by Rajia Hassib
Ehsan nodded and sipped her tea. “When your father passed away, Allah yerhamoh we yebashbesh eltoobah elly taht rasoh, your aunts practically moved in with me. Not my sisters—his. Three of them, all older than I was, all married with kids. For two weeks I could hardly turn in my own home without bumping into one of them.”
“Did you like having them around?”
“I hated it. Each day I would wake up determined to tell them all off. But then one day we sat in the evening, sipping tea, just like we’re doing now.” She smiled at her daughter. Nagla, lighting a cigarette, listened.
“You and your brothers were playing in a bedroom with your cousins, and one of your aunts mentioned how your father used to love fesikh. And then the other mentioned that, since Easter had just passed, the salted fish was, for sure, for sale everywhere, and before I knew it they sent two of your cousins out for fesikh in the middle of the night.” Ehsan laughed, shaking her head. “It was ten in the evening before they came back, the stench of the fish rising up the stairway before they made it to our apartment. We smelled them before we saw them. As did the neighbors.” Smiling, she took a sip of her tea before continuing. “We spent over an hour, your aunts and I, picking out the bones and marinating the fish in oil and lemon, all the while talking about your father. Remember that time he took us all to the park, a basket of fesikh, scallions, lemon, and fresh-baked bread in hand? Remember how his mother insisted he go and buy more lemons, chiding him for bringing so few? How he ended up sending one of the girls over to beg the family sitting by us for a lemon and then pretending to scold her for it? Remember when he was a teenager and he stole his uncle’s car, drove all the way to Cairo and came back three days later? Remember the thrashing his father gave him?” Ehsan laughed. “The later it got, the more scandalous the stories became. And your oldest aunt, Jameela, kept murmuring: ‘Astaghfiru Allah; mention the good of your dead; don’t expose that which Allah has kept hidden; don’t bring disgrace to those whom Allah has shielded from scandal.’”
Nagla raised her eyebrows. “And you let them speak ill of Baba?”
“They weren’t really speaking ill,” Ehsan quickly retorted. “It was all in good fun. Nothing he wouldn’t have minded people sharing, if he were still alive.”
“And what did you contribute? Stories about how good and kind he was to you?” Nagla smiled, trying to mask the sarcastic tone that had crept into her voice. “Let me guess: you told them how he used to stay up all night by your side when you were sick. How he used to bake basbousa for you just because you loved it.”
Ehsan sucked at her lips. “Go ahead, make fun of me. My fault for trying to make your father look good.”
Nagla smiled, shook her head, and inhaled the aroma of mint rising from the tea. “This talk of food is making me hungry.”
Ehsan reached into the bag and fished out a pastry, handing it to Nagla. She chewed, aware of her mother watching her. She looked away. The young woman was still lying by the grave, motionless.
“I wanted to tell you,” Ehsan started. “I don’t know what your brothers told you, but your father was a good man.”
“Sure. He was a good man. Samir is a good man. They’re all good men.”
“Don’t be so bitter, Nagla. Be content with what Allah has given you.”
“Don’t get me started,” Nagla murmured, chewing on a piece of pastry.
“Bent!”
“Sorry, Mama.”
Nagla waited, watching the young woman. “I think your pastry might have knocked her out,” she smiled. “Americans can’t take our food. Too rich for them.”
“Nothing wrong with my food,” Ehsan assured her. “She’s resting, poor soul. Probably feels better after having eaten something.”
In silence, Nagla finished her pastry, stubbed her cigarette. She had to admit the pastry did make her feel better. Perhaps there was some truth to the claim that those pastries brought about mercy.
“It’s just that he had no luck, your father.” Ehsan watched the young woman. “You know how it is. No one can get more than what God has written for him.”
“So you invent stories about him to make up for his lack of luck in life?”
“I don’t invent stories!” Ehsan arched her eyebrows. Nagla did not comment. “Besides, what difference does it make? I wanted to make sure you and your brothers remember him well. I only hope you would do the same for me after I die. That’s all that stays, after all. Stories.”
Nagla placed her cup on the bench next to her mother and went back to scrubbing the gravestone. She was almost done, could hardly see the outline of the spray-painted words. If she had her mother’s knack for stories, she would tell some about Hosaam that might make people think better of him. Not made up ones like her mother’s, merely selective ones. To emphasize the good. She sighed, scrubbing on. In a way, that was what Samir was trying to do, she realized. Tell his story. She wished she shared his conviction that people would listen, if they spoke.
“What happened?”
Nagla looked up. The young woman was standing behind her, looking at the gravestone. For a moment Nagla wished she could shield her son’s name, just in case the woman knew what he had done, but it was too late. She searched the woman’s face. What did she mean? What happened to her son? To her life? No, the woman pointed at the gravestone, the outline of the graffiti still faintly visible.
“Graffiti.” Nagla took her gloves off, stood up. Stared at the gravestone the woman was still examining.
“People can be so cruel,” the woman finally said. Nagla nodded. The woman looked over her shoulder at the grave she had been sitting by.
