A Remarkable Kindness

by Diana Bletter

  “With my sons?” Emily turned to him.

  “Why not? I like your sons. They like me, too.”

  “Lauren told me that no Arab man would ever agree to raise another man’s children. Especially not a Jewish man’s children.”

  “I’m not every other Arab man.”

  “You’re ready for two nonstop little boys?” Emily sat down and dangled her legs over the side of the rock. “It’s like seeing everything double.”

  “If they’re with you, then I’ll be with them, too.”

  “But you’ll never be Abu-Shoval or Abu-Tal.”

  “No. I’m already Abu-Omar.” Ali joined her on the edge of the rock. “He’s already fifteen. I know he understands why I did what I did. He knows Jasmine and I are as different as night and day.” He paused. “You could leave your kids with Boaz.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I see Omar and Marwa a few times each week, but I no longer live with them.”

  “A father is different.”

  “That doesn’t sound like something an American woman should say.”

  “Maybe not,” Emily said. “But a mother almost never gives up her children. That’s instinct.”

  “That’s being a Jewish mother.”

  “You’re funny—did David also say that?” Emily paused. “What do you think he’d say if he found out about us?”

  “I’d like to think he wants me to be happy. But sometimes you have to choose sides.”

  “And which side would he choose?” Emily felt edgy and anxious. Then numb—or was that because she felt too much?

  “The side of his people.”

  “And you, Ali?”

  “I don’t care anymore. Can’t you see how draining it all is? I’ve had enough of the Jews and the Muslims and the Druze and—”

  “Unfortunately, that’s reality—”

  “You want to stay with Boaz, stay then. But if you think you can be happy with him, then what are you doing here with me?”

  “I don’t know,” Emily said. “I mean, I do know why I’m with you. But I can’t imagine giving up everything and taking such a big risk. Maybe I should wait and give Boaz a chance.”

  “I’m tired of waiting. I gave up my dream and moved back to Maloul thinking it would make Jasmine happy. I’m not going to keep waiting, because if I wait and wait, one day it will be too late.”

  Emily didn’t speak, considering his words.

  He pressed his hand into the small of her back and tugged her toward him. A serious look clung to his eyes, passion mixed with fierce longing. “Let’s leave and go to America. Do you think anyone there would care that I’m a Muslim and you’re a Jew?”

  “Yes, my mother. But thank goodness she lives in Charleston, and there’ll be a snowman in hell before we move there.”

  “I’ll find a way to win her over.”

  “I’m sure you would.”

  “I bet I could walk into any synagogue in America,” Ali said. “I’d read the Hebrew prayers with a perfect Israeli accent and nobody would even know I’m an Arab and not a Jew.”

  “That’s a Hollywood movie right there. Ali, I don’t want to have this conversation if it won’t get us anywhere.”

  “But that’s where you’re wrong. I knew nothing about running a hotel before I started working there. Nothing about catering. But Yoram said, ‘Can you put together a wedding for five hundred people?’ and I did. I try to make things happen.”

  “So you really want to move to Somerville?”

  “It’s a great place to start. My cousin’s just waiting for me to open a hummus place.”

  “A hummus place,” Emily repeated, trying to envision it. “Not a takeout place, right? Something healthy—simple and classic?” She thought of Rob’s cooking show with a tinge of embarrassment and forced herself to move past it. “You can hang up my paintings.”

  “We’ll hang your paintings,” he said. “You can help design the place. You can get a job at an art gallery or go back for another degree so you can teach. There are a hundred things you can do.”

  There are a hundred things you can do, Emily said to herself, but then she imagined saying good-bye to Boaz and wrenching the boys away from him and having to start all over in America. “It would be so hard.”

  “What do we have to lose? We’ll be together.” Ali pointed to the rocky edge of a cliff. “See that over there? Nobody knows why, but even in the summer when there’s no rain, those rocks always drip with water. They call it the Wall of Tears.”

  “If that’s not kitschy, I don’t know what is.” Emily stared at the rocks with the trail of water trickling between them. It seemed like a sign, a message. Should she be like the rocks, enduring and stoic, and stay where she was? Or should she be like the water, reckless and improvisational, and find a way to course through the stones?

