The Garden of My Imaan

by Farhana Zia

  We ate in relative silence after that. It had been a long, hard day of fasting; I was tired and welcomed a little peace and quiet. I ate all the food on my plate that night.

  Wednesday, November 13

  8:00 p.m.

  Dear Allah,

  I did it!

  For a while there, I wasn’t sure, but I kept walking past the water fountain at school.

  So, not counting the small accident on the bus, I’d say that I definitely did it!

  Yours truly,

  A

  Weird Headgear

  I was on a roll. Waking up early the next day was a lot easier and it was fun to eat suhur with Mom and Amma. We spoke in hushed voices so Baba’s sleep wouldn’t be disturbed. My father wasn’t very regular about fasting—not because he was a bad person or anything, but because he was always making important decisions at his work and needed 200 percent energy. Badi Amma understood completely but it gave our Choti Dahdi one more reason to disapprove.

  Amma had prepared another elaborate breakfast for me.

  “I can’t eat this,” I mumbled. My dinner from the night before was still heavy in my stomach.

  “Eat up, Aliya!” my grandmother urged. “And drink plenty of water to keep hydrated!”

  “I’ve written a note to excuse you from P.E. today,” Mom said. “Be sure to give it to your teacher.”

  That afternoon Winnie and I headed toward our lockers, glad to be going home soon. I wasn’t looking where I was going and bumped into Austin again in the hallway.

  “Hey!” he yelled. “I’m getting tired of you running me down!”

  “I’m sorry,” I muttered.

  “Somebody ought to give you a speeding ticket.”

  “Hooold on!” Winnie intervened. “This isn’t a road and I don’t see cars or cops anywhere! Besides, she apologized.”

  “Apology not accepted!” Austin barked.

  “I didn’t see you,” I said.

  “So? Get a pair of glasses like that new girl with the weird headgear,” he spat, “or your geeky friend here!”

  “Are talking about me?” Winnie screeched.

  Marwa closed her locker door and walked toward us. Her beige hijab looked great with her coral sweater. She held her head high, which made her seem taller than Austin.

  “I don’t see any other weirdo around.” Austin made a big show of looking around until his eyes stopped at me. “Oh, my mistake. I see another one!”

  “Cut it out!” Winnie said.

  “What is it about my scarf that you find so strange?” Marwa asked. Her voice didn’t shake like mine had.

  “Everything!” Austin said.

  “Oh. And what about that hat on your head?”

  “Huh?” Austin took off his baseball cap and turned it around in his hand. “It’s a New York Giants cap.”

  “It’s something to cover your head with, just like my scarf. What makes mine weird and yours so great?”

  Austin snorted. “Do you see anyone else wearing a scarf around here?”

  “Just because you don’t see a lot of people wearing something doesn’t make it weird. Anyway, my hijab is not hurting you.”

  “You bet it is,” Austin said. “It’s hurting my eyes.”

  “That’s too bad,” Marwa said. “I can’t help you there.”

  “I don’t need help from you, so just butt out.” Austin banged his locker door shut and stomped off down the hall.

  Marwa slowly turned and walked away.

  “Why don’t you stand up for yourself like Marwa does?” Winnie asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, barely holding back the tears. I was furious at Austin. On top of that I was starving. “He’s such a … such a …”

  “I know you have to watch what you say when you’re fasting,” Winnie said. “But I’m not fasting, so I can say it for you. Austin is a complete loser and a total jerk!”

  Friday, November 15

  7:00 p.m.

  Dear Allah,

  Winnie’s pretty impressed with M. “Why don’t you stand up for yourself like Marwa does?” she asked me. I want to, but every time I try, I get a brain freeze and my stomach knots up inside and the words don’t come out right.

  Can You please do something to fix that? I am waaaiting!

  Yours truly,

  A

  PS M’s baseball-cap line was so clever. I wouldn’t have thought of it in a million years.