“We were married for seven months,” she said.
They stood, facing each other, the woman looking at Nagla as Nagla avoided her eyes. Again Nagla felt, as she often did, that something needed to be said, but she did not know what to say, so she remained silent.
“Well, thanks for the bread,” the woman said, both to Nagla and Ehsan. Ehsan smiled broadly, looked at Nagla. Doubtless happy the bread had not, in fact, been too rich for the American.
Nagla sat next to her mother, watched the woman walk back to her car. Ehsan watched her, too, and when the car pulled off, she murmured, “May Allah grant us all peace and patience.”
“Amen.”
• • •
She sat Indian-style by her son’s grave while her mother finished eddeyyet Yasin, reading the same sura over seven times in a row, back to back, then capping it off with a long prayer. Over the past year, the days that Nagla spent by her son’s grave infused the place with a strangely comforting familiarity. The visits had become a necessity, so much so that she had joined her husband in resisting a move away from Summerset, even though Khaled had wanted it; poor Khaled, who longed for nothing more than to live in a place where no one would recognize him. If he deserved such luxury, she did not. She deserved the incriminating stares, the malicious words that people occasionally shouted at her after her son became the town’s black sheep, her guilt duly recognized as equal to his, if not surpassing it. She deserved to be hated. She bit at her lower lip, took a deep breath. Besides, Khaled would soon leave for college. She saw his application packets arrive in the mail, watched, with relief, as he sat in his room filling them out months before they were due. At least he would not follow in Hosaam’s footsteps and announce he was not going to apply to college anytime soon. She rested her head on her open palm, stared at the grass ahead of her. The racket Hosaam’s announcement had caused. Samir had been livid. He had stood in the middle of the living room, stomping his feet, his voice probably heard blocks away. But Hosaam had only stared. And she, as always, had made excuses for him. The boy is burned out after years of study. Let him take a break. Let him rest.
Yes. She deserved to be hated. Besides, if she were to move away, who would look after her son’s grave? Who would keep the gravestone clean of obscenities? Was she to abandon Hosaam after his death just as she had failed him in his life?
Everything reminded her of him. The rattle of car keys. A laptop left open. The smell of coffee in the morning. The sound of music blasting from a passing car in the summer. College applications arriving in the mail. Socks taken off and bunched up in a ball. The tart smell of sweat mixed with deodorant, barely detectable in laundry as she tossed it in the washer. The sight of a mother holding a little boy’s hand. Young couples. Weddings. Funerals. News headlines. Even Khaled reminded her of Hosaam: the way he glanced sideways after a humorous comeback, the way he knotted his brows when writing.
“Ready to go?”
Nagla nodded. The thought of attending the memorial service made her heart sink, her chest tighten.
“I really don’t want to go,” she muttered.
Ehsan sighed. “I know. But, anyway, weoa el bala wala entezaroh.”
Nagla considered the old proverb. Was experiencing a misfortune really better than waiting for it, as her mother’s words claimed? She doubted it. As much as she had agonized over the prospect of this service in the previous days, she feared that the coming hours would be more painful still.
Like running her hand over grass. That, too, evoked more pain than she had ever imagined it would. Before getting up, Nagla stroked the grass one more time, let the memory of Hosaam fill her, its heaviness so dense it defied tears and seemed to anchor her deeper into the soil. She would go to the service, of course; she had known she would for days, even as she tried to convince Samir to abandon his plans. She would go, because she knew Samir would be furious if she did not, and she was too cowardly to risk that. And because she knew he was setting himself up for humiliation, and, unfathomable as it may seem, she didn’t want to let him face it alone. Again she remembered that layer of his voice that had struck her earlier today, a thread of what they once had that still clung to him. She knew his voice well, understood its tone better than any words he came up with. He needed her. She was not going to abandon him.
18
ENGLISH: If your house is made of glass, do not throw stones at others.
ARABIC: He whose house is made of glass should not throw stones at others.
Get ready. We’ll be leaving soon,” Samir said.
Khaled lifted himself from the bed and stared at his father, standing in the doorway.
“Where to?”
“The memorial service, of course,” Samir said.
“You want me to go?”
“Of course I do! I thought we had settled that.”
Khaled, hardly awake, tried to remember any conversation he might have had with his father on the subject. He could not.
“Just get ready, will you? And wear your suit and tie.” Samir stepped away.
“Wait!” Khaled jumped out of bed. His father walked back. “Does Fatima have to go?”
“Of course she does.”
• • •
In the bathroom, Khaled splashed his face with water, stared at his reflection. He should leave now, go somewhere and not come back until a couple of days later. Hosaam’s grip was suffocating him; even a year after his death, his brother was still controlling everything—not only his own family but also the entire town, which was preparing for a gathering that was the direct result of Hosaam’s crime. Walking back into his room, Khaled was struck by his father’s compliance with Hosaam. Samir had become Hosaam’s henchman, Khaled felt, his representative on earth, the one making sure everyone fell into the roles the murder had preordained.
