by Etaf Rum
Nasser said nothing. From the expression on his face, Deya knew he found her pessimism unpleasant. But what should she have said to him instead? Should she have lied? It was already enough she was forced to live a life she didn’t want to live. Should she really begin a marriage with lies? When would it end?
Eventually Nasser cleared his throat. “You know,” he said. “Just because you can’t see the happiness in your grandparents’ life, that doesn’t mean they’re not happy. What makes one person happy doesn’t always work for someone else. Take my mother—she values family over everything. As long as she has my father and her children, she’s happy. But not everyone needs family, of course. Some people need money, others need companionship. Everyone is different.”
“And what do you need?” Deya asked.
“What?”
“What do you need to be happy?”
Nasser bit the inside of his lip. “Financial security.”
“Money?”
“No, not money.” He paused. “I want to have a stable career and live comfortably, maybe even retire young.”
She rolled her eyes. “Work, money, same thing.”
“Maybe so,” he said, blushing. “Why, what’s your answer?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s not fair. You have to answer the question. What would make you happy?”
“Nothing. Nothing would make me happy.”
He blinked at her. “What do you mean, nothing? Surely something must make you happy.”
She turned to look out the window, feeling his eyes follow her face. “I don’t believe in happiness.”
“That’s not true. Maybe you just haven’t found it yet.”
“It is true.”
“Is it because—” He stopped. “Do you think it’s because of your parents?”
She could tell he was trying to meet her eyes, but she kept them fixed on the window. “No,” she lied. “Not because of them.”
“Then why don’t you believe in happiness?”
He would never understand, even if she tried to explain. She turned to face him. “I just don’t believe in it, that’s all.”
He looked back at her with a glum expression. She wondered what he saw, whether he knew that if he opened her up, he would find, right behind her ribs, only a fist of rot and mud.
“I don’t think you really mean that,” he eventually said, smiling at her. “You know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think you’re just pretending to see how I’d react. You wanted to see if I’d make a run for it.”
“Interesting theory.”
“I think it’s true. In fact, I bet you do it often.”
“Do what?”
“Push people away so they won’t hurt you.” She looked away. “It’s okay. You don’t have to admit it.”
“There’s nothing to admit.”
“Fine. But can I tell you something?” She turned back toward him. “I won’t hurt you. I promise.”
She forced a smile, wishing she could trust him. But she didn’t think she knew how.
Fareeda hurried into the kitchen as soon as Nasser left, her almond brown eyes wide and questioning: Did Deya like him? Did she think he’d liked her? Would she agree to the marriage proposal? Deya had said no to a few proposals, her answer ripe on the tip of her tongue. But mostly the suitor was first to withdraw his offer. On these occasions, after the parents had politely informed them that a match had not been made and Fareeda had cried and slapped her face, her grandmother had only become more persistent. A few phone calls, and she had found a new suitor by the end of the week.
But this time was different. “Looks like you didn’t scare this one away,” Fareeda said with a grin from the kitchen doorway. She was wearing the red-and-gold dress she wore when suitors visited, with a cream scarf draped loosely around her head. She moved closer. “His parents said they’d like to visit again soon. What do you think? Did you like Nasser? Should I tell them yes?”
“I don’t know,” Deya said, shoving a wet rag across the kitchen table. “I need some time to think about it.”
“Think about it? What’s there to think about? You should be thankful you even have a choice in the matter. Some girls aren’t that lucky—I certainly never was.”
“This isn’t a choice,” Deya mumbled.
“Why, of course it is!” Fareeda ran her fingers against the kitchen table to make sure it was clean. “My parents never asked me if I wanted to marry your grandfather. They just told me what to do, and I did it.”
“Well, I don’t have parents,” Deya said. “Or uncles or aunts, or anyone besides my sisters for that matter!”
“Nonsense. You have us,” Fareeda said, though she didn’t meet her eyes.
Deya’s grandparents had raised Deya and her three sisters since she was seven years old. For years it had just been the six of them, not the large extended family that was the norm in Arab households. Growing up, Deya had often felt the sting of loneliness, but it stung the most on Eid celebrations, when she and her sisters would sit at home, knowing there was no one coming to visit them on the most important holiday. Her classmates would boast about the festivities they attended, the family members who gave them gifts and money, while Deya smiled, pretending that she and her sisters did those things, too. That they had uncles and aunts and people who loved them. That they had a family. But they didn’t know what it meant to have a family. All they had were grandparents who raised them out of obligation, and each other.
“Nasser would make a fine husband,” Fareeda said. “He’ll be a doctor someday. He’ll be able to give you everything you need. You’d be a fool to turn him down. Proposals like this don’t come around every day.”
“But I’m only eighteen, Teta. I’m not ready to get married.”
“You act like I’m selling you off to slavery! Every mother I know is preparing her daughter for marriage. Tell me, do you know anyone whose mother isn’t doing exactly the same thing?”
