Internment(27)

“You mean like the border wall?”

“Yeah. And the Berlin Wall. Did you learn about that in history? Some people made it over in a hot-air balloon, or by digging a tunnel under the wall.”

“We don’t have shovels, and we don’t have a hot-air balloon,” Ayesha says. I shrug and let out a little groan. “Look,” she continues, “I’m not saying that I’m not with you. I’m saying be realistic. Be smart. You’re talking about the possibility of getting killed. My parents aren’t going to go along with some escape plan. Would yours?” Ayesha’s pitch rises as she speaks.

I shake my head. “They’re too scared. But others aren’t. Soheil. Us. I know we can’t do something stupid, but I don’t want to be buried and forgotten here.”

I stand up and start pacing the tiny room, twisting the ends of my hair around my finger. I take a deep breath and puff out my cheeks, exhaling. When I turn to walk back in the other direction, I see Ayesha chewing on her bottom lip. She’s worried.

“You’re right,” I say. “I didn’t mean to sound flippant. Sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s the dust. It’s the isolation. It’s the fence. It’s David. I want to talk to David. To hear his voice, or maybe—”

“David?” Ayesha interrupts, and I realize I have been trying so hard not to think about him that I haven’t told Ayesha about him, either. Saying his name out loud is a reminder of everything I’ve lost.

“My boyfriend. I guess he’s still my boyfriend.” I touch my infinity necklace. “I don’t know when I’ll see him again. And who’s he going to take to prom?”

Ayesha’s mouth drops open, and she tries to hold in a laugh. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh. I love how prom is on the list right after freedom and breathing.”

“Oh my God. That’s totally ridiculous, right? There are these moments when I still think this place isn’t real—like it’s a horrible dream. And for that minute, my mind feels free to think about, like, prom.”

“I get it. We have to have those moments of remembering that we’re human and thinking of regular stuff, or else the weight of this place would crush us. Like, have you seen Footloose?”

“The movie?” I ask.

“Yeah, it’s, like, one of my mom’s favorites from middle school. She made me watch it for mother-daughter bonding or something. Original only, not the remake. The entire premise is sort of ridiculous. Like, these kids stage a revolt because they’re not allowed to dance in their town—some preacher says it’s against the Bible or something.”

“Like Sharia law for Christians.” I roll my eyes, since every Muslim understands the hypocrisy of right-wing xenophobes. They’re all terrified of a word they don’t understand, scared that religious law is going to infiltrate the land, but meanwhile they support the death penalty, are anti-choice, and think creationism should be taught in schools because of… wait for it… religion.

Ayesha smirks at me. “Something like that. Anyway, they stage this dance outside the town limits to get around the law.”

I grin at Ayesha, letting my mind float back to David, imagining prom with him. Thinking of the last real smile we shared and then our final terrible, helpless moments together when he was yelling at me to run.

“David,” I say out loud. Ayesha looks at me. “David. He’s on the outside. Maybe he could help us somehow. I mean, his dad used to work at the State Department. Though it’s not like his dad has lifted a finger to help us so far. I doubt he’s suddenly grown a conscience. I don’t know. I might be grasping at straws, but that’s all I’ve got right now.”

“Can we even have visitors? You could try to put in a phone request to talk to David, but the Director’s people totally listen in.” She pauses. “Do your parents know you have a boyfriend?”

I nod, and Ayesha rises, knocking her head on the edge of the bunk as she stands up. “Dammit.”

“Are you okay? I keep doing that, too. Everything in this place is against us, even the stupid too-low bunk.”

Ayesha rubs her head. “I’m okay, but go on. I’m fascinated by this whole parental-knowledge-of-boyfriend situation.”

I grin. “I don’t give them all the details, but, yeah, they know. David comes over for dinner. He sometimes comes to the mosque with us. Last Ramadan, he even fasted a few days.”

“Whoa. Is he going to convert?”

“What? No. We’ve never even discussed it. His family is Jewish, and that’s really important to him. I mean, half his dad’s family was killed in the Holocaust, and his mom’s family are Yemenite Jews who were refugees—some of them just disappeared from camps.” I pause, suck in my breath, listening to my words echo in my brain. History suddenly seems terrifyingly present. “They’ve gone through so much to hold on to their family and their faith. David feels that very deeply, a kind of gratitude that his family survived, an obligation to never forget and also to speak truth.”

Ayesha looks at me with wide eyes. “Wait. So David is brown and Jewish?”

I nod. “Honestly, when we first met in grade school, I thought he was desi. I think I just wanted to not be the only one, you know?”