The Book of Stanley (4 page)

 

SEVEN

M
aha and her one true friend, Ardeen, sat on the upper floor of the Faubourg Sainte-Catherine, eating bagels and clementines as afternoon passed into evening. It was not a particularly warm day, but Ardeen wore a short black skirt. Every minute or so, she reached up to touch the new silver ring in her eyebrow. Under their table sat several bags from
BCBG
.

“What do you mean you don't like shopping any more?” Ardeen popped an orange wedge into her mouth.

“It used to make me feel good. Now it doesn't.”

“That's crazy.”

“I know.”

Ardeen ran her tongue over her teeth. “It's just a terrible phase. Don't think about it too much.”

“Ardeen, don't be mad. But I think I'm leaving.”

“Leaving what?”

“Montreal.”

“Why? When?”

Maha shrugged. “I don't know. Sometime after exams are finished.”

“I thought we were going to Cegep together.” Ardeen kicked one of the bags under the table. “What the hell's going on here? Did you apply to U of T without telling me?”

“No.”

“This is about what happened, isn't it?”

Maha took a small bite of bagel and shrugged her shoulders. The bagel was at least a day old, though the bag claimed it was made that morning.

“It was so long ago.” Ardeen waved another piece of clementine in the air. “No one even
remembers
it any more.”

This was false. Maha knew, from several sources, that Ardeen had told and retold the story of that night in January several times. The quiet, studious, by some accounts snobby Maha Rasad screaming out “Make me real!” while lying naked on the parquet in front of an open door in a grubby east end townhouse.

Maha preferred not to think of the public aspects of the
make me real
business, and wanted at times to scrub her own skin off to cleanse herself of those three words. But she didn't remember calling out. All she remembered was the face of the Lord, the voice of the Lord, the Lord choosing her.

The others saw the grunting blond man on top of her. Maha saw Him.

“Everyone remembers.”

Ardeen finished chewing and adjusted her scarf. “I don't want to say this, Maha, but I guess I have to? You have to get over yourself. You're seventeen. We're writing our final exams this week. No one really cares which loser Nordique you had sex with.”

“Then why can't they…why can't
you
shut up about it?”

“Me?” Ardeen opened her mouth wide, as though she had just been accused of stabbing a kitten. “Girl, I am worried about you. It's a sign of mental illness, you know, to think your friends would betray you. I got your
back
.”

Maha smiled.

“Who
found you
in the first place, last year, all meek and lonesome and, like, wearing Village des Valeurs and those gay shoes? Little miss play the piano and pray with your flippin' mom?”

“God called me.”

Ardeen stopped unpeeling her second clementine. “God called you.”

“Yes.”

“What, on the phone?”

“The night of the party. He came to me that night.”

“You were wasted.”

“While that guy was on top of me, during…
it
.”

“That wasn't God, Maha. That was vodka and green apple syrup, remember? Maybe it was the big O.”

“I heard Him. He spoke to me. He wants me to come to Him, so I'm going.”

“Don't tell me you're committing suicide. What a cliché.”

“No. I'm going to find Him in person.”

“God. In person.”

“Yes, Ardeen.”

“All right. So where does God live?”

“I don't know that yet.”

“But you're saying he's a man. But he's also God?”

“Yes.”

“You're walking on the path to Jesus here, if you ask me. If I started talking like that, my parents would send me to camp.
Serious
camp. I can't even guess what Zaki and Sara Rasad would do.” Around them, the seats on the upper floor of the Faubourg filled with single downtowners who ate Subway and takeout Thai green curry for dinner. The men among them stared, especially after Ardeen got up to sit
on Maha's lap and began stroking her hair. “You're just confused, baby. It was traumatizing for you. Your mom, the school. That dude you're supposed to marry.”

“If you don't believe me, fine. But don't talk to me like I'm your…” Maha looked around, to make sure no one was listening. She prepared to say a word she did not use habitually. “…bitch. Just leave me alone.”

“Maha. Socially speaking, you don't exist without me. I heard Jonathan Talbot was gross to you in class today. I heard about that, and you know what I did? I asked Dylan to kick his ass, make him think about his actions. I did that for no reward, no glory. I did it quiet, sneaky, like a doer of good things in the background of the world, you know? And how am I repaid for getting Jonathan's ass kicked? I'm insulted, like some cat that pissed on the couch.”

