Audacious, p.5
Audacious, page 5
That was so corny.
I want to touch him
Suddenly
So suddenly
That he won’t be able to stop me.
DREAMING
I dream
The tanned kid and pregnant girl
With the corn
Standing in the yard
The snow drifting down on them
Marika
Her awkward body transformed
Elegant
Flying with streams of color
Samir
Outside my window
Like a Montague
I wake to a car alarm.
The house sleeps yet restlessly
Somewhere, someone paces
I’m not sure how I know.
My mother
In the kitchen
Walking back and forth
Between the stainless steel,
Box of Shreddies tucked under her arm
Swallowing handfuls
Crying.
I duck out of sight.
She would not want me to witness this
Nor do I
But it’s too late.
WHAT COMES NEXT?
I know Dad knows.
He hears the retching
Sees the red knuckles
Smells the breath
Feels Mom’s ribs when they hug
He must know.
Is it that he’s busy
With his new job?
Is it that Kayli and I
Are too busy
With our new schools?
Why hasn’t somebody
Said
Or done
Something?
BLACK
The first thing Samir does is paint the canvas
Black
Three layers of black
It has to be pure
Like night
Sunless
I’m beginning from nothing.
He lets each layer dry
For a day
Waiting.
There are comments
When art class begins
Are you painting the contents of your brain?
Says Freckle.
Samir leans forward and whispers to me
Her heart.
Pardon me, I say.
He whispers again
Her heart
His lips a centimeter from my ear.
Pardon me, I say again
Until he gets the game
And whispers
Your hair smells nice.
For the rest of the class
I can’t draw a straight line.
NINE SMALL CANVASES
A word swims around my head
Audacious
In my mind it forms a picture
A line of women
Saying screw you to convention
Of any sort
Saying shove it to the expectations
Of society
Of school
Of close-minded fools
Saying
This is who I am:
Arab
Unemployed
Disabled
Asthmatic
C
Stops me.
I’ll get to that later.
Indigenous
Old
Ugly
Single
I want to include bulimic
But there is no B in audacious.
THE PROCESS
So I start with photographs
Mom, in her robe, with coffee and newspaper
Unemployed
Kayli, in the nebulizer mask
And pajamas
She woke up wheezing
Asthmatic
I ask Ms. Sagal
She loves the concept
And poses
Proud to be single
Her daughter poses too
Lopsided smile
Disabled
I ask Mom if I
Can come with her to the shelter.
The Phantom
It turns out
Loves to pose for pictures
With her gnarled face
Gaping hole where her eye used to be
She is ugly
Yet
Now I begin to understand
What audacious means.
Because behind that ugliness
Is beauty, as old and deep as the ocean.
CORN: PART TWO
After school, I take the bus
Across the tracks
Hoping I will remember the house.
There it is
Still sagging
Now under the weight of
Wet snow.
The truck, half submerged in the driveway
Empty and abandoned-looking.
It’s an awkward moment
When she comes to the door
A tiny baby asleep on her shoulder
But she invites me in.
I’m sixteen, she says when I ask
My name is Nina, and yes, I’m an Indian
I didn’t use that word
I said “indigenous.”
I tell her the name of my school
Nina laughs
I went there. We would be in the same grade
Except for…
She pats her sleeping baby with a smile.
When she hears of my project for Ms. Sagal
She poses willingly
I was good in art, she says
And lets me hold her son
While she braids her hair.
DEATH AND TEARS
Ms. Sagal checks my progress
(Samir paints in the corner,
His canvas turned away from us.
It’s a secret, he says.)
Do you think I can include
A photograph
Of someone who is dead?
I clarify: taken when they were alive of course!
(Here she smiles with relief I can see.
I wonder what does she think of me
I mean I would have to be sick in the head
To include a photo of someone actually dead.)
Who? she says, recovering her poise.
My grandmother
She was old
Eighty
When she died two years ago
Exactly five years after Gabriel…
Suddenly without warning
I’m crying.
