Her teaching career had started with volunteering at the day-care program run for low-income families by the Nur Society of Sisters, a committee of muslimat devoted to charitable causes. Afaf read the children all the books she’d loved at their age, the stories that offered a temporary reprieve from the old apartment on Fairfield Avenue where clouds of grief and anger hung over her family. Her favorite was still The Phantom Tollbooth, tears filling her eyes at the part that had meant the most when she’d felt so utterly out of place:
“It was impossible,” said the king, looking at the Mathemagician.
“Completely impossible,” said the Mathemagician, looking at the king.
“Do you mean—” stammered the bug, who suddenly felt a bit faint.
“Yes, indeed,” they repeated together; “but if we’d told you then, you might not have gone—and, as you’ve discovered, so many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible.”
Something had shifted in her small chest all those years ago as she sat on her bedroom floor. She read those words twice, then three times. She’d walked to the library on her own the day she chose that book. Nada had shown her the way enough times and she visited at least twice a week, reading as many books as she could carry home.
The words echoed in her heart, a combination of nostalgia and plaintiveness: So many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible.
She’d wanted to make every child feel they weren’t alone, to fan their potential into roaring flames of hope and promises to be fulfilled one day. Teaching gives her a sense of purpose and, unexpectedly, intoxicating independence. No matter what, she knows she’ll survive.
She looks over at the green shayla, thinks of the other headscarves folded neatly in her drawer—shades of melon, sage, and French rose.
That ugly word suddenly hisses again in her ear, bristling the hair on her neck: raghead. She’s tried to put the incident out of her mind, but it’s no use.
She opens her lesson plan book, wondering what tomorrow will bring at school.
4
ON MONDAY morning, Afaf walks into the teacher’s lounge and her colleagues appear perplexed. She smiles and stows her lunch, pretending nothing’s changed, ignoring the knot of anticipation in her stomach. She won’t say anything first; if they have questions, they can ask. But they merely nod at her, weak smiles and raised eyebrows. Their silence communicates the questions she imagines they’ll ask once she’s left the room: Can she wear that thing in a public school? Doesn’t that cross a line of church and state? Is she some sort of radical?
After a beat, they return to their morning gossip, several laughing over a student’s spelling error that turned liberate into lubricate, and others rehashing the Bears’ final score last night. Afaf grabs her coffee and walks down the hallway to her classroom.
Afaf’s third-graders look at her with astonishment. There’s no disguising their emotions. It’s as if a stranger has taken over their classroom. She quickly reassures them it’s still her and explains why she’s covered her hair.
“So you don’t sleep in it?” Jeremy Mann asks, always the first hand to shoot up with a question. He’d once asked why bees had to die once they stung people. It seemed utterly unfair to him.
Afaf shakes her head, stifling a laugh.
“Do you take a bath with it?” This from Mikaela Cummings, her strawberry-blond hair pulled into two high ponytails.
“Oh, no, Mikaela! I hope you don’t take baths with your clothes on!”
The children giggle, hands over their mouths, vigorously shaking their heads. She can see they’re relieved. They can move on to nouns and adjectives.
Afaf’s aide, Mrs. Walsh, also appears relieved. “You look lovely, dear,” she whispers, squeezing Afaf’s hand. Her husband is a retired lieutenant colonel who served in the Persian Gulf War. He gripes about President Clinton and the demise of the country. Mrs. Walsh couldn’t stand to be home with him every day.
“You’ll pardon my saying so, but I might have pulled his shotgun on myself if I hadn’t taken this job,” she’d joked the first day of school, holding one side of the bulletin board trim as Afaf, a nervous new teacher, stapled down the corners.
During the Pledge of Allegiance, Afaf touches her headscarf, checking the fastening pins, slipping a finger inside the edges, as if her hair might vanish. Mrs. Walsh catches her and smiles.
As the morning continues, Afaf forgets about her hijab, consumed by the routines she’s developed for her students. She walks down the aisles of small desks, guiding the exercises, waiting for a chorus of answers. Layla Hamad, olive-skinned and petite, concentrates hard as Afaf passes her. She’s one of two Arab girls in her class. Afaf stops at her desk.
