Short Story: Excerpt from 'Berlin'
I do not tell them that sometimes loneliness closes in on me like a roof caving in, a weight so heavy I have to stuff my mouth with chunks of my duvet to stop myself from sobbing…
Hello and Salams my friends!
I hope you’re faring as well as you can be in this dunya. I’ve been trying to live from a place of hope, though some days I’m simply full of questions. If like me, you’re sometimes unsure of actions you can take to support Palestinians, please check out the Humanti Project – they have email templates to contact your MPs, you can fund a kitchen(s), sign petitions or find out more about demonstrations near you and how you can take part. And alongside this, you can continue to include them in your du’as beacuse nothing is too small for Allah.
This week I’m sharing an excerpt from my short story, Berlin, published in WAYF Journal. I co-founded WAYF with two friends, and we continue to be in deep gratitude to the artists who trusted us with their work for our first issue. I hope you grab a copy, and I also hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I loved working on it.
When I walk past Rewe, turn the corner leading to the women’s entrance of the mosque and still do not see Idrissa anywhere, an ugly knot settles in my stomach. Of all the days for him to be absent, today is the worst. Usually, simply spotting his afro from afar is enough to put a smile on my face. We never go beyond exchanging pleasantries and a few life updates due to my lacking German and his broken English, but he’s the only Black person I get to interact with regularly, and he speaks to me like he cares.
On my walk over here from the university campus, I played out how I was going to tell him about my day, how Berlin is proving tougher than I expected. That although I’ve switched up my route twice because of this random bald man at my bus stop, I still ended up missing my train this morning because Bald Head decided to catch the bus I’d normally catch, and so I had to wait for the next one. Missing the train meant missing my first class, and then trying to find time to catch up while also keeping up with my quota of thirty job applications per day, amid the incoming rejections.
On a day like this, a Friday evening, there are so many things I wish I could be doing. If I was in London, I’d probably be out with my ex-colleagues for a game night. Or I’d grab dinner with my best friend Karimah before we end up crashing at her place for a horror movie marathon until Fajr comes in. But no prayer space on campus means I have to pray at the mosque, and if I factor in my one hour and twenty minutes journey home, that leaves no opportunity to accept my peers’ invitation to hang out after classes. It doesn’t help that I have to endure a twenty-minute non-picturesque walk on the barely lit streets from the station to the house.
The first time I told some of my coursemates where I live, they didn’t stop bombarding me with questions on why I chose to live outside the Ring, in Grünau of all places, as if choice and not my bank account balance determined my actions. It’s God’s blessing that I found a room within my budget at such short notice. Does it matter that it’s on the outskirts of Berlin?
The room was the last available on Uniplaces, a housing website which didn’t require you to view the accommodation before you committed and promised a full refund if dissatisfied upon arrival, so I didn’t hesitate to sign the ten-month contract to cover the duration of my first year of study in Berlin. Until I arrived at the house, I worried it was a scam, horror stories I gleaned from the internet flooding my thoughts day-in, day-out. All thanks to God, the room turned out like the pictures, the only issue was the radiator stuck on twenty-five degrees. I mentioned it to the landlord when he stopped by in the evening to check that I settled in well.
‘Bitte?’ His face contorted in confusion.
‘Mein Zimmer ist zu heiß,’ I tried again in German.
He laughed, then shook his head. ‘It was always so hot when I visited Africa, but I survived.’ He rolled up his sleeves, turned both his arms to me, as if showing off trophies. ‘How you struggling with this mild heat?’
I gave him a forced smile, while fighting the urge to roll my eyes.
As he fixed the radiator, he carried on about his escapades in Africa. It took a great deal to keep from telling him to please shut up. I imagined throwing my copy of Walter Rodney’s ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’ at the back of his head, that would seal his mouth shut. I nearly doubled up in laughter from the image, the restrained smile remained on my face as I ushered him out of my room when he was done. That should have been an indication of what Berlin has in store for me.
