by Malu Halasa
In the living room the boys are engrossed in an episode of CSI. Mother Fadhma, lightly snoring, is napping in a chair with her swollen feet, in stockings, propped up on a stool. Everything appears as it should be, nothing untoward. Relieved, Samira offers Muna a seat on the sofa. Looking a little tired, Laila enters the living room and announces, “If we don’t get ready now, we’ll never go,” although she doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry herself and stares vacantly off into space.
Mother Fadhma rubs her eyes and yawns. Muna helps her out of the chair and she leans on her granddaughter’s arm as they navigate the hallway.
Alone in her room, Samira takes out the envelope and holds it against the light. She can’t make out anything, but then she’s not supposed to. Placing it carefully on the table, she changes clothes. Folded, it fits snugly into another convenient pocket. Once Muna joins her, they dismiss the unsuitable clothing in the suitcase and choose again from Samira’s closet. As the two of them wait for the rest of the family, Samira repeatedly touches the letter as though it’s a religious relic or lucky charm.
22
Abu Za’atar fingers the magnifying glass around his neck. He usually avoids screen-work after dark; it makes his good eye wonky. After the departure of his nieces, he upbraids himself in the Internet café. He should have paid closer attention to where Samira had been standing with her friend. Physically Ali doesn’t look related to any of the town’s prominent families, with none of their extravagant hooked noses and acute bowlegged-ness. The Featherer’s brain whirls like a Rolodex of local genealogy, recalling births, deaths, and body types.
Truly there was nothing outstanding about the young man, not even the shirt on his back. Still, this small detail won’t leave Abu Za’atar alone. The blue cotton jersey, a jumped up tee with a white collar, could have been procured from any number of clothing outlets. The shirt’s leaping camel logo appears on casual clothing that camouflages rich and poor alike. He keeps turning it over in his mind. A similar consignment arrived in the Marvellous Emporium from Aleppo with frayed or falling-off collars—the last of the great Syrian cotton manufacturing industry fleeing the war. Never one to shirk from duty, Abu Za’atar redressed the damage, but his needlework around the affected necklines was remedial at best. He had been forced to use chartreuse-colored thread instead of brilliant white because of a run on cotton goods by Uzbek pilgrims. Preparing for the hottest and holiest journey of their lives, they ransacked the emporium for micro-thin robes and paper-thin terry cloth towels for the Hajj to Mecca.
Revisiting the shirt, Abu Za’atar realizes it is his own crude handiwork calling out to him. The consignment of jerseys arrived in every color of the rainbow. The pastel pinks and lavenders were quickly disposed of, sold to the restaurant staff of the Holy Land. He held back the manly blues and sold one with a not so modest markup to Hussein.
“I require more time than the usual.” He leers confidently at Salameh over the counter. “Any discounts?”
Entrepreneurs should stick together, but the kid conjuring codes dismisses him with a paper slip.
The winged proprietor snoops between the computers before unceremoniously taking a seat and typing. Screwing up his good eye, he clicks on Internet Explorer and drags the cursor along the top toolbar to favorites. Beneath that, he finds and selects history, and a list of arcane links appears for the Dead Sea scrolls and YouTube videos by Beyoncé. Although it seems highly unlikely that any of these, except for “Single Ladies,” would be pressing topics for his unmarried niece, Abu Za’atar feels his overarching stratagem is not without merit.
He logs out and moves sideways—new seat, new machine. This time the history reveals endless links for video games. Abu Za’atar doesn’t quite understand on-screen violence. Why playact murder and decapitation, when the real gore takes place daily just over the border? He dismisses these links too. Ali is too sunburned and muscular to be a couch potato. Not even a chin as raw and tender as a baby’s diaper-rashed bottom can disguise that.
Abu Za’atar exits this terminal. Ideally he would like to go phishing in the next one beside it. But a headscarfed young woman, deep in conversation via a headset with a mouthpiece, blocks his access. He doesn’t wish to pry, but from his limited experience, social networking leads only to trauma and disillusionment. He can see that she is already exhibiting the telltale sign: excitable irritability. So he avails himself of the computer on her other side. Before he fully settles, Salameh beckons him to the front. With his magnifying glass and code in hand, Abu Za’atar cheerfully complies.
