The O. Henry Prize Stories 100th Anniversary Edition (2019)

by The O Henry Prize Stories 2019 (retail) (epub)

  “An jad. Min wain inta?”

  “Jordan.”

  “Urduni Urduni?”

  Jordanian Jordanian? No one ever asked that. Sam peered at her: she didn’t look drunk. The dim lantern waved shadows over her face, colored in her top lip dark red for a moment.

  “On your own?” he asked.

  She blushed. “La’, bas as-habi hunak.” A couple whispered together on the far side of the room, their hands on each other’s ribs. “Samira Abdul Salam.” She extended her ringless hand.

  Sam laughed. “And I’m Samir. Samir al-Bayati. And this is my friend—”

  But at the other end of the couch Jibril’s mouth was hanging wide open. He was asleep. His head was tilted back and sitting heavy on his neck, skull balanced, chin exposed and doubled. Sam was silent. The grapefruit smoke tasted sweet and clean.

  “Wa inti?” he asked. “Min wain inti?”

  “Falastin. Ghazze.”

  “Wa keef jiti hon?” And how did you get here?

  “Minha…min aj-jam’ia. Ya’nni ba’d wa’et, tab’an.”

  Jibril was stirring.

  “You feeling okay?” Sam addressed him. “You want to go back?”

  “No, no. I’m just exhausted. Wow.” And in French to the woman: “Hi, I’m Jibril.”

  “Mira.”

  “Arabieh?”

  “Aywa.”

  “Your name,” said Sam, “your name is important to me.”

  Mira laughed.

  Jibril said, “What are you doing, man?”

  “No—really. Not Samira.” Sam shook his head jokily, already intimate. “No—Abdul Salam. It’s a name I always remember. Because I once buried a man called Abdul Salam.”

  “Oh yeah,” said Jibril. “Yeah, I know this story.”

  Jibril’s tone was not dismissive: he had taken up the pipe with choral solemnity, assumed a thoughtful silence. Mira said nothing.

  “So, at the end of the ’67 war,” said Sam, “I walked to the bank of the Jordan River. The eastern bank.”

  * * *

  —

  This story was passed on to me by a cousin of Mira Abdul Salam. According to that cousin, Mira’s encounter with Sam al-Bayati at a hookah bar in Zurich ended a long period of mourning for the Gazan branch of the Abdul Salam family.

  In 1967, Samira’s grandfather Mahmoud Abdul Salam was martyred near Wadi Far’ah by the Harel Brigade of the Israeli army, and that loss was handed down through the generations. For years, Mahmoud Abdul Salam’s children had petitioned the state of Israel to return his body. The state informed them it was already interred, in an unmarked grave in the Jordan Valley. Nevertheless, the Abdul Salam children embarked on a legal battle, which ended up lasting almost twenty years. It was a battle of endless forms, of the same questions, of small, overcrowded rooms with views onto building sides and the whitening sea, hours of waiting to enter a larger room of blank walls and high cameras, to meet another face behind a desk, to file another paper, to be told to wait. In 1987 they decided to stop trying. The Intifada had begun.

  But the story of bereavement, and the duty, somehow, to give him a proper burial, was passed on. First to the eldest son, Mira’s father, then to the second eldest, the father of my friend, and on down. My friend said he already felt it had fallen to him.

  * * *

  —

  The moment Sam saw the look on Mira’s face—that was for him a moment of near-religious ecstasy. He was transported back to that earlier scene, forty years ago, before the event became a story. He was there, the waters were rushing, the rapids swarmed toward him in a frenzy. Presenting to him, Sam al-Bayati, a corpse discolored verdigris and swollen with the Jordan River, the white shirt red like a symbol.

  Jibril also witnessed the few wordless seconds that brought the story of the body to its crisis. He watched as the color left Mira’s face, and realized at the same time as Sam did what it must mean for her.

  “And then I dug with my hands,” said Sam. “And a stick—I took a branch from a tree. And I placed him in the grave. And then I covered him with earth.”

