An Infidel in Paradise (9 page)

I turn to find Angie watching me, her face serious.

“What?” I ask.

“You said your mom’s never around and it feels like …?”

“It feels like we’re going to be late for class,” I say, shoving the remains of my sandwich back in my bag. Angie’s a nice girl, but I hardly know her, and it’s way too soon to start spilling every twisted detail of my messed-up life. The courtyard is starting to fill with students. I stand up.

“Good luck with Mustapha,” says Angie, but she looks sad. I quickly turn away and try to focus on which classroom I’m heading for. I’m still not used to the way the classes alternate every other day at this school, and it’s only my second day on this schedule.

I’ve taken just a couple of steps when Angie calls to me. I look back and find she’s still where I left her.

“If you want my opinion, I think you’re one heck of a team player,” she says before turning away. I stand there for a few seconds, watching her retreating form
until she disappears into a classroom. Angie is probably the sappiest girl I’ve ever met, but as I walk away, I feel a lightness that, for once, has nothing to do with losing my temper or letting off steam.

I
get to the theater early. I think maybe it will give me an edge if I have a chance to catch my breath and cool off from the heat before he arrives, but I realize my mistake almost immediately. With each passing minute, I get more nervous. My heart has expanded into my throat, cutting off my air supply. I take short, shallow breaths as my whole body throbs with each beat.

By the time he finally does walk in, with Ali and Faarooq and at least four other kids who orbit him like he’s the sun, I’ve pretty much decided to ask for a nurse’s pass so I can take my heart failure to a more appropriate location.

Unfortunately, the cherub, who is even more enthusiastic than two days ago, chooses that moment to get things started. He bounces to the middle of the room and shouts gaily to Mustapha and crew.

“Quickly, now! We have a fun exercise to get to know each other better.” I cringe at the word
fun
, which
every kid knows is teacher-speak for “excruciatingly embarrassing.”

“How many of you have played Blind Trust before?” he asks, ignoring the groans of the few kids who have and the wary looks of the rest. “You need to take a scarf,” he continues, holding aloft a fistful of dark scarves. “And choose a partner, someone you don’t know very well. You’re going to take turns blindfolding each other and leading each other around the school.”

Ali and Faarooq race down the aisle to grab a scarf, jostling each other as they run back to Mustapha and begin debating whom he should partner with. He laughs good-naturedly and takes Ali’s scarf. For a moment, I think the battle’s resolved, but he says something to them and walks away. He seems to be coming in my direction, and I look around, thinking he must be targeting someone else, but he’s heading for me with the resolve of a cruise missile.

“Hello, Emma,” he says, flashing his devastating smile.

“Hello, Mustapha,” I say, sliding one hand into my pocket to check if the note is still there or has suddenly imploded from the intense heat suffusing my body.

“Are you ready to follow me blindly?” he asks. I stare at him blankly until he holds up the scarf.

“I don’t really think that’s a good idea,” I say, trying to sound calm and reasonable. “Do you?”

“Probably not,” he agrees.

We both look around the room at other kids pairing off. I notice we’re the only mixed-gender couple. I
wonder if this is another huge cultural blunder, but I can’t be blamed this time. I finger the note again. Now would be the perfect time to give it to him. We’re alone. I haven’t said anything stupid yet, and I’m only moderately irritated with him.

“Close your eyes,” he says, interrupting my planning. I look back at him. In the dim lighting of the theater, his face is half-shadowed as he looks down at me.

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s just a game. You’re not scared of me, are you?” He’s still smiling benignly, but the atmosphere in the room has changed. I’m pretty sure it’s leaking oxygen. Any minute now, masks will drop from the ceiling.

“Mr. Baker will be disappointed if you refuse to join in.” I startle at the mention of the teacher’s name. I’d almost forgotten where we were. “Come on, close your eyes,” he croons. “You can trust me.”

We stare at each other for a long minute. I don’t know why I finally close my eyes and let him tie the scarf over them. I regret it the minute the darkness becomes absolute.

“You know, I don’t need to be blindfolded to get lost on this campus,” I quip, trying to ease the pressure that has magnified exponentially with the darkness.

“You won’t get lost. I’m going to guide you.” Strangely, his disembodied voice is more comforting than I would have expected, and his hand on my elbow as he nudges me forward feels steady. I’m suddenly aware of his smell – soap and cinnamon.

I can tell we’re heading out of the theater because the floor gradually slopes up underfoot. The giggling of various classmates surrounds us but seems far away. Light creeps under the blindfold as we emerge into the heat. Mustapha keeps leading me forward but is strangely silent, as if he’s preoccupied with his own thoughts. I have the feeling he has a destination in mind. As we walk along, I can no longer hear other students and try to get my bearings under the blindfold. I think we must be crossing the parking lot because we’ve walked on pavement without stepping up or down for quite a while. Sweat is collecting in all the places you don’t want to be sweating when you’re blindfolded and with a boy.

“It must be time to take off the blindfold,” I say, wishing I hadn’t agreed to play this game.

“Soon,” he says, picking up the pace and dragging me with him.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” he says, missing the irony.

Finally, he tells me to step up, and we’re walking on grass. It’s harder going, less even, and I stumble once, but he catches me. It’s cooler now and I can feel shade.

“We’re here,” he says, eventually letting go of my arm. “You can take it off now.”

