The Blue Between Sky and Water (21 page)

He stayed focused for nearly half an hour and answered simple questions. One blink for yes, two for no,” Nur said excitedly into the phone.

“That’s excellent, Nur. It must be gratifying to see improvements so quickly,” Jamal replied.

“I don’t know how much we can really hope for, but the biggest change has been with Rhet Shel. Most of the questions came from her,” Nur continued. “She wanted to know if Khaled liked her hair, if he wanted to watch a film with her.”

It had been a miracle day to witness the emergence, however brief, of two children locked in their own minds in different ways. It was Rhet Shel’s idea to play Khaled’s old music, and she was sure that he was trying to dance when his cheek twitched. That small muscle spasm dropped Alwan to her knees with tears.

Hajje Nazmiyeh was having tea with the neighbors, all of them making bread in the outdoor communal taboon, when Rhet Shel arrived breathlessly, urging her grandmother away from the matriarchal collective to come see. Hajje Nazmiyeh quickened her pace, praising Allah’s infinite glory, as her eager granddaughter explained that Khaled was waking up. Behind them, some of Hajje Nazmiyeh’s friends followed.

Despite the disappointment of seeing Khaled still immobilized in his body, they had already been inspired by Rhet Shel’s elation and let it spread through them, too. The pop music of Nancy Ajram and Amr Diab leavened the air in Hajje Nazmiyeh’s home, giving rising form and lyrics to a day transformed by Rhet Shel’s charm. She tied her mother’s scarf around her narrow child hips and danced. Her young friends were there, having followed as the matriarchs did. They too danced as their elders clapped encouragement. It wasn’t long before Hajje Nazmiyeh joined and pulled Alwan into the fray.

They continued in spontaneous cheer, fueled by Khaled’s alertness and blinking on cue. Nur played the songs Khaled chose by blinking for the options Rhet Shel presented. Five songs, through which Rhet Shel’s happiness restored and repaired them, lifted Israel’s siege, ended the military occupation, and returned them to their home in Beit Daras.

The affection Nur felt for her surroundings edged against the walls of their merriment. She smiled silently, watching ordinary love unpack itself, hoping its splash would land on her.

FORTY-SIX

Propriety wouldn’t allow Mama to don niqab again after Baba died, but she wanted to. She’d have happily doused herself in a burqa like the women in the Gulf so she could always be alone in darkness and in memory. Only I could see the depth of Mama’s loss. She held her pain in her private world behind curtains. Some of it she balled up into small spheres of anger that she hurled at others for no good reason. But mostly, it festered in her body.

Nur’s initial success with Khaled was followed by months of frustration in which she failed to elicit a sustained response from him. Hajje Nazmiyeh told her that miracles are prideful. That they only come when faith is strong. But while Khaled continued to look out vacantly to the world, Rhet Shel flourished. Animated by her responsibility as Nur’s helper, she became her brother’s keeper, talking to him, combing his hair, washing his face, excavating his ears, nose, belly button, and nails of “the dirty.” In the evenings, when Nur left, Rhet Shel would pretend to read to Khaled as Nur had done during their sessions, and she took charge of his feeding, too, especially as her mother returned home from work coughing more, with less life in her face each day, and her teta’s eyesight was always too fuzzy.

Alwan would return from the women’s co-op pale-faced and tired from embroidering thobes all day, which were smuggled through the tunnels to Egypt and sold around the world. Rich Palestinian Americans—all Americans were rich, weren’t they?—were the co-op’s most important customers. They paid top dollar for anything from the homeland. Alwan had even heard of a family that spent a few thousand dollars for two buckets of dirt from Nablus to sprinkle over their exiled father’s grave when Israel would not allow them to fulfill his dying wish to be buried in Palestine.

“How much you think they’ll pay for Gaza’s dirt?” one of the women quipped.

They laughed. Some expressed sympathy. “
Al ghorba
is hard on the soul. That poor man lived trying to get home and he couldn’t, not even in death. May Allah have mercy.”

“We’re the poor ones. Locked up in Gaza,” another said, shifting in her chair to evenly distribute her indignation. “And before you bring it up, they get something valuable that they want for the money they pay us. Simple. Nobody’s asking them for charity. When they fight like we do or send us some weapons to fight, then we can call them Palestinians.”

