by Etaf Rum
The only difference between Mama and Fareeda was their practice of the five daily prayers, which Isra had never seen Fareeda complete. Fareeda awoke each day at sunrise and headed straight to the kitchen to make chai, muttering a quick prayer as the teakettle whistled: “God, please keep shame and disgrace from my family.” Isra would stand quietly at the doorway, listening in awe as Fareeda mumbled at the stove. Once, she had asked Fareeda why she didn’t kneel before God to pray, but Fareeda only laughed and said, “What difference does it make how I recite my prayers? This is what’s wrong with all these religious folks these days. So hung up on the little things. You would think a prayer is a prayer, no?”
Isra would always agree with Fareeda so as not to upset her. She completed her five prayers downstairs in her bedroom, where Fareeda couldn’t see. Sometimes, after Isra was done with her afternoon chores, she snuck to the basement to combine the zuhr and asr prayers before returning back to the kitchen unnoticed. Fareeda had never forbidden her from praying, but Isra wanted to be safe, wanted to win her love. Mama had never given her much love, only a dash here and there when she’d seasoned the lentil soup properly or scrubbed the floors so hard the cement almost sparkled. But Fareeda was so much stronger than Mama. Perhaps alongside that strength, she had more room for love.
After they had swept the floors, wiped the mirrors, thawed the meat, and soaked the rice, they would sit at the kitchen table, cups of chai to their faces, and talk, or at least Fareeda would, the whole world seeming to swirl between her lips. Fareeda would tell Isra stories about life in America, the things she did to pass time when she wasn’t cooking and cleaning, like visiting her friend Umm Ahmed, who lived a few blocks away, or accompanying Khaled to the market on Sundays, or, when she was in a particular mood, attending the mosque on Fridays to catch up on the latest community gossip. Isra leaned forward, wide-eyed, inhaling Fareeda’s words. In the few weeks since her arrival to America, she had grown to like Fareeda, admire her even. Fareeda, with her loud, boisterous opinions. Fareeda, with her unusual strength.
Now Isra and Fareeda folded laundry, the last of the day’s work. The air between them was damp and smelled of bleach. Fareeda sat with her back against the washing machine, legs crossed under her, arranging black socks in matching pairs. Beside her, Isra sat in her usual way, legs folded tightly together, both arms in her lap as if to make herself smaller. She reached for a bright pair of men’s boxers from the pile of unfolded laundry. She didn’t recognize them. They must belong to one of Adam’s brothers, she thought. She could feel her face flush as her fingers touched the fabric, and she quickly turned from Fareeda. She didn’t want to seem immature, reddening at the sight of men’s underpants.
“It’s nice to finally have someone to help me,” Fareeda said, folding a pair of faded jeans.
Isra smiled wide. “I’m glad I can help.”
“That’s the life of a woman, you know. Running around taking orders.”
Isra pushed aside a pair of mint-green boxers and leaned closer to Fareeda. “Is that what you do all day?”
“Like clockwork,” Fareeda said, shaking her head. “Sometimes I wish I could’ve been born a man, just to see how it feels. It would’ve spared me a lot of grief in life.” She reached for another pair of socks, stopped, and looked at Isra. “Men huff and puff about all the work they do to support their families. But they don’t know—” She paused. “They have no idea what it means to be a woman in this world.”
“You sound like Mama.”
“She’s a woman, isn’t she? She would know.”
There was a pause, and Isra reached for a piece of laundry. She wondered how Mama and Fareeda had come to suffer the same lonely fate, to have both lived a life without love. What had they done wrong?
“I thought things would be different here,” Isra confessed.
Fareeda looked up. “Different how?”
“I thought maybe women only had it so tough in Palestine, you know, because of old customs and traditions.”
“Ha!” Fareeda said. “You think women have it easier in America because of what you see on television?” Her almond eyes narrowed to slits. “Let me tell you something. A man is the only way up in this world, even though he’ll climb a woman’s back to get there. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
“But Khaled seems like he loves you so much,” Isra said.
