Good Muslim Boy

by Osamah Sami

I was still hunched behind my PC well after midnight. I had scanned my results in a high-quality digital format, and I was photoshopping as if my life depended on it. When I was through with the results sheet, I had to create a letter of offer from the University of Melbourne.

  It was dawn by the time I’d finished, and I needed to get some sleep. I deleted my temporary working files and shredded my cut-out letterheads.

  But what to do with the original results sheet? I wanted to stash it in my pillow—they were the real deal, after all—but I remembered all the crims who got caught by being sloppy.

  I torched the papers in the kitchen and flushed the ashes.

  Worsening woes

  In the Shiite calendar, the Battle of Karbala was a significant event: the martyrdom of Imam Hussain, the third imam and son of Ali, the Prophet’s successor (or fourth successor, according to the Sunnis). It’s not as confusing when you study a solid thousand hours’ worth of historical text.

  What was confusing was that its anniversary fell at Christmas time. While the rest of Australia was stuffing stockings and glazing hams, I was giving a speech on the Battle of Karbala. The mosque had a potent, serious mood: black drapes, low lighting, paintings of Imam Hussain mid-battle. Everyone was wearing black today.

  Ironically enough, my speech centred on truthfulness—how one must be truthful to oneself and fight one’s inner demons before one was ready to do battle outside. I paralleled this teaching with Imam Hussain’s stance against the tyrant: he went out to fight Yazid because of his beliefs and principles. He was true to himself and what he stood for and didn’t back down, even though he knew death was the only drink he would be served.

  In the end, Imam Hussain and seventy-two companions were trapped by Yazid’s army in the desert of Karbala and on the tenth day of Muharram—the sacred first month of the Islamic lunar calendar—they were killed, but not defeated.

  I, on the other hand, was defeated but not yet killed.

  After I finished, a devout member took the mic and began a latmia.

  A super-quick introduction on latmia for the uninitiated. Latmia comes from the Arabic word latom, which means literally ‘to beat’. We beat our chests, lightly to severely, when a latmia is chanted. The latmia’s verses have a staccato rhythm, and the congregation moves as one with the movements of the notes, beating themselves on the chest to mourn the martyrdom of Imam Hussain.

  This is a latmia in theory.

  In practice, some of us younger boys wore singlets and shirts and beat ourselves to show everyone we were super devout. The harder you hit yourself, the more devout you looked. Since there was also a live feed transmitting everything into the female section, we used this opportunity to show off our pumped biceps and chests. Knowing we would appear on the flat-screen TVs, we hit ourselves all the harder and more passionately in the hope that we’d look both devout and ripped.

  On this day, I beat myself so hard I numbed both my chest and hands. A month after my ‘acceptance’ to the University of Melbourne, I still hadn’t been found out. Instead of the customary hymn, ‘Hussain, Hussain’, I was chanting ‘idiot, moron’. Some members thought I was so in the zone they stepped back to admire me beating my lanky body senseless.

  I drove to the 7-Eleven, where I’d been working for a while—to pay for my acting courses, and to distract me from my woes. I had to get into Medicine, and I did not know how. I concocted a new plan as I drove.

  Faking Your Medical Degree in Eight Easy Steps

  Score enough to do an Arts degree.

  Enrol.

  Pretend you’re enrolled in Medicine.

  Love Arts; therefore, get High Distinctions.

  Leverage these. Enrol in Medical Science.

  Work your butt off in Medical Science like you should’ve done in high school.

  Armed with a BA in Medical Science and a great GAMSAT score, apply for Medicine. Get in.

  Twelve years later, become a doctor. Figure out whether and how you will treat Jewish patients.

  If anybody asked why it was taking me so long, I’d just tell them I was ‘specialising’ or something.

  First things first: I’d been so engrossed in my scheming that I hadn’t noticed the flashing blue and red lights behind me. I pulled over.

  ‘Good evening, sir. Any reason why you ran a stop light back there?’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Is this your vehicle?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Is this your car?’

  ‘Yeah, nah, mate.’ I flashed my best, most pious smile.

  ‘Have you got your licence on you?’

  I did have my licence on me. But I was still on my L-plates. This was embarrassing. I’d turned eighteen two weeks ago, but I’d also failed my driving test. I was a fake top student who’d been accepted into a fake degree, and I was a fake legal driver too.

  I handed the cop my learner’s permit and read a verse from the Koran, hoping it would scramble his vision, Jedi mind trick–style. It didn’t. It never does.

  ‘You’re unlicensed, mate.’

  ‘Technically.’

  ‘What do you mean technically? You’re on your L-plates.’

  ‘Yeah, nah, but I know how to drive.’

  ‘Any reason why you’re driving unlicensed?’

