by Etaf Rum
Fareeda kept her eyes on her legs. Her fingers trembled against her teacup, and she placed it on the old barrel they used for a coffee table. The barrel was rusted and moldy but had been standing strong for over ten years, ever since Khaled and Fareeda first married in the camps. It had served many uses then. She remembered using it as a bucket to shower.
“Nonsense,” Awatif said, pulling Fareeda back into the conversation. “No mother in her right mind would kill her child. She must have been possessed. I guarantee it.” She turned to Fareeda, who sat silently beside her. “Tell them, Fareeda. You would know. Your twin daughters died right in your arms. Would a mother ever do such a thing unless she wasn’t in her right mind? It was a jinn. Tell them.”
A flush spread across Fareeda’s face. She made an excuse to grab something from the kitchen, knees buckling as she rose from the plastic chair. She tried to keep from falling as she walked across the dirt garden, past the marimaya plant and the mint bush, and into the kitchen. It was three feet by three across, equipped only with a sink, soba oven, and small cabinet. Fareeda could hear Nadia on the veranda whispering, “Why would you bring up such a thing? The woman lost her firstborns. Why would you remind her?”
“It was over ten years ago,” Awatif said. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Besides, look at her life now. She has three sons. Her naseeb turned out pretty good, if you ask me. No reason to fuss.”
In the kitchen, Fareeda trembled violently. She remembered her daughters’ death in bits and pieces only. Their bodies turning blue in her arms. The sharp scent of death in the tent. The way she kept them wrapped in blankets so Khaled wouldn’t notice, kept flipping and turning their limp bodies, hoping the color would return to their faces. Then the scrambling prayers. The small hole Khaled dug in the back of the tent, tears in his eyes. And somewhere, in the tight confines of their tent, that thing which had never left her since, the jinn. Watching her. She closed her eyes, muttered a quick prayer under her breath.
Forgive me, daughters. Forgive me.
Part III
Deya
Winter 2008
Deya ran out of the bookstore, the newspaper clipping crushed in her fist. At the subway station, she paced up and down the platform as she waited for the R train. Once on board she paced in circles by the metal door. She shoved past people down the center aisle, her fear and deference forgotten. At the back of the train, she opened the exit door—ignoring the EMERGENCY ONLY sign—and crossed into the next train car, even as the tracks rattled under her feet in the dark tunnel. In the next car she did the same—pacing, shoving, escaping from one car to the next as though the next car might hold a different story, any other story, so long as it was one in which her mother had not been murdered by her father.
When she finally paused, all she could do was stare again at the newspaper clipping in her hands:
MOTHER OF FOUR MURDERED IN BROOKLYN BASEMENT
* * *
Brooklyn, NY. October 17, 1997—Isra Ra’ad, twenty-five-year-old mother of four, was found beaten to death in Bay Ridge late Wednesday night. The victim appeared to have been beaten by her husband, thirty-eight-year-old Adam Ra’ad, who fled the scene of the crime. Police found his body in the East River Thursday morning after witnesses saw him jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.
How many times did Deya read the words and burst into tears? How many times did she scream in the middle of the train, stopping only when she realized that people around her were staring? What did they see when they looked at her? Did they see what she saw, staring at her darkened reflection in the glass window, the face of a fool? For now Deya saw how foolish she’d been. How could she have lived with her grandparents all these years and not known that her mother had been murdered by her own father? Beaten to death in their home, in the very rooms where she and her sisters spent their days? Why hadn’t she acted on her suspicions after reading Isra’s letter? Why hadn’t she questioned Fareeda until she’d admitted the truth? How had she believed her so easily? After all the lies she knew Fareeda to be capable of. Did she not have a mind of her own? Could she not think for herself? How had she lived her entire life letting Fareeda make her choices for her? Because she was a fool.
Deya clenched the newspaper clipping tight. Then she was screaming again, banging her fists against the train window. Her father had killed her mother. He had killed her, taken her life, stolen her away from them. Then the coward had taken his own life! How could he? Deya closed her eyes, tried to picture Baba’s face. The most clearly she could remember him was the day of her seventh birthday. He had come home with a Carvel ice cream cake, smiling as he sang her a birthday melody in Arabic. The way he had looked at her, the way he had smiled—the memory had always comforted Deya on a bad day.
Now she wanted to rip the memory out of her head. How could that same man have killed her mother? And how could her grandparents have covered for him? How could they have hidden the truth from his daughters all these years? And, as if that wasn’t enough, how could they have urged her to get married young and quickly, as her parents had done? How could they risk something like this happening again? Happening to her? She shuddered at the thought.
“No,” Deya said aloud when the train stopped at Bay Ridge Avenue. As soon as the metal doors slid open, she ran. “No!” she screamed. It would not happen again. Not to her. Not to her sisters. Isra’s story would not become theirs. She ran until she reached the bus stop, telling herself again and again: I will not repeat my mother’s life. As the bus turned the corner and she watched her sisters climb down its steps, Deya realized that Sarah was right: her life was her own, and only she controlled it.
