After the Last Border

by Jessica Goudeau

  Naw Wah was a squishy newborn and Pah Poe almost three when they applied for the resettlement program. UNHCR workers had approached Saw Ku while he was passing out hygiene pamphlets to see if they were interested in being among the first to go to America. They had talked it over in hushed tones that night in their home; it had not taken them long to come to the decision to apply. Their girls were so intensely curious about the world. Mu Naw could hardly bear for them to be raised as she had been, scuttling like mice in the woods or stuck like fish in a net.

  The interview process took two years and they had to tell their story again and again to various officials—what it was like to flee the war, where they were from originally, what would happen to them if they went back. They learned things about each other in the interview process; Mu Naw had never told Saw Ku all of the stories about the cruel grandmother who beat her, or escaping the fire in Nu Po camp. Their case was fairly straightforward—they were Karen and all Karen people in Mae La camp could prove easily that they were persecuted for their ethnicity by the Burmese Tatmadaw. They went where they were told and answered the questions honestly and eventually got word that they had been accepted to come to Austin, Texas.

  It was always for their children, this new life. And now Mu Naw worried a new child would bankrupt them before this life had even begun.

  * * *

  —

  A few weeks before the baby was born, the volunteers at the community center, including Jane, threw a baby shower for Mu Naw during evening English class. They tried to tell her what they planned the week before, but she didn’t fully understand: “shower” as in, standing up to bathe? They laughed together about how funny the word was. That night, instead of having class, they circled their chairs and showered her with presents. She and Saw Ku unwrapped each one in wonder: small onesies and shoes, mostly in gray and blue, more diapers than she had ever imagined, a dark-blue portable baby crib, baby bottles and wipes, a large black bag to hold everything in. The Karen families brought diapers too, and they drank the punch and munched on cake together happily. Bob was there, laughing in the corner. Jane cleaned up tissue paper and passed out refreshments. One of the English volunteers dressed her toddler daughter in the traditional Karen dress someone had given her—the turquoise offset the little girl’s blue eyes—and the children danced together when someone played music from their phone.

  In her entire year, that night might have been Mu Naw’s happiest—here was proof of the friendships she had built, both with Karen people and American people, at an American baby shower with a blond white baby in woven Karen clothes. It felt like a glimpse of what her life could be like, a beautiful blend she could find between past and new future.

  * * *

  —

  When the pains began early in the morning in late April, she called Jane. Saw Ku took the girls to his brother’s apartment and returned, his hand gentle on her back as she bent over and breathed, the first big contraction racking her body. Within fifteen minutes, Jane arrived and they were climbing into the backseat of her sedan with the bag they’d packed at her direction. Jane drove them to Brackenridge Hospital in downtown Austin. Jane was watching the clock; as she dropped them off before parking the car, she said, “Tell them ‘seven minutes.’ They will understand.” So when she walked in, pausing to breathe roughly for a minute, Mu Naw told the nurse at the desk: “Seven minutes.” She repeated it again, no matter what they asked: “Seven minutes, yes, seven minutes.” And then Jane was there, answering all of the doctor’s questions, pulling copies of all of their documents out of her large purse, Saw Ku nodding wide-eyed as if he understood the doctors. Jane filled out paperwork while a nurse helped Mu Naw change into a gown that opened at the back, revealing her bottom and making Mu Naw giggle between contractions.

  The nurses connected her to various machines, raised the back of the bed and added pillows until Mu Naw nodded that she was comfortable. They measured her blood pressure, pressed on her belly, checked her progress, made notes on clipboards and on the whiteboard in the wall by the door. Mu Naw withdrew into herself as the contractions increased, stopped noticing what the nurses were doing after a while, concentrated on her body and the breaths that grounded her through the sweeping pain.

  Saw Ku’s face was infused with love for her, and Mu Naw saw with intense clarity, as the pain of the largest contraction yet passed, that she loved him and he loved her. The last few months had been hard. They were in the midst of such stress, this impossible life they were building. She saw them both—so young, so earnest, so out of their depth—and she could not believe all that they had done in the past year. She knew, suddenly, that everything would work out fine. She tried to tell Saw Ku that, but she couldn’t find the words, and the pain made it hard to speak. Instead, they looked at each other and the years melted away and they were back in that small clinic in Mae La camp when Saw Ku stood beside her as she gave birth to Pah Poe.

  They had been so young then and they were young still and this was their third baby and they could do it all again, parent together again, walk forward in this new life with their daughters and now with their son.

  * * *

  —

  Hours later, Mu Naw tucked her baby boy up to her breast and he suckled greedily. He was so big. They kept repeating it—“Look at his size!”—to each other, neither quite believing the difference between the tiny babies their daughters had been and this grand, chubby boy.

  “He is an American baby.” Mu Naw laughed with Saw Ku. She said the baby’s name because she liked the sound of it. “Saw Doh.”

  “Yes, it’s because you’ve been eating American food and Saw Doh knew he needed to be big to live in America.”

  “He will be tall. He will be taller than me.”

