by Jenny Robson
See, Napoleon was a very short man and that made him so upset that he ended up being Emperor of the whole of France, just so that he could boss people around! Especially tall ones. And I reckon it’s the same for you. But you can feel free to boss me around any time, Faheema. You won’t hear me complaining!
*
So there I sat on your cushion, encircled by half your mom’s garden, feeling a little confused and bewildered.
Then you bent down and whispered in my ears: first my right ear and then my left ear. It was Arabic that you whispered. I recognised the low, open tones from the prayers I had heard you say.
“Okay, Louise, now close your eyes and open your mouth.”
My confusion reached new heights. Maybe you were going crazy. From all the stress or something? But I did what I was told, and the next moment I tasted sugar on my tongue. The sudden sweetness made me smile.
“See, Louise, this is how we name Muslim babies and I’m going to give you a Muslim name: Najmah. It means a shining golden star. And that’s exactly what you are: a shining golden star. So! You are now Najmah – um – Khan. Yes, that’s a good Muslim surname.”
Najmah Khan?!
“Najmah Khan?” I said the name aloud and it felt strange.
“So that’s the problem solved, just like Mr van der Vyfer explained. That’s what my parents want and now I’m giving it to them, you see?” You were piling everything back into your huge bag. “When I go home, I’ll tell my parents I was at the river with Najmah Khan. I’ll say that Najmah Khan is a new girl at school and her family just moved here. And that I think we’re going to be best friends. Then they’ll be happy.”
“Are you sure? Are you sure this is a good idea, Faheema? What if your parents expect to meet Mr and Mrs Khan at the mosque on Friday, since they’ve just moved here?”
But you were adamant: you’d find some way to sort that out. No problem! And now, you said, it was time for me to give you a Christian name so my parents could have what they wanted too. I stared at you, still pretty dazed.
But of course, when you get an idea in your head, you’re like a bulldozer. A very short bulldozer. There’s no point in trying to stand in your way.
“Come on, Louise – sorry, Najmah,” you said. “Concentrate. Get with the programme. How do you guys name babies?”
I laughed. “If you want a Christian name, you have to get your head wet. That’s how we christen babies at our church.”
“Okay, so wet my head. But give me a nice Christian name. Nothing awful. How about Victoria? I’ve always liked the name Victoria.”
Together we left our cosy hideaway and made our way down the river bank to the pool, holding onto roots, holding onto one another. There was no one around to see us. Above our heads, the twin waterfalls hurtled down the rock face. Without any rainbows, though. The sky was still thick with unseasonal clouds.
I scooped up some of the clear, cold water and trickled it over your head. “I christen you Victoria – um – Walker. How about Walker? You know, like our Grade One teacher?”
“Victoria Walker. That will do fine. Vicky for short. Hey, Vicky’s good! Don’t get sticky, Vicky! Don’t take the mickey, Vicky. You’re nicer than Nikki or Ricky, Vicky …!” Water slid down the sides of your smile, following the dents of your dimples.
And of course then we started splashing one another more and more wildly. And I almost fell in, soaking most of my sleeves.
You stopped, suddenly serious. “There is just one problem, Najmah. And I don’t know what we’re going to do about it.”
“What? What now?”
“Well, how am I ever going to make rhymes with your name? Nothing, nothing rhymes with Najmah.”
I laughed. “Well, now you know how I feel! Your name is just hopeless for rhyming. Nothing rhymes with Faheema either.”
“That’s not true. It’s not true at all. What about ‘dreamer’? I often say that to myself: be a dreamer, Faheema. Be a dreamer, Faheema. Especially when I just give up so easily, when I don’t even try to fight for what I want.”
“Well, you haven’t given up this time, Faheema, that’s for sure!”
“No, that’s true. I’ve sorted things out perfectly, haven’t I?”
*
And were you right? Were these name changes going to solve our problems?
