Five Pauses In The Day

Laila, Fina and Julie were testing out lipsticks. "So she's really seriouslah about this guy?" Fina asked, rubbing a berry stain on her left wrist. The ah moi in the faux lab technician's coat had already been told they were "just looking" and was now pointedly ignoring the three girls.

Laila took out a deep red chubby stick and drew a heart on the edge of her palm, "Ya lah. He's really cute, she said. And clever, too." She selected another shade. "And you know what else she said?" she turned around, eyes shining with fresh gossip. Fina stopped spinning the carousel of Different Lipsticks and waited.

"If they're out dating or something, he's the kind of guy who actually," she dropped her voice to a whisper,"berhenti sembahyang." Laila smiled triumphantly, glancing at Julie who was checking her watch. Julie heard what Laila said, but didn't comprehend why this piece of news was important. She was irritated that they were late again.

Fina immediately thought about her past boyfriends. None of them ever wanted to take a prayer break. They just went on with their Big Macs and their movies and their mocha frapuccinos. It seemed to her, with the amount of lepak that Fina and these boys do on their dates, sitting on the steps outside Dome, trying to look obliviously cool, they could have spent at least five minutes or so for Zuhur or Asar. "I must get a boyfriend who wants to berhenti sembahyang too," she thought. It didn't occur to her that she could have just as easily taken the prayer break herself.

"They're here," Julie said, nodding at two heads emerging from the bottom of the escalator. They had been waiting at the Clinique kiosk on KLCC's second floor for ten minutes and Julie was getting hungry. Shikin was waving at them, a rather large straw bag in her right hand. Next to her was 'the guy', tall, short curly hair and glasses, dressed casually in a black shirt he didn't bother to tuck into his faded jeans. It was brown. Laila wrinkled her nose in distate. "Jeans should only come in blue, nothing else," she thought and immediately hugged Shikin in sympathy.

"This is Malik," Shikin gestured at the tall boy. "And this," suddenly they noticed the other boy behind Shikin's new boyfriend, "is Karim, Malik's cousin. He's visiting from Johor and Malik invited him along." Karim raised his hand by way of greeting. "Malik, this is Laila, Fina and Julie, my friends from school." They all said 'hi' and silently formed opinions about each other. Fina wondered if Karim was the type who took prayer breaks too. "Such a kampung name, though," she thought. "I'm going to have to change it if he becomes my boyfriend. Maybe I'll call him Reem or something. That's cooler."

Malik and Karim were already walking away from the girls. Laila slipped her arm around Shikin and started chatting as they followed the boys. "So. Did he pick you up?"
"Oh it's just a Wira. Nothing special. Isn't he cute, though? I told you he was cute!"
"Yeah, he's not bad. Why the cousin?"
"His mother made him. It's rude to leave the boy in the house by himself, she said. So he had to bring him along. He's allright. A bit quiet. Smokes too."
"Ick."
"I know."

They were now on the fifth floor, in front of a beauty salon with messages in Arabic taped to the window, informing the tourists from Dubai of their many varied services and the over-priced hair products they carry. "Aren't we going to eat before the movie?" Julie asked. Malik glanced sideways at her, and then said something to Shikin. The girls didn't catch his words. Malik then put his arms around his cousin and walked away.

Shikin smiled nervously. "Malik wants to pray first. He's afraid the movie would go on too long and Zuhur would be over. We should go too. Come on." She didn't wait for their answer and followed Malik. Laila and Fina looked at each other. "Of course!" Laila said, a bit too enthusiastically. She rushed to catch up with Shikin. "I guess you'll have to wait for us in Kinokuniya, Julie. We'll only be about 15 minutes or so, depends whether the surau is crowded or not." Julie was confused, but decided not to pursue it. "Okay. I'll be at the magazines." The girls had never wanted to pray during their outings before. She knew they had to pray five times a day, she just thought they did it all at one time and the girls either had already done them or would do them when they got home. She didn't think there would be a time limit. She picked up Hello! and turned its pages to see what that Harry Potter boy was up to.

