The Lines We Cross

by Randa Abdel-Fattah

  I get up and have a shower, hoping to wash the images from my mind. And then I sit in the floral chair and place my head against the armrest. My memories of my life in Afghanistan aren’t vivid. I worry sometimes that my memory bank is running on battery power and that the further I move on, the faster the battery fades. Will I wake up one day to find the battery dead? And then will it all be like Hasan, that I remember only the form of everything, but not the substance? I can remember how my father would peel my orange in one move and make me a curly snake … or was it a curly worm?

  Once, somebody on Facebook was ranting about boat people pretending to be refugees when they were just “economic migrants.” Her evidence was that she’d seen a group of them laughing and taking photos at the Opera House. They didn’t look traumatized, she’d said. Maha had gone all keyboard warrior on the Facebook thread and ripped through the person who’d posted the comment: I bet you’re the type of person who feels better if a homeless person begging for money looks really starved and miserable. Because then you can congratulate yourself on your charity, hey?

  Unlike Maha, the post hadn’t angered me. Instead it had hit me with the force of a semitrailer. Was part of our contract here in this country that we should be walking around depressed and broken? Wearing our trauma on the outside? And what about everybody we’d left dead or living in fear back home? Didn’t we owe them? How could I just lead this ordinary life?

  Tonight the questions hurl themselves back at me. It’s been such a long time since I’ve had a nightmare about my father. In Auburn I’d settled into an ordinary life; into a comfort zone that buried the bad thoughts and memories deep down, away from the surface of the mundane rhythms of my life. Maybe we were naive to think that we could go on like that forever. Were organizations like Aussie Values punishment for our naiveté? A reminder that for some people in this world, freedom and ordinary aren’t basic rights. They’re luxuries you should never take for granted.

  It’s the night of Sienna’s party. Terrence and Fred have already had too much to drink.

  “You look like shit,” Terrence says when he sees me. “Cheer up, will you.” He flings an arm around me. “What’s got into you these days? You’re PMSing. We don’t do that, remember?”

  “It’s not Zara, is it?” Fred asks, passing me a drink. “You missing her?”

  “Nope.” I look around and take a swig of my drink. Terrence launches into a funny story and it gets us laughing hard. For a while I’m able to rewind my life back to a time when I hadn’t met Mina, when my life made sense.

  We check out the crowd and complain to each other about the music. Sienna’s hired a DJ and has set up a dance space in the open-plan lounge area. The bifolding doors open up onto a courtyard decorated with fairy lights and Chinese lanterns.

  Terrence soon starts chatting up one of Sienna’s friends from outside school. There’s nothing more boring than watching your friend try to hit it off with a girl, so Fred and I leave them at the backyard pergola and head back inside, meeting Jane and Leica on the way.

  “Hi, guys,” Jane says cheerily. Her eyes are darting around, surveying the backyard. It’s obvious she’s searching for Terrence. I feel sorry for her.

  “Hey, Jane,” I say. “Hey, Leica. Is Cameron here?”

  “On his way,” Leica says.

  We make small talk for a bit. Jane’s clearly fishing, the way you do when the only thing on offer is the excitement of just hearing somebody’s name. But there’s an art to this kind of fishing and Jane’s still an amateur.

  “So did you two arrive by yourselves?” Her eyes are still all over the place, and she’s clearly trying to keep it together, but I can sense her agony.

  Fred, trying to compensate for his general awkwardness around the opposite sex, launches into a terrifically random and irrelevant story about screaming goats as a YouTube sensation. Jane is listening politely, while Leica is clearly entertained.

  Jane soon catches sight of Terrence. He’s emerged from a hidden corner of the backyard with Sienna’s friend. Jane’s face falls and she mumbles a hasty “See you” to us and heads inside. The transformation in Leica is instant. A fierce look of loyalty and protectiveness flashes across her face and she runs after Jane.

  “Why she’s hooked on Terrence is a mystery,” Fred says.

