A Woman Is No Man(22)

Fareeda frowned and shook her head. “Why do you think exorcisms have been performed all over the world for thousands of years, hmm?” She moved closer, snatching the letter from Deya’s fingers. “If you don’t believe me, go read one of your books. You’ll see.”

Deya said nothing. Could her mother have been possessed? One of the memories she’d tried to forget hurtled to the front of her mind. Deya had come home from school one day to find Isra hurling herself off the basement stairs onto the floor. And not just once, but over and over. She had jumped again and again, both hands curled against her chest, her mouth hanging open, until she had noticed Deya standing there.

“Deya,” Isra had said, startled to find her watching. Quickly she had stood, dragged herself across the basement. “Your sister is sick today. Go upstairs and get some medicine from the kitchen.”

The feeling that had come over Deya that day, the twist in her stomach, she would never forget. She had wanted to tell Isra that she felt sick, too. Not with a cold or fever but something worse, only she couldn’t find the words. Physical symptoms—is that what it meant to be sick? What about what happened on the inside? What about what was happening to her, Deya, what had been happening since she was a child?

Deya cleared her throat. What if Isra had been possessed? It would explain her memories, the letter, why her mother thought about dying. Suddenly she looked up at Fareeda. “The letter,” she said. “When was it written?”

Fareeda eyed her nervously. “Why?”

“I need to know when my mother wrote it.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Fareeda said, waving her hand. “No good will come from obsessing over the letter. I just want you to understand that your mother’s unhappiness had nothing to do with marriage. You have to move on.”

“Tell me when she wrote the letter,” Deya demanded. “I won’t leave until you do.”

Fareeda sighed irritably. “Fine.” She took the envelope out of A Thousand and One Nights and opened the letter.

Deya squinted at the date: 1997. Her stomach sank. That was the year her parents had died. How could it be a coincidence? What if her mother hadn’t died in a car accident after all?

She looked up at Fareeda. “Tell me the truth.”

“About what?”

“Did my mother kill herself?”

Fareeda took a step back. “What?”

“Did she kill herself? Is that why you’ve refused to talk about her all these years?”

“Of course not!” Fareeda said, her eyes chasing a spot on the floor. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

But Deya could feel her nervousness—she was certain Fareeda was hiding something. “How do I know you’re not lying? You’ve kept this letter from me all these years!” Deya fixed her eyes on her grandmother, but Fareeda wouldn’t look at her.

“Did she?”

Fareeda sighed. “You won’t believe me no matter what I say.”

Deya blinked at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The truth is, you’re very much like your mother. So sensitive to the world.” She looked up to meet Deya’s eyes. “No matter what I say now, you won’t believe me.”

Deya looked away. Was it true? Had her fears been warranted? Had her mother planted a seed of sadness inside her from which there was no escape?

“Look at me,” said Fareeda. “I might not know many things in life, but of this I am certain. You need to put the past behind you in order to move on. Believe me, this I know.”





Isra


Spring 1990

Isra awoke feeling adrift and nauseated. She wondered why she hadn’t been awakened at dawn by the distant sound of the adhan. Then she remembered: she was in Brooklyn, twelve thousand miles away from home, in her husband’s bed. She sprang to her feet. But the bed was empty, and Adam was nowhere to be seen. A wave of shame rose in Isra’s chest as she thought of the night before. She swallowed, forcing the feeling down. There was no point in dwelling on what had happened. This was just the way it was.

Isra paced from wall to wall of her new bedroom, running her hands over the wooden bed frame and dresser that filled the narrow space. Why was there not a single window? She thought longingly of all the nights she had spent reading by her open bedroom window back home, looking at the moon glowing over Birzeit, listening to the whisper of the graveyard, the stars so bright against the midnight sky she got goose bumps at the sight. She retreated to the other basement room, the one with the single window. The window was level with the ground, and from it, she could see past the front stoop, where a row of houses stood side by side, and beyond them, only a sliver of sky. America was supposed to be the land of the free, so why did everything feel tight and constricted?

Before long she was tired again and went back to bed. Fareeda had said it would take days for her body to adjust to the time change. When she finally awoke at sunset, Adam still wasn’t home, and Isra wondered if he didn’t want to be around her. Perhaps she had done something to upset him the night before when he’d put himself inside her. Perhaps she hadn’t appeared eager enough. But how was she supposed to know what to do? If anything, Adam should’ve taken the time to teach her. She knew he must have slept with other women before marriage. Even though the Qur’an forbade the act for both genders, Mama said that men committed zina all the time, that they couldn’t help themselves.