American Heart

by Laura Moriarty

  And when our waiter finally came over, he just seemed friendly, not suspicious at all. Chloe ordered by pointing to what she wanted on the menu. I explained she was Portuguese and didn’t speak any English.

  “Not even a little?” he asked. He was old, with bad teeth, but he gave her a wide smile and kept looking at her as if he were expecting an answer. Chloe was good, though. She only smiled back, looking confused.

  “Not even a lick,” I said. I ordered a tall stack of pancakes and a Diet Coke. When the waiter walked away, Chloe shook her head.

  “This is not healthy for you, this soda.” She made a tsk-tsk sound. “And the energy drink you had earlier. It was big. It is too much for you.”

  I gave her a look to let her know that I didn’t appreciate the advice. Maybe it was some kind of Muslim thing. Some kind of Muslim anti-soda thing. Or she just personally felt like she could tell everybody else what to do. It seemed to me she might lay off after the whole bacon denial.

  “You ordered coffee,” I said.

  She shook her head. “It’s not as bad for the body as these soda drinks, with the sugar, or the fake sugars, even worse. And you are still growing.” She paused to click her tongue. “You need to be careful with your body.”

  “I’ve had a long day,” I reminded her, though it was pretty crazy that I should need to. “And I imagine I’ll be up all night. I don’t know when the next bus leaves for Hannibal.” I smiled in a bitchy way. I was American, and I liked my freedom and my soda, thank you very much.

  She didn’t say anything. She looked like she was studying me, the lines between her brows gone deep again. “Where are your parents? Why do you live with your aunt?”

  “They died,” I said. “Car accident.” That was a half-truth, sort of. That was all she needed to know.

  “Oh.” She put a palm against her chest. She sucked in her breath, like someone she knew had died. “Oh, I am so sorry.”

  I shrugged. Her greenish eyes had gone all soft, and I felt a little bad about lying. Her hand was still pressed to her chest, and I noticed her diamond ring. She’d been wearing gloves before.

  “You married?” I asked.

  She put her hand in her lap, but didn’t say anything else. I guess only she got to ask the personal questions.

  “So that’s a no? You’re not married? No kids?”

  She held up her hand to show me she didn’t want to talk about it.

  It occurred to me that maybe her husband was mean to her. Or maybe he was already in Nevada, and that was really why she was trying to escape. My mom told me that when she was a teenager, she was in the mall in Springfield and she saw an Arabic man walking around with this woman who was always a few steps behind him, wearing a black burqa with just her eyes peeking out. The woman even stood behind the man on the escalators, like she was his servant, but my mom said the woman was wearing those designer shoes with the red on the bottom that cost about a million dollars, so she was most likely his wife. “I wouldn’t make a dog walk behind me like that,” she told me, and I’d agreed it sounded messed up.

  I leaned across the table, my voice quiet. “Are you on the run from your husband? You can tell me if that’s what’s going on.”

  She tilted her head. “Why do you ask me this? Why do you think this?”

  It felt kind of awkward, coming out and saying that I knew Muslim women didn’t have rights. So I told her what my mom had seen at the mall in Springfield. That was awkward even, but I felt like I needed to be honest and get across what I meant. And I wanted her to know how crazy it was that a woman should have to walk behind her husband like that. I was thinking I knew it was messed up because I’d grown up in America.

  She listened to the story, the two frown lines between her brows showing again. When I was done, the frown lines stayed there, but she said, “It is not perhaps anyone else’s business, how this married couple walks through a mall.”

  I stared at her. I couldn’t believe she thought that was okay.

  She waved her hand. “But this story has nothing to do with Islam, or with me, or any Muslim I know.” She leaned across the table and pressed the backs of her fingers into the palm of her other hand. “You understand. This is not Islam. I have literally never met a Muslim woman who walks behind her husband. Not once in my life. This is as strange to me as it was to your mother.” She lifted her chin. “What, you think because your mother saw one woman in a burqa walking behind her husband that all Muslim women in the world do this? You take one story and generalize it to the lives of over a billion people? From all different countries? Who don’t even all speak the same language?”

  I chewed my bottom lip, thinking. When she put it like that, it did sound like kind of a jump.

  One of her eyebrows went high. “Do you think that no Christian woman in the world has ever walked behind her husband? No Jewish woman? And yet you do not generalize this to all of them. Yes, I am very aware there are places in the world that use Islam as an excuse to oppress women, as is true with all religions. But this is not actual Islam.”

  I leaned back against the booth. I didn’t know enough about it to argue with her. But I wasn’t convinced. It wasn’t just that one story. I was always hearing about terrible things happening to women in Muslim countries. One of Aunt Jenny’s news shows did a report on how in this one Muslim country, if a girl had anything to do with sex before marriage, their fathers or brothers could kill them in front of everybody, and it wasn’t illegal, cause even the government agreed she was better off dead. It didn’t matter if you were rich or poor. And it wasn’t made-up. They interviewed actual women who were almost killed, some of them crying, their words translated to English at the bottom of the screen. And I’d once done an oral report about how girls in Afghanistan couldn’t even go to school without getting acid thrown in their faces by Muslim men.

