A Woman Is No Man(57)

She turned her gaze away from the window, signaling to Deya to come sit in her lap. When she did, Isra clutched her close and whispered, “I don’t mean to be this way.”

Deya squinted at her, holding the Barbie doll tight. “When I was a little girl,” Isra continued, “my mother never spoke to me much. She was always so busy.” Deya was quiet, but Isra could tell she was listening. She pulled her closer. “Sometimes I felt forgotten. Sometimes I even thought she didn’t love me. But she did love me. Of course she loved me. She’s my mother. And I love you, habibti. Always remember that.” Deya smiled, and Isra held her tight.

In the kitchen that evening, Isra and Sarah seasoned a chunk of ground lamb for dinner. The men were craving malfouf, cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and meat, and the women only had a few hours to prepare it before they returned from work. They would’ve had more time if Nadine had been helping, but she was upstairs breastfeeding her son, whom, to Fareeda’s fury, she had named Ameer, and not Khaled. More than once Fareeda had called on her, shouting from the end of the staircase that she should stop breastfeeding so she could get pregnant again, only for Nadine to call back, “But I already gave Omar a son, didn’t I?”

Sarah passed Isra a smirk, but Isra looked away. Deep down she wondered why she couldn’t be like Nadine. Why was speaking up so hard for her? In the four years she had lived in this house, she could not name a single time she had spoken up to Adam or Fareeda, and it felt as though someone had struck her when she realized this. Her pathetic weakness. When Adam came home and asked for dinner, she nodded, eager to please, and when he reached across the bed to touch her, she let him, and when he chose to beat her instead, she said nothing, sucking down her words. And again she said nothing to Fareeda’s constant demands, even when her body ached from all the housework. What did the rest of it matter then—what she thought or felt, whether she was obedient or defiant—if she could not do something as basic as speaking her mind?

Tears came, rushing to her eyes. She shook them away. She thought about Mama. Had she felt as Isra felt now, a fool? Holding her tongue in an attempt to earn love, teaching her daughter to do the same? Did Mama live as she lived now—full of shame and guilt for not speaking up? Had she known this would happen to her daughter?

“She must have done something wrong,” Fareeda said into the phone, both feet propped up on the kitchen table, a small smile on her face. Umm Ahmed’s eldest daughter, Fatima, was getting divorced.

Isra looked out the window. She wondered what she had done wrong to provoke Adam’s beatings. She wondered if he would divorce her.

“Poor, poor Umm Ahmed,” Fareeda said into the phone. “Having to look people in the eye after her daughter’s divorce.” But she was smirking so broadly that her gold tooth glowed like the moon. Isra didn’t understand—Umm Ahmed was Fareeda’s closest friend. There was no reason to be happy. Only hadn’t she prayed Nadine would have a girl just to ease her own suffering? She felt her heart squeeze tight.

“This will be good for you, daughter,” Fareeda told Sarah when she hung up the phone. “If Fatima gets divorced, no one will marry her sister, Hannah.”

“What does that have to do with me?” Sarah said.

“It has everything to do with you! Think of how much easier it will be for you to find a suitor with Hannah out of the way.” She stood up, tasting a pinch of the rice stuffing to make sure it was seasoned properly. “There are hardly enough Palestinian men in Brooklyn as it is. The less competition, the better.” She met Isra’s eyes. “Aren’t I right?”

Isra nodded, placing a mixture of rice and meat in the center of a cabbage leaf. She could see Fareeda eyeing her, so she made sure to roll the leaf into a perfect fingerlike roll.

“Not that there’s much competition between you girls, anyway,” Fareeda said, licking her fingers. “Have you seen Hannah’s dark skin and course hair? And the girl is barely five feet tall. You’re much prettier.”

Sarah stood and carried a stack of dirty plates to the sink, her face noticeably redder. Isra wondered what she was thinking. She thought back to when Mama used to compare her to other girls, saying she was nothing but stick and bones, that no man would want to marry her. She’d tell Isra to eat more, and when she gained weight, she’d tell her to eat less, and when she went outside, she’d tell her to stay out of the sun so her skin wouldn’t get dark. Mama had looked at her so often then, scanning her from head to toe to ensure she was in good condition. To ensure that a man would find her worthy. Isra wondered if Sarah felt now as she’d felt then, like she was the most worthless thing on earth. She wondered if her daughters would feel the same way.

“Maybe now is your chance,” Fareeda said, following Sarah to the sink.

Sarah did not reply. She grabbed a sponge and turned on the faucet, her tiny frame lost beneath a blue turtleneck sweater and loose corduroy pants. She had worn those clothes to school, and Isra wondered if her classmates dressed in the same way, or if they wore tight-fitted, revealing clothes like the girls on television. More than once, she had overheard Sarah beg her mother for trendier outfits, but Fareeda would always shout, “You’re not an American!” as if Sarah had somehow forgotten.

“Well, don’t be so excited,” said Fareeda. Sarah shrugged. “You’re fifteen now. Marriage is around the corner. You need to start preparing.”