Afaf catches her reflection in the mirrored panel of a china cabinet. She’s been avoiding looking at herself, apprehensive at the sight of a faded woman. A pale and drawn face peers back at her from the dining room, like someone who’s been sick for a very long time.
She hears Majeed’s cell phone buzz, and he speaks in a low voice. It’s probably a girlfriend he doesn’t want to introduce to his family. He’s been secretive about his personal life and Afaf has stopped asking. She adjusts her peasant blouse, its linen fabric dyed a sage-green. She changed out of her black abaya, opting for a less morbid blouse, the one she’d found at her favorite thrift shop in Chicago. Does Nada shop resale? Is she frugal like Afaf, or is money of no matter to her?
Her stomach rises in a wave of anticipation. There’s so much she wants to know about her sister, things that they would have naturally learned and already known had they grown up together: Her favorite food, her worst fear. Colors that look terrible on her, or the familiar scent of an ageless perfume that lingers long after she’s left the room.
What about family? Is Nada married, with children?
Thoughts race across her brain, one question sparking another before she can answer the first.
The doorbell rings and Afaf catches her breath, the chime an eerie sound this late at night. She touches her bare head, her dark strands gathered in a long ponytail. Bilal and Majeed appear behind her in the foyer.
Nada stands in the doorway holding a bouquet of carnations strikingly pink against the backdrop of night. Her head is covered by a knit cap, her hair a mass of curls beneath it. It’s a lighter shade than the auburn Afaf remembers, with a few nomadic grays near the crown. Nada is slightly shorter than her.
“I’m so sorry,” her sister begins, handing her the bouquet.
“May God grant him mercy and salvation.” Afaf’s words feel stilted and rehearsed, the same she’d repeated to the women at the azza hours before. And yet there’s no proper expression, no satisfying euphemism to salve that burn. And it stings even worse now that Nada is here, Baba departing without ever seeing his firstborn again. She clears her throat.
They don’t shake hands or hug, the flowers replacing any awkward physical gestures for the time being.
“Maj?” Nada takes a step toward the men. “I can’t believe it. You look exactly the same.”
When Nada says Maj, broken shards of memories gather again in whole images. The three of them quietly eating their dinner while Mama banged pots and pans in the sink. Nada soothing Majeed when he fell off his bike, pressing an iodine-filled cotton ball against his knee. That walk to the library for Afaf’s very own card. Nada had been a big sister for a little while. Does Majeed remember, too?
He only nods in response, doesn’t speak. Nada appears uncertain—should she reach out and embrace their brother?
Afaf breaks the awkward moment. “This is my husband Bilal.” She puts a hand on his arm.
Bilal steps forward, shakes Nada’s hand. “Hello. I am so happy to meet you. Welcome.” It seems easy for her husband, his indispensable hospitality unflinching. Nada is a stranger in his home like any other he’s met for the first time.
Nada beams at him, relaxes a bit. Her cheerfulness is undampened by Afaf and Majeed’s somber mood.
Afaf gestures with her flowers. “Come in, please.”
“I will leave you now. Inshallah a good night.” Bilal kisses the top of Afaf’s head and squeezes Majeed’s shoulder before going upstairs. Her brother heads to the kitchen.
Nada removes her boots and hat, unzips her puffy coat, revealing a gray wool sweater. A heart-shaped pendant hangs from her neck, a tiny ruby in its center. Nada touches it nervously as she studies the photographs mounted on the wall of the foyer. She points to one of Afaf and Bilal on their tulba when Baba officially gave her away in marriage.
Afaf watches Nada as she moves along, a small smile playing across her sister’s lips, an expression of someone who’s meeting people for the first time. There’s one of Afaf and Majeed on Eid and the one of Baba with his arm around her brother’s shoulders at Majeed’s graduation from law school. In another Baba holds his grandson Ayman for the first time at the hospital. Nada had been absent from so many moments—occupying the empty spaces in the photographs discernible only to Afaf.
Nada points up at the school portraits of Ayman and Akram, toothy smiles across their faces. “Your sons?”
