The Blue Between Sky and Water

by Susan Abulhawa

  Mama did not think Nur immoral. Whether she would admit it or not, Mama was her mother’s daughter and could not have avoided the lesson that cheating husbands, not their lovers, wreck their own homes. Mama thought Nur selfish, because she hadn’t stopped to think of the repercussions her actions could have on the rest of the family. On Rhet Shel. Their home would be dubbed a house of whores and her brothers, though they lived their own lives nearby, would be blamed, stigmatized, and pressured to correct the offense against the honor of the women under their masculine purview. “Everyone could be hurt, my son,” she said to me. “And for what?” She sighed. She coughed. She went quiet. Then she said, “May Allah have mercy. May He protect my children, for the sake of the Prophet and the heavens.” That’s where Mama was. In the sensible place of planning and praying and worrying, and she busied herself with the demands and minutiae of fear.

  But Nur was planted nowhere. She was raw and utterly lost. I had never witnessed such devastating loneliness. She infected me with it and I would have to leave her there, speaking to an empty body. The doctor had started to avoid her and would not write or return her calls. The earth dropped out from beneath her feet and I could feel the irregular heartbeat inside of her, the endless tears she could not cry amassing into a vortex sucking her deeper into herself. Mama’s shunning pushed Nur farther beyond reach. Who in Gaza could understand how this woman who had everything—freedom to travel and live where she wanted, freedom to be safe, to get whatever education she wanted, to work and earn a living, to be blessed with a healthy body and promising future—could suffer so incomprehensibly?

  Rhet Shel confided in me, too. “Nur is sad because Mama is mad at her.” And finally, Teta grabbed them both by the arms and demanded, “Sit here and tell me every detail of what the hell is going on or so help me I will take off my slipper and beat you both on your heads with it.”

  I left. Sulayman came and we went again to the river. Mariam had moved from the shelf in the water well to the space behind the wall in our old home in Beit Daras, and I waited for my eyes to open to deliver her message to Teta Nazmiyeh.

  The bandages and the tape were removed unceremoniously. A nurse in the clinic. Only Mama and me. That’s how she wanted it. My eyes had not died, the nurse said, but she didn’t know if I could see or not. They asked me to blink. I blinked. The nurse covered one eye then the other, asking me to blink if I could see her hand.

  “Thanks be to Allah, he can still see with the right eye,” the nurse said.

  “What about the left one?” Mama asked. The nurse didn’t think so. She told Mama to trust in Allah, but then she asked what difference did it make.

  Mama said nothing more and left. The light of day assaulted me despite the sunglasses when she wheeled me outside, and I returned to the comfort of darkness behind my eyes.

  FIFTY-THREE

  We all had brown skin and curly black hair, but my sister’s tight coils and dark skin hinted of our African ancestry more than the rest of us. Some people called her “abda,” even as a term of endearment. “Beautiful abda,” they would say, and rarely did anyone question it, until Nur came and took a stand so forceful against that word that even Teta’s unbending will melted. It was one of those times when Nur’s American logic made sense and changed us, made us better. To hear Teta later threaten people over that word, one would have thought she had never used it herself. Nur showed Rhet Shel pictures on her computer of African queens and goddesses from places like Egypt and Zanzibar and Gabon, and Rhet Shel began to dream of those faraway places, where everyone looked like her.

  Friday was the day of no school, extra house cleaning, prayer at the mosque, and the best musalsal television series. But this Friday was different. It was slow and gentle. Rhet Shel was the first to awake. She made coffee, black without sugar for her mother and Nur, and with extra sugar for her teta. Though Rhet Shel couldn’t bear its bitter taste, she loved the aroma of ground and freshly brewed coffee.

  She put the tray with two demitasse cups on the floor between her mother and Nur, who slept on floor mats near each other while her teta snored at the other corner of the room.

  She shook her mother first, then Nur. “Wake up.”

  Rhet Shel had awoken wanting to make her mother and Nur happy because they had seemed so sad the previous night. Though Rhet Shel had tried to disentangle their words from faint whispers in the next room, all she could gather was that her teta was not happy with either of them and she wasn’t going to live in a house where people didn’t talk to each other.

  “Oh my little Rhet Shel. What would I ever do without you. No one has ever woken me to coffee like this before,” Nur said.