There’s a star-shaped bruise on Layla’s left cheek. Afaf taps her shoulder and signals to the little girl to follow Afaf into the hall. The rest of the class continues their drill, unbroken by this quiet disruption—their disciplined compliance pleases Afaf. She nods at Mrs. Walsh, who swiftly picks up where she left off.
“You’re not in trouble, Layla,” Afaf immediately tells her outside the classroom door. The fear in the little girl’s honey-colored eyes begins to melt away, not completely disappearing. “I noticed that bruise on your cheek. Can you tell me what happened?”
Layla’s hair is thick and wavy, reminding Afaf of all those childhood days Mama wrestled her hair into lumpy braids. Layla wears a sparkly headband, her tiny gold earrings dangling from delicate lobes. Most of the girls in Afaf’s class aren’t yet permitted by their parents to have pierced ears—Jumana Odeh, the other Arab student, wears cubic zirconia studs. Afaf feels a special bond to these girls: she remembers what it was like to be a poppy in a field of lilies.
Layla’s lips move with the choral repetition of the math drill floating out to them in the hallway. Afaf glances inside the classroom. Mrs. Walsh walks down a row, moving her hands like a conductor.
“Don’t be afraid, Layla.” Afaf smiles and lays her hand on the little girl’s shoulder. Layla flinches, eyes wide. “Did someone hurt you?”
She quickly shakes her head, confirming Afaf’s suspicion. “Layla, please listen carefully to me.” Her tone is gentle, though Layla is now fully alert, her small lips perfectly still. Math drills become white noise in the background.
“I fell down yesterday. I fell down at my house,” Layla spills out. Her eyes flit everywhere but on Afaf. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“I’m glad it doesn’t hurt, Layla, but I’m worried about how it happened.” Afaf places her other hand on the little girl’s shoulder, forcing her to look up. “Did someone hit you at home?”
Afaf can see all of the excuses Layla has rehearsed drifting across her face like leaves, settling in her eyes. The little girl bites her upper lip. Afaf knows too well how children quickly discover the truth can only make matters worse.
It’s not the first time. Last week Layla’s nostrils were crusted with dried blood. She told Afaf she’d fallen off her bike and her forehead had hit the sidewalk. Afaf had let it go. Today she persists. “If you can’t tell me, Layla, I’ll need to walk you down to Principal Walker’s office and we’ll have to get to the bottom of this.”
“Please, Miss Rahman, don’t tell on me,” the little girl pleads, as though she’s done something wrong.
“Did your baba hit your face?”
A little boy runs past them in the hallway, his lunch box clanking. Layla is temporarily distracted.
Afaf squeezes the girl’s shoulders. “Layla, did your baba hit your face?”
She sniffles, then nods. Though she had expected it, Afaf’s stomach sinks.
“Did he punch your nose last week?”
Another nod.
“Does he hit your mom?”
Afaf remembers Mrs. Hamad attending open house alone, a short woman with a pear-shaped body and curly brown hair pulled back with a studded headband, similar to the ones Layla wore every day. She seemed skitti
sh, like a cat set off by every sound. She’d listened and nodded eagerly at Afaf’s presentation on educational goals and yearly benchmarks. On clipboards Afaf had set on a long table, Mrs. Hamad signed up for every holiday party and school activity, though she hadn’t shown up for any, not for the Halloween parade or the field trip to the Museum of Science and Industry.
Tears stream down Layla’s face. “Please don’t tell on us.” Again she begs Layla, as though she and her mother are culpable in a terrible crime.
Afaf’s throat constricts with pity. “Listen, Layla. I want you to take a deep breath. Look at me, Layla. Breathe. Like this.” Afaf inhales through her nose. The little girl follows Afaf’s diaphragm as it rises and falls. Soon she’s calm. “Go to the washroom and splash some water on your face. Get a drink from the fountain and come right back to class. We’ll talk about this later, but you don’t have anything to worry about now. Okay?” Afaf’s instructions are precise and clear. Layla obeys without question.
