DAY ONE
I WALK WITH cuffs and shackles to a waiting black vehicle. It is so far, the farthest I have walked since I first came to the Cube. My legs are quickly exhausted, and I must breathe deeper and faster. People in uniform escort me to people in suits. Men and women, tall and short, somehow they all look the same. I close my eyes wearily.
Finally I am in the vehicle, a large SUV. It is the fanciest, most unusual vehicle I have ever seen. The driver demands directions to the Jordanian embassy in Hebrew. No one answers, but a screen in the front lights up with a map, and I realize he is talking to the car. It is difficult to comprehend. The men and women in suits—one in the front, one on each side of me in the next row, and two in the row behind me—all have what I surmise are mobile phones. One of them puts hers to her ear and speaks.
The world has changed. The realization exhausts me. I want to sleep. The next hours are marked by interminable waiting. We arrive at the Jordanian embassy, an ugly, checkered building called Oz, where different people in the same suits and uniforms scurry about as I am led from one room to the next. Fashion has changed. Men’s suits are tighter, their ties narrower. Lipstick colors are muted, skirts shorter. The guards unshackle my legs, but I do not move. People come in and out and look at me. They want to see Bilal Jalal AbuJabal’s wife. The only prisoner released to Jordan. The whore hero terrorist. I lift my legs onto the sofa and lie down, missing the Cube.
WEEK TWO
I AM IN Jordan now. Time here moves along a calendar, and I calculate having been in the Cube for sixteen years. They take me to a government ministry, where my picture is snapped with more suited men and women. On the way out, exhausting hours later, a crowd meets me with shouts. They are divided between those who see a hero and those who see a whore. Their calls ring in my head. A blinding sun bears down on my shoulders. I faint. At my family’s home—a contemporary stone house with large windows and modern furnishings—I am told my brother carried me away. “Thank you,” I tell him, studying the large framed photo of Sitti Wasfiyeh hanging on the wall next to the framed photo of my father that used to hang on our wall in Kuwait. I don’t ask when or how she died. I know this is the house she built for my mother.
The noise is unbearable. Cars, horns, sirens, doors opening and closing, people talking to each other, and worse, to me. Even the hum of the refrigerator and air conditioner vibrate my brain. Mama looks old. She learns to leave me alone to lie on my side. I cannot convince her that I am not depressed. I can see in the eyes of those around me that I am not the person they remember. I have no feelings on that or any other matter.
WEEK THREE
DAYS ARE MORE of the same. So much noise. The best time is when my mother leaves for her job. Well-wishers come to welcome me back, but I pretend no one is home and don’t answer the door. I thought by now they would stop coming. But they are relentless. It is hell in the evenings when Mama is home. She opens the door for them. They arrive in droves with sweets and smiles and kisses and so much goddamn chatter. But I put up with it because my mother is doing the best she knows how.
Still, I gravitate to the bed in the corner of my room and find no peace until I can lie on my side facing the wall. I assure Mama again that I am not depressed, that “yes, I know you are proud of me, and yes, I know you think I am a hero, and yes, I know you don’t think I am that other word.” But I tell her that I am not a hero either, that language is absurd, life is absurd, this theater of visitors is absurd, and the hum of the goddamned refrigerator is grating my bones, and “please trust me that I need solitude. I’m not bothering anyone, just please give me some peace, some quiet.”
WEEKS FOUR & FIVE
MAMA INSTALLS PADDING around the window and door of my room to dampen the noise. Visitors stop coming.
Mama knocks gently on my door, walks in. She sits at the edge of the bed and lays her hand on my shin. “Darling, there’s someone here to see you.”
Before I beg her to make them leave, she says, “It’s Um Buraq,” and leaves the room.
I turn around to chase a memory. A crazy car ride away from Kuwait for the last time. Laughter and sorrow colliding. Sitti Wasfiyeh making us pull over so she can get in the backseat. My brother’s silence. Words from another life scramble and hit against my body from the inside, and I hear a whisper in my mind: Whatever happens in this ungenerous world, we will meet again, my sister.
