Does My Head Look Big in This? (34 page)

“Why don’t you just tell her that if she refuses to see the real you she should just go and legally adopt a celery stick and raise it as a carrot so that she can stay out of your life?”

“I’ll go look up the adoption agency when I get home.”

“Anyway, want to come over to my place now? Try to work out what you’re going to say when he asks you out?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

My parents take me to the movies on the weekend to pass the time before we break our fast. Dusk is at eight forty-three tonight. Ramadan has fallen at the beginning of summer so daylight saving is mercilessly stretching it out for us.

We’ve timed it and we can start to eat about twenty minutes into the movie. Well, twenty-three minutes to be precise. When you’re fasting, even a minute counts. Personally, I don’t feel we’ve gone overboard with the food stock. Neither does my dad. My mum thinks we’re both mad. She’s brought in a small popcorn and two sushi rolls. She’s a little disgusted by our itinerary: a jumbo butter popcorn, a packet of salt and vinegar chips, one box of Pringles, four sushi rolls, a king-size packet of Maltesers, liquorice sticks and jelly beans.

OK, it could be viewed as sickening but today was a long haul. Usually I’ll sleep in until some obscene Saturday afternoonish time and then whittle my day away watching old Elvis movies and trying out different colour nail polish in my trackies and Disney slippers. Instead, I was up at eight this morning, reading through all my saved hotmail chat sessions with Leila, going over all the stuff we’d written to each other over the year. Then I spent three hours on the phone with Yasmeen. That took me until twelve, which basically left me with eight and a half hours to go.

But weekends are a breeze compared to fasting at school. By recess time I’m just about ready to fall into a coma. Luckily I don’t snore because I’ve managed to catch a few minutes of snooze time in some of my classes. Simone and Eileen have been so supportive. At lunch time they find a quiet shady corner in the school and lie down with me for a lazy nap. Adam and Josh have also joined us a couple of times. It’s cute because they’re reluctant to eat or drink in front of me, even though I tell them that I have absolutely no problem with it. The other day Adam took out some chewing gum and was passing it around. He was about to offer me when he realized I was fasting. He was so sweet and apologetic I wanted to kiss him. Not literally, of course.

Anyway, eight forty-three finally arrives. I can’t really tell you what happens in the movie after that. I kind of get distracted. By five past ten the movie has ended, my stomach is cramped up with about three days’ supply of food and my mum is getting a big head with her “I told you so” spiel.

It’s at ten forty, when we’re back home and I’m sprawled out on my bedoom floor contemplating voluntary admission to the emergency ward to have my stomach pumped, that my mobile phone rings and I hear Leila’s voice for the first time in almost two months.

“Amal, it’s me.”

Her voice is so hushed and tiny that it’s hard to hear her. But I instantly recognize it.

“Oh my God! Leila? Where are you?” And then I burst into tears and she bursts into tears and she actually asks me if my parents would mind if she visits.

One hour later and I’m opening the front door to a skinny wreck. Leila’s face is practically hollow; her cheekbones are protruding, her eyes are widened and seem to be transfixed in a permanently horrified gaze. She wraps her arms around me and I hug her so tightly I’m scared her fragile body will snap like a toothpick. Then my mum rushes to her and we’re hugging and sobbing until my dad comes in, closes the door, guides us gently to the family room and goes to make us a cup of tea.

“How’s Mum?” she says after we’ve dried our faces and are curled up on the couch with tea and sandwiches. Leila is in the middle, my arm is rested on hers, my mum is beside her, holding her hand.

“She’s . . . in a very bad state,” my mum says.

Leila closes her eyes and nods.

“I couldn’t handle it any more,” she says, her face crumpling. I hold her tightly and let her cry on my shoulder. She finally finds her breath and dries her eyes.

“This time it was an American-Turkish guy. Perfect match. Our grandmothers were apparently from the same village. I . . . maybe I overreacted by running away. I . . . just got so tired.”

“Where did you stay?” I ask.

“At a women’s shelter in the city.” She shudders. “It was horrible. . . There were women who’d been beaten to a pulp by their boyfriends. Or raped or molested. Women with their children, hiding from abusive partners. Teenage girls kicked out of home because they’re pregnant. Some of them didn’t even know who the father of their baby was. Druggies clutching on to their babies and desperate to shoot up. Just . . . awful stuff. . .”

She’s silent for a while and then continues: “I feel so . . . I don’t know. I miss home. I want to feel safe again. Like, ninety-five per cent of the time Mum was on my back about marriage while my brother was getting away with murder, but I just believed so hard that if I got through high school then I’d have a ticket to uni and a new life and independence. I just wanted to get through VCE. Isn’t that funny? You’d think I was shooting up heroin the way she carried on. . .”

“What happened on that Saturday night?”

“Hakan took me home. Of course he was swearing and shouting at me the whole way. He was so angry. I just sat there, not saying a word. I didn’t even want to dignify him with a response and it infuriated him. All I could think about was how terrified I was and how crazy that it was all over a birthday dinner! And then, from being terrified I went to being angry.

“When we arrived, there was another guy in the house, sitting on the couch, drinking tea, sucking up to my parents. My mum was practically bribing me, telling me she’d forgive my betrayal if I considered this man, who owns his own business and whose capital is in American dollars!” She lets out a humourless laugh.

“I’m so sorry, Leila,” I say, “for getting you into trouble. We never should have done that to you.”

She looks at me intently. “I never do something I’m not comfortable with. This has nothing to do with you or Yasmeen. That night was still perfect for me.”

