"Ice cream!" Omar yells in a war cry.
The boys charge towards the fence, completely ignoring us, and end up on the edge of the sidewalk where the truck has stopped. In minutes, all the boys have push pops and ice cream cones.
I can't wait anymore. "Omar!" I say, sprinting to where he is.
The boys look at us, their mouths crusted with orange, red, and blue ice cream. Nasreen fusses at her brother.
"We told you to be on call when we needed you..." she begins.
Omar looks comical with ice cream dribbling down his chin. He doesn't look like the mighty ringleader of his gambling troupe or a bossy younger brother, favorite of the family.
"Come on, Nasreen," he says. "You see that I'm in the middle of a game."
"In the middle of business," I say.
"Okay, I'll come with you," he concedes.
"Let's go," Nasreen commands. "We need to prepare. Dad will be home soon for dinner."
"I don't need time to prepare!" Omar says. "I know what we're going to do. I don't have to leave right now. I can stay out here a little longer."
"No, you can't!" Nasreen counters. She puts her brother into a headlock, his demon whorls facing me. I take my camera out of my purse and snap a picture. A fire hydrant is gushing in the background. A man walks by with a boom box on his shoulders. The clouds have cleared up, and it's summertime in all its sunny glory. Omar's friends laugh and point.
"Wuss," one of them calls out.
"Ha-ha, beaten up by a girl," another boy says. I count ten boys, all around the same age but varying in height and hair color. They seem to be enjoying their leader getting this dose of humiliation.
"What are you doing?" Nasreen asks, turning to me. "Did you take a picture of us?"
"No," I lie. Yes, I took a picture of this light moment -- after days of living in fear and working hard to get the tape, this all seems fun in comparison. Nasreen is sour and wouldn't understand that I like her spunk, and even Omar's brattiness has a charm to it.
"Do you have the creature?" Nasreen asks.
"Yes," Omar says. He pulls out a medicine bottle with said creature in it.
Nasreen frowns, and I shiver with disgust. We need the moth for tonight, when we convince Auntie and Uncle that Nasreen is meant to go to an out-of-state college.
"Let's go," Nasreen says. She grabs Omar by the ear and pulls him as if he's on a leash. Omar doesn't resist but plays along. He's always seemed older than his age, but now he acts like a true eight-year-old whose sister is bossing him around. What's Omar going to do when he's younger and smaller than she is? He opens his mouth and proves he's mostly talk.
"You should be glad Asma is here," he says. "You just made me look bad in front of my friends."
"You can't always be the boss," Nasreen says.
"Yeah, Omar," I say. "You need to let people take turns being in charge." And it's clear we're in charge. For two weeks it's been the world against Nasreen and me, but now we're getting exactly what we want.
***
At home, Auntie seeks Nasreen. "How's the rice?" she asks.
Nasreen is being good. She's not making faces or being sarcastic as she tastes rice, gravy, and salad. While Nasreen is taste-testing, I'm in and out of the alcove. For the first time I walk freely into Omar's space, the curtains swishing back and forth as we get ready for tonight.
Uncle comes home and we eat dinner. Auntie has made a stir-fry of rice and vegetables. It's juicy and spicy. I'm truly enjoying food now that I don't have to think about Uncle not being able to find a tape after dinner, when he's in the mood to listen to music.
"Let me make the tea," Nasreen says when everyone's finished.
"Thank you!" Auntie says. Nasreen partakes in cleaning chores but rarely does anything in the kitchen. There's the clatter of a teakettle and cups as Nasreen gets everything ready. The steam makes the small apartment even warmer.
Everyone sits in the living room. Nasreen fixes a plate of pastries as the kettle toots. "Mom, why don't you read tea leaves for us?" Nasreen asks.
"I'd love to!" Auntie says.
I raise my eyebrows since Nasreen doesn't believe in those superstitions, but she pulls it off. She sounds interested enough, and her mom doesn't question her daughter's request. "I love having tea leaves read," I act along.
Nasreen is back in the living room, bringing in two cups of tea for her parents. After she serves them, she goes back to get tea for the rest of us.
