Chapter 21
Forest Green
I don’t move, not quite understanding the words he’s saying.
He finally looks up at me, eyes wide. There is more than anxiety happening behind his eyes, and there’s a determination in the angles of his face. Still, I can see these words terrify him.
“Wh-what?” I ask.
He clears his throat. “I’ve been thinking about it for so long. Way before I met you. And I’ve researched and read people’s experiences, and it just clicked with me. I just—I liked what I read, so I researched more.”
My breaths come in and out in short puffs. “I—what?”
His shoulders slump, and the red deepens on his cheeks. “I thought you’d be happy. I thought—” He looks away, one hand covering his face, angling away from me.
“No,” I say quickly. “No, no, I am. I just—are you sure?”
He turns toward me, and there’s no more frenzy in his expression.
“I’m sure,” he says steadily. “This isn’t a decision I made overnight.
I told you I was raised Confucian, and there’s so much I like about it.
The ideologies are something I believe in.
I think everyone would agree on them. To live as a good person.
But I always wondered about this universe.
How things came to be and what happens after.
You know if the percentage of oxygen was one degree higher, we’d all burn? And if it was lower, we’d suffocate.”
His voice becomes dreamlike. “So I started looking a long, long time ago. In ninth grade, we had a project on different countries and their histories. I got Algeria but somehow fell into a research hole going through different Muslim countries. I watched videos of mothers from Bosnia and Iraq and how they were after their children died in genocides. Their steel strength mixed with the grief. I read stories of people who lost everything, but they kept saying alhumdulilah.” He looks at me to check the pronunciation, and I nod.
“Algeria is called the country of the million and a half martyrs. I wanted to know why. To find out about these people who didn’t just die for their country but for their religion as well.
And it’s the same in every Muslim country.
” He goes quiet, staring faraway. “It made my world bigger, you know? I’ve never believed in anything this fiercely.
I want to. I looked more into Islam. I saw so many similarities with what Confucianism believes in. ”
He takes in a deep breath, closing his eyes for a second.
“Bà Ngo?i raised me to think for myself. She never forced me to practice the way she does, but she would let me decide. And I always joined her. I liked how it brought us closer. You know there are Vietnamese Muslims? Not just converts but a whole ethnic minority community called Cham. I mean, there are Cham who practice Hinduism, but the Muslim Cham are Muslim. They’re both Vietnamese and Muslim.
” He swallows hard. “I was… worried being Muslim would replace being Vietnamese, but that’s not a thing. I am both. I mean, I can be both.”
He glances at me, his Adam’s apple dipping.
It’s as if someone has raised the contrast because all the colors come back full force for one glorious minute.
I see the striations the green makes, the slow heartbeat of the red, the endless horizon of the blue.
The yellow in his hair that reminds me of dandelions, and his brown eyes that reflect the sunlight to create an amber shade.
And that sunrise-orange color of his. He’s incredibly beautiful in this moment.
I realize I’ve always seen him as gorgeous; I just never put the thought into words.
My breath vanishes. I stand, reaching out a hand toward the colors, and they wash me whole in all the hues.
“Jihad?” Jamie asks.
I blink, distracted. “Don’t you see it?” I ask in a hushed voice.
He looks around. “What?”
“The colors.”
Realization dawns on him. “What do you see?”
I try to capture every second of this. “Everything. Some are so bright. Others so deep. I see every little change in them. The brown wood on that easel isn’t just one color.
It’s many different shades. But every main color flows differently.
Like musical notes.” I tear my gaze away from them to look at him.
He’s watching with me an expression I don’t really know what to call.
But it’s soft and gentle, and it’s been so long since someone looked at me like that. “I can see you. All of you.”
He smiles. “What’s my color?”
My heart stutters. “Orange. Like the sunrise.”
His eyes light up. “What do you see?”
“It’s red in your heart and soul but branches out into orange. It’s a rich shade. I’ve only seen it once during the summer. A sunrise, and my whole room was bathed in orange. It was so warm.”
His lips part, and he takes a step toward me.
