“I’d rather have coffee with you.” He smiled at her from their breakfast nook.
Alison got up and poured the remainder of her coffee down the kitchen drain. “That’s sweet, but I have some things to do. Don’t you want to see one of the guys?”
At this, he began his text messaging, the familiar rapid pressing of keys. It didn’t take long for a reply to arrive; he always had friends readily available, as though on standby. Khalid gave Alison a kiss, and the door clicked behind him. She went to the bedroom and retrieved the box. In the bathroom, she locked the door, sat on the toilet, and took a deep breath. After staring at the box for a long time, she took out the directions and finally performed the humiliating procedure.
Alison sat on the bathroom floor and leaned against the wall, waiting for the five minutes to pass. She thought about the life she had planned for herself: graduate school, travels around the Middle East with Khalid, and an international career. She wondered why five minutes was taking so long. When it was time, she picked up the test strip and looked at it.
“Shit.”
Chapter 6
The morning rain had given way to a deep blue summer sky. Zainab ventured out and walked from Ahmed’s house at one end of the street to the other. She had given up the idea of leaving the street on her own. Each time she reached the four-lane main road, she watched the cars whiz past. Would they stop for her? Was it like in Amman, where she could trust they wouldn’t run her down? Allahu alim. God only knew.
Zainab followed the cars with her eyes, toward the direction of the supermarket. She needed to buy eggplant and oil for the day’s cooking. Unfortunately, she had to rely on Margaret for that. What Zainab needed was a small dukan on the street, where she could buy yogurt, bread, and vegetables. That would be simpler than asking Margaret to drive her. If Abed were alive, Zainab would have complained to him about this, and he would have understood.
Back in front of her son’s house, she looked at her watch. Another hour before the noon prayer. From the garage, she retrieved a large flattened box. She looked around for a sunny patch of grass, spread her cardboard, and sat. She eased her string of prayer beads from the pocket of her long dishdasha and gently passed them through her fingers while staring at the houses across the street. Zainab’s eyes fell on their sameness: each one made of wood, two stories, and a two-car garage dominating the front. All the grass lawns ran together into one.
A woman walked by with a dog on a leash. As she passed, she waved.
Zainab replied, “Sabah al-khair.” Morning of Goodness. She went on to praise God that the rain had stopped. The woman smiled and shrugged.
Ah, yes. These foreigners didn’t understand Arabic. Zainab gave the woman a nod and looked away. She realized what was missing—if her son’s front yard had a wall around it, she could truly relax, even remove her scarf. With her face toward the sun, she closed her eyes and sighed deeply. The air was warming up and finally felt like summer.
Her peaceful moment ended when the front door closed with a thud, and Margaret was coming toward her. What was wrong now? Margaret reached her, stopped, and put a hand on one hip. “I’m sorry, but you’re in the neighbor’s yard,” she said in her broken Arabic.
Zainab glanced from her son’s house to the neighbor’s. She paused and slowly stood. Then she picked up her cardboard and ambled past Margaret. How in God’s name was she supposed to know where one yard ended and the next began?
Inside the house, Zainab chased the cat out of her room, closed the door, and opened the top drawer of her dresser. Her hands reached for a bundle, Abed’s black-and-white checked kufiyah. She gently lifted it out and brought it to her bed. With a tender hand, she unfurled the scarf he had worn over his shoulders. First, she only looked—a wristwatch with a black leather band, a pair of wire frame eyeglasses, a tarnished cigarette lighter, and a string of prayer beads—all Abed’s. She regarded them lovingly for a few moments, and then one by one, she held each item in her hands. His prayer beads carried the most memories—the thirty-three little amber-colored balls, their tassel long gone. She could picture them in Abed’s fingers so clearly. Zainab held the beads against her chest until she couldn’t bear it any longer. Then all at once, she rolled up the items and put them back in her drawer.
In the living room, she paced. She looked at the time, a constant gesture, as there was no call to prayer in America. Every evening she asked Ahmed the times of the five prayers for the following day. They changed slightly with each dawn, and Zainab preferred to pray at precisely the correct time. Ahmed consulted a list of prayer times in Seattle for the seventh month, July, which had just begun. The problem was Zainab couldn’t read it.