“Loves me?” Fareeda laughed. “Look at all I do for that man! I spread a full sufra for him every day, wash and iron his clothes, scrub every inch of this house so he can be at ease. I raised his children, these men and this girl, all while he was away. And you say he loves me?” Her eyes shifted to Isra. “Learn this now, dear. If you live your life waiting for a man’s love, you’ll be disappointed.”
Isra felt sorry for Fareeda. How tired she must have been raising her children alone in a foreign country, waiting for Khaled to come home and love her. She wondered if that would be her fate as well.
“Do all the men in America work this much?” she asked, folding a white T-shirt.
“I used to wonder the same thing when we first came here,” said Fareeda. “Khaled worked so many hours a day, leaving me alone with the children, sometimes until midnight! I was angry with him at first, but I realized it wasn’t his fault. Most immigrants in this country work like dogs, especially the men. They have no choice. How else can we survive?”
Isra stared at her. Surely Adam was different, not like the men of Khaled and Yacob’s generation. Things were hard right now, yes, but soon that would change. “Will Adam always work this much?”
“Oh, you’ll get used to it,” Fareeda said. “Soon you’ll have children, and there will be other things to worry about.” When Isra only looked at her, eyes widening, she added. “Believe me, you’ll be thankful he’s at work and not at home telling you what to do. I want to rip my hair out when Khaled takes a day off. Do this, do that. It’s a nightmare.”
But that’s not the kind of relationship Isra wanted: she didn’t want to be like Mama or Fareeda. She knew things were hard now because they barely knew each other. But surely everything would change when they became parents. Adam would have a reason to come home then. He would want to see his children, hold them, raise them. He would have a reason to love her. She turned to Fareeda. “But Adam will be home more when I bear children, right?”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” said Fareeda, her legs unfolding and then folding again. “Don’t be a fool. Have you ever seen a man stay home to help raise children? That’s your job, dear.”
For a moment, Isra could hear Mama’s voice in her head, mocking as she hunched over the stove. Palestine or America. A woman will always be alone. Had Mama been right all along? No, Isra told herself. That couldn’t be true. She just needed to earn Adam’s love.
Deya
Winter 2008
The days after reading Isra’s letter felt muddled. Deya couldn’t stop thinking. Could she have misjudged her mother? Could she have remembered her incorrectly? It was possible. What if her mother had been possessed by a jinn? That would explain why she had always been so sad, not because her marriage was unhappy or because she didn’t want to be a mother, or worse, because she didn’t want her. Still, Deya wasn’t convinced. The jinn sounded like something from a fantasy novel—curses and exorcisms didn’t happen in real life. Yet her mind raced of its own accord. Could her mother have taken her own life? And if she had, then how had her father died?
At home, Deya hardly spoke to her sisters. In school, she dragged herself from one class to the next, unable to focus even on Sister Buthayna’s literature seminar, which she normally enjoyed the most, sitting forward in the very front row, her nose buried in whatever book they were reading. Staring out her classroom window now as Sister Buthayna read a passage from Lord of the Flies, Deya wondered if her grandmother was right. Maybe if she hadn’t spent her days curled between the pages of a book, her back turned to the world, she’d have a better grasp on her life. Maybe sh
e would know how to let go and move on. Maybe she would have realistic expectations for her future.
After school, she rode the bus home in silence, lifting her eyes from the window only when they reached their stop. She and her sisters walked down Seventy-Ninth street toward home, Deya moving quickly, as if she could outrun her thoughts, and her sisters trailing behind, dragging their feet along the snow-covered sidewalk. It was a cold, overcast day, and the air smelled like wet trees with a faint hint of something. Car fumes. Or stray cats maybe. It was a Brooklyn spice she often smelled on the seven-block walk to and from the bus stop. There was an empty coffee cup on the corner pavement, blue-and-white cardboard, crushed and mud-stained. She caught sight of the gold letters printed on it—WE ARE HAPPY TO SERVE YOU!—and sighed. She couldn’t imagine a man coming up with that line. No, it must’ve been a woman.
