Three Daughters: A Novel

by Consuelo Saah Baehr

  “I know them,” said Delal. “May I try?”

  The teacher looked pitiful, her shoulders slumped in defeat. Visions of a cherubic Peter were dashed. “All right, dear. Let’s hear what you remember.”

  Delal was very good on stage. She was impish and relaxed. From the audience’s distant vantage point, she was better in the part than Nijmeh would have been.

  Madame Boulanger rushed to congratulate her. “Delal, you saved the play,” she said. “I can’t believe it. The part couldn’t be in better hands. I thank you and the cast thanks you and the school thanks you. You are Peter Pan.”

  Delal smiled and said nothing. Being a star was exhilarating, but something far more important had been accomplished. She had been pitted against Nijmeh and had found a way to win.

  February 4, 1947. The radio reported that the London talks had ended in failure. Britain might impose a solution but also might want the Palestine problem placed before the United Nations, which some predicted would result in Russia backing the Arabs and the US backing the Zionists in the Security Council.

  The Arabs said, “They’re going to give our country to the Zionists. Just like that? Who will do that? The UN at Lake Success. What a foolish name.”

  The Zionists said, “They’ll never partition. World opinion is against us.”

  The resolution to provide a Jewish homeland went round and round. The Jews, fearful the plan would be defeated, went on a terrorist rampage. Arabs retaliated. Railroad lines from Haifa to Cairo were regularly blown up. The buses from Tamleh to Jerusalem stopped running and the mood was grim.

  Christmas Eve, 1947. Tense and strange. No carols could be sung in Shepherds’ Field because of the curfew. Most of the holiday mail had been lost because of a robbery at the main post office and the Mishwes received no holiday greetings from their sons in America.

  Miriam crocheted a large red stocking for Nijmeh to hang on the fieldstone fireplace in the sheik’s house. She stood vigil each dawn at the greengrocer’s, hoping for one last shipment of Jaffa oranges to place in the toe for luck.

  Her relationship with her granddaughter was disappointingly formal. She worried that the deepness of her voice made her sound stern. She wanted to tell Nijmeh a joke, but all the jokes Zareefa told her were risqué—they had to do with British soldiers having sex with simple country girls. Sometimes she would sit next to Nijmeh with a protective arm over her shoulders as if to soften the stiffness of their conversation. “Tell me, how is the school? Do you like it?”

  “Yes, of course, Teta.”

  She always said the same thing and worried that Nijmeh might assume she was senile. At times she had to squelch a desire to say exactly what was on her mind: How do you feel about your overprotective father and your horse-crazy mother? Are you disappointed? And what if Nijmeh said yes? What could Miriam do about it? Wasn’t she the one who had put the marriage together?

  She wouldn’t have done anything in her life differently, except perhaps kept up her schooling. She didn’t regret Max, although now his memory was pale and cold. Her comfort and satisfaction came from an unexpected reliance on Nadeem. He took care of her more than was necessary. She was strong and fit yet he always took her arm when they walked, as if he needed to feel her reality. He liked to bring her food at family picnics, fussing over her plate until it was filled with her favorite things. “Here it is,” he would say, placing a napkin on her lap. “What else? Is there anything else?”

  He retrieved her shoes from wherever she kicked them off and placed them side by side, ready for her. He cultivated her garden, painstakingly picking off the weeds. He never went down the road away from her without turning back to wave. Their marriage had appeared so arbitrary—a girl from this household and a boy from that one. They hadn’t chosen each other out of love or necessity. Yet despite that, he had decided to adore her.

  The only way she acknowledged his devotion was to accept it. She didn’t have the gift of graceful thanks and her attitude toward him—it appeared to be indifference, but was really fear of closeness—had hardened into habit. She was on the verge of discovering how much he meant to her but, as it happened, it was soon too late. The Christmas orange didn’t bring luck.