  “Tell me about it,” I say, shaking my head. “Come on, let’s eat.”

  The house is packed by now. Awful techno music pumps loudly throughout, and people are moving around in what they might claim is dancing but looks more like low-impact step aerobics. The main action is at the large photo booth that’s been set up near the dance floor.

  Fred and I sort through the retro costumes and props. I decide on a rainbow clown’s wig, oversized orange sunglasses, and a mustache. Fred goes for a neon-yellow braided wig, top hat, and beard.

  Something about being in that photo booth brings out the idiot in us. We pull faces and strike as many silly poses as we can think of. When our turn’s over, we wait outside as the booth prints our photo strip.

  And then, to my surprise, while still in costume, I turn around and see Mina, Paula, Jane, and Leica together in the queue.

  It’s quite funny actually.

  Because they’re all in costume too: crazy wigs and masquerade eye masks.

  Mina looks me up and down. She’s trying to look coolly amused but it’s difficult to pull off when you’re wearing a pink feathered masquerade mask and 1980s punk rock wig.

  It’s too awkward not to say something.

  I offer a “Hi.”

  Mina glares at me. She doesn’t respond and turns to the girls and throws herself back into the conversation.

  Rejected by a masquerade punk. The night can only go downhill from here.

  I throw my costume into the box. Fred, who has been uselessly standing beside me and perving at the girls, follows me to the food table. Terrence and some of the other guys are there, in intense discussion over League of Legends. I try to feign interest but I’m too distracted, and my contribution is limited to an occasional grunt.

  I can’t get Mina out of my head. I make an excuse to leave the guys. Put it down to alcohol, or a sudden surge of impulsiveness, but I find myself approaching the DJ. He has his eyes closed, head bopping to the techno beats. Interrupting his spiritual moment, I ask him to play a track by The xx. He pulls a face like I’ve stabbed him (freaking techno heads kill my life), but promises me he’ll play it soon.

  On my way back to the guys, I steal a glance at Mina and Paula. They’re outside the photo booth, examining their photo strips and laughing. The guys are still talking about League of Legends. Eventually, after what feels like an age of techno, my song request finally plays.

  I watch Mina out of the corner of my eye. It takes a few moments for her to realize what song is playing. And when she does, she turns her attention away from her friends and looks around the room. She seems to be searching for me. Her eyes eventually fall on me.

  Her gaze lingers long enough for me to hope.

  But then she turns away.

  I beg God for forgiveness and then inform my parents that:

  Paula and I have a joint project so important to my overall high school performance that it requires no less than seven consecutive hours of work on it;

  Paula can offer exceptional IT resources, whereas the Internet at our apartment is slow and the printer regularly jams; and—

  There’s no need for a (c).

  Baba agrees to drop me off at Paula’s at five and pick me up at midnight.

  As soon as we arrive I feel a rush of nerves. Sienna’s older cousin introduces herself (“I’m Janette, babysitting you lot tonight”) and asks me for a letter from my parents authorizing me to be served alcohol. I can’t help but laugh in her face.

  “No note, no drink.”

  Paula nudges me in the side and grins. “Here’s my note,” she says, passing a piece of paper to Janette.

  Back at Auburn Grove Girls High
, Maha was the party animal, not me. She came complete with fake ID and a repertoire of stories to use on her unsuspecting parents, who, honest to God, thought that Maha was about as innocent a girl as Our Lady of Lebanon had ever seen (the statue of Virgin Mary excepting). Most of the girls I went to school with celebrated their birthdays with a trip to the movies, dinner at a restaurant, or a party at home with friends and family. It was a school population where girls spent recess swapping how-to-get-around-your-curfew ideas; where most of the tattoos you saw were henna ones; and where it became an annual competition to see who had attended the most weddings in the year.

  Drinking alcohol or mucking around with guys was something you got away with, not something you did out in the open. I’d never been interested in sneaking into clubs, getting it on with a guy in the parking lot at Parramatta McDonald’s, or drinking.

