I Am Thunder

by Muhammad Khan

‘Is that why you don’t like me any more?’ she said, her voice loaded with emotion. ‘Because you think I’m dumb and immature?’

  Sarabi was a good mate, for sure. But for a while now, I’d felt like she was holding me back. Her opinions were my parents’ opinions, or close enough. She was the way I should have been, which only made me hate myself. I couldn’t deal with negative emotions on top of all the exam stress.

  ‘No, of course not. You’re my best mate.’ Why did that sound so fake?

  ‘Then let’s do something together!’ she pleaded. ‘Like old times.’

  ‘You wanna see that new Arjun Kapoor movie at the Odeon?’

  ‘What? Really?’ she asked.

  Sarabi was like a little girl in a teenager’s body. This was how our parents wanted us to be until we got married. I remembered Ami getting upset when I’d told her that playing with Barbies just wasn’t doing it for me any more after getting busted by Salma. She wept actual tears. I was thirteen.

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Can you text me the details?’

  ‘Done!’ she said instantly. ‘I promise you won’t regret this. The critics are calling it his best performance yet. And I swear Spice FM has the soundtrack on repeat!’

  A couple of hours of eye-gouging torture for Sarabi? Anything for a mate.

  The movie grated on me worse than steel claws on a blackboard. It was just one camp dance number after another. How on earth could Sarabi find this stuff exciting? Every twenty minutes, almost like clockwork, she’d look across at me with this dopey grin on her face. I’d smile and nod, pretending like I was having a good time. But I wasn’t. The struggle was real.

  After a while, I started getting annoyed with Sarabi, which made me feel worse. Guilt added to the shopping list of negativity I was experiencing. Pretty soon I’d end up crying.

  That did it. I needed air.

  ‘Back in a sec,’ I whispered, heading for the toilets.

  Out in the lobby, I stood undecided. Part of me wanted to get the hell out of there. But the better part knew Sarabi would never forgive me if I did. I glanced at my watch. Fifteen minutes more to go.

  ‘I can do this,’ I told myself, turning back.

  Something exploded on the back of my head, chilling my brain, sending ice crystals skittering down my back. I yelped, spinning round to confront who ever had thrown their drink at me.

  Tallulah stood victorious. Not one drop of shame or remorse touched that pretty face of hers. Lackeys flanked her, left and right, tearing me apart with hateful eyes. All three looked like they’d taken five from filming a music video just to come and assault me.

  ‘That’s for embarrassing me,’ Tallulah said.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I shrieked – a human soda fountain, leaking all over the floor.

  ‘Ugh! How dare you act like it was nothing. Arif was mine,’ she said, slicing the air with a manicured nail. ‘But you just had to come over all Rihanna and twerk that fat, FAT booty at him, didn’t you? There are words for girls like you.’

  ‘Skank!’ agreed one friend.

  ‘Hoe!’ chipped in the other.

  ‘Are you insane?’ I asked, scooping sticky fluid out of my eyes. ‘You do realize none of that actually happened, right?’

  ‘So you’re denying you and Arif are an item?’ Tallulah asked, tossing back her glossy curls.

  ‘What? I n-never said that . . .’ I stammered, backing into a cardboard cut-out of Chris Pratt.

  At a nod from Tallulah, her minions uncapped frothy lattes and prepared to hurl them like grenades.

  ‘Muzna, if you didn’t want to watch the movie, why didn’t you just—’ Sarabi stopped in her tracks, taking in the scene with eyes like frogspawn.

  ‘Don’t you dare fling those cups at my friend!’ she shouted, whipping out her phone. ‘I’m filming everything. If you don’t get lost, this video clip’s going straight to the police.’

  A lackey took a step towards Sarabi.

  ‘Don’t even. It’s set to instant cloud backup!’ Sarabi warned her.

  I could have hugged my mate. Why on earth was she putting her neck out for a friend who didn’t even treat her right?

  ‘You need to take a long, hard look at yourself in the mirror, Muzna,’ Tallulah said scowling. ‘You’re a fat, ugly bitch. How long do you really think you’ll be able to hold on to Arif?’ She flashed her eyes meaningfully, then stalked off. Her friends gave menacing hair-flicks, then flounced after her.

  ‘Muzna, are you OK?’ Sarabi asked, patting my face with a napkin. ‘You poor thing! Come on – let’s get you cleaned up in the loos.’

