‘Anwar! Yalla!’ Tante Rosa called out to me from the lounge room. ‘Yalla!’
‘Tayeb, Tante Rosa, in a minute.’
I was putting the last of Ahmo Fariz’s chef’s coats away, when Tante Rosa shouted again, ‘Yalla, ya Anwar!’
Joined by Ahmo Fariz this time, ‘Anna! Yalla!’
And Ricky, ‘Anna! Hurry!’
It was like the house was on fire, such was their urgency!
‘I’m coming, I’m coming. Calm down all of you,’ I groaned.
I threw the chef’s coat over the back of the chair and walked as quickly as I could through the house to where they were seated on the couch with their eyes on the television.
Nick’s face filled the screen. The sight of him took my breath away. I was sure it always would.
I’d failed miserably in my attempt to harden my heart to him, to get over him even slightly. How did I stand a chance at forgetting him when he was everywhere I looked?
Next time, stay away from famous people, I berated myself whenever I turned on the television and he appeared on the screen, or I walked through a shopping centre and saw a life-size cut-out at the front of a sporting goods store, or whenever his smile teased me from the pages of newspapers and magazines.
Yet each time I was tempted to call him, I remembered how he nearly lost his career and how the restaurant almost closed down because of my relationship with him. No matter how much I missed Nick, I simply could not take the risk.
Nearly every day, Ahmo Fariz nagged me about Nick. ‘He has a good heart and he gives without expecting in return, this is a rare trait. He doesn’t know that we told you how he paid off our debts and that he got people to come to Masri’s again. And now look, even our old patrons have come back again. They have come back to us once more. Egyptians are quick to forgive, habibti. Why is it so hard then for you to forgive?’ he questioned me. ‘My fears about him were unfounded, he is a decent man. You are carrying his child. Do not deprive him any longer. It is becoming harder and harder for me to keep this secret of yours from him.’
‘Ahmo Fariz, don’t you see? It’s not that I don’t forgive Nick. I’ve seen what he has done, not just for us, but for Asylum Assist. Nobody knows how kind he is and how good his heart is more than me. This is why I’ve stayed away from him deliberately. If he knew about our baby then he would put the baby and me first, and look what happened the last time he put me first? I have to wait until his football season is over to tell him. Please keep my secret for only a few more weeks. Let me tell him in my own time.’
‘And when his season is over, will you accept him back into your life? Will you let him commit to you the way I know he is desperate to?’
‘Ahmo Fariz, I wish you understood.’ I sighed. ‘I can’t take him back. I’m bad for his image and his career. If he can’t see that, then I need to be the one who does. I won’t risk his career a second time.’
‘You realise how greatly you disrespect him with this stubbornness of yours?’ Ahmo Fariz frowned.
‘Disrespect him? How?’ I raised my voice, insulted. ‘It’s only out of care for him that I’m protecting him.’
‘Hmmph,’ he muttered. ‘I cannot listen to any more of your nonsense. What makes you so wise that you know what a man needs more than he himself knows, ya Anna? Hmmm? The father of your baby wants nothing more than to be a family with you and Ricky. These are the exact words he spoke to me himself. Instead you will make him suffer in not allowing him to be with you and his child, you will suffer alone as a mother without a partner and your poor child will suffer – wake up to yourself, girl. I used to think you were wise beyond your years. Now I think you rival my feeble-minded sister Rosa in your stupidity!’
Ahmo Fariz stormed out of the kitchen in a huff but his words bothered me for the rest of the day. And I began to wonder if he was right.
But it was only when Tante Rosa called me Leila in passing that his words sank in.
‘Tante Rosa, did you just call me Leila?’ I gasped.
She raised her eyebrows. ‘I did? Yes, I think I did. It must be because you remind me so much of her these days. You are like her in so many ways, it’s as if she is still here sometimes when I look at you.’
I wondered how she could possibly confuse me with my mother. The thought plagued me. And slowly over the course of the day, I came to understand.
In my mission to cast my mother from my mind, in my quest not to repeat her mistakes, I had in fact become her. I was now the martyr giving up on life and drowning in guilt, I was the one whose laughter no longer echoed through the house, because I had forgotten how to be happy . . . What had happened to me? How did I get so lost? What kind of example was I setting for Ricky and for the daughter growing inside me?
I even performed my work for Asylum Assist with no passion, just a sense of obligation – a kind of penance that every spare minute I had should be devoted to helping others.
Well, I refused to be this person for one second longer. I wouldn’t let myself shrivel and die like my mother did. I had to find Anna again, and bring her back to life.
