Between Two Worlds

by Zainab Salbi

  And I felt tears of confusion come into my eyes.

  “Just promise me you will seriously consider it, all right, honey?”

  Because she was Mama, I told her I would.

  Luma had gotten married by this time, and she had met her fiancé only once, in her parlor, before agreeing to marry him. Now all she talked about was furnishing her new house. Was that what lay in store for me if I stayed? A rich husband and a big house to decorate? Yet she did seem happy in her marriage, and I found myself wondering if maybe the old ways were best. Maybe there was a reason for daughters to trust their parents’ judgment when it came to something as important as marriage. Should I just listen to Mama and do what she asked of me? Fulfill her dream? Be a good daughter and make her happy for once? Where was I supposed to draw the line between being a good daughter and being true to myself? I couldn’t tell. I had failed so completely at love that I didn’t trust my own judgment anymore. I couldn’t imagine falling in love again. And yet what if I did, and I got it wrong again? Mama was right. I had tried the love route, and it didn’t work.

  The only good part of the whole Ehab fiasco was that it had brought Baba and me closer than we had been for years. Baba had been kind and gentle to me during that time. He had always shown his love for me with gifts; one night he brought over a new tennis coach to the house, along with a new racket, in hopes of drawing me out of my depression and getting me out of the house. He had been right about Ehab since the very beginning. I wasn’t used to talking over personal things with Baba, but I honestly wanted his opinion.

  “I want to ask for your advice, Baba,” I told him. “What do you think about this marriage proposal? Should I accept it?”

  “It is your choice, Zainab,” he said. “Not mine and not your mother’s. You choose.”

  “No, Baba, I tried that before,” I told him. “I failed, and I embarrassed you and Mama too. I don’t want to do that again. You two make the decision for me. I trust your judgment to do what is best for me, and I will go along with it. I want to be a good daughter to you and Mama. I was so wrong before. I don’t want go through that again and repeat the same mistake. Please, Baba. I want your advice. I really do. Tell me what to do.”

  “I could never do that, Zainab,” he said, though it was clear he didn’t want me to leave Iraq. “I can only tell you that you should not let your mother pressure you into accepting it. If you want to accept it, accept it because you want to. You need to live your own dreams and not your mother’s.”

  I stayed up the whole night weighing my parents’ arguments. Baba was right. I should not try to live my mother’s dreams, but Mama was also right. I didn’t want to stay here and live in her prison, either. I had been a witness to her suicide attempts, her tears, and her flights to her mother in Karbalā’. I had witnessed her pain. Was that what lay ahead for me?

  So many things good and bad have happened to me as a result of that proposal that I cannot look back on it clearly and say why I ultimately made the decision I did. I loved visiting the United States, but it was not home. I loved Iraq and couldn’t imagine leaving my family and my whole life behind. But years of weekends at the farmhouse had taken their toll. I was deathly afraid of being trapped like my mother, both physically and emotionally. In the end, I didn’t say yes to Fakhri, I said yes to Mama. She had been right about Ehab when I had been wrong, and I trusted her far more than I trusted myself to do what was best for me.

  “Hamdelillah!” Mama said when I told her. “Thank God!”

  Things moved quickly this time. Amo apparently gave grudging approval, and Fakhri’s mother flew from the United States to formally request my hand. I served her Turkish coffee and klache. A small woman with a bony nose, she raved about her son, and handed me his picture. I studied his face. He looked very thin, with hollow cheeks and thin lips and a nose like his mother’s. There was something cold about him, I thought, but then photographs were often misleading. One day the phone rang, and the face in the photograph had a voice, formal but friendly. Then there was a small engagement party with a few of my aunts and cousins in our parlor. I felt completely defeated that day—I, who had argued so vehemently for love, at my own engagement party had an empty seat next to me where my fiancé should have been.

  Mama spent hours designing my dress, buying gifts for the wedding guests, and planning my trousseau. Mama and my brothers would fly over with me for a couple weeks, and Baba would come as soon as his schedule allowed. I surprised my teachers when I told them I was dropping out; I was one of their best students. But I explained that I had already bought my textbooks for the following year, and would return for finals. I already had a return ticket and planned to graduate on time.

  “You will not come back, I know it, you won’t come back!” Lana told me, crying.

  “I’ve got to finish my fourth year,” I told her, hugging her. “Of course I’ll be back! I’m not even taking my albums or journals with me. When I come back, I’ll be staying for a couple months to visit, and we’ll see lots of each other then.”

  There was no big send-off at the airport. What I remember most is sitting in silence with my family and our driver at the VIP lounge inside Saddam Hussein International Airport. My father had tears in his eyes. My brothers looked tense and downcast, and even our driver was trying to stop his tears. Everyone looked sad but Mama. She looked as if she were on a mission.

  Baba was captain of the first leg of the flight that carried me out of his life. As he lifted his jet into the sky, a song played on the audio system that was a tribute by Lebanese singer Fairuz to Baghdad’s beauty and rivers and poetry. From the window seat I stared down at my city. It had been darkened for war for eight years. Now, just as I was leaving, it was all lit up. It looked like a beautiful carpet of twinkling lights, each with its own story. Down there somewhere were my cousins, my school, my home, and friends whose kisses had melted my heart when we said good-bye. I pressed my face into the window and tried to stop my tears as the lights turned to pinpricks and disappeared.