She had no memory of her brief schooling as a young girl. Anysa occasionally mentioned their short-lived attendance at the village madrassa. Anysa was older, and to this day, she spoke of the sheikh who had taught Qur’an recitation and stories of the prophets. When the nakba—the catastrophe of 1948—struck, the family had fled their home in the village, and Zainab’s main job became hauling water to the family’s tent. She had been a young girl at the time, but almighty God, Zainab still recalled the heaviness of the canister and the ache in her shoulders.
From that sole memory, the whole refugee camp arose in her mind—those first years when the camp had been row after row of tents, and the muddy pathways between. That was when Zainab’s Qur’an studies had ended. She’d forgotten the numbers and letters she had learned, a loss among so many others, too many to count or contemplate. Somehow Anysa remembered how to read numbers, but she’d never taught Zainab. So typical.
Zainab tried to focus on her prayer. Had she done one rak’ah or two? May God forgive her for any missed sets. She had been distracted by thoughts of her sister ever since the phone call. Zainab had called Anysa and confided her hope that a good man would ask for Nadia. Zainab had brought up this topic in such a way so as not to make Anysa suspect they were desperate. There were others Zainab called: her brother Waleed, still in the same refugee camp, and her daughters: Huda, also in the camp, and Fatma in Jordan. Zainab revealed her hope to all of them.
After completing the prescribed prayer, Zainab moved on to her supplications. “Praise be to God for the baby that Khalid’s wife carries.” This had been particularly surprising news. And so soon! A wedding night baby perhaps? Foreign wives generally took their time getting pregnant and usually had only two or three babies. It had been a joy to hear Khalid announce this news at his last visit. Now all Zainab needed was for him to get a job and for Nadia to marry. Inshallah.
Zainab pulled her mind back to her prayers, to something she had been asking for all week. “Ya Allah,” she whispered. “Let Ahmed move his family to an Arab country. He has worked so hard, let them have this chance. If that is your will.” She rocked back and forth and reached for her prayer beads. Her son had spent more than twenty years in America. Enough was enough. It was time to return, time to be near her and the rest of the family.
Finally, Zainab made her prayer for Abed. As she asked God to have mercy on the soul of her dead husband, her mind wandered back to Anysa, who professed to know everything about widowhood, having been one herself for more than ten years. The pain of missing Abed would lessen in time, Anysa had predicted.
Wrong.
It had been nearly six months, yet Zainab still grieved for him. The shape and patterns of her life had been forever altered. Each new family event—the graduation, wedding, and now the pregnancy—all made Abed’s absence more acute. She needed him now more than ever. How could she alone decide who would be the best match for Nadia? It took a man to judge another man.
“Ya Allah, I seek your guidance,” she whispered. “You are the knower of hidden things.” Zainab concluded by asking for protection for all of her blood relatives and for everyone suffering in Palestine.
At last, she stood up, exhausted.
“Yama, wake up.”
Zainab opened her eyes. Ahmed stood over her with the
telephone in his hand. “It’s Aunt Anysa.” He gave her the phone and left the room.
Sitting up in bed, Zainab oriented herself. There was still another hour before the morning prayer.
The two sisters greeted each other, asked if there was any news, and inquired about each other’s health. To each question, the answer was the same: Alhamdulillah. Praise be to God.
They got down to business. “My son Mohammed is interested in Nadia,” Anysa said, “but he hasn’t seen her since the funeral.” The mention of Abed’s funeral produced a slight tremor in Zainab. Anysa continued, “He wants to travel to Amman to sit with Nadia, to talk to her. Then he will decide.”
Zainab wanted to say that it wasn’t only for Mohammed to decide. Nadia needed to give her opinion, as well. Maybe she didn’t want her aunt’s son, divorced and with a child. Maybe she didn’t want the first man who approached her.
