by Etaf Rum
Fareeda hung up and turned to face them. Isra froze when she saw her face—it was as if she had seen death in her cup of Turkish coffee.
“It’s Hannah,” she began. “It’s Hannah . . . Umm Ahmed . . . Hannah has been killed.”
“Killed? What are you talking about?” Sarah jumped from her seat, her eggplant rolling off the table.
Isra felt her heart thumping beneath her nightgown. She didn’t know much about Sarah’s classmate Hannah, Umm Ahmed’s youngest daughter. Fareeda had considered her for Ali at one point, but had decided against the idea when she’d sensed that Umm Ahmed hadn’t wanted Sarah for her son. Isra remembered thinking how lucky Hannah was that this family hadn’t been her naseeb—surely Hannah’s life would’ve turned out like hers. But now, listening to the news, a panicky feeling moved through her. Sadness was an inescapable part of a woman’s life.
“What do you mean, killed?” Sarah asked again, louder this time, beating her thighs with the edges of her palms. “What are you talking about?”
Fareeda straightened in her seat, her eyes glistening. “Her husband . . . he . . . he . . .”
“Her husband?”
“Hannah told him she wanted a divorce,” Fareeda said, her voice cracking. “He says he doesn’t know what happened. They found him standing over her body with a knife.”
Sarah let out a wail. “And you want to do this to me? ‘Get married! Get married!’ That’s all you can say to me. You don’t care what happens to me!”
“Not now,” Fareeda said, staring at a spot outside the window. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with me! What if some man kills me? Would you even care? Or would you just be glad that I was no longer your balwa?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Fareeda said, though Isra could see her upper lip trembling.
“Hannah was only eighteen!” Sarah shouted. “That could’ve been me.”
Fareeda’s eyes were locked on the window. A fly buzzed against the glass. She squashed it with the edge of her nightgown. She had told Isra once, years ago when Adam first beat her, that a woman was put on this earth to please her husband. Even if he was wrong, she had said, a woman must be patient. A woman must endure. And Isra had understood why Fareeda said it. Just like Mama, she believed silence was the only way. That it was safer to submit than speak up. But watching the tears gather in her eyes, Isra wondered what Fareeda thought about her words now.
Deya
Winter 2008
Assalamu alaikum,” Khaled said when Deya returned home that afternoon.
“Walikum assalam.” Why was he home so early? Surely Fareeda had told him that Deya knew the truth. Did he want to know where Sarah was? Fareeda had been so consumed with hiding the truth that she had barely asked anything about her daughter.
She placed her hijab on the kitchen table. “Why did you lie to us?”
Khaled stepped away from the open pantry and looked down at her. “I’m sorry, Deya,” he said in a low voice. “We didn’t want to hurt you.”
“How did you think we’d feel when we found out you lied to us all these years? You didn’t think that would hurt us?” Her grandfather didn’t reply, only looked away from her again. “Why did Baba do it? Why did he kill her?”
“He was drunk, Deya. He wasn’t in his right mind.”
“That doesn’t make sense. There must be a reason!”
“There was no reason.”
“Why did he kill himself?”
“I don’t know, daughter.” Khaled reached inside the pantry for a jar of sesame seeds. “I don’t know what your father was thinking that night. It’s haunted me for years. I wish I knew what made him do those terrible things. I wish I could’ve stopped him somehow. There are so many things about that night I don’t understand. All I know is that we’re sorry. Your grandmother and I only wanted to protect you.”
“You weren’t protecting us. You were only protecting yourselves.”
He still didn’t meet her gaze. “I’m sorry, daughter.”
“Sorry? That’s all you have to say?”
“We only want what’s best for you.”
“Best for us?” The loudness of her voice startled her, but she kept going. “If you wanted what’s best for us, you would let me go to college. You wouldn’t force me to get married to a stranger. You wouldn’t risk putting me in a situation where that man might kill me, and everyone would look the other way! How could you want that life for me?”
“We would never let anyone hurt you.”
“That’s not true! You let my father hurt my mother. Here. In this very house! You and Teta knew he beat her, and you did nothing!”
“I’m sorry, Deya.” Those meaningless words again. His expression when he looked at her was one of deep sorrow. “I was wrong not to protect your mother,” he said after a moment. “I wish I could go back in time. Where we’re from, this is how it was between a husband and wife. I never for a moment thought Adam would . . . I didn’t know . . .” He stopped, his wrinkled face on the verge of crumpling into tears. Deya had never seen him cry before. “Did you know Isra used to help me make za’atar?”
Deya swallowed. “No.”
“Every Friday after jumaa prayer. She even taught me her mother’s secret recipe.” He reached inside the pantry and pulled out a few spice jars. “Do you want me to show you?”
Deya was filled with anger, but this was the first time he’d mentioned her mother in years. She needed his memories of her. She moved closer.
“The most important part of making za’atar is roasting the sesame seeds perfectly.”
