by Rajia Hassib
“I’m not being difficult!”
“See? You won’t even let me finish my sentence.”
“I just don’t see why you waste your time on this stuff.”
Ehsan sighed again, shaking her head. Khaled pushed on. “What do you think you’d do? I mean, if you looked here and saw that something was about to happen to me, for instance—”
“Baad elshar!” she retorted, reaching out and grabbing his arm across the table.
“Relax, Setto—I was just talking hypothetically. But even if you saw something good. Anything. What good would it do to know?”
He looked at her, and she, still holding on to his arm, squeezed it in her hand. He looked down at her fingers and was struck by a sudden, vivid memory of her hand brushing aside wet strands of hair that clung to his forehead as he lay sick in bed.
“Knowing might do no good. But praying could. Praying always helps. And knowing might help you decide what to pray for.” Her words were whispered, her eyes fixated on him yet soft. Slowly, she released him, and he jumped up. He took a step toward the kitchen door before stopping and turning around. She, standing, had picked up both her cup and his, and headed toward the sink. He followed, took both cups from her hands, and carried them there himself, placing them carefully on the countertop. Running warm water, he picked up his cup and held it to the light, looking inside. His grandmother, standing beside him, took the cup from his hand and patted him on the back, her large presence squeezing him away from her sink, her territory.
Khaled stood to the side, resting his arm on the counter. He did not know why he had been so persistent in challenging her. But, no matter what he did, she never became truly angry with him. And then, out of the blue, he would do something harmless, forget a pair of socks where they did not belong, and she would lash out at him. Still, he regretted having been defiant. He looked at her as she slowly ran her fingers inside the cup, rinsing it.
“So, Setto?” he asked. She looked up at him. “What did you see?” He pointed toward his cup, empty now, white inside with all traces of coffee grounds washed down the drain.
“Your cup, you mean?” She smiled. “All good. With you, habibi, it’s all good.” She placed the cup on the draining tray, grabbed a dishcloth, and dried her hands, turning to face him. “I knew that from the moment I held you in my arms, when you were just a few minutes old,” she said, smiling tenderly and reaching out to hold one of his hands in hers. “You’re a good boy, Khaled. Always remember that.”
He looked down, resenting how he had led her to believe he cared what patterns the coffee grains drew on the walls of his cup. All nonsense and superstition, of course. But her hand was warm and tender as she pressed his in hers, and he felt good letting her do it, just like she used to grab and hug him every time he walked by her when he was young, just like she used to let him sit in her lap before that. Still, he wished he had gotten a chance to take a better look at his own cup. The one glance he had taken had shown him something that looked like a tree with branches and roots that mirrored each other, the top branches reaching the edge of the cup while the bottom ones disappeared into the moist coffee grounds in the bottom. He wondered what that meant, but he didn’t want to ask. He didn’t want to know. All superstition anyway, he reminded himself again.
She was still holding his hand. Gently, he pulled it away from her.
“I think I’ll go upstairs now, Setto, if you don’t mind.”
Ehsan nodded.
“Of course, habibi. Sorry I took so much of your time today,” she said, looking up at him. She looked exhausted, he felt, or maybe sick—he wasn’t sure. He turned to go up the stairs, but then he stopped.
“Setto,” he said.
“Yes, habibi?”
“I’m . . . I’m sorry,” he said, blushing. He hoped she’d understand what he meant.
Ehsan nodded, and, to his surprise, he thought he saw tears forming in her eyes.
“No, habibi. No. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. May Allah forgive us all,” she said, looking away from him. He took one step toward her, reached one hand to touch her shoulder, and then changed his mind. She was so old, he felt, so old and seemed so tired, and he was sick of all of this, sick of the sadness and the apologies and the condolences. He did not want to do this anymore. Yet even as he stepped back he wished he could come close to her, lean down by her side just like she had done for the months he was sick such a long, long time ago, and offer her healing, a sip of holy Zamzam water, maybe, or a murmured prayer powerful enough to banish whatever it was that was making her shake with sobs. But he had nothing to offer, and he was sick of his helplessness. He ran upstairs and into his room, shutting the door behind him.