There was an opportunity here for Maha to apologize, to thank Ardeen for being a superb mentor and protector. But as Ardeen waited for the apology and expression of profound gratitude, Maha could not find the words. Or the will. “Go.”

Ardeen jumped to her feet and slammed her half-peeled clementine on the table. “I hope you
do
commit suicide.” And then she fetched her bags, turned, and walked away, her black high-heeled sandals clacking.

A bagel remained on the table, and three clementines. It was still bright outside, the late-day sunlight crashing through the giant windows. Maha continued peeling Ardeen's clementine and stared at the orange perfection that was revealed.
This
was the domain of the Lord. She would not allow herself to feel guilty for what she had just done. If Ardeen did not understand, Ardeen was not a true mentor and protector.

Above her, a grunt of introduction. Maha looked up to see a man in a tight black T-shirt, nodding. “Mind if I join you?”

“Yes.”

The man smiled with half his mouth and sat down anyway. His cologne inspired an instant headache. “So, what's your name?”

Maha began to gather the bagel and clementines and drop them into a plastic bag. It was best, she had learned, to ignore people like this.

“
Tu parles français? Ça tombe bien.
”

“Please just stop talking. To me and to everyone. Really.”

With her bag of food, Maha ran to the top of the stairs. Two steps down, the man called her a lesbian.

 

EIGHT

M
aha crept into the yard behind their house on the West Island so the Lord might notice her. It had been stifling inside, glutinous with the smell of boiled chickpeas, one of Maha's least favourite foods. She had worried, in her bedroom, that ceilings and the fog of cooked vegetables might hamper the Lord's perceptive powers. Not that it was any clearer or fresher outside. It had rained and the city reeked of dog droppings.

From the yard, her mother's round face was visible in the
kitchen window. The fruit trees were beginning to bud and the early flowers were up. Only one small spot of filthy snow remained, between the garden shed and the old brown fence. She waited in the wet yard for some time, listening to the random calls and cries of neighbourhood children, the muffled ring of the family telephone, the hum of the expressway.

The Lord, it seemed, was not looking for her. So Maha kicked at the lump of snow and went back inside. The smell of boiled chickpeas hovered in her bedroom as she sat before a blank sheet of paper, preparing to write and devour her sixteenth note. Until recently, she had addressed the Lord as Allah out of respect for her family and community, but ever since the January night he came to her on the parquet floor of that apartment near Metro Fabre, Maha suspected the Lord was not exactly Allah. When she swallowed the letters, as an offering to He who knew her blood and bones intimately, Maha closed her eyes and imagined this new Lord. He did not look like Allah or dress like him or sound like him. The Lord's voice was that of a man who has smoked too many cigarettes, the host of a jazz music show on public radio.

“Maha?” Her mother knocked on the door. Her mother's knock, always the same. Three quick taps, followed by entry. Only Maha had taken to locking the door. She heard her mother's sigh through the hollow wood.

“Just a sec.”

Maha opened the door and her mother entered. Sara Rasad, in her red sweater set and apron, peeked subtly around her daughter toward the desk. Their relationship, like everything else, had been transformed since that night in January. Whenever they shared a room,
shame
hunkered in the corner, panting and salivating.

“Dinner is almost ready.”

“I'll be right there.” Maha didn't make eye contact with her mother, hoping she would go away.

Sara Rasad didn't go away. She crept closer to the desk wiping her hands unnecessarily with a dishtowel. “Are you studying, then?”

“Yes.”

Several walls separated them from the family room and the television, where Maha's father and younger brother Arun had stationed themselves. Maha wanted her mother to rouse them for dinner. Speeches had become common in the past six months, and Maha wasn't sure she could bear another.

“Do you need any help?”

It was obvious that her mother was not there about dinner or homework. “No. Thank you.”

Sara Rasad swung the dishtowel about. “We're very proud of you, you know. For your schoolwork.”

“Thanks. I'll come for dinner right away, Mom.”

“But…”

Maha straightened her posture, prepared herself. Someone at the Islamic Centre weekend potluck had perhaps offered some new guidance to ward off harlotry. What wisdom? What opportunity for ablution?

Sara Rasad spoke quietly. “While you were outside, your physics teacher telephoned.”

