The Pact We Made. Layla AlAmmar
cycles, frequenting the lesser pilgrimage, and drinking teas of sage and fenugreek and anise. After six years, when the dismay was so entrenched that Mama had broached the topic of my father taking a second wife to give him children, she finally conceived. Nadia was received like an heir to something greater than what my parents had to offer. They took their miracle baby and wished for nothing more. Eight years later, I announced myself when Mama vomited at a table laden with four types of fish.
‘Oh,’ my sister said, turning to me, ‘I forgot to ask how it went the other night.’
I winced. Mama frowned, but I couldn’t tell if it was because of the topic or because the tea was too hot. ‘No effort from this one, as usual.’
‘Yumma, don’t start,’ I said, shaking my head.
‘What? She should know what I go through with you. I set out a beautiful dara’a, blue and silver and bright, and she wears black like she’s going to a funeral. He’s a wonderful man. Tall, smart, lovely eyes, and she stares at her knees all evening.’
‘I was being demure.’
‘Ekh!’ Mama said, flicking her hand at me like I was a fly that required swatting. ‘Allah forgive me, it’s almost like you don’t want to get married.’ She shook her head, giving off an impression that was equal parts martyrdom and disappointment. If she were Catholic, she’d have been crossing herself. Turning to Nadia, she added, ‘Talk to your sister before she becomes a spinster and—’
‘Dies,’ I finished, making Ariel’s wiry hair a bit too dark.
‘Allah forgive you,’ she hissed, smacking my thigh. ‘Don’t say such things.’
‘You’re the one talking about spinsters,’ Nadia retorted in my defense.
‘Well, we’re getting there.’ She sighed like she was carrying an impossible burden and folded her arms over her stomach.
I dropped the sketchpad and pencil on the floor and went to join the kids. The boys were running screaming circles around Baba. They would never have to concern themselves with this. Their lives would be so easy. They would have freedoms my sister and I never contemplated: the freedom to study anywhere in the world; the freedom to live their lives without constant scrutiny, where society responded to their mistakes with ‘boys will be boys’ instead of ‘you bear the family’s honor’; and, perhaps most meaningful of all, the freedom to not marry without shame or guilt. My heart slumped at what was in store for Sarah. She was still in the swing, whining about not being strong enough to propel herself yet, so I obliged her. Nadia and Mama continued to talk, my sister tossing out gentle reprimands that my mother deflected like a ninja.
Let them talk. It was all just words.
Did I have a happy childhood? It’s hard to say. I suspect many of my memories are compiled from the stories of others. That if I peeled back Nadia’s hand gestures, tossed out Mama’s commentary, and blacked out Baba’s impressions, I would be left with no memory at all save for perhaps some flashes of light or lingering scents. As a result, I put very little faith in my recollections. I’m unattached to them, can go over them with all the emotional connection of someone flicking through a waiting-room magazine. Mona and Zaina would argue about things in our past, each passionately denying or affirming what had or hadn’t happened and in what sequence. And when my vote was sought, they’d huff when I insisted I didn’t remember.
I was rarely lying when I said that.
There are flashes, though; scenes I remember with eye-watering clarity. One vacation in London where Baba took us to a museum because, ‘You need culture. Not just games and fun and shopping.’ I was twelve, and Nadia and I rolled our eyes all the way to Bloomsbury; even Mama huffed when the taxi drove down Oxford Street. Once there, Baba hustled us through the courtyard, not allowing us to pose for the obligatory gate shot: ‘Later, when the rain stops.’ It was before the renovation, before that geometric-patterned, glass monstrosity was installed overhead. He pushed us past Ancient Egypt, past the idols and the hybrid gods with their perfect posture. He allowed no more than a pause before the hieroglyphs. On through to the Assyrians, to something we could claim, as though our family roots were in Iraq and not central Saudi Arabia. We stood before reliefs of military campaigns, of hunting with chariots, of demons and human-headed bulls, while Baba talked about what he knew of Mesopotamia. Nadia got into it; she had wanted to study history at university, and she started arguing with him about the city of Ur, only for him to spin it into a discussion of Ibrahim and Nimrod and a fire that didn’t burn.
Mama and I left them there and meandered through Greece and Rome, past the amputated statues and more white reliefs showing battles and processions. Mama admired the drapes and folds wrapped around the sculptures, the way they looked like real fabric, and I stood over the shoulder of a girl as she sketched what she saw before her – hands and arms, tilting heads, and warrior poses. I watched her hand, the deft and sure movements, and the way she looked up, then down, then up again – drawing as she watched, and watching as she drew. It was mesmerizing, like a pendulum swinging back and forth. Mama took my hand and we stepped into the Parthenon, our footsteps loud in an otherwise hushed room. We went down the line quickly, hardly stopping to look at the chariots or centaurs or horses. ‘They all look the same,’ she said. I allowed her to pull me along; those headless figures didn’t interest me. And then we reached the end of the room and came face-to-groin with a statue of a man, his privates on display, hanging there like forgotten fruit. My eyes went wide, and my mouth fell open at the sight. Mama gasped, this choked sound that seemed to bounce off the marble and multiply. She clapped her hand over my eyes as she urged me to the door, but my hearing was heightened and all the way back to Baba and Nadia, I heard her stifling her laughter.
For the remainder of the day, every time I caught her eye or she mine, we would giggle behind our palms like schoolgirls.
Mona’s husband, Rashid, joined us at the mall for lunch on Saturday. Architect by day, sculptor by night, I liked him from the first time I met him. I hid it well, my affection for him. Even Mona, with all the years she’d known me, with the very way in which they’d met, had never realized it. And on the occasions when he joined our outings, or nights in, or the odd time – like that Saturday, when I became a third wheel – I was careful to remain distant so as not to sound any alarms.
After lunch we went our separate ways, Rashid to the furniture stores while Mona dragged me around the shops. She tried on outfits while I oohed and aahed on cue. I tried on shoes while she thumbed-up or thumbed-down. I endured a makeover at the makeup counter, docilely accepting lipstick and mascara while trying not to think about communicable diseases and whether there was such a thing as eye herpes.
The mall was a series of shop-lined walkways that fed into wide, octagonal spaces where you could pretend it wasn’t as claustrophobic as it seemed. You could imagine you didn’t feel the need to curl into yourself, smaller and tighter, until you were a ball of no consequence. On weekends the malls were packed: high school and college kids in their designer clothes loping from one end to the other; girls in their sky-high heels pouting their lips and flipping their hair; the brunch groups taking pictures of their food and asking the waiter to take one more shot of them. For each group like these you’d find one of the more traditional sort, women in full niqab with their little girls covered up in the hijab and their husbands with the long beards and short robes moving from one end of the mall to the other like it was another kind of pilgrimage.
There was so much there, stimulants bombarding you from all sides: bright lights bouncing off gleaming floors; neon in all the windows, on the people; shouting and laughing and music and shopkeepers asking ‘Can I help you?’ over and over. Try the new fragrance from so-and-so, the new moisturizer from this-and-that. Buy, buy, buy. Maybe if you consume enough, you can fill all those holes in your