Daughters of Iraq (14 page)

“Why didn’t you say anything? Why did you remain silent all this time?”

“I was afraid.”

“Of what?”

“You.”

Noa took him by the hand and led him to her room, pulled him onto her bed. She folded down the blanket and looked into his eyes. Then, biting her lips, she began taking off her clothes, one item at a time, letting him take in her movements, the curves of her increasingly exposed body. Noa sat at the edge of the bed and pulled Ofir close. “Tonight we don’t have to dream,” she whispered in his ear. “Tonight our dreams become reality.”

Chapter Eighteen: Farida

F
arida woke in the middle of the night with a throbbing headache and couldn’t fall back asleep. Once again, Eddie had haunted her dreams. In her dream, Eddie reached up from under the ground, and she tried to pull him to safety. He struggled, but the more he fought, the deeper he sank. He stretched his arms toward Farida, begged her to rescue him. He was fifteen again, maybe sixteen, and his gorgeous green eyes looked her right in the face. Farida taunted him.
Pull yourself out of the swamp
, she said. As if he had chosen to go in. She looked at him with disgust, the way one might regard a smelly child.
You could be my grandson by now
, she said. She told him the train was long gone. She continued to laugh at him, at his weakness. Eddie kept pleading for help, to keep him from drowning, but this made her laugh harder. She walked away, but Eddie’s desperate cries followed her. She ran, but his voice grew louder, and Farida awakened, sopping in sweat.

She heaved herself out of bed and breathed deeply. “Just a dream,” she told herself, “it was just a dream.” She tried to quiet her pounding heart. She went to the bathroom to urinate; according to Iraqi lore, urinating acted like a reverse vaccine, rendering all bad dreams powerless. “Eddie,” she whispered. “
Allah yirchamak
,
Eddie. God have mercy on both of us. Oh . . .” She splashed water on her face, again and again, but still couldn’t quiet her mind. She struggled into her tattered bathrobe, grabbed a box of cigarettes, and stumbled to the sunroom. She lowered herself into an armchair and smoked one cigarette after another, waiting for the new day to begin. It seemed to take forever.

She looked out the window, at the street. An occasional car passed, but not a single soul ventured by on foot. Sliding her feet into her slippers, she sighed deeply, then limped back into the kitchen.

She opened the cabinet and took out a
finjan
to make coffee. She put in a spoonful of freshly ground coffee it smelled of cardamom and added a generous amount of sugar.  She filled a small mug with water from the tap and tossed it into the
finjan.
She turned the burner on low, placed the pot on the flame, and stirred. The coffee and sugar combined, and a light froth began to form. Farida slipped into her past: forlorn memories of unfulfilled love and a shattered heart.

Like the coffee percolating in the
finjan
,
her memories of Eddie were both bitter and sweet. She remembered the first time they were separated: she had moved to Israel, and Eddie, unwilling to abandon his fellow Resistance fighters, had stayed behind. She remembered, too, their passionate reunion after so many long months, and the stories of his dramatic escape to Israel—stories that seemed part “Tales of the Arabian Knights” and part a TV espionage series.

“Eddie,” she murmured. “Eddie.” In Iraq they had almost hanged him, and later on, in Israel, war had killed him for good. People say time salves wounds, but Eddie’s absence still burned in her heart. Her widowhood and loneliness only intensified her longing. She still remembered his face. She still heard his voice. He was her first thought when she opened her eyes in the morning, and at night, his mischievous smile was the last thing she saw before she fell asleep. Every night she reminded him and herself that one day she would join him, and they would finally be together forever.

Chapter Nineteen: Violet

Friday, February 27, 1987

E
vening fell. From a distance, we could see the newly built villages. Small houses poked up from the treeless hills, like new teeth in a baby’s mouth; they were a soothing, pleasing sight. Some of the mountains were barren, but if you looked carefully, you could see a few pine trees through the fog. Lights flickered in the darkness, visible from miles away. As the bus wove its way through the twisted roads, I played a little game of hide-and-seek with myself, trying to predict when the next lights would appear. Groups of short, squat houses continued to dot the hills kibbutzim or Arab villages, I later learned. By the time we arrived, it was dark. The bus inched its way to the kibbutz gate.

