a self-pitying sigh that only makes her smile harder, and I feel my own lips twitch as I take one last shot at it. “Mustapha, do you remember when your heinous girlfriend harassed me for giving the poor starving goldfish a tiny bit of bread, and then you grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go and dug your fingers into my arm, and –”
An Infidel in Paradise Page 4