  Pepperoni Pizza

  Earth to Aliya!” Carly snapped her fingers in my face. “You’re a million miles away.”

  “I’m here,” I said.

  We’d already ordered our pizzas, but fifteen minutes remained before my fast would end. I kept my eyes glued to the clock and tried to will the time to move faster. I held up my hands to admire how pretty and glossy my fingernails were. The manicurist had painted stars on every other one.

  The pizzas arrived, hot and steamy, and my mouth watered. “Go ahead,” I told the others. “You don’t have to wait for me.”

  No one waited. I couldn’t blame them. Nobody likes cold pizza.

  “A few minutes won’t make any difference,” Winnie said between mouthfuls. “Just go ahead and eat.”

  “I can’t.” I tried not to stare at the slices disappearing quickly from the pans.

  “Hey, we should save some for Aliya,” Winnie reminded the others.

  “We are, we are,” someone mumbled, but the mushroom slices were going pretty fast.

  “Thanks, Winnie,” I said gratefully.

  “De nada. But it’s best when it’s hot.”

  “I know,” I sighed. Time ticked by slowly. I kicked myself for not putting a couple of slices on my plate; now the pans were almost empty.

  “We’re saving you some,” Madison said. “Don’t worry.”

  I eyed the glass of soda waiting by my empty plate. My throat was dry; I could almost feel the cold carbonation. I drummed my fingers on the table. At last, the minute hand clicked to the precise spot on the clock.

  “Okay, you guys,” I announced. “I can eat now.”

  Carly slid the remaining pans to me. There were two pieces of mushroom and two pieces of pepperoni left. I grabbed a slice of mushroom. It had cooled down some but it still tasted pretty good to someone who hadn’t eaten since dawn. I ate it quickly, and reached for the other one. After I finished, I was still hungry, so I picked up my third slice.

  “That’s pepperoni!” Winnie warned.

  “I know,” I said. “It’ll be okay if I pick off the pepperoni.”

  “Did you have a good time at the party?” Mom asked.

  “It was great,” I said. Actually, it hadn’t been all fun. It wasn’t easy being extra patient and extra disciplined when everyone else could dive right in.

  “What did you eat?” Zayd asked.

  “Super-yummy-delicious pizza!”

  Zayd pushed away his plate of rice and hamburger meat curry. “I want pizza,” he whined.

  I didn’t blame Zayd for rejecting his supper. Mom made this dish at least twice a week. She’d varied it a little this time by adding green peas. But I wasn’t through tormenting the little tattletale.

  “Yummy yum yum!” I said.

  “What kind was it?” Zayd asked.

  “Mushroom and pepperoni,” I said. “Yum!”

  Mom looked up. “You ate pepperoni?”

  “I took the pepperoni off. There weren’t any more mushroom slices, and I was really hungry.”

  “Have I eaten pepperoni, Mom?”

  “Pepperoni is made of pork, Zayd,” she said.

  “But Aliya ate it.”

  “Are you deaf? I said I peeled the pepperoni off!”

  “Is she allowed to do that, Badi Amma?” Zayd asked.

  “Kya bole?” My great-grandmother cupped her ear. “Allowed to do what?”

  “IS SHE ALLOWED TO EAT PEPPERONI?” Zayd yelled.

  Badi Amma turned to Amma. “What is this pepperoni?”

  “I didn’t e
at it, idiot!” I yelled. I looked from Badi Amma to Mom to Amma. I had screwed up my first fast; I didn’t want this one spoiled too. “Was my fast ruined, Amma?” I asked.

  “Of course not, Meri Jaan,” my grandmother replied. “Allah saw you remove the pepperoni.”

  Saturday, November 16

  9:00 p.m.

  Dear Allah,

  I messed up a little and I’m sorry. Everybody makes mistakes but they learn from them. I do feel better that You give credit for a person’s good intentions. I don’t mind telling You mine were all good.

  Yours truly,

  A

  PS I sure am glad Choti Dahdi isn’t around. She’d never forgive me, I bet.