I sit up, looking at a small, thin woman in a black abaya leaning forward on a cane. She smiles. There is no mistaking that massive, gap-toothed smile. I get up, walk to her, slip my arms quietly around her. She wraps her free arm around me, lets out a sigh, and the decades we have crossed wrap around us both.
She smells like an old woman. I can feel the bones of her ribs beneath the loose abaya.
“Waleh, ma ajmal shooftitsh,” she says. Gurl! How beautiful the sight of you. “Now help me sit down,” she demands.
For the first time in many years, an irrepressible smile takes me over. I am grateful not to be handled delicately. I thought I would never see Um Buraq again. But here we are, the frayed strings of our lives closing a circle. I can see that life has trampled her too. But fate feels generous in this moment, and something in me is restored. I feel color and texture transform what is dull and desic-cated.
“Looks like you got old too,” she says, that enormous tooth gap pumping sunshine through me.
WEEKS SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT & NINE
I STEP ON Mama’s scales and see that I have put on three kilograms. Last week Um Buraq took me to a Turkish bathhouse, and we sat together naked in the steam while attendants scrubbed our bodies. It was my first time out of the house since I arrived. Tomorrow we will go there again. But today, she says we will go to a park. “Don’t worry, it’s out of the city and quiet. Hardly anyone will be there and the only noise is from birds and wind,” she says, shaking her head and adding, “You’re as difficult as your grandmother, may God rest her soul.”
“You didn’t even know my grandmother,” I say.
“Of course I did. That crazy old woman made me pull over just to dramatize that I was a bad driver. Don’t you remember?”
I laugh. “She had a point, though.”
The park isn’t really a park, but an open landscape of hills and valleys dotted with trees and rocks. It looks so much like the landscape of Palestine. Like the view over the orchards Bilal and I used to look upon. I indulge an illicit fantasy of a world that would have allowed us to simply live, raise children, hold jobs, move freely on earth, and grow old together. I allow myself to imagine that the dignities of home and freedom might be the purview of the wretched of this earth. Bilal and I would be in a place like this, perhaps hiking with at least one grown child, a teenage girl. Her father would teach her the names and benefits of all the plants we’d encounter. I would listen to stories of her life—her friends, romantic interests, dreams, and plans. We would eat together as a family and go home tired after a long day of being whole and free on earth. I feel the loss of what we never had, and it feels good to know that my heart stirs.
Um Buraq’s cancer has returned. It is her third recurrence, and doctors tell her the treatment isn’t working this time. “It’s the reason Kuwait let me out of prison and deported me to Iraq through Jordan,” she told me the first day she came to our apartment. “Some of our old clients advocated for me.” In Iraq, she lived with distant family.
“It was terrible to be at their mercy, but thankfully Saddam still ensured free health care and social services even under American sanctions. So at least I could have a little bit of my own money from the state and got a little shack to live in.”
But American warplanes and war plans followed her to Iraq years later, under a US president who was the son of the president who bombed Iraq when we still lived in Kuwait. This time they reduced Babylon, that once splendid, sophisticated, ancient civilization, to nothing. They made beggars of her teachers, taxi drivers of her doctors; and they made off with her treasures and
artifacts. Um Buraq had arrived in Jordan in that thick human stream of refugees in the spring of 2003. “Americans are the devil,” she said.
Bitterness is hard to keep away. Um Buraq sighs, flashing the gap in her teeth. “It sure is a beautiful world, though,” she says, surveying the grandeur of our planet, knowing her days are few.
That is all we say about sickness and war.
“Do you think it means anything that we both ended up imprisoned?” Um Buraq asks.
“It means fate lacks imagination,” I say, but I sit with the question. “Or maybe it just proves the state will always find a way to imprison those who are truly free, who do not accept social, economic, or political chains.”