Omar nibbles on baklava as he watches his parents finish off the tea while Dan Rather reports the news. The volume is low as Uncle loudly slurps his tea, while Auntie sips daintily. I blow on my cup, not interested in drinking. I want to see what's about to unfold, this thing Nasreen, Omar, and I are orchestrating. I perk up when Auntie is done with her cup of tea.
"Okay, here we have some leaves," she says.
"Read my fortune!" Nasreen demands, smiling as she sits on the arm of the chair I'm occupying.
"Okay..." Auntie hums and then frowns as she peers into the bottom of the cup. "This is strange."
"What is it?" Uncle asks.
"I could swear the tea leaves are not forming pictures, but words."
Uncle takes his last slurp and looks into his cup, which he rotates in his hands. Where I'm sitting, I can see the tea leaves making a moist mess at the bottom of their cups. "My cup looks like it says something too," he says.
"Free," Auntie says in Farsi.
"Nasreen," Uncle says.
"Free Nasreen," Auntie repeats.
"This is impossible," Uncle says, "but this is what it's saying."
"But free Nasreen how?" Auntie wonders.
"Do you think this means..." Uncle trails off.
The two are frowning, pondering two words that formed in their separate cups. We've made them think things over. Months of Nasreen wondering if she could leave and then me hearing about her problem for days might finally be over. I hope this is working.
Once we had something to blackmail Omar with, I incorporated him into my plan. My bratty little cousin had taken glue, wrote FREE at the bottom of one cup and NASREEN at the bottom of the other. Then he poured loose leaves onto the glue and shook out the excess. I remember doing that in art class anytime I decorated with glitter. The cups dried overnight, and we made sure Omar used Krazy Glue so the glue wouldn't melt off easily from the tea. And tonight Nasreen didn't use more loose tea like the kind Auntie or Uncle normally use but a tea bag so the tea leaves we adhered to the bottom wouldn't be obscured.
Nasreen's lips twitch as she suppresses a smile. I'm doing the same, forcing a straight face. "Wow," I say. "The tea leaves are trying to tell us something."
"Maybe Nasreen needs to go to the college she wants," Omar says.
Uncle shakes his cup, but those tea leaves are there to stay until someone pulls them off along with the glue. Auntie has many tea cups, so if the glue doesn't peel away -- and it shouldn't since it's Krazy Glue -- we'll dispose of them. They served their purpose tonight.
"Let me see what this says," Omar says, grabbing the free cup from his mother's fingers. "I can't see too well." He walks over to the window and pulls the blinds up so that he can see better. On the right pane is a moth.
Auntie gasps. Even Uncle raises his eyebrows in shock.
My mother once told me that a moth on the right side means something good, while on the left side it's ominous. There was once a moth stuck on the right side of our patio all day long, so Mom told me something good was going to happen. If I got all As on a report card or if Dad got a promotion, then that was confirmed. To me she was just seeking things to solidify her suspicions, much like how Auntie does. This superstition is working well for Nasreen's case. Also, it's a good thing the moth is on the outside, where Omar had tacked the dead thing onto the window with adhesive. Yes, he had murdered a moth for us. I shiver with insect heebie-jeebies.
"These are signs," Auntie says.
"I don't know about that," Uncle says. "But maybe
we should rethink allowing Nasreen to go to another state."
"Why not? She's smart and responsible."
"We have family in California who can help her."
"My sister lives in Boston."
"We have relatives in at least five states to look out for her."
We don't want to press things. We let Uncle and Auntie stew in their conversation now the signs have convinced them to be more open on the issue of Nasreen's college choices.
While Auntie and Uncle continue to discuss Nasreen's good qualities and where she could possibly go, we clear the table, squirreling away the cups so there's no investigation and no one discovers the glue.
"The sun is hurting my eyes," Omar says, pulling the blinds down.
"I'll take out the garbage," Nasreen says. She'll also swipe the moth off the window to make it look like it flew away. Everything's going as planned.
"Yes, we'll talk further about this tomorrow," Uncle says.
