The Other Americans(19)

Holiday services started at seven in the morning, but by six thirty you could hardly find parking. I had to circle the lot several times before I found a spot, and that put me in a bad mood. Maryam led the way on the concrete path, our daughters followed, and I lagged behind, trying to finish my cigarette before we went inside. At the entrance, a handsome boy, perhaps ten or eleven years old, held an orange bucket labeled EID DONATIONS. A tithe isn’t a donation, I wanted to say, one is a tax and the other is a gift, but no one else seemed to mind it. People lined up to put their money in. Maryam had prepared the check at home and sealed it in an envelope, but as she let it drop into the bucket, the boy called out to Nora. “Sister,” he said. “Cover your legs. You’re indecent.”

Indecent! For a moment, I thought I’d misheard him. Did he even know what the word meant? I was glad when Nora turned on him. “What did you just say?” she asked, her lips breaking into a puzzled smile.

“Cover your legs, sister.”

“Who do you think you are, kid?”

“Your brother in faith,” he said gravely. Then he nodded to thank a lady who’d placed a crisp $50 bill in the orange bucket. People walked past us, dressed in Eid clothes. No two outfits looked the same: men in suits and thobes and dashikis, women in flowing robes and shalwar kameezes and bright-colored tunics. My daughter was in a black skirt that fell below the knees, but it had not been enough for this miniature cleric. It was very crowded, and I could hear impatient car horns in the parking lot. An old man circled around us so he could get inside.

“We’re going to be late,” Maryam said as she pulled our daughters toward the women’s section.

I had finished my cigarette by then, but stayed behind, watching the boy. He had curly hair, a small nose, skin the color of sand. Except for his green eyes, he could have passed for my son. His face glowed with a confidence that unsettled me. “What’s your name?” I asked him.

“Qasim.”

“And how old are you?”

“Eleven.”

Just as I thought. So young, and yet so sure. I had been like that, once. I had recited the Qur’an at the msid, hardened my knees on the straw mats of our neighborhood mosque, kept the fast not just in Ramadan, but for a few days in Shawaal and Sha’baan as well. These rituals consoled me; they told me that the world was what it was because of sin, whether its manifestations were seductive or repellent, and all I needed to do was resist it. There was a mathematical elegance to faith like this: believe in God, follow His rules, and you will be rewarded; disbelieve, disobey, and you will be punished. But one day Mr. Fathi, my middle-school religion teacher, told the class about the seven stages of hell. I was familiar enough with the rivers of fire and fountains of pus and blood that awaited sinners, but that day the lesson was about how these people would find no respite even after their bodies burned—their skin would grow back only to burn anew. That made me think of Mr. Nguyen, who had a burn scar along his left arm, the result of a confrontation with French settlers during the war in his country. I loved Mr. Nguyen, as did the rest of the class, because he made algebra seem like child’s play. That was the closest thing to a miracle I had ever witnessed. So I asked Mr. Fathi whether his friend Mr. Nguyen would burn in hell, too, with all the other unbelievers. Instead of an answer, I was given a whack on the head and told not to interrupt the lesson again. I was only a couple of years older than this boy, Qasim. My doubts were born that day. Over the years they grew, until one day they were all I had.

“Do you think,” I asked the boy, “that maybe your faith has other things to worry about than my daughter’s legs?”

Qasim only gave me a sad look, as though I had personally disappointed him, and had failed in raising my daughter, somehow. Inside the mosque, the last call to prayer rose, and he turned to go, but I wouldn’t let him. “Tell me,” I said, holding him back by the wrist. He didn’t want to argue, and perhaps my hold on him was too strong, because he gave a whimper.

An old man I hadn’t noticed before appeared suddenly before me. It was the imam. He had dark hair, a carefully trimmed beard, the same green eyes as Qasim. He started quoting the Qur’an to me. (“Tell the believing women not to reveal their adornment except for that which is apparent.”) I counter-quoted. (“Tell the believing men to avert their gaze.”) He claimed veiling was required by tradition; I insisted that tradition tells us only the Prophet’s wives covered. He warned that women ought not to tempt men in the mosque; I mocked the men who would be so easily distracted from their worship. Finally, he said he had to go inside, that we could discuss this some other time, because right now he had a prayer to lead.

I lit a fresh cigarette and waited until Maryam and the girls came out. In the car on the way back, I told my wife what happened, but instead of taking my side, she complained that I had embarrassed her in front of the congregation. I was stunned. “But you don’t even know these people,” I said. “And I’m your husband.”

“I know Mrs. Hammadi, but you just had to start—”

“Okay, but that’s it. You don’t know anyone else.”

“—arguing with the imam like you know better than him.”

“Of course, I know better. I don’t need him to tell me right from wrong.”

“That skirt was too sheer, I told Nora before we—”