‘Tante Rosa,’ I called out later that day. ‘Please keep your eye on Ricky. I will come back and finish peeling these garlic cloves soon. But right now I need to go to the pool and swim.’
And from that moment, I tried my very best to rise up from my mother’s ashes – the ashes that had left my spirit covered in her dust.
Every morning, instead of praying for strength to survive another day without the people I love, I woke up and thanked Allah for allowing me to feel the sun and see the moon once more.
I vowed to myself that I would show my child and Ricky how important it was to have dreams to chase. As soon as I could after my daughter’s birth, I would begin university and chase my old dream of a law degree. I would make everything good again.
I would not be my mother.
And Nick. I had to accept his love. I had to let Nick love me. I had to believe I was worthy.
When I made this discovery, I wanted to call Nick straight away. But he was in Melbourne with the Rangers and it was the eve of the Grand Final, the most crucial and special day of his career. The very last thing he needed was an emotional call from me, announcing a pregnancy, to unsettle him.
I would wait those two extra days until he was back home and then I would go to him and beg for his forgiveness for the way I had shunned him so undeservedly. And I would tell him about our baby. Well, I would let my new shape tell him, because the moment he saw me, he would know! I knew with my whole heart that Nick would welcome and love our baby without a second of questioning.
And today the Grand Final day had arrived. I joined Ahmo Fariz, Tante Rosa, and Ricky in the lounge room as the Rangers ran through the banner onto the ground at the MCG. The others were able to simply sit there and watch. I was not. First I peeled four kilograms of potatoes, then I folded all the washing, then I finished two baskets of ironing and I chewed off every nail and bit my lip until it bled while Nick played for his first Premiership.
I was hanging up the ironing when Tante Rosa and Ahmo Fariz began to holler like maniacs for me to come back into the lounge room. And when I returned to where they were seated, there was Nick’s dear face frozen on the television.
‘Rewind, Rosa, rewind!’ Ahmo Fariz yelled. ‘No, you old buffalo, that is record, not rewind! Here, here give it to me.’
Ahmo Fariz pressed rewind on the remote control and I saw that Nick was being given a special medal for being the best and fairest player.
Oh, how my heart burst with joy! I clapped my hands together and my eyes filled with happy tears for him. But although I assumed this was what they had all been shouting at me to come and see – it was not. The reason for all the yelling they did was because of what Nick said afterwards in his speech.
He thanked the opposition, his coach, his teammates and then he thanked his fans and his family, but it was the way he spoke of his father watching over him that made me cry the most. As soon as he started his speech, our baby, who had been peacefully asleep all day, began to kick furiously inside me as if she recognised her father’s voice.
At the end of his speech he looked into the camera and said, ‘And finally, to a special person who’s back home in Perth and I hope she’s watching. Anna Hayati, thank you for showing me what it is to be brave and to believe in something. I love you and this is for you.’
‘I need to sit down,’ I whispered.
‘Come sit.’ Tante Rosa patted the sofa next to her and I sat with a thud.
She placed her hands on my rounded stomach. The baby whose existence she had once cursed had miraculously become the one whose birth she eagerly awaited.
‘Can you feel her kicking? She’s kicking like mad at her father’s voice. How is this possible?’ I said to her.
Tante Rosa snorted. ‘I do not know why you are sitting here asking me this stupid question instead of telling the father of this poor child that he has one.’
I shook my head in wonder at Tante Rosa. ‘You’ve changed so much. Why?’
Tante Rosa took a deep breath. ‘Anwar, when the man I loved disappointed me, that’s when I changed.’ She sighed. ‘But the father of this child . . .’ She patted my stomach. ‘The father of this child, has restored my faith in men. So I haven’t changed, Anwar. All I’ve done is change back to who I was before.’
I smiled. ‘Tante Rosa, I always wondered how you and Mama could have become such close friends at school when you were so different. But now I can see why.’
‘You just said “Mama”,’ she exclaimed. ‘Allaho’akbar. This means your heart is healing, Anwar. It makes me glad. Say her name, Anwar, say it often. Remember her and remember how much she adored you.’
Ahmo Fariz joined in. ‘Leila loved you, Anna. Her death was no reflection of her love for you.’
‘I think I’m just starting to understand that now,’ I replied.
It was yet another busy evening in the restaurant, and when everyone had gone to bed, I looked for my journal which I had not written in for a long time. It wasn’t in its usual place in the top drawer in the bedside table. Disturbed, I searched all the drawers.