Idrissa is not here, but I’m certain, after I leave the mosque, my soul will be at peace again. I say the prayer for entering the mosque as I walk in. The scent of oud fills the air, and I inhale it deeply, wishing it to settle in my bones. Of all my daily rituals, this is my favourite. The mosque is usually empty at this time of the day, the limbo between the end of Asr and the beginning of Maghrib. The only sound comes from the man who sits at the top far right corner of the men’s section reciting a familiar Surah of the Quran in a melodious voice. Yesterday, he read Juz Tabarak. Today, I hope he ventures into Juz Amma. I like to imagine he’s reading for my ears only (and God’s, of course), so after I pray, I usually settle in the corner of the mosque taking stock of my day, engaging in adhkar or making plans for the evening, as his voice fills my spirit until the call for the next prayer goes off.
It’s only once I’m right outside the door of the women’s section, after I spot the pairs of shoes, that I notice the chattering. There’s an immediate lightness in my chest. Perhaps I won’t have a lonely night after all. Alhamdulillah, I no longer have to wait a while for a proper hug. One of the joys of being Muslim is that no matter where I go, even if I don’t speak the language, so long as there’s a mosque, I will always find people to connect with.
I push the door open with a wide smile, and a group of women in similar attire of floral dresses and pastel coloured Turkish-style hijabs sitting in a circle in the centre of the room, turn in my direction. I stub my toe and trip as I step in with my left foot first instead of my right. I swallow the pain, digging my big toe into the lush dark green carpet, as I call out, ‘Salam alaykum.’
There is no response, so I imagine my greeting is not loud enough. I repeat it much louder, holding the gaze of the woman closest to the door, my smile starting to fade.
‘Alaikum salam,’ she mutters, and as if released from a trance, the rest of the women follow suit.
In front of the women are copies of the same book, the title in Turkish. They turn away from me and continue their conversation, though a couple of them steal glances at me from time to time. When I hear the word ‘Allah’ and salutations on the Prophet, I realise they’re having a reflection session, and this takes me right back to my undergraduate days when Karimah would drag me from the library to halaqas run by the Islamic Society, always on Tuesday evenings. Our favourite part of the night was the free pizza afterwards, never mind Karimah’s lactose intolerance.
There’s a tingling in my stomach, so above the rancour of their voices, I strain my ears for the reciter’s voice, something to settle my nerves. But his recitation only comes through in small bursts, between gaps in the women’s conversation. I choose the corner closest to the barrier separating the women’s section from the men’s, far enough from the women that I’m not distracted in prayer. At this point, I simply want to pray and head home.
While I await the adhan for Maghrib, I open up my planner and look through today’s tasks, my legs outstretched, my back pressed to the wall. I struggle to focus, my mind constantly drifting to the women. This is not my first time in a mosque where I know no one, nor speak the language, yet this is the most unwelcome I’ve ever felt in the house of Allah.
I pull out my phone from my bag, and the screen lights up to my favourite selfie of Baba and me in a side hug, a cheeky grin across our faces. I am immediately transported to my favourite memory of travelling with him, the day this picture was taken – our train ride from London to Cardiff when he dropped me off at university at the start of my first year. Until that trip, we hadn’t travelled together in a long while. Whenever an opportunity to travel alone with Baba surfaced, and I volunteered to accompany him, my body would rebel once the day neared, always beginning with a high temperature and then violent retching for hours the night before, such that the only reasonable thing to do would be to skip travel and rest. But for this trip, Mama couldn’t take time off work and Salma was abroad for the summer, so Baba had to do. I prepped my body hard, watching what I ate alongside downing a concoction of lemon, ginger and honey tea every few hours for days in advance. I busied myself to avoid thinking about the journey, only quitting my summer job the day before we were due to leave.
As the day wore on, the tension in my body released itself, and I could finally enjoy the trip. We snacked on too much chin-chin, and reminisced about the time in my childhood when I’d eaten nearly all the halal sausage rolls Mama made for an event at the mosque. Baba stepped in when Mama threatened to beat the living daylights out of me, but he didn’t let me go scot-free either. Together, we made a fresh, tastier batch of sausage rolls but not without looking like the ghosts in those mind-numbing Yoruba movies Mama binge watched on YouTube, at the end of it all.
As the train moved further away from London, we were both full of questions.
‘Baba, what’s your biggest fear?’
‘Losing my children. You and your siblings are my world.’ He sat up. ‘You?’
