Out of Nowhere

by Maria Padian

  “No. But this is a good model for him, and is probably good for you, too,” she said. “See, this book teaches people Somali words, but is also good for Somali children who learn to read.” She reached across the table and turned the book over in my hands. On the back cover was a photograph of a Somali woman reading it to a child.

  “With Abdi, we make a book with the English alphabet, but instead of one picture and one word for each letter, he will do two. One English, one Somali.”

  “You’ve already got this all figured out, don’t you?” I said to her. I opened the book again. Coincidentally, to R.

  “Ri!” I exclaimed. “My old friend the goat.”

  Samira looked at me like I had two heads.

  “Long story,” I muttered. “But listen, Samira, that sounds great. Seriously.”

  She shrugged.

  We sat silently as I slowly turned pages. I glanced at the clock. Myla and Abdi were late. Samira looked perfectly comfortable just sitting there, saying nothing.

  “Samira, when’s your birthday?”

  She startled, as if I’d woken her from a deep daydream.

  “Birthday?” she asked.

  “Yeah. The day you were born.”

  “June twenty-first,” she said without hesitation.

  I closed the book.

  “Okay. That’s messed up.”

  Her brow wrinkled.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Saeed just told me that all Somali people have the same birthday. January first. So how come you were born in June?” Her forehead smoothed.

  “Oh. Yes. January first. That’s the birthday on my green card, so it’s the official day. But my mother says I was born in a rainy season, so I think maybe June.”

  I shook my head, mystified.

  “And the twenty-first?”

  She smiled shyly.

  “It’s the same birthday as Prince William. So … I choose it.” I stared at her.

  “Prince William?”

  “He is very rich. And handsome,” she said. Like that made everything clear.

  “Samira, I just don’t get why you people don’t know your birthdays.”

  She sighed, completely exasperated with me.

  “Tom. My mother does not read. My father did not read. When I was born? In our house, in our farm? No one writes down the day. No one knows the day. And then you get to the camp and even if you do know, you have no paper to prove it! So when the UN people fill out the forms? And ask us questions? They guess the year for how old you are, and put January first for everyone.”

  “So every refugee kid in our school has a January first birthday?” I asked her.

  “If they come from the camps, yes,” she said.

  Wow. Who knew?

  “Why you asking me this?” Sometimes she drops a word.

  “Just something Saeed was saying. I get confused with him, you know?”

  She nodded.

  “English is hard for him,” she said.

  “But not for you,” I pointed out.

  “I am good at school,” she said. “And I go to school. At Dadaab. Saeed, he just played around all day. All he liked was soccer and being with the boys. So my mother sent him to Nairobi, to be with our uncle and go to school. But he still didn’t like it!”

  “He said he was in Nairobi when you all got the word that you could leave the camp,” I said. She nodded. “Why weren’t you all there?”

  “Sometimes … we were. Sometimes we went to my uncle. Because the camps are very, very dangerous. At night, you just stay inside because sometimes these people? Who are not Somali? They come into the camps and they steal and they fight. Even just to get water during the day is very, very dangerous.”

  “So why didn’t you just stay in Nairobi?” I asked.

  She sort of smiled.

  “Because in the camps, there is hope.”

  “Hope? Sounds like death.”

  “In the camps you might get called. By the UN. And you get a green card and leave. You don’t know when and you don’t know where. We thought maybe Australia, but then they send us to Atlanta, Georgia. I never heard of Atlanta, Georgia! But it’s America, so … great. But Saeed? He was with my uncle. And when we got called, we had to leave. He was in Nairobi. But we had to go.”

  Yeah. Home Alone: African Nightmare Version. Well, not quite alone; he was with his uncle. But the rest of the family? Gone. With an ocean between him and them. I didn’t have a chance to ask her how they’d made it from Atlanta to here, or how Saeed finally made it to the United States, because Myla and Abdi finally arrived and were heading toward us.

