that was DR. ABC – but it was no longer enough to stop my whole body from boiling. Another fabulous little treat in store for us was The Tree of Zaqqum, a deceptive piece of foliage whose fruit we’d be forced to eat. When I say ‘fruit’, I mean little devil heads disguised as fruit, which would mutilate our insides once ingested. And what to drink to wash off the horrific taste? Boiling water, of course. DR. ABC – what’s your cure for a shredded, incinerated gut? Nothing.
The intensity of hell’s punishments had a domino effect that debilitated DR. ABC’s capacity to hold off the terror, spreading around my brain like a wildfire that just couldn’t be controlled. And then came the final blow in our classroom tour of Satan’s lair: the overarching punishment of hell would be our regret that we hadn’t changed our behaviour on earth – that we lost Allah – coupled with the knowledge that nothing would placate Allah’s rage. We were stuck here for eternity, and it was entirely our fault. Eternal self-blame was Allah’s ultimate punishment, and it’s a feeling that has seeped into absolutely everything I experience.
To this day, every single time a traffic light goes red, I experience a pang of anxiety because I fear I’ve incited its fury. I’ve tried and tried to shirk this, but it is so engrained into my neurological make-up that I just can’t. Another road phenomenon that overwhelms me with guilt is when I press the ‘wait’ button before crossing a road; if there are no cars coming, I might decide to cross, but sometimes the traffic light then goes red, forcing a car to stop even though I’ve already crossed the road. I usually feel so bad when this happens that I have to mouth an ‘I’m sorry’ to the delayed driver every time. And, throughout my life, whenever I’ve had major doubts about Islam, one of the key thoughts that dissuades me from my scepticism is this: but just in case Allah is real, I should probably stay Muslim to avoid the not-so-glam time in Lucifer’s dungeon. This shadowy doubt, which I managed to stave off through times with my mother as a kid, became an all-consuming plague when I went from fancying cartoon foxes to actual boys.
The first boy I crushed on was none other than Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone – can you honestly tell me you didn’t when you were a kid? I was ten years old. I knew I was gay by this point. I wanted to cuddle Macaulay Culkin in bed, and had the intense urge to help him through his lonely sorrow in the film. I wanted to support him, to be his partner, to lie naked with him and to feel supported by him. Perhaps it was also because I was starting to feel lonely in the Middle East, and I thought that he and I had a lot in common. When I realised the intensity of my desire, I was terrified by the religious implications of it. What I really wanted to do was cuddle up to Mama and have her and Umm Kulthum sing me to sleep, telling me it was going to be OK; but the fear was all-consuming, and it had to come out of me, for the thought was munching at my insides like a flesh-eating virus. And so I came out with it when we were on a family vacation in London.
Let me set the scene: we were visiting my dad’s old childhood friend who worked in the UK (let’s call him Majid); unlike most Arab men his age I’d met, he had never been married, and was dating a raucous and infectiously free-spirited English woman (let’s call her Lily). They were the first ‘interracial’ couple I’d ever seen, and much like the panto dames fusing genders, this relationship seemed to bridge cultures, a further sign that there were other models of behaviour outside of what I’d grown up with. Lily had a gay friend (let’s call him Billy) who was a fleeting but powerful presence. With bright red hair and toned arms, Billy wore tank tops and denim hot pants, and spoke with a melodic Liverpudlian accent that made every room he was in feel like a scene in an uplifting musical. My interactions with him were slight; when he came over to Majid’s house in Islington, I stayed quiet and read my Jacqueline Wilson ‘teenage-girl’ books in the corner (they were my favourite), attempting a surreptitious peep over the pages every now and then. I’d never seen a man so effeminate owning space like he did, and as he and the adults – my parents included – chatted over dinner and drinks, he splayed his lean legs over a spare chair, recalibrating the entire rhythm of the room to his own pace. Billy was the mistress of ceremonies in this house now. Lily referred to Billy with a ‘she’ pronoun throughout the night, and this flexible attitude towards gender seemed entirely accepted, just as it had been with the dames in pantomime. Perhaps this is only OK in London (or the British Council)? When I looked at my mother, she also seemed to hang on Billy’s every word, and she laughed from the belly in a way that told me she was genuinely delighted by his company. The next day, they even went clothes shopping together, for crying out loud.
The way in which Billy was accepted by everyone – particularly Mama – gave me the confidence that confessing my love for Macaulay Culkin might even be celebrated, despite what I knew about homosexuality from Islam. So as I was having lunch with Majid at a restaurant one afternoon, I said ‘I’m in love with Macaulay Culkin.’ Majid, who was sipping a whisky and Coca Cola, slowly put down the tumbler.
‘Oh yeah,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘You love him in the film? Because he’s a good actor?’
‘No! I’m in love with him. I want to marry him.’
Majid picked up his drink and took a big gulp, then he told me to finish my food. His thick eyebrows furrowed as he watched me slurp my spaghetti. The silence was a bit unnerving, but I interpreted his gaze as somewhat benevolent – maybe he feels the same because he also fancies a white person? As I found out later that evening, that was definitely not what he was feeling.
As I thumbed a new Jacqueline Wilson book in the guest room that evening, Majid called my name from the living room downstairs. I presumed dinner was ready. But after descending the staircase, I entered a room that was eerily quiet. The TV was off, no food was laid out on the tables, and Majid, my father, and mother were sitting neatly on the living-room couch, like Olympic gymnastics judges, ordered and unreadable. On the sofa next to them sat my brother, Majid’s fifteen-year-old son and marijuana-enthusiast, and Lily, who had her eyes glued to the floor. Majid then spoke: ‘Is everyone OK if we go out for dinner tonight? There’s a tasty Lebanese place near us.’ Phew. This is just a menu meeting. General mutters of agreement spread around the room. ‘But before we go … Amrou, do you want to tell everyone what you told me today?’ Mama sat up straight, the fact that I might have confided something to Majid without telling her first clearly upsetting to her. Mama and I didn’t keep secrets from each other. But on a cultural level, the fact that I said something to a family friend without first checking it with my parents was also very taboo; where we’re from, family units are more like clans. You are less an individual, and more one puzzle-piece of the collective familial-self, where everything that you say or do reflects the entirety of the family tribe. If any member of the family unit displays individual ways of thinking and behaving, the entire clan must come together to control, exile or destroy the offender.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said. My mother’s eyes were giving out a hot glare, as if thin infrared lasers were beaming out and trying to penetrate my subconscious.
‘About Macaulay Culkin?’ Holy Shitting Fucking Christ on his Fucking Crucifix.
I looked around the room and assessed the perilous situation. Maybe I should just tell everyone I’m in love with Macaulay Culkin? I mean, we are in London – the home of spandex male cats, the place where pantomime was born – and look at Lily! She parties in St Tropez and wears revealing clothes – and she’s white and dating an Arab! – and WAIT A SECOND, what about Billy, the gay superhero who my mother LOVES?! Maybe it won’t be so bad? What if Islam doesn’t exist in this part of North London? OK – I’m going to go for it. What could possibly go wrong?!
‘I told Majid that I’m in love with Macaulay Culkin. One day, I want to marry him.’ My dad, who avoids emotion like it’s a skunk’s fart, looked almost fatigued by the news, as if it being raised was an utter imposition to his dinner schedule. Ramy started playing on his Game Boy – I would have done the same to be honest – while my mother looked stunned, tears brimming in her eyes, as if this was the most shocking, dangerous thing she had ever heard.
Majid