Part of me wanted so badly to believe that this was the answer. But another, more sensible part of me already knew there wasn’t much hope: where parents and serious decisions are concerned, there are no easy answers.
When I got home, with my sleeves still soaked through, I explained to my mom that I’d been at the river with my new friend Victoria Walker and we’d had such fun together. We’d laughed and laughed.
“Victoria Walker,” my mom repeated and hardly scolded me at all for being wet.
When my dad came home, I heard him echoing your new name too. He sounded glad, relieved.
“We should have had more faith,” I heard him say as I left the kitchen and he thought I was out of earshot. “I know she was fond of that little Muslim girl. But she’s too big for that sort of thing now. She needs friends from the same background. This Victoria Walker sounds just the ticket.”
*
I wondered how you were getting on at your house. Were your parents also repeating the name “Najmah Khan” as though it were just the ticket?
I wondered too whether you felt uncomfortable like I did. Because we were lying, weren’t we? No matter how many flowers lay around me, no matter how much water dripped down your face, our new names were just one big lie. And it is wrong to lie to your parents, isn’t it? No matter whether you are Christian or Muslim. Even when they make decisions that you think are wrong and unfair.
In our Bible, it says we have to honour our mother and father. That’s one of our Ten Commandments. And doesn’t the Qur’an say something like that too? I bet it does.
13. thalaathata ashr
But I couldn’t ask you about that the next morning. I couldn’t even scribble the question on your homework diary cover. Well, on what little space you’d left there!
I couldn’t even tell you about my new cellphone.
*
That was such a strange thing, the cellphone. I was already in bed, just about to switch off my bedside light and go to sleep. Then Mom and Dad came into my room with this fancy packet.
Dad said, “Louise, we were going to wait till your birthday. But maybe you deserve this right now.”
Inside the packet was a brand new cellphone. Brilliant! With polyphonic ring tones and a one-megapixel camera! And built-in FM radio. The works! And all mine! Part of me was so excited I could have jumped up and down on my bed like a little kid.
“Mom! Dad! Thank you! Thank you! This is just the best!” I yelled and gave them both a huge hug. They left my room with their arms around each other. And it was already charged and ready to use so I set my alarm time on it and put it on my bedside table. So that it would be the first thing I saw when I woke up in the morning.
And yet … and yet part of me felt very uncomfortable. Were my parents giving me this as some kind of reward? Because I’d got myself a new friend with a name like Victoria Walker? Because I’d replaced my old friend with a name like Faheema Majait? Was that why they thought I deserved it? That was the word Dad had used: deserve.
But there was no way I could ask them. I know you think that in our house I can say lots of things to my parents that you would never say. But I’m telling you, Faheema, I could never ask a question like that.
I went to sleep with that on my conscience, wondering still how you were feeling about our lie. Or perhaps in the end you had decided not to tell your parents about your new friend, Najmah Khan. That was also possible.
*
But I couldn’t ask you about that either. Because the next day you were absent from school. For the first time that whole year. Almost for the first time since you started school. Even though your parents don’t l
ike you missing school. Even though that day was going to be our first proper netball practice with Miss Kometsi. And we were both really looking forward to it.
Were you sick maybe, from sitting on that damp ground in our clearing, and from having water poured over your head?
Or was it something else, something worse? Maybe someone had seen us together after all, down at the pool edge, splashing and laughing. Maybe someone had told your dad.
At break, Susan de Lange and Jackie Greenwood and Kelly Jackson called me over to join them. It was kind of them, I suppose. They were talking about the Danish cartoons. On and on.
“That’s what my mom says: can’t they take a joke? I mean, we make jokes about priests and nuns and about God sending down lightning, even though we’re Catholics. So what’s the difference? What’s the big deal?”
“Yeah. I reckon they just don’t have a sense of humour at all. Just look at Mariam. When do you ever see her smiling or laughing? She just sits in class glaring at everyone. Well, except for her Muslim buddies, of course.”