  The little dude had a big happy smile on his face and shouted “Tom!” when he saw me from across the room. Myla wore these long, loopy earrings that hit her shoulders, and the same little sharp-heeled boots I’d seen her in at Michelangelo’s. Clearly, she was in going-out-tonight mode, and it was all I could do to not just get up and hug her hello. Instead, I pulled my thoughts from imagining all the shit Samira and Saeed had lived through, and shifted to the work at hand: crayons and homework and third grade in America. College girls … no, women … who kept you guessing.

  Still, you had to wonder if a four-story walk-up in Enniston, Maine, was really the hope Samira and Saeed and the rest of their family had been holding out for.

  Chapter Seventeen

  My expectations for the evening with Myla started out very high. But I had good reason to be hopeful: lip gloss.

  In addition to the earrings and the boots, which could have been part of any night-out-with-the-girls outfit, she was wearing lip gloss. A dead giveaway.

  See, girls think they look good with lip gloss, and if a girl is trying to look good right before going out with you, well … that’s good. Even though in fact lip-glossed lips taste fake and plasticky when you kiss them. And gloss feels gross and sticky on your face. I mean, for a decent kiss I’m willing to put up with a lot, but if anyone ever asked “Gloss or no gloss?” I’d vote for none every time.

  Cherisse was a big glosser, something we used to fight about. She had this one brand that reminded me of strawberry Vaseline, and once, after a particularly long kiss, I gagged. She got all insulted, even after I apologized and explained it wasn’t her, it was the gloss. Didn’t matter; she marched off in a huff.

  Here’s the thing about Cherisse Ouellette: don’t make her mad. Let me tell you, Shakespeare was channeling this girl when he wrote, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” After I voted her off the island the other night (not a pretty scene), she kept sending me these random, rude texts, like “You’re an asshole,” or “Hate u!” I didn’t respond. Didn’t even read them after a while, but she couldn’t help herself, so they kept coming.

  Anyway, despite my antipathy for gloss, I’ll admit: when Myla walked in with the stuff on her lips and the cute I’m-going-out-tonight clothes, I moved, imaginatively, to the post-dinner possibilities. Tom Bouchard was feeling very optimistic about life.

  Then it all crashed and burned.

  There we were, cleaning up after a pretty good session with Abdi. Our guy had his Spider-Man backpack on, Samira and I had wiped the table and put away the art supplies, and Myla was shutting off lights when the roller coaster, which had been doing a nice, steady climb, took a downward plunge. I heard Myla say: “Hey, Samira. Tommy and I are going to grab something to eat. Want to come with?”

  Played. Completely, totally played. I couldn’t believe my ears. I thought, Bouchard, you’re an idiot. She wanted you to work on this project and lured you in, making you think there was more to it.

  Seriously, College Girl? Is this how we roll?

  Frankly, I thought I deserved better. We’d made it through the letter C, which was no small feat. A had been fine: apple and aqal (“house” in Somali). B was boy and babaay, “papaya.” But C was a challenge. I’d suggested cat, which turned out to be the pet of choice among dog-avoiding Somalis, but to go with cat Samira wanted to do cilaan, which is he
nna, that stuff women use to paint their hands. Abdi was up for drawing a hand covered in tattoo-like designs, but then I stepped in.

  “Problem, guys. That word doesn’t make a C sound. You just pronounced it ‘EH-lan.’ Sort of like the girl in my calculus class, Ellen Fitzgerald.”

  “Yes, but it begins with C,” Samira said.

  “But it sounds like ‘eh,’ ” I said. “I think we need words that make the same sound.”

  Both of them stared stubbornly at me.

  “Tom, cilaan is good,” said Abdi. “I make a really cool picture.”

  “Cilaan is a good word for people to know,” Samira said. “We use it at weddings and special days. We use it to dye hair. Sometimes men use it to dye mustaches and beards.”

  Abdi nodded and began drawing.

  “Whoa, whoa,” I said. “I get all that, but isn’t the point here to teach the sounds the letters make, and show their similarities in each language?”