"We'll look at exactly where Nasreen wants to go if she has her heart set on leaving us," Auntie says. "My baby leaving us."
"Our firstborn..." Uncle sighs.
Auntie wails, both happy and sad that Nasreen may finally get what she wants by leaving the basement apartment. Nasreen isn't even done with high school yet, with one more year to go, and they sound like she's ready to depart. She actually is ready, since it's all she's been thinking about, but it won't be until next summer that she'll go away. It's a major milestone that her parents have shifted on the idea of her leaving. I didn't think it would happen. She was born a few blocks away at St. Luke's, we've walked by her elementary school multiple times during our treks around the city... I might be ecstatic to be here, but I can imagine that if a place is too familiar a person will eventually want to leave it.
"Thank you," Nasreen mouths silently when she comes back. I'm thrilled that my idea worked. We'll soon see if our other endeavor panned out or not. Uncle gets up to look through his cassette collection.
"I want to listen to some music," he says. "What happened tonight is too heavy for me to continue thinking about."
"It's a time to celebrate though," Auntie says. "This reminds me of myself at Nasreen's age. I also went off to college."
"That was a different time," Uncle says.
"Uncle, the world will always be dangerous," I say. "You must admit that even in your country bad things happened. It might be a different atmosphere here, but people can take precautions, and they'll be fine. You raised Nasreen well. She's careful around people, and she's always aware of her surroundings. Whenever I'm out with her I feel safe."
Nasreen gives me another grateful look, her top lip sucked in and her eyes teary. I meant what I said. Nasreen has a tough exterior -- too tough at times, because I think she's excessively guarded and occasionally rude -- and I can't imagine any person or situation knocking her down.
"Time for music!" Uncle says. "How about some Umm Kulthum? I haven't heard her in a while."
"Oh yes," Auntie gushes.
"Omar! Nasreen! Help me get everything off these shelves so I can find my Umm Kulthum tape behind the entertainment center."
"What are you talking about?" Nasreen asks. "It's not there."
"Yes, it is," Uncle says. "Remember I checked not too long ago. It's not in those boxes."
"You need to look harder," I say. "Maybe it's on the bottom."
"I'm sure you overlooked it," Nasreen says.
"Let me help you look," I say. I dip my hand inside a box, pretend I'm digging around when I know exactly where it is, and pull it out. This cassette, that I ran all over town for, that I was harassed by those two brothers for, that almost cost me a lot of money, that made me go to that dreadful audition, that put me on TV for the country to see me kissing a boy... such a small thing put me through all this.
"Play it," Nasreen urges.
"That's not my Umm Kulthum tape," Uncle says. "To clarify... it is, but it isn't."
Nasreen's face falls and my heart sinks. I feel sick. How can he tell when he hasn't played it yet? We must have done something wrong. I study the outside of the cassette to see if we missed anything, but in all appearances this is the tape. It's the same case, same insert, and the replacement is the same color and brand as the original. But Uncle knows. We aren't able to trick him. We've been caught.
Chapter Twenty-five
"That's not the tape," Uncle says, shaking his head. He wipes his hand across his tired face. His lids and mouth are drooping.
"Dad, I'm sorry," Nasreen says.
"Yeah, me too," I say.
"For what?" he asks. "That's not the tape."
A hush falls through the apartment. Even Omar is attentive, his hand on his curtains as he's about to leave us to play his games. Auntie blinks in her silence. The tremendous thing that Nasreen and I did -- but mainly me -- cannot be shirked so easily. Sure I thought I could easily cover up this deed, thinking a tape's a tape, that we just have to match it song for song, but it's not that easy. Uncle's tape is probably years old and carries memories. The songs may be the same, but a replacement is a clone without personality.
"It's my fault the tape's missing," Uncle says. "Now, please, help me take everything off the shelf."
"Why?" I say. "The original tape isn't going to appear. This is the tape. Well, not really. Let me explain the damage--"
"I know about the damage," Uncle says.
"You do?" Nasreen says. "Of course you do. She's your favorite singer."
"Which is why I replaced the tape years ago," he says.
