by Etaf Rum
“Do you feel it kicking?” Nadine said.
“Yes!”
Isra could see Nadine smirking, and she hid her face inside the cabinet. In the beginning, when Nadine first arrived, Isra had thought she would finally have a friend, a sister even. But they barely spoke, despite the small efforts Isra made to befriend her.
“Come, come,” Fareeda said when Isra had set the kettle on the stove. “Sit with us.”
Isra sat. She could feel Fareeda studying her belly, trying to make out the child inside. The look in her eyes sent a prick of fear down Isra’s spine. Not a day had passed when Fareeda had not mentioned the child’s gender, how they needed a grandson, how Isra had disgraced them in the community. Some days Fareeda would dangle a necklace over the globe of Isra’s belly, trying to discern the baby’s gender. Other days she would read the grounds of Isra’s Turkish coffee.
“It’s a boy this time,” Fareeda said, studying a spot on Isra’s stomach, calculating whether the baby sat high or low, wide or narrow. “I can feel it.”
“Inshallah,” Isra whispered.
“No, no, no,” Fareeda said. “It’s a boy for sure. Look how high your belly sits.”
Isra looked. It didn’t seem high to her, but she hoped Fareeda was right. Dr. Jaber had offered to tell Isra on her last visit, but Isra had refused. She didn’t see any reason to suffer prematurely. At least now, not knowing the gender, she had a bit of hope to move her forward. She wouldn’t be able to push the baby out if she knew it was a girl.
“We’ll name him Khaled,” Fareeda said, standing up. “After your father-in-law.”
Isra wished she wouldn’t do that, bring her hopes up for a boy. What if it was another girl—what would Fareeda do? Isra could still remember the look on Fareeda’s face the night Nora was born, one hand swept across her forehead, a pained sigh escaping her. And here Isra was again, with another child on the way. Soon she would have three children when she still felt like a child herself. But what choice did she have? Fareeda had insisted she get pregnant before Nadine. “It’s your duty to bear the first grandson,” she’d said. Only now Nadine was pregnant, too, and might still bear a son before Isra.
“Please, Allah,” Isra whispered, a prayer she’d been muttering for weeks. “Please give me a son this time.”
Nadine squinted her bright blue eyes and laughed. “Don’t worry, Fareeda,” she said, tracing her fingers across her slim belly. “Inshallah you’ll have a little Khaled sooner or later.”
Fareeda beamed. “Oh, inshallah.”
Later that evening, Fareeda asked Isra to teach Sarah how to make kofta. A single ray of light fell through the kitchen window as they gathered the ingredients on the counter: minced lamb, tomatoes, garlic, parsley.
Sarah sighed. Her eyes were round and her lips sat in a quiet sneer, as though she had sensed something foul. She sighed again, reaching for the minced lamb. “How do you do this all day?”
Isra looked up. “Do what?”
“This.” She motioned to the kofta balls. “It would drive me crazy!”
“I’m used to it. And you might as well get used to it too. It will be your life soon enough.”
Sarah shot her a sidelong glance. “Maybe.”
Isra shrugged. Sarah had matured so much in the past two years. She was thirteen years old, creeping up on womanhood. Isra wished she could save her from it.
“Whatever happened to your romantic streak?” Sarah said.
“Nothing happened,” Isra said. “I grew up, that’s all.”
“Not everyone ends up in the kitchen, you know. There is such a thing as a happy ending.”
“Now who sounds like a romantic?” Isra asked with a smile. She thought back to how naive she had been when she’d first arrived in America, walking around dreaming of love. But she wasn’t naive anymore. She had finally figured it out. Life was nothing more than a bad joke for women. One she didn’t find funny.
“You know what your problem is?” Sarah said.
“What’s that?”
“You stopped reading.”
“I don’t have time to read.”
“Well, you should make time. It would make you feel better.” When Isra said nothing, she added, “Don’t you miss it?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then what’s stopping you?”
Isra lowered her voice to a whisper. “Adam and Fareeda are already disappointed in me for having two girls. They wouldn’t like me reading, and I don’t want to make things worse.”
