by Cheryl Reid
I felt the weight of the money in my lap. I remembered Nelly’s words—“You killed my baby”—in front of Marina. “Nelly won’t let Ivie do that,” I said. “Nelly won’t hurt Marina.”
He shook his head. “I am afraid for you.”
I stuffed the bag into my purse as best I could.
I somehow found the strength to move away from him.
I thought of Mama the day he planted the fig tree. She wore her blue dress the color of the sky, and a white scarf held her black hair. A camera bulb flashed late in the afternoon when Papa took a break from the store. Somewhere in my father’s house there was a photograph, and in it she is kneeling down with her face close to mine. Her dark almond eyes, flecked with gold, unabashed and full of love for me, Papa, Gus, and her coming children, looked into the camera.
He had framed it and hung it on the wall. When she died, he took it down. For a while, I knew where he kept it, and when the pain of missing her was too much, I would pull it from its drawer and stare at that image of her face—the sleek nose, the curve of her cheekbones, the deep-set eyes, the white scarf against her dark hair. Then one day, the photo was not in its spot and I could not bring myself to ask him for it. I had not seen it in over thirty years, and I wanted it.
No other person had loved me the way she had. Being in my father’s house always brought back the feeling that once in my life I had been safe, that long ago there had been someone who adored me. I wanted some remembrance of that time. The photo had to be nestled away in a room upstairs in some drawer. If what he said was true, if Ivie planned harm against me or Orlando Washington, I would never be welcomed in Riverton or Mounds. Marina would be shunned. If Orlando Washington was harmed because of me, the people of Mounds would reject my father, and his store would fail. If I left, I’d save him and I’d save Marina shame.
I left his office and went across the hall to Mama’s baking room, where she’d made daily bread on a long table and in a brick oven. Empty cardboard boxes littered the floor. Papa had brought in his yard tools and leaned them against the wall—a rake, a hoe, a spade, clippers. The table that once held her cooling pies had long been covered with his papers and old invoices. I shuffled through the papers to see if the photo of her was hidden there.
I ran up the back stairs in my black pumps. The sound on the wood floors echoed and clapped. My feet tripped over floorboards. Papa yelled, “Anna, listen to me. You must go.” He sounded broken. He walked slowly but deliberately behind my tripping path. I stumbled from room to room, going through drawers and boxes for the picture. I scratched through old clothes, jewelry, cigar boxes of coins and bills, drawers full of old letters written in Arabic and French, piles of yellowed Al-Hoda and Syrian World papers. He never taught me Arabic because, he said, “You are an American girl. We are not going back.” With his words, a dark sadness crossed his face and his voice gave away that he missed his homeland. But he had decided what he had in America was more, and because it was more, it was better, and we would sacrifice our past.
For the hope of a better future, Papa assumed his new country’s prejudices, that foreigners were suspicious, Jews were untrustworthy, and Negroes deserved no respect. He wanted us to be Americans, but by “Americans,” he meant the ones who lived in Riverton across the tracks, and he was not them. He learned to play at being white, a part that did not fit a foreigner like him. The best sense he could make of it was: “You will go to school in Riverton, you will be an American girl, and if people ask you, you say your parents come from the Holy Land.”
His steps came closer to me in his room. “Anna.” I scrounged through drawers on my hands and knees. “I want you to go. For your sake, for the children.”
“I want the photograph of her and me.” My voice shook.
“Go. You must go.” His voice was hard. He did not want my mother’s memory sullied by this. He held my purse full of money.
“No.”
I stumbled over the kashshi, his old peddler’s box that he had worn strapped to his back. As a child, I had played in it, opened its empty drawers, and breathed in the smell of spices that once filled them. At one time, he had displayed it proudly, but now the kashshi sat beneath the bed, an edge poking out like a scolded dog’s nose. My hands grew clumsy as I searched it. I wanted that photograph of my mother. I remembered our faces looked hopeful, like something good was about to happen, like grand possibilities awaited this mother and her child. But there was nothing inside the box. Those days were long over. If I managed to survive their threats, if I stayed, my father might have nothing to do with me, and if he took their side, I would ask nothing from him.
