Good Muslim Boy

by Osamah Sami

  ‘Chill pill! First, she not teasing you. She is sooooo into you. She always looking at you when you not looking. You can not see because you are not looking. It is like when you want to see yourself blink in front of mirror. Impossible. She is like your blink. Always looking when you not looking. Two, yes, you are young but in your culture, men marry young all the times. Thirdly, she is not Muslim but she love you, and that is what is important. Was Juliet Muslim? No. Did Romeo care she that was not Muslim? No. But don’t tell anyone about this, they will not believe you,’ Ninos carefully deliberated.

  ‘But you are my witness.’

  ‘No. People will think we are fooling them.’

  I had been shocked a lot in my life, but this moment tasered me comatose. Had my poem affected Lara this much? Perhaps the poem was the straw that broke the camel’s back? It was the final gust that tipped her over towards marriage.

  At home, I reached for my charity box, which contained about $40. Donating money as a Muslim is as natural as drinking tap water. It’s a part of life, a source of life. We are constantly reminded that a donation will wipe away seventy-two inflictions, or ordeals, from the day. Who wouldn’t donate knowing there are seventy-two curses awaiting them? It is insurance against evil. My left-shoulder angel was telling me I was technically poor in the eye of God and I should break the piggy bank. My right angel was taking a snooze. Just when I needed him.

  I relented and grabbed a knife and pierced my charity tin.

  On Monday, I was edgy and excited. Before long, Lara arrived, smelling like a meadow.

  ‘Osamah, you were supposed to give me a ring on the weekend!’

  ‘On the weekend?’ My eyes twitched like a madman. ‘Is it too late now?’

  ‘That’s okay, we’ll talk at lunchtime.’

  But I couldn’t take it any longer. Somewhat sweaty, I winked over at Ninos and flashed a small jewellery box to him. Now I saw his eyes twitch. I felt he wanted to tell me something but the cat had his tongue. Just as Ms Hunter walked in class, I stood up and asked everyone to be quiet. The chitchat stopped. I turned to Lara smiling, genuinely happy and genuinely nervous. I got on one knee, raising the cubical container, revealing a polished second-hand silver ring, still with the Cash Converters price tag attached.

  Gruesome one-upmanship

  In class the next week, Ninos was bragging about his dad. ‘He was martyred in the war,’ he said casually—the highest form of honour in a classroom like ours.

  But for all Ninos’s strange powers, his memory wasn’t great. Just last week, he’d told us his father had perished in his chicken truck, which had tipped into a ravine en route to their farm.

  ‘He took three bullets to the chest,’ he insisted now, ‘but a month later, there he was, fighting just as hard. When they finally shot him dead, he took down a full platoon.’

  The lie was obvious, and so was the cause. Bojan the Serb had kicked off the round of conversation by proclaiming his grandfather’s indisputable heroism, and Ninos couldn’t risk his own lineage looking comparatively weak. Death by chicken truck was a liability.

  But Bojan just one-upped him. ‘My grandfather,’ he said confidently, ‘fought without any of his limbs. And he took down a whole brigade before they captured him.’

  ‘They had to shoot my father at point-blank range,’ countered Ninos. ‘They shot him from afar, to no effect.’

  When these kinds of volleys happened, as they often did, Ms Hunter just sat there behind her desk, going pale. She couldn’t handle these tales of tremendous slaughter—but we were talking about our forebears, so what could you do? Was she really going to be the one to douse these conversations with cold water? We sounded nonchalant about them, but who knew how we felt? We’d come to her classroom from all kinds of places.

  For my part, I was a fourteen-year-old boy, and totally incapable of staying quiet while other kids tried to show each other the size of their balls. I made the heat hotter with the story of my uncle Adnan and his elite tank-defusing regiment. The fact that it involved a schoolteacher—the enemy commander—made Ms Hunter’s face all the paler, which meant that I’d won. Or was close to winning, when Lara jumped in.

  ‘The bald woman boasts of her niece’s hair,’ she proclaimed. ‘You three are bald women. Quit it.’

  This was enough to embarrass us—and enough to mortify me, being called out on my transparency by Lara. I excused myself from the classroom, feeling flushed and stupid.

  I came back in bearing a glass of ice water and offered it to Ms Hunter, who accepted it with understated gratitude. I didn’t dare look at Lara, but my heart thumped, somersaulted, pounded. I may not have impressed her with my borrowed war stories, but maybe I’d won the day by doing something quieter.

  Girl on fire

  The paradise of Ms Hunter’s class was not the kind that could last. I felt increasingly hangdog. Lara hadn’t shown up all week.

  ‘Ninos,’ I eventually whispered. ‘Do you know where Lara is?’

  He leaned across to me when Ms Hunter’s back was turned.

