“Brother of my assistant, what do you think?” Mr. Khoury asks, motioning at Nuah.
Nuah poses for Muhammad, his hands resting on the hilt, sword pointing down, the fez sitting precariously on his hair. I take another picture.
Nuah takes the cap off and places it on the table along with the sword. “Here comes the man.”
He advances toward someone and brings him forward. It’s the monster.
“This guy here is helping fix up my recitation of the Qur’an.” Nuah’s arm is around him as he turns him toward Muhammad. “On his own time.”
“Dude, I know this guy from when we were kids. You’re the one that’s just getting caught up with the scene. This guy here is gold.” Muhammad shakes the monster’s hand.
“Thanks for getting your uncle to set me up to lead Taraweeh, man.” The monster crosses his arms. I move behind Mr. Khoury and turn to look at the wall hangings draped on the dividers backing his stand. My eyes travel along the black lines of a gridlike design.
Muhammad told Amu to ask the monster to lead prayers at the mosque?
“No problem. Who else but you? You ready?” Muhammad.
“Yup, pretty much. Gotta brush up in the next couple of weeks.”
“Me too, brushing up before Ramadan.” Nuah’s voice. “Got the Study Quran to prep.”
“Don’t think he’ll need that, bro. He’s got it memorized.” Muhammad, laughing. “The whole Qur’an, now that’s something. Not a lot of us can say that.”
“The whole book? Wow.” Mr. Khoury moves in his excitement. I shift along with him, now looking at a navy-and-burgundy wall hanging. “Qul’li ma dha ya’qulu al-Qur’anu ani’l Yasue?”
No one says anything. Then Muhammad: “He’s asking you to tell him what the Qur’an says about Jesus.”
The monster doesn’t answer.
“You know Arabic, right?” Mr. Khoury moves again.
“I’m not Arab; I’d have to read up on it.” The monster, his voice lowered.
“I can tell you what the Qur’an says about Jesus. . . .” Nuah, but Mr. Khoury interrupts him.
“So you memorized a book, but you don’t know what it says?” Mr. Khoury sounds incredulous. “A book you say God sent?”
“It’s a lot of work, to memorize it all. People go to classes for years.” Muhammad.
“But that’s like my boss gives me instructions, and I just memorize them. I don’t even know what the instructions are. And then my boss asks me if I did my job, and I recite his instructions back to him!” Mr. Khoury is waving his arms. I feel the moving air they generate. “My boss would fire me!”
“Lots of people do understand the Arabic. Some who memorize the Qur’an may not, but maybe for them it’s a first step in their study.” Muhammad. “Anyway, many read the English translation. We do know what the Qur’an says.”
“So this gold guy here who memorized what he doesn’t understand, what is the big deal? You agree or don’t?”
Mr. Khoury presses on, and I slip through a gap in the rear dividers.
? ? ?
On the way home, Fizz points out a girl who gets on the bus with us and whips off her hijab as soon as she sits down, stuffing it into her bag.
“So why does she wear it?” Fizz wonders. “I feel like asking her that. If she doesn’t like it, be like Miriam. Miriam goes around everywhere without hijab, even the mosque.”
“Maybe that girl does like it,” I say. “Just not wearing it everywhere. Maybe she’s gaining strength by wearing it to the mosque.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Fizz says. “Choose it or don’t choose it. Don’t sit on a fence. Admit it—that’s weak.”
“Maybe,” I say, clicking through my camera, looking at some awful pictures of hookahs and plastic swords, thinking, What’s wrong with being weak?
I mean, I know Fizz isn’t weak, except when facing her mother, but I know I can go wobbly-kneed in all kinds of scenarios.
I show her the picture of Nuah posing with the fez.
Fizz smiles. “Nuah. He goes to my school, a junior, new here. By the way, thanks for sending Farooq over. I was swamped at the table. Maybe girls started coming because of him.”
No comment.
? ? ?
Fizz gets off, and I go on to my creaky building in the midst of a congregation of old condominiums, neither retro cool nor demolition ready—yet. Ms. Kolbinsky is leaning on the fence by the entrance, eating grapes from a bag. I wave at her, and she offers me some grapes. I trade two for a samosa from the box I’m bringing back for Mom.
“My daughter, she still didn’t do the papers.” Ms. Kolbinsky takes a bite out of the samosa. I watch her reaction.
“Not too spicy for you?”
“No, I make spicy food. This is good spicy.”
“Mr. Ram likes spicy food.”
“Maybe I can cook him something.”
“Ms. Kolbinsky, I’ll give you the new form I got you. Maybe tomorrow.”
She waves good-bye with her bag of grapes.
Muhammad stayed back to clean up at the mosque and Mom’s not home, so I let myself into an empty apartment. I have some quiet time to e-mail Amu the picture of himself with Darren and the one with Julie getting henna, the only good pictures I took today.
As I clear the bed to study, I think about Amu’s pointed remark about Muhammad staying with him. That bothers me, but not because my brother won’t be living here with us. I’m too used to him not being around. It bothers me because Amu looked disappointed in me.
? ? ?
The monster is going to lead Ramadan prayers.
I see his hands raised in takbeer to begin prayers, with everyone standing behind him in neat rows.
The same hands.
I block it by slamming my backpack on the desk.
I take out my math textbook and toss it on the bed.
I hate him. People think he’s great: Fizz, Amu, Nuah.
My brother thinks he’s great.
Sinking to the floor, I rest my head on the bed.
Why do I have to bear his evil in me?
It’s his evil. So why is it me that’s hurting?
SAINT
Mom knocks as I’m putting on my hijab to go to the restaurant with Muhammad and Saint Sarah. I didn’t want to go before, but I’m really dreading it now that I found out Muhammad is in love with Farooq. He set up the Ramadan gig for him.
“Thanks for going with them. I appreciate it,” Mom says. She sets a laundry basket on my bed. It’s my hand washables, ironed and folded.
“Can I borrow some of your scarf pins, Mom? I can’t use my magnet ones on this scarf. Too thick.”
“Sure. You know where they are, same place.” She starts opening my drawers to put away my clothes.
“Mom, I’ll do that. See, this is another reason why I refuse to share a room.” I turn to her at the door. “You’re always babying me.”
She lets go of an open drawer and raises her hands as if she’s facing a cop with his gun drawn. “Just trying to help you because you’re busy, but if you want me to leave, I will.”
I head to the dresser in her room. As I open the junk drawer, a flyer, one end snagged in a crevice in the wood above, unfurls.
MEET YOUR MATCH!
A New Kind of Muslim Marriage Service
Operating in YOUR City on Select Dates
Enjoy dinner and then proceed to a roundtable-style series of introductions to interested, HIGHLY eligible singles in your area.
We welcome everyone!