“Wake up, Farida,” I whispered. “We’re here.”

Farida stretched and rubbed her eyes. “We’re here?”

“Look,” I said, “we’re about to enter our new kibbutz.”

“Why are we just sitting here?” Farida asked, sweeping her arms across the landscape.

“I don’t know,” I said, looking around.

We heard the driver talking to the kibbutz security guard.

Every part of my body ached. My sister had been sleeping on my shoulder through the entire ride, and I couldn’t wait for her to get up. Finally, the guard opened the gate and we drove in. I saw little trees on both sides of the road and, beyond them, small houses. After a short drive, the bus came to a stop next to a larger building the dining room, I found out later.

A heavyset woman welcomed us. She smiled broadly, pointed to herself, and said, “Miriam.” She did this for our benefit; the majority of passengers on our bus had come straight from the
Sha’ar Aliyah
and knew only a few Hebrew words. Farida and I knew a bit more, because our mother had taught us in Iraq. Miriam acted like a Super-Mother: there was no limit to the number of children she could accommodate. Many of them were even younger than Farida and me. Twelve- and thirteen-year-olds, separated from their families. There was room for all of us in Miriam’s generous heart, and I liked her from the moment I saw her. I knew she would relieve me of some of the burden I felt, worrying about Farida. I sensed she would support me, help me. For the first time in a long while, I felt a semblance of peace; we had finally reached a place we could call home.

Miriam assigned us rooms and handed us work clothes. I looked at the garments, then at Farida, and the two of us burst out laughing. When leaving Iraq, we’d packed our best dresses, the ones
Ima
’s seamstress had made for us. But nobody could have been happier than I was that day on the kibbutz, trading in my fancy dress for loose-fitting work clothes. Later, when looking in the mirror, I realized the short pants accentuated the curves of my body and that between the buttons of my shirt people could catch a glimpse of my breasts. I shoved my hands in the pockets of my shorts, and Miriam took us for a short walk around the kibbutz. From that day, the only time I ever removed those clothes was on Friday nights, when we’d shower and put on the simplest dresses we could find. Here on the kibbutz, those dresses looked like they’d come right out of a fashion magazine.

I loved walking in the Kibbutz pathways in the evenings, especially on those Shabbat nights which were very special on the kibbutz. Seeing the other families walking out in their best clothes was a thrill: men and boys wore khaki pants and shirts, and women and girls wore dresses, skirts, or even pants, which in those days was very unusual. When I saw them making their way to the dining room for our weekly Shabbat meal, my heart ached. I’d look at Farida, and see my feelings reflected in her eyes, her expression full of longing. Oh, how we yearned for our family, scattered throughout the Middle East.
Aba
would visit us from time to time, but we rarely saw the rest of our family. Most of all, we longed for
Ima
and Eddie.

That first night, our tour of the kibbutz took us past brightly lit houses, the dining room, the laundry (which was completely new to us), and the dormitory where we would sleep. Farida and I stepped into our new room and exchanged gratified smiles. We’d been living in a tent for a month, and now, finally, we were back in a real room, with four walls, a small closet, and a window looking out on an orchard. Next door lived two young men, Holocaust survivors from Poland. At first we were shocked at the thought of living next to men, but our discomfort was short-lived. We instantly found a way to communicate with them, primarily through primitive sign language that sometimes left us in hysterics. We kept this up until we’d all learned Hebrew.

I will never forget our Hebrew classes. The older I get, the more ridiculous they seem. Our language teacher at the kibbutz was an old, bald man with a thick German accent; he believed using the works of our national poet Chaim Nachman Bialik was the best way to teach us. Poems like
Gather Me Under Your Wing, and Be for Me both Mother and Sister
were our texts. He had decided to teach us a highbrow, poetic version of Hebrew. Rather than teaching us the language of everyday conversation which is what we really needed—he used a refined lexicon culled from the poems of Bialik. We paid the price for this every time we spoke to native Israelis, particularly children, who stared at us when we spoke, as if we were a bunch of circus animals.