That is all we say about prison. We return home, where I paint her nails and give her a facial.
I spend more time outside of my room. I return to making body creams from olive and coconut oils, and I rub them into Um Buraq’s papery skin. Her hair has fallen out, and she doesn’t need eyebrow threading or hair dye. Or waxing. “Look at your bare pussy,” I say. “Like a little baby girl’s.”
“Goddamn pussy brings nothing but shit. It might as well be another asshole,” she says. “Just rub that good lotion on my thighs and leave my business alone.”
My mother and I speak more. I fix her hair, thread her brows, and care for her as I do for Um Buraq. We go for a walk every day around the neighborhood. Sound bothers me less.
Twice a week, Um Buraq and I go to the hammam bathhouse, and when we’ve been scrubbed and oiled, I paint her nails, draw her eyebrows, and outline her eyes with kohl. The hammam attendant knows and likes us. She gives us the best hot rooms, and we tip her well. Um Buraq gets money from some of her old clients in Kuwait who softened over the years as they watched helplessly the devastation of Iraq and Palestine, and who now are moved to act in the service of their guilt and nostalgia.
“No matter what happened, we’re still Arabs. We’re still brothers and sisters. Despite everything, I still love Kuwait, and consider myself Kuwaiti despite the revocation of my citizenship. We’re all part of each other. When you see what the Americans have done to us, what they’ve done to Iraq, Libya … And it breaks our hearts, all of us. That’s how you know we’re incomplete without each other,” Um Buraq says, reminding me of Bilal when he spoke of pan-Arabism and pan-Africanism.
“Did you see the other day how Marzouq al-Ghanim kicked the Israeli representative out of that international meeting? What a man! I was so proud of Kuwait. Did you see it?” she asks.
I shook my head. “Who is Marzouq al-Ghanim?”
“You are starting to piss me off. Don’t you watch the news? He’s a Kuwaiti diplomat.”
“I think I can find it on these computers,” I say. “Jehad will know how.”
We talk about computers, “smart” phones, and the alienating technology that makes us feel like intruders in the world. We talk about Kuwait.
“Those were good times,” she says.
“The beaches were magical, weren’t they?” I say. “What I’d give to be at an evening concert by the water in Salmiya, tasting the salty air, looking up at that starry desert sky, transported by music.” I enjoy this reverie.
“We didn’t know how good we had it,” Um Buraq says. “Remember how the receding tide would uncover thousands of crabs scampering along the shoreline? And Ala’a Eddin ice cream parlor. Damn! I’d love some of that ice cream right now, and to just go back to my old house and watch hours and hours of soap operas.”
“Remember the night we met?” I ask.
“How could I forget? You were the finest dancer I had ever seen,” she says.
We both feel the weight of that day, and all the words unsaid begin to push through.
Um Buraq speaks first. “I’m sorry for what I did. It was a terrible thing. Can you ever forgive me?”
I pull her near, kiss the top of her head. “There was a part of me that wasn’t afraid of your blackmail because I think I knew you wouldn’t show those pictures to anyone. I made the choice to go along. I wanted the validation and worth that came with having a bit of money and being able to help my family. I liked breaking rules I had no say in making, at the same time that I hated how I did it.” I take her old face in my hands. “You don’t need my forgiveness, but if you want it, consider it granted.”
JOY
UM BURAQ IS in a wheelchair now. We arrive at the bathhouse as usual and I push her to the front desk. Our friendly attendant is there. She takes the money and hands us the receipt, but there is something else with it. An envelope. She looks around and whispers, “Someone dropped this off and told me to give it to you. As you can see, it’s unopened.”
I thank her and wheel Um Buraq into the changing room. “Open it!” Um Buraq demands.
It is a typed story letter, like a children’s fairy tale. It’s strange and makes no sense. “Let me see.” Um Buraq takes it from me.
