The Woman From Tantoura (28 page)

I ruminate on what happened in the camps. I knit, in a feverish, mechanical movement that does not stop, that might take my mind off questions that drive me mad. I’ve come from Beirut with a heavy heart. Why did I come?

But Maryam is happy. She says that the new school is bigger and more beautiful. She enjoys her life with Sadiq and his family, keeping the girls company and spoiling the little boy. Sometimes she practices mothering them, and sometimes she asserts herself as their leader. As for the pool I was surprised to find in the garden of the house, that is what makes her happiest. She always loved swimming, and she swims every day. She eats with an appetite, and grows, not exempt from the law of the springs in the knees. I think, so be it; Maryam is happy, so be it.

35

Sumana

How did my friendship with Sumana begin? And why did I befriend her, while I remained distant from Evelyn? Was it because Evelyn often used the word “Madam,” which embarrassed me? Or was it because she spoke English well and fluently, while I stumbled over my words, aware of my broken English? She reminded me of an Asian doctor who worked in Gaza Hospital, whom Amin invited to dinner one night with the other foreign doctors. That night also I spoke in the briefest possible terms. What would I say to these doctors? I confined myself to a welcoming smile, to “Welcome to our home,” and to “You honor us.”

I understood from Sumana that Evelyn had a bachelor’s degree in science, that she had graduated from the university in her country, and that she wanted to make it clear that she was the children’s governess who taught them English, and not a servant. She maintained her position, correct and distant. Was I annoyed, without being aware of it, that her full responsibility for the children stood as a barrier between me and my grandchildren? Was I jealous of her, or is it that some spirits are in harmony while others clash, for reasons no one knows?

My relationship with Sumana was different. We communicated in shattered English on both sides, flavored at times with a few sentences in Arabic, fortified by gestures when necessary. I repeated, “There’s no call for this ‘Madam,’” so she began to call me “Mama.” She would ask me to teach her a new way to cook, and I would do it, or she would squat beside me to see how I was shaping the shoulder of a wool sweater I was making. When Randa was out of the house on her morning visits to her friends, Sumana seemed more able to communicate with me. She would make me coffee without my asking, and sometimes I would sit with her in the kitchen while she prepared the food.

I was sitting with her in the kitchen when she went to her room and returned with a large envelope. She opened it and brought out a pile of pictures, and began to show them to me.

A colored picture of two boys of ten: “Arawinda and Saminda, at twelve.”

“Twins?”

“Twins, but Saminda is a little taller than his brother. Look, Mama … .”

They looked alike, two thin, dark boys, each with a lock of smooth black hair covering his forehead. They were wearing identical shirts and shorts. I looked closely at the picture; one of them was a little taller than the other and thinner, and he had his arm around his brother’s shoulders. They were laughing in the picture.

“As beautiful as the moon, may God keep them for you!”

A single picture of a girl of five or six: “The smallest, Amanti.”

The girl was not smiling, perhaps apprehensive about the idea of the picture. She was staring with wide, anxious eyes, her hair tied with a white ribbon; she was wearing a beautiful white dress.

“As if she’s a princess!”

Sumana laughed happily. “A mother doesn’t love one child more than another, but sometimes I feel as if I love Amanti more. I miss her more.”

I said, “Because she’s the youngest.”

She said, “I wanted a girl, and I had to wait. The twins came first, and then a third boy, and at last Amanti. I haven’t seen her for a year and nine months.”

Then another picture, of a very handsome boy. She said, “This is the third boy. My mother gasped when she saw him, he was so beautiful. We decided to name him Padman; in Hindi, it means ‘lotus flower.’”

Then a picture of Sumana carrying her daughter when she was an infant. She muttered, as if apologizing, “This is an old picture.”

She looked like a young girl in it, and she was very thin. It was as if it had been taken twenty years earlier.

“This is a picture of the whole family: my mother and father, and this young man is my husband, and the children.”

I wanted to affirm the closeness. “This is Arawinda and that one is Sawaminda and … .”

She laughed. “Saminda.”

She began to repeat the names slowly, as if she wanted to carve them on my head so I would not make a mistake in them: “Arawinda. Saminda. Padman. Amanti.”

I repeated after her: “Arawinda. Saminda. Padman. Aminta.”