  ‘Recovering from the pumping I gave her last night.’ He winked.

  ‘No, idiot. She was too good for us. They sent her to high school.’ I raised my hand and interrupted the lesson. ‘Mzzz Hunter!’ I howled. She whipped around. ‘Is it true that Lara’s in high school?’

  ‘I believe so, Osamah,’ she said. ‘When someone’s on fire like that, you can’t keep them in this kind of class!’

  My eyes went googly with horror. I wanted to cry, but Ninos seemed to be cool about it.

  I excused myself to the toilet. This was my favourite new trick; I couldn’t believe that Ms Hunter granted permission, every time. Back home in Iran, you’d have been flogged just for asking.

  This time, I rushed straight to the payphone just outside the Language Centre, dialling information and requesting the hospital.

  ‘Which hospital?’ asked the operator.

  ‘Any,’ I gasped.

  They connected me to the Royal Melbourne.

  They had no record of Lara.

  I frantically dialled two more hospitals. No record of her there, either.

  A businesswoman was waiting in line for the payphone, tapping her foot. She did this hard enough for me to hear it behind the glass doors. I glanced over my shoulder. She made a point of exhaling—‘ooooofffff’—and checking her watch. I was getting nowhere.

  ‘Sex-cuse me, miss,’ I said, opening the door. ‘I am trying to locate a friend who catched fire in class but she isn’t in any hospital. I am worried her beautiful hair is burned.’

  The businesswoman stopped tapping her foot. Her hand clapped over her mouth.

  ‘She caught fire in class?’ the woman said. ‘Oh, you poor little boy.’

  ‘Yes,’ I nodded sombrely. ‘My teacher said she’s on fire so they moved her up to high school.’

  The businesswoman went from distraught to angry in a hundredth of a second. ‘That’s a very bad joke,’ she grumbled. ‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’

  She pushed past me. I copped a feel, but never saw the burning girl again.

  First date

/>   My grief over Lara was briefly forestalled by the publication of my article. It was just the school newsletter but, for a language student, this was a very big deal. I couldn’t believe it was happening, but there it was: splashed across pages three and four, sandwiched between the canteen menu and an ad for netball practice.

  My View on Refugees

  I really think refugees are important. Not only for driving taxis but other jobs too. Did you know some refugees are even doctors? My dad is a doctor. He has two doctorates and is a leader and visionary in the community. He has been a refugee twice in his life because of the war and fate. He is just one example of the abundance number of refugees who excel beyond stereotype. Does it surprise you to know that there are refugees who do NOT receive social benefits of Centrelink?

  Mr John Howard is treating refugees not nicely. But I can guarantee Mr Howard that we are not scary. We eat and go to the toilet just like him. Yes, we do only eat halal meat and no pork, but we still eat other animals and good vegetables. I know Mr Howard loves cricket. I too love cricket. I play cricket. And I’m a refugee. So if it were mathematics, Mr Howard would naturally like me.

  Mr Howard, I like how you don’t like guns and did the gun buy-back which shows you don’t like to see people dead, and many refugees die if they stay in their own countries, so please accept them to this beautiful country. We have so much space.

  I invite you, Mr Prime Minister, to enjoy a game of cricket with refugees and see that we all have hearts. God be with you, mate.

  Precocious, no? As if I couldn’t have been prouder, it somehow caught the attention of a white girl.

  Hi Osamah,

  the email read.

  I know you attend Brunswick High but I go to Coburg Girls and they published your article in my school newsletter too! I wish there were more people like you who took these issues seriously, instead of just worrying about what eggs to throw at the teachers’ cars on muck-up day.

  Nadia

  I stared at my screen. A girl had emailed me? I was meant to be concentrating on a polynomial exercise sheet for maths class, but clearly I had bigger fish to fry.

  I chewed it over for a whole two days before writing back.

  Hello Nadia,

  I carefully began.

  I think it’s fascinating that there are students like you who care that there are students like me who care. You sound like a lovely girl.

  Yours very sincerely,

  Osamah

  That same day, Nadia wrote back to say I sounded like a lovely guy, too! She was lovely; I was lovely; we were both lovely. I was in.

  Good Very Morning Nadia,

  I grandly replied.

  I’m sending this before I go to school. I don’t know how often you check your emails but I am checking them daily. I have dial-up internet but as long as there are no pictures it loads fast. But if you want to send me a picture, that’d be awesome. I won’t stare at it for too long. I wish I went to your high school so I can see you face to face. I bet you are lovely, I can tell, from how you write. I will check my email very shortly from the computer rooms at school (sneaky) and talk again.

  Yours most faithfully,

  Osamah

  By the following evening, Nadia still hadn’t written back. So I opened a new message and carefully started again.

