Asylum

Khalid!

Mum calls. From the kitchen. She is always calling. From the kitchen. Khalid, eat this! Khalid, drink this! Khalid, bring your plate here! Don’t think I am going to walk all over the house looking for your plate! And it’s always Khalid, never Aisha. I swear if Aisha weren’t a girl, she would have been calling her constantly, too. And they say Muslims oppress women.

Khalid! She is calling again, and in Dari mind you. Mum has been in Melbourne ten years now, two years less than Dad who first came to Australia all on his own. I have never heard her speak English. Well, except this one time when we went to this pharmacy to get some ointment for a rash Aisha was having. Mum was at the counter, carrying Aisha who didn’t have to be carried in the first place. She was old enough to walk, especially the few hundred metres to the pharmacy. But Mum still carried her, the big baby. I am sure if Aisha were not almost as tall as me, Mum would be still carrying her. That’s how privileged I reckon she is. But to come back to the story, Mum gives the prescription to the woman at the counter, and this rude bitch shows it to her colleague standing next to her and says loudly, No wonder they get rashes when covered in that thing.

That thing, of course, is the cloak Mum’s wearing and the niqab over her mouth. She didn’t even care if we heard. And the other cow giggles like her friend has just tickled her bum or something. They didn’t think Mum understood; stupid Muslim woman deprived of freedom and education, they must have thought. But Mum was so angry she told her what she thought, which was not much but quite shocking to the two girls.

If you rude like that, she hissed in English, I give you real rash, you silly girl! The two girls looked as if they had just been kicked by a woman they had thought was a cow. That’s when I knew Mum could speak English. It was not very good English, I admit, but good enough to put two rude girls in their place. We had no problems with the prescription after that, even though that was the last time we went anywhere near that pharmacy.

When I told Dad, he laughed and said, Your mother’s English is better than mine, which is not true. Dad speaks better English than Mum and many of his Afghan friends, even though he speaks with a thick accent. He learnt it in Afghanistan where he worked for the government. When he found there was no government to work for, he migrated as a refugee, bringing Mum and us later. When he worked for the government, he had to speak in English often. That is how he learnt his English. But still he likes to compliment Mum.

But, then, if her English is good enough, why the hell doesn’t she speak it? I asked her once, and she asked why should she speak in English to me, Aisha, and Dad, not to mention all the other Afghans she speaks to, in anything other than Dari? You think I am crazy or something to speak in English to people who understand Dari? she asked. In Dari, of course.

Khalid! she is calling again.

What is it? I am in the kitchen now, gazing at the lady of the house, plump behind the counter, covered head to toe, only the hands and face showing, ladling two fried eggs onto a plate already heaped with steaming spicy rice. There is a big glass of milk warming in the microwave.

Here! Eat this!

She points to the plate. I grin and sit down, sucking in the smell of the eggs and all the spices. The kitchen is always full of the smell of spices. Actually, you can smell it from the front door, even in the front yard if the door is open. I remember one Saturday morning this old White bloke who was looking for an address knocking on our door when Mum was cooking. Dad opens the door, and this dude inhales deeply and says, Ah, the aroma of the Orient! I guess he didn’t have a clue what the smell was, but seeing Dad he guessed that we must be from the Orient. But that’s what people are like, I guess. I have heard people saying some drink tastes like piss. Like they taste piss all the time!

Mum looks at me sniffing at the eggs and the rice and frowns. She knows I like to do this before I eat because it smells so good, but she also likes to frown when I do so.

Don’t sit there smelling your food. Eat!

She sounds annoyed, but she is not. She often sounds annoyed. Must be all the work she has been doing since she was a child. She was the eldest of four daughters, and she was baby-sitting since she was five and cooking since she was eight, as her mum was always sick before dying fairly young. Now she doesn’t have to look after the sisters, who have children of their own, but she still has to cook. Dad likes to cook, too, but Mum doesn’t let him. Mind your own business, she says, which simply means any business other than cooking. But it keeps her very busy, because she cooks all the time or does something that has something to do with cooking. Gives you little time to think of anything other than the next job, I guess. When she is frying the eggs, she is thinking about warming the milk. When she has warmed the milk, she is thinking about washing the plates. When she is washing the plates, she is thinking about cooking lunch.

Aisha! I yell, looking up. The spoilt little brat must be still showering. It’s seven twenty already, and she is still showering. The bus will be here in ten minutes, and we will miss it at this rate. She has another thing coming if she thinks I am going to wait for her.

Why are you yelling? Mum asks as she takes the milk out. She will come down soon. She knows where the food is. She puts the milk before me.

Drink!

I grin again. I want to say that I, too, know where the food is and she doesn’t have to yell. But that doesn’t work. A long time ago, Mum decided she was going to yell at me and not at Aisha. Who am I to change tradition? Besides, what is a bit of yelling when you can eat food this good?

Can I have some more rice?

Mum looks at me as if I were the cause of all the famines in the world, before taking my plate to heap another mound of rice. You eat too much! she says, as she pushes the plate at me. Do you want another egg?

No, I say. I am trying to cut down. I can see Mum wants to laugh, but she only allows herself a little smile. Busy.

Aisha walks in, fixing her hijab. Why are you yelling like I am down the road or something? She frowns and picks up her plate, letting the hijab just hang loose over her head.

If you don’t hurry, we will miss the bus is all I say. But Mum wants her to fix her hijab first. "Fix your hijab before you eat, she says. How many times do I have to tell you?"

Aisha starts fixing the scarf. We have never missed the bus because I am late, she says, still pretending to be grumpy. I smile to myself. She is right. We have only missed the bus when I have slept in. Or when the bus was late—or early. We go to this Muslim school that sends its school buses around in the morning to pick up the kids. The bloke who drives our bus is a grumpy old man who expects us to be at the pick-up point when he arrives, even if it is ten minutes early or ten minutes late. How are we to know what time he is arriving on a particular day? I guess you will have to call him on his mobile, but what is the point in calling somebody who almost never speaks? Fortunately, he is usually late rather than early.

But I don’t admit Aisha is right. That would spoil the fun of having a little argument with the little sister. What is the point of having a younger sister if you can’t tease her? I remember when I was younger I