Habibi

by Naomi Shihab Nye

  She knew about the Eskimo tribes who liked nose rubbing more than kissing. She was glad she hadn’t been born into one. She made a kissing list in her notebook:

  Lemony lips,

  warm magnets pulling toward one another,

  streets crisscrossed by invisible tugs,

  secret power fields.

  Electrodynamics.

  Then she wandered over to the “Newly Arrived” shelf (she thought she should live on that shelf herself) and placed her hand directly on a book called A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman. Flipping it open, she discovered a whole astonishing chapter called “Kissing” in the section called “Touch”!

  She took the book to their table spread with Rank’s information on famous rivers of the world and shielded it from Rank to read, “There are wild, hungry kisses or there are rollicking kisses, and there are kisses fiuttery and soft as the feathers of cockatoos.” Liyana had never touched a cockatoo, but she liked how it sounded.

  She wrote down a “first line” that said: Being good felt like a heavy coat, so I took it off.

  The author, Diane, talked about her memory of kissing in high school, using a rich string of adverbs—“inventively…extravagantly…delicately … elaborately…furtively when we met in the hallways between classes…soulfully in the shadows at concerts…we kissed articles of clothing or objects belonging to our boyfriends…we kissed our hands when we blew our boyfriends kisses across the street… we kissed our pillows at night….” OH!

  And Liyana knew this book was for her. Because last night, the very night before today, she had kissed her pillow and thought she might be cracking up.

  GOAT CHEESE

  Drop in anytime and stay forever.

  Poppy said their skins would feel so sticky after plunging into the Dead Sea, they’d have to lie down under freshwater spigots to wash off.

  He drove Liyana, Rafik, Khaled, and Nadine on the descending road through sand dunes toward Jericho because Rafik had been bugging him so much. Mrs. Abboud had gone on a weekend retreat with her women’s group. The women were going to hike ten miles through the wilderness to see some hermit nuns who wouldn’t be hermits anymore once they got there.

  Liyana and Rafik had bathing suits on under their clothes, bottled water, towels, and a basket of small bananas. Liyana hadn’t worn her baggy old-man shorts after all. She’d decided to make them into a purse. Khaled and Nadine said they would go swimming in their clothes. They brought extra clothes rolled up and tied with a string.

  Sunlight vibrated on the golden sand. Graceful dunes cast shadows on one another. There weren’t any clouds. It felt wonderful to leave the clutter of town behind.

  Around a curve, Rafik shouted, “Stop!”

  Poppy hated when someone yelled in a car. He braked sharply and pulled over. The roads didn’t have shoulders like they did back home. “Don’t scare me! What is it?”

  Rafik pointed. “I want to visit them.”

  Poppy and Liyana in the front seat hadn’t even noticed the Bedouin tents perched far from the road in a crevice of shade between two dunes. They’d been talking about Sitti’s new obsession for black sweaters. Though they had bought her two already, she still wanted one with pockets.

  “You said we could visit the Bedouins!” Rafik’s voice from the back seat was insistent. He didn’t beg very often. “Please!” Khaled and Nadine jabbered in Arabic to each other.

  Poppy looked at his watch. “If we visit them, we may not make it to the Dead Sea. They’ll keep us all day.”

  “We’ll just run away!”

  Poppy said, “Khaled, what do you say?”

  Khaled’s voice was gentle. He never wanted to boss anyone around. “I say—yes?”

  The minute Liyana’s eyes focused on the flapping black tents, she noticed a small camel staked beside them, the first she’d seen in this country since they arrived. Poppy always included camels in his childhood stories and folk tales, but they’d mostly vanished from this land since then. Where had they gone? Had they all trekked away to Saudi Arabia or Abu Dhabi? She’d been wishing so hard to see one.

  Liyana pitched in, “Yes! Let’s visit them for just a minute! Come on, Poppy!” Nadine was laughing.

  Poppy groaned, “A Bedouin’s minute is an hour to you. Maybe two or three. Believe me.”

  But he pulled the car farther off the road. He said, “What if we get stuck in a sand dune? What if the sand shifts while we’re visiting and swallows the car entirely?” But his children were relentless.

