April 1988
By Monday morning the stories are flying.
It seems I am the illegitimate child of a famous Malay rock star and his high-class North Indian Brahmin mistress. Brought up a strict Hindu vegetarian until the government caught hold of my mother.
It seems I am the son of apostate hippies who went to America for studies and came back smoking ganja and drinking alcohol and avoiding meat.
It seems I am an orphan. Muslim by birth but accidentally adopted by a Buddhist couple from Thailand. One fine day an official going through old paperwork noticed the mistake.
It seems my Filipina mother secretly converted to Islam without telling my Eurasian father. It seems my father has taken up a court case.
I did not want to come back to school after the food fair. I tried to make a deal with Latifah: “Let me just study with the ustaz and I will never cause you any trouble. I will pray your prayers five times a day minimum. I will fast for Ramadan. I will even slowly-slowly get used to your food.” But at this Latifah balked. “You think the ustaz can teach you mathematics and physics and chemistry?” she cried. “What are you going to do with your life? Join PAS or Al-Arqam? Become a missionary? You don’t want to go to school, fine, I’ll take you back to the authorities and see if they got place for you in a charity home somewhere.”
That was that. I went to my room to sit and wait for Monday morning.
I would have to warn Reza. Of course he would tell me I was a fool; “You should have just shut up and eaten the chicken,” he would say. But he would at least see that we were in the same sinking boat. Once the school found out my true identity he would have no peace either. Already—just beyond our field of vision—the forces were gathering. Ready with their prayers and the enforced piety and their vigilance.
The whole week all I saw of Reza was evidence that he had used his bed: on Saturday morning a rolled-up newspaper tucked between mattress and wall, on Sunday morning a blanket kicked to the floor. In the dirty clothes pail his uniform waited for Fauziah to collect it.
On Sunday night I did not let myself lie down. At twelve thirty Reza crept into the room wrapped in his cape of pizza smell.
“Reza!” I whispered.
He stood in the middle of the floor and stepped out of his public skin. I could hear the clink of his belt as it hit the floor. The zip. The rustle of his trousers. Now he peeled off his T-shirt and freed the trapped scent of his own sweaty skin. Dense as a cloud of birds it rose into the thick night air. But not one word did he speak. Even his breath was silent.
“Reza”—my voice low and pleading now—“Reza, I think they know who I am. The boys in my school I mean. I think they know who we are.”
He unhooked his towel from behind the door. He opened the door and with his hand on the knob turned around and said, “Is that right? Tell them if they’ve figured it out they should tell us. Because if they know who we are then they already know more than we do.”
He stepped out into the corridor and was gone to his cool bath.
I lay awake arranging and rearranging my options on the weighing scale hoping each time for a different reading.
Monday morning during PE Azmi struck.
“Tell the truth,” he said. “You’re not Muslim.”
“What?”
“Don’t play for time. Are you Muslim or not?”
“My name is Yusuf bin Abdullah. What more do you want?”
“Were you brought up Muslim? How come you don’t know anything? I’ve been watching you.”
Closer and closer he stepped.
“You don’t know how to read the Quran properly. Even verses people learned in Standard One you don’t know. You don’t know how to wash before praying. Actually what are you? Are you a new convert?”
Suddenly I saw how much shorter than me he was. How much smaller. A strutting bantam. With one punch I could take him by surprise. I pushed my hands into my pockets. I pressed my lips together into a grim and supercilious smile.
“Who do you think you are?” I said. “What gives you the right to be judge and policeman of the whole world?”
He was taken aback. Turns out I was not after all the meekling I appeared to be. But he could not back off so easily. Got to save face what.
“I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I was always taught that Muslims got to help each other do the right thing. Strengthen each other’s iman. Guide each other. Siapa machine cili, dia yang rasa pedas, right? If you are feeling the burn you must be guilty.”
He grinned around at his audience. With one or two of his most reliable acolytes he made eye contact. Then he turned back to me and in a louder steadier voice said, “We’re all waiting. Now please tell us once and for all: Where did you grow up? Who are your parents?”
My fist shot out to his face before I realized what was happening. Immediately, regret lodged like a hot coal in my throat. Azmi on his knees with his face in his hands. Boys crowding around him and others holding me back as though I had any intention of punching him again. Mr Joseph the PE teacher blowing his whistle furiously. Someone pinning my arms behind my back. Next thing I knew I was sitting in the headmaster’s office receiving a warning.
But it was not the headmaster’s warning that haunted me that night; it was my own cowardice. My failure to speak the truth even after so many chances. “Who are your parents?” Azmi had asked me point blank. I knew very well what I should have said: My father’s name is Cyril Dragon. We are all one people under one God. I am neither Muslim nor Christian nor Hindu nor Buddhist. I believe in one God whose only commandment is loving-kindness to all creatures. I believe in one God who wants no blood shed in His name no anger no labels no walls.
Violence is the worst sin Cyril Dragon used to say. The only sin.
What would he have said if he had seen me hit Azmi?