Between Two Worlds by Zainab Salbi Page B

wrong except be born into the wrong family, and I had been lucky enough to be born into the right family.
    I did everything I could at school to prove I wasn’t a spoiled rich kid. I joined the Iraqi Girl Scouts. I participated in afterschool activities. If our driver was late coming to pick me up, I would use his tardiness as an excuse to board the bus, oblivious to the fact that I was acting exactly like a spoiled kid by leaving him waiting, fearing something had happened to me. One time he apparently saw me get on the bus and followed it to every stop. When I finally saw him, I had to climb down off the bus and get in the car as everyone I had been trying to impress stared at me out the windows. I wanted to fit in, to make friends, but I had left the largely secular world I was used to and found myself plunged into a world of observant Muslims, both Sunni and Shia. Prayer was a part of daily life for most of my classmates. One day, I found myself standing quietly, somewhat awkwardly, with a group of other girls who were talking about prayer.
    I said, “I pray too.”
    “Oh, sure,” one girl said. “I don’t believe you. Tell us the order of what you recite in a prayer—if you really know it.”
    I started with the Shahada, the phrase that makes Muslims Muslims: “I witness that there is no God but one God, and Mohammed is his Prophet.” Nervous about the ending, I left off the part about Ali. Then, I said the declaration of the intention of the prayer, and a verse from the Quran.
    “Okay, go on,” the girl told me.
    They let me keep talking, searching my memory, until they finally all started laughing.
    “You don’t even know how to pray, you rich girl!” one girl said. “You’re from the ooh-la-la class!”
    I tried to make light of it as the bell rang and we went back inside. But I felt hurt and shunned, back to being judged on the basis of how I prayed—or didn’t pray—and I felt angry at my parents for failing to teach me or even to pray themselves. When Bibi came over, I asked her to show me how, and I got out my prayer rug and made a point of praying in front of my family. Aunt Samer was visiting. The television was on. The mothers were laughing and drinking Turkish coffee. My brothers and cousins were playing all around me.
    “This is good, Zanooba,” Bibi said. “But next time you might try praying with the television off, maybe alone in your room—it feels better if you concentrate.” I dutifully prayed at dawn and dusk for a while. I got more religious the night before tests.
    One day, fighting my own shyness, I gathered my nerve and joined a basketball game during recess. I had played with my cousins in our cul-de-sac and with Mama during one of our summers in Seattle when she was pregnant with Hassan, laughing as she ran around the court, her belly as big as the ball, calling out coaching instructions in a mix of Baghdad-accented Arabic and the occasional “go, go, GO!” in English. One of the players came over to me after the recess game and complimented me on my playing. We started talking. I liked her, she liked me, and we exchanged telephone numbers.
    “I have a new friend!” I announced over lunch that afternoon.
    “That’s nice, honey,” Mama said.
    “Where does she live?” Baba asked.
    “In the Al Iskaan neighborhood near school,” I answered. Al Iskaan was a neighborhood known for its public housing projects.
    “What does her father do?” Baba asked.
    “I don’t know, Baba,” I said. “I haven’t asked. Why would I?”
    “I need to know,” he said tersely. “Did you give her your phone number?”
    “Yes,” I said. “We’re friends, Baba.”
    “You need to get it back,” he said.
    “Why, Baba?” I protested. I didn’t understand this whole conversation. Just when I had found a friend, Baba was trying to take her away from me.
    “Because I am telling you to,” he said.
    “But, Baba, I like her!” I said. “Why are you asking me this? You’re