RESOLVE
I don’t know why I agreed to go. All day the decision haunts me, and I sit through my afternoon classes in even more of a fog than usual. The teachers don’t notice. I’m one more foreign student in a district teeming with the children of immigrants, lesser embassy staff, and expat employees of budget-strapped NGOs who can’t afford the rent closer in to the city. We are transient students with heavy accents who show up one term and vanish the next. We are invisible in class.
“Can anyone comment on the particular importance of the first ten amendments to the Constitution?” The teacher’s eyes skim over those of us in the classroom who can speak most personally about the absence of such rights. I do not raise my hand, nor do the two other students in the room who come from elsewhere. I know very little about them—rather than bonding over our shared experiences, we repel one another, as though afraid our foreignness might metastasize if we get too close.
Only one student volunteers; she traces the words with her index finger as she reads from her textbook. “The Bill of Rights establishes fundamental personal freedoms and limits the role of central government.”
I’m angry with myself for being nervous about the prospect of an American dance. Such a silly, petty concern. But I don’t know how to act. I don’t know how to dance, at least not in the way television shows me it’s done here.
I do have a fluttery thrill at the thought of doing something that would horrify my uncle, though. He once slapped my mother hard enough to make her mouth bleed for allowing me to swim in a bathing suit while there were male visitors at the house. He tried to hit me, too, but she stepped between us and absorbed the second blow—the one meant for me. She spit a bloody spray at his feet and dragged me away, telling me to ignore him even as he hissed ugly threats at her. I waited for her to tell my father that evening, but she never did. “Your father has bigger problems to address with his brother than a little quarrel about clothing,” she’d explained.
Almost as if she had predicted what would happen.
The memory strengthens my resolve. I will go. I will dance.
“Come on, class. No one has any thoughts on this? Really?” The irritation in Mrs. Moore’s voice draws my attention back to the moment. She looks at the clock on the wall and sighs. “We’re all stuck with this topic for the next fifteen minutes, so someone might as well answer. Let’s try the question another way: Why do we even have amendments?” She looks hopefully at the front row, but no one responds.
“Is it because the Founding Fathers made so many mistakes? Is the Constitution just so screwed up that we have to keep going in to fix it?” She switches tactics: mild sarcasm now—American civics–style.
“Yeah. They did screw up.” Someone in the third row finally speaks. “Especially the part where they tried to ban alcohol. That was stupid.” He grins and twirls his pen around his fingers until someone from the other side of the room shouts back.
“That wasn’t the Founding Fathers, dumbass. That was one of the amendments.”
Both comments draw laughs, and the teacher looks ready to give up.
“It’s just … change.”
Mrs. Moore’s eyebrows go up when I speak, and then she nods. “Okay, let’s talk about that a little more. What kind of change? Are people so different now than they were back in 1787 that we need completely different laws?” She gestures for me to answer.
I don’t want to, but now everyone is staring. “No, n-not exactly,” I stammer. “It’s more an issue of—” My vocabulary fails me under the weight of the attention. “Context.”
But the teacher won’t let me stop there. “Continue,” she says.
I fray the edges of my blank notebook while I speak. “I don’t think it’s that people have changed so much. I mean, they have, obviously. But sometimes it’s more that things around us change so much that something that might have seemed unimaginable all of a sudden feels … inevitable.”
“In-ev-i-ta-ble.” I hear someone imitate my voice, high-pitched and haughty, and I wish I hadn’t said anything at all.
“Well put,” Mrs. Moore says, which makes it even worse. I feel my face flush and I clutch unconsciously at the veil I no longer wear, then sink deep into my seat until the bell rings.
But even as I hurry out, regretting the loss of my classroom invisibility, my mouth forms the liberating word again: context. This new world of mine is neither my then nor my there. If I am to be forced to live in exile from my past, I might as well take advantage of the freedoms my new context offers.
I might as well dance.
OBLIGATIONS
Before homecoming comes another, less celebratory type of dance.
I take the long way home most days, shuffling more than walking. I’ve been learning new streets—every block that becomes familiar expands my world by a fraction. Already I feel more comfortable walking alone here; the space and the freedom are no longer intimidating. My circuitous routes also give me a reason to come home later and later.
Today I should be hurrying, but I’m not. Today Amir and his cousins will be at our apartment. I’m expected to chip through his hatred and make him my friend—a task that feels impossible.
I’ve already decided that I will make only the smallest effort, just enough to appease my mother without actually succeeding, when I see Mr. Gansler once again leaning against our building.
“Laila.” He calls me over. He’s not bothering with the cigarette this time.
I consider ignoring him, but it seems pointless. I have a feeling that “Darren Gansler,” true name unknown, will follow me with his bad luck wherever I go.
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see you here today.”
He raises an eyebrow and studies me for a moment before speaking. “You strike me as an intelligent young woman, Laila. So I probably don’t have to tell you just how important these meetings are for your family.”
There’s a question hiding behind his statement. He wants to find out how much I know. The answer, of course, is not much at all, but I don’t want him to realize that.
His mouth pinches up on one side—not quite a smile—and he crosses his arms over his chest. He’s guessed.
“It looks like I do have to tell you.” He says it in a way that sounds like he wishes he didn’t, and his smirk wilts into a frown. “Laila, I didn’t bring your family here out of the goodness of my heart. You’re here, or at least your mother is here, for a reason. Your mother made a deal the day you all got on the plane. We—the United States government, that is—went to considerable risk to get your family out of your country safely. I offered your mother a way out and guaranteed political refugee status here if she agreed to cooperate.”
I know exactly what he is going to say next before it even comes out of his mouth.
“Her cooperation hasn’t been exactly … perfect.”
I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing out loud. That my mother would not do his bidding should surprise no one. You are more conniving than the devil himself, dearest Yasmin, my father used to tell her. You are truly my secret weapon. His words were always delivered with a kiss—he admired her cunning.
Mr. Gansler does not.
“As I said, Laila, you seem like an intelligent girl.” He speaks quietly, as if he doesn’t want anyone to overhear. “So I’m sure you understand just how important it is that your family remain here in the U.S. Obviously I can’t guarantee your safety if you go back home. No one can. I’d hate to see that happen.”
I manage to keep my expression neutral, but I can’t breathe. The threat is clear. Do what he wants, or he’ll send us back. We all know that can’t happen. It just can’t.
Slowly, my breath returns, but I can still hear my heart thudding in my ears like a war drum. I study him before responding—this bland, ill-pressed-trouser-wearing man. His expression is mild and open, almost friendly. As if he’d just asked me about the weather, or how I liked school.
I hate him, if only for his proximity to our suffering.
I pull my shoulders back and stand as tall as I can, wishing that for once I could tower over someone. I make no effort to conceal my disgust. “Whatever agreement my mother made, she made it on the day she watched my father die. You were there. You heard the mob chanting outside the gates. What wouldn’t she have agreed to? What choice did she have?”
Mr. Gansler doesn’t answer. He has said enough, and he sees that I understand him. He offers only a small apologetic nod and then walks away.
I’m motionless as I watch him leave, afraid to test my wobbly, weak knees. I don’t know exactly what my mother agreed to, but for now it doesn’t matter. I saw in his eyes that he means to carry out the threat. Mr. Gansler has transferred the burden of her agreement to me, and I have no choice but to comply.