Some women sucked through their teeth in agreement, some took offense, reminding the women of family members who had gone abroad to work and send money home. One woman, the youngest in the group but respected for her militancy, cautioned against perpetuating divisions that the enemy created among Palestinians, but she was quieted by another: “I’m tired of hearing your political lectures!” Then she turned to the others. “Seriously, ladies. Do you think we could make money selling dirt from Gaza?” They continued, but Alwan said little.

“What do you think, Um Khaled?” one of the women asked Alwan. “That American Palestinian seems nice enough. What’s her name? Nur?”

Alwan thought of the worshipful way that Rhet Shel looked at Nur, and she remembered how Rhet Shel had told her that she wanted to be just like Nur when she grew up. “It’s a sin to speak ill of others,” Alwan said. Her friends shook their heads and giggled. “You sure don’t take after your mother.”

But that conversation gave Alwan permission to venture behind closed spaces in her heart. Nur had given her false hope. Why had this woman left her life in America to come to their wretched Gaza refugee camp? Was she using her son to study or further her career at his expense? Westerners came and went all the time on poverty and war tours just to go back and write books. Alwan imagined the satisfaction of putting an end to Nur’s visits. Khaled was lost to her. She wished death’s mercy for him. What life did he have now, with just a body that breathed, ate from and shat into bags, to which she attended on borrowed energy? A slow burn simmered from her inability to make a better life for Khaled or Rhet Shel, who would rush to her when she walked in the door to help her poor mother as she struggled to sit, to move. Her Rhet Shel, still so very young, had become her brother’s caretaker. The gravity of bitterness pulled Alwan to its center, where Nur was the reason for all that pained her. And when her coughing began to deepen in her chest, she resented Nur all the more, as if her troubled body were Nur’s fault. Then she took ill at Nur for the bile of unuttered acrimony accumulating in her own heart; for the sin of it. She tried to shoo it all away. She prayed to Allah for help, and begged forgiveness for the growing desire in her heart to call on Sulayman.

“Sulayman, if it pleases Allah, please help us. Bring my son back to us,” she pleaded.

“Mama,” Rhet Shel came running to Alwan, “
el doktor
Jamal’s wife invited us to a
ghada
for Nur tomorrow!”

Nur followed behind Rhet Shel. “I have the center’s car for two days to visit patients and they said I could use it for personal travel, too.”

Alwan thought she recognized a kind of pleading in Nur’s face. Or maybe it was a call for an unspoken truce to Alwan’s unspoken animosity. “I have to stay here with Khaled.” Alwan looked away.

But Rhet Shel would have none of that. “We can put his wheelchair in the car. Allah keep you, Mama, please?!”

Alwan had heard of Jamal’s wife, who came from a well-off Gazan family but whose brother had been suspected as a traitor. She considered whether she would be able to confirm the long-standing rumors about the woman’s brother or not. What was her house like inside? Was she a good cook? How do people like her live? Alwan was curious.

“Okay, habibti. We can go if your teta also wants to go,” Alwan said.

Nazmiyeh’s brow raised. “We will have a lot to talk about with the ladies!”

“
You
will,” Alwan corrected her mother, for she had stopped going to those gatherings, hoping that a respite from smoking argileh would calm the persistent cough in her chest. But soon she had discovered the sweetness of solitude, and she had begun to look forward to the stillness of being alone for a few hours a week when her mother joined the neighborhood women to smoke, drink tea, eat
bizir
, and gossip while their children and grandchildren played around them.

But tomorrow the women would gather in their absence. Alwan could hear them in her mind, anticipating reports from Hajje Nazmiyeh about the doctor’s wife and her
ghada
.

Rhet Shel went to Khaled. “Blink three times if you love me. Blink, Khaled! Okay. Just blink two times. Why won’t you blink? Just blink, Khaled. Okay. Just one time, blink. MAMA, MAMA, NUR! HE BLINKED. HE BLINKED!” Rhet Shel curled herself next to her brother to watch television and Alwan could hear her say something to him about “a fancy
ghada
at rich people’s house” and “I’ll bet they eat at a food table.”