  CHAPTER 27

  ‘Muzna, beyta, hand me the imli sauce, please.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Imli sauce!’ Dad’s voice was like a brick through my window of thoughts.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, managing to knock over the bottle. The fruity-spice scent hovered in the air. ‘Sorry!’ I repeated, mopping up the mess with tissues.

  ‘Beyta, are boys bothering you?’

  ‘No!’ I said defensively, before realizing Dad was shooting in the dark.

  ‘Stay away from boys,’ he warned, drizzling imli sauce over his golden pakoras. ‘Thank God we got you away from that immoral Salma before she spoilt you.’

  ‘I . . . was thinking about Dadi-ji,’ I lied. ‘I hope she gets better soon.’

  My father’s sick mum had been the furthest thing from my mind. I’d never even met the woman. The incident at the Odeon kept playing over and over in my head, slowly driving me into paranoia. I was half expecting Tallulah and her friends to break into our apartment packing machine guns. Brap, brap, brap!

  Ami stroked my cheek with the back of her hand. ‘Don’t worry, Muchi. Dadi-ji will get better. She’s pulled through worse.’

  ‘It’s different this time, Parveen!’ Dad said, eyes ablaze. ‘She’s older and weaker, and the doctors are worried that if she doesn’t get better soon, her body will just give up.’

  ‘I’ll pray for her,’ I said, trying to reassure him.

  ‘What good are prayers?’ he demanded. ‘Allah doesn’t give a shit one way or the other!’

  I looked over at Ami in shock. She gave a small shake of her head, instructing me to zip it.

  Dad wilted until I was afraid he’d dunk his head in his bowl of curry. Abruptly he got up and left the table. A few minutes later, the apartment door slammed, and he was gone.

  ‘Ami, is it really that bad?’ I asked. ‘Do you think Dadi-ji might die?’

  Ami sighed, mopping up the imli sauce on her plate with a fluffy piece of naan bread. ‘Yes, beyta. And when that happens, we will have to drop everything and go to Pakistan.’

  ‘What?!’ I cried in horror. ‘I have school. My GCSEs are a couple of months away!’

  ‘Death is more important than gee-see-ees!’ she chided. ‘Growing up in this country, you are ignorant of what things are like back home. The moment Dadi-ji becomes the beloved of Allah, there will be a violent grab for the wealth and property she leaves behind. In Pakistan, you cannot trust even your brothers and sisters! They would sooner put a hex on you than let you take your rightful inheritance.’

  She stroked her chin, in a calculating way. ‘No, Muchi. With our financial situation in tatters, making sure we get that money will be our number one priority.’

  I stared, open-mouthed.

  All my life, my parents had coaxed, bullied and threatened me into believing that becoming a doctor was my sole mission in life. That I owed it to them for the love and care they’d showered on me. Yet here was Ami telling me to drop everything I’d worked so hard for. WTF?

  Imagining my Well of Calm, and diving in, I decided Ami was just being silly. She didn’t understand how you couldn’t just start and stop an education whenever you fancied. But Dad got it. He’d never take me out of school just to attend a funeral abroad. Dad was many things, but irresponsible wasn’t one of them.

  But if my parents ever found out about Arif, all b
ets would be off. The only thing more important than having a doctor daughter was having a daughter who hadn’t been tainted by a boyfriend.

  At 10 p.m. my phone rang. It was Arif.

  ‘What’s up? It’s kind of late . . .’ I said.

  ‘Is it?’ He sounded tired, almost weary. ‘Oh, crap. Gotta go Isha in a bit.’

  Isha was the last of the five daily prayers. Jameel always dragged Arif along to the mosque to perform the night prayer in congregation.

  ‘You already prayed?’ he asked.

  ‘No, not yet.’ I sighed. ‘To be honest, Arif, I don’t actually pray.’

  Awkward silence.

  ‘You need to pray, Muz,’ he eventually said. ‘It’s hard at first, course it is. Like in that famous Malcolm X quote.’

  ‘What quote?’ Wasn’t Malcolm X just a badass version of Martin Luther King?

  ‘Just a sec,’ he said. I heard rustling, as if he was rifling through a book. ‘Got it. OK, you listening, Muz?’

  ‘All ears.’

  ‘OK, here it is,’ he said, and began to read. ‘For evil to bend its knees, admitting its guilt, to implore the forgiveness of God, is the hardest thing in the world. It’s easy for me to see and to say that now. But then, when I was the personification of evil, I was going through it. Again, again, I would force myself back down into the praying-to-Allah posture.’

  ‘Wow,’ I said, lost for words.

  ‘Yeah, he was saying, like, how the knees are arrogant and don’t want to humble themselves before Allah. But once you start, once you put in that little bit of effort, it’s like Allah holds your hand, and you’re never alone again . . .’

  There was a pause on the line.

  ‘Hey, I gotta go now, yeah? I want you to pray Isha tonight, babe. Will you do that for me?’ he asked.

  ‘Absolutely,’ I promised. But truthfully . . . I wasn’t feeling it. I didn’t even know why. Maybe my knees had an attitude problem?

  ‘And tomorrow, we can go Chessington or Thorpe Park, if you fancy. You up for it?’ I could almost hear the smile in his voice.

  ‘Insh’Allah,’ I said, trying to score brownie points.

  ‘K. Text you laters, Muz.’

  I flopped on to my bed, my mind racing a million miles an hour. Tomorrow Arif and I would go on a proper date. Selfie Heaven. MuzRif – the cutest couple ever. Well . . . I was just me, but Arif was cute enough for the both of us.

  I got up to pray, before running into major setbacks. I actually didn’t know how. I paced up and down, feeling dirty, wanting to put things right. Asking my parents was out. They’d automatically think I’d joined ISIS. We didn’t own any Islamic books either . . .

  The answer came to me in a flash. YouTube. Some good soul was bound to have uploaded a prayer tutorial. I reached for my laptop.

  CHAPTER 28

  The next morning, I woke up to pray Fajr in inky dark. The tutorials I’d watched made it clear that the prayer needed to be performed before sunrise. I dozily crept into my bathroom to make ablution, wincing from the ice-cold jet of water. Drying myself off, I pulled out my scarf, and wound it round my head.

  That’s when I heard footsteps. Someone was coming.

  Swinging into action, I launched myself at the door, slipping the bolt into place. My nerves jangled, and I held my breath. A few seconds later, the kitchen tap squeaked, and I heard the rush of water. Whoever was out there was just thirsty.

  Having to hide an innocent thing like prayer from your parents was messed up. This isn’t a home, I thought. It’s a prison camp.

  I cleared my head. If I was going to pray, I had to let go of all negative thoughts and feelings. Anger was supposed to come from Satan, and he was the enemy.

  A few minutes later, when I’d finished salaaming the angels, I felt a deep sense of peace descend on me. There was something about following a tradition that was hundreds of years old; it made you feel connected. Something bigger than your parents or governments or any power of earth. I doubted I could keep it up – praying five times a day was a huge ask – but in that moment, I was proud of my little achievement.

  Stashing away my makeshift prayer mat and hijab at the back of my wardrobe, I turned my attention to my looks.

  You’re a fat, ugly bitch. How long do you really think you’ll be able to hold on to Arif?

  I’d never be able to look as flawless as Tallulah. There wasn’t a beauty hack under the sun that could do that for me. But I could be the best version of myself.

  My fingers hovered over the cosmetics I’d laid out. Arif was a religious guy. Not in the intense way of his brother, but he played by the rules. Going overboard with make-up could be a deal-breaker. He cared about what I was like on the inside. Still, couldn’t go wrong with a bit of strawberry lip balm and a smidge of eyeliner, right?

  I dressed myself in a cute stripy top and diamanté studded jeans. My stomach was still bigger than it had any right to be, but the top I chose helped disguise that. I glanced at the clock and baulked. Still two hours to kill before my train left. So, reluctantly, I pulled out a maths paper and my calculator, and settled down for a slog of exam practice. I saw it as a trade-off – doing some maths to cancel out the haram of going on this date.

  ‘I’m off now, Ami,’ I called, bouncing towards the door. Even the crap grade 4 I’d scored on the practice paper couldn’t squash my excitement.

  Ami had her feet up on the recliner, darning a pair of Dad’s old socks. Ever since he’d had to wait on tables, Dad got through socks super-quickly. She was listening to an Urdu programme on the radio. The host was inviting listeners to dial in their opinions on whether elderly Asian parents should live in care homes or with their children. Ami kept saying ‘Leh!’ every time she disagreed. I pitied the fool who tried to put Ami in a care home.