I pull off the blindfold. We’re at one far corner of the campus, in a field next to a wall. I look around, trying to figure out what I’m supposed to be seeing. It’s obvious from his quiet watchfulness that this place has
some significance, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is.

“So?” I say finally.

He points to a pile of stones.

“A man died here,” he says. “A guard. Students aren’t supposed to know where it happened. They want us to forget. The administration keeps having the stones removed, but they always find their way back.”

“When did it happen?”

“A long time ago, ten years maybe. There was rioting in the city. That happens a lot. People get angry about the foreigners, the infidels, and they look for someone to take out their anger on. The school’s an obvious target. It wasn’t as well-guarded back then, and the walls were lower. They’ve raised them eight feet since and put the broken glass on top. No students were hurt; the teachers hid them. But one guard was beaten to death right here.”

We’re silent for several minutes as we contemplate the pile of stones.

“Why are you showing me this?” I say after a time.

“Because you need to understand.”

“Understand what?” I turn to look at him.

“You can’t make fun of things.” His gaze is intent. “You need to be careful, show more respect.”

I’m disappointed. He thinks it’s that simple. I’m just culturally insensitive, an ignorant kid who needs to be schooled in foreign relations. I know he doesn’t know about my dad or how hard it was to leave my friends in
Manila, and maybe he wouldn’t forgive me even if he did know, but still I expected more compassion from him. I hoped for more.

“So, that’s it, then?” I ask. “You brought me here to do what? Teach me a lesson? Warn me?” My voice cracks.

He looks at me steadily but doesn’t answer.

I look away. “Well, lesson learned,” I say, still not looking at him. “I’ll see you back in class.” I turn to walk away.

“Emma,” he catches my arm, but lightly, and immediately drops his hand when I turn to glare at him.

“Don’t you want to blindfold me now?” His tone is friendly, but his eyes are searching. It’s the first time I’ve seen his confidence waver.

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” I say. “You’re already blind.”

I feel the tears starting as I leave him and begin making my way across the field. I want to go home, but not home to any one geographical location. I want to go back to a moment in time when I felt surrounded by people who knew me and loved me. I want to recapture that feeling of belonging, but right now, in this field where a man died trying to save kids like me, kids who don’t really belong anywhere, I wonder if that moment ever existed.

We’re a long way from the theater, and I hope I’m heading in the right direction. As I had thought, we’re on the far side of the parking lot, but I can’t see any of
our classmates and suspect class resumed long ago. I keep walking and have covered some significant ground before I hear Mustapha’s voice again.

“Emma!” he shouts.

I stop and look back. He hasn’t moved from the stones. He’s going to be seriously late.

“If I am blind,” his deep voice resonates across the field, “shouldn’t you guide me?”

“You think I know the way?” I shake my head at his ignorance and turn to resume my journey. I look back once more when I reach the edge of the parking lot. He still hasn’t moved and he’s still watching me, though from this distance, I can’t read his expression. I don’t think we’ll be practicing our play today. I take the note out of my pocket and rip it into a dozen pieces, letting them flutter to the ground. A large cockroach scuttles toward me, disturbed or perhaps enticed by the flurry of paper. For a moment, I think of the appealing coolness of the theater, but I can see the greenhouse from where I’m standing, and without giving it much thought, I turn my steps in that direction.

I
don’t see Mr. Akbar at first. He blends into the foliage like a creature of the forest. Only when I catch the movement of leaves on the far side of the greenhouse do I see a triangle of his khaki uniform.

“Mr. Akbar?” I say, not loudly. I feel embarrassed to disturb him and wonder if I should find a bathroom to hide out in until the end of class.

“Emma, how nice of you to come,” he says, working his way through the foliage toward me. “How is your first week going?”

“I’m sorry,” I say, my mind a few paces behind. “I don’t mean to bother you. I should go.” I start to back away, but he smiles and starts speaking again.

“I was just about to have
chai
. Would you be kind enough to join me?”

I hesitate. In spite of the heat, I can’t think of anything I would rather do than have a cup of tea, here, with this man. I gratefully follow him through the plants to the very back of the greenhouse, where I
find he has a small wrought iron table and two chairs. They seem out of place in this country, like something out of a Victorian garden, but at the same time, they suit him perfectly. I collapse into one of the chairs. A feeling of peace comes over me as I watch him crouch on the ground and lift an iron kettle off a low shelf, placing it on a small brazier already blistering with coals. He takes a clear packet off the same shelf, and the smells of cinnamon, cloves, and ginger fill the damp air as he shakes a measure of spices into the boiling water. We sit in silence for a good while, watching the steam evaporate.

“People add the tea at different times,” says Mr. Akbar. “There’s no right or wrong way to do it. Would you like to add the tea now?”

“I don’t know how you like it,” I say hesitantly.

“The trick is to discover how
you
like it.” Mr. Akbar crouches to the shelf and hands me a second packet with loose tea leaves.

“How much should I add?”

“Just the right amount,” he says with a smile. “Don’t worry. You won’t go wrong.”

I use a cloth that’s sitting on the ground next to the kettle to remove the lid. I’m sure I’m wrecking it as I shake some of the dark leaves into the spicy brew. I glance at Mr. Akbar, but he’s looking off into the distance as if suddenly entranced by one of his flowering trees. I shake in a few more leaves and replace the lid. I resume my seat, and we sit in silence for a while longer.
Water keeps evaporating, and I watch the purposeful meandering of a small insect up the leaf of a nearby plant.