My sister’s pantomime
My sister Shahida is 18 years old and quite rebellious despite her staunch Muslim upbringing. Well, so am I but that is beside the point; this story is for Shahida, devoted to her because out of all of us in the Mohammed residence, she was the strongest with her deep brooding eyes that did more than just stare holes through you. Like me, she was educated at an Islamic school because our parents hold robust Islamic philosophies. It’s virtually unimaginable to conceive of my parents dressed in anything other than their traditional Islamic attire which is usually the robe covering all parts of the body. My mother wears her headscarf everyday and I promise on my yet to be vacated grave that I’ve only seen her hair twice. My father’s beard sits on his chest like a thick puff of grey smoke from a large fireplace. He has grey eyes that can tell the truth from a lie. In our house, in spite of our blood connections; women sit in separate parts of the house from men and we only share a carpet for supper. We have only spoons in the cutlery draw-to stir whatever is being cooked or to stir tea or coffee that is drunk more than ten times a day by both my parents. This number is escalated by the unexpected arrival of relatives. We eat with our hands and walk with our heads arched-speak only when necessary and don’t have book shelves of anything by famous authors like J.K.Rowling or Wilbur Smith. We have two Television sets in the house that are only tuned onto the cameras, showing a black and white image of our driveway, the street in which we live and the backyard.
We moved into this manor house, roughly six years ago when I was only ten years old, my sister Shahida was only six and was starting her first year at school. It’s a lovely area; Parktown North, part of Johannesburg’s northern suburbs. In summer, the broad streets are lined with Jacaranda’s that from above or from the highway look like a huge purple blanket laying neatly over tiled roofs. In autumn the streets are strewn with crusted leaves like a river of leaves that crackle beneath the weight of a tyre or your feet, not mine for I haven’t been outside except for in my own backyard. Before moving to Johannesburg, we lived in a small house in Mitchell’s Plain in Cape Town where my mother sold fish at discount prices at the harbour every day. My father was then offered a job in Johannesburg by a firm called Lead Associates thus prompting us to move. But life was the still the same and my sister was becoming as frustrated as me; frustrated with my family and the monotony of our controlled lives. I remember the first time my father hit her; it was New Years day and she had snuck out of the house with a few friends, returning nearly seven hours later smelling of cigarettes and alcohol. My father’s pejorative disposition was obvious as the minute she walked through the door, he quietly walked towards her, pulled her into the living room where the rest of us sat-my mother, my younger brother Aqeel and myself and began to beat her with his bare hands. His forehead burst into speckles of sweat as he struggled to compose himself, either from swearing or killing her.
Now nearly seventeen years later, she has not learnt her lesson but I listen to her complain to me every night. When she speaks and I reply, I offer myself advice and often wonder whether or not I am even capable of doing what I am telling her to do. She looks at me earnestly and nods her head like a dedicated student and now and then answers me adroitly when I sound too pedantic or overbearing on her ideas.
Today she woke up crying and I saunter into her room to ask her what’s wrong. She has her face hollow in her palms and her headscarf is flung over her shoulders. I walk towards her and raise it gingerly with both my hands onto her head, just in case my mother or father walks in on us.
‘What’s wrong Hida?’ I ask her sympathetically; hoping the tone of my voice would let her tell me why she is crying.
‘It’s nothing Bia,’ She exhales. ‘Your parents are acting up again.’ She laughs a little.
She always refers to them as my parents when she is upset with them. I rub her back gently and look at her face in the mirror, she is looking too and we smile.
‘You look pretty,’ she says. ‘Are you wearing make-up Rabia?’ She imitates my mother’s questioning voice and then proceeds to laugh softly into her hands.
‘No mommy, I am not wearing make-up...it’s my natural beauty.’ I repartee and then assert: ‘tell me what’s wrong though Shahida?’
‘Not here,’ she smiles. ‘Wanna go to Sandton for coffee?’
‘It’s 3oclock now...’ I say glancing upwards at the wall-watch.
‘Yes, that gives us three hours until Maghreb.’ She says scornfully of the fact that Maghreb is one of the hours of prayer for Muslim people.
‘Let’s go!’ I exclaim.