I looked out the window just then. A little grey sheep all on its own trotted along a thin strip of pasture, the herd clumped together on higher ground.
‘Losing my way in life,’ I said, even though I already felt like it was slipping through my fingers. I’d started wearing the hijab full-time that autumn, the weekend before I left for university, out of desperation for an anchor.
Baba reached for my hand across the table. ‘As long as you have Allah you’ll always find your way.’ He squeezed my hand, a sad smile lingering on his face. ‘I love you and I’ll always be proud of you.’
I squeezed his hand in return. ‘Remember, if you don’t hear from me by Wednesday evening, you have to call me.’
‘Yes ma’am.’ He flashed me his wide smile.
I would give anything to see that smile again, to tell him how much I love him a million times over.
My phone vibrates twice, and several messages from Karimah and my younger sister, Salma, crowd the screen from our shared group chat. Karimah wants to know how I’m doing and if I’m soaking up knowledge, Salma hopes I’m not missing them too much. I switch my phone to silent mode and slide it back into my bag. Now is not the time to reply to their messages.
Since I moved to Berlin two weeks ago, these two never fail to check in on me every single day. They remain slightly sceptical of my decision to apply for and commit to a second Bachelors on a whim, especially after I started but failed to complete a Masters in Public Policy just a year ago. But this time is different. Berlin is for a fresh start – a new environment, an unfamiliar language, a land full of opportunities to figure myself out.
It’ll take more than words to convince them, I know. So each day, I have kept my responses positive: lots of smiley emojis, selfies of me grinning taken in the morning before I leave home for university, pictures from my exploration of Berlin so far, featuring some of the places I plan to take them to when they visit soon in shaa Allah – the Reichstag, Berliner Dom, Mauer Park, East Side Gallery.
I do not tell them that sometimes loneliness closes in on me like a roof caving in, a weight so heavy I have to stuff my mouth with chunks of my duvet to stop myself from sobbing, or clamp hard to suppress the scream threatening to emerge from the pit of my stomach. That I’ve changed my route home twice because I feel a kind of fear for my life, not of imminent danger but impending doom. Or that Berlin, so far, has failed to live up to the promises of the numerous videos I consumed and the articles I sent to them after they staged an intervention about my move.
I am already disappointing them, I know. I wake up to Karimah’s voice in my head reminding me that, ‘You deserve to take up space as much as anyone. The earth belongs to Allah.’ Followed by Salma’s question, ‘What happened to prepubescent Jamila who bit Year 10 Kieran Pearson on his shoulder for taking the mick out of her younger sister’s lips, even though he was in the year above?’ I often wonder if I’ll ever find my way back to that Jamila, or a version of her.
Moving to a new country where I don’t speak the main language will take some getting used to, yet this was a defining factor in my decision-making. I wanted space to be without having to worry about prejudice; my comprehension of German is limited to the basics. Somewhere to settle in my grief with just the right distractions like uni deadlines, job hunting, studying—things within my control.
I am learning though, that hostility transcends language. Earlier today, one of my classmates, Sophie, stopped me at lunch to ask how I was finding Berlin. I had only briefly started to lament when she placed a hand on my shoulder and cut me short, saying, ‘It’s only an ignorant minority, so you need to learn to ignore them.’
‘I try, I really do, but it still –’ I struggled to find the right word. Hurt paled in comparison to all of the emotions coursing through me.
Sophie’s brows furrowed. ‘It sucks, right?’ She started to say, but then she saw someone she recognised across the room, called out to them, and hurried off.
So, with each situation Berlin throws my way, I create a workaround. I only walk down busy streets wherever I find them, and on an empty street, the road becomes my pavement. If I find myself out after 9 p.m. for whatever reason, I use the bus where possible; on the bus, with at least the driver present, I can trust that I’ll be fine.
As usual, please share with friends, colleagues and anyone else inside and outside your circle if you enjoyed this! And buy a copy of the first issue of WAYF to support an independent journal.
We are now open for submissions and we’ll love to read your stories too! Head over to our submissions page for more details.
Wishing you a blessed, restorative and fulfilling weekend ahead!
Love and duas,
Suad from Qalb Writers Collective
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