A Woman Is No Man(88)

She sat in Islamic studies class, staring blankly ahead as Brother Hakeem paced in front of the chalkboard. He was discussing the role of women in Islam. Once or twice she could feel him looking at her, waiting for her to question something in her usual way, but she kept her eyes trained on the window. He recited a verse, in Arabic: “Heaven lies under a mother’s feet.” The words meant nothing to her. She didn’t have a mother.

“But why is heaven under the mother’s feet?” a girl asked. “Why not under the father’s feet? He’s the head of the household.”

“Good question,” Brother Hakeem said, clearing his throat. “The father might be the head of the household, but the mother serves an important role. Can anyone tell me what that is?”

The class said nothing, looking at him with wide eyes. Deya was tempted to say that a woman’s role was to sit tight and wait until a man beat her to death, but she stayed quiet.

“None of you know the role your mother plays in the family?” Brother Hakeem asked.

“Well, she bears the children,” said one girl.

“And she takes care of the family,” said another.

They were all so dumb, sitting there, smiling with their stupid answers. Deya wondered what lies they’d been told, what secrets their parents kept from them, the things they didn’t know. The things they’d only find out too late.

“Very good,” Brother Hakeem said. “Mothers carry the entire family—arguably the entire world—on their shoulders. That’s why heaven lies under their feet.”

Deya listened to his words, unconvinced. Nothing she learned in Islamic studies class ever made sense. If heaven lay under a mother’s feet, then why had her father hit her mother? Why had he killed her? They were Muslims, weren’t they?

“But I still don’t understand what it means,” said a girl in the back.

“It’s a metaphor,” Brother Hakeem said, “to remind us of the importance of our women. When we accept that heaven lies underneath the feet of a woman, we are more respectful of women everywhere. That is how we are told to treat women in the Qur’an. It’s a powerful verse.”

Deya wanted to scream. No one she’d ever met actually lived according to the doctrines of Islam. They were all hypocrites and liars! But she was tired of fighting. Instead she closed her eyes and thought of her parents, replaying memories, trying to think of anything she might have forgotten, anything that could make better sense of things.

On the bus ride home, Deya wondered if she would ever learn the full story of Isra’s life and death. She knew that no matter how many times she replayed her memories, how many stories she told herself, she would never know the full truth on her own. But she hoped against hope that she’d remember something new. A repressed memory. A piece that would change everything. She thought back to the last thing she remembered her mother saying.

“I’m sorry,” Isra had whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Looking out the window, waiting for the traffic light to change, Deya wished she knew what her mother had been thinking in her final days. But she didn’t know, and she didn’t think she ever would.





Fareeda


Summer 1997

It was Adam who first pointed his finger at Fareeda.

“It’s all your fault,” he said. Sarah had been gone for seven days, and the entire family was gathered around the sufra.

Fareeda looked up from her dinner plate. She could feel everyone staring. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re the reason she ran away.”

Fareeda raised both eyebrows, opened her mouth to protest—but Adam waved a hand, dismissing her words before she’d had a chance to say them.

“This was all your doing!” He slurred his words. “I told you sending her to a public school was a bad idea, that you should homeschool her, but you didn’t listen. And for what? So she could learn English and help you with doctor appointments?” He snorted and shook his head. “But that’s what you get for being easy on her, on all of them. Everyone except me.”

It wasn’t as though Fareeda hadn’t considered this—that perhaps she was to blame. But she kept her face calm and stony. “Is that what you’re upset about? All the pressure we’ve put on you because you’re the eldest?” She pushed herself up from the table. “In that case, why don’t you grab a drink and sulk over it? You’re good at that.”

Adam rose from the table and stormed downstairs.

It wasn’t long before Omar and Ali pointed their fingers at Fareeda, too. She made a spitting sound at them. Why, of course it was her fault! Blame it on the woman! But she had only done what was best, raised her children the best she knew how in this foreign place.

Khaled would’ve blamed her, too, only he was too busy blaming himself. Nightly, he hid his pain behind a cloud of hookah smoke, but it was clear the loss of his daughter had awakened a new feeling within him: regret. Fareeda could see it in his eyes. She knew what he was thinking—he had spent his entire life fighting to stay strong, trying not to collapse like his father had when the soldiers snatched their home, trying to preserve their family honor. And for what? Now he had no honor left.

What had made them leave their country and come to America, where something like this could happen? Something like this. Fareeda’s mouth dried up as she asked herself this. Would their daughter have disobeyed them, disgraced them, had they raised her back home? So what if they might have starved? So what if they could’ve been shot in the back crossing a checkpoint, or blown up with tear gas on the way to school or the mosque? Maybe they should’ve stayed and let the soldiers kill them. Should’ve stayed and fought for their land, should’ve stayed and died. Any pain other than the pain of guilt and regret.