A Woman Is No Man(35)

One overcast November morning, three weeks before she was due, Isra went into labor. Adam and Fareeda took her to the hospital but refused to come into the delivery room. They said they didn’t like the sight of blood. Isra felt a deep terror as they wheeled her into the room alone. She had watched Mama give birth once. The sound of her pain was a permanent fixture in Isra’s mind. But this was even worse than she could have imagined. As the contractions came harder and faster, it felt as though crimes were being committed inside her. She wanted to scream out, like Mama had, but for some reason she found herself unable to open her mouth. She didn’t want to display her pain, not even in sounds. Instead she sucked on her teeth and wept.

It was a girl. Isra held her baby daughter in her arms for the first time—she stroked the softness of her skin, placed her against her chest. Her heart swelled. I’m a mother now, she thought. I’m a mother.

When, at last, they entered the room, Fareeda and Adam locked their eyes on the ground and murmured a quiet “Mabrouk.” Isra wished Adam would say something to comfort her or show excitement.

“Just what we need,” Fareeda said, shaking her head. “A girl.”

“Not now, Mother,” Adam said. He passed Isra an apologetic look.

“What?” Fareeda said. “It’s true. As if we need another balwa, as if we don’t have enough troubles.”

Isra felt a jolt at the word. She could almost hear Mama’s voice ringing in her ears. Mama had often called Isra a balwa—a dilemma, a burden. Any lingering hope that America would be better than Palestine fell away at that moment. A woman would always be a woman. Mama was right. It was as true for her daughter as it had been for Isra. The loneliness of this reality seemed to leach out of the white hospital floor and walls into her.

“Please, Mother,” Adam said. “There’s nothing we can do about it now.”

“Easy for you to say. Do you know how hard it is to raise a girl in this country? Do you? Soon you’ll be pulling your hair out! You need a son to help you. To carry on our name.” She was crying now, a deep sucking sound coming from her mouth, and the nurse handed her a box of tissues.

“Congratulations,” said the nurse, mistaking Fareeda’s tears for happiness. “What a blessing.”

Fareeda shook her head. She met Isra’s eyes and whispered, “Keep these words close, like a piercing in your ear: If you don’t give a man a son, he’ll find him a woman who can.”

“That’s enough, Mother!” Adam said. “Get up, let’s go. Isra needs to rest.” He turned to leave, shifting his eyes back to Isra on the way out. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll have a son, inshallah. You’re young. We have plenty of time.”

Isra passed him a weak smile, holding back tears. How much she wanted to please them. How much she wanted their love. There was music playing in the room, a soft melody the nurse had put on during the labor. Now Isra took it in for the first time, and it soothed her. She asked if the nurse could replay it, asked its name. Moonlight Sonata. Isra shut her eyes to the slow, wafting melody and told herself everything would be okay.

“Bint,” Isra heard Fareeda say whenever someone called to congratulate them. A girl.

Isra pretended not to hear. Her daughter was beautiful. She had coffee-colored hair and fair skin and eyes as deep as midnight. And a good baby, too. Quiet but alert. Isra hummed her awake and lulled her to sleep, skin on skin, hearts touching. In those moments, she felt a newfound warmth spread over her, the way the sun felt on her face when she had gone fruit-picking back home. She named her daughter Deya. Light.

Deya’s birth had indeed brought light to Isra’s life. Within days of coming home from the hospital, Isra’s love for Deya had spread over her like a wildfire. Everything seemed brighter. Deya was her naseeb, Isra told herself. Motherhood was her purpose. This was why she had married Adam, why she had moved to America. Deya was the reason. Isra felt at peace.

She had always imagined love as the kind she read about in books, like the love Rumi and Hafiz described in their poems. Never once had motherly love crossed her mind as her naseeb. Perhaps it was because of her relationship with Mama, the sprinkles of love she’d fought so hard for and found so lacking. Or perhaps it was because Isra had been raised to think that love was something only a man could give her, like everything else.

Shame, she told herself. How selfish she had been to not appreciate Allah’s goodness all along. To not trust in His plan. She was lucky. Lucky to be a mother, and lucky—she reminded herself—to have a place to call her own. Many families back home still lived in refugee camps, each shelter barely two feet away from the next. But this basement was her home now. Deya’s home. They were lucky.

As Isra placed her daughter in the crib, her heart swelled with hope. She laid down her prayer rug and prayed two rak’ats thanking Allah for all he had given her.





Part II





Fareeda


Spring 1991

It was Fareeda’s idea to not breastfeed Deya. Breastfeeding prevented pregnancy, and Adam needed a son. Isra obeyed her without resistance, mixing bottles of formula in the kitchen sink, hoping, Fareeda knew, to regain her favor. She studied Isra’s swollen breasts, a certain guilt rising beneath her ribs. A certain memory at the familiar sight. Fareeda pushed it away. There’s no point in dwelling on the past, she told herself.