A Woman Is No Man(21)

Fareeda slammed the remote down with a thump. “College again? How many times have we talked about this nonsense?”

Khaled gave Deya a sharp glare. She hoped he wouldn’t slap her.

“This is all because of those books,” Fareeda continued. “Those books putting foolish ideas in your head!” She stood up, waved her hands at Deya. “Tell me, what are you reading for?”

Deya folded her arms across her chest. “To learn.”

“Learn what?”

“Everything.”

Fareeda shook her head. “There are things you have to learn for yourself, things no book will ever teach you.”

“But—”

“Bikafi!” Khaled said. “That’s enough!” Deya and her sisters exchanged nervous looks. “College can wait until after marriage.” Khaled shuffled the cards for a new deck and turned his eyes to Deya again. “Fahmeh? Do you understand?”

She sighed. “Yes, Seedo.”

“With that said . . .” He returned his eyes to the deck. “I don’t see what’s wrong with reading.”

“You know what’s wrong with it,” Fareeda said, shooting him a wide-eyed look. But Khaled wouldn’t look at her. Fareeda’s jaw was clenching and unclenching.

“I don’t see anything wrong with books,” Khaled said, studying his cards. “What I think is wrong is you forbidding them.” His eyes shifted to Fareeda. “Don’t you think that will lead to trouble?”

“The only thing that will lead to trouble is being easy on them.”

“Easy on them?” He fixed Fareeda with a glare. “Don’t you think we shelter them enough? They come straight home from school every day, help you with all the household chores, never step foot out of the house without us. They don’t have cell phones or computers, they don’t talk to boys, they barely even have friends. They’re good girls, Fareeda, and they’ll all be married soon enough. You need to relax.”

“Relax?” She placed her hands on her hips. “That’s easy for you to say. I’m the one who has to keep them out of trouble, who has to make sure they maintain a good reputation until we marry them off. Tell me, who will be blamed if something goes wrong? Huh? Who will you point to when these books start putting ideas in their head?”

The atmosphere shifted. Khaled shook his head. “That’s the price of coming to this country,” he said. “Abandoning our land and running away. Not a moment goes by when I don’t think of what we’ve done. Maybe we should’ve stayed and fought for our home. So what if the soldiers had killed us? So what if we had starved? Better than coming here and losing ourselves, our culture . . .” His words faded out.

“Hush,” Fareeda said. “You know there’s no use in that kind of thinking. The past is the past, and no good will come from regret. All we can do now is move forward the best we can, and that means keeping our granddaughters safe.”

Khaled did not reply. He sighed and excused himself to shower.

Deya and her sisters were straightening the sala when Fareeda appeared at the doorway. “Come with me,” she said to Deya.

Deya followed her grandmother down the hall into her bedroom. Inside, Fareeda opened her closet and reached for something from the very back. She pulled out an old book and handed it to Deya. A wave of familiarity washed over Deya as she dusted off the hardcover spine. It was an Arabic edition of A Thousand and One Nights. She recognized it: it had been her mother’s.

“Open it,” Fareeda said.

Deya did as she was told, and an envelope slipped out. Slowly she lifted the top. Inside was a letter, in Arabic. In the darkness of the bedroom, she squinted to read:

August 12, 1997

Dear Mama,

I feel very depressed today. I don’t know what’s happening to me. Every morning I wake up with a strange sensation. I lie beneath the sheets and I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to see anyone. All I think of is dying. I know God doesn’t approve of taking a life, be it mine or someone else’s, but I can’t get the thought out of my mind. My brain is spinning on its own, out of my control. What’s happening to me, Mama? I’m so scared of what’s happening inside me.

Your daughter,

Isra

Deya read the letter again, then again, then one more time. She pictured her mother, with her dark, unsmiling face, and felt a flicker of fear. Was it possible? Could she have killed herself?

“Why didn’t you show me this before?” Deya said, springing from the bed and waving the letter in Fareeda’s face. “All these years you’ve refused to talk about her, and you’ve had this all along?”

“I didn’t want you to remember her this way,” Fareeda said, eyeing her granddaughter calmly.

“So why are you showing this to me now?”

“Because I want you to understand.” She looked into Deya’s eyes. “I know you’re afraid of repeating your mother’s life, but Isra, may Allah have mercy on her soul, was a troubled woman.”

“Troubled how?”

“Didn’t you just read the letter? Your mother was possessed by a jinn.”

“Possessed?” Deya said in disbelief. But deep down she wondered. “She was probably just depressed. Maybe she needed to see a doctor.” She met Fareeda’s eyes. “The jinn aren’t real, Teta.”