Then Kelly told us what her stepfather had said: “Who are they to be self-righteous? When they detonate bombs on public transport systems full of innocent people. When they smash planes into skyscrapers. What are a few silly newspaper cartoons compared to that? Who are they to demand that other people behave decently? What a bunch of hypocrites! Absolute hypocrites!”
Susan and Jackie seemed to think that Kelly’s stepfather was dead right. But I didn’t join in the discussion. I listened for a while, hoping they would change the subject quickly. But they didn’t seem to get it – that they were criticising Muslims when my best friend in the whole world was Muslim. So how did they think that made me feel?
In the end, I went to sit at the netball courts alone. I wasn’t even looking forward to the netball practice any more. Without you there, what fun would it be?
I was right. It wasn’t much fun at all.
*
I was so worried about you, Faheema. I wanted to phone you on my brand-new cellphone the minute I got home after practice. Your name was already on my list of contacts. My very first contact, in fact! Just as well I knew your landline number off by heart. I wanted the very first proper call I made on it to be to you. But what if your mother answered instead and recognised my voice?
You weren’t at school on Friday either. I struggled through my work all alone. I couldn’t concentrate. All I was conscious of was the empty desk beside me. Mr van der Vyfer’s Maths was a blurred nightmare. I don’t think I got a single sum correct.
On Friday evening, I heard the Call to Prayer from the mosque sounding across the streets and houses. I waited a while and then I phoned your house. What I was thinking was that if you were sick, you wouldn’t be at the mosque with your parents, would you? You’d be alone at home if you were sick. The phone rang and rang. I could picture it ringing there in your house, on the telephone table beside a bowl of your mother’s roses. Beneath the wooden plaque with its intricate design of Arabic words: Ya ayyuha allatheena amanoo …
No one answered.
So that meant you weren’t sick enough to stay home from Prayers. But did that mean something else was wrong?
*
That Sunday was the day I exploded.
Can you believe it, Faheema – me exploding? Screaming and yelling at my parents and banging the kitchen table with my fists? You know me, Faheema. You know how I hate people shouting and being angry. But that Sunday it was me doing the shouting. Me! It shocked me even more than it shocked my parents, I think. And it was all because of you.
You, and Pastor Drayer’s sermon that Sunday.
There we were in church, my mom and dad with me sitting beside them. I was feeling a little sad that Kyle wasn’t with us. I always missed Kyle most on Sunday mornings.
And Pastor Drayer was reading from the Bible: “Love your neighbour as you love yourself.”
I wasn’t really listening. I was too busy thinking about you. Hoping with all my heart that you’d be back at school on Monday. On either side of me, my parents were nodding. They always nod when the pastor reads from the Bible.
Then Pastor Drayer started speaking about loving others, not just friends and relatives, but everyone else as well. “It’s pretty easy to love our friends and our family, isn’t it? You don’t need to be a Christian to get that right. That’s no big deal, as our youngsters would put it.” The pastor smiled and Mom and Dad smiled in answer. Inside me, there was this sudden surge of anger that took me by surprise. I mean, completely by surprise. It was so strong and so real, not mixed with any other emotion.
I clenched my jaws to keep silent. I tried to keep my breathing calm.
“No,” continued our pastor, “to show a true Christian spirit, we are required to love all people: those we disagree with, those who have harmed us. Jesus specifically instructs us: ‘Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you.’ That is the true test of our Christian commitment: do we treat all people with kindness and compassion? All people?”
While my parents nodded on and on, my anger grew until it was like a raging torrent inside my chest. Like our waterfall after those heavy rains. Wild and disturbed and crashing about, not knowing which way to turn with all that power inside it.
Even the closing hymn didn’t calm me down.
Love divine, all loves excelling,
Joy of heav’n to earth come down …
*
In the car going home, I sat in the backseat with my teeth clenched tightly. In the front, Mom and Dad were still discussing the sermon.
“Makes you think, doesn’t it,” said Dad.
