A Woman Is No Man(58)

“And what if I don’t want to get married?” Sarah’s angry voice was like a gunshot in the room.

Fareeda glared at her. “Excuse me?”

Sarah turned off the faucet and met her mother’s eyes. “Why are you so eager to marry me off?”

“I’m not asking you to get married tomorrow. We can wait until after high school.”

“No.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to get married after high school.”

“What do you mean, you don’t want to get married? What else are you going to do, you foolish girl?”

“I’m going to go to college.”

“College? Do you think your father and I will let you leave the house alone so you can turn into an American?”

“It isn’t like that. Everyone goes to college here!”

“Oh, yeah? And what do you suppose everyone back home will think when they find out our daughter is roaming the streets of New York alone? Think of our reputation.”

“Reputation? Why don’t my brothers have to worry about our reputation? No one prevents Omar and Ali from roaming the streets alone, doing as they please. Baba had to practically beg Ali to go to college!”

“You can’t compare yourself to your brothers,” Fareeda said. “You’re not a man.”

“That’s what you always say, but it’s not fair!”

“Fair or not, no girl of mine is going to college. Fahmeh?” She moved closer, her open palm twitching. “Do you understand me?

Sarah took a step back. “Yes, Mama.”

“Instead of worrying about college, why don’t you learn a thing or two about being a woman. You have your sisters-in-law here. Did any of them go to college?”

Sarah mumbled something under her breath, but Fareeda didn’t seem to notice. “As a matter of fact,” she said, turning to leave, “from now on you can cook dinner with Isra every night.” She met Isra’s eyes. “You’ll make sure she knows how to make every dish properly.”

“Of course,” Isra said.

“This woman is ridiculous,” Sarah said when Fareeda had left to watch her evening show. “She treats me as if I’m some unworn hijab in her closet that she’s desperate to give away.”

“She just wants what’s best for you,” Isra said, only half convinced by her own words.

“What’s best for me?” Sarah said, laughing. “You really believe that?”

Isra said nothing. It was moments like this when she was reminded of how different they were. Unlike Isra, Sarah wasn’t easily defined. She was split between two very different cultures, and this divide was written all over her: the girl who shrank whenever Fareeda lifted her open palm, who barely spoke when her father and brothers entered the house, who rotated around the kitchen table until they had been served, and the girl who read American novels voraciously, who wanted to go to college, whose eyes, she saw now, sparked rebellion. Isra wished she could regain the defiance she once had, but that young girl was long gone.

“If she really wanted what’s best for me,” Sarah said, “she wouldn’t want me to have a life like yours.”

Isra looked up. “What do you mean?”

“I’m sorry, Isra, but it’s obvious, you know.”

“What is?”

“Your bruises. I can see them through the makeup.”

“I . . .” Isra brought her hands to her face. “I tripped on Deya’s Barbie doll.”

“I’m not stupid. I know Adam hits you.”

Isra said nothing. How did Sarah know? Did she hear Adam shouting at night? Or had she overheard Fareeda talking about it on the phone? Did Nadine know, too? She looked down, burying her face in the stuffed cabbage.

“You shouldn’t let him touch you,” Sarah said. Though her voice was low, Isra could hear her anger. “You have to stand up for yourself.”

“He didn’t mean to. He was just having a bad day.”

“A bad day? Are you kidding me? You know domestic abuse is illegal here, right? If a man ever put his hands on me, I’d call the cops right away. It’s one thing for our parents to hit us, but after marriage, as a grown woman?”

Isra kept her gaze averted. “Husbands beat their wives all the time back home. If a woman called the cops every time her husband beat her, all our men would be in jail.”

“Maybe that’s the way it should be,” Sarah said. “Maybe if our women stood up for themselves and called the cops, their husbands wouldn’t beat them.”

“It doesn’t work like that, Sarah,” Isra whispered. “There is no government in Palestine. It’s an occupied country. There’s no one to call. And even if there was a police, they’d drag you back to your husband and he’d beat you some more for leaving.”

“So men can just beat on their wives whenever they want?” Isra shrugged. “Well, that’s not how it works in America.”

A flurry of shame ran across Isra’s body as Sarah stared at her, wide-eyed. She looked away. How could she make Sarah understand what it was like back home, where no woman would think to call the cops if her husband beat her? And even if she somehow found the strength to stand up for herself, what good would it do when she had no money, no education, no job to fall back on? That was the real reason abuse was so common, Isra thought for the first time. Not only because there was no government protection, but because women were raised to believe they were worthless, shameful creatures who deserved to get beaten, who were made to depend on the men who beat them. Isra wanted to cry at the thought. She was ashamed to be a woman, ashamed for herself and for her daughters.