Something caught Deya’s attention as she turned the corner onto Seventy-Second Street. Farther down the block, a woman was lurking outside their home. Deya stopped to watch her. The woman was tall and thin, dressed in American clothes, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Deya couldn’t tell exactly how old she was from where she stood—thirty perhaps, or maybe forty. Too young to be one of Fareeda’s friends, too old to be one of her sisters’. Deya moved closer, staring.
The woman approached their front stoop in slow, careful movements, looking around as if she didn’t want to be seen. Deya scanned her face. She couldn’t map her features, but she felt as though she had seen the woman before. Something about her seemed so familiar. But who could she be?
There was something in the woman’s hands: Deya couldn’t make it out from where she stood. As she watched, the woman placed the thing carefully on their front stoop. Then, all at once, she turned and ran toward a cab waiting at the curb and disappeared inside.
Deya looked behind to find that her sisters had stopped and were talking among themselves. Something about Fareeda marrying them off, one after the other, like dominoes. Good, Deya thought. They hadn’t noticed. She walked ahead, scanning the street: the cracked pavement, the dead grass, the green trash cans on the corner block. Everything seemed normal. Everything but the white envelope on the doorstep.
It was likely nothing. Her grandparents received mail all the time. Still, she snatched the envelope off the concrete. As she squinted at it, she realized why the woman had moved with such careful steps. The envelope didn’t have her grandparents’ names on it. Instead her own name was handwritten across the front in bold ink. A letter. For her. That was unusual. She tucked the envelope away before her sisters could see.
She waited until dark to open it, pretending to read a book until she was certain her sisters had fallen asleep. Then she locked the bedroom door and pulled the envelope out. The letters of her name—DEYA RA’AD—were still there. She hadn’t dreamed it. She opened the envelope and looked inside. It wasn’t a letter but a business card.
She pulled the card out and held it up under the lamplight. There was nothing unusual about it. Small, rectangular, crisp at the corners. Three bold words—BOOKS AND BEANS—took up most of the white space on the front, leaving room for a few lines at the bottom:
800 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
212-r e a d m o r
She flipped the card over. There was a note handwritten on the back in pen: ASK FOR MANAGER.
She ran her fingers over the card and imagined the strange woman doing the same. Who could she be? Deya closed her eyes and pictured the woman’s face, hoping to see something she missed before, but instead, in that instant, all she could see was her mother. Suddenly a thought came to her—absurd, fantastical, but her mind clung to it, bewitched. Could it be? Could the woman be Isra? It was possible. After all, Deya had not seen the car accident, had not been to the funeral, which Fareeda had said was held in Palestine. But what if Fareeda had made the whole thing up? What if Isra was still alive?
Deya sat up in bed. Surely it was impossible. Both of her parents were dead—not just Isra. Fareeda couldn’t possibly fake the death of two people. And to what end? Her mother had to be dead. If not in a car accident, then suicide. And even if she were alive, why would she come back after all these years? She wouldn’t. She had barely wanted Deya ten years ago. Why would she want her now?
Deya shook her head, tried to will her mother out of her mind. Only she couldn’t. The memories rushed to her in the usual, suffocating way: Isra, sitting in the kitchen with her back turned to Deya, rolling grape leaves on the table. Mesmerized, Deya had watched her stuff each leaf with rice and then roll it into a fingerlike shape before placing it in a large metal pot.
“You’re really good at this, Mama,” she’d whispered.
Isra didn’t respond. She just pinched a bit of rice between her fingers and tasted it to make sure it was seasoned well. Then she stuffed another grape leaf.
“Can I try to roll one?” Deya asked. Still no response. “Mama, will you show me how?”
Without looking up, Isra passed her a grape leaf. Deya waited for directions, but Isra said nothing. So Deya imitated her. She cut the stem off a grape leaf, arranged a thin log of rice at the bottom, tucked both sides of the leaf across the top until the rice was completely covered. When she was done, she placed the stuffed leaf in the pot and looked to her mother’s face for approval. Isra had said nothing.