• • •
Sitting at his desk, Khaled gave himself a few moments to calm down before flipping open his laptop and getting on his Facebook page. He let his fingers rest on the keyboard, drawing comfort from the touch of technology at his fingertips, from his rooted presence in the modern world and away from prophecies drawn in coffee grounds and obsessions with both an unchangeable past and an unknown future. This was what he had now: keys at his fingertips, pictures on his screen. More important: he had Brittany.
He glanced at the clock and saw it was hardly past three in the afternoon. She got off work at five on Fridays, and, if she had no other plans, she might be willing to meet with him. He had not seen her in weeks, had been avoiding her, in fact. The last time they had met, he had had a close brush with disaster—a slip of the tongue about Hosaam. He had hated the pressure of that slip more than he had feared the exposure. Still he was not sure whether a meeting with her would be wise. But he missed her. Considering what this weekend might bring, he also needed to talk to her. Even if he would never be able to discuss his brother with her, her presence might still help.
He sent her a message, then closed the laptop without waiting for her reply. He would change and go to the city anyway, hope that she would meet him there. That much he knew: he was not going to stay home alone with Ehsan, whose faint sobs seeped through the floor and the walls and dropped throughout his room, nudging him out.
9
ARABIC: Ekra’. Read.
The first word the archangel Gabriel spoke to Muhammad, peace be upon his soul
Fatima ran upstairs the moment she walked into Maraam’s house, and Nagla followed Ameena into the kitchen. Food was cooking on the stove, the scent of spiced beef and onions mixed with a sweet aroma drifting from the oven. Nagla sat at the counter as Ameena stirred the beef stew and said, “Trying to get dinner ready before I leave. Can you believe they were out of goulash at Zidan’s?” Nagla nodded automatically to everything her friend said and made a mental note to walk upstairs to Maraam’s room and bid Fatima goodbye before she left. The ritual did not matter as much as the words did: La ilaha illa Allah, to which Fatima would answer, Muhammad rasool Allah; the shahada, or testimony of faith, broken in two: There is no god except God, and Muhammad is his messenger. When Nagla was a little girl, her mother would say the first phrase and instruct her to answer with the second whenever mother and daughter were to separate, even before going to bed at night. It would be years before Nagla understood the logic behind the strange greeting, the recitation of the testimony that is the first pillar of Islam in lieu of a goodbye. “That way we always know we’ll meet again,” Ehsan had explained. “Just like you cannot be a Muslim without believing in God and his prophet. The phrases belong together, inseparable. You say one and I say the other, and we each carry half of this testimony, and, like it, we become one. The two parts have to meet again.” Years later, during one of their visits to Egypt, Nagla had bought two silver pendants with each of the phrases engraved on a half circle with a jagged edge, the edges, when put together, completing each other. She had given one to Fatima to wear and had kept the other for herself. Now, sitting in Ameena’s kitchen, Nagla tried to remember whether she had seen Fatima put the pendant on that morning. Again she reminded herself to go bi
d her daughter goodbye before she left, utter the words that, she hoped, might offer her protection.
Ameena’s house was filled with words. Walls were covered with calligraphy—the art of Islam. One wall in the family room was half-covered with a wall hanging of the ninety-nine names of God embroidered in gold over black velvet. Placed in concentric circles around a central Allah in decorative letters, the names went through each of God’s attributes. Nagla searched through the circle and found the Compassionate, the Merciful, the Forgiving. She liked the Forgiving. She used to like the All-Just, too, but now it scared her. She searched again: the Loving, the Resurrecter, the Patron, the Giver of Life. Behind Ameena, on three staggered shelves, stood other words: Allhamdu Lellah, or Thank God, in gold letters on a blue ceramic square that stood on miniature legs resembling a painter’s easel; a phrase from the Qur’an evoking God’s protection and painted on a white plate in blue letters; two entire suras on a free-standing plaque—Al-Nas and Al-Falaq, evoking God’s protection from the evils within and without. The upper shelf held a wooden engraving of the testimony: La ilaha illa Allah, Muhammad rasool Allah. For all Ameena’s obsession with quotations from the Qur’an and evocations of God, she never approved of the use of the testimony in greeting. “All hocus pocus; and a bit blasphemous, if you ask me,” she had once chided Nagla on hearing her use the greeting with her children, on witnessing what, to her, was a use of God’s words out of context. Again, Nagla reminded herself to see Fatima before she left. She would have to make sure Ameena did not hear her.
