by Osamah Sami
He waved at me, in a facade of friendliness. ‘How?’ he asked me. ‘I just want to know how. How did you get here?’
‘The number 19 tram, bro.’
‘I will get to the bottom of this,’ he seethed. ‘I worked my backside off trying to get here. You did nothing, and everyone thinks you’re the real deal. They’ll find out you’re not, though, and when they do, I’ll be watching.’
What’s worse, I ask you, than having an enemy like Luay? Having an enemy like Luay who is totally, completely accurate in everything he thinks about you.
He kept his gaze steady as he melted off into the crowd, ready to make friends with people who belonged there—people like him.
I, on the other hand, was prepared to be a loner. No witnesses, no one who might sniff me out—and, of course, no one I might injure with my elaborate charade. I peeled off and headed for the library. I had books to read.
Hiding Usher in the Koran
The trouble with an eighteen-year-old boy deciding to be a loner is that eighteen-year-old boys are never really alone. Not when they can chat online. That’s how I met Sisi, who was still in Year 12. She said she wanted to be a doctor.
This was the perfect opportunity to complain about my ‘degree’. People introduce me as doctor-Osamah this and doctor-Osamah that, I complained. I just want to scream, I’m moron-Osamah!
You’re too funny, she typed.
Please don’t say that. It ends bad.
Gotta go, she typed. Are you gonna be here later?
Of course I would be. I was online every night. After a long shift in the library, then another at the 7-Eleven, I would look forward to chatting with her long into the night.
Her interests included scripture and sports. How cool was that? Polar-bear cool. She played cricket; she even knew how to bowl without bending her elbow. And she was good enough to play basketball at state level, only the religious barriers meant she could never take part in games. I was desperate to get in the nets with her and have a tonk.
When she told me she was ‘Mooz’ and explained it was slang for Muslim, I went around for days introducing myself as Osamah the Mooz.
The only trouble was, we weren’t the same kind of Muslim.
Sisi was of Lebanese heritage, and her dad was of the view that Iraqis were the nucleus of all the Middle East’s problems. My mother, for her part, was of the view that the Lebanese had ruined Middle Eastern food, which was almost as serious an allegation.
When she told me she liked Usher, I froze. Wasn’t music a sin? I didn’t speak to her for days while digesting it. Then I stopped playing Age of Empires—the greatest game on earth—long enough to start amassing a secret stash of CDs: Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Will Smith, Sixpence None the Richer, and Usher too.
I applied stickers to their cases showing passages from the Holy Koran and hid them in plain view.
April Fool
The funny thing about a life of fraudulence and deception is that even this kind of slapdash existence eventually settles into a routine. Before I knew it, I was three months into a strange but peaceful existence: get up, catch tram, pretend to go to uni, go instead to the library and study what I can. Work at the 7-Eleven then head home and chat to Sisi, talk about our secret music. Get up. Do it all again.
Luay was still up my backside about the results, and his attempts to catch me out were getting increasingly cartoonish. It would’ve been embarrassing if it wasn’t also kind of scary. High-school data is publicly available, provided you have the student number and the date of birth. Thankfully, nobody knew my real birthday, least of all Luay. My passport said December, but I was really born in March. Most of our documentation had been destroyed during the war, and when we’d come to Australia, Dad had bumped me up a few months so I could skip primary school.
But Luay kept running up to me when he saw me around campus, asking why he’d never once seen me in a tutorial, and who my tutors were. Finally, I approached a bald man crossing the street in view of Luay, and I asked him politely if he’d mind nodding his head at me.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Please, sir. Huge favour. Nod your head?’
He smiled politely, declined and hurried off, which I dare say was even more convincing for my purposes. As he walked off, probably thinking I was crazy, I raised a hand and yelled, ‘Thank you, professor! Now I understand.’
I turned around and grinned at Luay. Instant tutor.
But the whole process was exhausting, and getting more so by the day. With 1 April coming up, I considered taking advantage of the auspicious date, revealing the lie to my family and yelling ‘April Fool!’ I thought I might claim the whole thing as an elaborate practical joke, and implore them to appreciate my commitment to the gag.
All the while, I was finding ways to make Sisi love and loathe me.
I’m going crazy with school, I typed.
You have to chill out, Osamah.
Maybe I do, but if so, I’m only hot because of you.
She’d pretend to log out, but I could see she’d read my message.
DaKoolGuy83: Get it? Chill? Like, because I’m feeling hot… Hello? You there?
DaKoolGuy83: Hello?
DaKoolGuy83: Yellow?
DaKoolGuy83: Red? Blue?
Sisi and the Bombers
The day Essendon played the West Coast Eagles at Colonial Stadium in May, I applied the last layers of gel to my hair, wrapped myself up in my Bombers scarf, and got out of the house before Mum could foist Moe Greene and Ali on me.