“Then read in secret like me. Isn’t that what you used to do back home?”
“Yes.” Isra entertained the idea for a moment and then pushed it away, amazed at how little defiance she had left. How could she tell Sarah that she was afraid of adding tension to her marital life? That she couldn’t handle any more blame for the family’s unhappiness? Sarah wouldn’t even understand if she did tell her. Sarah, with her bold, bright eyes and thick schoolbooks. Sarah, who still had hope. Isra couldn’t bear to tell her the truth.
“No, no.” Isra shook her head. “I don’t want to risk it.”
“Whatever you say.”
They stood by the oven, dropping balls of minced lamb into a sizzling pan of oil, one after another, waiting until each piece turned a crisp brown before setting it on old newspaper to cool. The heat stung their fingers, and Sarah laughed every time Isra dropped a ball of kofta on the floor.
“Better pick it up before Lord Fareeda sees you!” Sarah said, mimicking the look her mother always gave at the sight of sloppy cooking. “Or I might never see you again.”
“Shhh!”
“Oh, come on. She won’t hear us. She’s completely engrossed in her soap opera.”
Isra looked over her shoulder. It bothered her that she couldn’t even laugh without worrying about Fareeda. She knew she was only getting duller as the years passed, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted to be happy. But she felt as though she wore a stain she couldn’t wash off.
Deya
Winter 2008
Nasser is waiting for you,” Fareeda told Deya when she returned home from school. “Go change out of your uniform! Quickly!”
It took a tremendous amount of effort for Deya not to confront Fareeda right then. All these years lying about Sarah! What else was she hiding? But Deya knew better than to challenge Fareeda. It would only jeopardize her future visits with Sarah and her chance to learn the truth, so she bit her tongue and said nothing, stomping down the stairs. When she came back up, Nasser and his mother were sipping chai and eating from a platter of ma’amool cookies in the sala. Deya refilled their cups before heading to the kitchen, Nasser closely behind. She settled across from him at the table, bringing the warm cup to her face for comfort.
“Sorry to make you wait,” she said.
“It’s okay,” Nasser said. “How was school?”
“Fine.”
“Learn anything interesting?”
She sipped on her chai. “Not really.”
There was an awkward pause, and he fidgeted with his teacup. “You didn’t think you’d see me again, did you? You thought you’d scared me away.”
“It’s worked so far,” she said without looking at him.
He let out a small chuckle. “Well, not on me.” Another pause. “So, should we talk about the next step?”
She met his eyes. “Next step?”
“I mean, marriage.”
“Marriage?”
He nodded.
“What about it?”
“What do you think about marrying me?”
Deya opened her mouth to object, but thought better of it. She needed to prolong her sittings with him until she knew what to do. “I’m not sure what I think,” she said. “This is only the second time I’ve ever met you.”
“I know,” Nasser said, blushing. “But they say people usually know if something feels right instantly.”
“Maybe when deciding on a pair of shoes,” Deya said. “But picking a
life partner is a bit more serious, don’t you think?”
Nasser laughed, but she could tell she had embarrassed him. “To be honest,” he said, “this is my first time agreeing to sit with the same girl twice. I mean, I’ve sat with a lot of girls—it’s exhausting, really, how many my mother has found at weddings. But nothing serious ever happened with any of them.”
“Why not?”
“There was no naseeb, I guess. You know the Arabic proverb, ‘What’s meant for you will reach you even if it’s beneath two mountains, and what’s not meant for you won’t reach you even if it’s between your two lips’?”
Deya’s contempt must have been written across her face. “What?” he asked. “You don’t believe in naseeb?”
“It’s not that I don’t believe in it, but sitting around waiting for destiny to hit feels so passive. I hate the idea that I have no control over my life.”
“But that’s what naseeb means,” Nasser said. “Your life is already written for you, already maktub.”
“Then why do you wake up in the morning? Why do you bother going to work or school or even leaving your room, if the outcome of your life is out of your hands?”