  Chloe must have gone to school, though, to speak a whole other language so well. And if she really did teach electrical engineering, she’d gone to school a lot. So obviously, if I brought that up, she could say I was generalizing again.

  But I wasn’t done asking questions. I was thinking this would be the last time I’d ever get to talk to a real live Muslim, face-to-face, and there were so many things about them, including Chloe, that I just didn’t get.

  “You usually wear a headscarf?” I gestured at my own head. “Like in your picture?”

  “I used to. When it was safe.”

  “Your husband made you wear it?”

  She shook her head. She looked annoyed, like she’d heard the question before. “It is my decision. In Iran it was compulsory. But here it is my choice. Or it was. Think of a habit for a nun. No one is making her. It is her decision.”

  I tried not to make a rude face, but nun, Muslim, whatever, it seemed like a pretty bad decision to make. I would hate covering up my hair all the time, not to mention my ears. And all for what? It was about as dumb of a rule as not being able to wear a high ponytail at Berean Baptist. Nobody was going to die or go to hell if they saw your hair or the back of your neck.

  “Don’t you like to feel the breeze in your hair?” I couldn’t imagine otherwise. I loved that feeling. Even sitting here, inside at night in the middle of winter, I could imagine the sun warming the hair on my scalp, a cool breeze moving through it. If there was a God, he or she or whatever it was would probably want you to feel the pleasure of that. Plus earrings.

  “You sound like my sister.” She smiled, picking at the edge of her rolled-up napkin. “She hates hijab. She never wore it once she got here. She could not understand why I would come all the way from Iran and decide to wear the very thing so many women back home resent.” She wagged her finger at me, which seemed a little rude. “But there is a difference between being free to wear it, and being made to wear it. It is a personal decision. When my grandmother was young, women in Iran weren’t allowed to wear hijab. All of a sudden, the police could come up and tear it right off women’s heads, so they would look mod
ern, so they would look Western.” She shook her head. “My grandmother didn’t leave the house for years. She was too embarrassed. You understand? For her, it was strange to go out uncovered. It would be as if the police told you you could no longer wear a shirt.”

  “No,” I said, still thinking it through. “It’s not like wearing a shirt.”

  “How is the difference?”

  “Because men have to wear shirts too.”

  “Not at swimming. Not at the beach. You see? If all at once there was a rule, here in the United States, that men and women could both swim topless, some women would choose to go topless, no doubt, but most, I think, would choose to keep their tops.” She put her hand to her chest. “I choose to wear hijab because it is pleasing to God.” She made a slicing motion with her hand. “But it should be my choice.”

  I nodded. That very last part made sense. But only that last part. I didn’t want to get into the rest of it with her, the pleasing to God part. I’d been around enough religion to know you couldn’t talk sense with people about it. They were going to think what they thought.

  The waiter came back, and we went quiet. As soon as he set down my Diet Coke, I took a big long gulp and smiled at her. I could drink as much as I wanted. It wasn’t her business.

  She blew across the top of her coffee to cool it, but didn’t say anything.

  “Where’s your sister now?” I asked.

  “Nevada.” She set down her coffee and her lips went tight. “She registered. She did everything she was supposed to do, and now her whole family, her husband, her children, they’re all in Nevada, along with all my Muslim friends, including those who never wore hijab in this country, or who thought they belonged here through and through, or who came here because they wanted to be free. Free to decide for themselves how to please God.” She said free both times like the word tasted bad in her mouth. “And including people who were born here, whose families have been here for generations. They are all detained in Nevada, it is told for their protection, because it is too dangerous for them to be free.”

  “It got pretty dangerous for everybody,” I said, and I could see that she got my point. She didn’t look mad, though. She stared down at the empty place between her knife and fork like she felt sorry for the whole world.

  By the time our food came, I was thinking that I really wasn’t doing anything so bad if I was just getting her out of the country so she could go back to wearing a scarf over her hair if it meant that much to her. Probably she was telling the truth when she’d said she hadn’t hurt anyone, and that she didn’t plan to. So really, I was helping everybody out, including the United States, by getting her up to Canada. That was where she wanted to be, and there’d be one less Muslim down here. No harm, no foul.

  “See, that’s why I don’t like religion,” I said, taking a bite of pancake. “It makes people act crazy.”

  That was the truth. I once saw a pastor on television saying that gay people should be killed because that’s what the Bible said. And he meant it. You could hear it in his voice, like he really felt he needed to go out and murder innocent gay people because that’s what Leviticus said he should do. It would have been bad enough if he was just some lunatic screaming on a street corner. But he wasn’t. He was wearing a nice suit and tie, and he was a real pastor of a real church in Colorado. And a lot of people were listening to him, I guess thinking that would make them better Christians.

  I reached for more syrup. “If you ask me, the world would be a better place if there weren’t any religion at all. A whole lot of people would have one less reason to kill other people.” Even as I said it, a part of me thought, but they’d just come up with another reason. Still, I thought I was being nice, showing Chloe that when I said I didn’t like religion, I didn’t just mean hers. But she crossed her arms and frowned.

