Читать книгу Sadia - Colleen Nelson - Страница 8

“You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?” Mariam asked in Arabic as we walked back to class after gym.

“No,” I answered, kind of mad that she even had to ask. “But you know it’s wrong,” I whispered.

Mariam gave me a pleading look. “Please don’t say anything.”

“I won’t,” I promised. I wasn’t her parent. It wasn’t up to me to force modesty on her, but I couldn’t help feeling that her decisions were putting more and more distance between us. I liked that we both wore hijab; it was our thing — it separated us from all the other girls in our class. If she kept changing (and I didn’t just mean her clothes), what would happen to us?

And if I did tell on her, it would be a betrayal of our friendship, which would only drive her further away. She’d pushed me into an impossible corner.

“Promise?” she asked again. I gave her a solemn nod. As soon as she was satisfied that I’d keep her secret, she drifted away from me and found Carmina. The two of them walked to their next class together. From the excited chatter, I guessed that Mariam was telling Carmina how good it had felt to wear shorts again. I watched them jealously for a minute and pulled my eyes away. It used to be Mariam and me who were close.

Amira followed me like a shadow to my locker as I grabbed a snack, stuffed my gym bag in, and got my books for the rest of the morning.

“Your friend Mariam,” Amira asked quietly. “Is she Muslim?”

“Yeah. She’s from Egypt.”

“But she doesn’t wear hijab.”

“Usually she does.” I wished I could have explained more, but Mariam’s behaviour was becoming a mystery to me.

“Okay, everyone. Sit down. Break’s over.” Mr. Letner stood at the front of the room with the suitcase of digit­­al cameras. “I’ve heard back from almost everyone’s parents, giving permission to let you take the cameras home. Those of you whose parents haven’t emailed the form back can take pictures today, you just can’t take the cameras home.” He held up his hands, as if quieting an unruly crowd. “I know, I know. You’re thinking, ‘Mr. Letner, I already know how to use a camera. I’ve been taking pictures on my iPad since I was little.’ But just snapping a photo and taking a picture of something that captures the imagination of the viewer are two different things.” He slowed his voice down, so we’d all pay attention. “For example, as a famous Russian writer once said, ‘Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.’”

I looked over at Amira. The blank look on her face told me she had no idea what he was talking about.

Mr. Letner turned off the front row of lights, and immediately a bunch of kids put their heads on their desks, ready to zone out. An image appeared on the Smartboard. “Even ordinary things can become powerful images. Look at this one.” A fingerprint: the black ink on the stark white page filled up the screen. Mr. Letner scanned the room. “What do you think about it? What’s your reaction?”

“It’s a fingerprint,” Avery said, unimpressed. “We all have them.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah, I mean they’re not all the same, but —” And then she caught herself. “Oh, I get it. The photo is showing how we’re all different.”

Mr. Letner touched his nose and pointed at Avery. “There you go! One image, but lots of meanings. Here, look at this one.” Another photo appeared, and at first, I didn’t know what it was. A round ball with bubbles suspended in its centre. The glass glowed like something from another world, the swirl inside of it like a tornado. It was a marble sitting on concrete. The pebbled surface was rough and pitted against the smoothness of the glass. “Pretty cool, eh?” I leaned forward in my seat, waiting for the next image.

“Do you know what this is?” It was a photo of a snowbank half-melted into the shape of an elephant. We all laughed. Well, not Amira. She was probably like me before my first Canadian winter, when I’d never touched snow.

“The next photo I’m going to show you is shocking,” he warned us. The image of a starving African child crouched on the ground appeared on the screen. She was skin and bones, every rib visible. In the background, a vulture waited. “Is that for real?” Zander asked.

Mr. Letner nodded. “This photo was taken during the Sudanese famine. It made international news and won the Pulitzer Prize.”

“I hope whoever took the photo helped her, gave her food or something,” Carmina muttered, and looked away.

“This photo showed the world what was going on in the Sudan. Up until then, no one had paid much attention to the famine. I want you to really think about what you photograph. Use your photos to show people how you see the world, or to help change it. It might mean looking at the world differently or seeing details in things you wouldn’t normally notice, like a marble, or a snowbank. Or making a social commentary on a problem that bothers you.”

I was relieved when the photo of the starving child disappeared. “Do you expect our photos to look like those ones?” Larissa asked. “They’re, like, professional.”

“It’s the idea behind the photo I want you to think about. The technique will come with practise. We’ll start today by playing around with the cameras and taking some pictures.”

Mr. Letner passed out the cameras and wrote down which number each of us had.

Amira fingered the camera in front of her like it was something suspicious. “This is a camera,” I said slowly in English.

“This is a camera,” she repeated quietly.

Beside me, Carmina and Mariam snapped pouty-lipped pictures of each other, the standard selfie pose. Even though Mr. Letner had said not to take selfies, they couldn’t help themselves. When I looked around the room, a lot of other people were doing the same thing. “Can you get one of both of us?” Carmina asked me, holding her camera out.

I hesitated. Did Mariam realize how excluded I felt watching the two of them? “And then take one of me and Sadia,” Mariam said to Carmina.

They turned their chins down and gave a coy look to the camera. Then I gave my camera to Carmina, and Mariam and I huddled together. But before she took the photo, I held up my hand. “Wait.” Amira was on my other side. “Come on, you should be in the picture, too. It’s your first day at a Canadian school,” I said to her in Arabic. I held out my arm for her to slide closer. She looked like she was about to shake her head, but then she relented and joined us. Carmina took the photo and passed the camera back to me. I looked at the image. Mariam and I were grinning, but Amira just stared into the camera, her eyes open, wide and wary.