Afaf nods, and a pang of desire for them goes through her heart. She wants to seize them in their beds, touch and smell them. Wrap herself in their innocence, their simple beings.
“Does Maj have any?”
Afaf shakes her head. “Inshallah one day.” It sounds silly to say, when so much of Majeed’s life to her is like a shuttered house.
Nada pulls a few loose photographs from her purse. “I have one daughter. Hope.” In one, a teenage girl smiles in a prom dress.
Afaf’s stomach rises. A niece she’s never known. Her fingers graze the photograph, one corner dog-eared. Hope could be mistaken for a white girl, with crystal-blue eyes and peachy skin, except her hair might give it away. She inherited Nada’s curly strands.
“Mashallah. She’s beautiful,” Afaf tells her sister. Hope: Amal in Arabic.
Nada nods, continues browsing the photographs on the wall. She pauses in front of one with Mama in her green velvet dress the night Baba fell in love with her a lifetime ago when their fates were sealed. Nada touches the edge of the frame. “I remember this one,” she says quietly, fingers returning to the pendant around her neck.
Afaf stands silently aside, giving Nada time to examine each photograph.
How strange it must be, to see them all like a whole other family she’d never belonged to, glimpses of their life stories captured in neatly posed pictures. How much did Nada remember? Could she still hear Mama crying, her fights with Baba? Or had she completely excised those sounds, along with every smell and taste from that old apartment on Fairfield Avenue? Can she imagine the life she’d left behind? Is she sorry?
In the kitchen, Afaf’s brother and sister sit across from each other at the table. Majeed looks down at his hands. Afaf steals glances at Nada from the stove, where she prepares a pot of green tea. Like Afaf, Nada has Baba’s face, her features softer versions of their father’s: it’s Baba’s nose with a slenderer bulb; a disarming dimple in his pointed chin; his dark eyes framed by delicately feminine brows. Her body is thin and lithe. Like Mama’s. Like Afaf’s own body. The teapot whistles and Afaf pours them each a cup. Their silence veils each passing minute.
Nada speaks first. “I did a search online. Found Baba’s name on the LISTSERV page for the Tempest Prayer Center.” She lifts her teacup, puts it down before taking a sip. “That was probably four, five years ago.”
A small stab in Afaf’s heart. She glances at Majeed. He’s listening, his face impassive. Why had Nada waited so long?
“I signed up for the newsletter, just to keep track. A few days ago, I received an email alert.” She puts her hands in her lap. “It was about Baba’s passing.”
“Why didn’t you come sooner?” Afaf says, knowing it’s what Majeed is thinking, too, though she’s sure he wishes Nada hadn’t turned up at all.
“I tried. I didn’t know how to reach out. I thought you hated me. One day I finally got up the nerve and skimmed the white pages. I couldn’t find either of you.” Nada looks at her. “I was sure you’d gotten married, Afaf. Changed your name.”
Afaf nodded, though she hadn’t changed her last name. People call her Mrs. Hamzić from time to time, or Um Ayman at weddings.
“Baba’s listed in Chicago.” Nada’s tears begin to fall. “I really wanted to reach out sooner. I just—I’m sorry. I didn’t know how.” She drops her head, and her shoulders quake with sobs.
Afaf reaches across the table, covers her sister’s hand.
“Why have you come back?” Majeed suddenly speaks up, unmoved by their sister’s sorrow. “Baba’s gone. Mama’s overseas.
Who have you come back for?” His words cut like a razor.
“For you and Afaf. I’m sorry—” Her wet eyes beseech them.
“Sorry for what exactly? Running away? Leaving us behind in a crazy house?”
Nada pulls a napkin from the center of the table and dabs at her eyes, blows her nose. “You were too young, Maj. I don’t expect you to understand why I left.”
“Why did you leave?” It’s the real question Afaf has been waiting to ask.
Nada’s eyes well up with fresh tears and she sniffles. She pulls another napkin from a wooden dispenser on the table and blows her nose. “I—I couldn’t stand it anymore. I felt like an alien in that house. Like I didn’t belong.”
These words are startling to Afaf: Had she felt that way about their family, too? Mama had never allowed her to get close. They circled each other for years, never breaking their orbits.