  In that indelible year of 1948 the rain came very late. It was January 4 before the precious water descended in torrents and, despite the regular noise of bombs and the frequent funerals, everyone was overjoyed to see the springs fill up. Three days later, at Miriam’s urging, Nadeem went to Jerusalem to look for mail from the boys.

  It had been a while since he had walked on the Nablus Road and he anticipated each landmark with a peculiar psychic comfort. Even as a boy, this walk had always lifted his spirits. Around the first hill that rose from the valley, there were still traces of the ancient Roman road. To the east was Tel el-Ful, where Saul had lived. He stopped on Mount Scopus to experience the same awesome view of Jerusalem’s domes and minarets that Alexander had seen. Down the slope he could see the British war cemetery with its rows of crosses. So many lives had been taken during the first tragic war. So many promises had been made, and they had come to nothing.

  Nadeem was shocked to find that already he needed a zone pass to go from one part of the Old City to another. The streets were deserted and some of the shops were bricked up, while others had their iron gates shuttered. The Semiramis Hotel had been blown up the previous day and everyone was still in shock. Bulos Meo’s Oriental shop on David Street had its shutters closed, but a small side door opened and he stopped to wish Bulos a happy new year before continuing.

  As he walked, head bent against the raw wind, it never occurred to Nadeem to return home. He knew these winding streets as he knew his own house. He had his favored spots in the Old City that reminded him of the days when he was part of the merchant community and arrived with the throng of workers each morning. Customarily he entered from Damascus Gate, as it was the most convenient, but he hadn’t been in the city for many months and had the urge to go around to Jaffa Gate and see what was new. Just as he approached, he heard a roar and saw an armored car barreling toward the gate and then one of the occupants threw a bomb into the throng of people. The driver turned, drove back to the corner of Princess Mary Avenue, threw another bomb, then accidentally crashed into a wall.

  The screams of pain and horror were intolerable, yet he felt compelled to go and help the wounded. He picked his way through the debris and was surprised to find himself weaving and his legs unsteady. Then he felt a wetness in his midsection. Blood was seeping through his jacket. “I’m hit myself,” he said aloud. “Ya Allah.” He grabbed a man standing nearby. “Please. I’m Nadeem Mishwe from Tamleh. Please go and tell my wife how it happened. Miriam,” he called out. “Miriam . . .” He slumped to the ground and slipped in and out of consciousness. In the distance he could hear the ambulance siren and momentarily he felt secure. But it wasn’t to be. By the time they found him, he had already become the seventeenth casualty of that day’s violence.

  She didn’t say a word for a week. Zareefa wouldn’t leave her side, but when she went home to get a new supply of clothes, Miriam ran to the cemetery and began digging up the grave with her hands. By the time Zareefa and Nadia found her, she had made a sizable hole and was sitting dazed inside it, keening and rocking back and forth. “Mama,” said Nadia, putting her arms around her mother, “I want to take you home with me. You can come to my house and stay.” Miriam was oblivious to their presence and continued to rock and cry without tears. When dusk rolled in, she became quiet and both women lifted her between them and took her away.

  “It was just that day,” she said in a haunted voice, “just that particular day that I realized he was everything in the world to me.”

  “I know,” said Nadia. “I know.”

  “No, you don’t,” she said crossly. “You don’t understand. Not after the bombing. Before! As he went down the road—he had to walk because the buse
s weren’t running—I looked at his back and I realized what he meant to me. I wanted to run after him—one of those impulses that you stop and weigh. I let him go.” The last sentence came out dark and husky, as if her throat were coated with pain. “It was too late.”

  The year didn’t improve. Reports that a partition plan was gaining favor came from UN Headquarters in New York. Preparations were made for war and the large dining room of Friends became a hospital. In Jaffa civilians were evacuated by the truckloads. The price of petrol went to four dollars a gallon and four times that much in the crucial cities. Food became scarce overnight.