“Aa-maan-tii.”

I got up to the stove and filled the coffee pot with water. Sumana caught up to me, and said in confusion, “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“I should have realized that you wanted a cup of coffee. I’ll make it for you.”

“I want to make it.”

The coffee boiled, and I poured two cups. I offered her one and she murmured “Thank you,” but I noticed that she did not drink it. She said, “My husband goes out with other women, and that hurts me a lot. I say it’s not right. He denies it, and says, ‘Don’t believe your mother.’ But he takes care of the children and is very affectionate with them. He spends what I send him on them. My mother says that he also spends on his girlfriends. I don’t know who to believe.”

“What does your husband do?”

“He repairs bicycles. In our area we use bicycles a lot. But he is suggesting that he buy a motorcycle, so he can do another job too and make a lot of money, taking fish to market, or vegetables.”

“There’s a sea in your country, isn’t there?”

“Our village is on the sea. Our house is a few steps from it.”

When I went back to my room I decided to write down the names of Sumana’s four children so I wouldn’t make another mistake in them. I forgot the name of the third boy; I wrote “Lotus.” When Maryam came back from school I told her, “Ask Sumana about the names of her children, and when she tells you the name of the third boy, remember it well. Don’t say that I asked you to ask her.” Maryam laughed, and asked me, “Have you decided to give Sadiq’s next son a Sri Lankan name?” She was joking, but I was not comfortable with the comment.

Later I asked Sumana about the sea in their country. She understood some of what I said, but she didn’t understand all of it. I wanted to hear from her about the scent of the sea there, and about the flowers. She said, “Fa-low-erz?” not understanding. I said, “Are there flowers in your country, like these?” I took her to the large vase where there was a bouquet of artificial roses. She said the names, and I did not recognize any of them. But she did not forget the question, because weeks later she brought me a Sri Lankan magazine and showed me pictures of flowers. She said, “This one is found in our village; this one, no.” Then on another page: “This one and that one too grow near the sea, and these birds.”

Sumana writes regularly to her family. Once a week she holds out her hand to Sadiq with two sealed envelopes, and he takes them from her. She waits for his return so he can reassure her that he has put the envelopes in the mail; and as long as he is going to the post office, he might find letters from her family in the box. Generally he brings her a letter, but sometimes he says, “I’m sorry, Sumana, nothing came for you.” She thanks him and gives him a courteous smile.

One day traces of weeping appeared in her eyes. I asked her and she said, “It’s nothing.” I asked Randa, and she said, “I scolded her because she broke a plate and burned the kubbeh she was frying. She’s been holding a wake since yesterday night because her mother sent her a letter saying that her husband is living with another woman. Evelyn told me. Men are like that, you can’t rely on them. As long as she was worried about her husband, she should have stayed with him! In any case I called her in and told her that personal matters have nothing to do with work.”

I said to Randa, “And if she got news that her four children had died in a traffic accident, would she be allowed to cry, or would she have to be careful to serve kubbeh that’s not burnt?” Randa was surprised by what I said. She picked up her purse and said that she had an appointment with the hairdresser.

I was sharp. I acknowledge that Randa and Sadiq put up with my sharpness. It would surprise me; I didn’t speak much, and I would be surprised by what I said as much as Sadiq or Randa would be surprised by it. Sadiq tries. Sometimes he says, “Let’s go, Mother.” “Where to?” He takes me in his car, usually to an air-conditioned coffee shop. During the two months of winter, when the scorching heat and humidity retreat, he drives his car to a spot on the beach where we can walk in the sand. We take off our sandals and walk beside each other. Sometimes then the knot in my tongue comes untied and I talk to Sadiq, and he also talks to me.

36

A Lesson

I said to Maryam, “I want to talk to you. Don’t go to the club with Sadiq and his children tomorrow morning; we’ll sit and talk.”

“Is it a punishment?”

“Not a punishment, but a talk that will take time.”

“Why on Friday morning? Let’s talk now, or Friday evening.

“I want you on Friday morning.”

“Mama, the talk won’t go away. I wait for Friday all week, so I can go to the club and meet my friends.”

I ended the discussion firmly: “No club this week.”

She left me, grumbling in protest, but she obeyed.