  ‘I have to get to work.’

  ‘Any reason why you’ve failed to display your L-plates?’

  That was an easy one. ‘If I put on my L-plates then you’d know I was an L-plater. Can’t give it away that stupidly.’

  He looked at me Clint Eastwood–style, ducked back to his car, and came back with two $500 fines and a court notice. ‘Do not drive this car again,’ he warned.

  I waited six minutes so he was completely gone before cranking up the engine.

  At the 7-Eleven, I put my name badge on—Sam—and took over for the night shift.

  Most nights, around 2 am, a few young Muslim boys came into the servo to keep me company, loitering deep into the night. One of them was the member who’d read the latmia at the mosque. He was very devout, had a longer beard than all of us combined, and wore a green shawl to mark that he, too, was a Sayyed.

  ‘You beat your chest good tonight,’ he said approvingly. ‘You’ve gained great heavenly rewards. Is that a new issue of Hustler?’

  Normally, Sayyed liked to read them alone in the staff toilets, because he wanted to conduct ‘research on how to have sex’. After he’d come out, the colour leaping off his face, I’d reseal the magazines using a lighter.

  Young Sayyed took his Hustler, and I took up the mop and bucket and began my nightly cleaning duties. As I scrubbed, I wished there was a cleaning system for the mind—some Men in Black–type device to wipe your whole hard drive. Alas, the best I could do was shine the floors until they sparkled and wonder how I was supposed to drive home.

  INSHALLAH

  Mashhad, Iran, 2013: one day until visa expires

  Reza’s Paradise is closed when my driver and I arrive there after dinner, so I thank him
liberally for his time and tip him three times more than the quoted price. It’s the best money I’ve spent all week. He’s sixty-seven years old, and he kicked me around this enormous city like a piece of clockwork. Thanks to him, I have the exit paper. I am indebted to his soul.

  It’s three in the morning, and accommodation is a no-go. So I seek refuge at Reza’s shrine. At least my father’s nearby. I leave my luggage in the allocated spot and walk in as a pilgrim. There are guards whose job it is to keep such pilgrims awake, so I haven’t been able to sneak any shut-eye. But I’m away from the snow outside. It is warm and cozy.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  My visa expires tomorrow, so when the sun comes up today, I need to finish two more urgent tasks. First, I must get Dad’s body sorted at Reza’s Paradise; Australia won’t accept him unless he’s been embalmed to ‘international standards’.

  Second, my passport—that handy thing—is still at the cemetery, and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep getting by with my swim pass.

  Today is Friday, which is the weekend in Iran. Getting a plane ticket for me—not to mention one for Dad—out of Iran tomorrow will be tough work. Finding an open travel agent that has two tickets at such late notice…just the thought of it makes me nauseous.

  I take deep breaths and try to think of the worst-case scenario.

  If I can’t get a ticket to Australia, I’ll get a ticket out of Iran—any destination will keep me out of jail tomorrow. Once I’m in whatever country will have me and my dad, I can try to get us home to the Kangaroo Continent from there.

  At 5.30 am, I pray and leave the shrine, knowing this—inshallah—will be my last time here. If I have another opportunity, it’ll be because I’m stuck in Iran, and everything I’ve done so far will have vanished into the air.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  I arrive at Reza’s Paradise at 7 am. It seems an eternity since I was last here, a trick embellished by the fact that the lady who refused to hand back my passport isn’t there this morning. A different clerk asks me to pay the fee before they can proceed to prepare the body.

  As I pay, I realise this is pretty much the last of my money. I have just enough Iranian currency to pay the storage fee and get me back to the city. I don’t want to think about how many cabs I’ve caught this week. Nor about the fact that banks here are closed on the weekends.

  At the charnel-house, the young man whose job is to ‘prepare’ the body invites me in so I can help him move my dad.

  A silent scream rips through me. I haven’t seen Dad in days. It feels like years, even, and I still haven’t accepted he is gone. The young man drags the black sack out of the refrigerated room. He unzips it, but I don’t need to look at Dad’s calm, cold, resting face. I can tell from the thick black hair who the body is.

  ‘God rest his soul. He’s been washed and put in a shroud as you asked.’

  I don’t reply.

  ‘Now pull him with me, on three.’

  He counts and on three we lift Dad and haul him outside, setting him down beside a wooden box.

  ‘This box looks small,’ I say.

  ‘No brother, it’s perfect.’

  ‘He’ll get squeezed in.’

  ‘That’s a solid box. It won’t hurt him, brother, I promise.’

  His tone is calm and true. It eases my anxiety a hair tip’s per cent. ‘On three,’ he says. And we lift my dad and place him in the box.

  I suffocate looking at it.