Nasser shook his head. “Just because my fate has already been decided, that doesn’t mean I should stay in bed all day. It just means that God already knows what I’ll do.”
“But don’t you think this mentality stops you from giving things your all? Like, if it’s already written, then what’s the point?”
“Maybe,” Nasser said. “But it also reminds me of my place in the world, helps me cope when things don’t go my way.”
Deya didn’t know whether she found weakness or courage in his answer. “I’d like to think I have more control over my life,” she said. “I want to believe I actually have a choice.”
“We always have a choice. I never said we don’t.” Deya blinked at him. “It’s true. Like this marriage arrangement, for instance.”
“Maybe you can go around proposing to any girl you want,” she said. “But I don’t see any choice here for me.”
“But there is! You can choose to say no until you meet the right person.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s not a choice.”
“That depends on how you look at it.”
“No matter how I look at it, I’m still being forced to get married. Just because I’m offered options, that doesn’t mean I have a choice. Don’t you see?” She shook her head. “A real choice doesn’t have conditions. A real choice is free.”
“Maybe,” Nasser said. “But sometimes you have to make the best of things. Take life as it comes, accept things as they are.”
Deya exhaled, a wave of self-doubt washing over her. She didn’t want to accept things as they were. She wanted to be in control of her own life, decide her own future for a change.
“So, should I tell them yes?” Fareeda asked Deya after Nasser left. She was standing in the kitchen doorway, a cup of kahwa to her lips.
“I need more time,” Deya said.
“Shouldn’t you at least know if you like him by now?”
“I barely know him, Teta.”
Fareeda sighed. “Have I ever told you the story of how I met your grandfather?” Deya shook her head. “Come, come. Let me tell you.”
Fareeda proceeded to tell her the story of her wedding night, nearly fifty years before, in the al-Am’ari refugee camp. She had just turned fourteen.
“My sister Huda and I were both getting married that day,” Fareeda said. “To brothers. I remember sitting inside our shelter, our palms henna-stained, our eyes smeared with kohl, while Mama wrapped our hair with hairpins she had borrowed from a neighbor. It was only after we’d signed the marriage contracts that we saw our husbands for the first time! Huda and I were so nervous as Mama led us to them. The first brother was tall and thin, with small eyes and a freckled face; the second was tan, with broad shoulders and cinnamon hair. The second brother smiled. He had a beautiful row of white teeth, and I remember secretly hoping he was my husband. But Mama led me by the elbow to the first man and whispered: ‘This man is your home now.’”
“But that was a million years ago,” Deya said. “Just because it happened to you doesn’t mean it should happen to me.”
“It’s not happening to you!” Fareeda said. “You’ve already said no to several men, and you’ve sat with Nasser twice! No one is telling you to marry him tomorrow. Sit with him a few more times and get to know him.”
“So, sitting with him five times will make me know him?”
“No one really knows anyone, daughter. Even after a lifetime.”
“Which is why this is so ridiculous.”
“Well, this ridiculousness is how it’s been done for centuries.”
“Maybe that’s why everyone is so miserable.”
“Miserable?” Fareeda waved her hands in the air. “You think your life is miserable? Unbelievable.” Deya took a step back, knowing what was coming. “You’ve never seen miserable. I was only six years old when my family relocated to the refugee camp, settling in a corner tent with a single room, as far as we could get from the open sewage, the rotting corpses on the dirt road. You wouldn’t believe how dirty I always was—hair uncombed, clothes soiled, feet as black as coal. I used to see young boys kicking a ball around the sewage or riding bikes on the dirt roads and wish I could run along with them. But even as a child, I knew my place. I knew my mother needed help, squatting in front of a bucket, washing clothes in whatever water we could find. Even though I was only a child, I knew I was a woman first.”
“But that was a long time ago in Palestine,” Deya said. “We live in America now. Isn’t that why you came here? For a better life? Well, why can’t that mean a better life for us, too?”
“We didn’t come here so our daughters could become Americans,” Fareeda said. “Besides, American women get married, too, you know. If not at your age, then soon enough. Marriage is what women do.”
