A Woman Is No Man(23)
It was nearly midnight when Adam returned home. Isra was sitting by the window when she heard him descend the stairs, watched him as he switched on the basement light. He flinched when he saw her sitting by the window, both hands wrapped around her knees like a child.
“Why are you sitting here in the dark?”
“I was just looking outside.”
“I thought you’d be asleep.”
“I’ve been sleeping all day.”
“Oh.” He looked away. “Well, in that case, why don’t you fix me up something to eat while I shower. I’m starving.”
Upstairs, Fareeda had neatly assembled servings of rice and chicken in the fridge, each covered with plastic wrap and marked with one of her sons’ names. Isra searched for Adam’s plate and heated it in the microwave. Then she set the sufra the way Mama had taught her. A cup of water to the right, a spoon to the left. Two warm loaves of pita. A small bowl of green olives and a few slices of tomatoes. An ibrik of mint chai brewed on the stove. Just as the teakettle whistled, Adam appeared in the doorway.
“It smells delicious,” he said. “Did you cook?”
“No,” Isra said, flushing. “I was asleep for most of the day. Your mother made this for you.”
“Ah, I see.”
Isra couldn’t make out his tone, but his potential disappointment filled her with unease. “I’ll be sure to cook for you tomorrow.”
“I’m sure you will. Your father mentioned you were a good cook when we came to ask for you.”
Was she a good cook? Isra had never stopped to consider this, much less think of it as a skill.
“He also said you were a woman of few words.”
If Isra’s face had been pink before, she was certain it was now crimson. She opened her mouth to respond, but words wouldn’t come.
“I don’t mean to embarrass you,” Adam said. “There’s no shame in being quiet. In fact, I appreciate the quality. There’s nothing worse than coming home to a woman whose voice never stops.”
Isra nodded, though she didn’t know what she was agreeing to. She studied Adam from across the table as he ate, wondering whether he would be capable of giving her the kind of love she yearned for. She looked deep into his face, trying to find warmth in there. But his dark brown eyes were staring absently at something behind her, lost in a faraway place, as though he had forgotten she was there.
It wasn’t until they were in bed that Adam looked at her again, and when he did, she smiled at him.
The smile surprised her as much as it surprised him. But Isra was desperate to please him. Last night his body had taken her by surprise, but now she knew what to expect. She told herself perhaps if she smiled and pretended to enjoy it, pleasure would come. Maybe that was all she had to do to make Adam love her: erase all traces of resistance from her face. She had to give him what he wanted and enjoy giving it to him, too. And she would do that. She would give him herself if it meant he’d give her his love.
It didn’t take Isra long to learn the shape of her life in America. Despite her hopes that things might be different for women, it was, in most ways, ordinary. And in the ways it wasn’t, it was worse. She hardly saw Adam most days. Every morning he left the house at six to catch the train to Manhattan, and he didn’t return until midnight. She’d wait for him in the bedroom, listening for the door to open, for the clomp of his feet as he descended the stairs. There was always some reason to explain his absence. “I was working late at the convenience store,” he’d say. “I was renovating my father’s deli.” “I couldn’t catch the R train during rush hour.” “I met up with friends at the hookah bar.” “I lost track of time playing cards.” Even when he did manage to come home early, it wouldn’t occur to him to take her out somewhere. Instead he spent hours idling in front of the television, a cup of chai in his hand, both feet lifted up on the coffee table, while Isra worked with Fareeda in the kitchen, preparing dinner.
When Isra wasn’t helping Fareeda with the daily chores, she spent most of her time peering out the window. Another disappointment. Outside all she saw were rectangular houses. Bricks upon bricks, crammed against one another on both sides of the street. Plane trees stood in neat, straight lines along the paved sidewalk, their roots shooting through cracks in the cement. Flocks of pigeons glided across gray, overcast skies. And beyond the row of dull brick houses and worn cement blocks, beyond the line of London plane trees and dark gray pigeons—Fifth Avenue, with its tiny shops and zooming cars.
Fareeda was very much like Mama, Isra soon realized. She cooked and cleaned all day, dressed in loose cotton nightgowns. She sipped on chai and kahwa from sunrise until sunset. When Fareeda’s sons were around, she doted on them as though they were porcelain dolls instead of grown men. She prepared dinner just the way they liked, baked their favorite sweets, and sent them off to work and school with Tupperware boxes filled with spiced rice and roasted meats. Like Mama, Fareeda had only one daughter, Sarah, who was to Fareeda what Isra had been to her mother—a temporary possession, noticed only when there was cooking or cleaning to be done.
The only difference between Mama and Fareeda was their practice of the five daily prayers, which Isra had never seen Fareeda complete. Fareeda awoke each day at sunrise and headed straight to the kitchen to make chai, muttering a quick prayer as the teakettle whistled: “God, please keep shame and disgrace from my family.” Isra would stand quietly at the doorway, listening in awe as Fareeda mumbled at the stove. Once, she had asked Fareeda why she didn’t kneel before God to pray, but Fareeda only laughed and said, “What difference does it make how I recite my prayers? This is what’s wrong with all these religious folks these days. So hung up on the little things. You would think a prayer is a prayer, no?”