Zeitoun by Dave Eggers Read Free Book Online Page B

make a run on the basics before a storm arrived, and she wanted to avoid the crush.
    She went to the mirror to adjust her hijab, brushed her teeth, and left the house. Not that she thought about it much, but any trip to the grocery store or the mall presented the possibility that she would encounter some kind of ugliness. The frequency of incidents seemed tied, to some extent, to current events, to the general media profile of Muslims that week or month. Certainly after 9/11 it was more fraught than before, and then it had calmed for a few years. But in 2004 a local incident had stoked the fire again. At West Jefferson High School, a tenth grader of Iraqi descent had been repeatedly harassed by her history teacher. He had called Iraq a “third-world country,” had worried that the student would “bomb us” if she ever returned to Iraq. In February of that year, while passing out tests, the teacher had pulled back the girl’s hijab and said, “I hope God punishes you. No, I’m sorry, I hope Allah punishes you.” The incident was widely reported. The student filed a lawsuit against him, and his termination was recommended by the Jefferson Parish School District superintendent. The school board overruled; he was given a few weeks’ suspension and returned to the classroom.
    After the decision, there had been an uptick in minor harassment of Muslims in the area, and Kathy was aware of the invitation she was providing in going out in her hijab. There was a new practice in vogue at the time, favored by adolescent boys or those who thought like them: sneak up behind a woman wearing a headscarf, grab it, and run.
    One day it happened to Kathy. She was shopping with Asma, a friend who happened to be Muslim but who wore no hijab. Asma was originally from Algeria, and had been living in the U.S. for twenty years; she was usually taken for Spanish. Kathy and Asma were leaving the mall, and outside, Kathy was trying to remember where she’d parkedher car. She and Asma were on the sidewalk, Kathy squinting at the rows of gleaming cars, when Asma gave her a funny look.
    “Kathy, there’s a girl behind you—”
    A girl of about fifteen was crouched behind Kathy, her arm raised, about to yank the hijab off Kathy’s head.
    Kathy cocked her head. “You got a problem?” she barked.
    The girl cowered and slunk away, joining a group of boys and girls her age, all of whom had been watching. Once back with her friends, the girl directed some choice words Kathy’s way. Her friends laughed and echoed her, cursing at Kathy in half a dozen different ways.
    They could not have expected Kathy to return the favor. They assumed, no doubt, that a Muslim woman, presumably submissive and shy with her English, would allow her hijab to be ripped from her head without retaliation. But Kathy let loose a fusillade of pungent suggestions, leaving them dumbfounded and momentarily speechless.
    On the drive home, even Kathy was shocked by what she’d said. She had been brought up around plenty of cursing, and knew every word and provocative construction, but since she’d become a mother, since she’d converted, she hadn’t sworn more than once or twice. But those kids needed to learn something, and so she’d obliged.
    In the weeks after the attacks on the Twin Towers, Kathy saw very few Muslim women in public. She was certain they were hiding, leaving home only when necessary. In late September, she was in Walgreens when she finally saw a woman in a hijab. She ran to her.
“Salaam alaikum!”
she said, taking the woman’s hands. The woman, a doctor studying at Tulane, had been feeling the same way, like an exile in her own country, and they laughed at how delirious they were to see each other.
    *    *    *
    On this day in August, the grocery-store trip went off without confrontation, and she picked up her girls.
    “You hear about the storm?” Nademah asked.
    “It’s coming toward us,” Safiya added from the back seat.
    “Are we