Mira Jacob - The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing

How did everyone know? Was it so obvious? Amina’s throat grew tight, as though someone were turning a bolt in her voice box.

Her mother wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, cursing at the onions. “Anyway, that girl is a little wonky in the head. Comes from Bala’s side of the family, you know, delusions of grandeur, excessive vanity. All the women have it. Why do you think they gave her some ridiculous film-star name?”

“Why did you give me a ridiculous Muslim name?”

“Not ridiculous, well behaved! Amina and Akhil are names of good children!”

Amina slid off the stool. “I’ll be upstairs.”

It was good in her bed. It was soft, warm, and, even smelling of too much Jean Naté, comforting. Amina rolled over onto her back. Her Air Supply poster was deftly wedged between the second and third bar of the canopy, hidden from the disdainful gazes of Akhil and Dimple. Amina loved Air Supply. She loved the album The One That You Love , with its hot-air balloon hovering in a ringing blue sky; she loved singing “Lost in Love” even though she had been told repeatedly not to; she loved the way the lead singers, Russell Hitchcock and Graham Russell, shared a name and quavering, teary voices, like they had been shattered in the middle of the desert, like they, too, had lost their whole world to a long, hot summer.

“I’m all out of love,” she whispered to them now. And then that thing happened that had been happening to her all summer — the hollow ache at the back of her throat went away as she thought of her camera. Her camera! Where was it? And where was her assignment for the week? Half a minute later she had dug both out of her bag, laying them side by side on her bedspread.

Assignment 1: PLACES, SPACES, THINGS

Take this week to show us your world, specifically the places you inhabit, whether that is a classroom, bedroom, or some other place you feel at home. THIS ASSIGNMENT IS NOT ABOUT PEOPLE, rather the rooms and spaces that you move through. Think about the light in each space, and the way it contributes to the mood of the picture. Think about how much honesty can lie in a collection of THINGS. Experiment with shutter speed and aperture (see booklet for details).

Amina picked up the camera and panned around her room. The wall color had been a mistake. Lavender had been in that year, rolling off the tongues of the other fourth-grade girls like a foreign language, and she had mistaken it for her own. The dresser and the desk, bought at two separate garage sales, sat next to each other. Ponytail holders, barrettes, bobby pins, and several Jean Naté products crowded the surface of the dresser, while next to it the desk was empty of everything down to its flat, shiny surface. On the shelves: Indian dolls, records, Rubik’s Cubes permanently locked in mismatched colors, the sorrowful plastic gazes of stuffed animals she no longer loved but could not bear to throw away. Clearly, she could not take a picture of anything in her entire room.

“What are you doing?”

She panned suddenly to the doorway, where Akhil stood. “Learning how to use this thing.”

“Oh.” He leaned into the room, picking up a barrette from her dresser. “Well, you can take pictures of me if you want.”

“The assignment is about things , not people.”

“What things?”

“The things that make you, you know, yourself. Your things.”

“That’s retarded.”

“No it isn’t. It’s honest.” She zoomed in on Akhil’s face.

“So you’re going to take pictures of that gay Air Supply poster?”

“You’re breaking out again.” She squeezed the shutter.

Akhil frowned. “So what’s the deal with Marie Osmond down there?”

“I think she looks nice.”

“She looks fake.”

“Jeez, Akhil, she put on some makeup. No big deal.” She fiddled with the focus until he was just a blur of skin and light.

“The commodification of beauty is an economic trap designed to enslave the modern woman.”

Amina shifted two f-stops. The shutter clicked. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The light swirled where his eye should have been. “Of course you don’t.”

A few hours later, they sat at the top of the stairs, looking down to the light in the hallway below. The lack of noise from the kitchen assured them that their mother had long since finished cooking, but previous attempts to start eating dinner had been quickly dismissed by Kamala’s overly cheerful insistence that their father would arrive any minute ! Forty-seven more passed. They were ready to eat their pillows.

“I think we should just go down,” Amina whispered.

Akhil looked at his watch and sighed.

“Do you think we should go down?” she asked.

“I think he should have been here an hour ago.”

“Yeah, I know, but—”

“Mom, can we please eat?” Akhil shouted, cutting her off.

There was no reply.

“Mom! Can we—”

“Sure! Let’s eat!” she called back.

Downstairs, the kitchen table had been set with the good china while the crystal water pitcher sweated into a cloth placemat. Silverware gleamed from napkins.

“What is this?” Akhil asked.

“Pot roasts and mashed potato!” Kamala said proudly.

Amina sat down. She picked up a serving fork and poked at the mass of brown. It smelled insistently of American restaurants, of heavy meat undelighted by real spices. She felt her mother watching her and smiled. “Looks good.”

Kamala nodded to the main dish. “Try it, you’ll like it.”

Amina took a stab at the meat. It resisted.

“I won’t like it,” Akhil said, pushing his plate away. “Can I just have chicken curry?”

“I didn’t make Indian tonight.”

“What about for Dad?”

“Nope.”

Amina and Akhil glanced at each other. It was a point of pride for their mother, always making Indian for their father, regardless of the occasional new dish she might try for the children.

Akhil tried to scoop a spoonful of mashed potatoes, which stretched and thinned as he lifted, as though unwilling to let the spoon go.

“What happened to these?” he asked.

“They’re mashed potatoes.”

“They’re gummy.”

“And wait until you try them!” Kamala looked pleased. “I added an extra stick of butter.”

Akhil looked at Amina, and she shook her head slightly. Say nothing . Kamala walked back to the kitchen.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Akhil called after her.

“No, no. I’ll wait.”

They ate while she waited. Rather, they tried to eat while the food tried not to be eaten. The pot roast held its shape through vigorous chewing, while attempts to swallow the mashed potatoes left their tongues sealed to the roofs of their mouths. In nonverbal desperation, they split the entire bowl of salad, careful not to alert their mother, who was busily scrubbing the already clean stove and counters. They took advantage of her brief trip to the bathroom to stuff most of what was on their plates into paper towels and bury them in the trash, hurrying back to the table with empty plates as the toilet flushed. When Kamala returned to the kitchen, her hair was freshly slicked back, her lipstick reapplied. She walked to the sink, filled the tin cup she kept by it, and tilted her head back, letting the water fall into her mouth in a thick stream. Her shoulders dropped a little as she set it down.

“How’s the food?” she asked, not turning around.

“Good,” Akhil said, and Amina murmured in agreement.

“We’ll do the dishes,” Amina offered.

“No, no. You go upstairs. You both must be tired.”