The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafah

Author:Sahar Mustafah
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2019-12-12T16:00:00+00:00

The cardamom-spiced coffee wafts through the foyer of Suha Bakri’s luxurious house. She lives in a well-manicured neighborhood in Tempest, part of a population of well-to-do Arabs who’ve migrated miles south of Chicago, along with thousands of white people, discarding their urban existence. The hypocrisy of her husband’s liquor store is politely ignored—Allah will judge each on his and her own merits, the imam lectures them each Friday. Suha’s husband recently donated to the youth field house to be installed in the spring.

A massive chandelier glitters above Afaf’s head and gilded frames with Quranic verses hang on sponge-painted walls.

“Ahlan! Ahlan!” Suha gushes. “Welcome and congratulations, habibti!” She’s wearing her hijab though she’s inside her own house, and Afaf can tell she’s still brimming with the excitement of her own commitment last month. One glimpse of Suha Bakri’s house—a spiral staircase, cathedral ceilings, marble floors, and a Range Rover in the driveway—and Afaf can see how easy a transition it is for someone like Suha to devote herself to Islam. How else can one account for such wealth and comfort, for the blessings of healthy children? Afaf smiles to herself as she and Kowkab are ushered into a large family. It’s a small sacrifice, a woman like Suha concealing her mass of thick, highlighted curls beneath a taut fuchsia fabric with tiny rhinestones.

The women are waiting in a circle to embrace Afaf. It’s a flurry of lips and eyes and headscarves. She’s moving so quickly through the line she can’t recall whom she’s just greeted. When she can finally stand back, she’s happy to see her favorite women are present. Kowkab’s mother and sisters, all sharing that same crooked smile, beam at Afaf. Rita Parker and her daughter Ashanti wave at her from the living room. They wear emerald turbans, their faces a shimmering deep bronze.

Afaf remembers the first time she met Benjamin Parker. Mama had recoiled at the presence of the heavyset black man Baba had invited into her small kitchen. With a stiff back, she served them coffee. Either completely oblivious, or magnanimously polite as Afaf has come to know him, Mr. Parker never stopped smiling and thanking Mama for her hospitality. He and his family are the first black members of the mosque. They live one town over from Tempest.

Baba was instantly taken by Mr. Parker’s fervent beliefs. They spent hours at the Lower Delta Restaurant on Eighty-Seventh Street and Kedzie Avenue, arguing about muslimeen who profit at the expense of poor black folks.

There should be a rec center or day care on every corner—not a liquor store, brother, Mr. Parker protested, rubbing stubble on his chin.

Allah see the evil they do, Baba conceded. He see everything.

Um Zuraib waits for Afaf in the living room. Last year, her mentor had fallen outside her home, breaking her hip. Her once-robust body, its girth taking up a love seat, is now whittled down to a slack frame, her welcoming bosom deflated. She sits on a leather recliner, the other women fretting over her.

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