Dza's note: This was a short story I wrote years ago. It was around the time when I was just beginning to understand the complications of religion and the perception of it around the world, especially in places like the Western side of it all. This feature tells the story in the point of view of a teenage boy in Britain.
I wanted to post this because a coworker of mine asked if I had written any short stories.
This is my answer.
Hats. By Dzamira Dzafri.
There’s this girl I knew. She gets ridiculed about wearing this hat of hers. Actually it’s a veil, but it’s not like those veils you get to see when you go to the funerals. Hijabs. The ones where they cover everything but your face. It’s quite unattractive, it looks like a beard.
The fact is that I don’t see why my friends would even consider throwing eggs at her. They were telling me to bring eggs to school but they didn’t tell me what it was for. So when I asked them if they wanted me to boil it, they told me to shut the fuck up and just bring the god damned eggs.
Like I would know, right?
Her name was Selma. And she would be beautiful if she took that hat off. I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t call it a hat but I just hate saying “hijab” all the time. It sounds so awful. I once sat next to her during lunchtime. She usually sits on a table by herself, alone, you see, and everyone in school sat with their own friends.
Once I sat there, she gave me a weird look and asked if she’s done anything wrong.
It was quite offensive, actually, but I didn’t care.
I told her, of course, that she did nothing wrong and I was just sick of my friends that day and I just needed to get away from them for about a half hour. So I went on explaining that this guy I’m friends with, Lee, he could not stop talking about his crush on our Math teacher, Mrs. Beezle, but I was pretty sure that she was a lesbian, and Lee told me to fuck off so I did.
But I guess I was talking way too much because she told me she had to go to the classroom a bit early to “prepare”.
So she left me sitting all alone at lunch with my half-eaten chicken sandwich, and I was halfway to hating her when I noticed that she left her stupid book on the table.
I looked around to see if anyone was looking (they weren’t, by the way) and stole a peek, but I couldn’t understand a fucking thing in there. It was handwritten but it was probably in Arabic or whatever it is.
I wish I could understand some of it. It was probably a diary of some kind.
I looked over at the table I usually sat, and it was the same old gang. My friends were laughing, talking, probably bashing some poor bastard sitting two tables away. Probably bashing me. I wouldn’t be surprised. I got up the table and took Selma’s book along with me.
I tried finding her in the classroom but she wasn’t there. Which was strange because I thought she had to prepare or some shit like that.
I couldn’t look in the girls bathroom, obviously. So I just opened the door and yelled out her name. No one was around anyway.
I yelled, and I heard a peep. It sounded like a Selma.
I told her that she left her notebook on the table, and she said hold on, so I did.
It took her a while until I finally saw her. She was still wearing that odd white hat of hers and a god fucking long sleeved shirt in the summer.
For god’s sake I literally felt like screaming at her for being so impractical. I can fucking see the beads of sweat on her face from how hot it’s been today. Flawless, yes, but fuck that god-damned hat.
I suddenly blurted out a stupid question, which was obvious because her eyebrows are black.
I was surprised, though to hear that she had pink hair.
As she got out of the bathroom, I noticed her in a whole new way. Pink hair. Huh.
I asked if she could show me, but she just gave me a smirk and said “Someday.”
I swear to God, I had a heart attack. I somehow felt kind of drawn to her.
And from then on, we were dating. Secretly, of course, I have to explain. You see, I don’t want my friends to know about us. She has to hide us from her parents, because apparently, even talking to a male non Muslim would get her killed. I’m not sure if she was exaggerating or if they really would kill her. I wouldn’t know. The news on them Arabs had always been kind of fucked up.
Oh, and I had to stop that, by the way. I had to stop calling her hats... hats, and I had to stop calling her people “them arabs.”
