A Home Like Ours by Fiona Lowe (feel good books .txt) 📕

‘Can we go next door?’ Flynn repeated.

Tara’s head pounded. ‘I have something important to talk to Fiza about so please go back upstairs and we’ll discuss visiting and hair later.’

‘But—’

‘Go.’ She pointed to the stairs. ‘Or there won’t be any discussion at all.’

The children bolted and she turned back to Fiza. ‘Sorry about that. Please come in.’

Fiza shrugged. ‘I saw your face. Clementine said what you probably wanted to say.’

As always, Tara found her directness disconcerting. ‘My mother taught me that thinking something and saying it out loud are very different things.’

‘I was taught the same, but it does not stop people.’

‘That’s true.’ Tara thought about the horrifying stories people didn’t censor when they learned about Jon having Parkinson’s. Did they really think her knowing about their incontinent father or demented mother was helpful to her?

Fiza followed her into the lounge room and accepted a glass of soda water with lemon. Tara sat across from her and got a sudden urge to explain her reaction to her hair.

‘For the record, I got a shock seeing your hair. Not because I don’t like it, but because I’ve never seen it before. I didn’t think Muslim women were allowed to show their hair in public.’

‘Just like Christians, some Muslims are more religious than others. Many things are as much a part of culture as they are religious.’

‘Like Christmas and Easter?’

‘Yes. I choose to cover my hair during Ramadan.’

Tara didn’t know much about Ramadan. She thought it was a bit like Lent, only instead of giving up chocolate or wine, people fasted from dawn and ate at sunset. ‘Wasn’t that earlier in the year?’

‘Yes.’

Tara waited for Fiza to explain why she’d been covering her hair recently, but the woman sat straight-backed and silent, her hair swept elegantly around her head in an impressive braid bun.

Fascinated, Tara asked, ‘Does it take long?’

‘To box braid? Yes, a very long time. First I drive to Shepparton. Then five hours in the chair.’

‘Five hours! I … Does …’ Tara swallowed and tried again. ‘Is that all your natural hair?’

‘Once it was, but long hair was too hard in the camp. Now I use hair extensions.’

The camp. Fiza said it so casually, as if it was no different from her time living in Melbourne.

‘Why were you in a refugee camp?’

‘My country has been at war for a long time.’

‘But isn’t Sudan a Muslim country?’

‘It is.’

‘So you were safe?’

Fiza shook her head. ‘War does not care if you are a good or bad person. It does not care for people, only for its cause. My husband and I got caught in the middle of a civil war. I was born in the north and he in the south.’

‘Your husband?’

A shadow crossed her face. ‘Idriss. He taught at the university in Khartoum. For a long time we were safe, but when South Sudan gained independence, my husband was declared stateless. A foreigner. So was Amal.’

‘But if you’re from the north, doesn’t that make Amal from there too?’

‘The law there says mothers do not have the right to pass on citizenship. This means for all his life, Amal would not be able to get an education or a job. It meant my husband lost his job. They accused him of speaking out against the government and supporting rebel groups. All of it was lies, but in war, no one bothers to check the facts. They sent Idriss to prison for three months. During that time, whenever I left the house, I was followed. Once I was accused of public indecency for wearing trousers. The police whipped me on the street.’

Tara’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘That’s terrible.’

Fiza shrugged. ‘At the time I thought so too. Now I know there are many worse things.’

A chill ran across Tara’s skin. ‘You don’t have to talk about it if it upsets you.’

Fiza sat a little straighter. ‘If you want to hear it, I want to tell you. Most people are not interested to know. They see the colour of my skin and the scarf on my head and they tell me to go back to where I come from. And if I could, I would. I love my country. I did not choose to leave my home, but it was leave it or die. What would you do to protect your family?’

Tara thought about how a war had displaced Fiza and how Parkinson’s had displaced her and Jon from the life they’d always known and taken for granted. How she was always googling ‘new therapies for Parkinson’s’ and looking for ways to change their situation.

But apparently Fiza wasn’t expecting a reply because she kept talking. ‘My husband had been home for six months and I was pregnant with the twins. We were selling my jewellery bit by bit, saving our money so we could leave with more than just the clothes on our backs. I wanted so badly to visit my father and the village to say goodbye, but I did not dare. I did not want to be the cause of the village being burned.’

She took a sip of water. ‘A week before we planned to leave, the police arrived at our door in the middle of the night. Idriss made me promise that whatever happened, I would take Amal and run. I had just hidden our papers and money in my thoub when they banged down the door. Perhaps because I was pregnant or because Amal was clutching me tightly, but they did not touch me. They beat Idriss to stillness. When they dragged him away, he did not move. If he was still alive then, prison is no place to recover. I never saw him again.’

Tara tasted the bitterness of acid and closed her eyes against the unimaginable.

Look after your husband. He needs you. Fiza’s words, which she’d interpreted as a command, now sounded like a lament.

‘Where did you go?’ she asked.

‘We had talked of Egypt then to Israel, but I