  Abdi kept on drawing.

  “Well, no,” Samira said. “The point is to show differences, too. It’s important to show differences. We are not all the same, and the letters don’t always make the same sounds.”

  Huffy. That’s how my grandmother would have described Samira’s tone with me just then. “Now, don’t get huffy, dear,” she says when an argument begins to brew, or she picks up strains of annoyance. That’s how Samira was acting. Pissed, with a side order of stubborn and a sprinkling of self-righteous.

  And this was only C.

  “Problem, guys?” Myla was sitting at the next table, doing spelling homework with a group of little girls. And eavesdropping on us.

  “No,” I said, just as Samira said, “Yes.” Abdi, still drawing, grinned.

  “I think,” I said carefully, “we are having some creative disagreements over the purpose of the assignment.”

  Samira shook her head vigorously.

  “There is no disagreement! You are wrong,” she said firmly.

  Myla looked highly amused.

  “Wow,” I said. “Works and plays well with others … not.”

  “Cilaan begins with C and cat begins with C,” Samira replied. “Abdi draws the pictures. What is the problem?”

  “The problem is, who is this thing for?” I answered. “I think it’s pretty clear it’s for the kids in ELL, who, like Abdi, are learning English words and letter sounds. Let’s not confuse them with Somali pronunciations, okay?”

  “And I say it is for kids in ELL and for white kids who don’t know Somali words. Both can learn from this! When you were Abdi’s age, did you know about cilaan, or henna, like you call it?”

  “When I was Abdi’s age, none of you people lived here and I had no clue what henna was, to answer your question. I’m still not sure what it is. Looks like you girls are drawing on yourselves with Magic Marker.”

  Samira leaned back in her chair. She looked helplessly at Myla. “Who is right?” Samira demanded.

  “You both are,” Myla said pleasantly. Her eyes shifted to the clock on the wall. “And I’m hungry. Are you guys almost done?”

  I caved on cilaan right then and there, figuring the “date” was about to begin. Then, as we cleaned up, Lip Gloss Girl invited Fun Suck Girl to come with. Unbelievable.

  Granted: Samira and I were getting along better, if this session was any indication. Getting along well, actually. But it wasn’t easy. For starters, you never knew what you’d get with her. Like, with the clothes? One day she might be rockin’ the hijab; another day it was a long-sleeved Celtics sweatshirt. But her outfits were nothing compared to her opinions. As she started to relax around me, she started throwing out opinions. And she had a lot of them. Especially about guys.

  “Boys are too lazy,” she commented.

  Abdi was drawing an apple.

  “Huh,” he said, not bothering to look up. “I being lazy now? No.”

  “You only do this work because Myla makes you. And we help you. But, Abdi, you must learn to do your work on your own. By yourself.”

  He shrugged. It gave me the feeling he’d heard this riff from her before.

  She kept going as he colored.

  “My brothers? When they get home from school, what do they do? If the weather is good, they go outside and play soccer in the park. If the weather is bad, they are inside playing games on Xbox. When I come home, what do I do? I help clean. I fold clothes. I do homework. Do they do homework? No. My mother has to yell at them to make them not be lazy about homework.”

  Abdi’s head snapped up.

  “Your brothers got Xbox? Lucky!”

  I burst out laughing.

  Samira looked severe.

  “Will they be lucky when they don’t finish school? When they don’t get jobs and no one wants to marry them? No.”

  Wow. Seriously opinionated. I couldn’t resist prodding her.

  “Hey, Samira. I play soccer after school. I game. And I’m third in my class. So what the heck?”

  She frowned at me. Narrowed her eyes at Abdi.

  “Maybe some American boys are not so bad. But Somali boys? Lazy.”

  “Huh,” Abdi and I said at the same time. He glanced sideways at me. I kicked him under the table.

  After Abdi left, the three of us walked to the restaurant, which turned out to be this no-bigger-than-someone’s-kitchen place on Market Street. Actually, the girls walked together, side by side, chatting away, while the Guy with the Wallet, aka me, followed. To say I was doing a slow burn would be putting it mildly.