  “What about the people who just gave us the ride here?” She pointed vaguely out the window. “The woman said it was for Jesus.”

  Well, yeah, I thought. They were fine. I guess religion made some people nicer. Or maybe they were just nice to begin with. Caleb was Christian, after all, and he’d never want to kill anybody, or even hurt anyone’s feelings. And the Sunday school teacher who was so nice to Caleb, she seemed like a good person. And Martin Luther King, Jr. He was way better than I’d ever be, to say the least. But so many religious people were messed up, wanting to force everybody to follow rules that didn’t always make a lot of sense and frequently made people miserable.

  “Well,” I said, “I think it usually causes more problems than it helps. Personally, for myself, I don’t believe in God.”

  She nodded. From the look on her face, I could have just told her I was left-handed. She didn’t seem at all upset. But that was the kind of thing I could say if I wanted to make Aunt Jenny cry. And I thought Muslims were supposed to freak out even more.

  “That makes me an infidel, right? You’re supposed to want to rid the earth of me?” I tilted my head and smiled. “Make me a slave or something?” I knew that from Aunt Jenny’s news shows.

  She held up her hand. “Yes, yes,” she said. “I am familiar with all of this. I am to strike off your head and the very tips of your fingers.”

  That sounded like a quote. I glanced at my fingers. “That the Koran?”

  “It is a mistranslation of the Koran. It ignores the context of war.” She waved her hand like she was refusing an offer. “When others incline toward peace, Muslims must incline toward peace. The Koran clearly forbids harming anyone unless in self-defense. It commands us to repel evil with what is better. To exercise patience and self-restraint. To encourage kindness and compassion. Not just with other Muslims, but with all.”

  We stared at each other. She rubbed her ear.

  “Hmm,” I said, pushing my plate away. I hoped she got it was a polite way of saying I was still thinking things over. All those last lines sounded nice, but apparently there was plenty in there that made at least a few Muslims kill innocent people in airplanes and grocery stores. Then again, I saw an interview once with a Ku Klux Klan guy who said his favorite book was the Bible, and so he was reading the same book that a lot of noncrazy people read, including Caleb, who was about as far as you could get from somebody who would be in the KKK.

  “In any case”—she lifted her chin—“it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

  I squinted. That sounded like another quote. “That’s the Koran too?” Geez, I thought. It really couldn’t make up its mind.

  “Thomas Jefferson.” She raised her coffee mug like she was making a toast, glancing out the window. “That is the apartment you mean?” She put the mug down. “The light over the door is on now.”

  I followed her gaze across the street. “Yeah,” I said. “He’s home.”

  She swallowed, looking scared, but then she closed her eyes for a few seconds, and when she opened them, she seemed calm. She got her wallet out of her bag. “Here,” she said, passing me a five and a twenty. “In case they want you to pay before I come back.”

  I didn’t say anything, but I was thinking she sounded a little overconfident. We didn’t know for sure if she would be coming back. She started to put on her coat, and all of a sudden I wanted to tell her not to go. I wanted to come up with another plan. But there wasn’t any other plan. This was the only way.

  “He’s got a dog,” I said. “You’ll hear it when you knock.”

  She looked up from her zipper.

  “And it’s a pit. Just so you know.”

  She tilted her head. “A pit?”

  “A pit bull. You know, the kind with the super strong jaw? It’s a fighting dog. The breed is, I mean. Or it can be. They’re not all bad. They get trained to be mean. Some of them are really sweet.”

  She looked like she couldn’t move. Her hand stayed on her zipper.

  “Matt’s isn’t a fighter. I don’t think it is,” I said. “And it’s really w
ell-trained. It just stands in between him and you and looks up at you like, you know, it would do something to you if he told it to. But I don’t see why he would. He’s expecting you. Or he’s expecting someone. And you’re gonna give him money.”

  She closed her eyes again, and this time she kept them closed. I felt bad for making her so scared. I just didn’t want her to be surprised.

  “It’ll be fine,” I said. “I was fine when I went. The dog didn’t do anything to me.” I waited a moment, remembering. “But just get in and out as fast as you can. And don’t drink anything he offers you. Even water.”

  She opened her eyes, and she looked so scared right then I knew I should just shut up. I was being paranoid, probably. But Tess had meant that warning when she gave it.

  “Here,” I said. I unzipped the pocket of my backpack and pulled out my pepper spray. “Take this with you. This is how you unlock it, and make sure this arrow part is facing away from you. And you hold it real far from your own face, like this.” I glanced around quick to make sure no one was looking, and held the sprayer out like a gun. “And then after you press this part down, you turn around and run, and try not to breathe in for a while.”

  She whispered something under her breath, something with a szhhh sound in it. But she took the pepper spray and put it in her coat pocket.

  “You won’t need it,” I said. “Don’t even get it out unless something crazy happens.” I wasn’t sure if I should add that I meant if something crazy happened with just Matt P. or his dog—that’s when she should get out the pepper spray. If the police or Homeland Security was the crazy thing that happened, she shouldn’t get out the pepper spray, unless she wanted to be dead.