A Woman Is No Man(84)

Sarah stared at the floor. A moaning sound came from her lips, but she said nothing. Fareeda swallowed, studying the runner beneath her feet. Her eyes followed the fabric, its embroidered lines spinning in and out of each other, again and again. She felt as though her life was bound by the same pattern. She couldn’t breathe.

“Just go,” Fareeda muttered, closing her eyes. “I don’t want to look at you right now. Go.”





Isra


Spring 1997

On a humid Saturday afternoon, Isra and Sarah stuffed eggplants on the kitchen table. Fareeda sat across from them, phone pressed to her ear. Isra wondered if this was one of her renewed attempts to find Sarah a suitor. If it was, Sarah seemed unconcerned. Her full attention was on the eggplant before her as she carefully stuffed it with rice and minced meat. It occurred to Isra that despite the many threats Fareeda had made to Sarah since her beating, nothing she’d said had elicited even the slightest appearance of fear from her daughter.

Fareeda hung up and turned to face them. Isra froze when she saw her face—it was as if she had seen death in her cup of Turkish coffee.

“It’s Hannah,” she began. “It’s Hannah . . . Umm Ahmed . . . Hannah has been killed.”

“Killed? What are you talking about?” Sarah jumped from her seat, her eggplant rolling off the table.

Isra felt her heart thumping beneath her nightgown. She didn’t know much about Sarah’s classmate Hannah, Umm Ahmed’s youngest daughter. Fareeda had considered her for Ali at one point, but had decided against the idea when she’d sensed that Umm Ahmed hadn’t wanted Sarah for her son. Isra remembered thinking how lucky Hannah was that this family hadn’t been her naseeb—surely Hannah’s life would’ve turned out like hers. But now, listening to the news, a panicky feeling moved through her. Sadness was an inescapable part of a woman’s life.

“What do you mean, killed?” Sarah asked again, louder this time, beating her thighs with the edges of her palms. “What are you talking about?”

Fareeda straightened in her seat, her eyes glistening. “Her husband . . . he . . . he . . .”

“Her husband?”

“Hannah told him she wanted a divorce,” Fareeda said, her voice cracking. “He says he doesn’t know what happened. They found him standing over her body with a knife.”

Sarah let out a wail. “And you want to do this to me? ‘Get married! Get married!’ That’s all you can say to me. You don’t care what happens to me!”

“Not now,” Fareeda said, staring at a spot outside the window. “This has nothing to do with you.”

“It has everything to do with me! What if some man kills me? Would you even care? Or would you just be glad that I was no longer your balwa?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Fareeda said, though Isra could see her upper lip trembling.

“Hannah was only eighteen!” Sarah shouted. “That could’ve been me.”

Fareeda’s eyes were locked on the window. A fly buzzed against the glass. She squashed it with the edge of her nightgown. She had told Isra once, years ago when Adam first beat her, that a woman was put on this earth to please her husband. Even if he was wrong, she had said, a woman must be patient. A woman must endure. And Isra had understood why Fareeda said it. Just like Mama, she believed silence was the only way. That it was safer to submit than speak up. But watching the tears gather in her eyes, Isra wondered what Fareeda thought about her words now.





Deya


Winter 2008

Assalamu alaikum,” Khaled said when Deya returned home that afternoon.

“Walikum assalam.” Why was he home so early? Surely Fareeda had told him that Deya knew the truth. Did he want to know where Sarah was? Fareeda had been so consumed with hiding the truth that she had barely asked anything about her daughter.

She placed her hijab on the kitchen table. “Why did you lie to us?”

Khaled stepped away from the open pantry and looked down at her. “I’m sorry, Deya,” he said in a low voice. “We didn’t want to hurt you.”

“How did you think we’d feel when we found out you lied to us all these years? You didn’t think that would hurt us?” Her grandfather didn’t reply, only looked away from her again. “Why did Baba do it? Why did he kill her?”

“He was drunk, Deya. He wasn’t in his right mind.”

“That doesn’t make sense. There must be a reason!”

“There was no reason.”

“Why did he kill himself?”

“I don’t know, daughter.” Khaled reached inside the pantry for a jar of sesame seeds. “I don’t know what your father was thinking that night. It’s haunted me for years. I wish I knew what made him do those terrible things. I wish I could’ve stopped him somehow. There are so many things about that night I don’t understand. All I know is that we’re sorry. Your grandmother and I only wanted to protect you.”

“You weren’t protecting us. You were only protecting yourselves.”

He still didn’t meet her gaze. “I’m sorry, daughter.”

“Sorry? That’s all you have to say?”

“We only want what’s best for you.”