the right word

I saw her face. She had attractive natural eyebrows, bright and powerful almond eyes, and a button nose followed by thin made up lips. Her hair was dark as the shadows of twilight. She had on her heart designed small face a broody expression. I saw myself.

******

11th of March 2015, Madrid. The first day of my holidays started a Saturday morning with the sun shining in the kitchen like it never did before.  My mum and I started making breakfast and, just like usual, my dad woke up later on to join us. The power of the sun made every single one of us amused and excited to do something different, like spending the day out together, as a family. We made our plans and decided to go to ‘El Corte Ingles’ something that we had planned but had never eventuated.

Loud music, favourite songs, sunshine, family and a bit of great banter, I mean, what could be better? As we reached there, Dad left us in front of the main door so we would’t have walk there since the parking was full and hard to find a place. As soon as I got off the car, all I could see were eyes analysing my outfit. I was wearing an abaya, a robe-like dress, and my usual black hijab. As soon as I walked in, an instantaneous insecurity entered my body from the scandalous looks I was receiving. I was lost in thought, what’s so weird about me!? Am I doing something wrong?

“Yallah! (Come on)” Dad screamed at me as I was walking behind them unconsciously. I started commenting my feeling to my mum when she interrupted me.

“What!?” She said. “Habibty your sister is crying so much, why don’t you stop being so emotional and help me with her, uh? Is it hot here, shall I take her jacket off?”

“Yeah” I answered and hung my head like a dying flower. “Am I over thinking about this?” I said to myself “look around you, everyone’s wearing shorts and short dresses. They’re probably curious about my culture or religion”.

“Do you like this skirt?” Mum asked me and we started a conversation about clothes and stuff we need to buy over the holidays.As the hours passed by, everyone seemed to adore the family shopping day.

“No queremos terroristas en nuestro pais!” (We don’t want terrorists in our country!) said a women to another as they glanced at us and then continued their conversation. My mum uncounted me with a collapsed look upon her face but we both ignored it like if nothing was said.Nothing was said but I felt my hands slowly slide into my pockets hoping that I could calm down my breathing.

Suddenly, I had the urge to go to the toilet so I kindly asked one of the staff that was near me where I could find one.
“There’s no toilets in ‘El Corte Ingles’” she answered back reluctantly.
“Really? I’ve never seen such a vast company with no toilets, but okay then!” I replied furiously.
Ten minutes later, I found another staff member.
“Sorry, is there toilets here?” I asked him.
“Yes of course, just go to reception and ask for it there, they’ll kindly guide you how to get to the toilet” he answered with with a big smile on his face.

I entered the toilet expecting to find loads of people waiting on a queue. Instead, I found nothing. Nothing but white walls with no people to paint with sleepy expressions. Meanwhile I was in the toilet, I heard voices getting louder as the door opened.
“…And she was wearing a big black dress with a scarf on her head, God knows what’s inside there, I mean there could be guns or bombs or whatever so I told her that there was no toilets and she got mad LOL”.

“I personally think that that was the best thing you did, it’s been a year since the train bombings, you can never know when they’re preparing a second attack…” Her mate answered her as they left the toilet.

I opened the door and stood in front of the mirror, I saw myself. This time a single tear trickled down my cheek.