The Penguin Book of Migration Literature

by Dohra Ahmad

  “It’s too wet for Mardi Gras,” I say.

  Mom says, “The American has spoken. Back to Mississippi for us.”

  Green is for Mardi Gras beads. Green is for sugar sprinkles on King Cake. Green is for green onions in Pad Thai. I had to pick them out last year.

  * * *

  * * *

  There is a big lake in New Orleans called Pontchartrain with little bungalows on sticks. Whenever we drive over it, on a roller coaster type of bridge, I know we’ll soon be in Mississippi. The car is warm. Dad is going on about the elections again. Gay marriages won’t make a blind bit of difference, blah, blah. Mom is yawning. I know exactly what she will say very soon. She will call out the names of creeks and rivers we pass: Pearl, Wolf, Little Black, Bowie, Hobolochitto, Tallahala, Chunky. Then she will say, “It’s terrible. Names are all we ever see of Native Americans.”

  My parents are predictable. Whenever I say this they laugh, but they are. My mom is for woman power. Everything in the world is her right. Even shopping is her right. In Mississippi, she argues in the mall whenever they ask her to show her ID. “That’s discrimination,” she’ll say. “That is dis-cri-mi-nation.” In JC Penney, too. At home, she acts like she’s the boss of me and Dad. “Eat up. What’s this doing here? Can’t you flush?” My dad says that’s because she is a lecturer. He is a doctor. He gets mad with the President, and still he wants the President to win the elections, to teach the people who are against the President a lesson, because they are not getting it together, especially with Health. Every day, when he comes home from work, he yells at the television because of the elections. Whenever the President comes on Mom says, “Ugh, turn him off. That man can’t string two words together.” Yet she tells me it’s not right to be rude to people who can’t speak English.

  Last election, we voted in school. All my friends voted for the President—before he became president—because the other guy killed babies. “Who said he kills babies?” Mom asked when I told her. Your teacher? Your friend? What kind of parent says such a horrible thing to their kid. Well, they must have heard it from somewhere. Well, I think grown ups should keep their political opinions to themselves.” I told her I voted for the President. She said, “What! Why?” “Everyone else did,” I said. She said, “Listen, I brought you up to stand your ground. To stick up for what you believe in.” I said, “Oh, please.” First of all, it was her ground not mine. Number B, I believe in fitting in.

  “What’s it like being African?” my friend Celeste asked when we used to be friends. “I don’t know,” I told her. I was protecting my parents. I didn’t want Celeste to know the secret about Africans. Bones in meat are very important to them. They suck the bones and it’s so frustrating I could cry. My mom is the worst, especially when she eats okra stew. Afterwards she chews the bones to a mush and my dad laughs and asks, “What was that before your teeth got to it? Oxtail? Chicken Wings? Red Snapper? Crab?” I’m like, get some manners.

  Being African was being frustrated again when my teacher showed pictures of clothes from all over the world. When she showed the pictures of Africans, that lame Daniel Dawson asked, “Why are they wearing those funny hats?” and everyone in class laughed.

  Green is for the color I like most—yellow. Green is for a color I can’t stand—blue. Green is a mixture of blue and yellow. Green is for confusion.

  Dad is still talking about the elections. “Where are the weapons of mass destruction?” he asks.

  Mom points out of the window and says, “Pearl River.”

  “You guys,” I say. “I have a soccer game tonight.”

  They start yelling.

  “For goodness sake!”

  “Again?”

  “I don’t remember that being in my calendar . . .”

  “Why didn’t you tell us before?”

  “Soccer is meant for the summer. Only the British play in the spring . . .”

  “Only Americans call football soccer.”

  My parents are so predictable.

  “These people are crazy,” Dad says. “The weather is not conducive.”

  Mom says, “What people? Don’t put prejudice in my daughter’s heart.”

  “I didn’t mention any race,” Dad says.

  I’m like, what in the world right now? “You guys,” I say. “If you’re going to live in this country you might as well get used to soccer. It’s part of life. I’m American. How do you expect me to feel?”

  “You know,” Dad says. “She’s right.”

  I can’t believe he fell for that.

  “What time’s the game anyway?” Mom asks.

  “Six.”

  “Shit.”

  “Don’t cuss, Mom.”

  “Sorry, baby, but I hated sports in Africa and I hate them here.”

  * * *

  * * *

  We’ve passed Chunky River. I’ve finished my book. I think we’ll make it in time for my game. Mom asks, “Are you still mad with us?”

  “A little,” I say.

  “Sorry. Today has been a bit . . .”

  “I know. Are you happy about your green cards?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “America will soon be number one in the world for soccer,” Dad says. “You wait and see. Look at the way they organize themselves. From the grassroots level. Everyone involved.”

  “Girls too,” Mom says, and raises her thumb at me.

  I’m not into all that. I know what girls like Celeste can do.

