“Never,” Fatima answered.
Now her heart ached to be the one playing with little Selim. She lost patience with her own children, who slowly began to take refuge at Musa’s house, where they competed to play with the baby.
“Musa’s house is so cheerful,” Rama told her mother. “We all sing, and you’ll not believe it, but Selim, who’s only ten months old, sings with us!”
When a letter arrived from Nur’s English teacher praising her progress, Fatima knew that Suha’s tutoring had helped Nur to achieve that result.
The last blow came from Ahmed, her baby, who said, “Everything tastes so good at Suha’s. You should ask Samira for Suha’s recipes.”
His words burned Fatima’s heart. It reminded her how much she missed Samira, their evening chats when Samira would undo her hair, brush it and braid it again. She felt lonely inside and outside, in her own home.
She never replaced Samira. She went to the souk herself to buy the meats and vegetables that for a small tip were brought to the house by a young boy. When she was shopping at the bazaar she avoided the shop of her old friend, Mr. Nathan, the Jew who helped achieve the successful “plot” against her.
Ahmed, Rama or Nur never asked her why she had not stepped even once over the threshold of her firstborn son’s house. Did they guess why? Maybe the fourteen-year-old Nur, now as beautiful and bright as Amina at her age, had guessed it, but she was busy whispering secrets with her girlfriends, giggling together and chasing Rama out of her room. Her mother’s problems were of no interest to her.
Fatima spent most of her time praying. She prayed fervently, “Oh, Allah Ackbar, in your great wisdom, give me a sign.” Many times she would address her dead husband, “Faud, you who loved me so, and entrusted me with your children, give me a sign.” And she waited.
How could she know that the cry of the newborn, Selim, would be the answer to her prayers? She knew only that her heart was pierced with pain when she heard Selim call Samira, Jeddah-grandmother. “It’s not right,” Fatima wanted to scream, “This is my right. I am his Jeddah.”
But pride stood in her way.
3 1
With a satisfied smile, Musa stretched his legs in his office, at the busy Jaffa Barclays Bank. He could not believe that he had been married two years. Though only a few hours separated him from the time he would be with his wife and their baby, the joys of his life, he already missed them.
He would love to have a framed photograph of Suha and Selim on his desk, as he had seen the British colleagues display their families. So many things were forbidden by Islam.
But he was happy knowing that his darling wife waited for him in their nice home surrounded by the beautiful things her hands created. Like the Prophet had said, what makes a man happy is a beautiful wife, a beautiful home and pleasant surroundings. He had all of that and more.
Since the birth of his son Selim, he felt blessed. At first he wanted to call him Rashid, like the sultan, but he yielded to Suha’s wish. Even when he heard her call him Shalom he didn’t mind.
The young boy, who usually brought the tea trays from the chaikhana, the nearby tea house, entered Musa’s office. In less than a year, Musa had been advanced to assistant manager of the branch.
“Mail!” the boy said, placing it on his desk. Opening the package, Musa noticed a letter bearing British stamps. It was a letter from Amina. Since their mother would not answer her letters, she wrote him at the bank. Impatiently, Musa tore the letter open.
September 3, 1946
To my dear brother Musa, Salaam Aleikum,
Inshallah, I hope that my letter finds you and all our family in good health. I am so excited about your baby. I can barely wait to meet my nephews, Na’ima’s Faud and your little Selim. It’s been too long since I’ve seen you all. We are planning to come for a visit two months from now, when cold and dreary England makes us dream of the nice Mediterranean sun. George is as excited as I am.
You know from my last letter that I’ve graduated with honors from nursing school. We moved to Bath, a quiet city, where George’s family owns an adorable cottage. Here he landed a job with a prestigious architectural firm.
I am not working yet, though I received a few offers. George says that my life has been too tense for the last two years and I should relax for a while, maybe do a bit of gardening. You’d laugh seeing me early in the morning, wearing a pair of George’s old pants, a large straw hat, my gloved hands armed with clippers and long scissors ready for my daily dialog with my plants. My roses and azaleas have taught me how to take care of them.
