"It's my life, dammit, I'll drink if I want to, fuck the damn rules," Sadaf "Sassy" Rahmani said haughtily, and with that, she yanked the cup of Alexander Keith's beer out of Sheikh Abeid's hand and chugged down a big gulp. The young Mauritanian Muslim gentleman looked at her and grinned, quietly astonished by what Sadaf had just done. The two of them sat inside Oliver's Pub, on the first floor of the University Center building at Carleton University.
"Clearly, you Iranian ladies are full of surprises," Sheikh said, shaking his head, and Sadaf winked at him, then handed him back the half-empty cup. The young blonde working the on-campus bar counter looked at the two of them and smiled faintly, but said nothing. Sadaf looked at the bartender almost defiantly, and the blonde focused her attention on other customers. Clearly, she'd never seen a Hijab-wearing Muslim lady chug down beer before...
Don't get Sadaf started, Sheikh thought, and he smiled at her. Five-foot-seven, a bit on the curvy side, with light bronze skin, lime-green eyes and curly black hair which she almost always hid under her Hijab, Sadaf had a beauty that could only be classified as classical...with a bit of Middle-Eastern exoticness thrown in for good measure. A feisty Iranian Muslim gal with a keen mind and a Sassy mouth ( hence her nickname ), Sadaf was a force to reckon with...
"Damn straight," Sadaf replied, and Sheikh looked around the bar. The place was packed, as befitting a Friday night at a campus bar in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. Sheikh stroked his goateed chin as he checked out some of the locals. A burly, bearded, bald-headed white dude walked by with his black girlfriend, hand in hand. They glanced at him and Sadaf, and he smirked. The couple continued on their way, and grabbed a table around the back...
"So glad midterms are over," Sheikh said, and Sadaf nodded heartily. Sheikh just received his midterm paper results for their legal studies class, and was thrilled with his score of eighty three out of a hundred. Sadaf got sixty seven out of a hundred, which while decent, was nothing to write home about according to the honor student's strict upbringing. Sheikh took Sadaf to Oliver's Pub to cheer her up...and she shocked him by actually drinking...
Sheikh licked his lips as he glanced at the television set, where a hockey game was playing. The Ottawa Senators were playing the Boston Bruins, and everyone at Oliver's seemed utterly fascinated by the game. Sheikh had been living in Ottawa since 2009, and had grown a certain fondness of the game himself. Sure, he was never going to put on a pair of skates and go on the Rideau Canal on a winter's day, but he owned several Senators jerseys and hats, and wore them to support the team...
"If my Baba were here, and saw this grade, he'd kill me," Sadaf said, a forlorn look on her lovely face. Sheikh nodded in sympathy and gently brushed his hand against hers. How he loathed seeing Sadaf like this. The two of them had known each other since international student orientation day at Carleton University in late august 2013. Fast forward four years, and they'd been through a lot together. What an odd pair they made, the aspiring civil engineer from Iran and the law school hopeful from Mauritania...
"Don't say that, Sassy, your Baba is proud of you, just like mine is proud of me," Sheikh said, and he firmly laid his hand on top of Kayayoun's. The young Iranian woman looked at him and smiled sadly. Even though they were both international students at Carleton University and hailed from Muslim-majority countries, Sadaf and Sheikh hailed from radically different cultures...
"My father Ali spent every penny he had to send me to study in Canada, and the Iranian government has fired him after he embraced Sunni Islam while on a business trip to Saudi Arabia, he made awesome sacrifices for me, and look at me," Sadaf said, somewhat angrily, and Sheikh bit his lip. Sadaf was quite distraught, and Sheikh felt helpless to help her. As a broke-ass student, there was very little that he could do...
Last month, Sadaf confided in Sheikh about her father's situation. The old man worked for the Iranian Ministry of Tourism And Cultural Affairs, a highly influential position that enabled him to travel around the world. To lose such a glorious political position and to find oneself persona non grata with one's own government must truly be terrible, Sheikh remembered thinking at the time...
"I'm sorry, my friend," Sheikh said, with as much empathy as he could muster. Sadaf lamented her father's faith in Iran, a nation that wasn't exactly known for religious or ethnic tolerance. After all, in Iran, where the Shiite Islamic faith ruled, people from the Christian, Sunni Islam and Baha'i faiths were persecuted and routinely imprisoned for their beliefs...
"Political represssion is a fact of life in Iran," Sadaf said with a sad shake of her narrow shoulders. Sheikh looked at her and sighed. The young Mauritanian thought of his own parents, Abdallah and Nadia Abeid, and how they worked tirelessly to get him out of Nouakchott, the Capital and largest City of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. The young man closed his eyes hard as he recalled some of the things he'd seen in his tumultuous yet beautiful homeland...
"Sheikh, are you alright?" Sadaf asked, and Sheikh kept silent. There was a haunted look on his dark, handsome face. Living in the City of Ottawa exposed the young Mauritanian to a myriad cultures, and endless wonders, but he never forgot the grim reality of slavery in his homeland. People of mixed Arabian and African ancestry called Beydanes ruled the Mauritanian nation, and made up the bulk of the government administration, the clerics, the judges, the preachers, the police, and basically all the power positions.
The Beydanes continued to own slaves, chosen from among the darker-skinned members of Mauritanian society, even though the Mauritanian government claimed to have ended the practice of slavery in 1981. Sheikh had seen men and women enslaved simply because their skin was dark, and for that reason, his parents, a cab driver and a library clerk, used their last penny to get him out of the country. Life in Ottawa, Ontario, wasn't easy for Sheikh but dammit, it was far better than what he'd known in Mauritania...
"I was thinking of my homeland, of Mauritania, where people who look like me are still enslaved, and I thought of my parents, who got me out of there, I send them money once in a while via western union but it's not enough," Sheikh said, and Sadaf saw a deep-seated fury flash in the young Mauritanian's eyes. Drawing closer to Sheikh, Sadaf gently laid her hand on his...
"Oh, fuck, I'm sorry, Sheikh, here I am whining about a bad grade while you have real problems," Sadaf said, shaking her head. Sheikh smiled and shrugged in a noncommittal manner, as was his custom while he was in pain. Sheikh pursed his lips and looked like he was about to say something, but the entire pub erupted as the Senators scored on their archrivals the Bruins...
"Let's get out of here," Sheikh said, shaking his head as he looked at the pub patrons with disdain. Normally, he liked the pub. Hell, it was one of his favorite spots that's why he invited Sadaf to come over. Tonight, though, with murky thoughts of his parents trapped in his backwards homeland swirling about his head, he couldn't stand to be surrounded by these happy-go-lucky types...
"Come chill at my place," Sadaf said, linking her arm with Sheikh, and the young Mauritanian did not resist. They headed out of the pub, then left the University Center building. They reached the bus station right as a 7 bus pulled in. Hastily they got on, and rode it up Sunnyside Avenue, and got off shortly before reaching Lansdowne Stadium, for Sassy rented an apartment in a nearby townhouse...
"Sorry if I was brusque back there, I was mad, but not at you, just mad at my whole situation," Sheikh said, as he plopped down on a couch, as soon as they reached Sadaf's place. Sassy smiled, pleased to see him make himself comfortable. He'd been there a bunch of times. Still, it was his first time showing up there in a couple of months. Come to think of it, there was a good reason for that...