“Every computer is the same,” the kid carefully enunciates as though speaking to a moron. “No need for musical chairs.”
“Of course!” Abu Za’atar is thoroughly enjoying the novelty of conversing with an IT guru. A regular since the launch of the Internet café, the Featherer spends as much time there as his wandering eye and business commitments allow. Usually the under-eighteens scrupulously avoid him, let alone surrender valuable tech tips. “I appreciate your concern.”
He really means it. The older man recognizes something green and good in the boy, a mistaken arrogance perhaps. Heartened by the healing powers of commerce, Abu Za’atar strides toward the next site of intended excavation, only to find a young buck in situ.
“Age before beauty!” he squawks, slamming down the magnifying glass on the monitor. Startled, his adversary slinks away.
Abu Za’atar peers into a past of online shopping sites that, hand on heart, he will return to. In a fit of pique he pops his head over the monitor. He is going to be forced into the unenviable task of taking matters into his own hands. The situation isn’t right and, if misunderstood, could turn downright ugly. “Wonder,” as he has nicknamed the young woman in the headscarf beside him—not unkindly—has to get out of her seat and give him her computer.
Once a proprietor always a proprietor; he can draw only from past experiences. There was a time in the Marvellous Emporium when the aisles of Islamic prêt-à-porter—abaya robes and cloaks, shawls, cowls, gloves, stockings, and veils—were entirely in black. Periodically the odd high-necked, long-sleeved, and ground-length sharia coat broke the monotony with dark gray or navy blue: serious colors for a serious religion. In a separate area, unofficially marked, shelves and drawers were stuffed with garishly colored tops and leggings, some adorned with bling or costume jewelry. The rule of thumb was thus: the drabber the outerwear, the greater the possibility of flamboyant garmenting concealed beneath.
Then seemingly overnight the emporium started doing a brisk trade in lurid fluorescent scarves, tight shirts, cigarette jeans, and big sunglasses. A younger, more determined generation was stepping out, and Abu Za’atar began noting their progress on the high street. The brashness of their hip-hugging clothes, a withering no-nonsense approach, particularly toward the men of the town like himself, and the happenchance of a long-sleeved T-shirt with the letter “W” written in glitter across the front all combined to be—he realized in a lightbulb moment—the Wonder of Fashion. In some circles these modern hipsterettes were called “hijabis” or “muhajababes,” but those names were derisory and, to his mind, didn’t capture a socially transformative new look. Abu Za’atar has always championed independent clothing in the marketplace, but tonight’s different.
“That’s no way to snare him, dear.” The Featherer’s magnifying glass is such a breech of personal space that the appalled young woman logs off, grabs a purse the size of a small pony, and flees.
Abu Za’atar knows he has half a minute, if that. He slips into the seat, slams in the code, and opens the browser’s history. He soon understands how badly he misread Wonder. She wasn’t in love. She had been reading news leads about the bodies of dead Muslim Brotherhood regularly dumped on the Egyptian side of the Sinai border. Abu Za’atar hates it when his assessment of people and situations are so off the mark, but his need outweighs social niceties. One link with an unusual configuration stands out from those before and after. He ignores the n
ervous tingle of anticipation across his shoulder blades and remains in the zone, with his magnified eye fixed on the screen and his unmagnified one on Wonder complaining in no uncertain terms to Salameh up front.
The Featherer clicks on a URL from the badlands of Afghanistan—finally a page in celebration of holy war, an Instagram for jihadists. He ignores the lurid religiosity and scrolls through the posted pictures until he finally finds the one of men and guns that burned themselves onto his retina. He glimpsed it for only a second behind Samira and then it was gone as fast as she could make it disappear. “Oh, Ali,” Za’atar is tutting to himself as Salameh pushes through the rows with the young woman in tow. In the time it takes them to reach the disputed computer, the desktop has been tidied up and all is well in the world of information technology.
“You were warned!” The kid sounds exasperated. “What’s going on?”
“He insulted me,” says Wonder. “Men who do not respect women should be barred from the Internet café!”