“You both were so young. I convinced myself you’d be okay.” She paused. “I guess I was young, too.” She vigorously shakes her head as though the past has suddenly seized her and she needs to wrestle away from it. “I couldn’t—I had to leave.”
Majeed is silent again. He looks down into his teacup. None of them have drunk their tea. Afaf can feel the slight vibration from the tapping of his foot under the table. He’s trying to maintain control.
“Where did you go?” Afaf’s voice is soft. She flashes to those pictures the detective had shown her parents. In her child’s imagination, she’d attached Nada’s head to the battered body, scaring herself to sleep for months after her sister had disappeared.
“I met someone at the roller rink. Remember Disco Wheels?” A small embarassed smile creeps across Nada’s face.
Afaf remembers the place. Teenage girls in halter tops and boys with tight shirts and flared jeans, hands in each other’s back pockets as they glided across the rink in laced-up skates. Nada would bring along Afaf and Majeed—her excuse to get out of the apartment—and give them a few bucks for a hot dog and a game of pinball. Majeed was afraid to skate, so he and Afaf hung over the railing, watching the older kids skid by. “Another One Bites the Dust” blared from the stereo speaker and the lights dimmed when a slow song came on. When Nada passed with her friends, Afaf and Majeed would wave wildly at her and she’d give them a nod of her chin, but never waved back. Afaf reaches back into memory, but the faces of the boys sidling up to Nada, some holding her waist from behind, their legs gliding in sync, are a blur now.
“His name’s Robert. We fell in love.” She blows her nose again. “We moved to Florida. He got a job and I finished high school. It was tough, making ends meet. Rob enlisted in the army. We got married before he went to boot camp. He’s a CW4 now. Chief warrant officer. Mostly oversees systems operations.” She looks at Afaf and Majeed for some sign of compassion.
Afaf only nods, unsure how to absorb this information. She looks at Majeed. His face doesn’t soften; his jawline tenses at this information. Her sister married amarkani, who served in an army bent on destroying Muslim countries. It feels like another betrayal. How outrageously disparate and contradictory the hand of fate! Naseeb had given her Islam; another destiny had been dealt to her sister. But hadn’t Nada forged it on her own, the day she decided to leave them?
Nada sips her tea and continues, “We’ve lived in different places. In Germany for five years. Ten years in Bahrain.”
Germany, Bahrain. What different lives they’ve had. Had Nada been happy all those years?
“We finally came home to Jacksonville after the first Gulf War.”
A two-hour flight. Nada and Bilal had taken the boys to Disney World last year—how many hours is that from Jacksonville? It had taken Nada over thirty years to arrive.
“The only thing I’ve ever regretted is losing you and Majeed,” Nada tells them.
Majeed clears his throat, but doesn’t speak anymore.
Afaf says, “We were always here. You didn’t lose us.” She clutches her teacup, fights back tears. “You left us.”
“You’re right. I made that choice. But when you’re seventeen and feel completely out of place—it’s like the real you will never survive and you have to find somewhere you can be yourself.” Nada’s eyes dart between her and Majeed. “I found that with Rob. It hasn’t been easy. I don’t want you to think we headed off into the sunset without any trouble. People didn’t always accept me. The chief warrant officer’s Arabian wife.”
It gives Afaf satisfaction knowing Nada hadn’t been able to completely shed her skin married to a white man.
“How’s Mama? You said she’s overseas?”
“She’s fine, elhamdulillah,” Afaf automatically responds. “She’s been living in Palestine for ten years.” She rises from the table, pours a glass of water from the tap. With her back to Nada, she says, “It hasn’t been easy for us, you know. When you left they were never the same.”
Majeed snorts and leaves the kitchen. They hear a faucet running in the hallway washroom. Afaf returns to the table, watches Nada sniffle into her crumpled napkin. “Baba drank. Mama slowly lost her mind.” She closes her mouth, presses her lips against the details of their mother’s attempted suicide. She wants to punish Nada for her selfish abandonment, for leaving them behind with unhinged parents. She was their big sister, meant to protect them. Instead she’d run away. “We’ve been through so much, you know?” Afaf is tempted to list all that Nada was spared. But she holds back. Nada is here now. Allah has returned her sister. He’s taken Baba and given back her sister. Her anger begins to lift. It will take time, especially for Majeed. But they’re a family again—whatever that is, whatever it may be.