  There might have been no sweeter words, until Mama pulled Rhet Shel close, kissed her round cheeks, and declared, “I love this girl more than any girl on the planet.”

  “Allah yostur with all this love!” Hajje Nazmiyeh quipped with a smile. “Where are my kisses?” She feigned outrage and Rhet Shel leapt to smother her teta with them.

  “I’m going to get Khaled so he can be with us while we drink coffee,” Alwan said, laboring to pull herself up. Rhet Shel noticed that the whistle of her mother’s breath had become louder.

  Seeing a shadow pass over her granddaughter’s eyes, Nazmiyeh said, “Rhet Shel, why don’t you get yourself some milk so you can drink with us, too.”

  The three of them talked, sitting on floor cushions, Rhet Shel in her teta’s lap, Nur next to them sipping coffee, while Alwan changed and readied Khaled. And when they were all in one room, Rhet Shel announced, “I’ve been waiting to show you something.” She positioned Khaled’s head to be in his line of vision. “Can you see my whole body, Khaled? Blink.” And Khaled blinked once. She hesitated. “Khaled, blink twice so I know you weren’t just blinking a regular blink.” He blinked twice with his remaining good eye. It pleased Rhet Shel, who crouched and began to tumble head over heels on the floor. Then she did a perfect cartwheel.

  “Do you like it? I’ve been practicing all week. My friend taught me!”

  There was applause all around and Rhet Shel climbed into Khaled’s lap first and left a kiss there on his lips. “Did you like that, Khaled?” He blinked many times, sustaining the momentum of Rhet Shel’s smile. Then she crawled into the space between Alwan and Nur to drink from her cup of milk, which she pretended was coffee, satisfied that she had made them not sad anymore.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Once, one of Teta’s old friends from Beit Daras who didn’t have daughters fell ill and needed to be helped with daily living, but she refused to go live with either of her sons because their wives were, in her words, “evil bitches.” When the woman’s sons tried to force her to move, Teta shamed them, and they left nearly in tears, returning later to kiss their mother’s feet. Teta moved in with her friend to care for her. She cooked for her, bathed her, and washed her privates when she went to the toilet. They both knew her days were numbered on this earth and Teta stayed with her until the end. Some of the other women who had been girls in Beit Daras washing their clothes by the river and who were now grandmothers and great-grandmothers came almost daily to sit together around their friend’s deathbed, remembering better times—“Those were the days”—and lamenting fate: “Who knew we’d die refugees?” And when they were out of their friend’s earshot, they gossiped about the evil bitches and their husbands who were willing to “sell their mother for a wife’s pussy.” Of course, those were Teta’s words and they all laughed, delighting in their friend’s audacity as they always had.

  The Merriment of that ordinary Friday morning skipped along to the same tune with which it had started. After Rhet Shel’s tumbling show, they peeled, chopped, and soaked ingredients for the family ghada later on, then went to the mosque for jomaa prayers. On their way back to the house, which would soon be filling with the rest of the family, Alwan wanted to stroll by the ocean.

  Rhet Shel’s spirit seemed to expand and she ran back and forth on the beach, giving repeat pe
rformances of her tumbles and cartwheels as the three women watched her, water lapping at their feet. Hajje Nazmiyeh settled down, stretching her legs on the sand, and Alwan and Nur joined her. Every few minutes, Rhet Shel would run to Khaled to adjust his head so she could remain in his view while she played.

  “My brother, Allah rest his soul—your jiddo, Nur—used to bring our family here when we lived in Beit Daras,” Nazmiyeh began, her eyes searching the horizon. “We thought the ocean would be different after we became refugees. I don’t know why. Maybe we thought it would be a refugee, too. It was just me and my sweet brother Mamdouh. We came here and walked right along there, holding hands like we were lovers or something. He was embarrassed at first,” she laughed, motioning toward the distance with age-spotted hands. “That was the day we discovered that only one of his legs was growing.” And Nur recalled the song of an old man’s wobbly walk.