At lunch, Mrs. Walsh gives Afaf a stern look. “You have to report it, dear.” She takes loud sips of herbal tea from her thermos cup and thumbs through her Good Housekeeping magazine.
Afaf remembers the awkward lecture on state-mandated reporters when she was in college, the professor laser-pointing at a screen. There was a long list of occasions and circumstances determining when you were supposed to notify the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. Her chest had tightened with fear during class that morning. She’d discovered there were worse things than living with a mother who made you feel invisible. The professor rattled off case after case of neglect and abuse—cigarette burns on a child’s neck, no food in the fridge for days, a drunken boyfriend cornering a little girl every time her mother was away. Afaf had hoped she’d never be in such a position to make that phone call.
Afaf nods at Mrs. Walsh, silently watching her pour another cup of tea and slurp it down. Afaf folds her sandwich back into its crinkled plastic wrap. She’s lost her appetite.
Her professor’s words echo back to her: While it’s important to use discretion, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.
Stephanie Roman comes to mind, a girl Afaf knew in seventh grade. She stopped coming to school for two weeks after she was taken from her parents’ custody. A vengeful relative had reported that Stephanie and her brother were being sexually abused by their father. In the end, it was baseless, but Stephanie wasn’t the same, growing sullen and detached from the other kids. She eventually transferred schools after her parents moved the family away.
But the evidence is not invisible here, hiding under Layla’s skin. It’s staring at Afaf in the shape of a star on her cheek. It wasn’t like Mama’s depression or Baba’s alcoholism—things she’d been able to hide forever as long as it didn’t show up in cuts and bruises.
And yet something keeps Afaf from walking to the office and making that call. It feels like a betrayal of some kind, as though she shares a silent code with Layla, arabiya like her. Their community is very small—almost stiflingly so. Through the Center, Afaf has learned how easily each family can be traced back to Palestinian clans.
“I’ll make the call,” Afaf announces, though Mrs. Walsh has already left to wash her hands before the children return to class running and laughing to their desks.
5
AFAF CAN’T remember driving home. She’d started the day imagining the spectacle of her hijab, though that had turned out to be the least of her worries. She replays the conversation in the hallway with Layla over and over in her head. She finds herself pulled up to the curb, the wind whipping at the hedges outside the apartment, surprised at how quickly she arrived home.
“Some woman called three times for you,” Mama tells her before she can utter hello.
“Who is it?” Afaf unpins her shayla and removes the headband.
Mama watches what will become a ritual for Afaf each day she comes home. She snuffs out her cigarette and pierces cauliflower frying in a deep pan of oil. “I don’t know. Her name is Sabrine. So pushy.” Mama hands her the number she’s scribbled down on a Chinese take-out menu.
“Thank you.” Afaf takes the paper. “Why don’t you change out of that abaya? I can wash it for you. Get it fresh again.”
It’s mostly easy to do things for Mama, helping her stay clean, keeping the apartment in order. Easier than hugging Mama or taking her hand, pressing it against her own cheek. Their relationship is practical, functioning. But today she wants to tell Mama what happened at school. And though Afaf knows precisely what she needs to do, it would still feel good to hear Mama say, Khair inshallah. It will turn out all right. She still desperately aches for that confidence—no matter how much Um Zuraib or any of the other women shower her with attention, it will never be the same as coming from her own mother.
Mama mutters low and goes to her bedroom. She returns in a sleeveless pink housedress. She holds out her abaya and dirty underwear like a child.
Afaf drops them in a small stackable washer beside the bathroom and dials the cordless phone. “Salaam, this is Afaf Rahman.” She measures a cup of detergent and starts a cycle, balancing the phone between her ear and shoulder.
“Afaf! Salaam, habibti! It’s Sabrine Khalil.”
She scans her memory. “I’m sorry, Ms. Khalil, have we met at the masjid?”
