Saints and Misfits

by S. K. Ali

  Nuah laughs. “The kufi is for my little brother. He has a buzz cut, not hair like mine.” He tufts his Afro.

  “Ah, I see. Then I think I may have some in my van. It’s like a warehouse in there.” Mr. Khoury looks at me. “Will you watch my table for me, my assistant?”

  “Now, that’s nice of you,” Nuah says after Mr. Khoury leaves. “Assisting this merchant gentleman here.”

  “Actually, I’m taking pictures for the mosque website.”

  “Some would say that’s even nicer.”

  “. . . aaaand I get paid to do it. It’s part of maintaining my uncle’s website.” I pause my picture taking to see his reaction.

  “So if my calculations are right, you’re pretty loaded. This gig and Mr. Ram, you must be raking in the big bucks.”

  “Those are not even part-time jobs. You’re the one with the real job.”

  “Correct.” Nuah puts his books on the table to pick up one of the popular plastic swords. “Also correct is that I head to college in one more year. You know the tortoise and the hare? I’m the tortoise, and the racetrack’s my bank account. I’ve been saving for years.”

  “Where do you want to go?” I lower my camera. This topic always excites me. I’ve been dreaming of college since middle school.

  “Ah, you mean my finish line? Caltech, engineering.” He swings the sword in the air like a lightsaber, both hands on the hilt. It responds by lighting up and making a clanging sound. When he slashes the opposite way, the sound changes slightly. “Pretty nifty toy.”

  “Yeah, those are bestsellers.” I glance at his books. The Content of Character by Shaykh Al-Amin Mazrui and The Study Quran.

  “Hope you didn’t take pictures of that, kids walking around with swords in front of the mosque. That’s all we need, more images of ‘violent Muslims.’ ”

  Mr. Khoury returns, holding a bin. He opens it to reveal flattened caps arranged in neat rows. He takes one out and pulls it open. It’s a red fez, high and tapered at the top with a hanging tassel.

  He motions for Nuah to come closer and places the fez on top of his head. I lift the camera and snap a picture.

  Muhammad is by the table. “What’re you guys up to?”

  “Brother of my assistant, what do you think?” Mr. Khoury asks, motioning at Nuah.

  Nuah poses for Muhammad, his hands resting on the hilt, sword pointing down, the fez sitting precariously on his hair. I take another picture.

  Nuah takes the cap off and places it on the table along with the sword. “Here comes the man.”

  He advances toward someone and brings him forward. It’s the monster.

  “This guy here is helping fix up my recitation of the Qur’an.” Nuah’s arm is around him as he turns him toward Muhammad. “On his own time.”

  “Dude, I know this guy from when we were kids. You’re the one that’s just getting caught up with the scene. This guy here is gold.” Muhammad shakes the monster’s hand.

  “Thanks for getting your uncle to set me up to lead Taraweeh, man.” The monster crosses his arms. I move behind Mr. Khoury and turn to look at the wall hangings draped on the dividers backing his stand. My eyes travel along the black lines of a gridlike design.

  Muhammad told Amu to ask the monster to lead prayers at the mosque?

  “No problem. Who else but you? You ready?” Muhammad.

  “Yup, pretty much. Gotta brush up in the next couple of weeks.”

  “Me too, brushing up before Ramadan.” Nuah’s voice. “Got the Study Quran to prep.”

  “Don’t think he’ll need that, bro. He’s got it memorized.” Muhammad, laughing. “The whole Qur’an, now that’s something. Not a lot of us can say that.”

  “The whole book? Wow.” Mr. Khoury moves in his excitement. I shift along with him, now looking at a navy-and-burgundy wall hanging. “Qul’li ma dha ya’qulu al-Qur’anu ani’l Yasue?”

  No one says anything. Then Muhammad: “He’s asking you to tell him what the Qur’an says about Jesus.”

  The monster doesn’t answer.

  “You know Arabic, right?” Mr. Khoury moves again.

  “I’m not Arab; I’d have to read up on it.” The monster, his voice lowered.

  “I can tell you what the Qur’an says about Jesus. . . .” Nuah, but Mr. Khoury interrupts him.

  “So you memorized a book, but you don’t know what it says?” Mr. Khoury sounds incredulous. “A book you say God sent?”

  “It’s a lot of work, to memorize it all. People go to classes for years.” Muhammad.

  “But that’s like my boss gives me instructions, and I just memorize them. I don’t even know what the instructions are. And then my boss asks me if I did my job, and I recite his instructions back to him!” Mr. Khoury is waving his arms. I feel the moving air they generate. “My boss would fire me!”

  “Lots of people do understand the Arabic. Some who memorize the Qur’an may not, but maybe for them it’s a first step in their study.” Muhammad. “Anyway, many read the English translation. We do know what the Qur’an says.”

  “So this gold guy here who memorized what he doesn’t understand, what is the big deal? You agree or don’t?”

  Mr. Khoury presses on, and I slip through a gap in the rear dividers.

  • • •

  On the way home, Fizz points out a girl who gets on the bus with us and whips off her hijab as soon as she sits down, stuffing it into her bag.

  “So why does she wear it?” Fizz wonders. “I feel like asking her that. If she doesn’t like it, be like Miriam. Miriam goes around everywhere without hijab, even the mosque.”

  “Maybe that girl does like it,” I say. “Just not wearing it everywhere. Maybe she’s gaining strength by wearing it to the mosque.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Fizz says. “Choose it or don’t choose it. Don’t sit on a fence. Admit it—that’s weak.”

  “Maybe,” I say, clicking through my camera, looking at some awful pictures of hookahs and plastic swords, thinking, What’s wrong with being weak?

  I mean, I know Fizz isn’t weak, except when facing her mother, but I know I can go wobbly-kneed in all kinds of scenarios.

  I show her the picture of Nuah posing with the fez.

  Fizz smiles. “Nuah. He goes to my school, a junior, new here. By the way, thanks for sending Farooq over. I was swamped at the table. Maybe girls started coming because of him.”

  No comment.

  • • •

  Fizz gets off, and I go on to my creaky building in the midst of a congregation of old condominiums, neither retro cool nor demolition ready—yet. Ms. Kolbinsky is leaning on the fence by the entrance, eating grapes from a bag. I wave at her, and she offers me some grapes. I trade two for a samosa from the box I’m bringing back for Mom.

  “My daughter, she still didn’t do the papers.” Ms. Kolbinsky takes a bite out of the samosa. I watch her reaction.

  “Not too spicy for you?”

  “No, I make spicy food. This is good spicy.”

  “Mr. Ram likes spicy food.”

  “Maybe I can cook him something.”

  “Ms. Kolbinsky, I’ll give you the new form I got you. Maybe tomorrow.”

  She waves good-bye with her bag of grapes.

  Muhammad stayed back to clean up at the mosque and Mom’s not home, so I let myself into an empty apartment. I have some quiet time to e-mail Amu the picture of himself with Darren and the one with Julie getting henna, the only good pictures I took today.

  As I clear the bed to study, I think about Amu’s pointed remark about Muhammad staying with him. That bothers me, but not because my brother won’t be living here with us. I’m too used to him not being around. It bothers me because Amu looked disappointed in me.

  • • •

  The monster is going to lead Ramadan prayers.

  I see his hands raised in takbeer to begin prayers, with everyone standing behind him in neat rows.

  The same hands.

  I block it
by slamming my backpack on the desk.

  I take out my math textbook and toss it on the bed.

  I hate him. People think he’s great: Fizz, Amu, Nuah.

  My brother thinks he’s great.

  Sinking to the floor, I rest my head on the bed.

  Why do I have to bear his evil in me?

  It’s his evil. So why is it me that’s hurting?

  SAINT

  Mom knocks as I’m putting on my hijab to go to the restaurant with Muhammad and Saint Sarah. I didn’t want to go before, but I’m really dreading it now that I found out Muhammad is in love with Farooq. He set up the Ramadan gig for him.

  “Thanks for going with them. I appreciate it,” Mom says. She sets a laundry basket on my bed. It’s my hand washables, ironed and folded.

  “Can I borrow some of your scarf pins, Mom? I can’t use my magnet ones on this scarf. Too thick.”

  “Sure. You know where they are, same place.” She starts opening my drawers to put away my clothes.

  “Mom, I’ll do that. See, this is another reason why I refuse to share a room.” I turn to her at the door. “You’re always babying me.”

  She lets go of an open drawer and raises her hands as if she’s facing a cop with his gun drawn. “Just trying to help you because you’re busy, but if you want me to leave, I will.”

  I head to the dresser in her room. As I open the junk drawer, a flyer, one end snagged in a crevice in the wood above, unfurls.

  MEET YOUR MATCH!

  A New Kind of Muslim Marriage Service

  Operating in YOUR City on Select Dates

  Enjoy dinner and then proceed to a roundtable-style series of introductions to interested, HIGHLY eligible singles in your area.

  We welcome everyone!

  Eastspring: June 12

  June 12 was yesterday. Mom’s long-pendant-earrings day.

  I close the drawer and decide to change my scarf.

  • • •

  “I think I have it. I’ve been thinking about it since you told me about your forehead thing.” Muhammad, giddy about his date, is driving silent me. “Now I’m pretty sure the guy in your pics is white. I can tell.”

  I stare ahead.

  “So, I’m thinking, the whole day, yesterday and today, I didn’t see one guy that fit the description at the mosque. None of the white guys there have such prominent foreheads.” He turns to check my face. “By the way, I’m trying to help you.”

  I make no sound.

  “So, I think, this guy is not Muslim.” He looks at me again. “And that’s okay. It happens.”

  I can’t help it when I hear that. “Yeah, I know: Melissa, Samantha, and Jennifer.”

  “Fourth grade, sixth grade, and seventh. Crushes from long ago.”

  “What do you want? Why are you Sherlocking me? I’m already doing this date thing for you.”

  “I’m helping you like I said.” He turns the car north onto the main street of Eastspring. “Sometimes you just have to find alternatives. And then it hit me today, while at the open house, at that table where you were taking pictures.”

  I turn to him. What is he going on about?

  “You know who I can see you with? And who has kind of a big forehead? Farooq, Fizz’s cousin.” Muhammad stops at a light and beams at me. “You love Fizz’s family, so it’s like a bonus.”

  I close my eyes and turn away.

  “Okay, suit yourself. The guy is the real deal. If you knew him, you’d completely agree.”

  • • •

  When we arrive at the restaurant, Harold & Fay, Saint Sarah is waiting by the doors, wearing a flowery summer dress with high platform sandals. Her scarf is held up by a pink peony tonight. She flings her arms out when she sees us and envelops me in a tight, perfumed hug as if she hadn’t seen me this afternoon at the open house. Then she proceeds to link arms with my stiff self as Muhammad opens the door for us.

  I get a feeling that it’s going to go downhill from such a grand entrance, so I give myself some advice as we step into the uptight, uptown restaurant: This is about them. Don’t make it worse than it already is. Keep your mouth shut, except to open it wide to eat the most expensive appetizer and dessert on the menu on Muhammad’s tab.

  But then she, Saint Sarah, squeals when she finds out that I’m an appetizer, no dinner, and yes dessert person too, like her.

  “I knew you were amazing, Janna!” she says, as if being like her immediately catapults me into another class of human beings.

  It keeps getting worse, the squeals, every time she finds out another thing we have in common (all of which she’s teasing out of me with the precision of a brain surgeon). A weird, completely alien feeling suddenly pierces my heart for a brief, fleeting moment. I feel sorry for my brother, who is trying to daintily eat this tiny piece of deepwater char with mustard greens, preserved fennel, and watercress puree while interjecting what he thinks are witty observations to divert the attention back to himself.

  She’s forgotten about him.

  When Muhammad flops back in his seat, apparently giving up on us and his food—his plate a work of art, swirled from more fork action then eating action and resembling the deep murky waters from whence the fish came—the feeling of sympathy flees, and I decide to sprint to the front lines. I’m going to decimate him for linking me and the monster so effortlessly. I’m going to annihilate him.

  To do it properly I know I have to wait to spring efficiently, intensely, in such a way as to get to the jugular of the whole thing in one or two swipes.

  I get my opportunity when the waiter brings the dessert menu.