Deya sighed. Her grandmother was right. Most of her classmates sat with a handful of men every month, yet none of them seemed to mind. They slicked on makeup and plucked their brows, as though eagerly waiting for a man to scoop them away. Some were already engaged, wrapping up their final year of high school as if by force. As if they’d found something in the prospect of marriage so fulfilling that no amount of education could compare. Deya would often look at them and wonder: Isn’t there more you want to do? There must be more. But then her thoughts would shift, and uncertainty would kick in. She’d start to think maybe they had it right after all. Maybe marriage was the answer.
Fareeda moved closer, shaking her head. “Why are you making this so difficult? What more do you want?”
Deya met her eyes. “I already told you! I want to go to college!”
“Ya Allah.” She drew out her words. “Not this again. How many times do I have to tell you? You’re not going to college in this house. If your husband allows you to get an education after marriage, that’s his decision. But my job is to secure your future by making sure you and your sisters are married off to good men.”
“But why can’t you secure my future by letting me go to college? Why are you letting some strange man control my fate? What if he turns out like Baba? What if—”
“Not another word,” Fareeda said, her upper lip twitching. “How many times have I told you not to mention your parents in this house?” From the expression on her face, Deya could tell Fareeda wanted to slap her. But it was true. Deya had seen enough of her mother’s life to know it wasn’t the life she wanted.
“I’m afraid, Teta,” Deya whispered. “I don’t want to marry a man I don’t know.”
“Arranged marriages are what we do,” Fareeda said. “Just because we live in America, that doesn’t change how things are.” She shook her head, reaching inside the cabinet for a teakettle. “If you keep turning down proposals, the next thing you know, you’ll be old and no one will want to marry
you, and then you’ll spend the rest of your life in this house with me.” She caught Deya’s eyes. “You’ve seen other girls who’ve disobeyed their parents, refusing to get married, or worse, getting divorced, and look at them now! Living at home with their parents, their heads hanging in shame! Is that what you want?”
Deya looked away.
“Listen, Deya.” Fareeda’s voice was softer. “I’m not asking you to marry Nasser tomorrow. Just sit with him again and get to know him.”
Deya hated to admit Fareeda was right, but she found herself reconsidering. Maybe it was time to get married. Maybe she should accept Nasser’s proposal. It wasn’t as if she had a future in Fareeda’s house. She could barely go to the grocery store without supervision. Besides, Nasser seemed nice enough. Better than the other men she’d met over the months. If not him, then who? Eventually, she’d have to agree to someone. She could only refuse for so long. Unless she wanted to ruin her reputation and her sisters’ reputations as well. She could hear their neighbors in her head. That girl is bad. She isn’t respectable. Something must be wrong with her.
Deya agreed. There was something wrong with her: she couldn’t stop thinking, couldn’t make up her mind.
“Fine,” she said. “Okay.”
Fareeda’s eyes sprung wide. “Really?”
“I’ll see him again. But only under one condition.”
“And what’s that?”
“I’m not leaving Brooklyn.”
“Don’t worry.” Fareeda forced a tight smile. “He lives right here in Sunset Park. I know you want to be near your sisters.”
“Please,” Deya said. “When the time comes, will you make sure they marry in Brooklyn, too?” She spoke softly, hoping to elicit some sympathy. “Can you make sure we stay together? Please.”
Fareeda nodded. Deya thought she saw the wetness of tears in her eyes. It was an odd sight. But then Fareeda looked away, twisting her scarf with her fingers.
“Of course,” Fareeda said. “That’s the least I can do.”
Fareeda might have forbidden Deya from speaking of her parents, but she couldn’t erase her memories. Deya clearly remembered the day she had learned of Adam’s and Isra’s deaths. She had been seven years old. It was a bright autumn day, but Deya had watched the sky turn a dull silver through her bedroom window. Fareeda had finished clearing the sufra after dinner, washed the dishes, and slipped into her nightgown before creeping downstairs to the basement, where they had lived with their parents. Deya knew something was wrong the minute her grandmother appeared at the doorway. As far back as she could remember, she had never seen Fareeda in the basement.
Fareeda had checked to see if Amal, the youngest of the four, was asleep in her crib, before sitting on the edge of Deya and her sisters’ bed.
“Your parents—” Fareeda took a deep breath and pushed the words out. “They’re dead. They died in a car accident last night.”
After that, it was all a blur. Deya couldn’t remember what Fareeda said next, couldn’t picture the looks on her sisters’ faces. She only remembered disparate bits. Panic. Whimpering. A high-pitched scream. She had dug her fingers into her thighs. She had thought she was going to throw up. She remembered looking out the window and noticing that it had started to rain, as if the universe was grieving with them.
Fareeda had stood up and, weeping, went back upstairs.
That was all Deya knew about her parents’ death, even now, more than ten years later. Perhaps that was why she had spent her childhood with a book in front of her face, trying to make sense of her life through stories. Books were her only reliable source of comfort, her only hope. They told the truth in a way the world never seemed to, guided her the way she imagined Isra would’ve had she still been alive. There were so many things she needed to know, about her family, about the world, about herself.
She often wondered how many people felt this way, spellbound by words, wishing to be tucked inside a book and forgotten there. How many people were hoping to find their story inside, desperate to understand. And yet Deya still felt alone in the end, no matter how many books she read, no matter how many tales she told herself. All her life she’d searched for a story to help her understand who she was and where she belonged. But her story was confined to the walls of her home, to the basement of Seventy-Second Street and Fifth Avenue, and she didn’t think she’d ever understand it.