  Paula grabs a Red Bull with vodka, I grab a Coke, and we make our way through the crowd. The music is awful, but Paula’s into techno and swaying slightly as she walks, bobbing her head in tune to the music.

  I lean in closer to her. “What if I see Michael?”

  “So what?” she says firmly.

  “I really don’t have the energy to fight with him again.”

  “Then don’t,” she says flatly. “The only fights worth having are with people who mean something to you.” She grabs me by the shoulders and turns me around to face her. “Does he mean something to you?”

  “Of course not,” I splutter.

  She rolls her eyes at me and chuckles. “Hopeless liar.”

  Suddenly the music volume gets cranked up a notch and conversation inside becomes impossible.

  We go to the backyard and bump into Zoe and Clara.

  To my surprise, Zoe grabs my hand and leads me to the back fence. She pulls me down to sit beside her on the retaining wall. Paula and Clara make their way over to us. But all Zoe wants to do is talk about how I did on the Emma essay.

  “I can do non-schoolwork conversations as well,” I tell her.

  For the first time since I’ve met her, she smiles with her eyes. Then she giggles, and I think she’s proof that some people really do need alcohol in order to seem human.

  “I know,” she says cheerfully, her words slightly slurred. “But you’re so smart! You’ve beaten me on every quiz and essay since you started. I know you have. I sneak a peek all the time.” She giggles again. “I have some major”—she pats me on the arm—“major competition with you. That makes me angry.” She puts on an exaggerated pout. “Because I’ve always, always been top of the class. That’s my thing.” She points to her chest with her thumb. “Go back home, Mina. Just go. Please?” She bats her eyelashes at me.

  I stare at her. “Okay, I get it,” I say, but I’m not angry. Hearing her expose herself like this, and knowing how badly she’s going to regret it when she realizes, only makes me feel sorry for her.

  Clara hovers over us, cradling her glass as she surveys the crowd in the yard.

  I stand up and offer her my seat.

  “Do her a favor and keep her away from her phone,” I tell her. “They obviously wrote the don’t-drink-and-text rule for her.”

  In the next hour, Paula and I try to help Leica coax Jane out of an en suite bathroom in a spare bedroom upstairs. Terrence has apparently been seen with a leggy girl wearing an impossibly small white dress. Jane is beside herself because, like anybody with half an imagination and a crazy unrequited crush, she’d built up a fantasy about what would happen between her and Terrence tonight, which had all the realism of a Tolkien trilogy.

  We finally succeed in getting her to wash her face, blow her nose, and clean herself up.

  Paula paces the bedroom and then claps her hands together, faces us all, and proceeds to have a meltdown at us.

  “We’re here to enjoy ourselves, okay? We can be sad and pathetic and make the night about boys, or”—suddenly she’s excitable and a little wild—“we can actually have fun and make it about us!”

  Leica, Jane, and I instinctively lean back, but can’t help smiling at her.

  “We’re going downstairs to take crazy photos of ourselves in costume,” she says, firmly and seriously. “And then we’re going to dance—and we’re not going to give a SHIT if people think we can’t dance because, hello, people, we are at a party in the North Shore. Nobody can dance in this zip code. That’s a racial fact. And then, Mina, you and I are going to go home. And that’s that. Got it?”

  None of us dares argue with her.

  We dress up.

  We laugh.

  We are very much in the I Am Woman zone.

  And then Michael and Fred are suddenly before us.

  Crazy wigs and fake facial hair.

  I try to offer Michael nonchalance. Instead, he gets angry death stare.

  After we take photos, we just sit back and hang out for a while, because even Paula is prepared to admit that the music is awful.

  We talk and laugh, and pretend that we’re feminist role models, even though I can tell Jane is thinking about Terrence, and I’m secretly analyzing my encounter with Michael. Then suddenly “Gangnam Style” switches to “Together” by The xx and I know, without a shadow of doubt, that it’s Michael’s doing.