  “Everyone will be taller than you, sweetheart.” Mu Naw swatted at her husband and he kissed the top of her head. The birth had gone fine. It had been, in the end, almost like birthing her daughters, except she was in a pristine hospital with a white male doctor and white nurses. She had pushed out her son just like her daughters—her body knew what to do.

  She had not even paid attention to the doctor, who had apparently had someone write the word “Skoo!” in ballpoint pen on a folded-over brown paper towel, and tape it above her bed so that he knew the right word to say when it came time to push. Saw Ku told her about it later; she didn’t remember the doctor saying anything that sounded like Karen in the garbled instructions from behind his face mask. She wondered who had told him the word. Saw Ku said it was not him—he could barely understand the doctor in English, much less speak to him. Had it been someone on the language line the hospital used? Was it something he had learned from an earlier patient? It was a mystery she would never solve; she had no way to even frame the question. Still, she liked the story, an American doctor who cared to try to learn the right words.

  Her body was sore, her belly twinging as she pulled the satiated baby off her breast and handed him, milk-drunk, to Saw Ku to burp. At her request—with Jane’s help—the doctor had agreed to tie her tubes during the birth. Later, when the numbness wore off, she hurt more than when she’d had her daughters. She watched Saw Ku hold his son, the last of their children, their first little American.

  Smiling nurses buzzed around them every hour or two. They weighed and measured the baby, put ink on his feet and hands to press against a piece of paper, pricked his feet with needles, put massive headphones on him, felt his belly and his thighs. One woman, who was not in scrubs, came and watched Mu Naw breastfeed the baby. He ate without stopping, but still the woman shifted him around, putting her hand to adjust Mu Naw’s breast in his mouth, squeezing his cheek to move his head slightly. Mu Naw was amused that the woman seemed to think she might not breastfeed this fat boy—Naw Wah, at two, was still breastfeeding at home and Pah Poe was almost four when she had weaned. Did she think they would want to spend money on formula? She took the pam
phlets the woman left for her, tucking them into her bag to show to Jane.

  They spent two nights in the hospital. At night, the nurses took the baby with them, wheeling him out in his plastic bed with transparent sides, and then wheeling him back in to eat. The lit-up, beeping machines made it hard to sleep, the strange, moving bed was disconcerting, the food was almost inedible. But two days with just Saw Ku, to focus on their new baby, were an unexpected benison. He was grateful and attentive, the same way he’d been after the girls were born, too, and she relished seeing that side of him again.

  On their last day, Jane came in and sat down. She told Mu Naw that the Medicaid paperwork that they had filed a few months before had gone through. Mu Naw made Jane repeat it a few times until she was sure she understood. The entire stay was paid for. Mu Naw felt the enormity of debt lift off her shoulders. Having this son had not bankrupted their family. Everything had worked out in the end.

  It was only as they were wheeling her out of the hospital, Saw Doh snuggled firmly against her, toward Jane’s car that Mu Naw imagined what it would have been like to have had her mother there, to see her small frame coming around the car where Jane was now, opening the door, helping her in. Her mind couldn’t even form the picture of her mother in this place—she had never seen her mother near a car, much less in American clothes. The idea felt ludicrous. She felt a pang of familiar sadness—not that her mother was not there, but that she was a daughter who had never known what it was like to have a mother she could rely on.

  Saw Ku helped the nurse put the baby in the car and then solicitously watched as she buckled up from the other side of the car seat. He reached for her across the baby.

  His hand was warm: “Are you okay? How do you feel?”

  Tears pricked her eyes: “I feel good. I love you.”

  “I love you too.” Their hands rested lightly on the soft blanket covering their sleeping son as Jane pulled away from the hospital.

  PART 2

  Chapter 15

  HASNA

  RAMTHA, JORDAN, DECEMBER 2012–FEBRUARY 2013

  Malek waited for Hasna to arrive in Ramtha; they overlapped by one night before he went back to Syria. His parents and siblings had sent word with the van driver that they were finally ready to come to Jordan. He and Laila had decided that he would apply for graduate schools in Egypt, where schooling was free for Syrians, so that the next few years would not be a total waste if the conflict did not end quickly; he needed some paperwork back in Daraa to finish the applications. And while he was grateful to be safe, he was also yearning to be back in Daraa to see for himself what was happening.

  Laila understood; she felt the same tension he did. Only concern for little Hamad kept her in Jordan. Malek would leave just long enough to prepare his family to move to Ramtha and then join them back in Jordan. They had all heard the rumors that the Jordanian government had been cracking down on Syrian immigrants. Jordan had already enfolded thousands of Palestinian refugees into their population over decades and as the conflict in Syria seethed on, most Jordanians felt there was a limit to how much they could do to help more refugees. But Hasna had been going back and forth between Daraa and Ramtha for over a year and Jebreel had joined them for some weekends. And their part of the Jordanian border was fairly porous for those who knew how to get back and forth, despite the land mines.

  The morning he left, Malek pulled Hasna aside and asked her to protect Laila. She promised, smiling at him—Laila was her daughter, of course Hasna would look after her. He nodded gravely.