  Jibril remembered this story well. And he remembered Sam’s telling him how he ran back to the camp for help. He waited for his friend to correct himself. Sam simply continued gazing at the girl.

  However, Jibril did not disturb them. In fact, he waited for Mira to weep, as in a film he knew the plot of. She was quite beautiful, with a prominent forehead and a warm skin tone and nicely shaped breasts contoured by the lettering on her shirt. But although her mouth fell open slightly, Mira didn’t cry. This was in some ways a victory, he felt.

  She spoke, and then Sam. Like newlyweds: cautiously, softly, reverently.

  “Where is the body now?”

  “By the bank, near Karameh.”

  “Is it marked?”

  “It is marked.”

  “And you prayed?”

  “Yes, I prayed.”

  “Will you draw me a map?”

  “It was forty years ago…I…Well, pass me a paper—that napkin. I mean, I hope…”

  “It doesn’t matter if I can’t find it. You prayed for him, he had a burial—that is all that matters. I can’t…”

  “I know.”

  “Thank you. God…God bless you, a thousand times God bless you.”

  And it went on like that for a while, until they had nothing left to whisper, and at last they shook hands good-bye.

  Outside, it had turned cold.

  “You didn’t even ask for her number?”

  “No,” said Sam. He inhaled, as though to speak. Then he let the breath go.

  * * *

  —

  The following morning, they had an early breakfast and placed their luggage in the trunk of a cab. They got out on the corner of Anna-Heer-Strasse and Beckhammer. On the pavement, beside their bags, they waited. Sam lit a cigarette and leaned on the handle of his suitcase. Both of them wore pressed shirts under their sweaters, and the stiff plackets showed beneath the wool. The sky above was thick with blue-shafted clouds; people in work clothes hurried out of the colored houses, holding briefcases, breakfast remnants in napkins. Jibril took out his phone and dialed the number for Mr. Can’aan, and a woman answered. Sam heard the voice faint from the receiver: Yes, she was saying, he is on his way, yes, I am sure he is on his way. They waited. They were close to the source now. The sun, already up, surged slowly overhead.

  Weike Wang

  Omakase

  THE COUPLE DECIDED that tonight they would go out for sushi. Two years ago, they’d met online. Three months ago, they’d moved in together. Previously, she’d lived in Boston, but now she lived in New York with him.

  The woman was a research analyst at a bank downtown. The man was a ceramic-pottery instructor at a studio uptown. Both were in their late thirties, and neither of them wanted kids. Both enjoyed Asian cuisine, specifically sushi, specifically omakase. It was the element of surprise that they liked. And it suited them in different ways. She got nervous looking at a list of options and would second-guess herself. He enjoyed going with the flow. What is the best choice? she’d ask him when flipping through menus with many pages and many words, and he’d reply, The best choice is whatever you feel like eating at the moment.

  Before they got there, the man had described the restaurant as a “hole-in-the-wall.” He had found it on a list of top sushi places in central Harlem. Not that there were many. So, instead of top sushi places, it might just have been a list of all sushi places. Be prepared, he said. Nothing is actually a hole-in-the-wall, she replied. Yet the restaurant was as the man had described: a tiny room with a sushi bar and a cash register. Behind the bar stood an old sushi chef. Behind the cash register sat a young waitress. The woman estimated that the hole could seat no more than six adults and a child. Good thing sushi pieces were
small. Upon entering, she gave the man a look. The look said, Is this going to be OK? Usually, for sushi, they went downtown to places that were brightly lit, crowded, and did not smell so strongly of fish. But tonight downtown trains were experiencing delays because someone had jumped onto the tracks at Port Authority and been hit.

  That was something the woman had to get used to about New York. In Boston, the subway didn’t get you anywhere, but the stations were generally clean and quiet and no one bothered you on the actual train. Also, there were rarely delays due to people jumping in front of trains. Probably because the trains came so infrequently that there were quicker ways to die. In New York, the subway generally got you where you needed to go, but you had to endure a lot. For example, by the end of her first month the woman had already seen someone pee in the corner of a car. She had been solicited for money numerous times. And, if she didn’t have money, the same person would ask her for food or a pencil or a tissue to wipe his nose. On a trip into Brooklyn on the L, she had almost been kicked in the face by a pole-dancing kid. She’d refused to give that kid any money.