  I see him. And he sees me.

  But I quickly look away, because it will take more than sharing the same taste in music for me to be impressed.

  I spend most of the Easter vacation with my head stuck in my books, trying to get on top of my assignments. Mum fusses around me, bringing me snacks and drinks so that the only things I need to focus on are unavoidable bodily functions and being the top of my class.

  Today’s a big day, and a welcome break from studying. Paula has tracked down a late-afternoon poetry slam event at the Bankstown Arts Center, an eerily spacious room with rows of bleachers and chairs, and blankets laid out just in front of the stage area, where mics have been set up for the performances. The room is crowded. Girls kiss each other on the cheeks, squealing, hugging, and complimenting each other. Guys greet each other with big bear hugs and high fives. It’s a flurry of activity. Paula and I walk past a long queue of poets who are waiting to put their name on the registration list so they can perform during the open mic. It’s Paula’s first time with this group so she doesn’t know anybody.

  We find seats up at the back. Eventually there is complete silence as the hosts, Ahmad and Sara, take the stage and the show starts. Witty and sharp, they bounce off each other. Sara, in a funky turban-style hijab, is confident. Ahmad is a poster boy for tall, dark, and handsome. He has the crowd wrapped around his finger. People take turns performing on all kinds of topics from the heavy (politics, gender, war, sex) to the frivolous (duck-face selfies and food pics on Instagram). The audience snaps their fingers to show their delight. The atmosphere is electric.

  Sara and Ahmad return to the stage and inform us that the last person to perform in the open mic section has had to leave. They invite somebody else to come up and have a go.

  Paula’s suddenly out of her seat and heading toward the stage. She looks back at me and flashes me a grin. I go a little crazy and cheer loudly for her. I’m in utter awe of her courage.

  Sara asks Paula to introduce herself.

  “I’ve never done this before,” she says, clutching the microphone closely and braving a smile. “Well, not in public. At home in front of the mirror I’m a natural.” The audience vibe is warm and friendly, boosting her confidence as she looks out at us all, a grin spreading on her face.

  “Good luck!” Ahmad says, and they step aside.

  Paula closes her eyes for a moment as she loosens up her shoulders and draws in a deep breath. The audience is quiet and she begins.

  See, I never asked for the white mansion

  With the manicured gardens and heated swimming pool

  See, I never asked for the New Zealand skiing trip and the European summer holidays

  With you on laptops click, click, clicking and me on the gui
ded tours

  I would have been happy pitching a tent, listening to stories of where you went

  See, I never asked for the nanny and the cash you used to silence my tears, placate my fears

  Fears that I would become a shadow, somebody to pass by in the house sometime

  See, I long to collide with you

  Crash into you

  Give me a chance to woo you

  Remind you of how I feel, smell, and sound

  See, you spend days and nights in your offices with the harbor views and the delivered dinners and the text messages you don’t respond to and the leave a message voice mail that you ignore because I’m not your client

  Tell yourself you’re doing it for me, you’re doing it for us, you’re doing it because we must give our lives up to something bigger

  But see, the bigger that something gets, the smaller I become

  Until pretty soon I’m invisible

  Alone

  With a voice so large that it wakes up the world

  Except for you

  You who have forgotten the sound my voice makes, the love it takes

  To actually be a parent.

  Paula takes a bow, grinning out at an audience who have been snapping throughout. They offer her a big round of applause. My chest is bursting with pride but there’s a massive lump in my throat as Paula’s words reverberate in my head.

  “I’m so sorry, Paula,” I tell her on our train ride home. “I didn’t realize you were hurting so badly.” I fix my eyes on her. “You’re not invisible. And you’re not alone. I’m here for you.”

  She returns my gaze and mulls over my words. Then her lips curl into a bright smile. “Thanks.”

  We sit in silence for a moment. The couple sitting behind us are in an intense discussion about a new reality TV show.

  “Your mum has your photo as her phone screen saver, you know,” I say casually.