Born Under a Million Shadows by Andrea Busfield Page B

call him, Isa—is one of the most important prophets, but he is not the Son of God as the foreigners believe; he was one of His messengers. Although it is true that Isa performed many miracles with the permission of God, like raising the dead, creating a bird from clay, and talking as an infant, he did not die on a cross. Instead, he was raised up to God so that he could return to the earth one day to fight evil.
    As a Muslim I respect the foreigners’ Jesus, and I like the fact that they celebrate his birthday even if they have got their facts muddled. However, it was hard to believe that for such a big day in their calendar I never once heard my friends mention Jesus’s name. Although James shouted “Christ” when he slipped on the stairs, I don’t think that strictly counts as remembering.
    At ten in the morning on the day called “Christmas,” Georgie came knocking at our door to insist that my mother and I move away from the television and come into the living room in her part of the house. She was dressed in loose patchwork green pyjamas, which I thought were more suitable than many of her normal clothes, and her hair was pulled up in a rough ponytail. Her cheeks were red.
    “Happy Christmas!” she loudly greeted us in English, hugging both me and my mother fondly.
    “Happy Christmas!” I shouted back as my mother gave a shy giggle and reached for a chador to cover her loose black hair so that we could dutifully follow Georgie into the house.
    As we shuffled through the door of the front room we were met by a wall of noise coming from the stereo, and we found James and May sitting on the floor close to the
bukhari
surrounded by half-opened presents. They waved at us to sit with them. James was wearing dirty jeans and a bright red sweater, and May was wrapped in a bed blanket. In front of them were cartons of orange juice and a bottle of champagne—a celebratory drink that James told me came from France. Georgie filled two slim glasses with juice for me and my mother and mixed her own with the fizzing liquid from the champagne bottle.
    “Happy Christmas!” James said, smiling and raising his glass. Everyone else did the same, so my mother and I followed suit, passing giggly looks to each other as we did so.
    “Oh, that’s gorgeous,” squealed May in the middle of ourembarrassment, holding up a heavy necklace made of ragged chunks of deep-red stone.
    “I thought it would match your eyes,” James joked, causing May to jump forward and grab him in a headlock. As she wrestled him to the floor she accidentally showed a thigh of dimpled white flesh, and I quickly looked away, almost relieved I’d never got to see her breasts. Skin can be a frightening thing on the wrong body.
    “And this is for you, Mariya.”
    Georgie handed over a parcel wrapped in
Sada-e Azadi
newspaper. As my mother worked the package loose, slowly and carefully as if the paper itself was worth a month’s wages (which I knew it wasn’t because it was handed out free by international soldiers every two weeks), the most beautiful golden shawl appeared, woven with swirls of silver thread.
    “Thank you,” my mother said shyly in English. She removed her own worn chador and placed the sparkle of colors over her hair. I thought she looked amazing, like every imagined picture I’d ever formed in my head of the days when my father was here to praise her looks and help her walk life’s path. It’s sometimes easy to forget your mother’s beauty when surrounded by the exotic colors and smells of foreign women, but the fact remained she was incredibly beautiful, with olive-colored skin, deep-green eyes, and hair you could wrap yourself in. In another time and another place she could have been a famous actress or a singer.
    “And this is for you, Fawad . . .”
    Georgie stood up, took me by the hand, and led me to the kitchen. As we walked out of the room the others followed, including my mother, and a tickle of sickness played in my