Does My Head Look Big in This?

by Randa Abdel-Fattah

  29

  The thought of seeing Adam on Monday has given me stomach cramps all weekend. I spend all of Saturday and Sunday in bed with my Walkman blasting out mushy love songs which just make me feel sorry for myself.

  Should I have seen it coming? Did I lead him on? I remember Eileen warning me but I was having such a good time becoming closer to him that I never considered he would interpret it as an invitation to be anything more than really good friends. OK, really good friends who occasionally flirt. And talk for hours on the phone. And pass notes in class. And share secrets. Oh no. I’m a big fat hypocrite.

  Yet a part of me, a teeny weeny part of me, is making a lot of noise in my head at the moment wondering about what it would have felt like to be kissed by Adam.

  It’s confusing. Not for one moment do I regret my decision. But even still, I can’t stop thinking about his lips and whether they would have been soft and whether it would have been sloppy and squishy or tender and smooth. I wonder do people lose their breath when they kiss? Do they have to come up for air? It looks complicated. Would my nose have bumped into his nose? And how do you know what side to lean on? His head was tilted to the right so I guess I would have had to tilt mine to the left. What would have happened if it tickled and I wanted to sneeze?

  I’ve wondered about these things many times but now, having been so close, I’m wondering even more. Because on one level I really would love to be kissed by Adam and I can imagine it in my head with digital TV precision. I don’t know if it’s a bad thing to feel this kind of desire for him. I can’t help it though. He smelt so good. It would have been special.

  But I know that what’s even more special to me is being true to what I believe in. I want to be with one person in my life. I want to know that the guy I spend the rest of my life with is the first person I share something so intimate and exciting with. OK, I’m only sixteen which means I’ve got plenty of years to come before that happens. I’m willing to wait though. But it’s not a bad wait. It’s not the kind of annoying, painful wait you go through in a medical centre or when sitting in an airport lobby waiting for the boarding announcement for your delayed plane.

  I suppose it’s the fact that I have the personal freedom to go out there and be with someone, to have kissed Adam back but have chosen not to, that makes the decision quite simple for me.

  I have no idea what to expect at school. Will Adam ignore me? Will we never talk again? Will we hate each other? Will he make fun of me to his mates? Will I become known as the frigid dag?

  But then something happens. Something that doesn’t come within ten solar planets of what I expect. A group of lunatics rip bombs through a nightclub in Bali on Saturday killing and maiming many Australian tourists.

  I go to school not knowing. It’s one of those weird chains of events. It’s surreal because my parents are major news and documentary addicts. But for some reason this weekend they’ve both been snowed under with work. They’re both out the door on Monday morning before I’m up, so there is no listening to the news over breakfast. I simply wake up, get ready and catch the bus to school. The bus driver doesn’t have the radio on, and we don’t even make eye contact. I just slip my ticket through the automated machine, take my seat and lean against the window with my Walkman blazing.

  When I arrive at school there’s an announcement that we’re all to file into the auditorium for a senior school assembly. I put my bag in my locker and make my way to the auditorium, wondering whether Eileen and Simone are already there.

  I find them in line and hurry up to them. I pass Adam on my way and he looks at me. He holds his head up and ignores me. His coldness slices through me like a knife. I stand next to Simone and Eileen, fighting back tears.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “Didn’t you hear?” Eileen whispers in my ear as Ms Walsh walks across the stage and the teachers all start their shushing chants.

  “Hear about what?” I whisper back.

  “Bali,” Simone says.

  “Huh?”

  They look at me in surprise.

  “Terrorists bombed a nightclub in Bali on Saturday. It’s horrific.”

  It’s like a sandpit in my throat.

  Ms Walsh’s voice booms over us: “I know how distressed you’ll all be about the weekend bombings in Bali. Please make sure to talk to your teachers and the school counsellor if you need to. I’m sure you’ll all have the chance to share your feelings and emotions in class.”

