I leaned back, laughed a long, healthy laugh, and explained to her that that was impossible, that I did not intend to ever marry.
“She really doesn’t,” Elsin affirmed. “She’s not the marrying kind.”
The fortune-teller smiled knowingly and said I must invite her to the wedding. “What a load of crap,” I muttered, rolling my eyes, as we stepped out of her house and into the car.
* * *
—
I WOKE UP again at 9:00 A.M. with a jolt, heart racing as if I’d been running all night. It was gray outside. It took forever to put on my sari, and it ended up looking stupid: the front pleats were uneven, and the part that draped over my shoulder kept loosening up. I pinned the fabric to my blouse with safety pins. It would have to do until Anand’s cousins could fix it later. Anand came out of the bathroom wearing his brother’s suit. “It’s too big,” he groaned. A red dot adorned his cheek where he’d cut himself shaving. I swore he looked fine and helped him tie his hair in a neat ponytail. My maid of honor, a male friend of Anand’s, showed up with a bottle of champagne, and I downed a glass with my morning coffee.
The wedding ceremony was held in our living room to a smaller audience: the only guests were my maid of honor and Anand’s brother. A poster of a contemplative Bob Marley was our backdrop as the justice of the peace, a gray-haired lady I’d picked from the phone book, performed the ceremony. I’d picked her because I liked the sound of her name, and because she was a woman. In Israel, Jewish wedding ceremonies are performed by men, so having a choice was just one advantage to marrying out of faith. Not that either of us cared much about religion. Anand was an atheist and my spiritual affinity was the kind one picks up on travels to Southeast Asia, along with mass-produced Buddha statues and incense sticks.
The early morning glass of champagne had made me tipsy, and I giggled like a teenager at a school dance and avoided Anand’s eyes. I felt silly repeating these clichéd English lines I’d heard a million times in movies; they didn’t feel real.
We exchanged the same rings we had been wearing for the past year and a half. Then the woman said, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” and my stomach turned.
* * *
—
AT THE RECEPTION party at Anand’s aunt’s, Anand is holding the door open for me, looking at me narrowly. “Are you coming or what?”
I walk in. He follows.
Inside, the house is warm and smells of steamed rice, coriander, and perfume. The guests wander around, taking dozens of variations of the same photo, lining up by the buffet table to heap vegetable samosas and lamb curry on their plastic plates. Anand’s friends form a row of white boys as they sit against the wall on their best behavior, clad in cheap suits, empty plates in their laps. There is no alcohol served, which I find peculiar and cruel. Anand’s young cousins chase me around, admire my henna, and grab the free end of my sari. Finally, I escape to the bathroom, lean on the sink, and stare at my reflection.
“You’re married,” I say. “How does it feel?” My reflection stares back, as if pondering the question. The truth is I feel nothing, except for a dull pain over my right eyebrow, a remnant of a champagne-induced headache.
“You’re married!” I persist. “You are someone’s wife!” My reflection flinches. For a few seconds it’s hard to breathe, as though a foot presses on my chest. I find Advil in the medicine cabinet and wash it down with tap water before stepping outside.
* * *
—
AFTER THE BUFFET, everyone gathers around for the ceremonial portion of the day. I enjoy the traditional rituals for the same reason I like wearing a sari: I see them as an anthropological experience, like some weddings I attended in my travels. Only now, I’m the one on display. I let my new family feed me Indian sweets and shower me with rice. Anand and I break little clay cups with our feet while the guests cheer. The custom is that whoever breaks the first cup will be the boss of the house. For the next three years, we will both remember breaking the cup first.
In the late afternoon a cake is brought out, a massive creamy thing with our names written on it in pink. At this point my cheeks ache from smiling and my eyeliner is wearing off, along with the effects of the Advil. The party reminds me of a distant cousin’s bar mitzvah I was dragged to by my parents. I feel like pulling on my mother’s sleeve and nagging, “Is it over yet? Can we go now?”