"Huh?"
"What?"
Nasreen and I look at each other. What is Uncle talking about?
"That tape you're holding was damaged by my sister years ago," Uncle says. "She took it to a wedding where she sang. She erased parts of the beginning on side 1 and the middle of side 2 with her horrible singing. I can't even bear to listen to it. I tried to let it go, but I'm still resentful. How could she not read the label and realize that my favorite songs were on it?"
"Yeah, how silly," Nasreen says.
As everything dawns on me, I feel pretty stupid, yet also relieved.
"I got that cassette shortly after coming to this country, and I don't want to throw it out. I don't listen to it anymore because of the damage, but I leave it in my collection. Anyway, help me find my other Kulthum tape."
With three pairs of hands we quickly pile records, cassettes, books, and videos to the side. Lastly, Uncle unplugs the TV and pulls it out. Nasreen and Uncle grab each side of the entertainment center and pull it away from the wall. I reach in, since the shelves have no backing, and pull out several tapes that had fallen to the floor. Dust bunnies cover them. I shriek when a spider scuttles away.
On the tapes there are pictures of a guy with a full beard, a young guy holding a banjo, and then I see her. This doesn't look like a bootleg. The cassette has a picture of Umm Kulthum on the cover, and she looks beautiful in an evening gown, with her head poised upwards as if she's a queen. Her hair's in a bun and her profile is regal.
"That's my other Umm Kulthum tape," Uncle says, taking it from me. "This is the one I bought after my sister ruined the other."
All that worrying and running around for nothing, for a tape that Uncle's sister had destroyed. I'm ambivalent with feelings of relief, regret, and idiocy. I squash those feelings down. I wouldn't have auditioned for that show, and it was fun practicing my dance moves. Those porn brothers were icky and scary, but my time with them toughened me up, and I'm grateful to have had a Cagney & Lacey moment. I wouldn't have met Abe again. He wouldn't have offered us Madonna tickets.
When the entertainment system is back in place, I put the boxes of cassettes on shelves and stack the records into neat piles. Uncle bends down and puts the newer, undamaged, authentic Umm Kulthum tape into his stereo. When he presses Play I hear her gorgeous voice. It's crystal clear, unlike the tape we destroyed. Uncle's sister, an aunt who lives in Toronto who I've only seen on two occasions, didn
't really sound bad on the tape we destroyed, but the difference is there. Umm Kulthum makes me teary-eyed. Even though I only know a few words, I know she's singing about the heart, about being human, with every emotion compounded into her voice the same way a prism catches and releases light.
"What a voice," Nasreen says.
Uncle puts our replacement tape back in the box, where he'll never pick it up since he thinks his sister's voice is on it. Maybe when he wears out his Kulthum tape, we'll tell him the truth and he can use our tape for real.
Auntie washes dishes, and Omar retires to his alcove now that this tape issue is over, or "ov-a" as many would say in New York. Uncle, Nasreen, and I sit on the sofa listening. Since Uncle's in a good mood after finding his tape, we spring our Madonna request on him.
"You know that Asma loves Madonna?" Nasreen says. "She loves Madonna the way you love Umm."
"It's true, Uncle," I say.
"Who's Madonna?" Uncle asks.
He reads the national and international portions of the newspaper, and the only TV he watches is the news, alongside his Middle Eastern entertainment videos. During my last visit he let me know that he wasn't aware of who Michael Jackson was.
"I forgot to bring her tape, or I'd let you listen," I say.
"She's playing in Madison Square Garden in a few days," Nasreen says. "It would be a shame if Asma couldn't see her."
"I agree." Uncle nods. "If Umm Kulthum were alive today, I would do anything to see her in concert again."
"So, anyway, while we were out we came across this guy who offered us tickets," I say. "He's from Miami too."
"Do you know him? Who is this guy?" He raises his voice in alarm. What were the two of us doing talking to boys? How about they're half the population?
"Dad, don't worry. We bumped into the guy. He's Syrian and our age, by the way, and he has some extra tickets. He's staying with his aunt and uncle the same way Asma is."
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