I grinned back at him. ‘I’m going for 50 hoops today,’ I laughed, buoyed by the bravado that came from hanging with ‘the brothers’. That was how they rolled. So that was how I was going to roll, too.
‘Nah, man,’ jeered Mahmoud, ‘never!’
‘Watch me!’
‘I’m watching, akh,’ called Usamah, ‘and I don’t see nothin’ but talk. Don’t aim too high, you might fall hard!’
‘That’s right, my man!’ called Mahmoud, getting ready to throw the ball to Zayd. But, just then, something caught his eye and he turned towards the bleachers.
Two girls sauntered across the bleachers and paused, posing, preening, looking out on to the court.
Mahmoud let out a low whistle from between his teeth and nudged me, a crooked smile on his face.
‘Hey,’ he said softly, ‘have a look at that. Now that is hotness…’
In spite of myself, I glanced over at the girls and caught a glimpse of skin, glossy hair and flashing eyes. Fitnah. Straight up.
‘Now, wouldn’t you like a taste of that?’ Mahmoud was still staring, a slow fire burning in his eyes.
‘No, not me,’ I mumbled, studying the ball in my hands. ‘I’m not into all that.’
Mahmoud looked at me, curious. ‘Hey, a man’s got needs, right?’
I swallowed hard. ‘Yeah, that’s right…’ I avoided Mahmoud’s gaze and looked up at the net. ‘But that’s why I fast… and play ball.’ I needed to ease the tension, to stop all this talk about girls and needs, all the stuff that made life complicated and left you frustrated. I took a run up to the net and slam dunked the ball, sweet as anything.
‘That’s one!’
The game was on.
***
Well, after that my mind emptied, the intensity of the game sweeping all other thoughts aside. I didn’t stop for a moment: running, reaching, twisting, springing, leaping, thrusting, driving the ball into the net again and again and again.
The others were like shadows on either side of me, a blur, merging with one another. But I was aware of everything else: the hard slap of my trainers on the ground, the grainy texture of the ball, slick with nervous sweat, the strain in my calf muscles, the tension in my forearms, the sweat soaking my scalp, trickling down my back.
I lost myself in the game and left the others floundering, panting, struggling to keep up, to slow my flow.
But none of them could match my focus.
Not today.
Then came the moment of truth: I held the ball in my hands, my fingers splayed, my palms burning. The others hovered around, breathless, their shoulders heaving. I got ready to shoot my fiftieth round. Victory was within reach.
Then – ‘Zayd!’
A clear voice rang out across the court, a girl’s voice, cutting the air like a knife, a cool wave over the hot tarmac, and I felt the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Stupidly, I turned to look. And the world stood still.
It was a girl, but not like any I had ever seen. Her black hijab and abaya were stark against the sun-drenched colours of the bleachers. A fresh breeze came and whipped her long hijab up and it swirled around her like a cloud, like a dream, like a spell.
She brought her hand up to move the fabric away from her face and, in that moment, I froze as if a bucket of ice had been poured over me. My breath caught in my throat.
I noticed everything: the tiny hands, the pale fingernails, the cleft in her chin, its defiant tilt, the nose ring, the piercing eyes, the long eyelashes. I noticed it all in the space of about 3.5 seconds, the time it takes to have one look, and in that moment I smiled without meaning to, an involuntary smile, the kind you get when your heart leaps for no reason, when it skips a beat. Then I looked down. And I saw her trainers. Red Converse trainers, just like mine.
Woah
My breath came back to me and the world began to move again.
I didn’t realise I had dropped the ball until I caught sight of Mahmoud, on the other end of the court, jumping high to land the ball into the net. The ball banged against the backboard and spun around twice before dropping through the hoop and bouncing off the court. Mahmoud and Usamah cheered, exultant.
‘You almost had it, man,’ Mahmoud panted, his wild eyes dancing.
‘What did I tell you?’ laughed Usamah. ‘Too much talk! Now, watch and learn from the experts, boy!’ And he ran down the court and did his favourite move, sailing through the air, arms and legs outstretched, swinging from the net as the ball fell through it.
I laughed as I watched him, panting. My mind was on other things.
But when I looked back to the bleachers again, the girl was gone.
4
I wasn’t supposed to be at the basketball courts. Zayd was playing with his guy friends and that generally meant that the court was off-limits.
‘I don’t want you coming around the brothers, sis,’ he’d always say. I would roll my eyes every time. Not like there was anything there I hadn’t seen before.
‘Nah, it’s just that I know how guys’ minds work, OK? Trust me, it’s better you stay away.’
Then he’d keep going on in that earnest way of his about the Islamic rules on modesty – ghayrah and hijab, niqab, lowering the gaze etc. I’d usually tuned him out by that point. I got it. He didn’t want his friends eyeing up his sister. I could respect that.
But that day was different. After I dropped the kids at the mosque, Mum started ringing my phone, asking where Zayd was. Apparently, he had promised to take the kids to the park after madrasah while she went to her appointment at the doctor’s, and she was still waiting to hear back from him. I shook my head. Zayd may have been the world’s most dutiful son, but he had a terrible memory.
Anyway, that Saturday morning, I knew that he had his regular basketball practice so I decided to go over and tell him to call Mum before going off to do some sketching.
I recognised all the other players: I had seen most of them outside the masjid at one time or another.
I saw Usamah, the exchange student from the Bronx, studying fashion and design at Central Saint Martins, a cross between a ‘loud ‘n’ proud’ New Yorker and a twenty-first century Ibn Batutta. And he scored a very respectable eight in our totally naughty but hilarious Muslim hottie chart: the ‘Mottie Scale’.
Then there was Mr Smooth, Mahmoud. I only knew him because we’d been at primary school together but I never gave him much more than a nod and quick salam in recognition of the fact that he had once pushed someone over for bullying me in the playground. Other than that, I stayed away. Some guys are just too dangerous. You can’t let them get too close because they don’t know how to be ‘just friends’. Mahmoud and guys like him were officially excluded from the Mottie rankings. We girls know better than to play with fire.
But then I noticed that there was someone else on the court, someone I hadn’t seen before. He was playing some serious ball, making everyone gasp and pant to catch up with him. He seemed to be aiming for some sort of record, slamming the ball into the net again and again. There was something about the way he moved – strong, graceful, rippling, like a cat – that made something flutter in my stomach.
What a gorgeous specimen, I thought. From a purely artistic point