Isra
Fall 1996
Isra could no longer remember her life before America. There had been a time when she knew precisely when the mulberries back home would ripen, which trees would grow the sweetest figs, how many walnuts would fall to the ground by autumn. She had known which olives made the best oil, the sound a ripe watermelon made when you thumped it, the smell of the cemetery after it rained. But none of this came to her anymore. Many days, Isra felt as though she had never had a life before marriage, before motherhood. What had her own childhood been like? She couldn’t remember being a child.
And yet motherhood still did not come naturally to her. Sometimes she had to remind herself that she was a mother, that she had four daughters who were hers to raise. In the mornings, after she woke and made the bed and sent Adam off to work with a cup of kahwa and a labne sandwich, she’d wake her daughters and make them breakfast—scrambled eggs, za’atar and olive oil rolls, cereal—running around the kitchen to make sure all four of them were fed. Then she’d take them downstairs and run a bath. She’d soap their hair, digging her fingers into their scalps, rubbing their bodies until they reddened, rinsing them off only to start over again. She’d dry their shivering bodies and comb their wild hair, untangling it strand by strand, willing herself to be gentle though her fingers moved frantically, aggressively. Sometimes one of them would scream or let out a whimper. On days when she was feeling patient, Isra would tell herself to take a breath and slow down. But most days she’d snap at them to keep their mouths shut. Then she’d drop Deya and Nora off at the bus stop and set Layla and Amal in front of the television, eager to complete the day’s chores and return to her books.
Now Isra leaned against the window, reading. Outside the trees were bare, their stark branches covered with frost. Isra thought they looked like tiny arms, thin and bleak, reaching for her, like her daughters. Lately it seemed as though she saw mothers everywhere, smiling wildly as they pushed strollers, a glow emanating from their faces. She wondered how they found it so easy to smile. The happiness she had felt at being a mother when Deya was born was so far away she couldn’t even grasp it. A dismal feeling loomed over Isra now, a feeling that had only intensified since Amal was born. She had thought that the meaning of her daughter’s name, hope, might grow a seed of hope in her heart, but it had not. She woke up every mo
rning feeling very young, yet at the same time terribly old. Some days she felt as though she were still a child, other days as though she had felt far too much of the world for one life. That she had been burdened with duty ever since she was a child. That she had never really lived. She felt empty; she felt full. She needed people; she needed to be alone. She couldn’t get the equation right. Who was to blame? She thought it was herself. She thought it was her mother, and her mother’s mother, and the mothers of all their mothers, all the way back in time.
When Isra first arrived in America, when she first became a wife, she hadn’t understood why she felt so empty. She had thought it was temporary, that she would adjust in time. She knew there were many girls who left their families to come to America, having children when they were still children themselves. Yet they had managed. But lately Isra had finally understood why she couldn’t manage, why she constantly felt as though she were drifting far out to sea. She understood that life was nothing but a dark melody, playing over and over again. A track stuck on repeat. That was all she would ever amount to. Worse was that her daughters would repeat it, and she was to blame.
“Let’s watch a movie,” Deya said in Arabic, her high six-year-old voice drawing Isra out of her book.
“Not now.”
“But I want to,” Deya said. She walked over to Isra and pulled on her bleach-spotted nightgown. “Please.”
“Not now, Deya.”
“Please, Mama.”
Isra sighed. Once she’d realized that Aladdin was adapted from A Thousand and One Nights, she’d gathered her daughters in front of the television, a bowl of popcorn between them, and watched all the Disney movies they owned, longing to find more moments of connection that brought her back to her childhood. Maybe she would find the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, or the Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor, or even, if she was particularly lucky, the Lovers of Bassorah. She had popped each movie in the cassette player, giddy with excitement, only to be disappointed. Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel—none of those characters were in the stories she’d read growing up. Disappointed, she had turned off the television and ignored it ever since.
“But I want to see the princesses,” Deya said.
“We’ve seen enough princesses.”
The princesses irritated her now. Those Disney movies, with their love stories and fairy-tale endings—how could they be a good influence on her daughters? What would her daughters think, Isra wondered, watching these women fall in love? Would they grow up believing these fairy tales were reality, that love and romance existed for girls like them? That one day men would come and save them? Isra could feel her chest tighten. She wanted to go into the sala and shred the cassettes, ripping the film from each piece of plastic casing until they no longer played. But she feared what Adam would say if he found out, the violent look in his eyes, the questions, a slap awaiting, and her without an answer. What could she say? That her books had finally taught her the truth: love was not something a man could give you, and she didn’t want her daughters thinking it was? That she couldn’t let her daughters grow up hoping a man would save them? She knew she had to teach them how to love themselves, that this was the only way they had a chance at happiness. Only she didn’t see how she could when the world pressed shame into women like pillows into their faces. She wanted to save her daughters from her fate, but she couldn’t seem to find a way out.
“Will you read to me?” Deya asked, looking at her with soft, wide eyes, her fingers clenched around her nightgown.
“Sure,” Isra said.
“Now?”
“I have to make dinner first.”