  It’s agonizing. I can’t feel only grief. Or horror. Or anger. It’s too mixed up. Incongruous, disjointed and completely insane thoughts flash through my mind. Mum and Dad wanting to book for their anniversary. What song was on when the bomb went off? Were there honeymooners? Oh my God, how could honeymooners be killed like that? Did the bombers watch as their inferno turned human life into carcasses? Was I going to be incriminated for their crimes? Was I going to be allowed to share in my country’s mourning or would I be blamed? How many Indonesians died? Do people care? Who would look after their children? Did brothers lose sisters? Parents lose children? Children lose their parents? Would a husband or wife or partner be left to watch the death toll on television from Sydney or Darwin, wondering if their other half was alive? It could have been Mum or Dad.

  I cry, but it’s bizarre because I can’t even break down and grieve without wondering about what people are thinking of me. I wince every time Ms Walsh says the word “massacre” with the word “Islamic” as though these barbarians somehow belong to my Muslim community. As though they’re the black sheep in the flock, the thorn in our community’s side. It gives them this legitimacy, this identity that they don’t deserve. These people are aliens to our faith.

  After assembly we go to home room. Almost everybody’s eyes are red and blotched. A haunting silence fills the classroom. Adam is sitting at his desk, his head in his hands. Mr Pearse goes through the roll in an exhausted voice as we sit limp at our desks.

  “Those bloody Islamic terrorists! Has to be them!”

  I don’t even flinch.

  “That’s enough!” Mr Pearse says softly, looking anxiously at me. “In these times we have to know how to channel our hurt and anger.”

  “It’s not how to channel it,” somebody else calls out, “it’s who to channel it at.”

  “I don’t want to hear anybody using this as an opportunity for ugly racism or for making other Australians feel less. . .”

  My mind blocks out his words. I’m not interested in being defended or protected.

  By recess I’ve had enough. I spend the rest of the day in the sick bay wondering how naïve I was to ever think that I could find my place in my country and be unaffected by the horrors and politics in the world.

  I have nowhere else to go and nowhere else I want to go. Once again I don’t know where I stand in the country in which I took my first breath of life.

  I refuse to go to school the next day. And the day after that.

  “Say I’ve got the chicken pox,” I tell my parents, and spend the entire two days in bed.

  At first they’re cautious, tender, understanding. But then on the second night I overhear them arguing about how to approach me, whether I’ll be OK at school.

  “Maybe it was a mistake, this hijab,” my father sighs.

  “Don’t be absurd!” my mum shouts. “With or without it she’s still an outsider to them. I’m sick of it! I’m sick of the whole thing! She’s only sixteen and she has to go through this. What do they want from us?”

  “Don’t yell. She’ll hear you.”

  “Hear me? She doesn’t need me to tell her. She lives it every day!” I’ve never heard my mum so negative, so bitter.

  They argue for ages and I want to scream out to them to shut up. I sink into my mattress and cram the pillow over my head.

  After two hard days at school we go to a peace vig
il on the weekend. My parents, Uncle Joe’s family, Yasmeen and her family, Simone, Eileen and Josh. We stand there in the crowd, holding candles, clutching on to each other, singing prayers and John Lennon songs, swaying together in a gentle, evening breeze that smells of birthday cake candles and tragedy and agonizing incomprehension. It’s the first time we don’t question each other. The first time we don’t all stop and think about our labels and rationalize our participation. Nobody speaks about identity or religion or politics or ideology. We just sway and grieve with the crowd. And something builds up inside me as a priest and a rabbi and a sheikh and a monk stand together on the steps in front of Parliament House and prove to us that our labels mean nothing compared with what we have in common, which is the will and right to live.

  I can imagine that there’s a lot of hate right now. If it ends up turning people against each other then I’m petrified; I’m sickened to think that we will allow those murderers to end up winning.

