Chapter 5 Salma #2
Growing up, Ami often suggested getting a job to help.
We were at school all day, and she didn’t have that much to do.
She could easily work part-time at the local market.
Mr. Miller needed help. But each time Abu refused to give his permission.
They would manage. His wife’s job was in the house.
This went on until he took that job as an office manager in one of the doctor’s offices.
It didn’t last long, and soon enough Abu was back to driving taxis.
But in that window when it wasn’t clear if we were moving forward or backward, Abu relented and let Ami get a job at the local tailor’s shop, where she sat side by side with Louise and got an education in all things American.
Seeing through the eyes of other people is one of my character flaws.
I sat next to Abu and felt sorry for everyone.
I felt sorry for the poor girl named Aisha and her looming nuptials.
She had somehow agreed to bear the weight of her parents’ expectations.
But was she happy? Was she being forced into this out of a sense of loyalty or fear of a loss of love?
I felt sorry for Asma and myself. Abu’s criticisms of Asma felt like a personal attack on me.
At the same time, I felt Asma’s betrayal when Abu talked about protecting me, like I was to blame.
I even felt sorry for my parents. One minute we were their children, obedient and living in the microcosm of our family, where all cultural and religious and linguistic rules were known.
The next, we were strangers, living in a world they barely understood, not needing them or wanting them around.
Their influence had waned, if it had ever been there.
Ami returned home late the next morning, her eyebrow nearly denuded from the long drive.
Abu’s voice cut her down, laying the blame for Asma’s permissiveness at her feet.
She was too lax. She had given us too many privileges.
Why did she let me go stay with Asma? Did she know we were going to a party?
What did she think was going to happen? Of course Asma was going to do something bad.
Of course she was going to taint me, as though Asma was an infection and I was the body being infected.
Ami just stood there, her brow getting heavier and heavier.
I could detect one of her migraines descending.
One day, not long after our return, Abu asked me to go get my Quoran.
It had been years since Asma and I sat on the couch, reading our primers timed for Abu’s return home.
By then, we had moved on to reading the Quoran, awkward and stilted because we had no idea of the meaning behind the words we phonetically sounded out.
During middle school, the periods between studying the Quoran grew more infrequent until, eventually, we had stopped reading entirely.
I stayed still, unsure what to do. Abu suggested we read his copy together, and I sat down stiffly next to him on the couch.
I stared at the characters and tried to derive meaning from the words, but it felt pointless.
Then, maybe because he sensed my discomfort, Abu started reciting passages aloud in the soulful, singsong way that the Quoran is recited.
He did not ask me to join him. It was like he just wanted me to bear witness to him.
And in that space, at home, without anyone expecting anything of me other than my presence, I found it beautiful.
The meanings of the words were beside the point.
Was his reading haunted and plaintive, or was it his voice that carried the weight of his burden? I don’t know. All I knew was that I was still needed by my parents’ side. I resolved to do better by them. To honor them and be a better daughter. Listen to them and make them feel not so alienated.
This is why I must approach my memories with caution, because I don’t know what I’ll come upon.
The me of then picked up my copy of the Quoran, the green leather warm to the touch.
The me of now is repelled at the feelings of tenderness I feel at the memory.
Against my better judgment, I have started to look forward to pickup and seeing Marlene.
Since our dinner, since we’ve started becoming friends, I find myself saving little incidents to recount to her later, to make her laugh her big laugh.
My inner voice tells me to be careful and not get attached. Asma tells me to ignore my inner voice.
The other day, a group of stay-at-home moms stood in a circle at pickup, voices rising.
These stay-at-home moms don’t argue. They are educated, rich, hyperactively engaged with their children’s education, and generous with their time, and can be a bit clueless.
But they are never impolite. One strong and authoritative voice emerged.
“Amanda, it is all about the wainscoting.” They are also concerned with things like design and the many ways to spend their money.
Amanda apparently disagreed, and the heated voices returned.
Marlene and I caught each other’s eye and had to turn away, shoulders shaking.
Curriculum night is next week. Doors open ten minutes before the evening’s activities are scheduled to start.
If the doors opened earlier, parents would arrive earlier, their worries and uncertainties rising off them like mist. Parents, especially those of only children or oldest children, will want to pull me aside and ask about how their children are doing in reading, writing, or playing with others.
I will remind them that parent-teacher conferences will be held next month and they are always welcome to come before or after school to discuss their child, but that the purpose of this evening is different.
Parents are welcomed in the gym by the principal and have the opportunity to attend three thirty-minute sessions in their children’s classrooms or one of the specials over the course of the evening.
I will be waiting in my classroom, ready to welcome them.
As assured and as confident as I am speaking to a classroom of children, I am deathly nervous to talk in front of a room of adults.
I am not a public speaker, and standing there, speaking for fifteen minutes, feels like an eternity.
Doing the same thing three times is punishment.
My remarks are generally the same every year.
I will reference the state’s curriculum standards, the enhanced goals of our high-achieving district, and my general philosophy about how children at this age learn—in small chunks of time and not always consciously.
I take some questions, and then it’s time for the next session.
It is not so hard, yet every year, it looms. I prefer the company of children over adults.
But on curriculum night, I must cater to the grown-ups.
It is so easy to see the tiredness and brokenness in them.
There are parents I am certain I would have been able to help if they had been my second-grade student.
On Monday, I ask Kirsten V. and Kristin B.
to stay in from recess for a few minutes to help me.
They preen like they have been chosen for a special privilege.
They are not inherently mean or bad kids.
They have simply been led to believe that they are more special than everyone else and that they deserve the best of everything the world has to offer.
That they, and those who look and act and dress like them, deserve the first, second, and third piece of pie.
Everyone else can fight over the fourth and final piece of pie, and if they don’t get the same amount, well, it is only because they aren’t as smart or hardworking.
They are the embodiment of the stereotype of people born on third base who believe they have hit a home run.
I wish I was conjecturing. I had Kirsten V.
’s older brother two years ago, and I know her family too well.
Her mother is the type to talk about “those kids.” I have thus far resisted the urge to tell her that I am one of those kids.
“What do you need help with, MissCh?” asks Kirsten V.
We assemble our chairs so we are facing each other.
“I wanted to get your thoughts on something. I know that you two hear everything that happens in the grade and on the playground.”
The girls share a glance. They are so proud.
I go on, “I’ve heard that some kids are calling Poppy a not-nice name.”
“Oh no! What are they calling her?” Kirsten V., the leader of the two, asks so falsely that I wonder if her faux innocence works on anyone other than perhaps her parents.
“Some kids are calling her Poopy. The people who are saying this probably think it’s funny, but it’s not. Imagine being a new student in a new school and not knowing anyone. And now imagine if people were to call you something that they knew would be embarrassing. This is incredibly hurtful.”
I remind them of the exercise we do the first week of school where we get to know each other’s names and deconstruct the names by vowels and consonants and learn whether people have been named for a special person in their family.
I do that on purpose to build a sense of community, teach respect and awareness for where they each come from, and establish a baseline so that no one can ever say they didn’t know.
“I haven’t heard that, MissCh,” Kristin B. says nervously.
“Well, I’m glad to hear that. But I’m going to ask you two to keep an ear out for this in the cafeteria, in the bathroom, on the playground. If you hear someone calling Poppy a name other than her own, I expect you to behave as a leader.”
They both look at me dumbly.
“Kristin B., what are things you could do?”
She is the more sensitive of the two, but sensitivity means little when you have been taught from the beginning that you are better than others. She thinks awhile and says, “I could hug her.”