The surau was not crowded. There was an elderly lady already in her third raka'at and a teenage girl fixing her tudung in front of a mirror. Shikin came prepared and took out her own telekung from her straw bag. She took off her watch, rolled up her sleeves and went to the small tiled room designated for the wudhu. The girls did not speak to each other. Laila and Fina helped each other select a telekung with the least amount of brown spots. Laila grimaced at the thought of how many people and their sweat had put on the telekung. Fina was trying to remember the order of the wudhu. She tried to conjure up images of the ustazah from primary school teaching them the ablutions. When the two girls were bent low in front of the tap, Fina hoped Laila wouldn't realise she was doing it wrong. She tried her best to copy Laila's movements.

As Laila splashed water on her face three times, she thought about her foundation, moisturizer and sunscreen slipping away from her skin and into the drain. She consoled herself by thinking about how the water is washing away whatever grime the LRT ride had descended on her and how this is actually good for her skin. The mouth rinse she did before would get rid of whatever food particles lodged in between her teeth and she would have less plaque in the long run. She thought about this every time she did her wudhu, telling herself God made them pray five times a day, cleanse themselves five times a day because it's good for their health and apperance. Although Laila did not pray five times a day, she at least tries to perform three of the five, often forgetting Isya because she would be watching Alias or American Idol and Subuh because her skin needed the full ten-hour sleep.

During her prayers, Fina realised she lost count of her raka'at. Did she read the middle tahayat already or was that only the first raka'at? Her mind had been wandering while she read the Fatihah and her body seemed to be on auto-pilot as she bent for the rukuk and kneeled for the sujud. She was thinking about the colors of the sejadah her mother brought home from umrah, which led her to think about the time she waited at the airport for her parents' arrival from Mecca and how she had eaten the entire Mushroom Swiss at the Burger King and how the poor kids had to work behind the counter, serving her and how she would have to find a cool job after their SPM, maybe at the Coffee Bean or the Dome, somewhere where the cool kids would hang out and see her, and chat with her as she took their order and how maybe she would meet an older guy, a college guy who's studying engineering or architecture in the States or the UK, not Australia or New Zealand, no, not there, she's visited those countries before, what fun she had when she saw her first snow and her dad made them take pictures with the Tiki god and how that picture is now sitting on the sofa table her mother had bought from Ikea and oh no, what raka'at is this? Fina decided this was probably the third raka'at and she didn't need to read the tahayat yet. In her prayers, she prayed the other two girls wouldn't notice and comment on her mistake.

On the men's side, Karim completed his Zuhur prayers in three minutes. His daily prayers had lapsed ever since the school holidays began and he was astonished he forgot about Zuhur until Malik pulled him into the surau. Karim performed his prayers in a perfunctory manner, swift and precise, not missing a surah, not forgetting his tahayat. He knew all the doa one read when the prayer is over and out of habit, he read them softly to himself. Years and years of boarding school education had ingrained in him the words and the movements he needed to know to be an imam. Karim mouthed the words, not really knowing what it meant, not really thinking about anything, his mind blank as he stared at the curlicues creeping up and all over the sejadah he was sitting on. When the doa ended, Karim buried his face in his two hands for a while, pulling his palms down towards his chin, resting it there at his mouth for a few minutes as he stared at the partition wall seperating him from the women's area and wondered if that Laila girl would sit next to him in the cinema. He wondered if he had time for a quick puff before the movie.

The two boys were already waiting for the girls when they came out of the surau. Laila had redone her make-up thanks to Shikin's foresight to bring a small tube of Avon's moisturizer and a compact foundation. Fina was glad to be out of the musty telekung and reminded herself to look up the entire wordings to the tahayat, she was sure she mixed up some of the ayat. Malik looked at them and nodded, proud that he had led these girls to 'the path of God'. He normally disliked girls without tudung, refused to talk to them even, why would he if they were all going to hell, but since they were Shikin's friends, he guessed he would have to make some allowances.

They found Julie at the health & beauty section, looking over Kevyn Aucoin's 'Face Forward'. "So. Where do we eat?" Karim asked as they gathered outside Kinokuniya, other shoppers dodging their away around the group as they got off the escalator. Malik feigned indifference, Shikin turned to the girls for a suggestion.

Laila, Fina and Julie answered simultaneously, "Nandos!"