In his closet, he stared at his only suit, a dark gray woolen getup that was sure to suffocate him in the New Jersey heat. He knew why his father wanted him to wear a suit, yet he still felt a surge of anger against him for depriving him of this minor freedom to choose what he wanted to wear. He stood in place, unable to decide what to do, unable to concentrate. Then he realized he had not had his morning coffee yet.
The kitchen was deserted. Waiting for the coffee to brew, Khaled looked around, listening for his grandmother or his mother. He heard no one. His mother’s seat on the deck was empty, the ashtray, as always, sprouting cigarette stubs. He glanced at the wall clock; it was a quarter to ten.
His coffee in hand, he walked back upstairs. Fatima’s door was ajar. She was standing with her back to him, brushing her hair. The morning sun shone through the window, illuminating the strands that always escaped her unruly mass.
He knocked on the door. “Hey.”
Fatima turned around, smiled at him, but then, as if suddenly remembering something, frowned and turned away. “Hey,” she mumbled.
“May I come in?”
“Of course.”
He sat on her bed, sipping his coffee. She finished brushing her hair, then, with her usual dexterity, shaped it into a thick braid that she tossed behind her.
“Where is everybody?” he asked.
“Mama and Setto are at the cemetery.” Her voice was low.
Visiting Hosaam, as he knew they would. They, too, were still under his brother’s spell. Fatima was, as well; on her dresser stood a picture of her with the entire family, and, next to it, one of Hosaam, similar to the one their mother still kept on the console by the front door. “I thought you wanted to go with them.”
“Mama wouldn’t let me.”
“I thought Setto would make her.”
“Setto can’t make anybody do anything.”
Khaled paused. “You’d know, I guess.”
She turned to face him. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve been spending so much time with her, lately. It’s like you’re always locked up together.” He set his coffee aside. He had not intended to challenge his sister, but seeing his brother’s picture on her dresser had irritated him.
“At least I’m locked up inside. You act like you’re locked out of the house. Half the time, you’re not even here.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Look who’s talking! I’m not the one who’s spent this entire past year at Maraam’s.”
“No, because you’ve spent it at Garrett’s.” Her sarcasm, uncharacteristic, jarred him.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Oh yeah? How about yesterday? And the day before?”
“But I wasn’t—” He cut himself short. Of course. He was with Brittany.
“Most of the time you don’t even show up until after nightfall. I mean, seriously. If your house is made of glass.” She walked over to her dresser, rummaged through one of the drawers, pulling out an oblong black-and-gray scarf that she draped around her neck. She was wearing a long, flowing black skirt and a gray short-sleeve T-shirt. Khaled watched her bend down to fasten the straps of her shoes. They used to be each other’s confidant, two siblings united against their oppressive older brother, their bond giving them immunity against their mother’s favoritism. When they were children, they built fortresses out of bedsheets suspended over four dining room chairs, whispered, hidden from view. He used to pretend he was the knight and she the princess, and he would vow, his plastic sword drawn, to protect her from the evil invaders who never came, mostly because Hosaam was busy playing with Natalie. Later, Khaled would sometimes make a detour on his way home, stopping by her school just so they could walk home together. Even after she started high school, he felt she needed his protection. He had been there for her all those past years, and he had always felt she was grateful for that. Now her belligerence vexed him.
“I don’t see how what I do on my own time is any of your business,” he said, sharper than he had intended.
She raised her eyebrows, put her hands on her hips. “But what I do with
my grandmother is, somehow, your business?”
“That’s different. I go out, and you do, too; you practically live at Maraam’s. But when I’m at home, I don’t act like Setto and I are one team and everyone else is excluded.”
“So now you’re jealous?”
“Of course not!”
“Then what’s your problem?”
“I don’t have a problem. All I’m saying is that you can come talk to me anytime I’m home; it’s not like I lock my door. You choose not to. So don’t act like I haven’t been here for you.”
“But you haven’t! No one has!” she said, her eyes watering, her voice growing louder. “No one except Setto!”
“Well, guess what? You haven’t exactly been here for me, either. I mean, jeez. Why are you angry with me all of a sudden? Why am I the bad guy?” They both glanced toward Hosaam’s picture then away. They locked eyes, and Fatima narrowed hers.
“Don’t go there,” she hissed.
“Go where?”
“Don’t mention Hosaam. Don’t you dare start blaming him for everything again.”
Khaled stared, his mouth gaping. “Are you freaking serious? You’re defending him? So now I’m at fault but he’s not?”
“I’m not defending him; I’m saying you don’t have the right—”
“What the fuck is wrong with you? With this whole family? Why—”
“Don’t yell at me, Khaled! Don’t you dare—”
“I’ll do whatever the fuck I want! Why does everyone keep telling me what—”
“What is going on here?” Samir’s voice boomed, and they both turned toward him. He was standing at the door. In the sudden hush, they could hear the front door close, Nagla’s hurried footsteps on the stairs, followed by Ehsan’s.
“What’s going on? What kind of circus is this?” Samir asked again.
“We were just—” Fatima started.