I don’t know why I bother you with my foolishness. Maybe it’s the sadness that in two years of marriage I haven’t been able to get pregnant. Oh, how I envy Na’ima and your Suha. To comfort me, George said that maybe we should adopt and what could be better than a little Palestinian baby? Now I’m glad that I got it off my chest,
Your loving sister, Amina
Folding Amina’s letter, Musa sensed again how blessed he was. In a few hours he’d hold Suha in his arms and watch the smile lighting Selim’s face.
3 2
“This child grows by leaps and bounds,” Samira said, spitting three times, above Selim’s right ear, left ear and his forehead. “I think we should take him to Uhm Zaide,” she continued as she bent to knot Selim’s shoelaces.
“Take him to the witch?” Shifra asked, remembering with a shiver her own visit to the witch’s hut, “What for? He’s a perfectly normal child.” Shifra felt a terrible urge to take Selim in her arms, while the boy chimed Samira’s words, Uhm Za-i-de, Uhm Za-i-de.
Samira spit on him again. “When have you heard a child speak at his age? They barely crawl. Forget about standing. Our boy, may Allah preserve him and give him a long life, walked at ten months and now, not yet sixteen months, he speaks like an old man. Even Musa thinks so.”
Shifra hugged Selim. He was so handsome. Selim had inherited her complexion and blue eyes, but the strong nose and his jet-black hair were unmistakably his father’s. “Forget it, Samira. Selim is a bright little child, but he’s not unique. Some speak earlier, some later. I just read it,” and Shifra patted the book opened on her bed.”
“I am older than you, and I know better,” Samira continued. “If you don’t want to take the boy to her, I’ll go and ask her for an amulet to protect him from the evil eye.”
“Evil eye, evil eye,” Selim chanted until his mother closed his mouth with a kiss.
“Play with Jedahta Samira, but don’t run,” Shifra cautioned. “She can’t run after you. Play nicely. I’ll come out and join you in a little while.”
From her bedroom window, Shifra saw Fatima watching the child from her courtyard. She shows up like a clock. She doesn’t utter a word. Shifra felt sorry for Fatima, but, as Musa said, it was her loss.
Thinking of Musa brought a smile to Shifra’s lips. The pillow next to her was still warm. She embraced it. After almost two and a half years, she still blushed at the memory of their first night together.
They were both so innocent. They started by holding hands, too timid to look at each other. Then he caressed her arms farther and farther up. When his arms touched her shoulders, he pulled her toward him until his strong chest almost crushed her breasts.
“I’m going to be gentle,” he murmured, “don’t be afraid.”
Shifra’s body was shaking like a leaf under rain.
“I’ll be gentle,” he said again and repeated it, taking off her dress. When the last of her clothes fell to the floor, he knelt in front of her.
“Oh, Suha,” he said, “I was waiting for this moment from the time I saw you asleep on the beach. You are my angel, my goddess.”
He took her in his arms. Just as in the dream she had before Na’ima’s wedding, she could feel a strong desire mounting from her body to feel him closer, to melt into him.
“I’ll be gentle,” he whispered again, his voice trembling. She closed her eyes. She trusted him. Her heart throbbed when h
e parted her legs with his impatient hand. He must have felt her tension because he stopped. But she didn’t want him to stop! Awkwardly, she raised her arms and encircled his neck lowering his face to hers. He read in her eyes that she trusted him.
He crushed her lips the moment his body entered hers. They screamed simultaneously. Later he dried her tears with his kisses before he entered her again. She was moving with him in ascending and descending waves. She breathed in his body odor, a mix of perspiration, orange fragrance and cigarettes. It excited her then as it excites her now.
Only much, much later did Musa confess that he had been a virgin. “I wanted it to be the first time for both of us. Since I met you I vowed to keep myself chaste for you.”
Yes, Shifra thought, her marriage was bliss. There wasn’t a day that she didn’t hear Musa declare, “Euti Aumry WaHayati, you are my life and my soul.” But sometimes she found Musa looking pensively at her. “You still are a mystery to me. You have never told me about your life.” Her heart stopped for a few seconds. Like a cloud passing over the sun, his questions pained her.
