Laughing All the Way to the Mosque

by Zarqa Nawaz

  Stuart’s course, radio broadcasting, had been my favourite at journalism school. Each week, he asked us to make a ten-minute radio documentary on a subject that interested us. Near the beginning of the semester, I had chosen death. Islam is a spartan religion when it comes to death. Simplicity is our motto. But white people have so much leeway when it comes to funerals. All the pomp and ceremony fascinated me. One woman I interviewed told me that she was going to put a fake puppet hand on the top of her casket, which would spring up to wave at the mourners just before the casket went into the crematorium. Muslims don’t have any of that kind of fun. We just pray for the dead and put them into the ground as fast as possible. I collected various fun stories about funerals and submitted my documentary. The class voted and mine was chosen as the best one. This made me eligible for the annual provincial awards for student journalism. Stuart was pretty surprised when my doc got nominated.

  “Who’d have thunk?” he said.

  The truth is, I didn’t exactly shine in his class. Once, he looked at me and asked, “How many people are there in a barbershop quartet?”

  “Twelve,” I’d said.

  “In the Muslim world, there are twelve members in a barbershop quartet?” Stuart said, somewhat unbelievingly. It wasn’t my fault; I didn’t even know what a barbershop quartet was at the time. It was a white people thing. We didn’t have them in the mosque.

  My mother was my date to the awards ceremony. She wouldn’t allow me to go solo as an unmarried woman. She was like a barnacle; I couldn’t scrape her off. The auditorium was packed. My documentary won in its category—radio long form—and then as the overall winner. The presenter said my name, and my heart nearly exploded.

  Stuart had warned us not to take the award ceremony too seriously. “It’s not the Oscars,” he had said.

  But he was wrong. It was the Oscars for me. I swept onstage as if I were Meryl Streep accepting my statuette for Sophie’s Choice. I clutched my crystal plaque to my bosom and choked out, “This award is the best thing that’s ever happened to me in my whole entire life.”

  The ceremony photographer wanted to take a picture of me standing with Stuart. I stood beside him, basking in my glory, when suddenly I felt someone tug on my arm. It was my mother.

  “You can’t be in the picture, Ummi,” I told her in my calmest voice.

  “Neither can you,” she answered. “If a picture of you standing beside a white man ever gets out, people will assume you’ve had an inappropriate relationship with him and your reputation will be ruined. No one will ever marry you.” She made it seem like this was my worst fear, but mostly she was worried about herself. A single daughter is an immigrant mother’s worst nightmare.

  I had no choice but to relent. My cheeks burning, I mumbled an apology to Stuart. How would he ever look at me seriously again? He would remember my humiliation for the rest of time, even after I finally became a famous journalist and moved out of my mother’s house. But now I had to move out of the way so they could put another person in my spot. It was so mortifying. Nothing has come close. Ever.

  Inaya bounded downstairs excited by her news.

  “Stuart McLean is coming to Regina for his Vinyl Cafe Christmas tour. Can we go?” My sixteen-year-old daughter was a huge Stuart McLean fan. She had read all his books and was a devoted listener of his show.

  “Sure,” said Sami. “As long as your mother doesn’t have some kind of breakdown when she sees him.”

  “Why would she have a breakdown?”

  “There was an incident in her past that she still hasn’t recovered from.”

  I really resent it when people talk about you as if you’re not in the room. I quickly retold the story to my kids.

  “I blame my mother for wrecking the most important day of my life,” I concluded bitterly. “Other than marrying your father and giving birth to all you kids,” I added quickly.

  “Thanks,” said Sami. “We’re really feeling the love. Listen, I know you’re still angry at your mother, but she just wanted the best for you.”

  Ugh. Sami always takes my mother’s side as if she’s a rational being and I’m the crazy one.

  “Why is taking a picture with a white man such a big deal?” asked Inaya.

  “The problem was my mother,” I replied. “She believes white men are evil incarnate.”

  “I think you’re exaggerating,” said Sami.

  “Not evil like they don’t believe in God, but evil like they want to have sex with anything: sheep, pumpkins, soft fruit …”

  “You’re overstating,” said Sami.

  “I wish. She believed that white men are so insidious that even being associated with one could taint you forever,” I said. “You know, it’s been over twenty years and I still think about that wretched day.”

  Sami looked at Inaya. “You see the problem.”

  Inaya chewed over the predicament for a few moments. “I think it would be good for Mama to go and face her past. Maybe she’ll get some closure.”

  I was almost afraid to go to the show. It would bring back the feelings of humiliation all over again.