That evening Deya and her sisters ate dinner alone, as they usually did, while Fareeda watched her evening show in the sala. They did not spread a sufra with a succession of dishes, nor set the table with lemon wedges, green olives, chili peppers, and fresh pita bread, as they did when their grandfather came home. Instead the four sisters huddled around the kitchen table together, deep in conversation. Every now and then they’d lower their voices, listening to the sounds in the hall to make sure Fareeda was still in the sala and couldn’t overhear them.
Deya’s younger sisters were her only companions. All four of them were close in age, only one or two years apart, and complemented one another like school subjects in a class schedule. If Deya was a subject, she thought she would be art—dark, messy, emotional. Nora, the second eldest and her closest companion, would be math—solid, precise, and straightforward. It was Nora who Deya relied on for advice, taking comfort in her clear thinking; Nora who tempered Deya’s overspilling emotions, who structured the chaos of Deya’s art. Then there was Layla. Deya thought Layla would be science, always curious, always seeking answers, always logical. Then there was Amal, the youngest of the four and, true to her name, the most hopeful. If Amal was a subject, she would be religion, centering every conversation around halal and haraam, good and evil. It was Amal who always brought them back to God, rounding them out with a handful of faith.
“So, what did you think of Nasser?” asked Nora as she sipped on her lentil soup. “Was he crazy like the last man?” She blew on her spoon. “You know, the one who insisted you start wearing the hijab at once?”
“I don’t think anyone’s as crazy as that man,” Deya said, laughing.
“Was he nice?” Nora asked.
“He was okay,” Deya said, making sure to smile. She didn’t want to worry them. “Really, he was.”
Layla was studying her. “You don’t seem too happy.”
Deya could see her sisters watching her intensely, their eyes making her sweat. “I’m just nervous, that’s all.”
“Are you going to sit with him again?” said Amal, who, Deya realized, was biting her fingertips.
“Yes. Tomorrow, I think.”
Nora leaned in, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Does he know about our parents?”
Deya nodded as she stirred her soup. She wasn’t surprised Nasser knew what had happened to her parents. News traveled like wind in a community like theirs, where Arabs clung to each other like dough, afraid to get lost among the Irish, Italians, Greeks, and Hasidic Jews. It was as if all the Arabs in Brooklyn stood hand in hand, from Bay Ridge all the way up Atlantic Avenue, and shared everything, from one ear to the next. There were no secrets among them.
“What do you think is going to happen?” Layla asked.
“With what?”
“When you see him again. What will you talk about?”
“The fundamentals, I’m sure,” Deya said, one eyebrow cocked. “How many kids I want, where I want to live . . . you know, the basics.”
Her sisters laughed.
“But at least you’ll know what to expect if you decide to move forward,” Nora said. “Better than being taken off guard.”
“That’s true. He did seem very predictable.” Deya looked down into her soup. When she raised her eyes again, the corners crinkled. “You know what he said would make him happy?”
“Money?” said Layla.
“A good job?” added Nora.
Deya laughed. “Exactly. So typical.”
“What did you expect him to say?” said Nora. “Love? Romance?”
“No. But I h
oped he’d at least pretend to have a more interesting answer.”
“Not everyone can pretend the way you do,” Nora said with a grin.
“Maybe he was nervous,” Layla said. “Did he ask what made you happy?”
“He did.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said nothing made me happy.”
“Why did you say that?” said Amal.
“Just to mess with him.”
“Sure,” Nora said, rolling her eyes. “That’s a good question, though. Let’s see. What would make me happy?” She stirred her soup. “Freedom,” she finally said. “Being able to do anything I wanted.”
“Success would make me happy,” Layla said. “Being a doctor or doing something great.”
“Good luck becoming a doctor in Fareeda’s house,” Nora said, laughing.
Layla rolled her eyes. “Says the girl who wants freedom.”
They all laughed at that.
Deya caught a glimpse of Amal, who was still chewing her fingers. She had yet to touch her soup. “What about you, habibti?” Deya asked, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder. “What would make you happy?”
Amal looked out the kitchen window. “Being with you three,” she said.
Deya sighed. Even though Amal was far too young to remember them—she’d been barely two years old when the car accident had happened—Deya knew she was thinking of their parents. But it was easier losing something you couldn’t quite remember, she thought. At least then there were no memories to look back on, nothing hurtful to relive. Deya envied her sisters that. She remembered too much, too often, though her memories were distorted and spotty, like half-remembered dreams. To make sense of them, she’d weave the scattered fragments together into a full narrative, with a beginning and an end, a purpose and a truth. Sometimes she would find herself mixing up memories, losing track of time, adding pieces here and there until her childhood felt complete, had a logical progression. And then she’d wonder: which pieces could she really remember, and which ones had she made up?
Deya felt cold as she sat at the kitchen table, despite the steam from her soup against her face. She could see Amal staring absently out the kitchen window, and she reached across the table and squeezed her hand.