But Zainab didn’t say this. Instead, she laughed and said, “Inshallah, our children will marry. Inshallah, we’ll be grandmothers together. It’s in God’s hands.”
Anysa echoed the sentiment. “God is the best of planners!” Her voice was so piercing, Zainab had to hold the phone away from her ear.
They said their salaams and Zainab hung up. Her prayers were already taking effect.
Just after the noon prayer the following day, Mona’s car pulled up in the driveway. When the doorbell sounded and the four boys darted up the stairs, Zainab’s heart rose up and the fatigue of the day lifted.
After greetings and kisses, the boys ran to the backyard, and Mona said, “I’ll make tea.”
“Not yet,” Zainab replied. “I have news.” They settled next to each other on the couch, and she recounted the events of the past day—the phone calls, the requests, the prayers, and the immediate reply.
“Anysa was just so sure Nadia would accept him,” Zainab said. “So sure!”
“Mohammed’s a nice man, masha’Allah,” Mona said. “I can’t say a bad word against him, but his wife—he’ll always be attached to her.”
Zainab shook her head. “I know, I know.”
Mona slid closer to Zainab and squeezed her hand. “Whatever God has planned for Nadia, will be. Inshallah, she’ll find a good man.”
Mona got up to prepare tea, but Margaret appeared and insisted on doing it herself. When she returned to the living room with the tea tray, she set it on the coffee table, poured, and served. Nearby, Leena played on the floor with her own aluminum teapot. The child wore only a pair of shorts and no shirt.
“Habibti,” Zainab said. “Go get dressed.”
The child looked up and ran to her mother sitting nearby. It was then that Zainab noticed Margaret sitting, looking expectantly at her and Mona. It seemed Margaret had news to share, as well. Oh, what a struggle understanding her. Zainab turned to her daughter as Margaret began speaking in her mix of English and muddy Arabic.
“What’s she saying?”
Mona lifted a finger. “It’s about her and Ahmed’s anniversary.”
“Ah.” Zainab nodded to Margaret.
“Something about a hotel,” Mona explained. “She and Ahmed will go to a hotel.”
Zainab said to Mona, “What made her think of such a thing? Why do they need a hotel? They have their own bed in their own house.”
Mona gave Zainab a piercing gaze. “Yama, be nice.”
“Just like a bride and groom!”
As if Margaret was the first person to be married for twenty years. Zainab had been married for as long. Longer. Yet she had never celebrated an anniversary. She wondered how many years she and Abed had been married. Forty? Fifty? Truth be told, she didn’t know the year of her wedding—or even the year of her birth.
Zainab turned to Margaret. It had been a while since she had regarded her daughter-in-law closely, but now she brought her into focus: her long red hair spilling down her shoulders onto her plain shirt, the neckline a bit too low. She took in Margaret’s serious face, the freckles dotting her cheeks, wrinkles beginning to form. Both familiar and foreign, her son’s wife had a hopeful manner about her, the way she sat upright at the tea tray, gazing back in anticipation, as though waiting for approval. Zainab had to admit, Margaret was faithful in marriage, diligent, and dependable, as both wife and mother. A twinge of affection crept over Zainab, and she gave Margaret a gentle nod.
“Mabruuk, habibti,” Zainab said. Congratulations, my love.
Margaret smiled back, and they sipped their tea in silence. Zainab glanced at the telephone on the side table. She recalled Anysa’s words: “I’ll call you. Don’t call me.” As if Zainab were going to call and beg for Anysa’s divorced son. Divorced with a child.
Maybe instead Khalid would call. Bless him. He was finally showing some promise. Better yet, maybe he would come and see her; his last visit had been so short. Soon Mona and her boys would say good-bye, and again Zainab would feel lonely and restless in the house at the end of the road that went nowhere, talking only to Margaret who could say just a few sentences in Arabic. Inshallah, Khalid and his wife would move to this neighborhood. Maybe then, Zainab could walk to his house and see her new grandchild after he was born.
Leena was watering the houseplant with her teapot. Margaret followed her, trying to slip a dress on her.