It was something I could live with. She’s incredible. For someone who looked like a virgin, she really didn’t seem like it. Her sense of humour was dark and brittle and dry. She knew how to make fun of herself, and she knew how to tease me. It felt like I had the most amazing secret in the world and when I held her I closed my eyes and pretended that she would never leave my side, but she had to, eventually, because if she didn’t we’d be starving and we needed the bathroom and she always had to go home at 7 pm, because that’s her curfew.
My mum never minded her, she liked the hijab and long sleeves. My mum said it made her look like a respectable woman so I said yeah, but I also said that because of the veil people threw eggs at her and called her a terrorist and stuff, and I can’t stop them because there are too many of them and I can’t win a war by myself plus I half agree with them anyway, the veil is some kind of fucked up to me.
In my opinion it just hides things. It hid the fact that she had brilliant pink hair and it hid the fact that she had a brilliant personality and it hid the fact that everything about her was beautiful and wearing a cover up was just like hiding what she had that’s special about her.
My mom then stopped listening and told me to do my homework.
I never talked to her about her religion. I mean, we’ve talked about the hijab. She doesn’t mind it apparently, but she said she would prefer it if she wasn’t forced to wear it as much. Her parents were cool though, apparently, because even though they banned her from everything, they let her express her creativity at their home. That’s why her hair’s so bloody pink.
I never met her parents, though. I don’t know if I would want to, unless if I wanted to kill myself or something.
My mom’s a Catholic or something I’m not really sure. She’s not religious at all, but she tells everyone she’s a Catholic, so she gets fucked when those people ask her how come she never comes to Church.
She gave me freedom of choice. I’m not sure what I feel about any religion.
Selma’s embarrassed about her own. Everyone is giving crap to her and her family. It’s like, this is worse than being gay right now. Prejudice, I guess, people would call it.
I asked her what it was like for people to throw eggs, and I swear to god, I wish I didn’t. I never wanted to make her cry, ever. Her eyes filled itself with water.
She kept saying that my friends are ‘total shit dicks’, which was true, but she didn’t have to be so harsh about it.
She doesn’t understand. If I dump my friends, who will I hang out with, besides her? She’s great and all, but, I don’t know just yet if I want to sacrifice my whole life for her. I mean. I would do anything for her, but this is too vast.
Everyday I try to ignore Selma and hang with my friends. They’re giving me crap on why I’m so nice to her and shit. They told me to go fuck a camel, they told me to wear turbans. They said so much shit I couldn’t ever tell them that I did so join the camels or whatever.
It even got to the extent where I forced myself to throw an egg at her one day.
And I felt like I’m going to hell.
You should have seen her face. How she looked at me. How she...
I couldn’t even look at myself after that. I felt awful. I didn’t try to contact her that night. She didn’t come over like she did before.
My friends were patting my back and told me, good job at getting her to finally cry.
I hated myself.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t do my homework. I couldn’t do shit. I couldn’t concentrate. My mom forced me to eat a fucking boiled egg, but I threw it up.
It was 3 in the morning and I still couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about how I hurt her. I never realised how important she was to me in the first place, that I would let myself throw a fucking egg.
I decided to let my mom know I was going out, she was kind of half dazed, she wanted to sleep on so badly she would have said yes to anything.
I went out in the cold blistering morning, as I tried to find Selma’s house.
And after a long hour trying to navigate a dark and dodgy neighbourhood, there it was.
I climbed up to her window, hoping it was her actual window.
I poked my face to the window and saw her awake, trying to read a book under a flashlight like in the 90s.
I climbed up and I made it inside with barely any noise.
I think she must have known because she gasped, stood quickly and kicked me in the nuts.
She whispered as I recovered, a fuck you and she whispered that I should not fucking be here because her fucking parents are next door and that we’re both going to be killed and that it doesn’t matter because she was planning to kill me in the first place anyway.
I whispered well of course I’m not surprised but I said that I should never have done that and that I couldn’t sleep either because I couldn’t stop thinking about her and what I had done and I asked her what it takes for her to forgive me.