What would she tell him? That she ran away from her family? In her mind she saw two men shaking hands, her father and the kerosene carrier. Shifra shivered.
She was a renegade. Her former self was dead. It died the afternoon Musa carried her limp body into his mother’s house. In her heart she still thought of herself as Shifra, though after Fatima renamed her Suha, she wanted to believe that she had started a new life.
”I hope that one day you’ll trust me enough to tell me,” Musa sighed.
Almost every day her husband brought her gifts; Once perfumed oil, another time, French cologne from the Lebanese lady’s store, then a transparent blue nightgown, “the color of your eyes,” he said, which she felt bashful to put on.
“Wear it on the nights you want us to make love,” he whispered. Her face burned. He meant she should wear it every night.
Six weeks after their wedding, pregnancy surprised her. So soon, she thought, but Musa glowed with happiness.
“It’s going to be a boy,” Samira said. How could she know? Shifra’s mother gave birth to two girls before the desired boy arrived. Shifra remembered the advice her mother gave to a neighbor while both were at Mikve. The distressed woman had four daughters already and the Rabbi was of no help. “Your husband shouldn’t touch you for two or three months. His sperm will become stronger and you’ll deliver a boy.”
“And what if it’s a girl?” Shifra asked Musa, knowing that the Arabs, like many Jews, prefer males.
“I’ll love her as much as I love you,” Musa kissed her, “but I know it’s going to be a boy.”
Life really was bliss for Shifra. The only cloud on her horizon was Fatima.
“Eumi, Ima,”—Shifra had taught him the Hebrew word for mother—Selim burst into the room, breathing hard and stumbling over his R’s, “Come, come quick. Jedati Sami-a, butt-fly.” He cupped his little hands.
“Samira caught a butterfly?” Shifra asked.
“Yes, yes, come see, many colo-s,” Selim’s eyes shone from the marvel of discovery.
At fifteen months old he could speak not only words but also short sentences. Was he an exceptional child, as Samira seems to think? Even so, taking him to Uhm Zaide was out of the question.
Before she left the room, Shifra glanced out the window. Fatima was at her post, as usual.
“She spies on us,” thought Shifra.
Was Samira thinking of Fatima when she said the child should be protected from an evil eye?
3 3
“Let’s take Selim to the beach,” Samira declared. “It’s a beautiful day, clear skies, not too hot and almost no wind. This child is too pale. The sun and the seawater will be good for him.”
Shifra’s heart throbbed when she heard the word “beach.” Since that day when she almost drowned, she had avoided the beach. The memories it conjured up scared her. “He’s too young, maybe next year.”
“He needs to play with other children,” insisted Samira. “We are too old for him. How long do you want to keep him attached to your skirt? When Musa was his age, he played out in the street with the neighbors’ children.”
Always Musa had done this or that. It was Samira’s best argument, her weapon. Shifra could have told her that her brothers went to heder at that age.
“I told you that playing in the street is dangerous; besides, I don’t want him playing in the dust or mud.”
Shifra was annoyed because in her heart she knew that Samira was right. The child seemed bored. Maybe the beach wasn’t such a bad idea. They could go now, before the crowds arrived. They could teach Selim to build castles on the sand. Shifra could imagine his surprise at seeing the immensity of the water. “Eumi, wa-te no-end,” he might say. She smiled at the thought.
“You are right,” Shifra conceded. “We’ll go to the beach, but not for long. Selim’s skin is fair. I don’t want him to get burned.” She would conquer her fear, Shifra encouraged herself. Really, it was a shame to live so close to the beach and not take advantage of it.
When they arrived, they found few people on the seashore. Selim’s hands held tightly onto his mother and Samira. But when he saw the sea he tore himself away and ran toward it. “Eumi, look,” he screamed, “big, big wa-te..”
“Don’t get too close,” Shifra called, running after him, with Samira out of breath behind her. But Selim had already stopped at the water’s edge. He was excited. “So big, so big,” he repeated, opening his arms, as if to seize the entire sea. “Go high, high,” Selim addressed the waves, clapping his hands.