  At the end, Amal, Rana, and Hasna left Laila and Malek and Hamad alone outside to say good-bye. When they walked back into the apartment, Laila put a CD into the stereo; she pressed repeat over and over, weeping over Hamad. It was a song about a father’s love for his son. Hamad, who was at the toddler age where he rarely liked to sit still, nonetheless clung to her and cried. Hasna gave them space for a few hours. Eventually Laila came into the kitchen, eyes puffy, and silently began helping prepare lunch. Hamad could reach the button on the CD player and he pressed it when the song was done.

  For the next several weeks, Hamad played that song—how proud the father was of his son, how much he missed and loved his son—until Hasna heard the minor refrains in her dreams.

  * * *

  —

  Hasna threw herself into tasks around the apartment to distract herself from the rumors that the war was escalating. Their apartment was on the bottom floor of a split-level home built into the side of a hill in a new neighborhood on the edge of the city. Jordan was under a massive water shortage and their neighborhood had running water only on Saturdays; the other six days, they made do with the large jugs of water they bought in town, which the seller assured them came from Syria.

  Saturdays were busy with cleaning and laundry and bathing, but for the next few weeks, as she settled into this new life, the days between dragged on. She struggled to find a rhythm that worked. Everything either took too long or left her with too much time to worry.

  Walking to town was one of the tasks that took too long. There was no regular bus route and they had to make a long trek through scrubby brush to get anywhere. There were snakes, big poisonous spiders and scorpions, and entire herds of street dogs; Hasna, who had grown up in the country before moving to Daraa when she married Jebreel, had a healthy fear of wild things. She carried a stick and yelled or clapped at the dogs when they came too near. In the mornings and afternoons walking Rana to school, Hasna was diligent about the dogs. But it was more difficult with arms full of grocery sacks on the way back to the house. The neighbors around them were kind, constantly offering rides into town, but Hasna found it galling to always be dependent on others, no matter how hospitable they were.

  Others in town had very little patience for Syrians. She often walked quickly past political conversations in the street, keeping her head down so that she would not hear any censure of her country, but it was difficult. Although women in Ramtha and Daraa dressed similarly—she looked like any Jordanian housewife going about her errands—she figured it was clear to everyone around her that she was Syrian, that somehow her grief for Daraa was etched onto her face.

  One day in a hardware store, Hasna overheard the owner talking to another man near the counter.

  “What do those Syrians want with us? Why can’t they fix their own country?”

  The customer, an older man leaning conspiratorially across the counter, nodded in agreement. The owner continued, leaning back on his stool and putting his hands across his ample belly, settling into his rant. “Do they think they’re going to come here, go to our schools, eat our food, take our money, and we’re not going to do anything about it?”

  Hasna noticed that her hand trembled as she located the elbow bracket that she needed. She was not sure until she pulled out her bills to pay for the part whether she would actually respond but the words were forming before she could pull them back.

  “Your footsteps are all over our country.” Her voice was so low that he did not register that she was speaking to him for a moment.

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?” His look was polite, slightly condescending.

  “Your footsteps are all over our country, you Jordanians. You came to us for food when it was too expensive here. You drank our water. You bought our clothes. You’ve taken advantage of us for years and now you blame us when we need your help.”

  The man laughed incredulously, turning to his friend at the counter to make sure he was catching what she said. “You? You’re not Syrian! Look at you!”

  Hasna looked down at herself then back up at him. “What do you mean, I’m not Syrian?”

  “You’re not . . .” The man gestured up and down at her.

  “Living in a camp? Wearing dust and dirt? No, I’m not. I’m here paying for an apartment. My sons are working in jobs your sons don’t want. We are spending money, buying your vegetabl
es and meat. We are just trying to survive. You think I would have left if I had any other choice?” She slammed down the money she owed him and walked out without another word. His look had shifted from condescension to hostility. She would not return to his shop. It was several minutes into her walk before she realized she had not been watching for scorpions, spiders, or snakes, that her hands were still shaking, that her heart rate had not slowed.

  She placed the part she had purchased on the bed she shared with Rana; Amal and Laila were not at home. The walls of the apartment felt too close; she longed for the coolness of the breeze in her courtyard at home. Listlessly, she climbed to the rooftop of the villa, where their laundry dried to stiff crispness on Saturdays in the Jordanian sun. A pile of leftover tile formed a makeshift bench and she sat down. The tiles crackled slightly, the edges biting into the back of her legs through her dress. She leaned back against the rough brick wall.

  From the roof, she gazed over the hills that separated her from Daraa. She was only a few kilometers from her home. The wind over the roof was a different kind of chilly than the damp winter shade of her home. She pulled her black coat close around her.

  She came to the roof sometimes, mostly at night after she put Rana to bed. Over the low hills, she could see explosions of light; the walls at the villa shook a few seconds after the missiles hit. She endlessly tried to guess what parts of the city were under attack.

  Today there were not many smoke plumes above the hills. She wondered again how she would know if anyone she loved was hurt, unless the van driver brought word. Would she feel it somehow? Would there be some awareness in her that Jebreel was gone? That something had happened to Malek?