“But it’s not fair!”
Fareeda sighed. “I never said it was, daughter.” Her voice was soft, and she reached out to touch Deya’s shoulder. “But this country is not safe for girls like you. I only want your protection. If you’re afraid to rush into marriage, that’s fine. I understand. You can sit with Nasser as often as you’d like if it makes you feel better. Would that help?”
As if sitting with a stranger a few more times could help alleviate the uncertainty she felt about everything in the wake of her grandparents’ lies. But at least she’d bought herself more time to figure out what to do. “I guess.”
“Good,” Fareeda said. “But promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You need to let the past go, daughter. Let your mother go.”
Deya refused to meet Fareeda’s eyes as she went back downstairs to change.
Later that night, after Deya and her sisters ate dinner and retreated to their rooms, Deya told Nora about her visit with Sarah. She had planned to keep the story to herself at first, but she knew Nora would suspect something was going on when she skipped school again. Nora said nothing the whole time she spoke, listening with the same calm interest as when Deya told her a story, turning to the doorway every now and then to make sure Fareeda wasn’t there.
“She must have something important to tell you,” Nora said when Deya finished speaking. “Or else she wouldn’t have risked reaching out.”
“I don’t know. She says she wants to help me, but I feel like she’s hiding something.”
“Even if she is, there must be a reason she reached out. She’ll have to tell you eventually.”
“I’ll make sure to find out tomorrow.”
“What? You’re skipping school again? What if you get caught?”
“I won’t get caught. Besides, don’t you want to know what she has to say? Teta has been lying to us all these years. If she lied about Sarah, what else is she lying about? We deserve the truth.”
Nora gave her a long, hard s
tare. “Just be careful,” she said. “You don’t know this woman. You can’t trust her.”
“Don’t worry. I know.”
“Oh, right,” Nora said with a crooked smile. “I forgot who I was talking to.”
Isra
Summer–Fall 1993
Summer again. Isra’s fourth in America. In August she’d given birth to her third daughter. When the doctor declared the baby a girl, a darkness had washed over her that even the morning light through the window could not relieve. She’d named her Layla. Night.
Adam made no effort to conceal his disappointment this time around. He’d barely spoken to her since. In the evenings, when he’d returned from work, she would sit and watch him eat the dinner she had prepared him, eager to meet his faraway gaze. But his eyes never met hers, and the clinking of his spoon against his plate was the only sound between them.
After Layla’s birth, Isra had not prayed two rak’ats thanking Allah for his blessings. In fact, she hardly completed her five daily prayers in time. She was tired. Every morning she woke up to the sound of three children wailing. After sending Adam off to work, she made the beds, swept the basement floor, folded a load of laundry. Then she entered the kitchen, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, to find Fareeda hovering over the stove, the teakettle whistling as she announced the day’s chores.
Sunset, and Isra had yet to pray maghrib. Downstairs, she opened her dresser and took out a prayer rug. Normally she laid the rug facing the kiblah, the eastern wall where the sun rose. But today she tossed the prayer rug on the mattress and threw herself on the bed. She took in the four bare walls, the thick wooden bedposts, the matching dresser. There was a black sock jamming the bottom drawer—Adam’s drawer. The one she only opened to put clean socks and underwear inside. But that was enough to know he kept a layer of personal things at the bottom. She rolled off the bed and leaped toward the dresser in a single step. She crouched down and froze, fingers inches from it. Did she dare open it? Would Adam want her rummaging through his things? But how would he find out? And besides, what good had obedience done her? She had been so good for so long, and where was she now? More miserable than ever. She reached for the drawer and pulled it open. One by one, she placed Adam’s socks and underwear on the floor beside her. Underneath was a folded blanket, which she removed as well, and beneath it lay several stacks of hundred-dollar bills, two packs of Marlboro cigarettes, a half-empty black-and-white composition notebook, three pens, and five pocket lighters. Isra sighed in disgust—what had she expected? Gold and rubies? Love letters to another woman? She placed everything back where it was, shoved the drawer shut, and returned to the bed.