Amina's Voice

by Hena Khan

  “Forget it,” I interrupt. “I don’t even want to play anymore. Let’s just go upstairs.” We were waiting to put on the new version of Just Dance, but I’m not very good at it anyway. Soojin gets four stars on every song when she and I play together, but she’s been studying ballet, tap, and jazz since she was six. And Rabiya spends way too much time practicing. I know that my feet only work to help me keep time when I sing and press the pedals on the piano. I’m a klutz when it comes to dancing.

  “I’m telling on you guys,” Rabiya finally threatens. The boys don’t respond. They know that our parents are sipping chai with plates of tea biscuits upstairs and that they aren’t the slightest bit interested in our bickering.

  I follow Rabiya upstairs, trying not to trip over the deep-pink shalwar kameez Mama forced me to wear. Rabiya’s mom, Salma Auntie, brought it back from a visit to Pakistan, and Mama wanted to make sure she saw me in it before it gets too small for me. The embroidery on the neckline is so itchy that I’m tempted to change into the pajamas I brought along in case I spend the night.

  “Let’s ask about the sleepover again,” Rabiya whispers when we get to the top of the stairs. “Maybe they’ll feel bad the boys are being mean to us and let you stay.”

  “Okay,” I agree, although Salma Auntie already refused during dinner. She complained that we always stay up too late talking and are tardy for Sunday school. And since she is running the book fair at the Islamic Center, she didn’t want to miss anything tomorrow. I, on the other hand, am always more than happy to miss as much of Sunday school as possible.

  Our parents are engrossed in conversation while the television blares in the background. A fast-paced Indian song pulses as Bollywood actresses in crimson outfits twirl in perfect coordination in front of a stage decorated with yellow and red flowers. I love the sound of the drums mixed with the strings, although the super-high-pitched, tinny singing grates on my ears.

  “Why are you worried about your brother’s visit?” Salma Auntie is asking Baba as we creep into the room and stand behind the sofa.

  “You know there’s some bad feeling in this country toward Muslims, and all this negative news these days.”

  “But he must read the news and know this already,” Hamid Uncle argues. “It shouldn’t be a shock to him.”

  “Maybe. But what if someone says something to him? He wears a kufi and has a long beard.”

  “Nothing like that will happen here. We have a strong community, and there are so many Muslims living in Milwaukee. People have been good to us,” Mama says.

  “Yes, but Bhai Jaan is also so set in his ways. I’m just nervous he won’t like it here.”

  “Let’s go upstairs,” Rabiya whispers. “This is boring.”

  I shake my head. I want to keep listening to find out what Baba thinks my uncle won’t like about America.

  Is he afraid he won’t like me?

  “Come on!” Rabiya hisses, and tugs my hand.

  “What are you two doing here? This is adult talk. Go upstairs,” Salma Auntie scolds as she peers behind the sofa at us. We look at each other and shrug and then follow orders and go upstairs. It isn’t the right time to ask about sleepovers.

  As we pass Yusuf’s bedroom, Rabiya darts inside and grabs a fistful of gum balls from his old-fashioned machine. Then we sprawl on Rabiya’s bedspread, blowing bubbles and doing our favorite thing: watching YouTube videos that ordinary people posted of themselves doing crazy stunts. One guy makes a basketball shot from a thousand miles away. It hits the roof of a house, bounces off a tree, and swishes into a hoop.

  “That can’t be real,” Rabiya insists. “It’s camera tricks for sure.”

  I make a mental note to show Mustafa later. He’ll be impressed, camera tricks or not.

  “Look at this one. This girl is just singing a Taylor Swift song into a webcam. She has six thousand views, and she isn’t even good,” Rabiya scoffs.

  I can’t help but agree. The girl is singing a cappella and is totally off tempo.

  “Let’s make our own video! You sing, and I’ll do backup. It’ll be way better than this one.” Rabiya starts to look through her song library.

  “A video? No way. What if someone clicks on it?” I ask. Rabiya and I have basically grown up like sisters so, like Soojin, she knows I can sing.

  “That’s the point, genius!” Rabiya laughs. “What’s the use having an amazing voice if no one ever hears it?”