  Ali stood up. He tried to light a match but the wind blew it out. He tried again. He wasn’t having any luck, so he pulled his shirt over his head, lit the cigarette from underneath, and pushed his head back out, smiling at Emily.

  “That’s another thing. Those cigarettes have got to go.”

  “I’ll quit. I’ve been meaning to stop anyway. You know, I always wanted something else in my life. Something more. That’s another reason why I left Jasmine, because she never tried for anything. I guess I was searching, but I didn’t even know it until you arrived.”

  “I’m sorry. I never wanted to fall in love with you. That was the last thing I wanted.”

  “La, don’t be sorry. You know, when the war broke out in 1948, my father fled across the border to Lebanon. His brothers all stayed there but he missed it here, so he swam in the sea to get back. Just think how far he swam. Maybe just to get me here to you.”

  “I highly doubt that.”

  Ali put out his cigarette, slipped the butt into the pocket of his jeans—“You see, you’ve even trained me not to litter!”—then bent forward to kiss Emily, his lips sweet and bittersweet all at once. “Take the risk.”

  “I don’t know.” Emily looked down at her watch. “I’m sorry, but I have to—”

  “I know, I know, you have to go.” He stood again, offering her a hand.

  “I hate when I have to leave you,” Emily whispered.

  “Then decide to stay with me.”

  Emily’s phone rang. She thought it would be Noga from the hotel with questions about the wedding and she answered.

  “Oh, hi, Boaz.” Emily raised her eyebrows at Ali in an attempt to apologize. She bent low, cupping the phone close to her chest, hoping Boaz couldn’t hear the wind. “What’s going on?”

  “The boys are asking for your boo-boo eggs,” Boaz said. “You don’t think I have enough to worry about? They broke into the Troyermans again last night and this time they stole farm equipment—”

  “Who broke in?”

  “Who else could it be? The Arabs from Maloul. They steal and get away with it. The police do nothing! I have to go out later to patrol—”

  She crouched lower, hoping that Ali couldn’t hear Boaz. “Boo-boo eggs are easy,” she told him, looking down at her hands, aware that Ali was watching her.

  “Do I cut the hole in the bread before or after—hang on—Shoval, would you sit down? You know you’re not allowed to walk around eating—”

  “What’s he eating?”

  “What difference does it make? A pepper, a carrot, a worm they dug up by the shed. Who knows? So I cut the holes and then I toast the bread? Or toast the bread first? One minute, Tal, you can speak to Eema after—”

  “It’s easier to cut the holes before and add a lot of butter—”

  “Eema, where are you?” It was Tal.

  “At work. I’ll be home very soon. I love you. Now please put Abba on again.”

  “I don’t have patience for this,” Boaz huffed.

  “One last thing, Boaz, please make sure Tal really chews his food and doesn’t gulp it down or else he’ll—”

  �
�Throw up,” Boaz said. “You don’t think I hear him in the middle of the night? I can’t sleep, anyway. You sleep like a dead person and I’m just lying there. I even went out and got you papayas.”

  “Thank you. You didn’t have to—”

  “I know how much you like them. Shoval, stop doing that!”

  There was a click of the phone. The wind rose, ruffling Emily’s hair. She shivered. The sun was sinking to the other side of the earth. She was cold and afraid, suddenly aware that she was alone on the boulder. Ali had already climbed down; he was standing with his back to her, looking out across the valley.

  Emily stood, her heart and head colliding. She was torn and confused and desperate. She said the only prayer she could think of. “OhGodohGodohGodohGod! God of my father, God of my forefathers, help me, please. Why can’t You tell me what to do?”

  31

  July 12, 2006

  Lauren

  Lauren gazed at the grass along the sides of the road. It was another cloudless, hot day; only the start of summer, and already the green was parched and faded. She drove away from the hospital with Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia” on the radio, and then came the news. In a low voice, the newscaster announced that Hezbollah had infiltrated the northern border, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two others. Lauren called David as soon as she stopped at the main traffic light in Nahariya.

