Gadje

by Michael Glaros

"I don't like you spending more time with the Gadje
than with me," Mama says in molasses English.
I check my watch. Enough bean-counting for one day.
It's time for some of Mama's lamb-filled grape leaves.
Yes, I can smell Mama grinding up the long cinammon sticks.
She'll hide herjoy and surprise by bothering me
about still being single. "When I am to have grandchildren?"
she'll say. "When that pretty black hair turns gray
and you need hijab just to hold the gray fibers
to your head." Mama will laugh and snort.
I'll call Ibrahim at the auto body shop,
let him know I'll pick him up. Dinner,
and afterwards we'll all pray Maghrib together.
I hit the switch on my computer and stuff legal pads
into my briefcase. I stare for a moment at my reflection:
I don't look swarthy in the monitor of a Power Mac.
I look like the Gadje Mama warned me not to trust.
I hit the light and start down the hall.
Two of the junior partners by the water cooler
talk about costumes, children, Halloween.
"Has your little girl picked out a costume yet?"
"Yeah, she's going to be a Gypsy. You know,
fortune teller, crystal ballx the whole nine."
Hearty laughs. At the auto body shop I tell Ibrahim.
My brother sets down his gasoline-soaked rags,
stops cleaning his ratchet wrenches, and says:
"Gadje don't really exist, they're just cardboard figures
put there by Allah for scenery."

Michael Glaros lives in Eugene. This is his first time in print. He notes: "I am a Greek/ Turkish/Polish-American Muslim and thus have both a Christian and a Muslim name, Shaheed. I am currently a bread baker for a microbrewery/restaurant. Gadje is the Roma (Gypsy) word for Europeans; hijab, the woman's scarf; Maghrib, the fourth prayer of the day, just after sunset."