‘But you always take them with you!’ she yelled as I bolted out the door.
Of course I always took them with me—they were Moe Greene and Ali. But today was the first day I was getting to meet Sisi.
I waited near Gate 3, as agreed, feeling jumpy. She’d never sent me a photo, but we’d been talking for four months. I thought I would just know it when I saw her.
I was wrong about so much, but it turned out I was right on this one. She was a beautiful girl with long, straight blonde-brunette hair, blue jeans and a cardie. We locked eyes. I knew it was her; she knew it was me. There are some things you can’t fake, and if you’re lucky, you don’t need to. Sisi was a knockout, and I was one lucky—no, triple-lucky—dude.
‘Hello!’ I said. I didn’t even try to act cool. ‘I like your jumper.’
‘Oh, thanks. It’s a cardigan,’ she said. ‘How are you?’
‘Um. Dazzled.’ I flashed her a smile, doing my best to be just as dazzling. She cast her eyes downwards. A crowd of footy fans marched by, yelling, ‘Carn ya Dons!’ and cursing.
‘So, Osamah who barracks for the Bombers and likes to pray,’ she said. ‘Do you want to go watch the game, or do you feel like walking around the stadium seven times for pilgrimage?’
We chose the game, and it passed like a dream. It was funny: I just wasn’t nervous.
As soon as we got home, we both jumped online to dissect the whole experience. We were still Osamah and Sisi, same as always, thank God.
Let’s go to a movie. An action movie, she said. I grew up aroun
d boys.
I grew up around girls, so I’d rather go dress shopping, I typed.
And then, we listened to the same Usher song quietly on our headphones, trading instant messages about how the song made us feel. Despite the distance, I felt so connected I was tingling.
At the movies, we were closer. It was like an electric shock. I remembered the times I’d tried to sneak into the cinemas in Iran. This time, I was free and I was actually with Sisi, even if Mum thought I was at the library studying, and even if Sisi thought I was enrolled in a Medical Science degree.
‘Suck on a fat cock and choke in cum!’ yelled a Mafia wiseguy.
Johnny Butterknife calmly withdrew a large kitchen knife from his jacket and slid it through the wiseguy’s throat.
‘How about you check if there are any cocks in hell, you motherfucking wiseguy,’ he whispered, ‘and gag on a bouquet of dicks while you burn?’
Action movies.
Even with the awkward dialogue, which was great, but not romantic, our arms were inching closer and finally, we were touching, skin to skin.
How could we have gone back to our bedrooms after that? When the credits rolled, we snuck quickly into another cinema, screening Swordfish. No sooner had we sat down than an actress started giving Hugh Jackman a blow job under the desk.
I pretended to check the time. I pretended to check my nails. I didn’t want to come across as a guy who liked that kind of thing. When I looked back up, Halle Berry was baring her breasts, magnified times a hundred on the screen.
This was not a good situation. Casually as possible, I put the popcorn on my lap.
More hoping to distract Sisi than anything else, I moved my hand onto her thigh. She tensed up for a second, but made no move to reproach me. Actually, she let me keep it there for the whole film.
Arranging marriage
Q. Guess what kind of person is ripe for an arranged marriage in the eyes of a small Muslim community in Melbourne’s inner north?
A. A top student who’s studying to be a doctor.
The community was on all of our cases about getting married. After all, marriage supplied the other half of a person’s religion. Eighteen was a ‘dangerous age’, especially in the Wild, Wild Tempting West, and therefore the perfect time to complete one’s practice.
Combine that with the academic proof that you’ll become a worthy husband, and believe me, the pressure quickly starts to mount.
One night, I came home from my secret life at the library and before I could rush upstairs to chat to Sisi, Dad showed me a grainy photo of a different young girl.
‘What do you think?’ he asked, eyes twinkling.
‘She’s sort of alright,’ I mumbled.
And that’s how I consented to an arranged marriage with Yomna.
◆ ◆ ◆
Once this process gets started, it all happens very fast.
That same afternoon, I was squeezed into a suit and then onto a couch at Haj’s, a respected member of our community. Dad was on one side of me; Haj was on the other. Two of Haj’s elder sons sat on another sofa, quiet but on guard. Mum was the only woman present, on the other side of the room. There were a few community elders, prayer beads in their hands. One of them was Abu Ghazi, our resident octogenarian.
‘How the cleric’s son has managed to stay single this long is beyond me,’ he said. ‘At twenty-one I had three wives. I understand this is Australia and the laws make it tricky—still, I’m sure you’ll get around to your second soon. Anyway, that’s later. You must take care of the first. I am in my eighties and I still make the effort each morning to tell my wife how wonderful her breakfast was.’