I was amazed that when Maryam recalled what happened and told her brother about it, she remembered the conversation down to the smallest detail. She was talking to Abed in my presence more than ten years later, flavoring her words with some of the Egyptian expressions she had picked up since we had moved to live in Alexandria.

Maryam told him: “She cornered me in the room and beat the hell out of me. It was a lesson in morals and history and
geography and the family tree: ‘Your father was … your grandfather Abu Sadiq was … your maternal uncles … your grandfather Abu Amin was … ,’ and the refrain: ‘We’re Palestinians. Refugees. Children of the camps.’ And me, ‘Mama, what did I do?’ She said that she had noticed that I was putting myself above the Sri Lankan maid and that I had begun to act like the girls here in the Gulf. ‘And if our living here is going to change you into one of them, we’ll go back to Lebanon. We’ll go back to Sidon and live in Ain al-Helwa, and the camp will cure you, it’ll teach you who you are.’ It was heavy, Abed, and your sister was completely lost! I didn’t understand why Mama was so angry. I was twelve, and I couldn’t comprehend the nature of the crime. She hauled me before a court where she was the judge and the prosecutor, and I was seeing stars.”

I broke in, “Stop exaggerating. All I did was point out that you were slipping into a style of life that we don’t belong to, and that we can’t belong to. I don’t remember the details, but I remember that I heard you calling Sumana as if you were issuing orders, and I was horrified. I didn’t sleep all night.”

Abed laughed. “We’ve all graduated from that institute before, with the same book and the same lessons!”

Maryam said, “You were three, you could get it off your chest with each other. Poor me, who could I complain to?”

“So which actress should play you, Fatin Hamama or Shadya?”

“Fatin, she’s an orphan and wasn’t treated fairly.”

“And Mama?”

“Mimi Shakib, the stepmother. She’s fat and mispronounces her R’s and wears tighter clothes than she should, to call attention to the size of her breasts and buttocks. She leaves her hair disheveled on purpose and dyes it bright yellow, and she persecutes me!”

They dissolved into laughter. Then Maryam realized that she had gone too far, so she jumped from her seat, put her arms around me and kissed my head. She bent over my ear and said, “Thank you. You were right.”

I was afraid, that’s for sure, and being away from home made me more worried. I brought up the children as well as I could. I held each one’s hand and accompanied him on the path from childhood to youth without any unfortunate accidents, and now each was responsible for himself. That left Maryam; I wanted to bring her up properly. Was I afraid for her only, or was I afraid that she would go over to the other camp and leave me alone and completely isolated? It was absolute isolation, utter and complete, in a two-story house with two servants who had come from the Far East, where a single one of the banquets given cost a sum that would have been enough for a large family in the camp to live on for a year, or maybe two.

I did not spend time alone with Sadiq as I did with Maryam, to raise her. My mission and my role in life, and maybe the meaning of my life now, was Maryam. As for Sadiq, my attitude toward him was ambiguous and strange. I thought about it, and it seemed as if I had entered a maze and become lost. He was an architect and a contractor, successful in his work, his company growing day by day, bringing him money in amounts that were inconceivable to me. He helped his brothers and supported his sister and me. He made contributions to this or that Palestinian foundation. He took responsibility for the education of three young men from Ain al-Helwa, following their progress and guaranteeing them a job on graduation—and then he took on three others. What did I have against him? He had worked hard, and had been helped by his education, his acumen, and by luck. In short, he had strived in an oil-producing country and been rewarded—what was the problem, what was wrong with that? Use your mind to judge, Ruqayya, and reckon calmly: Would you have preferred that he suffocate in the tank truck on the way to oil country? Or that he stay in Ain al-Helwa, looking for work, falling afoul of the law, and not finding anything? Or that he bear arms and end up in one of the offices in Tunis, or as a besieged fighter in the camps in Yemen or Algeria, with no way to see his wife or children? I jumped over the maze, or sneaked outside its walls, but it caught
up with me, became larger, and threw up new walls around the area I had run to. Don’t they suffer from isolation in Ain al-Helwa, too? I wonder where Haniya is now? Has she found a job in another place, or has she been forced to deny that she’s Palestinian to find work in one of the hospitals in Beirut? Where will I go, where will we go?