Black Keys (The Colorblind Trilogy #1) - Rose B. Mashal Page 0,159
God’s punishment.
Like the queen and what she’d done to me.
I felt so sorry for other girls who’d gone through that. They didn’t have a Mazen to come to their rescue; they even had their closest loved ones standing there and watching, without moving a muscle to help them. And that needed to stop. I wished I knew how, or had the power to stop it forever. It was such a horrible thing.
I learned that Islam forbids any man to touch any woman that wasn’t his grandmother, mother, aunt, sister or wife. Not even a handshake. Not even looking at them with admiring eyes. And that explained to me why Mazen stopped when we were together. We weren’t married in the eyes of Islam, and that night I thought he had a harem, he told me he didn’t do that.
It made me also realize why the guards had lowered their gazes in my presence–in any woman’s. I’d assumed they were ordered to do that by the king or something. They were, but from the king of all kings. From God.
Mazen had sinned by touching me, something I knew he didn’t like to do–he was too religious. But he had also sinned a lot for my sake when he lied over and over again to save me from any harm.
He did care for me. A lot. And the knowledge was bittersweet.
I couldn’t stop myself from Googling his name. I found his picture, printed it, and slept with it every night. It wasn’t much, but it helped me a lot. And every time my tears ruined it, I’d print another. It was the closest I was able to get to him.
After I paid for the little crystal horse and left, I entered a café to get a cup of coffee. The line was long, but I didn’t mind: I had nothing better to do. As I was waiting, I checked my e-mails as the line got shorter and shorter, moving with it absently as I read through my e-mails, and then it happened.
“I just want a cup of coffee, sir, nothing more,” I heard a quiet feminine voice saying and, for some reason, it grabbed my attention.
“Go away! I don’t serve Muslims,” the guy behind the counter said, and my eyes widened.
“You won’t serve me because I’m a Muslim?” the girl asked. I had to move my head a little to the side to see her. She was just a girl my age or even younger with a headscarf covering her hair.
“Yes, you’re a terrorist,” he replied, and the shock just froze me in place.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me, get out of my shop, take your jihad, go back to riding your camel and just–leave,” the guy waved her off. I felt so terrible that my throat started to tighten just hearing the way he spoke to her.
“I’m an American citizen and I have rights!”
“No, you’re not American!” he replied back.
“Yes, I am,” the girl insisted, “I was born and raised in America!”
“It doesn’t make you an American,” the guy shrugged.
“Seriously? What makes you?”
“How do I know you’re not hiding a bomb in there under that towel on your head?”
“Are you seriously not going to give her the goddamn cup of coffee because she’s a Muslim?” a girl who was behind me in the line asked.
“I sure won’t.”
“Okay, you just lost a couple of customers, just so you know,” the girl behind me said, and then left the line and the shop. I just stood there, watching the scene playing out around me with shock.
“Make that three,” an African-American guy said, and was about to leave when the vender called after him, “You’re not a good American.”
It was then that the guy turned to him and said, “No, sir, I’m a good American. I just served in Iraq for over a year. It has nothing to do with her rights, and what you just did is highly offensive. She’s a human being and deserves to be treated with respect and dignity.”
“I’m a good American and a devout Christian, and I have to protect my customers.”
“You’re white and you have a cross tattoo on your neck. How do I know you’re not one of the KKK? I’m a black atheist and should be afraid of you, right? How do I trust you not to burn me on a cross?”
“I–uh...those people don’t represent us,” the vender replied.