A Woman Is No Man(34)
“Four dollars and fifty cents.”
Almost half her weekly allowance! She slipped the warm bills through the glass. Luckily, she saved most of her vending-machine money. She only spent it on books, which she bought from yard sales, school catalogs, even off her classmates, who’d become accustomed to selling her their used novels over the years. She knew they felt sorry for her because she didn’t have a normal family.
There was a loud rumble in the distance. Startled, she grabbed the mustard-yellow subway card and hurried toward the metal poles. Another rumble, more aggressive this time. From the sudden movement around her, Deya realized the sounds were coming from the trains, and that people were rushing to catch them. She hurried along with them, mimicking their ease, swiping her card through the metal groove in one smooth motion. When the card didn’t register, she swiped it again, more carefully this time. Beep. It worked! She pushed through the turnstile.
In the darkness of the platform, Deya bit her fingertips and stared anxiously around her, the racket of passing trains making her jump. A man caught her attention as he walked to the end of the platform. He unzipped his pants and a stream of water began to pour onto the tracks in front of him. It took her a few moments to realize he was urinating. Her breath came in short bursts and she turned away, focusing her attention on a rat scurrying across the tracks. Soon she heard another rattle, then a faint whistling sound. Looking up, she could see a light shining from a tunnel beyond the end of the platform. It was the R train. She took a deep breath as it zoomed past her and shuddered to a halt.
Inside the train was loud, crammed with the onslaught of daily life. Around her people stared absently ahead or into their phones, transfixed. They were Italian, Chinese, Korean, Mexican, Jamaican—every ethnicity Deya could possibly imagine—yet something about them seemed so American. What was it? Deya thought it was the way they spoke—their voices loud, or at least louder than hers. It was the way they stood confidently on the train, not apologizing for taking up the space.
Watching them, she understood yet again what it meant to be an outsider. She kept picturing them looking down at her like a panel of judges. What are you? she imagined them thinking. Why are you dressed this way? She could see the judgment brewing in their eyes. She could feel them observing how scared she was standing there, how unassuredly she moved, the garb she wore, and deciding instantly that they knew everything about her. Surely she was the victim of an oppressive culture, or the enforcer of a barbaric tradition. She was likely uneducated, uncivilized, a nobody. Perhaps she was even an extremist, a terrorist. An entire race of culture and experiences diluted into a single story.
The trouble was, regardless of what they saw, or how little they thought of her, in her own eyes Deya didn’t see herself much better. She was a soul torn down the middle, broken in two. Straddled and limited. Here or there, it didn’t matter. She didn’t belong.
It took her nearly five minutes of squeezing through the train to find an empty seat. A woman had moved her leather suitcase so she could sit. Deya studied her. Bright skin. Honey-colored hair. Perfectly round tortoiseshell glasses. She looked so confident, sitting there in a tiny black dress. Her legs were long and lean, and Deya caught a whiff of her perfume. Flowers. Deya thought she must be someone important. If only she, Deya, could be someone important. There was so much she wanted to do, so many places she wanted to see, yet here she was, a nobody, struggling even to ride the train so many people used every day without a second thought.
The woman was staring back at her now. Deya did her best to smile. These days it was hard enough for people like her to walk around in jeans and a T-shirt, let alone a hijab and jilbab. It wasn’t fair she had to live this way, always afraid of what people saw when they looked at her. She finally understood why Fareeda had banned them from wearing the hijab outside of school, finally saw how fear could force you to change who you were.
After a few deep breaths, Deya took a furtive look around the train car. Everywhere she turned, people were staring. There was that feeling again inching up her chest. She swallowed, tried to push it down, but it clung in her throat. She turned to face the darkened window. Why did she have to be so afraid, so sensitive, so affected by the world? She wished she could be stronger, wished she could be one of those people who could listen to a sad song without bursting into tears, who could read something horrible in the news without feeling sick, who didn’t feel so deeply. But that wasn’t her.
The R train seemed to go on forever, stopping at countless stations. Deya stared out the window, reading the signs three times at each station to make sure she didn’t miss her stop. Fourteenth Street–Union Square Station. At Court Street, the conductor announced it was the last stop in Brooklyn, and Deya realized the train was about to pass through a tunnel that ran under the Hudson River. The thought of being underwater both frightened and fascinated her. She wondered how it was possible to build a tunnel underwater, how extraordinary its designer must have been. She tried to picture herself creating something beautiful, changing the world somehow, but couldn’t. Soon she would get married, and then what? What kind of life would she lead? A predictable life of duty. She squeezed the card tight. But maybe Fareeda was right. Maybe her life would turn out differently than Isra’s. Maybe Nasser would let her be who she wanted to be. Maybe once she was married, she could finally be free.
Isra
Fall 1990