She sighed and sat on the floor.
I stood patiently, though waiting for an answer. I asked if I could sit down and she said well of course I could and she called me a fucking idiot.
I could tell she was thinking hard because her eyebrows were all scrunched up. It made my heart skip a little bit more. I don’t get how she does it without realising. She literally kills me and yet it’s like I don’t think I can live without her killing me.
As I was on the floor and she didn’t speak, I slowly scootched my ass towards her and when my knees reached hers, she looked up and I held the back of her head with both my hands and kissed her.
It was as impulsive as I would get, I never thought she would even let me, let alone kissing me back and grabbing onto my shoulders.
As I kissed her I said that I was sorry over and over and over again but she never said anything but I knew that she was crying because I felt her cheeks and they were soaked.
It went to the direction of me taking her pyjamas off and her taking my shirt off and I was lying on top of her. I guess we were making quite a racket because her dad quickly opened her door.
I looked up and I noticed how quickly her dad came running with a golf stick. He kicked me instead in my stomach and screamed at me, asking me who the hell I was and what I was doing with his daughter.
I couldn’t answer, obviously because I think he kicked me a little too hard and I was scared shitless at that moment. While her dad was screaming he had been holding his golf stick like he would swing a fucking piñata.
I noticed how hard Selma was crying with her Moms arms around her, telling her dad to stop it while her dad ignored her.
I didn’t know what to do, whether to get out of there or to stay, I didn’t know what would be better. I realised that I was going to die anyway, so I told him that I was Selma’s boyfriend and that she and I had been dating for more than 4 months.
He just took me by the hair and hurried through the house. As I looked around her home I noticed a little boy about the age of 7, which was probably Selma’s brother, Rami. I remember her telling me that he was a pain in the ass.
I reached the front door with her dad as he pushed me out, yelling that I should never have trespassed and that I was lucky they didn’t call the cops. I was going to ask for my shirt back but I didn’t think it was appropriate.
Later that morning I went to school a bit early because I knew that she would be there because she always came early, but she didn’t come to school the whole day, and as I sat to lunch with Lee and the gang I realised how fucked up they really were and I abruptly left in the middle of their usual conversation of bullshit and just sat in class for the rest of the lunch hour.
I was wondering what they had done to her and what’s going on, and that I never should have acted on impulse in the first place.
I think I cried for a bit there but I hid it because there were also a bunch of nerds in the class who hid here as well because they didn’t want to be bullied, probably by Lee, which probably explained why they were scared of me as well, because of association.
The whole day I couldn’t pay attention to what any of the teachers were saying, it wasn’t unusual, but this time I couldn’t help it.
It was the next day when I finally saw Sel, cleaning out her locker. I came up to her asking what she was doing, and she said obviously she had to move because her parents knew about the bullying she went through here and transferred her to private school.
I didn’t know what to say, but I sucked it up and told her that I was sick of Lee and the gang. All she said was that it was nice to know.
I don’t get it.
I mean I told her I basically had no friends anymore and all she could say was that it was nice. What’s the point now anyway because she had to leave and I was at fault entirely. I should be the one punished.
I never said anything to her though because I was angry. Or hurt. Or something. I didn’t know what I felt. I guess it was heartbreak.
And that was it. She just closed her locker and carried her bag and I was leaning on the locker next to hers watching her leave with her mom. I caught her mom’s eye and I tried to smile but I felt a stab in my stomach like everything was going to tumble on me and I was going to die.
I was just almost going to scream dramatically and cry in the middle of the hallway when Selma came back to me to give me her notebook. The one which I didn’t understand anything in, and she told me to never forget her.
I never did, after all these years. After one relationship after the next of unsatisfying girls without pink hair and without hats, I still remembered her. I never did understand anything in her notebook but I always opened it up and looked at her handwriting before I went to sleep.
I guess maybe someday I’ll learn how to read it.
End.