  On the night of May 13, Samir and Nadia, Peter and Julia, Umm Jameel and Miriam crowded around the crystal set as the high commissioner, Sir Alan Cunningham, made a very sad farewell speech. There had been such faith and bright hope in the British when they took over in 1922. And now the Mandate, pledged to insure the rights of the Palestinians, was stealing away in the dark of night. There were no ceremonies, no flags waving. It was a dark hour in British colonial history.

  After the speech there was news that the American freighter John H. Quick had left Galveston harbor for Bordeaux with enough wheat to feed all of France. This was America’s outstretched hand to war-crippled Europe. The announcer quoted Mr. Churchill, who hailed it as “the most unsordid act in history.”

  “Humph,” muttered Peter. “And how does he characterize Britain’s duplicity toward us? The most sordid?”

  Miriam, who was still in the grip of the farewell speech, was weeping. “I remember when the British troops reached Jerusalem during the First World War. I was working in the French hospital and we all ran out in the streets, begging them for medical supplies. They gave us everything we wanted. When the Mandate began, we danced in the streets. And now . . .”

  That night Nadia and Samir fell into a fitful sleep with the sounds of British convoys on the road to Haifa’s harbor, from which they would set sail on the stroke of midnight. “Tomorrow,” said Samir, lying with his head under crossed arms, “we will awaken to a country without a government.”

  The fall that Nijmeh turned fifteen, L’École Française initiated a dance for eighth and ninth formers and invited the boys from St. George’s School.

  The dance came as too much of a surprise to Nadia. All day she had to stop what she was doing to absorb the rude fact that Nijmeh was on the verge of womanhood. It took her by surprise and made her moody.

  The occasion demanded a special outfit and mother and daughter went to several shops along Jaffa Road and tried on dresses. They were exhilarated to be doing something so promising. Nadia made faces behind the saleswoman and vetoed dress after dress. Too fussy, too bare, too green.

  At least two silk taffetas (one dazzling red with a sweetheart neckline) would have done the job. In fact they transformed Nijmeh from a beautiful adolescent into a sensual woman of at least twenty. Nadia stared at her stupidly and a buzzing began in her head. The word sultry kept popping to mind, an adjective she didn’t want applied to her daughter. “It would be awful to be overdressed,” Nadia said and Nijmeh agreed. “You don’t want to look as if you’re wearing a dress that’s too grown-up.”

  “No.”

  Late in the day, with little time left, they settled on a navy batiste with a white voile Peter Pan collar. It tied in the back and was not appreciably different from the dresses Nijmeh had worn at age six. To complete the ensemble, she wore patent-leather strap shoes and lace-trimmed socks. At five foot five and with a healthy pair of breasts, the flat bodice made her look malformed and ridiculous.

  The other girls—they had discussed their outfits ad infinitum—were wearing their first grown-up clothes. Delal was in a black satin sheath (worn with two-inch heels) with cap sleeves and a cowl neckline filled with a red silk scarf.

  To start the evening off, Madame Boulanger wisely lined up boys and girls on opposing sides and had them meet in the center of the auditorium and dance with their opposite number. Through this democratic method, Nijmeh was twice moved around the floor by a short red-faced Greek boy named Socrates. Many boys—most were sons of military families more at home on the soccer field—were determined not to dance, but didn’t mind standing around talking with the girls. Some played with the punch, slopping it around to amuse their audience. A few paired off and continued dancing.

  There was a moment after the music stopped when Nijmeh was alone in the middle of the dance floor, singled out for public viewing. To those overstimulated pubescent eyes, she looked bizarre. The girls were titillated by the prospect of disaster. It was unbelievable! “She’s wearing Mary Jane shoes and socks! Socks!”

  A deadly flush crept up Nijmeh’s neck. The mistake was so obvious now. For one awful moment, she couldn’t decide which way to turn. In her confusion she let out a sharp cry. Delal let the remarks go on for a while and then told Nijmeh to go with her to the ladies’ room.

  “Who dressed you like this? Your father?”

  “No. My mother and I chose it together.”

  “I don’t believe it. Why would you want to do this to yourself?”