  ‘He will be okay, brother,’ the man says. ‘Now I am going to put some chemicals on his body, eyes and face, so maybe you are going to want to step outside.’

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  At 1 pm, the cab pulls over by the sixth travel agent we’ve tried since leaving Reza’s Paradise. This one is closed too.

  I press the driver: the next one, please.

  He tells me to come back looking again on Monday.

  Fed up with the negativity, I leave the cab and hail another.

  But all the other cabbies are telling me the same thing: I won’t find an open travel agent today or tomorrow.

  At my fourth refusal, I ask one of the drivers if he won’t take me to every single travel agent in the entire town. And if he’s right and I’m wrong, I’ll look very foolish and he’ll still have the money from driving this foolish guy around.

  He thinks about it, nods, and drives me directly to the national airline carrier’s authorised agent. He tells me this is the only one with a remote chance of being open. This is what it boils down to. This is the last one.

  I drag my luggage across the road.

  It’s closed too, of course.

  I drop Dad’s suitcase, chuck the guitar on top and let go of the walking stick.

  The cabbie is long gone, and every shop is closed. I stand alone in the middle of the silent, empty road, a backpack glued to my back, surrounded by the rubble of my long, quixotic quest. I do a 360-degree spin, don’t notice my surroundings. It’s all a blur. I look up. The clouds are laughing violently.

  Then I look back at the closed shop. Another trick of the eye? Or is there someone moving in there? I adjust my focus.

  An old lady behind the door is putting on her chador, busying herself by the door, ready to leave the office.

  I pick up my rubble and tear across the road. I bang on the window frantically. Startled, she freezes.

  I try to force the door open but it’s locked from the inside. I bang on it like a madman. She gestures, ‘We are closed.’ She’s clearly terrified.

  Desperate, I start knocking harder and shaking the door, shouting and crying, ‘Emergency…please open…emergency.’

  As I bang in a frenzy, my hands suddenly lock. Then I feel a kick to the back of my knees and I slump to the ground. A big-boned, thick-moustached, middle-aged man sits on top of me, landing a blow to my face.

  ‘What do you want with my wife?’ he yells.

  I try to protest, but he’s squashing my airways.

  ‘Why are you here at this hour?’

  He sinks his knee deeper into my stomach. I wheeze in pain.

  ‘Did you know she was coming to work? Is that why you’re here?’

  Finally, he lets some pressure off. ‘I’m here to buy a ticket! I can’t breathe!’

  ‘What ticket? This place is closed. It’s Friday! You son-of-a-bitch liar, you!’

  ‘If this place is closed then what is that woman doing in the shop?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  The woman rushes out and shouts around: ‘Call the police! Call the police!’ But the road is dead as ever, except for this mess right here. I stop struggling—I can maybe use his weight to my advantage. I take a few breaths, go limp, and my mind comes alive. All it takes is an open-handed strike to the throat and he’s on the ground.

  ‘I’m not here for your wife,’ I pant. ‘My father has passed away. I am not from here. I want a ticket.’

  The woman kneels over her big husband, yelling hysterically for help. She’s shaking uncontrollably. ‘Murderer! Murderer!’ she yells.

  Her husb
and raises a hand, very much alive, and grabs her shaking hands. ‘Wait, wait,’ he says, struggling to breathe. ‘I think this young man does just want a ticket.’

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  The lady had come to collect some belongings she’d left behind at the office; her husband had been sitting in his car, waiting to collect her, before the lunatic had come knocking and he’d rushed out to her aid.

  She can’t book a ticket for me, she regretfully explains. ‘The systems are asleep. Even if they were open, your dad will need a special “cargo ticket”, which no travel agent has.’

  Things are looking dark again. Then she lights up my sky. She hands me the name of the sole cargo-only agent in Mashhad. And what do you know? Cargo moves around the clock. So they’re open weekends.

  I want to kiss both the lady and her husband, open-mouth.

  FAKING IT

  Melbourne, Australia, 2002

  My first (and fake) day of university

  My family assembled outside the house, forming an honour guard to wave me off into the world—their very own future doctor.

  Mum held an ornamental bowl filled with water and tossed it at my feet. A blessing. My stomach turned.

  It was my first day at university in my fake degree.

  I had not enrolled in an Arts degree; three years seemed like plenty of time for people to get suspicious. Instead of this, I thought I might study in the library, sit in on lectures (no one checked the roll there), study my atoms off and try to take an admissions exam in a year’s time. But the truth was, I had no real plans beyond boarding the tram.

  I disembarked at the University of Melbourne and joined the throng of actual students, willing myself to be one of them as they converged upon the grounds.

  Among them was Luay, who had not bothered maintaining the polite pretence that I’d been admitted to my degree.