  “I can’t believe she did that to me,” I said, seething once more.

  Sami sighed. “Yeah, we could all use some closure. Buy the tickets.”

  The concert was on the same day as the kids’ rowing practice.

  “You’ll pick us up from rowing practice and take us straight to the concert?” asked Inaya anxiously.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “Do we have to dress up or anything?” she asked.

  “Nope,” I said. I wasn’t really paying attention to her. I was too busy concocting my plan. Finally, I would have my photo—and Stuart would probably be relieved, too, after all of these years thinking about how embarrassed he’d been for me.

  I grabbed a black fitted velvet jacket from my closet. I’d worn it only a few times since paying an inordinate amount of money for it. It made me look like I was going to the opera. I tried to find the brightest scarf possible. I pulled out a silvery grey one with rows and rows of silver sequins sewn into it but decided to add a sparkly headband for good measure. My head would have looked perfect on top of a Christmas tree.

  Sami and I picked up the kids. Inaya was still wearing her sweats as she looked at my ensemble.

  “You said we didn’t need to dress up.”

  “You didn’t,” I replied.

  We sat halfway to the back of the completely sold-out auditorium. I could see Stuart walking towards the mike. I tried to attract his attention by catching the light with the sparkles on my head, but suddenly they turned out the house lights. I craned forward in my seat.

  “He can’t read your mind from here,” said Sami.

  “I have to talk to him,” I replied.

  “I don’t think you’ll be able to get to him. He probably has handlers to keep people like you away.”

  After the show I tried to track down someone who could get me into his dressing room. I walked up to a security guard.

  “I need to see Stuart McLean,” I said. “It’s important for my mental well-being.”

  “Why?” said the security guard suspiciously.

  “Twenty years ago my mother wouldn’t let me take a picture with Stuart,” I said.

  “Why not?” he asked. “Was he not photogenic?”

  “No, my mom was worried that people would think that we’d had sex because Stuart’s white and that’s what white men do.”

  “We’re not all like that,” said the security guard, offended. “I married my first girlfriend.”

  “I think we should probably be going,” said Sami as he led me away. But I squirmed out of his grip and headed for the man at the table with all the Vinyl Cafe paraphernalia.

  “Excuse me, I’m the creator of Little Mosque on the Prairie, and Stuart McLean used to be my instructor. Is there any way to meet him?”

  The man conferred with a blond woman who was helping him sell the merchandise. After a few min
utes he came back.

  “How many people?”

  “Just me.” Inaya glared at me. “Them too, but only if you have the room.”

  The man handed me backstage passes and we were ushered into a green room. I couldn’t believe I had gotten this far. My heart was racing. There was another group of people waiting for Stuart. They had brought along a complicated camera with a fancy flash. Then Stuart entered the room, and before he had a chance to look at anyone else, I jumped up.

  “Stuart! Remember me?”

  Stuart looked at me for a second and a flash of recognition came over him.

  “Zarqa,” he said. Oh my God, he remembered me. I couldn’t believe it. The other people, who had been waiting longer, wondered how I had gotten him to pay attention to me. I had a captive audience.

  In my best stage voice I said, “Twenty years ago, I won the biggest award in student journalism in Ontario while I was in Stuart’s class. At the awards ceremony, my crazy mother wouldn’t let me take a picture with Stuart because she thought that if a picture of me with a white man got out, it would destroy my chances of marriage forever. So I have waited over twenty years to get my picture taken with Stuart. And today, my dream is about to come true,” I finished with a flourish.

  The people in the room looked at me as if they were a little afraid. Sami seemed to be attempting to retreat directly through the wall. I looked at Stuart, who surely would be as outraged as me. I imagined that he would say something like, “I too have been worried about your emotional stress from that momentous event. Every anniversary of the award ceremony, I relive that moment in my mind. You were robbed, Zarqa Nawaz. You were ROBBED.”

  “Wow, Zarqa, I don’t remember that.” I was speechless. He didn’t even remember the most humiliating moment of my life? But he had been there, in the flesh—witnessed the entire sorry spectacle. I knew how to salvage the moment.

  I threw my iPhone to Inaya and yelled, “Take the picture!” I gave Stuart a giant hug. He seemed a little taken aback by my assertiveness. I thought for a second that he wouldn’t want to take the picture and my life would be ruined. Again. But Stuart put his arm around me and hugged me back. The young tortured woman in me from twenty years ago came back and smiled. Inaya took two quick shots with my iPhone. I finally had my coveted photograph.

  “The marriage is over,” quipped Stuart.

  “If only it was that easy,” said Sami.