  “My parents hear it.”

  “Yeah. Exactly. What if Taylor Swift had been too scared to ever sing in front of other people? Or Adele?”

  “I’m no Adele,” I object.

  “Fine. No one is Adele. But you are an awesome singer, Amina. Come on. What do you want to sing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on. It’s just for practice. I’m not posting it or anything. And if you don’t get up, I’m recording you like that, sitting there in your fancy shalwar kameez!” Rabiya threatens me with the same fierce eyes she used on Yusuf downstairs. It makes me smile. I think of the concert and how I haven’t told her about passing on the chance to sing a solo. She would push and push and probably show up at my school and sign my name on the sheet for me. And for a second I wish she went to the same school as me instead of living fifteen minutes away in Bay View, in a quiet tree-lined neighborhood almost identical to ours.

  We spend the next hour in front of the webcam trying to record ourselves singing an Avril Lavigne song Rabiya picked out. But we keep messing up, either because we stumble over the words or start cracking up.

  “Start it over!” Rabiya falls out of the camera’s view.

  “I need some water.” I’m getting hoarse from singing and laughing so hard. But then I hear my mom calling my name to meet everyone at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Next time I’ll destroy you,” Yusuf declares as he and Mustafa emerge from the basement. Mustafa yelps as he is wrestled into a headlock.

  “Khuda hafiz, beti,” Salma Auntie says to me. She hands me leftover rice packed into an empty yogurt container to carry home.

  I remember to duck in time before Hamid Uncle pinches my cheek, and repeat the words of farewell.

  “Khuda hafiz, Auntie and Uncle. Thank you for having us.”

  My parents keep talking to their friends for another ten minutes while I stand in the entryway, burning up in my jacket. All of us kids bug our eyes and moan. It’s the same thing every single time.

  “We could have played another game,” Yusuf grumbles to Mustafa. Rabiya starts to nod off, sitting on the stairs. But then just as I’m about to give up and join her, we walk out and pile into the car. An Adele song comes on the radio, and as I imagine myself in a video hitting every note as well as her, I drift to sleep.

  5

  The swarm of kids pours into a small courtyard, where a volunteer hands out slices of lukewarm pizza from a box. It’s the break between classes during Sunday school, and I’m starving even though it’s only eleven a.m.

  “Take a drink.” The lady motions to me. I grab my paper plate and can of lemonade and hurry to a bench where Rabiya and our friend Dahlia are eating their pizza. Their class always gets out earlier than mine, and they are a level ahead of me. In Sunday school, your age or grade in regular school doesn’t matter. It all depends on how well you can connect Arabic letters into words and how many passages from the Quran, or surahs, you can recite from memory.

  “Hey, that’s a pretty one,” I say to Dahlia, pointing to the blue zigzag-patterned scarf expertly wrapped around her head. My own slid off my head as I walked toward them and is hanging around my neck like a miniature cape.

  “Thanks,” Dahlia says. She carefully bites up to the crust of her pizza. “This one’s my mom’s.” Dahlia always wears the hijab, and not just at the Islamic Center. She even sports it at the middle school she goes to. I can’t imagine what it would be like to walk through Greendale Middle School and be the only person with a scarf on, but Dahlia makes it seem as natural as
wearing a headband, no matter where she is.

  “Imam Malik subbed for our class today,” Rabiya says. “And it was so much fun.”

  “Lucky!” I reply. I take a couple of bites of the pizza, but the oily cheese makes me want to gag, so I stop. “Sister Naima spent half of our class making everyone take turns reading the same line of the Quran over and over again.”

  “Boring,” they both chime in unison.

  “And she kept yelling the same thing: ‘You’re saying it wrong. Not the little haa, the big haa!’ ”

  “Well, that’s because Sister Naima is from Egypt, like my family,” Dahlia says.

  “So?” Rabiya asks.

  “So her Arabic is perfect.”

  “Well, Imam Malik isn’t from Egypt, and his Arabic is awesome,” Rabiya argues.

  I agree. Imam Malik grew up in Florida and can easily switch between perfect Arabic and English. Even better, he knows as much about cheat codes to video games as religious topics.

