The Blue Between Sky and Water (10 page)
At last, she moved. She scooped up Mahfouz, squeezing the stuffed bear her jiddo had given her, and she lived a night of silent, sleepless sorrow, the beaded necklace of her young life unstrung and scattered on the floor.
My great-khalo Mamdouh had planned to return to Gaza for a visit after Yasmine passed away. He hoped to convince his son to travel with him, to mourn in the bosom of family, where Teta Nazmiyeh, Jiddo Atiyeh, and the old beekeeper’s widow held a wake for their Yasmine, whose prolonged absence made her passing all the more painful. But they were happy that Mamdouh would be there soon, until news came that his son was also gone. The accident that had killed Mhammad had broken Mamdouh when he was already broken. He called his sister in Gaza. “There is nothing in the world I want more than to be home now. There is nothing left for me here, but I have to wait a while longer so I can return with Nur.” My teta and her brother spoke several times a week after that. Their conversations were almost exclusively about Nur. Teta believed that Mariam lived in her. There could be no other explanation for her mismatched eyes. Then the calls stopped.
Whenever Nur had asked her jiddo about her mother, he would simply say, “She had to leave and I don’t know where she went, darling.” Soon after he passed away, Nzinga found her mommy, and the two of them went to meet her in the park.
“You look just like me when I was your age,” her mother said and took Nur’s hand in hers, then continued speaking with Nzinga. Her mother withdrew her hand for a while to wave it in Nzinga’s face to show how angry she was, but Nur grabbed it again as soon as it was within her reach. She concentrated on keeping their hands together as the grown-ups argued about “trust.” Her mother was going to have to move back to North Carolina from Texas in order to get any of it. Her mother said, “It’s her money. I’m her mother. I should be in charge of the trust. How else can I take care of her? I’m not rich.”
Nzinga, who had remained calm, lowered herself to Nur’s height and asked her gently to go play while the grown-ups talked.
She was allowed to spend the night with her mother at the motel on that first night, but then she had to wait with the foster family until her mother could move back to North Carolina.
“See what I do for you, Nur,” her mother had said from very red lips. “It’s because I love you so much.” She kissed the child. Nur beamed. She had a real mommy who loved her so much, whose kiss left a red mark on her cheek. Proof.
“We need to do something about your name, though. Nuria is the closest, but that’s Catalan, which isn’t much better than Arab. Let’s call you Nubia,” she said. Nur only shook her head, unsure how it was possible to change someone’s name. “But that will be our secret. Don’t tell the lady from DSS, okay?”
“I won’t, Mommy.” It was nice to say that word. Mommy. “I’m a good secret keeper.”
That night, Nur added that trait to her list: Keeper of Seekrets. And when her mommy agreed to read her a bedtime story, she did not mention the secret book with the blue ribbon that she and her jiddo had written. She knew, in the way that small children just know things, that her mommy would not like
Jiddo and Me
.
It took several months for Nur’s mother to move to North Carolina and there were no visits to Texas, just occasional calls to Nur in which her mother gave updates on the lawsuit she had filed to gain control of a trust fund from a large insurance policy. There wasn’t enough money, her mother said, to have Nur travel to Texas, even for visits, “until we get the trust.”
Nur started school living with her foster family, and it would be many years before she would begin to roam her memories and taste the empty adequacy of foster care: the three sufficient daily meals, white walls and clean floors, chores and strictly enforced regimens, and a room she shared with three other foster girls, much older than she, who spoke with such profanity that Nur tried to stay away from them. Twice she woke up to find writing all over her body. The girls told her she should learn to take a joke and not be a tattletale. They reminded her that she claimed to be a Keeper of Seekrets. So, she stopped sleeping well, lying in fear of what the night might bring. And she was overjoyed when Nzinga came with news that her mother had finally moved to North Carolina, and that Nur would be living with her as soon as DSS could inspect the new home.
The new house had two bedrooms. One was for Nur alone and the other for her mother and Sam, the boyfriend. They all shared one bathroom and spent most of their time in the big room just off the kitchen, where they put a new extra-big television set with wood paneling. “I always wanted a big-ass TV,” her mother said.
