gear entering and leaving
they pass the laundry, students in a zombie daze watching the machines rotate or playing with their phones
they pass the arts centre with a gallery and a café inside it selling unaffordable coffee and unaffordable cakes for the posh people who come on to campus to use it
they walk past the blocks of the accommodation quarter with music and weed drifting out, until they get to theirs
they go inside the building and climb the stairs as Waris continues talking, says she’s learned to give as good as she gets if anyone says any of the following
that terrorism is synonymous with Islam
that she’s oppressed and they feel her pain
if anyone asks her if she’s related to Osama bin Laden
if anyone tells her she’s responsible for them being unemployed
if anyone tells her she’s a cockroach immigrant
if anyone tells her to go back to her jihadist boyfriend
if anyone asks her if she knows any suicide bombers if anyone tells her she doesn’t belong here and when are you leaving?
if anyone asks if she’s going to have an arranged marriage
if anyone asks her why she dresses like a nun
if anyone speaks slowly to her like she can’t speak English
if anyone tells her that her English is really good
if anyone asks her if she’s had FGM, you poor thing
if anyone says they’re going to kill her and her family
you’ve really suffered, Yazz says, I feel sorry for you, not in a patronizing way, it’s empathy, actually
I haven’t suffered, not really, my mother and grandmother suffered because they lost their loved ones and their homeland, whereas my suffering is mainly in my head
it’s not in your head when people deliberately barge into you
it is compared to half a million people who died in the Somali civil war, I was born here and I’m going to succeed in this country, I can’t afford not to work my butt off, I know it’s going to be tough when I go on the job market but you know what, Yazz? I’m not a victim, don’t ever treat me like a victim, my mother didn’t raise me to be a victim.
3
That afternoon they ended up dancing to Amr Diab in Yazz’s room
Yazz tells Waris it’s important to counterbalance the state of being cerebral with the state of being corporeal
Waris asks her if she means they need to do physical activity because they spend too much time thinking?
yes, that’s it, Yazz says, making elaborate movements with her arms as she dances
why didn’t you just say that then?
they’re still playing his songs very loudly later that evening with Nenet, who lives on the same corridor and first introduced the famous Egyptian singer to them; Yazz had instantly found herself transported as soon as the lyrics poured out of Diab’s sexy lips on the screen
Waris loved him too, said Diab’s music stirred her soul
Yazz said he made her feel love for the man who’ll one day be on the receiving end of her passion
Waris said that man should be afraid, very afraid
Nenet said Diab was old school so for her it was more of a nostalgia thing, as she showed them how to dance Arabic-style with swaying hips and swirling arms, while high on jelly babies
it became their thing – Amr Diab evenings
Courtney, who lived next door, knocked on the door in her pyjamas, and asked them to turn it down because she’s trying to sleep and it’s, like, midnight?
Yazz told her to listen very carefully to the other people playing loud music in other parts of the building, can she hear them? above and below?
of course she can, it’s a Saturday night, and as soon as the security guards who’ve been called drive off, the noise starts up again
everyone’s at it, right? Yazz said, hands on hips, so why are you targeting us in particular, giving Courtney a look rich with subtext
it was a tense moment, diffused by Nenet, who said she knows how to handle conflict because her father was in the diplomatic service for the entire thirty years of Mubarak’s presidency of Egypt
that’s called a dictatorship, Waris challenged her
it’s called political stability, Nenet swatted back
Nenet’s grandfather had grown up with Mubarak in Kafr El-Meselha, he worked in the Ministry of Justice with him, their families were friends
as a diplomatic couple, her parents acquired the skills to talk to anyone as if they were deeply interested in them, even when they hated the bastards, they’d even be nice to you, Waris, Nenet once said, reassuringly
Waris knew what Nenet meant, Somalis were looked down on in Egypt
when Mubarak’s government fell during the Egyptian revolution, Nenet’s family fled to the UK where they had citizenship anyway because her dad had invested a million pounds here to get it
prior to that, her parents lived in lots of countries while she’d gone to boarding school in Sussex
don’t ask me where my family money comes from, she said, replying to Waris’s enquiry
they’ve never told me
Nenet welcomed Courtney into Yazz’s room, all diplomatic smiles to diffuse the situation, come in, what’s your name? offering her Coca Cola, and when the music began again, showed her moves
just let yourself float, Courtney, imagine you’re water, air, light, let the music move your body, don’t overthink it, the aim is to dance with yourself for yourself
Courtney was soon swirling and floating with the rest of them, she liked this fa-la-la music and why hadn’t she heard of it before?
don’t you think that’s a bit offensive? Yazz asked
why? I like it and belly dancing’s fun, too
it’s not called belly dancing, Yazz replied, that’s so Orientalist and we don’t tolerate that here, at which point Nenet told Yazz to cut it out and explained their dancing is inspired by what’s now called Raqs Sharqi
okay, Courtney said, shrugging, doing a fancy spin and dancing as if she could divorce her hips from her waist, her waist from her chest, her arms from her torso and her hands from her arms
she was moving better than all of them
they all crashed on Yazz’s floor that night, had breakfast together in the refectory
Courtney told them she grew up on a wheat and barley farm in Suffolk, they joked it explained her farm girl looks
sparkling eyes, Nenet said
translucent skin, Yazz said
milkmaid breasts, Waris added
Waris, who’d never left Wolverhampton before travelling for university open days, admitted she’d never stepped on a farm in her life
me neither, Yazz said, my soul is urbanista not ruralite
Nenet informed them that her parents have a farm in the Cotswolds which breeds llamas and a wine estate in the Franschhoek Valley in South Africa
Waris said it was all right for some, to which Nenet replied it’s not my fault, Waris said fair-dos