Audacious (6 page)

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We prep canvases

Painting gesso in silence.

Samir sighs

And sits back on his heels

(He's painting on the floor)

Like Jackson Pollock,
he says.

Are you going to dribble snot all over it? I ask

He laughs explosively

And knocks over his water.

We rush around with paper towels.

I'm kidding, I say, I love Pollock.

So audacious.

Audacious
, he says

That should be your middle name.

Then he sighs again and shakes his head

That was so corny.

I want to touch him

Suddenly

So suddenly

That he won't be able to stop me.

DREAMING

I dream

The tanned kid and pregnant girl

With the corn

Standing in the yard

The snow drifting down on them

Marika

Her awkward body transformed

Elegant

Flying with streams of color

Samir

Outside my window

Like a Montague

I wake to a car alarm.

The house sleeps yet restlessly

Somewhere, someone paces

I'm not sure how I know.

My mother

In the kitchen

Walking back and forth

Between the stainless steel,

Box of Shreddies tucked under her arm

Swallowing handfuls

Crying.

I duck out of sight.

She would not want me to witness this

Nor do I

But it's too late.

WHAT COMES NEXT?

I know Dad knows.

He hears the retching

Sees the red knuckles

Smells the breath

Feels Mom's ribs when they hug

He must know.

Is it that he's busy

With his new job?

Is it that Kayli and I

Are too busy

With our new schools?

Why hasn't somebody

Said

Or done

Something?

BLACK

The first thing Samir does is paint the canvas

Black

Three layers of black

It has to be pure

Like night

Sunless

I'm beginning from nothing.

He lets each layer dry

For a day

Waiting.

There are comments

When art class begins

Are you painting the contents of your brain?

Says Freckle.

Samir leans forward and whispers to me

Her heart.

Pardon me, I say.

He whispers again

Her heart

His lips a centimeter from my ear.

Pardon me, I say again

Until he gets the game

And whispers

Your hair smells nice.

For the rest of the class

I can't draw a straight line.

NINE SMALL CANVASES

A word swims around my head

Audacious

In my mind it forms a picture

A line of women

Saying
screw you
to convention

Of any sort

Saying
shove it
to the expectations

Of society

Of school

Of close-minded fools

Saying

This is who I am:

A
rab

U
nemployed

D
isabled

A
sthmatic

C

Stops me.

I'll get to that later.

I
ndigenous

O
ld

U
gly

S
ingle

I want to include bulimic

But there is no
B
in
audacious
.

THE PROCESS

So I start with photographs

Mom, in her robe, with coffee and newspaper

Unemployed

Kayli, in the nebulizer mask

And pajamas

She woke up wheezing

Asthmatic

I ask Ms. Sagal

She loves the concept

And poses

Proud to be single

Her daughter poses too

Lopsided smile

Disabled

I ask Mom if I

Can come with her to the shelter.

The Phantom

It turns out

Loves to pose for pictures

With her gnarled face

Gaping hole where her eye used to be

She is ugly

Yet

Now I begin to understand

What
audacious
means.

Because behind that ugliness

Is beauty, as old and deep as the ocean.

CORN: PART TWO

After school, I take the bus

Across the tracks

Hoping I will remember the house.

There it is

Still sagging

Now under the weight of

Wet snow.

The truck, half submerged in the driveway

Empty and abandoned-looking.

It's an awkward moment

When she comes to the door

A tiny baby asleep on her shoulder

But she invites me in.

I'm sixteen,
she says when I ask

My name is Nina, and yes, I'm an Indian

I didn't use that word

I said “indigenous.”

I tell her the name of my school

Nina laughs

I went there. We would be in the same grade

Except for…

She pats her sleeping baby with a smile.

When she hears of my project for Ms. Sagal

She poses willingly

I was good in art,
she says

And lets me hold her son

While she braids her hair.

DEATH AND TEARS

Ms. Sagal checks my progress

(Samir paints in the corner,

His canvas turned away from us.

It's a secret,
he says.)

Do you think I can include

A photograph

Of someone who is dead?

I clarify: taken when they were alive of course!

(Here she smiles with relief I can see.

I wonder what does she think of me

I mean I would have to be sick in the head

To include a photo of someone actually dead.)

Who
? she says, recovering her poise.

My grandmother

She was old

Eighty

When she died two years ago

Exactly five years after Gabriel…

Suddenly without warning

I'm crying.

Ms. Sagal steers me to a seat

I tell her everything

Poor little Gabriel

Mom's grief

The vomiting.

Then Samir appears beside me

With a clean white handkerchief.

NOMENCLATURE: PART ONE

Nana loved angels

She stitched them into quilts

And named my mother Angela.

Mom

Dreamed of at least three kids

Named for the archangels

Raphael

Michael

And of course

Gabriel

But only got

Two-thirds of the way

There.