Abu Ghazi had divorced his first wife, and the third had died in her sixties. His surviving wife was his second—‘not my favourite, by any means’, he was fond of saying.
‘There is no shame in telling your wife your feelings,’ he went on. ‘Do not let anyone try to convince you these romantic gestures are empty. I once even told my wife’—he paused for effect, and to cough—‘the dead one, I mean, that I really liked her company.
‘My first wife once asked me: “Abu Ghazi, if there was a flood here and you could only rescue one of us, who would you choose?”
‘I naturally replied: “I cannot choose. It is forbidden. In Islam a man must treat all his wives equally, and show them the same amount of affection.”
‘Still, she pressed me. “My dear wife,” I told her, “you are all my wives. Besides, we are in Karbala. The desert! How could anyone imagine a flood in such a place? It will never happen!”
‘As it turned out, this was a mistake on my part: she reminded me that Noah’s Ark had happened. “So tell me, Abu Ghazi!” she said. “Tell me! If there was a flood here and you had to choose between us, who would you save?”
‘I looked at her for a minute, with all her wrinkles. I looked at my youngest wife, so pretty. Then I turned to my oldest wife and said, “But darling, you know how to swim, don’t you?”’
The room erupted with laughter, especially from the elders, who all began convulsing with a bout of synchronised coughing. Without further ado, Dad and Haj took over. It was their solemn task to read the ceremonial engagement vows.
There is really no easy way out of an arranged marriage. If I’d declined the grainy photo of Yomna, they’d only have whipped out another. Most of my friends from the mosque had already been married off last year.
Once the vows were over, Dad said, ‘You are quiet.’
Mum cried, ‘My boy is speechless with joy!’ I could almost hear the international calls she was rehearsing in her head, and sure enough, tonight she’d be all over the phone. My doctor son is getting married!
‘You liked her?’ Dad double-checked.
‘Um, I didn’t see her,’ I said.
‘You saw the photo,’ Dad said.
‘It was a pretty grainy photo.’
‘It was a bad angle,’ said Mum. ‘But she’s beautiful. Also, I thought you’d be single forever.’
They kept pressing me to tell them I was happy, poking and feeling around for an answer I just couldn’t give them. Eighteen didn’t seem very young to them; Mum had married Dad when she was sixteen.
While they talked over me, happy and bubbly—and maybe, under the surface, a little worried—I lost myself in my own thoughts, swimming around for something to say. Most of all, I wanted to get home and talk this all over with Sisi. She would probably see the funny side of it. She might even be able to help me.
‘My degree,’ I blurted.
They stopped talking. ‘What?’ Mum said.
‘It’s…my degree. How can I be a proper husband while I’m studying?’
Mum squinted. ‘Osamah, your dad fought in a war, studied for two decades and fathered five children all at once.’
‘How can you father five children all at once? That would be very impressive. But Mum, I’m not as good as Dad. I really need to focus.’
‘You are right,’ said Dad.
Mum and I both looked at him with the same surprised expression.
‘This is Australia. No one does more than one thing at a time. There will be too many distractions.’ He thought for a minute. ‘Perhaps I could convince Haj and the witnesses to hold off on the announcement. Till the end of your first year?’
‘Hmm. And I’d still be engaged?’ I asked in a hopeful voice.
‘Of course. Congratulations!’
‘Look at my boy,’ said my mother. ‘So eager to tell everyone he’s getting married.’
Mum and Dad locked eyes over my head, and beamed at each other.
Falling in love
I wasn’t going to feel about the girl in the photo the way Mum and Dad felt about each other. But still, the kinds of looks they gave each other were hardly mysterious to me. They were the kinds of looks I shared with Sisi every time we hung out.
A week after my engagement, we sat on a bench at the Royal Botanic Gardens. My impending marriage should’ve been pulsing in the back of my brain, but it wasn’t. Instead, I was thinking about Sisi—I couldn’t help it. Was it time to kiss her yet?
We’d been making small talk for the last three hours. I didn’t know what was a signal and what wasn’t; when I was with her, everything felt electric. Eventually, I just leaned in naturally. She leaned in too, and then we were kissing. It sounds undramatic, but that’s because it felt right. This was how life was meant to be lived. It was love. I knew it.
As for everything going on back in the life I was stuck with? I’d bought myself a year to sort it out so, for now, I thought: fuck it.
Ringing in the engagement
On the sixth anniversary of my family’s arrival in Australia, I went shopping for an engagement ring. What a way to celebrate! Yippee, yahoo, hooray.
For a month now, I’d used every excuse I could think of to avoid meeting Yomna. I didn’t care if she turned out to be Miss Universe: I just plain didn’t want her. It wasn’t her fault, and there was nothing she could do about it, either. But today, there was no real getting around it.