The guests cluster around, prepare their cameras, and wait for us to cut the cake, holding the knife together as we bend over the cake and feed it to each other as newlyweds do. This is the one ritual in the party that I recognize from my own family weddings, from movies and television. As I stand next to my boyfriend, my sari tightens, clinging to my skin, making it difficult to breathe. I feel nauseated just looking at the icing. Sliding two fingers between my petticoat and my skin to allow for air circulation, I am startled by the cold touch of sweat. I lean toward Anand and whisper, “I’m not cutting the cake.”
He turns to me. “What? Why not?”
“Because I think it’s stupid. That’s why. I’m not doing it.”
“It’s no big deal. We’re almost done.”
“I’m not doing it. And I’m not feeding it to you or being fed either. Anybody who knows me even a little bit would know I hate this shit.”
He doesn’t tell me I’m being ridiculous. He sighs, shoulders slumped. His aunts are whispering into each other’s ears. A murmur spreads around the guests, growing louder as moments pass. Nobody is sure what’s going on. But I won’t budge. I have given up enough. I never wanted to get married in the first place. I never wanted a party, and now I want a drink and I can’t have it, and I will not cut the fucking cake!
My boyfriend (as I’ll call him for the next three years, never my husband) ends up cutting the cake with his brother, not quite the photo op the guests hoped for. I stand beside them and smile like a bride should, feeling as if I won one battle amidst many defeats.
* * *
—
A COUPLE OF days later, I pick up the wedding photos and browse through them rapidly, pausing only to admire my outfit or to discard the ones of myself I don’t like. I’m posing beside strangers I cannot name, smiling the same smile in all of them. Except for one. In this picture, Anand leans over the cake with a knife, smiling goofily, as his brother pretends to fall over it. I’m standing in the shadow looking smug; the smile I thought I had mastered so skillfully appears frozen and forced. I feel that pressure in my chest again, but this time it stays. It’s like someone has my heart in his fist.
I call my oldest brother in Tel Aviv that night and recount what forever will be known as “the cake story.” I do it in a light, amused tone, as if it were some funny tale for dinner parties. I think I’m being clever and charming. I expect him to appreciate the hilarity, to share my distaste, knowing well enough that I’m better than those cake-cutting brides. But my brother isn’t laughing.
“I don’t get it. It was just a cake,” he says. “What was the big deal?”
I’m quiet for a moment, while my mind races in search of an answer. Then I say, “Whatever,” and change the subject.
I hang up the phone and look over at Anand. He’s stretched out on the couch, switching channels on TV. He catches my gaze and smiles. From this angle, he looks like a different man, a handsome stranger, the kind of man you’d meet on a tropical island for a holiday fling.
My husband.
I feel that weight in my chest again, and this time I know: it’s doubt. This won’t last, it tells me. It’s not the cake, it’s you. You’re going to screw it up. Can’t you see? He likes the cake. He likes the husband-wife talk. He is the marrying kind.
“What?” Anand’s smile turns to a frown. The moment is gone. I bully doubt into a dark corner, where it will remain for the next couple of years, long after we both know we are better apart, long after we recog
nize that our relationship has never lived up to its romantic beginning. But not yet. Not today. I need to believe in us for just a little longer. So I say, “Nothing,” wear a big smile, and join him on the couch.
SOLDIERS
ALI AND I ARE PLAYING BACKGAMMON on a coffee-splattered table outside Café Roma on Commercial Drive in Vancouver. It’s an unseasonably warm winter day, a blue-skied wonder in this city of gray and glass, the kind of day that makes foolish Middle Eastern people like us rejoice in global warming. I light a cigarette, sip my double espresso, and watch Ali. He’s squinting at the board, brow furrowed. Then he makes his move, leans back in his seat, and drinks from his cranberry juice.
Bouncing the dice in my hand, I scan the board and size up the layout, taking note of Ali’s vulnerable spots. I throw the dice, and after a brief consideration—nothing says amateur more than counting spaces—I go on the offensive, break a house, and take down Ali’s soldier. I place his casualty on the bar in the middle of the board with a self-satisfied grin, blowing smoke to the side.
Ali stares at the board and frowns, his lazy eye slow to blink. “What are you doing?”
“Kicking your ass.”
“You’re not thinking. You can build a house.”