  “Yeah, but his parents are Arab,” Dahlia reminds us. “No offense, but people from Pakistan don’t really know how to pronounce Arabic the right way.”

  I’m not offended. Dahlia is right about how most Pakistani people, including my parents, pronounce Arabic differently. I just can’t make certain sounds in the Arabic alphabet. No matter how perfect my musical pitch is, it just doesn’t translate to Arabic. Plus, my brain doesn’t register the way the letters change when they connect to one another, and I get them wrong all the time. I always feel embarrassed when it’s my turn to read aloud to the class, and that’s the biggest reason I don’t like Sunday school.

  “We’d better go back inside.” Rabiya points to the crowd moving back into the community building that holds the classrooms and social hall. It looks like a giant shoe box next to the shiny curved dome of the mosque with two towering minarets. I climb the narrow stairway back to my classroom, trying to avoid getting jostled.

  The second hour of Sunday school is when I can relax while Sister Naima tells stories of the prophets. Today is one of my favorite stories: the one of Prophet Yusuf and his jealous brothers who threw him into a well. Sister Naima gets super animated as she explains the events and waves her arms around as if she’s acting them out. “Jealousy is a terrible thing,” she warns, and I feel ashamed as Emily pops into my head.

  Am I jealous of her? Or is it okay if I just want her to go back to her old friends?

  “Don’t forget to do your homework!” Sister Naima shouts as class ends and everyone rushes out. I head to the mosque for prayer, stopping first at the bathroom to do wudu. There’s a special faucet at knee height with a little bench in front, where I sit and rub my hands in the cold water before rinsing my mouth and nose. I splash my face and hairline and pass a wet hand over my ears and neck. Then I roll up my sleeves and wash up to the elbow before finally kicking off my sandals and running my feet through the stream of water.

  I walk out, shaking off the extra water, and adjust my scarf tight around my head so it won’t fall off again. I enter the cool mosque, slip off my sandals on the marble floor by the women’s entrance, and put them neatly onto the shelves.

  Rabiya has saved me a spot on the plush green carpet next to her. In the hush of the prayer hall, with its crystal chandelier, gold trim, and big plaques with Arabic calligraphy decorating the walls, a familiar calm washes over me. A woman in front of us kneels in prayer, touching her head to the ground while her baby tugs on her shirt. An older lady mouths prayers with a string of beads in her hand. And I spot Mama in the corner reading the Quran quietly with Salma Auntie and their other friends.

  My earliest memory of the mosque is being here with my parents during Ramadan for special nightly prayers when I was three or four. I stood with Mama in my tiny headscarf with sewn-in elastic to keep it in place and tried to stay still. But after a while, I’d get bored and wander to the back of the prayer hall and run around with the other kids while different ladies took turns hushing us.

  Imam Malik’s voice comes over the speakers. “Brothers and sisters, I have a few announcements. First, the book sale will be going on for one hour after prayer in the community hall. Second, we are taking nominations for PTA officers. And finally, I’m excited to share that we will be hosting our first Quran recitation competition for students from all over the state on November fifteenth, insha’Allah.”

  A few people start murmuring as the imam continues.

  “All students are encouraged to participate. I’m sure you’ll make us proud. The winner will get four tickets to Six Flags and a big check for college savings.”

  The buzz grows louder.

  “We’ll be handing out a flyer next Sunday, but, parents, make sure to register your kids as soon as possible.”

  Uh-oh! I turn my head back toward Mama to see if she is paying attention, but she is still looking at the Quran. I think back to my moment of panic when my voice left me stranded during the second-grade play. If I couldn’t manage to speak English, which I’m fluent in, on a stage, how would I possibly make out Arabic words in my pathetic accent? This Quran competition is something I want nothing to do with. I say a quick prayer that Mama wasn’t paying attention and that she won’t sign me up as everyone gets up and stands in neat rows. Folding my hands across my chest, I try to concentrate as the imam starts to lead us in prayer with the familiar praise of God, “Bismillāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm . . .”

  6

  “Are you kidding me?” Baba shouts. “That’s pass interference! Where’s the call?”

  “That’s good defense,” Mustafa counters. A little smirk plays on his lips.