  “We can go now,” I said as I headed for the door, but Inaya had bought a book by Stuart.

  “Can you sign this for me?” she asked. “I’m a real fan.”

  “Sure,” said Stuart. “Would you like a picture with me too?”

  Sami looked at me, since I was the only one with an iPhone.

  “We don’t want Inaya to suffer like you did, do we?”

  I waited until we saw my mother in person again before I pulled out the picture of me hugging Stuart McLean.

  “Who is that?” she asked.

  I couldn’t believe my mother didn’t remember either.

  “Remember? He was my journalism professor. You wouldn’t let me take my picture with him when I won that award,” I said. “It took me twenty years to get that picture. And look, nothing bad happened to me. I didn’t self-destruct. I’m still a respected member of the community and my husband is not going to divorce me.”

  “Not yet,” replied Sami.

  My mother just looked at me and shook her head.

  “You waited twenty years to take that picture?” she said. “That’s pretty crazy.”

  I couldn’t believe my mother, my mother was calling me crazy. I worked myself up to a frenzy just thinking about it.

  “I’m crazy! No, you know what’s crazy? Not letting your daughter take a simple picture with her teacher.” I took a breath and sat down.

  My mother dried her hands on her apron.

  “You need to learn to let go of the past. It’s not healthy for you to dwell on these things.”

  Who was this woman? All she ever did was dwell on the past.

  “Are you happy now?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re married to a man who loves you. You have four kids. You have a good career.”

  Everything she said was true.

  “See, I was right to do what I did. You have exactly the life I dreamt of for you. You’re a success today because of me.”

  I stopped for a moment. It was a horrible new reality. My. Mother. Was. Right.

  “Our mom is so humiliating,” said Inaya to my mother. “You should have seen the way she behaved at the concert.”

  “Never be embarrassed by your mother,” my mother told my daughter. “She behaves the way she does because she loves you.”

  Then she looked at me.

  “And you, young lady, stop taking pictures of yourself hugging strange white men from the past. You will catch a terrible STD.”

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank Tina Horwitz, my television agent at Vanguarde Artists Management, for introducing me to Samantha Haywood, my book agent at Transatlantic Literary Agency. She in turn introduced me to Kate Cassaday, my editor at HarperCollins. If it weren’t for the incessant nagging of these three women, I would never have finished this book.

  I would also like to thank my kids, Maysa, Inaya, Rashad and Zayn, for their constant refrain of “Aren’t you done yet?” I hope I didn’t humiliate the four of you too much with the poo and pee stories. When you guys grow up, you can write your own memoirs to straighten the record. Your grandparents are depending on it.

  Third, I’d like to thank my Muslim community, who live in constant terror of being represented on TV or in a book or whatever my next project is. I couldn’t have done it without you. You complete me.

  Appendix:

  Zarqa’s Recipe for Halawa

  Two cups of water

  Three cups of sugar or honey

  Two teaspoons of lemon juice

  Mix the sugar and water in a saucepan on low heat until all the sugar is dissolved. Increase the heat while stirring until the mixture is bubbling. Use a candy thermometer and take the saucepan off the heat as soon as the temperature reaches 250F, or the halawa will burn and become hard. Pour the halawa into a plastic or glass container to cool.

  Take a small amount of the cooled halawa in your hand and stretch it until the colour changes from amber to an opaque gold. Take this handful, shape it into a ball and spread it on the affected area in the direction of the hair growth. Peel up a corner to use as a grip and then, with a quick yank, rip the whole thing off in the opposite direction.

  Halawa is excellent for large body parts like legs and arms but doesn’t work as well on fine hair like eyebrows. For those areas, use non-water-soluble wax or threading.

  About the Author

  ZARQA NAWAZ created Little Mosque on the Prairie. Premiering on CBC TV in 2007, it ran for six seasons, was watched in over sixty countries and landed Zarqa in the public eye. When she wasn’t writing, producing or directing for the show, she spent much of the past seven years writing comedy pilots for ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX and touring the world as a sought-after public speaker. She has been interviewed or profiled by CNN, BBC, The New York Times and Al Jazeera. A contributor to CBC Radio’s DNTO, Zarqa Nawaz lives in Regina with her loving but long-suffering family.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Credits

  Cover design: Ingrid Paulson

  Copyright

  Laughing All the Way to the Mosque

  Copyright © 2014 by Zarqa Nawaz

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retri
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  EPUB Edition May 2014 ISBN 9781443416955

  Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

  FIRST EDITION

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  Little Mosque on the Prairie is copyrighted and used with permission from WestWind Pictures.

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