  Ideas

  Winnie and I decided to take the long route to the office to deliver some papers for Mrs. Doyle. When we walked past the bathrooms, we saw that the doors were propped open and there were orange cones at both entrances. Mr. Belotti was in the boys’ room, mopping the floor.

  “Hey, Mr. Belotti, what’s up?” Winnie called.

  “What’s up? I’ll tell you what’s up! Some punk stuffed wads of paper down the toilet. That’s what’s up!”

  “Uh-oh!” Winnie said. “Is it bad?”

  “It’s Niagara Falls! That bad enough for you?” The rest of Mr. Belotti’s words were lost under the slosh of his mop and the clank of his bucket.

  “Mr. Belotti, what’s that?” Winnie asked, pointing to the girls’ room.

  I poked my head in. Someone had scrawled words on the first stall:

  JC loves J

  J and JC together.

  And not far below it, in the same handwriting:

  M is totally weird

  Ban crazy scarves and stinky cheese!

  M, go home!

  “You tell me, kiddo!” Mr. Belotti growled. “It’s defacing school property, that’s what it is!”

  “That wasn’t there yesterday,” I said.

  “No kidding!” Mr. Belotti said. “It’s here now, and guess who’s going to have to clean it all up?”

  “It’s too bad that you have to do it, Mr. Belotti,” Winnie said.

  “Yeah, Mr. Belotti,” I added. “Some kids have no respect.”

  As we walked on toward the office, Winnie looked over at me. “That was about Marwa back there.”

  I nodded. My eyes had focused on the words right below the scribble about Juliana and Josh. Anyone would know that the M on the stall wasn’t for Morgan or Marybeth or Madison.

  “I’m sure glad Mr. Belotti will get rid of it before she sees it,” Winnie said.

  “But what if she’s seen it already?” I asked. “She could have passed the open door just like we did.”

  “Yeah, that would be so terrible!” Winnie nodded. “Some kids can be so mean.”

  We delivered the papers to the office and waited for an envelope to take back to Mrs. Doyle. As we neared our classroom we heard a familiar chime, followed closely by an announcement over the school intercom.

  Attention, Glen Meadow students. The boys’ and girls’ restrooms in the upper wing are closed until further notice. If you need to use the restroom, please check with your teacher. Thank you for your cooperation.

  We heard groans from the classrooms.

  “Uh-oh!” I turned to Winnie. “Mrs. Holmes knows! Now we’re in for it!”

  A year ago, one of the school bathrooms had flooded. No one ever found out who did it or why, but it was a mess. It was closed for two days for repairs, and that meant the students on that hall had to go to the bathroom in the nurse’s office. But that was only one toilet. This year, it was worse and Mrs. Holmes was livid.

  The thing is, when something like this happens, you can never be sure who’s responsible—but I had a pretty good idea.

  “Hi,” I said.

  Marwa looked up from her book with a surprised look on her face. “Oh, hi!”

  “Are you fasting?” I asked.

  “Al humdu lillah,” she answered. “And you?”

  I nodded. “Are you planning to fast the rest of the month?”

  “As much as I’m able to. And you?”

  “I don’t know, same for me, I guess,” I said.

  Marwa flipped the pages of her book with her thumb.

  “Did Sarah come to your house for iftar on Saturday?”

  Marwa shook her head. “Something came up and she couldn’t make it.”

  I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t come either. It was really nice of you to ask.”

  “That’s okay,” Marwa said. “No big deal.”

  I inhaled again. “That was pretty brave of you … the other day …,” I stammered. “With Austin, I mean.”

  “Oh that! Well—”

  “You really told him off.”

  Marwa took off her glasses and polished them on her sleeve. “He was being an idiot,” she said.

  “Weren’t you the tiniest bit afraid?” I asked.

  “He had no right to talk about my hijab that way,” she said.

  It was the first time that word had been mentioned between us. And now that she had brought it up, I cleared my throat. “I was wondering … um … are you being teased about it? By anyone besides Austin?”