  You worry too much, the man said whenever she brought up the fact that she still didn’t feel quite at home in New York. And not only did she not feel at home; she felt that she was constantly in danger.

  You exaggerate, the man replied.

  At the restaurant, he gave the woman a look of his own. This look said two things: one, you worry too much, and, two, this is fun—I’m having fun, now you have fun.

  The woman was having fun, but she also didn’t want to get food poisoning.

  As if having read her mind, the man said, If you do get sick, you can blame me.

  Eventually, the waitress noticed that the couple had arrived. She had been picking polish off her nails. She looked up but didn’t get up and instead waved them to the bar. Sit anywhere you like, she said sleepily. Then she disappeared behind a black curtain embroidered with the Chinese character for the sun.

  * * *

  —

  When they’d first started dating, they’d agreed that if there weren’t any glaring red flags, and there weren’t, they would try to live together, and they did. To make things fair, each tried to find a job in the other’s city. Not surprisingly, the demand for financial analysts in New York was much higher than the demand for pottery instructors in Boston.

  Huzzah, he texted the day the movers arrived at her old apartment. She texted back a smiley face, then, later, pictures of her empty living room, bedroom, bathroom, and the pile of furniture and things she was donating so that, once they were living together, they would not have, for example, two dining-room sets, twenty pots and pans, seven paring knives, and so on.

  She was one of those people—the kind to create an Excel spreadsheet of everything she owned and send it to him, so that he could then highlight what he also owned and specify quantity and type, since it might make sense to have seven paring knives if they were of different thicknesses and lengths and could pare different things.

  He was one of these people—the kind to look at an Excel spreadsheet and squint.

  Before the big move, she had done some research on the best time to drive into the city in a large moving truck. She did not want to take up too much space. It would pain her if the moving truck was responsible for a blocked intersection and a mess of cars honking nonstop. The Internet said that New Yorkers were tough and could probably handle anything. But the Internet also said, To avoid the angriest of New Yorkers during rush hour, try five a.m. When she arrived at five a.m., he was waiting for her in the lobby of his building, with a coffee, an extra sweatshirt, and a very enthusiastic kiss. After the kiss, he handed her a set of keys. There were four in total: one for the building, one for the trash room, one for the mailbox, one for their apartment door. Because all the keys looked the same, he said that it might take her a month to figure out which was which, but it took her only a day. She was happy that he was happy. She would frequently wonder, but never ask, if he had looked for a job as diligently as she had.

  * * *

  —

  I’ll just have water, the man said, when the waitress gave them each a cup of hot tea. It was eight degrees outside, and the waitress explained that the tea, made from barley, was intentionally paired with the Pacific oyster, which was the first course of the omakase. The waitress looked no older than eighteen. She was Asian, with a diamond nose stud and a purple lip ring. When talking to her, the woman could only stare at the ring and bite her own lip. The woman was also Asian (Chinese), and seeing another Asian with facial piercings reminded her of all the things she had not been able to get away with as a kid. Her immigrant parents had wanted the best for her, so imagine coming home to them with a lip ring. First, her parents would have made her take the ring out, then they would have slapped her, then they would have reminded her that a lip ring made her look like a hoodlum and in this country not everyone would give someone with an Asian face the benefit of the doubt. If she looked like a hoodlum, then she would have trouble getting into college. If she couldn’t get into college, then she couldn’t get a job. If she couldn’t get a job, then she couldn’t enter society. If she couldn’t enter society, then she might as well go to jail. Ultimately, a lip ring could only land her in jail—what other purpose did it serve? She was not joining the circus. She was not part of an indigenous African tribe. She was not Marilyn Manson. (Her father, for some strange reason, knew who Marilyn Manson was and listened to him and liked him.) Then, in jail, she could make friends with other people wearing lip rings and form a gang. Is that what you want as a career? her parents would have asked. To form a lip-ring gang in jail? And she would have answered no.

