A Woman is No Man. Etaf Rum
If not him, then who? Eventually, she’d have to agree to someone. She could only refuse for so long. Unless she wanted to ruin her reputation and her sisters’ reputations as well. She could hear their neighbors in her head. That girl is bad. She isn’t respectable. Something must be wrong with her.
Deya agreed. There was something wrong with her: she couldn’t stop thinking, couldn’t make up her mind.
“Fine,” she said. “Okay.”
Fareeda’s eyes sprung wide. “Really?”
“I’ll see him again. But only under one condition.”
“And what’s that?”
“I’m not leaving Brooklyn.”
“Don’t worry.” Fareeda forced a tight smile. “He lives right here in Sunset Park. I know you want to be near your sisters.”
“Please,” Deya said. “When the time comes, will you make sure they marry in Brooklyn, too?” She spoke softly, hoping to elicit some sympathy. “Can you make sure we stay together? Please.”
Fareeda nodded. Deya thought she saw the wetness of tears in her eyes. It was an odd sight. But then Fareeda looked away, twisting her scarf with her fingers.
“Of course,” Fareeda said. “That’s the least I can do.”
FAREEDA MIGHT HAVE forbidden Deya from speaking of her parents, but she couldn’t erase her memories. Deya clearly remembered the day she had learned of Adam’s and Isra’s deaths. She had been seven years old. It was a bright autumn day, but Deya had watched the sky turn a dull silver through her bedroom window. Fareeda had finished clearing the sufra after dinner, washed the dishes, and slipped into her nightgown before creeping downstairs to the basement, where they had lived with their parents. Deya knew something was wrong the minute her grandmother appeared at the doorway. As far back as she could remember, she had never seen Fareeda in the basement.
Fareeda had checked to see if Amal, the youngest of the four, was asleep in her crib, before sitting on the edge of Deya and her sisters’ bed.
“Your parents—” Fareeda took a deep breath and pushed the words out. “They’re dead. They died in a car accident last night.”
After that, it was all a blur. Deya couldn’t remember what Fareeda said next, couldn’t picture the looks on her sisters’ faces. She only remembered disparate bits. Panic. Whimpering. A high-pitched scream. She had dug her fingers into her thighs. She had thought she was going to throw up. She remembered looking out the window and noticing that it had started to rain, as if the universe was grieving with them.
Fareeda had stood up and, weeping, went back upstairs.
That was all Deya knew about her parents’ death, even now, more than ten years later. Perhaps that was why she had spent her childhood with a book in front of her face, trying to make sense of her life through stories. Books were her only reliable source of comfort, her only hope. They told the truth in a way the world never seemed to, guided her the way she imagined Isra would’ve had she still been alive. There were so many things she needed to know, about her family, about the world, about herself.
She often wondered how many people felt this way, spellbound by words, wishing to be tucked inside a book and forgotten there. How many people were hoping to find their story inside, desperate to understand. And yet Deya still felt alone in the end, no matter how many books she read, no matter how many tales she told herself. All her life she’d searched for a story to help her understand who she was and where she belonged. But her story was confined to the walls of her home, to the basement of Seventy-Second Street and Fifth Avenue, and she didn’t think she’d ever understand it.
That evening Deya and her sisters ate dinner alone, as they usually did, while Fareeda watched her evening show in the sala. They did not spread a sufra with a succession of dishes, nor set the table with lemon wedges, green olives, chili peppers, and fresh pita bread, as they did when their grandfather came home. Instead the four sisters huddled around the kitchen table together, deep in conversation. Every now and then they’d lower their voices, listening to the sounds in the hall to make sure Fareeda was still in the sala and couldn’t overhear them.
Deya’s younger sisters were her only companions. All four of them were close in age, only one or two years apart, and complemented one another like school subjects in a class schedule. If Deya was a subject, she thought she would be art—dark, messy, emotional. Nora, the second eldest and her closest companion, would be math—solid, precise, and straightforward. It was Nora who Deya relied on for advice, taking comfort in her clear thinking; Nora who tempered Deya’s overspilling emotions, who structured the chaos of Deya’s art. Then there was Layla. Deya thought Layla would be science, always curious, always seeking answers, always logical. Then there was Amal, the youngest of the four and, true to her name, the most hopeful. If Amal was a subject, she would be religion, centering every conversation around halal and haraam, good and evil. It was Amal who always brought them back to God, rounding them out with a handful of faith.
“So, what did you think of Nasser?” asked Nora as she sipped on her lentil soup. “Was he crazy like the last man?” She blew on her spoon. “You know, the one who insisted you start wearing the hijab at once?”
“I don’t think anyone’s as crazy as that man,” Deya said, laughing.
“Was he nice?” Nora asked.
“He was okay,” Deya said, making sure to smile. She didn’t want to worry them. “Really, he was.”
Layla was studying her. “You don’t seem too happy.”
Deya could see her sisters watching her intensely, their eyes making her sweat. “I’m just nervous, that’s all.”
“Are you going to sit with him again?” said Amal, who, Deya realized, was biting her fingertips.
“Yes. Tomorrow, I think.”
Nora leaned in, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Does he know about our parents?”
Deya nodded as she stirred her soup. She wasn’t surprised Nasser knew what had happened to her parents. News traveled like wind in a community like theirs, where Arabs clung to each other like dough, afraid to get lost among the Irish, Italians, Greeks, and Hasidic Jews. It was as if all the Arabs in Brooklyn stood hand in hand, from Bay Ridge all the way up Atlantic Avenue, and shared everything, from one ear to the next. There were no secrets among them.
“What do you think is going to happen?” Layla asked.
“With what?”
“When you see him again. What will you talk about?”
“The fundamentals, I’m sure,” Deya said, one eyebrow cocked. “How many kids I want, where I want to live . . . you know, the basics.”
Her sisters laughed.
“But at least you’ll know what to expect if you decide to move forward,” Nora said. “Better than being taken off guard.”
“That’s true. He did seem very predictable.” Deya looked down into her soup. When she raised her eyes again, the corners crinkled. “You know what he said would make him happy?”
“Money?” said Layla.
“A good job?” added Nora.
Deya laughed. “Exactly. So typical.”
“What did you expect him to say?” said Nora. “Love? Romance?”
“No. But I hoped he’d at least pretend to have a more interesting answer.”
“Not everyone can pretend the way you do,” Nora said with a grin.
“Maybe he was nervous,” Layla said. “Did he ask what made you happy?”
“He did.”
“And what did