  At least Amo was no longer going to be able to control my life. I had seen him just once since my breakup with Ehab. He had put a big hand on my shoulder and looked at me for what felt like a long time. That was one of those times I thought he was reading my eyes, and he seemed to see that I had been punished enough by the broken affair and said nothing about the breakup. Since my new engagement, there had been silence. No engagement present, no congratulations. Mercifully, I thought, I was being punished for leaving. Yet my sadness was profound. Was I crying because of where I had come from or because of where I was going? I didn’t know. I felt as if I were flying into a black hole, and I willed myself to sleep.

  I stepped off into crowded American daylight. Fakhri’s family and some friends were there to greet us at the gate. I quickly scanned the crowd for Fakhri and recognized him from his picture. I greeted every other person first, beginning with kisses for his mother and his father, a nice-looking man who greeted me warmly, then a sister who looked me over the way Raghad and Rana did when I arrived for their parties, and other relatives and friends. Finally there was no one left.

  “How long did you think you could avoid greeting me?” he asked.

  I smiled politely and shyly shook his hand without responding to his question. I didn’t want to kiss him on the cheeks and feigned shyness. When I finally looked him in the face, I recognized that there was no chemistry between us. There was no skip of a heartbeat, no connection at all. There was no softness in his eyes, no invitation to love. Standing before me was a tall, older man who looked like his mother.

  When he picked up my two suitcases off the baggage carousel, I felt as if he were literally holding my whole life in his hands. I sensed the power he held over me, and I felt vulnerable as I followed him out the airport door to the parking lot, where he opened the trunk of a big American luxury car, black.

  “I bought this car in your honor,” he said. “What do you think?”

  “It is
very nice,” I said and smiled politely. Was he trying to impress me with money and a used luxury car? It had a broken side mirror. “It is very nice of you to buy it in my honor.”

  “I bought it at auction,” he said, adding, “I can get the mirror fixed.”

  From Alia’s Notebook

  Samira was the only one who called him by his first name. It is worth noting that Samira is a 35-year-old blonde woman with blue eyes.

  He first developed his relationship with Samira during the summer of 1981. Samira was a teacher in Al Makasseb Elementary School. He was a frequent visitor to that area as he had a swimming pool near the school which he often went to with his friends. Samira tried to get close to him in many ways. She claimed that she wanted his help in her divorce case from her husband. He helped her get her divorce from her husband and she became his full-time mistress, joining him in all the parties he hosted, even the exclusively male parties. Samira never left his side. He often talked about how much he liked the fact that sometimes she behaved as a teenager and sometimes as an adult woman. He talked about how comfortable he was with her, for she did whatever he asked of her. He would send her for a medical checkup now and then to ensure that she was in good health and free of all diseases. She would be the only woman drinking with him and his male friends and would go with him to his van in the middle of the party to come back after few moments filled with the smell of sex and lust.

  Samira, like Saddam, came from a poor family. But unlike him, she grew up in Baghdad and came from a larger family that overall had a respected name. She shared his vengeance on those who enjoyed a good life. They often started cursing with each other around those with whom they felt comfortable. He changed a lot during that period. Prior to knowing Samira he was trying hard to imitate the elite in their behavior and lifestyle. He would ask us to teach him how to eat with a fork and a knife. He would never curse and always talked attempting to change his accent to a city one. During his relationship with Samira however, he dropped his attempt to behave properly and switched to vulgar talk with her and everyone that was surrounding them.

  One day, she hit him jokingly. That caused his head piece (from his traditional Arabian dress) to fall on the floor, the thing that is considered an insult for an Arabian. He immediately started to hit her with all his strength using his head piece, which can be as hard as a leather belt. In the process she started kissing his hands and feet, the thing that gave him a great level of pleasure. So he continued to hit her and she continued to kiss him and we were all witness to this until they went to the van to make up.

  8

  COLLATERAL DAMAGE

  I WAS TO BE A JUNE BRIDE IN AMERICA, but the wedding was to be conducted in the tradition of Iraq, in two parts. The first part is an Islamic religious ceremony, after which the couple is generally allowed to get to know each other more intimately than they would be permitted to do on their own, as a kind of sanctioned trial run. If this fails, the marriage is annulled. If not, the couple is deemed formally married when they are presented to their community at a large public reception—a wedding party. Often there are many months between these two events. In our case, the public ceremony would follow soon after the religious one.

  On the morning of my Islamic wedding, I let my mother dress me in the gold-and-white creation she had designed for me in Baghdad, a stunning traditional Iraqi sayya, a full-length dress topped with a long vest that she had embroidered with flowers and poetry in gold thread. I don’t remember feeling much of anything as our wedding party set off on the highway in two cars for Fakhri’s house. I was a backseat passenger on my way from an Iraqi past to an American future. We had been driving for about thirty minutes when the car in front of us pulled over to the side of highway, and ours followed. My father got out of the first car and stalked back toward us as cars and trucks whizzed by at frightening speed to our left. My mother gave a heavy sigh of exasperation and lowered her window.