“But then you’re coming?”
“Then I’m coming.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Okay.” She let go of Isra’s nightgown, turned to leave.
“Wait,” Isra said.
“What, Mama?”
“You know I love you, right?”
Deya smiled.
“I love you very much.”
Deya
Winter 2008
Deya met Nora in their bedroom. She shut the door, locked it, and asked Nora to sit down. She handed her the newspaper clipping. Then she told her everything. For a long time after, they wept in each other’s arms.
“I just can’t believe it,” Nora said, staring down at the newspaper clipping. “Should we tell Layla and Amal?”
“Not yet,” Deya said. “First I have to confront Teta.”
“What are you going to say?”
“I’m going to make her tell me everything.”
“Then what?”
“Then we come up with a plan.”
“What kind of plan?” asked Nora.
“A plan to run away.”
Isra
Winter 1996
One Saturday morning, after Isra and Sarah had washed the morning dishes and retreated to the kitchen table with a steaming ibrik of chai, Fareeda entered the kitchen. “Pour me a cup,” she said.
At once, Isra grabbed a teacup from the cabinet. She had become so accustomed to following Fareeda’s demands that her body obeyed unthinkingly. As Isra presented the chai to her, Fareeda turned to Sarah. “Today is your lucky day,” she said.
“And why’s that?” Sarah asked.
“Because”—Fareeda paused, running her finger around the rim of her teacup—“I’ve found you a suitor.”
Isra felt something drain from her. She tried to keep from dropping her tea. How could she carry on without Sarah’s friendship? Without her books?
“Are you serious?” Sarah said, sinking into her chair.
“Of course I’m serious! He’ll be here this afternoon.”
“Who is he?”
“Umm Ali’s youngest son, Nader.” Fareeda’s smile was triumphant. “He was at the pharmacy last month. I pointed him out to you, remember?”
“No,” Sarah said. “Not that it makes a difference. I don’t know him.”
“Oh, don’t be so negative. You’ll get to know him soon enough.”
“Whatever.”
“Roll your eyes all you want,” Fareeda said. “But marriage is the single most important part of a woman’s life, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Can you believe the woman?” Sarah asked Isra when Fareeda had left the kitchen. She stared out the window, her brown eyes watering against the light.
“I’m so sorry,” Isra managed to say.
“I don’t understand why she insists on marrying me off so soon. For God’s sake, I haven’t even finished high school!”
Isra passed her a warm look. She understood why: Sarah had become increasingly rebellious over the years. She could imagine how worried Fareeda was, watching Sarah refuse to take part in any of the traditions, barely speaking Arabic anymore. Sometimes Isra watched Sarah from the window as she walked home from school, rushing to wipe her makeup off before she entered the house. Last month, when Sarah had handed her a copy of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Isra had noticed a sleeveless top in her bag. She hadn’t mentioned it, and Sarah hadn’t either, stuffing the blouse deep beneath her books, but Isra wondered what else Sarah was hiding. She considered how she would feel if she was in Fareeda’s shoes. She didn’t know what lengths she would go to in order to keep her own daughters safe.
“I don’t want to get married. She can’t force me!”
“Lower your voice. She’ll hear you.”
“I don’t care if she hears me. This is America. She can’t force me to get married!”
“Yes, she can,” Isra whispered. “She’ll punish you if you defy her.”
“What could she possibly do? Beat me? I’ll take a beating daily if it means avoiding marriage.”
Isra shook her head. “Sarah, I don’t think you understand. It won’t be a single beating by Fareeda. Soon your father and brothers will start beating you, too. Then how long will you stand it?”
Sarah crossed her arms
. “For as long as it takes.”
Isra examined her bright face and catlike eyes. She wished she could’ve had her strength as a girl. How different her life could have been had she only had courage. Sarah’s eyes narrowed further. “I refuse to have a life like yours.”
“And what kind of life is that?” Isra asked, though she already knew the answer.
“I’m not going to let anyone control me.”
“No one will control you,” Isra said, but her tone betrayed her.
“Maybe you can lie to yourself, but you don’t fool me.”
Though her books had shown her otherwise, the old words spilled out. “This is the life of a woman, you know.”
“You don’t actually believe that, do you?”
“I don’t see any other way,” Isra whispered.
“How can you say that? There’s more to life than marriage. I thought you believed that. I know you do.”
“I do, but that doesn’t mean we have the power to change our circumstances.”
Sarah blinked at her. “So you want me to just accept my life for what they tell me it should be? What kind of life is that?”
“I never said it was right, but I don’t see anything we can do about it.”
“I’ll stand up for myself! I’ll refuse!”
“It won’t matter. Fareeda won’t listen.”
“Then I’ll tell the man myself! I’ll look him straight in the eyes and say, ‘I don’t want to marry you. I’ll make your life a living hell.’”
Isra shook her head. “She’ll marry you off eventually. If not to this man, then the next.”
“No,” Sarah said, standing up. “I won’t let that happen. Even if I have to scare every last man away.”
“But don’t you see, Sarah?”
“See what?”