I nod my head, fighting back tears.

“Leila, I know it may mean little to you now,” my mum says after some time, “but Gulchin came here in an absolute mess the other week, begging us to tell you she’s sorry and will never do it again.”

“She did?” She looks up in surprise. “She’s sorry?”

“Yes,” my mum says. “When she first came here she was so convinced that she was right. That she was trying to save you and look out for your best interests. But this time she was like another woman.”

Leila leans back in the chair staring in thought at the carpet. “If I knew that she wouldn’t do it again, I’d go back. For a roof over my head. For the five per cent happy times. For the feeling that I’m not somebody out on the streets. I’d go back and study and get what I want and then I wouldn’t be vulnerable ever again. I’d have choices, do you know what I mean?”

We nod our heads at her.

“So how can I be sure?”

My mum puts her arm around her. “I think you can be sure. . . Of course, I’ll drum it into her that she risks losing you if she doesn’t change but . . . you mean more to her than even your brother does. She’s given up on him. She’s so easy with him because she’s lost hope. You’re her only daughter. You have to be as strong as you were before and keep reassuring her that you aren’t losing your identity or morals by studying.”

“Mr Aziz could get involved,” I add, “like at the end of Year Ten when she wanted to pull you out of school.”

“Yeah. . .” she whispers, smiling. “I always could rely on him. Every school excursion he’d call home and tell her he’d ripped up the note refusing me permission to attend. Remember Year Nine camp?”

“Smudging mousse all over Dilba’s face while she slept? How could I forget?”

“That might never have happened if he hadn’t told her he’d personally undertake that I wouldn’t meet any men or boys, disgrace myself or be seen in public alone.”

My mum shakes her head in disbelief and Leila shrugs her shoulders. “You’re right, he has been there for me. Do you think this time. . .?”

I jump up, grab the phone and thrust it into my mum’s hands.

“Leila, would you like me to call?” she asks.

Leila pauses in thought. “No. I think I should.”

My mum finds her the number and Leila holds the phone, breathing heavily and biting her nails as she stares at the wall, her face creased in thought. She sits there for twenty minutes, not saying a word. I want to say something but Mum holds me back and we just sit in her silence, respecting her time. And then she peers down at the phone and dials the number, and I know I’m looking at one of the bravest people I’ve ever met.

Mrs Vaselli was, of course, right. Life isn’t like the movies. People don’t change overnight. People don’t go from arrogant and self-righteous to ashamed and remorseful. They don’t suddenly give in when they’ve spent years taking out. No doesn’t magically become a yes. You don’t go from wanting your daughter to throw her high-school certificate out in exchange for a marriage certificate to being Melbourne’s leading Education and Independence for my Daughter advocate. I guess Leila must have known that. That’s why she paused before she dialled Mr Aziz’s number. She knew that no matter how aggro and menacing he could get (and this man is pretty good at making you wish you invested in bladder-control remedies when he gets all fired up), it was still a leap of faith to think her family would change.

But that’s what Leila’s always been about. Faith. Faith that she’ll do something in her life. Faith in people. Faith in God. Faith that she knows who she is and what she wants and what her rights are. Things you take for granted and don’t think about.

Within half an hour of Leila calling Mr Aziz, he’s at our house. I’ve never seen him in jeans before. That’s another left-field thought. He’s Leila’s knight, minus the shining armour, plus the balding head, grey beard and hairy ears.

He talks with my mum and dad and Leila and then drives her home. It’s past midnight now. We hear from her at four in the morning, sixteen and a half minutes before the break of dawn (remember: every minute counts in Ramadan). Mr Aziz has just left their house and Leila is eating toast with jam, drinking cocoa her mum made her, and reassuring me that there is hope.

44

M
y end-of-year exams fall within the second last week of Ramadan. So my usual routine of overloading on chocolate and chips to survive maths modules and history essays isn’t an option. But when the sun sets, and I’ve stuffed myself at dinner and the chicken and rice and
maklobe
and
fatoosh
are straining against the lining of my stomach tempting it to bust, I’m full of energy to attack my textbooks. I feel like a vampire who comes alive after dark. That’s not a very nice way to think of a religious experience but it’s what hunger does to the mind.

I’m trying to memorize some calculus formulas when Simone calls me. She manages to speak for an entire minute without me understanding more than three per cent of what she’s said.

“Simone! Slow down! I can’t make out what you’re saying! Something about Josh, the colour red and you wanting to jump off the Rialto towers? What the hell has happened?”

She laughs. “Oh my God, Amal! Josh and me have been sending text messages to each other for the past hour! We started during
Everybody Loves Raymond
and it went through to
Big Brother
. That’s ages! And I’ve replied, so all up we’ve officially had a fourteen-text-message exchange! Isn’t that unbelievable? I mean, come on, that’s kind of cool isn’t it?”

“Wow! That’s awesome! What did he say?”

“He started with this message out of the blue:
HAVE
U
EVER
WONDERED
WHY
WE
SAY
APARTMENTS
WHEN
THEY
R
ALL
STUCK
TOGETHER?
So I sent one back saying:
HAVE
U
EVER
WONDERED
WHY
PHONETIC
ISN’T
SPELLED
THE
WAY
IT
SOUNDS?
Then we kept sending, like, jokes like that, you know, corny stuff you get in email forwards and try to pass off as your own invention, and then he said, and I quote,
WHY
R
YOUR
LIPS
ALWAYS
SO
RED?
DO
U
WEAR
LIPSTICK
ALL
THE
TIME?
”