Things Are Good Now
Page 18
Sara feels someone shaking her by the arm. She opens her eyes and looks at the Ugandan woman beside her. The woman points at dim lights in the distance: “Lebanon?” she asks, suddenly realizing it was possible to make it out of Syria.
Sara rubs her eyes to clear her mind of sleep, surprised that she’d dozed off. She checks her watch: it has been forty minutes since they left the apartment in Damascus. At the horizon, the pink dusty sky has started to extract itself from the dark mountains.
“Should be. But I don’t know,” she says. “Did the driver stop anywhere? A checkpoint?”
The woman gives Sara a puzzled look.
“Are we in Lebanon?” Sara asks the Indian-looking man in front of her.
“Yes,” the man whispers, but with doubt in his eyes.
Or is it disbelief? Sara is not sure. The other passengers are all searching the misty darkness outside for signs of deliverance, their backs and necks stiff with suspense, their hands clasping their meagre possessions. Whatever comes next, Sara realizes she won’t be facing it alone and this awareness of a shared destiny gives her the strength she needs to keep calm.
She turns to the Ugandan woman and offers her the most reassuring smile she can muster.
acknowledgements
I’m greatly indebted to Zoe Whittall for championing my work. A big thank you to Janice Zawerbny for believing in this collection from the start. I’m incredibly grateful to Sarah MacLachlan, Janie Yoon, and everyone at House of Anansi Press for taking a chance on me and for welcoming me into the fold.
A big thanks to my editor Amanda Lewis for her expert guidance and encouraging words, and for her kindness.
I’m grateful to my parents, my siblings, and my big, beautiful extended family for their love and unfailing support. I’m especially grateful to my parents for their hard work and sacrifice, and for sharing so much of their knowledge and wisdom with me. To my father, Mohamed Ibrahim, for the love of books you imparted to me, and for answering so many of my research questions. And to my sisters Zamzam and Ferdusa Ibrahim, and Freweyni Getahun, for cheering for me every step of the way.
My eternal gratitude to Dana Jansens, my first, second, and last reader, for believing in me when this book was only an idea, for your infectious enthusiasm and brilliant criticism, for your love and unwavering support.
For their editorial help on early drafts and their friendship, I owe many thanks to Mimy Seble Kassahoun, Rebecca Fisseha, Sara Afa, Lello Omar, Alex Bednar, Robert Delaney, Siobhan Jamison, Charles Shamess, and especially Donna Hughes for her thorough and invaluable feedback.
Thank you to Huda Hassan and Habon Warsame for their great feedback on the story “A Kept Woman,” and especially for their help with the Somali words and their spellings.
Michelle Berry, I can’t thank you enough for all your help and for your kind words.
It would be impossible to name the many books and articles that have inspired and informed these stories, but I would like to mention one. The background story of the girl killed by her adoptive parents in “Spilled Water” is based on the heartbreaking real story of an Ethiopian adoptee, Hana Williams. The article is titled “Hana’s Story,” written by Kathryn Joyce and published online on Slate.
Djamila Ibrahim was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and moved to Canada in 1990. Her stories have been shortlisted for the University of Toronto’s Penguin Random House Canada Student Award for Fiction and Briarpatch Magazine’s creative writing contest. She was formerly a senior advisor for Citizenship and Immigration Canada. She lives in Toronto.
House of Anansi Press was founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish Canadian-authored books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press immediately gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, George Grant, and Northrop Frye. Since then, Anansi’s commitment to finding, publishing and promoting challenging, excellent writing has won it tremendous acclaim and solid staying power. Today Anansi is Canada’s pre-eminent independent press, and home to nationally and internationally bestselling and acclaimed authors such as Gil Adamson, Margaret Atwood, Ken Babstock, Peter Behrens, Rawi Hage, Misha Glenny, Jim Harrison, A. L. Kennedy, Pasha Malla, Lisa Moore, A. F. Moritz, Eric Siblin, Karen Solie, and Ronald Wright. Anansi is also proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Massey Lectures. In 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Anansi was honoured by the Canadian Booksellers Association as “Publisher of the Year.”