A Place at the Table

by Saadia Faruqi

  A few days later, on Halloween night, I offer to sit at our door, handing out candy. It’s not so bad. I’ll get to see all the adorable little kids in their dragon, princess, and superhero outfits. Dragon Princess Superhero. Sounds like a great idea for an anime series.

  Justin comes into the kitchen, crying. He’s dressed in his Spider-Man costume, but the edge of the collar is pulled into his mouth.

  “What’s wrong?” I put my hands on his shoulders and lean down to examine his face.

  “Taemin is sick. He wasn’t in school. He’s not allowed to trick-or-treat. I can’t go without my best friend.” I know how he feels. “Halloween is ruined,” he sobs.

  Good thing he’s not wearing a mask. When Justin cries, it’s a big, snotty mess.

  “Elizabeth can take you,” Mom calls out from her knitting spot.

  If she’s noticed that Maddy’s not here to help me put the jack-o’-lanterns on our front step, that I’m not dressed in a costume, she hasn’t said anything.

  Justin throws his arms around my middle. Robin Hood barks at us, concerned that roughhousing is about to happen.

  “Mom, we have to put Robin in your room before kids start ringing the doorbell,” I say.

  “I’m on it. You deal with Justin.” Mom gets up slowly and coaxes Robin upstairs.

  “Please come with me, Els,” Justin begs. He’ll be as tall as David someday, but for now, he only comes up to my shoulder. “I’ll be your best friend forever.”

  “You already are, you manipulative little beast.” With Maddy out of the picture and Sara barely speaking to me, that’s probably true. Justin and Micah are the best friends I’ve got.

  I kiss Justin’s forehead, the only place on his face that’s not covered in tears and goo. I missed him so much this summer. The girls in my cabin played kickball and learned dance routines, but I always sat on the sidelines. How could I play, when missing my family made me feel like there was a tree in my heart that had lost all its leaves?

  “You need a costume,” Justin says.

  I nod. “I have an idea.”

  I run upstairs and raid my craft drawer. There’s the sheet of stick-on mustaches Micah gave me for Purim, looking like a set of hairy lip-caterpillars. I stand in front of the mirror and stick a furry mustache on my upper lip.

  Justin pokes his head in my door. “Ready?”

  “Still needs something.”

  “A hat,” he suggests.

  Justin surveys the row of hats lined up on my closet shelf. He points to the gray-and-pink tweed cap Nan bought me last Christmas in England, right before she was diagnosed with cancer. I press my face to the fabric and inhale, to see if it still smells like her. There’s a faint scent of Violet Mints, the lavender-flavored candy Nan loved. It catches me by surprise, even though I was hoping to find it there.

  For a moment, it’s summer and I’m back with Nan in her garden. She’s wearing a cotton dress with flowers on it. We reach beyond the lavender patch into a thick green hedge.

  “Quiet,” she whispers, parting the small branches. Deep inside the hedge, there’s a nest of twigs cupping three speckled eggs.

  “Why isn’t the bird sitting on her eggs?” I ask.

  Nan points to a nearby oak tree. “There she is, a little sparrow. Coming back from stretching her wings, I should think.”

  I wonder if Justin will have memories like that when he’s my age, or if Nan died when he was too young to really know her.

  I put the tweed cap on and check myself in the mirror one more time. “It’s perfect,” I say, combing out my hair with my fingers. I don’t even have to change my jeans and sweater. I am a girl, incognito. I think it’s my favorite Halloween costume ever.

  11

  Sara

  I HATE HALLOWEEN. When I was little, I’d stand with my face pressed up against the front window, watching the neighborhood kids stride around in their costumes, plastic pumpkins filled with candy clutched in their hands, parents trailing anxiously behind them.

  “Sara, stop staring outside!” Mama would scold me. “They’ll see you and then they’ll come ringing our doorbell, wanting candy.”

  I never told her that I wished they’d ring our doorbell. I never told her I wished with all my heart to go trick-or-treating with them. Of course not. Halloween is haram—forbidden. For one night every year, I wish I was Sarah instead of Sara.