  30

  This is my corny, mushy, soppy moment and boy oh boy am I lapping it up. I’m lying in bed listening to a CD of love ballads which includes Shania Twain’s “From This Moment” and yes, I will admit, a couple of Celine Dion songs. It is obvious that I have a serious case of the blues because I’m finding that each line in each song is a perfect description of my life. These songs are suddenly like tarot cards and with each piano and saxophone interlude I’m getting more and more depressed. . .

  I miss Adam, and I am going to enjoy this dose of self-pitying misery while I can. I miss talking to him on the phone while we’re both watching some cops and lawyers show or a Big Brother eviction. I miss his laughing eyes, his curiosity, the vulnerability in his voice when he talks to me about his mum (at least I like to think it’s vulnerability, although I suspect there is a hint of detached disinterest). I miss looking out for him in the corridors at school and feeling needed by him when he doesn’t understand something in class. I miss the way he shared Simone’s carrots and celery without asking her any questions and the way my insides went all mushy and electric when our eyes locked in class. Since the party he hasn’t called, he hasn’t sent me a text message, he hasn’t asked me about school work or met my eyes or sat with us at lunch time or shown the slightest bit of interest in my existence on planet Earth. I hate myself for feeling so disgustingly limp against my emotions because it means I have no control and leave myself as vulnerable as a blindfolded person crossing a freeway on rollerblades.

  I’m not dumb. I know I rejected him and that he went off at me because he was trying to save face, and having a go at my beliefs was an easy way to hide the fact that he basically went in for a kiss and I moved away. I mean, in the land of high school, sexual rejection is catastrophic. I just wish Adam would understand that I’m not about to announce to the world that I turned him down. I wish he’d see that it had nothing to do with him. I mean, if I wanted to kiss any guy at school, he’d be number one on my list, no questions asked. If he needs a public relations campaign to help his self-esteem get over it, I’ll be first in line to spread the news at school that he’s one melt-worthy guy. But instead he’s opted for keeping things icy cold with me and it’s giving my heart major frostbite.

  If that’s not bad enough, my mum consoles me by promising me I’m going through a teenage crush, a phase I’ll “grow out of”. Like I want to hear adult clichés when Adam is flirting with someone else in Biology right in front of my eyes.

  Lara approaches me during the week and asks me, in her “I’m such a dynamic school captain” tone of voice, whether I’d be willing to give a speech in our next Forum meeting on the topic of Islam and terrorism.

  “It’ll be really valuable, Amal. I mean, what those Muslims did in Bali was so horrible, so if you could explain to everybody why they did it and how Islam justifies it, we could all try to understand. What do you think?”

  “I think no.”

  “No? Oh, come on, Amal! Please. It’ll really spice up our next Forum meeting. Everybody’s got loads of questions and you’re the perfect one to answer them.”

  “Why? Because I’m Muslim?”

  “Yeah, obviously.” She gives me a “well, duh” expression. Why do I have to deal with this? I feel like my head is permanently stuck inside an oven. Every time something happens in the world, and the politicians start barking out about Islamic terrorists and the journalists start their flashing headlines, it’s as though they’re turning up the oven heat dial. My head starts to roast and burn and I need air, coolness, somebody to keep me from exploding.

  “You’re Christian, right?”

  “. . .Yeah . . . what’s that got to do with anything?”

  “OK, well I’ll give the speech if you give a speech about the Ku Klux Klan.”

  “Huh?”

  “Yeah, why not? They were really religious, so obviously what they did was textbook Christianity, right? And how about those Israeli soldiers bombing Palestinian homes or shooting kids?”

  “Hey, you don’t have to—”

  “And while we’re at it, maybe somebody else could talk about the IRA. Remember we covered a bit of it in Legal Studies last term? I’m just dying to understand how the Bible could allow people to throw bombs and still go to church.” I can feel a red flush staining my face as I take heavier, angrier breaths. I fold my arms across my chest and stare at Lara’s face.

  She looks taken aback and coughs self-consciously. “Look, I didn’t mean to offend you, OK? I just thought . . . well they’re Muslim and stuff and the news is going on about it, so I thought because you’re Muslim you could. . .”