  Poppy had said Bedouins, like their camels, were much fewer and farther apart than they used to be, but still as friendly. “I thought they were fierce,” Rafik said.

  Poppy said, “They are, but not to their guests.”

  The five of them hiked in toward the tents. Halfway there, Poppy returned to the car to get the basket of bananas. “You always bring a gift to Bedouins,” he said. “Like a house gift. To people without a house.”

  The women of the tribe were off beyond the tents shaking dust from little rugs. Children in baggy clothes played a game involving sticks, Balls, and large tin cans. Tall men with lean faces sat before the largest tent, wearing black cloaks and headdresses, stitching tarps together with huge needles. Maybe they were making a new tent, Liyana thought.

  The camel shifted its feet as they approached. It watched them closely. Spectacular white cheeses lay lined like thirty perfect moons on a dark cloth, drying in the sun. Nadine pointed at them and babbled excitedly to Khaled. She said in English, “So much!”

  All the men rose up as they approached. Poppy talked fast and heartily so that before they knew it, they were sitting in a circle with the Bedouins. Everyone was laughing and nodding and asking questions about America and the women were serving tea and slicing a cheese in front of Rafik.

  He looked worried. He hated white cheese. Liyana grinned.

  Poppy translated, “They’re ready to adopt you. See? I told you. Get set for a long day.”

  He also said, “I told them we are Arab-Americans and they’re shocked. They didn’t know such people existed. We’re the first visitors who’ve come by in a long time. In the old days people used to stop in more. Bedouins don’t even wander as much as they used to. Nowadays they change places only once a year, instead of every few months. In saudi Arabia the Bedouins have all been settled in towns. It’s a shame. It was a great tradition.”

  Rafik’s eyes were huge. Did the woman think he was going to eat the whole cheese? Why were they focusing on him instead of Khaled? Maybe they liked his red and blue striped T-shirt. Nadine took four pieces of cheese, which helped him out.

  “How do Bedouins live?” Liyana asked Poppy. “I mean, where do they get their money?”

  “Money? Do you see any money? The goats are in a patch of grass over the dune somewhere. The people sleep right here. They eat right here. Their lives are extremely simple.”

  Now Liyana knew. She wanted to be a Bedouin when she grew up.

  A woman with kind eyes produced two goatskin drums. Even though Poppy said Bedouin music usually happened after sundown, two young men began slapping quick rhythms and singing for them—the same words and notes repeated over and over. Liyana clapped her hands and hummed along. They liked that. Nadine snapped her fingers. A girl with tight braids swayed and bent hypnotically. Khaled accepted a drum and began playing with one swift, accurate hand. Rafik leaned backward on the tarp, as far from the cheese as he could. He nodded bravely when the women pointed at it again.

  They sat within the graceful slopes of dunes, tucked away from the road and the few cars and jeeps going by. Liyana felt her thoughts drifting into the sky. Her eyelids drooped. Was this music putting her into a trance? She wished her friends from back home could be here. This was what they would call “an exotic moment.” She wished her mother were here, too—hermit women couldn’t be more interesting than this.

  After the ninety-ninth verse of the song, Poppy stood up. The Bedouins protested.
“Please,” they said to him in Arabic, “you must spend the night!” Poppy laughed. He promised they’d be back. What could they bring them from the city? The Bedouins wanted Rafik to take a cheese home with him—a new cheese, not even the strong one they had all nibbled from. Poppy left the bananas and the basket both. The Bedouins liked the basket. They kept touching it admiringly. It was her mother’s favorite basket. Liyana wondered, would she be upset?

  Walking back to the car with the entire Bedouin tribe sadly watching them leave, Poppy said to Rafik, “Oh no, you didn’t even ride the camel! You petted it, anyway. It’s their last camel. Was it too small to ride? Shall we go back? You want to try?”

  Rafik considered it. He turned and waved, Looking wistful. Liyana said, “Remember, camels can spit.”

  Poppy sighed, “And we might have to leave you.”