  Tea it is, the man said. He smiled at the pretty waitress. She was pretty. The purple lip ring matched the purple streak in her hair, which matched the purple nail polish. Nevertheless, the man complimented the waitress’s unremarkable black uniform. The waitress returned the favor by complimenting the man’s circular eyeglass frames.

  Oh, these silly things, the man said, lifting his glasses off his nose for a second.

  They’re not silly, the waitress said matter-of-factly. They’re cool. My boyfriend couldn’t pull those off. He doesn’t have the head shape for it.

  If the man lost interest, he didn’t show it. If anything, knowing that the pretty waitress had a boyfriend only made the flirtation more fun.

  Kids now are so different, the woman thought. She hadn’t had a boyfriend until college. She wasn’t this bold until after grad school. But the waitress might not have immigrant parents. Perhaps her parents were born here, which would mean different expectations, or parenting so opposed to the way they had been brought up by their own strict immigrant parents that there were basically no expectations. Another possibility: the waitress might have been adopted. In which case all bets were off. Kids now were not only different but lucky, the woman thought. She wanted to say to the waitress, You have no idea how hard some of us worked so that you could dye your hair purple and pierce your lip.

  The man nudged the woman, who was sitting next to him like a statue.

  You’re staring, he said. The waitress had noticed, too, and huffed off.

  * * *

  —

  The mugs that the tea came in were handleless. The tea was so hot that neither of them could pick up the handleless mug comfortably. They could only blow at the steam, hoping that the tea would cool, and comment to each other on how hot it was. Until now, the sushi chef had not said a word to the couple. But it seemed to irritate him as he prepared the Pacific oyster (which turned out to be delicious) to see them not drink the tea.

  This is the Japanese way, he finally said. He reached over the bar for the woman’s mug. He then held the mug delicately at the very top with two fingertips and a thumb. The other hand was placed under the mug like a saucer. This is the Japanese way, he said again. He handed the mug ba
ck to the woman. The couple tried to mimic the chef, but perhaps their skin was thinner than his; holding the mug the Japanese way didn’t hurt any less than sticking their hands into boiling water. The man put his mug down. The woman, however, did not want to offend the chef and held her mug until she felt her hands go numb.

  Now that the man knew the chef could speak English, he tried to talk to him.

  What kind of mug is this? he asked. It looks handmade. The glaze is magnificent. Then the man turned to the woman and pointed out how the green-blue glaze of their mugs seemed to differ. The layering, he said, was subtly thicker and darker in this part of her mug than in his.

  Hmm, the woman said. To her, a mug was a mug.

  It’s a yunomi, isn’t it? he said to the chef. Taller than it is wide, handleless. Yes, handleless, with a trimmed foot. Used in traditional tea ceremonies.

  The chef looked suspiciously at the man. Maybe he was wondering if the man was fucking with him, as people sometimes did when they encountered a different culture and, in an effort to tease, came off as incredibly earnest, only to draw information out of the person they were teasing until the person looked foolish.

  He’s a potter, the woman said.

  The man quickly turned to her as if to say, Why did you just do that? We were having so much fun. Then he began to laugh, leaning back and almost falling off the barstool. I’m sorry, he said to the chef. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. The mug is beautiful, and you should be proud to have something like this in your kitchen. I would be.

  The chef said thank you and served them their first piece of fish on similarly green-blue ceramic plates that the man promised not to scrutinize.

  Enjoy, the chef said, and gave them a steady thumbs-up.

  The man responded with his own thumbs-up.

  The woman liked how easily the man handled everything. He never took anything too seriously. He was a natural extrovert. By now, the woman knew that, although he worked alone in his studio, he not only enjoyed the company of others but needed it. When out, he talked to anyone and everyone. Sometimes it was jokey talk, the kind he was having with the sushi chef. Sometimes it was playful banter, the kind he had with the pretty waitress. The flirting didn’t bother the woman. Instead, it made her feel good that the man was desired. While he was not handsome, he had a friendly face and rosy cheeks. The word “wholesome” came to mind. He was someone who could have just stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting.