That’s what Mama calls her on the phone with Khalti Nesreen. Bint dy’ah. Lost girl.
They don’t know how far she goes with the white boys, that an invisible force pulls her back from crossing that dangerous ravine of sex. She pretends it’s because she doesn’t want to, but the truth—tucked deep in her stomach, in the place where she’s always felt shame and guilt dwelling in her body—is that she’s afraid to betray Mama and Baba in such a way. Her virginity is her last vestige of childhood, of innocence. She offers it up to her parents like a precious stone.
You’re different, Michael had told Afaf when he’d first locked the door to his room. But she realizes it’s not in a good way, because different is never good.
Maybe that’s what her sister Nada was talking about in her diary all those years ago. Could it be why she left? It’s what the young detective finally told her parents: Nada’s case was classified as a runaway.
There’s no evidence of foul play here. I’m sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Ra-man. It was 1980, four years since the first time Afaf had seen the detective. His blue eyes had dulled since that evening in their old apartment on Fairfield Avenue.
Mustaheel! Mama shouted, wiping away tears with the sleeve of her housedress. Impossible! She never run away from me.
Baba had gently grabbed Mama’s shoulders, whispered something in her ear. She vehemently shook her head, but stayed quiet. The detective looked down at his notepad. Afaf and Majeed sat at the kitchen table, their mahshi growing cold on their plates. She liked to split open the stuffed zucchini, eat the rice first, then the skin. They’d been halfway through the meal when the detective arrived.
Ever since that night, Mama has been floating through the years like a ghost, moving around their family, hovering on the periphery of their lives. Baba disappears into himself, coming home late, stinking of alcohol.
Afaf runs out the back door, hops onto her ten-speed bike she’d left in Michael Wilson’s fenced backyard.
“You bitch!” rings in her ears as she rides home through the alley.
2
IN HER bedroom, Afaf drowns out their shouting with her Walkman. It’s the same fight between her parents: Mama wants to go back to the bilad. For good.
Angry words still break up the lyrics floating through Afaf’s headphones:
“ . . . can’t afford it, Muntaha . . .”
And do you feel scared, I do
“You drink it away . . .”
But I won’t stop and falter
“ . . . think of your children . . .”
And if we threw it all away
“ . . . I have no life here, Mahmood . . .”
Things can only get better
Afaf squeezes her eyes shut, turns up the volume.
There’s a part of her that wants Mama to leave. The part of her that folds itself over and over again, tucking away the hurt every time her mother looks through her, never seeing Afaf, always seeing her firstborn. She comes home every day to Mama at the stove, cooking meals she won’t eat herself. She looks like a withering tree, her thin arms like leafless branches, hands that appear incapable of holding more than a broom that she sweeps across the dull wooden floor of their apartment.
There’s another part of Afaf that wants to shake the grief out of her mother along with all of the memories of Nada and the bilad until they’re like specks of dust.
But her family has moved three times since Nada disappeared and her absence still occupies the most space in each small flat, squeezing out Afaf and Majeed.
In the school cafeteria the next day, something cool slithers across her scalp and slides down her face. Afaf catches globs of green Jell-O in her hand.
“Slut,” Kelly McPherson whispers in her ear. She stands behind Afaf in the lunch line. Her friend Angela Malone cuts in front of her. They’re all freckles and feral white teeth. Angela’s shaking out a foam cafeteria bowl, freeing a few more green globs onto Afaf’s sneakers.
Kelly’s breath is hot on her neck. “Stay the fuck away from my boyfriend.”
Though fear prickles her skin, Afaf slams her tray on the counter and pushes Kelly so hard she knocks down two other students behind her. A semicircle forms around them, razzing and hooting. Afaf can’t hear what Kelly’s shouting at her from the floor. A crushed pint of milk pools near Kelly’s butt.
Angela grabs a fistful of Afaf’s hair and yanks her backward. She whirls around and catches Angela’s chin with her fist. Then someone pins Afaf’s arms to her sides and carries her out of the cafeteria. A peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich hits her face to a chorus of laughter.
In his office, Coach Phillips, one of the deans, hands Afaf paper towels to wipe off the Jell-O from her hair. The sheets stick to the sugary residue. She sinks into the chair opposite of him at his desk.
His shelf is full of trophies and ribbons. Framed photographs of Hoover High School’s wrestling team are on the walls, perfectly aligned from 1972 to 1984. In every one of them, Coach Phillips strikes an identical pose: arms behind his back, shoulders rounded, stomach tucked in. In the very first photograph his hair is thick and long and sweeps across his forehead. As the years progress, his hair grows thinner and shorter, and in the most recent one—last year—it’s all gone, shaved to the scalp. And he’s fatter now. But nothing changes about his stance—an unsmiling, dead stare at the camera.
He thumbs through a file and dials a number on his office phone. “Mrs. Ra-man? This is Dean Phillips from Hoover High School.” He pauses, tapping his pencil on the edge of the desk. “Do you speak English?” He nods at Afaf. “Good, good. I have your daughter A-faf in my office. She struck another student, ma’am. Hit a girl. Yes. . . .” He neglects to tell Mama that it was Angela Malone who grabbed her hair first. She did feel a certain satisfaction in the way her knuckles crunched into Angela’s cheekbone. But getting blamed for the entire incident?
The bell rings and the hallway outside the dean’s office fills with the pandemonium of another passing period. Lockers slam shut and footsteps thunder to the next class. Afaf tries not to squirm in her chair.
Coach Phillips says into the phone, “You’ll need to pick her up. Three-day suspension, ma’am.” A pause. “Yes. She’ll be waiting for you. Thank you, ma’am.” He hangs up and jots something down in her file, closes it. He leans back in his swivel chair, hands folded across his potbelly. “Are you planning on not graduating, Miss Ra-man?”
Afaf folds the soiled sheet of paper towel over and over, ignoring his question, pretending to be cool. But it’s the second time this semester she’s been in his office. Last month, she cursed at a boy in her physics class. Mr. Biggs had posed a problem about velocity and a classmate had snickered something about the speed of a camel.
But cursing out a classmate is one thing; laying your hands on them is another. Perspiration trickles down Afaf’s back. The adrenaline from punching Angela has faded, and the dean’s lack of compassion leaves her feeling hollow and alone.
“Three strikes and you’re out, young lady.”
Afaf stares icily at Coach Phillips. No matter what, she’ll never show them she’s scared. Never reveal how truly weak she is. Every year the social worker calls her down to her office, and Afaf listens to the same lecture: You have choices, A-faf. We can only control what we can in our lives.
The social worker had wanted to know: Are your parents strict, A-faf? Are you having trouble at home?
Afaf had suppressed a laugh. Strict? White people think she’s locked up the minute she gets home, that she is oppressed and not free. Mama and Baba barely acknowledge her, let alone care what she does outside of school. Maybe if they did, she wouldn’t be sitting in the dean’s office again.
“You need your diploma, young lady. Wouldn’t want your father selling you to a harem, would you?” Coach Phillips chuckles, scratches the bridge of his nose with a meaty finger.
She fights hard to control the flush of red across her cheeks. She wants to grab one of his trophies and smash his f
ace. It’s a joke she’s heard him make before to the prettier Arab girls at Hoover. They smile back politely. He has an assortment of insults reserved for the arrabi boys, too: No oil deals during the school day, fellas. His tone is always playful, not fully masking his distaste for the nonwhite element at Hoover High School. He’s among a dangerous kind of adult: a smile suppressing their true feelings about you. Like Mrs. Cass, her English teacher. She ignores the only two black students in Afaf’s class unless they ask questions, then she gives them a phony smile. Or Mr. Abbott, the study hall supervisor. He lets the white kids slide on tardies, but diligently writes up everyone else.
Coach Phillips hands Afaf a pass. “Wait for your mother outside. And you better keep outta my office.” He swivels to a filing cabinet on his left. Afaf leaves his office without having uttered a single word.
3
SHE WAITS for Mama in the main office, throwing defiant looks back at students passing in the hallway and slowing to peer through the plate-glass window as though she’s a zoo animal. Sameera and a few arabiyyat walk by and they lock eyes. Their friendship fizzled in elementary school and now Sameera and the other girls keep away from Afaf like she’s got the plague. Sameera seems to forget when they were ten years old and used to play “Miss Mary Mack” over and over until they burst into giggles. Afaf’s always been on the wrong side of the window, unable to conform to a mold Sameera and the other arabiyyat easily fit. They flirt and giggle with the arrabi boys, never crossing that line of chastity. Their fathers own food diners and gas stations, buy them whatever their hearts desire. Their curls shine from expensive perms and their eyes are lined with thick kohl. They wear twenty-four-karat gold amulets inscribed with Allah in Arabic. They are beautiful and spoiled—no different than most of the white girls at school except for their olive skin. Sameera quickly looks away as Afaf sinks deeper in her chair.
An hour later, Mama comes into the office, clutching her purse like she’s in the wrong place, ready to turn on her heels until she spots Afaf. She’s wearing her long gray winter coat with the oversized buttons, though it’s the start of April. Her long hair is loose and stringy, her graying roots giving her a wild look. Her pink polka-dot pajama pants peek out of rain boots. Afaf cringes, wishing she could have walked home herself.
Two freshman boys waiting next to Afaf snicker. She glares at them, daring an insult.
“Mrs. Ra-man?” The secretary gives Mama a tight smile. “Please sign here.” Mama grabs the pen while the white woman eyes the spot where a button is missing on her mother’s coat.
The secretary jerks her chin at Afaf. “She can return to school on the fifth. Is there someone to pick up her homework? We can hold it here at the end of the day.”
“Yes. Her brother.” Mama’s voice is low, like the volume turned down on a radio, her words barely audible.
“What’s his name?” The secretary’s pen is poised above a yellow legal pad.
Mama is suddenly distracted by the reality of the situation. She looks at Afaf like she doesn’t recognize her daughter—perhaps she never has, Afaf thinks.
Afaf stands up. “Majeed. He’s in ninth,” she tells the secretary.
The woman’s phony smile is gone when she looks at Afaf, no effort to feign kindness. “I hope he doesn’t give you any trouble like this one.” She points her pen at Afaf as she addresses Mama again.
“He’s the perfect child,” Afaf bites back. “Every parent’s dream.” It isn’t too far from the truth. Before the secretary can respond, Afaf is already out the door. Mama has never been called to school for Majeed fighting another classmate. The only time he’s come close was at a state championship game last spring. Majeed hit a home run in the bottom of the eighth inning. The pitcher on the other team had called out, Look at the camel jockey go! as Majeed rounded the bases. They’d almost come to blows and the game had nearly been forfeited.
Mama trails behind her in the hallway. Afaf is grateful sixth period has begun. There are only a few stragglers around, slurping from the water fountain, dragging their bodies to class.
In the parking lot, Mama speaks to Afaf for the first time. “You hit a girl,” she says in Arabic. Her parents switch to this dangerous tongue when she’s in trouble.
Afaf slides onto the passenger seat of Baba’s blue ’79 Buick Riviera. The suede cushions are worn down, once a shiny silver-blue, now dull gray. She can’t recall a single new thing they’ve ever purchased—except for mattresses—even when they moved to new apartment buildings. Nearly every piece of furniture they own belonged to someone else first, holds some other family’s story—always a happier one, Afaf imagines. This had been their first car. Baba had bought it from his bandmate Amjad and, though it was used, it was new to them.
The school bell rings, signaling the last period of the day. From outside, it sounds like an alarm, and Mama startles for a moment. Her green eyes dart around the parking lot and her fingers tremble as she unlocks her car door. Her skittishness has grown worse since Nada disappeared. When the doorbell rings at the apartment, or a car horn blares from the street, Mama jumps and wrings her hands. She won’t answer the door if she’s home alone.
Afaf climbs into the passenger seat. Mama throws her purse onto the backseat and turns the ignition. The engine rattles for a few seconds before catching and roaring to life. The first time Baba drove it home, Afaf and Majeed squirmed in delight. He’d managed to persuade Mama to go for a ride and they all climbed in, giddy with excitement, awed by the spacious interior. Afaf had breathed in the scent of coconuts from a deodorizer that hung from the rearview mirror. Now nothing can mask the stench of her father’s cigarettes.
Baba taught Mama to drive a few months after he bought the Buick.
In this country, you give up your freedom if you do not drive, Baba had told her. He gave Afaf and her brother a stern nod, making sure they’d heard his wise words. Afaf remembers sitting in the backseat with Majeed, perfectly quiet as her father gave Mama instructions. Mama would brake hard and their small bodies would jerk forward. The first time Afaf and her brother laughed, Baba turned around, narrowing his eyes at them. You do not laugh at someone who is trying. Only at the fools who do not give themselves a chance.
That shut them up for the rest of Mama’s driver’s education. Baba was a patient man. Every mistake Mama made, he responded with encouragement. That was a challenging turn. You will get it next time. Or, Muntaha! Azeem! Excellent parking—and your third time, no less!
In the car, glass clinks on the floor of the backseat when Mama turns out of the school parking lot. Empty liquor bottles roll against each other behind Afaf’s seat.
At first it was a strange smell on Baba’s breath when he squatted down to kiss Afaf after work—like cologne he patted on his cheeks on Eid, but sweeter. After Mama’s breakdown, when Afaf and Majeed stayed with Khalti Nesreen for two weeks, Baba came home later and later, Afaf and Majeed already asleep, knocking into an end table, stumbling down the hallway. Majeed still slept on the sofa bed, though they’d carried Nada’s old bed to every new apartment because her mother would never let a single thing go. But as soon as Mama began her angry crying at Baba’s drunkenness, Majeed scampered from the front room and hopped into Nada’s bed. Some nights, Baba plopped down next to Majeed on the sofa bed and sobbed, holding her brother until he passed out.
Over time, the smell grew more permanent on Baba, like a new layer of skin. When she was twelve years old, they were on their way to Khalti Nesreen’s one weekend and Afaf had kicked something under the passenger seat. She pulled out a nearly empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s lodged there. An amber liquid swished around the bottom. She had quietly unscrewed the top and sniffed it. A pungently sweet odor. She let Majeed get a whiff, too. He crinkled his nose. While Baba and Mama drove without speaking to each other, Majeed snatched the bottle from Afaf and took a swig. He coughed violently.
Mama craned her body over the seat. Khair! Khair!
Baba parked on the shoulder of the
road and got out. He pulled Majeed out and rubbed her brother’s back as he wretched on the asphalt. Mama was at his side, too, shaking Majeed’s arm.
Lah, lah, lah, was all Baba had said when Afaf handed over the opened bottle. The remainder of the liquid had spilled on the floor mat, and Afaf had watched the silver fibers absorb it, turning dark gray, like the stains from melting snow cones or rain-muddied boots.
It’s not enough you’re ruining your own health, you’ve got to ruin our children, too, with your shurub! Mama had shouted. She wiped Majeed’s mouth with the palm of her hand and inspected his eyes as though Majeed had been poisoned. Her brother hugged Mama, while she glared at Baba. Baba turned the car around and they drove home. The day was ruined.
4
MAMA GRIPS the blue leather-covered steering wheel, a few seams broken, her knuckles turning white. Her fingernails are bitten down to the quick. A few broken cuticles have turned scabby. She doesn’t utter another word. Doesn’t ask Afaf what could have possibly provoked her to hit another student. Doesn’t demand to know why Afaf is miserable at school. Afaf’s chest burns. Wickedness flashes across her heart: Afaf wants to tell her mother why those girls came after her. She wants to list their names—all the white boys she’s let feel her up—like the grocery list her mother hands to Baba every week. Maybe then Mama will have more to say to her.
Sophomore year it had started with Tim Mackey in his car. Truth is, Afaf didn’t even like Tim—she doesn’t like any of the white boys, not even a little. None of them make her feel any better, only that she exists, that someone notices her. After years in elementary school, she’s never been able to figure out who she is, how she wants others to see her. Girls like Kelly and Angela and Sameera seem to have figured it out. Tim drove Afaf to Marquette Park and kept his eyes closed the whole time he kissed her neck and face and touched her breasts over her shirt. She’d listened hard to Simple Minds on the radio, drowning out his soft grunts: “Don’t you forget about me . . .”
The Beauty of Your Face Page 7