Ricky stirred when I closed the last drawer a little too harshly.
‘Shhh, Ricky, back to sleep, habibi.’
Where could it have gone? When did I last write in it? I could not remember. Then I remembered the rage in which I had packed away all of Mama’s things and anything at all that reminded me of our life in Egypt and how I had thrown everything into large black bin liners at the very back of the wardrobe.
I sat in the wardrobe and pulled one of the bags close to me. It was heavy but that did not deter me. I would go through them one by one until I found the journal. I needed to write to Noor. I had to write to Noor. When I tore the bin liner open, the scent of Mama floated out of it. I pulled out the top item. Her bathrobe. I held it to my nose and inhaled her and I cried like I had never cried before. One by one, I pulled out Mama’s clothes, her toothbrush, her wallet. Each item brought back more of her to me. Then I found her phone. I tried to turn it on but it had no charge.
I scrambled through the bag, looking for a phone charger. Once the phone was plugged in I watched it light up. I had forgotten that her screen saver was a picture of me posing for her in the kitchen at Masri’s with enormous zucchinis, one in each hand. I looked through her list of contacts. There were hundreds. Some made me laugh and some reminded me just how amazing my Mama was – under P was Patrick Doha (Noor’s Boy From Downstairs) along with Prince Charles (UK), under M was Moustache Waxer (Kharoufa) and Michelle Obama. For the first time in my life I read text messages between my parents going back to 2014 when she must have bought the phone.
I had nagged Mama several times to upgrade her iPhone to the latest model but she was firm in her refusal. I thought she was being stubborn, but now as I read through the hundreds of text messages between my parents, I understood why she could never part with the object that was such a tangible link to her husband and her marriage. The messages ranged from the mundane (Six lemons please habibi and a bag of rice), to the funny (a photo of our puppy Lucky sitting next to emptied bin contents), to the romantic (I miss you ya habibti, come home soon, the nights are too long with you gone and the bed is cold), to the alarming (They’re here again. The same two. Send Hamdy quickly. I will go back into the office until he arrives. Make sure the girls stay indoors. Do not let them take their studies out onto the balcony).
But the biggest surprise awaited me when I clicked on the calendar app in the phone. Every day (with the exception of a few dates that I identified as times when she was ill and hospitalised after skipping doses of her medication) Mama had kept a kind of journal. But unlike my long journal to Noor, hers was always one sentence only and always followed by the words ‘Shoofi? Aho’. ‘You see? There you go.’ And every sentence for every day, starting from the week after the fire and ending the week before she died, was about me – Anwar’s pink face and wet hair when she returned from the pool. Shoofi? Aho. or The sound of Anwar’s laughter today when she found a vibrator inside Rosa’s apron pocket in the washing basket. Shoofi? Aho. or Anwar wasn’t able to sleep until her feet were tucked between my shins. Shoofi? Aho.
My mama was giving herself a reason to keeping living and every day that reason was me.
I sat on the floor going through all of Mama’s things until Ricky woke up the next morning.
‘What are you doing, Anna?’
‘Remembering, ya Ricky. I’m remembering.’
I finally found my journal in there too and I took it to the kitchen to write in it while Ricky ate his breakfast and watched SpongeBob on the television.
My precious Noor,
I know it has been months since I wrote to you. I found it impossible, you see, when I thought you had abandoned me. I associated your absence with Mama’s death and I didn’t open myself up to there being any other possibilities to explain your leaving me. Even though you let me know very clearly where you were and that you were in fact closer to me than ever before – I was so buried in grief that I didn’t hear you calling to me.
It wasn’t until I had my ultrasound two days ago when my baby was confirmed to be a girl that I finally understood where you were. I didn’t need an ultrasound to tell me I was having a girl, you see, because I already knew with an absolute certainty from the first day that I was.
You didn’t leave me for Mama, Noor, you simply moved from my dreams to my womb to keep watch over my baby. This is why I’ve felt so connected to my child, as if I’ve known her intimately from the day I discovered she was there.
Whenever my baby moves I feel you. When I look down at my stomach I see you. And then when my baby is born, I will see your spirit shine through her every day. I don’t need you in my dreams anymore because now you’re with me when I’m awake too.
So, my darling, this is the last time I will write to you. Today I start my life anew. Nick arrives home from Melbourne today. I will go to him and we will start over together. And just as my life is starting over, your life, Noor, ya habibti, is starting over too.
Goodbye my precious sister. Allah maaki.
A x