Read Online Brilliant by Denise Roig - Free Book Online

head-shaking — then what? None of the rest will matter. Since when did you get so fatalistic, little brother? Mohsin says. You’re not going to the mosque enough, are you?
    Their faith, their practice, their bedrock. It had been the one place they could find each other in the past. But then Mohsin had made some new friends, younger fellows coming from home to the UK . They’ve got something, these guys. Clear as a bell, says Mohsin. Know where they’re going. Mohsin is planning on making the
hajj
next year. What about you, Sami? Mohsin has begun to ask this in every phone conversation. Don’t you think it’s time to make the
haj
j
? None of us knows how long we have, he says.
Now
who’s the fatalist? Sami retorts, but only in his head.
    â€œI need food!” Rashid has come alive again and kicks the back of the front seat.
    â€œPatience, Rashid, patience,” says Sami, knowing that the word means nothing to Rashid. It doesn’t mean much to any of the Al Qubaisi children. Eiman, who turns twenty-one this year, still stamps and screams when she doesn’t get what she wants in the very next minute. Patience, Sami and Mohsin’s mother used to tell them, is the highest virtue. It is golden.
    The mobile again: “Sami, where are you?” Asma, who has only contempt for her mother, would be mortified to know how much she sounds like her on the phone. “I need you to pick me up. Now.” Sami hears a crowded room behind her. Lately she’s been summoning him at all hours. “Friends,” she always says. But the night before she had him come to a run-down villa in the industrial part of Musaffah. “Friends, who do you think?” Asma glared at him in the rear-view mirror when he asked.
    â€œI need to be picked up,” she says again.
    â€œWhere are you?” Sami asks, dreading rejoining the gridlock.
    The girl’s usual bravura seems to fail her. “I’m not sure.”
    â€œI’ve got Rashid,” Sami starts to say.
    â€œNever mind,” says Asma, composed and imperious again, and hangs up.
    Alhamdulillah
! There’s an Adnoc station right on the service road. Sami turns in, manoeuvring carefully past the long line-up for petrol, but calls Madame before parking. “Fine,” is all she says and hangs up before Sami can even tell her where they are or that Asma has just called, that she’s out there somewhere.
    Rashid orders three Big Macs, grabbing a dozen packets of ketchup for his three cartons of fries.
    â€œAre you sure you can eat all that?” Sami asks and Rashid looks at him scornfully. But food, especially in large quantities, always perks Rashid up. In between open-mouth chewing, he quizzes Sami on soccer. Sami’s up on the British teams, via Mohsin, but falls down on the Brazilians, Rashid’s current obsession. “See, I’m smarter than you,” says Rashid.
    Sami looks at his watch. He hopes Akhdar City is still open. He hopes Asma finds a cab.
    â€œRight?” presses Rashid.
    â€œRight,” says Sami.
    And then, as if he’s wearing ear buds and singing along to a pop song, Rashid suddenly chants, “Baba loves a lady, Baba loves a lady.”
    â€œYour mother is a good woman,” says Sami. He doesn’t really believe this after all these years of working for Madame, but it’s sweet that Rashid appreciates his father’s devotion.
    â€œNo,” says Rashid, shaking his whole body so adamantly that the wrappers from the Big Macs flutter to the ground. A Filipina is there in an instant, picking them up. She smiles nervously at Rashid.
    â€œYour mother is a lady,” says Sami, starting to feel anxious.
    â€œDifferent lady, Sami. Russian lady. Don’t you understand? Are you stupid?”
    Watch out, whispers Mohsin.
    â€œBaba loves a different lady. Different.” Rashid shouts the word as it’s written, all three syllables.
    â€œWe