An Infidel in Paradise (12 page)

T
he lower and middle grades are already seated under the watchful eyes of their teachers when I enter the theater. I search the crowd till I catch sight of Mandy, seated near the front. Like the rest of her classmates, she has a book on her lap, but she’s not reading. She’s not talking to the kids next to her either, even though most of the class is whispering. I try to catch the eye of her teacher, willing her to notice my sister. Mandy’s not a kid to sit quietly when there’s socializing going on unless something is wrong. I’ve seen enough of how the other kids treat her on the van to know she’s not fitting in, but I don’t know if it’s just that or something more.

“Emma!” I look across the theater and feel a rush of relief to see Angie standing up, waving her arms.

Teachers are herding upper schoolers to the back rows of the theater, well away from the little kids and my sister. I push through my unruly peers, all similarly engaged in finding friends. There’s at least fifteen minutes of chaos before everyone is settled. Leela and
Tahira join Angie and me. Jazzy’s several rows away, sitting with Johan. I lean over to ask Angie if we’re allowed to get out of our seats. I still have one eye on Mandy, and even though I can only see the back of her, I know she’s upset. I don’t get two words out before a teacher shushes me and points to the front, where the superintendent is taking the stage.

He stands in front of the microphone and raises his hands for silence. The lower-school teachers start a rhythmic clap. Amazingly, their little charges all join in and stop talking. The middle and upper schoolers are way too cool for this, but we get the point and quiet down.

The superintendent runs through a bunch of boring rules and tells the upper schoolers to set a good example, simultaneously pointing out how much better behaved the little kids are with all their books and clapping, like they thought that stuff up themselves. He gets annoyed that we aren’t sitting with our classes, since our teachers are supposed to take roll call, but he doesn’t suggest anyone move. He probably figures if he lets us get up again, we’ll never get settled. Obviously, this guy’s been around a while.

“I have to check on my sisters,” says Angie as soon as the superintendent leaves the stage.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” I say and jump up, following unnecessarily close behind her. I know I’m not supposed to be scared, but I keep thinking of the pile of stones. I’m also thinking how sorry my mom would be if I was hacked to death by religious fanatics
and how she’d regret planning to send me away. I almost wish something would happen, which is just stupid. She’d be way too busy mourning my siblings to spend a nanosecond missing me.

“Stick with me,” says Angie, giving me a knowing look.

I try not to look too relieved. It’s not like this is my first time living in a dangerous country. We never had lockdowns in Manila or days when we couldn’t go home, but we did live in a gated community. There were occasional bombings in town, random violence. But it was just that. Random. There were no hostile stares as we wandered the city, no public demonstrations demanding we be wiped out. Manila was dangerous, yet violence – when it did occur – seemed out of the ordinary. But standing here, among these other kids hiding out in the school theater, our voices echo like the distant rumblings of an avalanche, and I can’t get past the feeling that we’re directly in its path.

I’m right behind Angie as she squeezes out of our row. We pass a teacher on the end, who frowns at us, but Angie tells him we need to check on our sisters and he just shrugs.

Unlike the upper schoolers, who are a jumble at the back of the theater, the other two schools are seated by class, in orderly rows, with the youngest at the front. So as we work our way down from the back, we come upon Angie’s oldest sister first.

“Hey, Casey.” Angie waves across several students, and a girl with a glossy mane of black hair squeals with
delight and begins pushing her way out of the row to stand in the aisle with us.

“Casey, this is Emma.” I can tell by the way she introduces me with no explanation that I’ve already been the subject of conversation. Strangely, it doesn’t feel that creepy, though I do wonder what she’s been saying. “Casey’s my mini-me,” says Angie, putting her arm around her sister and giving her a squeeze. “Don’t we look alike?”

I have to admit, the resemblance is astounding. Casey’s a couple of inches shorter but has identical beautiful elfin looks.

“Our mom looks like us too,” adds Casey. “We call ourselves the Three Musketeers.” They both grin, as if this isn’t a totally embarrassing admission.

“Oh,” I say and look away, pretending my interest has been caught by something at the back of the theater.
Is it inevitable that my eyes are drawn to him? But who is he sitting with? Oh my God!

I feel Angie clutching my elbow. “Emma, are you okay?” she asks worriedly.

I turn to her, and I can tell by the way her brow furrows that I do not
look
okay. I incline my head, indicating the direction she should look. I can’t bring myself to look again, but I watch her eyes sweep the rows behind us and I see surprise, followed quickly by anxiety flit across her face.

“Oh my God!” she says.

“My thoughts exactly.”

“Your brother is sitting with Mustapha.”

“I know.”

“They’re chatting. And
laughing
!”

“I
know
.”

She takes a deep breath and pastes an unconvincing smile on her face. “Look on the bright side,” she chirps.

“Bright side?”

“It’s taken your mind off …” She hesitates, obviously reluctant to voice my fears. “It’s just that now you’re not dwelling on, well, you know,” she finishes lamely.

“Getting hacked to death?” I ask. “I guess it’s true that being trapped in a theater with five hundred other kids while angry mobs march the streets demanding our executions is scarier than my brother getting chummy with the guy who keeps embarrassing me.”

“Exactly!” she enthuses. “I knew you could put a positive spin on this!”

She turns back to Casey, who’s been watching us curiously. No doubt this will be another thing they’ll discuss behind my back.

“You okay, Casey?” asks Angie, looking her sister over like she might be oozing blood somewhere.

“Sure,” says her mini-me in a voice that manages to be brave and plaintive at the same time. “But it’s only the first week of school. I thought we might at least get through a week without one of these stupid lockdowns.” She sighs dramatically, which I find reassuring. She’s obviously more bored than scared.