I jump. “I’m sorry, you were telling me about how you decided to convert.”
He shakes his head. “No, this just makes me feel sure of my decision.”
I clear my throat. “You’re right about that, you know.
I mean that being Muslim doesn’t make you any less Vietnamese.
I’m Syrian and Muslim. But you know people, even good ones, look at us and think we’re confined to one space.
That we can only exist in one box because they think being Muslim means being limited.
It’s an unconscious bias. As if being Muslim is some sort of hurdle to overcome or something.
Or a crutch. It’s condescending.” I exhale loudly, so many moments in my life replaying in my mind.
In middle school, we were asked to present on something we liked.
I decided to talk about the architecture of Alhambra that my ancestors built.
My teacher was surprised I knew anything about history.
I think of how shocked Linda was when she found out Baba has a degree in civil engineering.
Or Mason and his poster of Muhammad Ali.
It’s always this little stunned expression before their eyes clearly say, Well, they’re not like others.
“You’ll meet so many people with preconceived ideas of how they expect you to act,” I tell Jamie, even though I know this is more of a reality for me as a hijabi than it will be for him.
My whole image screams Muslim, while he has the privilege of ambiguity.
Not that he wouldn’t face discrimination.
But it wouldn’t be the way I face it. “And when you shatter those ideas, they will pat you on the back for not being the stereotype. Because fundamentally they think the stereotype is what’s normal.
This happens with everyone. Even with allies.
” I breathe in deeply, hold the air in my lungs before letting it go.
“You will spend so much time trying to convince people you’re just a human being. ”
He nods slowly. “I know.”
I smile, and it feels effortless.
“I’ve been looking for peace for so long,” he says quietly.
“I found it with Bà Ngo?i and the farm, but it comes and goes, you know? I don’t have it in New York.
I thought it would be a chance for my parents to make up for the past.” He looks suddenly alarmed.
“Not that they did anything wrong. I get why they work. But I thought it would be the start of something. I think…I think I will find my peace in converting.” He laughs lightly, running a hand over his face. “Just saying it makes me happy.”
I stare at him for a beat. “Can I ask why now? Why today?”
He thinks about it for a second. “I’ve been postponing it for a while with no real reason.
But I woke up this morning, and I just… decided.
Why am I putting it off when I’ve been thinking about it for so long?
Am I waiting for a miracle to fall from the sky?
” He laughs. “Well, a miracle did happen. Your murals.”
He goes quiet, closes his eyes, his expression raw and honest.
My chest expands with a mouthful of air. The colors are back and they’re beautiful. There’s an added richness, a deepened color like I can see every atom making them up.
“How can I help?” I ask quietly.
His eyes flutter open. “Could you take me to the mosque? I know that’s where you convert.”
Something’s changed in his face, and I don’t know what it is. Something unexplainable. It’s like the curtain has dropped. I can see him whole.
“Yeah,” I say in a hoarse voice. “Yeah, I can.”
We’re silent on our walk to the mosque. We go to one closest to the school. It’s not one my family and I attend. Even though we’re not talking, Jamie grows quieter; it’s like he’s not breathing.
I glance at him. He’s looking straight ahead, studying everything around him like he’s seeing it for the first time.
I can’t imagine what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling.
But the orange in his soul glows like a fire opal.
It’s a rare sunny autumn day, and the breeze rushing past our silhouettes feels like it’s walking with us to the mosque.
If my great-aunt were here, she’d tell us the trees are congratulating Jamie, sending prayers to the heavens.
I try to hold on to this moment. It’s a happy one, but I know they don’t last as long as you want them to.
I memorize the color of his peacoat, a navy blue, and that one ray of sun that turns his blond hair golden.
The wisp of his curls along his cheekbones.
That one bee snuggling on a flower we pass by.
The mosque is in a plain building, no domes or minarets, and my heart aches that he’s not doing this in a Muslim country where mosques are a works of art.
This one is just as precious, but his conversion deserves to be celebrated in a way that rings loud across the skies. Somewhere like the Umayyad Mosque.