“I know. I don’t want a house.”
“But you’re leaving yourself open—”
“I know what I’m doing.” I knock back the rest of my coffee. “Are you seriously telling me how to play backgammon?”
We’ve had this argument before. Ali loves to speak of Iraqi superiority when it comes to backgammon. After all, they played it on the banks of the Babylon River for thousands of years. I have little patience for his speech: I take backgammon seriously, and I’m good. It’s one of many skills acquired in my years of traveling and lounging in coffee shops, skills I cannot list on any résumé, like rolling joints while driving, bargaining in bazaars, or getting by in foreign countries with hardly any money. I tell him about the tournament I won in India, my hours-long winning streak: a story I’m fond of because it makes me sound like a legend. They were all men too, lining up to play against me. One of them, a Turkish guy, kept coming back and losing until he stood up and yelled, “You’re making me mad!”
Ali has heard the story before.
We both refer to the pieces as soldiers, don’t know that in English they’re named checkers or pieces, because in our respective languages, soldiers are what they’re called. Ali and I were both soldiers once, in our own countries, both drafted shortly after the first Gulf War, after his country launched Scud missiles at mine, and mine—miraculously and uncharacteristically—resisted the urge to retaliate. But my service, as traumatic as it seemed at the time, was in an administrative base in Tel Aviv, steps from a busy street with trendy restaurants and beautiful people in fashionable clothes. Ali is lucky to be alive.
Ali’s stories are always better than mine. I tell him about the summer it was so hot in my suburban town that when I stuck out my tongue, my gum started bubbling. He tells me of scorching Baghdadi summers, days so hot that you’d fill the tub with ice and it melted as soon as you got in.
Ali throws the dice and looks at the board. Again, he opts for the safest move, the conservative option. When it’s my turn, I shake the dice, kiss my fist for good luck, and roll a double. I advance further, leaving my exposed soldier defenseless. Ali bites his tongue.
He wins the game. He’s trying not to be smug about it. I hate losing. I tell him he plays boring and safe, that he plays to win, while I play for the love of the game. He laughs; he’s heard that before too.
He walks me home through darkening streets. The sky turns the kind of brilliant cobalt blue that follows sunny days; a lighter shade of blue traces the edges of the mountains. The downtown’s mirrored buildings glow with fading orange in the distance. When the temperature drops rapidly, I hug my leather jacket and gab about my travel plans. For a few days, I was set on Turkey. Then I remembered it’s not actually warm this time of year, not beach warm. “I’m thinking Mexico,” I say. At the Mexican restaurant where I work—hired because the Chinese owner thought I was Latin—people repeatedly ask me for their bill in broken Spanish. I’ve learned a few phrases.
We stop by the blue wooden gate outside my home. I grab Ali’s hand. He doesn’t pull away. His hands are always warm and mine are always cold. I tell people it’s a sign of a warm heart, although it is more likely a sign that I should quit smoking. I tilt my head and look at him sideways. “Want to come in?”
“I can’t.”
I let go of his hand, resist a sigh. I don’t say, “Call me.” I know he won’t.
* * *
—
HOME IS A basement suite off Commercial Drive that I’ve been sharing with two Egyptian sisters from Nova Scotia. Before I met Leyla, I was wandering the streets of Vancouver searching for a reason to stay. I had just turned twenty-nine. Anand and I had broken up over a year earlier, and for the first few months, despite being broke and homeless, sleeping on friends’ couches, and living off damaged vegetables and expired dairy products, I was the happiest I’d been in years. I walked the streets free and light—room in my lungs to breathe in the whole city. But then, the few friends I had in Vancouver all left for one reason or another, the rain came, and I remembered just how lonely I was. I missed home, but couldn’t imagine going back to Israel to live. My last lengthy stay had been in 2001, during the second Intifada, and now, a year after my return, I was still startled by the sound of firecrackers on Halloween, still boarded buses scanning for threats. Every time I caught sight of news from Israel on a random TV screen or heard snippets on the radio, my muscles tightened. I took on extra shifts at the restaurant. I had planned to pack up my backpack and head somewhere warm as soon as I made enough money.
