Waris says she’s fat, even though she’s perfectly normal-sized, pinching her thighs so hard they go mottled then showing Yazz her ‘cellulite’, which is non-existent, Waris, it’s just flesh being squeezed so tightly it nearly pops
she sometimes wears sunglasses when there’s no sun – at night and inside buildings
she even tried it on in class, looking fierce and super-cool until one brave lecturer, Dr Sandra Reynolds (call me Sandy, guys and gals), showed she wasn’t the pushover they thought she was when she ordered Waris to take them off unless she had a medical condition and certificate to prove it
or to leave her class
it’s to make myself look fearless, Waris explained to Yazz after they’d treated themselves to a pizza one Saturday lunchtime and were making their way back to campus on the slippery and rainy cobbled streets of the university town where they stood out
or maybe it’s to hide your fear, Yazz suggested, you’re actually feeling fear-ful, the words are separated by a few letters, fear-ful or fear-less, similar but diametrically different, see?
Yazz felt a surge of preternatural wisdom beyond her years
it was one of those moments
Waris looked pensive as they walked on in silence, and then replied, equally sagaciously, perhaps it’s both
in that moment Yazz understood why they got on so well, they were on the same intellectual wavelength
life was different before 9/11, Waris said, as they left the town behind and walked along a busy main road passing big old houses made of thick slabs of grey stone; she was too young to remember the ‘before era’, when her mother said people looked at hijabbed women with surprise, curiosity or pity
then there was the ‘after era’, when her mother said they began to be viewed with a blatant hostility that gets worse every time a jihadist blows white people up, or mows them down in a truck
at times like these Waris braces herself to get even more shoved, spat at and called names such as dirty Arab when I’m not even Arab, Yazz
Waris said it’s crazy that people are so stupid to think over one and a half billion Muslims all think and act the same way, a Muslim man carries out a mass shooting or blows people up and he’s called a terrorist, a white man does the exact same thing and he’s called a madman
both sets are mad, Yazz
I know, Waris, I know
Yazz sees the dirty looks Waris gets when they’re walking through town
she gives dirty looks back on her friend’s behalf
Waris said her grandmother rarely left their council flat in Wolverhampton any more, it was too hard for her to walk the street and get such hostility, and she’s never stopped mourning everything she’s lost
she lived a well-off lifestyle in Mogadishu until 1991, in a family where all the adult men worked in the family dental practice, until they were killed and she fled here with her daughters
these days her grandmother pops prescription pills
she sits in the living room disappearing into herself
until one day she’ll be lost to them for ever
Xaanan, her mother, is completely different, though, she drummed it into us kids that we could either decide to be crushed by the weight of history, and modern-day atrocities, or we could go into warrior pose
Dad works in a factory, Mum has two jobs, the first is working in a refuge for Muslim women and the second is teaching self-defence to women who cover up, so they can learn how to protect themselves from the ‘hijab grab’ and related assaults
she teaches a mixture of Krav Maga, Jiu Jitsu, Aikido and Pencak Silat at the local community centre, Waris said proudly; Waris herself learned mixed martial arts alongside her mother
Yazz and Waris arrive back at the campus and walk down the lane, rain abating, skies clearing, rainbow appearing
they pass the gym with students in sporty gear entering and leaving
they pass the laundry, students in a zombie daze watching the machines rotate or playing with their phones
they pass the arts centre with a gallery and a café inside it selling unaffordable coffee and unaffordable cakes for the posh people who come on to campus to use it
they walk past the blocks of the accommodation quarter with music and weed drifting out, until they get to theirs
they go inside the building and climb the stairs as Waris continues talking, says she’s learned to give as good as she gets if anyone says any of the following
that terrorism is synonymous with Islam
that she’s oppressed and they feel her pain
if anyone asks her if she’s related to Osama bin Laden
if anyone tells her she’s responsible for them being unemployed
if anyone tells her she’s a cockroach immigrant
if anyone tells her to go back to her jihadist boyfriend
if anyone asks her if she knows any suicide bombers
if anyone tells her she doesn’t belong here and when are you leaving?
if anyone asks if she’s going to have an arranged marriage
if anyone asks her why she dresses like a nun
if anyone speaks slowly to her like she can’t speak English
if anyone tells her that her English is really good
if anyone asks her if she’s had FGM, you poor thing
if anyone says they’re going to kill her and her family
you’ve really suffered, Yazz says, I feel sorry for you, not in a patronizing way, it’s empathy, actually
I haven’t suffered, not really, my mother and grandmother suffered because they lost their loved ones and their homeland, whereas my suffering is mainly in my head
it’s not in your head when people deliberately barge into you
it is compared to half a million people who died in the Somali civil war, I was born here and I’m going to succeed in this country, I can’t afford not to work my butt off, I know it’s going to be tough when I go on the job market but you know what, Yazz? I’m not a victim, don’t ever treat me like a victim, my mother didn’t raise me to be a victim.
3
That afternoon they ended up dancing to Amr Diab in Yazz’s room
Yazz tells Waris it’s important to counterbalance the state of being cerebral with the state of being corporeal
Waris asks her if she means they need to do physical activity because they spend too much time thinking?
yes, that’s it, Yazz says, making elaborate movements with her arms as she dances
why didn’t you just say that then?
they’re still playing his songs very loudly later that evening with Nenet, who lives on the same corridor and first introduced the famous Egyptian singer to them; Yazz had instantly found herself transported as soon as the lyrics poured out of Diab’s sexy lips on the screen
Waris loved him too, said Diab’s music stirred her soul
Yazz said he made her feel love for the man who’ll one day be on the receiving end of her passion
Waris said that man should be afraid, very afraid
Nenet said Diab was old school so for her it was more of a nostalgia thing, as she showed them how to dance Arabic-style with swaying hips and swirling arms, while high on jelly babies
it became their thing – Amr Diab evenings
Courtney, who lived next door, knocked on the door in her pyjamas, and asked them to turn it down because she’s trying to sleep and it’s, like, midnight?
Yazz told her to listen very carefully to the other people playing loud music in other parts of the building, can she hear them? above and below?
of course she can, it’s a Saturday night, and as soon as the security guards who’ve been called drive off, the noise starts up again
everyone’s at it, right? Yazz said, hands on hips, so why are you targeting us in particular, giving Courtney a look rich with subtext
it was a tense moment, diffused by Nenet, who said she knows how to handle conflict because her father was in the diplomatic service for the entire thirty years of Mubarak’s presidency of Egypt