Abu Za’atar peers up through his magnifying glass as he strokes the machine. “The Internet means universes to me.” He’s not telling an untruth. He has come to regard cyberspace as a virtual Marvellous Emporium. His looming magnified eye follows the tender curves of the keyboard and monitor.
“You love and respect it too?” He directs his question to his adversary. She has no idea what he’s talking about. Nonetheless he is completely sympathetic. Declaring, “Borrowed but not stolen,” he vacates the seat with a flourish.
After escorting him to the front of the shop, Salameh accepts Abu Za’atar’s extra piastres and his explanation for the “misunderstanding incurred, accidentally or otherwise.” Then the Featherer takes off through the streets like a maniacal homing pigeon.
He feels topflight. The afternoon excursion left him listless and low. Instead of moping around the emporium he had coffee at the Rest House and went to console himself in the Internet café—time excellently spent. What flew out of Hussein’s house fell from the sky and hit Abu Za’atar on the head. Crossing the asphalted part of the main street, he really does feel like crowing. If it weren’t for the come-hither neon array of the Marvellous Emporium and everything it promises, this town would have been run into the ground long ago.
Inside he doesn’t have time to switch on the lights. The outdoor signage strobes in thousands of complex color combinations. The effect amplifies the tangled excesses of the emporium, which tower above and all around him. In the intermittent darkness and light, he throws open his booty nest. No need to search; it had been prepared beforehand. With the magnifying glass in one hand and a cell phone in the other, he dials the number on the business card.
He is expected. The Marvellous Emporium, its proprietor, and love of the oddball are renowned. He conveys the minimum amount of information in the language of security he and his listener understand, with the usual buzzwords: “terrorist,” “fundamentalist,” “algorithm.”
Even though he holds back a detail or two, a secret plan is so easily slotted into place that the Featherer can hardly believe his munificent luck. No one will know about the call and he alone will reap its benefits. Only the frenetic stabs of color and light bear witness to his greed.
23
At her dressing table, Laila doesn’t feel like going out. The wedding feast will be a stark reminder of her own broken marriage. She would rather wait for Hussein at home. They need to talk. At this time of crisis, she knows she should be grateful for the little she has and focus on her children. Instead another question crowds her thoughts: Could her life have been different?
Absentmindedly she takes a pair of black star sapphire earrings from her jewelry box and inspects them in the palm of her hand. A long time ago a man expressed an interest in her but not through the official channels of her family. Because she was young and impressionable, she arranged to meet him clandestinely but never for too long. The very walls of the fortress town where she lived in the country’s south festered with the many eyes and ears of the Sabas tribe.
Constructed during the Crusades, ancient structures within citadel walls had been extended and divided by an ever-increasing population. Its labyrinth of narrowing stone streets, compacted courtyards, concealed entrances, and barred doors constituted a place of mystery that should have revealed its secrets slowly. With everyone living at such close quarters and more than half the families able to trace some kind of blood relation, the opposite was true. At one baptism Laila counted twenty-seven cousins. The extended family represented a mere fraction of the second-largest Christian tribe in Jordan.
Beyond the wadi and desert, in the mountains, Al Jid presided over a smaller branch of the family, and from there, the Sabases spread throughout the country in a web of complex relationships. Not even national borders confined them. Many traveled to work in the oil-rich Gulf States, and when they returned their showy material wealth enticed others to leave. The more adventurous sought variety in the world at large. Laila’s most treasured possessions were not traditional embroideries or carvings but scarves and perfumes from duty-free shops. Although the men of the family spent years abroad, when they married, they idhan wijhak biteyn ardak—“painted the mud of their own land on their face”—and sought a partner from within the family.
The forbidden nature of Laila’s new friendship made it exciting. How happy she had been the day he placed the earrings in her hand. “Stars to match those that are your eyes,” he said.