“I just love the way Pastor Drayer preaches,” said Mom. “It feels more like he’s having a chat with you over a cup of tea.”
By the time we sat down to Sunday dinner, I was so angry that I could hardly eat. The roast potato seemed to stick in my throat.
“Louise? What’s wrong, love?” my mom asked. “Are you feeling sick? You haven’t been yourself all morning. Or are you just missing your brother?”
And that’s when I exploded. I couldn’t believe the way I was shouting, slamming my fork down on the table. Bashing my fists on each side of my plate. I just couldn’t control myself. I didn’t even care that I couldn’t control myself.
“How can you sit in church and nod about loving people and caring for people?” I yelled. “And meanwhile you are so mean. You know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about Faheema, the way you’ve treated her. You banned her from our house like she’s a leper or something! And for what? She never did anything wrong! She never did anything except be my best friend. And make me laugh. And care about me. Why are you so horrible to her? Why do you blame her for stuff other people did – people she doesn’t even know? And then you sit nodding while Pastor Drayer talks about loving people! You’re hypocrites, that’s what! HYPOCRITES!”
Oh, and the eye messages were flashing back and forth between my parents over their Sunday dinner plates. But I didn’t care! I didn’t care if they grounded me or took away my new cellphone or stopped me listening to music for a month.
I ran into my bedroom and slammed the door. Hard and loud. I sat on my bed cuddling Faheema Two and waiting while my hands stopped shaking and my breathing slowly became normal again.
*
It was quite a long while later that my mom came to my bedroom. She sat down beside me and hugged me against her and stroked my hair.
She said quietly, “Louise, sweetheart, what you said is true. We have been wrong, very wrong, I’m ashamed to admit. You tell Faheema that she is welcome in our home. Any time.”
What a brilliant moment that was, hearing that and having my mom hug me so tight!
“And Dad?” I asked.
“Dad understands too, Louise,” said Mom. “He’s also feeling ashamed. Even if he’s having a hard time saying so. You know your dad.” She gave a soft laugh.
Actually,
I was feeling a bit ashamed too. Like I’d got my own way by being a total brat! I told Mom I was sorry for being rude and for shouting. She nodded and kissed me on the forehead. And then left the room, closing the door gently.
I picked up my cellphone. I wanted to phone your house straightaway, to tell you this wonderful news. Maybe I could say it was Najmah Khan calling: that way you wouldn’t get into trouble. But in the end I decided I would wait till Monday morning. Yes, what a great way to start a new week!
I would scribble it right there on the front cover of my Maths book: Hey, Faheema. How about coming to my house this afternoon? Just till your madrassa lesson starts? My mom says it’s FINE. My dad too. Yes, you heard right!!!!!!!!!!!
And then on Tuesday afternoon maybe you could come to my house again and help me and Mom bake cookies, because Mom had a new recipe she wanted to try out. Because you’d be feeling more comfortable by then.
*
Late into the night, I could hear my parents talking in their bedroom. Mostly my mom.
“I’m glad she can speak her mind, Mike. I’m sorry, but I don’t want her bottling things up. She needs to know she can talk to us about anything. Especially now that she’s a teenager. And you can’t deny it, Mike: she has a point, a very valid point. How can we claim to be Christians if we don’t follow the teachings in the Bible? If we don’t obey the words of Jesus when it doesn’t suit us?”
Half asleep, with Faheema Two snuggled against my shoulder and my cellphone close by on my bedside table, I still managed to smile. It was nice to hear Mom talk about me that way. It made me feel special and important, like what I thought about things really mattered. The way you have always made me feel, Faheema.
Always.
14. arba’ata ashr
But you weren’t at school on Monday morning either.
Now I was really worried for you. Maybe I was way off kilter imagining that your absence had to do with your dad finding out about us meeting at Gap Falls? Maybe it was something else entirely. Had something awful happened in your family? Or to your grandparents down in Cape Town? You would be so upset and there was no way I could even reach you to let you know I was thinking of you.