When the next monthly check came from the trust, Sam insisted that they use part of it to buy new linens for Nur’s room, instead of the oversized white sheet and tattered blanket that her mother had placed on her bed. The mother hesitated. “We still need things for the house.”
“We’re getting bedding for her,” Sam insisted, winking at Nur, who stood smiling, imagining how she would decorate her room to match the new comforter, wondering if she might get sheets with pictures of Wonder Woman, or maybe Cinderella.
“Playing daddy to my daughter is so sexy, baby,” her mother said, grabbing between his legs.
Nur squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, Sam was smiling at her. Then he and her mother went into their room and closed the door. They made terrible sounds that Nur drowned out with the big-ass TV.
Still, it was better to have a real mommy and her own room, and Nur worked hard to be worthy. She helped clean and learned to make coffee, which was then added to her chores. By the time her mother shuffled out of bed, Nur would already be dressed for school and fresh coffee would be waiting for the adults. Her diligence at home was matched only by her good grades at school. Only in first grade, she was reading and writing at a third-grade level. She had found a way to shine, a space where she could feel love and admiration, if she worked for it. And so she worked and studied as much as she could.
But her happiness didn’t feel happy. Suffused in this new life was a longing for something not there. An old man whose walk was a song. Bedtime stories of another world. A duck park and a castle playground. A kind of love that does not require completed chores or exemplary grades. That yearning embedded in her body, and when it stirred, it felt like a bellyache that started in her tummy and went all the way behind her eyes.
Mama was fourteen years older than Nur. She had already met my father when Teta announced that little Nur was coming to Gaza with my great-khalo Mamdouh. But that didn’t stop her from being excited by the prospect of having a little sister around. Teta Nazmiyeh kept calling and calling her brother. She had lived through all manner of disappointment and heartache, but those days of waiting by the phone and dialing endlessly were especially hard on her heart. The nagging panic that she had lost her brother was matched only by the worry that Nur was alone in Amreeka. She prayed constantly, and secretly tried again to summon Sulayman, but answers were not forthcoming, not from the telephone, God, angels, or djinn.
No one told the news to Nur directly. She plucked bits from conversations and from the new ways that bodies moved around her: her mother’s wide-open face, excited phone calls, the hands and attention on her mother’s belly. Not only was Nur going to have a new sibling, Sam was going to be her stepdaddy. The wedding date would be set soon.
To celebrate, Sam gave her mommy a fancy catalogue to order whatever she wanted. Nur waited patiently for her turn while her mother went through it. When Nur tried to help, her mother shooed her away.
At last, the catalogue, marked throughout with circles and notes, its pages folded at the edges, was on the coffee table. Nur opened it to the section with models who looked her age. There was much to choose from. Dresses, shoes, socks, skirts, shirts, shorts, sandals, bows, dolls, toys. But she knew to be reasonable. “Not Greedy” was already on her list of good traits. Her mother had gone out and Nur spent her time home alone ruminating over what to pick. Before falling asleep with the catalogue in her arms, she had chosen four items: a blue and white striped dress with a red sash that tied into a big bow in the back, red patent leather shoes with one strap across the top, white stockings, and a stuffed brown dog she already named Malcolm, to be a friend to Mahfouz, her bear. It occurred to her to call them “M&M,” and she imagined taking them to school for show and tell.
The doorbell rang repeatedly and loud banging woke Nur on the sofa, the television on and catalogue still in her hands. Her mother was home.
“You shouldn’t be up this late,” her mother said when she came through the door.
“Mommy, I circled the things I want in the catalogue,” Nur began.
“Okay, go to bed, Nubia.”
“I only circled four things. I wasn’t greedy, at all,” she added. “Want to see what I picked?”
“Show me in the morning.”
The day finally arrived when the catalogue order was delivered. There were three boxes, two large and one smaller one. Nur’s mommy opened one at a time, insisting only grown-ups could open packages. Nur waited as her mother pulled out one item at a time. She unfolded each article of clothing, inspected each pair of shoes and each tube of lipstick. Nur fidgeted, craned her neck to peek inside the open box, each time hoping an item would be for her.
“Yes, it’s beautiful,” she said when her mother asked if Nur liked the matching baby hat, gloves, and booties. The same scene repeated as the boxes were slowly emptied. Nur did not despair, not even when she realized all the items had been taken out. She began looking through the new clothes; perhaps she had accidentally missed her new dress.