Even now she can hear his voice. Laila admonishes herself. It is Hussein or the disturbed soldier who should fill her thoughts, not an illicit love affair. She hesitates before giving in completely. She puts on the earrings. Her reflection in the mirror reminds her that she never once wore them in public, although at the time she kept them close, in a pocket or a change purse. That year, there had been a scandal. A girl in her class seen with a Muslim boy on the street disappeared. Her mother wept openly, but the girl’s brothers were taciturn. When her body was discovered in a ravine, all her father said was “At least our honor is secured.” The death was recorded as an accident, but the news whispered from house to house might as well have been broadcast over a loudspeaker. For the young women living in the fortress town, it was another reminder of the no-go areas in their lives.
Eventually Laila’s earrings were discovered and she was forced to reveal her friendship to her mother, who displayed real anger for the first and last time. “How can you be so stupid? You know the dangers.” She kept her voice low so the brother, who had taken in mother and daughter after the death of Laila’s father, would not hear. The earrings were confiscated and Laila was forced to stop seeing the only man, apart from her husband, who gave her jewelry. For years she believed they had been destroyed, but after her mother’s death, she found them hidden among her old stockings.
Soon after she received the earrings came her engagement. Laila returned home one afternoon from the government-sponsored teacher training course and found the women of her immediate household in a state of excitement. She realized a momentous decision was being made on her behalf. Her aunt called her mother “Mother of Pearl,” a family nickname used only at times of great happiness.
“Saduhf, it is your daughter they are asking for.”
Flushed with pleasure, Saduhf meekly joined her elder brother in the front room. He was drinking tea with a handsome army officer and a self-obsessed chatterbox of a man bragging incessantly about his business and their town. Her aunt, holding Laila’s hand, pulled the curtain partition open slightly so the girl could watch the negotiations unobserved.
Her uncle’s mood was expansive, although good manners prevented him from appearing too eager. He told his visitors that in addition to being pretty, his niece was thakiya wa shaatra—“clever and good.” Then he confided in hushed tones, “She can be headstrong.”
Laila had been so shocked she barely took in her aunt’s running commentary. The officer, ten years her senior, recently lost his father. With most of t
he family abroad, except for his mother and youngest sister, Laila would govern unchallenged in his household. After the two men left, her mother kissed and hugged her, saying, “God willing, he looks healthy.”
Saduhf had never gotten over losing her own husband, who died before her daughter was born. The brokenhearted widow with the beautiful name was treated as a pariah in her own family. Without a husband and provider, mother and daughter were shunted among uncaring relations until Saduhf’s fifth brother took pity on them. Under his roof, Saduhf endlessly and gratefully cleaned, cooked, and sewed. It was her mother’s fingers that Laila keenly recollects: craggy, misshapen, bone under translucent flesh, polished smooth by toil. When she massaged them at night Saduhf frequently repeated one piece of advice: “Guard yourself, daughter: marry strong, not weak.”
The situation in her uncle’s house made Laila only more determined. Studying came easily, and she worked hard. Initially her uncle had been pleased by his niece’s achievements, but as she began to mature, tensions rose. Once her breasts developed, he stopped talking to her altogether. As an outspoken, precocious child, she had been treasured and accepted. As a young woman with a mind and body of her own, she was always made to feel awkward, like someone who ought to be constrained.
Saduhf’s brother, pleased by the proposed union, told his sister, “There is no better match,” as though the teenager were not in the same room. The limited freedom she hoped for seemed permanently marred by those five words from her obdurate relative.
Television arrived in the citadel, and Laila often accompanied her mother to the house of a cousin who had purchased a set. In a living room crowded with relatives, she glimpsed conflicting images of life outside: Hollywood matinee idols and, by the standards of the fortress town, scantily clad presenters on Italian game shows. These women weren’t traded or bartered like animals; they were free to do as they liked—while she was not allowed to make the most basic decisions. Laila considered herself an obedient and caring daughter, but something in her rebeled against yielding to feudal custom. After Hussein and Abu Za’atar appeared at her uncle’s house, Laila’s dreams—unformed but shimmering like the salmon-filled streams she watched in nature programs—ended as abruptly as someone switching off the TV. Whatever her own feelings on the matter, she was to be married. Her uncle’s only concession, one that her husband insisted on, was that she be allowed to finish the teacher training course and earn the certificate that would guarantee her employment. That’s what made Hussein different: he wanted her to have a professional life when the majority of her male relatives would have kept her at home.