  “The news is bad, right?” Lauren said, her shoulders sinking.

  “It isn’t good. The army’s retaliating. There’s already talk of war.”

  “Oh no.”

  “It will be okay,” he said. “But getting back to our reality, I’m going to take the girls to the beach. When will you be home?”

  “I’m going to visit Jasmine and I’ll be home after that.”

  “Why do you even waste your time with her?”

  “Because I feel sorry for her.” Lauren also felt guilty because Jasmine’s ex-husband was in love with Lauren’s best friend. “I want to try to cheer her up.”

  “Whatever you do isn’t going to help her,” David said, but not unkindly, in the tone of a doctor who knew the prognosis was grim.

  “I know.”

  “So come back as soon as you can—I saw that gourmet macaroni and cheese you made and I don’t know if I can hold myself back from eating it.”

  “Very funny.”

  Lauren turned into the village of Maloul. It was just after the afternoon siesta, and the day was starting all over again, the village coming back to life.

  She parked at the Haddad family compound. Ali’s three brothers—Yusef, Amin, and Razi—were off at work. Their wives—Lubna, Aya, and Gisella—were sitting with Ali’s mother and his sister in the backyard. Lauren spotted Jasmine, who stood up to greet her. Or a vestige of Jasmine; in a shapeless taupe shirt and brown Bedouin pants, she shuffled toward Lauren. Gone was the young woman with wide-set ebony eyes and an easy smile who’d greeted Lauren when she’d moved to Peleg years ago. In her place was a morose woman with hair matted on one side like she’d just woken up from a nap.

  Lauren went first to kiss Wafa, Ali’s mother and the matriarch of the family. She had skin the color of a gingerbread cookie, with eyes like raisins set close to her small, crooked nose. A white hijab (Wafa had been to Mecca) was draped across her forehead and pulled under her plump chin. Lauren walked around the circle of women. She kissed Ali’s sister, Suha, who wore a short-sleeved mauve shirt and trousers, then Lubna and Aya. Or was it Aya and Lubna? They were both religious. They shared the same overcast expression—as though it might rain on them at any moment—and in their mushroom-colored head coverings and matching robes, Lauren could never tell them apart. Lauren reached blue-eyed Gisella, who had met Ali’s brother when he was in dental school in Romania ten years before. Gisella still looked like a duped mail-order bride.

  “Lauren, please.” Suha gestured to a vacant chair next to her.

  Lauren glanced at Jasmine, who sent her an imperceptible nod. Lauren sat down and Aya (or was it Lubna?) walked away, returning with a cup of coffee on a silver tray.

  “So, nu?” Suha looked at Lauren expectantly, her russet eyes as round as dinner plates. “How is your friend Jumana now that she left Amjad?”

  “Jumana’s great. I’m sure you heard that Amjad was beating her up for years. Everybody knew it, nobody could stop him, and she finally got up the courage to leave. I went with some of the other nurses from the hospital to bring her a brand-new set of pots and pans for her apartment in Nahariya.”

  Aya and Lubna exchanged glances, clicked their tongues.

  “She should be living in the village with her parents,” said the one Lauren thought was Aya.

  “It’s not good for a woman to live all alone,” added Lubna.

  “But she has her two sons living with her,” Lauren protested.

  Ali’s mother spoke excitedly in Arabic. Suha remarked, “My mother is saying that even the qadi, the religious judge, and some of the men in her family went to Jumana and begged her to make peace with Amjad and stay married. But she refused.”

  Lauren nodded, and then said as diplomatically as possible, “Tell your mother that they convinced Jumana once before to go back to Amjad and when she returned, he beat her even more.”

  “He gave her a little push every now and then.” Suha nudged Lauren’s shoulder, hard, to demonstrate. “Jumana exaggerated the whole thing.”

  “I don’t think so,” Lauren replied, then gave up. She knew she couldn’t argue with all of them. The women fell quiet. They sat, staring at one another, then they stared at Lauren, who’d been in their courtyard often enough to know that this was what they usually did: they sat and sat and waited for someone or something to talk about.