  I sigh and my anger suddenly evaporates as I sense the sincerity in her voice. “Yeah, but Lara, Muslim is just a label for them. In the end, they’re nutcases who exploded bombs and killed people. It’s politics. How can any religion preach something so horrific?”

  “I guess. . .”

  “And if you want me to talk on their behalf and act as though they’re a part of me, what are you telling me you think about me?”

  “I . . . I. . .”

  “Look, just . . . never mind . . . sorry . . . I can’t do it.”

  She shrugs and seems to be struggling to understand. “OK, Amal. . . Hey, again, sorry if I upset you or anything. . . I really didn’t mean to.” She goes to touch my shoulder and smiles reassuringly at me. I don’t know why, but the tenderness and warmth of her smile affects me. It gets right down into my throat, my veins, my capillaries. I smile back at her. In her own way, I feel as though she’s turning the oven dial down.

  31

  It’s Leila’s seventeenth birthday on Saturday and Yasmeen and I are organizing a surprise dinner at a restaurant on Chapel Street in Toorak. The only problem is convincing Leila’s mum. Yasmeen wants me to make the call. Given Yasmeen is on her Heretics to Convert List, it probably makes sense.

  Before I call, Yasmeen’s on the phone to me, offering last-minute tips.

  “Make sure you emphasize it’s a surprise party,” she warns me. “Otherwise, she’ll blame Leila for the idea and go mental at her.”

  “OK.”

  “Actually, don’t call it a party,” she adds. “Say it’s a . . . get-together . . . or a gathering.”

  “This is painful,” I groan.

  “We have got to do this. For Leila’s sake. If she’s cooped up at home with her mother on her birthday I reckon there’ll be a manslaughter.”

  “OK, I know, I know. I’ll ring now.”

  When I telephone Leila’s house her dad answers.

  “Allo?” he says in his thick accent.

  “Er . . . hi, Uncle . . . er . . . is Aunty there?”

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Amal.”

  “Allo, Amal. How are you?”

  “I’m good, thanks. How are you?”

  “Good. I get Aunty for you.”

  Afte
r a minute or two she comes to the phone.

  “Amal?”

  “Hi, Aunty.”

  “Ahh! Amal! How you are?”

  “I’m fine, thanks, Aunty. How are you?”

  “Oh, no good. No good, Amal. All I do is clean, clean, clean. And my children? They so messy. Ah! My migraine from these children. They no care about their mum. Leila no help me. Every day in her room, study those books. Every day, books, books, books! Oof. She no help me like I help my mum when I was girl. How she be housewife one day, I no know. I no know. Oof. Make me very angry.”

  I dig my nails into my palms.

  “She reject good man for marriage last month. Can you believe? She think good man come all time? I no understand what these books do to her mind. Ya Allah! If only God show her right path, she stop—”

  I interrupt her because if I hear one more word I’m going to vomit my lunch. So I sink my nails deeper into my palms and start to kiss butt.

  “Er, Aunty. It’s Leila’s birthday next Saturday.”

  “Yes. I know. Seventeen. She no get any younger. She getting old and look at her rejecting—”

  “The girls and I want to organize a dinner. A sit-down dinner where we eat and talk. We want to give her presents and buy her dinner so she can sit in a nice place with us and eat and talk. You’d like that for Leila, wouldn’t you?”

  I hold my breath, squeezing my eyes closed, desperate for her to agree. This is some major butt-kissing.

  “Eh? Where this dinner? Your house?”

  I cough and take a deep breath in. “Um, it’s at a restaurant. The food is beautiful there. Very nice place. Families and married people go there to eat dinner.”

  I shudder as I hear myself. I don’t think I’ve ever sounded so thoroughly idiotic.

  “Restaurant? You go in day?”

  “Er . . . no, it’s for dinner.”

  “Dinner? No, no, NO. Leila no go at night.”