The Henna Wars

by Adiba Jaigirdar

My parents’ “love marriage” is one of the reasons they work so well here, despite the lack of family and support. Without anything, really. They uprooted their lives one day to come to Ireland. To bring us here. To give us a better life, they said, even when in some ways they are stuck to the past. To Bangladesh. To everything Bengali custom tells them.

“She’s Ammu’s aunt’s husband’s cousin’s daughter,” I say, drawing a curved line from one of the flower petals all the way up to the tip of Priti’s ring finger. “Why are Bengali relationships so complicated?” “Something I ask myself every single day,” I mumble. It comes off a little more bitter than I want it to. I’ve laced it with all of the resentment I’m feeling for Ammu and Abbu. After all, it’s not just Bengali relationships that are complicated, is it? It’s this weird, suffocating culture that tells us exactly who or what we should be. That leaves no room to be anything else.

don’t grab the biryani dish before the rest of the table have taken

some,

I dig up one of our old school photos. She’s easy to spot, but so am I. We’re both darker than the rest of the girls, standing on either end of the picture. She’s smiling with her teeth, showing a glint of braces. Her hair is tied up neatly in a short ponytail. Her hands hang limp by her sides, making her look uncomfortable.

She’s most likely straight. I had no reason to doubt that she was; taking my hand at the wedding was nothing. Straight girls do that all the time. That’s why being a lesbian is so confusing. But I had that inkling of hope, and now I feel it wither away to nothingness.

“She came here when she was younger, and fell in love with my dad, and she thought that was it. She’d made it. She says Brazil isn’t always an easy place to be in, even though she misses it. After the divorce, I think she just wanted to go somewhere where the fact that her goals had fallen apart didn’t stare her in the face.”

For one, they don’t even understand what Bengali means or where Bangladesh is. Secondly, people are just not into South Asian food right now.

I feel a pang of sadness at that thought. I imagine if Ammu had kept it up; maybe Priti and I would be experts. Maybe it would be a proper family tradition. Maybe we would already have notebooks full of original designs.

“I know,” I say, staring down at my shoes at the same time that Priti exclaims, “I can study and do other things at the same time!” Priti’s voice drowns out mine, and I don’t think Ammu hears me at all. She doesn’t say anything else, turning away instead.

Flávia smiles. “As soon as I get my supplies. I need to make a trip to the Asian shop in town.” The Asian shop in town. Like there aren’t multiple, each selling different brands. Some better, some worse. Glitter henna. White henna. Regular henna paste.

I CAN SEE THE CRINGEY FEEL. I AM FEELING CRINGEY WITH THE WHOLE ASIAN SHOP NAME.

“Is that what you were doing? Looking through my books to see if I have any lesbian ones in my collection?” I turn to her with narrowed eyes. She flinches at the word lesbian, like it’s something disgusting instead of just a part of who I am.

“Sunny Apu, you don’t even pray namaz,” I say instead, because it seems like a more palpable bridge to build. “When was the last time you even went to the mosque? Or just prayed?”

I close my door before I can decipher what they have to say to each other. I’m too tired to hear them discuss me. I’m too tired to hear them judge me. I’m too tired.

“It’s just because it’s her first boyfriend.” I try to reassure her even though I have no experience in this department. “She’ll come around. You’re her best friend. That’s way more important than some boy.”

“I’ll be okay.” I try to make my voice as reassuring as I can, but it still wavers. Pushing past Priti, I walk toward Ammu and Abbu’s room. It feels like the longest walk ever, even though the corridor takes only a few steps to cross. I actually begin to pray during the walk. Which is probably hypocritical, but I don’t care. I keep thinking, Ya Allah, if you are there please please please please please let my parents still love me.

“At least they have you,” I say. “They get to be proud of you. You bring home the good grades and one day you’ll marry a guy that they approve of.” “How do you know they’ll approve of him?”

ON MONDAY MORNING I HAVE A RENEWED PURPOSE. IF Ammu and Abbu aren’t going to accept me, that’s fine. If the girl I have a crush on is going to compete against me using my own culture, that’s fine too. But I’m tired of being ashamed.

“I’m not …” I begin a little too loudly. A little too angrily. I stop, take a deep breath, and begin again in a lower, hopefully calmer, voice. “I’m not trying to bulldoze over you guys. I’m sorry if I made decisions without really talking to you. But it’s not like you haven’t done the same thing.”

Instead, she says, “You’re making a mountain out of a molehill. Actually, I’m not even sure there’s a molehill. You’re just making a huge deal out of something that’s not even there. Like, you can be annoyed at Flávia and Chyna stealing your idea without playing the race card.”

I just want Chaewon and Jess to know they don’t bother me. That I don’t regret my decision, even though there’s a small part of me that keeps repeating what did you do, what did you do, what did you do in a berating mantra.

She slips off to the next table. I let out a breath, running my fingers through my notes and sketches. Monday. One week. Barely. I can do it. Especially now that I’ve successfully lost all of my friends.