  “Yum, dessert!” I say, mustering excitement from the thinning air.

  “Ooh, this is going to be good!” says Saint Sarah. “What will it be for you, Janna?”

  “Well, let me see . . . will it be oozing chocolate lava cake at sixteen dollars or the caramelized runny butter tarts at fourteen dollars or the . . . ,” I say, trailing off.

  Then, expertly, I stop and look up, stricken.

  “What is it?” Saint Sarah asks.

  “Nothing,” I say. “I think I won’t be having dessert,” I add meekly, closing the leather-bound menu with a faint sigh.

  “Why? You can’t only eat breadsticks,” Saint Sarah says, glancing at me, then at Muhammad as she notices my “surreptitious” peeks at my brother.

  “No reason,” I say. “Except that I’m actually full. Buffalo mozzarella breadsticks with pumpkin seed sauce, you know.”

  She looks at me again, adjusting her cotton-candy-pink hijab in wonder.

  “Muhammad,” I say, turning to him and leaning forward to gaze thoughtfully into his eyes. “I forgot to ask: Did you get that job you applied for? Or are they saying the philosophy thing is not cutting it? Like the others did? Mom’s been wondering too, because of the rent increase.”

  “Oh,” says Saint Sarah. She closes her menu too.

  Muhammad stares at me, confused. I love that look on his face.

  “Sorry,” I say, giving what I hope is a tinkly laugh. “I forgot: Don’t discuss finances—or lack of—at the dinner table. Sorry, Muhammad.”

  His eyes narrow. He’s getting it and will soon gather the forces of his puny yet searing rejoinders, so I stand. “I need to go to the restroom. Sarah, are you going to come with me so that we keep this halal? I don’t want to get in trouble with your dad for leaving you guys alone.”

  Saint Sarah gets up, looking at my brother with a mixture of pity and confusion. I love that look on her face too.

  My back feels prickly all the way to the restroom, so I guess Muhammad is sending daggers my way.

  In the restroom Saint Sarah shows me her new way to secure her hijab, as if I’d asked. I’m feeling victorious so I humor her, even letting her redo my hijab in the latest style.

  When we get back to the table, there’s a big sampler plate of all of the restaurant’s desserts waiting for us. Muhammad stands up, pulls out my chair for me with a flourish and then Saint S
arah’s before sitting down with a smile.

  Saint Sarah smiles this soft smile back at him, and I realize right then and there, they’re already an item.

  And wham! Just like that, I understand why she focused on me during the whole dinner. She knows she only has me to win over so she’d gotten right to work.

  I thought I was the stealthy one, but her? She’s stealth with a smile.

  MISFITS

  Today is the hottest day thus far in the year, and that means most everyone will act annoyed as soon as I step into school. Because they’ll be stripped to the teeniest clothes they’re legally allowed to wear. And me? I’ll look like I’m going on an Arctic expedition.

  The first thing off everyone’s lips will be Don’t you feel hot in that? “That” meaning my covered-from-head-to-toe self. They’ll act like their eyeballs will boil from the steam coming off me.

  A kind, good-hearted person might be touched that people are being so empathetic to the personal weather condition of others, but the more I hear it, the more I fume. Thus, getting hotter. So I need to dress carefully today.

  Tats says I wear too many layers, so I choose my thinnest shirt made out of T-shirt material. It’s weathered near the neckline, like worn enough to see my bra strap, so I yank it off and put a tank on underneath before putting it back on. The shirt also kind of goes up at one side, because it’s an asymmetrical cut, so I have to pull a short skirt over my jeans to cover the way it hugs my hips. With my scarf on, I realize that I’m layered again, and it’s all in black. I pick up my backpack and do a silent scream at the mirror.

  I’m not like Fizz. As soon as summer comes around, her family whips out these loose cotton tunics in colorful designs that her grandma sends from abroad. Sure, they keep cool, but I don’t feel like looking like an exhibit at an international museum of exotica. I get called “exotic” enough at Fenway.

  Fizz et al go to a Muslim high school. You’re allowed to look different there because, apparently, it’s a bastion of difference. They wear their hijabs in twenty-one different ways, according to Fizz. She wears the pull-on kind.