  “We didn’t do it on purpose,” said Nijmeh.

  “Oh, no?” said Delal archly. “It looks to me that someone wants to keep you in the cradle. Well”—she untied the sashes and retied them in front and to one side—“push the collar inside and take off your socks. It’ll look as if you’ve got stockings on. That’s about all you can do.”

  “Go back out,” said Nijmeh. “You don’t have to stay here with me.”

  Delal had no intention of staying with her. She reapplied her lipstick, gave Nijmeh one more exasperated look, and left.

  Nijmeh leaned against a sink. She could feel her underarms and back becoming wet from perspiration. What was she supposed to do? She sat on the tile floor and put her head in her arms, but then, worried someone would think she was ill, stood again. Her mother, who was in the second contingent of chaperones, was due any moment and Nijmeh cringed. She’d have to deal with that, too. Her mother was so innocent and sometimes that made her angry. Was it innocence or just not wanting to be bothered with things that didn’t interest her?

  She went out and took a seat in the farthest corner of the auditorium. Two other girls danced together a dozen feet away. The rest were crowded on the opposite side of the room. In time her mother arrived and began to walk toward her.

  “Why are you all by yourself?”

  Nijmeh shrugged. Her hair was disheveled and her dress was rumpled from too much handling.

  “Why not join the others?” Nadia’s voice was high-pitched and anxious.

  “They’re all paired off.”

  “I don’t think so. Not at all.”

  “Well, they’re sort of all together.”

  “And why not you, too?”

  “Everyone’s with the person they want to be with,” she said reasonably, “and I didn’t want to butt in.” Then, seeing that her mother in no way understood, she blurted out, “This dress is all wrong. It’s too babyish. Everybody thinks I look like a freak. The girls had a good laugh over it.”

  Nadia swallowed several times. Moment by moment she was assessing the situation and adding it up. She wanted to put her arms around Nijmeh and ask her if anything more terrible had happened, but that would have made things worse. This was all her fault. “I have to chaperone over there,” she said apologetically. “Want to sit with me?”

  Nijmeh shook her head. “I’ll wait here.”

  They drove home in silence with Nadia glancing sideways every few minutes. When she had parked the car, and turned off the key, she said, “It was my fault. I’m sorry. I was so intent on doing the right thing and I did everything wrong.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Yes, it was. I’m not up on those things the way Julia is. We should have had some advice. You must be very angry with me.”

 
; “I’m not angry with you, but you have to promise something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You mustn’t say anything about this to Baba.”

  “Why not?” It was her intention to confess the whole thing to Samir.

  “I don’t want him to know. It’s over now and I’ll forget about it soon, but he’d be terribly hurt.”

  Nadia was so moved by this statement she readily agreed, but afterward, in bed, she became deeply disturbed and went to Nijmeh’s room. “Are you afraid of your father?” she asked.

  “No. I’m not afraid of him.”

  “Then why do you want to protect him? You’re assuming he can’t handle the truth. That isn’t so. Many things have hurt him, but he’s come out of it just fine. You have to be yourself with him and tell the truth.”

  “I’m myself.”

  “Always? And what have you kept from me? Do you do the same thing to me?”

  “I haven’t kept anything from you.”

  “What about the horses? Would you have told me if you hated that?”

  “Yes,” she said and looked away. She had kept so many things from her mother it made her head swim. Her mother was so insulated in her own world. But instead of feeling resentful, she felt protective.

  “I don’t want to make any mistakes with you. I want to be a mother who does the right thing. And one who understands. Nijmeh, I do understand. I do.”

  “I know.”

  “Was it awful tonight?”

  “I’ve been avoided before.” It wasn’t only the dress that had put them off. She wasn’t able to attract the loyalty and interest of other girls. They did avoid her. She couldn’t trade wisecracks with them or commiserate as they did about small eyes or long noses or wide hips. Even the girls who fainted and gagged in science classes became heroines of sorts. But she loved math and science and excelled at both.