I may not have indulged Chaewon’s idea, but she hasn’t stood up for me, well … ever. Shouldn’t we have some kind of solidarity between us? We’re both Asians. We’re both minorities. I would

She leans back in the chair. “Just … she has this thing about showing up my dad’s side of the family. I guess because … I don’t know, they never really liked her and I think it’s a race thing. Like they assume that because my mom is Black and Brazilian, and still has an accent, she isn’t smart enough or good enough or whatever. So she always wants me to do better.”

“Doctor, teacher, engineer, our Nishat could be anything she wants to be,” Abbu says, clapping me on the back proudly. It’s the most he’s said to me in weeks, but there’s a plasticity to his smile, a solemnness to his voice. Nishat can be anything she wants to be, except

herself.

“Ammu and Abbu don’t approve of a lot of things, so forgive me for not using them as the barometer of what I should or shouldn’t do.” “This is different and it’s—” “And success won’t follow, because Flávia is trying to undermine everything I do. She’s trying to take this away from me. I’m not going to let her win.”

“Just because she did something wrong doesn’t mean you should do something wrong too, Apujan. I know you’re better than that.”

If I go through with my idea to steal Flávia’s henna tubes, I’ll just be making things worse with Priti. I have to put that out of my mind. I have to swallow my pride and apologize to Priti.

“That you’re a lesbian. Somebody sent around a text outing you, saying you’re dangerous, that the school shouldn’t have you here, that it’s against their Catholic ethos, that it’s not how an all-girls school should be run, that—”

“Are you sure?” Priti asks in a whisper, like speaking too loudly will break me. “Do you want me to come with you?” I shake my head. “I’ve got this.” “I love you, Apujan,” she whispers. “And I’m so damn proud of you. I hope you know that.”

What I want more than anything else in the world is to feel like being myself isn’t something that should be hidden

and a secret. What I want is for my parents to be outraged that someone betrayed me, not ashamed of my identity.

“I’m not going to a teacher,” I say. “I’m not … I’m not ashamed of it. It’s who I am. I’m comfortable being a lesbian. I’m just … I’m not a spectacle.”

“Yeah, you two are really scary. A skinny white gamer and a tiny East Asian protecting a tiny South Asian.” I roll my eyes. Chaewon steps up and takes my other arm. “Three people are better than one.”

“I don’t know. Sometimes, maybe. Flávia and your Auntie are probably just more comfortable speaking Portuguese than English with each other.” But also, Flávia probably is discussing Chyna with her mom. And Chyna probably knows that too.

“You had no right to tell her. And then to lie about it, to pretend it was Flávia—” “Look, I’m sorry. I know. I was upset and I knew you would be mad and I thought if you could just believe it was Flávia for a little while at least … you wouldn’t be so mad. I thought I could sort it out, get Ali to fix it.”

“Holi isn’t even for months and months,” I say.

There’s a silence that hangs heavy in the air between us for a moment. Then, Flávia heaves a sigh, shaking her head. “I’m sorry,” she says, in a voice that sounds so sincere that it pulls my heartstrings a little too tight. “Chyna is … she’s so adamant about winning this thing. She’s been getting carried away.”

Flávia scrunches up her face in concentration for a moment, like she’s thinking really hard about something. “She told me that if she couldn’t throw that party, then I couldn’t do henna. That they were the same thing.” Flávia takes a deep breath.

You don’t know the way they look at me, the things they say. And Chyna doesn’t get it. She kind of encourages it. After that party, I just kept thinking how much worse it would be if it was true that I was bisexual. Brazilian and bisexual? I would never hear the end of it.”

I don’t say any of this to Flávia. Instead, I say, “Family can be difficult. Complicated. I get it.”

“We have to tell Ms. Montgomery!” Chaewon says, at the same time that Jess casts a glare across the hall and declares, “I’m going to kill Chyna.” “You don’t know it was her.” Chaewon interjects. “Who else would it be?” I shake my head. “It could have been anyone,” I say. I think about the way Cáit smirked when I came over. Did she do this? Chyna? Ali? The list of people who hate me simply for being me is too long, and I’m not sure what I’d do about it even if I knew who did this.

“You can’t stand that someone else gets attention even for a second, can you?” The words tumble out of me before they’ve even formed in my mind. It’s like I’m working off adrenaline.

“Telling people that the only reason Chaewon and Jess won the business competition is because being diverse is trendy?”

Chyna rolls her eyes. “Yes, like henna is trendy. That’s why we did the whole henna thing. That’s how business works, Nishat.” She says it as if she has a master’s degree in business and I’m someone who needs to be schooled.

“Chy, do you think it’s trendy to be Brazilian?” Flávia asks this softly enough, but it seems to ring out across the entire hall. More and more students are stopping in their tracks to listen in on this conversation. I don’t think Flávia cares.

“You come to our Brazilian barbecues every summer. You eat our food. Do you think it’s trendy?”

“Neither is being Korean,” Chaewon says from the other side of us. “Or wanting to sell something that’s Korean. It’s just something I do.”

“Or henna. That’s just something that’s a part of my culture. Just like our food is—you know, the food that apparently gives everyone digestive issues?” I shrug. “One you thought was trendy, the other you didn’t, so you used it to spread rumors about my family.”