To be a Silhouette in a Blue World

ii. The Brownest Thing Is Not Always The Darkest

Sit in a dining room crafted from old money, painted shades of mahogany and beige and bronze; the brownest thing, other than yourself, to occupy this house. Wearing scarf that frames your head, making a portrait of abstract features - stare down at the plate of food before you.

Just hours before now, you stood in front of your bedroom mirror, selected the loose-fitting scarlet hued scarf as your hijab. Dressed your eyes in makeup that was both bold and inviting. Wore foundation a shade of brown lighter than your complexion. You did this all for tonight. Did this all, ironically, to understand the darker, less known parts of him.

It is not that you have not already heard the whispered stories about the boy he was, before he met you. The ignorant, unempathetic boy who used to sit at the head of his political science class, laugh and mock anyone who did not sound like him; tell those hued anything other than white to return to countries they no longer belonged to; brand all who were not synonyms for himself foreign invasions on a soil they were birthed from. It is not that you do not understand what sort of quiet hatefulness it takes to raise such a child - even if that child is now, only a memory. But ever since you were told about the boy he used to be, you have wondered who raised that boy? Have wondered, who are responsible for that personified cruelty?

So now, sit in their dining room. Stare down at the serving of pork chops and cocktails sausages before you - fill with amusement, at their unsubtle attempt at insulting your faith.

'Aren't you hungry?' his mother asks from across the table, her English accented voice rich with false honey, her skeletal fingers wrapped around a fork she uses to roll around a cocktail sausage on her plate.

Look up from your own plate - lioness eyes meeting ice - as your mouth splits into a half moon across your face.

Say, 'I already ate before I got here,' your own voice as sweet as the plum colour you painted your lips this evening.

Remember that he is next you, as you feel broad shoulders laughing at your response, and are unable to help smiling again - this time for a less unsweetened reason. This smile though, lasts only a fleeting moment before hunger bites at the coils within your body reminding you that you cannot eat what is on your plate. Not only because it would disrespect the teachings of the Qur'an, but also because it would satisfy this snake of a woman. Acknowledging this bitter reality, begin to make a meal out of your own fingernails. Bite at the dead cells to distract your mind from hunger.

His father's fork and knife clatter against the surface of the oak table you all sit at, as if he too is unable to eat the meal before him.

His mouth opens and the same English accent that coats his wife's words pours out, it says, 'So son how did you and Hanna meet?'

Note that he does not offer a single glance in your direction when asking this question. Note, he did not call you by name. Your name is Hanan. Not Hanna. Wonder why he is re-writing what is a simple fact about you. Why, even in this moment, he feels a compulsion to whitewash you?

His son - your lover - says, his own voice a little less English than his parents, a little less poisonous, 'Our uni sometimes have these extra-curricular activities students can get involved in. Sometimes it's theatre, or singing, or art. That sort of stuff. Anyway, one night, at one of these things, a few of my friends and I ended up wandering into a Slam poetry event by accident. Hanan was up on stage performing. The rest is history, really.'

Watch his father, even as he eats nothing, digest this half-truth. This fragmented story of how you and his son came to be. Watch how still this is too much for him to swallow, how he picks up a glass of water next to his plate and immediately starts to drink. The sight both saddening and entertaining.

How horrible he must think it is, that the dark brown girl is also an artist with language; a manipulator not just of his son, but also of words.

'But what about you guys,' his son asks, as he mindlessly plays with a cocktail sausage on his plate. Just like his mother did a few moments ago. 'How's everything been while I've been away?'

'We've survived,' his father says, a jovial grin spreading across his face. 'But we're glad you've come home, son.'

The happiness this old man wears so easily on his face like it's all he's ever known, bites at your ribcages more than the hunger does. It is perhaps the cruellest thing either of his parents have done tonight. This ability to both be kind and reasonable to one, then the opposite to another. This inclination to be two different people, to two people they see as different.

Blink away the tears brimming in your eyes, as his mother asks him, 'You remember Sandy from across the road, don't you sweetie?'

Your lover, her son, nods. Notice how he does not meet anyone's gaze when he does. Notice the discomfort he now wears like a noose around his throat. As if he knows what is about to happen, but can do nothing to stop it.

His mother turns to face you. Her gaze no longer filled with cruelty but now an excitement that seems so foreign on her. 'Sandy was Benji's childhood sweetheart. Thick as thieves the two of them were. Such a proper English girl too, wasn't she darling?' his mother says prodding her husband.

He nods, with a smile. 'Indeed.'

'They would have been married by now, if Sandy and her family hadn't moved to the States for her father's job.'

His mother turns back to her son, her voice animated and thick with an upper class English dialect. 'But she's back, darling! Sandy's back. And I told her once you came to visit you would see her.'

This is the moment, as his mother mocks you with the memory of a girl you know nothing about, that finally you break.

Feel the overwhelming urge to cry there and then in front of them all, but manage not to. Manage to ask where the bathroom is even as tears threaten to blind you. Make your way to a bathroom crafted from white marble and white tiles. Collapse onto a closed toilet seat.

Cry.

Cry and cry and cry. Allow your body to become wracked by tears as you curl up into yourself. Replay everything that has happened tonight: the disrespect, the subtle taunting, the blatant cruelty. All of it. Stay there and wallow in a pool of pity. Thinking to yourself how woefully unprepared you were for this evening.

There is a knock at the door. Followed by his voice. It says, quiet and sad; 'Hanan, let me in.'

Consider not - then, wipe away the tears from your cheeks. Leaving only redness in its place. Rise from the toilet-seat pull the door open. There he is, standing in the doorframe: Six-feet tall with pale-skin and blonde-hair. The sort of man girls like you aren't meant to fall in love with.

Retreat to the toilet-seat, reclaiming the space you once occupied. He steps into the bathroom, shuts the door behind him, sighs.

'I'm sorry,' he says. 'They were completely out of line.'

Tears stream down your face, once again. Hot, and hurried. And all at once, even as hard as you try not to, you are consumed by sadness; drowning in tears and sorrow and hatred. Unable to breathe all the while.

Feel yourself, succumbing to this bitterness you've tucked away inside of yourself this entire evening, then, all at once you are wrapped by all of him. The familiarity of his broad-build, and his old-money smell, and his unblemished skin wound around you like a blanket, as he presses a kiss into the fabric of your hijab, and repeats, 'I'm sorry.'

Hold him tighter, because it hurts. Because you want to be glued back together. Because you want nothing more than for him to hide you away from all the undarkened cruelty of his parents.

However, despite all the pain you feel now in the days to come, look upon this memory and realise how tonight was not an entire tragedy.

Realise how beautiful it is that a person like your lover, can be birthed from people who do and think monstrous things without themselves becoming a monster. Realise that a family of sharp edges and contortions can bring into the world something abstract and lovely.

And that, that abstract and lovely thing can love you, despite what anyone else wishes for him to do.