There are children shouting and playing in the background. “Loolad! Quiet! Go outside!” The woman clears her throat. “I’m sorry, Afaf. We haven’t really spoken before. I’m secretary for the Nur Society of Sisters.”
It hits Afaf: Sabrine Khalil, a slender woman with horn-rimmed glasses. A cousin of Um Zuraib. “Oh, yes! Salaam, Sabrine! Are my registration fees due?”
Sabrine Khalil handles membership for the Nur Society, mails postcards for upcoming events. Afaf hasn’t spoken much to her before.
“No, no, elhamdulillah, you’re fine.” The woman pauses, clears her throat again. “I’m calling about something rather sensitive, habibti.”
Afaf carries the cordless phone into her room. Mama has settled in front of the television, and another game show theme song drones in the kitchen. “What is it, Sabrine?”
“You have my niece in class. Layla Hamad. She’s my brother’s daughter.”
Afaf’s stomach sinks, as it had earlier that day when Layla confessed to her. She waits for the woman to say more.
“Afaf, my brother and his wife have been going through a very hard time. He just lost his job, and with five kids . . . you know, habibti?”
I don’t know, Afaf wants to tell the woman. She’d grown up with a father who nearly drank himself to death by ramming into a streetlight, but he’d never laid a hand on her or Majeed. She didn’t know anything about a father hitting his child so hard a star had formed on her cheek.
So why hadn’t Afaf made the call to DCFS today? She’d lied to her aide.
She feels hot, like her pores are closing in shame. She unbuttons her sweater, slips it off with one hand, the other still gripping the phone. The woman’s words puncture her ears.
“Um Zuraib said I should call you and explain the situation. That you’d understand.”
Um Zuraib? Of course. It was Um Zuraib who’d given her Afaf’s number—how else would this woman know anything about her?
Afaf feels cornered, her back up against the wall. These women aren’t asking for her empathy: they’re demanding her silence. But Afaf can’t give it to them.
“It’s out of my hands, Sabrine. I’m sorry.” Afaf hangs up, cutting off the woman’s protests. The phone rings a few times and she ignores it, laying it down on her bed.
Mama appears in her doorway, the smoke from her cigarette swirling into Afaf’s room.
“Who keeps calling? Is it that woman?”
Afaf stares at the gray snake of smoke that coils and disappears.
“Answer me, Afaf!”
“It’s nothing, Mama. I took care of it.” But she hasn’t really. She’d cowered under some foolish sense o
f honor. “I have to pray al-asar.”
Later that evening, Afaf sniffles on the phone to Bilal.
“You are doing the right thing, Afaf,” he consoles her. “Children must always come first.”
Afaf sees a flash of the forest where Bilal’s sister and mother had hidden for weeks. How many children had crouched behind those trees alongside them? Where do Layla and her mother hide from her father?
There’s a soft knock on her door. “Khair inshallah,” Baba says, poking his head in. “Your mother says a woman’s been bothering you on the telephone.” He enters her room and lowers himself into the chair at her desk, his bones creaking with age. His speckled hair is shaved under the skullcap he wears nowadays.
Afaf sniffles back tears. “I took care of it, Baba.”
“Tell me. What’s happened?”
“A little girl I teach. Layla. She’s been coming to school with bruises.”
He thumbs his onyx musbaha, looped over his palm, each shiny black bead revolving through his fingers. “May God keep away evil.”
“Her father’s been beating her and her mother.”
“Lah, lah, lah.” Baba shakes his head, beads circling uninterrupted.
“I have to report it, Baba. I’m bound by the law.” She stands up as though she must affirm this fact to her father.
“Even if you were not, you are responsible for this child.” He points at Afaf and says in English, “You are her voice.”
Afaf sits back down on her bed. “Um Zuraib has gotten involved. Layla’s aunt works at the masjid. She’s the one who’s been calling me all day.”
Baba listens, and she can see how her predicament becomes clear to him. “A child is in harm’s way, habibti.” He stands up and crosses to her. “You have only one choice. To help her.” He kisses her forehead and closes the door behind him.
The Beauty of Your Face Page 14