  Elizabeth thinks dressing up in a costume is no big deal. How could she know that Mama and Baba would die of grief if I ever said anything about Halloween? Nasreen aunty had talked about it in Sunday school last year. “We all came to this country for a better future,” she’d said earnestly. “We love being American, celebrating holidays like Thanksgiving and July Fourth. But Halloween is a holiday with pagan roots, against the teachings of Islam.”

  The only person who’d looked unconvinced was Ahsan Kapadia. His family has a huge Halloween display on their front lawn every year, complete with witches and goblins. He left Iqra at the end of that year. I heard Mama and Nasreen aunty talking about it later. “They’re not very observant,” Nasreen aunty said. “I think Ahsan will be happier in public school.”

  My dark mood becomes even darker when Mama and Baba begin to argue in Urdu after dinner. “Kya? I thought this was already paid,” comes Baba’s angry voice from the kitchen. I don’t usually eavesdrop, but Halloween has put me on edge. All the happy commercials on television showing kids wearing costumes, the noises on the street outside, give a heaviness to the pit of my stomach. Once again, I’m the odd one out, the outsider, not really part of this community where I was born and have lived all my life.

  “Don’t worry about it—it’s my responsibility.” Mama’s tone is so unlike her. Harsh. Mad.

  “Five hundred is not a joke, Hina!” Baba almost shouts. And with a flash, I understand what they’re fighting about. Mama’s catering-expense bills. The ones she told me not to worry over. Apparently, there’s a lot to worry over. Enough to make my normally easygoing parents fight loud enough to wake up the neighbors.

  Only the neighbors are too busy trick-or-treating to care.

  * * *

  We pray the evening prayers together as a family, as always. Tariq and Rafey nudge each other and giggle, but I ignore them. I listen to Baba recite the verses from the Quran, his melodious voice washing over me in gentle waves. I close my eyes and breathe deeply again and again. Beside me, Mama is doing the same, and suddenly I want to hug her.

  Or maybe I want to be hugged.

  By eight thirty, Mama and Baba have gone into their room and shut the door firmly, after reminding me to keep the porch light off in the universal signal of party poopers. Might as well put up a neon sign in our front yard saying: WE ARE DIFFERENT! WE ARE NOT TRUE AMERICANS! NO CANDY OR COSTUMES HERE. MOVE ON TO THE NEXT HOUSE!

  Tariq and Rafey are watching the neighborhood kids from their bedroom window upstairs, calling out names and saying things like “Hope that candy rots your teeth, DeShawn!” and “You better share your stash with us tomorrow, Antonio!” They’d better hope Mama and Baba don’t hear them.

  I envy my brothers. They feel no shame in being Muslim. They’re too young to appreciate how different they are from their classmates. If I were in a better mood, I’d ask them the secret to their carefree attitude. The five hundred dollars Mama owes the bank makes it worse, looming over me like a giant spider spinning a web around my family.

  I can’t help taking a peek out our front window like I used to do when I was younger. Immediately I wish I hadn’t. The street lamps are ablaze, and I see Elizabeth crossing the road outside our house, holding a younger boy’s hand. He looks about the same age as the twins. Does Elizabeth have a brother too?

  She’s wearing a hat of some sort . . . and is that a mustache on her face? I bite my lip to keep from smiling.

  Elizabeth turns her head toward me, and I quickly drop the curtain. My heart is thudding. I feel like a stalker. Even from behind the curtain, I can hear Elizabeth�
�s brother laughing, her confident voice in reply, and the sounds pull me back to that lonely, hollow feeling I always get on Halloween.

  I head back to the kitchen table. I have a lot to do. It’s a weeknight, and I have three math worksheets to power through. Plus, my sketch of the business flyer is almost complete. I want to show it to Mrs. Newman tomorrow. I don’t like showing anyone my drawings—they’re almost like the private part of my thoughts—but Mrs. Newman is different. Her smile makes me feel as if I really have some talent.

  I start on math. Fraction multiplications are hard but nothing I can’t handle. This was fifth-grade work at Iqra. Of course, the memory of doing math worksheets with Rabia is now stuck in my head. Rabia loved eating chili cheese popcorn with extra butter while she worked. She said it pushed her brain to calculate faster. The smell of those things made me gag, but I loved doing math with someone who understood me. Someone who knew that my favorite subject in the whole world is art. Someone who would never ask me if I’d like to go trick-or-treating.