  Marwa shrugged.

  I waited for her to admit that kids were being mean. If she had, I might have told her about being called a weirdo by Austin or about Juliana rolling her eyes at me. But she didn’t say anything. Maybe she hadn’t seen the writing in the bathroom.

  I looked straight into Marwa’s face, instead of avoiding her gaze like I usually did. She seemed different without her glasses.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, wiping at her cheeks. “Is there a smudge on my face?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to stare. You have pretty eyes.”

  Monday November 18

  9:00 p.m.

  Dear Allah,

  Something really strange happened today. When I was talking to M during recess, she asked me why I was staring at her. The first thing that occurred to her was that she might have a smudge on her face. Having a little dirt on her cheek worried her more than the scarf on her head.

  Then I went deeper and I realized something else.

  Her hijab doesn’t scare her one bit.

  But it scares me.

  And it confuses me.

  But she is completely OK with it.

  Yours truly,

  A

  PS I thought I had something more to say but now I don’t know what.

  The next day, Marwa and I ran into each other on our way out to recess.

  “Have you been helping Mr. Gallagher again?” I asked.

  Marwa nodded. “He gave me a stack of math papers to look over.”

  “He’s making you correct other kids’ papers?” I asked. “Isn’t that his job?”

  “I don’t mind,” she said. “But I wish he’d give me something more interesting to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, some sort of project, something I could do some research on.”

  I told her then about Mrs. Doyle’s independent study project and explained how it was supposed to celebrate differences by showing respect for things like cultures, traditions, and abilities.

  “That’s exactly what I mean!” she said. “I hope Mr. Gallagher will assign a project like that. I’d love to do something where I could hop on the internet and zoom … take off!”

  “Not me. I get stuck before I can take off,” I said. “And right now, my head is empty. I can’t seem to get going with my Sunday school project either. It’s pretty complicated.” I told her briefly about Sister Khan’s Steps to Success but I didn’t breathe a word about my letters.

  We walked out into the nippy air.

  Marwa blew on her hands. Her breath made cloud puffs in the air. “You could do something on Islam,” she suggested.

  “On Islam?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Er … I don’t think tha
t’s such a good idea,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  It wasn’t a rude question. It didn’t sound like a challenge either. But she just seemed surprised. But how could she even ask? Didn’t she already know from the newspapers and the TV and everywhere else? Didn’t she know people around here were angry at us? They didn’t want to learn about our religion.

  “Muslims aren’t very popular these days,” I said.

  “You mean because of 9/11?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, that’s why you need to do it. Don’t you see?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” I asked. “I don’t want to call attention to myself.”

  “My dad says it helps when people talk things out. He’s always going to interfaith meetings where they do that.”

  “I don’t know …”

  But Marwa went on. “My dad says it makes things clearer in people’s minds when they have the right information and that can only happen when there is a conversation.”

  Like the conversation we were having right now? But my mind was still cluttered with questions. What if kids hated it? What if they asked hard questions? What if I didn’t know the answers?

  “Just think about it,” Marwa said

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll talk to Winnie,” I said. “She’s my partner. She has a big say in this too.”

  “It’s about time,” Winnie called. “I thought you’d passed out from hunger and were in the nurse’s office lying down.”

  “I was hurrying, honest,” I said, dropping into the empty swing next to hers. The metal was icy under my hands and the cold breeze ruffled the collar of my jacket and made the tip of my nose numb.

  “You were talking forever to Marwa,” Winnie said, pronouncing it Mar-way. “I thought you’d never get here.”

  “It’s Mar-wuh,” I corrected her. “With an uh sound. And you’ve got to work on Badi Amma’s name too.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the way I say Buddy Ma’s name,” Winnie protested. She practiced Marwa’s name as she pumped the swing. “Mar-wuh, Mar-wuh, Mar-wuh.”

  “Was my name hard to remember at first?” I asked.