  The Dead Sea water was so prickly with salt, it stung Liyana’s eyes. Her skin felt marinated after ten minutes.

  “It’s seven times saltier than the ocean!” Poppy called out. He strolled back and forth by the water wearing a white baseball cap pulled low over his thick hair. He hated swimming. “How do you feel at the lowest spot on earth?”

  “Down deep!”

  “Bottomed out!”

  They were practically sitting on top of the water, as if invisible lounge chairs buoyed them up. Rafik called out, “Strange!” He was paddling fast like a duck. Khaled laughed harder than Liyana had ever seen him laugh. “Did you like the Bedouins?” she asked.

  He said, “Very much. Did I ever tell you my Sidi—grandfather—was half Bedouin? Once when I was small he took me to visit, like today.”

  “Where is he—now?”

  “He is dead. He and—my Sitti, too. When our village was taken away. I saw it.”

  “Saw what?”

  “The Israeli soldiers—exploded a house. You know, like they do when they think you are bad. And the house fell on my grandparents. It was not their house.”

  A single puffed cloud drifted past overhead. Far away someone hooted and leapt into the sea.

  “And then what? Did your family fight back?” Liyana asked. Khaled had never mentioned many personal things before.

  Khaled said haltingly, “My family—does not like to fight. My parents are very—sad till now. They will never be finished with sadness. I—had a bad picture in my mind—a long time. For myself I never fight. Then my mind is sick and doesn’t get well. Sadness is—better.”

  Liyana said, “I think I would fight. Not kill, but yell or something.”

  In the car going home, Liyana would tell Poppy what Khaled had told her and Poppy would ask him more questions in Arabic. For now the thick gray water seared a scrape on Liyana’s knee. She said, “Khaled, nothing about this sea feels dead to me.”

  ALL OUR ROOTS GO DEEP DOWN EVEN IF THEY’RE TANGLED

  She wanted another kiss—her chapped lips were burning up.

  In March, Poppy found three American evangelists lost in the Old City and brought them home for dinner. Liyana thought, “If I were his wife, I would say Thanks a lot and not mean it.”

  But her mother was in the kitchen humming happily and clattering pot lids as the visitors sat around the table toasting each other with glasses of mint tea and gobbling roasted chickpeas. Rafik showed them the new designs he’d been sketching for Star Trek phasers. He could tune in to planets X, Y, and Z. The two evangelist men, Reverend Crump and Reverend Holman, wore bright red-and-navy diagonally striped ties, and the woman, Reverend Walker, wore a long gray dress with a lace collar. Liyana asked the woman cautiously, “Are you married to…?” and nodded at the men, curious if one was her mate and she used her own Name, but the woman declared, “Honey, I’m married to THE LORD’S GOOD WILL!”

  Poppy said they had been wandering with dazed looks by the shoe shops where the streets get narrower when he stopped to offer directions. “Our countrymen!” But they didn’t remind Liyana of anyone else she’d ever met in her life.

  Reverend Walker said, “God told us to visit Mount Gilboa right now to see the blessed Gilboa iris that only blooms three weeks a year. So we packed our bags in Atlanta and bought tickets! Amen!”

  Now they were waiting for further instructions from God because they hadn’t received a complete itinerary. What were they supposed to do after they had visited the flowers and the Church of the Nativity and the other holy spots lined up like pearly buttons across the stony ground?

  Poppy offered his advice. “I know a hospital that could really use some volunteers right now. It’s in Gaza and all the orderlies have been quitting and the nurses are in an uproar and nothing is getting done. Just a day or two of help would be a—Godsend.”

  The evangelists looked at one another. Reverend Holman said, “Praise the Lord!” after Mom served the lentil soup and the coleslaw, which reminded them of home, and the stuffed grape Leaves and the hot bread. But every one of them was quiet when Poppy mentioned the hospital.

  Reverend Crump told Poppy he wished they could say a prayer in Hebrew for him. Poppy mentioned that he didn’t know any prayers in Hebrew himself, but Liyana didn’t think they got it. When Poppy went to the kitchen to get a fresh pitcher of tea, she leaned forward and said gently, “We’re not Jewish, you know.”