  “This is wrong, Alia!” my father shouted angrily over the sound of traffic. “We cannot let this marriage proceed. We cannot do this to her!”

  “I am not taking her back to Iraq!” my mother said, and burst into tears. “This is her chance at a future. This marriage must go through. I will not allow her to go back to Iraq! I am not taking her back there!”

  It was a continuation of an argument that had started the night before. There had apparently been some disagreement over the terms of the dowry, and Baba felt Fakhri had treated him with disrespect. Baba said he didn’t trust Fakhri because he had gone back on his word. Mama’s argument had little to do with the bridegroom and everything to do with making sure the bride stayed in America. My mother fighting to leave Iraq, my father fighting to stay in Iraq—the same argument I’d heard since I was twelve. The only difference now was it was my life they were arguing over, not theirs. I thought about how heartbreaking it was, the two people I loved most, each convinced the other was trying to ruin my life on my wedding day. I was the only one who wasn’t crying. I remember just staring out at the shoulder of the road, a dirt strip littered with dried up weeds, and wanting desperately for them to stop.

  “Zainab, I beg you not to do this,” Baba said, finally turning to appeal to me directly, tears in his own eyes. “You don’t have to do this. Don’t let your mother impose her choice on you. It is your life, honey, not your mother’s.”

  I loved him very much at that moment. Despite our disagreements, I had never, ever doubted how much he loved me. Part of me thought he was right. How could I marry a stranger I felt no attraction for? But I also understood Mama’s point, and the one thing I felt good about was that for once I was being the good, dutiful daughter to her. I hated to see her cry. Besides, what were the alternatives if I went back? No one was talking about that, really, but there it was. Was anything better waiting for me there? If I went back to Baghdad now, I would embarrass my whole family. People would think there was something wrong with me—twice engaged, twice failed.

  “I will take responsibility for my own marriage,” I said finally, coming up with the only answer I could find that avoided taking sides. “I will have a talk with him, and then I’ll make my decision.”

  When we got to Fakhri’s home, where the religious ceremony was to be held, guests were already gathering downstairs. We went upstairs where we could be alone, and I had a serious talk with him for the first time about my expectations for this marriage. I told him that I expected respect, a college education, a meaningful career, and financial independence. I told him he should not expect me to cook and clean—or to do anything at all just because I was a woman. I wanted to be clear, given what had happened with Ehab, so that there were no misunderstandings. I was almost surprised to find that he listened to me.

  “I promise that I will love you and cherish you, Zainab,” he said. “I respect what you are asking for, and I assure you I will try to give you a happy life.”

  He still wasn’t handsome, with his small eyes and long nose, but for the first time I saw the possibility of love coming after marriage. In that upstairs room, with his family waiting below, he was gentle and respectful. He told me he understood and that he would support me in becoming whatever I wanted to be in life, and it occurred to me that maybe we just hadn’t had enough time to be alone together. When we walked back downstairs together, I was nervous, but relieved.

  I could face my father and mother and tell them both in good conscience that I was willing to go forward.

  As I came downstairs in my sayya, I saw my brothers, Haider looking out of place, and Hassan, not quite ten, standing very close to my father, who had clamped down the disapproval on his face. Other than my family, I knew only a few of the two dozen people assembled there. I sat down next to Fakhri on the sofa as we had arranged, with the imam in front of us, and prepared to witness my first traditional Iraqi religious marriage ceremony—my own. It was a beautiful ceremony, rich in the symbols of Islam from all the cultures that contributed to Iraqi culture, from Iran,
Turkey, and the Middle East. Two happily married women—one of them my mother—held a swatch of fabric over our heads while two others rubbed sugarcanes together to sweeten the marriage. My feet were dipped into a silver bucket filled with mint and rose petals, a Quran was placed in my lap, and cardamom seeds were tucked between my fingers. I felt as if I were watching a play.

  “Zainab, do you accept this man to be your husband and to marry him in front of God and his prophet?” the imam asked.

  I didn’t answer. Mama had told me that he was going to ask me this same question twelve times, once for each descendant of the prophet Shia believed were the rightful leaders of the Muslim nation, before I was supposed to respond. Fakhri had already said yes, and it felt like an eternity each time the imam repeated the question to me, an eternity to consider and reconsider, with everyone in the room quietly staring at me, my head filled with voices frantically arguing with each other. What would happen if I just said no? Was it too late? I saw my father, looking miserable, across from me, and I felt the weight of Mama’s presence above me, giving me blessings for a happy marriage when she no longer had one herself. I wanted to scream, No! How could I possibly do something so ayeb? Hadn’t I just had a perfectly nice discussion with him a few moments ago? Again and again, the imam asked, and finally against all my instincts, I heard myself say “Yes.”

  Fakhri looked at me with relief and kissed me on my forehead. I couldn’t look at him.

  Hassan ran out of the room screaming, and Baba ran after him. “Well, this isn’t a funeral!” Fakhri’s mother commented to her son, as she kissed him in congratulations. “This is supposed to be a happy occasion!”