  Jasmine announced something to the group in Arabic, and then told Lauren, “Let’s go upstairs and talk.”

  Lauren nodded, rising, and said to Wafa, “Next time, I’ll sit with you longer.”

  “Inshallah,” said Wafa. If God wills it. “Come back soon.”

  “Inshallah,” Lauren repeated, going around the circle again, kissing Wafa and Suha, then Lubna, Aya, and Gisella, saying good-bye.

  Lauren followed Jasmine upstairs and into her dim apartment. Jasmine’s plaid slippers trundled past the living room, where white couches faced each other, their pillows plump as geese. On a glass coffee table stood a tissue box decorated with beads and cut glass, and a large crystal bowl filled with candies wrapped in silver paper. Long drapes blocked out the sun.

  When they reached the kitchen, Jasmine stopped by the stove.

  “Do you want some more coffee?”

  “Okay,” Lauren said, although she’d just finished a cup down in the yard. “I love your coffee.”

  Jasmine poured water into a finjan, placed it on the stove, and waited for it to boil.

  Lauren walked to the sink. Through the window, she could see the flat rooftops of Maloul. The solar water heaters, the clotheslines, the satellite dishes, and the minaret of the village mosque pointing like a finger up to heaven. She thought of the news she’d heard on the radio. Turning around, Lauren asked, “Jasmine, do you think the Arabs will ever accept the Jews in Israel?”

  “No.”

  “Not even if we’ve already been here for thousands of years?”

  “Not even if you’ve been here for a million years.”

  What could Lauren say to that?

  She looked around Jasmine’s immaculate kitchen, which smelled like bleach, as it always did, because of Jasmine’s campaign against bad odors. On the refrigerator was a photograph of Ali with Omar and Marwa, taken when the kids were about six and eight years old; they were teenagers now. Lauren wondered what was going on with Ali and Emily. Emily had said that she’d stopped seeing Ali, but Lauren wasn’t sure and she didn’t want to ask. And standing with Jasmine in her kitchen, Lauren didn’t want to know.

  The water boiled. Jasmine turned down the flame and added coffee and sugar to the pot, but
she did not stir the water. She let it boil again, stirring itself. Then she inspected the coffee, stirring and stirring, and shut off the flame.

  “That isn’t instant coffee.” Lauren attempted a joke.

  Jasmine clicked her tongue. “Tomorrow is Ali’s cousin’s wedding.”

  “I love going to weddings. You’ll have a nice time.”

  “Alone at a wedding?”

  “Aren’t Omar and Marwa going with you?”

  “They’ll be with their cousins.”

  “What about sitting with Aya and Amin?”

  “Aya wakes up early each morning just to sneak to the roof to steal the sunniest spots on the clothesline. And when she asked Amin not to spit his sunflower shells on the stairs, he told her that since she has nothing else to do he might as well give her some housework.”

  “That’s so wrong.”

  “A lot of things are wrong.” Jasmine took two small porcelain cups without handles and poured coffee into them. She placed some vanilla wafers on a plate and they sat down at the kitchen table.

  Lauren took a wafer, bit into it. It tasted like the ice cream cones she used to eat as a kid in Brookline: not much more than sugar and air. “How about Yusef and Lubna?”

  “I begged Lubna to stop her son from hitting my daughter,” Jasmine replied. “But she told me that hitting girls is the best way for a boy to become a man.”

  “That’s awful.” Lauren took a sip of coffee. “Razi and Gisella?”

  “What does Gisella know? She never talks. She’s from Romania.”

  Lauren had the urge to shake Jasmine, to get her to find something good to say about someone. “And Suha?”

  “Suha?” Jasmine’s nostrils flared. “What right does an old maid have to boss me around just because she’s Ali’s sister?”

  “Suha’s life isn’t easy. She isn’t married. She’s over thirty. She lives with her parents and does everything for them. She takes them to stores, to doctors; she even cuts their toenails. When anybody in the family needs a ride, she takes them.”

  “She has her freedom.” Jasmine’s wan face turned an even more colorless yellow, like a statue in a wax museum. “I tried to kill myself.”