FORTY-SEVEN

Teta tended to everything while Mama worked all day. She said we were lucky to have her because our mother couldn’t cook worth a lick. On Fridays, our space would fill with the concert of my uncles, their feuding wives, and my cousins. Teta conducted the flow of the day, setting rules, quieting what she didn’t like to hear, encouraging what she did. She laughed on these days more than others and she put me in the center of everything, which automatically put Rhet Shel in the center, too. Aromas of cinnamon, cardamom, allspice, and nutmeg wove through laughter and bickering. Later, Teta would lead us to the shore, towing me along, to eat bizir seeds, puff on argilehs, drink sweet mint tea, and play in the company of the moon. Teta’s friends, matriarchs in the camp, with whom she had once upon a time shared laundry sessions in Beit Daras, joined her there to renew the bonds that spanned lifetimes of gossip, marriage, childbirth, war, scandal, friendship, prayer, and all the beautiful hard living that had made their parts saggy and wrinkly.

The Doctor’s home was at odds with the humble man who worked with children in the camp. Nazmiyeh sucked through her teeth at the sight and climbed the wide granite steps to a large arched front door. It was grand, though not in the way of the old Gaza homes built centuries before. This home was new, a showy thing in an expensive neighborhood planted in the world’s biggest ghetto.

A strikingly attractive woman, dressed in elegant western attire, her hair uncovered and styled, greeted them, and it seemed to Hajje Nazmiyeh that the woman had been expecting Nur to arrive alone. She searched Nur’s face for a response to the woman’s surprise, but instead watched Nur take in the woman’s beauty. Nur managed to eke out a fake smile, but Nazmiyeh could see insecurity and apology creep into Nur’s posture. Faced with the doctor’s petite wife, Nur was trying to shrink her tall, big woman self.

Nur extended her hand, “It’s nice to meet you, Maisa. Jamal has told me so much about you.” Hajje Nazmiyeh knew she was lying.

Nur continued, “Meet my Gaza family: Hajje Um Mazen, Um Khaled, Rhet Shel, and this is Khaled.” Hajje Nazmiyeh realized that Nur was trying to assuage the wounded pride that clicked its heels on Alwan’s face. She, too, had noticed the woman’s surprise at seeing them.

“Of course, yes. Welcome, welcome.” Maisa shook their hands and kissed their cheeks.

Before shaking Maisa’s hand, Alwan moved a small step closer to Nur in a spontaneous alignment of solidarity. In the intuitive, unspoken language of women, it was going to be Alwan and Nur against this pretentious woman should war break out over the
ghada
. Hajje Nazmiyeh felt lighter on her feet, energized by the unfolding silent drama, especially since she had taken note of Alwan’s growing annoyance with Nur over the previous week. Hajje Nazmiyeh, too, closed ranks with a slight step toward Nur when she shook Maisa’s hand. “May Allah expand your bounty, Sitt Maisa, and bless you with a son to carry the family name,” Nazmiyeh said.

Alwan nudged Rhet Shel to greet their host and she approached shyly.

Maisa took her small hand. “Allah’s blessing on her. She’s so cute. May He keep her always. She reminds me of our daughters when they were little girls.” She added that her daughters were approaching college age now and currently visiting with her family in Canada.

“You must miss them,” Alwan said, adjusting Khaled’s head in his chair.

“Yes, of course. We both do. But it’s nice for me and Jamal to be alone, if you know what I mean.” Maisa laughed. “Come, sit. Welcome.”

Nur stiffened, and Alwan was visibly scandalized that this woman would hint so freely about intimacy with her husband. Nazmiyeh leaned back in her seat, satisfied by the gossip fodder. From the contours of their words, the changing postures, involuntary glances, nearly imperceptible twitches of the eyes and cheeks, Nazmiyeh began to understand the reason for this invitation, this
ghada
.

“May Allah keep el doktor Jamal always strong for you,” Nazmiyeh said, looking at Nur, whose jaw had tightened on its hinges.

Amid the uncomfortable chatter and delicious appetizers, a young woman, hired domestic help, began setting the table. Alwan tried to assist, as tradition and decorum demanded, but Maisa, herself comfortably seated, explained that the nameless domestic helper was from the Shati refugee camp and needed the work. “We do what we can to help,” she said. “They just recently got running water. Very sad.” Maisa shook her head.

Nazmiyeh, Nur, and Alwan exchanged looks, communicating a shared impulse to leave.

“My husband just texted me. He is parking the car,” Maisa said. “The food is set. Welcome to our
ghada
.”

Rhet Shel began pushing her brother’s chair toward the dining table. “See? I told you they had a special food table,” she whispered to him.

Nazmiyeh was surprised to learn that Dr. Jamal was coming alone. Surely he would not stay and be the only man with a bunch of women.