“Where are the things I circled, Mommy?”
“Oh, sweetie. I forgot to tell you!” her mother said. “When I called to place the order they said they were out of the items you picked.”
The hard thing that lived in Nur’s belly stirred. It moved upward and started clumping in her throat, pushing behind her eyes. The last time Nur had cried, her mother had told her to stop being a crybaby. She had written “Not A Crybaby” on her list. Now, as her mother left the room and Nur stood alone with three empty boxes and the new things strewn about, the memory of that undesirable trait helped to stop the tears. She wanted to ask if the catalogue people would send her things when they got more in, but she knew not to and went to her room instead. There, a silence crept along her edges, wrapping around her small body. The familiar bellyache ran amok inside her. Only when the pain became intense did Nur give herself permission to cry.
Because you’re not a crybaby if something is really wrong
. She cried, and cried harder and louder when no one came to check on her. She could hear Sam had returned home. She kept crying out, even though the pain had dissolved, until eventually, her mother came in.
“Mommy, my stomach and my head hurt really bad,” she said, relieved to stop crying.
“Nubia, how much attention do you need? You do this kind of stuff every time I make plans. Please try to go to sleep,” her mother said, closing the door behind her.
Late into the night, Nur awoke to find Sam sitting on her bed.
“Hi there,” he said. “How is your tummy feeling?”
“Better,” she said, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
“Let’s see here.” Sam lifted her gown. “Poor belly.” He rubbed her skin. “It’s a very pretty belly.” He leaned to kiss it, on her belly button, then above it. Then, around it. “And you have the most beautiful and unusual eyes I’ve ever seen.”
He put her gown back, covering her. “Do you think your mommy is mean sometimes?”
Nur shook her head no.
“Come on, tell the truth.” He tickled her slightly, making Nur laugh. “Oh, so you’re ticklish, too? I’ll have to tickle you silly soon.”
Nur decided that she loved Sam.
“So, tell me,” he asked again.
“Yeah, sometimes Mommy is mean,” she admitted.
“Don’t worry. I’m going to take good care of you,” he said. He tucked her back in, kissed her forehead, then her cheek, and left.
Indeed, Sam began to intervene on Nur’s behalf. He took her to buy new clothes to replace what never came from the catalogue. When Sam’s niece, who was Nur’s age, wanted to be the flower girl at the wedding, Sam insisted that honor was for Nur alone. At a dinner gathering with family, Nur climbed into Sam’s lap, taking possession of him, and stuck her tongue out at the niece. Sam squeezed her waist, affirming their secret alliance. He stopped going shopping in the evenings with her mother, staying home instead to babysit. On the first such evening, as they played checkers and Nur tried to cheat, Sam began tickling her. When she could catch her breath between fits of laughter, she begged him to stop. But as soon as he did, she taunted him to provoke more tickling.
“I know a special tickle spot you’ve never even thought of,” he said. “It’s a little spot that you tickle and then you feel it all over your body.”
“No, you don’t! Where?”
“It’s a secret. Do you know how to keep a secret? Or are you the kind of little girl that tattles?”
“No way. I never tattle. I’m the best secret keeper.” She remembered her list. Keeper of Seekrets.
Teta Nazmiyeh woke up one morning in the smog of the previous night, the specters of a terrible dream still clinging to her. In the caverns of sleep, she had walked back to Beit Daras, this time in search of Nur. She found Mariam as before, maneuvered the walls to hide them completely as she could only do in a dream, and said, “This time, we will outsmart them.” Then Mariam pointed to an open field hemmed with smoke rising from burning life. A small child stood in the center. “It’s Nur,” Mariam said. A woman appeared next to her, seated with a phone receiver at her ear, and a man came to undress Nur, fondling her indecently. In the dream Nazmiyeh instinctively leapt across the distance from wall to field, to save Nur. But the soldiers hidden in memory entered, reenacting an old trauma. She sat up in bed when the gun rang out and Mariam fell. My jiddo Atiyeh held her in their bed. “I couldn’t outsmart them. Mariam is dead again and Nur is alone and frightened,” she sobbed, pursued by the dream.