“So you think you’ll be able to make it to our halakah this afternoon?” Ameena asked.
“No—but that’s why I’m here. I wanted to thank you for inviting me. And to apologize. For being—” Nagla paused, looking for words. Ameena nodded.
“No need to apologize for anything. I was still hoping you’d come, though. This week of all weeks.”
“Why?”
“Because of the anniversary, of course.” Ameena banged a wooden spoon against the edge of the large pot. Nagla watched her. She tried to say something, but her throat felt lumpy, so she did not.
“Speaking of that, I’m assuming you know of the memorial service,” Ameena said, running her finger around the edge of the spoon and licking it before tossing the spoon in the sink.
Nagla nodded. “Samir wants us to go.”
Ameena froze, staring at Nagla. “That’s a horrible idea. You really think people would want you there?”
Nagla looked at her friend, eyes narrow. She could feel her ears growing hot.
“I don’t mean to offend you, Nagla,” Ameena added. “But—think about it. Aren’t you afraid people might bother you?”
Nagla paused. Of course she was. “I hope they won’t. Anyway, we are still part of this community.” She put one hand up, rested her forehead on the heel of her hand, and snickered. “Ya rabby. I’m starting to sound like Samir.”
Ameena, washing her hands, turned around and looked at Nagla. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Nagla smiled despite the sting of her friend’s words. She was often at a loss as to what to make of Ameena’s remarks. Sarcasm seemed too evasive for her to resort to, but, sometimes, Nagla wasn’t sure.
“How’s Zayd?” Nagla asked.
“Late for prayer, as usual.” Ameena looked up, as if able to see her husband on the upper floor through the ceiling. “Zayd!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “We’re going to miss Friday prayer because of you, ya ragel!”
Upstairs, Nagla heard shuffling feet.
“You want to come with us?”
Nagla shook her head. “No, thanks.”
“You really should start coming to prayer. It’ll be good for you.”
“I’m not used to it, Ameena. I never went to Friday prayer, not even in Egypt. I’m just fine praying at home. Why do you feel like you have to go all the time, anyway?”
“I don’t have to; I want to!” Ameena glared at her, half offended, half reprimanding. Nagla looked down at her hands. In Egypt, women had never gone to Friday prayer, and now here, in the United States, her friend of all people was making her feel deficient because she was not volunteering to attend a service only men were obliged to observe. She remembered one of Khaled’s favorite phrases of late: “Nothing I do is ever good enough, is it?”
Ameena slipped on oven mitts to pull out a tray of baklava, placing it on the stovetop before pouring a stream of cool syrup from a small pan, the smell of rosewater filling the air as the hot baklava soaked up the sticky sauce. Nagla watched her and tried to fend off the feeling of discomfort that had crept up on her sometime during the last few minutes. The feeling was not new; recently, being around Ameena never failed to remind Nagla of her shortcomings: Nagla prepared dessert only on special occasions, such as the elaborate dinner parties she and Samir used to give for the mosque families. Her walls were not bedecked in protective verses from the Qur’an. She never voluntarily went to prayer at the mosque. She did not attend, let alone organize, weekly religious gatherings. Unlike Ameena, she did not devote hours out of each week to teaching her kids Arabic and the Qur’an, and, as a result, Ameena’s kids were twice as fluent in the language as Nagla’s were. It was impossible to avoid adding all of these shortcomings together and wondering what role they had played in Hosaam’s fate. Nagla fidgeted and glanced at the wall clock, pondering whether it would be rude to make a run for it and flee only moments after she had arrived. But if she did, she would only feel guilty afterward. She watched her friend rinse a baking sheet she had just washed. Ameena—the evoker of guilt.