  I reach over to the phone and dial her number.

  “Hello? Salaam?” It’s Nasreen aunty.

  “Oh, salaam alaikum, Aunty,” I say, flustered. “Is Rabia there?”

  There’s a weird little silence. Then she replies, “Rabia went out for a little while, just around the neighborhood.”

  Out in the neighborhood? On Halloween? How is that possible? Nasreen aunty is a Muslim-school teacher. She’s even stricter than Mama. “What’s she doing out tonight?” I ask, my voice shaky. Hot tears begin to pool in my eyes.

  “Just for a walk with her father, that’s all.” Her voice is soothing. “No costume or anything. And you know I don’t allow candy.”

  “Of course not,” I echo, but something hard and brittle twists inside my chest as I say goodbye. For a long while I sit at the kitchen table, head in my hands, math worksheets crumpled under my elbows.

  Baba wanders into the kitchen and taps me on the head. “Kya hua, jaanoo?” he asks. He’s wearing a blue-and-white-striped pajama suit, and bunny slippers on his feet. Glasses perch sideways on his forehead.

  I sigh. “Nothing happened.”

  “I’m making tea. Want any?”

  I shake my head. “I need to finish my homework. Then I’ll go to bed.”

  He switches on the little kitchen TV and searches for something using the remote. “Channel fifty-three,” I tell him helpfully, already knowing what he’s looking for.

  “Shukriya.” The A-Team springs into action, all glossed hair and rippling muscles. Baba smiles and mutes the volume, then begins the familiar ritual of tea making. Put the kettle to boil, take out sugar and one Lipton tea bag from the pantry, milk from the fridge. Find a teacup and mismatched saucer from the cabinet. Sometimes he eats a cracker or biscuit with his tea, but not tonight. He sits beside me at the table and peers at my sketchbook. “Drawing again?” he murmurs.

  I pull the book toward me and cover it with the math worksheets. Something about isosceles triangles that I learned the year before at Iqra. Thankfully, he turns to the television screen and lets me work in silence. Mr. T is looking angry as usual, but Baba grins as he watches, as if the big actor is his personal friend. When the commercials come on, he turns back to me. “You know, jaanoo, this Halloween business gets me quite depressed too. Who wouldn’t want to go out dressed like a rabbit and beg for candied carrots?” He wiggles his bunny slippers, trying to make me smile.

  The image of Baba dressed in a white rabbit suit, front teeth sticking out, crunching a giant carrot swims in front of my eyes. I can’t help myself. I giggle.

  “That’s my girl,” he says.

  The kettle begins to whistle, and he gets up to pour the boiling water into his teacup. “I have to say, Sara, I expected Rafey and Tariq to be sad tonight. Not you. You’re a big girl now. What do you care about these silly holidays?”

  Doesn’t Baba get it? I’m almost a teenager. Being left out of social situations isn’t helping me make friends at middle school.

  I put my pencil down with force. Math is winning the battle tonight. “I know you think I’m being childish,” I say. Okay, maybe I whine it. “Everything is different in this new school. In life, in general. This girl Elizabeth, she’s the closest thing I have to a friend at school. She asked me to go trick-or-treating with her tonight. I mean, aren’t we too old for trick-or-treating? But I felt so bad saying no. Like, I’m Muslim, so I can’t do anything fun, you know? And even Rabia’s going for a walk with Uncle around the neighborhood, and I’m stuck here doing stupid math that I totally know but can’t remember for some reason.”

  My voice wavers and threatens to dissolve into tears again. I wipe my eyes and go back to my worksheet. “Never mind. Forget I said anything,” I whisper.

  Baba stirs milk and sugar into his tea—one teaspoon of each, measured with slow and steady hands—and gazes thoughtfully at me. I know because I’m peeking at him from the corner of my eye.

  “Let me tell you a story,” he finally says. “When I was a teenager, there was a new Urdu movie in the cinema, quite scandalous. The whole nation was shocked at the women dancing in sarees and the men singing love songs. It may sound innocent to you, but thirty years ago, it was a big deal. It made the news, I tell you.”