“God forbid it is true.” He grabbed my arm where Elias had bruised me. My father pulled and pushed me toward the door to the balcony. “Go.” His voice was like a storm wind. “Your mother would die a second death if she had thought this shame would fall on her daughter.” He ranted on. “God forbid. Tell me it is not true.”
I flinched at his doubt. Ivie had convinced him that it was possible that I had killed Elias, and I feared if my father could not believe me, no one would.
He shoved the purse into my arms and led me to the balcony. He pushed me out the door. Tears rolled down his cheeks. I had seen Papa cry once, on the day she died, and now I was dead to him too. “Take the money and go.” His voice was muffled and weak.
I stood outside on the balcony. “I won’t leave,” I said.
I hoped he would say that I should stay, or that he was sorry, or that I should ignore Nelly’s threats. I hoped he would say he loved me. Why, I don’t know, because my father never said those words. At the very least I wanted him to say, This will pass, as he always did when there was trouble. I waited, but nothing.
I searched his face for a trace of faith in me. “This flame will die down.”
“No, binti.” He looked away from me to the river. His voice was resolute. “You’re my daughter, always be my daughter. That money is what you have from me. That’s all I can give you.” He shut the door in my face. That’s how I remembered my father. He called me his daughter in one breath and banished me in the next.
The First Time
The first time Elias beat me, the children were sleeping. He stumbled into my room past midnight. By the smell of him he’d been drinking. His shoes hit with a thud by my bed. He undid his belt, and the pants fell with a clatter. He crawled into my bed and wrapped himself around me, warm and gentle at first. But then he said, “You will be Zada.”
“No,” I said, angry that he would call me her name. I put my elbow into him. The alarm clock read 1:00. Only four hours before I started the baking for the day. I had waited up for him already and listened to Marina pining for him. “I want Daddy. Let me stay up ’til he gets home.” She had begged and cried and carried on until ten, two hours past her bedtime.
Elias was back from one of his fishing trips to Mobile, those trips he awaited eagerly twice a year, when he would see Zada. He had been on ten such trips, two a year, since Marina was in my belly. As the days got closer to these trips, his anticipation grew like a kid’s at Christmas. He’d go for a week and return happy to see the children, to embrace them and give them the presents he bought, but then he would slink down into despair, spending his days in the back of the store and staying late each night, drinking the bourbon he kept hidden in his desk. By the fourth or fifth night, he’d have finished the bottle and life would slip back to normal. He’d work full days and come home to the children in the evening. This trip was to be the last one, and his bout of self-pity had gone on longer than usual.
He pulled at my gown.
“It’s too late,” I said. “I need to sleep.”
He reeked of cigarettes and whiskey. It was the first time I had denied him.
“What did you say?” His voice was loud and his words slurred.
“Shhh,” I said. “The children are sleeping.”
“Are you shushing me?” His eyelids hung low with drink, and he removed his han
d from my thigh.
“I have to get up soon,” I said. “And bake.” My voice sounded apologetic. “Go,” I said as gently as I could. “Get some rest.”
His body tensed. The muscles in his arms, his chest, his face, flexed in anger. His eyes opened fully and he stared at me in the dark. Gripping my face, he pushed my head to the pillow and climbed on top of me. He breathed heavily and the day’s growth of beard scratched my neck. He grabbed my wrist and twisted my arm behind my head.
I tried to pull away, but the more I fought, the tighter he wrenched my arm. He turned me over and pulled at my gown. His weight pressed me against the mattress and my gown was tangled around my neck, pulling tighter and choking me as he wrestled to get between my legs.
He did not relent with my arm, twisting as if it were a rope. I feared he would snap it in two.