Through the walls, Maha could hear the deep bass of her father's snores. Arun's somewhat less than enthusiastic “Ha,” accompanying a laugh track.

“What did she say?”

Sara Rasad, who grew up in a suburb of London, England, reverted to her childhood accent in stressful situations. “She's worried about you, as am I. In January, you–”

“Please, Mom.”

“Don't you
please
me, Maha. I've done my very best to understand what you're going through. First you get drunk and–”

“Stop.”

“–and copulate. In public, no less. Now you're writing letters to God and giving them to your teacher.” Sara Rasad managed a tortured smile and placed a hand on her daughter's shoulder. Again, she lowered her voice. “I thought we had made a set of rules. I thought we would communicate more effectively when you felt troubled. This is what families do. Silence and scheming will only lead to…further humiliation.”

“Yours or mine?”

Sara Rasad dug her fingernails into the wool of Maha's sweater. She breathed, forcefully, through her nose. “Why can't you understand the consequences of your actions?”

“Why can't you leave me alone?”

“We love you. We want you to live honourably, with dignity, according to–”

“Mom, I've said sorry, hundreds of times. I don't drink any more. I don't stay out late. What else can I do?”

Sara Rasad looked away from her daughter for a moment, at the geometric design of the bedspread, and left the room. Maha did not turn back to her sixteenth note to God or follow her mother to dinner, because she knew Sara Rasad would return. With a newspaper article about post-traumatic stress syndrome, maybe, or words of good judgment from the imam. A quotation she had transcribed from a viewing of the
Dr. Phil
show.

While she waited, Maha fingered a stack of graduation flyers and pamphlets. An advertisement for summer jobs in
Banff fluttered to the ground. She picked it up and learned that she could be a chambermaid at the Banff Springs Hotel. Maha also learned that the hot springs on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains had been discovered by accident in 1883 by railway construction workers. According to aboriginal legend, the springs had magical healing powers.

Sara Rasad knocked three times on the door jamb and re-entered Maha's room holding the black cordless telephone. She covered the receiver with her hand. “Gamal is on the telephone.”

“I don't want to talk to Gamal.”

“You must.”

“Did you call him?”

Sara Rasad closed her eyes for a moment. “Please. This one thing, for me.”

“He can't help and I don't need help. Please leave me alone, so I can study.”

The patience and compassion left Sara Rasad's voice as she held the phone in front of her daughter. “Do as I say.”

Maha didn't know Gamal, not really. They had met once, during a formal meeting at his parents' house in Mississauga. It was an emergency measure, one month after she'd had sex with the boy on the parquet floor, a happenstance that was meant to remain a secret from Gamal and his family. The only sounds she heard in Gamal's house, as they sat on the couch together with a tray of sweets and strong tea before them, were from his stomach and the tick of the gigantic Iranian clock. When Maha broke the silence to ask about the extravagant clock, Gamal told her the ancient Persians had crafted it. Maha said she didn't know the ancient Persians had clocks. Gamal grunted and scratched at his nascent beard.
It was clear Sara Rasad was not going to leave the room until Maha took the phone, so she took the phone. “Hello?”

“Hey.”

“How's it going?” Maha waved her mother away.

“Dinner,” said Sara Rasad, as she departed.

Gamal snorted. “Your mom says you're having a crisis.”

“She reads too many sentimental novels.”

“Huh,” said Gamal. A few conversations ago, Gamal had confessed that he thought novels had a detrimental effect on society. So, in ensuing conversations, Maha brought them up as often as possible.

She stared at the ad for Banff as the stillness on the line became uncomfortable.
Magical healing properties.

“Your mom asked me to come visit this weekend, to cheer you up.”

“Come here?”

“Yeah. Do you want me to come?”

Maha watched her father stumble down the hallway, newly awakened from his sleep, like Frankenstein's monster. “No.”

“Well, then I probably should. We should sort out how you're feeling.” Gamal cleared his throat. He was seven years older than Maha, and sometimes he talked as though he had acquired a lifetime of knowledge and insight in those seven years. “Sometimes it can feel overwhelming and frightening, the uncertainty of the future.”

The digital alarm clock said it was 7:19, Eastern Time. Maha was certain her future was in Mountain Standard.