Angie gives her a hug. “I’m sitting right back there,”
she says, pointing to our seats. “So come get me if you need anything.”

“Stop worrying about me,” says Casey, even though she was totally begging for it. “She’s like the worst worrier,” she explains, grinning affectionately at her sister.

Angie throws her arm across my shoulders, which – given the short time we’ve know each other – should make me uncomfortable, but instead it gives me an embarrassing glowy feeling, and, awkwardly attached, we continue down, pausing at Mandy’s row. She’s at the opposite end from where we’re standing, so we agree to continue down to the kindergartners first and loop around to the outside aisle. When we reach the front row, a tiny girl leaps out of her seat and hurls herself in our direction. Angie drops to her knees and catches her just in time to prevent a painful landing. She settles back on her haunches and pulls her sister onto her lap.

“Penny, this is Emma,” she says. “Remember I told you about her?”

The little girl looks up at me with huge eyes. “Are you still lonely?” she asks, playing with a lock of her sister’s hair.

So I guess I have some idea of what Angie’s been saying. I stare back at her sister.

“How can she be lonely?” jokes Angie. “She’s got me, doesn’t she?”

Her sister nods solemnly and continues twisting Angie’s hair around her finger. I notice her own hair is
neatly braided, complete with plaid ribbons that match her jumper.

“When can we go home?” Penny sighs.

“Pretty boring, huh?” says Angie.

Penny nods and burrows her head into Angie’s chest.

“It may be awhile,” says Angie gently, wrapping her arms around her sister and giving her a squeeze.

“She needs to take her seat,” says a teacher.

Angie nods and rises, pulling her sister to her feet. Taking Penny’s hand, she walks her back to where she was seated and makes sure Penny knows where we’re sitting. I wonder what good it will do either of them to know where their sister is when religious extremists burst through the door armed with machetes and blind hatred, yet they both look happier than when we arrived.

I walk to the center of the theater, directly in front of Mandy but several rows below her. She’s still staring fixedly ahead, not taking part in the whispering and giggling around her.

“She looks scared,” says Angie, coming to stand next to me.

“Maybe,” I say, hoping she’s wrong. As useless as I may be at friendship advice, I know even less how to cope with violent extremists. “What do I say to her?”

“You don’t really need to say anything,” says Angie. “But you can tell her there’s nothing to worry about.”

“But I don’t know if that’s true.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“She’s been lied to enough.” I give Angie a meaningful look. She looks back at me.

“It’s not a lie if you make it true. She has you to protect her.”

I consider telling Angie I’m no one’s hope for salvation. I couldn’t even protect our family from a five-foot-nothing Filipina maid with an infectious laugh and a gift for mimicry.

“All right,” I say. “I’ll do my best.”

Together we walk up the stairs. Mandy looks surprised to see me standing at the end of her row, but there’s another emotion as well that I can’t quite read.
Relief?

She pops up immediately and begins pushing out of her row, completely ignoring her teacher’s insistence that she sit down.

“It’s my sister!” Mandy says, and even at a distance, I can hear the pride in her voice.

Reaching the end of the row, Mandy launches herself at me, clutching me in a bear hug that is totally not the way we behave in public, or anywhere else for that matter. Other than Dad, who was big on hugs, we’re more of a friendly squeeze kind of family. I look around to see who might be watching, but the only eye that I catch is Angie’s. She smiles encouragingly.

“What’s going on?” Mandy burbles. “Why are they keeping us here? I want to go home. Is someone going to kill us? When can we go home?”

I can’t think of a single thing to say, so I pat her back for a minute, just like Dad would. I expect her to push
me away, knowing like I do the treachery that cloaks itself in affection, but she just clings harder, and so we stand there for an eternity, arms around each other. Like morons.

“Hey, Mandy,” says Angie, crouching down to reach eye level. “How’s it going?”

“I’m scared,” says Mandy, breathing heavily against my belly. I suddenly feel dampness and realize she’s crying. She burrows her face more deeply into me as I angle her away from her classmates so they don’t see. The last thing she needs is a reputation as a crybaby.

I look over her head at Angie, hoping she’s got some words of comfort, because I’m still trying to quell my own visions of machete-wielding jihadists bursting through the doors.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” says Angie. “This happens a lot. You’ll get used to it.”

Mandy pulls away from me and turns to Angie, shamelessly exposing her tearstained face to the entire third grade. “Why does this happen?”

“There are people here who are very poor and unhappy. They want someone to blame for their troubles,” Angie recites smoothly.

“Do they blame us?” asks Mandy.

I know the answer, but I find myself waiting to hear what Angie will say.

“Some do,” she says. “But most don’t, and that’s what you have to remember. Most people you meet here are kind and want to live peacefully, just like us.”

Mandy nods her head slowly, mulling this over, while I give Angie a grateful look – and not just for the explanation. I know I’m not a great sister, but she makes me feel like maybe there’s hope.

Mandy’s teacher demands she return to her seat, but it’s several more minutes before I can convince Mandy to let go of me. The truth is, I take my time. It’s comforting having her hot sweaty arms wrapped around me. If a bloodthirsty mob bursts through the doors right at this moment, I’m exactly where I want to be.

A
ngie and I take our seats next to Leela and Tahira and, for the next hour, listen to every minute detail of Tahira’s brother’s upcoming nuptials. Since Tahira’s future sister-in-law is also her cousin, she’s involved in planning for the bride as well as the groom. I’ve pretty much tuned out by the time she gets to the number of rubies in her cousin’s
bindya
, but I rally briefly when she and Leela get into a heated debate over offsetting the rubies with crystals rather than diamonds. Leela’s indignant on the bride’s behalf. She’s unmoved by the fourteen individually selected rubies, and there’s a tense moment when Tahira accuses Leela of being a snob.