  “Even if they don’t have any talent,” Dad says, rubbing his chin. “They have the money to import talent. Did you hear of that fourteen year old? Highest paid in the soccer leagues. Freddy Adu. His family came from Ghana. Immigration will save America.”

  “Because of soccer?” Mom asks.

  Green is for the Comets color. I hope we beat the Comets tonight. I really hope we beat them.

  * * *

  * * *

  We made it to the game. Mom and Dad stayed, maybe because of guilt.

  You should see me. My color is red. My number is 00. I’m ready to blast those Comets to kingdom come. I’m dribbling down the field. The lights are like stars. The grass is wet. I have to be careful because Mississippi mud can make you slip and slide. Everyone is cheering, “Come on! Get on it! Get on it!”

  I kick that sucker. It zooms like a jet, lands in the corner of the goal post, neat as my bedroom when I get two dollars for cleaning up. Girls in my team are slapping my back, “Way to go! Good one!” My parents are cheering with other parents. This is it. Me, scoring. My mom looking like she loves soccer. My dad looking like he really loves the President. Three of us, looking like we really belong. It’s better than finding the baby in King Cake, and my team hasn’t even won yet.

  SAFIA ELHILLO

  ORIGIN STORIES (REPRISE)

  i was born in the winter in 1990 in a country not my own

  i was born with my father’s eyes maybe i stole them he

  doesn’t look like that anymore i was born

  in seven countries i was born carved up by borders

  i was born with a graveyard of languages for teeth i was

  born to be a darkness in an american boy’s bed or i

  was born with many names to fill the quiet i forget

  which one is mine i forget what is silence &

  what is a language i cannot speak i was born

  crookedhearted born ticking born on the

  subway platform at 103rd st fainting blood sliding

  around thin as water in my body i was born

  to the woman who caught me floating into the train & to

  every pair of hands keeping me from dying my mother’s

  cool fingers snaking my hair into braids my grandmother’s

  thick knuckles collecting my feet in her lap &
my own

  cupped for rainwater raising every day to my own mouth

  to drink

  RETURNS

  PAULINE KALDAS

  A CONVERSATION

  “You want me to go back? I’m sixty-five years old.”

  My hair is gray, and my body has grown into its age. I have settled into myself. No longer the young girl you met, the one who flirted and teased, who wore her black hair like a shield, enticing you to ask for her hand. No longer the one who agreed to wrap herself around you and fly across the ocean, willing to release each strand that held me close to family and home, believing in this miracle of America. I’m old, and my steps are solid on this land where I have learned to live; they cannot turn around now and go in a different direction.

  * * *

  —

  “We can retire there. Do you know how much our money is worth? I can buy a beautiful apartment. We can live on the corniche and look at the Nile every day.”

  I left, only a young man with little in my pocket. My family held me back, ridiculed my dreams, told me I would never make it in America: that my life could only be wrapped in this place with a job pushing me each day to make only enough to feed us and hold a roof up, that I was a fool to imagine myself in the open space of a new land, that I would return to beg for a morsel of food. Now my money can take me back to every ice cream my mouth drooled for as a young child. These dollars I have bought and sold will multiply till they’re an endless chain of pearls. Like the rich, we can buy an apartment, two stories, with marble floors and gold faucets, and a balcony that lifts us above the city so our eyes can stretch over the Nile each day.

  * * *

  —

  “We’ve been in this country for forty years.”

  Forty years is a lifetime. Your mother died before she turned fifty; her heart failed after we left. You could not even tell her the truth about our immigration, trying to convince her it was only a short excursion, a youthful desire to see the magic of the other side of the world. But she looked at our faces, the anxiety of our anticipation, and she knew that her only son was leaving. My father died only years later, barely reaching the age of sixty. We could not even return so I could stand by mother’s side as she buried him. Forty years we have built a life and left one behind.

  * * *

  —

  “You can have everything there. I’ll buy you whatever you want.”

  Those early years, every penny we had to hold tight in our fists. I watched you cut coupons, squint your eyes at the price tags, and stretch each pound of meat with bread. Every birthday I failed you, and even a single rose was an extravagance I held back. There I can buy you dresses to sparkle on your body, jewels to circle your wrists; whatever your eye rests on, I’ll offer you as my gift. Don’t you want to enter a store and lay your finger on any item, to have it be yours like the magic of wishes coming true?

  * * *

  —

  “And do you have enough money to get rid of the pollution and the crowds too?”

  When we decided to go and everyone’s talk of foolish dreams and the struggle of America failed to keep our feet still, my father sold his land by the pyramids so we could have something to hold us as we began our new lives. My mother took off her gold bracelet with its snakes intertwining around her wrist and sold it so there was enough to buy the tickets. What can your money buy for us now? The streets in Egypt are brimming with the poor and hopeful, and their dreams release the stench caught in our nostrils. You can’t walk without the weight of people bumping against you and inhaling the smoke and garbage that fumes the city. Our money will not release us from its grabbing fist.