Deya watched him pour the sesame seeds into an iron skillet, curious to see him the way her mother had. She wondered how Isra had felt standing beside Khaled, only a few inches between them as they roasted the sesame seeds. She pictured her smiling shyly, saying no more than a few words, perhaps afraid that Fareeda would overhear them. “Did you and my mother ever talk?” Deya asked.
“She was never much of a talker,” he said, opening a jar of marjoram leaves. “But she opened up sometimes.”
“What did she talk about?”
“Different things.” He scooped a spoonful of leaves into the mortar and began to grind them. “How much she missed Palestine.” He poured the ground marjoram on top of the sesame seeds. “How impressed she was by your curiosity.”
“She said that?”
He nodded. “She used to read to you and your sisters daily. Do you remember? Sometimes I used to hear her on the front stoop, making funny noises as she read. You all used to laugh so hard. I rarely heard Isra laugh throughout the years, but in those moments she sounded like a child.”
Deya felt her mouth go dry. “What else?”
Khaled opened a jar of sumac. The burnt-red powder had always reminded Deya of her parents. Isra had liked to sauté onions in sumac and olive oil until they turned a light purple. Then she’d place the sautéed mixture on top of warm pita bread. Msakhan. It was her father’s favorite dish. She felt sick at the thought.
Khaled sprinkled a pinch of salt into the mixture. “What exactly do you want to know?”
What did she want to know? Even the question felt like a vast oversimplification of everything she was feeling. “I’ve been lied to all these years. I don’t know what to believe anymore, what to think, what to do.”
“I knew we should’ve told you the truth right away,” Khaled said, “but Fareeda was afraid . . . We were afraid . . . We didn’t want you to get hurt, that’s all. We only wanted to protect you.”
“There’s so much I don’t know.”
He met her eyes. “There’s so much none of us know. I still don’t understand why my daughter ran away, why my son killed his wife, killed himself. My own children, and I don’t understand them.”
“But at least Sarah is alive,” Deya said. “You can ask her why she ran away. You can get answers, you just choose not to.” Khaled looked away. From his expression Deya knew he
was still angry with his daughter. “Will you ever forgive her?” He didn’t look up. “She misses you, and she’s sorry—she’s sorry she ran away.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Why not? Because she’s a girl? Is that it? Because she was only a girl and she dared to shame you? Would you have forgiven my father if he were still alive? Tell me, would you have forgiven him for killing my mother?”
“It’s not that simple.”
Deya shook her head. “What does that even mean?”
“It isn’t Sarah’s fault I can’t forgive her, it’s mine. My pride won’t let me forgive her. In this her crime is less than mine, much less. In this I have failed her. I have failed all of you.”
“You talk as though it’s too late, Seedo, but it’s not. You can still forgive her. There’s still time.”
“Time?” Khaled said. “No amount of time can bring back our family’s reputation.”
Isra
Spring 1997
Are you okay?” Isra asked Sarah that evening, after Fareeda and Nadine had settled in the sala to watch their favorite show. She and Sarah would sometimes join them, but tonight they stuffed cabbage leaves in the kitchen.
“I’m fine,” Sarah said.
Isra was careful with her words. “I know you’re worried about marriage, especially now that . . .” She brought her voice to a whisper. “After Hannah died.”
“She didn’t die,” Sarah corrected her, not bothering to lower her voice. “She was murdered by her husband. And yet my mother still insists on marrying me off like nothing happened.”
Isra didn’t know what to say. She didn’t see what Hannah’s death had to do with Sarah. If every woman refused to get married after a woman died at the hands of her husband, then no one would ever get married. Secretly Isra had begun to suspect that Hannah had done something to get herself killed. Not that she deserved to get killed, no. But there was no way a man would kill his wife for no reason, Isra told herself.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m here if you want to talk about it.”
Sarah shrugged. “There’s no point in talking.”
“Are you afraid? Is that it? Because I understand if you are, I—”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Then what is it?”
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“This.” Sarah pointed to the pot of stuffed cabbage leaves between them. “This isn’t life. I don’t want to live like this.”
Isra stared at her. “But there is no other life, Sarah. You know that.”
“For you, maybe. But there is for me.”
Isra could feel her face burn. She looked away.
“You know I snuck out of school the other day.”
“What?”
“It’s true. Me and my friends went out to celebrate the last week of school. We watched this movie in the theaters. Anna Karenina. You must have seen the commercials, no? It was the most romantic love story I’ve ever seen, and you know me—I don’t even like love stories. But you know what I was thinking the whole time we were watching the movie?”
Isra shook her head.
“All I kept thinking was that I would never have a love like that. I will never fall in love, Isra. Not if I stay in this house.”
“Of course you will,” Isra lied. “Of course.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Isra knew her voice had betrayed her. “Don’t be foolish, Sarah. Books and movies, that’s not how the real world works.”
Sarah crossed her arms. “Then why do you spend all day reading?”
Isra felt a lump in her throat she could not swallow. Why was it so hard for her to admit the truth, not only to Sarah, but to herself? She knew she had to stop pretending things were okay. She was seized to confess, at last, the fear that circled her brain in endless loops: that she would do the same thing to her daughters that Mama had done to her. That she would force them to repeat her life.