  “Get your eyes checked!” Baba scowls at the black-and-white-striped referee on the television screen, shaking his head while Mustafa snickers.

  “You too,” Baba glowers. “You and your Packers. Bunch of cheaters!”

  “Why do you care so much? You’re not playing in the game, are you?” Mama says from the corner of the room where she’s dumped out a mound of laundry. She sits folding clothes into neat piles on the carpet.

  “Yeah, Baba, chill out. Your Bears are only down by thirteen.” Mustafa pats Baba on the leg.

  “I’ll chill you out.” Baba pushes Mustafa over on the sofa and starts pounding him on the shoulder, while Mama laughs and throws balled socks at them.

  I watch the commotion, safe in my favorite leather armchair, where I’m curled up with a worn copy of Life on the Oregon Trail. I checked out the fat volume from the school library in the hopes it would help give our team an advantage in Mrs. Barton’s social studies project. The book is filled with diary entries written by the pioneers themselves during their time on the trail, and even though a lot of it is flat-out horrifying, I can’t stop reading it. I shudder thinking of the kids my age who walked fifteen miles a day for months, carrying everything they owned with them in their wagons, only to get an awful disease and be buried in shallow graves along the trail or drown in a river crossing. It suddenly makes working with my wagon group seem like a trip to the mall.

  “Aren’t you tired yet? Three hours of watching these helmets just jumping on each other,” Mama asks.

  I already sorted my clothes and took them upstairs to my room. Then I practiced singing one of the solo choices Ms. Holly had listed for the winter concert—just for fun. It was “A Change Is Gonna Come,” performed by Aretha Franklin.

  It felt incredibly satisfying to blast out the words “I was born by the river . . .” in my biggest voice. Something about the song made me feel powerful, and I even started to daydream about signing up for the concert and finally getting the chance to surprise everyone with my secret. Just like Stella on The Voice, I could transform from a skinny, shy girl in a plaid shirt and jeans into a glamorous star in a sequined gown. Well, maybe I’d skip the sequined-gown part, but I could at least be confident, sure-of-herself Amina—ready to share my talent with the school, and, eventually, with the rest of the world.

  But then I remembered how my voi
ce would betray me, shrink back, and cling to my lungs, while I stupidly stand on a stage with people staring at me. I turned off the song and went back downstairs.

  “It’s over,” Baba says. “Two minutes. They can’t come back.” He flips off the TV and shakes his head.

  “Okay, then—get up, everyone. I need your help.” Mama picks up her notepad, where she always scribbles down important to-do lists. I dread that notepad. “Thaya Jaan is coming in less than two weeks, and we need to get this house ready.”

  “Right now?” Mustafa complains. “I think I have English homework to finish.”

  “Oh, now you remember your homework after sitting on that sofa all day? No, get up,” Mama commands. “You will have plenty of time after dinner.”

  “What do you want us to do?” Baba asks tentatively.

  “I need you to take this laundry upstairs, then go through that pile in the corner of the garage. Mustafa, I want you to dust all the lights and ceiling fans using the ladder and put away that extra bedding in the guest room.”

  “What about Amina?” Mustafa points to where I’m sitting with my book in front of my face, hoping Mama won’t notice me.

  “I’m getting to her. Amina, take out the good cutlery and polish the silver serving dishes.”

  “Jaani,” Baba starts, using his affectionate name for Mama. “Believe me; Bhai Jaan doesn’t care about polished silver or what we keep in the garage. Besides, garages are meant for junk.”

  Mustafa and I exchange hopeful looks. Maybe Baba can convince Mama to relax and forget the chores.

  “No, your brother is used to a big house with lots of help, where everything is perfect. And you are all the help I have. Now get up!” Mama clearly means business, so we all get moving.

  I rummage through the china cabinet in the dining room and pull out green boxes of silver serving spoons blackened with tarnish. Polishing silver reminds me of preschool, where I did all these random chores like sorting, scrubbing, and sewing giant buttons with a blunt needle. I actually kind of still like it. I sit down at the kitchen table and hum while I smear the thick pink polish all over the spoons with a cotton ball and watch it pull off the layer of black.