  * * *

  —

  “We can go to the Red Sea. We’ll buy a chalet, and we can go when we like.”

  Do you remember our honeymoon in Hurghada? We rented a small chalet, and each morning the slender waves lapped at our door. I held your hand as we crossed the sand, and we walked toward the corals beneath the surface, laughing when the tiny fish nibbled at our ankles. I unfolded my arms like a hammock to hold your body so the sea could carry you. And at night, the sand winds whistled at our door as we floated inside each other, my body surprised by the softness of your skin like the caress of each wave. The beach was almost empty that October, and we owned each grain of sand as we spoke our dreams like the drops of water glistening on our skin. We’ll buy a chalet to make it our own, a place we can inhabit at our will. We’ll own the corals and the waves and the sun’s dreams, walk across the edge of sand, marking our ground.

  * * *

  —

  “After we’ve come here and struggled and built a life?”

  You couldn’t find a job, and when you came home, I saw your face like a stone engraved in silence. You took a job washing dishes. Your hands became red and brittle, the fingers bending in and your knuckles hardening against the harsh soap. A year until finally you found something in a small company, each day sitting at your desk. But I knew the boss looked over your shoulder, touching his pen to your work, marking corrections. You stooped over that desk for years, the fear of losing the job etched in your eyes. I found work, punching in time cards, leaving my children in day care centers, afraid I would forget their faces. It took years till we saved enough that you could shrug off the choke of having a boss and strike out on your own. We have built this life with our hands; each stone in this house we have carried on our backs.

  * * *

  —

  “We can live like royalty there.”

  What do we have here? Our house we pay for each month, the bank looming over us. It is empty space, the walls turning their corners, tucking us inside their angles, keeping us cloistered. We live like monks, our lives restricted. In Egypt, our hands would touch nothing. We can purchase each task: a servant to clean the house, a man to deliver the groceries, a cook to stand in the kitchen. And we would be free to come and go as we please. We can stay at the Oberoi hotel in Giza, lounge at the pool, and watch the sun set over the pyramids, each drink and each plate delivered to us. Imagine your life at your fingertips, only making the request to have it be granted.

  * * *

  —

  “These are dreams. No one lives like a king there.”

  You remember only the beauty of things; maybe that is why I married you. Your eyes have always stretched their vision beyond the boundaries of the horizon; you follow a dream that no one else can see. Egypt has no more kings or queens. Its days of glory are over. The country is crowded only with leftover peasants. The kings gathered their wealth and ran, leaving only those who know how to struggle for the same bread they eat daily. Their bare feet are caked with the mud of the Nile as they carry their loads and scrape their few piasters each day. The river’s water has become poisonous and the land abandoned to those who cannot nurture it.

  * * *

  —

  “Over there life is good, and the people have morals.”

  A sense of decency. People look in your face. Greet you with respect. We take care of each other—not like here, abandoned, every man for himself and no one stops to help lift those who fall. People can still feel with their hearts. There, even those who have nothing share their bite of food.

  * * *

  —

  “Over there people are eating each other and everyone is just for himself. You’ve forgotten why we came.”

  The corruption. The bribes. The connections you need to take even a small step. The poor scramble for a few scraps of nourishment, while the rich play their Monopoly with real money. There is nothing but the hardship of each day. Each man tumbling over the next to win.

  * * *

  —

  “We’ll have everything. At least people will respect us. Not like here. Forty years and the Americans still look at us as if we were cockroaches walking on their land.”

  I have lear
ned their language, their slang, their clothing, how to eat their food, how to laugh at their jokes, how to make their money. Still they grimace when they meet me, they scratch their heads instead of shaking my hand, they scowl when they learn I live in the best neighborhood. I changed my name, so I could erase the sour look on their faces when I introduce myself. America welcomes you into its land so you can mop its floors. I want to hold my head up high again, to breathe my name and have it heard.

  * * *

  —

  “What are you saying? We found good work, and we bought a house. Our children got educated here. You want me to go back and not see them?”

  Look, look at what we have. This house that is large and grand. In Egypt, we would have stayed in that two-bedroom apartment. I found a job here and went in each day to earn our living. No one harassed me, and no one told me I wasn’t smart enough. We raised our sons in this house instead of cramming them between the walls and the alleys. We paid for their education with our blood, and one is a doctor and one is an engineer. In that country, they would have stepped on them like vermin because they’re Christian; every door shut in their faces till we would have been lucky to see them sweep the streets for a living.

  * * *

  —

  “They’ll come visit us.”

  We’ll bring them to see us. They will know where they are from, and they will be part of their family. They will bring their children to play on the sand and bounce in the waves of the sea like you and I did when we were young. We will pull our family together again and loosen the tight grip of isolation. We will all return to settle our feet into the sand and water of our homeland.