  Hi Nadia,

  I checked my email yesterday and today and you haven’t responded. I think you have had enough of my emails? I will write other articles and maybe that way you will talk to me again.

  Somehow in these last seven days I have felt some connection although I haven’t seen you. I will check my email again to see if you will be replying.

  Regards,

  Osamah

  An excruciating week went by, refreshing and refreshing my browser. When Nadia finally wrote back, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  Hey Osamah!

  So sorry, my grandmother’s relo died. Sad but we ended up going to Port Douglas so a bit of a relaxation too.

  Do u wanna meet up?

  Nads xx

  Sure I did.

  Hey Nads,

  I wrote, cool as a cucumber.

  I am so sorry about your grandmother’s relo. We say ‘to God we belong and to Him we return’ and I hope she is in Heaven. I believe we all go to Heaven even if you are not Muslim. Are you Muslim? That would be better.

  And I will be very, very happy to meet up. It has to be after school but not too late so I can tell my parents I am going to library.

  So, there is a park in Brunswick behind my school and there aren’t too many Iraqi taxi drivers there (I can’t be seen with a girl where they assemble as it will have consequences). I will wait for you by a bench, which is near the toilet blocks. It will be easy to spot me!

  Did I tell you I am an actor and I can do accents? I can do the mafia accent, I will show you when I see you!

  Yours with respect,

  Osamah

  P.S. I asked a friend what xx means (you put at end of your email) and he said to me xx are rude internet websites. I think you may have done that accidentally.

  Then I panicked, and opened a fresh email. I added, all in a fluster:

  Nadia hello!

  Just to let you know the toilet blocks are normally locked so best to go to the bathroom at your school before coming to meet me.

  Best unfiltered regards,

  Osamah

  She agreed to meet on a hot Thursday after school. I sat nervously on the park bench. Some kids had graffitied an industrial-sized penis on the wall.

  It was stiflingly hot, and I regretted my outfit choice as the minutes ticked on: a shirt, tie and suit jacket I’d hurriedly donned in the locker room after class.

  I chewed a little gum, to enhance my mouth’s natural flavours.

  I dipped into the tub of hair gel in my bag; my hair was lousy with sweat. While I was still mashing it through the sodden strands, a voice called across the park.

  ‘Osamah!’

  I was stunned. This was Nadia? She was gorgeous.

  I stood up to shake her hand, then retracted the offer.

  ‘Sorry, I have gel on my hands.’

  ‘You’re funny.’

  ‘Thanks, it’s a curse.’

  I sat back down on the bench. She didn’t join me.

  ‘What’s with the suit?’ she asked me. ‘Are you going to a wedding or something?’

  ‘Yes,’ I nodded, grateful for the easy out. ‘I think there’s some kind of wedding. Why, don’t you like it?’

  ‘Aren’t you hot?’

  ‘I think you’re hot,’ I said quickly. ‘I mean, hot like the weather can be hot. Yeah, it’s a hot day because it’s hot.’

  Awkward silence followed this, so I took the invitation to fill it.

  ‘How about that sun, huh? They say it’s millions of light years away and still it’s so hot. No wonder we want to move to Mars. Sit down, please.’

&n
bsp; I patted the bench.

  ‘Here?’ she asked. A drain had burst in the toilet block, and she sniffed at the stink.

  Despite the smell, she sat down gingerly and stared straight ahead.

  We sat like that for a few minutes, dead silent, side by side.

  At one stage, I loosened my tie.

  Finally, Nadia got up.

  ‘Hey, nice to meet you,’ she said breezily. ‘I just remembered I have to babysit tonight. Gotta go, or my mum will kill me!’

  I followed Nadia with my numb eyes as she walked away. My hand was still sticky, so I couldn’t even shake her hand.

  Objectively, this was a total bomb-out, a total choke. But I couldn’t help feeling a weird kind of elation.

  I’d just had my very first date.

  Bikini angles

  At school, they taught us that liquid could turn to gas at the right temperatures. But today, the hottest day, the kind of day that could vaporise you, school was far from our minds.

  It was finally time for me and Moe Greene to see the famous Australian beach.

  We’d once been to the beach in Iran, a casual six-hour drive from Qom; it was cold and cloudy, and the water grey and sad. From this excursion, I’d learned a trip to the beach was a formal occasion, and today I’d donned my best outfit, hoping to make an impression: a snazzy shirt, duly ironed, and black pants.

  We tromped off the tram, soaking with sweat.

  Suddenly, the sky opened up. Vast blue seas. Bluer than any blue I’d seen, the bluest blue in nature.

  First, the beauty—then the shock. Nobody was dressed up like Moe Greene and me. We were Eskimos in the Sahara.