  I sneak another peek at him. He’s sitting back in his chair, eyes half closed, smiling a little. “I was dying to go watch that movie, Sara. But of course my father put his foot down and said, ‘No. We’re Muslims, and we’ll never watch such filth. Imagine the harm it could do to a young child’s mind.’ I complained and argued, even wept—oh, yes, I did—but he refused to let me go.”

  I try to imagine Baba as a teenager, with his father standing over him ugly-frowning like a Pakistani Mr. T. Only it’s hard to imagine, because I’ve never seen Dada in real life. He died the year before I was born, and we only have a few grainy pictures of him. Bald like Baba, a thick mustache, and a serious face.

  “So that’s it? You were a good boy? An obedient son?” I know this is the moral of the story. It’s the moral of every story Baba ever tells.

  Baba shakes his head. “No, actually, I was quite disobedient. I sneaked out of the house and went with my friends to a midnight showing. I watched the movie, feeling quite brave the whole time.”

  I lean forward, eyes wide. “Really? You disobeyed your dad? What happened—was it very scandalous? And how did you feel afterward? Did he ever find out?” I pause. “Wait a minute—why are you telling me this? Aren’t you afraid I’m going to sneak out and go trick-or-treating?”

  He takes a sip of his tea. “I’m telling you because I trust you. You’re a good daughter, Sara, much more than I was a good son at your age. You’re more responsible and caring. My father never found out that I’d watched the movie, but the guilty feeling of disobeying my father has stayed with me all these years. I have always felt bad about it, a horrible sick feeling in my stomach.”

  “I know that feeling,” I tell him, looking down at the table.

  Baba continues, “Your mother and I always try to explain things to you. Why something is bad, why it’s better to stay away. We don’t just lay down the law and expect you to blindly obey. That was the way things were done in the old days. It’s different now. And we trust you’ll do what’s right.”

  I look up. “You don’t talk to me about everything,” I insist. “You don’t talk to me about the money Mama owes, or the awful things people say to you in the street sometimes.”

  He frowns, then reaches over to switch off the television. “I think you should go to sleep, jaanoo,” he tells me. “Tomorrow this Halloween business will be over and you’ll be happy to be the only child in your school without a stomachache from eating all that candy.”

  “I’ll also be the only one without any friends,” I grumble.

  With a sigh, Baba gets up and shuffles toward his room, taking his tea with him. At the doorway, he turns and gives me a sad little smile. “This Elizabeth girl sounds okay
. I’m glad you’re making friends.”

  He’s gone before I realize he never answered my question about Mama’s loan. I can help. I will help, whether they want me to or not.

  12

  Elizabeth

  IT’S KIND OF FUN trick-or-treating with Justin. As he dashes from house to house, ringing doorbells, his happiness reminds me of a bubbling pot of delicious lemon curd, cooking on the stovetop. I skip along beside him, not caring who might see me. Who needs friends when I have my younger brother?

  When we get home, there’s a mountain of giant sneakers by our front door.

  “David’s mates are here,” Mom complains, rubbing her forehead. David always invites more kids than Mom has energy for. “I’m pulling the plug on the game console at nine o’clock. Then they’ll bugger off home. Thank goodness.”

  I chuckle at Mom’s British slang.

  “Gotta take my costume off.” I wiggle my mustache, trying to make her smile. “I’ll let Robin out.”

  The second I open the door to Mom’s room, Robin darts downstairs. He barks and sniffs at all the shoes. I let him out in our fenced backyard, where he barks at a few straggling trick-or-treaters. When Robin is sure that the danger is contained, he comes back in, plops down in his bed and falls asleep.

  I wish my life were that easy. Bark at people when I’m worried or angry, let them know exactly what I’m thinking, and then—poof!—crash into bed and sleep it off.

  I change into my Cybermen pajamas. Aunt Louise sent them to me at summer camp, the only care package I got. “What is that?” the girls in my cabin teased, pointing at the print on my pajama bottoms. Some of them recognized the robot bad guys from Doctor Who, but even those girls had never watched the show. It didn’t stop them from insisting that I share the Tim-Tam cookies and Jelly Babies that Aunt Louise had tucked into the box.

  I wait until I hear David saying goodbye to his friends. By the time I get downstairs, he and Mom are arguing.