  We could smell the restaurant before we saw it, and when we arrived we peered inside through the front glass window. There were bright lights and Formica tables, a scuffed linoleum floor, and all sorts of weird stuff hanging on the walls, like framed Somali money, photos of monkeys and giraffes, and inspirational sayings painted on pieces of wood. Pictures of the various menu items were taped to the wall, along with the prices. I counted three tables, total, and two of them were filled with groups of Somali men.

  Samira balked. Her feet could have been cemented to the sidewalk outside.

  “I think I won’t go in,” she said. “You two go.”

  “Okay, see you later,” I said at the same time Myla exclaimed, “Oh, c’mon, you need to help us order!”

  Samira shook her head. She stared through the plate glass window into the front of the restaurant.

  “No, thank you, I think I’ll go home.” She turned to leave, but Myla grabbed her arm.

  “Samira! Seriously, we want you to join us.”

  Speak for yourself, College, I managed to not say.

  Samira’s eyes returned to the front window and I followed her gaze. I could only see men. Several looked through the window back at us.

  “Are you not allowed to eat here?” I asked her.

  She frowned and shook her head.

  “I’m allowed. I’m just … shy.”

  Shy my ass, I thought, recalling the battle over cilaan. But here’s the thing: outside the restaurant she was a different girl from the one who’d been handing down judgments about lazy boys and going head to head with me over the alphabet book. I wouldn’t have called it shy. I’d have called it wary. Uncertain. She seemed to have retreated into herself.

  Meanwhile, amazing aromas were seeping through the front door and out onto the street. My stomach growled, audibly. Myla burst out laughing.

  “See? Tom will spontaneously combust if we don’t feed him. C’mon.” She linked elbows with Samira and literally pulled her into the restaurant. Given a choice between struggling with Myla on the sidewalk or going inside quietly, Samira picked quietly.

  It smelled like an Indian restaurant times ten. Same spices, but way more intense. The air seemed thick with the smell of frying. One wall was papered with laminated eight-by-ten photos of the food, each numbered so you could order a particular plate. Goat curry heaped on colorful rice. Chunks of chicken served with a bread called chapati. Fried triangles stuffed with something.

  “Those look l
ike empanadas, with a different shape,” I commented to Myla.

  “They look like samosas, with a different shape,” she replied.

  “They are sambusas,” Samira said. She had her back to the other customers and spoke to us in a low voice. “They are dough. Which you fill with meat, and spice, and then you fry. They are very traditional. You should get them.”

  “Yes,” Myla and I both said, then looked at each other. She laughed, even though it wasn’t particularly funny, and, you know, she just looked so happy. Like there wasn’t anyplace else she’d rather be at the moment. Suddenly the roller coaster was creaking back up again, so my arm slipped over her shoulders and rested there. She let it stay the whole time we were deciding what to order.

  A very, very skinny guy waited for us at the register. As we approached him, I glanced over at the men sitting at the tables. One or two nodded at me when our eyes met. The rest minded their own plates. Perfectly friendly, but it felt like every customer in the place was watching us without staring directly at us.

  “Could we have a three, a five, and an eight? And a side of sambusas, please?” Myla said to the skinny guy. He nodded, punched numbers into his register. He pointed to a case where we could get bottled drinks. Then he turned to Samira, who stood slightly behind us. He smiled at her and said something in Somali. She nodded. She looked relieved. As I pulled out my wallet to pay the man, he gestured to a small table behind his counter. Tucked away, out of sight of the other diners.

  “I think you like this better?” he said to me and Myla. There was one free table in the open part of the room, but Samira was already making a beeline for the back. Myla and I followed.

  I sat across from the girls. As we popped open our drinks, I watched as this little cloud descended on Myla. Her happy expression had been replaced by something else.

  “Are we getting stuck back here because we’re women?” she finally asked.

  Samira’s eyes grew wide.