While Samira brought buckets of seawater, Shifra, patiently showed him how to mix the water with sand. “Together we are going to build a castle,” said Shifra. The child started to work in earnest, both women delighted by his enthusiasm.
“What did I tell you?” Samira said with satisfaction. “The children born in Jaffa have the sea in their blood. After they get the taste of it, they become its lifelong lovers.”
They were seated on the large beach towel that Samira had stretched on the sand, not far from where Selim industriously carried his little bucket back and forth. Shifra was happy that he didn’t try to go farther than the edge. “Eumi the wa-te tickle,” he screamed, when a small wave touched his feet. For a while he kept busy going back and forth. Then suddenly he cried, “Eumi, Jeddah Sami-a, Selim thisty, Selim wants dink,” and he cupped his hands around his mouth.
The two women looked at each other. In their haste, they forgot to bring a bottle of water or juice. They peered along the beach. No vendor was in sight. “I’ll go,” Samira got up quickly, “I know a kiosk not far from here. It will not take long.”
”Let me go,” offered Shifra
“You watch Selim,” Samira said. “If you play with him he’ll forget he’s thirsty.”
Shifra saw Samira climbing the rocks toward the street. Selim was playing quietly. She felt a kind of torpor. She fought to keep her eyes open, but they had a will of their own. Her body relaxed, her eyelids dropped.
When she opened them, she didn’t see Selim. Only a minute ago he was here, she thought. “Selim,” she screamed his name in continuous crescendo, “Selim, come back, Selim!” No answer. She was terrified. The sea looked at her with angry eyes. “Oh, my God, help me.” She started to run in one direction, but the long jelebia kept sticking to her legs. She lifted the dress and threw her slippers away. “Oh, God, please, please!”
She turned back and looked the length of the beach. The sun was in her eyes, she couldn’t see far. She ran in the other direction. The wind blew her hijab away.
“Selim,” she cried, “Selim!” The hot sand burned her feet, but she didn’t feel it.
Suddenly, she stopped, her feet glued to the scorching sand. A girl, five or six years old, was dragging a crying Selim toward a woman sitting underneath a beach umbrella.
Shifra could almost make out the girl’s Hebrew words, “Doda, Doda, Auntie, lo
ok. I found this little boy crying. Maybe he lost his mother. He said something I don’t understand.”
At that, the woman got to her feet. This can’t be true. A shiver went through Shifra’s body. I am dreaming. It’s a bad dream. This woman is not who I think she is.
“Stop, stop! Selim, come here. It’s me, Eumi!” Shifra screamed. She was afraid to get closer. Her heart was an amalgam of thoughts and feelings, the happiness of finding Selim mixed with fear. The woman was dressed in a garb she recognized too well, the dress of orthodox Jewish women. Selim didn’t hear his mother, but the woman did. She turned her head. Suspicion, suspense, the surprise of recognition all played in a matter of seconds over Chana’s eyes, while Shifra, scared, could only think why is she here? Who is this girl with her? What am I going to do now?
“Selim, you naughty boy, you scared me, come here immediately!” Shifra ordered in Arabic, hoping that her voice didn’t reveal the tumult in her heart.
“Shifra, Shifrale, it is really you, isn’t it? Oh, I think I could recognize you from a thousand faces. Oh, Shifra, when your poor parents hear that I saw you—”
Shifra interrupted, “Tesmaneli, excuse me. “Hada Ibni,” this is my son.” She picked up Selim in her shaking arms “You just wait,” she said to him in a threatening voice, “Until I tell your father how much you scared me today.”
“Shifra, Shifra, look at me,” Chana implored. “It’s me, your old friend, Chana. And I know that it’s you.”
“I’m sorry,” Shifra said in English. “I don’t understand you.” Addressing the girl, she bowed. “Shukran,” she said, before turning rapidly and walking away. In her ears she still could hear Chana calling after her, “Shifra, you are making a mistake, a big mistake. Hashem sees everything. You can’t hide forever!”
“Eumi,” Selim whined,” I want to play with the gi-l.” But his mother just pressed him closer to her. From afar she saw Samira descending the rocks with difficulty. Just in time, Shifra thought.
Jaffa Beach: Historical Fiction Page 19