Ms. Sagal steers me to a seat
I tell her everything
Poor little Gabriel
Mom’s grief
The vomiting.
Then Samir appears beside me
With a clean white handkerchief.
NOMENCLATURE: PART ONE
Nana loved angels
She stitched them into quilts
And named my mother Angela.
Mom
Dreamed of at least three kids
Named for the archangels
Raphael
Michael
And of course
Gabriel
But only got
Two-thirds of the way
There.
The weight of that name
Is sometimes a mountain
With a cave of secrets
And sometimes a feather
Floating on a puff of air.
chapter seven
JUXTAPOSITION
OLD
Nana
Wouldn’t have
Liked it maybe
Being called
Old
It’s like
A prize that
Nobody thinks they want
And when they have it
They pretend they don’t
Until they die.
Not me
I
Long to
Get “old” because
Being young
Sucks.
NOMENCLATURE: PART TWO
So that leaves me with “Arab”
Which despite everything
I have to look up.
And it doesn’t help:
Arab (ãr’∂b) n.
1. A member of a Semitic people inhabiting
Arabia, whose language and Islamic religion
spread widely throughout the Middle East and
northern Africa from the seventh century.
2. A member of an Arabic-speaking people.
3. An Arabian horse.
4. Offensive Slang. A waif.
(That last one makes me think WTF?)
Samir tells me
Yes, we are Arabs
Sometimes people call us
“Israeli Arabs”
Like Palestine is just a myth
Or a half-remembered dream.
So you prefer to be called Palestinian? I ask.
Samir thinks for a long time
He gets that smoky brooding look in his eyes
The one that dissects my heart
Lays it out on the table
Like a pithed frog.
We would be called anything, he says
To have our country.
I let that swirl around us, like mist
Then dissipate
Before I ask:
Would your sister pose for me?
Samir whips out a phone
Speed-dials
And speaks in Arabic.
(God, I love the way the
vowels make his lips move.)
He hangs up
And without irony says
She will ask her husband.
HALA: PART ONE
She’s beautiful close up
Gorgeous in fact
Although of course I can’t see her hair
Or the shape of her body
But her eyes are like Samir’s
Deep chocolate pools
Sadness
And pride.
I like the way you dress, she says
Eyeing my loose men’s Levi’s
Dyed purple (by me in the kitchen sink)
And flowered blouse over a long-sleeved T-shirt.
Modest
Not like most…
I feel myself redden
And to cover it snap her picture.
I was going to say
A very rude word
I’m sorry.
I snap and click in silence.
Do you know why I quit fashion school?
She asks suddenly.
I shrug
Because your husband...?
It was before I met him.
We had an assignment
To design and make a line for little girls
Who would model in the show
She shakes her head
Her black scarf twists
She removes a pin
And secures it carefully.
I designed pretty dresses
And jeans with flowers on the knees
The girls were nine and ten.
Children.
I know what she is going to say
I myself have marveled
At the state of Kayli’s attire (or lack thereof)
On more than one occasion.
The others, my classmates
Made these girls
These children
Look like prostitutes.
Tight hot pants
Crop tops
Knee boots
And dangling earrings
Made them walk
Swing their hips
Wink and sashay like whores
Her eyes mist over
Then she strikes a pose
Hidden but for her resolute face
And looks more like a woman
Than anyone I have ever seen.
HALA: PART TWO
Has Samir told you my secret?
She says.
I shake my head
I have only told close family so far
But I trust you.
She cups her hands
around the embroidered cloth
Of her tunic
Cradling the curve of cotton
That’s not quite there yet.
I snap a photo.
Four months, she says
With a coy smile.
RAVENOUS
I meet Samir at a falafel place
On Cornwall.
I’m starving, he says, shoveling tabouli
Ramadan was brutal
I haven’t stopped growing yet
I’m hungry all the time.
Then he’s embarrassed
And eats in silence.
Will your sister tell your parents
About me?