“I’m sorry for what’s happening to you,” she said.
Sarah gave a harsh laugh. “No, you’re not. If you were really sorry, then you’d admit that this isn’t a life.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? Then why do you think it’s okay, living the way you do? Is this the life you want for yourself? For your daughters?”
“Of course not, but I’m afraid.”
“Of what?”
“So many things.” Isra’s eyes watered. “Adam, Fareeda . . . myself.”
“Yourself? Why?”
“I can’t pinpoint it exactly. Maybe I’ve been reading too much. But sometimes I think there’s something wrong with me.”
“In what way?” Sarah stared, concern etched on her face.
Isra had to look away, or she knew she wouldn’t be able to continue. “It’s hard to put in words without sounding crazy,” she said. “I lie in bed every morning, and I feel so desperate. I don’t want to wake up, I don’t want to see anyone, I don’t want to look at my daughters, and I don’t want them looking at me. Then I think, if I just push the sluggish thoughts away, if I just get up and make the bed and pour some cereal and brew an ibrik of chai, then everything will be okay. But it’s never okay, and sometimes I—” She stopped.
“Sometimes what?”
“Nothing,” Isra lied. She looked away, gathering her thoughts. “It’s just that . . . I don’t know . . . I worry. That’s the heart of it. I worry that my daughters will hate me when they grow up, the way you hate Fareeda. I worry that I will end up doing the same thing to them that she’s done to you.”
“But you don’t have to do that to them,” Sarah said. “You can give them a better life.”
Isra shook her head. She wished she could tell Sarah the truth: that even though she willed herself not to, she secretly resented her daughters for being girls, couldn’t even look at them without stirring up shame. She wanted to say that it was a shame that had been passed down to her and cultivated in her since she was in the womb, that she couldn’t shake it off even if she tried. But all she said was, “It’s not that simple.”
“You’re starting to sound like my mother.” Sarah shook her head. “It seems pretty simple to me. All you have to do is let your daughters make their own choices. Tell me—shouldn’t a mother want her daughter to be happy? So why does mine only hurt me?”
Isra could feel the tears coming, but she held them back. “I don’t think Fareeda wants to hurt you. Of course she wants you to be happy. But she doesn’t know better. She’s never seen better.”
“That’s not an excuse. Why are you defending her?”
Isra didn’t know how to explain it. She had her own resentments toward Fareeda. The woman was tough. But Isra also knew the world had made her that way. That it was a hard world, and it was hardest on its women, and there was no escaping that.
“I’m not defending her,” she said. “I just want you to be safe, that’s all.”
“Safe from what?”
“I don’t know. . . . You’ve been scaring away your suitors. Now you’re sneaking out of school, going to the movies. I just worry your family will find out, and . . . I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Sarah laughed. “What do you suppose will happen to me if I accept one of the proposals my mother wants? Do you think I’ll ever be loved? Respected? Accomplished? Tell me, do you?”
“No.”
“How is that not hurting me? That’s why I refuse to listen to my family anymore.”
Isra stared at her in horror. “What are you saying?”
Sarah looked briefly at the door before whispering, “I’m running away.”
There was a moment of silence as Isra registered the words. She opened her mouth to speak, stopped, felt herself choke. Then she swallowed. “What, are you crazy?”
“I don’t have a choice, Isra. I have to leave.”
“Why?”
“I . . . I have to. I can’t live like this anymore.”
&nb
sp; “What are you saying? You can’t just leave!” She reached for Sarah’s arm, clutched it. “Please, I’m begging you, don’t do this!”
“I’m sorry,” Sarah said, shaking her arm free. “But nothing you say will change my mind. I’m leaving.” Isra opened her mouth to speak, but Sarah cut her off. “And you should come with me.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“Says the girl who ran out the basement window in the middle of the night.”
“That was different! I was upset. I didn’t plan to run away . . . and I came back! Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. I have daughters to think of.”
“Exactly. If I had a daughter, I would do anything to save her from this.”
Deep down, Isra knew her daughters would live out this same life. That one day she would become like Fareeda and push them into marriages, no matter how much they hated her for it. But that wasn’t a reason to run away. She was a foreigner here, with no money or skills, nothing to live on, nowhere to go. She turned to Sarah. “What will you do? How will you live?”
“I’ll go to college, get a job.”
“It’s not that easy,” Isra said. “You’ve never even spent a night away from home, let alone lived on your own. You need someone to take care of you.”
“I can take care of myself,” Sarah said. Then, in a softer voice, she added, “You can take care of yourself, too. We can take care of each other.” Their eyes met. “If you’re not strong enough to do it for yourself, then do it for your daughters.”
Isra looked away. “I can’t . . . I can’t raise them on my own.”
“Why not? You already do, practically. America is full of single mothers.”
“No! I don’t want to put my daughters through that. I don’t want to uproot them—snatch them from home and force them to grow up alone, without a family, in shame.”
Sarah sneered at her. “You have to have a home first to be uprooted from it. You have to know what love is to feel alone.”