The cultural gap between us the new immigrants and the Sabras was huge, but much goodwill existed on both sides, and a feeling of solidarity asserted itself and enabled us to overcome the challenges. I remember many funny incidents that highlighted the differences between both groups. One time, for example, I sat in the dining room eating rice with a spoon, as we had in Iraq. An Israeli man sitting across the table looked at me in bewilderment. “If you eat your rice with a spoon,” he chided, “you must drink your soup with a fork.” It had either not occurred to this gentleman that people from different places have different customs, that what is considered acceptable in one society is not acceptable in another, or he was having fun at my expense. I hoped the former but feared the latter.

More than once, the linguistic challenges made me smile. I remember one time, working in the kitchen, when I asked another worker to pass me the
matanah
the gift when what I really wanted was the
matateh
the broom to sweep the kitchen floor. She didn’t understand, of course, until I pointed to the broom. Laughing, she said, “
Matateh
. Say it:
matateh.
That’s what you want, right?” She looked at another worker and rolled her eyes. “What a concept, like it’s a real gift to sweep up the kibbutz dining room.” It was embarrassing I felt like a little girl but I learned the difference between the two words, and I never made that mistake again. For a long time after that incident, everyone referred to the broom as “the gift,” completely befuddling the newcomers. The broom-gift had become an inside joke, shared by all who worked with us.

Chapter Twenty: Noa

L
ate in the afternoon, Noa awoke from a deep sleep. A single, piercing ray of sunlight blinded her. She lifted her heavy head and looked around. She had a nasty headache. She dropped her head back onto the pillow and sighed. A large, warm hand caressed her brow, and for a moment she panicked: she didn’t know whose hand it was. She felt warm breath on her neck, and then someone kissed her. She remembered the previous night’s events and blushed.

“Good morning,” Ofir whispered.

“To you, too.” She turned to him and smiled.

“Did you sleep well?”

“It was a black sleep do you know what I mean?” She gazed into Ofir’s face and was struck by his handsomeness. His eyes kind, blue, familiar watched her, and his unruly hair grazed his bare shoulders.

“My head kills,” said Noa.

“No wonder, after all you drank yesterday. But don’t even think of telling me that last night happened because you were drunk.” He smiled.

“Of course that’s what I’m telling you.” She returned his smile then haughtily turned her back on him.

“If that’s the case,” he said, “then I know exactly what to do to get you to sleep with me.”

“You wicked man,” she whispered. “On the other hand, I can always pretend I’m drunk so you’ll take advantage of my vulnerable state.” She pulled him close and kissed him.

“So either way, you’re not responsible?” He was enjoying this.

“Never.” Pleased with herself, Noa pushed her face between Ofir’s warm hands. “Would you mind bringing me a cup of coffee and an aspirin?”

“I’ll promise you half my kingdom if we can spend the rest of the day in bed.”

“Sounds good,” Noa said, pulling away from him, “but unfortunately I have to work on my seminar paper.”

“What’s it about?”

Noa sat up. “I’m writing about Yona Wallach, and it’s an absolute nightmare finding any written material about her. I’m really breaking new ground.”

“That sounds interesting,” said Ofir, “very creative.”

“Yona Wallach’s personality fascinates me,” Noa said, forgetting about her headache for a moment. She’s brave and provocative, just a fabulous poet. I suppose I admire her.”

“From what I know about Yona Wallach’s poetry which isn’t much it seems to me that you can love her or hate her, but you can’t ignore her. I’d say she’s a little crazy,” Ofir said, giving Noa a sidelong glance. “What is it about her you love so much? Is it her provocative personality or her wild and complicated poems?”

Noa considered Ofir. He had strong opinions about many topics outside physics, his area of expertise topics that, by his own admission, he knew little about. But he was smart, and while he might not intimately know a given subject, he usually made trenchant observations. She found their discussions interesting and challenging.

She told him that if she wanted to answer his question properly she would have to research every aspect of Wallach’s work and life, but the more she understood about the poet, the more mystified she became. She’d begun by focusing on Wallach’s creative use of language, but now, studying her in the context of feminist theory, what she really admired was the woman’s courage. Wallach was willing to test all limits. She had no boundaries—not with sex or sexuality, nor with words. She did not distinguish between literary language and street talk. No Israeli poet had ever done this before.