  Then Reverend Walker asked Liyana if she’d been bathed in the blood of Jesus and she could see Rafik’s eyes open wider. Luckily her tongue got stuck and her mother replied, “Um—we don’t think—quite in those terms.”

  So everyone had some nut cookies and hot tea. Rafik said, out of the blue, “Do you know what our grandmother has in her collection? She has an empty tear gas canister that the Israeli soldiers threw at her house one day. It says Made in Pennsylvania on the side of it. The soldiers get their weapons and their money from the United States.” The guests’ eyes grew wide. They didn’t know what to say. Then Rafik buttered his last pocket of bread.

  Reverend Holman said to their mother, as if Rafik and Liyana weren’t present, “Your children must feel alienated here, don’t they?”

  Mom said, puffing proudly, “I think they’re doing quite well.”

  Rafik added, sighing in a melodramatic way, “But we do miss the school milk in little red cartons,” which made his mother put her thumb and first finger together like an alligator closing its mouth.

  After dinner the visitors went out on the front balcony to meditate on the hospital idea. Rafik and Liyana wrinkled their noses at each other and escaped into Rafik’s room, where he put on his cassette tape of Japanese bamboo flute music. Liyana stared out the window where the heavens blazed like an orange bonfire, and wrote in her notebook:

  The hills are dark with the shadows of night

  But up in the sky is a brilliant light

  of fire, fire, fire in the sky.

  That day her geography teacher had said Arabs and Jews should trade places for a while and see what it felt like to be each other. But Atom said it would be too hard to do. She wondered. Could she even imagine exactly what it would feel like to be her own brother? Poppy’s voice called them back to the living room. “We miss you in here!”

  Reverend Crump asked for a last glass of water so he could take his “anti-panic pill” and Liyana stifled a laugh, pretending it was a cough. Poppy asked if the meal had upset him and he said, “Night brings on a brooding melancholia.” when Reverend Walker laid her hand on his back and said something that sounded as if she were speaking in tongues, “HIYA-hallah-wallah-kallah-mone,” Rafik’s eyes widened with interest.

  Reverend Holman announced they’d decided to travel on into Jordan because they really wanted to see the famous carved city of Petra, so they’d better not take on any voluntary duties at that poor hospital in Gaza after all. But Lord have mercy, they’d keep it in their prayers.

  Later, after he had driven them back to their hotel, Poppy was muttering, “Holy, holy, holy.”

  HABIBI

  Darling: a dearly loved person, a favorite, a charmer.


  For years the word floated in the air around their heads, yellow pollen, wispy secret dust of the ages passed on and on.

  Habibi, darling, or Habibi, feminine for my darling. Poppy said it before bedtime or if they fell off their bikes—as a soothing syrup, to make them feel sweetened again. He said it as good morning or tucked in between sentences. He said it when they left for school.

  Whatever else happened, Liyana and Rafik were his darlings all day and they knew it. Even when he stayed at the hospital past their bedtimes, they could feel his darling drifting comfortably around them.

  Their mother called them “precious”—her own English version of the word. She fed them, folded their clothes even when they could have done it themselves, and squeezed fresh orange juice instead of opening frozen cans.

  At Liyana’s house they had fresh apple salad with dates, baked yams, delicious stir-fried cabbage. They had a father who wrapped their mother in his arms. They had “Habibi, be careful, Habibti, I love you,” trailing them like a long silken scarf. Liyana knew it didn’t happen for everybody.

  In Jerusalem they were living in the land of Habibi—Sitti rolled it off her tongue toward them and it balanced in the air like a bubble. They hovered inside the wide interest of these people they barely knew.

  Their giant family offered them glasses of cool lemonade with sprigs of mint stuck in like straws. They handed them bowls of pastel Jordan almonds and the softest cushions to sit on.

  In return, Liyana’s family gave them oddities to think about. Liyana played the violin for them and told them, through Poppy, she would be in a symphony in Europe someday. They didn’t know what a symphony was. Liyana wore blue jeans with paisley patches on the knees and her aunts pointed and whispered.