  ‘Where to?’ she asked.

  ‘Thorpe Park?’ I said, hoping to jog her memory. ‘With Sarabi. Remember?’

  She nodded. ‘Have you eaten your breakfast?’

  ‘I’ll pick something up on the way.’

  ‘Be careful, beyta,’ she said. ‘There are all sorts of pickpockets out there. And you know English people are worried about terrorists. Make sure no one knows you’re Muslim.’

  I went over and gave Ami a big hug, hoping it made up a bit for the whopper of a lie I’d just told.

  I hiked up the station slope towards the platform. The jitters were back with a vengeance. I couldn’t believe I was finally going on an actual date with Arif Malik. I had butterflies. I had palpitations. Had Ami ever felt this way about Dad? Doubtful. Their marriage had been arranged (though no force on earth could’ve made my feisty Ami marry against her will).

  I spotted him standing on the platform staring at his phone. Looking up, his eyes locked on to mine, and I got chills. A cheeky Bolton grin spread across his face, then he bounded over, pecs bouncing beneath his black T-shirt like slabs of beef.

  ‘Got you a gift,’ he said, holding out a small carrier bag.

  Inside was a black hijab, embroidered in satin and studded with Swarovski crystals.

  ‘Do you like it?’ he asked, biting his lip.

  ‘Yeah,’ I managed after a slightly awkward pause.

  ‘Gonna put it on, then?’

  I felt a rush of anger. He was trying to change me. Get me to cover up like a ‘proper’ Muslim girl. He wanted me . . .

  All to himself?

  My anger faded. I knew I didn’t want to share him with anyone else, least of all that thirsty cow Tallulah. In fact, I didn’t even want to share him with Jameel. Hesitantly I used the mirrored window of the station office to wrap the hijab round my head. Three attempts later, I almost had it looking half decent. Arif waited patiently, handing me a cute jewelled scarf pin at the end to hold it in place.

  ‘Could ask my brother’s wife to teach you how to do it fancier, if you want?’ he offered.

  Jameel had a wife? I wondered how any woman could put up with that stick-in-the-mud.

 
‘You calling this a disaster?’ I asked, pointing at my head.

  ‘Nah, babe. You look peng. It’s just that she can do these nice patterns and stuff, like scoubidous.’

  ‘Scoubidous?’ I grinned, remembering the craze from way-back-when.

  Long before there were fidget spinners, homemade slime, or even loom bands, scoubidous had ruled the world. Colourful plastic string, knotted together to make charms and bracelets. Not even boys had been able to resist the siren call.

  ‘Were you into scoubidous?’ I said.

  ‘Me? Nah – got clumsy hands.’ He held up his large veiny hands.

  ‘I love your hands.’ The words slipped out.

  His fair cheeks went pink, reminding me of fresh roses. Then holding his hands out to me he said, ‘Take ’em. They’re yours.’

  We stared into each other’s eyes till I was convinced something was going to happen. Thing is, we were Pakistanis. Kissing was illegal.

  ‘This is us,’ he said, seconds before the blast of dust from the approaching train struck, ruffling my hijab in the slipstream.

  Once on board, we found comfortable seats facing each other. The train pulled out of the station, and sunlight strobed between buildings as we rattled along. I blinked, my world suddenly filled with glowing green halos, my heart bursting with more joy than I could ever remember feeling.

  CHAPTER 29

  We got off at Staines. As me and Arif walked towards the theme park, I was still having pinch-yourself moments. His large hand found mine, and enveloped it. Male skin on female skin. I think I actually gasped.

  ‘Is this OK?’ He lifted our entwined hands, eyebrows enquiring.

  Throwing caution to the wind, I nodded. There was always a chance someone might spot us, but since I was wearing a bling hijab, I doubted I’d get recognised.

  ‘Nah, man – massive queues!’ Arif groaned as we entered through the tall blue gates. ‘Come on, Muz – get a wiggle on, before it gets any more packed.’

  He bolted towards the shortest queue, leaving me to stare at my empty hand. How lonely it felt without his pressed against it. I hurried after him.

  ‘Two tickets, for me and wifey,’ Arif told the dour-looking man in the window, making me flush with pleasure.