Deya was pressing hard against the card now, bending it between her fingers. She hated that memory, hated all her memories. Trembling, she clenched the bookstore card in her fist. Who was this woman, and what did she want? Could she be her mother? Deya breathed in and out, trying to calm herself. She knew what she had to do. She would call the number the next day and find out.
The next day came slowly. In school, Deya walked around in a daze, wondering when she would have the opportunity to call the number. During Islamic studies, the last class before lunch, she waited impatiently for Brother Hakeem to finish his lecture. She stared at him absently as he rotated around the room, watched his mouth as it opened and closed. He had been her Islamic studies teacher ever since she was a child, had taught her everything she knew about Islam.
“The word Islam means tawwakul,” Brother Hakeem said to the class. “Submission to God. Islam is about peace, purity, and kindness. Standing up to injustice and oppression. That’s the heart of it.”
Deya rolled her eyes. They couldn’t possibly be Muslims, if that’s what it meant. But then again, what did she know? Religion wasn’t something she had learned at home—they weren’t a devout Muslim family, not really. Once, Deya had contemplated wearing the hijab permanently, not just for her school uniform, but Fareeda had forbidden it, saying, “No one will marry you with that thing on your head!” Deya had been confused. She had expected Fareeda to be proud of her for trying to be a better Muslim. But after thinking about it more, she had realized that most of the rules Fareeda held highest weren’t based on religion at all, only Arab propriety.
Lunch now, and Deya’s only chance to call the number. She decided to ask quiet, pale-faced Meriem to use her cell phone. She was one of the few girls in class whose parents let her have a phone. Deya thought it was because Meriem was so innocent. Her parents didn’t have to worry about her talking to boys or getting into trouble. In fact, not once in their years of school together had Meriem done anything wrong. Most of the girls in her class had found a way to break the rules at one time or another, even Deya. For her, it had been one Friday afternoon after jumaa prayer when she had thrown a metal chair from the fire escape. To this day, Deya didn’t know why she had done it. All she could remember was her classmates staring at her with impish smiles, telling her that she didn’t have the nerve, and then standing at the edge of the fire escape and plunging the chair down five stories with relish. The principal had called Fareeda to tell her that Deya had been suspended. But when she went home, head bowed, Fareeda had only laughed and said, “It doesn’t matter. There are more important things to worry about than school.”
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It wasn’t the only time Deya had broken the rules. She had once asked one of her classmates, Yusra, to buy her an Eminem CD because she knew Fareeda would never allow it. Yusra’s family wasn’t as strict as Deya’s grandparents, who only allowed her to listen to Arabic music. Yusra smuggled the Eminem CD to her in school, and Deya listened to it obsessively. She identified with the rapper’s tension, admired his defiant attitude and courageous voice. If only Deya had that voice. Some nights, whenever she had a bad day at school or Fareeda had upset her, Deya would slip her headphones on and fall asleep listening to Eminem’s words, knowing that somewhere out there was another person who felt trapped by the confines of his world—comforted by the fact that you didn’t have to be a woman or even an immigrant to understand what it felt like to not belong.
Thinking of it now, that was the only time Deya could remember ever asking anyone to do something for her. It wasn’t like her to ask for favors—she never wanted to be an inconvenience, a bother. But it was the only way now. In the lunchroom, she gritted her teeth and approached Meriem. Meriem gave her a small smile as she handed her the phone, and Deya tried not to flush in embarrassment as she rushed to the nearest bathroom. Inside, she turned away from her reflection in the mirrors. The face of a coward. The face of a fool. She entered a bathroom stall, closed the door behind her. She could feel her heart beating against her chest as she dialed the number. After four rings, someone picked up. “Hello,” came a woman’s voice.
Deya coughed. Her mouth had gone dry. “Umm, hi.” She tried to keep her voice from cracking. “Is this Books and Beans?”
“Yes.” A brief pause. “Can I help you?”