When he was done, he climbed off the bed and stood shakily. He pulled his pants up and looked down at me on the bed. “Get up,” he said. “Get up.” His voice was loud. He held the bedpost for balance.
“The children,” I said. I tried to cover myself as I stood before him.
He slapped my arms away from my chest. “I’ll wake them if I want to. They’re mine too.” His voice was grit and drink and hate. He took my breasts in his hands and he squeezed until I flinched. He buried his face in my neck, then bit my shoulder in anger.
I was cold and his mess was running down my legs. I tried to inch away.
“I want you to hurt.” He pulled me close to him and grabbed my hair on the back of my head. His chest was warm and strong. He yanked my hair and he said, “She won’t see me because of you.”
My father had said the Nassads were hard on their women. Until then, I had thought the hardness Papa spoke of was the void of feeling I lived in with Elias. He loved his children, was kind to his customers, but to me he was withdrawn and sullen and every smile or bit of kindness was like a drop of precious water in the desert.
“You’re crying?” He grabbed my arms and shook me. “I’m not good enough for you? I’m not good enough for Zada.” He said it again and again. Not good enough—that’s what he had been thinking as he drank in the back of the store that night. He was not good enough for her, and I was not good enough for him. I was not what he wanted. He wanted her, and now he said she was done with him. He staggered around the room as if he were looking for the door to leave.
That would have been the end of it, if I had kept my mouth shut. He would have walked out of my room and into his and I could have gone to sleep. In the morning, I would have made excuses for his behavior and let the night fade in my memory. But I opened my mouth. For the past week, I had done everything without him, and I was angry that he had treated me so poorly. I wanted him out of my room. “You’re drunk,” I said. “You can’t even find the door.”
He tripped toward me and swung. The back of his hand and his knuckles kissed my cheekbone. I felt the flare of heat beneath the skin. He grabbed my shoulders and pushed me to the floor.
“Stop,” I said. “Please.” I tried to keep my voice low. I did not want to wake the children. I did not want them to see. Marina was five and Eli three.
He stood over me and rubbed his face, as if he were waking from a bad dream. I expected he was done, and I started to move, but he stomped his foot into my thigh. I balled up and his foot landed again on my leg and then in my side. I winced in pain and moaned. And he left me and staggered across the hall to his room.
I listened for the children, but they did not stir. I found my robe and went to the bathroom. I washed myself in the tub and splashed cold water on my face. I tried not to look in the mirror. Blood seeped through the bite mark on my shoulder and I poured iodine in the cut. In the kitchen I made an icepack for my cheek. I tried to sleep with it resting on my face, but the cold burned my skin and my thigh throbbed. I floated in and out of a painful sleep, never letting myself completely go, not trusting that he would stay in his room. When the alarm went off, I was thankful the night was over.
I dressed and went to the kitchen to make coffee and begin the baking for the store. Coming down the stairs, his footsteps dragged. He carried his shoes, which he’d had to retrieve from my room. I wondered if he remembered what he had done. When he saw my face, he looked startled to see the dark bruise.
“Anna,” he said. “Did I do that?” He held his hand close to my cheek. I could slap it or take it and kiss it. When I did nothing to reproach him, he took me in his arms and mumbled apologies into my hair. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was out of my mind.” He smelled of alcohol, and I imagined he was still drunk. I rested my good cheek against his chest and listened to his heart beating through his shirt. I wanted to believe him, to trust his soft touch, the pleading words, the warmth of his chest. I could not help myself.
The morning was still dark and it was easy to give myself over in the dark. I wanted to forget the humiliation of the night before and have his arms around me. But by falling into that embrace, I silently agreed that what he had done had no consequence.
He kissed my head like I was the one seeking forgiveness. When he left for the store, I felt disgust at my weakness. He had treated me like an animal and I had folded so easily into him.
The children slept late into the morning, well after the loaves were proofing in baskets on the counter. The commotion must have disturbed them the night before. I spent the morning drinking coffee and thinking what I should do. I could stay and pretend all was fine. I could hope he would come home as he had a thousand nights before and sit at the table, eat dinner, and smile at Marina, who hung on his every word. But when I imagined sitting at the same table and looking at him, having him look at me, I wanted to run away.