The clock in the foyer chimes. It’s almost midnight. The heat cycle fans through the floor vents. Snow has begun to fall in big flakes. Through the skylight, Afaf peers up at the waxing moon.
Nada reaches across the table, covers Afaf’s hand. “I never imagined it would ever get easy for any of you. I’m so sorry.”
Tears well up and an old grief coats Afaf’s chest again. Afaf pats Nada’s hand over hers. She tries to imagine the journey her sister has taken without a mother and father, or siblings who look out for each other.
“You’re here now,” Afaf tells her sister. “That’s all that matters.” She remembers Baba’s words from a long time ago: Be merciful to others and you will receive mercy. Forgive others and Allah will forgive you. Could she have mustered forgiveness without the benefit of Islam? Who would she be if Islam hadn’t entered her heart? To whom might Nada have returned?
Her sister nods toward the washroom. “Maj hates me. I can’t blame him.” She dabs at her eyes with a napkin.
“Give him time. He’ll come around.” Afaf smiles, though she knows Maj too well. He can hold a grudge forever.
“What about Mama?”
“Would you like to talk to her?” Afaf imagines Mama’s face when she hears Nada’s voice. An old pinch of jealousy returns. She glances at the microwave. “It’s morning there. We can call her if you’re up for it.”
She’s been holding off any conversation with Mama, and here she is now about to call her with incredible news. She assumes Mama will be thrilled—hadn’t Nada been the true love of her life?
She dials the cordless phone and listens to several long rings signifying the long-distance reception.
“Aywa.”
“Mama?”
“Afaf! Yislim rassik. May he find eternal peace.” During azza, mourners strung accolade after accolade around Afaf. Even those who had only briefly known Baba offered some small expression of praise. But Mama is still incapable of summoning anything more about Baba.
“Thank you,” Afaf says.
“How’s everyone there? Has Nesreen paid her respects?”
Afaf pictures her mother sitting on the barranda of her childhood home, looking at a valley, a small glass of thick coffee in one hand, a cigarette dangling from the other. A world away from Afaf, as she had always been. “Yes, Khalti was here today.”
“Good, good. And how are you?”
“Better.” Afaf stands up, turns her back to Nada. “Listen, Mama. I have some news.”
“Khair? What is it? Did something happen to Majeed?”
“No, no. Elhamdulillah he’s fine.” She turns back to her sister, who’s worrying her pendant and looking up at her with anxious eyes. “It’s Nada. She’s here.”
Silence on the other end.
“Mama? Are you there?”
“What are you talking about?” Mama hisses. “What’s this crazy talk?”
“Mama. Listen to me. Nada’s back. She came back to pay her—”
The line goes dead. Afaf looks at the screen of the cordless phone. Call Ended.
“She hung up. I guess I expected that,” Afaf says. Fresh tears wet Nada’s eyes. Afaf puts a hand on her shoulder. “It’s amazing—your coming back. You can imagine what a shock it is for Mama.”
The phone rings. It’s her mother. “She’s alive?” Mama’s voice is brittle.
Still, after all of these years, Mama can’t bear the thought that Nada had left of her own will. She probably feels the same as Majeed: that it would have been easier if she had stayed gone. Mama’s life has been shaped by Nada’s absence. Afaf feels she hasn’t known her mother in any other way.
“I’m going to put her on.” She hands the phone to Nada, who stares at it for a moment. She stands up and takes it.
“Hello. Yes, Mama. It’s me.” Nada sinks back down on her chair. She cups her forehead with her free hand. “I’m sorry, Mama,” she sobs into the phone.
Afaf gathers her now-cold tea and heads into the family room, giving them some privacy. A mother and sister who were never quite there her entire life are like two ghosts meeting again.
The Beauty of Your Face Page 20