Yet it was impossible to feel resentful toward a woman who, even now, was fishing out one of the disposable aluminum foil containers that Nagla suspected she bought in bulk specifically for her, scooping up a generous portion of baklava and sliding it carefully into the container, pushing it around with the spatula in order to make room for one or two more diamonds of the crunchy dessert. Nagla knew for whom her friend prepared the container. Over the past year, Ameena had sent her countless meals packaged in disposable trays so that Nagla would not have to return the favor and send back a tray full of her own cooking, as custom dictated. For the weeks preceding Ehsan’s arrival, the only home-cooked meals Nagla’s kids ate originated in Ameena’s kitchen. Even after Ehsan took over the care of the house, Ameena still pitched in, supplementing Ehsan’s cooking with trays of her own food while Nagla roamed the house, smoking, drinking coffee, staring at the trees on the edge of Summerset Park, and forsaking her share of the housework. Letting her elderly mother clean and cook for her and her kids. Right now, Ehsan was probably walking around the grocery store doing her daughter’s shopping, her knees cracking with arthritis. Nagla added that image to the list of her guilt-inducing failings. She sighed.
“I’ll have to bake you a full tray one day, but this should be okay for now. I know how much Khaled loves my baklava.” Ameena pushed the tray aside, placing the transparent cover next to it. “Just wait a few minutes till it cools down before you cover it.”
“Teslam edeiky,” Nagla said, reaching out for a piece, holding the diamond with forefinger and thumb and pulling it, streaks of sticky syrup marking its upward path. She placed the piece in her mouth, listened to the crunch of the baked filo dough with its walnut filling. Glancing at one of the plaques decorated with verses from the Qur’an, Nagla realized that her reflexive reply was a prayer—May your hands remain safe—a compliment for a cook, a maker, a woman who creates things with her hands. For a moment she suspected this was the result of being around Ameena, but it was not; it was the customary reply. She wondered how come the compliment did not offer thanks but, instead, offered a prayer. Did she need to thank her, too? She licked her fingers, sucking on the sweet syrup. Why was this question bugging her now? Dozens of gifts from her friend and she had never thought of how to put her gratitude into words.
“Ameena—” Nagla paused. Ameena looked up from her cooking. “Did you ever notice how ever
ything we say has to do with prayer? Doaa, I mean—something we ask God to do? Everyday things, like offering thanks for something or wishing someone good health. It’s almost—” she paused, looking for words “—like we don’t talk directly to people. We talk to God and ask Him to do something for them. We just let them overhear what we say to God.”
Ameena looked at her, one eyebrow raised.
“Like just now,” Nagla went on. “I said teslam edeiky, which is what I’ve always said, but I was just thinking that nowadays people don’t even say that. They say jazakee Allah khairan, right? May Allah reward you in good? Do people say ‘Thank you’ anymore?”
“Jazakee Allah khairan is a very good way to thank someone.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re praying for them, of course!”
“But why not say ‘Thank you’? Shokran?”
“Alshokr lellah wahdoh.” Only God is to be thanked. “It’s better to offer a prayer.”
“They don’t do this here, do they?”
“We’re more religious.”
“Are we?” Nagla paused. “Actually, just the other day a lady at the grocery store said ‘God bless you’ to the checkout girl. Is that the same?”
“Probably. I don’t know.” Ameena turned the stove off, wiped her hands on a kitchen towel before settling down across from Nagla.
“So Samir really wants to go to that service on Sunday?” Ameena asked.
“Yes. He thinks the community needs to know where we stand on this subject, that we are as sorry about it as they are.”
“Bad idea. You should tell him so.”
Nagla sighed. “My mom disagrees. She thinks it’s a bad idea to keep on ‘contradicting’ my husband.”
“Contradicting him? You?” Ameena laughed. “That’s funny.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you never do!”