Marina came down first. She saw the bruise and she gasped. “Mama, what did you do?”
“I’m okay,” I said. “Just a little bruise.”
“No, it’s big.” She had me sit so she could see. She gently touched it with her fingertips.
It hurt and I winced. I lied to her, told her what a clumsy mule I was, that I tripped and fell into my bed.
“You must be more careful,” she said. She took her seat at the table while I made her a late breakfast. Eli came down with his pants in his hands. He laughed at first when he saw me. He must have thought I had on clown’s paint, but Marina explained I had hurt myself. She explained, too, how he must be careful and not trip and hurt his face like Mama. He nodded with frightened eyes and sat to eat.
I scored the bread and had put eight loaves in the oven when Nelly walked through our front door unannounced.
“Hello,” Nelly called out. Marina and Eli ran and latched on to her legs, so happy to see their grandmother.
“This is for your cheek,” she said to me. She held up a brown paper bag as she labored into the kitchen. Her girth had only expanded since I married Elias. “You must sit.” She led me to a chair. She took the raw steak from the bag and held it on my face. The light pressure of her hand and the cold meat felt good, and for the first time since it happened, I felt how tired and sore I was. I let my body relax.
He must have called her, confessed to what he’d done, or else he told her I’d had an accident. He must have said how bad I looked and told her to bring my loaves to the store so that no one would see me.
“This will stop the swelling,” she said. “Believe me. I’ve raised two boys.” Nelly looked in my cabinets and took out the aspirin. She was fat and slow and with every step she seemed breathless. She drew a glass of water. “You are tired,” she said, as if the bruise on my face came from a sleepless night. “Go rest, and I’ll watch the children.”
“The bread.” I motioned to the oven. I wanted to go to my bed and let sleep erode the heavy feeling of shame, but the timer was ticking down. “I’ll wait until the bread is done.”
“I can take it out.” Eli hung on her skirt. She crouched down to his height, kissed his cheek, and pulled out two lollipops from her pocket. She presented one to Eli, and Marina
scurried over to take possession of hers.
I took the steak into the living room and lay on the couch. I listened to her singing and playing with the children. The timer buzzed and then the oven door creaked. Her breathing strained as she pulled the pans from the oven. “Hot! Hot!” she said to Eli. “No touch!” She rustled and moved and I smelled the lovely warm bread.
When the steak was no longer cool, I took it to the refrigerator. Eli played on the floor with toy soldiers and Marina colored at the table.
“Go rest.” Nelly fanned herself, hot from the stove.
“I have to deliver the bread.” I decided not to hide behind the bruise on my cheek. Marina had believed my story and I thought others would too.
“I am here. Take advantage and go to bed. Shut the door and sleep.” Her insistence for me to stay out of view struck like a match inside me.
“I want to get out of the house,” I said.
“No, no.” Panic filled her voice. Nelly ushered me to a chair. “You will rest. You will stay home. Until you are better.”
“I’m not sick.” Pride swelled in my chest like heat in the oven. “I want to go.”
“People will see you. What will they think?” Her voice took on an edge that gave her away.
I touched the bruise. It would be days or weeks before I could cover it with makeup.
Nelly moved nervously around the kitchen, washing the bread pans and laying them out to dry.
I thought how easily I had forgiven him. I had laid my head on his chest and let him pet me. I had lowered myself like a cowering dog.
Marina watched me. “Grandma says to keep the meat on your face.”
“It won’t make the bruise go away.” I patted her hand and she looked at me with pity. I felt angry that she was seeing me bruised and hearing her grandmother tell me to hide away. I wondered what she had heard the night before, if the noise had colored her dreams. I wondered if he would do it again.
Nelly touched the bread to see how much longer it needed to cool before she wrapped it.