What’s to tell?
He must see
The hurt in my eyes
No, I didn’t mean it like that
She thinks we’re classmates
That’s all.
No, you’re right, I say
What’s to tell?
Then I leave him
To eat alone.
WHITMORE
And on the bus home
I cry
Like some stupid girl
Who got her heart broken
By a desert mirage.
I ride around the loop
In the dark
Back to the falafel place
But he’s gone.
At home I search the mirror
For the one he said was beautiful
She’s there
But where am I?
I who makes enemies
Like some people make coffee
I who scorns fashion
And popularity
And the cachet of
Having a boyfriend
Whom teachers fear
And principals dread.
Where is Raphaelle?
Folded up in Ella’s pocket
It doesn’t matter
In a few days
Everything will change.
IN THE ROOM ABOVE THE GARAGE
No one must
C
Me take this photograph
This is for
U
Samir
For
U
Freckle and Puffy
For
U
Mom and Dad and Kayli
Because I’m done
PreteNding
I strip
And stand
Legs slightly open
Facing the camera
On a timer
I can’t help smiling
Though my face won’t show.
FLASH!
Then I dress
And go downstairs
To make a cup of
T
DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY
Last week I installed a lock
On the door at the bottom
Of the narrow staircase
Because getting caught
Taking pictures of your own…
You know…
Would be majorly embarrassing
Never mind
With my history
Would probably result
In a trip to the shrink.
Mom and Dad have scoped one out
In this new city
For sure
Just in case.
So private and secure
I print and crop
And glue to the canvas
The last picture
The C
For
Me.
STRATEGIES FOR THE DISPLAY OF ART
Let’s go for an eclectic approach
Ms. Sagal says
And I agree
I hate when they group things
Or try to make some kind of flowing theme
Or narrative
Or chronological journey
Like they are telling you
How and what to think.
Instead we try for symmetry or asymmetry
Clashing colors, conflicting ideas, Ms. Sagal says
Juxtaposition.
Buzzcut,
Who is hanging his military cross-sections
Between a bouquet of flowers
And an abstract decoupage in soft yellows,
Clearly agrees.
I love that word, he says to me
Unexpectedly.
Juxta-position
Is that like “missionary position”?
I can’t help it.
I burst into laughter
Which echoes through the hall.
Buzzcut laughs with me
And soon we’re hanging freshman art together
Commenting scathingly
And hilariously
Where necessary.
But he is genuine
And appreciates what deserves it.
EIGHT PANELS
It’s amazing
Says Ms. Sagal
So lyrical and moving
Don’t you think so?
She says to Buzzcut
Who lingers nearby
It’s awesome, he says
I have hung eight
Of the nine canvases
In a bright prominent space
Between a large lavender-toned watercolor by Puffy
And a blood-soaked comic
By the former rent-a-geek
About a terrible dystopian
Snowboarding school
My centerpiece
The C
Is drying, hidden away, at home.
Still Ms. Sagal gushes
It’s really excellent work Ella
I’m so proud to be your teacher
And one of the subjects
Marika will be delighted.
She admires the calligraphy
Disabled
I feel a small pang of guilt
Tomorrow, when Marika comes to the show
No one will be looking at her picture
Or any of the other eight canvases
When my C
Is hung Up
No more will I be
T-cher’s pet.
GROWTH SPURT
I’m starving, says Buzzcut
Who signs his drawings—
Which are actually excellent—
David.
The next thing I know
We are on the way
To the falafel place.
He orders two extra-spicy chicken rolls
While I have some baklava
And crazy strong coffee.
Why do boys eat so much? I ask.
Growing, he says, mouth full
I’m already six-one
But my brother is six-four
So you never know.
I think of Samir
Suffering through Ramadan
When as if by magic
He appears.
With his sister, and I guess her husband
A handsome man with glasses
Hello Ella, Hala says
We do some introductions.
Her husband is Yusif
Samir knows David from calculus and art