  Nur and Alwan listened quietly, eavesdropping on Hajje Nazmiyeh’s memories. “He was a good man. He was a provider and a protector. He took care of everyone around him. A good brother and son and husband. He was a good father and a good grandfather.” Hajje Nazmiyeh turned to Nur with moist, gentle eyes. “He loved you as big as these outdoors. You were too young to remember, but he gave your mother every penny he had so he could keep you. The two of you were on your way back here when he fell sick. He waited a little because he wanted to sell his car so he could have some cash.” Tears glistened on Hajje Nazmiyeh’s wrinkled brown face. “Damn money! You should have been raised here with your family, Nur. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get you back. I’ve been scared to ask you about your life. It should have been spent here with your family. I would have been your mama.”

  Nur felt her own tears, but they got stuck in her throat and she choked when she tried to speak. She burrowed her hands in the sand and closed them around the warm grains, feeling them slide between her fingers. Hajje Nazmiyeh continued, “And let me say this to you, daughter. You need to think hard about that doctor. We don’t do these kinds of things here, and you have to learn that very fast. You might love him and he might love you, but he will break your life. Worse, when people find out, and they always find out, no one will want to marry you. Do you think about that while you’re texting him back and forth all day?” Hajje Nazmiyeh looked directly into Nur’s mismatched eyes. “I’m no fool, daughter,” she said, then smiled briefly. “Not when it comes to love. So now that he is texting you again, what is he saying?”

  Nur hesitated, lowered her eyes. “He said he loves me and wants to leave his wife.”

  “Well, that’s a change from last week. Where will his mind be next week?” Hajje Nazmiyeh clicked her tongue.

  Nur looked down and took a breath as if to answer, but Hajje Nazmiyeh went on. “Don’t say anything. There’s nothing to say. I’ve lived long enough to know how this will turn out. That wife of his will cut off his dick before she’d let him leave her or take another wife. Those people aren’t like us.”

  Alwan furrowed her brow. “Yumma, why do you have to be so crass? Khaled can hear you!”

  Hajje Nazmiyeh ignored her daughter, “Nur, I can’t hold your American ways against you because I should have tried harder to bring you back. But you are here now and you mustn’t take this sinful path. That man better not come to our home unless it’s with honor to ask for your hand. Am I making myself clear?”

  Alwan reached for Nur’s hand and the two women looked on, breathing the winds of the Mediterranean, watching two miracle children and trying to shoo away thoughts of the days ahead.

  Watching her grandchildren—Rhet Shel playing with other children and Khaled immobile in his chair under the shade— Hajje Nazmiyeh reached for her daughter’s hand and squeezed it. “Tell me, daughter,” she said, sensing unuttered words in her child. “Did you make the appointment yet for the surgery?”

  And there, the three women sat in a row facing the blue expanse, holding hands, awed by the close proximity of such contentment and imminent pain as Rhet Shel played at the core of all their thoughts.

  No one dared say it, but they all understood that Khaled was slowly fading away. His breathing had become increasingly labored, depending more on the respirator, and the doctors said there was nothing more they could do for him in Gaza. His fate was in Allah’s hands, they had said, and Alwan assured, “Everyone’s fate is in His hands.”

  FIFTY-FIVE

  My sister pretended to read one of my messages from the letter chart to Mama, but most of them got tucked away with her old school papers and drawings. Perhaps she was embarrassed not to read yet. Or didn’t want to share my words with anyone else. Perhaps one day when she’s older, she will find them and read of my inner world that escapes time and death and sits with Baba, Mariam, and great-khalo Mamdouh, and swims in the oceans and feels people without seeing or hearing them. Perhaps she will think it all a creation of imagination and memory. But she will also read how I loved her and know it was all real.

  The Mechanics of this day happened as they usually did. Rhet Shel ran home from first grade and was greeted by her mother, who kissed her on the forehead before struggling out the door to her job at the co-op. After seeing her mother off, peeking in on Khaled was her next stop. She climbed up into his lap to kiss him, saying, “I’ll be right back, Khaled.” Then she hurried to finally go pee. Teta Nazmiyeh was cooking in the kitchen. Nur was still at work.

  “Habibti, it’s just me and you and Khaled today. Nur is working in the south with a group of children and might stay at a hostel with some of her co-workers,” Hajje Nazmiyeh said to her granddaughter. “Your mama will be back around dinner. The center sold double the number of thobes and I’ll bet she comes home with some sweets!”