Zainab pulled out her prayer beads and ran them through her fingers. She was unsure whether she would still be living in Ahmed’s house when Khalid’s baby was born. Where to live? It was a problem. She could not go back to live with her daughters, who were each living in the homes of their husbands, taking care of their husbands’ families. She could not live alone in a house without Abed. She would die from boredom living in Ahmed’s house watching Egyptian soap operas and the bad news on Al Jazeera. Perhaps there was another solution she hadn’t thought of. As Abed used to say, “God may create that which you do not know.” This thought calmed her for a moment until her mind came back to the matter of Nadia.
What about Nadia? Poor Nadia, left abandoned in Amman. “Astaghfirullah,” Zainab said. May God forgive me.
Chapter 7
To get to the coffeemaker, Margaret would have to step past the mother, who was firmly planted in the center of the kitchen. Margaret couldn’t trust herself not to sigh or roll her eyes. It was always about pretending—this time, pretending not to be bothered by the insult of a shared kitchen.
Margaret had missed an hour of sleep. It wasn’t due to something normal like a dog barking or a child with a fever. It was a phone call in the middle of the night, which began with the mother’s loud, “Allo? Allo?”
All middle-of-the-night calls originated from the Middle East, where the family seemed unaware of the ten-hour time difference between Seattle and the West Bank. As if the phone call weren’t bad enough, the mother had come looking for Ahmed and gotten him out of bed, too. Afterward, he immediately fell back to sleep, his soft snoring filling the room. But Margaret flipped back and forth under the covers, her exasperation keeping her awake.
Now she sat at the counter, hunched over her coffee and newspaper. When the mother spoke, Margaret pretended not to hear.
The front page displayed news about the war in Iraq. Margaret could only cope with skimming the headlines. The international page was no better, with its news of violence from the West Bank. A subhead caught her eye. Nine-year-old Palestinian boy shot by Israeli soldiers. The same age as Tariq. Relieved they didn’t live anywhere near there, Margaret imagined the victim: a boy with black hair, wearing his school backpack. She turned the page before she could discover any more details that would stay lodged in her mind.
The mother asked for something and pointed to a shelf. Margaret got off her stool, reached to the top of the cupboard, and handed a bag of dried meramia leaves to the mother, who was talking about Nadia. Margaret comprehended little and suspected that even if she and the mother shared the same language, they still wouldn’t understand each other. The mother put a large pinch of meramia into her pot of tea, and the kitchen fill
ed with the smell of the dried herb. Why couldn’t the mother just stop talking?
Ahmed strolled into the kitchen, refreshed and content from sleeping in. “Sabah al-khair,” he said to his mother. Morning of goodness.
“Sabah al-noor,” she replied. Morning of light.
Margaret rolled her eyes to such flowery greetings. So overly elaborate! She looked at Ahmed. “Who the hell called last night?” she asked. The fact that the mother didn’t understand English had its benefits.
Ahmed smiled. “Good morning to you, too.”
“And what’s she saying about Nadia?” Margaret glanced at the mother, who was arranging a tray for herself—tea, zataar, olive oil, bread, and yogurt—a reproduction of her breakfast back home.
Ahmed poured himself a cup of coffee. “Nadia’s getting married.”
The last time Margaret had seen Nadia, she’d been wearing a blue-and-white school uniform. “Isn’t she still a kid?”
“She’s nineteen.” Ahmed sat down as his mother slipped out of the kitchen with her breakfast tray. “She’s completed her certificate in English translation.”
Margaret nodded. “Who’s she marrying?”
“Mohammed, the son of Aunt Anysa.”
Margaret closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. First cousins. If she hadn’t married Ahmed, would he have chosen a cousin? Margaret tried to blink away that image. “Isn’t Anysa’s son already married?” she asked.
“Separated, planning to divorce,” Ahmed said. “That’s why they called—to make sure my mother and I agreed.”
“You?”
“I am Nadia’s oldest brother.” Ahmed crossed his arms. “I think he’ll be a good husband. Besides, it’s what she wants.”
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