Then I met Leyla at a belly dancing class in the community center. She was the only one in class who hummed to the music, sang along with the lyrics, whose body, like my own, knew the dance moves by heart. That first night we had coffee after class and talked about politics, about the wars between my country and that of her family, the history of bloodshed and hatred that bonded us. We hung out again the following week, and the next. We fell into friendship like some people fall in love, quickly, deeply, as though we recognized in each other something of ourselves. When my lease ran out, Leyla and her sister, Rana, offered their couch.
On Commercial Drive, Leyla and I became a fixture. Whenever I went to Café Napoli without her, the barista asked, “Where’s your wife?” When we walked down the street arm in arm, Leyla with the colorful hijab framing her face, the Algerian men outside Abruzzo Café jerked their chins toward me, whispering in Arabic, “Hiya Yahoodia.” She’s Jewish. What they were saying was, “See those two Arabic-looking girls? They are not what they seem.” What they were saying was, “What are these two doing walking arm in arm?” I translated for Leyla, whose Arabic was not as good as mine, and we both glared. Secretly we were pleased with the attention, with the confusion we caused, with complicating their notions of Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Egyptians.
Leyla introduced me to her friends. Ibrahim was a joker with a curly head of hair and a taste for fashion, a gifted painter who’d studied art at the University of Baghdad; Firaz, quieter, more thoughtful, also an Iraqi immigrant, worked in computers. My new friendships felt easy, a slice of home replanted in this foreign land. Our kitchens smelled the same; our music used the same scales, the same beat. Their language was the language of my grandparents, who had emigrated from Yemen to Israel in the 1930s—a language I resisted studying in school, learning to associate it with the enemy rather than with my own heritage. In my first year in Vancouver, I heard Arabic spoken on the bus once and immediately tensed. Then I looked back and saw two young students—a boy and a girl—chatting in the backseat. It was the first time I came face-to-face with my own prejudice, my own deep-seated fear. I had no idea how ing
rained it was.
In finding Leyla and her friends, I began to discover something in me that had lain dormant: the Yemeni identity I had rejected as a child growing up in a country that suppressed Mizrahi traditions and educated in a school system that concentrated on European Ashkenazi history and literature.
In Vancouver, I didn’t feel a part of the Jewish community—mainly Canadian and Ashkenazi. Most people I met in the city had never encountered a Yemeni Jew, didn’t know what to make of me. To Canadians, Jewish meant delis and lox and matzo ball soup, as exotic to me as a Seinfeld episode. At parties, upon finding out I was Jewish, people asked if I spoke Yiddish. Others looked at me inquisitively. “But you look like an Arab,” they said.
I began thinking of myself as an Arab Jew, finding the term wonderfully romantic and contentious, surprised by how easily it rolled off my tongue. I became consumed by my Middle Easternness, infatuated with my Arabness. On the bus to work, I read History of the Modern Middle East by William L. Cleveland, highlighter in hand, listening to the legendary Arabic singers Fairuz and Umm Kulthum on my headphones, dreaming of traveling to the Middle East with my yet-to-be-acquired Canadian passport, taking courses at Cairo University, learning to belly dance from the famed Nagwa Fouad and Mona Said.
Ali was Firaz’s new roommate. A recent immigrant from Iraq, he was the most conservative of the bunch; he didn’t smoke, didn’t drink—not for religious reasons, he insisted when I pressed one night, in a drunken attempt to flirt. He just didn’t like to lose control. He dressed like my accountant uncle—a Lacoste shirt tucked into acid-wash jeans. His hair was receding and he sported a mustache before it was fashionable to do so. But he had a beautiful, strong profile, broad shoulders, and a manly, confident walk. He had a dimple in one cheek, and a lazy eye I found irresistible. His accent was subtle, sexy, and every now and then, a guttural K slipped into his English, like the Q at the end of Iraq, a sound alien to most Canadians, impossible to pronounce, but I knew it from Iraqi friends’ parents or grandparents in Israel. And his hands—they were big and dry and warm. Whenever he touched me, which he rarely did, and always so briefly that I thought I’d imagined it, they applied pressure, meaning.
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