The weight of that name

Is sometimes a mountain

With a cave of secrets

And sometimes a feather

Floating on a puff of air.

chapter seven

JUXTAPOSITION

OLD

Nana

Wouldn't have

Liked it maybe

Being called

Old

It's like

A prize that

Nobody thinks they want

And when they have it

They pretend they don't

Until they die.

Not me

I

Long to

Get “old” because

Being young

Sucks.

NOMENCLATURE: PART TWO

So that leaves me with “Arab”

Which despite everything

I have to look up.

And it doesn't help:

Arab (ã
r'∂b
) n.

1. A member of a Semitic people inhabiting
Arabia, whose language and Islamic religion
spread widely throughout the Middle East and
northern Africa from the seventh century.

2. A member of an Arabic-speaking people.

3. An Arabian horse.

4. Offensive Slang. A waif.

(That last one makes me think WTF?)

Samir tells me

Yes, we are Arabs

Sometimes people call us

“Israeli Arabs”

Like Palestine is just a myth

Or a half-remembered dream.

So you prefer to be called Palestinian? I ask.

Samir thinks for a long time

He gets that smoky brooding look in his eyes

The one that dissects my heart

Lays it out on the table

Like a pithed frog.

We would be called anything,
he says

To have our country.

I let that swirl around us, like mist

Then dissipate

Before I ask:

Would your sister pose for me?

Samir whips out a phone

Speed-dials

And speaks in Arabic.

(God, I love the way the

vowels make his lips move.)

He hangs up

And without irony says

She will ask her husband.

HALA: PART ONE

She's beautiful close up

Gorgeous in fact

Although of course I can't see her hair

Or the shape of her body

But her eyes are like Samir's

Deep chocolate pools

Sadness

And pride.

I like the way you dress,
she says

Eyeing my loose men's Levi's

Dyed purple (by me in the kitchen sink)

And flowered blouse over a long-sleeved T-shirt.

Modest

Not like most…

I feel myself redden

And to cover it snap her picture.

I was going to say

A very rude word

I'm sorry.

I snap and click in silence.

Do you know why I quit fashion school?

She asks suddenly.

I shrug

Because your husband...?

It was before I met him.

We had an assignment

To design and make a line for little girls

Who would model in the show

She shakes her head

Her black scarf twists

She removes a pin

And secures it carefully.

I designed pretty dresses

And jeans with flowers on the knees

The girls were nine and ten.

Children.

I know what she is going to say

I myself have marveled

At the state of Kayli's attire (or lack thereof)

On more than one occasion.

The others, my classmates

Made these girls

These children

Look like prostitutes.

Tight hot pants

Crop tops

Knee boots

And dangling earrings

Made them walk

Swing their hips

Wink and sashay like whores

Her eyes mist over

Then she strikes a pose

Hidden but for her resolute face

And looks more like a woman

Than anyone I have ever seen.

HALA: PART TWO

Has Samir told you my secret?

She says.

I shake my head

I have only told close family so far

But I trust you.

She cups her hands

around the embroidered cloth

Of her tunic

Cradling the curve of cotton

That's not quite there yet.

I snap a photo.

Four months,
she says

With a coy smile.

RAVENOUS

I meet Samir at a falafel place

On Cornwall.

I'm starving,
he says, shoveling tabouli

Ramadan was brutal

I haven't stopped growing yet

I'm hungry all the time.

Then he's embarrassed

And eats in silence.

Will your sister tell your parents

About me?

What's to tell?

He must see

The hurt in my eyes

No, I didn't mean it like that

She thinks we're classmates

That's all.

No, you're right, I say

What's to tell?

Then I leave him

To eat alone.

WHITMORE

And on the bus home

I cry

Like some stupid girl

Who got her heart broken

By a desert mirage.

I ride around the loop

In the dark

Back to the falafel place

But he's gone.

At home I search the mirror

For the one he said was beautiful

She's there

But where am I?

I who makes enemies

Like some people make coffee

I who scorns fashion

And popularity

And the cachet of

Having a boyfriend

Whom teachers fear

And principals dread.

Where is Raphaelle?

Folded up in Ella's pocket

It doesn't matter

In a few days

Everything will change.

IN THE ROOM ABOVE THE GARAGE

No one must

C

Me take this photograph

This is for

U

Samir

For

U

Freckle and Puffy

For

U

Mom and Dad and Kayli

Because I'm done

Prete
N
ding

I strip

And stand

Legs slightly open

Facing the camera

On a timer

I can't help smiling

Though my face won't show.

FLASH!

Then I dress

And go downstairs

To make a cup of

T

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

Last week I installed a lock

On the door at the bottom

Of the narrow staircase

Because getting caught

Taking pictures of your own…

You know…

Would be majorly embarrassing