We arrive at Sandton clad in Abayaa’s and headscarfs; I applied some make-up to my face in the car and pray as we walk that we don’t bump into any family members. We choose the first coffee shop in sight and ask the waitress for a table in a corner; an out-of-sight one. The place is empty except for a white couple and their baby; they’re having something scrumptious to eat but it looks Haraam and so I set my mind on coffee instead and make a mental note to order something similar looking when I’m on my own sometime. The waitress comes over to take our orders and together we say coffee after she disappears leaving behind her scent of Shield. As soon as the waitress departs, Shahida pulls a photograph from her bag and flings it across the table at me.
‘Who is this I ask?’ staring at the handsome Indian-looking man smiling up at me, dressed in his finest Islamic attire with his hair covered by a topee.
‘The 29 year old man I am supposed to marry from Egypt.’ She says revoltingly and indicates this by making herself look nauseous and putting her index finger in front of her gaped mouth.
‘Strange,’ I laugh. ‘He looks like no Egyptian to me.’
‘That’s beside the point Rabia...Your parents don’t seem to understand that I have studies to complete.’ She leans in closer and glances imploring at me and then grimaces at the photograph in my hand.
The waitress arrives with the coffee and sets it upon the table, smiles and then walks away.
‘They don’t understand anything those dimwits.’ Her reproach for my parents is made clear now and like me, they are viewed by her as nothing but stoic. ‘They look at all the minutiae.’ She mutters to herself.
‘Are you still seeing Eric?’ I ask in an attempt to deviate the conversation from the sordid talk of my parents.
I could have called her behaviour licentious but do not because I feel the same, except that I never express how I feel; I am way too introverted and afraid.
‘Yes I am still seeing Eric.’ She smiles.
‘That’s nice,’ I say. ‘And what does he study again?’
‘Engineering,’ she avers. ‘Chemical Engineering...best in his class.’
‘Is he at Wits as well?’
‘Yes, I have told you before and it doesn’t matter now, Eric will be a cigarette butt next week after my lavish wedding because Mr. Egyptian will own the rights to everything below my forehead.’
I can’t imagine this naive girl in wedlock, she is way too rebellious for the seriousness of marriage and to be frank, she will be swindling that poor man so badly and he won’t even know it.
‘Have you spoken to Mommy and Daddy about this Shahida?’ she rolls her eyes and reclines in her seat, comes back forth and takes a few sips of coffee.
‘Can you honestly swindle two stagnant Muslim people out of their decision Rabia?’
I realise the ludicrousness of my question and keep quiet.
‘You see...’ She claps her hands and laughs. ‘We’re Muslim girls, in a Muslim home with Muslim parents in the Modern suburbs of Johannesburg, we live the biggest irony...we might as well just be living in Jeddah!’
‘Be grateful Shahida,’ I say. ‘At least we have a home.’
‘With no TV and normal discussions...that sounds so homely to me.’
‘What do you want from life?’ I ask her out of sheer curiosity because I never quite understood the puzzle that is my sister.
‘I want a good job with a good sexy man and money.’
I laugh inside at her dreams and stare questioningly at her. I always quite envisioned her wanting to be a rebellious pop singer with piercings galore but my gut tells me she probably already has one.
We leave the coffee shop just before 17:45 to be home before my parents and Maghreb. We slip into the house silently and go to our rooms. In mine I think of Shahida and her wild dreams and begin to wonder exactly what it is I want from life and realise after much thought, that in that faculty my mind is void.
I wake in the night to the sound of my mother’s screams and lay in bed with my eyes wide, staring at the ceiling, wondering what’s going on. Seconds later, I hear the thump of my father’s footsteps down the hallway and then a knock on my door...
‘Where is she?’ My mother screams at me, throwing her pudgy body into my room.
‘Where is who?’ I ask lifting myself from the bed.
‘Shahida...’ She screams and slams her fists onto my legs. ‘What were you two contriving?’
‘Nothing mommy...’ I start involuntarily crying. ‘Walahi!’
I know saying Walahi doesn’t mean anything to my mother right now; It’s a slang term for basically swearing that you’re not lying. She looks at me angrily and then grabs me from the bed.
‘Rabia, don’t lie to me...speak the truth at once.’ She slaps me across the face and throws me across the room. I land clumsily against some old shoe boxes that scatter at the touch of my body. After a while she walks out of the room and joins my father in the passage while I wipe tears from my eyes. In my own mind, I wonder what Shahida had done or where she had gone. Had she run off with Eric to dodge her wedding next week? Was she simply being vindictive in the face of my parents?
‘Look, she left a note.’ I hear my father say followed by my mother’s sobs.
‘You have no one but yourselves to blame,’ I mutter. ‘Shahida has gone to a better a place.’