As she grabs it, something occurs to me, and I snatch it back from her, quickly wheeling her into a private steam room. I rummage frantically in my purse for a pen. I can only find an eyeliner, but it’ll do. My heart begins to race as I lay a towel on the bench and spread the paper on it. I circle the first word. Um Buraq has no idea what is happening, but she knows not to ask. I count nine words and circle the ninth. I count four words and circle the fourth. I start over: 1-9-4, 1-9-4, until the letter runs out. I put the eyeliner down and read what I’ve circled.
But I can barely make out the words through the steam, and the paper is already wet. Fumbling, I manage to turn off the mister and I open the window.
my … darling … wife … I … have … spent … these … years … trying … to … make … my … way … back … to … you … if … you … will … have … me … I … will … come … to … you … there … is … a … tree … in … the … valley … where … you … go … and … sit … tomorrow … I … will … leave … a … letter … under … a … rock … there … enshallah … we … will … meet … again … my … love.
I crumple on the bench, sweat and tears pouring down my face. I am overwhelmed by the possibility of seeing Bilal, electrified by the thought of him.
Bilal is alive. Israel knew it all along. They’ve been trying to find him all these years. It’s why they made me their special prisoner. Why I got the Cube. Why they displayed me to the world. I was the bait then, and I still am.
Um Buraq watches me knowingly. “It’s him, isn’t it?” she asks, but she can see the answer on my face.
She struggles to get out of her chair, and I help her sit next to me. “Turn that steam back on and close the window,” she says. “Keep it normal.”
I put my arm around her to whisper in her ear, even though we’re alone in total privacy. “He survived,” I say. “We survived them all.”
Her lips slowly stretch and out comes that massive laughter. It is the only part of her that has not been diminished. I know she will be gone soon, taking her magnificent laughter with her. I don’t know when and how I will see Bilal, though I know we can’t ever be together openly. I may never find a place in this world, but for now, in this moment, I feel the purest, most perfect joy.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’VE BEEN WRITING this story in my mind for over twenty years. Like my other novels, some of it came from direct personal experience. Some of it from research. Some, imagined. In my research, I interviewed several individuals I am not at liberty to acknowledge by name. But I wish to make a space of gratitude for them here, something tender for all girls (and boys) and women everywhere who’ve had to sell their bodies to survive, or to escape or perpetuate demons that cannot be dislodged.
I want to thank political prisoners whose extraordinary lives and writings helped me understand (though I know I cannot fully understand) what it means to be a political prisoner: Khalida Jarrar, Ahmad Sa’adat, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Albert Woodfox, and members of the MOVE family. In particular, I wish to thank Janet Holloway Africa, Janine Phillip
s Africa, and Ria Africa, who were recently released after being imprisoned for more than forty years, and who graciously spoke to me about their lives in prison. I am in awe of their fortitude, generosity, and commitment to the world and to each other, and of the love they give despite enduring sustained indignities most of us cannot imagine.
Not long after I finished a readable draft of this novel, I found Anjali Singh, a brilliant agent at Ayesha Pande Literary Agency. I’m grateful for the ways she helped improve the manuscript, and I’m excited to begin a new journey in my literary career with her by my side. Because of the shuffle between agencies, it ended up that the German and Swedish translations were published ahead of the English, which meant that my editors at Diana Verlag Random House and Norstedts had to work extra hard to edit the translations. So, thank you, Britta Hansen and Gunilla Sondell.
Of course, thank you to Martha Hughes, my trusted editor who sees my work from stream-of-consciousness writing until it’s recognizable as a story. Other than my dear friend Mame, Martha is the only person I’ve trusted to read the early drafts of my books, and I’m grateful for her encouragement and keen editorial eye.
To my editors at Simon & Schuster and Bloomsbury, Michelle Herrera Mulligan, Alexandra Pringle, and Allegra Le Fanu: thank you for believing in me and in Nahr. I am fortunate to launch this book with such powerful women.
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