11

Daddy dearest,

These days I’m writing my quarterly exams! Really tearing my hair out! But my courses are great. For sure I made the right choice when I registered for business administration. By the way, when will you be coming? Do try to find a way to drop off here, please; we haven’t seen you since last summer. My childhood girlfriend Dina — you know, the tomboy — well, she went and got married! Unbelievable but true, I swear! We all attended the wedding. No big deal finally, everything went according to plan. In any event, nothing surprises me anymore, ever since Dina dropped everything to get married. Here the weather is starting to turn cold. It hasn’t snowed yet, but any day now, I’m sure of it. I can’t stand the heat in Dubai but I think I’m a bit jealous of you; these long, interminable winters of ours are starting to affect my system.

Looks like you’re not quite as excited as before about the project we discussed over the phone. Are you still working at it or did you decide to let it drop? Lynne and Mona are fine. They say they’re doing well at school and promised to write you soon, but I’m not so sure. I’d better remind them of their promise just in case . . .

Phew! These days we’re not seeing as much of Leila as we used to. Maybe Mommy has decided to keep her at a distance. I hope so. I don’t like her constant preaching. I think Mommy is getting tired of those morning get-togethers of hers. Her heart just isn’t in it anymore.

How is your partner? Still the same old dim-witted ingrate? I can’t see why you don’t move here, there are so many business opportunities. I could give you a hand, and we’d be all together.

Waiting impatiently for your answer,

Your dear daughter,

Lama

Lama wrote to her father with pen on paper. Even with computers and email, she felt the need to communicate with him that way. She could always find a quiet time, an empty hour or even a few moments during a busy day, to write her father a letter. A letter full of small talk and chit-chat in which she kept him up-to-date on her life.

Her two sisters, Lynne and Mona, made fun of her: “You’re a throwback to the olden days. Why don’t you use papyrus or a quill pen?” But Lama paid no heed; she loved writing to her father, even if everyone else found it faintly ridiculous. Besides, wasn’t she the black sheep of the family, the ugly duckling? To her mother and her sisters she was bizarre, rebellious, a troublemaker, too old-fashioned in her ways, too much of a hippie for their tastes, too open, but not up-to-date enough to send her father a simple email.

Lama had long since made up her mind to ignore their carping. At first there were arguments, spats, and snide remarks, but she was determined to demonstrate how wrong her mother and sisters were. It was like an ongoing game, one in which she was determined to score enough points to win and prove how superior her point of view was. But over the past few weeks she’d changed her tactics. It wasn’t premeditated; it all happened naturally, on its own. A curious silence had settled in and Lama no longer needed to win those tiny daily battles. She listened, but the impulse she’d had to answer back was no longer there. At last she stopped seeing her presence as a thorn in the family’s side. Instead she sought peace at any price.

Lama was walking down the hall towards the main library. Her abundant, curly hair fell about her shoulders. She was about to pick up the pace when her eye caught a small poster taped to the wall: THE MUSLIM STUDENTS ASSOCIATION INVITES YOU TO JOIN AND PARTICIPATE IN IMPROVING LIFE FOR STUDENTS. COME VISIT US IN ROOM . . .

Lama jotted down the room number and continued on her way. She wasn’t religious to the point of neglecting herself, but she was religious enough not to forget who she was, as she liked to put it. She was curious to find out about other Muslim students like herself, to share ideas, to participate in cultural events, even to put a little distance between herself and her mother and her friends.

For her, university was a golden opportunity to fly with her own wings, to find her way in the world, far from her mother’s traditional views and far from the superficiality of her sisters and their entourage. She was determined to live life on her terms, not to let herself be trapped like Dina. She sped up; the library was not far off. The thought of Dina made her shiver. But no sooner had she sat down in front of a computer to begin work on her research project than she forgot all about Dina’s story and plunged into her subject.