  Rhet Shel squealed, jumping up and down. “Did you perform your thuhr prayers?” her teta reminded her, and Rhet Shel rushed to do so. A few moments later, she was climbing onto her brother’s chair. “I’m back, Khaled,” she said, pulling his face toward her. “Nur isn’t coming home today.”

  Khaled didn’t blink. “Blink, Khaled!” Rhet Shel demanded. Her brother blinked. Twice. “Let’s do the letter thing.” She leapt to retrieve the poster-board chart.

  She could read some words now, but most of what she copied eluded her, and she grew distressed about hiding another message. “Is this a letter for me?” Khaled did not react. “Is it for Mama?” Nothing. “Is it for Nur?” Still nothing. “Is it for Teta?” He blinked. “Blink two times if this letter is for Teta,” Rhet Shel said, and Khaled blinked twice.

  Proud to be the bearer of Khaled’s message, Rhet Shel tried her best to decipher it. It was only a few words, but it made no sense so she gave up, handing the paper to her teta.

  “Go grab the first person you see who can read and bring them here,” her teta ordered.

  Rhet Shel returned moments later with a fifth grader. Hajje Nazmiyeh showed the little boy a shekel, reward for his trouble. The boy made his own scribbles, his face contorting in thought. He looked up a few times at Hajje Nazmiyeh unassuredly until she lost patience. “Don’t you know how to read, boy?” she barked. “Yes, Hajje,” he replied in a shaky voice. Then he lied. “It says, Mariam would like you to have a party. She … she, she said she never left and she … she is in Beit Daras.”

  The boy and Rhet Shel watched the ash of shock suffuse Hajje Nazmiyeh’s skin. He snatched his shekel and ran out as quickly as he could.

  Rhet Shel tried to comfort her teta, who was now sobbing. Hajje Nazmiyeh cried until it was laughter pouring from her face. Then she leaned to kiss away her granddaughter’s alarm and said, “We’re going to have another party.”

  She got up and walked to Khaled’s chair. “Habibti, get your old teta a chair,” she said to Rhet Shel, and she proceeded to whisper words into Khaled’s ears, into his eyes, his forehead, his hair, his cheeks, laying so many kisses where her words went. Rhet Shel heard her teta say, “I knew it. I always knew it,” then speak endlessly to someone unseen. “I’m ready, my siste
r. I’ll save you this time.”

  “Rhet Shel, habibti. You and Khaled and I are going to go to the souq to get food for tomorrow,” Hajje Nazmiyeh said. “Bring some of your friends so they can help us carry the bags. Bring five friends. All the helpers get candy.”

  FIFTY-SIX

  Nur tried to stop, but the torment of her inflamed heart pulled her deeper into the affair. Far from giving her relief, the texts, calls, and secret meetings only incited her heart until it conquered her will. Their communications were heavy with desire. She lied to Mama and Teta. Told them she was seeing patients in the south. That she was staying in a hostel to avoid nighttime travel alone. But she spent that night with him in a secret apartment he had arranged. He said he wanted to wake up next to her, but they never slept and he left while the moon still reigned over a dark sky.

  Nur tried to enter the house quietly. A panoply of voices rose and fell around the central command of Hajje Nazmiyeh’s banter and laughter. She hesitated before entering, listening. Words of excitement and expectation flowered and hung in the air like decorations. As she turned the corner, she heard a small scream. “Khalto Nur! Teta, Khalto Nur is here!” Rhet Shel yelled and ran into Nur’s arms. All the daughters-in-law were there and a few women from the neighborhood with their kids. Some were sipping coffee, others sat around Hajje Nazmiyeh, preparing food. Dicing and chopping, crying over onions. Stuffing this or that vegetable, rolling dough, mixing rice with olive oil and spices. They looked up and cheerily greeted Nur, making space for her to sit in the crowded room.

  “We’re having a party tomorrow for no reason at all!” Rhet Shel reported excitedly, mindful not to divulge the secret message from Khaled.

  Nur walked to the center of all things, bent to her knees, and kissed Hajje Nazmiyeh’s hand. “Sit, beautiful daughter,” Hajje Nazmiyeh said. “I’m so happy you’re home. You work too much. May Allah look upon my daughters with His favor and goodness always, Amen.”